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 February 2026.

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

6 months to
2 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 15 13
Rank change year-on-year -3 -2 +8
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 3,249 2,638 3,697
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.90% 10.05% 9.66%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.81% 10.80% 10.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,232 1,573 2,476
10th Percentile £458 £475 £500
25th Percentile £513 £550 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -1.52%
75th Percentile £725 £725 £738
90th Percentile £792 £799 £798
UK median daily rate £625 £625 £650
% change year-on-year - -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 53 29 47
10th Percentile £49.40 £59.65 £58.90
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £61.25
Median hourly rate £72.50 £70.00 £78.74
Median % change year-on-year +3.57% -11.10% +12.49%
75th Percentile £90.09 £78.36 £87.27
90th Percentile £95.00 £86.12 £95.00
UK median hourly rate £72.50 £70.00 £78.00
% change year-on-year +3.57% -10.26% +11.43%

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 30,066 24,417 35,598
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.62% 93.06% 93.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 19,145 15,033 24,004
10th Percentile £300 £300 £270
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £644
90th Percentile £725 £750 £745
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,886 731 2,091
10th Percentile £14.96 £15.92 £13.25
25th Percentile £18.60 £21.25 £17.00
Median hourly rate £30.00 £35.00 £35.95
Median % change year-on-year -14.29% -2.64% +2.71%
75th Percentile £63.75 £64.50 £61.69
90th Percentile £71.00 £75.00 £72.75
UK median hourly rate £29.61 £33.00 £35.95
% change year-on-year -10.27% -8.21% +2.71%

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 February 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 February 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 February 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 1,439 £630 -3.08% 439
South East +10 565 £614 -1.76% 265
North of England -3 455 £575 -4.17% 170
Midlands -3 319 £573 -4.50% 97
North West -5 272 £575 -4.17% 100
South West -1 247 £708 +13.20% 74
West Midlands -4 232 £600 -1.15% 72
Yorkshire -7 169 £554 -5.70% 47
East of England +11 134 £550 -12.00% 49
East Midlands -5 85 £468 -18.70% 25
North East -20 14 £575 -11.54% 23
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 2 February 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 1,013 (31.18%) Security Cleared
2 844 (25.98%) Azure
3 708 (21.79%) SC Cleared
4 644 (19.82%) AWS
5 477 (14.68%) Microsoft
6 474 (14.59%) Roadmaps
7 451 (13.88%) Agile
8 425 (13.08%) Stakeholder Management
9 392 (12.07%) Migration
10 366 (11.27%) DevOps
11 363 (11.17%) Enterprise Architecture
12 325 (10.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 324 (9.97%) Data Modelling
14 320 (9.85%) TOGAF
15 314 (9.66%) Technical Leadership
16 303 (9.33%) CI/CD
17 294 (9.05%) Problem-Solving
18 277 (8.53%) GCP
19 264 (8.13%) AI
20 258 (7.94%) Analytics
21 255 (7.85%) Python
22 253 (7.79%) Data Architecture
23 236 (7.26%) Integration Patterns
