Security Architect Contract Job Trends

Security Architect
UK

The median Security Architect daily rate in the UK is £632, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 7 August 2026.

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

6 months to
7 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 230 233 239
Rank change year-on-year +3 +6 -1
Contract jobs requiring a Security Architect 621 381 403
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.16% 1.16% 1.03%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.26% 1.27% 1.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 414 241 233
10th Percentile £500 £510 £500
25th Percentile £544 £575 £613
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £632 £671 £700
Median % change year-on-year -5.81% -4.14% +2.87%
75th Percentile £762 £750 £775
90th Percentile £850 £800 £835
UK excluding London median daily rate £645 £671 £655
% change year-on-year -3.87% +2.44% -2.96%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 3 9
10th Percentile £60.00 £86.00 £81.86
25th Percentile £65.75 £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 - £102.75 -
90th Percentile £83.50 £104.40 £87.47
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 49,463 30,049 36,264
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.60% 91.45% 92.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,748 19,085 23,408
10th Percentile £329 £283 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.02%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £727 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,453 1,494 2,053
10th Percentile £15.00 £13.62 £14.16
25th Percentile £20.75 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £42.25 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.99% -41.51% -
75th Percentile £67.84 £53.83 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.10 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.95
% change year-on-year +68.99% -42.78% +15.89%

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 7 August 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 7 August 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 -12 533 £650 -3.70% 276
London -2 266 £663 -1.85% 138
UK excluding London -17 257 £645 -3.87% 140
Work from Home +7 202 £600 -10.58% 110
South East -8 116 £650 +8.33% 46
North of England -55 65 £652 -6.93% 35
North West -19 50 £677 -3.36% 20
Midlands -32 43 £625 -21.88% 12
West Midlands -39 42 £625 -21.88% 9
South West -48 22 £614 -5.58% 21
Yorkshire -34 12 £625 +13.64% 15
East of England -17 7 £625 +25.00% 10
Scotland -11 4 £700 - 9
East Midlands - 1 - - 3
Channel Islands - 1 £575 -

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

For the 6 months to 7 August 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 (49.60%) Security Architecture
2 284 (45.73%) Security Cleared
3 208 (33.49%) Cybersecurity
4 189 (30.43%) SC Cleared
5 186 (29.95%) Azure
6 170 (27.38%) Threat Modelling
7 163 (26.25%) Cloud Security
8 152 (24.48%) AWS
9 130 (20.93%) NIST
10 128 (20.61%) CISSP
11 100 (16.10%) Network Security
11 100 (16.10%) Zero Trust
12 93 (14.98%) Identity Access Management
12 93 (14.98%) Risk Management
13 90 (14.49%) TOGAF
14 89 (14.33%) AI
14 89 (14.33%) Architectural Patterns
14 89 (14.33%) DV Cleared
15 87 (14.01%) ISO/IEC 27001
16 81 (13.04%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 77 (12.40%) GCP
18 73 (11.76%) SABSA
18 73 (11.76%) Stakeholder Management
19 72 (11.59%) Roadmaps
20 70 (11.27%) DevSecOps
21 64 (10.31%) CISM
22 61 (9.82%) CI/CD
22 61 (9.82%) Microsoft
23 60 (9.66%) NCSC
24 59 (9.50%) Enterprise Architecture

