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 £605, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 6 April 2026.

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

6 months to
6 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 2,296 1,127 2,018
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 10.07% 8.89% 9.68%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.95% 9.62% 10.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,482 777 1,242
10th Percentile £450 £453 £500
25th Percentile £506 £538 £575
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £605 £619 £650
Median % change year-on-year -2.18% -4.85% -
75th Percentile £705 £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 103 28 46
10th Percentile £49.40 £58.65 £54.88
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 £97.00 £85.50 £95.00
UK median hourly rate £71.27 £70.00 £82.38
% change year-on-year +1.81% -15.03% +17.69%

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 20,969 11,718 19,318
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.00% 92.41% 92.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,430 7,639 11,969
10th Percentile £263 £213 £213
25th Percentile £400 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £475 £490
Median % change year-on-year +2.63% -3.06% -2.00%
75th Percentile £586 £585 £598
90th Percentile £675 £656 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -3.31%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,300 762 2,119
10th Percentile £14.49 £14.43 £12.50
25th Percentile £19.34 £18.51 £15.50
Median hourly rate £41.53 £30.93 £34.21
Median % change year-on-year +34.26% -9.59% -19.25%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £78.03 £75.48 £71.90
UK median hourly rate £40.00 £31.76 £33.07
% change year-on-year +25.94% -3.95% -26.52%

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 6 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 6 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 6 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 +4 701 £625 - 256
North of England +4 602 £600 - 194
Midlands -4 398 £575 -4.17% 95
North West +8 344 £610 +1.67% 100
West Midlands -2 297 £600 - 69
South West +4 285 £695 +15.83% 98
Yorkshire +8 234 £563 -6.25% 70
East of England +18 182 £550 -8.33% 71
Scotland +15 137 £650 +4.00% 35
East Midlands -3 97 £525 -5.41% 26
North East +3 33 £575 -7.95% 28
Wales -4 29 £563 -6.25% 24
Northern Ireland +3 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 6 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.

1 754 (32.84%) Security Cleared
2 462 (20.12%) Azure
3 419 (18.25%) SC Cleared
4 341 (14.85%) AWS
5 336 (14.63%) Roadmaps
6 332 (14.46%) Agile
7 323 (14.07%) Microsoft
8 277 (12.06%) DV Cleared
9 259 (11.28%) Migration
9 259 (11.28%) Stakeholder Management
10 256 (11.15%) Enterprise Architecture
11 222 (9.67%) TOGAF
12 216 (9.41%) DevOps
13 196 (8.54%) CI/CD
14 192 (8.36%) Technical Leadership
15 188 (8.19%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 185 (8.06%) Data Modelling
17 161 (7.01%) Microservices
18 157 (6.84%) Architectural Patterns
19 156 (6.79%) Architectural Design
20 155 (6.75%) Integration Patterns
21 154 (6.71%) Data Architecture
21 154 (6.71%) Problem-Solving
22 147 (6.40%) ITIL
23 146 (6.36%) Cybersecurity
24 143 (6.23%) Analytics
24 143 (6.23%) VMware
25 138 (6.01%) GCP
26 136 (5.92%) ServiceNow
27 134 (5.84%) Security Architecture

