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 27 February 2026.

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

6 months to
27 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 16 13
Rank change year-on-year -1 -3 +6
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 3,665 2,595 3,663
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.34% 10.09% 9.76%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.26% 10.86% 10.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,486 1,614 2,421
10th Percentile £458 £477 £500
25th Percentile £513 £548 £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 £800 £799 £800
UK median daily rate £625 £625 £650
% change year-on-year - -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 78 28 41
10th Percentile £49.40 £57.43 £52.50
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £61.25
Median hourly rate £70.64 £71.25 £78.74
Median % change year-on-year -0.86% -9.51% +12.49%
75th Percentile £88.00 £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 32,563 23,895 34,861
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.89% 92.95% 92.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,678 15,176 23,386
10th Percentile £306 £300 £270
25th Percentile £411 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £640
90th Percentile £725 £750 £748
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,085 729 2,154
10th Percentile £15.18 £16.25 £13.23
25th Percentile £19.00 £22.00 £16.30
Median hourly rate £35.00 £36.00 £34.52
Median % change year-on-year -2.78% +4.30% -13.71%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.30 £71.89
UK median hourly rate £33.50 £34.31 £35.00
% change year-on-year -2.35% -1.99% -12.50%

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 27 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 27 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 27 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 1,636 £630 -3.08% 272
South East +7 630 £625 - 192
North of England -2 510 £575 -4.17% 83
Midlands -3 364 £575 -4.17% 72
North West -1 282 £600 - 51
West Midlands -1 273 £600 -1.15% 48
South West 0 262 £706 +12.96% 36
Yorkshire -1 209 £558 -2.62% 18
East of England +16 163 £550 -13.73% 16
East Midlands -5 89 £503 -10.27% 24
North East -13 24 £625 -1.96% 16
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 27 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 1,165 (31.79%) Security Cleared
2 920 (25.10%) Azure
3 811 (22.13%) SC Cleared
4 728 (19.86%) AWS
5 536 (14.62%) Roadmaps
6 529 (14.43%) Microsoft
7 491 (13.40%) Agile
8 464 (12.66%) Stakeholder Management
9 453 (12.36%) Migration
10 416 (11.35%) DevOps
11 396 (10.80%) Enterprise Architecture
12 361 (9.85%) Data Modelling
13 358 (9.77%) TOGAF
14 355 (9.69%) CI/CD
15 346 (9.44%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 331 (9.03%) Technical Leadership
17 322 (8.79%) Problem-Solving
18 311 (8.49%) Data Architecture
18 311 (8.49%) GCP
19 305 (8.32%) Analytics
20 296 (8.08%) AI
21 282 (7.69%) Integration Patterns
22 270 (7.37%) DV Cleared
23 269 (7.34%) Python
24 255 (6.96%) Microservices
25 237 (6.47%) Architectural Patterns
26 232 (6.33%) Architectural Design
27 217 (5.92%) ServiceNow
28 214 (5.84%) Data Governance
