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 16 September 2026.

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

6 months to
16 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 5,101 2,503 3,243
As % of all contract jobs in England 11.06% 9.01% 9.92%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.98% 9.87% 10.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,425 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 £713 £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 166 15 68
10th Percentile £46.00 £33.64 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.88 £62.19
Median hourly rate £67.58 £70.00 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -3.45% - -1.53%
75th Percentile £78.75 £83.75 £85.00
90th Percentile £95.00 £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 42,569 25,363 30,417
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.32% 91.35% 93.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,370 16,372 19,015
10th Percentile £325 £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 3,430 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 16 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 16 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 16 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 2,616 £625 -3.85% 3,199
South East +3 737 £625 +4.17% 712
North of England +4 686 £599 -0.18% 688
Midlands +2 427 £626 +9.34% 345
North West +6 385 £600 +2.78% 395
South West +1 341 £638 -1.92% 293
West Midlands +1 315 £644 +7.51% 246
Yorkshire +9 239 £563 -6.21% 219
East of England +11 160 £622 +12.07% 200
East Midlands +6 107 £600 +18.81% 99
North East -3 63 £600 -15.79% 77
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 16 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 1,587 (31.11%) Security Cleared
2 1,316 (25.80%) Azure
3 1,155 (22.64%) SC Cleared
4 1,020 (20.00%) AWS
5 930 (18.23%) Stakeholder Management
6 824 (16.15%) Roadmaps
7 739 (14.49%) Migration
8 719 (14.10%) Microsoft
9 685 (13.43%) Enterprise Architecture
10 673 (13.19%) AI
11 641 (12.57%) Technical Leadership
12 560 (10.98%) DevOps
13 548 (10.74%) Agile
14 535 (10.49%) Data Modelling
15 526 (10.31%) CI/CD
16 521 (10.21%) Data Architecture
17 516 (10.12%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 470 (9.21%) Integration Patterns
19 449 (8.80%) Analytics
20 416 (8.16%) Security Architecture
20 416 (8.16%) TOGAF
21 398 (7.80%) GCP
22 393 (7.70%) Architectural Patterns
23 357 (7.00%) DV Cleared
24 346 (6.78%) Architecture Governance
25 333 (6.53%) Cybersecurity
26 330 (6.47%) Event-Driven
27 323 (6.33%) Data Governance
28 320 (6.27%) Microservices
29 315 (6.18%) 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 (1.47%) SAS
2 63 (1.24%) SharePoint
3 46 (0.90%) Confluence
4 42 (0.82%) Apache
5 36 (0.71%) Apache Spark
6 33 (0.65%) Apache Airflow
7 30 (0.59%) Microsoft Exchange
8 22 (0.43%) Palantir Foundry
9 20 (0.39%) CMS
10 13 (0.25%) OpenStack
11 8 (0.16%) NetWeaver
12 7 (0.14%) Documentum
13 6 (0.12%) Appian
13 6 (0.12%) ArcGIS
13 6 (0.12%) SAP EP
14 5 (0.098%) Camunda
14 5 (0.098%) Headless CMS
15 4 (0.078%) IIS
15 4 (0.078%) Jupyter
15 4 (0.078%) nginx
Applications
1 15 (0.29%) MS Visio
2 12 (0.24%) 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 (2.55%) SAP S/4HANA
2 38 (0.74%) Dynamics CRM
3 31 (0.61%) 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 (0.24%) Oracle EBS
7 12 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
7 12 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
7 12 (0.24%) Payment Gateway
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%) Maximo
