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 24 September 2026.

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

6 months to
24 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 19 14
Rank change year-on-year +8 -5 +2
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,142 2,492 3,210
As % of all contract jobs in England 11.04% 8.96% 9.86%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.97% 9.81% 10.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,447 1,655 1,978
10th Percentile £481 £463 £475
25th Percentile £525 £525 £538
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £625
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% - -3.85%
75th Percentile £706 £713 £738
90th Percentile £788 £787 £813
UK median daily rate £617 £625 £625
% change year-on-year -1.30% - -3.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 173 14 66
10th Percentile £46.00 £32.76 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.56 £61.56
Median hourly rate £68.17 £71.25 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -4.33% +1.79% -0.25%
75th Percentile £78.75 £85.63 £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% -0.25%

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 42,964 25,407 30,277
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.24% 91.30% 92.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,510 16,379 18,703
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% -4.11%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £738 £735 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,556 1,389 1,420
10th Percentile £14.82 £13.75 £14.84
25th Percentile £20.75 £17.44 £21.37
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -45.54% +2.62%
75th Percentile £68.00 £53.75 £67.50
90th Percentile £79.50 £70.16 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +67.00% -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 24 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 24 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 24 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 2,647 £625 -2.34% 2,690
South East +1 728 £625 +4.17% 586
North of England +4 686 £595 -0.83% 518
Midlands +3 438 £626 +8.91% 296
North West +8 377 £599 +4.16% 290
South West +4 344 £638 -1.92% 238
West Midlands +3 327 £650 +8.33% 226
Yorkshire +13 246 £557 -9.06% 172
East of England +8 163 £619 +11.55% 151
East Midlands +2 106 £600 +19.40% 70
North East -4 62 £600 -17.24% 56
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 24 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 1,603 (31.17%) Security Cleared
2 1,342 (26.10%) Azure
3 1,168 (22.71%) SC Cleared
4 1,026 (19.95%) AWS
5 961 (18.69%) Stakeholder Management
6 840 (16.34%) Roadmaps
7 756 (14.70%) Migration
8 721 (14.02%) Microsoft
9 686 (13.34%) Enterprise Architecture
10 685 (13.32%) AI
11 663 (12.89%) Technical Leadership
12 575 (11.18%) DevOps
13 551 (10.72%) Agile
14 540 (10.50%) CI/CD
15 536 (10.42%) Data Architecture
16 535 (10.40%) Data Modelling
17 512 (9.96%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 473 (9.20%) Integration Patterns
19 454 (8.83%) Analytics
20 412 (8.01%) TOGAF
21 410 (7.97%) GCP
22 409 (7.95%) Security Architecture
23 402 (7.82%) Architectural Patterns
24 364 (7.08%) DV Cleared
25 344 (6.69%) Architecture Governance
26 342 (6.65%) Cybersecurity
27 341 (6.63%) Event-Driven
28 330 (6.42%) Data Governance
29 322 (6.26%) Decision-Making
29 322 (6.26%) 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 75 (1.46%) SAS
2 63 (1.23%) SharePoint
3 49 (0.95%) Confluence
4 43 (0.84%) Apache
5 38 (0.74%) Apache Spark
6 34 (0.66%) Apache Airflow
7 29 (0.56%) 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 (0.097%) 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 (0.21%) Microsoft Excel
4 9 (0.18%) Microsoft Office
4 9 (0.18%) 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%) Gliffy
8 2 (0.039%) Windchill
