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 31 August 2026.

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

6 months to
31 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 232 248 238
Rank change year-on-year +16 -10 -6
Contract jobs requiring a Security Architect 601 366 402
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.12% 1.11% 1.04%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.21% 1.22% 1.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 400 232 240
10th Percentile £500 £513 £500
25th Percentile £536 £581 £613
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £675 £700
Median % change year-on-year -7.41% -3.57% +2.90%
75th Percentile £750 £750 £775
90th Percentile £839 £800 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £623 £675 £669
% change year-on-year -7.78% +0.90% -1.25%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 3 7
10th Percentile - £86.00 £81.83
25th Percentile £60.00 £91.25 £84.67
Median hourly rate £76.50 £100.00 £87.46
Median % change year-on-year -23.50% +14.34% +24.94%
75th Percentile £83.00 £102.75 -
90th Percentile £83.30 £104.40 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £76.50 £100.00 £87.46
% change year-on-year -23.50% +14.34% +24.94%

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 49,691 30,076 35,928
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.46% 91.26% 93.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,638 19,002 22,670
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% -1.69%
75th Percentile £625 £620 £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 3,580 1,568 1,839
10th Percentile £14.96 £13.73 £14.16
25th Percentile £20.51 £17.00 £20.00
Median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.00% -41.51% +1.96%
75th Percentile £67.84 £53.78 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.41 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £44.04
% change year-on-year +68.99% -42.89% +13.95%

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 31 August 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 15 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 31 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 -12 514 £628 -7.04% 198
London +8 263 £650 -3.70% 120
UK excluding London -5 242 £623 -7.78% 94
Work from Home +13 197 £600 -12.73% 94
South East -6 115 £638 +6.25% 31
North of England -51 65 £600 -16.20% 13
North West -25 51 £600 -16.20% 12
Midlands -38 27 £603 -7.31% 14
West Midlands -34 26 £603 -7.31% 7
South West -54 24 £604 -7.08% 19
Yorkshire -41 11 £350 -45.10% 1
East of England -12 7 £625 +25.00% 3
Scotland - 3 - - 7
Channel Islands - 2 £638 - 1
East Midlands - 1 - - 7

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

For the 6 months to 31 August 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.

