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 4 October 2026.

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

6 months to
4 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 14 21 13
Rank change year-on-year +7 -8 +2
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 2,556 1,230 1,647
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 9.07% 7.81% 9.41%
As % of the Job Titles category 9.96% 8.74% 10.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,704 849 967
10th Percentile £465 £459 £463
25th Percentile £525 £519 £525
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £600 £625
Median % change year-on-year +3.33% -4.00% -2.34%
75th Percentile £700 £694 £714
90th Percentile £769 £775 £775
UK median daily rate £620 £625 £625
% change year-on-year -0.80% - -3.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 166 10 63
10th Percentile £40.00 £56.20 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £63.44 £61.88
Median hourly rate £68.17 £71.25 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -4.33% +1.79% -6.67%
75th Percentile £81.88 £85.31 £85.00
90th Percentile £95.00 £100.55 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £68.50 £72.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -5.52% +3.57% -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 25,670 14,081 16,176
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.06% 89.40% 92.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,915 8,644 9,223
10th Percentile £303 £213 £217
25th Percentile £413 £363 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £495
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -4.04% -1.00%
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 3,461 1,323 1,298
10th Percentile £14.22 £13.50 £14.72
25th Percentile £19.33 £16.31 £19.69
Median hourly rate £41.74 £25.08 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +66.44% -41.69% -2.82%
75th Percentile £67.70 £50.00 £66.61
90th Percentile £78.25 £69.65 £74.37
UK median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £42.91
% change year-on-year +65.94% -41.39% -3.57%

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 4 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 4 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 4 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 +1 721 £625 +4.17% 583
North of England +2 672 £600 - 500
Midlands +6 446 £627 +8.96% 279
North West +5 364 £599 +4.16% 265
South West +6 343 £638 -1.92% 249
West Midlands +5 334 £650 +8.33% 205
Yorkshire +13 244 £600 -2.04% 166
Scotland +19 187 £625 +4.17% 243
East of England +8 155 £618 +10.63% 186
East Midlands +6 107 £600 +20.00% 74
North East -2 67 £625 -15.25% 70
Wales +4 44 £640 +2.40% 91
Channel Islands 0 11 £700 -5.72%
Northern Ireland +4 2 - - 79
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 4 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 (34.15%) Security Cleared
2 573 (22.42%) SC Cleared
3 570 (22.30%) Azure
4 485 (18.97%) Stakeholder Management
5 434 (16.98%) AWS
6 375 (14.67%) Roadmaps
7 372 (14.55%) Microsoft
8 356 (13.93%) Technical Leadership
9 320 (12.52%) Migration
10 303 (11.85%) Enterprise Architecture
11 284 (11.11%) DV Cleared
12 281 (10.99%) Agile
13 246 (9.62%) Data Architecture
14 244 (9.55%) AI
15 241 (9.43%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 236 (9.23%) DevOps
17 232 (9.08%) CI/CD
18 214 (8.37%) Integration Patterns
19 211 (8.26%) Data Modelling
20 204 (7.98%) Security Architecture
21 200 (7.82%) Cybersecurity
22 195 (7.63%) Architectural Patterns
23 193 (7.55%) GCP
24 189 (7.39%) TOGAF
25 184 (7.20%) Architecture Governance
26 162 (6.34%) Continuous Improvement
27 160 (6.26%) Event-Driven
27 160 (6.26%) Microservices
28 149 (5.83%) Analytics
29 146 (5.71%) Data Governance

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 31 (1.21%) SharePoint
3 26 (1.02%) Confluence
4 17 (0.67%) Microsoft Exchange
5 13 (0.51%) OpenStack
6 12 (0.47%) Apache
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 (0.23%) 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%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 2 (0.078%) Apache Superset
