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 March 2026.

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

6 months to
3 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 16 13
Rank change year-on-year -1 -3 +6
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 3,691 2,538 3,712
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.37% 10.14% 9.79%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.28% 10.92% 10.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,501 1,597 2,449
10th Percentile £458 £475 £500
25th Percentile £513 £548 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -2.99%
75th Percentile £725 £725 £738
90th Percentile £800 £799 £800
UK median daily rate £625 £625 £650
% change year-on-year - -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 79 28 42
10th Percentile £49.40 £57.43 £52.98
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £61.25
Median hourly rate £71.27 £71.25 £77.64
Median % change year-on-year +0.03% -8.22% +10.91%
75th Percentile £87.00 £78.92 £87.53
90th Percentile £95.00 £86.30 £95.00
UK median hourly rate £70.64 £71.25 £76.53
% change year-on-year -0.86% -6.90% +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 32,730 23,243 35,186
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.95% 92.89% 92.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,732 14,914 23,562
10th Percentile £306 £300 £270
25th Percentile £411 £409 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £624 £638 £638
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 2,123 731 2,215
10th Percentile £15.19 £16.25 £13.15
25th Percentile £19.00 £22.00 £16.30
Median hourly rate £35.00 £35.00 £34.00
Median % change year-on-year - +2.94% -17.10%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £76.25 £71.90
UK median hourly rate £33.50 £34.31 £34.08
% change year-on-year -2.35% +0.66% -15.85%

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 March 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 March 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 March 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 1,652 £630 -3.08% 438
South East +5 631 £625 - 298
North of England -2 513 £575 -4.17% 156
Midlands -4 373 £575 -4.17% 125
West Midlands -2 279 £600 -1.15% 70
North West -3 278 £600 - 97
South West -1 260 £706 +12.96% 100
Yorkshire +2 216 £560 -2.23% 43
East of England +16 162 £550 -12.00% 74
East Midlands -3 92 £513 -6.82% 54
North East -8 24 £625 -1.96% 19
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 3 March 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 1,165 (31.56%) Security Cleared
2 933 (25.28%) Azure
3 806 (21.84%) SC Cleared
4 733 (19.86%) AWS
5 537 (14.55%) Roadmaps
6 534 (14.47%) Microsoft
7 492 (13.33%) Agile
8 461 (12.49%) Migration
9 460 (12.46%) Stakeholder Management
10 422 (11.43%) DevOps
11 394 (10.67%) Enterprise Architecture
12 366 (9.92%) Data Modelling
13 363 (9.83%) CI/CD
14 358 (9.70%) TOGAF
15 343 (9.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 326 (8.83%) Technical Leadership
17 320 (8.67%) Problem-Solving
18 316 (8.56%) GCP
19 312 (8.45%) Analytics
19 312 (8.45%) Data Architecture
20 301 (8.15%) AI
21 294 (7.97%) Integration Patterns
22 271 (7.34%) DV Cleared
23 270 (7.32%) Python
24 253 (6.85%) Microservices
