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 28 August 2026.

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

6 months to
28 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 13 20 13
Rank change year-on-year +7 -7 +4
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 2,510 1,236 1,796
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 9.08% 8.07% 9.89%
As % of the Job Titles category 9.91% 8.96% 10.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,688 843 1,129
10th Percentile £470 £462 £479
25th Percentile £525 £519 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £600 £640
Median % change year-on-year +3.33% -6.25% -1.08%
75th Percentile £700 £688 £725
90th Percentile £775 £752 £788
UK median daily rate £615 £625 £646
% change year-on-year -1.60% -3.25% -0.62%
Number of hourly rates quoted 149 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 £95.00 £99.42 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £65.75 £72.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -9.31% +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 25,337 13,789 16,764
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.63% 90.06% 92.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,237 8,433 10,035
10th Percentile £303 £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 £650 £685
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.87%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,078 1,261 1,626
10th Percentile £14.54 £13.46 £13.85
25th Percentile £20.31 £16.32 £18.17
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% +7.50%
75th Percentile £68.00 £54.01 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £72.50 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +65.94% -41.51% -0.73%

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 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 28 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 28 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 0 732 £625 +4.17% 363
North of England +2 704 £600 - 383
Midlands +1 412 £626 +8.78% 178
North West +6 411 £600 +2.78% 222
South West +2 314 £650 +1.56% 217
West Midlands -1 299 £650 +8.33% 114
Yorkshire +10 230 £588 -4.08% 114
Scotland +21 166 £625 +0.60% 154
East of England +14 152 £604 +9.07% 109
East Midlands +3 106 £600 +16.50% 64
North East -5 65 £600 -14.29% 47
Wales +4 43 £633 +1.20% 19
Northern Ireland +5 4 £488 -30.36% 71
Channel Islands -3 4 £600 -19.19% 3
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 28 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.

1 835 (33.27%) Security Cleared
2 575 (22.91%) Azure
3 543 (21.63%) SC Cleared
4 449 (17.89%) AWS
5 379 (15.10%) Stakeholder Management
6 362 (14.42%) Roadmaps
7 346 (13.78%) Microsoft
8 312 (12.43%) Agile
9 294 (11.71%) Migration
10 291 (11.59%) Technical Leadership
11 290 (11.55%) Enterprise Architecture
12 252 (10.04%) DV Cleared
13 242 (9.64%) DevOps
14 237 (9.44%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 235 (9.36%) AI
16 229 (9.12%) Integration Patterns
17 222 (8.84%) CI/CD
18 221 (8.80%) Data Architecture
19 207 (8.25%) Data Modelling
20 206 (8.21%) Architectural Patterns
21 199 (7.93%) Cybersecurity
22 191 (7.61%) Security Architecture
23 185 (7.37%) TOGAF
24 179 (7.13%) GCP
25 163 (6.49%) Architecture Governance
26 161 (6.41%) Microservices
27 152 (6.06%) Event-Driven
28 145 (5.78%) Continuous Improvement
28 145 (5.78%) SAP
29 144 (5.74%) 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 (1.35%) SharePoint
2 32 (1.27%) SAS
3 31 (1.24%) Confluence
4 14 (0.56%) Microsoft Exchange
5 12 (0.48%) OpenStack
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 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 3 (0.12%) CMS
9 3 (0.12%) JBoss
9 3 (0.12%) NetWeaver
9 3 (0.12%) SAP EP
10 2 (0.080%) Alfresco
10 2 (0.080%) Apache Superset
11 1 (0.040%) CIMPLICITY
11 1 (0.040%) FactoryTalk
11 1 (0.040%) Red Hat Fuse
Applications
1 13 (0.52%) MS Visio
2 11 (0.44%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (0.36%) Microsoft Office
4 7 (0.28%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.28%) Navisworks
4 7 (0.28%) Revit
