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 17 April 2026.

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

6 months to
17 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 16 10
Rank change year-on-year +5 -6 +7
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 4,285 2,397 3,828
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.89% 9.81% 10.25%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.80% 10.58% 11.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,896 1,595 2,532
10th Percentile £463 £481 £500
25th Percentile £513 £550 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -3.70%
75th Percentile £725 £725 £745
90th Percentile £800 £799 £825
UK median daily rate £620 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -1.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 111 34 51
10th Percentile £49.40 £53.40 £57.25
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £60.00
Median hourly rate £71.27 £71.25 £83.77
Median % change year-on-year +0.03% -14.94% +19.66%
75th Percentile £85.00 £80.44 £87.53
90th Percentile £97.50 £85.70 £95.00
UK median hourly rate £70.00 £70.00 £83.50
% change year-on-year - -16.17% +19.29%

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 36,323 22,654 34,607
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.31% 92.69% 92.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,825 15,139 23,065
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £409 £412
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £508 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.33% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £644
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £515 £525
% change year-on-year -2.91% -1.90% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,416 860 2,374
10th Percentile £15.50 £14.39 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.75 £20.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £45.00 £32.50 £34.21
Median % change year-on-year +38.46% -5.00% -21.59%
75th Percentile £67.31 £64.81 £60.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £76.25 £72.42
UK median hourly rate £41.94 £30.79 £35.00
% change year-on-year +36.20% -12.02% -22.22%

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 17 April 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 17 April 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 17 April 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 1,968 £625 -3.85% 373
South East +3 702 £625 - 152
North of England +5 615 £600 - 161
Midlands -1 402 £575 -4.17% 112
North West +6 359 £605 +0.83% 99
West Midlands -2 306 £600 - 83
South West +3 292 £695 +15.83% 98
Yorkshire +5 229 £558 -7.00% 48
East of England +20 195 £556 -7.29% 56
East Midlands -3 92 £513 -6.82% 29
North East +3 36 £575 -7.95% 15
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 17 April 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 1,356 (31.65%) Security Cleared
2 1,004 (23.43%) Azure
3 925 (21.59%) SC Cleared
4 841 (19.63%) AWS
5 608 (14.19%) Roadmaps
6 604 (14.10%) Microsoft
7 564 (13.16%) Migration
8 561 (13.09%) Agile
9 485 (11.32%) DevOps
10 459 (10.71%) Stakeholder Management
11 446 (10.41%) CI/CD
12 428 (9.99%) Enterprise Architecture
13 406 (9.47%) Data Modelling
14 401 (9.36%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 381 (8.89%) Technical Leadership
16 377 (8.80%) Integration Patterns
17 370 (8.63%) AI
