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 18 September 2026.

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

6 months to
18 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 2,558 1,221 1,719
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 9.11% 7.89% 9.59%
As % of the Job Titles category 9.97% 8.78% 10.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,721 834 1,039
10th Percentile £465 £461 £469
25th Percentile £525 £519 £538
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £600 £625
Median % change year-on-year +3.33% -4.00% -1.96%
75th Percentile £700 £688 £725
90th Percentile £769 £775 £780
UK median daily rate £620 £625 £630
% change year-on-year -0.80% -0.79% -3.08%
Number of hourly rates quoted 155 12 66
10th Percentile £46.00 £30.99 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £56.62 £62.50
Median hourly rate £66.50 £71.25 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -6.67% +1.79% -6.67%
75th Percentile £77.88 £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% - -1.53%

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 25,648 13,903 16,554
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.33% 89.86% 92.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,162 8,544 9,590
10th Percentile £303 £213 £220
25th Percentile £413 £361 £375
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 £662 £676
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,313 1,272 1,433
10th Percentile £14.25 £13.50 £14.41
25th Percentile £20.00 £16.30 £19.50
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +2.86%
75th Percentile £68.00 £52.50 £66.61
90th Percentile £78.75 £70.16 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% -3.37%

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 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 18 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 18 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 +2 740 £625 +4.17% 682
North of England +3 674 £591 -1.46% 588
Midlands +1 432 £626 +8.87% 328
North West +7 375 £599 +4.25% 325
South West +3 343 £638 -1.92% 231
West Midlands +3 319 £644 +7.42% 232
Yorkshire +15 236 £559 -6.88% 194
Scotland +26 180 £625 - 251
East of England +10 159 £619 +11.55% 175
East Midlands +6 108 £600 +18.81% 96
North East -7 62 £600 -15.79% 69
Wales +3 42 £633 +1.20% 30
Channel Islands -4 7 £700 -5.72% 4
Northern Ireland +3 2 - - 73
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 18 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.

1 890 (34.79%) Security Cleared
2 579 (22.63%) SC Cleared
3 576 (22.52%) Azure
4 472 (18.45%) Stakeholder Management
5 438 (17.12%) AWS
6 372 (14.54%) Roadmaps
7 361 (14.11%) Microsoft
8 348 (13.60%) Technical Leadership
9 311 (12.16%) Migration
10 305 (11.92%) Enterprise Architecture
11 295 (11.53%) Agile
12 285 (11.14%) DV Cleared
13 239 (9.34%) Data Architecture
14 238 (9.30%) DevOps
15 236 (9.23%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 231 (9.03%) AI
17 227 (8.87%) CI/CD
18 215 (8.41%) Integration Patterns
19 208 (8.13%) Data Modelling
20 199 (7.78%) Cybersecurity
21 197 (7.70%) Security Architecture
22 193 (7.54%) TOGAF
23 192 (7.51%) Architectural Patterns
24 180 (7.04%) GCP
25 178 (6.96%) Architecture Governance
26 167 (6.53%) Continuous Improvement
27 162 (6.33%) Microservices
28 156 (6.10%) Event-Driven
29 147 (5.75%) Problem-Solving
30 144 (5.63%) Analytics

