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 25 September 2026.

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

6 months to
25 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 19 15
Rank change year-on-year +8 -4 +1
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,137 2,501 3,230
As % of all contract jobs in England 11.04% 8.98% 9.84%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.97% 9.83% 10.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,441 1,663 1,989
10th Percentile £481 £463 £475
25th Percentile £525 £525 £538
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £627
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -0.32% -3.54%
75th Percentile £700 £713 £738
90th Percentile £788 £788 £813
UK median daily rate £618 £625 £625
% change year-on-year -1.20% - -3.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 175 14 66
10th Percentile £46.00 £32.76 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.56 £61.56
Median hourly rate £68.17 £71.25 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -4.33% +1.79% -0.25%
75th Percentile £78.75 £85.63 £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% - -0.25%

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 42,921 25,440 30,511
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.23% 91.33% 92.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,465 16,413 18,833
10th Percentile £325 £280 £300
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.11%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £738 £735 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,560 1,395 1,422
10th Percentile £14.82 £13.76 £14.84
25th Percentile £20.75 £17.44 £21.37
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -45.54% +2.62%
75th Percentile £68.00 £53.75 £67.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.10 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +67.00% -41.51% -3.37%

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 25 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 25 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 25 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 +6 2,641 £625 -2.34% 2,682
South East +2 730 £625 +4.17% 577
North of England +4 684 £591 -1.46% 511
Midlands +3 440 £626 +8.87% 290
North West +7 377 £599 +4.16% 283
South West +2 346 £638 -1.92% 236
West Midlands +2 329 £650 +8.33% 222
Yorkshire +16 244 £555 -9.39% 173
East of England +8 162 £616 +10.29% 155
East Midlands +5 106 £600 +20.00% 68
North East -3 62 £600 -17.24% 55
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 25 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 1,606 (31.26%) Security Cleared
2 1,339 (26.07%) Azure
3 1,171 (22.80%) SC Cleared
4 1,018 (19.82%) AWS
5 960 (18.69%) Stakeholder Management
6 843 (16.41%) Roadmaps
7 752 (14.64%) Migration
8 718 (13.98%) Microsoft
9 688 (13.39%) Enterprise Architecture
10 684 (13.32%) AI
11 661 (12.87%) Technical Leadership
12 571 (11.12%) DevOps
13 547 (10.65%) Agile
14 539 (10.49%) Data Architecture
15 538 (10.47%) Data Modelling
16 536 (10.43%) CI/CD
17 509 (9.91%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 471 (9.17%) Integration Patterns
19 450 (8.76%) Analytics
20 409 (7.96%) Security Architecture
21 407 (7.92%) TOGAF
22 404 (7.86%) GCP
