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 £603, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 3 April 2026.

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

6 months to
3 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 2,280 1,130 2,018
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 10.09% 8.94% 9.62%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.97% 9.67% 10.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,472 783 1,243
10th Percentile £450 £450 £500
25th Percentile £506 £538 £575
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £603 £620 £650
Median % change year-on-year -2.82% -4.62% -
75th Percentile £702 £700 £725
90th Percentile £767 £750 £788
UK median daily rate £620 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -1.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 102 28 43
10th Percentile £49.40 £58.65 £53.45
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 £97.25 £85.50 £95.00
UK median hourly rate £71.27 £68.75 £83.50
% change year-on-year +3.67% -17.66% +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 20,780 11,684 19,446
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.99% 92.44% 92.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,332 7,621 12,049
10th Percentile £263 £213 £213
25th Percentile £400 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £486 £475 £489
Median % change year-on-year +2.37% -2.86% -2.20%
75th Percentile £585 £586 £598
90th Percentile £675 £656 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -3.45%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,260 747 2,110
10th Percentile £14.43 £14.84 £12.50
25th Percentile £19.25 £18.95 £15.50
Median hourly rate £40.16 £31.64 £33.00
Median % change year-on-year +26.91% -4.12% -21.43%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £76.25 £71.90
UK median hourly rate £40.00 £32.50 £33.00
% change year-on-year +23.08% -1.52% -25.00%

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 3 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 3 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 3 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 +4 700 £625 - 256
North of England +4 595 £600 - 194
Midlands -5 397 £575 -4.17% 95
North West +6 340 £610 +1.67% 100
West Midlands -2 297 £600 - 69
South West +2 284 £698 +13.88% 98
Yorkshire +6 231 £558 -7.00% 70
East of England +15 179 £550 -8.33% 71
Scotland +14 134 £650 +4.00% 35
East Midlands -5 96 £519 -6.53% 26
North East +5 33 £575 -7.95% 28
Wales +1 28 £550 -3.51% 24
Northern Ireland +4 11 £500 -26.47% 4
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 3 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.

1 752 (32.98%) Security Cleared
2 463 (20.31%) Azure
3 419 (18.38%) SC Cleared
4 345 (15.13%) AWS
5 336 (14.74%) Roadmaps
6 334 (14.65%) Agile
7 323 (14.17%) Microsoft
8 275 (12.06%) DV Cleared
9 261 (11.45%) Stakeholder Management
10 256 (11.23%) Migration
11 255 (11.18%) Enterprise Architecture
12 224 (9.82%) TOGAF
13 216 (9.47%) DevOps
14 194 (8.51%) CI/CD
15 191 (8.38%) Technical Leadership
16 188 (8.25%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 187 (8.20%) Data Modelling
18 160 (7.02%) Microservices
