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 1 October 2026.

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

6 months to
1 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 14 21 13
Rank change year-on-year +7 -8 +3
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 2,575 1,209 1,647
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 9.09% 7.73% 9.43%
As % of the Job Titles category 9.97% 8.63% 10.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,721 835 969
10th Percentile £465 £461 £463
25th Percentile £525 £519 £525
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £600 £625
Median % change year-on-year +3.33% -4.00% -2.19%
75th Percentile £700 £691 £723
90th Percentile £769 £775 £775
UK median daily rate £620 £625 £627
% change year-on-year -0.80% -0.32% -3.54%
Number of hourly rates quoted 165 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 25,823 14,015 16,120
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.16% 89.66% 92.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,089 8,639 9,175
10th Percentile £303 £212 £219
25th Percentile £413 £363 £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 £669 £675
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,420 1,302 1,311
10th Percentile £14.22 £13.50 £14.69
25th Percentile £19.33 £16.30 £19.92
Median hourly rate £41.87 £25.08 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +66.97% -41.69% -2.05%
75th Percentile £67.70 £50.00 £66.61
90th Percentile £78.50 £69.65 £74.50
UK median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +65.94% -41.51% -2.82%

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 1 October 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 1 October 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 1 October 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 +4 725 £625 +4.17% 479
North of England +3 681 £600 - 492
Midlands +3 447 £627 +8.96% 274
North West +6 373 £597 +3.74% 272
South West +4 345 £638 -1.92% 235
West Midlands +5 336 £650 +8.33% 200
Yorkshire +15 243 £600 -2.04% 165
Scotland +20 191 £625 +2.67% 191
East of England +3 154 £622 +11.32% 173
East Midlands +6 106 £600 +20.00% 74
North East +3 68 £625 -13.79% 55
Wales +1 44 £640 +2.40% 63
Channel Islands 0 11 £700 -5.72% 1
Northern Ireland +7 2 - - 65
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 1 October 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.

1 879 (34.14%) Security Cleared
2 581 (22.56%) Azure
3 570 (22.14%) SC Cleared
4 490 (19.03%) Stakeholder Management
5 439 (17.05%) AWS
6 378 (14.68%) Roadmaps
7 374 (14.52%) Microsoft
8 359 (13.94%) Technical Leadership
9 326 (12.66%) Migration
10 308 (11.96%) Enterprise Architecture
11 288 (11.18%) Agile
11 288 (11.18%) DV Cleared
12 246 (9.55%) Data Architecture
13 242 (9.40%) DevOps
13 242 (9.40%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 239 (9.28%) AI
15 232 (9.01%) CI/CD
16 221 (8.58%) Integration Patterns
17 213 (8.27%) Data Modelling
18 203 (7.88%) Cybersecurity
18 203 (7.88%) Security Architecture
19 195 (7.57%) Architectural Patterns
20 194 (7.53%) TOGAF
21 192 (7.46%) GCP
22 184 (7.15%) Architecture Governance
23 163 (6.33%) Continuous Improvement
24 161 (6.25%) Microservices
25 160 (6.21%) Event-Driven
26 148 (5.75%) Analytics
27 147 (5.71%) 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 (0.47%) 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 (0.16%) SAP EP
13 3 (0.12%) CMS
13 3 (0.12%) JBoss
14 2 (0.078%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 2 (0.078%) Apache Superset
15 1 (0.039%) CIMPLICITY
15 1 (0.039%) FactoryTalk
15 1 (0.039%) Red Hat Fuse
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 72 (2.80%) SAP S/4HANA
2 12 (0.47%) 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
