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 22 April 2026.

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

6 months to
22 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 2,338 1,117 2,034
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 9.98% 8.73% 9.84%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.85% 9.46% 10.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,522 762 1,262
10th Percentile £450 £450 £500
25th Percentile £511 £531 £570
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £610 £604 £650
Median % change year-on-year +0.99% -7.08% -
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% -1.81%
Number of hourly rates quoted 105 29 58
10th Percentile £49.40 £59.10 £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 £80.59 £87.46
90th Percentile £96.50 £85.56 £91.50
UK median hourly rate £69.72 £70.00 £80.00
% change year-on-year -0.40% -12.50% +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 21,546 11,812 19,161
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.99% 92.37% 92.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,690 7,618 11,799
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 £575 £598
90th Percentile £675 £651 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £515 £525
% change year-on-year -2.91% -1.90% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,396 803 2,190
10th Percentile £14.50 £14.20 £12.50
25th Percentile £19.91 £18.13 £15.53
Median hourly rate £43.85 £29.23 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +50.00% -19.92% -15.12%
75th Percentile £65.88 £65.00 £60.75
90th Percentile £78.75 £76.10 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £42.25 £30.20 £35.00
% change year-on-year +39.90% -13.71% -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 22 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 22 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 22 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 - 158
North of England +2 612 £600 - 166
Midlands -2 402 £578 -3.71% 119
North West +5 356 £609 +1.50% 105
West Midlands 0 303 £600 - 88
South West +1 296 £693 +15.42% 105
Yorkshire +7 229 £558 -7.00% 44
East of England +19 197 £563 -6.25% 60
Scotland +16 138 £650 +4.00% 9
East Midlands -3 94 £509 -7.50% 31
North East +1 36 £575 -7.95% 17
Wales -8 24 £600 +20.00% 24
Northern Ireland +7 10 £488 -26.42% 17
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 22 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 (32.04%) Security Cleared
2 460 (19.67%) Azure
3 420 (17.96%) SC Cleared
4 351 (15.01%) AWS
5 346 (14.80%) Roadmaps
6 329 (14.07%) Agile
7 327 (13.99%) Microsoft
8 268 (11.46%) DV Cleared
9 261 (11.16%) Migration
10 259 (11.08%) Stakeholder Management
11 254 (10.86%) Enterprise Architecture
12 219 (9.37%) DevOps
13 210 (8.98%) TOGAF
14 201 (8.60%) CI/CD
15 196 (8.38%) Technical Leadership
16 183 (7.83%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 175 (7.49%) Data Modelling
18 162 (6.93%) Microservices
19 161 (6.89%) Integration Patterns
20 157 (6.72%) Architectural Design
20 157 (6.72%) Problem-Solving
21 155 (6.63%) Architectural Patterns
22 150 (6.42%) Data Architecture
23 142 (6.07%) GCP
24 141 (6.03%) Analytics
24 141 (6.03%) ServiceNow
25 140 (5.99%) ITIL
26 138 (5.90%) Cybersecurity
27 137 (5.86%) VMware
28 135 (5.77%) 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 (3.21%) Confluence
