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 16 September 2025.

The table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 21 13 17
Rank change year-on-year -8 +4 +4
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 1,210 1,705 1,829
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 7.89% 9.62% 8.45%
As % of the Job Titles category 8.78% 10.43% 8.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 823 1,033 1,277
10th Percentile £462 £469 £500
25th Percentile £519 £538 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £627 £638
Median % change year-on-year -4.31% -1.65% -
75th Percentile £691 £725 £700
90th Percentile £775 £788 £775
UK median daily rate £625 £630 £650
% change year-on-year -0.79% -3.08% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 67 51
10th Percentile £30.99 £60.00 £66.25
25th Percentile £56.62 £61.88 £70.00
Median hourly rate £71.25 £70.00 £75.00
Median % change year-on-year +1.79% -6.67% +25.00%
75th Percentile £81.88 £85.00 £80.00
90th Percentile £98.75 £90.00 £84.65
UK median hourly rate £70.00 £70.00 £71.09
% change year-on-year - -1.53% +8.53%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
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 13,778 16,349 20,418
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 89.85% 92.24% 94.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,464 9,485 13,633
10th Percentile £213 £220 £225
25th Percentile £361 £375 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - +0.50%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £600
90th Percentile £653 £680 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £530
% change year-on-year -4.76% -0.94% -3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,251 1,438 1,196
10th Percentile £13.46 £14.37 £14.00
25th Percentile £16.30 £19.50 £17.75
Median hourly rate £25.15 £45.00 £42.08
Median % change year-on-year -44.11% +6.95% +91.26%
75th Percentile £51.95 £66.61 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.16 £75.00 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £43.00 £43.86
% change year-on-year -41.51% -1.96% +68.69%

Architect
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Job postings that featured Architect in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Job vacancy trend for Architect 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 16 September 2025.

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 16 September 2025.

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 16 September 2025. 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 -1 352 £600 -7.69% 332
North of England -18 301 £600 -4.00% 183
Midlands -7 208 £575 -4.17% 157
North West -12 195 £575 -9.52% 113
South West -5 179 £650 - 106
West Midlands -6 141 £600 -4.84% 84
Yorkshire -28 91 £600 +3.45% 56
East of England -3 76 £555 -7.50% 84
Scotland -22 75 £625 -7.41% 71
East Midlands -5 66 £503 -8.64% 66
Wales +7 22 £625 +4.17% 20
North East -2 17 £713 +9.62% 16
Channel Islands - 6 £743 -
Northern Ireland -10 4 £663 +10.42% 22
Architect
UK

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the UK excluding London

For the 6 months to 16 September 2025, Architect contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the UK excluding London region featuring Architect in the job title.

1 392 (32.40%) Security Cleared
2 330 (27.27%) Social Skills
3 276 (22.81%) Azure
4 252 (20.83%) AWS
5 223 (18.43%) SC Cleared
6 210 (17.36%) Roadmaps
7 176 (14.55%) Agile
7 176 (14.55%) Microsoft
8 174 (14.38%) Finance
9 166 (13.72%) Problem-Solving
10 163 (13.47%) Stakeholder Management
11 152 (12.56%) Migration
12 139 (11.49%) Public Sector
13 137 (11.32%) DV Cleared
14 135 (11.16%) CI/CD
15 133 (10.99%) DevOps
16 132 (10.91%) Enterprise Architecture
17 130 (10.74%) TOGAF
18 109 (9.01%) Data Modelling
19 103 (8.51%) GCP
20 102 (8.43%) Stakeholder Engagement
21 101 (8.35%) Microservices
22 100 (8.26%) Technical Leadership
23 97 (8.02%) Artificial Intelligence
24 92 (7.60%) Windows
25 91 (7.52%) VMware
25 91 (7.52%) Analytical Skills
26 90 (7.44%) Cybersecurity
27 89 (7.36%) ITIL
28 85 (7.02%) Mentoring

