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 15 November 2025.

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

6 months to
15 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 21 14 18
Rank change year-on-year -7 +4 +4
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 1,432 1,535 1,748
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 8.23% 9.20% 8.40%
As % of the Job Titles category 9.17% 9.98% 8.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,002 929 1,227
10th Percentile £462 £458 £500
25th Percentile £519 £525 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £625 £633
Median % change year-on-year -4.00% -1.19% -2.69%
75th Percentile £700 £706 £700
90th Percentile £775 £763 £750
UK median daily rate £625 £625 £650
% change year-on-year - -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 22 33
10th Percentile £63.00 £60.00 £61.25
25th Percentile £70.00 £62.81 £72.50
Median hourly rate £83.82 £70.00 £76.53
Median % change year-on-year +19.74% -8.53% +9.33%
75th Percentile £90.09 £84.48 £80.00
90th Percentile £96.86 £89.75 £88.12
UK median hourly rate £83.82 £70.00 £75.00
% change year-on-year +19.74% -6.67% +7.14%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
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 15,618 15,385 19,532
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 89.75% 92.25% 93.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,681 8,827 12,943
10th Percentile £207 £220 £213
25th Percentile £363 £375 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £490 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.06% -2.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £676 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,532 1,057 1,264
10th Percentile £13.75 £15.00 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.22 £20.00 £18.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% -21.35% +85.26%
75th Percentile £53.75 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £73.75 £77.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £36.00 £44.50
% change year-on-year -30.14% -19.10% +58.28%

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 November 2025.

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 November 2025.

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 November 2025. 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 +3 436 £600 -4.00% 476
North of England -10 365 £600 - 189
Midlands -10 226 £575 -4.17% 136
North West -10 218 £579 -5.08% 120
South West -3 211 £675 +3.85% 144
West Midlands -15 158 £582 -6.92% 88
Yorkshire -17 131 £613 +5.60% 58
Scotland -7 94 £575 -8.73% 52
East of England -4 88 £553 -7.92% 100
East Midlands -5 67 £500 +2.04% 46
Wales 0 24 £625 +0.81% 24
North East -11 17 £725 +20.91% 11
Channel Islands - 6 £743 -
Northern Ireland -8 5 £550 -8.33% 13
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 15 November 2025, 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.

1 492 (34.36%) Security Cleared
2 352 (24.58%) Azure
3 314 (21.93%) AWS
4 288 (20.11%) SC Cleared
5 233 (16.27%) Roadmaps
6 220 (15.36%) Stakeholder Management
7 204 (14.25%) Microsoft
8 180 (12.57%) Agile
9 172 (12.01%) Migration
10 168 (11.73%) TOGAF
11 167 (11.66%) Problem-Solving
12 157 (10.96%) Enterprise Architecture
13 156 (10.89%) DV Cleared
14 150 (10.47%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 144 (10.06%) Data Modelling
16 141 (9.85%) CI/CD
17 135 (9.43%) DevOps
18 133 (9.29%) Technical Leadership
19 132 (9.22%) GCP
20 122 (8.52%) AI
21 114 (7.96%) ITIL
22 112 (7.82%) Microservices
23 111 (7.75%) Python
24 109 (7.61%) Cybersecurity
25 108 (7.54%) Mentoring
26 103 (7.19%) VMware
27 98 (6.84%) Analytics
28 97 (6.77%) Architectural Design
29 93 (6.49%) Terraform
30 89 (6.22%) Data Architecture

