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 6 February 2026.

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

6 months to
6 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 288 246 226
Rank change year-on-year -42 -20 +30
Contract jobs requiring a Data Architect 362 324 458
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.92% 1.04% 1.02%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.01% 1.12% 1.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 267 226 336
10th Percentile £450 £483 £487
25th Percentile £506 £521 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £614 £675
Median % change year-on-year -6.31% -9.07% -
75th Percentile £671 £725 £744
90th Percentile £760 £799 £850
UK excluding London median daily rate £560 £623 £650
% change year-on-year -10.04% -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 35,834 28,947 41,693
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.51% 92.90% 93.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,581 17,764 27,572
10th Percentile £300 £291 £275
25th Percentile £406 £408 £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 £477 £490
% change year-on-year -0.42% -2.65% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,159 838 2,289
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.98 £13.15
25th Percentile £18.54 £21.25 £16.54
Median hourly rate £29.65 £33.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.17% -5.71% -
75th Percentile £61.25 £62.64 £61.60
90th Percentile £71.00 £75.00 £73.05
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.77 £31.76 £36.00
% change year-on-year -12.56% -11.78% +10.77%

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 6 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 6 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 6 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 -56 294 £581 -7.04% 110
London -50 157 £600 -4.00% 55
UK excluding London -30 137 £560 -10.04% 90
Work from Home -26 117 £600 -2.04% 56
Midlands -30 35 £565 -6.24% 19
West Midlands -17 32 £573 -6.53% 18
North of England -62 31 £575 -7.95% 14
South West -8 24 £613 -2.00% 9
North West -32 22 £550 -6.38% 8
Scotland +24 21 £550 -15.38% 16
South East -35 20 £575 -4.17% 26
East of England -19 11 £505 -20.78% 2
Yorkshire -56 6 £600 -14.29% 2
North East -16 3 £575 -7.89% 4
East Midlands -27 3 £444 -2.04% 1
Wales 0 2 £768 - 5

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

For the 6 months to 6 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.

1 212 (58.56%) Data Modelling
2 203 (56.08%) Data Architecture
3 131 (36.19%) Azure
4 130 (35.91%) Analytics
5 128 (35.36%) Data Governance
6 99 (27.35%) AWS
7 96 (26.52%) Data Warehouse
8 87 (24.03%) Metadata
9 84 (23.20%) SQL
10 80 (22.10%) ETL
11 78 (21.55%) Data Quality
12 77 (21.27%) Security Cleared
13 68 (18.78%) Databricks
14 67 (18.51%) Python
15 66 (18.23%) Business Intelligence
16 64 (17.68%) Microsoft
17 61 (16.85%) SC Cleared
18 59 (16.30%) Data Strategy
19 58 (16.02%) AI
19 58 (16.02%) Metadata Management
20 57 (15.75%) Migration
21 56 (15.47%) Data Integration
22 54 (14.92%) Data Lake
23 51 (14.09%) Power Platform
24 49 (13.54%) Data Management
24 49 (13.54%) Data Pipeline
25 48 (13.26%) Physical Data Model
25 48 (13.26%) Stakeholder Management
26 47 (12.98%) DevOps
26 47 (12.98%) Power BI