19 158 (6.93%) Architectural Patterns
20 157 (6.89%) Architectural Design
20 157 (6.89%) Problem-Solving
21 155 (6.80%) Data Architecture
22 150 (6.58%) Integration Patterns
23 149 (6.54%) Cybersecurity
24 147 (6.45%) ITIL
25 144 (6.32%) Analytics
26 141 (6.18%) VMware
27 139 (6.10%) GCP
28 134 (5.88%) Windows
29 133 (5.83%) ServiceNow

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 85 (3.73%) Confluence
2 65 (2.85%) SharePoint
3 48 (2.11%) Microsoft Exchange
4 24 (1.05%) SAS
5 13 (0.57%) Appian
6 12 (0.53%) ArcGIS
7 11 (0.48%) CMS
8 10 (0.44%) Anypoint
9 9 (0.39%) Apache
10 7 (0.31%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 7 (0.31%) Apache Airflow
10 7 (0.31%) 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 (0.18%) IIS
13 4 (0.18%) JBoss
Applications
1 44 (1.93%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (1.36%) Microsoft Project
3 20 (0.88%) Microsoft Excel
4 19 (0.83%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.22%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.18%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.044%) Navisworks
7 1 (0.044%) OrCAD
7 1 (0.044%) Revit
7 1 (0.044%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 56 (2.46%) SAP S/4HANA
2 32 (1.40%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 17 (0.75%) Payment Gateway
4 13 (0.57%) Workday HCM
5 11 (0.48%) SAP ERP
6 9 (0.39%) Dynamics CRM
7 8 (0.35%) Remedy ITSM
7 8 (0.35%) Salesforce CRM
8 7 (0.31%) Maximo
9 6 (0.26%) SAP CRM
10 5 (0.22%) Teamcenter
11 4 (0.18%) Distributed Ledger
11 4 (0.18%) Oracle Retail
11 4 (0.18%) R3 Corda
11 4 (0.18%) SAP CO
11 4 (0.18%) SAP FI
11 4 (0.18%) SAP FI/CO
11 4 (0.18%) SAP GRC
11 4 (0.18%) SAP PP
12 3 (0.13%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 463 (20.31%) Azure
2 345 (15.13%) AWS
3 139 (6.10%) GCP
4 89 (3.90%) Entra ID
5 86 (3.77%) Microsoft 365
6 67 (2.94%) Power Platform
7 62 (2.72%) SaaS
8 60 (2.63%) Serverless
9 53 (2.32%) PaaS
10 52 (2.28%) IaaS
11 45 (1.97%) Microsoft Purview
12 43 (1.89%) OpenShift
13 38 (1.67%) OneDrive
14 36 (1.58%) Azure DevOps
14 36 (1.58%) GitHub
15 27 (1.18%) Dynamics 365
16 26 (1.14%) AWS CloudFormation
16 26 (1.14%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 24 (1.05%) AWS Lambda
18 22 (0.96%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 121 (5.31%) Firewall
2 81 (3.55%) DNS
3 79 (3.46%) WAN
4 71 (3.11%) Network Security
5 63 (2.76%) VPN
6 54 (2.37%) LAN
7 44 (1.93%) SD-WAN
8 34 (1.49%) DHCP
9 23 (1.01%) VLAN
10 21 (0.92%) Wireless
11 20 (0.88%) MPLS
12 19 (0.83%) BGP
12 19 (0.83%) SAN
13 18 (0.79%) Wi-Fi
14 15 (0.66%) OSPF
15 14 (0.61%) BIG-IP
15 14 (0.61%) IPsec
16 13 (0.57%) NAS
17 12 (0.53%) Internet
17 12 (0.53%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 70 (3.07%) Metadata
2 68 (2.98%) Data Warehouse
3 53 (2.32%) Power BI
4 43 (1.89%) SQL Server
5 27 (1.18%) NoSQL
6 26 (1.14%) Data Lake
7 25 (1.10%) Tableau
8 24 (1.05%) Oracle Database
8 24 (1.05%) PostgreSQL
9 18 (0.79%) GIS
10 14 (0.61%) Metadata Repository
11 13 (0.57%) Azure SQL Database
11 13 (0.57%) DynamoDB
12 12 (0.53%) Big Data
12 12 (0.53%) Relational Database
13 11 (0.48%) MongoDB
14 10 (0.44%) Electronic Patient Records
15 8 (0.35%) SAP BW
