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 £600, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 27 March 2026.

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

6 months to
27 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 18 13
Rank change year-on-year +8 -5 +7
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 2,267 1,112 2,023
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 10.23% 8.85% 9.62%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.15% 9.57% 10.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,462 779 1,248
10th Percentile £450 £450 £500
25th Percentile £506 £538 £575
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £623 £650
Median % change year-on-year -3.61% -4.23% -
75th Percentile £700 £700 £725
90th Percentile £765 £750 £788
UK median daily rate £620 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -1.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 96 26 43
10th Percentile £49.40 £60.75 £53.45
25th Percentile £60.00 £62.63 £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 £80.03 £87.53
90th Percentile £95.00 £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 20,328 11,622 19,504
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.75% 92.50% 92.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,050 7,618 12,105
10th Percentile £261 £213 £212
25th Percentile £400 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £475 £488
Median % change year-on-year +2.11% -2.56% -2.50%
75th Percentile £581 £588 £595
90th Percentile £675 £660 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -4.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,205 722 2,107
10th Percentile £14.50 £14.99 £12.50
25th Percentile £19.00 £19.98 £15.50
Median hourly rate £38.63 £31.88 £32.90
Median % change year-on-year +21.17% -3.09% -21.31%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £76.90 £76.18 £72.07
UK median hourly rate £37.50 £32.50 £32.90
% change year-on-year +15.38% -1.20% -24.38%

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 27 March 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 27 March 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 27 March 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 +5 704 £625 - 256
North of England +5 587 £600 - 194
Midlands -2 397 £575 -4.17% 95
North West +7 330 £605 +0.83% 100
West Midlands -1 297 £600 -0.41% 69
South West +2 278 £700 +14.29% 98
Yorkshire +10 233 £558 -7.00% 70
East of England +18 177 £540 -13.60% 71
Scotland +15 136 £650 +4.00% 35
East Midlands -1 96 £525 -6.25% 26
North East +5 33 £575 -7.95% 28
Wales +2 27 £538 -5.70% 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 27 March 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.

1 739 (32.60%) Security Cleared
2 465 (20.51%) Azure
3 413 (18.22%) SC Cleared
4 349 (15.39%) AWS
5 331 (14.60%) Roadmaps
6 326 (14.38%) Microsoft
7 322 (14.20%) Agile
8 266 (11.73%) DV Cleared
9 257 (11.34%) Stakeholder Management
10 256 (11.29%) Enterprise Architecture
11 253 (11.16%) Migration
12 222 (9.79%) TOGAF
13 211 (9.31%) DevOps
14 190 (8.38%) CI/CD
15 185 (8.16%) Data Modelling
15 185 (8.16%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 179 (7.90%) Technical Leadership
17 164 (7.23%) Architectural Patterns
18 159 (7.01%) Microservices
18 159 (7.01%) Problem-Solving
19 154 (6.79%) Data Architecture
20 153 (6.75%) Architectural Design
20 153 (6.75%) Cybersecurity
21 149 (6.57%) ITIL
22 147 (6.48%) GCP
23 146 (6.44%) Analytics
24 143 (6.31%) Integration Patterns
25 142 (6.26%) VMware
26 135 (5.96%) Windows
27 129 (5.69%) 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 89 (3.93%) Confluence
2 64 (2.82%) SharePoint
3 48 (2.12%) Microsoft Exchange
4 26 (1.15%) SAS
5 13 (0.57%) Appian
6 12 (0.53%) ArcGIS
7 11 (0.49%) CMS
8 10 (0.44%) Anypoint
9 9 (0.40%) 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 45 (1.99%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (1.37%) Microsoft Project
3 22 (0.97%) Microsoft Excel
