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 21 May 2026.

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

6 months to
21 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 17 11
Rank change year-on-year +8 -6 +4
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 4,561 2,394 3,802
As % of all contract jobs in England 11.06% 9.89% 10.45%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.98% 10.70% 11.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,089 1,566 2,465
10th Percentile £463 £463 £500
25th Percentile £513 £538 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -3.70%
75th Percentile £725 £713 £750
90th Percentile £800 £799 £825
UK median daily rate £620 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -1.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 122 31 90
10th Percentile £49.40 £52.50 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £60.31
Median hourly rate £65.00 £70.00 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -7.14% - -
75th Percentile £78.75 £79.18 £87.35
90th Percentile £97.50 £85.50 £90.20
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 38,064 22,370 33,771
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.33% 92.38% 92.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,623 14,863 22,425
10th Percentile £320 £296 £281
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.27% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £644
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £513 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +0.49% -2.86% -3.23%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,618 925 2,441
10th Percentile £15.50 £14.00 £12.86
25th Percentile £21.00 £18.50 £16.30
Median hourly rate £45.00 £29.23 £37.18
Median % change year-on-year +53.95% -21.38% -16.94%
75th Percentile £67.50 £62.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £42.69 £27.99 £36.50
% change year-on-year +52.50% -23.32% -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 21 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 21 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 21 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 2,178 £625 -3.85% 455
South East +6 701 £625 - 189
North of England +4 656 £600 - 184
Midlands +2 435 £600 - 83
North West +6 370 £608 +5.01% 99
West Midlands -2 312 £620 +3.33% 52
South West +1 274 £675 +12.50% 93
Yorkshire +7 244 £555 -7.58% 49
East of England +20 202 £569 -9.00% 64
East Midlands 0 117 £550 +2.42% 31
North East +8 50 £575 -4.17% 38
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 21 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 1,362 (29.86%) Security Cleared
2 1,061 (23.26%) Azure
3 961 (21.07%) SC Cleared
4 886 (19.43%) AWS
5 631 (13.83%) Roadmaps
6 611 (13.40%) Migration
7 604 (13.24%) Microsoft
8 533 (11.69%) Agile
9 525 (11.51%) DevOps
10 484 (10.61%) Stakeholder Management
11 479 (10.50%) CI/CD
12 454 (9.95%) Enterprise Architecture
13 419 (9.19%) AI
13 419 (9.19%) Data Modelling
14 410 (8.99%) Integration Patterns
15 400 (8.77%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 395 (8.66%) Technical Leadership
17 370 (8.11%) Data Architecture
18 354 (7.76%) Architectural Patterns
19 351 (7.70%) Analytics
20 348 (7.63%) GCP
21 341 (7.48%) TOGAF
22 325 (7.13%) Architectural Design
