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 £613, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 2 May 2026.

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

6 months to
2 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 18 13
Rank change year-on-year +8 -5 +6
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 2,377 1,111 2,052
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 9.89% 8.69% 9.89%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.75% 9.43% 10.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,550 753 1,243
10th Percentile £450 £450 £500
25th Percentile £513 £525 £569
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £613 £600 £650
Median % change year-on-year +2.08% -7.69% -
75th Percentile £714 £700 £738
90th Percentile £775 £750 £800
UK median daily rate £620 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -0.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 108 27 78
10th Percentile £49.40 £59.10 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £63.75 £61.25
Median hourly rate £69.22 £73.31 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -5.58% +4.73% -
75th Percentile £83.25 £81.42 £87.46
90th Percentile £97.50 £85.61 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £68.50 £72.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -5.52% +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 22,103 11,787 19,217
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.99% 92.21% 92.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,960 7,553 11,733
10th Percentile £280 £213 £213
25th Percentile £400 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £475 £493
Median % change year-on-year +3.16% -3.55% -1.50%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £599
90th Percentile £684 £650 £688
UK median daily rate £501 £515 £525
% change year-on-year -2.82% -1.90% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,450 828 2,245
10th Percentile £14.64 £14.00 £12.50
25th Percentile £19.91 £17.79 £15.75
Median hourly rate £45.46 £28.00 £39.50
Median % change year-on-year +62.36% -29.11% -6.91%
75th Percentile £66.00 £64.52 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £44.00 £29.00 £36.02
% change year-on-year +51.72% -19.49% -19.95%

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 2 May 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 2 May 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 2 May 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 +4 709 £625 - 169
North of England +5 619 £600 - 149
Midlands +2 419 £600 - 107
North West +5 357 £609 +1.50% 93
West Midlands -1 308 £613 +2.08% 72
South West +1 298 £694 +15.63% 95
Yorkshire +5 233 £555 -9.39% 35
East of England +18 201 £563 -6.25% 62
Scotland +8 140 £650 +4.00% 21
East Midlands -3 105 £525 -4.55% 35
North East +2 38 £575 -7.95% 21
Wales -5 24 £600 +25.00% 32
Northern Ireland +11 10 £488 -26.42% 19
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 2 May 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.

1 743 (31.26%) Security Cleared
2 453 (19.06%) Azure
3 423 (17.80%) SC Cleared
4 351 (14.77%) Roadmaps
5 347 (14.60%) AWS
6 341 (14.35%) Agile
7 330 (13.88%) Microsoft
8 268 (11.27%) DV Cleared
9 260 (10.94%) Migration
10 259 (10.90%) Enterprise Architecture
11 252 (10.60%) Stakeholder Management
