Architect Contract Job Trends in England

Architect
UK > England

The median Architect daily rate in England is £622, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 14 September 2026.

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

6 months to
14 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 18 15
Rank change year-on-year +8 -3 +1
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,085 2,495 3,293
As % of all contract jobs in England 11.06% 9.05% 10.04%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.97% 9.91% 10.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,417 1,647 2,075
10th Percentile £481 £463 £480
25th Percentile £525 £528 £544
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £622 £625 £638
Median % change year-on-year -0.48% -1.96% -1.92%
75th Percentile £713 £713 £738
90th Percentile £788 £788 £823
UK median daily rate £620 £625 £633
% change year-on-year -0.80% -1.19% -2.69%
Number of hourly rates quoted 163 15 70
10th Percentile £46.00 £33.64 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.88 £61.25
Median hourly rate £66.66 £70.00 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -4.77% - -2.78%
75th Percentile £78.75 £83.75 £85.00
90th Percentile £95.00 £100.00 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £67.00 £70.00 £70.00
% change year-on-year -4.29% - -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 42,472 25,165 30,541
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.34% 91.31% 93.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,344 16,231 19,205
10th Percentile £325 £280 £304
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £506 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.75% -3.62% -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% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,400 1,346 1,510
10th Percentile £14.96 £13.67 £14.64
25th Percentile £21.14 £17.30 £21.25
Median hourly rate £43.08 £25.15 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +71.27% -47.05% +5.56%
75th Percentile £68.00 £53.75 £67.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £71.35 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +67.00% -41.51% -1.71%

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 14 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 14 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 14 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 2,608 £625 -2.72% 2,686
South East +3 731 £625 +4.17% 557
North of England +5 687 £600 - 513
Midlands +2 425 £626 +9.34% 268
North West +5 392 £600 +4.35% 302
South West +3 339 £638 -1.92% 232
West Midlands +2 316 £650 +8.51% 188
Yorkshire +15 233 £575 -4.17% 161
East of England +8 159 £622 +12.07% 160
East Midlands +2 104 £600 +20.00% 79
North East -4 63 £600 -15.79% 52
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 14 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 1,575 (30.97%) Security Cleared
2 1,312 (25.80%) Azure
3 1,146 (22.54%) SC Cleared
4 1,024 (20.14%) AWS
5 913 (17.95%) Stakeholder Management
6 810 (15.93%) Roadmaps
7 733 (14.41%) Migration
8 715 (14.06%) Microsoft
9 676 (13.29%) Enterprise Architecture
10 673 (13.24%) AI
11 632 (12.43%) Technical Leadership
12 558 (10.97%) DevOps
13 544 (10.70%) Agile
14 535 (10.52%) Data Modelling
