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 14 March 2026.

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

6 months to
14 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 15 16 13
Rank change year-on-year +1 -3 +4
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 3,906 2,490 3,729
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.61% 10.08% 9.83%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.53% 10.83% 10.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,641 1,607 2,461
10th Percentile £462 £475 £500
25th Percentile £513 £548 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -3.70%
75th Percentile £725 £725 £738
90th Percentile £800 £799 £800
UK median daily rate £620 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -1.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 94 31 41
10th Percentile £49.40 £58.25 £50.53
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £60.00
Median hourly rate £71.27 £72.50 £76.53
Median % change year-on-year -1.70% -5.27% +9.33%
75th Percentile £89.82 £82.25 £87.53
90th Percentile £95.00 £87.50 £95.00
UK median hourly rate £71.27 £72.50 £76.53
% change year-on-year -1.70% -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 33,880 22,988 35,176
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.02% 93.03% 92.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,370 15,076 23,537
10th Percentile £310 £300 £270
25th Percentile £413 £408 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £621 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £750 £748
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,235 770 2,274
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.25 £13.00
25th Percentile £19.41 £21.25 £16.25
Median hourly rate £37.00 £35.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +5.71% +7.69% -23.53%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £58.75
90th Percentile £76.45 £77.59 £71.25
UK median hourly rate £35.00 £33.06 £32.50
% change year-on-year +5.88% +1.71% -23.53%

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 14 March 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 14 March 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 14 March 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 1,747 £626 -3.69% 389
South East +4 673 £625 - 242
North of England +1 566 £600 - 161
Midlands 0 386 £575 -4.56% 96
North West +1 318 £600 - 85
West Midlands -1 287 £600 -3.81% 56
South West 0 267 £700 +14.29% 109
Yorkshire +6 225 £563 -6.25% 51
East of England +16 165 £540 -13.60% 68
East Midlands +1 95 £513 -9.69% 39
North East -4 29 £625 - 28
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 14 March 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 1,244 (31.85%) Security Cleared
2 981 (25.12%) Azure
3 852 (21.81%) SC Cleared
4 777 (19.89%) AWS
5 573 (14.67%) Roadmaps
6 558 (14.29%) Microsoft
7 529 (13.54%) Agile
8 496 (12.70%) Migration
9 460 (11.78%) Stakeholder Management
10 453 (11.60%) DevOps
11 404 (10.34%) Enterprise Architecture
12 398 (10.19%) CI/CD
13 376 (9.63%) Data Modelling
14 368 (9.42%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 364 (9.32%) TOGAF
16 349 (8.93%) Technical Leadership
17 330 (8.45%) Problem-Solving
18 329 (8.42%) GCP
19 326 (8.35%) Analytics
19 326 (8.35%) Data Architecture
