Security Architect Contract Job Trends

Security Architect
UK

The median Security Architect daily rate in the UK is £634, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 12 May 2026.

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

6 months to
12 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 246 241 221
Rank change year-on-year -5 -20 +37
Contract jobs requiring a Security Architect 483 324 454
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.02% 1.11% 1.06%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.10% 1.20% 1.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 313 230 278
10th Percentile £464 £535 £520
25th Percentile £525 £600 £625
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £634 £663 £700
Median % change year-on-year -4.30% -5.36% -
75th Percentile £750 £738 £775
90th Percentile £825 £835 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £650 £664 £666
% change year-on-year -2.07% -0.34% -2.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 2 19
10th Percentile - £69.68 £81.86
25th Percentile - £71.82 £81.88
Median hourly rate £83.00 £79.16 £87.46
Median % change year-on-year +4.86% -9.50% +24.94%
75th Percentile £84.00 £85.22 £87.50
90th Percentile £84.60 £86.59 £87.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £83.00 £79.16 £87.46
% change year-on-year +4.86% -9.50% +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 43,836 26,998 39,901
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.28% 92.47% 92.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,861 17,609 25,964
10th Percentile £319 £300 £280
25th Percentile £413 £406 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £507 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.07% -2.38% -2.78%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +4.21% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,872 1,048 2,673
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.00 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.35 £18.34 £16.30
Median hourly rate £44.00 £28.60 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +53.85% -23.73% -16.67%
75th Percentile £66.63 £62.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.56 £27.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +65.65% -31.25% -5.73%

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 May 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 12 May 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 -25 409 £650 -1.89% 103
London -17 199 £634 -6.07% 36
UK excluding London -19 198 £650 -2.07% 77
Work from Home -3 158 £600 -10.58% 47
South East -14 76 £633 +1.20% 19
North of England -31 59 £700 +4.32% 25
North West -9 44 £707 +5.39% 23
Midlands -33 40 £700 - 9
West Midlands -44 38 £725 +3.57% 9
South West -47 14 £591 -11.75% 8
Yorkshire -47 12 £650 -4.41%
Scotland -5 6 £738 -1.67% 1
East of England - 3 £750 - 6
North East -17 2 £545 -12.80% 2
East Midlands - 2 £438 -

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

For the 6 months to 12 May 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.

1 227 (47.00%) Security Architecture
2 211 (43.69%) Security Cleared
3 158 (32.71%) Cybersecurity
4 138 (28.57%) SC Cleared
5 131 (27.12%) Azure
5 131 (27.12%) Threat Modelling
6 115 (23.81%) Cloud Security
7 110 (22.77%) AWS
8 102 (21.12%) NIST
9 91 (18.84%) Zero Trust
10 89 (18.43%) CISSP
10 89 (18.43%) Network Security
11 70 (14.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
12 63 (13.04%) Architectural Patterns
12 63 (13.04%) Risk Management
13 61 (12.63%) TOGAF
14 59 (12.22%) DV Cleared
15 56 (11.59%) GCP
15 56 (11.59%) SABSA
16 52 (10.77%) Application Security
16 52 (10.77%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 51 (10.56%) Identity Access Management
17 51 (10.56%) Microsoft
18 48 (9.94%) CISM
19 47 (9.73%) Vulnerability Management
20 45 (9.32%) Cisco Certification
20 45 (9.32%) DevSecOps
20 45 (9.32%) SIEM
21 43 (8.90%) Data Protection
22 42 (8.70%) AI

