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 £623, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 24 July 2026.

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

6 months to
24 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 13 19 13
Rank change year-on-year +6 -6 +5
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 2,482 1,233 1,935
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 9.20% 8.26% 9.87%
As % of the Job Titles category 9.98% 9.12% 10.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,623 841 1,192
10th Percentile £481 £450 £483
25th Percentile £525 £519 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £623 £600 £650
Median % change year-on-year +3.75% -7.69% -
75th Percentile £712 £688 £725
90th Percentile £775 £751 £788
UK median daily rate £618 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -1.16% -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 159 15 84
10th Percentile £46.00 £33.64 -
25th Percentile £60.00 £64.38 £60.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -
75th Percentile £71.91 £86.50 £85.65
90th Percentile £83.00 £99.42 £88.00
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -

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 24,865 13,516 18,087
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.15% 90.53% 92.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,157 8,348 11,035
10th Percentile £305 £215 £213
25th Percentile £408 £363 £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 £650 £675
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.02%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,874 1,158 2,033
10th Percentile £15.13 £13.50 £13.25
25th Percentile £21.00 £16.67 £17.00
Median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £42.91
Median % change year-on-year +78.93% -41.39% +7.28%
75th Percentile £68.00 £55.87 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £43.55 £25.15 £40.94
% change year-on-year +73.17% -38.57% -6.42%

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 24 July 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 24 July 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 24 July 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
North of England +8 722 £600 - 240
South East 0 714 £638 +6.25% 276
Midlands -4 409 £622 +8.22% 133
North West +6 395 £603 +0.42% 121
West Midlands -5 301 £626 +4.33% 99
South West -4 285 £625 - 126
Yorkshire +5 259 £600 - 75
East of England +17 173 £600 +6.19% 65
Scotland +9 169 £650 +4.00% 58
East Midlands +6 102 £600 +20.00% 32
North East +1 76 £600 -14.29% 45
Wales 0 32 £600 +11.11% 22
Northern Ireland +7 7 £475 -32.14% 25
Channel Islands -1 3 £575 -22.56% 1
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 24 July 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.

1 776 (31.27%) Security Cleared
2 545 (21.96%) Azure
3 493 (19.86%) SC Cleared
4 441 (17.77%) AWS
5 359 (14.46%) Roadmaps
6 329 (13.26%) Microsoft
7 327 (13.17%) Agile
7 327 (13.17%) Stakeholder Management
8 279 (11.24%) Migration
9 256 (10.31%) Technical Leadership
10 255 (10.27%) Enterprise Architecture
11 245 (9.87%) DevOps
12 240 (9.67%) DV Cleared
13 237 (9.55%) Integration Patterns
14 225 (9.07%) CI/CD
15 224 (9.02%) Data Architecture
16 220 (8.86%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 215 (8.66%) Architectural Patterns