24 231 (7.11%) DV Cleared
25 230 (7.08%) Microservices
26 219 (6.74%) Architectural Design
27 196 (6.03%) Terraform
28 190 (5.85%) ServiceNow
29 189 (5.82%) Cybersecurity
30 185 (5.69%) 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
1 102 (3.14%) Confluence
2 79 (2.43%) SharePoint
3 57 (1.75%) Microsoft Exchange
4 24 (0.74%) SAS
5 21 (0.65%) CMS
6 16 (0.49%) OpenStack
7 15 (0.46%) Anypoint
8 14 (0.43%) Apache Spark
9 13 (0.40%) Apache Airflow
10 11 (0.34%) Apache
10 11 (0.34%) WebLogic
11 10 (0.31%) Appian
11 10 (0.31%) ArcGIS
12 9 (0.28%) Smallworld
13 7 (0.22%) nginx
13 7 (0.22%) Skype for Business
14 6 (0.18%) Ethereum
14 6 (0.18%) GeoServer
14 6 (0.18%) Hyperledger
15 5 (0.15%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 49 (1.51%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (0.98%) Microsoft Project
3 29 (0.89%) Microsoft Excel
4 28 (0.86%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 14 (0.43%) MS Visio
6 6 (0.18%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.062%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.031%) ArchiCAD
8 1 (0.031%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.031%) FrameMaker
8 1 (0.031%) OrCAD
8 1 (0.031%) Revit
8 1 (0.031%) Siemens NX
8 1 (0.031%) Trello
Business Applications
1 84 (2.59%) SAP S/4HANA
2 38 (1.17%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 25 (0.77%) Dynamics CRM
4 22 (0.68%) Workday HCM
5 16 (0.49%) Salesforce CRM
6 15 (0.46%) Payment Gateway
7 13 (0.40%) NetSuite
8 9 (0.28%) Oracle Receivables
8 9 (0.28%) SAP PM
9 8 (0.25%) SAP CO
9 8 (0.25%) SAP EWM
9 8 (0.25%) SAP PP
10 7 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
11 6 (0.18%) Maximo
11 6 (0.18%) Oracle SCM
11 6 (0.18%) R3 Corda
11 6 (0.18%) SAP ERP
11 6 (0.18%) SAP FI
11 6 (0.18%) SAP FI/CO
11 6 (0.18%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 844 (25.98%) Azure
2 644 (19.82%) AWS
3 277 (8.53%) GCP
4 130 (4.00%) Power Platform
5 117 (3.60%) SaaS
6 113 (3.48%) Microsoft 365
6 113 (3.48%) Serverless
7 110 (3.39%) Entra ID
8 76 (2.34%) Azure DevOps
9 70 (2.15%) GitHub
10 69 (2.12%) IaaS
11 67 (2.06%) AWS Lambda
12 62 (1.91%) Microsoft Purview
13 59 (1.82%) Dynamics 365
14 58 (1.79%) PaaS
15 57 (1.75%) OpenShift
16 56 (1.72%) Amazon S3
17 50 (1.54%) Azure Data Factory
18 49 (1.51%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 48 (1.48%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 161 (4.96%) Firewall
2 109 (3.35%) WAN
3 99 (3.05%) Network Security
4 91 (2.80%) VPN
5 90 (2.77%) DNS
6 72 (2.22%) LAN
7 56 (1.72%) SD-WAN
8 33 (1.02%) BGP
9 30 (0.92%) Wi-Fi
10 28 (0.86%) MPLS
11 25 (0.77%) DHCP
12 21 (0.65%) OSPF
12 21 (0.65%) VSAN
13 20 (0.62%) SAN
14 19 (0.58%) TCP/IP
15 18 (0.55%) Internet
16 17 (0.52%) IPsec
17 16 (0.49%) VLAN
18 15 (0.46%) SSL
19 12 (0.37%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 104 (3.20%) Data Warehouse
2 88 (2.71%) Metadata
3 87 (2.68%) Power BI
4 65 (2.00%) Data Lake
5 52 (1.60%) SQL Server
6 49 (1.51%) PostgreSQL
7 45 (1.39%) Tableau
8 40 (1.23%) NoSQL
9 27 (0.83%) Amazon Redshift
9 27 (0.83%) DynamoDB
10 26 (0.80%) Azure SQL Database
11 23 (0.71%) Oracle Database
12 22 (0.68%) Amazon Aurora
13 21 (0.65%) Relational Database
14 20 (0.62%) GIS
14 20 (0.62%) Redis
15 19 (0.58%) BigQuery
