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 April 2026.

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

6 months to
10 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 13 16 11
Rank change year-on-year +3 -5 +6
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 4,276 2,398 3,823
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.90% 9.85% 10.21%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.81% 10.62% 11.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,889 1,600 2,527
10th Percentile £463 £481 £500
25th Percentile £513 £550 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -3.70%
75th Percentile £725 £725 £745
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 108 34 48
10th Percentile £49.40 £53.40 £51.91
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £60.00
Median hourly rate £71.27 £71.25 £83.63
Median % change year-on-year +0.03% -14.81% +19.48%
75th Percentile £89.27 £80.44 £87.53
90th Percentile £97.50 £85.70 £95.00
UK median hourly rate £71.27 £70.00 £82.38
% change year-on-year +1.81% -15.03% +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 36,221 22,584 34,712
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.34% 92.76% 92.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,810 15,127 23,151
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £409 £412
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £508 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.33% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,401 842 2,352
10th Percentile £15.50 £14.84 £13.00
25th Percentile £20.50 £20.26 £16.25
Median hourly rate £44.00 £32.50 £34.23
Median % change year-on-year +35.38% -5.05% -21.54%
75th Percentile £66.50 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £76.25 £71.87
UK median hourly rate £40.54 £31.58 £35.00
% change year-on-year +28.37% -9.77% -21.81%

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 April 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 April 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 April 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 1,978 £625 -3.85% 476
South East +4 704 £625 - 256
North of England +5 610 £600 - 194
Midlands -4 401 £575 -4.17% 95
North West +8 354 £610 +1.67% 100
West Midlands -4 301 £600 -0.41% 69
South West +1 289 £700 +16.67% 98
Yorkshire +8 231 £560 -6.63% 70
East of England +17 187 £550 -8.33% 71
East Midlands -2 96 £519 -8.59% 26
North East +3 34 £575 -7.95% 28
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 10 April 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 1,372 (32.09%) Security Cleared
2 1,015 (23.74%) Azure
3 936 (21.89%) SC Cleared
4 849 (19.86%) AWS
5 619 (14.48%) Roadmaps
6 613 (14.34%) Microsoft
7 567 (13.26%) Migration
8 563 (13.17%) Agile
9 489 (11.44%) DevOps
10 469 (10.97%) Stakeholder Management
11 443 (10.36%) CI/CD
12 431 (10.08%) Enterprise Architecture
13 408 (9.54%) Data Modelling
14 404 (9.45%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 383 (8.96%) Technical Leadership
16 373 (8.72%) Integration Patterns
17 368 (8.61%) TOGAF
18 367 (8.58%) AI
19 359 (8.40%) Analytics
20 350 (8.19%) GCP
21 347 (8.12%) Data Architecture
22 342 (8.00%) Problem-Solving
23 325 (7.60%) DV Cleared
24 314 (7.34%) Architectural Patterns
25 313 (7.32%) Architectural Design
