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 21 March 2026.

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

6 months to
21 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 3,995 2,473 3,742
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.67% 10.10% 9.93%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.59% 10.85% 10.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,705 1,615 2,456
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% -3.70%
75th Percentile £725 £725 £738
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 99 30 45
10th Percentile £49.40 £57.98 £51.32
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £60.00
Median hourly rate £72.50 £71.25 £81.27
Median % change year-on-year +1.75% -12.32% +16.09%
75th Percentile £90.09 £80.03 £87.53
90th Percentile £97.50 £85.53 £95.00
UK median hourly rate £71.27 £71.25 £78.90
% change year-on-year +0.03% -9.69% +12.71%

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 34,460 22,787 34,959
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.04% 93.03% 92.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,776 15,097 23,367
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £408 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £620 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -4.37%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,253 791 2,280
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.16 £13.00
25th Percentile £19.46 £21.25 £16.25
Median hourly rate £37.50 £35.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +7.14% +7.69% -23.53%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £59.61
90th Percentile £76.58 £76.25 £71.30
UK median hourly rate £36.00 £33.00 £32.50
% change year-on-year +9.09% +1.54% -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 21 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 21 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 21 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 0 1,794 £625 -3.85% 467
South East +5 685 £625 - 249
North of England +5 584 £600 - 167
Midlands -3 388 £575 -4.17% 85
North West +7 330 £603 +0.42% 91
West Midlands -3 291 £600 -1.15% 65
South West 0 274 £700 +14.29% 95
Yorkshire +6 231 £563 -6.25% 55
East of England +14 167 £531 -18.27% 57
East Midlands -1 93 £519 -6.53% 20
North East -4 31 £625 - 24
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 21 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 1,277 (31.96%) Security Cleared
2 987 (24.71%) Azure
3 873 (21.85%) SC Cleared
4 793 (19.85%) AWS
5 590 (14.77%) Roadmaps
6 570 (14.27%) Microsoft
7 531 (13.29%) Agile
8 509 (12.74%) Migration
9 460 (11.51%) DevOps
10 451 (11.29%) Stakeholder Management
11 420 (10.51%) Enterprise Architecture
12 402 (10.06%) CI/CD
13 390 (9.76%) Data Modelling
14 385 (9.64%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 375 (9.39%) TOGAF
16 360 (9.01%) Technical Leadership
17 338 (8.46%) AI
18 335 (8.39%) Data Architecture
19 334 (8.36%) Problem-Solving
20 333 (8.34%) GCP
21 329 (8.24%) Integration Patterns
22 326 (8.16%) Analytics
23 300 (7.51%) DV Cleared
24 294 (7.36%) Python
25 293 (7.33%) Architectural Patterns
26 284 (7.11%) Architectural Design
27 280 (7.01%) Microservices