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 (2.37%) Confluence
2 21 (1.47%) SharePoint
3 16 (1.12%) Microsoft Exchange
3 16 (1.12%) SAS
4 15 (1.05%) ArcGIS
5 9 (0.63%) Apache Spark
5 9 (0.63%) WebLogic
6 8 (0.56%) Smallworld
7 6 (0.42%) OpenStack
8 5 (0.35%) Apache Airflow
8 5 (0.35%) WebSphere
9 4 (0.28%) Documentum
10 3 (0.21%) GeoServer
10 3 (0.21%) Oracle Spatial
10 3 (0.21%) Skype for Business
10 3 (0.21%) ThingWorx
11 2 (0.14%) CICS
11 2 (0.14%) IIS
11 2 (0.14%) Mule
11 2 (0.14%) Oracle Coherence
Applications
1 11 (0.77%) Microsoft Excel
1 11 (0.77%) Siemens NX
2 10 (0.70%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 10 (0.70%) MS Visio
3 9 (0.63%) Microsoft Office
4 5 (0.35%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.14%) Fusion 360
6 1 (0.070%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.070%) FrameMaker
6 1 (0.070%) Revit
6 1 (0.070%) Trello
Business Applications
1 36 (2.51%) SAP S/4HANA
2 19 (1.33%) Dynamics CRM
3 14 (0.98%) Payment Gateway
4 13 (0.91%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 12 (0.84%) Maximo
5 12 (0.84%) Workday HCM
6 11 (0.77%) Teamcenter
7 10 (0.70%) SAP CO
8 9 (0.63%) SAP FI
8 9 (0.63%) SAP FI/CO
9 8 (0.56%) SAP PM
10 7 (0.49%) Salesforce CRM
11 6 (0.42%) SAP HR
12 5 (0.35%) Dynamics AX
12 5 (0.35%) Oracle SCM
13 3 (0.21%) NetSuite
14 2 (0.14%) Avolution ABACUS
14 2 (0.14%) SAP CRM
14 2 (0.14%) SAP ERP
14 2 (0.14%) SAP Retail
Cloud Services
1 352 (24.58%) Azure
2 314 (21.93%) AWS
3 132 (9.22%) GCP
4 67 (4.68%) SaaS
5 63 (4.40%) Serverless
6 48 (3.35%) Dynamics 365
7 41 (2.86%) AWS Lambda
8 40 (2.79%) Power Platform
9 38 (2.65%) Entra ID
9 38 (2.65%) Microsoft 365
10 36 (2.51%) Amazon S3
11 34 (2.37%) GitHub
12 27 (1.89%) IaaS
12 27 (1.89%) PaaS
13 25 (1.75%) Azure DevOps
14 24 (1.68%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 24 (1.68%) Microsoft Purview
15 19 (1.33%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 19 (1.33%) Salesforce Service Cloud
16 18 (1.26%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 86 (6.01%) Firewall
2 49 (3.42%) Network Security
3 43 (3.00%) WAN
4 37 (2.58%) LAN
5 33 (2.30%) VPN
6 30 (2.09%) DNS
7 27 (1.89%) SD-WAN
8 22 (1.54%) SAN
9 21 (1.47%) BGP
10 20 (1.40%) MPLS
11 15 (1.05%) Fibre Channel
11 15 (1.05%) iSCSI
12 14 (0.98%) VSAN
13 12 (0.84%) DHCP
14 11 (0.77%) Internet
14 11 (0.77%) Wi-Fi
15 9 (0.63%) VLAN
16 8 (0.56%) Cisco ASA
16 8 (0.56%) Wireless
17 7 (0.49%) 4G
Database & Business Intelligence
1 59 (4.12%) Data Warehouse
2 38 (2.65%) PostgreSQL
3 34 (2.37%) Metadata
4 31 (2.16%) Power BI
5 27 (1.89%) NoSQL
6 26 (1.82%) SQL Server
7 25 (1.75%) MongoDB
8 24 (1.68%) DynamoDB
9 20 (1.40%) GIS
10 17 (1.19%) Oracle Database
11 15 (1.05%) BigQuery
11 15 (1.05%) Relational Database
12 14 (0.98%) Data Lake
13 13 (0.91%) Big Data
13 13 (0.91%) Redis
14 12 (0.84%) Amazon Redshift
14 12 (0.84%) RDBMS
14 12 (0.84%) Tableau
15 9 (0.63%) Amazon RDS
15 9 (0.63%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 51 (3.56%) JIRA
2 44 (3.07%) Jenkins
3 34 (2.37%) Git
4 11 (0.77%) GitLab
5 10 (0.70%) CircleCI
6 9 (0.63%) Oracle Forms
7 7 (0.49%) Gradle
7 7 (0.49%) Maven
