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 26 February 2026.

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

6 months to
26 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 16 13
Rank change year-on-year -1 -3 +5
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 3,660 2,600 3,630
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.35% 10.09% 9.74%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.26% 10.86% 10.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,479 1,615 2,400
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% -1.89%
75th Percentile £725 £725 £738
90th Percentile £800 £799 £800
UK median daily rate £625 £625 £650
% change year-on-year - -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 78 28 41
10th Percentile £49.40 £57.43 £52.50
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £61.25
Median hourly rate £70.64 £71.25 £78.74
Median % change year-on-year -0.86% -9.51% +12.49%
75th Percentile £88.00 £78.92 £87.53
90th Percentile £95.00 £86.30 £95.00
UK median hourly rate £70.00 £71.25 £77.64
% change year-on-year -1.75% -8.22% +10.91%

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 32,499 23,947 34,620
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.90% 92.94% 92.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,614 15,190 23,219
10th Percentile £306 £300 £270
25th Percentile £411 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £624 £638 £640
90th Percentile £725 £750 £748
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,088 723 2,142
10th Percentile £15.06 £16.25 £13.19
25th Percentile £18.89 £22.00 £16.30
Median hourly rate £34.38 £36.50 £34.38
Median % change year-on-year -5.80% +6.18% -14.06%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £74.68 £75.20 £71.70
UK median hourly rate £33.17 £35.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year -5.23% - -10.26%

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 26 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 26 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 26 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 0 1,634 £632 -2.77% 357
South East +7 631 £625 - 257
North of England -1 509 £575 -4.17% 117
Midlands -2 361 £575 -4.17% 100
North West -4 283 £596 -0.63% 65
West Midlands -4 270 £600 -1.15% 66
South West +1 261 £706 +12.96% 56
Yorkshire 0 208 £558 -2.62% 32
East of England +15 164 £550 -13.73% 28
East Midlands -6 89 £503 -10.27% 34
North East -11 23 £625 -1.96% 22
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 26 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 1,164 (31.80%) Security Cleared
2 916 (25.03%) Azure
3 811 (22.16%) SC Cleared
4 725 (19.81%) AWS
5 535 (14.62%) Roadmaps
6 529 (14.45%) Microsoft
7 492 (13.44%) Agile
8 467 (12.76%) Stakeholder Management
9 453 (12.38%) Migration
10 417 (11.39%) DevOps
11 397 (10.85%) Enterprise Architecture
12 361 (9.86%) Data Modelling
13 359 (9.81%) TOGAF
14 354 (9.67%) CI/CD
15 343 (9.37%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 331 (9.04%) Technical Leadership
17 322 (8.80%) Problem-Solving
18 310 (8.47%) Data Architecture
19 306 (8.36%) GCP
20 303 (8.28%) Analytics
21 296 (8.09%) AI
22 278 (7.60%) Integration Patterns
23 270 (7.38%) DV Cleared
24 269 (7.35%) Python
25 252 (6.89%) Microservices