26 306 (7.16%) Python
27 302 (7.06%) Microservices
28 262 (6.13%) Security Architecture
29 258 (6.03%) ServiceNow
30 248 (5.80%) SAP

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
1 106 (2.48%) SharePoint
2 104 (2.43%) Confluence
3 63 (1.47%) Microsoft Exchange
4 25 (0.58%) SAS
5 23 (0.54%) CMS
6 20 (0.47%) Apache Spark
7 16 (0.37%) Anypoint
7 16 (0.37%) Apache
7 16 (0.37%) Appian
8 15 (0.35%) ArcGIS
9 14 (0.33%) Apache Airflow
10 12 (0.28%) nginx
11 11 (0.26%) WebLogic
12 9 (0.21%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 9 (0.21%) OpenStack
13 7 (0.16%) Camunda
13 7 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 7 (0.16%) Palantir Foundry
13 7 (0.16%) Skype for Business
14 6 (0.14%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 48 (1.12%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (0.72%) Microsoft Project
3 24 (0.56%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 21 (0.49%) Microsoft Excel
5 15 (0.35%) MS Visio
6 6 (0.14%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.023%) ArchiCAD
7 1 (0.023%) AutoCAD
7 1 (0.023%) Navisworks
7 1 (0.023%) OrCAD
7 1 (0.023%) PlantUML
7 1 (0.023%) Revit
7 1 (0.023%) Siemens NX
7 1 (0.023%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.023%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 109 (2.55%) SAP S/4HANA
2 47 (1.10%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 21 (0.49%) Workday HCM
4 20 (0.47%) Dynamics CRM
5 18 (0.42%) Payment Gateway
6 15 (0.35%) SAP ERP
7 14 (0.33%) Oracle EBS
8 13 (0.30%) Salesforce CRM
9 11 (0.26%) Teamcenter
10 10 (0.23%) NetSuite
10 10 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
10 10 (0.23%) Remedy ITSM
10 10 (0.23%) SAP PM
11 9 (0.21%) Maximo
11 9 (0.21%) SAP EWM
12 8 (0.19%) SAP PP
13 7 (0.16%) SAP QM
14 6 (0.14%) Oracle ERP
14 6 (0.14%) R3 Corda
14 6 (0.14%) SAP CRM
Cloud Services
1 1,015 (23.74%) Azure
2 849 (19.86%) AWS
3 350 (8.19%) GCP
4 188 (4.40%) Power Platform
5 167 (3.91%) Entra ID
6 144 (3.37%) Serverless
7 142 (3.32%) SaaS
8 130 (3.04%) Microsoft 365
9 108 (2.53%) IaaS
10 98 (2.29%) PaaS
11 97 (2.27%) GitHub
12 93 (2.17%) Dynamics 365
13 88 (2.06%) Azure DevOps
14 76 (1.78%) OpenShift
15 72 (1.68%) AWS Lambda
16 64 (1.50%) Amazon S3
16 64 (1.50%) Snowflake
17 62 (1.45%) Microsoft Purview
18 58 (1.36%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 57 (1.33%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 186 (4.35%) Firewall
2 148 (3.46%) Network Security
3 126 (2.95%) WAN
4 125 (2.92%) DNS
5 112 (2.62%) VPN
6 84 (1.96%) LAN
7 65 (1.52%) SD-WAN
8 36 (0.84%) DHCP
9 35 (0.82%) BGP
10 31 (0.72%) OSPF
11 30 (0.70%) MPLS
12 29 (0.68%) Wi-Fi
13 28 (0.65%) TCP/IP
14 26 (0.61%) SAN
15 25 (0.58%) VLAN
16 20 (0.47%) VXLAN
16 20 (0.47%) Wireless
17 19 (0.44%) NAS
18 18 (0.42%) BIG-IP
19 17 (0.40%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 143 (3.34%) Power BI
2 115 (2.69%) Metadata
3 113 (2.64%) Data Warehouse
4 96 (2.25%) Data Lake
5 71 (1.66%) SQL Server
6 55 (1.29%) NoSQL
7 49 (1.15%) PostgreSQL
8 45 (1.05%) Tableau
9 37 (0.87%) Azure SQL Database
10 31 (0.72%) Big Data
10 31 (0.72%) Oracle Database
11 29 (0.68%) Amazon Redshift
12 24 (0.56%) BigQuery
12 24 (0.56%) Delta Lake
13 23 (0.54%) GIS
14 21 (0.49%) Electronic Patient Records
15 20 (0.47%) Metadata Repository
16 19 (0.44%) Amazon Athena
