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 6 February 2026.

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

6 months to
6 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 16 13
Rank change year-on-year -2 -3 +8
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 3,321 2,641 3,702
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.94% 10.05% 9.74%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.85% 10.81% 10.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,268 1,590 2,484
10th Percentile £457 £475 £500
25th Percentile £513 £550 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -1.52%
75th Percentile £725 £725 £738
90th Percentile £793 £799 £795
UK median daily rate £625 £625 £650
% change year-on-year - -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 55 30 47
10th Percentile £49.40 £57.98 £58.90
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £61.25
Median hourly rate £72.50 £70.00 £78.74
Median % change year-on-year +3.57% -11.10% +12.49%
75th Percentile £90.09 £77.65 £87.27
90th Percentile £95.00 £85.95 £95.00
UK median hourly rate £72.50 £70.00 £78.00
% change year-on-year +3.57% -10.26% +11.43%

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 30,616 24,434 35,357
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.64% 93.01% 93.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 19,494 15,146 23,822
10th Percentile £300 £300 £270
25th Percentile £406 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £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 1,931 720 2,109
10th Percentile £14.96 £15.99 £13.23
25th Percentile £18.82 £21.41 £16.79
Median hourly rate £30.00 £35.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -14.29% - -2.78%
75th Percentile £63.75 £64.50 £61.50
90th Percentile £71.99 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £29.65 £33.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year -10.17% -5.71% -

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 6 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 6 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 6 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 -2 1,464 £630 -3.08% 439
South East +10 573 £625 - 255
North of England -2 474 £575 -4.17% 157
Midlands -2 326 £573 -4.54% 107
North West -5 266 £577 -3.83% 89
South West 0 258 £706 +12.96% 70
West Midlands -3 239 £600 -1.15% 80
Yorkshire -2 192 £563 -4.26% 42
East of England +13 137 £550 -12.00% 48
East Midlands -5 85 £468 -16.52% 27
North East -14 21 £625 -1.96% 27
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 6 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 1,028 (30.95%) Security Cleared
2 859 (25.87%) Azure
3 720 (21.68%) SC Cleared
4 656 (19.75%) AWS
5 494 (14.88%) Microsoft
6 487 (14.66%) Roadmaps
7 468 (14.09%) Agile
8 433 (13.04%) Stakeholder Management
9 403 (12.13%) Migration
10 384 (11.56%) DevOps
11 376 (11.32%) Enterprise Architecture
12 332 (10.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 331 (9.97%) Data Modelling
14 319 (9.61%) TOGAF
15 317 (9.55%) CI/CD
16 313 (9.42%) Technical Leadership
17 293 (8.82%) Problem-Solving
18 279 (8.40%) GCP
19 268 (8.07%) Analytics
20 267 (8.04%) Data Architecture
21 266 (8.01%) AI
22 259 (7.80%) Python
23 238 (7.17%) Integration Patterns
