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 23 September 2026.

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

6 months to
23 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 182 288 290
Rank change year-on-year +106 +2 -10
Contract jobs requiring a Data Architect 837 290 302
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.53% 0.89% 0.80%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.65% 0.97% 0.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 598 185 207
10th Percentile £463 £458 £483
25th Percentile £533 £513 £525
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £600 £625
Median % change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% -7.41%
75th Percentile £688 £716 £738
90th Percentile £775 £775 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £626 £600 £625
% change year-on-year +4.25% -4.00% -3.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 1 9
10th Percentile £40.50 - £58.50
25th Percentile £46.00 - -
Median hourly rate £47.00 £38.96 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +20.64% -35.07% -1.23%
75th Percentile £70.00 - -
90th Percentile - - £71.77
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.00 £38.96 £60.00
% change year-on-year +20.64% -35.07% -16.67%

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 50,606 29,766 35,027
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.26% 91.04% 92.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,920 18,783 21,484
10th Percentile £325 £276 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
75th Percentile £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £733 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,907 1,587 1,616
10th Percentile £14.50 £13.75 £14.79
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.30 £20.69
Median hourly rate £42.30 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.19% -41.51% -3.37%
75th Percentile £67.70 £51.65 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £69.65 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.08 £43.97
% change year-on-year +69.49% -42.97% +0.50%

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 23 September 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 23 September 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 23 September 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 +101 705 £625 +4.17% 574
London +59 387 £608 +1.29% 353
UK excluding London +71 313 £626 +4.25% 253
Work from Home +42 233 £625 +4.17% 236
Midlands +21 102 £632 +5.33% 64
West Midlands +18 80 £650 +8.33% 45
North of England -43 63 £675 +22.73% 65
South East -22 50 £616 -1.50% 48
South West +1 41 £650 +1.96% 22
Yorkshire -22 35 £750 +36.36% 27
East of England -4 34 £575 -2.13% 8
North West -39 26 £600 +14.29% 29
East Midlands 0 22 £606 +1.04% 19
Scotland -14 22 £633 +29.74% 38
North East - 3 £600 - 9
Wales - 1 £475 - 2

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

For the 6 months to 23 September 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.

1 423 (50.54%) Data Architecture
2 352 (42.05%) Data Modelling
3 301 (35.96%) Security Cleared
4 268 (32.02%) Azure
5 254 (30.35%) SC Cleared
6 246 (29.39%) Analytics
7 240 (28.67%) Data Governance
8 213 (25.45%) Migration
9 196 (23.42%) AWS
10 186 (22.22%) Databricks
11 171 (20.43%) Data Quality
12 166 (19.83%) AI
12 166 (19.83%) Metadata
13 139 (16.61%) Data Lake
13 139 (16.61%) Data Warehouse
14 136 (16.25%) Stakeholder Management
15 130 (15.53%) Integration Patterns
16 124 (14.81%) Business Intelligence
16 124 (14.81%) ETL
16 124 (14.81%) SQL
16 124 (14.81%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 122 (14.58%) Logical Data Model
18 116 (13.86%) Lakehouse
19 110 (13.14%) Data Strategy
20 104 (12.43%) Data Integration
21 103 (12.31%) Roadmaps
22 98 (11.71%) Technical Leadership
23 97 (11.59%) Data Engineering
24 92 (10.99%) Decision-Making
25 91 (10.87%) Data Pipeline

