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 April 2026.

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

6 months to
16 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 16 11
Rank change year-on-year +5 -5 +6
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 4,279 2,390 3,825
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.90% 9.79% 10.25%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.81% 10.57% 11.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,891 1,591 2,532
10th Percentile £463 £481 £500
25th Percentile £513 £550 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -3.70%
75th Percentile £725 £725 £745
90th Percentile £800 £799 £825
UK median daily rate £620 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -1.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 111 34 51
10th Percentile £49.40 £53.40 £57.25
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £60.00
Median hourly rate £71.27 £71.25 £83.77
Median % change year-on-year +0.03% -14.94% +19.66%
75th Percentile £85.00 £80.44 £87.53
90th Percentile £97.50 £85.70 £95.00
UK median hourly rate £70.00 £70.00 £83.50
% change year-on-year - -16.17% +19.29%

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 36,247 22,616 34,598
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.32% 92.68% 92.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,781 15,117 23,069
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £508 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.33% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £644
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £517 £525
% change year-on-year -3.29% -1.52% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,412 859 2,363
10th Percentile £15.50 £14.38 £12.87
25th Percentile £20.53 £20.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £45.00 £32.50 £34.53
Median % change year-on-year +38.46% -5.88% -21.17%
75th Percentile £67.25 £64.88 £60.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £76.25 £72.49
UK median hourly rate £41.94 £30.79 £35.00
% change year-on-year +36.20% -12.02% -22.22%

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 April 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 April 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 April 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 1,968 £625 -3.85% 388
South East +5 702 £625 - 146
North of England +5 614 £600 - 155
Midlands 0 402 £575 -4.17% 105
North West +7 358 £609 +1.50% 90
West Midlands -1 306 £600 - 74
South West +2 291 £694 +15.63% 93
Yorkshire +4 229 £558 -7.00% 52
East of England +14 192 £550 -8.33% 59
East Midlands -3 92 £513 -6.82% 31
North East +5 36 £575 -7.95% 14
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 16 April 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 1,369 (31.99%) Security Cleared
2 999 (23.35%) Azure
3 937 (21.90%) SC Cleared
4 838 (19.58%) AWS
5 606 (14.16%) Microsoft
6 605 (14.14%) Roadmaps
7 567 (13.25%) Migration
8 559 (13.06%) Agile
9 489 (11.43%) DevOps
10 457 (10.68%) Stakeholder Management
11 450 (10.52%) CI/CD
12 424 (9.91%) Enterprise Architecture
13 403 (9.42%) Data Modelling
14 401 (9.37%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 379 (8.86%) Technical Leadership
16 376 (8.79%) Integration Patterns
17 369 (8.62%) AI
18 359 (8.39%) TOGAF
19 356 (8.32%) Analytics
20 345 (8.06%) Data Architecture
