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 29 April 2026.

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

6 months to
29 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 18 13
Rank change year-on-year +8 -5 +6
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 2,392 1,104 2,035
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 10.00% 8.70% 9.85%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.86% 9.43% 10.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,555 753 1,237
10th Percentile £450 £450 £500
25th Percentile £513 £537 £569
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £613 £610 £650
Median % change year-on-year +0.41% -6.15% -
75th Percentile £714 £700 £738
90th Percentile £775 £750 £800
UK median daily rate £620 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -1.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 107 28 75
10th Percentile £49.40 £58.65 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £61.25
Median hourly rate £69.44 £72.91 £75.00
Median % change year-on-year -4.75% -2.79% +7.14%
75th Percentile £83.50 £81.00 £87.46
90th Percentile £96.00 £85.58 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £69.00 £71.25 £70.00
% change year-on-year -3.16% +1.79% -

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 22,019 11,712 19,144
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.03% 92.26% 92.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,903 7,527 11,706
10th Percentile £280 £213 £213
25th Percentile £400 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £475 £491
Median % change year-on-year +3.16% -3.27% -1.78%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £600
90th Percentile £677 £650 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £515 £525
% change year-on-year -2.91% -1.90% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,458 824 2,224
10th Percentile £14.64 £14.08 £12.50
25th Percentile £20.00 £18.13 £15.74
Median hourly rate £45.23 £28.75 £37.75
Median % change year-on-year +57.32% -23.84% -11.18%
75th Percentile £66.00 £65.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £43.69 £29.15 £35.96
% change year-on-year +49.88% -18.93% -20.10%

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 29 April 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 29 April 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 29 April 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 +4 714 £625 - 121
North of England +6 630 £600 - 115
Midlands 0 414 £590 -1.73% 74
North West +9 365 £605 +0.83% 78
West Midlands -1 305 £610 +1.71% 57
South West +1 303 £693 +15.42% 60
Yorkshire +7 237 £558 -8.90% 22
East of England +18 201 £563 -6.25% 33
Scotland +10 138 £650 +4.00% 9
East Midlands -2 103 £525 -4.55% 17
North East +4 37 £575 -7.95% 15
Wales -11 25 £600 +17.65% 16
Northern Ireland +10 10 £488 -26.42% 14
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 29 April 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.

1 754 (31.52%) Security Cleared
2 455 (19.02%) Azure
3 426 (17.81%) SC Cleared
4 354 (14.80%) Roadmaps
5 351 (14.67%) AWS
6 339 (14.17%) Agile
7 329 (13.75%) Microsoft
8 270 (11.29%) DV Cleared
