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 15 April 2026.

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

6 months to
15 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 16 11
Rank change year-on-year +5 -5 +6
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 4,265 2,403 3,805
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.88% 9.85% 10.26%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.78% 10.63% 11.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,885 1,601 2,516
10th Percentile £463 £481 £500
25th Percentile £513 £550 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -3.70%
75th Percentile £725 £725 £745
90th Percentile £800 £799 £825
UK median daily rate £620 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -1.66%
Number of hourly rates quoted 109 34 51
10th Percentile £49.40 £53.40 £57.25
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £60.00
Median hourly rate £71.27 £71.25 £83.77
Median % change year-on-year +0.03% -14.94% +19.66%
75th Percentile £85.00 £80.44 £87.53
90th Percentile £97.50 £85.70 £95.00
UK median hourly rate £70.64 £70.00 £83.50
% change year-on-year +0.91% -16.17% +19.29%

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 36,195 22,605 34,368
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.34% 92.67% 92.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,739 15,107 22,910
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £409 £412
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £508 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.33% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £644
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £518 £525
% change year-on-year -3.38% -1.43% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,417 855 2,351
10th Percentile £15.50 £14.41 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.50 £20.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £45.00 £32.50 £34.21
Median % change year-on-year +38.46% -5.00% -21.90%
75th Percentile £67.25 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £76.25 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £41.86 £31.42 £35.00
% change year-on-year +33.20% -10.22% -22.22%

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 15 April 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 15 April 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 15 April 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 1,968 £625 -3.85% 424
South East +4 700 £625 - 176
North of England +5 614 £600 - 158
Midlands -1 397 £575 -4.17% 112
North West +6 358 £610 +1.67% 83
West Midlands -3 303 £600 -0.21% 81
South West +2 288 £700 +16.67% 101
Yorkshire +5 230 £558 -7.00% 60
East of England +19 188 £563 -6.25% 60
East Midlands -2 90 £513 -8.48% 31
North East +1 35 £575 -7.95% 17
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 15 April 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 1,371 (32.15%) Security Cleared
2 994 (23.31%) Azure
3 937 (21.97%) SC Cleared
4 837 (19.62%) AWS
5 603 (14.14%) Microsoft
6 602 (14.11%) Roadmaps
7 566 (13.27%) Migration
8 557 (13.06%) Agile
9 485 (11.37%) DevOps
10 454 (10.64%) Stakeholder Management
11 443 (10.39%) CI/CD
12 425 (9.96%) Enterprise Architecture
13 401 (9.40%) Data Modelling
14 398 (9.33%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 376 (8.82%) Technical Leadership
16 374 (8.77%) Integration Patterns
