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 10 September 2026.

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

6 months to
10 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 5,103 2,524 3,284
As % of all contract jobs in England 11.02% 9.08% 10.03%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.94% 9.94% 10.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,428 1,664 2,075
10th Percentile £477 £463 £480
25th Percentile £525 £531 £546
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -
75th Percentile £713 £706 £738
90th Percentile £788 £785 £823
UK median daily rate £620 £625 £638
% change year-on-year -0.80% -1.96% -1.92%
Number of hourly rates quoted 162 18 70
10th Percentile £46.00 £36.30 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £62.50 £61.25
Median hourly rate £65.83 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -9.20% +3.57% -0.12%
75th Percentile £78.19 £87.00 £85.00
90th Percentile £95.90 £100.00 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £66.83 £72.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -7.82% +3.57% -0.12%

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 42,748 25,384 30,473
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.31% 91.33% 93.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,582 16,362 19,224
10th Percentile £325 £281 £305
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £506 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.75% -3.62% -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% -1.32%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,383 1,348 1,536
10th Percentile £14.94 £13.62 £14.56
25th Percentile £20.75 £17.30 £21.25
Median hourly rate £43.50 £25.15 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +72.96% -47.05% +7.95%
75th Percentile £68.00 £55.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +67.00% -41.51% +1.18%

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 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 10 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 10 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 2,601 £625 -2.72% 1,509
South East +2 736 £625 +4.17% 364
North of England +5 709 £600 - 258
Midlands +1 423 £626 +8.87% 134
North West +8 416 £600 +4.35% 142
South West +4 338 £640 -0.51% 134
West Midlands +1 315 £650 +8.42% 87
Yorkshire +11 231 £575 -4.17% 93
East of England +10 157 £616 +11.29% 99
East Midlands +1 103 £600 +17.65% 47
North East -6 63 £600 -15.79% 23
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 10 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 1,566 (30.69%) Security Cleared
2 1,334 (26.14%) Azure
3 1,131 (22.16%) SC Cleared
4 1,044 (20.46%) AWS
5 884 (17.32%) Stakeholder Management
6 813 (15.93%) Roadmaps
7 740 (14.50%) Migration
8 718 (14.07%) Microsoft
9 672 (13.17%) AI
10 670 (13.13%) Enterprise Architecture
11 619 (12.13%) Technical Leadership
12 561 (10.99%) Agile
13 559 (10.95%) DevOps
14 543 (10.64%) Data Modelling
15 534 (10.46%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 521 (10.21%) CI/CD
17 511 (10.01%) Data Architecture
18 479 (9.39%) Integration Patterns