26 235 (6.42%) Architectural Patterns
27 230 (6.28%) Architectural Design
28 216 (5.90%) ServiceNow
28 216 (5.90%) Terraform
29 215 (5.87%) 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
1 109 (2.98%) Confluence
2 92 (2.51%) SharePoint
3 60 (1.64%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (0.74%) SAS
5 21 (0.57%) CMS
6 18 (0.49%) Apache Spark
7 15 (0.41%) Anypoint
7 15 (0.41%) Apache Airflow
7 15 (0.41%) Appian
8 14 (0.38%) ArcGIS
9 13 (0.36%) WebLogic
10 12 (0.33%) OpenStack
11 11 (0.30%) Apache
11 11 (0.30%) nginx
12 9 (0.25%) Smallworld
13 7 (0.19%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 7 (0.19%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 7 (0.19%) Skype for Business
14 6 (0.16%) Sitecore CMS
14 6 (0.16%) Tomcat
Applications
1 51 (1.39%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (0.87%) Microsoft Project
3 26 (0.71%) Microsoft Excel
4 25 (0.68%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 12 (0.33%) MS Visio
6 7 (0.19%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.027%) ArchiCAD
7 1 (0.027%) AutoCAD
7 1 (0.027%) FrameMaker
7 1 (0.027%) OrCAD
7 1 (0.027%) PlantUML
7 1 (0.027%) Revit
7 1 (0.027%) Siemens NX
7 1 (0.027%) Trello
Business Applications
1 92 (2.51%) SAP S/4HANA
2 38 (1.04%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 23 (0.63%) Workday HCM
4 20 (0.55%) Dynamics CRM
5 17 (0.46%) Payment Gateway
6 16 (0.44%) Salesforce CRM
7 11 (0.30%) NetSuite
8 10 (0.27%) Oracle EBS
8 10 (0.27%) SAP PM
9 9 (0.25%) Oracle Receivables
10 8 (0.22%) Maximo
10 8 (0.22%) Remedy ITSM
10 8 (0.22%) SAP ERP
10 8 (0.22%) SAP EWM
11 7 (0.19%) SAP PP
12 6 (0.16%) R3 Corda
12 6 (0.16%) SAP CO
12 6 (0.16%) SAP QM
12 6 (0.16%) Teamcenter
13 5 (0.14%) Distributed Ledger
Cloud Services
1 916 (25.03%) Azure
2 725 (19.81%) AWS
3 306 (8.36%) GCP
4 137 (3.74%) Entra ID
5 135 (3.69%) Power Platform
6 127 (3.47%) Microsoft 365
7 122 (3.33%) SaaS
8 114 (3.11%) Serverless
9 83 (2.27%) IaaS
10 80 (2.19%) GitHub
11 79 (2.16%) Azure DevOps
12 70 (1.91%) PaaS
13 65 (1.78%) OpenShift
14 64 (1.75%) AWS Lambda
15 62 (1.69%) Amazon S3
15 62 (1.69%) Microsoft Purview
16 59 (1.61%) Dynamics 365
17 54 (1.48%) AWS CloudFormation
17 54 (1.48%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 54 (1.48%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 185 (5.05%) Firewall
2 124 (3.39%) Network Security
3 110 (3.01%) DNS
4 109 (2.98%) WAN
5 100 (2.73%) VPN
6 73 (1.99%) LAN
7 55 (1.50%) SD-WAN
8 35 (0.96%) BGP
9 31 (0.85%) DHCP
10 29 (0.79%) MPLS
10 29 (0.79%) Wi-Fi
11 26 (0.71%) OSPF
12 25 (0.68%) TCP/IP
13 22 (0.60%) VLAN
14 21 (0.57%) SAN
14 21 (0.57%) VSAN
15 18 (0.49%) IPsec
16 17 (0.46%) SSL
17 16 (0.44%) VXLAN
17 16 (0.44%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 122 (3.33%) Data Warehouse
2 108 (2.95%) Metadata
3 96 (2.62%) Power BI
4 72 (1.97%) Data Lake
5 66 (1.80%) SQL Server
6 46 (1.26%) PostgreSQL
7 44 (1.20%) Tableau
8 41 (1.12%) NoSQL
9 29 (0.79%) Oracle Database
10 28 (0.77%) Azure SQL Database
11 27 (0.74%) Amazon Redshift
12 24 (0.66%) GIS
13 21 (0.57%) Big Data
14 20 (0.55%) Metadata Repository
15 18 (0.49%) Relational Database
16 17 (0.46%) Amazon Aurora
16 17 (0.46%) BigQuery
17 16 (0.44%) Data Vault
17 16 (0.44%) Delta Lake
