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 August 2026.

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

6 months to
18 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 14 21 13
Rank change year-on-year +7 -8 +6
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 2,500 1,242 1,813
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 9.07% 8.11% 9.98%
As % of the Job Titles category 9.87% 9.00% 10.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,669 846 1,152
10th Percentile £477 £462 £481
25th Percentile £525 £519 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £600 £649
Median % change year-on-year +3.33% -7.55% -0.15%
75th Percentile £706 £694 £725
90th Percentile £775 £751 £788
UK median daily rate £620 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 153 15 71
10th Percentile £46.00 £33.64 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £64.38 £60.63
Median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -3.89%
75th Percentile £71.91 £86.50 £85.00
90th Percentile £88.60 £99.42 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -10.34% +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 25,321 13,807 16,743
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.85% 90.15% 92.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,279 8,448 10,226
10th Percentile £305 £213 £220
25th Percentile £410 £363 £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 £650 £688
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.87%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,053 1,245 1,700
10th Percentile £14.57 £13.25 £14.00
25th Percentile £20.48 £16.32 £18.35
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £44.02
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -42.87% +22.28%
75th Percentile £68.00 £55.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £74.50 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +65.94% -41.51% +3.61%

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 August 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 August 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 August 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 +1 738 £625 +4.17% 171
North of England +4 698 £600 - 129
Midlands 0 417 £625 +8.70% 62
North West +5 403 £600 - 64
South West -2 313 £625 -2.34% 83
West Midlands 0 301 £627 +4.42% 47
Yorkshire +4 232 £600 0.00% 45
East of England +13 159 £600 +8.11% 22
Scotland +19 149 £648 +3.60% 28
East Midlands +4 109 £600 +16.50% 15
North East -4 65 £600 -14.29% 20
Wales +3 42 £633 +1.20% 13
Northern Ireland +7 5 £475 -32.14% 8
Channel Islands -3 3 £575 -22.56%
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 18 August 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.

1 824 (32.96%) Security Cleared
2 567 (22.68%) Azure
3 523 (20.92%) SC Cleared
4 440 (17.60%) AWS
5 356 (14.24%) Stakeholder Management
6 349 (13.96%) Microsoft
7 345 (13.80%) Roadmaps
8 313 (12.52%) Agile
9 287 (11.48%) Migration
10 282 (11.28%) Technical Leadership
11 274 (10.96%) Enterprise Architecture
12 257 (10.28%) DV Cleared
13 248 (9.92%) DevOps
14 236 (9.44%) Integration Patterns
15 234 (9.36%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 231 (9.24%) CI/CD
17 228 (9.12%) AI
18 219 (8.76%) Data Architecture
19 207 (8.28%) Data Modelling
