Architect Contract Job Trends in England

Architect
UK > England

The median Architect daily rate in England is £620, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 30 May 2026.

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

6 months to
30 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 16 11
Rank change year-on-year +7 -5 +4
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 4,617 2,387 3,858
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.99% 9.94% 10.49%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.90% 10.76% 11.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,111 1,559 2,510
10th Percentile £463 £475 £500
25th Percentile £513 £538 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -2.77%
75th Percentile £725 £716 £747
90th Percentile £800 £790 £825
UK median daily rate £616 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -1.42% -3.85% -0.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 130 27 95
10th Percentile £49.40 £47.08 -
25th Percentile £60.00 £62.50 £60.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -
75th Percentile £78.75 £81.13 £86.32
90th Percentile £97.63 £86.30 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -

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 38,786 22,186 34,111
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.33% 92.34% 92.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,000 14,689 22,539
10th Percentile £322 £293 £285
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £518 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.48% -1.43% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £513 £504 £525
% change year-on-year +1.69% -4.00% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,713 917 2,538
10th Percentile £15.72 £14.00 £12.86
25th Percentile £21.25 £18.20 £16.30
Median hourly rate £45.00 £29.33 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +53.43% -21.79% -16.67%
75th Percentile £67.50 £60.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £78.95 £75.00 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £28.00 £37.50
% change year-on-year +51.79% -25.33% -16.67%

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 30 May 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 30 May 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 30 May 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 +4 2,249 £625 -3.85% 717
South East +5 690 £625 +1.63% 237
North of England +4 671 £600 - 221
Midlands +2 439 £600 +0.97% 100
North West +6 373 £608 +5.01% 127
West Midlands 0 315 £620 +3.33% 75
Yorkshire +4 252 £550 -8.33% 57
South West -2 245 £650 +8.33% 132
East of England +17 205 £575 -4.17% 53
East Midlands +2 118 £571 +10.92% 25
North East +10 53 £575 -4.17% 38
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 30 May 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 1,363 (29.52%) Security Cleared
2 1,116 (24.17%) Azure
3 972 (21.05%) SC Cleared
4 921 (19.95%) AWS
5 651 (14.10%) Migration
6 642 (13.91%) Roadmaps
7 619 (13.41%) Microsoft
8 543 (11.76%) DevOps
9 541 (11.72%) Agile
10 518 (11.22%) Stakeholder Management
11 481 (10.42%) CI/CD
12 463 (10.03%) Enterprise Architecture
13 434 (9.40%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 433 (9.38%) AI
15 431 (9.34%) Data Modelling
16 425 (9.21%) Integration Patterns
17 408 (8.84%) Technical Leadership
