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 £613, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2026.

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

6 months to
1 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 18 13
Rank change year-on-year +8 -5 +6
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 2,381 1,120 2,049
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 9.93% 8.78% 9.86%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.79% 9.52% 10.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,551 762 1,241
10th Percentile £450 £450 £500
25th Percentile £513 £525 £569
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £613 £601 £650
Median % change year-on-year +1.91% -7.54% -
75th Percentile £714 £700 £738
90th Percentile £775 £750 £800
UK median daily rate £620 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -1.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 107 27 78
10th Percentile £49.40 £59.10 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £63.75 £61.25
Median hourly rate £69.00 £73.31 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -5.88% +4.73% -
75th Percentile £83.00 £81.42 £87.46
90th Percentile £96.00 £85.61 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £68.00 £72.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -6.21% +3.57% -

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 22,066 11,764 19,240
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.00% 92.22% 92.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,946 7,551 11,748
10th Percentile £280 £213 £213
25th Percentile £400 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £475 £492
Median % change year-on-year +3.16% -3.46% -1.60%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £598
90th Percentile £684 £650 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £515 £525
% change year-on-year -2.91% -1.90% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,447 828 2,243
10th Percentile £14.64 £14.00 £12.50
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.75 £15.75
Median hourly rate £45.46 £28.00 £39.55
Median % change year-on-year +62.36% -29.20% -6.94%
75th Percentile £66.00 £64.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £44.00 £29.00 £36.42
% change year-on-year +51.72% -20.37% -19.07%

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 1 May 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 1 May 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 1 May 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 +5 710 £625 - 161
North of England +3 617 £600 - 117
Midlands +1 420 £600 - 83
North West +4 356 £610 +1.67% 77
West Midlands -2 309 £613 +2.08% 59
South West 0 302 £698 +16.25% 80
Yorkshire +6 232 £557 -9.14% 22
East of England +21 201 £563 -6.25% 47
Scotland +10 140 £650 +4.00% 11
East Midlands -2 105 £525 -4.55% 24
North East +1 38 £575 -7.95% 18
Wales -8 24 £600 +17.65% 25
Northern Ireland +11 10 £488 -26.42% 13
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 1 May 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.

1 748 (31.42%) Security Cleared
2 450 (18.90%) Azure
3 425 (17.85%) SC Cleared
4 352 (14.78%) Roadmaps
5 344 (14.45%) AWS
6 338 (14.20%) Agile
7 328 (13.78%) Microsoft
8 267 (11.21%) DV Cleared
