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 £622, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 10 September 2026.

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

6 months to
10 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 2,571 1,232 1,738
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 9.16% 7.98% 9.74%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.01% 8.89% 10.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,740 838 1,050
10th Percentile £469 £462 £469
25th Percentile £525 £519 £538
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £622 £600 £630
Median % change year-on-year +3.67% -4.76% -1.18%
75th Percentile £700 £688 £725
90th Percentile £775 £766 £788
UK median daily rate £620 £625 £638
% change year-on-year -0.80% -1.96% -1.92%
Number of hourly rates quoted 148 15 68
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 £73.25 £86.50 £85.00
90th Percentile £96.00 £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 25,678 13,862 16,491
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.44% 89.81% 92.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,330 8,505 9,652
10th Percentile £303 £213 £225
25th Percentile £413 £363 £378
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% -1.32%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,223 1,244 1,486
10th Percentile £14.22 £13.27 £14.28
25th Percentile £19.34 £16.17 £19.50
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 £71.50 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +67.00% -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 10 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 10 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 10 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 +2 736 £625 +4.17% 351
North of England +5 709 £600 - 258
Midlands +1 423 £626 +8.87% 129
North West +8 416 £600 +4.35% 141
South West +4 338 £640 -0.51% 131
West Midlands +1 315 £650 +8.42% 86
Yorkshire +11 231 £575 -4.17% 92
Scotland +15 176 £625 +0.60% 112
East of England +10 157 £616 +11.29% 94
East Midlands +1 103 £600 +17.65% 43
North East -6 63 £600 -15.79% 25
Wales +4 42 £633 +1.20% 8
Channel Islands -3 6 £663 -10.77% 3
Northern Ireland +4 4 £488 -26.42% 43
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 10 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.

1 883 (34.34%) Security Cleared
2 597 (23.22%) Azure
3 573 (22.29%) SC Cleared
4 460 (17.89%) AWS
5 437 (17.00%) Stakeholder Management
6 374 (14.55%) Roadmaps
7 363 (14.12%) Microsoft
8 334 (12.99%) Technical Leadership
9 309 (12.02%) Agile
10 301 (11.71%) Enterprise Architecture
10 301 (11.71%) Migration
11 274 (10.66%) DV Cleared
12 247 (9.61%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 241 (9.37%) DevOps
14 232 (9.02%) AI
14 232 (9.02%) Data Architecture
15 231 (8.98%) Integration Patterns
16 224 (8.71%) CI/CD
17 215 (8.36%) Security Architecture
18 213 (8.28%) Data Modelling
19 205 (7.97%) Cybersecurity
20 203 (7.90%) Architectural Patterns
21 195 (7.58%) TOGAF
22 184 (7.16%) GCP
23 183 (7.12%) Architecture Governance
24 167 (6.50%) Microservices
25 165 (6.42%) Continuous Improvement
26 158 (6.15%) Event-Driven
27 147 (5.72%) Decision-Making
27 147 (5.72%) Problem-Solving

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 (1.32%) SharePoint
2 32 (1.24%) SAS
3 30 (1.17%) Confluence
4 15 (0.58%) 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%) FactoryTalk
12 1 (0.039%) Red Hat Fuse
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 (0.23%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.039%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 70 (2.72%) SAP S/4HANA
2 13 (0.51%) Teamcenter
3 11 (0.43%) Payment Gateway
4 10 (0.39%) Remedy ITSM
4 10 (0.39%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 7 (0.27%) SAP ERP
