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 17 September 2026.

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

6 months to
17 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 191 286 290
Rank change year-on-year +95 +4 -22
Contract jobs requiring a Data Architect 826 302 311
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.51% 0.92% 0.81%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.64% 1.01% 0.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 594 192 216
10th Percentile £463 £451 £488
25th Percentile £533 £513 £530
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £600 £625
Median % change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% -7.41%
75th Percentile £688 £713 £750
90th Percentile £775 £775 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £626 £575 £625
% change year-on-year +8.78% -8.00% -3.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 2 9
10th Percentile - £41.31 £58.50
25th Percentile £46.00 £44.85 -
Median hourly rate £47.00 £51.98 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year -9.58% -13.37% -1.23%
75th Percentile £70.00 £60.37 -
90th Percentile - £64.65 £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 50,473 30,002 35,564
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.35% 91.08% 92.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,930 18,956 21,934
10th Percentile £328 £278 £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 £626 £621 £638
90th Percentile £727 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,805 1,570 1,684
10th Percentile £14.59 £13.75 £14.73
25th Percentile £20.31 £17.30 £20.30
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% -2.01%
75th Percentile £67.84 £52.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +5.88%

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 17 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 17 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 17 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 +75 698 £625 +4.17% 621
London +49 376 £608 +1.29% 369
UK excluding London +61 315 £626 +8.78% 282
Work from Home +47 228 £638 +5.81% 262
Midlands +21 100 £638 +6.25% 62
West Midlands +3 79 £650 +8.33% 43
North of England -46 64 £663 +23.26% 67
South East -28 51 £613 -2.00% 63
South West -5 43 £663 +35.90% 29
Yorkshire -22 37 £675 +22.73% 23
East of England -3 35 £563 -4.26% 10
North West -34 25 £600 +14.29% 36
East Midlands +11 21 £606 +1.04% 19
Scotland -19 21 £633 +26.50% 40
North East - 5 £550 - 8
Wales - 1 £475 - 3

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

For the 6 months to 17 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.

1 416 (50.36%) Data Architecture
2 351 (42.49%) Data Modelling
3 296 (35.84%) Security Cleared
4 267 (32.32%) Azure
5 249 (30.15%) SC Cleared
6 241 (29.18%) Analytics
7 237 (28.69%) Data Governance
8 207 (25.06%) Migration
9 192 (23.24%) AWS
10 186 (22.52%) Databricks
11 168 (20.34%) Data Quality
12 166 (20.10%) AI
13 160 (19.37%) Metadata
14 138 (16.71%) Data Lake
15 137 (16.59%) Data Warehouse
16 136 (16.46%) Stakeholder Management
17 129 (15.62%) Business Intelligence
17 129 (15.62%) Integration Patterns
18 124 (15.01%) SQL
18 124 (15.01%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 123 (14.89%) ETL
20 122 (14.77%) Logical Data Model
21 115 (13.92%) Lakehouse
22 110 (13.32%) Data Strategy
23 105 (12.71%) Data Integration
24 100 (12.11%) Roadmaps
25 97 (11.74%) Data Engineering
26 96 (11.62%) Technical Leadership
27 91 (11.02%) Decision-Making
28 90 (10.90%) Power Platform

