Architect Contract Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Architect
UK > UK excluding London

The median Architect daily rate in the UK excluding London is £620, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 16 September 2026.

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

6 months to
16 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 14 21 13
Rank change year-on-year +7 -8 +4
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 2,554 1,215 1,710
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 9.12% 7.85% 9.60%
As % of the Job Titles category 9.98% 8.74% 10.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,723 827 1,034
10th Percentile £468 £461 £469
25th Percentile £525 £519 £538
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £600 £626
Median % change year-on-year +3.33% -4.15% -1.80%
75th Percentile £700 £688 £725
90th Percentile £769 £775 £788
UK median daily rate £620 £625 £630
% change year-on-year -0.80% -0.79% -3.08%
Number of hourly rates quoted 153 12 66
10th Percentile £46.00 £30.99 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £56.62 £62.50
Median hourly rate £66.50 £71.25 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -6.67% +1.79% -6.67%
75th Percentile £77.25 £81.88 £85.00
90th Percentile £95.00 £98.75 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £68.17 £70.00 £70.00
% change year-on-year -2.62% - -1.53%

All Contract IT Job Roles
UK excluding London

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the UK excluding London. 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 excluding London with a recognized job title 25,598 13,901 16,435
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.39% 89.86% 92.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,191 8,555 9,550
10th Percentile £303 £213 £220
25th Percentile £413 £361 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £600 £575 £600
90th Percentile £688 £660 £676
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,265 1,258 1,435
10th Percentile £14.25 £13.46 £14.33
25th Percentile £20.00 £16.30 £19.50
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +5.88%
75th Percentile £68.00 £52.50 £66.61
90th Percentile £78.75 £71.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% -2.01%

Architect
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Architect' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Architect job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Architect
Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Architect job vacancies in the UK excluding London.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Architect job vacancies in the UK excluding London

Architect
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Architect in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 16 September 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Architect in the UK excluding London

Architect
Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Architect job vacancies in the UK excluding London.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Architect job vacancies in the UK excluding London

Architect
Hourly Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Architect in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 16 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Architect in the UK excluding London

Architect
Contract Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Architect within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 16 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
South East +3 737 £625 +4.17% 616
North of England +4 686 £599 -0.18% 610
Midlands +2 427 £626 +9.34% 331
North West +6 385 £600 +2.78% 368
South West +1 341 £638 -1.92% 278
West Midlands +1 315 £644 +7.51% 238
Yorkshire +9 239 £563 -6.21% 184
Scotland +23 174 £625 - 277
East of England +11 160 £622 +12.07% 173
East Midlands +6 107 £600 +18.81% 93
North East -3 63 £600 -15.79% 60
Wales +3 42 £633 +1.20% 27
Channel Islands -4 7 £700 -5.72% 4
Northern Ireland +2 2 - - 103
Architect
UK

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London

For the 6 months to 16 September 2026, 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 across the UK excluding London region featuring Architect in the job title.

1 887 (34.73%) Security Cleared
2 582 (22.79%) SC Cleared
3 571 (22.36%) Azure
4 461 (18.05%) Stakeholder Management
5 439 (17.19%) AWS
6 371 (14.53%) Roadmaps
7 359 (14.06%) Microsoft
8 350 (13.70%) Technical Leadership
9 308 (12.06%) Migration
10 306 (11.98%) Enterprise Architecture
11 292 (11.43%) Agile
12 275 (10.77%) DV Cleared
13 238 (9.32%) DevOps
13 238 (9.32%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 237 (9.28%) Data Architecture
15 229 (8.97%) AI
16 221 (8.65%) CI/CD
17 217 (8.50%) Integration Patterns
18 208 (8.14%) Data Modelling
19 203 (7.95%) Cybersecurity
20 202 (7.91%) Security Architecture
21 192 (7.52%) Architectural Patterns
22 190 (7.44%) TOGAF
23 186 (7.28%) Architecture Governance
24 179 (7.01%) GCP
25 167 (6.54%) Microservices
26 165 (6.46%) Continuous Improvement
27 154 (6.03%) Event-Driven
28 145 (5.68%) Decision-Making
29 144 (5.64%) Problem-Solving

