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 27 August 2026.

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

6 months to
27 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 13 21 13
Rank change year-on-year +8 -8 +4
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 2,504 1,235 1,805
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 9.05% 8.05% 9.94%
As % of the Job Titles category 9.88% 8.94% 10.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,682 844 1,131
10th Percentile £470 £462 £480
25th Percentile £525 £519 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £600 £646
Median % change year-on-year +3.33% -7.12% -0.62%
75th Percentile £700 £688 £725
90th Percentile £775 £750 £788
UK median daily rate £615 £625 £645
% change year-on-year -1.60% -3.10% -0.77%
Number of hourly rates quoted 149 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% -3.89%
75th Percentile £71.91 £86.50 £85.00
90th Percentile £95.00 £99.42 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £65.75 £72.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -9.31% +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 25,352 13,813 16,765
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.67% 90.07% 92.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,260 8,448 10,050
10th Percentile £303 £213 £220
25th Percentile £412 £360 £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 £685
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.87%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,065 1,276 1,634
10th Percentile £14.56 £13.36 £13.86
25th Percentile £20.31 £16.32 £18.19
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% +7.50%
75th Percentile £68.00 £54.81 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £73.12 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +65.94% -41.51% -1.44%

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 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 27 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 27 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 0 730 £625 +4.17% 158
North of England +6 704 £600 - 204
Midlands +2 410 £626 +8.87% 91
North West +6 409 £600 +2.78% 124
South West 0 314 £650 +1.56% 130
West Midlands 0 297 £650 +8.33% 64
Yorkshire +7 232 £600 -2.04% 55
Scotland +23 166 £625 - 67
East of England +11 150 £604 +9.07% 43
East Midlands +4 106 £600 +16.50% 27
North East -5 65 £600 -14.29% 25
Wales +3 43 £633 +1.20% 14
Northern Ireland +3 5 £475 -32.14% 35
Channel Islands -4 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 27 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.

1 831 (33.19%) Security Cleared
2 576 (23.00%) Azure
3 538 (21.49%) SC Cleared
4 448 (17.89%) AWS
5 380 (15.18%) Stakeholder Management
6 357 (14.26%) Roadmaps
7 347 (13.86%) Microsoft
8 312 (12.46%) Agile
9 291 (11.62%) Migration
10 290 (11.58%) Technical Leadership
11 289 (11.54%) Enterprise Architecture
12 251 (10.02%) DV Cleared
13 242 (9.66%) DevOps
14 236 (9.42%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 233 (9.31%) AI
16 232 (9.27%) Integration Patterns
17 223 (8.91%) CI/CD
18 221 (8.83%) Data Architecture
19 207 (8.27%) Architectural Patterns
19 207 (8.27%) Data Modelling
20 198 (7.91%) Cybersecurity
21 190 (7.59%) Security Architecture
22 184 (7.35%) TOGAF
23 181 (7.23%) GCP
24 165 (6.59%) Architecture Governance
25 163 (6.51%) Microservices
26 153 (6.11%) Event-Driven
27 146 (5.83%) Decision-Making
27 146 (5.83%) SAP
28 143 (5.71%) Continuous Improvement

