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 £610, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 18 April 2026.

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

6 months to
18 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 18 13
Rank change year-on-year +8 -5 +7
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 2,333 1,118 2,035
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 10.00% 8.75% 9.79%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.88% 9.48% 10.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,520 763 1,265
10th Percentile £450 £450 £500
25th Percentile £513 £537 £575
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £610 £613 £650
Median % change year-on-year -0.41% -5.77% -
75th Percentile £710 £700 £731
90th Percentile £771 £750 £799
UK median daily rate £620 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -1.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 105 28 51
10th Percentile £49.40 £58.65 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £60.63
Median hourly rate £71.27 £72.50 £83.77
Median % change year-on-year -1.70% -13.45% +19.66%
75th Percentile £85.00 £80.15 £87.53
90th Percentile £96.50 £85.50 £95.00
UK median hourly rate £69.72 £68.75 £82.38
% change year-on-year +1.41% -16.55% +17.69%

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 21,435 11,791 19,268
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.91% 92.32% 92.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,658 7,622 11,878
10th Percentile £271 £213 £213
25th Percentile £400 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £475 £493
Median % change year-on-year +2.63% -3.65% -1.40%
75th Percentile £588 £579 £600
90th Percentile £675 £655 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £515 £525
% change year-on-year -2.91% -1.90% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,354 790 2,175
10th Percentile £14.39 £14.20 £12.50
25th Percentile £19.66 £18.26 £15.50
Median hourly rate £42.85 £29.24 £35.65
Median % change year-on-year +46.55% -17.98% -15.28%
75th Percentile £65.60 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £78.60 £76.25 £72.90
UK median hourly rate £41.94 £30.43 £35.00
% change year-on-year +37.85% -13.07% -20.55%

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 18 April 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 18 April 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 18 April 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 +4 704 £625 - 158
North of England +4 609 £600 - 170
Midlands -3 401 £578 -3.75% 116
North West +5 354 £608 +1.33% 95
West Midlands -1 305 £600 - 78
South West +3 296 £698 +16.25% 108
Yorkshire +9 228 £558 -7.00% 58
East of England +16 197 £563 -6.25% 69
Scotland +14 136 £650 +4.00% 22
East Midlands -4 92 £513 -6.82% 38
North East +5 36 £575 -7.95% 18
Wales -7 25 £600 +20.00% 27
Northern Ireland +11 11 £500 -24.53% 7
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 18 April 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.

1 760 (32.58%) Security Cleared
2 462 (19.80%) Azure
3 426 (18.26%) SC Cleared
4 352 (15.09%) AWS
5 341 (14.62%) Roadmaps
6 331 (14.19%) Agile
6 331 (14.19%) Microsoft
7 275 (11.79%) DV Cleared
8 258 (11.06%) Stakeholder Management
9 255 (10.93%) Migration
10 252 (10.80%) Enterprise Architecture
