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 8 January 2026.

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

6 months to
8 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 19 17 15
Rank change year-on-year -2 -2 +6
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 3,006 2,654 3,421
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.53% 9.70% 9.54%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.41% 10.45% 10.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,077 1,588 2,319
10th Percentile £460 £475 £500
25th Percentile £519 £548 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -
75th Percentile £725 £725 £731
90th Percentile £800 £799 £775
UK median daily rate £625 £625 £650
% change year-on-year - -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 40 28 33
10th Percentile £64.60 £59.48 £58.05
25th Percentile £65.75 £64.13 £70.00
Median hourly rate £83.82 £71.25 £76.53
Median % change year-on-year +17.64% -6.90% +9.33%
75th Percentile £94.83 £81.00 £83.11
90th Percentile £95.00 £87.50 £95.00
UK median hourly rate £83.41 £72.50 £76.53
% change year-on-year +15.05% -5.27% +9.33%

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 28,868 25,405 33,449
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.50% 92.84% 93.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,444 15,743 22,770
10th Percentile £300 £300 £280
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £501 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.67% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,758 792 1,481
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.92 £14.25
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.24 £19.25
Median hourly rate £27.50 £35.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -21.43% -22.22% +28.57%
75th Percentile £62.25 £64.73 £65.00
90th Percentile £72.50 £74.99 £76.53
UK median hourly rate £26.54 £32.50 £44.50
% change year-on-year -18.35% -26.97% +34.85%

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 8 January 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 8 January 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 8 January 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 1,371 £650 - 310
South East +8 538 £600 -4.00% 244
North of England -9 385 £575 -4.17% 177
Midlands -5 276 £575 -4.17% 96
South West -1 245 £710 +13.60% 72
North West -6 232 £575 -4.17% 87
West Midlands -5 206 £585 -3.69% 63
Yorkshire -15 144 £575 -5.35% 63
East of England +3 102 £550 -12.00% 108
East Midlands -4 70 £492 -14.43% 33
North East -21 9 £625 +4.23% 28
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 8 January 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.

1 979 (32.57%) Security Cleared
2 809 (26.91%) Azure
3 691 (22.99%) SC Cleared
4 605 (20.13%) AWS
5 439 (14.60%) Microsoft
6 435 (14.47%) Roadmaps
7 425 (14.14%) Agile
8 377 (12.54%) Stakeholder Management
9 341 (11.34%) Migration
10 325 (10.81%) Enterprise Architecture
11 321 (10.68%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 320 (10.65%) Data Modelling
13 311 (10.35%) DevOps
14 309 (10.28%) TOGAF
15 299 (9.95%) Technical Leadership
16 290 (9.65%) Problem-Solving
17 264 (8.78%) CI/CD
18 250 (8.32%) GCP
19 233 (7.75%) AI
19 233 (7.75%) Python
20 232 (7.72%) Analytics
