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 May 2026.

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

6 months to
7 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 16 11
Rank change year-on-year +6 -5 +5
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 4,490 2,385 3,827
As % of all contract jobs in England 11.03% 9.78% 10.32%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.95% 10.57% 11.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,023 1,574 2,492
10th Percentile £463 £476 £500
25th Percentile £513 £546 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -2.88%
75th Percentile £725 £716 £750
90th Percentile £800 £790 £825
UK median daily rate £620 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -0.42%
Number of hourly rates quoted 123 33 84
10th Percentile £49.40 £53.10 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £61.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -
75th Percentile £79.38 £80.59 £87.46
90th Percentile £97.50 £85.72 £91.40
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £71.25 £70.00
% change year-on-year -8.77% +1.79% -

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 37,569 22,569 34,368
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.27% 92.59% 92.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,407 15,021 22,841
10th Percentile £313 £300 £280
25th Percentile £413 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £644
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £505 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -1.46% -2.38% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,564 913 2,442
10th Percentile £15.57 £14.20 £13.00
25th Percentile £20.79 £18.51 £16.30
Median hourly rate £47.00 £31.35 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +49.94% -14.12% -17.64%
75th Percentile £67.50 £63.75 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.86
UK median hourly rate £43.69 £29.00 £36.50
% change year-on-year +50.66% -20.55% -18.89%

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 May 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 May 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 May 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 +3 2,115 £625 -1.38% 462
South East +5 714 £625 - 209
North of England +3 627 £600 - 207
Midlands 0 430 £596 -0.69% 124
North West +4 356 £609 +1.50% 120
West Midlands -2 314 £610 +1.71% 78
South West +1 298 £700 +16.67% 117
Yorkshire +8 235 £555 -7.58% 53
East of England +20 202 £563 -6.25% 83
East Midlands -2 110 £531 -1.62% 46
North East +10 44 £575 -7.95% 34
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 7 May 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 1,359 (30.27%) Security Cleared
2 1,038 (23.12%) Azure
3 934 (20.80%) SC Cleared
4 866 (19.29%) AWS
5 629 (14.01%) Roadmaps
6 613 (13.65%) Microsoft
7 592 (13.18%) Migration
8 563 (12.54%) Agile
9 506 (11.27%) DevOps
10 472 (10.51%) Stakeholder Management
11 467 (10.40%) CI/CD
12 443 (9.87%) Enterprise Architecture
13 413 (9.20%) AI
14 391 (8.71%) Data Modelling
15 390 (8.69%) Integration Patterns
16 385 (8.57%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 385 (8.57%) Technical Leadership
17 368 (8.20%) TOGAF
18 360 (8.02%) Analytics
19 347 (7.73%) GCP
20 343 (7.64%) Data Architecture
