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 22 September 2026.

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

6 months to
22 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 14 21 13
Rank change year-on-year +7 -8 +3
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 2,575 1,201 1,686
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 9.14% 7.87% 9.56%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.01% 8.76% 10.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,734 824 1,010
10th Percentile £463 £462 £469
25th Percentile £525 £519 £531
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £600 £625
Median % change year-on-year +3.33% -4.00% -1.19%
75th Percentile £700 £688 £725
90th Percentile £769 £775 £781
UK median daily rate £618 £625 £625
% change year-on-year -1.20% - -3.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 156 12 65
10th Percentile £46.00 £30.99 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £56.62 £62.50
Median hourly rate £67.41 £71.25 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -5.39% +1.79% -6.67%
75th Percentile £78.75 £81.88 £85.00
90th Percentile £95.00 £98.75 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £68.17 £71.25 £70.00
% change year-on-year -4.33% +1.79% -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 25,724 13,712 16,284
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.27% 89.83% 92.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,146 8,420 9,410
10th Percentile £303 £213 £220
25th Percentile £413 £361 £375
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 £663 £676
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,346 1,267 1,386
10th Percentile £14.25 £13.50 £14.41
25th Percentile £20.00 £16.28 £19.52
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.11 £43.90
Median % change year-on-year +69.26% -42.80% +0.34%
75th Percentile £67.84 £51.65 £66.25
90th Percentile £78.73 £70.06 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -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 22 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 22 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 22 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 +4 734 £625 +4.17% 589
North of England +3 684 £595 -0.83% 510
Midlands +3 436 £626 +8.87% 294
North West +7 377 £600 +2.78% 287
South West +3 346 £638 -1.92% 226
West Midlands +1 324 £650 +8.33% 214
Yorkshire +16 243 £555 -7.54% 165
Scotland +26 184 £625 - 219
East of England +9 160 £622 +12.07% 137
East Midlands +5 107 £600 +19.40% 80
North East +3 63 £600 -18.64% 58
Wales +3 42 £633 +1.20% 35
Channel Islands -3 8 £700 -5.72% 4
Northern Ireland +5 2 - - 64
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 22 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.

1 889 (34.52%) Security Cleared
2 578 (22.45%) Azure
3 577 (22.41%) SC Cleared
4 478 (18.56%) Stakeholder Management
5 439 (17.05%) AWS
6 374 (14.52%) Roadmaps
7 369 (14.33%) Microsoft
8 359 (13.94%) Technical Leadership
9 317 (12.31%) Migration
10 303 (11.77%) Enterprise Architecture
11 294 (11.42%) Agile
12 287 (11.15%) DV Cleared