16 7 (0.31%) Amazon Redshift
16 7 (0.31%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 95 (4.17%) JIRA
2 45 (1.97%) Jenkins
3 20 (0.88%) GitLab
4 16 (0.70%) Git
5 7 (0.31%) ERwin
6 5 (0.22%) Artifactory
6 5 (0.22%) Sonatype Nexus
7 4 (0.18%) Rational DOORS
7 4 (0.18%) 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%) REST Assured
8 3 (0.13%) SonarQube
9 2 (0.088%) Gatling
9 2 (0.088%) JMeter
9 2 (0.088%) JUnit
9 2 (0.088%) NeoLoad
General
1 437 (19.17%) Social Skills
2 282 (12.37%) Finance
3 231 (10.13%) Public Sector
4 142 (6.23%) Analytical Skills
5 135 (5.92%) Banking
6 63 (2.76%) Military
7 61 (2.68%) Documentation Skills
8 50 (2.19%) Legal
9 39 (1.71%) Influencing Skills
9 39 (1.71%) Retail
10 34 (1.49%) Presentation Skills
11 32 (1.40%) Telecoms
12 29 (1.27%) Marketing
13 28 (1.23%) Aerospace
14 24 (1.05%) Manufacturing
15 21 (0.92%) Investment Banking
16 20 (0.88%) Financial Institution
17 13 (0.57%) Billing
18 12 (0.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 12 (0.53%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 82 (3.60%) REST
2 63 (2.76%) Middleware
3 43 (1.89%) .NET
4 39 (1.71%) OAuth
5 38 (1.67%) SOAP
6 36 (1.58%) OpenID
7 32 (1.40%) OAuth2
8 28 (1.23%) SAML
9 26 (1.14%) Kafka
9 26 (1.14%) SailPoint
10 23 (1.01%) RESTful
11 18 (0.79%) JSON
11 18 (0.79%) React
12 17 (0.75%) Web Services
13 15 (0.66%) Microsoft Graph
14 14 (0.61%) Node.js
15 13 (0.57%) LDAP
16 12 (0.53%) CSS
16 12 (0.53%) HTML
17 11 (0.48%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 147 (6.45%) Cloud Native
2 92 (4.04%) Product Ownership
3 78 (3.42%) Data Centre
4 57 (2.50%) Public Cloud
5 53 (2.32%) Onboarding
6 49 (2.15%) Operational Technology
7 47 (2.06%) PKI
8 46 (2.02%) Hybrid Cloud
9 40 (1.75%) Management Information System
10 39 (1.71%) Enterprise Software
11 36 (1.58%) Data Protection Act
12 35 (1.54%) Legacy Systems
13 32 (1.40%) Distributed Systems
14 27 (1.18%) CMDB
14 27 (1.18%) SCADA
15 23 (1.01%) NHS
16 19 (0.83%) Private Cloud
17 17 (0.75%) Security Posture
18 16 (0.70%) AI Agents
18 16 (0.70%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 134 (5.88%) Windows
2 78 (3.42%) Linux
3 34 (1.49%) Windows Server
4 15 (0.66%) Android
4 15 (0.66%) Apple iOS
5 14 (0.61%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 14 (0.61%) Windows 7
6 11 (0.48%) Windows 10
7 8 (0.35%) Unix
7 8 (0.35%) Windows Server 2016
8 5 (0.22%) VMS
8 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
9 4 (0.18%) Mac OS
10 3 (0.13%) Ubuntu
10 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
11 1 (0.044%) CentOS
11 1 (0.044%) Data ONTAP
11 1 (0.044%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 336 (14.74%) Roadmaps
2 334 (14.65%) Agile
3 261 (11.45%) Stakeholder Management
4 256 (11.23%) Migration
5 255 (11.18%) Enterprise Architecture
6 224 (9.82%) TOGAF
7 216 (9.47%) DevOps
8 194 (8.51%) CI/CD
9 191 (8.38%) Technical Leadership
10 188 (8.25%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 187 (8.20%) Data Modelling
12 160 (7.02%) Microservices
13 158 (6.93%) Architectural Patterns
14 157 (6.89%) Architectural Design
14 157 (6.89%) Problem-Solving
15 155 (6.80%) Data Architecture
16 150 (6.58%) Integration Patterns
