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 15 January 2026.

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

6 months to
15 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 19 17 15
Rank change year-on-year -2 -2 +6
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 3,048 2,600 3,419
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.60% 9.64% 9.55%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.48% 10.38% 10.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,103 1,547 2,312
10th Percentile £460 £481 £500
25th Percentile £519 £550 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -
75th Percentile £725 £734 £738
90th Percentile £800 £799 £775
UK median daily rate £625 £625 £650
% change year-on-year - -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 38 27 33
10th Percentile £63.80 £59.30 £58.05
25th Percentile £65.25 £63.75 £61.25
Median hourly rate £83.82 £72.50 £76.53
Median % change year-on-year +15.61% -5.27% +9.33%
75th Percentile £94.94 £79.47 £83.11
90th Percentile £95.00 £86.47 £95.00
UK median hourly rate £83.82 £72.50 £76.53
% change year-on-year +15.61% -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 29,075 25,046 33,347
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.55% 92.89% 93.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,572 15,525 22,655
10th Percentile £300 £300 £275
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,766 759 1,526
10th Percentile £14.46 £15.73 £14.16
25th Percentile £18.26 £21.25 £19.06
Median hourly rate £27.50 £35.00 £43.50
Median % change year-on-year -21.43% -19.54% +24.29%
75th Percentile £61.18 £64.61 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £76.25
UK median hourly rate £26.30 £32.50 £42.50
% change year-on-year -19.08% -23.53% +21.43%

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 January 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 January 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 January 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 -2 1,363 £650 - 312
South East +9 547 £613 -2.00% 268
North of England -2 411 £575 -5.29% 181
Midlands -2 290 £573 -4.58% 93
North West -2 249 £575 -4.17% 94
South West -1 242 £710 +13.60% 99
West Midlands -2 217 £582 -4.16% 46
Yorkshire -11 154 £563 -9.27% 57
East of England +7 105 £525 -17.65% 101
East Midlands -3 73 £500 -13.04% 46
North East -23 8 £588 -2.02% 30
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 15 January 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.

1 997 (32.71%) Security Cleared
2 806 (26.44%) Azure
3 701 (23.00%) SC Cleared
4 608 (19.95%) AWS
5 446 (14.63%) Microsoft
6 439 (14.40%) Roadmaps
7 433 (14.21%) Agile
8 390 (12.80%) Stakeholder Management
9 351 (11.52%) Migration
10 334 (10.96%) Enterprise Architecture
11 320 (10.50%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 315 (10.33%) DevOps
13 314 (10.30%) Data Modelling
14 306 (10.04%) Technical Leadership
15 302 (9.91%) TOGAF
16 289 (9.48%) Problem-Solving
17 274 (8.99%) CI/CD
18 255 (8.37%) GCP
19 240 (7.87%) Analytics
20 239 (7.84%) Python
21 237 (7.78%) AI
22 234 (7.68%) DV Cleared
23 231 (7.58%) Data Architecture
24 223 (7.32%) Integration Patterns
25 207 (6.79%) Microservices
