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 9 October 2026.

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

6 months to
9 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 14 21 12
Rank change year-on-year +7 -9 +2
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 2,552 1,247 1,646
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 9.07% 7.87% 9.41%
As % of the Job Titles category 9.97% 8.80% 10.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,699 860 966
10th Percentile £465 £450 £456
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 £706
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 173 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 £69.50 £72.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -4.14% +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 25,589 14,176 16,149
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.99% 89.46% 92.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,801 8,703 9,184
10th Percentile £300 £209 £220
25th Percentile £413 £362 £372
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £494
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -3.85% -1.20%
75th Percentile £600 £575 £588
90th Percentile £688 £670 £675
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,503 1,334 1,250
10th Percentile £14.22 £13.51 £14.73
25th Percentile £19.00 £16.31 £19.50
Median hourly rate £41.71 £25.00 £42.96
Median % change year-on-year +66.84% -41.80% -3.47%
75th Percentile £67.84 £50.00 £66.61
90th Percentile £78.70 £69.65 £74.00
UK median hourly rate £41.71 £25.15 £41.57
% change year-on-year +65.84% -39.49% -6.60%

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 9 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 9 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 9 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 0 724 £625 +4.17% 510
North of England +3 660 £600 - 487
Midlands +6 453 £631 +9.65% 263
North West +1 347 £597 +3.74% 252
South West +5 344 £631 -2.88% 202
West Midlands +8 338 £650 +8.33% 203
Yorkshire +12 241 £600 - 174
Scotland +18 187 £625 +4.60% 237
East of England +7 151 £613 +10.36% 185
East Midlands +4 110 £600 +20.00% 60
North East 0 75 £625 -15.25% 61
Wales +10 43 £640 +2.40% 54
Channel Islands 0 12 £700 -5.72%
Northern Ireland +7 3 - - 59
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 9 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.

1 873 (34.21%) Security Cleared
2 580 (22.73%) SC Cleared
3 571 (22.37%) Azure
4 496 (19.44%) Stakeholder Management
5 437 (17.12%) AWS
6 381 (14.93%) Roadmaps
7 372 (14.58%) Microsoft
8 354 (13.87%) Technical Leadership
9 322 (12.62%) Migration
10 313 (12.26%) Enterprise Architecture
11 283 (11.09%) Agile
12 279 (10.93%) DV Cleared
13 247 (9.68%) Data Architecture
14 246 (9.64%) AI
15 239 (9.37%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 235 (9.21%) CI/CD
16 235 (9.21%) DevOps
17 215 (8.42%) Data Modelling
18 209 (8.19%) Integration Patterns
19 208 (8.15%) Cybersecurity
20 206 (8.07%) Security Architecture
21 197 (7.72%) GCP
22 196 (7.68%) Architectural Patterns
23 194 (7.60%) TOGAF
24 190 (7.45%) Architecture Governance
25 161 (6.31%) Continuous Improvement
26 158 (6.19%) Microservices
27 156 (6.11%) Event-Driven
28 151 (5.92%) Analytics
28 151 (5.92%) 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 (1.29%) SAS
2 32 (1.25%) SharePoint
3 26 (1.02%) Confluence
4 17 (0.67%) Microsoft Exchange
5 14 (0.55%) Apache
6 13 (0.51%) OpenStack
7 11 (0.43%) Apache Spark
8 10 (0.39%) Apache Airflow
8 10 (0.39%) Palantir Foundry
