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 19 September 2026.

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

6 months to
19 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 18 15
Rank change year-on-year +7 -3 +1
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,148 2,511 3,262
As % of all contract jobs in England 11.06% 9.03% 9.90%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.99% 9.88% 10.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,458 1,665 2,040
10th Percentile £481 £463 £480
25th Percentile £525 £525 £543
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £635
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -1.61% -2.27%
75th Percentile £710 £713 £738
90th Percentile £788 £788 £813
UK median daily rate £620 £625 £630
% change year-on-year -0.80% -0.79% -3.08%
Number of hourly rates quoted 170 15 68
10th Percentile £46.00 £33.64 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.88 £62.19
Median hourly rate £68.17 £70.00 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -2.62% - -1.53%
75th Percentile £78.75 £83.75 £85.00
90th Percentile £95.00 £100.00 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £68.17 £70.00 £70.00
% change year-on-year -2.62% - -1.53%

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 42,946 25,411 30,652
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.26% 91.36% 93.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,575 16,393 19,112
10th Percentile £325 £278 £300
25th Percentile £425 £401 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £508 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.35% -3.24% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £738 £738 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,509 1,371 1,480
10th Percentile £14.90 £13.75 £14.83
25th Percentile £21.00 £17.30 £21.25
Median hourly rate £44.46 £25.15 £46.71
Median % change year-on-year +76.76% -46.16% +3.81%
75th Percentile £68.00 £54.88 £67.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £71.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -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 19 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 19 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 19 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 2,641 £625 -3.85% 2,746
South East +2 743 £625 +4.17% 657
North of England +3 682 £597 -0.58% 562
Midlands +1 437 £626 +8.87% 323
North West +7 379 £600 +4.35% 315
South West +3 350 £638 -1.92% 235
West Midlands +3 324 £647 +7.96% 234
Yorkshire +16 239 £559 -6.88% 184
East of England +12 162 £619 +11.55% 181
East Midlands +5 108 £600 +18.81% 89
North East -8 63 £600 -15.79% 63
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 19 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 1,607 (31.22%) Security Cleared
2 1,334 (25.91%) Azure
3 1,167 (22.67%) SC Cleared
4 1,022 (19.85%) AWS
5 952 (18.49%) Stakeholder Management
6 837 (16.26%) Roadmaps
7 753 (14.63%) Migration
8 728 (14.14%) Microsoft
9 688 (13.36%) Enterprise Architecture
10 684 (13.29%) AI
11 652 (12.67%) Technical Leadership
12 570 (11.07%) DevOps
13 553 (10.74%) Agile
14 538 (10.45%) CI/CD
15 532 (10.33%) Data Modelling
16 523 (10.16%) Data Architecture
