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 2 September 2026.

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

6 months to
2 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 2,516 1,224 1,766
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 9.11% 8.03% 9.80%
As % of the Job Titles category 9.95% 8.91% 10.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,693 831 1,098
10th Percentile £468 £463 £479
25th Percentile £525 £519 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £600 £637
Median % change year-on-year +3.33% -5.73% -1.16%
75th Percentile £700 £688 £725
90th Percentile £775 £760 £788
UK median daily rate £614 £625 £638
% change year-on-year -1.80% -1.96% -1.92%
Number of hourly rates quoted 147 15 70
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% -4.00%
75th Percentile £71.91 £86.50 £85.00
90th Percentile £95.40 £99.42 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £66.66 £72.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -8.06% +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 25,293 13,732 16,656
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.59% 90.09% 92.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,180 8,401 9,922
10th Percentile £303 £213 £221
25th Percentile £413 £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 £685
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.69%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,103 1,246 1,560
10th Percentile £14.56 £13.36 £14.05
25th Percentile £20.31 £16.30 £18.50
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.95
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -42.78% +11.13%
75th Percentile £68.00 £54.00 £66.33
90th Percentile £78.75 £72.50 £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 2 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 2 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 2 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 -1 723 £625 +4.17% 401
North of England +6 700 £600 - 372
Midlands +1 415 £625 +8.70% 180
North West +6 412 £600 +0.84% 232
South West +2 322 £645 +0.39% 207
West Midlands +3 307 £644 +7.51% 115
Yorkshire +10 227 £581 -5.10% 106
Scotland +25 172 £625 - 164
East of England +17 153 £611 +10.27% 119
East Midlands +4 103 £600 +16.50% 65
North East -8 63 £575 -19.30% 34
Wales +5 43 £633 +1.20% 17
Channel Islands -3 5 £625 -15.82% 3
Northern Ireland +4 4 £488 -30.36% 82
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 2 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.

1 849 (33.74%) Security Cleared
2 580 (23.05%) Azure
3 555 (22.06%) SC Cleared
4 455 (18.08%) AWS
5 397 (15.78%) Stakeholder Management
6 367 (14.59%) Roadmaps
7 348 (13.83%) Microsoft
8 312 (12.40%) Technical Leadership
9 308 (12.24%) Agile
10 294 (11.69%) Migration
11 293 (11.65%) Enterprise Architecture
12 253 (10.06%) DV Cleared
13 243 (9.66%) DevOps
14 242 (9.62%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 232 (9.22%) AI
16 229 (9.10%) Data Architecture
16 229 (9.10%) Integration Patterns
17 220 (8.74%) CI/CD
18 209 (8.31%) Data Modelling
