Data Architect Contract Job Trends

Data Architect
UK

The median Data Architect daily rate in the UK is £577, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 13 March 2026.

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

6 months to
13 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 261 239 247
Rank change year-on-year -22 +8 +15
Contract jobs requiring a Data Architect 430 326 434
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.00% 1.11% 0.97%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.09% 1.19% 1.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 318 232 306
10th Percentile £455 £476 £500
25th Percentile £506 £520 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £577 £607 £675
Median % change year-on-year -5.02% -10.07% -
75th Percentile £675 £718 £750
90th Percentile £788 £799 £869
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 39,357 27,378 41,374
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.90% 92.92% 92.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,580 17,687 27,135
10th Percentile £313 £296 £270
25th Percentile £410 £406 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +1.05% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,451 863 2,500
10th Percentile £14.96 £15.47 £13.00
25th Percentile £19.00 £21.24 £16.25
Median hourly rate £35.00 £33.40 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +4.79% +2.77% -23.53%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £59.44
90th Percentile £75.79 £77.44 £71.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.00 £32.50 £32.50
% change year-on-year +7.69% - -19.90%

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 13 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 13 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 13 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 -37 354 £600 -3.42% 108
London -39 190 £600 -5.88% 57
UK excluding London -17 173 £575 -4.17% 81
Work from Home 0 133 £600 -0.58% 45
Midlands -24 51 £575 -4.37% 11
West Midlands -19 48 £580 -5.39% 7
South West -6 34 £625 +6.84% 12
North of England -73 30 £610 -2.40% 14
Scotland +28 27 £540 -20.00% 7
South East -55 24 £575 -1.71% 33
North West -42 16 £600 +11.63% 8
East of England -20 13 £505 -20.78% 1
Yorkshire -53 11 £610 -21.79% 5
North East -16 3 £575 -7.89% 1
East Midlands -34 3 £444 -2.04% 4
Wales -7 2 £768 +225.21% 4

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

For the 6 months to 13 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.

1 241 (56.05%) Data Architecture
2 227 (52.79%) Data Modelling
3 159 (36.98%) Analytics
4 151 (35.12%) Azure
5 149 (34.65%) Data Governance
6 115 (26.74%) AWS
7 107 (24.88%) Metadata
8 106 (24.65%) Data Warehouse
9 100 (23.26%) SQL
10 99 (23.02%) Security Cleared
11 95 (22.09%) ETL
12 93 (21.63%) Data Quality
13 86 (20.00%) Business Intelligence
14 77 (17.91%) Databricks
14 77 (17.91%) SC Cleared
15 75 (17.44%) Data Integration
16 74 (17.21%) Migration
17 72 (16.74%) AI
18 66 (15.35%) Microsoft
19 65 (15.12%) Python
20 62 (14.42%) Data Strategy
21 61 (14.19%) Data Lake
22 59 (13.72%) Metadata Management
22 59 (13.72%) Power Platform
23 57 (13.26%) Data Management
23 57 (13.26%) Data Pipeline
24 56 (13.02%) Logical Data Model
24 56 (13.02%) Physical Data Model
25 55 (12.79%) Agile
25 55 (12.79%) Power BI

