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 19 November 2025.

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

6 months to
19 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 1,452 1,515 1,728
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 8.29% 9.22% 8.37%
As % of the Job Titles category 9.23% 9.99% 8.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,007 915 1,208
10th Percentile £463 £469 £500
25th Percentile £519 £534 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £625 £633
Median % change year-on-year -4.00% -1.19% -2.69%
75th Percentile £700 £704 £700
90th Percentile £775 £764 £750
UK median daily rate £625 £625 £650
% change year-on-year - -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 23 21 33
10th Percentile £66.25 £60.00 £61.25
25th Percentile £77.53 £63.75 £72.50
Median hourly rate £83.82 £70.00 £76.53
Median % change year-on-year +19.74% -8.53% +9.33%
75th Percentile £95.00 £85.78 £80.00
90th Percentile £99.50 £90.00 £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 15,725 15,172 19,359
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 89.80% 92.29% 93.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,724 8,689 12,774
10th Percentile £208 £219 £213
25th Percentile £363 £375 £379
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £490 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.06% -2.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £590 £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 1,565 1,039 1,269
10th Percentile £13.80 £15.09 £14.40
25th Percentile £17.30 £20.00 £18.50
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% -22.22% +86.55%
75th Percentile £55.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.16 £73.75 £77.10
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £36.00 £45.00
% change year-on-year -30.14% -20.00% +55.71%

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 19 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 19 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 19 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 +1 449 £600 -4.00% 376
North of England -9 363 £600 - 169
Midlands -7 229 £575 -4.37% 130
South West -2 220 £675 +3.85% 131
North West -9 217 £588 -1.96% 111
West Midlands -14 161 £582 -6.92% 92
Yorkshire -19 129 £613 +5.60% 50
Scotland -11 92 £575 -8.00% 56
East of England -5 88 £553 -7.92% 76
East Midlands -2 67 £500 -9.09% 36
Wales 0 23 £625 +0.81% 14
North East -6 18 £713 +18.82% 8
Channel Islands - 6 £743 -
Northern Ireland -13 5 £550 -8.33% 14
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 19 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.

1 514 (35.40%) Security Cleared
2 362 (24.93%) Azure
3 322 (22.18%) AWS
4 303 (20.87%) SC Cleared
5 238 (16.39%) Roadmaps
6 223 (15.36%) Stakeholder Management
7 208 (14.33%) Microsoft
8 189 (13.02%) Agile
9 176 (12.12%) TOGAF
10 169 (11.64%) Migration
11 165 (11.36%) Problem-Solving
12 163 (11.23%) DV Cleared
13 156 (10.74%) Enterprise Architecture
14 153 (10.54%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 141 (9.71%) Data Modelling
16 138 (9.50%) CI/CD
17 132 (9.09%) Technical Leadership
18 130 (8.95%) GCP
