Security Architect Contract Job Trends

Security Architect
UK

The median Security Architect daily rate in the UK is £623, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 28 September 2026.

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

6 months to
28 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 246 251 238
Rank change year-on-year +5 -13 -19
Contract jobs requiring a Security Architect 593 362 376
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.09% 1.10% 0.98%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.18% 1.21% 1.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 415 227 213
10th Percentile £500 £507 £500
25th Percentile £525 £600 £600
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £623 £675 £700
Median % change year-on-year -7.78% -3.57% +2.94%
75th Percentile £734 £765 £775
90th Percentile £825 £800 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £675 £650
% change year-on-year -11.11% +3.85% -4.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 3 3
10th Percentile - £86.00 -
25th Percentile £60.00 £91.25 -
Median hourly rate £70.00 £100.00 £87.46
Median % change year-on-year -30.00% +14.34% +24.94%
75th Percentile £80.00 £102.75 -
90th Percentile £81.80 £104.40 -
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 50,147 29,864 35,507
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.20% 91.01% 92.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,583 18,880 21,565
10th Percentile £325 £275 £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 £630 £623 £638
90th Percentile £731 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,922 1,610 1,584
10th Percentile £14.50 £13.75 £14.85
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.30 £20.50
Median hourly rate £41.72 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +65.89% -41.51% -3.37%
75th Percentile £67.50 £51.61 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £68.57 £74.96
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.00 £25.08 £43.00
% change year-on-year +67.50% -41.69% -2.27%

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 September 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 September 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 -11 504 £625 -7.41% 380
London -6 267 £625 -7.41% 212
UK excluding London -28 227 £600 -11.11% 172
Work from Home +9 197 £597 -13.16% 173
South East +2 108 £638 +6.25% 65
North of England -67 50 £600 -16.20% 15
North West -46 38 £600 -16.35% 12
South West -37 30 £600 -7.69% 37
Midlands -33 29 £638 -5.56% 29
West Midlands -34 28 £638 -13.56% 25
Yorkshire -41 9 £350 -44.00% 1
East of England -18 6 £625 +25.00% 9
Channel Islands - 4 £700 - 2
East Midlands -16 1 - - 4
Scotland -28 1 - - 6

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

For the 6 months to 28 September 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.

