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 9 October 2026.

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

6 months to
9 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 5,052 2,510 3,199
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.93% 8.93% 9.88%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.87% 9.81% 10.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,373 1,678 1,916
10th Percentile £481 £462 £475
25th Percentile £525 £525 £525
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £625
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% - -3.85%
75th Percentile £700 £712 £735
90th Percentile £788 £787 £800
UK median daily rate £620 £625 £625
% change year-on-year -0.80% - -3.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 185 12 62
10th Percentile £40.00 £61.38 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £65.31 £62.50
Median hourly rate £68.50 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -5.52% +3.57% -4.00%
75th Percentile £82.50 £95.00 £85.00
90th Percentile £95.00 £99.50 £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 42,550 25,588 30,150
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.07% 91.07% 93.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,050 16,462 18,444
10th Percentile £325 £276 £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 3,697 1,430 1,300
10th Percentile £14.50 £13.80 £15.00
25th Percentile £20.25 £17.30 £21.25
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% -6.70%
75th Percentile £67.98 £51.55 £67.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £41.71 £25.15 £41.57
% change year-on-year +65.84% -39.49% -6.60%

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 9 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 9 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 9 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 +8 2,591 £625 -3.40% 2,778
South East 0 724 £625 +4.17% 519
North of England +3 660 £600 - 498
Midlands +6 453 £631 +9.65% 276
North West +1 347 £597 +3.74% 263
South West +5 344 £631 -2.88% 217
West Midlands +8 338 £650 +8.33% 210
Yorkshire +12 241 £600 - 173
East of England +7 151 £613 +10.36% 197
East Midlands +4 110 £600 +20.00% 66
North East 0 75 £625 -15.25% 62
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 9 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 1,587 (31.41%) Security Cleared
2 1,323 (26.19%) Azure
3 1,159 (22.94%) SC Cleared
4 1,002 (19.83%) Stakeholder Management
5 985 (19.50%) AWS
6 869 (17.20%) Roadmaps
7 749 (14.83%) Migration
8 718 (14.21%) Microsoft
9 700 (13.86%) Enterprise Architecture
10 684 (13.54%) AI
11 641 (12.69%) Technical Leadership
12 559 (11.06%) DevOps
13 536 (10.61%) Data Architecture
14 526 (10.41%) CI/CD
15 517 (10.23%) Data Modelling
16 516 (10.21%) Agile
17 496 (9.82%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 450 (8.91%) Integration Patterns
19 441 (8.73%) Analytics
20 413 (8.17%) TOGAF
21 406 (8.04%) Security Architecture
22 403 (7.98%) GCP
23 389 (7.70%) Architectural Patterns
24 361 (7.15%) Architecture Governance
25 360 (7.13%) DV Cleared
26 346 (6.85%) Cybersecurity
27 345 (6.83%) Event-Driven
28 334 (6.61%) Data Governance
29 321 (6.35%) Decision-Making
30 315 (6.24%) 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 74 (1.46%) SAS
2 55 (1.09%) SharePoint
3 45 (0.89%) Confluence
