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 11 August 2026.

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

6 months to
11 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 191 284 280
Rank change year-on-year +93 -4 +3
Contract jobs requiring a Data Architect 772 316 329
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.45% 0.96% 0.84%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.56% 1.05% 0.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 550 200 224
10th Percentile £463 £463 £489
25th Percentile £525 £522 £537
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £600 £650
Median % change year-on-year +4.17% -7.69% -3.70%
75th Percentile £688 £700 £759
90th Percentile £775 £780 £871
UK excluding London median daily rate £625 £585 £638
% change year-on-year +6.84% -8.24% +2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 2 11
10th Percentile - £41.31 £52.50
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 -
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 49,431 30,083 36,174
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.55% 91.36% 92.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,700 19,069 23,306
10th Percentile £328 £282 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.87%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £729 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,475 1,511 2,026
10th Percentile £15.00 £13.60 £14.16
25th Percentile £20.75 £17.08 £20.50
Median hourly rate £42.25 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.99% -41.51% +2.87%
75th Percentile £67.84 £53.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £72.75 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.08 £45.00
% change year-on-year +69.49% -44.28% +28.57%

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 11 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 11 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 11 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 +68 666 £620 +3.33% 315
London +31 354 £600 - 190
UK excluding London +62 308 £625 +6.84% 163
Work from Home +26 208 £619 +3.13% 145
Midlands +8 90 £625 -3.85% 32
West Midlands -3 72 £650 -3.70% 23
North of England -46 62 £632 +7.57% 42
South East -35 51 £613 +6.52% 35
South West +3 47 £651 +17.30% 17
Yorkshire -27 36 £675 +1.89% 17
East of England +7 35 £550 - 8
North West -28 25 £600 +14.29% 18
Scotland -13 23 £500 -2.77% 18
East Midlands +4 18 £606 +1.04% 9
North East - 4 £550 - 7
Wales - 1 £475 -

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

For the 6 months to 11 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.

1 379 (49.09%) Data Architecture
2 327 (42.36%) Data Modelling
3 250 (32.38%) Azure
4 248 (32.12%) Security Cleared
5 227 (29.40%) Analytics
6 211 (27.33%) SC Cleared
7 199 (25.78%) Data Governance
8 189 (24.48%) Migration
9 169 (21.89%) AWS
10 157 (20.34%) Databricks
11 145 (18.78%) AI
12 135 (17.49%) Data Quality
13 129 (16.71%) Business Intelligence
14 127 (16.45%) ETL
15 126 (16.32%) Metadata
16 125 (16.19%) Integration Patterns
17 122 (15.80%) Data Warehouse
18 121 (15.67%) Data Lake
19 111 (14.38%) Logical Data Model
19 111 (14.38%) SQL
20 104 (13.47%) Stakeholder Engagement
21 101 (13.08%) Data Integration
22 98 (12.69%) Data Strategy
23 94 (12.18%) Data Engineering
23 94 (12.18%) Data Pipeline
24 90 (11.66%) Power Platform
25 89 (11.53%) Stakeholder Management
26 85 (11.01%) Microsoft
27 83 (10.75%) Power BI
28 81 (10.49%) Roadmaps

