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 5 May 2026.

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

6 months to
5 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 4,445 2,363 3,802
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.95% 9.69% 10.31%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.86% 10.47% 11.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,995 1,562 2,477
10th Percentile £463 £475 £500
25th Percentile £513 £547 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -2.77%
75th Percentile £725 £720 £750
90th Percentile £800 £799 £825
UK median daily rate £620 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 118 32 82
10th Percentile £49.40 £52.80 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £61.25
Median hourly rate £67.75 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -6.55% +3.57% -
75th Percentile £82.25 £81.00 £87.46
90th Percentile £97.50 £85.75 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £67.50 £72.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -6.90% +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 37,464 22,563 34,184
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.33% 92.55% 92.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,380 15,022 22,706
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 £620 £638 £643
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £505 £515 £525
% change year-on-year -1.94% -1.90% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,544 910 2,433
10th Percentile £15.72 £14.20 £13.00
25th Percentile £20.86 £18.51 £16.30
Median hourly rate £47.00 £30.62 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +53.52% -16.12% -18.03%
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 5 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 5 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 5 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 +5 2,085 £625 -2.61% 482
South East +4 709 £625 - 191
North of England +4 618 £600 - 187
Midlands +1 428 £600 - 132
North West +4 354 £610 +1.67% 106
West Midlands -1 312 £613 +2.08% 76
South West 0 298 £693 +15.42% 119
Yorkshire +6 232 £553 -9.80% 48
East of England +20 201 £563 -6.25% 87
East Midlands -1 110 £525 -4.55% 56
North East +4 40 £575 -7.95% 33
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 5 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 1,344 (30.24%) Security Cleared
2 1,030 (23.17%) Azure
3 924 (20.79%) SC Cleared
4 863 (19.42%) AWS
5 625 (14.06%) Roadmaps
6 614 (13.81%) Microsoft
7 590 (13.27%) Migration
8 560 (12.60%) Agile
9 503 (11.32%) DevOps
10 466 (10.48%) Stakeholder Management
11 465 (10.46%) CI/CD
12 438 (9.85%) Enterprise Architecture
13 407 (9.16%) AI
14 390 (8.77%) Integration Patterns
15 387 (8.71%) Data Modelling
16 386 (8.68%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 385 (8.66%) Technical Leadership
18 366 (8.23%) TOGAF
19 358 (8.05%) Analytics
20 345 (7.76%) Data Architecture
20 345 (7.76%) GCP
21 335 (7.54%) Architectural Patterns
22 329 (7.40%) Problem-Solving
23 316 (7.11%) DV Cleared
24 312 (7.02%) Architectural Design
25 307 (6.91%) Microservices
26 298 (6.70%) Python
27 275 (6.19%) ServiceNow
28 264 (5.94%) SAP
29 257 (5.78%) 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
1 106 (2.38%) SharePoint
2 99 (2.23%) Confluence
3 55 (1.24%) 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
12 11 (0.25%) OpenStack
12 11 (0.25%) Palantir Foundry
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%) Sitecore CMS
16 6 (0.13%) Tomcat
Applications
