Architect Contract Job Trends in England

Architect
UK > England

The median Architect daily rate in England is £625, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 24 February 2026.

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

6 months to
24 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 16 13
Rank change year-on-year -1 -3 +7
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 3,601 2,557 3,676
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.29% 10.07% 9.74%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.20% 10.84% 10.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,444 1,581 2,428
10th Percentile £458 £475 £500
25th Percentile £513 £547 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -1.89%
75th Percentile £725 £725 £738
90th Percentile £788 £799 £800
UK median daily rate £625 £625 £650
% change year-on-year - -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 72 28 43
10th Percentile £49.40 £57.43 £53.45
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £61.25
Median hourly rate £71.25 £71.25 £78.74
Median % change year-on-year - -9.51% +12.49%
75th Percentile £90.09 £78.92 £87.53
90th Percentile £95.00 £86.30 £95.00
UK median hourly rate £70.00 £71.25 £77.64
% change year-on-year -1.75% -8.22% +10.91%

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 32,138 23,598 35,085
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.87% 92.97% 92.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,392 14,950 23,516
10th Percentile £305 £300 £272
25th Percentile £410 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £503 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.29% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £623 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £750 £746
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,058 716 2,160
10th Percentile £15.00 £16.24 £13.23
25th Percentile £18.87 £22.00 £16.30
Median hourly rate £33.34 £36.25 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.04% +3.57% -12.50%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £74.68 £75.38 £71.87
UK median hourly rate £32.00 £35.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year -8.57% - -10.88%

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 February 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 February 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 February 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 -1 1,611 £630 -3.08% 354
South East +6 617 £625 - 262
North of England -2 500 £575 -4.17% 128
Midlands -2 357 £573 -4.54% 103
North West -3 278 £579 -3.50% 68
West Midlands -3 268 £600 -0.79% 68
South West +1 257 £706 +12.96% 62
Yorkshire 0 204 £560 -2.23% 38
East of England +18 162 £550 -13.73% 30
East Midlands -6 87 £500 -11.89% 35
North East -12 23 £625 -1.96% 24
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 24 February 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 1,146 (31.82%) Security Cleared
2 910 (25.27%) Azure
3 801 (22.24%) SC Cleared
4 721 (20.02%) AWS
5 527 (14.63%) Roadmaps
6 524 (14.55%) Microsoft
7 492 (13.66%) Agile
8 465 (12.91%) Stakeholder Management
9 437 (12.14%) Migration
10 411 (11.41%) DevOps
11 395 (10.97%) Enterprise Architecture
12 358 (9.94%) TOGAF
13 354 (9.83%) Data Modelling
14 348 (9.66%) CI/CD
15 341 (9.47%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 332 (9.22%) Technical Leadership
17 316 (8.78%) Problem-Solving
18 301 (8.36%) GCP
19 300 (8.33%) Data Architecture
20 294 (8.16%) Analytics
21 293 (8.14%) AI
22 272 (7.55%) Integration Patterns
23 267 (7.41%) Python
24 263 (7.30%) DV Cleared
25 250 (6.94%) Microservices
26 230 (6.39%) Architectural Design
26 230 (6.39%) Architectural Patterns
27 214 (5.94%) Terraform
28 209 (5.80%) Data Governance
29 208 (5.78%) ServiceNow

