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 4 September 2026.

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

6 months to
4 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 18 15
Rank change year-on-year +8 -3 +1
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,033 2,487 3,275
As % of all contract jobs in England 11.03% 9.14% 10.06%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.94% 9.99% 10.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,381 1,639 2,098
10th Percentile £475 £463 £481
25th Percentile £525 £528 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £623 £650
Median % change year-on-year -0.40% -4.23% -
75th Percentile £713 £706 £738
90th Percentile £788 £787 £823
UK median daily rate £615 £625 £638
% change year-on-year -1.60% -1.96% -1.92%
Number of hourly rates quoted 158 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% -0.12%
75th Percentile £73.25 £87.00 £85.00
90th Percentile £95.30 £100.00 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £66.66 £72.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -8.06% +3.57% -0.12%

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 42,168 24,883 30,334
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.41% 91.42% 93.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,332 16,051 19,383
10th Percentile £325 £281 £304
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £506 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.75% -3.62% -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% -1.69%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,270 1,335 1,579
10th Percentile £15.05 £13.52 £14.28
25th Percentile £21.14 £17.30 £21.23
Median hourly rate £42.58 £25.15 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +69.28% -45.54% +5.29%
75th Percentile £68.00 £55.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £79.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.13 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +67.50% -41.51% +1.18%

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 4 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 4 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 4 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 +6 2,580 £625 -2.84% 2,018
South East +1 720 £625 +4.17% 403
North of England +5 705 £600 - 383
Midlands +2 421 £626 +9.11% 179
North West +7 413 £600 +4.35% 239
South West +2 324 £648 +0.78% 210
West Midlands +3 313 £650 +9.38% 118
Yorkshire +10 231 £588 -2.08% 111
East of England +14 152 £611 +10.52% 125
East Midlands +3 103 £600 +16.50% 61
North East -2 62 £588 -17.54% 33
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 4 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 1,541 (30.62%) Security Cleared
2 1,307 (25.97%) Azure
3 1,121 (22.27%) SC Cleared
4 1,028 (20.43%) AWS
5 842 (16.73%) Stakeholder Management
6 787 (15.64%) Roadmaps
7 730 (14.50%) Migration
8 705 (14.01%) Microsoft
9 668 (13.27%) AI
10 657 (13.05%) Enterprise Architecture
11 600 (11.92%) Technical Leadership
12 552 (10.97%) Agile
13 551 (10.95%) DevOps
14 536 (10.65%) Data Modelling
15 524 (10.41%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 520 (10.33%) CI/CD
17 506 (10.05%) Data Architecture
18 471 (9.36%) Integration Patterns
19 439 (8.72%) Analytics
20 405 (8.05%) Security Architecture
21 404 (8.03%) Architectural Patterns
22 401 (7.97%) TOGAF
23 399 (7.93%) GCP
24 332 (6.60%) DV Cleared
25 330 (6.56%) Cybersecurity
26 324 (6.44%) Event-Driven
27 323 (6.42%) Data Governance
28 317 (6.30%) Architecture Governance
29 306 (6.08%) Microservices
29 306 (6.08%) Problem-Solving

