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 2 January 2026.

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

6 months to
2 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 3,007 2,698 3,437
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.49% 9.69% 9.41%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.38% 10.44% 10.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,085 1,621 2,334
10th Percentile £460 £475 £500
25th Percentile £519 £548 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -
75th Percentile £725 £725 £731
90th Percentile £798 £799 £775
UK median daily rate £625 £625 £650
% change year-on-year - -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 38 29 35
10th Percentile £65.00 £59.65 £58.85
25th Percentile £66.25 £62.50 £71.00
Median hourly rate £83.82 £70.00 £76.53
Median % change year-on-year +19.74% -8.53% +9.33%
75th Percentile £94.94 £80.59 £85.13
90th Percentile £95.00 £87.50 £94.50
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 28,971 25,853 34,065
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.42% 92.86% 93.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,558 16,013 23,269
10th Percentile £300 £300 £281
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £502 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.38% - -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 1,739 810 1,452
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.92 £14.36
25th Percentile £18.25 £21.25 £19.25
Median hourly rate £27.50 £35.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -21.43% -22.22% +36.36%
75th Percentile £61.38 £64.74 £65.00
90th Percentile £73.45 £74.47 £76.95
UK median hourly rate £26.11 £32.50 £45.00
% change year-on-year -19.66% -27.78% +41.02%

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 2 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 2 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 2 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 -1 1,371 £650 - 351
South East +7 545 £600 -4.00% 220
North of England -10 387 £575 -4.17% 137
Midlands -4 271 £574 -4.38% 80
South West +1 244 £706 +12.96% 55
North West -5 234 £575 -4.17% 83
West Midlands -8 203 £585 -3.33% 52
Yorkshire -13 142 £588 -5.24% 41
East of England 0 100 £551 -11.80% 75
East Midlands -2 68 £496 -13.74% 27
North East -15 12 £625 +4.23% 14
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 2 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.

1 972 (32.32%) Security Cleared
2 811 (26.97%) Azure
3 678 (22.55%) SC Cleared
4 610 (20.29%) AWS
5 453 (15.06%) Roadmaps
6 438 (14.57%) Microsoft
7 429 (14.27%) Agile
8 387 (12.87%) Stakeholder Management
9 345 (11.47%) Migration
10 329 (10.94%) Data Modelling
11 328 (10.91%) Enterprise Architecture
12 325 (10.81%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 321 (10.68%) DevOps
14 311 (10.34%) TOGAF
15 298 (9.91%) Technical Leadership
16 292 (9.71%) Problem-Solving
17 272 (9.05%) CI/CD
18 252 (8.38%) GCP
19 239 (7.95%) Data Architecture
20 234 (7.78%) AI
21 232 (7.72%) Analytics
22 231 (7.68%) Python
23 227 (7.55%) DV Cleared
23 227 (7.55%) Integration Patterns
24 221 (7.35%) Microservices