15 520 (10.23%) CI/CD
16 519 (10.21%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 512 (10.07%) Data Architecture
18 467 (9.18%) Integration Patterns
19 448 (8.81%) Analytics
20 413 (8.12%) Security Architecture
20 413 (8.12%) TOGAF
21 400 (7.87%) GCP
22 393 (7.73%) Architectural Patterns
23 354 (6.96%) DV Cleared
24 340 (6.69%) Architecture Governance
25 330 (6.49%) Cybersecurity
26 327 (6.43%) Event-Driven
27 321 (6.31%) Data Governance
28 315 (6.19%) Microservices
29 308 (6.06%) Decision-Making

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 (1.46%) SAS
2 62 (1.22%) SharePoint
3 46 (0.90%) Confluence
4 42 (0.83%) Apache
5 36 (0.71%) Apache Spark
6 33 (0.65%) Apache Airflow
7 29 (0.57%) Microsoft Exchange
8 22 (0.43%) Palantir Foundry
9 20 (0.39%) CMS
10 13 (0.26%) OpenStack
11 7 (0.14%) ArcGIS
11 7 (0.14%) Documentum
11 7 (0.14%) NetWeaver
12 6 (0.12%) Appian
13 5 (0.098%) Camunda
13 5 (0.098%) Headless CMS
13 5 (0.098%) SAP EP
14 4 (0.079%) IIS
14 4 (0.079%) Jupyter
14 4 (0.079%) nginx
Applications
1 16 (0.31%) 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
5 8 (0.16%) Revit
6 7 (0.14%) Navisworks
7 6 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.039%) Windchill
9 1 (0.020%) AutoCAD
9 1 (0.020%) Gliffy
9 1 (0.020%) Notion
9 1 (0.020%) PlantUML
Business Applications
1 130 (2.56%) SAP S/4HANA
2 38 (0.75%) Dynamics CRM
3 30 (0.59%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 16 (0.31%) Teamcenter
5 14 (0.28%) Oracle ERP
5 14 (0.28%) Remedy ITSM
5 14 (0.28%) SAP ERP
6 13 (0.26%) Payment Gateway
7 12 (0.24%) NetSuite
7 12 (0.24%) Oracle EBS
7 12 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
7 12 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
8 8 (0.16%) Oracle Retail
8 8 (0.16%) SAP BRIM
8 8 (0.16%) SAP MDG
8 8 (0.16%) Workday HCM
9 7 (0.14%) SAP IBP
10 6 (0.12%) Maximo
11 5 (0.098%) SAP CRM
11 5 (0.098%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 1,312 (25.80%) Azure
2 1,024 (20.14%) AWS
3 400 (7.87%) GCP
4 276 (5.43%) Power Platform
5 193 (3.80%) SaaS
6 178 (3.50%) Entra ID
7 159 (3.13%) Serverless
8 139 (2.73%) Dynamics 365
9 120 (2.36%) GitHub
10 113 (2.22%) Microsoft 365
11 112 (2.20%) Azure DevOps
12 107 (2.10%) Snowflake
13 82 (1.61%) PaaS
14 67 (1.32%) AWS Lambda
15 62 (1.22%) Amazon S3
16 61 (1.20%) OCI
17 58 (1.14%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 58 (1.14%) GitHub Actions
18 54 (1.06%) IaaS
19 52 (1.02%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 129 (2.54%) Network Security
2 122 (2.40%) Firewall
3 92 (1.81%) WAN
4 72 (1.42%) DNS
5 64 (1.26%) LAN
6 59 (1.16%) VPN
7 45 (0.88%) SD-WAN
8 42 (0.83%) BGP
9 37 (0.73%) MPLS
10 36 (0.71%) DHCP
10 36 (0.71%) TCP/IP
11 28 (0.55%) VLAN
12 25 (0.49%) SAN
13 24 (0.47%) VXLAN
14 20 (0.39%) NAS
14 20 (0.39%) NX-OS
14 20 (0.39%) Wireless
15 18 (0.35%) BIG-IP
15 18 (0.35%) OSPF
16 16 (0.31%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 186 (3.66%) Metadata
2 181 (3.56%) Power BI
3 172 (3.38%) Data Lake
4 150 (2.95%) Data Warehouse
5 55 (1.08%) NoSQL
6 49 (0.96%) SQL Server
7 40 (0.79%) BigQuery
8 37 (0.73%) Delta Lake
9 36 (0.71%) PostgreSQL
10 35 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
11 34 (0.67%) Big Data
12 33 (0.65%) Azure SQL Database
13 32 (0.63%) Amazon Redshift
