Architect Contract Job Trends in England

Architect
UK > England

The median Architect daily rate in England is £625, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 6 August 2026.

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

6 months to
6 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 17 14
Rank change year-on-year +7 -3 +1
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,024 2,617 3,443
As % of all contract jobs in England 11.04% 9.47% 10.29%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.92% 10.33% 11.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,371 1,737 2,271
10th Percentile £475 £473 £485
25th Percentile £525 £538 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -1.89%
75th Percentile £725 £704 £738
90th Percentile £800 £787 £825
UK median daily rate £620 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 166 18 76
10th Percentile £46.00 £36.30 -
25th Percentile £60.00 £62.50 £60.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -
75th Percentile £71.91 £87.00 £85.00
90th Percentile £83.00 £100.00 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -10.34% +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 25,342 31,083
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.57% 91.72% 92.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,556 16,442 20,451
10th Percentile £326 £285 £300
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £627 £625 £638
90th Percentile £738 £738 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,146 1,309 1,833
10th Percentile £15.50 £13.54 £14.16
25th Percentile £21.35 £17.50 £21.25
Median hourly rate £45.00 £26.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +73.08% -42.22% +5.88%
75th Percentile £68.00 £55.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £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 6 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 6 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 6 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 +8 2,588 £625 -3.85% 1,591
South East 0 727 £630 +5.00% 345
North of England +3 697 £600 - 297
Midlands -1 421 £625 +8.70% 151
North West +3 397 £600 +4.35% 154
West Midlands -2 313 £635 +5.83% 101
South West -3 293 £625 -2.34% 178
Yorkshire +3 234 £600 - 111
East of England +19 162 £600 +8.11% 108
East Midlands +8 101 £600 +16.50% 50
North East -3 68 £600 -15.79% 33
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 6 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 1,500 (29.86%) Security Cleared
2 1,276 (25.40%) Azure
3 1,089 (21.68%) SC Cleared
4 1,040 (20.70%) AWS
5 746 (14.85%) Roadmaps
6 706 (14.05%) Migration
7 692 (13.77%) Stakeholder Management
8 647 (12.88%) Microsoft
9 635 (12.64%) AI
10 596 (11.86%) Enterprise Architecture
11 564 (11.23%) Agile
12 554 (11.03%) DevOps
13 526 (10.47%) Data Modelling
14 519 (10.33%) CI/CD
15 516 (10.27%) Technical Leadership
16 500 (9.95%) Data Architecture
17 492 (9.79%) Integration Patterns
18 491 (9.77%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 458 (9.12%) Analytics
20 403 (8.02%) TOGAF
21 402 (8.00%) Architectural Patterns
22 395 (7.86%) GCP
23 358 (7.13%) Security Architecture
24 327 (6.51%) Problem-Solving
25 326 (6.49%) Microservices
26 322 (6.41%) DV Cleared
