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 18 August 2026.

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

6 months to
18 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 5,015 2,572 3,391
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.96% 9.32% 10.23%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.86% 10.17% 11.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,368 1,696 2,251
10th Percentile £479 £470 £485
25th Percentile £525 £538 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -1.89%
75th Percentile £725 £706 £738
90th Percentile £800 £787 £825
UK median daily rate £620 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 162 18 73
10th Percentile £46.00 £36.30 -
25th Percentile £60.00 £62.50 £60.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -
75th Percentile £71.91 £87.00 £85.00
90th Percentile £94.48 £100.00 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -10.34% +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 42,292 25,286 30,796
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.46% 91.58% 92.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,558 16,303 20,188
10th Percentile £325 £281 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £738 £738 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.87%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,206 1,347 1,752
10th Percentile £15.25 £13.50 £14.16
25th Percentile £21.25 £17.48 £21.00
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +8.43%
75th Percentile £68.00 £55.00 £66.08
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.75 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +65.94% -41.51% +3.61%

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 18 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 18 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 18 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 2,555 £625 -3.85% 341
South East +1 738 £625 +4.17% 172
North of England +4 698 £600 - 132
Midlands 0 417 £625 +8.70% 61
North West +5 403 £600 - 68
South West -2 313 £625 -2.34% 85
West Midlands 0 301 £627 +4.42% 45
Yorkshire +4 232 £600 0.00% 45
East of England +13 159 £600 +8.11% 23
East Midlands +4 109 £600 +16.50% 16
North East -4 65 £600 -14.29% 19
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 18 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 1,505 (30.01%) Security Cleared
2 1,287 (25.66%) Azure
3 1,080 (21.54%) SC Cleared
4 1,026 (20.46%) AWS
5 758 (15.11%) Roadmaps
6 737 (14.70%) Stakeholder Management
7 713 (14.22%) Migration
8 685 (13.66%) Microsoft
9 635 (12.66%) AI
10 633 (12.62%) Enterprise Architecture
11 553 (11.03%) Agile
12 548 (10.93%) DevOps
13 539 (10.75%) Technical Leadership
14 522 (10.41%) Data Modelling
15 521 (10.39%) CI/CD
16 510 (10.17%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 492 (9.81%) Data Architecture
18 481 (9.59%) Integration Patterns
19 457 (9.11%) Analytics
20 400 (7.98%) GCP
21 397 (7.92%) TOGAF
22 395 (7.88%) Architectural Patterns
23 372 (7.42%) Security Architecture
24 331 (6.60%) DV Cleared
25 322 (6.42%) Cybersecurity
26 319 (6.36%) Problem-Solving
27 315 (6.28%) Event-Driven
28 308 (6.14%) Infrastructure as Code