1 45 (1.01%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (0.70%) 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
1 109 (2.45%) SAP S/4HANA
2 47 (1.06%) 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 11 (0.25%) Remedy ITSM
8 10 (0.22%) Oracle Receivables
9 9 (0.20%) Salesforce CRM
9 9 (0.20%) SAP EWM
10 8 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
10 8 (0.18%) SAP PP
11 7 (0.16%) SAP PM
11 7 (0.16%) SAP QM
12 6 (0.13%) Maximo
12 6 (0.13%) NetSuite
12 6 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
12 6 (0.13%) R3 Corda
Cloud Services
1 1,030 (23.17%) Azure
2 863 (19.42%) AWS
3 345 (7.76%) GCP
4 202 (4.54%) Power Platform
5 168 (3.78%) Entra ID
6 155 (3.49%) Serverless
7 148 (3.33%) SaaS
8 128 (2.88%) Microsoft 365
9 102 (2.29%) GitHub
10 101 (2.27%) PaaS
11 96 (2.16%) Dynamics 365
12 84 (1.89%) Azure DevOps
13 82 (1.84%) IaaS
14 75 (1.69%) AWS Lambda
15 73 (1.64%) Amazon S3
15 73 (1.64%) Snowflake
16 68 (1.53%) OpenShift
17 60 (1.35%) Microsoft Purview
18 56 (1.26%) Azure Data Factory
18 56 (1.26%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 161 (3.62%) Firewall
2 146 (3.28%) Network Security
3 111 (2.50%) WAN
4 105 (2.36%) DNS
5 95 (2.14%) VPN
6 80 (1.80%) LAN
7 55 (1.24%) SD-WAN
8 35 (0.79%) 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 19 (0.43%) BIG-IP
14 19 (0.43%) SAN
15 18 (0.40%) NAS
15 18 (0.40%) VXLAN
16 16 (0.36%) VSAN
16 16 (0.36%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 151 (3.40%) Power BI
2 108 (2.43%) Metadata
3 104 (2.34%) Data Lake
4 96 (2.16%) Data Warehouse
5 66 (1.48%) SQL Server
6 57 (1.28%) 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 21 (0.47%) Electronic Patient Records
15 19 (0.43%) Amazon Athena
16 17 (0.38%) MongoDB
17 16 (0.36%) Relational Database
17 16 (0.36%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 113 (2.54%) JIRA
2 81 (1.82%) Jenkins
3 54 (1.21%) Git
4 44 (0.99%) GitLab
5 18 (0.40%) ERwin
6 14 (0.31%) SonarQube
7 12 (0.27%) Artifactory
8 11 (0.25%) Bitbucket
8 11 (0.25%) MLflow
9 6 (0.13%) Postman
10 5 (0.11%) JUnit
10 5 (0.11%) MSI
10 5 (0.11%) PowerDesigner
10 5 (0.11%) REST Assured
11 4 (0.090%) Cucumber
11 4 (0.090%) Maven
11 4 (0.090%) Selenium
11 4 (0.090%) Snyk
11 4 (0.090%) Sonatype Nexus
11 4 (0.090%) Terragrunt
General
1 837 (18.83%) Social Skills
2 700 (15.75%) Finance
3 455 (10.24%) Public Sector
4 265 (5.96%) Banking
5 253 (5.69%) Analytical Skills
6 134 (3.01%) Retail
7 129 (2.90%) Documentation Skills
8 96 (2.16%) Influencing Skills
9 93 (2.09%) Legal
10 85 (1.91%) Military
11 77 (1.73%) Telecoms
12 68 (1.53%) Manufacturing
13 63 (1.42%) Presentation Skills
14 61 (1.37%) Law
15 55 (1.24%) Marketing
16 48 (1.08%) Billing
17 42 (0.94%) Financial Institution
18 34 (0.76%) Investment Banking
19 28 (0.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
20 27 (0.61%) Aerospace
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 209 (4.70%) REST
2 166 (3.73%) Middleware
3 111 (2.50%) SOAP
4 98 (2.20%) .NET
5 80 (1.80%) LDAP
5 80 (1.80%) OpenID
6 68 (1.53%) OAuth
7 65 (1.46%) Kafka
8 57 (1.28%) SAML
9 42 (0.94%) JSON
9 42 (0.94%) Oracle Fusion
10 40 (0.90%) OAuth2
11 37 (0.83%) SailPoint
12 36 (0.81%) React
13 33 (0.74%) RESTful
14 32 (0.72%) AngularJS
15 28 (0.63%) Web Services
16 26 (0.58%) PySpark
16 26 (0.58%) Spring
17 23 (0.52%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 366 (8.23%) Cloud Native
2 131 (2.95%) Product Ownership
3 117 (2.63%) Data Centre
4 116 (2.61%) Onboarding
5 105 (2.36%) Legacy Systems
6 104 (2.34%) Enterprise Software
7 94 (2.11%) Hybrid Cloud
