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 31 August 2026.

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

6 months to
31 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 18 14
Rank change year-on-year +8 -4 +2
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,041 2,551 3,344
As % of all contract jobs in England 11.02% 9.19% 10.12%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.92% 10.04% 10.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,389 1,687 2,161
10th Percentile £477 £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 £715 £706 £738
90th Percentile £788 £788 £825
UK median daily rate £615 £625 £640
% change year-on-year -1.60% -2.27% -1.62%
Number of hourly rates quoted 162 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 £95.90 £100.00 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £66.50 £72.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -8.28% +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 42,287 25,412 30,763
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.42% 91.57% 93.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,391 16,412 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 £634 £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 3,267 1,364 1,626
10th Percentile £15.13 £13.71 £14.16
25th Percentile £21.25 £17.33 £21.00
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +4.65%
75th Percentile £68.00 £55.00 £66.94
90th Percentile £80.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +67.00% -41.51% +1.96%

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 31 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 31 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 31 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 +7 2,586 £625 -3.85% 1,349
South East +1 735 £625 +4.17% 283
North of England +5 702 £600 - 243
Midlands +2 415 £626 +8.87% 123
North West +5 413 £600 +4.35% 141
South West +2 322 £645 +0.58% 124
West Midlands +2 304 £647 +7.83% 83
Yorkshire +10 226 £588 -4.08% 82
East of England +16 151 £605 +9.16% 74
East Midlands +3 104 £600 +16.50% 40
North East -3 65 £600 -14.29% 20
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 31 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 1,541 (30.57%) Security Cleared
2 1,302 (25.83%) Azure
3 1,120 (22.22%) SC Cleared
4 1,035 (20.53%) AWS
5 816 (16.19%) Stakeholder Management
6 782 (15.51%) Roadmaps
7 729 (14.46%) Migration
8 696 (13.81%) Microsoft
9 663 (13.15%) AI
10 660 (13.09%) Enterprise Architecture
11 576 (11.43%) Technical Leadership
12 561 (11.13%) Agile
13 557 (11.05%) DevOps
14 528 (10.47%) Data Modelling
15 524 (10.39%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 521 (10.34%) CI/CD
17 499 (9.90%) Data Architecture
18 472 (9.36%) Integration Patterns
19 441 (8.75%) Analytics
20 403 (7.99%) Architectural Patterns
21 399 (7.92%) GCP
22 396 (7.86%) Security Architecture
23 394 (7.82%) TOGAF
24 334 (6.63%) DV Cleared
25 328 (6.51%) Cybersecurity
25 328 (6.51%) Event-Driven
26 315 (6.25%) Data Governance
27 308 (6.11%) Infrastructure as Code
