Security Architect Contract Job Trends

Security Architect
UK

The median Security Architect daily rate in the UK is £675, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 16 September 2025.

The table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 243 244 228
Rank change year-on-year +1 -16 +110
Contract jobs requiring a Security Architect 357 377 579
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 1.09% 0.99% 1.16%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.20% 1.07% 1.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 223 219 388
10th Percentile £504 £500 £525
25th Percentile £581 £609 £607
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £675 £700 £680
Median % change year-on-year -3.57% +2.94% +0.74%
75th Percentile £751 £775 £750
90th Percentile £800 £825 £813
UK excluding London median daily rate £675 £669 £675
% change year-on-year +0.90% -0.89% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 7 17
10th Percentile £86.00 £81.83 £65.00
25th Percentile £91.25 £84.67 -
Median hourly rate £100.00 £87.46 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +14.34% +24.94% -
75th Percentile £102.75 - £75.67
90th Percentile £104.40 - £81.24
UK excluding London median hourly rate £100.00 £87.46 £71.42
% change year-on-year +14.34% +22.46% -

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
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 29,740 35,350 47,152
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.05% 92.95% 94.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,772 21,777 32,303
10th Percentile £278 £300 £300
25th Percentile £400 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £530
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -0.94% -3.64%
75th Percentile £620 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - +0.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,564 1,687 1,507
10th Percentile £13.75 £14.73 £14.77
25th Percentile £17.30 £20.30 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £43.00 £43.86
Median % change year-on-year -41.51% -1.96% +68.69%
75th Percentile £52.25 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £45.00 £42.08
% change year-on-year -44.11% +6.95% +91.26%

Security Architect
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings that featured Security Architect in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Security Architect 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 16 September 2025.

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
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Security Architect over the 6 months to 16 September 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Security Architect in the UK

Security Architect
Top 16 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 16 September 2025. 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 +12 322 £675 -3.57% 51
London +31 164 £675 -6.90% 23
UK excluding London -2 148 £675 +0.90% 44
Work from Home +22 118 £688 -1.79% 35
North of England -13 47 £717 +3.95% 10
South East +4 45 £600 -7.69% 18
South West +27 31 £650 +1.96% 7
North West -21 28 £717 +4.33% 7
Midlands +1 19 £631 -19.59% 2
West Midlands +2 18 £650 -13.33% 1
North East - 11 £750 -
Yorkshire -14 9 £600 -13.04% 3
Wales +7 3 £725 - 2
East of England +5 3 £500 +11.11% 2
Scotland -10 2 £663 +1.92% 2
East Midlands -5 1 £500 -39.21% 1

Security Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities

For the 6 months to 16 September 2025, Security Architect contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads featuring Security Architect in the job title.

1 169 (47.34%) Security Architecture
2 125 (35.01%) Cybersecurity
3 115 (32.21%) AWS
4 114 (31.93%) Security Cleared
5 103 (28.85%) Azure
6 100 (28.01%) NIST
7 98 (27.45%) Cloud Security
8 82 (22.97%) Social Skills
9 81 (22.69%) Threat Modelling
9 81 (22.69%) SC Cleared
10 79 (22.13%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 76 (21.29%) Finance
12 74 (20.73%) CISSP
13 68 (19.05%) SIEM
14 62 (17.37%) Microsoft
15 61 (17.09%) GCP
16 58 (16.25%) Network Security
17 57 (15.97%) Public Sector
18 55 (15.41%) Firewall
19 50 (14.01%) Identity Access Management
20 45 (12.61%) GDPR
21 44 (12.32%) Problem-Solving
21 44 (12.32%) Vulnerability Management
22 41 (11.48%) Security Operations
22 41 (11.48%) Application Security
22 41 (11.48%) Security Posture
23 40 (11.20%) Risk Management
24 39 (10.92%) Roadmaps
25 38 (10.64%) DevOps
26 36 (10.08%) Incident Response

