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 28 April 2026.

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

6 months to
28 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 18 13
Rank change year-on-year +8 -5 +6
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 2,378 1,112 2,031
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 9.97% 8.72% 9.83%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.83% 9.45% 10.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,547 758 1,237
10th Percentile £450 £450 £500
25th Percentile £513 £526 £569
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £610 £608 £650
Median % change year-on-year +0.41% -6.54% -
75th Percentile £713 £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 30 73
10th Percentile £49.40 £59.55 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £62.63 £61.25
Median hourly rate £69.44 £72.50 £75.40
Median % change year-on-year -4.22% -3.84% +7.71%
75th Percentile £83.50 £80.44 £87.46
90th Percentile £96.00 £85.53 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £69.00 £68.75 £75.00
% change year-on-year +0.36% -8.33% +7.14%

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 21,952 11,763 19,138
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.03% 92.28% 92.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,877 7,564 11,705
10th Percentile £280 £213 £213
25th Percentile £400 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £475 £491
Median % change year-on-year +2.63% -3.19% -1.87%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £600
90th Percentile £675 £651 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £515 £525
% change year-on-year -3.00% -1.82% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,451 823 2,220
10th Percentile £14.64 £14.06 £12.50
25th Percentile £20.00 £18.13 £15.70
Median hourly rate £45.00 £28.75 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +56.52% -23.33% -11.76%
75th Percentile £65.88 £65.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £43.39 £29.25 £35.83
% change year-on-year +48.35% -18.36% -20.38%

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 28 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 28 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 28 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 +4 708 £625 - 134
North of England +5 628 £600 - 120
Midlands 0 411 £581 -3.17% 78
North West +9 367 £604 +0.63% 77
West Midlands -1 302 £605 +0.83% 62
South West +1 300 £693 +15.42% 67
Yorkshire +5 233 £558 -8.90% 26
East of England +18 201 £563 -6.25% 39
Scotland +7 137 £650 +4.00% 10
East Midlands -2 103 £525 -4.55% 16
North East 0 37 £575 -7.95% 17
Wales -10 25 £600 +17.65% 18
Northern Ireland +12 10 £488 -26.42% 14
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 28 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.

1 750 (31.54%) Security Cleared
2 455 (19.13%) Azure
3 424 (17.83%) SC Cleared
4 350 (14.72%) AWS
4 350 (14.72%) Roadmaps
5 338 (14.21%) Agile
6 329 (13.84%) Microsoft
7 269 (11.31%) DV Cleared
8 261 (10.98%) Migration
8 261 (10.98%) Stakeholder Management
9 260 (10.93%) Enterprise Architecture
10 223 (9.38%) DevOps
11 208 (8.75%) TOGAF
12 202 (8.49%) CI/CD
13 200 (8.41%) Technical Leadership
14 179 (7.53%) Data Modelling
14 179 (7.53%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 168 (7.06%) Integration Patterns
16 167 (7.02%) Microservices
17 161 (6.77%) Architectural Patterns
18 160 (6.73%) Problem-Solving
19 156 (6.56%) Architectural Design
20 150 (6.31%) Data Architecture
21 144 (6.06%) SAP
22 142 (5.97%) ServiceNow
23 140 (5.89%) Analytics
24 137 (5.76%) ITIL
25 135 (5.68%) Cybersecurity
25 135 (5.68%) VMware
26 133 (5.59%) GCP

