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 24 August 2026.

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

6 months to
24 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 193 276 289
Rank change year-on-year +83 +13 -11
Contract jobs requiring a Data Architect 786 318 319
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.47% 0.96% 0.82%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.58% 1.06% 0.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 566 199 218
10th Percentile £469 £463 £488
25th Percentile £533 £513 £536
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £600 £650
Median % change year-on-year +4.17% -7.69% -3.70%
75th Percentile £688 £714 £750
90th Percentile £775 £780 £849
UK excluding London median daily rate £625 £575 £638
% change year-on-year +8.70% -9.80% -1.92%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 2 10
10th Percentile - £41.31 £59.25
25th Percentile £46.00 £44.85 -
Median hourly rate £58.50 £51.98 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +12.54% -13.37% -9.09%
75th Percentile £70.00 £60.37 -
90th Percentile - £64.65 £65.89
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 49,592 30,105 36,124
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.46% 91.25% 93.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,685 19,016 22,990
10th Percentile £325 £280 £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 £623 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,534 1,573 1,935
10th Percentile £15.00 £13.69 £14.16
25th Percentile £20.67 £17.30 £19.59
Median hourly rate £42.13 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.50% -41.51% -1.71%
75th Percentile £67.84 £53.99 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £71.49 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% +7.50%

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 24 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 24 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 24 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 +79 677 £620 +3.33% 86
London +46 364 £600 - 45
UK excluding London +46 306 £625 +8.70% 59
Work from Home +24 213 £625 +4.17% 46
Midlands +17 90 £625 -3.85% 12
West Midlands +4 72 £650 -3.70% 12
North of England -37 63 £632 +14.91% 18
South East -26 53 £600 +12.94% 20
South West -5 44 £674 +38.15% 6
Yorkshire -18 36 £675 -3.57% 9
East of England +2 34 £550 - 1
North West -36 26 £600 +14.29% 6
Scotland -19 21 £690 +38.00% 2
East Midlands +2 18 £606 +1.04%
North East - 4 £550 - 3
Wales - 1 £475 -

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

For the 6 months to 24 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.

1 384 (48.85%) Data Architecture
2 336 (42.75%) Data Modelling
3 266 (33.84%) Azure
4 258 (32.82%) Security Cleared
5 234 (29.77%) Analytics
6 217 (27.61%) SC Cleared
7 216 (27.48%) Data Governance
8 198 (25.19%) Migration
9 184 (23.41%) AWS
10 174 (22.14%) Databricks
11 153 (19.47%) Data Quality
12 152 (19.34%) AI
13 137 (17.43%) Business Intelligence
14 133 (16.92%) Metadata
15 132 (16.79%) Data Warehouse
16 131 (16.67%) Integration Patterns
17 129 (16.41%) Data Lake
18 128 (16.28%) ETL
19 126 (16.03%) SQL
20 116 (14.76%) Logical Data Model
21 113 (14.38%) Stakeholder Management
22 112 (14.25%) Stakeholder Engagement
23 107 (13.61%) Data Integration
24 102 (12.98%) Data Strategy
25 100 (12.72%) Power Platform
26 99 (12.60%) Data Engineering
27 92 (11.70%) Microsoft
27 92 (11.70%) Power BI
28 87 (11.07%) Data Pipeline
28 87 (11.07%) GCP

