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 7 July 2026.

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

6 months to
7 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 20 13
Rank change year-on-year +9 -7 +5
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 2,547 1,184 2,074
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 9.55% 8.22% 9.86%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.38% 9.03% 10.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,674 791 1,256
10th Percentile £475 £450 £489
25th Percentile £525 £525 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £600 £650
Median % change year-on-year +3.33% -7.69% -
75th Percentile £713 £700 £725
90th Percentile £775 £760 £788
UK median daily rate £615 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -1.60% -3.85% -0.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 152 16 91
10th Percentile £46.34 £34.53 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £62.25 £60.63
Median hourly rate £65.00 £72.00 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -9.72% +2.86% -
75th Percentile £71.91 £86.00 £85.65
90th Percentile £83.00 £99.28 £88.00
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £67.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -3.70% -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 24,539 13,115 19,430
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.04% 91.07% 92.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,992 8,149 11,675
10th Percentile £303 £220 £213
25th Percentile £406 £363 £370
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £493
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -3.65% -1.40%
75th Percentile £600 £575 £595
90th Percentile £688 £650 £675
UK median daily rate £520 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,842 1,060 2,398
10th Percentile £15.05 £13.50 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.51 £16.84 £16.00
Median hourly rate £44.50 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +76.94% -37.13% +1.14%
75th Percentile £67.50 £57.50 £63.75
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £74.51
UK median hourly rate £42.59 £26.45 £37.50
% change year-on-year +61.03% -29.47% -12.79%

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 7 July 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 7 July 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 7 July 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
North of England +9 740 £600 - 278
South East +1 716 £625 +4.17% 235
Midlands +1 433 £614 +6.74% 113
North West +5 395 £610 +1.67% 162
West Midlands -1 311 £625 +4.17% 90
Yorkshire +10 280 £586 -2.42% 65
South West +1 278 £625 - 126
East of England +19 201 £600 - 51
Scotland +11 168 £650 +4.00% 75
East Midlands +6 115 £581 +16.25% 22
North East 0 73 £575 -8.00% 54
Wales +3 37 £600 +25.00% 32
Northern Ireland +8 7 £475 -32.14% 24
Channel Islands 0 3 £575 -22.56%
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 7 July 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.

1 761 (29.88%) Security Cleared
2 552 (21.67%) Azure
3 467 (18.34%) SC Cleared
4 439 (17.24%) AWS
5 364 (14.29%) Roadmaps
6 350 (13.74%) Agile
7 349 (13.70%) Microsoft
8 311 (12.21%) Stakeholder Management
9 287 (11.27%) Migration
10 264 (10.37%) DevOps
11 260 (10.21%) Enterprise Architecture
12 257 (10.09%) Technical Leadership
