Architect Contract Job Trends in England

Architect
UK > England

The median Architect daily rate in England is £622, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 18 May 2026.

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

6 months to
18 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 17 11
Rank change year-on-year +8 -6 +4
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 4,545 2,402 3,806
As % of all contract jobs in England 11.09% 9.82% 10.44%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.01% 10.62% 11.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,074 1,572 2,471
10th Percentile £463 £463 £500
25th Percentile £513 £538 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £622 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -0.48% -3.85% -3.27%
75th Percentile £725 £713 £750
90th Percentile £797 £799 £825
UK median daily rate £620 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -1.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 128 30 89
10th Percentile £49.40 £51.15 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £61.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £71.25 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.77% +1.79% -
75th Percentile £78.75 £79.59 £87.46
90th Percentile £97.50 £85.70 £90.40
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £70.00 £70.00
% change year-on-year -7.14% - -

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 37,836 22,609 33,815
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.34% 92.39% 92.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,491 15,046 22,418
10th Percentile £319 £296 £284
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £523 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.01% -0.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £644
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £510 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -0.49% -2.38% -2.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,612 915 2,440
10th Percentile £15.72 £14.00 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.79 £18.50 £16.30
Median hourly rate £45.59 £30.00 £36.92
Median % change year-on-year +51.95% -18.73% -17.54%
75th Percentile £67.50 £63.75 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £43.00 £28.15 £36.50
% change year-on-year +52.75% -22.88% -18.89%

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 18 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 18 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 18 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 2,165 £625 -3.85% 450
South East +6 707 £625 - 179
North of England +4 648 £600 - 184
Midlands +1 431 £600 - 87
North West +6 364 £610 +3.61% 99
West Midlands 0 311 £620 +3.33% 59
South West +1 282 £675 +12.50% 92
Yorkshire +5 242 £558 -7.00% 52
East of England +23 202 £575 -11.54% 59
East Midlands -2 114 £545 - 28
North East +9 50 £575 -8.00% 35
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 18 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 1,359 (29.90%) Security Cleared
2 1,055 (23.21%) Azure
3 952 (20.95%) SC Cleared
4 877 (19.30%) AWS
5 630 (13.86%) Roadmaps
6 615 (13.53%) Microsoft
7 607 (13.36%) Migration
8 542 (11.93%) Agile
9 516 (11.35%) DevOps
10 478 (10.52%) Stakeholder Management
11 469 (10.32%) CI/CD
12 450 (9.90%) Enterprise Architecture
13 415 (9.13%) AI
14 405 (8.91%) Data Modelling
15 398 (8.76%) Integration Patterns
16 391 (8.60%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 387 (8.51%) Technical Leadership
18 363 (7.99%) Data Architecture
19 357 (7.85%) TOGAF
20 348 (7.66%) Analytics
21 347 (7.63%) Architectural Patterns
21 347 (7.63%) GCP
22 320 (7.04%) Architectural Design
23 318 (7.00%) Problem-Solving
24 310 (6.82%) Microservices
25 302 (6.64%) DV Cleared
26 283 (6.23%) Python
27 275 (6.05%) ServiceNow
28 272 (5.98%) SAP
29 260 (5.72%) Security Architecture

