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 £613, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 9 May 2026.

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

6 months to
9 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 18 13
Rank change year-on-year +8 -5 +6
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 2,399 1,110 2,016
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 9.89% 8.68% 9.82%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.75% 9.42% 10.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,569 752 1,203
10th Percentile £450 £450 £500
25th Percentile £513 £525 £568
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £613 £600 £650
Median % change year-on-year +2.08% -7.69% -
75th Percentile £714 £700 £738
90th Percentile £775 £750 £800
UK median daily rate £617 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -1.28% -3.85% -1.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 117 28 86
10th Percentile £49.40 £59.70 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £62.25 £61.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £72.91 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.84% +4.15% -
75th Percentile £78.75 £81.00 £87.46
90th Percentile £96.00 £85.58 £91.00
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £71.25 £70.00
% change year-on-year -8.77% +1.79% -

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 22,307 11,784 18,983
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.92% 92.18% 92.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,027 7,533 11,553
10th Percentile £285 £213 £213
25th Percentile £400 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £493 £475 £490
Median % change year-on-year +3.68% -3.06% -2.00%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £595
90th Percentile £685 £650 £688
UK median daily rate £505 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -1.46% -2.38% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,484 843 2,259
10th Percentile £14.64 £14.00 £12.50
25th Percentile £19.98 £17.47 £15.73
Median hourly rate £45.68 £27.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +66.12% -31.25% -5.88%
75th Percentile £67.25 £64.50 £61.55
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £73.80
UK median hourly rate £44.00 £28.68 £36.65
% change year-on-year +53.44% -21.76% -18.56%

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 9 May 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 9 May 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 9 May 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 +4 713 £625 - 166
North of England +3 631 £593 -1.25% 165
Midlands +1 433 £600 - 91
North West +4 361 £608 +1.33% 99
West Midlands -1 316 £613 +2.08% 61
South West +1 295 £693 +15.42% 82
Yorkshire +6 233 £550 -8.33% 41
East of England +17 200 £563 -6.25% 51
Scotland +12 137 £650 +4.00% 28
East Midlands -1 111 £538 -0.46% 30
North East +6 45 £575 -8.00% 25
Wales -9 24 £625 +30.21% 34
Northern Ireland +10 9 £475 -28.30% 11
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 9 May 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.

1 751 (31.30%) Security Cleared
2 460 (19.17%) Azure
3 430 (17.92%) SC Cleared
4 357 (14.88%) AWS
5 355 (14.80%) Agile
6 343 (14.30%) Roadmaps
7 323 (13.46%) Microsoft
8 268 (11.17%) DV Cleared
9 257 (10.71%) Enterprise Architecture