21 334 (7.44%) Architectural Patterns
22 331 (7.37%) Problem-Solving
23 318 (7.08%) DV Cleared
24 313 (6.97%) Architectural Design
25 312 (6.95%) Microservices
26 299 (6.66%) Python
27 282 (6.28%) ServiceNow
28 266 (5.92%) SAP
29 262 (5.84%) Security Architecture

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
1 107 (2.38%) SharePoint
2 100 (2.23%) Confluence
3 55 (1.22%) Microsoft Exchange
4 24 (0.53%) Apache
4 24 (0.53%) Apache Spark
5 19 (0.42%) SAS
6 17 (0.38%) CMS
7 16 (0.36%) Anypoint
7 16 (0.36%) Appian
8 14 (0.31%) Apache Airflow
9 13 (0.29%) nginx
10 12 (0.27%) ArcGIS
11 11 (0.24%) OpenStack
11 11 (0.24%) Palantir Foundry
11 11 (0.24%) WebLogic
12 9 (0.20%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 8 (0.18%) Camunda
14 7 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
15 6 (0.13%) Sitecore CMS
15 6 (0.13%) Tomcat
Applications
1 45 (1.00%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (0.69%) Microsoft Project
3 19 (0.42%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 16 (0.36%) MS Visio
5 14 (0.31%) Microsoft Excel
6 7 (0.16%) Navisworks
6 7 (0.16%) Revit
7 4 (0.089%) Chatbot
8 2 (0.045%) PlantUML
8 2 (0.045%) Spreadsheet
9 1 (0.022%) ArchiCAD
9 1 (0.022%) AutoCAD
9 1 (0.022%) OrCAD
9 1 (0.022%) Siemens NX
9 1 (0.022%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 112 (2.49%) SAP S/4HANA
2 48 (1.07%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 20 (0.45%) Payment Gateway
4 19 (0.42%) Workday HCM
5 14 (0.31%) Dynamics CRM
5 14 (0.31%) SAP ERP
5 14 (0.31%) Teamcenter
6 13 (0.29%) Oracle EBS
7 10 (0.22%) Oracle Receivables
7 10 (0.22%) Remedy ITSM
8 9 (0.20%) Salesforce CRM
8 9 (0.20%) SAP EWM
9 8 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
9 8 (0.18%) SAP PP
10 7 (0.16%) SAP PM
10 7 (0.16%) SAP QM
11 6 (0.13%) Maximo
11 6 (0.13%) NetSuite
11 6 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
11 6 (0.13%) R3 Corda
Cloud Services
1 1,038 (23.12%) Azure
2 866 (19.29%) AWS
3 347 (7.73%) GCP
4 205 (4.57%) Power Platform
5 168 (3.74%) Entra ID
6 154 (3.43%) Serverless
7 148 (3.30%) SaaS
8 128 (2.85%) Microsoft 365
9 104 (2.32%) GitHub
10 101 (2.25%) PaaS
11 97 (2.16%) Dynamics 365
12 87 (1.94%) Azure DevOps
13 82 (1.83%) IaaS
14 74 (1.65%) AWS Lambda
15 72 (1.60%) Amazon S3
15 72 (1.60%) Snowflake
16 69 (1.54%) OpenShift
17 60 (1.34%) Microsoft Purview
18 56 (1.25%) Azure Data Factory
19 55 (1.22%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 159 (3.54%) Firewall
2 148 (3.30%) Network Security
3 110 (2.45%) WAN
4 106 (2.36%) DNS
5 96 (2.14%) VPN
6 80 (1.78%) LAN
7 55 (1.22%) SD-WAN
8 35 (0.78%) BGP
9 29 (0.65%) OSPF
10 28 (0.62%) DHCP
11 27 (0.60%) MPLS
12 26 (0.58%) TCP/IP
13 23 (0.51%) Wi-Fi
14 21 (0.47%) VLAN
15 20 (0.45%) SAN
16 19 (0.42%) BIG-IP
16 19 (0.42%) NAS
17 18 (0.40%) VXLAN
18 17 (0.38%) Wireless
19 16 (0.36%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 152 (3.39%) Power BI
2 108 (2.41%) Metadata
3 103 (2.29%) Data Lake
4 93 (2.07%) Data Warehouse
5 66 (1.47%) SQL Server
6 56 (1.25%) NoSQL
7 50 (1.11%) PostgreSQL
8 40 (0.89%) Azure SQL Database
9 38 (0.85%) Tableau
10 29 (0.65%) Amazon Redshift
10 29 (0.65%) Big Data
10 29 (0.65%) Delta Lake
11 25 (0.56%) BigQuery
11 25 (0.56%) Oracle Database
12 23 (0.51%) GIS
13 20 (0.45%) Electronic Patient Records
