Software Architecture Contracts

Software Architecture
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring Software Architecture skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Software Architecture over the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 428 380 548
Rank change year-on-year -48 +168 +27
Contract jobs citing Software Architecture 92 204 170
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.31% 0.47% 0.28%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.35% 0.54% 0.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 44 114 115
10th Percentile £390 £400 £450
25th Percentile £456 £538 £505
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £650 £600
Median % change year-on-year -7.69% +8.33% +4.35%
75th Percentile £745 £747 £738
90th Percentile £788 £875 £875
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £650 £575
% change year-on-year -7.69% +13.04% +4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 14 4
10th Percentile - £60.50 -
25th Percentile £59.00 £69.38 £62.50
Median hourly rate £62.00 £77.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -20.00% +19.23% -0.82%
75th Percentile £65.00 £85.00 £68.00
90th Percentile £67.25 £90.00 £68.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £62.00 £80.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -22.50% +23.08% +12.55%

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK

Software Architecture falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 26,594 37,597 53,655
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 90.84% 86.31% 89.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,149 24,227 37,238
10th Percentile £308 £300 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -4.55% +4.76%
75th Percentile £630 £638 £650
90th Percentile £743 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £483 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -3.50% - +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,071 2,443 1,746
10th Percentile £14.41 £12.75 £11.00
25th Percentile £18.21 £16.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £29.00 £35.65 £37.30
Median % change year-on-year -18.65% -4.42% +49.20%
75th Percentile £60.38 £59.98 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £37.34 £36.00
% change year-on-year -26.35% +3.72% +80.00%

Software Architecture
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Software Architecture as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Software Architecture in the UK

Software Architecture
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Software Architecture.

Daily rate trend for Software Architecture in the UK

Software Architecture
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Software Architecture over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Software Architecture in the UK

Software Architecture
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Software Architecture.

Hourly rate trend for Software Architecture in the UK

Software Architecture
Top 12 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Software Architecture within the UK over the 6 months to 1 May 2025. 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 -57 79 £600 -7.69% 298
London -7 44 £652 -6.86% 118
UK excluding London -9 31 £600 -7.69% 215
Work from Home 0 26 £488 -24.86% 203
South East +22 15 £501 -23.00% 62
Midlands +24 6 £600 +6.67% 44
West Midlands +16 6 £600 +6.67% 29
East of England +18 5 £775 +40.91% 38
North of England +2 3 £358 -15.76% 40
Yorkshire -2 2 £334 -10.93% 18
South West +24 1 - - 27
Scotland +13 1 £500 - 11

