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 3 October 2026.

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

6 months to
3 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 19 15
Rank change year-on-year +8 -4 +1
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,105 2,500 3,193
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.97% 8.92% 9.84%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.91% 9.78% 10.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,410 1,670 1,929
10th Percentile £481 £463 £475
25th Percentile £525 £525 £533
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £625
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% - -3.85%
75th Percentile £704 £714 £738
90th Percentile £788 £788 £800
UK median daily rate £620 £625 £625
% change year-on-year -0.80% - -3.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 179 13 65
10th Percentile £40.00 £61.50 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £66.25 £61.25
Median hourly rate £68.17 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -5.98% +3.57% -3.34%
75th Percentile £80.00 £95.00 £85.00
90th Percentile £95.00 £100.00 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £68.50 £72.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -5.52% +3.57% -2.78%

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 42,864 25,553 30,182
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.14% 91.19% 93.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,324 16,470 18,510
10th Percentile £325 £280 £300
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.11%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,642 1,405 1,351
10th Percentile £14.59 £13.80 £15.00
25th Percentile £20.50 £17.30 £21.25
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.90
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -42.71% -4.44%
75th Percentile £67.88 £52.50 £67.50
90th Percentile £79.00 £70.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £42.96
% change year-on-year +65.94% -41.45% -3.47%

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 3 October 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 3 October 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 3 October 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 2,625 £625 -3.40% 2,696
South East +3 723 £625 +4.17% 586
North of England +2 678 £600 - 497
Midlands +4 448 £627 +8.96% 286
North West +4 368 £598 +4.00% 269
South West +4 346 £638 -1.92% 254
West Midlands +6 335 £650 +8.33% 213
Yorkshire +14 245 £600 -1.03% 170
East of England +6 155 £618 +9.89% 186
East Midlands +3 108 £600 +20.00% 73
North East -3 68 £625 -15.25% 58
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 3 October 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 1,597 (31.28%) Security Cleared
2 1,324 (25.94%) Azure
3 1,164 (22.80%) SC Cleared
4 993 (19.45%) AWS
5 987 (19.33%) Stakeholder Management
6 864 (16.92%) Roadmaps
7 752 (14.73%) Migration
8 712 (13.95%) Microsoft
9 695 (13.61%) AI
10 693 (13.57%) Enterprise Architecture
11 649 (12.71%) Technical Leadership
12 559 (10.95%) DevOps
13 534 (10.46%) Data Architecture
14 527 (10.32%) CI/CD
15 523 (10.24%) Agile
15 523 (10.24%) Data Modelling
16 502 (9.83%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 458 (8.97%) Integration Patterns
