Architect Contract Job Trends in England

Architect
UK > England

The median Architect daily rate in England is £622, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 7 October 2026.

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

6 months to
7 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 19 15
Rank change year-on-year +8 -4 +1
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,087 2,505 3,153
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.93% 8.96% 9.82%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.87% 9.84% 10.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,397 1,675 1,898
10th Percentile £481 £463 £473
25th Percentile £525 £525 £530
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £622 £625 £625
Median % change year-on-year -0.56% - -3.85%
75th Percentile £706 £713 £738
90th Percentile £788 £787 £800
UK median daily rate £620 £625 £625
% change year-on-year -0.80% - -3.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 182 12 62
10th Percentile £40.00 £61.38 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £65.31 £62.50
Median hourly rate £68.33 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -5.75% +3.57% -4.00%
75th Percentile £81.88 £95.00 £85.00
90th Percentile £95.00 £99.50 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £68.50 £72.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -5.52% +3.57% -3.34%

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 42,862 25,455 29,887
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.08% 91.08% 93.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,286 16,391 18,275
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 £725 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,687 1,410 1,320
10th Percentile £14.56 £13.80 £15.00
25th Percentile £20.44 £17.33 £21.34
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.90
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -42.71% -4.32%
75th Percentile £67.87 £52.42 £67.50
90th Percentile £79.00 £70.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £41.71 £25.15 £42.50
% change year-on-year +65.84% -40.82% -4.49%

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 7 October 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 7 October 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 7 October 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 2,615 £625 -3.85% 2,751
South East +1 724 £625 +4.17% 628
North of England +3 667 £600 - 509
Midlands +7 455 £628 +9.26% 284
North West +3 358 £598 +4.00% 267
South West +4 342 £638 -1.92% 227
West Midlands +8 340 £650 +8.33% 211
Yorkshire +11 239 £600 0.00% 176
East of England +9 155 £616 +10.29% 200
East Midlands +5 110 £600 +20.00% 73
North East +4 73 £625 -15.25% 66
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 7 October 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 1,592 (31.30%) Security Cleared
2 1,328 (26.11%) Azure
3 1,165 (22.90%) SC Cleared
4 1,005 (19.76%) Stakeholder Management
5 993 (19.52%) AWS
6 874 (17.18%) Roadmaps
7 762 (14.98%) Migration
8 721 (14.17%) Microsoft
9 694 (13.64%) Enterprise Architecture
10 692 (13.60%) AI
11 647 (12.72%) Technical Leadership
12 566 (11.13%) DevOps
13 538 (10.58%) Data Architecture
