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 12 March 2026.

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

6 months to
12 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 263 242 234
Rank change year-on-year -21 -8 +60
Contract jobs requiring a Security Architect 417 323 462
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.98% 1.10% 1.03%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.06% 1.18% 1.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 267 248 280
10th Percentile £463 £550 £518
25th Percentile £525 £600 £608
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £630 £675 £700
Median % change year-on-year -6.67% -3.57% -
75th Percentile £738 £763 £775
90th Percentile £788 £838 £860
UK excluding London median daily rate £623 £650 £693
% change year-on-year -4.23% -6.14% +1.84%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 1 12
10th Percentile £79.75 - -
25th Percentile £82.63 £68.26 £81.88
Median hourly rate £85.00 £73.31 £85.38
Median % change year-on-year +15.95% -14.14% +21.98%
75th Percentile £89.38 £78.36 £87.53
90th Percentile £94.25 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £85.00 £73.31 £85.38
% change year-on-year +15.95% -14.14% +21.98%

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 39,233 27,349 41,475
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.88% 92.93% 92.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,515 17,680 27,207
10th Percentile £312 £293 £270
25th Percentile £410 £406 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £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 2,440 862 2,502
10th Percentile £14.96 £15.60 £13.00
25th Percentile £19.00 £21.24 £16.25
Median hourly rate £35.00 £33.45 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +4.63% +2.92% -23.29%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £59.50
90th Percentile £75.79 £76.25 £71.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.00 £32.50 £32.50
% change year-on-year +7.69% - -18.75%

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 12 March 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 12 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 -25 355 £630 -6.67% 138
UK excluding London -16 200 £623 -4.23% 101
London -20 160 £632 -6.37% 46
Work from Home -21 114 £613 -9.26% 73
North of England -14 68 £606 -7.62% 26
South East -19 67 £650 +4.00% 33
Midlands -41 35 £675 -3.57% 15
North West -15 33 £706 +6.60% 18
Yorkshire -36 33 £537 -19.25% 5
West Midlands -45 32 £675 -3.57% 9
Scotland +3 12 £700 +16.67% 3
South West -39 10 £588 -9.62% 15
Wales - 7 £725 - 3
East of England -20 6 £520 - 7
East Midlands - 3 £438 - 6
North East -12 2 £545 -12.80% 3
Northern Ireland - 2 £500 -

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

For the 6 months to 12 March 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.

