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 26 September 2026.

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

6 months to
26 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 5,131 2,494 3,209
As % of all contract jobs in England 11.02% 8.93% 9.80%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.95% 9.78% 10.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,439 1,661 1,964
10th Percentile £481 £463 £475
25th Percentile £525 £525 £538
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £630
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -0.79% -3.08%
75th Percentile £700 £713 £738
90th Percentile £788 £788 £813
UK median daily rate £618 £625 £627
% change year-on-year -1.20% -0.32% -3.54%
Number of hourly rates quoted 176 13 66
10th Percentile £43.00 £43.42 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £62.50 £61.56
Median hourly rate £68.17 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -5.98% +3.57% -0.25%
75th Percentile £79.06 £87.50 £85.00
90th Percentile £95.00 £100.00 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £68.17 £71.25 £70.00
% change year-on-year -4.33% +1.79% -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 42,924 25,502 30,456
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.20% 91.27% 93.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,454 16,440 18,762
10th Percentile £325 £278 £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 £734 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.62%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,577 1,399 1,408
10th Percentile £14.82 £13.75 £14.85
25th Percentile £20.69 £17.46 £21.34
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% -
75th Percentile £68.00 £53.75 £67.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.03 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +67.00% -41.51% -2.27%

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 26 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 26 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 26 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 2,646 £625 -2.34% 2,653
South East +4 727 £625 +4.17% 560
North of England +6 682 £597 -0.58% 518
Midlands +2 440 £627 +8.96% 286
North West +7 377 £599 +4.25% 286
South West +3 344 £625 -3.85% 248
West Midlands +4 329 £650 +8.33% 219
Yorkshire +13 242 £561 -8.45% 175
East of England +7 157 £622 +11.32% 161
East Midlands +3 106 £600 +20.00% 67
North East -3 61 £602 -16.97% 57
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 26 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 1,604 (31.26%) Security Cleared
2 1,333 (25.98%) Azure
3 1,168 (22.76%) SC Cleared
4 1,011 (19.70%) AWS
5 978 (19.06%) Stakeholder Management
6 842 (16.41%) Roadmaps
7 756 (14.73%) Migration
8 719 (14.01%) Microsoft
9 683 (13.31%) Enterprise Architecture
10 682 (13.29%) AI
11 660 (12.86%) Technical Leadership
12 568 (11.07%) DevOps
13 548 (10.68%) Agile
14 539 (10.50%) Data Architecture
15 535 (10.43%) CI/CD
15 535 (10.43%) Data Modelling
16 507 (9.88%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 470 (9.16%) Integration Patterns
18 449 (8.75%) Analytics
19 412 (8.03%) Security Architecture
20 406 (7.91%) TOGAF
21 401 (7.82%) GCP
22 392 (7.64%) Architectural Patterns
23 365 (7.11%) DV Cleared
24 343 (6.68%) Architecture Governance
25 341 (6.65%) Cybersecurity
26 340 (6.63%) Event-Driven
27 327 (6.37%) Data Governance
27 327 (6.37%) Decision-Making
28 318 (6.20%) 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 61 (1.19%) SharePoint
3 48 (0.94%) Confluence
4 43 (0.84%) Apache
5 39 (0.76%) Apache Spark
6 35 (0.68%) Apache Airflow
7 28 (0.55%) Microsoft Exchange
8 22 (0.43%) CMS
9 21 (0.41%) Palantir Foundry
10 14 (0.27%) OpenStack
11 7 (0.14%) Documentum