13 240 (9.32%) Data Architecture
14 239 (9.28%) DevOps
14 239 (9.28%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 234 (9.09%) AI
16 226 (8.78%) CI/CD
17 215 (8.35%) Integration Patterns
18 209 (8.12%) Data Modelling
19 203 (7.88%) Security Architecture
20 202 (7.84%) Cybersecurity
21 195 (7.57%) Architectural Patterns
22 192 (7.46%) TOGAF
23 184 (7.15%) GCP
24 178 (6.91%) Architecture Governance
25 167 (6.49%) Continuous Improvement
26 161 (6.25%) Microservices
27 156 (6.06%) Event-Driven
28 149 (5.79%) Problem-Solving
29 145 (5.63%) Decision-Making

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%) SAS
2 33 (1.28%) SharePoint
3 27 (1.05%) Confluence
4 17 (0.66%) Microsoft Exchange
5 13 (0.50%) OpenStack
6 11 (0.43%) Apache
7 10 (0.39%) Apache Airflow
7 10 (0.39%) Apache Spark
7 10 (0.39%) Palantir Foundry
8 7 (0.27%) Documentum
9 6 (0.23%) NetWeaver
10 5 (0.19%) IIS
11 4 (0.16%) SAP EP
12 3 (0.12%) CMS
12 3 (0.12%) JBoss
13 2 (0.078%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 2 (0.078%) Alfresco
13 2 (0.078%) Apache Superset
14 1 (0.039%) Jupyter
14 1 (0.039%) Predix
Applications
1 11 (0.43%) MS Visio
2 10 (0.39%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (0.35%) Microsoft Office
4 8 (0.31%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.27%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.27%) Revit
6 6 (0.23%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 69 (2.68%) SAP S/4HANA
2 12 (0.47%) Teamcenter
3 9 (0.35%) Payment Gateway
3 9 (0.35%) Remedy ITSM
4 7 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
4 7 (0.27%) SAP ERP
4 7 (0.27%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 6 (0.23%) Dynamics CRM
5 6 (0.23%) Maximo
5 6 (0.23%) SAP MDG
6 5 (0.19%) Remedy AR System
7 4 (0.16%) NetSuite
7 4 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
7 4 (0.16%) SAP CRM
8 3 (0.12%) Adobe Campaign
8 3 (0.12%) Dynamics NAV
8 3 (0.12%) Oracle Retail
8 3 (0.12%) SAP HR
8 3 (0.12%) SAP Payroll
8 3 (0.12%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 578 (22.45%) Azure
2 439 (17.05%) AWS
3 184 (7.15%) GCP
4 97 (3.77%) SaaS
5 94 (3.65%) Power Platform
6 69 (2.68%) Serverless
7 67 (2.60%) Entra ID
8 62 (2.41%) Microsoft 365
9 53 (2.06%) Dynamics 365
10 47 (1.83%) Azure DevOps
11 45 (1.75%) GitHub
12 39 (1.51%) PaaS
13 34 (1.32%) IaaS
14 33 (1.28%) AWS Lambda
15 30 (1.17%) Snowflake
16 29 (1.13%) Amazon S3
17 26 (1.01%) GitHub Actions
18 24 (0.93%) OCI
19 21 (0.82%) iPaaS
19 21 (0.82%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 76 (2.95%) Firewall
2 57 (2.21%) WAN
3 53 (2.06%) DNS
4 52 (2.02%) Network Security
5 40 (1.55%) LAN
6 36 (1.40%) BGP
7 33 (1.28%) DHCP
8 31 (1.20%) MPLS
8 31 (1.20%) SD-WAN
9 28 (1.09%) VPN
10 27 (1.05%) TCP/IP
11 25 (0.97%) VLAN
12 20 (0.78%) SAN
13 17 (0.66%) BIG-IP
13 17 (0.66%) NAS
13 17 (0.66%) NX-OS
14 16 (0.62%) OSPF
15 15 (0.58%) Structured Cabling
16 14 (0.54%) VXLAN
16 14 (0.54%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 87 (3.38%) Metadata
2 79 (3.07%) Data Lake
3 72 (2.80%) Data Warehouse
4 63 (2.45%) Power BI
5 33 (1.28%) NoSQL