1 178 (42.69%) Security Cleared
2 172 (41.25%) Security Architecture
3 140 (33.57%) Cybersecurity
4 121 (29.02%) SC Cleared
5 113 (27.10%) Azure
6 102 (24.46%) AWS
7 93 (22.30%) Threat Modelling
8 90 (21.58%) CISSP
8 90 (21.58%) Cloud Security
9 82 (19.66%) NIST
10 76 (18.23%) Zero Trust
11 75 (17.99%) Network Security
12 74 (17.75%) TOGAF
13 65 (15.59%) Risk Management
14 61 (14.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
15 60 (14.39%) SABSA
16 56 (13.43%) CISM
16 56 (13.43%) Identity Access Management
17 53 (12.71%) Firewall
18 52 (12.47%) Microsoft
19 51 (12.23%) SIEM
19 51 (12.23%) Vulnerability Management
20 47 (11.27%) Incident Response
21 46 (11.03%) DevSecOps
22 45 (10.79%) GCP
23 44 (10.55%) Stakeholder Engagement
24 43 (10.31%) DV Cleared
25 41 (9.83%) Architectural Patterns
26 36 (8.63%) CI/CD
27 35 (8.39%) Application 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 19 (4.56%) Confluence
2 5 (1.20%) SharePoint
3 4 (0.96%) nginx
4 1 (0.24%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.24%) NetWeaver
4 1 (0.24%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 2 (0.48%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 2 (0.48%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.24%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 6 (1.44%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 1 (0.24%) SAP EWM
2 1 (0.24%) SAP GRC
2 1 (0.24%) SAP HR
2 1 (0.24%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (0.24%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 113 (27.10%) Azure
2 102 (24.46%) AWS
3 45 (10.79%) GCP
4 28 (6.71%) Entra ID
5 13 (3.12%) SaaS
6 11 (2.64%) Amazon GuardDuty
6 11 (2.64%) Microsoft 365
7 10 (2.40%) Azure Sentinel
8 8 (1.92%) AWS CloudFormation
8 8 (1.92%) AWS KMS
8 8 (1.92%) GitHub
9 7 (1.68%) Microsoft Purview
10 6 (1.44%) IaaS
10 6 (1.44%) PaaS
10 6 (1.44%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 5 (1.20%) Amazon ECS
11 5 (1.20%) Amazon EKS
12 4 (0.96%) Azure DevOps
13 3 (0.72%) Akamai
13 3 (0.72%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 75 (17.99%) Network Security
2 53 (12.71%) Firewall
3 18 (4.32%) VPN
4 15 (3.60%) WAN
5 12 (2.88%) LAN
6 11 (2.64%) SD-WAN
7 7 (1.68%) IPsec
8 6 (1.44%) BGP
8 6 (1.44%) OSPF
9 5 (1.20%) DNS
10 4 (0.96%) DHCP
10 4 (0.96%) MQTT
10 4 (0.96%) Reverse Proxy
10 4 (0.96%) SSL
11 3 (0.72%) BIG-IP
11 3 (0.72%) Cisco ASA
11 3 (0.72%) MPLS
11 3 (0.72%) NGFW
11 3 (0.72%) Wi-Fi
12 2 (0.48%) S/MIME
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (1.20%) PostgreSQL
2 3 (0.72%) BigQuery
2 3 (0.72%) Data Lake
2 3 (0.72%) Data Warehouse
3 2 (0.48%) Metadata
4 1 (0.24%) Azure SQL Database
4 1 (0.24%) Elasticsearch
4 1 (0.24%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 16 (3.84%) JIRA
2 5 (1.20%) Jenkins
3 4 (0.96%) Snyk
4 3 (0.72%) GitLab
5 1 (0.24%) AppScan
5 1 (0.24%) Artifactory
5 1 (0.24%) Burp Suite
5 1 (0.24%) Git
5 1 (0.24%) Metasploit
General
1 79 (18.94%) Social Skills
2 62 (14.87%) Public Sector
3 56 (13.43%) Finance
4 21 (5.04%) Banking
5 16 (3.84%) Documentation Skills
6 15 (3.60%) Presentation Skills
7 10 (2.40%) Aerospace
7 10 (2.40%) Analytical Skills
8 9 (2.16%) Legal
9 7 (1.68%) Influencing Skills
10 6 (1.44%) Financial Institution
11 4 (0.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 3 (0.72%) Law
13 2 (0.48%) Investment Banking
13 2 (0.48%) Military
13 2 (0.48%) Retail
13 2 (0.48%) Retail Banking
14 1 (0.24%) Aviation
14 1 (0.24%) Digital Health
14 1 (0.24%) Manufacturing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (2.64%) OAuth
1 11 (2.64%) SAML
2 10 (2.40%) OpenID
3 8 (1.92%) OAuth2
4 6 (1.44%) SailPoint
5 5 (1.20%) Middleware
6 4 (0.96%) ADO
6 4 (0.96%) JWT
6 4 (0.96%) REST
7 3 (0.72%) FastAPI
7 3 (0.72%) Flask
7 3 (0.72%) ModSecurity
8 2 (0.48%) .NET
8 2 (0.48%) Elastic Stack
8 2 (0.48%) LDAP
9 1 (0.24%) IDoc
9 1 (0.24%) J2EE
9 1 (0.24%) Kafka
9 1 (0.24%) OpenTelemetry
9 1 (0.24%) React
Miscellaneous
1 26 (6.24%) Cloud Native
1 26 (6.24%) Security Posture
2 21 (5.04%) Management Information System
3 19 (4.56%) Onboarding
3 19 (4.56%) Operational Technology
