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 16 January 2026.

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

6 months to
16 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 3,063 2,596 3,451
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.62% 9.63% 9.55%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.50% 10.36% 10.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,113 1,543 2,333
10th Percentile £460 £480 £500
25th Percentile £517 £550 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -
75th Percentile £725 £734 £738
90th Percentile £800 £799 £775
UK median daily rate £625 £625 £650
% change year-on-year - -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 38 27 33
10th Percentile £63.80 £59.30 £58.05
25th Percentile £65.25 £63.75 £61.25
Median hourly rate £83.82 £72.50 £76.53
Median % change year-on-year +15.61% -5.27% +9.33%
75th Percentile £94.94 £79.47 £83.11
90th Percentile £95.00 £86.47 £95.00
UK median hourly rate £83.82 £72.50 £76.53
% change year-on-year +15.61% -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 29,159 25,051 33,652
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.59% 92.94% 93.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,642 15,542 22,833
10th Percentile £300 £300 £275
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 £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 1,768 758 1,549
10th Percentile £14.48 £15.86 £14.16
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.25 £19.06
Median hourly rate £27.50 £35.00 £43.75
Median % change year-on-year -21.43% -20.00% +25.00%
75th Percentile £61.19 £64.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £76.25
UK median hourly rate £26.50 £32.50 £42.50
% change year-on-year -18.46% -23.53% +21.43%

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 16 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 16 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 16 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 -2 1,371 £645 -0.77% 290
South East +11 546 £613 -2.00% 257
North of England -6 418 £570 -5.00% 165
Midlands -3 293 £573 -4.58% 91
North West -3 252 £575 -4.17% 88
South West +1 242 £710 +13.60% 99
West Midlands -3 219 £582 -5.18% 45
Yorkshire -13 158 £555 -9.02% 53
East of England +4 102 £525 -19.23% 100
East Midlands -3 74 £503 -12.61% 45
North East -27 8 £588 +2.17% 24
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 16 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.

1 999 (32.62%) Security Cleared
2 812 (26.51%) Azure
3 701 (22.89%) SC Cleared
4 611 (19.95%) AWS
5 447 (14.59%) Microsoft
6 438 (14.30%) Roadmaps
7 434 (14.17%) Agile
8 392 (12.80%) Stakeholder Management
9 351 (11.46%) Migration
10 335 (10.94%) Enterprise Architecture
11 320 (10.45%) DevOps
12 319 (10.41%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 310 (10.12%) Data Modelling
14 307 (10.02%) Technical Leadership
15 302 (9.86%) TOGAF
16 286 (9.34%) Problem-Solving
17 281 (9.17%) CI/CD
18 263 (8.59%) GCP
19 238 (7.77%) Python
20 236 (7.70%) AI
20 236 (7.70%) Analytics
21 235 (7.67%) DV Cleared
22 229 (7.48%) Data Architecture
23 220 (7.18%) Integration Patterns
24 209 (6.82%) Microservices