20 201 (8.04%) Architectural Patterns
21 200 (8.00%) Cybersecurity
22 187 (7.48%) Security Architecture
23 183 (7.32%) TOGAF
24 173 (6.92%) GCP
25 161 (6.44%) Microservices
26 153 (6.12%) Architecture Governance
27 150 (6.00%) Problem-Solving
28 147 (5.88%) Continuous Improvement
28 147 (5.88%) Event-Driven
29 144 (5.76%) Architectural Design

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 36 (1.44%) SharePoint
2 31 (1.24%) SAS
3 30 (1.20%) Confluence
4 12 (0.48%) OpenStack
5 11 (0.44%) Microsoft Exchange
6 10 (0.40%) Apache
6 10 (0.40%) Apache Spark
6 10 (0.40%) Palantir Foundry
7 9 (0.36%) Apache Airflow
8 7 (0.28%) Documentum
9 5 (0.20%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 4 (0.16%) CMS
10 4 (0.16%) NetWeaver
11 3 (0.12%) JBoss
11 3 (0.12%) SAP EP
12 2 (0.080%) Alfresco
12 2 (0.080%) Apache Superset
12 2 (0.080%) ArcGIS
13 1 (0.040%) Appian
13 1 (0.040%) Predix
Applications
1 12 (0.48%) MS Visio
2 11 (0.44%) Microsoft Excel
3 8 (0.32%) Microsoft Office
4 7 (0.28%) Navisworks
4 7 (0.28%) Revit
5 6 (0.24%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.24%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.040%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 65 (2.60%) SAP S/4HANA
2 13 (0.52%) Payment Gateway
3 12 (0.48%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 12 (0.48%) Teamcenter
4 10 (0.40%) Remedy ITSM
5 7 (0.28%) SAP ERP
6 5 (0.20%) Dynamics CRM
6 5 (0.20%) Maximo
6 5 (0.20%) Oracle ERP
7 4 (0.16%) NetSuite
7 4 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
7 4 (0.16%) Oracle Retail
7 4 (0.16%) SAP GRC
7 4 (0.16%) SAP MDG
8 3 (0.12%) Adobe Campaign
8 3 (0.12%) Dynamics NAV
8 3 (0.12%) Oracle Receivables
8 3 (0.12%) Remedy AR System
8 3 (0.12%) SAP IBP
8 3 (0.12%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 567 (22.68%) Azure
2 440 (17.60%) AWS
3 173 (6.92%) GCP
4 100 (4.00%) Power Platform
5 82 (3.28%) Serverless
6 79 (3.16%) SaaS
7 76 (3.04%) Entra ID
8 54 (2.16%) Microsoft 365
9 46 (1.84%) Azure DevOps
9 46 (1.84%) GitHub
9 46 (1.84%) PaaS
10 41 (1.64%) Dynamics 365
11 38 (1.52%) AWS Lambda
11 38 (1.52%) IaaS
12 33 (1.32%) OpenShift
13 30 (1.20%) GitHub Actions
14 29 (1.16%) Snowflake
15 28 (1.12%) Amazon S3
16 23 (0.92%) Azure Data Factory
17 22 (0.88%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 96 (3.84%) Firewall
2 64 (2.56%) WAN
3 59 (2.36%) DNS
4 52 (2.08%) LAN
5 49 (1.96%) Network Security
6 38 (1.52%) VPN
7 34 (1.36%) DHCP
8 33 (1.32%) BGP
8 33 (1.32%) SD-WAN
9 29 (1.16%) VLAN
10 27 (1.08%) TCP/IP
11 25 (1.00%) MPLS
11 25 (1.00%) SAN
12 22 (0.88%) NAS
13 20 (0.80%) Structured Cabling
13 20 (0.80%) Wireless
14 16 (0.64%) OSPF
15 15 (0.60%) BIG-IP
16 13 (0.52%) IPsec
16 13 (0.52%) NX-OS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 73 (2.92%) Data Lake
2 70 (2.80%) Power BI
3 67 (2.68%) Metadata
4 65 (2.60%) Data Warehouse
5 36 (1.44%) NoSQL
6 21 (0.84%) SQL Server
7 20 (0.80%) Amazon RDS
8 19 (0.76%) Azure SQL Database
8 19 (0.76%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
9 17 (0.68%) Oracle Database
10 16 (0.64%) Base SAS
11 15 (0.60%) PostgreSQL
12 14 (0.56%) BigQuery
13 12 (0.48%) Delta Lake
13 12 (0.48%) GIS
14 10 (0.40%) Big Data
14 10 (0.40%) MySQL
15 9 (0.36%) Amazon Redshift
15 9 (0.36%) Electronic Patient Records