23 395 (7.69%) Architectural Patterns
24 363 (7.07%) DV Cleared
25 345 (6.72%) Architecture Governance
26 344 (6.70%) Event-Driven
27 340 (6.62%) Cybersecurity
28 329 (6.40%) Data Governance
29 323 (6.29%) Decision-Making
30 320 (6.23%) 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 75 (1.46%) SAS
2 62 (1.21%) SharePoint
3 49 (0.95%) Confluence
4 44 (0.86%) Apache
5 39 (0.76%) Apache Spark
6 35 (0.68%) Apache Airflow
7 28 (0.55%) Microsoft Exchange
8 21 (0.41%) CMS
8 21 (0.41%) Palantir Foundry
9 14 (0.27%) OpenStack
10 7 (0.14%) Documentum
10 7 (0.14%) NetWeaver
11 6 (0.12%) Appian
11 6 (0.12%) ArcGIS
11 6 (0.12%) Headless CMS
11 6 (0.12%) IIS
12 5 (0.097%) SAP EP
13 4 (0.078%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 4 (0.078%) Camunda
13 4 (0.078%) JBoss
Applications
1 20 (0.39%) MS Visio
2 14 (0.27%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 11 (0.21%) Microsoft Excel
4 9 (0.18%) Microsoft Office
4 9 (0.18%) Revit
5 8 (0.16%) Chatbot
6 7 (0.14%) Navisworks
7 6 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.039%) AutoCAD
8 2 (0.039%) Gliffy
9 1 (0.019%) Notion
9 1 (0.019%) PlantUML
9 1 (0.019%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 140 (2.73%) SAP S/4HANA
2 40 (0.78%) Dynamics CRM
3 31 (0.60%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 15 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
4 15 (0.29%) Teamcenter
5 13 (0.25%) NetSuite
5 13 (0.25%) Remedy ITSM
6 12 (0.23%) Oracle Payables
6 12 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
7 11 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
7 11 (0.21%) Payment Gateway
7 11 (0.21%) SAP ERP
8 9 (0.18%) SAP MDG
9 8 (0.16%) SAP BRIM
9 8 (0.16%) Workday HCM
10 7 (0.14%) Maximo
10 7 (0.14%) Oracle Retail
10 7 (0.14%) SAP IBP
11 5 (0.097%) SAP CRM
11 5 (0.097%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 1,339 (26.07%) Azure
2 1,018 (19.82%) AWS
3 404 (7.86%) GCP
4 266 (5.18%) Power Platform
5 190 (3.70%) SaaS
6 185 (3.60%) Entra ID
7 156 (3.04%) Serverless
8 127 (2.47%) Dynamics 365
9 124 (2.41%) GitHub
10 114 (2.22%) Azure DevOps
11 112 (2.18%) Microsoft 365
11 112 (2.18%) Snowflake
12 78 (1.52%) PaaS
13 64 (1.25%) AWS Lambda
14 63 (1.23%) Amazon S3
15 62 (1.21%) OCI
16 59 (1.15%) GitHub Actions
17 57 (1.11%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 54 (1.05%) dbt
19 53 (1.03%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 128 (2.49%) Network Security
2 124 (2.41%) Firewall
3 93 (1.81%) WAN
4 69 (1.34%) DNS
5 59 (1.15%) LAN
6 54 (1.05%) VPN
7 47 (0.91%) BGP
8 46 (0.90%) SD-WAN
9 37 (0.72%) DHCP
9 37 (0.72%) MPLS
10 34 (0.66%) TCP/IP
11 29 (0.56%) VLAN
12 27 (0.53%) VXLAN
13 25 (0.49%) NX-OS
13 25 (0.49%) SAN
14 21 (0.41%) Wireless
15 20 (0.39%) NAS
16 19 (0.37%) BIG-IP
17 18 (0.35%) Ethernet VPN
17 18 (0.35%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 205 (3.99%) Metadata
2 173 (3.37%) Data Lake
3 167 (3.25%) Power BI
4 161 (3.13%) Data Warehouse
5 54 (1.05%) NoSQL
6 47 (0.91%) SQL Server
7 40 (0.78%) BigQuery
8 36 (0.70%) Amazon RDS
8 36 (0.70%) Delta Lake
9 35 (0.68%) PostgreSQL
10 33 (0.64%) Amazon Redshift
10 33 (0.64%) Azure SQL Database
11 30 (0.58%) Big Data
11 30 (0.58%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
11 30 (0.58%) Oracle Database
12 26 (0.51%) Semantic Layer