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 (3.18%) Apache Spark
1 25 (3.18%) SAS
2 19 (2.42%) Apache
3 18 (2.29%) Palantir Foundry
4 16 (2.04%) Apache Airflow
5 9 (1.15%) SharePoint
6 6 (0.76%) Confluence
7 2 (0.25%) Alfresco
7 2 (0.25%) PowerExchange
8 1 (0.13%) Apache Superset
8 1 (0.13%) JBoss
8 1 (0.13%) Jupyter
Applications
1 6 (0.76%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.13%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 5 (0.64%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 4 (0.51%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (0.25%) SAP ERP
3 2 (0.25%) 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
1 266 (33.84%) Azure
2 184 (23.41%) AWS
3 100 (12.72%) Power Platform
4 87 (11.07%) GCP
5 67 (8.52%) Snowflake
6 56 (7.12%) Azure Synapse Analytics
7 50 (6.36%) Azure Data Factory
8 30 (3.82%) Amazon S3
9 29 (3.69%) Serverless
10 28 (3.56%) dbt
11 27 (3.44%) Microsoft Purview
12 25 (3.18%) AWS Lambda
13 17 (2.16%) Azure DevOps
14 15 (1.91%) SaaS
15 12 (1.53%) Amazon EMR
15 12 (1.53%) Collibra
16 11 (1.40%) Amazon Kinesis
17 10 (1.27%) Azure Cosmos DB
17 10 (1.27%) GitHub
18 9 (1.15%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.64%) Firewall
2 3 (0.38%) Network Security
2 3 (0.38%) VPN
3 2 (0.25%) BGP
3 2 (0.25%) DSL
3 2 (0.25%) OSPF
3 2 (0.25%) SAN
3 2 (0.25%) Structured Cabling
3 2 (0.25%) VXLAN
4 1 (0.13%) Radio Access Network
4 1 (0.13%) SMS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 133 (16.92%) Metadata
2 132 (16.79%) Data Warehouse
3 129 (16.41%) Data Lake
4 92 (11.70%) Power BI
5 46 (5.85%) NoSQL
6 29 (3.69%) Amazon Redshift
7 27 (3.44%) BigQuery
8 25 (3.18%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
9 22 (2.80%) Azure SQL Database
10 20 (2.54%) Delta Lake
11 16 (2.04%) Base SAS
11 16 (2.04%) PostgreSQL
12 15 (1.91%) Data Vault
12 15 (1.91%) Semantic Layer
12 15 (1.91%) Snowflake Schema
12 15 (1.91%) SQL Server
13 14 (1.78%) Big Data
13 14 (1.78%) Tableau
14 13 (1.65%) Amazon Athena
14 13 (1.65%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 19 (2.42%) ERwin
2 10 (1.27%) Git
3 6 (0.76%) GitLab
4 5 (0.64%) ER Studio
5 4 (0.51%) JIRA
6 3 (0.38%) MLflow
7 2 (0.25%) Jenkins
7 2 (0.25%) Oracle Forms
8 1 (0.13%) Claude Code
8 1 (0.13%) RStudio
8 1 (0.13%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 150 (19.08%) Social Skills
2 129 (16.41%) Finance
3 124 (15.78%) Public Sector
4 62 (7.89%) Analytical Skills
5 37 (4.71%) Banking
5 37 (4.71%) Retail
6 20 (2.54%) Influencing Skills
7 17 (2.16%) Marketing
8 14 (1.78%) Police
9 12 (1.53%) Documentation Skills
10 10 (1.27%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 9 (1.15%) Legal
12 7 (0.89%) Financial Institution
12 7 (0.89%) Presentation Skills
13 6 (0.76%) Investment Banking
13 6 (0.76%) Local Government
13 6 (0.76%) Manufacturing
14 4 (0.51%) Military
15 2 (0.25%) Billing
15 2 (0.25%) Publishing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 33 (4.20%) Kafka
1 33 (4.20%) Terraform
2 27 (3.44%) PySpark
3 18 (2.29%) Oracle Fusion
4 8 (1.02%) REST
5 7 (0.89%) .NET
6 5 (0.64%) FHIR
6 5 (0.64%) JSON
6 5 (0.64%) Middleware
7 3 (0.38%) LangChain
7 3 (0.38%) LangGraph
7 3 (0.38%) Spark Streaming
8 2 (0.25%) AngularJS
8 2 (0.25%) Apache Avro
8 2 (0.25%) Bootstrap
8 2 (0.25%) Protocol Buffers
8 2 (0.25%) pytest
8 2 (0.25%) React
8 2 (0.25%) Spring Boot
8 2 (0.25%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 66 (8.40%) Cloud Native
2 39 (4.96%) Data Structures
3 29 (3.69%) Legacy Systems
4 26 (3.31%) Reference Data
