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 £621, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 4 August 2026.

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

6 months to
4 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 14 21 13
Rank change year-on-year +7 -8 +5
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 2,443 1,242 1,820
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 9.04% 8.18% 9.85%
As % of the Job Titles category 9.81% 9.05% 10.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,616 839 1,141
10th Percentile £481 £457 £480
25th Percentile £525 £519 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £621 £600 £646
Median % change year-on-year +3.50% -7.12% -0.62%
75th Percentile £706 £688 £725
90th Percentile £775 £750 £788
UK median daily rate £620 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 155 15 73
10th Percentile £46.00 £33.64 -
25th Percentile £60.00 £64.38 £60.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -
75th Percentile £71.91 £86.50 £85.00
90th Percentile £83.00 £99.42 £89.51
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 24,892 13,726 16,993
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.13% 90.37% 92.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,077 8,432 10,367
10th Percentile £305 £215 £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 £684
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,948 1,207 1,773
10th Percentile £14.82 £13.32 £14.00
25th Percentile £20.75 £16.50 £18.50
Median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £43.90
Median % change year-on-year +78.93% -42.71% +17.07%
75th Percentile £68.00 £55.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% +1.18%

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 4 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 4 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 4 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 0 716 £630 +5.00% 361
North of England +3 693 £600 - 309
Midlands -1 412 £625 +8.70% 176
North West +7 392 £600 - 155
West Midlands -3 306 £627 +4.42% 125
South West -2 291 £625 -2.34% 188
Yorkshire +6 235 £600 - 121
East of England +17 160 £600 +8.11% 99
Scotland +11 152 £648 +3.60% 101
East Midlands +8 99 £600 +18.23% 51
North East -1 68 £600 -14.29% 34
Wales +3 35 £620 +14.81% 27
Northern Ireland +8 6 £475 -32.14% 46
Channel Islands -1 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 4 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.

1 779 (31.89%) Security Cleared
2 545 (22.31%) Azure
3 489 (20.02%) SC Cleared
4 425 (17.40%) AWS
5 343 (14.04%) Roadmaps
6 331 (13.55%) Stakeholder Management
7 323 (13.22%) Microsoft
8 308 (12.61%) Agile
9 274 (11.22%) Migration
10 259 (10.60%) Technical Leadership
11 250 (10.23%) Enterprise Architecture
12 243 (9.95%) DV Cleared
13 240 (9.82%) Integration Patterns
14 235 (9.62%) DevOps
15 219 (8.96%) AI
16 217 (8.88%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 216 (8.84%) CI/CD
17 216 (8.84%) Data Architecture
18 208 (8.51%) Data Modelling
19 203 (8.31%) Architectural Patterns
20 192 (7.86%) Cybersecurity
21 178 (7.29%) Security Architecture
22 172 (7.04%) TOGAF
23 162 (6.63%) Microservices
24 156 (6.39%) GCP
