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 30 September 2026.

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

6 months to
30 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 14 21 13
Rank change year-on-year +7 -8 +3
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 2,585 1,200 1,642
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 9.12% 7.73% 9.45%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.01% 8.63% 10.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,731 829 965
10th Percentile £465 £462 £463
25th Percentile £525 £519 £525
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £600 £625
Median % change year-on-year +3.33% -4.00% -2.34%
75th Percentile £700 £694 £725
90th Percentile £763 £775 £775
UK median daily rate £620 £625 £625
% change year-on-year -0.80% - -3.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 164 10 63
10th Percentile £40.00 £56.20 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £63.44 £61.88
Median hourly rate £68.17 £71.25 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -4.33% +1.79% -6.67%
75th Percentile £80.00 £85.31 £85.00
90th Percentile £95.00 £100.55 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £68.17 £71.25 £70.00
% change year-on-year -4.33% +1.79% -2.78%

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 25,831 13,907 16,028
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.18% 89.61% 92.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,107 8,568 9,105
10th Percentile £303 £210 £220
25th Percentile £413 £360 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £600 £575 £590
90th Percentile £688 £665 £675
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,411 1,296 1,310
10th Percentile £14.22 £13.50 £14.69
25th Percentile £19.34 £16.30 £19.87
Median hourly rate £41.74 £25.08 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +66.44% -41.69% -2.16%
75th Percentile £67.50 £50.00 £66.90
90th Percentile £78.50 £69.83 £74.76
UK median hourly rate £41.71 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +65.84% -41.51% -3.37%

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 30 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 30 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 30 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 +4 723 £625 +4.17% 462
North of England +5 690 £600 - 464
Midlands +3 449 £627 +8.96% 258
North West +9 378 £600 +4.35% 259
South West +4 344 £631 -2.88% 220
West Midlands +3 338 £650 +8.33% 193
Yorkshire +15 247 £588 -3.09% 151
Scotland +21 192 £625 +1.21% 180
East of England +8 156 £621 +11.14% 138
East Midlands +7 106 £600 +20.00% 65
North East +2 68 £625 -13.79% 54
Wales +3 44 £640 +2.40% 35
Channel Islands 0 11 £700 -5.72% 5
Northern Ireland +3 2 - - 60
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 30 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 (34.20%) Security Cleared
2 582 (22.51%) Azure
3 576 (22.28%) SC Cleared
4 493 (19.07%) Stakeholder Management
5 440 (17.02%) AWS
6 382 (14.78%) Roadmaps
7 376 (14.55%) Microsoft
8 364 (14.08%) Technical Leadership
9 326 (12.61%) Migration
10 305 (11.80%) Enterprise Architecture
11 295 (11.41%) Agile
12 288 (11.14%) DV Cleared
13 248 (9.59%) Data Architecture
