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 17 September 2026.

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

6 months to
17 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 5,147 2,503 3,243
As % of all contract jobs in England 11.09% 9.01% 9.92%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.01% 9.87% 10.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,456 1,655 2,036
10th Percentile £481 £463 £480
25th Percentile £525 £531 £544
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £638
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -1.96% -1.92%
75th Percentile £711 £715 £738
90th Percentile £788 £788 £814
UK median daily rate £620 £625 £630
% change year-on-year -0.80% -0.79% -3.08%
Number of hourly rates quoted 169 15 68
10th Percentile £46.00 £33.64 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.88 £62.19
Median hourly rate £68.17 £70.00 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -2.62% - -1.53%
75th Percentile £78.75 £83.75 £85.00
90th Percentile £95.20 £100.00 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £68.17 £70.00 £70.00
% change year-on-year -2.62% - -1.53%

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 42,868 25,363 30,417
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.34% 91.35% 93.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,561 16,372 19,015
10th Percentile £329 £280 £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 £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 3,457 1,358 1,485
10th Percentile £14.96 £13.75 £14.60
25th Percentile £21.14 £17.33 £21.25
Median hourly rate £44.46 £25.15 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +76.76% -45.54% +3.20%
75th Percentile £68.00 £54.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £71.50 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% -2.01%

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 17 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 17 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 17 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 2,639 £625 -3.85% 2,898
South East +3 745 £625 +4.17% 684
North of England +4 689 £598 -0.33% 609
Midlands +2 435 £626 +9.34% 344
North West +6 386 £600 +2.78% 343
South West +2 344 £638 -1.92% 244
West Midlands +1 321 £644 +7.51% 242
Yorkshire +10 240 £563 -6.25% 197
East of England +10 160 £622 +12.07% 190
East Midlands +7 109 £600 +18.81% 102
North East -2 64 £600 -15.79% 69
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 17 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 (31.12%) Security Cleared
2 1,329 (25.82%) Azure
3 1,165 (22.63%) SC Cleared
4 1,026 (19.93%) AWS
5 943 (18.32%) Stakeholder Management
6 833 (16.18%) Roadmaps
7 748 (14.53%) Migration
8 725 (14.09%) Microsoft
9 692 (13.44%) Enterprise Architecture
10 679 (13.19%) AI
11 648 (12.59%) Technical Leadership
12 567 (11.02%) DevOps
13 555 (10.78%) Agile
14 540 (10.49%) Data Modelling
15 534 (10.37%) CI/CD
16 524 (10.18%) Data Architecture
17 521 (10.12%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 473 (9.19%) Integration Patterns
19 453 (8.80%) Analytics
20 423 (8.22%) Security Architecture
21 421 (8.18%) TOGAF
