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 9 September 2026.

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

6 months to
9 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 13 21 13
Rank change year-on-year +8 -8 +4
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 2,573 1,221 1,731
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 9.17% 7.97% 9.73%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.02% 8.87% 10.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,738 830 1,045
10th Percentile £469 £462 £474
25th Percentile £525 £519 £538
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £600 £630
Median % change year-on-year +3.33% -4.76% -1.18%
75th Percentile £700 £688 £725
90th Percentile £775 £764 £788
UK median daily rate £618 £625 £638
% change year-on-year -1.20% -1.96% -1.92%
Number of hourly rates quoted 146 15 68
10th Percentile £46.00 £33.64 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £64.38 £61.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -6.67%
75th Percentile £71.91 £86.50 £85.00
90th Percentile £95.50 £99.42 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £66.83 £72.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -7.82% +3.57% -0.12%

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 25,680 13,763 16,432
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.51% 89.80% 92.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,365 8,435 9,615
10th Percentile £303 £213 £225
25th Percentile £413 £363 £379
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% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,186 1,240 1,485
10th Percentile £14.38 £13.27 £14.27
25th Percentile £20.00 £16.17 £19.50
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +11.35%
75th Percentile £68.00 £53.75 £66.61
90th Percentile £78.75 £71.60 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% +1.18%

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 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 9 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 9 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 +1 731 £625 +4.17% 416
North of England +4 714 £600 - 346
Midlands +1 424 £626 +9.34% 170
North West +8 418 £600 +4.35% 216
South West +3 336 £645 +0.39% 188
West Midlands +2 317 £650 +9.38% 115
Yorkshire +13 234 £588 -2.08% 106
Scotland +22 177 £625 - 175
East of England +14 159 £616 +11.29% 116
East Midlands +3 102 £600 +17.65% 55
North East -6 63 £600 -15.79% 25
Wales +2 42 £633 +1.20% 12
Channel Islands -3 6 £663 -10.77% 3
Northern Ireland +3 4 £488 -26.42% 76
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 9 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.

