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 23 February 2026.

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

6 months to
23 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 16 13
Rank change year-on-year -1 -3 +7
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 3,567 2,578 3,690
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.28% 10.05% 9.75%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.19% 10.81% 10.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,422 1,589 2,441
10th Percentile £457 £475 £500
25th Percentile £513 £547 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -1.89%
75th Percentile £725 £725 £738
90th Percentile £788 £799 £800
UK median daily rate £625 £625 £650
% change year-on-year - -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 72 28 43
10th Percentile £49.40 £57.43 £53.45
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £61.25
Median hourly rate £71.25 £71.25 £78.74
Median % change year-on-year - -9.51% +12.49%
75th Percentile £90.09 £78.92 £87.53
90th Percentile £95.00 £86.30 £95.00
UK median hourly rate £70.00 £71.25 £77.64
% change year-on-year -1.75% -8.22% +10.91%

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 31,876 23,857 35,159
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.89% 92.97% 92.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,202 15,057 23,560
10th Percentile £305 £300 £272
25th Percentile £410 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £501 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.67% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £623 £638 £640
90th Percentile £725 £750 £745
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,049 719 2,153
10th Percentile £15.00 £16.25 £13.23
25th Percentile £18.87 £22.00 £16.54
Median hourly rate £33.17 £36.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -7.86% +2.86% -12.50%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £74.68 £75.30 £71.87
UK median hourly rate £31.76 £35.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year -9.27% - -12.01%

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 23 February 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 23 February 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 23 February 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 1,594 £630 -3.08% 378
South East +7 608 £625 - 276
North of England -2 498 £575 -4.17% 144
Midlands -3 355 £573 -4.54% 106
North West -3 278 £579 -3.50% 77
West Midlands -2 267 £600 -0.79% 69
South West 0 255 £706 +12.96% 72
Yorkshire -2 202 £560 -2.23% 44
East of England +16 162 £550 -13.73% 30
East Midlands -4 86 £500 -11.89% 37
North East -14 23 £625 -1.96% 25
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 23 February 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 1,130 (31.68%) Security Cleared
2 905 (25.37%) Azure
3 792 (22.20%) SC Cleared
4 713 (19.99%) AWS
5 520 (14.58%) Microsoft
6 516 (14.47%) Roadmaps
7 485 (13.60%) Agile
8 459 (12.87%) Stakeholder Management
9 432 (12.11%) Migration
10 410 (11.49%) DevOps
11 389 (10.91%) Enterprise Architecture
12 353 (9.90%) TOGAF
13 347 (9.73%) CI/CD
13 347 (9.73%) Data Modelling
14 339 (9.50%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 330 (9.25%) Technical Leadership
16 313 (8.77%) Problem-Solving
17 299 (8.38%) GCP