18 443 (8.68%) Analytics
19 411 (8.05%) Security Architecture
20 404 (7.91%) TOGAF
21 402 (7.87%) GCP
22 386 (7.56%) Architectural Patterns
23 363 (7.11%) DV Cleared
24 353 (6.91%) Architecture Governance
25 342 (6.70%) Event-Driven
26 337 (6.60%) Cybersecurity
27 326 (6.39%) Data Governance
28 324 (6.35%) Decision-Making
29 310 (6.07%) 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 74 (1.45%) SAS
2 59 (1.16%) SharePoint
3 45 (0.88%) Confluence
4 40 (0.78%) Apache
5 38 (0.74%) Apache Spark
6 35 (0.69%) Apache Airflow
7 28 (0.55%) Microsoft Exchange
8 22 (0.43%) CMS
9 19 (0.37%) Palantir Foundry
10 14 (0.27%) OpenStack
11 7 (0.14%) Documentum
11 7 (0.14%) IIS
11 7 (0.14%) NetWeaver
12 6 (0.12%) ArcGIS
12 6 (0.12%) Headless CMS
13 5 (0.098%) Appian
13 5 (0.098%) SAP EP
14 4 (0.078%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 4 (0.078%) JBoss
15 3 (0.059%) nginx
Applications
1 22 (0.43%) MS Visio
2 16 (0.31%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 11 (0.22%) Microsoft Excel
4 9 (0.18%) Chatbot
4 9 (0.18%) Microsoft Office
4 9 (0.18%) Revit
5 7 (0.14%) Navisworks
6 5 (0.098%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.039%) AutoCAD
7 2 (0.039%) Gliffy
8 1 (0.020%) Notion
8 1 (0.020%) PlantUML
8 1 (0.020%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 150 (2.94%) SAP S/4HANA
2 43 (0.84%) Dynamics CRM
3 30 (0.59%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 15 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
4 15 (0.29%) SAP MM
4 15 (0.29%) Teamcenter
5 13 (0.25%) NetSuite
6 12 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
6 12 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
6 12 (0.24%) Remedy ITSM
7 11 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
8 10 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
9 9 (0.18%) SAP MDG
9 9 (0.18%) Workday HCM
10 8 (0.16%) SAP BRIM
10 8 (0.16%) SAP HCM
11 7 (0.14%) Maximo
11 7 (0.14%) SAP ERP
12 6 (0.12%) SAP CO
12 6 (0.12%) SAP FI/CO
Cloud Services
1 1,324 (25.94%) Azure
2 993 (19.45%) AWS
3 402 (7.87%) GCP
4 253 (4.96%) Power Platform
5 195 (3.82%) SaaS
6 188 (3.68%) Entra ID
7 148 (2.90%) Serverless
8 123 (2.41%) GitHub
9 118 (2.31%) Dynamics 365
10 115 (2.25%) Azure DevOps
11 112 (2.19%) Microsoft 365
12 106 (2.08%) Snowflake
13 72 (1.41%) PaaS
14 68 (1.33%) OCI
15 59 (1.16%) Amazon S3
16 58 (1.14%) AWS Lambda
17 57 (1.12%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 55 (1.08%) GitHub Actions
19 53 (1.04%) dbt
20 52 (1.02%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 130 (2.55%) Network Security
2 123 (2.41%) Firewall
3 92 (1.80%) WAN
4 61 (1.19%) DNS
5 57 (1.12%) LAN
6 53 (1.04%) VPN
7 45 (0.88%) BGP
8 43 (0.84%) SD-WAN
9 37 (0.72%) MPLS
10 31 (0.61%) DHCP
10 31 (0.61%) TCP/IP
11 27 (0.53%) VXLAN
12 24 (0.47%) VLAN
13 23 (0.45%) NX-OS
14 22 (0.43%) SAN
15 18 (0.35%) Wireless
16 17 (0.33%) Ethernet VPN
16 17 (0.33%) NAS
16 17 (0.33%) NGFW
17 16 (0.31%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 205 (4.02%) Metadata
2 166 (3.25%) Data Lake
3 159 (3.11%) Data Warehouse
4 153 (3.00%) Power BI
5 53 (1.04%) NoSQL
6 46 (0.90%) SQL Server
7 37 (0.72%) BigQuery
7 37 (0.72%) Delta Lake
8 35 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
9 34 (0.67%) PostgreSQL
10 32 (0.63%) Amazon Redshift
10 32 (0.63%) Azure SQL Database