18 213 (8.58%) Data Modelling
19 208 (8.38%) AI
20 193 (7.78%) Cybersecurity
21 183 (7.37%) Microservices
22 179 (7.21%) TOGAF
23 169 (6.81%) Security Architecture
24 167 (6.73%) Problem-Solving
25 156 (6.29%) Architectural Design
26 155 (6.24%) GCP
27 145 (5.84%) Continuous Improvement
28 143 (5.76%) Analytics
28 143 (5.76%) Data Governance

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 45 (1.81%) SharePoint
2 36 (1.45%) SAS
3 32 (1.29%) Confluence
4 20 (0.81%) Microsoft Exchange
5 15 (0.60%) Apache Airflow
6 14 (0.56%) Apache Spark
7 13 (0.52%) Apache
8 11 (0.44%) OpenStack
9 8 (0.32%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 8 (0.32%) Palantir Foundry
10 7 (0.28%) Appian
10 7 (0.28%) CMS
10 7 (0.28%) Documentum
11 5 (0.20%) ArcGIS
11 5 (0.20%) JBoss
11 5 (0.20%) NetWeaver
12 4 (0.16%) SAP EP
13 3 (0.12%) Sitecore CMS
14 2 (0.081%) nginx
14 2 (0.081%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 11 (0.44%) MS Visio
2 7 (0.28%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (0.28%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (0.28%) Navisworks
2 7 (0.28%) Revit
3 6 (0.24%) Spreadsheet
4 5 (0.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.040%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.040%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 57 (2.30%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (0.68%) Payment Gateway
3 14 (0.56%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 11 (0.44%) Teamcenter
5 10 (0.40%) Remedy ITSM
5 10 (0.40%) SAP ERP
6 7 (0.28%) Oracle ERP
7 6 (0.24%) Dynamics CRM
7 6 (0.24%) Maximo
8 5 (0.20%) NetSuite
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle Retail
8 5 (0.20%) SAP GRC
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
9 4 (0.16%) SAP CRM
9 4 (0.16%) SAP MDG
10 3 (0.12%) Adobe Campaign
10 3 (0.12%) Dynamics NAV
10 3 (0.12%) Oracle Receivables
10 3 (0.12%) SAP IBP
10 3 (0.12%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 545 (21.96%) Azure
2 441 (17.77%) AWS
3 155 (6.24%) GCP
4 97 (3.91%) Power Platform
5 90 (3.63%) Entra ID
6 81 (3.26%) Serverless
7 73 (2.94%) SaaS
8 61 (2.46%) Microsoft 365
9 55 (2.22%) PaaS
10 46 (1.85%) IaaS
11 45 (1.81%) GitHub
12 38 (1.53%) OpenShift
13 36 (1.45%) Azure DevOps
14 34 (1.37%) AWS Lambda
15 33 (1.33%) Dynamics 365
16 28 (1.13%) Amazon S3
17 25 (1.01%) Microsoft Purview
17 25 (1.01%) Snowflake
18 24 (0.97%) GitHub Actions
19 23 (0.93%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 102 (4.11%) Firewall
2 70 (2.82%) Network Security
3 67 (2.70%) DNS
3 67 (2.70%) WAN
4 55 (2.22%) LAN
5 40 (1.61%) VPN
6 37 (1.49%) DHCP
7 35 (1.41%) BGP
8 34 (1.37%) SD-WAN
9 31 (1.25%) TCP/IP
10 30 (1.21%) VLAN
11 25 (1.01%) MPLS
11 25 (1.01%) SAN
11 25 (1.01%) Wireless
12 23 (0.93%) NAS
13 21 (0.85%) Structured Cabling
14 20 (0.81%) IPsec
15 19 (0.77%) BIG-IP
15 19 (0.77%) OSPF
16 14 (0.56%) NX-OS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 75 (3.02%) Metadata
2 68 (2.74%) Data Warehouse
3 67 (2.70%) Data Lake
3 67 (2.70%) Power BI
4 34 (1.37%) NoSQL
5 27 (1.09%) SQL Server
6 26 (1.05%) PostgreSQL
7 19 (0.77%) Amazon RDS
7 19 (0.77%) Oracle Database
8 17 (0.68%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
9 14 (0.56%) Base SAS
9 14 (0.56%) Big Data
9 14 (0.56%) GIS
10 13 (0.52%) Azure SQL Database
11 11 (0.44%) BigQuery
11 11 (0.44%) MongoDB