9 261 (10.96%) Migration
10 259 (10.88%) Enterprise Architecture
11 252 (10.58%) Stakeholder Management
12 221 (9.28%) DevOps
13 211 (8.86%) TOGAF
14 202 (8.48%) CI/CD
15 194 (8.15%) Technical Leadership
16 176 (7.39%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 173 (7.27%) Data Modelling
18 169 (7.10%) Integration Patterns
19 166 (6.97%) Architectural Patterns
20 165 (6.93%) Microservices
21 157 (6.59%) Problem-Solving
22 153 (6.43%) Architectural Design
23 151 (6.34%) Data Architecture
24 144 (6.05%) SAP
25 141 (5.92%) Cybersecurity
26 140 (5.88%) Analytics
27 138 (5.80%) ServiceNow
28 137 (5.75%) AI
29 130 (5.46%) ITIL
30 129 (5.42%) VMware

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 72 (3.02%) Confluence
2 65 (2.73%) SharePoint
3 45 (1.89%) Microsoft Exchange
4 17 (0.71%) SAS
5 13 (0.55%) Appian
6 11 (0.46%) Apache
6 11 (0.46%) CMS
7 10 (0.42%) Anypoint
7 10 (0.42%) ArcGIS
8 8 (0.34%) Apache Airflow
9 7 (0.29%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 7 (0.29%) Apache Spark
9 7 (0.29%) Skype for Business
10 6 (0.25%) NetWeaver
10 6 (0.25%) Sitecore CMS
10 6 (0.25%) Smallworld
10 6 (0.25%) WebLogic
11 5 (0.21%) SAP EP
12 4 (0.17%) IIS
12 4 (0.17%) JBoss
Applications
1 44 (1.85%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (1.30%) Microsoft Project
3 13 (0.55%) Microsoft Excel
3 13 (0.55%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.29%) Navisworks
4 7 (0.29%) Revit
5 5 (0.21%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.17%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.084%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.042%) OrCAD
Business Applications
1 53 (2.23%) SAP S/4HANA
2 30 (1.26%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 19 (0.80%) Payment Gateway
4 12 (0.50%) Workday HCM
5 10 (0.42%) SAP ERP
6 9 (0.38%) Remedy ITSM
7 8 (0.34%) Teamcenter
8 6 (0.25%) Dynamics CRM
8 6 (0.25%) SAP CRM
9 5 (0.21%) Maximo
10 4 (0.17%) Distributed Ledger
10 4 (0.17%) Oracle Retail
10 4 (0.17%) R3 Corda
10 4 (0.17%) Salesforce CRM
10 4 (0.17%) SAP CO
10 4 (0.17%) SAP FI
10 4 (0.17%) SAP FI/CO
10 4 (0.17%) SAP PP
11 3 (0.13%) SAP EWM
11 3 (0.13%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 450 (18.90%) Azure
2 344 (14.45%) AWS
3 126 (5.29%) GCP
4 89 (3.74%) Entra ID
5 83 (3.49%) Microsoft 365
5 83 (3.49%) Power Platform
6 71 (2.98%) Serverless
7 65 (2.73%) SaaS
8 53 (2.23%) PaaS
9 43 (1.81%) IaaS
9 43 (1.81%) Microsoft Purview
10 39 (1.64%) GitHub
11 37 (1.55%) OpenShift
12 35 (1.47%) OneDrive
13 34 (1.43%) Azure DevOps
14 32 (1.34%) Dynamics 365
15 27 (1.13%) AWS Lambda
16 25 (1.05%) Azure Data Factory
16 25 (1.05%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 22 (0.92%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 101 (4.24%) Firewall
2 76 (3.19%) WAN
3 66 (2.77%) Network Security
4 64 (2.69%) DNS
5 56 (2.35%) VPN
6 55 (2.31%) LAN
7 42 (1.76%) SD-WAN
8 29 (1.22%) DHCP
9 22 (0.92%) VLAN
10 19 (0.80%) BGP
11 17 (0.71%) MPLS
11 17 (0.71%) Wireless
12 16 (0.67%) IPsec
13 15 (0.63%) BIG-IP
13 15 (0.63%) Wi-Fi
14 14 (0.59%) OSPF
15 13 (0.55%) SAN
15 13 (0.55%) TCP/IP
16 12 (0.50%) Internet
16 12 (0.50%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 69 (2.90%) Metadata
2 65 (2.73%) Power BI
3 52 (2.18%) Data Warehouse
4 39 (1.64%) SQL Server
