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 21 August 2026.

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

6 months to
21 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 14 21 13
Rank change year-on-year +7 -8 +6
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 2,496 1,233 1,831
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 9.06% 8.06% 10.04%
As % of the Job Titles category 9.87% 8.94% 10.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,671 840 1,159
10th Percentile £475 £462 £480
25th Percentile £525 £519 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £600 £648
Median % change year-on-year +3.33% -7.41% -0.31%
75th Percentile £707 £694 £725
90th Percentile £775 £753 £788
UK median daily rate £620 £625 £649
% change year-on-year -0.80% -3.70% -0.15%
Number of hourly rates quoted 152 15 71
10th Percentile £46.00 £33.64 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £64.38 £60.63
Median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -3.34%
75th Percentile £71.91 £86.50 £85.00
90th Percentile £89.18 £99.42 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -

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 25,284 13,791 16,827
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.73% 90.10% 92.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,257 8,460 10,170
10th Percentile £304 £213 £221
25th Percentile £410 £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 £650 £688
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.69%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,047 1,252 1,689
10th Percentile £14.56 £13.27 £13.93
25th Percentile £20.40 £16.50 £18.26
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% +14.67%
75th Percentile £68.00 £55.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £73.75 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +65.94% -41.51% +2.38%

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 21 August 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 21 August 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 21 August 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 +1 736 £625 +4.17% 185
North of England +5 695 £600 - 186
Midlands +1 410 £625 +8.70% 73
North West +6 405 £600 - 86
South West -3 316 £640 - 87
West Midlands -1 295 £640 +6.58% 52
Yorkshire +7 226 £594 -3.06% 72
Scotland +19 156 £625 +0.60% 28
East of England +16 155 £602 +8.47% 28
East Midlands +6 108 £600 +18.23% 21
North East -3 66 £588 -16.07% 28
Wales +4 42 £633 +1.20% 12
Northern Ireland +4 5 £475 -32.14% 12
Channel Islands -3 3 £575 -22.56% 2
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 21 August 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.

1 827 (33.13%) Security Cleared
2 565 (22.64%) Azure
3 526 (21.07%) SC Cleared
4 443 (17.75%) AWS
5 362 (14.50%) Stakeholder Management
6 350 (14.02%) Roadmaps
7 345 (13.82%) Microsoft
8 314 (12.58%) Agile
9 288 (11.54%) Migration
10 287 (11.50%) Technical Leadership
11 277 (11.10%) Enterprise Architecture
12 257 (10.30%) DV Cleared
13 243 (9.74%) DevOps
14 237 (9.50%) Integration Patterns
15 234 (9.38%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 226 (9.05%) CI/CD
17 224 (8.97%) AI
18 214 (8.57%) Data Architecture
19 205 (8.21%) Data Modelling
20 203 (8.13%) Architectural Patterns
