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 23 September 2026.

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

6 months to
23 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 2,583 1,198 1,667
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 9.13% 7.80% 9.54%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.00% 8.68% 10.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,738 821 997
10th Percentile £463 £462 £467
25th Percentile £525 £519 £525
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £600 £625
Median % change year-on-year +3.33% -4.00% -1.42%
75th Percentile £700 £688 £725
90th Percentile £769 £775 £780
UK median daily rate £618 £625 £625
% change year-on-year -1.20% - -3.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 158 12 64
10th Percentile £46.00 £30.99 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £56.62 £62.19
Median hourly rate £68.17 £71.25 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -4.33% +1.79% -6.67%
75th Percentile £78.75 £81.88 £85.00
90th Percentile £95.00 £98.75 £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 25,827 13,795 16,122
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.26% 89.82% 92.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,177 8,477 9,298
10th Percentile £303 £210 £220
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 £598
90th Percentile £688 £663 £676
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,377 1,275 1,372
10th Percentile £14.22 £13.50 £14.43
25th Percentile £19.78 £16.30 £19.59
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.08 £43.97
Median % change year-on-year +69.49% -42.97% +0.50%
75th Percentile £67.84 £51.32 £66.61
90th Percentile £78.58 £70.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.30 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.19% -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 23 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 23 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 23 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 +2 736 £625 +4.17% 598
North of England +1 685 £591 -1.46% 521
Midlands +3 438 £626 +8.91% 300
North West +7 377 £600 +4.35% 293
South West +1 345 £638 -1.92% 236
West Midlands +2 327 £650 +8.33% 229
Yorkshire +10 243 £555 -8.49% 172
Scotland +29 188 £625 - 217
East of England +7 160 £622 +12.07% 152
East Midlands +4 106 £600 +19.40% 71
North East +1 64 £600 -18.64% 56
Wales +4 44 £645 +3.20% 35
Channel Islands -3 8 £700 -5.72% 4
Northern Ireland +4 2 - - 67
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 23 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.

1 893 (34.57%) Security Cleared
2 583 (22.57%) Azure
3 580 (22.45%) SC Cleared
4 481 (18.62%) Stakeholder Management
5 441 (17.07%) AWS
6 379 (14.67%) Roadmaps
7 373 (14.44%) Microsoft
8 362 (14.01%) Technical Leadership
9 320 (12.39%) Migration
10 305 (11.81%) Enterprise Architecture
11 297 (11.50%) Agile
12 289 (11.19%) DV Cleared
13 241 (9.33%) Data Architecture
13 241 (9.33%) DevOps
13 241 (9.33%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 235 (9.10%) AI
15 228 (8.83%) CI/CD