15 1 (0.039%) CIMPLICITY
15 1 (0.039%) FactoryTalk
15 1 (0.039%) Predix
Applications
1 13 (0.51%) MS Visio
2 10 (0.39%) Microsoft Excel
2 10 (0.39%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 9 (0.35%) Microsoft Office
4 6 (0.23%) Navisworks
4 6 (0.23%) Revit
5 5 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 71 (2.78%) SAP S/4HANA
2 11 (0.43%) Teamcenter
3 9 (0.35%) Dynamics CRM
4 8 (0.31%) Payment Gateway
5 7 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
5 7 (0.27%) Remedy ITSM
6 6 (0.23%) Maximo
6 6 (0.23%) SAP MDG
6 6 (0.23%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 5 (0.20%) Remedy AR System
7 5 (0.20%) SAP ERP
8 4 (0.16%) NetSuite
8 4 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
8 4 (0.16%) SAP CRM
8 4 (0.16%) Workday HCM
9 3 (0.12%) Adobe Campaign
9 3 (0.12%) Oracle Receivables
9 3 (0.12%) Oracle Retail
9 3 (0.12%) Salesforce CRM
9 3 (0.12%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 570 (22.30%) Azure
2 434 (16.98%) AWS
3 193 (7.55%) GCP
4 97 (3.79%) SaaS
5 93 (3.64%) Power Platform
6 68 (2.66%) Entra ID
7 66 (2.58%) Microsoft 365
8 64 (2.50%) Serverless
9 57 (2.23%) Dynamics 365
10 50 (1.96%) Azure DevOps
10 50 (1.96%) GitHub
11 34 (1.33%) PaaS
12 31 (1.21%) Snowflake
13 30 (1.17%) AWS Lambda
14 29 (1.13%) IaaS
15 28 (1.10%) OCI
16 27 (1.06%) Amazon S3
17 26 (1.02%) GitHub Actions
18 21 (0.82%) Microsoft Purview
18 21 (0.82%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 73 (2.86%) Firewall
2 54 (2.11%) Network Security
3 53 (2.07%) WAN
4 48 (1.88%) DNS
5 36 (1.41%) BGP
6 35 (1.37%) LAN
7 31 (1.21%) MPLS
8 29 (1.13%) SD-WAN
9 27 (1.06%) DHCP
9 27 (1.06%) VPN
10 24 (0.94%) TCP/IP
11 20 (0.78%) VLAN
12 18 (0.70%) SAN
13 16 (0.63%) NX-OS
14 15 (0.59%) NAS
14 15 (0.59%) VXLAN
15 14 (0.55%) OSPF
16 13 (0.51%) Structured Cabling
17 12 (0.47%) BIG-IP
18 11 (0.43%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 88 (3.44%) Metadata
2 79 (3.09%) Data Lake
3 75 (2.93%) Data Warehouse
4 59 (2.31%) Power BI
5 30 (1.17%) NoSQL
6 21 (0.82%) Amazon RDS
6 21 (0.82%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
7 20 (0.78%) BigQuery
8 19 (0.74%) Azure SQL Database
9 16 (0.63%) Base SAS
9 16 (0.63%) Oracle Database
10 13 (0.51%) SQL Server
11 12 (0.47%) GIS
12 11 (0.43%) PostgreSQL
13 10 (0.39%) Amazon Redshift
13 10 (0.39%) Delta Lake
13 10 (0.39%) Looker
14 9 (0.35%) MySQL
14 9 (0.35%) Pentaho
14 9 (0.35%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 36 (1.41%) Git
2 34 (1.33%) JIRA
3 22 (0.86%) Jenkins
4 20 (0.78%) GitLab
5 9 (0.35%) MSI
6 6 (0.23%) 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%) IntelliJ
9 2 (0.078%) JMeter
9 2 (0.078%) JUnit
9 2 (0.078%) Newman
9 2 (0.078%) Oracle APEX
9 2 (0.078%) Oracle Forms
General
1 534 (20.89%) Social Skills
2 298 (11.66%) Finance
3 268 (10.49%) Public Sector
4 123 (4.81%) Analytical Skills
5 112 (4.38%) Retail
6 110 (4.30%) Banking
7 96 (3.76%) Manufacturing
8 73 (2.86%) Influencing Skills
9 58 (2.27%) Documentation Skills
10 55 (2.15%) Aerospace
11 40 (1.56%) Legal
12 38 (1.49%) Telecoms
13 29 (1.13%) Military
14 28 (1.10%) Marketing
15 23 (0.90%) Aviation
16 20 (0.78%) Back Office
16 20 (0.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 17 (0.67%) Billing
17 17 (0.67%) Presentation Skills
18 16 (0.63%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 110 (4.30%) REST
2 88 (3.44%) Terraform
3 70 (2.74%) Middleware
4 55 (2.15%) SOAP
5 52 (2.03%) OAuth
6 45 (1.76%) Kafka
7 43 (1.68%) Oracle Fusion
8 38 (1.49%) LDAP
9 33 (1.29%) SAML
10 28 (1.10%) .NET
10 28 (1.10%) OpenID
11 22 (0.86%) JSON
12 20 (0.78%) OAuth2
12 20 (0.78%) SailPoint
12 20 (0.78%) SAP Fiori
13 17 (0.67%) GraphQL
13 17 (0.67%) JWT
13 17 (0.67%) Node.js
14 15 (0.59%) SAPUI5
14 15 (0.59%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 196 (7.67%) Cloud Native
2 90 (3.52%) Data Centre
3 81 (3.17%) Hybrid Cloud
4 70 (2.74%) Onboarding
5 64 (2.50%) Product Ownership
6 62 (2.43%) Enterprise Software
7 61 (2.39%) Legacy Systems
8 60 (2.35%) Distributed Systems
9 59 (2.31%) Data Protection Act
9 59 (2.31%) Operational Technology
10 49 (1.92%) Management Information System
11 44 (1.72%) AI Agents