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 (4.19%) Apache Spark
2 15 (3.49%) SAS
3 12 (2.79%) SharePoint
4 11 (2.56%) Apache Airflow
5 9 (2.09%) Apache
6 2 (0.47%) Confluence
6 2 (0.47%) Palantir Foundry
7 1 (0.23%) Appian
7 1 (0.23%) Ethereum
7 1 (0.23%) Hyperledger
7 1 (0.23%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 3 (0.70%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.23%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 8 (1.86%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (1.40%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 5 (1.16%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.23%) Distributed Ledger
4 1 (0.23%) Dynamics AX
4 1 (0.23%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.23%) iTrent
4 1 (0.23%) NEC Housing
4 1 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.23%) R3 Corda
4 1 (0.23%) SAP MDM
4 1 (0.23%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 151 (35.12%) Azure
2 115 (26.74%) AWS
3 59 (13.72%) Power Platform
4 43 (10.00%) Azure Synapse Analytics
5 42 (9.77%) Azure Data Factory
6 37 (8.60%) GCP
7 36 (8.37%) Snowflake
8 32 (7.44%) Serverless
9 28 (6.51%) Microsoft Purview
10 21 (4.88%) Amazon S3
11 18 (4.19%) AWS Lambda
11 18 (4.19%) Azure DevOps
12 15 (3.49%) dbt
13 12 (2.79%) GitHub
14 11 (2.56%) Amazon Kinesis
15 10 (2.33%) Azure Cosmos DB
16 9 (2.09%) Collibra
17 8 (1.86%) AWS Step Functions
17 8 (1.86%) Azure Functions
17 8 (1.86%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 3 (0.70%) Firewall
2 2 (0.47%) DNS
2 2 (0.47%) DSL
2 2 (0.47%) Hyperconnected
3 1 (0.23%) BGP
3 1 (0.23%) DWDM
3 1 (0.23%) LAN
3 1 (0.23%) Network Security
3 1 (0.23%) OSPF
3 1 (0.23%) Structured Cabling
3 1 (0.23%) VPN
3 1 (0.23%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 107 (24.88%) Metadata
2 106 (24.65%) Data Warehouse
3 61 (14.19%) Data Lake
4 55 (12.79%) Power BI
5 32 (7.44%) PostgreSQL
6 31 (7.21%) SQL Server
7 26 (6.05%) NoSQL
8 24 (5.58%) Big Data
9 23 (5.35%) Amazon Redshift
10 21 (4.88%) Metadata Repository
11 19 (4.42%) Azure SQL Database
12 18 (4.19%) Tableau
13 15 (3.49%) Amazon Athena
13 15 (3.49%) Data Vault
13 15 (3.49%) Oracle Database
14 14 (3.26%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 13 (3.02%) Delta Lake
15 13 (3.02%) Hadoop
16 12 (2.79%) Amazon Aurora
16 12 (2.79%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 21 (4.88%) ERwin
2 8 (1.86%) Jenkins
3 7 (1.63%) Git
4 3 (0.70%) ER Studio
4 3 (0.70%) GitLab
5 1 (0.23%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.23%) PowerDesigner
5 1 (0.23%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 91 (21.16%) Social Skills
2 69 (16.05%) Finance
3 49 (11.40%) Public Sector
4 42 (9.77%) Analytical Skills
5 16 (3.72%) Banking
6 15 (3.49%) Retail
7 7 (1.63%) Documentation Skills
7 7 (1.63%) Financial Institution
8 6 (1.40%) Influencing Skills
8 6 (1.40%) Investment Banking
8 6 (1.40%) Local Government
9 5 (1.16%) Presentation Skills
10 4 (0.93%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 4 (0.93%) Manufacturing
11 2 (0.47%) Law
11 2 (0.47%) Legal
11 2 (0.47%) Pharmaceutical
12 1 (0.23%) Advertising
12 1 (0.23%) Military
12 1 (0.23%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 28 (6.51%) Kafka
2 14 (3.26%) PySpark
3 7 (1.63%) Apache Avro
3 7 (1.63%) Protocol Buffers
4 4 (0.93%) FHIR
4 4 (0.93%) REST
5 3 (0.70%) AWS CDK
5 3 (0.70%) Lightning Web Components
5 3 (0.70%) Middleware
5 3 (0.70%) Node.js
5 3 (0.70%) SOAP
6 2 (0.47%) .NET
6 2 (0.47%) OpenTelemetry
6 2 (0.47%) Oracle Fusion
7 1 (0.23%) ADO
7 1 (0.23%) Apache NiFi
7 1 (0.23%) ARM Templates
7 1 (0.23%) Model Context Protocol
