Security Architect Contract Job Trends

Security Architect
UK

The median Security Architect daily rate in the UK is £622, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 7 October 2026.

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

6 months to
7 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 243 241 236
Rank change year-on-year -2 -5 -19
Contract jobs requiring a Security Architect 599 375 370
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.09% 1.14% 0.98%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.18% 1.25% 1.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 426 238 210
10th Percentile £509 £506 £500
25th Percentile £533 £586 £599
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £622 £675 £700
Median % change year-on-year -7.85% -3.57% +3.70%
75th Percentile £736 £750 £775
90th Percentile £825 £800 £826
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £675 £650
% change year-on-year -11.07% +3.85% -3.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 4 1
10th Percentile - £83.25 -
25th Percentile £60.00 £84.38 -
Median hourly rate £70.00 £95.00 £87.46
Median % change year-on-year -26.32% +8.62% +24.94%
75th Percentile £80.00 £101.38 -
90th Percentile - £103.85 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £70.00 £100.00 £87.46
% change year-on-year -30.00% +14.34% +22.46%

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 50,571 29,988 35,006
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.10% 90.83% 92.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,735 18,924 21,160
10th Percentile £325 £277 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
75th Percentile £638 £621 £638
90th Percentile £736 £725 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £495
% change year-on-year +5.26% -4.04% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4,035 1,621 1,511
10th Percentile £14.42 £13.75 £14.99
25th Percentile £19.50 £17.30 £20.75
Median hourly rate £41.71 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +65.84% -40.82% -4.49%
75th Percentile £67.50 £50.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £68.00 £74.87
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.71 £25.08 £43.00
% change year-on-year +66.34% -41.69% -2.05%

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 7 October 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 7 October 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 -21 503 £623 -7.78% 452
London -6 266 £625 -7.41% 255
UK excluding London -47 228 £600 -11.07% 203
Work from Home +4 209 £600 -12.73% 198
South East -10 103 £638 -1.92% 72
North of England -78 50 £600 -14.29% 35
North West -30 38 £600 -16.35% 29
South West -39 32 £581 -10.58% 33
Midlands -33 31 £675 - 32
West Midlands -37 28 £675 -8.47% 28
Yorkshire -46 9 £350 -39.13% 4
East of England -20 7 £625 +25.00% 12
Channel Islands - 5 £700 -
East Midlands -16 3 £625 +38.89% 4
Scotland -26 1 - - 9

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

For the 6 months to 7 October 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.

