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 25 February 2026.

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

6 months to
25 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 16 13
Rank change year-on-year -1 -3 +6
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 3,631 2,584 3,648
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.30% 10.10% 9.73%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.21% 10.87% 10.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,462 1,601 2,410
10th Percentile £458 £475 £500
25th Percentile £513 £547 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -1.89%
75th Percentile £725 £725 £738
90th Percentile £799 £799 £800
UK median daily rate £625 £625 £650
% change year-on-year - -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 74 28 42
10th Percentile £49.40 £57.43 £52.98
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £61.25
Median hourly rate £71.89 £71.25 £79.37
Median % change year-on-year +0.89% -10.23% +13.39%
75th Percentile £89.82 £78.92 £87.53
90th Percentile £95.00 £86.30 £95.00
UK median hourly rate £71.27 £71.25 £78.74
% change year-on-year +0.03% -9.51% +12.49%

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 32,400 23,779 34,819
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.88% 92.96% 92.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,562 15,077 23,339
10th Percentile £306 £300 £270
25th Percentile £410 £409 £412
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £503 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.29% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £623 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £750 £747
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,076 723 2,145
10th Percentile £15.00 £16.25 £13.20
25th Percentile £18.87 £22.00 £16.30
Median hourly rate £33.50 £36.50 £34.25
Median % change year-on-year -8.22% +6.57% -14.38%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £74.67 £75.20 £71.82
UK median hourly rate £32.50 £35.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year -7.14% - -10.88%

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 25 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 25 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 25 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 -2 1,622 £630 -3.08% 343
South East +6 625 £625 - 248
North of England 0 506 £575 -4.17% 110
Midlands -3 359 £573 -4.50% 97
North West -4 280 £579 -3.50% 60
West Midlands -2 269 £600 -1.15% 64
South West +1 258 £706 +12.96% 57
Yorkshire -2 208 £558 -2.62% 32
East of England +18 162 £550 -12.00% 30
East Midlands -6 88 £500 -10.71% 33
North East -13 23 £625 -1.96% 20
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 25 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 1,157 (31.86%) Security Cleared
2 913 (25.14%) Azure
3 807 (22.23%) SC Cleared
4 725 (19.97%) AWS
5 530 (14.60%) Roadmaps
6 527 (14.51%) Microsoft
7 494 (13.61%) Agile
8 466 (12.83%) Stakeholder Management
9 444 (12.23%) Migration
10 416 (11.46%) DevOps
11 396 (10.91%) Enterprise Architecture
12 359 (9.89%) TOGAF
13 356 (9.80%) Data Modelling
14 352 (9.69%) CI/CD
15 342 (9.42%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 335 (9.23%) Technical Leadership
