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 28 March 2026.

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

6 months to
28 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 14 16 11
Rank change year-on-year +2 -5 +6
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 4,106 2,448 3,820
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.82% 10.09% 10.15%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.74% 10.86% 10.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,775 1,619 2,521
10th Percentile £463 £477 £500
25th Percentile £513 £546 £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 £825
UK median daily rate £620 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -1.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 104 33 45
10th Percentile £49.40 £53.10 £51.32
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £60.00
Median hourly rate £71.89 £70.00 £83.50
Median % change year-on-year +2.69% -16.17% +19.29%
75th Percentile £90.09 £80.00 £87.53
90th Percentile £97.50 £85.50 £95.00
UK median hourly rate £71.27 £70.00 £81.27
% change year-on-year +1.81% -13.86% +16.09%

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 34,979 22,542 34,904
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.13% 92.93% 92.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,046 15,091 23,315
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £409 £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 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -3.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,296 824 2,293
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.00 £12.94
25th Percentile £19.85 £21.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £41.06 £34.58 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +18.74% +6.38% -23.69%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £77.41 £71.90
UK median hourly rate £37.54 £32.50 £33.00
% change year-on-year +15.51% -1.52% -23.26%

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 28 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 28 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 28 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 1,853 £625 -3.85% 476
South East +5 705 £625 - 256
North of England +5 589 £600 - 194
Midlands -3 398 £575 -4.17% 95
North West +6 330 £605 +0.83% 100
West Midlands -2 297 £600 -0.41% 69
South West +2 280 £700 +14.29% 98
Yorkshire +8 235 £558 -10.72% 70
East of England +17 178 £540 -13.60% 71
East Midlands -2 97 £525 -6.25% 26
North East +7 33 £575 -7.95% 28
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 28 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 1,312 (31.95%) Security Cleared
2 998 (24.31%) Azure
3 890 (21.68%) SC Cleared
4 827 (20.14%) AWS
5 599 (14.59%) Roadmaps
6 588 (14.32%) Microsoft
7 541 (13.18%) Agile
8 524 (12.76%) Migration
9 471 (11.47%) DevOps
10 452 (11.01%) Stakeholder Management
11 429 (10.45%) Enterprise Architecture
12 420 (10.23%) CI/CD
13 394 (9.60%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 388 (9.45%) Data Modelling
15 374 (9.11%) TOGAF
16 367 (8.94%) Technical Leadership
17 348 (8.48%) GCP
18 346 (8.43%) AI
19 343 (8.35%) Integration Patterns
20 341 (8.30%) Problem-Solving
21 334 (8.13%) Data Architecture
22 333 (8.11%) Analytics
23 313 (7.62%) Architectural Patterns
