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 5 February 2026.

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

6 months to
5 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 16 13
Rank change year-on-year -1 -3 +8
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 3,337 2,633 3,684
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.99% 10.02% 9.75%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.90% 10.77% 10.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,279 1,582 2,469
10th Percentile £458 £475 £500
25th Percentile £513 £550 £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 £792 £799 £800
UK median daily rate £625 £625 £650
% change year-on-year - -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 55 29 47
10th Percentile £49.40 £59.65 £58.90
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £61.25
Median hourly rate £72.50 £70.00 £78.74
Median % change year-on-year +3.57% -11.10% +12.49%
75th Percentile £90.09 £78.36 £87.27
90th Percentile £95.00 £86.12 £95.00
UK median hourly rate £72.50 £70.00 £78.00
% change year-on-year +3.57% -10.26% +11.43%

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 30,608 24,451 35,137
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.62% 93.04% 93.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 19,485 15,141 23,660
10th Percentile £300 £300 £270
25th Percentile £406 £410 £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 1,927 728 2,103
10th Percentile £14.99 £15.92 £13.23
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.25 £16.77
Median hourly rate £30.00 £35.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -14.29% - -2.10%
75th Percentile £63.75 £64.50 £61.25
90th Percentile £71.99 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £30.00 £33.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year -9.09% -5.71% -

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 5 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 5 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 5 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 1,467 £630 -3.08% 452
South East +8 578 £625 - 270
North of England -1 484 £575 -4.17% 174
Midlands -4 325 £573 -4.50% 113
North West -5 276 £575 -4.17% 104
South West 0 257 £707 +13.08% 79
West Midlands -4 238 £600 -0.79% 87
Yorkshire -4 192 £563 -4.26% 45
East of England +11 137 £550 -12.00% 52
East Midlands -5 85 £468 -16.52% 26
North East -12 21 £625 -3.85% 25
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 5 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 1,030 (30.87%) Security Cleared
2 867 (25.98%) Azure
3 721 (21.61%) SC Cleared
4 667 (19.99%) AWS
5 495 (14.83%) Microsoft
6 492 (14.74%) Roadmaps
7 472 (14.14%) Agile
8 437 (13.10%) Stakeholder Management
9 403 (12.08%) Migration
10 383 (11.48%) DevOps
11 382 (11.45%) Enterprise Architecture
12 333 (9.98%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 331 (9.92%) Data Modelling
14 326 (9.77%) TOGAF
15 324 (9.71%) CI/CD
16 319 (9.56%) Technical Leadership
17 300 (8.99%) Problem-Solving
18 286 (8.57%) GCP
19 272 (8.15%) AI
20 268 (8.03%) Analytics
21 266 (7.97%) Python
22 265 (7.94%) Data Architecture
23 244 (7.31%) Microservices
24 243 (7.28%) Integration Patterns
25 233 (6.98%) DV Cleared