14 29 (0.57%) Oracle Database
15 28 (0.55%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
16 25 (0.49%) Semantic Layer
17 22 (0.43%) GIS
17 22 (0.43%) Tableau
18 21 (0.41%) MongoDB
18 21 (0.41%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 71 (1.40%) JIRA
2 60 (1.18%) Git
3 52 (1.02%) Jenkins
4 38 (0.75%) GitLab
5 16 (0.31%) ERwin
6 12 (0.24%) Claude Code
7 9 (0.18%) Cypress.io
7 9 (0.18%) MSI
7 9 (0.18%) Oracle Forms
8 8 (0.16%) RStudio
9 7 (0.14%) SonarQube
10 6 (0.12%) Artifactory
10 6 (0.12%) Storybook
11 5 (0.098%) ER Studio
11 5 (0.098%) Maven
11 5 (0.098%) MLflow
11 5 (0.098%) Rational DOORS
12 4 (0.079%) PowerDesigner
12 4 (0.079%) Selenium
13 3 (0.059%) Hudson
General
1 1,048 (20.61%) Social Skills
2 750 (14.75%) Finance
3 543 (10.68%) Public Sector
4 282 (5.55%) Banking
5 261 (5.13%) Analytical Skills
6 259 (5.09%) Retail
7 150 (2.95%) Influencing Skills
8 122 (2.40%) Documentation Skills
9 117 (2.30%) Manufacturing
10 115 (2.26%) Telecoms
11 75 (1.47%) Legal
12 65 (1.28%) Marketing
13 61 (1.20%) Billing
14 53 (1.04%) Military
15 51 (1.00%) Aerospace
16 49 (0.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 40 (0.79%) Law
18 32 (0.63%) Presentation Skills
19 27 (0.53%) Aviation
20 26 (0.51%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 256 (5.03%) REST
2 209 (4.11%) Terraform
3 132 (2.60%) Middleware
4 125 (2.46%) SOAP
5 120 (2.36%) Kafka
6 119 (2.34%) .NET
7 98 (1.93%) OAuth
8 67 (1.32%) Oracle Fusion
9 61 (1.20%) JSON
10 55 (1.08%) OpenID
11 54 (1.06%) SAML
12 51 (1.00%) LDAP
13 47 (0.92%) OAuth2
14 44 (0.87%) PySpark
15 41 (0.81%) XML
16 40 (0.79%) .NET Framework
17 38 (0.75%) React
18 36 (0.71%) SailPoint
19 34 (0.67%) RESTful
20 31 (0.61%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 423 (8.32%) Cloud Native
2 147 (2.89%) Data Centre
2 147 (2.89%) Onboarding
3 124 (2.44%) Product Ownership
4 122 (2.40%) Distributed Systems
5 121 (2.38%) Hybrid Cloud
6 117 (2.30%) AI Agents
7 116 (2.28%) Enterprise Software
7 116 (2.28%) Legacy Systems
8 106 (2.08%) Management Information System
9 91 (1.79%) CMDB
10 84 (1.65%) Data Protection Act
11 78 (1.53%) Operational Technology
12 70 (1.38%) Enterprise Cloud
13 66 (1.30%) Public Cloud
14 55 (1.08%) Security Posture
15 54 (1.06%) Private Cloud
16 52 (1.02%) Data Structures
17 41 (0.81%) Mainframe
18 39 (0.77%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 102 (2.01%) Windows
2 86 (1.69%) Linux
3 39 (0.77%) Windows Server
4 21 (0.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 21 (0.41%) Unix
5 9 (0.18%) AIX
6 8 (0.16%) Apple iOS
6 8 (0.16%) Ubuntu
7 7 (0.14%) Android
8 6 (0.12%) zOS
9 5 (0.098%) Solaris
10 4 (0.079%) Alpine Linux
10 4 (0.079%) Data ONTAP
11 3 (0.059%) CentOS
11 3 (0.059%) VMS
12 2 (0.039%) HPUX
12 2 (0.039%) Mac OS
12 2 (0.039%) OpenWrt
12 2 (0.039%) Windows 10
13 1 (0.020%) CatOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 913 (17.95%) Stakeholder Management
2 810 (15.93%) Roadmaps
3 733 (14.41%) Migration
4 676 (13.29%) Enterprise Architecture
5 673 (13.24%) AI
6 632 (12.43%) Technical Leadership
7 558 (10.97%) DevOps
8 544 (10.70%) Agile
9 535 (10.52%) Data Modelling
10 520 (10.23%) CI/CD
11 519 (10.21%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 512 (10.07%) Data Architecture
13 467 (9.18%) Integration Patterns
