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 11 January 2026.

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

6 months to
11 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 19 16 15
Rank change year-on-year -3 -1 +6
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 2,975 2,611 3,470
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.56% 9.69% 9.53%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.44% 10.43% 10.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,057 1,558 2,347
10th Percentile £460 £481 £500
25th Percentile £519 £550 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -
75th Percentile £725 £738 £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 35
10th Percentile £63.80 £59.30 £58.85
25th Percentile £65.25 £63.75 £65.63
Median hourly rate £83.82 £72.50 £76.53
Median % change year-on-year +15.61% -5.27% +9.33%
75th Percentile £94.94 £81.42 £83.88
90th Percentile £95.00 £87.50 £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 28,488 25,027 33,935
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.52% 92.90% 93.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,175 15,498 23,097
10th Percentile £300 £300 £275
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 1,738 757 1,541
10th Percentile £14.41 £15.91 £14.16
25th Percentile £18.45 £21.25 £19.06
Median hourly rate £27.50 £35.00 £43.33
Median % change year-on-year -21.43% -19.22% +23.80%
75th Percentile £61.25 £64.73 £65.00
90th Percentile £71.50 £75.00 £76.25
UK median hourly rate £26.50 £32.50 £42.50
% change year-on-year -18.46% -23.53% +28.79%

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 11 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 11 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 11 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 1,348 £650 - 299
South East +10 540 £600 -4.00% 245
North of England -9 385 £575 -7.26% 182
Midlands -4 277 £573 -4.58% 115
South West -1 239 £710 +13.60% 84
North West -4 233 £575 -6.39% 92
West Midlands -2 205 £582 -4.16% 65
Yorkshire -14 144 £563 -11.42% 66
East of England 0 98 £525 -16.00% 100
East Midlands -2 72 £496 -13.74% 47
North East -21 8 £588 -2.02% 25
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 11 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.

1 978 (32.87%) Security Cleared
2 784 (26.35%) Azure
3 692 (23.26%) SC Cleared
4 599 (20.13%) AWS
5 432 (14.52%) Roadmaps
6 429 (14.42%) Microsoft
7 426 (14.32%) Agile
8 376 (12.64%) Stakeholder Management
9 337 (11.33%) Migration
10 326 (10.96%) Enterprise Architecture
11 312 (10.49%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 309 (10.39%) Data Modelling
13 306 (10.29%) DevOps
14 304 (10.22%) TOGAF
15 301 (10.12%) Technical Leadership
16 287 (9.65%) Problem-Solving
17 260 (8.74%) CI/CD
18 245 (8.24%) GCP
19 233 (7.83%) Python
20 231 (7.76%) Analytics
21 229 (7.70%) AI
22 226 (7.60%) Data Architecture
23 223 (7.50%) Integration Patterns
24 221 (7.43%) DV Cleared
25 205 (6.89%) Microservices
26 197 (6.62%) Architectural Design
27 195 (6.55%) Mentoring
28 188 (6.32%) Terraform
29 186 (6.25%) ITIL
