Security Architect Contract Job Trends

Security Architect
UK

The median Security Architect daily rate in the UK is £632, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 1 July 2026.

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

6 months to
1 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 233 226 227
Rank change year-on-year -7 +1 +23
Contract jobs requiring a Security Architect 564 363 466
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.10% 1.18% 1.08%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.19% 1.28% 1.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 380 239 277
10th Percentile £483 £525 £500
25th Percentile £525 £600 £613
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £632 £675 £700
Median % change year-on-year -6.37% -3.57% -
75th Percentile £765 £775 £775
90th Percentile £844 £835 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £650 £664 £663
% change year-on-year -2.07% +0.19% -2.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 3 19
10th Percentile - £86.00 £81.86
25th Percentile - £91.25 £81.88
Median hourly rate £83.00 £100.00 £87.46
Median % change year-on-year -17.00% +14.34% +24.94%
75th Percentile £83.25 £102.75 £87.50
90th Percentile £83.70 £104.40 £87.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £83.00 £100.00 £87.46
% change year-on-year -17.00% +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 47,495 28,303 40,138
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.41% 92.03% 92.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,760 18,119 25,771
10th Percentile £325 £288 £283
25th Percentile £415 £401 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £493
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.65% -1.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,210 1,268 2,866
10th Percentile £15.72 £13.77 £12.86
25th Percentile £21.25 £17.41 £16.50
Median hourly rate £43.00 £26.50 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +62.26% -29.33% -12.79%
75th Percentile £67.50 £56.25 £62.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.75 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -37.13% -

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 1 July 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 1 July 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 -6 485 £650 -3.70% 153
London -27 239 £650 -3.70% 69
UK excluding London +3 234 £650 -2.07% 101
Work from Home -4 189 £600 -14.29% 95
South East -5 94 £650 +6.12% 41
North of England -39 63 £675 - 16
Midlands -28 51 £600 -21.31% 8
North West -13 49 £704 +2.34% 11
West Midlands -25 48 £625 -18.03% 7
South West -47 18 £614 -5.58% 17
Yorkshire -40 12 £675 +22.73% 5
Scotland -7 5 £700 -15.15% 1
East Midlands - 3 £438 - 1
East of England -22 2 £750 +50.00% 5
Channel Islands - 1 £575 -

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

For the 6 months to 1 July 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.

1 265 (46.99%) Security Architecture
2 255 (45.21%) Security Cleared
3 198 (35.11%) Cybersecurity
4 168 (29.79%) SC Cleared
5 163 (28.90%) Azure
6 159 (28.19%) Threat Modelling
7 142 (25.18%) Cloud Security
8 138 (24.47%) AWS
9 115 (20.39%) NIST
10 101 (17.91%) CISSP
11 97 (17.20%) Network Security
11 97 (17.20%) Zero Trust
12 84 (14.89%) Architectural Patterns
13 77 (13.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
14 74 (13.12%) Risk Management
15 72 (12.77%) DV Cleared
15 72 (12.77%) GCP
16 70 (12.41%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 68 (12.06%) Identity Access Management
18 67 (11.88%) TOGAF
19 65 (11.52%) SABSA
20 62 (10.99%) AI
21 61 (10.82%) Stakeholder Management
22 59 (10.46%) Application Security
23 56 (9.93%) NCSC
24 54 (9.57%) Microsoft
25 53 (9.40%) CISM
26 52 (9.22%) DevSecOps
26 52 (9.22%) SIEM
27 51 (9.04%) Data Protection

