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 22 March 2026.

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

6 months to
22 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 19 13
Rank change year-on-year +9 -6 +7
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 2,235 1,134 1,996
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 10.14% 8.83% 9.50%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.07% 9.54% 10.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,446 783 1,223
10th Percentile £450 £450 £500
25th Percentile £506 £538 £575
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -4.00% -3.85% -
75th Percentile £700 £700 £725
90th Percentile £761 £750 £775
UK median daily rate £620 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -1.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 93 25 42
10th Percentile £49.40 £61.50 £52.98
25th Percentile £60.00 £66.00 £60.00
Median hourly rate £71.27 £72.50 £83.63
Median % change year-on-year -1.70% -13.31% +19.48%
75th Percentile £85.00 £80.59 £87.53
90th Percentile £95.00 £85.50 £95.00
UK median hourly rate £71.27 £71.25 £81.27
% change year-on-year +0.03% -12.32% +16.09%

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 20,190 11,881 19,480
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.61% 92.55% 92.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,012 7,675 12,086
10th Percentile £256 £213 £210
25th Percentile £395 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £475 £487
Median % change year-on-year +1.32% -2.46% -2.60%
75th Percentile £580 £588 £594
90th Percentile £675 £663 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -4.46%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,188 711 2,091
10th Percentile £14.42 £14.99 £12.50
25th Percentile £18.87 £20.12 £15.50
Median hourly rate £36.00 £32.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +10.77% - -19.93%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.79 £75.50 £71.90
UK median hourly rate £36.00 £32.91 £32.50
% change year-on-year +9.41% +1.25% -23.53%

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 22 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 22 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 22 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 +4 686 £625 - 257
North of England +5 585 £600 - 184
Midlands -2 389 £575 -4.17% 89
North West +7 331 £603 +0.42% 100
West Midlands -3 291 £600 -1.15% 68
South West -1 274 £700 +14.29% 98
Yorkshire +4 231 £563 -6.25% 64
East of England +18 169 £540 -16.92% 56
Scotland +16 143 £650 +4.00% 29
East Midlands -2 94 £519 -6.53% 21
North East -3 31 £625 - 23
Wales +5 27 £538 -5.70% 23
Northern Ireland +5 11 £500 -26.47% 3
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 22 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.

1 718 (32.13%) Security Cleared
2 468 (20.94%) Azure
3 404 (18.08%) SC Cleared
4 350 (15.66%) AWS
5 331 (14.81%) Roadmaps
6 325 (14.54%) Agile
7 323 (14.45%) Microsoft
8 262 (11.72%) Migration
9 259 (11.59%) Stakeholder Management
10 257 (11.50%) Enterprise Architecture
11 256 (11.45%) DV Cleared
