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 2 September 2026.

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

6 months to
2 Sep 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 2,505 3,340
As % of all contract jobs in England 11.01% 9.15% 10.10%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.91% 9.99% 10.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,369 1,655 2,156
10th Percentile £476 £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 £713 £706 £738
90th Percentile £788 £788 £825
UK median daily rate £614 £625 £638
% change year-on-year -1.80% -1.96% -1.92%
Number of hourly rates quoted 160 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 £96.00 £100.00 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £66.66 £72.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -8.06% +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 42,143 25,068 30,781
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.41% 91.54% 93.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,317 16,174 19,714
10th Percentile £325 £281 £303
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 3,273 1,351 1,623
10th Percentile £15.05 £13.69 £14.16
25th Percentile £21.25 £17.33 £21.00
Median hourly rate £43.56 £25.15 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +73.20% -44.11% +2.86%
75th Percentile £68.00 £55.00 £67.01
90th Percentile £79.80 £72.50 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -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 2 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 2 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 2 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 2,578 £625 -3.85% 1,984
South East -1 723 £625 +4.17% 399
North of England +6 700 £600 - 368
Midlands +1 415 £625 +8.70% 176
North West +6 412 £600 +0.84% 233
South West +2 322 £645 +0.39% 205
West Midlands +3 307 £644 +7.51% 112
Yorkshire +10 227 £581 -5.10% 105
East of England +17 153 £611 +10.27% 118
East Midlands +4 103 £600 +16.50% 64
North East -8 63 £575 -19.30% 30
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 2 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 1,528 (30.44%) Security Cleared
2 1,305 (26.00%) Azure
3 1,114 (22.20%) SC Cleared
4 1,031 (20.54%) AWS
5 827 (16.48%) Stakeholder Management
6 794 (15.82%) Roadmaps
7 731 (14.56%) Migration
8 696 (13.87%) Microsoft
9 666 (13.27%) AI
10 659 (13.13%) Enterprise Architecture
11 587 (11.70%) Technical Leadership
12 558 (11.12%) Agile
13 554 (11.04%) DevOps
14 534 (10.64%) Data Modelling
15 525 (10.46%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 520 (10.36%) CI/CD
17 503 (10.02%) Data Architecture
18 471 (9.38%) Integration Patterns
19 440 (8.77%) Analytics
20 405 (8.07%) Architectural Patterns
21 401 (7.99%) GCP
22 398 (7.93%) Security Architecture
22 398 (7.93%) TOGAF
23 326 (6.50%) Cybersecurity
23 326 (6.50%) DV Cleared
24 323 (6.44%) Event-Driven
25 322 (6.42%) Data Governance
26 313 (6.24%) Architecture Governance
