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 25 August 2026.

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

6 months to
25 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 13 21 13
Rank change year-on-year +8 -8 +4
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 2,495 1,235 1,809
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 9.02% 8.06% 9.95%
As % of the Job Titles category 9.84% 8.96% 10.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,671 842 1,142
10th Percentile £475 £462 £480
25th Percentile £525 £519 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £600 £640
Median % change year-on-year +3.33% -6.21% -1.58%
75th Percentile £705 £688 £725
90th Percentile £775 £750 £787
UK median daily rate £616 £625 £646
% change year-on-year -1.42% -3.25% -0.62%
Number of hourly rates quoted 153 15 71
10th Percentile £46.00 £33.64 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £64.38 £60.63
Median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -3.34%
75th Percentile £71.91 £86.50 £85.00
90th Percentile £95.00 £99.42 £90.00
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 25,349 13,790 16,770
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.69% 90.04% 92.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,259 8,454 10,091
10th Percentile £303 £213 £220
25th Percentile £410 £360 £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 £685
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.87%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,067 1,263 1,650
10th Percentile £14.56 £13.29 £13.86
25th Percentile £20.31 £16.38 £18.20
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% +7.50%
75th Percentile £68.00 £55.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.85 £73.65 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £41.92 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +66.68% -41.51% -1.58%

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 25 August 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 25 August 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 25 August 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 0 733 £625 +4.17% 177
North of England +4 691 £600 - 132
Midlands +1 414 £625 +8.70% 53
North West +6 405 £600 +0.84% 70
South West +1 315 £648 +1.17% 82
West Midlands 0 300 £644 +7.33% 37
Yorkshire +7 222 £600 -4.00% 47
Scotland +21 161 £625 +0.60% 23
East of England +14 152 £604 +8.83% 19
East Midlands +6 107 £600 +16.50% 16
North East -4 66 £588 -16.07% 15
Wales +4 43 £633 +1.20% 10
Northern Ireland +4 5 £475 -32.14% 7
Channel Islands -3 3 £575 -22.56% 3
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 25 August 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.

1 821 (32.91%) Security Cleared
2 570 (22.85%) Azure
3 529 (21.20%) SC Cleared
4 445 (17.84%) AWS
5 364 (14.59%) Stakeholder Management
6 352 (14.11%) Roadmaps
7 350 (14.03%) Microsoft
8 312 (12.51%) Agile
9 289 (11.58%) Migration
10 288 (11.54%) Technical Leadership
11 279 (11.18%) Enterprise Architecture
12 250 (10.02%) DV Cleared
13 242 (9.70%) DevOps
14 237 (9.50%) Integration Patterns
14 237 (9.50%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 229 (9.18%) AI
16 227 (9.10%) CI/CD
17 217 (8.70%) Data Architecture
18 206 (8.26%) Data Modelling
19 203 (8.14%) Architectural Patterns
