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 1 September 2026.

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

6 months to
1 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 13 21 13
Rank change year-on-year +8 -8 +4
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 2,518 1,233 1,767
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 9.11% 8.04% 9.81%
As % of the Job Titles category 9.95% 8.93% 10.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,691 838 1,099
10th Percentile £468 £463 £479
25th Percentile £525 £519 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £600 £638
Median % change year-on-year +3.33% -5.88% -1.47%
75th Percentile £700 £688 £725
90th Percentile £775 £760 £788
UK median daily rate £613 £625 £638
% change year-on-year -2.00% -1.96% -1.92%
Number of hourly rates quoted 150 15 70
10th Percentile £46.00 £33.64 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £64.38 £61.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -4.00%
75th Percentile £71.91 £86.50 £85.00
90th Percentile £95.10 £99.42 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £66.66 £72.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -8.06% +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 25,315 13,807 16,648
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.60% 90.07% 92.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,182 8,451 9,916
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% -1.69%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,098 1,252 1,562
10th Percentile £14.56 £13.38 £14.05
25th Percentile £20.31 £16.30 £18.50
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.95
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -42.78% +11.13%
75th Percentile £68.00 £54.00 £66.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £72.50 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% +1.18%

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 1 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 1 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 1 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 0 726 £625 +4.17% 393
North of England +5 699 £600 - 378
Midlands +3 417 £625 +8.70% 178
North West +5 413 £600 +1.27% 238
South West +2 322 £645 +0.78% 204
West Midlands +1 307 £644 +7.42% 116
Yorkshire +9 225 £581 -5.10% 109
Scotland +23 169 £625 +0.60% 164
East of England +17 154 £611 +10.27% 116
East Midlands +3 104 £600 +16.50% 62
North East -8 63 £575 -19.30% 31
Wales +7 43 £633 +1.20% 18
Channel Islands -3 5 £625 -15.82% 3
Northern Ireland +5 4 £488 -30.36% 84
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 1 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.

1 848 (33.68%) Security Cleared
2 577 (22.92%) Azure
3 552 (21.92%) SC Cleared
4 453 (17.99%) AWS
5 393 (15.61%) Stakeholder Management
6 365 (14.50%) Roadmaps
7 346 (13.74%) Microsoft
8 308 (12.23%) Technical Leadership
9 307 (12.19%) Agile
10 294 (11.68%) Enterprise Architecture
11 293 (11.64%) Migration
12 254 (10.09%) DV Cleared
13 242 (9.61%) DevOps
13 242 (9.61%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 231 (9.17%) AI