28 214 (5.84%) Terraform

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
1 107 (2.92%) Confluence
2 95 (2.59%) SharePoint
3 61 (1.66%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (0.74%) SAS
5 21 (0.57%) CMS
6 19 (0.52%) Apache Spark
7 15 (0.41%) Anypoint
7 15 (0.41%) Apache Airflow
7 15 (0.41%) Appian
8 14 (0.38%) ArcGIS
9 13 (0.35%) WebLogic
10 12 (0.33%) Apache
10 12 (0.33%) OpenStack
11 11 (0.30%) nginx
12 9 (0.25%) Smallworld
13 7 (0.19%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 7 (0.19%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 7 (0.19%) Skype for Business
14 6 (0.16%) Sitecore CMS
14 6 (0.16%) Tomcat
Applications
1 50 (1.36%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (0.87%) Microsoft Project
3 25 (0.68%) Microsoft Excel
3 25 (0.68%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 12 (0.33%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.19%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.027%) ArchiCAD
6 1 (0.027%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.027%) FrameMaker
6 1 (0.027%) OrCAD
6 1 (0.027%) PlantUML
6 1 (0.027%) Siemens NX
6 1 (0.027%) Trello
Business Applications
1 92 (2.51%) SAP S/4HANA
2 37 (1.01%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 23 (0.63%) Workday HCM
4 20 (0.55%) Dynamics CRM
5 17 (0.46%) Payment Gateway
6 16 (0.44%) Salesforce CRM
7 11 (0.30%) NetSuite
8 10 (0.27%) Oracle EBS
8 10 (0.27%) SAP PM
9 9 (0.25%) Oracle Receivables
10 8 (0.22%) Maximo
10 8 (0.22%) Remedy ITSM
10 8 (0.22%) SAP ERP
10 8 (0.22%) SAP EWM
11 7 (0.19%) SAP PP
12 6 (0.16%) R3 Corda
12 6 (0.16%) SAP CO
12 6 (0.16%) SAP QM
12 6 (0.16%) Teamcenter
13 5 (0.14%) Distributed Ledger
Cloud Services
1 920 (25.10%) Azure
2 728 (19.86%) AWS
3 311 (8.49%) GCP
4 137 (3.74%) Entra ID
5 136 (3.71%) Power Platform
6 129 (3.52%) Microsoft 365
7 122 (3.33%) SaaS
8 115 (3.14%) Serverless
9 84 (2.29%) IaaS
10 78 (2.13%) Azure DevOps
10 78 (2.13%) GitHub
11 71 (1.94%) PaaS
12 65 (1.77%) OpenShift
13 64 (1.75%) AWS Lambda
14 63 (1.72%) Microsoft Purview
15 61 (1.66%) Amazon S3
16 59 (1.61%) Dynamics 365
17 55 (1.50%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 54 (1.47%) AWS CloudFormation
18 54 (1.47%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 182 (4.97%) Firewall
2 120 (3.27%) Network Security
3 112 (3.06%) DNS
4 109 (2.97%) WAN
5 98 (2.67%) VPN
6 72 (1.96%) LAN
7 55 (1.50%) SD-WAN
8 34 (0.93%) BGP
9 32 (0.87%) DHCP
10 29 (0.79%) MPLS
10 29 (0.79%) Wi-Fi
11 25 (0.68%) OSPF
12 24 (0.65%) TCP/IP
13 22 (0.60%) VLAN
14 20 (0.55%) VSAN
15 19 (0.52%) SAN
16 17 (0.46%) IPsec
17 16 (0.44%) SSL
17 16 (0.44%) VXLAN
17 16 (0.44%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 122 (3.33%) Data Warehouse
2 108 (2.95%) Metadata
3 96 (2.62%) Power BI
4 74 (2.02%) Data Lake
5 65 (1.77%) SQL Server
6 48 (1.31%) PostgreSQL
7 44 (1.20%) Tableau
8 42 (1.15%) NoSQL
9 29 (0.79%) Oracle Database
10 28 (0.76%) Azure SQL Database
11 27 (0.74%) Amazon Redshift
12 24 (0.65%) GIS
13 21 (0.57%) Big Data
14 20 (0.55%) Metadata Repository
15 19 (0.52%) Relational Database
16 17 (0.46%) Amazon Aurora
16 17 (0.46%) BigQuery
16 17 (0.46%) Delta Lake
17 16 (0.44%) Data Vault
17 16 (0.44%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 125 (3.41%) JIRA
