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 6 September 2026.

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

6 months to
6 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 2,553 1,223 1,740
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 9.17% 8.00% 9.75%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.02% 8.89% 10.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,723 830 1,072
10th Percentile £468 £462 £476
25th Percentile £525 £519 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £600 £637
Median % change year-on-year +3.33% -5.73% -0.93%
75th Percentile £700 £688 £725
90th Percentile £775 £760 £788
UK median daily rate £616 £625 £638
% change year-on-year -1.44% -1.96% -1.92%
Number of hourly rates quoted 146 15 70
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 £71.91 £86.50 £85.00
90th Percentile £95.50 £99.42 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £66.83 £72.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -7.82% +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 25,477 13,760 16,495
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.56% 89.95% 92.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,263 8,425 9,771
10th Percentile £304 £213 £225
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 £600
90th Percentile £688 £650 £685
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.69%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,144 1,238 1,522
10th Percentile £14.50 £13.27 £14.16
25th Percentile £20.25 £16.17 £19.25
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +12.50%
75th Percentile £68.00 £53.75 £66.61
90th Percentile £78.75 £71.80 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -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 6 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 6 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 6 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 +1 728 £625 +4.17% 373
North of England +5 711 £600 - 310
Midlands +1 424 £626 +9.11% 162
North West +6 416 £600 +4.35% 181
South West +3 332 £645 +0.39% 163
West Midlands +1 316 £647 +8.01% 100
Yorkshire +13 233 £588 -2.08% 103
Scotland +19 172 £625 - 140
East of England +12 154 £611 +10.52% 112
East Midlands +4 103 £600 +17.65% 62
North East -3 63 £600 -15.79% 26
Wales +1 42 £633 +1.20% 13
Channel Islands -2 6 £663 -10.77% 3
Northern Ireland +3 4 £488 -26.42% 57
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 6 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.

1 871 (34.12%) Security Cleared
2 589 (23.07%) Azure
3 564 (22.09%) SC Cleared
4 456 (17.86%) AWS
5 421 (16.49%) Stakeholder Management
6 369 (14.45%) Roadmaps
7 359 (14.06%) Microsoft
8 328 (12.85%) Technical Leadership
9 305 (11.95%) Agile
10 297 (11.63%) Migration
11 296 (11.59%) Enterprise Architecture
12 267 (10.46%) DV Cleared
13 244 (9.56%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 243 (9.52%) DevOps
15 234 (9.17%) AI
16 232 (9.09%) Data Architecture
17 230 (9.01%) Integration Patterns
18 225 (8.81%) CI/CD
19 212 (8.30%) Data Modelling
19 212 (8.30%) Security Architecture
20 208 (8.15%) Architectural Patterns
21 205 (8.03%) Cybersecurity
22 191 (7.48%) TOGAF
23 183 (7.17%) GCP
24 180 (7.05%) Architecture Governance
25 166 (6.50%) Microservices
26 160 (6.27%) Continuous Improvement
27 156 (6.11%) Event-Driven
28 144 (5.64%) Problem-Solving
29 143 (5.60%) 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 (1.33%) SharePoint
2 32 (1.25%) SAS
3 30 (1.18%) Confluence
4 15 (0.59%) Microsoft Exchange
5 12 (0.47%) OpenStack
6 11 (0.43%) Apache
7 10 (0.39%) Apache Spark
7 10 (0.39%) Palantir Foundry
8 9 (0.35%) Apache Airflow
9 7 (0.27%) Documentum
10 3 (0.12%) CMS
10 3 (0.12%) IIS
10 3 (0.12%) JBoss
10 3 (0.12%) NetWeaver
10 3 (0.12%) SAP EP
11 2 (0.078%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 2 (0.078%) Alfresco
11 2 (0.078%) Apache Superset
12 1 (0.039%) CIMPLICITY
