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 July 2026.

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

6 months to
24 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 17 12
Rank change year-on-year +7 -5 +3
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 4,936 2,627 3,628
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.98% 9.60% 10.38%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.87% 10.46% 11.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,282 1,755 2,385
10th Percentile £475 £468 £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 £712 £738
90th Percentile £790 £788 £825
UK median daily rate £618 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -1.16% -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 165 19 87
10th Percentile £46.00 £37.19 -
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.88 £60.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -
75th Percentile £73.25 £86.50 £85.65
90th Percentile £83.60 £100.00 £88.80
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 41,600 25,116 32,526
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.55% 91.78% 93.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,351 16,327 21,449
10th Percentile £325 £288 £300
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £738 £738 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.02%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,993 1,255 2,125
10th Percentile £16.00 £13.71 £13.64
25th Percentile £22.42 £17.87 £18.50
Median hourly rate £45.56 £26.50 £42.91
Median % change year-on-year +71.91% -38.24% -2.72%
75th Percentile £68.00 £56.35 £65.00
90th Percentile £81.04 £75.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £43.55 £25.15 £40.94
% change year-on-year +73.17% -38.57% -6.42%

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 July 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 July 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 July 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 2,503 £622 -4.38% 1,024
North of England +8 722 £600 - 216
South East 0 714 £638 +6.25% 259
Midlands -4 409 £622 +8.22% 123
North West +6 395 £603 +0.42% 109
West Midlands -5 301 £626 +4.33% 91
South West -4 285 £625 - 119
Yorkshire +5 259 £600 - 64
East of England +17 173 £600 +6.19% 60
East Midlands +6 102 £600 +20.00% 31
North East +1 76 £600 -14.29% 43
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 24 July 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 1,449 (29.36%) Security Cleared
2 1,236 (25.04%) Azure
3 1,053 (21.33%) SC Cleared
4 1,024 (20.75%) AWS
5 755 (15.30%) Roadmaps
6 698 (14.14%) Migration
7 647 (13.11%) Microsoft
8 644 (13.05%) Stakeholder Management
9 594 (12.03%) AI
10 574 (11.63%) Agile
11 570 (11.55%) Enterprise Architecture
12 553 (11.20%) DevOps
13 517 (10.47%) Data Modelling
14 509 (10.31%) CI/CD
15 479 (9.70%) Technical Leadership
16 478 (9.68%) Data Architecture
17 477 (9.66%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 472 (9.56%) Integration Patterns
19 444 (9.00%) Analytics
20 412 (8.35%) Architectural Patterns
21 404 (8.18%) TOGAF
22 377 (7.64%) GCP
23 343 (6.95%) Security Architecture
24 334 (6.77%) Microservices
25 330 (6.69%) Problem-Solving