25 154 (6.30%) Problem-Solving
26 149 (6.10%) Architecture Governance
27 146 (5.98%) Architectural Design
27 146 (5.98%) Continuous Improvement
28 144 (5.89%) Event-Driven

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 40 (1.64%) SharePoint
2 31 (1.27%) Confluence
2 31 (1.27%) SAS
3 14 (0.57%) Microsoft Exchange
4 10 (0.41%) OpenStack
4 10 (0.41%) Palantir Foundry
5 9 (0.37%) Apache
5 9 (0.37%) Apache Spark
6 8 (0.33%) Apache Airflow
7 7 (0.29%) Documentum
8 5 (0.20%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 5 (0.20%) Appian
8 5 (0.20%) ArcGIS
8 5 (0.20%) CMS
9 4 (0.16%) JBoss
9 4 (0.16%) NetWeaver
10 3 (0.12%) SAP EP
11 2 (0.082%) Alfresco
11 2 (0.082%) nginx
11 2 (0.082%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 11 (0.45%) MS Visio
2 9 (0.37%) Microsoft Excel
3 7 (0.29%) Navisworks
3 7 (0.29%) Revit
4 6 (0.25%) Spreadsheet
5 5 (0.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 4 (0.16%) Microsoft Office
7 1 (0.041%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.041%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 57 (2.33%) SAP S/4HANA
2 14 (0.57%) Payment Gateway
3 13 (0.53%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 11 (0.45%) Teamcenter
5 10 (0.41%) Remedy ITSM
6 9 (0.37%) SAP ERP
7 7 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
8 5 (0.20%) Dynamics CRM
8 5 (0.20%) Maximo
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle Retail
8 5 (0.20%) SAP GRC
9 4 (0.16%) NetSuite
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
9 4 (0.16%) SAP MDG
10 3 (0.12%) Adobe Campaign
10 3 (0.12%) Dynamics NAV
10 3 (0.12%) Oracle Receivables
10 3 (0.12%) SAP CRM
10 3 (0.12%) SAP IBP
10 3 (0.12%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 545 (22.31%) Azure
2 425 (17.40%) AWS
3 156 (6.39%) GCP
4 97 (3.97%) Power Platform
5 86 (3.52%) Entra ID
6 76 (3.11%) Serverless
7 74 (3.03%) SaaS
8 54 (2.21%) Microsoft 365
9 50 (2.05%) PaaS
10 47 (1.92%) GitHub
11 41 (1.68%) Azure DevOps
12 40 (1.64%) IaaS
13 35 (1.43%) AWS Lambda
13 35 (1.43%) Dynamics 365
14 33 (1.35%) OpenShift
15 28 (1.15%) GitHub Actions
16 27 (1.11%) Amazon S3
16 27 (1.11%) Snowflake
17 24 (0.98%) OCI
18 21 (0.86%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 97 (3.97%) Firewall
2 66 (2.70%) WAN
3 60 (2.46%) DNS
4 57 (2.33%) Network Security
5 53 (2.17%) LAN
6 39 (1.60%) VPN
7 34 (1.39%) BGP
7 34 (1.39%) DHCP
7 34 (1.39%) SD-WAN
8 30 (1.23%) VLAN
9 27 (1.11%) TCP/IP
10 26 (1.06%) SAN
11 24 (0.98%) Wireless
12 23 (0.94%) MPLS
12 23 (0.94%) NAS
13 21 (0.86%) Structured Cabling
14 18 (0.74%) OSPF
15 16 (0.65%) BIG-IP
16 15 (0.61%) IPsec
17 14 (0.57%) NX-OS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 69 (2.82%) Power BI
2 66 (2.70%) Data Lake
3 63 (2.58%) Metadata
4 60 (2.46%) Data Warehouse
5 33 (1.35%) NoSQL
6 19 (0.78%) Amazon RDS
6 19 (0.78%) Oracle Database
7 18 (0.74%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
8 17 (0.70%) PostgreSQL
8 17 (0.70%) SQL Server
9 15 (0.61%) Base SAS
10 14 (0.57%) Azure SQL Database
10 14 (0.57%) BigQuery
10 14 (0.57%) GIS
11 12 (0.49%) Delta Lake
12 11 (0.45%) MongoDB
13 10 (0.41%) Semantic Layer
14 9 (0.37%) Big Data
14 9 (0.37%) Electronic Patient Records
14 9 (0.37%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 35 (1.43%) JIRA
