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 20 January 2026.

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

6 months to
20 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 16 14
Rank change year-on-year -2 -2 +7
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 3,102 2,578 3,541
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.71% 9.74% 9.62%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.60% 10.47% 10.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,131 1,533 2,396
10th Percentile £458 £480 £500
25th Percentile £513 £550 £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 £788
UK median daily rate £625 £625 £650
% change year-on-year - -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 43 27 35
10th Percentile £49.40 £59.30 £58.85
25th Percentile £65.00 £63.75 £61.25
Median hourly rate £83.00 £72.50 £76.53
Median % change year-on-year +14.48% -5.27% +9.33%
75th Percentile £94.26 £79.47 £85.65
90th Percentile £95.00 £86.47 £95.00
UK median hourly rate £80.00 £72.50 £76.53
% change year-on-year +10.34% -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 29,266 24,617 34,257
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.61% 92.97% 93.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,692 15,192 23,207
10th Percentile £300 £300 £275
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 1,798 752 1,716
10th Percentile £14.50 £16.00 £14.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.25 £17.88
Median hourly rate £28.65 £35.00 £40.28
Median % change year-on-year -18.16% -13.10% +15.07%
75th Percentile £62.50 £64.73 £63.75
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £27.50 £32.50 £40.28
% change year-on-year -15.38% -19.30% +15.07%

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 20 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 20 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 20 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 -2 1,377 £645 -0.77% 298
South East +11 556 £600 -4.00% 248
North of England -6 427 £570 -5.00% 165
Midlands -2 305 £575 -4.17% 80
North West -5 258 £575 -4.17% 86
South West 0 237 £710 +13.60% 90
West Midlands -4 224 £590 -3.89% 45
Yorkshire -8 160 £555 -7.50% 49
East of England +5 110 £525 -16.00% 90
East Midlands -3 79 £509 -11.52% 33
North East -25 9 £625 +4.23% 30
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 20 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.

1 997 (32.14%) Security Cleared
2 802 (25.85%) Azure
3 693 (22.34%) SC Cleared
4 606 (19.54%) AWS
5 447 (14.41%) Microsoft
6 443 (14.28%) Roadmaps
7 432 (13.93%) Agile
8 394 (12.70%) Stakeholder Management
9 359 (11.57%) Migration
10 339 (10.93%) Enterprise Architecture
11 326 (10.51%) DevOps
12 318 (10.25%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 309 (9.96%) Data Modelling
13 309 (9.96%) Technical Leadership
14 306 (9.86%) TOGAF
15 285 (9.19%) Problem-Solving
16 281 (9.06%) CI/CD
17 258 (8.32%) GCP
18 244 (7.87%) Analytics
19 243 (7.83%) AI
19 243 (7.83%) Python
20 238 (7.67%) DV Cleared
21 228 (7.35%) Data Architecture
22 226 (7.29%) Integration Patterns
23 209 (6.74%) Microservices
24 204 (6.58%) Architectural Design
25 194 (6.25%) Mentoring