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 33 (1.29%) SharePoint
3 28 (1.09%) Confluence
4 17 (0.66%) 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 11 (0.43%) MS Visio
2 10 (0.39%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (0.35%) Microsoft Office
4 8 (0.31%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.27%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.27%) Revit
6 6 (0.23%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 69 (2.70%) SAP S/4HANA
2 12 (0.47%) Teamcenter
3 10 (0.39%) Payment Gateway
4 9 (0.35%) Remedy ITSM
5 8 (0.31%) SAP ERP
6 7 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
6 7 (0.27%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 6 (0.23%) Dynamics CRM
7 6 (0.23%) Maximo
7 6 (0.23%) SAP MDG
8 5 (0.20%) Remedy AR System
9 4 (0.16%) NetSuite
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
9 4 (0.16%) SAP CRM
10 3 (0.12%) Adobe Campaign
10 3 (0.12%) Oracle Receivables
10 3 (0.12%) Oracle Retail
10 3 (0.12%) Salesforce CRM
10 3 (0.12%) SAP Payroll
10 3 (0.12%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 576 (22.52%) Azure
2 438 (17.12%) AWS
3 180 (7.04%) GCP
4 96 (3.75%) SaaS
5 92 (3.60%) Power Platform
6 69 (2.70%) Serverless
7 68 (2.66%) Entra ID
8 61 (2.38%) Microsoft 365
9 50 (1.95%) Dynamics 365
10 49 (1.92%) Azure DevOps
11 45 (1.76%) GitHub
12 37 (1.45%) PaaS
13 33 (1.29%) AWS Lambda
14 32 (1.25%) IaaS
15 30 (1.17%) Snowflake
16 29 (1.13%) Amazon S3
17 26 (1.02%) GitHub Actions
18 24 (0.94%) OCI
19 22 (0.86%) OpenShift
20 21 (0.82%) iPaaS
Communications & Networking
1 74 (2.89%) Firewall
2 56 (2.19%) WAN
3 53 (2.07%) DNS
4 49 (1.92%) Network Security
5 41 (1.60%) LAN
6 35 (1.37%) BGP
7 32 (1.25%) DHCP
8 30 (1.17%) MPLS
9 29 (1.13%) SD-WAN
10 27 (1.06%) TCP/IP
10 27 (1.06%) VPN
11 25 (0.98%) VLAN
12 20 (0.78%) SAN
13 17 (0.66%) BIG-IP
13 17 (0.66%) NAS
13 17 (0.66%) NX-OS
14 16 (0.63%) OSPF
15 15 (0.59%) Structured Cabling
16 14 (0.55%) VXLAN
16 14 (0.55%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 87 (3.40%) Metadata
2 78 (3.05%) Data Lake
3 71 (2.78%) Data Warehouse
4 62 (2.42%) Power BI
5 33 (1.29%) NoSQL
6 22 (0.86%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
7 21 (0.82%) Amazon RDS
8 18 (0.70%) Azure SQL Database
9 17 (0.66%) BigQuery
9 17 (0.66%) Oracle Database
10 16 (0.63%) Base SAS
11 15 (0.59%) SQL Server
12 11 (0.43%) Amazon Redshift
12 11 (0.43%) GIS
12 11 (0.43%) PostgreSQL
13 10 (0.39%) Delta Lake
14 9 (0.35%) MySQL
14 9 (0.35%) Pentaho
14 9 (0.35%) Semantic Layer
15 8 (0.31%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 36 (1.41%) Git
1 36 (1.41%) JIRA
2 22 (0.86%) Jenkins
3 19 (0.74%) GitLab
4 7 (0.27%) MSI
5 6 (0.23%) Claude Code
6 5 (0.20%) Artifactory
6 5 (0.20%) ERwin
6 5 (0.20%) Sonatype Nexus
7 4 (0.16%) Hudson
8 3 (0.12%) Postman
8 3 (0.12%) Rational DOORS
8 3 (0.12%) Selenium
8 3 (0.12%) SonarQube
9 2 (0.078%) Appium
9 2 (0.078%) IntelliJ
9 2 (0.078%) JUnit
9 2 (0.078%) Oracle APEX
9 2 (0.078%) Oracle Forms
9 2 (0.078%) REST Assured
General
1 540 (21.11%) Social Skills
2 306 (11.96%) Finance
3 261 (10.20%) Public Sector
4 124 (4.85%) Banking
5 121 (4.73%) Analytical Skills
6 114 (4.46%) Retail
7 92 (3.60%) Manufacturing
8 70 (2.74%) Influencing Skills
9 60 (2.35%) Documentation Skills
10 49 (1.92%) Aerospace
11 43 (1.68%) Legal
12 33 (1.29%) Telecoms
13 31 (1.21%) Military
14 27 (1.06%) 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%) Presentation Skills
19 16 (0.63%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 106 (4.14%) REST
2 87 (3.40%) Terraform
3 76 (2.97%) Middleware
4 54 (2.11%) SOAP
5 49 (1.92%) OAuth
6 43 (1.68%) Kafka
7 39 (1.52%) Oracle Fusion
8 38 (1.49%) LDAP
9 33 (1.29%) SAML
10 32 (1.25%) .NET
11 30 (1.17%) OpenID
12 27 (1.06%) JSON
13 20 (0.78%) OAuth2
14 19 (0.74%) SailPoint
15 18 (0.70%) Node.js
16 17 (0.66%) GraphQL
17 15 (0.59%) JWT
17 15 (0.59%) Swagger
17 15 (0.59%) XML
18 14 (0.55%) SAP Fiori
Miscellaneous
1 190 (7.43%) Cloud Native
2 86 (3.36%) Data Centre
3 76 (2.97%) Hybrid Cloud
4 65 (2.54%) Onboarding
5 64 (2.50%) Distributed Systems
6 62 (2.42%) Data Protection Act
6 62 (2.42%) Product Ownership
7 58 (2.27%) Enterprise Software
7 58 (2.27%) Legacy Systems
7 58 (2.27%) Operational Technology
8 51 (1.99%) Management Information System
