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 19 March 2026.

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

6 months to
19 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 3,944 2,490 3,734
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.66% 10.18% 9.87%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.59% 10.94% 10.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,664 1,619 2,462
10th Percentile £463 £477 £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 97 31 42
10th Percentile £49.40 £58.25 £50.72
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £60.00
Median hourly rate £72.50 £72.50 £76.53
Median % change year-on-year - -5.27% +9.33%
75th Percentile £90.09 £82.25 £87.53
90th Percentile £97.50 £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 34,044 22,768 35,064
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.00% 93.05% 92.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,494 15,052 23,480
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £409 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,236 784 2,269
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.22 £13.00
25th Percentile £19.37 £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 £59.00
90th Percentile £76.58 £77.50 £71.25
UK median hourly rate £35.91 £32.50 £32.50
% change year-on-year +10.49% - -23.29%

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 19 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 19 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 19 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 1,764 £625 -3.85% 421
South East +4 677 £623 -0.40% 238
North of England 0 580 £600 - 149
Midlands -2 386 £575 -4.17% 71
North West +4 327 £603 +0.42% 75
West Midlands 0 288 £600 -3.23% 58
South West 0 269 £700 +14.29% 88
Yorkshire +10 230 £563 -6.25% 57
East of England +12 166 £531 -15.00% 46
East Midlands -2 94 £513 -7.66% 13
North East +5 31 £625 - 20
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 19 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 1,256 (31.85%) Security Cleared
2 979 (24.82%) Azure
3 857 (21.73%) SC Cleared
4 785 (19.90%) AWS
5 579 (14.68%) Roadmaps
6 562 (14.25%) Microsoft
7 526 (13.34%) Agile
8 503 (12.75%) Migration
9 453 (11.49%) DevOps
10 447 (11.33%) Stakeholder Management
11 412 (10.45%) Enterprise Architecture
12 395 (10.02%) CI/CD
13 383 (9.71%) Data Modelling
14 380 (9.63%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 366 (9.28%) TOGAF
16 359 (9.10%) Technical Leadership
17 331 (8.39%) Data Architecture
17 331 (8.39%) GCP
18 330 (8.37%) AI
19 328 (8.32%) Problem-Solving
20 327 (8.29%) Integration Patterns
21 321 (8.14%) Analytics
22 295 (7.48%) DV Cleared
23 289 (7.33%) Python
24 288 (7.30%) Architectural Patterns
25 277 (7.02%) Microservices
26 272 (6.90%) Architectural Design
27 232 (5.88%) Security Architecture
28 230 (5.83%) Terraform
29 226 (5.73%) 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
1 113 (2.87%) Confluence
2 101 (2.56%) SharePoint
3 62 (1.57%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (0.68%) SAS
5 22 (0.56%) CMS
6 20 (0.51%) Apache Spark
7 15 (0.38%) Anypoint
7 15 (0.38%) Appian
7 15 (0.38%) ArcGIS
8 14 (0.35%) Apache Airflow
9 12 (0.30%) 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 (1.27%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (0.79%) Microsoft Project
3 27 (0.68%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 24 (0.61%) 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 (2.54%) SAP S/4HANA
2 42 (1.06%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 23 (0.58%) Workday HCM
4 20 (0.51%) Dynamics CRM
5 18 (0.46%) Payment Gateway
6 15 (0.38%) Oracle EBS
6 15 (0.38%) 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 QM
12 5 (0.13%) Distributed Ledger