21 196 (7.85%) Cybersecurity
22 188 (7.53%) Security Architecture
23 179 (7.17%) TOGAF
24 176 (7.05%) GCP
25 162 (6.49%) Microservices
26 155 (6.21%) Architecture Governance
27 148 (5.93%) Event-Driven
28 145 (5.81%) Problem-Solving
29 144 (5.77%) Continuous Improvement
29 144 (5.77%) 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 35 (1.40%) SharePoint
2 31 (1.24%) SAS
3 30 (1.20%) Confluence
4 15 (0.60%) Microsoft Exchange
5 12 (0.48%) OpenStack
6 10 (0.40%) Apache
6 10 (0.40%) Apache Spark
6 10 (0.40%) Palantir Foundry
7 9 (0.36%) Apache Airflow
8 7 (0.28%) Documentum
9 5 (0.20%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 4 (0.16%) CMS
11 3 (0.12%) JBoss
11 3 (0.12%) NetWeaver
11 3 (0.12%) SAP EP
12 2 (0.080%) Alfresco
12 2 (0.080%) Apache Superset
13 1 (0.040%) CIMPLICITY
13 1 (0.040%) FactoryTalk
13 1 (0.040%) Red Hat Fuse
Applications
1 12 (0.48%) MS Visio
2 11 (0.44%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (0.36%) Microsoft Office
4 7 (0.28%) Navisworks
4 7 (0.28%) Revit
5 6 (0.24%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.24%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.040%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 64 (2.56%) SAP S/4HANA
2 12 (0.48%) Payment Gateway
2 12 (0.48%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 11 (0.44%) Teamcenter
4 10 (0.40%) Remedy ITSM
5 7 (0.28%) SAP ERP
6 5 (0.20%) Dynamics CRM
6 5 (0.20%) Maximo
6 5 (0.20%) Oracle ERP
6 5 (0.20%) Oracle Retail
7 4 (0.16%) NetSuite
7 4 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
7 4 (0.16%) SAP MDG
8 3 (0.12%) Dynamics NAV
8 3 (0.12%) Remedy AR System
8 3 (0.12%) SAP CRM
8 3 (0.12%) SAP GRC
8 3 (0.12%) SAP HR
8 3 (0.12%) SAP IBP
8 3 (0.12%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 565 (22.64%) Azure
2 443 (17.75%) AWS
3 176 (7.05%) GCP
4 99 (3.97%) Power Platform
5 82 (3.29%) SaaS
6 81 (3.25%) Serverless
7 76 (3.04%) Entra ID
8 51 (2.04%) Microsoft 365
9 47 (1.88%) PaaS
10 44 (1.76%) GitHub
11 43 (1.72%) Azure DevOps
11 43 (1.72%) Dynamics 365
12 39 (1.56%) IaaS
13 38 (1.52%) AWS Lambda
14 31 (1.24%) OpenShift
15 29 (1.16%) GitHub Actions
15 29 (1.16%) Snowflake
16 28 (1.12%) Amazon S3
17 23 (0.92%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 23 (0.92%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 92 (3.69%) Firewall
2 63 (2.52%) WAN
3 58 (2.32%) DNS
4 51 (2.04%) LAN
5 49 (1.96%) Network Security
6 34 (1.36%) DHCP
6 34 (1.36%) VPN
7 33 (1.32%) BGP
8 32 (1.28%) SD-WAN
9 27 (1.08%) TCP/IP
9 27 (1.08%) VLAN
10 25 (1.00%) SAN
11 23 (0.92%) MPLS
12 22 (0.88%) NAS
13 20 (0.80%) Structured Cabling
14 18 (0.72%) Wireless
15 16 (0.64%) OSPF
16 15 (0.60%) BIG-IP
17 13 (0.52%) Cisco Nexus
17 13 (0.52%) NX-OS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 73 (2.92%) Data Lake
2 69 (2.76%) Power BI
3 67 (2.68%) Metadata
4 65 (2.60%) Data Warehouse
5 36 (1.44%) NoSQL
6 22 (0.88%) SQL Server
7 21 (0.84%) Azure SQL Database
8 20 (0.80%) Amazon RDS
9 19 (0.76%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
10 17 (0.68%) Oracle Database
11 16 (0.64%) Base SAS
12 15 (0.60%) PostgreSQL
13 14 (0.56%) BigQuery
14 12 (0.48%) Delta Lake
15 11 (0.44%) GIS
16 10 (0.40%) Big Data
16 10 (0.40%) MySQL
17 9 (0.36%) Amazon Redshift
17 9 (0.36%) Electronic Patient Records