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 65 (1.29%) SharePoint
3 48 (0.95%) Confluence
4 43 (0.85%) Apache
5 38 (0.76%) Apache Spark
6 30 (0.60%) Apache Airflow
7 29 (0.58%) Microsoft Exchange
8 22 (0.44%) CMS
8 22 (0.44%) Palantir Foundry
9 14 (0.28%) 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%) Headless CMS
13 4 (0.079%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 4 (0.079%) Jupyter
14 3 (0.060%) Drupal
14 3 (0.060%) NetWeaver
14 3 (0.060%) nginx
Applications
1 15 (0.30%) MS Visio
2 13 (0.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 11 (0.22%) 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 (0.70%) Dynamics CRM
3 33 (0.66%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 17 (0.34%) Teamcenter
5 15 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
6 14 (0.28%) Payment Gateway
6 14 (0.28%) Remedy ITSM
7 13 (0.26%) Oracle ERP
8 12 (0.24%) NetSuite
8 12 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
8 12 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
9 11 (0.22%) SAP ERP
10 8 (0.16%) Oracle Retail
10 8 (0.16%) SAP BRIM
10 8 (0.16%) SAP MDG
10 8 (0.16%) Workday HCM
11 7 (0.14%) SAP IBP
12 6 (0.12%) Maximo
13 5 (0.099%) SAP MM
13 5 (0.099%) SAP Oil and Gas
Cloud Services
1 1,307 (25.97%) Azure
2 1,028 (20.43%) AWS
3 399 (7.93%) GCP
4 270 (5.36%) Power Platform
5 190 (3.78%) SaaS
6 189 (3.76%) Entra ID
7 168 (3.34%) Serverless
8 137 (2.72%) Dynamics 365
9 125 (2.48%) GitHub
10 114 (2.27%) Azure DevOps
11 109 (2.17%) Microsoft 365
12 103 (2.05%) Snowflake
13 84 (1.67%) PaaS
14 72 (1.43%) AWS Lambda
15 69 (1.37%) Amazon S3
16 58 (1.15%) GitHub Actions
16 58 (1.15%) OCI
17 57 (1.13%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 54 (1.07%) Azure Data Factory
18 54 (1.07%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 140 (2.78%) Network Security
2 135 (2.68%) Firewall
3 98 (1.95%) WAN
4 75 (1.49%) DNS
5 68 (1.35%) LAN
6 63 (1.25%) VPN
7 47 (0.93%) SD-WAN
8 44 (0.87%) BGP
9 39 (0.77%) DHCP
10 37 (0.74%) TCP/IP
11 33 (0.66%) MPLS
12 29 (0.58%) VLAN
13 27 (0.54%) SAN
14 25 (0.50%) VXLAN
15 22 (0.44%) NAS
16 21 (0.42%) Wireless
17 20 (0.40%) NX-OS
17 20 (0.40%) OSPF
18 18 (0.36%) BIG-IP
18 18 (0.36%) Radio Access Network
Database & Business Intelligence
1 182 (3.62%) Power BI
2 181 (3.60%) Metadata
3 167 (3.32%) Data Lake
4 144 (2.86%) Data Warehouse
5 61 (1.21%) NoSQL
6 49 (0.97%) SQL Server
7 39 (0.77%) Delta Lake
8 38 (0.76%) Big Data
8 38 (0.76%) BigQuery
9 35 (0.70%) PostgreSQL
10 34 (0.68%) Azure SQL Database
11 33 (0.66%) Amazon RDS
12 32 (0.64%) Oracle Database
13 31 (0.62%) Amazon Redshift
14 26 (0.52%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
15 24 (0.48%) Semantic Layer
16 22 (0.44%) GIS
16 22 (0.44%) Tableau
17 21 (0.42%) MongoDB
18 18 (0.36%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 71 (1.41%) JIRA
2 66 (1.31%) Git
3 48 (0.95%) Jenkins
4 34 (0.68%) GitLab
5 16 (0.32%) ERwin
6 10 (0.20%) Claude Code
7 9 (0.18%) Cypress.io
7 9 (0.18%) Oracle Forms
8 8 (0.16%) MSI
8 8 (0.16%) RStudio
9 7 (0.14%) SonarQube
10 6 (0.12%) Artifactory
10 6 (0.12%) MLflow
10 6 (0.12%) Storybook
11 5 (0.099%) ER Studio
11 5 (0.099%) Maven
12 4 (0.079%) PowerDesigner
12 4 (0.079%) Rational DOORS
12 4 (0.079%) Selenium
13 3 (0.060%) Hudson
General
1 1,023 (20.33%) Social Skills
2 745 (14.80%) Finance
3 544 (10.81%) Public Sector
4 281 (5.58%) Banking
5 266 (5.29%) Analytical Skills
6 251 (4.99%) Retail
7 148 (2.94%) Influencing Skills
8 128 (2.54%) Documentation Skills
9 119 (2.36%) Telecoms
10 112 (2.23%) Manufacturing
11 78 (1.55%) Legal
12 63 (1.25%) Marketing
13 60 (1.19%) Billing
14 50 (0.99%) Military
15 49 (0.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 45 (0.89%) Law
17 44 (0.87%) Aerospace
18 31 (0.62%) Presentation Skills
19 27 (0.54%) Local Government
20 26 (0.52%) Aviation
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 257 (5.11%) REST
2 208 (4.13%) Terraform
3 136 (2.70%) Middleware
4 122 (2.42%) SOAP
5 116 (2.30%) .NET
6 110 (2.19%) Kafka
7 102 (2.03%) OAuth
8 66 (1.31%) Oracle Fusion
9 60 (1.19%) JSON
10 57 (1.13%) OpenID
11 56 (1.11%) SAML
12 48 (0.95%) OAuth2
13 43 (0.85%) LDAP
13 43 (0.85%) PySpark
14 40 (0.79%) XML
15 37 (0.74%) .NET Framework
15 37 (0.74%) React
15 37 (0.74%) RESTful
16 36 (0.72%) SailPoint
17 31 (0.62%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 434 (8.62%) Cloud Native
2 153 (3.04%) Data Centre
