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 18 February 2026.

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

6 months to
18 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 16 13
Rank change year-on-year -1 -3 +7
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 3,523 2,603 3,697
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.19% 10.08% 9.80%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.10% 10.84% 10.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,401 1,589 2,442
10th Percentile £458 £475 £500
25th Percentile £513 £548 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -1.52%
75th Percentile £725 £725 £738
90th Percentile £788 £799 £800
UK median daily rate £625 £625 £650
% change year-on-year - -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 69 28 46
10th Percentile £49.40 £57.43 £51.51
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £61.25
Median hourly rate £72.50 £71.25 £77.27
Median % change year-on-year +1.75% -7.78% +10.38%
75th Percentile £90.09 £78.92 £87.53
90th Percentile £95.00 £86.30 £95.00
UK median hourly rate £71.25 £71.25 £76.53
% change year-on-year - -6.90% +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 31,731 24,013 35,082
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.75% 93.02% 93.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,150 15,038 23,479
10th Percentile £303 £296 £273
25th Percentile £409 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £501 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.67% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £640
90th Percentile £725 £750 £745
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,026 700 2,145
10th Percentile £15.00 £16.25 £13.20
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.49 £16.54
Median hourly rate £31.93 £35.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.77% - -12.50%
75th Percentile £63.75 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £73.46 £75.03 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £30.00 £34.11 £35.00
% change year-on-year -12.05% -2.54% -9.09%

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 18 February 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 18 February 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 18 February 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 -3 1,579 £636 -2.12% 409
South East +7 606 £625 - 306
North of England -2 493 £575 -4.17% 157
Midlands -3 354 £573 -4.58% 99
North West -3 280 £579 -3.50% 90
West Midlands 0 263 £600 - 67
South West +1 250 £708 +13.20% 70
Yorkshire +2 195 £563 -2.17% 45
East of England +13 151 £550 -13.73% 45
East Midlands -3 89 £496 -12.60% 31
North East -11 23 £625 -1.96% 24
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 18 February 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 1,104 (31.34%) Security Cleared
2 911 (25.86%) Azure
3 778 (22.08%) SC Cleared
4 707 (20.07%) AWS
5 511 (14.50%) Microsoft
6 507 (14.39%) Roadmaps
7 487 (13.82%) Agile
8 447 (12.69%) Stakeholder Management
9 426 (12.09%) Migration
10 410 (11.64%) DevOps
11 387 (10.98%) Enterprise Architecture
12 351 (9.96%) Data Modelling
13 348 (9.88%) TOGAF
14 341 (9.68%) CI/CD
15 340 (9.65%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 328 (9.31%) Technical Leadership
17 309 (8.77%) Problem-Solving
18 302 (8.57%) GCP