25 238 (6.45%) Architectural Patterns
26 237 (6.42%) Architectural Design
27 219 (5.93%) ServiceNow
28 216 (5.85%) Terraform
29 215 (5.82%) 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
1 107 (2.90%) Confluence
2 97 (2.63%) SharePoint
3 62 (1.68%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (0.73%) SAS
5 20 (0.54%) CMS
6 19 (0.51%) Apache Spark
7 15 (0.41%) Anypoint
7 15 (0.41%) Apache Airflow
7 15 (0.41%) Appian
8 14 (0.38%) ArcGIS
9 13 (0.35%) WebLogic
10 12 (0.33%) Apache
11 11 (0.30%) nginx
11 11 (0.30%) OpenStack
12 9 (0.24%) Smallworld
13 7 (0.19%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 7 (0.19%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 7 (0.19%) Skype for Business
14 6 (0.16%) Sitecore CMS
14 6 (0.16%) Tomcat
Applications
1 50 (1.35%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (0.87%) Microsoft Project
3 25 (0.68%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 24 (0.65%) Microsoft Excel
5 15 (0.41%) MS Visio
6 7 (0.19%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.027%) ArchiCAD
7 1 (0.027%) AutoCAD
7 1 (0.027%) OrCAD
7 1 (0.027%) PlantUML
7 1 (0.027%) Siemens NX
7 1 (0.027%) Trello
Business Applications
1 95 (2.57%) SAP S/4HANA
2 37 (1.00%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 23 (0.62%) Workday HCM
4 20 (0.54%) Dynamics CRM
5 17 (0.46%) Payment Gateway
6 16 (0.43%) Salesforce CRM
7 11 (0.30%) NetSuite
8 10 (0.27%) Oracle EBS
8 10 (0.27%) SAP PM
9 9 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
10 8 (0.22%) Maximo
10 8 (0.22%) Remedy ITSM
10 8 (0.22%) SAP ERP
10 8 (0.22%) SAP EWM
11 7 (0.19%) SAP PP
11 7 (0.19%) Teamcenter
12 6 (0.16%) R3 Corda
12 6 (0.16%) SAP CO
12 6 (0.16%) SAP QM
13 5 (0.14%) Distributed Ledger
Cloud Services
1 933 (25.28%) Azure
2 733 (19.86%) AWS
3 316 (8.56%) GCP
4 141 (3.82%) Power Platform
5 140 (3.79%) Entra ID
6 129 (3.49%) Microsoft 365
7 126 (3.41%) SaaS
8 114 (3.09%) Serverless
9 88 (2.38%) IaaS
10 80 (2.17%) Azure DevOps
11 79 (2.14%) GitHub
12 74 (2.00%) PaaS
13 66 (1.79%) OpenShift
14 64 (1.73%) AWS Lambda
14 64 (1.73%) Microsoft Purview
15 61 (1.65%) Amazon S3
16 60 (1.63%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 57 (1.54%) Azure Data Factory
17 57 (1.54%) Snowflake
18 56 (1.52%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 183 (4.96%) Firewall
2 124 (3.36%) Network Security
3 112 (3.03%) DNS
4 108 (2.93%) WAN
5 95 (2.57%) VPN
6 69 (1.87%) LAN
7 56 (1.52%) SD-WAN
8 35 (0.95%) BGP
9 32 (0.87%) DHCP
10 29 (0.79%) MPLS
11 28 (0.76%) Wi-Fi
12 27 (0.73%) OSPF
13 23 (0.62%) TCP/IP
13 23 (0.62%) VLAN
14 20 (0.54%) VSAN
15 19 (0.51%) SAN
16 18 (0.49%) VXLAN
17 17 (0.46%) IPsec
17 17 (0.46%) SSL
18 16 (0.43%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 127 (3.44%) Data Warehouse
2 108 (2.93%) Metadata
3 100 (2.71%) Power BI
4 74 (2.00%) Data Lake
5 67 (1.82%) SQL Server
6 50 (1.35%) PostgreSQL
7 44 (1.19%) Tableau
8 42 (1.14%) NoSQL
9 29 (0.79%) Azure SQL Database
9 29 (0.79%) Oracle Database
10 27 (0.73%) Amazon Redshift
11 24 (0.65%) GIS
12 22 (0.60%) Big Data
13 20 (0.54%) Metadata Repository
14 19 (0.51%) Relational Database
15 18 (0.49%) Delta Lake
16 17 (0.46%) Amazon Aurora
16 17 (0.46%) BigQuery
17 16 (0.43%) Data Vault
17 16 (0.43%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 125 (3.39%) JIRA
