Security Architect Contract Job Trends

Security Architect
UK

The median Security Architect daily rate in the UK is £625, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 22 February 2026.

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

6 months to
22 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 275 241 232
Rank change year-on-year -34 -9 +67
Contract jobs requiring a Security Architect 385 342 458
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.94% 1.11% 1.03%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.03% 1.20% 1.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 255 249 280
10th Percentile £461 £550 £512
25th Percentile £523 £600 £608
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £675 £700
Median % change year-on-year -7.41% -3.57% -
75th Percentile £738 £766 £775
90th Percentile £788 £838 £851
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £650 £700
% change year-on-year -7.69% -7.14% +2.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 1 13
10th Percentile £79.38 - £78.88
25th Percentile £82.19 £68.26 £81.88
Median hourly rate £85.00 £73.31 £83.77
Median % change year-on-year +15.95% -12.48% +19.66%
75th Percentile £91.56 £78.36 £87.53
90th Percentile £94.38 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £85.00 £73.31 £83.77
% change year-on-year +15.95% -12.48% +19.66%

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 37,410 28,560 41,523
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.75% 92.90% 93.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,490 17,819 27,326
10th Percentile £306 £290 £275
25th Percentile £406 £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 £719 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +1.05% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,280 830 2,340
10th Percentile £14.63 £16.25 £13.16
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.50 £16.45
Median hourly rate £31.76 £35.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -9.27% - -10.26%
75th Percentile £63.75 £64.31 £60.06
90th Percentile £74.26 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 £32.50 £35.95
% change year-on-year -7.69% -9.60% +0.84%

Security Architect
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Security Architect' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Security Architect job vacancy trend in the UK

Security Architect
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Security Architect job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Security Architect job vacancies in the UK

Security Architect
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Security Architect over the 6 months to 22 February 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Security Architect in the UK

Security Architect
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Security Architect job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Security Architect job vacancies in the UK

Security Architect
Top 17 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Security Architect within the UK over the 6 months to 22 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 -21 328 £630 -6.67% 121
UK excluding London -22 178 £600 -7.69% 79
London -19 154 £648 -4.07% 57
Work from Home -37 102 £625 -7.41% 62
South East -9 57 £650 +4.00% 36
North of England -26 57 £600 -11.44% 17
Midlands -33 34 £675 -3.57% 18
Yorkshire -35 33 £531 -20.15% 1
West Midlands -47 30 £675 -3.57% 13
North West -18 22 £700 +3.36% 13
Scotland -5 11 £700 +16.67%
South West -36 11 £588 -7.84% 7
Wales +3 8 £738 - 1
East of England -21 5 £520 -
East Midlands - 4 £438 - 5
Northern Ireland -2 2 £500 -
North East - 2 £545 - 3

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

For the 6 months to 22 February 2026, Security 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 Security Architect in the job title.

1 167 (43.38%) Security Architecture
2 161 (41.82%) Security Cleared
3 139 (36.10%) Cybersecurity
4 114 (29.61%) SC Cleared
5 106 (27.53%) Azure
6 94 (24.42%) AWS
7 91 (23.64%) CISSP
8 90 (23.38%) Threat Modelling
9 86 (22.34%) Cloud Security
10 84 (21.82%) NIST
11 76 (19.74%) Network Security
12 75 (19.48%) TOGAF
13 73 (18.96%) Zero Trust
14 60 (15.58%) ISO/IEC 27001
15 59 (15.32%) Risk Management
15 59 (15.32%) SABSA
16 57 (14.81%) Firewall
17 55 (14.29%) Identity Access Management
18 54 (14.03%) CISM
19 51 (13.25%) Microsoft
20 50 (12.99%) Vulnerability Management
21 49 (12.73%) Incident Response
22 47 (12.21%) SIEM
23 42 (10.91%) DevSecOps
24 41 (10.65%) GCP
24 41 (10.65%) Stakeholder Engagement
25 39 (10.13%) Architectural Patterns
26 35 (9.09%) DV Cleared
27 34 (8.83%) Network Segmentation
28 33 (8.57%) CI/CD

