Architectural Design Contract Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Architectural Design
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the UK excluding London requiring Architectural Design skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 1 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 225 242 233
Rank change year-on-year +17 -9 +40
Contract jobs citing Architectural Design 182 106 178
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.99% 0.73% 0.92%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.16% 0.83% 1.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 123 52 122
10th Percentile £421 £421 £425
25th Percentile £465 £461 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £525 £575
Median % change year-on-year +4.76% -8.70% +0.98%
75th Percentile £675 £675 £675
90th Percentile £735 £694 £731
UK median daily rate £579 £600 £600
% change year-on-year -3.50% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 1 9
10th Percentile £54.75 - £66.80
25th Percentile £60.00 - £68.75
Median hourly rate £70.00 £70.00 £72.50
Median % change year-on-year - -3.45% +11.11%
75th Percentile - - £76.25
90th Percentile £72.56 - £79.50
UK median hourly rate £70.00 £77.50 £72.50
% change year-on-year -9.68% +6.90% +38.10%

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK excluding London

Architectural Design falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in the UK excluding London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 15,656 12,718 17,001
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 85.47% 87.41% 87.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,603 7,458 10,932
10th Percentile £222 £240 £250
25th Percentile £375 £381 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £575 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £685 £691
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,718 726 1,229
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.50 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.30 £20.00 £17.72
Median hourly rate £23.58 £30.45 £45.21
Median % change year-on-year -22.58% -32.65% +44.86%
75th Percentile £51.43 £63.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £68.29 £73.66 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £44.50
% change year-on-year -22.62% -26.97% +27.14%

Architectural Design
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Architectural Design relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Architectural Design job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Architectural Design
Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Architectural Design.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Architectural Design

Architectural Design
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Architectural Design in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 1 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Architectural Design in the UK excluding London

Architectural Design
Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Architectural Design.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Architectural Design

Architectural Design
Hourly Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Architectural Design in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 1 January 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Architectural Design in the UK excluding London

Architectural Design
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 Architectural Design within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 1 January 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 +23 64 £510 -7.27% 16
North of England -27 56 £563 +11.94% 14
North West -14 38 £575 +19.79% 6
Midlands -13 35 £525 -2.23% 7
West Midlands -17 24 £569 -9.00% 3
Yorkshire - 17 £525 - 4
South West -16 15 £636 +21.14% 7
East Midlands -8 11 £465 +4.49% 4
Scotland +12 10 £525 +5.63% 1
Wales +1 6 £675 +8.00% 4
East of England -15 4 £650 +44.44% 10
North East -8 1 £550 -11.90% 4
Architectural Design
UK