21 344 (8.04%) Problem-Solving
22 342 (7.99%) GCP
23 323 (7.55%) DV Cleared
24 313 (7.31%) Architectural Design
25 310 (7.24%) Architectural Patterns
26 305 (7.13%) Python
27 299 (6.99%) Microservices
28 260 (6.08%) ServiceNow
29 255 (5.96%) Security Architecture
30 248 (5.80%) 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
1 106 (2.48%) SharePoint
2 100 (2.34%) Confluence
3 64 (1.50%) Microsoft Exchange
4 28 (0.65%) SAS
5 22 (0.51%) Apache Spark
6 21 (0.49%) CMS
7 17 (0.40%) Apache
8 16 (0.37%) Anypoint
8 16 (0.37%) Appian
9 13 (0.30%) Apache Airflow
9 13 (0.30%) ArcGIS
10 12 (0.28%) nginx
11 11 (0.26%) WebLogic
12 9 (0.21%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 9 (0.21%) OpenStack
13 7 (0.16%) Camunda
13 7 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 7 (0.16%) Palantir Foundry
13 7 (0.16%) Skype for Business
14 6 (0.14%) Ethereum
Applications
1 48 (1.12%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (0.72%) Microsoft Project
3 22 (0.51%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 19 (0.44%) Microsoft Excel
5 15 (0.35%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.12%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.047%) Navisworks
7 2 (0.047%) Revit
8 1 (0.023%) ArchiCAD
8 1 (0.023%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.023%) OrCAD
8 1 (0.023%) PlantUML
8 1 (0.023%) Siemens NX
8 1 (0.023%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.023%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 107 (2.50%) SAP S/4HANA
2 46 (1.08%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 21 (0.49%) Workday HCM
4 18 (0.42%) Payment Gateway
5 17 (0.40%) Dynamics CRM
6 13 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
6 13 (0.30%) Salesforce CRM
6 13 (0.30%) SAP ERP
7 12 (0.28%) Teamcenter
8 10 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
8 10 (0.23%) Remedy ITSM
8 10 (0.23%) SAP PM
9 9 (0.21%) SAP EWM
10 8 (0.19%) NetSuite
10 8 (0.19%) SAP PP
11 7 (0.16%) Maximo
11 7 (0.16%) SAP QM
12 6 (0.14%) Oracle ERP
12 6 (0.14%) Oracle Payables
12 6 (0.14%) SAP CRM
Cloud Services
1 999 (23.35%) Azure
2 838 (19.58%) AWS
3 342 (7.99%) GCP
4 188 (4.39%) Power Platform
5 167 (3.90%) Entra ID
6 147 (3.44%) Serverless
7 141 (3.30%) SaaS
8 130 (3.04%) Microsoft 365
9 106 (2.48%) IaaS
10 98 (2.29%) GitHub
11 96 (2.24%) PaaS
12 93 (2.17%) Dynamics 365
13 87 (2.03%) Azure DevOps
14 77 (1.80%) OpenShift
15 76 (1.78%) AWS Lambda
16 70 (1.64%) Amazon S3
17 64 (1.50%) Snowflake
18 63 (1.47%) Microsoft Purview
19 56 (1.31%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 56 (1.31%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 181 (4.23%) Firewall
2 146 (3.41%) Network Security
3 124 (2.90%) WAN
4 123 (2.87%) DNS
5 107 (2.50%) VPN
6 85 (1.99%) LAN
7 64 (1.50%) SD-WAN
8 34 (0.79%) BGP
8 34 (0.79%) DHCP
9 30 (0.70%) MPLS
9 30 (0.70%) OSPF
10 29 (0.68%) Wi-Fi
11 25 (0.58%) TCP/IP
11 25 (0.58%) VLAN
12 22 (0.51%) SAN
13 20 (0.47%) VXLAN
13 20 (0.47%) Wireless
14 18 (0.42%) BIG-IP
14 18 (0.42%) NAS
15 17 (0.40%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 140 (3.27%) Power BI
2 119 (2.78%) Metadata
3 110 (2.57%) Data Warehouse
4 96 (2.24%) Data Lake
5 71 (1.66%) SQL Server
6 57 (1.33%) NoSQL
7 50 (1.17%) PostgreSQL
8 46 (1.08%) Tableau
9 39 (0.91%) Azure SQL Database
10 32 (0.75%) Amazon Redshift
10 32 (0.75%) Big Data
11 31 (0.72%) Oracle Database
