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 1 January 2026.

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

6 months to
1 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 19 16 15
Rank change year-on-year -3 -1 +6
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 3,014 2,726 3,409
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.51% 9.70% 9.39%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.40% 10.44% 10.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,081 1,644 2,315
10th Percentile £461 £475 £500
25th Percentile £519 £542 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -
75th Percentile £725 £731 £731
90th Percentile £792 £799 £775
UK median daily rate £625 £625 £650
% change year-on-year - -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 38 29 35
10th Percentile £65.00 £59.65 £58.85
25th Percentile £66.25 £62.50 £71.00
Median hourly rate £83.82 £70.00 £76.53
Median % change year-on-year +19.74% -8.53% +9.33%
75th Percentile £94.94 £80.59 £85.13
90th Percentile £95.00 £87.50 £94.50
UK median hourly rate £83.82 £72.50 £76.53
% change year-on-year +15.61% -5.27% +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 28,978 26,109 33,858
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.40% 92.88% 93.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,528 16,189 23,132
10th Percentile £300 £300 £281
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,750 814 1,430
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.91 £14.54
25th Percentile £18.26 £21.23 £20.00
Median hourly rate £27.21 £35.00 £45.88
Median % change year-on-year -22.26% -23.71% +40.01%
75th Percentile £61.23 £64.73 £65.00
90th Percentile £73.41 £74.31 £77.00
UK median hourly rate £26.00 £32.50 £45.00
% change year-on-year -20.00% -27.78% +41.93%

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 1 January 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 1 January 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 1 January 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 1,369 £650 - 346
South East +8 550 £600 -4.00% 212
North of England -7 390 £579 -3.50% 138
Midlands -5 269 £575 -4.17% 82
South West 0 246 £706 +12.96% 53
North West -5 232 £575 -4.17% 86
West Midlands -7 202 £582 -3.44% 51
Yorkshire -15 141 £600 -3.23% 40
East of England +3 101 £551 -10.00% 67
East Midlands 0 67 £496 -13.74% 30
North East -9 18 £700 +16.74% 13
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 1 January 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.

1 978 (32.45%) Security Cleared
2 808 (26.81%) Azure
3 683 (22.66%) SC Cleared
4 612 (20.31%) AWS
5 457 (15.16%) Roadmaps
6 436 (14.47%) Microsoft
7 431 (14.30%) Agile
8 390 (12.94%) Stakeholder Management
9 342 (11.35%) Migration
10 331 (10.98%) Data Modelling
11 330 (10.95%) Enterprise Architecture
12 323 (10.72%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 317 (10.52%) DevOps
14 314 (10.42%) TOGAF
15 296 (9.82%) Problem-Solving
16 294 (9.75%) Technical Leadership
17 270 (8.96%) CI/CD
18 251 (8.33%) GCP
19 237 (7.86%) AI
20 236 (7.83%) Data Architecture
21 231 (7.66%) Python
22 230 (7.63%) DV Cleared
23 228 (7.56%) Microservices
24 227 (7.53%) Analytics