20 197 (7.90%) Cybersecurity
21 188 (7.54%) Security Architecture
22 179 (7.17%) TOGAF
23 177 (7.09%) GCP
24 159 (6.37%) Microservices
25 157 (6.29%) Architecture Governance
26 149 (5.97%) Event-Driven
27 145 (5.81%) Analytics
27 145 (5.81%) Decision-Making
28 144 (5.77%) Continuous Improvement

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 (1.36%) SharePoint
2 31 (1.24%) Confluence
2 31 (1.24%) SAS
3 14 (0.56%) Microsoft Exchange
4 12 (0.48%) OpenStack
5 10 (0.40%) Apache
5 10 (0.40%) Apache Spark
5 10 (0.40%) Palantir Foundry
6 9 (0.36%) Apache Airflow
7 7 (0.28%) Documentum
8 4 (0.16%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 3 (0.12%) CMS
9 3 (0.12%) JBoss
9 3 (0.12%) NetWeaver
9 3 (0.12%) SAP EP
10 2 (0.080%) Alfresco
10 2 (0.080%) Apache Superset
11 1 (0.040%) CIMPLICITY
11 1 (0.040%) FactoryTalk
11 1 (0.040%) Red Hat Fuse
Applications
1 12 (0.48%) MS Visio
2 11 (0.44%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (0.36%) Microsoft Office
4 7 (0.28%) Navisworks
4 7 (0.28%) Revit
5 6 (0.24%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.24%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.040%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 67 (2.69%) SAP S/4HANA
2 12 (0.48%) Payment Gateway
2 12 (0.48%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 10 (0.40%) Teamcenter
4 9 (0.36%) Remedy ITSM
5 7 (0.28%) SAP ERP
6 5 (0.20%) Dynamics CRM
6 5 (0.20%) Maximo
6 5 (0.20%) Oracle ERP
6 5 (0.20%) SAP MDG
7 4 (0.16%) NetSuite
7 4 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
7 4 (0.16%) Oracle Retail
8 3 (0.12%) Adobe Campaign
8 3 (0.12%) Dynamics NAV
8 3 (0.12%) Oracle Receivables
8 3 (0.12%) Remedy AR System
8 3 (0.12%) Salesforce CRM
8 3 (0.12%) SAP GRC
8 3 (0.12%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 570 (22.85%) Azure
2 445 (17.84%) AWS
3 177 (7.09%) GCP
4 100 (4.01%) Power Platform
5 83 (3.33%) SaaS
6 82 (3.29%) Serverless
7 75 (3.01%) Entra ID
8 52 (2.08%) Microsoft 365
9 46 (1.84%) Dynamics 365
10 44 (1.76%) Azure DevOps
10 44 (1.76%) GitHub
11 43 (1.72%) PaaS
12 38 (1.52%) AWS Lambda
13 35 (1.40%) IaaS
14 30 (1.20%) OpenShift
14 30 (1.20%) Snowflake
15 29 (1.16%) GitHub Actions
16 28 (1.12%) Amazon S3
17 23 (0.92%) Azure Data Factory
17 23 (0.92%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 90 (3.61%) Firewall
2 61 (2.44%) WAN
3 58 (2.32%) DNS
4 48 (1.92%) LAN
5 47 (1.88%) Network Security
6 34 (1.36%) DHCP
6 34 (1.36%) VPN
7 33 (1.32%) BGP
8 31 (1.24%) SD-WAN
9 27 (1.08%) TCP/IP
9 27 (1.08%) VLAN
10 25 (1.00%) SAN
11 23 (0.92%) MPLS
12 22 (0.88%) NAS
13 20 (0.80%) Structured Cabling
14 16 (0.64%) OSPF
14 16 (0.64%) Wireless
15 15 (0.60%) BIG-IP
16 13 (0.52%) Cisco Nexus
16 13 (0.52%) NX-OS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 73 (2.93%) Data Lake
2 70 (2.81%) Metadata
2 70 (2.81%) Power BI
3 65 (2.61%) Data Warehouse
4 37 (1.48%) NoSQL
5 22 (0.88%) SQL Server
6 21 (0.84%) Azure SQL Database
7 20 (0.80%) Amazon RDS
8 19 (0.76%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
9 18 (0.72%) Oracle Database
10 16 (0.64%) Base SAS
10 16 (0.64%) PostgreSQL
11 13 (0.52%) BigQuery
11 13 (0.52%) Delta Lake
12 11 (0.44%) GIS
13 10 (0.40%) Big Data
13 10 (0.40%) MySQL
14 9 (0.36%) Amazon Redshift
14 9 (0.36%) Electronic Patient Records
