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 £622, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 5 August 2026.

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

6 months to
5 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 15 21 13
Rank change year-on-year +6 -8 +5
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 2,462 1,242 1,820
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 9.05% 8.18% 9.85%
As % of the Job Titles category 9.82% 9.05% 10.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,633 839 1,141
10th Percentile £480 £457 £480
25th Percentile £525 £519 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £622 £600 £646
Median % change year-on-year +3.67% -7.12% -0.62%
75th Percentile £706 £688 £725
90th Percentile £775 £750 £788
UK median daily rate £620 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 155 15 73
10th Percentile £46.00 £33.64 -
25th Percentile £60.00 £64.38 £60.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -
75th Percentile £71.91 £86.50 £85.00
90th Percentile £83.00 £99.42 £89.51
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -10.34% +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 25,068 13,726 16,993
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.17% 90.37% 92.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,183 8,432 10,367
10th Percentile £305 £215 £220
25th Percentile £410 £363 £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 £684
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,970 1,207 1,773
10th Percentile £14.65 £13.32 £14.00
25th Percentile £20.69 £16.50 £18.50
Median hourly rate £44.10 £25.15 £43.90
Median % change year-on-year +75.33% -42.71% +17.07%
75th Percentile £68.00 £55.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £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 5 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 5 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 5 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 0 720 £630 +5.00% 344
North of England +4 695 £600 - 300
Midlands -1 420 £625 +8.70% 155
North West +7 394 £600 - 147
West Midlands -2 314 £627 +4.42% 107
South West -1 292 £625 -2.34% 179
Yorkshire +5 235 £600 - 120
East of England +17 162 £600 +8.11% 106
Scotland +10 153 £650 +4.00% 105
East Midlands +8 99 £600 +18.23% 48
North East 0 68 £600 -14.29% 33
Wales +4 36 £640 +18.52% 33
Northern Ireland +8 6 £475 -32.14% 47
Channel Islands -1 3 £575 -22.56%
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 5 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.

1 785 (31.88%) Security Cleared
2 550 (22.34%) Azure
3 495 (20.11%) SC Cleared
4 429 (17.42%) AWS
5 344 (13.97%) Roadmaps
6 336 (13.65%) Stakeholder Management
7 324 (13.16%) Microsoft
8 312 (12.67%) Agile
9 281 (11.41%) Migration
10 263 (10.68%) Technical Leadership
11 252 (10.24%) Enterprise Architecture
12 244 (9.91%) DV Cleared
13 241 (9.79%) Integration Patterns
14 240 (9.75%) DevOps
15 225 (9.14%) AI
16 223 (9.06%) CI/CD
17 222 (9.02%) Data Architecture
18 218 (8.85%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 212 (8.61%) Data Modelling
20 204 (8.29%) Architectural Patterns
21 194 (7.88%) Cybersecurity
22 178 (7.23%) Security Architecture
23 174 (7.07%) TOGAF
