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 27 August 2026.

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

6 months to
27 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 18 14
Rank change year-on-year +8 -4 +2
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,024 2,540 3,387
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.99% 9.20% 10.20%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.89% 10.05% 10.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,379 1,681 2,209
10th Percentile £477 £468 £481
25th Percentile £525 £538 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -
75th Percentile £715 £706 £738
90th Percentile £788 £788 £823
UK median daily rate £615 £625 £645
% change year-on-year -1.60% -3.10% -0.77%
Number of hourly rates quoted 161 18 73
10th Percentile £46.00 £36.30 -
25th Percentile £60.00 £62.50 £60.00
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 £95.00 £100.00 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £65.75 £72.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -9.31% +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 42,263 25,262 30,879
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.44% 91.54% 93.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,421 16,297 19,929
10th Percentile £325 £281 £300
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 £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £738 £738 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.87%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,239 1,381 1,691
10th Percentile £15.13 £13.65 £14.16
25th Percentile £21.20 £17.38 £20.50
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +2.63%
75th Percentile £68.00 £55.00 £66.61
90th Percentile £80.00 £72.75 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +65.94% -41.51% -1.44%

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 27 August 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 27 August 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 27 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
London +7 2,584 £625 -2.72% 714
South East 0 730 £625 +4.17% 158
North of England +6 704 £600 - 205
Midlands +2 410 £626 +8.87% 91
North West +6 409 £600 +2.78% 124
South West 0 314 £650 +1.56% 130
West Midlands 0 297 £650 +8.33% 64
Yorkshire +7 232 £600 -2.04% 55
East of England +11 150 £604 +9.07% 43
East Midlands +4 106 £600 +16.50% 27
North East -5 65 £600 -14.29% 26
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 27 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 England region featuring Architect in the job title.

1 1,516 (30.18%) Security Cleared
2 1,306 (26.00%) Azure
3 1,103 (21.95%) SC Cleared
4 1,031 (20.52%) AWS
5 793 (15.78%) Stakeholder Management
6 774 (15.41%) Roadmaps
7 726 (14.45%) Migration
8 694 (13.81%) Microsoft
9 661 (13.16%) AI
10 653 (13.00%) Enterprise Architecture
11 560 (11.15%) DevOps
12 559 (11.13%) Agile
13 557 (11.09%) Technical Leadership
14 530 (10.55%) Data Modelling
15 527 (10.49%) CI/CD
16 519 (10.33%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 496 (9.87%) Data Architecture
18 482 (9.59%) Integration Patterns
19 450 (8.96%) Analytics