25 223 (7.40%) Integration Patterns
26 201 (6.67%) Architectural Design
27 196 (6.50%) Terraform
28 195 (6.47%) ITIL
29 191 (6.34%) Mentoring
30 186 (6.17%) Data Governance

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 95 (3.15%) Confluence
2 59 (1.96%) SharePoint
3 36 (1.19%) Microsoft Exchange
4 18 (0.60%) OpenStack
4 18 (0.60%) SAS
5 16 (0.53%) ArcGIS
5 16 (0.53%) CMS
6 15 (0.50%) Apache Airflow
7 14 (0.46%) Apache Spark
8 9 (0.30%) Apache
9 8 (0.27%) Anypoint
9 8 (0.27%) Smallworld
10 5 (0.17%) GeoServer
10 5 (0.17%) Oracle Workflow
11 4 (0.13%) Documentum
11 4 (0.13%) Ethereum
11 4 (0.13%) Hyperledger
11 4 (0.13%) Tomcat
11 4 (0.13%) WebLogic
12 3 (0.100%) Jupyter
Applications
1 45 (1.49%) Microsoft Office
2 33 (1.09%) Microsoft Project
3 27 (0.90%) Microsoft Excel
4 23 (0.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 18 (0.60%) MS Visio
6 11 (0.36%) Siemens NX
7 3 (0.100%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.100%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.033%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.033%) FrameMaker
8 1 (0.033%) OrCAD
8 1 (0.033%) Revit
8 1 (0.033%) Trello
Business Applications
1 81 (2.69%) SAP S/4HANA
2 36 (1.19%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 28 (0.93%) Dynamics CRM
4 22 (0.73%) Workday HCM
5 17 (0.56%) Maximo
5 17 (0.56%) Salesforce CRM
6 16 (0.53%) SAP PM
7 13 (0.43%) SAP CO
7 13 (0.43%) Teamcenter
8 12 (0.40%) NetSuite
9 11 (0.36%) SAP FI
9 11 (0.36%) SAP FI/CO
10 10 (0.33%) Remedy ITSM
11 9 (0.30%) Payment Gateway
12 8 (0.27%) SAP PP
13 7 (0.23%) Aladdin
13 7 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
13 7 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
13 7 (0.23%) SAP EWM
14 6 (0.20%) Oracle SCM
Cloud Services
1 808 (26.81%) Azure
2 612 (20.31%) AWS
3 251 (8.33%) GCP
4 126 (4.18%) Power Platform
5 116 (3.85%) SaaS
6 99 (3.28%) Serverless
7 98 (3.25%) Entra ID
8 95 (3.15%) Microsoft 365
9 73 (2.42%) GitHub
10 68 (2.26%) Dynamics 365
11 66 (2.19%) IaaS
12 64 (2.12%) Azure DevOps
13 63 (2.09%) AWS Lambda
14 54 (1.79%) Microsoft Purview
15 52 (1.73%) PaaS
16 51 (1.69%) Amazon S3
17 48 (1.59%) OpenShift
18 47 (1.56%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 46 (1.53%) Azure Data Factory
20 45 (1.49%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 168 (5.57%) Firewall
2 111 (3.68%) WAN
3 87 (2.89%) LAN
4 86 (2.85%) Network Security
5 82 (2.72%) VPN
6 71 (2.36%) DNS
7 64 (2.12%) SD-WAN
8 38 (1.26%) Wi-Fi
9 32 (1.06%) BGP
10 26 (0.86%) MPLS
11 22 (0.73%) VSAN
12 21 (0.70%) DHCP
12 21 (0.70%) Internet
12 21 (0.70%) SAN
13 20 (0.66%) SSL
14 18 (0.60%) Cisco Nexus
15 17 (0.56%) OSPF
16 13 (0.43%) IPsec
16 13 (0.43%) TCP/IP
16 13 (0.43%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 97 (3.22%) Data Warehouse
2 86 (2.85%) Power BI
3 73 (2.42%) Metadata
4 67 (2.22%) Data Lake
5 57 (1.89%) PostgreSQL
6 49 (1.63%) SQL Server
7 38 (1.26%) Tableau
8 36 (1.19%) NoSQL
9 27 (0.90%) Amazon Redshift
10 24 (0.80%) DynamoDB
11 22 (0.73%) Azure SQL Database
11 22 (0.73%) GIS
11 22 (0.73%) Relational Database
12 20 (0.66%) Delta Lake
13 19 (0.63%) Amazon RDS
13 19 (0.63%) Data Vault
13 19 (0.63%) MongoDB
14 18 (0.60%) Amazon Aurora