24 164 (6.66%) Microservices
25 159 (6.46%) GCP
26 156 (6.34%) Problem-Solving
27 155 (6.30%) Architecture Governance
28 146 (5.93%) Architectural Design
28 146 (5.93%) Continuous Improvement
28 146 (5.93%) Event-Driven

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 40 (1.62%) SharePoint
2 33 (1.34%) SAS
3 31 (1.26%) Confluence
4 14 (0.57%) Microsoft Exchange
5 10 (0.41%) OpenStack
5 10 (0.41%) Palantir Foundry
6 9 (0.37%) Apache
6 9 (0.37%) Apache Spark
7 8 (0.32%) Apache Airflow
8 7 (0.28%) Documentum
9 5 (0.20%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 5 (0.20%) Appian
9 5 (0.20%) ArcGIS
9 5 (0.20%) CMS
10 4 (0.16%) JBoss
10 4 (0.16%) NetWeaver
11 3 (0.12%) SAP EP
12 2 (0.081%) Alfresco
12 2 (0.081%) nginx
12 2 (0.081%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 11 (0.45%) MS Visio
2 9 (0.37%) Microsoft Excel
3 7 (0.28%) Navisworks
3 7 (0.28%) Revit
4 6 (0.24%) Spreadsheet
5 5 (0.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 4 (0.16%) Microsoft Office
7 1 (0.041%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.041%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 57 (2.32%) SAP S/4HANA
2 14 (0.57%) Payment Gateway
3 13 (0.53%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 11 (0.45%) Teamcenter
5 10 (0.41%) Remedy ITSM
6 9 (0.37%) SAP ERP
7 7 (0.28%) Oracle ERP
8 5 (0.20%) Dynamics CRM
8 5 (0.20%) Maximo
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle Retail
8 5 (0.20%) SAP GRC
9 4 (0.16%) NetSuite
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
9 4 (0.16%) SAP MDG
10 3 (0.12%) Adobe Campaign
10 3 (0.12%) Dynamics NAV
10 3 (0.12%) Oracle Receivables
10 3 (0.12%) SAP CRM
10 3 (0.12%) SAP IBP
10 3 (0.12%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 550 (22.34%) Azure
2 429 (17.42%) AWS
3 159 (6.46%) GCP
4 100 (4.06%) Power Platform
5 86 (3.49%) Entra ID
6 78 (3.17%) Serverless
7 74 (3.01%) SaaS
8 55 (2.23%) Microsoft 365
9 50 (2.03%) PaaS
10 47 (1.91%) GitHub
11 41 (1.67%) Azure DevOps
12 40 (1.62%) IaaS
13 36 (1.46%) AWS Lambda
14 35 (1.42%) Dynamics 365
15 33 (1.34%) OpenShift
16 28 (1.14%) Amazon S3
16 28 (1.14%) GitHub Actions
16 28 (1.14%) Snowflake
17 24 (0.97%) OCI
18 21 (0.85%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 97 (3.94%) Firewall
2 66 (2.68%) WAN
3 60 (2.44%) DNS
4 57 (2.32%) Network Security
5 53 (2.15%) LAN
6 39 (1.58%) VPN
7 34 (1.38%) BGP
7 34 (1.38%) DHCP
7 34 (1.38%) SD-WAN
8 30 (1.22%) VLAN
9 27 (1.10%) TCP/IP
10 26 (1.06%) SAN
11 24 (0.97%) Wireless
12 23 (0.93%) MPLS
12 23 (0.93%) NAS
13 21 (0.85%) Structured Cabling
14 18 (0.73%) OSPF
15 16 (0.65%) BIG-IP
16 15 (0.61%) IPsec
17 14 (0.57%) NX-OS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 72 (2.92%) Power BI
2 71 (2.88%) Data Lake
3 67 (2.72%) Metadata
4 65 (2.64%) Data Warehouse
5 37 (1.50%) NoSQL
6 20 (0.81%) Amazon RDS
7 19 (0.77%) Oracle Database
8 18 (0.73%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
9 17 (0.69%) PostgreSQL
9 17 (0.69%) SQL Server
10 15 (0.61%) Base SAS
11 14 (0.57%) Azure SQL Database
11 14 (0.57%) BigQuery
11 14 (0.57%) GIS
12 12 (0.49%) Delta Lake
13 11 (0.45%) MongoDB
14 10 (0.41%) Semantic Layer
15 9 (0.37%) Big Data
15 9 (0.37%) Electronic Patient Records