24 311 (7.57%) DV Cleared
25 302 (7.36%) Python
26 296 (7.21%) Architectural Design
27 294 (7.16%) Microservices
28 251 (6.11%) Security Architecture
29 239 (5.82%) Terraform
30 237 (5.77%) Cybersecurity

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
1 116 (2.83%) Confluence
2 102 (2.48%) SharePoint
3 62 (1.51%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (0.66%) SAS
5 23 (0.56%) CMS
6 21 (0.51%) Apache Spark
7 16 (0.39%) Anypoint
8 15 (0.37%) Appian
8 15 (0.37%) ArcGIS
9 14 (0.34%) Apache
9 14 (0.34%) Apache Airflow
10 12 (0.29%) nginx
11 11 (0.27%) WebLogic
12 9 (0.22%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 9 (0.22%) OpenStack
13 7 (0.17%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 7 (0.17%) Skype for Business
14 6 (0.15%) NetWeaver
14 6 (0.15%) Sitecore CMS
14 6 (0.15%) Smallworld
Applications
1 50 (1.22%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (0.75%) Microsoft Project
3 27 (0.66%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 24 (0.58%) Microsoft Excel
5 18 (0.44%) MS Visio
6 6 (0.15%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.024%) ArchiCAD
7 1 (0.024%) AutoCAD
7 1 (0.024%) OrCAD
7 1 (0.024%) PlantUML
7 1 (0.024%) Siemens NX
7 1 (0.024%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.024%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 106 (2.58%) SAP S/4HANA
2 45 (1.10%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 21 (0.51%) Dynamics CRM
3 21 (0.51%) Workday HCM
4 20 (0.49%) Payment Gateway
5 14 (0.34%) Oracle EBS
5 14 (0.34%) Salesforce CRM
6 12 (0.29%) SAP ERP
7 10 (0.24%) NetSuite
7 10 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
7 10 (0.24%) Remedy ITSM
7 10 (0.24%) SAP PM
8 9 (0.22%) Maximo
8 9 (0.22%) SAP EWM
8 9 (0.22%) Teamcenter
9 8 (0.19%) SAP PP
10 7 (0.17%) SAP QM
11 6 (0.15%) Oracle Payables
11 6 (0.15%) R3 Corda
11 6 (0.15%) SAP CRM
Cloud Services
1 998 (24.31%) Azure
2 827 (20.14%) AWS
3 348 (8.48%) GCP
4 177 (4.31%) Power Platform
5 167 (4.07%) Entra ID
6 137 (3.34%) Serverless
7 133 (3.24%) SaaS
8 131 (3.19%) Microsoft 365
9 102 (2.48%) IaaS
10 100 (2.44%) GitHub
11 91 (2.22%) PaaS
12 90 (2.19%) Azure DevOps
13 83 (2.02%) Dynamics 365
14 74 (1.80%) OpenShift
15 72 (1.75%) AWS Lambda
16 64 (1.56%) Amazon S3
17 63 (1.53%) Microsoft Purview
18 60 (1.46%) Virtual Private Cloud
19 59 (1.44%) Azure Synapse Analytics
20 57 (1.39%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 183 (4.46%) Firewall
2 149 (3.63%) Network Security
3 123 (3.00%) WAN
4 118 (2.87%) DNS
5 112 (2.73%) VPN
6 82 (2.00%) LAN
7 67 (1.63%) SD-WAN
8 36 (0.88%) BGP
9 32 (0.78%) DHCP
10 31 (0.75%) OSPF
11 30 (0.73%) Wi-Fi
12 29 (0.71%) MPLS
13 25 (0.61%) TCP/IP
14 23 (0.56%) VLAN
15 22 (0.54%) SAN
16 21 (0.51%) VXLAN
17 18 (0.44%) VSAN
17 18 (0.44%) Wireless
18 16 (0.39%) Internet
19 15 (0.37%) BIG-IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 135 (3.29%) Power BI
2 116 (2.83%) Data Warehouse
3 112 (2.73%) Metadata
4 84 (2.05%) Data Lake
5 70 (1.70%) SQL Server
6 54 (1.32%) NoSQL
7 50 (1.22%) PostgreSQL
8 43 (1.05%) Tableau
9 35 (0.85%) Azure SQL Database
10 33 (0.80%) Oracle Database
11 31 (0.75%) Big Data
12 25 (0.61%) Amazon Redshift
13 23 (0.56%) Delta Lake
13 23 (0.56%) GIS
14 20 (0.49%) BigQuery
14 20 (0.49%) Electronic Patient Records
14 20 (0.49%) Metadata Repository
