Security Architect Contract Job Trends

Security Architect
UK

The median Security Architect daily rate in the UK is £643, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 16 January 2026.

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

6 months to
16 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 296 245 249
Rank change year-on-year -51 +4 +55
Contract jobs requiring a Security Architect 328 332 413
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.88% 1.04% 0.97%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.97% 1.12% 1.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 219 218 264
10th Percentile £480 £550 £519
25th Percentile £541 £600 £600
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £643 £675 £679
Median % change year-on-year -4.81% -0.55% -3.04%
75th Percentile £738 £769 £770
90th Percentile £788 £825 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £650 £650 £693
% change year-on-year - -6.14% +0.36%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 1 3
10th Percentile £79.38 - £74.63
25th Percentile £82.19 £68.26 £75.02
Median hourly rate £85.00 £73.31 £78.74
Median % change year-on-year +15.95% -6.90% +12.49%
75th Percentile £91.56 £78.36 £84.36
90th Percentile £94.38 - £85.11
UK excluding London median hourly rate £85.00 £73.31 £78.74
% change year-on-year +15.95% -6.90% +12.49%

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 33,987 29,559 39,694
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.39% 92.78% 93.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,524 18,135 26,394
10th Percentile £300 £288 £280
25th Percentile £405 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £618 £638 £638
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £500
% change year-on-year - -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,986 889 1,685
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.61 £14.16
25th Percentile £18.25 £21.22 £18.93
Median hourly rate £26.50 £32.50 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -18.46% -23.53% +21.43%
75th Percentile £60.00 £62.24 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £73.75 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £31.52 £45.00
% change year-on-year -20.21% -29.96% +53.85%

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 16 January 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 16 January 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 -29 280 £650 -3.70% 60
UK excluding London -21 156 £650 - 40
London -8 130 £650 -5.45% 29
Work from Home -40 87 £600 -14.29% 25
North of England -24 53 £600 -17.24% 11
South East -12 49 £675 +5.88% 12
Yorkshire -27 33 £538 -23.21% 3
South West -13 21 £650 +6.12% 13
North West -20 18 £735 -1.97% 4
Midlands -42 15 £675 -3.57% 1
West Midlands -38 12 £675 -3.57% 1
Wales +8 9 £725 - 1
Scotland -2 9 £675 +12.50% 1
East of England -16 5 £520 +15.56% 1
East Midlands - 3 £438 -
Northern Ireland -2 2 £500 -
North East - 2 £545 - 4

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

For the 6 months to 16 January 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.

1 160 (48.78%) Security Architecture
2 119 (36.28%) Security Cleared
3 116 (35.37%) Cybersecurity
4 106 (32.32%) Azure
5 93 (28.35%) AWS
6 91 (27.74%) NIST
7 85 (25.91%) Cloud Security
7 85 (25.91%) Threat Modelling
8 84 (25.61%) SC Cleared
9 79 (24.09%) CISSP
10 68 (20.73%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 67 (20.43%) Network Security
12 65 (19.82%) TOGAF
12 65 (19.82%) Zero Trust
13 59 (17.99%) Firewall
14 56 (17.07%) Microsoft
15 52 (15.85%) Identity Access Management
16 51 (15.55%) SABSA
17 48 (14.63%) Risk Management
18 47 (14.33%) Incident Response
18 47 (14.33%) Vulnerability Management
19 44 (13.41%) GCP
19 44 (13.41%) SIEM
20 43 (13.11%) CISM
21 41 (12.50%) DevSecOps
21 41 (12.50%) Stakeholder Engagement
22 36 (10.98%) GDPR
22 36 (10.98%) Roadmaps
23 34 (10.37%) CI/CD
24 33 (10.06%) Information Security

