Lead Architect Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Lead Architect
UK > UK excluding London

The median Lead Architect salary in the UK excluding London is £85,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 1 January 2026.

The table below compares current salary benchmarking and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 395 491 482
Rank change year-on-year +96 -9 +155
Permanent jobs requiring a Lead Architect 122 89 69
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 0.29% 0.24% 0.22%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.32% 0.26% 0.24%
Number of salaries quoted 70 38 53
10th Percentile £65,000 £63,150 £63,799
25th Percentile £70,000 £72,681 £72,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £85,000 £82,500 £80,000
Median % change year-on-year +3.03% +3.13% -5.88%
75th Percentile £95,000 £99,618 £87,500
90th Percentile £97,750 £125,000 £101,600
UK median annual salary £95,000 £97,500 £92,778
% change year-on-year -2.56% +5.09% +1.66%

All Permanent IT Job Roles
UK excluding London

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent 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 permanent jobs in our overall sample.

Permanent vacancies in the UK excluding London with a recognized job title 37,897 34,703 29,304
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.34% 93.14% 95.30%
Number of salaries quoted 22,949 17,250 22,189
10th Percentile £28,000 £31,250 £28,000
25th Percentile £34,750 £40,000 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £52,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £65,000 £68,750 £66,250
90th Percentile £80,000 £82,500 £80,000
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% - -

Lead Architect
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings featuring 'Lead Architect' in the job title relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Lead Architect job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Lead Architect
Salary Trend in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution trend for Lead Architect job vacancies in the UK excluding London.

Salary distribution trend for Lead Architect job vacancies in the UK excluding London

Lead Architect
Salary Histogram in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution for jobs citing Lead Architect in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 1 January 2026.

Salary histogram for Lead Architect in the UK excluding London

Lead Architect
Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Lead Architect 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
North of England +39 43 £95,000 +8.57% 22
South East +34 33 £85,000 +13.33% 32
Midlands +33 26 £77,000 +7.47% 36
North West +37 21 £95,000 +35.71% 8
Yorkshire -3 16 £95,000 +8.57% 11
West Midlands +18 13 £77,000 +7.47% 19
East Midlands +3 11 £65,000 - 16
South West +10 8 £55,000 -47.62% 15
North East +11 6 £91,716 - 3
Wales - 5 £75,000 - 5
Scotland +2 4 £100,000 -14.89% 6
East of England +24 3 - - 22
Lead Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 1 January 2026, Lead Architect 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 permanent job ads across the UK excluding London region featuring Lead Architect in the job title.

1 29 (23.77%) SAP
2 28 (22.95%) Business Strategy
3 23 (18.85%) Azure
3 23 (18.85%) Enterprise Architecture
4 20 (16.39%) ERP
5 19 (15.57%) Agile
6 17 (13.93%) SAP S/4HANA
7 16 (13.11%) Architectural Patterns
7 16 (13.11%) IT Strategy
7 16 (13.11%) Roadmaps
8 15 (12.30%) Risk Management
9 14 (11.48%) Source to Pay
10 13 (10.66%) AWS
10 13 (10.66%) Project Management
10 13 (10.66%) Technology Strategy
11 12 (9.84%) Ariba
11 12 (9.84%) Procure-to-Pay
11 12 (9.84%) SAP MDG
12 11 (9.02%) Continuous Improvement
12 11 (9.02%) Data Architecture
13 10 (8.20%) Data Modelling
13 10 (8.20%) PLM
14 9 (7.38%) Analytics
14 9 (7.38%) BPSS Clearance
14 9 (7.38%) CAD
14 9 (7.38%) Confluence
14 9 (7.38%) JIRA
14 9 (7.38%) Power Platform
14 9 (7.38%) Siemens
14 9 (7.38%) Technical Leadership