19 128 (8.82%) DevOps
20 118 (8.13%) AI
20 118 (8.13%) ITIL
21 114 (7.85%) Python
22 113 (7.78%) Cybersecurity
23 109 (7.51%) Mentoring
23 109 (7.51%) Microservices
23 109 (7.51%) VMware
24 96 (6.61%) Architectural Design
25 95 (6.54%) Analytics
26 94 (6.47%) Terraform
27 91 (6.27%) Firewall

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 41 (2.82%) Confluence
2 21 (1.45%) SharePoint
3 16 (1.10%) Microsoft Exchange
3 16 (1.10%) SAS
4 13 (0.90%) ArcGIS
5 9 (0.62%) Apache Spark
5 9 (0.62%) WebLogic
6 6 (0.41%) OpenStack
6 6 (0.41%) Smallworld
7 5 (0.34%) Apache Airflow
7 5 (0.34%) WebSphere
8 4 (0.28%) Documentum
9 3 (0.21%) GeoServer
9 3 (0.21%) Skype for Business
9 3 (0.21%) ThingWorx
10 2 (0.14%) Anypoint
10 2 (0.14%) Ethereum
10 2 (0.14%) Hyperledger
10 2 (0.14%) Mule
10 2 (0.14%) Oracle Coherence
Applications
1 15 (1.03%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (0.76%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (0.76%) Microsoft Project
2 11 (0.76%) Siemens NX
3 10 (0.69%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 10 (0.69%) MS Visio
4 2 (0.14%) Fusion 360
5 1 (0.069%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.069%) FrameMaker
5 1 (0.069%) Revit
5 1 (0.069%) Trello
Business Applications
1 37 (2.55%) SAP S/4HANA
2 19 (1.31%) Dynamics CRM
3 14 (0.96%) Payment Gateway
4 13 (0.90%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 12 (0.83%) Maximo
5 12 (0.83%) Workday HCM
6 11 (0.76%) Teamcenter
7 10 (0.69%) SAP CO
8 9 (0.62%) SAP FI
8 9 (0.62%) SAP FI/CO
8 9 (0.62%) SAP PM
9 7 (0.48%) Salesforce CRM
10 6 (0.41%) SAP HR
11 5 (0.34%) Dynamics AX
11 5 (0.34%) Oracle SCM
12 3 (0.21%) NetSuite
12 3 (0.21%) SAP PP
13 2 (0.14%) SAP ERP
13 2 (0.14%) SAP QM
13 2 (0.14%) SAP WM
Cloud Services
1 362 (24.93%) Azure
2 322 (22.18%) AWS
3 130 (8.95%) GCP
4 67 (4.61%) SaaS
5 63 (4.34%) Serverless
6 48 (3.31%) Dynamics 365
7 42 (2.89%) AWS Lambda
8 40 (2.75%) Power Platform
9 38 (2.62%) Entra ID
9 38 (2.62%) Microsoft 365
10 36 (2.48%) Amazon S3
11 34 (2.34%) GitHub
12 27 (1.86%) IaaS
12 27 (1.86%) PaaS
13 25 (1.72%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 25 (1.72%) Azure DevOps
14 24 (1.65%) Microsoft Purview
15 19 (1.31%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 19 (1.31%) Salesforce Service Cloud
16 18 (1.24%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 91 (6.27%) Firewall
2 50 (3.44%) Network Security
3 44 (3.03%) WAN
4 38 (2.62%) LAN
5 33 (2.27%) VPN
6 31 (2.13%) DNS
7 28 (1.93%) SD-WAN
8 22 (1.52%) SAN
9 21 (1.45%) BGP
10 18 (1.24%) MPLS
11 15 (1.03%) Fibre Channel
11 15 (1.03%) iSCSI
12 14 (0.96%) VSAN
13 12 (0.83%) DHCP
13 12 (0.83%) Internet
14 11 (0.76%) Wi-Fi
15 9 (0.62%) Cisco ASA
15 9 (0.62%) VLAN
16 8 (0.55%) Wireless
17 7 (0.48%) Cisco ISE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 57 (3.93%) Data Warehouse
2 38 (2.62%) PostgreSQL
3 33 (2.27%) Metadata
4 31 (2.13%) Power BI
5 27 (1.86%) NoSQL
6 26 (1.79%) SQL Server
7 25 (1.72%) DynamoDB
7 25 (1.72%) MongoDB
8 18 (1.24%) GIS
9 17 (1.17%) Oracle Database
10 15 (1.03%) Relational Database
11 14 (0.96%) BigQuery
12 13 (0.90%) Big Data
12 13 (0.90%) Redis
13 12 (0.83%) Amazon Redshift