1 308 (51.94%) Security Architecture
2 288 (48.57%) Security Cleared
3 208 (35.08%) Cybersecurity
4 195 (32.88%) SC Cleared
5 179 (30.19%) Azure
6 160 (26.98%) Cloud Security
7 153 (25.80%) Threat Modelling
8 143 (24.11%) AWS
9 137 (23.10%) NIST
10 112 (18.89%) CISSP
11 96 (16.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
12 95 (16.02%) Identity Access Management
12 95 (16.02%) Risk Management
13 94 (15.85%) DV Cleared
14 91 (15.35%) Zero Trust
15 90 (15.18%) Stakeholder Management
16 84 (14.17%) AI
17 82 (13.83%) TOGAF
18 78 (13.15%) Architectural Patterns
18 78 (13.15%) Network Security
19 76 (12.82%) Microsoft
20 73 (12.31%) Stakeholder Engagement
21 70 (11.80%) NCSC
22 69 (11.64%) Roadmaps
23 60 (10.12%) DevSecOps
23 60 (10.12%) SABSA
23 60 (10.12%) Vulnerability Management
24 59 (9.95%) GCP
25 58 (9.78%) CISM
26 57 (9.61%) 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 5 (0.84%) IIS
2 3 (0.51%) Confluence
3 2 (0.34%) SAS
3 2 (0.34%) SharePoint
Applications
1 4 (0.67%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.17%) Gliffy
Business Applications
1 3 (0.51%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 1 (0.17%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 179 (30.19%) Azure
2 143 (24.11%) AWS
3 59 (9.95%) GCP
4 38 (6.41%) Entra ID
5 19 (3.20%) SaaS
6 17 (2.87%) Azure Sentinel
7 12 (2.02%) Microsoft 365
8 11 (1.85%) Dynamics 365
9 9 (1.52%) Azure Key Vault
10 7 (1.18%) AWS KMS
11 6 (1.01%) OCI
12 5 (0.84%) AWS Control Tower
12 5 (0.84%) Azure AI
12 5 (0.84%) IaaS
12 5 (0.84%) Microsoft Purview
12 5 (0.84%) PaaS
12 5 (0.84%) Vertex AI
13 4 (0.67%) Azure Cosmos DB
13 4 (0.67%) Azure DevOps
13 4 (0.67%) GitHub
Communications & Networking
1 78 (13.15%) Network Security
2 50 (8.43%) Firewall
3 14 (2.36%) WAN
4 13 (2.19%) VPN
5 8 (1.35%) 4G
5 8 (1.35%) SD-WAN
5 8 (1.35%) VLAN
6 7 (1.18%) IPsec
7 6 (1.01%) 5G
7 6 (1.01%) LAN
7 6 (1.01%) NGFW
8 5 (0.84%) BGP
8 5 (0.84%) OSPF
8 5 (0.84%) Radio Access Network
9 4 (0.67%) MPLS
10 3 (0.51%) BIG-IP
10 3 (0.51%) Cisco IOS
10 3 (0.51%) EIGRP
10 3 (0.51%) Internet
10 3 (0.51%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (0.84%) Data Lake
2 2 (0.34%) 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 (1.52%) Jenkins
2 5 (0.84%) JIRA
3 2 (0.34%) Claude Code
3 2 (0.34%) GitLab
4 1 (0.17%) Bitbucket
General
1 100 (16.86%) Social Skills
2 73 (12.31%) Public Sector
3 51 (8.60%) Finance
4 26 (4.38%) Documentation Skills
4 26 (4.38%) Influencing Skills
5 25 (4.22%) Banking
6 22 (3.71%) Legal
7 18 (3.04%) Analytical Skills
7 18 (3.04%) Telecoms
8 12 (2.02%) Manufacturing
9 10 (1.69%) Military
9 10 (1.69%) Police
10 8 (1.35%) Law
11 7 (1.18%) Aerospace
11 7 (1.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 5 (0.84%) Pharmaceutical
12 5 (0.84%) Presentation Skills
12 5 (0.84%) Retail
13 4 (0.67%) Automotive
13 4 (0.67%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (4.22%) Terraform
2 15 (2.53%) OAuth
3 12 (2.02%) OpenID
3 12 (2.02%) SAML
4 10 (1.69%) OAuth2
5 8 (1.35%) REST
6 7 (1.18%) ModSecurity
7 6 (1.01%) LDAP
7 6 (1.01%) SLSA
8 5 (0.84%) Azure Blueprints
8 5 (0.84%) LangChain
8 5 (0.84%) PyTorch
9 3 (0.51%) .NET
9 3 (0.51%) HTML
9 3 (0.51%) JWT
9 3 (0.51%) scikit-learn
10 2 (0.34%) EDI
10 2 (0.34%) Jakarta EE
10 2 (0.34%) JSP
10 2 (0.34%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 53 (8.94%) Cloud Native
2 48 (8.09%) Security Posture
3 32 (5.40%) Management Information System
4 31 (5.23%) Operational Technology
5 18 (3.04%) Cyber Threat
5 18 (3.04%) Onboarding
6 17 (2.87%) Data Centre
7 14 (2.36%) AI Agents
8 11 (1.85%) Hybrid Cloud
8 11 (1.85%) Public Cloud
