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 £623, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 13 September 2026.

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

6 months to
13 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 2,576 1,225 1,741
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 9.18% 7.94% 9.72%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.04% 8.83% 10.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,745 830 1,052
10th Percentile £471 £460 £469
25th Percentile £525 £519 £539
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £623 £600 £630
Median % change year-on-year +3.75% -4.76% -1.75%
75th Percentile £700 £688 £725
90th Percentile £773 £775 £788
UK median daily rate £620 £625 £635
% change year-on-year -0.80% -1.57% -2.31%
Number of hourly rates quoted 148 14 68
10th Percentile £46.00 £32.76 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £63.44 £61.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -6.67%
75th Percentile £73.25 £87.00 £85.00
90th Percentile £95.00 £99.57 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £66.66 £72.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -8.06% +3.57% -1.53%

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 25,666 13,867 16,548
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.44% 89.88% 92.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,282 8,519 9,685
10th Percentile £304 £213 £225
25th Percentile £413 £361 £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 £682
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,245 1,251 1,474
10th Percentile £14.25 £13.37 £14.41
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% +10.86%
75th Percentile £67.84 £51.72 £66.61
90th Percentile £78.73 £71.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.13 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +67.50% -41.51% -0.76%

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 13 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 13 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 13 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 +2 739 £625 +4.17% 451
North of England +6 707 £600 - 356
Midlands +1 426 £626 +9.11% 206
North West +7 411 £600 +4.35% 194
South West +4 338 £639 -1.35% 165
West Midlands +2 317 £650 +8.42% 145
Yorkshire +16 234 £575 -4.17% 127
Scotland +20 177 £625 - 158
East of England +10 158 £622 +12.07% 134
East Midlands +2 104 £600 +20.00% 60
North East -4 63 £600 -15.79% 35
Wales +1 42 £633 +1.20% 13
Channel Islands -4 7 £700 -5.72% 4
Northern Ireland +1 2 - - 55
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 13 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.

1 884 (34.32%) Security Cleared
2 589 (22.86%) Azure
3 576 (22.36%) SC Cleared
4 450 (17.47%) Stakeholder Management
5 445 (17.27%) AWS
6 369 (14.32%) Roadmaps
7 366 (14.21%) Microsoft
8 346 (13.43%) Technical Leadership
9 306 (11.88%) Enterprise Architecture
10 303 (11.76%) Migration
11 298 (11.57%) Agile
12 278 (10.79%) DV Cleared
13 242 (9.39%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 240 (9.32%) DevOps
15 234 (9.08%) Data Architecture
16 230 (8.93%) AI
17 224 (8.70%) Integration Patterns
18 221 (8.58%) CI/CD
19 210 (8.15%) Data Modelling
19 210 (8.15%) Security Architecture
20 202 (7.84%) Cybersecurity
21 199 (7.73%) Architectural Patterns
22 191 (7.41%) TOGAF
23 185 (7.18%) Architecture Governance
24 182 (7.07%) GCP
25 168 (6.52%) Microservices
26 165 (6.41%) Continuous Improvement
27 156 (6.06%) Event-Driven
28 148 (5.75%) Problem-Solving
29 146 (5.67%) Decision-Making