1 878 (34.12%) Security Cleared
2 593 (23.05%) Azure
3 570 (22.15%) SC Cleared
4 459 (17.84%) AWS
5 431 (16.75%) Stakeholder Management
6 373 (14.50%) Roadmaps
7 363 (14.11%) Microsoft
8 336 (13.06%) Technical Leadership
9 308 (11.97%) Agile
10 301 (11.70%) Migration
11 299 (11.62%) Enterprise Architecture
12 268 (10.42%) DV Cleared
13 245 (9.52%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 243 (9.44%) DevOps
15 235 (9.13%) AI
16 233 (9.06%) Data Architecture
17 231 (8.98%) Integration Patterns
18 225 (8.74%) CI/CD
19 215 (8.36%) Data Modelling
20 213 (8.28%) Security Architecture
21 208 (8.08%) Architectural Patterns
22 205 (7.97%) Cybersecurity
23 192 (7.46%) TOGAF
24 185 (7.19%) GCP
25 183 (7.11%) Architecture Governance
26 168 (6.53%) Microservices
27 164 (6.37%) Continuous Improvement
28 159 (6.18%) Event-Driven
29 146 (5.67%) Decision-Making
29 146 (5.67%) 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 (1.32%) SharePoint
2 32 (1.24%) SAS
3 30 (1.17%) Confluence
4 15 (0.58%) Microsoft Exchange
5 12 (0.47%) OpenStack
6 11 (0.43%) Apache
7 10 (0.39%) Apache Spark
7 10 (0.39%) Palantir Foundry
8 9 (0.35%) Apache Airflow
9 7 (0.27%) Documentum
10 3 (0.12%) CMS
10 3 (0.12%) IIS
10 3 (0.12%) JBoss
10 3 (0.12%) NetWeaver
10 3 (0.12%) SAP EP
11 2 (0.078%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 2 (0.078%) Alfresco
11 2 (0.078%) Apache Superset
12 1 (0.039%) CIMPLICITY
12 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
5 1 (0.039%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 70 (2.72%) SAP S/4HANA
2 13 (0.51%) Teamcenter
3 12 (0.47%) Payment Gateway
4 10 (0.39%) Remedy ITSM
4 10 (0.39%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 7 (0.27%) SAP ERP
6 6 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
6 6 (0.23%) SAP MDG
7 5 (0.19%) Dynamics CRM
7 5 (0.19%) Maximo
7 5 (0.19%) Remedy AR System
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%) SAP CRM
9 3 (0.12%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 593 (23.05%) Azure
2 459 (17.84%) AWS
3 185 (7.19%) GCP
4 94 (3.65%) SaaS
5 91 (3.54%) Power Platform
6 80 (3.11%) Serverless
7 77 (2.99%) Entra ID
8 59 (2.29%) Microsoft 365
9 49 (1.90%) Azure DevOps
10 48 (1.87%) Dynamics 365
11 45 (1.75%) GitHub
12 39 (1.52%) PaaS
13 37 (1.44%) AWS Lambda
14 33 (1.28%) IaaS
15 30 (1.17%) GitHub Actions
16 28 (1.09%) Amazon S3
16 28 (1.09%) OpenShift
16 28 (1.09%) Snowflake
17 23 (0.89%) Azure Data Factory
18 22 (0.86%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 90 (3.50%) Firewall
2 65 (2.53%) WAN
3 56 (2.18%) DNS
3 56 (2.18%) Network Security
4 48 (1.87%) LAN
5 36 (1.40%) SD-WAN
6 35 (1.36%) VPN
7 34 (1.32%) BGP
8 33 (1.28%) DHCP
9 28 (1.09%) MPLS
10 27 (1.05%) TCP/IP
11 26 (1.01%) VLAN
12 23 (0.89%) SAN
13 20 (0.78%) NAS
14 17 (0.66%) BIG-IP
14 17 (0.66%) OSPF
15 15 (0.58%) Structured Cabling
15 15 (0.58%) Wireless
16 13 (0.51%) NX-OS
17 12 (0.47%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 81 (3.15%) Metadata
2 72 (2.80%) Data Lake
3 63 (2.45%) Data Warehouse
4 62 (2.41%) Power BI
5 36 (1.40%) NoSQL
6 20 (0.78%) Amazon RDS
6 20 (0.78%) Azure SQL Database
6 20 (0.78%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
6 20 (0.78%) Oracle Database
7 16 (0.62%) Base SAS
7 16 (0.62%) SQL Server
8 14 (0.54%) BigQuery
9 13 (0.51%) Delta Lake
9 13 (0.51%) PostgreSQL
10 11 (0.43%) GIS
11 10 (0.39%) MySQL
12 9 (0.35%) Amazon Redshift
12 9 (0.35%) Big Data
12 9 (0.35%) Electronic Patient Records
12 9 (0.35%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 36 (1.40%) JIRA
2 31 (1.20%) Git
3 23 (0.89%) Jenkins
4 16 (0.62%) GitLab
5 7 (0.27%) ERwin
5 7 (0.27%) MSI
6 6 (0.23%) Claude Code
7 5 (0.19%) Artifactory
7 5 (0.19%) 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
1 523 (20.33%) Social Skills
2 309 (12.01%) Finance
3 265 (10.30%) Public Sector
4 130 (5.05%) Banking
5 123 (4.78%) Analytical Skills
6 109 (4.24%) Retail
7 92 (3.58%) Manufacturing
8 64 (2.49%) Influencing Skills
9 62 (2.41%) Documentation Skills
10 43 (1.67%) Legal
11 39 (1.52%) Aerospace
12 34 (1.32%) Military
13 30 (1.17%) Telecoms
14 23 (0.89%) Marketing
15 22 (0.86%) Aviation
16 20 (0.78%) Back Office
16 20 (0.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 18 (0.70%) Billing
17 18 (0.70%) Presentation Skills
18 17 (0.66%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 109 (4.24%) REST
2 89 (3.46%) Terraform
3 73 (2.84%) Middleware
4 54 (2.10%) OAuth
4 54 (2.10%) SOAP
5 38 (1.48%) Oracle Fusion
6 37 (1.44%) Kafka
7 35 (1.36%) SAML
8 34 (1.32%) LDAP
9 33 (1.28%) .NET
10 32 (1.24%) OpenID
11 26 (1.01%) JSON
12 22 (0.86%) OAuth2
13 19 (0.74%) SailPoint
14 18 (0.70%) Node.js
15 17 (0.66%) GraphQL
16 15 (0.58%) JWT
16 15 (0.58%) Swagger
17 14 (0.54%) RESTful
