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 9 March 2026.

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

6 months to
9 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 15 16 12
Rank change year-on-year +1 -4 +5
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 3,779 2,529 3,771
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.50% 10.15% 9.90%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.40% 10.91% 10.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,559 1,630 2,490
10th Percentile £462 £477 £500
25th Percentile £513 £548 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -3.70%
75th Percentile £725 £725 £738
90th Percentile £800 £800 £800
UK median daily rate £625 £625 £650
% change year-on-year - -3.85% -1.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 86 28 44
10th Percentile £49.40 £57.43 £51.12
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £60.00
Median hourly rate £71.27 £71.25 £76.53
Median % change year-on-year +0.03% -6.90% +9.33%
75th Percentile £85.00 £78.92 £87.53
90th Percentile £95.00 £86.30 £95.00
UK median hourly rate £70.00 £71.25 £76.53
% change year-on-year -1.75% -6.90% +9.33%

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 33,152 23,173 35,320
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.08% 93.04% 92.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,955 15,154 23,611
10th Percentile £307 £300 £270
25th Percentile £412 £409 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £623 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £750 £748
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,163 767 2,289
10th Percentile £15.27 £15.55 £13.00
25th Percentile £19.34 £21.34 £16.25
Median hourly rate £36.00 £35.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +2.86% +7.69% -22.27%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £59.92
90th Percentile £75.63 £77.31 £71.77
UK median hourly rate £34.95 £33.75 £32.69
% change year-on-year +3.54% +3.24% -20.33%

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 9 March 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 9 March 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 9 March 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 -2 1,696 £630 -3.08% 340
South East +5 657 £625 - 276
North of England -2 528 £579 -3.50% 166
Midlands -3 379 £576 -3.96% 107
North West 0 289 £600 - 95
West Midlands -1 282 £600 -1.15% 57
South West 0 260 £700 +12.00% 119
Yorkshire +8 218 £560 -2.40% 49
East of England +12 162 £550 -12.00% 73
East Midlands -1 93 £519 -7.37% 45
North East -5 27 £625 - 24
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 9 March 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 1,203 (31.83%) Security Cleared
2 946 (25.03%) Azure
3 831 (21.99%) SC Cleared
4 742 (19.63%) AWS
5 555 (14.69%) Roadmaps
6 538 (14.24%) Microsoft
7 502 (13.28%) Agile
8 474 (12.54%) Migration
9 460 (12.17%) Stakeholder Management
10 435 (11.51%) DevOps
11 400 (10.58%) Enterprise Architecture
12 370 (9.79%) CI/CD
13 364 (9.63%) Data Modelling
14 360 (9.53%) TOGAF
15 347 (9.18%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 329 (8.71%) Technical Leadership
17 318 (8.41%) Analytics
17 318 (8.41%) GCP
18 316 (8.36%) Problem-Solving
19 315 (8.34%) Data Architecture
20 312 (8.26%) AI
