Architect Contract Job Trends in England

Architect
UK > England

The median Architect daily rate in England is £620, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 13 May 2026.

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

6 months to
13 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 17 11
Rank change year-on-year +8 -6 +5
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 4,469 2,364 3,794
As % of all contract jobs in England 11.09% 9.80% 10.38%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.01% 10.60% 11.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,013 1,550 2,458
10th Percentile £463 £475 £500
25th Percentile £513 £550 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -2.99%
75th Percentile £725 £714 £750
90th Percentile £788 £799 £825
UK median daily rate £616 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -1.44% -3.85% -0.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 123 30 88
10th Percentile £49.40 £51.15 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £61.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £71.25 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.77% +1.79% -
75th Percentile £78.75 £79.59 £87.46
90th Percentile £97.50 £85.70 £90.60
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £70.00 £70.00
% change year-on-year -7.14% - -

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 37,225 22,311 33,904
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.34% 92.50% 92.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,137 14,840 22,465
10th Percentile £315 £300 £281
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £623 £638 £645
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £510 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -0.49% -2.38% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,565 900 2,436
10th Percentile £15.50 £14.00 £12.87
25th Percentile £20.79 £18.50 £16.30
Median hourly rate £46.80 £30.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +56.00% -20.00% -14.88%
75th Percentile £67.50 £63.75 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £43.85 £28.18 £37.50
% change year-on-year +55.59% -24.85% -16.67%

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 13 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 13 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 13 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 +4 2,113 £625 -3.85% 430
South East +5 701 £625 - 174
North of England +3 631 £600 - 185
Midlands +1 431 £600 - 89
North West +5 360 £610 +2.95% 100
West Midlands 0 315 £613 +2.08% 55
South West +2 287 £680 +13.25% 82
Yorkshire +6 233 £550 -8.33% 53
East of England +21 202 £569 -12.50% 66
East Midlands -1 110 £545 - 34
North East +6 46 £563 -10.00% 32
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 13 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 1,335 (29.87%) Security Cleared
2 1,025 (22.94%) Azure
3 928 (20.77%) SC Cleared
4 867 (19.40%) AWS
5 618 (13.83%) Roadmaps
6 604 (13.52%) Microsoft
7 588 (13.16%) Migration
8 549 (12.28%) Agile
9 510 (11.41%) DevOps
10 474 (10.61%) Stakeholder Management
11 462 (10.34%) CI/CD
12 437 (9.78%) Enterprise Architecture
13 411 (9.20%) AI
14 392 (8.77%) Data Modelling
15 385 (8.61%) Integration Patterns
16 380 (8.50%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 377 (8.44%) Technical Leadership
18 359 (8.03%) TOGAF
19 351 (7.85%) Analytics
20 348 (7.79%) Data Architecture
21 345 (7.72%) GCP
22 344 (7.70%) Architectural Patterns
23 324 (7.25%) Problem-Solving
24 317 (7.09%) Architectural Design
25 310 (6.94%) Microservices
26 301 (6.74%) DV Cleared
27 288 (6.44%) Python
28 275 (6.15%) ServiceNow
29 262 (5.86%) SAP
30 255 (5.71%) Infrastructure as Code

