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 28 September 2026.

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

6 months to
28 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 5,101 2,460 3,202
As % of all contract jobs in England 11.06% 8.87% 9.82%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.99% 9.72% 10.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,416 1,645 1,946
10th Percentile £481 £462 £475
25th Percentile £525 £525 £538
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £626
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -0.16% -3.69%
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 11 66
10th Percentile £40.00 £61.25 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £64.38 £61.56
Median hourly rate £68.17 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -5.98% +3.57% -2.78%
75th Percentile £78.75 £93.75 £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% -2.78%

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 42,532 25,317 30,338
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.19% 91.27% 93.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,192 16,337 18,640
10th Percentile £325 £275 £300
25th Percentile £425 £401 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.46%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £738 £730 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,576 1,391 1,390
10th Percentile £14.82 £13.75 £15.00
25th Percentile £20.53 £17.31 £21.25
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% -1.13%
75th Percentile £67.84 £53.13 £67.50
90th Percentile £79.00 £70.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £41.72 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +65.89% -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 28 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 28 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 28 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 2,625 £625 -2.34% 2,395
South East +4 720 £625 +4.17% 468
North of England +4 685 £600 - 489
Midlands +3 445 £627 +8.96% 262
North West +8 377 £599 +4.25% 270
South West +4 344 £631 -2.88% 224
West Midlands +4 334 £650 +8.33% 198
Yorkshire +17 244 £581 -3.13% 162
East of England +8 155 £622 +11.32% 142
East Midlands +5 106 £600 +20.00% 64
North East +3 67 £625 -13.79% 57
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 28 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 1,594 (31.25%) Security Cleared
2 1,320 (25.88%) Azure
3 1,160 (22.74%) SC Cleared
4 995 (19.51%) AWS
5 975 (19.11%) Stakeholder Management
6 840 (16.47%) Roadmaps
7 753 (14.76%) Migration
8 711 (13.94%) Microsoft
9 682 (13.37%) Enterprise Architecture
10 676 (13.25%) AI
11 656 (12.86%) Technical Leadership
12 561 (11.00%) DevOps
13 540 (10.59%) Agile
14 537 (10.53%) Data Architecture
15 531 (10.41%) Data Modelling
16 528 (10.35%) CI/CD
17 502 (9.84%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 464 (9.10%) Integration Patterns
19 443 (8.68%) Analytics
20 407 (7.98%) Security Architecture
21 402 (7.88%) TOGAF
22 397 (7.78%) GCP
23 382 (7.49%) Architectural Patterns
24 365 (7.16%) DV Cleared
25 344 (6.74%) Architecture Governance
26 336 (6.59%) Cybersecurity
27 335 (6.57%) Event-Driven
28 326 (6.39%) Decision-Making
29 322 (6.31%) Data Governance
30 311 (6.10%) 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 74 (1.45%) SAS
2 60 (1.18%) SharePoint
3 47 (0.92%) Confluence
4 42 (0.82%) Apache
5 38 (0.74%) Apache Spark
6 35 (0.69%) 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 (0.098%) 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 (0.22%) 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 (0.098%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.039%) AutoCAD
8 2 (0.039%) Gliffy
9 1 (0.020%) Notion
9 1 (0.020%) PlantUML
9 1 (0.020%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 136 (2.67%) SAP S/4HANA
2 40 (0.78%) Dynamics CRM