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 33 (1.28%) SAS
2 32 (1.24%) SharePoint
3 28 (1.09%) Confluence
4 15 (0.58%) Microsoft Exchange
5 12 (0.47%) OpenStack
6 11 (0.43%) Apache
7 10 (0.39%) Apache Airflow
7 10 (0.39%) Apache Spark
7 10 (0.39%) Palantir Foundry
8 7 (0.27%) Documentum
9 6 (0.23%) NetWeaver
10 4 (0.16%) IIS
10 4 (0.16%) SAP EP
11 3 (0.12%) CMS
11 3 (0.12%) JBoss
12 2 (0.078%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 2 (0.078%) Alfresco
12 2 (0.078%) Apache Superset
13 1 (0.039%) CIMPLICITY
13 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
Business Applications
1 70 (2.72%) SAP S/4HANA
2 12 (0.47%) Teamcenter
3 11 (0.43%) Payment Gateway
4 10 (0.39%) Remedy ITSM
5 9 (0.35%) SAP ERP
5 9 (0.35%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
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
8 4 (0.16%) SAP CRM
9 3 (0.12%) Adobe Campaign
9 3 (0.12%) Oracle Receivables
9 3 (0.12%) Salesforce CRM
9 3 (0.12%) SAP Payroll
9 3 (0.12%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 589 (22.86%) Azure
2 445 (17.27%) AWS
3 182 (7.07%) GCP
4 94 (3.65%) SaaS
5 91 (3.53%) Power Platform
6 76 (2.95%) Entra ID
7 72 (2.80%) Serverless
8 59 (2.29%) Microsoft 365
9 49 (1.90%) Dynamics 365
10 47 (1.82%) Azure DevOps
11 42 (1.63%) GitHub
12 39 (1.51%) PaaS
13 32 (1.24%) AWS Lambda
13 32 (1.24%) IaaS
14 28 (1.09%) Snowflake
15 27 (1.05%) GitHub Actions
16 25 (0.97%) Amazon S3
16 25 (0.97%) OpenShift
17 21 (0.82%) Azure Data Factory
17 21 (0.82%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 85 (3.30%) Firewall
2 65 (2.52%) WAN
3 57 (2.21%) Network Security
4 54 (2.10%) DNS
5 47 (1.82%) LAN
6 36 (1.40%) SD-WAN
7 35 (1.36%) VPN
8 34 (1.32%) BGP
9 32 (1.24%) DHCP
10 30 (1.16%) MPLS
11 27 (1.05%) TCP/IP
12 26 (1.01%) VLAN
13 22 (0.85%) SAN
14 19 (0.74%) NAS
15 17 (0.66%) BIG-IP
15 17 (0.66%) OSPF
16 15 (0.58%) Structured Cabling
16 15 (0.58%) Wireless
17 13 (0.50%) NX-OS
18 12 (0.47%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 82 (3.18%) Metadata
2 74 (2.87%) Data Lake
3 65 (2.52%) Data Warehouse
4 63 (2.45%) Power BI
5 35 (1.36%) NoSQL
6 20 (0.78%) Amazon RDS
6 20 (0.78%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
7 18 (0.70%) Azure SQL Database
7 18 (0.70%) Oracle Database
8 16 (0.62%) Base SAS
8 16 (0.62%) SQL Server
9 15 (0.58%) BigQuery
10 12 (0.47%) PostgreSQL
11 11 (0.43%) Delta Lake
11 11 (0.43%) GIS
12 10 (0.39%) MySQL
13 9 (0.35%) Amazon Redshift
13 9 (0.35%) Semantic Layer
14 8 (0.31%) Looker
14 8 (0.31%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 34 (1.32%) JIRA
2 31 (1.20%) Git
3 22 (0.85%) 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
1 531 (20.61%) Social Skills
2 308 (11.96%) Finance
3 262 (10.17%) Public Sector
4 127 (4.93%) Banking
5 125 (4.85%) Analytical Skills
6 110 (4.27%) Retail
7 92 (3.57%) Manufacturing
8 66 (2.56%) Influencing Skills
9 60 (2.33%) Documentation Skills
10 43 (1.67%) Aerospace
10 43 (1.67%) Legal
11 34 (1.32%) Military
12 31 (1.20%) Telecoms
13 25 (0.97%) Marketing
14 22 (0.85%) Aviation
15 20 (0.78%) Back Office
15 20 (0.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 18 (0.70%) Billing
16 18 (0.70%) Presentation Skills
17 16 (0.62%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 108 (4.19%) REST
2 87 (3.38%) Terraform
3 75 (2.91%) Middleware
4 53 (2.06%) OAuth
4 53 (2.06%) SOAP
5 38 (1.48%) Kafka
5 38 (1.48%) Oracle Fusion
6 37 (1.44%) LDAP
7 35 (1.36%) SAML
8 33 (1.28%) .NET
9 31 (1.20%) OpenID
10 26 (1.01%) JSON
11 21 (0.82%) OAuth2
12 19 (0.74%) SailPoint
13 18 (0.70%) Node.js
14 17 (0.66%) GraphQL
15 15 (0.58%) Swagger
16 14 (0.54%) JWT
16 14 (0.54%) SAP Fiori
16 14 (0.54%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 202 (7.84%) Cloud Native
2 82 (3.18%) Data Centre
3 78 (3.03%) Hybrid Cloud
4 65 (2.52%) Operational Technology
5 62 (2.41%) Distributed Systems
6 60 (2.33%) Data Protection Act
6 60 (2.33%) Legacy Systems
6 60 (2.33%) Onboarding
7 59 (2.29%) Enterprise Software
7 59 (2.29%) Product Ownership
8 51 (1.98%) Management Information System
9 43 (1.67%) Public Cloud
10 39 (1.51%) AI Agents
11 35 (1.36%) CMDB