2 30 (1.23%) Git
3 22 (0.90%) Jenkins
4 10 (0.41%) ERwin
5 9 (0.37%) GitLab
6 7 (0.29%) Sonatype Nexus
7 5 (0.20%) Artifactory
7 5 (0.20%) Claude Code
8 4 (0.16%) Hudson
9 3 (0.12%) Rational DOORS
9 3 (0.12%) SonarQube
10 2 (0.082%) Bitbucket
10 2 (0.082%) Cypress.io
10 2 (0.082%) IntelliJ
10 2 (0.082%) JUnit
10 2 (0.082%) MSI
10 2 (0.082%) Oracle APEX
10 2 (0.082%) Oracle Forms
10 2 (0.082%) Rational Rhapsody
10 2 (0.082%) Selenium
General
1 452 (18.50%) Social Skills
2 310 (12.69%) Finance
3 230 (9.41%) Public Sector
4 135 (5.53%) Banking
5 131 (5.36%) Analytical Skills
6 95 (3.89%) Retail
7 79 (3.23%) Manufacturing
8 52 (2.13%) Documentation Skills
9 51 (2.09%) Influencing Skills
10 34 (1.39%) Aerospace
10 34 (1.39%) Legal
11 30 (1.23%) Military
12 26 (1.06%) Telecoms
13 24 (0.98%) Financial Institution
14 21 (0.86%) Marketing
15 20 (0.82%) Back Office
15 20 (0.82%) Presentation Skills
16 18 (0.74%) Aviation
17 17 (0.70%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 16 (0.65%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 101 (4.13%) REST
2 73 (2.99%) Middleware
3 54 (2.21%) OAuth
4 40 (1.64%) Oracle Fusion
4 40 (1.64%) SOAP
5 37 (1.51%) OpenID
6 36 (1.47%) .NET
7 33 (1.35%) Kafka
8 32 (1.31%) SAML
9 29 (1.19%) SailPoint
10 27 (1.11%) OAuth2
11 20 (0.82%) JSON
12 19 (0.78%) RESTful
13 18 (0.74%) Node.js
14 15 (0.61%) LDAP
15 14 (0.57%) React
15 14 (0.57%) Web Services
16 12 (0.49%) GraphQL
17 11 (0.45%) JWT
17 11 (0.45%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 180 (7.37%) Cloud Native
2 84 (3.44%) Data Centre
3 74 (3.03%) Hybrid Cloud
4 71 (2.91%) Operational Technology
5 61 (2.50%) Product Ownership
6 57 (2.33%) Onboarding
7 55 (2.25%) Data Protection Act
7 55 (2.25%) Management Information System
8 54 (2.21%) Distributed Systems
9 53 (2.17%) Legacy Systems
10 50 (2.05%) Enterprise Software
11 41 (1.68%) Public Cloud
12 38 (1.56%) AI Agents
13 34 (1.39%) Private Cloud
14 27 (1.11%) Security Posture
15 25 (1.02%) PKI
16 22 (0.90%) Enterprise Cloud
16 22 (0.90%) IVR
16 22 (0.90%) SCADA
17 20 (0.82%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 86 (3.52%) Windows
2 50 (2.05%) Linux
3 33 (1.35%) Windows Server
4 13 (0.53%) Android
4 13 (0.53%) Apple iOS
4 13 (0.53%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 9 (0.37%) Unix
6 6 (0.25%) AIX
7 5 (0.20%) Data ONTAP
8 2 (0.082%) HPUX
8 2 (0.082%) Solaris
8 2 (0.082%) VMS
8 2 (0.082%) Windows Server 2019
9 1 (0.041%) CatOS
9 1 (0.041%) CentOS
9 1 (0.041%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.041%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.041%) Windows Server 2008
9 1 (0.041%) Windows Server 2016
9 1 (0.041%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 343 (14.04%) Roadmaps
2 331 (13.55%) Stakeholder Management
3 308 (12.61%) Agile
4 274 (11.22%) Migration
5 259 (10.60%) Technical Leadership
6 250 (10.23%) Enterprise Architecture
7 240 (9.82%) Integration Patterns
8 235 (9.62%) DevOps
9 219 (8.96%) AI
10 217 (8.88%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 216 (8.84%) CI/CD
11 216 (8.84%) Data Architecture
12 208 (8.51%) Data Modelling
13 203 (8.31%) Architectural Patterns
14 192 (7.86%) Cybersecurity
15 178 (7.29%) Security Architecture
16 172 (7.04%) TOGAF