15 229 (9.09%) Data Architecture
16 227 (9.02%) Integration Patterns
17 219 (8.70%) CI/CD
18 207 (8.22%) Architectural Patterns
18 207 (8.22%) Data Modelling
19 198 (7.86%) Cybersecurity
20 196 (7.78%) Security Architecture
21 188 (7.47%) TOGAF
22 180 (7.15%) GCP
23 169 (6.71%) Architecture Governance
24 159 (6.31%) Microservices
25 155 (6.16%) Continuous Improvement
26 150 (5.96%) Event-Driven
27 144 (5.72%) Decision-Making
28 141 (5.60%) Architectural Design

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 35 (1.39%) SharePoint
2 32 (1.27%) Confluence
2 32 (1.27%) SAS
3 14 (0.56%) Microsoft Exchange
4 12 (0.48%) OpenStack
5 10 (0.40%) Apache
5 10 (0.40%) Apache Spark
5 10 (0.40%) Palantir Foundry
6 9 (0.36%) Apache Airflow
7 7 (0.28%) Documentum
8 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 3 (0.12%) CMS
8 3 (0.12%) JBoss
8 3 (0.12%) NetWeaver
8 3 (0.12%) SAP EP
9 2 (0.079%) Alfresco
9 2 (0.079%) Apache Superset
10 1 (0.040%) CIMPLICITY
10 1 (0.040%) FactoryTalk
10 1 (0.040%) Red Hat Fuse
Applications
1 12 (0.48%) MS Visio
2 11 (0.44%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (0.36%) Microsoft Office
4 8 (0.32%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.28%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.28%) Revit
6 6 (0.24%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.040%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 69 (2.74%) SAP S/4HANA
2 12 (0.48%) Payment Gateway
2 12 (0.48%) Teamcenter
3 11 (0.44%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 8 (0.32%) Remedy ITSM
5 7 (0.28%) SAP ERP
6 6 (0.24%) Oracle ERP
6 6 (0.24%) SAP MDG
7 5 (0.20%) Dynamics CRM
7 5 (0.20%) Maximo
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 CRM
9 3 (0.12%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 577 (22.92%) Azure
2 453 (17.99%) AWS
3 180 (7.15%) GCP
4 93 (3.69%) Power Platform
5 92 (3.65%) SaaS
6 80 (3.18%) Serverless
7 76 (3.02%) Entra ID
8 55 (2.18%) Microsoft 365
9 46 (1.83%) Azure DevOps
9 46 (1.83%) Dynamics 365
10 44 (1.75%) GitHub
11 38 (1.51%) PaaS
12 37 (1.47%) AWS Lambda
13 33 (1.31%) IaaS
14 30 (1.19%) GitHub Actions
15 29 (1.15%) OpenShift
16 28 (1.11%) Amazon S3
16 28 (1.11%) Snowflake
17 23 (0.91%) Azure Data Factory
18 22 (0.87%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 89 (3.53%) Firewall
2 63 (2.50%) WAN
3 56 (2.22%) DNS
4 51 (2.03%) Network Security
5 48 (1.91%) LAN
6 36 (1.43%) VPN
7 35 (1.39%) BGP
8 32 (1.27%) DHCP
8 32 (1.27%) SD-WAN
9 27 (1.07%) TCP/IP
10 26 (1.03%) VLAN
11 25 (0.99%) MPLS
12 23 (0.91%) SAN
13 20 (0.79%) NAS
14 17 (0.68%) BIG-IP
14 17 (0.68%) OSPF
15 16 (0.64%) Structured Cabling
16 14 (0.56%) Wireless
17 12 (0.48%) Cisco Nexus
17 12 (0.48%) NX-OS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 79 (3.14%) Metadata
2 71 (2.82%) Data Lake
3 63 (2.50%) Power BI
4 62 (2.46%) Data Warehouse
5 36 (1.43%) NoSQL
6 21 (0.83%) Azure SQL Database
7 20 (0.79%) Amazon RDS
7 20 (0.79%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
8 19 (0.75%) Oracle Database
9 16 (0.64%) Base SAS
9 16 (0.64%) SQL Server