28 235 (5.88%) Security Architecture
29 233 (5.83%) Terraform
30 230 (5.76%) Cybersecurity

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 (2.85%) Confluence
2 100 (2.50%) SharePoint
3 62 (1.55%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (0.68%) SAS
5 22 (0.55%) CMS
6 20 (0.50%) Apache Spark
7 16 (0.40%) Anypoint
8 15 (0.38%) Appian
8 15 (0.38%) ArcGIS
9 14 (0.35%) Apache Airflow
10 12 (0.30%) Apache
10 12 (0.30%) nginx
11 11 (0.28%) WebLogic
12 9 (0.23%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 9 (0.23%) OpenStack
12 9 (0.23%) Smallworld
13 7 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 7 (0.18%) Skype for Business
14 6 (0.15%) NetWeaver
14 6 (0.15%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 50 (1.25%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (0.78%) Microsoft Project
3 27 (0.68%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 24 (0.60%) Microsoft Excel
5 19 (0.48%) MS Visio
6 7 (0.18%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.025%) ArchiCAD
7 1 (0.025%) AutoCAD
7 1 (0.025%) OrCAD
7 1 (0.025%) PlantUML
7 1 (0.025%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 100 (2.50%) SAP S/4HANA
2 42 (1.05%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 23 (0.58%) Workday HCM
4 20 (0.50%) Dynamics CRM
5 19 (0.48%) Payment Gateway
6 14 (0.35%) Oracle EBS
6 14 (0.35%) Salesforce CRM
7 10 (0.25%) NetSuite
7 10 (0.25%) SAP PM
8 9 (0.23%) Maximo
8 9 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
8 9 (0.23%) Remedy ITSM
8 9 (0.23%) SAP ERP
8 9 (0.23%) SAP EWM
9 8 (0.20%) Teamcenter
10 7 (0.18%) SAP PP
11 6 (0.15%) R3 Corda
11 6 (0.15%) SAP CRM
11 6 (0.15%) SAP QM
12 5 (0.13%) Distributed Ledger
Cloud Services
1 987 (24.71%) Azure
2 793 (19.85%) AWS
3 333 (8.34%) GCP
4 169 (4.23%) Power Platform
5 160 (4.01%) Entra ID
6 132 (3.30%) Microsoft 365
6 132 (3.30%) Serverless
7 126 (3.15%) SaaS
8 96 (2.40%) IaaS
9 93 (2.33%) GitHub
10 88 (2.20%) Azure DevOps
11 84 (2.10%) PaaS
12 74 (1.85%) OpenShift
13 73 (1.83%) Dynamics 365
14 69 (1.73%) AWS Lambda
15 63 (1.58%) Amazon S3
16 62 (1.55%) Microsoft Purview
17 59 (1.48%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 59 (1.48%) Virtual Private Cloud
18 56 (1.40%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 184 (4.61%) Firewall
2 144 (3.60%) Network Security
3 119 (2.98%) WAN
4 117 (2.93%) DNS
5 109 (2.73%) VPN
6 78 (1.95%) LAN
7 64 (1.60%) SD-WAN
8 34 (0.85%) BGP
9 32 (0.80%) DHCP
10 30 (0.75%) Wi-Fi
11 29 (0.73%) OSPF
12 28 (0.70%) MPLS
13 26 (0.65%) TCP/IP
14 21 (0.53%) SAN
14 21 (0.53%) VXLAN
15 20 (0.50%) VLAN
16 19 (0.48%) VSAN
17 17 (0.43%) Internet
17 17 (0.43%) Wireless
18 16 (0.40%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 125 (3.13%) Power BI
2 119 (2.98%) Data Warehouse
3 115 (2.88%) Metadata
4 79 (1.98%) Data Lake
5 69 (1.73%) SQL Server
6 54 (1.35%) NoSQL
7 52 (1.30%) PostgreSQL
8 44 (1.10%) Tableau
9 36 (0.90%) Azure SQL Database
10 32 (0.80%) Oracle Database
11 28 (0.70%) Big Data
12 26 (0.65%) Amazon Redshift
12 26 (0.65%) GIS
13 22 (0.55%) Delta Lake
14 20 (0.50%) Electronic Patient Records
14 20 (0.50%) Metadata Repository
15 18 (0.45%) Relational Database
16 17 (0.43%) Amazon Athena
17 16 (0.40%) Amazon Aurora
18 15 (0.38%) Data Vault
Development Applications
