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 6 May 2026.

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

6 months to
6 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 16 11
Rank change year-on-year +6 -5 +5
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 4,463 2,372 3,806
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.98% 9.72% 10.32%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.90% 10.50% 11.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,004 1,567 2,479
10th Percentile £463 £475 £500
25th Percentile £513 £546 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -2.99%
75th Percentile £725 £717 £750
90th Percentile £800 £793 £825
UK median daily rate £620 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -0.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 121 32 82
10th Percentile £49.40 £52.80 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £61.25
Median hourly rate £67.50 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -6.90% +3.57% -
75th Percentile £80.00 £81.00 £87.46
90th Percentile £97.50 £85.75 £90.00
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 37,510 22,588 34,189
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.29% 92.59% 92.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,386 15,045 22,708
10th Percentile £313 £300 £280
25th Percentile £413 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £643
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £505 £514 £525
% change year-on-year -1.75% -2.10% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,561 914 2,433
10th Percentile £15.72 £14.20 £13.00
25th Percentile £20.89 £18.51 £16.30
Median hourly rate £47.00 £30.90 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +52.09% -15.34% -17.05%
75th Percentile £67.50 £63.75 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.82
UK median hourly rate £44.00 £29.00 £36.50
% change year-on-year +51.72% -20.55% -18.89%

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 6 May 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 6 May 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 6 May 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 +6 2,091 £625 -2.34% 479
South East +5 711 £625 - 198
North of England +5 623 £600 - 200
Midlands +3 431 £591 -1.52% 122
North West +5 355 £609 +1.50% 110
West Midlands -2 314 £608 +1.33% 73
South West +2 299 £698 +16.25% 116
Yorkshire +4 234 £555 -7.58% 52
East of England +21 202 £563 -6.25% 78
East Midlands -2 111 £525 -2.78% 49
North East +6 42 £575 -7.95% 38
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 6 May 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 1,351 (30.27%) Security Cleared
2 1,035 (23.19%) Azure
3 926 (20.75%) SC Cleared
4 865 (19.38%) AWS
5 622 (13.94%) Roadmaps
6 615 (13.78%) Microsoft
7 588 (13.17%) Migration
8 562 (12.59%) Agile
9 506 (11.34%) DevOps
10 469 (10.51%) Stakeholder Management
11 467 (10.46%) CI/CD
12 438 (9.81%) Enterprise Architecture
13 408 (9.14%) AI
14 391 (8.76%) Data Modelling
15 390 (8.74%) Integration Patterns
16 386 (8.65%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 384 (8.60%) Technical Leadership
18 366 (8.20%) TOGAF
19 359 (8.04%) Analytics
20 346 (7.75%) GCP
21 344 (7.71%) Data Architecture
22 334 (7.48%) Architectural Patterns