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 7 (1.13%) Confluence
2 3 (0.48%) SharePoint
3 2 (0.32%) nginx
3 2 (0.32%) SAS
4 1 (0.16%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 4 (0.64%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 2 (0.32%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 1 (0.16%) SAP EHS
2 1 (0.16%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 186 (29.95%) Azure
2 152 (24.48%) AWS
3 77 (12.40%) GCP
4 37 (5.96%) Entra ID
5 23 (3.70%) Azure Sentinel
6 17 (2.74%) SaaS
7 10 (1.61%) Microsoft 365
8 8 (1.29%) Azure Key Vault
9 6 (0.97%) IaaS
10 5 (0.81%) Anthropic Claude
10 5 (0.81%) Azure Cosmos DB
10 5 (0.81%) Dynamics 365
10 5 (0.81%) GitHub
10 5 (0.81%) Microsoft Purview
10 5 (0.81%) Vertex AI
11 4 (0.64%) Amazon EKS
11 4 (0.64%) AWS Control Tower
11 4 (0.64%) AWS KMS
11 4 (0.64%) Azure DevOps
11 4 (0.64%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 100 (16.10%) Network Security
2 48 (7.73%) Firewall
3 14 (2.25%) VPN
4 12 (1.93%) WAN
5 9 (1.45%) SD-WAN
6 8 (1.29%) 4G
6 8 (1.29%) IPsec
7 7 (1.13%) LAN
7 7 (1.13%) VLAN
8 6 (0.97%) 5G
8 6 (0.97%) NGFW
8 6 (0.97%) Radio Access Network
9 4 (0.64%) BGP
9 4 (0.64%) Intranet
9 4 (0.64%) MPLS
9 4 (0.64%) OSPF
10 3 (0.48%) Cisco ASA
10 3 (0.48%) Internet
11 2 (0.32%) Cisco IOS
11 2 (0.32%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (1.29%) Data Lake
2 4 (0.64%) Data Warehouse
2 4 (0.64%) PostgreSQL
3 2 (0.32%) Big Data
3 2 (0.32%) BigQuery
3 2 (0.32%) Metadata
4 1 (0.16%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 9 (1.45%) Jenkins
1 9 (1.45%) JIRA
2 4 (0.64%) Snyk
3 3 (0.48%) Claude Code
4 1 (0.16%) GitLab
General
1 111 (17.87%) Social Skills
2 77 (12.40%) Public Sector
3 72 (11.59%) Finance
4 34 (5.48%) Banking
5 25 (4.03%) Influencing Skills
6 22 (3.54%) Documentation Skills
7 21 (3.38%) Analytical Skills
8 18 (2.90%) Legal
9 14 (2.25%) Telecoms
10 11 (1.77%) Manufacturing
11 9 (1.45%) Police
11 9 (1.45%) Presentation Skills
12 8 (1.29%) Aerospace
12 8 (1.29%) Military
13 5 (0.81%) Financial Institution
13 5 (0.81%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 5 (0.81%) Retail
14 4 (0.64%) Law
14 4 (0.64%) Local Government
15 2 (0.32%) Retail Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (2.58%) OAuth
2 12 (1.93%) OAuth2
2 12 (1.93%) OpenID
3 10 (1.61%) SAML
4 6 (0.97%) REST
4 6 (0.97%) SLSA
5 5 (0.81%) Azure Blueprints
5 5 (0.81%) LangChain
5 5 (0.81%) PyTorch
6 4 (0.64%) Jakarta EE
6 4 (0.64%) JSP
6 4 (0.64%) JWT
6 4 (0.64%) ModSecurity
6 4 (0.64%) SailPoint
7 3 (0.48%) .NET
7 3 (0.48%) HTML
7 3 (0.48%) LDAP
7 3 (0.48%) scikit-learn
8 2 (0.32%) Flask
8 2 (0.32%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 59 (9.50%) Security Posture
2 51 (8.21%) Cloud Native
3 35 (5.64%) Management Information System
3 35 (5.64%) Operational Technology
4 22 (3.54%) Onboarding
5 17 (2.74%) AI Agents
6 14 (2.25%) Cyber Threat
7 13 (2.09%) Enterprise Cloud
7 13 (2.09%) Hybrid Cloud
8 11 (1.77%) Data Centre
9 9 (1.45%) Cloud Security Posture
10 8 (1.29%) Data Protection Act
10 8 (1.29%) Private Cloud
10 8 (1.29%) Self-Motivation
11 7 (1.13%) Public Cloud
12 6 (0.97%) Data Fabric
12 6 (0.97%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
12 6 (0.97%) Legacy Systems
13 5 (0.81%) Enterprise Software
13 5 (0.81%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 11 (1.77%) Linux