4 21 (0.93%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.31%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.18%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.044%) OrCAD
7 1 (0.044%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 56 (2.47%) SAP S/4HANA
2 31 (1.37%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 19 (0.84%) Payment Gateway
4 13 (0.57%) Workday HCM
5 11 (0.49%) SAP ERP
6 10 (0.44%) Dynamics CRM
7 8 (0.35%) Salesforce CRM
8 7 (0.31%) Maximo
8 7 (0.31%) Remedy ITSM
9 6 (0.26%) SAP CRM
10 4 (0.18%) Distributed Ledger
10 4 (0.18%) Oracle Retail
10 4 (0.18%) R3 Corda
10 4 (0.18%) SAP CO
10 4 (0.18%) SAP FI
10 4 (0.18%) SAP FI/CO
10 4 (0.18%) SAP GRC
10 4 (0.18%) SAP PP
10 4 (0.18%) Teamcenter
11 3 (0.13%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 465 (20.51%) Azure
2 349 (15.39%) AWS
3 147 (6.48%) GCP
4 93 (4.10%) Entra ID
5 87 (3.84%) Microsoft 365
6 65 (2.87%) Power Platform
7 59 (2.60%) Serverless
8 58 (2.56%) SaaS
9 49 (2.16%) PaaS
10 48 (2.12%) IaaS
11 47 (2.07%) Microsoft Purview
12 43 (1.90%) OpenShift
13 38 (1.68%) Azure DevOps
13 38 (1.68%) OneDrive
14 37 (1.63%) GitHub
15 29 (1.28%) Dynamics 365
16 27 (1.19%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 26 (1.15%) AWS CloudFormation
18 25 (1.10%) AWS Lambda
19 23 (1.01%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 119 (5.25%) Firewall
2 78 (3.44%) WAN
3 76 (3.35%) DNS
4 70 (3.09%) Network Security
5 63 (2.78%) VPN
6 53 (2.34%) LAN
7 46 (2.03%) SD-WAN
8 29 (1.28%) DHCP
9 21 (0.93%) VLAN
10 20 (0.88%) MPLS
11 19 (0.84%) BGP
11 19 (0.84%) Wireless
12 18 (0.79%) SAN
12 18 (0.79%) Wi-Fi
13 15 (0.66%) OSPF
14 14 (0.62%) IPsec
15 13 (0.57%) Kerberos
16 12 (0.53%) SSL
17 11 (0.49%) Internet
17 11 (0.49%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 72 (3.18%) Data Warehouse
2 67 (2.96%) Metadata
3 52 (2.29%) Power BI
4 42 (1.85%) SQL Server
5 26 (1.15%) PostgreSQL
5 26 (1.15%) Tableau
6 25 (1.10%) Data Lake
6 25 (1.10%) Oracle Database
7 24 (1.06%) NoSQL
8 18 (0.79%) GIS
9 14 (0.62%) Metadata Repository
10 13 (0.57%) Azure SQL Database
11 12 (0.53%) Big Data
11 12 (0.53%) DynamoDB
12 11 (0.49%) Relational Database
13 10 (0.44%) Electronic Patient Records
13 10 (0.44%) MongoDB
14 8 (0.35%) SAP BW
15 7 (0.31%) MySQL
15 7 (0.31%) SAS Enterprise Guide
Development Applications
1 97 (4.28%) JIRA
2 45 (1.99%) Jenkins
3 19 (0.84%) GitLab
4 16 (0.71%) Git
5 7 (0.31%) ERwin
6 5 (0.22%) Artifactory
6 5 (0.22%) Rational DOORS
6 5 (0.22%) Sonatype Nexus
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%) Hudson
9 2 (0.088%) LoadRunner
9 2 (0.088%) NeoLoad
General
1 429 (18.92%) Social Skills
2 282 (12.44%) Finance
3 234 (10.32%) Public Sector
4 148 (6.53%) Analytical Skills
5 137 (6.04%) Banking
6 61 (2.69%) Military
7 58 (2.56%) Documentation Skills
8 49 (2.16%) Legal
9 40 (1.76%) Retail
10 37 (1.63%) Influencing Skills
11 35 (1.54%) Telecoms
12 33 (1.46%) Presentation Skills
13 30 (1.32%) Marketing
14 24 (1.06%) Aerospace
15 22 (0.97%) Manufacturing
16 20 (0.88%) Investment Banking
17 19 (0.84%) Financial Institution
18 13 (0.57%) Billing
19 12 (0.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 12 (0.53%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 77 (3.40%) REST
2 59 (2.60%) Middleware
3 41 (1.81%) OAuth
4 40 (1.76%) .NET
5 37 (1.63%) SOAP
6 35 (1.54%) OpenID
7 31 (1.37%) OAuth2
8 30 (1.32%) SAML
9 26 (1.15%) SailPoint
10 25 (1.10%) Kafka
11 23 (1.01%) RESTful
12 17 (0.75%) React
12 17 (0.75%) Web Services
13 15 (0.66%) Microsoft Graph
14 14 (0.62%) JSON
14 14 (0.62%) Node.js
15 12 (0.53%) CSS
15 12 (0.53%) HTML
15 12 (0.53%) LDAP
16 11 (0.49%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 156 (6.88%) Cloud Native
2 96 (4.23%) Product Ownership
3 80 (3.53%) Data Centre
4 56 (2.47%) Onboarding
5 54 (2.38%) Public Cloud
6 48 (2.12%) Operational Technology
6 48 (2.12%) PKI
7 47 (2.07%) Hybrid Cloud
8 39 (1.72%) Management Information System
9 38 (1.68%) Enterprise Software
10 36 (1.59%) Data Protection Act
11 35 (1.54%) Legacy Systems
12 32 (1.41%) Distributed Systems
13 27 (1.19%) CMDB
14 26 (1.15%) SCADA
15 23 (1.01%) NHS
16 18 (0.79%) Private Cloud
17 16 (0.71%) Data Structures