11 30 (0.59%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
11 30 (0.59%) Oracle Database
12 28 (0.55%) Big Data
13 24 (0.47%) Semantic Layer
14 23 (0.45%) GIS
15 21 (0.41%) SAP HANA
15 21 (0.41%) Tableau
16 20 (0.39%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 71 (1.39%) JIRA
2 62 (1.21%) Git
3 52 (1.02%) Jenkins
4 45 (0.88%) GitLab
5 12 (0.24%) ERwin
6 11 (0.22%) Claude Code
6 11 (0.22%) MSI
7 10 (0.20%) Oracle Forms
7 10 (0.20%) RStudio
8 9 (0.18%) Cypress.io
9 7 (0.14%) Postman
10 6 (0.12%) SonarQube
10 6 (0.12%) Storybook
11 5 (0.098%) ER Studio
11 5 (0.098%) Rational DOORS
11 5 (0.098%) Selenium
12 4 (0.078%) Artifactory
12 4 (0.078%) JMeter
12 4 (0.078%) Maven
12 4 (0.078%) MLflow
General
1 1,058 (20.72%) Social Skills
2 746 (14.61%) Finance
3 564 (11.05%) Public Sector
4 277 (5.43%) Banking
5 256 (5.01%) Retail
6 244 (4.78%) Analytical Skills
7 159 (3.11%) Influencing Skills
8 136 (2.66%) Manufacturing
9 125 (2.45%) Telecoms
10 112 (2.19%) Documentation Skills
11 72 (1.41%) Marketing
12 69 (1.35%) Legal
13 63 (1.23%) Aerospace
14 61 (1.19%) Billing
15 52 (1.02%) Military
16 48 (0.94%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 38 (0.74%) Presentation Skills
18 28 (0.55%) Local Government
19 27 (0.53%) Aviation
19 27 (0.53%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 264 (5.17%) REST
2 209 (4.09%) Terraform
3 135 (2.64%) Kafka
4 126 (2.47%) Middleware
4 126 (2.47%) SOAP
5 109 (2.14%) .NET
6 102 (2.00%) OAuth
7 76 (1.49%) Oracle Fusion
8 55 (1.08%) SAML
9 54 (1.06%) JSON
9 54 (1.06%) OpenID
10 51 (1.00%) LDAP
11 49 (0.96%) OAuth2
12 43 (0.84%) PySpark
13 40 (0.78%) .NET Framework
14 39 (0.76%) XML
15 37 (0.72%) SailPoint
16 35 (0.69%) JWT
17 34 (0.67%) SAP Fiori
18 32 (0.63%) React
Miscellaneous
1 422 (8.27%) Cloud Native
2 159 (3.11%) Data Centre
2 159 (3.11%) Onboarding
3 124 (2.43%) Hybrid Cloud
3 124 (2.43%) Product Ownership
4 123 (2.41%) Legacy Systems
5 120 (2.35%) Enterprise Software
6 119 (2.33%) AI Agents
6 119 (2.33%) Distributed Systems
7 102 (2.00%) Management Information System
8 98 (1.92%) CMDB
9 80 (1.57%) Data Protection Act
9 80 (1.57%) Operational Technology
10 72 (1.41%) Public Cloud
11 69 (1.35%) Enterprise Cloud
12 65 (1.27%) Private Cloud
13 59 (1.16%) Data Structures
14 55 (1.08%) Security Posture
15 43 (0.84%) Taxonomies
16 41 (0.80%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 106 (2.08%) Windows
2 81 (1.59%) Linux
3 41 (0.80%) Windows Server
4 21 (0.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 18 (0.35%) Unix
6 9 (0.18%) AIX
7 8 (0.16%) Ubuntu
8 7 (0.14%) Apple iOS
9 6 (0.12%) Android
9 6 (0.12%) zOS
10 5 (0.098%) Solaris
11 4 (0.078%) Alpine Linux
11 4 (0.078%) Data ONTAP
11 4 (0.078%) VMS
12 3 (0.059%) CentOS
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
1 987 (19.33%) Stakeholder Management
2 864 (16.92%) Roadmaps
3 752 (14.73%) Migration
4 695 (13.61%) AI
5 693 (13.57%) Enterprise Architecture
6 649 (12.71%) Technical Leadership
7 559 (10.95%) DevOps
8 534 (10.46%) Data Architecture
9 527 (10.32%) CI/CD
10 523 (10.24%) Agile
10 523 (10.24%) Data Modelling
11 502 (9.83%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 458 (8.97%) Integration Patterns
13 443 (8.68%) Analytics
14 411 (8.05%) Security Architecture
15 404 (7.91%) TOGAF
16 386 (7.56%) Architectural Patterns
