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 £600, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 26 November 2025.

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

6 months to
26 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 20 14 18
Rank change year-on-year -6 +4 +5
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 1,494 1,484 1,716
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 8.44% 9.04% 8.43%
As % of the Job Titles category 9.39% 9.80% 8.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,032 901 1,194
10th Percentile £463 £465 £500
25th Percentile £519 £538 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £625 £630
Median % change year-on-year -4.00% -0.79% -3.08%
75th Percentile £703 £713 £700
90th Percentile £775 £775 £750
UK median daily rate £625 £625 £650
% change year-on-year - -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 25 21 35
10th Percentile £66.25 £61.50 £61.25
25th Percentile £77.55 £63.75 £72.50
Median hourly rate £85.00 £70.00 £76.53
Median % change year-on-year +21.43% -8.53% +9.33%
75th Percentile £95.00 £85.78 £81.56
90th Percentile £99.00 £90.00 £91.75
UK median hourly rate £85.00 £70.00 £75.67
% change year-on-year +21.43% -7.49% +8.10%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
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 15,912 15,145 19,086
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 89.94% 92.31% 93.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,821 8,676 12,567
10th Percentile £210 £215 £213
25th Percentile £363 £375 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £494 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.75% -1.30% -
75th Percentile £575 £594 £600
90th Percentile £675 £680 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,580 1,036 1,251
10th Percentile £13.80 £15.10 £14.50
25th Percentile £17.30 £20.00 £18.50
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% -22.22% +82.00%
75th Percentile £56.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.24 £73.75 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £44.75
% change year-on-year -28.14% -21.79% +49.17%

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 26 November 2025.

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 26 November 2025.

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 26 November 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
South East +3 467 £600 -4.00% 389
North of England -9 369 £600 - 111
South West +1 245 £690 +6.15% 96
Midlands -8 228 £575 -4.17% 116
North West -9 218 £588 -1.96% 67
West Midlands -13 166 £588 -2.08% 83
Yorkshire -14 133 £613 +5.60% 34
Scotland -8 91 £600 -4.00% 53
East of England -6 83 £553 -7.92% 65
East Midlands -2 62 £500 -9.09% 32
Wales -6 23 £625 +0.40% 15
North East -6 19 £700 +12.13% 10
Northern Ireland -8 6 £550 -8.33% 12
Channel Islands - 6 £743 -
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 26 November 2025, 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.

1 555 (37.15%) Security Cleared
2 365 (24.43%) Azure
3 335 (22.42%) SC Cleared
4 306 (20.48%) AWS
5 257 (17.20%) Roadmaps
6 225 (15.06%) Stakeholder Management
7 211 (14.12%) Microsoft
8 208 (13.92%) Agile
9 202 (13.52%) TOGAF
10 174 (11.65%) Enterprise Architecture
11 172 (11.51%) Migration
12 170 (11.38%) DV Cleared
13 162 (10.84%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 151 (10.11%) Problem-Solving
15 141 (9.44%) Technical Leadership
16 138 (9.24%) Data Modelling
16 138 (9.24%) ITIL
17 134 (8.97%) CI/CD
18 130 (8.70%) DevOps
19 127 (8.50%) GCP
20 118 (7.90%) AI
21 113 (7.56%) Cybersecurity
21 113 (7.56%) Mentoring
22 109 (7.30%) Microservices
23 108 (7.23%) VMware
24 104 (6.96%) Python
25 102 (6.83%) Architectural Design
26 99 (6.63%) Terraform
27 95 (6.36%) Analytics
28 94 (6.29%) Degree

