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 15 September 2026.

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

6 months to
15 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 14 21 13
Rank change year-on-year +7 -8 +4
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 2,562 1,203 1,727
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 9.12% 7.90% 9.72%
As % of the Job Titles category 9.98% 8.79% 10.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,731 819 1,047
10th Percentile £470 £462 £469
25th Percentile £525 £519 £540
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £622 £600 £630
Median % change year-on-year +3.67% -4.76% -1.18%
75th Percentile £700 £688 £725
90th Percentile £775 £775 £788
UK median daily rate £620 £625 £630
% change year-on-year -0.80% -0.79% -3.08%
Number of hourly rates quoted 153 12 67
10th Percentile £46.00 £30.99 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £56.62 £61.88
Median hourly rate £66.50 £71.25 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -6.67% +1.79% -6.67%
75th Percentile £77.25 £81.88 £85.00
90th Percentile £95.00 £98.75 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £68.17 £70.00 £70.00
% change year-on-year -2.62% - -2.78%

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 25,683 13,685 16,403
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.45% 89.83% 92.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,271 8,409 9,580
10th Percentile £304 £213 £220
25th Percentile £413 £361 £378
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 £653 £681
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,261 1,240 1,451
10th Percentile £14.25 £13.27 £14.41
25th Percentile £20.00 £16.17 £19.50
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +6.95%
75th Percentile £67.84 £51.65 £66.61
90th Percentile £78.75 £70.24 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.15 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +67.59% -41.51% -1.96%

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 15 September 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 15 September 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 15 September 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 +2 735 £625 +4.17% 594
North of England +2 691 £600 0.00% 592
Midlands +2 428 £626 +8.87% 319
North West +7 391 £600 +4.35% 361
South West 0 342 £638 -1.92% 277
West Midlands 0 318 £644 +7.49% 226
Yorkshire +15 238 £563 -6.17% 174
Scotland +29 175 £625 - 276
East of England +7 160 £622 +12.07% 172
East Midlands +5 105 £600 +19.40% 93
North East -4 63 £600 -15.79% 59
Wales +3 42 £633 +1.20% 23
Channel Islands -4 7 £700 -5.72% 4
Northern Ireland +2 2 - - 99
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 15 September 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.

1 884 (34.50%) Security Cleared
2 579 (22.60%) SC Cleared
3 574 (22.40%) Azure
4 456 (17.80%) Stakeholder Management
5 439 (17.14%) AWS
6 371 (14.48%) Roadmaps
7 360 (14.05%) Microsoft
8 350 (13.66%) Technical Leadership
9 306 (11.94%) Enterprise Architecture
9 306 (11.94%) Migration
10 293 (11.44%) Agile
11 275 (10.73%) DV Cleared
12 239 (9.33%) DevOps
13 238 (9.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 235 (9.17%) Data Architecture
15 231 (9.02%) AI