13 244 (9.58%) DV Cleared
14 236 (9.27%) Integration Patterns
15 233 (9.15%) CI/CD
16 231 (9.07%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 218 (8.56%) Architectural Patterns
18 206 (8.09%) Data Modelling
19 203 (7.97%) Microservices
20 202 (7.93%) Data Architecture
21 189 (7.42%) Cybersecurity
22 188 (7.38%) TOGAF
23 187 (7.34%) AI
24 176 (6.91%) Problem-Solving
25 164 (6.44%) Architectural Design
25 164 (6.44%) Security Architecture
26 155 (6.09%) GCP
27 149 (5.85%) Analytics
27 149 (5.85%) SAP
28 144 (5.65%) 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 55 (2.16%) SharePoint
2 38 (1.49%) Confluence
3 31 (1.22%) Microsoft Exchange
3 31 (1.22%) SAS
4 14 (0.55%) Apache Airflow
5 13 (0.51%) Appian
6 11 (0.43%) Apache
7 10 (0.39%) Apache Spark
8 9 (0.35%) CMS
9 8 (0.31%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 8 (0.31%) OpenStack
10 7 (0.27%) Documentum
10 7 (0.27%) Palantir Foundry
11 6 (0.24%) JBoss
11 6 (0.24%) Sitecore CMS
11 6 (0.24%) WebLogic
12 5 (0.20%) ArcGIS
12 5 (0.20%) NetWeaver
13 4 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 4 (0.16%) SAP EP
Applications
1 9 (0.35%) Microsoft Office
1 9 (0.35%) MS Visio
2 7 (0.27%) Navisworks
2 7 (0.27%) Revit
3 6 (0.24%) Microsoft Excel
3 6 (0.24%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 6 (0.24%) Spreadsheet
4 4 (0.16%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.039%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 64 (2.51%) SAP S/4HANA
2 20 (0.79%) Payment Gateway
3 16 (0.63%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 12 (0.47%) SAP ERP
5 11 (0.43%) Teamcenter
6 10 (0.39%) Remedy ITSM
7 7 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
8 6 (0.24%) Dynamics CRM
8 6 (0.24%) Oracle Retail
9 5 (0.20%) Maximo
10 4 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
10 4 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
10 4 (0.16%) SAP CRM
10 4 (0.16%) SAP GRC
10 4 (0.16%) SAP MDG
11 3 (0.12%) Avolution ABACUS
11 3 (0.12%) NetSuite
11 3 (0.12%) Oracle Receivables
11 3 (0.12%) SAP IBP
12 2 (0.079%) Dynamics AX
Cloud Services
1 552 (21.67%) Azure
2 439 (17.24%) AWS
3 155 (6.09%) GCP
4 100 (3.93%) Power Platform
5 94 (3.69%) Entra ID
6 83 (3.26%) Serverless
7 81 (3.18%) SaaS
8 75 (2.94%) Microsoft 365
9 60 (2.36%) PaaS
10 48 (1.88%) GitHub
10 48 (1.88%) IaaS
11 45 (1.77%) Azure DevOps
12 36 (1.41%) OpenShift
13 32 (1.26%) AWS Lambda
14 31 (1.22%) Dynamics 365
15 29 (1.14%) Microsoft Purview
16 26 (1.02%) GitHub Actions
16 26 (1.02%) Snowflake
17 25 (0.98%) Azure Data Factory
18 23 (0.90%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 116 (4.55%) Firewall
2 79 (3.10%) DNS
3 73 (2.87%) Network Security
3 73 (2.87%) WAN
4 59 (2.32%) LAN
5 48 (1.88%) VPN
6 42 (1.65%) DHCP
7 40 (1.57%) SD-WAN
8 34 (1.33%) VLAN
9 31 (1.22%) BGP
10 29 (1.14%) TCP/IP
11 25 (0.98%) Wireless
12 24 (0.94%) MPLS
12 24 (0.94%) SAN
13 23 (0.90%) NAS
14 22 (0.86%) IPsec
15 21 (0.82%) Structured Cabling
16 20 (0.79%) BIG-IP
17 19 (0.75%) OSPF
18 14 (0.55%) NX-OS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 71 (2.79%) Metadata
2 69 (2.71%) Power BI
3 58 (2.28%) Data Lake
3 58 (2.28%) Data Warehouse
4 35 (1.37%) NoSQL
5 31 (1.22%) SQL Server
6 26 (1.02%) PostgreSQL
7 19 (0.75%) Oracle Database
8 15 (0.59%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
9 14 (0.55%) Amazon RDS
9 14 (0.55%) Azure SQL Database
10 13 (0.51%) Base SAS