26 224 (6.71%) Architectural Design
27 206 (6.17%) Terraform
28 197 (5.90%) Architectural Patterns
29 194 (5.81%) Cybersecurity
29 194 (5.81%) 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
1 104 (3.12%) Confluence
2 81 (2.43%) SharePoint
3 59 (1.77%) Microsoft Exchange
4 24 (0.72%) SAS
5 22 (0.66%) CMS
6 16 (0.48%) Apache Spark
6 16 (0.48%) OpenStack
7 15 (0.45%) Anypoint
7 15 (0.45%) Apache Airflow
8 12 (0.36%) Apache
9 11 (0.33%) WebLogic
10 10 (0.30%) Appian
10 10 (0.30%) ArcGIS
11 9 (0.27%) Smallworld
12 7 (0.21%) nginx
12 7 (0.21%) Skype for Business
13 6 (0.18%) Ethereum
13 6 (0.18%) GeoServer
13 6 (0.18%) Hyperledger
14 5 (0.15%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 51 (1.53%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (0.96%) Microsoft Project
3 29 (0.87%) Microsoft Excel
4 28 (0.84%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 14 (0.42%) MS Visio
6 6 (0.18%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.060%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.030%) ArchiCAD
8 1 (0.030%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.030%) FrameMaker
8 1 (0.030%) OrCAD
8 1 (0.030%) Revit
8 1 (0.030%) Siemens NX
8 1 (0.030%) Trello
Business Applications
1 88 (2.64%) SAP S/4HANA
2 38 (1.14%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 26 (0.78%) Dynamics CRM
4 22 (0.66%) Workday HCM
5 16 (0.48%) Payment Gateway
5 16 (0.48%) Salesforce CRM
6 14 (0.42%) NetSuite
7 9 (0.27%) Oracle Receivables
7 9 (0.27%) SAP PM
8 8 (0.24%) SAP CO
8 8 (0.24%) SAP EWM
8 8 (0.24%) SAP PP
9 7 (0.21%) Maximo
9 7 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
10 6 (0.18%) Distributed Ledger
10 6 (0.18%) Oracle SCM
10 6 (0.18%) R3 Corda
10 6 (0.18%) SAP FI
10 6 (0.18%) SAP FI/CO
10 6 (0.18%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 867 (25.98%) Azure
2 667 (19.99%) AWS
3 286 (8.57%) GCP
4 130 (3.90%) Power Platform
5 122 (3.66%) SaaS
6 119 (3.57%) Serverless
7 115 (3.45%) Microsoft 365
8 113 (3.39%) Entra ID
9 77 (2.31%) Azure DevOps
10 75 (2.25%) GitHub
10 75 (2.25%) IaaS
11 69 (2.07%) AWS Lambda
12 64 (1.92%) Microsoft Purview
12 64 (1.92%) PaaS
13 62 (1.86%) Dynamics 365
13 62 (1.86%) OpenShift
14 58 (1.74%) Amazon S3
15 50 (1.50%) Azure Data Factory
15 50 (1.50%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 49 (1.47%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 165 (4.94%) Firewall
2 111 (3.33%) WAN
3 103 (3.09%) Network Security
4 97 (2.91%) DNS
5 93 (2.79%) VPN
6 74 (2.22%) LAN
7 56 (1.68%) SD-WAN
8 34 (1.02%) BGP
9 30 (0.90%) Wi-Fi
10 28 (0.84%) DHCP
10 28 (0.84%) MPLS
11 22 (0.66%) OSPF
11 22 (0.66%) TCP/IP
12 21 (0.63%) VSAN
13 20 (0.60%) IPsec
13 20 (0.60%) SAN
14 18 (0.54%) Internet
14 18 (0.54%) SSL
15 16 (0.48%) VLAN
16 15 (0.45%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 108 (3.24%) Data Warehouse
2 92 (2.76%) Metadata
3 87 (2.61%) Power BI
4 67 (2.01%) Data Lake
5 56 (1.68%) SQL Server
6 53 (1.59%) PostgreSQL
7 45 (1.35%) Tableau
8 42 (1.26%) NoSQL
9 28 (0.84%) DynamoDB
10 27 (0.81%) Amazon Redshift
11 26 (0.78%) Azure SQL Database
12 23 (0.69%) Amazon Aurora
12 23 (0.69%) Oracle Database
13 22 (0.66%) Relational Database
14 20 (0.60%) GIS
14 20 (0.60%) Redis
15 19 (0.57%) BigQuery
16 17 (0.51%) Amazon RDS
16 17 (0.51%) Big Data