18 388 (8.40%) Data Architecture
19 374 (8.10%) Architectural Patterns
20 360 (7.80%) GCP
21 359 (7.78%) Analytics
22 338 (7.32%) TOGAF
23 328 (7.10%) Problem-Solving
24 324 (7.02%) Architectural Design
25 323 (7.00%) Microservices
26 294 (6.37%) Python
27 283 (6.13%) DV Cleared
28 275 (5.96%) Infrastructure as Code
29 274 (5.93%) Security Architecture
30 269 (5.83%) 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
1 104 (2.25%) SharePoint
2 75 (1.62%) Confluence
3 50 (1.08%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (0.58%) Apache Spark
5 25 (0.54%) Apache
6 23 (0.50%) SAS
7 17 (0.37%) Anypoint
8 16 (0.35%) Apache Airflow
8 16 (0.35%) Appian
9 15 (0.32%) CMS
9 15 (0.32%) Palantir Foundry
10 13 (0.28%) nginx
11 11 (0.24%) OpenStack
11 11 (0.24%) WebLogic
12 10 (0.22%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 9 (0.19%) ArcGIS
13 9 (0.19%) Camunda
14 6 (0.13%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 6 (0.13%) Sitecore CMS
14 6 (0.13%) Tomcat
Applications
1 23 (0.50%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 18 (0.39%) MS Visio
3 17 (0.37%) Microsoft Office
4 14 (0.30%) Microsoft Excel
5 7 (0.15%) Microsoft Project
5 7 (0.15%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.15%) Revit
6 5 (0.11%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.087%) Chatbot
8 2 (0.043%) PlantUML
8 2 (0.043%) Windchill
9 1 (0.022%) ArchiCAD
9 1 (0.022%) AutoCAD
9 1 (0.022%) OrCAD
9 1 (0.022%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 114 (2.47%) SAP S/4HANA
2 42 (0.91%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 19 (0.41%) Payment Gateway
4 18 (0.39%) Dynamics CRM
5 16 (0.35%) SAP ERP
6 15 (0.32%) Workday HCM
7 14 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
7 14 (0.30%) Teamcenter
8 10 (0.22%) Remedy ITSM
9 8 (0.17%) Oracle ERP
9 8 (0.17%) SAP BRIM
10 7 (0.15%) Salesforce CRM
11 6 (0.13%) Oracle Receivables
11 6 (0.13%) SAP MDG
12 5 (0.11%) Maximo
12 5 (0.11%) Oracle Retail
12 5 (0.11%) SAP IBP
12 5 (0.11%) SAP Oil and Gas
12 5 (0.11%) SAP SD
13 4 (0.087%) SAP EWM
Cloud Services
1 1,116 (24.17%) Azure
2 921 (19.95%) AWS
3 360 (7.80%) GCP
4 218 (4.72%) Power Platform
5 176 (3.81%) Entra ID
6 164 (3.55%) Serverless
7 158 (3.42%) SaaS
8 121 (2.62%) Microsoft 365
9 107 (2.32%) GitHub
10 104 (2.25%) PaaS
11 98 (2.12%) Dynamics 365
12 91 (1.97%) Azure DevOps
13 79 (1.71%) Snowflake
14 77 (1.67%) IaaS
15 76 (1.65%) AWS Lambda
16 72 (1.56%) Amazon S3
17 64 (1.39%) OpenShift
18 59 (1.28%) Virtual Private Cloud
19 58 (1.26%) Microsoft Purview
20 56 (1.21%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 160 (3.47%) Firewall
2 158 (3.42%) Network Security
3 111 (2.40%) DNS
4 106 (2.30%) WAN
5 97 (2.10%) VPN
6 80 (1.73%) LAN
7 53 (1.15%) SD-WAN
8 39 (0.84%) DHCP
9 38 (0.82%) BGP
10 32 (0.69%) OSPF
11 29 (0.63%) MPLS
11 29 (0.63%) VLAN
12 28 (0.61%) SAN
12 28 (0.61%) TCP/IP
13 27 (0.58%) NAS
13 27 (0.58%) Wireless
14 22 (0.48%) Structured Cabling
15 21 (0.45%) BIG-IP
16 20 (0.43%) VXLAN
17 19 (0.41%) NX-OS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 158 (3.42%) Power BI
2 119 (2.58%) Metadata
3 110 (2.38%) Data Lake
4 100 (2.17%) Data Warehouse
5 64 (1.39%) SQL Server
6 61 (1.32%) NoSQL
7 55 (1.19%) PostgreSQL
8 38 (0.82%) Tableau
9 33 (0.71%) Azure SQL Database
10 30 (0.65%) Big Data
11 26 (0.56%) BigQuery
