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 29 August 2026.

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

6 months to
29 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 5,056 2,552 3,338
As % of all contract jobs in England 11.02% 9.20% 10.13%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.92% 10.05% 10.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,402 1,688 2,164
10th Percentile £477 £470 £481
25th Percentile £525 £537 £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 £824
UK median daily rate £615 £625 £640
% change year-on-year -1.60% -2.34% -1.54%
Number of hourly rates quoted 162 18 72
10th Percentile £46.00 £36.30 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £62.50 £60.94
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 £95.90 £100.00 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £66.50 £72.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -8.28% +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 42,428 25,399 30,679
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.44% 91.54% 93.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,511 16,402 19,718
10th Percentile £325 £281 £302
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 £635 £625 £638
90th Percentile £738 £738 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.69%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,254 1,363 1,634
10th Percentile £15.15 £13.75 £14.16
25th Percentile £21.25 £17.33 £20.74
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 £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 29 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 29 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 29 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 2,593 £625 -3.85% 1,942
South East 0 740 £625 +4.17% 376
North of England +5 705 £600 - 384
Midlands +2 416 £625 +8.70% 191
North West +4 413 £600 +4.35% 227
South West +2 318 £648 +0.97% 216
West Midlands +1 304 £644 +7.33% 126
Yorkshire +10 229 £588 -4.08% 119
East of England +16 152 £604 +9.07% 112
East Midlands +4 105 £600 +16.50% 65
North East -4 65 £600 -14.29% 38
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 29 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 1,536 (30.38%) Security Cleared
2 1,314 (25.99%) Azure
3 1,117 (22.09%) SC Cleared
4 1,040 (20.57%) AWS
5 811 (16.04%) Stakeholder Management
6 788 (15.59%) Roadmaps
7 733 (14.50%) Migration
8 703 (13.90%) Microsoft
9 668 (13.21%) AI
10 662 (13.09%) Enterprise Architecture
11 575 (11.37%) Technical Leadership
12 562 (11.12%) Agile
13 558 (11.04%) DevOps
14 532 (10.52%) Data Modelling
15 528 (10.44%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 525 (10.38%) CI/CD
17 500 (9.89%) Data Architecture
18 475 (9.39%) Integration Patterns
19 446 (8.82%) Analytics
20 404 (7.99%) Architectural Patterns
21 401 (7.93%) GCP
22 396 (7.83%) TOGAF
23 394 (7.79%) Security Architecture
24 333 (6.59%) DV Cleared
25 327 (6.47%) Cybersecurity
25 327 (6.47%) Event-Driven
26 318 (6.29%) Data Governance
27 311 (6.15%) Infrastructure as Code
28 310 (6.13%) Architecture Governance
29 307 (6.07%) Microservices