9 10 (1.69%) Enterprise Cloud
9 10 (1.69%) PKI
10 8 (1.35%) Cloud Security Posture
11 7 (1.18%) Legacy Systems
11 7 (1.18%) Private Cloud
12 6 (1.01%) Enterprise Software
12 6 (1.01%) IoT
12 6 (1.01%) Self-Motivation
13 5 (0.84%) Data Fabric
13 5 (0.84%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 13 (2.19%) Linux
2 11 (1.85%) Windows
3 10 (1.69%) Windows Server
4 4 (0.67%) Alpine Linux
4 4 (0.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 4 (0.67%) Ubuntu
5 3 (0.51%) Unix
6 1 (0.17%) Android
Processes & Methodologies
1 308 (51.94%) Security Architecture
2 208 (35.08%) Cybersecurity
3 160 (26.98%) Cloud Security
4 153 (25.80%) Threat Modelling
5 95 (16.02%) Identity Access Management
5 95 (16.02%) Risk Management
6 91 (15.35%) Zero Trust
7 90 (15.18%) Stakeholder Management
8 84 (14.17%) AI
9 82 (13.83%) TOGAF
10 78 (13.15%) Architectural Patterns
11 73 (12.31%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 69 (11.64%) Roadmaps
13 60 (10.12%) DevSecOps
13 60 (10.12%) SABSA
13 60 (10.12%) Vulnerability Management
14 57 (9.61%) CI/CD
14 57 (9.61%) Data Protection
15 56 (9.44%) Enterprise Architecture
16 55 (9.27%) Information Security
Programming Languages
1 20 (3.37%) Python
2 10 (1.69%) PowerShell
3 8 (1.35%) Bicep
3 8 (1.35%) Java
4 5 (0.84%) Groovy
4 5 (0.84%) Shell Script
5 4 (0.67%) Bash
6 3 (0.51%) JavaScript
7 2 (0.34%) SQL
8 1 (0.17%) R
Qualifications
1 288 (48.57%) Security Cleared
2 195 (32.88%) SC Cleared
3 112 (18.89%) CISSP
4 94 (15.85%) DV Cleared
5 58 (9.78%) CISM
6 46 (7.76%) Cisco Certification
7 40 (6.75%) (ISC)2 CCSP
8 33 (5.56%) CCSP
9 25 (4.22%) AWS Certification
10 20 (3.37%) Degree
11 19 (3.20%) TOGAF Certification
12 17 (2.87%) CISA
13 16 (2.70%) Azure Certification
14 8 (1.35%) CEH
14 8 (1.35%) Microsoft Certification
14 8 (1.35%) SANS
15 7 (1.18%) CompTIA Security+
15 7 (1.18%) CRISC
15 7 (1.18%) ISSAP
16 5 (0.84%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 137 (23.10%) NIST
2 96 (16.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 70 (11.80%) NCSC
4 38 (6.41%) GDPR
5 32 (5.40%) GRC
6 20 (3.37%) NIST 800
7 19 (3.20%) PCI DSS
8 12 (2.02%) JSP 440
9 11 (1.85%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 10 (1.69%) Cyber Essentials
10 10 (1.69%) Government Security Classifications
11 9 (1.52%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 7 (1.18%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 7 (1.18%) ISO/IEC 27005
13 6 (1.01%) EU AI Act
13 6 (1.01%) ISO 19650
13 6 (1.01%) ISO/IEC 42001
14 5 (0.84%) HIPAA
14 5 (0.84%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 4 (0.67%) COBIT
System Software
1 22 (3.71%) Active Directory
2 15 (2.53%) Docker
3 7 (1.18%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (0.67%) ISA Server
5 2 (0.34%) Hyper-V
5 2 (0.34%) VMware ESXi
5 2 (0.34%) vSphere
6 1 (0.17%) KVM
6 1 (0.17%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 26 (4.38%) Kubernetes
2 13 (2.19%) Ansible
3 7 (1.18%) CASB
3 7 (1.18%) Single Sign-On
4 4 (0.67%) QRadar
5 3 (0.51%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 3 (0.51%) FortiGate
6 2 (0.34%) Docker Swarm
6 2 (0.34%) Istio
7 1 (0.17%) Microsoft Intune
7 1 (0.17%) Suricata
Vendors
1 76 (12.82%) Microsoft
2 28 (4.72%) Google
3 23 (3.88%) Cisco
4 18 (3.04%) Palo Alto
5 17 (2.87%) Splunk
6 14 (2.36%) CrowdStrike
7 12 (2.02%) Fortinet
8 11 (1.85%) Salesforce
9 9 (1.52%) Qualys
10 8 (1.35%) F5
10 8 (1.35%) Tenable
10 8 (1.35%) VMware
11 7 (1.18%) SAP
11 7 (1.18%) Zscaler
12 6 (1.01%) IFS
12 6 (1.01%) Juniper
13 5 (0.84%) CyberArk
13 5 (0.84%) Okta
14 4 (0.67%) Centrify
14 4 (0.67%) Databricks