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 8 (1.42%) Confluence
2 5 (0.89%) SharePoint
3 3 (0.53%) nginx
4 2 (0.35%) SAS
5 1 (0.18%) Microsoft Exchange
5 1 (0.18%) NetWeaver
5 1 (0.18%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 5 (0.89%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.18%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.18%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 2 (0.35%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 1 (0.18%) SAP EHS
2 1 (0.18%) SAP EWM
2 1 (0.18%) SAP GRC
2 1 (0.18%) SAP HR
2 1 (0.18%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (0.18%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 163 (28.90%) Azure
2 138 (24.47%) AWS
3 72 (12.77%) GCP
4 32 (5.67%) Entra ID
5 18 (3.19%) Azure Sentinel
6 13 (2.30%) SaaS
7 10 (1.77%) Microsoft 365
8 7 (1.24%) Amazon GuardDuty
9 6 (1.06%) Amazon EKS
9 6 (1.06%) GitHub
10 4 (0.71%) AWS CloudFormation
10 4 (0.71%) AWS Control Tower
10 4 (0.71%) AWS KMS
10 4 (0.71%) Azure DevOps
10 4 (0.71%) Serverless
11 3 (0.53%) Anthropic Claude
11 3 (0.53%) Azure API Management
11 3 (0.53%) Microsoft Purview
11 3 (0.53%) OCI
11 3 (0.53%) Vertex AI
Communications & Networking
1 97 (17.20%) Network Security
2 45 (7.98%) Firewall
3 16 (2.84%) VPN
4 11 (1.95%) SD-WAN
5 10 (1.77%) IPsec
5 10 (1.77%) WAN
6 8 (1.42%) VLAN
7 7 (1.24%) NGFW
8 5 (0.89%) BGP
8 5 (0.89%) LAN
8 5 (0.89%) MPLS
8 5 (0.89%) OSPF
9 4 (0.71%) 4G
9 4 (0.71%) DNS
9 4 (0.71%) Intranet
9 4 (0.71%) Reverse Proxy
10 3 (0.53%) 5G
10 3 (0.53%) DHCP
10 3 (0.53%) MQTT
10 3 (0.53%) Radio Access Network
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (0.89%) PostgreSQL
2 3 (0.53%) Data Lake
2 3 (0.53%) Data Warehouse
3 2 (0.35%) Big Data
3 2 (0.35%) BigQuery
4 1 (0.18%) Azure SQL Database
4 1 (0.18%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 8 (1.42%) JIRA
2 6 (1.06%) Jenkins
3 4 (0.71%) Snyk
4 3 (0.53%) GitLab
5 2 (0.35%) Claude Code
6 1 (0.18%) AppScan
6 1 (0.18%) Artifactory
6 1 (0.18%) Burp Suite
6 1 (0.18%) Metasploit
General
1 103 (18.26%) Social Skills
2 78 (13.83%) Public Sector
3 66 (11.70%) Finance
4 33 (5.85%) Banking
5 24 (4.26%) Documentation Skills
6 20 (3.55%) Analytical Skills
7 17 (3.01%) Influencing Skills
8 13 (2.30%) Legal
9 10 (1.77%) Aerospace
9 10 (1.77%) Presentation Skills
10 8 (1.42%) Military
11 7 (1.24%) Manufacturing
12 5 (0.89%) Financial Institution
12 5 (0.89%) Telecoms
13 4 (0.71%) Law
13 4 (0.71%) Retail
14 2 (0.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 2 (0.35%) Police
14 2 (0.35%) Retail Banking
15 1 (0.18%) Aviation
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (2.48%) OAuth
2 12 (2.13%) OAuth2
2 12 (2.13%) OpenID
3 10 (1.77%) SAML
4 6 (1.06%) REST
5 5 (0.89%) J2EE
5 5 (0.89%) JSP
5 5 (0.89%) JWT
5 5 (0.89%) LangChain
5 5 (0.89%) PyTorch
5 5 (0.89%) SailPoint
6 4 (0.71%) Azure Blueprints
6 4 (0.71%) LDAP
7 3 (0.53%) .NET
7 3 (0.53%) ADO
7 3 (0.53%) FastAPI
7 3 (0.53%) Flask
7 3 (0.53%) HTML
7 3 (0.53%) Middleware
7 3 (0.53%) scikit-learn
Miscellaneous
1 54 (9.57%) Security Posture
2 42 (7.45%) Cloud Native
3 37 (6.56%) Operational Technology
4 29 (5.14%) Management Information System
5 15 (2.66%) AI Agents
6 13 (2.30%) Cyber Threat
7 12 (2.13%) Hybrid Cloud
7 12 (2.13%) Onboarding
8 11 (1.95%) Data Centre
8 11 (1.95%) Data Protection Act
9 9 (1.60%) Cloud Security Posture
9 9 (1.60%) Enterprise Cloud
9 9 (1.60%) Legacy Systems
10 7 (1.24%) Private Cloud
11 6 (1.06%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
12 5 (0.89%) Mobile App
12 5 (0.89%) Public Cloud
13 4 (0.71%) CMDB
13 4 (0.71%) SCADA
