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 8 October 2026.

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

6 months to
8 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 14 20 13
Rank change year-on-year +6 -7 +2
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 2,547 1,246 1,639
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 9.05% 7.91% 9.39%
As % of the Job Titles category 9.95% 8.83% 10.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,697 858 967
10th Percentile £465 £452 £458
25th Percentile £525 £519 £525
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £622 £600 £625
Median % change year-on-year +3.67% -4.00% -2.00%
75th Percentile £700 £688 £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 171 11 60
10th Percentile £40.00 £58.11 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £64.38 £62.50
Median hourly rate £68.17 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -5.98% +3.57% -6.67%
75th Percentile £82.50 £86.25 £85.00
90th Percentile £95.00 £100.00 £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 25,607 14,106 16,105
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.95% 89.49% 92.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,838 8,655 9,162
10th Percentile £300 £209 £219
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 3,488 1,319 1,261
10th Percentile £14.22 £13.50 £14.73
25th Percentile £19.00 £16.35 £19.50
Median hourly rate £41.71 £25.08 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +66.34% -41.69% -3.37%
75th Percentile £67.70 £50.00 £66.61
90th Percentile £78.51 £69.72 £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 8 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 8 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 8 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 +1 722 £625 +4.17% 469
North of England +3 664 £600 - 457
Midlands +6 451 £627 +8.96% 245
North West +1 354 £598 +4.08% 240
South West +5 339 £638 -1.92% 201
West Midlands +6 337 £650 +8.33% 191
Yorkshire +10 239 £600 - 159
Scotland +23 184 £625 +4.38% 230
East of England +3 154 £614 +9.96% 189
East Midlands +6 109 £600 +20.00% 54
North East +2 74 £625 -15.25% 58
Wales +13 43 £633 +1.20% 54
Channel Islands 0 12 £700 -5.72%
Northern Ireland +9 2 - - 59
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 8 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.

1 869 (34.12%) Security Cleared
2 575 (22.58%) SC Cleared
3 569 (22.34%) Azure
4 496 (19.47%) Stakeholder Management
5 435 (17.08%) AWS
6 384 (15.08%) Roadmaps
7 370 (14.53%) Microsoft
8 356 (13.98%) Technical Leadership
9 320 (12.56%) Migration
10 309 (12.13%) Enterprise Architecture
11 282 (11.07%) Agile
12 279 (10.95%) DV Cleared
13 246 (9.66%) Data Architecture
14 244 (9.58%) AI
15 241 (9.46%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 234 (9.19%) DevOps
17 233 (9.15%) CI/CD
18 212 (8.32%) Data Modelling
19 209 (8.21%) Integration Patterns
20 207 (8.13%) Security Architecture
21 204 (8.01%) Cybersecurity
22 195 (7.66%) GCP
23 194 (7.62%) Architectural Patterns
24 191 (7.50%) TOGAF
25 186 (7.30%) Architecture Governance
26 160 (6.28%) Continuous Improvement
27 158 (6.20%) Microservices
28 156 (6.12%) Event-Driven
29 148 (5.81%) Analytics
29 148 (5.81%) 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 (1.30%) SAS
2 30 (1.18%) SharePoint
3 26 (1.02%) Confluence
4 17 (0.67%) Microsoft Exchange
5 13 (0.51%) Apache
5 13 (0.51%) OpenStack
6 11 (0.43%) Apache Spark
7 10 (0.39%) Apache Airflow
7 10 (0.39%) Palantir Foundry
8 7 (0.27%) Documentum
9 6 (0.24%) NetWeaver
10 5 (0.20%) IIS
11 4 (0.16%) SAP EP
12 3 (0.12%) CMS
12 3 (0.12%) JBoss
13 2 (0.079%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 2 (0.079%) Apache Superset
14 1 (0.039%) IBM HTTP Server
14 1 (0.039%) Predix
14 1 (0.039%) WebSphere
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 (0.24%) Navisworks
4 6 (0.24%) Revit
