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 22 March 2026.

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

6 months to
22 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 257 234 228
Rank change year-on-year -23 -6 +32
Contract jobs requiring a Data Architect 442 328 457
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.01% 1.11% 1.03%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.09% 1.19% 1.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 328 232 324
10th Percentile £461 £476 £500
25th Percentile £509 £523 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £577 £603 £675
Median % change year-on-year -4.32% -10.74% -
75th Percentile £675 £713 £750
90th Percentile £791 £799 £875
UK excluding London median daily rate £575 £590 £658
% change year-on-year -2.54% -10.27% +1.15%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 4 5
10th Percentile - £66.25 £46.03
25th Percentile £64.00 £71.88 £50.53
Median hourly rate £69.00 £80.25 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -14.02% +45.91% -21.43%
75th Percentile £69.44 £82.94 £60.00
90th Percentile £78.48 £84.18 £67.20
UK excluding London median hourly rate £69.00 £80.50 £55.00
% change year-on-year -14.29% +46.36% -21.43%

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 40,370 27,451 41,125
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.94% 92.96% 92.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,228 17,896 26,949
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £410 £406 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -4.46%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £721 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £475 £487
% change year-on-year +1.32% -2.46% -2.60%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,504 902 2,504
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.22 £12.88
25th Percentile £19.25 £21.01 £16.25
Median hourly rate £36.00 £32.91 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +9.41% +1.25% -23.53%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £76.58 £76.25 £71.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £36.00 £32.50 £32.50
% change year-on-year +10.77% - -19.93%

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 22 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 22 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 22 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 -53 366 £594 -4.23% 180
London -31 193 £600 -7.69% 70
UK excluding London -1 182 £575 -2.54% 148
Work from Home -8 134 £600 -0.21% 51
Midlands -17 51 £575 -4.37% 21
West Midlands -24 48 £580 -5.39% 14
South West -14 37 £628 +21.26% 23
North of England -83 33 £600 -3.94% 26
Scotland +16 28 £540 -13.60% 10
South East -49 25 £575 -1.29% 49
North West -35 17 £588 +11.90% 11
East of England -15 14 £505 -20.78% 17
Yorkshire -52 13 £610 -21.79% 11
North East -15 5 £563 -9.89% 4
East Midlands -35 3 £444 -2.04% 7
Wales -5 2 £768 +225.21% 4

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

For the 6 months to 22 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.

1 249 (56.33%) Data Architecture
2 237 (53.62%) Data Modelling
3 164 (37.10%) Analytics
4 156 (35.29%) Azure
5 153 (34.62%) Data Governance
6 115 (26.02%) AWS
7 108 (24.43%) Metadata
8 106 (23.98%) Data Warehouse
9 105 (23.76%) SQL
10 104 (23.53%) Security Cleared
11 98 (22.17%) ETL
12 96 (21.72%) Data Quality
13 92 (20.81%) Business Intelligence
14 82 (18.55%) Databricks
15 80 (18.10%) SC Cleared
16 77 (17.42%) Data Integration
17 76 (17.19%) AI
18 74 (16.74%) Migration
19 68 (15.38%) Microsoft
20 66 (14.93%) Data Strategy
20 66 (14.93%) Python
21 63 (14.25%) Data Lake
22 62 (14.03%) Power Platform
23 60 (13.57%) Logical Data Model
23 60 (13.57%) Metadata Management
24 57 (12.90%) Data Management
24 57 (12.90%) Data Pipeline
24 57 (12.90%) Physical Data Model
24 57 (12.90%) Power BI
25 55 (12.44%) Agile