16 221 (8.63%) CI/CD
17 218 (8.51%) Integration Patterns
18 211 (8.24%) Data Modelling
19 204 (7.96%) Cybersecurity
19 204 (7.96%) Security Architecture
20 195 (7.61%) Architectural Patterns
21 191 (7.46%) TOGAF
22 186 (7.26%) Architecture Governance
23 180 (7.03%) GCP
24 168 (6.56%) Microservices
25 166 (6.48%) Continuous Improvement
26 157 (6.13%) Event-Driven
27 147 (5.74%) Problem-Solving
28 145 (5.66%) Decision-Making

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 (1.33%) SAS
2 31 (1.21%) SharePoint
3 27 (1.05%) Confluence
4 16 (0.62%) Microsoft Exchange
5 12 (0.47%) OpenStack
6 11 (0.43%) Apache
7 10 (0.39%) Apache Airflow
7 10 (0.39%) Apache Spark
7 10 (0.39%) Palantir Foundry
8 7 (0.27%) Documentum
9 6 (0.23%) NetWeaver
10 4 (0.16%) IIS
10 4 (0.16%) SAP EP
11 3 (0.12%) CMS
11 3 (0.12%) JBoss
12 2 (0.078%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 2 (0.078%) Alfresco
12 2 (0.078%) Apache Superset
13 1 (0.039%) CIMPLICITY
13 1 (0.039%) FactoryTalk
Applications
1 10 (0.39%) Microsoft Excel
1 10 (0.39%) MS Visio
2 9 (0.35%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (0.27%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (0.27%) Navisworks
3 7 (0.27%) Revit
4 6 (0.23%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 69 (2.69%) SAP S/4HANA
2 12 (0.47%) Teamcenter
3 11 (0.43%) Payment Gateway
4 9 (0.35%) Remedy ITSM
4 9 (0.35%) SAP ERP
5 7 (0.27%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 6 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
6 6 (0.23%) SAP MDG
7 5 (0.20%) Dynamics CRM
7 5 (0.20%) Maximo
7 5 (0.20%) Remedy AR System
8 4 (0.16%) NetSuite
8 4 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
8 4 (0.16%) Oracle Retail
8 4 (0.16%) SAP CRM
9 3 (0.12%) Adobe Campaign
9 3 (0.12%) Oracle Receivables
9 3 (0.12%) Salesforce CRM
9 3 (0.12%) SAP Payroll
9 3 (0.12%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 574 (22.40%) Azure
2 439 (17.14%) AWS
3 180 (7.03%) GCP
4 95 (3.71%) SaaS
5 91 (3.55%) Power Platform
6 70 (2.73%) Serverless
7 66 (2.58%) Entra ID
8 60 (2.34%) Microsoft 365
9 49 (1.91%) Dynamics 365
10 47 (1.83%) Azure DevOps
11 41 (1.60%) GitHub
12 37 (1.44%) PaaS
13 32 (1.25%) AWS Lambda
14 30 (1.17%) IaaS
15 29 (1.13%) Snowflake
16 26 (1.01%) GitHub Actions
17 25 (0.98%) Amazon S3
17 25 (0.98%) OpenShift
18 23 (0.90%) OCI
19 21 (0.82%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 76 (2.97%) Firewall
2 57 (2.22%) WAN
3 54 (2.11%) DNS
4 49 (1.91%) Network Security
5 42 (1.64%) LAN
6 33 (1.29%) BGP
7 31 (1.21%) DHCP
8 30 (1.17%) MPLS
8 30 (1.17%) SD-WAN
9 29 (1.13%) VPN
10 27 (1.05%) TCP/IP
11 25 (0.98%) VLAN
12 21 (0.82%) SAN
13 18 (0.70%) NAS
14 17 (0.66%) BIG-IP
15 16 (0.62%) OSPF
16 15 (0.59%) Structured Cabling
17 14 (0.55%) Wireless
18 13 (0.51%) NX-OS
19 12 (0.47%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 84 (3.28%) Metadata
2 75 (2.93%) Data Lake
3 67 (2.62%) Data Warehouse
4 63 (2.46%) Power BI
5 35 (1.37%) NoSQL
6 21 (0.82%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
7 20 (0.78%) Amazon RDS
8 18 (0.70%) Azure SQL Database
8 18 (0.70%) Oracle Database
9 16 (0.62%) Base SAS
9 16 (0.62%) BigQuery
10 15 (0.59%) SQL Server
11 12 (0.47%) PostgreSQL
12 11 (0.43%) Delta Lake
13 10 (0.39%) GIS
13 10 (0.39%) MySQL
14 9 (0.35%) Amazon Redshift
