Security Architect Contract Job Trends

Security Architect
UK

The median Security Architect daily rate in the UK is £630, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 28 June 2026.

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

6 months to
28 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 235 218 221
Rank change year-on-year -17 +3 +31
Contract jobs requiring a Security Architect 555 365 468
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.09% 1.19% 1.08%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.18% 1.30% 1.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 375 241 279
10th Percentile £483 £525 £500
25th Percentile £525 £600 £613
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £630 £675 £700
Median % change year-on-year -6.67% -3.57% -
75th Percentile £766 £775 £775
90th Percentile £844 £835 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £650 £664 £664
% change year-on-year -2.07% -0.08% -2.32%
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 47,123 28,128 40,377
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.40% 92.07% 92.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,580 18,010 25,933
10th Percentile £325 £288 £281
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 3,165 1,254 2,874
10th Percentile £15.50 £13.76 £12.86
25th Percentile £21.14 £17.31 £16.50
Median hourly rate £43.61 £27.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +61.50% -28.00% -14.50%
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 28 June 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 28 June 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 -21 477 £650 -3.70% 98
London -28 237 £650 -3.70% 46
UK excluding London -12 228 £650 -2.07% 69
Work from Home -9 186 £600 -14.29% 65
South East -1 91 £650 +6.12% 29
North of England -33 61 £675 - 6
Midlands -30 50 £613 -19.67% 8
North West -24 47 £707 +2.86% 6
West Midlands -33 47 £625 -18.03% 7
South West -53 18 £614 -5.58% 13
Yorkshire -37 12 £675 +22.73%
Scotland -8 5 £700 -15.15% 1
East Midlands - 3 £438 - 1
East of England -27 2 £750 +50.00% 3
Channel Islands - 1 £575 -

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

For the 6 months to 28 June 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.

1 260 (46.85%) Security Architecture
2 249 (44.86%) Security Cleared
3 197 (35.50%) Cybersecurity
4 165 (29.73%) SC Cleared
5 158 (28.47%) Azure
5 158 (28.47%) Threat Modelling
6 138 (24.86%) Cloud Security
7 134 (24.14%) AWS
8 109 (19.64%) NIST
9 99 (17.84%) CISSP
10 95 (17.12%) Zero Trust
11 92 (16.58%) Network Security
12 83 (14.95%) Architectural Patterns
13 75 (13.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
14 72 (12.97%) Risk Management
15 71 (12.79%) GCP
16 69 (12.43%) DV Cleared
16 69 (12.43%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 67 (12.07%) Identity Access Management
18 66 (11.89%) TOGAF
19 64 (11.53%) SABSA
20 61 (10.99%) AI
21 60 (10.81%) Stakeholder Management
22 57 (10.27%) Application Security
23 54 (9.73%) Microsoft
23 54 (9.73%) NCSC
24 53 (9.55%) CISM
25 52 (9.37%) SIEM
26 51 (9.19%) DevSecOps
27 50 (9.01%) Roadmaps