13 4 (0.71%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 14 (2.48%) Linux
2 13 (2.30%) Windows
3 7 (1.24%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 6 (1.06%) Windows Server
5 4 (0.71%) Alpine Linux
5 4 (0.71%) Ubuntu
6 2 (0.35%) Android
7 1 (0.18%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.18%) Kali Linux
7 1 (0.18%) VMS
7 1 (0.18%) Windows 10
7 1 (0.18%) Windows 7
7 1 (0.18%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 265 (46.99%) Security Architecture
2 198 (35.11%) Cybersecurity
3 159 (28.19%) Threat Modelling
4 142 (25.18%) Cloud Security
5 97 (17.20%) Zero Trust
6 84 (14.89%) Architectural Patterns
7 74 (13.12%) Risk Management
8 70 (12.41%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 68 (12.06%) Identity Access Management
10 67 (11.88%) TOGAF
11 65 (11.52%) SABSA
12 62 (10.99%) AI
13 61 (10.82%) Stakeholder Management
14 59 (10.46%) Application Security
15 52 (9.22%) DevSecOps
15 52 (9.22%) SIEM
16 51 (9.04%) Data Protection
17 50 (8.87%) DevOps
17 50 (8.87%) Roadmaps
18 49 (8.69%) Vulnerability Management
Programming Languages
1 19 (3.37%) Python
2 12 (2.13%) Java
3 9 (1.60%) PowerShell
4 8 (1.42%) Bicep
5 6 (1.06%) JavaScript
6 3 (0.53%) Bash
6 3 (0.53%) SQL
7 1 (0.18%) Kotlin
7 1 (0.18%) Lisp
7 1 (0.18%) R
7 1 (0.18%) RPG
7 1 (0.18%) Swift
7 1 (0.18%) VB
7 1 (0.18%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 255 (45.21%) Security Cleared
2 168 (29.79%) SC Cleared
3 101 (17.91%) CISSP
4 72 (12.77%) DV Cleared
5 53 (9.40%) CISM
6 48 (8.51%) Cisco Certification
7 40 (7.09%) (ISC)2 CCSP
8 27 (4.79%) CCSP
9 26 (4.61%) Degree
10 19 (3.37%) AWS Certification
11 14 (2.48%) GIAC
12 12 (2.13%) CISA
13 11 (1.95%) BPSS Clearance
13 11 (1.95%) CEH
14 10 (1.77%) SANS
15 9 (1.60%) Azure Certification
16 7 (1.24%) OSCP
17 6 (1.06%) CCNP
17 6 (1.06%) ISSAP
17 6 (1.06%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 115 (20.39%) NIST
2 77 (13.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 56 (9.93%) NCSC
4 36 (6.38%) GDPR
5 20 (3.55%) PCI DSS
6 19 (3.37%) NIST 800
7 16 (2.84%) GRC
8 10 (1.77%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
9 8 (1.42%) COBIT
9 8 (1.42%) JSP 440
10 7 (1.24%) EU AI Act
11 6 (1.06%) HMG Security Policy Framework
11 6 (1.06%) ISO 19650
11 6 (1.06%) QA
11 6 (1.06%) RMADS
12 5 (0.89%) Government Security Classifications
12 5 (0.89%) SOC 2
13 4 (0.71%) Cyber Essentials
14 3 (0.53%) IFRS
14 3 (0.53%) IFRS 9
System Software
1 21 (3.72%) Active Directory
2 6 (1.06%) Docker
3 5 (0.89%) VMware Infrastructure
4 3 (0.53%) vSphere
5 2 (0.35%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.18%) BitLocker
6 1 (0.18%) KVM
6 1 (0.18%) Varnish
6 1 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 25 (4.43%) Terraform
2 24 (4.26%) Kubernetes
3 10 (1.77%) Ansible
4 5 (0.89%) Single Sign-On
5 3 (0.53%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 3 (0.53%) QRadar
6 2 (0.35%) CASB
6 2 (0.35%) Istio
6 2 (0.35%) Microsoft Intune
6 2 (0.35%) Network Intrusion Detection System
7 1 (0.18%) Docker Swarm
7 1 (0.18%) FortiGate
7 1 (0.18%) Nessus
7 1 (0.18%) Progress Chef
7 1 (0.18%) SCCM
7 1 (0.18%) SELinux
7 1 (0.18%) Suricata
Vendors
1 54 (9.57%) Microsoft
2 22 (3.90%) Splunk
3 14 (2.48%) Google
3 14 (2.48%) Okta
4 13 (2.30%) Palo Alto
4 13 (2.30%) SAP
5 12 (2.13%) Cisco
5 12 (2.13%) Fortinet
6 11 (1.95%) Tenable
7 9 (1.60%) Salesforce
8 8 (1.42%) BiZZdesign
8 8 (1.42%) CheckPoint
8 8 (1.42%) CrowdStrike
8 8 (1.42%) Qualys
9 6 (1.06%) CyberArk
9 6 (1.06%) Zscaler
10 5 (0.89%) Cribl.io
10 5 (0.89%) ServiceNow
10 5 (0.89%) VMware
11 4 (0.71%) Rapid7