Security Architect Contract Job Trends

Security Architect
UK

The median Security Architect daily rate in the UK is £630, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 19 January 2026.

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

6 months to
19 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 292 238 249
Rank change year-on-year -54 +11 +57
Contract jobs requiring a Security Architect 328 324 417
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.89% 1.03% 0.97%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.97% 1.11% 1.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 219 213 268
10th Percentile £477 £552 £519
25th Percentile £538 £600 £613
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £630 £675 £685
Median % change year-on-year -6.67% -1.46% -2.14%
75th Percentile £723 £769 £771
90th Percentile £788 £823 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £641 £655 £700
% change year-on-year -2.14% -6.43% +2.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 1 3
10th Percentile £79.38 - £74.63
25th Percentile £82.19 £68.26 £75.02
Median hourly rate £85.00 £73.31 £78.74
Median % change year-on-year +15.95% -6.90% +12.49%
75th Percentile £91.56 £78.36 £84.36
90th Percentile £94.38 - £85.11
UK excluding London median hourly rate £85.00 £73.31 £78.74
% change year-on-year +15.95% -6.90% +12.49%

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 33,788 29,232 40,213
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.39% 92.85% 93.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,356 17,863 26,715
10th Percentile £300 £295 £275
25th Percentile £405 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £616 £638 £638
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £481 £500
% change year-on-year -1.14% -3.90% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,002 885 1,834
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.92 £13.99
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.25 £17.76
Median hourly rate £27.50 £32.50 £40.32
Median % change year-on-year -15.38% -19.39% +18.58%
75th Percentile £60.00 £62.50 £63.75
90th Percentile £70.00 £73.75 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £42.50
% change year-on-year -22.62% -23.53% +46.55%

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 19 January 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 19 January 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 -29 280 £650 -3.70% 89
UK excluding London -14 157 £641 -2.14% 69
London -12 129 £644 -6.36% 28
Work from Home -27 85 £600 -14.29% 25
North of England -21 53 £600 -14.29% 17
South East -2 52 £663 +6.00% 20
Yorkshire -20 32 £544 -21.23% 7
South West -11 19 £650 +6.12% 13
North West -27 19 £701 -6.60% 6
Midlands -37 15 £675 -3.57% 8
West Midlands -35 12 £675 -3.57% 3
Scotland +5 9 £675 +12.50% 1
Wales +3 9 £725 - 2
East of England -12 5 £520 +15.56% 8
East Midlands - 3 £438 - 5
Northern Ireland -4 2 £500 - 1
North East - 2 £545 - 4

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

For the 6 months to 19 January 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.

1 160 (48.78%) Security Architecture
2 122 (37.20%) Security Cleared
3 117 (35.67%) Cybersecurity
4 101 (30.79%) Azure
5 91 (27.74%) NIST
6 88 (26.83%) AWS
7 85 (25.91%) SC Cleared
8 83 (25.30%) Threat Modelling
9 81 (24.70%) Cloud Security
10 77 (23.48%) CISSP
11 67 (20.43%) ISO/IEC 27001
12 66 (20.12%) Zero Trust
13 65 (19.82%) Network Security
13 65 (19.82%) TOGAF
14 59 (17.99%) Firewall
15 54 (16.46%) Microsoft
16 52 (15.85%) Identity Access Management
17 51 (15.55%) SABSA
18 49 (14.94%) Risk Management
19 46 (14.02%) Incident Response
19 46 (14.02%) Vulnerability Management
20 42 (12.80%) CISM
21 41 (12.50%) GCP
22 40 (12.20%) DevSecOps
22 40 (12.20%) SIEM
22 40 (12.20%) Stakeholder Engagement
23 36 (10.98%) GDPR
24 35 (10.67%) Roadmaps
25 33 (10.06%) CI/CD
26 32 (9.76%) Information Security

