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 11 April 2026.

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

6 months to
11 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 18 13
Rank change year-on-year +8 -5 +7
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 2,309 1,116 2,034
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 10.01% 8.80% 9.74%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.88% 9.54% 10.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,493 770 1,261
10th Percentile £450 £457 £500
25th Percentile £513 £538 £575
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £610 £617 £650
Median % change year-on-year -1.09% -5.12% -
75th Percentile £706 £700 £725
90th Percentile £775 £750 £788
UK median daily rate £620 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -1.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 101 28 45
10th Percentile £49.40 £58.65 £58.35
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £60.00
Median hourly rate £71.27 £72.50 £83.77
Median % change year-on-year -1.70% -13.45% +19.66%
75th Percentile £85.00 £80.15 £87.53
90th Percentile £97.50 £85.50 £95.00
UK median hourly rate £70.64 £70.00 £83.50
% change year-on-year +0.91% -16.17% +19.29%

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 21,227 11,700 19,366
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.98% 92.29% 92.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,577 7,607 11,977
10th Percentile £263 £213 £213
25th Percentile £400 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £475 £490
Median % change year-on-year +2.63% -3.06% -2.00%
75th Percentile £588 £585 £598
90th Percentile £675 £657 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,330 771 2,148
10th Percentile £14.49 £14.20 £12.50
25th Percentile £19.72 £18.51 £15.50
Median hourly rate £42.13 £30.20 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +39.49% -13.71% -16.82%
75th Percentile £65.25 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £76.25 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £41.06 £31.64 £35.00
% change year-on-year +29.76% -9.60% -21.40%

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 11 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 11 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 11 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 +4 701 £625 - 256
North of England +3 606 £600 - 194
Midlands -5 399 £576 -3.96% 95
North West +8 352 £610 +1.67% 100
West Midlands -5 302 £600 -0.41% 69
South West +2 287 £700 +16.67% 98
Yorkshire +7 229 £558 -7.00% 70
East of England +17 185 £556 -7.29% 71
Scotland +16 137 £650 +4.00% 35
East Midlands -7 93 £513 -9.69% 26
North East +4 34 £575 -7.95% 28
Wales +1 29 £588 -2.08% 24
Northern Ireland +6 11 £500 -24.53% 4
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 11 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.

1 761 (32.96%) Security Cleared
2 464 (20.10%) Azure
3 424 (18.36%) SC Cleared
4 344 (14.90%) AWS
5 337 (14.60%) Roadmaps
6 329 (14.25%) Agile
7 328 (14.21%) Microsoft
8 278 (12.04%) DV Cleared
9 261 (11.30%) Migration
10 259 (11.22%) Stakeholder Management
11 255 (11.04%) Enterprise Architecture
12 222 (9.61%) TOGAF
13 221 (9.57%) DevOps