9 264 (11.04%) Migration
10 261 (10.91%) Enterprise Architecture
11 260 (10.87%) Stakeholder Management
12 223 (9.32%) DevOps
13 212 (8.86%) TOGAF
14 203 (8.49%) CI/CD
15 198 (8.28%) Technical Leadership
16 178 (7.44%) Data Modelling
16 178 (7.44%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 168 (7.02%) Integration Patterns
18 167 (6.98%) Microservices
19 165 (6.90%) Architectural Patterns
20 162 (6.77%) Problem-Solving
21 156 (6.52%) Architectural Design
22 150 (6.27%) Data Architecture
23 146 (6.10%) SAP
24 143 (5.98%) ServiceNow
25 139 (5.81%) Analytics
25 139 (5.81%) Cybersecurity
26 137 (5.73%) ITIL
27 135 (5.64%) VMware
28 133 (5.56%) AI

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 74 (3.09%) Confluence
2 65 (2.72%) SharePoint
3 45 (1.88%) Microsoft Exchange
4 19 (0.79%) SAS
5 13 (0.54%) Appian
6 11 (0.46%) Apache
6 11 (0.46%) CMS
7 10 (0.42%) Anypoint
7 10 (0.42%) ArcGIS
8 8 (0.33%) Apache Airflow
9 7 (0.29%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 7 (0.29%) Apache Spark
9 7 (0.29%) Skype for Business
10 6 (0.25%) NetWeaver
10 6 (0.25%) Sitecore CMS
10 6 (0.25%) Smallworld
10 6 (0.25%) WebLogic
11 5 (0.21%) SAP EP
12 4 (0.17%) IIS
12 4 (0.17%) JBoss
Applications
1 44 (1.84%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (1.30%) Microsoft Project
3 16 (0.67%) Microsoft Excel
3 16 (0.67%) 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 (0.084%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.042%) OrCAD
Business Applications
1 55 (2.30%) SAP S/4HANA
2 30 (1.25%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 21 (0.88%) Payment Gateway
4 12 (0.50%) Workday HCM
5 10 (0.42%) SAP ERP
6 9 (0.38%) Remedy ITSM
7 8 (0.33%) Teamcenter
8 6 (0.25%) Dynamics CRM
8 6 (0.25%) SAP CRM
9 5 (0.21%) Maximo
10 4 (0.17%) Distributed Ledger
10 4 (0.17%) Oracle Retail
10 4 (0.17%) R3 Corda
10 4 (0.17%) Salesforce CRM
10 4 (0.17%) SAP CO
10 4 (0.17%) SAP FI
10 4 (0.17%) SAP FI/CO
10 4 (0.17%) SAP PP
11 3 (0.13%) SAP EWM
11 3 (0.13%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 455 (19.02%) Azure
2 351 (14.67%) AWS
3 131 (5.48%) GCP
4 90 (3.76%) Entra ID
5 83 (3.47%) Microsoft 365
6 80 (3.34%) Power Platform
7 70 (2.93%) Serverless
8 66 (2.76%) SaaS
9 53 (2.22%) PaaS
10 43 (1.80%) IaaS
10 43 (1.80%) Microsoft Purview
11 41 (1.71%) OpenShift
12 39 (1.63%) GitHub
13 35 (1.46%) OneDrive
14 34 (1.42%) Azure DevOps
15 32 (1.34%) Dynamics 365
16 27 (1.13%) AWS Lambda
17 25 (1.05%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 22 (0.92%) AWS CloudFormation
18 22 (0.92%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 105 (4.39%) Firewall
2 76 (3.18%) WAN
3 68 (2.84%) Network Security
4 65 (2.72%) DNS
5 56 (2.34%) VPN
6 54 (2.26%) LAN
7 42 (1.76%) SD-WAN
8 29 (1.21%) DHCP
9 22 (0.92%) VLAN
10 19 (0.79%) BGP
11 17 (0.71%) MPLS
11 17 (0.71%) Wireless
12 16 (0.67%) BIG-IP
12 16 (0.67%) IPsec
13 15 (0.63%) SAN
13 15 (0.63%) Wi-Fi
14 14 (0.59%) NAS
14 14 (0.59%) OSPF
15 12 (0.50%) Internet
15 12 (0.50%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 68 (2.84%) Metadata
2 62 (2.59%) Power BI
3 54 (2.26%) Data Warehouse
4 40 (1.67%) SQL Server
5 31 (1.30%) Data Lake
6 30 (1.25%) NoSQL