14 529 (10.40%) CI/CD
15 521 (10.24%) Data Modelling
16 519 (10.20%) Agile
17 501 (9.85%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 455 (8.94%) Integration Patterns
19 445 (8.75%) Analytics
20 412 (8.10%) Security Architecture
20 412 (8.10%) TOGAF
21 404 (7.94%) GCP
22 385 (7.57%) Architectural Patterns
23 362 (7.12%) DV Cleared
24 359 (7.06%) Architecture Governance
25 347 (6.82%) Event-Driven
26 343 (6.74%) Cybersecurity
27 331 (6.51%) Data Governance
28 325 (6.39%) Decision-Making
29 315 (6.19%) 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 56 (1.10%) SharePoint
3 45 (0.88%) Confluence
4 40 (0.79%) Apache
5 38 (0.75%) Apache Spark
6 35 (0.69%) Apache Airflow
7 30 (0.59%) Microsoft Exchange
8 22 (0.43%) CMS
9 18 (0.35%) Palantir Foundry
10 14 (0.28%) OpenStack
11 7 (0.14%) Documentum
11 7 (0.14%) IIS
11 7 (0.14%) NetWeaver
12 6 (0.12%) ArcGIS
12 6 (0.12%) Headless CMS
13 5 (0.098%) Appian
13 5 (0.098%) SAP EP
14 4 (0.079%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 4 (0.079%) JBoss
15 3 (0.059%) Camunda
Applications
1 22 (0.43%) MS Visio
2 16 (0.31%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 11 (0.22%) Microsoft Excel
4 9 (0.18%) Chatbot
4 9 (0.18%) Microsoft Office
5 8 (0.16%) Revit
6 6 (0.12%) 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
1 156 (3.07%) SAP S/4HANA
2 44 (0.86%) Dynamics CRM
3 30 (0.59%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 17 (0.33%) SAP MM
5 15 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
6 13 (0.26%) NetSuite
6 13 (0.26%) Oracle Payables
6 13 (0.26%) Teamcenter
7 12 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
7 12 (0.24%) Remedy ITSM
8 11 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
9 9 (0.18%) Payment Gateway
9 9 (0.18%) SAP CO
9 9 (0.18%) SAP FI
9 9 (0.18%) SAP FI/CO
9 9 (0.18%) SAP MDG
9 9 (0.18%) Workday HCM
10 8 (0.16%) SAP BRIM
10 8 (0.16%) SAP HCM
11 7 (0.14%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 1,328 (26.11%) Azure
2 993 (19.52%) AWS
3 404 (7.94%) GCP
4 255 (5.01%) Power Platform
5 199 (3.91%) Entra ID
6 198 (3.89%) SaaS
7 148 (2.91%) Serverless
8 131 (2.58%) GitHub
9 122 (2.40%) Azure DevOps
10 117 (2.30%) Microsoft 365
11 115 (2.26%) Dynamics 365
12 105 (2.06%) Snowflake
13 71 (1.40%) PaaS
14 66 (1.30%) OCI
15 60 (1.18%) Amazon S3
16 59 (1.16%) AWS Lambda
17 57 (1.12%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 56 (1.10%) GitHub Actions
19 53 (1.04%) dbt
19 53 (1.04%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 131 (2.58%) Network Security
2 123 (2.42%) Firewall
3 92 (1.81%) WAN
4 63 (1.24%) DNS
5 57 (1.12%) LAN
6 55 (1.08%) VPN
7 45 (0.88%) BGP
7 45 (0.88%) SD-WAN
8 37 (0.73%) MPLS
9 32 (0.63%) DHCP
9 32 (0.63%) TCP/IP
10 27 (0.53%) VXLAN
11 24 (0.47%) VLAN
12 23 (0.45%) NX-OS
13 21 (0.41%) SAN
14 19 (0.37%) Wireless
15 17 (0.33%) Ethernet VPN
15 17 (0.33%) NAS
15 17 (0.33%) NGFW
15 17 (0.33%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 209 (4.11%) Metadata
2 165 (3.24%) Data Lake
3 160 (3.15%) Data Warehouse
4 152 (2.99%) Power BI
5 53 (1.04%) NoSQL
6 46 (0.90%) SQL Server
7 38 (0.75%) Delta Lake
8 36 (0.71%) Amazon RDS
8 36 (0.71%) BigQuery
9 35 (0.69%) Azure SQL Database
9 35 (0.69%) PostgreSQL
10 32 (0.63%) Oracle Database
