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 7 October 2026.

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

6 months to
7 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 13 21 13
Rank change year-on-year +8 -8 +2
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 2,559 1,237 1,629
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 9.04% 7.87% 9.38%
As % of the Job Titles category 9.93% 8.80% 10.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,708 854 962
10th Percentile £465 £458 £458
25th Percentile £525 £519 £525
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £622 £600 £625
Median % change year-on-year +3.67% -4.00% -2.34%
75th Percentile £700 £692 £713
90th Percentile £775 £775 £775
UK median daily rate £620 £625 £625
% change year-on-year -0.80% - -3.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 170 10 60
10th Percentile £40.00 £56.20 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £63.44 £62.50
Median hourly rate £68.17 £71.25 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -4.33% +1.79% -6.67%
75th Percentile £82.50 £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% -3.34%

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 25,777 14,064 16,036
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.01% 89.45% 92.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,957 8,643 9,104
10th Percentile £300 £210 £220
25th Percentile £413 £363 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £495
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -4.04% -1.00%
75th Percentile £600 £575 £588
90th Percentile £688 £669 £675
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,492 1,317 1,271
10th Percentile £14.22 £13.50 £14.73
25th Percentile £19.25 £16.35 £19.59
Median hourly rate £41.71 £25.08 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +66.34% -41.69% -2.05%
75th Percentile £67.84 £50.00 £66.61
90th Percentile £78.51 £69.65 £74.37
UK median hourly rate £41.71 £25.15 £42.50
% change year-on-year +65.84% -40.82% -4.49%

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 7 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 7 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 7 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 +1 724 £625 +4.17% 620
North of England +3 667 £600 - 494
Midlands +7 455 £628 +9.26% 277
North West +3 358 £598 +4.00% 258
South West +4 342 £638 -1.92% 222
West Midlands +8 340 £650 +8.33% 213
Yorkshire +11 239 £600 0.00% 174
Scotland +21 184 £625 +4.17% 216
East of England +9 155 £616 +10.29% 201
East Midlands +5 110 £600 +20.00% 64
North East +4 73 £625 -15.25% 62
Wales +11 43 £633 +1.20% 53
Channel Islands 0 12 £700 -5.72%
Northern Ireland +6 2 - - 64
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 7 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.

