Data Architect Contract Job Trends

Data Architect
UK

The median Data Architect daily rate in the UK is £575, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 12 February 2026.

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

6 months to
12 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 273 245 234
Rank change year-on-year -28 -11 +26
Contract jobs requiring a Data Architect 373 324 453
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.94% 1.05% 1.02%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.02% 1.13% 1.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 279 228 328
10th Percentile £450 £479 £479
25th Percentile £506 £522 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £614 £675
Median % change year-on-year -6.31% -9.07% -
75th Percentile £673 £725 £744
90th Percentile £750 £799 £854
UK excluding London median daily rate £558 £623 £650
% change year-on-year -10.44% -4.23% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 3 6
10th Percentile - £75.75 £45.64
25th Percentile £64.00 £76.88 £48.82
Median hourly rate £69.00 £80.50 £61.53
Median % change year-on-year -14.29% +30.84% -12.10%
75th Percentile £69.44 £83.63 £72.00
90th Percentile £78.48 £84.45 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £69.00 £80.50 £61.53
% change year-on-year -14.29% +30.84% -12.10%

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 36,458 28,796 41,269
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.54% 92.96% 93.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,924 17,765 27,180
10th Percentile £300 £288 £275
25th Percentile £406 £406 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £719 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £478 £489
% change year-on-year -0.52% -2.35% -2.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,214 834 2,292
10th Percentile £14.53 £15.92 £13.15
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.25 £16.45
Median hourly rate £30.00 £34.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -11.76% -2.86% -2.23%
75th Percentile £62.44 £63.75 £60.75
90th Percentile £72.50 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £29.60 £32.13 £35.00
% change year-on-year -7.87% -8.20% -

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 12 February 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 12 February 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 12 February 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 -63 301 £581 -7.04% 100
London -52 160 £600 -4.00% 47
UK excluding London -7 143 £558 -10.44% 82
Work from Home -8 119 £600 -2.04% 51
Midlands -24 39 £565 -6.24% 17
West Midlands -19 36 £573 -6.53% 16
North of England -72 30 £575 -8.00% 13
South West -10 25 £613 -2.00% 10
Scotland +28 23 £545 -16.15% 10
North West -29 22 £550 -6.38% 6
South East -33 20 £575 -4.17% 26
East of England -18 11 £505 -20.78% 2
Yorkshire -60 5 £600 -9.43% 2
North East -17 3 £575 -7.89% 5
East Midlands -24 3 £444 -2.04% 1
Wales 0 2 £768 +225.21% 4

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

For the 6 months to 12 February 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.