19 207 (8.23%) Architectural Patterns
20 199 (7.91%) Cybersecurity
21 198 (7.87%) Security Architecture
22 190 (7.55%) TOGAF
23 182 (7.23%) GCP
24 172 (6.84%) Architecture Governance
25 159 (6.32%) Microservices
26 157 (6.24%) Continuous Improvement
27 150 (5.96%) Event-Driven
28 143 (5.68%) Decision-Making
29 141 (5.60%) Architectural Design

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 35 (1.39%) SharePoint
2 33 (1.31%) Confluence
3 32 (1.27%) SAS
4 14 (0.56%) Microsoft Exchange
5 12 (0.48%) OpenStack
6 10 (0.40%) Apache
6 10 (0.40%) Apache Spark
6 10 (0.40%) Palantir Foundry
7 9 (0.36%) Apache Airflow
8 7 (0.28%) Documentum
9 3 (0.12%) 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 (0.079%) Alfresco
10 2 (0.079%) Apache Superset
10 2 (0.079%) IIS
11 1 (0.040%) CIMPLICITY
11 1 (0.040%) FactoryTalk
Applications
1 12 (0.48%) MS Visio
2 11 (0.44%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (0.36%) Microsoft Office
4 8 (0.32%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.28%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.28%) Revit
6 6 (0.24%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.040%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 69 (2.74%) SAP S/4HANA
2 12 (0.48%) Payment Gateway
2 12 (0.48%) Teamcenter
3 11 (0.44%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 9 (0.36%) Remedy ITSM
5 7 (0.28%) SAP ERP
6 6 (0.24%) Oracle ERP
6 6 (0.24%) SAP MDG
7 5 (0.20%) Dynamics CRM
7 5 (0.20%) Maximo
8 4 (0.16%) NetSuite
8 4 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
8 4 (0.16%) Oracle Retail
8 4 (0.16%) Remedy AR System
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
1 580 (23.05%) Azure
2 455 (18.08%) AWS
3 182 (7.23%) GCP
4 93 (3.70%) Power Platform
5 92 (3.66%) SaaS
6 80 (3.18%) Serverless
7 76 (3.02%) Entra ID
8 55 (2.19%) Microsoft 365
9 47 (1.87%) Azure DevOps
10 46 (1.83%) Dynamics 365
11 44 (1.75%) GitHub
12 38 (1.51%) PaaS
13 37 (1.47%) AWS Lambda
14 33 (1.31%) IaaS
15 30 (1.19%) GitHub Actions
16 29 (1.15%) OpenShift
17 28 (1.11%) Amazon S3
17 28 (1.11%) Snowflake
18 23 (0.91%) Azure Data Factory
19 22 (0.87%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 89 (3.54%) Firewall
2 64 (2.54%) WAN
3 56 (2.23%) DNS
4 52 (2.07%) Network Security
5 48 (1.91%) LAN
6 36 (1.43%) VPN
7 35 (1.39%) BGP
8 33 (1.31%) SD-WAN
9 32 (1.27%) DHCP
10 27 (1.07%) TCP/IP
11 26 (1.03%) MPLS
11 26 (1.03%) VLAN
12 23 (0.91%) SAN
13 20 (0.79%) NAS
14 17 (0.68%) BIG-IP
14 17 (0.68%) OSPF
15 16 (0.64%) Structured Cabling
16 14 (0.56%) Wireless
17 12 (0.48%) Cisco Nexus
17 12 (0.48%) NX-OS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 80 (3.18%) Metadata
2 71 (2.82%) Data Lake
3 63 (2.50%) Power BI
4 62 (2.46%) Data Warehouse
5 36 (1.43%) NoSQL
6 21 (0.83%) Azure SQL Database
7 20 (0.79%) Amazon RDS
7 20 (0.79%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
8 19 (0.76%) Oracle Database
9 16 (0.64%) Base SAS
9 16 (0.64%) SQL Server
10 14 (0.56%) BigQuery
11 13 (0.52%) Delta Lake
11 13 (0.52%) PostgreSQL
12 11 (0.44%) GIS
13 10 (0.40%) MySQL
14 9 (0.36%) Amazon Redshift
14 9 (0.36%) Big Data