26 193 (6.22%) SAP
27 190 (6.13%) Terraform
28 180 (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
1 100 (3.22%) Confluence
2 75 (2.42%) SharePoint
3 49 (1.58%) Microsoft Exchange
4 18 (0.58%) SAS
5 17 (0.55%) OpenStack
6 15 (0.48%) CMS
7 13 (0.42%) Anypoint
7 13 (0.42%) Apache Airflow
8 12 (0.39%) Apache Spark
8 12 (0.39%) ArcGIS
9 10 (0.32%) Apache
10 9 (0.29%) Smallworld
11 7 (0.23%) Skype for Business
11 7 (0.23%) WebLogic
12 6 (0.19%) Ethereum
12 6 (0.19%) GeoServer
12 6 (0.19%) Hyperledger
12 6 (0.19%) Tomcat
13 5 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
14 4 (0.13%) IIS
Applications
1 48 (1.55%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (1.03%) Microsoft Project
3 30 (0.97%) Microsoft Excel
3 30 (0.97%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 17 (0.55%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.13%) Siemens NX
6 3 (0.097%) Chatbot
6 3 (0.097%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.032%) ArchiCAD
7 1 (0.032%) AutoCAD
7 1 (0.032%) FrameMaker
7 1 (0.032%) OrCAD
7 1 (0.032%) Revit
7 1 (0.032%) Trello
Business Applications
1 96 (3.09%) SAP S/4HANA
2 37 (1.19%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 26 (0.84%) Dynamics CRM
4 23 (0.74%) Workday HCM
5 18 (0.58%) Salesforce CRM
6 13 (0.42%) NetSuite
6 13 (0.42%) SAP CO
6 13 (0.42%) SAP PM
7 12 (0.39%) Payment Gateway
8 11 (0.35%) Maximo
8 11 (0.35%) SAP FI
8 11 (0.35%) SAP FI/CO
9 8 (0.26%) Oracle Receivables
9 8 (0.26%) SAP EWM
9 8 (0.26%) SAP PP
10 7 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
11 6 (0.19%) Distributed Ledger
11 6 (0.19%) Oracle SCM
11 6 (0.19%) SAP QM
11 6 (0.19%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 802 (25.85%) Azure
2 606 (19.54%) AWS
3 258 (8.32%) GCP
4 120 (3.87%) Power Platform
5 116 (3.74%) SaaS
6 105 (3.38%) Microsoft 365
7 104 (3.35%) Serverless
8 102 (3.29%) Entra ID
9 73 (2.35%) GitHub
10 71 (2.29%) Azure DevOps
11 65 (2.10%) IaaS
12 64 (2.06%) Dynamics 365
13 63 (2.03%) AWS Lambda
14 57 (1.84%) Microsoft Purview
15 52 (1.68%) Amazon S3
15 52 (1.68%) PaaS
16 49 (1.58%) OpenShift
17 45 (1.45%) Azure Data Factory
17 45 (1.45%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 44 (1.42%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 158 (5.09%) Firewall
2 118 (3.80%) WAN
3 91 (2.93%) Network Security
4 87 (2.80%) VPN
5 84 (2.71%) LAN
6 82 (2.64%) DNS
7 59 (1.90%) SD-WAN
8 36 (1.16%) BGP
9 31 (1.00%) Wi-Fi
10 26 (0.84%) MPLS
11 24 (0.77%) DHCP
12 23 (0.74%) OSPF
13 22 (0.71%) Internet
14 21 (0.68%) SAN
14 21 (0.68%) VSAN
15 16 (0.52%) VLAN
16 14 (0.45%) IPsec
16 14 (0.45%) SSL
17 13 (0.42%) TCP/IP
18 12 (0.39%) BIG-IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 92 (2.97%) Data Warehouse
2 83 (2.68%) Power BI
3 71 (2.29%) Metadata
4 63 (2.03%) Data Lake
5 52 (1.68%) PostgreSQL
6 44 (1.42%) SQL Server
7 41 (1.32%) Tableau
8 35 (1.13%) NoSQL
9 28 (0.90%) Amazon Redshift
10 27 (0.87%) DynamoDB
11 21 (0.68%) Amazon Aurora
11 21 (0.68%) Azure SQL Database
11 21 (0.68%) GIS
11 21 (0.68%) Relational Database
12 20 (0.64%) Redis
13 19 (0.61%) Oracle Database
14 17 (0.55%) Amazon RDS
14 17 (0.55%) Data Vault
15 16 (0.52%) BigQuery
15 16 (0.52%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 114 (3.68%) JIRA