22 402 (7.81%) GCP
23 398 (7.73%) Architectural Patterns
24 362 (7.03%) DV Cleared
25 348 (6.76%) Architecture Governance
26 338 (6.57%) Cybersecurity
27 333 (6.47%) Event-Driven
28 324 (6.29%) Data Governance
29 323 (6.28%) Microservices
30 320 (6.22%) 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 75 (1.46%) SAS
2 64 (1.24%) SharePoint
3 46 (0.89%) Confluence
4 42 (0.82%) Apache
5 36 (0.70%) Apache Spark
6 33 (0.64%) Apache Airflow
7 31 (0.60%) Microsoft Exchange
8 22 (0.43%) Palantir Foundry
9 20 (0.39%) CMS
10 13 (0.25%) OpenStack
11 9 (0.17%) NetWeaver
12 7 (0.14%) Documentum
12 7 (0.14%) SAP EP
13 6 (0.12%) Appian
13 6 (0.12%) ArcGIS
14 5 (0.097%) Camunda
14 5 (0.097%) Headless CMS
15 4 (0.078%) Adobe Experience Manager
15 4 (0.078%) Jupyter
15 4 (0.078%) nginx
Applications
1 16 (0.31%) MS Visio
2 13 (0.25%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 11 (0.21%) Microsoft Excel
4 9 (0.17%) 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 (0.019%) AutoCAD
9 1 (0.019%) Gliffy
9 1 (0.019%) Notion
9 1 (0.019%) PlantUML
Business Applications
1 131 (2.55%) SAP S/4HANA
2 40 (0.78%) Dynamics CRM
3 31 (0.60%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 16 (0.31%) Teamcenter
5 14 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
5 14 (0.27%) Remedy ITSM
5 14 (0.27%) SAP ERP
6 13 (0.25%) NetSuite
7 12 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
7 12 (0.23%) Oracle Payables
7 12 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
7 12 (0.23%) Payment Gateway
8 9 (0.17%) SAP MDG
9 8 (0.16%) Oracle Retail
9 8 (0.16%) SAP BRIM
9 8 (0.16%) Workday HCM
10 7 (0.14%) Maximo
10 7 (0.14%) SAP CRM
10 7 (0.14%) SAP IBP
11 5 (0.097%) Endur
Cloud Services
1 1,329 (25.82%) Azure
2 1,026 (19.93%) AWS
3 402 (7.81%) GCP
4 273 (5.30%) Power Platform
5 196 (3.81%) SaaS
6 185 (3.59%) Entra ID
7 160 (3.11%) Serverless
8 140 (2.72%) Dynamics 365
9 124 (2.41%) GitHub
10 115 (2.23%) Microsoft 365
11 113 (2.20%) Azure DevOps
12 108 (2.10%) Snowflake
13 82 (1.59%) PaaS
14 65 (1.26%) AWS Lambda
15 63 (1.22%) OCI
16 62 (1.20%) Amazon S3
17 58 (1.13%) GitHub Actions
18 57 (1.11%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 55 (1.07%) IaaS
20 53 (1.03%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 129 (2.51%) Network Security
2 123 (2.39%) Firewall
3 91 (1.77%) WAN
4 74 (1.44%) DNS
5 63 (1.22%) LAN
6 58 (1.13%) VPN
7 44 (0.85%) BGP
8 43 (0.84%) SD-WAN
9 37 (0.72%) DHCP
9 37 (0.72%) MPLS
10 36 (0.70%) TCP/IP
11 28 (0.54%) VLAN
12 27 (0.52%) VXLAN
13 25 (0.49%) SAN
14 24 (0.47%) NX-OS
15 21 (0.41%) Wireless
16 20 (0.39%) NAS
17 19 (0.37%) BIG-IP
18 18 (0.35%) OSPF
19 17 (0.33%) Ethernet VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 191 (3.71%) Metadata
2 176 (3.42%) Power BI
3 173 (3.36%) Data Lake
4 153 (2.97%) Data Warehouse
5 54 (1.05%) NoSQL
6 49 (0.95%) SQL Server
7 42 (0.82%) BigQuery
8 37 (0.72%) Delta Lake
9 35 (0.68%) Amazon RDS
9 35 (0.68%) PostgreSQL
10 34 (0.66%) Big Data
11 33 (0.64%) Amazon Redshift
11 33 (0.64%) Azure SQL Database
12 29 (0.56%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
12 29 (0.56%) Oracle Database
13 25 (0.49%) Semantic Layer
14 22 (0.43%) GIS
15 21 (0.41%) Star Schema