5 34 (1.43%) Data Lake
6 31 (1.30%) NoSQL
7 22 (0.92%) PostgreSQL
8 21 (0.88%) Tableau
9 20 (0.84%) Oracle Database
10 17 (0.71%) GIS
11 14 (0.59%) Azure SQL Database
11 14 (0.59%) DynamoDB
12 11 (0.46%) MongoDB
12 11 (0.46%) Relational Database
13 10 (0.42%) Big Data
14 9 (0.38%) Electronic Patient Records
15 7 (0.29%) Metadata Repository
15 7 (0.29%) MySQL
15 7 (0.29%) SAP BW
16 6 (0.25%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 84 (3.53%) JIRA
2 40 (1.68%) Jenkins
3 23 (0.97%) Git
4 20 (0.84%) GitLab
5 6 (0.25%) ERwin
6 5 (0.21%) Artifactory
6 5 (0.21%) Selenium
6 5 (0.21%) SonarQube
6 5 (0.21%) Sonatype Nexus
7 4 (0.17%) JUnit
8 3 (0.13%) Bitbucket
8 3 (0.13%) Cucumber
8 3 (0.13%) MLflow
8 3 (0.13%) MSI
8 3 (0.13%) Postman
8 3 (0.13%) Rational DOORS
8 3 (0.13%) REST Assured
9 2 (0.084%) Gatling
9 2 (0.084%) Hudson
9 2 (0.084%) NeoLoad
General
1 420 (17.64%) Social Skills
2 308 (12.94%) Finance
3 221 (9.28%) Public Sector
4 140 (5.88%) Analytical Skills
5 134 (5.63%) Banking
6 64 (2.69%) Military
7 62 (2.60%) Retail
8 51 (2.14%) Documentation Skills
9 50 (2.10%) Legal
10 36 (1.51%) Manufacturing
11 32 (1.34%) Influencing Skills
12 29 (1.22%) Telecoms
13 28 (1.18%) Marketing
13 28 (1.18%) Presentation Skills
14 25 (1.05%) Investment Banking
15 24 (1.01%) Aerospace
16 19 (0.80%) Financial Institution
17 15 (0.63%) Billing
18 14 (0.59%) Back Office
19 10 (0.42%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 86 (3.61%) REST
2 72 (3.02%) Middleware
3 45 (1.89%) .NET
4 41 (1.72%) OAuth
5 38 (1.60%) OpenID
6 37 (1.55%) SOAP
7 31 (1.30%) OAuth2
8 27 (1.13%) Kafka
8 27 (1.13%) SailPoint
9 26 (1.09%) SAML
10 23 (0.97%) Node.js
11 22 (0.92%) RESTful
12 20 (0.84%) JSON
12 20 (0.84%) Oracle Fusion
13 19 (0.80%) React
14 17 (0.71%) Web Services
15 16 (0.67%) Microsoft Graph
16 14 (0.59%) LDAP
17 12 (0.50%) CSS
17 12 (0.50%) HTML
Miscellaneous
1 162 (6.80%) Cloud Native
2 87 (3.65%) Product Ownership
3 74 (3.11%) Data Centre
4 58 (2.44%) Public Cloud
5 56 (2.35%) Operational Technology
6 54 (2.27%) Onboarding
7 48 (2.02%) Management Information System
8 44 (1.85%) Hybrid Cloud
9 42 (1.76%) Data Protection Act
10 41 (1.72%) Legacy Systems
10 41 (1.72%) PKI
11 39 (1.64%) Enterprise Software
12 36 (1.51%) Distributed Systems
13 25 (1.05%) CMDB
13 25 (1.05%) SCADA
14 20 (0.84%) NHS
14 20 (0.84%) Security Posture
15 19 (0.80%) AI Agents
15 19 (0.80%) Private Cloud
16 14 (0.59%) Blackberry
Operating Systems
1 126 (5.29%) Windows
2 67 (2.81%) Linux
3 30 (1.26%) Windows Server
4 16 (0.67%) Android
4 16 (0.67%) Apple iOS
5 12 (0.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 12 (0.50%) Windows 7
6 11 (0.46%) 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 (0.042%) CatOS
11 1 (0.042%) CentOS
11 1 (0.042%) Kali Linux
11 1 (0.042%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.042%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 352 (14.78%) Roadmaps
2 338 (14.20%) Agile
3 261 (10.96%) Migration
4 259 (10.88%) Enterprise Architecture
5 252 (10.58%) Stakeholder Management
6 221 (9.28%) DevOps
7 211 (8.86%) TOGAF
8 202 (8.48%) CI/CD
9 194 (8.15%) Technical Leadership
10 176 (7.39%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 173 (7.27%) Data Modelling
12 169 (7.10%) Integration Patterns