23 319 (6.99%) Microservices
24 317 (6.95%) Problem-Solving
25 295 (6.47%) DV Cleared
26 285 (6.25%) Python
27 274 (6.01%) ServiceNow
28 269 (5.90%) SAP
29 259 (5.68%) 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
1 105 (2.30%) SharePoint
2 85 (1.86%) Confluence
3 50 (1.10%) Microsoft Exchange
4 26 (0.57%) Apache Spark
5 23 (0.50%) Apache
6 21 (0.46%) SAS
7 16 (0.35%) Anypoint
7 16 (0.35%) Appian
8 15 (0.33%) Apache Airflow
8 15 (0.33%) CMS
9 13 (0.29%) nginx
10 12 (0.26%) Palantir Foundry
11 11 (0.24%) OpenStack
11 11 (0.24%) WebLogic
12 9 (0.20%) ArcGIS
12 9 (0.20%) Camunda
13 8 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 7 (0.15%) Oracle SOA Suite
15 6 (0.13%) NetWeaver
15 6 (0.13%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 32 (0.70%) Microsoft Office
2 19 (0.42%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 18 (0.39%) Microsoft Project
4 16 (0.35%) MS Visio
5 14 (0.31%) Microsoft Excel
6 7 (0.15%) Navisworks
6 7 (0.15%) Revit
7 4 (0.088%) Chatbot
8 2 (0.044%) PlantUML
8 2 (0.044%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.044%) Windchill
9 1 (0.022%) ArchiCAD
9 1 (0.022%) AutoCAD
9 1 (0.022%) OrCAD
9 1 (0.022%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 114 (2.50%) SAP S/4HANA
2 39 (0.86%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 19 (0.42%) Payment Gateway
4 16 (0.35%) SAP ERP
5 15 (0.33%) Teamcenter
5 15 (0.33%) Workday HCM
6 14 (0.31%) Dynamics CRM
7 13 (0.29%) Oracle EBS
8 10 (0.22%) Remedy ITSM
9 8 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
9 8 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
9 8 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
10 7 (0.15%) SAP BRIM
11 6 (0.13%) SAP MDG
12 5 (0.11%) Oracle Financials
12 5 (0.11%) Oracle Payables
12 5 (0.11%) SAP CRM
12 5 (0.11%) SAP IBP
12 5 (0.11%) SAP Oil and Gas
12 5 (0.11%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 1,061 (23.26%) Azure
2 886 (19.43%) AWS
3 348 (7.63%) GCP
4 214 (4.69%) Power Platform
5 172 (3.77%) Entra ID
6 157 (3.44%) Serverless
7 156 (3.42%) SaaS
8 119 (2.61%) Microsoft 365
9 107 (2.35%) GitHub
10 101 (2.21%) PaaS
11 99 (2.17%) Dynamics 365
12 92 (2.02%) Azure DevOps
13 75 (1.64%) AWS Lambda
13 75 (1.64%) Snowflake
14 74 (1.62%) IaaS
15 71 (1.56%) Amazon S3
16 65 (1.43%) OpenShift
17 60 (1.32%) Microsoft Purview
18 56 (1.23%) Azure Data Factory
19 55 (1.21%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 153 (3.35%) Firewall
2 147 (3.22%) Network Security
3 107 (2.35%) DNS
4 105 (2.30%) WAN
5 93 (2.04%) VPN
6 78 (1.71%) LAN
7 52 (1.14%) SD-WAN
8 36 (0.79%) BGP
9 35 (0.77%) DHCP
10 30 (0.66%) OSPF
11 27 (0.59%) VLAN
12 26 (0.57%) MPLS
13 25 (0.55%) TCP/IP
13 25 (0.55%) Wireless
14 24 (0.53%) SAN
15 23 (0.50%) NAS
16 20 (0.44%) BIG-IP
17 19 (0.42%) Structured Cabling
17 19 (0.42%) Wi-Fi
18 18 (0.39%) NX-OS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 156 (3.42%) Power BI
2 115 (2.52%) Metadata
3 104 (2.28%) Data Lake
4 93 (2.04%) Data Warehouse
5 65 (1.43%) SQL Server
6 59 (1.29%) NoSQL
7 51 (1.12%) PostgreSQL
8 39 (0.86%) Tableau
9 36 (0.79%) Azure SQL Database
10 30 (0.66%) Big Data
11 28 (0.61%) Amazon Redshift
11 28 (0.61%) Delta Lake
12 26 (0.57%) BigQuery
13 25 (0.55%) Oracle Database
14 20 (0.44%) Electronic Patient Records