17 513 (9.97%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 470 (9.13%) Integration Patterns
19 453 (8.80%) Analytics
20 424 (8.24%) TOGAF
21 415 (8.06%) Security Architecture
22 403 (7.83%) GCP
23 399 (7.75%) Architectural Patterns
24 368 (7.15%) DV Cleared
25 342 (6.64%) Architecture Governance
26 337 (6.55%) Cybersecurity
27 331 (6.43%) Event-Driven
28 325 (6.31%) Data Governance
29 321 (6.24%) Decision-Making
30 319 (6.20%) Microservices

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 63 (1.22%) SharePoint
3 48 (0.93%) Confluence
4 42 (0.82%) Apache
5 36 (0.70%) Apache Spark
6 33 (0.64%) Apache Airflow
7 29 (0.56%) Microsoft Exchange
8 21 (0.41%) Palantir Foundry
9 20 (0.39%) CMS
10 13 (0.25%) OpenStack
11 7 (0.14%) Documentum
11 7 (0.14%) NetWeaver
12 6 (0.12%) Appian
12 6 (0.12%) ArcGIS
13 5 (0.097%) Headless CMS
13 5 (0.097%) IIS
13 5 (0.097%) SAP EP
14 4 (0.078%) Camunda
14 4 (0.078%) JBoss
14 4 (0.078%) nginx
Applications
1 20 (0.39%) MS Visio
2 14 (0.27%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 11 (0.21%) Microsoft Excel
4 9 (0.17%) Microsoft Office
4 9 (0.17%) Revit
5 8 (0.16%) Chatbot
6 7 (0.14%) Navisworks
7 6 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.039%) AutoCAD
8 2 (0.039%) Windchill
9 1 (0.019%) Gliffy
9 1 (0.019%) Notion
9 1 (0.019%) PlantUML
Business Applications
1 131 (2.54%) SAP S/4HANA
2 40 (0.78%) Dynamics CRM
3 32 (0.62%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 16 (0.31%) Teamcenter
5 15 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
6 14 (0.27%) Remedy ITSM
7 13 (0.25%) NetSuite
7 13 (0.25%) SAP ERP
8 12 (0.23%) Oracle Payables
8 12 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
8 12 (0.23%) Payment Gateway
9 11 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
10 9 (0.17%) SAP MDG
11 8 (0.16%) SAP BRIM
11 8 (0.16%) Workday HCM
12 7 (0.14%) Maximo
12 7 (0.14%) Oracle Retail
12 7 (0.14%) SAP IBP
13 5 (0.097%) SAP CRM
13 5 (0.097%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 1,334 (25.91%) Azure
2 1,022 (19.85%) AWS
3 403 (7.83%) GCP
4 275 (5.34%) Power Platform
5 197 (3.83%) SaaS
6 191 (3.71%) Entra ID
7 159 (3.09%) Serverless
8 139 (2.70%) Dynamics 365
9 125 (2.43%) GitHub
10 116 (2.25%) Azure DevOps
11 114 (2.21%) Microsoft 365
12 109 (2.12%) Snowflake
13 82 (1.59%) PaaS
14 66 (1.28%) AWS Lambda
15 64 (1.24%) Amazon S3
16 63 (1.22%) OCI
17 59 (1.15%) GitHub Actions
18 58 (1.13%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 55 (1.07%) IaaS
20 54 (1.05%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 130 (2.53%) Network Security
2 124 (2.41%) Firewall
3 92 (1.79%) WAN
4 72 (1.40%) DNS
5 63 (1.22%) LAN
6 55 (1.07%) VPN
7 44 (0.85%) SD-WAN
8 43 (0.84%) BGP
9 38 (0.74%) MPLS
10 37 (0.72%) DHCP
11 36 (0.70%) TCP/IP
12 28 (0.54%) VLAN
13 26 (0.51%) VXLAN
14 24 (0.47%) NX-OS
14 24 (0.47%) SAN
15 20 (0.39%) Wireless
16 19 (0.37%) BIG-IP
16 19 (0.37%) NAS
17 17 (0.33%) Ethernet VPN
17 17 (0.33%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 196 (3.81%) Metadata
2 176 (3.42%) Data Lake
2 176 (3.42%) Power BI
3 155 (3.01%) Data Warehouse
4 54 (1.05%) NoSQL
5 48 (0.93%) SQL Server
6 43 (0.84%) BigQuery
7 37 (0.72%) Delta Lake
8 36 (0.70%) Amazon RDS
9 34 (0.66%) Amazon Redshift