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 (2.39%) SharePoint
2 95 (2.13%) Confluence
3 54 (1.21%) Microsoft Exchange
4 23 (0.51%) Apache
4 23 (0.51%) Apache Spark
5 17 (0.38%) SAS
6 16 (0.36%) Anypoint
6 16 (0.36%) Appian
7 15 (0.34%) CMS
8 14 (0.31%) Apache Airflow
9 13 (0.29%) nginx
10 11 (0.25%) OpenStack
10 11 (0.25%) Palantir Foundry
10 11 (0.25%) WebLogic
11 9 (0.20%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 9 (0.20%) ArcGIS
12 8 (0.18%) Camunda
13 7 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 6 (0.13%) NetWeaver
14 6 (0.13%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 42 (0.94%) Microsoft Office
2 28 (0.63%) 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 39 (0.87%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 19 (0.43%) Payment Gateway
4 18 (0.40%) Workday HCM
5 15 (0.34%) Teamcenter
6 14 (0.31%) Dynamics CRM
6 14 (0.31%) SAP ERP
7 13 (0.29%) Oracle EBS
8 10 (0.22%) Remedy ITSM
9 9 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
9 9 (0.20%) Salesforce CRM
10 8 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
11 7 (0.16%) SAP EWM
12 6 (0.13%) NetSuite
12 6 (0.13%) SAP BRIM
12 6 (0.13%) SAP MDG
12 6 (0.13%) SAP PM
13 5 (0.11%) SAP CRM
13 5 (0.11%) SAP IBP
13 5 (0.11%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 1,025 (22.94%) Azure
2 867 (19.40%) AWS
3 345 (7.72%) GCP
4 206 (4.61%) Power Platform
5 173 (3.87%) Entra ID
6 153 (3.42%) Serverless
7 145 (3.24%) SaaS
8 121 (2.71%) Microsoft 365
9 100 (2.24%) GitHub
10 98 (2.19%) Dynamics 365
10 98 (2.19%) PaaS
11 87 (1.95%) Azure DevOps
12 74 (1.66%) AWS Lambda
12 74 (1.66%) Snowflake
13 73 (1.63%) Amazon S3
13 73 (1.63%) IaaS
14 69 (1.54%) OpenShift
15 58 (1.30%) Microsoft Purview
16 54 (1.21%) Azure Data Factory
16 54 (1.21%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 156 (3.49%) Firewall
2 145 (3.24%) Network Security
3 106 (2.37%) WAN
4 103 (2.30%) DNS
5 94 (2.10%) VPN
6 79 (1.77%) LAN
7 52 (1.16%) SD-WAN
8 35 (0.78%) BGP
9 30 (0.67%) DHCP
10 29 (0.65%) OSPF
11 26 (0.58%) TCP/IP
12 25 (0.56%) MPLS
13 22 (0.49%) VLAN
13 22 (0.49%) Wi-Fi
14 21 (0.47%) SAN
15 20 (0.45%) BIG-IP
15 20 (0.45%) NAS
16 18 (0.40%) VXLAN
16 18 (0.40%) Wireless
17 16 (0.36%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 152 (3.40%) Power BI
2 108 (2.42%) Metadata
3 99 (2.22%) Data Lake
4 92 (2.06%) Data Warehouse
5 64 (1.43%) SQL Server
6 56 (1.25%) NoSQL
7 50 (1.12%) PostgreSQL
8 37 (0.83%) Azure SQL Database
8 37 (0.83%) Tableau
9 29 (0.65%) Amazon Redshift
9 29 (0.65%) Big Data
10 28 (0.63%) Delta Lake
11 26 (0.58%) BigQuery
12 24 (0.54%) Oracle Database
13 20 (0.45%) Electronic Patient Records
13 20 (0.45%) GIS
14 19 (0.43%) Amazon Athena
15 16 (0.36%) Amazon Aurora
15 16 (0.36%) MongoDB
15 16 (0.36%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 109 (2.44%) JIRA
2 79 (1.77%) Jenkins
3 53 (1.19%) Git
4 47 (1.05%) GitLab
5 20 (0.45%) ERwin
6 15 (0.34%) SonarQube
7 12 (0.27%) Artifactory
8 11 (0.25%) Bitbucket
8 11 (0.25%) MLflow
9 7 (0.16%) Postman
10 6 (0.13%) PowerDesigner
11 5 (0.11%) JUnit