25 200 (6.65%) Architectural Design
26 195 (6.48%) Mentoring
27 194 (6.45%) Terraform
28 193 (6.42%) ITIL
29 187 (6.22%) 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 98 (3.26%) Confluence
2 62 (2.06%) SharePoint
3 38 (1.26%) Microsoft Exchange
4 18 (0.60%) SAS
5 17 (0.57%) ArcGIS
5 17 (0.57%) OpenStack
6 16 (0.53%) CMS
7 14 (0.47%) Apache Airflow
8 13 (0.43%) Apache Spark
9 9 (0.30%) Smallworld
10 8 (0.27%) Anypoint
10 8 (0.27%) Apache
11 6 (0.20%) GeoServer
12 5 (0.17%) Oracle Workflow
13 4 (0.13%) Documentum
13 4 (0.13%) Ethereum
13 4 (0.13%) Hyperledger
13 4 (0.13%) Tomcat
13 4 (0.13%) WebLogic
14 3 (0.100%) Exchange Server 2013
Applications
1 45 (1.50%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (1.06%) Microsoft Project
3 28 (0.93%) Microsoft Excel
4 24 (0.80%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 18 (0.60%) MS Visio
6 11 (0.37%) Siemens NX
7 3 (0.100%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.100%) 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 80 (2.66%) SAP S/4HANA
2 35 (1.16%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 28 (0.93%) Dynamics CRM
4 22 (0.73%) Workday HCM
5 17 (0.57%) Maximo
5 17 (0.57%) Salesforce CRM
6 16 (0.53%) SAP PM
7 13 (0.43%) SAP CO
7 13 (0.43%) Teamcenter
8 12 (0.40%) NetSuite
9 11 (0.37%) SAP FI
9 11 (0.37%) SAP FI/CO
10 10 (0.33%) Remedy ITSM
11 9 (0.30%) Payment Gateway
12 8 (0.27%) SAP PP
13 7 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
13 7 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
13 7 (0.23%) SAP EWM
14 6 (0.20%) Aladdin
14 6 (0.20%) Oracle SCM
Cloud Services
1 811 (26.97%) Azure
2 610 (20.29%) AWS
3 252 (8.38%) GCP
4 128 (4.26%) Power Platform
5 115 (3.82%) SaaS
6 99 (3.29%) Entra ID
6 99 (3.29%) Serverless
7 98 (3.26%) Microsoft 365
8 74 (2.46%) GitHub
9 67 (2.23%) Dynamics 365
10 65 (2.16%) Azure DevOps
10 65 (2.16%) IaaS
11 64 (2.13%) AWS Lambda
12 56 (1.86%) Microsoft Purview
13 52 (1.73%) Amazon S3
14 51 (1.70%) PaaS
15 47 (1.56%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 47 (1.56%) OpenShift
16 45 (1.50%) Azure Data Factory
17 43 (1.43%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 167 (5.55%) Firewall
2 111 (3.69%) WAN
3 87 (2.89%) LAN
4 86 (2.86%) Network Security
5 82 (2.73%) VPN
6 70 (2.33%) DNS
7 64 (2.13%) SD-WAN
8 38 (1.26%) Wi-Fi
9 31 (1.03%) BGP
10 26 (0.86%) MPLS
11 22 (0.73%) VSAN
12 21 (0.70%) DHCP
12 21 (0.70%) Internet
12 21 (0.70%) SAN
13 20 (0.67%) SSL
14 18 (0.60%) Cisco Nexus
15 17 (0.57%) OSPF
16 13 (0.43%) IPsec
16 13 (0.43%) TCP/IP
16 13 (0.43%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 97 (3.23%) Data Warehouse
2 88 (2.93%) Power BI
3 75 (2.49%) Metadata
4 69 (2.29%) Data Lake
5 50 (1.66%) PostgreSQL
6 49 (1.63%) SQL Server
7 39 (1.30%) Tableau
8 35 (1.16%) NoSQL
9 28 (0.93%) Amazon Redshift
10 24 (0.80%) DynamoDB
11 23 (0.76%) GIS
12 22 (0.73%) Azure SQL Database
12 22 (0.73%) Relational Database
13 20 (0.67%) Delta Lake
14 19 (0.63%) Amazon RDS
14 19 (0.63%) Data Vault
15 18 (0.60%) Amazon Aurora
15 18 (0.60%) Redis
15 18 (0.60%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 17 (0.57%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 116 (3.86%) JIRA
