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 26 May 2026.

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

6 months to
26 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 251 233 220
Rank change year-on-year -18 -13 +34
Contract jobs requiring a Security Architect 491 325 454
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.01% 1.14% 1.06%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.10% 1.23% 1.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 321 221 283
10th Percentile £483 £550 £519
25th Percentile £525 £600 £625
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £634 £675 £700
Median % change year-on-year -6.07% -3.57% -
75th Percentile £750 £750 £780
90th Percentile £838 £835 £842
UK excluding London median daily rate £650 £650 £664
% change year-on-year - -2.15% -2.32%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 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 £83.25 £85.22 £87.50
90th Percentile £83.70 £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 44,822 26,395 39,583
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.33% 92.28% 92.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,378 17,183 25,758
10th Percentile £325 £289 £280
25th Percentile £413 £405 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £508 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.99% -3.33% -2.78%
75th Percentile £619 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +5.26% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,956 1,008 2,746
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.00 £12.81
25th Percentile £20.49 £18.12 £16.30
Median hourly rate £42.50 £27.52 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +54.46% -24.62% -18.89%
75th Percentile £67.06 £60.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.69 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +73.72% -37.13% -5.88%

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 26 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 26 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 -16 418 £650 -3.42% 137
London -37 207 £648 -4.07% 57
UK excluding London -18 198 £650 - 91
Work from Home -7 158 £621 -8.04% 70
South East -14 76 £630 +5.00% 23
North of England -34 59 £700 +5.02% 22
North West -6 45 £707 +5.39% 16
Midlands -36 42 £625 -9.12% 9
West Midlands -37 40 £700 +1.78% 9
South West -45 14 £604 -9.21% 18
Yorkshire -48 12 £650 +5.69% 2
Scotland -6 5 £700 -8.20% 3
East Midlands - 2 £438 -
East of England - 2 £750 - 7
North East -22 1 - - 4

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

For the 6 months to 26 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.

1 234 (47.66%) Security Architecture
2 218 (44.40%) Security Cleared
3 169 (34.42%) Cybersecurity
4 146 (29.74%) SC Cleared
5 140 (28.51%) Threat Modelling
6 136 (27.70%) Azure
7 118 (24.03%) Cloud Security
8 113 (23.01%) AWS
9 102 (20.77%) NIST
10 91 (18.53%) Zero Trust
11 89 (18.13%) CISSP
12 87 (17.72%) Network Security
13 69 (14.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
14 67 (13.65%) Risk Management
15 64 (13.03%) Architectural Patterns
16 62 (12.63%) TOGAF
17 61 (12.42%) DV Cleared
18 58 (11.81%) GCP
19 57 (11.61%) SABSA
20 54 (11.00%) Identity Access Management
21 53 (10.79%) Application Security
21 53 (10.79%) Stakeholder Engagement
22 50 (10.18%) CISM
23 49 (9.98%) DevSecOps
24 48 (9.78%) Microsoft
25 47 (9.57%) AI
25 47 (9.57%) NCSC
26 45 (9.16%) Cisco Certification
26 45 (9.16%) SIEM
26 45 (9.16%) Vulnerability Management