25 204 (6.66%) Architectural Design
26 195 (6.37%) Mentoring
27 194 (6.33%) Terraform
28 188 (6.14%) SAP
29 186 (6.07%) ITIL

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 96 (3.13%) Confluence
2 72 (2.35%) SharePoint
3 47 (1.53%) Microsoft Exchange
4 18 (0.59%) SAS
5 17 (0.56%) OpenStack
6 15 (0.49%) CMS
7 13 (0.42%) Apache Airflow
8 12 (0.39%) Apache Spark
8 12 (0.39%) ArcGIS
9 10 (0.33%) Apache
10 9 (0.29%) Anypoint
10 9 (0.29%) Smallworld
11 6 (0.20%) Ethereum
11 6 (0.20%) GeoServer
11 6 (0.20%) Hyperledger
12 5 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
12 5 (0.16%) Skype for Business
12 5 (0.16%) WebLogic
13 4 (0.13%) Documentum
13 4 (0.13%) Tomcat
Applications
1 46 (1.50%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (1.04%) Microsoft Project
3 30 (0.98%) Microsoft Excel
4 28 (0.91%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 15 (0.49%) MS Visio
6 7 (0.23%) Siemens NX
7 3 (0.098%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.098%) 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 89 (2.91%) SAP S/4HANA
2 37 (1.21%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 25 (0.82%) Dynamics CRM
4 23 (0.75%) Workday HCM
5 18 (0.59%) Salesforce CRM
6 13 (0.42%) SAP CO
6 13 (0.42%) SAP PM
7 12 (0.39%) NetSuite
7 12 (0.39%) Payment Gateway
8 11 (0.36%) Maximo
8 11 (0.36%) SAP FI
8 11 (0.36%) SAP FI/CO
9 9 (0.29%) Teamcenter
10 8 (0.26%) Oracle Receivables
10 8 (0.26%) SAP EWM
10 8 (0.26%) SAP PP
11 7 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
12 6 (0.20%) Oracle SCM
12 6 (0.20%) R3 Corda
12 6 (0.20%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 812 (26.51%) Azure
2 611 (19.95%) AWS
3 263 (8.59%) GCP
4 123 (4.02%) Power Platform
5 115 (3.75%) SaaS
6 107 (3.49%) Microsoft 365
7 102 (3.33%) Entra ID
7 102 (3.33%) Serverless
8 78 (2.55%) GitHub
9 68 (2.22%) Azure DevOps
10 66 (2.15%) IaaS
11 64 (2.09%) Dynamics 365
12 62 (2.02%) AWS Lambda
13 58 (1.89%) Microsoft Purview
14 52 (1.70%) PaaS
15 49 (1.60%) Amazon S3
16 47 (1.53%) OpenShift
17 45 (1.47%) Azure Data Factory
17 45 (1.47%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 42 (1.37%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 156 (5.09%) Firewall
2 116 (3.79%) WAN
3 88 (2.87%) Network Security
4 84 (2.74%) VPN
5 82 (2.68%) LAN
6 76 (2.48%) DNS
7 58 (1.89%) SD-WAN
8 32 (1.04%) BGP
9 31 (1.01%) Wi-Fi
10 26 (0.85%) MPLS
11 22 (0.72%) Internet
12 21 (0.69%) DHCP
12 21 (0.69%) SAN
12 21 (0.69%) VSAN
13 19 (0.62%) OSPF
14 14 (0.46%) SSL
14 14 (0.46%) VLAN
15 13 (0.42%) IPsec
15 13 (0.42%) TCP/IP
16 10 (0.33%) Cisco ASA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 93 (3.04%) Data Warehouse
2 85 (2.78%) Power BI
3 73 (2.38%) Metadata
4 65 (2.12%) Data Lake
5 52 (1.70%) PostgreSQL
6 45 (1.47%) SQL Server
7 41 (1.34%) Tableau
8 34 (1.11%) NoSQL
9 28 (0.91%) Amazon Redshift
10 26 (0.85%) DynamoDB
11 21 (0.69%) Amazon Aurora
11 21 (0.69%) Azure SQL Database
11 21 (0.69%) GIS
12 20 (0.65%) Redis
13 19 (0.62%) Data Vault
13 19 (0.62%) Relational Database
14 17 (0.56%) Amazon RDS
14 17 (0.56%) Delta Lake
15 16 (0.52%) BigQuery
16 15 (0.49%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 112 (3.66%) JIRA
2 71 (2.32%) Jenkins