12 25 (0.54%) Amazon Redshift
12 25 (0.54%) Delta Lake
12 25 (0.54%) Oracle Database
13 20 (0.43%) Electronic Patient Records
13 20 (0.43%) GIS
14 19 (0.41%) Amazon Athena
15 18 (0.39%) Amazon Aurora
15 18 (0.39%) Amazon RDS
16 16 (0.35%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 90 (1.95%) JIRA
2 79 (1.71%) Jenkins
3 51 (1.10%) Git
4 43 (0.93%) GitLab
5 20 (0.43%) ERwin
6 13 (0.28%) SonarQube
7 9 (0.19%) Artifactory
7 9 (0.19%) Bitbucket
8 8 (0.17%) MLflow
9 7 (0.15%) Postman
10 6 (0.13%) REST Assured
11 5 (0.11%) JMeter
11 5 (0.11%) JUnit
11 5 (0.11%) Maven
11 5 (0.11%) PowerDesigner
11 5 (0.11%) Selenium
12 4 (0.087%) Cucumber
12 4 (0.087%) Snyk
12 4 (0.087%) Terragrunt
13 3 (0.065%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 852 (18.45%) Social Skills
2 741 (16.05%) Finance
3 480 (10.40%) Public Sector
4 278 (6.02%) Banking
5 233 (5.05%) Analytical Skills
6 162 (3.51%) Retail
7 139 (3.01%) Documentation Skills
8 97 (2.10%) Influencing Skills
9 84 (1.82%) Legal
9 84 (1.82%) Telecoms
10 82 (1.78%) Manufacturing
11 60 (1.30%) Military
12 58 (1.26%) Law
13 49 (1.06%) Presentation Skills
14 48 (1.04%) Billing
15 45 (0.97%) Marketing
16 44 (0.95%) Financial Institution
17 35 (0.76%) Aerospace
18 34 (0.74%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 34 (0.74%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 222 (4.81%) REST
2 164 (3.55%) Middleware
3 122 (2.64%) SOAP
4 114 (2.47%) .NET
5 87 (1.88%) LDAP
6 85 (1.84%) OpenID
7 78 (1.69%) OAuth
8 65 (1.41%) Kafka
9 64 (1.39%) SAML
10 52 (1.13%) Oracle Fusion
11 47 (1.02%) OAuth2
12 44 (0.95%) React
13 40 (0.87%) SailPoint
14 34 (0.74%) JSON
14 34 (0.74%) RESTful
15 33 (0.71%) AngularJS
16 30 (0.65%) Web Services
17 27 (0.58%) .NET Framework
17 27 (0.58%) Node.js
18 25 (0.54%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 390 (8.45%) Cloud Native
2 131 (2.84%) Data Centre
3 126 (2.73%) Product Ownership
4 121 (2.62%) Onboarding
5 112 (2.43%) Enterprise Software
6 108 (2.34%) Legacy Systems
7 104 (2.25%) Distributed Systems
8 96 (2.08%) Hybrid Cloud
9 91 (1.97%) Management Information System
10 78 (1.69%) Security Posture
11 76 (1.65%) Data Protection Act
12 74 (1.60%) Operational Technology
13 70 (1.52%) CMDB
14 69 (1.49%) Public Cloud
15 56 (1.21%) AI Agents
16 44 (0.95%) Data Structures
17 42 (0.91%) Mainframe
17 42 (0.91%) Private Cloud
18 35 (0.76%) Enterprise Cloud
18 35 (0.76%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 132 (2.86%) Windows
2 84 (1.82%) Linux
3 30 (0.65%) Windows Server
4 27 (0.58%) Android
4 27 (0.58%) Apple iOS
5 21 (0.45%) Unix
6 14 (0.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 11 (0.24%) zOS
8 10 (0.22%) Windows 10
9 8 (0.17%) Windows Server 2016
10 7 (0.15%) Mac OS
11 6 (0.13%) Ubuntu
11 6 (0.13%) Windows 7
12 5 (0.11%) Data ONTAP
12 5 (0.11%) VMS
12 5 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
13 4 (0.087%) Alpine Linux
13 4 (0.087%) Solaris
14 3 (0.065%) AIX
14 3 (0.065%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 651 (14.10%) Migration
2 642 (13.91%) Roadmaps
3 543 (11.76%) DevOps
4 541 (11.72%) Agile
5 518 (11.22%) Stakeholder Management
6 481 (10.42%) CI/CD
7 463 (10.03%) Enterprise Architecture
8 434 (9.40%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 433 (9.38%) AI
10 431 (9.34%) Data Modelling
11 425 (9.21%) Integration Patterns
