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 10 March 2026.

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

6 months to
10 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 3,805 2,517 3,772
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.51% 10.17% 9.90%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.42% 10.92% 10.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,572 1,622 2,491
10th Percentile £462 £480 £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 89 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 £89.00 £78.92 £87.53
90th Percentile £95.00 £86.30 £95.00
UK median hourly rate £71.27 £71.25 £76.53
% change year-on-year +0.03% -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 33,332 23,040 35,329
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.11% 93.07% 92.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,054 15,071 23,616
10th Percentile £308 £300 £270
25th Percentile £413 £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% - -4.46%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,175 758 2,288
10th Percentile £15.35 £15.44 £13.00
25th Percentile £19.41 £21.25 £16.25
Median hourly rate £36.00 £35.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +2.86% +7.69% -23.29%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £59.61
90th Percentile £75.79 £77.50 £71.78
UK median hourly rate £35.00 £33.20 £32.69
% change year-on-year +5.42% +1.56% -22.84%

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 10 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 10 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 10 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 -1 1,712 £630 -3.08% 315
South East +5 659 £625 - 231
North of England -1 534 £579 -3.50% 138
Midlands -3 380 £575 -4.17% 89
North West 0 291 £600 - 83
West Midlands -2 283 £600 -1.15% 54
South West -1 259 £700 +12.00% 104
Yorkshire +5 222 £563 -2.00% 36
East of England +13 162 £550 -12.00% 53
East Midlands -2 93 £519 -7.37% 33
North East -7 27 £625 - 21
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 10 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 1,211 (31.83%) Security Cleared
2 947 (24.89%) Azure
3 838 (22.02%) SC Cleared
4 745 (19.58%) AWS
5 559 (14.69%) Roadmaps
6 546 (14.35%) Microsoft
7 509 (13.38%) Agile
8 480 (12.61%) Migration
9 461 (12.12%) Stakeholder Management
10 439 (11.54%) DevOps
11 400 (10.51%) Enterprise Architecture
12 379 (9.96%) CI/CD
13 365 (9.59%) Data Modelling
14 359 (9.43%) TOGAF
15 347 (9.12%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 337 (8.86%) Technical Leadership
17 322 (8.46%) Problem-Solving
18 321 (8.44%) Analytics
19 320 (8.41%) Data Architecture
20 316 (8.30%) AI
20 316 (8.30%) GCP
21 307 (8.07%) Integration Patterns
22 280 (7.36%) DV Cleared
23 272 (7.15%) Python
24 266 (6.99%) Microservices
25 260 (6.83%) Architectural Patterns
26 250 (6.57%) Architectural Design
27 226 (5.94%) Data Governance
28 224 (5.89%) ServiceNow
29 222 (5.83%) Terraform

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
1 110 (2.89%) Confluence
2 99 (2.60%) SharePoint
3 61 (1.60%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (0.71%) SAS
5 20 (0.53%) Apache Spark
5 20 (0.53%) CMS
6 15 (0.39%) Anypoint
6 15 (0.39%) Appian
7 14 (0.37%) Apache Airflow
7 14 (0.37%) ArcGIS
8 12 (0.32%) Apache
9 11 (0.29%) nginx
9 11 (0.29%) WebLogic
10 9 (0.24%) Smallworld
11 8 (0.21%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 8 (0.21%) OpenStack
12 7 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 7 (0.18%) Skype for Business
13 6 (0.16%) Ethereum
13 6 (0.16%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 50 (1.31%) Microsoft Office
2 30 (0.79%) Microsoft Project
3 26 (0.68%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 25 (0.66%) Microsoft Excel
5 18 (0.47%) MS Visio
