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 £610, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 21 April 2026.

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

6 months to
21 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 2,332 1,119 2,032
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 9.98% 8.76% 9.83%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.85% 9.49% 10.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,515 765 1,263
10th Percentile £450 £450 £500
25th Percentile £511 £537 £569
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £610 £610 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -6.15% -
75th Percentile £713 £700 £731
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 105 28 57
10th Percentile £49.40 £58.65 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £61.25
Median hourly rate £71.27 £72.50 £80.00
Median % change year-on-year -1.70% -9.38% +14.29%
75th Percentile £84.00 £80.15 £87.46
90th Percentile £96.50 £85.50 £92.00
UK median hourly rate £69.72 £68.75 £80.00
% change year-on-year +1.41% -14.06% +14.29%

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 21,493 11,796 19,161
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.96% 92.35% 92.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,660 7,622 11,802
10th Percentile £274 £213 £213
25th Percentile £400 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £475 £493
Median % change year-on-year +2.63% -3.65% -1.40%
75th Percentile £588 £580 £599
90th Percentile £675 £656 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £515 £525
% change year-on-year -2.91% -1.90% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,385 797 2,187
10th Percentile £14.46 £14.20 £12.50
25th Percentile £19.72 £18.20 £15.50
Median hourly rate £43.61 £29.80 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +46.34% -18.36% -15.12%
75th Percentile £65.88 £65.00 £60.75
90th Percentile £78.15 £75.80 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £42.00 £30.45 £35.00
% change year-on-year +37.93% -13.00% -22.22%

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 21 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 21 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 21 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 +4 705 £625 - 145
North of England +4 610 £600 - 154
Midlands 0 398 £580 -3.42% 110
North West +7 353 £605 +0.83% 99
West Midlands -3 301 £600 - 79
South West +2 296 £693 +15.42% 109
Yorkshire +7 230 £558 -7.00% 40
East of England +18 197 £563 -6.25% 60
Scotland +14 137 £650 +4.00% 10
East Midlands -4 92 £513 -6.82% 31
North East +5 36 £575 -7.95% 15
Wales -8 25 £600 +20.00% 21
Northern Ireland +9 10 £488 -26.42% 19
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 21 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.

1 749 (32.12%) Security Cleared
2 463 (19.85%) Azure
3 420 (18.01%) SC Cleared
4 350 (15.01%) AWS
5 345 (14.79%) Roadmaps
6 328 (14.07%) Agile
7 327 (14.02%) Microsoft
8 269 (11.54%) DV Cleared
9 257 (11.02%) Stakeholder Management
10 256 (10.98%) Migration
11 250 (10.72%) Enterprise Architecture
12 221 (9.48%) DevOps
13 209 (8.96%) TOGAF
14 202 (8.66%) CI/CD