27 314 (6.25%) Event-Driven
28 309 (6.15%) Cybersecurity
29 300 (5.97%) Architectural Design
30 297 (5.91%) Data Governance

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 80 (1.59%) SharePoint
2 73 (1.45%) SAS
3 54 (1.07%) Confluence
4 42 (0.84%) Apache
5 41 (0.82%) Apache Spark
6 30 (0.60%) Microsoft Exchange
7 25 (0.50%) Apache Airflow
8 22 (0.44%) Palantir Foundry
9 16 (0.32%) CMS
10 14 (0.28%) OpenStack
11 11 (0.22%) ArcGIS
12 10 (0.20%) Appian
13 8 (0.16%) nginx
14 7 (0.14%) Documentum
15 6 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
15 6 (0.12%) Camunda
16 4 (0.080%) Jupyter
16 4 (0.080%) NetWeaver
17 3 (0.060%) SAP EP
17 3 (0.060%) Tomcat
Applications
1 19 (0.38%) MS Visio
2 11 (0.22%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 10 (0.20%) Microsoft Excel
4 9 (0.18%) Chatbot
5 7 (0.14%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.14%) Revit
6 6 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.080%) Microsoft Office
8 2 (0.040%) PlantUML
8 2 (0.040%) Windchill
9 1 (0.020%) Gliffy
9 1 (0.020%) Microsoft Project
9 1 (0.020%) Notion
Business Applications
1 118 (2.35%) SAP S/4HANA
2 36 (0.72%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 30 (0.60%) Dynamics CRM
4 18 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
5 16 (0.32%) Oracle ERP
6 15 (0.30%) Teamcenter
7 14 (0.28%) SAP ERP
8 13 (0.26%) Payment Gateway
9 12 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
9 12 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
9 12 (0.24%) Remedy ITSM
10 11 (0.22%) NetSuite
11 9 (0.18%) Oracle Retail
12 8 (0.16%) SAP BRIM
13 7 (0.14%) Maximo
13 7 (0.14%) SAP IBP
13 7 (0.14%) Workday HCM
14 6 (0.12%) Endur
15 5 (0.100%) SAP MM
15 5 (0.100%) SAP Oil and Gas
Cloud Services
1 1,276 (25.40%) Azure
2 1,040 (20.70%) AWS
3 395 (7.86%) GCP
4 259 (5.16%) Power Platform
5 189 (3.76%) Entra ID
6 176 (3.50%) SaaS
7 156 (3.11%) Serverless
8 122 (2.43%) GitHub
9 118 (2.35%) Dynamics 365
10 106 (2.11%) PaaS
11 103 (2.05%) Azure DevOps
12 102 (2.03%) Microsoft 365
13 100 (1.99%) Snowflake
14 74 (1.47%) AWS Lambda
15 73 (1.45%) IaaS
16 71 (1.41%) Amazon S3
17 59 (1.17%) OCI
18 55 (1.09%) GitHub Actions
19 53 (1.05%) Azure Data Factory
19 53 (1.05%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 158 (3.14%) Network Security
2 152 (3.03%) Firewall
3 99 (1.97%) WAN
4 91 (1.81%) DNS
5 76 (1.51%) VPN
6 72 (1.43%) LAN
7 48 (0.96%) SD-WAN
8 44 (0.88%) BGP
9 41 (0.82%) TCP/IP
10 40 (0.80%) DHCP
11 36 (0.72%) MPLS
12 34 (0.68%) VLAN
13 29 (0.58%) SAN
13 29 (0.58%) Wireless
14 26 (0.52%) OSPF
15 25 (0.50%) NAS
16 24 (0.48%) VXLAN
17 22 (0.44%) Structured Cabling
18 19 (0.38%) Cisco IOS
18 19 (0.38%) Radio Access Network
Database & Business Intelligence
1 187 (3.72%) Power BI
2 165 (3.28%) Data Lake
3 147 (2.93%) Data Warehouse
3 147 (2.93%) Metadata
4 69 (1.37%) NoSQL
5 50 (1.00%) SQL Server
6 44 (0.88%) Big Data
7 37 (0.74%) BigQuery
7 37 (0.74%) PostgreSQL
8 36 (0.72%) Delta Lake
9 35 (0.70%) Azure SQL Database
10 31 (0.62%) Oracle Database
11 29 (0.58%) Amazon RDS
12 26 (0.52%) Amazon Redshift
12 26 (0.52%) GIS
13 21 (0.42%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
14 20 (0.40%) Semantic Layer
15 19 (0.38%) Amazon Athena
15 19 (0.38%) MongoDB