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 53 (3.55%) Confluence
2 25 (1.67%) SharePoint
3 19 (1.27%) Microsoft Exchange
4 18 (1.20%) SAS
5 13 (0.87%) ArcGIS
6 9 (0.60%) WebLogic
7 7 (0.47%) Apache Spark
7 7 (0.47%) Smallworld
8 6 (0.40%) OpenStack
9 5 (0.33%) WebSphere
10 4 (0.27%) Apache Airflow
10 4 (0.27%) Documentum
11 3 (0.20%) GeoServer
11 3 (0.20%) Skype for Business
12 2 (0.13%) Anypoint
12 2 (0.13%) Ethereum
12 2 (0.13%) Hyperledger
12 2 (0.13%) IIS
12 2 (0.13%) ThingWorx
12 2 (0.13%) Tomcat
Applications
1 25 (1.67%) Microsoft Office
2 21 (1.41%) Microsoft Project
3 11 (0.74%) Microsoft Excel
4 10 (0.67%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.67%) MS Visio
4 10 (0.67%) Siemens NX
5 1 (0.067%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.067%) FrameMaker
5 1 (0.067%) Fusion 360
5 1 (0.067%) Revit
5 1 (0.067%) Trello
Business Applications
1 38 (2.54%) SAP S/4HANA
2 19 (1.27%) Dynamics CRM
3 15 (1.00%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 12 (0.80%) Maximo
4 12 (0.80%) Payment Gateway
4 12 (0.80%) Workday HCM
5 11 (0.74%) SAP CO
6 10 (0.67%) SAP FI
6 10 (0.67%) SAP FI/CO
6 10 (0.67%) SAP PM
6 10 (0.67%) Teamcenter
7 7 (0.47%) Salesforce CRM
8 6 (0.40%) SAP HR
9 5 (0.33%) Dynamics AX
9 5 (0.33%) Oracle SCM
10 4 (0.27%) SAP PP
11 3 (0.20%) NetSuite
11 3 (0.20%) SAP CRM
11 3 (0.20%) SAP EWM
11 3 (0.20%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 365 (24.43%) Azure
2 306 (20.48%) AWS
3 127 (8.50%) GCP
4 68 (4.55%) SaaS
5 56 (3.75%) Serverless
6 50 (3.35%) Dynamics 365
7 41 (2.74%) Microsoft 365
7 41 (2.74%) Power Platform
8 37 (2.48%) Entra ID
9 36 (2.41%) GitHub
10 35 (2.34%) AWS Lambda
11 27 (1.81%) Azure DevOps
11 27 (1.81%) IaaS
11 27 (1.81%) Microsoft Purview
11 27 (1.81%) PaaS
12 24 (1.61%) Amazon S3
13 20 (1.34%) AWS CloudFormation
13 20 (1.34%) Salesforce Service Cloud
14 19 (1.27%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 18 (1.20%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 89 (5.96%) Firewall
2 49 (3.28%) Network Security
3 47 (3.15%) WAN
4 40 (2.68%) LAN
5 35 (2.34%) VPN
6 33 (2.21%) DNS
7 28 (1.87%) SD-WAN
8 22 (1.47%) SAN
9 20 (1.34%) BGP
10 18 (1.20%) MPLS
11 14 (0.94%) Fibre Channel
11 14 (0.94%) iSCSI
11 14 (0.94%) VSAN
12 13 (0.87%) Wi-Fi
13 12 (0.80%) DHCP
14 9 (0.60%) Cisco ASA
14 9 (0.60%) Internet
14 9 (0.60%) VLAN
15 8 (0.54%) Wireless
16 7 (0.47%) FTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 54 (3.61%) Data Warehouse
2 38 (2.54%) PostgreSQL
3 35 (2.34%) Metadata
4 31 (2.07%) Power BI
5 26 (1.74%) SQL Server
6 23 (1.54%) MongoDB
7 22 (1.47%) NoSQL
8 19 (1.27%) GIS
9 18 (1.20%) DynamoDB
10 17 (1.14%) Oracle Database
11 13 (0.87%) BigQuery
11 13 (0.87%) Redis
11 13 (0.87%) Relational Database
12 12 (0.80%) Big Data
12 12 (0.80%) Data Lake
12 12 (0.80%) Tableau
13 11 (0.74%) Amazon Redshift
13 11 (0.74%) RDBMS
14 10 (0.67%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 9 (0.60%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 69 (4.62%) JIRA
2 41 (2.74%) Jenkins
3 35 (2.34%) Git
4 12 (0.80%) GitLab
5 10 (0.67%) CircleCI
6 9 (0.60%) Oracle Forms
