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 £600, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 8 November 2025.

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

6 months to
8 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 21 14 17
Rank change year-on-year -7 +3 +5
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 1,369 1,521 1,774
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 8.03% 9.09% 8.51%
As % of the Job Titles category 8.95% 9.86% 9.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 958 919 1,232
10th Percentile £460 £458 £500
25th Percentile £519 £525 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £625 £630
Median % change year-on-year -4.00% -0.79% -3.08%
75th Percentile £694 £700 £700
90th Percentile £775 £763 £750
UK median daily rate £625 £625 £650
% change year-on-year - -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 22 35
10th Percentile £61.37 £60.00 £61.25
25th Percentile £68.13 £60.31 £71.71
Median hourly rate £83.82 £66.75 £76.53
Median % change year-on-year +25.57% -12.78% +9.33%
75th Percentile £90.09 £74.38 £80.00
90th Percentile £97.91 £89.75 £87.49
UK median hourly rate £83.82 £68.75 £75.00
% change year-on-year +21.92% -8.33% +7.14%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
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 15,294 15,420 19,586
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 89.66% 92.19% 93.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,471 8,872 12,986
10th Percentile £206 £220 £213
25th Percentile £363 £375 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £490 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.06% -2.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,488 1,063 1,273
10th Percentile £13.75 £14.84 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.00 £19.55 £18.25
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.25 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -28.65% -20.79% +85.42%
75th Percentile £50.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £69.75 £73.71 £77.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £36.50 £44.50
% change year-on-year -31.10% -17.98% +53.98%

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 8 November 2025.

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 8 November 2025.

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 8 November 2025. 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 +1 407 £600 -4.00% 1,074
North of England -10 363 £600 +0.08% 275
Midlands -9 223 £575 -3.51% 186
North West -10 218 £598 -0.42% 172
South West -2 196 £675 +3.85% 196
West Midlands -15 155 £582 -6.36% 97
Yorkshire -21 130 £613 +5.79% 79
Scotland -4 87 £618 -1.98% 98
East of England -2 84 £555 -7.50% 126
East Midlands -4 67 £500 +1.01% 74
Wales -3 21 £625 +0.40% 37
North East -11 16 £738 +22.99% 24
Channel Islands - 6 £743 - 28
Northern Ireland -12 4 £550 -8.33% 20
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 8 November 2025, 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.

1 455 (33.24%) Security Cleared
2 347 (25.35%) Azure
3 308 (22.50%) AWS
4 262 (19.14%) SC Cleared
5 228 (16.65%) Roadmaps
6 206 (15.05%) Stakeholder Management
7 198 (14.46%) Microsoft
8 168 (12.27%) Migration
9 167 (12.20%) Agile
10 164 (11.98%) Problem-Solving