15 194 (8.32%) Technical Leadership
16 184 (7.89%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 173 (7.42%) Data Modelling
18 163 (6.99%) Microservices
19 159 (6.82%) Integration Patterns
20 157 (6.73%) Problem-Solving
21 155 (6.65%) Architectural Design
22 153 (6.56%) Architectural Patterns
23 149 (6.39%) Data Architecture
24 143 (6.13%) GCP
25 141 (6.05%) ServiceNow
26 140 (6.00%) Analytics
26 140 (6.00%) ITIL
27 138 (5.92%) VMware
28 137 (5.87%) Cybersecurity
29 133 (5.70%) SAP

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 75 (3.22%) Confluence
2 68 (2.92%) SharePoint
3 49 (2.10%) Microsoft Exchange
4 20 (0.86%) SAS
5 13 (0.56%) Appian
6 11 (0.47%) CMS
7 10 (0.43%) Anypoint
7 10 (0.43%) Apache
7 10 (0.43%) ArcGIS
8 8 (0.34%) Apache Airflow
9 7 (0.30%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 7 (0.30%) Skype for Business
10 6 (0.26%) Apache Spark
10 6 (0.26%) NetWeaver
10 6 (0.26%) Sitecore CMS
10 6 (0.26%) Smallworld
10 6 (0.26%) WebLogic
11 5 (0.21%) SAP EP
12 4 (0.17%) IIS
12 4 (0.17%) JBoss
Applications
1 44 (1.89%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (1.33%) Microsoft Project
3 17 (0.73%) Microsoft Excel
3 17 (0.73%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (0.21%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.17%) Chatbot
6 3 (0.13%) Navisworks
6 3 (0.13%) Revit
7 1 (0.043%) OrCAD
7 1 (0.043%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 50 (2.14%) SAP S/4HANA
2 32 (1.37%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 18 (0.77%) Payment Gateway
4 13 (0.56%) Workday HCM
5 9 (0.39%) Remedy ITSM
5 9 (0.39%) SAP ERP
6 8 (0.34%) Teamcenter
7 6 (0.26%) Dynamics CRM
7 6 (0.26%) SAP CRM
8 5 (0.21%) Maximo
9 4 (0.17%) Distributed Ledger
9 4 (0.17%) Oracle Retail
9 4 (0.17%) R3 Corda
9 4 (0.17%) SAP CO
9 4 (0.17%) SAP FI
9 4 (0.17%) SAP FI/CO
9 4 (0.17%) SAP PP
10 3 (0.13%) SAP EWM
10 3 (0.13%) SAP GRC
10 3 (0.13%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 463 (19.85%) Azure
2 350 (15.01%) AWS
3 143 (6.13%) GCP
4 93 (3.99%) Entra ID
5 86 (3.69%) Microsoft 365
6 75 (3.22%) Power Platform
7 66 (2.83%) Serverless
8 62 (2.66%) SaaS
9 53 (2.27%) PaaS
10 45 (1.93%) IaaS
10 45 (1.93%) Microsoft Purview
11 42 (1.80%) OpenShift
12 40 (1.72%) GitHub
13 39 (1.67%) OneDrive
14 35 (1.50%) Azure DevOps
15 27 (1.16%) Dynamics 365
16 26 (1.11%) AWS Lambda
17 25 (1.07%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 24 (1.03%) AWS CloudFormation
19 22 (0.94%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 113 (4.85%) Firewall
2 79 (3.39%) WAN
3 71 (3.04%) Network Security
4 70 (3.00%) DNS
5 60 (2.57%) VPN
6 57 (2.44%) LAN
7 45 (1.93%) SD-WAN
8 32 (1.37%) DHCP
9 25 (1.07%) VLAN
10 21 (0.90%) BGP
10 21 (0.90%) MPLS
10 21 (0.90%) Wireless
11 17 (0.73%) OSPF
12 16 (0.69%) Wi-Fi
13 15 (0.64%) SAN
14 14 (0.60%) BIG-IP
14 14 (0.60%) IPsec
14 14 (0.60%) NAS
15 13 (0.56%) VXLAN
15 13 (0.56%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 66 (2.83%) Metadata
2 58 (2.49%) Data Warehouse
2 58 (2.49%) Power BI
3 41 (1.76%) SQL Server
4 31 (1.33%) NoSQL
5 30 (1.29%) Data Lake
6 25 (1.07%) Tableau
7 22 (0.94%) PostgreSQL
8 20 (0.86%) Oracle Database
9 16 (0.69%) GIS
10 14 (0.60%) Azure SQL Database
10 14 (0.60%) DynamoDB