9 7 (0.14%) SAP IBP
10 6 (0.12%) SAP CRM
11 5 (0.098%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 1,316 (25.80%) Azure
2 1,020 (20.00%) AWS
3 398 (7.80%) GCP
4 271 (5.31%) Power Platform
5 195 (3.82%) SaaS
6 183 (3.59%) Entra ID
7 159 (3.12%) Serverless
8 137 (2.69%) Dynamics 365
9 121 (2.37%) GitHub
10 114 (2.23%) Microsoft 365
11 112 (2.20%) Azure DevOps
12 108 (2.12%) Snowflake
13 82 (1.61%) PaaS
14 65 (1.27%) AWS Lambda
15 63 (1.24%) OCI
16 62 (1.22%) Amazon S3
17 58 (1.14%) GitHub Actions
18 57 (1.12%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 54 (1.06%) IaaS
20 53 (1.04%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 128 (2.51%) Network Security
2 122 (2.39%) Firewall
3 91 (1.78%) WAN
4 73 (1.43%) DNS
5 63 (1.24%) LAN
6 58 (1.14%) VPN
7 43 (0.84%) SD-WAN
8 42 (0.82%) 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 19 (0.37%) BIG-IP
16 18 (0.35%) OSPF
17 16 (0.31%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 189 (3.71%) Metadata
2 176 (3.45%) Power BI
3 173 (3.39%) Data Lake
4 152 (2.98%) Data Warehouse
5 54 (1.06%) NoSQL
6 49 (0.96%) SQL Server
7 41 (0.80%) BigQuery
8 37 (0.73%) Delta Lake
9 35 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
9 35 (0.69%) PostgreSQL
10 34 (0.67%) Big Data
11 33 (0.65%) Amazon Redshift
12 32 (0.63%) Azure SQL Database
13 29 (0.57%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
13 29 (0.57%) Oracle Database
14 25 (0.49%) Semantic Layer
15 21 (0.41%) GIS
15 21 (0.41%) Star Schema
15 21 (0.41%) Tableau
16 20 (0.39%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 71 (1.39%) JIRA
2 60 (1.18%) Git
3 52 (1.02%) Jenkins
4 39 (0.76%) 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
7 9 (0.18%) RStudio
8 7 (0.14%) SonarQube
9 6 (0.12%) Artifactory
9 6 (0.12%) Storybook
10 5 (0.098%) ER Studio
10 5 (0.098%) Maven
10 5 (0.098%) MLflow
10 5 (0.098%) Rational DOORS
11 4 (0.078%) Postman
11 4 (0.078%) PowerDesigner
11 4 (0.078%) Selenium
General
1 1,059 (20.76%) Social Skills
2 754 (14.78%) Finance
3 546 (10.70%) Public Sector
4 284 (5.57%) Banking
5 265 (5.20%) Retail
6 256 (5.02%) Analytical Skills
7 155 (3.04%) Influencing Skills
8 122 (2.39%) Documentation Skills
9 121 (2.37%) Manufacturing
10 116 (2.27%) Telecoms
11 76 (1.49%) Legal
12 66 (1.29%) Marketing
13 61 (1.20%) Billing
14 55 (1.08%) Military
15 54 (1.06%) Aerospace
16 50 (0.98%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 37 (0.73%) Law
18 33 (0.65%) Presentation Skills
19 27 (0.53%) Aviation
20 26 (0.51%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 255 (5.00%) REST
2 211 (4.14%) Terraform
3 137 (2.69%) Middleware
4 125 (2.45%) SOAP
5 123 (2.41%) Kafka
6 117 (2.29%) .NET
7 98 (1.92%) OAuth
8 67 (1.31%) Oracle Fusion
9 61 (1.20%) JSON
10 55 (1.08%) OpenID
10 55 (1.08%) SAML
11 52 (1.02%) LDAP
12 47 (0.92%) OAuth2
13 45 (0.88%) PySpark
14 41 (0.80%) XML
15 40 (0.78%) .NET Framework
16 37 (0.73%) React
16 37 (0.73%) SailPoint
17 34 (0.67%) RESTful
18 31 (0.61%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 423 (8.29%) Cloud Native
2 151 (2.96%) Onboarding
3 147 (2.88%) Data Centre
4 126 (2.47%) Distributed Systems
4 126 (2.47%) Product Ownership
5 121 (2.37%) Hybrid Cloud
6 118 (2.31%) AI Agents
6 118 (2.31%) Enterprise Software
7 117 (2.29%) Legacy Systems
8 107 (2.10%) Management Information System
9 93 (1.82%) CMDB
10 84 (1.65%) Data Protection Act
11 81 (1.59%) Operational Technology
12 70 (1.37%) Enterprise Cloud
13 66 (1.29%) Public Cloud
14 58 (1.14%) Private Cloud
15 54 (1.06%) Security Posture
16 53 (1.04%) Data Structures
17 41 (0.80%) Mainframe