11 160 (11.69%) TOGAF
12 150 (10.96%) Enterprise Architecture
13 144 (10.52%) DV Cleared
14 141 (10.30%) Data Modelling
15 140 (10.23%) CI/CD
16 137 (10.01%) DevOps
16 137 (10.01%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 128 (9.35%) Technical Leadership
18 126 (9.20%) GCP
19 114 (8.33%) AI
20 109 (7.96%) ITIL
20 109 (7.96%) Microservices
21 106 (7.74%) Python
22 105 (7.67%) Cybersecurity
23 103 (7.52%) Mentoring
24 101 (7.38%) VMware
25 95 (6.94%) Architectural Design
26 90 (6.57%) Terraform
27 89 (6.50%) Data Architecture
28 88 (6.43%) 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 28 (2.05%) Confluence
2 17 (1.24%) SharePoint
3 14 (1.02%) ArcGIS
3 14 (1.02%) SAS
4 13 (0.95%) Microsoft Exchange
5 10 (0.73%) Apache Spark
6 9 (0.66%) WebLogic
7 7 (0.51%) Apache Airflow
7 7 (0.51%) Smallworld
8 6 (0.44%) OpenStack
9 5 (0.37%) WebSphere
10 4 (0.29%) Documentum
11 3 (0.22%) GeoServer
11 3 (0.22%) Oracle Spatial
11 3 (0.22%) Skype for Business
11 3 (0.22%) ThingWorx
12 2 (0.15%) Anypoint
12 2 (0.15%) Mule
12 2 (0.15%) Oracle Coherence
12 2 (0.15%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 12 (0.88%) Siemens NX
2 11 (0.80%) Microsoft Excel
3 10 (0.73%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 10 (0.73%) MS Visio
4 6 (0.44%) Microsoft Office
5 3 (0.22%) Fusion 360
6 1 (0.073%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.073%) FrameMaker
6 1 (0.073%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.073%) Revit
6 1 (0.073%) Trello
Business Applications
1 33 (2.41%) SAP S/4HANA
2 19 (1.39%) Dynamics CRM
3 13 (0.95%) Payment Gateway
4 12 (0.88%) Teamcenter
5 11 (0.80%) Maximo
6 9 (0.66%) SAP CO
6 9 (0.66%) Workday HCM
7 8 (0.58%) SAP FI
7 8 (0.58%) SAP FI/CO
7 8 (0.58%) SAP PM
8 7 (0.51%) Salesforce CRM
9 6 (0.44%) SAP HR
9 6 (0.44%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
10 5 (0.37%) Dynamics AX
10 5 (0.37%) Oracle SCM
11 3 (0.22%) NetSuite
12 2 (0.15%) Avolution ABACUS
12 2 (0.15%) SAP CRM
12 2 (0.15%) SAP ERP
12 2 (0.15%) SAP Retail
Cloud Services
1 347 (25.35%) Azure
2 308 (22.50%) AWS
3 126 (9.20%) GCP
4 64 (4.67%) SaaS
4 64 (4.67%) Serverless
5 50 (3.65%) Dynamics 365
6 41 (2.99%) AWS Lambda
7 38 (2.78%) Entra ID
7 38 (2.78%) Power Platform
8 37 (2.70%) Amazon S3
9 36 (2.63%) GitHub
10 34 (2.48%) Microsoft 365
11 28 (2.05%) Azure DevOps
12 26 (1.90%) PaaS
13 25 (1.83%) IaaS
14 23 (1.68%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 22 (1.61%) Microsoft Purview
16 19 (1.39%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 18 (1.31%) GitHub Actions
17 18 (1.31%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 85 (6.21%) Firewall
2 48 (3.51%) Network Security
3 44 (3.21%) WAN
4 38 (2.78%) LAN
5 33 (2.41%) VPN
6 30 (2.19%) DNS
7 27 (1.97%) SD-WAN
8 21 (1.53%) BGP
8 21 (1.53%) SAN
9 20 (1.46%) MPLS
10 16 (1.17%) Fibre Channel
10 16 (1.17%) iSCSI
11 14 (1.02%) VSAN
12 12 (0.88%) DHCP
13 10 (0.73%) Internet
13 10 (0.73%) Wi-Fi
14 9 (0.66%) VLAN
15 8 (0.58%) Cisco ASA
15 8 (0.58%) Wireless
16 7 (0.51%) FTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 57 (4.16%) Data Warehouse
2 39 (2.85%) PostgreSQL
3 31 (2.26%) Metadata
4 29 (2.12%) Power BI
5 28 (2.05%) NoSQL
6 25 (1.83%) MongoDB
6 25 (1.83%) SQL Server
7 23 (1.68%) DynamoDB
8 21 (1.53%) Oracle Database