15 9 (0.36%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 35 (1.40%) JIRA
2 30 (1.20%) Git
3 23 (0.92%) Jenkins
4 13 (0.52%) GitLab
5 9 (0.36%) ERwin
6 6 (0.24%) Sonatype Nexus
7 5 (0.20%) Artifactory
7 5 (0.20%) Claude Code
8 4 (0.16%) Hudson
8 4 (0.16%) MSI
8 4 (0.16%) Rational DOORS
9 3 (0.12%) SonarQube
10 2 (0.080%) Bitbucket
10 2 (0.080%) Cypress.io
10 2 (0.080%) IntelliJ
10 2 (0.080%) JUnit
10 2 (0.080%) Oracle APEX
10 2 (0.080%) Oracle Forms
10 2 (0.080%) Rational Rhapsody
10 2 (0.080%) Selenium
General
1 469 (18.76%) Social Skills
2 306 (12.24%) Finance
3 237 (9.48%) Public Sector
4 132 (5.28%) Banking
5 130 (5.20%) Analytical Skills
6 102 (4.08%) Retail
7 91 (3.64%) Manufacturing
8 58 (2.32%) Documentation Skills
9 56 (2.24%) Influencing Skills
10 40 (1.60%) Aerospace
11 34 (1.36%) Legal
12 30 (1.20%) Military
13 28 (1.12%) Telecoms
14 22 (0.88%) Financial Institution
14 22 (0.88%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 21 (0.84%) Aviation
15 21 (0.84%) Marketing
16 20 (0.80%) Back Office
17 19 (0.76%) Presentation Skills
18 17 (0.68%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 100 (4.00%) REST
2 76 (3.04%) Middleware
3 55 (2.20%) OAuth
4 45 (1.80%) SOAP
5 38 (1.52%) Oracle Fusion
6 35 (1.40%) .NET
7 34 (1.36%) OpenID
8 33 (1.32%) Kafka
8 33 (1.32%) SAML
9 24 (0.96%) OAuth2
9 24 (0.96%) SailPoint
10 23 (0.92%) JSON
11 20 (0.80%) LDAP
12 18 (0.72%) RESTful
13 17 (0.68%) Node.js
14 14 (0.56%) GraphQL
14 14 (0.56%) JWT
14 14 (0.56%) Web Services
15 13 (0.52%) Swagger
16 12 (0.48%) React
Miscellaneous
1 194 (7.76%) Cloud Native
2 82 (3.28%) Data Centre
3 80 (3.20%) Hybrid Cloud
4 70 (2.80%) Operational Technology
5 63 (2.52%) Data Protection Act
6 60 (2.40%) Product Ownership
7 57 (2.28%) Legacy Systems
8 56 (2.24%) Distributed Systems
8 56 (2.24%) Management Information System
9 55 (2.20%) Onboarding
10 53 (2.12%) Enterprise Software
11 40 (1.60%) Public Cloud
12 37 (1.48%) AI Agents
13 31 (1.24%) Private Cloud
14 28 (1.12%) Security Posture
15 26 (1.04%) IVR
16 25 (1.00%) Enterprise Cloud
17 23 (0.92%) CMDB
17 23 (0.92%) PKI
17 23 (0.92%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 88 (3.52%) Windows
2 52 (2.08%) Linux
3 35 (1.40%) Windows Server
4 13 (0.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 11 (0.44%) Android
5 11 (0.44%) Apple iOS
6 9 (0.36%) Unix
7 6 (0.24%) AIX
8 5 (0.20%) Data ONTAP
9 2 (0.080%) HPUX
9 2 (0.080%) Solaris
9 2 (0.080%) Windows 10
9 2 (0.080%) Windows Server 2019
10 1 (0.040%) CatOS
10 1 (0.040%) CentOS
10 1 (0.040%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.040%) VMS
10 1 (0.040%) Windows Server 2008
10 1 (0.040%) Windows Server 2016
10 1 (0.040%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 356 (14.24%) Stakeholder Management
2 345 (13.80%) Roadmaps
3 313 (12.52%) Agile
4 287 (11.48%) Migration
5 282 (11.28%) Technical Leadership
6 274 (10.96%) Enterprise Architecture
7 248 (9.92%) DevOps
8 236 (9.44%) Integration Patterns
9 234 (9.36%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 231 (9.24%) CI/CD
11 228 (9.12%) AI
12 219 (8.76%) Data Architecture
13 207 (8.28%) Data Modelling
14 201 (8.04%) Architectural Patterns
15 200 (8.00%) Cybersecurity
16 187 (7.48%) Security Architecture
17 183 (7.32%) TOGAF
18 161 (6.44%) Microservices
