Architect Contract Job Trends in England

Architect
UK > England

The median Architect daily rate in England is £623, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 15 October 2026.

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

6 months to
15 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 12 19 14
Rank change year-on-year +7 -5 +2
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,097 2,510 3,181
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.88% 8.92% 9.91%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.83% 9.78% 10.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,396 1,694 1,888
10th Percentile £487 £460 £469
25th Percentile £529 £525 £525
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £623 £625 £625
Median % change year-on-year -0.40% - -3.85%
75th Percentile £705 £713 £738
90th Percentile £788 £788 £800
UK median daily rate £620 £625 £625
% change year-on-year -0.80% - -3.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 191 14 58
10th Percentile £40.00 £61.63 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £66.25 £61.56
Median hourly rate £69.50 £77.75 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.61% +11.07% -6.67%
75th Percentile £82.50 £94.69 £79.19
90th Percentile £95.00 £98.50 £90.60
UK median hourly rate £70.00 £77.75 £70.00
% change year-on-year -9.97% +11.07% -5.30%

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 43,070 25,660 29,897
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.95% 91.15% 93.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,333 16,528 18,273
10th Percentile £325 £278 £300
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -2.78%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,798 1,445 1,249
10th Percentile £14.50 £13.80 £15.10
25th Percentile £20.01 £17.33 £21.25
Median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +65.94% -41.51% -6.89%
75th Percentile £67.85 £50.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £41.56 £25.15 £41.27
% change year-on-year +65.23% -39.05% -8.30%

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 15 October 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 15 October 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 15 October 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 2,621 £625 -3.85% 279
South East -1 733 £626 +4.33% 147
North of England +4 664 £600 - 88
Midlands +7 456 £627 +8.96% 70
South West +5 346 £625 -3.85% 86
North West -1 344 £598 +4.00% 42
West Midlands +10 339 £644 +7.40% 57
Yorkshire +10 244 £600 -1.03% 28
East of England +3 144 £618 +11.37% 26
East Midlands +4 112 £600 +20.00% 13
North East +7 79 £625 -15.25% 18
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 15 October 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 1,611 (31.61%) Security Cleared
2 1,339 (26.27%) Azure
3 1,175 (23.05%) SC Cleared
4 1,024 (20.09%) Stakeholder Management
5 992 (19.46%) AWS
6 897 (17.60%) Roadmaps
7 754 (14.79%) Migration
8 727 (14.26%) Microsoft
9 713 (13.99%) Enterprise Architecture
10 685 (13.44%) AI
11 650 (12.75%) Technical Leadership
12 568 (11.14%) DevOps
13 539 (10.57%) Data Architecture
14 530 (10.40%) CI/CD
15 522 (10.24%) Agile
16 518 (10.16%) Data Modelling
17 505 (9.91%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 455 (8.93%) Integration Patterns
19 437 (8.57%) Analytics
