Architect Contract Job Trends in England

Architect
UK > England

The median Architect daily rate in England 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 10 18 14
Rank change year-on-year +8 -4 +2
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,029 2,523 3,341
As % of all contract jobs in England 11.01% 9.15% 10.11%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.91% 9.99% 10.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,378 1,668 2,157
10th Percentile £476 £470 £481
25th Percentile £525 £537 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -
75th Percentile £713 £706 £738
90th Percentile £788 £788 £825
UK median daily rate £613 £625 £638
% change year-on-year -2.00% -1.96% -1.92%
Number of hourly rates quoted 163 18 72
10th Percentile £46.00 £36.30 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £62.50 £60.94
Median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -
75th Percentile £73.25 £87.00 £85.00
90th Percentile £95.80 £100.00 £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
England

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in England. 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 England with a recognized job title 42,208 25,248 30,773
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.43% 91.56% 93.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,337 16,299 19,707
10th Percentile £325 £281 £303
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £508 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.45% -3.33% -4.55%
75th Percentile £635 £625 £638
90th Percentile £738 £738 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.69%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,268 1,358 1,625
10th Percentile £15.18 £13.69 £14.16
25th Percentile £21.25 £17.34 £21.00
Median hourly rate £43.50 £25.15 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +72.96% -44.11% +2.86%
75th Percentile £68.00 £55.00 £66.74
90th Percentile £80.00 £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 England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Architect' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in England.

Architect job vacancy trend in England

Architect
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Architect job vacancies in England.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Architect job vacancies in England

Architect
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Architect in England over the 6 months to 1 September 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Architect in England

Architect
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Architect job vacancies in England.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Architect job vacancies in England

Architect
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Architect in England over the 6 months to 1 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Architect in England

Architect
Contract Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Architect within the England 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
London +7 2,582 £625 -3.85% 1,977
South East 0 726 £625 +4.17% 394
North of England +5 699 £600 - 380
Midlands +3 417 £625 +8.70% 182
North West +5 413 £600 +1.27% 240
South West +2 322 £645 +0.78% 205
West Midlands +1 307 £644 +7.42% 116
Yorkshire +9 225 £581 -5.10% 110
East of England +17 154 £611 +10.27% 114
East Midlands +3 104 £600 +16.50% 66
North East -8 63 £575 -19.30% 30
Architect
UK

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England

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 England region featuring Architect in the job title.

1 1,529 (30.40%) Security Cleared
2 1,304 (25.93%) Azure
3 1,112 (22.11%) SC Cleared
4 1,035 (20.58%) AWS
5 820 (16.31%) Stakeholder Management
6 786 (15.63%) Roadmaps
7 729 (14.50%) Migration
8 692 (13.76%) Microsoft
9 666 (13.24%) AI
10 659 (13.10%) Enterprise Architecture
11 581 (11.55%) Technical Leadership
12 558 (11.10%) Agile
13 556 (11.06%) DevOps
14 533 (10.60%) Data Modelling
15 524 (10.42%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 520 (10.34%) CI/CD
17 504 (10.02%) Data Architecture
18 471 (9.37%) Integration Patterns
19 445 (8.85%) Analytics
20 402 (7.99%) Architectural Patterns
21 400 (7.95%) GCP
22 397 (7.89%) TOGAF
23 395 (7.85%) Security Architecture
24 327 (6.50%) DV Cleared
25 324 (6.44%) Cybersecurity
26 323 (6.42%) Event-Driven
27 322 (6.40%) Data Governance
28 309 (6.14%) Architecture Governance
29 304 (6.04%) Infrastructure as Code
29 304 (6.04%) Microservices

