Data Architect Contract Job Trends

Data Architect
UK

The median Data Architect daily rate in the UK is £575, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 7 February 2026.

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

6 months to
7 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 278 240 233
Rank change year-on-year -38 -7 +25
Contract jobs requiring a Data Architect 358 325 462
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.92% 1.05% 1.02%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.00% 1.12% 1.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 267 228 337
10th Percentile £450 £479 £488
25th Percentile £506 £520 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £613 £675
Median % change year-on-year -6.12% -9.26% -
75th Percentile £671 £725 £744
90th Percentile £750 £799 £850
UK excluding London median daily rate £558 £621 £650
% change year-on-year -10.26% -4.42% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 3 6
10th Percentile - £75.75 £45.64
25th Percentile £64.00 £76.88 £48.82
Median hourly rate £69.00 £80.50 £61.53
Median % change year-on-year -14.29% +30.84% -12.10%
75th Percentile £69.44 £83.63 £72.00
90th Percentile £78.48 £84.45 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £69.00 £80.50 £61.53
% change year-on-year -14.29% +30.84% -12.10%

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 35,711 28,902 42,066
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.50% 92.95% 93.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,518 17,719 27,795
10th Percentile £300 £291 £275
25th Percentile £405 £406 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £717 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £476 £490
% change year-on-year -0.21% -2.86% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,166 840 2,312
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.89 £13.15
25th Percentile £18.57 £21.25 £16.67
Median hourly rate £29.82 £33.77 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -11.69% -3.51% -
75th Percentile £61.25 £63.38 £61.51
90th Percentile £71.25 £75.00 £72.88
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.00 £32.13 £35.95
% change year-on-year -12.85% -10.63% +8.94%

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 7 February 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 7 February 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 7 February 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 -66 288 £578 -7.52% 113
London -43 154 £600 -4.00% 55
UK excluding London -29 136 £558 -10.26% 92
Work from Home -9 117 £594 -2.62% 56
Midlands -24 35 £565 -6.24% 22
West Midlands -16 32 £573 -6.53% 21
North of England -71 30 £575 -7.95% 16
South West -9 23 £613 -2.00% 9
Scotland +26 22 £550 -15.38% 13
North West -34 22 £550 -6.38% 8
South East -28 20 £575 -4.17% 26
East of England -17 11 £505 -20.78% 2
Yorkshire -55 5 £600 -14.29% 3
North East -17 3 £575 -7.89% 5
East Midlands -28 3 £444 -2.04% 1
Wales +1 2 £768 +225.21% 5

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

For the 6 months to 7 February 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.

1 209 (58.38%) Data Modelling
2 200 (55.87%) Data Architecture
3 133 (37.15%) Analytics
4 131 (36.59%) Azure
5 127 (35.47%) Data Governance
6 99 (27.65%) AWS
6 99 (27.65%) Data Warehouse
7 87 (24.30%) Metadata
8 85 (23.74%) SQL
9 82 (22.91%) ETL
10 79 (22.07%) Security Cleared
11 76 (21.23%) Data Quality
12 68 (18.99%) Business Intelligence
12 68 (18.99%) Databricks
12 68 (18.99%) Python
13 64 (17.88%) Microsoft
14 63 (17.60%) SC Cleared
15 59 (16.48%) Metadata Management
16 58 (16.20%) Data Strategy
17 57 (15.92%) AI
18 56 (15.64%) Data Integration
18 56 (15.64%) Data Lake
19 55 (15.36%) Migration
20 51 (14.25%) Data Pipeline
20 51 (14.25%) Power Platform
21 49 (13.69%) Data Management
22 47 (13.13%) DevOps
22 47 (13.13%) Power BI
22 47 (13.13%) Stakeholder Management
23 45 (12.57%) Machine Learning

