Data Architect Contract Job Trends

Data Architect
UK

The median Data Architect daily rate in the UK is £625, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 17 August 2026.

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

6 months to
17 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 193 260 278
Rank change year-on-year +67 +18 +6
Contract jobs requiring a Data Architect 768 326 322
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.44% 0.98% 0.83%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.55% 1.08% 0.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 549 205 222
10th Percentile £463 £463 £488
25th Percentile £525 £513 £532
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £600 £650
Median % change year-on-year +4.17% -7.69% -3.70%
75th Percentile £688 £700 £750
90th Percentile £775 £780 £875
UK excluding London median daily rate £625 £585 £650
% change year-on-year +6.84% -10.00% +1.96%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 2 10
10th Percentile - £41.31 £59.25
25th Percentile £46.00 £44.85 -
Median hourly rate £58.50 £51.98 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +12.54% -13.37% -6.98%
75th Percentile £70.00 £60.37 -
90th Percentile - £64.65 £65.89
UK excluding London median hourly rate £58.50 £38.96 £60.00
% change year-on-year +50.15% -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 49,505 30,216 36,013
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.52% 91.29% 92.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,709 19,089 23,205
10th Percentile £325 £281 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.69%
75th Percentile £625 £621 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,494 1,545 1,999
10th Percentile £15.00 £13.60 £14.16
25th Percentile £20.53 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +65.94% -41.51% +2.87%
75th Percentile £67.96 £53.99 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +21.62%

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 17 August 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 17 August 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 17 August 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 +66 664 £620 +3.33% 96
London +32 349 £600 - 56
UK excluding London +51 307 £625 +6.84% 65
Work from Home +21 208 £619 +3.13% 51
Midlands +15 90 £625 -3.85% 9
West Midlands +1 72 £644 -4.63% 9
North of England -38 64 £632 +14.91% 21
South East -26 50 £609 +8.33% 21
South West -3 48 £652 +17.48% 5
Yorkshire -14 37 £675 -3.57% 8
East of England +8 36 £550 -
North West -28 26 £600 +14.29% 8
Scotland -15 19 £690 +34.18% 5
East Midlands -2 18 £606 +1.04%
North East - 4 £550 - 5
Wales - 1 £475 -

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

For the 6 months to 17 August 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.

1 381 (49.61%) Data Architecture
2 327 (42.58%) Data Modelling
3 258 (33.59%) Azure
4 250 (32.55%) Security Cleared
5 226 (29.43%) Analytics
6 208 (27.08%) SC Cleared
7 202 (26.30%) Data Governance
8 188 (24.48%) Migration
9 175 (22.79%) AWS
10 161 (20.96%) Databricks
11 145 (18.88%) AI
12 140 (18.23%) Data Quality
13 129 (16.80%) Business Intelligence
13 129 (16.80%) ETL
14 127 (16.54%) Integration Patterns
15 126 (16.41%) Data Warehouse
16 125 (16.28%) Metadata
17 123 (16.02%) Data Lake
18 116 (15.10%) SQL
19 114 (14.84%) Logical Data Model
20 107 (13.93%) Stakeholder Engagement
21 101 (13.15%) Data Integration
22 100 (13.02%) Data Strategy
23 97 (12.63%) Data Engineering
23 97 (12.63%) Stakeholder Management
24 95 (12.37%) Power Platform
25 92 (11.98%) Data Pipeline
26 87 (11.33%) Microsoft
26 87 (11.33%) Power BI
27 84 (10.94%) GCP

