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 7 January 2026.

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

6 months to
7 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 19 17 15
Rank change year-on-year -2 -2 +6
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 3,009 2,651 3,428
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.51% 9.69% 9.51%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.39% 10.44% 10.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,080 1,585 2,321
10th Percentile £460 £475 £500
25th Percentile £519 £548 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -
75th Percentile £725 £725 £738
90th Percentile £800 £799 £775
UK median daily rate £625 £625 £650
% change year-on-year - -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 39 28 33
10th Percentile £65.00 £59.48 £58.05
25th Percentile £66.13 £64.13 £70.00
Median hourly rate £83.82 £71.25 £76.53
Median % change year-on-year +17.64% -6.90% +9.33%
75th Percentile £94.89 £81.00 £83.11
90th Percentile £95.00 £87.50 £95.00
UK median hourly rate £83.82 £72.50 £76.53
% change year-on-year +15.61% -5.27% +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 28,953 25,391 33,623
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.49% 92.84% 93.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,523 15,730 22,908
10th Percentile £300 £300 £280
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,747 792 1,477
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.92 £14.25
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.24 £19.25
Median hourly rate £27.50 £35.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -21.43% -22.22% +28.57%
75th Percentile £62.50 £64.73 £65.00
90th Percentile £73.15 £74.99 £76.53
UK median hourly rate £26.78 £32.50 £44.50
% change year-on-year -17.60% -26.97% +36.75%

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 7 January 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 7 January 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 7 January 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 1,372 £650 - 297
South East +8 540 £600 -4.00% 226
North of England -9 386 £575 -4.17% 176
Midlands -5 273 £574 -4.38% 91
South West 0 247 £710 +13.60% 70
North West -7 234 £575 -4.17% 91
West Midlands -6 203 £588 -3.21% 55
Yorkshire -18 143 £575 -5.35% 60
East of England +4 102 £550 -12.00% 92
East Midlands -4 70 £492 -14.43% 35
North East -23 9 £625 +4.23% 26
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 7 January 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.

1 981 (32.60%) Security Cleared
2 810 (26.92%) Azure
3 692 (23.00%) SC Cleared
4 607 (20.17%) AWS
5 441 (14.66%) Microsoft
6 435 (14.46%) Roadmaps
7 426 (14.16%) Agile
8 378 (12.56%) Stakeholder Management
9 343 (11.40%) Migration
10 325 (10.80%) Enterprise Architecture
10 325 (10.80%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 322 (10.70%) Data Modelling
12 315 (10.47%) DevOps
13 309 (10.27%) TOGAF
14 299 (9.94%) Technical Leadership
15 290 (9.64%) Problem-Solving
16 269 (8.94%) CI/CD
17 252 (8.37%) GCP
18 237 (7.88%) AI
19 234 (7.78%) Data Architecture
20 233 (7.74%) Python
21 231 (7.68%) Analytics
22 226 (7.51%) Integration Patterns
23 221 (7.34%) DV Cleared