11 222 (9.52%) DevOps
12 211 (9.04%) TOGAF
13 202 (8.66%) CI/CD
14 195 (8.36%) Technical Leadership
15 190 (8.14%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 179 (7.67%) Data Modelling
17 163 (6.99%) Integration Patterns
17 163 (6.99%) Microservices
18 159 (6.82%) Problem-Solving
19 156 (6.69%) Data Architecture
20 155 (6.64%) Architectural Design
20 155 (6.64%) Architectural Patterns
21 144 (6.17%) GCP
22 142 (6.09%) Analytics
22 142 (6.09%) ITIL
23 141 (6.04%) ServiceNow
24 139 (5.96%) VMware
25 137 (5.87%) Cybersecurity
26 134 (5.74%) SAP

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 75 (3.21%) Confluence
2 67 (2.87%) SharePoint
3 49 (2.10%) Microsoft Exchange
4 26 (1.11%) SAS
5 13 (0.56%) Appian
6 11 (0.47%) CMS
7 10 (0.43%) Anypoint
7 10 (0.43%) Apache
7 10 (0.43%) ArcGIS
8 8 (0.34%) Apache Airflow
9 7 (0.30%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 7 (0.30%) Skype for Business
10 6 (0.26%) Apache Spark
10 6 (0.26%) NetWeaver
10 6 (0.26%) Sitecore CMS
10 6 (0.26%) Smallworld
10 6 (0.26%) WebLogic
11 5 (0.21%) SAP EP
12 4 (0.17%) IIS
12 4 (0.17%) JBoss
Applications
1 44 (1.89%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (1.33%) Microsoft Project
3 17 (0.73%) Microsoft Excel
3 17 (0.73%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (0.21%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.17%) Chatbot
6 2 (0.086%) Navisworks
6 2 (0.086%) Revit
7 1 (0.043%) OrCAD
7 1 (0.043%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 51 (2.19%) SAP S/4HANA
2 32 (1.37%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 18 (0.77%) Payment Gateway
4 13 (0.56%) Workday HCM
5 9 (0.39%) Remedy ITSM
5 9 (0.39%) SAP ERP
6 7 (0.30%) Dynamics CRM
6 7 (0.30%) Teamcenter
7 6 (0.26%) SAP CRM
8 5 (0.21%) Maximo
9 4 (0.17%) Distributed Ledger
9 4 (0.17%) Oracle Retail
9 4 (0.17%) R3 Corda
9 4 (0.17%) Salesforce CRM
9 4 (0.17%) SAP CO
9 4 (0.17%) SAP FI
9 4 (0.17%) SAP FI/CO
9 4 (0.17%) SAP PP
10 3 (0.13%) SAP EWM
10 3 (0.13%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 462 (19.80%) Azure
2 352 (15.09%) AWS
3 144 (6.17%) GCP
4 93 (3.99%) Entra ID
5 86 (3.69%) Microsoft 365
6 73 (3.13%) Power Platform
7 67 (2.87%) Serverless
8 62 (2.66%) SaaS
9 53 (2.27%) PaaS
10 45 (1.93%) IaaS
10 45 (1.93%) Microsoft Purview
11 42 (1.80%) OpenShift
12 40 (1.71%) GitHub
13 39 (1.67%) OneDrive
14 35 (1.50%) Azure DevOps
15 27 (1.16%) AWS Lambda
15 27 (1.16%) Dynamics 365
16 24 (1.03%) AWS CloudFormation
16 24 (1.03%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 21 (0.90%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 119 (5.10%) Firewall
2 79 (3.39%) WAN
3 74 (3.17%) DNS
4 72 (3.09%) Network Security
5 60 (2.57%) VPN
6 57 (2.44%) LAN
7 45 (1.93%) SD-WAN
8 32 (1.37%) DHCP
9 24 (1.03%) VLAN
10 21 (0.90%) MPLS
10 21 (0.90%) Wireless
11 20 (0.86%) BGP
12 16 (0.69%) OSPF
12 16 (0.69%) Wi-Fi
13 15 (0.64%) SAN
14 14 (0.60%) BIG-IP
14 14 (0.60%) IPsec
14 14 (0.60%) NAS
15 13 (0.56%) WLAN
16 12 (0.51%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 72 (3.09%) Metadata
2 62 (2.66%) Data Warehouse
3 57 (2.44%) Power BI
4 41 (1.76%) SQL Server
5 31 (1.33%) NoSQL
6 29 (1.24%) Data Lake
7 25 (1.07%) Tableau
8 23 (0.99%) Oracle Database
9 22 (0.94%) PostgreSQL
10 15 (0.64%) GIS
11 14 (0.60%) DynamoDB
12 13 (0.56%) Azure SQL Database