10 256 (10.67%) Migration
10 256 (10.67%) Stakeholder Management
11 236 (9.84%) DevOps
12 212 (8.84%) TOGAF
13 208 (8.67%) CI/CD
14 196 (8.17%) Technical Leadership
15 176 (7.34%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 175 (7.29%) Data Modelling
17 174 (7.25%) Microservices
18 172 (7.17%) Architectural Patterns
19 170 (7.09%) Integration Patterns
20 159 (6.63%) Architectural Design
21 156 (6.50%) Problem-Solving
22 150 (6.25%) Data Architecture
23 144 (6.00%) SAP
24 142 (5.92%) Cybersecurity
25 139 (5.79%) Analytics
26 136 (5.67%) AI
26 136 (5.67%) ServiceNow
27 131 (5.46%) GCP
27 131 (5.46%) VMware

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 76 (3.17%) Confluence
2 68 (2.83%) SharePoint
3 42 (1.75%) Microsoft Exchange
4 17 (0.71%) SAS
5 13 (0.54%) Appian
6 11 (0.46%) Apache
6 11 (0.46%) CMS
7 10 (0.42%) Anypoint
8 9 (0.38%) Apache Airflow
9 8 (0.33%) ArcGIS
10 7 (0.29%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 6 (0.25%) Apache Spark
11 6 (0.25%) NetWeaver
11 6 (0.25%) Sitecore CMS
11 6 (0.25%) WebLogic
12 5 (0.21%) SAP EP
12 5 (0.21%) Smallworld
13 4 (0.17%) JBoss
13 4 (0.17%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 4 (0.17%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 41 (1.71%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (1.29%) Microsoft Project
3 13 (0.54%) Microsoft Excel
3 13 (0.54%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.29%) Navisworks
4 7 (0.29%) Revit
5 5 (0.21%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.17%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.083%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.042%) OrCAD
Business Applications
1 55 (2.29%) SAP S/4HANA
2 30 (1.25%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 20 (0.83%) Payment Gateway
4 12 (0.50%) Workday HCM
5 10 (0.42%) SAP ERP
5 10 (0.42%) Teamcenter
6 9 (0.38%) Remedy ITSM
7 5 (0.21%) SAP CRM
7 5 (0.21%) SAP MDG
8 4 (0.17%) Distributed Ledger
8 4 (0.17%) Oracle Retail
8 4 (0.17%) R3 Corda
8 4 (0.17%) Salesforce CRM
8 4 (0.17%) SAP GRC
9 3 (0.13%) Maximo
9 3 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
9 3 (0.13%) SAP EWM
9 3 (0.13%) SAP PM
9 3 (0.13%) SAP PP
9 3 (0.13%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 460 (19.17%) Azure
2 357 (14.88%) AWS
3 131 (5.46%) GCP
4 92 (3.83%) Entra ID
5 90 (3.75%) Power Platform
6 84 (3.50%) Microsoft 365
7 70 (2.92%) Serverless
8 63 (2.63%) SaaS
9 52 (2.17%) PaaS
10 42 (1.75%) Microsoft Purview
11 41 (1.71%) GitHub
12 39 (1.63%) Azure DevOps
12 39 (1.63%) IaaS
13 38 (1.58%) OpenShift
14 35 (1.46%) OneDrive
15 29 (1.21%) Dynamics 365
16 26 (1.08%) AWS Lambda
17 25 (1.04%) Azure Data Factory
17 25 (1.04%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 21 (0.88%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 98 (4.09%) Firewall
2 72 (3.00%) WAN
3 65 (2.71%) Network Security
4 62 (2.58%) DNS
5 55 (2.29%) LAN
6 51 (2.13%) VPN
7 40 (1.67%) SD-WAN
8 28 (1.17%) DHCP
9 20 (0.83%) BGP
9 20 (0.83%) VLAN
10 18 (0.75%) Wireless
11 16 (0.67%) BIG-IP
11 16 (0.67%) IPsec
11 16 (0.67%) MPLS
12 15 (0.63%) SAN
13 14 (0.58%) NAS
13 14 (0.58%) OSPF
14 13 (0.54%) TCP/IP
15 12 (0.50%) Internet
15 12 (0.50%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 69 (2.88%) Metadata
1 69 (2.88%) Power BI
2 49 (2.04%) Data Warehouse
3 38 (1.58%) SQL Server
4 33 (1.38%) Data Lake