20 417 (8.18%) TOGAF
21 407 (7.99%) Security Architecture
22 402 (7.89%) GCP
23 400 (7.85%) Architectural Patterns
24 370 (7.26%) DV Cleared
25 363 (7.12%) Architecture Governance
26 355 (6.96%) Event-Driven
27 352 (6.91%) Cybersecurity
28 336 (6.59%) Data Governance
29 323 (6.34%) Decision-Making
29 323 (6.34%) 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 73 (1.43%) SAS
2 57 (1.12%) SharePoint
3 45 (0.88%) Confluence
4 42 (0.82%) Apache
5 37 (0.73%) Apache Spark
6 34 (0.67%) Apache Airflow
7 30 (0.59%) Microsoft Exchange
8 22 (0.43%) CMS
9 16 (0.31%) Palantir Foundry
10 14 (0.27%) OpenStack
11 7 (0.14%) Documentum
11 7 (0.14%) IIS
11 7 (0.14%) NetWeaver
12 6 (0.12%) ArcGIS
12 6 (0.12%) Headless CMS
13 5 (0.098%) Appian
13 5 (0.098%) nginx
13 5 (0.098%) SAP EP
14 4 (0.078%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 4 (0.078%) JBoss
Applications
1 26 (0.51%) MS Visio
2 20 (0.39%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 13 (0.26%) Microsoft Excel
4 9 (0.18%) Chatbot
4 9 (0.18%) Microsoft Office
5 7 (0.14%) Revit
6 5 (0.098%) Navisworks
6 5 (0.098%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.039%) AutoCAD
7 2 (0.039%) Gliffy
8 1 (0.020%) Notion
8 1 (0.020%) PlantUML
8 1 (0.020%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 156 (3.06%) SAP S/4HANA
2 48 (0.94%) Dynamics CRM
3 30 (0.59%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 17 (0.33%) SAP MM
5 16 (0.31%) Oracle ERP
6 14 (0.27%) Oracle Payables
7 13 (0.26%) NetSuite
8 12 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
8 12 (0.24%) Remedy ITSM
8 12 (0.24%) Teamcenter
9 11 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
10 10 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
10 10 (0.20%) Workday HCM
11 9 (0.18%) SAP CO
11 9 (0.18%) SAP FI
11 9 (0.18%) SAP FI/CO
11 9 (0.18%) SAP MDG
12 8 (0.16%) SAP BRIM
12 8 (0.16%) SAP HCM
13 7 (0.14%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 1,339 (26.27%) Azure
2 992 (19.46%) AWS
3 402 (7.89%) GCP
4 255 (5.00%) Power Platform
5 197 (3.87%) Entra ID
6 196 (3.85%) SaaS
7 151 (2.96%) Serverless
8 129 (2.53%) GitHub
9 126 (2.47%) Azure DevOps
10 120 (2.35%) Microsoft 365
11 119 (2.33%) Dynamics 365
12 107 (2.10%) Snowflake
13 75 (1.47%) PaaS
14 64 (1.26%) OCI
15 61 (1.20%) Amazon S3
16 60 (1.18%) AWS Lambda
17 57 (1.12%) GitHub Actions
18 56 (1.10%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 55 (1.08%) Power Automate
20 53 (1.04%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 130 (2.55%) Network Security
2 123 (2.41%) Firewall
3 93 (1.82%) WAN
4 67 (1.31%) DNS
5 57 (1.12%) LAN
5 57 (1.12%) VPN
6 45 (0.88%) BGP
7 44 (0.86%) SD-WAN
8 36 (0.71%) MPLS
9 32 (0.63%) DHCP
9 32 (0.63%) TCP/IP
10 27 (0.53%) VXLAN
11 24 (0.47%) VLAN
12 23 (0.45%) NX-OS
13 22 (0.43%) Wireless
14 19 (0.37%) Internet
14 19 (0.37%) SAN
15 17 (0.33%) Ethernet VPN
15 17 (0.33%) NGFW
15 17 (0.33%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 211 (4.14%) Metadata
2 162 (3.18%) Data Warehouse
3 160 (3.14%) Data Lake
4 152 (2.98%) Power BI
5 51 (1.00%) NoSQL
6 48 (0.94%) SQL Server
7 39 (0.77%) BigQuery
8 38 (0.75%) Amazon RDS
9 37 (0.73%) Delta Lake
10 35 (0.69%) Azure SQL Database
10 35 (0.69%) PostgreSQL
11 32 (0.63%) Oracle Database
12 31 (0.61%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
13 28 (0.55%) Amazon Redshift
14 27 (0.53%) Big Data