18 298 (8.35%) Data Architecture
19 291 (8.16%) Analytics
20 290 (8.13%) AI
21 267 (7.49%) Integration Patterns
21 267 (7.49%) Python
22 258 (7.23%) DV Cleared
23 249 (6.98%) Microservices
24 230 (6.45%) Architectural Design
25 225 (6.31%) Architectural Patterns
26 212 (5.94%) Terraform
27 208 (5.83%) Data Governance
28 207 (5.80%) ServiceNow

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 (3.03%) Confluence
2 89 (2.50%) SharePoint
3 59 (1.65%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (0.76%) SAS
5 20 (0.56%) CMS
6 18 (0.50%) Apache Spark
7 15 (0.42%) Anypoint
7 15 (0.42%) Apache Airflow
7 15 (0.42%) Appian
8 14 (0.39%) ArcGIS
9 13 (0.36%) WebLogic
10 12 (0.34%) OpenStack
11 11 (0.31%) Apache
12 10 (0.28%) nginx
13 9 (0.25%) Smallworld
14 7 (0.20%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 7 (0.20%) Skype for Business
15 6 (0.17%) Ethereum
15 6 (0.17%) Hyperledger
15 6 (0.17%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 51 (1.43%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (0.90%) Microsoft Project
3 26 (0.73%) Microsoft Excel
4 25 (0.70%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 12 (0.34%) MS Visio
6 7 (0.20%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.028%) ArchiCAD
7 1 (0.028%) AutoCAD
7 1 (0.028%) FrameMaker
7 1 (0.028%) OrCAD
7 1 (0.028%) PlantUML
7 1 (0.028%) Revit
7 1 (0.028%) Siemens NX
7 1 (0.028%) Trello
Business Applications
1 91 (2.55%) SAP S/4HANA
2 38 (1.07%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 23 (0.64%) Workday HCM
4 20 (0.56%) Dynamics CRM
5 17 (0.48%) Payment Gateway
6 16 (0.45%) Salesforce CRM
7 11 (0.31%) NetSuite
8 10 (0.28%) SAP PM
9 9 (0.25%) Oracle Receivables
10 8 (0.22%) Maximo
10 8 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
10 8 (0.22%) SAP ERP
10 8 (0.22%) SAP EWM
11 7 (0.20%) SAP PP
12 6 (0.17%) Oracle SCM
12 6 (0.17%) R3 Corda
12 6 (0.17%) Remedy ITSM
12 6 (0.17%) SAP CO
12 6 (0.17%) SAP QM
13 5 (0.14%) Distributed Ledger
Cloud Services
1 905 (25.37%) Azure
2 713 (19.99%) AWS
3 299 (8.38%) GCP
4 134 (3.76%) Entra ID
5 130 (3.64%) Power Platform
6 127 (3.56%) Microsoft 365
7 122 (3.42%) SaaS
8 115 (3.22%) Serverless
9 81 (2.27%) IaaS
10 80 (2.24%) Azure DevOps
10 80 (2.24%) GitHub
11 67 (1.88%) PaaS
12 66 (1.85%) AWS Lambda
13 64 (1.79%) Amazon S3
13 64 (1.79%) OpenShift
14 61 (1.71%) Microsoft Purview
15 59 (1.65%) Dynamics 365
16 54 (1.51%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 51 (1.43%) Azure Data Factory
17 51 (1.43%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 177 (4.96%) Firewall
2 120 (3.36%) Network Security
3 107 (3.00%) WAN
4 104 (2.92%) DNS
5 97 (2.72%) VPN
6 71 (1.99%) LAN
7 53 (1.49%) SD-WAN
8 33 (0.93%) BGP
9 29 (0.81%) DHCP
9 29 (0.81%) Wi-Fi
10 27 (0.76%) MPLS
11 25 (0.70%) OSPF
12 24 (0.67%) TCP/IP
13 21 (0.59%) SAN
14 20 (0.56%) VLAN
14 20 (0.56%) VSAN
15 18 (0.50%) IPsec
16 17 (0.48%) SSL
17 15 (0.42%) Internet
18 14 (0.39%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 116 (3.25%) Data Warehouse
2 103 (2.89%) Metadata
3 91 (2.55%) Power BI
4 70 (1.96%) Data Lake
5 58 (1.63%) SQL Server
6 45 (1.26%) PostgreSQL
7 44 (1.23%) Tableau
8 40 (1.12%) NoSQL
9 29 (0.81%) Oracle Database
10 27 (0.76%) Amazon Redshift
11 26 (0.73%) Azure SQL Database
12 24 (0.67%) GIS
13 21 (0.59%) Big Data
14 19 (0.53%) DynamoDB
14 19 (0.53%) Metadata Repository
