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 14 January 2026.

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

6 months to
14 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 19 17 15
Rank change year-on-year -2 -2 +6
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 3,036 2,588 3,437
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.59% 9.66% 9.53%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.48% 10.40% 10.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,096 1,540 2,326
10th Percentile £460 £481 £500
25th Percentile £519 £550 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -
75th Percentile £725 £734 £738
90th Percentile £800 £799 £777
UK median daily rate £625 £625 £650
% change year-on-year - -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 38 27 33
10th Percentile £63.80 £59.30 £58.05
25th Percentile £65.25 £63.75 £61.25
Median hourly rate £83.82 £72.50 £76.53
Median % change year-on-year +15.61% -5.27% +9.33%
75th Percentile £94.94 £79.47 £83.11
90th Percentile £95.00 £86.47 £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 28,977 24,875 33,578
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.56% 92.88% 93.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,506 15,412 22,849
10th Percentile £300 £300 £275
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £501 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.67% - -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 1,753 755 1,530
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.81 £14.16
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.25 £19.06
Median hourly rate £27.50 £35.00 £43.63
Median % change year-on-year -21.43% -19.77% +24.64%
75th Percentile £61.25 £64.61 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.60 £75.00 £76.25
UK median hourly rate £26.30 £32.50 £42.50
% change year-on-year -19.08% -23.53% +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 14 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 14 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 14 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 -3 1,359 £650 - 308
South East +9 548 £606 -3.00% 237
North of England -7 407 £575 -6.83% 155
Midlands -3 290 £573 -4.58% 75
North West -2 249 £575 -5.29% 82
South West 0 242 £710 +13.60% 82
West Midlands -3 214 £582 -4.16% 41
Yorkshire -13 150 £563 -9.27% 52
East of England +6 103 £525 -17.65% 85
East Midlands +1 76 £500 -13.04% 33
North East -24 8 £588 -2.02% 22
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 14 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.

1 994 (32.74%) Security Cleared
2 800 (26.35%) Azure
3 698 (22.99%) SC Cleared
4 604 (19.89%) AWS
5 446 (14.69%) Microsoft
6 439 (14.46%) Roadmaps
7 431 (14.20%) Agile
8 381 (12.55%) Stakeholder Management
9 347 (11.43%) Migration
10 335 (11.03%) Enterprise Architecture
11 318 (10.47%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 316 (10.41%) Data Modelling
13 310 (10.21%) DevOps
14 305 (10.05%) Technical Leadership
15 303 (9.98%) TOGAF
16 290 (9.55%) Problem-Solving
17 269 (8.86%) CI/CD
18 250 (8.23%) GCP
19 237 (7.81%) Analytics
20 236 (7.77%) Python
21 233 (7.67%) AI
21 233 (7.67%) DV Cleared
22 229 (7.54%) Data Architecture
23 225 (7.41%) Integration Patterns
24 205 (6.75%) Microservices
25 201 (6.62%) Architectural Design
26 198 (6.52%) Mentoring
27 189 (6.23%) ITIL
27 189 (6.23%) Terraform
28 185 (6.09%) 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 93 (3.06%) Confluence
2 71 (2.34%) SharePoint
3 45 (1.48%) Microsoft Exchange
4 18 (0.59%) SAS
5 17 (0.56%) OpenStack
6 16 (0.53%) CMS
7 13 (0.43%) Apache Airflow
8 12 (0.40%) Apache Spark
8 12 (0.40%) ArcGIS
9 10 (0.33%) Apache
10 9 (0.30%) Anypoint
10 9 (0.30%) Smallworld
11 6 (0.20%) GeoServer
12 5 (0.16%) Ethereum
12 5 (0.16%) Hyperledger
