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 21 September 2026.

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

6 months to
21 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 19 15
Rank change year-on-year +9 -4 +1
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,111 2,489 3,260
As % of all contract jobs in England 11.09% 9.03% 9.94%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.02% 9.88% 10.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,431 1,648 2,038
10th Percentile £481 £463 £480
25th Percentile £525 £530 £540
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £630
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -0.79% -3.08%
75th Percentile £708 £713 £738
90th Percentile £788 £787 £813
UK median daily rate £619 £625 £627
% change year-on-year -0.96% -0.32% -3.54%
Number of hourly rates quoted 168 14 67
10th Percentile £46.00 £32.76 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.56 £61.88
Median hourly rate £68.17 £71.25 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -4.33% +1.79% -2.78%
75th Percentile £78.75 £85.63 £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 42,534 25,192 30,524
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.25% 91.35% 93.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,278 16,220 19,013
10th Percentile £325 £278 £300
25th Percentile £425 £401 £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 £738 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,509 1,371 1,458
10th Percentile £14.87 £13.75 £14.56
25th Percentile £21.00 £17.30 £21.25
Median hourly rate £44.46 £25.15 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +76.76% -45.54% +2.62%
75th Percentile £68.00 £53.99 £67.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £71.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -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 21 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 21 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 21 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 2,625 £625 -2.95% 3,089
South East +3 733 £625 +4.17% 641
North of England +3 682 £595 -0.83% 597
Midlands +3 434 £626 +8.87% 330
North West +6 377 £600 +2.78% 354
South West +4 344 £638 -1.92% 267
West Midlands 0 322 £650 +8.33% 247
Yorkshire +17 241 £555 -7.54% 183
East of England +11 161 £619 +11.55% 165
East Midlands +6 107 £600 +19.40% 83
North East -1 63 £600 -18.64% 63
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 21 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 1,590 (31.11%) Security Cleared
2 1,323 (25.89%) Azure
3 1,154 (22.58%) SC Cleared
4 1,013 (19.82%) AWS
5 945 (18.49%) Stakeholder Management
6 823 (16.10%) Roadmaps
7 747 (14.62%) Migration
8 721 (14.11%) Microsoft
9 681 (13.32%) Enterprise Architecture
10 677 (13.25%) AI
11 649 (12.70%) Technical Leadership
12 563 (11.02%) DevOps
13 545 (10.66%) Agile
14 531 (10.39%) CI/CD
15 525 (10.27%) Data Modelling
16 520 (10.17%) Data Architecture
17 507 (9.92%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 466 (9.12%) Integration Patterns
19 448 (8.77%) Analytics
20 412 (8.06%) TOGAF
21 411 (8.04%) Security Architecture
22 402 (7.87%) GCP