17 318 (8.76%) Problem-Solving
18 305 (8.40%) Data Architecture
19 304 (8.37%) GCP
20 297 (8.18%) Analytics
21 294 (8.10%) AI
22 273 (7.52%) Integration Patterns
23 268 (7.38%) DV Cleared
24 267 (7.35%) Python
25 252 (6.94%) Microservices
26 231 (6.36%) Architectural Design
27 230 (6.33%) Architectural Patterns
28 217 (5.98%) Terraform
29 211 (5.81%) Data Governance
30 210 (5.78%) 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
1 109 (3.00%) Confluence
2 93 (2.56%) SharePoint
3 60 (1.65%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (0.74%) SAS
5 21 (0.58%) CMS
6 18 (0.50%) Apache Spark
7 15 (0.41%) Anypoint
7 15 (0.41%) Apache Airflow
7 15 (0.41%) Appian
8 14 (0.39%) ArcGIS
9 13 (0.36%) WebLogic
10 12 (0.33%) OpenStack
11 11 (0.30%) Apache
11 11 (0.30%) nginx
12 9 (0.25%) Smallworld
13 7 (0.19%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 7 (0.19%) Skype for Business
14 6 (0.17%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 6 (0.17%) Sitecore CMS
14 6 (0.17%) Tomcat
Applications
1 51 (1.40%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (0.88%) Microsoft Project
3 26 (0.72%) Microsoft Excel
4 25 (0.69%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 12 (0.33%) MS Visio
6 7 (0.19%) 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 92 (2.53%) SAP S/4HANA
2 38 (1.05%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 23 (0.63%) Workday HCM
4 20 (0.55%) Dynamics CRM
5 17 (0.47%) Payment Gateway
6 16 (0.44%) Salesforce CRM
7 11 (0.30%) NetSuite
8 10 (0.28%) Oracle EBS
8 10 (0.28%) SAP PM
9 9 (0.25%) Oracle Receivables
10 8 (0.22%) Maximo
10 8 (0.22%) SAP ERP
10 8 (0.22%) SAP EWM
11 7 (0.19%) Remedy ITSM
11 7 (0.19%) SAP PP
12 6 (0.17%) Oracle SCM
12 6 (0.17%) R3 Corda
12 6 (0.17%) SAP CO
12 6 (0.17%) SAP QM
12 6 (0.17%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 913 (25.14%) Azure
2 725 (19.97%) AWS
3 304 (8.37%) GCP
4 136 (3.75%) Entra ID
5 131 (3.61%) Power Platform
6 128 (3.53%) Microsoft 365
7 124 (3.42%) SaaS
8 116 (3.19%) Serverless
9 84 (2.31%) IaaS
10 80 (2.20%) Azure DevOps
10 80 (2.20%) GitHub
11 71 (1.96%) PaaS
12 67 (1.85%) AWS Lambda
13 65 (1.79%) Amazon S3
14 64 (1.76%) OpenShift
15 62 (1.71%) Microsoft Purview
16 59 (1.62%) Dynamics 365
17 54 (1.49%) AWS CloudFormation
17 54 (1.49%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 51 (1.40%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 181 (4.98%) Firewall
2 123 (3.39%) Network Security
3 108 (2.97%) DNS
3 108 (2.97%) WAN
4 99 (2.73%) VPN
5 73 (2.01%) LAN
6 54 (1.49%) SD-WAN
7 33 (0.91%) BGP
8 29 (0.80%) DHCP
8 29 (0.80%) Wi-Fi
9 28 (0.77%) MPLS
10 25 (0.69%) OSPF
10 25 (0.69%) TCP/IP
11 21 (0.58%) SAN
12 20 (0.55%) VLAN
12 20 (0.55%) VSAN
13 18 (0.50%) IPsec
14 17 (0.47%) SSL
15 15 (0.41%) Internet
16 14 (0.39%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 119 (3.28%) Data Warehouse
2 106 (2.92%) Metadata
3 92 (2.53%) Power BI
4 71 (1.96%) Data Lake
5 63 (1.74%) SQL Server
6 45 (1.24%) PostgreSQL
7 44 (1.21%) Tableau
8 40 (1.10%) NoSQL
9 29 (0.80%) Oracle Database
10 28 (0.77%) Azure SQL Database
11 27 (0.74%) Amazon Redshift
12 24 (0.66%) GIS
13 21 (0.58%) Big Data
14 20 (0.55%) Metadata Repository
15 19 (0.52%) DynamoDB
