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 6 September 2026.

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

6 months to
6 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 18 15
Rank change year-on-year +9 -3 +1
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,084 2,508 3,290
As % of all contract jobs in England 11.06% 9.10% 10.05%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.97% 9.96% 10.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,415 1,652 2,107
10th Percentile £475 £463 £481
25th Percentile £525 £525 £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 £787 £823
UK median daily rate £616 £625 £638
% change year-on-year -1.44% -1.96% -1.92%
Number of hourly rates quoted 161 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% -0.12%
75th Percentile £77.25 £87.00 £85.00
90th Percentile £96.00 £100.00 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £66.83 £72.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -7.82% +3.57% -0.12%

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 42,464 25,183 30,487
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.39% 91.42% 93.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,485 16,238 19,433
10th Percentile £326 £281 £305
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 £638 £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 3,306 1,340 1,572
10th Percentile £15.05 £13.55 £14.41
25th Percentile £21.14 £17.30 £21.25
Median hourly rate £43.56 £25.15 £46.87
Median % change year-on-year +73.20% -46.34% +6.85%
75th Percentile £68.00 £55.00 £67.50
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 6 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 6 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 6 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 2,601 £625 -2.72% 1,809
South East +1 728 £625 +4.17% 372
North of England +5 711 £600 - 310
Midlands +1 424 £626 +9.11% 162
North West +6 416 £600 +4.35% 181
South West +3 332 £645 +0.39% 163
West Midlands +1 316 £647 +8.01% 100
Yorkshire +13 233 £588 -2.08% 103
East of England +12 154 £611 +10.52% 112
East Midlands +4 103 £600 +17.65% 62
North East -3 63 £600 -15.79% 26
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 6 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 1,560 (30.68%) Security Cleared
2 1,322 (26.00%) Azure
3 1,129 (22.21%) SC Cleared
4 1,038 (20.42%) AWS
5 860 (16.92%) Stakeholder Management
6 796 (15.66%) Roadmaps
7 738 (14.52%) Migration
8 717 (14.10%) Microsoft
9 668 (13.14%) AI
10 659 (12.96%) Enterprise Architecture
11 613 (12.06%) Technical Leadership
12 558 (10.98%) Agile
12 558 (10.98%) DevOps
13 542 (10.66%) Data Modelling
14 528 (10.39%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 526 (10.35%) CI/CD
16 511 (10.05%) Data Architecture
17 474 (9.32%) Integration Patterns
18 444 (8.73%) Analytics
19 412 (8.10%) Security Architecture
20 407 (8.01%) Architectural Patterns
21 405 (7.97%) TOGAF
22 401 (7.89%) GCP
23 344 (6.77%) DV Cleared
24 333 (6.55%) Cybersecurity
25 330 (6.49%) Event-Driven
26 328 (6.45%) Data Governance
27 322 (6.33%) Architecture Governance