19 446 (8.74%) Analytics
20 418 (8.19%) Security Architecture
21 411 (8.05%) TOGAF
22 405 (7.94%) Architectural Patterns
23 404 (7.92%) GCP
24 352 (6.90%) DV Cleared
25 336 (6.58%) Event-Driven
26 334 (6.55%) Cybersecurity
27 333 (6.53%) Architecture Governance
28 319 (6.25%) Data Governance
29 317 (6.21%) Microservices
30 311 (6.09%) 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 73 (1.43%) SAS
2 65 (1.27%) SharePoint
3 49 (0.96%) Confluence
4 43 (0.84%) Apache
5 38 (0.74%) Apache Spark
6 32 (0.63%) Apache Airflow
7 29 (0.57%) Microsoft Exchange
8 22 (0.43%) CMS
8 22 (0.43%) Palantir Foundry
9 14 (0.27%) OpenStack
10 7 (0.14%) ArcGIS
10 7 (0.14%) Documentum
11 6 (0.12%) Appian
12 5 (0.098%) Camunda
12 5 (0.098%) Headless CMS
13 4 (0.078%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 4 (0.078%) Jupyter
14 3 (0.059%) Anypoint
14 3 (0.059%) NetWeaver
14 3 (0.059%) nginx
Applications
1 15 (0.29%) MS Visio
2 13 (0.25%) 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%) Microsoft Project
9 1 (0.020%) Notion
9 1 (0.020%) PlantUML
Business Applications
1 127 (2.49%) SAP S/4HANA
2 37 (0.73%) Dynamics CRM
3 33 (0.65%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 17 (0.33%) Teamcenter
5 15 (0.29%) Oracle EBS
5 15 (0.29%) Remedy ITSM
6 13 (0.25%) Oracle ERP
6 13 (0.25%) Payment Gateway
7 12 (0.24%) NetSuite
7 12 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
7 12 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
8 11 (0.22%) SAP ERP
9 8 (0.16%) Oracle Retail
9 8 (0.16%) SAP BRIM
9 8 (0.16%) SAP MDG
9 8 (0.16%) Workday HCM
10 7 (0.14%) SAP IBP
11 6 (0.12%) Maximo
12 5 (0.098%) Endur
12 5 (0.098%) SAP Oil and Gas
Cloud Services
1 1,334 (26.14%) Azure
2 1,044 (20.46%) AWS
3 404 (7.92%) GCP
4 277 (5.43%) Power Platform
5 197 (3.86%) SaaS
6 191 (3.74%) Entra ID
7 169 (3.31%) Serverless
8 142 (2.78%) Dynamics 365
9 123 (2.41%) GitHub
10 112 (2.19%) Azure DevOps
10 112 (2.19%) Microsoft 365
11 107 (2.10%) Snowflake
12 87 (1.70%) PaaS
13 70 (1.37%) AWS Lambda
14 67 (1.31%) Amazon S3
15 60 (1.18%) OCI
16 58 (1.14%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 57 (1.12%) GitHub Actions
18 56 (1.10%) IaaS
19 53 (1.04%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 141 (2.76%) Network Security
2 134 (2.63%) Firewall
3 101 (1.98%) WAN
4 75 (1.47%) DNS
5 70 (1.37%) LAN
6 64 (1.25%) VPN
7 50 (0.98%) SD-WAN
8 44 (0.86%) BGP
9 39 (0.76%) DHCP
10 37 (0.73%) TCP/IP
11 35 (0.69%) MPLS
12 29 (0.57%) VLAN
13 27 (0.53%) SAN
14 25 (0.49%) VXLAN
15 22 (0.43%) NAS
16 21 (0.41%) Wireless
17 20 (0.39%) NX-OS
17 20 (0.39%) OSPF
18 18 (0.35%) BIG-IP
18 18 (0.35%) Radio Access Network
Database & Business Intelligence
1 185 (3.63%) Metadata
2 184 (3.61%) Power BI
3 168 (3.29%) Data Lake
4 146 (2.86%) Data Warehouse
5 56 (1.10%) NoSQL
6 50 (0.98%) SQL Server
7 39 (0.76%) BigQuery
8 36 (0.71%) Delta Lake
8 36 (0.71%) PostgreSQL
9 35 (0.69%) Big Data
10 34 (0.67%) Amazon RDS
11 33 (0.65%) Amazon Redshift
11 33 (0.65%) Azure SQL Database
12 30 (0.59%) Oracle Database
13 27 (0.53%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
14 25 (0.49%) Semantic Layer
15 22 (0.43%) GIS
