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 September 2026.

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

6 months to
18 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 5,112 2,511 3,262
As % of all contract jobs in England 11.07% 9.03% 9.90%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.00% 9.88% 10.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,431 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 £711 £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 168 15 68
10th Percentile £46.00 £33.64 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.88 £62.19
Median hourly rate £67.58 £70.00 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -3.45% - -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 42,615 25,411 30,652
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.30% 91.36% 93.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,360 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 3,479 1,371 1,480
10th Percentile £14.92 £13.75 £14.83
25th Percentile £21.14 £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 18 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 18 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 18 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 2,630 £625 -3.85% 2,680
South East +2 740 £625 +4.17% 649
North of England +3 674 £591 -1.46% 570
Midlands +1 432 £626 +8.87% 310
North West +7 375 £599 +4.25% 319
South West +3 343 £638 -1.92% 225
West Midlands +3 319 £644 +7.42% 221
Yorkshire +15 236 £559 -6.88% 186
East of England +10 159 £619 +11.55% 172
East Midlands +6 108 £600 +18.81% 89
North East -7 62 £600 -15.79% 65
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 18 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 1,594 (31.18%) Security Cleared
2 1,326 (25.94%) Azure
3 1,158 (22.65%) SC Cleared
4 1,015 (19.86%) AWS
5 945 (18.49%) Stakeholder Management
6 833 (16.29%) Roadmaps
7 746 (14.59%) Migration
8 723 (14.14%) Microsoft
9 687 (13.44%) Enterprise Architecture
10 680 (13.30%) AI
11 642 (12.56%) Technical Leadership
12 562 (10.99%) DevOps
13 552 (10.80%) Agile
14 533 (10.43%) CI/CD
15 531 (10.39%) Data Modelling
16 522 (10.21%) Data Architecture
17 512 (10.02%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 468 (9.15%) Integration Patterns
19 452 (8.84%) Analytics
20 421 (8.24%) TOGAF
21 410 (8.02%) Security Architecture
22 400 (7.82%) GCP
23 394 (7.71%) Architectural Patterns
24 364 (7.12%) DV Cleared
25 341 (6.67%) Architecture Governance
26 331 (6.47%) Cybersecurity
26 331 (6.47%) Event-Driven
27 325 (6.36%) Data Governance
28 319 (6.24%) Decision-Making
29 316 (6.18%) 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 (1.47%) SAS
2 63 (1.23%) SharePoint
3 48 (0.94%) Confluence
4 42 (0.82%) Apache
5 36 (0.70%) Apache Spark
6 33 (0.65%) Apache Airflow
7 29 (0.57%) 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 (0.098%) Headless CMS
13 5 (0.098%) SAP EP
14 4 (0.078%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 4 (0.078%) Camunda
14 4 (0.078%) IIS
14 4 (0.078%) nginx
Applications
1 20 (0.39%) MS Visio
2 14 (0.27%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 11 (0.22%) 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%) Windchill
9 1 (0.020%) Gliffy
9 1 (0.020%) Notion
9 1 (0.020%) PlantUML
Business Applications
1 131 (2.56%) SAP S/4HANA
2 40 (0.78%) Dynamics CRM
3 32 (0.63%) 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 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
10 9 (0.18%) 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 (0.098%) SAP CRM
13 5 (0.098%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 1,326 (25.94%) Azure
2 1,015 (19.86%) AWS
3 400 (7.82%) GCP
4 273 (5.34%) Power Platform
5 197 (3.85%) SaaS
6 191 (3.74%) Entra ID
7 159 (3.11%) Serverless
8 138 (2.70%) Dynamics 365
9 125 (2.45%) GitHub