Architect Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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 34 (1.33%) SAS
2 31 (1.21%) SharePoint
3 27 (1.06%) Confluence
4 16 (0.63%) Microsoft Exchange
5 12 (0.47%) OpenStack
6 11 (0.43%) Apache
7 10 (0.39%) Apache Airflow
7 10 (0.39%) Apache Spark
7 10 (0.39%) Palantir Foundry
8 7 (0.27%) Documentum
8 7 (0.27%) NetWeaver
9 5 (0.20%) SAP EP
10 4 (0.16%) IIS
11 3 (0.12%) CMS
11 3 (0.12%) JBoss
12 2 (0.078%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 2 (0.078%) Alfresco
12 2 (0.078%) Apache Superset
13 1 (0.039%) CIMPLICITY
13 1 (0.039%) FactoryTalk
Applications
1 10 (0.39%) Microsoft Excel
1 10 (0.39%) MS Visio
2 9 (0.35%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (0.27%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (0.27%) Navisworks
3 7 (0.27%) Revit
4 6 (0.23%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 69 (2.70%) SAP S/4HANA
2 12 (0.47%) Teamcenter
3 10 (0.39%) Payment Gateway
4 9 (0.35%) Remedy ITSM
4 9 (0.35%) SAP ERP
5 7 (0.27%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 6 (0.23%) Maximo
6 6 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
6 6 (0.23%) SAP MDG
7 5 (0.20%) Dynamics CRM
7 5 (0.20%) Remedy AR System
7 5 (0.20%) SAP CRM
8 4 (0.16%) NetSuite
8 4 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
8 4 (0.16%) Oracle Retail
9 3 (0.12%) Adobe Campaign
9 3 (0.12%) Dynamics NAV
9 3 (0.12%) Oracle Receivables
9 3 (0.12%) Salesforce CRM
9 3 (0.12%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 571 (22.36%) Azure
2 439 (17.19%) AWS
3 179 (7.01%) GCP
4 94 (3.68%) SaaS
5 89 (3.48%) Power Platform
6 69 (2.70%) Serverless
7 66 (2.58%) Entra ID
8 60 (2.35%) Microsoft 365
9 49 (1.92%) Dynamics 365
10 46 (1.80%) Azure DevOps
11 41 (1.61%) GitHub
12 37 (1.45%) PaaS
13 31 (1.21%) AWS Lambda
14 30 (1.17%) IaaS
14 30 (1.17%) Snowflake
15 26 (1.02%) Amazon S3
16 25 (0.98%) GitHub Actions
16 25 (0.98%) OpenShift
17 24 (0.94%) OCI
18 21 (0.82%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 74 (2.90%) Firewall
2 56 (2.19%) WAN
3 54 (2.11%) DNS
4 48 (1.88%) Network Security
5 41 (1.61%) LAN
6 33 (1.29%) BGP
7 31 (1.21%) DHCP
8 30 (1.17%) MPLS
9 29 (1.14%) SD-WAN
9 29 (1.14%) VPN
10 27 (1.06%) TCP/IP
11 25 (0.98%) VLAN
12 21 (0.82%) SAN
13 18 (0.70%) NAS
14 17 (0.67%) BIG-IP
15 16 (0.63%) OSPF
16 15 (0.59%) Structured Cabling
17 14 (0.55%) Wireless
18 13 (0.51%) NX-OS
19 12 (0.47%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 84 (3.29%) Metadata
2 77 (3.01%) Data Lake
3 69 (2.70%) Data Warehouse
4 61 (2.39%) Power BI
5 33 (1.29%) NoSQL
6 22 (0.86%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
7 20 (0.78%) Amazon RDS
8 18 (0.70%) Azure SQL Database
9 17 (0.67%) Oracle Database
10 16 (0.63%) Base SAS
10 16 (0.63%) BigQuery
11 15 (0.59%) SQL Server
12 11 (0.43%) PostgreSQL
13 10 (0.39%) Amazon Redshift
13 10 (0.39%) Delta Lake
13 10 (0.39%) GIS
14 9 (0.35%) MySQL
14 9 (0.35%) Pentaho
14 9 (0.35%) Semantic Layer
15 8 (0.31%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 34 (1.33%) JIRA
2 31 (1.21%) Git
3 21 (0.82%) Jenkins
4 16 (0.63%) GitLab
5 7 (0.27%) ERwin
5 7 (0.27%) MSI
6 6 (0.23%) Claude Code