9 34 (0.66%) PostgreSQL
10 33 (0.64%) Azure SQL Database
10 33 (0.64%) Big Data
11 29 (0.56%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
11 29 (0.56%) Oracle Database
12 25 (0.49%) Semantic Layer
13 22 (0.43%) GIS
13 22 (0.43%) Tableau
14 21 (0.41%) Star Schema
15 19 (0.37%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 74 (1.44%) JIRA
2 64 (1.24%) Git
3 53 (1.03%) Jenkins
4 43 (0.84%) GitLab
5 14 (0.27%) ERwin
6 12 (0.23%) Claude Code
7 9 (0.17%) Cypress.io
7 9 (0.17%) MSI
7 9 (0.17%) Oracle Forms
7 9 (0.17%) RStudio
8 7 (0.14%) Postman
8 7 (0.14%) SonarQube
9 6 (0.12%) Rational DOORS
9 6 (0.12%) Storybook
10 5 (0.097%) Artifactory
10 5 (0.097%) ER Studio
10 5 (0.097%) MLflow
10 5 (0.097%) Selenium
11 4 (0.078%) Maven
11 4 (0.078%) PowerDesigner
General
1 1,069 (20.77%) Social Skills
2 762 (14.80%) Finance
3 557 (10.82%) Public Sector
4 283 (5.50%) Banking
5 264 (5.13%) Retail
6 256 (4.97%) Analytical Skills
7 155 (3.01%) Influencing Skills
8 124 (2.41%) Manufacturing
9 122 (2.37%) Documentation Skills
10 119 (2.31%) Telecoms
11 73 (1.42%) Legal
12 68 (1.32%) Marketing
13 61 (1.18%) Billing
14 59 (1.15%) Aerospace
15 53 (1.03%) Military
16 50 (0.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 35 (0.68%) Law
18 34 (0.66%) Presentation Skills
19 27 (0.52%) Aviation
19 27 (0.52%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 261 (5.07%) REST
2 218 (4.23%) Terraform
3 137 (2.66%) Middleware
4 128 (2.49%) Kafka
5 127 (2.47%) SOAP
6 116 (2.25%) .NET
7 103 (2.00%) OAuth
8 69 (1.34%) Oracle Fusion
9 63 (1.22%) JSON
10 56 (1.09%) OpenID
10 56 (1.09%) SAML
11 52 (1.01%) LDAP
12 50 (0.97%) OAuth2
13 45 (0.87%) PySpark
14 42 (0.82%) XML
15 40 (0.78%) .NET Framework
16 37 (0.72%) React
16 37 (0.72%) SailPoint
17 34 (0.66%) JWT
17 34 (0.66%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 426 (8.28%) Cloud Native
2 160 (3.11%) Onboarding
3 157 (3.05%) Data Centre
4 128 (2.49%) Product Ownership
5 123 (2.39%) Distributed Systems
6 121 (2.35%) Hybrid Cloud
7 120 (2.33%) Legacy Systems
8 119 (2.31%) AI Agents
9 117 (2.27%) Enterprise Software
10 109 (2.12%) Management Information System
11 97 (1.88%) CMDB
12 85 (1.65%) Data Protection Act
13 77 (1.50%) Operational Technology
14 72 (1.40%) Enterprise Cloud
15 69 (1.34%) Public Cloud
16 58 (1.13%) Security Posture
17 57 (1.11%) Private Cloud
18 56 (1.09%) Data Structures
19 41 (0.80%) Mainframe
20 40 (0.78%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 106 (2.06%) Windows
2 87 (1.69%) Linux
3 42 (0.82%) Windows Server
4 21 (0.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 21 (0.41%) Unix
5 9 (0.17%) AIX
6 8 (0.16%) Apple iOS
6 8 (0.16%) Ubuntu
7 7 (0.14%) Android
8 6 (0.12%) zOS
9 5 (0.097%) Solaris
10 4 (0.078%) Alpine Linux
10 4 (0.078%) Data ONTAP
11 3 (0.058%) CentOS
11 3 (0.058%) VMS
12 2 (0.039%) HPUX
12 2 (0.039%) Mac OS
12 2 (0.039%) OpenWrt
12 2 (0.039%) Windows 10
13 1 (0.019%) CatOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 952 (18.49%) Stakeholder Management
2 837 (16.26%) Roadmaps
3 753 (14.63%) Migration
4 688 (13.36%) Enterprise Architecture
5 684 (13.29%) AI
6 652 (12.67%) Technical Leadership
7 570 (11.07%) DevOps
8 553 (10.74%) Agile
9 538 (10.45%) CI/CD
10 532 (10.33%) Data Modelling