20 401 (7.98%) GCP
21 400 (7.96%) Architectural Patterns
22 390 (7.76%) TOGAF
23 383 (7.62%) Security Architecture
24 328 (6.53%) Event-Driven
25 325 (6.47%) DV Cleared
26 321 (6.39%) Cybersecurity
27 316 (6.29%) Data Governance
28 313 (6.23%) Infrastructure as Code
29 308 (6.13%) Microservices
30 305 (6.07%) Architecture Governance

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 69 (1.37%) SharePoint
3 52 (1.04%) Confluence
4 41 (0.82%) Apache
5 39 (0.78%) Apache Spark
6 29 (0.58%) Microsoft Exchange
7 28 (0.56%) Apache Airflow
8 22 (0.44%) Palantir Foundry
9 17 (0.34%) CMS
10 15 (0.30%) OpenStack
11 7 (0.14%) ArcGIS
11 7 (0.14%) Camunda
11 7 (0.14%) Documentum
12 6 (0.12%) Appian
13 5 (0.100%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 4 (0.080%) Jupyter
15 3 (0.060%) Anypoint
15 3 (0.060%) Drupal
15 3 (0.060%) NetWeaver
15 3 (0.060%) nginx
Applications
1 20 (0.40%) MS Visio
2 13 (0.26%) 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
1 128 (2.55%) SAP S/4HANA
2 35 (0.70%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 31 (0.62%) Dynamics CRM
4 15 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
4 15 (0.30%) Teamcenter
5 13 (0.26%) Payment Gateway
5 13 (0.26%) Remedy ITSM
6 12 (0.24%) NetSuite
6 12 (0.24%) Oracle ERP
6 12 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
6 12 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
7 11 (0.22%) SAP ERP
8 8 (0.16%) Oracle Retail
8 8 (0.16%) SAP BRIM
8 8 (0.16%) Workday HCM
9 7 (0.14%) SAP IBP
10 6 (0.12%) Maximo
10 6 (0.12%) SAP MDG
10 6 (0.12%) SAP MM
11 5 (0.100%) Endur
Cloud Services
1 1,306 (26.00%) Azure
2 1,031 (20.52%) AWS
3 401 (7.98%) GCP
4 278 (5.53%) Power Platform
5 193 (3.84%) Entra ID
6 185 (3.68%) SaaS
7 168 (3.34%) Serverless
8 135 (2.69%) Dynamics 365
9 124 (2.47%) GitHub
10 110 (2.19%) Azure DevOps
11 104 (2.07%) Snowflake
12 102 (2.03%) Microsoft 365
13 91 (1.81%) PaaS
14 74 (1.47%) AWS Lambda
15 68 (1.35%) Amazon S3
16 61 (1.21%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 61 (1.21%) IaaS
17 59 (1.17%) GitHub Actions
18 58 (1.15%) Azure Data Factory
19 56 (1.11%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 137 (2.73%) Network Security
2 136 (2.71%) Firewall
3 98 (1.95%) WAN
4 77 (1.53%) DNS
5 68 (1.35%) LAN
6 66 (1.31%) VPN
7 47 (0.94%) BGP
7 47 (0.94%) SD-WAN
8 38 (0.76%) DHCP
9 37 (0.74%) TCP/IP
10 34 (0.68%) MPLS
11 28 (0.56%) VLAN
12 27 (0.54%) VXLAN
13 26 (0.52%) SAN
14 22 (0.44%) NAS
14 22 (0.44%) OSPF
15 21 (0.42%) NX-OS
16 20 (0.40%) Wireless
17 19 (0.38%) Radio Access Network
17 19 (0.38%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 194 (3.86%) Power BI
2 167 (3.32%) Data Lake
3 166 (3.30%) Metadata
4 147 (2.93%) Data Warehouse
5 64 (1.27%) NoSQL
6 52 (1.04%) SQL Server
7 42 (0.84%) Delta Lake
8 40 (0.80%) Big Data
9 39 (0.78%) Azure SQL Database
10 37 (0.74%) PostgreSQL
11 36 (0.72%) BigQuery
12 32 (0.64%) Amazon RDS
13 31 (0.62%) Amazon Redshift
14 30 (0.60%) Oracle Database
15 26 (0.52%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
16 23 (0.46%) GIS
17 22 (0.44%) Tableau
18 21 (0.42%) Semantic Layer
19 20 (0.40%) MongoDB
20 18 (0.36%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 72 (1.43%) JIRA