9 7 (0.27%) Documentum
10 6 (0.24%) NetWeaver
11 5 (0.20%) IIS
12 4 (0.16%) SAP EP
13 3 (0.12%) CMS
13 3 (0.12%) JBoss
14 2 (0.078%) IBM HTTP Server
14 2 (0.078%) Tomcat
14 2 (0.078%) WebLogic
14 2 (0.078%) WebLogic Portal
14 2 (0.078%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 14 (0.55%) MS Visio
2 11 (0.43%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 10 (0.39%) Microsoft Excel
4 9 (0.35%) Microsoft Office
5 6 (0.24%) Navisworks
5 6 (0.24%) Revit
6 5 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 74 (2.90%) 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%) Oracle Receivables
8 3 (0.12%) Oracle Retail
8 3 (0.12%) Salesforce CRM
8 3 (0.12%) SAP HR
Cloud Services
1 571 (22.37%) Azure
2 437 (17.12%) AWS
3 197 (7.72%) GCP
4 97 (3.80%) Power Platform
5 96 (3.76%) SaaS
6 75 (2.94%) Microsoft 365
7 69 (2.70%) Entra ID
8 62 (2.43%) Serverless
9 54 (2.12%) Dynamics 365
10 51 (2.00%) Azure DevOps
11 49 (1.92%) GitHub
12 35 (1.37%) PaaS
13 31 (1.21%) IaaS
13 31 (1.21%) Snowflake
14 30 (1.18%) AWS Lambda
15 27 (1.06%) Amazon S3
15 27 (1.06%) GitHub Actions
15 27 (1.06%) OCI
16 22 (0.86%) Microsoft Purview
17 20 (0.78%) iPaaS
Communications & Networking
1 71 (2.78%) Firewall
2 55 (2.16%) Network Security
3 53 (2.08%) WAN
4 49 (1.92%) DNS
5 36 (1.41%) BGP
6 34 (1.33%) LAN
7 31 (1.21%) 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 (0.78%) 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%) HTTP
16 13 (0.51%) NAS
16 13 (0.51%) Structured Cabling
17 12 (0.47%) BIG-IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 91 (3.57%) Metadata
2 78 (3.06%) Data Lake
2 78 (3.06%) Data Warehouse
3 59 (2.31%) Power BI
4 29 (1.14%) NoSQL
5 23 (0.90%) BigQuery
6 21 (0.82%) Amazon RDS
6 21 (0.82%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
7 19 (0.74%) Azure SQL Database
8 16 (0.63%) Base SAS
8 16 (0.63%) Oracle Database
9 13 (0.51%) SQL Server
10 12 (0.47%) GIS
11 11 (0.43%) Looker
12 10 (0.39%) Amazon Redshift
12 10 (0.39%) Delta Lake
12 10 (0.39%) PostgreSQL
12 10 (0.39%) Semantic Layer
13 9 (0.35%) Pentaho
13 9 (0.35%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 35 (1.37%) JIRA
2 34 (1.33%) Git
3 23 (0.90%) Jenkins
4 20 (0.78%) 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 (0.078%) Applitools
9 2 (0.078%) Cypress.io
9 2 (0.078%) Hudson
9 2 (0.078%) JMeter
9 2 (0.078%) Newman
9 2 (0.078%) Oracle APEX
9 2 (0.078%) Oracle Forms
General
1 545 (21.36%) Social Skills
2 295 (11.56%) Finance
3 268 (10.50%) Public Sector
4 126 (4.94%) Analytical Skills
5 107 (4.19%) Banking
6 104 (4.08%) Retail
7 96 (3.76%) Manufacturing
8 73 (2.86%) Influencing Skills
9 60 (2.35%) Aerospace
10 59 (2.31%) Documentation Skills
11 41 (1.61%) Telecoms
12 40 (1.57%) Legal
13 29 (1.14%) Military
14 28 (1.10%) Marketing
15 23 (0.90%) Aviation
16 19 (0.74%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 17 (0.67%) Back Office
17 17 (0.67%) Billing
17 17 (0.67%) Presentation Skills
18 16 (0.63%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 113 (4.43%) REST
2 90 (3.53%) Terraform
3 68 (2.66%) Middleware
4 57 (2.23%) SOAP
5 52 (2.04%) OAuth
6 45 (1.76%) Kafka
7 44 (1.72%) Oracle Fusion
8 38 (1.49%) LDAP
9 33 (1.29%) SAML
10 28 (1.10%) OpenID
11 26 (1.02%) .NET
12 22 (0.86%) JSON
13 20 (0.78%) OAuth2
13 20 (0.78%) SAP Fiori
14 18 (0.71%) Node.js
14 18 (0.71%) SailPoint
15 17 (0.67%) GraphQL
15 17 (0.67%) JWT
15 17 (0.67%) Swagger
16 15 (0.59%) OpenAPI
Miscellaneous
1 193 (7.56%) Cloud Native
2 86 (3.37%) Data Centre
3 80 (3.13%) Hybrid Cloud
4 70 (2.74%) Onboarding