7 24 (1.00%) Tableau
8 22 (0.92%) PostgreSQL
9 21 (0.88%) Oracle Database
10 17 (0.71%) GIS
11 14 (0.59%) Azure SQL Database
11 14 (0.59%) DynamoDB
12 12 (0.50%) Relational Database
13 11 (0.46%) MongoDB
14 10 (0.42%) Big Data
15 9 (0.38%) Electronic Patient Records
16 7 (0.29%) Metadata Repository
16 7 (0.29%) MySQL
16 7 (0.29%) SAP BW
17 6 (0.25%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 85 (3.55%) JIRA
2 40 (1.67%) Jenkins
3 22 (0.92%) Git
4 20 (0.84%) GitLab
5 6 (0.25%) ERwin
6 5 (0.21%) Artifactory
6 5 (0.21%) Selenium
6 5 (0.21%) SonarQube
6 5 (0.21%) Sonatype Nexus
7 4 (0.17%) JUnit
8 3 (0.13%) Bitbucket
8 3 (0.13%) Cucumber
8 3 (0.13%) MLflow
8 3 (0.13%) MSI
8 3 (0.13%) Postman
8 3 (0.13%) Rational DOORS
8 3 (0.13%) REST Assured
9 2 (0.084%) Gatling
9 2 (0.084%) Hudson
9 2 (0.084%) NeoLoad
General
1 430 (17.98%) Social Skills
2 314 (13.13%) Finance
3 226 (9.45%) Public Sector
4 145 (6.06%) Analytical Skills
5 139 (5.81%) Banking
6 64 (2.68%) Military
7 61 (2.55%) Retail
8 51 (2.13%) Documentation Skills
9 50 (2.09%) Legal
10 35 (1.46%) Influencing Skills
10 35 (1.46%) Manufacturing
11 31 (1.30%) Presentation Skills
12 28 (1.17%) Marketing
12 28 (1.17%) Telecoms
13 25 (1.05%) Investment Banking
14 24 (1.00%) Aerospace
15 20 (0.84%) Financial Institution
16 15 (0.63%) Billing
17 13 (0.54%) Back Office
18 10 (0.42%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 90 (3.76%) REST
2 72 (3.01%) Middleware
3 46 (1.92%) .NET
4 41 (1.71%) OAuth
4 41 (1.71%) SOAP
5 38 (1.59%) OpenID
6 31 (1.30%) OAuth2
7 27 (1.13%) Kafka
8 26 (1.09%) SailPoint
8 26 (1.09%) SAML
9 23 (0.96%) Node.js
10 22 (0.92%) RESTful
11 19 (0.79%) JSON
11 19 (0.79%) Oracle Fusion
11 19 (0.79%) React
12 17 (0.71%) Web Services
13 16 (0.67%) Microsoft Graph
14 14 (0.59%) LDAP
15 12 (0.50%) CSS
15 12 (0.50%) HTML
Miscellaneous
1 158 (6.61%) Cloud Native
2 88 (3.68%) Product Ownership
3 73 (3.05%) Data Centre
4 59 (2.47%) Public Cloud
5 54 (2.26%) Onboarding
5 54 (2.26%) Operational Technology
6 48 (2.01%) Management Information System
7 46 (1.92%) Hybrid Cloud
8 42 (1.76%) Data Protection Act
9 41 (1.71%) PKI
10 40 (1.67%) Enterprise Software
10 40 (1.67%) Legacy Systems
11 37 (1.55%) Distributed Systems
12 30 (1.25%) CMDB
13 26 (1.09%) SCADA
14 20 (0.84%) NHS
15 19 (0.79%) Private Cloud
15 19 (0.79%) Security Posture
16 18 (0.75%) AI Agents
17 14 (0.59%) Blackberry
Operating Systems
1 126 (5.27%) Windows
2 70 (2.93%) Linux
3 30 (1.25%) Windows Server
4 16 (0.67%) Android
4 16 (0.67%) Apple iOS
5 13 (0.54%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 12 (0.50%) Windows 7
7 11 (0.46%) Windows 10
8 8 (0.33%) Unix
8 8 (0.33%) Windows Server 2016
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
1 354 (14.80%) Roadmaps
2 339 (14.17%) Agile
3 264 (11.04%) Migration
4 261 (10.91%) Enterprise Architecture
5 260 (10.87%) Stakeholder Management
6 223 (9.32%) DevOps
7 212 (8.86%) TOGAF
8 203 (8.49%) CI/CD
9 198 (8.28%) Technical Leadership
10 178 (7.44%) Data Modelling
10 178 (7.44%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 168 (7.02%) Integration Patterns
12 167 (6.98%) Microservices
13 165 (6.90%) Architectural Patterns