15 19 (0.46%) Amazon Athena
15 19 (0.46%) Relational Database
16 16 (0.39%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 129 (3.14%) JIRA
2 89 (2.17%) Jenkins
3 45 (1.10%) Git
4 42 (1.02%) GitLab
5 20 (0.49%) ERwin
6 11 (0.27%) Bitbucket
6 11 (0.27%) SonarQube
7 10 (0.24%) Artifactory
8 9 (0.22%) MLflow
9 5 (0.12%) Postman
9 5 (0.12%) PowerDesigner
9 5 (0.12%) Rational DOORS
9 5 (0.12%) REST Assured
10 4 (0.097%) Cucumber
10 4 (0.097%) Selenium
10 4 (0.097%) Snyk
10 4 (0.097%) Sonatype Nexus
10 4 (0.097%) Terragrunt
11 3 (0.073%) MSI
11 3 (0.073%) Oracle Forms
General
1 862 (20.99%) Social Skills
2 669 (16.29%) Finance
3 466 (11.35%) Public Sector
4 282 (6.87%) Analytical Skills
5 261 (6.36%) Banking
6 137 (3.34%) Documentation Skills
7 97 (2.36%) Influencing Skills
8 92 (2.24%) Retail
9 85 (2.07%) Military
10 82 (2.00%) Legal
11 75 (1.83%) Telecoms
12 68 (1.66%) Presentation Skills
13 58 (1.41%) Marketing
14 57 (1.39%) Law
15 49 (1.19%) Manufacturing
16 45 (1.10%) Financial Institution
17 33 (0.80%) Billing
18 31 (0.75%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 29 (0.71%) Investment Banking
20 22 (0.54%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 211 (5.14%) REST
2 158 (3.85%) Middleware
3 102 (2.48%) SOAP
4 79 (1.92%) .NET
5 78 (1.90%) OpenID
6 76 (1.85%) LDAP
7 71 (1.73%) OAuth
8 62 (1.51%) SAML
9 61 (1.49%) Kafka
10 53 (1.29%) JSON
11 43 (1.05%) OAuth2
12 38 (0.93%) AngularJS
13 34 (0.83%) React
14 32 (0.78%) SailPoint
15 30 (0.73%) RESTful
16 27 (0.66%) Spring
16 27 (0.66%) Web Services
17 23 (0.56%) Oracle Fusion
18 22 (0.54%) PySpark
19 20 (0.49%) Microsoft Graph
Miscellaneous
1 329 (8.01%) Cloud Native
2 139 (3.39%) Product Ownership
3 117 (2.85%) Data Centre
4 111 (2.70%) Onboarding
5 107 (2.61%) Legacy Systems
6 103 (2.51%) Enterprise Software
7 88 (2.14%) Hybrid Cloud
8 84 (2.05%) PKI
9 72 (1.75%) Distributed Systems
10 66 (1.61%) Security Posture
11 65 (1.58%) Public Cloud
12 62 (1.51%) Data Protection Act
12 62 (1.51%) Management Information System
13 59 (1.44%) Operational Technology
14 52 (1.27%) CMDB
15 49 (1.19%) Self-Motivation
16 40 (0.97%) Data Structures
17 39 (0.95%) AI Agents
18 38 (0.93%) Private Cloud
19 31 (0.75%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 164 (3.99%) Windows
2 99 (2.41%) Linux
3 36 (0.88%) Windows Server
4 23 (0.56%) Android
4 23 (0.56%) Apple iOS
5 16 (0.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 15 (0.37%) Windows 7
7 14 (0.34%) Unix
7 14 (0.34%) Windows 10
8 10 (0.24%) zOS
9 9 (0.22%) Mac OS
10 8 (0.19%) VMS
10 8 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
11 5 (0.12%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.097%) Ubuntu
13 3 (0.073%) Windows Server 2012
14 2 (0.049%) CentOS
15 1 (0.024%) Data ONTAP
15 1 (0.024%) Kali Linux
15 1 (0.024%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 599 (14.59%) Roadmaps
2 541 (13.18%) Agile
3 524 (12.76%) Migration
4 471 (11.47%) DevOps
5 452 (11.01%) Stakeholder Management
6 429 (10.45%) Enterprise Architecture
7 420 (10.23%) CI/CD
8 394 (9.60%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 388 (9.45%) Data Modelling
10 374 (9.11%) TOGAF
11 367 (8.94%) Technical Leadership
12 346 (8.43%) AI
13 343 (8.35%) Integration Patterns
14 341 (8.30%) Problem-Solving
15 334 (8.13%) Data Architecture