7 7 (0.49%) Rational DOORS
8 6 (0.42%) SonarQube
9 5 (0.35%) SonarLint
10 3 (0.21%) Artifactory
10 3 (0.21%) MSI
10 3 (0.21%) Visual Studio Code
11 2 (0.14%) Bitbucket
11 2 (0.14%) Hudson
11 2 (0.14%) MLflow
11 2 (0.14%) Postman
11 2 (0.14%) Sonatype Nexus
12 1 (0.070%) ER Studio
General
1 394 (27.51%) Social Skills
2 186 (12.99%) Finance
3 183 (12.78%) Public Sector
4 107 (7.47%) Analytical Skills
5 83 (5.80%) Banking
6 48 (3.35%) Telecoms
7 46 (3.21%) Retail
8 39 (2.72%) Marketing
9 36 (2.51%) Documentation Skills
10 30 (2.09%) Influencing Skills
10 30 (2.09%) Presentation Skills
11 28 (1.96%) Manufacturing
12 22 (1.54%) Legal
13 20 (1.40%) Aerospace
14 19 (1.33%) Military
15 13 (0.91%) Local Government
16 10 (0.70%) Back Office
16 10 (0.70%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 9 (0.63%) Aviation
17 9 (0.63%) Financial Institution
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 44 (3.07%) REST
2 41 (2.86%) Middleware
3 33 (2.30%) SOAP
4 31 (2.16%) Kafka
5 29 (2.03%) RESTful
6 25 (1.75%) .NET
7 20 (1.40%) OAuth
8 19 (1.33%) Lightning Web Components
8 19 (1.33%) Spring Boot
9 18 (1.26%) Visualforce
9 18 (1.26%) Web Services
10 15 (1.05%) SailPoint
11 14 (0.98%) Node.js
12 13 (0.91%) GraphQL
12 13 (0.91%) SAML
12 13 (0.91%) SAP PI
13 11 (0.77%) OAuth2
13 11 (0.77%) Spring
14 9 (0.63%) Celery
14 9 (0.63%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 98 (6.84%) Cloud Native
2 67 (4.68%) Legacy Systems
3 64 (4.47%) Product Ownership
4 63 (4.40%) Data Centre
5 50 (3.49%) Onboarding
6 48 (3.35%) Hybrid Cloud
7 27 (1.89%) PKI
8 25 (1.75%) Operational Technology
9 24 (1.68%) Enterprise Software
10 23 (1.61%) Security Posture
11 22 (1.54%) CMDB
11 22 (1.54%) Distributed Systems
12 21 (1.47%) Management Information System
13 20 (1.40%) Data Protection Act
13 20 (1.40%) Public Cloud
13 20 (1.40%) SCADA
14 17 (1.19%) NHS
14 17 (1.19%) Security Operations Centre
15 15 (1.05%) Cyber Threat
16 13 (0.91%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 85 (5.94%) Windows
2 52 (3.63%) Linux
3 32 (2.23%) Windows Server
4 19 (1.33%) Windows Server 2019
5 11 (0.77%) Unix
6 10 (0.70%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 10 (0.70%) Windows 10
6 10 (0.70%) Windows 7
7 5 (0.35%) Android
7 5 (0.35%) Apple iOS
8 3 (0.21%) Mac OS
8 3 (0.21%) Windows Server 2008
9 2 (0.14%) Solaris
9 2 (0.14%) Ubuntu
9 2 (0.14%) Windows Server 2016
9 2 (0.14%) zOS
10 1 (0.070%) MVS
10 1 (0.070%) VMS
10 1 (0.070%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 233 (16.27%) Roadmaps
2 220 (15.36%) Stakeholder Management
3 180 (12.57%) Agile
4 172 (12.01%) Migration
5 168 (11.73%) TOGAF
6 167 (11.66%) Problem-Solving
7 157 (10.96%) Enterprise Architecture
8 150 (10.47%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 144 (10.06%) Data Modelling
10 141 (9.85%) CI/CD
11 135 (9.43%) DevOps
12 133 (9.29%) Technical Leadership
13 122 (8.52%) AI
14 114 (7.96%) ITIL
15 112 (7.82%) Microservices
16 109 (7.61%) Cybersecurity
17 108 (7.54%) Mentoring
18 98 (6.84%) Analytics
19 97 (6.77%) Architectural Design
20 89 (6.22%) Data Architecture
Programming Languages
1 111 (7.75%) Python
2 82 (5.73%) Java
3 58 (4.05%) SQL
