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 25 March 2026.

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

6 months to
25 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 14 16 11
Rank change year-on-year +2 -5 +6
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 4,044 2,439 3,781
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.78% 10.05% 10.02%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.71% 10.80% 10.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,738 1,606 2,488
10th Percentile £463 £476 £500
25th Percentile £513 £545 £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 £799 £825
UK median daily rate £620 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -1.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 100 30 45
10th Percentile £49.40 £57.98 £51.32
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £60.00
Median hourly rate £71.89 £71.25 £83.50
Median % change year-on-year +0.89% -14.67% +19.29%
75th Percentile £90.09 £80.03 £87.53
90th Percentile £97.50 £85.53 £95.00
UK median hourly rate £71.27 £71.25 £82.38
% change year-on-year +0.03% -13.51% +17.69%

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 34,544 22,585 34,987
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.09% 93.03% 92.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,800 15,092 23,382
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £408 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £620 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -4.37%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,266 803 2,291
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.00 £13.00
25th Percentile £19.51 £21.13 £16.25
Median hourly rate £40.00 £35.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +14.29% +7.69% -23.53%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £76.71 £77.00 £71.90
UK median hourly rate £36.71 £32.50 £32.50
% change year-on-year +12.95% - -24.42%

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 25 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 25 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 25 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 0 1,822 £625 -3.85% 476
South East +5 696 £625 - 256
North of England +6 588 £600 - 194
Midlands -2 393 £575 -4.17% 95
North West +7 334 £605 +0.83% 100
West Midlands +1 294 £600 -2.04% 69
South West +2 275 £700 +14.29% 98
Yorkshire +9 230 £563 -6.25% 70
East of England +16 170 £540 -16.92% 71
East Midlands -3 95 £525 -6.25% 26
North East +5 32 £575 -7.95% 28
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 25 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 1,292 (31.95%) Security Cleared
2 989 (24.46%) Azure
3 875 (21.64%) SC Cleared
4 804 (19.88%) AWS
5 591 (14.61%) Roadmaps
6 578 (14.29%) Microsoft
7 537 (13.28%) Agile
8 522 (12.91%) Migration
9 467 (11.55%) DevOps
10 454 (11.23%) Stakeholder Management
11 422 (10.44%) Enterprise Architecture
12 413 (10.21%) CI/CD
13 391 (9.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 387 (9.57%) Data Modelling
15 374 (9.25%) TOGAF
16 361 (8.93%) Technical Leadership
17 344 (8.51%) AI
18 341 (8.43%) GCP
19 339 (8.38%) Problem-Solving
20 338 (8.36%) Integration Patterns
21 333 (8.23%) Analytics
21 333 (8.23%) Data Architecture
22 308 (7.62%) DV Cleared