4 42 (0.83%) Apache
5 38 (0.75%) Apache Spark
6 35 (0.69%) Apache Airflow
7 29 (0.57%) Microsoft Exchange
8 22 (0.44%) CMS
9 17 (0.34%) 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 23 (0.46%) MS Visio
2 17 (0.34%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 11 (0.22%) 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 (3.11%) SAP S/4HANA
2 45 (0.89%) Dynamics CRM
3 30 (0.59%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 17 (0.34%) SAP MM
5 15 (0.30%) Oracle ERP
6 13 (0.26%) NetSuite
6 13 (0.26%) Oracle Payables
6 13 (0.26%) Teamcenter
7 12 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
7 12 (0.24%) Remedy ITSM
8 11 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
9 9 (0.18%) Payment Gateway
9 9 (0.18%) SAP CO
9 9 (0.18%) SAP FI
9 9 (0.18%) SAP FI/CO
9 9 (0.18%) SAP MDG
9 9 (0.18%) Workday HCM
10 8 (0.16%) SAP BRIM
10 8 (0.16%) SAP HCM
11 7 (0.14%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 1,323 (26.19%) Azure
2 985 (19.50%) AWS
3 403 (7.98%) GCP
4 259 (5.13%) Power Platform
5 195 (3.86%) Entra ID
5 195 (3.86%) SaaS
6 149 (2.95%) Serverless
7 129 (2.55%) GitHub
8 123 (2.43%) Azure DevOps
9 118 (2.34%) Microsoft 365
10 116 (2.30%) Dynamics 365
11 105 (2.08%) Snowflake
12 71 (1.41%) PaaS
13 65 (1.29%) OCI
14 61 (1.21%) Amazon S3
15 60 (1.19%) AWS Lambda
16 57 (1.13%) GitHub Actions
17 56 (1.11%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 54 (1.07%) Power Automate
19 53 (1.05%) dbt
Communications & Networking
1 130 (2.57%) Network Security
2 122 (2.41%) Firewall
3 91 (1.80%) WAN
4 65 (1.29%) DNS
5 57 (1.13%) VPN
6 56 (1.11%) LAN
7 45 (0.89%) BGP
7 45 (0.89%) SD-WAN
8 37 (0.73%) MPLS
9 32 (0.63%) DHCP
9 32 (0.63%) TCP/IP
10 27 (0.53%) VXLAN
11 24 (0.48%) VLAN
12 23 (0.46%) NX-OS
13 19 (0.38%) SAN
13 19 (0.38%) Wireless
14 18 (0.36%) Internet
15 17 (0.34%) Ethernet VPN
15 17 (0.34%) NGFW
15 17 (0.34%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 212 (4.20%) Metadata
2 163 (3.23%) Data Lake
2 163 (3.23%) Data Warehouse
3 155 (3.07%) Power BI
4 53 (1.05%) NoSQL
5 47 (0.93%) SQL Server
6 38 (0.75%) BigQuery
6 38 (0.75%) Delta Lake
7 36 (0.71%) Amazon RDS
8 35 (0.69%) Azure SQL Database
9 34 (0.67%) PostgreSQL
10 32 (0.63%) Oracle Database
11 31 (0.61%) Amazon Redshift
12 30 (0.59%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
13 27 (0.53%) Big Data
14 25 (0.49%) Semantic Layer
15 23 (0.46%) GIS
16 22 (0.44%) Data Vault
17 21 (0.42%) SAP HANA
17 21 (0.42%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 72 (1.43%) JIRA
2 60 (1.19%) 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 1,062 (21.02%) Social Skills
2 740 (14.65%) Finance
3 566 (11.20%) Public Sector
4 268 (5.30%) Banking
5 244 (4.83%) Analytical Skills
6 241 (4.77%) Retail
7 157 (3.11%) Influencing Skills
8 140 (2.77%) Manufacturing
9 128 (2.53%) Telecoms
10 111 (2.20%) Documentation Skills
11 72 (1.43%) Marketing
12 68 (1.35%) Legal
13 66 (1.31%) Aerospace
14 61 (1.21%) Billing
15 50 (0.99%) 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 (5.27%) REST
2 220 (4.35%) Terraform
3 137 (2.71%) Kafka
4 125 (2.47%) Middleware
4 125 (2.47%) SOAP
5 104 (2.06%) .NET
6 103 (2.04%) OAuth
7 71 (1.41%) Oracle Fusion
8 55 (1.09%) JSON
8 55 (1.09%) OpenID
8 55 (1.09%) SAML
9 51 (1.01%) LDAP
10 50 (0.99%) OAuth2
11 42 (0.83%) PySpark
12 39 (0.77%) XML
13 37 (0.73%) JWT