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 11 (2.28%) Confluence
2 7 (1.45%) SharePoint
3 4 (0.83%) nginx
4 1 (0.21%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.21%) NetWeaver
4 1 (0.21%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 2 (0.41%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 2 (0.41%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.21%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 3 (0.62%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 1 (0.21%) SAP EHS
2 1 (0.21%) SAP EWM
2 1 (0.21%) SAP GRC
2 1 (0.21%) SAP HR
2 1 (0.21%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (0.21%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 131 (27.12%) Azure
2 110 (22.77%) AWS
3 56 (11.59%) GCP
4 30 (6.21%) Entra ID
5 14 (2.90%) Azure Sentinel
6 13 (2.69%) SaaS
7 12 (2.48%) Amazon GuardDuty
8 9 (1.86%) AWS KMS
8 9 (1.86%) Microsoft 365
9 7 (1.45%) Amazon EKS
9 7 (1.45%) AWS CloudFormation
9 7 (1.45%) GitHub
9 7 (1.45%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 5 (1.04%) Amazon ECS
10 5 (1.04%) IaaS
11 4 (0.83%) Azure DevOps
12 3 (0.62%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 3 (0.62%) Apigee
12 3 (0.62%) AWS CloudTrail
12 3 (0.62%) Kong
Communications & Networking
1 89 (18.43%) Network Security
2 39 (8.07%) Firewall
3 13 (2.69%) VPN
4 10 (2.07%) LAN
4 10 (2.07%) WAN
5 8 (1.66%) SD-WAN
6 6 (1.24%) IPsec
7 5 (1.04%) BGP
7 5 (1.04%) OSPF
8 4 (0.83%) MQTT
8 4 (0.83%) Reverse Proxy
9 3 (0.62%) BIG-IP
9 3 (0.62%) MPLS
9 3 (0.62%) NGFW
10 2 (0.41%) Cisco ASA
10 2 (0.41%) Ethernet VPN
10 2 (0.41%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
10 2 (0.41%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
10 2 (0.41%) Intrusion Detection
10 2 (0.41%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (1.04%) PostgreSQL
2 3 (0.62%) Data Lake
2 3 (0.62%) Data Warehouse
3 2 (0.41%) Big Data
3 2 (0.41%) Metadata
4 1 (0.21%) Azure SQL Database
4 1 (0.21%) BigQuery
4 1 (0.21%) Elasticsearch
4 1 (0.21%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 7 (1.45%) JIRA
2 5 (1.04%) Jenkins
3 4 (0.83%) Snyk
4 3 (0.62%) GitLab
5 1 (0.21%) AppScan
5 1 (0.21%) Artifactory
5 1 (0.21%) Burp Suite
5 1 (0.21%) Claude Code
5 1 (0.21%) Git
5 1 (0.21%) Metasploit
General
1 81 (16.77%) Social Skills
2 66 (13.66%) Public Sector
3 54 (11.18%) Finance
4 24 (4.97%) Banking
5 20 (4.14%) Documentation Skills
6 15 (3.11%) Influencing Skills
7 13 (2.69%) Presentation Skills
8 12 (2.48%) Analytical Skills
8 12 (2.48%) Legal
9 9 (1.86%) Aerospace
10 6 (1.24%) Manufacturing
11 5 (1.04%) Financial Institution
12 4 (0.83%) Military
13 3 (0.62%) Law
14 2 (0.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 2 (0.41%) Police
14 2 (0.41%) Retail
14 2 (0.41%) Retail Banking
15 1 (0.21%) Aviation
15 1 (0.21%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (2.28%) OAuth
2 9 (1.86%) OAuth2
2 9 (1.86%) OpenID
3 7 (1.45%) SAML
4 5 (1.04%) J2EE
4 5 (1.04%) JSP
4 5 (1.04%) JWT
4 5 (1.04%) Middleware
4 5 (1.04%) SailPoint
5 4 (0.83%) ADO
5 4 (0.83%) REST
6 3 (0.62%) FastAPI
6 3 (0.62%) Flask
7 2 (0.41%) A2A Protocol
7 2 (0.41%) Elastic Stack
7 2 (0.41%) Hugging Face
7 2 (0.41%) LangChain
7 2 (0.41%) PyTorch
7 2 (0.41%) TensorFlow
8 1 (0.21%) IDoc
Miscellaneous
1 40 (8.28%) Security Posture
2 35 (7.25%) Cloud Native
3 31 (6.42%) Operational Technology
4 26 (5.38%) Management Information System
5 17 (3.52%) Onboarding
6 15 (3.11%) Data Centre
7 14 (2.90%) AI Agents
8 10 (2.07%) Data Protection Act
8 10 (2.07%) Legacy Systems
9 7 (1.45%) Cyber Threat
10 6 (1.24%) Cloud Security Posture
10 6 (1.24%) Hybrid Cloud
10 6 (1.24%) Private Cloud
11 5 (1.04%) Enterprise Cloud
12 4 (0.83%) Autonomous Agent
