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 2 October 2026.

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

 6 months to
2 Oct 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 14 20 13
Rank change year-on-year +6 -7 +3
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 2,574 1,212 1,655
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 9.09% 7.73% 9.41%
As % of the Job Titles category 9.98% 8.63% 10.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,718 839 977
10th Percentile £464 £460 £463
25th Percentile £525 £519 £525
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £600 £625
Median % change year-on-year +3.33% -4.00% -2.00%
75th Percentile £700 £694 £715
90th Percentile £769 £775 £775
UK median daily rate £620 £625 £625
% change year-on-year -0.80% - -3.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 167 10 63
10th Percentile £40.00 £56.20 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £63.44 £61.88
Median hourly rate £68.17 £71.25 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -4.33% +1.79% -6.67%
75th Percentile £81.25 £85.31 £85.00
90th Percentile £95.00 £100.55 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £68.50 £72.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -5.52% +3.57% -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 25,804 14,040 16,224
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.12% 89.58% 92.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,048 8,646 9,250
10th Percentile £303 £213 £217
25th Percentile £413 £363 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £600 £575 £590
90th Percentile £688 £670 £675
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,438 1,312 1,311
10th Percentile £14.22 £13.50 £14.69
25th Percentile £19.33 £16.30 £19.74
Median hourly rate £41.87 £25.08 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +66.97% -41.69% -1.88%
75th Percentile £67.84 £50.00 £66.61
90th Percentile £78.72 £69.65 £74.50
UK median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +65.94% -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 2 October 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 2 October 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 2 October 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 +1 722 £625 +4.17% 557
North of England +4 682 £600 - 492
Midlands +2 448 £628 +9.26% 277
North West +5 372 £598 +4.00% 270
South West +4 346 £638 -1.92% 245
West Midlands +4 335 £650 +8.33% 202
Yorkshire +15 245 £600 -2.04% 164
Scotland +15 190 £625 +4.38% 204
East of England +7 154 £620 +10.96% 187
East Midlands +5 108 £600 +20.00% 75
North East 0 68 £625 -15.25% 58
Wales +4 44 £640 +2.40% 62
Channel Islands 0 11 £700 -5.72% 1
Northern Ireland +7 2 - - 69
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 2 October 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.

1 878 (34.11%) Security Cleared
2 582 (22.61%) Azure
3 573 (22.26%) SC Cleared
4 488 (18.96%) Stakeholder Management
5 438 (17.02%) AWS
6 381 (14.80%) Roadmaps
7 376 (14.61%) Microsoft
8 361 (14.02%) Technical Leadership
9 324 (12.59%) Migration
10 307 (11.93%) Enterprise Architecture
