Architect Contract Job Trends in England

Architect
UK > England

The median Architect daily rate in England is £620, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 15 May 2026.

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

6 months to
15 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 17 11
Rank change year-on-year +8 -6 +5
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 4,524 2,373 3,787
As % of all contract jobs in England 11.11% 9.81% 10.39%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.03% 10.61% 11.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,056 1,557 2,454
10th Percentile £463 £475 £500
25th Percentile £513 £550 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -2.99%
75th Percentile £725 £713 £750
90th Percentile £790 £799 £825
UK median daily rate £620 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -0.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 124 30 88
10th Percentile £49.40 £51.15 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £61.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £71.25 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.77% +1.79% -
75th Percentile £78.75 £79.59 £87.46
90th Percentile £97.50 £85.70 £90.60
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £70.00 £70.00
% change year-on-year -7.14% - -

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 37,605 22,375 33,819
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.33% 92.47% 92.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,373 14,887 22,423
10th Percentile £316 £300 £281
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £645
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £510 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -0.49% -2.38% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,580 908 2,438
10th Percentile £15.50 £14.00 £12.87
25th Percentile £20.90 £18.51 £16.30
Median hourly rate £46.14 £30.20 £37.18
Median % change year-on-year +52.78% -18.77% -17.38%
75th Percentile £67.50 £63.75 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £43.09 £28.60 £37.18
% change year-on-year +50.66% -23.08% -17.38%

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 15 May 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 15 May 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 15 May 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 +5 2,155 £625 -3.85% 445
South East +4 703 £625 - 172
North of England +5 644 £600 - 172
Midlands +2 428 £600 - 89
North West +6 364 £610 +2.95% 91
West Midlands 0 309 £618 +2.92% 59
South West +1 285 £680 +13.25% 83
Yorkshire +7 241 £557 -7.25% 50
East of England +18 201 £575 -11.54% 61
East Midlands -3 113 £545 - 30
North East +5 47 £563 -10.00% 32
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 15 May 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 1,359 (30.04%) Security Cleared
2 1,048 (23.17%) Azure
3 950 (21.00%) SC Cleared
4 876 (19.36%) AWS
5 630 (13.93%) Roadmaps
6 614 (13.57%) Microsoft
7 604 (13.35%) Migration
8 547 (12.09%) Agile
9 515 (11.38%) DevOps
10 481 (10.63%) Stakeholder Management
11 467 (10.32%) CI/CD
12 446 (9.86%) Enterprise Architecture
13 414 (9.15%) AI
14 403 (8.91%) Data Modelling
15 394 (8.71%) Integration Patterns
16 389 (8.60%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 387 (8.55%) Technical Leadership
18 360 (7.96%) TOGAF
19 358 (7.91%) Data Architecture
20 352 (7.78%) Analytics
21 344 (7.60%) GCP
22 343 (7.58%) Architectural Patterns
23 321 (7.10%) Problem-Solving
24 319 (7.05%) Architectural Design
25 309 (6.83%) Microservices
26 304 (6.72%) DV Cleared
27 285 (6.30%) Python
28 280 (6.19%) ServiceNow
29 269 (5.95%) SAP
30 259 (5.73%) Security Architecture