20 323 (8.27%) AI
21 322 (8.24%) Integration Patterns
22 292 (7.48%) DV Cleared
23 283 (7.25%) Python
24 277 (7.09%) Architectural Patterns
24 277 (7.09%) Microservices
25 259 (6.63%) Architectural Design
26 229 (5.86%) ServiceNow
26 229 (5.86%) Terraform
27 226 (5.79%) 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
1 114 (2.92%) Confluence
2 102 (2.61%) SharePoint
3 61 (1.56%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (0.69%) SAS
5 22 (0.56%) CMS
6 21 (0.54%) Apache Spark
7 15 (0.38%) Anypoint
7 15 (0.38%) Apache Airflow
7 15 (0.38%) Appian
8 14 (0.36%) ArcGIS
9 12 (0.31%) Apache
10 11 (0.28%) nginx
10 11 (0.28%) WebLogic
11 9 (0.23%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 9 (0.23%) OpenStack
11 9 (0.23%) Smallworld
12 7 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 7 (0.18%) Skype for Business
13 6 (0.15%) GeoServer
13 6 (0.15%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 50 (1.28%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (0.79%) Microsoft Project
3 26 (0.67%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 25 (0.64%) Microsoft Excel
5 18 (0.46%) MS Visio
6 7 (0.18%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.026%) ArchiCAD
7 1 (0.026%) AutoCAD
7 1 (0.026%) OrCAD
7 1 (0.026%) PlantUML
7 1 (0.026%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 101 (2.59%) SAP S/4HANA
2 42 (1.08%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 23 (0.59%) Workday HCM
4 19 (0.49%) Dynamics CRM
5 18 (0.46%) Payment Gateway
6 16 (0.41%) Salesforce CRM
7 13 (0.33%) Oracle EBS
8 11 (0.28%) NetSuite
9 10 (0.26%) SAP PM
10 9 (0.23%) Maximo
10 9 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
10 9 (0.23%) Remedy ITSM
10 9 (0.23%) SAP EWM
11 8 (0.20%) SAP ERP
11 8 (0.20%) Teamcenter
12 7 (0.18%) SAP PP
13 6 (0.15%) R3 Corda
13 6 (0.15%) SAP QM
14 5 (0.13%) Distributed Ledger
14 5 (0.13%) SAP CO
Cloud Services
1 981 (25.12%) Azure
2 777 (19.89%) AWS
3 329 (8.42%) GCP
4 161 (4.12%) Entra ID
5 157 (4.02%) Power Platform
6 128 (3.28%) Microsoft 365
6 128 (3.28%) Serverless
7 126 (3.23%) SaaS
8 94 (2.41%) IaaS
9 92 (2.36%) GitHub
10 86 (2.20%) Azure DevOps
11 82 (2.10%) PaaS
12 70 (1.79%) OpenShift
13 68 (1.74%) AWS Lambda
14 63 (1.61%) Amazon S3
15 62 (1.59%) Microsoft Purview
16 61 (1.56%) Dynamics 365
17 58 (1.48%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 57 (1.46%) Azure Data Factory
18 57 (1.46%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 182 (4.66%) Firewall
2 140 (3.58%) Network Security
3 117 (3.00%) WAN
4 111 (2.84%) DNS
5 104 (2.66%) VPN
6 76 (1.95%) LAN
7 62 (1.59%) SD-WAN
8 34 (0.87%) BGP
9 32 (0.82%) DHCP
10 29 (0.74%) Wi-Fi
11 28 (0.72%) MPLS
11 28 (0.72%) OSPF
12 24 (0.61%) TCP/IP
13 20 (0.51%) SAN
13 20 (0.51%) VLAN
13 20 (0.51%) VXLAN
14 17 (0.44%) VSAN
15 16 (0.41%) Internet
15 16 (0.41%) Wireless
16 15 (0.38%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 122 (3.12%) Data Warehouse
2 115 (2.94%) Power BI
3 114 (2.92%) Metadata
4 77 (1.97%) Data Lake
5 69 (1.77%) SQL Server
6 52 (1.33%) NoSQL
7 51 (1.31%) PostgreSQL
8 45 (1.15%) Tableau
9 34 (0.87%) Azure SQL Database
10 31 (0.79%) Oracle Database
11 27 (0.69%) Big Data
12 26 (0.67%) Amazon Redshift
13 25 (0.64%) GIS
14 22 (0.56%) Delta Lake
15 20 (0.51%) Metadata Repository
16 19 (0.49%) Electronic Patient Records