11 284 (11.03%) DV Cleared
12 283 (10.99%) Agile
13 247 (9.60%) Data Architecture
14 245 (9.52%) AI
15 242 (9.40%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 240 (9.32%) DevOps
17 232 (9.01%) CI/CD
18 219 (8.51%) Integration Patterns
19 214 (8.31%) Data Modelling
20 203 (7.89%) Security Architecture
21 202 (7.85%) Cybersecurity
22 196 (7.61%) Architectural Patterns
23 194 (7.54%) GCP
23 194 (7.54%) TOGAF
24 186 (7.23%) Architecture Governance
25 163 (6.33%) Continuous Improvement
25 163 (6.33%) Microservices
26 162 (6.29%) Event-Driven
27 149 (5.79%) Analytics
28 147 (5.71%) Data Governance

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 (1.28%) SAS
2 32 (1.24%) SharePoint
3 26 (1.01%) Confluence
4 17 (0.66%) Microsoft Exchange
5 13 (0.51%) OpenStack
6 12 (0.47%) Apache
7 11 (0.43%) Apache Spark
8 10 (0.39%) Apache Airflow
8 10 (0.39%) Palantir Foundry
9 7 (0.27%) Documentum
10 6 (0.23%) NetWeaver
11 5 (0.19%) IIS
12 4 (0.16%) SAP EP
13 3 (0.12%) CMS
13 3 (0.12%) JBoss
14 2 (0.078%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 2 (0.078%) Apache Superset
15 1 (0.039%) CIMPLICITY
15 1 (0.039%) FactoryTalk
15 1 (0.039%) Red Hat Fuse
Applications
1 13 (0.51%) MS Visio
2 10 (0.39%) Microsoft Excel
2 10 (0.39%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 9 (0.35%) Microsoft Office
4 7 (0.27%) Navisworks
4 7 (0.27%) Revit
5 5 (0.19%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 72 (2.80%) SAP S/4HANA
2 12 (0.47%) Teamcenter
3 9 (0.35%) Dynamics CRM
4 8 (0.31%) Payment Gateway
5 7 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
5 7 (0.27%) Remedy ITSM
6 6 (0.23%) Maximo
6 6 (0.23%) SAP MDG
6 6 (0.23%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 5 (0.19%) Remedy AR System
7 5 (0.19%) SAP ERP
8 4 (0.16%) NetSuite
8 4 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
8 4 (0.16%) SAP CRM
8 4 (0.16%) Workday HCM
9 3 (0.12%) Dynamics NAV
9 3 (0.12%) Oracle Retail
9 3 (0.12%) SAP HR
9 3 (0.12%) SAP MM
9 3 (0.12%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 582 (22.61%) Azure
2 438 (17.02%) AWS
3 194 (7.54%) GCP
4 99 (3.85%) SaaS
5 95 (3.69%) Power Platform
6 67 (2.60%) Entra ID
7 66 (2.56%) Microsoft 365
7 66 (2.56%) Serverless
8 57 (2.21%) Dynamics 365
9 50 (1.94%) Azure DevOps
9 50 (1.94%) GitHub
10 35 (1.36%) PaaS
11 31 (1.20%) AWS Lambda
11 31 (1.20%) Snowflake
12 30 (1.17%) IaaS
13 28 (1.09%) Amazon S3
13 28 (1.09%) OCI
14 26 (1.01%) GitHub Actions
15 21 (0.82%) iPaaS
15 21 (0.82%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 75 (2.91%) Firewall
2 55 (2.14%) Network Security
3 54 (2.10%) WAN
4 48 (1.86%) DNS
5 36 (1.40%) BGP
5 36 (1.40%) LAN
6 31 (1.20%) MPLS
7 29 (1.13%) SD-WAN
8 27 (1.05%) DHCP
8 27 (1.05%) VPN
9 24 (0.93%) TCP/IP
10 20 (0.78%) VLAN
11 18 (0.70%) SAN
12 16 (0.62%) NX-OS
13 15 (0.58%) NAS
13 15 (0.58%) VXLAN
14 14 (0.54%) OSPF
15 13 (0.51%) BIG-IP
15 13 (0.51%) Structured Cabling
16 11 (0.43%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 90 (3.50%) Metadata
2 80 (3.11%) Data Lake
3 75 (2.91%) Data Warehouse
4 60 (2.33%) Power BI
5 30 (1.17%) NoSQL
6 21 (0.82%) Amazon RDS
6 21 (0.82%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