6 7 (0.18%) 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 (2.63%) SAP S/4HANA
2 39 (1.02%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 23 (0.60%) Workday HCM
4 19 (0.50%) Dynamics CRM
5 18 (0.47%) 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 (0.18%) SAP PP
11 7 (0.18%) 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
1 947 (24.89%) Azure
2 745 (19.58%) AWS
3 316 (8.30%) GCP
4 150 (3.94%) Power Platform
5 146 (3.84%) Entra ID
6 128 (3.36%) Microsoft 365
7 124 (3.26%) SaaS
8 118 (3.10%) Serverless
9 92 (2.42%) IaaS
10 85 (2.23%) GitHub
11 82 (2.16%) Azure DevOps
12 78 (2.05%) PaaS
13 69 (1.81%) OpenShift
14 64 (1.68%) AWS Lambda
15 63 (1.66%) Microsoft Purview
16 58 (1.52%) Amazon S3
16 58 (1.52%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 57 (1.50%) Dynamics 365
18 56 (1.47%) Virtual Private Cloud
19 55 (1.45%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 175 (4.60%) Firewall
2 125 (3.29%) Network Security
3 109 (2.86%) WAN
4 108 (2.84%) DNS
5 99 (2.60%) VPN
6 71 (1.87%) LAN
7 57 (1.50%) SD-WAN
8 34 (0.89%) BGP
9 29 (0.76%) DHCP
10 28 (0.74%) MPLS
10 28 (0.74%) Wi-Fi
11 26 (0.68%) OSPF
12 23 (0.60%) TCP/IP
13 20 (0.53%) VLAN
13 20 (0.53%) VXLAN
14 18 (0.47%) SAN
14 18 (0.47%) VSAN
15 15 (0.39%) Internet
15 15 (0.39%) SSL
15 15 (0.39%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 124 (3.26%) Data Warehouse
2 110 (2.89%) Metadata
3 107 (2.81%) Power BI
4 76 (2.00%) Data Lake
5 70 (1.84%) SQL Server
6 50 (1.31%) PostgreSQL
7 48 (1.26%) NoSQL
8 45 (1.18%) Tableau
9 34 (0.89%) Azure SQL Database
10 30 (0.79%) Oracle Database
11 25 (0.66%) Amazon Redshift
11 25 (0.66%) GIS
12 24 (0.63%) Big Data
13 23 (0.60%) Delta Lake
14 20 (0.53%) Metadata Repository
15 18 (0.47%) Relational Database
16 17 (0.45%) Amazon Athena
16 17 (0.45%) Amazon Aurora
17 16 (0.42%) BigQuery
18 15 (0.39%) Data Vault
Development Applications
1 124 (3.26%) JIRA
2 83 (2.18%) Jenkins
3 44 (1.16%) GitLab
4 40 (1.05%) 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
1 834 (21.92%) Social Skills
2 609 (16.01%) Finance
3 443 (11.64%) Public Sector
4 270 (7.10%) Analytical Skills
5 231 (6.07%) Banking
6 124 (3.26%) Documentation Skills
7 85 (2.23%) Influencing Skills
7 85 (2.23%) Retail
8 79 (2.08%) Military
9 77 (2.02%) Telecoms
10 76 (2.00%) Legal
11 71 (1.87%) Presentation Skills
12 61 (1.60%) Marketing
13 51 (1.34%) Manufacturing
14 38 (1.00%) Financial Institution
15 35 (0.92%) Billing
15 35 (0.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 28 (0.74%) Law
17 26 (0.68%) Investment Banking
18 18 (0.47%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 205 (5.39%) REST
2 152 (3.99%) Middleware
3 108 (2.84%) SOAP
4 76 (2.00%) OpenID
5 74 (1.94%) .NET
6 73 (1.92%) LDAP
7 67 (1.76%) OAuth
8 63 (1.66%) SAML
9 54 (1.42%) Kafka
10 49 (1.29%) JSON
11 42 (1.10%) OAuth2
12 34 (0.89%) AngularJS
13 31 (0.81%) SailPoint
14 27 (0.71%) Oracle Fusion
14 27 (0.71%) React
14 27 (0.71%) RESTful
15 24 (0.63%) PySpark
15 24 (0.63%) Web Services
16 23 (0.60%) Spring
17 22 (0.58%) Microsoft Graph
Miscellaneous
1 278 (7.31%) Cloud Native
2 133 (3.50%) Product Ownership
3 113 (2.97%) Legacy Systems
4 109 (2.86%) Onboarding
5 106 (2.79%) Data Centre
6 93 (2.44%) Enterprise Software
7 87 (2.29%) PKI
8 75 (1.97%) Hybrid Cloud
9 62 (1.63%) Data Protection Act
9 62 (1.63%) Public Cloud
10 56 (1.47%) Distributed Systems
10 56 (1.47%) Security Posture
11 53 (1.39%) Management Information System
12 52 (1.37%) Operational Technology
13 48 (1.26%) CMDB
14 46 (1.21%) Self-Motivation
15 39 (1.02%) Data Structures
16 35 (0.92%) AI Agents
17 31 (0.81%) Private Cloud
18 28 (0.74%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 157 (4.13%) Windows
2 87 (2.29%) Linux
3 34 (0.89%) Windows Server
4 19 (0.50%) Android
4 19 (0.50%) Apple iOS
5 16 (0.42%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 16 (0.42%) Windows 7