23 299 (7.39%) Architectural Patterns
24 295 (7.29%) Python
25 292 (7.22%) Architectural Design
26 287 (7.10%) Microservices
27 247 (6.11%) Security Architecture
28 236 (5.84%) Terraform
29 232 (5.74%) Cybersecurity

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
1 114 (2.82%) Confluence
2 100 (2.47%) SharePoint
3 62 (1.53%) Microsoft Exchange
4 26 (0.64%) SAS
5 22 (0.54%) CMS
6 20 (0.49%) Apache Spark
7 16 (0.40%) Anypoint
8 15 (0.37%) Appian
8 15 (0.37%) ArcGIS
9 14 (0.35%) Apache Airflow
10 12 (0.30%) Apache
10 12 (0.30%) nginx
11 11 (0.27%) WebLogic
12 9 (0.22%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 9 (0.22%) OpenStack
12 9 (0.22%) Smallworld
13 7 (0.17%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 7 (0.17%) Skype for Business
14 6 (0.15%) NetWeaver
14 6 (0.15%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 50 (1.24%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (0.77%) Microsoft Project
3 27 (0.67%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 24 (0.59%) Microsoft Excel
5 18 (0.45%) MS Visio
6 6 (0.15%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.025%) ArchiCAD
7 1 (0.025%) AutoCAD
7 1 (0.025%) OrCAD
7 1 (0.025%) PlantUML
7 1 (0.025%) Siemens NX
7 1 (0.025%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 101 (2.50%) SAP S/4HANA
2 44 (1.09%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 23 (0.57%) Workday HCM
4 20 (0.49%) Dynamics CRM
5 19 (0.47%) Payment Gateway
6 14 (0.35%) Oracle EBS
6 14 (0.35%) Salesforce CRM
7 11 (0.27%) SAP ERP
8 10 (0.25%) NetSuite
8 10 (0.25%) Remedy ITSM
8 10 (0.25%) SAP PM
9 9 (0.22%) Maximo
9 9 (0.22%) Oracle Receivables
9 9 (0.22%) SAP EWM
9 9 (0.22%) Teamcenter
10 8 (0.20%) SAP PP
11 7 (0.17%) SAP QM
12 6 (0.15%) R3 Corda
12 6 (0.15%) SAP CRM
13 5 (0.12%) Distributed Ledger
Cloud Services
1 989 (24.46%) Azure
2 804 (19.88%) AWS
3 341 (8.43%) GCP
4 173 (4.28%) Power Platform
5 164 (4.06%) Entra ID
6 133 (3.29%) Serverless
7 132 (3.26%) SaaS
8 131 (3.24%) Microsoft 365
9 99 (2.45%) IaaS
10 95 (2.35%) GitHub
11 89 (2.20%) Azure DevOps
12 88 (2.18%) PaaS
13 79 (1.95%) Dynamics 365
14 74 (1.83%) OpenShift
15 69 (1.71%) AWS Lambda
16 63 (1.56%) Amazon S3
17 62 (1.53%) Microsoft Purview
18 60 (1.48%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 59 (1.46%) Virtual Private Cloud
20 56 (1.38%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 183 (4.53%) Firewall
2 147 (3.64%) Network Security
3 119 (2.94%) WAN
4 117 (2.89%) DNS
5 111 (2.74%) VPN
6 80 (1.98%) LAN
7 63 (1.56%) SD-WAN
8 34 (0.84%) BGP
9 32 (0.79%) DHCP
10 30 (0.74%) Wi-Fi
11 29 (0.72%) OSPF
12 28 (0.69%) MPLS
13 26 (0.64%) TCP/IP
14 21 (0.52%) SAN
14 21 (0.52%) VXLAN
15 20 (0.49%) VLAN
16 19 (0.47%) VSAN
17 17 (0.42%) Internet
17 17 (0.42%) Wireless
18 16 (0.40%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 131 (3.24%) Power BI
2 119 (2.94%) Data Warehouse
3 113 (2.79%) Metadata
4 83 (2.05%) Data Lake
5 70 (1.73%) SQL Server
6 53 (1.31%) NoSQL
7 51 (1.26%) PostgreSQL
8 44 (1.09%) Tableau
9 35 (0.87%) Azure SQL Database
10 32 (0.79%) Oracle Database
11 29 (0.72%) Big Data
12 26 (0.64%) GIS
13 25 (0.62%) Amazon Redshift
14 23 (0.57%) Delta Lake
15 20 (0.49%) Electronic Patient Records
15 20 (0.49%) Metadata Repository
16 19 (0.47%) BigQuery
17 17 (0.42%) Amazon Athena