23 328 (7.35%) Problem-Solving
24 317 (7.10%) DV Cleared
25 312 (6.99%) Architectural Design
26 308 (6.90%) Microservices
27 298 (6.68%) Python
28 278 (6.23%) ServiceNow
29 265 (5.94%) SAP
30 259 (5.80%) Security Architecture

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
1 107 (2.40%) SharePoint
2 101 (2.26%) Confluence
3 55 (1.23%) Microsoft Exchange
4 25 (0.56%) Apache Spark
5 23 (0.52%) Apache
6 19 (0.43%) SAS
7 17 (0.38%) CMS
8 16 (0.36%) Anypoint
8 16 (0.36%) Appian
9 14 (0.31%) Apache Airflow
10 13 (0.29%) nginx
11 12 (0.27%) ArcGIS
11 12 (0.27%) Palantir Foundry
12 11 (0.25%) OpenStack
12 11 (0.25%) WebLogic
13 9 (0.20%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 8 (0.18%) Camunda
15 7 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
16 6 (0.13%) Ethereum
16 6 (0.13%) Hyperledger
Applications
1 45 (1.01%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (0.69%) Microsoft Project
3 19 (0.43%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 16 (0.36%) MS Visio
5 14 (0.31%) Microsoft Excel
6 7 (0.16%) Navisworks
6 7 (0.16%) Revit
7 4 (0.090%) Chatbot
8 2 (0.045%) PlantUML
8 2 (0.045%) Spreadsheet
9 1 (0.022%) ArchiCAD
9 1 (0.022%) AutoCAD
9 1 (0.022%) OrCAD
9 1 (0.022%) Siemens NX
9 1 (0.022%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 110 (2.46%) SAP S/4HANA
2 47 (1.05%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 20 (0.45%) Payment Gateway
4 19 (0.43%) Workday HCM
5 14 (0.31%) Dynamics CRM
5 14 (0.31%) SAP ERP
5 14 (0.31%) Teamcenter
6 13 (0.29%) Oracle EBS
7 10 (0.22%) Oracle Receivables
7 10 (0.22%) Remedy ITSM
8 9 (0.20%) Salesforce CRM
8 9 (0.20%) SAP EWM
9 8 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
9 8 (0.18%) SAP PP
10 7 (0.16%) SAP PM
10 7 (0.16%) SAP QM
11 6 (0.13%) Maximo
11 6 (0.13%) NetSuite
11 6 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
11 6 (0.13%) R3 Corda
Cloud Services
1 1,035 (23.19%) Azure
2 865 (19.38%) AWS
3 346 (7.75%) GCP
4 204 (4.57%) Power Platform
5 168 (3.76%) Entra ID
6 155 (3.47%) Serverless
7 148 (3.32%) SaaS
8 129 (2.89%) Microsoft 365
9 103 (2.31%) GitHub
10 101 (2.26%) PaaS
11 96 (2.15%) Dynamics 365
12 86 (1.93%) Azure DevOps
13 81 (1.81%) IaaS
14 75 (1.68%) AWS Lambda
15 73 (1.64%) Amazon S3
15 73 (1.64%) Snowflake
16 69 (1.55%) OpenShift
17 60 (1.34%) Microsoft Purview
18 56 (1.25%) Azure Data Factory
18 56 (1.25%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 161 (3.61%) Firewall
2 146 (3.27%) Network Security
3 110 (2.46%) WAN
4 105 (2.35%) DNS
5 95 (2.13%) VPN
6 79 (1.77%) LAN
7 55 (1.23%) SD-WAN
8 35 (0.78%) BGP
9 29 (0.65%) OSPF
10 28 (0.63%) DHCP
11 26 (0.58%) MPLS
11 26 (0.58%) TCP/IP
12 22 (0.49%) Wi-Fi
13 21 (0.47%) VLAN
14 20 (0.45%) SAN
15 19 (0.43%) BIG-IP
15 19 (0.43%) NAS
16 18 (0.40%) VXLAN
17 16 (0.36%) VSAN
17 16 (0.36%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 152 (3.41%) Power BI
2 108 (2.42%) Metadata
3 103 (2.31%) Data Lake
4 95 (2.13%) Data Warehouse
5 66 (1.48%) SQL Server
6 56 (1.25%) NoSQL
7 50 (1.12%) PostgreSQL
8 40 (0.90%) Azure SQL Database
9 38 (0.85%) Tableau
10 30 (0.67%) Amazon Redshift
11 29 (0.65%) Big Data
11 29 (0.65%) Delta Lake
12 25 (0.56%) BigQuery
12 25 (0.56%) Oracle Database
13 23 (0.52%) GIS
14 20 (0.45%) Electronic Patient Records