11 31 (0.61%) Amazon Redshift
12 30 (0.59%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
13 28 (0.55%) Big Data
14 25 (0.49%) Semantic Layer
15 23 (0.45%) GIS
16 21 (0.41%) SAP HANA
16 21 (0.41%) Tableau
17 20 (0.39%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 72 (1.42%) JIRA
2 62 (1.22%) Git
3 53 (1.04%) Jenkins
4 45 (0.88%) 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 (0.079%) Artifactory
12 4 (0.079%) JMeter
12 4 (0.079%) Maven
12 4 (0.079%) MLflow
General
1 1,065 (20.94%) Social Skills
2 748 (14.70%) Finance
3 568 (11.17%) Public Sector
4 277 (5.45%) Banking
5 247 (4.86%) Retail
6 244 (4.80%) Analytical Skills
7 157 (3.09%) Influencing Skills
8 140 (2.75%) Manufacturing
9 129 (2.54%) Telecoms
10 111 (2.18%) Documentation Skills
11 72 (1.42%) Marketing
12 68 (1.34%) Legal
13 64 (1.26%) Aerospace
14 62 (1.22%) Billing
15 50 (0.98%) Military
16 47 (0.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 38 (0.75%) Presentation Skills
18 28 (0.55%) Automotive
18 28 (0.55%) Local Government
18 28 (0.55%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 265 (5.21%) REST
2 216 (4.25%) Terraform
3 134 (2.63%) Kafka
4 126 (2.48%) Middleware
5 123 (2.42%) SOAP
6 107 (2.10%) .NET
7 103 (2.02%) OAuth
8 75 (1.47%) Oracle Fusion
9 55 (1.08%) JSON
9 55 (1.08%) OpenID
9 55 (1.08%) SAML
10 51 (1.00%) LDAP
11 50 (0.98%) OAuth2
12 44 (0.86%) PySpark
13 39 (0.77%) .NET Framework
13 39 (0.77%) XML
14 37 (0.73%) JWT
15 36 (0.71%) SailPoint
16 35 (0.69%) SAP Fiori
17 30 (0.59%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 419 (8.24%) Cloud Native
2 160 (3.15%) Data Centre
3 157 (3.09%) Onboarding
4 128 (2.52%) Legacy Systems
5 125 (2.46%) Enterprise Software
6 124 (2.44%) Product Ownership
7 123 (2.42%) Hybrid Cloud
8 121 (2.38%) Distributed Systems
9 119 (2.34%) AI Agents
10 108 (2.12%) Management Information System
11 95 (1.87%) CMDB
12 82 (1.61%) Operational Technology
13 81 (1.59%) Data Protection Act
14 71 (1.40%) Public Cloud
15 68 (1.34%) Enterprise Cloud
16 65 (1.28%) Private Cloud
17 58 (1.14%) Data Structures
18 53 (1.04%) Security Posture
19 43 (0.85%) PKI
19 43 (0.85%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 107 (2.10%) Windows
2 80 (1.57%) Linux
3 41 (0.81%) Windows Server
4 21 (0.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 18 (0.35%) Unix
6 9 (0.18%) AIX
7 8 (0.16%) Ubuntu
8 6 (0.12%) Apple iOS
8 6 (0.12%) zOS
9 5 (0.098%) Android
9 5 (0.098%) Solaris
10 4 (0.079%) Alpine Linux
10 4 (0.079%) Data ONTAP
10 4 (0.079%) VMS
11 3 (0.059%) CentOS
11 3 (0.059%) Windows 10
12 2 (0.039%) HPUX
12 2 (0.039%) Mac OS
12 2 (0.039%) OpenWrt
13 1 (0.020%) CatOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,005 (19.76%) Stakeholder Management
2 874 (17.18%) Roadmaps
3 762 (14.98%) Migration
4 694 (13.64%) Enterprise Architecture
5 692 (13.60%) AI
6 647 (12.72%) Technical Leadership
7 566 (11.13%) DevOps
8 538 (10.58%) Data Architecture
9 529 (10.40%) CI/CD
10 521 (10.24%) Data Modelling
11 519 (10.20%) Agile
12 501 (9.85%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 455 (8.94%) Integration Patterns
14 445 (8.75%) Analytics
15 412 (8.10%) Security Architecture
15 412 (8.10%) TOGAF
16 385 (7.57%) Architectural Patterns
17 359 (7.06%) Architecture Governance