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 27 (3.23%) SAS
2 24 (2.87%) Apache Spark
3 23 (2.75%) Apache
4 20 (2.39%) Apache Airflow
5 18 (2.15%) Palantir Foundry
6 4 (0.48%) Confluence
6 4 (0.48%) SharePoint
7 2 (0.24%) Alfresco
7 2 (0.24%) PowerExchange
8 1 (0.12%) Apache Superset
8 1 (0.12%) JBoss
8 1 (0.12%) Jupyter
Applications
1 6 (0.72%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.12%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 8 (0.96%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 4 (0.48%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (0.24%) SAP ERP
3 2 (0.24%) Workday HCM
4 1 (0.12%) Aladdin
4 1 (0.12%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.12%) iTrent
4 1 (0.12%) Maximo
4 1 (0.12%) NEC Housing
4 1 (0.12%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.12%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 268 (32.02%) Azure
2 196 (23.42%) AWS
3 89 (10.63%) Power Platform
4 86 (10.27%) GCP
5 78 (9.32%) Snowflake
6 55 (6.57%) Azure Synapse Analytics
7 47 (5.62%) Azure Data Factory
8 37 (4.42%) dbt
9 30 (3.58%) Amazon S3
10 25 (2.99%) Serverless
11 23 (2.75%) Microsoft Purview
12 22 (2.63%) SaaS
13 20 (2.39%) AWS Lambda
13 20 (2.39%) Azure Databricks
14 15 (1.79%) Azure DevOps
15 13 (1.55%) Collibra
16 12 (1.43%) Amazon EMR
17 11 (1.31%) Amazon Kinesis
18 9 (1.08%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 8 (0.96%) GitHub
Communications & Networking
1 3 (0.36%) Network Security
1 3 (0.36%) SAN
2 2 (0.24%) DSL
2 2 (0.24%) VPN
3 1 (0.12%) Firewall
3 1 (0.12%) NAS
3 1 (0.12%) Radio Access Network
3 1 (0.12%) SMS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 166 (19.83%) Metadata
2 139 (16.61%) Data Lake
2 139 (16.61%) Data Warehouse
3 84 (10.04%) Power BI
4 44 (5.26%) NoSQL
5 30 (3.58%) Amazon Redshift
6 29 (3.46%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
7 27 (3.23%) BigQuery
8 20 (2.39%) Azure SQL Database
8 20 (2.39%) Semantic Layer
9 19 (2.27%) Data Vault
9 19 (2.27%) PostgreSQL
10 17 (2.03%) Delta Lake
10 17 (2.03%) Snowflake Schema
11 16 (1.91%) Base SAS
12 15 (1.79%) SQL Server
12 15 (1.79%) Star Schema
13 13 (1.55%) Big Data
13 13 (1.55%) Elasticsearch
13 13 (1.55%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 14 (1.67%) ERwin
2 10 (1.19%) Git
3 6 (0.72%) GitLab
4 5 (0.60%) ER Studio
5 4 (0.48%) JIRA
6 3 (0.36%) MLflow
6 3 (0.36%) Oracle Forms
7 2 (0.24%) Jenkins
7 2 (0.24%) RStudio
8 1 (0.12%) Claude Code
8 1 (0.12%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 178 (21.27%) Social Skills
2 146 (17.44%) Public Sector
3 123 (14.70%) Finance
4 63 (7.53%) Analytical Skills
5 36 (4.30%) Banking
6 35 (4.18%) Retail
7 32 (3.82%) Influencing Skills
8 16 (1.91%) Marketing
9 14 (1.67%) Police
10 11 (1.31%) Documentation Skills
11 10 (1.19%) Legal
12 9 (1.08%) Presentation Skills
13 8 (0.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 7 (0.84%) Local Government
15 5 (0.60%) Billing
15 5 (0.60%) Manufacturing
15 5 (0.60%) Military
16 4 (0.48%) Financial Institution
17 3 (0.36%) Investment Banking
18 2 (0.24%) General Ledger
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (3.70%) Kafka
2 28 (3.35%) PySpark
3 27 (3.23%) Terraform
4 22 (2.63%) Oracle Fusion
5 11 (1.31%) REST
6 6 (0.72%) FHIR
7 5 (0.60%) Apache NiFi
8 4 (0.48%) .NET
8 4 (0.48%) Apache Avro
8 4 (0.48%) JSON
8 4 (0.48%) SOAP
9 3 (0.36%) LangChain
9 3 (0.36%) LangGraph
9 3 (0.36%) Spark Streaming
9 3 (0.36%) XML
10 2 (0.24%) FastAPI
10 2 (0.24%) JWT
10 2 (0.24%) Model Context Protocol
10 2 (0.24%) OpenTelemetry
10 2 (0.24%) Snowpark
Miscellaneous
1 61 (7.29%) Cloud Native
2 40 (4.78%) Data Structures
3 26 (3.11%) Legacy Systems
4 20 (2.39%) Onboarding