14 18 (0.60%) Redis
15 17 (0.56%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 114 (3.78%) JIRA
2 65 (2.16%) Jenkins
3 40 (1.33%) Git
4 29 (0.96%) GitLab
5 14 (0.46%) ERwin
6 9 (0.30%) Artifactory
6 9 (0.30%) SonarQube
7 7 (0.23%) Oracle Forms
8 6 (0.20%) Bitbucket
8 6 (0.20%) MLflow
9 5 (0.17%) Gradle
9 5 (0.17%) Maven
9 5 (0.17%) SonarLint
9 5 (0.17%) Sonatype Nexus
10 4 (0.13%) MSI
10 4 (0.13%) Postman
10 4 (0.13%) Rational DOORS
10 4 (0.13%) Terragrunt
11 3 (0.100%) PowerDesigner
11 3 (0.100%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 793 (26.31%) Social Skills
2 489 (16.22%) Finance
3 365 (12.11%) Public Sector
4 243 (8.06%) Analytical Skills
5 179 (5.94%) Banking
6 89 (2.95%) Telecoms
7 75 (2.49%) Retail
8 71 (2.36%) Legal
8 71 (2.36%) Marketing
9 70 (2.32%) Military
10 67 (2.22%) Documentation Skills
11 66 (2.19%) Presentation Skills
12 59 (1.96%) Manufacturing
13 58 (1.92%) Influencing Skills
14 43 (1.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 33 (1.09%) Financial Institution
16 28 (0.93%) Billing
17 24 (0.80%) Back Office
18 20 (0.66%) Aerospace
19 19 (0.63%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 165 (5.47%) REST
2 98 (3.25%) SOAP
3 94 (3.12%) Middleware
4 64 (2.12%) .NET
5 57 (1.89%) JSON
6 49 (1.63%) OAuth
7 47 (1.56%) Kafka
7 47 (1.56%) LDAP
8 42 (1.39%) SAML
9 39 (1.29%) RESTful
10 33 (1.09%) Lightning Web Components
11 30 (1.00%) OpenID
12 28 (0.93%) Web Services
13 27 (0.90%) Spring Boot
14 26 (0.86%) AngularJS
14 26 (0.86%) OAuth2
15 25 (0.83%) PySpark
16 22 (0.73%) Spring
16 22 (0.73%) Visualforce
17 21 (0.70%) React
Miscellaneous
1 220 (7.30%) Cloud Native
2 133 (4.41%) Product Ownership
3 106 (3.52%) Legacy Systems
4 100 (3.32%) Data Centre
5 81 (2.69%) Onboarding
5 81 (2.69%) PKI
6 71 (2.36%) Hybrid Cloud
7 70 (2.32%) Enterprise Software
8 58 (1.92%) Security Posture
9 49 (1.63%) Operational Technology
10 42 (1.39%) Management Information System
10 42 (1.39%) Self-Motivation
11 39 (1.29%) Distributed Systems
12 38 (1.26%) CMDB
12 38 (1.26%) Public Cloud
13 36 (1.19%) Data Protection Act
14 31 (1.03%) Data Structures
15 28 (0.93%) SCADA
16 27 (0.90%) Private Cloud
17 26 (0.86%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 127 (4.21%) Windows
2 80 (2.65%) Linux
3 38 (1.26%) Windows Server
4 20 (0.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 15 (0.50%) Windows Server 2019
6 14 (0.46%) Windows 10
7 13 (0.43%) Windows 7
8 8 (0.27%) VMS
9 7 (0.23%) Mac OS
9 7 (0.23%) Unix
9 7 (0.23%) Windows Server 2016
10 6 (0.20%) Android
10 6 (0.20%) Apple iOS
10 6 (0.20%) Ubuntu
11 3 (0.100%) CentOS
11 3 (0.100%) Solaris
11 3 (0.100%) Windows Server 2008
11 3 (0.100%) zOS
12 1 (0.033%) MVS
12 1 (0.033%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 457 (15.16%) Roadmaps
2 431 (14.30%) Agile
3 390 (12.94%) Stakeholder Management
4 342 (11.35%) Migration
5 331 (10.98%) Data Modelling
6 330 (10.95%) Enterprise Architecture
7 323 (10.72%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 317 (10.52%) DevOps
9 314 (10.42%) TOGAF
10 296 (9.82%) Problem-Solving
11 294 (9.75%) Technical Leadership
12 270 (8.96%) CI/CD
13 237 (7.86%) AI
14 236 (7.83%) Data Architecture
15 228 (7.56%) Microservices