27 308 (6.11%) Microservices
28 306 (6.07%) Architecture 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 73 (1.45%) SAS
2 68 (1.35%) SharePoint
3 53 (1.05%) Confluence
4 41 (0.81%) Apache
5 39 (0.77%) Apache Spark
6 28 (0.56%) Apache Airflow
6 28 (0.56%) Microsoft Exchange
7 22 (0.44%) Palantir Foundry
8 20 (0.40%) CMS
9 15 (0.30%) OpenStack
10 7 (0.14%) ArcGIS
10 7 (0.14%) Documentum
11 6 (0.12%) Appian
11 6 (0.12%) Camunda
12 5 (0.099%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 4 (0.079%) Headless CMS
13 4 (0.079%) Jupyter
14 3 (0.060%) Anypoint
14 3 (0.060%) nginx
14 3 (0.060%) SAP EP
Applications
1 17 (0.34%) MS Visio
2 13 (0.26%) 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
1 127 (2.52%) SAP S/4HANA
2 35 (0.69%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 33 (0.65%) Dynamics CRM
4 15 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
4 15 (0.30%) Teamcenter
5 14 (0.28%) Payment Gateway
6 13 (0.26%) Oracle ERP
6 13 (0.26%) Remedy ITSM
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%) Workday HCM
10 7 (0.14%) Maximo
10 7 (0.14%) SAP IBP
11 6 (0.12%) SAP MDG
12 5 (0.099%) Endur
12 5 (0.099%) SAP Oil and Gas
Cloud Services
1 1,302 (25.83%) Azure
2 1,035 (20.53%) AWS
3 399 (7.92%) GCP
4 276 (5.48%) Power Platform
5 192 (3.81%) Entra ID
6 187 (3.71%) SaaS
7 171 (3.39%) Serverless
8 135 (2.68%) Dynamics 365
9 126 (2.50%) GitHub
10 110 (2.18%) Azure DevOps
11 106 (2.10%) Microsoft 365
12 102 (2.02%) Snowflake
13 86 (1.71%) PaaS
14 74 (1.47%) AWS Lambda
15 69 (1.37%) Amazon S3
16 60 (1.19%) GitHub Actions
17 58 (1.15%) IaaS
18 57 (1.13%) OCI
19 56 (1.11%) Azure Synapse Analytics
20 54 (1.07%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 140 (2.78%) Network Security
2 135 (2.68%) Firewall
3 99 (1.96%) WAN
4 77 (1.53%) DNS
5 70 (1.39%) VPN
6 69 (1.37%) LAN
7 47 (0.93%) BGP
7 47 (0.93%) SD-WAN
8 38 (0.75%) DHCP
9 37 (0.73%) TCP/IP
10 35 (0.69%) MPLS
11 29 (0.58%) VLAN
12 26 (0.52%) SAN
12 26 (0.52%) VXLAN
13 22 (0.44%) NAS
13 22 (0.44%) OSPF
14 21 (0.42%) NX-OS
15 20 (0.40%) Wireless
16 19 (0.38%) Radio Access Network
17 18 (0.36%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 191 (3.79%) Power BI
2 172 (3.41%) Metadata
3 167 (3.31%) Data Lake
4 145 (2.88%) Data Warehouse
5 63 (1.25%) NoSQL
6 49 (0.97%) SQL Server
7 41 (0.81%) Delta Lake
8 38 (0.75%) Big Data
9 37 (0.73%) Azure SQL Database
9 37 (0.73%) BigQuery
10 35 (0.69%) PostgreSQL
11 32 (0.63%) Amazon RDS
12 31 (0.61%) Amazon Redshift
12 31 (0.61%) Oracle Database
13 26 (0.52%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
14 23 (0.46%) GIS
14 23 (0.46%) Tableau
15 21 (0.42%) MongoDB
15 21 (0.42%) Semantic Layer
16 18 (0.36%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 72 (1.43%) JIRA
2 66 (1.31%) Git
3 48 (0.95%) Jenkins
4 35 (0.69%) GitLab
5 16 (0.32%) ERwin
6 10 (0.20%) Claude Code
7 9 (0.18%) Oracle Forms
8 8 (0.16%) Cypress.io
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 (0.099%) ER Studio
11 5 (0.099%) Maven
12 4 (0.079%) PowerDesigner
13 3 (0.060%) JMeter
