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 22 February 2026.

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

6 months to
22 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 16 16 13
Rank change year-on-year 0 -3 +7
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 3,575 2,590 3,710
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.28% 10.02% 9.78%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.19% 10.78% 10.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,432 1,597 2,464
10th Percentile £458 £475 £500
25th Percentile £513 £548 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -1.81%
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 71 28 43
10th Percentile £49.40 £57.43 £53.45
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £61.25
Median hourly rate £70.00 £71.25 £78.74
Median % change year-on-year -1.75% -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 £76.53
% change year-on-year -1.75% -6.90% +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 31,956 24,036 35,271
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.86% 92.97% 92.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,260 15,171 23,637
10th Percentile £305 £300 £273
25th Percentile £410 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £501 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.67% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £624 £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 2,049 723 2,159
10th Percentile £15.07 £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 £74.67 £75.20 £72.46
UK median hourly rate £31.76 £35.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year -9.27% - -10.26%

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 22 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 22 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 22 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 1,600 £635 -2.31% 364
South East +9 610 £625 - 259
North of England -2 500 £575 -4.17% 131
Midlands -3 356 £573 -4.50% 98
North West -3 280 £586 -2.38% 70
West Midlands -1 267 £600 -0.79% 64
South West 0 254 £706 +12.96% 68
Yorkshire -1 202 £563 -1.83% 40
East of England +19 160 £550 -13.73% 30
East Midlands -5 87 £500 -11.89% 34
North East -19 23 £625 -1.96% 23
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 22 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 (31.61%) Security Cleared
2 908 (25.40%) Azure
3 791 (22.13%) SC Cleared
4 718 (20.08%) AWS
5 518 (14.49%) Microsoft
5 518 (14.49%) Roadmaps
6 485 (13.57%) Agile
7 459 (12.84%) Stakeholder Management
8 431 (12.06%) Migration
9 410 (11.47%) DevOps
10 389 (10.88%) Enterprise Architecture
11 353 (9.87%) TOGAF
12 349 (9.76%) Data Modelling
13 347 (9.71%) CI/CD
14 341 (9.54%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 331 (9.26%) Technical Leadership
16 313 (8.76%) Problem-Solving
17 302 (8.45%) GCP
18 300 (8.39%) Data Architecture
19 293 (8.20%) AI
20 291 (8.14%) Analytics
21 268 (7.50%) Integration Patterns
22 267 (7.47%) Python
23 256 (7.16%) DV Cleared
24 249 (6.97%) Microservices
25 231 (6.46%) Architectural Design
26 227 (6.35%) Architectural Patterns
27 210 (5.87%) Data Governance
27 210 (5.87%) Terraform
28 207 (5.79%) 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 (3.02%) Confluence
2 88 (2.46%) 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%) Sitecore CMS
15 6 (0.17%) Tomcat
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 13 (0.36%) 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 90 (2.52%) SAP S/4HANA
2 38 (1.06%) 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
1 908 (25.40%) Azure
2 718 (20.08%) AWS
3 302 (8.45%) GCP
4 133 (3.72%) Entra ID
5 130 (3.64%) Power Platform
6 127 (3.55%) Microsoft 365
7 123 (3.44%) SaaS
8 115 (3.22%) Serverless
9 81 (2.27%) IaaS
10 80 (2.24%) Azure DevOps
10 80 (2.24%) GitHub
11 67 (1.87%) PaaS
12 66 (1.85%) AWS Lambda
13 64 (1.79%) Amazon S3
14 63 (1.76%) OpenShift
15 61 (1.71%) Microsoft Purview
16 59 (1.65%) Dynamics 365
17 54 (1.51%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 51 (1.43%) Azure Data Factory
18 51 (1.43%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 176 (4.92%) Firewall
2 120 (3.36%) Network Security
3 106 (2.97%) WAN
4 103 (2.88%) DNS
5 97 (2.71%) VPN
6 70 (1.96%) LAN
7 53 (1.48%) SD-WAN
8 33 (0.92%) 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
13 21 (0.59%) VSAN
14 20 (0.56%) VLAN
15 18 (0.50%) IPsec
16 16 (0.45%) SSL
17 15 (0.42%) Internet
18 14 (0.39%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 118 (3.30%) Data Warehouse
2 105 (2.94%) Metadata
3 91 (2.55%) Power BI
4 70 (1.96%) Data Lake
5 57 (1.59%) 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 25 (0.70%) 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%) BigQuery
17 16 (0.45%) Delta Lake
18 15 (0.42%) Data Vault