17 17 (0.40%) Relational Database
18 16 (0.37%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 121 (2.83%) JIRA
2 88 (2.06%) Jenkins
3 47 (1.10%) Git
4 40 (0.94%) GitLab
5 18 (0.42%) ERwin
6 13 (0.30%) SonarQube
7 11 (0.26%) Bitbucket
8 10 (0.23%) Artifactory
9 9 (0.21%) MLflow
10 6 (0.14%) Postman
11 5 (0.12%) JUnit
11 5 (0.12%) PowerDesigner
11 5 (0.12%) REST Assured
12 4 (0.094%) Cucumber
12 4 (0.094%) Selenium
12 4 (0.094%) Snyk
12 4 (0.094%) Sonatype Nexus
12 4 (0.094%) Terragrunt
13 3 (0.070%) Maven
13 3 (0.070%) Rational DOORS
General
1 872 (20.39%) Social Skills
2 694 (16.23%) Finance
3 478 (11.18%) Public Sector
4 282 (6.59%) Analytical Skills
5 268 (6.27%) Banking
6 140 (3.27%) Documentation Skills
7 112 (2.62%) Retail
8 100 (2.34%) Influencing Skills
9 89 (2.08%) Legal
10 87 (2.03%) Military
11 74 (1.73%) Telecoms
12 71 (1.66%) Presentation Skills
13 61 (1.43%) Law
14 59 (1.38%) Marketing
15 52 (1.22%) Manufacturing
16 46 (1.08%) Financial Institution
17 34 (0.80%) Billing
18 32 (0.75%) Investment Banking
19 30 (0.70%) Inclusion and Diversity
20 25 (0.58%) Aerospace
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 219 (5.12%) REST
2 164 (3.84%) Middleware
3 109 (2.55%) SOAP
4 89 (2.08%) .NET
5 78 (1.82%) OpenID
6 77 (1.80%) LDAP
7 68 (1.59%) OAuth
8 63 (1.47%) Kafka
9 59 (1.38%) SAML
10 55 (1.29%) JSON
11 44 (1.03%) OAuth2
12 36 (0.84%) AngularJS
13 35 (0.82%) React
13 35 (0.82%) SailPoint
14 32 (0.75%) RESTful
15 31 (0.72%) Oracle Fusion
16 29 (0.68%) Spring
17 28 (0.65%) Web Services
18 24 (0.56%) PySpark
19 22 (0.51%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 336 (7.86%) Cloud Native
2 135 (3.16%) Product Ownership
3 125 (2.92%) Data Centre
4 109 (2.55%) Onboarding
5 107 (2.50%) Legacy Systems
6 106 (2.48%) Enterprise Software
7 92 (2.15%) Hybrid Cloud
8 82 (1.92%) Distributed Systems
9 81 (1.89%) PKI
10 70 (1.64%) Security Posture
11 68 (1.59%) Management Information System
11 68 (1.59%) Public Cloud
12 60 (1.40%) Data Protection Act
12 60 (1.40%) Operational Technology
13 59 (1.38%) CMDB
14 50 (1.17%) Self-Motivation
15 45 (1.05%) Data Structures
16 42 (0.98%) AI Agents
16 42 (0.98%) Private Cloud
17 32 (0.75%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 163 (3.81%) Windows
2 96 (2.25%) Linux
3 37 (0.87%) Windows Server
4 25 (0.58%) Android
4 25 (0.58%) Apple iOS
5 16 (0.37%) Unix
6 14 (0.33%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 14 (0.33%) Windows 10
6 14 (0.33%) Windows 7
7 10 (0.23%) zOS
8 9 (0.21%) Mac OS
8 9 (0.21%) VMS
9 8 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
10 5 (0.12%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (0.070%) Data ONTAP
11 3 (0.070%) Solaris
11 3 (0.070%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.047%) AIX
12 2 (0.047%) CentOS
13 1 (0.023%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 619 (14.48%) Roadmaps
2 567 (13.26%) Migration
3 563 (13.17%) Agile
4 489 (11.44%) DevOps
5 469 (10.97%) Stakeholder Management
6 443 (10.36%) CI/CD
7 431 (10.08%) Enterprise Architecture
8 408 (9.54%) Data Modelling
9 404 (9.45%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 383 (8.96%) Technical Leadership
11 373 (8.72%) Integration Patterns
12 368 (8.61%) TOGAF
13 367 (8.58%) AI
14 359 (8.40%) Analytics
15 347 (8.12%) Data Architecture
