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 17 September 2026.

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

6 months to
17 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 2,580 1,215 1,710
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 9.15% 7.85% 9.60%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.02% 8.74% 10.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,738 827 1,034
10th Percentile £469 £461 £469
25th Percentile £525 £519 £538
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £600 £626
Median % change year-on-year +3.33% -4.15% -1.80%
75th Percentile £700 £688 £725
90th Percentile £769 £775 £788
UK median daily rate £620 £625 £630
% change year-on-year -0.80% -0.79% -3.08%
Number of hourly rates quoted 156 12 66
10th Percentile £46.00 £30.99 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £56.62 £62.50
Median hourly rate £66.58 £71.25 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -6.55% +1.79% -6.67%
75th Percentile £78.56 £81.88 £85.00
90th Percentile £96.00 £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 25,758 13,901 16,435
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.40% 89.86% 92.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,279 8,555 9,550
10th Percentile £304 £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 £660 £676
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,290 1,258 1,435
10th Percentile £14.25 £13.46 £14.33
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% +5.88%
75th Percentile £68.00 £52.50 £66.61
90th Percentile £78.75 £71.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% -2.01%

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 17 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 17 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 17 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 +3 745 £625 +4.17% 724
North of England +4 689 £598 -0.33% 685
Midlands +2 435 £626 +9.34% 374
North West +6 386 £600 +2.78% 396
South West +2 344 £638 -1.92% 294
West Midlands +1 321 £644 +7.51% 265
Yorkshire +10 240 £563 -6.25% 216
Scotland +24 178 £625 - 313
East of England +10 160 £622 +12.07% 203
East Midlands +7 109 £600 +18.81% 109
North East -2 64 £600 -15.79% 76
Wales +2 42 £633 +1.20% 34
Channel Islands -4 7 £700 -5.72% 3
Northern Ireland +1 2 - - 103
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 17 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.

1 897 (34.77%) Security Cleared
2 585 (22.67%) SC Cleared
3 578 (22.40%) Azure
4 472 (18.29%) Stakeholder Management
5 444 (17.21%) AWS
6 373 (14.46%) Roadmaps
7 363 (14.07%) Microsoft
8 355 (13.76%) Technical Leadership
9 313 (12.13%) Migration
10 308 (11.94%) Enterprise Architecture
11 296 (11.47%) Agile
12 282 (10.93%) DV Cleared
13 242 (9.38%) DevOps
14 240 (9.30%) Data Architecture
15 239 (9.26%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 231 (8.95%) AI
17 227 (8.80%) CI/CD
18 219 (8.49%) Integration Patterns
19 211 (8.18%) Data Modelling
20 204 (7.91%) Cybersecurity
20 204 (7.91%) Security Architecture
21 193 (7.48%) Architectural Patterns
22 191 (7.40%) TOGAF
23 186 (7.21%) Architecture Governance
24 183 (7.09%) GCP
25 168 (6.51%) Continuous Improvement
26 167 (6.47%) Microservices
27 156 (6.05%) Event-Driven
28 148 (5.74%) Problem-Solving
29 145 (5.62%) Decision-Making