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 15 (4.57%) Confluence
2 3 (0.91%) Microsoft Exchange
2 3 (0.91%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.30%) nginx
Applications
1 2 (0.61%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 2 (0.61%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 6 (1.83%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 106 (32.32%) Azure
2 93 (28.35%) AWS
3 44 (13.41%) GCP
4 22 (6.71%) Entra ID
5 12 (3.66%) Microsoft 365
6 11 (3.35%) Microsoft Purview
6 11 (3.35%) SaaS
7 9 (2.74%) PaaS
8 8 (2.44%) Amazon GuardDuty
8 8 (2.44%) AWS KMS
8 8 (2.44%) Azure Sentinel
9 7 (2.13%) AWS CloudFormation
9 7 (2.13%) GitHub
9 7 (2.13%) IaaS
10 6 (1.83%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 4 (1.22%) Azure Key Vault
12 3 (0.91%) Amazon EKS
13 2 (0.61%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 2 (0.61%) Amazon ECS
13 2 (0.61%) Cloud Computing
Communications & Networking
1 67 (20.43%) Network Security
2 59 (17.99%) Firewall
3 14 (4.27%) VPN
4 13 (3.96%) WAN
5 10 (3.05%) LAN
6 9 (2.74%) SD-WAN
7 8 (2.44%) NGFW
8 5 (1.52%) BGP
8 5 (1.52%) DNS
8 5 (1.52%) IPsec
9 4 (1.22%) OSPF
9 4 (1.22%) SSL
10 3 (0.91%) DHCP
10 3 (0.91%) DMZ
10 3 (0.91%) Internet
10 3 (0.91%) Intrusion Detection
10 3 (0.91%) Kerberos
10 3 (0.91%) Skype
10 3 (0.91%) TCP/IP
10 3 (0.91%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (0.61%) BigQuery
2 1 (0.30%) Elasticsearch
2 1 (0.30%) Metadata
2 1 (0.30%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 12 (3.66%) JIRA
2 2 (0.61%) Jenkins
3 1 (0.30%) Git
3 1 (0.30%) GitLab
General
1 73 (22.26%) Social Skills
2 52 (15.85%) Finance
2 52 (15.85%) Public Sector
3 18 (5.49%) Banking
4 17 (5.18%) Analytical Skills
5 11 (3.35%) Legal
6 9 (2.74%) Documentation Skills
7 8 (2.44%) Financial Institution
7 8 (2.44%) Presentation Skills
8 7 (2.13%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 7 (2.13%) Influencing Skills
9 5 (1.52%) Aerospace
10 4 (1.22%) Pharmaceutical
11 2 (0.61%) Electronics
11 2 (0.61%) Law
11 2 (0.61%) Manufacturing
11 2 (0.61%) Marketing
11 2 (0.61%) Military
11 2 (0.61%) Telecoms
12 1 (0.30%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (2.74%) SAML
2 7 (2.13%) OAuth
3 6 (1.83%) OpenID
4 5 (1.52%) ModSecurity
5 4 (1.22%) OAuth2
6 2 (0.61%) .NET
6 2 (0.61%) ARM Templates
6 2 (0.61%) Kafka
6 2 (0.61%) Middleware
7 1 (0.30%) ADO
7 1 (0.30%) Elastic Stack
7 1 (0.30%) J2EE
7 1 (0.30%) JAAS
7 1 (0.30%) JSP
7 1 (0.30%) JWT
7 1 (0.30%) LDAP
7 1 (0.30%) OpenTelemetry
7 1 (0.30%) REST
7 1 (0.30%) SailPoint
7 1 (0.30%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 29 (8.84%) Cloud Native
1 29 (8.84%) Security Posture
2 16 (4.88%) Onboarding
2 16 (4.88%) PKI
3 15 (4.57%) Management Information System
4 14 (4.27%) Data Centre
4 14 (4.27%) Operational Technology
5 12 (3.66%) Product Ownership
6 11 (3.35%) Hybrid Cloud
6 11 (3.35%) Private Cloud
7 8 (2.44%) Cloud Security Posture
7 8 (2.44%) Cyber Threat
7 8 (2.44%) Public Cloud
8 7 (2.13%) Enterprise Software
8 7 (2.13%) Taxonomies
9 5 (1.52%) Cyber Defence
9 5 (1.52%) NHS
9 5 (1.52%) SCADA
9 5 (1.52%) Security Operations Centre
10 4 (1.22%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 13 (3.96%) Windows
2 9 (2.74%) Linux
3 4 (1.22%) Windows Server
4 3 (0.91%) Unix
4 3 (0.91%) Windows 10
4 3 (0.91%) Windows Server 2008