17 9 (0.36%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 35 (1.40%) JIRA
2 30 (1.20%) Git
3 21 (0.84%) Jenkins
4 12 (0.48%) GitLab
5 9 (0.36%) ERwin
6 6 (0.24%) Claude Code
6 6 (0.24%) Sonatype Nexus
7 5 (0.20%) Artifactory
8 4 (0.16%) Hudson
8 4 (0.16%) MSI
8 4 (0.16%) Rational DOORS
9 3 (0.12%) SonarQube
10 2 (0.080%) Bitbucket
10 2 (0.080%) Cypress.io
10 2 (0.080%) IntelliJ
10 2 (0.080%) JUnit
10 2 (0.080%) Oracle APEX
10 2 (0.080%) Oracle Forms
10 2 (0.080%) Rational Rhapsody
10 2 (0.080%) Selenium
General
1 472 (18.91%) Social Skills
2 309 (12.38%) Finance
3 243 (9.74%) Public Sector
4 128 (5.13%) Banking
5 127 (5.09%) Analytical Skills
6 103 (4.13%) Retail
7 90 (3.61%) Manufacturing
8 59 (2.36%) Documentation Skills
9 56 (2.24%) Influencing Skills
10 40 (1.60%) Aerospace
11 36 (1.44%) Legal
12 30 (1.20%) Military
13 28 (1.12%) Telecoms
14 23 (0.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 21 (0.84%) Aviation
15 21 (0.84%) Financial Institution
16 20 (0.80%) Back Office
16 20 (0.80%) Marketing
16 20 (0.80%) Presentation Skills
17 17 (0.68%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 99 (3.97%) REST
2 91 (3.65%) Terraform
3 72 (2.88%) Middleware
4 56 (2.24%) OAuth
5 45 (1.80%) SOAP
6 38 (1.52%) Oracle Fusion
7 36 (1.44%) .NET
8 35 (1.40%) OpenID
9 34 (1.36%) SAML
10 33 (1.32%) Kafka
11 25 (1.00%) OAuth2
12 23 (0.92%) JSON
13 22 (0.88%) SailPoint
14 20 (0.80%) LDAP
15 17 (0.68%) Node.js
15 17 (0.68%) RESTful
16 15 (0.60%) JWT
17 14 (0.56%) GraphQL
18 13 (0.52%) Swagger
19 12 (0.48%) React
Miscellaneous
1 195 (7.81%) Cloud Native
2 83 (3.33%) Data Centre
3 79 (3.17%) Hybrid Cloud
4 64 (2.56%) Operational Technology
5 60 (2.40%) Data Protection Act
6 59 (2.36%) Product Ownership
7 57 (2.28%) Distributed Systems
7 57 (2.28%) Legacy Systems
8 54 (2.16%) Management Information System
9 53 (2.12%) Enterprise Software
10 52 (2.08%) Onboarding
11 39 (1.56%) Public Cloud
12 36 (1.44%) AI Agents
13 31 (1.24%) Private Cloud
14 28 (1.12%) Security Posture
15 26 (1.04%) IVR
16 25 (1.00%) Enterprise Cloud
17 24 (0.96%) CMDB
18 21 (0.84%) PKI
18 21 (0.84%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 85 (3.41%) Windows
2 51 (2.04%) Linux
3 35 (1.40%) Windows Server
4 13 (0.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 8 (0.32%) Android
5 8 (0.32%) Apple iOS
5 8 (0.32%) Unix
6 6 (0.24%) AIX
7 5 (0.20%) Data ONTAP
8 2 (0.080%) HPUX
8 2 (0.080%) Solaris
8 2 (0.080%) Windows 10
8 2 (0.080%) Windows Server 2019
9 1 (0.040%) CatOS
9 1 (0.040%) CentOS
9 1 (0.040%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.040%) VMS
9 1 (0.040%) Windows Server 2008
9 1 (0.040%) Windows Server 2016
9 1 (0.040%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 362 (14.50%) Stakeholder Management
2 350 (14.02%) Roadmaps
3 314 (12.58%) Agile
4 288 (11.54%) Migration
5 287 (11.50%) Technical Leadership
6 277 (11.10%) Enterprise Architecture
7 243 (9.74%) DevOps
8 237 (9.50%) Integration Patterns
9 234 (9.38%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 226 (9.05%) CI/CD
11 224 (8.97%) AI
12 214 (8.57%) Data Architecture
13 205 (8.21%) Data Modelling
14 203 (8.13%) Architectural Patterns
15 196 (7.85%) Cybersecurity
16 188 (7.53%) Security Architecture
17 179 (7.17%) TOGAF
18 162 (6.49%) Microservices