6 6 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
6 6 (0.23%) SAP MDG
7 5 (0.19%) Dynamics CRM
7 5 (0.19%) Maximo
7 5 (0.19%) Remedy AR System
8 4 (0.16%) NetSuite
8 4 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
8 4 (0.16%) Oracle Retail
9 3 (0.12%) Adobe Campaign
9 3 (0.12%) Dynamics NAV
9 3 (0.12%) Oracle Receivables
9 3 (0.12%) Salesforce CRM
9 3 (0.12%) SAP IBP
9 3 (0.12%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 597 (23.22%) Azure
2 460 (17.89%) AWS
3 184 (7.16%) GCP
4 95 (3.70%) SaaS
5 90 (3.50%) Power Platform
6 78 (3.03%) Serverless
7 77 (2.99%) Entra ID
8 59 (2.29%) Microsoft 365
9 47 (1.83%) Azure DevOps
9 47 (1.83%) Dynamics 365
10 43 (1.67%) GitHub
11 39 (1.52%) PaaS
12 35 (1.36%) AWS Lambda
13 32 (1.24%) IaaS
14 28 (1.09%) GitHub Actions
14 28 (1.09%) Snowflake
15 27 (1.05%) Amazon S3
16 26 (1.01%) OpenShift
17 21 (0.82%) Azure Data Factory
17 21 (0.82%) iPaaS
Communications & Networking
1 88 (3.42%) Firewall
2 65 (2.53%) WAN
3 56 (2.18%) DNS
3 56 (2.18%) Network Security
4 48 (1.87%) LAN
5 36 (1.40%) SD-WAN
6 35 (1.36%) VPN
7 34 (1.32%) BGP
8 33 (1.28%) DHCP
9 28 (1.09%) MPLS
10 27 (1.05%) TCP/IP
11 26 (1.01%) VLAN
12 23 (0.89%) SAN
13 20 (0.78%) NAS
14 17 (0.66%) BIG-IP
14 17 (0.66%) OSPF
15 15 (0.58%) Structured Cabling
15 15 (0.58%) Wireless
16 13 (0.51%) NX-OS
17 12 (0.47%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 81 (3.15%) Metadata
2 72 (2.80%) Data Lake
3 63 (2.45%) Data Warehouse
4 62 (2.41%) Power BI
5 34 (1.32%) NoSQL
6 20 (0.78%) Amazon RDS
6 20 (0.78%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
7 18 (0.70%) Azure SQL Database
7 18 (0.70%) Oracle Database
8 16 (0.62%) Base SAS
8 16 (0.62%) SQL Server
9 14 (0.54%) BigQuery
10 12 (0.47%) PostgreSQL
11 11 (0.43%) Delta Lake
11 11 (0.43%) GIS
12 10 (0.39%) MySQL
13 9 (0.35%) Amazon Redshift
13 9 (0.35%) Big Data
13 9 (0.35%) Electronic Patient Records
13 9 (0.35%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 36 (1.40%) JIRA
2 31 (1.21%) Git
3 23 (0.89%) Jenkins
4 16 (0.62%) GitLab
5 7 (0.27%) ERwin
5 7 (0.27%) MSI
6 6 (0.23%) Claude Code
7 5 (0.19%) Artifactory
7 5 (0.19%) 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
1 528 (20.54%) Social Skills
2 308 (11.98%) Finance
3 265 (10.31%) Public Sector
4 127 (4.94%) Banking
5 125 (4.86%) Analytical Skills
6 110 (4.28%) Retail
7 93 (3.62%) Manufacturing
8 64 (2.49%) Influencing Skills
9 62 (2.41%) Documentation Skills
10 44 (1.71%) Legal
11 42 (1.63%) Aerospace
12 35 (1.36%) Military
13 30 (1.17%) Telecoms
14 24 (0.93%) Marketing
15 22 (0.86%) Aviation
16 20 (0.78%) Back Office
16 20 (0.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 18 (0.70%) Billing
17 18 (0.70%) Presentation Skills
18 17 (0.66%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 109 (4.24%) REST
2 87 (3.38%) Terraform
3 75 (2.92%) Middleware
4 54 (2.10%) OAuth
5 53 (2.06%) SOAP
6 38 (1.48%) Oracle Fusion
7 35 (1.36%) Kafka
7 35 (1.36%) SAML
8 34 (1.32%) LDAP
9 33 (1.28%) .NET
10 32 (1.24%) OpenID
11 26 (1.01%) JSON
12 22 (0.86%) OAuth2
13 19 (0.74%) SailPoint
14 18 (0.70%) Node.js
15 17 (0.66%) GraphQL
16 15 (0.58%) JWT
16 15 (0.58%) Swagger
17 14 (0.54%) XML
18 13 (0.51%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 206 (8.01%) Cloud Native
2 84 (3.27%) Data Centre
3 79 (3.07%) Hybrid Cloud
4 66 (2.57%) Operational Technology
5 60 (2.33%) Distributed Systems
5 60 (2.33%) Enterprise Software
6 59 (2.29%) Onboarding
7 58 (2.26%) Data Protection Act
7 58 (2.26%) Product Ownership
8 57 (2.22%) Legacy Systems
9 52 (2.02%) Management Information System
10 41 (1.59%) Public Cloud
11 39 (1.52%) AI Agents
12 35 (1.36%) CMDB
13 33 (1.28%) Private Cloud
14 27 (1.05%) Enterprise Cloud
14 27 (1.05%) Security Posture
15 26 (1.01%) IVR
16 24 (0.93%) PKI