14 243 (9.40%) DevOps
15 242 (9.36%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 239 (9.25%) AI
17 231 (8.94%) CI/CD
18 220 (8.51%) Integration Patterns
19 215 (8.32%) Data Modelling
20 204 (7.89%) Cybersecurity
21 203 (7.85%) Security Architecture
22 195 (7.54%) Architectural Patterns
23 192 (7.43%) GCP
23 192 (7.43%) TOGAF
24 183 (7.08%) Architecture Governance
25 167 (6.46%) Continuous Improvement
26 161 (6.23%) Microservices
27 159 (6.15%) Event-Driven
28 148 (5.73%) Analytics
28 148 (5.73%) 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 33 (1.28%) SAS
2 32 (1.24%) SharePoint
3 26 (1.01%) Confluence
4 17 (0.66%) Microsoft Exchange
5 13 (0.50%) OpenStack
6 12 (0.46%) Apache
7 11 (0.43%) Apache Spark
8 10 (0.39%) Apache Airflow
8 10 (0.39%) Palantir Foundry
9 7 (0.27%) Documentum
10 6 (0.23%) NetWeaver
11 5 (0.19%) IIS
12 4 (0.15%) SAP EP
13 3 (0.12%) CMS
13 3 (0.12%) JBoss
14 2 (0.077%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 2 (0.077%) Alfresco
14 2 (0.077%) Apache Superset
15 1 (0.039%) CIMPLICITY
15 1 (0.039%) FactoryTalk
Applications
1 13 (0.50%) MS Visio
2 10 (0.39%) Microsoft Excel
2 10 (0.39%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 9 (0.35%) Microsoft Office
4 7 (0.27%) Navisworks
4 7 (0.27%) Revit
5 5 (0.19%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 70 (2.71%) SAP S/4HANA
2 12 (0.46%) Teamcenter
3 8 (0.31%) Dynamics CRM
3 8 (0.31%) Payment Gateway
3 8 (0.31%) Remedy ITSM
4 7 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
5 6 (0.23%) Maximo
5 6 (0.23%) SAP MDG
5 6 (0.23%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 5 (0.19%) Remedy AR System
6 5 (0.19%) SAP ERP
7 4 (0.15%) NetSuite
7 4 (0.15%) Oracle Payables
7 4 (0.15%) SAP CRM
7 4 (0.15%) Workday HCM
8 3 (0.12%) Adobe Campaign
8 3 (0.12%) Oracle Receivables
8 3 (0.12%) Oracle Retail
8 3 (0.12%) Salesforce CRM
8 3 (0.12%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 582 (22.51%) Azure
2 440 (17.02%) AWS
3 192 (7.43%) GCP
4 98 (3.79%) SaaS
5 94 (3.64%) Power Platform
6 67 (2.59%) Serverless
7 66 (2.55%) Entra ID
8 65 (2.51%) Microsoft 365
9 55 (2.13%) Dynamics 365
10 47 (1.82%) Azure DevOps
11 46 (1.78%) GitHub
12 36 (1.39%) PaaS
13 31 (1.20%) AWS Lambda
13 31 (1.20%) IaaS
13 31 (1.20%) Snowflake
14 28 (1.08%) Amazon S3
15 25 (0.97%) GitHub Actions
15 25 (0.97%) OCI
16 21 (0.81%) Microsoft Purview
16 21 (0.81%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 76 (2.94%) Firewall
2 54 (2.09%) WAN
3 53 (2.05%) Network Security
4 52 (2.01%) DNS
5 36 (1.39%) BGP
5 36 (1.39%) LAN
6 32 (1.24%) DHCP
7 31 (1.20%) MPLS
8 29 (1.12%) SD-WAN
9 27 (1.04%) TCP/IP
9 27 (1.04%) VPN
10 22 (0.85%) VLAN
11 20 (0.77%) SAN
12 18 (0.70%) NX-OS
13 17 (0.66%) NAS
14 16 (0.62%) BIG-IP
15 15 (0.58%) Structured Cabling
15 15 (0.58%) VXLAN
16 14 (0.54%) OSPF
17 13 (0.50%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 91 (3.52%) Metadata
2 80 (3.09%) Data Lake
3 78 (3.02%) Data Warehouse
4 60 (2.32%) Power BI
5 32 (1.24%) NoSQL
6 23 (0.89%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
7 21 (0.81%) Amazon RDS
8 20 (0.77%) BigQuery
9 19 (0.74%) Azure SQL Database
10 16 (0.62%) Base SAS
10 16 (0.62%) Oracle Database
11 14 (0.54%) SQL Server