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 (3.15%) Confluence
2 65 (2.73%) SharePoint
3 45 (1.89%) Microsoft Exchange
4 20 (0.84%) 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 17 (0.71%) Microsoft Excel
3 17 (0.71%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 6 (0.25%) Navisworks
4 6 (0.25%) 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 21 (0.88%) 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
1 455 (19.13%) Azure
2 350 (14.72%) AWS
3 133 (5.59%) GCP
4 90 (3.78%) Entra ID
5 83 (3.49%) Microsoft 365
6 80 (3.36%) Power Platform
7 70 (2.94%) Serverless
8 66 (2.78%) SaaS
9 53 (2.23%) PaaS
10 43 (1.81%) IaaS
10 43 (1.81%) Microsoft Purview
11 41 (1.72%) OpenShift
12 39 (1.64%) GitHub
13 35 (1.47%) OneDrive
14 34 (1.43%) Azure DevOps
15 32 (1.35%) Dynamics 365
16 27 (1.14%) AWS Lambda
17 25 (1.05%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 24 (1.01%) AWS CloudFormation
19 22 (0.93%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 105 (4.42%) Firewall
2 76 (3.20%) WAN
3 68 (2.86%) Network Security
4 65 (2.73%) DNS
5 56 (2.35%) VPN
6 54 (2.27%) LAN
7 42 (1.77%) SD-WAN
8 29 (1.22%) DHCP
9 22 (0.93%) VLAN
10 19 (0.80%) BGP
11 17 (0.71%) MPLS
11 17 (0.71%) Wireless
12 16 (0.67%) BIG-IP
12 16 (0.67%) IPsec
13 15 (0.63%) SAN
13 15 (0.63%) Wi-Fi
14 14 (0.59%) NAS
14 14 (0.59%) OSPF
15 12 (0.50%) Internet
15 12 (0.50%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 67 (2.82%) Metadata
2 62 (2.61%) Power BI
3 55 (2.31%) Data Warehouse
4 40 (1.68%) SQL Server
5 31 (1.30%) Data Lake
6 30 (1.26%) NoSQL
7 25 (1.05%) Tableau
8 22 (0.93%) PostgreSQL
9 21 (0.88%) Oracle Database
10 17 (0.71%) GIS
11 14 (0.59%) Azure SQL Database
11 14 (0.59%) DynamoDB
12 12 (0.50%) Relational Database
13 11 (0.46%) MongoDB
14 10 (0.42%) Big Data
15 8 (0.34%) Amazon Redshift
15 8 (0.34%) Electronic Patient Records
16 7 (0.29%) Metadata Repository
16 7 (0.29%) MySQL
16 7 (0.29%) SAP BW
Development Applications
1 86 (3.62%) JIRA
2 40 (1.68%) Jenkins
3 22 (0.93%) Git
4 20 (0.84%) GitLab
5 6 (0.25%) ERwin
6 5 (0.21%) Artifactory
6 5 (0.21%) SonarQube
6 5 (0.21%) Sonatype Nexus
7 4 (0.17%) JUnit
7 4 (0.17%) Selenium
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
1 428 (18.00%) Social Skills
2 312 (13.12%) Finance
3 224 (9.42%) Public Sector
4 144 (6.06%) Analytical Skills
5 139 (5.85%) Banking
6 63 (2.65%) Military
7 60 (2.52%) Retail
8 52 (2.19%) Documentation Skills
9 50 (2.10%) Legal
10 35 (1.47%) Influencing Skills
11 34 (1.43%) Manufacturing
12 30 (1.26%) Presentation Skills
13 28 (1.18%) Telecoms
14 27 (1.14%) Marketing
15 24 (1.01%) Aerospace
15 24 (1.01%) Investment Banking
16 20 (0.84%) Financial Institution
17 15 (0.63%) Billing
18 13 (0.55%) Back Office
19 10 (0.42%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 90 (3.78%) REST
2 70 (2.94%) Middleware
3 46 (1.93%) .NET
4 41 (1.72%) SOAP
5 40 (1.68%) OAuth
6 37 (1.56%) OpenID
7 30 (1.26%) OAuth2
8 27 (1.14%) Kafka
9 26 (1.09%) SAML
10 25 (1.05%) SailPoint
11 23 (0.97%) Node.js
12 22 (0.93%) RESTful
13 19 (0.80%) JSON
13 19 (0.80%) 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
1 160 (6.73%) Cloud Native
2 89 (3.74%) Product Ownership
3 73 (3.07%) Data Centre
4 57 (2.40%) Public Cloud
5 54 (2.27%) Onboarding
6 51 (2.14%) Operational Technology
7 46 (1.93%) Management Information System
8 44 (1.85%) Hybrid Cloud
9 41 (1.72%) Data Protection Act
9 41 (1.72%) PKI
10 40 (1.68%) Enterprise Software
11 39 (1.64%) Legacy Systems
12 38 (1.60%) Distributed Systems
13 30 (1.26%) CMDB
14 28 (1.18%) SCADA
15 20 (0.84%) NHS
16 19 (0.80%) Private Cloud
17 18 (0.76%) AI Agents
18 17 (0.71%) Security Posture
19 14 (0.59%) Blackberry
Operating Systems
1 126 (5.30%) Windows
2 70 (2.94%) Linux
3 30 (1.26%) Windows Server
4 15 (0.63%) Android
4 15 (0.63%) Apple iOS
5 13 (0.55%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 12 (0.50%) Windows 7