26 202 (6.63%) Architectural Design
27 195 (6.40%) Mentoring
28 191 (6.27%) Terraform
29 188 (6.17%) ITIL
29 188 (6.17%) 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 94 (3.08%) Confluence
2 72 (2.36%) SharePoint
3 47 (1.54%) Microsoft Exchange
4 18 (0.59%) SAS
5 17 (0.56%) OpenStack
6 16 (0.52%) CMS
7 13 (0.43%) Apache Airflow
8 12 (0.39%) Apache Spark
8 12 (0.39%) ArcGIS
9 10 (0.33%) Apache
10 9 (0.30%) Anypoint
10 9 (0.30%) Smallworld
11 6 (0.20%) GeoServer
12 5 (0.16%) Ethereum
12 5 (0.16%) Hyperledger
12 5 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
12 5 (0.16%) Skype for Business
12 5 (0.16%) WebLogic
13 4 (0.13%) Documentum
13 4 (0.13%) Tomcat
Applications
1 47 (1.54%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (1.05%) Microsoft Project
3 30 (0.98%) Microsoft Excel
4 27 (0.89%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 15 (0.49%) MS Visio
6 7 (0.23%) Siemens NX
7 3 (0.098%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.098%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.033%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.033%) FrameMaker
8 1 (0.033%) OrCAD
8 1 (0.033%) Revit
8 1 (0.033%) Trello
Business Applications
1 89 (2.92%) SAP S/4HANA
2 37 (1.21%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 25 (0.82%) Dynamics CRM
4 23 (0.75%) Workday HCM
5 18 (0.59%) Salesforce CRM
6 13 (0.43%) SAP CO
6 13 (0.43%) SAP PM
7 12 (0.39%) NetSuite
8 11 (0.36%) Maximo
8 11 (0.36%) Payment Gateway
8 11 (0.36%) SAP FI
8 11 (0.36%) SAP FI/CO
9 9 (0.30%) Teamcenter
10 8 (0.26%) Oracle Receivables
10 8 (0.26%) SAP EWM
10 8 (0.26%) SAP PP
11 7 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
12 6 (0.20%) Oracle SCM
12 6 (0.20%) SAP QM
13 5 (0.16%) Dynamics AX
Cloud Services
1 806 (26.44%) Azure
2 608 (19.95%) AWS
3 255 (8.37%) GCP
4 124 (4.07%) Power Platform
5 116 (3.81%) SaaS
6 107 (3.51%) Microsoft 365
7 100 (3.28%) Entra ID
8 97 (3.18%) Serverless
9 76 (2.49%) GitHub
10 66 (2.17%) Azure DevOps
10 66 (2.17%) IaaS
11 63 (2.07%) AWS Lambda
11 63 (2.07%) Dynamics 365
12 57 (1.87%) Microsoft Purview
13 52 (1.71%) PaaS
14 50 (1.64%) Amazon S3
15 47 (1.54%) OpenShift
16 46 (1.51%) Azure Data Factory
16 46 (1.51%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 41 (1.35%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 156 (5.12%) Firewall
2 115 (3.77%) WAN
3 86 (2.82%) Network Security
4 82 (2.69%) LAN
5 81 (2.66%) VPN
6 76 (2.49%) DNS
7 57 (1.87%) SD-WAN
8 32 (1.05%) BGP
9 31 (1.02%) Wi-Fi
10 26 (0.85%) MPLS
11 22 (0.72%) Internet
12 21 (0.69%) DHCP
12 21 (0.69%) SAN
12 21 (0.69%) VSAN
13 19 (0.62%) OSPF
14 15 (0.49%) SSL
15 14 (0.46%) VLAN
16 13 (0.43%) IPsec
16 13 (0.43%) TCP/IP
17 10 (0.33%) Cisco ASA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 93 (3.05%) Data Warehouse
2 86 (2.82%) Power BI
3 72 (2.36%) Metadata
4 66 (2.17%) Data Lake
5 51 (1.67%) PostgreSQL
6 45 (1.48%) SQL Server
7 40 (1.31%) Tableau
8 33 (1.08%) NoSQL
9 28 (0.92%) Amazon Redshift
10 25 (0.82%) DynamoDB
11 21 (0.69%) Amazon Aurora
11 21 (0.69%) Azure SQL Database
11 21 (0.69%) GIS
12 20 (0.66%) Data Vault
12 20 (0.66%) Redis
12 20 (0.66%) Relational Database
13 17 (0.56%) Amazon RDS
13 17 (0.56%) Delta Lake
14 16 (0.52%) BigQuery