15 19 (0.43%) Amazon Athena
16 17 (0.38%) MongoDB
17 16 (0.36%) Amazon Aurora
17 16 (0.36%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 115 (2.58%) JIRA
2 81 (1.81%) Jenkins
3 55 (1.23%) Git
4 46 (1.03%) GitLab
5 18 (0.40%) ERwin
6 14 (0.31%) Artifactory
6 14 (0.31%) SonarQube
7 11 (0.25%) Bitbucket
7 11 (0.25%) MLflow
8 7 (0.16%) Postman
9 5 (0.11%) JUnit
9 5 (0.11%) MSI
9 5 (0.11%) PowerDesigner
9 5 (0.11%) REST Assured
10 4 (0.090%) Cucumber
10 4 (0.090%) Maven
10 4 (0.090%) Selenium
10 4 (0.090%) Snyk
10 4 (0.090%) Sonatype Nexus
10 4 (0.090%) Terragrunt
General
1 835 (18.71%) Social Skills
2 701 (15.71%) Finance
3 458 (10.26%) Public Sector
4 266 (5.96%) Banking
5 249 (5.58%) Analytical Skills
6 134 (3.00%) Retail
7 129 (2.89%) Documentation Skills
8 96 (2.15%) Influencing Skills
9 93 (2.08%) Legal
10 84 (1.88%) Military
11 79 (1.77%) Telecoms
12 71 (1.59%) Manufacturing
13 63 (1.41%) Presentation Skills
14 61 (1.37%) Law
15 55 (1.23%) Marketing
16 49 (1.10%) Billing
17 42 (0.94%) Financial Institution
18 34 (0.76%) Investment Banking
19 28 (0.63%) Aerospace
19 28 (0.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 208 (4.66%) REST
2 166 (3.72%) Middleware
3 110 (2.46%) SOAP
4 98 (2.20%) .NET
5 80 (1.79%) LDAP
5 80 (1.79%) OpenID
6 67 (1.50%) OAuth
7 65 (1.46%) Kafka
8 57 (1.28%) SAML
9 42 (0.94%) Oracle Fusion
10 41 (0.92%) OAuth2
11 40 (0.90%) JSON
12 37 (0.83%) React
12 37 (0.83%) SailPoint
13 33 (0.74%) AngularJS
14 32 (0.72%) RESTful
15 28 (0.63%) Web Services
16 26 (0.58%) PySpark
16 26 (0.58%) Spring
17 23 (0.52%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 364 (8.16%) Cloud Native
2 133 (2.98%) Product Ownership
3 117 (2.62%) Data Centre
4 115 (2.58%) Onboarding
5 105 (2.35%) Enterprise Software
6 104 (2.33%) Legacy Systems
7 94 (2.11%) Hybrid Cloud
8 86 (1.93%) Distributed Systems
9 83 (1.86%) Management Information System
10 73 (1.64%) Security Posture
11 72 (1.61%) Public Cloud
12 67 (1.50%) Operational Technology
13 65 (1.46%) Data Protection Act
14 58 (1.30%) CMDB
15 54 (1.21%) PKI
16 48 (1.08%) AI Agents
17 41 (0.92%) Private Cloud
18 40 (0.90%) Data Structures
19 33 (0.74%) Mainframe
20 31 (0.69%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 150 (3.36%) Windows
2 91 (2.04%) Linux
3 31 (0.69%) Windows Server
4 26 (0.58%) Android
4 26 (0.58%) Apple iOS
5 20 (0.45%) Unix
6 14 (0.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 11 (0.25%) Windows 10
7 11 (0.25%) zOS
8 9 (0.20%) Mac OS
8 9 (0.20%) Windows 7
9 8 (0.18%) VMS
9 8 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
10 5 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (0.067%) CentOS
11 3 (0.067%) Data ONTAP
11 3 (0.067%) Solaris
11 3 (0.067%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.045%) AIX
12 2 (0.045%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 622 (13.94%) Roadmaps
2 588 (13.17%) Migration
3 562 (12.59%) Agile
4 506 (11.34%) DevOps
5 469 (10.51%) Stakeholder Management
6 467 (10.46%) CI/CD
7 438 (9.81%) Enterprise Architecture
8 408 (9.14%) AI
9 391 (8.76%) Data Modelling
10 390 (8.74%) Integration Patterns
11 386 (8.65%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 384 (8.60%) Technical Leadership
13 366 (8.20%) TOGAF
14 359 (8.04%) Analytics
15 344 (7.71%) Data Architecture