2 65 (2.16%) Jenkins
3 37 (1.23%) Git
4 29 (0.96%) GitLab
5 14 (0.47%) ERwin
6 9 (0.30%) Artifactory
6 9 (0.30%) SonarQube
7 7 (0.23%) Oracle Forms
8 6 (0.20%) Bitbucket
9 5 (0.17%) Gradle
9 5 (0.17%) Maven
9 5 (0.17%) MLflow
9 5 (0.17%) SonarLint
9 5 (0.17%) Sonatype Nexus
10 4 (0.13%) MSI
10 4 (0.13%) Postman
10 4 (0.13%) Rational DOORS
10 4 (0.13%) Terragrunt
11 3 (0.100%) PowerDesigner
11 3 (0.100%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 786 (26.14%) Social Skills
2 487 (16.20%) Finance
3 368 (12.24%) Public Sector
4 241 (8.01%) Analytical Skills
5 177 (5.89%) Banking
6 88 (2.93%) Telecoms
7 75 (2.49%) Retail
8 71 (2.36%) Legal
9 70 (2.33%) Marketing
9 70 (2.33%) Military
10 68 (2.26%) Documentation Skills
11 66 (2.19%) Presentation Skills
12 59 (1.96%) Manufacturing
13 56 (1.86%) Influencing Skills
14 42 (1.40%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 33 (1.10%) Financial Institution
16 28 (0.93%) Billing
17 25 (0.83%) Back Office
18 19 (0.63%) Aerospace
18 19 (0.63%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 164 (5.45%) REST
2 98 (3.26%) SOAP
3 96 (3.19%) Middleware
4 63 (2.10%) .NET
5 58 (1.93%) JSON
6 49 (1.63%) OAuth
7 48 (1.60%) LDAP
8 47 (1.56%) Kafka
9 42 (1.40%) SAML
10 38 (1.26%) RESTful
11 33 (1.10%) Lightning Web Components
12 30 (1.00%) OpenID
13 27 (0.90%) Spring Boot
14 26 (0.86%) AngularJS
14 26 (0.86%) OAuth2
14 26 (0.86%) Web Services
15 25 (0.83%) PySpark
16 22 (0.73%) Spring
16 22 (0.73%) Visualforce
17 21 (0.70%) React
Miscellaneous
1 218 (7.25%) Cloud Native
2 135 (4.49%) Product Ownership
3 106 (3.53%) Legacy Systems
4 99 (3.29%) Data Centre
5 81 (2.69%) Onboarding
5 81 (2.69%) PKI
6 72 (2.39%) Enterprise Software
7 71 (2.36%) Hybrid Cloud
8 57 (1.90%) Security Posture
9 49 (1.63%) Operational Technology
10 42 (1.40%) Management Information System
11 41 (1.36%) Distributed Systems
11 41 (1.36%) Self-Motivation
12 38 (1.26%) Public Cloud
13 36 (1.20%) Data Protection Act
14 34 (1.13%) CMDB
15 31 (1.03%) Data Structures
16 28 (0.93%) SCADA
17 27 (0.90%) Private Cloud
18 26 (0.86%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 129 (4.29%) Windows
2 81 (2.69%) Linux
3 39 (1.30%) Windows Server
4 20 (0.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 15 (0.50%) Windows Server 2019
6 13 (0.43%) Windows 10
6 13 (0.43%) Windows 7
7 8 (0.27%) VMS
7 8 (0.27%) Windows Server 2016
8 7 (0.23%) Unix
9 6 (0.20%) Android
9 6 (0.20%) Apple iOS
9 6 (0.20%) Mac OS
9 6 (0.20%) Ubuntu
10 3 (0.100%) CentOS
10 3 (0.100%) Solaris
10 3 (0.100%) Windows Server 2008
10 3 (0.100%) zOS
11 1 (0.033%) AIX
11 1 (0.033%) MVS
Processes & Methodologies
1 453 (15.06%) Roadmaps
2 429 (14.27%) Agile
3 387 (12.87%) Stakeholder Management
4 345 (11.47%) Migration
5 329 (10.94%) Data Modelling
6 328 (10.91%) Enterprise Architecture
7 325 (10.81%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 321 (10.68%) DevOps
9 311 (10.34%) TOGAF
10 298 (9.91%) Technical Leadership
11 292 (9.71%) Problem-Solving
12 272 (9.05%) CI/CD
13 239 (7.95%) Data Architecture
14 234 (7.78%) AI
15 232 (7.72%) Analytics
16 227 (7.55%) Integration Patterns
17 221 (7.35%) Microservices
