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 11 September 2026.

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

6 months to
11 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 5,115 2,518 3,302
As % of all contract jobs in England 11.02% 9.05% 10.02%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.95% 9.91% 10.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,433 1,655 2,085
10th Percentile £476 £463 £480
25th Percentile £525 £531 £548
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £648
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -3.55% -0.31%
75th Percentile £713 £709 £738
90th Percentile £788 £788 £823
UK median daily rate £620 £625 £638
% change year-on-year -0.80% -1.96% -1.92%
Number of hourly rates quoted 159 18 70
10th Percentile £46.00 £36.30 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £62.50 £61.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -0.12%
75th Percentile £77.88 £87.00 £85.00
90th Percentile £95.20 £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 42,799 25,409 30,683
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.25% 91.33% 93.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,597 16,371 19,349
10th Percentile £325 £281 £305
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% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,391 1,355 1,537
10th Percentile £14.96 £13.67 £14.56
25th Percentile £20.88 £17.30 £21.25
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -47.05% +8.20%
75th Percentile £68.00 £54.38 £67.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +67.00% -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 11 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 11 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 11 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 2,609 £625 -2.95% 1,814
South East +1 739 £625 +4.17% 416
North of England +6 707 £600 - 316
Midlands +2 425 £626 +9.34% 166
North West +9 414 £600 +4.35% 165
South West +1 339 £640 -0.62% 153
West Midlands +1 318 £650 +8.51% 111
Yorkshire +10 230 £575 -4.17% 121
East of England +10 158 £616 +11.04% 127
East Midlands +4 102 £600 +19.40% 54
North East -5 64 £600 -15.79% 30
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 11 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 1,573 (30.75%) Security Cleared
2 1,340 (26.20%) Azure
3 1,137 (22.23%) SC Cleared
4 1,045 (20.43%) AWS
5 902 (17.63%) Stakeholder Management
6 817 (15.97%) Roadmaps
7 739 (14.45%) Migration
8 724 (14.15%) Microsoft
9 679 (13.27%) Enterprise Architecture
10 673 (13.16%) AI
11 629 (12.30%) Technical Leadership
12 563 (11.01%) DevOps
13 558 (10.91%) Agile
14 542 (10.60%) Data Modelling
15 533 (10.42%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 528 (10.32%) CI/CD
17 510 (9.97%) Data Architecture
18 482 (9.42%) Integration Patterns
19 448 (8.76%) Analytics
20 422 (8.25%) Security Architecture
21 412 (8.05%) TOGAF
22 411 (8.04%) GCP
23 407 (7.96%) Architectural Patterns
24 354 (6.92%) DV Cleared
25 340 (6.65%) Architecture Governance
26 339 (6.63%) Event-Driven
27 334 (6.53%) Cybersecurity
28 321 (6.28%) Data Governance
28 321 (6.28%) Microservices
