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 5 March 2026.

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

6 months to
5 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 262 228 238
Rank change year-on-year -34 +10 +27
Contract jobs requiring a Data Architect 422 337 445
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.99% 1.11% 1.01%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.08% 1.20% 1.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 312 241 315
10th Percentile £450 £482 £498
25th Percentile £504 £523 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £615 £675
Median % change year-on-year -6.50% -8.89% -
75th Percentile £673 £725 £745
90th Percentile £774 £799 £850
UK excluding London median daily rate £575 £600 £650
% change year-on-year -4.17% -7.69% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 3 4
10th Percentile - £75.75 £45.28
25th Percentile £64.00 £76.88 £48.65
Median hourly rate £69.00 £80.50 £53.03
Median % change year-on-year -14.29% +51.81% -24.25%
75th Percentile £69.44 £83.63 £61.13
90th Percentile £78.48 £84.45 £67.65
UK excluding London median hourly rate £69.00 £80.50 £53.03
% change year-on-year -14.29% +51.81% -24.25%

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 39,102 28,091 40,933
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.86% 92.82% 92.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,515 17,820 26,884
10th Percentile £310 £290 £275
25th Percentile £409 £406 £407
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £723 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £475 £487
% change year-on-year +1.32% -2.46% -2.60%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,389 852 2,408
10th Percentile £14.64 £16.23 £13.04
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.39 £16.25
Median hourly rate £33.50 £34.00 £34.00
Median % change year-on-year -1.47% - -16.05%
75th Percentile £64.00 £64.57 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.23 £71.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.50 £32.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year - -7.14% -10.26%

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 5 March 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 5 March 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 5 March 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 -49 349 £588 -6.00% 135
London -46 190 £600 -7.69% 59
UK excluding London -20 168 £575 -4.17% 101
Work from Home -10 126 £600 -1.15% 57
Midlands -22 49 £577 -4.32% 18
West Midlands -14 46 £581 -5.14% 13
North of England -66 31 £600 -4.00% 17
South West -14 30 £613 +18.36% 17
Scotland +32 26 £540 -20.00% 8
South East -45 26 £575 -2.54% 37
North West -42 18 £550 +4.76% 8
East of England -21 12 £505 -20.78% 3
Yorkshire -63 10 £610 -12.86% 5
North East -13 3 £575 -7.89% 4
East Midlands -30 3 £444 -2.04% 5
Wales -3 2 £768 +225.21% 3

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

For the 6 months to 5 March 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.

1 240 (56.87%) Data Architecture
2 225 (53.32%) Data Modelling
3 158 (37.44%) Analytics
4 148 (35.07%) Data Governance
5 146 (34.60%) Azure
6 111 (26.30%) Data Warehouse
7 110 (26.07%) AWS
8 104 (24.64%) Metadata
9 98 (23.22%) SQL
10 94 (22.27%) Security Cleared
11 93 (22.04%) ETL
12 89 (21.09%) Data Quality
13 85 (20.14%) Business Intelligence
14 76 (18.01%) Databricks
15 75 (17.77%) SC Cleared
16 71 (16.82%) Migration
17 69 (16.35%) AI
17 69 (16.35%) Data Integration
18 67 (15.88%) Microsoft
19 66 (15.64%) Python
20 62 (14.69%) Metadata Management
21 61 (14.45%) Data Strategy
22 60 (14.22%) Data Lake
23 59 (13.98%) Power Platform
24 58 (13.74%) Data Pipeline
25 54 (12.80%) Power BI
26 53 (12.56%) Data Management
27 52 (12.32%) Agile
27 52 (12.32%) Data Engineering
27 52 (12.32%) Physical Data Model