27 305 (6.08%) Microservices
28 302 (6.02%) 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 73 (1.45%) SAS
2 68 (1.35%) SharePoint
3 54 (1.08%) Confluence
4 40 (0.80%) Apache
5 38 (0.76%) Apache Spark
6 29 (0.58%) Apache Airflow
7 28 (0.56%) Microsoft Exchange
8 22 (0.44%) Palantir Foundry
9 21 (0.42%) CMS
10 14 (0.28%) OpenStack
11 7 (0.14%) ArcGIS
11 7 (0.14%) Documentum
12 6 (0.12%) Appian
12 6 (0.12%) Camunda
13 5 (0.100%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 5 (0.100%) Headless CMS
14 4 (0.080%) Jupyter
15 3 (0.060%) Anypoint
15 3 (0.060%) Drupal
15 3 (0.060%) nginx
Applications
1 17 (0.34%) MS Visio
2 14 (0.28%) 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
1 126 (2.51%) SAP S/4HANA
2 35 (0.70%) Dynamics CRM
3 34 (0.68%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 15 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
4 15 (0.30%) Teamcenter
5 14 (0.28%) Payment Gateway
5 14 (0.28%) Remedy ITSM
6 13 (0.26%) Oracle ERP
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 (0.100%) SAP MM
12 5 (0.100%) SAP Oil and Gas
Cloud Services
1 1,305 (26.00%) Azure
2 1,031 (20.54%) AWS
3 401 (7.99%) GCP
4 270 (5.38%) Power Platform
5 190 (3.79%) Entra ID
5 190 (3.79%) SaaS
6 167 (3.33%) Serverless
7 136 (2.71%) Dynamics 365
8 126 (2.51%) GitHub
9 112 (2.23%) Azure DevOps
10 105 (2.09%) Microsoft 365
11 103 (2.05%) Snowflake
12 83 (1.65%) PaaS
13 72 (1.43%) AWS Lambda
14 69 (1.37%) Amazon S3
15 60 (1.20%) GitHub Actions
16 57 (1.14%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 57 (1.14%) OCI
17 55 (1.10%) IaaS
18 54 (1.08%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 139 (2.77%) Network Security
2 135 (2.69%) Firewall
3 100 (1.99%) WAN
4 76 (1.51%) DNS
5 69 (1.37%) LAN
6 67 (1.33%) VPN
7 47 (0.94%) SD-WAN
8 46 (0.92%) BGP
9 38 (0.76%) DHCP
10 37 (0.74%) TCP/IP
11 34 (0.68%) MPLS
12 29 (0.58%) VLAN
13 27 (0.54%) SAN
14 25 (0.50%) VXLAN
15 22 (0.44%) NAS
16 21 (0.42%) OSPF
17 20 (0.40%) NX-OS
17 20 (0.40%) Wireless
18 18 (0.36%) BIG-IP
18 18 (0.36%) Radio Access Network
Database & Business Intelligence
1 184 (3.67%) Power BI
2 180 (3.59%) Metadata
3 165 (3.29%) Data Lake
4 145 (2.89%) Data Warehouse
5 62 (1.24%) NoSQL
6 49 (0.98%) SQL Server
7 40 (0.80%) Delta Lake
8 38 (0.76%) Big Data
9 37 (0.74%) BigQuery
10 35 (0.70%) Azure SQL Database
10 35 (0.70%) PostgreSQL
11 33 (0.66%) Amazon RDS
12 31 (0.62%) Amazon Redshift
12 31 (0.62%) Oracle Database
13 26 (0.52%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
14 24 (0.48%) Semantic Layer
15 23 (0.46%) GIS
15 23 (0.46%) Tableau
16 21 (0.42%) MongoDB
17 18 (0.36%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 74 (1.47%) JIRA
2 66 (1.32%) Git
3 48 (0.96%) Jenkins
4 35 (0.70%) GitLab
5 16 (0.32%) ERwin
6 10 (0.20%) Claude Code
7 9 (0.18%) Cypress.io
7 9 (0.18%) Oracle Forms
8 8 (0.16%) MSI
8 8 (0.16%) RStudio
9 7 (0.14%) MLflow
9 7 (0.14%) SonarQube
10 6 (0.12%) Artifactory
10 6 (0.12%) Storybook
11 5 (0.100%) ER Studio
11 5 (0.100%) Maven
12 4 (0.080%) PowerDesigner
