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 3 April 2026.

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

6 months to
3 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 14 16 11
Rank change year-on-year +2 -5 +6
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 4,161 2,441 3,808
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.85% 10.07% 10.13%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.75% 10.84% 10.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,816 1,623 2,515
10th Percentile £463 £478 £500
25th Percentile £513 £550 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -3.70%
75th Percentile £725 £725 £744
90th Percentile £800 £799 £825
UK median daily rate £620 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -1.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 107 33 45
10th Percentile £49.40 £53.10 £51.32
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £60.00
Median hourly rate £71.27 £70.00 £83.77
Median % change year-on-year +1.81% -16.43% +19.66%
75th Percentile £89.55 £80.00 £87.53
90th Percentile £97.50 £85.50 £95.00
UK median hourly rate £71.27 £68.75 £83.50
% change year-on-year +3.67% -17.66% +19.29%

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 35,400 22,518 34,832
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.31% 92.89% 92.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,310 15,068 23,250
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £409 £411
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -3.45%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,333 829 2,302
10th Percentile £15.50 £14.99 £12.87
25th Percentile £20.00 £20.64 £16.25
Median hourly rate £42.00 £33.40 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +25.75% +2.77% -24.42%
75th Percentile £65.25 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.90 £76.44 £71.70
UK median hourly rate £40.00 £32.50 £33.00
% change year-on-year +23.08% -1.52% -25.00%

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 3 April 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 3 April 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 3 April 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 1,900 £625 -3.85% 476
South East +4 700 £625 - 256
North of England +4 595 £600 - 194
Midlands -5 397 £575 -4.17% 95
North West +6 340 £610 +1.67% 100
West Midlands -2 297 £600 - 69
South West +2 284 £698 +13.88% 98
Yorkshire +6 231 £558 -7.00% 70
East of England +15 179 £550 -8.33% 71
East Midlands -5 96 £519 -6.53% 26
North East +5 33 £575 -7.95% 28
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 3 April 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 1,336 (32.11%) Security Cleared
2 1,002 (24.08%) Azure
3 906 (21.77%) SC Cleared
4 832 (20.00%) AWS
5 606 (14.56%) Roadmaps
6 596 (14.32%) Microsoft
7 558 (13.41%) Agile
8 545 (13.10%) Migration
9 480 (11.54%) DevOps
10 460 (11.06%) Stakeholder Management
11 428 (10.29%) CI/CD
11 428 (10.29%) Enterprise Architecture
12 400 (9.61%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 396 (9.52%) Data Modelling
14 378 (9.08%) Technical Leadership
15 372 (8.94%) TOGAF
16 353 (8.48%) Integration Patterns
17 351 (8.44%) AI
18 346 (8.32%) GCP
19 344 (8.27%) Problem-Solving
20 343 (8.24%) Analytics
21 333 (8.00%) Data Architecture
22 319 (7.67%) DV Cleared