18 347 (6.82%) Event-Driven
19 343 (6.74%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 218 (4.29%) SQL
2 203 (3.99%) Python
3 186 (3.66%) Java
4 99 (1.95%) JavaScript
5 89 (1.75%) PowerShell
6 50 (0.98%) C#
7 47 (0.92%) TypeScript
8 40 (0.79%) Bicep
9 38 (0.75%) Bash
10 27 (0.53%) ABAP
10 27 (0.53%) Apex Code
11 15 (0.29%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 13 (0.26%) 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%) Go
Qualifications
1 1,592 (31.30%) Security Cleared
2 1,165 (22.90%) SC Cleared
3 362 (7.12%) DV Cleared
4 155 (3.05%) Degree
5 135 (2.65%) CISSP
6 126 (2.48%) BPSS Clearance
7 113 (2.22%) Azure Certification
8 102 (2.01%) AWS Certification
9 89 (1.75%) Cisco Certification
9 89 (1.75%) TOGAF Certification
10 64 (1.26%) CISM
11 61 (1.20%) Computer Science Degree
12 45 (0.88%) Microsoft Certification
13 39 (0.77%) CCNP
14 35 (0.69%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 33 (0.65%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 27 (0.53%) CCSP
17 23 (0.45%) CCIE
17 23 (0.45%) Master's Degree
18 18 (0.35%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 225 (4.42%) Data Quality
2 185 (3.64%) NIST
3 156 (3.07%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 129 (2.54%) GDPR
5 108 (2.12%) NCSC
6 68 (1.34%) GRC
7 46 (0.90%) QA
8 41 (0.81%) Accessibility
9 33 (0.65%) PCI DSS
10 26 (0.51%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 25 (0.49%) NIST 800
12 22 (0.43%) ISO/IEC 20000
12 22 (0.43%) SLA
13 20 (0.39%) JSP 440
14 18 (0.35%) SEPA
15 16 (0.31%) Cyber Essentials
16 15 (0.29%) IFRS
16 15 (0.29%) ISO 19650
16 15 (0.29%) ISO 20022
17 13 (0.26%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 165 (3.24%) Active Directory
2 82 (1.61%) Docker
3 67 (1.32%) VMware Infrastructure
4 34 (0.67%) VMware NSX
5 28 (0.55%) Virtual Desktop
6 16 (0.31%) vSphere
7 15 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
8 13 (0.26%) VMware ESXi
9 11 (0.22%) Hyper-V
10 5 (0.098%) ISA Server
11 4 (0.079%) EMC RecoverPoint
11 4 (0.079%) KVM
12 3 (0.059%) Ceph
12 3 (0.059%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 3 (0.059%) NFS
12 3 (0.059%) SRDF
12 3 (0.059%) Virtual Servers
13 2 (0.039%) IAG
13 2 (0.039%) Microsoft App-V
13 2 (0.039%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 238 (4.68%) Kubernetes
2 88 (1.73%) Ansible
3 43 (0.85%) Grafana
4 39 (0.77%) Single Sign-On
5 29 (0.57%) Microsoft Intune
5 29 (0.57%) Prometheus
6 14 (0.28%) Jamf Pro
7 12 (0.24%) Argo
7 12 (0.24%) WMI
8 11 (0.22%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 11 (0.22%) CASB
8 11 (0.22%) FortiGate
9 7 (0.14%) SCCM
9 7 (0.14%) vCenter Server
10 6 (0.12%) NetBackup
10 6 (0.12%) Progress Chef
10 6 (0.12%) Puppet
11 5 (0.098%) EMC VPLEX
11 5 (0.098%) Istio
12 4 (0.079%) VxRail
Vendors
1 721 (14.17%) Microsoft
2 299 (5.88%) SAP
3 264 (5.19%) Oracle
4 240 (4.72%) Databricks
5 237 (4.66%) ServiceNow
6 182 (3.58%) Google
7 168 (3.30%) Salesforce
8 134 (2.63%) Cisco
9 112 (2.20%) VMware
10 83 (1.63%) CyberArk
11 62 (1.22%) MuleSoft
12 52 (1.02%) IBM
13 51 (1.00%) Workday
14 49 (0.96%) Palo Alto
15 41 (0.81%) Foundry
16 35 (0.69%) Fortinet
17 34 (0.67%) Adobe
17 34 (0.67%) Informatica
18 33 (0.65%) Splunk
19 32 (0.63%) Ariba