Data Architect Contract Job Trends

Data Architect
UK

The median Data Architect daily rate in the UK is £580, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 5 April 2026.

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

6 months to
5 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 251 250 226
Rank change year-on-year -1 -24 +40
Contract jobs requiring a Data Architect 469 314 463
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.04% 1.07% 1.05%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.12% 1.16% 1.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 346 226 327
10th Percentile £463 £478 £506
25th Percentile £507 £523 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £580 £600 £700
Median % change year-on-year -3.42% -14.29% +3.70%
75th Percentile £675 £713 £775
90th Percentile £788 £799 £875
UK excluding London median daily rate £575 £589 £675
% change year-on-year -2.34% -12.78% +3.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 4 7
10th Percentile - £66.25 £47.53
25th Percentile £64.00 £71.88 £51.51
Median hourly rate £69.00 £80.25 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year -14.02% +33.75% -14.29%
75th Percentile £69.44 £82.94 -
90th Percentile £78.48 £84.18 £64.80
UK excluding London median hourly rate £69.00 £80.50 £60.00
% change year-on-year -14.29% +34.17% -14.29%

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 41,784 27,118 40,940
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.22% 92.78% 92.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,031 17,841 26,815
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £406 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -3.31%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +2.63% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,612 956 2,534
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.99 £12.86
25th Percentile £19.91 £20.26 £16.25
Median hourly rate £40.00 £32.00 £33.78
Median % change year-on-year +25.00% -5.26% -24.15%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £76.25 £71.60
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.06 £31.29 £34.61
% change year-on-year +31.21% -9.58% -18.32%

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 April 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 April 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 April 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 -26 393 £581 -3.51% 172
London -18 214 £575 -11.54% 73
UK excluding London -14 183 £575 -2.34% 135
Work from Home -4 139 £582 -3.04% 53
Midlands -22 52 £581 -3.57% 18
West Midlands -14 48 £581 -5.08% 11
South West -7 36 £628 +21.26% 22
North of England -77 35 £588 -2.02% 25
Scotland +19 25 £550 -12.00% 11
South East -46 25 £575 - 43
North West -52 17 £575 +9.52% 9
East of England -22 16 £505 -20.78% 15
Yorkshire -51 14 £610 -21.79% 11
North East -11 7 £550 -8.28% 5
East Midlands -31 4 £445 +25.11% 7
Wales -13 2 £768 +225.21% 4

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

For the 6 months to 5 April 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.