15 9 (0.37%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 35 (1.42%) JIRA
2 30 (1.22%) Git
3 22 (0.89%) Jenkins
4 10 (0.41%) ERwin
5 9 (0.37%) GitLab
6 7 (0.28%) Sonatype Nexus
7 5 (0.20%) Artifactory
7 5 (0.20%) Claude Code
8 4 (0.16%) Hudson
9 3 (0.12%) Rational DOORS
9 3 (0.12%) SonarQube
10 2 (0.081%) Bitbucket
10 2 (0.081%) Cypress.io
10 2 (0.081%) IntelliJ
10 2 (0.081%) JUnit
10 2 (0.081%) MSI
10 2 (0.081%) Oracle APEX
10 2 (0.081%) Oracle Forms
10 2 (0.081%) Rational Rhapsody
10 2 (0.081%) Selenium
General
1 457 (18.56%) Social Skills
2 311 (12.63%) Finance
3 232 (9.42%) Public Sector
4 136 (5.52%) Banking
5 131 (5.32%) Analytical Skills
6 97 (3.94%) Retail
7 79 (3.21%) Manufacturing
8 53 (2.15%) Influencing Skills
9 52 (2.11%) Documentation Skills
10 35 (1.42%) Legal
11 34 (1.38%) Aerospace
12 30 (1.22%) Military
13 26 (1.06%) Telecoms
14 24 (0.97%) Financial Institution
15 21 (0.85%) Marketing
16 20 (0.81%) Back Office
16 20 (0.81%) Presentation Skills
17 18 (0.73%) Aviation
18 17 (0.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 16 (0.65%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 102 (4.14%) REST
2 74 (3.01%) Middleware
3 55 (2.23%) OAuth
4 41 (1.67%) SOAP
5 40 (1.62%) Oracle Fusion
6 37 (1.50%) OpenID
7 36 (1.46%) .NET
8 35 (1.42%) Kafka
9 33 (1.34%) SAML
10 29 (1.18%) SailPoint
11 27 (1.10%) OAuth2
12 21 (0.85%) JSON
13 20 (0.81%) RESTful
14 18 (0.73%) Node.js
15 15 (0.61%) LDAP
16 14 (0.57%) GraphQL
16 14 (0.57%) React
16 14 (0.57%) Web Services
17 12 (0.49%) JWT
17 12 (0.49%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 186 (7.55%) Cloud Native
2 84 (3.41%) Data Centre
3 77 (3.13%) Hybrid Cloud
4 72 (2.92%) Operational Technology
5 62 (2.52%) Product Ownership
6 57 (2.32%) Onboarding
7 56 (2.27%) Data Protection Act
8 55 (2.23%) Distributed Systems
8 55 (2.23%) Management Information System
9 53 (2.15%) Legacy Systems
10 50 (2.03%) Enterprise Software
11 41 (1.67%) Public Cloud
12 39 (1.58%) AI Agents
13 34 (1.38%) Private Cloud
14 27 (1.10%) Security Posture
15 25 (1.02%) PKI
16 23 (0.93%) IVR
17 22 (0.89%) Enterprise Cloud
17 22 (0.89%) SCADA
18 20 (0.81%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 86 (3.49%) Windows
2 50 (2.03%) Linux
3 33 (1.34%) Windows Server
4 13 (0.53%) Android
4 13 (0.53%) Apple iOS
4 13 (0.53%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 9 (0.37%) Unix
6 6 (0.24%) AIX
7 5 (0.20%) Data ONTAP
8 2 (0.081%) HPUX
8 2 (0.081%) Solaris
8 2 (0.081%) VMS
8 2 (0.081%) Windows Server 2019
9 1 (0.041%) CatOS
9 1 (0.041%) CentOS
9 1 (0.041%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.041%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.041%) Windows Server 2008
9 1 (0.041%) Windows Server 2016
9 1 (0.041%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 344 (13.97%) Roadmaps
2 336 (13.65%) Stakeholder Management
3 312 (12.67%) Agile
4 281 (11.41%) Migration
5 263 (10.68%) Technical Leadership
6 252 (10.24%) Enterprise Architecture
7 241 (9.79%) Integration Patterns
8 240 (9.75%) DevOps
9 225 (9.14%) AI
10 223 (9.06%) CI/CD
11 222 (9.02%) Data Architecture
12 218 (8.85%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 212 (8.61%) Data Modelling
14 204 (8.29%) Architectural Patterns
15 194 (7.88%) Cybersecurity