12 5 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
12 5 (0.16%) Skype for Business
12 5 (0.16%) WebLogic
13 4 (0.13%) Documentum
13 4 (0.13%) Tomcat
Applications
1 47 (1.55%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (1.05%) Microsoft Project
3 29 (0.96%) Microsoft Excel
4 26 (0.86%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 16 (0.53%) MS Visio
6 9 (0.30%) Siemens NX
7 3 (0.099%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.099%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.033%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.033%) FrameMaker
8 1 (0.033%) OrCAD
8 1 (0.033%) Revit
8 1 (0.033%) Trello
Business Applications
1 86 (2.83%) SAP S/4HANA
2 37 (1.22%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 25 (0.82%) Dynamics CRM
4 23 (0.76%) Workday HCM
5 18 (0.59%) Salesforce CRM
6 13 (0.43%) SAP CO
6 13 (0.43%) SAP PM
7 12 (0.40%) NetSuite
8 11 (0.36%) Maximo
8 11 (0.36%) Payment Gateway
8 11 (0.36%) SAP FI
8 11 (0.36%) SAP FI/CO
8 11 (0.36%) Teamcenter
9 8 (0.26%) Oracle Receivables
9 8 (0.26%) SAP EWM
9 8 (0.26%) SAP PP
10 7 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
11 6 (0.20%) Oracle SCM
11 6 (0.20%) SAP QM
12 5 (0.16%) Dynamics AX
Cloud Services
1 800 (26.35%) Azure
2 604 (19.89%) AWS
3 250 (8.23%) GCP
4 124 (4.08%) Power Platform
5 115 (3.79%) SaaS
6 104 (3.43%) Microsoft 365
7 97 (3.19%) Serverless
8 96 (3.16%) Entra ID
9 74 (2.44%) GitHub
10 66 (2.17%) IaaS
11 65 (2.14%) Azure DevOps
12 63 (2.08%) AWS Lambda
12 63 (2.08%) Dynamics 365
13 57 (1.88%) Microsoft Purview
14 52 (1.71%) PaaS
15 50 (1.65%) Amazon S3
16 47 (1.55%) OpenShift
17 44 (1.45%) Azure Data Factory
17 44 (1.45%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 41 (1.35%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 158 (5.20%) Firewall
2 114 (3.75%) WAN
3 86 (2.83%) Network Security
4 82 (2.70%) VPN
5 81 (2.67%) LAN
6 75 (2.47%) DNS
7 58 (1.91%) SD-WAN
8 32 (1.05%) BGP
9 30 (0.99%) Wi-Fi
10 26 (0.86%) MPLS
11 22 (0.72%) Internet
12 21 (0.69%) DHCP
12 21 (0.69%) SAN
12 21 (0.69%) VSAN
13 19 (0.63%) OSPF
14 15 (0.49%) SSL
15 14 (0.46%) VLAN
16 13 (0.43%) IPsec
16 13 (0.43%) TCP/IP
17 10 (0.33%) Cisco ASA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 93 (3.06%) Data Warehouse
2 87 (2.87%) Power BI
3 72 (2.37%) Metadata
4 67 (2.21%) Data Lake
5 51 (1.68%) PostgreSQL
6 45 (1.48%) SQL Server
7 39 (1.28%) Tableau
8 33 (1.09%) NoSQL
9 28 (0.92%) Amazon Redshift
10 25 (0.82%) DynamoDB
11 21 (0.69%) Amazon Aurora
11 21 (0.69%) Azure SQL Database
11 21 (0.69%) GIS
12 20 (0.66%) Data Vault
12 20 (0.66%) Redis
12 20 (0.66%) Relational Database
13 17 (0.56%) Amazon RDS
13 17 (0.56%) Delta Lake
14 16 (0.53%) BigQuery
15 15 (0.49%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 108 (3.56%) JIRA
2 69 (2.27%) Jenkins
3 34 (1.12%) Git
4 32 (1.05%) GitLab
5 14 (0.46%) ERwin
6 9 (0.30%) Artifactory
6 9 (0.30%) SonarQube
7 5 (0.16%) Gradle
7 5 (0.16%) Maven
7 5 (0.16%) MLflow
7 5 (0.16%) MSI
7 5 (0.16%) Oracle Forms
7 5 (0.16%) SonarLint
7 5 (0.16%) Sonatype Nexus
8 4 (0.13%) Bitbucket
8 4 (0.13%) Postman
8 4 (0.13%) Rational DOORS
8 4 (0.13%) Terragrunt
9 3 (0.099%) Visual Studio Code
10 2 (0.066%) Chocolatey
General
1 765 (25.20%) Social Skills
2 492 (16.21%) Finance
3 363 (11.96%) Public Sector
4 232 (7.64%) Analytical Skills
5 180 (5.93%) Banking
6 78 (2.57%) Telecoms
7 75 (2.47%) Documentation Skills
8 74 (2.44%) Legal
9 72 (2.37%) Military
10 70 (2.31%) Retail
11 69 (2.27%) Marketing
12 62 (2.04%) Presentation Skills
13 56 (1.84%) Influencing Skills
14 54 (1.78%) Manufacturing
15 41 (1.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 32 (1.05%) Financial Institution
17 29 (0.96%) Billing
18 22 (0.72%) Back Office
19 20 (0.66%) Law
20 19 (0.63%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 166 (5.47%) REST