21 304 (8.04%) Integration Patterns
22 280 (7.41%) DV Cleared
23 271 (7.17%) Python
24 261 (6.91%) Microservices
25 253 (6.69%) Architectural Patterns
26 245 (6.48%) Architectural Design
27 222 (5.87%) ServiceNow
27 222 (5.87%) Terraform
28 214 (5.66%) Data Governance

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
1 111 (2.94%) Confluence
2 99 (2.62%) SharePoint
3 61 (1.61%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (0.71%) SAS
5 20 (0.53%) Apache Spark
5 20 (0.53%) CMS
6 15 (0.40%) Anypoint
6 15 (0.40%) Apache Airflow
6 15 (0.40%) Appian
7 14 (0.37%) Apache
7 14 (0.37%) ArcGIS
8 13 (0.34%) WebLogic
9 11 (0.29%) nginx
10 9 (0.24%) Smallworld
11 8 (0.21%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 8 (0.21%) OpenStack
12 7 (0.19%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 7 (0.19%) Skype for Business
13 6 (0.16%) Sitecore CMS
13 6 (0.16%) Tomcat
Applications
1 50 (1.32%) Microsoft Office
2 30 (0.79%) Microsoft Project
3 26 (0.69%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 25 (0.66%) Microsoft Excel
5 18 (0.48%) MS Visio
6 7 (0.19%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.026%) ArchiCAD
7 1 (0.026%) AutoCAD
7 1 (0.026%) OrCAD
7 1 (0.026%) PlantUML
7 1 (0.026%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 100 (2.65%) SAP S/4HANA
2 39 (1.03%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 23 (0.61%) Workday HCM
4 19 (0.50%) Dynamics CRM
5 17 (0.45%) Payment Gateway
6 16 (0.42%) Salesforce CRM
7 11 (0.29%) NetSuite
8 10 (0.26%) Oracle EBS
8 10 (0.26%) SAP PM
9 9 (0.24%) Maximo
9 9 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
10 8 (0.21%) Remedy ITSM
10 8 (0.21%) SAP ERP
10 8 (0.21%) SAP EWM
11 7 (0.19%) SAP PP
11 7 (0.19%) Teamcenter
12 6 (0.16%) R3 Corda
12 6 (0.16%) SAP CO
12 6 (0.16%) SAP QM
13 5 (0.13%) Distributed Ledger
Cloud Services
1 946 (25.03%) Azure
2 742 (19.63%) AWS
3 318 (8.41%) GCP
4 149 (3.94%) Power Platform
5 145 (3.84%) Entra ID
6 128 (3.39%) Microsoft 365
7 127 (3.36%) SaaS
8 117 (3.10%) Serverless
9 92 (2.43%) IaaS
10 82 (2.17%) GitHub
11 78 (2.06%) Azure DevOps
11 78 (2.06%) PaaS
12 67 (1.77%) OpenShift
13 63 (1.67%) AWS Lambda
14 61 (1.61%) Microsoft Purview
15 58 (1.53%) Amazon S3
15 58 (1.53%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 58 (1.53%) Dynamics 365
16 56 (1.48%) Snowflake
16 56 (1.48%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 176 (4.66%) Firewall
2 125 (3.31%) Network Security
3 110 (2.91%) DNS
4 109 (2.88%) WAN
5 99 (2.62%) VPN
6 71 (1.88%) LAN
7 57 (1.51%) SD-WAN
8 34 (0.90%) BGP
9 29 (0.77%) DHCP
10 28 (0.74%) MPLS
10 28 (0.74%) Wi-Fi
11 26 (0.69%) OSPF
12 23 (0.61%) TCP/IP
13 20 (0.53%) VLAN
13 20 (0.53%) VXLAN
14 18 (0.48%) SAN
14 18 (0.48%) VSAN
15 17 (0.45%) SSL
16 15 (0.40%) Internet
16 15 (0.40%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 127 (3.36%) Data Warehouse
2 109 (2.88%) Metadata
3 107 (2.83%) Power BI
4 75 (1.98%) Data Lake
5 69 (1.83%) SQL Server
6 48 (1.27%) PostgreSQL
7 45 (1.19%) Tableau
8 43 (1.14%) NoSQL
9 32 (0.85%) Azure SQL Database
10 29 (0.77%) Oracle Database
11 26 (0.69%) Amazon Redshift
12 25 (0.66%) GIS
13 21 (0.56%) Big Data
14 20 (0.53%) Delta Lake
14 20 (0.53%) Metadata Repository
15 19 (0.50%) Relational Database
16 17 (0.45%) Amazon Athena
16 17 (0.45%) Amazon Aurora