12 13 (0.56%) Metadata Repository
12 13 (0.56%) Relational Database
13 12 (0.51%) MongoDB
14 10 (0.43%) Big Data
14 10 (0.43%) Electronic Patient Records
15 7 (0.30%) Amazon Redshift
15 7 (0.30%) MySQL
15 7 (0.30%) SAP BW
Development Applications
1 85 (3.64%) JIRA
2 41 (1.76%) Jenkins
3 20 (0.86%) Git
3 20 (0.86%) GitLab
4 6 (0.26%) ERwin
5 5 (0.21%) Artifactory
5 5 (0.21%) SonarQube
5 5 (0.21%) Sonatype Nexus
6 4 (0.17%) JUnit
6 4 (0.17%) Selenium
7 3 (0.13%) Bitbucket
7 3 (0.13%) Cucumber
7 3 (0.13%) MLflow
7 3 (0.13%) MSI
7 3 (0.13%) Postman
7 3 (0.13%) Rational DOORS
7 3 (0.13%) REST Assured
8 2 (0.086%) Gatling
8 2 (0.086%) Hudson
8 2 (0.086%) NeoLoad
General
1 429 (18.39%) Social Skills
2 300 (12.86%) Finance
3 223 (9.56%) Public Sector
4 145 (6.22%) Analytical Skills
5 132 (5.66%) Banking
6 63 (2.70%) Military
7 61 (2.61%) Documentation Skills
8 51 (2.19%) Retail
9 50 (2.14%) Legal
10 38 (1.63%) Influencing Skills
11 32 (1.37%) Presentation Skills
12 30 (1.29%) Telecoms
13 27 (1.16%) Manufacturing
13 27 (1.16%) Marketing
14 25 (1.07%) Aerospace
15 23 (0.99%) Investment Banking
16 20 (0.86%) Financial Institution
17 13 (0.56%) Billing
18 10 (0.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 10 (0.43%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 81 (3.47%) REST
2 65 (2.79%) Middleware
3 46 (1.97%) .NET
4 42 (1.80%) OAuth
5 40 (1.71%) OpenID
6 37 (1.59%) SOAP
7 35 (1.50%) OAuth2
8 29 (1.24%) SAML
9 26 (1.11%) Kafka
10 25 (1.07%) SailPoint
11 22 (0.94%) RESTful
12 19 (0.81%) Node.js
12 19 (0.81%) React
13 18 (0.77%) JSON
14 17 (0.73%) Web Services
15 16 (0.69%) Microsoft Graph
16 14 (0.60%) Oracle Fusion
17 13 (0.56%) LDAP
18 12 (0.51%) CSS
18 12 (0.51%) HTML
Miscellaneous
1 156 (6.69%) Cloud Native
2 87 (3.73%) Product Ownership
3 77 (3.30%) Data Centre
4 57 (2.44%) Public Cloud
5 53 (2.27%) Onboarding
6 50 (2.14%) Operational Technology
7 46 (1.97%) Hybrid Cloud
8 44 (1.89%) PKI
9 41 (1.76%) Enterprise Software
9 41 (1.76%) Legacy Systems
10 40 (1.71%) Management Information System
11 37 (1.59%) Data Protection Act
11 37 (1.59%) Distributed Systems
12 29 (1.24%) CMDB
13 28 (1.20%) SCADA
14 23 (0.99%) NHS
15 20 (0.86%) Private Cloud
16 18 (0.77%) Security Posture
17 17 (0.73%) AI Agents
18 14 (0.60%) Blackberry
Operating Systems
1 132 (5.66%) Windows
2 70 (3.00%) Linux
3 35 (1.50%) Windows Server
4 15 (0.64%) Android
4 15 (0.64%) Apple iOS
5 13 (0.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 13 (0.56%) Windows 7
6 11 (0.47%) Windows 10
7 8 (0.34%) Unix
7 8 (0.34%) Windows Server 2016
8 5 (0.21%) VMS
8 5 (0.21%) Windows Server 2019
9 4 (0.17%) Mac OS
10 3 (0.13%) Data ONTAP
10 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
11 1 (0.043%) CentOS
11 1 (0.043%) Kali Linux
11 1 (0.043%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.043%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 341 (14.62%) Roadmaps
2 331 (14.19%) Agile
3 258 (11.06%) Stakeholder Management
4 255 (10.93%) Migration
5 252 (10.80%) Enterprise Architecture
6 222 (9.52%) DevOps
7 211 (9.04%) TOGAF
8 202 (8.66%) CI/CD
9 195 (8.36%) Technical Leadership
10 190 (8.14%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 179 (7.67%) Data Modelling
12 163 (6.99%) Integration Patterns
12 163 (6.99%) Microservices
13 159 (6.82%) Problem-Solving