15 18 (0.50%) Relational Database
16 17 (0.48%) Amazon Aurora
17 16 (0.45%) Delta Lake
18 15 (0.42%) Amazon Athena
18 15 (0.42%) Data Vault
Development Applications
1 126 (3.53%) JIRA
2 87 (2.44%) Jenkins
3 42 (1.18%) GitLab
4 30 (0.84%) Git
5 15 (0.42%) ERwin
6 10 (0.28%) Artifactory
6 10 (0.28%) Bitbucket
7 9 (0.25%) SonarQube
8 7 (0.20%) MLflow
8 7 (0.20%) Postman
9 5 (0.14%) Oracle Forms
9 5 (0.14%) REST Assured
10 4 (0.11%) Cucumber
10 4 (0.11%) Rational DOORS
10 4 (0.11%) Selenium
10 4 (0.11%) Terragrunt
11 3 (0.084%) JUnit
11 3 (0.084%) MSI
11 3 (0.084%) PowerDesigner
11 3 (0.084%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 820 (22.99%) Social Skills
2 570 (15.98%) Finance
3 405 (11.35%) Public Sector
4 253 (7.09%) Analytical Skills
5 213 (5.97%) Banking
6 117 (3.28%) Documentation Skills
7 85 (2.38%) Influencing Skills
8 78 (2.19%) Military
9 77 (2.16%) Retail
10 73 (2.05%) Legal
11 72 (2.02%) Presentation Skills
12 71 (1.99%) Telecoms
13 62 (1.74%) Marketing
14 52 (1.46%) Manufacturing
15 35 (0.98%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 34 (0.95%) Billing
17 27 (0.76%) Financial Institution
18 23 (0.64%) Law
19 20 (0.56%) Investment Banking
20 15 (0.42%) Aerospace
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 193 (5.41%) REST
2 133 (3.73%) Middleware
3 107 (3.00%) SOAP
4 75 (2.10%) .NET
5 73 (2.05%) LDAP
5 73 (2.05%) OpenID
6 63 (1.77%) OAuth
6 63 (1.77%) SAML
7 54 (1.51%) Kafka
8 50 (1.40%) JSON
9 39 (1.09%) OAuth2
10 33 (0.93%) SailPoint
11 31 (0.87%) AngularJS
12 30 (0.84%) RESTful
13 27 (0.76%) React
14 24 (0.67%) PySpark
15 23 (0.64%) Oracle Fusion
16 20 (0.56%) Microsoft Graph
16 20 (0.56%) Spring
16 20 (0.56%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 254 (7.12%) Cloud Native
2 127 (3.56%) Product Ownership
3 107 (3.00%) Legacy Systems
4 105 (2.94%) Onboarding
5 96 (2.69%) Data Centre
6 91 (2.55%) Enterprise Software
7 87 (2.44%) PKI
8 75 (2.10%) Hybrid Cloud
9 56 (1.57%) Operational Technology
10 55 (1.54%) Security Posture
11 53 (1.49%) Management Information System
12 52 (1.46%) Public Cloud
13 47 (1.32%) Data Protection Act
13 47 (1.32%) Distributed Systems
14 43 (1.21%) CMDB
14 43 (1.21%) Self-Motivation
15 35 (0.98%) Data Structures
16 29 (0.81%) Private Cloud
17 27 (0.76%) AI Agents
18 26 (0.73%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 151 (4.23%) Windows
2 85 (2.38%) Linux
3 35 (0.98%) Windows Server
4 18 (0.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 17 (0.48%) Windows 7
6 15 (0.42%) Android
6 15 (0.42%) Apple iOS
7 14 (0.39%) Windows 10
8 12 (0.34%) Unix
9 9 (0.25%) Mac OS
10 8 (0.22%) VMS
10 8 (0.22%) Windows Server 2016
10 8 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
11 7 (0.20%) zOS
12 6 (0.17%) Ubuntu
13 4 (0.11%) CentOS
14 2 (0.056%) Windows Server 2012
15 1 (0.028%) Data ONTAP
15 1 (0.028%) Kali Linux
15 1 (0.028%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 516 (14.47%) Roadmaps
2 485 (13.60%) Agile
3 459 (12.87%) Stakeholder Management
4 432 (12.11%) Migration
5 410 (11.49%) DevOps
6 389 (10.91%) Enterprise Architecture
7 353 (9.90%) TOGAF
8 347 (9.73%) CI/CD
8 347 (9.73%) Data Modelling
9 339 (9.50%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 330 (9.25%) Technical Leadership
11 313 (8.77%) Problem-Solving
12 298 (8.35%) Data Architecture