3 30 (0.59%) 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 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
6 12 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
7 11 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
8 10 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
8 10 (0.20%) 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 (0.098%) SAP CRM
12 5 (0.098%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 1,320 (25.88%) Azure
2 995 (19.51%) AWS
3 397 (7.78%) GCP
4 258 (5.06%) Power Platform
5 189 (3.71%) SaaS
6 183 (3.59%) Entra ID
7 151 (2.96%) Serverless
8 124 (2.43%) Dynamics 365
9 119 (2.33%) GitHub
10 112 (2.20%) Azure DevOps
10 112 (2.20%) Microsoft 365
11 110 (2.16%) Snowflake
12 75 (1.47%) PaaS
13 64 (1.25%) OCI
14 62 (1.22%) Amazon S3
15 61 (1.20%) AWS Lambda
16 56 (1.10%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 55 (1.08%) GitHub Actions
18 54 (1.06%) dbt
19 53 (1.04%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 126 (2.47%) Network Security
2 122 (2.39%) Firewall
3 90 (1.76%) WAN
4 67 (1.31%) DNS
5 57 (1.12%) LAN
6 53 (1.04%) VPN
7 45 (0.88%) BGP
8 43 (0.84%) SD-WAN
9 37 (0.73%) MPLS
10 36 (0.71%) DHCP
11 34 (0.67%) TCP/IP
12 27 (0.53%) VXLAN
13 26 (0.51%) VLAN
14 25 (0.49%) NX-OS
15 24 (0.47%) SAN
16 20 (0.39%) Wireless
17 19 (0.37%) NAS
18 18 (0.35%) BIG-IP
18 18 (0.35%) Ethernet VPN
19 16 (0.31%) NGFW
Database & Business Intelligence
1 204 (4.00%) Metadata
2 172 (3.37%) Data Lake
3 162 (3.18%) Data Warehouse
4 159 (3.12%) Power BI
5 53 (1.04%) NoSQL
6 47 (0.92%) SQL Server
7 39 (0.76%) BigQuery
8 36 (0.71%) Amazon RDS
8 36 (0.71%) Delta Lake
9 35 (0.69%) PostgreSQL
10 33 (0.65%) Amazon Redshift
10 33 (0.65%) Azure SQL Database
11 30 (0.59%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
11 30 (0.59%) Oracle Database
12 28 (0.55%) Big Data
13 26 (0.51%) Semantic Layer
14 23 (0.45%) Tableau
15 22 (0.43%) GIS
16 21 (0.41%) Star Schema
17 20 (0.39%) Data Vault
Development Applications
1 72 (1.41%) JIRA
2 63 (1.24%) Git
3 52 (1.02%) Jenkins
4 46 (0.90%) GitLab
5 12 (0.24%) ERwin
6 11 (0.22%) Claude Code
6 11 (0.22%) MSI
7 10 (0.20%) Oracle Forms
7 10 (0.20%) RStudio
8 9 (0.18%) Cypress.io
9 7 (0.14%) Postman
10 6 (0.12%) SonarQube
10 6 (0.12%) Storybook
11 5 (0.098%) ER Studio
11 5 (0.098%) Rational DOORS
11 5 (0.098%) Selenium
12 4 (0.078%) Artifactory
12 4 (0.078%) Maven
12 4 (0.078%) MLflow
13 3 (0.059%) IBM UrbanCode
General
1 1,067 (20.92%) Social Skills
2 727 (14.25%) Finance
3 566 (11.10%) Public Sector
4 276 (5.41%) Banking
5 261 (5.12%) Retail
6 246 (4.82%) Analytical Skills
7 159 (3.12%) Influencing Skills
8 131 (2.57%) Manufacturing
9 122 (2.39%) Telecoms
10 115 (2.25%) Documentation Skills
11 71 (1.39%) Marketing
12 67 (1.31%) Legal
13 60 (1.18%) Billing
14 59 (1.16%) Aerospace
15 52 (1.02%) Military
16 50 (0.98%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 38 (0.74%) Presentation Skills
18 28 (0.55%) Aviation
19 27 (0.53%) Local Government
20 24 (0.47%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 263 (5.16%) REST
2 215 (4.21%) Terraform
3 133 (2.61%) Kafka
4 132 (2.59%) Middleware
5 128 (2.51%) SOAP
6 111 (2.18%) .NET
7 100 (1.96%) OAuth
8 71 (1.39%) Oracle Fusion
9 59 (1.16%) JSON
10 55 (1.08%) SAML
11 54 (1.06%) OpenID
12 51 (1.00%) LDAP
13 50 (0.98%) OAuth2
14 43 (0.84%) PySpark
15 41 (0.80%) XML
16 40 (0.78%) .NET Framework
17 35 (0.69%) SailPoint
18 34 (0.67%) RESTful
19 33 (0.65%) JWT
19 33 (0.65%) React
Miscellaneous
1 415 (8.14%) Cloud Native
2 160 (3.14%) Onboarding
3 158 (3.10%) Data Centre
4 127 (2.49%) Product Ownership
5 123 (2.41%) Hybrid Cloud
6 122 (2.39%) Distributed Systems
7 119 (2.33%) Legacy Systems
8 118 (2.31%) Enterprise Software
9 112 (2.20%) AI Agents
10 103 (2.02%) Management Information System
11 99 (1.94%) CMDB
12 81 (1.59%) Data Protection Act
13 77 (1.51%) Operational Technology
14 70 (1.37%) Public Cloud
15 69 (1.35%) Enterprise Cloud