2 75 (2.42%) Jenkins
3 36 (1.16%) Git
4 35 (1.13%) GitLab
5 13 (0.42%) ERwin
6 9 (0.29%) Artifactory
6 9 (0.29%) SonarQube
7 6 (0.19%) Postman
8 5 (0.16%) Gradle
8 5 (0.16%) Maven
8 5 (0.16%) MSI
8 5 (0.16%) Oracle Forms
8 5 (0.16%) SonarLint
9 4 (0.13%) Bitbucket
9 4 (0.13%) MLflow
9 4 (0.13%) Rational DOORS
9 4 (0.13%) Terragrunt
10 3 (0.097%) Selenium
10 3 (0.097%) Visual Studio Code
11 2 (0.064%) Cucumber
General
1 767 (24.73%) Social Skills
2 505 (16.28%) Finance
3 368 (11.86%) Public Sector
4 230 (7.41%) Analytical Skills
5 190 (6.13%) Banking
6 76 (2.45%) Documentation Skills
7 74 (2.39%) Telecoms
8 72 (2.32%) Legal
9 71 (2.29%) Military
10 70 (2.26%) Retail
11 64 (2.06%) Influencing Skills
11 64 (2.06%) Marketing
12 61 (1.97%) Presentation Skills
13 50 (1.61%) Manufacturing
14 39 (1.26%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 32 (1.03%) Billing
16 31 (1.00%) Financial Institution
17 21 (0.68%) Back Office
17 21 (0.68%) Law
18 18 (0.58%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 171 (5.51%) REST
2 100 (3.22%) Middleware
3 96 (3.09%) SOAP
4 63 (2.03%) .NET
5 54 (1.74%) OAuth
6 53 (1.71%) LDAP
7 51 (1.64%) Kafka
8 49 (1.58%) JSON
9 43 (1.39%) OpenID
10 42 (1.35%) SAML
11 36 (1.16%) RESTful
12 31 (1.00%) OAuth2
13 27 (0.87%) Spring Boot
14 24 (0.77%) PySpark
15 23 (0.74%) Lightning Web Components
15 23 (0.74%) SailPoint
16 22 (0.71%) AngularJS
17 21 (0.68%) Spring
18 20 (0.64%) Web Services
19 18 (0.58%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 228 (7.35%) Cloud Native
2 123 (3.97%) Product Ownership
3 95 (3.06%) Data Centre
3 95 (3.06%) Legacy Systems
4 86 (2.77%) Onboarding
4 86 (2.77%) PKI
5 78 (2.51%) Enterprise Software
6 68 (2.19%) Hybrid Cloud
7 58 (1.87%) Security Posture
8 48 (1.55%) Public Cloud
9 46 (1.48%) Operational Technology
10 45 (1.45%) Distributed Systems
11 41 (1.32%) Management Information System
11 41 (1.32%) Self-Motivation
12 39 (1.26%) Data Protection Act
13 35 (1.13%) CMDB
14 34 (1.10%) Data Structures
15 29 (0.93%) SCADA
16 27 (0.87%) Private Cloud
17 25 (0.81%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 144 (4.64%) Windows
2 89 (2.87%) Linux
3 42 (1.35%) Windows Server
4 21 (0.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 18 (0.58%) Windows 7
6 17 (0.55%) Windows 10
7 14 (0.45%) Windows Server 2019
8 11 (0.35%) Unix
9 10 (0.32%) Windows Server 2016
10 7 (0.23%) Mac OS
10 7 (0.23%) VMS
11 6 (0.19%) Android
11 6 (0.19%) Apple iOS
11 6 (0.19%) Ubuntu
12 5 (0.16%) zOS
13 4 (0.13%) CentOS
14 3 (0.097%) Solaris
14 3 (0.097%) Windows Server 2008
15 2 (0.064%) Windows Server 2012
16 1 (0.032%) MVS
Processes & Methodologies
1 443 (14.28%) Roadmaps
2 432 (13.93%) Agile
3 394 (12.70%) Stakeholder Management
4 359 (11.57%) Migration
5 339 (10.93%) Enterprise Architecture
6 326 (10.51%) DevOps
7 318 (10.25%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 309 (9.96%) Data Modelling
8 309 (9.96%) Technical Leadership
9 306 (9.86%) TOGAF
10 285 (9.19%) Problem-Solving
11 281 (9.06%) CI/CD
12 244 (7.87%) Analytics
13 243 (7.83%) AI
14 228 (7.35%) Data Architecture
15 226 (7.29%) Integration Patterns
16 209 (6.74%) Microservices
17 204 (6.58%) Architectural Design
