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 January 2026.

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

6 months to
5 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 19 16 14
Rank change year-on-year -3 -2 +7
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 2,976 2,649 3,433
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.45% 9.70% 9.48%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.34% 10.44% 10.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,065 1,583 2,331
10th Percentile £460 £475 £500
25th Percentile £519 £548 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -
75th Percentile £725 £726 £738
90th Percentile £800 £799 £775
UK median daily rate £625 £625 £650
% change year-on-year - -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 39 28 33
10th Percentile £65.00 £59.48 £58.05
25th Percentile £66.13 £64.13 £70.00
Median hourly rate £83.82 £71.25 £76.53
Median % change year-on-year +17.64% -6.90% +9.33%
75th Percentile £94.89 £81.00 £83.11
90th Percentile £95.00 £87.50 £95.00
UK median hourly rate £83.82 £72.50 £76.53
% change year-on-year +15.61% -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 28,793 25,364 33,771
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.47% 92.85% 93.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,431 15,701 23,038
10th Percentile £300 £300 £280
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 1,738 796 1,465
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.92 £14.25
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.25 £19.25
Median hourly rate £27.50 £35.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -21.43% -21.35% +28.74%
75th Percentile £62.50 £64.81 £65.00
90th Percentile £73.11 £74.93 £76.53
UK median hourly rate £26.50 £32.50 £44.50
% change year-on-year -18.46% -26.97% +36.92%

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 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 5 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 5 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 1,351 £650 - 442
South East +9 539 £600 -4.00% 359
North of England -10 383 £575 -4.17% 229
Midlands -4 272 £574 -4.38% 146
South West -1 243 £708 +13.20% 111
North West -6 233 £575 -4.17% 104
West Midlands -5 203 £588 -3.21% 83
Yorkshire -16 141 £575 -5.35% 84
East of England +2 99 £550 -12.00% 149
East Midlands -5 69 £492 -14.43% 57
North East -22 9 £625 +4.23% 42
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 5 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.

1 968 (32.53%) Security Cleared
2 803 (26.98%) Azure
3 681 (22.88%) SC Cleared
4 606 (20.36%) AWS
5 437 (14.68%) Microsoft
6 432 (14.52%) Roadmaps
7 424 (14.25%) Agile
8 378 (12.70%) Stakeholder Management
9 340 (11.42%) Migration
10 323 (10.85%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 322 (10.82%) Enterprise Architecture
12 320 (10.75%) Data Modelling
13 315 (10.58%) DevOps
14 308 (10.35%) TOGAF
15 298 (10.01%) Technical Leadership
16 289 (9.71%) Problem-Solving
17 269 (9.04%) CI/CD
18 251 (8.43%) GCP
19 233 (7.83%) AI
19 233 (7.83%) Python
20 232 (7.80%) Data Architecture
21 228 (7.66%) Analytics
22 225 (7.56%) Integration Patterns
23 220 (7.39%) DV Cleared