24 216 (7.18%) Microservices
25 199 (6.61%) Architectural Design
26 194 (6.45%) Mentoring
27 191 (6.35%) Terraform
28 189 (6.28%) ITIL
29 184 (6.11%) Data Governance

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 98 (3.26%) Confluence
2 63 (2.09%) SharePoint
3 38 (1.26%) Microsoft Exchange
4 18 (0.60%) SAS
5 17 (0.56%) OpenStack
6 16 (0.53%) CMS
7 13 (0.43%) Apache Airflow
7 13 (0.43%) ArcGIS
8 12 (0.40%) Apache Spark
9 9 (0.30%) Anypoint
9 9 (0.30%) Smallworld
10 7 (0.23%) Apache
11 6 (0.20%) GeoServer
12 5 (0.17%) Oracle Workflow
13 4 (0.13%) Documentum
13 4 (0.13%) Ethereum
13 4 (0.13%) Hyperledger
13 4 (0.13%) Tomcat
13 4 (0.13%) WebLogic
14 3 (0.100%) Jupyter
Applications
1 45 (1.50%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (1.06%) Microsoft Project
3 28 (0.93%) Microsoft Excel
4 24 (0.80%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 18 (0.60%) MS Visio
6 11 (0.37%) Siemens NX
7 3 (0.100%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.100%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.033%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.033%) FrameMaker
8 1 (0.033%) OrCAD
8 1 (0.033%) Revit
8 1 (0.033%) Trello
Business Applications
1 80 (2.66%) SAP S/4HANA
2 36 (1.20%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 28 (0.93%) Dynamics CRM
4 20 (0.66%) Workday HCM
5 16 (0.53%) Salesforce CRM
6 13 (0.43%) SAP CO
6 13 (0.43%) SAP PM
6 13 (0.43%) Teamcenter
7 12 (0.40%) Maximo
7 12 (0.40%) NetSuite
8 11 (0.37%) SAP FI
8 11 (0.37%) SAP FI/CO
9 10 (0.33%) Payment Gateway
9 10 (0.33%) Remedy ITSM
10 8 (0.27%) SAP EWM
10 8 (0.27%) SAP PP
11 7 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
11 7 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
12 6 (0.20%) Oracle SCM
12 6 (0.20%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 810 (26.92%) Azure
2 607 (20.17%) AWS
3 252 (8.37%) GCP
4 128 (4.25%) Power Platform
5 110 (3.66%) SaaS
6 99 (3.29%) Microsoft 365
7 98 (3.26%) Entra ID
7 98 (3.26%) Serverless
8 75 (2.49%) GitHub
9 67 (2.23%) Dynamics 365
10 64 (2.13%) AWS Lambda
10 64 (2.13%) Azure DevOps
10 64 (2.13%) IaaS
11 57 (1.89%) Microsoft Purview
12 51 (1.69%) Amazon S3
13 48 (1.60%) PaaS
14 47 (1.56%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 47 (1.56%) OpenShift
15 46 (1.53%) Azure Data Factory
16 41 (1.36%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 164 (5.45%) Firewall
2 115 (3.82%) WAN
3 86 (2.86%) LAN
4 84 (2.79%) Network Security
5 82 (2.73%) VPN
6 70 (2.33%) DNS
7 64 (2.13%) SD-WAN
8 37 (1.23%) Wi-Fi
9 31 (1.03%) BGP
10 26 (0.86%) MPLS
11 22 (0.73%) VSAN
12 21 (0.70%) DHCP
12 21 (0.70%) Internet
12 21 (0.70%) SAN
13 20 (0.66%) SSL
14 18 (0.60%) OSPF
15 16 (0.53%) Cisco Nexus
16 13 (0.43%) IPsec
16 13 (0.43%) TCP/IP
16 13 (0.43%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 93 (3.09%) Data Warehouse
2 88 (2.92%) Power BI
3 73 (2.43%) Metadata
4 67 (2.23%) Data Lake
5 49 (1.63%) PostgreSQL
6 48 (1.60%) SQL Server
7 39 (1.30%) Tableau
8 34 (1.13%) NoSQL
9 27 (0.90%) Amazon Redshift
10 24 (0.80%) DynamoDB
11 23 (0.76%) Azure SQL Database
12 22 (0.73%) GIS
12 22 (0.73%) Relational Database
13 19 (0.63%) Data Vault
13 19 (0.63%) Redis
14 18 (0.60%) Amazon Aurora
14 18 (0.60%) Amazon RDS