17 16 (0.42%) BigQuery
18 15 (0.40%) Data Vault
Development Applications
1 125 (3.31%) JIRA
2 83 (2.20%) Jenkins
3 44 (1.16%) GitLab
4 37 (0.98%) Git
5 17 (0.45%) ERwin
6 11 (0.29%) Bitbucket
7 10 (0.26%) SonarQube
8 8 (0.21%) Artifactory
8 8 (0.21%) MLflow
9 5 (0.13%) Oracle Forms
9 5 (0.13%) Postman
9 5 (0.13%) REST Assured
10 4 (0.11%) Cucumber
10 4 (0.11%) PowerDesigner
10 4 (0.11%) Selenium
10 4 (0.11%) Terragrunt
11 3 (0.079%) JUnit
11 3 (0.079%) MSI
11 3 (0.079%) Rational DOORS
11 3 (0.079%) Snyk
General
1 833 (22.04%) Social Skills
2 604 (15.98%) Finance
3 442 (11.70%) Public Sector
4 266 (7.04%) Analytical Skills
5 226 (5.98%) Banking
6 123 (3.25%) Documentation Skills
7 85 (2.25%) Retail
8 84 (2.22%) Influencing Skills
9 79 (2.09%) Military
10 74 (1.96%) Telecoms
11 73 (1.93%) Legal
12 71 (1.88%) Presentation Skills
13 62 (1.64%) Marketing
14 51 (1.35%) Manufacturing
15 38 (1.01%) Financial Institution
16 35 (0.93%) Billing
16 35 (0.93%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 28 (0.74%) Law
18 25 (0.66%) Investment Banking
19 18 (0.48%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 202 (5.35%) REST
2 150 (3.97%) Middleware
3 106 (2.80%) SOAP
4 76 (2.01%) OpenID
5 73 (1.93%) .NET
5 73 (1.93%) LDAP
6 67 (1.77%) OAuth
7 63 (1.67%) SAML
8 52 (1.38%) Kafka
9 49 (1.30%) JSON
10 42 (1.11%) OAuth2
11 33 (0.87%) AngularJS
12 31 (0.82%) SailPoint
13 27 (0.71%) Oracle Fusion
13 27 (0.71%) React
14 26 (0.69%) RESTful
15 24 (0.64%) PySpark
16 22 (0.58%) Microsoft Graph
16 22 (0.58%) Web Services
17 20 (0.53%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 273 (7.22%) Cloud Native
2 131 (3.47%) Product Ownership
3 112 (2.96%) Legacy Systems
4 107 (2.83%) Onboarding
5 103 (2.73%) Data Centre
6 93 (2.46%) Enterprise Software
7 88 (2.33%) PKI
8 75 (1.98%) Hybrid Cloud
9 63 (1.67%) Public Cloud
10 60 (1.59%) Data Protection Act
11 56 (1.48%) Security Posture
12 53 (1.40%) Distributed Systems
13 52 (1.38%) Operational Technology
14 50 (1.32%) Management Information System
15 46 (1.22%) CMDB
15 46 (1.22%) Self-Motivation
16 39 (1.03%) Data Structures
17 34 (0.90%) AI Agents
18 30 (0.79%) Private Cloud
19 28 (0.74%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 157 (4.15%) Windows
2 89 (2.36%) Linux
3 34 (0.90%) Windows Server
4 19 (0.50%) Android
4 19 (0.50%) Apple iOS
5 18 (0.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 16 (0.42%) Windows 7
7 14 (0.37%) Windows 10
8 12 (0.32%) Unix
9 10 (0.26%) zOS
10 9 (0.24%) Mac OS
11 8 (0.21%) VMS
11 8 (0.21%) Windows Server 2016
12 6 (0.16%) Ubuntu
13 5 (0.13%) Windows Server 2019
14 4 (0.11%) CentOS
15 3 (0.079%) Windows Server 2012
16 1 (0.026%) Data ONTAP
16 1 (0.026%) Kali Linux
16 1 (0.026%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 555 (14.69%) Roadmaps
2 502 (13.28%) Agile
3 474 (12.54%) Migration
4 460 (12.17%) Stakeholder Management
5 435 (11.51%) DevOps
6 400 (10.58%) Enterprise Architecture
7 370 (9.79%) CI/CD
8 364 (9.63%) Data Modelling
9 360 (9.53%) TOGAF
10 347 (9.18%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 329 (8.71%) Technical Leadership
12 318 (8.41%) Analytics
13 316 (8.36%) Problem-Solving
14 315 (8.34%) Data Architecture
15 312 (8.26%) AI
16 304 (8.04%) Integration Patterns
17 261 (6.91%) Microservices
18 253 (6.69%) Architectural Patterns