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 16 (4.42%) Apache Spark
2 15 (4.14%) SAS
3 12 (3.31%) Apache
3 12 (3.31%) Apache Airflow
4 5 (1.38%) SharePoint
5 2 (0.55%) Palantir Foundry
6 1 (0.28%) Appian
6 1 (0.28%) Ethereum
6 1 (0.28%) Hyperledger
6 1 (0.28%) Luigi
6 1 (0.28%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 3 (0.83%) MS Visio
2 2 (0.55%) Spreadsheet
3 1 (0.28%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 9 (2.49%) SAP S/4HANA
2 7 (1.93%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 5 (1.38%) Salesforce CRM
4 2 (0.55%) Aladdin
4 2 (0.55%) Dynamics CRM
5 1 (0.28%) Distributed Ledger
5 1 (0.28%) Dynamics AX
5 1 (0.28%) iTrent
5 1 (0.28%) NEC Housing
5 1 (0.28%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.28%) Oracle ERP
5 1 (0.28%) R3 Corda
5 1 (0.28%) SAP IBP
5 1 (0.28%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 131 (36.19%) Azure
2 99 (27.35%) AWS
3 51 (14.09%) Power Platform
4 41 (11.33%) Azure Data Factory
5 37 (10.22%) Azure Synapse Analytics
6 34 (9.39%) Serverless
7 30 (8.29%) Microsoft Purview
7 30 (8.29%) Snowflake
8 27 (7.46%) Amazon S3
8 27 (7.46%) GCP
9 18 (4.97%) AWS Lambda
10 16 (4.42%) Amazon Kinesis
11 14 (3.87%) Azure DevOps
12 13 (3.59%) dbt
13 11 (3.04%) AWS CloudFormation
14 10 (2.76%) Azure Functions
15 8 (2.21%) AWS Step Functions
15 8 (2.21%) Azure Cosmos DB
15 8 (2.21%) Collibra
15 8 (2.21%) GitHub
Communications & Networking
1 2 (0.55%) DNS
1 2 (0.55%) DSL
1 2 (0.55%) Hyperconnected
2 1 (0.28%) DWDM
2 1 (0.28%) LAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 96 (26.52%) Data Warehouse
2 87 (24.03%) Metadata
3 54 (14.92%) Data Lake
4 47 (12.98%) Power BI
5 36 (9.94%) PostgreSQL
6 29 (8.01%) Amazon Redshift
7 28 (7.73%) SQL Server
8 20 (5.52%) Amazon Athena
8 20 (5.52%) Big Data
9 19 (5.25%) NoSQL
10 18 (4.97%) Tableau
11 17 (4.70%) Metadata Repository
12 16 (4.42%) Azure SQL Database
12 16 (4.42%) Data Vault
13 13 (3.59%) Delta Lake
13 13 (3.59%) OLTP
13 13 (3.59%) Oracle Database
14 12 (3.31%) Amazon Aurora
14 12 (3.31%) Relational Database
15 11 (3.04%) Apache Iceberg
Development Applications
1 21 (5.80%) ERwin
2 7 (1.93%) Jenkins
3 6 (1.66%) Git
4 3 (0.83%) ER Studio
4 3 (0.83%) GitLab
5 1 (0.28%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.28%) PowerDesigner
5 1 (0.28%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 97 (26.80%) Social Skills
2 60 (16.57%) Finance
3 47 (12.98%) Public Sector
4 35 (9.67%) Analytical Skills
5 9 (2.49%) Banking
6 8 (2.21%) Retail
7 7 (1.93%) Local Government
8 6 (1.66%) Influencing Skills
8 6 (1.66%) Presentation Skills
9 5 (1.38%) Documentation Skills
10 4 (1.10%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 4 (1.10%) Legal
11 3 (0.83%) Manufacturing
12 2 (0.55%) Back Office
12 2 (0.55%) Front Office
12 2 (0.55%) Law
12 2 (0.55%) Marketing
12 2 (0.55%) Military
12 2 (0.55%) Police
13 1 (0.28%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (6.35%) Kafka
2 18 (4.97%) PySpark
3 7 (1.93%) Apache Avro
3 7 (1.93%) Protocol Buffers
4 3 (0.83%) AWS CDK
4 3 (0.83%) Node.js
4 3 (0.83%) REST
4 3 (0.83%) SOAP
5 2 (0.55%) .NET
5 2 (0.55%) OpenTelemetry
5 2 (0.55%) Oracle Fusion
5 2 (0.55%) XML
6 1 (0.28%) .NET Core
6 1 (0.28%) ADO
6 1 (0.28%) Apache NiFi
6 1 (0.28%) ARM Templates
6 1 (0.28%) FHIR
6 1 (0.28%) Lightning Web Components
6 1 (0.28%) Model Context Protocol
6 1 (0.28%) Smart Contracts
Miscellaneous