7 5 (0.20%) Artifactory
7 5 (0.20%) Sonatype Nexus
8 4 (0.16%) Hudson
9 3 (0.12%) Rational DOORS
9 3 (0.12%) SonarQube
10 2 (0.078%) Bitbucket
10 2 (0.078%) Cypress.io
10 2 (0.078%) IntelliJ
10 2 (0.078%) JUnit
10 2 (0.078%) Oracle APEX
10 2 (0.078%) Oracle Forms
10 2 (0.078%) Rational Rhapsody
10 2 (0.078%) Selenium
General
1 538 (21.06%) Social Skills
2 307 (12.02%) Finance
3 262 (10.26%) Public Sector
4 122 (4.78%) Banking
5 121 (4.74%) Analytical Skills
6 114 (4.46%) Retail
7 92 (3.60%) Manufacturing
8 68 (2.66%) Influencing Skills
9 59 (2.31%) Documentation Skills
10 47 (1.84%) Aerospace
11 43 (1.68%) Legal
12 33 (1.29%) Military
13 31 (1.21%) Telecoms
14 26 (1.02%) Marketing
15 22 (0.86%) Aviation
16 20 (0.78%) Back Office
16 20 (0.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 18 (0.70%) Billing
18 17 (0.67%) Presentation Skills
19 16 (0.63%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 104 (4.07%) REST
2 85 (3.33%) Terraform
3 76 (2.98%) Middleware
4 53 (2.08%) SOAP
5 48 (1.88%) OAuth
6 40 (1.57%) Kafka
7 38 (1.49%) LDAP
7 38 (1.49%) Oracle Fusion
8 33 (1.29%) .NET
9 32 (1.25%) SAML
10 30 (1.17%) OpenID
11 26 (1.02%) JSON
12 20 (0.78%) OAuth2
13 19 (0.74%) SailPoint
14 18 (0.70%) Node.js
15 15 (0.59%) GraphQL
15 15 (0.59%) SAP Fiori
16 14 (0.55%) JWT
16 14 (0.55%) Swagger
16 14 (0.55%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 192 (7.52%) Cloud Native
2 80 (3.13%) Data Centre
3 78 (3.05%) Hybrid Cloud
4 65 (2.55%) Operational Technology
5 64 (2.51%) Distributed Systems
6 62 (2.43%) Onboarding
7 61 (2.39%) Data Protection Act
7 61 (2.39%) Product Ownership
8 60 (2.35%) Enterprise Software
8 60 (2.35%) Legacy Systems
9 51 (2.00%) Management Information System
10 42 (1.64%) Public Cloud
11 40 (1.57%) AI Agents
12 39 (1.53%) Private Cloud
13 36 (1.41%) CMDB
14 27 (1.06%) Enterprise Cloud
15 26 (1.02%) IVR
16 25 (0.98%) Security Posture
17 24 (0.94%) PKI
18 20 (0.78%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 82 (3.21%) Windows
2 56 (2.19%) Linux
3 34 (1.33%) Windows Server
4 17 (0.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 9 (0.35%) Unix
6 6 (0.23%) AIX
7 4 (0.16%) Data ONTAP
8 2 (0.078%) HPUX
8 2 (0.078%) Solaris
8 2 (0.078%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.039%) Android
9 1 (0.039%) Apple iOS
9 1 (0.039%) CatOS
9 1 (0.039%) CentOS
9 1 (0.039%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.039%) VMS
9 1 (0.039%) Windows Server 2008
9 1 (0.039%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 461 (18.05%) Stakeholder Management
2 371 (14.53%) Roadmaps
3 350 (13.70%) Technical Leadership
4 308 (12.06%) Migration
5 306 (11.98%) Enterprise Architecture
6 292 (11.43%) Agile
7 238 (9.32%) DevOps
7 238 (9.32%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 237 (9.28%) Data Architecture
9 229 (8.97%) AI
10 221 (8.65%) CI/CD
11 217 (8.50%) Integration Patterns
12 208 (8.14%) Data Modelling
13 203 (7.95%) Cybersecurity
14 202 (7.91%) Security Architecture
15 192 (7.52%) Architectural Patterns
16 190 (7.44%) TOGAF
17 186 (7.28%) Architecture Governance
18 167 (6.54%) Microservices
19 165 (6.46%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 99 (3.88%) Java
