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 20 April 2026.

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

6 months to
20 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 4,307 2,391 3,837
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.89% 9.76% 10.31%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.80% 10.53% 11.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,912 1,590 2,531
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% -1.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 113 33 58
10th Percentile £49.40 £53.10 £57.43
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £60.31
Median hourly rate £71.27 £70.00 £80.00
Median % change year-on-year +1.81% -12.50% +14.29%
75th Percentile £85.00 £80.00 £87.46
90th Percentile £97.50 £85.50 £91.50
UK median hourly rate £70.00 £68.75 £80.00
% change year-on-year +1.82% -14.06% +14.29%

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 36,515 22,716 34,500
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.32% 92.70% 92.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,911 15,169 22,973
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.95% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £644
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £515 £525
% change year-on-year -2.91% -1.90% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,450 868 2,386
10th Percentile £15.38 £14.42 £12.92
25th Percentile £20.72 £19.25 £16.25
Median hourly rate £45.00 £32.50 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +38.46% -7.14% -20.20%
75th Percentile £67.42 £64.81 £60.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £76.25 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £41.94 £30.45 £35.00
% change year-on-year +37.73% -13.00% -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 20 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 20 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 20 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 +2 1,980 £625 -3.85% 433
South East +4 706 £625 - 155
North of England +4 610 £600 - 175
Midlands -2 403 £580 -3.42% 119
North West +7 355 £608 +1.33% 108
West Midlands -3 306 £600 - 85
South West +3 300 £698 +16.25% 117
Yorkshire +6 228 £558 -7.00% 49
East of England +18 197 £563 -6.25% 73
East Midlands -4 92 £513 -6.82% 34
North East +3 36 £575 -7.95% 18
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 20 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 1,360 (31.58%) Security Cleared
2 1,004 (23.31%) Azure
3 932 (21.64%) SC Cleared
4 850 (19.74%) AWS
5 611 (14.19%) Roadmaps
6 601 (13.95%) Microsoft
7 566 (13.14%) Migration
8 559 (12.98%) Agile
9 485 (11.26%) DevOps
10 461 (10.70%) Stakeholder Management
11 449 (10.42%) CI/CD
12 429 (9.96%) Enterprise Architecture
13 398 (9.24%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 396 (9.19%) Data Modelling
15 382 (8.87%) Technical Leadership
16 377 (8.75%) Integration Patterns
17 371 (8.61%) AI
18 356 (8.27%) TOGAF
19 353 (8.20%) Analytics
20 347 (8.06%) GCP
21 341 (7.92%) Data Architecture
22 337 (7.82%) Problem-Solving
23 318 (7.38%) DV Cleared
24 313 (7.27%) Architectural Design
24 313 (7.27%) Architectural Patterns
