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 29 November 2025.

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

6 months to
29 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 20 14 18
Rank change year-on-year -6 +4 +5
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 1,517 1,464 1,724
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 8.55% 8.98% 8.43%
As % of the Job Titles category 9.51% 9.72% 9.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,049 897 1,192
10th Percentile £462 £468 £500
25th Percentile £519 £538 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £625 £630
Median % change year-on-year -4.00% -0.79% -3.08%
75th Percentile £700 £713 £700
90th Percentile £775 £775 £750
UK median daily rate £625 £625 £650
% change year-on-year - -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 27 19 35
10th Percentile £66.25 £61.50 £61.25
25th Percentile £77.55 £63.13 £72.50
Median hourly rate £85.00 £67.50 £76.53
Median % change year-on-year +25.93% -11.80% +9.33%
75th Percentile £95.00 £83.18 £81.56
90th Percentile £98.50 £88.00 £91.75
UK median hourly rate £85.00 £68.75 £75.67
% change year-on-year +23.64% -9.14% +8.10%

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 15,959 15,068 19,162
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 89.96% 92.39% 93.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,868 8,671 12,572
10th Percentile £208 £213 £213
25th Percentile £363 £373 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £494 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -1.20% -
75th Percentile £575 £594 £600
90th Percentile £675 £680 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,567 1,012 1,261
10th Percentile £13.80 £15.10 £14.42
25th Percentile £17.30 £20.00 £18.50
Median hourly rate £25.15 £33.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -23.79% -25.84% +78.00%
75th Percentile £57.50 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £71.47 £73.48 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £44.50
% change year-on-year -28.14% -21.35% +48.33%

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 29 November 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 29 November 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 29 November 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 +3 483 £600 -4.00% 326
North of England -7 369 £600 -3.23% 71
South West 0 251 £693 +6.54% 83
Midlands -7 229 £575 -4.17% 87
North West -9 219 £598 -3.63% 38
West Midlands -9 168 £600 - 60
Yorkshire -17 131 £613 +4.26% 22
Scotland -8 91 £600 -4.00% 37
East of England -5 83 £553 -7.92% 45
East Midlands +1 61 £500 -13.04% 26
Wales -1 23 £625 +0.40% 12
North East -4 20 £700 +12.13% 11
Northern Ireland -7 6 £550 -8.33% 7
Channel Islands - 6 £743 -
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 29 November 2025, 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.

1 578 (38.10%) Security Cleared
2 373 (24.59%) Azure
3 345 (22.74%) SC Cleared
4 306 (20.17%) AWS
5 255 (16.81%) Roadmaps
6 227 (14.96%) Stakeholder Management
7 215 (14.17%) Microsoft
8 214 (14.11%) Agile
9 202 (13.32%) TOGAF
10 177 (11.67%) DV Cleared
11 174 (11.47%) Enterprise Architecture
12 172 (11.34%) Migration