16 18 (0.50%) Relational Database
17 17 (0.47%) Amazon Aurora
17 17 (0.47%) BigQuery
18 16 (0.44%) Data Vault
18 16 (0.44%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 127 (3.50%) JIRA
2 87 (2.40%) Jenkins
3 42 (1.16%) GitLab
4 30 (0.83%) Git
5 15 (0.41%) ERwin
6 11 (0.30%) Bitbucket
7 10 (0.28%) Artifactory
7 10 (0.28%) SonarQube
8 7 (0.19%) MLflow
8 7 (0.19%) 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 (0.083%) MSI
11 3 (0.083%) PowerDesigner
11 3 (0.083%) Snyk
11 3 (0.083%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 834 (22.97%) Social Skills
2 582 (16.03%) Finance
3 415 (11.43%) Public Sector
4 257 (7.08%) Analytical Skills
5 216 (5.95%) Banking
6 121 (3.33%) Documentation Skills
7 85 (2.34%) Influencing Skills
8 80 (2.20%) Military
9 79 (2.18%) Retail
10 74 (2.04%) Legal
10 74 (2.04%) Presentation Skills
11 72 (1.98%) Telecoms
12 63 (1.74%) Marketing
13 53 (1.46%) Manufacturing
14 35 (0.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 34 (0.94%) Billing
16 31 (0.85%) Financial Institution
17 24 (0.66%) Law
18 20 (0.55%) Investment Banking
19 15 (0.41%) Aerospace
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 196 (5.40%) REST
2 136 (3.75%) Middleware
3 107 (2.95%) SOAP
4 75 (2.07%) .NET
5 74 (2.04%) LDAP
5 74 (2.04%) OpenID
6 63 (1.74%) OAuth
6 63 (1.74%) SAML
7 54 (1.49%) Kafka
8 50 (1.38%) JSON
9 39 (1.07%) OAuth2
10 33 (0.91%) SailPoint
11 32 (0.88%) AngularJS
12 31 (0.85%) RESTful
13 28 (0.77%) React
14 27 (0.74%) Oracle Fusion
15 24 (0.66%) PySpark
16 21 (0.58%) Microsoft Graph
17 20 (0.55%) Lightning Web Components
17 20 (0.55%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 258 (7.11%) Cloud Native
2 129 (3.55%) Product Ownership
3 107 (2.95%) Legacy Systems
4 106 (2.92%) Onboarding
5 97 (2.67%) Data Centre
6 92 (2.53%) Enterprise Software
7 88 (2.42%) PKI
8 75 (2.07%) Hybrid Cloud
9 57 (1.57%) Operational Technology
9 57 (1.57%) Security Posture
10 53 (1.46%) Management Information System
10 53 (1.46%) Public Cloud
11 50 (1.38%) Data Protection Act
12 47 (1.29%) Distributed Systems
13 43 (1.18%) CMDB
13 43 (1.18%) Self-Motivation
14 37 (1.02%) Data Structures
15 29 (0.80%) Private Cloud
16 28 (0.77%) Replication
17 27 (0.74%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 156 (4.30%) Windows
2 85 (2.34%) Linux
3 36 (0.99%) Windows Server
4 18 (0.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 17 (0.47%) Android
5 17 (0.47%) Apple iOS
5 17 (0.47%) Windows 7
6 14 (0.39%) Windows 10
7 12 (0.33%) Unix
8 9 (0.25%) Mac OS
9 8 (0.22%) VMS
9 8 (0.22%) Windows Server 2016
9 8 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
9 8 (0.22%) zOS
10 6 (0.17%) Ubuntu
11 4 (0.11%) CentOS
12 2 (0.055%) Windows Server 2012
13 1 (0.028%) Data ONTAP
13 1 (0.028%) Kali Linux
13 1 (0.028%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 530 (14.60%) Roadmaps
2 494 (13.61%) Agile
3 466 (12.83%) Stakeholder Management
4 444 (12.23%) Migration
5 416 (11.46%) DevOps
6 396 (10.91%) Enterprise Architecture
7 359 (9.89%) TOGAF
8 356 (9.80%) Data Modelling
9 352 (9.69%) CI/CD
10 342 (9.42%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 335 (9.23%) Technical Leadership
12 318 (8.76%) Problem-Solving
13 305 (8.40%) Data Architecture
14 297 (8.18%) Analytics