Architect Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the UK excluding London by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 14 (1.16%) Apache Spark
2 11 (0.91%) SharePoint
3 10 (0.83%) ArcGIS
4 9 (0.74%) WebLogic
5 8 (0.66%) Apache Airflow
5 8 (0.66%) Confluence
6 7 (0.58%) Microsoft Exchange
6 7 (0.58%) SAS
6 7 (0.58%) WebSphere
7 6 (0.50%) OpenStack
8 4 (0.33%) Camunda
8 4 (0.33%) CICS
8 4 (0.33%) Documentum
8 4 (0.33%) ThingWorx
9 3 (0.25%) Oracle Spatial
9 3 (0.25%) Smallworld
10 2 (0.17%) Anypoint
10 2 (0.17%) CMS
10 2 (0.17%) NetWeaver
10 2 (0.17%) Tomcat
Applications
1 13 (1.07%) Siemens NX
2 11 (0.91%) MS Visio
3 4 (0.33%) Fusion 360
3 4 (0.33%) Revit
4 3 (0.25%) Microsoft Excel
4 3 (0.25%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.17%) Chatbot
5 2 (0.17%) Microsoft Office
5 2 (0.17%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.17%) Trello
6 1 (0.083%) FrameMaker
Business Applications
1 24 (1.98%) SAP S/4HANA
2 14 (1.16%) Dynamics CRM
3 13 (1.07%) Teamcenter
4 10 (0.83%) Maximo
4 10 (0.83%) Payment Gateway
4 10 (0.83%) SAP PM
5 7 (0.58%) SAP CO
6 6 (0.50%) SAP FI
6 6 (0.50%) SAP FI/CO
6 6 (0.50%) SAP HR
7 5 (0.41%) Workday HCM
8 4 (0.33%) Avolution ABACUS
8 4 (0.33%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 3 (0.25%) Magento
9 3 (0.25%) Oracle SCM
9 3 (0.25%) Sage 200
10 2 (0.17%) Dynamics AX
10 2 (0.17%) NetSuite
10 2 (0.17%) SAP CRM
10 2 (0.17%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 276 (22.81%) Azure
2 252 (20.83%) AWS
3 103 (8.51%) GCP
4 57 (4.71%) Serverless
5 54 (4.46%) SaaS
6 39 (3.22%) GitHub
7 38 (3.14%) AWS Lambda
8 36 (2.98%) Dynamics 365
9 34 (2.81%) Amazon S3
9 34 (2.81%) Power Platform
10 28 (2.31%) Azure DevOps
10 28 (2.31%) Microsoft 365
11 27 (2.23%) Entra ID
12 23 (1.90%) GitHub Actions
13 20 (1.65%) PaaS
14 18 (1.49%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 18 (1.49%) Salesforce Service Cloud
15 16 (1.32%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 16 (1.32%) Azure Data Factory
16 15 (1.24%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 64 (5.29%) Firewall
2 50 (4.13%) Network Security
3 43 (3.55%) WAN
4 39 (3.22%) LAN
5 25 (2.07%) VPN
6 24 (1.98%) SD-WAN
7 19 (1.57%) BGP
8 18 (1.49%) Fibre Channel
8 18 (1.49%) iSCSI
9 15 (1.24%) MPLS
10 11 (0.91%) Internet
10 11 (0.91%) SAN
11 10 (0.83%) VSAN
12 9 (0.74%) DNS
13 8 (0.66%) 4G
14 7 (0.58%) ATM
14 7 (0.58%) FTP
14 7 (0.58%) VoIP
15 6 (0.50%) IPsec
15 6 (0.50%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 36 (2.98%) NoSQL
2 33 (2.73%) PostgreSQL
3 32 (2.64%) Data Warehouse
4 27 (2.23%) MongoDB
5 25 (2.07%) Power BI
6 24 (1.98%) SQL Server
7 19 (1.57%) DynamoDB
8 18 (1.49%) Oracle Database
9 17 (1.40%) Metadata
10 16 (1.32%) Big Data
10 16 (1.32%) Relational Database
11 15 (1.24%) GIS
12 13 (1.07%) BigQuery
12 13 (1.07%) RDBMS
13 11 (0.91%) Data Lake
14 10 (0.83%) Amazon Aurora
14 10 (0.83%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 9 (0.74%) Amazon Redshift
15 9 (0.74%) Azure SQL Database
15 9 (0.74%) Redis
Development Applications
1 42 (3.47%) Jenkins
2 31 (2.56%) Git
3 30 (2.48%) JIRA
4 10 (0.83%) CircleCI