11 7 (0.14%) NetWeaver
12 6 (0.12%) Appian
12 6 (0.12%) ArcGIS
12 6 (0.12%) Headless CMS
12 6 (0.12%) IIS
13 5 (0.097%) SAP EP
14 4 (0.078%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 4 (0.078%) Camunda
14 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 5 (0.097%) 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
1 136 (2.65%) SAP S/4HANA
2 41 (0.80%) Dynamics CRM
3 30 (0.58%) 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
8 10 (0.19%) SAP ERP
9 9 (0.18%) SAP MDG
10 8 (0.16%) SAP BRIM
10 8 (0.16%) Workday HCM
11 7 (0.14%) Maximo
11 7 (0.14%) Oracle Retail
11 7 (0.14%) SAP HCM
12 5 (0.097%) SAP CRM
12 5 (0.097%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 1,333 (25.98%) Azure
2 1,011 (19.70%) AWS
3 401 (7.82%) GCP
4 265 (5.16%) Power Platform
5 190 (3.70%) SaaS
6 184 (3.59%) Entra ID
7 154 (3.00%) Serverless
8 127 (2.48%) Dynamics 365
9 124 (2.42%) GitHub
10 114 (2.22%) Azure DevOps
11 112 (2.18%) Microsoft 365
12 111 (2.16%) Snowflake
13 78 (1.52%) PaaS
14 64 (1.25%) OCI
15 63 (1.23%) AWS Lambda
16 62 (1.21%) Amazon S3
17 59 (1.15%) GitHub Actions
18 56 (1.09%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 54 (1.05%) dbt
20 53 (1.03%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 128 (2.49%) Network Security
2 123 (2.40%) Firewall
3 90 (1.75%) WAN
4 67 (1.31%) DNS
5 58 (1.13%) LAN
6 53 (1.03%) VPN
7 45 (0.88%) BGP
8 43 (0.84%) SD-WAN
9 37 (0.72%) MPLS
10 36 (0.70%) DHCP
11 34 (0.66%) TCP/IP
12 27 (0.53%) VLAN
12 27 (0.53%) VXLAN
13 25 (0.49%) NX-OS
13 25 (0.49%) SAN
14 20 (0.39%) NAS
14 20 (0.39%) Wireless
15 18 (0.35%) BIG-IP
15 18 (0.35%) Ethernet VPN
16 16 (0.31%) NGFW
Database & Business Intelligence
1 206 (4.01%) Metadata
2 172 (3.35%) Data Lake
3 165 (3.22%) Power BI
4 161 (3.14%) Data Warehouse
5 54 (1.05%) NoSQL
6 48 (0.94%) SQL Server
7 39 (0.76%) 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 31 (0.60%) Oracle Database
12 30 (0.58%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
13 29 (0.57%) Big Data
14 26 (0.51%) Semantic Layer
15 23 (0.45%) Tableau
16 22 (0.43%) GIS
17 21 (0.41%) Star Schema
18 20 (0.39%) Data Vault
Development Applications
1 72 (1.40%) JIRA
2 63 (1.23%) Git
3 53 (1.03%) Jenkins
4 46 (0.90%) GitLab
5 12 (0.23%) ERwin
6 11 (0.21%) Claude Code
6 11 (0.21%) MSI
7 10 (0.19%) Oracle Forms
7 10 (0.19%) RStudio
8 9 (0.18%) Cypress.io
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%) JMeter
General
1 1,076 (20.97%) Social Skills
2 734 (14.31%) Finance
3 563 (10.97%) Public Sector
4 278 (5.42%) Banking
5 263 (5.13%) Retail
6 248 (4.83%) Analytical Skills
7 159 (3.10%) Influencing Skills
8 130 (2.53%) Manufacturing
9 120 (2.34%) Telecoms
10 119 (2.32%) Documentation Skills
11 72 (1.40%) Marketing
12 69 (1.34%) 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 27 (0.53%) Local Government
19 24 (0.47%) Law
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 267 (5.20%) REST
2 218 (4.25%) Terraform
3 134 (2.61%) Kafka
4 133 (2.59%) Middleware
5 128 (2.49%) SOAP
6 114 (2.22%) .NET
7 101 (1.97%) OAuth
8 71 (1.38%) Oracle Fusion
9 59 (1.15%) JSON
10 55 (1.07%) SAML
11 54 (1.05%) OpenID
12 51 (0.99%) LDAP
13 50 (0.97%) OAuth2
14 44 (0.86%) PySpark
15 41 (0.80%) .NET Framework
15 41 (0.80%) XML
16 37 (0.72%) RESTful
17 35 (0.68%) SailPoint
18 34 (0.66%) React
19 33 (0.64%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 420 (8.19%) Cloud Native
2 160 (3.12%) Onboarding
3 158 (3.08%) Data Centre
4 131 (2.55%) Product Ownership
5 123 (2.40%) Distributed Systems
5 123 (2.40%) Hybrid Cloud
6 118 (2.30%) Legacy Systems
7 117 (2.28%) Enterprise Software
8 114 (2.22%) AI Agents
9 107 (2.09%) Management Information System
10 99 (1.93%) CMDB
11 82 (1.60%) Data Protection Act
12 77 (1.50%) Operational Technology
13 70 (1.36%) Enterprise Cloud