25 300 (6.97%) Microservices
26 299 (6.94%) Python
27 264 (6.13%) ServiceNow
28 256 (5.94%) Security Architecture
29 248 (5.76%) 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
1 108 (2.51%) SharePoint
2 100 (2.32%) Confluence
3 63 (1.46%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (0.63%) SAS
5 22 (0.51%) Apache Spark
6 20 (0.46%) CMS
7 19 (0.44%) Apache
8 16 (0.37%) Anypoint
8 16 (0.37%) Appian
9 14 (0.33%) Apache Airflow
10 13 (0.30%) ArcGIS
10 13 (0.30%) nginx
11 11 (0.26%) WebLogic
12 9 (0.21%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 9 (0.21%) OpenStack
13 8 (0.19%) Palantir Foundry
14 7 (0.16%) Camunda
14 7 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 7 (0.16%) Skype for Business
15 6 (0.14%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 48 (1.11%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (0.72%) Microsoft Project
3 22 (0.51%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 18 (0.42%) Microsoft Excel
5 15 (0.35%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.093%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.070%) Navisworks
7 3 (0.070%) 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
1 107 (2.48%) SAP S/4HANA
2 46 (1.07%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 21 (0.49%) Workday HCM
4 19 (0.44%) Payment Gateway
5 17 (0.39%) Dynamics CRM
6 13 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
6 13 (0.30%) SAP ERP
6 13 (0.30%) Teamcenter
7 11 (0.26%) Remedy ITSM
8 10 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
9 9 (0.21%) Salesforce CRM
9 9 (0.21%) SAP EWM
10 8 (0.19%) NetSuite
10 8 (0.19%) SAP PM
10 8 (0.19%) SAP PP
11 7 (0.16%) Maximo
11 7 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
11 7 (0.16%) SAP QM
12 6 (0.14%) Oracle Payables
12 6 (0.14%) SAP CRM
Cloud Services
1 1,004 (23.31%) Azure
2 850 (19.74%) AWS
3 347 (8.06%) GCP
4 188 (4.36%) Power Platform
5 165 (3.83%) Entra ID
6 149 (3.46%) Serverless
7 140 (3.25%) SaaS
8 130 (3.02%) Microsoft 365
9 100 (2.32%) IaaS
10 98 (2.28%) GitHub
11 97 (2.25%) PaaS
12 93 (2.16%) Dynamics 365
13 85 (1.97%) Azure DevOps
14 75 (1.74%) AWS Lambda
15 74 (1.72%) Amazon S3
16 73 (1.69%) OpenShift
17 68 (1.58%) Snowflake
18 61 (1.42%) Microsoft Purview
19 57 (1.32%) Virtual Private Cloud
20 56 (1.30%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 178 (4.13%) Firewall
2 146 (3.39%) Network Security
3 123 (2.86%) WAN
4 119 (2.76%) DNS
5 107 (2.48%) VPN
6 86 (2.00%) LAN
7 65 (1.51%) SD-WAN
8 36 (0.84%) BGP
9 34 (0.79%) DHCP
10 32 (0.74%) OSPF
11 30 (0.70%) MPLS
12 28 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
13 27 (0.63%) VLAN
14 25 (0.58%) TCP/IP
15 22 (0.51%) VXLAN
16 20 (0.46%) SAN
16 20 (0.46%) Wireless
17 19 (0.44%) NAS
18 18 (0.42%) BIG-IP
19 17 (0.39%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 139 (3.23%) Power BI
2 117 (2.72%) Metadata
3 104 (2.41%) Data Warehouse
4 98 (2.28%) Data Lake
5 71 (1.65%) SQL Server
6 58 (1.35%) NoSQL
7 48 (1.11%) PostgreSQL
8 44 (1.02%) Tableau
9 39 (0.91%) Azure SQL Database
10 33 (0.77%) Amazon Redshift
11 30 (0.70%) Big Data
11 30 (0.70%) Oracle Database
12 24 (0.56%) Delta Lake
13 23 (0.53%) BigQuery
14 21 (0.49%) Amazon Athena