9 20 (1.46%) GIS
10 17 (1.24%) Relational Database
11 14 (1.02%) Big Data
11 14 (1.02%) BigQuery
11 14 (1.02%) RDBMS
12 13 (0.95%) Amazon Redshift
13 12 (0.88%) Data Lake
13 12 (0.88%) Tableau
14 11 (0.80%) Redis
15 9 (0.66%) Amazon RDS
15 9 (0.66%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 47 (3.43%) JIRA
2 43 (3.14%) Jenkins
3 34 (2.48%) Git
4 10 (0.73%) CircleCI
5 9 (0.66%) GitLab
5 9 (0.66%) Oracle Forms
6 7 (0.51%) Gradle
6 7 (0.51%) Maven
6 7 (0.51%) Rational DOORS
7 6 (0.44%) SonarQube
8 5 (0.37%) SonarLint
9 3 (0.22%) Artifactory
9 3 (0.22%) Hudson
9 3 (0.22%) MSI
9 3 (0.22%) Visual Studio Code
10 2 (0.15%) Bitbucket
10 2 (0.15%) MLflow
10 2 (0.15%) Postman
10 2 (0.15%) Sonatype Nexus
11 1 (0.073%) ER Studio
General
1 377 (27.54%) Social Skills
2 179 (13.08%) Public Sector
3 177 (12.93%) Finance
4 98 (7.16%) Analytical Skills
5 78 (5.70%) Banking
6 47 (3.43%) Retail
7 45 (3.29%) Telecoms
8 36 (2.63%) Documentation Skills
8 36 (2.63%) Marketing
9 31 (2.26%) Influencing Skills
10 28 (2.05%) Presentation Skills
11 27 (1.97%) Manufacturing
12 21 (1.53%) Legal
13 20 (1.46%) Aerospace
14 14 (1.02%) Military
15 12 (0.88%) Local Government
16 10 (0.73%) Back Office
17 9 (0.66%) Aviation
17 9 (0.66%) Financial Institution
18 8 (0.58%) Inclusion and Diversity
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 42 (3.07%) REST
2 39 (2.85%) Middleware
3 31 (2.26%) SOAP
4 30 (2.19%) Kafka
5 29 (2.12%) RESTful
6 28 (2.05%) .NET
7 19 (1.39%) OAuth
8 18 (1.31%) Spring Boot
8 18 (1.31%) Web Services
9 17 (1.24%) Lightning Web Components
10 16 (1.17%) Visualforce
11 14 (1.02%) SailPoint
12 13 (0.95%) GraphQL
12 13 (0.95%) Node.js
12 13 (0.95%) SAML
12 13 (0.95%) SAP PI
13 10 (0.73%) OAuth2
14 9 (0.66%) Celery
14 9 (0.66%) Oracle Fusion
14 9 (0.66%) React
Miscellaneous
1 97 (7.09%) Cloud Native
2 67 (4.89%) Legacy Systems
3 62 (4.53%) Data Centre
4 58 (4.24%) Product Ownership
5 47 (3.43%) Hybrid Cloud
6 46 (3.36%) Onboarding
7 25 (1.83%) Operational Technology
8 23 (1.68%) Enterprise Software
9 22 (1.61%) CMDB
9 22 (1.61%) Management Information System
9 22 (1.61%) PKI
9 22 (1.61%) Security Posture
10 21 (1.53%) SCADA
11 20 (1.46%) Distributed Systems
12 19 (1.39%) Public Cloud
13 17 (1.24%) Data Protection Act
13 17 (1.24%) Security Operations Centre
14 16 (1.17%) NHS
15 15 (1.10%) Cyber Threat
16 12 (0.88%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 81 (5.92%) Windows
2 50 (3.65%) Linux
3 33 (2.41%) Windows Server
4 20 (1.46%) Windows Server 2019
5 12 (0.88%) Unix
6 10 (0.73%) Windows 10
7 9 (0.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 9 (0.66%) Windows 7
8 5 (0.37%) Android
8 5 (0.37%) Apple iOS
9 3 (0.22%) Mac OS
9 3 (0.22%) Windows Server 2008
10 2 (0.15%) Solaris
10 2 (0.15%) Ubuntu
10 2 (0.15%) Windows Server 2016
10 2 (0.15%) zOS
11 1 (0.073%) MVS
11 1 (0.073%) VMS
11 1 (0.073%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 228 (16.65%) Roadmaps
2 206 (15.05%) Stakeholder Management
3 168 (12.27%) Migration
4 167 (12.20%) Agile
5 164 (11.98%) Problem-Solving
6 160 (11.69%) TOGAF
7 150 (10.96%) Enterprise Architecture
8 141 (10.30%) Data Modelling
9 140 (10.23%) CI/CD
10 137 (10.01%) DevOps
10 137 (10.01%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 128 (9.35%) Technical Leadership
12 114 (8.33%) AI