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 18 (4.27%) Apache Spark
2 15 (3.55%) SAS
3 11 (2.61%) Apache Airflow
4 10 (2.37%) Apache
5 8 (1.90%) SharePoint
6 2 (0.47%) Palantir Foundry
7 1 (0.24%) Appian
7 1 (0.24%) Ethereum
7 1 (0.24%) Hyperledger
7 1 (0.24%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 3 (0.71%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.24%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 8 (1.90%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (1.42%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 5 (1.18%) Salesforce CRM
4 2 (0.47%) Dynamics CRM
5 1 (0.24%) Distributed Ledger
5 1 (0.24%) Dynamics AX
5 1 (0.24%) iTrent
5 1 (0.24%) NEC Housing
5 1 (0.24%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.24%) Oracle ERP
5 1 (0.24%) R3 Corda
5 1 (0.24%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 146 (34.60%) Azure
2 110 (26.07%) AWS
3 59 (13.98%) Power Platform
4 42 (9.95%) Azure Synapse Analytics
5 41 (9.72%) Azure Data Factory
6 36 (8.53%) Snowflake
7 33 (7.82%) GCP
7 33 (7.82%) Serverless
8 29 (6.87%) Microsoft Purview
9 23 (5.45%) Amazon S3
10 19 (4.50%) AWS Lambda
11 16 (3.79%) Azure DevOps
12 15 (3.55%) dbt
13 14 (3.32%) Amazon Kinesis
14 10 (2.37%) GitHub
15 9 (2.13%) Collibra
16 8 (1.90%) AWS CloudFormation
16 8 (1.90%) AWS Step Functions
16 8 (1.90%) Azure Cosmos DB
16 8 (1.90%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 2 (0.47%) DNS
1 2 (0.47%) DSL
1 2 (0.47%) Hyperconnected
2 1 (0.24%) DWDM
2 1 (0.24%) Firewall
2 1 (0.24%) LAN
2 1 (0.24%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 111 (26.30%) Data Warehouse
2 104 (24.64%) Metadata
3 60 (14.22%) Data Lake
4 54 (12.80%) Power BI
5 35 (8.29%) PostgreSQL
6 31 (7.35%) SQL Server
7 26 (6.16%) Amazon Redshift
8 24 (5.69%) Big Data
9 23 (5.45%) NoSQL
10 21 (4.98%) Metadata Repository
11 18 (4.27%) Tableau
12 17 (4.03%) Amazon Athena
12 17 (4.03%) Azure SQL Database
13 16 (3.79%) Data Vault
14 14 (3.32%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 13 (3.08%) Hadoop
15 13 (3.08%) Oracle Database
16 12 (2.84%) Amazon Aurora
16 12 (2.84%) Relational Database
17 11 (2.61%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 21 (4.98%) ERwin
2 8 (1.90%) Jenkins
3 7 (1.66%) Git
4 3 (0.71%) ER Studio
4 3 (0.71%) GitLab
5 1 (0.24%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.24%) PowerDesigner
5 1 (0.24%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 99 (23.46%) Social Skills
2 67 (15.88%) Finance
3 49 (11.61%) Public Sector
4 42 (9.95%) Analytical Skills
5 15 (3.55%) Banking
6 14 (3.32%) Retail
7 6 (1.42%) Documentation Skills
7 6 (1.42%) Financial Institution
7 6 (1.42%) Local Government
8 5 (1.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 5 (1.18%) Influencing Skills
8 5 (1.18%) Investment Banking
8 5 (1.18%) Presentation Skills
9 4 (0.95%) Manufacturing
10 2 (0.47%) Law
10 2 (0.47%) Legal
10 2 (0.47%) Marketing
11 1 (0.24%) Pharmaceutical
11 1 (0.24%) Retail Banking
11 1 (0.24%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (5.69%) Kafka
2 17 (4.03%) PySpark
3 7 (1.66%) Apache Avro
3 7 (1.66%) Protocol Buffers
4 4 (0.95%) REST
5 3 (0.71%) AWS CDK
5 3 (0.71%) Lightning Web Components
5 3 (0.71%) Middleware
5 3 (0.71%) Node.js
5 3 (0.71%) SOAP
6 2 (0.47%) .NET
6 2 (0.47%) OpenTelemetry
6 2 (0.47%) Oracle Fusion
7 1 (0.24%) ADO
7 1 (0.24%) FHIR
7 1 (0.24%) GraphQL
7 1 (0.24%) Model Context Protocol
7 1 (0.24%) OpenAPI
7 1 (0.24%) Swagger
