Security Architect Contract Job Trends

Security Architect
UK

The median Security Architect daily rate in the UK is £625, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 29 April 2026.

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

6 months to
29 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 249 237 224
Rank change year-on-year -12 -13 +47
Contract jobs requiring a Security Architect 474 325 459
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.01% 1.11% 1.06%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.09% 1.20% 1.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 294 240 285
10th Percentile £463 £549 £514
25th Percentile £519 £600 £625
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £664 £700
Median % change year-on-year -5.84% -5.18% -
75th Percentile £750 £750 £775
90th Percentile £800 £838 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £634 £655 £670
% change year-on-year -3.32% -2.13% -4.36%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 2 19
10th Percentile - £69.68 £81.86
25th Percentile £83.00 £71.82 £81.88
Median hourly rate £83.50 £79.16 £87.46
Median % change year-on-year +5.49% -9.50% +24.94%
75th Percentile £84.75 £85.22 £87.50
90th Percentile £85.00 £86.59 £87.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £83.50 £79.16 £87.46
% change year-on-year +5.49% -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 43,468 27,008 40,187
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.33% 92.57% 92.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,813 17,658 26,169
10th Percentile £315 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £407 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% -1.90% -2.78%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £475 £491
% change year-on-year +3.16% -3.27% -1.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,818 1,032 2,646
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.20 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.43 £18.51 £16.30
Median hourly rate £43.69 £29.15 £35.96
Median % change year-on-year +49.88% -18.93% -20.10%
75th Percentile £65.88 £62.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.23 £28.75 £37.75
% change year-on-year +57.32% -23.84% -11.18%

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 29 April 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 17 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 29 April 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 -9 396 £633 -6.22% 53
UK excluding London -3 212 £634 -3.32% 40
London -53 178 £634 -6.07% 21
Work from Home +5 150 £600 -10.28% 25
South East -14 80 £631 +0.96% 9
North of England -30 61 £688 +2.80% 11
North West -1 44 £707 +5.74% 11
Midlands -47 39 £625 -10.71% 6
West Midlands -44 37 £700 - 5
South West -46 15 £600 -10.45% 5
Yorkshire -50 15 £625 -8.09%
Scotland -4 9 £738 +22.92%
East of England - 6 £600 - 5
North East -14 2 £545 -12.80%
Wales - 2 - - 2
East Midlands - 2 £438 - 1
Northern Ireland - 1 £500 - 2

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

For the 6 months to 29 April 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.

1 220 (46.41%) Security Architecture
2 208 (43.88%) Security Cleared
3 150 (31.65%) Cybersecurity
4 136 (28.69%) SC Cleared
5 130 (27.43%) Azure
6 129 (27.22%) Threat Modelling
7 106 (22.36%) Cloud Security
8 105 (22.15%) NIST
9 104 (21.94%) AWS
10 92 (19.41%) Zero Trust
11 91 (19.20%) CISSP
12 89 (18.78%) Network Security
13 70 (14.77%) ISO/IEC 27001
14 68 (14.35%) Risk Management
15 66 (13.92%) TOGAF
16 62 (13.08%) Architectural Patterns
17 60 (12.66%) SABSA
18 57 (12.03%) DV Cleared
19 55 (11.60%) GCP
20 54 (11.39%) Microsoft
21 52 (10.97%) CISM
21 52 (10.97%) Identity Access Management
21 52 (10.97%) Stakeholder Engagement
22 49 (10.34%) Application Security
23 47 (9.92%) DevSecOps
24 46 (9.70%) SIEM
25 45 (9.49%) Vulnerability Management
26 44 (9.28%) Firewall
27 43 (9.07%) Cisco Certification
28 41 (8.65%) Data Protection