2 68 (2.91%) SharePoint
3 48 (2.05%) Microsoft Exchange
4 20 (0.86%) SAS
5 13 (0.56%) Appian
6 11 (0.47%) Apache
6 11 (0.47%) CMS
7 10 (0.43%) Anypoint
7 10 (0.43%) ArcGIS
8 8 (0.34%) Apache Airflow
9 7 (0.30%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 7 (0.30%) Apache Spark
9 7 (0.30%) Skype for Business
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 (1.88%) 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 2 (0.086%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.043%) OrCAD
Business Applications
1 50 (2.14%) SAP S/4HANA
2 32 (1.37%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 18 (0.77%) Payment Gateway
4 12 (0.51%) Workday HCM
5 9 (0.38%) Remedy ITSM
5 9 (0.38%) 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
1 460 (19.67%) Azure
2 351 (15.01%) AWS
3 142 (6.07%) GCP
4 93 (3.98%) Entra ID
5 86 (3.68%) Microsoft 365
6 77 (3.29%) Power Platform
7 69 (2.95%) Serverless
8 62 (2.65%) SaaS
9 52 (2.22%) PaaS
10 46 (1.97%) Microsoft Purview
11 44 (1.88%) IaaS
12 41 (1.75%) OpenShift
13 39 (1.67%) GitHub
14 38 (1.63%) OneDrive
15 34 (1.45%) Azure DevOps
16 27 (1.15%) AWS Lambda
16 27 (1.15%) Dynamics 365
17 25 (1.07%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 24 (1.03%) AWS CloudFormation
19 22 (0.94%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 112 (4.79%) Firewall
2 78 (3.34%) WAN
3 71 (3.04%) Network Security
4 69 (2.95%) DNS
5 60 (2.57%) VPN
6 57 (2.44%) LAN
7 45 (1.92%) SD-WAN
8 32 (1.37%) DHCP
9 26 (1.11%) VLAN
10 22 (0.94%) BGP
11 21 (0.90%) MPLS
11 21 (0.90%) Wireless
12 18 (0.77%) OSPF
13 15 (0.64%) SAN
13 15 (0.64%) Wi-Fi
14 14 (0.60%) BIG-IP
14 14 (0.60%) IPsec
14 14 (0.60%) NAS
14 14 (0.60%) VXLAN
15 13 (0.56%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 66 (2.82%) Metadata
2 59 (2.52%) Power BI
3 58 (2.48%) Data Warehouse
4 41 (1.75%) SQL Server
5 31 (1.33%) NoSQL
6 30 (1.28%) Data Lake
7 25 (1.07%) Tableau
8 22 (0.94%) PostgreSQL
9 21 (0.90%) Oracle Database
10 17 (0.73%) GIS
11 14 (0.60%) Azure SQL Database
11 14 (0.60%) DynamoDB
12 13 (0.56%) Relational Database
13 12 (0.51%) MongoDB
14 10 (0.43%) Big Data
15 9 (0.38%) Electronic Patient Records
16 8 (0.34%) Amazon Redshift
17 7 (0.30%) Metadata Repository
17 7 (0.30%) MySQL
17 7 (0.30%) SAP BW
Development Applications
1 85 (3.64%) JIRA
2 40 (1.71%) 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
1 430 (18.39%) Social Skills
2 305 (13.05%) Finance
3 227 (9.71%) Public Sector
4 148 (6.33%) Analytical Skills
5 135 (5.77%) Banking
6 65 (2.78%) Military
7 55 (2.35%) Documentation Skills
8 53 (2.27%) Retail
9 50 (2.14%) Legal
10 38 (1.63%) Influencing Skills
11 33 (1.41%) Presentation Skills
12 30 (1.28%) Manufacturing
13 29 (1.24%) Telecoms
14 27 (1.15%) Marketing
15 24 (1.03%) Aerospace
15 24 (1.03%) Investment Banking
16 20 (0.86%) Financial Institution
17 13 (0.56%) Billing
18 10 (0.43%) Back Office
18 10 (0.43%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 83 (3.55%) REST
2 66 (2.82%) Middleware
3 45 (1.92%) .NET
4 40 (1.71%) OAuth
5 39 (1.67%) SOAP
6 38 (1.63%) OpenID
7 31 (1.33%) OAuth2
8 26 (1.11%) Kafka
9 25 (1.07%) SAML
10 24 (1.03%) SailPoint
11 22 (0.94%) RESTful
12 21 (0.90%) Node.js
13 19 (0.81%) React
14 18 (0.77%) JSON
15 17 (0.73%) Web Services
16 16 (0.68%) Microsoft Graph
16 16 (0.68%) Oracle Fusion
17 13 (0.56%) LDAP
18 12 (0.51%) CSS