5 32 (1.33%) NoSQL
6 22 (0.92%) PostgreSQL
7 21 (0.88%) Tableau
8 19 (0.79%) Oracle Database
9 15 (0.63%) GIS
10 14 (0.58%) Azure SQL Database
11 11 (0.46%) DynamoDB
11 11 (0.46%) MongoDB
12 10 (0.42%) Big Data
13 9 (0.38%) Relational Database
14 8 (0.33%) Electronic Patient Records
15 7 (0.29%) Metadata Repository
15 7 (0.29%) MySQL
16 6 (0.25%) SAP BW
16 6 (0.25%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 89 (3.71%) JIRA
2 39 (1.63%) Jenkins
3 24 (1.00%) GitLab
4 23 (0.96%) Git
5 9 (0.38%) Artifactory
6 7 (0.29%) ERwin
7 5 (0.21%) SonarQube
7 5 (0.21%) Sonatype Nexus
8 4 (0.17%) JUnit
8 4 (0.17%) Postman
8 4 (0.17%) Selenium
9 3 (0.13%) Bitbucket
9 3 (0.13%) Cucumber
9 3 (0.13%) MLflow
9 3 (0.13%) Rational DOORS
9 3 (0.13%) REST Assured
10 2 (0.083%) Hudson
10 2 (0.083%) IntelliJ
10 2 (0.083%) NeoLoad
10 2 (0.083%) Oracle APEX
General
1 431 (17.97%) Social Skills
2 313 (13.05%) Finance
3 215 (8.96%) Public Sector
4 140 (5.84%) Analytical Skills
5 138 (5.75%) Banking
6 62 (2.58%) Military
7 61 (2.54%) Retail
8 53 (2.21%) Legal
9 52 (2.17%) Documentation Skills
10 43 (1.79%) Manufacturing
11 32 (1.33%) Influencing Skills
12 28 (1.17%) Marketing
13 27 (1.13%) Aerospace
14 26 (1.08%) Investment Banking
14 26 (1.08%) Presentation Skills
15 25 (1.04%) Telecoms
16 19 (0.79%) Financial Institution
17 16 (0.67%) Back Office
18 15 (0.63%) Billing
19 10 (0.42%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 92 (3.83%) REST
2 78 (3.25%) Middleware
3 49 (2.04%) .NET
4 42 (1.75%) OAuth
5 39 (1.63%) SOAP
6 38 (1.58%) OpenID
7 30 (1.25%) OAuth2
8 28 (1.17%) Kafka
8 28 (1.17%) SailPoint
9 27 (1.13%) SAML
10 23 (0.96%) JSON
10 23 (0.96%) RESTful
11 22 (0.92%) Oracle Fusion
12 20 (0.83%) Node.js
13 19 (0.79%) React
14 18 (0.75%) Web Services
15 16 (0.67%) Microsoft Graph
16 15 (0.63%) LDAP
17 12 (0.50%) CSS
17 12 (0.50%) HTML
Miscellaneous
1 157 (6.54%) Cloud Native
2 89 (3.71%) Product Ownership
3 75 (3.13%) Data Centre
4 57 (2.38%) Public Cloud
5 56 (2.33%) Operational Technology
6 55 (2.29%) Onboarding
7 48 (2.00%) Management Information System
8 43 (1.79%) Data Protection Act
8 43 (1.79%) Hybrid Cloud
8 43 (1.79%) PKI
9 39 (1.63%) Enterprise Software
10 38 (1.58%) Legacy Systems
11 36 (1.50%) Distributed Systems
12 25 (1.04%) SCADA
13 24 (1.00%) CMDB
14 19 (0.79%) AI Agents
14 19 (0.79%) Private Cloud
15 18 (0.75%) Security Posture
16 16 (0.67%) NHS
17 14 (0.58%) Blackberry
Operating Systems
1 120 (5.00%) Windows
2 68 (2.83%) Linux
3 29 (1.21%) Windows Server
4 16 (0.67%) Android
4 16 (0.67%) Apple iOS
5 12 (0.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 12 (0.50%) Unix
6 9 (0.38%) Windows 7
7 8 (0.33%) Windows 10
7 8 (0.33%) Windows Server 2016
8 5 (0.21%) VMS
8 5 (0.21%) Windows Server 2019
9 4 (0.17%) Mac OS
10 3 (0.13%) Data ONTAP
10 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
11 1 (0.042%) CatOS
11 1 (0.042%) CentOS
11 1 (0.042%) Kali Linux
11 1 (0.042%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.042%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 355 (14.80%) Agile
2 343 (14.30%) Roadmaps
3 257 (10.71%) Enterprise Architecture
4 256 (10.67%) Migration
4 256 (10.67%) Stakeholder Management
5 236 (9.84%) DevOps
6 212 (8.84%) TOGAF
7 208 (8.67%) CI/CD
8 196 (8.17%) Technical Leadership
9 176 (7.34%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 175 (7.29%) Data Modelling