4 20 (2.39%) Reference Data
5 18 (2.15%) Data Centre
5 18 (2.15%) Management Information System
6 17 (2.03%) AI Agents
6 17 (2.03%) Data Fabric
7 15 (1.79%) Data Protection Act
7 15 (1.79%) Taxonomies
8 14 (1.67%) Reinsurance
9 13 (1.55%) Product Ownership
10 11 (1.31%) Autonomous Agent
10 11 (1.31%) NHS
11 10 (1.19%) Replication
12 9 (1.08%) Clustering
13 8 (0.96%) Digital Media
13 8 (0.96%) Enterprise Software
13 8 (0.96%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 3 (0.36%) Linux
1 3 (0.36%) Windows
2 2 (0.24%) AIX
2 2 (0.24%) HPUX
2 2 (0.24%) Solaris
3 1 (0.12%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 423 (50.54%) Data Architecture
2 352 (42.05%) Data Modelling
3 246 (29.39%) Analytics
4 240 (28.67%) Data Governance
5 213 (25.45%) Migration
6 166 (19.83%) AI
7 136 (16.25%) Stakeholder Management
8 130 (15.53%) Integration Patterns
9 124 (14.81%) Business Intelligence
9 124 (14.81%) ETL
9 124 (14.81%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 122 (14.58%) Logical Data Model
11 116 (13.86%) Lakehouse
12 110 (13.14%) Data Strategy
13 104 (12.43%) Data Integration
14 103 (12.31%) Roadmaps
15 98 (11.71%) Technical Leadership
16 97 (11.59%) Data Engineering
17 92 (10.99%) Decision-Making
18 91 (10.87%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 124 (14.81%) SQL
2 55 (6.57%) Python
3 18 (2.15%) Java
4 7 (0.84%) Bicep
4 7 (0.84%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 5 (0.60%) R
6 4 (0.48%) Scala
7 3 (0.36%) T-SQL
8 2 (0.24%) Cypher
8 2 (0.24%) PL/SQL
8 2 (0.24%) PowerShell
8 2 (0.24%) SHACL
8 2 (0.24%) Shell Script
8 2 (0.24%) TypeScript
9 1 (0.12%) C++
9 1 (0.12%) COBOL
9 1 (0.12%) Kotlin
9 1 (0.12%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 301 (35.96%) Security Cleared
2 254 (30.35%) SC Cleared
3 35 (4.18%) DV Cleared
4 34 (4.06%) BPSS Clearance
5 12 (1.43%) AWS Certification
6 10 (1.19%) Azure Certification
7 7 (0.84%) DBS Check
7 7 (0.84%) Degree
8 6 (0.72%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 4 (0.48%) TOGAF Certification
10 3 (0.36%) Microsoft Certification
11 2 (0.24%) Computer Science Degree
11 2 (0.24%) Master's Degree
11 2 (0.24%) Microsoft Certified Professional
12 1 (0.12%) CISSP
12 1 (0.12%) Oracle Certification
12 1 (0.12%) SnowPro
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 171 (20.43%) Data Quality
2 35 (4.18%) GDPR
3 13 (1.55%) Accessibility
4 9 (1.08%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 8 (0.96%) NCSC
6 7 (0.84%) NIST
6 7 (0.84%) SNOMED CT
6 7 (0.84%) Solvency II
7 6 (0.72%) IFRS
7 6 (0.72%) QA
8 5 (0.60%) IFRS 17
9 4 (0.48%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 3 (0.36%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 3 (0.36%) HL7
10 3 (0.36%) ISO 20022
10 3 (0.36%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 2 (0.24%) GRC
11 2 (0.24%) GxP
11 2 (0.24%) SLA
12 1 (0.12%) IFRS 9
System Software
1 3 (0.36%) Docker
2 1 (0.12%) Active Directory
2 1 (0.12%) VMware ESXi
2 1 (0.12%) VMware Infrastructure
2 1 (0.12%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 7 (0.84%) Kubernetes
2 5 (0.60%) Grafana
3 4 (0.48%) Single Sign-On
4 3 (0.36%) Istio
4 3 (0.36%) Prometheus
5 2 (0.24%) Ansible
5 2 (0.24%) Argo
5 2 (0.24%) NetBackup
6 1 (0.12%) Control-M
Vendors
1 186 (22.22%) Databricks
2 91 (10.87%) Microsoft
3 45 (5.38%) Oracle
4 24 (2.87%) Informatica
5 23 (2.75%) Google
6 21 (2.51%) Foundry
7 19 (2.27%) Palantir
7 19 (2.27%) SAP
8 16 (1.91%) Salesforce
9 13 (1.55%) Talend
10 11 (1.31%) Denodo
11 10 (1.19%) Sparx
12 7 (0.84%) IFS
13 6 (0.72%) ServiceNow
14 5 (0.60%) OpenAI
14 5 (0.60%) Teradata
15 4 (0.48%) Confluent
15 4 (0.48%) IBM
15 4 (0.48%) NVIDIA
16 3 (0.36%) Workday