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 (3.27%) SAS
2 23 (2.78%) Apache Spark
3 22 (2.66%) Apache
4 19 (2.30%) Apache Airflow
5 18 (2.18%) 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 (0.73%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.12%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 7 (0.85%) 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
1 267 (32.32%) Azure
2 192 (23.24%) AWS
3 90 (10.90%) Power Platform
4 85 (10.29%) GCP
5 73 (8.84%) Snowflake
6 54 (6.54%) Azure Synapse Analytics
7 46 (5.57%) Azure Data Factory
8 35 (4.24%) dbt
9 30 (3.63%) Amazon S3
10 25 (3.03%) Serverless
11 22 (2.66%) Microsoft Purview
11 22 (2.66%) SaaS
12 20 (2.42%) AWS Lambda
12 20 (2.42%) Azure Databricks
13 16 (1.94%) Azure DevOps
14 12 (1.45%) Amazon EMR
14 12 (1.45%) Collibra
15 11 (1.33%) Amazon Kinesis
16 9 (1.09%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 8 (0.97%) GitHub
Communications & Networking
1 2 (0.24%) DSL
1 2 (0.24%) Network Security
1 2 (0.24%) SAN
1 2 (0.24%) VPN
2 1 (0.12%) BGP
2 1 (0.12%) Firewall
2 1 (0.12%) OSPF
2 1 (0.12%) Radio Access Network
2 1 (0.12%) SMS
2 1 (0.12%) Structured Cabling
2 1 (0.12%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 160 (19.37%) Metadata
2 138 (16.71%) Data Lake
3 137 (16.59%) Data Warehouse
4 85 (10.29%) Power BI
5 44 (5.33%) NoSQL
6 30 (3.63%) Amazon Redshift
7 29 (3.51%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
8 27 (3.27%) BigQuery
9 20 (2.42%) Semantic Layer
10 19 (2.30%) Azure SQL Database
10 19 (2.30%) PostgreSQL
11 17 (2.06%) Data Vault
11 17 (2.06%) Delta Lake
12 16 (1.94%) Base SAS
12 16 (1.94%) Snowflake Schema
13 15 (1.82%) SQL Server
13 15 (1.82%) Star Schema
14 13 (1.57%) Big Data
14 13 (1.57%) Elasticsearch
14 13 (1.57%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 17 (2.06%) ERwin
2 10 (1.21%) Git
3 6 (0.73%) GitLab
4 5 (0.61%) 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
1 172 (20.82%) Social Skills
2 143 (17.31%) Public Sector
3 123 (14.89%) Finance
4 63 (7.63%) Analytical Skills
5 36 (4.36%) Banking
6 34 (4.12%) Retail
7 32 (3.87%) Influencing Skills
8 16 (1.94%) Marketing
9 14 (1.69%) Police
10 12 (1.45%) Documentation Skills
11 10 (1.21%) Legal
12 8 (0.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 7 (0.85%) Local Government
13 7 (0.85%) Presentation Skills
14 5 (0.61%) Billing
14 5 (0.61%) Manufacturing
14 5 (0.61%) Military
15 4 (0.48%) Financial Institution
16 3 (0.36%) Investment Banking
17 2 (0.24%) General Ledger
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 28 (3.39%) Kafka
1 28 (3.39%) PySpark
1 28 (3.39%) Terraform
2 20 (2.42%) Oracle Fusion
3 10 (1.21%) REST
4 7 (0.85%) JSON
5 6 (0.73%) FHIR
6 5 (0.61%) Apache NiFi
7 4 (0.48%) .NET
7 4 (0.48%) Apache Avro
7 4 (0.48%) Middleware
7 4 (0.48%) SOAP
8 3 (0.36%) LangChain
8 3 (0.36%) LangGraph
8 3 (0.36%) Spark Streaming
8 3 (0.36%) XML
9 2 (0.24%) AngularJS
9 2 (0.24%) Model Context Protocol
9 2 (0.24%) Protocol Buffers
9 2 (0.24%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 61 (7.38%) Cloud Native
2 41 (4.96%) Data Structures
3 26 (3.15%) Legacy Systems
4 21 (2.54%) Reference Data
5 20 (2.42%) Onboarding
6 18 (2.18%) Management Information System
7 17 (2.06%) AI Agents
7 17 (2.06%) Data Centre
7 17 (2.06%) Data Fabric
8 15 (1.82%) Taxonomies
9 14 (1.69%) Data Protection Act
10 13 (1.57%) Reinsurance
11 12 (1.45%) Product Ownership
12 11 (1.33%) Autonomous Agent
12 11 (1.33%) NHS
13 10 (1.21%) Replication
14 9 (1.09%) Clustering
14 9 (1.09%) Enterprise Software
15 8 (0.97%) Digital Media
15 8 (0.97%) 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
1 416 (50.36%) Data Architecture
2 351 (42.49%) Data Modelling
3 241 (29.18%) Analytics
4 237 (28.69%) Data Governance
5 207 (25.06%) Migration
6 166 (20.10%) AI
7 136 (16.46%) Stakeholder Management
8 129 (15.62%) Business Intelligence
8 129 (15.62%) Integration Patterns
9 124 (15.01%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 123 (14.89%) ETL
11 122 (14.77%) Logical Data Model
12 115 (13.92%) Lakehouse
13 110 (13.32%) Data Strategy
14 105 (12.71%) Data Integration
15 100 (12.11%) Roadmaps
16 97 (11.74%) Data Engineering
17 96 (11.62%) Technical Leadership
18 91 (11.02%) Decision-Making
19 89 (10.77%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 124 (15.01%) SQL
2 58 (7.02%) Python
3 18 (2.18%) Java
4 7 (0.85%) Bicep
4 7 (0.85%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 5 (0.61%) 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
1 296 (35.84%) Security Cleared
2 249 (30.15%) SC Cleared
3 35 (4.24%) DV Cleared
4 34 (4.12%) BPSS Clearance
5 12 (1.45%) AWS Certification
6 11 (1.33%) Azure Certification
7 7 (0.85%) DBS Check
8 6 (0.73%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 6 (0.73%) Degree
9 4 (0.48%) TOGAF Certification
10 3 (0.36%) Microsoft Certification
11 2 (0.24%) Computer Science Degree
11 2 (0.24%) Microsoft Certified Professional
12 1 (0.12%) CISSP
12 1 (0.12%) Master's Degree
12 1 (0.12%) Oracle Certification
12 1 (0.12%) SnowPro
12 1 (0.12%) VCAP
12 1 (0.12%) VCDX
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 168 (20.34%) Data Quality
2 34 (4.12%) GDPR
3 13 (1.57%) Accessibility
4 9 (1.09%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 8 (0.97%) NCSC
6 7 (0.85%) NIST
6 7 (0.85%) SNOMED CT
6 7 (0.85%) Solvency II
7 6 (0.73%) IFRS
7 6 (0.73%) QA
8 5 (0.61%) 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 2 (0.24%) VMware Infrastructure
3 1 (0.12%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.12%) VMware ESXi
3 1 (0.12%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 8 (0.97%) Kubernetes
2 5 (0.61%) Grafana
3 4 (0.48%) Single Sign-On
4 3 (0.36%) Ansible
4 3 (0.36%) Istio
4 3 (0.36%) Prometheus
5 2 (0.24%) Argo
5 2 (0.24%) NetBackup
6 1 (0.12%) Control-M
Vendors
1 186 (22.52%) Databricks
2 89 (10.77%) Microsoft
3 42 (5.08%) Oracle
4 24 (2.91%) Informatica
5 23 (2.78%) Google
6 21 (2.54%) Foundry
7 19 (2.30%) Palantir
7 19 (2.30%) SAP
8 16 (1.94%) Salesforce
9 13 (1.57%) Talend
10 11 (1.33%) Denodo
11 9 (1.09%) Sparx
12 7 (0.85%) IFS
13 6 (0.73%) ServiceNow
14 5 (0.61%) OpenAI
14 5 (0.61%) Teradata
15 4 (0.48%) IBM
15 4 (0.48%) NVIDIA
16 3 (0.36%) Confluent
16 3 (0.36%) Workday