16 178 (7.23%) Security Architecture
17 174 (7.07%) TOGAF
18 164 (6.66%) Microservices
19 156 (6.34%) Problem-Solving
20 155 (6.30%) Architecture Governance
Programming Languages
1 96 (3.90%) Java
2 93 (3.78%) SQL
3 91 (3.70%) Python
4 55 (2.23%) JavaScript
5 41 (1.67%) PowerShell
6 23 (0.93%) Bash
7 20 (0.81%) C#
8 17 (0.69%) Bicep
9 12 (0.49%) TypeScript
10 8 (0.32%) Shell Script
11 7 (0.28%) ABAP
12 6 (0.24%) Apex Code
12 6 (0.24%) PL/SQL
12 6 (0.24%) VBA
13 5 (0.20%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 4 (0.16%) Kotlin
15 3 (0.12%) C
15 3 (0.12%) Groovy
16 2 (0.081%) C++
16 2 (0.081%) ProC
Qualifications
1 785 (31.88%) Security Cleared
2 495 (20.11%) SC Cleared
3 244 (9.91%) DV Cleared
4 80 (3.25%) Degree
5 57 (2.32%) Cisco Certification
5 57 (2.32%) CISSP
6 43 (1.75%) TOGAF Certification
7 41 (1.67%) AWS Certification
7 41 (1.67%) BPSS Clearance
8 40 (1.62%) Azure Certification
9 33 (1.34%) Computer Science Degree
10 30 (1.22%) CCNP
11 20 (0.81%) CISM
12 19 (0.77%) Microsoft Certification
13 18 (0.73%) CCNA
14 15 (0.61%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 14 (0.57%) CCIE
16 12 (0.49%) Network+ Certification
16 12 (0.49%) Server+ Certification
17 11 (0.45%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 92 (3.74%) NIST
2 76 (3.09%) Data Quality
3 61 (2.48%) NCSC
4 59 (2.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 58 (2.36%) GDPR
6 25 (1.02%) QA
7 20 (0.81%) Accessibility
8 18 (0.73%) PCI DSS
9 16 (0.65%) NIST 800
10 14 (0.57%) ISO/IEC 20000
11 13 (0.53%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 12 (0.49%) IFRS
13 11 (0.45%) ISO 19650
14 10 (0.41%) Cyber Essentials
14 10 (0.41%) GRC
15 9 (0.37%) Disclosure Scotland
15 9 (0.37%) HL7
15 9 (0.37%) JSP 440
16 8 (0.32%) SLA
17 6 (0.24%) COBIT
System Software
1 96 (3.90%) Active Directory
2 48 (1.95%) Docker
3 45 (1.83%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.10%) VMware NSX
5 21 (0.85%) Virtual Desktop
6 17 (0.69%) Hyper-V
7 13 (0.53%) vSphere
8 10 (0.41%) VMware ESXi
9 8 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
10 6 (0.24%) vCloud
11 3 (0.12%) EMC RecoverPoint
11 3 (0.12%) IAG
11 3 (0.12%) KVM
11 3 (0.12%) NFS
11 3 (0.12%) SRDF
12 2 (0.081%) Ceph
12 2 (0.081%) zsh
13 1 (0.041%) Firmware
13 1 (0.041%) Slurm Workload Manager
13 1 (0.041%) Snort
Systems Management
1 120 (4.87%) Kubernetes
2 91 (3.70%) Terraform
3 48 (1.95%) Ansible
4 32 (1.30%) Microsoft Intune
5 19 (0.77%) Single Sign-On
6 17 (0.69%) Grafana
7 15 (0.61%) vCenter Server
8 14 (0.57%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 13 (0.53%) Jamf Pro
9 13 (0.53%) Prometheus
10 9 (0.37%) Argo
11 8 (0.32%) FortiGate
12 6 (0.24%) CASB
12 6 (0.24%) Istio
13 5 (0.20%) MOM
13 5 (0.20%) NetBackup
14 4 (0.16%) EMC VPLEX
14 4 (0.16%) SnapMirror
14 4 (0.16%) WMI
15 3 (0.12%) SnapVault
Vendors
1 324 (13.16%) Microsoft
2 133 (5.40%) SAP
3 110 (4.47%) Oracle
4 99 (4.02%) ServiceNow
5 95 (3.86%) VMware
6 78 (3.17%) Google
7 77 (3.13%) Databricks
8 76 (3.09%) Cisco
9 47 (1.91%) Salesforce
10 28 (1.14%) F5
11 25 (1.02%) Citrix
11 25 (1.02%) Red Hat
12 24 (0.97%) MuleSoft
12 24 (0.97%) Palo Alto
13 23 (0.93%) CyberArk
14 19 (0.77%) Informatica
15 18 (0.73%) BiZZdesign
15 18 (0.73%) IBM
15 18 (0.73%) Juniper
16 17 (0.69%) Infoblox