14 21 (0.49%) Electronic Patient Records
14 21 (0.49%) GIS
15 19 (0.44%) Metadata Repository
15 19 (0.44%) Relational Database
16 17 (0.39%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 115 (2.67%) JIRA
2 83 (1.93%) Jenkins
3 49 (1.14%) Git
4 42 (0.98%) 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 (0.093%) Cucumber
12 4 (0.093%) Selenium
12 4 (0.093%) Snyk
12 4 (0.093%) Sonatype Nexus
12 4 (0.093%) Terragrunt
13 3 (0.070%) Claude Code
13 3 (0.070%) Rational DOORS
General
1 851 (19.76%) Social Skills
2 683 (15.86%) Finance
3 472 (10.96%) Public Sector
4 277 (6.43%) Analytical Skills
5 261 (6.06%) Banking
6 142 (3.30%) Documentation Skills
7 119 (2.76%) Retail
8 99 (2.30%) Influencing Skills
9 87 (2.02%) Military
10 85 (1.97%) Legal
11 72 (1.67%) Telecoms
12 68 (1.58%) Presentation Skills
13 61 (1.42%) Law
14 59 (1.37%) Marketing
15 58 (1.35%) Manufacturing
16 43 (1.00%) Financial Institution
17 34 (0.79%) Billing
18 33 (0.77%) Investment Banking
19 25 (0.58%) Aerospace
19 25 (0.58%) Inclusion and Diversity
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 216 (5.02%) REST
2 159 (3.69%) Middleware
3 110 (2.55%) SOAP
4 95 (2.21%) .NET
5 80 (1.86%) OpenID
6 77 (1.79%) LDAP
7 69 (1.60%) OAuth
8 63 (1.46%) Kafka
9 58 (1.35%) SAML
10 53 (1.23%) JSON
11 46 (1.07%) OAuth2
12 36 (0.84%) React
13 35 (0.81%) Oracle Fusion
14 34 (0.79%) SailPoint
15 33 (0.77%) AngularJS
16 32 (0.74%) RESTful
17 29 (0.67%) Spring
18 28 (0.65%) Web Services
19 24 (0.56%) PySpark
20 22 (0.51%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 346 (8.03%) Cloud Native
2 129 (3.00%) Product Ownership
3 118 (2.74%) Data Centre
4 111 (2.58%) Onboarding
5 110 (2.55%) Legacy Systems
6 107 (2.48%) Enterprise Software
7 94 (2.18%) Hybrid Cloud
8 88 (2.04%) Distributed Systems
9 77 (1.79%) PKI
10 71 (1.65%) Management Information System
11 69 (1.60%) Public Cloud
12 66 (1.53%) Security Posture
13 61 (1.42%) Operational Technology
14 60 (1.39%) CMDB
14 60 (1.39%) Data Protection Act
15 47 (1.09%) Self-Motivation
16 42 (0.98%) Private Cloud
17 39 (0.91%) AI Agents
18 38 (0.88%) Data Structures
19 31 (0.72%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 159 (3.69%) Windows
2 92 (2.14%) Linux
3 37 (0.86%) Windows Server
4 25 (0.58%) Android
4 25 (0.58%) Apple iOS
5 16 (0.37%) Unix
6 15 (0.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 14 (0.33%) Windows 10
8 12 (0.28%) Windows 7
9 11 (0.26%) 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%) CentOS
13 3 (0.070%) Data ONTAP
13 3 (0.070%) Solaris
13 3 (0.070%) Windows Server 2012
14 2 (0.046%) AIX
14 2 (0.046%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 611 (14.19%) Roadmaps
2 566 (13.14%) Migration
3 559 (12.98%) Agile
4 485 (11.26%) DevOps
5 461 (10.70%) Stakeholder Management
6 449 (10.42%) CI/CD
7 429 (9.96%) Enterprise Architecture
8 398 (9.24%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 396 (9.19%) Data Modelling
10 382 (8.87%) Technical Leadership
11 377 (8.75%) Integration Patterns
12 371 (8.61%) AI
13 356 (8.27%) TOGAF
14 353 (8.20%) Analytics
15 341 (7.92%) Data Architecture
16 337 (7.82%) Problem-Solving
17 313 (7.27%) Architectural Design
17 313 (7.27%) Architectural Patterns