13 166 (6.97%) Architectural Patterns
14 165 (6.93%) Microservices
15 157 (6.59%) Problem-Solving
16 153 (6.43%) Architectural Design
17 151 (6.34%) Data Architecture
18 141 (5.92%) Cybersecurity
19 140 (5.88%) Analytics
20 137 (5.75%) AI
Programming Languages
1 116 (4.87%) Python
2 92 (3.86%) SQL
3 75 (3.15%) PowerShell
4 63 (2.65%) Java
5 45 (1.89%) JavaScript
6 31 (1.30%) C#
7 21 (0.88%) Bicep
8 15 (0.63%) Bash
9 12 (0.50%) TypeScript
10 10 (0.42%) Kusto Query Language
11 8 (0.34%) PL/SQL
12 7 (0.29%) VB
12 7 (0.29%) VBA
12 7 (0.29%) VBScript
13 6 (0.25%) Apex Code
14 5 (0.21%) ABAP
14 5 (0.21%) Scala
14 5 (0.21%) Shell Script
15 4 (0.17%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 4 (0.17%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 748 (31.42%) Security Cleared
2 425 (17.85%) SC Cleared
3 267 (11.21%) DV Cleared
4 115 (4.83%) Degree
5 86 (3.61%) TOGAF Certification
6 48 (2.02%) BPSS Clearance
7 42 (1.76%) CISSP
8 41 (1.72%) Cisco Certification
9 37 (1.55%) Azure Certification
10 36 (1.51%) AWS Certification
10 36 (1.51%) Computer Science Degree
11 29 (1.22%) ISEB
12 28 (1.18%) ITIL Certification
13 27 (1.13%) CCNP
13 27 (1.13%) Microsoft Certification
14 22 (0.92%) CISM
15 19 (0.80%) Master's Degree
16 16 (0.67%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 11 (0.46%) CCIE
18 9 (0.38%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 93 (3.91%) NIST
2 87 (3.65%) GDPR
3 67 (2.81%) Data Quality
4 61 (2.56%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 46 (1.93%) NCSC
6 32 (1.34%) COBIT
7 22 (0.92%) PCI DSS
8 19 (0.80%) QA
9 18 (0.76%) Cyber Essentials
10 16 (0.67%) Accessibility
11 15 (0.63%) GRC
12 12 (0.50%) FINRA
12 12 (0.50%) JSP 440
12 12 (0.50%) MiFID
13 10 (0.42%) ISO 20022
13 10 (0.42%) NIST 800
14 8 (0.34%) HL7
15 7 (0.29%) HMG Security Policy Framework
15 7 (0.29%) ISO 19650
16 6 (0.25%) Def Stans
System Software
1 100 (4.20%) Active Directory
2 53 (2.23%) VMware Infrastructure
3 31 (1.30%) Docker
4 30 (1.26%) VMware NSX
5 18 (0.76%) vSphere
6 15 (0.63%) Hyper-V
6 15 (0.63%) Virtual Desktop
7 12 (0.50%) Virtual Machines
8 10 (0.42%) vCloud
8 10 (0.42%) VMware ESXi
9 7 (0.29%) BitLocker
10 5 (0.21%) RACF
11 4 (0.17%) NFS
12 3 (0.13%) IAG
13 2 (0.084%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
13 2 (0.084%) Firmware
14 1 (0.042%) Embedded Firmware
14 1 (0.042%) ProxySG
14 1 (0.042%) Snort
14 1 (0.042%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 88 (3.70%) Terraform
2 75 (3.15%) Kubernetes
3 55 (2.31%) Ansible
4 32 (1.34%) Microsoft Intune
5 30 (1.26%) OPNET
6 26 (1.09%) Single Sign-On
7 25 (1.05%) vCenter Server
8 20 (0.84%) SCCM
9 13 (0.55%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 12 (0.50%) FortiGate
11 11 (0.46%) WMI
12 9 (0.38%) Argo
12 9 (0.38%) Grafana
13 6 (0.25%) 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
1 328 (13.78%) Microsoft
2 144 (6.05%) SAP
3 138 (5.80%) ServiceNow
4 129 (5.42%) VMware
5 86 (3.61%) Oracle
6 79 (3.32%) Cisco
7 73 (3.07%) Salesforce
8 49 (2.06%) Google
9 48 (2.02%) Databricks
10 42 (1.76%) Remedy
11 40 (1.68%) MuleSoft
12 35 (1.47%) Atlassian
13 32 (1.34%) Sparx
14 31 (1.30%) Red Hat
15 30 (1.26%) Citrix
16 28 (1.18%) F5
16 28 (1.18%) Palo Alto
17 27 (1.13%) BiZZdesign
18 25 (1.05%) Juniper
19 17 (0.71%) Splunk