19 153 (6.12%) Architecture Governance
20 150 (6.00%) Problem-Solving
Programming Languages
1 99 (3.96%) Java
2 98 (3.92%) SQL
3 86 (3.44%) Python
4 51 (2.04%) JavaScript
5 45 (1.80%) PowerShell
6 24 (0.96%) Bash
7 16 (0.64%) Bicep
8 13 (0.52%) C#
9 12 (0.48%) TypeScript
10 10 (0.40%) Shell Script
11 8 (0.32%) ABAP
12 7 (0.28%) Apex Code
13 6 (0.24%) PL/SQL
13 6 (0.24%) VBA
14 5 (0.20%) Groovy
15 4 (0.16%) Kotlin
16 3 (0.12%) C
16 3 (0.12%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 2 (0.080%) C++
17 2 (0.080%) ProC
Qualifications
1 824 (32.96%) Security Cleared
2 523 (20.92%) SC Cleared
3 257 (10.28%) DV Cleared
4 70 (2.80%) Degree
5 56 (2.24%) CISSP
6 54 (2.16%) Cisco Certification
7 44 (1.76%) Azure Certification
8 43 (1.72%) BPSS Clearance
8 43 (1.72%) TOGAF Certification
9 42 (1.68%) AWS Certification
10 30 (1.20%) Computer Science Degree
11 27 (1.08%) CCNP
12 21 (0.84%) CISM
13 19 (0.76%) Microsoft Certification
14 16 (0.64%) CCNA
15 15 (0.60%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 14 (0.56%) CCIE
17 11 (0.44%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 11 (0.44%) Network+ Certification
17 11 (0.44%) Server+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 96 (3.84%) NIST
2 75 (3.00%) Data Quality
3 64 (2.56%) NCSC
4 62 (2.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 55 (2.20%) GDPR
6 23 (0.92%) QA
7 18 (0.72%) Accessibility
7 18 (0.72%) PCI DSS
8 17 (0.68%) NIST 800
9 15 (0.60%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 14 (0.56%) JSP 440
11 13 (0.52%) ISO 19650
12 12 (0.48%) GRC
13 11 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials
13 11 (0.44%) IFRS
14 10 (0.40%) Disclosure Scotland
14 10 (0.40%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 9 (0.36%) HL7
15 9 (0.36%) SLA
16 6 (0.24%) COBIT
System Software
1 96 (3.84%) Active Directory
2 49 (1.96%) Docker
3 46 (1.84%) VMware Infrastructure
4 26 (1.04%) VMware NSX
5 25 (1.00%) Virtual Desktop
6 18 (0.72%) Hyper-V
7 12 (0.48%) vSphere
8 11 (0.44%) VMware ESXi
9 9 (0.36%) Virtual Machines
10 6 (0.24%) vCloud
11 4 (0.16%) KVM
12 3 (0.12%) Ceph
12 3 (0.12%) EMC RecoverPoint
12 3 (0.12%) NFS
12 3 (0.12%) SRDF
13 2 (0.080%) IAG
13 2 (0.080%) zsh
14 1 (0.040%) Firmware
14 1 (0.040%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 1 (0.040%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 128 (5.12%) Kubernetes
2 94 (3.76%) Terraform
3 51 (2.04%) Ansible
4 28 (1.12%) Microsoft Intune
5 18 (0.72%) Single Sign-On
6 16 (0.64%) Grafana
7 15 (0.60%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 14 (0.56%) vCenter Server
9 13 (0.52%) Jamf Pro
9 13 (0.52%) Prometheus
10 8 (0.32%) Argo
11 7 (0.28%) FortiGate
12 6 (0.24%) Istio
12 6 (0.24%) WMI
13 5 (0.20%) CASB
13 5 (0.20%) MOM
13 5 (0.20%) NetBackup
14 4 (0.16%) EMC VPLEX
14 4 (0.16%) SnapMirror
15 3 (0.12%) SnapVault
Vendors
1 349 (13.96%) Microsoft
2 142 (5.68%) SAP
3 107 (4.28%) Oracle
4 99 (3.96%) ServiceNow
5 95 (3.80%) VMware
6 86 (3.44%) Google
7 79 (3.16%) Cisco
8 77 (3.08%) Databricks
9 49 (1.96%) Salesforce
10 28 (1.12%) F5
11 27 (1.08%) MuleSoft
12 26 (1.04%) CyberArk
13 23 (0.92%) Palo Alto
14 22 (0.88%) Citrix
14 22 (0.88%) Informatica
14 22 (0.88%) Red Hat
15 21 (0.84%) IBM
16 17 (0.68%) Infoblox
16 17 (0.68%) Workday
17 15 (0.60%) Juniper