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 26 August 2026.

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

6 months to
26 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 18 14
Rank change year-on-year +8 -4 +2
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,019 2,532 3,398
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.99% 9.19% 10.23%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.89% 10.04% 11.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,378 1,678 2,218
10th Percentile £479 £468 £484
25th Percentile £525 £538 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -
75th Percentile £715 £706 £738
90th Percentile £788 £788 £823
UK median daily rate £615 £625 £647
% change year-on-year -1.60% -3.36% -0.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 161 18 73
10th Percentile £46.00 £36.30 -
25th Percentile £60.00 £62.50 £60.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -
75th Percentile £73.25 £87.00 £85.00
90th Percentile £95.00 £100.00 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £65.75 £72.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -9.31% +3.57% -

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 42,222 25,226 30,892
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.43% 91.56% 92.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,437 16,285 19,969
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 £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £738 £738 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.87%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,228 1,378 1,700
10th Percentile £15.10 £13.68 £14.16
25th Percentile £21.15 £17.44 £20.50
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +2.60%
75th Percentile £68.00 £55.00 £66.61
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.07 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +65.94% -41.51% -1.44%

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 26 August 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 26 August 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 26 August 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 2,585 £625 -2.72% 352
South East +1 730 £625 +4.17% 108
North of England +3 697 £600 - 119
Midlands 0 411 £625 +8.70% 56
North West +6 406 £600 +1.27% 62
South West +1 314 £650 +1.56% 83
West Midlands -1 298 £644 +7.33% 38
Yorkshire +5 227 £600 -2.04% 44
East of England +13 150 £604 +9.07% 18
East Midlands +3 106 £600 +16.50% 18
North East -4 66 £588 -16.07% 13
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 26 August 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 1,512 (30.13%) Security Cleared
2 1,308 (26.06%) Azure
3 1,097 (21.86%) SC Cleared
4 1,039 (20.70%) AWS
5 785 (15.64%) Stakeholder Management
6 773 (15.40%) Roadmaps
7 726 (14.47%) Migration
8 696 (13.87%) Microsoft
9 659 (13.13%) AI
10 646 (12.87%) Enterprise Architecture
11 560 (11.16%) DevOps
11 560 (11.16%) Technical Leadership
12 559 (11.14%) Agile
13 530 (10.56%) CI/CD
14 525 (10.46%) Data Modelling
15 520 (10.36%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 491 (9.78%) Data Architecture
17 484 (9.64%) Integration Patterns
18 452 (9.01%) Analytics
19 406 (8.09%) GCP
20 399 (7.95%) Architectural Patterns
21 387 (7.71%) TOGAF
22 383 (7.63%) Security Architecture