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 25 (3.26%) Apache Spark
1 25 (3.26%) SAS
2 19 (2.47%) Apache
3 18 (2.34%) Palantir Foundry
4 14 (1.82%) Apache Airflow
5 9 (1.17%) SharePoint
6 6 (0.78%) Confluence
7 2 (0.26%) Alfresco
7 2 (0.26%) PowerExchange
8 1 (0.13%) Apache Superset
8 1 (0.13%) JBoss
8 1 (0.13%) Jupyter
Applications
1 6 (0.78%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.13%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 5 (0.65%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 4 (0.52%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (0.26%) SAP ERP
3 2 (0.26%) Workday HCM
4 1 (0.13%) Aladdin
4 1 (0.13%) iTrent
4 1 (0.13%) Maximo
4 1 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.13%) SAP MDM
4 1 (0.13%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 258 (33.59%) Azure
2 175 (22.79%) AWS
3 95 (12.37%) Power Platform
4 84 (10.94%) GCP
5 65 (8.46%) Snowflake
6 50 (6.51%) Azure Synapse Analytics
7 47 (6.12%) Azure Data Factory
8 30 (3.91%) Amazon S3
9 27 (3.52%) Microsoft Purview
10 26 (3.39%) dbt
11 25 (3.26%) AWS Lambda
11 25 (3.26%) Serverless
12 16 (2.08%) Azure DevOps
13 15 (1.95%) SaaS
14 12 (1.56%) Amazon EMR
15 11 (1.43%) Amazon Kinesis
16 10 (1.30%) Azure Cosmos DB
16 10 (1.30%) Collibra
17 9 (1.17%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 9 (1.17%) Azure Machine Learning
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.65%) Firewall
2 3 (0.39%) Network Security
2 3 (0.39%) VPN
3 2 (0.26%) BGP
3 2 (0.26%) DSL
3 2 (0.26%) OSPF
3 2 (0.26%) SAN
3 2 (0.26%) Structured Cabling
3 2 (0.26%) VXLAN
4 1 (0.13%) Radio Access Network
4 1 (0.13%) SMS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 126 (16.41%) Data Warehouse
2 125 (16.28%) Metadata
3 123 (16.02%) Data Lake
4 87 (11.33%) Power BI
5 45 (5.86%) NoSQL
6 28 (3.65%) BigQuery
7 27 (3.52%) Amazon Redshift
8 25 (3.26%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
9 21 (2.73%) Azure SQL Database
10 17 (2.21%) Delta Lake
11 16 (2.08%) Base SAS
11 16 (2.08%) Data Vault
12 15 (1.95%) Big Data
12 15 (1.95%) Semantic Layer
12 15 (1.95%) Snowflake Schema
13 13 (1.69%) Amazon Athena
13 13 (1.69%) Elasticsearch
13 13 (1.69%) PostgreSQL
13 13 (1.69%) SQL Server
14 12 (1.56%) Data Mining
Development Applications
1 20 (2.60%) ERwin
2 9 (1.17%) Git
3 6 (0.78%) GitLab
4 4 (0.52%) ER Studio
4 4 (0.52%) JIRA
5 2 (0.26%) Jenkins
5 2 (0.26%) Oracle Forms
6 1 (0.13%) Claude Code
6 1 (0.13%) MLflow
6 1 (0.13%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 142 (18.49%) Social Skills
2 124 (16.15%) Finance
3 117 (15.23%) Public Sector
4 60 (7.81%) Analytical Skills
5 37 (4.82%) Banking
6 35 (4.56%) Retail
7 18 (2.34%) Influencing Skills
8 17 (2.21%) Marketing
9 13 (1.69%) Police
10 10 (1.30%) Documentation Skills
11 9 (1.17%) Legal
12 8 (1.04%) Financial Institution
13 7 (0.91%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 7 (0.91%) Presentation Skills
14 6 (0.78%) Investment Banking
14 6 (0.78%) Local Government
15 5 (0.65%) Manufacturing
16 3 (0.39%) Military
17 2 (0.26%) Publishing
17 2 (0.26%) Retail Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 33 (4.30%) Kafka
2 24 (3.13%) PySpark
3 17 (2.21%) Oracle Fusion
4 7 (0.91%) .NET
5 6 (0.78%) Middleware
5 6 (0.78%) REST
6 5 (0.65%) FHIR
6 5 (0.65%) JSON
7 3 (0.39%) LangChain
7 3 (0.39%) LangGraph
7 3 (0.39%) Spark Streaming
8 2 (0.26%) Apache NiFi
8 2 (0.26%) FastAPI
8 2 (0.26%) JWT
8 2 (0.26%) Model Context Protocol
8 2 (0.26%) OpenTelemetry
8 2 (0.26%) pytest
8 2 (0.26%) React
8 2 (0.26%) Snowpark
8 2 (0.26%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 63 (8.20%) Cloud Native