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 82 (3.57%) Confluence
2 65 (2.83%) SharePoint
3 48 (2.09%) Microsoft Exchange
4 24 (1.05%) SAS
5 13 (0.57%) Appian
6 12 (0.52%) ArcGIS
7 11 (0.48%) CMS
8 10 (0.44%) Anypoint
9 9 (0.39%) Apache
10 7 (0.30%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 7 (0.30%) Apache Airflow
10 7 (0.30%) 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 (0.17%) IIS
13 4 (0.17%) JBoss
Applications
1 44 (1.92%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (1.35%) Microsoft Project
3 20 (0.87%) Microsoft Excel
4 19 (0.83%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.22%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.17%) 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 (2.44%) SAP S/4HANA
2 32 (1.39%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 18 (0.78%) 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 (0.30%) Maximo
9 6 (0.26%) SAP CRM
9 6 (0.26%) Teamcenter
10 4 (0.17%) Distributed Ledger
10 4 (0.17%) Oracle Retail
10 4 (0.17%) R3 Corda
10 4 (0.17%) SAP CO
10 4 (0.17%) SAP FI
10 4 (0.17%) SAP FI/CO
10 4 (0.17%) SAP GRC
10 4 (0.17%) SAP PP
11 3 (0.13%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 462 (20.12%) Azure
2 341 (14.85%) AWS
3 138 (6.01%) GCP
4 89 (3.88%) Entra ID
5 86 (3.75%) Microsoft 365
6 66 (2.87%) Power Platform
7 63 (2.74%) SaaS
8 61 (2.66%) Serverless
9 53 (2.31%) PaaS
10 52 (2.26%) IaaS
11 45 (1.96%) Microsoft Purview
11 45 (1.96%) OpenShift
12 38 (1.66%) OneDrive
13 36 (1.57%) Azure DevOps
13 36 (1.57%) GitHub
14 28 (1.22%) Dynamics 365
15 26 (1.13%) AWS CloudFormation
16 25 (1.09%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 24 (1.05%) AWS Lambda
18 21 (0.91%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 121 (5.27%) Firewall
2 81 (3.53%) DNS
3 79 (3.44%) WAN
4 71 (3.09%) Network Security
5 63 (2.74%) VPN
6 54 (2.35%) LAN
7 44 (1.92%) SD-WAN
8 34 (1.48%) DHCP
9 23 (1.00%) VLAN
10 21 (0.91%) Wireless
11 20 (0.87%) MPLS
11 20 (0.87%) SAN
12 19 (0.83%) BGP
13 18 (0.78%) Wi-Fi
14 15 (0.65%) OSPF
15 14 (0.61%) BIG-IP
15 14 (0.61%) IPsec
16 13 (0.57%) NAS
17 12 (0.52%) Internet
17 12 (0.52%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 69 (3.01%) Metadata
2 67 (2.92%) Data Warehouse
3 52 (2.26%) Power BI
4 42 (1.83%) SQL Server
5 27 (1.18%) Data Lake
5 27 (1.18%) NoSQL
6 25 (1.09%) Tableau
7 24 (1.05%) Oracle Database
8 23 (1.00%) PostgreSQL
9 18 (0.78%) GIS
10 14 (0.61%) Metadata Repository
11 13 (0.57%) Azure SQL Database
11 13 (0.57%) DynamoDB
12 11 (0.48%) Big Data
12 11 (0.48%) MongoDB
12 11 (0.48%) Relational Database
13 10 (0.44%) Electronic Patient Records
14 8 (0.35%) SAP BW
15 7 (0.30%) MySQL
15 7 (0.30%) SAS Enterprise Guide
Development Applications
1 92 (4.01%) JIRA
2 45 (1.96%) Jenkins
3 20 (0.87%) GitLab
4 16 (0.70%) Git
5 7 (0.30%) ERwin
6 5 (0.22%) Artifactory
6 5 (0.22%) Sonatype Nexus
7 4 (0.17%) Rational DOORS
7 4 (0.17%) 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 (0.087%) Gatling
9 2 (0.087%) Hudson
9 2 (0.087%) JMeter
9 2 (0.087%) NeoLoad
General
1 436 (18.99%) Social Skills
2 284 (12.37%) Finance
3 231 (10.06%) Public Sector
4 140 (6.10%) Analytical Skills
5 136 (5.92%) Banking
6 63 (2.74%) Military
7 61 (2.66%) Documentation Skills
8 50 (2.18%) Legal
9 41 (1.79%) Retail
10 39 (1.70%) Influencing Skills
11 34 (1.48%) Presentation Skills
12 32 (1.39%) Telecoms
13 29 (1.26%) Marketing
14 28 (1.22%) Aerospace
15 24 (1.05%) Manufacturing
16 22 (0.96%) Investment Banking
17 20 (0.87%) Financial Institution
18 13 (0.57%) Billing
19 12 (0.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 12 (0.52%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 82 (3.57%) REST
2 65 (2.83%) Middleware
3 43 (1.87%) .NET
4 39 (1.70%) OAuth
5 38 (1.66%) SOAP
6 36 (1.57%) OpenID
7 32 (1.39%) OAuth2
8 28 (1.22%) SAML
9 26 (1.13%) Kafka
9 26 (1.13%) SailPoint
10 23 (1.00%) RESTful
11 18 (0.78%) JSON
11 18 (0.78%) React
12 17 (0.74%) Web Services
13 15 (0.65%) Microsoft Graph
14 14 (0.61%) Node.js
15 13 (0.57%) LDAP
16 12 (0.52%) CSS
16 12 (0.52%) HTML
17 11 (0.48%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 147 (6.40%) Cloud Native
2 92 (4.01%) Product Ownership