18 362 (8.45%) TOGAF
19 358 (8.35%) Analytics
20 348 (8.12%) Data Architecture
21 347 (8.10%) GCP
22 341 (7.96%) Problem-Solving
23 322 (7.51%) DV Cleared
24 314 (7.33%) Architectural Design
25 312 (7.28%) Architectural Patterns
26 301 (7.02%) Microservices
26 301 (7.02%) Python
27 262 (6.11%) ServiceNow
28 257 (6.00%) Security Architecture
29 246 (5.74%) SAP

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
1 105 (2.45%) SharePoint
2 100 (2.33%) Confluence
3 63 (1.47%) Microsoft Exchange
4 28 (0.65%) SAS
5 22 (0.51%) Apache Spark
6 20 (0.47%) CMS
7 18 (0.42%) Apache
8 16 (0.37%) Anypoint
8 16 (0.37%) Appian
9 13 (0.30%) Apache Airflow
9 13 (0.30%) ArcGIS
9 13 (0.30%) nginx
10 11 (0.26%) WebLogic
11 9 (0.21%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 9 (0.21%) OpenStack
12 7 (0.16%) Camunda
12 7 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 7 (0.16%) Palantir Foundry
12 7 (0.16%) Skype for Business
13 6 (0.14%) Ethereum
Applications
1 48 (1.12%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (0.72%) Microsoft Project
3 22 (0.51%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 18 (0.42%) Microsoft Excel
5 15 (0.35%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.093%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.047%) Navisworks
7 2 (0.047%) Revit
8 1 (0.023%) ArchiCAD
8 1 (0.023%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.023%) OrCAD
8 1 (0.023%) PlantUML
8 1 (0.023%) Siemens NX
8 1 (0.023%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.023%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 106 (2.47%) SAP S/4HANA
2 46 (1.07%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 21 (0.49%) Workday HCM
4 19 (0.44%) Payment Gateway
5 17 (0.40%) Dynamics CRM
6 13 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
6 13 (0.30%) Salesforce CRM
6 13 (0.30%) SAP ERP
7 12 (0.28%) Teamcenter
8 11 (0.26%) Remedy ITSM
9 10 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
10 9 (0.21%) SAP EWM
11 8 (0.19%) NetSuite
11 8 (0.19%) SAP PM
11 8 (0.19%) SAP PP
12 7 (0.16%) Maximo
12 7 (0.16%) SAP QM
13 6 (0.14%) Oracle ERP
13 6 (0.14%) Oracle Payables
13 6 (0.14%) R3 Corda
Cloud Services
1 1,004 (23.43%) Azure
2 841 (19.63%) AWS
3 347 (8.10%) GCP
4 186 (4.34%) Power Platform
5 167 (3.90%) Entra ID
6 147 (3.43%) Serverless
7 142 (3.31%) SaaS
8 130 (3.03%) Microsoft 365
9 101 (2.36%) IaaS
10 98 (2.29%) GitHub
11 97 (2.26%) PaaS
12 92 (2.15%) Dynamics 365
13 87 (2.03%) Azure DevOps
14 76 (1.77%) AWS Lambda
15 73 (1.70%) OpenShift
16 72 (1.68%) Amazon S3
17 66 (1.54%) Snowflake
18 62 (1.45%) Microsoft Purview
19 57 (1.33%) Azure Synapse Analytics
20 56 (1.31%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 179 (4.18%) Firewall
2 147 (3.43%) Network Security
3 124 (2.89%) WAN
4 119 (2.78%) DNS
5 107 (2.50%) VPN
6 86 (2.01%) LAN
7 65 (1.52%) SD-WAN
8 34 (0.79%) BGP
8 34 (0.79%) DHCP
9 30 (0.70%) MPLS
9 30 (0.70%) OSPF
10 28 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
11 25 (0.58%) TCP/IP
11 25 (0.58%) VLAN
12 21 (0.49%) SAN
13 20 (0.47%) VXLAN
13 20 (0.47%) Wireless
14 19 (0.44%) NAS
15 18 (0.42%) BIG-IP
16 17 (0.40%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 139 (3.24%) Power BI
2 120 (2.80%) Metadata
3 109 (2.54%) Data Warehouse
4 98 (2.29%) Data Lake
5 71 (1.66%) SQL Server
6 57 (1.33%) NoSQL
7 49 (1.14%) PostgreSQL
8 45 (1.05%) Tableau
9 39 (0.91%) Azure SQL Database