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 (1.44%) SAS
2 69 (1.36%) SharePoint
3 53 (1.05%) Confluence
4 41 (0.81%) Apache
5 39 (0.77%) Apache Spark
6 29 (0.57%) Microsoft Exchange
7 28 (0.55%) Apache Airflow
8 22 (0.44%) Palantir Foundry
9 19 (0.38%) CMS
10 15 (0.30%) OpenStack
11 7 (0.14%) ArcGIS
11 7 (0.14%) Documentum
12 6 (0.12%) Appian
12 6 (0.12%) Camunda
13 5 (0.099%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 4 (0.079%) Headless CMS
14 4 (0.079%) Jupyter
15 3 (0.059%) Anypoint
15 3 (0.059%) NetWeaver
15 3 (0.059%) SAP EP
Applications
1 19 (0.38%) MS Visio
2 13 (0.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 12 (0.24%) Microsoft Excel
4 9 (0.18%) Microsoft Office
5 8 (0.16%) Chatbot
6 7 (0.14%) Navisworks
6 7 (0.14%) Revit
7 6 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.040%) Windchill
9 1 (0.020%) Gliffy
9 1 (0.020%) Microsoft Project
9 1 (0.020%) Notion
9 1 (0.020%) PlantUML
Business Applications
1 128 (2.53%) SAP S/4HANA
2 35 (0.69%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 32 (0.63%) Dynamics CRM
4 15 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
4 15 (0.30%) Teamcenter
5 13 (0.26%) Oracle ERP
5 13 (0.26%) Payment Gateway
5 13 (0.26%) Remedy ITSM
6 12 (0.24%) NetSuite
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
8 8 (0.16%) Workday HCM
9 7 (0.14%) Maximo
9 7 (0.14%) SAP IBP
9 7 (0.14%) SAP MDG
10 6 (0.12%) SAP MM
11 5 (0.099%) Endur
Cloud Services
1 1,314 (25.99%) Azure
2 1,040 (20.57%) AWS
3 401 (7.93%) GCP
4 279 (5.52%) Power Platform
5 194 (3.84%) Entra ID
6 189 (3.74%) SaaS
7 170 (3.36%) Serverless
8 135 (2.67%) Dynamics 365
9 126 (2.49%) GitHub
10 109 (2.16%) Azure DevOps
11 107 (2.12%) Microsoft 365
12 102 (2.02%) Snowflake
13 90 (1.78%) PaaS
14 74 (1.46%) AWS Lambda
15 69 (1.36%) Amazon S3
16 61 (1.21%) IaaS
17 60 (1.19%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 60 (1.19%) GitHub Actions
18 59 (1.17%) OCI
19 57 (1.13%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 144 (2.85%) Network Security
2 137 (2.71%) Firewall
3 100 (1.98%) WAN
4 77 (1.52%) DNS
5 70 (1.38%) VPN
6 69 (1.36%) LAN
7 48 (0.95%) BGP
7 48 (0.95%) SD-WAN
8 38 (0.75%) DHCP
9 37 (0.73%) TCP/IP
10 35 (0.69%) MPLS
11 30 (0.59%) VLAN
12 27 (0.53%) VXLAN
13 26 (0.51%) SAN
14 23 (0.45%) OSPF
15 22 (0.44%) NAS
16 21 (0.42%) NX-OS
17 20 (0.40%) Wireless
18 19 (0.38%) Radio Access Network
19 18 (0.36%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 193 (3.82%) Power BI
2 173 (3.42%) Metadata
3 167 (3.30%) Data Lake
4 146 (2.89%) Data Warehouse
5 64 (1.27%) NoSQL
6 50 (0.99%) SQL Server
7 41 (0.81%) Delta Lake
8 40 (0.79%) Big Data
9 39 (0.77%) Azure SQL Database
10 37 (0.73%) BigQuery
11 36 (0.71%) PostgreSQL
12 32 (0.63%) Amazon RDS
13 31 (0.61%) Amazon Redshift
13 31 (0.61%) Oracle Database
14 26 (0.51%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
15 23 (0.45%) GIS
15 23 (0.45%) Tableau
16 21 (0.42%) MongoDB
16 21 (0.42%) Semantic Layer
17 19 (0.38%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 72 (1.42%) JIRA
2 67 (1.33%) Git
3 48 (0.95%) Jenkins
4 35 (0.69%) GitLab
5 17 (0.34%) ERwin
6 10 (0.20%) Claude Code