2 68 (1.35%) Git
3 46 (0.92%) Jenkins
4 33 (0.66%) GitLab
5 17 (0.34%) ERwin
6 10 (0.20%) Claude Code
7 8 (0.16%) Cypress.io
7 8 (0.16%) Oracle Forms
7 8 (0.16%) RStudio
8 7 (0.14%) MLflow
8 7 (0.14%) MSI
8 7 (0.14%) SonarQube
9 6 (0.12%) Artifactory
9 6 (0.12%) Storybook
10 5 (0.100%) ER Studio
10 5 (0.100%) Maven
10 5 (0.100%) PowerDesigner
11 4 (0.080%) Sonatype Nexus
12 3 (0.060%) IBM UrbanCode
12 3 (0.060%) Postman
General
1 989 (19.69%) Social Skills
2 753 (14.99%) Finance
3 548 (10.91%) Public Sector
4 277 (5.51%) Banking
5 267 (5.31%) Analytical Skills
6 249 (4.96%) Retail
7 138 (2.75%) Influencing Skills
8 122 (2.43%) Documentation Skills
9 119 (2.37%) Telecoms
10 106 (2.11%) Manufacturing
11 78 (1.55%) Legal
12 62 (1.23%) Marketing
13 59 (1.17%) Billing
14 50 (1.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 46 (0.92%) Law
15 46 (0.92%) Military
16 45 (0.90%) Aerospace
17 35 (0.70%) Financial Institution
18 33 (0.66%) Presentation Skills
19 31 (0.62%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 249 (4.96%) REST
2 214 (4.26%) Terraform
3 145 (2.89%) Middleware
4 119 (2.37%) .NET
5 117 (2.33%) SOAP
6 106 (2.11%) Kafka
7 105 (2.09%) OAuth
8 65 (1.29%) Oracle Fusion
9 58 (1.15%) SAML
10 57 (1.13%) OpenID
11 56 (1.11%) JSON
12 51 (1.02%) OAuth2
13 43 (0.86%) PySpark
14 38 (0.76%) React
14 38 (0.76%) RESTful
15 37 (0.74%) .NET Framework
16 36 (0.72%) XML
17 35 (0.70%) SailPoint
18 34 (0.68%) LDAP
19 31 (0.62%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 441 (8.78%) Cloud Native
2 151 (3.01%) Data Centre
3 133 (2.65%) Onboarding
4 126 (2.51%) Hybrid Cloud
5 122 (2.43%) Product Ownership
6 120 (2.39%) Legacy Systems
7 118 (2.35%) AI Agents
7 118 (2.35%) Distributed Systems
8 110 (2.19%) Enterprise Software
9 107 (2.13%) Management Information System
10 91 (1.81%) Data Protection Act
11 90 (1.79%) CMDB
12 74 (1.47%) Operational Technology
13 70 (1.39%) Enterprise Cloud
14 67 (1.33%) Public Cloud
15 58 (1.15%) Security Posture
16 53 (1.05%) Data Structures
17 48 (0.96%) Private Cloud
18 44 (0.88%) Mainframe
19 41 (0.82%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 96 (1.91%) Windows
2 86 (1.71%) Linux
3 33 (0.66%) Windows Server
4 20 (0.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 19 (0.38%) Unix
6 11 (0.22%) Apple iOS
7 10 (0.20%) Android
8 9 (0.18%) AIX
9 8 (0.16%) Ubuntu
9 8 (0.16%) zOS
10 5 (0.100%) 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
1 793 (15.78%) Stakeholder Management
2 774 (15.41%) Roadmaps
3 726 (14.45%) Migration
4 661 (13.16%) AI
5 653 (13.00%) Enterprise Architecture
6 560 (11.15%) DevOps
7 559 (11.13%) Agile
8 557 (11.09%) Technical Leadership
9 530 (10.55%) Data Modelling
10 527 (10.49%) CI/CD
11 519 (10.33%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 496 (9.87%) Data Architecture
13 482 (9.59%) Integration Patterns
14 450 (8.96%) Analytics
15 400 (7.96%) Architectural Patterns
16 390 (7.76%) TOGAF
17 383 (7.62%) Security Architecture
18 328 (6.53%) Event-Driven
19 321 (6.39%) Cybersecurity
20 316 (6.29%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 241 (4.80%) Python
2 231 (4.60%) SQL