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 (1.44%) Confluence
2 5 (0.90%) SharePoint
3 3 (0.54%) nginx
4 2 (0.36%) SAS
5 1 (0.18%) Microsoft Exchange
5 1 (0.18%) NetWeaver
5 1 (0.18%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 5 (0.90%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.18%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.18%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 2 (0.36%) 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
1 158 (28.47%) Azure
2 134 (24.14%) AWS
3 71 (12.79%) GCP
4 32 (5.77%) Entra ID
5 18 (3.24%) Azure Sentinel
6 12 (2.16%) SaaS
7 9 (1.62%) Microsoft 365
8 7 (1.26%) Amazon GuardDuty
9 6 (1.08%) Amazon EKS
9 6 (1.08%) GitHub
10 4 (0.72%) AWS CloudFormation
10 4 (0.72%) AWS Control Tower
10 4 (0.72%) AWS KMS
10 4 (0.72%) Azure DevOps
11 3 (0.54%) Amazon ECS
11 3 (0.54%) AWS CloudTrail
11 3 (0.54%) Azure Key Vault
11 3 (0.54%) Kong
11 3 (0.54%) Serverless
11 3 (0.54%) Vertex AI
Communications & Networking
1 92 (16.58%) Network Security
2 42 (7.57%) Firewall
3 13 (2.34%) VPN
4 10 (1.80%) SD-WAN
5 9 (1.62%) IPsec
5 9 (1.62%) WAN
6 7 (1.26%) VLAN
7 6 (1.08%) NGFW
8 5 (0.90%) BGP
8 5 (0.90%) MPLS
8 5 (0.90%) OSPF
9 4 (0.72%) 4G
9 4 (0.72%) Intranet
9 4 (0.72%) LAN
9 4 (0.72%) Reverse Proxy
10 3 (0.54%) 5G
10 3 (0.54%) DNS
10 3 (0.54%) MQTT
10 3 (0.54%) Radio Access Network
11 2 (0.36%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (0.90%) PostgreSQL
2 3 (0.54%) Data Lake
2 3 (0.54%) Data Warehouse
3 2 (0.36%) Big Data
3 2 (0.36%) BigQuery
4 1 (0.18%) Azure SQL Database
4 1 (0.18%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 8 (1.44%) JIRA
2 6 (1.08%) Jenkins
3 4 (0.72%) Snyk
4 3 (0.54%) GitLab
5 2 (0.36%) Claude Code
6 1 (0.18%) AppScan
6 1 (0.18%) Artifactory
6 1 (0.18%) Burp Suite
6 1 (0.18%) Metasploit
General
1 100 (18.02%) Social Skills
2 77 (13.87%) Public Sector
3 66 (11.89%) Finance
4 33 (5.95%) Banking
5 24 (4.32%) Documentation Skills
6 19 (3.42%) Analytical Skills
7 17 (3.06%) Influencing Skills
8 12 (2.16%) Legal
9 10 (1.80%) Aerospace
9 10 (1.80%) Presentation Skills
10 8 (1.44%) Military
11 6 (1.08%) Manufacturing
12 5 (0.90%) Financial Institution
12 5 (0.90%) Telecoms
13 4 (0.72%) Law
13 4 (0.72%) Retail
14 2 (0.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 2 (0.36%) Police
14 2 (0.36%) Retail Banking
15 1 (0.18%) Aviation
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (2.52%) OAuth
2 12 (2.16%) OAuth2
2 12 (2.16%) OpenID
3 10 (1.80%) SAML
4 6 (1.08%) REST
5 5 (0.90%) J2EE
5 5 (0.90%) JSP
5 5 (0.90%) JWT
5 5 (0.90%) LangChain
5 5 (0.90%) PyTorch
5 5 (0.90%) SailPoint
6 4 (0.72%) Azure Blueprints
6 4 (0.72%) LDAP
7 3 (0.54%) .NET
7 3 (0.54%) ADO
7 3 (0.54%) FastAPI
7 3 (0.54%) Flask
7 3 (0.54%) HTML
7 3 (0.54%) Middleware
7 3 (0.54%) scikit-learn
Miscellaneous
1 54 (9.73%) Security Posture
2 41 (7.39%) Cloud Native
3 35 (6.31%) Operational Technology
4 29 (5.23%) Management Information System
5 15 (2.70%) AI Agents
6 12 (2.16%) Cyber Threat
6 12 (2.16%) Onboarding
7 11 (1.98%) Data Centre
7 11 (1.98%) Data Protection Act
8 10 (1.80%) Hybrid Cloud
9 9 (1.62%) Cloud Security Posture
9 9 (1.62%) Enterprise Cloud
9 9 (1.62%) Legacy Systems
10 7 (1.26%) Private Cloud
11 5 (0.90%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
11 5 (0.90%) Mobile App
11 5 (0.90%) Public Cloud