11 5 (0.11%) Maven
11 5 (0.11%) REST Assured
12 4 (0.090%) Cucumber
12 4 (0.090%) MSI
12 4 (0.090%) Selenium
12 4 (0.090%) Snyk
12 4 (0.090%) Sonatype Nexus
12 4 (0.090%) Terragrunt
General
1 827 (18.51%) Social Skills
2 698 (15.62%) Finance
3 456 (10.20%) Public Sector
4 265 (5.93%) Banking
5 233 (5.21%) Analytical Skills
6 140 (3.13%) Retail
7 129 (2.89%) Documentation Skills
8 97 (2.17%) Influencing Skills
9 91 (2.04%) Legal
10 81 (1.81%) Telecoms
11 79 (1.77%) Military
12 71 (1.59%) Manufacturing
13 60 (1.34%) Law
14 59 (1.32%) Presentation Skills
15 51 (1.14%) Billing
15 51 (1.14%) Marketing
16 42 (0.94%) Financial Institution
17 35 (0.78%) Investment Banking
18 32 (0.72%) Aerospace
19 29 (0.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 202 (4.52%) REST
2 167 (3.74%) Middleware
3 112 (2.51%) SOAP
4 101 (2.26%) .NET
5 81 (1.81%) LDAP
6 77 (1.72%) OpenID
7 68 (1.52%) OAuth
8 65 (1.45%) Kafka
9 56 (1.25%) SAML
10 44 (0.98%) Oracle Fusion
11 40 (0.90%) OAuth2
12 39 (0.87%) SailPoint
13 37 (0.83%) React
14 33 (0.74%) JSON
14 33 (0.74%) RESTful
15 30 (0.67%) AngularJS
16 29 (0.65%) Web Services
17 25 (0.56%) PySpark
18 22 (0.49%) Node.js
18 22 (0.49%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 367 (8.21%) Cloud Native
2 134 (3.00%) Product Ownership
3 122 (2.73%) Data Centre
4 117 (2.62%) Onboarding
5 104 (2.33%) Enterprise Software
6 100 (2.24%) Legacy Systems
7 93 (2.08%) Distributed Systems
8 90 (2.01%) Hybrid Cloud
9 82 (1.83%) Management Information System
10 73 (1.63%) Security Posture
11 72 (1.61%) Public Cloud
12 71 (1.59%) Operational Technology
13 69 (1.54%) Data Protection Act
14 59 (1.32%) CMDB
15 53 (1.19%) AI Agents
16 42 (0.94%) PKI
17 41 (0.92%) Data Structures
18 39 (0.87%) Private Cloud
19 37 (0.83%) Mainframe
20 30 (0.67%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 140 (3.13%) Windows
2 91 (2.04%) Linux
3 28 (0.63%) Windows Server
4 26 (0.58%) Android
4 26 (0.58%) Apple iOS
5 21 (0.47%) Unix
6 14 (0.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 11 (0.25%) zOS
8 10 (0.22%) Windows 10
9 9 (0.20%) VMS
10 8 (0.18%) Windows 7
10 8 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
11 7 (0.16%) Mac OS
12 5 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
13 3 (0.067%) CentOS
13 3 (0.067%) Data ONTAP
13 3 (0.067%) Solaris
13 3 (0.067%) Windows Server 2012
14 2 (0.045%) AIX
14 2 (0.045%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 618 (13.83%) Roadmaps
2 588 (13.16%) Migration
3 549 (12.28%) Agile
4 510 (11.41%) DevOps
5 474 (10.61%) Stakeholder Management
6 462 (10.34%) CI/CD
7 437 (9.78%) Enterprise Architecture
8 411 (9.20%) AI
9 392 (8.77%) Data Modelling
10 385 (8.61%) Integration Patterns
11 380 (8.50%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 377 (8.44%) Technical Leadership
13 359 (8.03%) TOGAF
14 351 (7.85%) Analytics
15 348 (7.79%) Data Architecture
16 344 (7.70%) Architectural Patterns
17 324 (7.25%) Problem-Solving
18 317 (7.09%) Architectural Design
19 310 (6.94%) Microservices
20 255 (5.71%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 288 (6.44%) Python