18 16 (0.40%) Amazon Aurora
18 16 (0.40%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 128 (3.17%) JIRA
2 88 (2.18%) Jenkins
3 46 (1.14%) Git
4 43 (1.06%) GitLab
5 20 (0.49%) ERwin
6 12 (0.30%) Bitbucket
7 11 (0.27%) SonarQube
8 10 (0.25%) Artifactory
9 8 (0.20%) MLflow
10 5 (0.12%) Postman
10 5 (0.12%) PowerDesigner
10 5 (0.12%) REST Assured
11 4 (0.099%) Cucumber
11 4 (0.099%) Oracle Forms
11 4 (0.099%) Rational DOORS
11 4 (0.099%) Selenium
11 4 (0.099%) Snyk
11 4 (0.099%) Sonatype Nexus
11 4 (0.099%) Terragrunt
12 3 (0.074%) JUnit
General
1 859 (21.24%) Social Skills
2 660 (16.32%) Finance
3 464 (11.47%) Public Sector
4 278 (6.87%) Analytical Skills
5 253 (6.26%) Banking
6 133 (3.29%) Documentation Skills
7 96 (2.37%) Influencing Skills
8 90 (2.23%) Retail
9 85 (2.10%) Military
10 80 (1.98%) Legal
11 75 (1.85%) Telecoms
12 69 (1.71%) Presentation Skills
13 59 (1.46%) Marketing
14 52 (1.29%) Law
15 49 (1.21%) Manufacturing
16 44 (1.09%) Financial Institution
17 32 (0.79%) Billing
18 31 (0.77%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 28 (0.69%) Investment Banking
20 22 (0.54%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 204 (5.04%) REST
2 158 (3.91%) Middleware
3 102 (2.52%) SOAP
4 80 (1.98%) OpenID
5 76 (1.88%) LDAP
6 75 (1.85%) .NET
7 72 (1.78%) OAuth
8 64 (1.58%) SAML
9 58 (1.43%) Kafka
10 51 (1.26%) JSON
11 45 (1.11%) OAuth2
12 35 (0.87%) AngularJS
13 32 (0.79%) SailPoint
14 31 (0.77%) React
15 27 (0.67%) RESTful
15 27 (0.67%) Spring
16 24 (0.59%) Web Services
17 21 (0.52%) Oracle Fusion
17 21 (0.52%) PySpark
18 20 (0.49%) Microsoft Graph
Miscellaneous
1 323 (7.99%) Cloud Native
2 136 (3.36%) Product Ownership
3 115 (2.84%) Data Centre
4 111 (2.74%) Legacy Systems
5 109 (2.70%) Onboarding
6 103 (2.55%) Enterprise Software
7 87 (2.15%) PKI
8 86 (2.13%) Hybrid Cloud
9 70 (1.73%) Distributed Systems
10 66 (1.63%) Security Posture
11 65 (1.61%) Public Cloud
12 62 (1.53%) Management Information System
13 60 (1.48%) Data Protection Act
13 60 (1.48%) Operational Technology
14 51 (1.26%) CMDB
15 49 (1.21%) Self-Motivation
16 40 (0.99%) Data Structures
17 38 (0.94%) AI Agents
18 37 (0.91%) Private Cloud
19 33 (0.82%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 164 (4.06%) Windows
2 97 (2.40%) Linux
3 36 (0.89%) Windows Server
4 23 (0.57%) Android
4 23 (0.57%) Apple iOS
5 16 (0.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 16 (0.40%) Windows 7
6 14 (0.35%) Windows 10
7 13 (0.32%) Unix
8 10 (0.25%) zOS
9 9 (0.22%) Mac OS
10 8 (0.20%) VMS
10 8 (0.20%) Windows Server 2016
11 5 (0.12%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.099%) Ubuntu
13 3 (0.074%) Windows Server 2012
14 2 (0.049%) CentOS
15 1 (0.025%) Data ONTAP
15 1 (0.025%) Kali Linux
15 1 (0.025%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 591 (14.61%) Roadmaps
2 537 (13.28%) Agile
3 522 (12.91%) Migration
4 467 (11.55%) DevOps
5 454 (11.23%) Stakeholder Management
6 422 (10.44%) Enterprise Architecture
7 413 (10.21%) CI/CD
8 391 (9.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 387 (9.57%) Data Modelling
10 374 (9.25%) TOGAF
11 361 (8.93%) Technical Leadership
12 344 (8.51%) AI
13 339 (8.38%) Problem-Solving
14 338 (8.36%) Integration Patterns
15 333 (8.23%) Analytics
15 333 (8.23%) Data Architecture
16 299 (7.39%) Architectural Patterns
