Architect Contract Job Trends in England

Architect
UK > England

The median Architect daily rate in England is £621, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 10 October 2026.

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

6 months to
10 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 12 19 15
Rank change year-on-year +7 -4 +1
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,057 2,515 3,195
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.93% 8.97% 9.88%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.87% 9.84% 10.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,378 1,684 1,907
10th Percentile £481 £462 £473
25th Percentile £525 £525 £525
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £621 £625 £625
Median % change year-on-year -0.68% - -3.85%
75th Percentile £700 £713 £735
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 188 13 62
10th Percentile £40.00 £61.50 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £66.25 £62.50
Median hourly rate £69.00 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -4.83% +3.57% -4.00%
75th Percentile £82.50 £95.00 £85.00
90th Percentile £95.00 £99.00 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £69.50 £72.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -4.14% +3.57% -3.34%

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 42,592 25,553 30,101
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.06% 91.09% 93.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,048 16,438 18,399
10th Percentile £327 £275 £300
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -3.67%
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% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,718 1,434 1,293
10th Percentile £14.50 £13.80 £15.00
25th Percentile £20.25 £17.30 £21.25
Median hourly rate £42.15 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.59% -41.51% -6.52%
75th Percentile £67.96 £51.55 £67.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £41.71 £25.15 £42.03
% change year-on-year +65.84% -40.16% -5.55%

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 10 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 10 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 10 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 2,594 £625 -3.85% 2,637
South East 0 728 £625 +4.17% 540
North of England +3 658 £600 - 476
Midlands +7 454 £628 +9.26% 280
North West +1 346 £597 +3.74% 250
South West +5 344 £625 -3.85% 209
West Midlands +9 338 £650 +8.33% 212
Yorkshire +13 241 £600 - 166
East of England +5 149 £614 +10.70% 195
East Midlands +7 111 £600 +20.00% 68
North East +1 74 £625 -15.25% 60
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 10 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 1,597 (31.58%) Security Cleared
2 1,326 (26.22%) Azure
3 1,165 (23.04%) SC Cleared
4 1,002 (19.81%) Stakeholder Management
5 982 (19.42%) AWS
6 875 (17.30%) Roadmaps
7 752 (14.87%) Migration
8 717 (14.18%) Microsoft
9 703 (13.90%) Enterprise Architecture
10 686 (13.57%) AI
11 640 (12.66%) Technical Leadership
12 559 (11.05%) DevOps
13 534 (10.56%) Data Architecture
14 524 (10.36%) CI/CD
15 515 (10.18%) Agile
15 515 (10.18%) Data Modelling