5 6 (0.24%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.040%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 71 (2.83%) SAP S/4HANA
2 13 (0.52%) Teamcenter
3 12 (0.48%) Payment Gateway
3 12 (0.48%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 8 (0.32%) Remedy ITSM
5 7 (0.28%) SAP ERP
6 6 (0.24%) Maximo
6 6 (0.24%) Oracle ERP
6 6 (0.24%) SAP MDG
7 5 (0.20%) Dynamics CRM
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%) Remedy AR System
9 3 (0.12%) Salesforce CRM
9 3 (0.12%) SAP GRC
9 3 (0.12%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 575 (22.91%) Azure
2 449 (17.89%) AWS
3 179 (7.13%) GCP
4 94 (3.75%) Power Platform
5 85 (3.39%) SaaS
6 80 (3.19%) Serverless
7 78 (3.11%) Entra ID
8 53 (2.11%) Microsoft 365
9 46 (1.83%) Dynamics 365
10 45 (1.79%) Azure DevOps
11 44 (1.75%) GitHub
12 41 (1.63%) PaaS
13 37 (1.47%) AWS Lambda
14 35 (1.39%) IaaS
15 30 (1.20%) GitHub Actions
15 30 (1.20%) OpenShift
16 28 (1.12%) Amazon S3
17 27 (1.08%) Snowflake
18 23 (0.92%) Azure Data Factory
19 21 (0.84%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 89 (3.55%) Firewall
2 61 (2.43%) WAN
3 56 (2.23%) DNS
4 49 (1.95%) Network Security
5 48 (1.91%) LAN
6 35 (1.39%) VPN
7 34 (1.35%) BGP
8 32 (1.27%) DHCP
9 31 (1.24%) SD-WAN
10 27 (1.08%) TCP/IP
11 25 (1.00%) VLAN
12 23 (0.92%) MPLS
12 23 (0.92%) SAN
13 20 (0.80%) NAS
14 17 (0.68%) Structured Cabling
15 16 (0.64%) OSPF
16 15 (0.60%) BIG-IP
17 14 (0.56%) Wireless
18 13 (0.52%) Cisco Nexus
19 11 (0.44%) NX-OS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 73 (2.91%) Metadata
2 71 (2.83%) Data Lake
3 65 (2.59%) Power BI
4 62 (2.47%) Data Warehouse
5 38 (1.51%) NoSQL
6 21 (0.84%) Azure SQL Database
7 20 (0.80%) Amazon RDS
8 19 (0.76%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
8 19 (0.76%) Oracle Database
8 19 (0.76%) SQL Server
9 16 (0.64%) Base SAS
10 15 (0.60%) PostgreSQL
11 14 (0.56%) BigQuery
12 13 (0.52%) Delta Lake
13 11 (0.44%) 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 36 (1.43%) JIRA
2 30 (1.20%) Git
3 22 (0.88%) Jenkins
4 13 (0.52%) GitLab
5 8 (0.32%) ERwin
6 6 (0.24%) Claude Code
6 6 (0.24%) Sonatype Nexus
7 5 (0.20%) Artifactory
7 5 (0.20%) MSI
8 4 (0.16%) Hudson
9 3 (0.12%) 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
1 482 (19.20%) Social Skills
2 313 (12.47%) Finance
3 254 (10.12%) Public Sector
4 129 (5.14%) Banking
5 121 (4.82%) Analytical Skills
6 104 (4.14%) Retail
7 92 (3.67%) Manufacturing
8 59 (2.35%) Documentation Skills
9 56 (2.23%) Influencing Skills
10 39 (1.55%) Aerospace
11 36 (1.43%) Legal
12 31 (1.24%) Military
13 29 (1.16%) Telecoms
14 22 (0.88%) Aviation
15 21 (0.84%) Marketing
16 20 (0.80%) Back Office
16 20 (0.80%) Financial Institution
16 20 (0.80%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 20 (0.80%) Presentation Skills
17 18 (0.72%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 97 (3.86%) REST
2 91 (3.63%) Terraform
3 74 (2.95%) Middleware
4 53 (2.11%) OAuth
5 45 (1.79%) SOAP
6 38 (1.51%) Oracle Fusion
7 36 (1.43%) .NET
8 34 (1.35%) SAML
9 33 (1.31%) Kafka
9 33 (1.31%) OpenID
10 23 (0.92%) JSON
10 23 (0.92%) OAuth2
11 21 (0.84%) LDAP
11 21 (0.84%) SailPoint
12 17 (0.68%) Node.js
13 15 (0.60%) GraphQL
13 15 (0.60%) RESTful
14 13 (0.52%) JWT
14 13 (0.52%) Swagger
15 12 (0.48%) FHIR
Miscellaneous
1 202 (8.05%) Cloud Native
2 81 (3.23%) Hybrid Cloud
3 80 (3.19%) Data Centre
4 62 (2.47%) Data Protection Act
4 62 (2.47%) Operational Technology
5 57 (2.27%) Distributed Systems
6 56 (2.23%) Legacy Systems
7 55 (2.19%) Product Ownership
8 54 (2.15%) Enterprise Software
9 52 (2.07%) Onboarding
10 51 (2.03%) Management Information System
11 42 (1.67%) Public Cloud
12 41 (1.63%) AI Agents
13 32 (1.27%) Private Cloud
14 30 (1.20%) CMDB
15 27 (1.08%) Enterprise Cloud
15 27 (1.08%) Security Posture
16 26 (1.04%) IVR
17 21 (0.84%) SCADA
18 20 (0.80%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 81 (3.23%) Windows
2 56 (2.23%) Linux
3 33 (1.31%) Windows Server
4 16 (0.64%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 9 (0.36%) Unix
6 6 (0.24%) AIX
7 4 (0.16%) Data ONTAP
8 2 (0.080%) Android
8 2 (0.080%) Apple iOS
8 2 (0.080%) HPUX
8 2 (0.080%) Solaris