14 199 (8.62%) CI/CD
15 193 (8.36%) Technical Leadership
16 189 (8.19%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 181 (7.84%) Data Modelling
18 162 (7.02%) Microservices
19 160 (6.93%) Integration Patterns
20 159 (6.89%) Data Architecture
21 156 (6.76%) Architectural Patterns
22 155 (6.71%) Problem-Solving
23 154 (6.67%) Architectural Design
24 145 (6.28%) ITIL
25 144 (6.24%) VMware
26 142 (6.15%) Analytics
27 141 (6.11%) Cybersecurity
27 141 (6.11%) GCP
28 137 (5.93%) ServiceNow
29 134 (5.80%) Security Architecture

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 78 (3.38%) Confluence
2 67 (2.90%) SharePoint
3 48 (2.08%) Microsoft Exchange
4 24 (1.04%) SAS
5 13 (0.56%) Appian
6 12 (0.52%) ArcGIS
7 11 (0.48%) CMS
8 10 (0.43%) Anypoint
9 9 (0.39%) Apache
10 7 (0.30%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 7 (0.30%) Apache Airflow
10 7 (0.30%) Skype for Business
11 6 (0.26%) Apache Spark
11 6 (0.26%) NetWeaver
11 6 (0.26%) Sitecore CMS
11 6 (0.26%) Smallworld
11 6 (0.26%) WebLogic
12 5 (0.22%) SAP EP
13 4 (0.17%) IIS
13 4 (0.17%) JBoss
Applications
1 44 (1.91%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (1.34%) Microsoft Project
3 19 (0.82%) Microsoft Excel
4 18 (0.78%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.22%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.17%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.087%) Navisworks
7 2 (0.087%) Revit
8 1 (0.043%) OrCAD
8 1 (0.043%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 52 (2.25%) SAP S/4HANA
2 32 (1.39%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 18 (0.78%) Payment Gateway
4 13 (0.56%) Workday HCM
5 9 (0.39%) SAP ERP
6 8 (0.35%) Remedy ITSM
6 8 (0.35%) Salesforce CRM
7 7 (0.30%) Dynamics CRM
7 7 (0.30%) Maximo
8 6 (0.26%) SAP CRM
8 6 (0.26%) Teamcenter
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 GRC
9 4 (0.17%) SAP PP
10 3 (0.13%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 464 (20.10%) Azure
2 344 (14.90%) AWS
3 141 (6.11%) GCP
4 92 (3.98%) Entra ID
5 86 (3.72%) Microsoft 365
6 66 (2.86%) Power Platform
7 64 (2.77%) SaaS
8 61 (2.64%) Serverless
9 54 (2.34%) PaaS
10 52 (2.25%) IaaS
11 46 (1.99%) OpenShift
12 44 (1.91%) Microsoft Purview
13 39 (1.69%) GitHub
14 38 (1.65%) OneDrive
15 35 (1.52%) Azure DevOps
16 26 (1.13%) Dynamics 365
17 25 (1.08%) AWS CloudFormation
17 25 (1.08%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 24 (1.04%) AWS Lambda
19 21 (0.91%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 121 (5.24%) Firewall
2 79 (3.42%) DNS
2 79 (3.42%) WAN
3 71 (3.07%) Network Security
4 61 (2.64%) VPN
5 55 (2.38%) LAN
6 43 (1.86%) SD-WAN
7 32 (1.39%) DHCP
8 23 (1.00%) VLAN
9 21 (0.91%) SAN
9 21 (0.91%) Wireless
10 20 (0.87%) MPLS
11 19 (0.82%) BGP
12 17 (0.74%) Wi-Fi
13 15 (0.65%) OSPF
14 14 (0.61%) BIG-IP
14 14 (0.61%) IPsec
14 14 (0.61%) NAS
15 12 (0.52%) Internet
15 12 (0.52%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 70 (3.03%) Metadata
2 64 (2.77%) Data Warehouse
3 52 (2.25%) Power BI
4 41 (1.78%) SQL Server
5 28 (1.21%) NoSQL
6 27 (1.17%) Data Lake
7 24 (1.04%) Oracle Database
7 24 (1.04%) Tableau
8 23 (1.00%) PostgreSQL
9 16 (0.69%) GIS
10 14 (0.61%) Metadata Repository
11 13 (0.56%) DynamoDB