30 182 (6.12%) 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 96 (3.23%) Confluence
2 66 (2.22%) SharePoint
3 39 (1.31%) Microsoft Exchange
4 18 (0.61%) SAS
5 17 (0.57%) OpenStack
6 16 (0.54%) CMS
7 13 (0.44%) 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 (0.24%) 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 (0.10%) Jupyter
Applications
1 45 (1.51%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (1.08%) Microsoft Project
3 28 (0.94%) Microsoft Excel
4 25 (0.84%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 17 (0.57%) MS Visio
6 11 (0.37%) Siemens NX
7 3 (0.10%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.10%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.034%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.034%) FrameMaker
8 1 (0.034%) OrCAD
8 1 (0.034%) Revit
8 1 (0.034%) Trello
Business Applications
1 85 (2.86%) SAP S/4HANA
2 37 (1.24%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 25 (0.84%) Dynamics CRM
4 23 (0.77%) Workday HCM
5 16 (0.54%) Salesforce CRM
6 13 (0.44%) SAP CO
6 13 (0.44%) SAP PM
6 13 (0.44%) 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 (0.34%) Payment Gateway
10 9 (0.30%) Remedy ITSM
11 8 (0.27%) SAP EWM
11 8 (0.27%) SAP PP
12 7 (0.24%) Oracle EBS
12 7 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
13 6 (0.20%) Oracle SCM
13 6 (0.20%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 784 (26.35%) Azure
2 599 (20.13%) AWS
3 245 (8.24%) GCP
4 123 (4.13%) Power Platform
5 111 (3.73%) SaaS
6 100 (3.36%) Microsoft 365
7 96 (3.23%) Serverless
8 95 (3.19%) Entra ID
9 73 (2.45%) GitHub
10 66 (2.22%) IaaS
11 64 (2.15%) AWS Lambda
12 63 (2.12%) Dynamics 365
13 62 (2.08%) Azure DevOps
14 55 (1.85%) Microsoft Purview
15 51 (1.71%) Amazon S3
16 50 (1.68%) PaaS
17 47 (1.58%) OpenShift
18 43 (1.45%) Azure Data Factory
19 42 (1.41%) Azure Synapse Analytics
20 41 (1.38%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 157 (5.28%) Firewall
2 111 (3.73%) WAN
3 85 (2.86%) Network Security
4 79 (2.66%) LAN
4 79 (2.66%) VPN
5 71 (2.39%) DNS
6 57 (1.92%) SD-WAN
7 32 (1.08%) BGP
8 28 (0.94%) Wi-Fi
9 26 (0.87%) MPLS
10 21 (0.71%) Internet
10 21 (0.71%) SAN
10 21 (0.71%) VSAN
11 20 (0.67%) DHCP
12 19 (0.64%) OSPF
12 19 (0.64%) SSL
13 13 (0.44%) IPsec
13 13 (0.44%) TCP/IP
14 12 (0.40%) VLAN
15 11 (0.37%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 92 (3.09%) Data Warehouse
2 86 (2.89%) Power BI
3 71 (2.39%) Metadata
4 66 (2.22%) Data Lake
5 49 (1.65%) PostgreSQL
6 48 (1.61%) SQL Server
7 37 (1.24%) Tableau
8 35 (1.18%) NoSQL
9 27 (0.91%) Amazon Redshift
10 25 (0.84%) DynamoDB
11 22 (0.74%) Azure SQL Database
11 22 (0.74%) Relational Database
12 21 (0.71%) GIS
13 20 (0.67%) Redis
14 19 (0.64%) Amazon Aurora
14 19 (0.64%) Data Vault
15 18 (0.61%) Amazon RDS
16 17 (0.57%) Delta Lake
16 17 (0.57%) Oracle Database
17 16 (0.54%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 110 (3.70%) JIRA
2 68 (2.29%) Jenkins
3 34 (1.14%) Git
4 31 (1.04%) GitLab
5 14 (0.47%) ERwin
6 9 (0.30%) Artifactory
6 9 (0.30%) SonarQube
7 7 (0.24%) Oracle Forms
8 5 (0.17%) Gradle
8 5 (0.17%) Maven