6 22 (0.85%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
7 21 (0.82%) Amazon RDS
8 18 (0.70%) Azure SQL Database
8 18 (0.70%) BigQuery
9 17 (0.66%) Oracle Database
10 16 (0.62%) Base SAS
11 15 (0.58%) SQL Server
12 11 (0.43%) GIS
12 11 (0.43%) PostgreSQL
13 10 (0.39%) Amazon Redshift
13 10 (0.39%) Delta Lake
14 9 (0.35%) Looker
14 9 (0.35%) MySQL
14 9 (0.35%) Pentaho
14 9 (0.35%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 35 (1.36%) Git
1 35 (1.36%) JIRA
2 21 (0.82%) Jenkins
3 19 (0.74%) GitLab
4 7 (0.27%) MSI
5 6 (0.23%) Claude Code
6 5 (0.19%) ERwin
7 4 (0.16%) Artifactory
7 4 (0.16%) Hudson
7 4 (0.16%) Sonatype Nexus
8 3 (0.12%) Postman
8 3 (0.12%) Selenium
9 2 (0.078%) Cucumber
9 2 (0.078%) Cypress.io
9 2 (0.078%) IntelliJ
9 2 (0.078%) JUnit
9 2 (0.078%) Oracle APEX
9 2 (0.078%) Oracle Forms
9 2 (0.078%) Rational DOORS
9 2 (0.078%) Rational Rhapsody
General
1 544 (21.13%) Social Skills
2 305 (11.84%) Finance
3 264 (10.25%) Public Sector
4 125 (4.85%) Analytical Skills
5 121 (4.70%) Banking
6 114 (4.43%) Retail
7 92 (3.57%) Manufacturing
8 71 (2.76%) Influencing Skills
9 61 (2.37%) Documentation Skills
10 51 (1.98%) Aerospace
11 42 (1.63%) Legal
12 34 (1.32%) Telecoms
13 30 (1.17%) Military
14 26 (1.01%) Marketing
15 22 (0.85%) 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 16 (0.62%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 106 (4.12%) REST
2 90 (3.50%) Terraform
3 73 (2.83%) Middleware
4 54 (2.10%) SOAP
5 51 (1.98%) OAuth
6 44 (1.71%) Kafka
7 40 (1.55%) Oracle Fusion
8 39 (1.51%) LDAP
9 34 (1.32%) SAML
10 31 (1.20%) .NET
11 30 (1.17%) OpenID
12 27 (1.05%) JSON
13 21 (0.82%) OAuth2
14 19 (0.74%) SailPoint
15 18 (0.70%) Node.js
16 17 (0.66%) GraphQL
17 16 (0.62%) JWT
18 15 (0.58%) Swagger
18 15 (0.58%) XML
19 14 (0.54%) SAP Fiori
Miscellaneous
1 191 (7.42%) Cloud Native
2 92 (3.57%) Data Centre
3 78 (3.03%) Hybrid Cloud
4 68 (2.64%) Onboarding
5 64 (2.49%) Distributed Systems
6 62 (2.41%) Product Ownership
7 61 (2.37%) Data Protection Act
8 59 (2.29%) Enterprise Software
8 59 (2.29%) Operational Technology
9 58 (2.25%) Legacy Systems
10 51 (1.98%) Management Information System
11 40 (1.55%) AI Agents
11 40 (1.55%) Public Cloud
12 39 (1.51%) CMDB
13 38 (1.48%) Private Cloud
14 28 (1.09%) Enterprise Cloud
15 27 (1.05%) IVR
16 25 (0.97%) Security Posture
17 24 (0.93%) PKI
18 21 (0.82%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 86 (3.34%) Windows
2 56 (2.17%) Linux
3 37 (1.44%) Windows Server
4 17 (0.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 8 (0.31%) 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
1 478 (18.56%) Stakeholder Management
2 374 (14.52%) Roadmaps
3 359 (13.94%) Technical Leadership
4 317 (12.31%) Migration
5 303 (11.77%) Enterprise Architecture
6 294 (11.42%) Agile
7 240 (9.32%) Data Architecture
8 239 (9.28%) DevOps
8 239 (9.28%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 234 (9.09%) AI
10 226 (8.78%) CI/CD
11 215 (8.35%) Integration Patterns
12 209 (8.12%) Data Modelling
13 203 (7.88%) Security Architecture
14 202 (7.84%) Cybersecurity
15 195 (7.57%) Architectural Patterns
16 192 (7.46%) TOGAF