1 316 (52.58%) Security Architecture
2 270 (44.93%) Security Cleared
3 208 (34.61%) Cybersecurity
4 187 (31.11%) Azure
5 179 (29.78%) SC Cleared
6 173 (28.79%) Cloud Security
7 169 (28.12%) Threat Modelling
8 146 (24.29%) AWS
9 141 (23.46%) NIST
10 120 (19.97%) CISSP
11 95 (15.81%) Risk Management
11 95 (15.81%) Zero Trust
12 94 (15.64%) ISO/IEC 27001
13 93 (15.47%) Identity Access Management
14 91 (15.14%) DV Cleared
15 89 (14.81%) Network Security
16 88 (14.64%) AI
17 84 (13.98%) Architectural Patterns
18 83 (13.81%) Stakeholder Management
19 79 (13.14%) TOGAF
20 75 (12.48%) Stakeholder Engagement
21 73 (12.15%) GCP
22 72 (11.98%) Microsoft
23 70 (11.65%) Roadmaps
24 69 (11.48%) SABSA
25 63 (10.48%) DevSecOps
26 61 (10.15%) Data Protection
26 61 (10.15%) NCSC
27 58 (9.65%) CISM
28 57 (9.48%) 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 2 (0.33%) Confluence
1 2 (0.33%) SAS
1 2 (0.33%) SharePoint
Applications
1 4 (0.67%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 2 (0.33%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 1 (0.17%) SAP EHS
Cloud Services
1 187 (31.11%) Azure
2 146 (24.29%) AWS
3 73 (12.15%) GCP
4 37 (6.16%) Entra ID
5 19 (3.16%) Azure Sentinel
5 19 (3.16%) SaaS
6 12 (2.00%) Microsoft 365
7 11 (1.83%) Dynamics 365
8 9 (1.50%) Azure Key Vault
9 6 (1.00%) IaaS
10 5 (0.83%) Anthropic Claude
10 5 (0.83%) AWS Control Tower
10 5 (0.83%) AWS KMS
10 5 (0.83%) Azure AI
10 5 (0.83%) Azure Cosmos DB
10 5 (0.83%) Microsoft Purview
10 5 (0.83%) PaaS
10 5 (0.83%) Vertex AI
11 4 (0.67%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 4 (0.67%) GitHub
Communications & Networking
1 89 (14.81%) Network Security
2 46 (7.65%) Firewall
3 13 (2.16%) VPN
4 12 (2.00%) WAN
5 8 (1.33%) SD-WAN
5 8 (1.33%) VLAN
6 7 (1.16%) 4G
6 7 (1.16%) IPsec
7 6 (1.00%) LAN
7 6 (1.00%) NGFW
8 5 (0.83%) 5G
8 5 (0.83%) BGP
8 5 (0.83%) OSPF
8 5 (0.83%) Radio Access Network
9 4 (0.67%) Intranet
9 4 (0.67%) MPLS
10 3 (0.50%) Cisco IOS
10 3 (0.50%) EIGRP
10 3 (0.50%) Internet
10 3 (0.50%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (1.00%) Data Lake
2 3 (0.50%) Data Warehouse
3 2 (0.33%) Big Data
3 2 (0.33%) Metadata
4 1 (0.17%) Azure SQL Database
4 1 (0.17%) BigQuery
4 1 (0.17%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 9 (1.50%) Jenkins
2 5 (0.83%) JIRA
3 3 (0.50%) Claude Code
4 2 (0.33%) GitLab
5 1 (0.17%) Snyk
General
1 106 (17.64%) Social Skills
2 64 (10.65%) Public Sector
3 60 (9.98%) Finance
4 30 (4.99%) Influencing Skills
5 29 (4.83%) Banking
6 26 (4.33%) Documentation Skills
7 21 (3.49%) Analytical Skills
8 20 (3.33%) Legal
9 15 (2.50%) Telecoms
10 13 (2.16%) Manufacturing
11 10 (1.66%) Police
12 9 (1.50%) Aerospace
12 9 (1.50%) Military
13 7 (1.16%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 6 (1.00%) Presentation Skills
15 4 (0.67%) Law
15 4 (0.67%) Local Government
15 4 (0.67%) Pharmaceutical
15 4 (0.67%) Retail
16 3 (0.50%) Automotive
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (4.33%) Terraform
2 17 (2.83%) OAuth
3 12 (2.00%) OpenID
4 11 (1.83%) OAuth2
4 11 (1.83%) SAML
5 6 (1.00%) REST
5 6 (1.00%) SLSA
6 5 (0.83%) Azure Blueprints
6 5 (0.83%) LangChain
6 5 (0.83%) ModSecurity
6 5 (0.83%) PyTorch
7 4 (0.67%) Jakarta EE
7 4 (0.67%) JSP
7 4 (0.67%) LDAP
8 3 (0.50%) .NET
8 3 (0.50%) HTML
8 3 (0.50%) JWT
8 3 (0.50%) scikit-learn
9 2 (0.33%) RESTful
9 2 (0.33%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 59 (9.82%) Security Posture
2 55 (9.15%) Cloud Native
3 33 (5.49%) Operational Technology
4 31 (5.16%) Management Information System
5 19 (3.16%) Onboarding
6 17 (2.83%) AI Agents
7 14 (2.33%) Cyber Threat
7 14 (2.33%) Data Centre