24 237 (7.14%) Microservices
25 234 (7.05%) DV Cleared
26 217 (6.53%) Architectural Design
27 198 (5.96%) Terraform
28 195 (5.87%) Architectural Patterns
29 194 (5.84%) ServiceNow
30 191 (5.75%) Cybersecurity

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
1 104 (3.13%) Confluence
2 81 (2.44%) SharePoint
3 59 (1.78%) Microsoft Exchange
4 24 (0.72%) SAS
5 22 (0.66%) CMS
6 16 (0.48%) OpenStack
7 15 (0.45%) Anypoint
7 15 (0.45%) Apache Spark
8 14 (0.42%) Apache Airflow
9 11 (0.33%) Apache
9 11 (0.33%) Appian
9 11 (0.33%) WebLogic
10 10 (0.30%) ArcGIS
11 9 (0.27%) Smallworld
12 7 (0.21%) nginx
12 7 (0.21%) Skype for Business
13 6 (0.18%) Ethereum
13 6 (0.18%) GeoServer
13 6 (0.18%) Hyperledger
14 5 (0.15%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 51 (1.54%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (0.96%) Microsoft Project
3 29 (0.87%) Microsoft Excel
4 28 (0.84%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 14 (0.42%) MS Visio
6 6 (0.18%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.060%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.030%) ArchiCAD
8 1 (0.030%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.030%) FrameMaker
8 1 (0.030%) OrCAD
8 1 (0.030%) Revit
8 1 (0.030%) Siemens NX
8 1 (0.030%) Trello
Business Applications
1 88 (2.65%) SAP S/4HANA
2 38 (1.14%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 26 (0.78%) Dynamics CRM
4 22 (0.66%) Workday HCM
5 16 (0.48%) Payment Gateway
5 16 (0.48%) Salesforce CRM
6 14 (0.42%) NetSuite
7 9 (0.27%) Oracle Receivables
7 9 (0.27%) SAP PM
8 8 (0.24%) SAP CO
8 8 (0.24%) SAP EWM
8 8 (0.24%) SAP PP
9 7 (0.21%) Maximo
9 7 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
10 6 (0.18%) Oracle SCM
10 6 (0.18%) R3 Corda
10 6 (0.18%) SAP FI
10 6 (0.18%) SAP FI/CO
10 6 (0.18%) SAP QM
11 5 (0.15%) Distributed Ledger
Cloud Services
1 859 (25.87%) Azure
2 656 (19.75%) AWS
3 279 (8.40%) GCP
4 129 (3.88%) Power Platform
5 119 (3.58%) SaaS
6 115 (3.46%) Microsoft 365
7 112 (3.37%) Entra ID
7 112 (3.37%) Serverless
8 77 (2.32%) Azure DevOps
9 75 (2.26%) IaaS
10 71 (2.14%) GitHub
11 64 (1.93%) Microsoft Purview
12 63 (1.90%) AWS Lambda
13 62 (1.87%) OpenShift
14 61 (1.84%) Dynamics 365
15 60 (1.81%) PaaS
16 58 (1.75%) Amazon S3
17 50 (1.51%) Azure Data Factory
17 50 (1.51%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 49 (1.48%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 163 (4.91%) Firewall
2 111 (3.34%) WAN
3 103 (3.10%) Network Security
4 96 (2.89%) DNS
5 93 (2.80%) VPN
6 74 (2.23%) LAN
7 54 (1.63%) SD-WAN
8 34 (1.02%) BGP
9 30 (0.90%) Wi-Fi
10 28 (0.84%) MPLS
11 27 (0.81%) DHCP
12 22 (0.66%) OSPF
12 22 (0.66%) TCP/IP
13 21 (0.63%) VSAN
14 20 (0.60%) SAN
15 18 (0.54%) Internet
15 18 (0.54%) IPsec
15 18 (0.54%) SSL
16 16 (0.48%) VLAN
17 15 (0.45%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 108 (3.25%) Data Warehouse
2 94 (2.83%) Metadata
3 86 (2.59%) Power BI
4 67 (2.02%) Data Lake
5 55 (1.66%) SQL Server
6 46 (1.39%) PostgreSQL
7 45 (1.36%) Tableau
8 35 (1.05%) NoSQL
9 27 (0.81%) Amazon Redshift
10 26 (0.78%) Azure SQL Database
11 23 (0.69%) Oracle Database
12 21 (0.63%) DynamoDB
13 20 (0.60%) GIS
14 18 (0.54%) Amazon Aurora
14 18 (0.54%) Relational Database
15 17 (0.51%) Metadata Repository
16 16 (0.48%) Big Data