9 1 (0.019%) Notion
9 1 (0.019%) PlantUML
Business Applications
1 138 (2.68%) 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 13 (0.25%) NetSuite
6 13 (0.25%) Remedy ITSM
7 12 (0.23%) Oracle Payables
7 12 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
8 11 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
8 11 (0.21%) Payment Gateway
8 11 (0.21%) 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 IBP
12 5 (0.097%) SAP CRM
12 5 (0.097%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 1,342 (26.10%) Azure
2 1,026 (19.95%) AWS
3 410 (7.97%) GCP
4 267 (5.19%) Power Platform
5 194 (3.77%) SaaS
6 188 (3.66%) Entra ID
7 156 (3.03%) Serverless
8 128 (2.49%) Dynamics 365
9 125 (2.43%) GitHub
10 115 (2.24%) Snowflake
11 113 (2.20%) Azure DevOps
12 112 (2.18%) Microsoft 365
13 80 (1.56%) PaaS
14 64 (1.24%) AWS Lambda
15 63 (1.23%) Amazon S3
15 63 (1.23%) OCI
16 58 (1.13%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 58 (1.13%) GitHub Actions
17 54 (1.05%) dbt
17 54 (1.05%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 129 (2.51%) Network Security
2 123 (2.39%) Firewall
3 93 (1.81%) WAN
4 69 (1.34%) DNS
5 59 (1.15%) LAN
6 55 (1.07%) VPN
7 46 (0.89%) BGP
7 46 (0.89%) SD-WAN
8 37 (0.72%) DHCP
8 37 (0.72%) MPLS
9 34 (0.66%) TCP/IP
10 29 (0.56%) VLAN
11 27 (0.53%) VXLAN
12 25 (0.49%) NX-OS
12 25 (0.49%) SAN
13 21 (0.41%) Wireless
14 20 (0.39%) NAS
15 19 (0.37%) BIG-IP
16 18 (0.35%) Ethernet VPN
16 18 (0.35%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 204 (3.97%) Metadata
2 175 (3.40%) Data Lake
3 169 (3.29%) Power BI
4 162 (3.15%) Data Warehouse
5 54 (1.05%) NoSQL
6 47 (0.91%) SQL Server
7 44 (0.86%) BigQuery
8 36 (0.70%) Amazon RDS
8 36 (0.70%) Delta Lake
9 35 (0.68%) PostgreSQL
10 33 (0.64%) Amazon Redshift
10 33 (0.64%) Azure SQL Database
11 32 (0.62%) Big Data
12 30 (0.58%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
13 29 (0.56%) Oracle Database
14 26 (0.51%) Semantic Layer
15 23 (0.45%) Tableau
16 22 (0.43%) GIS
17 21 (0.41%) Star Schema
18 20 (0.39%) Data Vault
Development Applications
1 74 (1.44%) JIRA
2 63 (1.23%) Git
3 52 (1.01%) Jenkins
4 46 (0.89%) GitLab
5 13 (0.25%) ERwin
6 11 (0.21%) Claude Code
7 10 (0.19%) MSI
7 10 (0.19%) RStudio
8 9 (0.18%) Cypress.io
8 9 (0.18%) Oracle Forms
9 7 (0.14%) Postman
10 6 (0.12%) SonarQube
10 6 (0.12%) Storybook
11 5 (0.097%) ER Studio
11 5 (0.097%) MLflow
11 5 (0.097%) Rational DOORS
11 5 (0.097%) Selenium
12 4 (0.078%) Artifactory
12 4 (0.078%) Maven
13 3 (0.058%) JMeter
General
1 1,074 (20.89%) Social Skills
2 742 (14.43%) Finance
3 558 (10.85%) Public Sector
4 278 (5.41%) Banking
5 268 (5.21%) Retail
6 255 (4.96%) Analytical Skills
7 157 (3.05%) Influencing Skills
8 127 (2.47%) Manufacturing
9 120 (2.33%) Documentation Skills
10 119 (2.31%) Telecoms
11 70 (1.36%) Legal
11 70 (1.36%) Marketing
12 61 (1.19%) Aerospace
12 61 (1.19%) Billing
13 52 (1.01%) Military
14 51 (0.99%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 37 (0.72%) Presentation Skills
16 28 (0.54%) Aviation
16 28 (0.54%) Law
17 26 (0.51%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 263 (5.11%) REST
2 222 (4.32%) Terraform
3 132 (2.57%) Kafka
4 131 (2.55%) Middleware
5 127 (2.47%) SOAP
6 115 (2.24%) .NET
7 100 (1.94%) OAuth
8 71 (1.38%) Oracle Fusion
9 61 (1.19%) JSON
10 55 (1.07%) SAML
11 53 (1.03%) OpenID
12 50 (0.97%) LDAP
13 49 (0.95%) OAuth2
14 44 (0.86%) PySpark
15 41 (0.80%) XML
16 40 (0.78%) .NET Framework
17 36 (0.70%) React
18 35 (0.68%) RESTful
18 35 (0.68%) SailPoint
19 33 (0.64%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 423 (8.23%) Cloud Native
2 163 (3.17%) Onboarding
3 159 (3.09%) Data Centre
4 131 (2.55%) Product Ownership
5 123 (2.39%) Hybrid Cloud
6 122 (2.37%) Distributed Systems
7 118 (2.29%) Legacy Systems
8 116 (2.26%) AI Agents
8 116 (2.26%) Enterprise Software
9 107 (2.08%) Management Information System
10 100 (1.94%) CMDB