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
1 108 (3.00%) Confluence
2 91 (2.53%) SharePoint
3 59 (1.64%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (0.75%) SAS
5 20 (0.56%) CMS
6 18 (0.50%) Apache Spark
7 15 (0.42%) Anypoint
7 15 (0.42%) Apache Airflow
7 15 (0.42%) Appian
8 14 (0.39%) ArcGIS
9 13 (0.36%) WebLogic
10 12 (0.33%) OpenStack
11 11 (0.31%) Apache
12 10 (0.28%) nginx
13 9 (0.25%) Smallworld
14 7 (0.19%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 7 (0.19%) Skype for Business
15 6 (0.17%) Ethereum
15 6 (0.17%) GeoServer
15 6 (0.17%) Hyperledger
Applications
1 51 (1.42%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (0.89%) Microsoft Project
3 26 (0.72%) Microsoft Excel
4 25 (0.69%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 12 (0.33%) MS Visio
6 7 (0.19%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.028%) ArchiCAD
7 1 (0.028%) AutoCAD
7 1 (0.028%) FrameMaker
7 1 (0.028%) OrCAD
7 1 (0.028%) PlantUML
7 1 (0.028%) Revit
7 1 (0.028%) Siemens NX
7 1 (0.028%) Trello
Business Applications
1 91 (2.53%) SAP S/4HANA
2 38 (1.06%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 23 (0.64%) Workday HCM
4 20 (0.56%) Dynamics CRM
5 17 (0.47%) Payment Gateway
6 16 (0.44%) Salesforce CRM
7 11 (0.31%) NetSuite
8 10 (0.28%) Oracle EBS
8 10 (0.28%) SAP PM
9 9 (0.25%) Oracle Receivables
10 8 (0.22%) Maximo
10 8 (0.22%) SAP ERP
10 8 (0.22%) SAP EWM
11 7 (0.19%) Remedy ITSM
11 7 (0.19%) SAP PP
12 6 (0.17%) Oracle SCM
12 6 (0.17%) R3 Corda
12 6 (0.17%) SAP CO
12 6 (0.17%) SAP QM
13 5 (0.14%) Distributed Ledger
Cloud Services
1 910 (25.27%) Azure
2 721 (20.02%) AWS
3 301 (8.36%) GCP
4 135 (3.75%) Entra ID
5 131 (3.64%) Power Platform
6 127 (3.53%) Microsoft 365
7 123 (3.42%) SaaS
8 115 (3.19%) Serverless
9 82 (2.28%) IaaS
10 80 (2.22%) Azure DevOps
10 80 (2.22%) GitHub
11 68 (1.89%) PaaS
12 66 (1.83%) AWS Lambda
13 64 (1.78%) Amazon S3
13 64 (1.78%) OpenShift
14 61 (1.69%) Microsoft Purview
15 59 (1.64%) Dynamics 365
16 54 (1.50%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 52 (1.44%) AWS CloudFormation
18 51 (1.42%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 179 (4.97%) Firewall
2 122 (3.39%) Network Security
3 108 (3.00%) WAN
4 106 (2.94%) DNS
5 98 (2.72%) VPN
6 73 (2.03%) LAN
7 54 (1.50%) SD-WAN
8 33 (0.92%) BGP
9 29 (0.81%) DHCP
9 29 (0.81%) Wi-Fi
10 28 (0.78%) MPLS
11 25 (0.69%) OSPF
12 24 (0.67%) TCP/IP
13 21 (0.58%) SAN
14 20 (0.56%) VLAN
14 20 (0.56%) VSAN
15 18 (0.50%) IPsec
16 17 (0.47%) SSL
17 15 (0.42%) Internet
18 14 (0.39%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 117 (3.25%) Data Warehouse
2 105 (2.92%) Metadata
3 92 (2.55%) Power BI
4 70 (1.94%) Data Lake
5 62 (1.72%) SQL Server
6 45 (1.25%) PostgreSQL
7 44 (1.22%) Tableau
8 40 (1.11%) NoSQL
9 29 (0.81%) Oracle Database
10 27 (0.75%) Amazon Redshift
10 27 (0.75%) Azure SQL Database
11 24 (0.67%) GIS
12 21 (0.58%) Big Data
13 20 (0.56%) Metadata Repository
14 19 (0.53%) DynamoDB
15 18 (0.50%) Relational Database
16 17 (0.47%) Amazon Aurora
17 16 (0.44%) BigQuery
17 16 (0.44%) Data Vault
17 16 (0.44%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 126 (3.50%) JIRA
2 87 (2.42%) Jenkins
3 42 (1.17%) GitLab
4 30 (0.83%) Git
5 15 (0.42%) ERwin