12 4 (0.72%) CMDB
12 4 (0.72%) SCADA
12 4 (0.72%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 15 (2.70%) Linux
2 14 (2.52%) Windows
3 7 (1.26%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 7 (1.26%) Windows Server
4 4 (0.72%) Alpine Linux
4 4 (0.72%) Ubuntu
5 2 (0.36%) Android
6 1 (0.18%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.18%) Kali Linux
6 1 (0.18%) Unix
6 1 (0.18%) VMS
6 1 (0.18%) Windows 10
6 1 (0.18%) Windows 7
6 1 (0.18%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 260 (46.85%) Security Architecture
2 197 (35.50%) Cybersecurity
3 158 (28.47%) Threat Modelling
4 138 (24.86%) Cloud Security
5 95 (17.12%) Zero Trust
6 83 (14.95%) Architectural Patterns
7 72 (12.97%) Risk Management
8 69 (12.43%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 67 (12.07%) Identity Access Management
10 66 (11.89%) TOGAF
11 64 (11.53%) SABSA
12 61 (10.99%) AI
13 60 (10.81%) Stakeholder Management
14 57 (10.27%) Application Security
15 52 (9.37%) SIEM
16 51 (9.19%) DevSecOps
17 50 (9.01%) Roadmaps
17 50 (9.01%) Vulnerability Management
18 49 (8.83%) Data Protection
18 49 (8.83%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 18 (3.24%) Python
2 12 (2.16%) Java
3 8 (1.44%) Bicep
3 8 (1.44%) PowerShell
4 6 (1.08%) JavaScript
5 3 (0.54%) SQL
6 2 (0.36%) Bash
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
1 249 (44.86%) Security Cleared
2 165 (29.73%) SC Cleared
3 99 (17.84%) CISSP
4 69 (12.43%) DV Cleared
5 53 (9.55%) CISM
6 47 (8.47%) Cisco Certification
7 39 (7.03%) (ISC)2 CCSP
8 26 (4.68%) CCSP
9 25 (4.50%) Degree
10 18 (3.24%) AWS Certification
11 14 (2.52%) GIAC
12 12 (2.16%) CISA
13 11 (1.98%) BPSS Clearance
13 11 (1.98%) CEH
14 10 (1.80%) SANS
15 8 (1.44%) Azure Certification
16 7 (1.26%) OSCP
17 6 (1.08%) CCNP
17 6 (1.08%) ISSAP
17 6 (1.08%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 109 (19.64%) NIST
2 75 (13.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 54 (9.73%) NCSC
4 36 (6.49%) GDPR
5 19 (3.42%) PCI DSS
6 17 (3.06%) NIST 800
7 16 (2.88%) GRC
8 10 (1.80%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
9 8 (1.44%) COBIT
10 7 (1.26%) EU AI Act
10 7 (1.26%) JSP 440
11 6 (1.08%) HMG Security Policy Framework
11 6 (1.08%) ISO 19650
11 6 (1.08%) QA
11 6 (1.08%) RMADS
12 5 (0.90%) Government Security Classifications
12 5 (0.90%) SOC 2
13 4 (0.72%) Cyber Essentials
14 3 (0.54%) IFRS
14 3 (0.54%) IFRS 9
System Software
1 21 (3.78%) Active Directory
2 6 (1.08%) Docker
3 5 (0.90%) VMware Infrastructure
4 3 (0.54%) vSphere
5 2 (0.36%) 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 (4.50%) Terraform
2 23 (4.14%) Kubernetes
3 10 (1.80%) Ansible
4 5 (0.90%) Single Sign-On
5 3 (0.54%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 3 (0.54%) QRadar
6 2 (0.36%) Istio
6 2 (0.36%) Microsoft Intune
6 2 (0.36%) Network Intrusion Detection System
7 1 (0.18%) CASB
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 (9.73%) Microsoft
2 22 (3.96%) Splunk
3 14 (2.52%) Okta
4 13 (2.34%) Google
4 13 (2.34%) SAP
5 12 (2.16%) Palo Alto
6 11 (1.98%) Cisco
6 11 (1.98%) Fortinet
6 11 (1.98%) Tenable
7 9 (1.62%) Salesforce
8 8 (1.44%) BiZZdesign
8 8 (1.44%) CheckPoint
8 8 (1.44%) CrowdStrike
8 8 (1.44%) Qualys
9 6 (1.08%) CyberArk
9 6 (1.08%) Zscaler
10 5 (0.90%) Cribl.io
10 5 (0.90%) ServiceNow
10 5 (0.90%) VMware
11 4 (0.72%) Rapid7