17 353 (6.91%) Architecture Governance
18 342 (6.70%) Event-Driven
19 337 (6.60%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 216 (4.23%) SQL
2 203 (3.98%) Python
3 187 (3.66%) Java
4 99 (1.94%) JavaScript
5 88 (1.72%) PowerShell
6 50 (0.98%) C#
7 45 (0.88%) TypeScript
8 38 (0.74%) Bash
9 34 (0.67%) Bicep
10 27 (0.53%) ABAP
10 27 (0.53%) Apex Code
11 15 (0.29%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 13 (0.25%) Shell Script
13 11 (0.22%) Groovy
14 10 (0.20%) R
15 9 (0.18%) C++
16 8 (0.16%) PL/SQL
17 7 (0.14%) BeanShell
17 7 (0.14%) Rust
18 6 (0.12%) Cypher
Qualifications
1 1,597 (31.28%) Security Cleared
2 1,164 (22.80%) SC Cleared
3 363 (7.11%) DV Cleared
4 155 (3.04%) Degree
5 131 (2.57%) CISSP
6 121 (2.37%) BPSS Clearance
7 105 (2.06%) Azure Certification
8 99 (1.94%) AWS Certification
9 88 (1.72%) Cisco Certification
10 86 (1.68%) TOGAF Certification
11 62 (1.21%) CISM
12 60 (1.18%) Computer Science Degree
13 43 (0.84%) Microsoft Certification
14 39 (0.76%) CCNP
15 34 (0.67%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 33 (0.65%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 26 (0.51%) CCSP
18 23 (0.45%) CCIE
18 23 (0.45%) Master's Degree
19 19 (0.37%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 221 (4.33%) Data Quality
2 184 (3.60%) NIST
3 152 (2.98%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 129 (2.53%) GDPR
5 106 (2.08%) NCSC
6 70 (1.37%) GRC
7 47 (0.92%) QA
8 41 (0.80%) Accessibility
9 33 (0.65%) PCI DSS
10 27 (0.53%) NIST 800
11 25 (0.49%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 22 (0.43%) ISO/IEC 20000
12 22 (0.43%) SLA
13 20 (0.39%) JSP 440
14 18 (0.35%) SEPA
15 16 (0.31%) ISO 19650
16 15 (0.29%) Cyber Essentials
16 15 (0.29%) IFRS
16 15 (0.29%) ISO 20022
17 13 (0.25%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 167 (3.27%) Active Directory
2 80 (1.57%) Docker
3 64 (1.25%) VMware Infrastructure
4 37 (0.72%) VMware NSX
5 27 (0.53%) Virtual Desktop
6 16 (0.31%) vSphere
7 15 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
8 13 (0.25%) VMware ESXi
9 11 (0.22%) Hyper-V
10 5 (0.098%) ISA Server
11 4 (0.078%) EMC RecoverPoint
11 4 (0.078%) KVM
12 3 (0.059%) Ceph
12 3 (0.059%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 3 (0.059%) NFS
12 3 (0.059%) SRDF
12 3 (0.059%) Virtual Servers
13 2 (0.039%) Microsoft App-V
13 2 (0.039%) Postfix
13 2 (0.039%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 231 (4.52%) Kubernetes
2 88 (1.72%) Ansible
3 40 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
4 37 (0.72%) Grafana
5 29 (0.57%) 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 12 (0.24%) WMI
10 11 (0.22%) FortiGate
11 10 (0.20%) CASB
12 7 (0.14%) SCCM
12 7 (0.14%) vCenter Server
13 6 (0.12%) NetBackup
13 6 (0.12%) Progress Chef
13 6 (0.12%) Puppet
14 5 (0.098%) EMC VPLEX
14 5 (0.098%) Istio
15 4 (0.078%) VxRail
Vendors
1 712 (13.95%) Microsoft
2 295 (5.78%) SAP
3 265 (5.19%) Oracle
4 246 (4.82%) ServiceNow
5 240 (4.70%) Databricks
6 180 (3.53%) Google
7 166 (3.25%) Salesforce
8 131 (2.57%) Cisco
9 111 (2.17%) VMware
10 84 (1.65%) CyberArk
11 61 (1.19%) MuleSoft
12 52 (1.02%) IBM
12 52 (1.02%) Workday
13 48 (0.94%) Palo Alto
14 43 (0.84%) Foundry
15 34 (0.67%) Fortinet
15 34 (0.67%) Informatica
15 34 (0.67%) Splunk
16 33 (0.65%) Adobe
16 33 (0.65%) OpenAI