8 86 (1.93%) Distributed Systems
9 85 (1.91%) Management Information System
10 73 (1.64%) Public Cloud
10 73 (1.64%) Security Posture
11 67 (1.51%) Operational Technology
12 65 (1.46%) Data Protection Act
13 57 (1.28%) CMDB
14 56 (1.26%) PKI
15 46 (1.03%) AI Agents
16 41 (0.92%) Private Cloud
17 39 (0.88%) Data Structures
18 32 (0.72%) Mainframe
18 32 (0.72%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 150 (3.37%) Windows
2 91 (2.05%) Linux
3 31 (0.70%) Windows Server
4 26 (0.58%) Android
4 26 (0.58%) Apple iOS
5 18 (0.40%) 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
1 625 (14.06%) Roadmaps
2 590 (13.27%) Migration
3 560 (12.60%) Agile
4 503 (11.32%) DevOps
5 466 (10.48%) Stakeholder Management
6 465 (10.46%) CI/CD
7 438 (9.85%) Enterprise Architecture
8 407 (9.16%) AI
9 390 (8.77%) Integration Patterns
10 387 (8.71%) Data Modelling
11 386 (8.68%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 385 (8.66%) Technical Leadership
13 366 (8.23%) TOGAF
14 358 (8.05%) Analytics
15 345 (7.76%) Data Architecture
16 335 (7.54%) Architectural Patterns
17 329 (7.40%) Problem-Solving
18 312 (7.02%) Architectural Design
19 307 (6.91%) Microservices
20 257 (5.78%) Security Architecture
Programming Languages
1 298 (6.70%) Python
2 229 (5.15%) SQL
3 166 (3.73%) Java
4 160 (3.60%) PowerShell
5 71 (1.60%) JavaScript
6 52 (1.17%) C#
7 42 (0.94%) Bicep
8 34 (0.76%) Bash
9 33 (0.74%) TypeScript
10 17 (0.38%) Apex Code
10 17 (0.38%) Ruby
10 17 (0.38%) Scala
11 16 (0.36%) PL/SQL
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 1,344 (30.24%) Security Cleared
2 924 (20.79%) SC Cleared
3 316 (7.11%) DV Cleared
4 186 (4.18%) Degree
5 119 (2.68%) TOGAF Certification
6 108 (2.43%) Azure Certification
7 95 (2.14%) CISSP
8 90 (2.02%) AWS Certification
9 77 (1.73%) Computer Science Degree
10 74 (1.66%) Cisco Certification
11 64 (1.44%) BPSS Clearance
12 47 (1.06%) Microsoft Certification
13 46 (1.03%) CISM
14 42 (0.94%) CCNP
15 39 (0.88%) Master's Degree
16 37 (0.83%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 25 (0.56%) (ISC)2 CCSP
18 23 (0.52%) ITIL Certification
19 22 (0.49%) CCIE
20 20 (0.45%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 162 (3.64%) NIST
2 158 (3.55%) GDPR
3 123 (2.77%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 121 (2.72%) Data Quality
5 91 (2.05%) NCSC
6 59 (1.33%) QA
7 40 (0.90%) PCI DSS
8 27 (0.61%) COBIT
8 27 (0.61%) Cyber Essentials
9 26 (0.58%) ISO 20022
10 24 (0.54%) GRC
11 18 (0.40%) SEPA
12 17 (0.38%) Accessibility
12 17 (0.38%) HL7
12 17 (0.38%) NIST 800
12 17 (0.38%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 13 (0.29%) FINRA
13 13 (0.29%) MiFID
14 11 (0.25%) PSD2
15 9 (0.20%) IFRS
System Software
1 180 (4.05%) Active Directory
2 100 (2.25%) Docker
3 86 (1.93%) VMware Infrastructure
4 65 (1.46%) VMware NSX
5 26 (0.58%) vSphere
6 23 (0.52%) 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
1 230 (5.17%) Terraform
2 206 (4.63%) Kubernetes
3 95 (2.14%) Ansible
4 47 (1.06%) Single Sign-On
5 41 (0.92%) Microsoft Intune
6 37 (0.83%) Grafana
7 30 (0.67%) OPNET
8 28 (0.63%) 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
1 614 (13.81%) Microsoft
2 275 (6.19%) ServiceNow
3 264 (5.94%) SAP
4 183 (4.12%) Oracle
5 179 (4.03%) VMware
6 167 (3.76%) Databricks
7 164 (3.69%) Salesforce
8 102 (2.29%) Cisco
9 92 (2.07%) Google
10 84 (1.89%) CyberArk
11 63 (1.42%) MuleSoft
12 55 (1.24%) Splunk
13 49 (1.10%) Sparx
13 49 (1.10%) Workday
14 48 (1.08%) Remedy
15 43 (0.97%) Atlassian
15 43 (0.97%) Red Hat
16 40 (0.90%) IBM
16 40 (0.90%) Palo Alto
17 39 (0.88%) BeyondTrust