1 217 (58.18%) Data Modelling
2 211 (56.57%) Data Architecture
3 141 (37.80%) Azure
4 140 (37.53%) Analytics
5 135 (36.19%) Data Governance
6 107 (28.69%) AWS
7 104 (27.88%) Data Warehouse
8 90 (24.13%) Metadata
9 88 (23.59%) ETL
9 88 (23.59%) SQL
10 85 (22.79%) Security Cleared
11 81 (21.72%) Data Quality
12 73 (19.57%) Business Intelligence
13 72 (19.30%) Databricks
14 69 (18.50%) Python
14 69 (18.50%) SC Cleared
15 64 (17.16%) Microsoft
16 62 (16.62%) Data Integration
17 61 (16.35%) Metadata Management
18 60 (16.09%) AI
19 59 (15.82%) Data Lake
19 59 (15.82%) Data Strategy
19 59 (15.82%) Migration
20 54 (14.48%) Data Pipeline
21 52 (13.94%) Power Platform
22 50 (13.40%) Data Management
23 49 (13.14%) DevOps
23 49 (13.14%) Stakeholder Management
24 48 (12.87%) Power BI
25 47 (12.60%) 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 19 (5.09%) Apache Spark
2 15 (4.02%) SAS
3 12 (3.22%) Apache
3 12 (3.22%) Apache Airflow
4 6 (1.61%) SharePoint
5 2 (0.54%) Palantir Foundry
6 1 (0.27%) Appian
6 1 (0.27%) Ethereum
6 1 (0.27%) Hyperledger
6 1 (0.27%) Luigi
6 1 (0.27%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 3 (0.80%) MS Visio
2 2 (0.54%) Spreadsheet
3 1 (0.27%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 8 (2.14%) SAP S/4HANA
2 7 (1.88%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 5 (1.34%) Salesforce CRM
4 2 (0.54%) Aladdin
4 2 (0.54%) Dynamics CRM
5 1 (0.27%) Distributed Ledger
5 1 (0.27%) Dynamics AX
5 1 (0.27%) iTrent
5 1 (0.27%) NEC Housing
5 1 (0.27%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
5 1 (0.27%) R3 Corda
5 1 (0.27%) SAP IBP
5 1 (0.27%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 141 (37.80%) Azure
2 107 (28.69%) AWS
3 52 (13.94%) Power Platform
4 41 (10.99%) Azure Data Factory
5 39 (10.46%) Azure Synapse Analytics
6 34 (9.12%) Serverless
7 32 (8.58%) GCP
7 32 (8.58%) Snowflake
8 29 (7.77%) Microsoft Purview
9 26 (6.97%) Amazon S3
10 18 (4.83%) AWS Lambda
11 16 (4.29%) Amazon Kinesis
11 16 (4.29%) Azure DevOps
12 14 (3.75%) dbt
13 11 (2.95%) AWS CloudFormation
14 10 (2.68%) Azure Functions
15 9 (2.41%) GitHub
16 8 (2.14%) AWS Step Functions
16 8 (2.14%) Azure Cosmos DB
16 8 (2.14%) Collibra
Communications & Networking
1 2 (0.54%) DNS
1 2 (0.54%) DSL
1 2 (0.54%) Hyperconnected
2 1 (0.27%) DWDM
2 1 (0.27%) LAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 104 (27.88%) Data Warehouse
2 90 (24.13%) Metadata
3 59 (15.82%) Data Lake
4 48 (12.87%) Power BI
5 36 (9.65%) PostgreSQL
6 28 (7.51%) Amazon Redshift
6 28 (7.51%) SQL Server
7 23 (6.17%) Big Data
8 22 (5.90%) NoSQL
9 19 (5.09%) Amazon Athena
10 18 (4.83%) Tableau
11 17 (4.56%) Metadata Repository
12 16 (4.29%) Azure SQL Database
13 14 (3.75%) Data Vault
14 13 (3.49%) Hadoop
14 13 (3.49%) Oracle Database
15 12 (3.22%) Amazon Aurora
15 12 (3.22%) Delta Lake
15 12 (3.22%) OLTP
15 12 (3.22%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 22 (5.90%) ERwin
2 8 (2.14%) Jenkins
3 7 (1.88%) Git
4 3 (0.80%) ER Studio
4 3 (0.80%) GitLab
5 1 (0.27%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.27%) PowerDesigner
5 1 (0.27%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 99 (26.54%) Social Skills
2 62 (16.62%) Finance
3 49 (13.14%) Public Sector
4 35 (9.38%) Analytical Skills
5 9 (2.41%) Banking
6 8 (2.14%) Retail
7 6 (1.61%) Influencing Skills
7 6 (1.61%) Presentation Skills
8 5 (1.34%) Documentation Skills
8 5 (1.34%) Local Government
9 4 (1.07%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 4 (1.07%) Legal
10 3 (0.80%) Manufacturing
11 2 (0.54%) Back Office
11 2 (0.54%) Financial Institution
11 2 (0.54%) Front Office
11 2 (0.54%) Law
11 2 (0.54%) Marketing
11 2 (0.54%) Military
11 2 (0.54%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (6.70%) Kafka
2 19 (5.09%) PySpark
3 7 (1.88%) Apache Avro
3 7 (1.88%) Protocol Buffers
4 4 (1.07%) REST