14 9 (0.36%) Electronic Patient Records
14 9 (0.36%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 38 (1.51%) JIRA
2 30 (1.19%) Git
3 22 (0.87%) Jenkins
4 14 (0.56%) GitLab
5 7 (0.28%) ERwin
6 6 (0.24%) Claude Code
6 6 (0.24%) MSI
7 5 (0.20%) Artifactory
7 5 (0.20%) Sonatype Nexus
8 4 (0.16%) Hudson
9 3 (0.12%) Rational DOORS
9 3 (0.12%) SonarQube
10 2 (0.079%) Bitbucket
10 2 (0.079%) Cypress.io
10 2 (0.079%) IntelliJ
10 2 (0.079%) JUnit
10 2 (0.079%) Oracle APEX
10 2 (0.079%) Oracle Forms
10 2 (0.079%) Rational Rhapsody
10 2 (0.079%) Selenium
General
1 496 (19.71%) Social Skills
2 309 (12.28%) Finance
3 258 (10.25%) Public Sector
4 129 (5.13%) Banking
5 119 (4.73%) Analytical Skills
6 106 (4.21%) Retail
7 93 (3.70%) Manufacturing
8 63 (2.50%) Influencing Skills
9 62 (2.46%) Documentation Skills
10 38 (1.51%) Aerospace
11 37 (1.47%) Legal
12 31 (1.23%) Military
13 30 (1.19%) Telecoms
14 22 (0.87%) Aviation
15 21 (0.83%) Marketing
16 20 (0.79%) Back Office
16 20 (0.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 18 (0.72%) Financial Institution
17 18 (0.72%) Presentation Skills
18 17 (0.68%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 101 (4.01%) REST
2 90 (3.58%) Terraform
3 74 (2.94%) Middleware
4 53 (2.11%) OAuth
5 47 (1.87%) SOAP
6 38 (1.51%) Oracle Fusion
7 34 (1.35%) .NET
7 34 (1.35%) Kafka
7 34 (1.35%) SAML
8 32 (1.27%) OpenID
9 27 (1.07%) LDAP
10 24 (0.95%) JSON
11 22 (0.87%) OAuth2
12 20 (0.79%) SailPoint
13 17 (0.68%) Node.js
14 16 (0.64%) GraphQL
15 15 (0.60%) RESTful
16 14 (0.56%) JWT
16 14 (0.56%) Swagger
17 12 (0.48%) OpenAPI
Miscellaneous
1 205 (8.15%) Cloud Native
2 83 (3.30%) Data Centre
3 80 (3.18%) Hybrid Cloud
4 63 (2.50%) Operational Technology
5 61 (2.42%) Data Protection Act
6 60 (2.38%) Enterprise Software
7 58 (2.31%) Distributed Systems
8 56 (2.23%) Legacy Systems
9 54 (2.15%) Onboarding
9 54 (2.15%) Product Ownership
10 52 (2.07%) Management Information System
11 41 (1.63%) Public Cloud
12 39 (1.55%) AI Agents
13 32 (1.27%) Private Cloud
14 31 (1.23%) CMDB
15 27 (1.07%) Security Posture
16 26 (1.03%) Enterprise Cloud
16 26 (1.03%) IVR
17 22 (0.87%) SCADA
18 21 (0.83%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 83 (3.30%) Windows
2 57 (2.27%) Linux
3 34 (1.35%) Windows Server
4 16 (0.64%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 9 (0.36%) Unix
6 6 (0.24%) AIX
7 4 (0.16%) Data ONTAP
8 2 (0.079%) Android
8 2 (0.079%) Apple iOS
8 2 (0.079%) HPUX
8 2 (0.079%) Solaris
8 2 (0.079%) 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%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 397 (15.78%) Stakeholder Management
2 367 (14.59%) Roadmaps
3 312 (12.40%) Technical Leadership
4 308 (12.24%) Agile
5 294 (11.69%) Migration
6 293 (11.65%) Enterprise Architecture
7 243 (9.66%) DevOps
8 242 (9.62%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 232 (9.22%) AI
10 229 (9.10%) Data Architecture
10 229 (9.10%) Integration Patterns
11 220 (8.74%) CI/CD
12 209 (8.31%) Data Modelling
13 207 (8.23%) Architectural Patterns
14 199 (7.91%) Cybersecurity
15 198 (7.87%) Security Architecture
16 190 (7.55%) TOGAF