2 8 (1.29%) Windows
3 6 (0.97%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 6 (0.97%) Windows Server
4 4 (0.64%) Alpine Linux
4 4 (0.64%) Ubuntu
5 1 (0.16%) Android
5 1 (0.16%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 308 (49.60%) Security Architecture
2 208 (33.49%) Cybersecurity
3 170 (27.38%) Threat Modelling
4 163 (26.25%) Cloud Security
5 100 (16.10%) Zero Trust
6 93 (14.98%) Identity Access Management
6 93 (14.98%) Risk Management
7 90 (14.49%) TOGAF
8 89 (14.33%) AI
8 89 (14.33%) Architectural Patterns
9 81 (13.04%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 73 (11.76%) SABSA
10 73 (11.76%) Stakeholder Management
11 72 (11.59%) Roadmaps
12 70 (11.27%) DevSecOps
13 61 (9.82%) CI/CD
14 59 (9.50%) Enterprise Architecture
15 56 (9.02%) Data Protection
16 52 (8.37%) Information Security
16 52 (8.37%) SIEM
Programming Languages
1 17 (2.74%) Python
2 10 (1.61%) Bicep
2 10 (1.61%) Java
3 8 (1.29%) PowerShell
4 5 (0.81%) JavaScript
5 4 (0.64%) Groovy
5 4 (0.64%) Shell Script
6 3 (0.48%) Bash
6 3 (0.48%) SQL
7 1 (0.16%) R
Qualifications
1 284 (45.73%) Security Cleared
2 189 (30.43%) SC Cleared
3 128 (20.61%) CISSP
4 89 (14.33%) DV Cleared
5 64 (10.31%) CISM
6 51 (8.21%) Cisco Certification
7 44 (7.09%) (ISC)2 CCSP
8 31 (4.99%) CCSP
9 25 (4.03%) Degree
10 23 (3.70%) AWS Certification
11 18 (2.90%) TOGAF Certification
12 15 (2.42%) CISA
13 13 (2.09%) Azure Certification
13 13 (2.09%) CEH
14 11 (1.77%) SANS
15 10 (1.61%) GIAC
16 7 (1.13%) CompTIA Security+
16 7 (1.13%) Microsoft Certification
16 7 (1.13%) OSCP
17 6 (0.97%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 130 (20.93%) NIST
2 87 (14.01%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 60 (9.66%) NCSC
4 44 (7.09%) GDPR
5 21 (3.38%) GRC
5 21 (3.38%) NIST 800
5 21 (3.38%) PCI DSS
6 11 (1.77%) Government Security Classifications
7 10 (1.61%) HMG Security Policy Framework
8 8 (1.29%) EU AI Act
8 8 (1.29%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
8 8 (1.29%) JSP 440
9 7 (1.13%) COBIT
10 6 (0.97%) Cyber Essentials
10 6 (0.97%) ISO 19650
10 6 (0.97%) QA
10 6 (0.97%) RMADS
11 5 (0.81%) HIPAA
11 5 (0.81%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 4 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 22 (3.54%) Active Directory
2 13 (2.09%) Docker
3 6 (0.97%) VMware Infrastructure
4 3 (0.48%) vSphere
5 2 (0.32%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.16%) KVM
6 1 (0.16%) Varnish
6 1 (0.16%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.16%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 31 (4.99%) Kubernetes
2 26 (4.19%) Terraform
3 9 (1.45%) Ansible
4 4 (0.64%) QRadar
5 3 (0.48%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 3 (0.48%) Single Sign-On
6 2 (0.32%) CASB
6 2 (0.32%) Docker Swarm
6 2 (0.32%) Istio
6 2 (0.32%) Network Intrusion Detection System
7 1 (0.16%) FortiGate
7 1 (0.16%) Microsoft Intune
7 1 (0.16%) Suricata
Vendors
1 61 (9.82%) Microsoft
2 19 (3.06%) Google
3 17 (2.74%) Palo Alto
4 16 (2.58%) Splunk
5 15 (2.42%) Okta
6 14 (2.25%) Cisco
6 14 (2.25%) Fortinet
7 12 (1.93%) SAP
8 10 (1.61%) Salesforce
8 10 (1.61%) Tenable
9 8 (1.29%) CrowdStrike
9 8 (1.29%) Qualys
9 8 (1.29%) Zscaler
10 7 (1.13%) CheckPoint
10 7 (1.13%) VMware
11 6 (0.97%) BiZZdesign
11 6 (0.97%) Databricks
12 5 (0.81%) ServiceNow
13 4 (0.64%) CyberArk
13 4 (0.64%) Rapid7