5 3 (0.80%) AWS CDK
5 3 (0.80%) Node.js
5 3 (0.80%) SOAP
6 2 (0.54%) .NET
6 2 (0.54%) OpenTelemetry
6 2 (0.54%) Oracle Fusion
7 1 (0.27%) ADO
7 1 (0.27%) Apache NiFi
7 1 (0.27%) ARM Templates
7 1 (0.27%) FHIR
7 1 (0.27%) Lightning Web Components
7 1 (0.27%) Middleware
7 1 (0.27%) OpenAPI
7 1 (0.27%) Smart Contracts
7 1 (0.27%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 27 (7.24%) Cloud Native
2 26 (6.97%) Data Structures
3 13 (3.49%) NHS
4 11 (2.95%) Reference Data
5 10 (2.68%) Distributed Systems
5 10 (2.68%) Hybrid Cloud
5 10 (2.68%) Legacy Systems
6 8 (2.14%) Data Fabric
6 8 (2.14%) FMCG
7 7 (1.88%) IoT
7 7 (1.88%) Product Ownership
7 7 (1.88%) Reinsurance
8 6 (1.61%) Onboarding
9 5 (1.34%) Distributed Computing
9 5 (1.34%) Mainframe
9 5 (1.34%) Management Information System
10 4 (1.07%) PACS
10 4 (1.07%) SWIFT Messaging Network
11 3 (0.80%) Data Protection Act
11 3 (0.80%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 5 (1.34%) zOS
2 2 (0.54%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 217 (58.18%) Data Modelling
2 211 (56.57%) Data Architecture
3 140 (37.53%) Analytics
4 135 (36.19%) Data Governance
5 88 (23.59%) ETL
6 73 (19.57%) Business Intelligence
7 62 (16.62%) Data Integration
8 61 (16.35%) Metadata Management
9 60 (16.09%) AI
10 59 (15.82%) Data Strategy
10 59 (15.82%) Migration
11 54 (14.48%) Data Pipeline
12 50 (13.40%) Data Management
13 49 (13.14%) DevOps
13 49 (13.14%) Stakeholder Management
14 47 (12.60%) Machine Learning
14 47 (12.60%) Physical Data Model
15 46 (12.33%) Logical Data Model
16 45 (12.06%) Agile
17 44 (11.80%) Data Engineering
Programming Languages
1 88 (23.59%) SQL
2 69 (18.50%) Python
3 11 (2.95%) Java
4 8 (2.14%) T-SQL
5 5 (1.34%) PowerShell
5 5 (1.34%) Scala
6 4 (1.07%) PL/SQL
7 3 (0.80%) JavaScript
7 3 (0.80%) SPARQL
8 2 (0.54%) Bash
8 2 (0.54%) Korn
8 2 (0.54%) R
9 1 (0.27%) ANSI SQL
9 1 (0.27%) Apex Code
9 1 (0.27%) C#
9 1 (0.27%) COBOL
9 1 (0.27%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 85 (22.79%) Security Cleared
2 69 (18.50%) SC Cleared
3 23 (6.17%) Degree
4 20 (5.36%) Azure Certification
5 15 (4.02%) Master's Degree
6 14 (3.75%) BPSS Clearance
7 10 (2.68%) TOGAF Certification
8 9 (2.41%) AWS Certification
8 9 (2.41%) Microsoft Certification
9 8 (2.14%) Computer Science Degree
10 7 (1.88%) DV Cleared
11 4 (1.07%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 1 (0.27%) ITIL Certification
12 1 (0.27%) MySQL Certification
12 1 (0.27%) Oracle Certification
12 1 (0.27%) SAP Certification
12 1 (0.27%) SnowPro
12 1 (0.27%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 81 (21.72%) Data Quality
2 35 (9.38%) GDPR
3 11 (2.95%) Accessibility
4 10 (2.68%) QA
5 5 (1.34%) California Consumer Privacy Act
5 5 (1.34%) HIPAA
6 4 (1.07%) ISO 20022
7 2 (0.54%) CRD IV
7 2 (0.54%) FINREP
7 2 (0.54%) IFRS
8 1 (0.27%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.27%) Government Security Classifications
8 1 (0.27%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 1 (0.27%) PCI DSS
8 1 (0.27%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 3 (0.80%) Docker
2 2 (0.54%) HDFS
2 2 (0.54%) VMware Infrastructure
2 2 (0.54%) VMware NSX
2 2 (0.54%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 29 (7.77%) Terraform
2 8 (2.14%) Ansible
3 5 (1.34%) Grafana
3 5 (1.34%) Kubernetes
4 4 (1.07%) Prometheus
5 2 (0.54%) Argo
5 2 (0.54%) vCenter Server
6 1 (0.27%) Kubeflow
Vendors
1 72 (19.30%) Databricks
2 64 (17.16%) Microsoft
3 31 (8.31%) Oracle
4 21 (5.63%) Informatica
5 16 (4.29%) Salesforce
6 13 (3.49%) SAP
7 10 (2.68%) Google
7 10 (2.68%) Talend
8 8 (2.14%) Confluent
9 6 (1.61%) Remedy
10 5 (1.34%) Greenplum
10 5 (1.34%) Sparx
11 4 (1.07%) Ab Initio
11 4 (1.07%) Dynatrace
11 4 (1.07%) MicroStrategy
11 4 (1.07%) Palantir
11 4 (1.07%) Pega
12 3 (0.80%) IBM
12 3 (0.80%) Workday
13 2 (0.54%) eFront