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 £622, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 11 September 2026.

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

6 months to
11 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 2,575 1,231 1,747
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 9.14% 7.96% 9.73%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.01% 8.86% 10.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,742 834 1,055
10th Percentile £468 £462 £469
25th Percentile £525 £519 £538
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £622 £600 £630
Median % change year-on-year +3.67% -4.76% -1.25%
75th Percentile £700 £688 £725
90th Percentile £775 £775 £788
UK median daily rate £620 £625 £638
% change year-on-year -0.80% -1.96% -1.92%
Number of hourly rates quoted 145 15 68
10th Percentile £46.00 £33.64 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £64.38 £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 £86.50 £85.00
90th Percentile £95.60 £99.42 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £66.66 £72.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -8.06% +3.57% -0.12%

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 25,737 13,896 16,594
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.37% 89.84% 92.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,346 8,529 9,709
10th Percentile £303 £213 £225
25th Percentile £413 £363 £379
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 £685
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,229 1,250 1,488
10th Percentile £14.22 £13.27 £14.28
25th Percentile £19.78 £16.17 £19.50
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +12.50%
75th Percentile £67.84 £52.50 £66.61
90th Percentile £78.75 £71.50 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +67.00% -41.51% +1.18%

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 11 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 11 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 11 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 +1 739 £625 +4.17% 417
North of England +6 707 £600 - 313
Midlands +2 425 £626 +9.34% 166
North West +9 414 £600 +4.35% 166
South West +1 339 £640 -0.62% 152
West Midlands +1 318 £650 +8.51% 111
Yorkshire +10 230 £575 -4.17% 117
Scotland +22 177 £625 +0.60% 140
East of England +10 158 £616 +11.04% 126
East Midlands +4 102 £600 +19.40% 54
North East -5 64 £600 -15.79% 30
Wales +1 42 £633 +1.20% 10
Channel Islands -3 6 £663 -10.77% 4
Northern Ireland +1 3 £475 -28.30% 50
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 11 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.