7 20 (0.78%) BigQuery
8 19 (0.74%) Azure SQL Database
9 16 (0.62%) Base SAS
9 16 (0.62%) Oracle Database
10 13 (0.51%) SQL Server
11 12 (0.47%) 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 34 (1.32%) JIRA
3 22 (0.85%) Jenkins
4 21 (0.82%) GitLab
5 9 (0.35%) MSI
6 6 (0.23%) Claude Code
7 4 (0.16%) Artifactory
7 4 (0.16%) ERwin
7 4 (0.16%) Postman
7 4 (0.16%) Sonatype Nexus
8 3 (0.12%) Cucumber
8 3 (0.12%) REST Assured
8 3 (0.12%) Selenium
9 2 (0.078%) Appium
9 2 (0.078%) IntelliJ
9 2 (0.078%) JMeter
9 2 (0.078%) JUnit
9 2 (0.078%) Newman
9 2 (0.078%) Oracle APEX
9 2 (0.078%) Oracle Forms
General
1 539 (20.94%) Social Skills
2 302 (11.73%) Finance
3 268 (10.41%) Public Sector
4 123 (4.78%) Analytical Skills
5 113 (4.39%) Retail
6 111 (4.31%) Banking
7 96 (3.73%) Manufacturing
8 75 (2.91%) Influencing Skills
9 58 (2.25%) Aerospace
9 58 (2.25%) Documentation Skills
10 41 (1.59%) Legal
11 38 (1.48%) Telecoms
12 30 (1.17%) Military
13 28 (1.09%) Marketing
14 23 (0.89%) Aviation
15 20 (0.78%) Back Office
15 20 (0.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 17 (0.66%) Billing
16 17 (0.66%) Presentation Skills
17 16 (0.62%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 112 (4.35%) REST
2 89 (3.46%) Terraform
3 71 (2.76%) Middleware
4 55 (2.14%) SOAP
5 53 (2.06%) OAuth
6 45 (1.75%) Kafka
7 43 (1.67%) Oracle Fusion
8 39 (1.52%) LDAP
9 34 (1.32%) SAML
10 30 (1.17%) .NET
11 29 (1.13%) OpenID
12 22 (0.85%) JSON
13 21 (0.82%) OAuth2
14 20 (0.78%) SAP Fiori
15 19 (0.74%) SailPoint
16 17 (0.66%) GraphQL
16 17 (0.66%) JWT
16 17 (0.66%) Node.js
17 15 (0.58%) SAPUI5
17 15 (0.58%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 198 (7.69%) Cloud Native
2 91 (3.54%) Data Centre
3 82 (3.19%) Hybrid Cloud
4 71 (2.76%) Onboarding
5 65 (2.53%) Product Ownership
6 63 (2.45%) Enterprise Software
7 62 (2.41%) Legacy Systems
8 60 (2.33%) Data Protection Act
8 60 (2.33%) Distributed Systems
9 59 (2.29%) Operational Technology
10 51 (1.98%) Management Information System
11 44 (1.71%) AI Agents
12 41 (1.59%) Public Cloud
13 40 (1.55%) Private Cloud
14 39 (1.52%) CMDB
15 28 (1.09%) Enterprise Cloud
16 27 (1.05%) IVR
17 23 (0.89%) PKI
17 23 (0.89%) Security Posture
18 22 (0.85%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 88 (3.42%) Windows
2 55 (2.14%) Linux
3 35 (1.36%) 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%) 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
1 488 (18.96%) Stakeholder Management
2 381 (14.80%) Roadmaps
3 361 (14.02%) Technical Leadership
4 324 (12.59%) Migration
5 307 (11.93%) Enterprise Architecture
6 283 (10.99%) Agile
7 247 (9.60%) Data Architecture
8 245 (9.52%) AI
9 242 (9.40%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 240 (9.32%) DevOps
11 232 (9.01%) CI/CD
12 219 (8.51%) Integration Patterns
13 214 (8.31%) Data Modelling
14 203 (7.89%) Security Architecture
15 202 (7.85%) Cybersecurity
16 196 (7.61%) Architectural Patterns
17 194 (7.54%) TOGAF
18 186 (7.23%) Architecture Governance
19 163 (6.33%) Continuous Improvement
19 163 (6.33%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 94 (3.65%) Java
2 90 (3.50%) SQL
