Data Architect Contract Job Trends

Data Architect
UK

The median Data Architect daily rate in the UK is £600, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 30 June 2026.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 214 257 264
Rank change year-on-year +43 +7 +17
Contract jobs requiring a Data Architect 650 306 385
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.27% 1.00% 0.89%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.37% 1.09% 0.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 456 204 273
10th Percentile £456 £452 £488
25th Percentile £513 £513 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £600 £675
Median % change year-on-year - -11.11% -
75th Percentile £688 £700 £775
90th Percentile £775 £780 £913
UK excluding London median daily rate £610 £575 £650
% change year-on-year +6.09% -11.54% +4.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 2 10
10th Percentile - £41.31 £52.50
25th Percentile £46.00 £44.85 -
Median hourly rate £47.00 £51.98 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year -9.58% -13.37% -6.98%
75th Percentile £64.00 £60.37 -
90th Percentile £69.00 £64.65 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.00 £38.96 £60.00
% change year-on-year +20.64% -35.07% -9.09%

All Contract IT Job Roles
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in the UK with a recognized job title 47,423 28,164 40,143
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.41% 92.05% 92.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,738 18,025 25,769
10th Percentile £325 £288 £283
25th Percentile £415 £401 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £493
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.65% -1.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,196 1,261 2,867
10th Percentile £15.61 £13.78 £12.86
25th Percentile £21.23 £17.33 £16.50
Median hourly rate £43.00 £27.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +59.26% -28.00% -12.79%
75th Percentile £67.50 £56.25 £62.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.75 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -37.13% -

Data Architect
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Data Architect' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Data Architect job vacancy trend in the UK

Data Architect
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Data Architect job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Data Architect job vacancies in the UK

Data Architect
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Data Architect over the 6 months to 30 June 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Data Architect in the UK

Data Architect
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Data Architect job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Data Architect job vacancies in the UK

Data Architect
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Data Architect over the 6 months to 30 June 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Data Architect in the UK

Data Architect
Top 16 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Data Architect within the UK over the 6 months to 30 June 2026. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 6 month period last year.

Location Rank Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Matching
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
England +53 560 £600 - 127
London +18 295 £575 -4.17% 77
UK excluding London +28 265 £610 +6.09% 80
Work from Home +21 183 £608 +1.29% 66
Midlands -10 73 £621 +3.50% 14
West Midlands -13 59 £631 +5.21% 9
North of England -54 57 £610 +10.91% 14
South East -43 39 £525 -4.55% 28
South West -1 38 £652 +44.89% 14
Yorkshire -32 35 £700 +12.00% 3
East of England +1 32 £505 -8.18%
Scotland -8 28 £600 +11.42% 10
North West -46 18 £575 +9.52% 11
East Midlands -5 14 £606 - 5
North East -29 7 £550 -26.67%
Wales -11 3 £768 +225.21%

Data Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 30 June 2026, Data Architect contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads featuring Data Architect in the job title.

1 331 (50.92%) Data Architecture
2 294 (45.23%) Data Modelling
3 228 (35.08%) Azure
4 213 (32.77%) Analytics
5 193 (29.69%) Security Cleared
6 166 (25.54%) SC Cleared
7 162 (24.92%) Data Governance
8 161 (24.77%) Migration
9 144 (22.15%) Databricks
10 143 (22.00%) AWS
11 131 (20.15%) ETL
12 117 (18.00%) AI
13 116 (17.85%) Business Intelligence
13 116 (17.85%) Metadata
14 109 (16.77%) Data Warehouse
15 106 (16.31%) SQL
16 105 (16.15%) Data Quality
17 104 (16.00%) Integration Patterns
18 95 (14.62%) Data Lake
19 94 (14.46%) Data Integration
20 93 (14.31%) Data Engineering
20 93 (14.31%) Data Pipeline
21 86 (13.23%) Microsoft
22 85 (13.08%) Logical Data Model
23 83 (12.77%) Power Platform
24 79 (12.15%) Data Management
25 78 (12.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
26 75 (11.54%) Power BI
27 74 (11.38%) Data Migration
28 72 (11.08%) Machine Learning

Data Architect Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities by Category

The following tables expand on the one above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. They cover the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each category:

Application Platforms
1 22 (3.38%) SAS
2 18 (2.77%) Apache Spark
3 15 (2.31%) Palantir Foundry
4 14 (2.15%) Apache Airflow
5 13 (2.00%) Apache
6 12 (1.85%) SharePoint
7 4 (0.62%) Confluence
8 2 (0.31%) Alfresco
9 1 (0.15%) Appian
9 1 (0.15%) Jupyter
Applications
1 2 (0.31%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 9 (1.38%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.77%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 2 (0.31%) SAP ERP
4 1 (0.15%) Aladdin
4 1 (0.15%) iTrent
4 1 (0.15%) SAP MDM
4 1 (0.15%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 228 (35.08%) Azure
2 143 (22.00%) AWS
3 83 (12.77%) Power Platform
4 70 (10.77%) GCP
5 52 (8.00%) Snowflake
6 44 (6.77%) Azure Synapse Analytics
7 42 (6.46%) Azure Data Factory
8 25 (3.85%) Microsoft Purview
9 24 (3.69%) Amazon S3
9 24 (3.69%) dbt
9 24 (3.69%) Serverless
10 22 (3.38%) AWS Lambda
11 17 (2.62%) SaaS
12 14 (2.15%) Azure DevOps
13 12 (1.85%) Azure Cosmos DB
13 12 (1.85%) GitHub
14 11 (1.69%) Amazon Kinesis
15 9 (1.38%) Azure Machine Learning
16 8 (1.23%) AWS Step Functions
16 8 (1.23%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 4 (0.62%) Firewall
2 3 (0.46%) DSL
3 2 (0.31%) BGP
3 2 (0.31%) DNS
3 2 (0.31%) Network Security
3 2 (0.31%) OSPF
3 2 (0.31%) Structured Cabling
3 2 (0.31%) VPN
3 2 (0.31%) VXLAN
4 1 (0.15%) Radio Access Network
4 1 (0.15%) SMS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 116 (17.85%) Metadata
2 109 (16.77%) Data Warehouse
3 95 (14.62%) Data Lake
4 75 (11.54%) Power BI
5 35 (5.38%) NoSQL
6 23 (3.54%) PostgreSQL
7 21 (3.23%) Amazon Redshift
7 21 (3.23%) Big Data
8 20 (3.08%) BigQuery
9 18 (2.77%) Azure SQL Database
9 18 (2.77%) SQL Server
10 17 (2.62%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
11 15 (2.31%) Semantic Layer
12 14 (2.15%) Delta Lake
12 14 (2.15%) Metadata Repository
12 14 (2.15%) Snowflake Schema
13 13 (2.00%) Base SAS
13 13 (2.00%) Data Vault
13 13 (2.00%) Tableau
14 12 (1.85%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 25 (3.85%) ERwin
2 7 (1.08%) Git
3 5 (0.77%) GitLab
3 5 (0.77%) Jenkins
4 4 (0.62%) ER Studio
5 2 (0.31%) JIRA
6 1 (0.15%) Claude Code
6 1 (0.15%) MLflow
6 1 (0.15%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 109 (16.77%) Finance
2 107 (16.46%) Social Skills
3 82 (12.62%) Public Sector
4 48 (7.38%) Analytical Skills
5 32 (4.92%) Banking
6 29 (4.46%) Retail
7 12 (1.85%) Marketing
8 11 (1.69%) Influencing Skills
9 10 (1.54%) Documentation Skills
9 10 (1.54%) Financial Institution
10 7 (1.08%) Legal
11 6 (0.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 6 (0.92%) Investment Banking
12 5 (0.77%) Police
13 3 (0.46%) Manufacturing
13 3 (0.46%) Military
13 3 (0.46%) Presentation Skills
14 2 (0.31%) Local Government
14 2 (0.31%) Publishing
14 2 (0.31%) Social Housing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (4.62%) Kafka
2 15 (2.31%) Oracle Fusion
2 15 (2.31%) PySpark
3 7 (1.08%) .NET
3 7 (1.08%) Middleware
4 6 (0.92%) FHIR
5 5 (0.77%) Apache Avro
5 5 (0.77%) Protocol Buffers
5 5 (0.77%) REST
6 4 (0.62%) JSON
7 3 (0.46%) LangChain
7 3 (0.46%) LangGraph
7 3 (0.46%) Lightning Web Components
7 3 (0.46%) OpenTelemetry
8 2 (0.31%) Snowpark
8 2 (0.31%) SOAP
8 2 (0.31%) Spark Streaming
8 2 (0.31%) XML
9 1 (0.15%) FIX Protocol
9 1 (0.15%) XBRL
Miscellaneous
1 47 (7.23%) Cloud Native
2 30 (4.62%) Data Structures
3 21 (3.23%) Legacy Systems
4 18 (2.77%) Reference Data
5 16 (2.46%) Data Centre
5 16 (2.46%) NHS
6 13 (2.00%) IoT