17 18 (0.46%) Relational Database
18 17 (0.44%) Amazon Athena
18 17 (0.44%) Amazon Aurora
19 15 (0.38%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 126 (3.23%) JIRA
2 86 (2.20%) Jenkins
3 45 (1.15%) GitLab
4 43 (1.10%) Git
5 17 (0.44%) ERwin
6 11 (0.28%) Bitbucket
7 10 (0.26%) SonarQube
8 8 (0.20%) Artifactory
8 8 (0.20%) MLflow
9 5 (0.13%) Oracle Forms
9 5 (0.13%) Postman
9 5 (0.13%) REST Assured
10 4 (0.10%) Cucumber
10 4 (0.10%) PowerDesigner
10 4 (0.10%) Selenium
10 4 (0.10%) Snyk
10 4 (0.10%) Terragrunt
11 3 (0.077%) JUnit
11 3 (0.077%) MSI
11 3 (0.077%) Rational DOORS
General
1 854 (21.86%) Social Skills
2 630 (16.13%) Finance
3 458 (11.73%) Public Sector
4 276 (7.07%) Analytical Skills
5 241 (6.17%) Banking
6 129 (3.30%) Documentation Skills
7 90 (2.30%) Influencing Skills
8 86 (2.20%) Retail
9 83 (2.12%) Military
10 80 (2.05%) Telecoms
11 77 (1.97%) Legal
12 70 (1.79%) Presentation Skills
13 63 (1.61%) Marketing
14 50 (1.28%) Manufacturing
15 40 (1.02%) Financial Institution
16 37 (0.95%) Billing
17 35 (0.90%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 35 (0.90%) Law
18 28 (0.72%) Investment Banking
19 19 (0.49%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 213 (5.45%) REST
2 155 (3.97%) Middleware
3 110 (2.82%) SOAP
4 78 (2.00%) OpenID
5 75 (1.92%) LDAP
6 74 (1.89%) .NET
7 73 (1.87%) OAuth
8 66 (1.69%) SAML
9 59 (1.51%) Kafka
10 48 (1.23%) JSON
11 44 (1.13%) OAuth2
12 35 (0.90%) AngularJS
13 31 (0.79%) SailPoint
14 28 (0.72%) React
14 28 (0.72%) RESTful
15 25 (0.64%) Oracle Fusion
15 25 (0.64%) PySpark
15 25 (0.64%) Spring
16 24 (0.61%) Web Services
17 22 (0.56%) Microsoft Graph
Miscellaneous
1 307 (7.86%) Cloud Native
2 133 (3.41%) Product Ownership
3 112 (2.87%) Legacy Systems
3 112 (2.87%) Onboarding
4 111 (2.84%) Data Centre
5 94 (2.41%) Enterprise Software
6 87 (2.23%) PKI
7 77 (1.97%) Hybrid Cloud
8 63 (1.61%) Public Cloud
9 62 (1.59%) Data Protection Act
10 61 (1.56%) Distributed Systems
10 61 (1.56%) Security Posture
11 56 (1.43%) Management Information System
12 53 (1.36%) Operational Technology
13 52 (1.33%) CMDB
14 46 (1.18%) Self-Motivation
15 40 (1.02%) Data Structures
16 36 (0.92%) AI Agents
17 32 (0.82%) Private Cloud
18 31 (0.79%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 159 (4.07%) Windows
2 89 (2.28%) Linux
3 35 (0.90%) Windows Server
4 22 (0.56%) Android
4 22 (0.56%) Apple iOS
5 16 (0.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 16 (0.41%) Windows 7
6 14 (0.36%) Windows 10
7 10 (0.26%) Unix
7 10 (0.26%) zOS
8 9 (0.23%) Mac OS
9 8 (0.20%) VMS
9 8 (0.20%) Windows Server 2016
10 5 (0.13%) Windows Server 2019
11 4 (0.10%) Ubuntu
12 3 (0.077%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.051%) CentOS
14 1 (0.026%) Data ONTAP
14 1 (0.026%) Kali Linux
14 1 (0.026%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 573 (14.67%) Roadmaps
2 529 (13.54%) Agile
3 496 (12.70%) Migration
4 460 (11.78%) Stakeholder Management
5 453 (11.60%) DevOps
6 404 (10.34%) Enterprise Architecture
7 398 (10.19%) CI/CD
8 376 (9.63%) Data Modelling
9 368 (9.42%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 364 (9.32%) TOGAF
11 349 (8.93%) Technical Leadership
12 330 (8.45%) Problem-Solving
13 326 (8.35%) Analytics
13 326 (8.35%) Data Architecture
14 323 (8.27%) AI
15 322 (8.24%) Integration Patterns