12 12 (0.52%) Azure SQL Database
13 11 (0.48%) Big Data
13 11 (0.48%) MongoDB
13 11 (0.48%) Relational Database
14 10 (0.43%) Electronic Patient Records
15 8 (0.35%) SAP BW
16 7 (0.30%) MySQL
16 7 (0.30%) SAS Enterprise Guide
Development Applications
1 88 (3.81%) JIRA
2 46 (1.99%) Jenkins
3 20 (0.87%) GitLab
4 18 (0.78%) Git
5 6 (0.26%) ERwin
6 5 (0.22%) Artifactory
6 5 (0.22%) SonarQube
6 5 (0.22%) Sonatype Nexus
7 4 (0.17%) JUnit
7 4 (0.17%) Selenium
8 3 (0.13%) Bitbucket
8 3 (0.13%) Cucumber
8 3 (0.13%) MLflow
8 3 (0.13%) MSI
8 3 (0.13%) Postman
8 3 (0.13%) Rational DOORS
8 3 (0.13%) REST Assured
9 2 (0.087%) Gatling
9 2 (0.087%) Hudson
9 2 (0.087%) NeoLoad
General
1 433 (18.75%) Social Skills
2 296 (12.82%) Finance
3 227 (9.83%) Public Sector
4 142 (6.15%) Analytical Skills
5 136 (5.89%) Banking
6 63 (2.73%) Military
7 61 (2.64%) Documentation Skills
8 50 (2.17%) Legal
9 46 (1.99%) Retail
10 37 (1.60%) Influencing Skills
11 34 (1.47%) Presentation Skills
12 31 (1.34%) Telecoms
13 28 (1.21%) Marketing
14 27 (1.17%) Aerospace
15 24 (1.04%) Manufacturing
16 23 (1.00%) Investment Banking
17 19 (0.82%) Financial Institution
18 13 (0.56%) Billing
19 12 (0.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
20 11 (0.48%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 81 (3.51%) REST
2 66 (2.86%) Middleware
3 45 (1.95%) .NET
4 39 (1.69%) OAuth
5 37 (1.60%) SOAP
6 36 (1.56%) OpenID
7 32 (1.39%) OAuth2
8 28 (1.21%) SAML
9 26 (1.13%) Kafka
9 26 (1.13%) SailPoint
10 22 (0.95%) RESTful
11 18 (0.78%) JSON
11 18 (0.78%) React
12 17 (0.74%) Web Services
13 15 (0.65%) Microsoft Graph
14 14 (0.61%) Node.js
15 13 (0.56%) LDAP
16 12 (0.52%) CSS
16 12 (0.52%) HTML
16 12 (0.52%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 148 (6.41%) Cloud Native
2 89 (3.85%) Product Ownership
3 82 (3.55%) Data Centre
4 57 (2.47%) Public Cloud
5 53 (2.30%) Onboarding
6 49 (2.12%) Operational Technology
7 45 (1.95%) Hybrid Cloud
7 45 (1.95%) PKI
8 42 (1.82%) Management Information System
9 39 (1.69%) Enterprise Software
10 37 (1.60%) Legacy Systems
11 36 (1.56%) Data Protection Act
12 35 (1.52%) Distributed Systems
13 27 (1.17%) CMDB
13 27 (1.17%) SCADA
14 23 (1.00%) NHS
15 20 (0.87%) Private Cloud
16 18 (0.78%) AI Agents
16 18 (0.78%) Data Structures
17 17 (0.74%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 133 (5.76%) Windows
2 75 (3.25%) Linux
3 35 (1.52%) Windows Server
4 15 (0.65%) Android
4 15 (0.65%) Apple iOS
5 13 (0.56%) Windows 7
6 12 (0.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 11 (0.48%) Windows 10
8 8 (0.35%) Unix
8 8 (0.35%) Windows Server 2016
9 5 (0.22%) VMS
9 5 (0.22%) 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
Processes & Methodologies
1 337 (14.60%) Roadmaps
2 329 (14.25%) Agile
3 261 (11.30%) Migration
4 259 (11.22%) Stakeholder Management
5 255 (11.04%) Enterprise Architecture
6 222 (9.61%) TOGAF
7 221 (9.57%) DevOps
8 199 (8.62%) CI/CD
9 193 (8.36%) Technical Leadership
10 189 (8.19%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 181 (7.84%) Data Modelling
12 162 (7.02%) Microservices
13 160 (6.93%) Integration Patterns
14 159 (6.89%) Data Architecture
15 156 (6.76%) Architectural Patterns
16 155 (6.71%) Problem-Solving
17 154 (6.67%) Architectural Design