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
1 105 (2.31%) SharePoint
2 89 (1.96%) Confluence
3 51 (1.12%) Microsoft Exchange
4 25 (0.55%) Apache Spark
5 23 (0.51%) Apache
6 16 (0.35%) Anypoint
6 16 (0.35%) Appian
6 16 (0.35%) CMS
6 16 (0.35%) SAS
7 13 (0.29%) Apache Airflow
7 13 (0.29%) nginx
8 11 (0.24%) OpenStack
8 11 (0.24%) Palantir Foundry
8 11 (0.24%) WebLogic
9 9 (0.20%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 9 (0.20%) ArcGIS
9 9 (0.20%) Camunda
10 7 (0.15%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 6 (0.13%) Sitecore CMS
11 6 (0.13%) Tomcat
Applications
1 36 (0.79%) Microsoft Office
2 22 (0.48%) Microsoft Project
3 19 (0.42%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 16 (0.35%) MS Visio
5 14 (0.31%) Microsoft Excel
6 7 (0.15%) Navisworks
6 7 (0.15%) Revit
7 4 (0.088%) Chatbot
8 2 (0.044%) PlantUML
8 2 (0.044%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.044%) Windchill
9 1 (0.022%) ArchiCAD
9 1 (0.022%) AutoCAD
9 1 (0.022%) OrCAD
9 1 (0.022%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 115 (2.53%) SAP S/4HANA
2 40 (0.88%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 19 (0.42%) Payment Gateway
4 16 (0.35%) SAP ERP
4 16 (0.35%) Workday HCM
5 15 (0.33%) Teamcenter
6 14 (0.31%) Dynamics CRM
7 13 (0.29%) Oracle EBS
8 10 (0.22%) Remedy ITSM
9 9 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
10 8 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
10 8 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
11 7 (0.15%) SAP BRIM
11 7 (0.15%) SAP EWM
12 6 (0.13%) NetSuite
12 6 (0.13%) SAP MDG
12 6 (0.13%) SAP PM
13 5 (0.11%) SAP Oil and Gas
13 5 (0.11%) SAP PP
13 5 (0.11%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 1,055 (23.21%) Azure
2 877 (19.30%) AWS
3 347 (7.63%) GCP
4 208 (4.58%) Power Platform
5 175 (3.85%) Entra ID
6 153 (3.37%) SaaS
6 153 (3.37%) Serverless
7 118 (2.60%) Microsoft 365
8 102 (2.24%) GitHub
9 100 (2.20%) PaaS
10 99 (2.18%) Dynamics 365
11 89 (1.96%) Azure DevOps
12 75 (1.65%) IaaS
12 75 (1.65%) Snowflake
13 72 (1.58%) AWS Lambda
14 71 (1.56%) Amazon S3
15 69 (1.52%) OpenShift
16 60 (1.32%) Microsoft Purview
17 55 (1.21%) Azure Data Factory
18 53 (1.17%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 155 (3.41%) Firewall
2 146 (3.21%) Network Security
3 107 (2.35%) DNS
3 107 (2.35%) WAN
4 94 (2.07%) VPN
5 81 (1.78%) LAN
6 51 (1.12%) SD-WAN
7 35 (0.77%) BGP
8 34 (0.75%) DHCP
9 29 (0.64%) OSPF
10 26 (0.57%) TCP/IP
10 26 (0.57%) VLAN
11 25 (0.55%) MPLS
12 24 (0.53%) SAN
13 23 (0.51%) NAS
14 22 (0.48%) Wireless
15 21 (0.46%) Wi-Fi
16 20 (0.44%) BIG-IP
17 18 (0.40%) Structured Cabling
17 18 (0.40%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 154 (3.39%) Power BI
2 109 (2.40%) Metadata
3 101 (2.22%) Data Lake
4 93 (2.05%) Data Warehouse
5 65 (1.43%) SQL Server
6 57 (1.25%) NoSQL
7 50 (1.10%) PostgreSQL
8 39 (0.86%) Tableau
9 37 (0.81%) Azure SQL Database
10 29 (0.64%) Big Data
11 28 (0.62%) Amazon Redshift
11 28 (0.62%) Delta Lake
12 26 (0.57%) BigQuery
13 24 (0.53%) Oracle Database
14 20 (0.44%) Electronic Patient Records
15 19 (0.42%) Amazon Athena
15 19 (0.42%) GIS
16 16 (0.35%) Amazon Aurora
16 16 (0.35%) MongoDB