18 300 (6.97%) Microservices
19 256 (5.94%) Security Architecture
Programming Languages
1 299 (6.94%) Python
2 220 (5.11%) SQL
3 176 (4.09%) PowerShell
4 168 (3.90%) Java
5 72 (1.67%) JavaScript
6 53 (1.23%) C#
7 39 (0.91%) Bicep
8 35 (0.81%) Bash
9 31 (0.72%) TypeScript
10 17 (0.39%) Ruby
11 16 (0.37%) Apex Code
11 16 (0.37%) Scala
12 14 (0.33%) PL/SQL
13 12 (0.28%) Kusto Query Language
14 10 (0.23%) R
15 9 (0.21%) Kotlin
15 9 (0.21%) Shell Script
15 9 (0.21%) T-SQL
16 8 (0.19%) VB
17 7 (0.16%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,360 (31.58%) Security Cleared
2 932 (21.64%) SC Cleared
3 318 (7.38%) DV Cleared
4 177 (4.11%) Degree
5 114 (2.65%) Azure Certification
5 114 (2.65%) TOGAF Certification
6 100 (2.32%) AWS Certification
7 97 (2.25%) CISSP
8 79 (1.83%) Cisco Certification
9 73 (1.69%) Computer Science Degree
10 62 (1.44%) BPSS Clearance
11 51 (1.18%) Microsoft Certification
12 47 (1.09%) CCNP
13 42 (0.98%) CISM
14 41 (0.95%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 35 (0.81%) Master's Degree
16 32 (0.74%) ITIL Certification
17 31 (0.72%) ISEB
18 30 (0.70%) (ISC)2 CCSP
19 28 (0.65%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 164 (3.81%) NIST
2 163 (3.78%) GDPR
3 131 (3.04%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 126 (2.93%) Data Quality
5 89 (2.07%) NCSC
6 60 (1.39%) QA
7 48 (1.11%) PCI DSS
8 38 (0.88%) COBIT
9 29 (0.67%) ISO 20022
10 28 (0.65%) GRC
11 25 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
12 17 (0.39%) Accessibility
12 17 (0.39%) HL7
12 17 (0.39%) NIST 800
13 16 (0.37%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 15 (0.35%) JSP 440
15 13 (0.30%) FINRA
15 13 (0.30%) MiFID
15 13 (0.30%) PSD2
15 13 (0.30%) SEPA
System Software
1 182 (4.23%) Active Directory
2 104 (2.41%) Docker
3 96 (2.23%) VMware Infrastructure
4 67 (1.56%) VMware NSX
5 29 (0.67%) vSphere
6 22 (0.51%) Virtual Desktop
7 17 (0.39%) Hyper-V
8 16 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
9 14 (0.33%) VMware ESXi
10 10 (0.23%) vCloud
11 9 (0.21%) Squid
12 8 (0.19%) NFS
13 7 (0.16%) BitLocker
13 7 (0.16%) Varnish
14 5 (0.12%) Postfix
14 5 (0.12%) RACF
15 4 (0.093%) Firmware
15 4 (0.093%) Oracle RAC
16 3 (0.070%) IAG
16 3 (0.070%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 234 (5.43%) Terraform
2 208 (4.83%) Kubernetes
3 100 (2.32%) Ansible
4 51 (1.18%) Single Sign-On
5 40 (0.93%) Microsoft Intune
6 37 (0.86%) Grafana
7 30 (0.70%) OPNET
7 30 (0.70%) vCenter Server
8 24 (0.56%) Prometheus
9 22 (0.51%) SCCM
10 21 (0.49%) FortiGate
11 20 (0.46%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 15 (0.35%) Argo
13 11 (0.26%) WMI
14 10 (0.23%) Istio
15 8 (0.19%) Puppet
16 7 (0.16%) Consul
17 5 (0.12%) Endace
17 5 (0.12%) HAProxy
17 5 (0.12%) Kibana
Vendors
1 601 (13.95%) Microsoft
2 264 (6.13%) ServiceNow
3 248 (5.76%) SAP
4 185 (4.30%) VMware
5 176 (4.09%) Oracle
6 162 (3.76%) Salesforce
7 156 (3.62%) Databricks
8 109 (2.53%) Cisco
9 91 (2.11%) Google
10 83 (1.93%) CyberArk
11 60 (1.39%) MuleSoft
12 55 (1.28%) Splunk
13 50 (1.16%) Remedy
14 48 (1.11%) Red Hat
15 47 (1.09%) Palo Alto
15 47 (1.09%) Workday
16 45 (1.04%) Sparx
17 44 (1.02%) Atlassian
18 43 (1.00%) IBM
19 39 (0.91%) BeyondTrust