Lead 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 9 (7.38%) Confluence
2 6 (4.92%) SharePoint
Business Applications
1 17 (13.93%) SAP S/4HANA
2 12 (9.84%) SAP MDG
3 3 (2.46%) Dynamics CRM
3 3 (2.46%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 23 (18.85%) Azure
2 13 (10.66%) AWS
3 9 (7.38%) Power Platform
4 7 (5.74%) Dynamics 365
5 6 (4.92%) GCP
6 5 (4.10%) Microsoft 365
6 5 (4.10%) SaaS
7 3 (2.46%) Kong
7 3 (2.46%) OCI
7 3 (2.46%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
7 3 (2.46%) Snowflake
8 2 (1.64%) Microsoft Copilot
8 2 (1.64%) Oracle CX
8 2 (1.64%) PaaS
8 2 (1.64%) SuccessFactors
9 1 (0.82%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 4 (3.28%) Firewall
2 3 (2.46%) Network Security
3 1 (0.82%) BGP
3 1 (0.82%) Broadband
3 1 (0.82%) DNS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (5.74%) Power BI
2 2 (1.64%) Data Warehouse
2 2 (1.64%) Metadata
3 1 (0.82%) NoSQL
3 1 (0.82%) SAP Data Services
3 1 (0.82%) TIBCO EBX
Development Applications
1 9 (7.38%) JIRA
General
1 22 (18.03%) Social Skills
2 16 (13.11%) Analytical Skills
3 12 (9.84%) Legal
4 11 (9.02%) Manufacturing
5 8 (6.56%) Finance
5 8 (6.56%) Public Sector
6 7 (5.74%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 5 (4.10%) Electronics
8 3 (2.46%) Retail
9 2 (1.64%) Banking
9 2 (1.64%) Marketing
10 1 (0.82%) Aeronautics
10 1 (0.82%) Aerospace
10 1 (0.82%) Automotive
10 1 (0.82%) Games
10 1 (0.82%) Influencing Skills
10 1 (0.82%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (5.74%) EDI
2 4 (3.28%) Node.js
2 4 (3.28%) React
3 3 (2.46%) Apollo GraphQL
3 3 (2.46%) GraphQL
3 3 (2.46%) Kafka
4 2 (1.64%) Middleware
4 2 (1.64%) Oracle Fusion
5 1 (0.82%) .NET
5 1 (0.82%) SAPUI5
Miscellaneous
1 10 (8.20%) Cloud Native
2 4 (3.28%) Product Ownership
2 4 (3.28%) Public Cloud
3 2 (1.64%) Algorithms
3 2 (1.64%) Distributed Systems
3 2 (1.64%) Legacy Systems
4 1 (0.82%) Data Protection Act
4 1 (0.82%) Hybrid Cloud
4 1 (0.82%) Private Cloud
4 1 (0.82%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 3 (2.46%) Windows
1 3 (2.46%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 28 (22.95%) Business Strategy
2 23 (18.85%) Enterprise Architecture
3 20 (16.39%) ERP
4 19 (15.57%) Agile
5 16 (13.11%) Architectural Patterns
5 16 (13.11%) IT Strategy
5 16 (13.11%) Roadmaps
6 15 (12.30%) Risk Management
7 14 (11.48%) Source to Pay
8 13 (10.66%) Project Management
8 13 (10.66%) Technology Strategy
9 12 (9.84%) Procure-to-Pay
10 11 (9.02%) Continuous Improvement
10 11 (9.02%) Data Architecture
11 10 (8.20%) Data Modelling
11 10 (8.20%) PLM
12 9 (7.38%) Analytics
12 9 (7.38%) CAD
12 9 (7.38%) Technical Leadership
13 8 (6.56%) Strategic Thinking
Programming Languages
1 4 (3.28%) Java
2 1 (0.82%) ABAP
2 1 (0.82%) C#
Qualifications
1 9 (7.38%) BPSS Clearance
2 5 (4.10%) Security Cleared
3 3 (2.46%) CISSP
3 3 (2.46%) DV Cleared
4 2 (1.64%) Degree
4 2 (1.64%) TOGAF Certification
5 1 (0.82%) AWS Certification
5 1 (0.82%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (2.46%) Cyber Essentials
1 3 (2.46%) GDPR
1 3 (2.46%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 3 (2.46%) NCSC
2 1 (0.82%) Data Quality
2 1 (0.82%) QA
System Software
1 3 (2.46%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 3 (2.46%) Terraform
1 3 (2.46%) vRealize
Vendors
1 29 (23.77%) SAP
2 12 (9.84%) Ariba
3 9 (7.38%) Siemens
4 7 (5.74%) Sparx
5 6 (4.92%) Adobe
5 6 (4.92%) Salesforce
6 5 (4.10%) Microsoft
7 4 (3.28%) Informatica
8 3 (2.46%) MuleSoft
8 3 (2.46%) Oracle
8 3 (2.46%) VMware
9 1 (0.82%) TIBCO
9 1 (0.82%) Workday