7 11 (1.69%) AI Agents
7 11 (1.69%) Management Information System
7 11 (1.69%) Onboarding
8 10 (1.54%) Data Protection Act
8 10 (1.54%) Mainframe
8 10 (1.54%) Taxonomies
9 9 (1.38%) Greenfield Project
10 7 (1.08%) Distributed Computing
10 7 (1.08%) Product Ownership
10 7 (1.08%) SCADA
11 6 (0.92%) Distributed Systems
11 6 (0.92%) Reinsurance
12 5 (0.77%) Autonomous Agent
Operating Systems
1 8 (1.23%) zOS
2 1 (0.15%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 331 (50.92%) Data Architecture
2 294 (45.23%) Data Modelling
3 213 (32.77%) Analytics
4 162 (24.92%) Data Governance
5 161 (24.77%) Migration
6 131 (20.15%) ETL
7 117 (18.00%) AI
8 116 (17.85%) Business Intelligence
9 104 (16.00%) Integration Patterns
10 94 (14.46%) Data Integration
11 93 (14.31%) Data Engineering
11 93 (14.31%) Data Pipeline
12 85 (13.08%) Logical Data Model
13 79 (12.15%) Data Management
14 78 (12.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 74 (11.38%) Data Migration
16 72 (11.08%) Machine Learning
17 70 (10.77%) Roadmaps
18 67 (10.31%) Data Strategy
19 64 (9.85%) Agile
Programming Languages
1 106 (16.31%) SQL
2 57 (8.77%) Python
3 14 (2.15%) Java
4 6 (0.92%) Bicep
4 6 (0.92%) Data Analysis Expressions
4 6 (0.92%) Scala
5 5 (0.77%) T-SQL
6 4 (0.62%) R
7 3 (0.46%) Apex Code
7 3 (0.46%) PowerShell
8 2 (0.31%) Bash
8 2 (0.31%) COBOL
8 2 (0.31%) Kotlin
8 2 (0.31%) SPARQL
9 1 (0.15%) C++
9 1 (0.15%) Cypher
9 1 (0.15%) Kusto Query Language
9 1 (0.15%) SHACL
9 1 (0.15%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 193 (29.69%) Security Cleared
2 166 (25.54%) SC Cleared
3 24 (3.69%) DV Cleared
4 23 (3.54%) BPSS Clearance
5 19 (2.92%) Azure Certification
6 17 (2.62%) Degree
7 12 (1.85%) Master's Degree
8 10 (1.54%) AWS Certification
9 7 (1.08%) DBS Check
10 5 (0.77%) Computer Science Degree
10 5 (0.77%) TOGAF Certification
11 3 (0.46%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 3 (0.46%) Microsoft Certification
12 2 (0.31%) VCAP
12 2 (0.31%) VCDX
13 1 (0.15%) Microsoft Certified Professional
13 1 (0.15%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 105 (16.15%) Data Quality
2 34 (5.23%) GDPR
3 15 (2.31%) QA
4 8 (1.23%) Accessibility
5 6 (0.92%) HL7
6 5 (0.77%) IFRS
6 5 (0.77%) IFRS 17
6 5 (0.77%) ISO 20022
6 5 (0.77%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 5 (0.77%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 5 (0.77%) SNOMED CT
6 5 (0.77%) Solvency II
7 2 (0.31%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 2 (0.31%) NIST
7 2 (0.31%) SLA
8 1 (0.15%) GRC
8 1 (0.15%) HIPAA
8 1 (0.15%) NCSC
8 1 (0.15%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 4 (0.62%) VMware Infrastructure
2 3 (0.46%) Docker
3 2 (0.31%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.31%) VMware NSX
3 2 (0.31%) vSphere
4 1 (0.15%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 22 (3.38%) Terraform
2 9 (1.38%) Kubernetes
3 6 (0.92%) Grafana
4 5 (0.77%) Ansible
4 5 (0.77%) Prometheus
5 3 (0.46%) Argo
5 3 (0.46%) Istio
6 2 (0.31%) vCenter Server
7 1 (0.15%) Kubeflow
Vendors
1 144 (22.15%) Databricks
2 86 (13.23%) Microsoft
3 41 (6.31%) Oracle
4 24 (3.69%) SAP
5 20 (3.08%) Salesforce
6 18 (2.77%) Foundry
7 17 (2.62%) Informatica
8 16 (2.46%) Palantir
9 15 (2.31%) Google
9 15 (2.31%) Talend
10 7 (1.08%) Confluent
10 7 (1.08%) Sparx
11 4 (0.62%) IFS
11 4 (0.62%) NVIDIA
11 4 (0.62%) OpenAI
11 4 (0.62%) VMware
12 3 (0.46%) Denodo
12 3 (0.46%) IBM
12 3 (0.46%) Remedy
13 2 (0.31%) Pure Storage