10 14 (0.56%) BigQuery
11 13 (0.52%) Delta Lake
11 13 (0.52%) PostgreSQL
12 11 (0.44%) GIS
13 10 (0.40%) MySQL
14 9 (0.36%) Amazon Redshift
14 9 (0.36%) Big Data
14 9 (0.36%) Electronic Patient Records
14 9 (0.36%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 37 (1.47%) JIRA
2 29 (1.15%) Git
3 22 (0.87%) Jenkins
4 14 (0.56%) GitLab
5 7 (0.28%) ERwin
6 6 (0.24%) Claude Code
6 6 (0.24%) MSI
7 5 (0.20%) Artifactory
7 5 (0.20%) Sonatype Nexus
8 4 (0.16%) Hudson
9 3 (0.12%) Rational DOORS
9 3 (0.12%) SonarQube
10 2 (0.079%) Bitbucket
10 2 (0.079%) Cypress.io
10 2 (0.079%) IntelliJ
10 2 (0.079%) JUnit
10 2 (0.079%) Oracle APEX
10 2 (0.079%) Oracle Forms
10 2 (0.079%) Rational Rhapsody
10 2 (0.079%) Selenium
General
1 491 (19.50%) Social Skills
2 310 (12.31%) Finance
3 260 (10.33%) Public Sector
4 129 (5.12%) Banking
5 119 (4.73%) Analytical Skills
6 106 (4.21%) Retail
7 93 (3.69%) Manufacturing
8 61 (2.42%) Documentation Skills
8 61 (2.42%) Influencing Skills
9 39 (1.55%) Aerospace
10 37 (1.47%) Legal
11 31 (1.23%) Military
12 29 (1.15%) Telecoms
13 22 (0.87%) Aviation
14 21 (0.83%) Marketing
15 20 (0.79%) Back Office
15 20 (0.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 18 (0.71%) Financial Institution
16 18 (0.71%) Presentation Skills
17 17 (0.68%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 99 (3.93%) REST
2 90 (3.57%) Terraform
3 73 (2.90%) Middleware
4 53 (2.10%) OAuth
5 45 (1.79%) SOAP
6 38 (1.51%) Oracle Fusion
7 34 (1.35%) .NET
7 34 (1.35%) Kafka
7 34 (1.35%) SAML
8 32 (1.27%) OpenID
9 26 (1.03%) LDAP
10 24 (0.95%) JSON
11 22 (0.87%) OAuth2
12 20 (0.79%) SailPoint
13 17 (0.68%) Node.js
14 16 (0.64%) GraphQL
15 15 (0.60%) RESTful
16 14 (0.56%) JWT
16 14 (0.56%) Swagger
17 12 (0.48%) OpenAPI
Miscellaneous
1 204 (8.10%) Cloud Native
2 82 (3.26%) Data Centre
3 80 (3.18%) Hybrid Cloud
4 63 (2.50%) Operational Technology
5 61 (2.42%) Data Protection Act
6 60 (2.38%) Enterprise Software
7 58 (2.30%) Distributed Systems
8 56 (2.22%) Legacy Systems
9 54 (2.14%) Product Ownership
10 53 (2.10%) Onboarding
11 51 (2.03%) Management Information System
12 40 (1.59%) Public Cloud
13 39 (1.55%) AI Agents
14 32 (1.27%) Private Cloud
15 30 (1.19%) CMDB
16 27 (1.07%) Security Posture
17 26 (1.03%) Enterprise Cloud
17 26 (1.03%) IVR
18 22 (0.87%) SCADA
19 21 (0.83%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 82 (3.26%) Windows
2 56 (2.22%) 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 (0.079%) Android
8 2 (0.079%) Apple iOS
8 2 (0.079%) HPUX
8 2 (0.079%) Solaris
8 2 (0.079%) 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
1 393 (15.61%) Stakeholder Management
2 365 (14.50%) Roadmaps
3 308 (12.23%) Technical Leadership
4 307 (12.19%) Agile
5 294 (11.68%) Enterprise Architecture
6 293 (11.64%) Migration
7 242 (9.61%) DevOps
7 242 (9.61%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 231 (9.17%) AI
9 229 (9.09%) Data Architecture
10 227 (9.02%) Integration Patterns
11 219 (8.70%) CI/CD
12 207 (8.22%) Architectural Patterns
12 207 (8.22%) Data Modelling
13 198 (7.86%) Cybersecurity
14 196 (7.78%) Security Architecture