12 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 (0.24%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.039%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 70 (2.74%) SAP S/4HANA
2 13 (0.51%) Teamcenter
3 12 (0.47%) Payment Gateway
4 10 (0.39%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 9 (0.35%) Remedy ITSM
6 7 (0.27%) SAP ERP
7 6 (0.24%) Oracle ERP
7 6 (0.24%) SAP MDG
8 5 (0.20%) Dynamics CRM
8 5 (0.20%) Maximo
9 4 (0.16%) NetSuite
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle Retail
9 4 (0.16%) Remedy AR System
10 3 (0.12%) Adobe Campaign
10 3 (0.12%) Dynamics NAV
10 3 (0.12%) Oracle Receivables
10 3 (0.12%) Salesforce CRM
10 3 (0.12%) SAP CRM
10 3 (0.12%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 589 (23.07%) Azure
2 456 (17.86%) AWS
3 183 (7.17%) GCP
4 93 (3.64%) SaaS
5 92 (3.60%) Power Platform
6 80 (3.13%) Serverless
7 77 (3.02%) Entra ID
8 58 (2.27%) Microsoft 365
9 49 (1.92%) Azure DevOps
10 48 (1.88%) Dynamics 365
11 45 (1.76%) GitHub
12 39 (1.53%) PaaS
13 37 (1.45%) AWS Lambda
14 33 (1.29%) IaaS
15 30 (1.18%) GitHub Actions
16 28 (1.10%) Amazon S3
16 28 (1.10%) OpenShift
16 28 (1.10%) Snowflake
17 23 (0.90%) Azure Data Factory
18 22 (0.86%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 90 (3.53%) Firewall
2 65 (2.55%) WAN
3 56 (2.19%) DNS
3 56 (2.19%) Network Security
4 48 (1.88%) LAN
5 36 (1.41%) SD-WAN
6 35 (1.37%) VPN
7 34 (1.33%) BGP
8 33 (1.29%) DHCP
9 27 (1.06%) MPLS
9 27 (1.06%) TCP/IP
10 26 (1.02%) VLAN
11 23 (0.90%) SAN
12 20 (0.78%) NAS
13 17 (0.67%) BIG-IP
13 17 (0.67%) OSPF
14 16 (0.63%) Structured Cabling
15 15 (0.59%) Wireless
16 13 (0.51%) NX-OS
17 12 (0.47%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 80 (3.13%) Metadata
2 72 (2.82%) Data Lake
3 62 (2.43%) Data Warehouse
3 62 (2.43%) Power BI
4 36 (1.41%) NoSQL
5 20 (0.78%) Amazon RDS
5 20 (0.78%) Azure SQL Database
5 20 (0.78%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
5 20 (0.78%) Oracle Database
6 16 (0.63%) Base SAS
6 16 (0.63%) SQL Server
7 14 (0.55%) BigQuery
8 13 (0.51%) Delta Lake
8 13 (0.51%) PostgreSQL
9 11 (0.43%) GIS
10 10 (0.39%) MySQL
11 9 (0.35%) Amazon Redshift
11 9 (0.35%) Big Data
11 9 (0.35%) Electronic Patient Records
11 9 (0.35%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 36 (1.41%) JIRA
2 31 (1.21%) Git
3 23 (0.90%) Jenkins
4 16 (0.63%) GitLab
5 7 (0.27%) ERwin
6 6 (0.24%) Claude Code
6 6 (0.24%) MSI
7 5 (0.20%) Artifactory
7 5 (0.20%) 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
1 513 (20.09%) Social Skills
2 308 (12.06%) Finance
3 264 (10.34%) Public Sector
4 130 (5.09%) Banking
5 122 (4.78%) Analytical Skills
6 108 (4.23%) Retail
7 92 (3.60%) Manufacturing
8 64 (2.51%) Influencing Skills
9 62 (2.43%) Documentation Skills
10 39 (1.53%) Aerospace
10 39 (1.53%) Legal
11 34 (1.33%) Military
12 30 (1.18%) Telecoms
13 22 (0.86%) Aviation
13 22 (0.86%) Marketing
14 20 (0.78%) Back Office
14 20 (0.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 18 (0.71%) Billing
15 18 (0.71%) Presentation Skills
16 17 (0.67%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 107 (4.19%) REST
2 89 (3.49%) Terraform
3 72 (2.82%) Middleware
4 53 (2.08%) OAuth
5 52 (2.04%) SOAP
6 38 (1.49%) Oracle Fusion
7 36 (1.41%) Kafka
8 34 (1.33%) SAML
9 33 (1.29%) .NET
10 32 (1.25%) LDAP
10 32 (1.25%) OpenID
11 25 (0.98%) JSON
12 22 (0.86%) OAuth2
13 20 (0.78%) SailPoint
14 18 (0.71%) Node.js
15 16 (0.63%) GraphQL
16 14 (0.55%) JWT
16 14 (0.55%) RESTful
16 14 (0.55%) Swagger
17 13 (0.51%) FHIR
Miscellaneous
1 204 (7.99%) Cloud Native
2 84 (3.29%) Data Centre
3 79 (3.09%) Hybrid Cloud
4 65 (2.55%) Operational Technology
5 60 (2.35%) Enterprise Software
5 60 (2.35%) Onboarding
6 59 (2.31%) Distributed Systems
7 58 (2.27%) Data Protection Act
8 55 (2.15%) Legacy Systems
8 55 (2.15%) Product Ownership
9 52 (2.04%) Management Information System
10 41 (1.61%) Public Cloud
11 40 (1.57%) AI Agents
12 34 (1.33%) Private Cloud