16 496 (9.81%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 447 (8.84%) Integration Patterns
18 434 (8.58%) Analytics
19 412 (8.15%) TOGAF
20 407 (8.05%) Security Architecture
21 397 (7.85%) GCP
22 390 (7.71%) Architectural Patterns
23 365 (7.22%) DV Cleared
24 360 (7.12%) Architecture Governance
25 347 (6.86%) Cybersecurity
26 343 (6.78%) Event-Driven
27 332 (6.57%) Data Governance
28 320 (6.33%) Decision-Making
29 315 (6.23%) 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 75 (1.48%) SAS
2 56 (1.11%) SharePoint
3 45 (0.89%) Confluence
4 42 (0.83%) Apache
5 38 (0.75%) Apache Spark
6 34 (0.67%) Apache Airflow
7 29 (0.57%) Microsoft Exchange
8 22 (0.44%) CMS
9 16 (0.32%) Palantir Foundry
10 14 (0.28%) 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 (0.099%) Appian
13 5 (0.099%) nginx
13 5 (0.099%) SAP EP
14 4 (0.079%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 4 (0.079%) JBoss
Applications
1 24 (0.47%) MS Visio
2 18 (0.36%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 12 (0.24%) Microsoft Excel
4 9 (0.18%) Chatbot
4 9 (0.18%) Microsoft Office
5 8 (0.16%) Revit
6 6 (0.12%) Navisworks
7 5 (0.099%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.040%) AutoCAD
8 2 (0.040%) Gliffy
9 1 (0.020%) Notion
9 1 (0.020%) PlantUML
9 1 (0.020%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 157 (3.10%) SAP S/4HANA
2 46 (0.91%) Dynamics CRM
3 30 (0.59%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 17 (0.34%) SAP MM
5 16 (0.32%) Oracle ERP
6 14 (0.28%) Oracle Payables
7 13 (0.26%) NetSuite
7 13 (0.26%) Teamcenter
8 12 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
8 12 (0.24%) Remedy ITSM
9 11 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
10 10 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
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
11 9 (0.18%) Workday HCM
12 8 (0.16%) SAP BRIM
12 8 (0.16%) SAP HCM
13 7 (0.14%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 1,326 (26.22%) Azure
2 982 (19.42%) AWS
3 397 (7.85%) GCP
4 258 (5.10%) Power Platform
5 195 (3.86%) Entra ID
6 194 (3.84%) SaaS
7 148 (2.93%) Serverless
8 129 (2.55%) GitHub
9 124 (2.45%) Azure DevOps
10 118 (2.33%) Dynamics 365
10 118 (2.33%) Microsoft 365
11 105 (2.08%) Snowflake
12 72 (1.42%) PaaS
13 65 (1.29%) OCI
14 60 (1.19%) Amazon S3
15 59 (1.17%) AWS Lambda
16 57 (1.13%) GitHub Actions
17 56 (1.11%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 54 (1.07%) Power Automate
19 52 (1.03%) dbt
Communications & Networking
1 130 (2.57%) Network Security
2 123 (2.43%) Firewall
3 90 (1.78%) WAN
4 66 (1.31%) DNS
5 57 (1.13%) VPN
6 55 (1.09%) LAN
7 45 (0.89%) BGP
8 44 (0.87%) SD-WAN
9 37 (0.73%) MPLS
10 32 (0.63%) DHCP
10 32 (0.63%) TCP/IP
11 27 (0.53%) VXLAN
12 24 (0.47%) VLAN
13 23 (0.45%) NX-OS
14 19 (0.38%) SAN
14 19 (0.38%) Wireless
15 18 (0.36%) Internet
16 17 (0.34%) Ethernet VPN
16 17 (0.34%) NGFW
16 17 (0.34%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 212 (4.19%) Metadata
2 162 (3.20%) Data Lake
2 162 (3.20%) Data Warehouse
3 154 (3.05%) Power BI
4 53 (1.05%) NoSQL
5 47 (0.93%) SQL Server
6 38 (0.75%) BigQuery
7 37 (0.73%) Delta Lake
8 36 (0.71%) Amazon RDS
9 35 (0.69%) Azure SQL Database