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 9 (1.90%) Confluence
2 7 (1.48%) SharePoint
3 4 (0.84%) nginx
4 1 (0.21%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.21%) NetWeaver
4 1 (0.21%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 2 (0.42%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 2 (0.42%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.21%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 6 (1.27%) 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
1 130 (27.43%) Azure
2 104 (21.94%) AWS
3 55 (11.60%) GCP
4 30 (6.33%) Entra ID
5 16 (3.38%) SaaS
6 14 (2.95%) Azure Sentinel
6 14 (2.95%) Microsoft 365
7 11 (2.32%) Amazon GuardDuty
8 8 (1.69%) AWS KMS
9 7 (1.48%) AWS CloudFormation
9 7 (1.48%) GitHub
9 7 (1.48%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 6 (1.27%) Amazon EKS
10 6 (1.27%) IaaS
10 6 (1.27%) PaaS
11 5 (1.05%) Amazon ECS
12 4 (0.84%) Azure DevOps
12 4 (0.84%) Microsoft Purview
13 3 (0.63%) Azure API Management
13 3 (0.63%) Kong
Communications & Networking
1 89 (18.78%) Network Security
2 44 (9.28%) Firewall
3 13 (2.74%) VPN
4 10 (2.11%) LAN
4 10 (2.11%) WAN
5 8 (1.69%) SD-WAN
6 6 (1.27%) IPsec
7 5 (1.05%) BGP
7 5 (1.05%) OSPF
8 4 (0.84%) MQTT
8 4 (0.84%) Reverse Proxy
9 3 (0.63%) BIG-IP
9 3 (0.63%) MPLS
10 2 (0.42%) Cisco ASA
10 2 (0.42%) DMZ
10 2 (0.42%) DNS
10 2 (0.42%) Intranet
10 2 (0.42%) Intrusion Detection
10 2 (0.42%) VLAN
10 2 (0.42%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (1.05%) PostgreSQL
2 3 (0.63%) Data Lake
2 3 (0.63%) Data Warehouse
3 2 (0.42%) Big Data
3 2 (0.42%) 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 (1.48%) JIRA
2 5 (1.05%) Jenkins
3 4 (0.84%) Snyk
4 3 (0.63%) 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 77 (16.24%) Social Skills
2 61 (12.87%) Public Sector
3 56 (11.81%) Finance
4 24 (5.06%) Banking
5 19 (4.01%) Documentation Skills
6 14 (2.95%) Presentation Skills
7 13 (2.74%) Analytical Skills
8 10 (2.11%) Influencing Skills
8 10 (2.11%) Legal
9 9 (1.90%) Aerospace
10 5 (1.05%) Financial Institution
10 5 (1.05%) Manufacturing
10 5 (1.05%) Military
11 3 (0.63%) Law
12 2 (0.42%) Police
12 2 (0.42%) Retail
12 2 (0.42%) Retail Banking
13 1 (0.21%) Aviation
13 1 (0.21%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 1 (0.21%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (2.32%) OpenID
2 10 (2.11%) OAuth
3 9 (1.90%) OAuth2
4 8 (1.69%) SAML
5 5 (1.05%) J2EE
5 5 (1.05%) JSP
5 5 (1.05%) JWT
5 5 (1.05%) Middleware
5 5 (1.05%) SailPoint
6 4 (0.84%) ADO
7 3 (0.63%) FastAPI
7 3 (0.63%) Flask
7 3 (0.63%) REST
8 2 (0.42%) A2A Protocol
8 2 (0.42%) Elastic Stack
8 2 (0.42%) Hugging Face
8 2 (0.42%) LangChain
8 2 (0.42%) PyTorch
8 2 (0.42%) TensorFlow
9 1 (0.21%) IDoc
Miscellaneous
1 38 (8.02%) Security Posture
2 31 (6.54%) Cloud Native
3 29 (6.12%) Management Information System
4 25 (5.27%) Operational Technology
5 16 (3.38%) Onboarding
6 15 (3.16%) Data Centre
7 10 (2.11%) Data Protection Act
7 10 (2.11%) Legacy Systems
8 9 (1.90%) AI Agents
9 8 (1.69%) Private Cloud
10 7 (1.48%) Cyber Threat
11 6 (1.27%) Hybrid Cloud
11 6 (1.27%) Security Operations Centre
12 5 (1.05%) Enterprise Cloud
12 5 (1.05%) PKI
13 4 (0.84%) Autonomous Agent
13 4 (0.84%) Cloud Security Posture
13 4 (0.84%) Public Cloud