13 12 (0.83%) Data Lake
13 12 (0.83%) RDBMS
13 12 (0.83%) Tableau
14 9 (0.62%) Amazon Athena
14 9 (0.62%) Amazon Aurora
Development Applications
1 58 (3.99%) JIRA
2 44 (3.03%) Jenkins
3 34 (2.34%) Git
4 11 (0.76%) GitLab
5 10 (0.69%) CircleCI
6 9 (0.62%) Oracle Forms
7 7 (0.48%) Gradle
7 7 (0.48%) Maven
7 7 (0.48%) Rational DOORS
8 6 (0.41%) SonarQube
9 5 (0.34%) SonarLint
10 4 (0.28%) Artifactory
11 3 (0.21%) MSI
11 3 (0.21%) Visual Studio Code
12 2 (0.14%) Bitbucket
12 2 (0.14%) Hudson
12 2 (0.14%) MLflow
12 2 (0.14%) Postman
12 2 (0.14%) Sonatype Nexus
13 1 (0.069%) Selenium
General
1 409 (28.17%) Social Skills
2 186 (12.81%) Finance
3 182 (12.53%) Public Sector
4 112 (7.71%) Analytical Skills
5 81 (5.58%) Banking
6 47 (3.24%) Telecoms
7 46 (3.17%) Retail
8 40 (2.75%) Marketing
9 39 (2.69%) Documentation Skills
10 31 (2.13%) Presentation Skills
11 30 (2.07%) Influencing Skills
12 29 (2.00%) Manufacturing
13 26 (1.79%) Military
14 22 (1.52%) Aerospace
14 22 (1.52%) Legal
15 13 (0.90%) Local Government
16 10 (0.69%) Back Office
16 10 (0.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 9 (0.62%) Aviation
17 9 (0.62%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 45 (3.10%) REST
2 39 (2.69%) Middleware
3 34 (2.34%) SOAP
4 30 (2.07%) RESTful
5 28 (1.93%) Kafka
6 25 (1.72%) .NET
7 21 (1.45%) OAuth
8 19 (1.31%) Lightning Web Components
8 19 (1.31%) Spring Boot
9 18 (1.24%) Visualforce
9 18 (1.24%) Web Services
10 15 (1.03%) Node.js
10 15 (1.03%) SailPoint
11 14 (0.96%) SAML
12 13 (0.90%) GraphQL
12 13 (0.90%) SAP PI
13 12 (0.83%) OAuth2
14 11 (0.76%) Spring
15 10 (0.69%) React
16 9 (0.62%) Celery
Miscellaneous
1 100 (6.89%) Cloud Native
2 69 (4.75%) Product Ownership
3 67 (4.61%) Legacy Systems
4 63 (4.34%) Data Centre
5 51 (3.51%) Onboarding
6 48 (3.31%) Hybrid Cloud
7 31 (2.13%) PKI
8 25 (1.72%) Operational Technology
9 24 (1.65%) Enterprise Software
10 23 (1.58%) CMDB
11 22 (1.52%) Distributed Systems
12 21 (1.45%) Public Cloud
12 21 (1.45%) Security Posture
13 20 (1.38%) Data Protection Act
13 20 (1.38%) SCADA
14 19 (1.31%) Management Information System
15 18 (1.24%) NHS
16 15 (1.03%) Security Operations Centre
17 13 (0.90%) Analytical Mindset
17 13 (0.90%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 87 (5.99%) Windows
2 53 (3.65%) Linux
3 33 (2.27%) Windows Server
4 19 (1.31%) Windows Server 2019
5 11 (0.76%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 11 (0.76%) Unix
5 11 (0.76%) Windows 7
6 10 (0.69%) Windows 10
7 4 (0.28%) Android
7 4 (0.28%) 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 (0.069%) MVS
10 1 (0.069%) VMS
10 1 (0.069%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 238 (16.39%) Roadmaps
2 223 (15.36%) Stakeholder Management
3 189 (13.02%) Agile
4 176 (12.12%) TOGAF
5 169 (11.64%) Migration
6 165 (11.36%) Problem-Solving
7 156 (10.74%) Enterprise Architecture
8 153 (10.54%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 141 (9.71%) Data Modelling
10 138 (9.50%) CI/CD
11 132 (9.09%) Technical Leadership
12 128 (8.82%) DevOps
13 118 (8.13%) AI
13 118 (8.13%) ITIL
14 113 (7.78%) Cybersecurity
15 109 (7.51%) Mentoring
15 109 (7.51%) Microservices
16 96 (6.61%) Architectural Design