13 291 (8.16%) Analytics
14 290 (8.13%) AI
15 267 (7.49%) Integration Patterns
16 249 (6.98%) Microservices
17 230 (6.45%) Architectural Design
18 225 (6.31%) Architectural Patterns
19 208 (5.83%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 267 (7.49%) Python
2 179 (5.02%) SQL
3 167 (4.68%) PowerShell
4 118 (3.31%) Java
5 58 (1.63%) JavaScript
6 47 (1.32%) C#
7 35 (0.98%) Bash
8 31 (0.87%) Bicep
9 30 (0.84%) TypeScript
10 18 (0.50%) Apex Code
11 15 (0.42%) PL/SQL
12 14 (0.39%) Kusto Query Language
13 13 (0.36%) R
14 9 (0.25%) Scala
14 9 (0.25%) T-SQL
15 8 (0.22%) Ruby
15 8 (0.22%) VB
16 7 (0.20%) Korn
16 7 (0.20%) VBScript
17 6 (0.17%) C
Qualifications
1 1,130 (31.68%) Security Cleared
2 792 (22.20%) SC Cleared
3 258 (7.23%) DV Cleared
4 174 (4.88%) Degree
5 112 (3.14%) TOGAF Certification
6 96 (2.69%) AWS Certification
7 95 (2.66%) Azure Certification
8 94 (2.64%) CISSP
9 69 (1.93%) Computer Science Degree
10 65 (1.82%) Cisco Certification
11 57 (1.60%) Microsoft Certification
12 56 (1.57%) BPSS Clearance
13 45 (1.26%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 45 (1.26%) CISM
14 44 (1.23%) Master's Degree
15 40 (1.12%) CCNP
16 30 (0.84%) ITIL Certification
17 29 (0.81%) CCIE
18 28 (0.78%) ISEB
19 20 (0.56%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 161 (4.51%) GDPR
2 123 (3.45%) NIST
3 112 (3.14%) Data Quality
4 106 (2.97%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 81 (2.27%) NCSC
6 57 (1.60%) QA
7 46 (1.29%) PCI DSS
8 32 (0.90%) COBIT
9 29 (0.81%) GRC
10 26 (0.73%) Cyber Essentials
11 24 (0.67%) ISO 20022
12 18 (0.50%) Accessibility
13 16 (0.45%) JSP 440
14 15 (0.42%) MiFID
15 13 (0.36%) FINRA
16 12 (0.34%) California Consumer Privacy Act
16 12 (0.34%) HIPAA
16 12 (0.34%) Sarbanes-Oxley
17 11 (0.31%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
17 11 (0.31%) PSD2
System Software
1 162 (4.54%) Active Directory
2 120 (3.36%) Docker
3 81 (2.27%) VMware Infrastructure
4 60 (1.68%) VMware NSX
5 36 (1.01%) vSphere
6 22 (0.62%) Virtual Desktop
7 13 (0.36%) Hyper-V
7 13 (0.36%) Virtual Machines
7 13 (0.36%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.20%) BitLocker
8 7 (0.20%) Squid
9 5 (0.14%) Oracle RAC
9 5 (0.14%) RACF
9 5 (0.14%) vCloud
10 4 (0.11%) NFS
11 3 (0.084%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
11 3 (0.084%) Firmware
12 2 (0.056%) Ceph
12 2 (0.056%) HDFS
12 2 (0.056%) Lustre
Systems Management
1 212 (5.94%) Terraform
2 187 (5.24%) Kubernetes
3 93 (2.61%) Ansible
4 56 (1.57%) Single Sign-On
5 35 (0.98%) Microsoft Intune
6 30 (0.84%) OPNET
7 29 (0.81%) vCenter Server
8 22 (0.62%) FortiGate
8 22 (0.62%) SCCM
9 21 (0.59%) Grafana
10 18 (0.50%) Prometheus
11 16 (0.45%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 16 (0.45%) Argo
11 16 (0.45%) WMI
12 7 (0.20%) Istio
13 6 (0.17%) Consul
14 5 (0.14%) Kibana
14 5 (0.14%) Puppet
15 4 (0.11%) Progress Chef
16 3 (0.084%) vRealize
Vendors
1 520 (14.58%) Microsoft
2 207 (5.80%) ServiceNow
3 194 (5.44%) SAP
4 161 (4.51%) Salesforce
5 157 (4.40%) Oracle
6 156 (4.37%) VMware
7 119 (3.34%) Databricks
8 94 (2.64%) Cisco
9 90 (2.52%) CyberArk
10 86 (2.41%) Google
11 56 (1.57%) Palo Alto
12 55 (1.54%) MuleSoft
12 55 (1.54%) Splunk
13 49 (1.37%) Centrify
14 47 (1.32%) Remedy
15 45 (1.26%) Atlassian
16 44 (1.23%) Red Hat
17 43 (1.21%) Workday
18 37 (1.04%) BeyondTrust
18 37 (1.04%) IBM