London – IT, Tech and AI Salary & Contractor Rates – May 2026

The big talking point as we hit the middle of Q2 is the massive tension between permanent hiring hesitation and contractor bidding wars across the London tech sector.

Firms in the capital are caught in a tricky position right now. On one hand, London boards are incredibly hesitant to sign off on high-salary, permanent generalist roles while economic caution lingers. On the other hand, those same firms are aggressively outbidding each other for specialist contractors because mid-year transformation deadlines are looming, and the work simply has to get done. If you need a specialist in the City to hit a milestone right now, you have to be prepared to pay a premium to secure them on a day rate.

Operational Stability Beats LLM & AI Hype

While the tech headlines and industry discussions remain heavily obsessed with AI execution, the real money in the commercial London market is quietly moving back into core infrastructure. Organisations are realising that ambitious automation plans and Large Language Model (LLM) integrations are completely useless if their legacy systems are hanging by a thread.

Because of this, operational stability has thoroughly defeated the initial AI hype this month. The 3rd Line Engineers and Platform Specialists who keep legacy environments stable enough to deploy these new models are the ones quietly driving the most consistent day-rate growth across London.

• Category	Job Title	Yearly Low	Yearly Median	Yearly High	Salary Change	Contractor Day Rate	Day Rate Change
  LEADERSHIP
  	CTO	£128,100	£170,800	£219,600	1.50%	£1,281	2.30%
  	CIO	£115,900	£158,600	£201,300	1.50%	£1,220	2.30%
  	IT DIRECTOR	£91,500	£115,900	£146,400	1.50%	£915	2.30%
  	HEAD OF DATA / AI	£109,800	£152,500	£189,100	1.50%	£1,037	2.20%
  	HEAD OF IT	£79,300	£97,600	£122,000	1.50%	£793	2.30%
  	IT MANAGER (Aligned)	£51,240	£67,100	£91,500	2.40%	£610	1.80%
  	ICT MANAGER (Aligned)	£46,360	£59,170	£79,300	3.20%	£530	2.10%
  	CISO	£115,900	£152,500	£195,200	1.80%	£1,342	2.50%
  OPERATIONS
  	IT OPS DIRECTOR	£97,600	£122,000	£158,600	1.40%	£976	2.20%
  	3RD LINE (SYSADMIN)	£46,360	£54,900	£67,100	3.90%	£458	5.20%
  	2ND LINE SUPPORT	£34,160	£41,480	£51,240	3.90%	£305	5.10%
  	1ST LINE SUPPORT	£26,840	£31,720	£39,040	3.80%	£226	5.00%
  	IT SUPPORT MANAGER	£51,240	£63,440	£79,300	3.90%	£580	5.20%
  	INFRASTRUCTURE ENG	£54,900	£67,100	£85,400	4.10%	£610	5.40%
  	NETWORK ENGINEER	£48,800	£61,000	£79,300	3.70%	£549	5.10%
  	SERVICE DESK LEAD	£42,700	£51,240	£61,000	3.80%	£427	5.00%
  	M365 / AZURE ADMIN	£48,800	£61,000	£79,300	4.20%	£549	5.50%
  	MAC ENGINEER	£46,360	£58,560	£70,760	3.50%	£458	4.80%
  ARCHITECTURE
  	NOC ENGINEER	£39,040	£48,800	£61,000	3.20%	£397	4.50%
  	ENTERPRISE ARCHITECT	£91,500	£115,900	£146,400	3.80%	£1,037	5.70%
  	SOLUTION ARCHITECT	£85,400	£103,700	£128,100	3.80%	£915	5.70%
  	CLOUD ARCHITECT	£91,500	£122,000	£152,500	3.80%	£976	5.70%
  	SECURITY ARCHITECT	£97,600	£128,100	£158,600	3.80%	£1,098	5.70%
  	DATA ARCHITECT	£95,465	£109,495	£124,745	3.90%	£946	5.80%
  ENGINEERING
  	SOFTWARE ARCHITECT	£91,500	£115,900	£140,300	4.00%	£976	5.90%
  	AI / ML ENGINEER	£85,400	£115,900	£146,400	3.00%	£976	4.40%
  	DEVOPS / SRE	£79,300	£103,700	£128,100	3.10%	£854	4.50%
  	CYBER SECURITY ENG	£67,100	£85,400	£109,800	2.90%	£763	4.60%
  	SOFTWARE DEV (SNR)	£73,200	£97,600	£128,100	3.10%	£763	4.50%
  	FULL STACK DEV	£61,000	£79,300	£103,700	3.20%	£671	4.70%
  	PLATFORM ENGINEER	£75,640	£95,160	£115,900	3.30%	£824	4.80%
  DATA & PM
  	QA AUTOMATION ENG	£51,240	£63,440	£82,960	3.40%	£519	4.90%
  	DATA ENGINEER	£67,100	£91,500	£115,900	3.00%	£763	4.60%
  	DATA SCIENTIST (SNR)	£79,300	£103,700	£134,200	3.20%	£885	4.90%
  	DATA ANALYST	£42,700	£51,240	£63,440	3.10%	£458	4.90%
  	IT PROJECT MANAGER	£67,100	£85,400	£103,700	3.20%	£702	4.80%
  	BUSINESS ANALYST	£54,900	£70,760	£85,400	3.20%	£580	4.70%
  	TECHNICAL PM	£79,300	£97,600	£122,000	3.50%	£854	5.10%
  	PRODUCT MANAGER	£73,200	£95,160	£118,340	3.40%	£793	4.90%

If, however, your company is slowing down – beware! If your IT staff start to feel insecure, talent competitors and recruiters will find it very easy to persuade your staff to interview elsewhere. Despite the stress and negativity that may exist, take the time to focus on reassuring your team and, where appropriate, reward their loyalty. It’s a false economy to avoid salary increases for your best people. Doing so risks leave yourself vulnerable to losing key staff and the larger costs in both time and money of replacing them.

Should you be considering recruitment or simply would like some advice on anything recruitment related, please do not hesitate to give us a call and see how we can really help you to Recruit Someone Worth Recruiting.

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