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 4 March 2026.

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

6 months to
4 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 16 16 13
Rank change year-on-year 0 -3 +5
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 3,732 2,565 3,703
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.38% 10.19% 9.84%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.29% 10.97% 10.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,530 1,616 2,442
10th Percentile £460 £475 £500
25th Percentile £513 £548 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -2.99%
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 79 28 42
10th Percentile £49.40 £57.43 £52.98
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £61.25
Median hourly rate £71.27 £71.25 £77.64
Median % change year-on-year +0.03% -8.22% +10.91%
75th Percentile £87.00 £78.92 £87.53
90th Percentile £95.00 £86.30 £95.00
UK median hourly rate £70.00 £71.25 £76.53
% change year-on-year -1.75% -6.90% +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 33,061 23,387 34,953
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.94% 92.91% 92.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,941 15,028 23,405
10th Percentile £306 £299 £270
25th Percentile £412 £409 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £750 £745
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,141 735 2,208
10th Percentile £15.18 £16.13 £13.15
25th Percentile £19.00 £21.50 £16.30
Median hourly rate £35.00 £35.00 £33.31
Median % change year-on-year - +5.08% -19.28%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £76.25 £71.88
UK median hourly rate £33.50 £34.00 £34.00
% change year-on-year -1.47% - -16.05%

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 4 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 4 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 4 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 1,671 £630 -3.08% 408
South East +6 641 £625 - 241
North of England -2 519 £579 -3.50% 128
Midlands -2 376 £575 -4.17% 103
North West -2 281 £600 - 76
West Midlands -3 281 £600 -1.15% 59
South West 0 262 £703 +12.48% 86
Yorkshire +4 217 £563 -1.83% 39
East of England +14 162 £550 -12.00% 54
East Midlands -4 92 £513 -6.82% 41
North East -8 26 £625 - 16
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 4 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 1,186 (31.78%) Security Cleared
2 943 (25.27%) Azure
3 820 (21.97%) SC Cleared
4 741 (19.86%) AWS
5 545 (14.60%) Roadmaps
6 541 (14.50%) Microsoft
7 498 (13.34%) Agile
8 467 (12.51%) Migration
9 466 (12.49%) Stakeholder Management
10 425 (11.39%) DevOps
11 401 (10.74%) Enterprise Architecture
12 366 (9.81%) CI/CD
12 366 (9.81%) Data Modelling
13 361 (9.67%) TOGAF
14 348 (9.32%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 330 (8.84%) Technical Leadership
16 323 (8.65%) Problem-Solving
17 317 (8.49%) Data Architecture
17 317 (8.49%) GCP
18 314 (8.41%) Analytics
19 304 (8.15%) AI
20 297 (7.96%) Integration Patterns
21 279 (7.48%) DV Cleared
22 273 (7.32%) Python
23 258 (6.91%) Microservices
24 240 (6.43%) Architectural Design
24 240 (6.43%) Architectural Patterns