Architect Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England 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 73 (1.45%) SAS
2 68 (1.35%) SharePoint
3 53 (1.05%) Confluence
4 41 (0.82%) Apache
5 39 (0.78%) Apache Spark
6 29 (0.58%) Apache Airflow
7 28 (0.56%) Microsoft Exchange
8 22 (0.44%) Palantir Foundry
9 21 (0.42%) CMS
10 14 (0.28%) OpenStack
11 7 (0.14%) ArcGIS
11 7 (0.14%) Documentum
12 6 (0.12%) Appian
12 6 (0.12%) Camunda
13 5 (0.099%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 5 (0.099%) Headless CMS
14 4 (0.080%) Jupyter
15 3 (0.060%) Anypoint
15 3 (0.060%) Drupal
15 3 (0.060%) nginx
Applications
1 17 (0.34%) MS Visio
2 14 (0.28%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 12 (0.24%) Microsoft Excel
4 9 (0.18%) Microsoft Office
5 8 (0.16%) Chatbot
6 7 (0.14%) Navisworks
6 7 (0.14%) Revit
7 6 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.040%) Windchill
9 1 (0.020%) Gliffy
9 1 (0.020%) Microsoft Project
9 1 (0.020%) Notion
9 1 (0.020%) PlantUML
Business Applications
1 126 (2.51%) SAP S/4HANA
2 35 (0.70%) Dynamics CRM
3 34 (0.68%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 15 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
4 15 (0.30%) Teamcenter
5 14 (0.28%) Payment Gateway
6 13 (0.26%) Oracle ERP
6 13 (0.26%) Remedy ITSM
7 12 (0.24%) NetSuite
7 12 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
7 12 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
8 11 (0.22%) SAP ERP
9 8 (0.16%) Oracle Retail
9 8 (0.16%) SAP BRIM
9 8 (0.16%) SAP MDG
9 8 (0.16%) Workday HCM
10 7 (0.14%) SAP IBP
11 6 (0.12%) Maximo
12 5 (0.099%) SAP MM
12 5 (0.099%) SAP Oil and Gas
Cloud Services
1 1,304 (25.93%) Azure
2 1,035 (20.58%) AWS
3 400 (7.95%) GCP
4 271 (5.39%) Power Platform
5 189 (3.76%) Entra ID
5 189 (3.76%) SaaS
6 170 (3.38%) Serverless
7 136 (2.70%) Dynamics 365
8 126 (2.51%) GitHub
9 111 (2.21%) Azure DevOps
10 105 (2.09%) Microsoft 365
11 104 (2.07%) Snowflake
12 84 (1.67%) PaaS
13 74 (1.47%) AWS Lambda
14 69 (1.37%) Amazon S3
15 60 (1.19%) GitHub Actions
16 57 (1.13%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 57 (1.13%) OCI
17 56 (1.11%) IaaS
18 54 (1.07%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 138 (2.74%) Network Security
2 135 (2.68%) Firewall
3 99 (1.97%) WAN
4 76 (1.51%) DNS
5 68 (1.35%) LAN
6 67 (1.33%) VPN
7 47 (0.93%) BGP
7 47 (0.93%) SD-WAN
8 38 (0.76%) DHCP
9 37 (0.74%) TCP/IP
10 34 (0.68%) MPLS
11 29 (0.58%) VLAN
12 27 (0.54%) SAN
13 26 (0.52%) VXLAN
14 22 (0.44%) NAS
14 22 (0.44%) OSPF
15 21 (0.42%) NX-OS
16 20 (0.40%) Wireless
17 18 (0.36%) BIG-IP
17 18 (0.36%) Radio Access Network
Database & Business Intelligence
1 185 (3.68%) Power BI
2 180 (3.58%) Metadata
3 166 (3.30%) Data Lake
4 146 (2.90%) Data Warehouse
5 62 (1.23%) NoSQL
6 49 (0.97%) SQL Server
7 41 (0.82%) Delta Lake
8 38 (0.76%) Big Data
9 37 (0.74%) BigQuery
10 35 (0.70%) Azure SQL Database
10 35 (0.70%) PostgreSQL
11 33 (0.66%) Amazon RDS
12 32 (0.64%) Amazon Redshift
13 31 (0.62%) Oracle Database
14 26 (0.52%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
15 24 (0.48%) Semantic Layer
16 23 (0.46%) GIS
16 23 (0.46%) Tableau
17 21 (0.42%) MongoDB
18 18 (0.36%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 73 (1.45%) JIRA
