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 £613, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 17 May 2026.

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

6 months to
17 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 19 13
Rank change year-on-year +9 -6 +5
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 2,397 1,095 2,015
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 9.78% 8.47% 9.93%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.64% 9.21% 10.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,575 737 1,199
10th Percentile £450 £450 £500
25th Percentile £513 £525 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £613 £600 £650
Median % change year-on-year +2.08% -7.69% -
75th Percentile £713 £698 £732
90th Percentile £775 £750 £800
UK median daily rate £620 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -1.10%
Number of hourly rates quoted 120 27 87
10th Percentile £49.40 £48.88 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £61.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -
75th Percentile £78.75 £79.18 £87.46
90th Percentile £95.25 £85.50 £90.80
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £70.00 £70.00
% change year-on-year -7.14% - -

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 22,532 11,895 18,763
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.92% 91.98% 92.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,064 7,599 11,440
10th Percentile £300 £213 £213
25th Percentile £400 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £490
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -3.06% -2.00%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £595
90th Percentile £687 £650 £688
UK median daily rate £510 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -0.49% -2.38% -3.23%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,541 848 2,259
10th Percentile £14.64 £13.96 £12.50
25th Percentile £19.64 £17.30 £15.75
Median hourly rate £45.00 £27.13 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +65.90% -32.19% -5.88%
75th Percentile £67.25 £63.75 £61.60
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £74.00
UK median hourly rate £42.69 £28.17 £36.58
% change year-on-year +51.55% -22.99% -18.72%

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 17 May 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 17 May 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 17 May 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 +6 711 £625 - 178
North of England +1 648 £600 - 182
Midlands +1 432 £600 - 87
North West +7 365 £610 +3.61% 102
West Midlands -1 311 £620 +3.33% 58
South West +2 282 £675 +12.50% 92
Yorkshire +7 242 £558 -7.00% 49
East of England +23 201 £575 -11.54% 64
Scotland +12 134 £650 +4.00% 42
East Midlands -1 115 £545 - 29
North East +9 49 £563 -10.00% 33
Wales -10 23 £600 +25.00% 51
Northern Ireland +7 8 £475 -28.30% 9
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 17 May 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.

1 738 (30.79%) Security Cleared
2 461 (19.23%) Azure
3 429 (17.90%) SC Cleared
4 355 (14.81%) AWS
5 345 (14.39%) Agile
6 344 (14.35%) Roadmaps
7 318 (13.27%) Microsoft
8 257 (10.72%) Enterprise Architecture
9 256 (10.68%) DV Cleared
10 255 (10.64%) Migration
11 251 (10.47%) Stakeholder Management