6 10 (0.28%) Artifactory
6 10 (0.28%) Bitbucket
7 9 (0.25%) SonarQube
8 7 (0.19%) MLflow
8 7 (0.19%) Postman
9 5 (0.14%) Oracle Forms
9 5 (0.14%) REST Assured
10 4 (0.11%) Cucumber
10 4 (0.11%) Rational DOORS
10 4 (0.11%) Selenium
10 4 (0.11%) Terragrunt
11 3 (0.083%) JUnit
11 3 (0.083%) PowerDesigner
11 3 (0.083%) Snyk
11 3 (0.083%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 829 (23.02%) Social Skills
2 579 (16.08%) Finance
3 413 (11.47%) Public Sector
4 255 (7.08%) Analytical Skills
5 213 (5.92%) Banking
6 117 (3.25%) Documentation Skills
7 85 (2.36%) Influencing Skills
8 80 (2.22%) Military
9 79 (2.19%) Retail
10 74 (2.05%) Legal
11 73 (2.03%) Presentation Skills
12 72 (2.00%) Telecoms
13 62 (1.72%) Marketing
14 52 (1.44%) Manufacturing
15 35 (0.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 34 (0.94%) Billing
17 29 (0.81%) Financial Institution
18 24 (0.67%) Law
19 20 (0.56%) Investment Banking
20 15 (0.42%) Aerospace
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 196 (5.44%) REST
2 136 (3.78%) Middleware
3 107 (2.97%) SOAP
4 75 (2.08%) .NET
5 73 (2.03%) LDAP
5 73 (2.03%) OpenID
6 63 (1.75%) OAuth
6 63 (1.75%) SAML
7 54 (1.50%) Kafka
8 50 (1.39%) JSON
9 39 (1.08%) OAuth2
10 33 (0.92%) SailPoint
11 31 (0.86%) AngularJS
12 30 (0.83%) RESTful
13 27 (0.75%) React
14 26 (0.72%) Oracle Fusion
15 24 (0.67%) PySpark
16 20 (0.56%) Lightning Web Components
16 20 (0.56%) Microsoft Graph
16 20 (0.56%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 255 (7.08%) Cloud Native
2 129 (3.58%) Product Ownership
3 107 (2.97%) Legacy Systems
4 105 (2.92%) Onboarding
5 97 (2.69%) Data Centre
6 91 (2.53%) Enterprise Software
7 88 (2.44%) PKI
8 75 (2.08%) Hybrid Cloud
9 57 (1.58%) Security Posture
10 56 (1.56%) Operational Technology
11 53 (1.47%) Management Information System
11 53 (1.47%) Public Cloud
12 48 (1.33%) Data Protection Act
13 47 (1.31%) Distributed Systems
14 43 (1.19%) CMDB
14 43 (1.19%) Self-Motivation
15 36 (1.00%) Data Structures
16 29 (0.81%) Private Cloud
17 27 (0.75%) AI Agents
17 27 (0.75%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 155 (4.30%) Windows
2 85 (2.36%) Linux
3 36 (1.00%) Windows Server
4 18 (0.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 17 (0.47%) Windows 7
6 16 (0.44%) Android
6 16 (0.44%) Apple iOS
7 14 (0.39%) Windows 10
8 12 (0.33%) Unix
9 9 (0.25%) Mac OS
10 8 (0.22%) VMS
10 8 (0.22%) Windows Server 2016
10 8 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
11 7 (0.19%) zOS
12 6 (0.17%) Ubuntu
13 4 (0.11%) CentOS
14 2 (0.056%) Windows Server 2012
15 1 (0.028%) Data ONTAP
15 1 (0.028%) Kali Linux
15 1 (0.028%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 527 (14.63%) Roadmaps
2 492 (13.66%) Agile
3 465 (12.91%) Stakeholder Management
4 437 (12.14%) Migration
5 411 (11.41%) DevOps
6 395 (10.97%) Enterprise Architecture
7 358 (9.94%) TOGAF
8 354 (9.83%) Data Modelling
9 348 (9.66%) CI/CD
10 341 (9.47%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 332 (9.22%) Technical Leadership
12 316 (8.78%) Problem-Solving
13 300 (8.33%) Data Architecture
14 294 (8.16%) Analytics
15 293 (8.14%) AI
16 272 (7.55%) Integration Patterns
17 250 (6.94%) Microservices
18 230 (6.39%) Architectural Design
18 230 (6.39%) Architectural Patterns
