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 28 September 2026.

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

6 months to
28 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 14 21 11
Rank change year-on-year +7 -10 +5
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 2,568 1,201 1,664
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 9.13% 7.74% 9.42%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.02% 8.63% 10.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,717 830 980
10th Percentile £464 £460 £465
25th Percentile £525 £519 £525
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £600 £625
Median % change year-on-year +3.33% -4.00% -1.96%
75th Percentile £700 £692 £723
90th Percentile £763 £775 £775
UK median daily rate £618 £625 £627
% change year-on-year -1.20% -0.32% -3.54%
Number of hourly rates quoted 163 10 64
10th Percentile £40.00 £56.20 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £63.44 £62.19
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 25,627 13,914 16,307
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.16% 89.69% 92.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,982 8,564 9,302
10th Percentile £302 £210 £220
25th Percentile £413 £360 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £600 £575 £594
90th Percentile £688 £663 £675
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,399 1,306 1,339
10th Percentile £14.22 £13.50 £14.63
25th Percentile £19.34 £16.30 £19.59
Median hourly rate £42.00 £25.08 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.50% -41.69% -2.27%
75th Percentile £67.50 £50.56 £66.61
90th Percentile £78.50 £69.83 £74.77
UK median hourly rate £41.72 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +65.89% -41.51% -3.37%

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 28 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 28 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 28 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 +4 720 £625 +4.17% 461
North of England +4 685 £600 - 480
Midlands +3 445 £627 +8.96% 253
North West +8 377 £599 +4.25% 265
South West +4 344 £631 -2.88% 219
West Midlands +4 334 £650 +8.33% 193
Yorkshire +17 244 £581 -3.13% 161
Scotland +19 189 £625 +2.67% 192
East of England +8 155 £622 +11.32% 139
East Midlands +5 106 £600 +20.00% 60
North East +3 67 £625 -13.79% 54
Wales +3 44 £640 +2.40% 32
Channel Islands 0 10 £700 -5.72% 4
Northern Ireland +3 2 - - 67
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 28 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.

1 882 (34.35%) Security Cleared
2 582 (22.66%) Azure
3 574 (22.35%) SC Cleared
4 489 (19.04%) Stakeholder Management
5 439 (17.10%) AWS
6 376 (14.64%) Roadmaps
7 374 (14.56%) Microsoft
8 363 (14.14%) Technical Leadership
9 324 (12.62%) Migration
10 301 (11.72%) Enterprise Architecture
11 296 (11.53%) Agile
12 288 (11.21%) DV Cleared
13 248 (9.66%) Data Architecture
14 242 (9.42%) DevOps
14 242 (9.42%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 235 (9.15%) AI
16 230 (8.96%) CI/CD
17 219 (8.53%) Integration Patterns
18 214 (8.33%) Data Modelling
19 203 (7.90%) Security Architecture
20 202 (7.87%) Cybersecurity
21 194 (7.55%) Architectural Patterns
22 190 (7.40%) GCP
23 189 (7.36%) TOGAF
24 179 (6.97%) Architecture Governance
25 167 (6.50%) Continuous Improvement
26 161 (6.27%) Microservices
27 160 (6.23%) Event-Driven
28 147 (5.72%) Problem-Solving
29 146 (5.69%) Analytics