15 188 (7.47%) TOGAF
16 169 (6.71%) Architecture Governance
17 159 (6.31%) Microservices
18 155 (6.16%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 96 (3.81%) Java
2 93 (3.69%) SQL
3 86 (3.42%) Python
4 48 (1.91%) JavaScript
5 45 (1.79%) PowerShell
6 23 (0.91%) Bash
7 15 (0.60%) Bicep
8 12 (0.48%) TypeScript
9 10 (0.40%) ABAP
9 10 (0.40%) Shell Script
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 3 (0.12%) R
15 2 (0.079%) BeanShell
15 2 (0.079%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 2 (0.079%) Kotlin
15 2 (0.079%) Scala
Qualifications
1 848 (33.68%) Security Cleared
2 552 (21.92%) SC Cleared
3 254 (10.09%) DV Cleared
4 67 (2.66%) Degree
5 57 (2.26%) CISSP
6 55 (2.18%) Cisco Certification
7 48 (1.91%) BPSS Clearance
8 45 (1.79%) AWS Certification
9 42 (1.67%) Azure Certification
9 42 (1.67%) TOGAF Certification
10 31 (1.23%) Computer Science Degree
11 27 (1.07%) CCNP
12 22 (0.87%) CISM
13 19 (0.75%) Microsoft Certification
14 16 (0.64%) CCIE
15 15 (0.60%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 12 (0.48%) CCNA
17 11 (0.44%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 11 (0.44%) JNCIE
17 11 (0.44%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 98 (3.89%) NIST
2 82 (3.26%) Data Quality
3 67 (2.66%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 62 (2.46%) NCSC
5 53 (2.10%) GDPR
6 23 (0.91%) QA
7 18 (0.71%) Accessibility
7 18 (0.71%) NIST 800
8 17 (0.68%) PCI DSS
9 16 (0.64%) JSP 440
10 14 (0.56%) ISO/IEC 20000
11 13 (0.52%) ISO 19650
12 11 (0.44%) Disclosure Scotland
12 11 (0.44%) GRC
12 11 (0.44%) IFRS
12 11 (0.44%) SLA
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 94 (3.73%) Active Directory
2 47 (1.87%) Docker
3 46 (1.83%) VMware Infrastructure
4 26 (1.03%) Virtual Desktop
4 26 (1.03%) VMware NSX
5 18 (0.71%) Hyper-V
6 12 (0.48%) vSphere
7 11 (0.44%) VMware ESXi
8 9 (0.36%) Virtual Machines
9 4 (0.16%) KVM
9 4 (0.16%) vCloud
10 3 (0.12%) Ceph
10 3 (0.12%) EMC RecoverPoint
10 3 (0.12%) NFS
10 3 (0.12%) SRDF
11 2 (0.079%) zsh
12 1 (0.040%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 1 (0.040%) ProxySG
12 1 (0.040%) Slurm Workload Manager
12 1 (0.040%) Snort
Systems Management
1 126 (5.00%) Kubernetes
2 52 (2.07%) Ansible
3 19 (0.75%) Microsoft Intune
4 18 (0.71%) Single Sign-On
5 15 (0.60%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 15 (0.60%) Grafana
6 13 (0.52%) Prometheus
7 12 (0.48%) Jamf Pro
8 11 (0.44%) vCenter Server
9 9 (0.36%) WMI
10 7 (0.28%) Argo
10 7 (0.28%) FortiGate
11 6 (0.24%) Istio
12 5 (0.20%) CASB
12 5 (0.20%) MOM
12 5 (0.20%) NetBackup
13 4 (0.16%) Cisco CUCM
13 4 (0.16%) EMC VPLEX
13 4 (0.16%) SnapMirror
14 3 (0.12%) SnapVault
Vendors
1 346 (13.74%) Microsoft
2 140 (5.56%) SAP
3 111 (4.41%) Oracle
4 94 (3.73%) Google
4 94 (3.73%) ServiceNow
5 84 (3.34%) VMware
6 80 (3.18%) Databricks
7 79 (3.14%) Cisco
8 50 (1.99%) Salesforce
9 30 (1.19%) CyberArk
10 28 (1.11%) MuleSoft
11 27 (1.07%) F5
12 24 (0.95%) Informatica
13 23 (0.91%) Palo Alto
13 23 (0.91%) Red Hat
14 21 (0.83%) IBM
15 17 (0.68%) Infoblox
15 17 (0.68%) Workday
16 15 (0.60%) Juniper
17 14 (0.56%) Adobe