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 16 March 2026.

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

6 months to
16 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 3,907 2,515 3,743
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.62% 10.17% 9.88%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.55% 10.92% 10.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,639 1,629 2,464
10th Percentile £462 £475 £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 £818
UK median daily rate £620 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -1.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 94 31 41
10th Percentile £49.40 £58.25 £50.53
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £60.00
Median hourly rate £71.27 £72.50 £76.53
Median % change year-on-year -1.70% -5.27% +9.33%
75th Percentile £89.82 £82.25 £87.53
90th Percentile £95.00 £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 33,839 23,023 35,138
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.01% 93.06% 92.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,337 15,200 23,523
10th Percentile £310 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £408 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £620 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.37%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,233 778 2,274
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.22 £13.00
25th Percentile £19.34 £21.25 £16.25
Median hourly rate £37.20 £35.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +6.29% +7.69% -23.53%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £59.00
90th Percentile £76.58 £77.50 £71.25
UK median hourly rate £35.71 £32.81 £32.90
% change year-on-year +8.84% -0.26% -22.60%

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 16 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 16 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 16 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 0 1,751 £625 -3.85% 422
South East +3 674 £625 - 278
North of England 0 568 £600 - 183
Midlands -2 384 £575 -4.17% 103
North West +1 320 £600 - 87
West Midlands -1 286 £600 -3.61% 61
South West -1 263 £700 +13.13% 122
Yorkshire +7 225 £563 -6.25% 66
East of England +14 165 £540 -13.60% 82
East Midlands -1 94 £513 -8.48% 41
North East -2 29 £625 - 33
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 16 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 1,240 (31.74%) Security Cleared
2 978 (25.03%) Azure
3 847 (21.68%) SC Cleared
4 774 (19.81%) AWS
5 570 (14.59%) Roadmaps
6 557 (14.26%) Microsoft
7 527 (13.49%) Agile
8 498 (12.75%) Migration
9 452 (11.57%) DevOps
9 452 (11.57%) Stakeholder Management
10 399 (10.21%) Enterprise Architecture
11 397 (10.16%) CI/CD
12 374 (9.57%) Data Modelling
13 371 (9.50%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 361 (9.24%) TOGAF
15 349 (8.93%) Technical Leadership
16 329 (8.42%) GCP
17 328 (8.40%) Problem-Solving
18 325 (8.32%) Data Architecture
19 323 (8.27%) Integration Patterns
20 322 (8.24%) AI
20 322 (8.24%) Analytics
21 292 (7.47%) DV Cleared
22 282 (7.22%) Python