Security Architect Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 10 (2.80%) Confluence
2 3 (0.84%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.28%) IBM Transformation Extender
3 1 (0.28%) Jupyter
3 1 (0.28%) SAS
3 1 (0.28%) SharePoint
Applications
1 1 (0.28%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 3 (0.84%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 1 (0.28%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.28%) SAP GRC
2 1 (0.28%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 115 (32.21%) AWS
2 103 (28.85%) Azure
3 61 (17.09%) GCP
4 34 (9.52%) SaaS
5 20 (5.60%) Amazon EC2
5 20 (5.60%) Amazon S3
6 19 (5.32%) Amazon SQS
7 12 (3.36%) Entra ID
8 11 (3.08%) Azure Sentinel
9 8 (2.24%) IaaS
9 8 (2.24%) Microsoft 365
10 6 (1.68%) Amazon GuardDuty
10 6 (1.68%) Cloud Computing
10 6 (1.68%) Microsoft Purview
10 6 (1.68%) OCI
11 5 (1.40%) Akamai
11 5 (1.40%) AWS KMS
11 5 (1.40%) GitHub
11 5 (1.40%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 4 (1.12%) AWS CloudTrail
Communications & Networking
1 58 (16.25%) Network Security
2 55 (15.41%) Firewall
3 9 (2.52%) VPN
4 8 (2.24%) DNS
4 8 (2.24%) SD-WAN
5 7 (1.96%) NGFW
6 4 (1.12%) HTTP
6 4 (1.12%) VSAN
6 4 (1.12%) WAN
7 3 (0.84%) DMZ
7 3 (0.84%) Intrusion Detection
7 3 (0.84%) IPsec
7 3 (0.84%) LAN
7 3 (0.84%) Skype
7 3 (0.84%) Wi-Fi
8 2 (0.56%) Cisco Nexus
8 2 (0.56%) Radio Access Network
8 2 (0.56%) SAN
8 2 (0.56%) TCP/IP
8 2 (0.56%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (3.36%) MongoDB
2 11 (3.08%) PostgreSQL
3 6 (1.68%) GIS
4 2 (0.56%) Big Data
5 1 (0.28%) BigQuery
5 1 (0.28%) Metadata
5 1 (0.28%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 11 (3.08%) JIRA
2 6 (1.68%) Git
3 5 (1.40%) GitLab
3 5 (1.40%) Jenkins
4 1 (0.28%) MLflow
General
1 82 (22.97%) Social Skills
2 76 (21.29%) Finance
3 57 (15.97%) Public Sector
4 27 (7.56%) Banking
5 25 (7.00%) Documentation Skills
6 20 (5.60%) Analytical Skills
7 12 (3.36%) Legal
8 11 (3.08%) Military
8 11 (3.08%) Telecoms
9 9 (2.52%) Financial Institution
10 6 (1.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 6 (1.68%) Marketing
11 4 (1.12%) Manufacturing
11 4 (1.12%) Pharmaceutical
12 3 (0.84%) Electronics
13 2 (0.56%) Influencing Skills
13 2 (0.56%) Law
13 2 (0.56%) Organisational Skills
13 2 (0.56%) Presentation Skills
13 2 (0.56%) Retail
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (1.96%) OAuth
2 6 (1.68%) OpenID
2 6 (1.68%) Oracle Fusion
2 6 (1.68%) SailPoint
2 6 (1.68%) SAML
3 5 (1.40%) .NET
3 5 (1.40%) PyTorch
3 5 (1.40%) TensorFlow
4 4 (1.12%) Google JAX
4 4 (1.12%) JAX
4 4 (1.12%) React
4 4 (1.12%) scikit-learn
5 3 (0.84%) Apache Axis
5 3 (0.84%) ModSecurity
6 2 (0.56%) ARM Templates
6 2 (0.56%) Kafka
6 2 (0.56%) Web Services
7 1 (0.28%) AWS CDK
7 1 (0.28%) Node.js
7 1 (0.28%) SAP Basis
Miscellaneous
1 41 (11.48%) Security Posture
2 28 (7.84%) Security Operations Centre
3 24 (6.72%) Onboarding
4 22 (6.16%) CSOC
5 19 (5.32%) Management Information System
6 17 (4.76%) Cloud Native
7 15 (4.20%) Operational Technology
7 15 (4.20%) PKI
8 14 (3.92%) Product Ownership
9 12 (3.36%) Data Centre
10 11 (3.08%) Cyber Threat
10 11 (3.08%) Public Cloud
10 11 (3.08%) SCADA
11 8 (2.24%) Algorithms
11 8 (2.24%) Cyber Defence
12 7 (1.96%) Cloud Security Posture
12 7 (1.96%) Cyberattack
13 6 (1.68%) Hybrid Cloud
14 5 (1.40%) Legacy Systems
