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 21 February 2026.

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

6 months to
21 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 3,587 2,592 3,707
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.27% 10.03% 9.77%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.18% 10.78% 10.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,438 1,598 2,458
10th Percentile £457 £475 £500
25th Percentile £513 £548 £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 £788 £799 £800
UK median daily rate £625 £625 £650
% change year-on-year - -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 71 28 44
10th Percentile £49.40 £57.43 £53.93
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £61.25
Median hourly rate £70.00 £71.25 £78.37
Median % change year-on-year -1.75% -9.09% +11.96%
75th Percentile £90.09 £78.92 £87.53
90th Percentile £95.00 £86.30 £95.00
UK median hourly rate £70.00 £71.25 £77.27
% change year-on-year -1.75% -7.78% +10.38%

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 32,094 24,035 35,291
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.85% 92.97% 92.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,339 15,179 23,643
10th Percentile £305 £297 £270
25th Percentile £410 £408 £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 2,052 719 2,161
10th Percentile £15.01 £16.25 £13.23
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.50 £16.67
Median hourly rate £33.17 £35.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -5.23% - -12.50%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £74.63 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £31.49 £34.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year -7.38% -2.86% -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 21 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 21 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 21 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 1,603 £636 -2.12% 365
South East +10 613 £625 - 283
North of England -2 502 £575 -4.17% 142
Midlands -1 361 £573 -4.54% 106
North West -4 282 £579 -3.50% 75
West Midlands -2 271 £600 -0.79% 69
South West +1 254 £706 +12.96% 72
Yorkshire -1 202 £563 -1.83% 45
East of England +17 159 £550 -13.73% 37
East Midlands -3 88 £500 -11.89% 36
North East -18 23 £625 -1.96% 24
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 21 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 1,129 (31.47%) Security Cleared
2 921 (25.68%) Azure
3 791 (22.05%) SC Cleared
4 722 (20.13%) AWS
5 521 (14.52%) Microsoft
6 519 (14.47%) Roadmaps
7 488 (13.60%) Agile
8 461 (12.85%) Stakeholder Management
9 432 (12.04%) Migration
10 415 (11.57%) DevOps
11 394 (10.98%) Enterprise Architecture
12 355 (9.90%) TOGAF
13 350 (9.76%) Data Modelling
14 348 (9.70%) CI/CD
15 344 (9.59%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 331 (9.23%) Technical Leadership
17 314 (8.75%) Problem-Solving
18 303 (8.45%) GCP
19 302 (8.42%) Data Architecture
20 300 (8.36%) AI
21 294 (8.20%) Analytics
22 270 (7.53%) Python
23 267 (7.44%) Integration Patterns
24 256 (7.14%) DV Cleared
25 250 (6.97%) Microservices
26 233 (6.50%) Architectural Design
27 228 (6.36%) Architectural Patterns
28 211 (5.88%) Data Governance
29 210 (5.85%) Terraform
30 208 (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
1 110 (3.07%) Confluence
2 88 (2.45%) SharePoint
3 59 (1.64%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (0.75%) SAS
5 20 (0.56%) CMS