15 19 (0.42%) Amazon Athena
15 19 (0.42%) GIS
16 18 (0.39%) Amazon Aurora
17 16 (0.35%) Amazon RDS
17 16 (0.35%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 100 (2.19%) JIRA
2 82 (1.80%) Jenkins
3 54 (1.18%) Git
4 45 (0.99%) GitLab
5 20 (0.44%) ERwin
6 15 (0.33%) SonarQube
7 11 (0.24%) Bitbucket
7 11 (0.24%) MLflow
8 10 (0.22%) Artifactory
9 7 (0.15%) Postman
10 6 (0.13%) REST Assured
11 5 (0.11%) JMeter
11 5 (0.11%) JUnit
11 5 (0.11%) Maven
11 5 (0.11%) PowerDesigner
11 5 (0.11%) Selenium
12 4 (0.088%) Cucumber
12 4 (0.088%) MSI
12 4 (0.088%) Snyk
12 4 (0.088%) Terragrunt
General
1 828 (18.15%) Social Skills
2 723 (15.85%) Finance
3 470 (10.30%) Public Sector
4 271 (5.94%) Banking
5 233 (5.11%) Analytical Skills
6 153 (3.35%) Retail
7 131 (2.87%) Documentation Skills
8 97 (2.13%) Influencing Skills
9 92 (2.02%) Legal
10 82 (1.80%) Telecoms
11 76 (1.67%) Manufacturing
12 70 (1.53%) Military
13 58 (1.27%) Law
14 52 (1.14%) Presentation Skills
15 48 (1.05%) Billing
16 46 (1.01%) Marketing
17 44 (0.96%) Financial Institution
18 34 (0.75%) Investment Banking
19 33 (0.72%) Aerospace
20 32 (0.70%) Inclusion and Diversity
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 213 (4.67%) REST
2 170 (3.73%) Middleware
3 116 (2.54%) SOAP
4 103 (2.26%) .NET
5 83 (1.82%) LDAP
6 79 (1.73%) OpenID
7 71 (1.56%) OAuth
8 64 (1.40%) Kafka
9 58 (1.27%) SAML
10 48 (1.05%) Oracle Fusion
11 41 (0.90%) OAuth2
11 41 (0.90%) React
12 40 (0.88%) SailPoint
13 34 (0.75%) RESTful
14 33 (0.72%) JSON
15 31 (0.68%) AngularJS
16 29 (0.64%) Web Services
17 26 (0.57%) PySpark
18 25 (0.55%) Node.js
19 23 (0.50%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 371 (8.13%) Cloud Native
2 128 (2.81%) Product Ownership
3 127 (2.78%) Data Centre
4 119 (2.61%) Onboarding
5 105 (2.30%) Enterprise Software
6 99 (2.17%) Legacy Systems
7 98 (2.15%) Distributed Systems
8 89 (1.95%) Hybrid Cloud
9 83 (1.82%) Management Information System
10 74 (1.62%) Security Posture
11 73 (1.60%) Data Protection Act
12 72 (1.58%) Operational Technology
13 70 (1.53%) Public Cloud
14 64 (1.40%) CMDB
15 54 (1.18%) AI Agents
16 43 (0.94%) Data Structures
17 41 (0.90%) Private Cloud
18 40 (0.88%) Mainframe
19 38 (0.83%) PKI
20 31 (0.68%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 130 (2.85%) Windows
2 85 (1.86%) Linux
3 26 (0.57%) Android
3 26 (0.57%) Apple iOS
4 24 (0.53%) Windows Server
5 21 (0.46%) Unix
6 11 (0.24%) zOS
7 10 (0.22%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 10 (0.22%) Windows 10
8 8 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
9 7 (0.15%) Mac OS
9 7 (0.15%) Windows 7
10 6 (0.13%) VMS
11 5 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.066%) CentOS
12 3 (0.066%) Data ONTAP
12 3 (0.066%) Solaris
12 3 (0.066%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.044%) AIX
13 2 (0.044%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 631 (13.83%) Roadmaps
2 611 (13.40%) Migration
3 533 (11.69%) Agile
4 525 (11.51%) DevOps
5 484 (10.61%) Stakeholder Management
6 479 (10.50%) CI/CD
7 454 (9.95%) Enterprise Architecture
8 419 (9.19%) AI
8 419 (9.19%) Data Modelling
9 410 (8.99%) Integration Patterns
10 400 (8.77%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 395 (8.66%) Technical Leadership
12 370 (8.11%) Data Architecture
13 354 (7.76%) Architectural Patterns