8 2 (0.080%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.040%) CatOS
9 1 (0.040%) CentOS
9 1 (0.040%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.040%) VMS
9 1 (0.040%) Windows Server 2008
9 1 (0.040%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 379 (15.10%) Stakeholder Management
2 362 (14.42%) Roadmaps
3 312 (12.43%) Agile
4 294 (11.71%) Migration
5 291 (11.59%) Technical Leadership
6 290 (11.55%) Enterprise Architecture
7 242 (9.64%) DevOps
8 237 (9.44%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 235 (9.36%) AI
10 229 (9.12%) Integration Patterns
11 222 (8.84%) CI/CD
12 221 (8.80%) Data Architecture
13 207 (8.25%) Data Modelling
14 206 (8.21%) Architectural Patterns
15 199 (7.93%) Cybersecurity
16 191 (7.61%) Security Architecture
17 185 (7.37%) TOGAF
18 163 (6.49%) Architecture Governance
19 161 (6.41%) Microservices
20 152 (6.06%) Event-Driven
Programming Languages
1 98 (3.90%) Java
2 94 (3.75%) SQL
3 87 (3.47%) Python
4 48 (1.91%) JavaScript
5 44 (1.75%) PowerShell
6 23 (0.92%) Bash
7 15 (0.60%) Bicep
8 12 (0.48%) TypeScript
9 10 (0.40%) Shell Script
10 9 (0.36%) ABAP
10 9 (0.36%) C#
11 7 (0.28%) Apex Code
12 6 (0.24%) PL/SQL
12 6 (0.24%) VBA
13 5 (0.20%) Groovy
14 4 (0.16%) Kotlin
15 3 (0.12%) R
16 2 (0.080%) BeanShell
16 2 (0.080%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 2 (0.080%) Scala
Qualifications
1 835 (33.27%) Security Cleared
2 543 (21.63%) SC Cleared
3 252 (10.04%) DV Cleared
4 69 (2.75%) Degree
5 56 (2.23%) CISSP
6 53 (2.11%) Cisco Certification
7 48 (1.91%) BPSS Clearance
8 44 (1.75%) AWS Certification
9 43 (1.71%) Azure Certification
10 42 (1.67%) TOGAF Certification
11 31 (1.24%) Computer Science Degree
12 26 (1.04%) CCNP
13 22 (0.88%) CISM
14 19 (0.76%) Microsoft Certification
15 15 (0.60%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 14 (0.56%) CCIE
17 12 (0.48%) CCNA
18 11 (0.44%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
18 11 (0.44%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
19 10 (0.40%) CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 94 (3.75%) NIST
2 85 (3.39%) Data Quality
3 62 (2.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 61 (2.43%) NCSC
5 53 (2.11%) GDPR
6 22 (0.88%) QA
7 18 (0.72%) Accessibility
7 18 (0.72%) NIST 800
8 17 (0.68%) PCI DSS
9 15 (0.60%) ISO/IEC 20000
9 15 (0.60%) JSP 440
10 13 (0.52%) ISO 19650
11 11 (0.44%) GRC
11 11 (0.44%) IFRS
11 11 (0.44%) SLA
12 10 (0.40%) Disclosure Scotland
13 9 (0.36%) HL7
13 9 (0.36%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 7 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials
15 6 (0.24%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
System Software
1 90 (3.59%) Active Directory
2 48 (1.91%) Docker
3 46 (1.83%) VMware Infrastructure
4 26 (1.04%) Virtual Desktop
4 26 (1.04%) VMware NSX
5 18 (0.72%) Hyper-V
6 12 (0.48%) vSphere
7 11 (0.44%) VMware ESXi
8 9 (0.36%) Virtual Machines
9 5 (0.20%) vCloud
10 4 (0.16%) KVM
11 3 (0.12%) Ceph
11 3 (0.12%) EMC RecoverPoint
11 3 (0.12%) NFS
11 3 (0.12%) SRDF
12 2 (0.080%) zsh
13 1 (0.040%) Firmware
13 1 (0.040%) IAG
13 1 (0.040%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 1 (0.040%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 129 (5.14%) Kubernetes
2 50 (1.99%) Ansible
3 18 (0.72%) Microsoft Intune
3 18 (0.72%) Single Sign-On
4 16 (0.64%) Grafana
5 15 (0.60%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 13 (0.52%) Prometheus
7 12 (0.48%) Jamf Pro
7 12 (0.48%) vCenter Server
8 8 (0.32%) WMI
9 7 (0.28%) Argo
10 6 (0.24%) FortiGate
10 6 (0.24%) Istio
11 5 (0.20%) CASB
11 5 (0.20%) MOM
11 5 (0.20%) NetBackup
12 4 (0.16%) Cisco CUCM
12 4 (0.16%) EMC VPLEX
12 4 (0.16%) SnapMirror
13 3 (0.12%) SnapVault
Vendors
1 346 (13.78%) Microsoft
2 145 (5.78%) SAP
3 110 (4.38%) Oracle
4 97 (3.86%) ServiceNow
5 91 (3.63%) Google
6 84 (3.35%) VMware
7 80 (3.19%) Databricks
8 77 (3.07%) Cisco
9 50 (1.99%) Salesforce
10 27 (1.08%) MuleSoft
11 26 (1.04%) CyberArk
11 26 (1.04%) F5
12 23 (0.92%) Palo Alto
12 23 (0.92%) Red Hat
13 22 (0.88%) Informatica
14 21 (0.84%) IBM
15 17 (0.68%) Infoblox
15 17 (0.68%) Workday
16 14 (0.56%) Adobe
16 14 (0.56%) Sparx