11 523 (10.16%) Data Architecture
12 513 (9.97%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 470 (9.13%) Integration Patterns
14 453 (8.80%) Analytics
15 424 (8.24%) TOGAF
16 415 (8.06%) Security Architecture
17 399 (7.75%) Architectural Patterns
18 342 (6.64%) Architecture Governance
19 337 (6.55%) Cybersecurity
20 331 (6.43%) Event-Driven
Programming Languages
1 229 (4.45%) Python
2 223 (4.33%) SQL
3 203 (3.94%) Java
4 113 (2.20%) JavaScript
5 90 (1.75%) PowerShell
6 51 (0.99%) TypeScript
7 50 (0.97%) C#
8 40 (0.78%) Bash
9 35 (0.68%) Bicep
10 30 (0.58%) Apex Code
11 21 (0.41%) ABAP
12 15 (0.29%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 15 (0.29%) Shell Script
13 11 (0.21%) Groovy
14 10 (0.19%) C++
14 10 (0.19%) R
15 8 (0.16%) PL/SQL
15 8 (0.16%) Ruby
16 7 (0.14%) BeanShell
16 7 (0.14%) Scala
Qualifications
1 1,607 (31.22%) Security Cleared
2 1,167 (22.67%) SC Cleared
3 368 (7.15%) DV Cleared
4 159 (3.09%) Degree
5 140 (2.72%) CISSP
6 107 (2.08%) Azure Certification
7 104 (2.02%) BPSS Clearance
8 97 (1.88%) AWS Certification
9 92 (1.79%) Cisco Certification
10 87 (1.69%) TOGAF Certification
11 63 (1.22%) CISM
12 60 (1.17%) Computer Science Degree
13 45 (0.87%) Microsoft Certification
14 40 (0.78%) CCNP
15 37 (0.72%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 36 (0.70%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 26 (0.51%) CCSP
18 24 (0.47%) Master's Degree
19 20 (0.39%) CCIE
20 19 (0.37%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 215 (4.18%) Data Quality
2 195 (3.79%) NIST
3 163 (3.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 133 (2.58%) GDPR
5 100 (1.94%) NCSC
6 71 (1.38%) GRC
7 56 (1.09%) QA
8 39 (0.76%) Accessibility
9 33 (0.64%) PCI DSS
10 32 (0.62%) NIST 800
11 29 (0.56%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 22 (0.43%) SLA
13 20 (0.39%) SEPA
14 19 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 20000
14 19 (0.37%) JSP 440
15 18 (0.35%) Cyber Essentials
15 18 (0.35%) IFRS
15 18 (0.35%) ISO 20022
16 15 (0.29%) ISO 19650
17 13 (0.25%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 171 (3.32%) Active Directory
2 87 (1.69%) Docker
3 63 (1.22%) VMware Infrastructure
4 40 (0.78%) VMware NSX
5 26 (0.51%) Virtual Desktop
6 17 (0.33%) vSphere
7 16 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
7 16 (0.31%) 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%) vCloud
Systems Management
1 241 (4.68%) Kubernetes
2 93 (1.81%) Ansible
3 43 (0.84%) Single Sign-On
4 41 (0.80%) Grafana
5 31 (0.60%) 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 10 (0.19%) WMI
10 9 (0.17%) CASB
10 9 (0.17%) FortiGate
10 9 (0.17%) vCenter Server
11 7 (0.14%) Puppet
12 6 (0.12%) Istio
12 6 (0.12%) NetBackup
12 6 (0.12%) Progress Chef
12 6 (0.12%) SCCM
13 5 (0.097%) EMC VPLEX
14 4 (0.078%) SnapMirror
Vendors
1 728 (14.14%) Microsoft
2 287 (5.57%) SAP
3 268 (5.21%) Oracle
4 266 (5.17%) ServiceNow
5 256 (4.97%) Databricks
6 177 (3.44%) Salesforce
7 172 (3.34%) Google
8 134 (2.60%) Cisco
9 119 (2.31%) VMware
10 87 (1.69%) CyberArk
11 65 (1.26%) MuleSoft
12 58 (1.13%) IBM
13 56 (1.09%) Workday
14 47 (0.91%) Foundry
15 45 (0.87%) Palo Alto
16 36 (0.70%) Splunk
17 35 (0.68%) F5
18 34 (0.66%) Informatica
18 34 (0.66%) OpenAI
18 34 (0.66%) Sparx