12 225 (10.07%) TOGAF
13 216 (9.66%) DevOps
14 191 (8.55%) Data Modelling
15 188 (8.41%) CI/CD
16 187 (8.37%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 181 (8.10%) Technical Leadership
18 162 (7.25%) Problem-Solving
19 161 (7.20%) Architectural Patterns
20 160 (7.16%) Microservices
21 155 (6.94%) Data Architecture
22 151 (6.76%) Architectural Design
22 151 (6.76%) Cybersecurity
23 148 (6.62%) Analytics
24 147 (6.58%) GCP
25 146 (6.53%) ITIL
26 145 (6.49%) Integration Patterns
27 134 (6.00%) AI
27 134 (6.00%) VMware
28 133 (5.95%) Windows

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 90 (4.03%) Confluence
2 64 (2.86%) SharePoint
3 49 (2.19%) Microsoft Exchange
4 25 (1.12%) SAS
5 13 (0.58%) Appian
6 12 (0.54%) ArcGIS
7 11 (0.49%) CMS
8 10 (0.45%) Anypoint
9 9 (0.40%) Apache
9 9 (0.40%) Smallworld
10 7 (0.31%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 7 (0.31%) Apache Airflow
10 7 (0.31%) Skype for Business
11 6 (0.27%) Apache Spark
11 6 (0.27%) NetWeaver
11 6 (0.27%) Sitecore CMS
11 6 (0.27%) WebLogic
12 5 (0.22%) GeoServer
12 5 (0.22%) SAP EP
13 4 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 45 (2.01%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (1.39%) Microsoft Project
3 22 (0.98%) Microsoft Excel
4 21 (0.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.31%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.18%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.045%) OrCAD
Business Applications
1 52 (2.33%) SAP S/4HANA
2 30 (1.34%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 18 (0.81%) Payment Gateway
4 14 (0.63%) Workday HCM
5 10 (0.45%) Dynamics CRM
6 9 (0.40%) SAP ERP
7 8 (0.36%) Salesforce CRM
8 7 (0.31%) Maximo
9 6 (0.27%) Remedy ITSM
9 6 (0.27%) 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
1 468 (20.94%) Azure
2 350 (15.66%) AWS
3 147 (6.58%) GCP
4 95 (4.25%) Entra ID
5 88 (3.94%) Microsoft 365
6 65 (2.91%) Power Platform
7 62 (2.77%) Serverless
8 59 (2.64%) SaaS
9 48 (2.15%) PaaS
10 47 (2.10%) IaaS
10 47 (2.10%) Microsoft Purview
11 43 (1.92%) OpenShift
12 39 (1.74%) Azure DevOps
12 39 (1.74%) OneDrive
13 37 (1.66%) GitHub
14 32 (1.43%) Dynamics 365
15 28 (1.25%) AWS CloudFormation
16 27 (1.21%) AWS Lambda
17 26 (1.16%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 23 (1.03%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 116 (5.19%) Firewall
2 75 (3.36%) DNS
3 74 (3.31%) WAN
4 68 (3.04%) Network Security
5 62 (2.77%) VPN
6 49 (2.19%) LAN
7 43 (1.92%) SD-WAN
8 28 (1.25%) DHCP
9 19 (0.85%) MPLS
10 18 (0.81%) VLAN
10 18 (0.81%) Wi-Fi
10 18 (0.81%) Wireless
11 17 (0.76%) BGP
11 17 (0.76%) SAN
12 14 (0.63%) IPsec
13 13 (0.58%) Kerberos
13 13 (0.58%) OSPF
14 12 (0.54%) Internet
14 12 (0.54%) SSL
15 11 (0.49%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 76 (3.40%) Data Warehouse
2 70 (3.13%) Metadata
3 52 (2.33%) Power BI
4 42 (1.88%) SQL Server
5 31 (1.39%) PostgreSQL
6 26 (1.16%) Tableau
7 24 (1.07%) Data Lake
7 24 (1.07%) NoSQL
7 24 (1.07%) Oracle Database
8 21 (0.94%) GIS
9 14 (0.63%) Metadata Repository
10 13 (0.58%) Azure SQL Database
10 13 (0.58%) DynamoDB
11 11 (0.49%) Big Data
11 11 (0.49%) Relational Database