8 5 (0.17%) MLflow
8 5 (0.17%) SonarLint
8 5 (0.17%) Sonatype Nexus
9 4 (0.13%) Bitbucket
9 4 (0.13%) MSI
9 4 (0.13%) Rational DOORS
9 4 (0.13%) Terragrunt
10 3 (0.10%) Postman
10 3 (0.10%) Visual Studio Code
11 2 (0.067%) CircleCI
General
1 756 (25.41%) Social Skills
2 478 (16.07%) Finance
3 360 (12.10%) Public Sector
4 233 (7.83%) Analytical Skills
5 173 (5.82%) Banking
6 78 (2.62%) Telecoms
7 71 (2.39%) Military
8 68 (2.29%) Documentation Skills
8 68 (2.29%) Legal
9 67 (2.25%) Marketing
10 66 (2.22%) Retail
11 62 (2.08%) Presentation Skills
12 56 (1.88%) Influencing Skills
13 55 (1.85%) Manufacturing
14 41 (1.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 32 (1.08%) Financial Institution
16 26 (0.87%) Billing
17 22 (0.74%) Back Office
18 19 (0.64%) Aerospace
18 19 (0.64%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 168 (5.65%) REST
2 102 (3.43%) SOAP
3 96 (3.23%) Middleware
4 59 (1.98%) .NET
5 55 (1.85%) JSON
6 53 (1.78%) LDAP
7 49 (1.65%) OAuth
8 47 (1.58%) Kafka
9 42 (1.41%) SAML
10 36 (1.21%) RESTful
11 33 (1.11%) OpenID
12 27 (0.91%) Lightning Web Components
12 27 (0.91%) Spring Boot
13 26 (0.87%) AngularJS
13 26 (0.87%) OAuth2
14 24 (0.81%) Web Services
15 23 (0.77%) PySpark
16 22 (0.74%) Spring
17 21 (0.71%) React
17 21 (0.71%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 212 (7.13%) Cloud Native
2 121 (4.07%) Product Ownership
3 99 (3.33%) Data Centre
4 95 (3.19%) Legacy Systems
5 84 (2.82%) PKI
6 76 (2.55%) Onboarding
7 75 (2.52%) Enterprise Software
8 68 (2.29%) Hybrid Cloud
9 59 (1.98%) Security Posture
10 49 (1.65%) Operational Technology
11 41 (1.38%) Management Information System
11 41 (1.38%) Self-Motivation
12 40 (1.34%) Distributed Systems
13 39 (1.31%) Public Cloud
14 36 (1.21%) Data Protection Act
15 32 (1.08%) CMDB
15 32 (1.08%) Data Structures
16 28 (0.94%) SCADA
17 26 (0.87%) Private Cloud
18 25 (0.84%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 132 (4.44%) Windows
2 83 (2.79%) Linux
3 38 (1.28%) Windows Server
4 20 (0.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 14 (0.47%) Windows 7
6 13 (0.44%) Windows 10
6 13 (0.44%) Windows Server 2019
7 9 (0.30%) Windows Server 2016
8 8 (0.27%) VMS
9 7 (0.24%) Unix
10 6 (0.20%) Android
10 6 (0.20%) Apple iOS
10 6 (0.20%) Mac OS
10 6 (0.20%) Ubuntu
11 4 (0.13%) Solaris
12 3 (0.10%) CentOS
12 3 (0.10%) Windows Server 2008
12 3 (0.10%) zOS
13 1 (0.034%) MVS
13 1 (0.034%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 432 (14.52%) Roadmaps
2 426 (14.32%) Agile
3 376 (12.64%) Stakeholder Management
4 337 (11.33%) Migration
5 326 (10.96%) Enterprise Architecture
6 312 (10.49%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 309 (10.39%) Data Modelling
8 306 (10.29%) DevOps
9 304 (10.22%) TOGAF
10 301 (10.12%) Technical Leadership
11 287 (9.65%) Problem-Solving
12 260 (8.74%) CI/CD
13 231 (7.76%) Analytics
14 229 (7.70%) AI
15 226 (7.60%) Data Architecture
16 223 (7.50%) Integration Patterns
17 205 (6.89%) Microservices
18 197 (6.62%) Architectural Design
19 195 (6.55%) Mentoring
20 186 (6.25%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 233 (7.83%) Python