1 128 (3.20%) JIRA
2 88 (2.20%) Jenkins
3 45 (1.13%) Git
4 43 (1.08%) GitLab
5 21 (0.53%) ERwin
6 12 (0.30%) Bitbucket
7 11 (0.28%) SonarQube
8 10 (0.25%) Artifactory
9 8 (0.20%) MLflow
10 5 (0.13%) Postman
10 5 (0.13%) PowerDesigner
10 5 (0.13%) REST Assured
11 4 (0.10%) Cucumber
11 4 (0.10%) Oracle Forms
11 4 (0.10%) Rational DOORS
11 4 (0.10%) Selenium
11 4 (0.10%) Snyk
11 4 (0.10%) Sonatype Nexus
11 4 (0.10%) Terragrunt
12 3 (0.075%) JUnit
General
1 859 (21.50%) Social Skills
2 640 (16.02%) Finance
3 467 (11.69%) Public Sector
4 277 (6.93%) Analytical Skills
5 248 (6.21%) Banking
6 130 (3.25%) Documentation Skills
7 93 (2.33%) Influencing Skills
8 87 (2.18%) Military
8 87 (2.18%) Retail
9 78 (1.95%) Legal
10 77 (1.93%) Telecoms
11 69 (1.73%) Presentation Skills
12 62 (1.55%) Marketing
13 48 (1.20%) Manufacturing
14 45 (1.13%) Law
15 41 (1.03%) Financial Institution
16 36 (0.90%) Billing
17 31 (0.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 29 (0.73%) Investment Banking
19 21 (0.53%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 207 (5.18%) REST
2 158 (3.95%) Middleware
3 106 (2.65%) SOAP
4 79 (1.98%) OpenID
5 77 (1.93%) LDAP
6 75 (1.88%) .NET
7 72 (1.80%) OAuth
8 65 (1.63%) SAML
9 57 (1.43%) Kafka
10 53 (1.33%) JSON
11 44 (1.10%) OAuth2
12 36 (0.90%) AngularJS
13 31 (0.78%) React
14 30 (0.75%) SailPoint
15 27 (0.68%) RESTful
16 25 (0.63%) Spring
17 24 (0.60%) Web Services
18 22 (0.55%) Oracle Fusion
19 21 (0.53%) PySpark
20 20 (0.50%) Microsoft Graph
Miscellaneous
1 320 (8.01%) Cloud Native
2 136 (3.40%) Product Ownership
3 111 (2.78%) Data Centre
3 111 (2.78%) Legacy Systems
4 105 (2.63%) Onboarding
5 104 (2.60%) Enterprise Software
6 89 (2.23%) PKI
7 85 (2.13%) Hybrid Cloud
8 66 (1.65%) Distributed Systems
9 64 (1.60%) Public Cloud
10 62 (1.55%) Management Information System
10 62 (1.55%) Security Posture
11 60 (1.50%) Data Protection Act
12 58 (1.45%) Operational Technology
13 51 (1.28%) CMDB
14 47 (1.18%) Self-Motivation
15 41 (1.03%) Data Structures
16 38 (0.95%) AI Agents
17 37 (0.93%) Private Cloud
18 33 (0.83%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 160 (4.01%) Windows
2 94 (2.35%) Linux
3 35 (0.88%) Windows Server
4 23 (0.58%) Android
4 23 (0.58%) Apple iOS
5 16 (0.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 16 (0.40%) Windows 7
6 14 (0.35%) Windows 10
7 11 (0.28%) Unix
8 10 (0.25%) zOS
9 9 (0.23%) Mac OS
10 8 (0.20%) VMS
10 8 (0.20%) Windows Server 2016
11 5 (0.13%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.10%) Ubuntu
13 3 (0.075%) Windows Server 2012
14 2 (0.050%) CentOS
15 1 (0.025%) Data ONTAP
15 1 (0.025%) Kali Linux
15 1 (0.025%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 590 (14.77%) Roadmaps
2 531 (13.29%) Agile
3 509 (12.74%) Migration
4 460 (11.51%) DevOps
5 451 (11.29%) Stakeholder Management
6 420 (10.51%) Enterprise Architecture
7 402 (10.06%) CI/CD
8 390 (9.76%) Data Modelling
9 385 (9.64%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 375 (9.39%) TOGAF
11 360 (9.01%) Technical Leadership
12 338 (8.46%) AI
13 335 (8.39%) Data Architecture
14 334 (8.36%) Problem-Solving
15 329 (8.24%) Integration Patterns
16 326 (8.16%) Analytics
17 293 (7.33%) Architectural Patterns
18 284 (7.11%) Architectural Design