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 (2.32%) SharePoint
2 93 (2.06%) Confluence
3 52 (1.15%) Microsoft Exchange
4 24 (0.53%) Apache Spark
5 23 (0.51%) Apache
6 16 (0.35%) Anypoint
6 16 (0.35%) Appian
6 16 (0.35%) SAS
7 15 (0.33%) CMS
8 13 (0.29%) Apache Airflow
8 13 (0.29%) nginx
9 11 (0.24%) OpenStack
9 11 (0.24%) Palantir Foundry
9 11 (0.24%) WebLogic
10 9 (0.20%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 9 (0.20%) ArcGIS
10 9 (0.20%) Camunda
11 7 (0.15%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 6 (0.13%) NetWeaver
12 6 (0.13%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 41 (0.91%) Microsoft Office
2 27 (0.60%) Microsoft Project
3 19 (0.42%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 16 (0.35%) MS Visio
5 14 (0.31%) Microsoft Excel
6 7 (0.15%) Navisworks
6 7 (0.15%) Revit
7 4 (0.088%) Chatbot
8 2 (0.044%) PlantUML
8 2 (0.044%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.044%) Windchill
9 1 (0.022%) ArchiCAD
9 1 (0.022%) AutoCAD
9 1 (0.022%) OrCAD
9 1 (0.022%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 114 (2.52%) SAP S/4HANA
2 39 (0.86%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 19 (0.42%) Payment Gateway
4 16 (0.35%) SAP ERP
4 16 (0.35%) Workday HCM
5 15 (0.33%) Teamcenter
6 14 (0.31%) Dynamics CRM
7 13 (0.29%) Oracle EBS
8 10 (0.22%) Remedy ITSM
9 9 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
9 9 (0.20%) Salesforce CRM
10 8 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
11 7 (0.15%) SAP BRIM
11 7 (0.15%) SAP EWM
12 6 (0.13%) NetSuite
12 6 (0.13%) SAP MDG
12 6 (0.13%) SAP PM
13 5 (0.11%) SAP CRM
13 5 (0.11%) SAP Oil and Gas
13 5 (0.11%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 1,048 (23.17%) Azure
2 876 (19.36%) AWS
3 344 (7.60%) GCP
4 208 (4.60%) Power Platform
5 174 (3.85%) Entra ID
6 154 (3.40%) Serverless
7 149 (3.29%) SaaS
8 119 (2.63%) Microsoft 365
9 102 (2.25%) GitHub
10 98 (2.17%) Dynamics 365
10 98 (2.17%) PaaS
11 89 (1.97%) Azure DevOps
12 75 (1.66%) Snowflake
13 73 (1.61%) AWS Lambda
13 73 (1.61%) IaaS
14 72 (1.59%) Amazon S3
15 69 (1.53%) OpenShift
16 60 (1.33%) Microsoft Purview
17 55 (1.22%) Azure Data Factory
18 53 (1.17%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 159 (3.51%) Firewall
2 146 (3.23%) Network Security
3 108 (2.39%) WAN
4 107 (2.37%) DNS
5 94 (2.08%) VPN
6 81 (1.79%) LAN
7 52 (1.15%) SD-WAN
8 35 (0.77%) BGP
9 34 (0.75%) DHCP
10 29 (0.64%) OSPF
11 26 (0.57%) MPLS
11 26 (0.57%) TCP/IP
11 26 (0.57%) VLAN
12 25 (0.55%) SAN
13 24 (0.53%) NAS
14 22 (0.49%) Wireless
15 21 (0.46%) Wi-Fi
16 20 (0.44%) BIG-IP
17 18 (0.40%) VXLAN
18 17 (0.38%) NX-OS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 154 (3.40%) Power BI
2 109 (2.41%) Metadata
3 100 (2.21%) Data Lake
4 93 (2.06%) Data Warehouse
5 65 (1.44%) SQL Server
6 57 (1.26%) NoSQL
7 51 (1.13%) PostgreSQL
8 39 (0.86%) Tableau
9 37 (0.82%) Azure SQL Database
10 29 (0.64%) Big Data
11 28 (0.62%) Amazon Redshift
11 28 (0.62%) Delta Lake
12 26 (0.57%) BigQuery
13 24 (0.53%) Oracle Database
14 20 (0.44%) Electronic Patient Records
15 19 (0.42%) Amazon Athena
15 19 (0.42%) GIS
16 16 (0.35%) Amazon Aurora
16 16 (0.35%) MongoDB
16 16 (0.35%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 108 (2.39%) JIRA