26 316 (6.40%) Architectural Design
27 314 (6.36%) DV Cleared
28 304 (6.16%) Cybersecurity
29 297 (6.02%) Event-Driven
30 293 (5.94%) 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 86 (1.74%) SharePoint
2 69 (1.40%) SAS
3 52 (1.05%) Confluence
4 43 (0.87%) Apache Spark
5 41 (0.83%) Apache
6 37 (0.75%) Microsoft Exchange
7 28 (0.57%) Apache Airflow
8 20 (0.41%) Palantir Foundry
9 18 (0.36%) CMS
10 14 (0.28%) Appian
10 14 (0.28%) OpenStack
11 11 (0.22%) ArcGIS
12 10 (0.20%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 8 (0.16%) nginx
14 7 (0.14%) Documentum
15 6 (0.12%) Camunda
16 5 (0.10%) NetWeaver
17 4 (0.081%) Anypoint
17 4 (0.081%) Jupyter
17 4 (0.081%) SAP EP
Applications
1 18 (0.36%) MS Visio
2 11 (0.22%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 8 (0.16%) Chatbot
3 8 (0.16%) Microsoft Excel
4 7 (0.14%) Microsoft Office
4 7 (0.14%) Navisworks
4 7 (0.14%) Revit
5 6 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (0.041%) PlantUML
6 2 (0.041%) Windchill
7 1 (0.020%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.020%) Notion
Business Applications
1 124 (2.51%) SAP S/4HANA
2 35 (0.71%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 31 (0.63%) Dynamics CRM
4 17 (0.34%) Oracle EBS
5 16 (0.32%) Payment Gateway
6 15 (0.30%) Oracle ERP
6 15 (0.30%) Teamcenter
7 14 (0.28%) SAP ERP
8 12 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
8 12 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
8 12 (0.24%) Remedy ITSM
9 11 (0.22%) NetSuite
10 9 (0.18%) Oracle Retail
11 8 (0.16%) Maximo
11 8 (0.16%) SAP BRIM
12 7 (0.14%) Workday HCM
13 6 (0.12%) Endur
13 6 (0.12%) SAP IBP
14 5 (0.10%) SAP Oil and Gas
15 4 (0.081%) SAP CRM
Cloud Services
1 1,236 (25.04%) Azure
2 1,024 (20.75%) AWS
3 377 (7.64%) GCP
4 256 (5.19%) Power Platform
5 190 (3.85%) Entra ID
6 172 (3.48%) SaaS
7 156 (3.16%) Serverless
8 118 (2.39%) GitHub
9 115 (2.33%) Dynamics 365
10 110 (2.23%) PaaS
11 108 (2.19%) Microsoft 365
12 97 (1.97%) Azure DevOps
13 93 (1.88%) Snowflake
14 80 (1.62%) IaaS
15 72 (1.46%) Amazon S3
15 72 (1.46%) AWS Lambda
16 58 (1.18%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 53 (1.07%) Azure Data Factory
18 52 (1.05%) GitHub Actions
18 52 (1.05%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 166 (3.36%) Network Security
2 161 (3.26%) Firewall
3 100 (2.03%) WAN
4 97 (1.97%) DNS
5 79 (1.60%) VPN
6 73 (1.48%) LAN
7 48 (0.97%) SD-WAN
8 45 (0.91%) BGP
9 44 (0.89%) TCP/IP
10 41 (0.83%) DHCP
11 37 (0.75%) MPLS
12 34 (0.69%) VLAN
13 29 (0.59%) Wireless
14 28 (0.57%) OSPF
14 28 (0.57%) SAN
15 25 (0.51%) NAS
16 23 (0.47%) IPsec
16 23 (0.47%) VXLAN
17 22 (0.45%) Structured Cabling
18 19 (0.38%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 183 (3.71%) Power BI
2 155 (3.14%) Metadata
3 154 (3.12%) Data Lake
4 139 (2.82%) Data Warehouse
5 66 (1.34%) NoSQL
6 56 (1.13%) SQL Server
7 44 (0.89%) Big Data
8 41 (0.83%) PostgreSQL
9 35 (0.71%) Azure SQL Database
10 34 (0.69%) BigQuery
11 33 (0.67%) Delta Lake
12 29 (0.59%) Oracle Database
13 28 (0.57%) Amazon RDS
14 26 (0.53%) Amazon Redshift
14 26 (0.53%) GIS
15 20 (0.41%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
15 20 (0.41%) Semantic Layer
15 20 (0.41%) Tableau
16 19 (0.38%) Star Schema