Software Architecture
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 5 (5.43%) Apache Spark
2 4 (4.35%) Jupyter
3 2 (2.17%) CMS
3 2 (2.17%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 1 (1.09%) Confluence
4 1 (1.09%) Headless CMS
4 1 (1.09%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (1.09%) SharePoint
4 1 (1.09%) Umbraco
4 1 (1.09%) WebLogic
Applications
1 3 (3.26%) Revit
Business Applications
1 4 (4.35%) Oracle ERP
2 2 (2.17%) Oracle Applications
3 1 (1.09%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 34 (36.96%) Azure
2 33 (35.87%) AWS
3 8 (8.70%) Serverless
4 6 (6.52%) GCP
4 6 (6.52%) GitHub
5 4 (4.35%) AWS CloudFormation
5 4 (4.35%) GitHub Actions
6 3 (3.26%) Amazon ECS
6 3 (3.26%) Amazon SQS
6 3 (3.26%) AWS KMS
6 3 (3.26%) Azure Monitor
6 3 (3.26%) IaaS
6 3 (3.26%) PaaS
6 3 (3.26%) Route 53
6 3 (3.26%) SaaS
7 2 (2.17%) Azure DevOps
7 2 (2.17%) Cloud Computing
7 2 (2.17%) Vertex AI
8 1 (1.09%) BigCommerce
8 1 (1.09%) Unqork
Communications & Networking
1 5 (5.43%) Network Security
2 3 (3.26%) 3GPP
2 3 (3.26%) IPsec
2 3 (3.26%) Kerberos
2 3 (3.26%) SSL
2 3 (3.26%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (11.96%) MongoDB
2 9 (9.78%) SQL Server
3 8 (8.70%) NoSQL
4 6 (6.52%) MySQL
5 5 (5.43%) Oracle Database
5 5 (5.43%) Relational Database
6 4 (4.35%) Redis
7 3 (3.26%) Amazon RDS
7 3 (3.26%) Big Data
7 3 (3.26%) Data Mining
7 3 (3.26%) PostgreSQL
8 2 (2.17%) Impala
8 2 (2.17%) Tableau
9 1 (1.09%) Amazon Athena
9 1 (1.09%) Apache Cassandra
9 1 (1.09%) BigQuery
9 1 (1.09%) Couchbase
9 1 (1.09%) Data Warehouse
Development Applications
1 22 (23.91%) Jenkins
2 19 (20.65%) GitLab
3 17 (18.48%) JIRA
4 15 (16.30%) REST Assured
5 13 (14.13%) Cucumber
5 13 (14.13%) Selenium
5 13 (14.13%) SonarQube
6 11 (11.96%) Git
7 5 (5.43%) Maven
8 4 (4.35%) CircleCI
9 3 (3.26%) Bitbucket
9 3 (3.26%) Plastic SCM
10 2 (2.17%) Atlassian Bamboo
10 2 (2.17%) Mockito
10 2 (2.17%) MSTest
10 2 (2.17%) NUnit
10 2 (2.17%) SoapUI
10 2 (2.17%) Subversion
10 2 (2.17%) Team Foundation Server
10 2 (2.17%) Xcode
General
1 41 (44.57%) Social Skills
2 19 (20.65%) Analytical Skills
3 16 (17.39%) Finance
4 13 (14.13%) Retail
5 10 (10.87%) Banking
6 8 (8.70%) Law
6 8 (8.70%) Public Sector
7 4 (4.35%) Financial Institution
7 4 (4.35%) Police
8 3 (3.26%) Games
8 3 (3.26%) Military
9 2 (2.17%) Investment Banking
9 2 (2.17%) Organisational Skills
10 1 (1.09%) Back Office
10 1 (1.09%) Marketing
10 1 (1.09%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 33 (35.87%) Architect
2 25 (27.17%) Developer
3 19 (20.65%) Technical Architect
4 15 (16.30%) Java Engineer
4 15 (16.30%) Software Engineer
5 13 (14.13%) Solutions Architect
6 10 (10.87%) Java Software Engineer
7 9 (9.78%) Senior
8 7 (7.61%) Python Engineer
9 6 (6.52%) Java Developer
9 6 (6.52%) Senior Architect
9 6 (6.52%) Senior Technical Architect
9 6 (6.52%) Technical Solutions Architect
10 5 (5.43%) Machine Learning Engineer
10 5 (5.43%) Software Developer
11 4 (4.35%) Analyst
11 4 (4.35%) Lead
11 4 (4.35%) SC Cleared Software Engineer
12 3 (3.26%) .NET Developer
12 3 (3.26%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (25.00%) REST
2 13 (14.13%) Java EE
3 9 (9.78%) .NET
3 9 (9.78%) ARM Templates
4 8 (8.70%) Web Services
5 7 (7.61%) Spring Boot