15 26 (0.51%) Semantic Layer
16 23 (0.45%) GIS
17 21 (0.41%) SAP HANA
18 20 (0.39%) Data Vault
19 19 (0.37%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 76 (1.49%) JIRA
2 61 (1.20%) Git
3 55 (1.08%) Jenkins
4 43 (0.84%) GitLab
5 12 (0.24%) ERwin
6 11 (0.22%) Claude Code
6 11 (0.22%) MSI
7 10 (0.20%) Oracle Forms
7 10 (0.20%) RStudio
8 9 (0.18%) Cypress.io
9 8 (0.16%) Postman
10 6 (0.12%) Storybook
11 5 (0.098%) ER Studio
11 5 (0.098%) JMeter
11 5 (0.098%) Rational DOORS
11 5 (0.098%) Selenium
12 4 (0.078%) Artifactory
12 4 (0.078%) Cucumber
12 4 (0.078%) Maven
12 4 (0.078%) SonarQube
General
1 1,084 (21.27%) Social Skills
2 763 (14.97%) Finance
3 574 (11.26%) Public Sector
4 280 (5.49%) Banking
5 246 (4.83%) Analytical Skills
6 239 (4.69%) Retail
7 158 (3.10%) Influencing Skills
8 141 (2.77%) Manufacturing
9 129 (2.53%) Telecoms
10 111 (2.18%) Documentation Skills
11 73 (1.43%) Marketing
12 69 (1.35%) Aerospace
13 68 (1.33%) Legal
14 61 (1.20%) Billing
15 52 (1.02%) Military
16 46 (0.90%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 39 (0.77%) Presentation Skills
18 30 (0.59%) Local Government
19 29 (0.57%) Pharmaceutical
20 28 (0.55%) Automotive
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 270 (5.30%) REST
2 231 (4.53%) Terraform
3 138 (2.71%) Kafka
4 125 (2.45%) Middleware
4 125 (2.45%) SOAP
5 107 (2.10%) .NET
6 103 (2.02%) OAuth
7 68 (1.33%) Oracle Fusion
8 59 (1.16%) OpenID
9 57 (1.12%) SAML
10 55 (1.08%) JSON
11 51 (1.00%) LDAP
12 50 (0.98%) OAuth2
13 41 (0.80%) PySpark
14 39 (0.77%) JWT
14 39 (0.77%) XML
15 37 (0.73%) .NET Framework
16 35 (0.69%) SAP Fiori
17 33 (0.65%) RESTful
18 31 (0.61%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 423 (8.30%) Cloud Native
2 166 (3.26%) Onboarding
3 157 (3.08%) Data Centre
4 132 (2.59%) Product Ownership
5 125 (2.45%) Distributed Systems
5 125 (2.45%) Enterprise Software
5 125 (2.45%) Legacy Systems
6 122 (2.39%) AI Agents
7 121 (2.37%) Hybrid Cloud
8 104 (2.04%) Management Information System
9 91 (1.79%) CMDB
10 84 (1.65%) Operational Technology
11 83 (1.63%) Data Protection Act
12 70 (1.37%) Public Cloud
13 66 (1.29%) Enterprise Cloud
14 60 (1.18%) Private Cloud
15 58 (1.14%) Data Structures
16 52 (1.02%) Security Posture
17 49 (0.96%) Taxonomies
18 43 (0.84%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 110 (2.16%) Windows
2 82 (1.61%) Linux
3 42 (0.82%) Windows Server
4 21 (0.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 20 (0.39%) Unix
6 9 (0.18%) Ubuntu
7 7 (0.14%) AIX
8 6 (0.12%) Apple iOS
8 6 (0.12%) zOS
9 5 (0.098%) Alpine Linux
9 5 (0.098%) Android
10 4 (0.078%) VMS
11 3 (0.059%) CentOS
11 3 (0.059%) Solaris
11 3 (0.059%) Windows 10
12 2 (0.039%) Data ONTAP
12 2 (0.039%) HPUX
12 2 (0.039%) macOS
12 2 (0.039%) OpenWrt
13 1 (0.020%) CatOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,024 (20.09%) Stakeholder Management
2 897 (17.60%) Roadmaps
3 754 (14.79%) Migration
4 713 (13.99%) Enterprise Architecture
5 685 (13.44%) AI
6 650 (12.75%) Technical Leadership
7 568 (11.14%) DevOps
8 539 (10.57%) Data Architecture
9 530 (10.40%) CI/CD
10 522 (10.24%) Agile
11 518 (10.16%) Data Modelling
12 505 (9.91%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 455 (8.93%) Integration Patterns
14 437 (8.57%) Analytics
15 417 (8.18%) TOGAF
16 407 (7.99%) Security Architecture
17 400 (7.85%) Architectural Patterns