13 167 (11.01%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 152 (10.02%) Problem-Solving
15 145 (9.56%) ITIL
16 143 (9.43%) Technical Leadership
17 140 (9.23%) CI/CD
17 140 (9.23%) Data Modelling
18 132 (8.70%) DevOps
19 130 (8.57%) GCP
20 118 (7.78%) AI
21 113 (7.45%) Mentoring
22 112 (7.38%) Cybersecurity
23 111 (7.32%) Microservices
24 110 (7.25%) VMware
25 106 (6.99%) Python
26 102 (6.72%) Architectural Design
26 102 (6.72%) Terraform
27 97 (6.39%) Degree
28 96 (6.33%) Analytics

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 56 (3.69%) Confluence
2 25 (1.65%) SharePoint
3 19 (1.25%) Microsoft Exchange
4 18 (1.19%) SAS
5 13 (0.86%) ArcGIS
6 9 (0.59%) WebLogic
7 7 (0.46%) Smallworld
8 6 (0.40%) OpenStack
9 5 (0.33%) WebSphere
10 4 (0.26%) Apache Airflow
10 4 (0.26%) Documentum
11 3 (0.20%) Apache Spark
11 3 (0.20%) GeoServer
11 3 (0.20%) Skype for Business
12 2 (0.13%) Ethereum
12 2 (0.13%) Mule
12 2 (0.13%) Oracle Coherence
12 2 (0.13%) SAP EP
12 2 (0.13%) ThingWorx
12 2 (0.13%) Tomcat
Applications
1 32 (2.11%) Microsoft Office
2 24 (1.58%) Microsoft Project
3 11 (0.73%) Microsoft Excel
4 10 (0.66%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.66%) MS Visio
4 10 (0.66%) Siemens NX
5 1 (0.066%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.066%) FrameMaker
5 1 (0.066%) Fusion 360
5 1 (0.066%) Revit
5 1 (0.066%) Trello
Business Applications
1 38 (2.50%) SAP S/4HANA
2 19 (1.25%) Dynamics CRM
3 16 (1.05%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 12 (0.79%) Maximo
4 12 (0.79%) Payment Gateway
4 12 (0.79%) Workday HCM
5 11 (0.73%) SAP CO
6 10 (0.66%) SAP FI
6 10 (0.66%) SAP FI/CO
6 10 (0.66%) SAP PM
6 10 (0.66%) Teamcenter
7 7 (0.46%) Salesforce CRM
8 6 (0.40%) SAP HR
9 5 (0.33%) Dynamics AX
9 5 (0.33%) Oracle SCM
10 4 (0.26%) SAP PP
11 3 (0.20%) NetSuite
11 3 (0.20%) SAP CRM
11 3 (0.20%) SAP EWM
11 3 (0.20%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 373 (24.59%) Azure
2 306 (20.17%) AWS
3 130 (8.57%) GCP
4 66 (4.35%) SaaS
5 53 (3.49%) Serverless
6 48 (3.16%) Dynamics 365
7 40 (2.64%) Microsoft 365
7 40 (2.64%) Power Platform
8 38 (2.50%) Entra ID
9 37 (2.44%) GitHub
10 35 (2.31%) AWS Lambda
11 28 (1.85%) PaaS
12 27 (1.78%) Azure DevOps
12 27 (1.78%) IaaS
12 27 (1.78%) Microsoft Purview
13 21 (1.38%) Amazon S3
13 21 (1.38%) OpenShift
14 20 (1.32%) AWS CloudFormation
14 20 (1.32%) Salesforce Service Cloud
15 19 (1.25%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 88 (5.80%) Firewall
2 49 (3.23%) Network Security
3 46 (3.03%) WAN
4 38 (2.50%) LAN
5 34 (2.24%) VPN
6 33 (2.18%) DNS
7 28 (1.85%) SD-WAN
8 21 (1.38%) BGP
8 21 (1.38%) SAN
9 18 (1.19%) MPLS
10 15 (0.99%) iSCSI
11 14 (0.92%) Fibre Channel
11 14 (0.92%) VSAN
12 13 (0.86%) Wi-Fi
13 12 (0.79%) DHCP
14 9 (0.59%) Cisco ASA
14 9 (0.59%) Internet
14 9 (0.59%) VLAN
15 8 (0.53%) Wireless
16 7 (0.46%) FTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 54 (3.56%) Data Warehouse
2 38 (2.50%) PostgreSQL
3 34 (2.24%) Metadata
4 31 (2.04%) Power BI
5 30 (1.98%) SQL Server
6 21 (1.38%) MongoDB
7 20 (1.32%) NoSQL
8 18 (1.19%) DynamoDB
8 18 (1.19%) GIS
9 17 (1.12%) Oracle Database
10 13 (0.86%) BigQuery
10 13 (0.86%) Redis
10 13 (0.86%) Relational Database
11 12 (0.79%) Amazon Redshift
11 12 (0.79%) Data Lake
