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 28 January 2026.

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

 6 months to
28 Jan 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 17 14
Rank change year-on-year 0 -3 +6
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 1,800 1,250 1,895
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 9.43% 9.16% 9.26%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.40% 9.90% 9.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,220 763 1,225
10th Percentile £447 £463 £500
25th Percentile £506 £550 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -4.00% -3.85% -
75th Percentile £705 £700 £700
90th Percentile £775 £750 £775
UK median daily rate £625 £625 £650
% change year-on-year - -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 41 26 40
10th Percentile £49.40 £61.50 £61.13
25th Percentile £60.00 £66.00 £67.81
Median hourly rate £80.00 £71.25 £79.37
Median % change year-on-year +12.28% -10.23% +13.39%
75th Percentile £90.09 £77.65 £87.53
90th Percentile £95.00 £84.02 £95.00
UK median hourly rate £76.67 £70.00 £77.27
% change year-on-year +9.53% -9.40% +10.38%

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 17,306 12,622 19,122
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.71% 92.47% 93.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,576 7,457 12,114
10th Percentile £213 £210 £213
25th Percentile £375 £363 £373
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £477 £495
Median % change year-on-year -0.42% -3.64% -1.00%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,774 670 1,753
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.25 £13.08
25th Percentile £17.87 £20.30 £16.30
Median hourly rate £27.50 £30.98 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -11.23% -22.56% +33.33%
75th Percentile £61.18 £64.01 £63.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £73.75 £74.00
UK median hourly rate £29.60 £32.50 £37.50
% change year-on-year -8.92% -13.33% +7.14%

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 January 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 January 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 January 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 +10 564 £613 -2.00% 294
North of England -4 443 £570 -5.00% 194
Midlands -3 317 £575 -4.17% 90
North West -5 262 £575 -4.17% 104
South West 0 247 £710 +13.60% 91
West Midlands -2 227 £600 -1.15% 50
Yorkshire -6 169 £554 -5.54% 63
East of England +10 124 £528 -15.50% 88
Scotland +5 105 £650 +4.00% 71
East Midlands -4 88 £500 -13.04% 39
Wales +1 31 £625 +2.04% 32
North East -26 12 £575 -7.89% 27
Northern Ireland -10 5 £500 -16.67% 14
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 28 January 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.

1 594 (33.00%) Security Cleared
2 389 (21.61%) Azure
3 349 (19.39%) SC Cleared
4 294 (16.33%) AWS
5 280 (15.56%) Roadmaps
6 266 (14.78%) Agile
7 261 (14.50%) Microsoft
8 247 (13.72%) Stakeholder Management
9 226 (12.56%) Enterprise Architecture
10 225 (12.50%) Migration
11 221 (12.28%) TOGAF
12 191 (10.61%) DV Cleared
13 174 (9.67%) DevOps
14 173 (9.61%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 161 (8.94%) Data Modelling