16 342 (8.00%) Problem-Solving
17 314 (7.34%) Architectural Patterns
18 313 (7.32%) Architectural Design
19 302 (7.06%) Microservices
20 262 (6.13%) Security Architecture
Programming Languages
1 306 (7.16%) Python
2 219 (5.12%) SQL
3 181 (4.23%) PowerShell
4 162 (3.79%) Java
5 68 (1.59%) JavaScript
6 52 (1.22%) C#
7 41 (0.96%) Bash
8 39 (0.91%) Bicep
9 28 (0.65%) TypeScript
10 17 (0.40%) Apex Code
10 17 (0.40%) Ruby
11 14 (0.33%) PL/SQL
11 14 (0.33%) Scala
12 13 (0.30%) Kusto Query Language
13 10 (0.23%) R
14 9 (0.21%) Kotlin
15 8 (0.19%) Shell Script
15 8 (0.19%) T-SQL
15 8 (0.19%) VB
16 7 (0.16%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,372 (32.09%) Security Cleared
2 936 (21.89%) SC Cleared
3 325 (7.60%) DV Cleared
4 175 (4.09%) Degree
5 115 (2.69%) Azure Certification
6 109 (2.55%) TOGAF Certification
7 101 (2.36%) CISSP
8 98 (2.29%) AWS Certification
9 79 (1.85%) Cisco Certification
10 67 (1.57%) Computer Science Degree
11 62 (1.45%) BPSS Clearance
12 52 (1.22%) Microsoft Certification
13 47 (1.10%) CCNP
14 45 (1.05%) CISM
15 41 (0.96%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 33 (0.77%) Master's Degree
17 32 (0.75%) ITIL Certification
18 31 (0.72%) ISEB
19 30 (0.70%) (ISC)2 CCSP
20 28 (0.65%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 172 (4.02%) GDPR
2 166 (3.88%) NIST
3 135 (3.16%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 129 (3.02%) Data Quality
5 93 (2.17%) NCSC
6 64 (1.50%) QA
7 50 (1.17%) PCI DSS
8 37 (0.87%) COBIT
9 30 (0.70%) GRC
10 27 (0.63%) Cyber Essentials
10 27 (0.63%) ISO 20022
11 18 (0.42%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 17 (0.40%) HL7
13 16 (0.37%) NIST 800
14 15 (0.35%) JSP 440
15 14 (0.33%) MiFID
16 13 (0.30%) Accessibility
16 13 (0.30%) FINRA
16 13 (0.30%) PSD2
16 13 (0.30%) SEPA
System Software
1 187 (4.37%) Active Directory
2 110 (2.57%) Docker
3 99 (2.32%) VMware Infrastructure
4 71 (1.66%) VMware NSX
5 34 (0.80%) vSphere
6 22 (0.51%) Virtual Desktop
7 18 (0.42%) Hyper-V
8 16 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
9 14 (0.33%) VMware ESXi
10 10 (0.23%) vCloud
11 9 (0.21%) Squid
12 8 (0.19%) NFS
13 7 (0.16%) BitLocker
13 7 (0.16%) Varnish
14 5 (0.12%) Postfix
14 5 (0.12%) RACF
15 4 (0.094%) Firmware
15 4 (0.094%) Oracle RAC
16 3 (0.070%) IAG
16 3 (0.070%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 239 (5.59%) Terraform
2 215 (5.03%) Kubernetes
3 104 (2.43%) Ansible
4 54 (1.26%) Single Sign-On
5 40 (0.94%) Microsoft Intune
6 35 (0.82%) Grafana
6 35 (0.82%) vCenter Server
7 30 (0.70%) OPNET
8 22 (0.51%) Prometheus
8 22 (0.51%) SCCM
9 21 (0.49%) FortiGate
10 20 (0.47%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 20 (0.47%) Argo
11 13 (0.30%) WMI
12 9 (0.21%) Istio
13 7 (0.16%) Consul
13 7 (0.16%) Puppet
14 5 (0.12%) HAProxy
14 5 (0.12%) Kibana
14 5 (0.12%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 613 (14.34%) Microsoft
2 258 (6.03%) ServiceNow
3 248 (5.80%) SAP
4 191 (4.47%) VMware
5 170 (3.98%) Oracle
5 170 (3.98%) Salesforce
6 153 (3.58%) Databricks
7 113 (2.64%) Cisco
8 92 (2.15%) Google
9 84 (1.96%) CyberArk
10 62 (1.45%) MuleSoft
11 56 (1.31%) Splunk
12 51 (1.19%) Palo Alto
13 50 (1.17%) Red Hat
13 50 (1.17%) Remedy
14 46 (1.08%) IBM
14 46 (1.08%) Sparx
14 46 (1.08%) Workday
15 44 (1.03%) Atlassian
16 39 (0.91%) BeyondTrust