1 251 (53.52%) Data Architecture
2 237 (50.53%) Data Modelling
3 176 (37.53%) Analytics
4 160 (34.12%) Azure
5 155 (33.05%) Data Governance
6 120 (25.59%) AWS
7 112 (23.88%) Metadata
8 111 (23.67%) Security Cleared
9 107 (22.81%) SQL
10 102 (21.75%) Data Warehouse
11 100 (21.32%) ETL
12 98 (20.90%) Data Quality
13 97 (20.68%) Databricks
14 96 (20.47%) Business Intelligence
15 85 (18.12%) SC Cleared
16 80 (17.06%) Data Integration
17 79 (16.84%) AI
18 78 (16.63%) Migration
19 72 (15.35%) Microsoft
20 68 (14.50%) Data Lake
21 65 (13.86%) Data Strategy
22 63 (13.43%) Data Engineering
22 63 (13.43%) Data Pipeline
22 63 (13.43%) Python
23 62 (13.22%) Power Platform
24 61 (13.01%) Machine Learning
24 61 (13.01%) Metadata Management
25 59 (12.58%) Logical Data Model
26 58 (12.37%) Architectural Patterns
26 58 (12.37%) Data 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 (3.84%) Apache Spark
2 15 (3.20%) SAS
3 13 (2.77%) SharePoint
4 11 (2.35%) Apache Airflow
5 10 (2.13%) Apache
6 5 (1.07%) Palantir Foundry
7 2 (0.43%) Alfresco
7 2 (0.43%) Confluence
8 1 (0.21%) Appian
8 1 (0.21%) Ethereum
8 1 (0.21%) Hyperledger
8 1 (0.21%) Jupyter
8 1 (0.21%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 3 (0.64%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.21%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 10 (2.13%) SAP S/4HANA
2 7 (1.49%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 5 (1.07%) Salesforce CRM
4 2 (0.43%) SAP ERP
5 1 (0.21%) Distributed Ledger
5 1 (0.21%) Dynamics AX
5 1 (0.21%) NEC Housing
5 1 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.21%) Oracle ERP
5 1 (0.21%) R3 Corda
5 1 (0.21%) SAP MDM
Cloud Services
1 160 (34.12%) Azure
2 120 (25.59%) AWS
3 62 (13.22%) Power Platform
4 45 (9.59%) Azure Synapse Analytics
4 45 (9.59%) GCP
5 42 (8.96%) Snowflake
6 41 (8.74%) Azure Data Factory
7 32 (6.82%) Microsoft Purview
8 28 (5.97%) Serverless
9 19 (4.05%) Amazon S3
9 19 (4.05%) Azure DevOps
10 17 (3.62%) AWS Lambda
10 17 (3.62%) dbt
11 13 (2.77%) GitHub
12 12 (2.56%) Amazon Kinesis
13 11 (2.35%) Azure Cosmos DB
14 10 (2.13%) Collibra
14 10 (2.13%) GitHub Actions
15 8 (1.71%) AWS Step Functions
15 8 (1.71%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 4 (0.85%) Firewall
2 2 (0.43%) BGP
2 2 (0.43%) DNS
2 2 (0.43%) DSL
2 2 (0.43%) Hyperconnected
2 2 (0.43%) OSPF
2 2 (0.43%) Structured Cabling
2 2 (0.43%) VXLAN
3 1 (0.21%) DWDM
3 1 (0.21%) LAN
3 1 (0.21%) Network Security
3 1 (0.21%) SMS
3 1 (0.21%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 112 (23.88%) Metadata
2 102 (21.75%) Data Warehouse
3 68 (14.50%) Data Lake
4 56 (11.94%) Power BI
5 29 (6.18%) NoSQL
5 29 (6.18%) SQL Server
6 25 (5.33%) PostgreSQL
7 24 (5.12%) Big Data
8 21 (4.48%) Amazon Redshift
8 21 (4.48%) Metadata Repository
9 19 (4.05%) Azure SQL Database
10 16 (3.41%) Data Vault
10 16 (3.41%) Oracle Database
10 16 (3.41%) Tableau
11 14 (2.99%) Delta Lake
12 13 (2.77%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 12 (2.56%) Hadoop
14 11 (2.35%) Amazon Athena
15 10 (2.13%) MongoDB
16 9 (1.92%) DB2
Development Applications
1 25 (5.33%) ERwin
2 5 (1.07%) Jenkins
3 4 (0.85%) GitLab
4 3 (0.64%) ER Studio
4 3 (0.64%) Git
5 1 (0.21%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.21%) MLflow
5 1 (0.21%) PowerDesigner
General
1 94 (20.04%) Social Skills
2 75 (15.99%) Finance
3 53 (11.30%) Public Sector
4 41 (8.74%) Analytical Skills
5 22 (4.69%) Retail
6 16 (3.41%) Banking
7 10 (2.13%) Documentation Skills
8 8 (1.71%) Financial Institution
9 7 (1.49%) Influencing Skills
10 6 (1.28%) Investment Banking
10 6 (1.28%) Local Government
11 5 (1.07%) Marketing
12 4 (0.85%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 4 (0.85%) Manufacturing
12 4 (0.85%) Presentation Skills
13 3 (0.64%) Law
14 2 (0.43%) Legal
14 2 (0.43%) Pharmaceutical
15 1 (0.21%) Advertising
15 1 (0.21%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 33 (7.04%) Kafka
2 14 (2.99%) PySpark
3 7 (1.49%) Apache Avro