2 83 (2.25%) Jenkins
3 42 (1.14%) GitLab
4 34 (0.92%) Git
5 17 (0.46%) ERwin
6 11 (0.30%) Bitbucket
7 10 (0.27%) SonarQube
8 8 (0.22%) Artifactory
9 7 (0.19%) MLflow
10 5 (0.14%) Oracle Forms
10 5 (0.14%) Postman
10 5 (0.14%) REST Assured
11 4 (0.11%) Cucumber
11 4 (0.11%) PowerDesigner
11 4 (0.11%) Selenium
11 4 (0.11%) Terragrunt
12 3 (0.081%) MSI
12 3 (0.081%) Rational DOORS
12 3 (0.081%) Snyk
12 3 (0.081%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 834 (22.60%) Social Skills
2 591 (16.01%) Finance
3 422 (11.43%) Public Sector
4 264 (7.15%) Analytical Skills
5 224 (6.07%) Banking
6 120 (3.25%) Documentation Skills
7 81 (2.19%) Influencing Skills
7 81 (2.19%) Retail
8 79 (2.14%) Military
9 75 (2.03%) Legal
10 74 (2.00%) Telecoms
11 70 (1.90%) Presentation Skills
12 64 (1.73%) Marketing
13 50 (1.35%) Manufacturing
14 36 (0.98%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 35 (0.95%) Billing
16 32 (0.87%) Financial Institution
17 26 (0.70%) Law
18 22 (0.60%) Investment Banking
19 15 (0.41%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 201 (5.45%) REST
2 146 (3.96%) Middleware
3 106 (2.87%) SOAP
4 76 (2.06%) OpenID
5 75 (2.03%) .NET
6 74 (2.00%) LDAP
7 68 (1.84%) OAuth
8 63 (1.71%) SAML
9 53 (1.44%) Kafka
10 51 (1.38%) JSON
11 42 (1.14%) OAuth2
12 33 (0.89%) AngularJS
13 30 (0.81%) RESTful
13 30 (0.81%) SailPoint
14 28 (0.76%) React
15 27 (0.73%) Oracle Fusion
16 24 (0.65%) PySpark
17 22 (0.60%) Microsoft Graph
18 21 (0.57%) Web Services
19 20 (0.54%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 267 (7.23%) Cloud Native
2 133 (3.60%) Product Ownership
3 111 (3.01%) Legacy Systems
4 108 (2.93%) Onboarding
5 102 (2.76%) Data Centre
6 93 (2.52%) Enterprise Software
7 90 (2.44%) PKI
8 77 (2.09%) Hybrid Cloud
9 57 (1.54%) Operational Technology
9 57 (1.54%) Public Cloud
10 55 (1.49%) Security Posture
11 54 (1.46%) Data Protection Act
12 53 (1.44%) Management Information System
13 49 (1.33%) Distributed Systems
14 45 (1.22%) CMDB
14 45 (1.22%) Self-Motivation
15 38 (1.03%) Data Structures
16 30 (0.81%) AI Agents
16 30 (0.81%) Private Cloud
17 29 (0.79%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 159 (4.31%) Windows
2 88 (2.38%) Linux
3 37 (1.00%) Windows Server
4 19 (0.51%) Android
4 19 (0.51%) Apple iOS
5 18 (0.49%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 17 (0.46%) Windows 7
7 14 (0.38%) Windows 10
8 13 (0.35%) Unix
9 9 (0.24%) Mac OS
9 9 (0.24%) zOS
10 8 (0.22%) VMS
10 8 (0.22%) Windows Server 2016
11 7 (0.19%) Windows Server 2019
12 6 (0.16%) Ubuntu
13 4 (0.11%) CentOS
14 3 (0.081%) Windows Server 2012
15 1 (0.027%) Data ONTAP
15 1 (0.027%) Kali Linux
15 1 (0.027%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 537 (14.55%) Roadmaps
2 492 (13.33%) Agile
3 461 (12.49%) Migration
4 460 (12.46%) Stakeholder Management
5 422 (11.43%) DevOps
6 394 (10.67%) Enterprise Architecture
7 366 (9.92%) Data Modelling
8 363 (9.83%) CI/CD
9 358 (9.70%) TOGAF
10 343 (9.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 326 (8.83%) Technical Leadership
12 320 (8.67%) Problem-Solving
13 312 (8.45%) Analytics
13 312 (8.45%) Data Architecture
14 301 (8.15%) AI
15 294 (7.97%) Integration Patterns
16 253 (6.85%) Microservices
17 238 (6.45%) Architectural Patterns