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 (1.29%) SAS
2 32 (1.25%) SharePoint
3 26 (1.01%) Confluence
4 17 (0.66%) Microsoft Exchange
5 13 (0.51%) OpenStack
6 11 (0.43%) Apache
7 10 (0.39%) Apache Airflow
7 10 (0.39%) Apache Spark
7 10 (0.39%) Palantir Foundry
8 7 (0.27%) Documentum
9 6 (0.23%) NetWeaver
10 5 (0.19%) IIS
11 4 (0.16%) SAP EP
12 3 (0.12%) CMS
12 3 (0.12%) JBoss
13 2 (0.078%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 2 (0.078%) Alfresco
13 2 (0.078%) Apache Superset
14 1 (0.039%) Jupyter
14 1 (0.039%) Predix
Applications
1 11 (0.43%) MS Visio
2 10 (0.39%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (0.35%) Microsoft Office
4 8 (0.31%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.27%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.27%) Revit
6 5 (0.19%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 69 (2.69%) SAP S/4HANA
2 12 (0.47%) Teamcenter
3 8 (0.31%) Payment Gateway
3 8 (0.31%) Remedy ITSM
4 7 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
5 6 (0.23%) Dynamics CRM
5 6 (0.23%) Maximo
5 6 (0.23%) SAP MDG
5 6 (0.23%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
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
8 3 (0.12%) Adobe Campaign
8 3 (0.12%) Oracle Receivables
8 3 (0.12%) Oracle Retail
8 3 (0.12%) Salesforce CRM
8 3 (0.12%) SAP Payroll
8 3 (0.12%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 582 (22.66%) Azure
2 439 (17.10%) AWS
3 190 (7.40%) GCP
4 97 (3.78%) SaaS
5 94 (3.66%) Power Platform
6 66 (2.57%) Entra ID
6 66 (2.57%) Serverless
7 65 (2.53%) Microsoft 365
8 55 (2.14%) Dynamics 365
9 47 (1.83%) Azure DevOps
10 46 (1.79%) GitHub
11 36 (1.40%) PaaS
12 31 (1.21%) AWS Lambda
12 31 (1.21%) IaaS
12 31 (1.21%) Snowflake
13 28 (1.09%) Amazon S3
14 25 (0.97%) GitHub Actions
14 25 (0.97%) OCI
15 22 (0.86%) iPaaS
16 21 (0.82%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 76 (2.96%) Firewall
2 54 (2.10%) WAN
3 53 (2.06%) Network Security
4 52 (2.02%) DNS
5 36 (1.40%) BGP
5 36 (1.40%) LAN
6 32 (1.25%) DHCP
7 31 (1.21%) MPLS
8 29 (1.13%) SD-WAN
9 27 (1.05%) TCP/IP
9 27 (1.05%) VPN
10 22 (0.86%) VLAN
11 20 (0.78%) SAN
12 18 (0.70%) NX-OS
13 17 (0.66%) NAS
14 16 (0.62%) BIG-IP
15 15 (0.58%) Structured Cabling
15 15 (0.58%) VXLAN
16 14 (0.55%) OSPF
17 13 (0.51%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 91 (3.54%) Metadata
2 80 (3.12%) Data Lake
3 77 (3.00%) Data Warehouse
4 60 (2.34%) Power BI
5 32 (1.25%) NoSQL
6 23 (0.90%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
7 21 (0.82%) Amazon RDS
8 20 (0.78%) BigQuery
9 19 (0.74%) Azure SQL Database
10 16 (0.62%) Base SAS
10 16 (0.62%) Oracle Database
11 14 (0.55%) SQL Server
12 11 (0.43%) 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 35 (1.36%) JIRA
3 21 (0.82%) GitLab
3 21 (0.82%) Jenkins
4 9 (0.35%) MSI
5 6 (0.23%) Claude Code
6 4 (0.16%) Artifactory
6 4 (0.16%) ERwin
6 4 (0.16%) Sonatype Nexus
7 3 (0.12%) Postman
7 3 (0.12%) Selenium
8 2 (0.078%) Appium
8 2 (0.078%) Cucumber
8 2 (0.078%) Cypress.io
8 2 (0.078%) IntelliJ
8 2 (0.078%) JUnit
8 2 (0.078%) Oracle APEX
8 2 (0.078%) Oracle Forms
8 2 (0.078%) REST Assured
8 2 (0.078%) SonarQube
General
1 549 (21.38%) Social Skills
2 298 (11.60%) Finance
3 271 (10.55%) Public Sector
4 122 (4.75%) Analytical Skills
5 116 (4.52%) Banking
6 112 (4.36%) Retail
7 95 (3.70%) Manufacturing
8 75 (2.92%) Influencing Skills
9 61 (2.38%) Documentation Skills
10 54 (2.10%) Aerospace
11 40 (1.56%) Legal
12 38 (1.48%) Telecoms
13 30 (1.17%) Military
14 26 (1.01%) Marketing
15 23 (0.90%) 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
1 110 (4.28%) REST
2 89 (3.47%) Terraform
3 73 (2.84%) Middleware
4 56 (2.18%) SOAP
5 51 (1.99%) OAuth
6 44 (1.71%) Kafka
7 40 (1.56%) Oracle Fusion
8 39 (1.52%) LDAP
9 34 (1.32%) SAML
10 30 (1.17%) .NET
11 29 (1.13%) OpenID
12 26 (1.01%) JSON
13 21 (0.82%) OAuth2
14 19 (0.74%) SailPoint
15 18 (0.70%) SAP Fiori
16 17 (0.66%) GraphQL
16 17 (0.66%) Node.js
17 15 (0.58%) JWT
17 15 (0.58%) Swagger