12 225 (9.47%) DevOps
13 212 (8.92%) TOGAF
14 204 (8.58%) CI/CD
15 195 (8.20%) Technical Leadership
16 176 (7.40%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 171 (7.19%) Data Modelling
18 169 (7.11%) Integration Patterns
19 168 (7.07%) Architectural Patterns
19 168 (7.07%) Microservices
20 155 (6.52%) Problem-Solving
21 154 (6.48%) Architectural Design
22 151 (6.35%) Data Architecture
23 143 (6.02%) SAP
24 142 (5.97%) Cybersecurity
25 140 (5.89%) Analytics
26 138 (5.81%) ServiceNow
27 135 (5.68%) AI
28 129 (5.43%) VMware
29 127 (5.34%) GCP

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 72 (3.03%) Confluence
2 66 (2.78%) SharePoint
3 45 (1.89%) Microsoft Exchange
4 17 (0.72%) SAS
5 13 (0.55%) Appian
6 11 (0.46%) Apache
6 11 (0.46%) CMS
7 10 (0.42%) Anypoint
7 10 (0.42%) ArcGIS
8 8 (0.34%) Apache Airflow
9 7 (0.29%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 7 (0.29%) Apache Spark
9 7 (0.29%) Skype for Business
10 6 (0.25%) NetWeaver
10 6 (0.25%) Sitecore CMS
10 6 (0.25%) Smallworld
10 6 (0.25%) WebLogic
11 5 (0.21%) SAP EP
12 4 (0.17%) OpenStack
12 4 (0.17%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 44 (1.85%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (1.30%) Microsoft Project
3 13 (0.55%) Microsoft Excel
3 13 (0.55%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.29%) Navisworks
4 7 (0.29%) Revit
5 5 (0.21%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.17%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.084%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.042%) OrCAD
Business Applications
1 53 (2.23%) SAP S/4HANA
2 30 (1.26%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 19 (0.80%) Payment Gateway
4 12 (0.50%) Workday HCM
5 10 (0.42%) SAP ERP
6 9 (0.38%) Remedy ITSM
7 8 (0.34%) Teamcenter
8 6 (0.25%) Dynamics CRM
9 5 (0.21%) Maximo
9 5 (0.21%) SAP CRM
10 4 (0.17%) Distributed Ledger
10 4 (0.17%) Oracle Retail
10 4 (0.17%) R3 Corda
10 4 (0.17%) Salesforce CRM
10 4 (0.17%) SAP PP
11 3 (0.13%) SAP EWM
11 3 (0.13%) SAP FI
11 3 (0.13%) SAP GRC
11 3 (0.13%) SAP MDG
11 3 (0.13%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 453 (19.06%) Azure
2 347 (14.60%) AWS
3 127 (5.34%) GCP
4 90 (3.79%) Entra ID
5 85 (3.58%) Power Platform
6 84 (3.53%) Microsoft 365
7 71 (2.99%) Serverless
8 65 (2.73%) SaaS
9 54 (2.27%) PaaS
10 43 (1.81%) IaaS
10 43 (1.81%) Microsoft Purview
11 40 (1.68%) GitHub
12 37 (1.56%) OpenShift
13 36 (1.51%) Azure DevOps
14 35 (1.47%) OneDrive
15 32 (1.35%) Dynamics 365
16 27 (1.14%) AWS Lambda
17 25 (1.05%) Azure Data Factory
17 25 (1.05%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 22 (0.93%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 101 (4.25%) Firewall
2 75 (3.16%) WAN
3 66 (2.78%) Network Security
4 64 (2.69%) DNS
5 56 (2.36%) LAN
6 54 (2.27%) VPN
7 40 (1.68%) SD-WAN
8 29 (1.22%) DHCP
9 22 (0.93%) VLAN
10 20 (0.84%) BGP
11 17 (0.72%) Wireless
12 16 (0.67%) IPsec
12 16 (0.67%) MPLS
13 15 (0.63%) BIG-IP
13 15 (0.63%) Wi-Fi
14 14 (0.59%) OSPF
15 13 (0.55%) SAN
15 13 (0.55%) TCP/IP
16 12 (0.50%) Internet
16 12 (0.50%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 69 (2.90%) Metadata
2 65 (2.73%) Power BI
3 52 (2.19%) Data Warehouse
4 39 (1.64%) SQL Server
5 34 (1.43%) Data Lake
6 31 (1.30%) NoSQL
7 22 (0.93%) PostgreSQL
8 21 (0.88%) Tableau
9 20 (0.84%) Oracle Database