16 227 (7.53%) Analytics
17 223 (7.40%) Integration Patterns
18 201 (6.67%) Architectural Design
19 195 (6.47%) ITIL
20 191 (6.34%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 231 (7.66%) Python
2 147 (4.88%) SQL
3 138 (4.58%) PowerShell
4 119 (3.95%) Java
5 56 (1.86%) JavaScript
6 37 (1.23%) C#
7 32 (1.06%) TypeScript
8 29 (0.96%) Apex Code
8 29 (0.96%) Bash
9 24 (0.80%) Bicep
10 14 (0.46%) PL/SQL
10 14 (0.46%) R
11 9 (0.30%) C
12 7 (0.23%) C++
12 7 (0.23%) Korn
12 7 (0.23%) Kusto Query Language
12 7 (0.23%) T-SQL
13 6 (0.20%) ABAP
13 6 (0.20%) Ruby
14 5 (0.17%) Scala
Qualifications
1 978 (32.45%) Security Cleared
2 683 (22.66%) SC Cleared
3 230 (7.63%) DV Cleared
4 164 (5.44%) Degree
5 95 (3.15%) TOGAF Certification
6 91 (3.02%) AWS Certification
7 89 (2.95%) CISSP
8 88 (2.92%) Azure Certification
9 64 (2.12%) Computer Science Degree
10 58 (1.92%) Cisco Certification
11 53 (1.76%) Microsoft Certification
12 39 (1.29%) Master's Degree
13 38 (1.26%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 37 (1.23%) CISM
15 35 (1.16%) BPSS Clearance
16 34 (1.13%) CCNP
17 30 (1.00%) CCIE
18 24 (0.80%) ITIL Certification
19 23 (0.76%) ISEB
20 18 (0.60%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 143 (4.74%) GDPR
2 111 (3.68%) NIST
3 106 (3.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 94 (3.12%) Data Quality
5 60 (1.99%) QA
6 59 (1.96%) NCSC
7 42 (1.39%) PCI DSS
8 30 (1.00%) ISO/IEC 20000
9 27 (0.90%) COBIT
10 22 (0.73%) Cyber Essentials
11 20 (0.66%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 19 (0.63%) GRC
13 18 (0.60%) JSP 440
14 16 (0.53%) Accessibility
15 15 (0.50%) HIPAA
16 13 (0.43%) ISO 20022
17 11 (0.36%) MiFID
17 11 (0.36%) PSD2
17 11 (0.36%) Sarbanes-Oxley
18 10 (0.33%) SLA
System Software
1 133 (4.41%) Active Directory
2 107 (3.55%) Docker
3 85 (2.82%) VMware Infrastructure
4 36 (1.19%) VMware NSX
5 31 (1.03%) vSphere
6 20 (0.66%) VMware ESXi
7 19 (0.63%) Virtual Desktop
8 15 (0.50%) Virtual Machines
9 11 (0.36%) Hyper-V
10 9 (0.30%) NFS
11 4 (0.13%) Dovecot
11 4 (0.13%) Postfix
12 3 (0.100%) BitLocker
12 3 (0.100%) Firmware
12 3 (0.100%) Lustre
12 3 (0.100%) Slurm Workload Manager
12 3 (0.100%) vCloud
13 2 (0.066%) Ceph
13 2 (0.066%) KVM
14 1 (0.033%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 196 (6.50%) Terraform
2 148 (4.91%) Kubernetes
3 87 (2.89%) Ansible
4 44 (1.46%) Single Sign-On
5 33 (1.09%) OPNET
6 21 (0.70%) vCenter Server
7 19 (0.63%) Microsoft Intune
8 17 (0.56%) SCCM
9 14 (0.46%) WMI
10 13 (0.43%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 11 (0.36%) Prometheus
12 10 (0.33%) Grafana
13 9 (0.30%) Argo
14 8 (0.27%) FortiGate
15 5 (0.17%) Kibana
16 4 (0.13%) Istio
17 3 (0.100%) Karpenter
17 3 (0.100%) Puppet
17 3 (0.100%) vRealize
18 2 (0.066%) SCOM
Vendors
1 436 (14.47%) Microsoft
2 183 (6.07%) SAP
3 179 (5.94%) ServiceNow
4 169 (5.61%) Salesforce
5 137 (4.55%) VMware
6 133 (4.41%) Oracle
7 110 (3.65%) Cisco
8 96 (3.19%) Databricks
9 72 (2.39%) CyberArk
9 72 (2.39%) Google
10 50 (1.66%) Palo Alto
11 48 (1.59%) Remedy
12 45 (1.49%) Centrify
13 44 (1.46%) Workday
14 42 (1.39%) Fortinet
14 42 (1.39%) Splunk
15 38 (1.26%) Atlassian
16 37 (1.23%) IBM
16 37 (1.23%) MuleSoft
17 35 (1.16%) Sparx