3 35 (1.14%) Git
4 33 (1.08%) GitLab
5 14 (0.46%) ERwin
6 9 (0.29%) Artifactory
6 9 (0.29%) SonarQube
7 6 (0.20%) Postman
8 5 (0.16%) Gradle
8 5 (0.16%) Maven
8 5 (0.16%) MSI
8 5 (0.16%) Oracle Forms
8 5 (0.16%) SonarLint
9 4 (0.13%) Bitbucket
9 4 (0.13%) MLflow
9 4 (0.13%) Rational DOORS
9 4 (0.13%) Terragrunt
10 3 (0.098%) Sonatype Nexus
10 3 (0.098%) Visual Studio Code
11 2 (0.065%) Gatling
General
1 772 (25.20%) Social Skills
2 496 (16.19%) Finance
3 367 (11.98%) Public Sector
4 231 (7.54%) Analytical Skills
5 188 (6.14%) Banking
6 76 (2.48%) Documentation Skills
7 75 (2.45%) Telecoms
8 73 (2.38%) Military
9 72 (2.35%) Legal
10 69 (2.25%) Retail
11 65 (2.12%) Marketing
12 62 (2.02%) Presentation Skills
13 59 (1.93%) Influencing Skills
14 53 (1.73%) Manufacturing
15 41 (1.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 32 (1.04%) Financial Institution
17 31 (1.01%) Billing
18 21 (0.69%) Back Office
19 20 (0.65%) Law
20 18 (0.59%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 164 (5.35%) REST
2 95 (3.10%) Middleware
3 94 (3.07%) SOAP
4 61 (1.99%) .NET
5 52 (1.70%) OAuth
6 50 (1.63%) Kafka
6 50 (1.63%) LDAP
7 49 (1.60%) JSON
8 40 (1.31%) SAML
9 38 (1.24%) OpenID
10 35 (1.14%) RESTful
11 29 (0.95%) OAuth2
12 27 (0.88%) Spring Boot
13 24 (0.78%) PySpark
14 23 (0.75%) Lightning Web Components
15 22 (0.72%) AngularJS
15 22 (0.72%) React
15 22 (0.72%) SailPoint
15 22 (0.72%) Spring
16 20 (0.65%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 225 (7.35%) Cloud Native
2 123 (4.02%) Product Ownership
3 99 (3.23%) Legacy Systems
4 98 (3.20%) Data Centre
5 86 (2.81%) PKI
6 83 (2.71%) Onboarding
7 75 (2.45%) Enterprise Software
8 72 (2.35%) Hybrid Cloud
9 59 (1.93%) Security Posture
10 45 (1.47%) Operational Technology
11 43 (1.40%) Distributed Systems
11 43 (1.40%) Public Cloud
12 42 (1.37%) Management Information System
13 41 (1.34%) Self-Motivation
14 37 (1.21%) Data Protection Act
15 36 (1.18%) CMDB
16 34 (1.11%) Data Structures
17 27 (0.88%) Private Cloud
17 27 (0.88%) SCADA
18 25 (0.82%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 141 (4.60%) Windows
2 85 (2.78%) Linux
3 38 (1.24%) Windows Server
4 20 (0.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 16 (0.52%) Windows 7
6 15 (0.49%) Windows 10
7 13 (0.42%) Windows Server 2019
8 10 (0.33%) Unix
9 9 (0.29%) Windows Server 2016
10 7 (0.23%) Mac OS
10 7 (0.23%) VMS
11 6 (0.20%) Android
11 6 (0.20%) Apple iOS
11 6 (0.20%) Ubuntu
12 5 (0.16%) zOS
13 3 (0.098%) CentOS
13 3 (0.098%) Solaris
13 3 (0.098%) Windows Server 2008
14 1 (0.033%) MVS
14 1 (0.033%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 438 (14.30%) Roadmaps
2 434 (14.17%) Agile
3 392 (12.80%) Stakeholder Management
4 351 (11.46%) Migration
5 335 (10.94%) Enterprise Architecture
6 320 (10.45%) DevOps
7 319 (10.41%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 310 (10.12%) Data Modelling
9 307 (10.02%) Technical Leadership
10 302 (9.86%) TOGAF
11 286 (9.34%) Problem-Solving
12 281 (9.17%) CI/CD
13 236 (7.70%) AI
13 236 (7.70%) Analytics
14 229 (7.48%) Data Architecture
15 220 (7.18%) Integration Patterns
16 209 (6.82%) Microservices
17 204 (6.66%) Architectural Design
18 195 (6.37%) Mentoring