13 3 (0.060%) Selenium
13 3 (0.060%) VTune
General
1 1,006 (19.96%) Social Skills
2 748 (14.84%) Finance
3 550 (10.91%) Public Sector
4 280 (5.55%) Banking
5 264 (5.24%) Analytical Skills
6 249 (4.94%) Retail
7 144 (2.86%) Influencing Skills
8 126 (2.50%) Documentation Skills
9 120 (2.38%) Telecoms
10 106 (2.10%) Manufacturing
11 77 (1.53%) Legal
12 63 (1.25%) Marketing
13 58 (1.15%) Billing
14 49 (0.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 47 (0.93%) Military
16 45 (0.89%) Aerospace
17 44 (0.87%) Law
18 33 (0.65%) Financial Institution
19 32 (0.63%) Presentation Skills
20 30 (0.60%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 250 (4.96%) REST
2 214 (4.25%) Terraform
3 140 (2.78%) Middleware
4 118 (2.34%) .NET
5 115 (2.28%) SOAP
6 108 (2.14%) Kafka
7 102 (2.02%) OAuth
8 66 (1.31%) Oracle Fusion
9 58 (1.15%) SAML
10 57 (1.13%) JSON
11 56 (1.11%) OpenID
12 49 (0.97%) OAuth2
13 44 (0.87%) PySpark
14 38 (0.75%) LDAP
15 37 (0.73%) .NET Framework
15 37 (0.73%) RESTful
15 37 (0.73%) XML
16 36 (0.71%) React
16 36 (0.71%) SailPoint
17 31 (0.61%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 443 (8.79%) Cloud Native
2 152 (3.02%) Data Centre
3 134 (2.66%) Onboarding
4 124 (2.46%) Hybrid Cloud
5 120 (2.38%) Distributed Systems
6 119 (2.36%) Product Ownership
7 118 (2.34%) AI Agents
7 118 (2.34%) Legacy Systems
8 114 (2.26%) Enterprise Software
9 108 (2.14%) Management Information System
10 89 (1.77%) Data Protection Act
11 88 (1.75%) CMDB
12 75 (1.49%) Operational Technology
13 69 (1.37%) Enterprise Cloud
14 64 (1.27%) Public Cloud
15 61 (1.21%) Security Posture
16 53 (1.05%) Data Structures
17 48 (0.95%) Private Cloud
18 42 (0.83%) Mainframe
19 41 (0.81%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 98 (1.94%) Windows
2 86 (1.71%) Linux
3 33 (0.65%) Windows Server
4 20 (0.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 20 (0.40%) Unix
5 11 (0.22%) Apple iOS
6 10 (0.20%) Android
7 9 (0.18%) AIX
8 8 (0.16%) Ubuntu
9 7 (0.14%) zOS
10 5 (0.099%) Solaris
11 4 (0.079%) Alpine Linux
11 4 (0.079%) Data ONTAP
12 3 (0.060%) CentOS
12 3 (0.060%) VMS
13 2 (0.040%) HPUX
13 2 (0.040%) Mac OS
13 2 (0.040%) OpenWrt
13 2 (0.040%) Windows 10
14 1 (0.020%) CatOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 816 (16.19%) Stakeholder Management
2 782 (15.51%) Roadmaps
3 729 (14.46%) Migration
4 663 (13.15%) AI
5 660 (13.09%) Enterprise Architecture
6 576 (11.43%) Technical Leadership
7 561 (11.13%) Agile
8 557 (11.05%) DevOps
9 528 (10.47%) Data Modelling
10 524 (10.39%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 521 (10.34%) CI/CD
12 499 (9.90%) Data Architecture
13 472 (9.36%) Integration Patterns
14 441 (8.75%) Analytics
15 403 (7.99%) Architectural Patterns
16 396 (7.86%) Security Architecture
17 394 (7.82%) TOGAF
18 328 (6.51%) Cybersecurity
18 328 (6.51%) Event-Driven
19 315 (6.25%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 243 (4.82%) Python
2 230 (4.56%) SQL
3 208 (4.13%) Java
4 111 (2.20%) JavaScript
5 89 (1.77%) PowerShell
6 49 (0.97%) C#
7 44 (0.87%) TypeScript
8 43 (0.85%) Bash