16 158 (8.78%) Technical Leadership
17 139 (7.72%) ITIL
18 138 (7.67%) CI/CD
19 135 (7.50%) Problem-Solving
20 127 (7.06%) GCP
21 122 (6.78%) Architectural Design
21 122 (6.78%) Python
22 121 (6.72%) Cybersecurity
22 121 (6.72%) Microservices
23 120 (6.67%) Analytics
24 117 (6.50%) AI
25 114 (6.33%) Mentoring
26 109 (6.06%) Windows
27 108 (6.00%) ServiceNow
28 106 (5.89%) 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 80 (4.44%) Confluence
2 50 (2.78%) SharePoint
3 45 (2.50%) Microsoft Exchange
4 16 (0.89%) SAS
5 11 (0.61%) Anypoint
6 9 (0.50%) ArcGIS
6 9 (0.50%) Smallworld
7 8 (0.44%) CMS
8 7 (0.39%) OpenStack
8 7 (0.39%) Skype for Business
9 6 (0.33%) Appian
10 5 (0.28%) Apache
10 5 (0.28%) GeoServer
10 5 (0.28%) WebLogic
11 4 (0.22%) Documentum
11 4 (0.22%) Ethereum
11 4 (0.22%) Hyperledger
11 4 (0.22%) IIS
11 4 (0.22%) Tomcat
12 3 (0.17%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 42 (2.33%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (1.72%) Microsoft Project
3 23 (1.28%) Microsoft Excel
4 22 (1.22%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.39%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.17%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.056%) FrameMaker
7 1 (0.056%) OrCAD
7 1 (0.056%) Revit
7 1 (0.056%) Siemens NX
7 1 (0.056%) Trello
Business Applications
1 55 (3.06%) SAP S/4HANA
2 26 (1.44%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 14 (0.78%) Dynamics CRM
3 14 (0.78%) Workday HCM
4 12 (0.67%) Payment Gateway
5 11 (0.61%) SAP CO
6 10 (0.56%) Salesforce CRM
6 10 (0.56%) SAP FI
6 10 (0.56%) SAP FI/CO
7 6 (0.33%) Maximo
7 6 (0.33%) SAP PM
8 5 (0.28%) Dynamics AX
8 5 (0.28%) Oracle SCM
9 4 (0.22%) Distributed Ledger
9 4 (0.22%) NetSuite
9 4 (0.22%) R3 Corda
9 4 (0.22%) SAP ERP
9 4 (0.22%) SAP PP
10 3 (0.17%) SAP CRM
10 3 (0.17%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 389 (21.61%) Azure
2 294 (16.33%) AWS
3 127 (7.06%) GCP
4 79 (4.39%) Microsoft 365
5 64 (3.56%) SaaS
6 59 (3.28%) Entra ID
7 53 (2.94%) Serverless
8 47 (2.61%) Power Platform
9 45 (2.50%) Microsoft Purview
10 37 (2.06%) Dynamics 365
11 36 (2.00%) Azure DevOps
12 33 (1.83%) OneDrive
13 32 (1.78%) AWS Lambda
13 32 (1.78%) PaaS
14 29 (1.61%) IaaS
15 26 (1.44%) GitHub
15 26 (1.44%) OpenShift
16 24 (1.33%) AWS CloudFormation
17 22 (1.22%) Azure Data Factory
18 21 (1.17%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 93 (5.17%) Firewall
2 68 (3.78%) WAN
3 54 (3.00%) DNS
4 47 (2.61%) VPN
5 42 (2.33%) LAN
6 38 (2.11%) Network Security
6 38 (2.11%) SD-WAN
7 22 (1.22%) BGP
7 22 (1.22%) MPLS
8 19 (1.06%) DHCP
9 17 (0.94%) SAN
9 17 (0.94%) Wi-Fi
10 13 (0.72%) Internet
10 13 (0.72%) VSAN
11 12 (0.67%) IPsec
11 12 (0.67%) VLAN
12 10 (0.56%) Skype
13 9 (0.50%) OSPF
13 9 (0.50%) Wireless
14 8 (0.44%) Cisco ASA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 63 (3.50%) Data Warehouse
2 48 (2.67%) Metadata
3 37 (2.06%) Power BI
4 31 (1.72%) SQL Server
5 29 (1.61%) PostgreSQL
6 27 (1.50%) Tableau
7 22 (1.22%) DynamoDB
8 21 (1.17%) NoSQL
9 17 (0.94%) GIS
10 15 (0.83%) Data Lake
10 15 (0.83%) Oracle Database
10 15 (0.83%) Redis
11 14 (0.78%) Relational Database
12 10 (0.56%) Amazon Aurora
12 10 (0.56%) Amazon Redshift
12 10 (0.56%) Azure SQL Database
12 10 (0.56%) RDBMS