15 4 (1.12%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 23 (6.44%) Windows
2 12 (3.36%) Linux
2 12 (3.36%) Windows Server
3 4 (1.12%) Windows 10
4 3 (0.84%) Unix
4 3 (0.84%) Windows Server 2008
5 2 (0.56%) VMS
5 2 (0.56%) Windows Server 2016
5 2 (0.56%) Windows Server 2019
6 1 (0.28%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 169 (47.34%) Security Architecture
2 125 (35.01%) Cybersecurity
3 98 (27.45%) Cloud Security
4 81 (22.69%) Threat Modelling
5 68 (19.05%) SIEM
6 50 (14.01%) Identity Access Management
7 44 (12.32%) Problem-Solving
7 44 (12.32%) Vulnerability Management
8 41 (11.48%) Application Security
8 41 (11.48%) Security Operations
9 40 (11.20%) Risk Management
10 39 (10.92%) Roadmaps
11 38 (10.64%) DevOps
12 36 (10.08%) Incident Response
13 34 (9.52%) DevSecOps
13 34 (9.52%) Information Security
14 32 (8.96%) CI/CD
14 32 (8.96%) SABSA
14 32 (8.96%) Zero Trust
15 31 (8.68%) TOGAF
Programming Languages
1 22 (6.16%) Python
2 17 (4.76%) Java
3 10 (2.80%) PowerShell
4 6 (1.68%) Bash
4 6 (1.68%) SQL
5 5 (1.40%) R
6 4 (1.12%) C++
6 4 (1.12%) PHP
6 4 (1.12%) TypeScript
7 3 (0.84%) C
7 3 (0.84%) C#
8 2 (0.56%) Bicep
8 2 (0.56%) Ruby
9 1 (0.28%) Go
9 1 (0.28%) JavaScript
Qualifications
1 114 (31.93%) Security Cleared
2 81 (22.69%) SC Cleared
3 74 (20.73%) CISSP
4 32 (8.96%) CISM
5 24 (6.72%) DV Cleared
6 23 (6.44%) Cisco Certification
7 15 (4.20%) (ISC)2 CCSP
8 14 (3.92%) Degree
9 11 (3.08%) AWS Certification
9 11 (3.08%) GIAC
10 9 (2.52%) Azure Certification
11 8 (2.24%) CCSP
11 8 (2.24%) CISA
12 6 (1.68%) CCNP
13 5 (1.40%) CCIE
14 4 (1.12%) CEH
14 4 (1.12%) CompTIA Security+
14 4 (1.12%) OCP
14 4 (1.12%) Oracle Certification
14 4 (1.12%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 100 (28.01%) NIST
2 79 (22.13%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 45 (12.61%) GDPR
4 30 (8.40%) PCI DSS
5 20 (5.60%) NCSC
6 11 (3.08%) GRC
7 10 (2.80%) HIPAA
8 9 (2.52%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 9 (2.52%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 8 (2.24%) NIST 800
10 7 (1.96%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 7 (1.96%) QA
11 6 (1.68%) EU AI Act
12 5 (1.40%) PSD2
13 4 (1.12%) Cyber Essentials
13 4 (1.12%) JSP 440
14 2 (0.56%) Data Quality
14 2 (0.56%) Government Security Classifications
14 2 (0.56%) HMG Security Policy Framework
14 2 (0.56%) SOC 2
System Software
1 16 (4.48%) Active Directory
2 5 (1.40%) Docker
3 4 (1.12%) VMware ESXi
4 3 (0.84%) Virtual Machines
4 3 (0.84%) VMware Infrastructure
5 1 (0.28%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 15 (4.20%) Terraform
2 13 (3.64%) Kubernetes
3 6 (1.68%) Microsoft Intune
4 5 (1.40%) SCCM
5 4 (1.12%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 4 (1.12%) OPNET
5 4 (1.12%) Single Sign-On
6 3 (0.84%) Ansible
6 3 (0.84%) vCenter Server
7 2 (0.56%) FortiGate
7 2 (0.56%) Jamf Pro
7 2 (0.56%) SELinux
8 1 (0.28%) CASB
8 1 (0.28%) Kubeflow
8 1 (0.28%) Puppet
8 1 (0.28%) Trend Micro Deep Security
Vendors
1 62 (17.37%) Microsoft
2 35 (9.80%) Splunk
3 17 (4.76%) Google
4 14 (3.92%) CyberArk
5 12 (3.36%) Fortinet
6 11 (3.08%) Palo Alto
7 10 (2.80%) Cisco
7 10 (2.80%) Oracle
8 7 (1.96%) Darktrace
8 7 (1.96%) ServiceNow
8 7 (1.96%) Zscaler
9 6 (1.68%) ESRI
9 6 (1.68%) F5
10 5 (1.40%) CrowdStrike
10 5 (1.40%) SAP
10 5 (1.40%) Tufin
10 5 (1.40%) VMware
11 4 (1.12%) AlgoSec
11 4 (1.12%) CheckPoint
12 3 (0.84%) Qualys