14 19 (0.42%) Amazon Athena
15 17 (0.38%) MongoDB
16 16 (0.36%) Amazon Aurora
16 16 (0.36%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 114 (2.54%) JIRA
2 83 (1.85%) Jenkins
3 57 (1.27%) Git
4 47 (1.05%) GitLab
5 19 (0.42%) ERwin
6 15 (0.33%) SonarQube
7 14 (0.31%) Artifactory
8 11 (0.24%) Bitbucket
8 11 (0.24%) MLflow
9 7 (0.16%) Postman
10 6 (0.13%) PowerDesigner
11 5 (0.11%) JUnit
11 5 (0.11%) Maven
11 5 (0.11%) MSI
11 5 (0.11%) REST Assured
12 4 (0.089%) Cucumber
12 4 (0.089%) Selenium
12 4 (0.089%) Snyk
12 4 (0.089%) Sonatype Nexus
12 4 (0.089%) Terragrunt
General
1 841 (18.73%) Social Skills
2 702 (15.63%) Finance
3 461 (10.27%) Public Sector
4 268 (5.97%) Banking
5 249 (5.55%) Analytical Skills
6 134 (2.98%) Retail
7 131 (2.92%) Documentation Skills
8 97 (2.16%) Influencing Skills
9 94 (2.09%) Legal
10 84 (1.87%) Military
11 82 (1.83%) Telecoms
12 72 (1.60%) Manufacturing
13 63 (1.40%) Presentation Skills
14 61 (1.36%) Law
15 55 (1.22%) Marketing
16 50 (1.11%) Billing
17 42 (0.94%) Financial Institution
18 35 (0.78%) Investment Banking
19 30 (0.67%) Inclusion and Diversity
20 29 (0.65%) Aerospace
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 213 (4.74%) REST
2 170 (3.79%) Middleware
3 114 (2.54%) SOAP
4 100 (2.23%) .NET
5 80 (1.78%) LDAP
5 80 (1.78%) OpenID
6 68 (1.51%) OAuth
7 67 (1.49%) Kafka
8 57 (1.27%) SAML
9 42 (0.94%) OAuth2
9 42 (0.94%) Oracle Fusion
10 39 (0.87%) JSON
11 38 (0.85%) SailPoint
12 37 (0.82%) React
13 33 (0.73%) AngularJS
14 32 (0.71%) RESTful
15 29 (0.65%) Web Services
16 26 (0.58%) PySpark
16 26 (0.58%) Spring
17 23 (0.51%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 366 (8.15%) Cloud Native
2 134 (2.98%) Product Ownership
3 119 (2.65%) Data Centre
4 115 (2.56%) Onboarding
5 105 (2.34%) Enterprise Software
5 105 (2.34%) Legacy Systems
6 96 (2.14%) Hybrid Cloud
7 88 (1.96%) Distributed Systems
8 82 (1.83%) Management Information System
9 73 (1.63%) Public Cloud
9 73 (1.63%) Security Posture
10 68 (1.51%) Data Protection Act
10 68 (1.51%) Operational Technology
11 61 (1.36%) CMDB
12 52 (1.16%) AI Agents
12 52 (1.16%) PKI
13 40 (0.89%) Data Structures
13 40 (0.89%) Private Cloud
14 33 (0.73%) Mainframe
15 31 (0.69%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 150 (3.34%) Windows
2 92 (2.05%) Linux
3 31 (0.69%) Windows Server
4 26 (0.58%) Android
4 26 (0.58%) Apple iOS
5 21 (0.47%) Unix
6 14 (0.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 11 (0.24%) Windows 10
7 11 (0.24%) zOS
8 9 (0.20%) Mac OS
8 9 (0.20%) VMS
8 9 (0.20%) Windows 7
9 8 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
10 5 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (0.067%) CentOS
11 3 (0.067%) Data ONTAP
11 3 (0.067%) Solaris
11 3 (0.067%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.045%) AIX
12 2 (0.045%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 629 (14.01%) Roadmaps
2 592 (13.18%) Migration
3 563 (12.54%) Agile
4 506 (11.27%) DevOps
5 472 (10.51%) Stakeholder Management
6 467 (10.40%) CI/CD
7 443 (9.87%) Enterprise Architecture
8 413 (9.20%) AI
9 391 (8.71%) Data Modelling
10 390 (8.69%) Integration Patterns
11 385 (8.57%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 385 (8.57%) Technical Leadership
12 368 (8.20%) TOGAF
13 360 (8.02%) Analytics