14 448 (8.81%) Analytics
15 413 (8.12%) Security Architecture
15 413 (8.12%) TOGAF
16 393 (7.73%) Architectural Patterns
17 340 (6.69%) Architecture Governance
18 330 (6.49%) Cybersecurity
19 327 (6.43%) Event-Driven
Programming Languages
1 228 (4.48%) Python
2 224 (4.41%) SQL
3 203 (3.99%) Java
4 113 (2.22%) JavaScript
5 89 (1.75%) PowerShell
6 49 (0.96%) TypeScript
7 48 (0.94%) C#
8 41 (0.81%) Bash
9 34 (0.67%) Bicep
10 30 (0.59%) Apex Code
11 21 (0.41%) ABAP
12 15 (0.29%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 15 (0.29%) Shell Script
13 11 (0.22%) Groovy
13 11 (0.22%) Ruby
14 10 (0.20%) C++
14 10 (0.20%) R
15 8 (0.16%) PL/SQL
16 7 (0.14%) BeanShell
16 7 (0.14%) Scala
Qualifications
1 1,575 (30.97%) Security Cleared
2 1,146 (22.54%) SC Cleared
3 354 (6.96%) DV Cleared
4 155 (3.05%) Degree
5 136 (2.67%) CISSP
6 103 (2.03%) Azure Certification
7 97 (1.91%) BPSS Clearance
8 91 (1.79%) AWS Certification
9 88 (1.73%) Cisco Certification
10 81 (1.59%) TOGAF Certification
11 61 (1.20%) CISM
12 58 (1.14%) Computer Science Degree
13 44 (0.87%) Microsoft Certification
14 39 (0.77%) CCNP
15 35 (0.69%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 32 (0.63%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 24 (0.47%) Master's Degree
18 23 (0.45%) CCSP
19 19 (0.37%) CCIE
19 19 (0.37%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 211 (4.15%) Data Quality
2 194 (3.82%) NIST
3 158 (3.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 130 (2.56%) GDPR
5 94 (1.85%) NCSC
6 69 (1.36%) GRC
7 56 (1.10%) 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 22 (0.43%) SLA
13 20 (0.39%) SEPA
14 19 (0.37%) Cyber Essentials
15 18 (0.35%) IFRS
15 18 (0.35%) ISO 20022
15 18 (0.35%) JSP 440
16 17 (0.33%) ISO/IEC 20000
17 14 (0.28%) ISO 19650
18 13 (0.26%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 161 (3.17%) Active Directory
2 86 (1.69%) Docker
3 59 (1.16%) VMware Infrastructure
4 38 (0.75%) VMware NSX
5 26 (0.51%) Virtual Desktop
6 17 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
7 16 (0.31%) vSphere
8 15 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
9 13 (0.26%) Hyper-V
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
12 3 (0.059%) Ceph
12 3 (0.059%) ISA Server
12 3 (0.059%) Sendmail
12 3 (0.059%) SRDF
12 3 (0.059%) vCloud
13 2 (0.039%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 237 (4.66%) Kubernetes
2 88 (1.73%) Ansible
3 40 (0.79%) Single Sign-On
4 39 (0.77%) Grafana
5 30 (0.59%) Prometheus
6 24 (0.47%) Microsoft Intune
7 14 (0.28%) Argo
7 14 (0.28%) Jamf Pro
8 13 (0.26%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 10 (0.20%) vCenter Server
9 10 (0.20%) WMI
10 9 (0.18%) CASB
11 8 (0.16%) FortiGate
12 6 (0.12%) Istio
12 6 (0.12%) NetBackup
12 6 (0.12%) Puppet
12 6 (0.12%) SCCM
13 5 (0.098%) EMC VPLEX
13 5 (0.098%) Progress Chef
14 4 (0.079%) HAProxy
Vendors
1 715 (14.06%) Microsoft
2 289 (5.68%) SAP
3 269 (5.29%) Oracle
4 255 (5.01%) ServiceNow
5 253 (4.98%) Databricks
6 170 (3.34%) Salesforce
7 162 (3.19%) Google
8 133 (2.62%) Cisco
9 114 (2.24%) VMware
10 82 (1.61%) CyberArk
11 62 (1.22%) MuleSoft
12 57 (1.12%) IBM
13 55 (1.08%) Workday
14 49 (0.96%) Foundry
14 49 (0.96%) Palo Alto
15 34 (0.67%) Informatica
15 34 (0.67%) OpenAI
16 33 (0.65%) F5
16 33 (0.65%) Fortinet
17 32 (0.63%) Adobe