17 15 (0.58%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 191 (7.44%) Cloud Native
2 92 (3.58%) Data Centre
3 81 (3.15%) Hybrid Cloud
4 72 (2.80%) Onboarding
5 65 (2.53%) Product Ownership
6 64 (2.49%) Distributed Systems
7 62 (2.41%) Enterprise Software
8 61 (2.38%) Data Protection Act
9 59 (2.30%) Legacy Systems
10 58 (2.26%) Operational Technology
11 51 (1.99%) Management Information System
12 40 (1.56%) AI Agents
12 40 (1.56%) Public Cloud
13 39 (1.52%) CMDB
14 38 (1.48%) Private Cloud
15 28 (1.09%) Enterprise Cloud
16 27 (1.05%) IVR
17 23 (0.90%) PKI
17 23 (0.90%) Security Posture
18 22 (0.86%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 88 (3.43%) Windows
2 55 (2.14%) Linux
3 36 (1.40%) Windows Server
4 17 (0.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 8 (0.31%) 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
1 489 (19.04%) Stakeholder Management
2 376 (14.64%) Roadmaps
3 363 (14.14%) Technical Leadership
4 324 (12.62%) Migration
5 301 (11.72%) Enterprise Architecture
6 296 (11.53%) Agile
7 248 (9.66%) Data Architecture
8 242 (9.42%) DevOps
8 242 (9.42%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 235 (9.15%) AI
10 230 (8.96%) CI/CD
11 219 (8.53%) Integration Patterns
12 214 (8.33%) Data Modelling
13 203 (7.90%) Security Architecture
14 202 (7.87%) Cybersecurity
15 194 (7.55%) Architectural Patterns
16 189 (7.36%) TOGAF
17 179 (6.97%) Architecture Governance
18 167 (6.50%) Continuous Improvement
19 161 (6.27%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 95 (3.70%) Java
2 92 (3.58%) SQL
3 84 (3.27%) Python
4 51 (1.99%) PowerShell
5 48 (1.87%) JavaScript
6 24 (0.93%) Bash
7 15 (0.58%) ABAP
8 13 (0.51%) 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
11 6 (0.23%) VBA
12 5 (0.19%) Groovy
13 4 (0.16%) PHP
14 3 (0.12%) R
15 2 (0.078%) BeanShell
15 2 (0.078%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 2 (0.078%) Go
Qualifications
1 882 (34.35%) Security Cleared
2 574 (22.35%) SC Cleared
3 288 (11.21%) DV Cleared
4 70 (2.73%) Degree
5 67 (2.61%) CISSP
6 66 (2.57%) BPSS Clearance
7 61 (2.38%) Cisco Certification
8 47 (1.83%) AWS Certification
9 41 (1.60%) Azure Certification
9 41 (1.60%) TOGAF Certification
10 31 (1.21%) Computer Science Degree
11 29 (1.13%) CCNP
12 24 (0.93%) CISM
13 21 (0.82%) CCIE
14 18 (0.70%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 18 (0.70%) Microsoft Certification
15 16 (0.62%) JNCIE
16 13 (0.51%) CCSP
17 12 (0.47%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 12 (0.47%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 101 (3.93%) NIST
2 89 (3.47%) Data Quality
3 70 (2.73%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 61 (2.38%) NCSC
5 48 (1.87%) GDPR
6 26 (1.01%) QA
7 19 (0.74%) JSP 440
8 18 (0.70%) GRC
8 18 (0.70%) ISO/IEC 20000
8 18 (0.70%) PCI DSS
9 17 (0.66%) Accessibility
10 15 (0.58%) NIST 800
11 13 (0.51%) Disclosure Scotland
11 13 (0.51%) ISO 19650
12 11 (0.43%) SLA
13 10 (0.39%) IFRS
14 9 (0.35%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 7 (0.27%) ISO/IEC 27005
16 6 (0.23%) Actionable Recommendations
16 6 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
System Software
1 99 (3.86%) Active Directory
2 48 (1.87%) VMware Infrastructure
3 44 (1.71%) Docker
4 29 (1.13%) VMware NSX
5 23 (0.90%) Virtual Desktop
6 13 (0.51%) 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
1 128 (4.98%) Kubernetes
2 52 (2.02%) Ansible
3 20 (0.78%) Microsoft Intune
4 19 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
5 14 (0.55%) 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 (14.56%) Microsoft
2 126 (4.91%) SAP
3 112 (4.36%) Google
4 111 (4.32%) Oracle
5 103 (4.01%) ServiceNow
6 83 (3.23%) VMware
7 80 (3.12%) Databricks
8 79 (3.08%) Cisco
9 56 (2.18%) Salesforce
10 43 (1.67%) CyberArk
11 31 (1.21%) MuleSoft
12 28 (1.09%) F5
13 23 (0.90%) Informatica
14 21 (0.82%) IBM
14 21 (0.82%) Red Hat
15 20 (0.78%) Infoblox
15 20 (0.78%) Workday
16 17 (0.66%) Palo Alto
17 16 (0.62%) Foundry
18 14 (0.55%) Fortinet