2 80 (1.77%) Jenkins
3 53 (1.17%) Git
4 47 (1.04%) GitLab
5 20 (0.44%) ERwin
6 15 (0.33%) SonarQube
7 12 (0.27%) Artifactory
8 11 (0.24%) Bitbucket
8 11 (0.24%) MLflow
9 7 (0.15%) Postman
10 6 (0.13%) PowerDesigner
11 5 (0.11%) JUnit
11 5 (0.11%) Maven
11 5 (0.11%) REST Assured
12 4 (0.088%) Cucumber
12 4 (0.088%) MSI
12 4 (0.088%) Selenium
12 4 (0.088%) Snyk
12 4 (0.088%) Sonatype Nexus
12 4 (0.088%) Terragrunt
General
1 832 (18.39%) Social Skills
2 709 (15.67%) Finance
3 462 (10.21%) Public Sector
4 270 (5.97%) Banking
5 236 (5.22%) Analytical Skills
6 144 (3.18%) Retail
7 133 (2.94%) Documentation Skills
8 97 (2.14%) Influencing Skills
9 91 (2.01%) Legal
10 82 (1.81%) Telecoms
11 79 (1.75%) Military
12 74 (1.64%) Manufacturing
13 60 (1.33%) Law
14 59 (1.30%) Presentation Skills
15 52 (1.15%) Billing
15 52 (1.15%) Marketing
16 43 (0.95%) Financial Institution
17 35 (0.77%) Investment Banking
18 32 (0.71%) Aerospace
19 29 (0.64%) Inclusion and Diversity
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 208 (4.60%) REST
2 170 (3.76%) Middleware
3 114 (2.52%) SOAP
4 100 (2.21%) .NET
5 82 (1.81%) LDAP
6 79 (1.75%) OpenID
7 70 (1.55%) OAuth
8 63 (1.39%) Kafka
9 57 (1.26%) SAML
10 44 (0.97%) Oracle Fusion
11 41 (0.91%) OAuth2
12 40 (0.88%) SailPoint
13 37 (0.82%) React
14 33 (0.73%) JSON
14 33 (0.73%) RESTful
15 30 (0.66%) AngularJS
16 29 (0.64%) Web Services
17 26 (0.57%) PySpark
18 23 (0.51%) Node.js
19 21 (0.46%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 368 (8.13%) Cloud Native
2 134 (2.96%) Product Ownership
3 127 (2.81%) Data Centre
4 118 (2.61%) Onboarding
5 104 (2.30%) Enterprise Software
6 102 (2.25%) Legacy Systems
7 93 (2.06%) Distributed Systems
8 91 (2.01%) Hybrid Cloud
9 82 (1.81%) Management Information System
10 73 (1.61%) Security Posture
11 72 (1.59%) Operational Technology
11 72 (1.59%) Public Cloud
12 71 (1.57%) Data Protection Act
13 61 (1.35%) CMDB
14 54 (1.19%) AI Agents
15 42 (0.93%) Data Structures
15 42 (0.93%) PKI
16 39 (0.86%) Private Cloud
17 37 (0.82%) Mainframe
18 31 (0.69%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 137 (3.03%) Windows
2 88 (1.95%) Linux
3 28 (0.62%) Windows Server
4 26 (0.57%) Android
4 26 (0.57%) Apple iOS
5 21 (0.46%) Unix
6 12 (0.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 11 (0.24%) zOS
8 10 (0.22%) Windows 10
9 9 (0.20%) VMS
10 8 (0.18%) Windows 7
10 8 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
11 7 (0.15%) Mac OS
12 5 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
13 3 (0.066%) CentOS
13 3 (0.066%) Data ONTAP
13 3 (0.066%) Solaris
13 3 (0.066%) Windows Server 2012
14 2 (0.044%) AIX
14 2 (0.044%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 630 (13.93%) Roadmaps
2 604 (13.35%) Migration
3 547 (12.09%) Agile
4 515 (11.38%) DevOps
5 481 (10.63%) Stakeholder Management
6 467 (10.32%) CI/CD
7 446 (9.86%) Enterprise Architecture
8 414 (9.15%) AI
9 403 (8.91%) Data Modelling
10 394 (8.71%) Integration Patterns
11 389 (8.60%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 387 (8.55%) Technical Leadership
13 360 (7.96%) TOGAF
14 358 (7.91%) Data Architecture
15 352 (7.78%) Analytics
16 343 (7.58%) Architectural Patterns