18 200 (6.65%) Architectural Design
19 195 (6.48%) Mentoring
20 193 (6.42%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 231 (7.68%) Python
2 144 (4.79%) PowerShell
2 144 (4.79%) SQL
3 118 (3.92%) Java
4 56 (1.86%) JavaScript
5 36 (1.20%) C#
6 32 (1.06%) TypeScript
7 29 (0.96%) Apex Code
7 29 (0.96%) Bash
8 24 (0.80%) Bicep
9 14 (0.47%) PL/SQL
10 11 (0.37%) R
11 8 (0.27%) Kusto Query Language
11 8 (0.27%) T-SQL
12 7 (0.23%) Korn
12 7 (0.23%) Ruby
13 6 (0.20%) ABAP
13 6 (0.20%) C
14 5 (0.17%) C++
15 4 (0.13%) VB
Qualifications
1 972 (32.32%) Security Cleared
2 678 (22.55%) SC Cleared
3 227 (7.55%) DV Cleared
4 163 (5.42%) Degree
5 95 (3.16%) TOGAF Certification
6 90 (2.99%) AWS Certification
7 88 (2.93%) Azure Certification
8 84 (2.79%) CISSP
9 63 (2.10%) Computer Science Degree
10 58 (1.93%) Cisco Certification
11 53 (1.76%) Microsoft Certification
12 38 (1.26%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 38 (1.26%) Master's Degree
13 37 (1.23%) CISM
14 36 (1.20%) BPSS Clearance
15 35 (1.16%) CCNP
16 29 (0.96%) CCIE
17 24 (0.80%) ITIL Certification
18 23 (0.76%) ISEB
19 18 (0.60%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 142 (4.72%) GDPR
2 109 (3.62%) NIST
3 103 (3.43%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 96 (3.19%) Data Quality
5 59 (1.96%) NCSC
6 56 (1.86%) QA
7 42 (1.40%) PCI DSS
8 30 (1.00%) ISO/IEC 20000
9 27 (0.90%) COBIT
10 22 (0.73%) Cyber Essentials
11 20 (0.67%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 19 (0.63%) GRC
13 18 (0.60%) JSP 440
14 16 (0.53%) Accessibility
15 15 (0.50%) HIPAA
16 13 (0.43%) ISO 20022
17 11 (0.37%) MiFID
17 11 (0.37%) PSD2
17 11 (0.37%) Sarbanes-Oxley
18 10 (0.33%) SLA
System Software
1 135 (4.49%) Active Directory
2 107 (3.56%) Docker
3 83 (2.76%) VMware Infrastructure
4 36 (1.20%) VMware NSX
5 32 (1.06%) vSphere
6 20 (0.67%) VMware ESXi
7 19 (0.63%) Virtual Desktop
8 15 (0.50%) Virtual Machines
9 11 (0.37%) Hyper-V
10 9 (0.30%) NFS
11 4 (0.13%) Dovecot
11 4 (0.13%) Postfix
12 3 (0.100%) BitLocker
12 3 (0.100%) Firmware
12 3 (0.100%) Lustre
12 3 (0.100%) Slurm Workload Manager
12 3 (0.100%) vCloud
13 2 (0.067%) Ceph
13 2 (0.067%) KVM
14 1 (0.033%) Veritas Cluster Server
Systems Management
1 194 (6.45%) Terraform
2 145 (4.82%) Kubernetes
3 88 (2.93%) Ansible
4 44 (1.46%) Single Sign-On
5 33 (1.10%) OPNET
6 22 (0.73%) vCenter Server
7 19 (0.63%) Microsoft Intune
8 16 (0.53%) SCCM
9 14 (0.47%) WMI
10 13 (0.43%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 11 (0.37%) Prometheus
12 10 (0.33%) Grafana
13 9 (0.30%) Argo
14 8 (0.27%) FortiGate
15 5 (0.17%) Kibana
16 4 (0.13%) Istio
17 3 (0.100%) Karpenter
17 3 (0.100%) Puppet
17 3 (0.100%) vRealize
18 2 (0.067%) RSA Archer
Vendors
1 438 (14.57%) Microsoft
2 181 (6.02%) SAP
3 176 (5.85%) ServiceNow
4 168 (5.59%) Salesforce
5 135 (4.49%) VMware
6 130 (4.32%) Oracle
7 109 (3.62%) Cisco
8 96 (3.19%) Databricks
9 74 (2.46%) CyberArk
10 72 (2.39%) Google
11 50 (1.66%) Palo Alto
12 48 (1.60%) Remedy
13 46 (1.53%) Centrify
14 43 (1.43%) Workday
15 42 (1.40%) Fortinet
15 42 (1.40%) Splunk
16 38 (1.26%) Atlassian
16 38 (1.26%) MuleSoft
17 37 (1.23%) IBM
18 34 (1.13%) Sparx