16 217 (8.40%) Integration Patterns
17 212 (8.21%) Data Modelling
18 203 (7.86%) Cybersecurity
18 203 (7.86%) Security Architecture
19 197 (7.63%) Architectural Patterns
20 192 (7.43%) TOGAF
21 185 (7.16%) GCP
22 181 (7.01%) Architecture Governance
23 168 (6.50%) Continuous Improvement
24 162 (6.27%) Microservices
25 159 (6.16%) Event-Driven
26 150 (5.81%) Problem-Solving
27 146 (5.65%) 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 34 (1.32%) SAS
2 33 (1.28%) SharePoint
3 27 (1.05%) Confluence
4 17 (0.66%) Microsoft Exchange
5 13 (0.50%) 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 5 (0.19%) IIS
11 4 (0.15%) SAP EP
12 3 (0.12%) CMS
12 3 (0.12%) JBoss
13 2 (0.077%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 2 (0.077%) Alfresco
13 2 (0.077%) Apache Superset
14 1 (0.039%) Jupyter
14 1 (0.039%) Predix
Applications
1 11 (0.43%) MS Visio
2 10 (0.39%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (0.35%) Microsoft Office
4 8 (0.31%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.27%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.27%) Revit
6 6 (0.23%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 71 (2.75%) SAP S/4HANA
2 12 (0.46%) Teamcenter
3 9 (0.35%) Payment Gateway
3 9 (0.35%) Remedy ITSM
4 7 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
4 7 (0.27%) SAP ERP
4 7 (0.27%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 6 (0.23%) Dynamics CRM
5 6 (0.23%) Maximo
5 6 (0.23%) SAP MDG
6 5 (0.19%) Remedy AR System
7 4 (0.15%) NetSuite
7 4 (0.15%) Oracle Payables
7 4 (0.15%) SAP CRM
8 3 (0.12%) Dynamics NAV
8 3 (0.12%) Oracle Receivables
8 3 (0.12%) Salesforce CRM
8 3 (0.12%) SAP HR
8 3 (0.12%) SAP IBP
8 3 (0.12%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 583 (22.57%) Azure
2 441 (17.07%) AWS
3 185 (7.16%) GCP
4 98 (3.79%) SaaS
5 97 (3.76%) Power Platform
6 69 (2.67%) Serverless
7 67 (2.59%) Entra ID
8 65 (2.52%) Microsoft 365
9 53 (2.05%) Dynamics 365
10 47 (1.82%) Azure DevOps
11 45 (1.74%) GitHub
12 40 (1.55%) PaaS
13 35 (1.36%) IaaS
14 33 (1.28%) AWS Lambda
15 30 (1.16%) Snowflake
16 29 (1.12%) Amazon S3
17 26 (1.01%) GitHub Actions
18 24 (0.93%) OCI
19 21 (0.81%) Azure Data Factory
19 21 (0.81%) iPaaS
Communications & Networking
1 76 (2.94%) Firewall
2 57 (2.21%) WAN
3 53 (2.05%) DNS
3 53 (2.05%) Network Security
4 40 (1.55%) LAN
5 36 (1.39%) BGP
6 33 (1.28%) DHCP
7 31 (1.20%) MPLS
7 31 (1.20%) SD-WAN
8 28 (1.08%) VPN
9 27 (1.05%) TCP/IP
10 25 (0.97%) VLAN
11 21 (0.81%) SAN
12 18 (0.70%) NAS
13 17 (0.66%) BIG-IP
13 17 (0.66%) NX-OS
14 16 (0.62%) OSPF
15 15 (0.58%) Structured Cabling
16 14 (0.54%) VXLAN
16 14 (0.54%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 87 (3.37%) Metadata
2 80 (3.10%) Data Lake
3 72 (2.79%) Data Warehouse
4 63 (2.44%) Power BI
5 33 (1.28%) NoSQL
6 22 (0.85%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
7 21 (0.81%) Amazon RDS
8 19 (0.74%) Azure SQL Database
9 18 (0.70%) BigQuery
10 17 (0.66%) Oracle Database
11 16 (0.62%) Base SAS
12 15 (0.58%) SQL Server
13 11 (0.43%) GIS
13 11 (0.43%) PostgreSQL
14 10 (0.39%) Amazon Redshift
14 10 (0.39%) Delta Lake
