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 15 May 2026.

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

6 months to
15 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 19 13
Rank change year-on-year +9 -6 +6
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 2,382 1,088 2,004
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 9.81% 8.52% 9.86%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.67% 9.26% 10.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,560 732 1,192
10th Percentile £450 £450 £500
25th Percentile £513 £525 £569
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £613 £600 £650
Median % change year-on-year +2.08% -7.69% -
75th Percentile £713 £700 £738
90th Percentile £775 £750 £800
UK median daily rate £620 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -0.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 118 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 £95.75 £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 22,318 11,751 18,801
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.95% 92.04% 92.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,944 7,502 11,461
10th Percentile £295 £213 £213
25th Percentile £400 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £475 £490
Median % change year-on-year +4.21% -3.06% -2.00%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £595
90th Percentile £686 £650 £688
UK median daily rate £510 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -0.49% -2.38% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,516 843 2,259
10th Percentile £14.64 £14.00 £12.50
25th Percentile £19.91 £17.31 £15.75
Median hourly rate £45.00 £27.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +63.64% -31.25% -5.88%
75th Percentile £67.25 £63.75 £61.60
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £74.00
UK median hourly rate £43.09 £28.60 £37.18
% change year-on-year +50.66% -23.08% -17.38%

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 15 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 15 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 15 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 +4 703 £625 - 172
North of England +5 644 £600 - 172
Midlands +2 428 £600 - 89
North West +6 364 £610 +2.95% 91
West Midlands 0 309 £618 +2.92% 59
South West +1 285 £680 +13.25% 83
Yorkshire +7 241 £557 -7.25% 50
East of England +18 201 £575 -11.54% 61
Scotland +11 132 £650 +4.00% 41
East Midlands -3 113 £545 - 30
North East +5 47 £563 -10.00% 32
Wales -5 22 £625 +30.89% 45
Northern Ireland +4 8 £475 -28.30% 8
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 15 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.

1 733 (30.77%) Security Cleared
2 458 (19.23%) Azure
3 424 (17.80%) SC Cleared
4 354 (14.86%) AWS
5 346 (14.53%) Agile
6 340 (14.27%) Roadmaps
7 317 (13.31%) Microsoft
8 256 (10.75%) DV Cleared
8 256 (10.75%) Enterprise Architecture
9 252 (10.58%) Migration
10 250 (10.50%) Stakeholder Management
11 237 (9.95%) DevOps
12 206 (8.65%) CI/CD
13 204 (8.56%) TOGAF
14 200 (8.40%) Technical Leadership
15 176 (7.39%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 175 (7.35%) Data Modelling
17 173 (7.26%) Integration Patterns
18 172 (7.22%) Microservices
19 170 (7.14%) Architectural Patterns
20 160 (6.72%) Architectural Design
21 159 (6.68%) Data Architecture
22 149 (6.26%) Problem-Solving
23 146 (6.13%) SAP
24 142 (5.96%) Cybersecurity
25 136 (5.71%) ServiceNow
26 133 (5.58%) Analytics
27 130 (5.46%) AI
28 129 (5.42%) VMware
29 126 (5.29%) GCP