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 16 (4.47%) Apache Spark
2 15 (4.19%) SAS
3 12 (3.35%) Apache Airflow
4 11 (3.07%) Apache
5 6 (1.68%) SharePoint
6 2 (0.56%) Palantir Foundry
7 1 (0.28%) Appian
7 1 (0.28%) Ethereum
7 1 (0.28%) Hyperledger
7 1 (0.28%) Luigi
7 1 (0.28%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 3 (0.84%) MS Visio
2 2 (0.56%) Spreadsheet
3 1 (0.28%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 8 (2.23%) SAP S/4HANA
2 7 (1.96%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 5 (1.40%) Salesforce CRM
4 2 (0.56%) Aladdin
4 2 (0.56%) Dynamics CRM
5 1 (0.28%) Distributed Ledger
5 1 (0.28%) Dynamics AX
5 1 (0.28%) iTrent
5 1 (0.28%) NEC Housing
5 1 (0.28%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.28%) Oracle ERP
5 1 (0.28%) R3 Corda
5 1 (0.28%) SAP IBP
5 1 (0.28%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 131 (36.59%) Azure
2 99 (27.65%) AWS
3 51 (14.25%) Power Platform
4 41 (11.45%) Azure Data Factory
5 37 (10.34%) Azure Synapse Analytics
6 34 (9.50%) Serverless
7 30 (8.38%) Microsoft Purview
7 30 (8.38%) Snowflake
8 27 (7.54%) GCP
9 26 (7.26%) Amazon S3
10 18 (5.03%) AWS Lambda
11 16 (4.47%) Amazon Kinesis
12 14 (3.91%) Azure DevOps
13 13 (3.63%) dbt
14 11 (3.07%) AWS CloudFormation
15 10 (2.79%) Azure Functions
16 8 (2.23%) AWS Step Functions
16 8 (2.23%) Azure Cosmos DB
16 8 (2.23%) Collibra
17 7 (1.96%) Amazon EventBridge
Communications & Networking
1 2 (0.56%) DNS
1 2 (0.56%) DSL
1 2 (0.56%) Hyperconnected
2 1 (0.28%) DWDM
2 1 (0.28%) LAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 99 (27.65%) Data Warehouse
2 87 (24.30%) Metadata
3 56 (15.64%) Data Lake
4 47 (13.13%) Power BI
5 36 (10.06%) PostgreSQL
6 28 (7.82%) Amazon Redshift
6 28 (7.82%) SQL Server
7 20 (5.59%) Big Data
8 19 (5.31%) Amazon Athena
8 19 (5.31%) NoSQL
9 18 (5.03%) Tableau
10 17 (4.75%) Metadata Repository
11 16 (4.47%) Azure SQL Database
12 14 (3.91%) Data Vault
13 13 (3.63%) Oracle Database
14 12 (3.35%) Amazon Aurora
14 12 (3.35%) Delta Lake
14 12 (3.35%) OLTP
14 12 (3.35%) Relational Database
15 11 (3.07%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 21 (5.87%) ERwin
2 7 (1.96%) Jenkins
3 6 (1.68%) Git
4 3 (0.84%) ER Studio
4 3 (0.84%) GitLab
5 1 (0.28%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.28%) PowerDesigner
5 1 (0.28%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 96 (26.82%) Social Skills
2 58 (16.20%) Finance
3 47 (13.13%) Public Sector
4 34 (9.50%) Analytical Skills
5 9 (2.51%) Banking
6 8 (2.23%) Retail
7 6 (1.68%) Influencing Skills
7 6 (1.68%) Presentation Skills
8 5 (1.40%) Documentation Skills
8 5 (1.40%) Local Government
9 4 (1.12%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 4 (1.12%) Legal
10 3 (0.84%) Manufacturing
11 2 (0.56%) Back Office
11 2 (0.56%) Front Office
11 2 (0.56%) Law
11 2 (0.56%) Marketing
11 2 (0.56%) Military
11 2 (0.56%) Police
12 1 (0.28%) Social Housing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (6.42%) Kafka
2 19 (5.31%) PySpark
3 7 (1.96%) Apache Avro
3 7 (1.96%) Protocol Buffers
4 3 (0.84%) AWS CDK
4 3 (0.84%) Node.js
4 3 (0.84%) REST
4 3 (0.84%) SOAP
5 2 (0.56%) .NET
5 2 (0.56%) OpenTelemetry
5 2 (0.56%) Oracle Fusion
6 1 (0.28%) .NET Core
6 1 (0.28%) ADO
6 1 (0.28%) Apache NiFi
6 1 (0.28%) ARM Templates
6 1 (0.28%) FHIR
6 1 (0.28%) Lightning Web Components
6 1 (0.28%) Model Context Protocol
6 1 (0.28%) Smart Contracts