23 311 (7.47%) Architectural Patterns
24 305 (7.33%) Architectural Design
25 302 (7.26%) Python
26 298 (7.16%) Microservices
27 254 (6.10%) Security Architecture
28 248 (5.96%) ServiceNow
29 242 (5.82%) SAP

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
1 111 (2.67%) Confluence
2 103 (2.48%) SharePoint
3 62 (1.49%) Microsoft Exchange
4 25 (0.60%) SAS
5 23 (0.55%) CMS
6 21 (0.50%) Apache Spark
7 16 (0.38%) Anypoint
7 16 (0.38%) Apache
7 16 (0.38%) Appian
8 15 (0.36%) ArcGIS
9 14 (0.34%) Apache Airflow
10 12 (0.29%) nginx
11 11 (0.26%) WebLogic
12 9 (0.22%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 9 (0.22%) OpenStack
13 7 (0.17%) Camunda
13 7 (0.17%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 7 (0.17%) Skype for Business
14 6 (0.14%) Sitecore CMS
14 6 (0.14%) Smallworld
Applications
1 49 (1.18%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (0.75%) Microsoft Project
3 25 (0.60%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 22 (0.53%) Microsoft Excel
5 16 (0.38%) MS Visio
6 6 (0.14%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.024%) ArchiCAD
7 1 (0.024%) AutoCAD
7 1 (0.024%) Navisworks
7 1 (0.024%) OrCAD
7 1 (0.024%) PlantUML
7 1 (0.024%) Revit
7 1 (0.024%) Siemens NX
7 1 (0.024%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.024%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 110 (2.64%) SAP S/4HANA
2 47 (1.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 21 (0.50%) Workday HCM
4 20 (0.48%) Dynamics CRM
5 17 (0.41%) Payment Gateway
6 15 (0.36%) SAP ERP
7 14 (0.34%) Oracle EBS
8 13 (0.31%) Salesforce CRM
9 10 (0.24%) NetSuite
9 10 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
9 10 (0.24%) Remedy ITSM
9 10 (0.24%) SAP PM
9 10 (0.24%) Teamcenter
10 9 (0.22%) Maximo
10 9 (0.22%) SAP EWM
11 8 (0.19%) SAP PP
12 7 (0.17%) SAP QM
13 6 (0.14%) Oracle Payables
13 6 (0.14%) R3 Corda
13 6 (0.14%) SAP CRM
Cloud Services
1 1,002 (24.08%) Azure
2 832 (20.00%) AWS
3 346 (8.32%) GCP
4 184 (4.42%) Power Platform
5 162 (3.89%) Entra ID
6 141 (3.39%) Serverless
7 137 (3.29%) SaaS
8 130 (3.12%) Microsoft 365
9 107 (2.57%) IaaS
10 97 (2.33%) GitHub
11 96 (2.31%) PaaS
12 89 (2.14%) Azure DevOps
12 89 (2.14%) Dynamics 365
13 73 (1.75%) OpenShift
14 72 (1.73%) AWS Lambda
15 63 (1.51%) Amazon S3
16 62 (1.49%) Microsoft Purview
16 62 (1.49%) Snowflake
17 58 (1.39%) AWS CloudFormation
17 58 (1.39%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 185 (4.45%) Firewall
2 147 (3.53%) Network Security
3 126 (3.03%) DNS
4 125 (3.00%) WAN
5 114 (2.74%) VPN
6 83 (1.99%) LAN
7 65 (1.56%) SD-WAN
8 37 (0.89%) DHCP
9 35 (0.84%) BGP
10 31 (0.75%) OSPF
11 30 (0.72%) MPLS
11 30 (0.72%) Wi-Fi
12 28 (0.67%) TCP/IP
13 25 (0.60%) VLAN
14 23 (0.55%) SAN
15 20 (0.48%) VXLAN
15 20 (0.48%) Wireless
16 18 (0.43%) BIG-IP
17 17 (0.41%) NAS
18 16 (0.38%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 142 (3.41%) Power BI
2 115 (2.76%) Data Warehouse
3 114 (2.74%) Metadata
4 91 (2.19%) Data Lake
5 70 (1.68%) SQL Server
6 54 (1.30%) NoSQL
7 49 (1.18%) PostgreSQL
8 44 (1.06%) Tableau
9 36 (0.87%) Azure SQL Database
10 31 (0.75%) Big Data
10 31 (0.75%) Oracle Database
11 27 (0.65%) Amazon Redshift
12 23 (0.55%) Delta Lake
12 23 (0.55%) GIS
13 22 (0.53%) BigQuery
14 21 (0.50%) Electronic Patient Records
15 20 (0.48%) Metadata Repository
16 19 (0.46%) Amazon Athena