9 35 (0.69%) PostgreSQL
10 32 (0.63%) Oracle Database
11 31 (0.61%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
12 29 (0.57%) Amazon Redshift
13 27 (0.53%) Big Data
14 25 (0.49%) Semantic Layer
15 23 (0.45%) GIS
16 22 (0.44%) Data Vault
17 21 (0.42%) SAP HANA
17 21 (0.42%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 73 (1.44%) JIRA
2 61 (1.21%) Git
3 55 (1.09%) Jenkins
4 45 (0.89%) 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 7 (0.14%) Postman
10 6 (0.12%) Storybook
11 5 (0.099%) ER Studio
11 5 (0.099%) Rational DOORS
11 5 (0.099%) Selenium
12 4 (0.079%) Artifactory
12 4 (0.079%) JMeter
12 4 (0.079%) Maven
12 4 (0.079%) MLflow
12 4 (0.079%) SonarQube
General
1 1,066 (21.08%) Social Skills
2 740 (14.63%) Finance
3 565 (11.17%) Public Sector
4 271 (5.36%) Banking
5 243 (4.81%) Analytical Skills
6 240 (4.75%) Retail
7 159 (3.14%) Influencing Skills
8 140 (2.77%) Manufacturing
9 128 (2.53%) Telecoms
10 110 (2.18%) Documentation Skills
11 72 (1.42%) Marketing
12 68 (1.34%) Legal
13 67 (1.32%) Aerospace
14 61 (1.21%) Billing
15 51 (1.01%) Military
16 46 (0.91%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 39 (0.77%) Presentation Skills
18 29 (0.57%) Local Government
19 28 (0.55%) Automotive
19 28 (0.55%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 266 (5.26%) REST
2 223 (4.41%) Terraform
3 137 (2.71%) Kafka
4 124 (2.45%) Middleware
4 124 (2.45%) SOAP
5 106 (2.10%) .NET
6 103 (2.04%) OAuth
7 70 (1.38%) Oracle Fusion
8 56 (1.11%) OpenID
9 55 (1.09%) JSON
9 55 (1.09%) SAML
10 51 (1.01%) LDAP
11 50 (0.99%) OAuth2
12 42 (0.83%) PySpark
13 39 (0.77%) XML
14 38 (0.75%) .NET Framework
14 38 (0.75%) JWT
15 35 (0.69%) SAP Fiori
16 32 (0.63%) RESTful
17 31 (0.61%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 414 (8.19%) Cloud Native
2 159 (3.14%) Onboarding
3 153 (3.03%) Data Centre
4 129 (2.55%) Product Ownership
5 124 (2.45%) Enterprise Software
6 122 (2.41%) Distributed Systems
7 121 (2.39%) Hybrid Cloud
7 121 (2.39%) Legacy Systems
8 118 (2.33%) AI Agents
9 104 (2.06%) Management Information System
10 92 (1.82%) CMDB
11 82 (1.62%) Data Protection Act
11 82 (1.62%) Operational Technology
12 69 (1.36%) Public Cloud
13 66 (1.31%) Enterprise Cloud
14 60 (1.19%) Private Cloud
15 55 (1.09%) Data Structures
16 51 (1.01%) Security Posture
17 46 (0.91%) Taxonomies
18 43 (0.85%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 106 (2.10%) Windows
2 80 (1.58%) Linux
3 41 (0.81%) Windows Server
4 21 (0.42%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 18 (0.36%) Unix
6 8 (0.16%) Ubuntu
7 7 (0.14%) AIX
8 6 (0.12%) Apple iOS
8 6 (0.12%) zOS
9 5 (0.099%) Android
10 4 (0.079%) Alpine Linux
10 4 (0.079%) VMS
11 3 (0.059%) CentOS
11 3 (0.059%) Solaris
11 3 (0.059%) Windows 10
12 2 (0.040%) Data ONTAP
12 2 (0.040%) HPUX
12 2 (0.040%) Mac OS
12 2 (0.040%) OpenWrt
13 1 (0.020%) CatOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,002 (19.81%) Stakeholder Management
2 875 (17.30%) Roadmaps
3 752 (14.87%) Migration
4 703 (13.90%) Enterprise Architecture
5 686 (13.57%) AI
6 640 (12.66%) Technical Leadership
7 559 (11.05%) DevOps
8 534 (10.56%) Data Architecture
9 524 (10.36%) CI/CD
10 515 (10.18%) Agile
10 515 (10.18%) Data Modelling