9 41 (1.60%) AI Agents
10 40 (1.56%) Public Cloud
11 37 (1.45%) CMDB
12 34 (1.33%) Private Cloud
13 27 (1.06%) Enterprise Cloud
13 27 (1.06%) IVR
14 25 (0.98%) PKI
14 25 (0.98%) Security Posture
15 20 (0.78%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 85 (3.32%) 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
1 472 (18.45%) Stakeholder Management
2 372 (14.54%) Roadmaps
3 348 (13.60%) Technical Leadership
4 311 (12.16%) Migration
5 305 (11.92%) Enterprise Architecture
6 295 (11.53%) Agile
7 239 (9.34%) Data Architecture
8 238 (9.30%) DevOps
9 236 (9.23%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 231 (9.03%) AI
11 227 (8.87%) CI/CD
12 215 (8.41%) Integration Patterns
13 208 (8.13%) Data Modelling
14 199 (7.78%) Cybersecurity
15 197 (7.70%) Security Architecture
16 193 (7.54%) TOGAF
17 192 (7.51%) Architectural Patterns
18 178 (6.96%) Architecture Governance
19 167 (6.53%) Continuous Improvement
20 162 (6.33%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 95 (3.71%) Java
2 92 (3.60%) SQL
3 87 (3.40%) Python
4 50 (1.95%) PowerShell
5 49 (1.92%) JavaScript
6 25 (0.98%) Bash
7 14 (0.55%) TypeScript
8 13 (0.51%) ABAP
9 10 (0.39%) Shell Script
10 9 (0.35%) Apex Code
10 9 (0.35%) Bicep
11 8 (0.31%) C#
12 6 (0.23%) PL/SQL
12 6 (0.23%) VBA
13 5 (0.20%) Groovy
14 4 (0.16%) PHP
15 3 (0.12%) COBOL
15 3 (0.12%) R
16 2 (0.078%) BeanShell
16 2 (0.078%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 890 (34.79%) Security Cleared
2 579 (22.63%) SC Cleared
3 285 (11.14%) DV Cleared
4 70 (2.74%) Degree
5 66 (2.58%) CISSP
6 60 (2.35%) Cisco Certification
7 57 (2.23%) BPSS Clearance
8 44 (1.72%) AWS Certification
9 43 (1.68%) TOGAF Certification
10 40 (1.56%) Azure Certification
11 32 (1.25%) Computer Science Degree
12 28 (1.09%) CCNP
13 22 (0.86%) CISM
14 19 (0.74%) CCIE
14 19 (0.74%) Microsoft Certification
15 18 (0.70%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 14 (0.55%) JNCIE
17 12 (0.47%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 12 (0.47%) CCSP
17 12 (0.47%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 99 (3.87%) NIST
2 87 (3.40%) Data Quality
3 74 (2.89%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 57 (2.23%) NCSC
5 48 (1.88%) GDPR
6 29 (1.13%) QA
7 18 (0.70%) PCI DSS
8 17 (0.66%) Accessibility
8 17 (0.66%) GRC
8 17 (0.66%) JSP 440
9 16 (0.63%) ISO/IEC 20000
9 16 (0.63%) NIST 800
10 13 (0.51%) ISO 19650
11 11 (0.43%) Disclosure Scotland
11 11 (0.43%) IFRS
11 11 (0.43%) SLA
12 9 (0.35%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 6 (0.23%) Cyber Essentials
13 6 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
13 6 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 27005
System Software
1 102 (3.99%) Active Directory
2 48 (1.88%) VMware Infrastructure
3 47 (1.84%) Docker
4 29 (1.13%) VMware NSX
5 23 (0.90%) Virtual Desktop
6 14 (0.55%) Hyper-V
7 12 (0.47%) VMware ESXi
7 12 (0.47%) vSphere
8 9 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
9 4 (0.16%) KVM
10 3 (0.12%) Ceph
10 3 (0.12%) EMC RecoverPoint
10 3 (0.12%) ISA Server
10 3 (0.12%) SRDF
10 3 (0.12%) vCloud
11 2 (0.078%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 2 (0.078%) NFS
11 2 (0.078%) Virtual Servers
11 2 (0.078%) zsh
12 1 (0.039%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 130 (5.08%) Kubernetes
2 54 (2.11%) Ansible
3 20 (0.78%) Microsoft Intune
4 19 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
5 13 (0.51%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 13 (0.51%) Grafana
5 13 (0.51%) Prometheus
6 12 (0.47%) Jamf Pro
7 10 (0.39%) WMI
8 8 (0.31%) vCenter Server
9 7 (0.27%) CASB
9 7 (0.27%) FortiGate
10 6 (0.23%) Istio
11 5 (0.20%) Argo
11 5 (0.20%) NetBackup
12 4 (0.16%) Cisco CUCM
12 4 (0.16%) EMC VPLEX
12 4 (0.16%) SnapMirror
13 3 (0.12%) SnapVault
13 3 (0.12%) vRealize
Vendors
1 361 (14.11%) Microsoft
2 135 (5.28%) SAP
3 112 (4.38%) Oracle
4 105 (4.10%) Google
5 101 (3.95%) ServiceNow
6 89 (3.48%) VMware
7 81 (3.17%) Cisco
8 80 (3.13%) Databricks
9 58 (2.27%) Salesforce
10 44 (1.72%) CyberArk
11 33 (1.29%) MuleSoft
12 29 (1.13%) F5
13 24 (0.94%) IBM
14 23 (0.90%) Informatica
15 21 (0.82%) Red Hat
16 20 (0.78%) Workday
17 19 (0.74%) Infoblox
18 18 (0.70%) Palo Alto
19 16 (0.63%) Foundry
20 15 (0.59%) Denodo