15 19 (0.38%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 73 (1.45%) JIRA
2 68 (1.35%) Git
3 49 (0.98%) Jenkins
4 27 (0.54%) GitLab
5 21 (0.42%) ERwin
6 10 (0.20%) Claude Code
7 9 (0.18%) SonarQube
8 8 (0.16%) Cypress.io
8 8 (0.16%) MLflow
9 7 (0.14%) Artifactory
9 7 (0.14%) Oracle Forms
9 7 (0.14%) PowerDesigner
10 6 (0.12%) Maven
10 6 (0.12%) Storybook
11 5 (0.100%) MSI
11 5 (0.100%) Sonatype Nexus
12 4 (0.080%) Bitbucket
12 4 (0.080%) ER Studio
12 4 (0.080%) Snyk
13 3 (0.060%) Postman
General
1 939 (18.69%) Social Skills
2 783 (15.59%) Finance
3 545 (10.85%) Public Sector
4 297 (5.91%) Banking
5 268 (5.33%) Analytical Skills
6 244 (4.86%) Retail
7 129 (2.57%) Influencing Skills
8 118 (2.35%) Documentation Skills
9 116 (2.31%) Telecoms
10 101 (2.01%) Manufacturing
11 77 (1.53%) Legal
12 58 (1.15%) Marketing
13 53 (1.05%) Billing
14 47 (0.94%) Financial Institution
14 47 (0.94%) Military
15 46 (0.92%) Law
16 41 (0.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 40 (0.80%) Aerospace
18 36 (0.72%) Presentation Skills
19 29 (0.58%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 238 (4.74%) REST
2 164 (3.26%) Middleware
3 117 (2.33%) .NET
4 108 (2.15%) SOAP
5 104 (2.07%) Kafka
6 98 (1.95%) OAuth
7 73 (1.45%) Oracle Fusion
8 58 (1.15%) OpenID
9 55 (1.09%) SAML
10 53 (1.05%) OAuth2
11 47 (0.94%) JSON
12 44 (0.88%) React
13 41 (0.82%) RESTful
14 40 (0.80%) SailPoint
15 35 (0.70%) .NET Framework
15 35 (0.70%) PySpark
16 30 (0.60%) XML
17 28 (0.56%) JWT
18 27 (0.54%) GraphQL
18 27 (0.54%) LDAP
Miscellaneous
1 428 (8.52%) Cloud Native
2 141 (2.81%) Data Centre
3 131 (2.61%) Legacy Systems
4 125 (2.49%) Onboarding
4 125 (2.49%) Product Ownership
5 121 (2.41%) Distributed Systems
5 121 (2.41%) Hybrid Cloud
6 111 (2.21%) Management Information System
7 108 (2.15%) AI Agents
8 99 (1.97%) Enterprise Software
9 88 (1.75%) Data Protection Act
10 84 (1.67%) Operational Technology
11 72 (1.43%) CMDB
12 66 (1.31%) Public Cloud
13 60 (1.19%) Enterprise Cloud
13 60 (1.19%) Security Posture
14 56 (1.11%) Data Structures
15 47 (0.94%) Private Cloud
16 45 (0.90%) Mainframe
17 39 (0.78%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 109 (2.17%) Windows
2 84 (1.67%) Linux
3 34 (0.68%) Windows Server
4 22 (0.44%) Apple iOS
5 21 (0.42%) Android
6 20 (0.40%) Unix
7 16 (0.32%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 10 (0.20%) zOS
9 9 (0.18%) AIX
10 7 (0.14%) Ubuntu
11 5 (0.100%) Data ONTAP
11 5 (0.100%) Solaris
12 4 (0.080%) Alpine Linux
12 4 (0.080%) VMS
13 2 (0.040%) CentOS
13 2 (0.040%) HPUX
13 2 (0.040%) Mac OS
13 2 (0.040%) Windows Server 2019
14 1 (0.020%) Windows 10
14 1 (0.020%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 746 (14.85%) Roadmaps
2 706 (14.05%) Migration
3 692 (13.77%) Stakeholder Management
4 635 (12.64%) AI
5 596 (11.86%) Enterprise Architecture
6 564 (11.23%) Agile
7 554 (11.03%) DevOps
8 526 (10.47%) Data Modelling
9 519 (10.33%) CI/CD
10 516 (10.27%) Technical Leadership
11 500 (9.95%) Data Architecture
12 492 (9.79%) Integration Patterns
13 491 (9.77%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 458 (9.12%) Analytics
15 403 (8.02%) TOGAF
16 402 (8.00%) Architectural Patterns
17 358 (7.13%) Security Architecture
18 327 (6.51%) Problem-Solving