15 9 (0.35%) Looker
15 9 (0.35%) MySQL
15 9 (0.35%) Pentaho
15 9 (0.35%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 35 (1.36%) Git
1 35 (1.36%) JIRA
2 21 (0.81%) Jenkins
3 19 (0.74%) GitLab
4 8 (0.31%) MSI
5 6 (0.23%) Claude Code
6 5 (0.19%) ERwin
7 4 (0.15%) Artifactory
7 4 (0.15%) Hudson
7 4 (0.15%) Sonatype Nexus
8 3 (0.12%) Postman
8 3 (0.12%) Selenium
9 2 (0.077%) Appium
9 2 (0.077%) Cucumber
9 2 (0.077%) Cypress.io
9 2 (0.077%) Oracle APEX
9 2 (0.077%) Rational DOORS
9 2 (0.077%) Rational Rhapsody
9 2 (0.077%) REST Assured
9 2 (0.077%) SonarQube
General
1 547 (21.18%) Social Skills
2 306 (11.85%) Finance
3 266 (10.30%) Public Sector
4 125 (4.84%) Analytical Skills
5 121 (4.68%) Banking
6 114 (4.41%) Retail
7 92 (3.56%) Manufacturing
8 72 (2.79%) Influencing Skills
9 62 (2.40%) Documentation Skills
10 53 (2.05%) Aerospace
11 42 (1.63%) Legal
12 34 (1.32%) Telecoms
13 30 (1.16%) Military
14 26 (1.01%) Marketing
15 22 (0.85%) Aviation
16 20 (0.77%) Back Office
16 20 (0.77%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 19 (0.74%) Presentation Skills
18 18 (0.70%) Billing
19 16 (0.62%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 108 (4.18%) REST
2 90 (3.48%) Terraform
3 73 (2.83%) Middleware
4 55 (2.13%) SOAP
5 51 (1.97%) OAuth
6 44 (1.70%) Kafka
7 40 (1.55%) Oracle Fusion
8 39 (1.51%) LDAP
9 34 (1.32%) SAML
10 31 (1.20%) .NET
11 30 (1.16%) OpenID
12 27 (1.05%) JSON
13 21 (0.81%) OAuth2
14 19 (0.74%) SailPoint
15 18 (0.70%) Node.js
16 17 (0.66%) GraphQL
17 16 (0.62%) JWT
17 16 (0.62%) SAP Fiori
18 15 (0.58%) Swagger
18 15 (0.58%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 192 (7.43%) Cloud Native
2 93 (3.60%) Data Centre
3 80 (3.10%) Hybrid Cloud
4 69 (2.67%) Onboarding
5 64 (2.48%) Distributed Systems
6 63 (2.44%) Product Ownership
7 62 (2.40%) Data Protection Act
8 61 (2.36%) Enterprise Software
9 59 (2.28%) Operational Technology
10 58 (2.25%) Legacy Systems
11 51 (1.97%) Management Information System
12 41 (1.59%) AI Agents
13 40 (1.55%) Public Cloud
14 39 (1.51%) CMDB
15 38 (1.47%) Private Cloud
16 28 (1.08%) Enterprise Cloud
17 27 (1.05%) IVR
18 24 (0.93%) PKI
18 24 (0.93%) Security Posture
19 21 (0.81%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 87 (3.37%) Windows
2 56 (2.17%) Linux
3 37 (1.43%) Windows Server
4 17 (0.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 8 (0.31%) 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
1 481 (18.62%) Stakeholder Management
2 379 (14.67%) Roadmaps
3 362 (14.01%) Technical Leadership
4 320 (12.39%) Migration
5 305 (11.81%) Enterprise Architecture
6 297 (11.50%) Agile
7 241 (9.33%) Data Architecture
7 241 (9.33%) DevOps
7 241 (9.33%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 235 (9.10%) AI
9 228 (8.83%) CI/CD
10 217 (8.40%) Integration Patterns
11 212 (8.21%) Data Modelling
12 203 (7.86%) Cybersecurity
12 203 (7.86%) Security Architecture
13 197 (7.63%) Architectural Patterns
14 192 (7.43%) TOGAF
15 181 (7.01%) Architecture Governance
16 168 (6.50%) Continuous Improvement
17 162 (6.27%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 94 (3.64%) Java
1 94 (3.64%) SQL