15 21 (0.41%) Tableau
16 20 (0.39%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 72 (1.40%) JIRA
2 65 (1.26%) Git
3 52 (1.01%) Jenkins
4 41 (0.80%) GitLab
5 16 (0.31%) ERwin
6 12 (0.23%) Claude Code
7 9 (0.17%) Cypress.io
7 9 (0.17%) MSI
7 9 (0.17%) Oracle Forms
7 9 (0.17%) RStudio
8 7 (0.14%) SonarQube
9 6 (0.12%) Artifactory
9 6 (0.12%) Storybook
10 5 (0.097%) ER Studio
10 5 (0.097%) Maven
10 5 (0.097%) MLflow
10 5 (0.097%) Postman
10 5 (0.097%) Rational DOORS
11 4 (0.078%) PowerDesigner
11 4 (0.078%) Selenium
General
1 1,067 (20.73%) Social Skills
2 760 (14.77%) Finance
3 553 (10.74%) Public Sector
4 288 (5.60%) Banking
5 266 (5.17%) Retail
6 257 (4.99%) Analytical Skills
7 157 (3.05%) Influencing Skills
8 122 (2.37%) Documentation Skills
9 121 (2.35%) Manufacturing
10 118 (2.29%) Telecoms
11 76 (1.48%) Legal
12 69 (1.34%) Marketing
13 61 (1.19%) Billing
14 55 (1.07%) Aerospace
14 55 (1.07%) Military
15 50 (0.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 38 (0.74%) Law
17 33 (0.64%) Presentation Skills
18 27 (0.52%) Aviation
19 26 (0.51%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 260 (5.05%) REST
2 213 (4.14%) Terraform
3 139 (2.70%) Middleware
4 126 (2.45%) SOAP
5 124 (2.41%) Kafka
6 118 (2.29%) .NET
7 100 (1.94%) OAuth
8 68 (1.32%) Oracle Fusion
9 65 (1.26%) JSON
10 56 (1.09%) SAML
11 55 (1.07%) OpenID
12 52 (1.01%) LDAP
13 48 (0.93%) OAuth2
14 45 (0.87%) PySpark
15 42 (0.82%) XML
16 41 (0.80%) .NET Framework
17 37 (0.72%) React
17 37 (0.72%) SailPoint
18 34 (0.66%) RESTful
19 32 (0.62%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 430 (8.35%) Cloud Native
2 156 (3.03%) Onboarding
3 151 (2.93%) Data Centre
4 128 (2.49%) Distributed Systems
4 128 (2.49%) Product Ownership
5 121 (2.35%) Hybrid Cloud
6 119 (2.31%) Enterprise Software
7 118 (2.29%) AI Agents
7 118 (2.29%) Legacy Systems
8 107 (2.08%) Management Information System
9 95 (1.85%) CMDB
10 85 (1.65%) Data Protection Act
11 81 (1.57%) Operational Technology
12 70 (1.36%) Enterprise Cloud
13 67 (1.30%) Public Cloud
14 58 (1.13%) Private Cloud
15 56 (1.09%) Data Structures
15 56 (1.09%) Security Posture
16 41 (0.80%) Mainframe
17 39 (0.76%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 105 (2.04%) Windows
2 86 (1.67%) Linux
3 40 (0.78%) Windows Server
4 21 (0.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 21 (0.41%) Unix
5 9 (0.17%) AIX
6 8 (0.16%) Apple iOS
6 8 (0.16%) Ubuntu
7 7 (0.14%) Android
8 6 (0.12%) zOS
9 5 (0.097%) Solaris
10 4 (0.078%) Alpine Linux
10 4 (0.078%) Data ONTAP
11 3 (0.058%) CentOS
11 3 (0.058%) 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 (0.019%) CatOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 943 (18.32%) Stakeholder Management
2 833 (16.18%) Roadmaps
3 748 (14.53%) Migration
4 692 (13.44%) Enterprise Architecture
5 679 (13.19%) AI
6 648 (12.59%) Technical Leadership
7 567 (11.02%) DevOps
8 555 (10.78%) Agile
9 540 (10.49%) Data Modelling
10 534 (10.37%) CI/CD
11 524 (10.18%) Data Architecture
12 521 (10.12%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 473 (9.19%) Integration Patterns
14 453 (8.80%) Analytics
15 423 (8.22%) Security Architecture
16 421 (8.18%) TOGAF
17 398 (7.73%) Architectural Patterns