5 5 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 72 (2.83%) 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 (0.24%) Maximo
5 6 (0.24%) SAP MDG
5 6 (0.24%) 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%) Dynamics NAV
8 3 (0.12%) Oracle Receivables
8 3 (0.12%) Oracle Retail
8 3 (0.12%) SAP HR
Cloud Services
1 569 (22.34%) Azure
2 435 (17.08%) AWS
3 195 (7.66%) GCP
4 96 (3.77%) SaaS
5 95 (3.73%) Power Platform
6 71 (2.79%) Microsoft 365
7 69 (2.71%) Entra ID
8 63 (2.47%) Serverless
9 54 (2.12%) Dynamics 365
10 50 (1.96%) Azure DevOps
11 49 (1.92%) GitHub
12 36 (1.41%) PaaS
13 31 (1.22%) IaaS
13 31 (1.22%) Snowflake
14 30 (1.18%) AWS Lambda
15 27 (1.06%) Amazon S3
15 27 (1.06%) OCI
16 25 (0.98%) GitHub Actions
17 20 (0.79%) iPaaS
17 20 (0.79%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 71 (2.79%) Firewall
2 56 (2.20%) Network Security
3 53 (2.08%) WAN
4 49 (1.92%) DNS
5 36 (1.41%) BGP
6 34 (1.33%) LAN
7 31 (1.22%) MPLS
8 30 (1.18%) SD-WAN
9 28 (1.10%) VPN
10 27 (1.06%) DHCP
11 25 (0.98%) TCP/IP
12 20 (0.79%) VLAN
13 16 (0.63%) NX-OS
14 15 (0.59%) SAN
14 15 (0.59%) VXLAN
15 14 (0.55%) OSPF
16 13 (0.51%) NAS
16 13 (0.51%) Structured Cabling
17 12 (0.47%) BIG-IP
17 12 (0.47%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 89 (3.49%) Metadata
2 78 (3.06%) Data Lake
2 78 (3.06%) Data Warehouse
3 59 (2.32%) Power BI
4 29 (1.14%) NoSQL
5 21 (0.82%) Amazon RDS
5 21 (0.82%) BigQuery
5 21 (0.82%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
6 19 (0.75%) Azure SQL Database
7 16 (0.63%) Base SAS
7 16 (0.63%) Oracle Database
8 13 (0.51%) SQL Server
9 12 (0.47%) GIS
10 11 (0.43%) Looker
11 10 (0.39%) Amazon Redshift
11 10 (0.39%) Delta Lake
11 10 (0.39%) PostgreSQL
11 10 (0.39%) Semantic Layer
12 9 (0.35%) Pentaho
12 9 (0.35%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 36 (1.41%) Git
2 35 (1.37%) JIRA
3 21 (0.82%) Jenkins
4 20 (0.79%) GitLab
5 9 (0.35%) MSI
6 6 (0.24%) 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 (0.079%) Appium
9 2 (0.079%) Applitools
9 2 (0.079%) Cypress.io
9 2 (0.079%) Hudson
9 2 (0.079%) JMeter
9 2 (0.079%) Newman
9 2 (0.079%) SonarQube
General
1 539 (21.16%) Social Skills
2 297 (11.66%) Finance
3 267 (10.48%) Public Sector
4 124 (4.87%) Analytical Skills
5 108 (4.24%) Banking
6 107 (4.20%) Retail
7 96 (3.77%) Manufacturing
8 73 (2.87%) Influencing Skills
9 58 (2.28%) Aerospace
10 57 (2.24%) Documentation Skills
11 40 (1.57%) Legal
11 40 (1.57%) Telecoms
12 29 (1.14%) Military
13 28 (1.10%) Marketing
14 23 (0.90%) Aviation
15 20 (0.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 18 (0.71%) Back Office
17 17 (0.67%) Billing
17 17 (0.67%) Presentation Skills
18 16 (0.63%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 111 (4.36%) REST
2 88 (3.46%) Terraform
3 67 (2.63%) Middleware
4 55 (2.16%) SOAP
5 52 (2.04%) OAuth
6 45 (1.77%) Kafka
7 44 (1.73%) Oracle Fusion
8 38 (1.49%) LDAP
9 33 (1.30%) SAML
10 28 (1.10%) OpenID
11 26 (1.02%) .NET
12 22 (0.86%) JSON
13 20 (0.79%) OAuth2
13 20 (0.79%) SAP Fiori
14 18 (0.71%) Node.js
14 18 (0.71%) SailPoint
15 17 (0.67%) GraphQL
15 17 (0.67%) JWT
16 15 (0.59%) SAPUI5
16 15 (0.59%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 194 (7.62%) Cloud Native
2 87 (3.42%) Data Centre
3 79 (3.10%) Hybrid Cloud
4 69 (2.71%) Onboarding
5 66 (2.59%) Product Ownership
6 65 (2.55%) Enterprise Software
7 61 (2.39%) Data Protection Act
7 61 (2.39%) Legacy Systems
8 59 (2.32%) Operational Technology
9 57 (2.24%) Distributed Systems
10 50 (1.96%) Management Information System
11 44 (1.73%) AI Agents
12 39 (1.53%) Public Cloud
13 38 (1.49%) CMDB
13 38 (1.49%) Private Cloud
14 28 (1.10%) 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 (3.42%) Windows
2 54 (2.12%) Linux
3 34 (1.33%) Windows Server
4 17 (0.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 9 (0.35%) Unix
6 6 (0.24%) AIX
7 2 (0.079%) Data ONTAP
7 2 (0.079%) HPUX
7 2 (0.079%) Solaris
7 2 (0.079%) Windows 10
8 1 (0.039%) Android