4 7 (0.27%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 6 (0.23%) Maximo
5 6 (0.23%) SAP MDG
6 5 (0.19%) Remedy AR System
6 5 (0.19%) SAP ERP
7 4 (0.16%) NetSuite
7 4 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
7 4 (0.16%) SAP CRM
7 4 (0.16%) Workday HCM
8 3 (0.12%) Dynamics NAV
8 3 (0.12%) Oracle Retail
8 3 (0.12%) SAP HR
8 3 (0.12%) SAP MM
8 3 (0.12%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 581 (22.56%) Azure
2 439 (17.05%) AWS
3 192 (7.46%) GCP
4 99 (3.84%) SaaS
5 94 (3.65%) Power Platform
6 66 (2.56%) Entra ID
7 65 (2.52%) Microsoft 365
7 65 (2.52%) Serverless
8 55 (2.14%) Dynamics 365
9 48 (1.86%) Azure DevOps
10 47 (1.83%) GitHub
11 36 (1.40%) PaaS
12 31 (1.20%) AWS Lambda
12 31 (1.20%) IaaS
12 31 (1.20%) Snowflake
13 28 (1.09%) Amazon S3
14 26 (1.01%) GitHub Actions
15 25 (0.97%) OCI
16 21 (0.82%) iPaaS
16 21 (0.82%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 75 (2.91%) Firewall
2 54 (2.10%) WAN
3 53 (2.06%) Network Security
4 49 (1.90%) DNS
5 36 (1.40%) BGP
5 36 (1.40%) LAN
6 31 (1.20%) MPLS
7 29 (1.13%) DHCP
7 29 (1.13%) SD-WAN
8 27 (1.05%) VPN
9 25 (0.97%) TCP/IP
10 21 (0.82%) VLAN
11 19 (0.74%) SAN
12 17 (0.66%) NX-OS
13 16 (0.62%) NAS
14 15 (0.58%) VXLAN
15 14 (0.54%) BIG-IP
15 14 (0.54%) OSPF
15 14 (0.54%) Structured Cabling
16 12 (0.47%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 89 (3.46%) Metadata
2 80 (3.11%) Data Lake
3 76 (2.95%) Data Warehouse
4 60 (2.33%) Power BI
5 30 (1.17%) NoSQL
6 21 (0.82%) Amazon RDS
6 21 (0.82%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
7 20 (0.78%) BigQuery
8 19 (0.74%) Azure SQL Database
9 16 (0.62%) Base SAS
9 16 (0.62%) Oracle Database
10 14 (0.54%) SQL Server
11 12 (0.47%) GIS
12 11 (0.43%) PostgreSQL
13 10 (0.39%) Amazon Redshift
13 10 (0.39%) Delta Lake
13 10 (0.39%) Looker
14 9 (0.35%) MySQL
14 9 (0.35%) Pentaho
14 9 (0.35%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 36 (1.40%) Git
2 33 (1.28%) JIRA
3 22 (0.85%) Jenkins
4 21 (0.82%) GitLab
5 9 (0.35%) MSI
6 6 (0.23%) Claude Code
7 4 (0.16%) Artifactory
7 4 (0.16%) ERwin
7 4 (0.16%) Sonatype Nexus
8 3 (0.12%) Postman
8 3 (0.12%) Selenium
9 2 (0.078%) Appium
9 2 (0.078%) Cypress.io
9 2 (0.078%) Hudson
9 2 (0.078%) IntelliJ
9 2 (0.078%) JUnit
9 2 (0.078%) Oracle APEX
9 2 (0.078%) Oracle Forms
9 2 (0.078%) REST Assured
9 2 (0.078%) SonarQube
General
1 547 (21.24%) Social Skills
2 301 (11.69%) Finance
3 268 (10.41%) Public Sector
4 124 (4.82%) Analytical Skills
5 114 (4.43%) Retail
6 112 (4.35%) Banking
7 96 (3.73%) Manufacturing
8 74 (2.87%) Influencing Skills
9 60 (2.33%) Documentation Skills
10 56 (2.17%) Aerospace
11 40 (1.55%) Legal
12 38 (1.48%) Telecoms
13 30 (1.17%) Military
14 28 (1.09%) Marketing
15 23 (0.89%) Aviation
16 20 (0.78%) Back Office
16 20 (0.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 19 (0.74%) Presentation Skills
18 17 (0.66%) Billing
19 16 (0.62%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 113 (4.39%) REST
2 89 (3.46%) Terraform
3 71 (2.76%) Middleware
4 57 (2.21%) SOAP
5 51 (1.98%) OAuth
6 46 (1.79%) Kafka
7 40 (1.55%) Oracle Fusion
8 39 (1.51%) LDAP
9 34 (1.32%) SAML
10 30 (1.17%) .NET
11 29 (1.13%) OpenID
12 23 (0.89%) JSON
13 21 (0.82%) OAuth2
14 20 (0.78%) SAP Fiori
15 19 (0.74%) SailPoint
16 17 (0.66%) GraphQL
16 17 (0.66%) Node.js
17 15 (0.58%) JWT
17 15 (0.58%) SAPUI5
17 15 (0.58%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 194 (7.53%) Cloud Native
2 92 (3.57%) Data Centre
3 82 (3.18%) Hybrid Cloud
4 71 (2.76%) Onboarding
5 66 (2.56%) Product Ownership
6 63 (2.45%) Enterprise Software
7 62 (2.41%) Legacy Systems
8 60 (2.33%) Data Protection Act
8 60 (2.33%) Distributed Systems
9 58 (2.25%) Operational Technology
10 51 (1.98%) Management Information System
11 42 (1.63%) Public Cloud