16 277 (7.09%) Architectural Patterns
16 277 (7.09%) Microservices
17 259 (6.63%) Architectural Design
18 226 (5.79%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 283 (7.25%) Python
2 206 (5.27%) SQL
3 175 (4.48%) PowerShell
4 128 (3.28%) Java
5 60 (1.54%) JavaScript
6 47 (1.20%) C#
7 38 (0.97%) Bash
7 38 (0.97%) Bicep
8 29 (0.74%) TypeScript
9 18 (0.46%) Apex Code
10 16 (0.41%) PL/SQL
11 14 (0.36%) Kusto Query Language
12 13 (0.33%) R
13 12 (0.31%) Scala
14 11 (0.28%) Ruby
15 9 (0.23%) T-SQL
16 8 (0.20%) Kotlin
16 8 (0.20%) VB
17 7 (0.18%) VBScript
18 6 (0.15%) C++
Qualifications
1 1,244 (31.85%) Security Cleared
2 852 (21.81%) SC Cleared
3 292 (7.48%) DV Cleared
4 177 (4.53%) Degree
5 117 (3.00%) TOGAF Certification
6 114 (2.92%) Azure Certification
7 105 (2.69%) AWS Certification
8 98 (2.51%) CISSP
9 75 (1.92%) Computer Science Degree
10 71 (1.82%) Cisco Certification
11 57 (1.46%) BPSS Clearance
12 54 (1.38%) Microsoft Certification
13 52 (1.33%) CISM
14 47 (1.20%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 43 (1.10%) CCNP
16 41 (1.05%) Master's Degree
17 32 (0.82%) ITIL Certification
18 29 (0.74%) CCIE
19 28 (0.72%) ISEB
20 26 (0.67%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 174 (4.45%) GDPR
2 138 (3.53%) NIST
3 130 (3.33%) Data Quality
4 115 (2.94%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 87 (2.23%) NCSC
6 57 (1.46%) QA
7 52 (1.33%) PCI DSS
8 33 (0.84%) COBIT
9 28 (0.72%) GRC
10 26 (0.67%) ISO 20022
11 25 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials
12 16 (0.41%) Accessibility
13 15 (0.38%) MiFID
14 14 (0.36%) JSP 440
15 13 (0.33%) FINRA
15 13 (0.33%) HL7
15 13 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 12 (0.31%) HIPAA
16 12 (0.31%) PSD2
17 11 (0.28%) SEPA
System Software
1 177 (4.53%) Active Directory
2 121 (3.10%) Docker
3 90 (2.30%) VMware Infrastructure
4 62 (1.59%) VMware NSX
5 33 (0.84%) vSphere
6 22 (0.56%) Virtual Desktop
7 16 (0.41%) Hyper-V
8 13 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
9 11 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
10 8 (0.20%) Squid
10 8 (0.20%) vCloud
11 7 (0.18%) BitLocker
12 5 (0.13%) Oracle RAC
12 5 (0.13%) RACF
12 5 (0.13%) Varnish
13 4 (0.10%) Firmware
13 4 (0.10%) NFS
14 3 (0.077%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
14 3 (0.077%) IAG
14 3 (0.077%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 229 (5.86%) Terraform
2 208 (5.33%) Kubernetes
3 99 (2.53%) Ansible
4 54 (1.38%) Single Sign-On
5 40 (1.02%) Microsoft Intune
6 32 (0.82%) vCenter Server
7 30 (0.77%) Grafana
7 30 (0.77%) OPNET
8 23 (0.59%) Prometheus
9 22 (0.56%) SCCM
10 21 (0.54%) FortiGate
11 18 (0.46%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 17 (0.44%) Argo
13 15 (0.38%) WMI
14 8 (0.20%) Istio
15 7 (0.18%) Consul
16 6 (0.15%) Puppet
17 5 (0.13%) Kibana
17 5 (0.13%) Progress Chef
18 4 (0.10%) Endace
Vendors
1 558 (14.29%) Microsoft
2 229 (5.86%) ServiceNow
3 216 (5.53%) SAP
4 170 (4.35%) VMware
5 161 (4.12%) Oracle
6 159 (4.07%) Salesforce
7 129 (3.30%) Databricks
8 106 (2.71%) Cisco
9 90 (2.30%) Google
10 89 (2.28%) CyberArk
11 62 (1.59%) MuleSoft
12 54 (1.38%) Splunk
13 50 (1.28%) Palo Alto
13 50 (1.28%) Remedy
14 49 (1.25%) Centrify
15 48 (1.23%) Red Hat
16 46 (1.18%) Atlassian
17 45 (1.15%) Workday
18 41 (1.05%) IBM
18 41 (1.05%) Sparx