19 245 (6.48%) Architectural Design
20 214 (5.66%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 271 (7.17%) Python
2 195 (5.16%) SQL
3 174 (4.60%) PowerShell
4 114 (3.02%) Java
5 58 (1.53%) JavaScript
6 45 (1.19%) C#
7 36 (0.95%) Bash
8 33 (0.87%) Bicep
9 30 (0.79%) TypeScript
10 17 (0.45%) Apex Code
11 16 (0.42%) PL/SQL
12 14 (0.37%) Kusto Query Language
13 13 (0.34%) R
14 9 (0.24%) Ruby
14 9 (0.24%) Scala
14 9 (0.24%) T-SQL
15 8 (0.21%) VB
16 7 (0.19%) Kotlin
16 7 (0.19%) VBScript
17 6 (0.16%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 1,203 (31.83%) Security Cleared
2 831 (21.99%) SC Cleared
3 280 (7.41%) DV Cleared
4 172 (4.55%) Degree
5 112 (2.96%) TOGAF Certification
6 107 (2.83%) Azure Certification
7 98 (2.59%) AWS Certification
8 92 (2.43%) CISSP
9 71 (1.88%) Computer Science Degree
10 69 (1.83%) Cisco Certification
11 55 (1.46%) BPSS Clearance
12 54 (1.43%) Microsoft Certification
13 46 (1.22%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 45 (1.19%) CISM
15 43 (1.14%) CCNP
16 40 (1.06%) Master's Degree
17 32 (0.85%) ITIL Certification
18 28 (0.74%) CCIE
18 28 (0.74%) ISEB
19 24 (0.64%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 159 (4.21%) GDPR
2 125 (3.31%) Data Quality
3 122 (3.23%) NIST
4 104 (2.75%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 81 (2.14%) NCSC
6 57 (1.51%) QA
7 51 (1.35%) PCI DSS
8 32 (0.85%) COBIT
9 30 (0.79%) GRC
10 25 (0.66%) Cyber Essentials
10 25 (0.66%) ISO 20022
11 16 (0.42%) Accessibility
12 15 (0.40%) MiFID
13 14 (0.37%) JSP 440
14 13 (0.34%) FINRA
14 13 (0.34%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 12 (0.32%) HIPAA
15 12 (0.32%) PSD2
16 11 (0.29%) California Consumer Privacy Act
16 11 (0.29%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 170 (4.50%) Active Directory
2 115 (3.04%) Docker
3 85 (2.25%) VMware Infrastructure
4 62 (1.64%) VMware NSX
5 33 (0.87%) vSphere
6 19 (0.50%) Virtual Desktop
7 14 (0.37%) Hyper-V
8 13 (0.34%) Virtual Machines
9 11 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
10 8 (0.21%) Squid
11 7 (0.19%) BitLocker
11 7 (0.19%) vCloud
12 5 (0.13%) Oracle RAC
12 5 (0.13%) RACF
12 5 (0.13%) Varnish
13 4 (0.11%) Firmware
13 4 (0.11%) NFS
14 3 (0.079%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
14 3 (0.079%) IAG
14 3 (0.079%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 222 (5.87%) Terraform
2 196 (5.19%) Kubernetes
3 99 (2.62%) Ansible
4 52 (1.38%) Single Sign-On
5 40 (1.06%) Microsoft Intune
6 30 (0.79%) OPNET
6 30 (0.79%) vCenter Server
7 24 (0.64%) Grafana
8 22 (0.58%) SCCM
9 21 (0.56%) FortiGate
10 20 (0.53%) Prometheus
11 16 (0.42%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 16 (0.42%) Argo
12 15 (0.40%) WMI
13 8 (0.21%) Istio
14 7 (0.19%) Consul
15 6 (0.16%) Puppet
16 5 (0.13%) Kibana
16 5 (0.13%) Progress Chef
17 3 (0.079%) HAProxy
Vendors
1 538 (14.24%) Microsoft
2 222 (5.87%) ServiceNow
3 209 (5.53%) SAP
4 165 (4.37%) VMware
5 160 (4.23%) Oracle
6 159 (4.21%) Salesforce
7 124 (3.28%) Databricks
8 103 (2.73%) Cisco
9 89 (2.36%) CyberArk
9 89 (2.36%) Google
10 60 (1.59%) MuleSoft
11 53 (1.40%) Splunk
12 50 (1.32%) Palo Alto
13 49 (1.30%) Centrify
13 49 (1.30%) Remedy
14 46 (1.22%) Red Hat
15 45 (1.19%) Atlassian
16 44 (1.16%) Workday
17 40 (1.06%) IBM
18 38 (1.01%) Citrix