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 15 (4.57%) Confluence
2 4 (1.22%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (0.91%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.30%) nginx
4 1 (0.30%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 2 (0.61%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 2 (0.61%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.30%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 6 (1.83%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 101 (30.79%) Azure
2 88 (26.83%) AWS
3 41 (12.50%) GCP
4 21 (6.40%) Entra ID
5 12 (3.66%) Microsoft 365
6 11 (3.35%) Microsoft Purview
6 11 (3.35%) SaaS
7 8 (2.44%) Amazon GuardDuty
7 8 (2.44%) AWS KMS
8 7 (2.13%) AWS CloudFormation
8 7 (2.13%) GitHub
8 7 (2.13%) PaaS
9 6 (1.83%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 5 (1.52%) Azure Sentinel
10 5 (1.52%) IaaS
11 3 (0.91%) Amazon EKS
11 3 (0.91%) Azure Key Vault
12 2 (0.61%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 2 (0.61%) Amazon ECS
12 2 (0.61%) Azure DevOps
Communications & Networking
1 65 (19.82%) Network Security
2 59 (17.99%) Firewall
3 15 (4.57%) VPN
4 14 (4.27%) WAN
5 11 (3.35%) LAN
6 10 (3.05%) SD-WAN
7 8 (2.44%) NGFW
8 6 (1.83%) DNS
8 6 (1.83%) IPsec
9 5 (1.52%) BGP
10 4 (1.22%) DHCP
10 4 (1.22%) OSPF
10 4 (1.22%) Skype
10 4 (1.22%) SSL
11 3 (0.91%) DMZ
11 3 (0.91%) Internet
11 3 (0.91%) Kerberos
11 3 (0.91%) TCP/IP
11 3 (0.91%) VSAN
11 3 (0.91%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (0.61%) BigQuery
2 1 (0.30%) Elasticsearch
2 1 (0.30%) Metadata
2 1 (0.30%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 12 (3.66%) JIRA
2 2 (0.61%) Jenkins
3 1 (0.30%) Git
3 1 (0.30%) GitLab
General
1 70 (21.34%) Social Skills
2 51 (15.55%) Finance
2 51 (15.55%) Public Sector
3 17 (5.18%) Analytical Skills
3 17 (5.18%) Banking
4 11 (3.35%) Legal
5 9 (2.74%) Documentation Skills
6 8 (2.44%) Financial Institution
6 8 (2.44%) Presentation Skills
7 7 (2.13%) Influencing Skills
8 6 (1.83%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 5 (1.52%) Aerospace
10 4 (1.22%) Pharmaceutical
11 3 (0.91%) Law
12 2 (0.61%) Military
13 1 (0.30%) Aviation
13 1 (0.30%) Investment Banking
13 1 (0.30%) Manufacturing
13 1 (0.30%) Marketing
13 1 (0.30%) Retail
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (2.74%) SAML
2 7 (2.13%) OAuth
3 6 (1.83%) OpenID
4 5 (1.52%) ModSecurity
5 4 (1.22%) OAuth2
6 2 (0.61%) .NET
6 2 (0.61%) ADO
6 2 (0.61%) Kafka
6 2 (0.61%) Middleware
7 1 (0.30%) ARM Templates
7 1 (0.30%) Elastic Stack
7 1 (0.30%) J2EE
7 1 (0.30%) JAAS
7 1 (0.30%) JSP
7 1 (0.30%) JSSE
7 1 (0.30%) JWT
7 1 (0.30%) LDAP
7 1 (0.30%) REST
7 1 (0.30%) SailPoint
7 1 (0.30%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 28 (8.54%) Cloud Native
1 28 (8.54%) Security Posture
2 16 (4.88%) Onboarding
2 16 (4.88%) PKI
3 15 (4.57%) Operational Technology
4 14 (4.27%) Management Information System
5 13 (3.96%) Data Centre
6 12 (3.66%) Product Ownership
7 11 (3.35%) Hybrid Cloud
7 11 (3.35%) Private Cloud
8 8 (2.44%) Cyber Threat
8 8 (2.44%) Public Cloud
9 7 (2.13%) Cloud Security Posture
9 7 (2.13%) Enterprise Software
9 7 (2.13%) Taxonomies
10 5 (1.52%) Cyber Defence
10 5 (1.52%) NHS
10 5 (1.52%) SCADA
10 5 (1.52%) Security Operations Centre
11 4 (1.22%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 15 (4.57%) Windows
2 9 (2.74%) Linux
3 4 (1.22%) Windows 10
3 4 (1.22%) Windows Server
4 3 (0.91%) Unix