23 331 (6.59%) Event-Driven
24 325 (6.48%) DV Cleared
25 322 (6.42%) Cybersecurity
26 313 (6.24%) Infrastructure as Code
27 310 (6.18%) Data Governance
28 308 (6.14%) Microservices
29 304 (6.06%) Problem-Solving

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 (1.45%) SAS
2 70 (1.39%) SharePoint
3 52 (1.04%) Confluence
4 42 (0.84%) Apache
5 40 (0.80%) Apache Spark
6 29 (0.58%) Microsoft Exchange
7 28 (0.56%) Apache Airflow
8 22 (0.44%) Palantir Foundry
9 17 (0.34%) CMS
10 15 (0.30%) OpenStack
11 7 (0.14%) ArcGIS
11 7 (0.14%) Camunda
11 7 (0.14%) Documentum
12 6 (0.12%) Appian
13 5 (0.100%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 4 (0.080%) Jupyter
15 3 (0.060%) Anypoint
15 3 (0.060%) Drupal
15 3 (0.060%) NetWeaver
15 3 (0.060%) nginx
Applications
1 19 (0.38%) MS Visio
2 12 (0.24%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (0.24%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 9 (0.18%) Microsoft Office
4 8 (0.16%) Chatbot
5 7 (0.14%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.14%) Revit
6 6 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.040%) Windchill
8 1 (0.020%) Gliffy
8 1 (0.020%) Microsoft Project
8 1 (0.020%) Notion
8 1 (0.020%) PlantUML
Business Applications
1 125 (2.49%) SAP S/4HANA
2 35 (0.70%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 31 (0.62%) Dynamics CRM
4 15 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
5 13 (0.26%) Payment Gateway
5 13 (0.26%) Remedy ITSM
5 13 (0.26%) Teamcenter
6 12 (0.24%) NetSuite
6 12 (0.24%) Oracle ERP
6 12 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
6 12 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
7 11 (0.22%) SAP ERP
8 8 (0.16%) Oracle Retail
8 8 (0.16%) SAP BRIM
9 7 (0.14%) SAP IBP
9 7 (0.14%) Workday HCM
10 6 (0.12%) Maximo
10 6 (0.12%) SAP MM
11 5 (0.100%) Endur
11 5 (0.100%) SAP Oil and Gas
Cloud Services
1 1,308 (26.06%) Azure
2 1,039 (20.70%) AWS
3 406 (8.09%) GCP
4 277 (5.52%) Power Platform
5 191 (3.81%) Entra ID
6 186 (3.71%) SaaS
7 169 (3.37%) Serverless
8 135 (2.69%) Dynamics 365
9 124 (2.47%) GitHub
10 109 (2.17%) Azure DevOps
11 105 (2.09%) Snowflake
12 102 (2.03%) Microsoft 365
13 93 (1.85%) PaaS
14 75 (1.49%) AWS Lambda
15 68 (1.35%) Amazon S3
16 63 (1.26%) IaaS
17 61 (1.22%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 59 (1.18%) GitHub Actions
19 58 (1.16%) Azure Data Factory
20 56 (1.12%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 138 (2.75%) Network Security
2 136 (2.71%) Firewall
3 99 (1.97%) WAN
4 79 (1.57%) DNS
5 68 (1.35%) LAN
6 66 (1.32%) VPN
7 47 (0.94%) SD-WAN
8 46 (0.92%) BGP
9 39 (0.78%) DHCP
10 37 (0.74%) TCP/IP
11 34 (0.68%) MPLS
12 28 (0.56%) VLAN
13 27 (0.54%) VXLAN
14 26 (0.52%) SAN
15 22 (0.44%) NAS
15 22 (0.44%) OSPF
16 21 (0.42%) NX-OS
17 20 (0.40%) Wireless
18 19 (0.38%) Radio Access Network
18 19 (0.38%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 194 (3.87%) Power BI
2 171 (3.41%) Data Lake
3 162 (3.23%) Metadata
4 147 (2.93%) Data Warehouse
5 64 (1.28%) NoSQL
6 52 (1.04%) SQL Server
7 43 (0.86%) Delta Lake
8 40 (0.80%) Big Data
9 39 (0.78%) Azure SQL Database
9 39 (0.78%) PostgreSQL
10 36 (0.72%) BigQuery
11 32 (0.64%) Amazon RDS
12 31 (0.62%) Amazon Redshift
13 30 (0.60%) Oracle Database
14 26 (0.52%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
