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 19 February 2026.

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

6 months to
19 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 278 251 227
Rank change year-on-year -27 -24 +34
Contract jobs requiring a Data Architect 394 314 460
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.97% 1.02% 1.04%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.06% 1.10% 1.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 293 223 329
10th Percentile £450 £480 £496
25th Percentile £505 £523 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £620 £675
Median % change year-on-year -7.26% -8.15% -
75th Percentile £675 £725 £745
90th Percentile £773 £799 £853
UK excluding London median daily rate £561 £620 £650
% change year-on-year -9.52% -4.62% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 3 5
10th Percentile - £75.75 £46.03
25th Percentile £64.00 £76.88 £50.53
Median hourly rate £69.00 £80.50 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -14.29% +46.36% -21.43%
75th Percentile £69.44 £83.63 £72.00
90th Percentile £78.48 £84.45 -
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 37,333 28,630 41,042
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.70% 92.94% 93.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,462 17,805 26,973
10th Percentile £305 £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 £478 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +0.63% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,275 814 2,320
10th Percentile £14.61 £16.25 £13.15
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.46 £16.50
Median hourly rate £31.18 £34.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.31% -2.86% -9.09%
75th Percentile £63.32 £63.75 £60.75
90th Percentile £73.75 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 £32.50 £35.25
% change year-on-year -7.69% -7.80% -0.48%

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 19 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 19 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 19 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 -39 320 £581 -6.98% 119
London -46 175 £600 -5.88% 52
UK excluding London +11 154 £561 -9.52% 98
Work from Home -10 123 £582 -5.02% 51
Midlands -32 44 £573 -4.98% 17
West Midlands -23 41 £575 -6.12% 10
North of England -78 30 £575 -7.89% 16
South West -7 27 £613 -2.00% 13
Scotland +29 26 £540 -16.92% 12
North West -29 22 £550 +2.33% 5
South East -29 21 £613 +2.08% 36
East of England -19 11 £505 -20.78% 1
Yorkshire -57 5 £600 -9.43% 4
North East -17 3 £575 -7.89% 7
East Midlands -26 3 £444 -2.04% 7
Wales -4 2 £768 +225.21% 4

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

For the 6 months to 19 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.

1 225 (57.11%) Data Architecture
2 221 (56.09%) Data Modelling
3 145 (36.80%) Analytics
3 145 (36.80%) Azure
3 145 (36.80%) Data Governance
4 112 (28.43%) AWS
5 108 (27.41%) Data Warehouse
6 98 (24.87%) Metadata
7 92 (23.35%) ETL
8 90 (22.84%) SQL
9 89 (22.59%) Security Cleared
10 87 (22.08%) Data Quality
11 77 (19.54%) Business Intelligence
12 75 (19.04%) Databricks
13 73 (18.53%) SC Cleared
14 68 (17.26%) Python
15 67 (17.01%) Migration
16 66 (16.75%) AI
16 66 (16.75%) Data Integration
17 64 (16.24%) Microsoft
18 63 (15.99%) Metadata Management
19 59 (14.97%) Data Lake
19 59 (14.97%) Data Pipeline
19 59 (14.97%) Data Strategy
20 53 (13.45%) Power Platform
21 51 (12.94%) Data Management
21 51 (12.94%) Physical Data Model
22 50 (12.69%) DevOps
22 50 (12.69%) Logical Data Model
22 50 (12.69%) Stakeholder Management