1 25 (6.91%) Cloud Native
1 25 (6.91%) Data Structures
2 12 (3.31%) NHS
3 10 (2.76%) Hybrid Cloud
3 10 (2.76%) Legacy Systems
4 9 (2.49%) Distributed Systems
4 9 (2.49%) Reference Data
5 8 (2.21%) Data Fabric
5 8 (2.21%) FMCG
6 7 (1.93%) Product Ownership
6 7 (1.93%) Reinsurance
7 6 (1.66%) Onboarding
8 5 (1.38%) Distributed Computing
8 5 (1.38%) IoT
8 5 (1.38%) Management Information System
9 4 (1.10%) Mainframe
9 4 (1.10%) PACS
9 4 (1.10%) SWIFT Messaging Network
9 4 (1.10%) Taxonomies
10 3 (0.83%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 4 (1.10%) zOS
2 2 (0.55%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 212 (58.56%) Data Modelling
2 203 (56.08%) Data Architecture
3 130 (35.91%) Analytics
4 128 (35.36%) Data Governance
5 80 (22.10%) ETL
6 66 (18.23%) Business Intelligence
7 59 (16.30%) Data Strategy
8 58 (16.02%) AI
8 58 (16.02%) Metadata Management
9 57 (15.75%) Migration
10 56 (15.47%) Data Integration
11 49 (13.54%) Data Management
11 49 (13.54%) Data Pipeline
12 48 (13.26%) Physical Data Model
12 48 (13.26%) Stakeholder Management
13 47 (12.98%) DevOps
14 46 (12.71%) Logical Data Model
14 46 (12.71%) Machine Learning
15 43 (11.88%) Data Engineering
15 43 (11.88%) Problem-Solving
Programming Languages
1 84 (23.20%) SQL
2 67 (18.51%) Python
3 11 (3.04%) Java
4 8 (2.21%) T-SQL
5 5 (1.38%) PowerShell
6 4 (1.10%) PL/SQL
6 4 (1.10%) Scala
7 3 (0.83%) JavaScript
7 3 (0.83%) SPARQL
8 2 (0.55%) Bash
8 2 (0.55%) Korn
8 2 (0.55%) R
9 1 (0.28%) ANSI SQL
9 1 (0.28%) Apex Code
9 1 (0.28%) C#
9 1 (0.28%) COBOL
9 1 (0.28%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 77 (21.27%) Security Cleared
2 61 (16.85%) SC Cleared
3 23 (6.35%) Degree
4 20 (5.52%) Azure Certification
5 14 (3.87%) BPSS Clearance
5 14 (3.87%) Master's Degree
6 9 (2.49%) AWS Certification
6 9 (2.49%) Microsoft Certification
7 8 (2.21%) TOGAF Certification
8 7 (1.93%) Computer Science Degree
9 6 (1.66%) DV Cleared
10 4 (1.10%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 1 (0.28%) ITIL Certification
11 1 (0.28%) MySQL Certification
11 1 (0.28%) Oracle Certification
11 1 (0.28%) SAP Certification
11 1 (0.28%) SnowPro
11 1 (0.28%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 78 (21.55%) Data Quality
2 33 (9.12%) GDPR
3 11 (3.04%) Accessibility
4 8 (2.21%) QA
5 5 (1.38%) California Consumer Privacy Act
5 5 (1.38%) HIPAA
6 4 (1.10%) ISO 20022
7 2 (0.55%) CRD IV
7 2 (0.55%) FINREP
7 2 (0.55%) IFRS
8 1 (0.28%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.28%) Government Security Classifications
8 1 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 1 (0.28%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 2 (0.55%) Docker
1 2 (0.55%) VMware Infrastructure
1 2 (0.55%) VMware NSX
1 2 (0.55%) vSphere
2 1 (0.28%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 28 (7.73%) Terraform
2 8 (2.21%) Ansible
3 5 (1.38%) Grafana
4 4 (1.10%) Kubernetes
4 4 (1.10%) Prometheus
5 2 (0.55%) Argo
5 2 (0.55%) vCenter Server
6 1 (0.28%) Kubeflow
Vendors
1 68 (18.78%) Databricks
2 64 (17.68%) Microsoft
3 31 (8.56%) Oracle
4 20 (5.52%) Informatica
5 15 (4.14%) Salesforce
6 14 (3.87%) SAP
7 10 (2.76%) Google
7 10 (2.76%) Talend
8 7 (1.93%) Confluent
9 6 (1.66%) Remedy
10 5 (1.38%) Greenplum
10 5 (1.38%) Sparx
11 4 (1.10%) Ab Initio
11 4 (1.10%) Dynatrace
11 4 (1.10%) MicroStrategy
11 4 (1.10%) Palantir
11 4 (1.10%) Pega
12 3 (0.83%) IBM
12 3 (0.83%) Workday
13 2 (0.55%) Virgin Media