18 15 (0.66%) Security Posture
19 14 (0.62%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 135 (5.96%) Windows
2 82 (3.62%) Linux
3 32 (1.41%) Windows Server
4 16 (0.71%) Windows 7
5 15 (0.66%) Android
5 15 (0.66%) Apple iOS
6 14 (0.62%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 11 (0.49%) Windows 10
8 8 (0.35%) Unix
8 8 (0.35%) Windows Server 2016
9 5 (0.22%) VMS
9 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
10 4 (0.18%) Mac OS
11 3 (0.13%) Ubuntu
11 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
12 1 (0.044%) CentOS
12 1 (0.044%) Data ONTAP
12 1 (0.044%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 331 (14.60%) Roadmaps
2 322 (14.20%) Agile
3 257 (11.34%) Stakeholder Management
4 256 (11.29%) Enterprise Architecture
5 253 (11.16%) Migration
6 222 (9.79%) TOGAF
7 211 (9.31%) DevOps
8 190 (8.38%) CI/CD
9 185 (8.16%) Data Modelling
9 185 (8.16%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 179 (7.90%) Technical Leadership
11 164 (7.23%) Architectural Patterns
12 159 (7.01%) Microservices
12 159 (7.01%) Problem-Solving
13 154 (6.79%) Data Architecture
14 153 (6.75%) Architectural Design
14 153 (6.75%) Cybersecurity
15 149 (6.57%) ITIL
16 146 (6.44%) Analytics
17 143 (6.31%) Integration Patterns
Programming Languages
1 125 (5.51%) Python
2 79 (3.48%) SQL
3 78 (3.44%) PowerShell
4 62 (2.73%) Java
5 30 (1.32%) C#
6 29 (1.28%) JavaScript
7 20 (0.88%) Bash
7 20 (0.88%) Bicep
8 11 (0.49%) Kusto Query Language
9 8 (0.35%) PL/SQL
9 8 (0.35%) R
10 7 (0.31%) VB
10 7 (0.31%) VBScript
11 5 (0.22%) ABAP
11 5 (0.22%) Scala
12 4 (0.18%) Apex Code
12 4 (0.18%) Kotlin
12 4 (0.18%) Perl
12 4 (0.18%) Shell Script
12 4 (0.18%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 739 (32.60%) Security Cleared
2 413 (18.22%) SC Cleared
3 266 (11.73%) DV Cleared
4 108 (4.76%) Degree
5 78 (3.44%) TOGAF Certification
6 66 (2.91%) CISSP
7 47 (2.07%) AWS Certification
7 47 (2.07%) BPSS Clearance
8 42 (1.85%) Cisco Certification
9 40 (1.76%) Azure Certification
10 38 (1.68%) CISM
11 30 (1.32%) Microsoft Certification
12 29 (1.28%) ISEB
13 28 (1.24%) ITIL Certification
14 27 (1.19%) CCNP
15 24 (1.06%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 23 (1.01%) Computer Science Degree
17 20 (0.88%) Master's Degree
18 16 (0.71%) CCIE
19 14 (0.62%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 103 (4.54%) GDPR
2 102 (4.50%) NIST
3 77 (3.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 71 (3.13%) Data Quality
5 49 (2.16%) NCSC
6 33 (1.46%) PCI DSS
7 32 (1.41%) COBIT
8 21 (0.93%) QA
9 19 (0.84%) GRC
10 18 (0.79%) Cyber Essentials
11 16 (0.71%) JSP 440
12 14 (0.62%) ISO 20022
13 12 (0.53%) FINRA
13 12 (0.53%) MiFID
14 11 (0.49%) NIST 800
15 10 (0.44%) Accessibility
16 9 (0.40%) Def Stans
16 9 (0.40%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 9 (0.40%) ISO/IEC 20000
17 8 (0.35%) HL7
System Software
1 104 (4.59%) Active Directory
2 67 (2.96%) VMware Infrastructure
3 43 (1.90%) Docker
4 37 (1.63%) VMware NSX
5 26 (1.15%) vSphere
6 15 (0.66%) Hyper-V
6 15 (0.66%) Virtual Desktop
7 10 (0.44%) VMware ESXi
8 9 (0.40%) vCloud
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
1 105 (4.63%) Terraform
2 86 (3.79%) Kubernetes
3 64 (2.82%) Ansible
4 32 (1.41%) Single Sign-On
5 31 (1.37%) Microsoft Intune
5 31 (1.37%) vCenter Server
6 30 (1.32%) OPNET
7 20 (0.88%) SCCM
8 16 (0.71%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 15 (0.66%) Argo
9 15 (0.66%) WMI
10 11 (0.49%) FortiGate
11 8 (0.35%) Grafana
12 7 (0.31%) Prometheus
13 6 (0.26%) Istio
14 5 (0.22%) Endace
15 3 (0.13%) Puppet
15 3 (0.13%) SCOM
15 3 (0.13%) vRealize
16 2 (0.088%) Nessus
Vendors
1 326 (14.38%) Microsoft
2 142 (6.26%) VMware
3 128 (5.65%) SAP
4 127 (5.60%) ServiceNow
5 88 (3.88%) Oracle
6 82 (3.62%) Cisco
7 65 (2.87%) Salesforce
8 49 (2.16%) Google
9 44 (1.94%) Remedy
10 41 (1.81%) Databricks
10 41 (1.81%) MuleSoft
11 40 (1.76%) Palo Alto
12 39 (1.72%) Red Hat
13 36 (1.59%) BiZZdesign
14 35 (1.54%) Atlassian
15 30 (1.32%) Citrix
15 30 (1.32%) Sparx
16 28 (1.24%) CyberArk
17 27 (1.19%) F5
17 27 (1.19%) Juniper