10 17 (0.72%) GIS
11 14 (0.59%) Azure SQL Database
11 14 (0.59%) DynamoDB
12 11 (0.46%) MongoDB
12 11 (0.46%) Relational Database
13 10 (0.42%) Big Data
14 9 (0.38%) Electronic Patient Records
15 7 (0.29%) Metadata Repository
15 7 (0.29%) MySQL
16 6 (0.25%) Hadoop
16 6 (0.25%) SAP BW
Development Applications
1 84 (3.53%) JIRA
2 39 (1.64%) Jenkins
3 22 (0.93%) Git
4 20 (0.84%) GitLab
5 6 (0.25%) ERwin
6 5 (0.21%) Artifactory
6 5 (0.21%) Selenium
6 5 (0.21%) SonarQube
6 5 (0.21%) Sonatype Nexus
7 4 (0.17%) JUnit
8 3 (0.13%) Bitbucket
8 3 (0.13%) Cucumber
8 3 (0.13%) MLflow
8 3 (0.13%) MSI
8 3 (0.13%) Postman
8 3 (0.13%) Rational DOORS
8 3 (0.13%) REST Assured
9 2 (0.084%) Gatling
9 2 (0.084%) Hudson
9 2 (0.084%) NeoLoad
General
1 422 (17.75%) Social Skills
2 310 (13.04%) Finance
3 219 (9.21%) Public Sector
4 139 (5.85%) Analytical Skills
5 134 (5.64%) Banking
6 63 (2.65%) Military
6 63 (2.65%) Retail
7 51 (2.15%) Documentation Skills
7 51 (2.15%) Legal
8 38 (1.60%) Manufacturing
9 33 (1.39%) Influencing Skills
10 28 (1.18%) Marketing
10 28 (1.18%) Presentation Skills
11 27 (1.14%) Telecoms
12 25 (1.05%) Aerospace
12 25 (1.05%) Investment Banking
13 19 (0.80%) Financial Institution
14 15 (0.63%) Back Office
14 15 (0.63%) Billing
15 10 (0.42%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 85 (3.58%) REST
2 72 (3.03%) Middleware
3 45 (1.89%) .NET
4 40 (1.68%) OAuth
5 38 (1.60%) OpenID
6 35 (1.47%) SOAP
7 30 (1.26%) OAuth2
8 27 (1.14%) Kafka
8 27 (1.14%) SailPoint
9 26 (1.09%) SAML
10 23 (0.97%) Node.js
10 23 (0.97%) RESTful
11 20 (0.84%) JSON
12 19 (0.80%) Oracle Fusion
12 19 (0.80%) React
13 17 (0.72%) Web Services
14 16 (0.67%) Microsoft Graph
15 14 (0.59%) LDAP
16 12 (0.50%) CSS
16 12 (0.50%) HTML
Miscellaneous
1 162 (6.82%) Cloud Native
2 87 (3.66%) Product Ownership
3 74 (3.11%) Data Centre
4 58 (2.44%) Public Cloud
5 56 (2.36%) Operational Technology
6 54 (2.27%) Onboarding
7 48 (2.02%) Management Information System
8 45 (1.89%) Hybrid Cloud
9 42 (1.77%) Data Protection Act
10 41 (1.72%) Legacy Systems
10 41 (1.72%) PKI
11 39 (1.64%) Enterprise Software
12 37 (1.56%) Distributed Systems
13 25 (1.05%) SCADA
14 24 (1.01%) CMDB
15 20 (0.84%) NHS
15 20 (0.84%) Security Posture
16 19 (0.80%) AI Agents
16 19 (0.80%) Private Cloud
17 14 (0.59%) Blackberry
Operating Systems
1 126 (5.30%) Windows
2 67 (2.82%) Linux
3 30 (1.26%) Windows Server
4 16 (0.67%) Android
4 16 (0.67%) Apple iOS
5 12 (0.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 12 (0.50%) Windows 7
6 11 (0.46%) Windows 10
7 8 (0.34%) Unix
7 8 (0.34%) Windows Server 2016
8 5 (0.21%) VMS
8 5 (0.21%) Windows Server 2019
9 4 (0.17%) Mac OS
10 3 (0.13%) Data ONTAP
10 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
11 1 (0.042%) CatOS
11 1 (0.042%) CentOS
11 1 (0.042%) Kali Linux
11 1 (0.042%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.042%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 351 (14.77%) Roadmaps
2 341 (14.35%) Agile
3 260 (10.94%) Migration
4 259 (10.90%) Enterprise Architecture
5 252 (10.60%) Stakeholder Management
6 225 (9.47%) DevOps
7 212 (8.92%) TOGAF
8 204 (8.58%) CI/CD
9 195 (8.20%) Technical Leadership
10 176 (7.40%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 171 (7.19%) Data Modelling
12 169 (7.11%) Integration Patterns
13 168 (7.07%) Architectural Patterns