25 222 (5.95%) ServiceNow
26 217 (5.81%) Terraform
27 216 (5.79%) 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
1 107 (2.87%) Confluence
2 98 (2.63%) SharePoint
3 62 (1.66%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (0.72%) SAS
5 20 (0.54%) CMS
6 19 (0.51%) Apache Spark
7 15 (0.40%) Anypoint
7 15 (0.40%) Apache Airflow
7 15 (0.40%) Appian
8 14 (0.38%) ArcGIS
9 13 (0.35%) WebLogic
10 12 (0.32%) Apache
10 12 (0.32%) OpenStack
11 11 (0.29%) nginx
12 9 (0.24%) 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 50 (1.34%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (0.86%) Microsoft Project
3 25 (0.67%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 24 (0.64%) Microsoft Excel
5 16 (0.43%) MS Visio
6 7 (0.19%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.027%) ArchiCAD
7 1 (0.027%) AutoCAD
7 1 (0.027%) OrCAD
7 1 (0.027%) PlantUML
7 1 (0.027%) Siemens NX
7 1 (0.027%) Trello
Business Applications
1 98 (2.63%) SAP S/4HANA
2 38 (1.02%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 23 (0.62%) Workday HCM
4 20 (0.54%) Dynamics CRM
5 17 (0.46%) Payment Gateway
6 16 (0.43%) Salesforce CRM
7 11 (0.29%) NetSuite
8 10 (0.27%) Oracle EBS
8 10 (0.27%) SAP PM
9 9 (0.24%) Maximo
9 9 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
10 8 (0.21%) Remedy ITSM
10 8 (0.21%) SAP ERP
10 8 (0.21%) SAP EWM
11 7 (0.19%) SAP PP
11 7 (0.19%) Teamcenter
12 6 (0.16%) R3 Corda
12 6 (0.16%) SAP CO
12 6 (0.16%) SAP QM
13 5 (0.13%) Distributed Ledger
Cloud Services
1 943 (25.27%) Azure
2 741 (19.86%) AWS
3 317 (8.49%) GCP
4 147 (3.94%) Power Platform
5 145 (3.89%) Entra ID
6 131 (3.51%) Microsoft 365
7 127 (3.40%) SaaS
8 115 (3.08%) Serverless
9 90 (2.41%) IaaS
10 80 (2.14%) Azure DevOps
11 79 (2.12%) GitHub
12 76 (2.04%) PaaS
13 66 (1.77%) OpenShift
14 64 (1.71%) AWS Lambda
14 64 (1.71%) Microsoft Purview
15 61 (1.63%) Amazon S3
16 60 (1.61%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 57 (1.53%) Azure Data Factory
17 57 (1.53%) Snowflake
18 56 (1.50%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 183 (4.90%) Firewall
2 126 (3.38%) Network Security
3 113 (3.03%) DNS
4 108 (2.89%) WAN
5 98 (2.63%) VPN
6 70 (1.88%) LAN
7 56 (1.50%) SD-WAN
8 35 (0.94%) BGP
9 32 (0.86%) DHCP
10 30 (0.80%) MPLS
11 28 (0.75%) Wi-Fi
12 27 (0.72%) OSPF
13 23 (0.62%) TCP/IP
13 23 (0.62%) VLAN
14 20 (0.54%) VSAN
15 19 (0.51%) SAN
16 18 (0.48%) VXLAN
17 17 (0.46%) IPsec
17 17 (0.46%) SSL
18 16 (0.43%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 128 (3.43%) Data Warehouse
2 108 (2.89%) Metadata
3 106 (2.84%) Power BI
4 75 (2.01%) Data Lake
5 69 (1.85%) SQL Server
6 51 (1.37%) PostgreSQL
7 44 (1.18%) Tableau
8 43 (1.15%) NoSQL
9 31 (0.83%) Azure SQL Database
10 29 (0.78%) Oracle Database
11 27 (0.72%) Amazon Redshift
12 24 (0.64%) GIS
13 22 (0.59%) Big Data
14 20 (0.54%) Metadata Repository
15 19 (0.51%) Relational Database
16 18 (0.48%) Delta Lake
17 17 (0.46%) Amazon Aurora
17 17 (0.46%) BigQuery
18 16 (0.43%) Data Vault
18 16 (0.43%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 125 (3.35%) JIRA
2 83 (2.22%) Jenkins
3 42 (1.13%) GitLab
4 34 (0.91%) Git
5 17 (0.46%) ERwin
6 11 (0.29%) Bitbucket
7 10 (0.27%) SonarQube