15 22 (0.43%) MongoDB
15 22 (0.43%) Tableau
16 20 (0.39%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 72 (1.41%) JIRA
2 63 (1.23%) Git
3 49 (0.96%) Jenkins
4 35 (0.69%) 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
8 8 (0.16%) RStudio
9 7 (0.14%) SonarQube
10 6 (0.12%) Artifactory
10 6 (0.12%) Storybook
11 5 (0.098%) ER Studio
11 5 (0.098%) Maven
11 5 (0.098%) MLflow
12 4 (0.078%) PowerDesigner
12 4 (0.078%) Rational DOORS
12 4 (0.078%) Selenium
13 3 (0.059%) JMeter
General
1 1,048 (20.54%) Social Skills
2 759 (14.87%) Finance
3 550 (10.78%) Public Sector
4 287 (5.62%) Banking
5 265 (5.19%) Analytical Skills
6 257 (5.04%) Retail
7 148 (2.90%) Influencing Skills
8 127 (2.49%) Documentation Skills
9 118 (2.31%) Telecoms
10 115 (2.25%) Manufacturing
11 76 (1.49%) Legal
12 67 (1.31%) Marketing
13 63 (1.23%) Billing
14 56 (1.10%) Military
15 49 (0.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 48 (0.94%) Aerospace
17 45 (0.88%) Law
18 31 (0.61%) Presentation Skills
19 27 (0.53%) Aviation
19 27 (0.53%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 262 (5.13%) REST
2 205 (4.02%) Terraform
3 135 (2.65%) Middleware
4 125 (2.45%) SOAP
5 116 (2.27%) .NET
5 116 (2.27%) Kafka
6 104 (2.04%) OAuth
7 66 (1.29%) Oracle Fusion
8 61 (1.20%) JSON
9 57 (1.12%) OpenID
9 57 (1.12%) SAML
10 49 (0.96%) OAuth2
11 48 (0.94%) LDAP
12 44 (0.86%) PySpark
13 41 (0.80%) XML
14 38 (0.74%) .NET Framework
15 37 (0.73%) React
16 36 (0.71%) RESTful
16 36 (0.71%) SailPoint
17 32 (0.63%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 440 (8.62%) Cloud Native
2 151 (2.96%) Data Centre
3 144 (2.82%) Onboarding
4 124 (2.43%) Hybrid Cloud
5 123 (2.41%) Distributed Systems
6 122 (2.39%) Product Ownership
7 117 (2.29%) Enterprise Software
8 116 (2.27%) AI Agents
8 116 (2.27%) Legacy Systems
9 108 (2.12%) Management Information System
10 94 (1.84%) CMDB
11 82 (1.61%) Data Protection Act
12 81 (1.59%) Operational Technology
13 70 (1.37%) Enterprise Cloud
14 63 (1.23%) Public Cloud
15 60 (1.18%) Security Posture
16 52 (1.02%) Data Structures
17 50 (0.98%) Private Cloud
18 41 (0.80%) Mainframe
19 40 (0.78%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 102 (2.00%) Windows
2 86 (1.69%) Linux
3 38 (0.74%) Windows Server
4 21 (0.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 21 (0.41%) Unix
5 11 (0.22%) Apple iOS
6 10 (0.20%) Android
7 9 (0.18%) AIX
8 8 (0.16%) Ubuntu
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
1 884 (17.32%) Stakeholder Management
2 813 (15.93%) Roadmaps
3 740 (14.50%) Migration
4 672 (13.17%) AI
5 670 (13.13%) Enterprise Architecture
6 619 (12.13%) Technical Leadership
7 561 (10.99%) Agile
8 559 (10.95%) DevOps
9 543 (10.64%) Data Modelling
10 534 (10.46%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 521 (10.21%) CI/CD
12 511 (10.01%) Data Architecture
13 479 (9.39%) Integration Patterns
14 446 (8.74%) Analytics
15 418 (8.19%) Security Architecture
16 411 (8.05%) TOGAF
17 405 (7.94%) Architectural Patterns
18 336 (6.58%) Event-Driven
19 334 (6.55%) Cybersecurity
20 333 (6.53%) Architecture Governance
Programming Languages
1 238 (4.66%) Python