18 194 (6.25%) Mentoring
19 179 (5.77%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 243 (7.83%) Python
2 157 (5.06%) PowerShell
3 152 (4.90%) SQL
4 116 (3.74%) Java
5 50 (1.61%) JavaScript
6 31 (1.00%) C#
7 28 (0.90%) Bash
8 26 (0.84%) TypeScript
9 25 (0.81%) Bicep
10 21 (0.68%) Apex Code
11 15 (0.48%) PL/SQL
12 11 (0.35%) Kusto Query Language
12 11 (0.35%) R
13 9 (0.29%) T-SQL
14 8 (0.26%) VB
15 7 (0.23%) Korn
15 7 (0.23%) Ruby
15 7 (0.23%) Scala
15 7 (0.23%) VBScript
16 6 (0.19%) C
Qualifications
1 997 (32.14%) Security Cleared
2 693 (22.34%) SC Cleared
3 238 (7.67%) DV Cleared
4 154 (4.96%) Degree
5 94 (3.03%) TOGAF Certification
6 90 (2.90%) AWS Certification
7 82 (2.64%) Azure Certification
8 79 (2.55%) CISSP
9 58 (1.87%) Cisco Certification
9 58 (1.87%) Computer Science Degree
10 54 (1.74%) Microsoft Certification
11 48 (1.55%) BPSS Clearance
12 40 (1.29%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 37 (1.19%) CISM
14 35 (1.13%) CCNP
14 35 (1.13%) Master's Degree
15 32 (1.03%) CCIE
16 24 (0.77%) ITIL Certification
17 23 (0.74%) ISEB
18 17 (0.55%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 139 (4.48%) GDPR
2 113 (3.64%) NIST
3 101 (3.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 94 (3.03%) Data Quality
5 63 (2.03%) NCSC
6 53 (1.71%) QA
7 46 (1.48%) PCI DSS
8 26 (0.84%) COBIT
9 21 (0.68%) GRC
10 20 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials
11 19 (0.61%) ISO/IEC 20000
12 18 (0.58%) JSP 440
13 17 (0.55%) ISO 20022
14 16 (0.52%) Accessibility
14 16 (0.52%) HIPAA
15 15 (0.48%) California Consumer Privacy Act
16 11 (0.35%) MiFID
16 11 (0.35%) PSD2
17 10 (0.32%) HMG Security Policy Framework
17 10 (0.32%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 145 (4.67%) Active Directory
2 109 (3.51%) Docker
3 88 (2.84%) VMware Infrastructure
4 41 (1.32%) VMware NSX
5 30 (0.97%) vSphere
6 20 (0.64%) Virtual Desktop
7 19 (0.61%) VMware ESXi
8 14 (0.45%) Hyper-V
8 14 (0.45%) Virtual Machines
9 7 (0.23%) BitLocker
9 7 (0.23%) NFS
10 5 (0.16%) Postfix
11 4 (0.13%) Dovecot
11 4 (0.13%) vCloud
12 3 (0.097%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
12 3 (0.097%) Firmware
12 3 (0.097%) Lustre
12 3 (0.097%) Slurm Workload Manager
13 2 (0.064%) Ceph
13 2 (0.064%) KVM
Systems Management
1 190 (6.13%) Terraform
2 152 (4.90%) Kubernetes
3 89 (2.87%) Ansible
4 41 (1.32%) Single Sign-On
5 33 (1.06%) OPNET
6 24 (0.77%) vCenter Server
7 23 (0.74%) SCCM
8 18 (0.58%) Microsoft Intune
9 17 (0.55%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 17 (0.55%) WMI
10 12 (0.39%) FortiGate
11 9 (0.29%) Argo
12 8 (0.26%) Prometheus
13 7 (0.23%) Grafana
14 6 (0.19%) Istio
14 6 (0.19%) Puppet
15 5 (0.16%) Kibana
16 3 (0.097%) Endace
16 3 (0.097%) Progress Chef
16 3 (0.097%) vRealize
Vendors
1 447 (14.41%) Microsoft
2 193 (6.22%) SAP
3 180 (5.80%) ServiceNow
4 163 (5.25%) Salesforce
5 145 (4.67%) VMware
6 133 (4.29%) Oracle
7 97 (3.13%) Cisco
8 93 (3.00%) Databricks
9 81 (2.61%) CyberArk
10 74 (2.39%) Google
11 52 (1.68%) Palo Alto
12 49 (1.58%) Centrify
13 46 (1.48%) MuleSoft
14 45 (1.45%) Remedy
15 44 (1.42%) Splunk
16 40 (1.29%) Workday
17 39 (1.26%) Atlassian
18 36 (1.16%) Sparx
19 34 (1.10%) BeyondTrust
19 34 (1.10%) Red Hat