14 9 (0.36%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 36 (1.44%) JIRA
2 30 (1.20%) Git
3 21 (0.84%) Jenkins
4 13 (0.52%) GitLab
5 9 (0.36%) ERwin
6 6 (0.24%) Claude Code
6 6 (0.24%) Sonatype Nexus
7 5 (0.20%) Artifactory
7 5 (0.20%) MSI
8 4 (0.16%) Hudson
8 4 (0.16%) Rational DOORS
9 3 (0.12%) SonarQube
10 2 (0.080%) Bitbucket
10 2 (0.080%) Cypress.io
10 2 (0.080%) IntelliJ
10 2 (0.080%) JUnit
10 2 (0.080%) Oracle APEX
10 2 (0.080%) Oracle Forms
10 2 (0.080%) Rational Rhapsody
10 2 (0.080%) Selenium
General
1 472 (18.92%) Social Skills
2 309 (12.38%) Finance
3 245 (9.82%) Public Sector
4 128 (5.13%) Banking
5 123 (4.93%) Analytical Skills
6 103 (4.13%) Retail
7 92 (3.69%) Manufacturing
8 59 (2.36%) Documentation Skills
9 56 (2.24%) Influencing Skills
10 40 (1.60%) Aerospace
11 36 (1.44%) Legal
12 30 (1.20%) Military
13 28 (1.12%) Telecoms
14 23 (0.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 22 (0.88%) Aviation
16 20 (0.80%) Back Office
16 20 (0.80%) Financial Institution
16 20 (0.80%) Marketing
16 20 (0.80%) Presentation Skills
17 17 (0.68%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 99 (3.97%) REST
2 90 (3.61%) Terraform
3 73 (2.93%) Middleware
4 56 (2.24%) OAuth
5 45 (1.80%) SOAP
6 37 (1.48%) Oracle Fusion
7 36 (1.44%) .NET
8 35 (1.40%) OpenID
9 34 (1.36%) SAML
10 33 (1.32%) Kafka
11 25 (1.00%) OAuth2
12 23 (0.92%) JSON
13 22 (0.88%) SailPoint
14 20 (0.80%) LDAP
15 17 (0.68%) Node.js
16 16 (0.64%) RESTful
17 15 (0.60%) JWT
18 14 (0.56%) GraphQL
19 13 (0.52%) Swagger
20 12 (0.48%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 197 (7.90%) Cloud Native
2 83 (3.33%) Data Centre
3 80 (3.21%) Hybrid Cloud
4 63 (2.53%) Operational Technology
5 60 (2.40%) Data Protection Act
6 57 (2.28%) Distributed Systems
6 57 (2.28%) Legacy Systems
6 57 (2.28%) Product Ownership
7 54 (2.16%) Management Information System
8 53 (2.12%) Enterprise Software
9 52 (2.08%) Onboarding
10 38 (1.52%) AI Agents
10 38 (1.52%) Public Cloud
11 31 (1.24%) Private Cloud
12 26 (1.04%) CMDB
12 26 (1.04%) Enterprise Cloud
12 26 (1.04%) IVR
12 26 (1.04%) Security Posture
13 21 (0.84%) PKI
13 21 (0.84%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 81 (3.25%) Windows
2 52 (2.08%) Linux
3 34 (1.36%) Windows Server
4 14 (0.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 8 (0.32%) Unix
6 6 (0.24%) AIX
7 4 (0.16%) Android
7 4 (0.16%) Apple iOS
7 4 (0.16%) Data ONTAP
8 2 (0.080%) HPUX
8 2 (0.080%) Solaris
8 2 (0.080%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.040%) CatOS
9 1 (0.040%) CentOS
9 1 (0.040%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.040%) VMS
9 1 (0.040%) Windows Server 2008
9 1 (0.040%) Windows Server 2012
9 1 (0.040%) Windows Server 2016
9 1 (0.040%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 364 (14.59%) Stakeholder Management
2 352 (14.11%) Roadmaps
3 312 (12.51%) Agile
4 289 (11.58%) Migration
5 288 (11.54%) Technical Leadership
6 279 (11.18%) Enterprise Architecture
7 242 (9.70%) DevOps
8 237 (9.50%) Integration Patterns
8 237 (9.50%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 229 (9.18%) AI
10 227 (9.10%) CI/CD
11 217 (8.70%) Data Architecture
12 206 (8.26%) Data Modelling
13 203 (8.14%) Architectural Patterns
14 197 (7.90%) Cybersecurity
15 188 (7.54%) Security Architecture
16 179 (7.17%) TOGAF
17 159 (6.37%) Microservices