29 311 (6.08%) Decision-Making

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 (1.43%) SAS
2 64 (1.25%) SharePoint
3 49 (0.96%) Confluence
4 43 (0.84%) Apache
5 37 (0.72%) Apache Spark
6 33 (0.65%) Apache Airflow
7 29 (0.57%) Microsoft Exchange
8 22 (0.43%) Palantir Foundry
9 21 (0.41%) CMS
10 14 (0.27%) OpenStack
11 7 (0.14%) ArcGIS
11 7 (0.14%) Documentum
11 7 (0.14%) NetWeaver
12 6 (0.12%) Appian
13 5 (0.098%) Camunda
13 5 (0.098%) Headless CMS
13 5 (0.098%) SAP EP
14 4 (0.078%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 4 (0.078%) Jupyter
15 3 (0.059%) Anypoint
Applications
1 16 (0.31%) MS Visio
2 13 (0.25%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 11 (0.22%) Microsoft Excel
4 9 (0.18%) Microsoft Office
5 8 (0.16%) Chatbot
5 8 (0.16%) Revit
6 7 (0.14%) Navisworks
7 6 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.039%) Windchill
9 1 (0.020%) AutoCAD
9 1 (0.020%) Gliffy
9 1 (0.020%) Microsoft Project
9 1 (0.020%) Notion
9 1 (0.020%) PlantUML
Business Applications
1 131 (2.56%) SAP S/4HANA
2 38 (0.74%) Dynamics CRM
3 33 (0.65%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 16 (0.31%) Teamcenter
5 15 (0.29%) Oracle EBS
5 15 (0.29%) Remedy ITSM
6 14 (0.27%) SAP ERP
7 13 (0.25%) Oracle ERP
7 13 (0.25%) Payment Gateway
8 12 (0.23%) NetSuite
8 12 (0.23%) Oracle Payables
8 12 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
9 8 (0.16%) Oracle Retail
9 8 (0.16%) SAP BRIM
9 8 (0.16%) SAP MDG
9 8 (0.16%) Workday HCM
10 7 (0.14%) SAP IBP
11 6 (0.12%) Maximo
12 5 (0.098%) SAP CRM
12 5 (0.098%) SAP Oil and Gas
Cloud Services
1 1,340 (26.20%) Azure
2 1,045 (20.43%) AWS
3 411 (8.04%) GCP
4 278 (5.43%) Power Platform
5 197 (3.85%) SaaS
6 190 (3.71%) Entra ID
7 166 (3.25%) Serverless
8 142 (2.78%) Dynamics 365
9 125 (2.44%) GitHub
10 115 (2.25%) Azure DevOps
11 112 (2.19%) Microsoft 365
12 107 (2.09%) Snowflake
13 87 (1.70%) PaaS
14 70 (1.37%) AWS Lambda
15 65 (1.27%) Amazon S3
16 60 (1.17%) GitHub Actions
16 60 (1.17%) OCI
17 58 (1.13%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 56 (1.09%) IaaS
19 52 (1.02%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 142 (2.78%) Network Security
2 134 (2.62%) Firewall
3 102 (1.99%) WAN
4 75 (1.47%) DNS
5 70 (1.37%) LAN
6 64 (1.25%) VPN
7 51 (1.00%) SD-WAN
8 43 (0.84%) BGP
9 39 (0.76%) DHCP
10 37 (0.72%) MPLS
10 37 (0.72%) TCP/IP
11 29 (0.57%) VLAN
12 27 (0.53%) SAN
13 24 (0.47%) VXLAN
14 22 (0.43%) NAS
15 21 (0.41%) Wireless
16 20 (0.39%) NX-OS
17 19 (0.37%) OSPF
18 18 (0.35%) BIG-IP
19 17 (0.33%) Radio Access Network
Database & Business Intelligence
1 185 (3.62%) Metadata
2 184 (3.60%) Power BI
3 169 (3.30%) Data Lake
4 147 (2.87%) Data Warehouse
5 55 (1.08%) NoSQL
6 50 (0.98%) SQL Server
7 40 (0.78%) BigQuery
8 37 (0.72%) Delta Lake
9 36 (0.70%) PostgreSQL
10 35 (0.68%) Big Data
11 34 (0.66%) Amazon RDS
12 33 (0.65%) Azure SQL Database
13 32 (0.63%) Amazon Redshift
14 30 (0.59%) Oracle Database
15 27 (0.53%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
16 25 (0.49%) Semantic Layer
17 22 (0.43%) GIS
17 22 (0.43%) MongoDB
17 22 (0.43%) Tableau
18 21 (0.41%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 73 (1.43%) JIRA
2 63 (1.23%) Git