14 9 (0.35%) Pentaho
14 9 (0.35%) Semantic Layer
15 8 (0.31%) Looker
Development Applications
1 34 (1.33%) JIRA
2 31 (1.21%) Git
3 21 (0.82%) Jenkins
4 15 (0.59%) GitLab
5 7 (0.27%) ERwin
5 7 (0.27%) MSI
6 6 (0.23%) Claude Code
7 5 (0.20%) Artifactory
7 5 (0.20%) Sonatype Nexus
8 4 (0.16%) Hudson
9 3 (0.12%) Rational DOORS
9 3 (0.12%) SonarQube
10 2 (0.078%) Bitbucket
10 2 (0.078%) Cypress.io
10 2 (0.078%) IntelliJ
10 2 (0.078%) JUnit
10 2 (0.078%) Oracle APEX
10 2 (0.078%) Oracle Forms
10 2 (0.078%) Rational Rhapsody
10 2 (0.078%) Selenium
General
1 535 (20.88%) Social Skills
2 306 (11.94%) Finance
3 263 (10.27%) Public Sector
4 124 (4.84%) Analytical Skills
5 122 (4.76%) Banking
6 113 (4.41%) Retail
7 92 (3.59%) Manufacturing
8 67 (2.62%) Influencing Skills
9 60 (2.34%) Documentation Skills
10 47 (1.83%) Aerospace
11 43 (1.68%) Legal
12 33 (1.29%) Military
13 31 (1.21%) Telecoms
14 25 (0.98%) Marketing
15 22 (0.86%) Aviation
16 20 (0.78%) Back Office
16 20 (0.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 18 (0.70%) Billing
18 17 (0.66%) Local Government
18 17 (0.66%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 104 (4.06%) REST
2 85 (3.32%) Terraform
3 75 (2.93%) Middleware
4 53 (2.07%) SOAP
5 48 (1.87%) OAuth
6 41 (1.60%) Kafka
7 38 (1.48%) LDAP
7 38 (1.48%) Oracle Fusion
8 33 (1.29%) .NET
9 32 (1.25%) SAML
10 30 (1.17%) OpenID
11 26 (1.01%) JSON
12 20 (0.78%) OAuth2
13 19 (0.74%) SailPoint
14 18 (0.70%) Node.js
15 15 (0.59%) GraphQL
16 14 (0.55%) JWT
16 14 (0.55%) SAP Fiori
16 14 (0.55%) Swagger
16 14 (0.55%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 195 (7.61%) Cloud Native
2 80 (3.12%) Data Centre
3 78 (3.04%) Hybrid Cloud
4 65 (2.54%) Operational Technology
5 64 (2.50%) Distributed Systems
6 62 (2.42%) Onboarding
7 61 (2.38%) Data Protection Act
7 61 (2.38%) Product Ownership
8 60 (2.34%) Enterprise Software
8 60 (2.34%) Legacy Systems
9 51 (1.99%) Management Information System
10 42 (1.64%) Public Cloud
11 40 (1.56%) AI Agents
12 39 (1.52%) Private Cloud
13 35 (1.37%) CMDB
14 27 (1.05%) Enterprise Cloud
15 26 (1.01%) IVR
16 25 (0.98%) Security Posture
17 24 (0.94%) PKI
18 21 (0.82%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 83 (3.24%) Windows
2 56 (2.19%) Linux
3 35 (1.37%) Windows Server
4 17 (0.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 9 (0.35%) Unix
6 6 (0.23%) AIX
7 4 (0.16%) Data ONTAP
8 2 (0.078%) HPUX
8 2 (0.078%) Solaris
8 2 (0.078%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.039%) Android
9 1 (0.039%) Apple iOS
9 1 (0.039%) CatOS
9 1 (0.039%) CentOS
9 1 (0.039%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.039%) VMS
9 1 (0.039%) Windows Server 2008
9 1 (0.039%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 456 (17.80%) Stakeholder Management
2 371 (14.48%) Roadmaps
3 350 (13.66%) Technical Leadership
4 306 (11.94%) Enterprise Architecture
4 306 (11.94%) Migration
5 293 (11.44%) Agile
6 239 (9.33%) DevOps
7 238 (9.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 235 (9.17%) Data Architecture
9 231 (9.02%) AI
10 221 (8.63%) CI/CD
11 218 (8.51%) Integration Patterns
12 211 (8.24%) Data Modelling
13 204 (7.96%) Cybersecurity
13 204 (7.96%) Security Architecture
14 195 (7.61%) Architectural Patterns
15 191 (7.46%) TOGAF
16 186 (7.26%) Architecture Governance