12 408 (8.84%) Technical Leadership
13 388 (8.40%) Data Architecture
14 374 (8.10%) Architectural Patterns
15 359 (7.78%) Analytics
16 338 (7.32%) TOGAF
17 328 (7.10%) Problem-Solving
18 324 (7.02%) Architectural Design
19 323 (7.00%) Microservices
20 275 (5.96%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 294 (6.37%) Python
2 231 (5.00%) SQL
3 176 (3.81%) Java
4 151 (3.27%) PowerShell
5 89 (1.93%) JavaScript
6 52 (1.13%) C#
7 48 (1.04%) Bicep
8 37 (0.80%) TypeScript
9 34 (0.74%) Bash
10 20 (0.43%) Apex Code
11 16 (0.35%) Ruby
12 15 (0.32%) PL/SQL
12 15 (0.32%) Scala
13 13 (0.28%) Kusto Query Language
14 9 (0.19%) Kotlin
14 9 (0.19%) T-SQL
15 8 (0.17%) VBA
16 7 (0.15%) Shell Script
17 6 (0.13%) Perl
17 6 (0.13%) R
Qualifications
1 1,363 (29.52%) Security Cleared
2 972 (21.05%) SC Cleared
3 283 (6.13%) DV Cleared
4 173 (3.75%) Degree
5 104 (2.25%) Azure Certification
6 99 (2.14%) CISSP
7 86 (1.86%) AWS Certification
8 82 (1.78%) Cisco Certification
9 80 (1.73%) TOGAF Certification
10 75 (1.62%) Computer Science Degree
11 73 (1.58%) BPSS Clearance
12 51 (1.10%) CISM
13 48 (1.04%) CCNP
14 44 (0.95%) Microsoft Certification
15 36 (0.78%) Master's Degree
16 32 (0.69%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 26 (0.56%) (ISC)2 CCSP
18 20 (0.43%) GIAC
19 19 (0.41%) CCIE
20 17 (0.37%) CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 173 (3.75%) NIST
2 149 (3.23%) GDPR
3 128 (2.77%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 124 (2.69%) Data Quality
5 100 (2.17%) NCSC
6 67 (1.45%) QA
7 35 (0.76%) PCI DSS
8 30 (0.65%) GRC
9 26 (0.56%) Accessibility
9 26 (0.56%) Cyber Essentials
10 25 (0.54%) ISO 20022
11 23 (0.50%) NIST 800
12 19 (0.41%) SEPA
13 18 (0.39%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 17 (0.37%) COBIT
14 17 (0.37%) HL7
15 13 (0.28%) FINRA
15 13 (0.28%) IFRS
15 13 (0.28%) MiFID
16 12 (0.26%) PSD2
System Software
1 177 (3.83%) Active Directory
2 95 (2.06%) Docker
3 87 (1.88%) VMware Infrastructure
4 63 (1.36%) VMware NSX
5 27 (0.58%) vSphere
6 22 (0.48%) Virtual Desktop
7 19 (0.41%) Hyper-V
8 12 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
8 12 (0.26%) VMware ESXi
9 10 (0.22%) vCloud
10 9 (0.19%) NFS
10 9 (0.19%) Squid
11 8 (0.17%) Varnish
12 7 (0.15%) Postfix
13 5 (0.11%) RACF
14 4 (0.087%) BitLocker
14 4 (0.087%) Firmware
14 4 (0.087%) Oracle RAC
14 4 (0.087%) Sendmail
15 3 (0.065%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 223 (4.83%) Terraform
2 204 (4.42%) Kubernetes
3 95 (2.06%) Ansible
4 48 (1.04%) Single Sign-On
5 40 (0.87%) Grafana
6 38 (0.82%) Microsoft Intune
7 29 (0.63%) Prometheus
8 28 (0.61%) vCenter Server
9 22 (0.48%) FortiGate
10 17 (0.37%) SCCM
11 16 (0.35%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 15 (0.32%) Argo
13 9 (0.19%) Istio
14 8 (0.17%) Progress Chef
15 7 (0.15%) Consul
15 7 (0.15%) HAProxy
15 7 (0.15%) OPNET
15 7 (0.15%) Puppet
16 6 (0.13%) Jamf Pro
16 6 (0.13%) WMI
Vendors
1 619 (13.41%) Microsoft
2 267 (5.78%) SAP
3 262 (5.67%) ServiceNow
4 206 (4.46%) Oracle
5 193 (4.18%) Databricks
6 170 (3.68%) VMware
7 154 (3.34%) Salesforce
8 117 (2.53%) Cisco
9 100 (2.17%) Google
10 89 (1.93%) CyberArk
11 68 (1.47%) MuleSoft
12 59 (1.28%) Splunk
13 45 (0.97%) Workday
14 44 (0.95%) Sparx
15 42 (0.91%) Palo Alto
16 39 (0.84%) BeyondTrust
17 38 (0.82%) Red Hat
18 36 (0.78%) IBM
19 35 (0.76%) Centrify
19 35 (0.76%) Citrix