28 312 (6.14%) Microservices
29 309 (6.08%) Problem-Solving

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 (1.44%) SAS
2 65 (1.28%) SharePoint
3 49 (0.96%) Confluence
4 43 (0.85%) Apache
5 38 (0.75%) Apache Spark
6 32 (0.63%) Apache Airflow
7 29 (0.57%) Microsoft Exchange
8 22 (0.43%) CMS
8 22 (0.43%) Palantir Foundry
9 14 (0.28%) OpenStack
10 7 (0.14%) ArcGIS
10 7 (0.14%) Documentum
11 6 (0.12%) Appian
11 6 (0.12%) Camunda
12 5 (0.098%) Headless CMS
13 4 (0.079%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 4 (0.079%) Jupyter
14 3 (0.059%) Drupal
14 3 (0.059%) NetWeaver
14 3 (0.059%) nginx
Applications
1 15 (0.30%) MS Visio
2 13 (0.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 11 (0.22%) 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 (0.039%) Windchill
9 1 (0.020%) Gliffy
9 1 (0.020%) Microsoft Project
9 1 (0.020%) Notion
9 1 (0.020%) PlantUML
Business Applications
1 127 (2.50%) SAP S/4HANA
2 37 (0.73%) Dynamics CRM
3 33 (0.65%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 17 (0.33%) Teamcenter
5 15 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
6 14 (0.28%) Payment Gateway
6 14 (0.28%) Remedy ITSM
7 13 (0.26%) Oracle ERP
8 12 (0.24%) NetSuite
8 12 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
8 12 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
9 11 (0.22%) SAP ERP
10 8 (0.16%) Oracle Retail
10 8 (0.16%) SAP BRIM
10 8 (0.16%) SAP MDG
10 8 (0.16%) Workday HCM
11 7 (0.14%) SAP IBP
12 6 (0.12%) Maximo
13 5 (0.098%) SAP MM
13 5 (0.098%) SAP Oil and Gas
Cloud Services
1 1,322 (26.00%) Azure
2 1,038 (20.42%) AWS
3 401 (7.89%) GCP
4 276 (5.43%) Power Platform
5 193 (3.80%) SaaS
6 190 (3.74%) Entra ID
7 171 (3.36%) Serverless
8 140 (2.75%) Dynamics 365
9 126 (2.48%) GitHub
10 117 (2.30%) Azure DevOps
11 111 (2.18%) Microsoft 365
12 106 (2.08%) Snowflake
13 85 (1.67%) PaaS
14 72 (1.42%) AWS Lambda
15 69 (1.36%) Amazon S3
16 60 (1.18%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 60 (1.18%) OCI
17 58 (1.14%) GitHub Actions
18 55 (1.08%) Azure Data Factory
18 55 (1.08%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 142 (2.79%) Network Security
2 135 (2.66%) Firewall
3 101 (1.99%) WAN
4 75 (1.48%) DNS
5 70 (1.38%) LAN
6 64 (1.26%) VPN
7 50 (0.98%) SD-WAN
8 44 (0.87%) BGP
9 39 (0.77%) DHCP
10 37 (0.73%) TCP/IP
11 34 (0.67%) MPLS
12 29 (0.57%) VLAN
13 27 (0.53%) SAN
14 25 (0.49%) VXLAN
15 22 (0.43%) NAS
16 21 (0.41%) Wireless
17 20 (0.39%) NX-OS
17 20 (0.39%) OSPF
18 18 (0.35%) BIG-IP
18 18 (0.35%) Radio Access Network
Database & Business Intelligence
1 185 (3.64%) Metadata
2 183 (3.60%) Power BI
3 169 (3.32%) Data Lake
4 145 (2.85%) Data Warehouse
5 61 (1.20%) NoSQL
6 51 (1.00%) SQL Server
7 39 (0.77%) Delta Lake
8 38 (0.75%) Big Data
8 38 (0.75%) BigQuery
8 38 (0.75%) PostgreSQL
9 35 (0.69%) Azure SQL Database
10 34 (0.67%) Amazon RDS
11 33 (0.65%) Amazon Redshift
12 32 (0.63%) Oracle Database
13 27 (0.53%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
14 25 (0.49%) Semantic Layer
15 22 (0.43%) GIS
15 22 (0.43%) MongoDB
15 22 (0.43%) Tableau
16 19 (0.37%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 72 (1.42%) JIRA