17 18 (0.43%) Relational Database
18 16 (0.38%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 127 (3.05%) JIRA
2 89 (2.14%) Jenkins
3 46 (1.11%) Git
4 41 (0.99%) GitLab
5 20 (0.48%) ERwin
6 11 (0.26%) Bitbucket
6 11 (0.26%) SonarQube
7 10 (0.24%) Artifactory
8 9 (0.22%) MLflow
9 6 (0.14%) Postman
10 5 (0.12%) PowerDesigner
10 5 (0.12%) REST Assured
11 4 (0.096%) Cucumber
11 4 (0.096%) Rational DOORS
11 4 (0.096%) Selenium
11 4 (0.096%) Snyk
11 4 (0.096%) Sonatype Nexus
11 4 (0.096%) Terragrunt
12 3 (0.072%) Maven
12 3 (0.072%) MSI
General
1 867 (20.84%) Social Skills
2 669 (16.08%) Finance
3 473 (11.37%) Public Sector
4 278 (6.68%) Analytical Skills
5 257 (6.18%) Banking
6 138 (3.32%) Documentation Skills
7 102 (2.45%) Influencing Skills
7 102 (2.45%) Retail
8 86 (2.07%) Legal
8 86 (2.07%) Military
9 72 (1.73%) Telecoms
10 68 (1.63%) Presentation Skills
11 61 (1.47%) Law
12 59 (1.42%) Marketing
13 52 (1.25%) Manufacturing
14 46 (1.11%) Financial Institution
15 33 (0.79%) Billing
16 30 (0.72%) Investment Banking
17 29 (0.70%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 25 (0.60%) Aerospace
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 216 (5.19%) REST
2 162 (3.89%) Middleware
3 106 (2.55%) SOAP
4 83 (1.99%) .NET
5 78 (1.87%) OpenID
6 77 (1.85%) LDAP
7 68 (1.63%) OAuth
8 64 (1.54%) Kafka
9 59 (1.42%) SAML
10 56 (1.35%) JSON
11 44 (1.06%) OAuth2
12 38 (0.91%) AngularJS
13 36 (0.87%) React
14 33 (0.79%) RESTful
15 32 (0.77%) SailPoint
16 27 (0.65%) Spring
16 27 (0.65%) Web Services
17 24 (0.58%) Oracle Fusion
18 22 (0.53%) PySpark
19 21 (0.50%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 328 (7.88%) Cloud Native
2 138 (3.32%) Product Ownership
3 118 (2.84%) Data Centre
4 107 (2.57%) Onboarding
5 105 (2.52%) Enterprise Software
6 104 (2.50%) Legacy Systems
7 89 (2.14%) Hybrid Cloud
8 83 (1.99%) PKI
9 77 (1.85%) Distributed Systems
10 69 (1.66%) Public Cloud
11 67 (1.61%) Security Posture
12 64 (1.54%) Management Information System
13 60 (1.44%) Operational Technology
14 59 (1.42%) Data Protection Act
15 56 (1.35%) CMDB
16 50 (1.20%) Self-Motivation
17 40 (0.96%) AI Agents
17 40 (0.96%) Data Structures
18 38 (0.91%) Private Cloud
19 30 (0.72%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 162 (3.89%) Windows
2 98 (2.36%) Linux
3 36 (0.87%) Windows Server
4 24 (0.58%) Android
4 24 (0.58%) Apple iOS
5 16 (0.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 16 (0.38%) Unix
6 14 (0.34%) Windows 10
6 14 (0.34%) Windows 7
7 10 (0.24%) zOS
8 9 (0.22%) Mac OS
8 9 (0.22%) VMS
9 8 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
10 5 (0.12%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (0.072%) Ubuntu
11 3 (0.072%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.048%) CentOS
13 1 (0.024%) Data ONTAP
13 1 (0.024%) Kali Linux
13 1 (0.024%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 606 (14.56%) Roadmaps
2 558 (13.41%) Agile
3 545 (13.10%) Migration
4 480 (11.54%) DevOps
5 460 (11.06%) Stakeholder Management
6 428 (10.29%) CI/CD
6 428 (10.29%) Enterprise Architecture
7 400 (9.61%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 396 (9.52%) Data Modelling
9 378 (9.08%) Technical Leadership
10 372 (8.94%) TOGAF
11 353 (8.48%) Integration Patterns
12 351 (8.44%) AI
13 344 (8.27%) Problem-Solving
14 343 (8.24%) Analytics