10 13 (0.51%) Big Data
10 13 (0.51%) GIS
11 11 (0.43%) MongoDB
11 11 (0.43%) Relational Database
12 10 (0.39%) Semantic Layer
13 9 (0.35%) Electronic Patient Records
14 8 (0.31%) BigQuery
14 8 (0.31%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 53 (2.08%) JIRA
2 33 (1.30%) Jenkins
3 26 (1.02%) Git
4 17 (0.67%) GitLab
5 10 (0.39%) ERwin
6 8 (0.31%) Sonatype Nexus
7 5 (0.20%) Artifactory
7 5 (0.20%) Selenium
8 4 (0.16%) Hudson
8 4 (0.16%) Postman
8 4 (0.16%) REST Assured
9 3 (0.12%) Cucumber
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%) JMeter
10 2 (0.079%) NeoLoad
10 2 (0.079%) Oracle APEX
10 2 (0.079%) Rational Rhapsody
General
1 468 (18.37%) Social Skills
2 353 (13.86%) Finance
3 237 (9.31%) Public Sector
4 150 (5.89%) Banking
5 141 (5.54%) Analytical Skills
6 98 (3.85%) Retail
7 70 (2.75%) Manufacturing
8 62 (2.43%) Documentation Skills
9 47 (1.85%) Legal
10 44 (1.73%) Influencing Skills
11 33 (1.30%) Aerospace
12 32 (1.26%) Military
13 24 (0.94%) Financial Institution
14 23 (0.90%) Telecoms
15 22 (0.86%) Investment Banking
16 20 (0.79%) Marketing
17 19 (0.75%) Presentation Skills
18 18 (0.71%) Back Office
18 18 (0.71%) Billing
19 13 (0.51%) Aviation
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 119 (4.67%) REST
2 75 (2.94%) Middleware
3 51 (2.00%) OAuth
4 46 (1.81%) OpenID
5 45 (1.77%) SOAP
6 44 (1.73%) .NET
7 36 (1.41%) SailPoint
8 35 (1.37%) Oracle Fusion
9 33 (1.30%) Kafka
9 33 (1.30%) SAML
10 32 (1.26%) OAuth2
11 25 (0.98%) RESTful
12 23 (0.90%) Node.js
13 21 (0.82%) LDAP
14 20 (0.79%) React
14 20 (0.79%) Web Services
15 19 (0.75%) JSON
16 15 (0.59%) AngularJS
17 12 (0.47%) FHIR
18 11 (0.43%) SAP PI
Miscellaneous
1 186 (7.30%) Cloud Native
2 94 (3.69%) Data Centre
3 75 (2.94%) Operational Technology
4 69 (2.71%) Hybrid Cloud
5 64 (2.51%) Product Ownership
6 63 (2.47%) Onboarding
7 57 (2.24%) Management Information System
8 56 (2.20%) Data Protection Act
9 55 (2.16%) Legacy Systems
10 51 (2.00%) Enterprise Software
11 47 (1.85%) Distributed Systems
12 45 (1.77%) Public Cloud
13 30 (1.18%) CMDB
14 29 (1.14%) Private Cloud
15 26 (1.02%) PKI
16 25 (0.98%) AI Agents
16 25 (0.98%) Security Posture
17 24 (0.94%) SCADA
18 21 (0.82%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
19 20 (0.79%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 107 (4.20%) Windows
2 52 (2.04%) Linux
3 36 (1.41%) Windows Server
4 16 (0.63%) Android
4 16 (0.63%) Apple iOS
5 13 (0.51%) Unix
6 11 (0.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 5 (0.20%) Data ONTAP
7 5 (0.20%) Windows 7
8 4 (0.16%) Windows 10
9 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
9 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2019
10 2 (0.079%) AIX
10 2 (0.079%) VMS
10 2 (0.079%) Windows Server 2012
11 1 (0.039%) CatOS
11 1 (0.039%) CentOS
11 1 (0.039%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.039%) Windows Server 2008
11 1 (0.039%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 364 (14.29%) Roadmaps
2 350 (13.74%) Agile
3 311 (12.21%) Stakeholder Management
4 287 (11.27%) Migration
5 264 (10.37%) DevOps
6 260 (10.21%) Enterprise Architecture
7 257 (10.09%) Technical Leadership
8 236 (9.27%) Integration Patterns
9 233 (9.15%) CI/CD
10 231 (9.07%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 218 (8.56%) Architectural Patterns
12 206 (8.09%) Data Modelling
13 203 (7.97%) Microservices