4 3 (0.91%) Windows Server 2008
5 2 (0.61%) Android
5 2 (0.61%) Apple iOS
5 2 (0.61%) Windows Server 2019
6 1 (0.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.30%) Windows 7
6 1 (0.30%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 160 (48.78%) Security Architecture
2 117 (35.67%) Cybersecurity
3 83 (25.30%) Threat Modelling
4 81 (24.70%) Cloud Security
5 66 (20.12%) Zero Trust
6 65 (19.82%) TOGAF
7 52 (15.85%) Identity Access Management
8 51 (15.55%) SABSA
9 49 (14.94%) Risk Management
10 46 (14.02%) Incident Response
10 46 (14.02%) Vulnerability Management
11 40 (12.20%) DevSecOps
11 40 (12.20%) SIEM
11 40 (12.20%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 35 (10.67%) Roadmaps
13 33 (10.06%) CI/CD
14 32 (9.76%) Information Security
15 30 (9.15%) Architectural Patterns
16 27 (8.23%) Enterprise Architecture
17 26 (7.93%) Regulatory Compliance
Programming Languages
1 7 (2.13%) Java
1 7 (2.13%) Python
2 4 (1.22%) SQL
3 3 (0.91%) PowerShell
4 2 (0.61%) Bicep
4 2 (0.61%) C
4 2 (0.61%) Kotlin
4 2 (0.61%) PL/SQL
4 2 (0.61%) Swift
5 1 (0.30%) Bash
5 1 (0.30%) JavaScript
5 1 (0.30%) Kusto Query Language
5 1 (0.30%) ProC
5 1 (0.30%) R
5 1 (0.30%) RPG
5 1 (0.30%) VB
5 1 (0.30%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 122 (37.20%) Security Cleared
2 85 (25.91%) SC Cleared
3 77 (23.48%) CISSP
4 42 (12.80%) CISM
5 29 (8.84%) DV Cleared
6 27 (8.23%) Cisco Certification
7 22 (6.71%) Degree
8 19 (5.79%) AWS Certification
9 16 (4.88%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 15 (4.57%) TOGAF Certification
11 14 (4.27%) Azure Certification
12 11 (3.35%) CCNP
13 10 (3.05%) CCSP
14 7 (2.13%) CCIE
14 7 (2.13%) Master's Degree
15 5 (1.52%) BPSS Clearance
15 5 (1.52%) GIAC
15 5 (1.52%) Microsoft Certification
15 5 (1.52%) PhD
16 4 (1.22%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 91 (27.74%) NIST
2 67 (20.43%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 36 (10.98%) GDPR
4 31 (9.45%) NCSC
5 23 (7.01%) PCI DSS
6 8 (2.44%) JSP 440
6 8 (2.44%) PSD2
7 7 (2.13%) Cyber Essentials
7 7 (2.13%) EU AI Act
7 7 (2.13%) NIST 800
8 5 (1.52%) GRC
9 4 (1.22%) HIPAA
9 4 (1.22%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 3 (0.91%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 3 (0.91%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 3 (0.91%) Def Stans
11 2 (0.61%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
11 2 (0.61%) QA
11 2 (0.61%) SOC 1
11 2 (0.61%) SOC 2
System Software
1 8 (2.44%) Active Directory
2 7 (2.13%) Docker
3 3 (0.91%) VMware ESXi
3 3 (0.91%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.30%) BitLocker
4 1 (0.30%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.30%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 22 (6.71%) Terraform
2 13 (3.96%) Kubernetes
3 7 (2.13%) Ansible
3 7 (2.13%) Single Sign-On
4 4 (1.22%) SCCM
5 3 (0.91%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 3 (0.91%) OPNET
5 3 (0.91%) vCenter Server
6 2 (0.61%) FortiGate
7 1 (0.30%) Kibana
7 1 (0.30%) logstash
Vendors
1 54 (16.46%) Microsoft
2 23 (7.01%) CyberArk
3 15 (4.57%) Palo Alto
3 15 (4.57%) Splunk
4 12 (3.66%) BiZZdesign
4 12 (3.66%) Cisco
5 11 (3.35%) Centrify
6 10 (3.05%) Zscaler
7 9 (2.74%) CheckPoint
8 8 (2.44%) Darktrace
8 8 (2.44%) Fortinet
9 7 (2.13%) F5
9 7 (2.13%) Virgin Media
10 6 (1.83%) Google
10 6 (1.83%) Sparx
10 6 (1.83%) VMware
11 5 (1.52%) ServiceNow
12 4 (1.22%) Juniper
12 4 (1.22%) Tenable
12 4 (1.22%) Thycotic