24 215 (7.22%) Microservices
25 198 (6.65%) Architectural Design
26 194 (6.52%) Mentoring
27 191 (6.42%) Terraform
28 188 (6.32%) ITIL
29 184 (6.18%) Data Governance

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 98 (3.29%) Confluence
2 62 (2.08%) SharePoint
3 38 (1.28%) Microsoft Exchange
4 18 (0.60%) SAS
5 17 (0.57%) OpenStack
6 16 (0.54%) CMS
7 13 (0.44%) Apache Airflow
7 13 (0.44%) ArcGIS
8 12 (0.40%) Apache Spark
9 9 (0.30%) Smallworld
10 8 (0.27%) Anypoint
11 7 (0.24%) Apache
12 6 (0.20%) GeoServer
13 5 (0.17%) Oracle Workflow
14 4 (0.13%) Documentum
14 4 (0.13%) Ethereum
14 4 (0.13%) Hyperledger
14 4 (0.13%) Tomcat
14 4 (0.13%) WebLogic
15 3 (0.10%) Jupyter
Applications
1 45 (1.51%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (1.08%) Microsoft Project
3 28 (0.94%) Microsoft Excel
4 24 (0.81%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 18 (0.60%) MS Visio
6 11 (0.37%) Siemens NX
7 3 (0.10%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.10%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.034%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.034%) FrameMaker
8 1 (0.034%) OrCAD
8 1 (0.034%) Revit
8 1 (0.034%) Trello
Business Applications
1 79 (2.65%) SAP S/4HANA
2 36 (1.21%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 28 (0.94%) Dynamics CRM
4 20 (0.67%) Workday HCM
5 16 (0.54%) Salesforce CRM
6 13 (0.44%) SAP CO
6 13 (0.44%) SAP PM
6 13 (0.44%) Teamcenter
7 12 (0.40%) Maximo
7 12 (0.40%) NetSuite
8 11 (0.37%) SAP FI
8 11 (0.37%) SAP FI/CO
9 10 (0.34%) Remedy ITSM
10 9 (0.30%) Payment Gateway
11 8 (0.27%) SAP EWM
11 8 (0.27%) SAP PP
12 7 (0.24%) Oracle EBS
12 7 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
13 6 (0.20%) Oracle SCM
13 6 (0.20%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 803 (26.98%) Azure
2 606 (20.36%) AWS
3 251 (8.43%) GCP
4 128 (4.30%) Power Platform
5 110 (3.70%) SaaS
6 98 (3.29%) Entra ID
6 98 (3.29%) Microsoft 365
6 98 (3.29%) Serverless
7 75 (2.52%) GitHub
8 67 (2.25%) Dynamics 365
9 64 (2.15%) AWS Lambda
9 64 (2.15%) Azure DevOps
9 64 (2.15%) IaaS
10 56 (1.88%) Microsoft Purview
11 51 (1.71%) Amazon S3
12 48 (1.61%) PaaS
13 47 (1.58%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 47 (1.58%) OpenShift
14 45 (1.51%) Azure Data Factory
15 41 (1.38%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 164 (5.51%) Firewall
2 111 (3.73%) WAN
3 84 (2.82%) LAN
4 83 (2.79%) Network Security
5 82 (2.76%) VPN
6 70 (2.35%) DNS
7 62 (2.08%) SD-WAN
8 36 (1.21%) Wi-Fi
9 30 (1.01%) BGP
10 26 (0.87%) MPLS
11 22 (0.74%) VSAN
12 21 (0.71%) DHCP
12 21 (0.71%) Internet
12 21 (0.71%) SAN
13 20 (0.67%) SSL
14 17 (0.57%) OSPF
15 16 (0.54%) Cisco Nexus
16 13 (0.44%) IPsec
16 13 (0.44%) VLAN
17 12 (0.40%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 92 (3.09%) Data Warehouse
2 88 (2.96%) Power BI
3 73 (2.45%) Metadata
4 66 (2.22%) Data Lake
5 49 (1.65%) PostgreSQL
6 48 (1.61%) SQL Server
7 39 (1.31%) Tableau
8 34 (1.14%) NoSQL
9 27 (0.91%) Amazon Redshift
10 24 (0.81%) DynamoDB
11 23 (0.77%) Azure SQL Database
12 22 (0.74%) GIS
12 22 (0.74%) Relational Database
13 19 (0.64%) Data Vault
13 19 (0.64%) Redis
14 18 (0.60%) Amazon Aurora
14 18 (0.60%) Amazon RDS
14 18 (0.60%) Delta Lake