14 202 (7.93%) Data Architecture
15 189 (7.42%) Cybersecurity
16 188 (7.38%) TOGAF
17 187 (7.34%) AI
18 176 (6.91%) Problem-Solving
19 164 (6.44%) Architectural Design
19 164 (6.44%) Security Architecture
Programming Languages
1 115 (4.52%) SQL
2 109 (4.28%) Python
3 93 (3.65%) Java
4 56 (2.20%) PowerShell
5 53 (2.08%) JavaScript
6 28 (1.10%) C#
7 26 (1.02%) Bicep
8 21 (0.82%) Bash
9 15 (0.59%) TypeScript
10 8 (0.31%) ABAP
10 8 (0.31%) PL/SQL
10 8 (0.31%) VBA
11 6 (0.24%) Kusto Query Language
11 6 (0.24%) Scala
12 5 (0.20%) Apex Code
12 5 (0.20%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 4 (0.16%) Kotlin
13 4 (0.16%) VB
13 4 (0.16%) VBScript
14 3 (0.12%) C
Qualifications
1 761 (29.88%) Security Cleared
2 467 (18.34%) SC Cleared
3 244 (9.58%) DV Cleared
4 93 (3.65%) Degree
5 58 (2.28%) Cisco Certification
6 50 (1.96%) BPSS Clearance
7 49 (1.92%) CISSP
8 45 (1.77%) AWS Certification
9 42 (1.65%) TOGAF Certification
10 41 (1.61%) Azure Certification
11 35 (1.37%) Computer Science Degree
12 33 (1.30%) CCNP
13 23 (0.90%) Microsoft Certification
14 19 (0.75%) CISM
15 17 (0.67%) CCNA
16 16 (0.63%) Master's Degree
17 14 (0.55%) (ISC)2 CCSP
17 14 (0.55%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 14 (0.55%) CCIE
18 12 (0.47%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 100 (3.93%) NIST
2 74 (2.91%) Data Quality
2 74 (2.91%) GDPR
3 61 (2.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 60 (2.36%) NCSC
5 26 (1.02%) QA
6 20 (0.79%) PCI DSS
7 19 (0.75%) Accessibility
8 16 (0.63%) NIST 800
9 13 (0.51%) GRC
10 12 (0.47%) COBIT
11 11 (0.43%) IFRS
12 10 (0.39%) Disclosure Scotland
12 10 (0.39%) HL7
12 10 (0.39%) ISO 19650
12 10 (0.39%) JSP 440
12 10 (0.39%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 9 (0.35%) Cyber Essentials
13 9 (0.35%) ISO 20022
13 9 (0.35%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
System Software
1 108 (4.24%) Active Directory
2 55 (2.16%) VMware Infrastructure
3 41 (1.61%) Docker
4 33 (1.30%) VMware NSX
5 22 (0.86%) Virtual Desktop
6 19 (0.75%) Hyper-V
7 18 (0.71%) vSphere
8 11 (0.43%) VMware ESXi
9 8 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
10 7 (0.27%) vCloud
11 4 (0.16%) BitLocker
11 4 (0.16%) RACF
12 3 (0.12%) EMC RecoverPoint
12 3 (0.12%) IAG
12 3 (0.12%) NFS
12 3 (0.12%) SRDF
13 2 (0.079%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
14 1 (0.039%) Firmware
14 1 (0.039%) KVM
14 1 (0.039%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 100 (3.93%) Kubernetes
2 97 (3.81%) Terraform
3 51 (2.00%) Ansible
4 38 (1.49%) Microsoft Intune
5 28 (1.10%) Single Sign-On
6 21 (0.82%) vCenter Server
7 19 (0.75%) Grafana
8 16 (0.63%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 15 (0.59%) Prometheus
10 13 (0.51%) Argo
11 12 (0.47%) Jamf Pro
12 10 (0.39%) FortiGate
12 10 (0.39%) SCCM
13 8 (0.31%) Istio
14 6 (0.24%) CASB
15 5 (0.20%) EMC VPLEX
16 4 (0.16%) MOM
16 4 (0.16%) SnapMirror
17 3 (0.12%) EMC NetWorker
17 3 (0.12%) NetBackup
Vendors
1 349 (13.70%) Microsoft
2 149 (5.85%) SAP
3 116 (4.55%) ServiceNow
3 116 (4.55%) VMware
4 113 (4.44%) Oracle
5 74 (2.91%) Cisco
6 72 (2.83%) Databricks
6 72 (2.83%) Google
7 52 (2.04%) Salesforce
8 32 (1.26%) F5
9 29 (1.14%) Citrix
9 29 (1.14%) Red Hat
10 24 (0.94%) BiZZdesign
10 24 (0.94%) MuleSoft
11 23 (0.90%) Palo Alto
12 21 (0.82%) Juniper
13 20 (0.79%) Infoblox
13 20 (0.79%) Talend
14 18 (0.71%) CyberArk
14 18 (0.71%) Sparx