3 7 (1.49%) Protocol Buffers
4 5 (1.07%) Middleware
4 5 (1.07%) Oracle Fusion
5 4 (0.85%) .NET
5 4 (0.85%) FHIR
5 4 (0.85%) JSON
5 4 (0.85%) REST
6 3 (0.64%) AWS CDK
6 3 (0.64%) Lightning Web Components
6 3 (0.64%) SOAP
7 2 (0.43%) OpenTelemetry
8 1 (0.21%) GraphQL
8 1 (0.21%) Great Expectations
8 1 (0.21%) OpenAPI
8 1 (0.21%) Spark Streaming
8 1 (0.21%) Spring Boot
8 1 (0.21%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 32 (6.82%) Cloud Native
2 31 (6.61%) Data Structures
3 17 (3.62%) Reference Data
4 15 (3.20%) NHS
5 13 (2.77%) Legacy Systems
6 11 (2.35%) IoT
7 10 (2.13%) Mainframe
8 8 (1.71%) Data Centre
8 8 (1.71%) Data Fabric
8 8 (1.71%) FMCG
8 8 (1.71%) Hybrid Cloud
8 8 (1.71%) Product Ownership
9 7 (1.49%) Greenfield Project
9 7 (1.49%) Management Information System
10 6 (1.28%) Distributed Computing
10 6 (1.28%) Distributed Systems
10 6 (1.28%) Taxonomies
11 5 (1.07%) AI Agents
11 5 (1.07%) Onboarding
11 5 (1.07%) Reinsurance
Operating Systems
1 9 (1.92%) zOS
2 2 (0.43%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 251 (53.52%) Data Architecture
2 237 (50.53%) Data Modelling
3 176 (37.53%) Analytics
4 155 (33.05%) Data Governance
5 100 (21.32%) ETL
6 96 (20.47%) Business Intelligence
7 80 (17.06%) Data Integration
8 79 (16.84%) AI
9 78 (16.63%) Migration
10 65 (13.86%) Data Strategy
11 63 (13.43%) Data Engineering
11 63 (13.43%) Data Pipeline
12 61 (13.01%) Machine Learning
12 61 (13.01%) Metadata Management
13 59 (12.58%) Logical Data Model
14 58 (12.37%) Architectural Patterns
14 58 (12.37%) Data Management
15 57 (12.15%) Agile
16 55 (11.73%) Physical Data Model
17 53 (11.30%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 107 (22.81%) SQL
2 63 (13.43%) Python
3 13 (2.77%) Java
4 7 (1.49%) T-SQL
5 6 (1.28%) Scala
6 5 (1.07%) PowerShell
7 4 (0.85%) Bicep
8 3 (0.64%) Apex Code
9 2 (0.43%) Bash
9 2 (0.43%) COBOL
9 2 (0.43%) JavaScript
9 2 (0.43%) Kotlin
9 2 (0.43%) PL/SQL
9 2 (0.43%) R
9 2 (0.43%) SPARQL
10 1 (0.21%) ANSI SQL
10 1 (0.21%) C++
10 1 (0.21%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 1 (0.21%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 111 (23.67%) Security Cleared
2 85 (18.12%) SC Cleared
3 21 (4.48%) Azure Certification
4 19 (4.05%) Degree
5 16 (3.41%) BPSS Clearance
6 14 (2.99%) Master's Degree
7 13 (2.77%) DV Cleared
8 10 (2.13%) TOGAF Certification
9 9 (1.92%) Microsoft Certification
10 7 (1.49%) AWS Certification
10 7 (1.49%) Computer Science Degree
11 2 (0.43%) VCAP
11 2 (0.43%) VCDX
12 1 (0.21%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 1 (0.21%) MySQL Certification
12 1 (0.21%) Oracle Certification
12 1 (0.21%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 98 (20.90%) Data Quality
2 36 (7.68%) GDPR
3 15 (3.20%) QA
4 8 (1.71%) Accessibility
5 5 (1.07%) California Consumer Privacy Act
6 4 (0.85%) HL7
6 4 (0.85%) ISO 20022
6 4 (0.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 3 (0.64%) SNOMED CT
8 2 (0.43%) CRD IV
8 2 (0.43%) FINREP
8 2 (0.43%) HIPAA
8 2 (0.43%) IFRS
8 2 (0.43%) PCI DSS
8 2 (0.43%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 1 (0.21%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 4 (0.85%) VMware Infrastructure
2 3 (0.64%) Docker
3 2 (0.43%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.43%) VMware NSX
3 2 (0.43%) vSphere
4 1 (0.21%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 27 (5.76%) Terraform
2 7 (1.49%) Ansible
2 7 (1.49%) Kubernetes
3 5 (1.07%) Grafana
4 4 (0.85%) Prometheus
5 2 (0.43%) Argo
5 2 (0.43%) vCenter Server
6 1 (0.21%) Kubeflow
Vendors
1 97 (20.68%) Databricks
2 72 (15.35%) Microsoft
3 34 (7.25%) Oracle
4 24 (5.12%) Salesforce
5 22 (4.69%) Informatica
6 18 (3.84%) SAP
7 11 (2.35%) Talend
8 9 (1.92%) Confluent
9 8 (1.71%) Google
10 7 (1.49%) Foundry
10 7 (1.49%) Palantir
11 6 (1.28%) Remedy
12 5 (1.07%) Sparx
13 4 (0.85%) IBM
13 4 (0.85%) MicroStrategy
13 4 (0.85%) VMware
14 3 (0.64%) Ab Initio
14 3 (0.64%) Ariba
14 3 (0.64%) Cognos
15 2 (0.43%) Red Hat