12 24 (0.56%) Delta Lake
13 23 (0.54%) BigQuery
14 21 (0.49%) Amazon Athena
14 21 (0.49%) Electronic Patient Records
15 20 (0.47%) Metadata Repository
16 19 (0.44%) GIS
17 17 (0.40%) MongoDB
17 17 (0.40%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 116 (2.71%) JIRA
2 90 (2.10%) Jenkins
3 49 (1.15%) Git
4 42 (0.98%) GitLab
5 18 (0.42%) ERwin
6 13 (0.30%) SonarQube
7 11 (0.26%) Bitbucket
8 10 (0.23%) Artifactory
9 9 (0.21%) MLflow
10 6 (0.14%) Postman
11 5 (0.12%) JUnit
11 5 (0.12%) PowerDesigner
11 5 (0.12%) REST Assured
12 4 (0.093%) Cucumber
12 4 (0.093%) Selenium
12 4 (0.093%) Snyk
12 4 (0.093%) Sonatype Nexus
12 4 (0.093%) Terragrunt
13 3 (0.070%) Claude Code
13 3 (0.070%) Rational DOORS
General
1 853 (19.93%) Social Skills
2 677 (15.82%) Finance
3 470 (10.98%) Public Sector
4 281 (6.57%) Analytical Skills
5 263 (6.15%) Banking
6 141 (3.30%) Documentation Skills
7 115 (2.69%) Retail
8 98 (2.29%) Influencing Skills
9 87 (2.03%) Military
10 84 (1.96%) Legal
11 72 (1.68%) Telecoms
12 68 (1.59%) Presentation Skills
13 61 (1.43%) Law
14 58 (1.36%) Marketing
15 54 (1.26%) Manufacturing
16 43 (1.00%) Financial Institution
17 33 (0.77%) Billing
18 32 (0.75%) Investment Banking
19 27 (0.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
20 25 (0.58%) Aerospace
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 216 (5.05%) REST
2 160 (3.74%) Middleware
3 108 (2.52%) SOAP
4 93 (2.17%) .NET
5 78 (1.82%) OpenID
6 77 (1.80%) LDAP
7 67 (1.57%) OAuth
8 62 (1.45%) Kafka
9 59 (1.38%) SAML
10 54 (1.26%) JSON
11 44 (1.03%) OAuth2
12 36 (0.84%) React
13 35 (0.82%) AngularJS
14 34 (0.79%) Oracle Fusion
14 34 (0.79%) SailPoint
15 31 (0.72%) RESTful
16 29 (0.68%) Spring
17 28 (0.65%) Web Services
18 25 (0.58%) PySpark
19 22 (0.51%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 340 (7.95%) Cloud Native
2 128 (2.99%) Product Ownership
3 120 (2.80%) Data Centre
4 109 (2.55%) Onboarding
5 106 (2.48%) Legacy Systems
6 105 (2.45%) Enterprise Software
7 92 (2.15%) Hybrid Cloud
8 84 (1.96%) Distributed Systems
9 80 (1.87%) PKI
10 69 (1.61%) Management Information System
10 69 (1.61%) Public Cloud
11 66 (1.54%) Security Posture
12 62 (1.45%) Data Protection Act
13 60 (1.40%) Operational Technology
14 59 (1.38%) CMDB
15 48 (1.12%) Self-Motivation
16 44 (1.03%) Data Structures
17 42 (0.98%) Private Cloud
18 39 (0.91%) AI Agents
19 31 (0.72%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 160 (3.74%) Windows
2 95 (2.22%) Linux
3 37 (0.86%) Windows Server
4 25 (0.58%) Android
4 25 (0.58%) Apple iOS
5 16 (0.37%) Unix
6 15 (0.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 14 (0.33%) Windows 10
8 13 (0.30%) Windows 7
9 11 (0.26%) zOS
10 9 (0.21%) Mac OS
11 8 (0.19%) VMS
11 8 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
12 5 (0.12%) Windows Server 2019
13 3 (0.070%) Data ONTAP
13 3 (0.070%) Solaris
13 3 (0.070%) Windows Server 2012
14 2 (0.047%) AIX
14 2 (0.047%) CentOS
15 1 (0.023%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 605 (14.14%) Roadmaps
2 567 (13.25%) Migration
3 559 (13.06%) Agile
4 489 (11.43%) DevOps
5 457 (10.68%) Stakeholder Management
6 450 (10.52%) CI/CD
7 424 (9.91%) Enterprise Architecture
8 403 (9.42%) Data Modelling
9 401 (9.37%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 379 (8.86%) Technical Leadership
11 376 (8.79%) Integration Patterns
12 369 (8.62%) AI
13 359 (8.39%) TOGAF