16 17 (0.51%) Metadata Repository
Development Applications
1 123 (3.69%) JIRA
2 89 (2.67%) Jenkins
3 39 (1.17%) GitLab
4 35 (1.05%) Git
5 16 (0.48%) ERwin
6 14 (0.42%) SonarQube
7 10 (0.30%) Artifactory
8 9 (0.27%) Bitbucket
9 6 (0.18%) Maven
9 6 (0.18%) Postman
10 5 (0.15%) Gradle
10 5 (0.15%) Oracle Forms
10 5 (0.15%) SonarLint
11 4 (0.12%) MLflow
11 4 (0.12%) MSI
11 4 (0.12%) Rational DOORS
11 4 (0.12%) REST Assured
11 4 (0.12%) Selenium
11 4 (0.12%) Terragrunt
12 3 (0.090%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 808 (24.21%) Social Skills
2 542 (16.24%) Finance
3 381 (11.42%) Public Sector
4 244 (7.31%) Analytical Skills
5 206 (6.17%) Banking
6 110 (3.30%) Documentation Skills
7 81 (2.43%) Influencing Skills
8 80 (2.40%) Legal
9 74 (2.22%) Military
10 73 (2.19%) Telecoms
11 69 (2.07%) Retail
12 67 (2.01%) Presentation Skills
13 66 (1.98%) Marketing
14 47 (1.41%) Manufacturing
15 37 (1.11%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 36 (1.08%) Billing
17 28 (0.84%) Financial Institution
18 24 (0.72%) Law
19 22 (0.66%) Back Office
20 17 (0.51%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 190 (5.69%) REST
2 107 (3.21%) Middleware
3 105 (3.15%) SOAP
4 74 (2.22%) .NET
5 72 (2.16%) LDAP
6 68 (2.04%) OpenID
7 63 (1.89%) OAuth
8 61 (1.83%) SAML
9 52 (1.56%) Kafka
10 51 (1.53%) JSON
11 37 (1.11%) OAuth2
11 37 (1.11%) RESTful
12 28 (0.84%) AngularJS
13 26 (0.78%) SailPoint
13 26 (0.78%) Spring Boot
14 23 (0.69%) PySpark
14 23 (0.69%) Web Services
15 22 (0.66%) React
16 21 (0.63%) Microsoft Graph
17 20 (0.60%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 247 (7.40%) Cloud Native
2 131 (3.93%) Product Ownership
3 102 (3.06%) Onboarding
4 99 (2.97%) Legacy Systems
5 97 (2.91%) Data Centre
6 87 (2.61%) PKI
7 86 (2.58%) Enterprise Software
8 68 (2.04%) Hybrid Cloud
9 56 (1.68%) Security Posture
10 51 (1.53%) Operational Technology
10 51 (1.53%) Public Cloud
11 48 (1.44%) Distributed Systems
11 48 (1.44%) Management Information System
12 44 (1.32%) Self-Motivation
13 42 (1.26%) CMDB
14 41 (1.23%) Data Protection Act
15 31 (0.93%) Data Structures
16 28 (0.84%) Private Cloud
16 28 (0.84%) SCADA
17 25 (0.75%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 148 (4.44%) Windows
2 84 (2.52%) Linux
3 40 (1.20%) Windows Server
4 18 (0.54%) Windows 7
5 17 (0.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 17 (0.51%) Windows 10
6 12 (0.36%) Unix
6 12 (0.36%) Windows Server 2019
7 11 (0.33%) Android
7 11 (0.33%) Apple iOS
8 10 (0.30%) Windows Server 2016
9 9 (0.27%) Mac OS
10 7 (0.21%) VMS
11 6 (0.18%) Ubuntu
12 5 (0.15%) zOS
13 4 (0.12%) CentOS
14 3 (0.090%) Windows Server 2008
15 2 (0.060%) Windows Server 2012
16 1 (0.030%) Kali Linux
16 1 (0.030%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 492 (14.74%) Roadmaps
2 472 (14.14%) Agile
3 437 (13.10%) Stakeholder Management
4 403 (12.08%) Migration
5 383 (11.48%) DevOps
6 382 (11.45%) Enterprise Architecture
7 333 (9.98%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 331 (9.92%) Data Modelling
9 326 (9.77%) TOGAF
10 324 (9.71%) CI/CD
11 319 (9.56%) Technical Leadership
12 300 (8.99%) Problem-Solving
13 272 (8.15%) AI
14 268 (8.03%) Analytics
15 265 (7.94%) Data Architecture
16 244 (7.31%) Microservices
17 243 (7.28%) Integration Patterns