3 83 (3.22%) Python
4 50 (1.94%) PowerShell
5 43 (1.67%) JavaScript
6 24 (0.93%) Bash
7 16 (0.62%) ABAP
8 15 (0.58%) TypeScript
9 11 (0.43%) C#
10 10 (0.39%) Shell Script
11 9 (0.35%) Apex Code
11 9 (0.35%) Bicep
12 6 (0.23%) PL/SQL
13 5 (0.19%) Groovy
14 4 (0.16%) PHP
15 3 (0.12%) R
15 3 (0.12%) VBA
16 2 (0.078%) BeanShell
16 2 (0.078%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 2 (0.078%) Go
Qualifications
1 878 (34.11%) Security Cleared
2 573 (22.26%) SC Cleared
3 284 (11.03%) DV Cleared
4 73 (2.84%) Degree
5 67 (2.60%) CISSP
6 66 (2.56%) BPSS Clearance
7 58 (2.25%) Cisco Certification
8 46 (1.79%) AWS Certification
9 45 (1.75%) TOGAF Certification
10 41 (1.59%) Azure Certification
11 33 (1.28%) Computer Science Degree
12 26 (1.01%) CCNP
13 24 (0.93%) CISM
14 21 (0.82%) CCIE
15 18 (0.70%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 17 (0.66%) Microsoft Certification
17 16 (0.62%) JNCIE
18 13 (0.51%) CCSP
19 12 (0.47%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
19 12 (0.47%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 99 (3.85%) NIST
2 89 (3.46%) Data Quality
3 69 (2.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 60 (2.33%) NCSC
5 46 (1.79%) GDPR
6 25 (0.97%) QA
7 19 (0.74%) Accessibility
7 19 (0.74%) ISO/IEC 20000
7 19 (0.74%) JSP 440
7 19 (0.74%) PCI DSS
8 17 (0.66%) GRC
9 14 (0.54%) ISO 19650
9 14 (0.54%) NIST 800
10 13 (0.51%) Disclosure Scotland
11 11 (0.43%) SLA
12 10 (0.39%) IFRS
13 9 (0.35%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 6 (0.23%) Actionable Recommendations
14 6 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
14 6 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 27005
System Software
1 98 (3.81%) Active Directory
2 48 (1.86%) VMware Infrastructure
3 44 (1.71%) Docker
4 28 (1.09%) VMware NSX
5 24 (0.93%) Virtual Desktop
6 13 (0.51%) Hyper-V
7 11 (0.43%) vSphere
8 10 (0.39%) VMware ESXi
9 9 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
10 4 (0.16%) ISA Server
10 4 (0.16%) KVM
11 3 (0.12%) Ceph
11 3 (0.12%) EMC RecoverPoint
11 3 (0.12%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 3 (0.12%) SRDF
11 3 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
12 2 (0.078%) NFS
12 2 (0.078%) zsh
13 1 (0.039%) vCloud
Systems Management
1 127 (4.93%) Kubernetes
2 49 (1.90%) Ansible
3 20 (0.78%) Microsoft Intune
4 19 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
5 14 (0.54%) 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
10 6 (0.23%) vCenter Server
11 5 (0.19%) Argo
11 5 (0.19%) Istio
11 5 (0.19%) NetBackup
12 4 (0.16%) Cisco CUCM
12 4 (0.16%) EMC VPLEX
12 4 (0.16%) SnapMirror
12 4 (0.16%) VxRail
13 3 (0.12%) SnapVault
Vendors
1 376 (14.61%) Microsoft
2 130 (5.05%) SAP
3 114 (4.43%) Google
3 114 (4.43%) Oracle
4 97 (3.77%) ServiceNow
5 81 (3.15%) VMware
6 80 (3.11%) Databricks
7 78 (3.03%) Cisco
8 58 (2.25%) Salesforce
9 43 (1.67%) CyberArk
10 31 (1.20%) MuleSoft
11 25 (0.97%) F5
12 21 (0.82%) Informatica
12 21 (0.82%) Red Hat
12 21 (0.82%) Workday
13 20 (0.78%) IBM
14 17 (0.66%) Infoblox
14 17 (0.66%) Palo Alto
15 16 (0.62%) Foundry
15 16 (0.62%) OutSystems
2,085 Architect jobs in the UK excluding London