15 23 (0.46%) GIS
16 22 (0.44%) Tableau
17 21 (0.42%) MongoDB
17 21 (0.42%) Semantic Layer
18 19 (0.38%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 72 (1.43%) JIRA
2 69 (1.37%) Git
3 47 (0.94%) Jenkins
4 33 (0.66%) GitLab
5 17 (0.34%) ERwin
6 10 (0.20%) Claude Code
7 8 (0.16%) Cypress.io
7 8 (0.16%) Oracle Forms
8 7 (0.14%) MLflow
8 7 (0.14%) MSI
8 7 (0.14%) RStudio
8 7 (0.14%) SonarQube
9 6 (0.12%) Artifactory
9 6 (0.12%) Storybook
10 5 (0.100%) ER Studio
10 5 (0.100%) Maven
10 5 (0.100%) PowerDesigner
11 4 (0.080%) Sonatype Nexus
12 3 (0.060%) IBM UrbanCode
12 3 (0.060%) Postman
General
1 981 (19.55%) Social Skills
2 753 (15.00%) Finance
3 545 (10.86%) Public Sector
4 280 (5.58%) Banking
5 268 (5.34%) Analytical Skills
6 250 (4.98%) Retail
7 138 (2.75%) Influencing Skills
8 122 (2.43%) Documentation Skills
9 120 (2.39%) Telecoms
10 106 (2.11%) Manufacturing
11 78 (1.55%) Legal
12 62 (1.24%) Marketing
13 61 (1.22%) Billing
14 51 (1.02%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 46 (0.92%) Law
16 45 (0.90%) Aerospace
16 45 (0.90%) Military
17 36 (0.72%) Financial Institution
18 33 (0.66%) Presentation Skills
19 30 (0.60%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 251 (5.00%) REST
2 213 (4.24%) Terraform
3 146 (2.91%) Middleware
4 119 (2.37%) .NET
5 117 (2.33%) SOAP
6 108 (2.15%) Kafka
7 106 (2.11%) OAuth
8 66 (1.32%) Oracle Fusion
9 58 (1.16%) OpenID
9 58 (1.16%) SAML
10 56 (1.12%) JSON
11 52 (1.04%) OAuth2
12 43 (0.86%) PySpark
13 39 (0.78%) RESTful
14 38 (0.76%) React
15 37 (0.74%) .NET Framework
16 36 (0.72%) XML
17 35 (0.70%) SailPoint
18 34 (0.68%) LDAP
19 32 (0.64%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 440 (8.77%) Cloud Native
2 152 (3.03%) Data Centre
3 134 (2.67%) Onboarding
4 127 (2.53%) Hybrid Cloud
5 122 (2.43%) Product Ownership
6 121 (2.41%) Legacy Systems
7 120 (2.39%) Distributed Systems
8 117 (2.33%) AI Agents
9 110 (2.19%) Enterprise Software
10 107 (2.13%) Management Information System
11 90 (1.79%) Data Protection Act
12 89 (1.77%) CMDB
13 74 (1.47%) Operational Technology
14 70 (1.39%) Enterprise Cloud
15 67 (1.33%) Public Cloud
16 58 (1.16%) Security Posture
17 54 (1.08%) Data Structures
18 47 (0.94%) Private Cloud
19 43 (0.86%) Mainframe
20 41 (0.82%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 99 (1.97%) Windows
2 88 (1.75%) Linux
3 34 (0.68%) Windows Server
4 20 (0.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 20 (0.40%) Unix
5 12 (0.24%) Apple iOS
6 11 (0.22%) Android
7 9 (0.18%) AIX
8 8 (0.16%) Ubuntu
9 7 (0.14%) zOS
10 5 (0.100%) Solaris
11 4 (0.080%) Alpine Linux
11 4 (0.080%) Data ONTAP
12 3 (0.060%) CentOS
12 3 (0.060%) VMS
13 2 (0.040%) HPUX
13 2 (0.040%) Mac OS
13 2 (0.040%) OpenWrt
13 2 (0.040%) Windows 10
14 1 (0.020%) CatOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 785 (15.64%) Stakeholder Management
2 773 (15.40%) Roadmaps
3 726 (14.47%) Migration
4 659 (13.13%) AI
5 646 (12.87%) Enterprise Architecture
6 560 (11.16%) DevOps
6 560 (11.16%) Technical Leadership
7 559 (11.14%) Agile
8 530 (10.56%) CI/CD
9 525 (10.46%) Data Modelling
10 520 (10.36%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 491 (9.78%) Data Architecture
12 484 (9.64%) Integration Patterns
13 452 (9.01%) Analytics
14 399 (7.95%) Architectural Patterns
15 387 (7.71%) TOGAF