16 333 (8.11%) Analytics
17 313 (7.62%) Architectural Patterns
18 296 (7.21%) Architectural Design
19 294 (7.16%) Microservices
20 251 (6.11%) Security Architecture
Programming Languages
1 302 (7.36%) Python
2 211 (5.14%) SQL
3 177 (4.31%) PowerShell
4 150 (3.65%) Java
5 57 (1.39%) JavaScript
6 49 (1.19%) C#
7 39 (0.95%) Bash
8 35 (0.85%) Bicep
9 30 (0.73%) TypeScript
10 16 (0.39%) Apex Code
10 16 (0.39%) Ruby
11 14 (0.34%) PL/SQL
12 13 (0.32%) Kusto Query Language
12 13 (0.32%) Scala
13 12 (0.29%) R
14 8 (0.19%) Kotlin
14 8 (0.19%) T-SQL
14 8 (0.19%) VB
15 7 (0.17%) VBScript
16 6 (0.15%) C++
Qualifications
1 1,312 (31.95%) Security Cleared
2 890 (21.68%) SC Cleared
3 311 (7.57%) DV Cleared
4 176 (4.29%) Degree
5 113 (2.75%) TOGAF Certification
6 111 (2.70%) Azure Certification
7 110 (2.68%) CISSP
8 101 (2.46%) AWS Certification
9 76 (1.85%) Cisco Certification
10 66 (1.61%) Computer Science Degree
11 58 (1.41%) BPSS Clearance
12 57 (1.39%) CISM
13 52 (1.27%) Microsoft Certification
14 47 (1.14%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 44 (1.07%) CCNP
16 37 (0.90%) Master's Degree
17 33 (0.80%) ITIL Certification
18 31 (0.75%) ISEB
19 30 (0.73%) (ISC)2 CCSP
20 29 (0.71%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 172 (4.19%) GDPR
2 158 (3.85%) NIST
3 131 (3.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 125 (3.04%) Data Quality
5 91 (2.22%) NCSC
6 61 (1.49%) QA
7 53 (1.29%) PCI DSS
8 38 (0.93%) COBIT
9 29 (0.71%) GRC
9 29 (0.71%) ISO 20022
10 27 (0.66%) Cyber Essentials
11 18 (0.44%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 15 (0.37%) HL7
13 14 (0.34%) Accessibility
13 14 (0.34%) JSP 440
13 14 (0.34%) MiFID
14 13 (0.32%) FINRA
14 13 (0.32%) NIST 800
14 13 (0.32%) PSD2
14 13 (0.32%) SEPA
System Software
1 181 (4.41%) Active Directory
2 119 (2.90%) Docker
3 98 (2.39%) VMware Infrastructure
4 68 (1.66%) VMware NSX
5 33 (0.80%) vSphere
6 22 (0.54%) Virtual Desktop
7 17 (0.41%) Hyper-V
8 15 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
9 12 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
10 9 (0.22%) Squid
10 9 (0.22%) vCloud
11 7 (0.17%) BitLocker
12 5 (0.12%) NFS
12 5 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
12 5 (0.12%) RACF
12 5 (0.12%) Varnish
13 4 (0.097%) Firmware
14 3 (0.073%) IAG
14 3 (0.073%) Postfix
14 3 (0.073%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 239 (5.82%) Terraform
2 217 (5.28%) Kubernetes
3 105 (2.56%) Ansible
4 56 (1.36%) Single Sign-On
5 40 (0.97%) Microsoft Intune
6 35 (0.85%) Grafana
7 33 (0.80%) vCenter Server
8 30 (0.73%) OPNET
9 25 (0.61%) Prometheus
10 22 (0.54%) FortiGate
10 22 (0.54%) SCCM
11 18 (0.44%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 18 (0.44%) Argo
12 14 (0.34%) WMI
13 9 (0.22%) Istio
14 7 (0.17%) Consul
14 7 (0.17%) Puppet
15 5 (0.12%) Endace
15 5 (0.12%) Kibana
15 5 (0.12%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 588 (14.32%) Microsoft
2 236 (5.75%) SAP
2 236 (5.75%) ServiceNow
3 185 (4.51%) VMware
4 166 (4.04%) Oracle
5 155 (3.77%) Salesforce
6 144 (3.51%) Databricks
7 114 (2.78%) Cisco
8 93 (2.26%) CyberArk
9 90 (2.19%) Google
10 63 (1.53%) MuleSoft
11 56 (1.36%) Palo Alto
11 56 (1.36%) Splunk
12 51 (1.24%) Remedy
13 50 (1.22%) Red Hat
14 49 (1.19%) Centrify
15 48 (1.17%) IBM
16 46 (1.12%) Atlassian
17 45 (1.10%) Workday
18 44 (1.07%) Sparx