2 85 (2.32%) Jenkins
3 42 (1.15%) GitLab
4 32 (0.87%) Git
5 16 (0.44%) ERwin
6 11 (0.30%) Bitbucket
7 10 (0.27%) Artifactory
7 10 (0.27%) SonarQube
8 7 (0.19%) MLflow
8 7 (0.19%) Postman
9 5 (0.14%) Oracle Forms
9 5 (0.14%) Rational DOORS
9 5 (0.14%) REST Assured
10 4 (0.11%) Cucumber
10 4 (0.11%) Selenium
10 4 (0.11%) Terragrunt
11 3 (0.082%) JUnit
11 3 (0.082%) PowerDesigner
11 3 (0.082%) Snyk
11 3 (0.082%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 839 (22.89%) Social Skills
2 589 (16.07%) Finance
3 415 (11.32%) Public Sector
4 263 (7.18%) Analytical Skills
5 222 (6.06%) Banking
6 121 (3.30%) Documentation Skills
7 85 (2.32%) Influencing Skills
8 83 (2.26%) Retail
9 79 (2.16%) Military
10 74 (2.02%) Legal
11 73 (1.99%) Presentation Skills
11 73 (1.99%) Telecoms
12 63 (1.72%) Marketing
13 53 (1.45%) Manufacturing
14 37 (1.01%) Billing
14 37 (1.01%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 31 (0.85%) Financial Institution
16 24 (0.65%) Law
17 22 (0.60%) Investment Banking
18 16 (0.44%) Aerospace
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 199 (5.43%) REST
2 139 (3.79%) Middleware
3 105 (2.86%) SOAP
4 75 (2.05%) OpenID
5 74 (2.02%) .NET
5 74 (2.02%) LDAP
6 64 (1.75%) OAuth
7 62 (1.69%) SAML
8 53 (1.45%) Kafka
9 50 (1.36%) JSON
10 40 (1.09%) OAuth2
11 34 (0.93%) SailPoint
12 31 (0.85%) AngularJS
12 31 (0.85%) RESTful
13 27 (0.74%) Oracle Fusion
13 27 (0.74%) React
14 24 (0.65%) PySpark
15 21 (0.57%) Microsoft Graph
15 21 (0.57%) Web Services
16 20 (0.55%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 264 (7.20%) Cloud Native
2 129 (3.52%) Product Ownership
3 110 (3.00%) Legacy Systems
4 108 (2.95%) Onboarding
5 98 (2.67%) Data Centre
6 93 (2.54%) Enterprise Software
7 90 (2.46%) PKI
8 77 (2.10%) Hybrid Cloud
9 58 (1.58%) Operational Technology
10 56 (1.53%) Security Posture
11 55 (1.50%) Management Information System
12 54 (1.47%) Public Cloud
13 52 (1.42%) Distributed Systems
14 51 (1.39%) Data Protection Act
15 45 (1.23%) Self-Motivation
16 43 (1.17%) CMDB
17 37 (1.01%) Data Structures
18 30 (0.82%) Private Cloud
19 28 (0.76%) Replication
20 27 (0.74%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 160 (4.37%) Windows
2 88 (2.40%) Linux
3 37 (1.01%) Windows Server
4 19 (0.52%) Android
4 19 (0.52%) Apple iOS
5 18 (0.49%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 17 (0.46%) Windows 7
7 14 (0.38%) Windows 10
8 13 (0.35%) Unix
9 9 (0.25%) Mac OS
10 8 (0.22%) VMS
10 8 (0.22%) Windows Server 2016
10 8 (0.22%) zOS
11 7 (0.19%) Windows Server 2019
12 6 (0.16%) Ubuntu
13 4 (0.11%) CentOS
14 3 (0.082%) Windows Server 2012
15 1 (0.027%) Data ONTAP
15 1 (0.027%) Kali Linux
15 1 (0.027%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 536 (14.62%) Roadmaps
2 491 (13.40%) Agile
3 464 (12.66%) Stakeholder Management
4 453 (12.36%) Migration
5 416 (11.35%) DevOps
6 396 (10.80%) Enterprise Architecture
7 361 (9.85%) Data Modelling
8 358 (9.77%) TOGAF
9 355 (9.69%) CI/CD
10 346 (9.44%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 331 (9.03%) Technical Leadership
12 322 (8.79%) Problem-Solving
13 311 (8.49%) Data Architecture
14 305 (8.32%) Analytics
15 296 (8.08%) AI
16 282 (7.69%) Integration Patterns
17 255 (6.96%) Microservices