7 8 (0.54%) SonarQube
8 6 (0.40%) Artifactory
9 5 (0.33%) Gradle
9 5 (0.33%) Maven
9 5 (0.33%) Rational DOORS
9 5 (0.33%) SonarLint
10 4 (0.27%) Bitbucket
11 3 (0.20%) MSI
11 3 (0.20%) Sonatype Nexus
11 3 (0.20%) Visual Studio Code
12 2 (0.13%) Hudson
12 2 (0.13%) MLflow
12 2 (0.13%) Postman
13 1 (0.067%) ERwin
General
1 419 (28.05%) Social Skills
2 187 (12.52%) Public Sector
3 184 (12.32%) Finance
4 114 (7.63%) Analytical Skills
5 78 (5.22%) Banking
6 48 (3.21%) Telecoms
7 43 (2.88%) Marketing
7 43 (2.88%) Retail
8 41 (2.74%) Documentation Skills
9 38 (2.54%) Military
10 35 (2.34%) Influencing Skills
11 31 (2.07%) Presentation Skills
12 28 (1.87%) Legal
12 28 (1.87%) Manufacturing
13 22 (1.47%) Aerospace
14 12 (0.80%) Local Government
15 10 (0.67%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 9 (0.60%) Aviation
16 9 (0.60%) Back Office
16 9 (0.60%) Financial Institution
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 45 (3.01%) REST
2 39 (2.61%) Middleware
3 33 (2.21%) SOAP
4 27 (1.81%) RESTful
5 24 (1.61%) .NET
6 23 (1.54%) Kafka
7 21 (1.41%) OAuth
8 19 (1.27%) Lightning Web Components
9 18 (1.20%) Spring Boot
9 18 (1.20%) Visualforce
10 16 (1.07%) SailPoint
10 16 (1.07%) Web Services
11 15 (1.00%) Node.js
12 14 (0.94%) SAML
12 14 (0.94%) SAP PI
13 13 (0.87%) GraphQL
14 12 (0.80%) OAuth2
15 11 (0.74%) Spring
16 9 (0.60%) Celery
16 9 (0.60%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 100 (6.69%) Cloud Native
2 78 (5.22%) Product Ownership
3 65 (4.35%) Legacy Systems
4 61 (4.08%) Data Centre
5 48 (3.21%) Hybrid Cloud
6 47 (3.15%) Onboarding
7 34 (2.28%) PKI
8 25 (1.67%) Operational Technology
9 24 (1.61%) Enterprise Software
10 23 (1.54%) CMDB
10 23 (1.54%) Distributed Systems
10 23 (1.54%) Public Cloud
11 21 (1.41%) Security Posture
12 20 (1.34%) Data Protection Act
13 19 (1.27%) Management Information System
13 19 (1.27%) SCADA
14 18 (1.20%) NHS
15 14 (0.94%) Security Operations Centre
16 13 (0.87%) Analytical Mindset
16 13 (0.87%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 85 (5.69%) Windows
2 54 (3.61%) Linux
3 33 (2.21%) Windows Server
4 18 (1.20%) Windows Server 2019
5 12 (0.80%) Windows 7
6 11 (0.74%) Unix
7 10 (0.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 9 (0.60%) Windows 10
9 4 (0.27%) VMS
10 3 (0.20%) Mac OS
10 3 (0.20%) Windows Server 2008
11 2 (0.13%) Android
11 2 (0.13%) Apple iOS
11 2 (0.13%) Solaris
11 2 (0.13%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
11 2 (0.13%) zOS
12 1 (0.067%) MVS
12 1 (0.067%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 257 (17.20%) Roadmaps
2 225 (15.06%) Stakeholder Management
3 208 (13.92%) Agile
4 202 (13.52%) TOGAF
5 174 (11.65%) Enterprise Architecture
6 172 (11.51%) Migration
7 162 (10.84%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 151 (10.11%) Problem-Solving
9 141 (9.44%) Technical Leadership
10 138 (9.24%) Data Modelling
10 138 (9.24%) ITIL
11 134 (8.97%) CI/CD
12 130 (8.70%) DevOps
13 118 (7.90%) AI
14 113 (7.56%) Cybersecurity
14 113 (7.56%) Mentoring
15 109 (7.30%) Microservices
16 102 (6.83%) Architectural Design
17 95 (6.36%) Analytics