19 296 (8.40%) Data Architecture
20 294 (8.35%) AI
21 287 (8.15%) Analytics
22 269 (7.64%) Python
23 266 (7.55%) Integration Patterns
24 254 (7.21%) DV Cleared
25 252 (7.15%) Microservices
26 226 (6.41%) Architectural Design
27 224 (6.36%) Architectural Patterns
28 208 (5.90%) Data Governance
28 208 (5.90%) Terraform
29 201 (5.71%) ServiceNow

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
1 108 (3.07%) Confluence
2 87 (2.47%) SharePoint
3 59 (1.67%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (0.77%) SAS
5 20 (0.57%) CMS
6 18 (0.51%) Apache Spark
7 15 (0.43%) Anypoint
7 15 (0.43%) Apache Airflow
8 14 (0.40%) Appian
9 13 (0.37%) ArcGIS
9 13 (0.37%) OpenStack
10 12 (0.34%) WebLogic
11 11 (0.31%) Apache
11 11 (0.31%) nginx
12 9 (0.26%) Smallworld
13 7 (0.20%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 7 (0.20%) Skype for Business
14 6 (0.17%) Ethereum
14 6 (0.17%) Hyperledger
14 6 (0.17%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 51 (1.45%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (0.91%) Microsoft Project
3 28 (0.79%) Microsoft Excel
4 27 (0.77%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 13 (0.37%) MS Visio
6 7 (0.20%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.028%) ArchiCAD
7 1 (0.028%) AutoCAD
7 1 (0.028%) FrameMaker
7 1 (0.028%) OrCAD
7 1 (0.028%) Revit
7 1 (0.028%) Siemens NX
7 1 (0.028%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.028%) Trello
Business Applications
1 88 (2.50%) SAP S/4HANA
2 38 (1.08%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 22 (0.62%) Workday HCM
4 20 (0.57%) Dynamics CRM
5 17 (0.48%) Payment Gateway
6 16 (0.45%) Salesforce CRM
7 11 (0.31%) NetSuite
8 10 (0.28%) SAP PM
9 9 (0.26%) Oracle Receivables
10 8 (0.23%) Maximo
10 8 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
10 8 (0.23%) SAP ERP
10 8 (0.23%) SAP EWM
11 7 (0.20%) SAP CO
11 7 (0.20%) SAP PP
12 6 (0.17%) Oracle SCM
12 6 (0.17%) R3 Corda
12 6 (0.17%) Remedy ITSM
12 6 (0.17%) SAP QM
13 5 (0.14%) Distributed Ledger
Cloud Services
1 911 (25.86%) Azure
2 707 (20.07%) AWS
3 302 (8.57%) GCP
4 132 (3.75%) Power Platform
5 124 (3.52%) Entra ID
6 123 (3.49%) Microsoft 365
7 121 (3.43%) SaaS
8 114 (3.24%) Serverless
9 80 (2.27%) IaaS
10 79 (2.24%) Azure DevOps
11 76 (2.16%) GitHub
12 66 (1.87%) PaaS
13 65 (1.85%) AWS Lambda
14 64 (1.82%) Amazon S3
15 63 (1.79%) OpenShift
16 62 (1.76%) Microsoft Purview
17 59 (1.67%) Dynamics 365
18 54 (1.53%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 52 (1.48%) Azure Data Factory
20 51 (1.45%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 171 (4.85%) Firewall
2 120 (3.41%) Network Security
3 108 (3.07%) WAN
4 103 (2.92%) DNS
5 95 (2.70%) VPN
6 73 (2.07%) LAN
7 52 (1.48%) SD-WAN
8 34 (0.97%) BGP
9 29 (0.82%) DHCP
9 29 (0.82%) Wi-Fi
10 26 (0.74%) MPLS
11 25 (0.71%) OSPF
12 24 (0.68%) TCP/IP
13 21 (0.60%) SAN
14 18 (0.51%) VLAN
14 18 (0.51%) VSAN
15 16 (0.45%) SSL
16 15 (0.43%) Internet
16 15 (0.43%) IPsec
17 14 (0.40%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 118 (3.35%) Data Warehouse
2 105 (2.98%) Metadata
3 92 (2.61%) Power BI
4 72 (2.04%) Data Lake
5 58 (1.65%) SQL Server
6 46 (1.31%) PostgreSQL
6 46 (1.31%) Tableau
7 40 (1.14%) NoSQL
8 28 (0.79%) Oracle Database
9 27 (0.77%) Amazon Redshift
10 25 (0.71%) Azure SQL Database
11 23 (0.65%) GIS
12 19 (0.54%) DynamoDB
12 19 (0.54%) Metadata Repository