17 172 (6.84%) Architecture Governance
18 159 (6.32%) Microservices
19 157 (6.24%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 96 (3.82%) Java
2 93 (3.70%) SQL
3 87 (3.46%) Python
4 48 (1.91%) JavaScript
5 46 (1.83%) PowerShell
6 24 (0.95%) Bash
7 15 (0.60%) Bicep
8 12 (0.48%) TypeScript
9 10 (0.40%) ABAP
9 10 (0.40%) Shell Script
10 9 (0.36%) C#
11 8 (0.32%) Apex Code
12 6 (0.24%) PL/SQL
12 6 (0.24%) VBA
13 5 (0.20%) Groovy
14 3 (0.12%) R
15 2 (0.079%) BeanShell
15 2 (0.079%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 2 (0.079%) Kotlin
15 2 (0.079%) Scala
Qualifications
1 849 (33.74%) Security Cleared
2 555 (22.06%) SC Cleared
3 253 (10.06%) DV Cleared
4 67 (2.66%) Degree
5 59 (2.34%) CISSP
6 57 (2.27%) Cisco Certification
7 48 (1.91%) BPSS Clearance
8 45 (1.79%) AWS Certification
9 42 (1.67%) Azure Certification
9 42 (1.67%) TOGAF Certification
10 31 (1.23%) Computer Science Degree
11 28 (1.11%) CCNP
12 23 (0.91%) CISM
13 19 (0.76%) Microsoft Certification
14 17 (0.68%) CCIE
15 16 (0.64%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 12 (0.48%) CCNA
16 12 (0.48%) JNCIE
17 11 (0.44%) CCSP
17 11 (0.44%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 99 (3.93%) NIST
2 82 (3.26%) Data Quality
3 68 (2.70%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 62 (2.46%) NCSC
5 54 (2.15%) GDPR
6 24 (0.95%) QA
7 18 (0.72%) Accessibility
7 18 (0.72%) PCI DSS
8 17 (0.68%) NIST 800
9 16 (0.64%) JSP 440
10 14 (0.56%) ISO/IEC 20000
11 13 (0.52%) ISO 19650
12 12 (0.48%) GRC
13 11 (0.44%) Disclosure Scotland
13 11 (0.44%) IFRS
13 11 (0.44%) SLA
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 95 (3.78%) Active Directory
2 47 (1.87%) Docker
3 46 (1.83%) VMware Infrastructure
4 26 (1.03%) Virtual Desktop
4 26 (1.03%) VMware NSX
5 18 (0.72%) Hyper-V
6 12 (0.48%) vSphere
7 11 (0.44%) VMware ESXi
8 9 (0.36%) Virtual Machines
9 4 (0.16%) KVM
9 4 (0.16%) vCloud
10 3 (0.12%) Ceph
10 3 (0.12%) EMC RecoverPoint
10 3 (0.12%) NFS
10 3 (0.12%) SRDF
11 2 (0.079%) zsh
12 1 (0.040%) ISA Server
12 1 (0.040%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 1 (0.040%) Slurm Workload Manager
12 1 (0.040%) Snort
Systems Management
1 126 (5.01%) Kubernetes
2 52 (2.07%) Ansible
3 19 (0.76%) Microsoft Intune
4 18 (0.72%) Single Sign-On
5 15 (0.60%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 15 (0.60%) Grafana
6 13 (0.52%) Prometheus
7 12 (0.48%) Jamf Pro
8 11 (0.44%) vCenter Server
9 9 (0.36%) WMI
10 7 (0.28%) Argo
10 7 (0.28%) FortiGate
11 6 (0.24%) CASB
11 6 (0.24%) Istio
12 5 (0.20%) MOM
12 5 (0.20%) NetBackup
13 4 (0.16%) Cisco CUCM
13 4 (0.16%) EMC VPLEX
13 4 (0.16%) SnapMirror
14 3 (0.12%) SnapVault
Vendors
1 348 (13.83%) Microsoft
2 140 (5.56%) SAP
3 111 (4.41%) Oracle
4 96 (3.82%) Google
5 93 (3.70%) ServiceNow
6 84 (3.34%) VMware
7 80 (3.18%) Cisco
7 80 (3.18%) Databricks
8 51 (2.03%) Salesforce
9 31 (1.23%) CyberArk
10 28 (1.11%) F5
10 28 (1.11%) MuleSoft
11 24 (0.95%) Informatica
12 23 (0.91%) Palo Alto
12 23 (0.91%) Red Hat
13 21 (0.83%) IBM
14 17 (0.68%) Infoblox
14 17 (0.68%) Workday
15 15 (0.60%) Juniper
16 14 (0.56%) BMC