23 276 (7.06%) Architectural Patterns
24 275 (7.04%) Microservices
25 260 (6.65%) Architectural Design
26 229 (5.86%) Terraform
27 228 (5.84%) ServiceNow
28 227 (5.81%) 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
1 114 (2.92%) Confluence
2 101 (2.59%) SharePoint
3 61 (1.56%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (0.69%) SAS
5 22 (0.56%) CMS
6 21 (0.54%) Apache Spark
7 15 (0.38%) Anypoint
7 15 (0.38%) Apache Airflow
7 15 (0.38%) Appian
7 15 (0.38%) ArcGIS
8 12 (0.31%) Apache
9 11 (0.28%) nginx
9 11 (0.28%) WebLogic
10 9 (0.23%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 9 (0.23%) OpenStack
10 9 (0.23%) Smallworld
11 7 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 7 (0.18%) Skype for Business
12 6 (0.15%) GeoServer
12 6 (0.15%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 50 (1.28%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (0.79%) Microsoft Project
3 26 (0.67%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 24 (0.61%) Microsoft Excel
5 18 (0.46%) MS Visio
6 7 (0.18%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.026%) ArchiCAD
7 1 (0.026%) AutoCAD
7 1 (0.026%) OrCAD
7 1 (0.026%) PlantUML
7 1 (0.026%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 101 (2.59%) SAP S/4HANA
2 42 (1.07%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 23 (0.59%) Workday HCM
4 19 (0.49%) Dynamics CRM
5 18 (0.46%) Payment Gateway
6 16 (0.41%) Salesforce CRM
7 13 (0.33%) Oracle EBS
8 11 (0.28%) NetSuite
9 10 (0.26%) SAP PM
10 9 (0.23%) Maximo
10 9 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
10 9 (0.23%) Remedy ITSM
10 9 (0.23%) SAP EWM
11 8 (0.20%) SAP ERP
11 8 (0.20%) Teamcenter
12 7 (0.18%) SAP PP
13 6 (0.15%) R3 Corda
13 6 (0.15%) SAP QM
14 5 (0.13%) Distributed Ledger
14 5 (0.13%) SAP CO
Cloud Services
1 978 (25.03%) Azure
2 774 (19.81%) AWS
3 329 (8.42%) GCP
4 160 (4.10%) Entra ID
5 159 (4.07%) Power Platform
6 128 (3.28%) Serverless
7 127 (3.25%) Microsoft 365
8 125 (3.20%) SaaS
9 94 (2.41%) IaaS
10 92 (2.35%) GitHub
11 86 (2.20%) Azure DevOps
12 82 (2.10%) PaaS
13 70 (1.79%) OpenShift
14 68 (1.74%) AWS Lambda
15 64 (1.64%) Dynamics 365
16 63 (1.61%) Amazon S3
17 62 (1.59%) Microsoft Purview
18 58 (1.48%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 57 (1.46%) Azure Data Factory
19 57 (1.46%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 181 (4.63%) Firewall
2 141 (3.61%) Network Security
3 119 (3.05%) WAN
4 111 (2.84%) DNS
5 105 (2.69%) VPN
6 77 (1.97%) LAN
7 64 (1.64%) SD-WAN
8 34 (0.87%) BGP
9 32 (0.82%) DHCP
10 29 (0.74%) Wi-Fi
11 28 (0.72%) OSPF
12 27 (0.69%) MPLS
13 24 (0.61%) TCP/IP
14 20 (0.51%) SAN
14 20 (0.51%) VLAN
14 20 (0.51%) VXLAN
15 18 (0.46%) VSAN
16 16 (0.41%) Internet
16 16 (0.41%) Wireless
17 15 (0.38%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 121 (3.10%) Data Warehouse
2 118 (3.02%) Power BI
3 113 (2.89%) Metadata
4 75 (1.92%) Data Lake
5 69 (1.77%) SQL Server
6 52 (1.33%) NoSQL
7 51 (1.31%) PostgreSQL
8 45 (1.15%) Tableau
9 34 (0.87%) Azure SQL Database
10 31 (0.79%) Oracle Database
11 27 (0.69%) Big Data
12 26 (0.67%) Amazon Redshift
12 26 (0.67%) GIS
13 21 (0.54%) Delta Lake
14 20 (0.51%) Metadata Repository