13 18 (0.51%) Big Data
13 18 (0.51%) Relational Database
14 17 (0.48%) Amazon Aurora
15 16 (0.45%) Delta Lake
16 15 (0.43%) Amazon Athena
16 15 (0.43%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 126 (3.58%) JIRA
2 85 (2.41%) Jenkins
3 41 (1.16%) GitLab
4 31 (0.88%) Git
5 14 (0.40%) ERwin
6 10 (0.28%) Artifactory
6 10 (0.28%) Bitbucket
7 9 (0.26%) SonarQube
8 7 (0.20%) MLflow
8 7 (0.20%) Postman
9 5 (0.14%) Oracle Forms
9 5 (0.14%) REST Assured
10 4 (0.11%) Cucumber
10 4 (0.11%) Rational DOORS
10 4 (0.11%) Selenium
10 4 (0.11%) Terragrunt
11 3 (0.085%) JUnit
11 3 (0.085%) MSI
11 3 (0.085%) Visual Studio Code
12 2 (0.057%) JMeter
General
1 829 (23.53%) Social Skills
2 568 (16.12%) Finance
3 402 (11.41%) Public Sector
4 252 (7.15%) Analytical Skills
5 217 (6.16%) Banking
6 118 (3.35%) Documentation Skills
7 85 (2.41%) Influencing Skills
8 78 (2.21%) Legal
9 76 (2.16%) Military
10 73 (2.07%) Retail
11 72 (2.04%) Presentation Skills
11 72 (2.04%) Telecoms
12 64 (1.82%) Marketing
13 50 (1.42%) Manufacturing
14 37 (1.05%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 35 (0.99%) Billing
16 24 (0.68%) Financial Institution
17 23 (0.65%) Law
18 19 (0.54%) Investment Banking
19 15 (0.43%) Aerospace
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 198 (5.62%) REST
2 126 (3.58%) Middleware
3 106 (3.01%) SOAP
4 76 (2.16%) .NET
5 74 (2.10%) LDAP
5 74 (2.10%) OpenID
6 65 (1.85%) OAuth
6 65 (1.85%) SAML
7 53 (1.50%) Kafka
8 51 (1.45%) JSON
9 40 (1.14%) OAuth2
10 32 (0.91%) SailPoint
11 31 (0.88%) AngularJS
12 29 (0.82%) RESTful
13 26 (0.74%) React
14 25 (0.71%) PySpark
15 23 (0.65%) Oracle Fusion
16 22 (0.62%) Web Services
17 21 (0.60%) Lightning Web Components
17 21 (0.60%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 254 (7.21%) Cloud Native
2 129 (3.66%) Product Ownership
3 105 (2.98%) Legacy Systems
4 102 (2.90%) Onboarding
5 96 (2.72%) Data Centre
6 93 (2.64%) Enterprise Software
7 86 (2.44%) PKI
8 69 (1.96%) Hybrid Cloud
9 54 (1.53%) Security Posture
10 51 (1.45%) Management Information System
11 50 (1.42%) Operational Technology
12 49 (1.39%) Distributed Systems
12 49 (1.39%) Public Cloud
13 44 (1.25%) Self-Motivation
14 43 (1.22%) Data Protection Act
15 42 (1.19%) CMDB
16 34 (0.97%) Data Structures
17 29 (0.82%) Private Cloud
18 28 (0.79%) AI Agents
19 25 (0.71%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 147 (4.17%) Windows
2 82 (2.33%) Linux
3 37 (1.05%) Windows Server
4 18 (0.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 18 (0.51%) Windows 7
5 14 (0.40%) Windows 10
6 11 (0.31%) Unix
7 10 (0.28%) Android
7 10 (0.28%) Apple iOS
8 9 (0.26%) Mac OS
8 9 (0.26%) Windows Server 2016
8 9 (0.26%) Windows Server 2019
9 8 (0.23%) VMS
10 7 (0.20%) zOS
11 6 (0.17%) Ubuntu
12 4 (0.11%) CentOS
13 2 (0.057%) Windows Server 2012
14 1 (0.028%) Kali Linux
14 1 (0.028%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 507 (14.39%) Roadmaps
2 487 (13.82%) Agile
3 447 (12.69%) Stakeholder Management
4 426 (12.09%) Migration
5 410 (11.64%) DevOps
6 387 (10.98%) Enterprise Architecture
7 351 (9.96%) Data Modelling
8 348 (9.88%) TOGAF
9 341 (9.68%) CI/CD
10 340 (9.65%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 328 (9.31%) Technical Leadership
12 309 (8.77%) Problem-Solving
13 296 (8.40%) Data Architecture
14 294 (8.35%) AI
15 287 (8.15%) Analytics