20 232 (7.72%) Data Architecture
21 225 (7.49%) Integration Patterns
22 221 (7.35%) DV Cleared
23 214 (7.12%) Microservices
24 197 (6.55%) Architectural Design
25 194 (6.45%) Mentoring
26 188 (6.25%) ITIL
27 187 (6.22%) Terraform
28 184 (6.12%) 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 97 (3.23%) Confluence
2 63 (2.10%) SharePoint
3 38 (1.26%) Microsoft Exchange
4 18 (0.60%) SAS
5 17 (0.57%) OpenStack
6 16 (0.53%) CMS
7 13 (0.43%) Apache Airflow
8 12 (0.40%) Apache Spark
8 12 (0.40%) ArcGIS
9 9 (0.30%) Anypoint
9 9 (0.30%) Smallworld
10 7 (0.23%) Apache
11 6 (0.20%) GeoServer
12 5 (0.17%) Oracle Workflow
13 4 (0.13%) Documentum
13 4 (0.13%) Ethereum
13 4 (0.13%) Hyperledger
13 4 (0.13%) Tomcat
13 4 (0.13%) WebLogic
14 3 (0.100%) Jupyter
Applications
1 45 (1.50%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (1.06%) Microsoft Project
3 28 (0.93%) Microsoft Excel
4 24 (0.80%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 18 (0.60%) MS Visio
6 11 (0.37%) Siemens NX
7 3 (0.100%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.100%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.033%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.033%) FrameMaker
8 1 (0.033%) OrCAD
8 1 (0.033%) Revit
8 1 (0.033%) Trello
Business Applications
1 81 (2.69%) SAP S/4HANA
2 36 (1.20%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 28 (0.93%) Dynamics CRM
4 21 (0.70%) Workday HCM
5 16 (0.53%) Salesforce CRM
6 13 (0.43%) SAP CO
6 13 (0.43%) SAP PM
6 13 (0.43%) Teamcenter
7 12 (0.40%) NetSuite
8 11 (0.37%) Maximo
8 11 (0.37%) SAP FI
8 11 (0.37%) SAP FI/CO
9 10 (0.33%) Payment Gateway
10 9 (0.30%) Remedy ITSM
11 8 (0.27%) SAP EWM
11 8 (0.27%) SAP PP
12 7 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
12 7 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
13 6 (0.20%) Oracle SCM
13 6 (0.20%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 809 (26.91%) Azure
2 605 (20.13%) AWS
3 250 (8.32%) GCP
4 128 (4.26%) Power Platform
5 111 (3.69%) SaaS
6 99 (3.29%) Microsoft 365
7 98 (3.26%) Entra ID
8 97 (3.23%) Serverless
9 73 (2.43%) GitHub
10 67 (2.23%) Dynamics 365
11 64 (2.13%) IaaS
12 63 (2.10%) AWS Lambda
13 62 (2.06%) Azure DevOps
14 57 (1.90%) Microsoft Purview
15 50 (1.66%) Amazon S3
16 48 (1.60%) PaaS
17 46 (1.53%) Azure Data Factory
17 46 (1.53%) OpenShift
18 45 (1.50%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 40 (1.33%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 159 (5.29%) Firewall
2 112 (3.73%) WAN
3 83 (2.76%) Network Security
4 82 (2.73%) VPN
5 81 (2.69%) LAN
6 70 (2.33%) DNS
7 59 (1.96%) SD-WAN
8 32 (1.06%) Wi-Fi
9 31 (1.03%) BGP
10 26 (0.86%) MPLS
11 22 (0.73%) VSAN
12 21 (0.70%) DHCP
12 21 (0.70%) Internet
12 21 (0.70%) SAN
13 19 (0.63%) SSL
14 18 (0.60%) OSPF
15 13 (0.43%) IPsec
15 13 (0.43%) TCP/IP
15 13 (0.43%) VLAN
16 11 (0.37%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 93 (3.09%) Data Warehouse
2 88 (2.93%) Power BI
3 73 (2.43%) Metadata
4 67 (2.23%) Data Lake
5 50 (1.66%) PostgreSQL
6 48 (1.60%) SQL Server
7 39 (1.30%) Tableau
8 34 (1.13%) NoSQL
9 27 (0.90%) Amazon Redshift
10 24 (0.80%) DynamoDB
11 23 (0.77%) Azure SQL Database
12 22 (0.73%) Relational Database
13 21 (0.70%) GIS
14 19 (0.63%) Data Vault
14 19 (0.63%) Redis
15 18 (0.60%) Amazon Aurora