16 334 (7.48%) Architectural Patterns
17 328 (7.35%) Problem-Solving
18 312 (6.99%) Architectural Design
19 308 (6.90%) Microservices
20 259 (5.80%) Security Architecture
Programming Languages
1 298 (6.68%) Python
2 230 (5.15%) SQL
3 166 (3.72%) Java
4 160 (3.59%) PowerShell
5 71 (1.59%) JavaScript
6 52 (1.17%) C#
7 42 (0.94%) Bicep
8 34 (0.76%) Bash
9 33 (0.74%) TypeScript
10 18 (0.40%) PL/SQL
11 17 (0.38%) Apex Code
11 17 (0.38%) Ruby
11 17 (0.38%) Scala
12 13 (0.29%) Kusto Query Language
13 9 (0.20%) Kotlin
13 9 (0.20%) Shell Script
13 9 (0.20%) T-SQL
14 8 (0.18%) R
15 7 (0.16%) VBA
16 6 (0.13%) ABAP
Qualifications
1 1,351 (30.27%) Security Cleared
2 926 (20.75%) SC Cleared
3 317 (7.10%) DV Cleared
4 184 (4.12%) Degree
5 119 (2.67%) TOGAF Certification
6 107 (2.40%) Azure Certification
7 97 (2.17%) CISSP
8 90 (2.02%) AWS Certification
9 76 (1.70%) Computer Science Degree
10 74 (1.66%) Cisco Certification
11 66 (1.48%) BPSS Clearance
12 46 (1.03%) CISM
12 46 (1.03%) Microsoft Certification
13 42 (0.94%) CCNP
14 39 (0.87%) Master's Degree
15 37 (0.83%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 25 (0.56%) (ISC)2 CCSP
17 23 (0.52%) ITIL Certification
18 22 (0.49%) CCIE
19 20 (0.45%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 163 (3.65%) NIST
2 157 (3.52%) GDPR
3 124 (2.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 122 (2.73%) Data Quality
5 90 (2.02%) NCSC
6 59 (1.32%) QA
7 40 (0.90%) PCI DSS
8 27 (0.60%) COBIT
8 27 (0.60%) Cyber Essentials
9 26 (0.58%) GRC
9 26 (0.58%) ISO 20022
10 18 (0.40%) SEPA
11 17 (0.38%) Accessibility
11 17 (0.38%) NIST 800
11 17 (0.38%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 16 (0.36%) HL7
13 13 (0.29%) FINRA
13 13 (0.29%) MiFID
14 11 (0.25%) PSD2
15 9 (0.20%) IFRS
System Software
1 180 (4.03%) Active Directory
2 100 (2.24%) Docker
3 87 (1.95%) VMware Infrastructure
4 65 (1.46%) VMware NSX
5 27 (0.60%) vSphere
6 25 (0.56%) Virtual Desktop
7 20 (0.45%) Virtual Machines
8 18 (0.40%) Hyper-V
9 13 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
10 10 (0.22%) vCloud
11 9 (0.20%) Squid
12 8 (0.18%) NFS
13 7 (0.16%) Varnish
14 5 (0.11%) Postfix
14 5 (0.11%) RACF
15 4 (0.090%) BitLocker
15 4 (0.090%) Firmware
15 4 (0.090%) Oracle RAC
16 3 (0.067%) Sendmail
16 3 (0.067%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 231 (5.18%) Terraform
2 206 (4.62%) Kubernetes
3 95 (2.13%) Ansible
4 47 (1.05%) Single Sign-On
5 42 (0.94%) Microsoft Intune
6 37 (0.83%) Grafana
7 30 (0.67%) OPNET
8 29 (0.65%) vCenter Server
9 24 (0.54%) Prometheus
10 22 (0.49%) FortiGate
11 21 (0.47%) SCCM
12 14 (0.31%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 14 (0.31%) Argo
13 11 (0.25%) WMI
14 10 (0.22%) Istio
15 8 (0.18%) Puppet
16 7 (0.16%) Consul
17 5 (0.11%) Endace
17 5 (0.11%) Kibana
17 5 (0.11%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 615 (13.78%) Microsoft
2 278 (6.23%) ServiceNow
3 265 (5.94%) SAP
4 186 (4.17%) Oracle
5 180 (4.03%) VMware
6 167 (3.74%) Databricks
7 166 (3.72%) Salesforce
8 102 (2.29%) Cisco
9 93 (2.08%) Google
10 84 (1.88%) CyberArk
11 64 (1.43%) MuleSoft
12 56 (1.25%) Splunk
13 49 (1.10%) Sparx
14 48 (1.08%) Workday
15 47 (1.05%) Remedy
16 43 (0.96%) Atlassian
16 43 (0.96%) Red Hat
17 41 (0.92%) IBM
18 40 (0.90%) Palo Alto
19 39 (0.87%) BeyondTrust