28 308 (6.14%) Microservices
29 303 (6.04%) Architectural Design

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 76 (1.52%) SharePoint
2 71 (1.42%) SAS
3 51 (1.02%) Confluence
4 42 (0.84%) Apache
5 40 (0.80%) Apache Spark
6 26 (0.52%) Apache Airflow
6 26 (0.52%) Microsoft Exchange
7 22 (0.44%) Palantir Foundry
8 17 (0.34%) CMS
9 15 (0.30%) OpenStack
10 8 (0.16%) ArcGIS
11 7 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 7 (0.14%) Appian
11 7 (0.14%) Camunda
11 7 (0.14%) Documentum
12 4 (0.080%) Jupyter
12 4 (0.080%) NetWeaver
12 4 (0.080%) nginx
13 3 (0.060%) Drupal
13 3 (0.060%) SAP EP
Applications
1 20 (0.40%) MS Visio
2 12 (0.24%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (0.24%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 8 (0.16%) Chatbot
3 8 (0.16%) Microsoft Office
4 7 (0.14%) Navisworks
4 7 (0.14%) Revit
5 6 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (0.040%) PlantUML
6 2 (0.040%) Windchill
7 1 (0.020%) Gliffy
7 1 (0.020%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.020%) Notion
Business Applications
1 125 (2.49%) SAP S/4HANA
2 35 (0.70%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 30 (0.60%) Dynamics CRM
4 17 (0.34%) Oracle EBS
5 15 (0.30%) Teamcenter
6 14 (0.28%) Remedy ITSM
7 13 (0.26%) Oracle ERP
7 13 (0.26%) Payment Gateway
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
11 7 (0.14%) SAP IBP
11 7 (0.14%) Workday HCM
12 6 (0.12%) Endur
12 6 (0.12%) Maximo
12 6 (0.12%) SAP MM
13 5 (0.100%) SAP Oil and Gas
Cloud Services
1 1,287 (25.66%) Azure
2 1,026 (20.46%) AWS
3 400 (7.98%) GCP
4 273 (5.44%) Power Platform
5 185 (3.69%) Entra ID
6 181 (3.61%) SaaS
7 159 (3.17%) Serverless
8 127 (2.53%) Dynamics 365
9 124 (2.47%) GitHub
10 108 (2.15%) Azure DevOps
11 105 (2.09%) Microsoft 365
12 103 (2.05%) Snowflake
13 100 (1.99%) PaaS
14 74 (1.48%) AWS Lambda
15 69 (1.38%) IaaS
16 67 (1.34%) Amazon S3
17 58 (1.16%) Azure Data Factory
17 58 (1.16%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 58 (1.16%) GitHub Actions
17 58 (1.16%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 145 (2.89%) Firewall
2 144 (2.87%) Network Security
3 97 (1.93%) WAN
4 86 (1.71%) DNS
5 72 (1.44%) VPN
6 71 (1.42%) LAN
7 47 (0.94%) SD-WAN
8 45 (0.90%) BGP
9 40 (0.80%) DHCP
10 38 (0.76%) TCP/IP
11 37 (0.74%) MPLS
12 32 (0.64%) VLAN
13 28 (0.56%) SAN
13 28 (0.56%) VXLAN
14 25 (0.50%) Wireless
15 24 (0.48%) NAS
15 24 (0.48%) NX-OS
16 23 (0.46%) OSPF
17 21 (0.42%) Ethernet VPN
17 21 (0.42%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 192 (3.83%) Power BI
2 169 (3.37%) Data Lake
3 153 (3.05%) Metadata
4 149 (2.97%) Data Warehouse
5 63 (1.26%) NoSQL
6 56 (1.12%) SQL Server
7 43 (0.86%) Big Data
8 40 (0.80%) Azure SQL Database
9 38 (0.76%) BigQuery
10 37 (0.74%) PostgreSQL
11 36 (0.72%) Delta Lake
12 30 (0.60%) Amazon RDS
13 29 (0.58%) Amazon Redshift
13 29 (0.58%) Oracle Database
14 25 (0.50%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
15 24 (0.48%) GIS
16 19 (0.38%) MongoDB
16 19 (0.38%) Semantic Layer
16 19 (0.38%) Tableau
17 18 (0.36%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 72 (1.44%) JIRA
2 67 (1.34%) Git
3 48 (0.96%) Jenkins
4 33 (0.66%) GitLab