10 116 (2.27%) Azure DevOps
11 113 (2.21%) Microsoft 365
12 109 (2.13%) Snowflake
13 81 (1.58%) PaaS
14 66 (1.29%) AWS Lambda
15 64 (1.25%) Amazon S3
16 63 (1.23%) OCI
17 59 (1.15%) GitHub Actions
18 58 (1.13%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 54 (1.06%) IaaS
19 54 (1.06%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 127 (2.48%) Network Security
2 122 (2.39%) Firewall
3 91 (1.78%) WAN
4 72 (1.41%) DNS
5 63 (1.23%) LAN
6 55 (1.08%) VPN
7 43 (0.84%) BGP
7 43 (0.84%) SD-WAN
8 37 (0.72%) DHCP
8 37 (0.72%) MPLS
9 36 (0.70%) TCP/IP
10 28 (0.55%) VLAN
11 26 (0.51%) VXLAN
12 24 (0.47%) NX-OS
12 24 (0.47%) SAN
13 20 (0.39%) Wireless
14 19 (0.37%) BIG-IP
14 19 (0.37%) NAS
15 17 (0.33%) Ethernet VPN
15 17 (0.33%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 196 (3.83%) Metadata
2 175 (3.42%) Power BI
3 174 (3.40%) Data Lake
4 154 (3.01%) Data Warehouse
5 54 (1.06%) NoSQL
6 48 (0.94%) SQL Server
7 42 (0.82%) BigQuery
8 37 (0.72%) Delta Lake
9 36 (0.70%) Amazon RDS
10 34 (0.67%) Amazon Redshift
10 34 (0.67%) PostgreSQL
11 33 (0.65%) Azure SQL Database
11 33 (0.65%) Big Data
12 29 (0.57%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
12 29 (0.57%) Oracle Database
13 25 (0.49%) Semantic Layer
14 22 (0.43%) GIS
15 21 (0.41%) Star Schema
15 21 (0.41%) Tableau
16 19 (0.37%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 74 (1.45%) JIRA
2 64 (1.25%) Git
3 53 (1.04%) Jenkins
4 43 (0.84%) GitLab
5 14 (0.27%) ERwin
6 12 (0.23%) Claude Code
7 9 (0.18%) Cypress.io
7 9 (0.18%) MSI
7 9 (0.18%) Oracle Forms
7 9 (0.18%) RStudio
8 7 (0.14%) Postman
8 7 (0.14%) SonarQube
9 6 (0.12%) Rational DOORS
9 6 (0.12%) Storybook
10 5 (0.098%) Artifactory
10 5 (0.098%) ER Studio
10 5 (0.098%) MLflow
10 5 (0.098%) Selenium
11 4 (0.078%) Maven
11 4 (0.078%) PowerDesigner
General
1 1,061 (20.76%) Social Skills
2 758 (14.83%) Finance
3 553 (10.82%) Public Sector
4 283 (5.54%) Banking
5 264 (5.16%) Retail
6 253 (4.95%) Analytical Skills
7 155 (3.03%) Influencing Skills
8 123 (2.41%) Manufacturing
9 122 (2.39%) Documentation Skills
10 118 (2.31%) Telecoms
11 73 (1.43%) Legal
12 68 (1.33%) Marketing
13 61 (1.19%) Billing
14 56 (1.10%) Aerospace
15 53 (1.04%) Military
16 50 (0.98%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 35 (0.68%) Law
18 33 (0.65%) Presentation Skills
19 27 (0.53%) Aviation
19 27 (0.53%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 260 (5.09%) REST
2 215 (4.21%) Terraform
3 137 (2.68%) Middleware
4 127 (2.48%) Kafka
5 126 (2.46%) SOAP
6 116 (2.27%) .NET
7 100 (1.96%) OAuth
8 68 (1.33%) Oracle Fusion
9 63 (1.23%) JSON
10 56 (1.10%) SAML
11 55 (1.08%) OpenID
12 52 (1.02%) LDAP
13 48 (0.94%) OAuth2
14 45 (0.88%) PySpark
15 42 (0.82%) XML
16 40 (0.78%) .NET Framework
17 37 (0.72%) React
17 37 (0.72%) SailPoint
18 34 (0.67%) RESTful
19 32 (0.63%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 424 (8.29%) Cloud Native
2 157 (3.07%) Onboarding
3 153 (2.99%) Data Centre
4 128 (2.50%) Product Ownership
5 123 (2.41%) Distributed Systems
6 121 (2.37%) Hybrid Cloud
7 120 (2.35%) Legacy Systems
8 119 (2.33%) AI Agents
9 116 (2.27%) Enterprise Software
10 108 (2.11%) Management Information System
11 96 (1.88%) CMDB
12 85 (1.66%) Data Protection Act
13 75 (1.47%) Operational Technology
14 72 (1.41%) Enterprise Cloud
15 67 (1.31%) Public Cloud
16 58 (1.13%) Security Posture
17 56 (1.10%) Data Structures
18 54 (1.06%) Private Cloud
19 41 (0.80%) Mainframe
20 40 (0.78%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 104 (2.03%) Windows
2 84 (1.64%) Linux
3 40 (0.78%) Windows Server
4 21 (0.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 21 (0.41%) Unix
5 9 (0.18%) AIX
6 8 (0.16%) Apple iOS
6 8 (0.16%) Ubuntu
7 7 (0.14%) Android
8 6 (0.12%) zOS
9 5 (0.098%) Solaris
10 4 (0.078%) Alpine Linux
10 4 (0.078%) Data ONTAP
11 3 (0.059%) CentOS