11 496 (9.81%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 447 (8.84%) Integration Patterns
13 434 (8.58%) Analytics
14 412 (8.15%) TOGAF
15 407 (8.05%) Security Architecture
16 390 (7.71%) Architectural Patterns
17 360 (7.12%) Architecture Governance
18 347 (6.86%) Cybersecurity
19 343 (6.78%) Event-Driven
Programming Languages
1 219 (4.33%) SQL
2 202 (3.99%) Python
3 184 (3.64%) Java
4 100 (1.98%) JavaScript
5 88 (1.74%) PowerShell
6 49 (0.97%) C#
6 49 (0.97%) TypeScript
7 42 (0.83%) Bicep
8 37 (0.73%) Bash
9 27 (0.53%) ABAP
10 26 (0.51%) Apex Code
11 15 (0.30%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 13 (0.26%) Shell Script
13 11 (0.22%) 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 1,597 (31.58%) Security Cleared
2 1,165 (23.04%) SC Cleared
3 365 (7.22%) DV Cleared
4 154 (3.05%) Degree
5 134 (2.65%) CISSP
6 130 (2.57%) BPSS Clearance
7 109 (2.16%) Azure Certification
8 101 (2.00%) AWS Certification
9 91 (1.80%) TOGAF Certification
10 87 (1.72%) Cisco Certification
11 63 (1.25%) CISM
12 61 (1.21%) Computer Science Degree
13 45 (0.89%) 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%) CCSP
18 24 (0.47%) Master's Degree
19 23 (0.45%) CCIE
20 18 (0.36%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 229 (4.53%) Data Quality
2 183 (3.62%) NIST
3 157 (3.10%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 127 (2.51%) GDPR
5 108 (2.14%) NCSC
6 67 (1.32%) GRC
7 44 (0.87%) QA
8 42 (0.83%) Accessibility
9 33 (0.65%) PCI DSS
10 25 (0.49%) NIST 800
10 25 (0.49%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 24 (0.47%) ISO/IEC 20000
12 22 (0.44%) SLA
13 19 (0.38%) JSP 440
14 18 (0.36%) SEPA
15 16 (0.32%) Cyber Essentials
16 15 (0.30%) IFRS
16 15 (0.30%) ISO 20022
17 14 (0.28%) ISO 19650
18 13 (0.26%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 161 (3.18%) Active Directory
2 83 (1.64%) Docker
3 65 (1.29%) VMware Infrastructure
4 34 (0.67%) VMware NSX
5 28 (0.55%) Virtual Desktop
6 15 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
7 14 (0.28%) vSphere
8 11 (0.22%) VMware ESXi
9 10 (0.20%) Hyper-V
10 5 (0.099%) ISA Server
11 4 (0.079%) KVM
12 3 (0.059%) Ceph
12 3 (0.059%) EMC RecoverPoint
12 3 (0.059%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 3 (0.059%) Virtual Servers
13 2 (0.040%) IAG
13 2 (0.040%) NFS
13 2 (0.040%) Postfix
13 2 (0.040%) SRDF
13 2 (0.040%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 239 (4.73%) Kubernetes
2 87 (1.72%) Ansible
3 43 (0.85%) Grafana
4 38 (0.75%) Single Sign-On
5 30 (0.59%) Microsoft Intune
6 28 (0.55%) Prometheus
7 14 (0.28%) 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 (0.099%) Istio
12 5 (0.099%) vCenter Server
13 4 (0.079%) Functional Safety
13 4 (0.079%) QRadar
13 4 (0.079%) VxRail
Vendors
1 717 (14.18%) Microsoft
2 298 (5.89%) SAP
3 265 (5.24%) Oracle
4 240 (4.75%) Databricks
5 233 (4.61%) ServiceNow
6 181 (3.58%) Google
7 163 (3.22%) Salesforce
8 132 (2.61%) Cisco
9 109 (2.16%) VMware
10 81 (1.60%) CyberArk
11 60 (1.19%) MuleSoft
12 55 (1.09%) IBM
13 50 (0.99%) Workday
14 46 (0.91%) Palo Alto
15 41 (0.81%) Foundry
16 35 (0.69%) Fortinet
17 34 (0.67%) Adobe
17 34 (0.67%) Informatica
17 34 (0.67%) OpenAI
18 33 (0.65%) Splunk