17 95 (6.54%) Analytics
18 86 (5.92%) Data Architecture
Programming Languages
1 114 (7.85%) Python
2 83 (5.72%) Java
3 57 (3.93%) SQL
4 32 (2.20%) PowerShell
5 26 (1.79%) JavaScript
6 19 (1.31%) Apex Code
7 18 (1.24%) TypeScript
8 13 (0.90%) C#
9 12 (0.83%) R
10 9 (0.62%) Bash
10 9 (0.62%) C++
11 6 (0.41%) Bicep
11 6 (0.41%) C
12 5 (0.34%) ABAP
12 5 (0.34%) VB
13 4 (0.28%) Scala
14 3 (0.21%) VBScript
14 3 (0.21%) X++
15 2 (0.14%) PL/SQL
15 2 (0.14%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 514 (35.40%) Security Cleared
2 303 (20.87%) SC Cleared
3 163 (11.23%) DV Cleared
4 85 (5.85%) Degree
5 77 (5.30%) CISSP
6 54 (3.72%) AWS Certification
7 49 (3.37%) Azure Certification
8 42 (2.89%) TOGAF Certification
9 40 (2.75%) Microsoft Certification
10 37 (2.55%) Cisco Certification
11 36 (2.48%) CISM
12 27 (1.86%) Computer Science Degree
13 24 (1.65%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 24 (1.65%) Master's Degree
14 21 (1.45%) CCIE
15 18 (1.24%) CCNP
16 17 (1.17%) BPSS Clearance
17 15 (1.03%) (ISC)2 CCSP
17 15 (1.03%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
18 14 (0.96%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 87 (5.99%) GDPR
2 75 (5.17%) NIST
3 72 (4.96%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 46 (3.17%) Data Quality
5 40 (2.75%) NCSC
6 32 (2.20%) PCI DSS
7 29 (2.00%) ISO/IEC 20000
8 20 (1.38%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 20 (1.38%) JSP 440
9 19 (1.31%) QA
10 14 (0.96%) COBIT
11 13 (0.90%) GRC
12 11 (0.76%) SLA
13 9 (0.62%) Accessibility
13 9 (0.62%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 8 (0.55%) HMG Security Policy Framework
14 8 (0.55%) NIST 800
14 8 (0.55%) PSD2
15 7 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials
15 7 (0.48%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 71 (4.89%) VMware Infrastructure
2 58 (3.99%) Active Directory
3 50 (3.44%) Docker
4 29 (2.00%) vSphere
5 22 (1.52%) VMware ESXi
6 19 (1.31%) VMware NSX
7 15 (1.03%) NFS
8 7 (0.48%) Virtual Desktop
9 5 (0.34%) 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 (0.069%) HDFS
12 1 (0.069%) Microsoft App-V
12 1 (0.069%) Slurm Workload Manager
12 1 (0.069%) SRDF
12 1 (0.069%) Veritas Cluster Server
12 1 (0.069%) Xen
Systems Management
1 94 (6.47%) Terraform
2 81 (5.58%) Kubernetes
3 40 (2.75%) Ansible
4 21 (1.45%) Single Sign-On
5 15 (1.03%) Prometheus
6 14 (0.96%) vCenter Server
7 13 (0.90%) OPNET
8 11 (0.76%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 11 (0.76%) Microsoft Intune
9 10 (0.69%) Grafana
10 9 (0.62%) SCCM
10 9 (0.62%) WMI
11 7 (0.48%) Argo
12 4 (0.28%) FortiGate
13 2 (0.14%) Kubeflow
13 2 (0.14%) Microsoft Clustering
13 2 (0.14%) SCOM
14 1 (0.069%) BMC PATROL
14 1 (0.069%) Podman
14 1 (0.069%) Puppet
Vendors
1 208 (14.33%) Microsoft
2 109 (7.51%) VMware
3 79 (5.44%) Oracle
3 79 (5.44%) Salesforce
4 76 (5.23%) SAP
5 72 (4.96%) Cisco
6 59 (4.06%) ServiceNow
7 32 (2.20%) Google
8 27 (1.86%) Splunk
9 25 (1.72%) Juniper
9 25 (1.72%) Palo Alto
10 24 (1.65%) F5
10 24 (1.65%) Workday
11 22 (1.52%) IBM
12 21 (1.45%) NetApp
12 21 (1.45%) Virgin Media
13 20 (1.38%) CyberArk
13 20 (1.38%) Databricks
13 20 (1.38%) Pega
14 19 (1.31%) Fortinet