2 148 (4.97%) PowerShell
3 143 (4.81%) SQL
4 113 (3.80%) Java
5 57 (1.92%) JavaScript
6 32 (1.08%) TypeScript
7 31 (1.04%) C#
8 28 (0.94%) Bash
9 26 (0.87%) Apex Code
10 21 (0.71%) Bicep
11 14 (0.47%) PL/SQL
12 11 (0.37%) R
13 9 (0.30%) T-SQL
14 8 (0.27%) Kusto Query Language
15 7 (0.24%) Korn
15 7 (0.24%) Ruby
16 6 (0.20%) ABAP
16 6 (0.20%) C
17 5 (0.17%) C++
18 4 (0.13%) PHP
Qualifications
1 978 (32.87%) Security Cleared
2 692 (23.26%) SC Cleared
3 221 (7.43%) DV Cleared
4 158 (5.31%) Degree
5 93 (3.13%) TOGAF Certification
6 87 (2.92%) AWS Certification
7 86 (2.89%) Azure Certification
8 82 (2.76%) CISSP
9 60 (2.02%) Computer Science Degree
10 59 (1.98%) Cisco Certification
11 51 (1.71%) Microsoft Certification
12 38 (1.28%) CISM
12 38 (1.28%) Master's Degree
13 37 (1.24%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 36 (1.21%) CCNP
15 33 (1.11%) BPSS Clearance
16 30 (1.01%) CCIE
17 24 (0.81%) ITIL Certification
18 23 (0.77%) ISEB
19 18 (0.61%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 138 (4.64%) GDPR
2 108 (3.63%) NIST
3 98 (3.29%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 96 (3.23%) Data Quality
5 59 (1.98%) NCSC
6 56 (1.88%) QA
7 43 (1.45%) PCI DSS
8 28 (0.94%) ISO/IEC 20000
9 26 (0.87%) COBIT
10 20 (0.67%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 20 (0.67%) Cyber Essentials
10 20 (0.67%) GRC
11 17 (0.57%) JSP 440
12 16 (0.54%) Accessibility
13 14 (0.47%) HIPAA
14 13 (0.44%) ISO 20022
15 11 (0.37%) PSD2
15 11 (0.37%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 10 (0.34%) HMG Security Policy Framework
17 9 (0.30%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 136 (4.57%) Active Directory
2 104 (3.50%) Docker
3 81 (2.72%) VMware Infrastructure
4 35 (1.18%) VMware NSX
5 30 (1.01%) vSphere
6 19 (0.64%) Virtual Desktop
7 18 (0.61%) VMware ESXi
8 15 (0.50%) Virtual Machines
9 13 (0.44%) Hyper-V
10 7 (0.24%) NFS
11 4 (0.13%) Dovecot
11 4 (0.13%) Postfix
11 4 (0.13%) vCloud
12 3 (0.10%) BitLocker
12 3 (0.10%) Firmware
12 3 (0.10%) Lustre
12 3 (0.10%) Slurm Workload Manager
13 2 (0.067%) Ceph
13 2 (0.067%) KVM
13 2 (0.067%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 188 (6.32%) Terraform
2 143 (4.81%) Kubernetes
3 87 (2.92%) Ansible
4 43 (1.45%) Single Sign-On
5 33 (1.11%) OPNET
6 24 (0.81%) vCenter Server
7 17 (0.57%) Microsoft Intune
8 16 (0.54%) SCCM
8 16 (0.54%) WMI
9 13 (0.44%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 10 (0.34%) FortiGate
10 10 (0.34%) Prometheus
11 9 (0.30%) Argo
11 9 (0.30%) Grafana
12 5 (0.17%) Kibana
13 4 (0.13%) Istio
14 3 (0.10%) Endace
14 3 (0.10%) Karpenter
14 3 (0.10%) Puppet
14 3 (0.10%) vRealize
Vendors
1 429 (14.42%) Microsoft
2 182 (6.12%) SAP
3 171 (5.75%) ServiceNow
4 165 (5.55%) Salesforce
5 137 (4.61%) VMware
6 127 (4.27%) Oracle
7 99 (3.33%) Cisco
8 89 (2.99%) Databricks
9 78 (2.62%) CyberArk
10 68 (2.29%) Google
11 53 (1.78%) Palo Alto
12 49 (1.65%) Centrify
13 48 (1.61%) Remedy
14 41 (1.38%) Splunk
14 41 (1.38%) Workday
15 40 (1.34%) MuleSoft
16 38 (1.28%) Atlassian
17 36 (1.21%) Sparx
18 34 (1.14%) BeyondTrust
19 33 (1.11%) Fortinet