12 10 (0.45%) Amazon Redshift
12 10 (0.45%) Electronic Patient Records
13 9 (0.40%) MongoDB
14 8 (0.36%) Amazon Athena
15 7 (0.31%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 98 (4.38%) JIRA
2 48 (2.15%) Jenkins
3 20 (0.89%) Git
4 19 (0.85%) GitLab
5 6 (0.27%) ERwin
6 5 (0.22%) Artifactory
6 5 (0.22%) Sonatype Nexus
7 4 (0.18%) Bitbucket
7 4 (0.18%) Rational DOORS
7 4 (0.18%) Selenium
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 (0.089%) Gatling
9 2 (0.089%) JMeter
9 2 (0.089%) JUnit
9 2 (0.089%) NeoLoad
General
1 436 (19.51%) Social Skills
2 279 (12.48%) Finance
3 236 (10.56%) Public Sector
4 149 (6.67%) Analytical Skills
5 135 (6.04%) Banking
6 62 (2.77%) Military
7 57 (2.55%) Documentation Skills
8 47 (2.10%) Legal
9 39 (1.74%) Retail
10 37 (1.66%) Influencing Skills
10 37 (1.66%) Telecoms
11 35 (1.57%) Marketing
12 33 (1.48%) Presentation Skills
13 22 (0.98%) Aerospace
14 21 (0.94%) Investment Banking
15 20 (0.89%) Manufacturing
16 17 (0.76%) Financial Institution
17 12 (0.54%) Billing
17 12 (0.54%) Local Government
18 11 (0.49%) Inclusion and Diversity
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 80 (3.58%) REST
2 60 (2.68%) Middleware
3 42 (1.88%) SOAP
4 41 (1.83%) OAuth
5 40 (1.79%) .NET
6 34 (1.52%) OpenID
7 31 (1.39%) SAML
8 30 (1.34%) OAuth2
9 27 (1.21%) SailPoint
10 25 (1.12%) Kafka
11 23 (1.03%) RESTful
12 17 (0.76%) React
12 17 (0.76%) Web Services
13 16 (0.72%) Node.js
14 15 (0.67%) Microsoft Graph
15 13 (0.58%) LDAP
16 12 (0.54%) CSS
16 12 (0.54%) HTML
16 12 (0.54%) JSON
17 11 (0.49%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 157 (7.02%) Cloud Native
2 99 (4.43%) Product Ownership
3 77 (3.45%) Data Centre
4 55 (2.46%) Onboarding
5 54 (2.42%) Public Cloud
6 50 (2.24%) PKI
7 48 (2.15%) Operational Technology
8 46 (2.06%) Hybrid Cloud
9 41 (1.83%) Management Information System
10 40 (1.79%) Enterprise Software
11 38 (1.70%) Legacy Systems
12 35 (1.57%) Data Protection Act
13 34 (1.52%) Distributed Systems
14 27 (1.21%) CMDB
14 27 (1.21%) SCADA
15 23 (1.03%) NHS
16 18 (0.81%) AI Agents
17 17 (0.76%) Private Cloud
18 16 (0.72%) Data Structures
19 15 (0.67%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 133 (5.95%) Windows
2 80 (3.58%) Linux
3 31 (1.39%) Windows Server
4 16 (0.72%) Windows 7
5 15 (0.67%) Android
5 15 (0.67%) Apple iOS
6 14 (0.63%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 11 (0.49%) Windows 10
8 8 (0.36%) Unix
8 8 (0.36%) 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 (0.045%) CentOS
12 1 (0.045%) Data ONTAP
12 1 (0.045%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 331 (14.81%) Roadmaps
2 325 (14.54%) Agile
3 262 (11.72%) Migration
4 259 (11.59%) Stakeholder Management
5 257 (11.50%) Enterprise Architecture
6 225 (10.07%) TOGAF
7 216 (9.66%) DevOps
8 191 (8.55%) Data Modelling
9 188 (8.41%) CI/CD
10 187 (8.37%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 181 (8.10%) Technical Leadership
12 162 (7.25%) Problem-Solving
13 161 (7.20%) Architectural Patterns
14 160 (7.16%) Microservices
15 155 (6.94%) Data Architecture
16 151 (6.76%) Architectural Design
16 151 (6.76%) Cybersecurity