11 13 (0.56%) Relational Database
12 12 (0.51%) MongoDB
13 9 (0.39%) Big Data
13 9 (0.39%) Electronic Patient Records
14 7 (0.30%) Amazon Redshift
14 7 (0.30%) Metadata Repository
14 7 (0.30%) MySQL
14 7 (0.30%) SAP BW
Development Applications
1 85 (3.64%) JIRA
2 41 (1.76%) Jenkins
3 20 (0.86%) Git
3 20 (0.86%) GitLab
4 6 (0.26%) ERwin
5 5 (0.21%) Artifactory
5 5 (0.21%) SonarQube
5 5 (0.21%) Sonatype Nexus
6 4 (0.17%) JUnit
6 4 (0.17%) Selenium
7 3 (0.13%) Bitbucket
7 3 (0.13%) Cucumber
7 3 (0.13%) MLflow
7 3 (0.13%) MSI
7 3 (0.13%) Postman
7 3 (0.13%) Rational DOORS
7 3 (0.13%) REST Assured
8 2 (0.086%) Gatling
8 2 (0.086%) Hudson
8 2 (0.086%) NeoLoad
General
1 426 (18.27%) Social Skills
2 302 (12.95%) Finance
3 225 (9.65%) Public Sector
4 148 (6.35%) Analytical Skills
5 134 (5.75%) Banking
6 64 (2.74%) Military
7 56 (2.40%) Documentation Skills
8 53 (2.27%) Retail
9 50 (2.14%) Legal
10 38 (1.63%) Influencing Skills
11 32 (1.37%) Presentation Skills
12 30 (1.29%) Manufacturing
12 30 (1.29%) Telecoms
13 27 (1.16%) Marketing
14 25 (1.07%) Aerospace
15 23 (0.99%) Investment Banking
16 20 (0.86%) Financial Institution
17 13 (0.56%) Billing
18 10 (0.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 10 (0.43%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 81 (3.47%) REST
2 64 (2.74%) Middleware
3 45 (1.93%) .NET
4 38 (1.63%) OAuth
5 37 (1.59%) SOAP
6 36 (1.54%) OpenID
7 31 (1.33%) OAuth2
8 25 (1.07%) Kafka
8 25 (1.07%) SailPoint
8 25 (1.07%) SAML
9 22 (0.94%) RESTful
10 19 (0.81%) Node.js
10 19 (0.81%) React
11 18 (0.77%) JSON
12 17 (0.73%) Web Services
13 16 (0.69%) Microsoft Graph
14 14 (0.60%) Oracle Fusion
15 13 (0.56%) LDAP
16 12 (0.51%) CSS
16 12 (0.51%) HTML
Miscellaneous
1 156 (6.69%) Cloud Native
2 87 (3.73%) Product Ownership
3 78 (3.34%) Data Centre
4 57 (2.44%) Public Cloud
5 53 (2.27%) Onboarding
6 49 (2.10%) Operational Technology
7 46 (1.97%) Hybrid Cloud
8 43 (1.84%) PKI
9 41 (1.76%) Enterprise Software
9 41 (1.76%) Legacy Systems
9 41 (1.76%) Management Information System
10 38 (1.63%) Data Protection Act
10 38 (1.63%) Distributed Systems
11 29 (1.24%) CMDB
12 28 (1.20%) SCADA
13 22 (0.94%) NHS
14 20 (0.86%) Private Cloud
15 18 (0.77%) Security Posture
16 17 (0.73%) AI Agents
17 14 (0.60%) Blackberry
Operating Systems
1 127 (5.45%) Windows
2 70 (3.00%) Linux
3 31 (1.33%) Windows Server
4 15 (0.64%) Android
4 15 (0.64%) Apple iOS
5 13 (0.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 12 (0.51%) Windows 7
7 11 (0.47%) Windows 10
8 8 (0.34%) Unix
8 8 (0.34%) 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 (0.043%) CentOS
12 1 (0.043%) Kali Linux
12 1 (0.043%) Ubuntu
12 1 (0.043%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 345 (14.79%) Roadmaps
2 328 (14.07%) Agile
3 257 (11.02%) Stakeholder Management
4 256 (10.98%) Migration
5 250 (10.72%) Enterprise Architecture
6 221 (9.48%) DevOps
7 209 (8.96%) TOGAF
8 202 (8.66%) CI/CD
9 194 (8.32%) Technical Leadership
10 184 (7.89%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 173 (7.42%) Data Modelling
12 163 (6.99%) Microservices
13 159 (6.82%) Integration Patterns
14 157 (6.73%) Problem-Solving
15 155 (6.65%) Architectural Design
16 153 (6.56%) Architectural Patterns