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 34 (1.36%) SharePoint
2 32 (1.28%) SAS
3 31 (1.24%) Confluence
4 14 (0.56%) 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 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 3 (0.12%) CMS
9 3 (0.12%) JBoss
9 3 (0.12%) NetWeaver
9 3 (0.12%) SAP EP
10 2 (0.080%) Alfresco
10 2 (0.080%) Apache Superset
11 1 (0.040%) CIMPLICITY
11 1 (0.040%) FactoryTalk
11 1 (0.040%) Red Hat Fuse
Applications
1 13 (0.52%) MS Visio
2 11 (0.44%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (0.36%) Microsoft Office
4 7 (0.28%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.28%) Navisworks
4 7 (0.28%) Revit
5 6 (0.24%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.040%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 71 (2.84%) SAP S/4HANA
2 12 (0.48%) Payment Gateway
2 12 (0.48%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 12 (0.48%) Teamcenter
3 8 (0.32%) Remedy ITSM
4 7 (0.28%) SAP ERP
5 6 (0.24%) SAP MDG
6 5 (0.20%) Dynamics CRM
6 5 (0.20%) Maximo
6 5 (0.20%) Oracle ERP
7 4 (0.16%) NetSuite
7 4 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
7 4 (0.16%) Oracle Retail
8 3 (0.12%) Adobe Campaign
8 3 (0.12%) Dynamics NAV
8 3 (0.12%) Oracle Receivables
8 3 (0.12%) Remedy AR System
8 3 (0.12%) Salesforce CRM
8 3 (0.12%) SAP GRC
8 3 (0.12%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 576 (23.00%) Azure
2 448 (17.89%) AWS
3 181 (7.23%) GCP
4 96 (3.83%) Power Platform
5 86 (3.43%) SaaS
6 80 (3.19%) Serverless
7 78 (3.12%) Entra ID
8 52 (2.08%) Microsoft 365
9 46 (1.84%) Dynamics 365
10 45 (1.80%) Azure DevOps
11 44 (1.76%) GitHub
12 42 (1.68%) PaaS
13 37 (1.48%) AWS Lambda
14 35 (1.40%) IaaS
15 30 (1.20%) OpenShift
16 29 (1.16%) GitHub Actions
17 28 (1.12%) Amazon S3
17 28 (1.12%) Snowflake
18 23 (0.92%) Azure Data Factory
19 21 (0.84%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 88 (3.51%) Firewall
2 61 (2.44%) WAN
3 56 (2.24%) DNS
4 48 (1.92%) LAN
5 47 (1.88%) Network Security
6 34 (1.36%) BGP
6 34 (1.36%) VPN
7 32 (1.28%) DHCP
8 31 (1.24%) SD-WAN
9 27 (1.08%) TCP/IP
10 25 (1.00%) VLAN
11 23 (0.92%) MPLS
11 23 (0.92%) SAN
12 20 (0.80%) NAS
13 18 (0.72%) Structured Cabling
14 16 (0.64%) OSPF
15 15 (0.60%) BIG-IP
16 14 (0.56%) Wireless
17 13 (0.52%) Cisco Nexus
18 11 (0.44%) NX-OS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 73 (2.92%) Metadata
2 72 (2.88%) Data Lake
3 66 (2.64%) Power BI
4 63 (2.52%) Data Warehouse
5 38 (1.52%) NoSQL
6 21 (0.84%) Azure SQL Database
7 20 (0.80%) Amazon RDS
8 19 (0.76%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
8 19 (0.76%) Oracle Database
8 19 (0.76%) SQL Server
9 16 (0.64%) Base SAS
10 15 (0.60%) PostgreSQL
11 13 (0.52%) BigQuery
11 13 (0.52%) Delta Lake
12 11 (0.44%) GIS
13 10 (0.40%) Big Data
13 10 (0.40%) MySQL
14 9 (0.36%) Amazon Redshift
14 9 (0.36%) Electronic Patient Records
14 9 (0.36%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 36 (1.44%) JIRA
2 30 (1.20%) Git
3 21 (0.84%) Jenkins
4 13 (0.52%) GitLab
5 8 (0.32%) ERwin
6 6 (0.24%) Claude Code
6 6 (0.24%) Sonatype Nexus
7 5 (0.20%) Artifactory
7 5 (0.20%) MSI
8 4 (0.16%) Hudson
9 3 (0.12%) 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
1 483 (19.29%) Social Skills
2 312 (12.46%) Finance
3 255 (10.18%) Public Sector
4 128 (5.11%) Banking
5 120 (4.79%) Analytical Skills
6 104 (4.15%) Retail
7 92 (3.67%) Manufacturing
8 59 (2.36%) Documentation Skills
9 56 (2.24%) Influencing Skills
10 39 (1.56%) Aerospace
11 36 (1.44%) Legal
12 30 (1.20%) Military
13 28 (1.12%) Telecoms
14 22 (0.88%) Aviation
15 21 (0.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 21 (0.84%) Marketing
16 20 (0.80%) Back Office
16 20 (0.80%) Financial Institution
16 20 (0.80%) Presentation Skills
17 18 (0.72%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 97 (3.87%) REST
2 90 (3.59%) Terraform
3 75 (3.00%) Middleware
4 55 (2.20%) OAuth
5 45 (1.80%) SOAP
6 37 (1.48%) Oracle Fusion
7 36 (1.44%) .NET
8 34 (1.36%) OpenID
8 34 (1.36%) SAML
9 33 (1.32%) Kafka
10 24 (0.96%) OAuth2
11 23 (0.92%) JSON
12 21 (0.84%) LDAP
12 21 (0.84%) SailPoint
13 17 (0.68%) Node.js
14 15 (0.60%) GraphQL
14 15 (0.60%) RESTful
15 14 (0.56%) JWT
16 13 (0.52%) Swagger
17 12 (0.48%) FHIR
Miscellaneous
1 200 (7.99%) Cloud Native
2 81 (3.23%) Hybrid Cloud
3 80 (3.19%) Data Centre
4 62 (2.48%) Data Protection Act
4 62 (2.48%) Operational Technology