13 32 (1.25%) CMDB
14 27 (1.06%) Enterprise Cloud
14 27 (1.06%) Security Posture
15 26 (1.02%) IVR
16 23 (0.90%) SCADA
17 22 (0.86%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 84 (3.29%) Windows
2 58 (2.27%) Linux
3 37 (1.45%) Windows Server
4 17 (0.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 9 (0.35%) Unix
6 6 (0.24%) 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
1 421 (16.49%) Stakeholder Management
2 369 (14.45%) Roadmaps
3 328 (12.85%) Technical Leadership
4 305 (11.95%) Agile
5 297 (11.63%) Migration
6 296 (11.59%) Enterprise Architecture
7 244 (9.56%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 243 (9.52%) DevOps
9 234 (9.17%) AI
10 232 (9.09%) Data Architecture
11 230 (9.01%) Integration Patterns
12 225 (8.81%) CI/CD
13 212 (8.30%) Data Modelling
13 212 (8.30%) Security Architecture
14 208 (8.15%) Architectural Patterns
15 205 (8.03%) Cybersecurity
16 191 (7.48%) TOGAF
17 180 (7.05%) Architecture Governance
18 166 (6.50%) Microservices
19 160 (6.27%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 96 (3.76%) Java
2 93 (3.64%) SQL
3 85 (3.33%) Python
4 49 (1.92%) JavaScript
5 46 (1.80%) PowerShell
6 24 (0.94%) Bash
7 15 (0.59%) Bicep
8 13 (0.51%) TypeScript
9 10 (0.39%) ABAP
9 10 (0.39%) Apex Code
9 10 (0.39%) Shell Script
10 7 (0.27%) C#
11 6 (0.24%) PL/SQL
11 6 (0.24%) VBA
12 5 (0.20%) Groovy
13 3 (0.12%) R
14 2 (0.078%) BeanShell
14 2 (0.078%) COBOL
14 2 (0.078%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 2 (0.078%) Scala
Qualifications
1 871 (34.12%) Security Cleared
2 564 (22.09%) SC Cleared
3 267 (10.46%) DV Cleared
4 70 (2.74%) Degree
5 63 (2.47%) CISSP
6 60 (2.35%) Cisco Certification
7 52 (2.04%) BPSS Clearance
8 44 (1.72%) AWS Certification
9 42 (1.65%) Azure Certification
9 42 (1.65%) TOGAF Certification
10 31 (1.21%) Computer Science Degree
11 29 (1.14%) CCNP
12 24 (0.94%) CISM
13 19 (0.74%) CCIE
13 19 (0.74%) Microsoft Certification
14 17 (0.67%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 13 (0.51%) JNCIE
16 12 (0.47%) CCNA
16 12 (0.47%) CCSP
17 11 (0.43%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 107 (4.19%) NIST
2 86 (3.37%) Data Quality
3 75 (2.94%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 65 (2.55%) NCSC
5 55 (2.15%) GDPR
6 26 (1.02%) QA
7 19 (0.74%) PCI DSS
8 17 (0.67%) JSP 440
8 17 (0.67%) NIST 800
9 15 (0.59%) Accessibility
9 15 (0.59%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 14 (0.55%) GRC
11 13 (0.51%) ISO 19650
12 11 (0.43%) Disclosure Scotland
12 11 (0.43%) IFRS
12 11 (0.43%) SLA
13 9 (0.35%) HL7
13 9 (0.35%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 7 (0.27%) Cyber Essentials
15 6 (0.24%) SNOMED CT
System Software
1 102 (4.00%) Active Directory
2 47 (1.84%) VMware Infrastructure
3 46 (1.80%) Docker
4 27 (1.06%) VMware NSX
5 26 (1.02%) Virtual Desktop
6 17 (0.67%) Hyper-V
7 13 (0.51%) 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%) Slurm Workload Manager
13 1 (0.039%) Snort
Systems Management
1 129 (5.05%) Kubernetes
2 52 (2.04%) Ansible
3 19 (0.74%) Microsoft Intune
3 19 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
4 15 (0.59%) Active Directory Federation Services
4 15 (0.59%) Grafana
5 13 (0.51%) Prometheus
6 12 (0.47%) Jamf Pro
7 11 (0.43%) vCenter Server
8 9 (0.35%) WMI
9 7 (0.27%) Argo
9 7 (0.27%) CASB
9 7 (0.27%) FortiGate
10 6 (0.24%) Istio
11 5 (0.20%) NetBackup
12 4 (0.16%) Cisco CUCM
12 4 (0.16%) EMC VPLEX
12 4 (0.16%) SnapMirror
13 3 (0.12%) MOM
13 3 (0.12%) SnapVault
Vendors
1 359 (14.06%) Microsoft
2 140 (5.48%) SAP
3 111 (4.35%) Oracle
4 97 (3.80%) Google
5 95 (3.72%) ServiceNow
6 86 (3.37%) VMware
7 83 (3.25%) Databricks
8 82 (3.21%) Cisco
9 53 (2.08%) Salesforce
10 36 (1.41%) CyberArk
11 29 (1.14%) F5
11 29 (1.14%) MuleSoft
12 24 (0.94%) Informatica
13 23 (0.90%) Palo Alto
14 22 (0.86%) Red Hat
15 21 (0.82%) IBM
16 18 (0.71%) Workday
17 17 (0.67%) Infoblox
18 16 (0.63%) Juniper
19 15 (0.59%) Fortinet