14 351 (7.70%) Analytics
15 341 (7.48%) TOGAF
16 325 (7.13%) Architectural Design
17 319 (6.99%) Microservices
18 317 (6.95%) Problem-Solving
19 259 (5.68%) Security Architecture
Programming Languages
1 285 (6.25%) Python
2 225 (4.93%) SQL
3 169 (3.71%) Java
4 146 (3.20%) PowerShell
5 79 (1.73%) JavaScript
6 50 (1.10%) C#
7 41 (0.90%) Bicep
8 35 (0.77%) TypeScript
9 30 (0.66%) Bash
10 17 (0.37%) Apex Code
10 17 (0.37%) PL/SQL
10 17 (0.37%) Ruby
11 16 (0.35%) Scala
12 13 (0.29%) Kusto Query Language
13 9 (0.20%) Kotlin
13 9 (0.20%) T-SQL
14 7 (0.15%) Shell Script
14 7 (0.15%) VBA
15 6 (0.13%) ABAP
15 6 (0.13%) R
Qualifications
1 1,362 (29.86%) Security Cleared
2 961 (21.07%) SC Cleared
3 295 (6.47%) DV Cleared
4 172 (3.77%) Degree
5 98 (2.15%) Azure Certification
6 92 (2.02%) TOGAF Certification
7 91 (2.00%) CISSP
8 81 (1.78%) AWS Certification
9 75 (1.64%) Cisco Certification
10 73 (1.60%) Computer Science Degree
11 71 (1.56%) BPSS Clearance
12 45 (0.99%) CISM
13 44 (0.96%) CCNP
14 41 (0.90%) Microsoft Certification
15 37 (0.81%) Master's Degree
16 33 (0.72%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 24 (0.53%) (ISC)2 CCSP
18 21 (0.46%) ITIL Certification
19 19 (0.42%) GIAC
20 18 (0.39%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 165 (3.62%) NIST
2 142 (3.11%) GDPR
3 122 (2.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 118 (2.59%) Data Quality
5 94 (2.06%) NCSC
6 62 (1.36%) QA
7 36 (0.79%) PCI DSS
8 28 (0.61%) GRC
9 27 (0.59%) COBIT
10 25 (0.55%) Accessibility
10 25 (0.55%) ISO 20022
11 24 (0.53%) Cyber Essentials
12 20 (0.44%) NIST 800
13 19 (0.42%) SEPA
14 18 (0.39%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 16 (0.35%) HL7
16 13 (0.29%) FINRA
16 13 (0.29%) MiFID
17 12 (0.26%) IFRS
17 12 (0.26%) PSD2
System Software
1 174 (3.81%) Active Directory
2 95 (2.08%) Docker
3 82 (1.80%) VMware Infrastructure
4 64 (1.40%) VMware NSX
5 26 (0.57%) Virtual Desktop
6 25 (0.55%) vSphere
7 17 (0.37%) Hyper-V
8 15 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
9 11 (0.24%) VMware ESXi
10 10 (0.22%) vCloud
11 9 (0.20%) NFS
11 9 (0.20%) Squid
12 7 (0.15%) Varnish
13 6 (0.13%) Postfix
14 5 (0.11%) RACF
15 4 (0.088%) BitLocker
15 4 (0.088%) Firmware
15 4 (0.088%) Oracle RAC
15 4 (0.088%) Sendmail
16 3 (0.066%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 215 (4.71%) Terraform
2 208 (4.56%) Kubernetes
3 90 (1.97%) Ansible
4 46 (1.01%) Single Sign-On
5 38 (0.83%) Microsoft Intune
6 36 (0.79%) Grafana
7 27 (0.59%) vCenter Server
8 25 (0.55%) Prometheus
9 22 (0.48%) FortiGate
10 18 (0.39%) OPNET
11 17 (0.37%) SCCM
12 14 (0.31%) Argo
13 12 (0.26%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 10 (0.22%) Istio
15 8 (0.18%) Puppet
15 8 (0.18%) WMI
16 7 (0.15%) Consul
17 6 (0.13%) HAProxy
17 6 (0.13%) Jamf Pro
17 6 (0.13%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 604 (13.24%) Microsoft
2 274 (6.01%) ServiceNow
3 269 (5.90%) SAP
4 196 (4.30%) Oracle
5 179 (3.92%) Databricks
6 168 (3.68%) VMware
7 155 (3.40%) Salesforce
8 109 (2.39%) Cisco
9 93 (2.04%) Google
10 89 (1.95%) CyberArk
11 68 (1.49%) MuleSoft
12 53 (1.16%) Splunk
13 46 (1.01%) Workday
14 40 (0.88%) Sparx
15 39 (0.86%) BeyondTrust
15 39 (0.86%) Palo Alto
15 39 (0.86%) Red Hat
16 35 (0.77%) Centrify
16 35 (0.77%) Citrix
16 35 (0.77%) IBM