12 4 (0.080%) Selenium
13 3 (0.060%) Hudson
13 3 (0.060%) VTune
General
1 1,013 (20.18%) Social Skills
2 751 (14.96%) Finance
3 541 (10.78%) Public Sector
4 280 (5.58%) Banking
5 267 (5.32%) Analytical Skills
6 249 (4.96%) Retail
7 150 (2.99%) Influencing Skills
8 130 (2.59%) Documentation Skills
9 120 (2.39%) Telecoms
10 109 (2.17%) Manufacturing
11 77 (1.53%) Legal
12 63 (1.26%) Marketing
13 60 (1.20%) Billing
14 48 (0.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 48 (0.96%) Military
15 44 (0.88%) Aerospace
16 43 (0.86%) Law
17 31 (0.62%) Financial Institution
17 31 (0.62%) Presentation Skills
18 29 (0.58%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 252 (5.02%) REST
2 212 (4.22%) Terraform
3 138 (2.75%) Middleware
4 117 (2.33%) .NET
4 117 (2.33%) SOAP
5 109 (2.17%) Kafka
6 100 (1.99%) OAuth
7 66 (1.32%) Oracle Fusion
8 58 (1.16%) JSON
9 56 (1.12%) SAML
10 55 (1.10%) OpenID
11 48 (0.96%) OAuth2
12 43 (0.86%) PySpark
13 41 (0.82%) LDAP
14 38 (0.76%) XML
15 37 (0.74%) .NET Framework
15 37 (0.74%) RESTful
16 36 (0.72%) SailPoint
17 35 (0.70%) React
18 31 (0.62%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 438 (8.73%) Cloud Native
2 152 (3.03%) Data Centre
3 139 (2.77%) Onboarding
4 125 (2.49%) Hybrid Cloud
5 120 (2.39%) Product Ownership
6 119 (2.37%) Distributed Systems
7 116 (2.31%) Enterprise Software
7 116 (2.31%) Legacy Systems
8 115 (2.29%) AI Agents
9 110 (2.19%) Management Information System
10 89 (1.77%) CMDB
11 88 (1.75%) Data Protection Act
12 77 (1.53%) Operational Technology
13 69 (1.37%) Enterprise Cloud
14 65 (1.30%) Public Cloud
15 60 (1.20%) Security Posture
16 50 (1.00%) Data Structures
17 48 (0.96%) Private Cloud
18 42 (0.84%) Mainframe
19 40 (0.80%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 100 (1.99%) Windows
2 88 (1.75%) Linux
3 36 (0.72%) Windows Server
4 21 (0.42%) Unix
5 20 (0.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 11 (0.22%) Apple iOS
7 10 (0.20%) Android
8 9 (0.18%) AIX
9 8 (0.16%) Ubuntu
10 7 (0.14%) zOS
11 5 (0.100%) Solaris
12 4 (0.080%) Alpine Linux
12 4 (0.080%) Data ONTAP
13 3 (0.060%) CentOS
13 3 (0.060%) VMS
14 2 (0.040%) HPUX
14 2 (0.040%) Mac OS
14 2 (0.040%) OpenWrt
14 2 (0.040%) Windows 10
15 1 (0.020%) CatOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 827 (16.48%) Stakeholder Management
2 794 (15.82%) Roadmaps
3 731 (14.56%) Migration
4 666 (13.27%) AI
5 659 (13.13%) Enterprise Architecture
6 587 (11.70%) Technical Leadership
7 558 (11.12%) Agile
8 554 (11.04%) DevOps
9 534 (10.64%) Data Modelling
10 525 (10.46%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 520 (10.36%) CI/CD
12 503 (10.02%) Data Architecture
13 471 (9.38%) Integration Patterns
14 440 (8.77%) Analytics
15 405 (8.07%) Architectural Patterns
16 398 (7.93%) Security Architecture
16 398 (7.93%) TOGAF
17 326 (6.50%) Cybersecurity
18 323 (6.44%) Event-Driven
19 322 (6.42%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 242 (4.82%) Python
2 230 (4.58%) SQL
3 207 (4.12%) Java
