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 29 September 2026.

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

6 months to
29 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 19 15
Rank change year-on-year +8 -4 +1
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,124 2,435 3,180
As % of all contract jobs in England 11.06% 8.84% 9.83%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.00% 9.68% 10.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,430 1,630 1,925
10th Percentile £481 £463 £475
25th Percentile £525 £525 £538
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £625
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% - -3.85%
75th Percentile £700 £714 £738
90th Percentile £788 £788 £807
UK median daily rate £620 £625 £626
% change year-on-year -0.80% -0.16% -3.69%
Number of hourly rates quoted 177 11 65
10th Percentile £40.00 £61.25 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £64.38 £61.25
Median hourly rate £68.17 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -5.98% +3.57% -3.34%
75th Percentile £78.75 £93.75 £85.00
90th Percentile £95.00 £100.00 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £68.17 £71.25 £70.00
% change year-on-year -4.33% +1.79% -2.78%

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 42,712 25,148 30,073
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.20% 91.27% 93.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,315 16,227 18,440
10th Percentile £325 £275 £300
25th Percentile £425 £401 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.11%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £738 £730 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,579 1,379 1,371
10th Percentile £14.82 £13.77 £15.00
25th Percentile £20.53 £17.31 £21.25
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% -1.92%
75th Percentile £67.85 £52.50 £67.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £41.92 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +66.68% -41.51% -3.37%

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 29 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 29 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 29 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 2,638 £625 -2.34% 2,346
South East +4 723 £625 +4.17% 457
North of England +5 687 £600 - 461
Midlands +5 448 £627 +8.96% 253
North West +9 379 £600 +4.35% 256
South West +5 344 £631 -2.88% 216
West Midlands +5 337 £650 +8.33% 190
Yorkshire +18 243 £575 -4.17% 152
East of England +9 156 £621 +11.14% 136
East Midlands +7 106 £600 +20.00% 63
North East +2 68 £625 -13.79% 53
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 29 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 1,602 (31.26%) Security Cleared
2 1,322 (25.80%) Azure
3 1,165 (22.74%) SC Cleared
4 1,000 (19.52%) AWS
5 984 (19.20%) Stakeholder Management
6 850 (16.59%) Roadmaps
7 762 (14.87%) Migration
8 713 (13.91%) Microsoft
9 690 (13.47%) Enterprise Architecture
10 681 (13.29%) AI
11 658 (12.84%) Technical Leadership
12 563 (10.99%) DevOps
13 540 (10.54%) Agile
14 538 (10.50%) Data Architecture
15 532 (10.38%) Data Modelling
16 530 (10.34%) CI/CD
17 503 (9.82%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 466 (9.09%) Integration Patterns
19 444 (8.67%) Analytics