13 70 (1.36%) Public Cloud
14 61 (1.19%) Private Cloud
15 59 (1.15%) Data Structures
16 55 (1.07%) Security Posture
17 43 (0.84%) Taxonomies
18 41 (0.80%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 105 (2.05%) Windows
2 82 (1.60%) Linux
3 41 (0.80%) Windows Server
4 21 (0.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 18 (0.35%) Unix
6 9 (0.18%) AIX
7 8 (0.16%) Apple iOS
7 8 (0.16%) Ubuntu
8 7 (0.14%) 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
1 978 (19.06%) Stakeholder Management
2 842 (16.41%) Roadmaps
3 756 (14.73%) Migration
4 683 (13.31%) Enterprise Architecture
5 682 (13.29%) AI
6 660 (12.86%) Technical Leadership
7 568 (11.07%) DevOps
8 548 (10.68%) Agile
9 539 (10.50%) Data Architecture
10 535 (10.43%) CI/CD
10 535 (10.43%) Data Modelling
11 507 (9.88%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 470 (9.16%) Integration Patterns
13 449 (8.75%) Analytics
14 412 (8.03%) Security Architecture
15 406 (7.91%) TOGAF
16 392 (7.64%) Architectural Patterns
17 343 (6.68%) Architecture Governance
18 341 (6.65%) Cybersecurity
19 340 (6.63%) Event-Driven
Programming Languages
1 221 (4.31%) SQL
2 216 (4.21%) Python
3 194 (3.78%) Java
4 109 (2.12%) JavaScript
5 89 (1.73%) PowerShell
6 50 (0.97%) C#
7 48 (0.94%) TypeScript
8 39 (0.76%) Bash
9 36 (0.70%) Bicep
10 29 (0.57%) Apex Code
11 26 (0.51%) ABAP
12 15 (0.29%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 15 (0.29%) Shell Script
13 11 (0.21%) Groovy
14 10 (0.19%) 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 1,604 (31.26%) Security Cleared
2 1,168 (22.76%) SC Cleared
3 365 (7.11%) DV Cleared
4 155 (3.02%) Degree
5 133 (2.59%) CISSP
6 114 (2.22%) BPSS Clearance
7 105 (2.05%) Azure Certification
8 99 (1.93%) AWS Certification
9 89 (1.73%) Cisco Certification
10 86 (1.68%) TOGAF Certification
11 62 (1.21%) 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 18 (0.35%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 220 (4.29%) Data Quality
2 186 (3.63%) NIST
3 154 (3.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 129 (2.51%) GDPR
5 104 (2.03%) NCSC
6 70 (1.36%) GRC
7 51 (0.99%) QA
8 39 (0.76%) Accessibility
9 32 (0.62%) PCI DSS
10 30 (0.58%) NIST 800
11 24 (0.47%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 22 (0.43%) SLA
13 21 (0.41%) ISO/IEC 20000
14 20 (0.39%) JSP 440
15 18 (0.35%) SEPA
16 17 (0.33%) IFRS
17 16 (0.31%) Cyber Essentials
17 16 (0.31%) ISO 20022
18 15 (0.29%) ISO 19650
19 13 (0.25%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 169 (3.29%) Active Directory
2 85 (1.66%) Docker
3 64 (1.25%) VMware Infrastructure
4 39 (0.76%) VMware NSX
5 26 (0.51%) Virtual Desktop
6 17 (0.33%) vSphere
7 15 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
7 15 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
8 12 (0.23%) Hyper-V
9 5 (0.097%) NFS
10 4 (0.078%) EMC RecoverPoint
10 4 (0.078%) ISA Server
10 4 (0.078%) KVM
10 4 (0.078%) Postfix
10 4 (0.078%) Varnish
11 3 (0.058%) Ceph
11 3 (0.058%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 3 (0.058%) Sendmail
11 3 (0.058%) SRDF
11 3 (0.058%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 235 (4.58%) Kubernetes
2 92 (1.79%) Ansible
3 39 (0.76%) Single Sign-On
4 37 (0.72%) Grafana
5 29 (0.57%) 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 12 (0.23%) 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
1 719 (14.01%) Microsoft
2 282 (5.50%) SAP
3 262 (5.11%) Oracle
4 257 (5.01%) ServiceNow
5 250 (4.87%) Databricks
6 177 (3.45%) Google
6 177 (3.45%) Salesforce
7 132 (2.57%) Cisco
8 115 (2.24%) VMware
9 82 (1.60%) CyberArk
10 61 (1.19%) MuleSoft
11 53 (1.03%) IBM
12 50 (0.97%) Workday
13 47 (0.92%) Foundry
14 46 (0.90%) Palo Alto
15 34 (0.66%) Fortinet
15 34 (0.66%) Informatica
16 33 (0.64%) F5
16 33 (0.64%) OpenAI
16 33 (0.64%) Splunk