18 39 (0.76%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 102 (2.00%) Windows
2 86 (1.69%) Linux
3 39 (0.76%) 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 (0.078%) Alpine Linux
10 4 (0.078%) 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
1 930 (18.23%) Stakeholder Management
2 824 (16.15%) Roadmaps
3 739 (14.49%) Migration
4 685 (13.43%) Enterprise Architecture
5 673 (13.19%) AI
6 641 (12.57%) Technical Leadership
7 560 (10.98%) DevOps
8 548 (10.74%) Agile
9 535 (10.49%) Data Modelling
10 526 (10.31%) CI/CD
11 521 (10.21%) Data Architecture
12 516 (10.12%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 470 (9.21%) Integration Patterns
14 449 (8.80%) Analytics
15 416 (8.16%) Security Architecture
15 416 (8.16%) TOGAF
16 393 (7.70%) Architectural Patterns
17 346 (6.78%) Architecture Governance
18 333 (6.53%) Cybersecurity
19 330 (6.47%) Event-Driven
Programming Languages
1 229 (4.49%) Python
2 222 (4.35%) SQL
3 205 (4.02%) Java
4 113 (2.22%) JavaScript
5 89 (1.74%) PowerShell
6 49 (0.96%) TypeScript
7 48 (0.94%) C#
8 41 (0.80%) Bash
9 34 (0.67%) Bicep
10 30 (0.59%) Apex Code
11 22 (0.43%) 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 1,587 (31.11%) Security Cleared
2 1,155 (22.64%) SC Cleared
3 357 (7.00%) DV Cleared
4 154 (3.02%) Degree
5 136 (2.67%) CISSP
6 104 (2.04%) Azure Certification
7 99 (1.94%) BPSS Clearance
8 92 (1.80%) AWS Certification
9 91 (1.78%) Cisco Certification
10 84 (1.65%) TOGAF Certification
11 60 (1.18%) CISM
12 58 (1.14%) Computer Science Degree
13 45 (0.88%) Microsoft Certification
14 39 (0.76%) CCNP
15 37 (0.73%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 33 (0.65%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 25 (0.49%) CCSP
18 23 (0.45%) Master's Degree
19 19 (0.37%) CCIE
19 19 (0.37%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 210 (4.12%) Data Quality
2 194 (3.80%) NIST
3 161 (3.16%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 131 (2.57%) GDPR
5 96 (1.88%) NCSC
6 69 (1.35%) GRC
7 56 (1.10%) QA
8 37 (0.73%) Accessibility
9 34 (0.67%) PCI DSS
10 32 (0.63%) 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 (0.27%) ISO 19650
18 13 (0.25%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 165 (3.23%) Active Directory
2 86 (1.69%) Docker
3 62 (1.22%) VMware Infrastructure
4 38 (0.74%) VMware NSX
5 26 (0.51%) Virtual Desktop
6 16 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
6 16 (0.31%) vSphere
7 15 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
8 13 (0.25%) Hyper-V
9 6 (0.12%) NFS
10 4 (0.078%) EMC RecoverPoint
10 4 (0.078%) KVM
10 4 (0.078%) Postfix
10 4 (0.078%) Varnish
11 3 (0.059%) Ceph
11 3 (0.059%) ISA Server
11 3 (0.059%) Sendmail
11 3 (0.059%) SRDF
11 3 (0.059%) vCloud
12 2 (0.039%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 240 (4.70%) Kubernetes
2 89 (1.74%) Ansible
3 42 (0.82%) Single Sign-On
4 40 (0.78%) Grafana
5 30 (0.59%) 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 (0.20%) vCenter Server
9 10 (0.20%) WMI
10 9 (0.18%) 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 (0.098%) EMC VPLEX
13 5 (0.098%) Progress Chef
14 4 (0.078%) SnapMirror
Vendors
1 719 (14.10%) Microsoft
2 289 (5.67%) SAP
3 267 (5.23%) Oracle
4 258 (5.06%) ServiceNow
5 255 (5.00%) Databricks
6 174 (3.41%) Salesforce
7 164 (3.22%) Google
8 133 (2.61%) Cisco
9 117 (2.29%) VMware
10 83 (1.63%) CyberArk
11 63 (1.24%) MuleSoft
12 58 (1.14%) IBM
13 55 (1.08%) Workday
14 48 (0.94%) Foundry
14 48 (0.94%) Palo Alto
15 34 (0.67%) F5
15 34 (0.67%) OpenAI
16 33 (0.65%) Fortinet
16 33 (0.65%) Informatica
16 33 (0.65%) Sparx