14 162 (6.77%) Problem-Solving
15 156 (6.52%) Architectural Design
16 150 (6.27%) Data Architecture
17 139 (5.81%) Analytics
17 139 (5.81%) Cybersecurity
18 137 (5.73%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 116 (4.85%) Python
2 92 (3.85%) SQL
3 75 (3.14%) PowerShell
4 65 (2.72%) Java
5 48 (2.01%) JavaScript
6 32 (1.34%) C#
7 21 (0.88%) Bicep
8 15 (0.63%) Bash
9 11 (0.46%) TypeScript
10 10 (0.42%) Kusto Query Language
11 8 (0.33%) PL/SQL
12 7 (0.29%) VB
12 7 (0.29%) VBScript
13 6 (0.25%) Apex Code
13 6 (0.25%) VBA
14 5 (0.21%) ABAP
14 5 (0.21%) R
14 5 (0.21%) Scala
14 5 (0.21%) Shell Script
15 4 (0.17%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 754 (31.52%) Security Cleared
2 426 (17.81%) SC Cleared
3 270 (11.29%) DV Cleared
4 113 (4.72%) Degree
5 86 (3.60%) TOGAF Certification
6 49 (2.05%) BPSS Clearance
7 43 (1.80%) CISSP
8 42 (1.76%) Cisco Certification
9 38 (1.59%) AWS Certification
9 38 (1.59%) Azure Certification
10 36 (1.51%) Computer Science Degree
11 29 (1.21%) ISEB
12 28 (1.17%) ITIL Certification
13 27 (1.13%) CCNP
13 27 (1.13%) Microsoft Certification
14 22 (0.92%) CISM
15 19 (0.79%) Master's Degree
16 17 (0.71%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 11 (0.46%) CCIE
18 9 (0.38%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 95 (3.97%) NIST
2 90 (3.76%) GDPR
3 67 (2.80%) Data Quality
4 64 (2.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 46 (1.92%) NCSC
6 32 (1.34%) COBIT
7 25 (1.05%) PCI DSS
8 18 (0.75%) Cyber Essentials
8 18 (0.75%) GRC
8 18 (0.75%) QA
9 16 (0.67%) Accessibility
10 12 (0.50%) FINRA
10 12 (0.50%) ISO 20022
10 12 (0.50%) JSP 440
10 12 (0.50%) MiFID
11 10 (0.42%) NIST 800
12 8 (0.33%) HL7
13 7 (0.29%) HMG Security Policy Framework
13 7 (0.29%) ISO 19650
14 6 (0.25%) Def Stans
System Software
1 100 (4.18%) Active Directory
2 59 (2.47%) VMware Infrastructure
3 35 (1.46%) Docker
4 32 (1.34%) VMware NSX
5 20 (0.84%) vSphere
6 15 (0.63%) Hyper-V
6 15 (0.63%) Virtual Desktop
7 11 (0.46%) Virtual Machines
7 11 (0.46%) VMware ESXi
8 10 (0.42%) vCloud
9 7 (0.29%) BitLocker
10 5 (0.21%) RACF
11 4 (0.17%) NFS
12 3 (0.13%) IAG
13 2 (0.084%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
13 2 (0.084%) 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 90 (3.76%) Terraform
2 77 (3.22%) Kubernetes
3 56 (2.34%) Ansible
4 32 (1.34%) Microsoft Intune
5 30 (1.25%) OPNET
6 26 (1.09%) Single Sign-On
6 26 (1.09%) vCenter Server
7 20 (0.84%) SCCM
8 13 (0.54%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 12 (0.50%) FortiGate
10 11 (0.46%) WMI
11 10 (0.42%) Argo
12 9 (0.38%) Grafana
13 6 (0.25%) Istio
14 5 (0.21%) Endace
14 5 (0.21%) Prometheus
15 3 (0.13%) EMC VPLEX
15 3 (0.13%) MOM
15 3 (0.13%) Puppet
15 3 (0.13%) vRealize
Vendors
1 329 (13.75%) Microsoft
2 146 (6.10%) SAP
3 143 (5.98%) ServiceNow
4 135 (5.64%) VMware
5 88 (3.68%) Oracle
6 81 (3.39%) Cisco
7 73 (3.05%) Salesforce
8 51 (2.13%) Google
9 45 (1.88%) Databricks
10 42 (1.76%) Remedy
11 40 (1.67%) MuleSoft
12 35 (1.46%) Atlassian
12 35 (1.46%) Red Hat
13 32 (1.34%) Sparx
14 30 (1.25%) Citrix
14 30 (1.25%) F5
15 29 (1.21%) Palo Alto
16 27 (1.13%) BiZZdesign
17 25 (1.05%) Juniper
18 17 (0.71%) Splunk