15 17 (0.57%) BigQuery
16 16 (0.54%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 112 (3.76%) JIRA
2 66 (2.22%) Jenkins
3 37 (1.24%) Git
4 30 (1.01%) GitLab
5 13 (0.44%) ERwin
6 9 (0.30%) Artifactory
6 9 (0.30%) SonarQube
7 7 (0.24%) Oracle Forms
8 6 (0.20%) Bitbucket
9 5 (0.17%) Gradle
9 5 (0.17%) Maven
9 5 (0.17%) MLflow
9 5 (0.17%) SonarLint
9 5 (0.17%) Sonatype Nexus
10 4 (0.13%) MSI
10 4 (0.13%) Rational DOORS
10 4 (0.13%) Terragrunt
11 3 (0.10%) Postman
11 3 (0.10%) Visual Studio Code
12 2 (0.067%) Chocolatey
General
1 773 (25.97%) Social Skills
2 478 (16.06%) Finance
3 367 (12.33%) Public Sector
4 234 (7.86%) Analytical Skills
5 175 (5.88%) Banking
6 87 (2.92%) Telecoms
7 72 (2.42%) Legal
8 70 (2.35%) Marketing
8 70 (2.35%) Military
9 68 (2.28%) Documentation Skills
9 68 (2.28%) Retail
10 61 (2.05%) Presentation Skills
11 58 (1.95%) Manufacturing
12 56 (1.88%) Influencing Skills
13 42 (1.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 32 (1.08%) Financial Institution
15 27 (0.91%) Billing
16 24 (0.81%) Back Office
17 19 (0.64%) Aerospace
17 19 (0.64%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 166 (5.58%) REST
2 101 (3.39%) SOAP
3 96 (3.23%) Middleware
4 61 (2.05%) .NET
5 57 (1.92%) JSON
6 51 (1.71%) LDAP
7 49 (1.65%) OAuth
8 46 (1.55%) Kafka
9 42 (1.41%) SAML
10 37 (1.24%) RESTful
11 30 (1.01%) OpenID
12 29 (0.97%) Lightning Web Components
13 27 (0.91%) Spring Boot
14 26 (0.87%) AngularJS
14 26 (0.87%) OAuth2
15 25 (0.84%) PySpark
15 25 (0.84%) Web Services
16 22 (0.74%) Spring
17 21 (0.71%) React
18 20 (0.67%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 214 (7.19%) Cloud Native
2 126 (4.23%) Product Ownership
3 99 (3.33%) Data Centre
3 99 (3.33%) Legacy Systems
4 81 (2.72%) PKI
5 79 (2.65%) Onboarding
6 76 (2.55%) Enterprise Software
7 70 (2.35%) Hybrid Cloud
8 60 (2.02%) Security Posture
9 49 (1.65%) Operational Technology
10 42 (1.41%) Management Information System
11 41 (1.38%) Self-Motivation
12 40 (1.34%) Distributed Systems
13 39 (1.31%) Public Cloud
14 36 (1.21%) Data Protection Act
15 33 (1.11%) CMDB
16 31 (1.04%) Data Structures
17 28 (0.94%) SCADA
18 26 (0.87%) Private Cloud
18 26 (0.87%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 129 (4.33%) Windows
2 81 (2.72%) Linux
3 39 (1.31%) Windows Server
4 20 (0.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 15 (0.50%) Windows Server 2019
6 13 (0.44%) Windows 10
6 13 (0.44%) Windows 7
7 8 (0.27%) VMS
7 8 (0.27%) Windows Server 2016
8 7 (0.24%) Android
8 7 (0.24%) Apple iOS
8 7 (0.24%) Unix
9 6 (0.20%) Mac OS
9 6 (0.20%) Ubuntu
10 3 (0.10%) CentOS
10 3 (0.10%) Solaris
10 3 (0.10%) Windows Server 2008
10 3 (0.10%) zOS
11 1 (0.034%) MVS
11 1 (0.034%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 432 (14.52%) Roadmaps
2 424 (14.25%) Agile
3 378 (12.70%) Stakeholder Management
4 340 (11.42%) Migration
5 323 (10.85%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 322 (10.82%) Enterprise Architecture
7 320 (10.75%) Data Modelling
8 315 (10.58%) DevOps
9 308 (10.35%) TOGAF
10 298 (10.01%) Technical Leadership
11 289 (9.71%) Problem-Solving
12 269 (9.04%) CI/CD
13 233 (7.83%) AI
14 232 (7.80%) Data Architecture
15 228 (7.66%) Analytics
16 225 (7.56%) Integration Patterns