12 4 (0.83%) Security Operations Centre
12 4 (0.83%) Virtual Team
13 3 (0.62%) Cyber Defence
13 3 (0.62%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
13 3 (0.62%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 12 (2.48%) Windows
2 11 (2.28%) Linux
3 4 (0.83%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 3 (0.62%) Windows Server
5 2 (0.41%) Android
5 2 (0.41%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.21%) Kali Linux
6 1 (0.21%) Unix
6 1 (0.21%) VMS
6 1 (0.21%) Windows 10
6 1 (0.21%) Windows 7
6 1 (0.21%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 227 (47.00%) Security Architecture
2 158 (32.71%) Cybersecurity
3 131 (27.12%) Threat Modelling
4 115 (23.81%) Cloud Security
5 91 (18.84%) Zero Trust
6 63 (13.04%) Architectural Patterns
6 63 (13.04%) Risk Management
7 61 (12.63%) TOGAF
8 56 (11.59%) SABSA
9 52 (10.77%) Application Security
9 52 (10.77%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 51 (10.56%) Identity Access Management
11 47 (9.73%) Vulnerability Management
12 45 (9.32%) DevSecOps
12 45 (9.32%) SIEM
13 43 (8.90%) Data Protection
14 42 (8.70%) AI
15 41 (8.49%) Network Segmentation
15 41 (8.49%) Stakeholder Management
16 38 (7.87%) CI/CD
Programming Languages
1 11 (2.28%) Java
2 8 (1.66%) Python
3 4 (0.83%) Bicep
3 4 (0.83%) JavaScript
3 4 (0.83%) SQL
4 2 (0.41%) C
4 2 (0.41%) Kotlin
4 2 (0.41%) PL/SQL
4 2 (0.41%) PowerShell
4 2 (0.41%) Swift
5 1 (0.21%) Bash
5 1 (0.21%) Kusto Query Language
5 1 (0.21%) Lisp
5 1 (0.21%) ProC
5 1 (0.21%) RPG
5 1 (0.21%) VB
5 1 (0.21%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 211 (43.69%) Security Cleared
2 138 (28.57%) SC Cleared
3 89 (18.43%) CISSP
4 59 (12.22%) DV Cleared
5 48 (9.94%) CISM
6 45 (9.32%) Cisco Certification
7 36 (7.45%) (ISC)2 CCSP
8 24 (4.97%) Degree
9 22 (4.55%) CCSP
10 16 (3.31%) AWS Certification
11 13 (2.69%) BPSS Clearance
12 11 (2.28%) Azure Certification
13 10 (2.07%) CISA
13 10 (2.07%) GIAC
14 9 (1.86%) SANS
15 8 (1.66%) CCNP
15 8 (1.66%) CEH
15 8 (1.66%) TOGAF Certification
16 5 (1.04%) CCIE
16 5 (1.04%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 102 (21.12%) NIST
2 70 (14.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 39 (8.07%) NCSC
4 35 (7.25%) GDPR
5 18 (3.73%) PCI DSS
6 15 (3.11%) GRC
7 13 (2.69%) NIST 800
8 7 (1.45%) EU AI Act
9 6 (1.24%) COBIT
9 6 (1.24%) JSP 440
9 6 (1.24%) RMADS
10 5 (1.04%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 5 (1.04%) QA
11 4 (0.83%) Cyber Essentials
11 4 (0.83%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 3 (0.62%) Government Security Classifications
12 3 (0.62%) IFRS
12 3 (0.62%) IFRS 9
12 3 (0.62%) ISO 19650
12 3 (0.62%) ISO/IEC 27005
System Software
1 18 (3.73%) Active Directory
2 3 (0.62%) Docker
2 3 (0.62%) VMware Infrastructure
3 2 (0.41%) vSphere
4 1 (0.21%) BitLocker
4 1 (0.21%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.21%) Varnish
4 1 (0.21%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 24 (4.97%) Terraform
2 19 (3.93%) Kubernetes
3 6 (1.24%) Ansible
4 4 (0.83%) Single Sign-On
5 2 (0.41%) Network Intrusion Detection System
5 2 (0.41%) QRadar
6 1 (0.21%) FortiGate
6 1 (0.21%) Istio
6 1 (0.21%) Kibana
6 1 (0.21%) logstash
6 1 (0.21%) Microsoft Intune
6 1 (0.21%) Nessus
6 1 (0.21%) Progress Chef
6 1 (0.21%) SCCM
6 1 (0.21%) SELinux
Vendors
1 51 (10.56%) Microsoft
2 16 (3.31%) Splunk
3 12 (2.48%) SAP
4 11 (2.28%) Cisco
5 10 (2.07%) BiZZdesign
5 10 (2.07%) Okta
5 10 (2.07%) Zscaler
6 8 (1.66%) Palo Alto
7 7 (1.45%) CheckPoint
7 7 (1.45%) CyberArk
7 7 (1.45%) ServiceNow
8 6 (1.24%) Fortinet
8 6 (1.24%) Google
8 6 (1.24%) Tenable
9 5 (1.04%) Cribl.io
9 5 (1.04%) VMware
10 4 (0.83%) F5
10 4 (0.83%) Qualys
10 4 (0.83%) Red Hat
11 3 (0.62%) Juniper