12 238 (9.93%) DevOps
13 208 (8.68%) CI/CD
14 202 (8.43%) Technical Leadership
14 202 (8.43%) TOGAF
15 179 (7.47%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 177 (7.38%) Data Modelling
17 174 (7.26%) Integration Patterns
17 174 (7.26%) Microservices
18 173 (7.22%) Architectural Patterns
19 163 (6.80%) Architectural Design
20 162 (6.76%) Data Architecture
21 150 (6.26%) Problem-Solving
22 148 (6.17%) SAP
23 144 (6.01%) Cybersecurity
24 134 (5.59%) ServiceNow
25 132 (5.51%) AI
26 130 (5.42%) Analytics
27 129 (5.38%) GCP
28 128 (5.34%) VMware

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 67 (2.80%) Confluence
2 65 (2.71%) SharePoint
3 39 (1.63%) Microsoft Exchange
4 15 (0.63%) SAS
5 13 (0.54%) Appian
6 11 (0.46%) Apache
6 11 (0.46%) CMS
7 10 (0.42%) Anypoint
8 9 (0.38%) Apache Airflow
9 8 (0.33%) Apache Spark
10 7 (0.29%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 7 (0.29%) ArcGIS
11 6 (0.25%) NetWeaver
11 6 (0.25%) Sitecore CMS
11 6 (0.25%) WebLogic
12 5 (0.21%) SAP EP
13 4 (0.17%) JBoss
13 4 (0.17%) OpenStack
13 4 (0.17%) Skype for Business
13 4 (0.17%) Smallworld
Applications
1 34 (1.42%) Microsoft Office
2 24 (1.00%) Microsoft Project
3 13 (0.54%) Microsoft Excel
3 13 (0.54%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.29%) Navisworks
4 7 (0.29%) Revit
5 5 (0.21%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.17%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.083%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.042%) OrCAD
Business Applications
1 58 (2.42%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (0.96%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 20 (0.83%) Payment Gateway
4 12 (0.50%) SAP ERP
5 10 (0.42%) Teamcenter
6 9 (0.38%) Remedy ITSM
6 9 (0.38%) Workday HCM
7 6 (0.25%) SAP MDG
8 5 (0.21%) SAP CRM
9 4 (0.17%) Oracle Retail
9 4 (0.17%) Salesforce CRM
9 4 (0.17%) SAP GRC
10 3 (0.13%) Distributed Ledger
10 3 (0.13%) Dynamics CRM
10 3 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
10 3 (0.13%) R3 Corda
10 3 (0.13%) SAP SD
11 2 (0.083%) Avolution ABACUS
11 2 (0.083%) Infor CloudSuite
11 2 (0.083%) SAP IBP
Cloud Services
1 461 (19.23%) Azure
2 355 (14.81%) AWS
3 129 (5.38%) GCP
4 92 (3.84%) Entra ID
5 91 (3.80%) Power Platform
6 81 (3.38%) Microsoft 365
7 70 (2.92%) Serverless
8 65 (2.71%) SaaS
9 52 (2.17%) PaaS
10 42 (1.75%) GitHub
11 41 (1.71%) Microsoft Purview
12 40 (1.67%) Azure DevOps
13 39 (1.63%) IaaS
14 38 (1.59%) OpenShift
15 32 (1.34%) OneDrive
16 29 (1.21%) Dynamics 365
17 26 (1.08%) Azure Data Factory
18 25 (1.04%) AWS Lambda
19 24 (1.00%) Azure Synapse Analytics
20 22 (0.92%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 98 (4.09%) Firewall
2 71 (2.96%) WAN
3 67 (2.80%) DNS
4 64 (2.67%) Network Security
5 55 (2.29%) LAN
6 51 (2.13%) VPN
7 39 (1.63%) SD-WAN
8 33 (1.38%) DHCP
9 25 (1.04%) VLAN
10 22 (0.92%) Wireless
11 20 (0.83%) BGP
12 19 (0.79%) SAN
13 18 (0.75%) NAS
14 16 (0.67%) BIG-IP
14 16 (0.67%) IPsec
14 16 (0.67%) Structured Cabling
15 15 (0.63%) MPLS
16 14 (0.58%) OSPF
17 13 (0.54%) TCP/IP
18 12 (0.50%) NX-OS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 69 (2.88%) Power BI
2 67 (2.80%) Metadata
3 47 (1.96%) Data Warehouse
4 39 (1.63%) SQL Server
5 35 (1.46%) Data Lake
6 33 (1.38%) NoSQL
7 23 (0.96%) PostgreSQL
8 21 (0.88%) Tableau
9 19 (0.79%) Oracle Database