4 14 (3.36%) Data Centre
5 11 (2.64%) Product Ownership
6 9 (2.16%) Private Cloud
7 8 (1.92%) PKI
8 7 (1.68%) Data Protection Act
8 7 (1.68%) Hybrid Cloud
8 7 (1.68%) Taxonomies
9 6 (1.44%) Legacy Systems
9 6 (1.44%) Security Operations Centre
10 5 (1.20%) AI Agents
11 4 (0.96%) Cyber Threat
11 4 (0.96%) Enterprise Software
11 4 (0.96%) Public Cloud
12 3 (0.72%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
12 3 (0.72%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 13 (3.12%) Windows
2 12 (2.88%) Linux
3 4 (0.96%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 3 (0.72%) Windows Server
5 2 (0.48%) Android
5 2 (0.48%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.24%) Kali Linux
6 1 (0.24%) Unix
6 1 (0.24%) VMS
6 1 (0.24%) Windows 10
6 1 (0.24%) Windows 7
6 1 (0.24%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 172 (41.25%) Security Architecture
2 140 (33.57%) Cybersecurity
3 93 (22.30%) Threat Modelling
4 90 (21.58%) Cloud Security
5 76 (18.23%) Zero Trust
6 74 (17.75%) TOGAF
7 65 (15.59%) Risk Management
8 60 (14.39%) SABSA
9 56 (13.43%) Identity Access Management
10 51 (12.23%) SIEM
10 51 (12.23%) Vulnerability Management
11 47 (11.27%) Incident Response
12 46 (11.03%) DevSecOps
13 44 (10.55%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 41 (9.83%) Architectural Patterns
15 36 (8.63%) CI/CD
16 35 (8.39%) Application Security
16 35 (8.39%) Network Segmentation
17 34 (8.15%) Information Security
18 33 (7.91%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 10 (2.40%) Python
2 8 (1.92%) Java
3 4 (0.96%) Bicep
3 4 (0.96%) JavaScript
3 4 (0.96%) SQL
4 3 (0.72%) PowerShell
5 2 (0.48%) C
5 2 (0.48%) Kotlin
5 2 (0.48%) PL/SQL
5 2 (0.48%) Swift
6 1 (0.24%) Bash
6 1 (0.24%) Kusto Query Language
6 1 (0.24%) Lisp
6 1 (0.24%) ProC
6 1 (0.24%) R
6 1 (0.24%) RPG
6 1 (0.24%) VB
6 1 (0.24%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 178 (42.69%) Security Cleared
2 121 (29.02%) SC Cleared
3 90 (21.58%) CISSP
4 56 (13.43%) CISM
5 43 (10.31%) DV Cleared
6 35 (8.39%) Cisco Certification
7 31 (7.43%) Degree
8 26 (6.24%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 17 (4.08%) CCSP
10 16 (3.84%) AWS Certification
10 16 (3.84%) TOGAF Certification
11 9 (2.16%) GIAC
12 8 (1.92%) Azure Certification
12 8 (1.92%) CCNP
12 8 (1.92%) Computer Science Degree
12 8 (1.92%) Master's Degree
13 7 (1.68%) BPSS Clearance
13 7 (1.68%) CCIE
14 5 (1.20%) CEH
14 5 (1.20%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 82 (19.66%) NIST
2 61 (14.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 35 (8.39%) NCSC
4 28 (6.71%) GDPR
5 21 (5.04%) PCI DSS
6 9 (2.16%) NIST 800
7 8 (1.92%) EU AI Act
8 7 (1.68%) Cyber Essentials
8 7 (1.68%) JSP 440
9 6 (1.44%) GRC
9 6 (1.44%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 4 (0.96%) COBIT
10 4 (0.96%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 4 (0.96%) RMADS
11 3 (0.72%) Def Stans
11 3 (0.72%) Government Security Classifications
11 3 (0.72%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
11 3 (0.72%) PSD2
11 3 (0.72%) SOC 2
12 2 (0.48%) HIPAA
System Software
1 17 (4.08%) Active Directory
2 4 (0.96%) Docker
3 2 (0.48%) VMware Infrastructure
3 2 (0.48%) vSphere
4 1 (0.24%) BitLocker
4 1 (0.24%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.24%) Varnish
4 1 (0.24%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 23 (5.52%) Terraform
2 18 (4.32%) Kubernetes
3 7 (1.68%) Ansible
3 7 (1.68%) Single Sign-On
4 3 (0.72%) SCCM
5 2 (0.48%) Network Intrusion Detection System
6 1 (0.24%) FortiGate
6 1 (0.24%) Kibana
6 1 (0.24%) logstash
6 1 (0.24%) Microsoft Intune
6 1 (0.24%) Nessus
6 1 (0.24%) Progress Chef
6 1 (0.24%) SELinux
Vendors
1 52 (12.47%) Microsoft
2 20 (4.80%) CyberArk
2 20 (4.80%) Splunk
3 19 (4.56%) BiZZdesign
4 15 (3.60%) Cisco
5 11 (2.64%) Centrify
5 11 (2.64%) Zscaler
6 10 (2.40%) CheckPoint
6 10 (2.40%) Fortinet
7 8 (1.92%) Okta
7 8 (1.92%) Palo Alto
7 8 (1.92%) Tenable
8 7 (1.68%) ServiceNow
8 7 (1.68%) Virgin Media
9 6 (1.44%) Cribl.io
9 6 (1.44%) F5
9 6 (1.44%) Google
9 6 (1.44%) Sparx
10 5 (1.20%) VMware
11 4 (0.96%) Red Hat