20 408 (7.96%) Security Architecture
21 403 (7.86%) TOGAF
22 400 (7.81%) GCP
23 384 (7.49%) Architectural Patterns
24 367 (7.16%) DV Cleared
25 352 (6.87%) Architecture Governance
26 338 (6.60%) Cybersecurity
27 337 (6.58%) Event-Driven
28 330 (6.44%) Decision-Making
29 323 (6.30%) Data Governance
30 314 (6.13%) Infrastructure as Code

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 74 (1.44%) SAS
2 60 (1.17%) SharePoint
3 47 (0.92%) Confluence
4 42 (0.82%) Apache
5 38 (0.74%) Apache Spark
6 35 (0.68%) Apache Airflow
7 28 (0.55%) Microsoft Exchange
8 21 (0.41%) CMS
8 21 (0.41%) Palantir Foundry
9 14 (0.27%) OpenStack
10 7 (0.14%) Documentum
10 7 (0.14%) IIS
10 7 (0.14%) NetWeaver
11 6 (0.12%) Appian
11 6 (0.12%) ArcGIS
11 6 (0.12%) Headless CMS
12 5 (0.098%) SAP EP
13 4 (0.078%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 4 (0.078%) Camunda
13 4 (0.078%) JBoss
Applications
1 20 (0.39%) MS Visio
2 14 (0.27%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 11 (0.21%) Microsoft Excel
4 9 (0.18%) Microsoft Office
4 9 (0.18%) Revit
5 8 (0.16%) Chatbot
6 7 (0.14%) Navisworks
7 5 (0.098%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.039%) AutoCAD
8 2 (0.039%) Gliffy
9 1 (0.020%) Notion
9 1 (0.020%) PlantUML
9 1 (0.020%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 142 (2.77%) SAP S/4HANA
2 40 (0.78%) Dynamics CRM
3 30 (0.59%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 15 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
4 15 (0.29%) Teamcenter
5 13 (0.25%) NetSuite
5 13 (0.25%) Remedy ITSM
6 12 (0.23%) Oracle Payables
6 12 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
7 11 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
8 10 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
8 10 (0.20%) SAP ERP
9 9 (0.18%) SAP MDG
9 9 (0.18%) Workday HCM
10 8 (0.16%) SAP BRIM
11 7 (0.14%) Maximo
11 7 (0.14%) Oracle Retail
11 7 (0.14%) SAP HCM
11 7 (0.14%) SAP MM
12 6 (0.12%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 1,322 (25.80%) Azure
2 1,000 (19.52%) AWS
3 400 (7.81%) GCP
4 257 (5.02%) Power Platform
5 190 (3.71%) SaaS
6 184 (3.59%) Entra ID
7 152 (2.97%) Serverless
8 123 (2.40%) Dynamics 365
9 119 (2.32%) GitHub
10 112 (2.19%) Azure DevOps
10 112 (2.19%) Microsoft 365
11 110 (2.15%) Snowflake
12 75 (1.46%) PaaS
13 64 (1.25%) OCI
14 63 (1.23%) Amazon S3
15 62 (1.21%) AWS Lambda
16 56 (1.09%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 55 (1.07%) GitHub Actions
18 54 (1.05%) dbt
19 53 (1.03%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 128 (2.50%) Network Security
2 123 (2.40%) Firewall
3 92 (1.80%) WAN
4 67 (1.31%) DNS
5 57 (1.11%) LAN
6 53 (1.03%) VPN
7 45 (0.88%) BGP
8 43 (0.84%) SD-WAN
9 38 (0.74%) MPLS
10 36 (0.70%) DHCP
11 34 (0.66%) TCP/IP
12 27 (0.53%) VXLAN
13 26 (0.51%) VLAN
14 25 (0.49%) NX-OS
15 24 (0.47%) SAN
16 20 (0.39%) Wireless
17 19 (0.37%) NAS
18 18 (0.35%) BIG-IP
18 18 (0.35%) Ethernet VPN
19 16 (0.31%) NGFW
Database & Business Intelligence
1 204 (3.98%) Metadata
2 172 (3.36%) Data Lake
3 162 (3.16%) Data Warehouse
4 158 (3.08%) Power BI
5 53 (1.03%) NoSQL
6 47 (0.92%) SQL Server
7 39 (0.76%) BigQuery
8 37 (0.72%) Amazon RDS
9 36 (0.70%) Delta Lake
10 35 (0.68%) PostgreSQL
11 33 (0.64%) Amazon Redshift
11 33 (0.64%) Azure SQL Database
12 30 (0.59%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