10 14 (0.58%) GIS
11 13 (0.54%) Azure SQL Database
12 11 (0.46%) MongoDB
13 10 (0.42%) Big Data
14 9 (0.38%) DynamoDB
14 9 (0.38%) Relational Database
15 8 (0.33%) Electronic Patient Records
16 7 (0.29%) Metadata Repository
16 7 (0.29%) MySQL
16 7 (0.29%) Spatial Data
17 6 (0.25%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 81 (3.38%) JIRA
2 38 (1.59%) Jenkins
3 22 (0.92%) Git
3 22 (0.92%) GitLab
4 9 (0.38%) Artifactory
5 7 (0.29%) ERwin
6 5 (0.21%) SonarQube
6 5 (0.21%) Sonatype Nexus
7 4 (0.17%) Hudson
7 4 (0.17%) JUnit
7 4 (0.17%) Postman
7 4 (0.17%) Selenium
8 3 (0.13%) Bitbucket
8 3 (0.13%) Cucumber
8 3 (0.13%) MLflow
8 3 (0.13%) Rational DOORS
8 3 (0.13%) REST Assured
9 2 (0.083%) IntelliJ
9 2 (0.083%) NeoLoad
9 2 (0.083%) Oracle APEX
General
1 423 (17.65%) Social Skills
2 310 (12.93%) Finance
3 220 (9.18%) Public Sector
4 138 (5.76%) Banking
5 131 (5.47%) Analytical Skills
6 68 (2.84%) Retail
7 58 (2.42%) Documentation Skills
8 55 (2.29%) Legal
8 55 (2.29%) Military
9 49 (2.04%) Manufacturing
10 31 (1.29%) Influencing Skills
11 28 (1.17%) Aerospace
12 26 (1.08%) Investment Banking
13 25 (1.04%) Marketing
14 24 (1.00%) Presentation Skills
14 24 (1.00%) Telecoms
15 19 (0.79%) Financial Institution
16 17 (0.71%) Back Office
17 15 (0.63%) Billing
18 10 (0.42%) Retail Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 92 (3.84%) REST
2 79 (3.30%) Middleware
3 48 (2.00%) .NET
4 43 (1.79%) OAuth
5 39 (1.63%) OpenID
5 39 (1.63%) SOAP
6 29 (1.21%) OAuth2
7 28 (1.17%) SailPoint
7 28 (1.17%) SAML
8 26 (1.08%) Kafka
9 24 (1.00%) RESTful
10 23 (0.96%) JSON
10 23 (0.96%) Oracle Fusion
11 19 (0.79%) Node.js
12 18 (0.75%) React
12 18 (0.75%) Web Services
13 16 (0.67%) Microsoft Graph
14 15 (0.63%) LDAP
15 12 (0.50%) CSS
15 12 (0.50%) HTML
Miscellaneous
1 159 (6.63%) Cloud Native
2 84 (3.50%) Product Ownership
3 80 (3.34%) Data Centre
4 61 (2.54%) Operational Technology
5 55 (2.29%) Public Cloud
6 53 (2.21%) Onboarding
7 48 (2.00%) Management Information System
8 44 (1.84%) Hybrid Cloud
9 42 (1.75%) Data Protection Act
10 38 (1.59%) Enterprise Software
11 36 (1.50%) Legacy Systems
11 36 (1.50%) PKI
12 34 (1.42%) Distributed Systems
13 28 (1.17%) SCADA
14 25 (1.04%) CMDB
15 19 (0.79%) Private Cloud
16 17 (0.71%) AI Agents
16 17 (0.71%) Data Structures
16 17 (0.71%) Security Posture
17 14 (0.58%) Blackberry
Operating Systems
1 114 (4.76%) Windows
2 66 (2.75%) Linux
3 29 (1.21%) Windows Server
4 16 (0.67%) Android
4 16 (0.67%) Apple iOS
5 12 (0.50%) Unix
6 11 (0.46%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 8 (0.33%) Windows 10
7 8 (0.33%) Windows Server 2016
8 7 (0.29%) Windows 7
9 5 (0.21%) VMS
9 5 (0.21%) Windows Server 2019
10 4 (0.17%) Mac OS
11 3 (0.13%) Data ONTAP
11 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
12 1 (0.042%) CatOS
12 1 (0.042%) CentOS
12 1 (0.042%) Kali Linux
12 1 (0.042%) Ubuntu
12 1 (0.042%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 345 (14.39%) Agile
2 344 (14.35%) Roadmaps
3 257 (10.72%) Enterprise Architecture
4 255 (10.64%) Migration
5 251 (10.47%) Stakeholder Management
6 238 (9.93%) DevOps
7 208 (8.68%) CI/CD
8 202 (8.43%) Technical Leadership
8 202 (8.43%) TOGAF
9 179 (7.47%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 177 (7.38%) Data Modelling
11 174 (7.26%) Integration Patterns