16 16 (0.35%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 104 (2.29%) JIRA
2 79 (1.74%) Jenkins
3 53 (1.17%) Git
4 46 (1.01%) GitLab
5 20 (0.44%) ERwin
6 15 (0.33%) SonarQube
7 12 (0.26%) Artifactory
8 11 (0.24%) Bitbucket
8 11 (0.24%) MLflow
9 7 (0.15%) Postman
10 6 (0.13%) PowerDesigner
11 5 (0.11%) JUnit
11 5 (0.11%) Maven
11 5 (0.11%) REST Assured
12 4 (0.088%) Cucumber
12 4 (0.088%) MSI
12 4 (0.088%) Selenium
12 4 (0.088%) Snyk
12 4 (0.088%) Sonatype Nexus
12 4 (0.088%) Terragrunt
General
1 827 (18.20%) Social Skills
2 713 (15.69%) Finance
3 461 (10.14%) Public Sector
4 270 (5.94%) Banking
5 232 (5.10%) Analytical Skills
6 148 (3.26%) Retail
7 134 (2.95%) Documentation Skills
8 97 (2.13%) Influencing Skills
9 92 (2.02%) Legal
10 83 (1.83%) Telecoms
11 78 (1.72%) Manufacturing
12 74 (1.63%) Military
13 59 (1.30%) Law
14 56 (1.23%) Presentation Skills
15 51 (1.12%) Billing
15 51 (1.12%) Marketing
16 43 (0.95%) Financial Institution
17 34 (0.75%) Investment Banking
18 33 (0.73%) Aerospace
19 29 (0.64%) Inclusion and Diversity
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 207 (4.55%) REST
2 170 (3.74%) Middleware
3 113 (2.49%) SOAP
4 100 (2.20%) .NET
5 82 (1.80%) LDAP
6 79 (1.74%) OpenID
7 70 (1.54%) OAuth
8 64 (1.41%) Kafka
9 57 (1.25%) SAML
10 45 (0.99%) Oracle Fusion
11 41 (0.90%) OAuth2
11 41 (0.90%) SailPoint
12 38 (0.84%) React
13 32 (0.70%) JSON
13 32 (0.70%) RESTful
14 30 (0.66%) AngularJS
15 29 (0.64%) Web Services
16 26 (0.57%) PySpark
17 23 (0.51%) Node.js
18 21 (0.46%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 370 (8.14%) Cloud Native
2 132 (2.90%) Product Ownership
3 127 (2.79%) Data Centre
4 118 (2.60%) Onboarding
5 104 (2.29%) Enterprise Software
6 102 (2.24%) Legacy Systems
7 92 (2.02%) Distributed Systems
8 91 (2.00%) Hybrid Cloud
9 82 (1.80%) Management Information System
10 73 (1.61%) Security Posture
11 72 (1.58%) Data Protection Act
11 72 (1.58%) Operational Technology
11 72 (1.58%) Public Cloud
12 60 (1.32%) CMDB
13 53 (1.17%) AI Agents
14 42 (0.92%) Data Structures
15 39 (0.86%) PKI
15 39 (0.86%) Private Cloud
16 37 (0.81%) Mainframe
17 31 (0.68%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 136 (2.99%) Windows
2 87 (1.91%) Linux
3 28 (0.62%) Windows Server
4 26 (0.57%) Android
4 26 (0.57%) Apple iOS
5 21 (0.46%) Unix
6 12 (0.26%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 11 (0.24%) zOS
8 10 (0.22%) Windows 10
9 9 (0.20%) VMS
10 8 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
11 7 (0.15%) Mac OS
11 7 (0.15%) Windows 7
12 5 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
13 3 (0.066%) CentOS
13 3 (0.066%) Data ONTAP
13 3 (0.066%) Solaris
13 3 (0.066%) Windows Server 2012
14 2 (0.044%) AIX
14 2 (0.044%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 630 (13.86%) Roadmaps
2 607 (13.36%) Migration
3 542 (11.93%) Agile
4 516 (11.35%) DevOps
5 478 (10.52%) Stakeholder Management
6 469 (10.32%) CI/CD
7 450 (9.90%) Enterprise Architecture
8 415 (9.13%) AI
9 405 (8.91%) Data Modelling
10 398 (8.76%) Integration Patterns
11 391 (8.60%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 387 (8.51%) Technical Leadership
13 363 (7.99%) Data Architecture
14 357 (7.85%) TOGAF
15 348 (7.66%) Analytics