13 23 (0.45%) Tableau
14 22 (0.43%) GIS
15 21 (0.41%) Star Schema
16 20 (0.39%) Data Vault
Development Applications
1 74 (1.44%) JIRA
2 62 (1.21%) Git
3 53 (1.03%) Jenkins
4 46 (0.90%) GitLab
5 13 (0.25%) ERwin
6 11 (0.21%) Claude Code
7 10 (0.19%) MSI
7 10 (0.19%) RStudio
8 9 (0.18%) Cypress.io
8 9 (0.18%) Oracle Forms
9 7 (0.14%) Postman
10 6 (0.12%) Rational DOORS
10 6 (0.12%) SonarQube
10 6 (0.12%) Storybook
11 5 (0.097%) ER Studio
11 5 (0.097%) MLflow
11 5 (0.097%) Selenium
12 4 (0.078%) Artifactory
12 4 (0.078%) Maven
13 3 (0.058%) PowerDesigner
General
1 1,072 (20.87%) Social Skills
2 739 (14.39%) Finance
3 560 (10.90%) Public Sector
4 279 (5.43%) Banking
5 265 (5.16%) Retail
6 254 (4.94%) Analytical Skills
7 157 (3.06%) Influencing Skills
8 129 (2.51%) Manufacturing
9 120 (2.34%) Telecoms
10 118 (2.30%) Documentation Skills
11 70 (1.36%) Marketing
12 68 (1.32%) Legal
13 61 (1.19%) Aerospace
13 61 (1.19%) Billing
14 52 (1.01%) Military
15 50 (0.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 38 (0.74%) Presentation Skills
17 28 (0.55%) Aviation
18 26 (0.51%) Law
18 26 (0.51%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 266 (5.18%) REST
2 220 (4.28%) Terraform
3 134 (2.61%) Kafka
4 131 (2.55%) Middleware
5 128 (2.49%) SOAP
6 116 (2.26%) .NET
7 100 (1.95%) OAuth
8 71 (1.38%) Oracle Fusion
9 61 (1.19%) JSON
10 55 (1.07%) SAML
11 53 (1.03%) OpenID
12 50 (0.97%) LDAP
13 49 (0.95%) OAuth2
14 44 (0.86%) PySpark
15 41 (0.80%) .NET Framework
15 41 (0.80%) XML
16 36 (0.70%) React
16 36 (0.70%) RESTful
17 34 (0.66%) SailPoint
18 33 (0.64%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 421 (8.20%) Cloud Native
2 160 (3.11%) Onboarding
3 158 (3.08%) Data Centre
4 131 (2.55%) Product Ownership
5 123 (2.39%) Distributed Systems
5 123 (2.39%) Hybrid Cloud
6 118 (2.30%) Legacy Systems
7 117 (2.28%) Enterprise Software
8 116 (2.26%) AI Agents
9 107 (2.08%) Management Information System
10 100 (1.95%) CMDB
11 83 (1.62%) Data Protection Act
12 76 (1.48%) Operational Technology
13 70 (1.36%) Enterprise Cloud
13 70 (1.36%) Public Cloud
14 61 (1.19%) Private Cloud
15 58 (1.13%) Data Structures
16 55 (1.07%) Security Posture
17 43 (0.84%) Taxonomies
18 41 (0.80%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 105 (2.04%) Windows
2 83 (1.62%) Linux
3 41 (0.80%) Windows Server
4 21 (0.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 19 (0.37%) Unix
6 9 (0.18%) AIX
7 8 (0.16%) Ubuntu
8 7 (0.14%) Apple iOS
9 6 (0.12%) Android
9 6 (0.12%) zOS
10 5 (0.097%) Solaris
11 4 (0.078%) Alpine Linux
11 4 (0.078%) Data ONTAP
12 3 (0.058%) CentOS
12 3 (0.058%) 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 (0.019%) CatOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 960 (18.69%) Stakeholder Management
2 843 (16.41%) Roadmaps
3 752 (14.64%) Migration
4 688 (13.39%) Enterprise Architecture
5 684 (13.32%) AI
6 661 (12.87%) Technical Leadership
7 571 (11.12%) DevOps
8 547 (10.65%) Agile
9 539 (10.49%) Data Architecture
10 538 (10.47%) Data Modelling
11 536 (10.43%) CI/CD
12 509 (9.91%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 471 (9.17%) Integration Patterns
14 450 (8.76%) Analytics
15 409 (7.96%) Security Architecture
16 407 (7.92%) TOGAF
17 395 (7.69%) Architectural Patterns
18 345 (6.72%) Architecture Governance