2 227 (4.45%) SQL
3 205 (4.02%) Java
4 113 (2.21%) JavaScript
5 89 (1.74%) PowerShell
6 50 (0.98%) C#
7 47 (0.92%) TypeScript
8 44 (0.86%) Bash
9 35 (0.69%) Bicep
10 31 (0.61%) Apex Code
11 16 (0.31%) ABAP
12 15 (0.29%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 15 (0.29%) Shell Script
13 13 (0.25%) Ruby
14 12 (0.24%) C++
15 11 (0.22%) Groovy
16 10 (0.20%) R
16 10 (0.20%) Scala
17 8 (0.16%) PL/SQL
18 7 (0.14%) BeanShell
Qualifications
1 1,566 (30.69%) Security Cleared
2 1,131 (22.16%) SC Cleared
3 352 (6.90%) DV Cleared
4 153 (3.00%) Degree
5 140 (2.74%) CISSP
6 103 (2.02%) Azure Certification
7 93 (1.82%) AWS Certification
7 93 (1.82%) BPSS Clearance
8 89 (1.74%) Cisco Certification
9 82 (1.61%) TOGAF Certification
10 65 (1.27%) CISM
11 56 (1.10%) Computer Science Degree
12 44 (0.86%) Microsoft Certification
13 40 (0.78%) CCNP
14 35 (0.69%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 32 (0.63%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 23 (0.45%) CCSP
16 23 (0.45%) Master's Degree
17 19 (0.37%) CCIE
18 18 (0.35%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 209 (4.10%) Data Quality
2 202 (3.96%) NIST
3 156 (3.06%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 137 (2.68%) GDPR
5 97 (1.90%) NCSC
6 69 (1.35%) GRC
7 55 (1.08%) QA
8 37 (0.73%) Accessibility
9 33 (0.65%) PCI DSS
10 32 (0.63%) NIST 800
11 29 (0.57%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 23 (0.45%) SLA
13 19 (0.37%) SEPA
14 18 (0.35%) Cyber Essentials
14 18 (0.35%) IFRS
14 18 (0.35%) ISO 20022
14 18 (0.35%) ISO/IEC 20000
14 18 (0.35%) JSP 440
15 14 (0.27%) ISO 19650
16 13 (0.25%) HL7
System Software
1 163 (3.19%) Active Directory
2 89 (1.74%) Docker
3 61 (1.20%) VMware Infrastructure
4 39 (0.76%) VMware NSX
5 29 (0.57%) Virtual Desktop
6 17 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
7 16 (0.31%) vSphere
8 15 (0.29%) Hyper-V
9 14 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
10 6 (0.12%) NFS
11 4 (0.078%) EMC RecoverPoint
11 4 (0.078%) KVM
11 4 (0.078%) Postfix
11 4 (0.078%) Varnish
11 4 (0.078%) vCloud
12 3 (0.059%) Ceph
12 3 (0.059%) Sendmail
12 3 (0.059%) SRDF
13 2 (0.039%) IAG
13 2 (0.039%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 237 (4.64%) Kubernetes
2 88 (1.72%) Ansible
3 42 (0.82%) Single Sign-On
4 37 (0.73%) Grafana
5 28 (0.55%) Prometheus
6 24 (0.47%) Microsoft Intune
7 15 (0.29%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 15 (0.29%) Argo
8 14 (0.27%) Jamf Pro
9 12 (0.24%) vCenter Server
10 10 (0.20%) WMI
11 8 (0.16%) CASB
11 8 (0.16%) FortiGate
12 6 (0.12%) Istio
12 6 (0.12%) NetBackup
12 6 (0.12%) SCCM
13 5 (0.098%) EMC VPLEX
14 4 (0.078%) Puppet
14 4 (0.078%) QRadar
14 4 (0.078%) SnapMirror
Vendors
1 718 (14.07%) Microsoft
2 284 (5.57%) SAP
3 269 (5.27%) Oracle
4 260 (5.10%) ServiceNow
5 252 (4.94%) Databricks
6 170 (3.33%) Salesforce
7 157 (3.08%) Google
8 134 (2.63%) Cisco
9 115 (2.25%) VMware
10 77 (1.51%) CyberArk
11 62 (1.21%) MuleSoft
12 57 (1.12%) IBM
13 53 (1.04%) Workday
14 50 (0.98%) Foundry
14 50 (0.98%) Palo Alto
15 35 (0.69%) Sparx
16 34 (0.67%) Adobe
16 34 (0.67%) Informatica
17 33 (0.65%) F5
17 33 (0.65%) OpenAI