14 36 (0.71%) .NET Framework
15 35 (0.69%) SAP Fiori
16 33 (0.65%) SailPoint
17 32 (0.63%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 414 (8.19%) Cloud Native
2 157 (3.11%) Onboarding
3 153 (3.03%) Data Centre
4 128 (2.53%) Product Ownership
5 125 (2.47%) Enterprise Software
6 121 (2.40%) Distributed Systems
6 121 (2.40%) Hybrid Cloud
6 121 (2.40%) Legacy Systems
7 118 (2.34%) AI Agents
8 106 (2.10%) Management Information System
9 92 (1.82%) CMDB
10 82 (1.62%) Operational Technology
11 81 (1.60%) Data Protection Act
12 69 (1.37%) Public Cloud
13 66 (1.31%) Enterprise Cloud
14 60 (1.19%) Private Cloud
15 57 (1.13%) Data Structures
16 51 (1.01%) Security Posture
17 44 (0.87%) Taxonomies
18 43 (0.85%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 107 (2.12%) 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 (19.83%) Stakeholder Management
2 869 (17.20%) Roadmaps
3 749 (14.83%) Migration
4 700 (13.86%) Enterprise Architecture
5 684 (13.54%) AI
6 641 (12.69%) Technical Leadership
7 559 (11.06%) DevOps
8 536 (10.61%) Data Architecture
9 526 (10.41%) CI/CD
10 517 (10.23%) Data Modelling
11 516 (10.21%) Agile
12 496 (9.82%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 450 (8.91%) Integration Patterns
14 441 (8.73%) Analytics
15 413 (8.17%) TOGAF
16 406 (8.04%) Security Architecture
17 389 (7.70%) Architectural Patterns
18 361 (7.15%) Architecture Governance
19 346 (6.85%) Cybersecurity
20 345 (6.83%) Event-Driven
Programming Languages
1 218 (4.32%) SQL
2 200 (3.96%) Python
3 183 (3.62%) Java
4 100 (1.98%) JavaScript
5 88 (1.74%) PowerShell
6 48 (0.95%) TypeScript
7 47 (0.93%) C#
8 40 (0.79%) Bicep
9 37 (0.73%) Bash
10 27 (0.53%) ABAP
10 27 (0.53%) 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 1,587 (31.41%) Security Cleared
2 1,159 (22.94%) SC Cleared
3 360 (7.13%) DV Cleared
4 154 (3.05%) Degree
5 134 (2.65%) CISSP
6 129 (2.55%) BPSS Clearance
7 109 (2.16%) Azure Certification
8 102 (2.02%) 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 23 (0.46%) CCIE
18 23 (0.46%) Master's Degree
19 18 (0.36%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 228 (4.51%) Data Quality
2 183 (3.62%) NIST
3 157 (3.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 128 (2.53%) GDPR
5 108 (2.14%) NCSC
6 67 (1.33%) GRC
7 44 (0.87%) QA
8 42 (0.83%) Accessibility
9 33 (0.65%) PCI DSS
10 26 (0.51%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 25 (0.49%) NIST 800
12 22 (0.44%) ISO/IEC 20000
12 22 (0.44%) SLA
13 20 (0.40%) JSP 440
14 18 (0.36%) SEPA
15 16 (0.32%) Cyber Essentials
16 15 (0.30%) IFRS
16 15 (0.30%) ISO 19650
16 15 (0.30%) ISO 20022
17 13 (0.26%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 162 (3.21%) Active Directory
2 81 (1.60%) 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
1 237 (4.69%) Kubernetes
2 87 (1.72%) Ansible
3 43 (0.85%) Grafana
4 39 (0.77%) 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
1 718 (14.21%) Microsoft
2 299 (5.92%) SAP
3 264 (5.23%) Oracle
4 239 (4.73%) Databricks
5 232 (4.59%) ServiceNow
6 183 (3.62%) Google
7 164 (3.25%) Salesforce
8 132 (2.61%) Cisco
9 109 (2.16%) VMware
10 82 (1.62%) CyberArk
11 60 (1.19%) MuleSoft
12 55 (1.09%) IBM
13 51 (1.01%) Workday
14 46 (0.91%) Palo Alto
15 40 (0.79%) Foundry
16 35 (0.69%) Fortinet
17 34 (0.67%) Adobe
17 34 (0.67%) Informatica
18 33 (0.65%) Splunk
19 32 (0.63%) Ariba