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 10 (2.04%) Confluence
2 6 (1.22%) SharePoint
3 4 (0.81%) nginx
4 1 (0.20%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.20%) NetWeaver
4 1 (0.20%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 2 (0.41%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 2 (0.41%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.20%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 3 (0.61%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 1 (0.20%) SAP EHS
2 1 (0.20%) SAP EWM
2 1 (0.20%) SAP GRC
2 1 (0.20%) SAP HR
2 1 (0.20%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (0.20%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 136 (27.70%) Azure
2 113 (23.01%) AWS
3 58 (11.81%) GCP
4 30 (6.11%) Entra ID
5 14 (2.85%) Azure Sentinel
6 11 (2.24%) SaaS
7 9 (1.83%) Amazon GuardDuty
8 8 (1.63%) Amazon EKS
9 6 (1.22%) AWS KMS
9 6 (1.22%) GitHub
9 6 (1.22%) Microsoft 365
10 5 (1.02%) Amazon ECS
11 4 (0.81%) AWS CloudFormation
11 4 (0.81%) Azure DevOps
11 4 (0.81%) IaaS
11 4 (0.81%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 3 (0.61%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 3 (0.61%) Apigee
12 3 (0.61%) AWS CloudTrail
12 3 (0.61%) Kong
Communications & Networking
1 87 (17.72%) Network Security
2 38 (7.74%) Firewall
3 13 (2.65%) VPN
4 12 (2.44%) WAN
5 11 (2.24%) LAN
6 10 (2.04%) SD-WAN
7 7 (1.43%) IPsec
8 6 (1.22%) BGP
8 6 (1.22%) OSPF
9 5 (1.02%) MPLS
10 4 (0.81%) MQTT
10 4 (0.81%) Reverse Proxy
11 3 (0.61%) BIG-IP
11 3 (0.61%) NGFW
11 3 (0.61%) VLAN
12 2 (0.41%) 4G
12 2 (0.41%) Cisco ASA
12 2 (0.41%) Intrusion Detection
12 2 (0.41%) Radio Access Network
12 2 (0.41%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (1.02%) PostgreSQL
2 3 (0.61%) Data Lake
2 3 (0.61%) Data Warehouse
3 2 (0.41%) Big Data
4 1 (0.20%) Azure SQL Database
4 1 (0.20%) BigQuery
4 1 (0.20%) Elasticsearch
4 1 (0.20%) Metadata
4 1 (0.20%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 7 (1.43%) JIRA
2 4 (0.81%) Jenkins
2 4 (0.81%) Snyk
3 3 (0.61%) GitLab
4 1 (0.20%) AppScan
4 1 (0.20%) Artifactory
4 1 (0.20%) Burp Suite
4 1 (0.20%) Claude Code
4 1 (0.20%) Metasploit
General
1 80 (16.29%) Social Skills
2 69 (14.05%) Public Sector
3 53 (10.79%) Finance
4 26 (5.30%) Banking
5 20 (4.07%) Documentation Skills
6 14 (2.85%) Influencing Skills
7 12 (2.44%) Analytical Skills
8 11 (2.24%) Legal
8 11 (2.24%) Presentation Skills
9 9 (1.83%) Aerospace
10 6 (1.22%) Manufacturing
11 5 (1.02%) Financial Institution
11 5 (1.02%) Military
12 3 (0.61%) Law
12 3 (0.61%) Telecoms
13 2 (0.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 2 (0.41%) Police
13 2 (0.41%) Retail
13 2 (0.41%) Retail Banking
14 1 (0.20%) Aviation
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (2.65%) OAuth
2 11 (2.24%) OAuth2
2 11 (2.24%) OpenID
3 10 (2.04%) SAML
4 5 (1.02%) J2EE
4 5 (1.02%) JSP
4 5 (1.02%) Middleware
4 5 (1.02%) SailPoint
5 4 (0.81%) ADO
5 4 (0.81%) JWT
5 4 (0.81%) LDAP
5 4 (0.81%) REST
6 3 (0.61%) .NET
6 3 (0.61%) FastAPI
6 3 (0.61%) Flask
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
Miscellaneous
1 41 (8.35%) Security Posture
2 35 (7.13%) Cloud Native
3 31 (6.31%) Operational Technology
4 24 (4.89%) Management Information System
5 17 (3.46%) Onboarding
6 14 (2.85%) AI Agents
7 12 (2.44%) Data Centre
8 11 (2.24%) Data Protection Act
9 10 (2.04%) Legacy Systems
10 8 (1.63%) Hybrid Cloud
11 7 (1.43%) Cyber Threat
11 7 (1.43%) Enterprise Cloud
12 6 (1.22%) Cloud Security Posture
12 6 (1.22%) Private Cloud
13 4 (0.81%) Autonomous Agent
13 4 (0.81%) SCADA
13 4 (0.81%) Security Operations Centre
13 4 (0.81%) Virtual Team