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 (3.24%) SAS
2 23 (2.98%) Apache Spark
3 18 (2.33%) Apache
3 18 (2.33%) Palantir Foundry
4 13 (1.68%) Apache Airflow
5 10 (1.30%) SharePoint
6 6 (0.78%) Confluence
7 2 (0.26%) Alfresco
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
1 250 (32.38%) Azure
2 169 (21.89%) AWS
3 90 (11.66%) Power Platform
4 77 (9.97%) GCP
5 62 (8.03%) Snowflake
6 47 (6.09%) Azure Synapse Analytics
7 46 (5.96%) Azure Data Factory
8 29 (3.76%) Amazon S3
9 26 (3.37%) Microsoft Purview
10 25 (3.24%) dbt
11 24 (3.11%) AWS Lambda
11 24 (3.11%) Serverless
12 16 (2.07%) Azure DevOps
12 16 (2.07%) SaaS
13 11 (1.42%) Amazon Kinesis
14 10 (1.30%) Amazon EMR
14 10 (1.30%) Azure Cosmos DB
14 10 (1.30%) Collibra
15 9 (1.17%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 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 (16.32%) Metadata
2 122 (15.80%) Data Warehouse
3 121 (15.67%) Data Lake
4 83 (10.75%) Power BI
5 45 (5.83%) NoSQL
6 25 (3.24%) BigQuery
7 23 (2.98%) Amazon Redshift
8 22 (2.85%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
9 21 (2.72%) Azure SQL Database
10 17 (2.20%) Delta Lake
11 16 (2.07%) Base SAS
11 16 (2.07%) Semantic Layer
12 15 (1.94%) Big Data
12 15 (1.94%) Data Vault
13 14 (1.81%) Snowflake Schema
14 13 (1.68%) Elasticsearch
14 13 (1.68%) PostgreSQL
15 12 (1.55%) Data Mining
16 11 (1.42%) SQL Server
16 11 (1.42%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 22 (2.85%) ERwin
2 7 (0.91%) Git
3 6 (0.78%) GitLab
4 4 (0.52%) ER Studio
5 3 (0.39%) JIRA
6 2 (0.26%) Jenkins
6 2 (0.26%) Oracle Forms
7 1 (0.13%) Claude Code
7 1 (0.13%) MLflow
7 1 (0.13%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 140 (18.13%) Social Skills
2 123 (15.93%) Finance
3 110 (14.25%) Public Sector
4 62 (8.03%) Analytical Skills
5 38 (4.92%) Banking
6 35 (4.53%) Retail
7 17 (2.20%) Influencing Skills
7 17 (2.20%) Marketing
8 13 (1.68%) Police
9 10 (1.30%) Documentation Skills
9 10 (1.30%) Financial Institution
10 9 (1.17%) Legal
11 7 (0.91%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 7 (0.91%) Investment Banking
12 6 (0.78%) Local Government
12 6 (0.78%) Presentation Skills
13 5 (0.65%) Manufacturing
14 2 (0.26%) General Ledger
14 2 (0.26%) Private Banking
14 2 (0.26%) Retail Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (4.40%) Kafka
2 23 (2.98%) PySpark
3 17 (2.20%) Oracle Fusion
4 7 (0.91%) .NET
4 7 (0.91%) Middleware
4 7 (0.91%) REST
5 5 (0.65%) FHIR
5 5 (0.65%) JSON
6 3 (0.39%) LangChain
6 3 (0.39%) LangGraph
6 3 (0.39%) Spark Streaming
7 2 (0.26%) AngularJS
7 2 (0.26%) Apache Avro
7 2 (0.26%) Bootstrap
7 2 (0.26%) Protocol Buffers
7 2 (0.26%) pytest
7 2 (0.26%) React
7 2 (0.26%) Spring Boot
7 2 (0.26%) WebSockets
7 2 (0.26%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 64 (8.29%) Cloud Native
2 40 (5.18%) Data Structures
3 28 (3.63%) Legacy Systems
4 23 (2.98%) Reference Data
5 17 (2.20%) Management Information System
6 16 (2.07%) Data Centre
7 15 (1.94%) AI Agents
7 15 (1.94%) NHS
7 15 (1.94%) Taxonomies
8 13 (1.68%) Data Protection Act
8 13 (1.68%) Onboarding
9 12 (1.55%) IoT
10 11 (1.42%) Product Ownership
11 10 (1.30%) Greenfield Project
11 10 (1.30%) SCADA
12 9 (1.17%) Autonomous Agent
13 8 (1.04%) Data Fabric
13 8 (1.04%) Digital Media
13 8 (1.04%) Distributed Systems
13 8 (1.04%) Mainframe
Operating Systems
1 5 (0.65%) zOS
2 3 (0.39%) Windows
3 2 (0.26%) AIX
3 2 (0.26%) HPUX
3 2 (0.26%) Linux
3 2 (0.26%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 379 (49.09%) Data Architecture
2 327 (42.36%) Data Modelling
3 227 (29.40%) Analytics
4 199 (25.78%) Data Governance
5 189 (24.48%) Migration
6 145 (18.78%) AI
7 129 (16.71%) Business Intelligence
8 127 (16.45%) ETL
9 125 (16.19%) Integration Patterns
10 111 (14.38%) Logical Data Model
11 104 (13.47%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 101 (13.08%) Data Integration
13 98 (12.69%) Data Strategy
14 94 (12.18%) Data Engineering
14 94 (12.18%) Data Pipeline
15 89 (11.53%) Stakeholder Management
16 81 (10.49%) Roadmaps
17 75 (9.72%) Agile
17 75 (9.72%) Data Migration
18 72 (9.33%) Physical Data Model
Programming Languages
1 111 (14.38%) SQL
2 54 (6.99%) Python
3 18 (2.33%) 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%) Apex Code
8 2 (0.26%) Cypher
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
1 248 (32.12%) Security Cleared
2 211 (27.33%) SC Cleared
3 28 (3.63%) DV Cleared
4 25 (3.24%) BPSS Clearance
5 14 (1.81%) Azure Certification
6 12 (1.55%) AWS Certification
7 7 (0.91%) DBS Check
7 7 (0.91%) Degree
8 5 (0.65%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 4 (0.52%) TOGAF Certification
10 3 (0.39%) Computer Science Degree
11 2 (0.26%) Master's Degree
11 2 (0.26%) Microsoft Certified Professional
11 2 (0.26%) VCAP
11 2 (0.26%) VCDX
12 1 (0.13%) CISSP
12 1 (0.13%) Microsoft Certification
12 1 (0.13%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 135 (17.49%) Data Quality
2 40 (5.18%) GDPR
3 12 (1.55%) Accessibility
4 11 (1.42%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 11 (1.42%) QA
5 7 (0.91%) Solvency II
6 6 (0.78%) HL7
6 6 (0.78%) NIST
7 5 (0.65%) IFRS
7 5 (0.65%) IFRS 17
7 5 (0.65%) SNOMED CT
8 4 (0.52%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 3 (0.39%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 3 (0.39%) ISO 20022
9 3 (0.39%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 2 (0.26%) GRC
10 2 (0.26%) GxP
10 2 (0.26%) NCSC
10 2 (0.26%) SLA
11 1 (0.13%) Good Clinical Practice
System Software
1 3 (0.39%) Active Directory
1 3 (0.39%) Docker
2 2 (0.26%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 24 (3.11%) Terraform
2 8 (1.04%) 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
Vendors
1 157 (20.34%) Databricks
2 85 (11.01%) Microsoft
3 39 (5.05%) Oracle
4 21 (2.72%) Foundry
4 21 (2.72%) Salesforce
4 21 (2.72%) SAP
5 20 (2.59%) Google
6 19 (2.46%) Palantir
7 18 (2.33%) Informatica
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 5 (0.65%) Confluent
13 4 (0.52%) NVIDIA
14 3 (0.39%) Guidewire
14 3 (0.39%) IBM
14 3 (0.39%) MicroStrategy
14 3 (0.39%) Workday