1 314 (52.42%) Security Architecture
2 294 (49.08%) Security Cleared
3 209 (34.89%) Cybersecurity
4 206 (34.39%) SC Cleared
5 184 (30.72%) Azure
6 165 (27.55%) Cloud Security
7 156 (26.04%) Threat Modelling
8 151 (25.21%) AWS
9 138 (23.04%) NIST
10 116 (19.37%) CISSP
11 100 (16.69%) Identity Access Management
12 99 (16.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
13 95 (15.86%) Risk Management
14 94 (15.69%) Stakeholder Management
14 94 (15.69%) Zero Trust
15 92 (15.36%) DV Cleared
16 88 (14.69%) AI
17 85 (14.19%) TOGAF
18 82 (13.69%) Network Security
19 79 (13.19%) Architectural Patterns
20 77 (12.85%) Microsoft
21 76 (12.69%) Stakeholder Engagement
22 74 (12.35%) NCSC
23 72 (12.02%) Roadmaps
24 64 (10.68%) SABSA
25 62 (10.35%) CISM
25 62 (10.35%) Data Protection
26 61 (10.18%) DevSecOps
26 61 (10.18%) GCP
27 60 (10.02%) 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 6 (1.00%) IIS
2 3 (0.50%) Confluence
3 2 (0.33%) SAS
3 2 (0.33%) SharePoint
Applications
1 4 (0.67%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.17%) Gliffy
Business Applications
1 3 (0.50%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 1 (0.17%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 184 (30.72%) Azure
2 151 (25.21%) AWS
3 61 (10.18%) GCP
4 38 (6.34%) Entra ID
5 19 (3.17%) SaaS
6 17 (2.84%) Azure Sentinel
7 12 (2.00%) Microsoft 365
8 11 (1.84%) Dynamics 365
9 9 (1.50%) Azure Key Vault
10 8 (1.34%) AWS KMS
11 6 (1.00%) OCI
12 5 (0.83%) AWS Control Tower
12 5 (0.83%) Azure AI
12 5 (0.83%) IaaS
12 5 (0.83%) Microsoft Purview
12 5 (0.83%) PaaS
12 5 (0.83%) Vertex AI
13 4 (0.67%) Azure Cosmos DB
13 4 (0.67%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 4 (0.67%) GitHub
Communications & Networking
1 82 (13.69%) Network Security
2 53 (8.85%) Firewall
3 15 (2.50%) WAN
4 14 (2.34%) VPN
5 8 (1.34%) 4G
5 8 (1.34%) SD-WAN
5 8 (1.34%) VLAN
6 7 (1.17%) IPsec
6 7 (1.17%) NGFW
7 6 (1.00%) 5G
7 6 (1.00%) LAN
8 5 (0.83%) BGP
8 5 (0.83%) OSPF
8 5 (0.83%) Radio Access Network
9 4 (0.67%) DNS
9 4 (0.67%) MPLS
9 4 (0.67%) SSL
10 3 (0.50%) BIG-IP
10 3 (0.50%) Cisco IOS
10 3 (0.50%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (0.83%) Data Lake
2 2 (0.33%) Metadata
3 1 (0.17%) Amazon Aurora
3 1 (0.17%) BigQuery
3 1 (0.17%) Data Warehouse
3 1 (0.17%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 9 (1.50%) Jenkins
2 5 (0.83%) JIRA
3 2 (0.33%) Claude Code
3 2 (0.33%) GitLab
4 1 (0.17%) Bitbucket
General
1 103 (17.20%) Social Skills
2 81 (13.52%) Public Sector
3 53 (8.85%) Finance
4 26 (4.34%) Documentation Skills
4 26 (4.34%) Influencing Skills
5 25 (4.17%) Banking
6 20 (3.34%) Legal
7 19 (3.17%) Analytical Skills
8 18 (3.01%) Telecoms
9 11 (1.84%) Manufacturing
9 11 (1.84%) Police
10 9 (1.50%) Military
11 8 (1.34%) Law
12 7 (1.17%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 6 (1.00%) Aerospace
14 5 (0.83%) Pharmaceutical
14 5 (0.83%) Retail
15 4 (0.67%) Automotive
15 4 (0.67%) Local Government
15 4 (0.67%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (4.17%) Terraform
2 15 (2.50%) OAuth
3 12 (2.00%) OpenID
3 12 (2.00%) SAML
4 10 (1.67%) OAuth2
5 9 (1.50%) REST
6 8 (1.34%) ModSecurity
7 6 (1.00%) LDAP
7 6 (1.00%) SLSA
8 5 (0.83%) Azure Blueprints
8 5 (0.83%) LangChain
8 5 (0.83%) PyTorch
9 3 (0.50%) .NET
9 3 (0.50%) HTML
9 3 (0.50%) JWT
9 3 (0.50%) scikit-learn
10 2 (0.33%) EDI
10 2 (0.33%) Jakarta EE
10 2 (0.33%) JSP
10 2 (0.33%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 54 (9.02%) Cloud Native
2 49 (8.18%) Security Posture
3 32 (5.34%) Management Information System
4 30 (5.01%) Operational Technology
5 20 (3.34%) Data Centre
6 19 (3.17%) Cyber Threat
6 19 (3.17%) Onboarding