3 79 (3.44%) Data Centre
4 57 (2.48%) Public Cloud
5 53 (2.31%) Onboarding
6 49 (2.13%) Operational Technology
7 46 (2.00%) Hybrid Cloud
7 46 (2.00%) PKI
8 40 (1.74%) Management Information System
9 39 (1.70%) Enterprise Software
10 35 (1.52%) Data Protection Act
10 35 (1.52%) Legacy Systems
11 34 (1.48%) Distributed Systems
12 27 (1.18%) CMDB
12 27 (1.18%) SCADA
13 23 (1.00%) NHS
14 19 (0.83%) Private Cloud
15 17 (0.74%) Data Structures
15 17 (0.74%) Security Posture
16 16 (0.70%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 134 (5.84%) Windows
2 78 (3.40%) Linux
3 35 (1.52%) Windows Server
4 15 (0.65%) Android
4 15 (0.65%) 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 (0.17%) 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 (14.63%) Roadmaps
2 332 (14.46%) Agile
3 259 (11.28%) Migration
3 259 (11.28%) Stakeholder Management
4 256 (11.15%) Enterprise Architecture
5 222 (9.67%) TOGAF
6 216 (9.41%) DevOps
7 196 (8.54%) CI/CD
8 192 (8.36%) Technical Leadership
9 188 (8.19%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 185 (8.06%) Data Modelling
11 161 (7.01%) Microservices
12 157 (6.84%) Architectural Patterns
13 156 (6.79%) Architectural Design
14 155 (6.75%) Integration Patterns
15 154 (6.71%) Data Architecture
15 154 (6.71%) Problem-Solving
16 147 (6.40%) ITIL
17 146 (6.36%) Cybersecurity
18 143 (6.23%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 123 (5.36%) Python
2 85 (3.70%) SQL
3 79 (3.44%) PowerShell
4 62 (2.70%) Java
5 36 (1.57%) JavaScript
6 30 (1.31%) C#
7 20 (0.87%) Bash
7 20 (0.87%) Bicep
8 11 (0.48%) Kusto Query Language
9 8 (0.35%) PL/SQL
10 7 (0.30%) VB
10 7 (0.30%) 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 (0.17%) Perl
13 4 (0.17%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 754 (32.84%) Security Cleared
2 419 (18.25%) SC Cleared
3 277 (12.06%) DV Cleared
4 105 (4.57%) Degree
5 78 (3.40%) TOGAF Certification
6 58 (2.53%) CISSP
7 47 (2.05%) BPSS Clearance
7 47 (2.05%) Cisco Certification
8 45 (1.96%) AWS Certification
9 40 (1.74%) Azure Certification
10 32 (1.39%) CCNP
11 31 (1.35%) Microsoft Certification
12 29 (1.26%) CISM
12 29 (1.26%) ISEB
13 28 (1.22%) ITIL Certification
14 24 (1.05%) Computer Science Degree
15 20 (0.87%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 17 (0.74%) Master's Degree
17 16 (0.70%) CCIE
18 14 (0.61%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 107 (4.66%) NIST
2 101 (4.40%) GDPR
3 80 (3.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 72 (3.14%) Data Quality
5 50 (2.18%) NCSC
6 32 (1.39%) COBIT
7 31 (1.35%) PCI DSS
8 21 (0.91%) QA
9 18 (0.78%) Cyber Essentials
9 18 (0.78%) GRC
10 16 (0.70%) JSP 440
11 13 (0.57%) ISO 20022
11 13 (0.57%) NIST 800
12 12 (0.52%) FINRA
12 12 (0.52%) 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 (0.30%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 104 (4.53%) Active Directory
2 66 (2.87%) VMware Infrastructure
3 41 (1.79%) Docker
4 40 (1.74%) VMware NSX
5 24 (1.05%) vSphere
6 15 (0.65%) Hyper-V
6 15 (0.65%) Virtual Desktop
7 10 (0.44%) vCloud
8 9 (0.39%) VMware ESXi
9 8 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
10 7 (0.30%) BitLocker
11 5 (0.22%) RACF
12 3 (0.13%) IAG
12 3 (0.13%) NFS
13 2 (0.087%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
13 2 (0.087%) 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 (4.49%) Terraform
2 85 (3.70%) Kubernetes
3 65 (2.83%) Ansible
4 31 (1.35%) Microsoft Intune
5 30 (1.31%) OPNET
5 30 (1.31%) Single Sign-On
5 30 (1.31%) vCenter Server
6 20 (0.87%) SCCM
7 18 (0.78%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 15 (0.65%) 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 (0.17%) Prometheus
15 3 (0.13%) Puppet
15 3 (0.13%) SCOM
15 3 (0.13%) vRealize
16 2 (0.087%) Nessus
Vendors
1 323 (14.07%) Microsoft
2 143 (6.23%) VMware
3 136 (5.92%) ServiceNow
4 133 (5.79%) SAP
5 83 (3.61%) Cisco
6 79 (3.44%) Oracle
7 68 (2.96%) Salesforce
8 45 (1.96%) Google
9 44 (1.92%) Remedy
10 43 (1.87%) Databricks
11 40 (1.74%) MuleSoft
12 38 (1.66%) Red Hat
13 36 (1.57%) Palo Alto
14 35 (1.52%) Atlassian
15 31 (1.35%) BiZZdesign
15 31 (1.35%) Sparx
16 30 (1.31%) Citrix
16 30 (1.31%) F5
17 25 (1.09%) Juniper
18 19 (0.83%) Fortinet