3 209 (4.16%) Java
4 111 (2.21%) JavaScript
5 86 (1.71%) PowerShell
6 46 (0.92%) C#
7 42 (0.84%) Bicep
7 42 (0.84%) TypeScript
8 41 (0.82%) Bash
9 27 (0.54%) Apex Code
10 15 (0.30%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 15 (0.30%) Shell Script
11 13 (0.26%) ABAP
11 13 (0.26%) Ruby
12 11 (0.22%) C++
12 11 (0.22%) Groovy
13 10 (0.20%) R
13 10 (0.20%) Scala
14 8 (0.16%) Kotlin
14 8 (0.16%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 1,516 (30.18%) Security Cleared
2 1,103 (21.95%) SC Cleared
3 325 (6.47%) DV Cleared
4 154 (3.07%) Degree
5 126 (2.51%) CISSP
6 110 (2.19%) Azure Certification
7 96 (1.91%) AWS Certification
8 81 (1.61%) Cisco Certification
9 79 (1.57%) BPSS Clearance
10 77 (1.53%) TOGAF Certification
11 61 (1.21%) Computer Science Degree
12 59 (1.17%) CISM
13 44 (0.88%) Microsoft Certification
14 38 (0.76%) CCNP
15 32 (0.64%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 31 (0.62%) (ISC)2 CCSP
17 24 (0.48%) Master's Degree
18 19 (0.38%) CCSP
19 18 (0.36%) DBS Check
20 17 (0.34%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 200 (3.98%) Data Quality
2 186 (3.70%) NIST
3 143 (2.85%) GDPR
4 140 (2.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 93 (1.85%) NCSC
6 65 (1.29%) GRC
7 49 (0.98%) QA
8 35 (0.70%) Accessibility
9 34 (0.68%) PCI DSS
10 32 (0.64%) NIST 800
11 28 (0.56%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 23 (0.46%) SLA
13 19 (0.38%) SEPA
14 18 (0.36%) IFRS
14 18 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 20000
15 16 (0.32%) Cyber Essentials
15 16 (0.32%) ISO 20022
15 16 (0.32%) JSP 440
16 13 (0.26%) Government Security Classifications
16 13 (0.26%) ISO 19650
System Software
1 150 (2.99%) Active Directory
2 93 (1.85%) Docker
3 60 (1.19%) VMware Infrastructure
4 37 (0.74%) VMware NSX
5 29 (0.58%) Virtual Desktop
6 17 (0.34%) Virtual Machines
7 15 (0.30%) Hyper-V
8 14 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
9 13 (0.26%) vSphere
10 7 (0.14%) NFS
11 6 (0.12%) Varnish
12 5 (0.100%) Postfix
12 5 (0.100%) vCloud
13 4 (0.080%) EMC RecoverPoint
13 4 (0.080%) KVM
14 3 (0.060%) Ceph
14 3 (0.060%) IAG
14 3 (0.060%) Sendmail
14 3 (0.060%) SRDF
15 2 (0.040%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 238 (4.74%) Kubernetes
2 88 (1.75%) Ansible
3 41 (0.82%) Grafana
4 39 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
5 31 (0.62%) Prometheus
6 23 (0.46%) Microsoft Intune
7 15 (0.30%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 15 (0.30%) Argo
8 14 (0.28%) Jamf Pro
9 13 (0.26%) vCenter Server
10 8 (0.16%) WMI
11 7 (0.14%) FortiGate
11 7 (0.14%) Istio
12 6 (0.12%) CASB
12 6 (0.12%) NetBackup
12 6 (0.12%) SCCM
13 5 (0.100%) EMC VPLEX
13 5 (0.100%) HAProxy
13 5 (0.100%) MOM
14 4 (0.080%) SnapMirror
Vendors
1 694 (13.81%) Microsoft
2 294 (5.85%) SAP
3 266 (5.29%) Oracle
4 254 (5.06%) Databricks
5 253 (5.04%) ServiceNow
6 162 (3.22%) Salesforce
7 155 (3.09%) Google
8 132 (2.63%) Cisco
9 111 (2.21%) VMware
10 63 (1.25%) CyberArk
11 59 (1.17%) IBM
12 57 (1.13%) MuleSoft
13 54 (1.07%) Workday
14 48 (0.96%) Palo Alto
15 44 (0.88%) Foundry
16 37 (0.74%) Sparx
17 34 (0.68%) Adobe
17 34 (0.68%) Ariba
17 34 (0.68%) OpenAI
18 30 (0.60%) Red Hat