12 5 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 979 (24.82%) Azure
2 785 (19.90%) AWS
3 331 (8.39%) GCP
4 164 (4.16%) Power Platform
5 154 (3.90%) Entra ID
6 129 (3.27%) Serverless
7 128 (3.25%) Microsoft 365
8 125 (3.17%) SaaS
9 96 (2.43%) IaaS
10 91 (2.31%) GitHub
11 85 (2.16%) Azure DevOps
11 85 (2.16%) PaaS
12 73 (1.85%) OpenShift
13 68 (1.72%) Dynamics 365
14 67 (1.70%) AWS Lambda
15 62 (1.57%) Microsoft Purview
16 61 (1.55%) Amazon S3
17 59 (1.50%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 57 (1.45%) Virtual Private Cloud
19 56 (1.42%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 182 (4.61%) Firewall
2 142 (3.60%) Network Security
3 118 (2.99%) WAN
4 114 (2.89%) DNS
5 107 (2.71%) VPN
6 76 (1.93%) LAN
7 64 (1.62%) SD-WAN
8 35 (0.89%) BGP
9 32 (0.81%) DHCP
10 30 (0.76%) Wi-Fi
11 29 (0.74%) OSPF
12 27 (0.68%) MPLS
13 24 (0.61%) TCP/IP
14 21 (0.53%) SAN
14 21 (0.53%) VXLAN
15 20 (0.51%) VLAN
16 18 (0.46%) VSAN
17 17 (0.43%) Internet
17 17 (0.43%) Wireless
18 16 (0.41%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 121 (3.07%) Power BI
2 119 (3.02%) Data Warehouse
3 115 (2.92%) Metadata
4 78 (1.98%) Data Lake
5 69 (1.75%) SQL Server
6 54 (1.37%) NoSQL
7 53 (1.34%) PostgreSQL
8 44 (1.12%) Tableau
9 36 (0.91%) Azure SQL Database
10 32 (0.81%) Oracle Database
11 27 (0.68%) Big Data
12 26 (0.66%) GIS
13 25 (0.63%) Amazon Redshift
14 22 (0.56%) Delta Lake
15 20 (0.51%) Electronic Patient Records
15 20 (0.51%) Metadata Repository
16 18 (0.46%) Relational Database
17 17 (0.43%) Amazon Athena
17 17 (0.43%) Amazon Aurora
18 15 (0.38%) Data Vault
Development Applications
1 126 (3.19%) JIRA
2 87 (2.21%) Jenkins
3 44 (1.12%) Git
4 43 (1.09%) GitLab
5 20 (0.51%) ERwin
6 11 (0.28%) Bitbucket
7 10 (0.25%) SonarQube
8 9 (0.23%) Artifactory
9 8 (0.20%) MLflow
10 5 (0.13%) Oracle Forms
10 5 (0.13%) Postman
10 5 (0.13%) REST Assured
11 4 (0.10%) Cucumber
11 4 (0.10%) PowerDesigner
11 4 (0.10%) Selenium
11 4 (0.10%) Snyk
11 4 (0.10%) Terragrunt
12 3 (0.076%) MSI
12 3 (0.076%) Rational DOORS
12 3 (0.076%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 851 (21.58%) Social Skills
2 629 (15.95%) Finance
3 463 (11.74%) Public Sector
4 276 (7.00%) Analytical Skills
5 244 (6.19%) Banking
6 130 (3.30%) Documentation Skills
7 92 (2.33%) Influencing Skills
8 87 (2.21%) Retail
9 86 (2.18%) Military
10 77 (1.95%) Legal
11 76 (1.93%) Telecoms
12 69 (1.75%) Presentation Skills
13 62 (1.57%) Marketing
14 47 (1.19%) Manufacturing
15 42 (1.06%) Law
16 38 (0.96%) Financial Institution
17 36 (0.91%) Billing
18 31 (0.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 28 (0.71%) Investment Banking
20 20 (0.51%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 204 (5.17%) REST
2 153 (3.88%) Middleware
3 104 (2.64%) SOAP
4 76 (1.93%) OpenID
5 74 (1.88%) .NET
5 74 (1.88%) LDAP
6 69 (1.75%) OAuth
7 63 (1.60%) SAML
8 58 (1.47%) Kafka
9 49 (1.24%) JSON
10 43 (1.09%) OAuth2
11 36 (0.91%) AngularJS
12 30 (0.76%) React
12 30 (0.76%) SailPoint
13 27 (0.68%) RESTful
14 25 (0.63%) Spring
15 24 (0.61%) Web Services
16 22 (0.56%) Oracle Fusion
17 21 (0.53%) PySpark
18 20 (0.51%) Microsoft Graph
Miscellaneous
1 315 (7.99%) Cloud Native
2 134 (3.40%) Product Ownership
3 111 (2.81%) Legacy Systems
4 108 (2.74%) Data Centre
5 103 (2.61%) Onboarding
6 100 (2.54%) Enterprise Software
7 88 (2.23%) PKI
8 82 (2.08%) Hybrid Cloud
9 65 (1.65%) Distributed Systems
10 62 (1.57%) Public Cloud
10 62 (1.57%) Security Posture
11 59 (1.50%) Data Protection Act
11 59 (1.50%) Management Information System
12 58 (1.47%) Operational Technology
13 51 (1.29%) CMDB
14 47 (1.19%) Self-Motivation
15 40 (1.01%) Data Structures
16 37 (0.94%) Private Cloud
17 36 (0.91%) AI Agents
18 33 (0.84%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 159 (4.03%) Windows