17 373 (8.75%) AI
18 361 (8.46%) TOGAF
19 354 (8.30%) Analytics
20 343 (8.04%) GCP
21 342 (8.02%) Data Architecture
21 342 (8.02%) Problem-Solving
22 323 (7.57%) DV Cleared
23 313 (7.34%) Architectural Design
24 310 (7.27%) Architectural Patterns
25 301 (7.06%) Python
26 299 (7.01%) Microservices
27 260 (6.10%) ServiceNow
28 255 (5.98%) Security Architecture
29 246 (5.77%) SAP

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
1 106 (2.49%) SharePoint
2 101 (2.37%) Confluence
3 63 (1.48%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (0.63%) SAS
5 21 (0.49%) Apache Spark
5 21 (0.49%) CMS
6 16 (0.38%) Anypoint
6 16 (0.38%) Apache
6 16 (0.38%) Appian
7 14 (0.33%) Apache Airflow
8 13 (0.30%) ArcGIS
9 12 (0.28%) nginx
10 11 (0.26%) WebLogic
11 9 (0.21%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 9 (0.21%) OpenStack
12 7 (0.16%) Camunda
12 7 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 7 (0.16%) Palantir Foundry
12 7 (0.16%) Skype for Business
13 6 (0.14%) Ethereum
Applications
1 48 (1.13%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (0.73%) Microsoft Project
3 22 (0.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 19 (0.45%) Microsoft Excel
5 15 (0.35%) MS Visio
6 6 (0.14%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.047%) Navisworks
7 2 (0.047%) Revit
8 1 (0.023%) ArchiCAD
8 1 (0.023%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.023%) OrCAD
8 1 (0.023%) PlantUML
8 1 (0.023%) Siemens NX
8 1 (0.023%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.023%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 106 (2.49%) SAP S/4HANA
2 47 (1.10%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 21 (0.49%) Workday HCM
4 18 (0.42%) Dynamics CRM
4 18 (0.42%) Payment Gateway
5 13 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
5 13 (0.30%) Salesforce CRM
5 13 (0.30%) SAP ERP
6 12 (0.28%) Teamcenter
7 10 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
7 10 (0.23%) Remedy ITSM
7 10 (0.23%) SAP PM
8 9 (0.21%) NetSuite
8 9 (0.21%) SAP EWM
9 8 (0.19%) SAP PP
10 7 (0.16%) Maximo
10 7 (0.16%) SAP QM
11 6 (0.14%) Oracle ERP
11 6 (0.14%) Oracle Payables
11 6 (0.14%) SAP CRM
Cloud Services
1 994 (23.31%) Azure
2 837 (19.62%) AWS
3 343 (8.04%) GCP
4 189 (4.43%) Power Platform
5 165 (3.87%) Entra ID
6 141 (3.31%) SaaS
6 141 (3.31%) Serverless
7 130 (3.05%) Microsoft 365
8 106 (2.49%) IaaS
9 98 (2.30%) GitHub
10 96 (2.25%) PaaS
11 92 (2.16%) Dynamics 365
12 87 (2.04%) Azure DevOps
13 77 (1.81%) OpenShift
14 71 (1.66%) AWS Lambda
15 65 (1.52%) Amazon S3
16 63 (1.48%) Snowflake
17 62 (1.45%) Microsoft Purview
18 56 (1.31%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 55 (1.29%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 182 (4.27%) Firewall
2 146 (3.42%) Network Security
3 124 (2.91%) WAN
4 123 (2.88%) DNS
5 107 (2.51%) VPN
6 85 (1.99%) LAN
7 64 (1.50%) SD-WAN
8 34 (0.80%) BGP
8 34 (0.80%) DHCP
9 30 (0.70%) MPLS
9 30 (0.70%) OSPF
10 29 (0.68%) Wi-Fi
11 25 (0.59%) SAN
11 25 (0.59%) TCP/IP
11 25 (0.59%) VLAN
12 20 (0.47%) VXLAN
12 20 (0.47%) Wireless
13 18 (0.42%) BIG-IP
13 18 (0.42%) NAS
14 17 (0.40%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 143 (3.35%) Power BI
2 117 (2.74%) Metadata
3 112 (2.63%) Data Warehouse
4 95 (2.23%) Data Lake
5 71 (1.66%) SQL Server
6 56 (1.31%) NoSQL
7 50 (1.17%) PostgreSQL
8 44 (1.03%) Tableau
9 37 (0.87%) Azure SQL Database
10 31 (0.73%) Big Data