11 174 (7.25%) Microservices
12 172 (7.17%) Architectural Patterns
13 170 (7.09%) Integration Patterns
14 159 (6.63%) Architectural Design
15 156 (6.50%) Problem-Solving
16 150 (6.25%) Data Architecture
17 142 (5.92%) Cybersecurity
18 139 (5.79%) Analytics
19 136 (5.67%) AI
Programming Languages
1 114 (4.75%) Python
2 98 (4.09%) SQL
3 71 (2.96%) PowerShell
4 64 (2.67%) Java
5 46 (1.92%) JavaScript
6 31 (1.29%) C#
7 21 (0.88%) Bicep
8 15 (0.63%) Bash
9 12 (0.50%) PL/SQL
9 12 (0.50%) TypeScript
10 10 (0.42%) Kusto Query Language
11 7 (0.29%) VBA
12 6 (0.25%) Apex Code
12 6 (0.25%) Scala
13 5 (0.21%) ABAP
13 5 (0.21%) Shell Script
14 4 (0.17%) Perl
14 4 (0.17%) T-SQL
14 4 (0.17%) VB
14 4 (0.17%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 751 (31.30%) Security Cleared
2 430 (17.92%) SC Cleared
3 268 (11.17%) DV Cleared
4 113 (4.71%) Degree
5 83 (3.46%) TOGAF Certification
6 50 (2.08%) BPSS Clearance
7 41 (1.71%) Cisco Certification
8 40 (1.67%) CISSP
9 37 (1.54%) AWS Certification
9 37 (1.54%) Azure Certification
10 36 (1.50%) Computer Science Degree
11 27 (1.13%) CCNP
12 24 (1.00%) Microsoft Certification
13 21 (0.88%) CISM
14 20 (0.83%) ITIL Certification
15 19 (0.79%) ISEB
15 19 (0.79%) Master's Degree
16 15 (0.63%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 10 (0.42%) CCIE
17 10 (0.42%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 92 (3.83%) NIST
2 82 (3.42%) GDPR
3 67 (2.79%) Data Quality
4 61 (2.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 47 (1.96%) NCSC
6 22 (0.92%) COBIT
7 20 (0.83%) QA
8 19 (0.79%) PCI DSS
9 16 (0.67%) Accessibility
9 16 (0.67%) Cyber Essentials
10 15 (0.63%) GRC
11 12 (0.50%) FINRA
11 12 (0.50%) MiFID
12 11 (0.46%) ISO 20022
13 10 (0.42%) NIST 800
14 7 (0.29%) HL7
14 7 (0.29%) ISO 19650
15 6 (0.25%) Disclosure Scotland
15 6 (0.25%) JSP 440
15 6 (0.25%) SEPA
System Software
1 103 (4.29%) Active Directory
2 54 (2.25%) VMware Infrastructure
3 32 (1.33%) Docker
4 31 (1.29%) VMware NSX
5 19 (0.79%) vSphere
6 17 (0.71%) Virtual Desktop
7 15 (0.63%) Hyper-V
8 12 (0.50%) Virtual Machines
9 10 (0.42%) vCloud
9 10 (0.42%) VMware ESXi
10 5 (0.21%) RACF
11 4 (0.17%) BitLocker
11 4 (0.17%) NFS
12 3 (0.13%) IAG
13 2 (0.083%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
13 2 (0.083%) Firmware
14 1 (0.042%) Embedded Firmware
14 1 (0.042%) ProxySG
14 1 (0.042%) Snort
14 1 (0.042%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 88 (3.67%) Terraform
2 77 (3.21%) Kubernetes
3 56 (2.33%) Ansible
4 34 (1.42%) Microsoft Intune
5 30 (1.25%) OPNET
6 26 (1.08%) vCenter Server
7 25 (1.04%) Single Sign-On
8 15 (0.63%) SCCM
9 13 (0.54%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 12 (0.50%) FortiGate
11 10 (0.42%) WMI
12 9 (0.38%) Argo
12 9 (0.38%) Grafana
13 6 (0.25%) Istio
14 5 (0.21%) Endace
14 5 (0.21%) Prometheus
15 4 (0.17%) Jamf Pro
16 3 (0.13%) EMC VPLEX
16 3 (0.13%) Puppet
16 3 (0.13%) vRealize
Vendors
1 323 (13.46%) Microsoft
2 144 (6.00%) SAP
3 136 (5.67%) ServiceNow
4 131 (5.46%) VMware
5 93 (3.88%) Oracle
6 74 (3.08%) Cisco
7 71 (2.96%) Salesforce
8 51 (2.13%) Databricks
8 51 (2.13%) Google
9 47 (1.96%) MuleSoft
10 42 (1.75%) Remedy
11 35 (1.46%) Atlassian
12 32 (1.33%) Sparx
13 31 (1.29%) Red Hat
14 30 (1.25%) Citrix
15 29 (1.21%) F5
16 27 (1.13%) Palo Alto
17 26 (1.08%) BiZZdesign
18 23 (0.96%) Juniper
19 19 (0.79%) Talend