3 52 (1.02%) Jenkins
4 37 (0.72%) GitLab
5 16 (0.31%) ERwin
6 12 (0.23%) Claude Code
7 9 (0.18%) Cypress.io
7 9 (0.18%) MSI
7 9 (0.18%) Oracle Forms
8 8 (0.16%) RStudio
9 7 (0.14%) SonarQube
10 6 (0.12%) Artifactory
10 6 (0.12%) Storybook
11 5 (0.098%) ER Studio
11 5 (0.098%) Maven
11 5 (0.098%) MLflow
11 5 (0.098%) Rational DOORS
12 4 (0.078%) PowerDesigner
12 4 (0.078%) Selenium
13 3 (0.059%) Hudson
General
1 1,054 (20.61%) Social Skills
2 758 (14.82%) Finance
3 549 (10.73%) Public Sector
4 289 (5.65%) Banking
5 267 (5.22%) Analytical Skills
6 259 (5.06%) Retail
7 149 (2.91%) Influencing Skills
8 125 (2.44%) Documentation Skills
9 119 (2.33%) Telecoms
10 117 (2.29%) Manufacturing
11 75 (1.47%) Legal
12 67 (1.31%) Marketing
13 62 (1.21%) Billing
14 57 (1.11%) Military
15 49 (0.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 48 (0.94%) Aerospace
17 43 (0.84%) Law
18 33 (0.65%) Presentation Skills
19 27 (0.53%) Aviation
20 26 (0.51%) Financial Institution
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 263 (5.14%) REST
2 209 (4.09%) Terraform
3 133 (2.60%) Middleware
4 126 (2.46%) SOAP
5 121 (2.37%) Kafka
6 117 (2.29%) .NET
7 104 (2.03%) OAuth
8 66 (1.29%) Oracle Fusion
9 61 (1.19%) JSON
10 57 (1.11%) OpenID
10 57 (1.11%) SAML
11 49 (0.96%) LDAP
11 49 (0.96%) OAuth2
12 44 (0.86%) PySpark
13 41 (0.80%) XML
14 38 (0.74%) .NET Framework
15 37 (0.72%) React
16 36 (0.70%) RESTful
16 36 (0.70%) SailPoint
17 32 (0.63%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 438 (8.56%) Cloud Native
2 150 (2.93%) Data Centre
2 150 (2.93%) Onboarding
3 125 (2.44%) Distributed Systems
3 125 (2.44%) Product Ownership
4 123 (2.40%) Hybrid Cloud
5 117 (2.29%) AI Agents
5 117 (2.29%) Enterprise Software
5 117 (2.29%) Legacy Systems
6 107 (2.09%) Management Information System
7 94 (1.84%) CMDB
8 84 (1.64%) Data Protection Act
9 79 (1.54%) Operational Technology
10 70 (1.37%) Enterprise Cloud
11 66 (1.29%) Public Cloud
12 60 (1.17%) Security Posture
13 54 (1.06%) Private Cloud
14 53 (1.04%) Data Structures
15 41 (0.80%) Mainframe
16 40 (0.78%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 101 (1.97%) Windows
2 86 (1.68%) Linux
3 37 (0.72%) Windows Server
4 21 (0.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 21 (0.41%) Unix
5 11 (0.22%) Apple iOS
6 10 (0.20%) Android
7 9 (0.18%) AIX
8 8 (0.16%) Ubuntu
9 6 (0.12%) zOS
10 5 (0.098%) Solaris
11 4 (0.078%) Alpine Linux
11 4 (0.078%) Data ONTAP
12 3 (0.059%) CentOS
12 3 (0.059%) VMS
13 2 (0.039%) HPUX
13 2 (0.039%) Mac OS
13 2 (0.039%) OpenWrt
13 2 (0.039%) Windows 10
14 1 (0.020%) CatOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 902 (17.63%) Stakeholder Management
2 817 (15.97%) Roadmaps
3 739 (14.45%) Migration
4 679 (13.27%) Enterprise Architecture
5 673 (13.16%) AI
6 629 (12.30%) Technical Leadership
7 563 (11.01%) DevOps
8 558 (10.91%) Agile
9 542 (10.60%) Data Modelling
10 533 (10.42%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 528 (10.32%) CI/CD
12 510 (9.97%) Data Architecture
13 482 (9.42%) Integration Patterns
14 448 (8.76%) Analytics
15 422 (8.25%) Security Architecture
16 412 (8.05%) TOGAF
17 407 (7.96%) Architectural Patterns
18 340 (6.65%) Architecture Governance