10 31 (0.73%) Oracle Database
11 30 (0.70%) Amazon Redshift
12 24 (0.56%) Delta Lake
13 23 (0.54%) BigQuery
14 21 (0.49%) Electronic Patient Records
15 20 (0.47%) Amazon Athena
15 20 (0.47%) Metadata Repository
16 19 (0.45%) GIS
17 17 (0.40%) Relational Database
18 16 (0.38%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 118 (2.77%) JIRA
2 88 (2.06%) Jenkins
3 48 (1.13%) Git
4 41 (0.96%) GitLab
5 18 (0.42%) ERwin
6 13 (0.30%) SonarQube
7 11 (0.26%) Bitbucket
8 10 (0.23%) Artifactory
9 9 (0.21%) MLflow
10 6 (0.14%) Postman
11 5 (0.12%) JUnit
11 5 (0.12%) PowerDesigner
11 5 (0.12%) REST Assured
12 4 (0.094%) Cucumber
12 4 (0.094%) Selenium
12 4 (0.094%) Snyk
12 4 (0.094%) Sonatype Nexus
12 4 (0.094%) Terragrunt
13 3 (0.070%) Claude Code
13 3 (0.070%) Rational DOORS
General
1 858 (20.12%) Social Skills
2 676 (15.85%) Finance
3 473 (11.09%) Public Sector
4 280 (6.57%) Analytical Skills
5 263 (6.17%) Banking
6 140 (3.28%) Documentation Skills
7 116 (2.72%) Retail
8 101 (2.37%) Influencing Skills
9 87 (2.04%) Military
10 84 (1.97%) Legal
11 72 (1.69%) Telecoms
12 68 (1.59%) Presentation Skills
13 61 (1.43%) Law
14 58 (1.36%) Marketing
15 54 (1.27%) Manufacturing
16 43 (1.01%) Financial Institution
17 33 (0.77%) Billing
18 31 (0.73%) Investment Banking
19 27 (0.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
20 25 (0.59%) Aerospace
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 216 (5.06%) REST
2 160 (3.75%) Middleware
3 108 (2.53%) SOAP
4 90 (2.11%) .NET
5 77 (1.81%) LDAP
5 77 (1.81%) OpenID
6 66 (1.55%) OAuth
7 61 (1.43%) Kafka
8 58 (1.36%) SAML
9 54 (1.27%) JSON
10 43 (1.01%) OAuth2
11 35 (0.82%) AngularJS
11 35 (0.82%) React
12 34 (0.80%) SailPoint
13 33 (0.77%) Oracle Fusion
14 31 (0.73%) RESTful
15 29 (0.68%) Spring
16 28 (0.66%) Web Services
17 25 (0.59%) PySpark
18 22 (0.52%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 339 (7.95%) Cloud Native
2 128 (3.00%) Product Ownership
3 123 (2.88%) Data Centre
4 108 (2.53%) Onboarding
5 105 (2.46%) Enterprise Software
5 105 (2.46%) Legacy Systems
6 91 (2.13%) Hybrid Cloud
7 83 (1.95%) Distributed Systems
8 80 (1.88%) PKI
9 69 (1.62%) Management Information System
10 68 (1.59%) Public Cloud
11 66 (1.55%) Security Posture
12 60 (1.41%) Data Protection Act
12 60 (1.41%) Operational Technology
13 59 (1.38%) CMDB
14 49 (1.15%) Self-Motivation
15 44 (1.03%) Data Structures
16 42 (0.98%) AI Agents
16 42 (0.98%) Private Cloud
17 32 (0.75%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 160 (3.75%) Windows
2 95 (2.23%) Linux
3 37 (0.87%) Windows Server
4 25 (0.59%) Android
4 25 (0.59%) Apple iOS
5 16 (0.38%) Unix
6 15 (0.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 14 (0.33%) Windows 10
8 13 (0.30%) Windows 7
9 10 (0.23%) zOS
10 9 (0.21%) Mac OS
11 8 (0.19%) VMS
11 8 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
12 5 (0.12%) Windows Server 2019
13 3 (0.070%) Data ONTAP
13 3 (0.070%) Solaris
13 3 (0.070%) Windows Server 2012
14 2 (0.047%) AIX
14 2 (0.047%) CentOS
15 1 (0.023%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 602 (14.11%) Roadmaps
2 566 (13.27%) Migration
3 557 (13.06%) Agile
4 485 (11.37%) DevOps
5 454 (10.64%) Stakeholder Management
6 443 (10.39%) CI/CD
7 425 (9.96%) Enterprise Architecture
8 401 (9.40%) Data Modelling
9 398 (9.33%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 376 (8.82%) Technical Leadership
11 374 (8.77%) Integration Patterns