6 6 (6.52%) HTML
6 6 (6.52%) HTML5
6 6 (6.52%) Kafka
6 6 (6.52%) RESTful
6 6 (6.52%) Spring
6 6 (6.52%) Swagger
6 6 (6.52%) XML
7 5 (5.43%) Node.js
7 5 (5.43%) OAuth
7 5 (5.43%) React
8 4 (4.35%) AngularJS
8 4 (4.35%) OAuth2
8 4 (4.35%) OpenAPI
8 4 (4.35%) RAML
Miscellaneous
1 12 (13.04%) Public Cloud
2 9 (9.78%) Enterprise Software
3 8 (8.70%) Mobile App
4 7 (7.61%) Distributed Systems
5 6 (6.52%) Algorithms
5 6 (6.52%) Data Structures
6 5 (5.43%) Private Cloud
7 4 (4.35%) Genomics
7 4 (4.35%) LIMS
7 4 (4.35%) Management Information System
8 3 (3.26%) Cloud Native
8 3 (3.26%) Distributed Computing
8 3 (3.26%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 3 (3.26%) Legacy Systems
8 3 (3.26%) Self-Motivation
9 2 (2.17%) Onboarding
9 2 (2.17%) Product Ownership
10 1 (1.09%) Analytical Mindset
10 1 (1.09%) Greenfield Project
10 1 (1.09%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 2 (2.17%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 41 (44.57%) DevOps
2 37 (40.22%) Agile
3 32 (34.78%) Technical Leadership
4 28 (30.43%) Continuous Integration
5 27 (29.35%) Microservices
6 24 (26.09%) Software Engineering
7 23 (25.00%) CI/CD
8 21 (22.83%) Test Automation
9 19 (20.65%) Roadmaps
10 17 (18.48%) Problem-Solving
11 16 (17.39%) Design Patterns
12 15 (16.30%) Architectural Patterns
13 14 (15.22%) Infrastructure as Code
14 13 (14.13%) Configuration Management
15 12 (13.04%) Containerisation
15 12 (13.04%) Data Modelling
15 12 (13.04%) Decision-Making
16 11 (11.96%) Machine Learning
16 11 (11.96%) SDLC
16 11 (11.96%) TDD
Programming Languages
1 40 (43.48%) Java
2 18 (19.57%) Python
3 13 (14.13%) C#
4 12 (13.04%) JavaScript
4 12 (13.04%) SQL
5 7 (7.61%) C++
5 7 (7.61%) TypeScript
6 6 (6.52%) C
7 5 (5.43%) Kotlin
7 5 (5.43%) Shell Script
8 4 (4.35%) Ruby
8 4 (4.35%) Scala
9 3 (3.26%) PL/SQL
10 2 (2.17%) Groovy
11 1 (1.09%) Ada
11 1 (1.09%) COBOL
11 1 (1.09%) JCL
11 1 (1.09%) PHP
11 1 (1.09%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 22 (23.91%) Security Cleared
2 19 (20.65%) SC Cleared
3 12 (13.04%) Degree
4 4 (4.35%) Master's Degree
5 3 (3.26%) BPSS Clearance
5 3 (3.26%) PhD
6 2 (2.17%) Computer Science Degree
7 1 (1.09%) AWS Certification
7 1 (1.09%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (6.52%) QA
2 2 (2.17%) Data Quality
3 1 (1.09%) Accessibility
3 1 (1.09%) Def Stans
3 1 (1.09%) DICOM
3 1 (1.09%) HIPAA
3 1 (1.09%) HL7
3 1 (1.09%) IEC 61508
3 1 (1.09%) MISRA
3 1 (1.09%) MISRA C
3 1 (1.09%) PCI DSS
3 1 (1.09%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 23 (25.00%) Docker
2 3 (3.26%) RACF
Systems Management
1 26 (28.26%) Kubernetes
2 19 (20.65%) Terraform
3 14 (15.22%) Ansible
4 9 (9.78%) Docker Swarm
4 9 (9.78%) Podman
5 4 (4.35%) Grafana
5 4 (4.35%) Prometheus
6 3 (3.26%) Packer
6 3 (3.26%) Single Sign-On
7 1 (1.09%) QRadar
Vendors
1 13 (14.13%) Oracle
2 6 (6.52%) Salesforce
3 5 (5.43%) MuleSoft
4 4 (4.35%) LabVantage
4 4 (4.35%) Microsoft
4 4 (4.35%) SAP
5 3 (3.26%) Autodesk
5 3 (3.26%) Databricks
5 3 (3.26%) Dynatrace
6 2 (2.17%) Adobe
6 2 (2.17%) CA Agile Central
6 2 (2.17%) Google
6 2 (2.17%) IBM
6 2 (2.17%) Informatica
6 2 (2.17%) Pega
6 2 (2.17%) Splunk
7 1 (1.09%) Ariba
7 1 (1.09%) Atlassian
7 1 (1.09%) Sitecore
7 1 (1.09%) Virgin Media