11 3 (0.059%) 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 (0.020%) CatOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 945 (18.49%) Stakeholder Management
2 833 (16.29%) Roadmaps
3 746 (14.59%) Migration
4 687 (13.44%) Enterprise Architecture
5 680 (13.30%) AI
6 642 (12.56%) Technical Leadership
7 562 (10.99%) DevOps
8 552 (10.80%) Agile
9 533 (10.43%) CI/CD
10 531 (10.39%) Data Modelling
11 522 (10.21%) Data Architecture
12 512 (10.02%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 468 (9.15%) Integration Patterns
14 452 (8.84%) Analytics
15 421 (8.24%) TOGAF
16 410 (8.02%) Security Architecture
17 394 (7.71%) Architectural Patterns
18 341 (6.67%) Architecture Governance
19 331 (6.47%) Cybersecurity
19 331 (6.47%) Event-Driven
Programming Languages
1 227 (4.44%) Python
2 222 (4.34%) SQL
3 200 (3.91%) Java
4 113 (2.21%) JavaScript
5 90 (1.76%) PowerShell
6 51 (1.00%) TypeScript
7 48 (0.94%) C#
8 40 (0.78%) Bash
9 35 (0.68%) Bicep
10 30 (0.59%) Apex Code
11 21 (0.41%) ABAP
12 15 (0.29%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 15 (0.29%) Shell Script
13 11 (0.22%) Groovy
14 10 (0.20%) C++
14 10 (0.20%) R
15 8 (0.16%) PL/SQL
15 8 (0.16%) Ruby
16 7 (0.14%) BeanShell
16 7 (0.14%) Scala
Qualifications
1 1,594 (31.18%) Security Cleared
2 1,158 (22.65%) SC Cleared
3 364 (7.12%) DV Cleared
4 155 (3.03%) Degree
5 138 (2.70%) CISSP
6 107 (2.09%) Azure Certification
7 103 (2.01%) BPSS Clearance
8 97 (1.90%) AWS Certification
9 90 (1.76%) Cisco Certification
10 87 (1.70%) TOGAF Certification
11 62 (1.21%) CISM
12 60 (1.17%) Computer Science Degree
13 45 (0.88%) Microsoft Certification
14 39 (0.76%) CCNP
15 36 (0.70%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 36 (0.70%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 25 (0.49%) CCSP
17 24 (0.47%) Master's Degree
18 19 (0.37%) CCIE
19 18 (0.35%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 215 (4.21%) Data Quality
2 192 (3.76%) NIST
3 162 (3.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 132 (2.58%) GDPR
5 98 (1.92%) NCSC
6 70 (1.37%) GRC
7 56 (1.10%) QA
8 39 (0.76%) Accessibility
9 32 (0.63%) NIST 800
9 32 (0.63%) PCI DSS
10 29 (0.57%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 22 (0.43%) SLA
12 20 (0.39%) SEPA
13 19 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 20000
14 18 (0.35%) Cyber Essentials
14 18 (0.35%) IFRS
14 18 (0.35%) ISO 20022
14 18 (0.35%) JSP 440
15 15 (0.29%) ISO 19650
16 13 (0.25%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 171 (3.35%) Active Directory
2 87 (1.70%) Docker
3 62 (1.21%) 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
8 15 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
9 12 (0.23%) Hyper-V
10 5 (0.098%) NFS
11 4 (0.078%) EMC RecoverPoint
11 4 (0.078%) KVM
11 4 (0.078%) Postfix
11 4 (0.078%) Varnish
12 3 (0.059%) Ceph
12 3 (0.059%) ISA Server
12 3 (0.059%) Sendmail
12 3 (0.059%) SRDF
12 3 (0.059%) vCloud
13 2 (0.039%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 240 (4.69%) Kubernetes
2 93 (1.82%) Ansible
3 43 (0.84%) Single Sign-On
4 41 (0.80%) Grafana
5 31 (0.61%) 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 (0.20%) WMI
10 9 (0.18%) FortiGate
10 9 (0.18%) vCenter Server
11 8 (0.16%) CASB
12 7 (0.14%) Puppet
13 6 (0.12%) Istio
13 6 (0.12%) NetBackup
13 6 (0.12%) Progress Chef
13 6 (0.12%) SCCM
14 5 (0.098%) EMC VPLEX
15 4 (0.078%) SnapMirror
Vendors
1 723 (14.14%) Microsoft
2 287 (5.61%) SAP
3 267 (5.22%) Oracle
4 265 (5.18%) ServiceNow
5 254 (4.97%) Databricks
6 177 (3.46%) Salesforce
7 170 (3.33%) Google
8 133 (2.60%) Cisco
9 118 (2.31%) VMware
10 87 (1.70%) CyberArk
11 65 (1.27%) MuleSoft
12 58 (1.13%) IBM
13 56 (1.10%) Workday
14 47 (0.92%) Foundry
15 45 (0.88%) Palo Alto
16 34 (0.67%) F5
16 34 (0.67%) Informatica
16 34 (0.67%) OpenAI
16 34 (0.67%) Sparx
17 33 (0.65%) Splunk