2 66 (1.31%) Git
3 48 (0.95%) Jenkins
4 35 (0.70%) GitLab
5 16 (0.32%) ERwin
6 10 (0.20%) Claude Code
7 9 (0.18%) Cypress.io
7 9 (0.18%) Oracle Forms
8 8 (0.16%) MSI
8 8 (0.16%) RStudio
9 7 (0.14%) MLflow
9 7 (0.14%) SonarQube
10 6 (0.12%) Artifactory
10 6 (0.12%) Storybook
11 5 (0.099%) ER Studio
11 5 (0.099%) Maven
12 4 (0.080%) PowerDesigner
12 4 (0.080%) Selenium
13 3 (0.060%) Rational DOORS
13 3 (0.060%) VTune
General
1 1,010 (20.08%) Social Skills
2 751 (14.93%) Finance
3 546 (10.86%) Public Sector
4 279 (5.55%) Banking
5 267 (5.31%) Analytical Skills
6 249 (4.95%) Retail
7 148 (2.94%) Influencing Skills
8 128 (2.55%) Documentation Skills
9 119 (2.37%) Telecoms
10 108 (2.15%) Manufacturing
11 77 (1.53%) Legal
12 63 (1.25%) Marketing
13 60 (1.19%) Billing
14 49 (0.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 48 (0.95%) Military
16 45 (0.89%) Aerospace
17 43 (0.86%) Law
18 31 (0.62%) Financial Institution
18 31 (0.62%) Presentation Skills
19 29 (0.58%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 250 (4.97%) REST
2 213 (4.24%) Terraform
3 139 (2.76%) Middleware
4 117 (2.33%) .NET
5 115 (2.29%) SOAP
6 109 (2.17%) Kafka
7 101 (2.01%) OAuth
8 66 (1.31%) Oracle Fusion
9 58 (1.15%) JSON
10 57 (1.13%) SAML
11 55 (1.09%) OpenID
12 48 (0.95%) OAuth2
13 44 (0.87%) PySpark
14 40 (0.80%) LDAP
15 38 (0.76%) XML
16 37 (0.74%) .NET Framework
16 37 (0.74%) RESTful
17 36 (0.72%) React
17 36 (0.72%) SailPoint
18 31 (0.62%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 440 (8.75%) Cloud Native
2 151 (3.00%) Data Centre
3 138 (2.74%) Onboarding
4 124 (2.47%) Hybrid Cloud
5 120 (2.39%) Distributed Systems
5 120 (2.39%) Product Ownership
6 117 (2.33%) Legacy Systems
7 116 (2.31%) AI Agents
7 116 (2.31%) Enterprise Software
8 109 (2.17%) Management Information System
9 88 (1.75%) Data Protection Act
10 87 (1.73%) CMDB
11 75 (1.49%) Operational Technology
12 69 (1.37%) Enterprise Cloud
13 63 (1.25%) Public Cloud
14 60 (1.19%) Security Posture
15 52 (1.03%) Data Structures
16 48 (0.95%) Private Cloud
17 42 (0.84%) Mainframe
18 40 (0.80%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 98 (1.95%) Windows
2 86 (1.71%) Linux
3 34 (0.68%) Windows Server
4 20 (0.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 20 (0.40%) Unix
5 11 (0.22%) Apple iOS
6 10 (0.20%) Android
7 9 (0.18%) AIX
8 8 (0.16%) Ubuntu
9 7 (0.14%) zOS
10 5 (0.099%) Solaris
11 4 (0.080%) Alpine Linux
11 4 (0.080%) Data ONTAP
12 3 (0.060%) CentOS
12 3 (0.060%) VMS
13 2 (0.040%) HPUX
13 2 (0.040%) Mac OS
13 2 (0.040%) OpenWrt
13 2 (0.040%) Windows 10
14 1 (0.020%) CatOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 820 (16.31%) Stakeholder Management
2 786 (15.63%) Roadmaps
3 729 (14.50%) Migration
4 666 (13.24%) AI
5 659 (13.10%) Enterprise Architecture
6 581 (11.55%) Technical Leadership
7 558 (11.10%) Agile
8 556 (11.06%) DevOps
9 533 (10.60%) Data Modelling
10 524 (10.42%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 520 (10.34%) CI/CD
12 504 (10.02%) Data Architecture
13 471 (9.37%) Integration Patterns
14 445 (8.85%) Analytics
15 402 (7.99%) Architectural Patterns
16 397 (7.89%) TOGAF
17 395 (7.85%) Security Architecture
18 324 (6.44%) Cybersecurity
19 323 (6.42%) Event-Driven