Architectural Design
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 18 (9.89%) Confluence
2 16 (8.79%) SharePoint
3 11 (6.04%) Microsoft Exchange
4 7 (3.85%) Exchange Server 2003
4 7 (3.85%) Exchange Server 2007
4 7 (3.85%) Exchange Server 2010
4 7 (3.85%) Exchange Server 2013
4 7 (3.85%) Office Communications Server
4 7 (3.85%) SharePoint Server
4 7 (3.85%) Skype for Business
5 4 (2.20%) Apache Spark
6 3 (1.65%) Apache
7 2 (1.10%) Anypoint
8 1 (0.55%) ArcGIS
Applications
1 16 (8.79%) Microsoft Excel
1 16 (8.79%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 7 (3.85%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.55%) Adobe XD
3 1 (0.55%) Chatbot
3 1 (0.55%) Revit
3 1 (0.55%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 9 (4.95%) SAP S/4HANA
2 4 (2.20%) SAP PM
3 3 (1.65%) Workday HCM
4 2 (1.10%) Payment Gateway
4 2 (1.10%) SAP MDG
4 2 (1.10%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 1 (0.55%) Dynamics CRM
5 1 (0.55%) Maximo
Cloud Services
1 46 (25.27%) Azure
2 30 (16.48%) AWS
3 21 (11.54%) GCP
4 12 (6.59%) GitHub
5 11 (6.04%) Azure DevOps
5 11 (6.04%) SaaS
6 10 (5.49%) Entra ID
7 8 (4.40%) Microsoft 365
8 7 (3.85%) Dynamics 365
8 7 (3.85%) Power Platform
9 6 (3.30%) Amazon ECS
10 5 (2.75%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 5 (2.75%) Amazon EC2
10 5 (2.75%) Datadog
10 5 (2.75%) Microsoft Purview
10 5 (2.75%) Serverless
11 4 (2.20%) Apigee
11 4 (2.20%) AWS Lambda
11 4 (2.20%) Loggly
11 4 (2.20%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 12 (6.59%) Firewall
2 9 (4.95%) DNS
2 9 (4.95%) SD-WAN
2 9 (4.95%) VPN
3 8 (4.40%) DHCP
4 7 (3.85%) DDNS
4 7 (3.85%) Network Security
4 7 (3.85%) SAN
5 4 (2.20%) WAN
6 3 (1.65%) IPsec
6 3 (1.65%) LAN
7 2 (1.10%) BGP
7 2 (1.10%) EIGRP
7 2 (1.10%) MPLS
7 2 (1.10%) OSPF
7 2 (1.10%) Wi-Fi
8 1 (0.55%) BIG-IP
8 1 (0.55%) DWDM
8 1 (0.55%) Internet
8 1 (0.55%) MQTT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (8.79%) Tableau
2 7 (3.85%) MySQL
3 6 (3.30%) NoSQL
4 5 (2.75%) Amazon Aurora
4 5 (2.75%) Amazon RDS
4 5 (2.75%) PostgreSQL
4 5 (2.75%) Redis
4 5 (2.75%) Relational Database
5 4 (2.20%) BigQuery
5 4 (2.20%) DynamoDB
5 4 (2.20%) RDBMS
6 3 (1.65%) Metadata
6 3 (1.65%) SQL Server
7 2 (1.10%) Delta Lake
7 2 (1.10%) Power BI
7 2 (1.10%) SAP HANA
8 1 (0.55%) Apache Hive
8 1 (0.55%) Azure SQL Database
8 1 (0.55%) Big Data
8 1 (0.55%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 17 (9.34%) JIRA
2 12 (6.59%) Git
3 6 (3.30%) Jenkins
3 6 (3.30%) JMeter
3 6 (3.30%) MSTest
3 6 (3.30%) Selenium
3 6 (3.30%) Visual Studio
4 5 (2.75%) Gradle
5 4 (2.20%) Maven
5 4 (2.20%) SonarLint
5 4 (2.20%) SonarQube
6 1 (0.55%) CircleCI
6 1 (0.55%) CocoaPods
6 1 (0.55%) Crashlytics
6 1 (0.55%) fastlane
6 1 (0.55%) GitLab
6 1 (0.55%) SpecFlow
General
1 50 (27.47%) Social Skills
2 31 (17.03%) Banking
3 30 (16.48%) Finance
4 21 (11.54%) Public Sector
5 10 (5.49%) Analytical Skills
6 7 (3.85%) Influencing Skills
6 7 (3.85%) Legal
7 6 (3.30%) Manufacturing
7 6 (3.30%) Retail
8 4 (2.20%) Financial Institution
8 4 (2.20%) Investment Banking
9 3 (1.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 3 (1.65%) Military
9 3 (1.65%) Telecoms
10 2 (1.10%) Automotive
10 2 (1.10%) Documentation Skills
10 2 (1.10%) Presentation Skills
11 1 (0.55%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 115 (63.19%) Architect
2 66 (36.26%) Solutions Architect
3 13 (7.14%) Payments Architect
3 13 (7.14%) Payments Solutions Architect
3 13 (7.14%) Senior
3 13 (7.14%) Support Engineer
4 11 (6.04%) Enterprise Architect
5 10 (5.49%) Developer
5 10 (5.49%) Lead
6 8 (4.40%) Security Architect
6 8 (4.40%) Technical Architect
7 7 (3.85%) Exchange Engineer
7 7 (3.85%) Exchange Support
7 7 (3.85%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 7 (3.85%) Infrastructure Support
7 7 (3.85%) Network Architect
8 6 (3.30%) Infrastructure Support Engineer
9 5 (2.75%) Lead Architect
9 5 (2.75%) Lead Solutions Architect
9 5 (2.75%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (6.59%) Web Services
2 8 (4.40%) RESTful