19 344 (6.70%) Event-Driven
20 340 (6.62%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 224 (4.36%) Python
2 221 (4.30%) SQL
3 193 (3.76%) Java
4 111 (2.16%) JavaScript
5 89 (1.73%) PowerShell
6 50 (0.97%) C#
6 50 (0.97%) TypeScript
7 39 (0.76%) Bash
8 36 (0.70%) Bicep
9 29 (0.56%) Apex Code
10 25 (0.49%) ABAP
11 15 (0.29%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 15 (0.29%) Shell Script
12 11 (0.21%) Groovy
13 10 (0.19%) R
14 9 (0.18%) C++
15 8 (0.16%) PL/SQL
16 7 (0.14%) BeanShell
16 7 (0.14%) Rust
16 7 (0.14%) Scala
Qualifications
1 1,606 (31.26%) Security Cleared
2 1,171 (22.80%) SC Cleared
3 363 (7.07%) DV Cleared
4 156 (3.04%) Degree
5 133 (2.59%) CISSP
6 110 (2.14%) BPSS Clearance
7 106 (2.06%) Azure Certification
8 98 (1.91%) AWS Certification
9 89 (1.73%) Cisco Certification
10 86 (1.67%) TOGAF Certification
11 61 (1.19%) CISM
12 59 (1.15%) Computer Science Degree
13 44 (0.86%) Microsoft Certification
14 40 (0.78%) CCNP
15 36 (0.70%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 34 (0.66%) (ISC)2 CCSP
17 26 (0.51%) CCSP
18 24 (0.47%) Master's Degree
19 21 (0.41%) CCIE
20 19 (0.37%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 220 (4.28%) Data Quality
2 186 (3.62%) NIST
3 155 (3.02%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 130 (2.53%) GDPR
5 102 (1.99%) NCSC
6 71 (1.38%) GRC
7 50 (0.97%) QA
8 39 (0.76%) Accessibility
9 32 (0.62%) PCI DSS
10 31 (0.60%) NIST 800
11 24 (0.47%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 22 (0.43%) SLA
13 20 (0.39%) ISO/IEC 20000
13 20 (0.39%) JSP 440
14 19 (0.37%) SEPA
15 18 (0.35%) IFRS
16 17 (0.33%) ISO 20022
17 16 (0.31%) Cyber Essentials
18 15 (0.29%) ISO 19650
19 13 (0.25%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 171 (3.33%) Active Directory
2 86 (1.67%) Docker
3 66 (1.28%) VMware Infrastructure
4 40 (0.78%) VMware NSX
5 26 (0.51%) Virtual Desktop
6 17 (0.33%) vSphere
7 16 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
8 15 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
9 12 (0.23%) Hyper-V
10 5 (0.097%) NFS
11 4 (0.078%) EMC RecoverPoint
11 4 (0.078%) ISA Server
11 4 (0.078%) KVM
11 4 (0.078%) Postfix
11 4 (0.078%) Varnish
12 3 (0.058%) Ceph
12 3 (0.058%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 3 (0.058%) Sendmail
12 3 (0.058%) SRDF
12 3 (0.058%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 238 (4.63%) Kubernetes
2 94 (1.83%) Ansible
3 39 (0.76%) Single Sign-On
4 38 (0.74%) Grafana
5 30 (0.58%) Prometheus
6 27 (0.53%) Microsoft Intune
7 14 (0.27%) Jamf Pro
8 13 (0.25%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 13 (0.25%) Argo
9 11 (0.21%) WMI
10 10 (0.19%) FortiGate
11 9 (0.18%) CASB
12 8 (0.16%) vCenter Server
13 7 (0.14%) SCCM
14 6 (0.12%) NetBackup
14 6 (0.12%) Progress Chef
14 6 (0.12%) Puppet
15 5 (0.097%) EMC VPLEX
15 5 (0.097%) Istio
16 4 (0.078%) VxRail
Vendors
1 718 (13.98%) Microsoft
2 282 (5.49%) SAP
3 261 (5.08%) Oracle
4 260 (5.06%) ServiceNow
5 252 (4.91%) Databricks
6 176 (3.43%) Salesforce
7 175 (3.41%) Google
8 133 (2.59%) Cisco
9 117 (2.28%) VMware
10 82 (1.60%) CyberArk
11 61 (1.19%) MuleSoft
12 55 (1.07%) IBM
13 51 (0.99%) Workday
14 47 (0.91%) Foundry
14 47 (0.91%) Palo Alto
15 34 (0.66%) F5
15 34 (0.66%) Fortinet
15 34 (0.66%) Informatica
16 33 (0.64%) Sparx
16 33 (0.64%) Splunk