2 38 (4.95%) Data Structures
3 27 (3.52%) Legacy Systems
4 24 (3.13%) Reference Data
5 18 (2.34%) Data Centre
5 18 (2.34%) Management Information System
6 15 (1.95%) AI Agents
7 14 (1.82%) NHS
8 13 (1.69%) Data Protection Act
8 13 (1.69%) Onboarding
9 12 (1.56%) Taxonomies
10 11 (1.43%) IoT
11 10 (1.30%) Product Ownership
11 10 (1.30%) SCADA
12 9 (1.17%) Autonomous Agent
12 9 (1.17%) Data Fabric
12 9 (1.17%) Greenfield Project
13 8 (1.04%) Digital Media
13 8 (1.04%) Distributed Systems
14 7 (0.91%) Reinsurance
Operating Systems
1 4 (0.52%) zOS
2 3 (0.39%) Linux
2 3 (0.39%) Windows
3 2 (0.26%) AIX
3 2 (0.26%) HPUX
3 2 (0.26%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 381 (49.61%) Data Architecture
2 327 (42.58%) Data Modelling
3 226 (29.43%) Analytics
4 202 (26.30%) Data Governance
5 188 (24.48%) Migration
6 145 (18.88%) AI
7 129 (16.80%) Business Intelligence
7 129 (16.80%) ETL
8 127 (16.54%) Integration Patterns
9 114 (14.84%) Logical Data Model
10 107 (13.93%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 101 (13.15%) Data Integration
12 100 (13.02%) Data Strategy
13 97 (12.63%) Data Engineering
13 97 (12.63%) Stakeholder Management
14 92 (11.98%) Data Pipeline
15 79 (10.29%) Roadmaps
16 76 (9.90%) Decision-Making
17 75 (9.77%) Agile
17 75 (9.77%) Physical Data Model
Programming Languages
1 116 (15.10%) SQL
2 56 (7.29%) Python
3 18 (2.34%) Java
4 9 (1.17%) Bicep
5 7 (0.91%) Data Analysis Expressions
6 5 (0.65%) R
6 5 (0.65%) Scala
7 3 (0.39%) Kotlin
7 3 (0.39%) T-SQL
8 2 (0.26%) Cypher
8 2 (0.26%) PL/SQL
8 2 (0.26%) PowerShell
8 2 (0.26%) SHACL
8 2 (0.26%) Shell Script
8 2 (0.26%) TypeScript
9 1 (0.13%) C++
9 1 (0.13%) COBOL
9 1 (0.13%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 250 (32.55%) Security Cleared
2 208 (27.08%) SC Cleared
3 30 (3.91%) DV Cleared
4 26 (3.39%) BPSS Clearance
5 14 (1.82%) Azure Certification
6 12 (1.56%) AWS Certification
7 7 (0.91%) DBS Check
7 7 (0.91%) Degree
8 5 (0.65%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 3 (0.39%) Computer Science Degree
9 3 (0.39%) TOGAF Certification
10 2 (0.26%) Master's Degree
10 2 (0.26%) Microsoft Certified Professional
10 2 (0.26%) VCAP
10 2 (0.26%) VCDX
11 1 (0.13%) CISSP
11 1 (0.13%) Microsoft Certification
11 1 (0.13%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 140 (18.23%) Data Quality
2 41 (5.34%) GDPR
3 13 (1.69%) Accessibility
4 12 (1.56%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 8 (1.04%) QA
6 7 (0.91%) NIST
6 7 (0.91%) Solvency II
7 6 (0.78%) HL7
7 6 (0.78%) IFRS
8 5 (0.65%) IFRS 17
8 5 (0.65%) SNOMED CT
9 4 (0.52%) ISO/IEC 42001
9 4 (0.52%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 3 (0.39%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 3 (0.39%) ISO 20022
11 2 (0.26%) GRC
11 2 (0.26%) GxP
11 2 (0.26%) NCSC
11 2 (0.26%) SLA
12 1 (0.13%) Good Clinical Practice
System Software
1 3 (0.39%) Active Directory
1 3 (0.39%) Docker
1 3 (0.39%) VMware Infrastructure
2 1 (0.13%) VMware ESXi
2 1 (0.13%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 26 (3.39%) Terraform
2 9 (1.17%) Kubernetes
3 5 (0.65%) Grafana
4 4 (0.52%) Ansible
5 3 (0.39%) Istio
5 3 (0.39%) Prometheus
6 2 (0.26%) Argo
6 2 (0.26%) NetBackup
7 1 (0.13%) Control-M
Vendors
1 161 (20.96%) Databricks
2 87 (11.33%) Microsoft
3 41 (5.34%) Oracle
4 22 (2.86%) Google
5 21 (2.73%) Foundry
5 21 (2.73%) Informatica
5 21 (2.73%) SAP
6 19 (2.47%) Palantir
7 18 (2.34%) Salesforce
8 9 (1.17%) Denodo
9 8 (1.04%) Talend
10 7 (0.91%) IFS
10 7 (0.91%) Sparx
11 6 (0.78%) OpenAI
12 4 (0.52%) NVIDIA
13 3 (0.39%) Cloudera
13 3 (0.39%) Confluent
13 3 (0.39%) Guidewire
13 3 (0.39%) IBM
13 3 (0.39%) Workday