13 109 (7.96%) ITIL
13 109 (7.96%) Microservices
14 105 (7.67%) Cybersecurity
15 103 (7.52%) Mentoring
16 95 (6.94%) Architectural Design
17 89 (6.50%) Data Architecture
18 88 (6.43%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 106 (7.74%) Python
2 80 (5.84%) Java
3 61 (4.46%) SQL
4 27 (1.97%) PowerShell
5 23 (1.68%) JavaScript
6 18 (1.31%) TypeScript
7 17 (1.24%) Apex Code
8 14 (1.02%) C#
9 10 (0.73%) R
10 9 (0.66%) Bash
10 9 (0.66%) C++
11 7 (0.51%) Bicep
12 6 (0.44%) C
13 5 (0.37%) ABAP
13 5 (0.37%) Scala
13 5 (0.37%) VB
14 3 (0.22%) Magik
14 3 (0.22%) Shell Script
14 3 (0.22%) VBScript
14 3 (0.22%) X++
Qualifications
1 455 (33.24%) Security Cleared
2 262 (19.14%) SC Cleared
3 144 (10.52%) DV Cleared
4 72 (5.26%) CISSP
4 72 (5.26%) Degree
5 49 (3.58%) AWS Certification
6 45 (3.29%) Azure Certification
7 38 (2.78%) Microsoft Certification
8 35 (2.56%) Cisco Certification
9 31 (2.26%) CISM
10 30 (2.19%) TOGAF Certification
11 24 (1.75%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 23 (1.68%) Computer Science Degree
12 23 (1.68%) Master's Degree
13 20 (1.46%) CCIE
14 16 (1.17%) BPSS Clearance
14 16 (1.17%) CCNP
14 16 (1.17%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 15 (1.10%) MCSE
16 14 (1.02%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 80 (5.84%) GDPR
2 72 (5.26%) NIST
3 68 (4.97%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 42 (3.07%) Data Quality
5 37 (2.70%) NCSC
6 29 (2.12%) ISO/IEC 20000
7 28 (2.05%) PCI DSS
8 20 (1.46%) JSP 440
9 18 (1.31%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 18 (1.31%) QA
10 12 (0.88%) COBIT
10 12 (0.88%) GRC
11 11 (0.80%) SLA
12 9 (0.66%) Accessibility
12 9 (0.66%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 8 (0.58%) HMG Security Policy Framework
13 8 (0.58%) NIST 800
13 8 (0.58%) PSD2
14 7 (0.51%) Cyber Essentials
15 6 (0.44%) HIPAA
System Software
1 69 (5.04%) VMware Infrastructure
2 52 (3.80%) Active Directory
3 49 (3.58%) Docker
4 30 (2.19%) vSphere
5 23 (1.68%) VMware ESXi
6 18 (1.31%) VMware NSX
7 16 (1.17%) NFS
8 8 (0.58%) Virtual Desktop
9 5 (0.37%) Hyper-V
10 3 (0.22%) BitLocker
10 3 (0.22%) Dovecot
10 3 (0.22%) Postfix
11 2 (0.15%) KVM
11 2 (0.15%) Virtual Machines
12 1 (0.073%) HDFS
12 1 (0.073%) Microsoft App-V
12 1 (0.073%) Slurm Workload Manager
12 1 (0.073%) SRDF
12 1 (0.073%) Veritas Cluster Server
12 1 (0.073%) Xen
Systems Management
1 90 (6.57%) Terraform
2 77 (5.62%) Kubernetes
3 41 (2.99%) Ansible
4 20 (1.46%) Single Sign-On
5 15 (1.10%) Prometheus
6 14 (1.02%) vCenter Server
7 10 (0.73%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 10 (0.73%) Grafana
7 10 (0.73%) Microsoft Intune
8 9 (0.66%) SCCM
9 7 (0.51%) Argo
9 7 (0.51%) WMI
10 4 (0.29%) FortiGate
11 3 (0.22%) OPNET
12 2 (0.15%) Amdocs OSS
12 2 (0.15%) Control-M
12 2 (0.15%) Kubeflow
12 2 (0.15%) Microsoft Clustering
12 2 (0.15%) SCOM
13 1 (0.073%) Podman
Vendors
1 198 (14.46%) Microsoft
2 101 (7.38%) VMware
3 85 (6.21%) Oracle
4 71 (5.19%) SAP
5 66 (4.82%) Salesforce
6 64 (4.67%) Cisco
7 44 (3.21%) ServiceNow
8 31 (2.26%) Google
9 26 (1.90%) Splunk
10 24 (1.75%) Juniper
11 23 (1.68%) F5
11 23 (1.68%) Palo Alto
12 21 (1.53%) NetApp
12 21 (1.53%) Workday
13 19 (1.39%) Citrix
13 19 (1.39%) CyberArk
13 19 (1.39%) Fortinet
14 18 (1.31%) IBM
14 18 (1.31%) Virgin Media
15 17 (1.24%) ESRI