19 186 (6.07%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 238 (7.77%) Python
2 154 (5.03%) PowerShell
3 150 (4.90%) SQL
4 117 (3.82%) Java
5 51 (1.67%) JavaScript
6 32 (1.04%) TypeScript
7 31 (1.01%) C#
8 28 (0.91%) Bash
8 28 (0.91%) Bicep
9 22 (0.72%) Apex Code
10 15 (0.49%) PL/SQL
11 11 (0.36%) Kusto Query Language
11 11 (0.36%) R
12 9 (0.29%) T-SQL
13 7 (0.23%) Korn
13 7 (0.23%) Ruby
13 7 (0.23%) Scala
14 6 (0.20%) ABAP
14 6 (0.20%) C
14 6 (0.20%) VB
Qualifications
1 999 (32.62%) Security Cleared
2 701 (22.89%) SC Cleared
3 235 (7.67%) DV Cleared
4 155 (5.06%) Degree
5 95 (3.10%) TOGAF Certification
6 88 (2.87%) AWS Certification
7 83 (2.71%) Azure Certification
8 81 (2.64%) CISSP
9 59 (1.93%) Computer Science Degree
10 58 (1.89%) Cisco Certification
11 54 (1.76%) Microsoft Certification
12 39 (1.27%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 39 (1.27%) BPSS Clearance
13 38 (1.24%) CISM
14 36 (1.18%) Master's Degree
15 34 (1.11%) CCNP
16 31 (1.01%) CCIE
17 24 (0.78%) ITIL Certification
18 23 (0.75%) ISEB
19 18 (0.59%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 142 (4.64%) GDPR
2 111 (3.62%) NIST
3 102 (3.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 95 (3.10%) Data Quality
5 61 (1.99%) NCSC
6 55 (1.80%) QA
7 46 (1.50%) PCI DSS
8 26 (0.85%) COBIT
9 24 (0.78%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 21 (0.69%) GRC
11 20 (0.65%) Cyber Essentials
12 19 (0.62%) JSP 440
13 16 (0.52%) Accessibility
13 16 (0.52%) California Consumer Privacy Act
13 16 (0.52%) HIPAA
14 14 (0.46%) ISO 20022
15 11 (0.36%) MiFID
15 11 (0.36%) PSD2
16 10 (0.33%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 10 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 141 (4.60%) Active Directory
2 109 (3.56%) Docker
3 84 (2.74%) VMware Infrastructure
4 37 (1.21%) VMware NSX
5 30 (0.98%) vSphere
6 20 (0.65%) Virtual Desktop
7 18 (0.59%) VMware ESXi
8 15 (0.49%) Virtual Machines
9 14 (0.46%) Hyper-V
10 7 (0.23%) NFS
11 5 (0.16%) BitLocker
12 4 (0.13%) Dovecot
12 4 (0.13%) Postfix
12 4 (0.13%) vCloud
13 3 (0.098%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
13 3 (0.098%) Firmware
13 3 (0.098%) Lustre
13 3 (0.098%) Slurm Workload Manager
14 2 (0.065%) Ceph
14 2 (0.065%) KVM
Systems Management
1 194 (6.33%) Terraform
2 149 (4.86%) Kubernetes
3 87 (2.84%) Ansible
4 40 (1.31%) Single Sign-On
5 33 (1.08%) OPNET
6 24 (0.78%) vCenter Server
7 20 (0.65%) SCCM
8 17 (0.56%) Microsoft Intune
8 17 (0.56%) WMI
9 14 (0.46%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 12 (0.39%) FortiGate
11 9 (0.29%) Argo
12 8 (0.26%) Prometheus
13 7 (0.23%) Grafana
14 6 (0.20%) Istio
14 6 (0.20%) Puppet
15 5 (0.16%) Kibana
16 3 (0.098%) Endace
16 3 (0.098%) Progress Chef
16 3 (0.098%) vRealize
Vendors
1 447 (14.59%) Microsoft
2 188 (6.14%) SAP
3 175 (5.71%) ServiceNow
4 163 (5.32%) Salesforce
5 141 (4.60%) VMware
6 128 (4.18%) Oracle
7 99 (3.23%) Cisco
8 90 (2.94%) Databricks
9 79 (2.58%) CyberArk
10 76 (2.48%) Google
11 53 (1.73%) Palo Alto
12 49 (1.60%) Centrify
13 43 (1.40%) Remedy
14 42 (1.37%) MuleSoft
14 42 (1.37%) Splunk
15 40 (1.31%) Workday
16 39 (1.27%) Atlassian
17 36 (1.18%) Sparx
18 34 (1.11%) BeyondTrust
19 33 (1.08%) Red Hat