15 294 (8.10%) AI
16 273 (7.52%) Integration Patterns
17 252 (6.94%) Microservices
18 231 (6.36%) Architectural Design
19 230 (6.33%) Architectural Patterns
20 211 (5.81%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 267 (7.35%) Python
2 183 (5.04%) SQL
3 172 (4.74%) PowerShell
4 119 (3.28%) Java
5 60 (1.65%) JavaScript
6 48 (1.32%) C#
7 35 (0.96%) Bash
8 31 (0.85%) Bicep
9 30 (0.83%) TypeScript
10 18 (0.50%) Apex Code
11 16 (0.44%) PL/SQL
12 14 (0.39%) Kusto Query Language
13 13 (0.36%) R
14 9 (0.25%) Scala
14 9 (0.25%) T-SQL
15 8 (0.22%) Ruby
15 8 (0.22%) VB
16 7 (0.19%) Korn
16 7 (0.19%) VBScript
17 6 (0.17%) C
Qualifications
1 1,157 (31.86%) Security Cleared
2 807 (22.23%) SC Cleared
3 268 (7.38%) DV Cleared
4 175 (4.82%) Degree
5 112 (3.08%) TOGAF Certification
6 97 (2.67%) AWS Certification
7 96 (2.64%) CISSP
8 95 (2.62%) Azure Certification
9 70 (1.93%) Computer Science Degree
10 66 (1.82%) Cisco Certification
11 57 (1.57%) Microsoft Certification
12 56 (1.54%) BPSS Clearance
13 47 (1.29%) CISM
14 45 (1.24%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 44 (1.21%) Master's Degree
16 40 (1.10%) CCNP
17 30 (0.83%) ITIL Certification
18 29 (0.80%) CCIE
19 28 (0.77%) ISEB
20 21 (0.58%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 163 (4.49%) GDPR
2 124 (3.42%) NIST
3 115 (3.17%) Data Quality
4 107 (2.95%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 82 (2.26%) NCSC
6 58 (1.60%) QA
7 46 (1.27%) PCI DSS
8 32 (0.88%) COBIT
9 29 (0.80%) GRC
10 26 (0.72%) Cyber Essentials
11 24 (0.66%) ISO 20022
12 18 (0.50%) Accessibility
13 16 (0.44%) JSP 440
14 15 (0.41%) 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 (0.30%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
17 11 (0.30%) PSD2
System Software
1 163 (4.49%) Active Directory
2 120 (3.30%) Docker
3 82 (2.26%) VMware Infrastructure
4 61 (1.68%) VMware NSX
5 36 (0.99%) vSphere
6 22 (0.61%) Virtual Desktop
7 13 (0.36%) Hyper-V
7 13 (0.36%) Virtual Machines
7 13 (0.36%) VMware ESXi
8 8 (0.22%) Squid
9 7 (0.19%) BitLocker
10 6 (0.17%) vCloud
11 5 (0.14%) Oracle RAC
11 5 (0.14%) RACF
12 4 (0.11%) NFS
13 3 (0.083%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
13 3 (0.083%) Firmware
14 2 (0.055%) IAG
14 2 (0.055%) Lustre
14 2 (0.055%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 217 (5.98%) Terraform
2 189 (5.21%) Kubernetes
3 93 (2.56%) Ansible
4 57 (1.57%) Single Sign-On
5 37 (1.02%) Microsoft Intune
6 30 (0.83%) OPNET
6 30 (0.83%) vCenter Server
7 23 (0.63%) FortiGate
8 22 (0.61%) Grafana
8 22 (0.61%) SCCM
9 19 (0.52%) Prometheus
10 16 (0.44%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 16 (0.44%) Argo
10 16 (0.44%) WMI
11 7 (0.19%) Consul
11 7 (0.19%) Istio
12 5 (0.14%) Kibana
12 5 (0.14%) Puppet
13 4 (0.11%) Progress Chef
14 3 (0.083%) SCOM
Vendors
1 527 (14.51%) Microsoft
2 210 (5.78%) ServiceNow
3 195 (5.37%) SAP
4 165 (4.54%) Oracle
5 162 (4.46%) Salesforce
6 161 (4.43%) VMware
7 119 (3.28%) Databricks
8 98 (2.70%) Cisco
9 90 (2.48%) CyberArk
10 88 (2.42%) Google
11 56 (1.54%) Palo Alto
11 56 (1.54%) Splunk
12 55 (1.51%) MuleSoft
13 49 (1.35%) Centrify
14 48 (1.32%) Remedy
15 46 (1.27%) Atlassian
16 45 (1.24%) Red Hat
17 43 (1.18%) Workday
18 37 (1.02%) BeyondTrust
18 37 (1.02%) IBM