17 14 (0.54%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 208 (8.08%) Cloud Native
2 84 (3.26%) Data Centre
3 79 (3.07%) Hybrid Cloud
4 65 (2.53%) Operational Technology
5 60 (2.33%) Distributed Systems
5 60 (2.33%) Enterprise Software
5 60 (2.33%) Onboarding
6 58 (2.25%) Data Protection Act
7 56 (2.18%) Product Ownership
8 55 (2.14%) Legacy Systems
9 52 (2.02%) Management Information System
10 41 (1.59%) Public Cloud
11 40 (1.55%) AI Agents
12 36 (1.40%) CMDB
13 34 (1.32%) Private Cloud
14 27 (1.05%) Enterprise Cloud
14 27 (1.05%) Security Posture
15 26 (1.01%) IVR
16 23 (0.89%) SCADA
17 22 (0.86%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 85 (3.30%) Windows
2 58 (2.25%) Linux
3 37 (1.44%) Windows Server
4 17 (0.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 9 (0.35%) Unix
6 6 (0.23%) AIX
7 4 (0.16%) Data ONTAP
8 2 (0.078%) Android
8 2 (0.078%) Apple iOS
8 2 (0.078%) HPUX
8 2 (0.078%) Solaris
8 2 (0.078%) Windows 10
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
1 431 (16.75%) Stakeholder Management
2 373 (14.50%) Roadmaps
3 336 (13.06%) Technical Leadership
4 308 (11.97%) Agile
5 301 (11.70%) Migration
6 299 (11.62%) Enterprise Architecture
7 245 (9.52%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 243 (9.44%) DevOps
9 235 (9.13%) AI
10 233 (9.06%) Data Architecture
11 231 (8.98%) Integration Patterns
12 225 (8.74%) CI/CD
13 215 (8.36%) Data Modelling
14 213 (8.28%) Security Architecture
15 208 (8.08%) Architectural Patterns
16 205 (7.97%) Cybersecurity
17 192 (7.46%) TOGAF
18 183 (7.11%) Architecture Governance
19 168 (6.53%) Microservices
20 164 (6.37%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 96 (3.73%) Java
2 93 (3.61%) SQL
3 86 (3.34%) Python
4 49 (1.90%) JavaScript
5 48 (1.87%) PowerShell
6 25 (0.97%) Bash
7 15 (0.58%) Bicep
8 13 (0.51%) TypeScript
9 10 (0.39%) ABAP
9 10 (0.39%) Apex Code
9 10 (0.39%) Shell Script
10 7 (0.27%) C#
11 6 (0.23%) PL/SQL
11 6 (0.23%) VBA
12 5 (0.19%) Groovy
13 3 (0.12%) PHP
13 3 (0.12%) R
14 2 (0.078%) BeanShell
14 2 (0.078%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 2 (0.078%) Scala
Qualifications
1 878 (34.12%) Security Cleared
2 570 (22.15%) SC Cleared
3 268 (10.42%) DV Cleared
4 70 (2.72%) Degree
5 63 (2.45%) CISSP
6 60 (2.33%) Cisco Certification
7 55 (2.14%) BPSS Clearance
8 44 (1.71%) AWS Certification
9 43 (1.67%) TOGAF Certification
10 42 (1.63%) Azure Certification
11 31 (1.20%) Computer Science Degree
12 29 (1.13%) CCNP
13 24 (0.93%) CISM
14 19 (0.74%) CCIE
14 19 (0.74%) Microsoft Certification
15 17 (0.66%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 13 (0.51%) JNCIE
17 12 (0.47%) CCNA
17 12 (0.47%) CCSP
18 11 (0.43%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 109 (4.24%) NIST
2 88 (3.42%) Data Quality
3 77 (2.99%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 65 (2.53%) NCSC
5 55 (2.14%) GDPR
6 26 (1.01%) QA
7 19 (0.74%) PCI DSS
8 17 (0.66%) JSP 440
8 17 (0.66%) NIST 800
9 15 (0.58%) Accessibility
9 15 (0.58%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 14 (0.54%) GRC
11 13 (0.51%) ISO 19650
12 11 (0.43%) Disclosure Scotland
12 11 (0.43%) IFRS
12 11 (0.43%) SLA
13 9 (0.35%) HL7
13 9 (0.35%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 7 (0.27%) Cyber Essentials
15 6 (0.23%) SNOMED CT
System Software
1 104 (4.04%) Active Directory
2 47 (1.83%) VMware Infrastructure
3 46 (1.79%) Docker
4 27 (1.05%) VMware NSX
5 26 (1.01%) Virtual Desktop
6 17 (0.66%) Hyper-V
7 13 (0.51%) vSphere
8 11 (0.43%) VMware ESXi
9 9 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
10 4 (0.16%) KVM
10 4 (0.16%) vCloud
11 3 (0.12%) Ceph
11 3 (0.12%) EMC RecoverPoint
11 3 (0.12%) NFS
11 3 (0.12%) SRDF
12 2 (0.078%) ISA Server
12 2 (0.078%) zsh
13 1 (0.039%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 1 (0.039%) Slurm Workload Manager
13 1 (0.039%) Snort
Systems Management
1 129 (5.01%) Kubernetes
2 52 (2.02%) Ansible
3 19 (0.74%) Microsoft Intune
3 19 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
4 15 (0.58%) Active Directory Federation Services
4 15 (0.58%) Grafana
5 13 (0.51%) Prometheus
6 12 (0.47%) Jamf Pro
7 11 (0.43%) vCenter Server
8 10 (0.39%) WMI
9 7 (0.27%) Argo
9 7 (0.27%) CASB
9 7 (0.27%) FortiGate
10 6 (0.23%) Istio
11 5 (0.19%) NetBackup
12 4 (0.16%) Cisco CUCM
12 4 (0.16%) EMC VPLEX
12 4 (0.16%) SnapMirror
13 3 (0.12%) MOM
13 3 (0.12%) SnapVault
Vendors
1 363 (14.11%) Microsoft
2 139 (5.40%) SAP
3 112 (4.35%) Oracle
4 99 (3.85%) Google
5 98 (3.81%) ServiceNow
6 87 (3.38%) VMware
7 83 (3.23%) Cisco
7 83 (3.23%) Databricks
8 54 (2.10%) Salesforce
9 38 (1.48%) CyberArk
10 31 (1.20%) MuleSoft
11 29 (1.13%) F5
12 25 (0.97%) Informatica
13 23 (0.89%) Palo Alto
14 22 (0.86%) IBM
14 22 (0.86%) Red Hat
15 18 (0.70%) Workday
16 17 (0.66%) Infoblox
17 16 (0.62%) Foundry
17 16 (0.62%) Juniper