16 17 (0.57%) Amazon RDS
17 16 (0.53%) BigQuery
17 16 (0.53%) Delta Lake
17 16 (0.53%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 111 (3.69%) JIRA
2 66 (2.20%) Jenkins
3 37 (1.23%) Git
4 30 (1.00%) GitLab
5 14 (0.47%) ERwin
6 9 (0.30%) Artifactory
6 9 (0.30%) SonarQube
7 7 (0.23%) Oracle Forms
8 6 (0.20%) Bitbucket
9 5 (0.17%) Gradle
9 5 (0.17%) Maven
9 5 (0.17%) MLflow
9 5 (0.17%) SonarLint
9 5 (0.17%) Sonatype Nexus
10 4 (0.13%) MSI
10 4 (0.13%) Rational DOORS
10 4 (0.13%) Terragrunt
11 3 (0.100%) Postman
11 3 (0.100%) Visual Studio Code
12 2 (0.067%) Chocolatey
General
1 772 (25.68%) Social Skills
2 484 (16.10%) Finance
3 371 (12.34%) Public Sector
4 235 (7.82%) Analytical Skills
5 177 (5.89%) Banking
6 84 (2.79%) Telecoms
7 74 (2.46%) Legal
8 72 (2.40%) Military
9 70 (2.33%) Marketing
10 68 (2.26%) Documentation Skills
11 67 (2.23%) Retail
12 62 (2.06%) Presentation Skills
13 58 (1.93%) Manufacturing
14 56 (1.86%) Influencing Skills
15 42 (1.40%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 32 (1.06%) Financial Institution
17 27 (0.90%) Billing
18 23 (0.77%) Back Office
19 20 (0.67%) Aerospace
20 19 (0.63%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 166 (5.52%) REST
2 101 (3.36%) SOAP
3 98 (3.26%) Middleware
4 62 (2.06%) .NET
5 55 (1.83%) JSON
6 51 (1.70%) LDAP
7 49 (1.63%) OAuth
8 46 (1.53%) Kafka
9 41 (1.36%) SAML
10 37 (1.23%) RESTful
11 30 (1.00%) OpenID
12 29 (0.96%) Lightning Web Components
13 27 (0.90%) Spring Boot
14 26 (0.86%) AngularJS
14 26 (0.86%) OAuth2
15 25 (0.83%) PySpark
16 24 (0.80%) Web Services
17 22 (0.73%) Spring
18 21 (0.70%) React
19 20 (0.67%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 212 (7.05%) Cloud Native
2 126 (4.19%) Product Ownership
3 101 (3.36%) Data Centre
4 97 (3.23%) Legacy Systems
5 81 (2.69%) PKI
6 78 (2.59%) Onboarding
7 76 (2.53%) Enterprise Software
8 68 (2.26%) Hybrid Cloud
9 60 (2.00%) Security Posture
10 50 (1.66%) Operational Technology
11 42 (1.40%) Management Information System
12 41 (1.36%) Self-Motivation
13 40 (1.33%) Distributed Systems
14 39 (1.30%) Public Cloud
15 36 (1.20%) Data Protection Act
16 32 (1.06%) CMDB
16 32 (1.06%) Data Structures
17 29 (0.96%) SCADA
18 26 (0.86%) Private Cloud
18 26 (0.86%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 130 (4.32%) Windows
2 81 (2.69%) Linux
3 39 (1.30%) Windows Server
4 20 (0.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 15 (0.50%) Windows Server 2019
6 13 (0.43%) Windows 10
6 13 (0.43%) Windows 7
7 8 (0.27%) VMS
7 8 (0.27%) Windows Server 2016
8 7 (0.23%) Android
8 7 (0.23%) Apple iOS
8 7 (0.23%) Unix
9 6 (0.20%) Mac OS
9 6 (0.20%) Ubuntu
10 3 (0.100%) CentOS
10 3 (0.100%) Solaris
10 3 (0.100%) Windows Server 2008
10 3 (0.100%) zOS
11 1 (0.033%) MVS
11 1 (0.033%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 435 (14.47%) Roadmaps
2 425 (14.14%) Agile
3 377 (12.54%) Stakeholder Management
4 341 (11.34%) Migration
5 325 (10.81%) Enterprise Architecture
6 321 (10.68%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 320 (10.65%) Data Modelling
8 311 (10.35%) DevOps
9 309 (10.28%) TOGAF
10 299 (9.95%) Technical Leadership
11 290 (9.65%) Problem-Solving
12 264 (8.78%) CI/CD
13 233 (7.75%) AI
14 232 (7.72%) Analytics
14 232 (7.72%) Data Architecture