17 321 (7.10%) Problem-Solving
18 319 (7.05%) Architectural Design
19 309 (6.83%) Microservices
20 259 (5.73%) Security Architecture
Programming Languages
1 285 (6.30%) Python
2 224 (4.95%) SQL
3 164 (3.63%) Java
4 147 (3.25%) PowerShell
5 78 (1.72%) JavaScript
6 51 (1.13%) C#
7 41 (0.91%) Bicep
8 31 (0.69%) Bash
8 31 (0.69%) TypeScript
9 17 (0.38%) PL/SQL
9 17 (0.38%) Ruby
10 16 (0.35%) Apex Code
10 16 (0.35%) Scala
11 13 (0.29%) Kusto Query Language
12 10 (0.22%) Shell Script
13 9 (0.20%) Kotlin
13 9 (0.20%) T-SQL
14 7 (0.15%) VBA
15 6 (0.13%) ABAP
15 6 (0.13%) C++
Qualifications
1 1,359 (30.04%) Security Cleared
2 950 (21.00%) SC Cleared
3 304 (6.72%) DV Cleared
4 177 (3.91%) Degree
5 111 (2.45%) TOGAF Certification
6 105 (2.32%) Azure Certification
7 94 (2.08%) CISSP
8 92 (2.03%) AWS Certification
9 76 (1.68%) Cisco Certification
10 72 (1.59%) Computer Science Degree
11 69 (1.53%) BPSS Clearance
12 46 (1.02%) CISM
13 45 (0.99%) CCNP
14 44 (0.97%) Microsoft Certification
15 37 (0.82%) Master's Degree
16 36 (0.80%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 24 (0.53%) (ISC)2 CCSP
18 21 (0.46%) ITIL Certification
19 20 (0.44%) CCIE
20 19 (0.42%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 167 (3.69%) NIST
2 143 (3.16%) GDPR
3 124 (2.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 119 (2.63%) Data Quality
5 91 (2.01%) NCSC
6 61 (1.35%) QA
7 37 (0.82%) PCI DSS
8 29 (0.64%) GRC
9 27 (0.60%) COBIT
10 25 (0.55%) ISO 20022
11 24 (0.53%) Cyber Essentials
12 23 (0.51%) Accessibility
13 20 (0.44%) NIST 800
14 19 (0.42%) SEPA
15 17 (0.38%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 16 (0.35%) HL7
17 13 (0.29%) FINRA
17 13 (0.29%) MiFID
18 12 (0.27%) PSD2
19 9 (0.20%) IFRS
System Software
1 180 (3.98%) Active Directory
2 95 (2.10%) Docker
3 84 (1.86%) VMware Infrastructure
4 65 (1.44%) VMware NSX
5 25 (0.55%) Virtual Desktop
5 25 (0.55%) vSphere
6 20 (0.44%) Virtual Machines
7 17 (0.38%) Hyper-V
8 13 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
9 10 (0.22%) vCloud
10 9 (0.20%) NFS
10 9 (0.20%) Squid
11 7 (0.15%) Varnish
12 6 (0.13%) Postfix
13 5 (0.11%) RACF
14 4 (0.088%) BitLocker
14 4 (0.088%) Firmware
14 4 (0.088%) Oracle RAC
14 4 (0.088%) Sendmail
15 3 (0.066%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 215 (4.75%) Terraform
2 199 (4.40%) Kubernetes
3 92 (2.03%) Ansible
4 47 (1.04%) Single Sign-On
5 37 (0.82%) Microsoft Intune
6 34 (0.75%) Grafana
7 27 (0.60%) vCenter Server
8 26 (0.57%) OPNET
9 23 (0.51%) Prometheus
10 22 (0.49%) FortiGate
11 17 (0.38%) SCCM
12 13 (0.29%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 13 (0.29%) Argo
13 10 (0.22%) Istio
14 9 (0.20%) WMI
15 8 (0.18%) Puppet
16 7 (0.15%) Consul
17 6 (0.13%) HAProxy
17 6 (0.13%) Progress Chef
18 5 (0.11%) Endace
Vendors
1 614 (13.57%) Microsoft
2 280 (6.19%) ServiceNow
3 269 (5.95%) SAP
4 188 (4.16%) Oracle
5 181 (4.00%) Databricks
6 176 (3.89%) VMware
7 156 (3.45%) Salesforce
8 110 (2.43%) Cisco
9 90 (1.99%) Google
10 85 (1.88%) CyberArk
11 68 (1.50%) MuleSoft
12 53 (1.17%) Splunk
13 46 (1.02%) Workday
14 43 (0.95%) Remedy
15 41 (0.91%) Palo Alto
15 41 (0.91%) Red Hat
16 40 (0.88%) Sparx
17 39 (0.86%) Atlassian
17 39 (0.86%) BeyondTrust
18 36 (0.80%) Citrix