12 40 (1.55%) AI Agents
12 40 (1.55%) Private Cloud
13 39 (1.51%) CMDB
14 28 (1.09%) Enterprise Cloud
15 27 (1.05%) IVR
16 24 (0.93%) PKI
17 23 (0.89%) Security Posture
18 22 (0.85%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 89 (3.46%) Windows
2 55 (2.14%) 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%) HPUX
8 2 (0.078%) Solaris
8 2 (0.078%) 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
1 490 (19.03%) Stakeholder Management
2 378 (14.68%) Roadmaps
3 359 (13.94%) Technical Leadership
4 326 (12.66%) Migration
5 308 (11.96%) Enterprise Architecture
6 288 (11.18%) Agile
7 246 (9.55%) Data Architecture
8 242 (9.40%) DevOps
8 242 (9.40%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 239 (9.28%) AI
10 232 (9.01%) CI/CD
11 221 (8.58%) Integration Patterns
12 213 (8.27%) Data Modelling
13 203 (7.88%) Cybersecurity
13 203 (7.88%) Security Architecture
14 195 (7.57%) Architectural Patterns
15 194 (7.53%) TOGAF
16 184 (7.15%) Architecture Governance
17 163 (6.33%) Continuous Improvement
18 161 (6.25%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 94 (3.65%) Java
2 89 (3.46%) SQL
3 82 (3.18%) Python
4 51 (1.98%) PowerShell
5 43 (1.67%) JavaScript
6 24 (0.93%) Bash
7 16 (0.62%) 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
12 5 (0.19%) Groovy
13 4 (0.16%) PHP
13 4 (0.16%) VBA
14 3 (0.12%) R
15 2 (0.078%) BeanShell
15 2 (0.078%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 2 (0.078%) Go
Qualifications
1 879 (34.14%) Security Cleared
2 570 (22.14%) SC Cleared
3 288 (11.18%) DV Cleared
4 73 (2.83%) Degree
5 67 (2.60%) CISSP
6 66 (2.56%) BPSS Clearance
7 60 (2.33%) Cisco Certification
8 47 (1.83%) AWS Certification
9 44 (1.71%) TOGAF Certification
10 41 (1.59%) Azure Certification
11 33 (1.28%) Computer Science Degree
12 28 (1.09%) CCNP
13 24 (0.93%) CISM
14 21 (0.82%) 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 (0.47%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
18 12 (0.47%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 102 (3.96%) NIST
2 88 (3.42%) Data Quality
3 71 (2.76%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 61 (2.37%) NCSC
5 46 (1.79%) GDPR
6 26 (1.01%) QA
7 19 (0.74%) ISO/IEC 20000
7 19 (0.74%) JSP 440
7 19 (0.74%) PCI DSS
8 17 (0.66%) Accessibility
8 17 (0.66%) GRC
9 14 (0.54%) ISO 19650
9 14 (0.54%) NIST 800
10 13 (0.50%) Disclosure Scotland
11 11 (0.43%) SLA
12 10 (0.39%) IFRS
13 9 (0.35%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 7 (0.27%) ISO/IEC 27005
15 6 (0.23%) Actionable Recommendations
15 6 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
System Software
1 99 (3.84%) Active Directory
2 48 (1.86%) VMware Infrastructure
3 44 (1.71%) Docker
4 29 (1.13%) 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 (0.16%) ISA Server
9 4 (0.16%) 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 (0.078%) NFS
11 2 (0.078%) vCloud
11 2 (0.078%) zsh
Systems Management
1 127 (4.93%) Kubernetes
2 50 (1.94%) Ansible
3 20 (0.78%) Microsoft Intune
4 19 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
5 14 (0.54%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 12 (0.47%) Jamf Pro
6 12 (0.47%) Prometheus
6 12 (0.47%) 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 (0.16%) Cisco CUCM
11 4 (0.16%) EMC VPLEX
11 4 (0.16%) SnapMirror
11 4 (0.16%) VxRail
12 3 (0.12%) SnapVault
Vendors
1 374 (14.52%) Microsoft
2 130 (5.05%) SAP
3 113 (4.39%) Google
4 111 (4.31%) Oracle
5 101 (3.92%) ServiceNow
6 83 (3.22%) VMware
7 79 (3.07%) Cisco
7 79 (3.07%) Databricks
8 58 (2.25%) Salesforce
9 43 (1.67%) CyberArk
10 31 (1.20%) MuleSoft
11 26 (1.01%) F5
12 21 (0.82%) Informatica
12 21 (0.82%) Red Hat
12 21 (0.82%) Workday
13 20 (0.78%) IBM
14 18 (0.70%) Infoblox
15 17 (0.66%) Palo Alto
16 16 (0.62%) Foundry
17 15 (0.58%) Adobe