5 19 (2.42%) Data Centre
5 19 (2.42%) Management Information System
6 16 (2.04%) AI Agents
7 15 (1.91%) Onboarding
8 14 (1.78%) Data Protection Act
9 13 (1.65%) NHS
10 11 (1.40%) IoT
10 11 (1.40%) Product Ownership
11 10 (1.27%) SCADA
11 10 (1.27%) Taxonomies
12 9 (1.15%) Autonomous Agent
12 9 (1.15%) Data Fabric
12 9 (1.15%) Reinsurance
13 8 (1.02%) Digital Media
13 8 (1.02%) Distributed Systems
13 8 (1.02%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 4 (0.51%) zOS
2 3 (0.38%) Linux
2 3 (0.38%) Windows
3 2 (0.25%) AIX
3 2 (0.25%) HPUX
3 2 (0.25%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 384 (48.85%) Data Architecture
2 336 (42.75%) Data Modelling
3 234 (29.77%) Analytics
4 216 (27.48%) Data Governance
5 198 (25.19%) Migration
6 152 (19.34%) AI
7 137 (17.43%) Business Intelligence
8 131 (16.67%) Integration Patterns
9 128 (16.28%) ETL
10 116 (14.76%) Logical Data Model
11 113 (14.38%) Stakeholder Management
12 112 (14.25%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 107 (13.61%) Data Integration
14 102 (12.98%) Data Strategy
15 99 (12.60%) Data Engineering
16 87 (11.07%) Data Pipeline
17 83 (10.56%) CI/CD
17 83 (10.56%) Roadmaps
18 80 (10.18%) Technical Leadership
19 79 (10.05%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 126 (16.03%) SQL
2 58 (7.38%) Python
3 18 (2.29%) Java
4 9 (1.15%) Bicep
5 7 (0.89%) Data Analysis Expressions
6 5 (0.64%) R
6 5 (0.64%) Scala
7 3 (0.38%) Kotlin
7 3 (0.38%) T-SQL
8 2 (0.25%) Cypher
8 2 (0.25%) PL/SQL
8 2 (0.25%) PowerShell
8 2 (0.25%) SHACL
8 2 (0.25%) Shell Script
8 2 (0.25%) TypeScript
9 1 (0.13%) C++
9 1 (0.13%) COBOL
9 1 (0.13%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 258 (32.82%) Security Cleared
2 217 (27.61%) SC Cleared
3 29 (3.69%) DV Cleared
4 26 (3.31%) BPSS Clearance
5 15 (1.91%) Azure Certification
6 12 (1.53%) AWS Certification
7 7 (0.89%) DBS Check
7 7 (0.89%) Degree
8 5 (0.64%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 3 (0.38%) Computer Science Degree
9 3 (0.38%) TOGAF Certification
10 2 (0.25%) Master's Degree
10 2 (0.25%) Microsoft Certification
10 2 (0.25%) Microsoft Certified Professional
10 2 (0.25%) VCAP
10 2 (0.25%) VCDX
11 1 (0.13%) CISSP
11 1 (0.13%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 153 (19.47%) Data Quality
2 41 (5.22%) GDPR
3 14 (1.78%) Accessibility
4 12 (1.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 7 (0.89%) NIST
5 7 (0.89%) Solvency II
6 6 (0.76%) HL7
6 6 (0.76%) IFRS
7 5 (0.64%) IFRS 17
7 5 (0.64%) NCSC
7 5 (0.64%) QA
7 5 (0.64%) SNOMED CT
8 4 (0.51%) ISO/IEC 42001
9 3 (0.38%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 3 (0.38%) ISO 20022
9 3 (0.38%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 2 (0.25%) GRC
10 2 (0.25%) GxP
10 2 (0.25%) SLA
11 1 (0.13%) IFRS 9
System Software
1 3 (0.38%) Active Directory
1 3 (0.38%) Docker
1 3 (0.38%) VMware Infrastructure
2 1 (0.13%) VMware ESXi
2 1 (0.13%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 9 (1.15%) Kubernetes
2 5 (0.64%) Grafana
3 4 (0.51%) Ansible
4 3 (0.38%) Istio
4 3 (0.38%) Prometheus
5 2 (0.25%) Argo
5 2 (0.25%) NetBackup
6 1 (0.13%) Control-M
Vendors
1 174 (22.14%) Databricks
2 92 (11.70%) Microsoft
3 43 (5.47%) Oracle
4 23 (2.93%) Informatica
5 22 (2.80%) Google
6 21 (2.67%) Foundry
6 21 (2.67%) SAP
7 19 (2.42%) Palantir
8 17 (2.16%) Salesforce
9 10 (1.27%) Talend
10 9 (1.15%) Denodo
11 7 (0.89%) IFS
11 7 (0.89%) Sparx
12 6 (0.76%) OpenAI
13 5 (0.64%) Teradata
14 4 (0.51%) IBM
14 4 (0.51%) NVIDIA
15 3 (0.38%) Confluent
15 3 (0.38%) VMware
15 3 (0.38%) Workday