13 9 (0.50%) BigQuery
13 9 (0.50%) Metadata Repository
14 8 (0.44%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 95 (5.28%) JIRA
2 45 (2.50%) Jenkins
3 27 (1.50%) Git
4 14 (0.78%) GitLab
5 8 (0.44%) SonarQube
6 7 (0.39%) Artifactory
7 5 (0.28%) Gradle
7 5 (0.28%) Maven
7 5 (0.28%) MSI
7 5 (0.28%) Postman
7 5 (0.28%) SonarLint
8 4 (0.22%) Rational DOORS
9 3 (0.17%) Bitbucket
9 3 (0.17%) MLflow
9 3 (0.17%) Selenium
10 2 (0.11%) Cucumber
10 2 (0.11%) Gatling
10 2 (0.11%) NeoLoad
10 2 (0.11%) Sonatype Nexus
10 2 (0.11%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 405 (22.50%) Social Skills
2 227 (12.61%) Finance
3 217 (12.06%) Public Sector
4 126 (7.00%) Analytical Skills
5 102 (5.67%) Banking
6 53 (2.94%) Military
7 49 (2.72%) Documentation Skills
8 48 (2.67%) Legal
9 42 (2.33%) Retail
10 40 (2.22%) Telecoms
11 38 (2.11%) Marketing
12 37 (2.06%) Influencing Skills
13 33 (1.83%) Presentation Skills
14 19 (1.06%) Manufacturing
15 17 (0.94%) Aerospace
16 12 (0.67%) Billing
17 11 (0.61%) Investment Banking
18 10 (0.56%) Back Office
18 10 (0.56%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 10 (0.56%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 70 (3.89%) REST
2 47 (2.61%) Middleware
3 45 (2.50%) SOAP
4 37 (2.06%) .NET
5 30 (1.67%) OAuth
6 26 (1.44%) RESTful
7 23 (1.28%) SAML
8 22 (1.22%) OpenID
9 21 (1.17%) OAuth2
10 19 (1.06%) SailPoint
11 18 (1.00%) Web Services
12 17 (0.94%) Kafka
12 17 (0.94%) Spring Boot
13 15 (0.83%) Node.js
14 12 (0.67%) LDAP
14 12 (0.67%) React
15 11 (0.61%) Microsoft Graph
15 11 (0.61%) Oracle Fusion
15 11 (0.61%) Spring
15 11 (0.61%) Visualforce
Miscellaneous
1 117 (6.50%) Cloud Native
2 98 (5.44%) Product Ownership
3 69 (3.83%) Data Centre
4 54 (3.00%) Onboarding
5 49 (2.72%) Legacy Systems
6 47 (2.61%) PKI
7 40 (2.22%) Hybrid Cloud
8 38 (2.11%) Public Cloud
9 36 (2.00%) Operational Technology
10 28 (1.56%) Distributed Systems
11 25 (1.39%) CMDB
11 25 (1.39%) Management Information System
12 24 (1.33%) Enterprise Software
12 24 (1.33%) SCADA
13 20 (1.11%) Data Protection Act
14 18 (1.00%) NHS
15 14 (0.78%) Data Structures
15 14 (0.78%) Security Posture
16 13 (0.72%) IVR
17 12 (0.67%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 109 (6.06%) Windows
2 66 (3.67%) Linux
3 28 (1.56%) Windows Server
4 18 (1.00%) Windows 7
5 14 (0.78%) Windows 10
6 12 (0.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 10 (0.56%) Windows Server 2019
8 9 (0.50%) Windows Server 2016
9 5 (0.28%) Unix
10 4 (0.22%) Mac OS
10 4 (0.22%) VMS
11 3 (0.17%) Ubuntu
11 3 (0.17%) Windows Server 2008
12 2 (0.11%) Solaris
12 2 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.11%) zOS
13 1 (0.056%) CentOS
13 1 (0.056%) Kali Linux
13 1 (0.056%) MVS
Processes & Methodologies
1 280 (15.56%) Roadmaps
2 266 (14.78%) Agile
3 247 (13.72%) Stakeholder Management
4 226 (12.56%) Enterprise Architecture
5 225 (12.50%) Migration
6 221 (12.28%) TOGAF
7 174 (9.67%) DevOps
8 173 (9.61%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 161 (8.94%) Data Modelling
10 158 (8.78%) Technical Leadership
11 139 (7.72%) ITIL
12 138 (7.67%) CI/CD
13 135 (7.50%) Problem-Solving
14 122 (6.78%) Architectural Design
15 121 (6.72%) Cybersecurity
15 121 (6.72%) Microservices
16 120 (6.67%) Analytics