17 149 (6.39%) Data Architecture
18 140 (6.00%) Analytics
18 140 (6.00%) ITIL
19 137 (5.87%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 119 (5.10%) Python
2 89 (3.82%) SQL
3 76 (3.26%) PowerShell
4 66 (2.83%) Java
5 42 (1.80%) JavaScript
6 32 (1.37%) C#
7 21 (0.90%) Bicep
8 16 (0.69%) Bash
9 10 (0.43%) Kusto Query Language
10 9 (0.39%) TypeScript
11 8 (0.34%) PL/SQL
12 7 (0.30%) VB
12 7 (0.30%) VBScript
13 6 (0.26%) R
14 5 (0.21%) ABAP
14 5 (0.21%) Scala
14 5 (0.21%) Shell Script
14 5 (0.21%) VBA
15 4 (0.17%) Perl
15 4 (0.17%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 749 (32.12%) Security Cleared
2 420 (18.01%) SC Cleared
3 269 (11.54%) DV Cleared
4 111 (4.76%) Degree
5 81 (3.47%) TOGAF Certification
6 49 (2.10%) BPSS Clearance
6 49 (2.10%) CISSP
7 48 (2.06%) Cisco Certification
8 47 (2.02%) AWS Certification
9 42 (1.80%) Azure Certification
10 32 (1.37%) CCNP
11 31 (1.33%) Computer Science Degree
12 29 (1.24%) ISEB
13 28 (1.20%) ITIL Certification
13 28 (1.20%) Microsoft Certification
14 21 (0.90%) CISM
15 20 (0.86%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 18 (0.77%) Master's Degree
17 15 (0.64%) (ISC)2 CCSP
17 15 (0.64%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 103 (4.42%) NIST
2 96 (4.12%) GDPR
3 74 (3.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 71 (3.04%) Data Quality
5 44 (1.89%) NCSC
6 32 (1.37%) COBIT
7 30 (1.29%) PCI DSS
8 19 (0.81%) QA
9 18 (0.77%) GRC
10 17 (0.73%) Cyber Essentials
11 15 (0.64%) Accessibility
12 14 (0.60%) JSP 440
13 13 (0.56%) ISO 20022
14 12 (0.51%) FINRA
14 12 (0.51%) MiFID
15 10 (0.43%) NIST 800
16 9 (0.39%) HMG Security Policy Framework
17 8 (0.34%) HL7
18 6 (0.26%) Def Stans
18 6 (0.26%) SLA
System Software
1 100 (4.29%) Active Directory
2 63 (2.70%) VMware Infrastructure
3 37 (1.59%) Docker
4 35 (1.50%) VMware NSX
5 21 (0.90%) vSphere
6 15 (0.64%) Hyper-V
6 15 (0.64%) Virtual Desktop
7 11 (0.47%) VMware ESXi
8 10 (0.43%) vCloud
9 8 (0.34%) Virtual Machines
10 7 (0.30%) BitLocker
11 5 (0.21%) RACF
12 4 (0.17%) NFS
13 3 (0.13%) IAG
14 2 (0.086%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
14 2 (0.086%) Firmware
15 1 (0.043%) Embedded Firmware
15 1 (0.043%) ProxySG
15 1 (0.043%) Snort
15 1 (0.043%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 97 (4.16%) Terraform
2 78 (3.34%) Kubernetes
3 60 (2.57%) Ansible
4 32 (1.37%) Microsoft Intune
5 30 (1.29%) OPNET
6 27 (1.16%) vCenter Server
7 25 (1.07%) Single Sign-On
8 20 (0.86%) SCCM
9 14 (0.60%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 11 (0.47%) Argo
10 11 (0.47%) FortiGate
10 11 (0.47%) WMI
11 9 (0.39%) Grafana
12 6 (0.26%) Istio
13 5 (0.21%) Endace
13 5 (0.21%) Prometheus
14 3 (0.13%) EMC VPLEX
14 3 (0.13%) MOM
14 3 (0.13%) Puppet
14 3 (0.13%) vRealize
Vendors
1 327 (14.02%) Microsoft
2 141 (6.05%) ServiceNow
3 138 (5.92%) VMware
4 133 (5.70%) SAP
5 84 (3.60%) Cisco
6 79 (3.39%) Oracle
7 63 (2.70%) Salesforce
8 50 (2.14%) Google
9 44 (1.89%) Databricks
10 42 (1.80%) Remedy
11 40 (1.72%) MuleSoft
12 36 (1.54%) Red Hat
13 35 (1.50%) Atlassian
14 33 (1.42%) Palo Alto
15 32 (1.37%) F5
16 31 (1.33%) Sparx
17 30 (1.29%) Citrix
18 27 (1.16%) BiZZdesign
18 27 (1.16%) Juniper
19 18 (0.77%) Fortinet