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 (1.32%) SAS
2 32 (1.24%) SharePoint
3 27 (1.05%) 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 8 (0.31%) NetWeaver
9 7 (0.27%) Documentum
10 6 (0.23%) SAP EP
11 4 (0.16%) IIS
12 3 (0.12%) CMS
12 3 (0.12%) JBoss
13 2 (0.078%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 2 (0.078%) Alfresco
13 2 (0.078%) Apache Superset
14 1 (0.039%) Jupyter
14 1 (0.039%) Predix
Applications
1 10 (0.39%) Microsoft Excel
1 10 (0.39%) MS Visio
2 9 (0.35%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (0.27%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (0.27%) Navisworks
3 7 (0.27%) Revit
4 6 (0.23%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 69 (2.67%) SAP S/4HANA
2 12 (0.47%) Teamcenter
3 10 (0.39%) Payment Gateway
4 9 (0.35%) Remedy ITSM
4 9 (0.35%) SAP ERP
5 7 (0.27%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 6 (0.23%) Dynamics CRM
6 6 (0.23%) Maximo
6 6 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
6 6 (0.23%) SAP CRM
6 6 (0.23%) SAP MDG
7 5 (0.19%) Remedy AR System
8 4 (0.16%) NetSuite
8 4 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
8 4 (0.16%) Oracle Retail
9 3 (0.12%) Adobe Campaign
9 3 (0.12%) Dynamics NAV
9 3 (0.12%) Oracle Receivables
9 3 (0.12%) SAP IBP
9 3 (0.12%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 578 (22.40%) Azure
2 444 (17.21%) AWS
3 183 (7.09%) GCP
4 95 (3.68%) SaaS
5 91 (3.53%) Power Platform
6 70 (2.71%) Serverless
7 66 (2.56%) Entra ID
8 61 (2.36%) Microsoft 365
9 51 (1.98%) Dynamics 365
10 47 (1.82%) Azure DevOps
11 44 (1.71%) GitHub
12 38 (1.47%) PaaS
13 32 (1.24%) AWS Lambda
13 32 (1.24%) IaaS
14 30 (1.16%) Snowflake
15 27 (1.05%) Amazon S3
16 26 (1.01%) GitHub Actions
17 25 (0.97%) OpenShift
18 24 (0.93%) OCI
19 21 (0.81%) iPaaS
Communications & Networking
1 75 (2.91%) Firewall
2 56 (2.17%) WAN
3 55 (2.13%) DNS
4 49 (1.90%) Network Security
5 41 (1.59%) LAN
6 35 (1.36%) BGP
7 32 (1.24%) DHCP
8 30 (1.16%) MPLS
9 29 (1.12%) SD-WAN
9 29 (1.12%) VPN
10 27 (1.05%) TCP/IP
11 25 (0.97%) VLAN
12 21 (0.81%) SAN
13 18 (0.70%) NAS
14 17 (0.66%) BIG-IP
14 17 (0.66%) NX-OS
15 16 (0.62%) OSPF
16 15 (0.58%) Structured Cabling
16 15 (0.58%) Wireless
17 14 (0.54%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 85 (3.29%) Metadata
2 77 (2.98%) Data Lake
3 70 (2.71%) Data Warehouse
4 61 (2.36%) Power BI
5 33 (1.28%) NoSQL
6 22 (0.85%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
7 20 (0.78%) Amazon RDS
8 18 (0.70%) Azure SQL Database
9 17 (0.66%) BigQuery
9 17 (0.66%) Oracle Database
10 16 (0.62%) Base SAS
11 15 (0.58%) SQL Server
12 11 (0.43%) GIS
12 11 (0.43%) PostgreSQL
13 10 (0.39%) Amazon Redshift
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%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 35 (1.36%) Git
2 34 (1.32%) JIRA
3 22 (0.85%) Jenkins
4 18 (0.70%) GitLab
5 7 (0.27%) ERwin
5 7 (0.27%) MSI
6 6 (0.23%) Claude Code
7 5 (0.19%) Artifactory
7 5 (0.19%) Sonatype Nexus
8 4 (0.16%) Hudson
9 3 (0.12%) Rational DOORS
9 3 (0.12%) SonarQube
10 2 (0.078%) Bitbucket
10 2 (0.078%) Cypress.io
10 2 (0.078%) IntelliJ
10 2 (0.078%) JUnit
10 2 (0.078%) Oracle APEX
10 2 (0.078%) Oracle Forms
10 2 (0.078%) Rational Rhapsody
10 2 (0.078%) Selenium
General
1 543 (21.05%) Social Skills
2 307 (11.90%) Finance
3 264 (10.23%) Public Sector
4 125 (4.84%) Banking
5 122 (4.73%) Analytical Skills
6 115 (4.46%) Retail
7 92 (3.57%) Manufacturing
8 69 (2.67%) Influencing Skills
9 59 (2.29%) Documentation Skills
10 48 (1.86%) Aerospace
11 43 (1.67%) Legal
12 33 (1.28%) Military
12 33 (1.28%) Telecoms
13 27 (1.05%) Marketing
14 22 (0.85%) Aviation
15 20 (0.78%) Back Office
15 20 (0.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 18 (0.70%) Billing
17 17 (0.66%) Presentation Skills
18 16 (0.62%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 107 (4.15%) REST
2 87 (3.37%) Terraform
3 77 (2.98%) Middleware
4 54 (2.09%) SOAP
5 49 (1.90%) OAuth
6 41 (1.59%) Kafka
7 39 (1.51%) Oracle Fusion
8 38 (1.47%) LDAP
9 33 (1.28%) .NET
9 33 (1.28%) SAML
10 30 (1.16%) OpenID
11 29 (1.12%) JSON
12 20 (0.78%) OAuth2
13 19 (0.74%) SailPoint
14 18 (0.70%) Node.js
15 16 (0.62%) GraphQL
15 16 (0.62%) SAP Fiori
16 15 (0.58%) JWT
16 15 (0.58%) Swagger
16 15 (0.58%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 195 (7.56%) Cloud Native