1 889 (34.52%) Security Cleared
2 596 (23.15%) Azure
3 579 (22.49%) SC Cleared
4 456 (17.71%) AWS
5 446 (17.32%) Stakeholder Management
6 375 (14.56%) Roadmaps
7 366 (14.21%) Microsoft
8 341 (13.24%) Technical Leadership
9 306 (11.88%) Agile
10 304 (11.81%) Enterprise Architecture
11 303 (11.77%) Migration
12 276 (10.72%) DV Cleared
13 246 (9.55%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 241 (9.36%) DevOps
15 232 (9.01%) Data Architecture
15 232 (9.01%) Integration Patterns
16 231 (8.97%) AI
17 224 (8.70%) CI/CD
18 216 (8.39%) Security Architecture
19 211 (8.19%) Data Modelling
20 206 (8.00%) Architectural Patterns
21 205 (7.96%) Cybersecurity
22 193 (7.50%) TOGAF
23 185 (7.18%) GCP
24 184 (7.15%) Architecture Governance
25 169 (6.56%) Microservices
26 166 (6.45%) Continuous Improvement
27 160 (6.21%) Event-Driven
28 148 (5.75%) Decision-Making
28 148 (5.75%) 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%) SharePoint
2 32 (1.24%) SAS
3 30 (1.17%) 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%) SAP EP
11 3 (0.12%) CMS
11 3 (0.12%) IIS
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
5 1 (0.039%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 72 (2.80%) SAP S/4HANA
2 12 (0.47%) Teamcenter
3 11 (0.43%) Payment Gateway
4 10 (0.39%) Remedy ITSM
4 10 (0.39%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 9 (0.35%) SAP ERP
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
1 596 (23.15%) Azure
2 456 (17.71%) AWS
3 185 (7.18%) GCP
4 95 (3.69%) SaaS
5 90 (3.50%) Power Platform
6 77 (2.99%) Entra ID
7 76 (2.95%) Serverless
8 59 (2.29%) Microsoft 365
9 48 (1.86%) Azure DevOps
9 48 (1.86%) Dynamics 365
10 43 (1.67%) GitHub
11 39 (1.51%) PaaS
12 35 (1.36%) AWS Lambda
13 32 (1.24%) IaaS
14 28 (1.09%) GitHub Actions
14 28 (1.09%) Snowflake
15 27 (1.05%) Amazon S3
16 25 (0.97%) OpenShift
17 21 (0.82%) Azure Data Factory
17 21 (0.82%) iPaaS
Communications & Networking
1 88 (3.42%) Firewall
2 66 (2.56%) WAN
3 57 (2.21%) Network Security
4 55 (2.14%) DNS
5 48 (1.86%) LAN
6 37 (1.44%) SD-WAN
7 35 (1.36%) VPN
8 34 (1.32%) BGP
9 33 (1.28%) DHCP
10 30 (1.17%) MPLS
11 27 (1.05%) TCP/IP
12 26 (1.01%) VLAN
13 23 (0.89%) SAN
14 20 (0.78%) 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 72 (2.80%) Data Lake
3 63 (2.45%) Data Warehouse
4 62 (2.41%) Power BI
5 34 (1.32%) 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%) Electronic Patient Records
13 9 (0.35%) Semantic Layer
14 8 (0.31%) Looker
Development Applications
1 36 (1.40%) JIRA
2 32 (1.24%) Git
3 23 (0.89%) 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
1 529 (20.54%) Social Skills
2 307 (11.92%) Finance
3 266 (10.33%) Public Sector
4 128 (4.97%) Banking
5 127 (4.93%) Analytical Skills
6 110 (4.27%) Retail
7 92 (3.57%) Manufacturing
8 64 (2.49%) Influencing Skills
9 62 (2.41%) Documentation Skills
10 43 (1.67%) Legal
11 42 (1.63%) Aerospace
12 36 (1.40%) Military
13 31 (1.20%) Telecoms
14 24 (0.93%) Marketing
15 22 (0.85%) Aviation
16 20 (0.78%) Back Office
16 20 (0.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 18 (0.70%) Billing
17 18 (0.70%) Presentation Skills
18 16 (0.62%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 109 (4.23%) REST
2 88 (3.42%) Terraform
3 75 (2.91%) Middleware
4 54 (2.10%) OAuth
5 53 (2.06%) SOAP
6 38 (1.48%) Kafka
6 38 (1.48%) Oracle Fusion
7 35 (1.36%) LDAP
7 35 (1.36%) SAML
8 33 (1.28%) .NET
9 32 (1.24%) OpenID
10 26 (1.01%) JSON
11 22 (0.85%) OAuth2
12 19 (0.74%) SailPoint
13 18 (0.70%) Node.js
14 17 (0.66%) GraphQL
15 15 (0.58%) JWT
15 15 (0.58%) Swagger
16 14 (0.54%) SAP Fiori
16 14 (0.54%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 205 (7.96%) Cloud Native
2 84 (3.26%) Data Centre
3 78 (3.03%) Hybrid Cloud
4 66 (2.56%) Operational Technology
5 63 (2.45%) Distributed Systems
6 62 (2.41%) Onboarding
7 60 (2.33%) Data Protection Act
7 60 (2.33%) Enterprise Software