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 17 (3.85%) Apache Spark
2 15 (3.39%) SAS
3 13 (2.94%) SharePoint
4 11 (2.49%) Apache Airflow
5 9 (2.04%) Apache
6 2 (0.45%) Confluence
6 2 (0.45%) 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 (0.68%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.23%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 8 (1.81%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (1.36%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 5 (1.13%) 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
1 156 (35.29%) Azure
2 115 (26.02%) AWS
3 62 (14.03%) Power Platform
4 45 (10.18%) Azure Synapse Analytics
5 43 (9.73%) Azure Data Factory
6 35 (7.92%) GCP
6 35 (7.92%) Snowflake
7 32 (7.24%) Serverless
8 31 (7.01%) Microsoft Purview
9 20 (4.52%) Amazon S3
9 20 (4.52%) Azure DevOps
10 18 (4.07%) AWS Lambda
11 15 (3.39%) dbt
12 13 (2.94%) GitHub
13 11 (2.49%) Azure Cosmos DB
14 10 (2.26%) Amazon Kinesis
15 9 (2.04%) GitHub Actions
16 8 (1.81%) Azure Functions
16 8 (1.81%) Collibra
17 7 (1.58%) AWS Step Functions
Communications & Networking
1 4 (0.90%) Firewall
2 2 (0.45%) BGP
2 2 (0.45%) DNS
2 2 (0.45%) DSL
2 2 (0.45%) Hyperconnected
2 2 (0.45%) OSPF
2 2 (0.45%) Structured Cabling
2 2 (0.45%) VXLAN
3 1 (0.23%) DWDM
3 1 (0.23%) LAN
3 1 (0.23%) Network Security
3 1 (0.23%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 108 (24.43%) Metadata
2 106 (23.98%) Data Warehouse
3 63 (14.25%) Data Lake
4 57 (12.90%) Power BI
5 33 (7.47%) PostgreSQL
6 31 (7.01%) SQL Server
7 28 (6.33%) NoSQL
8 23 (5.20%) Big Data
9 22 (4.98%) Amazon Redshift
10 21 (4.75%) Metadata Repository
11 20 (4.52%) Azure SQL Database
12 17 (3.85%) Tableau
13 16 (3.62%) Oracle Database
14 15 (3.39%) Data Vault
15 14 (3.17%) Amazon Athena
15 14 (3.17%) Delta Lake
15 14 (3.17%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 12 (2.71%) Amazon Aurora
16 12 (2.71%) Hadoop
16 12 (2.71%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 25 (5.66%) ERwin
2 8 (1.81%) Jenkins
3 7 (1.58%) Git
4 3 (0.68%) ER Studio
4 3 (0.68%) GitLab
5 1 (0.23%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.23%) PowerDesigner
5 1 (0.23%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 91 (20.59%) Social Skills
2 71 (16.06%) Finance
3 50 (11.31%) Public Sector
4 42 (9.50%) Analytical Skills
5 16 (3.62%) Banking
6 14 (3.17%) Retail
7 9 (2.04%) Documentation Skills
8 6 (1.36%) Financial Institution
8 6 (1.36%) Influencing Skills
8 6 (1.36%) Investment Banking
8 6 (1.36%) Local Government
9 4 (0.90%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 4 (0.90%) Manufacturing
9 4 (0.90%) Presentation Skills
10 2 (0.45%) Law
10 2 (0.45%) Legal
10 2 (0.45%) Pharmaceutical
11 1 (0.23%) Advertising
11 1 (0.23%) Military
11 1 (0.23%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (6.79%) Kafka
2 13 (2.94%) PySpark
3 7 (1.58%) Apache Avro
3 7 (1.58%) Protocol Buffers
4 5 (1.13%) Middleware
5 4 (0.90%) FHIR
5 4 (0.90%) REST
6 3 (0.68%) .NET
6 3 (0.68%) AWS CDK
6 3 (0.68%) JSON
6 3 (0.68%) Lightning Web Components
6 3 (0.68%) Node.js
6 3 (0.68%) SOAP
7 2 (0.45%) OpenTelemetry
7 2 (0.45%) Oracle Fusion
8 1 (0.23%) Apache NiFi
8 1 (0.23%) ARM Templates
8 1 (0.23%) Model Context Protocol
8 1 (0.23%) OpenAPI
8 1 (0.23%) Smart Contracts
Miscellaneous
1 33 (7.47%) Cloud Native
2 31 (7.01%) Data Structures