3 7 (3.85%) Spring Boot
4 6 (3.30%) React
4 6 (3.30%) REST
5 5 (2.75%) IDoc
5 5 (2.75%) JWT
5 5 (2.75%) SOAP
6 4 (2.20%) AngularJS
6 4 (2.20%) BAPI
6 4 (2.20%) Dropwizard
6 4 (2.20%) J2EE
6 4 (2.20%) Micronaut
6 4 (2.20%) Middleware
6 4 (2.20%) Node.js
6 4 (2.20%) OAuth
6 4 (2.20%) RabbitMQ
6 4 (2.20%) SailPoint
6 4 (2.20%) Spring
7 3 (1.65%) Celery
Miscellaneous
1 27 (14.84%) Product Ownership
2 17 (9.34%) Cloud Native
3 7 (3.85%) Enterprise Software
3 7 (3.85%) Hybrid Cloud
3 7 (3.85%) Management Information System
3 7 (3.85%) Public Cloud
3 7 (3.85%) Replication
4 5 (2.75%) Cloud Security Posture
4 5 (2.75%) Operational Technology
4 5 (2.75%) Security Posture
5 4 (2.20%) CMDB
5 4 (2.20%) Data Centre
5 4 (2.20%) Legacy Systems
5 4 (2.20%) N-Tier
5 4 (2.20%) SCADA
6 3 (1.65%) Greenfield Project
6 3 (1.65%) Mobile App
7 2 (1.10%) Algorithms
7 2 (1.10%) Data Protection Act
7 2 (1.10%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 17 (9.34%) Linux
2 15 (8.24%) Windows
3 13 (7.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 7 (3.85%) Windows Server 2003
5 2 (1.10%) Apple iOS
5 2 (1.10%) VMS
6 1 (0.55%) Android
6 1 (0.55%) Embedded Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 45 (24.73%) Agile
2 38 (20.88%) DevOps
3 37 (20.33%) Problem-Solving
3 37 (20.33%) Roadmaps
3 37 (20.33%) Stakeholder Management
4 32 (17.58%) ITIL
5 25 (13.74%) Enterprise Architecture
5 25 (13.74%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 24 (13.19%) CI/CD
7 23 (12.64%) Design Patterns
7 23 (12.64%) Project Delivery
7 23 (12.64%) Regulatory Compliance
7 23 (12.64%) Technical Architecture
8 22 (12.09%) TOGAF
9 21 (11.54%) Mentoring
10 20 (10.99%) AI
10 20 (10.99%) Architectural Patterns
10 20 (10.99%) Integration Patterns
11 19 (10.44%) Microservices
12 18 (9.89%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 18 (9.89%) Python
2 15 (8.24%) Java
3 14 (7.69%) SQL
4 12 (6.59%) JavaScript
5 8 (4.40%) C#
6 4 (2.20%) TypeScript
7 3 (1.65%) ABAP
8 2 (1.10%) Kotlin
8 2 (1.10%) Swift
9 1 (0.55%) ActionScript
9 1 (0.55%) ActionScript 2.0
9 1 (0.55%) C
9 1 (0.55%) C++
9 1 (0.55%) Go
9 1 (0.55%) MATLAB
9 1 (0.55%) Objective-C
9 1 (0.55%) Perl
9 1 (0.55%) PHP
9 1 (0.55%) PL/SQL
9 1 (0.55%) R
Qualifications
1 49 (26.92%) Security Cleared
2 27 (14.84%) SC Cleared
3 14 (7.69%) DV Cleared
4 9 (4.95%) AWS Certification
4 9 (4.95%) Degree
5 7 (3.85%) Azure Certification
6 6 (3.30%) CISSP
6 6 (3.30%) ISEB
6 6 (3.30%) ITIL Certification
7 5 (2.75%) (ISC)2 CCSP
7 5 (2.75%) CCSP
7 5 (2.75%) Cisco Certification
8 4 (2.20%) BPSS Clearance
8 4 (2.20%) Computer Science Degree
8 4 (2.20%) ISTQB
8 4 (2.20%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 2 (1.10%) TOGAF Certification
10 1 (0.55%) Chartered Engineer
10 1 (0.55%) CISM
10 1 (0.55%) CITP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (7.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 9 (4.95%) GDPR
3 8 (4.40%) NIST
3 8 (4.40%) QA
4 6 (3.30%) COBIT
4 6 (3.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
4 6 (3.30%) PCI DSS
4 6 (3.30%) PSD2
5 4 (2.20%) Data Quality
6 2 (1.10%) Accessibility
6 2 (1.10%) ISO 20022
6 2 (1.10%) SLA
7 1 (0.55%) ISO 19650
7 1 (0.55%) JSP 440
7 1 (0.55%) NCSC
7 1 (0.55%) NIST 800
System Software
1 20 (10.99%) Docker
2 12 (6.59%) Active Directory
3 7 (3.85%) Brightmail
3 7 (3.85%) ISA Server
4 2 (1.10%) VMware Infrastructure
5 1 (0.55%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 18 (9.89%) Kubernetes
2 12 (6.59%) Ansible
2 12 (6.59%) Red Hat Satellite
3 8 (4.40%) Terraform
4 7 (3.85%) Microsoft Clustering
5 5 (2.75%) Single Sign-On
6 2 (1.10%) Grafana
Vendors
1 27 (14.84%) Microsoft
2 14 (7.69%) Red Hat
2 14 (7.69%) VMware
3 11 (6.04%) SAP
4 7 (3.85%) ServiceNow
5 6 (3.30%) Cisco
5 6 (3.30%) Oracle
6 4 (2.20%) Gigya
7 3 (1.65%) Databricks
7 3 (1.65%) Google
7 3 (1.65%) Juniper
7 3 (1.65%) MuleSoft
7 3 (1.65%) Salesforce
7 3 (1.65%) Temenos
7 3 (1.65%) Workday
8 2 (1.10%) Adobe
8 2 (1.10%) AVEVA
8 2 (1.10%) Fortinet
8 2 (1.10%) IBM
8 2 (1.10%) Informatica