2 223 (4.99%) SQL
3 164 (3.67%) Java
4 146 (3.27%) PowerShell
5 77 (1.72%) JavaScript
6 51 (1.14%) C#
7 42 (0.94%) Bicep
8 31 (0.69%) Bash
9 30 (0.67%) TypeScript
10 17 (0.38%) PL/SQL
10 17 (0.38%) Ruby
11 16 (0.36%) Apex Code
11 16 (0.36%) Scala
12 13 (0.29%) Kusto Query Language
13 10 (0.22%) Shell Script
14 9 (0.20%) Kotlin
14 9 (0.20%) T-SQL
15 7 (0.16%) R
15 7 (0.16%) VBA
16 6 (0.13%) C++
Qualifications
1 1,335 (29.87%) Security Cleared
2 928 (20.77%) SC Cleared
3 301 (6.74%) DV Cleared
4 178 (3.98%) Degree
5 113 (2.53%) TOGAF Certification
6 106 (2.37%) Azure Certification
7 92 (2.06%) CISSP
8 91 (2.04%) AWS Certification
9 73 (1.63%) Cisco Certification
10 72 (1.61%) Computer Science Degree
11 70 (1.57%) BPSS Clearance
12 45 (1.01%) CISM
13 44 (0.98%) Microsoft Certification
14 42 (0.94%) CCNP
15 38 (0.85%) Master's Degree
16 36 (0.81%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 24 (0.54%) (ISC)2 CCSP
18 21 (0.47%) ITIL Certification
19 20 (0.45%) CCIE
20 18 (0.40%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 165 (3.69%) NIST
2 142 (3.18%) GDPR
3 122 (2.73%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 119 (2.66%) Data Quality
5 89 (1.99%) NCSC
6 61 (1.36%) QA
7 36 (0.81%) PCI DSS
8 28 (0.63%) GRC
9 25 (0.56%) COBIT
9 25 (0.56%) ISO 20022
10 24 (0.54%) Cyber Essentials
11 22 (0.49%) Accessibility
12 19 (0.43%) NIST 800
12 19 (0.43%) SEPA
13 17 (0.38%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 16 (0.36%) HL7
15 13 (0.29%) FINRA
15 13 (0.29%) MiFID
16 12 (0.27%) PSD2
17 9 (0.20%) IFRS
System Software
1 179 (4.01%) Active Directory
2 94 (2.10%) Docker
3 84 (1.88%) VMware Infrastructure
4 65 (1.45%) VMware NSX
5 25 (0.56%) Virtual Desktop
5 25 (0.56%) vSphere
6 20 (0.45%) Virtual Machines
7 17 (0.38%) Hyper-V
8 13 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
9 10 (0.22%) vCloud
10 9 (0.20%) NFS
10 9 (0.20%) Squid
11 7 (0.16%) Varnish
12 6 (0.13%) Postfix
13 5 (0.11%) RACF
14 4 (0.090%) BitLocker
14 4 (0.090%) Firmware
14 4 (0.090%) Oracle RAC
14 4 (0.090%) Sendmail
15 3 (0.067%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 218 (4.88%) Terraform
2 199 (4.45%) Kubernetes
3 92 (2.06%) Ansible
4 47 (1.05%) Single Sign-On
5 37 (0.83%) Microsoft Intune
6 34 (0.76%) Grafana
7 27 (0.60%) OPNET
7 27 (0.60%) vCenter Server
8 23 (0.51%) Prometheus
9 22 (0.49%) FortiGate
10 17 (0.38%) SCCM
11 13 (0.29%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 13 (0.29%) Argo
12 10 (0.22%) Istio
13 9 (0.20%) WMI
14 8 (0.18%) Puppet
15 7 (0.16%) Consul
16 6 (0.13%) HAProxy
16 6 (0.13%) Progress Chef
17 5 (0.11%) Endace
Vendors
1 604 (13.52%) Microsoft
2 275 (6.15%) ServiceNow
3 262 (5.86%) SAP
4 187 (4.18%) Oracle
5 176 (3.94%) VMware
6 171 (3.83%) Databricks
7 156 (3.49%) Salesforce
8 101 (2.26%) Cisco
9 92 (2.06%) Google
10 85 (1.90%) CyberArk
11 67 (1.50%) MuleSoft
12 55 (1.23%) Splunk
13 45 (1.01%) Workday
14 44 (0.98%) Remedy
15 41 (0.92%) Palo Alto
15 41 (0.92%) Red Hat
16 40 (0.90%) Atlassian
16 40 (0.90%) Sparx
17 39 (0.87%) BeyondTrust
18 36 (0.81%) Centrify