15 19 (0.49%) Electronic Patient Records
16 18 (0.46%) Relational Database
17 17 (0.44%) Amazon Athena
17 17 (0.44%) Amazon Aurora
18 15 (0.38%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 126 (3.22%) JIRA
2 86 (2.20%) Jenkins
3 45 (1.15%) GitLab
4 43 (1.10%) Git
5 17 (0.44%) ERwin
6 11 (0.28%) Bitbucket
7 10 (0.26%) SonarQube
8 8 (0.20%) Artifactory
8 8 (0.20%) MLflow
9 5 (0.13%) Oracle Forms
9 5 (0.13%) Postman
9 5 (0.13%) REST Assured
10 4 (0.10%) Cucumber
10 4 (0.10%) PowerDesigner
10 4 (0.10%) Selenium
10 4 (0.10%) Snyk
10 4 (0.10%) Terragrunt
11 3 (0.077%) JUnit
11 3 (0.077%) MSI
11 3 (0.077%) Rational DOORS
General
1 848 (21.70%) Social Skills
2 630 (16.12%) Finance
3 456 (11.67%) Public Sector
4 275 (7.04%) Analytical Skills
5 239 (6.12%) Banking
6 128 (3.28%) Documentation Skills
7 88 (2.25%) Influencing Skills
8 86 (2.20%) Retail
9 83 (2.12%) Military
10 78 (2.00%) Telecoms
11 75 (1.92%) Legal
12 70 (1.79%) Presentation Skills
13 63 (1.61%) Marketing
14 49 (1.25%) Manufacturing
15 39 (1.00%) Financial Institution
16 38 (0.97%) Law
17 37 (0.95%) Billing
18 35 (0.90%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 28 (0.72%) Investment Banking
20 19 (0.49%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 210 (5.37%) REST
2 154 (3.94%) Middleware
3 109 (2.79%) SOAP
4 78 (2.00%) OpenID
5 75 (1.92%) LDAP
6 74 (1.89%) .NET
7 72 (1.84%) OAuth
8 66 (1.69%) SAML
9 59 (1.51%) Kafka
10 47 (1.20%) JSON
11 44 (1.13%) OAuth2
12 35 (0.90%) AngularJS
13 30 (0.77%) SailPoint
14 29 (0.74%) RESTful
15 28 (0.72%) React
16 25 (0.64%) PySpark
16 25 (0.64%) Spring
17 24 (0.61%) Oracle Fusion
17 24 (0.61%) Web Services
18 21 (0.54%) Microsoft Graph
Miscellaneous
1 307 (7.86%) Cloud Native
2 133 (3.40%) Product Ownership
3 111 (2.84%) Legacy Systems
3 111 (2.84%) Onboarding
4 110 (2.82%) Data Centre
5 94 (2.41%) Enterprise Software
6 87 (2.23%) PKI
7 79 (2.02%) Hybrid Cloud
8 62 (1.59%) Public Cloud
9 61 (1.56%) Distributed Systems
9 61 (1.56%) Security Posture
10 60 (1.54%) Data Protection Act
11 56 (1.43%) Management Information System
12 53 (1.36%) Operational Technology
13 52 (1.33%) CMDB
14 46 (1.18%) Self-Motivation
15 40 (1.02%) Data Structures
16 36 (0.92%) AI Agents
17 31 (0.79%) Private Cloud
17 31 (0.79%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 159 (4.07%) Windows
2 89 (2.28%) Linux
3 35 (0.90%) 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 (0.36%) Windows 10
7 10 (0.26%) Unix
7 10 (0.26%) 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 (0.077%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.051%) CentOS
14 1 (0.026%) Data ONTAP
14 1 (0.026%) Kali Linux
14 1 (0.026%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 570 (14.59%) Roadmaps
2 527 (13.49%) Agile
3 498 (12.75%) Migration
4 452 (11.57%) DevOps
4 452 (11.57%) Stakeholder Management
5 399 (10.21%) Enterprise Architecture
6 397 (10.16%) CI/CD
7 374 (9.57%) Data Modelling
8 371 (9.50%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 361 (9.24%) TOGAF
10 349 (8.93%) Technical Leadership
11 328 (8.40%) Problem-Solving
12 325 (8.32%) Data Architecture
13 323 (8.27%) Integration Patterns