18 224 (6.71%) Architectural Design
19 197 (5.90%) Architectural Patterns
20 194 (5.81%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 266 (7.97%) Python
2 174 (5.21%) SQL
3 167 (5.00%) PowerShell
4 126 (3.78%) Java
5 53 (1.59%) JavaScript
6 40 (1.20%) C#
7 33 (0.99%) Bash
8 29 (0.87%) TypeScript
9 28 (0.84%) Bicep
10 16 (0.48%) PL/SQL
11 15 (0.45%) Apex Code
12 14 (0.42%) Kusto Query Language
12 14 (0.42%) R
13 9 (0.27%) T-SQL
14 8 (0.24%) Ruby
14 8 (0.24%) Scala
14 8 (0.24%) VB
15 7 (0.21%) Korn
15 7 (0.21%) VBScript
16 6 (0.18%) C
Qualifications
1 1,030 (30.87%) Security Cleared
2 721 (21.61%) SC Cleared
3 233 (6.98%) DV Cleared
4 163 (4.88%) Degree
5 98 (2.94%) TOGAF Certification
6 91 (2.73%) AWS Certification
7 88 (2.64%) Azure Certification
8 78 (2.34%) CISSP
9 63 (1.89%) Computer Science Degree
10 57 (1.71%) Microsoft Certification
11 54 (1.62%) Cisco Certification
12 53 (1.59%) BPSS Clearance
13 42 (1.26%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 42 (1.26%) Master's Degree
14 38 (1.14%) CISM
15 34 (1.02%) CCNP
16 30 (0.90%) CCIE
17 29 (0.87%) ITIL Certification
18 28 (0.84%) ISEB
19 15 (0.45%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 151 (4.53%) GDPR
2 121 (3.63%) NIST
3 107 (3.21%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 102 (3.06%) Data Quality
5 79 (2.37%) NCSC
6 53 (1.59%) QA
7 43 (1.29%) PCI DSS
8 31 (0.93%) COBIT
9 29 (0.87%) GRC
10 19 (0.57%) Cyber Essentials
10 19 (0.57%) ISO 20022
11 18 (0.54%) JSP 440
12 17 (0.51%) Accessibility
13 16 (0.48%) HIPAA
14 15 (0.45%) MiFID
15 14 (0.42%) California Consumer Privacy Act
16 12 (0.36%) FINRA
17 11 (0.33%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 10 (0.30%) Sarbanes-Oxley
19 9 (0.27%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 151 (4.53%) Active Directory
2 114 (3.42%) Docker
3 80 (2.40%) VMware Infrastructure
4 51 (1.53%) VMware NSX
5 33 (0.99%) vSphere
6 21 (0.63%) Virtual Desktop
7 17 (0.51%) VMware ESXi
8 14 (0.42%) Virtual Machines
9 12 (0.36%) Hyper-V
10 7 (0.21%) BitLocker
11 5 (0.15%) Oracle RAC
11 5 (0.15%) RACF
11 5 (0.15%) Squid
12 4 (0.12%) NFS
12 4 (0.12%) vCloud
13 3 (0.090%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
13 3 (0.090%) Firmware
13 3 (0.090%) Lustre
14 2 (0.060%) Ceph
14 2 (0.060%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 206 (6.17%) Terraform
2 172 (5.15%) Kubernetes
3 90 (2.70%) Ansible
4 55 (1.65%) Single Sign-On
5 33 (0.99%) OPNET
6 29 (0.87%) vCenter Server
7 24 (0.72%) Microsoft Intune
7 24 (0.72%) SCCM
8 18 (0.54%) FortiGate
8 18 (0.54%) Grafana
9 17 (0.51%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 17 (0.51%) WMI
10 16 (0.48%) Prometheus
11 14 (0.42%) Argo
12 7 (0.21%) Istio
13 5 (0.15%) Consul
13 5 (0.15%) Kibana
13 5 (0.15%) Puppet
14 4 (0.12%) Progress Chef
15 3 (0.090%) SCOM
Vendors
1 495 (14.83%) Microsoft
2 194 (5.81%) ServiceNow
3 189 (5.66%) SAP
4 160 (4.79%) Salesforce
5 143 (4.29%) Oracle
6 142 (4.26%) VMware
7 104 (3.12%) Databricks
8 91 (2.73%) CyberArk
8 91 (2.73%) Google
9 89 (2.67%) Cisco
10 59 (1.77%) Splunk
11 52 (1.56%) Palo Alto
12 50 (1.50%) MuleSoft
13 49 (1.47%) Centrify
14 45 (1.35%) Atlassian
14 45 (1.35%) Remedy
15 40 (1.20%) Red Hat
16 39 (1.17%) Workday
17 37 (1.11%) Sparx
18 35 (1.05%) OpenAI