5 57 (2.28%) Distributed Systems
5 57 (2.28%) Product Ownership
6 55 (2.20%) Legacy Systems
7 54 (2.16%) Enterprise Software
8 52 (2.08%) Onboarding
9 51 (2.04%) Management Information System
10 44 (1.76%) Public Cloud
11 40 (1.60%) AI Agents
12 32 (1.28%) Private Cloud
13 30 (1.20%) CMDB
14 27 (1.08%) Enterprise Cloud
15 26 (1.04%) IVR
15 26 (1.04%) Security Posture
16 21 (0.84%) SCADA
17 20 (0.80%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 80 (3.19%) Windows
2 57 (2.28%) Linux
3 33 (1.32%) Windows Server
4 16 (0.64%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 8 (0.32%) Unix
6 6 (0.24%) AIX
7 4 (0.16%) Data ONTAP
8 2 (0.080%) Android
8 2 (0.080%) Apple iOS
8 2 (0.080%) HPUX
8 2 (0.080%) Solaris
8 2 (0.080%) Windows 10
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%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 380 (15.18%) Stakeholder Management
2 357 (14.26%) Roadmaps
3 312 (12.46%) Agile
4 291 (11.62%) Migration
5 290 (11.58%) Technical Leadership
6 289 (11.54%) Enterprise Architecture
7 242 (9.66%) DevOps
8 236 (9.42%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 233 (9.31%) AI
10 232 (9.27%) Integration Patterns
11 223 (8.91%) CI/CD
12 221 (8.83%) Data Architecture
13 207 (8.27%) Architectural Patterns
13 207 (8.27%) Data Modelling
14 198 (7.91%) Cybersecurity
15 190 (7.59%) Security Architecture
16 184 (7.35%) TOGAF
17 165 (6.59%) Architecture Governance
18 163 (6.51%) Microservices
19 153 (6.11%) Event-Driven
Programming Languages
1 98 (3.91%) Java
2 93 (3.71%) SQL
3 85 (3.39%) Python
4 48 (1.92%) JavaScript
5 42 (1.68%) PowerShell
6 22 (0.88%) Bash
7 15 (0.60%) Bicep
8 12 (0.48%) TypeScript
9 10 (0.40%) Shell Script
10 9 (0.36%) ABAP
10 9 (0.36%) C#
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%) R
16 2 (0.080%) BeanShell
16 2 (0.080%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 2 (0.080%) Scala
Qualifications
1 831 (33.19%) Security Cleared
2 538 (21.49%) SC Cleared
3 251 (10.02%) DV Cleared
4 68 (2.72%) Degree
5 56 (2.24%) CISSP
6 52 (2.08%) Cisco Certification
7 48 (1.92%) BPSS Clearance
8 43 (1.72%) AWS Certification
8 43 (1.72%) Azure Certification
9 42 (1.68%) TOGAF Certification
10 30 (1.20%) Computer Science Degree
11 25 (1.00%) CCNP
12 21 (0.84%) CISM
13 19 (0.76%) Microsoft Certification
14 15 (0.60%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 14 (0.56%) CCIE
16 12 (0.48%) CCNA
17 11 (0.44%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
18 10 (0.40%) DBS Check
18 10 (0.40%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 94 (3.75%) NIST
2 85 (3.39%) Data Quality
3 61 (2.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 61 (2.44%) NCSC
4 53 (2.12%) GDPR
5 22 (0.88%) QA
6 18 (0.72%) Accessibility
6 18 (0.72%) NIST 800
7 16 (0.64%) PCI DSS
8 15 (0.60%) ISO/IEC 20000
8 15 (0.60%) JSP 440
9 13 (0.52%) ISO 19650
10 12 (0.48%) GRC
11 11 (0.44%) IFRS
11 11 (0.44%) SLA
12 10 (0.40%) Disclosure Scotland
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 90 (3.59%) Active Directory
2 48 (1.92%) Docker
3 45 (1.80%) VMware Infrastructure
4 26 (1.04%) Virtual Desktop
5 24 (0.96%) VMware NSX
6 18 (0.72%) Hyper-V
7 11 (0.44%) VMware ESXi
8 10 (0.40%) vSphere
9 9 (0.36%) Virtual Machines
10 5 (0.20%) vCloud
11 4 (0.16%) KVM
12 3 (0.12%) Ceph
12 3 (0.12%) EMC RecoverPoint
12 3 (0.12%) NFS
12 3 (0.12%) SRDF
13 2 (0.080%) zsh
14 1 (0.040%) Firmware
14 1 (0.040%) IAG
14 1 (0.040%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 1 (0.040%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 129 (5.15%) Kubernetes
2 49 (1.96%) Ansible
3 18 (0.72%) Microsoft Intune
3 18 (0.72%) Single Sign-On
4 16 (0.64%) Grafana
5 15 (0.60%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 13 (0.52%) Prometheus
7 12 (0.48%) Jamf Pro
7 12 (0.48%) vCenter Server
8 8 (0.32%) WMI
9 7 (0.28%) Argo
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%) Cisco CUCM
12 4 (0.16%) EMC VPLEX
12 4 (0.16%) SnapMirror
13 3 (0.12%) SnapVault
Vendors
1 347 (13.86%) Microsoft
2 146 (5.83%) SAP
3 109 (4.35%) Oracle
4 96 (3.83%) ServiceNow
5 91 (3.63%) Google
6 82 (3.27%) VMware
7 81 (3.23%) Databricks
8 76 (3.04%) Cisco
9 50 (2.00%) Salesforce
10 28 (1.12%) MuleSoft
11 26 (1.04%) CyberArk
11 26 (1.04%) F5
12 23 (0.92%) Red Hat
13 22 (0.88%) Informatica
13 22 (0.88%) Palo Alto
14 21 (0.84%) IBM
15 17 (0.68%) Infoblox
15 17 (0.68%) Workday
16 14 (0.56%) Adobe
16 14 (0.56%) Sparx