19 339 (6.63%) Event-Driven
20 334 (6.53%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 233 (4.56%) Python
2 227 (4.44%) SQL
3 209 (4.09%) Java
4 113 (2.21%) JavaScript
5 89 (1.74%) PowerShell
6 49 (0.96%) C#
7 47 (0.92%) TypeScript
8 42 (0.82%) Bash
9 37 (0.72%) 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 13 (0.25%) Ruby
14 12 (0.23%) C++
15 11 (0.22%) Groovy
16 10 (0.20%) R
17 9 (0.18%) Scala
18 8 (0.16%) PL/SQL
19 7 (0.14%) BeanShell
Qualifications
1 1,573 (30.75%) Security Cleared
2 1,137 (22.23%) SC Cleared
3 354 (6.92%) DV Cleared
4 153 (2.99%) Degree
5 142 (2.78%) CISSP
6 103 (2.01%) Azure Certification
7 96 (1.88%) BPSS Clearance
8 91 (1.78%) AWS Certification
9 90 (1.76%) Cisco Certification
10 82 (1.60%) TOGAF Certification
11 66 (1.29%) CISM
12 56 (1.09%) Computer Science Degree
13 44 (0.86%) Microsoft Certification
14 41 (0.80%) CCNP
15 35 (0.68%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 31 (0.61%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 24 (0.47%) Master's Degree
18 23 (0.45%) CCSP
19 20 (0.39%) CCIE
20 18 (0.35%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 211 (4.13%) Data Quality
2 203 (3.97%) NIST
3 156 (3.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 136 (2.66%) GDPR
5 98 (1.92%) NCSC
6 69 (1.35%) GRC
7 56 (1.09%) QA
8 37 (0.72%) Accessibility
9 33 (0.65%) PCI DSS
10 32 (0.63%) NIST 800
11 29 (0.57%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 23 (0.45%) SLA
13 20 (0.39%) SEPA
14 18 (0.35%) Cyber Essentials
14 18 (0.35%) IFRS
14 18 (0.35%) ISO 20022
14 18 (0.35%) ISO/IEC 20000
14 18 (0.35%) JSP 440
15 14 (0.27%) ISO 19650
16 13 (0.25%) HL7
System Software
1 162 (3.17%) Active Directory
2 90 (1.76%) Docker
3 60 (1.17%) VMware Infrastructure
4 39 (0.76%) VMware NSX
5 29 (0.57%) Virtual Desktop
6 17 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
7 16 (0.31%) vSphere
8 15 (0.29%) Hyper-V
9 14 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
10 6 (0.12%) NFS
11 4 (0.078%) EMC RecoverPoint
11 4 (0.078%) KVM
11 4 (0.078%) Postfix
11 4 (0.078%) Varnish
11 4 (0.078%) vCloud
12 3 (0.059%) Ceph
12 3 (0.059%) Sendmail
12 3 (0.059%) SRDF
13 2 (0.039%) IAG
13 2 (0.039%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 239 (4.67%) Kubernetes
2 88 (1.72%) Ansible
3 42 (0.82%) Single Sign-On
4 39 (0.76%) Grafana
5 30 (0.59%) Prometheus
6 24 (0.47%) Microsoft Intune
7 15 (0.29%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 14 (0.27%) Argo
8 14 (0.27%) Jamf Pro
9 11 (0.22%) vCenter Server
10 10 (0.20%) WMI
11 8 (0.16%) CASB
11 8 (0.16%) FortiGate
12 6 (0.12%) Istio
12 6 (0.12%) NetBackup
12 6 (0.12%) Puppet
12 6 (0.12%) SCCM
13 5 (0.098%) EMC VPLEX
13 5 (0.098%) Progress Chef
14 4 (0.078%) SnapMirror
Vendors
1 724 (14.15%) Microsoft
2 294 (5.75%) SAP
3 270 (5.28%) Oracle
4 259 (5.06%) ServiceNow
5 254 (4.97%) Databricks
6 169 (3.30%) Salesforce
7 159 (3.11%) Google
8 135 (2.64%) Cisco
9 117 (2.29%) VMware
10 78 (1.52%) CyberArk
11 63 (1.23%) MuleSoft
12 57 (1.11%) IBM
13 55 (1.08%) Workday
14 50 (0.98%) Foundry
14 50 (0.98%) Palo Alto
15 35 (0.68%) Sparx
16 34 (0.66%) Informatica
17 33 (0.65%) Adobe
17 33 (0.65%) F5
17 33 (0.65%) OpenAI