6 18 (0.50%) Apache Spark
7 15 (0.42%) Anypoint
7 15 (0.42%) Apache Airflow
8 14 (0.39%) Appian
8 14 (0.39%) ArcGIS
9 13 (0.36%) OpenStack
9 13 (0.36%) WebLogic
10 11 (0.31%) Apache
10 11 (0.31%) nginx
11 9 (0.25%) Smallworld
12 7 (0.20%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 7 (0.20%) Skype for Business
13 6 (0.17%) IIS
13 6 (0.17%) Sitecore CMS
13 6 (0.17%) Tomcat
Applications
1 51 (1.42%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (0.89%) Microsoft Project
3 28 (0.78%) Microsoft Excel
4 27 (0.75%) 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 89 (2.48%) SAP S/4HANA
2 38 (1.06%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 23 (0.64%) Workday HCM
4 20 (0.56%) Dynamics CRM
5 17 (0.47%) 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
1 921 (25.68%) Azure
2 722 (20.13%) AWS
3 303 (8.45%) GCP
4 133 (3.71%) Entra ID
5 131 (3.65%) Power Platform
6 127 (3.54%) Microsoft 365
7 124 (3.46%) SaaS
8 115 (3.21%) Serverless
9 81 (2.26%) Azure DevOps
9 81 (2.26%) IaaS
10 80 (2.23%) GitHub
11 67 (1.87%) PaaS
12 66 (1.84%) AWS Lambda
13 64 (1.78%) Amazon S3
14 63 (1.76%) OpenShift
15 62 (1.73%) Microsoft Purview
16 59 (1.64%) Dynamics 365
17 54 (1.51%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 52 (1.45%) Snowflake
19 51 (1.42%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 177 (4.93%) Firewall
2 119 (3.32%) Network Security
3 107 (2.98%) WAN
4 103 (2.87%) DNS
5 98 (2.73%) VPN
6 71 (1.98%) LAN
7 53 (1.48%) SD-WAN
8 34 (0.95%) BGP
9 29 (0.81%) DHCP
9 29 (0.81%) Wi-Fi
10 28 (0.78%) 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 (3.29%) Data Warehouse
2 106 (2.96%) Metadata
3 91 (2.54%) Power BI
4 70 (1.95%) Data Lake
5 57 (1.59%) SQL Server
6 46 (1.28%) PostgreSQL
6 46 (1.28%) Tableau
7 40 (1.12%) NoSQL
8 29 (0.81%) Oracle Database
9 27 (0.75%) Amazon Redshift
10 25 (0.70%) Azure SQL Database
11 24 (0.67%) GIS
12 21 (0.59%) Big Data
13 19 (0.53%) DynamoDB
13 19 (0.53%) Metadata Repository
14 18 (0.50%) Relational Database
15 17 (0.47%) Amazon Aurora
16 16 (0.45%) BigQuery
16 16 (0.45%) Delta Lake
17 15 (0.42%) Data Vault
Development Applications
1 129 (3.60%) 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
1 833 (23.22%) Social Skills
2 577 (16.09%) Finance
3 413 (11.51%) Public Sector
4 252 (7.03%) Analytical Skills
5 217 (6.05%) Banking
6 117 (3.26%) Documentation Skills
7 87 (2.43%) Influencing Skills
8 78 (2.17%) Legal
8 78 (2.17%) Military
9 77 (2.15%) Retail
10 72 (2.01%) Presentation Skills
10 72 (2.01%) Telecoms
11 64 (1.78%) Marketing
12 53 (1.48%) Manufacturing
13 36 (1.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 34 (0.95%) Billing
15 28 (0.78%) Financial Institution
16 23 (0.64%) Law
17 20 (0.56%) Investment Banking
18 15 (0.42%) Aerospace
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 195 (5.44%) REST
2 134 (3.74%) Middleware
3 107 (2.98%) SOAP
4 75 (2.09%) .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 51 (1.42%) JSON
9 39 (1.09%) OAuth2
10 33 (0.92%) SailPoint
11 31 (0.86%) AngularJS
12 30 (0.84%) RESTful
13 27 (0.75%) React
14 25 (0.70%) PySpark
15 23 (0.64%) Oracle Fusion
16 21 (0.59%) Web Services
17 20 (0.56%) Microsoft Graph
17 20 (0.56%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 256 (7.14%) Cloud Native
2 129 (3.60%) Product Ownership
3 107 (2.98%) Legacy Systems
4 105 (2.93%) Onboarding
5 96 (2.68%) Data Centre
6 93 (2.59%) Enterprise Software
7 87 (2.43%) PKI
8 74 (2.06%) 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 (0.72%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 149 (4.15%) Windows