17 117 (6.50%) AI
18 114 (6.33%) Mentoring
19 106 (5.89%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 122 (6.78%) Python
2 71 (3.94%) Java
3 70 (3.89%) PowerShell
4 63 (3.50%) SQL
5 26 (1.44%) JavaScript
6 17 (0.94%) C#
7 12 (0.67%) Bash
8 11 (0.61%) Apex Code
9 10 (0.56%) PL/SQL
10 9 (0.50%) Bicep
10 9 (0.50%) Kusto Query Language
11 8 (0.44%) R
11 8 (0.44%) TypeScript
12 7 (0.39%) VB
12 7 (0.39%) VBScript
13 6 (0.33%) ABAP
14 4 (0.22%) C
14 4 (0.22%) C++
14 4 (0.22%) Perl
14 4 (0.22%) Scala
Qualifications
1 594 (33.00%) Security Cleared
2 349 (19.39%) SC Cleared
3 191 (10.61%) DV Cleared
4 98 (5.44%) Degree
5 72 (4.00%) TOGAF Certification
6 60 (3.33%) CISSP
7 49 (2.72%) AWS Certification
8 39 (2.17%) BPSS Clearance
9 37 (2.06%) Azure Certification
10 34 (1.89%) CISM
11 33 (1.83%) Cisco Certification
12 29 (1.61%) Microsoft Certification
13 28 (1.56%) Computer Science Degree
14 27 (1.50%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 25 (1.39%) ISEB
16 24 (1.33%) ITIL Certification
17 23 (1.28%) CCIE
17 23 (1.28%) Master's Degree
18 17 (0.94%) CCNP
19 9 (0.50%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 93 (5.17%) GDPR
2 77 (4.28%) NIST
3 64 (3.56%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 55 (3.06%) Data Quality
5 40 (2.22%) NCSC
6 31 (1.72%) PCI DSS
7 28 (1.56%) COBIT
8 20 (1.11%) JSP 440
9 18 (1.00%) GRC
9 18 (1.00%) QA
10 12 (0.67%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 12 (0.67%) Cyber Essentials
11 11 (0.61%) ISO 20022
12 10 (0.56%) FINRA
12 10 (0.56%) MiFID
13 9 (0.50%) Def Stans
13 9 (0.50%) HMG Security Policy Framework
13 9 (0.50%) ISO/IEC 20000
14 8 (0.44%) Accessibility
15 7 (0.39%) HIPAA
System Software
1 78 (4.33%) Active Directory
2 55 (3.06%) VMware Infrastructure
3 43 (2.39%) Docker
4 26 (1.44%) VMware NSX
5 20 (1.11%) vSphere
6 14 (0.78%) VMware ESXi
7 13 (0.72%) Virtual Desktop
8 11 (0.61%) Hyper-V
9 9 (0.50%) Virtual Machines
10 7 (0.39%) BitLocker
11 5 (0.28%) NFS
12 4 (0.22%) vCloud
13 2 (0.11%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
13 2 (0.11%) KVM
13 2 (0.11%) RACF
14 1 (0.056%) Embedded Firmware
14 1 (0.056%) HDFS
14 1 (0.056%) SRDF
14 1 (0.056%) Veritas Cluster Server
14 1 (0.056%) Xen
Systems Management
1 85 (4.72%) Terraform
2 76 (4.22%) Kubernetes
3 54 (3.00%) Ansible
4 33 (1.83%) OPNET
4 33 (1.83%) Single Sign-On
5 22 (1.22%) vCenter Server
6 19 (1.06%) SCCM
7 17 (0.94%) WMI
8 15 (0.83%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 12 (0.67%) Microsoft Intune
10 10 (0.56%) FortiGate
11 7 (0.39%) Argo
12 6 (0.33%) Prometheus
13 4 (0.22%) Istio
14 3 (0.17%) Endace
14 3 (0.17%) Puppet
15 2 (0.11%) Nessus
15 2 (0.11%) SCOM
15 2 (0.11%) vRealize
15 2 (0.11%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 261 (14.50%) Microsoft
2 108 (6.00%) ServiceNow
3 104 (5.78%) SAP
4 102 (5.67%) VMware
5 90 (5.00%) Salesforce
6 83 (4.61%) Oracle
7 65 (3.61%) Cisco
8 38 (2.11%) Google
9 36 (2.00%) Atlassian
10 35 (1.94%) Remedy
11 34 (1.89%) MuleSoft
12 32 (1.78%) Palo Alto
13 28 (1.56%) Red Hat
14 26 (1.44%) BiZZdesign
15 25 (1.39%) CyberArk
15 25 (1.39%) Sparx
16 23 (1.28%) Databricks
17 22 (1.22%) Virgin Media
18 20 (1.11%) Workday
19 19 (1.06%) Juniper
852 Architect jobs in the UK excluding London