17 178 (6.91%) Architecture Governance
18 167 (6.49%) Continuous Improvement
19 161 (6.25%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 94 (3.65%) Java
2 93 (3.61%) SQL
3 87 (3.38%) Python
4 51 (1.98%) PowerShell
5 49 (1.90%) JavaScript
6 24 (0.93%) Bash
7 14 (0.54%) TypeScript
8 13 (0.50%) ABAP
9 10 (0.39%) Shell Script
10 9 (0.35%) Apex Code
10 9 (0.35%) Bicep
10 9 (0.35%) C#
11 6 (0.23%) PL/SQL
11 6 (0.23%) VBA
12 5 (0.19%) Groovy
13 4 (0.16%) PHP
14 3 (0.12%) COBOL
14 3 (0.12%) R
15 2 (0.078%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 2 (0.078%) Go
Qualifications
1 889 (34.52%) Security Cleared
2 577 (22.41%) SC Cleared
3 287 (11.15%) DV Cleared
4 72 (2.80%) Degree
5 68 (2.64%) CISSP
6 62 (2.41%) Cisco Certification
7 57 (2.21%) BPSS Clearance
8 44 (1.71%) AWS Certification
9 43 (1.67%) TOGAF Certification
10 40 (1.55%) Azure Certification
11 31 (1.20%) Computer Science Degree
12 29 (1.13%) CCNP
13 23 (0.89%) CISM
14 20 (0.78%) CCIE
15 19 (0.74%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 19 (0.74%) Microsoft Certification
16 15 (0.58%) JNCIE
17 13 (0.50%) CCSP
18 12 (0.47%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
18 12 (0.47%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 100 (3.88%) NIST
2 87 (3.38%) Data Quality
3 71 (2.76%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 58 (2.25%) NCSC
5 49 (1.90%) GDPR
6 28 (1.09%) QA
7 19 (0.74%) PCI DSS
8 18 (0.70%) GRC
8 18 (0.70%) JSP 440
9 17 (0.66%) Accessibility
10 16 (0.62%) ISO/IEC 20000
11 15 (0.58%) NIST 800
12 13 (0.50%) ISO 19650
13 12 (0.47%) Disclosure Scotland
14 11 (0.43%) IFRS
14 11 (0.43%) SLA
15 9 (0.35%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 7 (0.27%) ISO/IEC 27005
17 6 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
18 5 (0.19%) Cyber Essentials
System Software
1 102 (3.96%) Active Directory
2 48 (1.86%) VMware Infrastructure
3 45 (1.75%) Docker
4 28 (1.09%) VMware NSX
5 23 (0.89%) Virtual Desktop
6 14 (0.54%) Hyper-V
7 13 (0.50%) VMware ESXi
8 12 (0.47%) vSphere
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%) vCloud
11 3 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
12 2 (0.078%) NFS
12 2 (0.078%) zsh
13 1 (0.039%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 129 (5.01%) Kubernetes
2 53 (2.06%) Ansible
3 21 (0.82%) Microsoft Intune
4 19 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
5 14 (0.54%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 13 (0.50%) Prometheus
7 12 (0.47%) Grafana
7 12 (0.47%) Jamf Pro
8 10 (0.39%) WMI
9 8 (0.31%) CASB
9 8 (0.31%) vCenter Server
10 7 (0.27%) FortiGate
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
13 3 (0.12%) MOM
13 3 (0.12%) SnapVault
Vendors
1 369 (14.33%) Microsoft
2 132 (5.13%) SAP
3 113 (4.39%) Oracle
4 110 (4.27%) Google
5 102 (3.96%) ServiceNow
6 88 (3.42%) VMware
7 82 (3.18%) Cisco
8 81 (3.15%) Databricks
9 58 (2.25%) Salesforce
10 43 (1.67%) CyberArk
11 32 (1.24%) MuleSoft
12 30 (1.17%) F5
13 23 (0.89%) IBM
13 23 (0.89%) Informatica
14 20 (0.78%) Red Hat
14 20 (0.78%) Workday
15 19 (0.74%) Infoblox
16 17 (0.66%) Palo Alto
17 16 (0.62%) Foundry
18 15 (0.58%) Fortinet