16 16 (0.48%) Data Vault
16 16 (0.48%) Redis
17 15 (0.45%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 123 (3.70%) JIRA
2 82 (2.47%) Jenkins
3 39 (1.17%) GitLab
4 28 (0.84%) Git
5 16 (0.48%) ERwin
6 10 (0.30%) Artifactory
7 9 (0.27%) Bitbucket
7 9 (0.27%) SonarQube
8 6 (0.18%) Postman
9 5 (0.15%) Oracle Forms
10 4 (0.12%) MLflow
10 4 (0.12%) MSI
10 4 (0.12%) Rational DOORS
10 4 (0.12%) REST Assured
10 4 (0.12%) Selenium
10 4 (0.12%) Terragrunt
11 3 (0.090%) Cucumber
11 3 (0.090%) JUnit
11 3 (0.090%) Visual Studio Code
12 2 (0.060%) LoadRunner
General
1 802 (24.15%) Social Skills
2 540 (16.26%) Finance
3 379 (11.41%) Public Sector
4 244 (7.35%) Analytical Skills
5 206 (6.20%) Banking
6 110 (3.31%) Documentation Skills
7 83 (2.50%) Influencing Skills
8 80 (2.41%) Legal
9 74 (2.23%) Military
10 73 (2.20%) Telecoms
11 69 (2.08%) Retail
12 67 (2.02%) Presentation Skills
13 66 (1.99%) Marketing
14 47 (1.42%) Manufacturing
15 37 (1.11%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 36 (1.08%) Billing
17 26 (0.78%) Financial Institution
18 24 (0.72%) Law
19 20 (0.60%) Back Office
20 17 (0.51%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 190 (5.72%) REST
2 106 (3.19%) Middleware
3 105 (3.16%) SOAP
4 73 (2.20%) .NET
5 72 (2.17%) LDAP
6 68 (2.05%) OpenID
7 62 (1.87%) OAuth
8 61 (1.84%) SAML
9 52 (1.57%) Kafka
10 51 (1.54%) JSON
11 36 (1.08%) OAuth2
12 30 (0.90%) RESTful
13 28 (0.84%) AngularJS
14 26 (0.78%) SailPoint
15 23 (0.69%) PySpark
15 23 (0.69%) Web Services
16 22 (0.66%) React
17 21 (0.63%) Microsoft Graph
18 20 (0.60%) Oracle Fusion
18 20 (0.60%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 242 (7.29%) Cloud Native
2 125 (3.76%) Product Ownership
3 100 (3.01%) Onboarding
4 98 (2.95%) Legacy Systems
5 93 (2.80%) Data Centre
6 87 (2.62%) Enterprise Software
7 86 (2.59%) PKI
8 69 (2.08%) Hybrid Cloud
9 56 (1.69%) Security Posture
10 50 (1.51%) Public Cloud
11 49 (1.48%) Management Information System
12 48 (1.45%) Distributed Systems
13 46 (1.39%) Operational Technology
14 44 (1.32%) Self-Motivation
15 42 (1.26%) CMDB
15 42 (1.26%) Data Protection Act
16 31 (0.93%) Data Structures
17 28 (0.84%) Private Cloud
18 25 (0.75%) NHS
19 24 (0.72%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 145 (4.37%) Windows
2 83 (2.50%) Linux
3 39 (1.17%) Windows Server
4 18 (0.54%) Windows 7
5 17 (0.51%) Windows 10
6 16 (0.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 12 (0.36%) Unix
8 11 (0.33%) Android
8 11 (0.33%) Apple iOS
8 11 (0.33%) Windows Server 2019
9 9 (0.27%) Mac OS
9 9 (0.27%) Windows Server 2016
10 7 (0.21%) VMS
11 6 (0.18%) Ubuntu
12 5 (0.15%) zOS
13 4 (0.12%) CentOS
14 3 (0.090%) Windows Server 2008
15 2 (0.060%) Windows Server 2012
16 1 (0.030%) Kali Linux
16 1 (0.030%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 487 (14.66%) Roadmaps
2 468 (14.09%) Agile
3 433 (13.04%) Stakeholder Management
4 403 (12.13%) Migration
5 384 (11.56%) DevOps
6 376 (11.32%) Enterprise Architecture
7 332 (10.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 331 (9.97%) Data Modelling
9 319 (9.61%) TOGAF
10 317 (9.55%) CI/CD
11 313 (9.42%) Technical Leadership
12 293 (8.82%) Problem-Solving
13 268 (8.07%) Analytics
14 267 (8.04%) Data Architecture
15 266 (8.01%) AI
16 238 (7.17%) Integration Patterns