15 333 (8.00%) Data Architecture
16 311 (7.47%) Architectural Patterns
17 305 (7.33%) Architectural Design
18 298 (7.16%) Microservices
19 254 (6.10%) Security Architecture
Programming Languages
1 302 (7.26%) Python
2 214 (5.14%) SQL
3 179 (4.30%) PowerShell
4 154 (3.70%) Java
5 67 (1.61%) JavaScript
6 50 (1.20%) C#
7 40 (0.96%) Bash
8 38 (0.91%) Bicep
9 30 (0.72%) TypeScript
10 17 (0.41%) Apex Code
10 17 (0.41%) Ruby
11 14 (0.34%) PL/SQL
12 13 (0.31%) Kusto Query Language
12 13 (0.31%) Scala
13 10 (0.24%) R
14 9 (0.22%) Kotlin
15 8 (0.19%) Shell Script
15 8 (0.19%) T-SQL
15 8 (0.19%) VB
16 7 (0.17%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,336 (32.11%) Security Cleared
2 906 (21.77%) SC Cleared
3 319 (7.67%) DV Cleared
4 174 (4.18%) Degree
5 112 (2.69%) Azure Certification
5 112 (2.69%) TOGAF Certification
6 106 (2.55%) CISSP
7 98 (2.36%) AWS Certification
8 78 (1.87%) Cisco Certification
9 66 (1.59%) Computer Science Degree
10 60 (1.44%) BPSS Clearance
11 51 (1.23%) Microsoft Certification
12 50 (1.20%) CISM
13 47 (1.13%) CCNP
14 42 (1.01%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 36 (0.87%) Master's Degree
16 32 (0.77%) ITIL Certification
17 31 (0.75%) ISEB
18 29 (0.70%) (ISC)2 CCSP
18 29 (0.70%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 168 (4.04%) GDPR
2 162 (3.89%) NIST
3 135 (3.24%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 126 (3.03%) Data Quality
5 91 (2.19%) NCSC
6 63 (1.51%) QA
7 51 (1.23%) PCI DSS
8 37 (0.89%) COBIT
9 29 (0.70%) GRC
10 27 (0.65%) Cyber Essentials
10 27 (0.65%) ISO 20022
11 18 (0.43%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 16 (0.38%) HL7
13 15 (0.36%) Accessibility
13 15 (0.36%) NIST 800
14 14 (0.34%) JSP 440
14 14 (0.34%) MiFID
15 13 (0.31%) FINRA
15 13 (0.31%) PSD2
15 13 (0.31%) SEPA
System Software
1 180 (4.33%) Active Directory
2 115 (2.76%) Docker
3 96 (2.31%) VMware Infrastructure
4 70 (1.68%) VMware NSX
5 32 (0.77%) vSphere
6 22 (0.53%) Virtual Desktop
7 17 (0.41%) Hyper-V
8 16 (0.38%) Virtual Machines
9 12 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
10 10 (0.24%) vCloud
11 9 (0.22%) Squid
12 7 (0.17%) BitLocker
12 7 (0.17%) NFS
12 7 (0.17%) Varnish
13 5 (0.12%) Postfix
13 5 (0.12%) RACF
14 4 (0.096%) Firmware
14 4 (0.096%) Oracle RAC
15 3 (0.072%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
15 3 (0.072%) IAG
Systems Management
1 238 (5.72%) Terraform
2 220 (5.29%) Kubernetes
3 103 (2.48%) Ansible
4 53 (1.27%) Single Sign-On
5 40 (0.96%) Microsoft Intune
6 34 (0.82%) Grafana
7 33 (0.79%) vCenter Server
8 30 (0.72%) OPNET
9 22 (0.53%) SCCM
10 21 (0.50%) FortiGate
10 21 (0.50%) Prometheus
11 19 (0.46%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 19 (0.46%) Argo
12 13 (0.31%) WMI
13 9 (0.22%) Istio
14 7 (0.17%) Consul
14 7 (0.17%) Puppet
15 5 (0.12%) HAProxy
15 5 (0.12%) Kibana
15 5 (0.12%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 596 (14.32%) Microsoft
2 248 (5.96%) ServiceNow
3 242 (5.82%) SAP
4 186 (4.47%) VMware
5 165 (3.97%) Salesforce
6 162 (3.89%) Oracle
7 150 (3.60%) Databricks
8 114 (2.74%) Cisco
9 88 (2.11%) Google
10 87 (2.09%) CyberArk
11 60 (1.44%) MuleSoft
12 54 (1.30%) Splunk
13 51 (1.23%) Palo Alto
14 50 (1.20%) Remedy
15 49 (1.18%) Red Hat
16 47 (1.13%) IBM
17 46 (1.11%) Sparx
18 45 (1.08%) Atlassian
19 44 (1.06%) Centrify
19 44 (1.06%) Workday