17 22 (0.86%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 86 (3.35%) Windows
2 58 (2.26%) Linux
3 37 (1.44%) Windows Server
4 17 (0.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 9 (0.35%) Unix
6 6 (0.23%) 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
1 437 (17.00%) Stakeholder Management
2 374 (14.55%) Roadmaps
3 334 (12.99%) Technical Leadership
4 309 (12.02%) Agile
5 301 (11.71%) Enterprise Architecture
5 301 (11.71%) Migration
6 247 (9.61%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 241 (9.37%) DevOps
8 232 (9.02%) AI
8 232 (9.02%) Data Architecture
9 231 (8.98%) Integration Patterns
10 224 (8.71%) CI/CD
11 215 (8.36%) Security Architecture
12 213 (8.28%) Data Modelling
13 205 (7.97%) Cybersecurity
14 203 (7.90%) Architectural Patterns
15 195 (7.58%) TOGAF
16 183 (7.12%) Architecture Governance
17 167 (6.50%) Microservices
18 165 (6.42%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 96 (3.73%) Java
2 91 (3.54%) SQL
3 86 (3.35%) Python
4 49 (1.91%) JavaScript
5 48 (1.87%) PowerShell
6 25 (0.97%) Bash
7 13 (0.51%) Bicep
7 13 (0.51%) TypeScript
8 10 (0.39%) ABAP
8 10 (0.39%) Apex Code
8 10 (0.39%) Shell Script
9 8 (0.31%) C#
10 6 (0.23%) PL/SQL
10 6 (0.23%) VBA
11 5 (0.19%) Groovy
12 3 (0.12%) PHP
12 3 (0.12%) R
13 2 (0.078%) C
13 2 (0.078%) COBOL
13 2 (0.078%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 883 (34.34%) Security Cleared
2 573 (22.29%) SC Cleared
3 274 (10.66%) DV Cleared
4 70 (2.72%) Degree
5 65 (2.53%) CISSP
6 60 (2.33%) Cisco Certification
7 54 (2.10%) BPSS Clearance
8 44 (1.71%) AWS Certification
8 44 (1.71%) Azure Certification
9 43 (1.67%) TOGAF Certification
10 31 (1.21%) Computer Science Degree
11 29 (1.13%) CCNP
12 24 (0.93%) CISM
13 19 (0.74%) CCIE
13 19 (0.74%) Microsoft Certification
14 17 (0.66%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 13 (0.51%) JNCIE
16 12 (0.47%) CCNA
17 11 (0.43%) CCSP
17 11 (0.43%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 109 (4.24%) NIST
2 85 (3.31%) Data Quality
3 77 (2.99%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 65 (2.53%) NCSC
5 53 (2.06%) GDPR
6 27 (1.05%) QA
7 18 (0.70%) PCI DSS
8 17 (0.66%) JSP 440
8 17 (0.66%) NIST 800
9 15 (0.58%) Accessibility
9 15 (0.58%) GRC
9 15 (0.58%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 13 (0.51%) ISO 19650
11 11 (0.43%) Disclosure Scotland
11 11 (0.43%) IFRS
11 11 (0.43%) SLA
12 9 (0.35%) HL7
12 9 (0.35%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 7 (0.27%) Cyber Essentials
14 6 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
System Software
1 104 (4.05%) Active Directory
2 48 (1.87%) Docker
3 47 (1.83%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.05%) VMware NSX
5 26 (1.01%) Virtual Desktop
6 17 (0.66%) 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%) ProxySG
13 1 (0.039%) Snort
Systems Management
1 131 (5.10%) Kubernetes
2 52 (2.02%) Ansible
3 19 (0.74%) Microsoft Intune
3 19 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
4 15 (0.58%) Active Directory Federation Services
4 15 (0.58%) Grafana
5 13 (0.51%) Prometheus
6 12 (0.47%) Jamf Pro
7 11 (0.43%) vCenter Server
8 10 (0.39%) WMI
9 7 (0.27%) Argo
9 7 (0.27%) CASB
9 7 (0.27%) FortiGate
10 6 (0.23%) Istio
11 5 (0.19%) NetBackup
12 4 (0.16%) Cisco CUCM
12 4 (0.16%) EMC VPLEX
12 4 (0.16%) SnapMirror
13 3 (0.12%) EMC NetWorker
13 3 (0.12%) SnapVault
Vendors
1 363 (14.12%) Microsoft
2 137 (5.33%) SAP
3 110 (4.28%) Oracle
4 98 (3.81%) Google
5 97 (3.77%) ServiceNow
6 87 (3.38%) VMware
7 83 (3.23%) Cisco
8 81 (3.15%) Databricks
9 55 (2.14%) Salesforce
10 38 (1.48%) CyberArk
11 32 (1.24%) MuleSoft
12 29 (1.13%) F5
13 23 (0.89%) Informatica
13 23 (0.89%) Palo Alto
14 22 (0.86%) IBM
15 21 (0.82%) Red Hat
16 18 (0.70%) Workday
17 17 (0.66%) Infoblox
18 16 (0.62%) Foundry
18 16 (0.62%) Juniper