5 2 (0.61%) Android
5 2 (0.61%) Apple iOS
5 2 (0.61%) Windows Server 2019
6 1 (0.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.30%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 160 (48.78%) Security Architecture
2 116 (35.37%) Cybersecurity
3 85 (25.91%) Cloud Security
3 85 (25.91%) Threat Modelling
4 65 (19.82%) TOGAF
4 65 (19.82%) Zero Trust
5 52 (15.85%) Identity Access Management
6 51 (15.55%) SABSA
7 48 (14.63%) Risk Management
8 47 (14.33%) Incident Response
8 47 (14.33%) Vulnerability Management
9 44 (13.41%) SIEM
10 41 (12.50%) DevSecOps
10 41 (12.50%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 36 (10.98%) Roadmaps
12 34 (10.37%) CI/CD
13 33 (10.06%) Information Security
14 30 (9.15%) Architectural Patterns
15 27 (8.23%) Enterprise Architecture
16 26 (7.93%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 7 (2.13%) Java
1 7 (2.13%) Python
2 4 (1.22%) Bicep
2 4 (1.22%) SQL
3 2 (0.61%) C
3 2 (0.61%) Kotlin
3 2 (0.61%) PL/SQL
3 2 (0.61%) PowerShell
3 2 (0.61%) Swift
4 1 (0.30%) Bash
4 1 (0.30%) JavaScript
4 1 (0.30%) Kusto Query Language
4 1 (0.30%) ProC
4 1 (0.30%) R
4 1 (0.30%) RPG
Qualifications
1 119 (36.28%) Security Cleared
2 84 (25.61%) SC Cleared
3 79 (24.09%) CISSP
4 43 (13.11%) CISM
5 28 (8.54%) Cisco Certification
5 28 (8.54%) DV Cleared
6 22 (6.71%) Degree
7 20 (6.10%) AWS Certification
8 17 (5.18%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 15 (4.57%) TOGAF Certification
10 14 (4.27%) Azure Certification
11 11 (3.35%) CCNP
11 11 (3.35%) CCSP
12 7 (2.13%) CCIE
12 7 (2.13%) Master's Degree
13 5 (1.52%) GIAC
13 5 (1.52%) Microsoft Certification
13 5 (1.52%) PhD
14 4 (1.22%) Computer Science Degree
14 4 (1.22%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 91 (27.74%) NIST
2 68 (20.73%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 36 (10.98%) GDPR
4 31 (9.45%) NCSC
5 23 (7.01%) PCI DSS
6 9 (2.74%) JSP 440
7 8 (2.44%) PSD2
8 7 (2.13%) Cyber Essentials
8 7 (2.13%) EU AI Act
9 6 (1.83%) NIST 800
10 5 (1.52%) GRC
11 4 (1.22%) HIPAA
11 4 (1.22%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 3 (0.91%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 3 (0.91%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 3 (0.91%) Def Stans
13 2 (0.61%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
13 2 (0.61%) RMADS
13 2 (0.61%) SOC 1
13 2 (0.61%) SOC 2
System Software
1 8 (2.44%) Active Directory
1 8 (2.44%) Docker
2 3 (0.91%) VMware ESXi
2 3 (0.91%) VMware Infrastructure
3 1 (0.30%) Hyper-V
3 1 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
3 1 (0.30%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 23 (7.01%) Terraform
2 14 (4.27%) Kubernetes
3 7 (2.13%) Ansible
3 7 (2.13%) Single Sign-On
4 3 (0.91%) Active Directory Federation Services
4 3 (0.91%) OPNET
4 3 (0.91%) SCCM
4 3 (0.91%) vCenter Server
5 2 (0.61%) FortiGate
6 1 (0.30%) Kibana
6 1 (0.30%) logstash
Vendors
1 56 (17.07%) Microsoft
2 23 (7.01%) CyberArk
3 15 (4.57%) Palo Alto
3 15 (4.57%) Splunk
4 13 (3.96%) Cisco
5 11 (3.35%) BiZZdesign
5 11 (3.35%) Centrify
5 11 (3.35%) Zscaler
6 9 (2.74%) CheckPoint
7 8 (2.44%) Darktrace
7 8 (2.44%) Fortinet
8 7 (2.13%) Google
8 7 (2.13%) Virgin Media
9 6 (1.83%) F5
9 6 (1.83%) Sparx
9 6 (1.83%) VMware
10 5 (1.52%) ServiceNow
11 4 (1.22%) Juniper
11 4 (1.22%) Oracle
11 4 (1.22%) Thycotic