16 17 (0.52%) Amazon RDS
16 17 (0.52%) Metadata Repository
17 15 (0.46%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 118 (3.63%) JIRA
2 83 (2.55%) Jenkins
3 35 (1.08%) Git
4 34 (1.05%) GitLab
5 15 (0.46%) ERwin
6 14 (0.43%) SonarQube
7 9 (0.28%) Artifactory
7 9 (0.28%) Bitbucket
8 6 (0.18%) Postman
9 5 (0.15%) Gradle
9 5 (0.15%) Maven
9 5 (0.15%) Oracle Forms
9 5 (0.15%) SonarLint
10 4 (0.12%) MLflow
10 4 (0.12%) MSI
10 4 (0.12%) Rational DOORS
10 4 (0.12%) Terragrunt
11 3 (0.092%) Selenium
11 3 (0.092%) Visual Studio Code
12 2 (0.062%) Cucumber
General
1 781 (24.04%) Social Skills
2 525 (16.16%) Finance
3 373 (11.48%) Public Sector
4 238 (7.33%) Analytical Skills
5 199 (6.12%) Banking
6 100 (3.08%) Documentation Skills
7 79 (2.43%) Legal
8 78 (2.40%) Influencing Skills
9 72 (2.22%) Military
9 72 (2.22%) Telecoms
10 69 (2.12%) Retail
11 67 (2.06%) Marketing
11 67 (2.06%) Presentation Skills
12 45 (1.39%) Manufacturing
13 36 (1.11%) Billing
13 36 (1.11%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 26 (0.80%) Financial Institution
15 24 (0.74%) Law
16 21 (0.65%) Back Office
17 15 (0.46%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 185 (5.69%) REST
2 103 (3.17%) SOAP
3 102 (3.14%) Middleware
4 73 (2.25%) .NET
5 71 (2.19%) LDAP
6 64 (1.97%) OpenID
7 59 (1.82%) OAuth
8 58 (1.79%) SAML
9 49 (1.51%) Kafka
10 48 (1.48%) JSON
11 38 (1.17%) RESTful
12 33 (1.02%) OAuth2
13 27 (0.83%) AngularJS
14 26 (0.80%) Spring Boot
15 23 (0.71%) PySpark
15 23 (0.71%) SailPoint
16 20 (0.62%) Microsoft Graph
16 20 (0.62%) React
16 20 (0.62%) Spring
17 19 (0.58%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 238 (7.33%) Cloud Native
2 131 (4.03%) Product Ownership
3 101 (3.11%) Onboarding
4 98 (3.02%) Legacy Systems
5 94 (2.89%) Data Centre
6 86 (2.65%) PKI
7 84 (2.59%) Enterprise Software
8 64 (1.97%) Hybrid Cloud
9 55 (1.69%) Security Posture
10 50 (1.54%) Public Cloud
11 49 (1.51%) Operational Technology
12 45 (1.39%) Distributed Systems
12 45 (1.39%) Management Information System
13 43 (1.32%) Self-Motivation
14 42 (1.29%) CMDB
15 39 (1.20%) Data Protection Act
16 31 (0.95%) Data Structures
17 27 (0.83%) Private Cloud
18 26 (0.80%) SCADA
19 25 (0.77%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 143 (4.40%) Windows
2 83 (2.55%) Linux
3 40 (1.23%) Windows Server
4 18 (0.55%) Windows 7
5 17 (0.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 17 (0.52%) Windows 10
6 12 (0.37%) Unix
6 12 (0.37%) Windows Server 2019
7 10 (0.31%) Android
7 10 (0.31%) Apple iOS
7 10 (0.31%) Windows Server 2016
8 9 (0.28%) Mac OS
9 7 (0.22%) VMS
10 6 (0.18%) Ubuntu
11 4 (0.12%) CentOS
11 4 (0.12%) zOS
12 3 (0.092%) Windows Server 2008
13 2 (0.062%) Windows Server 2012
14 1 (0.031%) Kali Linux
14 1 (0.031%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 474 (14.59%) Roadmaps
2 451 (13.88%) Agile
3 425 (13.08%) Stakeholder Management
4 392 (12.07%) Migration
5 366 (11.27%) DevOps
6 363 (11.17%) Enterprise Architecture
7 325 (10.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 324 (9.97%) Data Modelling
9 320 (9.85%) TOGAF
10 314 (9.66%) Technical Leadership
11 303 (9.33%) CI/CD
12 294 (9.05%) Problem-Solving
13 264 (8.13%) AI
14 258 (7.94%) Analytics
15 253 (7.79%) Data Architecture
16 236 (7.26%) Integration Patterns