18 12 (0.51%) HTML
Miscellaneous
1 158 (6.76%) Cloud Native
2 87 (3.72%) Product Ownership
3 79 (3.38%) Data Centre
4 57 (2.44%) Public Cloud
5 53 (2.27%) Onboarding
6 49 (2.10%) Operational Technology
7 45 (1.92%) Hybrid Cloud
8 43 (1.84%) Management Information System
9 42 (1.80%) PKI
10 41 (1.75%) Enterprise Software
10 41 (1.75%) Legacy Systems
11 40 (1.71%) Data Protection Act
12 38 (1.63%) Distributed Systems
13 29 (1.24%) CMDB
14 28 (1.20%) SCADA
15 22 (0.94%) NHS
16 20 (0.86%) Private Cloud
17 18 (0.77%) Security Posture
18 17 (0.73%) AI Agents
19 14 (0.60%) Blackberry
Operating Systems
1 127 (5.43%) Windows
2 69 (2.95%) 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
1 346 (14.80%) Roadmaps
2 329 (14.07%) Agile
3 261 (11.16%) Migration
4 259 (11.08%) Stakeholder Management
5 254 (10.86%) Enterprise Architecture
6 219 (9.37%) DevOps
7 210 (8.98%) TOGAF
8 201 (8.60%) CI/CD
9 196 (8.38%) Technical Leadership
10 183 (7.83%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 175 (7.49%) Data Modelling
12 162 (6.93%) Microservices
13 161 (6.89%) Integration Patterns
14 157 (6.72%) Architectural Design
14 157 (6.72%) Problem-Solving
15 155 (6.63%) Architectural Patterns
16 150 (6.42%) Data Architecture
17 141 (6.03%) Analytics
18 140 (5.99%) ITIL
19 138 (5.90%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 119 (5.09%) Python
2 90 (3.85%) SQL
3 76 (3.25%) PowerShell
4 66 (2.82%) Java
5 44 (1.88%) JavaScript
6 32 (1.37%) C#
7 21 (0.90%) Bicep
8 15 (0.64%) Bash
9 11 (0.47%) TypeScript
10 10 (0.43%) Kusto Query Language
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 (32.04%) Security Cleared
2 420 (17.96%) SC Cleared
3 268 (11.46%) DV Cleared
4 111 (4.75%) Degree
5 81 (3.46%) TOGAF Certification
6 49 (2.10%) BPSS Clearance
6 49 (2.10%) CISSP
7 48 (2.05%) Cisco Certification
8 46 (1.97%) 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 19 (0.81%) 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 (4.41%) NIST
2 96 (4.11%) GDPR
3 74 (3.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 71 (3.04%) Data Quality
5 44 (1.88%) NCSC
6 32 (1.37%) COBIT
7 30 (1.28%) PCI DSS
8 18 (0.77%) GRC
8 18 (0.77%) QA
9 17 (0.73%) Cyber Essentials
10 15 (0.64%) Accessibility
11 13 (0.56%) ISO 20022
11 13 (0.56%) JSP 440
12 12 (0.51%) FINRA
12 12 (0.51%) MiFID
13 10 (0.43%) NIST 800
14 9 (0.38%) HMG Security Policy Framework
15 8 (0.34%) HL7
16 6 (0.26%) Def Stans
16 6 (0.26%) SLA
System Software
1 101 (4.32%) Active Directory
2 62 (2.65%) VMware Infrastructure
3 36 (1.54%) Docker
4 34 (1.45%) VMware NSX
5 20 (0.86%) 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 96 (4.11%) Terraform
2 77 (3.29%) Kubernetes
3 59 (2.52%) Ansible
4 32 (1.37%) Microsoft Intune
5 30 (1.28%) OPNET
6 26 (1.11%) 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%) FortiGate
10 11 (0.47%) WMI
11 10 (0.43%) Argo
12 9 (0.38%) Grafana
13 6 (0.26%) 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
1 327 (13.99%) Microsoft
2 141 (6.03%) ServiceNow
3 137 (5.86%) VMware
4 135 (5.77%) SAP
5 85 (3.64%) Cisco
6 82 (3.51%) Oracle
7 65 (2.78%) Salesforce
8 50 (2.14%) Google
9 45 (1.92%) Databricks
10 42 (1.80%) Remedy
11 40 (1.71%) MuleSoft
12 35 (1.50%) Atlassian
12 35 (1.50%) Red Hat
13 33 (1.41%) F5
13 33 (1.41%) Palo Alto
14 31 (1.33%) Sparx
15 30 (1.28%) Citrix
16 27 (1.15%) BiZZdesign
16 27 (1.15%) Juniper
17 18 (0.77%) Informatica