7 11 (0.46%) Windows 10
8 8 (0.34%) Unix
8 8 (0.34%) Windows Server 2016
9 5 (0.21%) VMS
9 5 (0.21%) Windows Server 2019
10 4 (0.17%) Mac OS
11 3 (0.13%) Data ONTAP
11 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
12 1 (0.042%) CatOS
12 1 (0.042%) CentOS
12 1 (0.042%) Kali Linux
12 1 (0.042%) Ubuntu
12 1 (0.042%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 350 (14.72%) Roadmaps
2 338 (14.21%) Agile
3 261 (10.98%) Migration
3 261 (10.98%) Stakeholder Management
4 260 (10.93%) Enterprise Architecture
5 223 (9.38%) DevOps
6 208 (8.75%) TOGAF
7 202 (8.49%) CI/CD
8 200 (8.41%) Technical Leadership
9 179 (7.53%) Data Modelling
9 179 (7.53%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 168 (7.06%) Integration Patterns
11 167 (7.02%) Microservices
12 161 (6.77%) Architectural Patterns
13 160 (6.73%) Problem-Solving
14 156 (6.56%) Architectural Design
15 150 (6.31%) Data Architecture
16 140 (5.89%) Analytics
17 137 (5.76%) ITIL
18 135 (5.68%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 117 (4.92%) Python
2 92 (3.87%) SQL
3 75 (3.15%) PowerShell
4 66 (2.78%) Java
5 48 (2.02%) JavaScript
6 32 (1.35%) C#
7 21 (0.88%) Bicep
8 15 (0.63%) Bash
9 11 (0.46%) TypeScript
10 10 (0.42%) Kusto Query Language
11 8 (0.34%) PL/SQL
12 7 (0.29%) VB
12 7 (0.29%) VBScript
13 6 (0.25%) Apex Code
13 6 (0.25%) R
13 6 (0.25%) VBA
14 5 (0.21%) ABAP
14 5 (0.21%) Scala
14 5 (0.21%) Shell Script
15 4 (0.17%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 750 (31.54%) Security Cleared
2 424 (17.83%) SC Cleared
3 269 (11.31%) DV Cleared
4 110 (4.63%) Degree
5 85 (3.57%) TOGAF Certification
6 50 (2.10%) BPSS Clearance
7 43 (1.81%) CISSP
8 42 (1.77%) Cisco Certification
9 40 (1.68%) AWS Certification
10 38 (1.60%) Azure Certification
11 34 (1.43%) Computer Science Degree
12 29 (1.22%) ISEB
13 28 (1.18%) ITIL Certification
14 27 (1.14%) CCNP
14 27 (1.14%) Microsoft Certification
15 22 (0.93%) CISM
16 19 (0.80%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 19 (0.80%) Master's Degree
17 11 (0.46%) CCIE
18 9 (0.38%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 96 (4.04%) NIST
2 92 (3.87%) GDPR
3 67 (2.82%) Data Quality
4 66 (2.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 45 (1.89%) NCSC
6 32 (1.35%) COBIT
7 25 (1.05%) PCI DSS
8 18 (0.76%) Cyber Essentials
8 18 (0.76%) GRC
8 18 (0.76%) QA
9 16 (0.67%) Accessibility
10 13 (0.55%) ISO 20022
11 12 (0.50%) FINRA
11 12 (0.50%) MiFID
12 11 (0.46%) JSP 440
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 (4.21%) Active Directory
2 59 (2.48%) VMware Infrastructure
3 35 (1.47%) Docker
4 32 (1.35%) VMware NSX
5 20 (0.84%) vSphere
6 15 (0.63%) Hyper-V
6 15 (0.63%) Virtual Desktop
7 11 (0.46%) VMware ESXi
8 10 (0.42%) vCloud
9 8 (0.34%) Virtual Machines
10 7 (0.29%) BitLocker
11 5 (0.21%) RACF
12 4 (0.17%) NFS
13 3 (0.13%) IAG
14 2 (0.084%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
14 2 (0.084%) Firmware
15 1 (0.042%) Embedded Firmware
15 1 (0.042%) ProxySG
15 1 (0.042%) Snort
15 1 (0.042%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 92 (3.87%) Terraform
2 76 (3.20%) Kubernetes
3 56 (2.35%) Ansible
4 32 (1.35%) Microsoft Intune
5 30 (1.26%) OPNET
6 26 (1.09%) Single Sign-On
6 26 (1.09%) vCenter Server
7 20 (0.84%) SCCM
8 13 (0.55%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 12 (0.50%) FortiGate
10 11 (0.46%) WMI
11 10 (0.42%) 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
1 329 (13.84%) Microsoft
2 144 (6.06%) SAP
3 142 (5.97%) ServiceNow
4 135 (5.68%) VMware
5 88 (3.70%) Oracle
6 81 (3.41%) Cisco
7 72 (3.03%) Salesforce
8 51 (2.14%) Google
9 45 (1.89%) Databricks
10 42 (1.77%) Remedy
11 40 (1.68%) MuleSoft
12 35 (1.47%) Atlassian
12 35 (1.47%) Red Hat
13 32 (1.35%) Sparx
14 30 (1.26%) Citrix
14 30 (1.26%) F5
15 29 (1.22%) Palo Alto
16 27 (1.14%) BiZZdesign
17 25 (1.05%) Juniper
18 17 (0.71%) Splunk