13 4 (0.84%) Virtual Team
14 3 (0.63%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 12 (2.53%) Windows
2 11 (2.32%) Linux
3 4 (0.84%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 3 (0.63%) Windows Server
5 2 (0.42%) Android
5 2 (0.42%) 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
1 220 (46.41%) Security Architecture
2 150 (31.65%) Cybersecurity
3 129 (27.22%) Threat Modelling
4 106 (22.36%) Cloud Security
5 92 (19.41%) Zero Trust
6 68 (14.35%) Risk Management
7 66 (13.92%) TOGAF
8 62 (13.08%) Architectural Patterns
9 60 (12.66%) SABSA
10 52 (10.97%) Identity Access Management
10 52 (10.97%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 49 (10.34%) Application Security
12 47 (9.92%) DevSecOps
13 46 (9.70%) SIEM
14 45 (9.49%) Vulnerability Management
15 41 (8.65%) Data Protection
15 41 (8.65%) Information Security
16 39 (8.23%) CI/CD
17 36 (7.59%) Network Segmentation
17 36 (7.59%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 9 (1.90%) Java
2 7 (1.48%) Python
3 4 (0.84%) Bicep
3 4 (0.84%) SQL
4 3 (0.63%) JavaScript
5 2 (0.42%) C
5 2 (0.42%) Kotlin
5 2 (0.42%) PL/SQL
5 2 (0.42%) Swift
6 1 (0.21%) Kusto Query Language
6 1 (0.21%) Lisp
6 1 (0.21%) PowerShell
6 1 (0.21%) ProC
6 1 (0.21%) RPG
6 1 (0.21%) VB
6 1 (0.21%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 208 (43.88%) Security Cleared
2 136 (28.69%) SC Cleared
3 91 (19.20%) CISSP
4 57 (12.03%) DV Cleared
5 52 (10.97%) CISM
6 43 (9.07%) Cisco Certification
7 34 (7.17%) (ISC)2 CCSP
8 27 (5.70%) Degree
9 22 (4.64%) CCSP
10 15 (3.16%) AWS Certification
11 12 (2.53%) Azure Certification
12 11 (2.32%) BPSS Clearance
12 11 (2.32%) TOGAF Certification
13 10 (2.11%) CISA
13 10 (2.11%) GIAC
14 8 (1.69%) CCNP
14 8 (1.69%) SANS
15 7 (1.48%) CEH
16 5 (1.05%) CCIE
16 5 (1.05%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 105 (22.15%) NIST
2 70 (14.77%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 39 (8.23%) NCSC
4 36 (7.59%) GDPR
5 16 (3.38%) PCI DSS
6 14 (2.95%) GRC
7 12 (2.53%) NIST 800
8 7 (1.48%) EU AI Act
8 7 (1.48%) RMADS
9 6 (1.27%) COBIT
9 6 (1.27%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 6 (1.27%) JSP 440
10 5 (1.05%) QA
11 4 (0.84%) Cyber Essentials
12 3 (0.63%) IFRS
12 3 (0.63%) IFRS 9
12 3 (0.63%) ISO 19650
12 3 (0.63%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 3 (0.63%) ISO/IEC 27005
12 3 (0.63%) SOC 2
System Software
1 17 (3.59%) Active Directory
2 4 (0.84%) Docker
3 3 (0.63%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (0.42%) vSphere
5 1 (0.21%) BitLocker
5 1 (0.21%) Hyper-V
5 1 (0.21%) Varnish
5 1 (0.21%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 23 (4.85%) Terraform
2 19 (4.01%) Kubernetes
3 6 (1.27%) Ansible
4 3 (0.63%) SCCM
4 3 (0.63%) Single Sign-On
5 2 (0.42%) Network Intrusion Detection System
5 2 (0.42%) 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%) SELinux
Vendors
1 54 (11.39%) Microsoft
2 15 (3.16%) Splunk
3 12 (2.53%) SAP
4 11 (2.32%) Cisco
5 10 (2.11%) BiZZdesign
5 10 (2.11%) Okta
6 9 (1.90%) CheckPoint
6 9 (1.90%) Zscaler
7 8 (1.69%) Fortinet
7 8 (1.69%) Tenable
8 7 (1.48%) Palo Alto
8 7 (1.48%) ServiceNow
9 6 (1.27%) CyberArk
9 6 (1.27%) Sparx
10 5 (1.05%) Cribl.io
10 5 (1.05%) F5
10 5 (1.05%) VMware
11 4 (0.84%) Google
11 4 (0.84%) Qualys
11 4 (0.84%) Red Hat