12 30 (0.59%) Oracle Database
13 28 (0.55%) Big Data
14 26 (0.51%) Semantic Layer
15 23 (0.45%) GIS
15 23 (0.45%) Tableau
16 21 (0.41%) Star Schema
17 20 (0.39%) Data Vault
Development Applications
1 72 (1.41%) JIRA
2 63 (1.23%) Git
3 52 (1.01%) Jenkins
4 46 (0.90%) GitLab
5 12 (0.23%) ERwin
6 11 (0.21%) Claude Code
6 11 (0.21%) MSI
7 10 (0.20%) Oracle Forms
7 10 (0.20%) RStudio
8 9 (0.18%) Cypress.io
9 7 (0.14%) Postman
10 6 (0.12%) SonarQube
10 6 (0.12%) Storybook
11 5 (0.098%) ER Studio
11 5 (0.098%) Rational DOORS
11 5 (0.098%) Selenium
12 4 (0.078%) Artifactory
12 4 (0.078%) Maven
12 4 (0.078%) MLflow
13 3 (0.059%) IBM UrbanCode
General
1 1,070 (20.88%) Social Skills
2 733 (14.31%) Finance
3 566 (11.05%) Public Sector
4 276 (5.39%) Banking
5 261 (5.09%) Retail
6 248 (4.84%) Analytical Skills
7 159 (3.10%) Influencing Skills
8 135 (2.63%) Manufacturing
9 123 (2.40%) Telecoms
10 115 (2.24%) Documentation Skills
11 71 (1.39%) Marketing
12 70 (1.37%) Legal
13 60 (1.17%) Aerospace
13 60 (1.17%) Billing
14 52 (1.01%) Military
15 50 (0.98%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 39 (0.76%) Presentation Skills
17 28 (0.55%) Aviation
18 27 (0.53%) Local Government
19 25 (0.49%) Automotive
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 263 (5.13%) REST
2 216 (4.22%) Terraform
3 133 (2.60%) Kafka
4 132 (2.58%) Middleware
5 128 (2.50%) SOAP
6 111 (2.17%) .NET
7 100 (1.95%) OAuth
8 71 (1.39%) Oracle Fusion
9 58 (1.13%) JSON
10 55 (1.07%) SAML
11 54 (1.05%) OpenID
12 51 (1.00%) LDAP
13 50 (0.98%) OAuth2
14 43 (0.84%) PySpark
15 40 (0.78%) .NET Framework
15 40 (0.78%) XML
16 36 (0.70%) SailPoint
17 34 (0.66%) RESTful
18 33 (0.64%) JWT
18 33 (0.64%) React
Miscellaneous
1 417 (8.14%) Cloud Native
2 161 (3.14%) Data Centre
3 160 (3.12%) Onboarding
4 128 (2.50%) Product Ownership
5 124 (2.42%) Hybrid Cloud
6 123 (2.40%) Distributed Systems
7 120 (2.34%) Legacy Systems
8 119 (2.32%) Enterprise Software
9 112 (2.19%) AI Agents
10 105 (2.05%) Management Information System
11 98 (1.91%) CMDB
12 81 (1.58%) Data Protection Act
13 79 (1.54%) Operational Technology
14 71 (1.39%) Public Cloud
15 69 (1.35%) Enterprise Cloud
16 64 (1.25%) Private Cloud
17 58 (1.13%) Data Structures
18 55 (1.07%) Security Posture
19 43 (0.84%) Taxonomies
20 42 (0.82%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 106 (2.07%) Windows
2 83 (1.62%) Linux
3 42 (0.82%) Windows Server
4 21 (0.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 18 (0.35%) Unix
6 9 (0.18%) AIX
7 8 (0.16%) Ubuntu
8 7 (0.14%) Apple iOS
9 6 (0.12%) Android
9 6 (0.12%) zOS
10 5 (0.098%) Solaris
11 4 (0.078%) Alpine Linux
11 4 (0.078%) 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
1 984 (19.20%) Stakeholder Management
2 850 (16.59%) Roadmaps
3 762 (14.87%) Migration
4 690 (13.47%) Enterprise Architecture
5 681 (13.29%) AI
6 658 (12.84%) Technical Leadership
7 563 (10.99%) DevOps
8 540 (10.54%) Agile
9 538 (10.50%) Data Architecture
10 532 (10.38%) Data Modelling
11 530 (10.34%) CI/CD
12 503 (9.82%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 466 (9.09%) Integration Patterns
14 444 (8.67%) Analytics
15 408 (7.96%) Security Architecture
16 403 (7.86%) TOGAF
17 384 (7.49%) Architectural Patterns
18 352 (6.87%) Architecture Governance
19 338 (6.60%) Cybersecurity