7 1 (0.24%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 31 (7.35%) Data Structures
2 28 (6.64%) Cloud Native
3 17 (4.03%) Reference Data
4 13 (3.08%) Legacy Systems
5 11 (2.61%) Distributed Systems
6 10 (2.37%) Hybrid Cloud
7 9 (2.13%) Mainframe
7 9 (2.13%) NHS
8 8 (1.90%) FMCG
9 7 (1.66%) Data Fabric
9 7 (1.66%) IoT
9 7 (1.66%) Product Ownership
9 7 (1.66%) Taxonomies
10 6 (1.42%) Distributed Computing
10 6 (1.42%) Onboarding
10 6 (1.42%) Reinsurance
11 5 (1.18%) AI Agents
11 5 (1.18%) Management Information System
12 4 (0.95%) PACS
12 4 (0.95%) SWIFT Messaging Network
Operating Systems
1 8 (1.90%) zOS
2 2 (0.47%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 240 (56.87%) Data Architecture
2 225 (53.32%) Data Modelling
3 158 (37.44%) Analytics
4 148 (35.07%) Data Governance
5 93 (22.04%) ETL
6 85 (20.14%) Business Intelligence
7 71 (16.82%) Migration
8 69 (16.35%) AI
8 69 (16.35%) Data Integration
9 62 (14.69%) Metadata Management
10 61 (14.45%) Data Strategy
11 58 (13.74%) Data Pipeline
12 53 (12.56%) Data Management
13 52 (12.32%) Agile
13 52 (12.32%) Data Engineering
13 52 (12.32%) Physical Data Model
14 51 (12.09%) Logical Data Model
15 50 (11.85%) DevOps
16 49 (11.61%) Machine Learning
16 49 (11.61%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 98 (23.22%) SQL
2 66 (15.64%) Python
3 10 (2.37%) Java
4 8 (1.90%) T-SQL
5 5 (1.18%) PowerShell
5 5 (1.18%) Scala
6 3 (0.71%) Apex Code
6 3 (0.71%) JavaScript
6 3 (0.71%) PL/SQL
7 2 (0.47%) Bash
7 2 (0.47%) R
7 2 (0.47%) SPARQL
8 1 (0.24%) ANSI SQL
8 1 (0.24%) COBOL
8 1 (0.24%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 1 (0.24%) Korn
8 1 (0.24%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 94 (22.27%) Security Cleared
2 75 (17.77%) SC Cleared
3 20 (4.74%) Degree
4 19 (4.50%) Azure Certification
5 14 (3.32%) Master's Degree
6 13 (3.08%) BPSS Clearance
7 9 (2.13%) AWS Certification
7 9 (2.13%) DV Cleared
7 9 (2.13%) Microsoft Certification
7 9 (2.13%) TOGAF Certification
8 7 (1.66%) Computer Science Degree
9 5 (1.18%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 1 (0.24%) ITIL Certification
10 1 (0.24%) MySQL Certification
10 1 (0.24%) Oracle Certification
10 1 (0.24%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 89 (21.09%) Data Quality
2 30 (7.11%) GDPR
3 15 (3.55%) QA
4 11 (2.61%) Accessibility
5 5 (1.18%) California Consumer Privacy Act
6 4 (0.95%) ISO 20022
7 3 (0.71%) HIPAA
8 2 (0.47%) CRD IV
8 2 (0.47%) FINREP
8 2 (0.47%) IFRS
8 2 (0.47%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 1 (0.24%) Government Security Classifications
9 1 (0.24%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 1 (0.24%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 3 (0.71%) Docker
2 2 (0.47%) HDFS
2 2 (0.47%) VMware Infrastructure
2 2 (0.47%) VMware NSX
2 2 (0.47%) vSphere
3 1 (0.24%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 26 (6.16%) Terraform
2 8 (1.90%) Ansible
3 5 (1.18%) Grafana
3 5 (1.18%) Kubernetes
4 4 (0.95%) Prometheus
5 2 (0.47%) Argo
5 2 (0.47%) vCenter Server
6 1 (0.24%) Kubeflow
Vendors
1 76 (18.01%) Databricks
2 67 (15.88%) Microsoft
3 30 (7.11%) Oracle
4 21 (4.98%) Informatica
5 20 (4.74%) Salesforce
6 12 (2.84%) SAP
7 11 (2.61%) Google
8 9 (2.13%) Confluent
8 9 (2.13%) Talend
9 7 (1.66%) Remedy
10 5 (1.18%) Dynatrace
10 5 (1.18%) Greenplum
11 4 (0.95%) Ab Initio
11 4 (0.95%) MicroStrategy
11 4 (0.95%) Palantir
11 4 (0.95%) Pega
11 4 (0.95%) Sparx
12 3 (0.71%) IBM
12 3 (0.71%) Workday
13 2 (0.47%) Pure Storage