14 356 (8.32%) Analytics
15 345 (8.06%) Data Architecture
16 344 (8.04%) Problem-Solving
17 313 (7.31%) Architectural Design
18 310 (7.24%) Architectural Patterns
19 299 (6.99%) Microservices
20 255 (5.96%) Security Architecture
Programming Languages
1 305 (7.13%) Python
2 219 (5.12%) SQL
3 178 (4.16%) PowerShell
4 167 (3.90%) Java
5 68 (1.59%) JavaScript
6 52 (1.22%) C#
7 41 (0.96%) Bash
8 37 (0.86%) Bicep
9 27 (0.63%) TypeScript
10 17 (0.40%) Ruby
11 16 (0.37%) Apex Code
11 16 (0.37%) Scala
12 14 (0.33%) PL/SQL
13 12 (0.28%) Kusto Query Language
14 10 (0.23%) R
15 9 (0.21%) Kotlin
15 9 (0.21%) Shell Script
15 9 (0.21%) T-SQL
16 8 (0.19%) VB
17 7 (0.16%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,369 (31.99%) Security Cleared
2 937 (21.90%) SC Cleared
3 323 (7.55%) DV Cleared
4 175 (4.09%) Degree
5 115 (2.69%) Azure Certification
6 110 (2.57%) TOGAF Certification
7 98 (2.29%) AWS Certification
8 96 (2.24%) CISSP
9 79 (1.85%) Cisco Certification
10 71 (1.66%) Computer Science Degree
11 61 (1.43%) BPSS Clearance
12 51 (1.19%) Microsoft Certification
13 47 (1.10%) CCNP
14 42 (0.98%) CISM
15 41 (0.96%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 35 (0.82%) Master's Degree
17 32 (0.75%) ITIL Certification
18 31 (0.72%) ISEB
19 30 (0.70%) (ISC)2 CCSP
20 28 (0.65%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 166 (3.88%) GDPR
2 163 (3.81%) NIST
3 131 (3.06%) Data Quality
4 129 (3.01%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 89 (2.08%) NCSC
6 60 (1.40%) QA
7 48 (1.12%) PCI DSS
8 38 (0.89%) COBIT
9 29 (0.68%) GRC
9 29 (0.68%) ISO 20022
10 25 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
11 17 (0.40%) Accessibility
11 17 (0.40%) HL7
11 17 (0.40%) NIST 800
11 17 (0.40%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 15 (0.35%) JSP 440
13 13 (0.30%) FINRA
13 13 (0.30%) MiFID
13 13 (0.30%) PSD2
13 13 (0.30%) SEPA
System Software
1 184 (4.30%) Active Directory
2 109 (2.55%) Docker
3 99 (2.31%) VMware Infrastructure
4 72 (1.68%) VMware NSX
5 34 (0.79%) vSphere
6 22 (0.51%) Virtual Desktop
7 16 (0.37%) Hyper-V
7 16 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
8 14 (0.33%) VMware ESXi
9 10 (0.23%) vCloud
10 9 (0.21%) Squid
11 8 (0.19%) NFS
12 7 (0.16%) BitLocker
12 7 (0.16%) Varnish
13 5 (0.12%) Postfix
13 5 (0.12%) RACF
14 4 (0.093%) Firmware
14 4 (0.093%) Oracle RAC
15 3 (0.070%) IAG
15 3 (0.070%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 238 (5.56%) Terraform
2 213 (4.98%) Kubernetes
3 105 (2.45%) Ansible
4 51 (1.19%) Single Sign-On
5 41 (0.96%) Microsoft Intune
6 37 (0.86%) Grafana
7 35 (0.82%) vCenter Server
8 30 (0.70%) OPNET
9 24 (0.56%) Prometheus
10 22 (0.51%) SCCM
11 21 (0.49%) FortiGate
12 20 (0.47%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 20 (0.47%) Argo
13 12 (0.28%) WMI
14 9 (0.21%) Istio
15 7 (0.16%) Consul
15 7 (0.16%) Puppet
16 5 (0.12%) Endace
16 5 (0.12%) HAProxy
16 5 (0.12%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 606 (14.16%) Microsoft
2 260 (6.08%) ServiceNow
3 248 (5.80%) SAP
4 190 (4.44%) VMware
5 175 (4.09%) Oracle
6 168 (3.93%) Salesforce
7 153 (3.58%) Databricks
8 109 (2.55%) Cisco
9 91 (2.13%) Google
10 83 (1.94%) CyberArk
11 61 (1.43%) MuleSoft
12 55 (1.29%) Splunk
13 51 (1.19%) Red Hat
14 50 (1.17%) Remedy
15 48 (1.12%) Palo Alto
16 46 (1.08%) Workday
17 45 (1.05%) Sparx
18 44 (1.03%) Atlassian
19 43 (1.00%) IBM
20 39 (0.91%) BeyondTrust