15 15 (0.49%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 110 (3.61%) JIRA
2 69 (2.26%) Jenkins
3 34 (1.12%) Git
4 33 (1.08%) GitLab
5 14 (0.46%) ERwin
6 9 (0.30%) Artifactory
6 9 (0.30%) SonarQube
7 5 (0.16%) Gradle
7 5 (0.16%) Maven
7 5 (0.16%) MLflow
7 5 (0.16%) MSI
7 5 (0.16%) Oracle Forms
7 5 (0.16%) Postman
7 5 (0.16%) SonarLint
8 4 (0.13%) Bitbucket
8 4 (0.13%) Rational DOORS
8 4 (0.13%) Terragrunt
9 3 (0.098%) Sonatype Nexus
9 3 (0.098%) Visual Studio Code
10 2 (0.066%) Gatling
General
1 770 (25.26%) Social Skills
2 493 (16.17%) Finance
3 365 (11.98%) Public Sector
4 230 (7.55%) Analytical Skills
5 183 (6.00%) Banking
6 78 (2.56%) Telecoms
7 76 (2.49%) Documentation Skills
8 73 (2.40%) Legal
8 73 (2.40%) Military
9 71 (2.33%) Retail
10 67 (2.20%) Marketing
11 62 (2.03%) Presentation Skills
12 58 (1.90%) Influencing Skills
13 54 (1.77%) Manufacturing
14 41 (1.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 32 (1.05%) Financial Institution
16 30 (0.98%) Billing
17 21 (0.69%) Back Office
18 20 (0.66%) Law
19 18 (0.59%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 166 (5.45%) REST
2 97 (3.18%) Middleware
2 97 (3.18%) SOAP
3 60 (1.97%) .NET
4 51 (1.67%) LDAP
4 51 (1.67%) OAuth
5 50 (1.64%) JSON
6 49 (1.61%) Kafka
7 40 (1.31%) SAML
8 37 (1.21%) OpenID
9 35 (1.15%) RESTful
10 28 (0.92%) OAuth2
11 27 (0.89%) Spring Boot
12 25 (0.82%) Lightning Web Components
13 24 (0.79%) PySpark
14 23 (0.75%) AngularJS
15 22 (0.72%) React
15 22 (0.72%) SailPoint
15 22 (0.72%) Spring
16 20 (0.66%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 218 (7.15%) Cloud Native
2 122 (4.00%) Product Ownership
3 99 (3.25%) Legacy Systems
4 98 (3.22%) Data Centre
5 86 (2.82%) PKI
6 80 (2.62%) Onboarding
7 74 (2.43%) Enterprise Software
8 68 (2.23%) Hybrid Cloud
9 59 (1.94%) Security Posture
10 45 (1.48%) Operational Technology
11 43 (1.41%) Management Information System
12 41 (1.35%) Distributed Systems
12 41 (1.35%) Public Cloud
12 41 (1.35%) Self-Motivation
13 37 (1.21%) CMDB
13 37 (1.21%) Data Protection Act
14 35 (1.15%) Data Structures
15 27 (0.89%) Private Cloud
15 27 (0.89%) SCADA
16 25 (0.82%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 141 (4.63%) Windows
2 85 (2.79%) Linux
3 38 (1.25%) Windows Server
4 20 (0.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 16 (0.52%) Windows 7
6 15 (0.49%) Windows 10
7 13 (0.43%) Windows Server 2019
8 10 (0.33%) Unix
9 9 (0.30%) Windows Server 2016
10 7 (0.23%) Mac OS
10 7 (0.23%) VMS
11 6 (0.20%) Android
11 6 (0.20%) Apple iOS
11 6 (0.20%) Ubuntu
12 4 (0.13%) zOS
13 3 (0.098%) CentOS
13 3 (0.098%) Solaris
13 3 (0.098%) Windows Server 2008
14 1 (0.033%) MVS
14 1 (0.033%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 439 (14.40%) Roadmaps
2 433 (14.21%) Agile
3 390 (12.80%) Stakeholder Management
4 351 (11.52%) Migration
5 334 (10.96%) Enterprise Architecture
6 320 (10.50%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 315 (10.33%) DevOps
8 314 (10.30%) Data Modelling
9 306 (10.04%) Technical Leadership
10 302 (9.91%) TOGAF
11 289 (9.48%) Problem-Solving
12 274 (8.99%) CI/CD
13 240 (7.87%) Analytics
14 237 (7.78%) AI
15 231 (7.58%) Data Architecture
16 223 (7.32%) Integration Patterns
17 207 (6.79%) Microservices
18 202 (6.63%) Architectural Design