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 (4.57%) Apache Spark
2 15 (3.81%) SAS
3 12 (3.05%) Apache Airflow
4 10 (2.54%) Apache
5 8 (2.03%) SharePoint
6 2 (0.51%) Palantir Foundry
7 1 (0.25%) Appian
7 1 (0.25%) Ethereum
7 1 (0.25%) Hyperledger
7 1 (0.25%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 3 (0.76%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.25%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.25%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 8 (2.03%) SAP S/4HANA
2 7 (1.78%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 5 (1.27%) Salesforce CRM
4 2 (0.51%) Dynamics CRM
5 1 (0.25%) Aladdin
5 1 (0.25%) Distributed Ledger
5 1 (0.25%) Dynamics AX
5 1 (0.25%) iTrent
5 1 (0.25%) NEC Housing
5 1 (0.25%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.25%) Oracle ERP
5 1 (0.25%) R3 Corda
5 1 (0.25%) SAP IBP
5 1 (0.25%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 145 (36.80%) Azure
2 112 (28.43%) AWS
3 53 (13.45%) Power Platform
4 42 (10.66%) Azure Data Factory
5 38 (9.64%) Azure Synapse Analytics
6 34 (8.63%) Snowflake
7 33 (8.38%) GCP
7 33 (8.38%) Serverless
8 28 (7.11%) Microsoft Purview
9 26 (6.60%) Amazon S3
10 19 (4.82%) AWS Lambda
11 16 (4.06%) Amazon Kinesis
11 16 (4.06%) Azure DevOps
12 15 (3.81%) dbt
13 10 (2.54%) AWS CloudFormation
13 10 (2.54%) GitHub
14 9 (2.28%) Collibra
15 8 (2.03%) AWS Step Functions
15 8 (2.03%) Azure Cosmos DB
15 8 (2.03%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 2 (0.51%) DNS
1 2 (0.51%) DSL
1 2 (0.51%) Hyperconnected
2 1 (0.25%) DWDM
2 1 (0.25%) LAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 108 (27.41%) Data Warehouse
2 98 (24.87%) Metadata
3 59 (14.97%) Data Lake
4 49 (12.44%) Power BI
5 36 (9.14%) PostgreSQL
6 28 (7.11%) Amazon Redshift
6 28 (7.11%) SQL Server
7 23 (5.84%) Big Data
7 23 (5.84%) NoSQL
8 20 (5.08%) Metadata Repository
9 18 (4.57%) Amazon Athena
9 18 (4.57%) Tableau
10 15 (3.81%) Azure SQL Database
10 15 (3.81%) Data Vault
11 13 (3.30%) Hadoop
11 13 (3.30%) Oracle Database
12 12 (3.05%) Amazon Aurora
12 12 (3.05%) OLTP
12 12 (3.05%) Relational Database
13 11 (2.79%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 18 (4.57%) ERwin
2 8 (2.03%) Jenkins
3 7 (1.78%) Git
4 3 (0.76%) ER Studio
4 3 (0.76%) GitLab
5 1 (0.25%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.25%) PowerDesigner
5 1 (0.25%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 101 (25.63%) Social Skills
2 62 (15.74%) Finance
3 48 (12.18%) Public Sector
4 37 (9.39%) Analytical Skills
5 12 (3.05%) Banking
5 12 (3.05%) Retail
6 6 (1.52%) Influencing Skills
6 6 (1.52%) Presentation Skills
7 5 (1.27%) Documentation Skills
7 5 (1.27%) Local Government
8 4 (1.02%) Financial Institution
8 4 (1.02%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 3 (0.76%) Investment Banking
9 3 (0.76%) Legal
9 3 (0.76%) Manufacturing
10 2 (0.51%) Law
10 2 (0.51%) Marketing
10 2 (0.51%) Military
10 2 (0.51%) Police
11 1 (0.25%) Advertising
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (6.35%) Kafka
2 19 (4.82%) PySpark
3 7 (1.78%) Apache Avro
3 7 (1.78%) Protocol Buffers
4 4 (1.02%) REST
5 3 (0.76%) AWS CDK
5 3 (0.76%) Lightning Web Components
5 3 (0.76%) Node.js
5 3 (0.76%) SOAP
6 2 (0.51%) OpenTelemetry
6 2 (0.51%) Oracle Fusion
7 1 (0.25%) Apache NiFi
7 1 (0.25%) ARM Templates
7 1 (0.25%) FHIR
7 1 (0.25%) GraphQL
7 1 (0.25%) Model Context Protocol
7 1 (0.25%) OpenAPI
7 1 (0.25%) Smart Contracts
7 1 (0.25%) Swagger