7 60 (2.33%) Legacy Systems
8 59 (2.29%) Product Ownership
9 52 (2.02%) Management Information System
10 42 (1.63%) Public Cloud
11 39 (1.51%) AI Agents
12 35 (1.36%) CMDB
13 34 (1.32%) Private Cloud
14 27 (1.05%) Enterprise Cloud
14 27 (1.05%) Security Posture
15 26 (1.01%) IVR
16 25 (0.97%) PKI
17 22 (0.85%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 85 (3.30%) Windows
2 58 (2.25%) 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%) Android
8 2 (0.078%) Apple iOS
8 2 (0.078%) HPUX
8 2 (0.078%) Solaris
8 2 (0.078%) Windows 10
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
1 446 (17.32%) Stakeholder Management
2 375 (14.56%) Roadmaps
3 341 (13.24%) Technical Leadership
4 306 (11.88%) Agile
5 304 (11.81%) Enterprise Architecture
6 303 (11.77%) Migration
7 246 (9.55%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 241 (9.36%) DevOps
9 232 (9.01%) Data Architecture
9 232 (9.01%) Integration Patterns
10 231 (8.97%) AI
11 224 (8.70%) CI/CD
12 216 (8.39%) Security Architecture
13 211 (8.19%) Data Modelling
14 206 (8.00%) Architectural Patterns
15 205 (7.96%) Cybersecurity
16 193 (7.50%) TOGAF
17 184 (7.15%) Architecture Governance
18 169 (6.56%) Microservices
19 166 (6.45%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 98 (3.81%) 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 3 (0.12%) PHP
12 3 (0.12%) R
13 2 (0.078%) BeanShell
13 2 (0.078%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 2 (0.078%) Scala
Qualifications
1 889 (34.52%) Security Cleared
2 579 (22.49%) SC Cleared
3 276 (10.72%) DV Cleared
4 70 (2.72%) Degree
5 66 (2.56%) CISSP
6 61 (2.37%) Cisco Certification
7 55 (2.14%) BPSS Clearance
8 44 (1.71%) Azure Certification
9 42 (1.63%) AWS Certification
9 42 (1.63%) TOGAF Certification
10 31 (1.20%) Computer Science Degree
11 30 (1.17%) CCNP
12 24 (0.93%) CISM
13 20 (0.78%) CCIE
14 19 (0.74%) Microsoft Certification
15 17 (0.66%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 14 (0.54%) JNCIE
17 12 (0.47%) CCNA
18 11 (0.43%) CCSP
18 11 (0.43%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 110 (4.27%) NIST
2 85 (3.30%) Data Quality
3 77 (2.99%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 65 (2.52%) NCSC
5 53 (2.06%) GDPR
6 28 (1.09%) QA
7 18 (0.70%) PCI DSS
8 17 (0.66%) JSP 440
8 17 (0.66%) NIST 800
9 15 (0.58%) Accessibility
9 15 (0.58%) GRC
9 15 (0.58%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 13 (0.50%) ISO 19650
11 11 (0.43%) Disclosure Scotland
11 11 (0.43%) IFRS
11 11 (0.43%) SLA
12 9 (0.35%) HL7
12 9 (0.35%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 7 (0.27%) Cyber Essentials
14 6 (0.23%) SNOMED CT
System Software
1 104 (4.04%) Active Directory
2 49 (1.90%) Docker
3 47 (1.83%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.05%) VMware NSX
5 26 (1.01%) Virtual Desktop
6 17 (0.66%) Hyper-V
7 13 (0.50%) vSphere
8 11 (0.43%) VMware ESXi
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%) NFS
11 3 (0.12%) SRDF
12 2 (0.078%) ISA Server
12 2 (0.078%) zsh
13 1 (0.039%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 1 (0.039%) ProxySG
13 1 (0.039%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 132 (5.13%) 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 7 (0.27%) CASB
9 7 (0.27%) FortiGate
10 6 (0.23%) Argo
10 6 (0.23%) Istio
11 5 (0.19%) NetBackup
12 4 (0.16%) Cisco CUCM
12 4 (0.16%) EMC VPLEX
12 4 (0.16%) SnapMirror
13 3 (0.12%) EMC NetWorker
13 3 (0.12%) SnapVault
Vendors
1 366 (14.21%) Microsoft
2 142 (5.51%) SAP
3 110 (4.27%) Oracle
4 100 (3.88%) Google
5 97 (3.77%) ServiceNow
6 88 (3.42%) VMware
7 84 (3.26%) Cisco
8 81 (3.15%) Databricks
9 54 (2.10%) Salesforce
10 39 (1.51%) CyberArk
11 32 (1.24%) MuleSoft
12 29 (1.13%) F5
13 23 (0.89%) Informatica
13 23 (0.89%) Palo Alto
14 22 (0.85%) IBM
15 20 (0.78%) Red Hat
15 20 (0.78%) Workday
16 17 (0.66%) Infoblox
17 16 (0.62%) Foundry
17 16 (0.62%) Juniper