23 394 (7.71%) Architectural Patterns
24 365 (7.14%) DV Cleared
25 339 (6.63%) Architecture Governance
26 335 (6.55%) Cybersecurity
27 330 (6.46%) Event-Driven
28 322 (6.30%) Data Governance
29 319 (6.24%) Decision-Making
30 315 (6.16%) 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 (1.47%) SAS
2 63 (1.23%) SharePoint
3 47 (0.92%) Confluence
4 42 (0.82%) Apache
5 36 (0.70%) Apache Spark
6 33 (0.65%) Apache Airflow
7 29 (0.57%) Microsoft Exchange
8 21 (0.41%) Palantir Foundry
9 20 (0.39%) CMS
10 13 (0.25%) OpenStack
11 7 (0.14%) Documentum
12 6 (0.12%) Appian
12 6 (0.12%) ArcGIS
12 6 (0.12%) NetWeaver
13 5 (0.098%) Headless CMS
13 5 (0.098%) IIS
14 4 (0.078%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 4 (0.078%) Camunda
14 4 (0.078%) JBoss
14 4 (0.078%) SAP EP
Applications
1 20 (0.39%) MS Visio
2 14 (0.27%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 11 (0.22%) Microsoft Excel
4 9 (0.18%) Microsoft Office
4 9 (0.18%) Revit
5 8 (0.16%) Chatbot
6 7 (0.14%) Navisworks
7 6 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.039%) AutoCAD
8 2 (0.039%) Windchill
9 1 (0.020%) Gliffy
9 1 (0.020%) Notion
9 1 (0.020%) PlantUML
Business Applications
1 133 (2.60%) SAP S/4HANA
2 40 (0.78%) Dynamics CRM
3 32 (0.63%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 16 (0.31%) Teamcenter
5 15 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
6 14 (0.27%) Remedy ITSM
7 13 (0.25%) NetSuite
7 13 (0.25%) SAP ERP
8 12 (0.23%) Oracle Payables
8 12 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
9 11 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
9 11 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
10 9 (0.18%) SAP MDG
11 8 (0.16%) SAP BRIM
11 8 (0.16%) Workday HCM
12 7 (0.14%) Maximo
12 7 (0.14%) Oracle Retail
12 7 (0.14%) SAP IBP
13 5 (0.098%) Remedy AR System
13 5 (0.098%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 1,323 (25.89%) Azure
2 1,013 (19.82%) AWS
3 402 (7.87%) GCP
4 269 (5.26%) Power Platform
5 195 (3.82%) SaaS
6 187 (3.66%) Entra ID
7 157 (3.07%) Serverless
8 134 (2.62%) Dynamics 365
9 123 (2.41%) GitHub
10 113 (2.21%) Azure DevOps
11 111 (2.17%) Microsoft 365
12 109 (2.13%) Snowflake
13 82 (1.60%) PaaS
14 64 (1.25%) AWS Lambda
15 63 (1.23%) OCI
16 62 (1.21%) Amazon S3
17 59 (1.15%) GitHub Actions
18 58 (1.13%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 55 (1.08%) IaaS
20 52 (1.02%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 127 (2.48%) Network Security
2 122 (2.39%) Firewall
3 91 (1.78%) WAN
4 69 (1.35%) DNS
5 61 (1.19%) LAN
6 53 (1.04%) VPN
7 44 (0.86%) SD-WAN
8 43 (0.84%) BGP
9 37 (0.72%) DHCP
9 37 (0.72%) MPLS
10 34 (0.67%) TCP/IP
11 28 (0.55%) VLAN
12 26 (0.51%) VXLAN
13 24 (0.47%) NX-OS
13 24 (0.47%) SAN
14 20 (0.39%) Wireless
15 19 (0.37%) BIG-IP
15 19 (0.37%) NAS
16 17 (0.33%) Ethernet VPN
16 17 (0.33%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 196 (3.83%) Metadata
2 175 (3.42%) Data Lake
3 172 (3.37%) Power BI
4 155 (3.03%) Data Warehouse
5 54 (1.06%) NoSQL
6 48 (0.94%) SQL Server
7 43 (0.84%) BigQuery
8 37 (0.72%) Delta Lake
9 36 (0.70%) Amazon RDS
10 34 (0.67%) PostgreSQL
11 33 (0.65%) Amazon Redshift
11 33 (0.65%) Azure SQL Database