4 10 (0.83%) GitLab
5 8 (0.66%) Maven
6 7 (0.58%) Gradle
6 7 (0.58%) Oracle Forms
7 6 (0.50%) SonarQube
8 5 (0.41%) Rational DOORS
8 5 (0.41%) SonarLint
8 5 (0.41%) Storybook
9 4 (0.33%) MSI
10 3 (0.25%) Artifactory
10 3 (0.25%) Hudson
10 3 (0.25%) Sonatype Nexus
10 3 (0.25%) Visual Studio Code
11 2 (0.17%) ER Studio
11 2 (0.17%) Postman
11 2 (0.17%) SOAtest
General
1 330 (27.27%) Social Skills
2 174 (14.38%) Finance
3 139 (11.49%) Public Sector
4 91 (7.52%) Analytical Skills
5 82 (6.78%) Banking
6 36 (2.98%) Retail
7 35 (2.89%) Telecoms
8 29 (2.40%) Marketing
9 27 (2.23%) Manufacturing
10 26 (2.15%) Legal
11 23 (1.90%) Influencing Skills
12 22 (1.82%) Documentation Skills
12 22 (1.82%) Presentation Skills
13 17 (1.40%) Aerospace
14 13 (1.07%) Automotive
15 12 (0.99%) Military
16 11 (0.91%) Back Office
16 11 (0.91%) Pharmaceutical
17 10 (0.83%) Local Government
18 9 (0.74%) Electronics
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 40 (3.31%) Middleware
2 39 (3.22%) Kafka
3 34 (2.81%) .NET
4 31 (2.56%) RESTful
5 28 (2.31%) REST
6 26 (2.15%) Web Services
7 20 (1.65%) SOAP
8 16 (1.32%) Lightning Web Components
9 15 (1.24%) Spring Boot
9 15 (1.24%) Visualforce
10 14 (1.16%) GraphQL
11 13 (1.07%) React
11 13 (1.07%) SAP PI
12 10 (0.83%) .NET Framework
12 10 (0.83%) J2EE
13 9 (0.74%) Celery
13 9 (0.74%) SailPoint
14 8 (0.66%) Apache Beam
14 8 (0.66%) RabbitMQ
14 8 (0.66%) Spark Streaming
Miscellaneous
1 79 (6.53%) Cloud Native
2 61 (5.04%) Data Centre
2 61 (5.04%) Legacy Systems
3 44 (3.64%) Product Ownership
4 41 (3.39%) Hybrid Cloud
5 32 (2.64%) Onboarding
6 31 (2.56%) Operational Technology
7 28 (2.31%) SCADA
8 24 (1.98%) Enterprise Software
9 23 (1.90%) Management Information System
9 23 (1.90%) Security Posture
10 20 (1.65%) IoT
10 20 (1.65%) Public Cloud
11 18 (1.49%) Data Protection Act
12 16 (1.32%) CMDB
13 14 (1.16%) PKI
14 13 (1.07%) Mainframe
14 13 (1.07%) Security Operations Centre
15 12 (0.99%) Analytical Mindset
15 12 (0.99%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 92 (7.60%) Windows
2 52 (4.30%) Linux
3 33 (2.73%) Windows Server
4 22 (1.82%) Windows Server 2019
5 16 (1.32%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 14 (1.16%) Unix
7 10 (0.83%) Solaris
8 8 (0.66%) HPUX
8 8 (0.66%) Windows 10
9 6 (0.50%) Android
9 6 (0.50%) Apple iOS
10 4 (0.33%) Windows Server 2016
11 3 (0.25%) Mac OS
11 3 (0.25%) VMS
11 3 (0.25%) Windows Server 2008
12 2 (0.17%) Windows 7
12 2 (0.17%) zOS
13 1 (0.083%) MVS
13 1 (0.083%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 210 (17.36%) Roadmaps
2 176 (14.55%) Agile
3 166 (13.72%) Problem-Solving
4 163 (13.47%) Stakeholder Management
5 152 (12.56%) Migration
6 135 (11.16%) CI/CD
7 133 (10.99%) DevOps
8 132 (10.91%) Enterprise Architecture
9 130 (10.74%) TOGAF
10 109 (9.01%) Data Modelling
11 102 (8.43%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 101 (8.35%) Microservices
13 100 (8.26%) Technical Leadership
14 97 (8.02%) Artificial Intelligence
15 90 (7.44%) Cybersecurity
16 89 (7.36%) ITIL
17 85 (7.02%) Mentoring
18 83 (6.86%) Architectural Design
19 71 (5.87%) Analytics