19 326 (6.49%) Microservices
20 314 (6.25%) Event-Driven
Programming Languages
1 243 (4.84%) Python
2 233 (4.64%) SQL
3 204 (4.06%) Java
4 117 (2.33%) JavaScript
5 84 (1.67%) PowerShell
6 55 (1.09%) C#
7 44 (0.88%) Bash
7 44 (0.88%) Bicep
8 40 (0.80%) TypeScript
9 27 (0.54%) Apex Code
10 14 (0.28%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 14 (0.28%) Ruby
10 14 (0.28%) Shell Script
11 13 (0.26%) C++
12 11 (0.22%) Scala
13 9 (0.18%) ABAP
13 9 (0.18%) Groovy
14 8 (0.16%) PL/SQL
15 7 (0.14%) Kotlin
15 7 (0.14%) Rust
Qualifications
1 1,500 (29.86%) Security Cleared
2 1,089 (21.68%) SC Cleared
3 322 (6.41%) DV Cleared
4 162 (3.22%) Degree
5 129 (2.57%) CISSP
6 109 (2.17%) Azure Certification
7 102 (2.03%) AWS Certification
8 92 (1.83%) Cisco Certification
9 85 (1.69%) TOGAF Certification
10 68 (1.35%) Computer Science Degree
11 67 (1.33%) BPSS Clearance
12 59 (1.17%) CISM
13 42 (0.84%) CCNP
14 39 (0.78%) Microsoft Certification
15 36 (0.72%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 34 (0.68%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 24 (0.48%) Master's Degree
18 22 (0.44%) CCSP
19 20 (0.40%) CCIE
20 19 (0.38%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 180 (3.58%) Data Quality
2 172 (3.42%) NIST
3 152 (3.03%) GDPR
4 131 (2.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 95 (1.89%) NCSC
6 59 (1.17%) GRC
7 57 (1.13%) QA
8 39 (0.78%) PCI DSS
9 34 (0.68%) Accessibility
10 30 (0.60%) NIST 800
11 29 (0.58%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 22 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials
13 21 (0.42%) SEPA
14 20 (0.40%) ISO 20022
15 19 (0.38%) IFRS
16 15 (0.30%) HL7
17 14 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 20000
18 13 (0.26%) SLA
19 12 (0.24%) COBIT
19 12 (0.24%) HIPAA
System Software
1 150 (2.99%) Active Directory
2 103 (2.05%) Docker
3 60 (1.19%) VMware Infrastructure
4 43 (0.86%) VMware NSX
5 24 (0.48%) Virtual Desktop
6 15 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
7 14 (0.28%) Hyper-V
7 14 (0.28%) vSphere
8 12 (0.24%) VMware ESXi
9 8 (0.16%) NFS
10 7 (0.14%) Varnish
10 7 (0.14%) vCloud
11 6 (0.12%) Postfix
12 4 (0.080%) EMC RecoverPoint
12 4 (0.080%) IAG
12 4 (0.080%) Sendmail
12 4 (0.080%) Squid
13 3 (0.060%) KVM
13 3 (0.060%) SRDF
14 2 (0.040%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 247 (4.92%) Kubernetes
2 220 (4.38%) Terraform
3 88 (1.75%) Ansible
4 44 (0.88%) Grafana
5 40 (0.80%) Single Sign-On
6 37 (0.74%) Microsoft Intune
7 35 (0.70%) Prometheus
8 17 (0.34%) Argo
8 17 (0.34%) vCenter Server
9 15 (0.30%) Jamf Pro
10 14 (0.28%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 12 (0.24%) FortiGate
12 7 (0.14%) Istio
13 6 (0.12%) CASB
13 6 (0.12%) HAProxy
13 6 (0.12%) SCCM
14 5 (0.100%) EMC VPLEX
14 5 (0.100%) MOM
14 5 (0.100%) NetBackup
14 5 (0.100%) WMI
Vendors
1 647 (12.88%) Microsoft
2 280 (5.57%) SAP
3 272 (5.41%) Oracle
4 250 (4.98%) ServiceNow
5 230 (4.58%) Databricks
6 160 (3.18%) Salesforce
7 135 (2.69%) Google
8 124 (2.47%) Cisco
8 124 (2.47%) VMware
9 57 (1.13%) IBM
10 56 (1.11%) CyberArk
11 54 (1.07%) MuleSoft
12 53 (1.05%) Workday
13 49 (0.98%) Palo Alto
14 43 (0.86%) Foundry
15 38 (0.76%) Sparx
16 36 (0.72%) Splunk
17 34 (0.68%) Ariba
18 33 (0.66%) OpenAI
19 32 (0.64%) F5