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 70 (2.94%) Confluence
2 65 (2.73%) SharePoint
3 39 (1.64%) Microsoft Exchange
4 15 (0.63%) SAS
5 13 (0.55%) Appian
6 11 (0.46%) Apache
6 11 (0.46%) CMS
7 10 (0.42%) Anypoint
8 9 (0.38%) Apache Airflow
9 7 (0.29%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 7 (0.29%) Apache Spark
9 7 (0.29%) ArcGIS
10 6 (0.25%) NetWeaver
10 6 (0.25%) Sitecore CMS
10 6 (0.25%) WebLogic
11 5 (0.21%) SAP EP
12 4 (0.17%) JBoss
12 4 (0.17%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 4 (0.17%) Skype for Business
12 4 (0.17%) Smallworld
Applications
1 37 (1.55%) Microsoft Office
2 27 (1.13%) Microsoft Project
3 13 (0.55%) Microsoft Excel
3 13 (0.55%) 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 57 (2.39%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (0.97%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 20 (0.84%) 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 (0.084%) Avolution ABACUS
11 2 (0.084%) Infor CloudSuite
11 2 (0.084%) SAP IBP
Cloud Services
1 458 (19.23%) Azure
2 354 (14.86%) AWS
3 126 (5.29%) GCP
4 92 (3.86%) Entra ID
5 91 (3.82%) Power Platform
6 81 (3.40%) Microsoft 365
7 71 (2.98%) Serverless
8 62 (2.60%) SaaS
9 50 (2.10%) PaaS
10 42 (1.76%) GitHub
11 41 (1.72%) Microsoft Purview
12 40 (1.68%) Azure DevOps
13 38 (1.60%) OpenShift
14 37 (1.55%) IaaS
15 32 (1.34%) OneDrive
16 29 (1.22%) Dynamics 365
17 26 (1.09%) AWS Lambda
17 26 (1.09%) Azure Data Factory
18 24 (1.01%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 22 (0.92%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 99 (4.16%) Firewall
2 71 (2.98%) WAN
3 67 (2.81%) DNS
4 64 (2.69%) Network Security
5 54 (2.27%) LAN
6 51 (2.14%) VPN
7 39 (1.64%) SD-WAN
8 33 (1.39%) DHCP
9 25 (1.05%) VLAN
10 22 (0.92%) Wireless
11 20 (0.84%) BGP
12 19 (0.80%) SAN
13 18 (0.76%) NAS
14 16 (0.67%) BIG-IP
14 16 (0.67%) IPsec
15 15 (0.63%) MPLS
15 15 (0.63%) Structured Cabling
16 14 (0.59%) OSPF
17 13 (0.55%) TCP/IP
18 12 (0.50%) NX-OS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 69 (2.90%) Power BI
2 67 (2.81%) Metadata
3 47 (1.97%) Data Warehouse
4 38 (1.60%) SQL Server
5 33 (1.39%) Data Lake
5 33 (1.39%) NoSQL
6 23 (0.97%) PostgreSQL
7 21 (0.88%) Tableau
8 19 (0.80%) Oracle Database
9 14 (0.59%) GIS
10 13 (0.55%) Azure SQL Database
11 11 (0.46%) MongoDB
12 10 (0.42%) Big Data
12 10 (0.42%) DynamoDB
13 9 (0.38%) Relational Database
14 8 (0.34%) Electronic Patient Records
15 7 (0.29%) Metadata Repository
15 7 (0.29%) MySQL
15 7 (0.29%) Spatial Data
16 6 (0.25%) SAP BW
Development Applications
1 84 (3.53%) JIRA
2 38 (1.60%) 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 (0.084%) IntelliJ
9 2 (0.084%) NeoLoad
9 2 (0.084%) Oracle APEX
General
1 422 (17.72%) Social Skills
2 308 (12.93%) Finance
3 218 (9.15%) Public Sector
4 136 (5.71%) Banking
5 133 (5.58%) Analytical Skills
6 66 (2.77%) Retail
7 58 (2.43%) Military
8 57 (2.39%) Documentation Skills
9 54 (2.27%) Legal
10 47 (1.97%) Manufacturing
11 31 (1.30%) Influencing Skills
12 28 (1.18%) Aerospace
13 26 (1.09%) Investment Banking
14 25 (1.05%) Marketing
14 25 (1.05%) Presentation Skills
15 23 (0.97%) Telecoms
16 19 (0.80%) Financial Institution
17 17 (0.71%) Back Office
18 15 (0.63%) Billing
19 10 (0.42%) Retail Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 92 (3.86%) REST
2 79 (3.32%) Middleware
3 48 (2.02%) .NET
4 43 (1.81%) OAuth
5 39 (1.64%) OpenID
5 39 (1.64%) SOAP
6 29 (1.22%) OAuth2
7 28 (1.18%) SailPoint
7 28 (1.18%) SAML
8 25 (1.05%) Kafka
9 24 (1.01%) RESTful
10 23 (0.97%) JSON
11 22 (0.92%) Oracle Fusion
12 20 (0.84%) Node.js
13 18 (0.76%) React
13 18 (0.76%) Web Services
14 16 (0.67%) Microsoft Graph
15 15 (0.63%) LDAP
16 12 (0.50%) CSS
16 12 (0.50%) HTML
Miscellaneous
1 157 (6.59%) Cloud Native
2 85 (3.57%) Product Ownership
3 79 (3.32%) Data Centre
4 61 (2.56%) Operational Technology
5 55 (2.31%) Public Cloud
6 52 (2.18%) Onboarding