20 337 (6.58%) Event-Driven
Programming Languages
1 219 (4.27%) SQL
2 211 (4.12%) Python
3 194 (3.79%) Java
4 109 (2.13%) JavaScript
5 89 (1.74%) PowerShell
6 50 (0.98%) C#
7 45 (0.88%) TypeScript
8 39 (0.76%) Bash
9 36 (0.70%) Bicep
10 29 (0.57%) Apex Code
11 26 (0.51%) ABAP
12 15 (0.29%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 15 (0.29%) Shell Script
13 11 (0.21%) Groovy
14 10 (0.20%) R
15 9 (0.18%) C++
16 8 (0.16%) PL/SQL
17 7 (0.14%) BeanShell
17 7 (0.14%) Rust
18 6 (0.12%) Cypher
Qualifications
1 1,602 (31.26%) Security Cleared
2 1,165 (22.74%) SC Cleared
3 367 (7.16%) DV Cleared
4 151 (2.95%) Degree
5 130 (2.54%) CISSP
6 121 (2.36%) BPSS Clearance
7 105 (2.05%) Azure Certification
8 98 (1.91%) AWS Certification
9 90 (1.76%) Cisco Certification
10 84 (1.64%) TOGAF Certification
11 61 (1.19%) CISM
12 56 (1.09%) Computer Science Degree
13 44 (0.86%) Microsoft Certification
14 41 (0.80%) CCNP
15 34 (0.66%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 33 (0.64%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 26 (0.51%) CCSP
18 22 (0.43%) CCIE
19 21 (0.41%) Master's Degree
20 19 (0.37%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 220 (4.29%) Data Quality
2 187 (3.65%) NIST
3 153 (2.99%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 129 (2.52%) GDPR
5 103 (2.01%) NCSC
6 71 (1.39%) GRC
7 51 (1.00%) QA
8 39 (0.76%) Accessibility
9 32 (0.62%) PCI DSS
10 29 (0.57%) NIST 800
11 24 (0.47%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 22 (0.43%) SLA
13 21 (0.41%) ISO/IEC 20000
14 20 (0.39%) JSP 440
15 18 (0.35%) SEPA
16 17 (0.33%) IFRS
17 16 (0.31%) Cyber Essentials
17 16 (0.31%) ISO 19650
18 15 (0.29%) ISO 20022
19 13 (0.25%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 169 (3.30%) Active Directory
2 83 (1.62%) Docker
3 63 (1.23%) VMware Infrastructure
4 38 (0.74%) VMware NSX
5 26 (0.51%) Virtual Desktop
6 16 (0.31%) vSphere
7 15 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
8 14 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
9 11 (0.21%) Hyper-V
10 5 (0.098%) ISA Server
10 5 (0.098%) NFS
11 4 (0.078%) EMC RecoverPoint
11 4 (0.078%) KVM
11 4 (0.078%) Postfix
11 4 (0.078%) Varnish
12 3 (0.059%) Ceph
12 3 (0.059%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 3 (0.059%) Sendmail
12 3 (0.059%) SRDF
12 3 (0.059%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 234 (4.57%) Kubernetes
2 92 (1.80%) Ansible
3 39 (0.76%) Single Sign-On
4 37 (0.72%) Grafana
5 29 (0.57%) Prometheus
6 26 (0.51%) Microsoft Intune
7 14 (0.27%) Jamf Pro
8 13 (0.25%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 13 (0.25%) Argo
9 12 (0.23%) WMI
10 11 (0.21%) FortiGate
11 10 (0.20%) CASB
12 8 (0.16%) vCenter Server
13 7 (0.14%) SCCM
14 6 (0.12%) NetBackup
14 6 (0.12%) Progress Chef
14 6 (0.12%) Puppet
15 5 (0.098%) EMC VPLEX
15 5 (0.098%) Istio
16 4 (0.078%) VxRail
Vendors
1 713 (13.91%) Microsoft
2 289 (5.64%) SAP
3 259 (5.05%) Oracle
4 254 (4.96%) ServiceNow
5 242 (4.72%) Databricks
6 178 (3.47%) Google
7 174 (3.40%) Salesforce
8 132 (2.58%) Cisco
9 111 (2.17%) VMware
10 83 (1.62%) CyberArk
11 61 (1.19%) MuleSoft
12 52 (1.01%) IBM
13 51 (1.00%) Workday
14 47 (0.92%) Palo Alto
15 46 (0.90%) Foundry
16 34 (0.66%) F5
16 34 (0.66%) Informatica
16 34 (0.66%) Splunk
17 33 (0.64%) Fortinet
17 33 (0.64%) OpenAI