3 17 (3.85%) Reference Data
4 13 (2.94%) Legacy Systems
5 11 (2.49%) Hybrid Cloud
5 11 (2.49%) IoT
5 11 (2.49%) NHS
6 10 (2.26%) Mainframe
7 8 (1.81%) Data Fabric
7 8 (1.81%) Distributed Systems
7 8 (1.81%) FMCG
7 8 (1.81%) Management Information System
7 8 (1.81%) Product Ownership
8 7 (1.58%) Taxonomies
9 6 (1.36%) Distributed Computing
9 6 (1.36%) Greenfield Project
9 6 (1.36%) Onboarding
9 6 (1.36%) Reinsurance
10 5 (1.13%) AI Agents
10 5 (1.13%) Data Centre
Operating Systems
1 9 (2.04%) zOS
2 2 (0.45%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 249 (56.33%) Data Architecture
2 237 (53.62%) Data Modelling
3 164 (37.10%) Analytics
4 153 (34.62%) Data Governance
5 98 (22.17%) ETL
6 92 (20.81%) Business Intelligence
7 77 (17.42%) Data Integration
8 76 (17.19%) AI
9 74 (16.74%) Migration
10 66 (14.93%) Data Strategy
11 60 (13.57%) Logical Data Model
11 60 (13.57%) Metadata Management
12 57 (12.90%) Data Management
12 57 (12.90%) Data Pipeline
12 57 (12.90%) Physical Data Model
13 55 (12.44%) Agile
13 55 (12.44%) Machine Learning
14 54 (12.22%) Architectural Patterns
14 54 (12.22%) Data Engineering
15 52 (11.76%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 105 (23.76%) SQL
2 66 (14.93%) Python
3 11 (2.49%) Java
4 8 (1.81%) T-SQL
5 6 (1.36%) Scala
6 5 (1.13%) PowerShell
7 3 (0.68%) Apex Code
7 3 (0.68%) Bicep
7 3 (0.68%) JavaScript
7 3 (0.68%) PL/SQL
8 2 (0.45%) Bash
8 2 (0.45%) Kotlin
8 2 (0.45%) R
8 2 (0.45%) 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
1 104 (23.53%) Security Cleared
2 80 (18.10%) SC Cleared
3 22 (4.98%) Azure Certification
4 21 (4.75%) Degree
5 16 (3.62%) BPSS Clearance
6 15 (3.39%) Master's Degree
7 12 (2.71%) DV Cleared
8 10 (2.26%) AWS Certification
8 10 (2.26%) TOGAF Certification
9 9 (2.04%) Microsoft Certification
10 8 (1.81%) Computer Science Degree
11 4 (0.90%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 2 (0.45%) VCAP
12 2 (0.45%) VCDX
13 1 (0.23%) MySQL Certification
13 1 (0.23%) Oracle Certification
13 1 (0.23%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 96 (21.72%) Data Quality
2 36 (8.14%) GDPR
3 14 (3.17%) QA
4 11 (2.49%) Accessibility
5 5 (1.13%) California Consumer Privacy Act
6 4 (0.90%) ISO 20022
6 4 (0.90%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 3 (0.68%) HIPAA
7 3 (0.68%) HL7
8 2 (0.45%) CRD IV
8 2 (0.45%) FINREP
8 2 (0.45%) IFRS
8 2 (0.45%) PCI DSS
8 2 (0.45%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 2 (0.45%) SNOMED CT
9 1 (0.23%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 4 (0.90%) VMware Infrastructure
2 3 (0.68%) Docker
3 2 (0.45%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.45%) VMware NSX
3 2 (0.45%) vSphere
4 1 (0.23%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 30 (6.79%) Terraform
2 10 (2.26%) Ansible
3 7 (1.58%) Kubernetes
4 5 (1.13%) Grafana
5 4 (0.90%) Prometheus
6 2 (0.45%) Argo
6 2 (0.45%) vCenter Server
7 1 (0.23%) Kubeflow
Vendors
1 82 (18.55%) Databricks
2 68 (15.38%) Microsoft
3 31 (7.01%) Oracle
4 22 (4.98%) Informatica
5 20 (4.52%) Salesforce
6 16 (3.62%) SAP
7 9 (2.04%) Confluent
7 9 (2.04%) Google
7 9 (2.04%) Talend
8 7 (1.58%) Remedy
9 5 (1.13%) Greenplum
10 4 (0.90%) MicroStrategy
10 4 (0.90%) Palantir
10 4 (0.90%) Sparx
10 4 (0.90%) VMware
11 3 (0.68%) Ab Initio
11 3 (0.68%) Dynatrace
11 3 (0.68%) IBM
11 3 (0.68%) Workday
12 2 (0.45%) MuleSoft