19 195 (6.40%) Mentoring
20 188 (6.17%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 239 (7.84%) Python
2 154 (5.05%) PowerShell
3 151 (4.95%) SQL
4 115 (3.77%) Java
5 53 (1.74%) JavaScript
6 31 (1.02%) C#
6 31 (1.02%) TypeScript
7 28 (0.92%) Bash
8 26 (0.85%) Bicep
9 24 (0.79%) Apex Code
10 15 (0.49%) PL/SQL
11 11 (0.36%) Kusto Query Language
11 11 (0.36%) R
12 9 (0.30%) T-SQL
13 7 (0.23%) Korn
13 7 (0.23%) Ruby
14 6 (0.20%) ABAP
14 6 (0.20%) C
14 6 (0.20%) Scala
14 6 (0.20%) VB
Qualifications
1 997 (32.71%) Security Cleared
2 701 (23.00%) SC Cleared
3 234 (7.68%) DV Cleared
4 158 (5.18%) Degree
5 95 (3.12%) TOGAF Certification
6 87 (2.85%) AWS Certification
7 84 (2.76%) Azure Certification
8 81 (2.66%) CISSP
9 60 (1.97%) Computer Science Degree
10 58 (1.90%) Cisco Certification
11 54 (1.77%) Microsoft Certification
12 38 (1.25%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 38 (1.25%) CISM
13 37 (1.21%) Master's Degree
14 36 (1.18%) BPSS Clearance
15 34 (1.12%) CCNP
16 31 (1.02%) CCIE
17 24 (0.79%) ITIL Certification
18 23 (0.75%) ISEB
19 18 (0.59%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 143 (4.69%) GDPR
2 111 (3.64%) NIST
3 101 (3.31%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 97 (3.18%) Data Quality
5 61 (2.00%) NCSC
6 56 (1.84%) QA
7 44 (1.44%) PCI DSS
8 26 (0.85%) COBIT
9 25 (0.82%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 21 (0.69%) GRC
11 20 (0.66%) Cyber Essentials
12 19 (0.62%) JSP 440
13 18 (0.59%) California Consumer Privacy Act
14 16 (0.52%) Accessibility
15 15 (0.49%) HIPAA
16 14 (0.46%) ISO 20022
17 11 (0.36%) MiFID
17 11 (0.36%) PSD2
18 10 (0.33%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 10 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 141 (4.63%) Active Directory
2 108 (3.54%) Docker
3 84 (2.76%) VMware Infrastructure
4 37 (1.21%) VMware NSX
5 30 (0.98%) vSphere
6 19 (0.62%) Virtual Desktop
7 18 (0.59%) VMware ESXi
8 15 (0.49%) Virtual Machines
9 14 (0.46%) Hyper-V
10 7 (0.23%) NFS
11 5 (0.16%) BitLocker
12 4 (0.13%) Dovecot
12 4 (0.13%) Postfix
12 4 (0.13%) vCloud
13 3 (0.098%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
13 3 (0.098%) Firmware
13 3 (0.098%) Lustre
13 3 (0.098%) Slurm Workload Manager
14 2 (0.066%) Ceph
14 2 (0.066%) KVM
Systems Management
1 191 (6.27%) Terraform
2 146 (4.79%) Kubernetes
3 84 (2.76%) Ansible
4 40 (1.31%) Single Sign-On
5 33 (1.08%) OPNET
6 24 (0.79%) vCenter Server
7 20 (0.66%) SCCM
8 17 (0.56%) Microsoft Intune
8 17 (0.56%) WMI
9 14 (0.46%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 12 (0.39%) FortiGate
11 9 (0.30%) Argo
12 8 (0.26%) Prometheus
13 7 (0.23%) Grafana
14 5 (0.16%) Istio
14 5 (0.16%) Kibana
15 3 (0.098%) Endace
15 3 (0.098%) Karpenter
15 3 (0.098%) Puppet
15 3 (0.098%) vRealize
Vendors
1 446 (14.63%) Microsoft
2 188 (6.17%) SAP
3 177 (5.81%) ServiceNow
4 166 (5.45%) Salesforce
5 141 (4.63%) VMware
6 128 (4.20%) Oracle
7 99 (3.25%) Cisco
8 92 (3.02%) Databricks
9 78 (2.56%) CyberArk
10 72 (2.36%) Google
11 53 (1.74%) Palo Alto
12 49 (1.61%) Centrify
13 44 (1.44%) Remedy
14 42 (1.38%) MuleSoft
15 41 (1.35%) Splunk
16 40 (1.31%) Workday
17 38 (1.25%) Atlassian
18 36 (1.18%) Sparx
19 34 (1.12%) BeyondTrust
20 33 (1.08%) Red Hat