10 33 (0.77%) Amazon Redshift
11 32 (0.75%) Big Data
12 30 (0.70%) Oracle Database
13 24 (0.56%) Delta Lake
14 23 (0.54%) BigQuery
15 22 (0.51%) Electronic Patient Records
16 21 (0.49%) Amazon Athena
17 20 (0.47%) GIS
17 20 (0.47%) Metadata Repository
18 18 (0.42%) Relational Database
19 17 (0.40%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 116 (2.71%) JIRA
2 84 (1.96%) Jenkins
3 49 (1.14%) Git
4 42 (0.98%) GitLab
5 18 (0.42%) ERwin
6 13 (0.30%) SonarQube
7 11 (0.26%) Bitbucket
8 10 (0.23%) Artifactory
9 9 (0.21%) MLflow
10 6 (0.14%) Postman
11 5 (0.12%) JUnit
11 5 (0.12%) PowerDesigner
11 5 (0.12%) REST Assured
12 4 (0.093%) Cucumber
12 4 (0.093%) Selenium
12 4 (0.093%) Snyk
12 4 (0.093%) Sonatype Nexus
12 4 (0.093%) Terragrunt
13 3 (0.070%) Claude Code
13 3 (0.070%) Maven
General
1 851 (19.86%) Social Skills
2 683 (15.94%) Finance
3 470 (10.97%) Public Sector
4 277 (6.46%) Analytical Skills
5 263 (6.14%) Banking
6 141 (3.29%) Documentation Skills
7 116 (2.71%) Retail
8 100 (2.33%) Influencing Skills
9 87 (2.03%) Military
10 85 (1.98%) Legal
11 72 (1.68%) Telecoms
12 68 (1.59%) Presentation Skills
13 61 (1.42%) Law
14 59 (1.38%) Marketing
15 53 (1.24%) Manufacturing
16 43 (1.00%) Financial Institution
17 34 (0.79%) Billing
18 33 (0.77%) Investment Banking
19 26 (0.61%) Inclusion and Diversity
20 25 (0.58%) Aerospace
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 217 (5.06%) REST
2 159 (3.71%) Middleware
3 110 (2.57%) SOAP
4 95 (2.22%) .NET
5 78 (1.82%) OpenID
6 77 (1.80%) LDAP
7 67 (1.56%) OAuth
8 64 (1.49%) Kafka
9 59 (1.38%) SAML
10 53 (1.24%) JSON
11 44 (1.03%) OAuth2
12 36 (0.84%) React
13 34 (0.79%) AngularJS
13 34 (0.79%) Oracle Fusion
13 34 (0.79%) SailPoint
14 32 (0.75%) RESTful
15 29 (0.68%) Spring
16 28 (0.65%) Web Services
17 25 (0.58%) PySpark
18 22 (0.51%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 343 (8.00%) Cloud Native
2 129 (3.01%) Product Ownership
3 117 (2.73%) Data Centre
4 110 (2.57%) Onboarding
5 108 (2.52%) Enterprise Software
5 108 (2.52%) Legacy Systems
6 93 (2.17%) Hybrid Cloud
7 87 (2.03%) Distributed Systems
8 79 (1.84%) PKI
9 70 (1.63%) Management Information System
10 69 (1.61%) Public Cloud
11 66 (1.54%) Security Posture
12 61 (1.42%) Data Protection Act
12 61 (1.42%) Operational Technology
13 59 (1.38%) CMDB
14 47 (1.10%) Self-Motivation
15 44 (1.03%) Data Structures
16 42 (0.98%) Private Cloud
17 39 (0.91%) AI Agents
18 31 (0.72%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 160 (3.73%) Windows
2 91 (2.12%) Linux
3 37 (0.86%) Windows Server
4 25 (0.58%) Android
4 25 (0.58%) Apple iOS
5 16 (0.37%) Unix
6 15 (0.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 14 (0.33%) Windows 10
8 13 (0.30%) Windows 7
9 11 (0.26%) zOS
10 9 (0.21%) Mac OS
11 8 (0.19%) VMS
11 8 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
12 5 (0.12%) Windows Server 2019
13 3 (0.070%) CentOS
13 3 (0.070%) Data ONTAP
13 3 (0.070%) Solaris
13 3 (0.070%) Windows Server 2012
14 2 (0.047%) AIX
14 2 (0.047%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 608 (14.19%) Roadmaps
2 564 (13.16%) Migration
3 561 (13.09%) Agile
4 485 (11.32%) DevOps
5 459 (10.71%) Stakeholder Management
6 446 (10.41%) CI/CD
7 428 (9.99%) Enterprise Architecture
8 406 (9.47%) Data Modelling
9 401 (9.36%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 381 (8.89%) Technical Leadership
11 377 (8.80%) Integration Patterns
12 370 (8.63%) AI