19 209 (5.80%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 267 (7.41%) Python
2 182 (5.05%) SQL
3 170 (4.72%) PowerShell
4 118 (3.28%) Java
5 59 (1.64%) JavaScript
6 48 (1.33%) C#
7 35 (0.97%) Bash
8 31 (0.86%) Bicep
9 30 (0.83%) TypeScript
10 18 (0.50%) Apex Code
11 16 (0.44%) PL/SQL
12 14 (0.39%) Kusto Query Language
13 13 (0.36%) R
14 9 (0.25%) Scala
14 9 (0.25%) T-SQL
15 8 (0.22%) Ruby
15 8 (0.22%) VB
16 7 (0.19%) Korn
16 7 (0.19%) VBScript
17 6 (0.17%) C
Qualifications
1 1,146 (31.82%) Security Cleared
2 801 (22.24%) SC Cleared
3 263 (7.30%) DV Cleared
4 174 (4.83%) Degree
5 112 (3.11%) TOGAF Certification
6 97 (2.69%) AWS Certification
7 96 (2.67%) CISSP
8 95 (2.64%) Azure Certification
9 69 (1.92%) Computer Science Degree
10 66 (1.83%) Cisco Certification
11 57 (1.58%) Microsoft Certification
12 56 (1.56%) BPSS Clearance
13 47 (1.31%) CISM
14 45 (1.25%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 44 (1.22%) Master's Degree
16 40 (1.11%) CCNP
17 30 (0.83%) ITIL Certification
18 29 (0.81%) CCIE
19 28 (0.78%) ISEB
20 21 (0.58%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 162 (4.50%) GDPR
2 124 (3.44%) NIST
3 113 (3.14%) Data Quality
4 107 (2.97%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 82 (2.28%) NCSC
6 58 (1.61%) QA
7 46 (1.28%) PCI DSS
8 32 (0.89%) COBIT
9 29 (0.81%) GRC
10 26 (0.72%) Cyber Essentials
11 24 (0.67%) ISO 20022
12 18 (0.50%) Accessibility
13 16 (0.44%) JSP 440
14 15 (0.42%) MiFID
15 13 (0.36%) FINRA
16 12 (0.33%) California Consumer Privacy Act
16 12 (0.33%) HIPAA
16 12 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
17 11 (0.31%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
17 11 (0.31%) PSD2
System Software
1 163 (4.53%) Active Directory
2 120 (3.33%) Docker
3 81 (2.25%) VMware Infrastructure
4 60 (1.67%) VMware NSX
5 36 (1.00%) vSphere
6 22 (0.61%) Virtual Desktop
7 13 (0.36%) Hyper-V
7 13 (0.36%) Virtual Machines
7 13 (0.36%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.19%) BitLocker
8 7 (0.19%) Squid
9 6 (0.17%) vCloud
10 5 (0.14%) Oracle RAC
10 5 (0.14%) RACF
11 4 (0.11%) NFS
12 3 (0.083%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
12 3 (0.083%) Firmware
13 2 (0.056%) IAG
13 2 (0.056%) Lustre
13 2 (0.056%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 214 (5.94%) Terraform
2 187 (5.19%) Kubernetes
3 93 (2.58%) Ansible
4 56 (1.56%) Single Sign-On
5 36 (1.00%) Microsoft Intune
6 30 (0.83%) OPNET
6 30 (0.83%) vCenter Server
7 22 (0.61%) FortiGate
7 22 (0.61%) SCCM
8 21 (0.58%) Grafana
9 18 (0.50%) Prometheus
10 16 (0.44%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 16 (0.44%) Argo
10 16 (0.44%) WMI
11 7 (0.19%) Istio
12 6 (0.17%) Consul
13 5 (0.14%) Kibana
13 5 (0.14%) Puppet
14 4 (0.11%) Progress Chef
15 3 (0.083%) SCOM
Vendors
1 524 (14.55%) Microsoft
2 208 (5.78%) ServiceNow
3 194 (5.39%) SAP
4 163 (4.53%) Oracle
5 161 (4.47%) Salesforce
6 158 (4.39%) VMware
7 119 (3.30%) Databricks
8 97 (2.69%) Cisco
9 90 (2.50%) CyberArk
10 87 (2.42%) Google
11 56 (1.56%) Palo Alto
11 56 (1.56%) Splunk
12 55 (1.53%) MuleSoft
13 49 (1.36%) Centrify
14 48 (1.33%) Remedy
15 45 (1.25%) Atlassian
16 44 (1.22%) Red Hat
17 43 (1.19%) Workday
18 37 (1.03%) BeyondTrust
18 37 (1.03%) IBM