4 70 (2.74%) Product Ownership
5 65 (2.55%) Enterprise Software
6 62 (2.43%) Legacy Systems
7 61 (2.39%) Data Protection Act
8 59 (2.31%) Operational Technology
9 58 (2.27%) Distributed Systems
10 50 (1.96%) Management Information System
11 44 (1.72%) AI Agents
12 38 (1.49%) CMDB
12 38 (1.49%) Private Cloud
12 38 (1.49%) Public Cloud
13 28 (1.10%) Enterprise Cloud
14 27 (1.06%) IVR
15 24 (0.94%) PKI
16 22 (0.86%) Data Structures
17 21 (0.82%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 87 (3.41%) 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 (0.078%) Data ONTAP
7 2 (0.078%) HPUX
7 2 (0.078%) Solaris
7 2 (0.078%) 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 (19.44%) Stakeholder Management
2 381 (14.93%) Roadmaps
3 354 (13.87%) Technical Leadership
4 322 (12.62%) Migration
5 313 (12.26%) Enterprise Architecture
6 283 (11.09%) Agile
7 247 (9.68%) Data Architecture
8 246 (9.64%) AI
9 239 (9.37%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 235 (9.21%) CI/CD
10 235 (9.21%) DevOps
11 215 (8.42%) Data Modelling
12 209 (8.19%) Integration Patterns
13 208 (8.15%) Cybersecurity
14 206 (8.07%) Security Architecture
15 196 (7.68%) Architectural Patterns
16 194 (7.60%) TOGAF
17 190 (7.45%) Architecture Governance
18 161 (6.31%) Continuous Improvement
19 158 (6.19%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 89 (3.49%) Java
1 89 (3.49%) SQL
2 80 (3.13%) Python
3 50 (1.96%) PowerShell
4 43 (1.68%) JavaScript
5 23 (0.90%) Bash
6 16 (0.63%) ABAP
7 15 (0.59%) TypeScript
8 10 (0.39%) Shell Script
9 9 (0.35%) Bicep
9 9 (0.35%) C#
10 8 (0.31%) Apex Code
11 6 (0.24%) PL/SQL
12 5 (0.20%) Groovy
13 4 (0.16%) PHP
14 3 (0.12%) R
14 3 (0.12%) VBA
15 2 (0.078%) BeanShell
15 2 (0.078%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 2 (0.078%) Go
Qualifications
1 873 (34.21%) Security Cleared
2 580 (22.73%) SC Cleared
3 279 (10.93%) DV Cleared
4 72 (2.82%) BPSS Clearance
4 72 (2.82%) Degree
5 69 (2.70%) CISSP
6 55 (2.16%) Cisco Certification
7 49 (1.92%) AWS Certification
8 46 (1.80%) TOGAF Certification
9 41 (1.61%) 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 17 (0.67%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 17 (0.67%) Microsoft Certification
15 16 (0.63%) JNCIE
16 12 (0.47%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 12 (0.47%) CCSP
17 10 (0.39%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 102 (4.00%) NIST
2 93 (3.64%) Data Quality
3 74 (2.90%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 64 (2.51%) NCSC
5 46 (1.80%) GDPR
6 23 (0.90%) QA
7 20 (0.78%) Accessibility
8 19 (0.74%) ISO/IEC 20000
8 19 (0.74%) JSP 440
8 19 (0.74%) PCI DSS
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 (3.72%) Active Directory
2 49 (1.92%) VMware Infrastructure
3 43 (1.68%) 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 (0.078%) EMC RecoverPoint
11 2 (0.078%) SRDF
11 2 (0.078%) zsh
12 1 (0.039%) BitLocker
12 1 (0.039%) NFS
12 1 (0.039%) vCloud
Systems Management
1 132 (5.17%) Kubernetes
2 48 (1.88%) Ansible
3 23 (0.90%) Microsoft Intune
4 20 (0.78%) 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 (0.078%) QRadar
Vendors
1 372 (14.58%) Microsoft
2 129 (5.05%) SAP
3 116 (4.55%) Google
3 116 (4.55%) Oracle
4 92 (3.61%) ServiceNow
5 81 (3.17%) VMware
6 80 (3.13%) Databricks
7 76 (2.98%) Cisco
8 55 (2.16%) Salesforce
9 44 (1.72%) CyberArk
10 32 (1.25%) MuleSoft
11 24 (0.94%) F5
12 22 (0.86%) IBM
13 21 (0.82%) Informatica
13 21 (0.82%) Workday
14 20 (0.78%) Red Hat
15 18 (0.71%) Palo Alto
16 17 (0.67%) Infoblox
17 16 (0.63%) Foundry
18 15 (0.59%) Adobe