18 237 (6.42%) Architectural Design
19 215 (5.82%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 270 (7.32%) Python
2 193 (5.23%) SQL
3 171 (4.63%) PowerShell
4 114 (3.09%) Java
5 60 (1.63%) JavaScript
6 47 (1.27%) C#
7 36 (0.98%) Bash
8 30 (0.81%) Bicep
8 30 (0.81%) TypeScript
9 18 (0.49%) Apex Code
10 16 (0.43%) PL/SQL
11 14 (0.38%) Kusto Query Language
12 13 (0.35%) R
13 9 (0.24%) Ruby
13 9 (0.24%) Scala
13 9 (0.24%) T-SQL
14 8 (0.22%) VB
15 7 (0.19%) VBScript
16 6 (0.16%) Korn
16 6 (0.16%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 1,165 (31.56%) Security Cleared
2 806 (21.84%) SC Cleared
3 271 (7.34%) DV Cleared
4 173 (4.69%) Degree
5 112 (3.03%) TOGAF Certification
6 101 (2.74%) Azure Certification
7 96 (2.60%) CISSP
8 95 (2.57%) AWS Certification
9 71 (1.92%) Computer Science Degree
10 69 (1.87%) Cisco Certification
11 56 (1.52%) BPSS Clearance
11 56 (1.52%) Microsoft Certification
12 45 (1.22%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 45 (1.22%) CISM
13 43 (1.16%) CCNP
14 42 (1.14%) Master's Degree
15 31 (0.84%) ITIL Certification
16 29 (0.79%) CCIE
17 28 (0.76%) ISEB
18 23 (0.62%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 161 (4.36%) GDPR
2 120 (3.25%) NIST
3 119 (3.22%) Data Quality
4 102 (2.76%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 79 (2.14%) NCSC
6 57 (1.54%) QA
7 47 (1.27%) PCI DSS
8 32 (0.87%) COBIT
9 30 (0.81%) GRC
10 25 (0.68%) Cyber Essentials
10 25 (0.68%) ISO 20022
11 17 (0.46%) Accessibility
12 15 (0.41%) JSP 440
12 15 (0.41%) MiFID
13 13 (0.35%) FINRA
13 13 (0.35%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 12 (0.33%) California Consumer Privacy Act
14 12 (0.33%) HIPAA
14 12 (0.33%) PSD2
15 11 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 168 (4.55%) Active Directory
2 119 (3.22%) Docker
3 84 (2.28%) VMware Infrastructure
4 63 (1.71%) VMware NSX
5 35 (0.95%) vSphere
6 20 (0.54%) Virtual Desktop
7 13 (0.35%) Hyper-V
7 13 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
7 13 (0.35%) VMware ESXi
8 8 (0.22%) Squid
9 7 (0.19%) BitLocker
10 6 (0.16%) vCloud
11 5 (0.14%) NFS
11 5 (0.14%) Oracle RAC
11 5 (0.14%) RACF
12 4 (0.11%) Firmware
13 3 (0.081%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
13 3 (0.081%) IAG
13 3 (0.081%) Varnish
14 2 (0.054%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 216 (5.85%) Terraform
2 193 (5.23%) Kubernetes
3 98 (2.66%) Ansible
4 55 (1.49%) Single Sign-On
5 40 (1.08%) Microsoft Intune
6 30 (0.81%) OPNET
7 29 (0.79%) vCenter Server
8 24 (0.65%) Grafana
9 23 (0.62%) FortiGate
10 22 (0.60%) SCCM
11 20 (0.54%) Prometheus
12 16 (0.43%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 16 (0.43%) Argo
12 16 (0.43%) WMI
13 7 (0.19%) Consul
13 7 (0.19%) Istio
14 6 (0.16%) Puppet
15 5 (0.14%) Kibana
15 5 (0.14%) Progress Chef
16 3 (0.081%) SCOM
Vendors
1 534 (14.47%) Microsoft
2 219 (5.93%) ServiceNow
3 202 (5.47%) SAP
4 166 (4.50%) VMware
5 162 (4.39%) Oracle
6 161 (4.36%) Salesforce
7 121 (3.28%) Databricks
8 103 (2.79%) Cisco
9 90 (2.44%) CyberArk
10 89 (2.41%) Google
11 57 (1.54%) MuleSoft
12 56 (1.52%) Splunk
13 53 (1.44%) Palo Alto
14 49 (1.33%) Centrify
14 49 (1.33%) Remedy
15 45 (1.22%) Red Hat
15 45 (1.22%) Workday
16 44 (1.19%) Atlassian
17 38 (1.03%) Citrix
17 38 (1.03%) IBM