11 35 (1.36%) Private Cloud
12 27 (1.05%) Enterprise Cloud
13 26 (1.01%) IVR
14 25 (0.97%) PKI
14 25 (0.97%) Security Posture
15 21 (0.82%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 85 (3.30%) Windows
2 57 (2.21%) Linux
3 36 (1.40%) 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%) HPUX
8 2 (0.078%) Solaris
8 2 (0.078%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.039%) Android
9 1 (0.039%) Apple iOS
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
1 450 (17.47%) Stakeholder Management
2 369 (14.32%) Roadmaps
3 346 (13.43%) Technical Leadership
4 306 (11.88%) Enterprise Architecture
5 303 (11.76%) Migration
6 298 (11.57%) Agile
7 242 (9.39%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 240 (9.32%) DevOps
9 234 (9.08%) Data Architecture
10 230 (8.93%) AI
11 224 (8.70%) Integration Patterns
12 221 (8.58%) CI/CD
13 210 (8.15%) Data Modelling
13 210 (8.15%) Security Architecture
14 202 (7.84%) Cybersecurity
15 199 (7.73%) Architectural Patterns
16 191 (7.41%) TOGAF
17 185 (7.18%) Architecture Governance
18 168 (6.52%) Microservices
19 165 (6.41%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 98 (3.80%) Java
2 92 (3.57%) SQL
3 85 (3.30%) Python
4 49 (1.90%) JavaScript
4 49 (1.90%) PowerShell
5 25 (0.97%) Bash
6 13 (0.50%) ABAP
6 13 (0.50%) Bicep
6 13 (0.50%) TypeScript
7 10 (0.39%) Shell Script
8 9 (0.35%) Apex Code
9 8 (0.31%) C#
10 6 (0.23%) PL/SQL
10 6 (0.23%) VBA
11 5 (0.19%) Groovy
12 4 (0.16%) PHP
13 3 (0.12%) R
14 2 (0.078%) BeanShell
14 2 (0.078%) C
14 2 (0.078%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 884 (34.32%) Security Cleared
2 576 (22.36%) SC Cleared
3 278 (10.79%) DV Cleared
4 71 (2.76%) Degree
5 65 (2.52%) CISSP
6 62 (2.41%) Cisco Certification
7 55 (2.14%) BPSS Clearance
8 44 (1.71%) Azure Certification
9 41 (1.59%) AWS Certification
9 41 (1.59%) TOGAF Certification
10 31 (1.20%) Computer Science Degree
11 30 (1.16%) CCNP
12 23 (0.89%) CISM
13 20 (0.78%) CCIE
14 19 (0.74%) Microsoft Certification
15 18 (0.70%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 14 (0.54%) JNCIE
17 12 (0.47%) CCNA
17 12 (0.47%) CCSP
18 11 (0.43%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 111 (4.31%) NIST
2 86 (3.34%) Data Quality
3 77 (2.99%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 62 (2.41%) NCSC
5 49 (1.90%) GDPR
6 28 (1.09%) QA
7 19 (0.74%) PCI DSS
8 17 (0.66%) JSP 440
9 16 (0.62%) GRC
9 16 (0.62%) NIST 800
10 15 (0.58%) Accessibility
10 15 (0.58%) ISO/IEC 20000
11 13 (0.50%) ISO 19650
12 11 (0.43%) Disclosure Scotland
12 11 (0.43%) IFRS
12 11 (0.43%) SLA
13 9 (0.35%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 7 (0.27%) Cyber Essentials
15 6 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
15 6 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 27005
System Software
1 103 (4.00%) Active Directory
2 48 (1.86%) Docker
3 46 (1.79%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.05%) VMware NSX
5 26 (1.01%) Virtual Desktop
6 16 (0.62%) Hyper-V
7 12 (0.47%) VMware ESXi
8 11 (0.43%) vSphere
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%) ISA Server
11 3 (0.12%) NFS
11 3 (0.12%) SRDF
12 2 (0.078%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 2 (0.078%) Virtual Servers
12 2 (0.078%) zsh
13 1 (0.039%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 133 (5.16%) 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
5 14 (0.54%) Grafana
6 13 (0.50%) Prometheus
7 12 (0.47%) Jamf Pro
8 10 (0.39%) vCenter Server
8 10 (0.39%) WMI
9 8 (0.31%) CASB
10 7 (0.27%) FortiGate
11 6 (0.23%) Argo
11 6 (0.23%) Istio
12 5 (0.19%) NetBackup
13 4 (0.16%) Cisco CUCM
13 4 (0.16%) EMC VPLEX
13 4 (0.16%) SnapMirror
14 3 (0.12%) MOM
14 3 (0.12%) SnapVault
Vendors
1 366 (14.21%) Microsoft
2 139 (5.40%) SAP
3 110 (4.27%) Oracle
4 102 (3.96%) Google
5 96 (3.73%) ServiceNow
6 87 (3.38%) VMware
7 85 (3.30%) Cisco
8 80 (3.11%) Databricks
9 55 (2.14%) Salesforce
10 41 (1.59%) CyberArk
11 32 (1.24%) MuleSoft
12 30 (1.16%) F5
13 23 (0.89%) IBM
13 23 (0.89%) Informatica
13 23 (0.89%) Palo Alto
14 20 (0.78%) Red Hat
14 20 (0.78%) Workday
15 17 (0.66%) Infoblox
16 16 (0.62%) Foundry
16 16 (0.62%) Juniper