2 66 (1.30%) Git
3 48 (0.94%) Jenkins
4 35 (0.69%) GitLab
5 16 (0.31%) ERwin
6 11 (0.22%) 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%) SonarQube
10 6 (0.12%) Artifactory
10 6 (0.12%) MLflow
10 6 (0.12%) Storybook
11 5 (0.098%) ER Studio
11 5 (0.098%) Maven
12 4 (0.079%) PowerDesigner
12 4 (0.079%) Rational DOORS
12 4 (0.079%) Selenium
13 3 (0.059%) Hudson
General
1 1,036 (20.38%) Social Skills
2 749 (14.73%) Finance
3 550 (10.82%) Public Sector
4 284 (5.59%) Banking
5 267 (5.25%) Analytical Skills
6 254 (5.00%) Retail
7 149 (2.93%) Influencing Skills
8 128 (2.52%) Documentation Skills
9 120 (2.36%) Telecoms
10 113 (2.22%) Manufacturing
11 78 (1.53%) Legal
12 64 (1.26%) Marketing
13 63 (1.24%) Billing
14 52 (1.02%) Military
15 49 (0.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 45 (0.89%) Aerospace
16 45 (0.89%) Law
17 31 (0.61%) Presentation Skills
18 27 (0.53%) Local Government
19 26 (0.51%) Aviation
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 260 (5.11%) REST
2 208 (4.09%) Terraform
3 136 (2.68%) Middleware
4 123 (2.42%) SOAP
5 116 (2.28%) .NET
6 113 (2.22%) Kafka
7 102 (2.01%) OAuth
8 66 (1.30%) Oracle Fusion
9 60 (1.18%) JSON
10 57 (1.12%) OpenID
11 56 (1.10%) SAML
12 48 (0.94%) OAuth2
13 46 (0.90%) LDAP
14 44 (0.87%) PySpark
15 40 (0.79%) XML
16 37 (0.73%) .NET Framework
16 37 (0.73%) React
16 37 (0.73%) RESTful
16 37 (0.73%) SailPoint
17 31 (0.61%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 437 (8.60%) Cloud Native
2 154 (3.03%) Data Centre
3 145 (2.85%) Onboarding
4 124 (2.44%) Hybrid Cloud
5 122 (2.40%) Distributed Systems
5 122 (2.40%) Product Ownership
6 117 (2.30%) Enterprise Software
7 116 (2.28%) AI Agents
8 115 (2.26%) Legacy Systems
9 110 (2.16%) Management Information System
10 91 (1.79%) CMDB
11 84 (1.65%) Data Protection Act
12 80 (1.57%) Operational Technology
13 70 (1.38%) Enterprise Cloud
14 64 (1.26%) Public Cloud
15 60 (1.18%) Security Posture
16 52 (1.02%) Data Structures
17 51 (1.00%) Private Cloud
18 42 (0.83%) Mainframe
19 40 (0.79%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 100 (1.97%) Windows
2 87 (1.71%) Linux
3 38 (0.75%) Windows Server
4 21 (0.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 21 (0.41%) 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 (0.098%) Solaris
11 4 (0.079%) Alpine Linux
11 4 (0.079%) Data ONTAP
12 3 (0.059%) CentOS
12 3 (0.059%) VMS
13 2 (0.039%) HPUX
13 2 (0.039%) Mac OS
13 2 (0.039%) OpenWrt
13 2 (0.039%) Windows 10
14 1 (0.020%) CatOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 860 (16.92%) Stakeholder Management
2 796 (15.66%) Roadmaps
3 738 (14.52%) Migration
4 668 (13.14%) AI
5 659 (12.96%) Enterprise Architecture
6 613 (12.06%) Technical Leadership
7 558 (10.98%) Agile
7 558 (10.98%) DevOps
8 542 (10.66%) Data Modelling
9 528 (10.39%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 526 (10.35%) CI/CD
11 511 (10.05%) Data Architecture
12 474 (9.32%) Integration Patterns
13 444 (8.73%) Analytics
14 412 (8.10%) Security Architecture
15 407 (8.01%) Architectural Patterns
16 405 (7.97%) TOGAF
17 333 (6.55%) Cybersecurity
18 330 (6.49%) Event-Driven