18 348 (6.76%) Architecture Governance
19 338 (6.57%) Cybersecurity
20 333 (6.47%) Event-Driven
Programming Languages
1 234 (4.55%) Python
2 224 (4.35%) SQL
3 207 (4.02%) Java
4 113 (2.20%) JavaScript
5 90 (1.75%) PowerShell
6 49 (0.95%) TypeScript
7 48 (0.93%) C#
8 41 (0.80%) Bash
9 34 (0.66%) Bicep
10 30 (0.58%) Apex Code
11 23 (0.45%) ABAP
12 15 (0.29%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 15 (0.29%) Shell Script
13 11 (0.21%) Groovy
13 11 (0.21%) Ruby
14 10 (0.19%) C++
14 10 (0.19%) R
15 8 (0.16%) PL/SQL
16 7 (0.14%) BeanShell
16 7 (0.14%) Scala
Qualifications
1 1,602 (31.12%) Security Cleared
2 1,165 (22.63%) SC Cleared
3 362 (7.03%) DV Cleared
4 157 (3.05%) Degree
5 138 (2.68%) CISSP
6 105 (2.04%) Azure Certification
7 100 (1.94%) BPSS Clearance
8 93 (1.81%) AWS Certification
9 91 (1.77%) Cisco Certification
10 86 (1.67%) TOGAF Certification
11 62 (1.20%) CISM
12 60 (1.17%) Computer Science Degree
13 45 (0.87%) Microsoft Certification
14 39 (0.76%) CCNP
15 37 (0.72%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 33 (0.64%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 25 (0.49%) CCSP
18 24 (0.47%) Master's Degree
19 19 (0.37%) CCIE
19 19 (0.37%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 212 (4.12%) Data Quality
2 196 (3.81%) NIST
3 165 (3.21%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 131 (2.55%) GDPR
5 99 (1.92%) NCSC
6 71 (1.38%) GRC
7 57 (1.11%) QA
8 37 (0.72%) Accessibility
9 34 (0.66%) PCI DSS
10 32 (0.62%) NIST 800
11 29 (0.56%) 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%) ISO/IEC 20000
15 18 (0.35%) JSP 440
16 14 (0.27%) ISO 19650
17 13 (0.25%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 167 (3.24%) Active Directory
2 88 (1.71%) Docker
3 65 (1.26%) VMware Infrastructure
4 41 (0.80%) VMware NSX
5 26 (0.51%) Virtual Desktop
6 17 (0.33%) vSphere
7 16 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
8 15 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
9 13 (0.25%) Hyper-V
10 6 (0.12%) NFS
11 4 (0.078%) EMC RecoverPoint
11 4 (0.078%) KVM
11 4 (0.078%) Postfix
11 4 (0.078%) Varnish
12 3 (0.058%) Ceph
12 3 (0.058%) ISA Server
12 3 (0.058%) Sendmail
12 3 (0.058%) SRDF
12 3 (0.058%) vCloud
13 2 (0.039%) IAG
Systems Management
1 240 (4.66%) Kubernetes
2 92 (1.79%) Ansible
3 42 (0.82%) Single Sign-On
4 41 (0.80%) Grafana
5 30 (0.58%) Prometheus
6 24 (0.47%) Microsoft Intune
7 14 (0.27%) Argo
7 14 (0.27%) Jamf Pro
8 13 (0.25%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 10 (0.19%) vCenter Server
9 10 (0.19%) WMI
10 9 (0.17%) FortiGate
11 8 (0.16%) CASB
12 6 (0.12%) Istio
12 6 (0.12%) NetBackup
12 6 (0.12%) Puppet
12 6 (0.12%) SCCM
13 5 (0.097%) EMC VPLEX
13 5 (0.097%) Progress Chef
14 4 (0.078%) SnapMirror
Vendors
1 725 (14.09%) Microsoft
2 293 (5.69%) SAP
3 271 (5.27%) Oracle
4 264 (5.13%) ServiceNow
5 255 (4.95%) Databricks
6 177 (3.44%) Salesforce
7 166 (3.23%) Google
8 137 (2.66%) Cisco
9 120 (2.33%) VMware
10 84 (1.63%) CyberArk
11 66 (1.28%) MuleSoft
12 59 (1.15%) IBM
13 56 (1.09%) Workday
14 48 (0.93%) Foundry
14 48 (0.93%) Palo Alto
15 34 (0.66%) F5
15 34 (0.66%) Informatica
15 34 (0.66%) OpenAI
15 34 (0.66%) Splunk
16 33 (0.64%) Sparx