12 32 (0.63%) Big Data
13 29 (0.57%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
13 29 (0.57%) Oracle Database
14 25 (0.49%) Semantic Layer
15 22 (0.43%) GIS
15 22 (0.43%) Tableau
16 21 (0.41%) Star Schema
17 19 (0.37%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 72 (1.41%) JIRA
2 63 (1.23%) Git
3 52 (1.02%) Jenkins
4 43 (0.84%) GitLab
5 13 (0.25%) ERwin
6 12 (0.23%) Claude Code
7 10 (0.20%) RStudio
8 9 (0.18%) Cypress.io
8 9 (0.18%) MSI
8 9 (0.18%) Oracle Forms
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%) MLflow
11 5 (0.098%) Rational DOORS
11 5 (0.098%) Selenium
12 4 (0.078%) Artifactory
12 4 (0.078%) Maven
13 3 (0.059%) JMeter
General
1 1,056 (20.66%) Social Skills
2 750 (14.67%) Finance
3 551 (10.78%) Public Sector
4 278 (5.44%) Banking
5 263 (5.15%) Retail
6 254 (4.97%) Analytical Skills
7 154 (3.01%) Influencing Skills
8 123 (2.41%) Manufacturing
9 120 (2.35%) Documentation Skills
10 117 (2.29%) Telecoms
11 72 (1.41%) Legal
12 67 (1.31%) Marketing
13 61 (1.19%) Billing
14 57 (1.12%) Aerospace
15 52 (1.02%) Military
16 50 (0.98%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 34 (0.67%) Presentation Skills
18 32 (0.63%) Law
19 27 (0.53%) Aviation
19 27 (0.53%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 256 (5.01%) REST
2 215 (4.21%) Terraform
3 132 (2.58%) Middleware
4 128 (2.50%) Kafka
5 123 (2.41%) SOAP
6 115 (2.25%) .NET
7 100 (1.96%) OAuth
8 69 (1.35%) Oracle Fusion
9 59 (1.15%) JSON
10 54 (1.06%) SAML
11 53 (1.04%) OpenID
12 49 (0.96%) LDAP
12 49 (0.96%) OAuth2
13 45 (0.88%) PySpark
14 41 (0.80%) XML
15 40 (0.78%) .NET Framework
16 37 (0.72%) SailPoint
17 36 (0.70%) React
18 34 (0.67%) RESTful
19 33 (0.65%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 420 (8.22%) Cloud Native
2 157 (3.07%) Onboarding
3 155 (3.03%) Data Centre
4 126 (2.47%) Product Ownership
5 122 (2.39%) Distributed Systems
6 119 (2.33%) Hybrid Cloud
6 119 (2.33%) Legacy Systems
7 117 (2.29%) AI Agents
8 113 (2.21%) Enterprise Software
9 106 (2.07%) Management Information System
10 97 (1.90%) CMDB
11 83 (1.62%) Data Protection Act
12 77 (1.51%) Operational Technology
13 71 (1.39%) Enterprise Cloud
14 67 (1.31%) Public Cloud
15 58 (1.13%) Private Cloud
15 58 (1.13%) Security Posture
16 55 (1.08%) Data Structures
17 41 (0.80%) Mainframe
18 40 (0.78%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 105 (2.05%) Windows
2 84 (1.64%) Linux
3 42 (0.82%) Windows Server
4 21 (0.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 20 (0.39%) 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
1 945 (18.49%) Stakeholder Management
2 823 (16.10%) Roadmaps
3 747 (14.62%) Migration
4 681 (13.32%) Enterprise Architecture
5 677 (13.25%) AI
6 649 (12.70%) Technical Leadership
7 563 (11.02%) DevOps
8 545 (10.66%) Agile
9 531 (10.39%) CI/CD
10 525 (10.27%) Data Modelling
11 520 (10.17%) Data Architecture
12 507 (9.92%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 466 (9.12%) Integration Patterns
14 448 (8.77%) Analytics
15 412 (8.06%) TOGAF
16 411 (8.04%) Security Architecture
17 394 (7.71%) Architectural Patterns
18 339 (6.63%) Architecture Governance
19 335 (6.55%) Cybersecurity
20 330 (6.46%) Event-Driven