19 280 (7.01%) Microservices
20 235 (5.88%) Security Architecture
Programming Languages
1 294 (7.36%) Python
2 210 (5.26%) SQL
3 176 (4.41%) PowerShell
4 142 (3.55%) Java
5 56 (1.40%) JavaScript
6 48 (1.20%) C#
7 39 (0.98%) Bash
8 36 (0.90%) Bicep
9 26 (0.65%) TypeScript
10 18 (0.45%) Apex Code
11 15 (0.38%) PL/SQL
12 14 (0.35%) Kusto Query Language
12 14 (0.35%) Ruby
13 12 (0.30%) R
13 12 (0.30%) Scala
14 9 (0.23%) T-SQL
15 8 (0.20%) Kotlin
15 8 (0.20%) VB
16 7 (0.18%) VBScript
17 6 (0.15%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 1,277 (31.96%) Security Cleared
2 873 (21.85%) SC Cleared
3 300 (7.51%) DV Cleared
4 179 (4.48%) Degree
5 113 (2.83%) TOGAF Certification
6 112 (2.80%) Azure Certification
7 104 (2.60%) CISSP
8 100 (2.50%) AWS Certification
9 73 (1.83%) Cisco Certification
10 72 (1.80%) Computer Science Degree
11 58 (1.45%) BPSS Clearance
12 57 (1.43%) CISM
13 51 (1.28%) Microsoft Certification
14 46 (1.15%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 43 (1.08%) CCNP
16 40 (1.00%) Master's Degree
17 32 (0.80%) ITIL Certification
18 30 (0.75%) ISEB
19 29 (0.73%) CCIE
20 28 (0.70%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 177 (4.43%) GDPR
2 148 (3.70%) NIST
3 131 (3.28%) Data Quality
4 128 (3.20%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 90 (2.25%) NCSC
6 58 (1.45%) QA
7 53 (1.33%) PCI DSS
8 37 (0.93%) COBIT
9 29 (0.73%) GRC
10 28 (0.70%) Cyber Essentials
11 27 (0.68%) ISO 20022
12 15 (0.38%) Accessibility
12 15 (0.38%) HL7
12 15 (0.38%) MiFID
12 15 (0.38%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 14 (0.35%) HIPAA
13 14 (0.35%) JSP 440
14 13 (0.33%) FINRA
14 13 (0.33%) PSD2
15 12 (0.30%) SEPA
System Software
1 174 (4.36%) Active Directory
2 115 (2.88%) Docker
3 96 (2.40%) VMware Infrastructure
4 65 (1.63%) VMware NSX
5 33 (0.83%) vSphere
6 22 (0.55%) Virtual Desktop
7 16 (0.40%) Hyper-V
8 14 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
9 11 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
10 9 (0.23%) Squid
11 8 (0.20%) vCloud
12 7 (0.18%) BitLocker
13 5 (0.13%) NFS
13 5 (0.13%) Oracle RAC
13 5 (0.13%) RACF
13 5 (0.13%) Varnish
14 4 (0.10%) Firmware
15 3 (0.075%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
15 3 (0.075%) IAG
15 3 (0.075%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 233 (5.83%) Terraform
2 209 (5.23%) Kubernetes
3 103 (2.58%) Ansible
4 56 (1.40%) Single Sign-On
5 40 (1.00%) Microsoft Intune
6 33 (0.83%) Grafana
6 33 (0.83%) vCenter Server
7 30 (0.75%) OPNET
8 24 (0.60%) Prometheus
9 22 (0.55%) FortiGate
9 22 (0.55%) SCCM
10 18 (0.45%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 18 (0.45%) Argo
11 15 (0.38%) WMI
12 9 (0.23%) Istio
13 7 (0.18%) Consul
13 7 (0.18%) Puppet
14 5 (0.13%) Kibana
14 5 (0.13%) Progress Chef
15 4 (0.10%) Endace
Vendors
1 570 (14.27%) Microsoft
2 226 (5.66%) SAP
3 224 (5.61%) ServiceNow
4 178 (4.46%) VMware
5 163 (4.08%) Oracle
6 158 (3.95%) Salesforce
7 131 (3.28%) Databricks
8 110 (2.75%) Cisco
9 88 (2.20%) CyberArk
10 87 (2.18%) Google
11 63 (1.58%) MuleSoft
12 56 (1.40%) Palo Alto
13 54 (1.35%) Splunk
14 50 (1.25%) Red Hat
14 50 (1.25%) Remedy
15 49 (1.23%) Centrify
16 47 (1.18%) Workday
17 46 (1.15%) Atlassian
18 45 (1.13%) IBM
19 41 (1.03%) Sparx