17 237 (7.14%) Microservices
18 217 (6.53%) Architectural Design
19 195 (5.87%) Architectural Patterns
20 191 (5.75%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 259 (7.80%) Python
2 172 (5.18%) SQL
3 167 (5.03%) PowerShell
4 118 (3.55%) Java
5 53 (1.60%) JavaScript
6 40 (1.20%) C#
7 33 (0.99%) Bash
8 29 (0.87%) TypeScript
9 28 (0.84%) Bicep
10 16 (0.48%) PL/SQL
11 15 (0.45%) Apex Code
12 14 (0.42%) Kusto Query Language
13 13 (0.39%) R
14 9 (0.27%) T-SQL
15 8 (0.24%) Ruby
15 8 (0.24%) Scala
15 8 (0.24%) VB
16 7 (0.21%) Korn
16 7 (0.21%) VBScript
17 6 (0.18%) C
Qualifications
1 1,028 (30.95%) Security Cleared
2 720 (21.68%) SC Cleared
3 234 (7.05%) DV Cleared
4 163 (4.91%) Degree
5 97 (2.92%) TOGAF Certification
6 89 (2.68%) AWS Certification
6 89 (2.68%) Azure Certification
7 77 (2.32%) CISSP
8 63 (1.90%) Computer Science Degree
9 57 (1.72%) Microsoft Certification
10 53 (1.60%) BPSS Clearance
10 53 (1.60%) Cisco Certification
11 43 (1.29%) Master's Degree
12 42 (1.26%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 38 (1.14%) CISM
14 34 (1.02%) CCNP
15 30 (0.90%) CCIE
16 29 (0.87%) ITIL Certification
17 28 (0.84%) ISEB
18 14 (0.42%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 150 (4.52%) GDPR
2 119 (3.58%) NIST
3 105 (3.16%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 102 (3.07%) Data Quality
5 79 (2.38%) NCSC
6 53 (1.60%) QA
7 41 (1.23%) PCI DSS
8 31 (0.93%) COBIT
9 29 (0.87%) GRC
10 19 (0.57%) Cyber Essentials
10 19 (0.57%) ISO 20022
11 18 (0.54%) JSP 440
12 17 (0.51%) Accessibility
13 15 (0.45%) HIPAA
13 15 (0.45%) MiFID
14 14 (0.42%) California Consumer Privacy Act
15 12 (0.36%) FINRA
16 11 (0.33%) HMG Security Policy Framework
17 9 (0.27%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
17 9 (0.27%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 149 (4.49%) Active Directory
2 107 (3.22%) Docker
3 79 (2.38%) VMware Infrastructure
4 51 (1.54%) VMware NSX
5 33 (0.99%) vSphere
6 21 (0.63%) Virtual Desktop
7 17 (0.51%) VMware ESXi
8 13 (0.39%) Virtual Machines
9 12 (0.36%) Hyper-V
10 7 (0.21%) BitLocker
11 5 (0.15%) Oracle RAC
11 5 (0.15%) RACF
11 5 (0.15%) Squid
12 4 (0.12%) NFS
12 4 (0.12%) vCloud
13 3 (0.090%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
13 3 (0.090%) Firmware
14 2 (0.060%) Ceph
14 2 (0.060%) Lustre
14 2 (0.060%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 198 (5.96%) Terraform
2 165 (4.97%) Kubernetes
3 90 (2.71%) Ansible
4 54 (1.63%) Single Sign-On
5 33 (0.99%) OPNET
6 29 (0.87%) vCenter Server
7 24 (0.72%) Microsoft Intune
8 23 (0.69%) SCCM
9 18 (0.54%) FortiGate
9 18 (0.54%) Grafana
10 17 (0.51%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 17 (0.51%) WMI
11 16 (0.48%) Prometheus
12 14 (0.42%) Argo
13 7 (0.21%) Istio
14 5 (0.15%) Consul
14 5 (0.15%) Kibana
14 5 (0.15%) Puppet
15 4 (0.12%) Progress Chef
16 3 (0.090%) SCOM
Vendors
1 494 (14.88%) Microsoft
2 194 (5.84%) ServiceNow
3 190 (5.72%) SAP
4 159 (4.79%) Salesforce
5 143 (4.31%) Oracle
6 141 (4.25%) VMware
7 104 (3.13%) Databricks
8 91 (2.74%) CyberArk
8 91 (2.74%) Google
9 89 (2.68%) Cisco
10 58 (1.75%) Splunk
11 52 (1.57%) Palo Alto
12 50 (1.51%) MuleSoft
13 49 (1.48%) Centrify
14 45 (1.36%) Atlassian
14 45 (1.36%) Remedy
15 40 (1.20%) Red Hat
16 39 (1.17%) Workday
17 37 (1.11%) Sparx
18 35 (1.05%) OpenAI