18 145 (6.28%) ITIL
19 142 (6.15%) Analytics
20 141 (6.11%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 122 (5.28%) Python
2 85 (3.68%) SQL
3 80 (3.46%) PowerShell
4 65 (2.82%) Java
5 36 (1.56%) JavaScript
6 32 (1.39%) C#
7 21 (0.91%) Bash
8 20 (0.87%) Bicep
9 11 (0.48%) Kusto Query Language
10 8 (0.35%) PL/SQL
11 7 (0.30%) VB
11 7 (0.30%) VBScript
12 6 (0.26%) R
13 5 (0.22%) ABAP
13 5 (0.22%) Scala
13 5 (0.22%) TypeScript
13 5 (0.22%) VBA
14 4 (0.17%) Apex Code
14 4 (0.17%) Perl
14 4 (0.17%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 761 (32.96%) Security Cleared
2 424 (18.36%) SC Cleared
3 278 (12.04%) DV Cleared
4 106 (4.59%) Degree
5 78 (3.38%) TOGAF Certification
6 55 (2.38%) CISSP
7 48 (2.08%) Cisco Certification
8 46 (1.99%) BPSS Clearance
9 45 (1.95%) AWS Certification
10 42 (1.82%) Azure Certification
11 32 (1.39%) CCNP
12 31 (1.34%) Microsoft Certification
13 29 (1.26%) ISEB
14 28 (1.21%) ITIL Certification
15 26 (1.13%) CISM
15 26 (1.13%) Computer Science Degree
16 19 (0.82%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 16 (0.69%) Master's Degree
18 15 (0.65%) (ISC)2 CCSP
18 15 (0.65%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 107 (4.63%) NIST
2 101 (4.37%) GDPR
3 78 (3.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 71 (3.07%) Data Quality
5 48 (2.08%) NCSC
6 32 (1.39%) COBIT
7 30 (1.30%) PCI DSS
8 22 (0.95%) QA
9 18 (0.78%) Cyber Essentials
9 18 (0.78%) GRC
10 16 (0.69%) JSP 440
11 13 (0.56%) ISO 20022
12 12 (0.52%) Accessibility
12 12 (0.52%) FINRA
12 12 (0.52%) MiFID
12 12 (0.52%) NIST 800
13 9 (0.39%) HMG Security Policy Framework
14 8 (0.35%) Def Stans
14 8 (0.35%) HL7
15 6 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 105 (4.55%) Active Directory
2 68 (2.94%) VMware Infrastructure
3 41 (1.78%) Docker
4 40 (1.73%) VMware NSX
5 26 (1.13%) vSphere
6 15 (0.65%) Hyper-V
6 15 (0.65%) Virtual Desktop
7 11 (0.48%) VMware ESXi
8 10 (0.43%) vCloud
9 8 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
10 7 (0.30%) BitLocker
11 5 (0.22%) RACF
12 4 (0.17%) NFS
13 3 (0.13%) IAG
14 2 (0.087%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
14 2 (0.087%) Firmware
15 1 (0.043%) Embedded Firmware
15 1 (0.043%) ProxySG
15 1 (0.043%) Snort
15 1 (0.043%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 103 (4.46%) Terraform
2 83 (3.59%) Kubernetes
3 64 (2.77%) Ansible
4 32 (1.39%) vCenter Server
5 31 (1.34%) Microsoft Intune
6 30 (1.30%) OPNET
6 30 (1.30%) Single Sign-On
7 20 (0.87%) SCCM
8 18 (0.78%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 16 (0.69%) Argo
10 12 (0.52%) WMI
11 11 (0.48%) FortiGate
12 9 (0.39%) Grafana
13 6 (0.26%) Istio
14 5 (0.22%) Endace
14 5 (0.22%) Prometheus
15 3 (0.13%) EMC VPLEX
15 3 (0.13%) Puppet
15 3 (0.13%) vRealize
16 2 (0.087%) SnapMirror
Vendors
1 328 (14.21%) Microsoft
2 144 (6.24%) VMware
3 137 (5.93%) ServiceNow
4 130 (5.63%) SAP
5 83 (3.59%) Cisco
6 81 (3.51%) Oracle
7 69 (2.99%) Salesforce
8 49 (2.12%) Google
9 44 (1.91%) Remedy
10 43 (1.86%) Databricks
11 40 (1.73%) MuleSoft
12 39 (1.69%) Red Hat
13 35 (1.52%) Atlassian
14 34 (1.47%) Palo Alto
15 31 (1.34%) Sparx
16 30 (1.30%) Citrix
17 29 (1.26%) F5
18 28 (1.21%) BiZZdesign
19 25 (1.08%) Juniper
20 20 (0.87%) Pure Storage