11 11 (0.44%) MySQL
12 10 (0.40%) Delta Lake
12 10 (0.40%) Relational Database
12 10 (0.40%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 40 (1.61%) JIRA
2 28 (1.13%) Jenkins
3 25 (1.01%) Git
4 12 (0.48%) GitLab
5 10 (0.40%) ERwin
6 8 (0.32%) Sonatype Nexus
7 5 (0.20%) Artifactory
8 4 (0.16%) Hudson
9 3 (0.12%) Rational DOORS
9 3 (0.12%) Selenium
9 3 (0.12%) SonarQube
10 2 (0.081%) Bitbucket
10 2 (0.081%) Claude Code
10 2 (0.081%) Cypress.io
10 2 (0.081%) IntelliJ
10 2 (0.081%) JUnit
10 2 (0.081%) Oracle APEX
10 2 (0.081%) Oracle Forms
10 2 (0.081%) Rational Rhapsody
10 2 (0.081%) REST Assured
General
1 464 (18.69%) Social Skills
2 316 (12.73%) Finance
3 233 (9.39%) Public Sector
4 142 (5.72%) Banking
5 135 (5.44%) Analytical Skills
6 92 (3.71%) Retail
7 73 (2.94%) Manufacturing
8 56 (2.26%) Documentation Skills
9 50 (2.01%) Influencing Skills
10 37 (1.49%) Legal
11 36 (1.45%) Aerospace
12 30 (1.21%) Military
13 26 (1.05%) Telecoms
14 24 (0.97%) Financial Institution
15 22 (0.89%) Marketing
16 21 (0.85%) Back Office
17 19 (0.77%) Investment Banking
17 19 (0.77%) Presentation Skills
18 18 (0.73%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 15 (0.60%) Aviation
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 105 (4.23%) REST
2 74 (2.98%) Middleware
3 51 (2.05%) OAuth
4 41 (1.65%) SOAP
5 38 (1.53%) .NET
5 38 (1.53%) Oracle Fusion
6 37 (1.49%) Kafka
7 36 (1.45%) OpenID
8 32 (1.29%) SailPoint
9 30 (1.21%) SAML
10 26 (1.05%) OAuth2
11 24 (0.97%) RESTful
12 22 (0.89%) JSON
13 20 (0.81%) Node.js
14 19 (0.77%) Web Services
15 18 (0.73%) LDAP
16 17 (0.68%) React
17 12 (0.48%) AngularJS
17 12 (0.48%) FHIR
18 11 (0.44%) GraphQL
Miscellaneous
1 181 (7.29%) Cloud Native
2 90 (3.63%) Data Centre
3 74 (2.98%) Hybrid Cloud
3 74 (2.98%) Operational Technology
4 58 (2.34%) Management Information System
4 58 (2.34%) Onboarding
4 58 (2.34%) Product Ownership
5 56 (2.26%) Data Protection Act
6 53 (2.14%) Distributed Systems
7 52 (2.10%) Legacy Systems
8 50 (2.01%) Enterprise Software
9 43 (1.73%) Public Cloud
10 35 (1.41%) Private Cloud
11 33 (1.33%) AI Agents
12 25 (1.01%) Security Posture
13 23 (0.93%) SCADA
14 22 (0.89%) Enterprise Cloud
14 22 (0.89%) PKI
15 21 (0.85%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
16 20 (0.81%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 91 (3.67%) Windows
2 54 (2.18%) Linux
3 32 (1.29%) Windows Server
4 16 (0.64%) Android
4 16 (0.64%) Apple iOS
5 14 (0.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 10 (0.40%) Unix
7 5 (0.20%) AIX
7 5 (0.20%) Data ONTAP
8 2 (0.081%) VMS
8 2 (0.081%) Windows Server 2019
9 1 (0.040%) CatOS
9 1 (0.040%) CentOS
9 1 (0.040%) HPUX
9 1 (0.040%) Kali Linux
9 1 (0.040%) Solaris
9 1 (0.040%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.040%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.040%) Windows Server 2016
9 1 (0.040%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 359 (14.46%) Roadmaps
2 327 (13.17%) Agile
2 327 (13.17%) Stakeholder Management
3 279 (11.24%) Migration
4 256 (10.31%) Technical Leadership
5 255 (10.27%) Enterprise Architecture
6 245 (9.87%) DevOps
7 237 (9.55%) Integration Patterns
8 225 (9.07%) CI/CD
9 224 (9.02%) Data Architecture
10 220 (8.86%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 215 (8.66%) Architectural Patterns
12 213 (8.58%) Data Modelling
13 208 (8.38%) AI