18 363 (7.12%) Architecture Governance
19 355 (6.96%) Event-Driven
20 352 (6.91%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 219 (4.30%) SQL
2 204 (4.00%) Python
3 185 (3.63%) Java
4 101 (1.98%) JavaScript
5 89 (1.75%) PowerShell
6 51 (1.00%) C#
6 51 (1.00%) TypeScript
7 45 (0.88%) Bicep
8 37 (0.73%) Bash
9 27 (0.53%) ABAP
9 27 (0.53%) Apex Code
10 14 (0.27%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 13 (0.26%) Shell Script
12 11 (0.22%) Groovy
13 10 (0.20%) R
14 9 (0.18%) C++
15 8 (0.16%) PL/SQL
16 7 (0.14%) BeanShell
16 7 (0.14%) Go
16 7 (0.14%) Rust
Qualifications
1 1,611 (31.61%) Security Cleared
2 1,175 (23.05%) SC Cleared
3 370 (7.26%) DV Cleared
4 155 (3.04%) Degree
5 137 (2.69%) CISSP
6 131 (2.57%) BPSS Clearance
7 109 (2.14%) Azure Certification
8 103 (2.02%) AWS Certification
9 92 (1.80%) TOGAF Certification
10 90 (1.77%) Cisco Certification
11 65 (1.28%) CISM
12 60 (1.18%) Computer Science Degree
13 46 (0.90%) Microsoft Certification
14 38 (0.75%) CCNP
15 34 (0.67%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 33 (0.65%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 26 (0.51%) CCIE
17 26 (0.51%) CCSP
18 24 (0.47%) Master's Degree
19 18 (0.35%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 229 (4.49%) Data Quality
2 185 (3.63%) NIST
3 160 (3.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 128 (2.51%) GDPR
5 106 (2.08%) NCSC
6 66 (1.29%) GRC
7 44 (0.86%) QA
8 42 (0.82%) Accessibility
9 36 (0.71%) PCI DSS
10 25 (0.49%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 24 (0.47%) ISO/IEC 20000
11 24 (0.47%) NIST 800
11 24 (0.47%) SLA
12 19 (0.37%) JSP 440
13 18 (0.35%) SEPA
14 16 (0.31%) Cyber Essentials
15 15 (0.29%) IFRS
15 15 (0.29%) ISO 20022
16 13 (0.26%) Government Security Classifications
16 13 (0.26%) PMO
System Software
1 161 (3.16%) Active Directory
2 87 (1.71%) Docker
3 66 (1.29%) VMware Infrastructure
4 34 (0.67%) VMware NSX
5 28 (0.55%) Virtual Desktop
6 15 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
7 14 (0.27%) vSphere
8 11 (0.22%) VMware ESXi
9 10 (0.20%) Hyper-V
10 5 (0.098%) ISA Server
11 4 (0.078%) Ceph
11 4 (0.078%) KVM
12 3 (0.059%) EMC RecoverPoint
12 3 (0.059%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 3 (0.059%) Virtual Servers
13 2 (0.039%) IAG
13 2 (0.039%) Microsoft App-V
13 2 (0.039%) Postfix
13 2 (0.039%) SRDF
13 2 (0.039%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 243 (4.77%) Kubernetes
2 88 (1.73%) Ansible
3 42 (0.82%) Grafana
4 38 (0.75%) Single Sign-On
5 30 (0.59%) Microsoft Intune
6 27 (0.53%) Prometheus
7 14 (0.27%) Jamf Pro
8 12 (0.24%) WMI
9 11 (0.22%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 11 (0.22%) Argo
9 11 (0.22%) CASB
9 11 (0.22%) FortiGate
10 7 (0.14%) SCCM
11 6 (0.12%) Progress Chef
11 6 (0.12%) Puppet
12 5 (0.098%) Istio
12 5 (0.098%) vCenter Server
13 4 (0.078%) NetBackup
13 4 (0.078%) QRadar
13 4 (0.078%) VxRail
Vendors
1 727 (14.26%) Microsoft
2 299 (5.87%) SAP
3 264 (5.18%) Oracle
4 241 (4.73%) Databricks
5 235 (4.61%) ServiceNow
6 185 (3.63%) Google
7 167 (3.28%) Salesforce
8 134 (2.63%) Cisco
9 110 (2.16%) VMware
10 82 (1.61%) CyberArk
11 61 (1.20%) MuleSoft
12 55 (1.08%) IBM
13 52 (1.02%) Workday
14 47 (0.92%) Palo Alto
15 42 (0.82%) Foundry
16 36 (0.71%) OpenAI
17 35 (0.69%) Fortinet
17 35 (0.69%) Informatica
17 35 (0.69%) Splunk
18 34 (0.67%) Adobe