12 12 (0.46%) GIS
13 11 (0.43%) PostgreSQL
14 10 (0.39%) Amazon Redshift
14 10 (0.39%) Delta Lake
14 10 (0.39%) Looker
15 9 (0.35%) MySQL
15 9 (0.35%) Pentaho
15 9 (0.35%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 36 (1.39%) Git
2 35 (1.35%) JIRA
3 21 (0.81%) GitLab
3 21 (0.81%) Jenkins
4 9 (0.35%) MSI
5 6 (0.23%) Claude Code
6 4 (0.15%) Artifactory
6 4 (0.15%) ERwin
6 4 (0.15%) Sonatype Nexus
7 3 (0.12%) Postman
7 3 (0.12%) Selenium
8 2 (0.077%) Cucumber
8 2 (0.077%) Cypress.io
8 2 (0.077%) Hudson
8 2 (0.077%) IntelliJ
8 2 (0.077%) JUnit
8 2 (0.077%) Oracle APEX
8 2 (0.077%) Oracle Forms
8 2 (0.077%) REST Assured
8 2 (0.077%) SonarQube
General
1 550 (21.28%) Social Skills
2 299 (11.57%) Finance
3 272 (10.52%) Public Sector
4 123 (4.76%) Analytical Skills
5 116 (4.49%) Banking
6 112 (4.33%) Retail
7 95 (3.68%) Manufacturing
8 75 (2.90%) Influencing Skills
9 61 (2.36%) Documentation Skills
10 55 (2.13%) Aerospace
11 40 (1.55%) Legal
12 38 (1.47%) Telecoms
13 30 (1.16%) Military
14 28 (1.08%) Marketing
15 23 (0.89%) Aviation
16 20 (0.77%) Back Office
16 20 (0.77%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 19 (0.74%) Presentation Skills
18 17 (0.66%) Billing
19 16 (0.62%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 112 (4.33%) REST
2 89 (3.44%) Terraform
3 72 (2.79%) Middleware
4 56 (2.17%) SOAP
5 51 (1.97%) OAuth
6 45 (1.74%) Kafka
7 40 (1.55%) Oracle Fusion
8 39 (1.51%) LDAP
9 34 (1.32%) SAML
10 30 (1.16%) .NET
11 29 (1.12%) OpenID
12 25 (0.97%) JSON
13 21 (0.81%) OAuth2
14 19 (0.74%) SailPoint
15 18 (0.70%) SAP Fiori
16 17 (0.66%) GraphQL
16 17 (0.66%) Node.js
17 15 (0.58%) JWT
17 15 (0.58%) Swagger
18 14 (0.54%) SAPUI5
Miscellaneous
1 193 (7.47%) Cloud Native
2 93 (3.60%) Data Centre
3 82 (3.17%) Hybrid Cloud
4 71 (2.75%) Onboarding
5 66 (2.55%) Product Ownership
6 64 (2.48%) Distributed Systems
7 63 (2.44%) Enterprise Software
8 61 (2.36%) Data Protection Act
8 61 (2.36%) Legacy Systems
9 59 (2.28%) Operational Technology
10 52 (2.01%) Management Information System
11 41 (1.59%) AI Agents
12 40 (1.55%) Public Cloud
13 39 (1.51%) CMDB
13 39 (1.51%) Private Cloud
14 28 (1.08%) Enterprise Cloud
15 27 (1.04%) IVR
16 24 (0.93%) PKI
17 23 (0.89%) Security Posture
18 22 (0.85%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 89 (3.44%) Windows
2 55 (2.13%) Linux
3 36 (1.39%) Windows Server
4 17 (0.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 9 (0.35%) Unix
6 6 (0.23%) AIX
7 4 (0.15%) Data ONTAP
8 2 (0.077%) HPUX
8 2 (0.077%) Solaris
8 2 (0.077%) 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
1 493 (19.07%) Stakeholder Management
2 382 (14.78%) Roadmaps
3 364 (14.08%) Technical Leadership
4 326 (12.61%) Migration
5 305 (11.80%) Enterprise Architecture
6 295 (11.41%) Agile
7 248 (9.59%) Data Architecture
8 243 (9.40%) DevOps
9 242 (9.36%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 239 (9.25%) AI
11 231 (8.94%) CI/CD
12 220 (8.51%) Integration Patterns
13 215 (8.32%) Data Modelling
14 204 (7.89%) Cybersecurity
15 203 (7.85%) Security Architecture
16 195 (7.54%) Architectural Patterns
17 192 (7.43%) TOGAF
18 183 (7.08%) Architecture Governance
19 167 (6.46%) Continuous Improvement