2 85 (2.37%) Linux
3 36 (1.00%) Windows Server
4 18 (0.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 17 (0.47%) Windows 7
6 14 (0.39%) Windows 10
7 13 (0.36%) Android
7 13 (0.36%) Apple iOS
8 12 (0.33%) 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%) Kali Linux
15 1 (0.028%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 519 (14.47%) Roadmaps
2 488 (13.60%) Agile
3 461 (12.85%) Stakeholder Management
4 432 (12.04%) Migration
5 415 (11.57%) DevOps
6 394 (10.98%) Enterprise Architecture
7 355 (9.90%) TOGAF
8 350 (9.76%) Data Modelling
9 348 (9.70%) CI/CD
10 344 (9.59%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 331 (9.23%) Technical Leadership
12 314 (8.75%) Problem-Solving
13 302 (8.42%) Data Architecture
14 300 (8.36%) AI
15 294 (8.20%) Analytics
16 267 (7.44%) Integration Patterns
17 250 (6.97%) Microservices
18 233 (6.50%) Architectural Design
19 228 (6.36%) Architectural Patterns
20 211 (5.88%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 270 (7.53%) Python
2 179 (4.99%) SQL
3 165 (4.60%) PowerShell
4 121 (3.37%) Java
5 58 (1.62%) JavaScript
6 47 (1.31%) C#
7 35 (0.98%) Bash
8 31 (0.86%) Bicep
8 31 (0.86%) TypeScript
9 18 (0.50%) Apex Code
10 15 (0.42%) PL/SQL
11 14 (0.39%) Kusto Query Language
12 13 (0.36%) R
13 9 (0.25%) Scala
13 9 (0.25%) T-SQL
14 8 (0.22%) Ruby
14 8 (0.22%) VB
15 7 (0.20%) Korn
15 7 (0.20%) VBScript
16 6 (0.17%) C
Qualifications
1 1,129 (31.47%) Security Cleared
2 791 (22.05%) SC Cleared
3 256 (7.14%) DV Cleared
4 174 (4.85%) Degree
5 112 (3.12%) TOGAF Certification
6 98 (2.73%) AWS Certification
7 96 (2.68%) Azure Certification
8 94 (2.62%) CISSP
9 69 (1.92%) Computer Science Degree
10 66 (1.84%) Cisco Certification
11 58 (1.62%) BPSS Clearance
12 57 (1.59%) Microsoft Certification
13 46 (1.28%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 45 (1.25%) CISM
15 44 (1.23%) Master's Degree
16 40 (1.12%) CCNP
17 30 (0.84%) CCIE
17 30 (0.84%) ITIL Certification
18 28 (0.78%) ISEB
19 20 (0.56%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 161 (4.49%) GDPR
2 124 (3.46%) NIST
3 114 (3.18%) Data Quality
4 106 (2.96%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 81 (2.26%) NCSC
6 57 (1.59%) QA
7 46 (1.28%) PCI DSS
8 32 (0.89%) COBIT
9 29 (0.81%) GRC
10 26 (0.72%) 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 (0.33%) California Consumer Privacy Act
16 12 (0.33%) HIPAA
16 12 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
17 11 (0.31%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
17 11 (0.31%) PSD2
System Software
1 162 (4.52%) Active Directory
2 120 (3.35%) Docker
3 82 (2.29%) VMware Infrastructure
4 60 (1.67%) VMware NSX
5 36 (1.00%) vSphere
6 22 (0.61%) 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 (5.85%) Terraform
2 188 (5.24%) Kubernetes
3 93 (2.59%) Ansible
4 56 (1.56%) Single Sign-On
5 33 (0.92%) Microsoft Intune
6 30 (0.84%) OPNET
7 29 (0.81%) vCenter Server
8 22 (0.61%) FortiGate
8 22 (0.61%) 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
1 521 (14.52%) Microsoft
2 208 (5.80%) ServiceNow
3 194 (5.41%) SAP
4 169 (4.71%) Salesforce
5 157 (4.38%) Oracle
6 155 (4.32%) VMware
7 119 (3.32%) Databricks
8 94 (2.62%) Cisco
9 91 (2.54%) CyberArk
10 89 (2.48%) Google
11 56 (1.56%) Palo Alto
11 56 (1.56%) Splunk
12 55 (1.53%) MuleSoft
13 49 (1.37%) Centrify
14 47 (1.31%) Remedy
15 45 (1.25%) Atlassian
16 44 (1.23%) Red Hat
17 43 (1.20%) Workday
18 37 (1.03%) BeyondTrust
18 37 (1.03%) Sparx