Security 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 20 (5.19%) Confluence
2 5 (1.30%) SharePoint
3 4 (1.04%) nginx
4 1 (0.26%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.26%) NetWeaver
4 1 (0.26%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 2 (0.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 2 (0.52%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.26%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 6 (1.56%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 1 (0.26%) SAP EWM
2 1 (0.26%) SAP GRC
2 1 (0.26%) SAP HR
2 1 (0.26%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (0.26%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 106 (27.53%) Azure
2 94 (24.42%) AWS
3 41 (10.65%) GCP
4 24 (6.23%) Entra ID
5 11 (2.86%) Amazon GuardDuty
5 11 (2.86%) Microsoft 365
5 11 (2.86%) SaaS
6 10 (2.60%) GitHub
7 8 (2.08%) AWS CloudFormation
7 8 (2.08%) Azure Sentinel
7 8 (2.08%) Microsoft Purview
8 7 (1.82%) AWS KMS
9 6 (1.56%) PaaS
9 6 (1.56%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 4 (1.04%) Akamai
10 4 (1.04%) Amazon ECS
10 4 (1.04%) Amazon EKS
10 4 (1.04%) Azure DevOps
10 4 (1.04%) IaaS
11 3 (0.78%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 76 (19.74%) Network Security
2 57 (14.81%) Firewall
3 19 (4.94%) VPN
4 15 (3.90%) WAN
5 12 (3.12%) LAN
6 11 (2.86%) SD-WAN
7 8 (2.08%) NGFW
8 7 (1.82%) DNS
8 7 (1.82%) IPsec
9 6 (1.56%) BGP
9 6 (1.56%) OSPF
10 4 (1.04%) DHCP
10 4 (1.04%) MQTT
10 4 (1.04%) Reverse Proxy
10 4 (1.04%) SSL
11 3 (0.78%) BIG-IP
11 3 (0.78%) Intrusion Detection
11 3 (0.78%) MPLS
11 3 (0.78%) Wi-Fi
12 2 (0.52%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (0.78%) BigQuery
1 3 (0.78%) PostgreSQL
2 2 (0.52%) Data Lake
3 1 (0.26%) Elasticsearch
3 1 (0.26%) Metadata
3 1 (0.26%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 17 (4.42%) JIRA
2 6 (1.56%) Jenkins
3 3 (0.78%) GitLab
4 2 (0.52%) Snyk
5 1 (0.26%) AppScan
5 1 (0.26%) Artifactory
5 1 (0.26%) Burp Suite
5 1 (0.26%) Git
5 1 (0.26%) Metasploit
General
1 75 (19.48%) Social Skills
2 63 (16.36%) Public Sector
3 50 (12.99%) Finance
4 16 (4.16%) Banking
5 15 (3.90%) Documentation Skills
6 13 (3.38%) Presentation Skills
7 10 (2.60%) Legal
8 8 (2.08%) Aerospace
8 8 (2.08%) Analytical Skills
9 6 (1.56%) Financial Institution
9 6 (1.56%) Influencing Skills
10 4 (1.04%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 3 (0.78%) Law
12 2 (0.52%) Military
12 2 (0.52%) Pharmaceutical
12 2 (0.52%) Retail
12 2 (0.52%) Retail Banking
13 1 (0.26%) Aviation
13 1 (0.26%) Organisational Skills
13 1 (0.26%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (2.86%) SAML
2 9 (2.34%) OAuth
3 8 (2.08%) OpenID
4 6 (1.56%) OAuth2
5 5 (1.30%) SailPoint
6 4 (1.04%) ADO
6 4 (1.04%) Middleware
7 3 (0.78%) FastAPI
7 3 (0.78%) Flask
7 3 (0.78%) ModSecurity
7 3 (0.78%) REST
8 2 (0.52%) .NET
8 2 (0.52%) Elastic Stack
8 2 (0.52%) JWT
8 2 (0.52%) Kafka
8 2 (0.52%) LDAP
9 1 (0.26%) J2EE
9 1 (0.26%) JAAS
9 1 (0.26%) React
9 1 (0.26%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 26 (6.75%) Cloud Native
2 24 (6.23%) Security Posture
3 20 (5.19%) Operational Technology
4 17 (4.42%) Management Information System
5 16 (4.16%) Onboarding
6 13 (3.38%) Product Ownership
7 12 (3.12%) Data Centre
8 10 (2.60%) PKI
9 9 (2.34%) Hybrid Cloud
10 8 (2.08%) Private Cloud
11 7 (1.82%) Taxonomies
12 6 (1.56%) Legacy Systems
13 5 (1.30%) Data Protection Act
13 5 (1.30%) NHS
13 5 (1.30%) SCADA
13 5 (1.30%) Security Operations Centre
14 4 (1.04%) Enterprise Software
14 4 (1.04%) Public Cloud