14 3 (0.61%) Mobile App
14 3 (0.61%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 12 (2.44%) Windows
2 10 (2.04%) Linux
3 3 (0.61%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 3 (0.61%) Windows Server
4 2 (0.41%) Android
4 2 (0.41%) Apple iOS
5 1 (0.20%) Kali Linux
5 1 (0.20%) Unix
5 1 (0.20%) VMS
5 1 (0.20%) Windows 10
5 1 (0.20%) Windows 7
5 1 (0.20%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 234 (47.66%) Security Architecture
2 169 (34.42%) Cybersecurity
3 140 (28.51%) Threat Modelling
4 118 (24.03%) Cloud Security
5 91 (18.53%) Zero Trust
6 67 (13.65%) Risk Management
7 64 (13.03%) Architectural Patterns
8 62 (12.63%) TOGAF
9 57 (11.61%) SABSA
10 54 (11.00%) Identity Access Management
11 53 (10.79%) Application Security
11 53 (10.79%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 49 (9.98%) DevSecOps
13 47 (9.57%) AI
14 45 (9.16%) SIEM
14 45 (9.16%) Vulnerability Management
15 44 (8.96%) Data Protection
15 44 (8.96%) Stakeholder Management
16 40 (8.15%) Network Segmentation
17 39 (7.94%) CI/CD
Programming Languages
1 13 (2.65%) Java
2 8 (1.63%) Python
3 4 (0.81%) Bicep
3 4 (0.81%) JavaScript
3 4 (0.81%) 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 (0.20%) Bash
5 1 (0.20%) Kusto Query Language
5 1 (0.20%) Lisp
5 1 (0.20%) ProC
5 1 (0.20%) RPG
5 1 (0.20%) VB
5 1 (0.20%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 218 (44.40%) Security Cleared
2 146 (29.74%) SC Cleared
3 89 (18.13%) CISSP
4 61 (12.42%) DV Cleared
5 50 (10.18%) CISM
6 45 (9.16%) Cisco Certification
7 36 (7.33%) (ISC)2 CCSP
8 24 (4.89%) Degree
9 23 (4.68%) CCSP
10 14 (2.85%) AWS Certification
11 13 (2.65%) BPSS Clearance
12 12 (2.44%) GIAC
13 10 (2.04%) Azure Certification
13 10 (2.04%) CEH
13 10 (2.04%) CISA
13 10 (2.04%) SANS
14 8 (1.63%) CCNP
15 7 (1.43%) TOGAF Certification
16 6 (1.22%) OSCP
17 5 (1.02%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 102 (20.77%) NIST
2 69 (14.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 47 (9.57%) NCSC
4 36 (7.33%) GDPR
5 16 (3.26%) GRC
5 16 (3.26%) PCI DSS
6 14 (2.85%) NIST 800
7 8 (1.63%) EU AI Act
8 7 (1.43%) COBIT
9 6 (1.22%) JSP 440
9 6 (1.22%) RMADS
10 5 (1.02%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 5 (1.02%) QA
11 4 (0.81%) Cyber Essentials
11 4 (0.81%) Government Security Classifications
11 4 (0.81%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 3 (0.61%) IFRS
12 3 (0.61%) IFRS 9
12 3 (0.61%) ISO 19650
12 3 (0.61%) ISO/IEC 27005
System Software
1 21 (4.28%) Active Directory
2 4 (0.81%) Docker
2 4 (0.81%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (0.61%) vSphere
4 2 (0.41%) Hyper-V
5 1 (0.20%) BitLocker
5 1 (0.20%) KVM
5 1 (0.20%) Varnish
5 1 (0.20%) VMware ESXi
5 1 (0.20%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 21 (4.28%) Terraform
2 17 (3.46%) Kubernetes
3 6 (1.22%) Ansible
4 5 (1.02%) Single Sign-On
5 3 (0.61%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 3 (0.61%) QRadar
6 2 (0.41%) Istio
6 2 (0.41%) Network Intrusion Detection System
7 1 (0.20%) FortiGate
7 1 (0.20%) Kibana
7 1 (0.20%) logstash
7 1 (0.20%) Microsoft Intune
7 1 (0.20%) Nessus
7 1 (0.20%) Progress Chef
7 1 (0.20%) SCCM
7 1 (0.20%) SELinux
7 1 (0.20%) Suricata
Vendors
1 48 (9.78%) Microsoft
2 17 (3.46%) Splunk
3 13 (2.65%) SAP
4 12 (2.44%) Cisco
5 10 (2.04%) BiZZdesign
5 10 (2.04%) Okta
5 10 (2.04%) Zscaler
6 8 (1.63%) CyberArk
6 8 (1.63%) Palo Alto
7 7 (1.43%) CheckPoint
7 7 (1.43%) Fortinet
8 6 (1.22%) Google
8 6 (1.22%) ServiceNow
8 6 (1.22%) Tenable
8 6 (1.22%) VMware
9 5 (1.02%) Cribl.io
9 5 (1.02%) Salesforce
10 4 (0.81%) F5
10 4 (0.81%) Qualys
11 3 (0.61%) Databricks