17 16 (0.44%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 127 (3.47%) JIRA
2 85 (2.32%) Jenkins
3 42 (1.15%) GitLab
4 31 (0.85%) Git
5 16 (0.44%) ERwin
6 11 (0.30%) Bitbucket
7 10 (0.27%) Artifactory
7 10 (0.27%) SonarQube
8 7 (0.19%) MLflow
8 7 (0.19%) Postman
9 5 (0.14%) Oracle Forms
9 5 (0.14%) Rational DOORS
9 5 (0.14%) REST Assured
10 4 (0.11%) Cucumber
10 4 (0.11%) Selenium
10 4 (0.11%) Terragrunt
11 3 (0.082%) JUnit
11 3 (0.082%) PowerDesigner
11 3 (0.082%) Snyk
11 3 (0.082%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 841 (22.98%) Social Skills
2 585 (15.98%) Finance
3 418 (11.42%) Public Sector
4 263 (7.19%) Analytical Skills
5 218 (5.96%) Banking
6 122 (3.33%) Documentation Skills
7 86 (2.35%) Influencing Skills
8 82 (2.24%) Retail
9 80 (2.19%) Military
10 74 (2.02%) Legal
11 73 (1.99%) Presentation Skills
12 72 (1.97%) Telecoms
13 63 (1.72%) Marketing
14 54 (1.48%) Manufacturing
15 36 (0.98%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 35 (0.96%) Billing
17 30 (0.82%) Financial Institution
18 24 (0.66%) Law
19 20 (0.55%) Investment Banking
20 16 (0.44%) Aerospace
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 196 (5.36%) REST
2 136 (3.72%) Middleware
3 105 (2.87%) SOAP
4 75 (2.05%) .NET
5 74 (2.02%) LDAP
5 74 (2.02%) OpenID
6 63 (1.72%) OAuth
6 63 (1.72%) SAML
7 51 (1.39%) Kafka
8 50 (1.37%) JSON
9 39 (1.07%) OAuth2
10 34 (0.93%) SailPoint
11 32 (0.87%) AngularJS
12 30 (0.82%) RESTful
13 28 (0.77%) React
14 27 (0.74%) Oracle Fusion
15 24 (0.66%) PySpark
16 21 (0.57%) Microsoft Graph
16 21 (0.57%) Web Services
17 20 (0.55%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 262 (7.16%) Cloud Native
2 129 (3.52%) Product Ownership
3 110 (3.01%) Legacy Systems
4 107 (2.92%) Onboarding
5 100 (2.73%) Data Centre
6 93 (2.54%) Enterprise Software
7 90 (2.46%) PKI
8 77 (2.10%) Hybrid Cloud
9 58 (1.58%) Operational Technology
10 57 (1.56%) Security Posture
11 54 (1.48%) Management Information System
12 53 (1.45%) Public Cloud
13 51 (1.39%) Data Protection Act
14 50 (1.37%) Distributed Systems
15 44 (1.20%) Self-Motivation
16 43 (1.17%) CMDB
17 36 (0.98%) Data Structures
18 30 (0.82%) Private Cloud
19 28 (0.77%) Replication
20 27 (0.74%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 159 (4.34%) Windows
2 86 (2.35%) Linux
3 38 (1.04%) Windows Server
4 18 (0.49%) Android
4 18 (0.49%) Apple iOS
4 18 (0.49%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 17 (0.46%) Windows 7
6 14 (0.38%) Windows 10
7 12 (0.33%) Unix
8 9 (0.25%) Mac OS
9 8 (0.22%) VMS
9 8 (0.22%) Windows Server 2016
9 8 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
9 8 (0.22%) zOS
10 6 (0.16%) Ubuntu
11 4 (0.11%) CentOS
12 2 (0.055%) Windows Server 2012
13 1 (0.027%) Data ONTAP
13 1 (0.027%) Kali Linux
13 1 (0.027%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 535 (14.62%) Roadmaps
2 492 (13.44%) Agile
3 467 (12.76%) Stakeholder Management
4 453 (12.38%) Migration
5 417 (11.39%) DevOps
6 397 (10.85%) Enterprise Architecture
7 361 (9.86%) Data Modelling
8 359 (9.81%) TOGAF
9 354 (9.67%) CI/CD
10 343 (9.37%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 331 (9.04%) Technical Leadership
12 322 (8.80%) Problem-Solving
13 310 (8.47%) Data Architecture
14 303 (8.28%) Analytics
15 296 (8.09%) AI
16 278 (7.60%) Integration Patterns