12 373 (8.75%) AI
13 361 (8.46%) TOGAF
14 354 (8.30%) Analytics
15 342 (8.02%) Data Architecture
15 342 (8.02%) Problem-Solving
16 313 (7.34%) Architectural Design
17 310 (7.27%) Architectural Patterns
18 299 (7.01%) Microservices
19 255 (5.98%) Security Architecture
Programming Languages
1 301 (7.06%) Python
2 215 (5.04%) SQL
3 178 (4.17%) PowerShell
4 165 (3.87%) Java
5 67 (1.57%) JavaScript
6 51 (1.20%) C#
7 41 (0.96%) Bash
8 37 (0.87%) Bicep
9 27 (0.63%) TypeScript
10 17 (0.40%) Ruby
11 16 (0.38%) Apex Code
12 15 (0.35%) Scala
13 14 (0.33%) PL/SQL
14 12 (0.28%) Kusto Query Language
15 10 (0.23%) R
16 9 (0.21%) Kotlin
16 9 (0.21%) T-SQL
17 8 (0.19%) Shell Script
17 8 (0.19%) VB
18 7 (0.16%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,371 (32.15%) Security Cleared
2 937 (21.97%) SC Cleared
3 323 (7.57%) DV Cleared
4 171 (4.01%) Degree
5 113 (2.65%) Azure Certification
6 110 (2.58%) TOGAF Certification
7 98 (2.30%) AWS Certification
7 98 (2.30%) CISSP
8 79 (1.85%) Cisco Certification
9 67 (1.57%) Computer Science Degree
10 60 (1.41%) BPSS Clearance
11 50 (1.17%) Microsoft Certification
12 47 (1.10%) CCNP
13 44 (1.03%) CISM
14 41 (0.96%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 33 (0.77%) Master's Degree
16 32 (0.75%) ITIL Certification
17 31 (0.73%) ISEB
18 30 (0.70%) (ISC)2 CCSP
19 28 (0.66%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 167 (3.92%) GDPR
2 164 (3.85%) NIST
3 130 (3.05%) Data Quality
4 128 (3.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 89 (2.09%) NCSC
6 61 (1.43%) QA
7 48 (1.13%) PCI DSS
8 38 (0.89%) COBIT
9 30 (0.70%) GRC
10 28 (0.66%) ISO 20022
11 25 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials
12 18 (0.42%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 17 (0.40%) HL7
13 17 (0.40%) NIST 800
14 16 (0.38%) Accessibility
15 15 (0.35%) JSP 440
16 14 (0.33%) MiFID
17 13 (0.30%) FINRA
17 13 (0.30%) PSD2
17 13 (0.30%) SEPA
System Software
1 183 (4.29%) Active Directory
2 109 (2.56%) Docker
3 99 (2.32%) VMware Infrastructure
4 71 (1.66%) VMware NSX
5 34 (0.80%) vSphere
6 22 (0.52%) Virtual Desktop
7 16 (0.38%) Hyper-V
7 16 (0.38%) Virtual Machines
8 14 (0.33%) VMware ESXi
9 10 (0.23%) vCloud
10 9 (0.21%) Squid
11 8 (0.19%) NFS
12 7 (0.16%) BitLocker
12 7 (0.16%) Varnish
13 5 (0.12%) Postfix
13 5 (0.12%) RACF
14 4 (0.094%) Firmware
14 4 (0.094%) Oracle RAC
15 3 (0.070%) IAG
15 3 (0.070%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 237 (5.56%) Terraform
2 213 (4.99%) Kubernetes
3 104 (2.44%) Ansible
4 51 (1.20%) Single Sign-On
5 40 (0.94%) Microsoft Intune
6 36 (0.84%) Grafana
7 35 (0.82%) vCenter Server
8 30 (0.70%) OPNET
9 23 (0.54%) Prometheus
10 22 (0.52%) SCCM
11 21 (0.49%) FortiGate
12 20 (0.47%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 20 (0.47%) Argo
13 12 (0.28%) WMI
14 9 (0.21%) Istio
15 7 (0.16%) Consul
15 7 (0.16%) Puppet
16 5 (0.12%) Endace
16 5 (0.12%) HAProxy
16 5 (0.12%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 603 (14.14%) Microsoft
2 260 (6.10%) ServiceNow
3 246 (5.77%) SAP
4 188 (4.41%) VMware
5 172 (4.03%) Oracle
6 168 (3.94%) Salesforce
7 152 (3.56%) Databricks
8 109 (2.56%) Cisco
9 91 (2.13%) Google
10 84 (1.97%) CyberArk
11 61 (1.43%) MuleSoft
12 55 (1.29%) Splunk
13 51 (1.20%) Red Hat
14 50 (1.17%) Remedy
15 48 (1.13%) Palo Alto
16 46 (1.08%) Sparx
16 46 (1.08%) Workday
17 44 (1.03%) Atlassian
18 42 (0.98%) IBM
19 39 (0.91%) BeyondTrust