2 91 (3.56%) SQL
3 85 (3.33%) Python
4 48 (1.88%) JavaScript
4 48 (1.88%) PowerShell
5 25 (0.98%) Bash
6 14 (0.55%) ABAP
7 13 (0.51%) TypeScript
8 10 (0.39%) Shell Script
9 9 (0.35%) Apex Code
9 9 (0.35%) Bicep
10 7 (0.27%) C#
11 6 (0.23%) PL/SQL
11 6 (0.23%) VBA
12 5 (0.20%) Groovy
13 4 (0.16%) PHP
14 3 (0.12%) R
15 2 (0.078%) BeanShell
15 2 (0.078%) C
15 2 (0.078%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 887 (34.73%) Security Cleared
2 582 (22.79%) SC Cleared
3 275 (10.77%) DV Cleared
4 69 (2.70%) Degree
5 64 (2.51%) CISSP
6 60 (2.35%) Cisco Certification
7 57 (2.23%) BPSS Clearance
8 42 (1.64%) AWS Certification
8 42 (1.64%) TOGAF Certification
9 41 (1.61%) Azure Certification
10 31 (1.21%) Computer Science Degree
11 28 (1.10%) CCNP
12 22 (0.86%) CISM
13 19 (0.74%) CCIE
13 19 (0.74%) Microsoft Certification
14 18 (0.70%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 14 (0.55%) JNCIE
16 12 (0.47%) CCSP
17 11 (0.43%) CCNA
17 11 (0.43%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 101 (3.95%) NIST
2 85 (3.33%) Data Quality
3 76 (2.98%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 58 (2.27%) NCSC
5 48 (1.88%) GDPR
6 28 (1.10%) QA
7 19 (0.74%) PCI DSS
8 17 (0.67%) JSP 440
9 16 (0.63%) GRC
9 16 (0.63%) NIST 800
10 15 (0.59%) Accessibility
11 14 (0.55%) ISO/IEC 20000
12 13 (0.51%) ISO 19650
13 11 (0.43%) Disclosure Scotland
13 11 (0.43%) IFRS
13 11 (0.43%) SLA
14 9 (0.35%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 7 (0.27%) Cyber Essentials
16 6 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
16 6 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 27005
System Software
1 101 (3.95%) Active Directory
2 47 (1.84%) VMware Infrastructure
3 45 (1.76%) Docker
4 27 (1.06%) VMware NSX
5 23 (0.90%) Virtual Desktop
6 15 (0.59%) Hyper-V
7 12 (0.47%) VMware ESXi
8 11 (0.43%) vSphere
9 9 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
10 4 (0.16%) KVM
11 3 (0.12%) Ceph
11 3 (0.12%) EMC RecoverPoint
11 3 (0.12%) ISA Server
11 3 (0.12%) NFS
11 3 (0.12%) SRDF
11 3 (0.12%) vCloud
12 2 (0.078%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 2 (0.078%) Virtual Servers
12 2 (0.078%) zsh
13 1 (0.039%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 132 (5.17%) Kubernetes
2 52 (2.04%) Ansible
3 19 (0.74%) Microsoft Intune
4 18 (0.70%) Single Sign-On
5 14 (0.55%) Grafana
6 13 (0.51%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 13 (0.51%) Prometheus
7 12 (0.47%) Jamf Pro
8 10 (0.39%) WMI
9 9 (0.35%) vCenter Server
10 7 (0.27%) CASB
10 7 (0.27%) FortiGate
11 6 (0.23%) Argo
11 6 (0.23%) Istio
12 5 (0.20%) NetBackup
13 4 (0.16%) Cisco CUCM
13 4 (0.16%) EMC VPLEX
13 4 (0.16%) SnapMirror
14 3 (0.12%) MOM
14 3 (0.12%) SnapVault
Vendors
1 359 (14.06%) Microsoft
2 138 (5.40%) SAP
3 110 (4.31%) Oracle
4 103 (4.03%) Google
5 97 (3.80%) ServiceNow
6 87 (3.41%) VMware
7 81 (3.17%) Cisco
7 81 (3.17%) Databricks
8 56 (2.19%) Salesforce
9 44 (1.72%) CyberArk
10 32 (1.25%) MuleSoft
11 29 (1.14%) F5
12 23 (0.90%) IBM
13 22 (0.86%) Informatica
14 21 (0.82%) Palo Alto
15 20 (0.78%) Red Hat
15 20 (0.78%) Workday
16 17 (0.67%) Infoblox
17 16 (0.63%) Fortinet
17 16 (0.63%) Foundry