6 14 (0.37%) Windows 10
7 10 (0.26%) Unix
7 10 (0.26%) zOS
8 9 (0.24%) Mac OS
9 8 (0.21%) VMS
9 8 (0.21%) Windows Server 2016
10 5 (0.13%) Windows Server 2019
11 4 (0.11%) Ubuntu
12 3 (0.079%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.053%) CentOS
14 1 (0.026%) Data ONTAP
14 1 (0.026%) Kali Linux
14 1 (0.026%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 559 (14.69%) Roadmaps
2 509 (13.38%) Agile
3 480 (12.61%) Migration
4 461 (12.12%) Stakeholder Management
5 439 (11.54%) DevOps
6 400 (10.51%) Enterprise Architecture
7 379 (9.96%) CI/CD
8 365 (9.59%) Data Modelling
9 359 (9.43%) TOGAF
10 347 (9.12%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 337 (8.86%) Technical Leadership
12 322 (8.46%) Problem-Solving
13 321 (8.44%) Analytics
14 320 (8.41%) Data Architecture
15 316 (8.30%) AI
16 307 (8.07%) Integration Patterns
17 266 (6.99%) Microservices
18 260 (6.83%) Architectural Patterns
19 250 (6.57%) Architectural Design
20 226 (5.94%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 272 (7.15%) Python
2 201 (5.28%) SQL
3 174 (4.57%) PowerShell
4 119 (3.13%) Java
5 58 (1.52%) JavaScript
6 45 (1.18%) C#
7 35 (0.92%) Bash
7 35 (0.92%) Bicep
8 30 (0.79%) TypeScript
9 17 (0.45%) Apex Code
10 16 (0.42%) PL/SQL
11 14 (0.37%) Kusto Query Language
12 13 (0.34%) R
13 9 (0.24%) Ruby
13 9 (0.24%) Scala
13 9 (0.24%) T-SQL
14 8 (0.21%) VB
15 7 (0.18%) Kotlin
15 7 (0.18%) VBScript
16 6 (0.16%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 1,211 (31.83%) Security Cleared
2 838 (22.02%) SC Cleared
3 280 (7.36%) DV Cleared
4 175 (4.60%) Degree
5 114 (3.00%) TOGAF Certification
6 110 (2.89%) Azure Certification
7 101 (2.65%) AWS Certification
8 92 (2.42%) CISSP
9 74 (1.94%) Computer Science Degree
10 70 (1.84%) Cisco Certification
11 56 (1.47%) BPSS Clearance
12 55 (1.45%) Microsoft Certification
13 46 (1.21%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 46 (1.21%) CISM
14 43 (1.13%) CCNP
15 40 (1.05%) Master's Degree
16 32 (0.84%) ITIL Certification
17 28 (0.74%) CCIE
17 28 (0.74%) ISEB
18 25 (0.66%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 165 (4.34%) GDPR
2 127 (3.34%) Data Quality
3 125 (3.29%) NIST
4 109 (2.86%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 81 (2.13%) NCSC
6 58 (1.52%) QA
7 52 (1.37%) PCI DSS
8 33 (0.87%) COBIT
9 28 (0.74%) GRC
10 26 (0.68%) ISO 20022
11 25 (0.66%) Cyber Essentials
12 16 (0.42%) Accessibility
13 15 (0.39%) MiFID
14 14 (0.37%) JSP 440
15 13 (0.34%) FINRA
15 13 (0.34%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 12 (0.32%) HIPAA
16 12 (0.32%) PSD2
17 11 (0.29%) HMG Security Policy Framework
17 11 (0.29%) SEPA
System Software
1 171 (4.49%) Active Directory
2 116 (3.05%) Docker
3 86 (2.26%) VMware Infrastructure
4 62 (1.63%) 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 (0.18%) BitLocker
11 7 (0.18%) 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 (5.83%) Terraform
2 200 (5.26%) Kubernetes
3 97 (2.55%) Ansible
4 52 (1.37%) Single Sign-On
5 40 (1.05%) Microsoft Intune
6 30 (0.79%) OPNET
6 30 (0.79%) vCenter Server
7 27 (0.71%) Grafana
8 22 (0.58%) SCCM
9 21 (0.55%) FortiGate
9 21 (0.55%) Prometheus
10 16 (0.42%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 16 (0.42%) Argo
11 15 (0.39%) WMI
12 8 (0.21%) Istio
13 7 (0.18%) Consul
14 6 (0.16%) Puppet
15 5 (0.13%) Kibana
15 5 (0.13%) Progress Chef
16 3 (0.079%) HAProxy
Vendors
1 546 (14.35%) Microsoft
2 224 (5.89%) ServiceNow
3 211 (5.55%) SAP
4 166 (4.36%) VMware
5 159 (4.18%) Oracle
6 158 (4.15%) Salesforce
7 128 (3.36%) Databricks
8 104 (2.73%) Cisco
9 91 (2.39%) Google
10 89 (2.34%) CyberArk
11 60 (1.58%) MuleSoft
12 51 (1.34%) Splunk
13 50 (1.31%) Palo Alto
14 49 (1.29%) Centrify
14 49 (1.29%) Remedy
15 47 (1.24%) Red Hat
16 45 (1.18%) Atlassian
16 45 (1.18%) Workday
17 40 (1.05%) IBM
18 38 (1.00%) Citrix