17 252 (6.89%) Microservices
18 235 (6.42%) Architectural Patterns
19 230 (6.28%) Architectural Design
20 215 (5.87%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 269 (7.35%) Python
2 190 (5.19%) SQL
3 173 (4.73%) PowerShell
4 117 (3.20%) Java
5 61 (1.67%) JavaScript
6 50 (1.37%) C#
7 35 (0.96%) Bash
8 30 (0.82%) TypeScript
9 29 (0.79%) Bicep
10 18 (0.49%) Apex Code
11 16 (0.44%) PL/SQL
12 14 (0.38%) Kusto Query Language
13 13 (0.36%) R
14 9 (0.25%) Scala
14 9 (0.25%) T-SQL
15 8 (0.22%) Ruby
15 8 (0.22%) VB
16 7 (0.19%) Korn
16 7 (0.19%) VBScript
17 6 (0.16%) C
Qualifications
1 1,164 (31.80%) Security Cleared
2 811 (22.16%) SC Cleared
3 270 (7.38%) DV Cleared
4 176 (4.81%) Degree
5 112 (3.06%) TOGAF Certification
6 97 (2.65%) AWS Certification
7 96 (2.62%) Azure Certification
7 96 (2.62%) CISSP
8 70 (1.91%) Computer Science Degree
9 69 (1.89%) Cisco Certification
10 57 (1.56%) Microsoft Certification
11 56 (1.53%) BPSS Clearance
12 47 (1.28%) CISM
13 45 (1.23%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 44 (1.20%) Master's Degree
15 43 (1.17%) CCNP
16 30 (0.82%) CCIE
16 30 (0.82%) ITIL Certification
17 28 (0.77%) ISEB
18 21 (0.57%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 162 (4.43%) GDPR
2 125 (3.42%) NIST
3 118 (3.22%) Data Quality
4 106 (2.90%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 83 (2.27%) NCSC
6 58 (1.58%) QA
7 47 (1.28%) PCI DSS
8 32 (0.87%) COBIT
9 29 (0.79%) GRC
10 26 (0.71%) Cyber Essentials
11 24 (0.66%) ISO 20022
12 18 (0.49%) Accessibility
13 16 (0.44%) JSP 440
14 15 (0.41%) MiFID
15 13 (0.36%) FINRA
15 13 (0.36%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 12 (0.33%) California Consumer Privacy Act
16 12 (0.33%) HIPAA
17 11 (0.30%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
17 11 (0.30%) PSD2
System Software
1 166 (4.54%) Active Directory
2 118 (3.22%) Docker
3 82 (2.24%) VMware Infrastructure
4 62 (1.69%) VMware NSX
5 36 (0.98%) vSphere
6 22 (0.60%) Virtual Desktop
7 13 (0.36%) Hyper-V
7 13 (0.36%) Virtual Machines
7 13 (0.36%) VMware ESXi
8 8 (0.22%) Squid
9 7 (0.19%) BitLocker
10 6 (0.16%) vCloud
11 5 (0.14%) Oracle RAC
11 5 (0.14%) RACF
12 4 (0.11%) NFS
13 3 (0.082%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
13 3 (0.082%) Firmware
14 2 (0.055%) Ceph
14 2 (0.055%) Lustre
14 2 (0.055%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 216 (5.90%) Terraform
2 189 (5.16%) Kubernetes
3 96 (2.62%) Ansible
4 56 (1.53%) Single Sign-On
5 38 (1.04%) Microsoft Intune
6 30 (0.82%) OPNET
6 30 (0.82%) vCenter Server
7 23 (0.63%) FortiGate
8 22 (0.60%) Grafana
8 22 (0.60%) SCCM
9 19 (0.52%) Prometheus
10 16 (0.44%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 16 (0.44%) Argo
10 16 (0.44%) WMI
11 7 (0.19%) Consul
11 7 (0.19%) Istio
12 6 (0.16%) Puppet
13 5 (0.14%) Kibana
13 5 (0.14%) Progress Chef
14 3 (0.082%) SCOM
Vendors
1 529 (14.45%) Microsoft
2 216 (5.90%) ServiceNow
3 196 (5.36%) SAP
4 164 (4.48%) Oracle
5 163 (4.45%) VMware
6 161 (4.40%) Salesforce
7 118 (3.22%) Databricks
8 101 (2.76%) Cisco
9 90 (2.46%) CyberArk
10 88 (2.40%) Google
11 57 (1.56%) Palo Alto
11 57 (1.56%) Splunk
12 55 (1.50%) MuleSoft
13 49 (1.34%) Centrify
13 49 (1.34%) Remedy
14 46 (1.26%) Atlassian
15 45 (1.23%) Red Hat
15 45 (1.23%) Workday
16 38 (1.04%) BeyondTrust
17 37 (1.01%) Sparx