14 193 (7.78%) Cybersecurity
15 183 (7.37%) Microservices
16 179 (7.21%) TOGAF
17 169 (6.81%) Security Architecture
18 167 (6.73%) Problem-Solving
19 156 (6.29%) Architectural Design
Programming Languages
1 103 (4.15%) SQL
2 97 (3.91%) Python
3 95 (3.83%) Java
4 54 (2.18%) JavaScript
5 44 (1.77%) PowerShell
6 24 (0.97%) C#
7 22 (0.89%) Bash
8 21 (0.85%) Bicep
9 12 (0.48%) TypeScript
10 8 (0.32%) ABAP
10 8 (0.32%) VBA
11 6 (0.24%) Apex Code
11 6 (0.24%) PL/SQL
12 5 (0.20%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 5 (0.20%) Shell Script
13 4 (0.16%) Kotlin
14 3 (0.12%) C
15 2 (0.081%) C++
15 2 (0.081%) Groovy
15 2 (0.081%) ProC
Qualifications
1 776 (31.27%) Security Cleared
2 493 (19.86%) SC Cleared
3 240 (9.67%) DV Cleared
4 88 (3.55%) Degree
5 58 (2.34%) Cisco Certification
6 56 (2.26%) CISSP
7 45 (1.81%) TOGAF Certification
8 41 (1.65%) AWS Certification
8 41 (1.65%) Azure Certification
9 39 (1.57%) BPSS Clearance
10 33 (1.33%) CCNP
10 33 (1.33%) Computer Science Degree
11 21 (0.85%) Microsoft Certification
12 18 (0.73%) CISM
13 17 (0.68%) CCNA
14 14 (0.56%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 14 (0.56%) CCIE
15 13 (0.52%) Master's Degree
16 12 (0.48%) Network+ Certification
16 12 (0.48%) Server+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 92 (3.71%) NIST
2 78 (3.14%) Data Quality
3 63 (2.54%) GDPR
3 63 (2.54%) NCSC
4 56 (2.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 25 (1.01%) QA
6 19 (0.77%) Accessibility
6 19 (0.77%) PCI DSS
7 15 (0.60%) NIST 800
8 12 (0.48%) IFRS
8 12 (0.48%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 11 (0.44%) Disclosure Scotland
9 11 (0.44%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 10 (0.40%) Cyber Essentials
10 10 (0.40%) GRC
10 10 (0.40%) HL7
10 10 (0.40%) ISO 19650
11 9 (0.36%) JSP 440
12 8 (0.32%) COBIT
13 7 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
System Software
1 100 (4.03%) Active Directory
2 49 (1.97%) VMware Infrastructure
3 45 (1.81%) Docker
4 29 (1.17%) VMware NSX
5 22 (0.89%) Virtual Desktop
6 17 (0.68%) Hyper-V
6 17 (0.68%) vSphere
7 10 (0.40%) VMware ESXi
8 8 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
9 6 (0.24%) vCloud
10 4 (0.16%) RACF
11 3 (0.12%) EMC RecoverPoint
11 3 (0.12%) IAG
11 3 (0.12%) KVM
11 3 (0.12%) NFS
11 3 (0.12%) SRDF
12 2 (0.081%) Ceph
13 1 (0.040%) Firmware
13 1 (0.040%) ProxySG
13 1 (0.040%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 111 (4.47%) Kubernetes
2 91 (3.67%) Terraform
3 53 (2.14%) Ansible
4 38 (1.53%) Microsoft Intune
5 25 (1.01%) Single Sign-On
6 19 (0.77%) Grafana
6 19 (0.77%) vCenter Server
7 14 (0.56%) Jamf Pro
8 13 (0.52%) Argo
8 13 (0.52%) Prometheus
9 12 (0.48%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 9 (0.36%) FortiGate
11 6 (0.24%) CASB
11 6 (0.24%) Istio
12 5 (0.20%) EMC VPLEX
12 5 (0.20%) MOM
13 4 (0.16%) NetBackup
13 4 (0.16%) SnapMirror
14 3 (0.12%) EMC NetWorker
14 3 (0.12%) SnapVault
Vendors
1 329 (13.26%) Microsoft
2 136 (5.48%) SAP
3 110 (4.43%) Oracle
4 107 (4.31%) VMware
5 102 (4.11%) ServiceNow
6 75 (3.02%) Databricks
6 75 (3.02%) Google
7 74 (2.98%) Cisco
8 47 (1.89%) Salesforce
9 33 (1.33%) F5
10 30 (1.21%) Citrix
11 28 (1.13%) Red Hat
12 24 (0.97%) Palo Alto
13 23 (0.93%) CyberArk
14 22 (0.89%) Informatica
15 21 (0.85%) MuleSoft
15 21 (0.85%) Talend
16 20 (0.81%) Infoblox
17 19 (0.77%) BiZZdesign
18 18 (0.73%) Juniper