7 9 (0.18%) Oracle Forms
8 8 (0.16%) Cypress.io
8 8 (0.16%) RStudio
9 7 (0.14%) MLflow
9 7 (0.14%) MSI
9 7 (0.14%) SonarQube
10 6 (0.12%) Artifactory
10 6 (0.12%) Storybook
11 5 (0.099%) ER Studio
11 5 (0.099%) Maven
11 5 (0.099%) PowerDesigner
12 4 (0.079%) Sonatype Nexus
13 3 (0.059%) IBM UrbanCode
13 3 (0.059%) Postman
General
1 1,007 (19.92%) Social Skills
2 756 (14.95%) Finance
3 551 (10.90%) Public Sector
4 281 (5.56%) Banking
5 265 (5.24%) Analytical Skills
6 250 (4.94%) Retail
7 144 (2.85%) Influencing Skills
8 125 (2.47%) Documentation Skills
9 121 (2.39%) Telecoms
10 106 (2.10%) Manufacturing
11 79 (1.56%) Legal
12 62 (1.23%) Marketing
13 58 (1.15%) Billing
14 49 (0.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 48 (0.95%) Military
16 46 (0.91%) Law
17 45 (0.89%) Aerospace
18 34 (0.67%) Financial Institution
19 33 (0.65%) Presentation Skills
20 31 (0.61%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 248 (4.91%) REST
2 216 (4.27%) Terraform
3 142 (2.81%) Middleware
4 119 (2.35%) .NET
5 116 (2.29%) SOAP
6 108 (2.14%) Kafka
7 102 (2.02%) OAuth
8 66 (1.31%) Oracle Fusion
9 58 (1.15%) SAML
10 57 (1.13%) JSON
11 56 (1.11%) OpenID
12 49 (0.97%) OAuth2
13 44 (0.87%) PySpark
14 38 (0.75%) .NET Framework
15 37 (0.73%) React
15 37 (0.73%) RESTful
15 37 (0.73%) XML
16 36 (0.71%) LDAP
16 36 (0.71%) SailPoint
17 31 (0.61%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 444 (8.78%) Cloud Native
2 154 (3.05%) Data Centre
3 135 (2.67%) Onboarding
4 127 (2.51%) Hybrid Cloud
5 121 (2.39%) Legacy Systems
6 120 (2.37%) AI Agents
6 120 (2.37%) Distributed Systems
7 119 (2.35%) Product Ownership
8 115 (2.27%) Enterprise Software
9 108 (2.14%) Management Information System
10 90 (1.78%) Data Protection Act
11 88 (1.74%) CMDB
12 75 (1.48%) Operational Technology
13 70 (1.38%) Enterprise Cloud
14 65 (1.29%) Public Cloud
15 61 (1.21%) Security Posture
16 54 (1.07%) Data Structures
17 48 (0.95%) Private Cloud
18 42 (0.83%) Mainframe
19 41 (0.81%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 97 (1.92%) Windows
2 86 (1.70%) Linux
3 33 (0.65%) Windows Server
4 20 (0.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 20 (0.40%) Unix
5 11 (0.22%) Apple iOS
6 10 (0.20%) Android
7 9 (0.18%) AIX
8 8 (0.16%) Ubuntu
9 7 (0.14%) zOS
10 5 (0.099%) Solaris
11 4 (0.079%) Alpine Linux
11 4 (0.079%) Data ONTAP
12 3 (0.059%) CentOS
12 3 (0.059%) 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
1 811 (16.04%) Stakeholder Management
2 788 (15.59%) Roadmaps
3 733 (14.50%) Migration
4 668 (13.21%) AI
5 662 (13.09%) Enterprise Architecture
6 575 (11.37%) Technical Leadership
7 562 (11.12%) Agile
8 558 (11.04%) DevOps
9 532 (10.52%) Data Modelling
10 528 (10.44%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 525 (10.38%) CI/CD
12 500 (9.89%) Data Architecture
13 475 (9.39%) Integration Patterns
14 446 (8.82%) Analytics
15 404 (7.99%) Architectural Patterns
16 396 (7.83%) TOGAF
17 394 (7.79%) Security Architecture
18 327 (6.47%) Cybersecurity
18 327 (6.47%) Event-Driven
19 318 (6.29%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 244 (4.83%) Python
2 233 (4.61%) SQL
3 207 (4.09%) Java
4 111 (2.20%) JavaScript