17 168 (6.56%) Microservices
18 166 (6.48%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 98 (3.83%) Java
2 90 (3.51%) SQL
3 85 (3.32%) Python
4 48 (1.87%) JavaScript
4 48 (1.87%) PowerShell
5 25 (0.98%) Bash
6 13 (0.51%) ABAP
6 13 (0.51%) TypeScript
7 10 (0.39%) Bicep
7 10 (0.39%) Shell Script
8 9 (0.35%) Apex Code
9 7 (0.27%) C#
10 6 (0.23%) PL/SQL
10 6 (0.23%) VBA
11 5 (0.20%) Groovy
12 4 (0.16%) PHP
13 3 (0.12%) R
14 2 (0.078%) BeanShell
14 2 (0.078%) C
14 2 (0.078%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 884 (34.50%) Security Cleared
2 579 (22.60%) SC Cleared
3 275 (10.73%) DV Cleared
4 71 (2.77%) Degree
5 65 (2.54%) CISSP
6 60 (2.34%) Cisco Certification
7 57 (2.22%) BPSS Clearance
8 41 (1.60%) AWS Certification
8 41 (1.60%) Azure Certification
8 41 (1.60%) TOGAF Certification
9 31 (1.21%) Computer Science Degree
10 28 (1.09%) CCNP
11 23 (0.90%) CISM
12 19 (0.74%) CCIE
12 19 (0.74%) Microsoft Certification
13 18 (0.70%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 14 (0.55%) JNCIE
15 12 (0.47%) CCSP
16 11 (0.43%) CCNA
16 11 (0.43%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 103 (4.02%) NIST
2 87 (3.40%) Data Quality
3 77 (3.01%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 58 (2.26%) NCSC
5 49 (1.91%) GDPR
6 28 (1.09%) QA
7 19 (0.74%) PCI DSS
8 17 (0.66%) JSP 440
9 16 (0.62%) GRC
9 16 (0.62%) NIST 800
10 15 (0.59%) Accessibility
11 14 (0.55%) ISO/IEC 20000
12 13 (0.51%) ISO 19650
13 11 (0.43%) Disclosure Scotland
13 11 (0.43%) IFRS
13 11 (0.43%) SLA
14 9 (0.35%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 7 (0.27%) Cyber Essentials
16 6 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
16 6 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 27005
System Software
1 101 (3.94%) Active Directory
2 47 (1.83%) VMware Infrastructure
3 45 (1.76%) Docker
4 27 (1.05%) VMware NSX
5 23 (0.90%) Virtual Desktop
6 15 (0.59%) Hyper-V
7 12 (0.47%) VMware ESXi
8 11 (0.43%) vSphere
9 9 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
10 4 (0.16%) KVM
11 3 (0.12%) Ceph
11 3 (0.12%) EMC RecoverPoint
11 3 (0.12%) ISA Server
11 3 (0.12%) NFS
11 3 (0.12%) SRDF
11 3 (0.12%) vCloud
12 2 (0.078%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 2 (0.078%) Virtual Servers
12 2 (0.078%) zsh
13 1 (0.039%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 133 (5.19%) Kubernetes
2 52 (2.03%) Ansible
3 19 (0.74%) Microsoft Intune
4 18 (0.70%) Single Sign-On
5 14 (0.55%) Grafana
6 13 (0.51%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 13 (0.51%) Prometheus
7 12 (0.47%) Jamf Pro
8 10 (0.39%) WMI
9 9 (0.35%) vCenter Server
10 8 (0.31%) CASB
11 7 (0.27%) FortiGate
12 6 (0.23%) Argo
12 6 (0.23%) Istio
13 5 (0.20%) NetBackup
14 4 (0.16%) Cisco CUCM
14 4 (0.16%) EMC VPLEX
14 4 (0.16%) SnapMirror
15 3 (0.12%) MOM
15 3 (0.12%) SnapVault
Vendors
1 360 (14.05%) Microsoft
2 138 (5.39%) SAP
3 111 (4.33%) Oracle
4 103 (4.02%) Google
5 96 (3.75%) ServiceNow
6 87 (3.40%) VMware
7 82 (3.20%) Cisco
8 81 (3.16%) Databricks
9 55 (2.15%) Salesforce
10 44 (1.72%) CyberArk
11 31 (1.21%) MuleSoft
12 29 (1.13%) F5
13 23 (0.90%) IBM
13 23 (0.90%) Informatica
13 23 (0.90%) Palo Alto
14 20 (0.78%) Red Hat
14 20 (0.78%) Workday
15 17 (0.66%) Infoblox
16 16 (0.62%) Fortinet
16 16 (0.62%) Foundry