19 155 (6.21%) Architecture Governance
20 148 (5.93%) Event-Driven
Programming Languages
1 99 (3.97%) SQL
2 98 (3.93%) Java
3 84 (3.37%) Python
4 51 (2.04%) JavaScript
5 45 (1.80%) PowerShell
6 22 (0.88%) Bash
7 15 (0.60%) Bicep
8 12 (0.48%) C#
8 12 (0.48%) TypeScript
9 10 (0.40%) Shell Script
10 8 (0.32%) ABAP
11 7 (0.28%) Apex Code
12 6 (0.24%) PL/SQL
12 6 (0.24%) VBA
13 5 (0.20%) Groovy
14 4 (0.16%) Kotlin
15 3 (0.12%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 2 (0.080%) BeanShell
16 2 (0.080%) R
16 2 (0.080%) Scala
Qualifications
1 827 (33.13%) Security Cleared
2 526 (21.07%) SC Cleared
3 257 (10.30%) DV Cleared
4 70 (2.80%) Degree
5 56 (2.24%) CISSP
6 54 (2.16%) Cisco Certification
7 44 (1.76%) Azure Certification
8 43 (1.72%) BPSS Clearance
9 42 (1.68%) AWS Certification
9 42 (1.68%) TOGAF Certification
10 30 (1.20%) Computer Science Degree
11 27 (1.08%) CCNP
12 21 (0.84%) CISM
13 19 (0.76%) Microsoft Certification
14 15 (0.60%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 14 (0.56%) CCIE
15 14 (0.56%) CCNA
16 11 (0.44%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 11 (0.44%) Network+ Certification
16 11 (0.44%) Server+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 93 (3.73%) NIST
2 78 (3.13%) Data Quality
3 60 (2.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 60 (2.40%) NCSC
4 55 (2.20%) GDPR
5 23 (0.92%) QA
6 18 (0.72%) Accessibility
6 18 (0.72%) NIST 800
7 16 (0.64%) ISO/IEC 20000
7 16 (0.64%) PCI DSS
8 14 (0.56%) JSP 440
9 13 (0.52%) ISO 19650
10 12 (0.48%) GRC
11 11 (0.44%) IFRS
12 10 (0.40%) Disclosure Scotland
12 10 (0.40%) SLA
13 9 (0.36%) HL7
13 9 (0.36%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 7 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials
15 6 (0.24%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
System Software
1 91 (3.65%) Active Directory
2 48 (1.92%) Docker
3 45 (1.80%) VMware Infrastructure
4 26 (1.04%) Virtual Desktop
5 23 (0.92%) VMware NSX
6 18 (0.72%) Hyper-V
7 11 (0.44%) VMware ESXi
7 11 (0.44%) vSphere
8 9 (0.36%) Virtual Machines
9 6 (0.24%) vCloud
10 4 (0.16%) KVM
11 3 (0.12%) Ceph
11 3 (0.12%) EMC RecoverPoint
11 3 (0.12%) NFS
11 3 (0.12%) SRDF
12 2 (0.080%) zsh
13 1 (0.040%) Firmware
13 1 (0.040%) IAG
13 1 (0.040%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 1 (0.040%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 127 (5.09%) Kubernetes
2 49 (1.96%) Ansible
3 24 (0.96%) Microsoft Intune
4 18 (0.72%) Single Sign-On
5 16 (0.64%) Grafana
6 15 (0.60%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 13 (0.52%) Prometheus
7 13 (0.52%) vCenter Server
8 12 (0.48%) Jamf Pro
9 7 (0.28%) Argo
9 7 (0.28%) WMI
10 6 (0.24%) FortiGate
10 6 (0.24%) Istio
11 5 (0.20%) CASB
11 5 (0.20%) MOM
11 5 (0.20%) NetBackup
12 4 (0.16%) EMC VPLEX
12 4 (0.16%) SnapMirror
13 3 (0.12%) Cisco CUCM
13 3 (0.12%) SnapVault
Vendors
1 345 (13.82%) Microsoft
2 139 (5.57%) SAP
3 109 (4.37%) Oracle
4 97 (3.89%) ServiceNow
5 89 (3.57%) VMware
6 88 (3.53%) Google
7 76 (3.04%) Cisco
8 75 (3.00%) Databricks
9 48 (1.92%) Salesforce
10 27 (1.08%) F5
10 27 (1.08%) MuleSoft
11 25 (1.00%) CyberArk
12 22 (0.88%) Informatica
12 22 (0.88%) Palo Alto
12 22 (0.88%) Red Hat
13 21 (0.84%) IBM
14 19 (0.76%) Citrix
15 17 (0.68%) Infoblox
15 17 (0.68%) Workday
16 15 (0.60%) Juniper