18 88 (5.89%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 104 (6.96%) Python
2 78 (5.22%) Java
3 52 (3.48%) SQL
4 33 (2.21%) PowerShell
5 19 (1.27%) Apex Code
5 19 (1.27%) JavaScript
6 18 (1.20%) TypeScript
7 13 (0.87%) C#
8 12 (0.80%) R
9 9 (0.60%) Bash
10 8 (0.54%) C++
11 6 (0.40%) ABAP
11 6 (0.40%) Bicep
11 6 (0.40%) C
12 4 (0.27%) Ruby
12 4 (0.27%) VB
13 3 (0.20%) Shell Script
13 3 (0.20%) VBScript
13 3 (0.20%) X++
14 2 (0.13%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 555 (37.15%) Security Cleared
2 335 (22.42%) SC Cleared
3 170 (11.38%) DV Cleared
4 94 (6.29%) Degree
5 79 (5.29%) CISSP
6 56 (3.75%) TOGAF Certification
7 54 (3.61%) AWS Certification
8 52 (3.48%) Azure Certification
9 40 (2.68%) Microsoft Certification
10 37 (2.48%) Cisco Certification
11 36 (2.41%) CISM
12 25 (1.67%) Computer Science Degree
13 23 (1.54%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 23 (1.54%) Master's Degree
14 21 (1.41%) CCIE
14 21 (1.41%) ISEB
15 18 (1.20%) CCNP
16 17 (1.14%) BPSS Clearance
16 17 (1.14%) ITIL Certification
17 15 (1.00%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 83 (5.56%) GDPR
2 75 (5.02%) NIST
3 72 (4.82%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 46 (3.08%) Data Quality
5 40 (2.68%) NCSC
6 31 (2.07%) PCI DSS
7 29 (1.94%) ISO/IEC 20000
8 23 (1.54%) COBIT
9 20 (1.34%) JSP 440
10 19 (1.27%) QA
11 18 (1.20%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 13 (0.87%) GRC
13 10 (0.67%) SLA
14 9 (0.60%) Accessibility
14 9 (0.60%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 8 (0.54%) HMG Security Policy Framework
15 8 (0.54%) NIST 800
15 8 (0.54%) PSD2
16 7 (0.47%) Cyber Essentials
16 7 (0.47%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 69 (4.62%) VMware Infrastructure
2 56 (3.75%) Active Directory
3 48 (3.21%) Docker
4 28 (1.87%) vSphere
5 21 (1.41%) VMware ESXi
6 19 (1.27%) VMware NSX
7 14 (0.94%) NFS
8 9 (0.60%) Virtual Machines
9 7 (0.47%) Virtual Desktop
10 5 (0.33%) Hyper-V
11 3 (0.20%) BitLocker
11 3 (0.20%) Dovecot
11 3 (0.20%) Postfix
12 2 (0.13%) KVM
13 1 (0.067%) HDFS
13 1 (0.067%) Slurm Workload Manager
13 1 (0.067%) SRDF
13 1 (0.067%) Veritas Cluster Server
13 1 (0.067%) Xen
Systems Management
1 99 (6.63%) Terraform
2 84 (5.62%) Kubernetes
3 46 (3.08%) Ansible
4 23 (1.54%) OPNET
5 21 (1.41%) Single Sign-On
6 15 (1.00%) Prometheus
7 14 (0.94%) vCenter Server
8 11 (0.74%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 10 (0.67%) Grafana
9 10 (0.67%) WMI
10 9 (0.60%) Microsoft Intune
10 9 (0.60%) SCCM
11 7 (0.47%) Argo
12 3 (0.20%) FortiGate
12 3 (0.20%) Puppet
13 2 (0.13%) Istio
13 2 (0.13%) Kubeflow
13 2 (0.13%) Microsoft Clustering
13 2 (0.13%) SCOM
14 1 (0.067%) Podman
Vendors
1 211 (14.12%) Microsoft
2 108 (7.23%) VMware
3 83 (5.56%) Salesforce
4 79 (5.29%) SAP
5 76 (5.09%) Oracle
6 71 (4.75%) Cisco
6 71 (4.75%) ServiceNow
7 32 (2.14%) Google
8 25 (1.67%) Palo Alto
8 25 (1.67%) Splunk
9 24 (1.61%) Atlassian
9 24 (1.61%) Juniper
9 24 (1.61%) Remedy
9 24 (1.61%) Workday
10 23 (1.54%) F5
11 22 (1.47%) IBM
12 20 (1.34%) CyberArk
12 20 (1.34%) Databricks
12 20 (1.34%) NetApp
12 20 (1.34%) Pega