17 215 (7.22%) Microservices
18 198 (6.65%) Architectural Design
19 194 (6.52%) Mentoring
20 188 (6.32%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 233 (7.83%) Python
2 147 (4.94%) PowerShell
3 143 (4.81%) SQL
4 116 (3.90%) Java
5 57 (1.92%) JavaScript
6 34 (1.14%) C#
7 33 (1.11%) TypeScript
8 28 (0.94%) Bash
9 26 (0.87%) Apex Code
10 24 (0.81%) Bicep
11 14 (0.47%) PL/SQL
12 11 (0.37%) R
13 8 (0.27%) Kusto Query Language
13 8 (0.27%) T-SQL
14 7 (0.24%) Korn
14 7 (0.24%) Ruby
15 6 (0.20%) ABAP
15 6 (0.20%) C
16 5 (0.17%) C++
17 4 (0.13%) PHP
Qualifications
1 968 (32.53%) Security Cleared
2 681 (22.88%) SC Cleared
3 220 (7.39%) DV Cleared
4 155 (5.21%) Degree
5 95 (3.19%) TOGAF Certification
6 89 (2.99%) AWS Certification
7 88 (2.96%) Azure Certification
8 82 (2.76%) CISSP
9 59 (1.98%) Computer Science Degree
10 58 (1.95%) Cisco Certification
11 53 (1.78%) Microsoft Certification
12 37 (1.24%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 37 (1.24%) CISM
12 37 (1.24%) Master's Degree
13 35 (1.18%) BPSS Clearance
13 35 (1.18%) CCNP
14 29 (0.97%) CCIE
15 24 (0.81%) ITIL Certification
16 23 (0.77%) ISEB
17 18 (0.60%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 140 (4.70%) GDPR
2 109 (3.66%) NIST
3 102 (3.43%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 96 (3.23%) Data Quality
5 59 (1.98%) NCSC
6 53 (1.78%) QA
7 42 (1.41%) PCI DSS
8 29 (0.97%) ISO/IEC 20000
9 26 (0.87%) COBIT
10 22 (0.74%) Cyber Essentials
11 20 (0.67%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 19 (0.64%) GRC
13 18 (0.60%) JSP 440
14 16 (0.54%) Accessibility
15 14 (0.47%) HIPAA
16 13 (0.44%) ISO 20022
17 11 (0.37%) PSD2
17 11 (0.37%) Sarbanes-Oxley
18 10 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
18 10 (0.34%) MiFID
System Software
1 138 (4.64%) Active Directory
2 106 (3.56%) Docker
3 84 (2.82%) VMware Infrastructure
4 36 (1.21%) VMware NSX
5 32 (1.08%) vSphere
6 20 (0.67%) VMware ESXi
7 19 (0.64%) Virtual Desktop
8 16 (0.54%) Virtual Machines
9 12 (0.40%) Hyper-V
10 9 (0.30%) NFS
11 4 (0.13%) Dovecot
11 4 (0.13%) Postfix
12 3 (0.10%) BitLocker
12 3 (0.10%) Firmware
12 3 (0.10%) Lustre
12 3 (0.10%) Slurm Workload Manager
12 3 (0.10%) vCloud
13 2 (0.067%) Ceph
13 2 (0.067%) KVM
14 1 (0.034%) GPFS
Systems Management
1 191 (6.42%) Terraform
2 144 (4.84%) Kubernetes
3 87 (2.92%) Ansible
4 44 (1.48%) Single Sign-On
5 33 (1.11%) OPNET
6 22 (0.74%) vCenter Server
7 19 (0.64%) Microsoft Intune
8 16 (0.54%) SCCM
9 14 (0.47%) WMI
10 13 (0.44%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 10 (0.34%) Prometheus
12 9 (0.30%) Argo
12 9 (0.30%) Grafana
13 8 (0.27%) FortiGate
14 5 (0.17%) Kibana
15 4 (0.13%) Istio
16 3 (0.10%) Karpenter
16 3 (0.10%) Puppet
16 3 (0.10%) vRealize
17 2 (0.067%) SCOM
Vendors
1 437 (14.68%) Microsoft
2 176 (5.91%) SAP
3 172 (5.78%) ServiceNow
4 165 (5.54%) Salesforce
5 135 (4.54%) VMware
6 124 (4.17%) Oracle
7 106 (3.56%) Cisco
8 89 (2.99%) Databricks
9 77 (2.59%) CyberArk
10 68 (2.28%) Google
11 50 (1.68%) Palo Alto
12 49 (1.65%) Centrify
13 48 (1.61%) Remedy
14 42 (1.41%) Splunk
15 40 (1.34%) Fortinet
16 39 (1.31%) MuleSoft
16 39 (1.31%) Workday
17 38 (1.28%) Atlassian
18 35 (1.18%) Sparx
19 34 (1.14%) BeyondTrust