5 19 (0.38%) ERwin
6 10 (0.20%) Claude Code
7 8 (0.16%) Cypress.io
7 8 (0.16%) Oracle Forms
7 8 (0.16%) SonarQube
8 7 (0.14%) PowerDesigner
9 6 (0.12%) Artifactory
9 6 (0.12%) MLflow
9 6 (0.12%) MSI
9 6 (0.12%) Storybook
10 5 (0.100%) Maven
11 4 (0.080%) ER Studio
11 4 (0.080%) Rational DOORS
11 4 (0.080%) Snyk
11 4 (0.080%) Sonatype Nexus
12 3 (0.060%) IBM UrbanCode
General
1 961 (19.16%) Social Skills
2 761 (15.17%) Finance
3 537 (10.71%) Public Sector
4 286 (5.70%) Banking
5 269 (5.36%) Analytical Skills
6 248 (4.95%) Retail
7 134 (2.67%) Influencing Skills
8 122 (2.43%) Documentation Skills
9 118 (2.35%) Telecoms
10 107 (2.13%) Manufacturing
11 76 (1.52%) Legal
12 62 (1.24%) Marketing
13 55 (1.10%) Billing
14 50 (1.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 47 (0.94%) Law
16 46 (0.92%) Aerospace
16 46 (0.92%) Military
17 45 (0.90%) Financial Institution
18 33 (0.66%) Presentation Skills
19 30 (0.60%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 245 (4.89%) REST
2 154 (3.07%) Middleware
3 117 (2.33%) .NET
4 113 (2.25%) SOAP
5 106 (2.11%) Kafka
6 101 (2.01%) OAuth
7 69 (1.38%) Oracle Fusion
8 56 (1.12%) SAML
9 54 (1.08%) JSON
9 54 (1.08%) OpenID
10 51 (1.02%) OAuth2
11 41 (0.82%) RESTful
12 40 (0.80%) React
13 37 (0.74%) .NET Framework
13 37 (0.74%) SailPoint
14 36 (0.72%) PySpark
15 33 (0.66%) LDAP
16 32 (0.64%) XML
17 31 (0.62%) JWT
18 26 (0.52%) Lightning Web Components
Miscellaneous
1 430 (8.57%) Cloud Native
2 154 (3.07%) Data Centre
3 129 (2.57%) Onboarding
4 127 (2.53%) Hybrid Cloud
5 126 (2.51%) Legacy Systems
6 123 (2.45%) Product Ownership
7 120 (2.39%) Distributed Systems
8 111 (2.21%) Management Information System
9 109 (2.17%) AI Agents
10 103 (2.05%) Enterprise Software
11 95 (1.89%) Data Protection Act
12 82 (1.64%) Operational Technology
13 81 (1.62%) CMDB
14 67 (1.34%) Enterprise Cloud
15 65 (1.30%) Public Cloud
16 61 (1.22%) Security Posture
17 56 (1.12%) Data Structures
18 47 (0.94%) Private Cloud
19 44 (0.88%) Mainframe
20 41 (0.82%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 111 (2.21%) Windows
2 87 (1.73%) Linux
3 36 (0.72%) Windows Server
4 21 (0.42%) Unix
5 20 (0.40%) Apple iOS
6 19 (0.38%) Android
7 17 (0.34%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 9 (0.18%) AIX
9 8 (0.16%) Ubuntu
9 8 (0.16%) zOS
10 5 (0.100%) Data ONTAP
10 5 (0.100%) Solaris
11 4 (0.080%) Alpine Linux
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%) Windows 10
13 2 (0.040%) Windows Server 2019
14 1 (0.020%) CatOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 758 (15.11%) Roadmaps
2 737 (14.70%) Stakeholder Management
3 713 (14.22%) Migration
4 635 (12.66%) AI
5 633 (12.62%) Enterprise Architecture
6 553 (11.03%) Agile
7 548 (10.93%) DevOps
8 539 (10.75%) Technical Leadership
9 522 (10.41%) Data Modelling
10 521 (10.39%) CI/CD
11 510 (10.17%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 492 (9.81%) Data Architecture
13 481 (9.59%) Integration Patterns
14 457 (9.11%) Analytics
15 397 (7.92%) TOGAF
16 395 (7.88%) Architectural Patterns
17 372 (7.42%) Security Architecture
18 322 (6.42%) Cybersecurity
19 319 (6.36%) Problem-Solving
20 315 (6.28%) Event-Driven
Programming Languages
1 238 (4.75%) Python