14 18 (0.60%) Delta Lake
15 17 (0.56%) BigQuery
16 16 (0.53%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 112 (3.72%) JIRA
2 66 (2.19%) Jenkins
3 37 (1.23%) Git
4 30 (1.00%) GitLab
5 14 (0.47%) ERwin
6 9 (0.30%) Artifactory
6 9 (0.30%) SonarQube
7 7 (0.23%) Oracle Forms
8 6 (0.20%) Bitbucket
9 5 (0.17%) Gradle
9 5 (0.17%) Maven
9 5 (0.17%) MLflow
9 5 (0.17%) SonarLint
9 5 (0.17%) Sonatype Nexus
10 4 (0.13%) MSI
10 4 (0.13%) Rational DOORS
10 4 (0.13%) Terragrunt
11 3 (0.100%) Postman
11 3 (0.100%) Visual Studio Code
12 2 (0.066%) Chocolatey
General
1 774 (25.72%) Social Skills
2 484 (16.09%) Finance
3 371 (12.33%) Public Sector
4 235 (7.81%) Analytical Skills
5 177 (5.88%) Banking
6 87 (2.89%) Telecoms
7 74 (2.46%) Legal
8 72 (2.39%) Military
9 70 (2.33%) Marketing
10 68 (2.26%) Documentation Skills
10 68 (2.26%) Retail
11 61 (2.03%) Presentation Skills
12 58 (1.93%) Manufacturing
13 56 (1.86%) Influencing Skills
14 42 (1.40%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 32 (1.06%) Financial Institution
16 27 (0.90%) Billing
17 24 (0.80%) Back Office
18 20 (0.66%) Aerospace
19 19 (0.63%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 167 (5.55%) REST
2 102 (3.39%) SOAP
3 97 (3.22%) Middleware
4 62 (2.06%) .NET
5 57 (1.89%) JSON
6 52 (1.73%) LDAP
7 49 (1.63%) OAuth
8 46 (1.53%) Kafka
9 42 (1.40%) SAML
10 37 (1.23%) RESTful
11 30 (1.00%) OpenID
12 29 (0.96%) Lightning Web Components
13 27 (0.90%) AngularJS
13 27 (0.90%) Spring Boot
14 26 (0.86%) OAuth2
15 25 (0.83%) PySpark
15 25 (0.83%) Web Services
16 22 (0.73%) React
16 22 (0.73%) Spring
17 20 (0.66%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 215 (7.15%) Cloud Native
2 127 (4.22%) Product Ownership
3 101 (3.36%) Data Centre
4 99 (3.29%) Legacy Systems
5 81 (2.69%) PKI
6 79 (2.63%) Onboarding
7 76 (2.53%) Enterprise Software
8 70 (2.33%) Hybrid Cloud
9 60 (1.99%) Security Posture
10 50 (1.66%) Operational Technology
11 42 (1.40%) Management Information System
12 41 (1.36%) Self-Motivation
13 40 (1.33%) Distributed Systems
14 39 (1.30%) Public Cloud
15 36 (1.20%) Data Protection Act
16 34 (1.13%) CMDB
17 32 (1.06%) Data Structures
18 29 (0.96%) SCADA
19 26 (0.86%) Private Cloud
19 26 (0.86%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 130 (4.32%) Windows
2 81 (2.69%) Linux
3 39 (1.30%) Windows Server
4 20 (0.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 15 (0.50%) Windows Server 2019
6 13 (0.43%) Windows 10
6 13 (0.43%) Windows 7
7 8 (0.27%) VMS
7 8 (0.27%) Windows Server 2016
8 7 (0.23%) Android
8 7 (0.23%) Apple iOS
8 7 (0.23%) Unix
9 6 (0.20%) Mac OS
9 6 (0.20%) Ubuntu
10 3 (0.100%) CentOS
10 3 (0.100%) Solaris
10 3 (0.100%) Windows Server 2008
10 3 (0.100%) zOS
11 1 (0.033%) MVS
11 1 (0.033%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 435 (14.46%) Roadmaps
2 426 (14.16%) Agile
3 378 (12.56%) Stakeholder Management
4 343 (11.40%) Migration
5 325 (10.80%) Enterprise Architecture
5 325 (10.80%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 322 (10.70%) Data Modelling
7 315 (10.47%) DevOps
8 309 (10.27%) TOGAF
9 299 (9.94%) Technical Leadership
10 290 (9.64%) Problem-Solving
11 269 (8.94%) CI/CD
12 237 (7.88%) AI
13 234 (7.78%) Data Architecture
14 231 (7.68%) Analytics