17 292 (7.22%) Architectural Design
18 287 (7.10%) Microservices
19 247 (6.11%) Security Architecture
Programming Languages
1 295 (7.29%) Python
2 209 (5.17%) SQL
3 176 (4.35%) PowerShell
4 147 (3.64%) Java
5 56 (1.38%) JavaScript
6 48 (1.19%) C#
7 39 (0.96%) Bash
8 36 (0.89%) Bicep
9 25 (0.62%) TypeScript
10 17 (0.42%) Apex Code
11 16 (0.40%) Ruby
12 14 (0.35%) PL/SQL
13 13 (0.32%) Kusto Query Language
14 12 (0.30%) R
14 12 (0.30%) Scala
15 8 (0.20%) Kotlin
15 8 (0.20%) T-SQL
15 8 (0.20%) VB
16 7 (0.17%) VBScript
17 6 (0.15%) C++
Qualifications
1 1,292 (31.95%) Security Cleared
2 875 (21.64%) SC Cleared
3 308 (7.62%) DV Cleared
4 177 (4.38%) Degree
5 113 (2.79%) Azure Certification
6 112 (2.77%) TOGAF Certification
7 108 (2.67%) CISSP
8 99 (2.45%) AWS Certification
9 77 (1.90%) Cisco Certification
10 70 (1.73%) Computer Science Degree
11 56 (1.38%) BPSS Clearance
11 56 (1.38%) CISM
12 52 (1.29%) Microsoft Certification
13 45 (1.11%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 44 (1.09%) CCNP
15 39 (0.96%) Master's Degree
16 33 (0.82%) ITIL Certification
17 31 (0.77%) (ISC)2 CCSP
17 31 (0.77%) ISEB
18 29 (0.72%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 176 (4.35%) GDPR
2 155 (3.83%) NIST
3 130 (3.21%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 128 (3.17%) Data Quality
5 90 (2.23%) NCSC
6 61 (1.51%) QA
7 54 (1.34%) PCI DSS
8 37 (0.91%) COBIT
9 28 (0.69%) Cyber Essentials
9 28 (0.69%) GRC
10 27 (0.67%) ISO 20022
11 17 (0.42%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 15 (0.37%) HL7
13 14 (0.35%) Accessibility
13 14 (0.35%) HIPAA
13 14 (0.35%) JSP 440
13 14 (0.35%) MiFID
14 13 (0.32%) FINRA
14 13 (0.32%) PSD2
15 12 (0.30%) SEPA
System Software
1 178 (4.40%) Active Directory
2 116 (2.87%) Docker
3 96 (2.37%) VMware Infrastructure
4 66 (1.63%) VMware NSX
5 33 (0.82%) vSphere
6 22 (0.54%) Virtual Desktop
7 16 (0.40%) Hyper-V
8 14 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
9 12 (0.30%) VMware ESXi
10 9 (0.22%) Squid
10 9 (0.22%) vCloud
11 7 (0.17%) BitLocker
12 5 (0.12%) NFS
12 5 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
12 5 (0.12%) RACF
12 5 (0.12%) Varnish
13 4 (0.099%) Firmware
14 3 (0.074%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
14 3 (0.074%) IAG
14 3 (0.074%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 236 (5.84%) Terraform
2 212 (5.24%) Kubernetes
3 104 (2.57%) Ansible
4 57 (1.41%) Single Sign-On
5 39 (0.96%) Microsoft Intune
6 34 (0.84%) Grafana
6 34 (0.84%) vCenter Server
7 30 (0.74%) OPNET
8 24 (0.59%) Prometheus
9 22 (0.54%) FortiGate
9 22 (0.54%) SCCM
10 18 (0.45%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 18 (0.45%) Argo
11 15 (0.37%) WMI
12 9 (0.22%) Istio
13 7 (0.17%) Consul
13 7 (0.17%) Puppet
14 5 (0.12%) Endace
14 5 (0.12%) Kibana
14 5 (0.12%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 578 (14.29%) Microsoft
2 231 (5.71%) ServiceNow
3 230 (5.69%) SAP
4 181 (4.48%) VMware
5 168 (4.15%) Oracle
6 157 (3.88%) Salesforce
7 136 (3.36%) Databricks
8 112 (2.77%) Cisco
9 94 (2.32%) CyberArk
10 89 (2.20%) Google
11 63 (1.56%) MuleSoft
12 57 (1.41%) Splunk
13 56 (1.38%) Palo Alto
14 51 (1.26%) Remedy
15 50 (1.24%) Red Hat
16 49 (1.21%) Centrify
17 48 (1.19%) Workday
18 46 (1.14%) Atlassian
19 45 (1.11%) IBM
20 43 (1.06%) Sparx