6 1 (0.28%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 25 (6.98%) Cloud Native
1 25 (6.98%) Data Structures
2 12 (3.35%) NHS
3 10 (2.79%) Hybrid Cloud
3 10 (2.79%) Reference Data
4 9 (2.51%) Distributed Systems
4 9 (2.51%) Legacy Systems
5 8 (2.23%) Data Fabric
5 8 (2.23%) FMCG
6 7 (1.96%) IoT
6 7 (1.96%) Product Ownership
6 7 (1.96%) Reinsurance
7 6 (1.68%) Onboarding
8 5 (1.40%) Distributed Computing
8 5 (1.40%) Management Information System
9 4 (1.12%) Mainframe
9 4 (1.12%) PACS
9 4 (1.12%) SWIFT Messaging Network
10 3 (0.84%) Data Protection Act
10 3 (0.84%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 4 (1.12%) zOS
2 2 (0.56%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 209 (58.38%) Data Modelling
2 200 (55.87%) Data Architecture
3 133 (37.15%) Analytics
4 127 (35.47%) Data Governance
5 82 (22.91%) ETL
6 68 (18.99%) Business Intelligence
7 59 (16.48%) Metadata Management
8 58 (16.20%) Data Strategy
9 57 (15.92%) AI
10 56 (15.64%) Data Integration
11 55 (15.36%) Migration
12 51 (14.25%) Data Pipeline
13 49 (13.69%) Data Management
14 47 (13.13%) DevOps
14 47 (13.13%) Stakeholder Management
15 45 (12.57%) Machine Learning
15 45 (12.57%) Physical Data Model
16 44 (12.29%) Logical Data Model
17 43 (12.01%) Roadmaps
18 42 (11.73%) Data Engineering
Programming Languages
1 85 (23.74%) SQL
2 68 (18.99%) Python
3 11 (3.07%) Java
4 8 (2.23%) T-SQL
5 5 (1.40%) PowerShell
6 4 (1.12%) PL/SQL
6 4 (1.12%) Scala
7 3 (0.84%) JavaScript
7 3 (0.84%) SPARQL
8 2 (0.56%) Bash
8 2 (0.56%) Korn
8 2 (0.56%) R
9 1 (0.28%) ANSI SQL
9 1 (0.28%) Apex Code
9 1 (0.28%) C#
9 1 (0.28%) COBOL
9 1 (0.28%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 79 (22.07%) Security Cleared
2 63 (17.60%) SC Cleared
3 23 (6.42%) Degree
4 20 (5.59%) Azure Certification
5 14 (3.91%) BPSS Clearance
5 14 (3.91%) Master's Degree
6 9 (2.51%) AWS Certification
6 9 (2.51%) Microsoft Certification
7 8 (2.23%) TOGAF Certification
8 7 (1.96%) Computer Science Degree
9 6 (1.68%) DV Cleared
10 4 (1.12%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 1 (0.28%) ITIL Certification
11 1 (0.28%) MySQL Certification
11 1 (0.28%) Oracle Certification
11 1 (0.28%) SAP Certification
11 1 (0.28%) SnowPro
11 1 (0.28%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 76 (21.23%) Data Quality
2 33 (9.22%) GDPR
3 11 (3.07%) Accessibility
4 8 (2.23%) QA
5 5 (1.40%) California Consumer Privacy Act
5 5 (1.40%) HIPAA
6 4 (1.12%) ISO 20022
7 2 (0.56%) CRD IV
7 2 (0.56%) FINREP
7 2 (0.56%) IFRS
8 1 (0.28%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.28%) Government Security Classifications
8 1 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 1 (0.28%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 2 (0.56%) Docker
1 2 (0.56%) VMware Infrastructure
1 2 (0.56%) VMware NSX
1 2 (0.56%) vSphere
2 1 (0.28%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 28 (7.82%) Terraform
2 8 (2.23%) Ansible
3 5 (1.40%) Grafana
4 4 (1.12%) Kubernetes
4 4 (1.12%) Prometheus
5 2 (0.56%) Argo
5 2 (0.56%) vCenter Server
6 1 (0.28%) Kubeflow
Vendors
1 68 (18.99%) Databricks
2 64 (17.88%) Microsoft
3 31 (8.66%) Oracle
4 21 (5.87%) Informatica
5 15 (4.19%) Salesforce
6 13 (3.63%) SAP
7 10 (2.79%) Google
7 10 (2.79%) Talend
8 7 (1.96%) Confluent
9 6 (1.68%) Remedy
10 5 (1.40%) Greenplum
10 5 (1.40%) Sparx
11 4 (1.12%) Ab Initio
11 4 (1.12%) Dynatrace
11 4 (1.12%) MicroStrategy
11 4 (1.12%) Palantir
11 4 (1.12%) Pega
12 3 (0.84%) IBM
12 3 (0.84%) Workday
13 2 (0.56%) eFront