11 12 (0.79%) Tableau
12 11 (0.73%) RDBMS
13 10 (0.66%) Azure SQL Database
13 10 (0.66%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 9 (0.59%) Amazon Aurora
Development Applications
1 69 (4.55%) JIRA
2 44 (2.90%) Jenkins
3 38 (2.50%) Git
4 13 (0.86%) GitLab
5 10 (0.66%) CircleCI
6 9 (0.59%) Oracle Forms
7 8 (0.53%) SonarQube
8 6 (0.40%) Artifactory
9 5 (0.33%) Gradle
9 5 (0.33%) Maven
9 5 (0.33%) MLflow
9 5 (0.33%) Rational DOORS
9 5 (0.33%) SonarLint
10 4 (0.26%) Bitbucket
10 4 (0.26%) MSI
11 3 (0.20%) Sonatype Nexus
11 3 (0.20%) Visual Studio Code
12 2 (0.13%) Hudson
12 2 (0.13%) Postman
13 1 (0.066%) Selenium
General
1 414 (27.29%) Social Skills
2 200 (13.18%) Public Sector
3 176 (11.60%) Finance
4 118 (7.78%) Analytical Skills
5 78 (5.14%) Banking
6 48 (3.16%) Telecoms
7 41 (2.70%) Documentation Skills
7 41 (2.70%) Military
8 39 (2.57%) Marketing
9 38 (2.50%) Retail
10 35 (2.31%) Influencing Skills
11 31 (2.04%) Presentation Skills
12 27 (1.78%) Legal
12 27 (1.78%) Manufacturing
13 21 (1.38%) Aerospace
14 11 (0.73%) Local Government
15 10 (0.66%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 9 (0.59%) Back Office
17 8 (0.53%) Aviation
17 8 (0.53%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 46 (3.03%) REST
2 38 (2.50%) Middleware
3 34 (2.24%) SOAP
4 28 (1.85%) RESTful
5 27 (1.78%) .NET
6 21 (1.38%) OAuth
7 19 (1.25%) Kafka
7 19 (1.25%) Lightning Web Components
8 18 (1.19%) Visualforce
9 17 (1.12%) Spring Boot
10 16 (1.05%) SailPoint
10 16 (1.05%) Web Services
11 15 (0.99%) Node.js
12 14 (0.92%) SAML
12 14 (0.92%) SAP PI
13 13 (0.86%) GraphQL
14 12 (0.79%) OAuth2
15 11 (0.73%) Spring
16 10 (0.66%) Oracle Fusion
17 9 (0.59%) Celery
Miscellaneous
1 107 (7.05%) Cloud Native
2 79 (5.21%) Product Ownership
3 65 (4.28%) Legacy Systems
4 63 (4.15%) Data Centre
5 49 (3.23%) Hybrid Cloud
6 47 (3.10%) Onboarding
7 35 (2.31%) PKI
8 25 (1.65%) Operational Technology
8 25 (1.65%) Public Cloud
9 24 (1.58%) Enterprise Software
10 23 (1.52%) CMDB
10 23 (1.52%) Distributed Systems
11 21 (1.38%) Security Posture
12 20 (1.32%) Data Protection Act
13 19 (1.25%) Management Information System
13 19 (1.25%) SCADA
14 18 (1.19%) NHS
15 13 (0.86%) Analytical Mindset
15 13 (0.86%) Cyber Threat
15 13 (0.86%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 84 (5.54%) Windows
2 55 (3.63%) Linux
3 33 (2.18%) Windows Server
4 18 (1.19%) Windows Server 2019
5 12 (0.79%) Windows 7
6 11 (0.73%) Unix
7 10 (0.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 9 (0.59%) Windows 10
9 4 (0.26%) VMS
10 3 (0.20%) Mac OS
10 3 (0.20%) Windows Server 2008
11 2 (0.13%) Solaris
11 2 (0.13%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
11 2 (0.13%) zOS
12 1 (0.066%) Android
12 1 (0.066%) Apple iOS
12 1 (0.066%) MVS
12 1 (0.066%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 255 (16.81%) Roadmaps
2 227 (14.96%) Stakeholder Management
3 214 (14.11%) Agile
4 202 (13.32%) TOGAF
5 174 (11.47%) Enterprise Architecture
6 172 (11.34%) Migration
7 167 (11.01%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 152 (10.02%) Problem-Solving
9 145 (9.56%) ITIL
10 143 (9.43%) Technical Leadership
11 140 (9.23%) CI/CD
11 140 (9.23%) Data Modelling
12 132 (8.70%) DevOps
13 118 (7.78%) AI
14 113 (7.45%) Mentoring