8 13 (2.16%) Enterprise Cloud
9 12 (2.00%) Hybrid Cloud
10 9 (1.50%) Cloud Security Posture
10 9 (1.50%) Private Cloud
11 7 (1.16%) Data Protection Act
11 7 (1.16%) Legacy Systems
11 7 (1.16%) Public Cloud
12 6 (1.00%) Data Fabric
12 6 (1.00%) Enterprise Software
12 6 (1.00%) PKI
12 6 (1.00%) Self-Motivation
13 5 (0.83%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 9 (1.50%) Linux
2 6 (1.00%) Windows
2 6 (1.00%) Windows Server
3 4 (0.67%) Alpine Linux
3 4 (0.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 4 (0.67%) Ubuntu
4 1 (0.17%) Android
4 1 (0.17%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 316 (52.58%) Security Architecture
2 208 (34.61%) Cybersecurity
3 173 (28.79%) Cloud Security
4 169 (28.12%) Threat Modelling
5 95 (15.81%) Risk Management
5 95 (15.81%) Zero Trust
6 93 (15.47%) Identity Access Management
7 88 (14.64%) AI
8 84 (13.98%) Architectural Patterns
9 83 (13.81%) Stakeholder Management
10 79 (13.14%) TOGAF
11 75 (12.48%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 70 (11.65%) Roadmaps
13 69 (11.48%) SABSA
14 63 (10.48%) DevSecOps
15 61 (10.15%) Data Protection
16 57 (9.48%) CI/CD
16 57 (9.48%) Information Security
17 56 (9.32%) Enterprise Architecture
18 54 (8.99%) Risk Assessment
Programming Languages
1 18 (3.00%) Python
2 10 (1.66%) Bicep
2 10 (1.66%) Java
3 9 (1.50%) PowerShell
4 5 (0.83%) Groovy
4 5 (0.83%) Shell Script
5 4 (0.67%) Bash
6 3 (0.50%) JavaScript
6 3 (0.50%) SQL
7 1 (0.17%) R
Qualifications
1 270 (44.93%) Security Cleared
2 179 (29.78%) SC Cleared
3 120 (19.97%) CISSP
4 91 (15.14%) DV Cleared
5 58 (9.65%) CISM
6 45 (7.49%) Cisco Certification
7 40 (6.66%) (ISC)2 CCSP
8 28 (4.66%) CCSP
9 23 (3.83%) AWS Certification
10 19 (3.16%) Degree
11 16 (2.66%) Azure Certification
11 16 (2.66%) CISA
12 15 (2.50%) TOGAF Certification
13 11 (1.83%) CEH
13 11 (1.83%) SANS
14 8 (1.33%) GIAC
14 8 (1.33%) ISSAP
14 8 (1.33%) Microsoft Certification
15 7 (1.16%) CompTIA Security+
15 7 (1.16%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 141 (23.46%) NIST
2 94 (15.64%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 61 (10.15%) NCSC
4 45 (7.49%) GDPR
5 25 (4.16%) GRC
6 21 (3.49%) NIST 800
7 19 (3.16%) PCI DSS
8 12 (2.00%) Government Security Classifications
9 11 (1.83%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 10 (1.66%) JSP 440
11 9 (1.50%) Cyber Essentials
12 8 (1.33%) EU AI Act
13 7 (1.16%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
13 7 (1.16%) ISO/IEC 42001
14 6 (1.00%) COBIT
14 6 (1.00%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 6 (1.00%) ISO 19650
14 6 (1.00%) QA
15 5 (0.83%) HIPAA
15 5 (0.83%) RMADS
System Software
1 20 (3.33%) Active Directory
2 15 (2.50%) Docker
3 7 (1.16%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (0.67%) vSphere
5 2 (0.33%) Hyper-V
5 2 (0.33%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (0.17%) KVM
6 1 (0.17%) Varnish
6 1 (0.17%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 26 (4.33%) Kubernetes
2 11 (1.83%) Ansible
3 7 (1.16%) Single Sign-On
4 4 (0.67%) QRadar
5 3 (0.50%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 3 (0.50%) CASB
6 2 (0.33%) Docker Swarm
6 2 (0.33%) Istio
7 1 (0.17%) FortiGate
7 1 (0.17%) Microsoft Intune
7 1 (0.17%) Suricata
Vendors
1 72 (11.98%) Microsoft
2 23 (3.83%) Google
3 18 (3.00%) Cisco
4 17 (2.83%) Palo Alto
5 14 (2.33%) Splunk
6 12 (2.00%) Fortinet
7 11 (1.83%) Salesforce
8 10 (1.66%) CrowdStrike
8 10 (1.66%) SAP
9 9 (1.50%) Tenable
10 8 (1.33%) Okta
10 8 (1.33%) VMware
10 8 (1.33%) Zscaler
11 6 (1.00%) IFS
11 6 (1.00%) Juniper
11 6 (1.00%) Qualys
12 4 (0.67%) CheckPoint
12 4 (0.67%) Databricks
12 4 (0.67%) IBM
12 4 (0.67%) Rapid7