1 874 (34.15%) Security Cleared
2 578 (22.59%) SC Cleared
3 576 (22.51%) Azure
4 496 (19.38%) Stakeholder Management
5 440 (17.19%) AWS
6 384 (15.01%) Roadmaps
7 377 (14.73%) Microsoft
8 357 (13.95%) Technical Leadership
9 325 (12.70%) Migration
10 307 (12.00%) Enterprise Architecture
11 283 (11.06%) Agile
12 281 (10.98%) DV Cleared
13 248 (9.69%) Data Architecture
14 244 (9.53%) AI
15 243 (9.50%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 241 (9.42%) DevOps
17 236 (9.22%) CI/CD
18 213 (8.32%) Data Modelling
19 212 (8.28%) Integration Patterns
20 207 (8.09%) Security Architecture
21 204 (7.97%) Cybersecurity
22 195 (7.62%) Architectural Patterns
23 194 (7.58%) GCP
24 193 (7.54%) TOGAF
25 186 (7.27%) Architecture Governance
26 162 (6.33%) Continuous Improvement
27 160 (6.25%) Microservices
28 158 (6.17%) Event-Driven
29 149 (5.82%) Analytics
30 148 (5.78%) 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 33 (1.29%) SAS
2 31 (1.21%) SharePoint
3 26 (1.02%) 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 (0.20%) 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%) FactoryTalk
15 1 (0.039%) Predix
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 6 (0.23%) Navisworks
4 6 (0.23%) Revit
5 5 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 71 (2.77%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (0.39%) Teamcenter
3 9 (0.35%) Dynamics CRM
4 7 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
4 7 (0.27%) Payment Gateway
4 7 (0.27%) Remedy ITSM
5 6 (0.23%) Maximo
5 6 (0.23%) SAP MDG
5 6 (0.23%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 5 (0.20%) Remedy AR System
6 5 (0.20%) SAP ERP
7 4 (0.16%) NetSuite
7 4 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
7 4 (0.16%) SAP CRM
7 4 (0.16%) Workday HCM
8 3 (0.12%) Adobe Campaign
8 3 (0.12%) Oracle Receivables
8 3 (0.12%) Oracle Retail
8 3 (0.12%) SAP HR
8 3 (0.12%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 576 (22.51%) Azure
2 440 (17.19%) AWS
3 194 (7.58%) GCP
4 97 (3.79%) SaaS
5 94 (3.67%) Power Platform
6 71 (2.77%) Entra ID
6 71 (2.77%) Microsoft 365
7 63 (2.46%) Serverless
8 55 (2.15%) Dynamics 365
9 50 (1.95%) Azure DevOps
9 50 (1.95%) GitHub
10 36 (1.41%) PaaS
11 31 (1.21%) IaaS
11 31 (1.21%) Snowflake
12 30 (1.17%) AWS Lambda
13 28 (1.09%) OCI
14 27 (1.06%) Amazon S3
15 26 (1.02%) GitHub Actions
16 21 (0.82%) Microsoft Purview
17 20 (0.78%) iPaaS
Communications & Networking
1 73 (2.85%) Firewall
2 56 (2.19%) Network Security
3 54 (2.11%) WAN
4 49 (1.91%) DNS
5 36 (1.41%) BGP
6 35 (1.37%) LAN
7 31 (1.21%) MPLS
8 30 (1.17%) SD-WAN
9 28 (1.09%) VPN
10 27 (1.06%) DHCP
11 25 (0.98%) TCP/IP
12 20 (0.78%) VLAN
13 17 (0.66%) SAN
14 16 (0.63%) NX-OS
15 15 (0.59%) NAS
15 15 (0.59%) VXLAN
16 14 (0.55%) OSPF
17 13 (0.51%) Structured Cabling
18 12 (0.47%) BIG-IP
19 11 (0.43%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 90 (3.52%) Metadata
2 79 (3.09%) Data Lake
3 77 (3.01%) Data Warehouse
4 58 (2.27%) 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 (0.63%) Base SAS
9 16 (0.63%) 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
13 10 (0.39%) Semantic Layer
14 9 (0.35%) MySQL
14 9 (0.35%) Pentaho
Development Applications
1 36 (1.41%) Git
2 35 (1.37%) JIRA
3 22 (0.86%) Jenkins
4 20 (0.78%) 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%) Applitools
9 2 (0.078%) Cypress.io
9 2 (0.078%) Hudson
9 2 (0.078%) Newman
9 2 (0.078%) Oracle APEX
9 2 (0.078%) SonarQube
General
1 541 (21.14%) Social Skills
2 300 (11.72%) Finance
3 268 (10.47%) Public Sector
4 124 (4.85%) Analytical Skills
5 110 (4.30%) Retail
6 109 (4.26%) Banking
7 96 (3.75%) Manufacturing
8 73 (2.85%) Influencing Skills
9 58 (2.27%) Aerospace
9 58 (2.27%) Documentation Skills
10 40 (1.56%) Legal
10 40 (1.56%) Telecoms
11 29 (1.13%) Military
12 28 (1.09%) Marketing
13 23 (0.90%) Aviation
14 20 (0.78%) Back Office
14 20 (0.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 17 (0.66%) Billing
15 17 (0.66%) Presentation Skills
16 16 (0.63%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 111 (4.34%) REST
2 89 (3.48%) Terraform
3 68 (2.66%) Middleware
4 55 (2.15%) SOAP
5 52 (2.03%) OAuth
6 45 (1.76%) Kafka
6 45 (1.76%) Oracle Fusion
7 38 (1.48%) LDAP
8 33 (1.29%) SAML
9 28 (1.09%) .NET
9 28 (1.09%) OpenID
10 22 (0.86%) JSON
11 20 (0.78%) OAuth2
11 20 (0.78%) SailPoint