7 48 (2.02%) Management Information System
8 43 (1.81%) Hybrid Cloud
9 40 (1.68%) Data Protection Act
10 38 (1.60%) Enterprise Software
10 38 (1.60%) PKI
11 36 (1.51%) Legacy Systems
12 34 (1.43%) Distributed Systems
13 28 (1.18%) SCADA
14 25 (1.05%) CMDB
15 19 (0.80%) Private Cloud
16 17 (0.71%) AI Agents
16 17 (0.71%) Data Structures
16 17 (0.71%) Security Posture
17 15 (0.63%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 115 (4.83%) Windows
2 65 (2.73%) Linux
3 29 (1.22%) 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 (0.34%) Windows 10
7 8 (0.34%) Windows 7
7 8 (0.34%) Windows Server 2016
8 5 (0.21%) VMS
8 5 (0.21%) Windows Server 2019
9 4 (0.17%) Mac OS
10 3 (0.13%) Data ONTAP
10 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
11 1 (0.042%) CatOS
11 1 (0.042%) CentOS
11 1 (0.042%) Kali Linux
11 1 (0.042%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.042%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 346 (14.53%) Agile
2 340 (14.27%) Roadmaps
3 256 (10.75%) Enterprise Architecture
4 252 (10.58%) Migration
5 250 (10.50%) Stakeholder Management
6 237 (9.95%) DevOps
7 206 (8.65%) CI/CD
8 204 (8.56%) TOGAF
9 200 (8.40%) Technical Leadership
10 176 (7.39%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 175 (7.35%) Data Modelling
12 173 (7.26%) Integration Patterns
13 172 (7.22%) Microservices
14 170 (7.14%) Architectural Patterns
15 160 (6.72%) Architectural Design
16 159 (6.68%) Data Architecture
17 149 (6.26%) Problem-Solving
18 142 (5.96%) Cybersecurity
19 133 (5.58%) Analytics
20 130 (5.46%) AI
Programming Languages
1 107 (4.49%) Python
2 96 (4.03%) SQL
3 69 (2.90%) PowerShell
4 60 (2.52%) Java
5 48 (2.02%) JavaScript
6 31 (1.30%) C#
7 20 (0.84%) Bicep
8 15 (0.63%) Bash
9 13 (0.55%) 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
1 733 (30.77%) Security Cleared
2 424 (17.80%) SC Cleared
3 256 (10.75%) DV Cleared
4 105 (4.41%) Degree
5 77 (3.23%) TOGAF Certification
6 49 (2.06%) BPSS Clearance
7 44 (1.85%) Cisco Certification
8 38 (1.60%) AWS Certification
9 37 (1.55%) Azure Certification
10 36 (1.51%) CISSP
11 32 (1.34%) Computer Science Degree
12 31 (1.30%) CCNP
13 23 (0.97%) Microsoft Certification
14 18 (0.76%) ITIL Certification
15 17 (0.71%) CISM
15 17 (0.71%) ISEB
16 16 (0.67%) Master's Degree
17 15 (0.63%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
18 14 (0.59%) CCNA
19 10 (0.42%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 91 (3.82%) NIST
2 73 (3.06%) GDPR
3 62 (2.60%) Data Quality
4 57 (2.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 44 (1.85%) NCSC
6 20 (0.84%) COBIT
6 20 (0.84%) QA
7 19 (0.80%) Accessibility
8 16 (0.67%) Cyber Essentials
8 16 (0.67%) PCI DSS
9 15 (0.63%) GRC
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 99 (4.16%) Active Directory
2 52 (2.18%) VMware Infrastructure
3 32 (1.34%) VMware NSX
4 31 (1.30%) Docker
5 19 (0.80%) vSphere
6 18 (0.76%) 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 (0.084%) 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 84 (3.53%) Terraform
2 71 (2.98%) Kubernetes
3 55 (2.31%) Ansible
4 34 (1.43%) Microsoft Intune
5 26 (1.09%) OPNET
5 26 (1.09%) vCenter Server
6 25 (1.05%) Single Sign-On
7 15 (0.63%) SCCM
8 13 (0.55%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 12 (0.50%) FortiGate
10 9 (0.38%) Argo
10 9 (0.38%) Grafana
10 9 (0.38%) WMI
11 6 (0.25%) Istio
12 5 (0.21%) Endace
12 5 (0.21%) Jamf Pro
12 5 (0.21%) Prometheus
13 3 (0.13%) EMC VPLEX
13 3 (0.13%) Puppet
13 3 (0.13%) vRealize
Vendors
1 317 (13.31%) Microsoft
2 146 (6.13%) SAP
3 136 (5.71%) ServiceNow
4 129 (5.42%) VMware
5 93 (3.90%) Oracle
6 76 (3.19%) Cisco
7 64 (2.69%) Salesforce
8 53 (2.23%) Databricks
9 48 (2.02%) Google
10 47 (1.97%) MuleSoft
11 38 (1.60%) Remedy
12 31 (1.30%) Atlassian
12 31 (1.30%) Red Hat
13 30 (1.26%) Citrix
14 28 (1.18%) F5
15 27 (1.13%) Palo Alto
16 24 (1.01%) BiZZdesign
16 24 (1.01%) Sparx
17 22 (0.92%) Juniper
18 20 (0.84%) Talend