7 15 (2.50%) Public Cloud
8 14 (2.34%) AI Agents
9 12 (2.00%) Hybrid Cloud
9 12 (2.00%) PKI
10 10 (1.67%) Enterprise Cloud
11 8 (1.34%) Cloud Security Posture
11 8 (1.34%) Private Cloud
12 7 (1.17%) Enterprise Software
12 7 (1.17%) Legacy Systems
13 6 (1.00%) Data Protection Act
13 6 (1.00%) IoT
13 6 (1.00%) Self-Motivation
13 6 (1.00%) Smartcard
Operating Systems
1 15 (2.50%) Linux
2 13 (2.17%) Windows
3 12 (2.00%) Windows Server
4 4 (0.67%) Alpine Linux
4 4 (0.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 4 (0.67%) Ubuntu
5 3 (0.50%) Unix
6 1 (0.17%) Android
Processes & Methodologies
1 314 (52.42%) Security Architecture
2 209 (34.89%) Cybersecurity
3 165 (27.55%) Cloud Security
4 156 (26.04%) Threat Modelling
5 100 (16.69%) Identity Access Management
6 95 (15.86%) Risk Management
7 94 (15.69%) Stakeholder Management
7 94 (15.69%) Zero Trust
8 88 (14.69%) AI
9 85 (14.19%) TOGAF
10 79 (13.19%) Architectural Patterns
11 76 (12.69%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 72 (12.02%) Roadmaps
13 64 (10.68%) SABSA
14 62 (10.35%) Data Protection
15 61 (10.18%) DevSecOps
16 60 (10.02%) CI/CD
17 59 (9.85%) Vulnerability Management
18 55 (9.18%) Enterprise Architecture
18 55 (9.18%) Information Security
Programming Languages
1 20 (3.34%) Python
2 11 (1.84%) PowerShell
3 8 (1.34%) Bicep
3 8 (1.34%) Java
4 5 (0.83%) Groovy
4 5 (0.83%) Shell Script
5 4 (0.67%) Bash
6 3 (0.50%) JavaScript
7 2 (0.33%) SQL
8 1 (0.17%) R
Qualifications
1 294 (49.08%) Security Cleared
2 206 (34.39%) SC Cleared
3 116 (19.37%) CISSP
4 92 (15.36%) DV Cleared
5 62 (10.35%) CISM
6 50 (8.35%) Cisco Certification
7 43 (7.18%) (ISC)2 CCSP
8 36 (6.01%) CCSP
9 27 (4.51%) AWS Certification
10 22 (3.67%) Degree
11 19 (3.17%) TOGAF Certification
12 17 (2.84%) CISA
13 16 (2.67%) Azure Certification
14 8 (1.34%) CEH
14 8 (1.34%) ISSAP
14 8 (1.34%) Microsoft Certification
15 7 (1.17%) BPSS Clearance
15 7 (1.17%) CompTIA Security+
15 7 (1.17%) CRISC
15 7 (1.17%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 138 (23.04%) NIST
2 99 (16.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 74 (12.35%) NCSC
4 41 (6.84%) GDPR
5 31 (5.18%) GRC
6 20 (3.34%) PCI DSS
7 17 (2.84%) NIST 800
8 12 (2.00%) Cyber Essentials
8 12 (2.00%) JSP 440
9 11 (1.84%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 10 (1.67%) Government Security Classifications
11 9 (1.50%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 9 (1.50%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 7 (1.17%) ISO 19650
12 7 (1.17%) ISO/IEC 27005
13 6 (1.00%) EU AI Act
13 6 (1.00%) ISO/IEC 42001
14 5 (0.83%) HIPAA
14 5 (0.83%) ISO 31000
14 5 (0.83%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 22 (3.67%) Active Directory
2 15 (2.50%) Docker
3 7 (1.17%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (0.83%) ISA Server
5 2 (0.33%) Hyper-V
5 2 (0.33%) VMware ESXi
5 2 (0.33%) vSphere
6 1 (0.17%) KVM
6 1 (0.17%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 26 (4.34%) Kubernetes
2 13 (2.17%) Ansible
3 8 (1.34%) CASB
4 7 (1.17%) Single Sign-On
5 4 (0.67%) FortiGate
5 4 (0.67%) QRadar
6 3 (0.50%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 2 (0.33%) Docker Swarm
7 2 (0.33%) Istio
8 1 (0.17%) Microsoft Intune
8 1 (0.17%) Suricata
Vendors
1 77 (12.85%) Microsoft
2 30 (5.01%) Google
3 25 (4.17%) Cisco
4 20 (3.34%) Palo Alto
5 18 (3.01%) Splunk
6 15 (2.50%) CrowdStrike
7 13 (2.17%) Fortinet
8 11 (1.84%) Salesforce
9 10 (1.67%) Qualys
10 9 (1.50%) F5
10 9 (1.50%) VMware
11 8 (1.34%) Tenable
12 7 (1.17%) Zscaler
13 6 (1.00%) IFS
13 6 (1.00%) Juniper
13 6 (1.00%) SAP
14 5 (0.83%) CheckPoint
14 5 (0.83%) CyberArk
14 5 (0.83%) Databricks
14 5 (0.83%) Tripwire