2 85 (3.29%) Data Centre
3 78 (3.02%) Hybrid Cloud
4 65 (2.52%) Distributed Systems
4 65 (2.52%) Operational Technology
5 64 (2.48%) Onboarding
6 62 (2.40%) Data Protection Act
6 62 (2.40%) Product Ownership
7 60 (2.33%) Enterprise Software
7 60 (2.33%) Legacy Systems
8 51 (1.98%) Management Information System
9 42 (1.63%) Public Cloud
10 40 (1.55%) AI Agents
11 39 (1.51%) Private Cloud
12 36 (1.40%) CMDB
13 27 (1.05%) Enterprise Cloud
13 27 (1.05%) IVR
14 25 (0.97%) Security Posture
15 24 (0.93%) PKI
16 20 (0.78%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 86 (3.33%) Windows
2 57 (2.21%) Linux
3 35 (1.36%) 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 (18.29%) Stakeholder Management
2 373 (14.46%) Roadmaps
3 355 (13.76%) Technical Leadership
4 313 (12.13%) Migration
5 308 (11.94%) Enterprise Architecture
6 296 (11.47%) Agile
7 242 (9.38%) DevOps
8 240 (9.30%) Data Architecture
9 239 (9.26%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 231 (8.95%) AI
11 227 (8.80%) CI/CD
12 219 (8.49%) Integration Patterns
13 211 (8.18%) Data Modelling
14 204 (7.91%) Cybersecurity
14 204 (7.91%) Security Architecture
15 193 (7.48%) Architectural Patterns
16 191 (7.40%) TOGAF
17 186 (7.21%) Architecture Governance
18 168 (6.51%) Continuous Improvement
19 167 (6.47%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 100 (3.88%) Java
2 92 (3.57%) SQL
3 91 (3.53%) Python
4 50 (1.94%) PowerShell
5 48 (1.86%) JavaScript
6 26 (1.01%) Bash
7 15 (0.58%) ABAP
8 13 (0.50%) TypeScript
9 10 (0.39%) Shell Script
10 9 (0.35%) Apex Code
10 9 (0.35%) Bicep
11 7 (0.27%) C#
12 6 (0.23%) PL/SQL
12 6 (0.23%) VBA
13 5 (0.19%) 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
1 897 (34.77%) Security Cleared
2 585 (22.67%) SC Cleared
3 282 (10.93%) DV Cleared
4 70 (2.71%) Degree
5 64 (2.48%) CISSP
6 60 (2.33%) Cisco Certification
7 57 (2.21%) BPSS Clearance
8 43 (1.67%) AWS Certification
9 42 (1.63%) TOGAF Certification
10 41 (1.59%) Azure Certification
11 32 (1.24%) Computer Science Degree
12 28 (1.09%) CCNP
13 22 (0.85%) CISM
14 19 (0.74%) CCIE
14 19 (0.74%) Microsoft Certification
15 18 (0.70%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 14 (0.54%) JNCIE
17 12 (0.47%) CCSP
17 12 (0.47%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
18 11 (0.43%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 101 (3.91%) NIST
2 86 (3.33%) Data Quality
3 76 (2.95%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 58 (2.25%) NCSC
5 48 (1.86%) GDPR
6 29 (1.12%) QA
7 19 (0.74%) PCI DSS
8 17 (0.66%) GRC
8 17 (0.66%) JSP 440
9 16 (0.62%) NIST 800
10 15 (0.58%) Accessibility
10 15 (0.58%) ISO/IEC 20000
11 13 (0.50%) ISO 19650
12 11 (0.43%) Disclosure Scotland
12 11 (0.43%) IFRS
12 11 (0.43%) SLA
13 9 (0.35%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 7 (0.27%) Cyber Essentials
15 6 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
15 6 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 27005
System Software
1 102 (3.95%) Active Directory
2 50 (1.94%) VMware Infrastructure
3 48 (1.86%) Docker
4 30 (1.16%) VMware NSX
5 23 (0.89%) Virtual Desktop
6 15 (0.58%) 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%) NFS
10 3 (0.12%) SRDF
10 3 (0.12%) vCloud
11 2 (0.078%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 2 (0.078%) Virtual Servers
11 2 (0.078%) zsh
12 1 (0.039%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 133 (5.16%) Kubernetes
2 56 (2.17%) Ansible
3 19 (0.74%) Microsoft Intune
4 18 (0.70%) Single Sign-On
5 14 (0.54%) Grafana
6 13 (0.50%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 13 (0.50%) Prometheus
7 12 (0.47%) Jamf Pro
8 10 (0.39%) WMI
9 9 (0.35%) vCenter Server
10 7 (0.27%) CASB
10 7 (0.27%) FortiGate
11 6 (0.23%) Argo
11 6 (0.23%) Istio
12 5 (0.19%) NetBackup
13 4 (0.16%) Cisco CUCM
13 4 (0.16%) EMC VPLEX
13 4 (0.16%) SnapMirror
14 3 (0.12%) EMC NetWorker
14 3 (0.12%) SnapVault
Vendors
1 363 (14.07%) Microsoft
2 139 (5.39%) SAP
3 112 (4.34%) Oracle
4 105 (4.07%) Google
5 100 (3.88%) ServiceNow
6 90 (3.49%) VMware
7 85 (3.29%) Cisco
8 81 (3.14%) Databricks
9 58 (2.25%) Salesforce
10 44 (1.71%) CyberArk
11 34 (1.32%) MuleSoft
12 29 (1.12%) F5
13 24 (0.93%) IBM
14 23 (0.89%) Informatica
15 22 (0.85%) Red Hat
16 21 (0.81%) Palo Alto
17 20 (0.78%) Workday
18 19 (0.74%) Infoblox
19 16 (0.62%) Fortinet
19 16 (0.62%) Foundry