11 20 (0.78%) SAP Fiori
12 17 (0.66%) GraphQL
12 17 (0.66%) JWT
12 17 (0.66%) Node.js
13 15 (0.59%) SAPUI5
13 15 (0.59%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 196 (7.66%) Cloud Native
2 90 (3.52%) Data Centre
3 81 (3.17%) Hybrid Cloud
4 70 (2.74%) Onboarding
5 66 (2.58%) Product Ownership
6 65 (2.54%) Enterprise Software
7 64 (2.50%) Legacy Systems
8 61 (2.38%) Data Protection Act
9 59 (2.31%) Distributed Systems
9 59 (2.31%) Operational Technology
10 51 (1.99%) Management Information System
11 44 (1.72%) AI Agents
12 40 (1.56%) Public Cloud
13 39 (1.52%) CMDB
13 39 (1.52%) Private Cloud
14 28 (1.09%) Enterprise Cloud
15 27 (1.06%) IVR
16 24 (0.94%) PKI
17 21 (0.82%) Data Structures
17 21 (0.82%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 87 (3.40%) Windows
2 54 (2.11%) Linux
3 34 (1.33%) 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
1 496 (19.38%) Stakeholder Management
2 384 (15.01%) Roadmaps
3 357 (13.95%) Technical Leadership
4 325 (12.70%) Migration
5 307 (12.00%) Enterprise Architecture
6 283 (11.06%) Agile
7 248 (9.69%) Data Architecture
8 244 (9.53%) AI
9 243 (9.50%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 241 (9.42%) DevOps
11 236 (9.22%) CI/CD
12 213 (8.32%) Data Modelling
13 212 (8.28%) Integration Patterns
14 207 (8.09%) Security Architecture
15 204 (7.97%) Cybersecurity
16 195 (7.62%) Architectural Patterns
17 193 (7.54%) TOGAF
18 186 (7.27%) Architecture Governance
19 162 (6.33%) Continuous Improvement
20 160 (6.25%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 91 (3.56%) Java
2 89 (3.48%) SQL
3 82 (3.20%) Python
4 52 (2.03%) PowerShell
5 42 (1.64%) JavaScript
6 24 (0.94%) Bash
7 16 (0.63%) ABAP
8 15 (0.59%) TypeScript
9 11 (0.43%) C#
10 10 (0.39%) Bicep
10 10 (0.39%) Shell Script
11 8 (0.31%) Apex Code
12 6 (0.23%) PL/SQL
13 5 (0.20%) 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
1 874 (34.15%) Security Cleared
2 578 (22.59%) SC Cleared
3 281 (10.98%) DV Cleared
4 73 (2.85%) Degree
5 70 (2.74%) BPSS Clearance
5 70 (2.74%) CISSP
6 57 (2.23%) Cisco Certification
7 49 (1.91%) AWS Certification
8 44 (1.72%) Azure Certification
8 44 (1.72%) TOGAF Certification
9 34 (1.33%) Computer Science Degree
10 26 (1.02%) CISM
11 25 (0.98%) CCNP
12 21 (0.82%) CCIE
13 18 (0.70%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 18 (0.70%) Microsoft Certification
14 16 (0.63%) JNCIE
15 13 (0.51%) CCSP
16 12 (0.47%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 11 (0.43%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 102 (3.99%) NIST
2 92 (3.60%) Data Quality
3 73 (2.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 64 (2.50%) NCSC
5 47 (1.84%) GDPR
6 25 (0.98%) QA
7 19 (0.74%) ISO/IEC 20000
7 19 (0.74%) JSP 440
7 19 (0.74%) PCI DSS
8 18 (0.70%) Accessibility
9 17 (0.66%) GRC
10 13 (0.51%) Disclosure Scotland
10 13 (0.51%) ISO 19650
10 13 (0.51%) NIST 800
11 11 (0.43%) SLA
12 10 (0.39%) IFRS
13 9 (0.35%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 6 (0.23%) Cyber Essentials
14 6 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
14 6 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 27005
System Software
1 97 (3.79%) Active Directory
2 51 (1.99%) VMware Infrastructure
3 44 (1.72%) Docker
4 26 (1.02%) VMware NSX
5 24 (0.94%) 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%) BitLocker
13 1 (0.039%) vCloud
Systems Management
1 133 (5.20%) Kubernetes
2 49 (1.91%) Ansible
3 22 (0.86%) Microsoft Intune
4 20 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
5 12 (0.47%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 12 (0.47%) Jamf Pro
5 12 (0.47%) Prometheus
5 12 (0.47%) WMI
6 11 (0.43%) Grafana
7 9 (0.35%) CASB
8 7 (0.27%) FortiGate
9 6 (0.23%) vCenter Server
10 5 (0.20%) Argo
10 5 (0.20%) Istio
10 5 (0.20%) NetBackup
11 4 (0.16%) Cisco CUCM
11 4 (0.16%) EMC VPLEX
11 4 (0.16%) SnapMirror
11 4 (0.16%) VxRail
12 3 (0.12%) SnapVault
Vendors
1 377 (14.73%) Microsoft
2 126 (4.92%) SAP
3 116 (4.53%) Oracle
4 114 (4.45%) Google
5 93 (3.63%) ServiceNow
6 84 (3.28%) VMware
7 80 (3.13%) Databricks
8 78 (3.05%) Cisco
9 56 (2.19%) Salesforce
10 44 (1.72%) CyberArk
11 32 (1.25%) MuleSoft
12 24 (0.94%) F5
13 21 (0.82%) Informatica
13 21 (0.82%) Red Hat
13 21 (0.82%) Workday
14 20 (0.78%) IBM
15 18 (0.70%) Palo Alto
16 17 (0.66%) Infoblox
17 16 (0.63%) Foundry
17 16 (0.63%) OutSystems