8 8 (0.21%) Artifactory
9 7 (0.19%) MLflow
10 5 (0.13%) Oracle Forms
10 5 (0.13%) Postman
10 5 (0.13%) REST Assured
11 4 (0.11%) Cucumber
11 4 (0.11%) PowerDesigner
11 4 (0.11%) Selenium
11 4 (0.11%) Terragrunt
12 3 (0.080%) MSI
12 3 (0.080%) Rational DOORS
12 3 (0.080%) Snyk
12 3 (0.080%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 840 (22.51%) Social Skills
2 596 (15.97%) Finance
3 431 (11.55%) Public Sector
4 265 (7.10%) Analytical Skills
5 226 (6.06%) Banking
6 120 (3.22%) Documentation Skills
7 82 (2.20%) Retail
8 81 (2.17%) Influencing Skills
9 79 (2.12%) Military
10 75 (2.01%) Legal
10 75 (2.01%) Telecoms
11 72 (1.93%) Presentation Skills
12 64 (1.71%) Marketing
13 50 (1.34%) Manufacturing
14 36 (0.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 35 (0.94%) Billing
16 34 (0.91%) Financial Institution
17 27 (0.72%) Law
18 23 (0.62%) Investment Banking
19 16 (0.43%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 202 (5.41%) REST
2 147 (3.94%) Middleware
3 107 (2.87%) SOAP
4 77 (2.06%) .NET
4 77 (2.06%) OpenID
5 74 (1.98%) LDAP
6 69 (1.85%) OAuth
7 64 (1.71%) SAML
8 53 (1.42%) Kafka
9 51 (1.37%) JSON
10 43 (1.15%) OAuth2
11 33 (0.88%) AngularJS
12 31 (0.83%) SailPoint
13 30 (0.80%) RESTful
14 28 (0.75%) React
15 27 (0.72%) Oracle Fusion
16 24 (0.64%) PySpark
17 23 (0.62%) Web Services
18 22 (0.59%) Microsoft Graph
19 20 (0.54%) Lightning Web Components
Miscellaneous
1 270 (7.23%) Cloud Native
2 133 (3.56%) Product Ownership
3 112 (3.00%) Legacy Systems
4 108 (2.89%) Onboarding
5 103 (2.76%) Data Centre
6 93 (2.49%) Enterprise Software
7 90 (2.41%) PKI
8 77 (2.06%) Hybrid Cloud
9 58 (1.55%) Public Cloud
10 57 (1.53%) Operational Technology
11 56 (1.50%) Security Posture
12 55 (1.47%) Data Protection Act
13 53 (1.42%) Management Information System
14 49 (1.31%) Distributed Systems
15 46 (1.23%) CMDB
16 45 (1.21%) Self-Motivation
17 39 (1.05%) Data Structures
18 32 (0.86%) AI Agents
19 30 (0.80%) Private Cloud
20 29 (0.78%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 160 (4.29%) Windows
2 88 (2.36%) Linux
3 37 (0.99%) Windows Server
4 19 (0.51%) Android
4 19 (0.51%) Apple iOS
5 18 (0.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 17 (0.46%) Windows 7
7 14 (0.38%) Windows 10
8 13 (0.35%) Unix
9 9 (0.24%) Mac OS
9 9 (0.24%) zOS
10 8 (0.21%) VMS
10 8 (0.21%) Windows Server 2016
11 7 (0.19%) Windows Server 2019
12 6 (0.16%) Ubuntu
13 4 (0.11%) CentOS
14 3 (0.080%) Windows Server 2012
15 1 (0.027%) Data ONTAP
15 1 (0.027%) Kali Linux
15 1 (0.027%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 545 (14.60%) Roadmaps
2 498 (13.34%) Agile
3 467 (12.51%) Migration
4 466 (12.49%) Stakeholder Management
5 425 (11.39%) DevOps
6 401 (10.74%) Enterprise Architecture
7 366 (9.81%) CI/CD
7 366 (9.81%) Data Modelling
8 361 (9.67%) TOGAF
9 348 (9.32%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 330 (8.84%) Technical Leadership
11 323 (8.65%) Problem-Solving
12 317 (8.49%) Data Architecture
13 314 (8.41%) Analytics
14 304 (8.15%) AI
15 297 (7.96%) Integration Patterns
16 258 (6.91%) Microservices
17 240 (6.43%) Architectural Design
17 240 (6.43%) Architectural Patterns