15 3 (0.78%) Cyber Threat
15 3 (0.78%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
Operating Systems
1 13 (3.38%) Windows
2 11 (2.86%) Linux
3 4 (1.04%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 2 (0.52%) Android
4 2 (0.52%) Apple iOS
4 2 (0.52%) Unix
4 2 (0.52%) Windows Server
5 1 (0.26%) Kali Linux
5 1 (0.26%) Windows 10
5 1 (0.26%) Windows 7
5 1 (0.26%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 167 (43.38%) Security Architecture
2 139 (36.10%) Cybersecurity
3 90 (23.38%) Threat Modelling
4 86 (22.34%) Cloud Security
5 75 (19.48%) TOGAF
6 73 (18.96%) Zero Trust
7 59 (15.32%) Risk Management
7 59 (15.32%) SABSA
8 55 (14.29%) Identity Access Management
9 50 (12.99%) Vulnerability Management
10 49 (12.73%) Incident Response
11 47 (12.21%) SIEM
12 42 (10.91%) DevSecOps
13 41 (10.65%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 39 (10.13%) Architectural Patterns
15 34 (8.83%) Network Segmentation
16 33 (8.57%) CI/CD
17 31 (8.05%) Application Security
18 30 (7.79%) Information Security
18 30 (7.79%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 10 (2.60%) Python
2 8 (2.08%) Java
3 4 (1.04%) JavaScript
4 3 (0.78%) Bicep
4 3 (0.78%) PowerShell
4 3 (0.78%) SQL
5 2 (0.52%) C
5 2 (0.52%) Kotlin
5 2 (0.52%) PL/SQL
5 2 (0.52%) Swift
6 1 (0.26%) Bash
6 1 (0.26%) Kusto Query Language
6 1 (0.26%) Lisp
6 1 (0.26%) ProC
6 1 (0.26%) R
6 1 (0.26%) RPG
6 1 (0.26%) VB
6 1 (0.26%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 161 (41.82%) Security Cleared
2 114 (29.61%) SC Cleared
3 91 (23.64%) CISSP
4 54 (14.03%) CISM
5 35 (9.09%) DV Cleared
6 30 (7.79%) Cisco Certification
7 29 (7.53%) Degree
8 19 (4.94%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 17 (4.42%) AWS Certification
9 17 (4.42%) TOGAF Certification
10 13 (3.38%) CCSP
11 10 (2.60%) CCNP
12 8 (2.08%) Azure Certification
12 8 (2.08%) CCIE
13 7 (1.82%) BPSS Clearance
13 7 (1.82%) GIAC
13 7 (1.82%) Master's Degree
14 6 (1.56%) Computer Science Degree
15 5 (1.30%) PhD
15 5 (1.30%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 84 (21.82%) NIST
2 60 (15.58%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 30 (7.79%) NCSC
4 28 (7.27%) GDPR
5 19 (4.94%) PCI DSS
6 8 (2.08%) Cyber Essentials
6 8 (2.08%) GRC
6 8 (2.08%) JSP 440
6 8 (2.08%) NIST 800
7 7 (1.82%) EU AI Act
8 6 (1.56%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 5 (1.30%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 3 (0.78%) COBIT
10 3 (0.78%) Def Stans
10 3 (0.78%) PSD2
10 3 (0.78%) SOC 2
11 2 (0.52%) HIPAA
11 2 (0.52%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
11 2 (0.52%) QA
11 2 (0.52%) RMADS
System Software
1 13 (3.38%) Active Directory
2 4 (1.04%) Docker
3 1 (0.26%) BitLocker
3 1 (0.26%) Hyper-V
3 1 (0.26%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 24 (6.23%) Terraform
2 16 (4.16%) Kubernetes
3 8 (2.08%) Ansible
4 7 (1.82%) Single Sign-On
5 3 (0.78%) SCCM
6 2 (0.52%) FortiGate
6 2 (0.52%) Network Intrusion Detection System
7 1 (0.26%) Kibana
7 1 (0.26%) logstash
7 1 (0.26%) Microsoft Intune
7 1 (0.26%) Nessus
7 1 (0.26%) Progress Chef
7 1 (0.26%) SELinux
Vendors
1 51 (13.25%) Microsoft
2 21 (5.45%) CyberArk
3 20 (5.19%) Splunk
4 19 (4.94%) BiZZdesign
5 13 (3.38%) Cisco
5 13 (3.38%) Palo Alto
6 12 (3.12%) CheckPoint
7 11 (2.86%) Centrify
7 11 (2.86%) Zscaler
8 9 (2.34%) Fortinet
9 7 (1.82%) F5
9 7 (1.82%) Google
9 7 (1.82%) Virgin Media
10 6 (1.56%) Cribl.io
10 6 (1.56%) Okta
10 6 (1.56%) ServiceNow
10 6 (1.56%) Sparx
10 6 (1.56%) Tenable
11 4 (1.04%) Darktrace
11 4 (1.04%) Thycotic