17 230 (7.08%) Microservices
18 219 (6.74%) Architectural Design
19 189 (5.82%) Cybersecurity
20 185 (5.69%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 255 (7.85%) Python
2 165 (5.08%) SQL
3 164 (5.05%) PowerShell
4 121 (3.72%) Java
5 51 (1.57%) JavaScript
6 38 (1.17%) C#
7 29 (0.89%) Bash
7 29 (0.89%) TypeScript
8 27 (0.83%) Bicep
9 16 (0.49%) Apex Code
9 16 (0.49%) PL/SQL
10 13 (0.40%) R
11 12 (0.37%) Kusto Query Language
12 9 (0.28%) T-SQL
13 8 (0.25%) Ruby
13 8 (0.25%) Scala
13 8 (0.25%) VB
14 7 (0.22%) Korn
14 7 (0.22%) VBScript
15 6 (0.18%) C
Qualifications
1 1,013 (31.18%) Security Cleared
2 708 (21.79%) SC Cleared
3 231 (7.11%) DV Cleared
4 160 (4.92%) Degree
5 96 (2.95%) TOGAF Certification
6 90 (2.77%) AWS Certification
7 88 (2.71%) Azure Certification
8 78 (2.40%) CISSP
9 63 (1.94%) Computer Science Degree
10 56 (1.72%) Microsoft Certification
11 52 (1.60%) Cisco Certification
12 50 (1.54%) BPSS Clearance
13 41 (1.26%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 40 (1.23%) Master's Degree
15 39 (1.20%) CISM
16 32 (0.98%) CCNP
17 29 (0.89%) CCIE
17 29 (0.89%) ITIL Certification
18 28 (0.86%) ISEB
19 15 (0.46%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 148 (4.56%) GDPR
2 123 (3.79%) NIST
3 109 (3.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 99 (3.05%) Data Quality
5 78 (2.40%) NCSC
6 54 (1.66%) QA
7 43 (1.32%) PCI DSS
8 31 (0.95%) COBIT
9 29 (0.89%) GRC
10 19 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
10 19 (0.58%) ISO 20022
11 18 (0.55%) JSP 440
12 17 (0.52%) Accessibility
13 16 (0.49%) HIPAA
14 15 (0.46%) California Consumer Privacy Act
15 14 (0.43%) MiFID
16 11 (0.34%) FINRA
16 11 (0.34%) HMG Security Policy Framework
17 10 (0.31%) Sarbanes-Oxley
18 9 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 149 (4.59%) Active Directory
2 114 (3.51%) Docker
3 75 (2.31%) VMware Infrastructure
4 46 (1.42%) VMware NSX
5 29 (0.89%) vSphere
6 21 (0.65%) Virtual Desktop
7 17 (0.52%) VMware ESXi
8 14 (0.43%) Virtual Machines
9 12 (0.37%) Hyper-V
10 7 (0.22%) BitLocker
11 5 (0.15%) Oracle RAC
11 5 (0.15%) Squid
12 4 (0.12%) NFS
12 4 (0.12%) vCloud
13 3 (0.092%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
13 3 (0.092%) Firmware
13 3 (0.092%) Lustre
14 2 (0.062%) Ceph
14 2 (0.062%) RACF
14 2 (0.062%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 196 (6.03%) Terraform
2 166 (5.11%) Kubernetes
3 83 (2.55%) Ansible
4 52 (1.60%) Single Sign-On
5 33 (1.02%) OPNET
6 25 (0.77%) vCenter Server
7 23 (0.71%) Microsoft Intune
7 23 (0.71%) SCCM
8 18 (0.55%) FortiGate
9 17 (0.52%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 17 (0.52%) WMI
10 16 (0.49%) Prometheus
11 14 (0.43%) Grafana
12 10 (0.31%) Argo
13 7 (0.22%) Istio
14 5 (0.15%) Consul
14 5 (0.15%) Kibana
14 5 (0.15%) Puppet
15 4 (0.12%) Progress Chef
16 3 (0.092%) Endace
Vendors
1 477 (14.68%) Microsoft
2 190 (5.85%) ServiceNow
3 180 (5.54%) SAP
4 160 (4.92%) Salesforce
5 141 (4.34%) Oracle
6 133 (4.09%) VMware
7 101 (3.11%) Databricks
8 91 (2.80%) CyberArk
9 88 (2.71%) Cisco
10 85 (2.62%) Google
11 56 (1.72%) Splunk
12 50 (1.54%) MuleSoft
12 50 (1.54%) Palo Alto
13 49 (1.51%) Centrify
14 45 (1.39%) Remedy
15 44 (1.35%) Atlassian
16 37 (1.14%) Red Hat
16 37 (1.14%) Sparx
16 37 (1.14%) Workday
17 35 (1.08%) BeyondTrust