2 87 (3.37%) Python
3 52 (2.01%) PowerShell
4 49 (1.90%) JavaScript
5 24 (0.93%) Bash
6 14 (0.54%) ABAP
6 14 (0.54%) TypeScript
7 10 (0.39%) Shell Script
8 9 (0.35%) Apex Code
8 9 (0.35%) Bicep
8 9 (0.35%) C#
9 6 (0.23%) PL/SQL
9 6 (0.23%) VBA
10 5 (0.19%) Groovy
11 4 (0.15%) PHP
12 3 (0.12%) COBOL
12 3 (0.12%) R
13 2 (0.077%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 2 (0.077%) Go
Qualifications
1 893 (34.57%) Security Cleared
2 580 (22.45%) SC Cleared
3 289 (11.19%) DV Cleared
4 72 (2.79%) Degree
5 68 (2.63%) CISSP
6 62 (2.40%) Cisco Certification
7 57 (2.21%) BPSS Clearance
8 44 (1.70%) AWS Certification
9 43 (1.66%) TOGAF Certification
10 41 (1.59%) Azure Certification
11 31 (1.20%) Computer Science Degree
12 29 (1.12%) CCNP
13 23 (0.89%) CISM
14 20 (0.77%) CCIE
15 19 (0.74%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 19 (0.74%) Microsoft Certification
16 15 (0.58%) 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
1 101 (3.91%) NIST
2 87 (3.37%) Data Quality
3 71 (2.75%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 59 (2.28%) NCSC
5 49 (1.90%) GDPR
6 28 (1.08%) QA
7 19 (0.74%) JSP 440
7 19 (0.74%) PCI DSS
8 18 (0.70%) GRC
9 17 (0.66%) Accessibility
10 16 (0.62%) ISO/IEC 20000
11 15 (0.58%) NIST 800
12 13 (0.50%) Disclosure Scotland
12 13 (0.50%) ISO 19650
13 11 (0.43%) IFRS
13 11 (0.43%) SLA
14 9 (0.35%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 7 (0.27%) ISO/IEC 27005
16 6 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
17 5 (0.19%) Cyber Essentials
System Software
1 102 (3.95%) Active Directory
2 49 (1.90%) VMware Infrastructure
3 45 (1.74%) Docker
4 29 (1.12%) VMware NSX
5 23 (0.89%) Virtual Desktop
6 14 (0.54%) Hyper-V
7 13 (0.50%) VMware ESXi
8 12 (0.46%) vSphere
9 9 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
10 4 (0.15%) ISA Server
10 4 (0.15%) KVM
11 3 (0.12%) Ceph
11 3 (0.12%) EMC RecoverPoint
11 3 (0.12%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 3 (0.12%) SRDF
11 3 (0.12%) vCloud
11 3 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
12 2 (0.077%) NFS
12 2 (0.077%) zsh
13 1 (0.039%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 129 (4.99%) Kubernetes
2 53 (2.05%) Ansible
3 21 (0.81%) Microsoft Intune
4 19 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
5 14 (0.54%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 13 (0.50%) Prometheus
7 12 (0.46%) Grafana
7 12 (0.46%) Jamf Pro
8 11 (0.43%) WMI
9 8 (0.31%) CASB
9 8 (0.31%) vCenter Server
10 7 (0.27%) FortiGate
11 5 (0.19%) Argo
11 5 (0.19%) Istio
11 5 (0.19%) NetBackup
12 4 (0.15%) Cisco CUCM
12 4 (0.15%) EMC VPLEX
12 4 (0.15%) SnapMirror
13 3 (0.12%) EMC NetWorker
13 3 (0.12%) MOM
Vendors
1 373 (14.44%) Microsoft
2 132 (5.11%) SAP
3 113 (4.37%) Oracle
4 110 (4.26%) Google
5 103 (3.99%) ServiceNow
6 89 (3.45%) VMware
7 82 (3.17%) Cisco
7 82 (3.17%) Databricks
8 58 (2.25%) Salesforce
9 43 (1.66%) CyberArk
10 32 (1.24%) MuleSoft
11 30 (1.16%) F5
12 23 (0.89%) IBM
12 23 (0.89%) Informatica
13 20 (0.77%) Red Hat
13 20 (0.77%) Workday
14 19 (0.74%) Infoblox
15 17 (0.66%) Palo Alto
16 16 (0.62%) Foundry
17 15 (0.58%) Fortinet