3 142 (2.82%) Onboarding
4 124 (2.46%) Hybrid Cloud
5 120 (2.38%) Product Ownership
6 118 (2.34%) Distributed Systems
7 117 (2.32%) Enterprise Software
8 116 (2.30%) AI Agents
9 115 (2.28%) Legacy Systems
10 109 (2.17%) Management Information System
11 89 (1.77%) CMDB
12 84 (1.67%) Data Protection Act
13 78 (1.55%) Operational Technology
14 70 (1.39%) Enterprise Cloud
15 62 (1.23%) Public Cloud
16 60 (1.19%) Security Posture
17 51 (1.01%) Data Structures
18 49 (0.97%) Private Cloud
19 42 (0.83%) Mainframe
20 40 (0.79%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 99 (1.97%) Windows
2 86 (1.71%) Linux
3 37 (0.74%) Windows Server
4 21 (0.42%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 21 (0.42%) 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
1 842 (16.73%) Stakeholder Management
2 787 (15.64%) Roadmaps
3 730 (14.50%) Migration
4 668 (13.27%) AI
5 657 (13.05%) Enterprise Architecture
6 600 (11.92%) Technical Leadership
7 552 (10.97%) Agile
8 551 (10.95%) DevOps
9 536 (10.65%) Data Modelling
10 524 (10.41%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 520 (10.33%) CI/CD
12 506 (10.05%) Data Architecture
13 471 (9.36%) Integration Patterns
14 439 (8.72%) Analytics
15 405 (8.05%) Security Architecture
16 404 (8.03%) Architectural Patterns
17 401 (7.97%) TOGAF
18 330 (6.56%) Cybersecurity
19 324 (6.44%) Event-Driven
20 323 (6.42%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 240 (4.77%) Python
2 229 (4.55%) SQL
3 203 (4.03%) Java
4 113 (2.25%) JavaScript
5 88 (1.75%) PowerShell
6 49 (0.97%) C#
7 47 (0.93%) TypeScript
8 44 (0.87%) Bash
9 37 (0.74%) Bicep
10 31 (0.62%) Apex Code
11 15 (0.30%) ABAP
11 15 (0.30%) Shell Script
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%) PL/SQL
17 7 (0.14%) BeanShell
Qualifications
1 1,541 (30.62%) Security Cleared
2 1,121 (22.27%) SC Cleared
3 332 (6.60%) DV Cleared
4 154 (3.06%) Degree
5 135 (2.68%) CISSP
6 103 (2.05%) Azure Certification
7 97 (1.93%) AWS Certification
8 88 (1.75%) BPSS Clearance
9 86 (1.71%) Cisco Certification
10 81 (1.61%) TOGAF Certification
11 63 (1.25%) CISM
12 60 (1.19%) Computer Science Degree
13 44 (0.87%) Microsoft Certification
14 39 (0.77%) CCNP
15 33 (0.66%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 33 (0.66%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 23 (0.46%) Master's Degree
17 22 (0.44%) CCSP
18 18 (0.36%) CCIE
18 18 (0.36%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 202 (4.01%) Data Quality
2 197 (3.91%) NIST
3 151 (3.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 141 (2.80%) GDPR
5 95 (1.89%) NCSC
6 67 (1.33%) GRC
7 52 (1.03%) QA
8 37 (0.74%) Accessibility
9 33 (0.66%) PCI DSS
10 31 (0.62%) NIST 800
11 29 (0.58%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 23 (0.46%) SLA
13 20 (0.40%) SEPA
14 18 (0.36%) Cyber Essentials
14 18 (0.36%) IFRS
15 17 (0.34%) ISO 20022
15 17 (0.34%) ISO/IEC 20000
15 17 (0.34%) JSP 440
16 13 (0.26%) Government Security Classifications
16 13 (0.26%) HL7
System Software
1 155 (3.08%) Active Directory
2 89 (1.77%) 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 16 (0.32%) vSphere
8 15 (0.30%) Hyper-V
9 14 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
10 6 (0.12%) NFS
11 4 (0.079%) EMC RecoverPoint
11 4 (0.079%) KVM
11 4 (0.079%) Postfix
11 4 (0.079%) Varnish
11 4 (0.079%) vCloud
12 3 (0.060%) Ceph
12 3 (0.060%) Sendmail
12 3 (0.060%) SRDF
13 2 (0.040%) IAG
13 2 (0.040%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 235 (4.67%) Kubernetes
2 87 (1.73%) Ansible
3 42 (0.83%) Single Sign-On
4 40 (0.79%) Grafana
5 31 (0.62%) Prometheus
6 24 (0.48%) Microsoft Intune
7 15 (0.30%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 15 (0.30%) Argo
8 14 (0.28%) Jamf Pro
9 12 (0.24%) vCenter Server
10 9 (0.18%) WMI
11 8 (0.16%) FortiGate
12 7 (0.14%) CASB
13 6 (0.12%) Istio
13 6 (0.12%) NetBackup
13 6 (0.12%) SCCM
14 5 (0.099%) EMC VPLEX
15 4 (0.079%) HAProxy
15 4 (0.079%) QRadar
15 4 (0.079%) SnapMirror
Vendors
1 705 (14.01%) Microsoft
2 288 (5.72%) SAP
3 269 (5.34%) Oracle
4 254 (5.05%) ServiceNow
5 252 (5.01%) Databricks
6 165 (3.28%) Salesforce
7 157 (3.12%) Google
8 133 (2.64%) Cisco
9 111 (2.21%) VMware
10 71 (1.41%) CyberArk
11 57 (1.13%) IBM
11 57 (1.13%) MuleSoft
12 54 (1.07%) Workday
13 50 (0.99%) Palo Alto
14 48 (0.95%) Foundry
15 35 (0.70%) Sparx
16 34 (0.68%) Adobe
16 34 (0.68%) OpenAI
17 33 (0.66%) Ariba
17 33 (0.66%) Informatica