9 40 (0.79%) Bicep
10 28 (0.56%) Apex Code
11 15 (0.30%) Shell Script
12 14 (0.28%) ABAP
12 14 (0.28%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 13 (0.26%) Ruby
14 11 (0.22%) C++
14 11 (0.22%) Groovy
15 10 (0.20%) R
15 10 (0.20%) Scala
16 8 (0.16%) Kotlin
16 8 (0.16%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 1,541 (30.57%) Security Cleared
2 1,120 (22.22%) SC Cleared
3 334 (6.63%) DV Cleared
4 155 (3.07%) Degree
5 131 (2.60%) CISSP
6 107 (2.12%) Azure Certification
7 98 (1.94%) AWS Certification
8 85 (1.69%) Cisco Certification
9 81 (1.61%) BPSS Clearance
10 79 (1.57%) TOGAF Certification
11 63 (1.25%) CISM
12 62 (1.23%) Computer Science Degree
13 45 (0.89%) Microsoft Certification
14 39 (0.77%) CCNP
15 33 (0.65%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 33 (0.65%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 23 (0.46%) Master's Degree
17 21 (0.42%) CCSP
18 18 (0.36%) CCIE
18 18 (0.36%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 200 (3.97%) Data Quality
2 193 (3.83%) NIST
3 147 (2.92%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 142 (2.82%) GDPR
5 95 (1.88%) NCSC
6 64 (1.27%) GRC
7 49 (0.97%) QA
8 37 (0.73%) Accessibility
9 36 (0.71%) PCI DSS
10 32 (0.63%) NIST 800
11 28 (0.56%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 23 (0.46%) SLA
13 19 (0.38%) SEPA
14 18 (0.36%) IFRS
14 18 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 20000
15 17 (0.34%) JSP 440
16 16 (0.32%) Cyber Essentials
16 16 (0.32%) ISO 20022
17 13 (0.26%) Government Security Classifications
17 13 (0.26%) ISO 19650
System Software
1 155 (3.07%) Active Directory
2 93 (1.84%) Docker
3 59 (1.17%) VMware Infrastructure
4 39 (0.77%) VMware NSX
5 29 (0.58%) Virtual Desktop
6 17 (0.34%) Virtual Machines
7 15 (0.30%) Hyper-V
7 15 (0.30%) vSphere
8 14 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
9 7 (0.14%) NFS
10 6 (0.12%) Varnish
11 5 (0.099%) Postfix
11 5 (0.099%) vCloud
12 4 (0.079%) EMC RecoverPoint
12 4 (0.079%) KVM
13 3 (0.060%) Ceph
13 3 (0.060%) Sendmail
13 3 (0.060%) SRDF
14 2 (0.040%) Microsoft App-V
14 2 (0.040%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 237 (4.70%) Kubernetes
2 90 (1.79%) Ansible
3 41 (0.81%) Single Sign-On
4 40 (0.79%) Grafana
5 31 (0.61%) Prometheus
6 23 (0.46%) Microsoft Intune
7 15 (0.30%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 15 (0.30%) Argo
8 14 (0.28%) Jamf Pro
9 13 (0.26%) vCenter Server
10 9 (0.18%) WMI
11 8 (0.16%) FortiGate
12 7 (0.14%) Istio
13 6 (0.12%) CASB
13 6 (0.12%) NetBackup
13 6 (0.12%) SCCM
14 5 (0.099%) EMC VPLEX
14 5 (0.099%) HAProxy
14 5 (0.099%) MOM
15 4 (0.079%) QRadar
Vendors
1 696 (13.81%) Microsoft
2 288 (5.71%) SAP
3 269 (5.34%) Oracle
4 252 (5.00%) ServiceNow
5 251 (4.98%) Databricks
6 162 (3.21%) Salesforce
7 156 (3.09%) Google
8 133 (2.64%) Cisco
9 112 (2.22%) VMware
10 67 (1.33%) CyberArk
11 59 (1.17%) IBM
12 58 (1.15%) MuleSoft
13 53 (1.05%) Workday
14 49 (0.97%) Palo Alto
15 46 (0.91%) Foundry
16 37 (0.73%) Sparx
17 34 (0.67%) Adobe
17 34 (0.67%) Ariba
17 34 (0.67%) OpenAI
18 32 (0.63%) F5