11 174 (7.26%) Microservices
12 173 (7.22%) Architectural Patterns
13 163 (6.80%) Architectural Design
14 162 (6.76%) Data Architecture
15 150 (6.26%) Problem-Solving
16 144 (6.01%) Cybersecurity
17 132 (5.51%) AI
18 130 (5.42%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 105 (4.38%) Python
2 96 (4.01%) SQL
3 69 (2.88%) PowerShell
4 60 (2.50%) Java
5 48 (2.00%) JavaScript
6 31 (1.29%) C#
7 21 (0.88%) Bicep
8 15 (0.63%) Bash
9 13 (0.54%) TypeScript
10 12 (0.50%) PL/SQL
11 10 (0.42%) Kusto Query Language
12 7 (0.29%) VBA
13 6 (0.25%) Scala
14 5 (0.21%) ABAP
14 5 (0.21%) Shell Script
15 4 (0.17%) Apex Code
15 4 (0.17%) Perl
15 4 (0.17%) T-SQL
15 4 (0.17%) VB
15 4 (0.17%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 738 (30.79%) Security Cleared
2 429 (17.90%) SC Cleared
3 256 (10.68%) DV Cleared
4 102 (4.26%) Degree
5 74 (3.09%) TOGAF Certification
6 49 (2.04%) BPSS Clearance
7 44 (1.84%) Cisco Certification
8 38 (1.59%) AWS Certification
8 38 (1.59%) Azure Certification
9 36 (1.50%) CISSP
10 32 (1.34%) Computer Science Degree
11 31 (1.29%) CCNP
12 22 (0.92%) Microsoft Certification
13 18 (0.75%) ITIL Certification
14 17 (0.71%) CISM
14 17 (0.71%) ISEB
15 16 (0.67%) Master's Degree
16 15 (0.63%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 14 (0.58%) CCNA
18 10 (0.42%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 90 (3.75%) NIST
2 72 (3.00%) GDPR
3 62 (2.59%) Data Quality
4 56 (2.34%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 44 (1.84%) NCSC
6 20 (0.83%) COBIT
6 20 (0.83%) QA
7 19 (0.79%) Accessibility
8 16 (0.67%) Cyber Essentials
9 15 (0.63%) GRC
9 15 (0.63%) PCI DSS
10 12 (0.50%) FINRA
10 12 (0.50%) MiFID
11 11 (0.46%) NIST 800
12 10 (0.42%) ISO 20022
13 7 (0.29%) HL7
13 7 (0.29%) ISO 19650
14 6 (0.25%) Disclosure Scotland
14 6 (0.25%) JSP 440
14 6 (0.25%) SEPA
System Software
1 97 (4.05%) Active Directory
2 52 (2.17%) VMware Infrastructure
3 32 (1.34%) VMware NSX
4 31 (1.29%) Docker
5 19 (0.79%) vSphere
6 18 (0.75%) Virtual Desktop
7 15 (0.63%) Hyper-V
8 12 (0.50%) Virtual Machines
9 10 (0.42%) vCloud
9 10 (0.42%) VMware ESXi
10 5 (0.21%) RACF
11 4 (0.17%) BitLocker
11 4 (0.17%) NFS
12 3 (0.13%) IAG
13 2 (0.083%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
13 2 (0.083%) Firmware
14 1 (0.042%) Embedded Firmware
14 1 (0.042%) ProxySG
14 1 (0.042%) Snort
14 1 (0.042%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 84 (3.50%) Terraform
2 72 (3.00%) Kubernetes
3 55 (2.29%) Ansible
4 34 (1.42%) Microsoft Intune
5 26 (1.08%) vCenter Server
6 25 (1.04%) Single Sign-On
7 23 (0.96%) OPNET
8 15 (0.63%) SCCM
9 13 (0.54%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 12 (0.50%) FortiGate
11 9 (0.38%) Argo
11 9 (0.38%) Grafana
12 8 (0.33%) WMI
13 6 (0.25%) Istio
14 5 (0.21%) Endace
14 5 (0.21%) Jamf Pro
14 5 (0.21%) Prometheus
15 3 (0.13%) EMC VPLEX
15 3 (0.13%) Puppet
15 3 (0.13%) vRealize
Vendors
1 318 (13.27%) Microsoft
2 148 (6.17%) SAP
3 134 (5.59%) ServiceNow
4 128 (5.34%) VMware
5 95 (3.96%) Oracle
6 75 (3.13%) Cisco
7 63 (2.63%) Salesforce
8 52 (2.17%) Databricks
9 49 (2.04%) Google
10 47 (1.96%) MuleSoft
11 35 (1.46%) Remedy
12 31 (1.29%) Red Hat
13 30 (1.25%) Citrix
14 28 (1.17%) Atlassian
14 28 (1.17%) F5
15 27 (1.13%) Palo Alto
16 24 (1.00%) BiZZdesign
16 24 (1.00%) Sparx
17 22 (0.92%) Juniper
18 20 (0.83%) Talend