2 236 (4.71%) SQL
3 204 (4.07%) Java
4 113 (2.25%) JavaScript
5 91 (1.81%) PowerShell
6 49 (0.98%) C#
7 44 (0.88%) Bash
8 43 (0.86%) Bicep
9 40 (0.80%) TypeScript
10 27 (0.54%) Apex Code
11 16 (0.32%) Shell Script
12 15 (0.30%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 14 (0.28%) Ruby
14 13 (0.26%) C++
15 11 (0.22%) ABAP
15 11 (0.22%) Groovy
16 10 (0.20%) Scala
17 9 (0.18%) PL/SQL
18 7 (0.14%) Kotlin
18 7 (0.14%) Rust
Qualifications
1 1,505 (30.01%) Security Cleared
2 1,080 (21.54%) SC Cleared
3 331 (6.60%) DV Cleared
4 151 (3.01%) Degree
5 129 (2.57%) CISSP
6 111 (2.21%) Azure Certification
7 95 (1.89%) AWS Certification
8 84 (1.67%) Cisco Certification
9 79 (1.58%) TOGAF Certification
10 72 (1.44%) BPSS Clearance
11 62 (1.24%) CISM
12 59 (1.18%) Computer Science Degree
13 41 (0.82%) Microsoft Certification
14 38 (0.76%) CCNP
15 34 (0.68%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 31 (0.62%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 23 (0.46%) Master's Degree
18 21 (0.42%) CCSP
19 18 (0.36%) CCIE
19 18 (0.36%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 183 (3.65%) NIST
2 182 (3.63%) Data Quality
3 145 (2.89%) GDPR
4 139 (2.77%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 99 (1.97%) NCSC
6 63 (1.26%) GRC
7 53 (1.06%) QA
8 38 (0.76%) PCI DSS
9 35 (0.70%) Accessibility
10 31 (0.62%) NIST 800
11 29 (0.58%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 21 (0.42%) Cyber Essentials
13 19 (0.38%) IFRS
13 19 (0.38%) SEPA
14 16 (0.32%) ISO 20022
15 15 (0.30%) ISO/IEC 20000
15 15 (0.30%) JSP 440
16 14 (0.28%) SLA
17 13 (0.26%) Government Security Classifications
17 13 (0.26%) HL7
System Software
1 154 (3.07%) Active Directory
2 94 (1.87%) Docker
3 63 (1.26%) VMware Infrastructure
4 42 (0.84%) VMware NSX
5 28 (0.56%) Virtual Desktop
6 16 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
6 16 (0.32%) vSphere
7 15 (0.30%) Hyper-V
8 14 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
9 8 (0.16%) NFS
10 7 (0.14%) Varnish
11 6 (0.12%) Postfix
11 6 (0.12%) vCloud
12 4 (0.080%) EMC RecoverPoint
12 4 (0.080%) IAG
12 4 (0.080%) KVM
12 4 (0.080%) Sendmail
13 3 (0.060%) Ceph
13 3 (0.060%) SRDF
14 2 (0.040%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 237 (4.73%) Kubernetes
2 215 (4.29%) Terraform
3 93 (1.85%) Ansible
4 42 (0.84%) Grafana
5 39 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
6 33 (0.66%) Microsoft Intune
6 33 (0.66%) Prometheus
7 16 (0.32%) Argo
8 15 (0.30%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 15 (0.30%) Jamf Pro
8 15 (0.30%) vCenter Server
9 9 (0.18%) FortiGate
10 7 (0.14%) Istio
11 6 (0.12%) HAProxy
11 6 (0.12%) NetBackup
11 6 (0.12%) SCCM
11 6 (0.12%) WMI
12 5 (0.100%) CASB
12 5 (0.100%) MOM
12 5 (0.100%) Puppet
Vendors
1 685 (13.66%) Microsoft
2 290 (5.78%) SAP
3 268 (5.34%) Oracle
4 254 (5.06%) ServiceNow
5 232 (4.63%) Databricks
6 166 (3.31%) Salesforce
7 152 (3.03%) Google
8 132 (2.63%) Cisco
9 126 (2.51%) VMware
10 62 (1.24%) CyberArk
11 56 (1.12%) IBM
12 54 (1.08%) MuleSoft
13 53 (1.06%) Workday
14 48 (0.96%) Palo Alto
15 43 (0.86%) Foundry
16 37 (0.74%) Sparx
17 36 (0.72%) Ariba
18 34 (0.68%) Adobe
18 34 (0.68%) Splunk
19 32 (0.64%) F5