13 168 (7.07%) Microservices
14 155 (6.52%) Problem-Solving
15 154 (6.48%) Architectural Design
16 151 (6.35%) Data Architecture
17 142 (5.97%) Cybersecurity
18 140 (5.89%) Analytics
19 135 (5.68%) AI
Programming Languages
1 117 (4.92%) Python
2 92 (3.87%) SQL
3 76 (3.20%) PowerShell
4 63 (2.65%) Java
5 44 (1.85%) JavaScript
6 31 (1.30%) C#
7 21 (0.88%) Bicep
8 15 (0.63%) Bash
9 12 (0.50%) TypeScript
10 10 (0.42%) Kusto Query Language
11 8 (0.34%) PL/SQL
12 7 (0.29%) VB
12 7 (0.29%) VBA
12 7 (0.29%) VBScript
13 6 (0.25%) Apex Code
13 6 (0.25%) Scala
14 5 (0.21%) ABAP
14 5 (0.21%) Shell Script
15 4 (0.17%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 4 (0.17%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 743 (31.26%) Security Cleared
2 423 (17.80%) SC Cleared
3 268 (11.27%) DV Cleared
4 114 (4.80%) Degree
5 86 (3.62%) TOGAF Certification
6 47 (1.98%) BPSS Clearance
7 42 (1.77%) CISSP
8 41 (1.72%) Cisco Certification
9 37 (1.56%) Azure Certification
10 36 (1.51%) AWS Certification
10 36 (1.51%) Computer Science Degree
11 27 (1.14%) CCNP
11 27 (1.14%) Microsoft Certification
12 23 (0.97%) ITIL Certification
13 22 (0.93%) CISM
13 22 (0.93%) ISEB
14 19 (0.80%) Master's Degree
15 16 (0.67%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 11 (0.46%) CCIE
17 9 (0.38%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 93 (3.91%) NIST
2 87 (3.66%) GDPR
3 67 (2.82%) Data Quality
4 61 (2.57%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 46 (1.94%) NCSC
6 25 (1.05%) COBIT
7 22 (0.93%) PCI DSS
8 19 (0.80%) QA
9 18 (0.76%) Cyber Essentials
10 17 (0.72%) Accessibility
11 14 (0.59%) GRC
12 12 (0.50%) FINRA
12 12 (0.50%) MiFID
13 10 (0.42%) ISO 20022
13 10 (0.42%) NIST 800
14 8 (0.34%) HL7
15 7 (0.29%) Disclosure Scotland
15 7 (0.29%) ISO 19650
15 7 (0.29%) JSP 440
16 6 (0.25%) Def Stans
System Software
1 101 (4.25%) Active Directory
2 53 (2.23%) VMware Infrastructure
3 31 (1.30%) Docker
4 30 (1.26%) VMware NSX
5 18 (0.76%) vSphere
6 16 (0.67%) Virtual Desktop
7 15 (0.63%) Hyper-V
8 12 (0.50%) Virtual Machines
9 10 (0.42%) vCloud
9 10 (0.42%) VMware ESXi
10 7 (0.29%) BitLocker
11 5 (0.21%) RACF
12 4 (0.17%) NFS
13 3 (0.13%) IAG
14 2 (0.084%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
14 2 (0.084%) Firmware
15 1 (0.042%) EMC RecoverPoint
15 1 (0.042%) ProxySG
15 1 (0.042%) Snort
15 1 (0.042%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 89 (3.74%) Terraform
2 75 (3.16%) Kubernetes
3 56 (2.36%) Ansible
4 33 (1.39%) Microsoft Intune
5 30 (1.26%) OPNET
6 26 (1.09%) Single Sign-On
7 25 (1.05%) vCenter Server
8 20 (0.84%) SCCM
9 13 (0.55%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 12 (0.50%) FortiGate
11 11 (0.46%) WMI
12 9 (0.38%) Argo
12 9 (0.38%) Grafana
13 6 (0.25%) Istio
14 5 (0.21%) Endace
14 5 (0.21%) Prometheus
15 3 (0.13%) EMC VPLEX
15 3 (0.13%) Jamf Pro
15 3 (0.13%) Puppet
15 3 (0.13%) vRealize
Vendors
1 330 (13.88%) Microsoft
2 143 (6.02%) SAP
3 138 (5.81%) ServiceNow
4 129 (5.43%) VMware
5 85 (3.58%) Oracle
6 77 (3.24%) Cisco
7 73 (3.07%) Salesforce
8 50 (2.10%) Google
9 48 (2.02%) Databricks
10 42 (1.77%) Remedy
11 40 (1.68%) MuleSoft
12 35 (1.47%) Atlassian
13 32 (1.35%) Sparx
14 31 (1.30%) Red Hat
15 30 (1.26%) Citrix
16 28 (1.18%) F5
16 28 (1.18%) Palo Alto
17 27 (1.14%) BiZZdesign
18 23 (0.97%) Juniper
19 17 (0.72%) Splunk