18 237 (6.47%) Architectural Patterns
19 232 (6.33%) Architectural Design
20 214 (5.84%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 269 (7.34%) Python
2 191 (5.21%) SQL
3 171 (4.67%) PowerShell
4 116 (3.17%) Java
5 60 (1.64%) JavaScript
6 49 (1.34%) C#
7 36 (0.98%) Bash
8 30 (0.82%) TypeScript
9 29 (0.79%) Bicep
10 18 (0.49%) Apex Code
11 16 (0.44%) PL/SQL
12 14 (0.38%) Kusto Query Language
13 13 (0.35%) R
14 9 (0.25%) Ruby
14 9 (0.25%) Scala
14 9 (0.25%) T-SQL
15 8 (0.22%) VB
16 7 (0.19%) Korn
16 7 (0.19%) VBScript
17 6 (0.16%) C++
Qualifications
1 1,165 (31.79%) Security Cleared
2 811 (22.13%) SC Cleared
3 270 (7.37%) DV Cleared
4 175 (4.77%) Degree
5 112 (3.06%) TOGAF Certification
6 97 (2.65%) Azure Certification
7 96 (2.62%) AWS Certification
7 96 (2.62%) CISSP
8 71 (1.94%) Computer Science Degree
9 68 (1.86%) Cisco Certification
10 57 (1.56%) Microsoft Certification
11 56 (1.53%) BPSS Clearance
12 46 (1.26%) CISM
13 45 (1.23%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 44 (1.20%) Master's Degree
15 42 (1.15%) CCNP
16 30 (0.82%) ITIL Certification
17 29 (0.79%) CCIE
18 28 (0.76%) ISEB
19 22 (0.60%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 160 (4.37%) GDPR
2 124 (3.38%) NIST
3 117 (3.19%) Data Quality
4 103 (2.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 81 (2.21%) NCSC
6 58 (1.58%) QA
7 47 (1.28%) PCI DSS
8 32 (0.87%) COBIT
9 29 (0.79%) GRC
10 25 (0.68%) Cyber Essentials
10 25 (0.68%) ISO 20022
11 18 (0.49%) Accessibility
12 16 (0.44%) JSP 440
13 15 (0.41%) MiFID
14 13 (0.35%) FINRA
15 12 (0.33%) California Consumer Privacy Act
15 12 (0.33%) HIPAA
15 12 (0.33%) PSD2
15 12 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 11 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 167 (4.56%) Active Directory
2 117 (3.19%) Docker
3 82 (2.24%) VMware Infrastructure
4 63 (1.72%) VMware NSX
5 35 (0.95%) vSphere
6 21 (0.57%) Virtual Desktop
7 13 (0.35%) Hyper-V
7 13 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
7 13 (0.35%) VMware ESXi
8 8 (0.22%) Squid
9 7 (0.19%) BitLocker
10 6 (0.16%) vCloud
11 5 (0.14%) NFS
11 5 (0.14%) Oracle RAC
11 5 (0.14%) RACF
12 3 (0.082%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
12 3 (0.082%) Firmware
12 3 (0.082%) Varnish
13 2 (0.055%) Ceph
13 2 (0.055%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 214 (5.84%) Terraform
2 191 (5.21%) Kubernetes
3 97 (2.65%) Ansible
4 55 (1.50%) Single Sign-On
5 40 (1.09%) Microsoft Intune
6 30 (0.82%) OPNET
7 29 (0.79%) vCenter Server
8 23 (0.63%) FortiGate
8 23 (0.63%) Grafana
8 23 (0.63%) SCCM
9 20 (0.55%) Prometheus
10 16 (0.44%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 16 (0.44%) Argo
10 16 (0.44%) WMI
11 7 (0.19%) Consul
11 7 (0.19%) Istio
12 6 (0.16%) Puppet
13 5 (0.14%) Kibana
13 5 (0.14%) Progress Chef
14 3 (0.082%) SCOM
Vendors
1 529 (14.43%) Microsoft
2 217 (5.92%) ServiceNow
3 196 (5.35%) SAP
4 164 (4.47%) Oracle
4 164 (4.47%) VMware
5 162 (4.42%) Salesforce
6 118 (3.22%) Databricks
7 100 (2.73%) Cisco
8 90 (2.46%) CyberArk
9 87 (2.37%) Google
10 57 (1.56%) Splunk
11 56 (1.53%) MuleSoft
12 54 (1.47%) Palo Alto
13 49 (1.34%) Centrify
13 49 (1.34%) Remedy
14 46 (1.26%) Atlassian
15 45 (1.23%) Red Hat
15 45 (1.23%) Workday
16 38 (1.04%) BeyondTrust
16 38 (1.04%) Citrix