18 216 (5.79%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 273 (7.32%) Python
2 196 (5.25%) SQL
3 174 (4.66%) PowerShell
4 117 (3.14%) Java
5 60 (1.61%) JavaScript
6 47 (1.26%) C#
7 36 (0.96%) Bash
8 31 (0.83%) Bicep
9 30 (0.80%) TypeScript
10 18 (0.48%) Apex Code
11 16 (0.43%) PL/SQL
12 14 (0.38%) Kusto Query Language
13 13 (0.35%) R
14 9 (0.24%) Ruby
14 9 (0.24%) Scala
14 9 (0.24%) T-SQL
15 8 (0.21%) VB
16 7 (0.19%) VBScript
17 6 (0.16%) Korn
17 6 (0.16%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 1,186 (31.78%) Security Cleared
2 820 (21.97%) SC Cleared
3 279 (7.48%) DV Cleared
4 175 (4.69%) Degree
5 112 (3.00%) TOGAF Certification
6 106 (2.84%) Azure Certification
7 96 (2.57%) AWS Certification
7 96 (2.57%) CISSP
8 71 (1.90%) Computer Science Degree
9 69 (1.85%) Cisco Certification
10 56 (1.50%) BPSS Clearance
10 56 (1.50%) Microsoft Certification
11 45 (1.21%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 45 (1.21%) CISM
12 43 (1.15%) CCNP
13 42 (1.13%) Master's Degree
14 32 (0.86%) ITIL Certification
15 29 (0.78%) CCIE
16 28 (0.75%) ISEB
17 23 (0.62%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 163 (4.37%) GDPR
2 121 (3.24%) Data Quality
2 121 (3.24%) NIST
3 103 (2.76%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 83 (2.22%) NCSC
5 57 (1.53%) QA
6 48 (1.29%) PCI DSS
7 32 (0.86%) COBIT
8 30 (0.80%) GRC
9 25 (0.67%) Cyber Essentials
9 25 (0.67%) ISO 20022
10 17 (0.46%) Accessibility
11 15 (0.40%) JSP 440
11 15 (0.40%) MiFID
12 13 (0.35%) FINRA
12 13 (0.35%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 12 (0.32%) California Consumer Privacy Act
13 12 (0.32%) HIPAA
13 12 (0.32%) PSD2
14 11 (0.29%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 172 (4.61%) Active Directory
2 120 (3.22%) Docker
3 85 (2.28%) VMware Infrastructure
4 64 (1.71%) VMware NSX
5 35 (0.94%) vSphere
6 20 (0.54%) Virtual Desktop
7 13 (0.35%) Hyper-V
7 13 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
7 13 (0.35%) VMware ESXi
8 8 (0.21%) Squid
9 7 (0.19%) BitLocker
9 7 (0.19%) vCloud
10 5 (0.13%) NFS
10 5 (0.13%) Oracle RAC
10 5 (0.13%) RACF
11 4 (0.11%) Firmware
12 3 (0.080%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
12 3 (0.080%) IAG
12 3 (0.080%) Varnish
13 2 (0.054%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 217 (5.81%) Terraform
2 195 (5.23%) Kubernetes
3 98 (2.63%) Ansible
4 55 (1.47%) Single Sign-On
5 40 (1.07%) Microsoft Intune
6 30 (0.80%) OPNET
6 30 (0.80%) vCenter Server
7 24 (0.64%) Grafana
8 23 (0.62%) FortiGate
9 22 (0.59%) SCCM
10 20 (0.54%) Prometheus
11 16 (0.43%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 16 (0.43%) Argo
11 16 (0.43%) WMI
12 7 (0.19%) Consul
12 7 (0.19%) Istio
13 6 (0.16%) Puppet
14 5 (0.13%) Kibana
14 5 (0.13%) Progress Chef
15 3 (0.080%) SCOM
Vendors
1 541 (14.50%) Microsoft
2 222 (5.95%) ServiceNow
3 206 (5.52%) SAP
4 168 (4.50%) VMware
5 162 (4.34%) Oracle
6 161 (4.31%) Salesforce
7 122 (3.27%) Databricks
8 104 (2.79%) Cisco
9 90 (2.41%) CyberArk
9 90 (2.41%) Google
10 57 (1.53%) MuleSoft
11 56 (1.50%) Splunk
12 53 (1.42%) Palo Alto
13 49 (1.31%) Centrify
13 49 (1.31%) Remedy
14 45 (1.21%) Red Hat
14 45 (1.21%) Workday
15 44 (1.18%) Atlassian
16 39 (1.05%) IBM
17 38 (1.02%) Citrix