17 148 (6.62%) Analytics
18 146 (6.53%) ITIL
19 145 (6.49%) Integration Patterns
Programming Languages
1 131 (5.86%) Python
2 78 (3.49%) PowerShell
3 77 (3.45%) SQL
4 64 (2.86%) Java
5 33 (1.48%) JavaScript
6 30 (1.34%) C#
7 20 (0.89%) Bash
7 20 (0.89%) Bicep
8 11 (0.49%) Kusto Query Language
9 8 (0.36%) PL/SQL
9 8 (0.36%) R
10 7 (0.31%) TypeScript
10 7 (0.31%) VB
10 7 (0.31%) VBScript
11 6 (0.27%) Apex Code
12 5 (0.22%) ABAP
12 5 (0.22%) Scala
13 4 (0.18%) Kotlin
13 4 (0.18%) Perl
13 4 (0.18%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 718 (32.13%) Security Cleared
2 404 (18.08%) SC Cleared
3 256 (11.45%) DV Cleared
4 112 (5.01%) Degree
5 78 (3.49%) TOGAF Certification
6 65 (2.91%) CISSP
7 52 (2.33%) AWS Certification
8 46 (2.06%) BPSS Clearance
9 41 (1.83%) Azure Certification
10 40 (1.79%) Cisco Certification
11 39 (1.74%) CISM
12 29 (1.30%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 29 (1.30%) Microsoft Certification
13 28 (1.25%) Computer Science Degree
13 28 (1.25%) ISEB
14 27 (1.21%) ITIL Certification
15 26 (1.16%) CCNP
16 23 (1.03%) Master's Degree
17 16 (0.72%) CCIE
18 13 (0.58%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 106 (4.74%) GDPR
2 101 (4.52%) NIST
3 76 (3.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 75 (3.36%) Data Quality
5 49 (2.19%) NCSC
6 32 (1.43%) COBIT
6 32 (1.43%) PCI DSS
7 20 (0.89%) QA
8 19 (0.85%) GRC
9 18 (0.81%) Cyber Essentials
10 16 (0.72%) JSP 440
11 13 (0.58%) ISO 20022
12 12 (0.54%) Accessibility
12 12 (0.54%) FINRA
12 12 (0.54%) MiFID
13 10 (0.45%) NIST 800
14 9 (0.40%) California Consumer Privacy Act
14 9 (0.40%) Def Stans
14 9 (0.40%) HMG Security Policy Framework
15 8 (0.36%) HL7
System Software
1 102 (4.56%) Active Directory
2 64 (2.86%) VMware Infrastructure
3 41 (1.83%) Docker
4 35 (1.57%) VMware NSX
5 25 (1.12%) vSphere
6 15 (0.67%) Virtual Desktop
7 14 (0.63%) Hyper-V
8 8 (0.36%) vCloud
8 8 (0.36%) Virtual Machines
8 8 (0.36%) VMware ESXi
9 7 (0.31%) BitLocker
10 5 (0.22%) RACF
11 3 (0.13%) IAG
11 3 (0.13%) NFS
12 2 (0.089%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
12 2 (0.089%) Firmware
13 1 (0.045%) Embedded Firmware
13 1 (0.045%) ProxySG
13 1 (0.045%) Snort
Systems Management
1 107 (4.79%) Terraform
2 84 (3.76%) Kubernetes
3 63 (2.82%) Ansible
4 33 (1.48%) Single Sign-On
5 31 (1.39%) Microsoft Intune
6 30 (1.34%) OPNET
6 30 (1.34%) vCenter Server
7 20 (0.89%) SCCM
8 16 (0.72%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 15 (0.67%) Argo
9 15 (0.67%) WMI
10 11 (0.49%) FortiGate
11 7 (0.31%) Grafana
12 6 (0.27%) Istio
12 6 (0.27%) Prometheus
13 4 (0.18%) Endace
14 3 (0.13%) Puppet
14 3 (0.13%) SCOM
15 2 (0.089%) MOM
15 2 (0.089%) Nessus
Vendors
1 323 (14.45%) Microsoft
2 134 (6.00%) VMware
3 125 (5.59%) ServiceNow
4 119 (5.32%) SAP
5 93 (4.16%) Oracle
6 78 (3.49%) Cisco
7 69 (3.09%) Salesforce
8 48 (2.15%) Google
9 43 (1.92%) Remedy
10 40 (1.79%) Databricks
10 40 (1.79%) MuleSoft
11 39 (1.74%) Palo Alto
11 39 (1.74%) Red Hat
12 35 (1.57%) Atlassian
12 35 (1.57%) BiZZdesign
13 30 (1.34%) Citrix
14 29 (1.30%) Sparx
15 28 (1.25%) CyberArk
16 25 (1.12%) F5
17 24 (1.07%) Juniper