16 266 (7.55%) Integration Patterns
17 252 (7.15%) Microservices
18 226 (6.41%) Architectural Design
19 224 (6.36%) Architectural Patterns
20 208 (5.90%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 269 (7.64%) Python
2 180 (5.11%) SQL
3 167 (4.74%) PowerShell
4 120 (3.41%) Java
5 56 (1.59%) JavaScript
6 46 (1.31%) C#
7 34 (0.97%) Bash
8 31 (0.88%) Bicep
8 31 (0.88%) TypeScript
9 19 (0.54%) Apex Code
10 16 (0.45%) PL/SQL
11 14 (0.40%) Kusto Query Language
12 13 (0.37%) R
13 9 (0.26%) Scala
13 9 (0.26%) T-SQL
14 8 (0.23%) Ruby
14 8 (0.23%) VB
15 7 (0.20%) Korn
15 7 (0.20%) VBScript
16 5 (0.14%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 1,104 (31.34%) Security Cleared
2 778 (22.08%) SC Cleared
3 254 (7.21%) DV Cleared
4 177 (5.02%) Degree
5 110 (3.12%) TOGAF Certification
6 98 (2.78%) AWS Certification
7 96 (2.72%) Azure Certification
8 91 (2.58%) CISSP
9 71 (2.02%) Computer Science Degree
10 62 (1.76%) Cisco Certification
11 57 (1.62%) Microsoft Certification
12 56 (1.59%) BPSS Clearance
13 46 (1.31%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 45 (1.28%) Master's Degree
15 42 (1.19%) CISM
16 38 (1.08%) CCNP
17 30 (0.85%) CCIE
17 30 (0.85%) ITIL Certification
18 28 (0.79%) ISEB
19 18 (0.51%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 164 (4.66%) GDPR
2 118 (3.35%) NIST
3 115 (3.26%) Data Quality
4 107 (3.04%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 74 (2.10%) NCSC
6 55 (1.56%) QA
7 44 (1.25%) PCI DSS
8 31 (0.88%) COBIT
9 29 (0.82%) GRC
10 24 (0.68%) ISO 20022
11 21 (0.60%) Cyber Essentials
12 18 (0.51%) Accessibility
13 16 (0.45%) JSP 440
13 16 (0.45%) MiFID
14 13 (0.37%) California Consumer Privacy Act
14 13 (0.37%) FINRA
14 13 (0.37%) HIPAA
15 12 (0.34%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 11 (0.31%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
16 11 (0.31%) PSD2
System Software
1 158 (4.48%) Active Directory
2 120 (3.41%) Docker
3 80 (2.27%) VMware Infrastructure
4 56 (1.59%) VMware NSX
5 34 (0.97%) vSphere
6 22 (0.62%) Virtual Desktop
7 14 (0.40%) VMware ESXi
8 13 (0.37%) Hyper-V
8 13 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
9 7 (0.20%) BitLocker
9 7 (0.20%) Squid
10 5 (0.14%) Oracle RAC
10 5 (0.14%) RACF
10 5 (0.14%) vCloud
11 4 (0.11%) NFS
12 3 (0.085%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
12 3 (0.085%) Firmware
13 2 (0.057%) Ceph
13 2 (0.057%) HDFS
13 2 (0.057%) Lustre
Systems Management
1 208 (5.90%) Terraform
2 186 (5.28%) Kubernetes
3 91 (2.58%) Ansible
4 57 (1.62%) Single Sign-On
5 30 (0.85%) OPNET
6 29 (0.82%) Microsoft Intune
7 28 (0.79%) vCenter Server
8 22 (0.62%) SCCM
9 21 (0.60%) FortiGate
9 21 (0.60%) Grafana
10 18 (0.51%) Prometheus
11 17 (0.48%) WMI
12 16 (0.45%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 15 (0.43%) Argo
14 7 (0.20%) Istio
15 6 (0.17%) Consul
16 5 (0.14%) Kibana
16 5 (0.14%) Puppet
17 4 (0.11%) Progress Chef
18 3 (0.085%) vRealize
Vendors
1 511 (14.50%) Microsoft
2 201 (5.71%) ServiceNow
3 191 (5.42%) SAP
4 164 (4.66%) Salesforce
5 155 (4.40%) Oracle
6 149 (4.23%) VMware
7 115 (3.26%) Databricks
8 91 (2.58%) CyberArk
9 90 (2.55%) Cisco
9 90 (2.55%) Google
10 55 (1.56%) MuleSoft
11 54 (1.53%) Palo Alto
12 53 (1.50%) Splunk
13 49 (1.39%) Centrify
14 47 (1.33%) Remedy
15 45 (1.28%) Atlassian
16 44 (1.25%) Red Hat
17 42 (1.19%) Workday
18 37 (1.05%) Sparx
19 36 (1.02%) BeyondTrust