16 347 (7.63%) Architectural Patterns
17 320 (7.04%) Architectural Design
18 318 (7.00%) Problem-Solving
19 310 (6.82%) Microservices
20 260 (5.72%) Security Architecture
Programming Languages
1 283 (6.23%) Python
2 223 (4.91%) SQL
3 163 (3.59%) Java
4 147 (3.23%) PowerShell
5 78 (1.72%) JavaScript
6 50 (1.10%) C#
7 42 (0.92%) Bicep
8 31 (0.68%) TypeScript
9 30 (0.66%) Bash
10 17 (0.37%) PL/SQL
10 17 (0.37%) Ruby
11 16 (0.35%) Apex Code
11 16 (0.35%) Scala
12 13 (0.29%) Kusto Query Language
13 10 (0.22%) Shell Script
14 9 (0.20%) Kotlin
14 9 (0.20%) T-SQL
15 7 (0.15%) VBA
16 6 (0.13%) ABAP
16 6 (0.13%) R
Qualifications
1 1,359 (29.90%) Security Cleared
2 952 (20.95%) SC Cleared
3 302 (6.64%) DV Cleared
4 172 (3.78%) Degree
5 106 (2.33%) Azure Certification
5 106 (2.33%) TOGAF Certification
6 93 (2.05%) CISSP
7 92 (2.02%) AWS Certification
8 75 (1.65%) Cisco Certification
9 72 (1.58%) Computer Science Degree
10 70 (1.54%) BPSS Clearance
11 45 (0.99%) CISM
12 44 (0.97%) CCNP
13 43 (0.95%) Microsoft Certification
14 37 (0.81%) Master's Degree
15 36 (0.79%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 24 (0.53%) (ISC)2 CCSP
17 21 (0.46%) ITIL Certification
18 19 (0.42%) CCIE
18 19 (0.42%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 166 (3.65%) NIST
2 143 (3.15%) GDPR
3 123 (2.71%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 119 (2.62%) Data Quality
5 92 (2.02%) NCSC
6 61 (1.34%) QA
7 37 (0.81%) PCI DSS
8 28 (0.62%) GRC
9 27 (0.59%) COBIT
10 25 (0.55%) ISO 20022
11 24 (0.53%) Accessibility
11 24 (0.53%) Cyber Essentials
12 20 (0.44%) NIST 800
13 19 (0.42%) SEPA
14 18 (0.40%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 16 (0.35%) HL7
16 13 (0.29%) FINRA
16 13 (0.29%) MiFID
17 12 (0.26%) PSD2
18 9 (0.20%) IFRS
System Software
1 179 (3.94%) Active Directory
2 94 (2.07%) Docker
3 83 (1.83%) VMware Infrastructure
4 65 (1.43%) VMware NSX
5 25 (0.55%) Virtual Desktop
5 25 (0.55%) vSphere
6 20 (0.44%) Virtual Machines
7 17 (0.37%) Hyper-V
8 12 (0.26%) VMware ESXi
9 10 (0.22%) vCloud
10 9 (0.20%) NFS
10 9 (0.20%) Squid
11 7 (0.15%) Varnish
12 6 (0.13%) Postfix
13 5 (0.11%) RACF
14 4 (0.088%) BitLocker
14 4 (0.088%) Firmware
14 4 (0.088%) Oracle RAC
14 4 (0.088%) Sendmail
15 3 (0.066%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 217 (4.77%) Terraform
2 198 (4.36%) Kubernetes
3 93 (2.05%) Ansible
4 47 (1.03%) Single Sign-On
5 37 (0.81%) Microsoft Intune
6 34 (0.75%) Grafana
7 27 (0.59%) vCenter Server
8 23 (0.51%) Prometheus
9 22 (0.48%) FortiGate
10 21 (0.46%) OPNET
11 17 (0.37%) SCCM
12 13 (0.29%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 13 (0.29%) Argo
13 10 (0.22%) Istio
14 8 (0.18%) Puppet
14 8 (0.18%) WMI
15 7 (0.15%) Consul
16 6 (0.13%) HAProxy
16 6 (0.13%) Progress Chef
17 5 (0.11%) Kibana
Vendors
1 615 (13.53%) Microsoft
2 275 (6.05%) ServiceNow
3 272 (5.98%) SAP
4 188 (4.14%) Oracle
5 179 (3.94%) Databricks
6 174 (3.83%) VMware
7 157 (3.45%) Salesforce
8 110 (2.42%) Cisco
9 91 (2.00%) Google
10 86 (1.89%) CyberArk
11 68 (1.50%) MuleSoft
12 54 (1.19%) Splunk
13 46 (1.01%) Workday
14 41 (0.90%) Red Hat
14 41 (0.90%) Sparx
15 40 (0.88%) Palo Alto
16 39 (0.86%) BeyondTrust
17 38 (0.84%) Remedy
18 37 (0.81%) Citrix
19 36 (0.79%) OpenAI