20 322 (6.40%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 243 (4.83%) Python
2 232 (4.61%) SQL
3 207 (4.12%) Java
4 112 (2.23%) JavaScript
5 87 (1.73%) PowerShell
6 50 (0.99%) C#
7 45 (0.89%) TypeScript
8 43 (0.86%) Bash
9 39 (0.78%) Bicep
10 28 (0.56%) Apex Code
11 15 (0.30%) ABAP
11 15 (0.30%) Shell Script
12 14 (0.28%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 13 (0.26%) Ruby
14 11 (0.22%) C++
14 11 (0.22%) Groovy
15 10 (0.20%) R
15 10 (0.20%) Scala
16 8 (0.16%) PL/SQL
17 7 (0.14%) BeanShell
Qualifications
1 1,529 (30.40%) Security Cleared
2 1,112 (22.11%) SC Cleared
3 327 (6.50%) DV Cleared
4 153 (3.04%) Degree
5 131 (2.60%) CISSP
6 103 (2.05%) Azure Certification
7 98 (1.95%) AWS Certification
8 85 (1.69%) BPSS Clearance
8 85 (1.69%) Cisco Certification
9 79 (1.57%) TOGAF Certification
10 63 (1.25%) CISM
11 62 (1.23%) Computer Science Degree
12 45 (0.89%) Microsoft Certification
13 39 (0.78%) CCNP
14 33 (0.66%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 33 (0.66%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 23 (0.46%) Master's Degree
16 21 (0.42%) CCSP
17 18 (0.36%) CCIE
17 18 (0.36%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 201 (4.00%) Data Quality
2 194 (3.86%) NIST
3 148 (2.94%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 141 (2.80%) GDPR
5 91 (1.81%) NCSC
6 64 (1.27%) GRC
7 50 (0.99%) QA
8 38 (0.76%) Accessibility
9 35 (0.70%) PCI DSS
10 32 (0.64%) NIST 800
11 29 (0.58%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 23 (0.46%) SLA
13 20 (0.40%) SEPA
14 18 (0.36%) IFRS
15 17 (0.34%) ISO 20022
15 17 (0.34%) ISO/IEC 20000
15 17 (0.34%) JSP 440
16 16 (0.32%) Cyber Essentials
17 13 (0.26%) Government Security Classifications
17 13 (0.26%) ISO 19650
System Software
1 153 (3.04%) Active Directory
2 92 (1.83%) Docker
3 59 (1.17%) VMware Infrastructure
4 38 (0.76%) VMware NSX
5 29 (0.58%) Virtual Desktop
6 17 (0.34%) Virtual Machines
7 16 (0.32%) Hyper-V
8 15 (0.30%) vSphere
9 14 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
10 7 (0.14%) NFS
11 6 (0.12%) Varnish
12 5 (0.099%) Postfix
13 4 (0.080%) EMC RecoverPoint
13 4 (0.080%) KVM
13 4 (0.080%) vCloud
14 3 (0.060%) Ceph
14 3 (0.060%) Sendmail
14 3 (0.060%) SRDF
15 2 (0.040%) IAG
15 2 (0.040%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 235 (4.67%) Kubernetes
2 90 (1.79%) Ansible
3 41 (0.82%) Single Sign-On
4 40 (0.80%) Grafana
5 31 (0.62%) Prometheus
6 24 (0.48%) Microsoft Intune
7 15 (0.30%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 15 (0.30%) Argo
8 14 (0.28%) Jamf Pro
9 12 (0.24%) vCenter Server
10 9 (0.18%) WMI
11 8 (0.16%) FortiGate
12 7 (0.14%) Istio
13 6 (0.12%) CASB
13 6 (0.12%) NetBackup
13 6 (0.12%) SCCM
14 5 (0.099%) EMC VPLEX
14 5 (0.099%) HAProxy
14 5 (0.099%) MOM
15 4 (0.080%) SnapMirror
Vendors
1 692 (13.76%) Microsoft
2 288 (5.73%) SAP
3 269 (5.35%) Oracle
4 254 (5.05%) Databricks
5 250 (4.97%) ServiceNow
6 163 (3.24%) Salesforce
7 156 (3.10%) Google
8 132 (2.62%) Cisco
9 111 (2.21%) VMware
10 69 (1.37%) CyberArk
11 58 (1.15%) IBM
11 58 (1.15%) MuleSoft
12 53 (1.05%) Workday
13 49 (0.97%) Palo Alto
14 46 (0.91%) Foundry
15 36 (0.72%) Sparx
16 34 (0.68%) Adobe
16 34 (0.68%) OpenAI
17 33 (0.66%) Ariba
18 32 (0.64%) Informatica