18 157 (6.29%) Architecture Governance
19 149 (5.97%) Event-Driven
Programming Languages
1 98 (3.93%) SQL
2 97 (3.89%) Java
3 85 (3.41%) Python
4 49 (1.96%) JavaScript
5 43 (1.72%) PowerShell
6 22 (0.88%) Bash
7 15 (0.60%) Bicep
8 12 (0.48%) TypeScript
9 11 (0.44%) C#
10 10 (0.40%) Shell Script
11 8 (0.32%) ABAP
12 7 (0.28%) Apex Code
13 6 (0.24%) PL/SQL
13 6 (0.24%) VBA
14 5 (0.20%) Groovy
15 4 (0.16%) Kotlin
16 3 (0.12%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 3 (0.12%) R
17 2 (0.080%) BeanShell
17 2 (0.080%) Scala
Qualifications
1 821 (32.91%) Security Cleared
2 529 (21.20%) SC Cleared
3 250 (10.02%) DV Cleared
4 68 (2.73%) Degree
5 57 (2.28%) CISSP
6 55 (2.20%) Cisco Certification
7 44 (1.76%) Azure Certification
8 43 (1.72%) AWS Certification
8 43 (1.72%) BPSS Clearance
9 42 (1.68%) TOGAF Certification
10 29 (1.16%) Computer Science Degree
11 27 (1.08%) CCNP
12 21 (0.84%) CISM
13 19 (0.76%) Microsoft Certification
14 16 (0.64%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 14 (0.56%) CCIE
15 14 (0.56%) CCNA
16 11 (0.44%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 11 (0.44%) Network+ Certification
16 11 (0.44%) Server+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 92 (3.69%) NIST
2 82 (3.29%) Data Quality
3 61 (2.44%) NCSC
4 60 (2.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 53 (2.12%) GDPR
6 23 (0.92%) QA
7 18 (0.72%) Accessibility
7 18 (0.72%) NIST 800
8 16 (0.64%) PCI DSS
9 15 (0.60%) ISO/IEC 20000
9 15 (0.60%) JSP 440
10 13 (0.52%) ISO 19650
11 12 (0.48%) GRC
12 11 (0.44%) IFRS
12 11 (0.44%) SLA
13 10 (0.40%) Disclosure Scotland
14 9 (0.36%) HL7
14 9 (0.36%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 7 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials
16 6 (0.24%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
System Software
1 90 (3.61%) Active Directory
2 48 (1.92%) Docker
3 44 (1.76%) VMware Infrastructure
4 26 (1.04%) Virtual Desktop
5 23 (0.92%) VMware NSX
6 18 (0.72%) Hyper-V
7 11 (0.44%) VMware ESXi
8 10 (0.40%) vSphere
9 9 (0.36%) Virtual Machines
10 5 (0.20%) vCloud
11 4 (0.16%) KVM
12 3 (0.12%) Ceph
12 3 (0.12%) EMC RecoverPoint
12 3 (0.12%) NFS
12 3 (0.12%) SRDF
13 2 (0.080%) zsh
14 1 (0.040%) Firmware
14 1 (0.040%) IAG
14 1 (0.040%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 1 (0.040%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 128 (5.13%) Kubernetes
2 49 (1.96%) Ansible
3 20 (0.80%) Microsoft Intune
4 18 (0.72%) Single Sign-On
5 16 (0.64%) Grafana
6 15 (0.60%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 13 (0.52%) Prometheus
8 12 (0.48%) Jamf Pro
9 11 (0.44%) vCenter Server
10 8 (0.32%) WMI
11 7 (0.28%) Argo
12 6 (0.24%) FortiGate
12 6 (0.24%) Istio
13 5 (0.20%) CASB
13 5 (0.20%) MOM
13 5 (0.20%) NetBackup
14 4 (0.16%) Cisco CUCM
14 4 (0.16%) EMC VPLEX
14 4 (0.16%) SnapMirror
15 3 (0.12%) SnapVault
Vendors
1 350 (14.03%) Microsoft
2 143 (5.73%) SAP
3 108 (4.33%) Oracle
4 96 (3.85%) ServiceNow
5 89 (3.57%) Google
6 83 (3.33%) VMware
7 80 (3.21%) Databricks
8 76 (3.05%) Cisco
9 49 (1.96%) Salesforce
10 28 (1.12%) MuleSoft
11 26 (1.04%) F5
12 25 (1.00%) CyberArk
13 22 (0.88%) Informatica
13 22 (0.88%) Palo Alto
13 22 (0.88%) Red Hat
14 21 (0.84%) IBM
15 17 (0.68%) Infoblox
15 17 (0.68%) Workday
16 15 (0.60%) Citrix
17 14 (0.56%) Juniper