15 112 (7.38%) Cybersecurity
16 111 (7.32%) Microservices
17 102 (6.72%) Architectural Design
18 96 (6.33%) Analytics
19 88 (5.80%) Security Architecture
Programming Languages
1 106 (6.99%) Python
2 76 (5.01%) Java
3 56 (3.69%) SQL
4 35 (2.31%) PowerShell
5 19 (1.25%) Apex Code
5 19 (1.25%) JavaScript
6 17 (1.12%) TypeScript
7 12 (0.79%) C#
7 12 (0.79%) R
8 9 (0.59%) Bash
9 8 (0.53%) C++
10 6 (0.40%) ABAP
10 6 (0.40%) Bicep
10 6 (0.40%) C
11 4 (0.26%) Ruby
11 4 (0.26%) VB
12 3 (0.20%) Shell Script
12 3 (0.20%) VBScript
12 3 (0.20%) X++
13 2 (0.13%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 578 (38.10%) Security Cleared
2 345 (22.74%) SC Cleared
3 177 (11.67%) DV Cleared
4 97 (6.39%) Degree
5 77 (5.08%) CISSP
6 57 (3.76%) TOGAF Certification
7 54 (3.56%) AWS Certification
8 51 (3.36%) Azure Certification
9 40 (2.64%) Microsoft Certification
10 37 (2.44%) Cisco Certification
11 34 (2.24%) CISM
12 25 (1.65%) Computer Science Degree
13 23 (1.52%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 23 (1.52%) Master's Degree
14 21 (1.38%) CCIE
14 21 (1.38%) ISEB
15 18 (1.19%) CCNP
16 17 (1.12%) BPSS Clearance
16 17 (1.12%) ITIL Certification
17 15 (0.99%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 81 (5.34%) GDPR
2 76 (5.01%) NIST
3 74 (4.88%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 45 (2.97%) Data Quality
5 40 (2.64%) NCSC
6 30 (1.98%) ISO/IEC 20000
6 30 (1.98%) PCI DSS
7 23 (1.52%) COBIT
8 21 (1.38%) JSP 440
9 20 (1.32%) QA
10 18 (1.19%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 13 (0.86%) GRC
12 10 (0.66%) SLA
13 9 (0.59%) HMG Security Policy Framework
14 8 (0.53%) Accessibility
14 8 (0.53%) NIST 800
14 8 (0.53%) PSD2
15 7 (0.46%) Cyber Essentials
15 7 (0.46%) ISO 20022
15 7 (0.46%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 69 (4.55%) VMware Infrastructure
2 60 (3.96%) Active Directory
3 50 (3.30%) Docker
4 28 (1.85%) vSphere
5 22 (1.45%) VMware ESXi
6 20 (1.32%) VMware NSX
7 15 (0.99%) NFS
8 11 (0.73%) Virtual Desktop
9 9 (0.59%) Virtual Machines
10 5 (0.33%) Hyper-V
11 3 (0.20%) BitLocker
11 3 (0.20%) Dovecot
11 3 (0.20%) Postfix
12 2 (0.13%) KVM
13 1 (0.066%) HDFS
13 1 (0.066%) Slurm Workload Manager
13 1 (0.066%) SRDF
13 1 (0.066%) Veritas Cluster Server
13 1 (0.066%) Xen
Systems Management
1 102 (6.72%) Terraform
2 90 (5.93%) Kubernetes
3 48 (3.16%) Ansible
4 26 (1.71%) OPNET
5 21 (1.38%) Single Sign-On
6 15 (0.99%) Prometheus
7 14 (0.92%) vCenter Server
8 11 (0.73%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 11 (0.73%) WMI
9 10 (0.66%) Grafana
10 9 (0.59%) Microsoft Intune
10 9 (0.59%) SCCM
11 7 (0.46%) Argo
12 3 (0.20%) FortiGate
12 3 (0.20%) Puppet
13 2 (0.13%) Istio
13 2 (0.13%) Kubeflow
13 2 (0.13%) Microsoft Clustering
13 2 (0.13%) SCOM
14 1 (0.066%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 215 (14.17%) Microsoft
2 110 (7.25%) VMware
3 86 (5.67%) Salesforce
4 79 (5.21%) SAP
4 79 (5.21%) ServiceNow
5 77 (5.08%) Oracle
6 70 (4.61%) Cisco
7 33 (2.18%) Google
8 27 (1.78%) Atlassian
8 27 (1.78%) Remedy
9 26 (1.71%) Palo Alto
10 24 (1.58%) Juniper
10 24 (1.58%) Splunk
10 24 (1.58%) Workday
11 23 (1.52%) F5
12 22 (1.45%) Databricks
12 22 (1.45%) IBM
13 21 (1.38%) Red Hat
13 21 (1.38%) Virgin Media
14 20 (1.32%) Pega