17 18 (0.36%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 77 (1.56%) JIRA
2 65 (1.32%) Git
3 55 (1.11%) Jenkins
4 31 (0.63%) GitLab
5 24 (0.49%) ERwin
6 8 (0.16%) Artifactory
6 8 (0.16%) MLflow
7 7 (0.14%) Cypress.io
7 7 (0.14%) SonarQube
8 6 (0.12%) Claude Code
8 6 (0.12%) Oracle Forms
8 6 (0.12%) PowerDesigner
9 5 (0.10%) Maven
9 5 (0.10%) Sonatype Nexus
9 5 (0.10%) Storybook
10 4 (0.081%) Bitbucket
10 4 (0.081%) ER Studio
10 4 (0.081%) REST Assured
10 4 (0.081%) Snyk
11 3 (0.061%) VTune
General
1 917 (18.58%) Social Skills
2 781 (15.82%) Finance
3 538 (10.90%) Public Sector
4 299 (6.06%) Banking
5 268 (5.43%) Analytical Skills
6 228 (4.62%) Retail
7 124 (2.51%) Documentation Skills
8 123 (2.49%) Influencing Skills
9 116 (2.35%) Telecoms
10 97 (1.97%) Manufacturing
11 74 (1.50%) Legal
12 55 (1.11%) Marketing
13 51 (1.03%) Billing
14 50 (1.01%) Financial Institution
15 48 (0.97%) Law
16 46 (0.93%) Military
17 41 (0.83%) Aerospace
18 38 (0.77%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 36 (0.73%) Presentation Skills
20 29 (0.59%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 235 (4.76%) REST
2 167 (3.38%) Middleware
3 116 (2.35%) .NET
4 107 (2.17%) SOAP
5 95 (1.92%) Kafka
6 87 (1.76%) OAuth
7 70 (1.42%) Oracle Fusion
8 54 (1.09%) OpenID
9 50 (1.01%) SAML
10 48 (0.97%) OAuth2
10 48 (0.97%) React
11 44 (0.89%) JSON
12 43 (0.87%) SailPoint
13 40 (0.81%) RESTful
14 37 (0.75%) .NET Framework
15 34 (0.69%) PySpark
16 32 (0.65%) LDAP
17 29 (0.59%) Web Services
18 28 (0.57%) Node.js
19 27 (0.55%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 407 (8.25%) Cloud Native
2 144 (2.92%) Data Centre
3 130 (2.63%) Legacy Systems
4 123 (2.49%) Onboarding
5 120 (2.43%) Hybrid Cloud
6 117 (2.37%) Product Ownership
7 115 (2.33%) Distributed Systems
8 108 (2.19%) Management Information System
9 93 (1.88%) AI Agents
10 92 (1.86%) Enterprise Software
11 86 (1.74%) Data Protection Act
11 86 (1.74%) Operational Technology
12 74 (1.50%) CMDB
13 66 (1.34%) Public Cloud
14 58 (1.18%) Enterprise Cloud
15 55 (1.11%) Security Posture
16 52 (1.05%) Data Structures
17 49 (0.99%) Private Cloud
18 44 (0.89%) Mainframe
19 40 (0.81%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 111 (2.25%) Windows
2 80 (1.62%) Linux
3 32 (0.65%) Windows Server
4 25 (0.51%) Android
4 25 (0.51%) Apple iOS
5 20 (0.41%) Unix
6 16 (0.32%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 12 (0.24%) zOS
8 8 (0.16%) AIX
9 6 (0.12%) Ubuntu
10 5 (0.10%) Data ONTAP
11 4 (0.081%) Alpine Linux
11 4 (0.081%) Solaris
11 4 (0.081%) VMS
12 3 (0.061%) Mac OS
13 2 (0.041%) CentOS
13 2 (0.041%) Windows Server 2019
14 1 (0.020%) Kali Linux
14 1 (0.020%) Windows 10
14 1 (0.020%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 755 (15.30%) Roadmaps
2 698 (14.14%) Migration
3 644 (13.05%) Stakeholder Management
4 594 (12.03%) AI
5 574 (11.63%) Agile
6 570 (11.55%) Enterprise Architecture
7 553 (11.20%) DevOps
8 517 (10.47%) Data Modelling
9 509 (10.31%) CI/CD
10 479 (9.70%) Technical Leadership
11 478 (9.68%) Data Architecture
12 477 (9.66%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 472 (9.56%) Integration Patterns
14 444 (9.00%) Analytics
15 412 (8.35%) Architectural Patterns
16 404 (8.18%) TOGAF
17 343 (6.95%) Security Architecture