Programming Languages
1 224 (4.38%) Python
2 220 (4.30%) SQL
3 198 (3.87%) Java
4 113 (2.21%) JavaScript
5 88 (1.72%) PowerShell
6 51 (1.00%) TypeScript
7 50 (0.98%) C#
8 39 (0.76%) Bash
9 35 (0.68%) Bicep
10 29 (0.57%) Apex Code
11 20 (0.39%) ABAP
12 15 (0.29%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 15 (0.29%) Shell Script
13 11 (0.22%) Groovy
14 10 (0.20%) C++
14 10 (0.20%) R
15 8 (0.16%) PL/SQL
15 8 (0.16%) Ruby
16 7 (0.14%) BeanShell
16 7 (0.14%) Scala
Qualifications
1 1,590 (31.11%) Security Cleared
2 1,154 (22.58%) SC Cleared
3 365 (7.14%) DV Cleared
4 156 (3.05%) Degree
5 135 (2.64%) CISSP
6 106 (2.07%) Azure Certification
6 106 (2.07%) BPSS Clearance
7 96 (1.88%) AWS Certification
8 91 (1.78%) Cisco Certification
9 85 (1.66%) TOGAF Certification
10 60 (1.17%) CISM
11 59 (1.15%) Computer Science Degree
12 45 (0.88%) Microsoft Certification
13 40 (0.78%) CCNP
14 36 (0.70%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 36 (0.70%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 25 (0.49%) CCSP
16 24 (0.47%) Master's Degree
17 20 (0.39%) CCIE
18 19 (0.37%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 214 (4.19%) Data Quality
2 192 (3.76%) NIST
3 157 (3.07%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 130 (2.54%) GDPR
5 99 (1.94%) NCSC
6 71 (1.39%) GRC
7 54 (1.06%) QA
8 39 (0.76%) Accessibility
9 33 (0.65%) PCI DSS
10 31 (0.61%) NIST 800
11 26 (0.51%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 22 (0.43%) SLA
13 19 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 20000
13 19 (0.37%) JSP 440
13 19 (0.37%) SEPA
14 18 (0.35%) IFRS
15 17 (0.33%) ISO 20022
16 16 (0.31%) Cyber Essentials
17 15 (0.29%) ISO 19650
18 13 (0.25%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 170 (3.33%) Active Directory
2 85 (1.66%) Docker
3 62 (1.21%) VMware Infrastructure
4 38 (0.74%) VMware NSX
5 26 (0.51%) Virtual Desktop
6 17 (0.33%) vSphere
7 16 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
7 16 (0.31%) VMware ESXi
8 12 (0.23%) Hyper-V
9 5 (0.098%) NFS
10 4 (0.078%) EMC RecoverPoint
10 4 (0.078%) ISA Server
10 4 (0.078%) KVM
10 4 (0.078%) Postfix
10 4 (0.078%) Varnish
11 3 (0.059%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 3 (0.059%) Sendmail
11 3 (0.059%) SRDF
11 3 (0.059%) vCloud
11 3 (0.059%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 236 (4.62%) Kubernetes
2 91 (1.78%) Ansible
3 41 (0.80%) Single Sign-On
4 39 (0.76%) Grafana
5 30 (0.59%) 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 10 (0.20%) WMI
10 9 (0.18%) CASB
10 9 (0.18%) vCenter Server
11 8 (0.16%) FortiGate
12 6 (0.12%) NetBackup
12 6 (0.12%) Progress Chef
12 6 (0.12%) Puppet
12 6 (0.12%) SCCM
13 5 (0.098%) EMC VPLEX
13 5 (0.098%) Istio
14 4 (0.078%) SnapMirror
Vendors
1 721 (14.11%) Microsoft
2 282 (5.52%) SAP
3 266 (5.20%) Oracle
4 262 (5.13%) ServiceNow
5 255 (4.99%) Databricks
6 176 (3.44%) Salesforce
7 173 (3.38%) Google
8 131 (2.56%) Cisco
9 116 (2.27%) VMware
10 86 (1.68%) CyberArk
11 62 (1.21%) MuleSoft
12 55 (1.08%) IBM
13 53 (1.04%) Workday
14 47 (0.92%) Foundry
15 44 (0.86%) Palo Alto
16 35 (0.68%) Splunk
17 34 (0.67%) F5
17 34 (0.67%) Informatica
17 34 (0.67%) OpenAI
17 34 (0.67%) Sparx