7 1 (0.25%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 29 (7.36%) Data Structures
2 25 (6.35%) Cloud Native
3 12 (3.05%) Reference Data
4 10 (2.54%) Distributed Systems
4 10 (2.54%) Hybrid Cloud
4 10 (2.54%) Legacy Systems
5 9 (2.28%) NHS
6 8 (2.03%) FMCG
7 7 (1.78%) Data Fabric
7 7 (1.78%) IoT
7 7 (1.78%) Product Ownership
7 7 (1.78%) Reinsurance
8 6 (1.52%) Mainframe
8 6 (1.52%) Onboarding
9 5 (1.27%) AI Agents
9 5 (1.27%) Distributed Computing
9 5 (1.27%) Management Information System
9 5 (1.27%) Taxonomies
10 4 (1.02%) PACS
10 4 (1.02%) SWIFT Messaging Network
Operating Systems
1 6 (1.52%) zOS
2 2 (0.51%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 225 (57.11%) Data Architecture
2 221 (56.09%) Data Modelling
3 145 (36.80%) Analytics
3 145 (36.80%) Data Governance
4 92 (23.35%) ETL
5 77 (19.54%) Business Intelligence
6 67 (17.01%) Migration
7 66 (16.75%) AI
7 66 (16.75%) Data Integration
8 63 (15.99%) Metadata Management
9 59 (14.97%) Data Pipeline
9 59 (14.97%) Data Strategy
10 51 (12.94%) Data Management
10 51 (12.94%) Physical Data Model
11 50 (12.69%) DevOps
11 50 (12.69%) Logical Data Model
11 50 (12.69%) Stakeholder Management
12 49 (12.44%) Machine Learning
13 48 (12.18%) Roadmaps
14 47 (11.93%) Agile
Programming Languages
1 90 (22.84%) SQL
2 68 (17.26%) Python
3 11 (2.79%) Java
4 8 (2.03%) T-SQL
5 5 (1.27%) PowerShell
5 5 (1.27%) Scala
6 4 (1.02%) PL/SQL
7 3 (0.76%) Apex Code
7 3 (0.76%) JavaScript
8 2 (0.51%) Bash
8 2 (0.51%) Korn
8 2 (0.51%) R
8 2 (0.51%) SPARQL
9 1 (0.25%) ANSI SQL
9 1 (0.25%) COBOL
9 1 (0.25%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 89 (22.59%) Security Cleared
2 73 (18.53%) SC Cleared
3 22 (5.58%) Degree
4 19 (4.82%) Azure Certification
5 15 (3.81%) BPSS Clearance
5 15 (3.81%) Master's Degree
6 10 (2.54%) TOGAF Certification
7 9 (2.28%) AWS Certification
7 9 (2.28%) Microsoft Certification
8 7 (1.78%) Computer Science Degree
8 7 (1.78%) DV Cleared
9 4 (1.02%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 1 (0.25%) ITIL Certification
10 1 (0.25%) MySQL Certification
10 1 (0.25%) Oracle Certification
10 1 (0.25%) SAP Certification
10 1 (0.25%) SnowPro
10 1 (0.25%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 87 (22.08%) Data Quality
2 34 (8.63%) GDPR
3 14 (3.55%) QA
4 11 (2.79%) Accessibility
5 5 (1.27%) California Consumer Privacy Act
6 4 (1.02%) HIPAA
6 4 (1.02%) ISO 20022
7 2 (0.51%) CRD IV
7 2 (0.51%) FINREP
7 2 (0.51%) IFRS
7 2 (0.51%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 1 (0.25%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.25%) Government Security Classifications
8 1 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 1 (0.25%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 3 (0.76%) Docker
2 2 (0.51%) HDFS
2 2 (0.51%) VMware Infrastructure
2 2 (0.51%) VMware NSX
2 2 (0.51%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 28 (7.11%) Terraform
2 8 (2.03%) Ansible
3 5 (1.27%) Grafana
3 5 (1.27%) Kubernetes
4 4 (1.02%) Prometheus
5 2 (0.51%) Argo
5 2 (0.51%) vCenter Server
6 1 (0.25%) Kubeflow
Vendors
1 75 (19.04%) Databricks
2 64 (16.24%) Microsoft
3 31 (7.87%) Oracle
4 21 (5.33%) Informatica
5 18 (4.57%) Salesforce
6 13 (3.30%) SAP
7 10 (2.54%) Google
7 10 (2.54%) Talend
8 9 (2.28%) Confluent
9 7 (1.78%) Remedy
10 5 (1.27%) Greenplum
10 5 (1.27%) Sparx
11 4 (1.02%) Ab Initio
11 4 (1.02%) Dynatrace
11 4 (1.02%) MicroStrategy
11 4 (1.02%) Palantir
11 4 (1.02%) Pega
12 3 (0.76%) IBM
12 3 (0.76%) Workday
13 2 (0.51%) Red Hat