18 334 (6.77%) Microservices
19 330 (6.69%) Problem-Solving
20 316 (6.40%) Architectural Design
Programming Languages
1 251 (5.09%) Python
2 232 (4.70%) SQL
3 205 (4.15%) Java
4 111 (2.25%) JavaScript
5 86 (1.74%) PowerShell
6 58 (1.18%) C#
7 45 (0.91%) Bash
7 45 (0.91%) Bicep
8 42 (0.85%) TypeScript
9 28 (0.57%) Apex Code
10 14 (0.28%) Ruby
11 12 (0.24%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 12 (0.24%) Shell Script
12 11 (0.22%) Scala
13 10 (0.20%) ABAP
13 10 (0.20%) C++
14 9 (0.18%) R
15 8 (0.16%) PL/SQL
15 8 (0.16%) VBA
16 7 (0.14%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 1,449 (29.36%) Security Cleared
2 1,053 (21.33%) SC Cleared
3 314 (6.36%) DV Cleared
4 170 (3.44%) Degree
5 127 (2.57%) CISSP
6 110 (2.23%) Azure Certification
7 99 (2.01%) AWS Certification
8 92 (1.86%) Cisco Certification
9 82 (1.66%) TOGAF Certification
10 71 (1.44%) Computer Science Degree
11 61 (1.24%) BPSS Clearance
12 58 (1.18%) CISM
13 45 (0.91%) CCNP
14 42 (0.85%) Microsoft Certification
15 35 (0.71%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 31 (0.63%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 29 (0.59%) Master's Degree
18 22 (0.45%) CCSP
19 20 (0.41%) CCIE
19 20 (0.41%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 172 (3.48%) Data Quality
2 164 (3.32%) NIST
3 155 (3.14%) GDPR
4 117 (2.37%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 96 (1.94%) NCSC
6 57 (1.15%) QA
7 52 (1.05%) GRC
8 39 (0.79%) PCI DSS
9 34 (0.69%) Accessibility
10 29 (0.59%) NIST 800
11 28 (0.57%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 20 (0.41%) ISO 20022
12 20 (0.41%) SEPA
13 19 (0.38%) Cyber Essentials
13 19 (0.38%) IFRS
14 17 (0.34%) HL7
15 14 (0.28%) COBIT
16 11 (0.22%) HIPAA
16 11 (0.22%) ISO/IEC 20000
16 11 (0.22%) SLA
System Software
1 150 (3.04%) Active Directory
2 98 (1.99%) Docker
3 67 (1.36%) VMware Infrastructure
4 49 (0.99%) VMware NSX
5 24 (0.49%) Virtual Desktop
6 19 (0.38%) vSphere
7 15 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
8 14 (0.28%) Hyper-V
9 11 (0.22%) VMware ESXi
10 8 (0.16%) NFS
11 7 (0.14%) Varnish
12 6 (0.12%) Postfix
12 6 (0.12%) vCloud
13 5 (0.10%) IAG
14 4 (0.081%) EMC RecoverPoint
14 4 (0.081%) RACF
14 4 (0.081%) Sendmail
14 4 (0.081%) Squid
15 3 (0.061%) KVM
15 3 (0.061%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 234 (4.74%) Kubernetes
2 217 (4.40%) Terraform
3 93 (1.88%) Ansible
4 46 (0.93%) Grafana
5 44 (0.89%) Microsoft Intune
6 43 (0.87%) Single Sign-On
7 33 (0.67%) Prometheus
8 21 (0.43%) vCenter Server
9 19 (0.38%) Argo
10 16 (0.32%) Jamf Pro
11 13 (0.26%) FortiGate
12 12 (0.24%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 7 (0.14%) SCCM
14 6 (0.12%) CASB
14 6 (0.12%) EMC VPLEX
14 6 (0.12%) HAProxy
15 5 (0.10%) Istio
15 5 (0.10%) MOM
15 5 (0.10%) Progress Chef
16 4 (0.081%) NetBackup
Vendors
1 647 (13.11%) Microsoft
2 288 (5.83%) SAP
3 252 (5.11%) Oracle
4 250 (5.06%) ServiceNow
5 220 (4.46%) Databricks
6 152 (3.08%) Salesforce
7 138 (2.80%) VMware
8 122 (2.47%) Google
9 121 (2.45%) Cisco
10 57 (1.15%) CyberArk
11 56 (1.13%) IBM
12 49 (0.99%) Workday
13 47 (0.95%) MuleSoft
13 47 (0.95%) Palo Alto
14 44 (0.89%) Splunk
15 42 (0.85%) Foundry
16 37 (0.75%) Sparx
17 36 (0.73%) Ariba
17 36 (0.73%) OpenAI
18 34 (0.69%) F5