17 149 (6.54%) Cybersecurity
18 147 (6.45%) ITIL
19 144 (6.32%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 124 (5.44%) Python
2 83 (3.64%) SQL
3 79 (3.46%) PowerShell
4 63 (2.76%) Java
5 35 (1.54%) JavaScript
6 30 (1.32%) C#
7 20 (0.88%) Bash
7 20 (0.88%) Bicep
8 11 (0.48%) Kusto Query Language
9 8 (0.35%) PL/SQL
10 7 (0.31%) VB
10 7 (0.31%) VBScript
11 6 (0.26%) R
12 5 (0.22%) ABAP
12 5 (0.22%) Apex Code
12 5 (0.22%) Scala
12 5 (0.22%) TypeScript
12 5 (0.22%) VBA
13 4 (0.18%) Perl
13 4 (0.18%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 752 (32.98%) Security Cleared
2 419 (18.38%) SC Cleared
3 275 (12.06%) DV Cleared
4 107 (4.69%) Degree
5 80 (3.51%) TOGAF Certification
6 61 (2.68%) CISSP
7 47 (2.06%) BPSS Clearance
7 47 (2.06%) Cisco Certification
8 45 (1.97%) AWS Certification
9 40 (1.75%) Azure Certification
10 32 (1.40%) CCNP
10 32 (1.40%) CISM
11 31 (1.36%) Microsoft Certification
12 29 (1.27%) ISEB
13 28 (1.23%) ITIL Certification
14 24 (1.05%) Computer Science Degree
15 20 (0.88%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 19 (0.83%) Master's Degree
17 16 (0.70%) CCIE
18 14 (0.61%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 107 (4.69%) NIST
2 101 (4.43%) GDPR
3 80 (3.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 72 (3.16%) Data Quality
5 50 (2.19%) NCSC
6 32 (1.40%) COBIT
7 31 (1.36%) PCI DSS
8 21 (0.92%) QA
9 18 (0.79%) Cyber Essentials
9 18 (0.79%) GRC
10 16 (0.70%) JSP 440
11 13 (0.57%) ISO 20022
11 13 (0.57%) NIST 800
12 12 (0.53%) FINRA
12 12 (0.53%) MiFID
13 11 (0.48%) Accessibility
14 9 (0.39%) Def Stans
14 9 (0.39%) HMG Security Policy Framework
15 8 (0.35%) HL7
16 7 (0.31%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 103 (4.52%) Active Directory
2 65 (2.85%) VMware Infrastructure
3 42 (1.84%) Docker
4 39 (1.71%) VMware NSX
5 24 (1.05%) vSphere
6 15 (0.66%) Hyper-V
6 15 (0.66%) Virtual Desktop
7 10 (0.44%) vCloud
8 9 (0.39%) VMware ESXi
9 8 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
10 7 (0.31%) BitLocker
11 5 (0.22%) RACF
12 3 (0.13%) IAG
12 3 (0.13%) NFS
13 2 (0.088%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
13 2 (0.088%) Firmware
14 1 (0.044%) Embedded Firmware
14 1 (0.044%) ProxySG
14 1 (0.044%) Slurm Workload Manager
14 1 (0.044%) Snort
Systems Management
1 103 (4.52%) Terraform
2 86 (3.77%) Kubernetes
3 65 (2.85%) Ansible
4 31 (1.36%) Microsoft Intune
5 30 (1.32%) OPNET
5 30 (1.32%) Single Sign-On
5 30 (1.32%) vCenter Server
6 20 (0.88%) SCCM
7 17 (0.75%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 15 (0.66%) Argo
9 13 (0.57%) WMI
10 11 (0.48%) FortiGate
11 8 (0.35%) Grafana
12 6 (0.26%) Istio
13 5 (0.22%) Endace
14 4 (0.18%) Prometheus
15 3 (0.13%) Puppet
15 3 (0.13%) SCOM
15 3 (0.13%) vRealize
16 2 (0.088%) Nessus
Vendors
1 323 (14.17%) Microsoft
2 141 (6.18%) VMware
3 133 (5.83%) ServiceNow
4 130 (5.70%) SAP
5 84 (3.68%) Cisco
6 82 (3.60%) Oracle
7 68 (2.98%) Salesforce
8 46 (2.02%) Google
9 44 (1.93%) Databricks
9 44 (1.93%) Remedy
10 40 (1.75%) MuleSoft
11 38 (1.67%) Red Hat
12 37 (1.62%) Palo Alto
13 35 (1.54%) Atlassian
14 34 (1.49%) BiZZdesign
15 31 (1.36%) Sparx
16 30 (1.32%) Citrix
16 30 (1.32%) F5
17 25 (1.10%) Juniper
18 22 (0.96%) CyberArk