16 383 (7.63%) Security Architecture
17 331 (6.59%) Event-Driven
18 322 (6.42%) Cybersecurity
19 313 (6.24%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 243 (4.84%) Python
2 234 (4.66%) SQL
3 208 (4.14%) Java
4 111 (2.21%) JavaScript
5 86 (1.71%) PowerShell
6 46 (0.92%) C#
7 42 (0.84%) Bash
7 42 (0.84%) Bicep
7 42 (0.84%) TypeScript
8 27 (0.54%) Apex Code
9 16 (0.32%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 16 (0.32%) Shell Script
10 14 (0.28%) Ruby
11 12 (0.24%) ABAP
11 12 (0.24%) C++
12 11 (0.22%) Groovy
13 10 (0.20%) R
13 10 (0.20%) Scala
14 8 (0.16%) PL/SQL
15 7 (0.14%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 1,512 (30.13%) Security Cleared
2 1,097 (21.86%) SC Cleared
3 325 (6.48%) DV Cleared
4 152 (3.03%) Degree
5 127 (2.53%) CISSP
6 111 (2.21%) Azure Certification
7 96 (1.91%) AWS Certification
8 82 (1.63%) Cisco Certification
9 78 (1.55%) BPSS Clearance
10 77 (1.53%) TOGAF Certification
11 60 (1.20%) Computer Science Degree
12 59 (1.18%) CISM
13 43 (0.86%) Microsoft Certification
14 38 (0.76%) CCNP
15 32 (0.64%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 32 (0.64%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 24 (0.48%) Master's Degree
17 19 (0.38%) CCSP
18 18 (0.36%) DBS Check
19 17 (0.34%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 198 (3.95%) Data Quality
2 187 (3.73%) NIST
3 144 (2.87%) GDPR
4 141 (2.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 93 (1.85%) NCSC
6 65 (1.30%) GRC
7 50 (1.00%) QA
8 35 (0.70%) Accessibility
9 34 (0.68%) PCI DSS
10 32 (0.64%) NIST 800
11 28 (0.56%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 20 (0.40%) SLA
13 19 (0.38%) SEPA
14 18 (0.36%) IFRS
15 17 (0.34%) ISO 20022
16 16 (0.32%) Cyber Essentials
16 16 (0.32%) JSP 440
17 15 (0.30%) ISO/IEC 20000
18 13 (0.26%) Government Security Classifications
18 13 (0.26%) ISO 19650
System Software
1 149 (2.97%) Active Directory
2 93 (1.85%) Docker
3 60 (1.20%) VMware Infrastructure
4 37 (0.74%) VMware NSX
5 29 (0.58%) Virtual Desktop
6 17 (0.34%) Virtual Machines
7 15 (0.30%) Hyper-V
7 15 (0.30%) VMware ESXi
8 13 (0.26%) vSphere
9 8 (0.16%) NFS
10 7 (0.14%) Varnish
11 6 (0.12%) Postfix
12 5 (0.100%) vCloud
13 4 (0.080%) EMC RecoverPoint
13 4 (0.080%) KVM
13 4 (0.080%) Sendmail
14 3 (0.060%) Ceph
14 3 (0.060%) IAG
14 3 (0.060%) SRDF
15 2 (0.040%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 239 (4.76%) Kubernetes
2 89 (1.77%) Ansible
3 42 (0.84%) Grafana
4 38 (0.76%) Single Sign-On
5 32 (0.64%) Prometheus
6 24 (0.48%) Microsoft Intune
7 15 (0.30%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 15 (0.30%) Argo
8 14 (0.28%) Jamf Pro
9 13 (0.26%) vCenter Server
10 8 (0.16%) WMI
11 7 (0.14%) FortiGate
11 7 (0.14%) Istio
11 7 (0.14%) SCCM
12 6 (0.12%) CASB
12 6 (0.12%) HAProxy
12 6 (0.12%) NetBackup
13 5 (0.100%) EMC VPLEX
13 5 (0.100%) MOM
14 4 (0.080%) SnapMirror
Vendors
1 696 (13.87%) Microsoft
2 291 (5.80%) SAP
3 266 (5.30%) Oracle
4 253 (5.04%) Databricks
5 249 (4.96%) ServiceNow
6 163 (3.25%) Salesforce
7 155 (3.09%) Google
8 130 (2.59%) Cisco
9 112 (2.23%) VMware
10 63 (1.26%) CyberArk
11 59 (1.18%) IBM
12 57 (1.14%) MuleSoft
13 53 (1.06%) Workday
14 48 (0.96%) Palo Alto
15 44 (0.88%) Foundry
16 37 (0.74%) Sparx
17 34 (0.68%) Adobe
17 34 (0.68%) Ariba
18 33 (0.66%) OpenAI
19 31 (0.62%) F5