14 343 (7.64%) Data Architecture
15 334 (7.44%) Architectural Patterns
16 331 (7.37%) Problem-Solving
17 313 (6.97%) Architectural Design
18 312 (6.95%) Microservices
19 262 (5.84%) Security Architecture
Programming Languages
1 299 (6.66%) Python
2 229 (5.10%) SQL
3 166 (3.70%) Java
4 160 (3.56%) PowerShell
5 75 (1.67%) JavaScript
6 53 (1.18%) C#
7 43 (0.96%) Bicep
8 36 (0.80%) Bash
9 33 (0.73%) TypeScript
10 18 (0.40%) PL/SQL
10 18 (0.40%) Ruby
11 17 (0.38%) Apex Code
11 17 (0.38%) Scala
12 13 (0.29%) Kusto Query Language
13 10 (0.22%) Shell Script
14 9 (0.20%) Kotlin
14 9 (0.20%) T-SQL
15 8 (0.18%) R
16 7 (0.16%) VBA
17 6 (0.13%) C++
Qualifications
1 1,359 (30.27%) Security Cleared
2 934 (20.80%) SC Cleared
3 318 (7.08%) DV Cleared
4 183 (4.08%) Degree
5 120 (2.67%) TOGAF Certification
6 108 (2.41%) Azure Certification
7 97 (2.16%) CISSP
8 90 (2.00%) AWS Certification
9 75 (1.67%) Computer Science Degree
10 73 (1.63%) Cisco Certification
11 67 (1.49%) BPSS Clearance
12 47 (1.05%) Microsoft Certification
13 46 (1.02%) CISM
14 41 (0.91%) CCNP
15 40 (0.89%) Master's Degree
16 36 (0.80%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 25 (0.56%) (ISC)2 CCSP
18 23 (0.51%) ITIL Certification
19 21 (0.47%) CCIE
20 20 (0.45%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 163 (3.63%) NIST
2 157 (3.50%) GDPR
3 124 (2.76%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 122 (2.72%) Data Quality
5 90 (2.00%) NCSC
6 60 (1.34%) QA
7 40 (0.89%) PCI DSS
8 27 (0.60%) COBIT
8 27 (0.60%) Cyber Essentials
9 26 (0.58%) GRC
9 26 (0.58%) ISO 20022
10 19 (0.42%) SEPA
11 17 (0.38%) Accessibility
11 17 (0.38%) NIST 800
11 17 (0.38%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 16 (0.36%) HL7
13 13 (0.29%) FINRA
13 13 (0.29%) MiFID
14 12 (0.27%) PSD2
15 9 (0.20%) IFRS
System Software
1 180 (4.01%) Active Directory
2 100 (2.23%) Docker
3 86 (1.92%) VMware Infrastructure
4 66 (1.47%) VMware NSX
5 27 (0.60%) vSphere
6 25 (0.56%) Virtual Desktop
7 20 (0.45%) Virtual Machines
8 18 (0.40%) Hyper-V
9 13 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
10 10 (0.22%) vCloud
11 9 (0.20%) NFS
11 9 (0.20%) Squid
12 8 (0.18%) Varnish
13 6 (0.13%) Postfix
14 5 (0.11%) RACF
15 4 (0.089%) BitLocker
15 4 (0.089%) Firmware
15 4 (0.089%) Oracle RAC
15 4 (0.089%) Sendmail
16 3 (0.067%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 231 (5.14%) Terraform
2 208 (4.63%) Kubernetes
3 96 (2.14%) Ansible
4 47 (1.05%) Single Sign-On
5 42 (0.94%) Microsoft Intune
6 37 (0.82%) Grafana
7 30 (0.67%) OPNET
8 29 (0.65%) vCenter Server
9 24 (0.53%) Prometheus
10 22 (0.49%) FortiGate
11 21 (0.47%) SCCM
12 15 (0.33%) Argo
13 14 (0.31%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 11 (0.24%) WMI
15 10 (0.22%) Istio
16 8 (0.18%) Puppet
17 7 (0.16%) Consul
18 6 (0.13%) HAProxy
18 6 (0.13%) Progress Chef
19 5 (0.11%) Endace
Vendors
1 613 (13.65%) Microsoft
2 282 (6.28%) ServiceNow
3 266 (5.92%) SAP
4 185 (4.12%) Oracle
5 180 (4.01%) VMware
6 166 (3.70%) Databricks
6 166 (3.70%) Salesforce
7 103 (2.29%) Cisco
8 93 (2.07%) Google
9 86 (1.92%) CyberArk
10 66 (1.47%) MuleSoft
11 56 (1.25%) Splunk
12 50 (1.11%) Sparx
13 48 (1.07%) Workday
14 47 (1.05%) Remedy
15 43 (0.96%) Atlassian
15 43 (0.96%) Red Hat
16 41 (0.91%) IBM
17 39 (0.87%) BeyondTrust
17 39 (0.87%) Palo Alto