15 225 (7.49%) Integration Patterns
16 214 (7.12%) Microservices
17 197 (6.55%) Architectural Design
18 194 (6.45%) Mentoring
19 188 (6.25%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 233 (7.75%) Python
2 145 (4.82%) PowerShell
3 143 (4.76%) SQL
4 116 (3.86%) Java
5 57 (1.90%) JavaScript
6 33 (1.10%) C#
6 33 (1.10%) TypeScript
7 28 (0.93%) Bash
8 26 (0.86%) Apex Code
9 22 (0.73%) Bicep
10 14 (0.47%) PL/SQL
11 11 (0.37%) R
12 8 (0.27%) Kusto Query Language
12 8 (0.27%) T-SQL
13 7 (0.23%) Korn
13 7 (0.23%) Ruby
14 6 (0.20%) ABAP
14 6 (0.20%) C
15 5 (0.17%) C++
16 4 (0.13%) PHP
Qualifications
1 979 (32.57%) Security Cleared
2 691 (22.99%) SC Cleared
3 221 (7.35%) DV Cleared
4 156 (5.19%) Degree
5 95 (3.16%) TOGAF Certification
6 89 (2.96%) AWS Certification
7 87 (2.89%) Azure Certification
8 82 (2.73%) CISSP
9 60 (2.00%) Computer Science Degree
10 58 (1.93%) Cisco Certification
11 53 (1.76%) Microsoft Certification
12 38 (1.26%) Master's Degree
13 37 (1.23%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 37 (1.23%) CISM
14 35 (1.16%) BPSS Clearance
14 35 (1.16%) CCNP
15 29 (0.96%) CCIE
16 24 (0.80%) ITIL Certification
17 23 (0.77%) ISEB
18 18 (0.60%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 139 (4.62%) GDPR
2 108 (3.59%) NIST
3 100 (3.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 96 (3.19%) Data Quality
5 60 (2.00%) NCSC
6 54 (1.80%) QA
7 42 (1.40%) PCI DSS
8 29 (0.96%) ISO/IEC 20000
9 26 (0.86%) COBIT
10 23 (0.77%) Cyber Essentials
11 20 (0.67%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 20 (0.67%) GRC
12 18 (0.60%) JSP 440
13 16 (0.53%) Accessibility
14 14 (0.47%) HIPAA
15 13 (0.43%) ISO 20022
16 11 (0.37%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
16 11 (0.37%) PSD2
16 11 (0.37%) Sarbanes-Oxley
17 10 (0.33%) MiFID
System Software
1 138 (4.59%) Active Directory
2 104 (3.46%) Docker
3 84 (2.79%) VMware Infrastructure
4 36 (1.20%) VMware NSX
5 32 (1.06%) vSphere
6 20 (0.67%) VMware ESXi
7 19 (0.63%) Virtual Desktop
8 16 (0.53%) Virtual Machines
9 12 (0.40%) Hyper-V
10 9 (0.30%) NFS
11 4 (0.13%) Dovecot
11 4 (0.13%) Postfix
12 3 (0.100%) BitLocker
12 3 (0.100%) Firmware
12 3 (0.100%) Lustre
12 3 (0.100%) Slurm Workload Manager
12 3 (0.100%) vCloud
13 2 (0.067%) Ceph
13 2 (0.067%) KVM
14 1 (0.033%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 187 (6.22%) Terraform
2 143 (4.76%) Kubernetes
3 86 (2.86%) Ansible
4 43 (1.43%) Single Sign-On
5 33 (1.10%) OPNET
6 22 (0.73%) vCenter Server
7 19 (0.63%) Microsoft Intune
8 16 (0.53%) SCCM
9 14 (0.47%) WMI
10 13 (0.43%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 10 (0.33%) FortiGate
11 10 (0.33%) Prometheus
12 9 (0.30%) Argo
12 9 (0.30%) Grafana
13 5 (0.17%) Kibana
14 4 (0.13%) Istio
15 3 (0.100%) Karpenter
15 3 (0.100%) Puppet
15 3 (0.100%) vRealize
16 2 (0.067%) SCOM
Vendors
1 439 (14.60%) Microsoft
2 179 (5.95%) SAP
3 170 (5.66%) ServiceNow
4 167 (5.56%) Salesforce
5 136 (4.52%) VMware
6 125 (4.16%) Oracle
7 103 (3.43%) Cisco
8 89 (2.96%) Databricks
9 77 (2.56%) CyberArk
10 67 (2.23%) Google
11 52 (1.73%) Palo Alto
12 49 (1.63%) Centrify
13 47 (1.56%) Remedy
14 42 (1.40%) Splunk
15 40 (1.33%) MuleSoft
15 40 (1.33%) Workday
16 38 (1.26%) Atlassian
17 35 (1.16%) Fortinet
17 35 (1.16%) Sparx
18 34 (1.13%) BeyondTrust