5 88 (1.74%) PowerShell
6 48 (0.95%) C#
7 44 (0.87%) TypeScript
8 43 (0.85%) Bash
9 41 (0.81%) Bicep
10 27 (0.53%) Apex Code
11 15 (0.30%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 15 (0.30%) Shell Script
12 14 (0.28%) ABAP
13 13 (0.26%) Ruby
14 11 (0.22%) C++
14 11 (0.22%) Groovy
15 10 (0.20%) R
15 10 (0.20%) Scala
16 8 (0.16%) Kotlin
16 8 (0.16%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 1,536 (30.38%) Security Cleared
2 1,117 (22.09%) SC Cleared
3 333 (6.59%) DV Cleared
4 157 (3.11%) Degree
5 131 (2.59%) CISSP
6 111 (2.20%) Azure Certification
7 98 (1.94%) AWS Certification
8 85 (1.68%) Cisco Certification
9 81 (1.60%) BPSS Clearance
10 79 (1.56%) TOGAF Certification
11 63 (1.25%) CISM
11 63 (1.25%) Computer Science Degree
12 45 (0.89%) Microsoft Certification
13 39 (0.77%) CCNP
14 33 (0.65%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 33 (0.65%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 23 (0.45%) Master's Degree
16 21 (0.42%) CCSP
17 18 (0.36%) CCIE
17 18 (0.36%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 201 (3.98%) Data Quality
2 191 (3.78%) NIST
3 145 (2.87%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 143 (2.83%) GDPR
5 95 (1.88%) NCSC
6 64 (1.27%) GRC
7 49 (0.97%) QA
8 37 (0.73%) Accessibility
9 36 (0.71%) PCI DSS
10 32 (0.63%) NIST 800
11 28 (0.55%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 23 (0.45%) SLA
13 19 (0.38%) SEPA
14 18 (0.36%) IFRS
14 18 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 20000
15 17 (0.34%) JSP 440
16 16 (0.32%) Cyber Essentials
16 16 (0.32%) ISO 20022
17 13 (0.26%) Government Security Classifications
17 13 (0.26%) ISO 19650
System Software
1 154 (3.05%) Active Directory
2 95 (1.88%) Docker
3 61 (1.21%) VMware Infrastructure
4 39 (0.77%) VMware NSX
5 29 (0.57%) Virtual Desktop
6 17 (0.34%) Virtual Machines
7 15 (0.30%) Hyper-V
7 15 (0.30%) vSphere
8 14 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
9 7 (0.14%) NFS
10 6 (0.12%) Varnish
11 5 (0.099%) Postfix
11 5 (0.099%) vCloud
12 4 (0.079%) EMC RecoverPoint
12 4 (0.079%) KVM
13 3 (0.059%) Ceph
13 3 (0.059%) IAG
13 3 (0.059%) Sendmail
13 3 (0.059%) SRDF
14 2 (0.040%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 240 (4.75%) Kubernetes
2 91 (1.80%) Ansible
3 41 (0.81%) Grafana
3 41 (0.81%) Single Sign-On
4 31 (0.61%) Prometheus
5 23 (0.45%) Microsoft Intune
6 15 (0.30%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 15 (0.30%) Argo
7 14 (0.28%) Jamf Pro
8 13 (0.26%) vCenter Server
9 8 (0.16%) FortiGate
9 8 (0.16%) WMI
10 7 (0.14%) Istio
11 6 (0.12%) CASB
11 6 (0.12%) NetBackup
11 6 (0.12%) SCCM
12 5 (0.099%) EMC VPLEX
12 5 (0.099%) HAProxy
12 5 (0.099%) MOM
13 4 (0.079%) SnapMirror
Vendors
1 703 (13.90%) Microsoft
2 292 (5.78%) SAP
3 270 (5.34%) Oracle
4 254 (5.02%) Databricks
5 252 (4.98%) ServiceNow
6 162 (3.20%) Salesforce
7 156 (3.09%) Google
8 136 (2.69%) Cisco
9 114 (2.25%) VMware
10 66 (1.31%) CyberArk
11 60 (1.19%) IBM
12 57 (1.13%) MuleSoft
13 54 (1.07%) Workday
14 49 (0.97%) Palo Alto
15 46 (0.91%) Foundry
16 37 (0.73%) Sparx
17 36 (0.71%) OpenAI
18 34 (0.67%) Adobe
18 34 (0.67%) Ariba
19 32 (0.63%) F5