Development Applications
1 126 (3.52%) JIRA
2 87 (2.43%) Jenkins
3 42 (1.17%) 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
1 826 (23.10%) Social Skills
2 573 (16.03%) Finance
3 413 (11.55%) Public Sector
4 252 (7.05%) Analytical Skills
5 213 (5.96%) Banking
6 117 (3.27%) Documentation Skills
7 85 (2.38%) Influencing Skills
8 78 (2.18%) Military
9 77 (2.15%) Retail
10 74 (2.07%) Legal
11 72 (2.01%) Presentation Skills
11 72 (2.01%) Telecoms
12 64 (1.79%) Marketing
13 53 (1.48%) Manufacturing
14 35 (0.98%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 34 (0.95%) Billing
16 27 (0.76%) Financial Institution
17 23 (0.64%) Law
18 20 (0.56%) Investment Banking
19 15 (0.42%) Aerospace
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 193 (5.40%) REST
2 134 (3.75%) Middleware
3 107 (2.99%) SOAP
4 75 (2.10%) .NET
5 73 (2.04%) LDAP
5 73 (2.04%) OpenID
6 63 (1.76%) OAuth
6 63 (1.76%) SAML
7 54 (1.51%) Kafka
8 50 (1.40%) JSON
9 39 (1.09%) OAuth2
10 33 (0.92%) 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
1 255 (7.13%) Cloud Native
2 127 (3.55%) Product Ownership
3 107 (2.99%) Legacy Systems
4 105 (2.94%) Onboarding
5 96 (2.69%) Data Centre
6 93 (2.60%) Enterprise Software
7 87 (2.43%) PKI
8 74 (2.07%) Hybrid Cloud
9 57 (1.59%) Operational Technology
10 54 (1.51%) Security Posture
11 53 (1.48%) Management Information System
12 52 (1.45%) Public Cloud
13 47 (1.31%) Data Protection Act
13 47 (1.31%) Distributed Systems
14 43 (1.20%) CMDB
14 43 (1.20%) Self-Motivation
15 35 (0.98%) Data Structures
16 29 (0.81%) AI Agents
16 29 (0.81%) Private Cloud
17 26 (0.73%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 149 (4.17%) 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 14 (0.39%) Android
6 14 (0.39%) Apple iOS
6 14 (0.39%) Windows 10
7 12 (0.34%) Unix
8 9 (0.25%) Mac OS
9 8 (0.22%) VMS
9 8 (0.22%) Windows Server 2016
10 7 (0.20%) Windows Server 2019
10 7 (0.20%) zOS
11 6 (0.17%) Ubuntu
12 4 (0.11%) CentOS
13 2 (0.056%) Windows Server 2012
14 1 (0.028%) Kali Linux
14 1 (0.028%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 518 (14.49%) Roadmaps
2 485 (13.57%) Agile
3 459 (12.84%) Stakeholder Management
4 431 (12.06%) Migration
5 410 (11.47%) DevOps
6 389 (10.88%) Enterprise Architecture
7 353 (9.87%) TOGAF
8 349 (9.76%) Data Modelling
9 347 (9.71%) CI/CD
10 341 (9.54%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 331 (9.26%) Technical Leadership
12 313 (8.76%) Problem-Solving
13 300 (8.39%) Data Architecture
14 293 (8.20%) AI
15 291 (8.14%) Analytics
16 268 (7.50%) Integration Patterns
17 249 (6.97%) Microservices
18 231 (6.46%) Architectural Design
19 227 (6.35%) Architectural Patterns
20 210 (5.87%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 267 (7.47%) Python
2 177 (4.95%) SQL
3 165 (4.62%) PowerShell
4 118 (3.30%) Java
5 58 (1.62%) JavaScript
6 47 (1.31%) 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 (31.61%) Security Cleared
2 791 (22.13%) SC Cleared
3 256 (7.16%) DV Cleared
4 173 (4.84%) Degree
5 112 (3.13%) TOGAF Certification
6 96 (2.69%) AWS Certification
7 95 (2.66%) Azure Certification
8 94 (2.63%) CISSP
9 69 (1.93%) Computer Science Degree
10 65 (1.82%) Cisco Certification
11 57 (1.59%) BPSS Clearance
11 57 (1.59%) Microsoft Certification
12 45 (1.26%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 45 (1.26%) CISM
13 44 (1.23%) Master's Degree
14 40 (1.12%) CCNP
15 30 (0.84%) ITIL Certification
16 29 (0.81%) CCIE
17 28 (0.78%) ISEB
18 20 (0.56%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 161 (4.50%) GDPR
2 124 (3.47%) NIST
3 114 (3.19%) Data Quality
4 106 (2.97%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 81 (2.27%) NCSC
6 57 (1.59%) 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
1 161 (4.50%) 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 14 (0.39%) VMware ESXi
8 13 (0.36%) Hyper-V
8 13 (0.36%) Virtual Machines
9 7 (0.20%) BitLocker
9 7 (0.20%) Squid
10 5 (0.14%) Oracle RAC
10 5 (0.14%) RACF
10 5 (0.14%) vCloud
11 4 (0.11%) NFS
12 3 (0.084%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
12 3 (0.084%) Firmware
13 2 (0.056%) Ceph
13 2 (0.056%) Lustre
13 2 (0.056%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 210 (5.87%) Terraform
2 188 (5.26%) Kubernetes
3 92 (2.57%) Ansible
4 56 (1.57%) Single Sign-On
5 34 (0.95%) 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%) SCOM
Vendors
1 518 (14.49%) Microsoft
2 207 (5.79%) ServiceNow
3 195 (5.45%) SAP
4 163 (4.56%) Salesforce
5 157 (4.39%) Oracle
6 155 (4.34%) VMware
7 119 (3.33%) Databricks
8 94 (2.63%) Cisco
9 90 (2.52%) CyberArk
10 88 (2.46%) Google
11 56 (1.57%) Palo Alto
12 55 (1.54%) MuleSoft
12 55 (1.54%) Splunk
13 49 (1.37%) Centrify
14 47 (1.31%) Remedy
15 45 (1.26%) Atlassian
16 44 (1.23%) Red Hat
17 43 (1.20%) Workday
18 37 (1.03%) BeyondTrust
18 37 (1.03%) Sparx