17 162 (6.63%) Microservices
18 154 (6.30%) Problem-Solving
19 149 (6.10%) Architecture Governance
Programming Languages
1 93 (3.81%) Java
1 93 (3.81%) SQL
2 91 (3.72%) Python
3 55 (2.25%) JavaScript
4 41 (1.68%) PowerShell
5 23 (0.94%) Bash
6 20 (0.82%) C#
7 17 (0.70%) Bicep
8 12 (0.49%) TypeScript
9 8 (0.33%) Shell Script
10 7 (0.29%) ABAP
11 6 (0.25%) Apex Code
11 6 (0.25%) PL/SQL
11 6 (0.25%) VBA
12 5 (0.20%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 4 (0.16%) Kotlin
14 3 (0.12%) C
14 3 (0.12%) Groovy
15 2 (0.082%) C++
15 2 (0.082%) ProC
Qualifications
1 779 (31.89%) Security Cleared
2 489 (20.02%) SC Cleared
3 243 (9.95%) DV Cleared
4 80 (3.27%) Degree
5 56 (2.29%) Cisco Certification
5 56 (2.29%) CISSP
6 43 (1.76%) TOGAF Certification
7 41 (1.68%) BPSS Clearance
8 39 (1.60%) AWS Certification
8 39 (1.60%) Azure Certification
9 33 (1.35%) Computer Science Degree
10 30 (1.23%) CCNP
11 19 (0.78%) CISM
11 19 (0.78%) Microsoft Certification
12 18 (0.74%) CCNA
13 14 (0.57%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 14 (0.57%) CCIE
14 12 (0.49%) Network+ Certification
14 12 (0.49%) Server+ Certification
15 10 (0.41%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 92 (3.77%) NIST
2 74 (3.03%) Data Quality
3 61 (2.50%) NCSC
4 59 (2.42%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 57 (2.33%) GDPR
6 25 (1.02%) QA
7 20 (0.82%) Accessibility
8 18 (0.74%) PCI DSS
9 16 (0.65%) NIST 800
10 14 (0.57%) ISO/IEC 20000
11 13 (0.53%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 12 (0.49%) IFRS
13 10 (0.41%) Cyber Essentials
13 10 (0.41%) GRC
13 10 (0.41%) ISO 19650
14 9 (0.37%) Disclosure Scotland
14 9 (0.37%) HL7
14 9 (0.37%) JSP 440
15 8 (0.33%) SLA
16 6 (0.25%) COBIT
System Software
1 96 (3.93%) Active Directory
2 47 (1.92%) Docker
3 45 (1.84%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.11%) VMware NSX
5 21 (0.86%) Virtual Desktop
6 17 (0.70%) Hyper-V
7 13 (0.53%) vSphere
8 10 (0.41%) VMware ESXi
9 8 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
10 6 (0.25%) vCloud
11 3 (0.12%) EMC RecoverPoint
11 3 (0.12%) IAG
11 3 (0.12%) KVM
11 3 (0.12%) NFS
11 3 (0.12%) SRDF
12 2 (0.082%) Ceph
12 2 (0.082%) zsh
13 1 (0.041%) Firmware
13 1 (0.041%) Slurm Workload Manager
13 1 (0.041%) Snort
Systems Management
1 118 (4.83%) Kubernetes
2 88 (3.60%) Terraform
3 47 (1.92%) Ansible
4 32 (1.31%) Microsoft Intune
5 19 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
6 17 (0.70%) Grafana
7 15 (0.61%) vCenter Server
8 14 (0.57%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 13 (0.53%) Jamf Pro
9 13 (0.53%) Prometheus
10 9 (0.37%) Argo
11 8 (0.33%) FortiGate
12 6 (0.25%) CASB
13 5 (0.20%) Istio
13 5 (0.20%) MOM
13 5 (0.20%) NetBackup
14 4 (0.16%) EMC VPLEX
14 4 (0.16%) SnapMirror
14 4 (0.16%) WMI
15 3 (0.12%) SnapVault
Vendors
1 323 (13.22%) Microsoft
2 133 (5.44%) SAP
3 109 (4.46%) Oracle
4 99 (4.05%) ServiceNow
5 95 (3.89%) VMware
6 77 (3.15%) Databricks
7 76 (3.11%) Cisco
7 76 (3.11%) Google
8 47 (1.92%) Salesforce
9 28 (1.15%) F5
10 25 (1.02%) Citrix
10 25 (1.02%) Red Hat
11 24 (0.98%) Palo Alto
12 23 (0.94%) CyberArk
12 23 (0.94%) MuleSoft
13 18 (0.74%) BiZZdesign
13 18 (0.74%) Informatica
13 18 (0.74%) Juniper
14 17 (0.70%) IBM
14 17 (0.70%) Infoblox