15 226 (7.51%) Integration Patterns
16 216 (7.18%) Microservices
17 199 (6.61%) Architectural Design
18 194 (6.45%) Mentoring
19 189 (6.28%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 233 (7.74%) Python
2 147 (4.89%) PowerShell
3 143 (4.75%) SQL
4 117 (3.89%) Java
5 58 (1.93%) JavaScript
6 34 (1.13%) C#
7 33 (1.10%) TypeScript
8 28 (0.93%) Bash
9 26 (0.86%) Apex Code
10 24 (0.80%) Bicep
11 14 (0.47%) PL/SQL
12 11 (0.37%) R
13 8 (0.27%) Kusto Query Language
13 8 (0.27%) T-SQL
14 7 (0.23%) Korn
14 7 (0.23%) Ruby
15 6 (0.20%) ABAP
15 6 (0.20%) C
16 5 (0.17%) C++
17 4 (0.13%) PHP
Qualifications
1 981 (32.60%) Security Cleared
2 692 (23.00%) SC Cleared
3 221 (7.34%) DV Cleared
4 155 (5.15%) Degree
5 95 (3.16%) TOGAF Certification
6 89 (2.96%) AWS Certification
6 89 (2.96%) Azure Certification
7 82 (2.73%) CISSP
8 59 (1.96%) Computer Science Degree
9 58 (1.93%) Cisco Certification
10 53 (1.76%) Microsoft Certification
11 37 (1.23%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 37 (1.23%) CISM
11 37 (1.23%) Master's Degree
12 35 (1.16%) BPSS Clearance
12 35 (1.16%) CCNP
13 29 (0.96%) CCIE
14 24 (0.80%) ITIL Certification
15 23 (0.76%) ISEB
16 18 (0.60%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 141 (4.69%) GDPR
2 110 (3.66%) NIST
3 102 (3.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 96 (3.19%) Data Quality
5 60 (1.99%) NCSC
6 54 (1.79%) QA
7 42 (1.40%) PCI DSS
8 29 (0.96%) ISO/IEC 20000
9 26 (0.86%) COBIT
10 23 (0.76%) Cyber Essentials
11 20 (0.66%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 20 (0.66%) GRC
12 18 (0.60%) JSP 440
13 16 (0.53%) Accessibility
14 14 (0.47%) HIPAA
15 13 (0.43%) ISO 20022
16 11 (0.37%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
16 11 (0.37%) PSD2
16 11 (0.37%) Sarbanes-Oxley
17 10 (0.33%) MiFID
System Software
1 138 (4.59%) Active Directory
2 106 (3.52%) Docker
3 84 (2.79%) VMware Infrastructure
4 36 (1.20%) VMware NSX
5 32 (1.06%) vSphere
6 20 (0.66%) VMware ESXi
7 19 (0.63%) Virtual Desktop
8 16 (0.53%) Virtual Machines
9 12 (0.40%) Hyper-V
10 9 (0.30%) NFS
11 4 (0.13%) Dovecot
11 4 (0.13%) Postfix
12 3 (0.100%) BitLocker
12 3 (0.100%) Firmware
12 3 (0.100%) Lustre
12 3 (0.100%) Slurm Workload Manager
12 3 (0.100%) vCloud
13 2 (0.066%) Ceph
13 2 (0.066%) KVM
14 1 (0.033%) GPFS
Systems Management
1 191 (6.35%) Terraform
2 144 (4.79%) Kubernetes
3 87 (2.89%) Ansible
4 44 (1.46%) Single Sign-On
5 33 (1.10%) OPNET
6 22 (0.73%) vCenter Server
7 19 (0.63%) Microsoft Intune
8 16 (0.53%) SCCM
9 14 (0.47%) WMI
10 13 (0.43%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 10 (0.33%) FortiGate
11 10 (0.33%) Prometheus
12 9 (0.30%) Argo
12 9 (0.30%) Grafana
13 5 (0.17%) Kibana
14 4 (0.13%) Istio
15 3 (0.100%) Karpenter
15 3 (0.100%) Puppet
15 3 (0.100%) vRealize
16 2 (0.066%) SCOM
Vendors
1 441 (14.66%) Microsoft
2 177 (5.88%) SAP
3 173 (5.75%) ServiceNow
4 166 (5.52%) Salesforce
5 136 (4.52%) VMware
6 124 (4.12%) Oracle
7 108 (3.59%) Cisco
8 91 (3.02%) Databricks
9 77 (2.56%) CyberArk
10 68 (2.26%) Google
11 52 (1.73%) Palo Alto
12 49 (1.63%) Centrify
13 48 (1.60%) Remedy
14 42 (1.40%) Splunk
15 40 (1.33%) Fortinet
15 40 (1.33%) MuleSoft
16 39 (1.30%) Workday
17 38 (1.26%) Atlassian
18 35 (1.16%) Sparx
19 34 (1.13%) BeyondTrust