19 328 (6.45%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 241 (4.74%) Python
2 233 (4.58%) SQL
3 206 (4.05%) Java
4 113 (2.22%) JavaScript
5 88 (1.73%) PowerShell
6 49 (0.96%) C#
7 47 (0.92%) TypeScript
8 44 (0.87%) Bash
9 37 (0.73%) Bicep
10 31 (0.61%) Apex Code
11 15 (0.30%) ABAP
11 15 (0.30%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 15 (0.30%) Shell Script
12 13 (0.26%) Ruby
13 11 (0.22%) C++
13 11 (0.22%) Groovy
14 10 (0.20%) R
14 10 (0.20%) Scala
15 8 (0.16%) PL/SQL
16 7 (0.14%) BeanShell
Qualifications
1 1,560 (30.68%) Security Cleared
2 1,129 (22.21%) SC Cleared
3 344 (6.77%) DV Cleared
4 157 (3.09%) Degree
5 137 (2.69%) CISSP
6 103 (2.03%) Azure Certification
7 97 (1.91%) AWS Certification
8 90 (1.77%) BPSS Clearance
9 88 (1.73%) Cisco Certification
10 82 (1.61%) TOGAF Certification
11 64 (1.26%) CISM
12 60 (1.18%) Computer Science Degree
13 44 (0.87%) Microsoft Certification
14 40 (0.79%) CCNP
15 34 (0.67%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 33 (0.65%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 23 (0.45%) CCSP
17 23 (0.45%) Master's Degree
18 19 (0.37%) CCIE
19 18 (0.35%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 209 (4.11%) Data Quality
2 202 (3.97%) NIST
3 156 (3.07%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 142 (2.79%) GDPR
5 96 (1.89%) NCSC
6 68 (1.34%) GRC
7 53 (1.04%) QA
8 37 (0.73%) Accessibility
9 34 (0.67%) PCI DSS
10 31 (0.61%) NIST 800
11 29 (0.57%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 23 (0.45%) SLA
13 20 (0.39%) SEPA
14 18 (0.35%) Cyber Essentials
14 18 (0.35%) IFRS
14 18 (0.35%) ISO 20022
14 18 (0.35%) ISO/IEC 20000
14 18 (0.35%) JSP 440
15 13 (0.26%) Government Security Classifications
15 13 (0.26%) HL7
System Software
1 160 (3.15%) Active Directory
2 90 (1.77%) Docker
3 61 (1.20%) VMware Infrastructure
4 39 (0.77%) VMware NSX
5 29 (0.57%) Virtual Desktop
6 17 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
7 16 (0.31%) vSphere
8 15 (0.30%) Hyper-V
9 14 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
10 6 (0.12%) NFS
11 4 (0.079%) EMC RecoverPoint
11 4 (0.079%) KVM
11 4 (0.079%) Postfix
11 4 (0.079%) Varnish
11 4 (0.079%) vCloud
12 3 (0.059%) Ceph
12 3 (0.059%) Sendmail
12 3 (0.059%) SRDF
13 2 (0.039%) IAG
13 2 (0.039%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 238 (4.68%) Kubernetes
2 88 (1.73%) Ansible
3 42 (0.83%) Single Sign-On
4 40 (0.79%) Grafana
5 31 (0.61%) Prometheus
6 24 (0.47%) 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%) CASB
11 8 (0.16%) FortiGate
12 6 (0.12%) Istio
12 6 (0.12%) NetBackup
12 6 (0.12%) SCCM
13 5 (0.098%) EMC VPLEX
14 4 (0.079%) HAProxy
14 4 (0.079%) QRadar
14 4 (0.079%) SnapMirror
Vendors
1 717 (14.10%) Microsoft
2 288 (5.66%) SAP
3 270 (5.31%) Oracle
4 257 (5.06%) ServiceNow
5 256 (5.04%) Databricks
6 166 (3.27%) Salesforce
7 159 (3.13%) Google
8 134 (2.64%) Cisco
9 114 (2.24%) VMware
10 75 (1.48%) CyberArk
11 58 (1.14%) MuleSoft
12 57 (1.12%) IBM
13 54 (1.06%) Workday
14 50 (0.98%) Palo Alto
15 49 (0.96%) Foundry
16 35 (0.69%) Informatica
16 35 (0.69%) Sparx
17 34 (0.67%) Adobe
17 34 (0.67%) OpenAI
18 33 (0.65%) Ariba