11 83 (1.61%) Data Protection Act
12 76 (1.48%) Operational Technology
13 73 (1.42%) Enterprise Cloud
14 71 (1.38%) Public Cloud
15 61 (1.19%) Private Cloud
16 58 (1.13%) Data Structures
17 54 (1.05%) Security Posture
18 43 (0.84%) Taxonomies
19 41 (0.80%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 107 (2.08%) Windows
2 85 (1.65%) Linux
3 41 (0.80%) Windows Server
4 21 (0.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 21 (0.41%) Unix
5 9 (0.18%) AIX
6 8 (0.16%) Ubuntu
7 7 (0.14%) Apple iOS
8 6 (0.12%) 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
1 961 (18.69%) Stakeholder Management
2 840 (16.34%) Roadmaps
3 756 (14.70%) Migration
4 686 (13.34%) Enterprise Architecture
5 685 (13.32%) AI
6 663 (12.89%) Technical Leadership
7 575 (11.18%) DevOps
8 551 (10.72%) Agile
9 540 (10.50%) CI/CD
10 536 (10.42%) Data Architecture
11 535 (10.40%) Data Modelling
12 512 (9.96%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 473 (9.20%) Integration Patterns
14 454 (8.83%) Analytics
15 412 (8.01%) TOGAF
16 409 (7.95%) Security Architecture
17 402 (7.82%) Architectural Patterns
18 344 (6.69%) Architecture Governance
19 342 (6.65%) Cybersecurity
20 341 (6.63%) Event-Driven
Programming Languages
1 226 (4.40%) Python
2 222 (4.32%) SQL
3 195 (3.79%) Java
4 112 (2.18%) JavaScript
5 90 (1.75%) PowerShell
6 51 (0.99%) TypeScript
7 50 (0.97%) C#
8 39 (0.76%) Bash
9 36 (0.70%) Bicep
10 29 (0.56%) Apex Code
11 25 (0.49%) ABAP
12 15 (0.29%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 15 (0.29%) Shell Script
13 11 (0.21%) Groovy
14 10 (0.19%) R
15 9 (0.18%) C++
16 8 (0.16%) PL/SQL
17 7 (0.14%) BeanShell
17 7 (0.14%) Ruby
17 7 (0.14%) Scala
Qualifications
1 1,603 (31.17%) Security Cleared
2 1,168 (22.71%) SC Cleared
3 364 (7.08%) DV Cleared
4 157 (3.05%) Degree
5 135 (2.63%) CISSP
6 110 (2.14%) BPSS Clearance
7 107 (2.08%) Azure Certification
8 98 (1.91%) AWS Certification
9 91 (1.77%) Cisco Certification
10 86 (1.67%) TOGAF Certification
11 61 (1.19%) CISM
12 59 (1.15%) Computer Science Degree
13 45 (0.88%) Microsoft Certification
14 41 (0.80%) CCNP
15 36 (0.70%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 35 (0.68%) (ISC)2 CCSP
17 26 (0.51%) CCSP
18 24 (0.47%) Master's Degree
19 21 (0.41%) CCIE
20 19 (0.37%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 219 (4.26%) Data Quality
2 191 (3.71%) NIST
3 158 (3.07%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 131 (2.55%) GDPR
5 103 (2.00%) NCSC
6 71 (1.38%) GRC
7 50 (0.97%) QA
8 39 (0.76%) Accessibility
9 33 (0.64%) PCI DSS
10 32 (0.62%) NIST 800
11 26 (0.51%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 22 (0.43%) SLA
13 20 (0.39%) JSP 440
14 19 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 20000
14 19 (0.37%) SEPA
15 18 (0.35%) IFRS
16 17 (0.33%) ISO 20022
17 16 (0.31%) Cyber Essentials
18 15 (0.29%) ISO 19650
19 13 (0.25%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 173 (3.36%) Active Directory
2 85 (1.65%) Docker
3 65 (1.26%) 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%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 240 (4.67%) Kubernetes
2 95 (1.85%) Ansible
3 41 (0.80%) Single Sign-On
4 39 (0.76%) Grafana
5 30 (0.58%) Prometheus
6 27 (0.53%) Microsoft Intune
7 14 (0.27%) Jamf Pro
8 13 (0.25%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 13 (0.25%) Argo
9 11 (0.21%) WMI
10 10 (0.19%) 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 (0.097%) EMC VPLEX
15 5 (0.097%) Istio
16 4 (0.078%) SnapMirror
Vendors
1 721 (14.02%) Microsoft
2 281 (5.46%) SAP
3 265 (5.15%) ServiceNow
4 264 (5.13%) Oracle
5 257 (5.00%) Databricks
6 177 (3.44%) Salesforce
7 175 (3.40%) Google
8 133 (2.59%) Cisco
9 118 (2.29%) VMware
10 85 (1.65%) CyberArk
11 61 (1.19%) MuleSoft
12 55 (1.07%) IBM
13 53 (1.03%) Workday
14 47 (0.91%) Foundry
15 46 (0.89%) Palo Alto
16 34 (0.66%) F5
16 34 (0.66%) Informatica
16 34 (0.66%) OpenAI
16 34 (0.66%) Sparx
16 34 (0.66%) Splunk