4 112 (2.23%) JavaScript
5 88 (1.75%) PowerShell
6 50 (1.00%) C#
7 44 (0.88%) Bash
7 44 (0.88%) TypeScript
8 39 (0.78%) Bicep
9 29 (0.58%) Apex Code
10 15 (0.30%) ABAP
10 15 (0.30%) Shell Script
11 14 (0.28%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 13 (0.26%) Ruby
13 11 (0.22%) C++
13 11 (0.22%) Groovy
14 10 (0.20%) R
14 10 (0.20%) Scala
15 8 (0.16%) PL/SQL
16 7 (0.14%) BeanShell
Qualifications
1 1,528 (30.44%) Security Cleared
2 1,114 (22.20%) SC Cleared
3 326 (6.50%) DV Cleared
4 154 (3.07%) Degree
5 134 (2.67%) CISSP
6 103 (2.05%) Azure Certification
7 97 (1.93%) AWS Certification
8 86 (1.71%) Cisco Certification
9 85 (1.69%) BPSS Clearance
10 78 (1.55%) TOGAF Certification
11 64 (1.28%) CISM
12 62 (1.24%) Computer Science Degree
13 44 (0.88%) Microsoft Certification
14 39 (0.78%) CCNP
15 34 (0.68%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 32 (0.64%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 23 (0.46%) Master's Degree
18 22 (0.44%) CCSP
19 18 (0.36%) CCIE
19 18 (0.36%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 201 (4.00%) Data Quality
2 195 (3.89%) NIST
3 148 (2.95%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 143 (2.85%) GDPR
5 91 (1.81%) NCSC
6 65 (1.30%) GRC
7 51 (1.02%) QA
8 39 (0.78%) Accessibility
9 35 (0.70%) PCI DSS
10 31 (0.62%) NIST 800
11 29 (0.58%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 23 (0.46%) SLA
13 20 (0.40%) SEPA
14 18 (0.36%) IFRS
15 17 (0.34%) ISO 20022
15 17 (0.34%) ISO/IEC 20000
15 17 (0.34%) JSP 440
16 16 (0.32%) Cyber Essentials
17 13 (0.26%) Government Security Classifications
17 13 (0.26%) HL7
System Software
1 154 (3.07%) Active Directory
2 91 (1.81%) Docker
3 59 (1.18%) VMware Infrastructure
4 38 (0.76%) VMware NSX
5 29 (0.58%) Virtual Desktop
6 17 (0.34%) Virtual Machines
7 16 (0.32%) Hyper-V
8 15 (0.30%) vSphere
9 14 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
10 7 (0.14%) NFS
11 6 (0.12%) Varnish
12 5 (0.100%) Postfix
13 4 (0.080%) EMC RecoverPoint
13 4 (0.080%) KVM
13 4 (0.080%) vCloud
14 3 (0.060%) Ceph
14 3 (0.060%) Sendmail
14 3 (0.060%) SRDF
15 2 (0.040%) IAG
15 2 (0.040%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 234 (4.66%) Kubernetes
2 89 (1.77%) Ansible
3 41 (0.82%) Single Sign-On
4 40 (0.80%) Grafana
5 31 (0.62%) 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 12 (0.24%) vCenter Server
10 9 (0.18%) WMI
11 8 (0.16%) FortiGate
12 7 (0.14%) CASB
12 7 (0.14%) Istio
13 6 (0.12%) NetBackup
13 6 (0.12%) SCCM
14 5 (0.100%) EMC VPLEX
14 5 (0.100%) HAProxy
14 5 (0.100%) MOM
15 4 (0.080%) SnapMirror
Vendors
1 696 (13.87%) Microsoft
2 287 (5.72%) SAP
3 269 (5.36%) Oracle
4 253 (5.04%) Databricks
5 250 (4.98%) ServiceNow
6 164 (3.27%) Salesforce
7 157 (3.13%) Google
8 132 (2.63%) Cisco
9 111 (2.21%) VMware
10 70 (1.39%) CyberArk
11 58 (1.16%) IBM
11 58 (1.16%) MuleSoft
12 53 (1.06%) Workday
13 49 (0.98%) Palo Alto
14 47 (0.94%) Foundry
15 36 (0.72%) Sparx
16 35 (0.70%) Adobe
17 34 (0.68%) OpenAI
18 33 (0.66%) Ariba
19 32 (0.64%) Informatica