2 91 (2.31%) Linux
3 35 (0.89%) 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 (0.35%) Windows 10
7 10 (0.25%) Unix
7 10 (0.25%) 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 (0.076%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.051%) CentOS
14 1 (0.025%) Data ONTAP
14 1 (0.025%) Kali Linux
14 1 (0.025%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 579 (14.68%) Roadmaps
2 526 (13.34%) Agile
3 503 (12.75%) Migration
4 453 (11.49%) DevOps
5 447 (11.33%) Stakeholder Management
6 412 (10.45%) Enterprise Architecture
7 395 (10.02%) CI/CD
8 383 (9.71%) Data Modelling
9 380 (9.63%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 366 (9.28%) TOGAF
11 359 (9.10%) Technical Leadership
12 331 (8.39%) Data Architecture
13 330 (8.37%) AI
14 328 (8.32%) Problem-Solving
15 327 (8.29%) Integration Patterns
16 321 (8.14%) Analytics
17 288 (7.30%) Architectural Patterns
18 277 (7.02%) Microservices
19 272 (6.90%) Architectural Design
20 232 (5.88%) Security Architecture
Programming Languages
1 289 (7.33%) Python
2 208 (5.27%) SQL
3 174 (4.41%) PowerShell
4 136 (3.45%) Java
5 56 (1.42%) JavaScript
6 48 (1.22%) C#
7 38 (0.96%) Bash
8 36 (0.91%) Bicep
9 26 (0.66%) TypeScript
10 17 (0.43%) Apex Code
11 16 (0.41%) 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 1,256 (31.85%) Security Cleared
2 857 (21.73%) SC Cleared
3 295 (7.48%) DV Cleared
4 177 (4.49%) Degree
5 111 (2.81%) Azure Certification
5 111 (2.81%) TOGAF Certification
6 100 (2.54%) AWS Certification
7 99 (2.51%) CISSP
8 72 (1.83%) Cisco Certification
9 71 (1.80%) Computer Science Degree
10 58 (1.47%) BPSS Clearance
11 54 (1.37%) CISM
12 51 (1.29%) Microsoft Certification
13 47 (1.19%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 43 (1.09%) CCNP
15 40 (1.01%) Master's Degree
16 31 (0.79%) ITIL Certification
17 29 (0.74%) CCIE
18 28 (0.71%) ISEB
19 27 (0.68%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 174 (4.41%) GDPR
2 145 (3.68%) NIST
3 130 (3.30%) Data Quality
4 122 (3.09%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 89 (2.26%) NCSC
6 56 (1.42%) QA
7 53 (1.34%) PCI DSS
8 35 (0.89%) COBIT
9 29 (0.74%) GRC
10 26 (0.66%) Cyber Essentials
10 26 (0.66%) ISO 20022
11 16 (0.41%) Accessibility
12 15 (0.38%) HL7
12 15 (0.38%) MiFID
13 14 (0.35%) JSP 440
14 13 (0.33%) FINRA
15 12 (0.30%) PSD2
15 12 (0.30%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 11 (0.28%) HIPAA
16 11 (0.28%) SEPA
System Software
1 171 (4.34%) Active Directory
2 113 (2.87%) Docker
3 95 (2.41%) VMware Infrastructure
4 63 (1.60%) VMware NSX
5 33 (0.84%) vSphere
6 22 (0.56%) Virtual Desktop
7 16 (0.41%) Hyper-V
8 14 (0.35%) 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%) NFS
12 5 (0.13%) Oracle RAC
12 5 (0.13%) RACF
12 5 (0.13%) Varnish
13 4 (0.10%) Firmware
14 3 (0.076%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
14 3 (0.076%) IAG
14 3 (0.076%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 230 (5.83%) Terraform
2 204 (5.17%) Kubernetes
3 101 (2.56%) Ansible
4 54 (1.37%) Single Sign-On
5 40 (1.01%) Microsoft Intune
6 33 (0.84%) vCenter Server
7 31 (0.79%) Grafana
8 30 (0.76%) OPNET
9 23 (0.58%) Prometheus
10 22 (0.56%) SCCM
11 21 (0.53%) FortiGate
12 18 (0.46%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 18 (0.46%) 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
1 562 (14.25%) Microsoft
2 220 (5.58%) ServiceNow
3 218 (5.53%) SAP
4 175 (4.44%) VMware
5 162 (4.11%) Oracle
6 158 (4.01%) Salesforce
7 129 (3.27%) Databricks
8 108 (2.74%) Cisco
9 87 (2.21%) CyberArk
9 87 (2.21%) Google
10 63 (1.60%) MuleSoft
11 55 (1.39%) Palo Alto
12 53 (1.34%) Splunk
13 50 (1.27%) Remedy
14 49 (1.24%) Centrify
15 48 (1.22%) Red Hat
16 46 (1.17%) Atlassian
17 44 (1.12%) Workday
18 42 (1.06%) IBM
19 41 (1.04%) Sparx