20 161 (6.23%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 94 (3.64%) Java
2 91 (3.52%) SQL
3 84 (3.25%) Python
4 51 (1.97%) PowerShell
5 48 (1.86%) JavaScript
6 24 (0.93%) Bash
7 15 (0.58%) ABAP
8 13 (0.50%) TypeScript
9 10 (0.39%) Shell Script
10 9 (0.35%) Apex Code
10 9 (0.35%) Bicep
10 9 (0.35%) C#
11 6 (0.23%) PL/SQL
11 6 (0.23%) VBA
12 5 (0.19%) Groovy
13 4 (0.15%) PHP
14 3 (0.12%) R
15 2 (0.077%) BeanShell
15 2 (0.077%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 2 (0.077%) Go
Qualifications
1 884 (34.20%) Security Cleared
2 576 (22.28%) SC Cleared
3 288 (11.14%) DV Cleared
4 73 (2.82%) Degree
5 67 (2.59%) CISSP
6 66 (2.55%) BPSS Clearance
7 61 (2.36%) Cisco Certification
8 47 (1.82%) AWS Certification
9 44 (1.70%) TOGAF Certification
10 41 (1.59%) Azure Certification
11 33 (1.28%) Computer Science Degree
12 29 (1.12%) CCNP
13 24 (0.93%) CISM
14 21 (0.81%) CCIE
15 18 (0.70%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 18 (0.70%) Microsoft Certification
16 16 (0.62%) JNCIE
17 13 (0.50%) CCSP
18 12 (0.46%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
18 12 (0.46%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 103 (3.98%) NIST
2 90 (3.48%) Data Quality
3 71 (2.75%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 61 (2.36%) NCSC
5 48 (1.86%) GDPR
6 26 (1.01%) QA
7 19 (0.74%) JSP 440
7 19 (0.74%) PCI DSS
8 18 (0.70%) GRC
8 18 (0.70%) ISO/IEC 20000
9 17 (0.66%) Accessibility
10 15 (0.58%) NIST 800
11 14 (0.54%) ISO 19650
12 13 (0.50%) Disclosure Scotland
13 11 (0.43%) SLA
14 10 (0.39%) IFRS
15 9 (0.35%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 7 (0.27%) ISO/IEC 27005
17 6 (0.23%) Actionable Recommendations
17 6 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
System Software
1 99 (3.83%) Active Directory
2 48 (1.86%) VMware Infrastructure
3 44 (1.70%) Docker
4 29 (1.12%) VMware NSX
5 23 (0.89%) Virtual Desktop
6 13 (0.50%) Hyper-V
7 11 (0.43%) VMware ESXi
7 11 (0.43%) vSphere
8 9 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
9 4 (0.15%) ISA Server
9 4 (0.15%) KVM
10 3 (0.12%) Ceph
10 3 (0.12%) EMC RecoverPoint
10 3 (0.12%) Microsoft Virtual Server
10 3 (0.12%) SRDF
10 3 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
11 2 (0.077%) NFS
11 2 (0.077%) vCloud
11 2 (0.077%) zsh
Systems Management
1 127 (4.91%) Kubernetes
2 52 (2.01%) Ansible
3 20 (0.77%) Microsoft Intune
4 19 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
5 14 (0.54%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 12 (0.46%) Jamf Pro
6 12 (0.46%) Prometheus
6 12 (0.46%) WMI
7 11 (0.43%) Grafana
8 8 (0.31%) CASB
9 7 (0.27%) FortiGate
9 7 (0.27%) vCenter Server
10 5 (0.19%) Argo
10 5 (0.19%) Istio
10 5 (0.19%) NetBackup
11 4 (0.15%) Cisco CUCM
11 4 (0.15%) EMC VPLEX
11 4 (0.15%) SnapMirror
11 4 (0.15%) VxRail
12 3 (0.12%) SnapVault
Vendors
1 376 (14.55%) Microsoft
2 129 (4.99%) SAP
3 114 (4.41%) Google
4 113 (4.37%) Oracle
5 102 (3.95%) ServiceNow
6 83 (3.21%) VMware
7 79 (3.06%) Cisco
7 79 (3.06%) Databricks
8 58 (2.24%) Salesforce
9 43 (1.66%) CyberArk
10 31 (1.20%) MuleSoft
11 28 (1.08%) F5
12 23 (0.89%) Informatica
13 21 (0.81%) IBM
13 21 (0.81%) Red Hat
13 21 (0.81%) Workday
14 20 (0.77%) Infoblox
15 17 (0.66%) Palo Alto
16 16 (0.62%) Foundry
17 15 (0.58%) Adobe