8 1 (0.039%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.039%) CatOS
8 1 (0.039%) CentOS
8 1 (0.039%) Ubuntu
8 1 (0.039%) VMS
8 1 (0.039%) Windows Server 2008
8 1 (0.039%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 496 (19.47%) Stakeholder Management
2 384 (15.08%) Roadmaps
3 356 (13.98%) Technical Leadership
4 320 (12.56%) Migration
5 309 (12.13%) Enterprise Architecture
6 282 (11.07%) Agile
7 246 (9.66%) Data Architecture
8 244 (9.58%) AI
9 241 (9.46%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 234 (9.19%) DevOps
11 233 (9.15%) CI/CD
12 212 (8.32%) Data Modelling
13 209 (8.21%) Integration Patterns
14 207 (8.13%) Security Architecture
15 204 (8.01%) Cybersecurity
16 194 (7.62%) Architectural Patterns
17 191 (7.50%) TOGAF
18 186 (7.30%) Architecture Governance
19 160 (6.28%) Continuous Improvement
20 158 (6.20%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 91 (3.57%) Java
2 89 (3.49%) SQL
3 80 (3.14%) Python
4 50 (1.96%) PowerShell
5 43 (1.69%) JavaScript
6 23 (0.90%) Bash
7 16 (0.63%) ABAP
8 15 (0.59%) TypeScript
9 10 (0.39%) Shell Script
10 9 (0.35%) Bicep
10 9 (0.35%) C#
11 8 (0.31%) Apex Code
12 6 (0.24%) PL/SQL
13 5 (0.20%) Groovy
14 4 (0.16%) PHP
15 3 (0.12%) R
15 3 (0.12%) VBA
16 2 (0.079%) BeanShell
16 2 (0.079%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 2 (0.079%) Go
Qualifications
1 869 (34.12%) Security Cleared
2 575 (22.58%) SC Cleared
3 279 (10.95%) DV Cleared
4 72 (2.83%) Degree
5 70 (2.75%) BPSS Clearance
5 70 (2.75%) CISSP
6 56 (2.20%) Cisco Certification
7 49 (1.92%) AWS Certification
8 44 (1.73%) TOGAF Certification
9 42 (1.65%) Azure Certification
10 34 (1.33%) Computer Science Degree
11 25 (0.98%) CISM
12 24 (0.94%) CCNP
13 21 (0.82%) CCIE
14 18 (0.71%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 17 (0.67%) Microsoft Certification
16 16 (0.63%) JNCIE
17 13 (0.51%) CCSP
18 12 (0.47%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
19 10 (0.39%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 101 (3.97%) NIST
2 91 (3.57%) Data Quality
3 73 (2.87%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 64 (2.51%) NCSC
5 46 (1.81%) GDPR
6 25 (0.98%) QA
7 19 (0.75%) ISO/IEC 20000
7 19 (0.75%) JSP 440
7 19 (0.75%) PCI DSS
8 18 (0.71%) Accessibility
9 17 (0.67%) 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 (0.24%) Cyber Essentials
14 6 (0.24%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
14 6 (0.24%) ISO/IEC 27005
System Software
1 95 (3.73%) Active Directory
2 49 (1.92%) VMware Infrastructure
3 43 (1.69%) Docker
4 26 (1.02%) VMware NSX
5 24 (0.94%) Virtual Desktop
6 12 (0.47%) Hyper-V
7 9 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.35%) vSphere
8 8 (0.31%) VMware ESXi
9 4 (0.16%) ISA Server
9 4 (0.16%) KVM
10 3 (0.12%) Ceph
10 3 (0.12%) Microsoft Virtual Server
10 3 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
11 2 (0.079%) EMC RecoverPoint
11 2 (0.079%) SRDF
11 2 (0.079%) zsh
12 1 (0.039%) BitLocker
12 1 (0.039%) NFS
12 1 (0.039%) vCloud
Systems Management
1 132 (5.18%) Kubernetes
2 48 (1.88%) Ansible
3 22 (0.86%) Microsoft Intune
4 20 (0.79%) Single Sign-On
5 12 (0.47%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 12 (0.47%) Jamf Pro
5 12 (0.47%) WMI
6 11 (0.43%) Prometheus
7 10 (0.39%) Grafana
8 9 (0.35%) CASB
9 7 (0.27%) FortiGate
10 5 (0.20%) Istio
11 4 (0.16%) Argo
11 4 (0.16%) Cisco CUCM
11 4 (0.16%) vCenter Server
11 4 (0.16%) VxRail
12 3 (0.12%) MOM
12 3 (0.12%) NetBackup
12 3 (0.12%) SCCM
13 2 (0.079%) QRadar
Vendors
1 370 (14.53%) Microsoft
2 126 (4.95%) SAP
3 116 (4.55%) Oracle
4 115 (4.52%) Google
5 92 (3.61%) ServiceNow
6 81 (3.18%) VMware
7 80 (3.14%) Databricks
8 76 (2.98%) Cisco
9 56 (2.20%) Salesforce
10 44 (1.73%) CyberArk
11 32 (1.26%) MuleSoft
12 24 (0.94%) F5
13 21 (0.82%) IBM
13 21 (0.82%) Informatica
13 21 (0.82%) Workday
14 20 (0.79%) Red Hat
15 18 (0.71%) Palo Alto
16 17 (0.67%) Infoblox
17 16 (0.63%) Foundry
18 15 (0.59%) Adobe