16 60 (1.18%) Private Cloud
17 58 (1.14%) Data Structures
18 55 (1.08%) Security Posture
19 43 (0.84%) Taxonomies
20 41 (0.80%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 105 (2.06%) Windows
2 82 (1.61%) 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 (0.098%) Solaris
11 4 (0.078%) Alpine Linux
11 4 (0.078%) Data ONTAP
12 3 (0.059%) CentOS
12 3 (0.059%) 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 (0.020%) CatOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 975 (19.11%) Stakeholder Management
2 840 (16.47%) Roadmaps
3 753 (14.76%) Migration
4 682 (13.37%) Enterprise Architecture
5 676 (13.25%) AI
6 656 (12.86%) Technical Leadership
7 561 (11.00%) DevOps
8 540 (10.59%) Agile
9 537 (10.53%) Data Architecture
10 531 (10.41%) Data Modelling
11 528 (10.35%) CI/CD
12 502 (9.84%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 464 (9.10%) Integration Patterns
14 443 (8.68%) Analytics
15 407 (7.98%) Security Architecture
16 402 (7.88%) TOGAF
17 382 (7.49%) Architectural Patterns
18 344 (6.74%) Architecture Governance
19 336 (6.59%) Cybersecurity
20 335 (6.57%) Event-Driven
Programming Languages
1 219 (4.29%) SQL
2 211 (4.14%) Python
3 194 (3.80%) Java
4 109 (2.14%) JavaScript
5 89 (1.74%) PowerShell
6 50 (0.98%) C#
7 45 (0.88%) TypeScript
8 39 (0.76%) Bash
9 36 (0.71%) 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 (0.22%) Groovy
14 10 (0.20%) 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 1,594 (31.25%) Security Cleared
2 1,160 (22.74%) SC Cleared
3 365 (7.16%) DV Cleared
4 149 (2.92%) Degree
5 130 (2.55%) CISSP
6 120 (2.35%) BPSS Clearance
7 105 (2.06%) Azure Certification
8 98 (1.92%) AWS Certification
9 89 (1.74%) Cisco Certification
10 83 (1.63%) TOGAF Certification
11 60 (1.18%) CISM
12 56 (1.10%) Computer Science Degree
13 44 (0.86%) Microsoft Certification
14 41 (0.80%) CCNP
15 33 (0.65%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 33 (0.65%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 25 (0.49%) CCSP
17 22 (0.43%) CCIE
18 21 (0.41%) Master's Degree
19 18 (0.35%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 219 (4.29%) Data Quality
2 184 (3.61%) NIST
3 152 (2.98%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 128 (2.51%) GDPR
5 103 (2.02%) NCSC
6 70 (1.37%) GRC
7 51 (1.00%) QA
8 39 (0.76%) Accessibility
9 31 (0.61%) PCI DSS
10 29 (0.57%) 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
18 15 (0.29%) ISO 19650
18 15 (0.29%) ISO 20022
19 13 (0.25%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 168 (3.29%) Active Directory
2 82 (1.61%) Docker
3 63 (1.24%) VMware Infrastructure
4 38 (0.74%) VMware NSX
5 26 (0.51%) Virtual Desktop
6 16 (0.31%) vSphere
7 15 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
8 14 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
9 11 (0.22%) Hyper-V
10 5 (0.098%) 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 (0.059%) Ceph
12 3 (0.059%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 3 (0.059%) Sendmail
12 3 (0.059%) SRDF
12 3 (0.059%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 233 (4.57%) Kubernetes
2 92 (1.80%) Ansible
3 39 (0.76%) Single Sign-On
4 37 (0.73%) Grafana
5 29 (0.57%) Prometheus
6 26 (0.51%) Microsoft Intune
7 14 (0.27%) Jamf Pro
8 13 (0.25%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 13 (0.25%) Argo
9 12 (0.24%) WMI
10 10 (0.20%) 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 (0.098%) EMC VPLEX
15 5 (0.098%) Istio
16 4 (0.078%) QRadar
Vendors
1 711 (13.94%) Microsoft
2 282 (5.53%) SAP
3 260 (5.10%) Oracle
4 256 (5.02%) ServiceNow
5 243 (4.76%) Databricks
6 176 (3.45%) Google
7 175 (3.43%) Salesforce
8 131 (2.57%) Cisco
9 111 (2.18%) VMware
10 82 (1.61%) CyberArk
11 61 (1.20%) MuleSoft
12 52 (1.02%) IBM
13 50 (0.98%) Workday
14 46 (0.90%) Foundry
14 46 (0.90%) Palo Alto
15 34 (0.67%) Informatica
16 33 (0.65%) F5
16 33 (0.65%) Fortinet
16 33 (0.65%) OpenAI
16 33 (0.65%) Splunk