4 31 (2.16%) PowerShell
5 23 (1.61%) JavaScript
6 19 (1.33%) Apex Code
7 18 (1.26%) TypeScript
8 13 (0.91%) C#
9 12 (0.84%) R
10 9 (0.63%) Bash
10 9 (0.63%) C++
11 6 (0.42%) Bicep
11 6 (0.42%) C
12 5 (0.35%) ABAP
12 5 (0.35%) VB
13 4 (0.28%) Scala
14 3 (0.21%) Magik
14 3 (0.21%) VBScript
14 3 (0.21%) X++
15 2 (0.14%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 492 (34.36%) Security Cleared
2 288 (20.11%) SC Cleared
3 156 (10.89%) DV Cleared
4 80 (5.59%) Degree
5 76 (5.31%) CISSP
6 49 (3.42%) AWS Certification
7 44 (3.07%) Azure Certification
8 38 (2.65%) Microsoft Certification
9 35 (2.44%) Cisco Certification
9 35 (2.44%) CISM
9 35 (2.44%) TOGAF Certification
10 26 (1.82%) Computer Science Degree
10 26 (1.82%) Master's Degree
11 24 (1.68%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 19 (1.33%) CCIE
13 17 (1.19%) BPSS Clearance
14 16 (1.12%) CCNP
15 15 (1.05%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 15 (1.05%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 14 (0.98%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 88 (6.15%) GDPR
2 73 (5.10%) NIST
3 70 (4.89%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 46 (3.21%) Data Quality
5 40 (2.79%) NCSC
6 31 (2.16%) PCI DSS
7 29 (2.03%) ISO/IEC 20000
8 20 (1.40%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 20 (1.40%) JSP 440
9 19 (1.33%) QA
10 14 (0.98%) COBIT
11 12 (0.84%) GRC
12 11 (0.77%) SLA
13 9 (0.63%) Accessibility
13 9 (0.63%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 8 (0.56%) HMG Security Policy Framework
14 8 (0.56%) NIST 800
14 8 (0.56%) PSD2
15 7 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials
15 7 (0.49%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 70 (4.89%) VMware Infrastructure
2 56 (3.91%) Active Directory
3 50 (3.49%) Docker
4 29 (2.03%) vSphere
5 22 (1.54%) VMware ESXi
6 18 (1.26%) VMware NSX
7 15 (1.05%) NFS
8 7 (0.49%) Virtual Desktop
9 5 (0.35%) Hyper-V
10 3 (0.21%) BitLocker
10 3 (0.21%) Dovecot
10 3 (0.21%) Postfix
11 2 (0.14%) KVM
11 2 (0.14%) Virtual Machines
12 1 (0.070%) HDFS
12 1 (0.070%) Microsoft App-V
12 1 (0.070%) Slurm Workload Manager
12 1 (0.070%) SRDF
12 1 (0.070%) Veritas Cluster Server
12 1 (0.070%) Xen
Systems Management
1 93 (6.49%) Terraform
2 83 (5.80%) Kubernetes
3 42 (2.93%) Ansible
4 20 (1.40%) Single Sign-On
5 15 (1.05%) Prometheus
6 14 (0.98%) vCenter Server
7 11 (0.77%) Microsoft Intune
8 10 (0.70%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 10 (0.70%) Grafana
9 9 (0.63%) SCCM
10 8 (0.56%) WMI
11 7 (0.49%) Argo
11 7 (0.49%) OPNET
12 4 (0.28%) FortiGate
13 2 (0.14%) Amdocs OSS
13 2 (0.14%) Kubeflow
13 2 (0.14%) Microsoft Clustering
13 2 (0.14%) SCOM
14 1 (0.070%) Puppet
14 1 (0.070%) RSA Archer
Vendors
1 204 (14.25%) Microsoft
2 103 (7.19%) VMware
3 81 (5.66%) Oracle
4 75 (5.24%) Salesforce
4 75 (5.24%) SAP
5 65 (4.54%) Cisco
6 50 (3.49%) ServiceNow
7 35 (2.44%) Google
8 26 (1.82%) Splunk
9 25 (1.75%) Juniper
10 24 (1.68%) F5
10 24 (1.68%) Workday
11 23 (1.61%) Palo Alto
12 21 (1.47%) IBM
12 21 (1.47%) NetApp
13 20 (1.40%) CyberArk
13 20 (1.40%) Pega
13 20 (1.40%) Virgin Media
14 19 (1.33%) Fortinet
15 18 (1.26%) Citrix