13 362 (8.45%) TOGAF
14 358 (8.35%) Analytics
15 348 (8.12%) Data Architecture
16 341 (7.96%) Problem-Solving
17 314 (7.33%) Architectural Design
18 312 (7.28%) Architectural Patterns
19 301 (7.02%) Microservices
20 257 (6.00%) Security Architecture
Programming Languages
1 301 (7.02%) Python
2 219 (5.11%) SQL
3 176 (4.11%) PowerShell
4 168 (3.92%) Java
5 68 (1.59%) JavaScript
6 53 (1.24%) C#
7 38 (0.89%) Bicep
8 36 (0.84%) Bash
9 26 (0.61%) TypeScript
10 17 (0.40%) Ruby
11 16 (0.37%) Apex Code
11 16 (0.37%) Scala
12 14 (0.33%) PL/SQL
13 12 (0.28%) Kusto Query Language
14 10 (0.23%) R
15 9 (0.21%) Kotlin
15 9 (0.21%) Shell Script
15 9 (0.21%) T-SQL
16 8 (0.19%) VB
17 7 (0.16%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,356 (31.65%) Security Cleared
2 925 (21.59%) SC Cleared
3 322 (7.51%) DV Cleared
4 175 (4.08%) Degree
5 116 (2.71%) Azure Certification
6 113 (2.64%) TOGAF Certification
7 98 (2.29%) AWS Certification
8 97 (2.26%) CISSP
9 79 (1.84%) Cisco Certification
10 71 (1.66%) Computer Science Degree
11 61 (1.42%) BPSS Clearance
12 51 (1.19%) Microsoft Certification
13 47 (1.10%) CCNP
14 42 (0.98%) CISM
15 40 (0.93%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 35 (0.82%) Master's Degree
17 32 (0.75%) ITIL Certification
18 31 (0.72%) ISEB
19 30 (0.70%) (ISC)2 CCSP
20 28 (0.65%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 167 (3.90%) GDPR
2 164 (3.83%) NIST
3 131 (3.06%) Data Quality
3 131 (3.06%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 90 (2.10%) NCSC
5 60 (1.40%) QA
6 48 (1.12%) PCI DSS
7 38 (0.89%) COBIT
8 29 (0.68%) ISO 20022
9 28 (0.65%) GRC
10 25 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
11 17 (0.40%) HL7
11 17 (0.40%) NIST 800
11 17 (0.40%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 16 (0.37%) Accessibility
13 15 (0.35%) JSP 440
14 13 (0.30%) FINRA
14 13 (0.30%) MiFID
14 13 (0.30%) PSD2
14 13 (0.30%) SEPA
System Software
1 184 (4.29%) Active Directory
2 104 (2.43%) Docker
3 97 (2.26%) VMware Infrastructure
4 67 (1.56%) VMware NSX
5 29 (0.68%) vSphere
6 22 (0.51%) Virtual Desktop
7 17 (0.40%) Hyper-V
8 16 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
9 14 (0.33%) VMware ESXi
10 10 (0.23%) vCloud
11 9 (0.21%) Squid
12 8 (0.19%) NFS
13 7 (0.16%) BitLocker
13 7 (0.16%) Varnish
14 5 (0.12%) Postfix
14 5 (0.12%) RACF
15 4 (0.093%) Firmware
15 4 (0.093%) Oracle RAC
16 3 (0.070%) IAG
16 3 (0.070%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 234 (5.46%) Terraform
2 208 (4.85%) Kubernetes
3 101 (2.36%) Ansible
4 51 (1.19%) Single Sign-On
5 40 (0.93%) Microsoft Intune
6 37 (0.86%) Grafana
7 30 (0.70%) OPNET
7 30 (0.70%) vCenter Server
8 24 (0.56%) Prometheus
9 22 (0.51%) SCCM
10 21 (0.49%) FortiGate
11 20 (0.47%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 15 (0.35%) Argo
13 12 (0.28%) WMI
14 10 (0.23%) Istio
15 8 (0.19%) Puppet
16 7 (0.16%) Consul
17 5 (0.12%) Endace
17 5 (0.12%) Kibana
17 5 (0.12%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 604 (14.10%) Microsoft
2 262 (6.11%) ServiceNow
3 246 (5.74%) SAP
4 188 (4.39%) VMware
5 175 (4.08%) Oracle
6 169 (3.94%) Salesforce
7 155 (3.62%) Databricks
8 107 (2.50%) Cisco
9 91 (2.12%) Google
10 83 (1.94%) CyberArk
11 60 (1.40%) MuleSoft
12 55 (1.28%) Splunk
13 51 (1.19%) Remedy
14 48 (1.12%) Red Hat
15 47 (1.10%) Palo Alto
15 47 (1.10%) Workday
16 45 (1.05%) Sparx
17 44 (1.03%) Atlassian
18 43 (1.00%) IBM
19 39 (0.91%) BeyondTrust