19 71 (5.87%) Security Architecture
Programming Languages
1 77 (6.36%) Java
1 77 (6.36%) Python
2 73 (6.03%) SQL
3 25 (2.07%) PowerShell
4 21 (1.74%) C#
5 19 (1.57%) TypeScript
6 16 (1.32%) Apex Code
7 15 (1.24%) JavaScript
8 11 (0.91%) C++
9 9 (0.74%) Bicep
10 6 (0.50%) ABAP
10 6 (0.50%) C
11 5 (0.41%) R
11 5 (0.41%) Scala
12 4 (0.33%) Ada
12 4 (0.33%) Ruby
13 3 (0.25%) Bash
13 3 (0.25%) Magik
13 3 (0.25%) PHP
13 3 (0.25%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 392 (32.40%) Security Cleared
2 223 (18.43%) SC Cleared
3 137 (11.32%) DV Cleared
4 72 (5.95%) Degree
5 45 (3.72%) Azure Certification
6 41 (3.39%) CISSP
7 35 (2.89%) AWS Certification
8 34 (2.81%) Microsoft Certification
9 28 (2.31%) Computer Science Degree
10 27 (2.23%) Cisco Certification
11 23 (1.90%) Master's Degree
12 22 (1.82%) TOGAF Certification
13 18 (1.49%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 17 (1.40%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 17 (1.40%) MCSE
15 14 (1.16%) CCIE
16 12 (0.99%) BPSS Clearance
17 11 (0.91%) CISM
17 11 (0.91%) VCP5
17 11 (0.91%) VCP6
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 56 (4.63%) NIST
2 50 (4.13%) GDPR
3 49 (4.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 37 (3.06%) NCSC
5 32 (2.64%) Data Quality
6 25 (2.07%) ISO/IEC 20000
7 15 (1.24%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 13 (1.07%) PCI DSS
8 13 (1.07%) QA
9 9 (0.74%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 8 (0.66%) JSP 440
10 8 (0.66%) SLA
11 7 (0.58%) GRC
11 7 (0.58%) IEC 61508
12 6 (0.50%) Accessibility
12 6 (0.50%) NIST 800
13 5 (0.41%) EU AI Act
13 5 (0.41%) PSD2
13 5 (0.41%) SEPA
14 4 (0.33%) Def Stans
System Software
1 63 (5.21%) VMware Infrastructure
2 53 (4.38%) Active Directory
3 39 (3.22%) Docker
4 23 (1.90%) VMware ESXi
5 22 (1.82%) vSphere
6 18 (1.49%) NFS
7 10 (0.83%) Virtual Desktop
8 8 (0.66%) VMware NSX
9 4 (0.33%) Hyper-V
10 3 (0.25%) Dovecot
10 3 (0.25%) Postfix
11 2 (0.17%) KVM
11 2 (0.17%) Oracle RAC
11 2 (0.17%) Virtual Machines
12 1 (0.083%) Microsoft App-V
12 1 (0.083%) Slurm Workload Manager
12 1 (0.083%) SRDF
12 1 (0.083%) Veritas Cluster Server
12 1 (0.083%) Virtual Servers
12 1 (0.083%) Xen
Systems Management
1 72 (5.95%) Kubernetes
2 66 (5.45%) Terraform
3 27 (2.23%) Ansible
4 13 (1.07%) Prometheus
5 12 (0.99%) Grafana
5 12 (0.99%) Single Sign-On
6 9 (0.74%) Microsoft Intune
7 5 (0.41%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 5 (0.41%) vCenter Server
8 4 (0.33%) FortiGate
8 4 (0.33%) OPNET
8 4 (0.33%) SCCM
8 4 (0.33%) WMI
9 3 (0.25%) Control-M
10 2 (0.17%) Cisco CUCM
10 2 (0.17%) Data Guard
10 2 (0.17%) Kubeflow
10 2 (0.17%) Microsoft Clustering
10 2 (0.17%) Oracle RMAN
10 2 (0.17%) Puppet
Vendors
1 176 (14.55%) Microsoft
2 91 (7.52%) VMware
3 63 (5.21%) SAP
4 61 (5.04%) Oracle
5 57 (4.71%) Salesforce
6 53 (4.38%) Cisco
7 32 (2.64%) Splunk
8 30 (2.48%) Google
9 29 (2.40%) ServiceNow
10 20 (1.65%) Databricks
10 20 (1.65%) IBM
10 20 (1.65%) NetApp
11 19 (1.57%) Citrix
12 18 (1.49%) Juniper
13 17 (1.40%) Veeam
14 16 (1.32%) F5
14 16 (1.32%) Workday
15 15 (1.24%) Broadcom
15 15 (1.24%) MuleSoft
16 14 (1.16%) OpenAI