7 1 (0.23%) OpenAPI
7 1 (0.23%) Smart Contracts
Miscellaneous
1 33 (7.67%) Cloud Native
2 31 (7.21%) Data Structures
3 17 (3.95%) Reference Data
4 13 (3.02%) Legacy Systems
5 11 (2.56%) NHS
6 10 (2.33%) Hybrid Cloud
6 10 (2.33%) IoT
6 10 (2.33%) Mainframe
7 9 (2.09%) Distributed Systems
8 8 (1.86%) Data Fabric
8 8 (1.86%) FMCG
8 8 (1.86%) Management Information System
9 7 (1.63%) Product Ownership
9 7 (1.63%) Taxonomies
10 6 (1.40%) Distributed Computing
10 6 (1.40%) Onboarding
10 6 (1.40%) Reinsurance
11 5 (1.16%) AI Agents
11 5 (1.16%) Greenfield Project
12 4 (0.93%) Data Centre
Operating Systems
1 9 (2.09%) zOS
2 2 (0.47%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 241 (56.05%) Data Architecture
2 227 (52.79%) Data Modelling
3 159 (36.98%) Analytics
4 149 (34.65%) Data Governance
5 95 (22.09%) ETL
6 86 (20.00%) Business Intelligence
7 75 (17.44%) Data Integration
8 74 (17.21%) Migration
9 72 (16.74%) AI
10 62 (14.42%) Data Strategy
11 59 (13.72%) Metadata Management
12 57 (13.26%) Data Management
12 57 (13.26%) Data Pipeline
13 56 (13.02%) Logical Data Model
13 56 (13.02%) Physical Data Model
14 55 (12.79%) Agile
15 53 (12.33%) Architectural Patterns
16 52 (12.09%) Data Engineering
16 52 (12.09%) Machine Learning
16 52 (12.09%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 100 (23.26%) SQL
2 65 (15.12%) Python
3 11 (2.56%) Java
4 8 (1.86%) T-SQL
5 6 (1.40%) Scala
6 5 (1.16%) PowerShell
7 3 (0.70%) Apex Code
7 3 (0.70%) JavaScript
7 3 (0.70%) PL/SQL
8 2 (0.47%) Bash
8 2 (0.47%) Bicep
8 2 (0.47%) Kotlin
8 2 (0.47%) R
8 2 (0.47%) SPARQL
9 1 (0.23%) ANSI SQL
9 1 (0.23%) COBOL
9 1 (0.23%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 1 (0.23%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 99 (23.02%) Security Cleared
2 77 (17.91%) SC Cleared
3 21 (4.88%) Azure Certification
3 21 (4.88%) Degree
4 16 (3.72%) BPSS Clearance
5 15 (3.49%) Master's Degree
6 11 (2.56%) AWS Certification
6 11 (2.56%) DV Cleared
7 10 (2.33%) TOGAF Certification
8 9 (2.09%) Microsoft Certification
9 8 (1.86%) Computer Science Degree
10 5 (1.16%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 1 (0.23%) ITIL Certification
11 1 (0.23%) MySQL Certification
11 1 (0.23%) Oracle Certification
11 1 (0.23%) Tableau Certification
11 1 (0.23%) VCAP
11 1 (0.23%) VCDX
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 93 (21.63%) Data Quality
2 33 (7.67%) GDPR
3 15 (3.49%) QA
4 11 (2.56%) Accessibility
5 5 (1.16%) California Consumer Privacy Act
6 4 (0.93%) ISO 20022
7 3 (0.70%) HIPAA
7 3 (0.70%) HL7
7 3 (0.70%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 2 (0.47%) CRD IV
8 2 (0.47%) FINREP
8 2 (0.47%) IFRS
8 2 (0.47%) PCI DSS
8 2 (0.47%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 2 (0.47%) SNOMED CT
9 1 (0.23%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 3 (0.70%) Docker
1 3 (0.70%) VMware Infrastructure
2 2 (0.47%) Active Directory
2 2 (0.47%) HDFS
2 2 (0.47%) VMware NSX
2 2 (0.47%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 29 (6.74%) Terraform
2 9 (2.09%) Ansible
3 6 (1.40%) Kubernetes
4 5 (1.16%) Grafana
5 4 (0.93%) Prometheus
6 2 (0.47%) Argo
6 2 (0.47%) vCenter Server
7 1 (0.23%) Kubeflow
Vendors
1 77 (17.91%) Databricks
2 66 (15.35%) Microsoft
3 30 (6.98%) Oracle
4 21 (4.88%) Informatica
5 20 (4.65%) Salesforce
6 15 (3.49%) SAP
7 10 (2.33%) Google
8 9 (2.09%) Confluent
8 9 (2.09%) Talend
9 7 (1.63%) Remedy
10 5 (1.16%) Greenplum
11 4 (0.93%) Ab Initio
11 4 (0.93%) MicroStrategy
11 4 (0.93%) Palantir
11 4 (0.93%) Sparx
12 3 (0.70%) Dynatrace
12 3 (0.70%) IBM
12 3 (0.70%) VMware
12 3 (0.70%) Workday
13 2 (0.47%) IDERA