14 156 (6.69%) Data Architecture
15 155 (6.64%) Architectural Design
15 155 (6.64%) Architectural Patterns
16 142 (6.09%) Analytics
16 142 (6.09%) ITIL
17 137 (5.87%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 119 (5.10%) Python
2 88 (3.77%) SQL
3 80 (3.43%) PowerShell
4 67 (2.87%) Java
5 41 (1.76%) JavaScript
6 32 (1.37%) C#
7 21 (0.90%) Bicep
8 16 (0.69%) Bash
9 10 (0.43%) Kusto Query Language
10 9 (0.39%) TypeScript
11 8 (0.34%) PL/SQL
12 7 (0.30%) VB
12 7 (0.30%) VBScript
13 6 (0.26%) R
14 5 (0.21%) ABAP
14 5 (0.21%) Scala
14 5 (0.21%) Shell Script
14 5 (0.21%) VBA
15 4 (0.17%) Perl
15 4 (0.17%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 760 (32.58%) Security Cleared
2 426 (18.26%) SC Cleared
3 275 (11.79%) DV Cleared
4 109 (4.67%) Degree
5 80 (3.43%) TOGAF Certification
6 50 (2.14%) CISSP
7 49 (2.10%) BPSS Clearance
8 48 (2.06%) Cisco Certification
9 47 (2.01%) AWS Certification
10 42 (1.80%) Azure Certification
11 32 (1.37%) CCNP
11 32 (1.37%) Microsoft Certification
12 29 (1.24%) Computer Science Degree
12 29 (1.24%) ISEB
13 28 (1.20%) ITIL Certification
14 22 (0.94%) CISM
15 20 (0.86%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 18 (0.77%) Master's Degree
17 15 (0.64%) (ISC)2 CCSP
17 15 (0.64%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 104 (4.46%) NIST
2 97 (4.16%) GDPR
3 74 (3.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 71 (3.04%) Data Quality
5 44 (1.89%) NCSC
6 32 (1.37%) COBIT
7 30 (1.29%) PCI DSS
8 20 (0.86%) QA
9 18 (0.77%) GRC
10 17 (0.73%) Cyber Essentials
11 14 (0.60%) Accessibility
11 14 (0.60%) JSP 440
12 13 (0.56%) ISO 20022
13 12 (0.51%) FINRA
13 12 (0.51%) MiFID
14 10 (0.43%) NIST 800
15 9 (0.39%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 8 (0.34%) HL7
17 6 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 20000
17 6 (0.26%) SLA
System Software
1 105 (4.50%) Active Directory
2 63 (2.70%) VMware Infrastructure
3 37 (1.59%) Docker
4 35 (1.50%) VMware NSX
5 21 (0.90%) vSphere
6 15 (0.64%) Hyper-V
6 15 (0.64%) Virtual Desktop
7 11 (0.47%) VMware ESXi
8 10 (0.43%) vCloud
9 8 (0.34%) Virtual Machines
10 7 (0.30%) BitLocker
11 5 (0.21%) RACF
12 4 (0.17%) NFS
13 3 (0.13%) IAG
14 2 (0.086%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
14 2 (0.086%) Firmware
15 1 (0.043%) Embedded Firmware
15 1 (0.043%) ProxySG
15 1 (0.043%) Snort
15 1 (0.043%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 97 (4.16%) Terraform
2 78 (3.34%) Kubernetes
3 60 (2.57%) Ansible
4 32 (1.37%) Microsoft Intune
5 30 (1.29%) OPNET
6 29 (1.24%) Single Sign-On
7 27 (1.16%) vCenter Server
8 20 (0.86%) SCCM
9 18 (0.77%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 12 (0.51%) WMI
11 11 (0.47%) Argo
11 11 (0.47%) FortiGate
12 9 (0.39%) Grafana
13 6 (0.26%) Istio
14 5 (0.21%) Endace
14 5 (0.21%) Prometheus
15 3 (0.13%) EMC VPLEX
15 3 (0.13%) MOM
15 3 (0.13%) Puppet
15 3 (0.13%) vRealize
Vendors
1 331 (14.19%) Microsoft
2 141 (6.04%) ServiceNow
3 139 (5.96%) VMware
4 134 (5.74%) SAP
5 83 (3.56%) Cisco
5 83 (3.56%) Oracle
6 65 (2.79%) Salesforce
7 50 (2.14%) Google
8 44 (1.89%) Remedy
9 43 (1.84%) Databricks
10 40 (1.71%) MuleSoft
11 36 (1.54%) Red Hat
12 35 (1.50%) Atlassian
13 33 (1.41%) Palo Alto
14 31 (1.33%) F5
14 31 (1.33%) Sparx
15 30 (1.29%) Citrix
16 27 (1.16%) BiZZdesign
16 27 (1.16%) Juniper
17 18 (0.77%) Fortinet