14 322 (8.24%) AI
14 322 (8.24%) Analytics
15 276 (7.06%) Architectural Patterns
16 275 (7.04%) Microservices
17 260 (6.65%) Architectural Design
18 227 (5.81%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 282 (7.22%) Python
2 206 (5.27%) SQL
3 175 (4.48%) PowerShell
4 128 (3.28%) Java
5 60 (1.54%) JavaScript
6 47 (1.20%) C#
7 38 (0.97%) Bicep
8 37 (0.95%) Bash
9 29 (0.74%) TypeScript
10 18 (0.46%) Apex Code
11 16 (0.41%) PL/SQL
12 14 (0.36%) Kusto Query Language
13 12 (0.31%) R
13 12 (0.31%) Scala
14 11 (0.28%) Ruby
15 9 (0.23%) T-SQL
16 8 (0.20%) Kotlin
16 8 (0.20%) VB
17 7 (0.18%) VBScript
18 6 (0.15%) C++
Qualifications
1 1,240 (31.74%) Security Cleared
2 847 (21.68%) SC Cleared
3 292 (7.47%) DV Cleared
4 175 (4.48%) Degree
5 113 (2.89%) TOGAF Certification
6 112 (2.87%) Azure Certification
7 103 (2.64%) AWS Certification
8 99 (2.53%) CISSP
9 73 (1.87%) Computer Science Degree
10 71 (1.82%) Cisco Certification
11 58 (1.48%) BPSS Clearance
12 54 (1.38%) Microsoft Certification
13 53 (1.36%) CISM
14 47 (1.20%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 43 (1.10%) CCNP
16 41 (1.05%) Master's Degree
17 32 (0.82%) ITIL Certification
18 29 (0.74%) CCIE
19 28 (0.72%) ISEB
20 26 (0.67%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 174 (4.45%) GDPR
2 140 (3.58%) NIST
3 128 (3.28%) Data Quality
4 117 (2.99%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 89 (2.28%) NCSC
6 57 (1.46%) QA
7 52 (1.33%) PCI DSS
8 35 (0.90%) COBIT
9 28 (0.72%) GRC
10 26 (0.67%) ISO 20022
11 25 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials
12 16 (0.41%) Accessibility
13 15 (0.38%) MiFID
14 14 (0.36%) JSP 440
15 13 (0.33%) FINRA
15 13 (0.33%) HL7
15 13 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 12 (0.31%) HIPAA
16 12 (0.31%) PSD2
17 11 (0.28%) SEPA
System Software
1 175 (4.48%) Active Directory
2 119 (3.05%) Docker
3 91 (2.33%) VMware Infrastructure
4 62 (1.59%) VMware NSX
5 33 (0.84%) vSphere
6 22 (0.56%) Virtual Desktop
7 16 (0.41%) Hyper-V
8 14 (0.36%) 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%) Oracle RAC
12 5 (0.13%) RACF
12 5 (0.13%) Varnish
13 4 (0.10%) Firmware
13 4 (0.10%) NFS
14 3 (0.077%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
14 3 (0.077%) IAG
14 3 (0.077%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 229 (5.86%) Terraform
2 206 (5.27%) Kubernetes
3 98 (2.51%) Ansible
4 54 (1.38%) Single Sign-On
5 40 (1.02%) Microsoft Intune
6 32 (0.82%) vCenter Server
7 30 (0.77%) Grafana
7 30 (0.77%) OPNET
8 23 (0.59%) Prometheus
9 22 (0.56%) SCCM
10 21 (0.54%) FortiGate
11 18 (0.46%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 17 (0.44%) 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
1 557 (14.26%) Microsoft
2 228 (5.84%) ServiceNow
3 216 (5.53%) SAP
4 171 (4.38%) VMware
5 160 (4.10%) Oracle
6 159 (4.07%) Salesforce
7 128 (3.28%) Databricks
8 104 (2.66%) Cisco
9 90 (2.30%) Google
10 87 (2.23%) CyberArk
11 62 (1.59%) MuleSoft
12 52 (1.33%) Splunk
13 50 (1.28%) Palo Alto
13 50 (1.28%) Remedy
14 49 (1.25%) Centrify
15 48 (1.23%) Red Hat
16 46 (1.18%) Atlassian
17 45 (1.15%) Workday
18 41 (1.05%) IBM
18 41 (1.05%) Sparx