12 39 (1.53%) CMDB
12 39 (1.53%) Private Cloud
12 39 (1.53%) Public Cloud
13 28 (1.10%) Enterprise Cloud
14 27 (1.06%) IVR
15 23 (0.90%) PKI
16 22 (0.86%) Data Structures
17 21 (0.82%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 86 (3.36%) Windows
2 54 (2.11%) Linux
3 34 (1.33%) Windows Server
4 17 (0.67%) 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
1 485 (18.97%) Stakeholder Management
2 375 (14.67%) Roadmaps
3 356 (13.93%) Technical Leadership
4 320 (12.52%) Migration
5 303 (11.85%) Enterprise Architecture
6 281 (10.99%) Agile
7 246 (9.62%) Data Architecture
8 244 (9.55%) AI
9 241 (9.43%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 236 (9.23%) DevOps
11 232 (9.08%) CI/CD
12 214 (8.37%) Integration Patterns
13 211 (8.26%) Data Modelling
14 204 (7.98%) Security Architecture
15 200 (7.82%) Cybersecurity
16 195 (7.63%) Architectural Patterns
17 189 (7.39%) TOGAF
18 184 (7.20%) Architecture Governance
19 162 (6.34%) Continuous Improvement
20 160 (6.26%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 91 (3.56%) Java
2 90 (3.52%) SQL
3 82 (3.21%) Python
4 50 (1.96%) PowerShell
5 43 (1.68%) JavaScript
6 24 (0.94%) Bash
7 16 (0.63%) ABAP
8 15 (0.59%) TypeScript
9 11 (0.43%) C#
10 10 (0.39%) Shell Script
11 9 (0.35%) Bicep
12 8 (0.31%) Apex Code
13 6 (0.23%) PL/SQL
14 5 (0.20%) Groovy
15 4 (0.16%) PHP
16 3 (0.12%) R
16 3 (0.12%) VBA
17 2 (0.078%) BeanShell
17 2 (0.078%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 2 (0.078%) Go
Qualifications
1 873 (34.15%) Security Cleared
2 573 (22.42%) SC Cleared
3 284 (11.11%) DV Cleared
4 70 (2.74%) Degree
5 66 (2.58%) BPSS Clearance
5 66 (2.58%) CISSP
6 56 (2.19%) Cisco Certification
7 46 (1.80%) AWS Certification
8 41 (1.60%) TOGAF Certification
9 40 (1.56%) Azure Certification
10 32 (1.25%) Computer Science Degree
11 25 (0.98%) CISM
12 24 (0.94%) CCNP
13 21 (0.82%) CCIE
14 18 (0.70%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 17 (0.67%) Microsoft Certification
16 16 (0.63%) JNCIE
17 13 (0.51%) CCSP
18 12 (0.47%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
19 11 (0.43%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 100 (3.91%) NIST
2 89 (3.48%) Data Quality
3 69 (2.70%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 62 (2.43%) NCSC
5 46 (1.80%) GDPR
6 25 (0.98%) QA
7 19 (0.74%) ISO/IEC 20000
7 19 (0.74%) JSP 440
7 19 (0.74%) PCI DSS
8 18 (0.70%) Accessibility
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 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
14 6 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 27005
15 5 (0.20%) Actionable Recommendations
System Software
1 97 (3.79%) Active Directory
2 48 (1.88%) VMware Infrastructure
3 44 (1.72%) Docker
4 27 (1.06%) VMware NSX
5 24 (0.94%) Virtual Desktop
6 13 (0.51%) Hyper-V
7 11 (0.43%) vSphere
8 10 (0.39%) VMware ESXi
9 9 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
10 4 (0.16%) ISA Server
10 4 (0.16%) KVM
11 3 (0.12%) Ceph
11 3 (0.12%) EMC RecoverPoint
11 3 (0.12%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 3 (0.12%) SRDF
11 3 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
12 2 (0.078%) NFS
12 2 (0.078%) zsh
13 1 (0.039%) vCloud
Systems Management
1 129 (5.05%) Kubernetes
2 49 (1.92%) Ansible
3 20 (0.78%) Microsoft Intune
3 20 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
4 13 (0.51%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 12 (0.47%) Jamf Pro
5 12 (0.47%) Prometheus
5 12 (0.47%) WMI
6 11 (0.43%) Grafana
7 8 (0.31%) CASB
8 7 (0.27%) FortiGate
9 6 (0.23%) vCenter Server
10 5 (0.20%) Argo
10 5 (0.20%) Istio
10 5 (0.20%) NetBackup
11 4 (0.16%) Cisco CUCM
11 4 (0.16%) EMC VPLEX
11 4 (0.16%) SnapMirror
11 4 (0.16%) VxRail
12 3 (0.12%) SnapVault
Vendors
1 372 (14.55%) Microsoft
2 128 (5.01%) SAP
3 114 (4.46%) Oracle
4 113 (4.42%) Google
5 96 (3.76%) ServiceNow
6 81 (3.17%) VMware
7 79 (3.09%) Databricks
8 77 (3.01%) Cisco
9 57 (2.23%) Salesforce
10 44 (1.72%) CyberArk
11 31 (1.21%) MuleSoft
12 24 (0.94%) F5
13 21 (0.82%) Informatica
13 21 (0.82%) Red Hat
13 21 (0.82%) Workday
14 20 (0.78%) IBM
15 17 (0.67%) Infoblox
15 17 (0.67%) Palo Alto
16 16 (0.63%) Foundry
16 16 (0.63%) OutSystems