2 99 (3.26%) Middleware
2 99 (3.26%) SOAP
3 60 (1.98%) .NET
4 51 (1.68%) JSON
4 51 (1.68%) OAuth
5 50 (1.65%) LDAP
6 49 (1.61%) Kafka
7 40 (1.32%) SAML
8 36 (1.19%) OpenID
8 36 (1.19%) RESTful
9 28 (0.92%) OAuth2
10 27 (0.89%) Lightning Web Components
10 27 (0.89%) Spring Boot
11 24 (0.79%) PySpark
12 23 (0.76%) AngularJS
13 22 (0.72%) React
13 22 (0.72%) SailPoint
13 22 (0.72%) Spring
14 20 (0.66%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 215 (7.08%) Cloud Native
2 121 (3.99%) Product Ownership
3 101 (3.33%) Data Centre
4 98 (3.23%) Legacy Systems
5 86 (2.83%) PKI
6 79 (2.60%) Onboarding
7 75 (2.47%) Enterprise Software
8 68 (2.24%) Hybrid Cloud
9 59 (1.94%) Security Posture
10 46 (1.52%) Operational Technology
11 44 (1.45%) Management Information System
12 41 (1.35%) Public Cloud
12 41 (1.35%) Self-Motivation
13 40 (1.32%) Distributed Systems
14 37 (1.22%) CMDB
14 37 (1.22%) Data Protection Act
15 35 (1.15%) Data Structures
16 27 (0.89%) Private Cloud
16 27 (0.89%) SCADA
17 25 (0.82%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 140 (4.61%) Windows
2 85 (2.80%) Linux
3 38 (1.25%) Windows Server
4 20 (0.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 16 (0.53%) Windows 7
6 15 (0.49%) Windows 10
7 13 (0.43%) Windows Server 2019
8 10 (0.33%) Unix
9 9 (0.30%) Windows Server 2016
10 8 (0.26%) VMS
11 6 (0.20%) Mac OS
11 6 (0.20%) Ubuntu
12 5 (0.16%) Android
12 5 (0.16%) Apple iOS
13 4 (0.13%) zOS
14 3 (0.099%) CentOS
14 3 (0.099%) Solaris
14 3 (0.099%) Windows Server 2008
15 1 (0.033%) MVS
15 1 (0.033%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 439 (14.46%) Roadmaps
2 431 (14.20%) Agile
3 381 (12.55%) Stakeholder Management
4 347 (11.43%) Migration
5 335 (11.03%) Enterprise Architecture
6 318 (10.47%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 316 (10.41%) Data Modelling
8 310 (10.21%) DevOps
9 305 (10.05%) Technical Leadership
10 303 (9.98%) TOGAF
11 290 (9.55%) Problem-Solving
12 269 (8.86%) CI/CD
13 237 (7.81%) Analytics
14 233 (7.67%) AI
15 229 (7.54%) Data Architecture
16 225 (7.41%) Integration Patterns
17 205 (6.75%) Microservices
18 201 (6.62%) Architectural Design
19 198 (6.52%) Mentoring
20 189 (6.23%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 236 (7.77%) Python
2 153 (5.04%) PowerShell
3 149 (4.91%) SQL
4 114 (3.75%) Java
5 53 (1.75%) JavaScript
6 31 (1.02%) C#
7 30 (0.99%) TypeScript
8 28 (0.92%) Bash
9 26 (0.86%) Apex Code
10 24 (0.79%) Bicep
11 15 (0.49%) PL/SQL
12 11 (0.36%) R
13 10 (0.33%) Kusto Query Language
14 9 (0.30%) T-SQL
15 7 (0.23%) Korn
15 7 (0.23%) Ruby
16 6 (0.20%) ABAP
16 6 (0.20%) C
16 6 (0.20%) VB
17 5 (0.16%) C++
Qualifications
1 994 (32.74%) Security Cleared
2 698 (22.99%) SC Cleared
3 233 (7.67%) DV Cleared
4 160 (5.27%) Degree
5 95 (3.13%) TOGAF Certification
6 86 (2.83%) AWS Certification
7 85 (2.80%) Azure Certification
8 81 (2.67%) CISSP
9 62 (2.04%) Computer Science Degree
10 60 (1.98%) Cisco Certification
11 54 (1.78%) Microsoft Certification
12 39 (1.28%) Master's Degree
13 38 (1.25%) CISM
14 37 (1.22%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 36 (1.19%) CCNP
16 33 (1.09%) BPSS Clearance
17 31 (1.02%) CCIE
18 24 (0.79%) ITIL Certification
19 23 (0.76%) ISEB
20 18 (0.59%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 143 (4.71%) GDPR
2 111 (3.66%) NIST
3 100 (3.29%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 99 (3.26%) Data Quality
5 60 (1.98%) NCSC
6 55 (1.81%) QA
7 44 (1.45%) PCI DSS
8 26 (0.86%) COBIT
8 26 (0.86%) ISO/IEC 20000
9 21 (0.69%) GRC
10 20 (0.66%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 20 (0.66%) Cyber Essentials
11 19 (0.63%) JSP 440
12 16 (0.53%) Accessibility
13 15 (0.49%) HIPAA
14 14 (0.46%) ISO 20022
15 11 (0.36%) PSD2
16 10 (0.33%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 10 (0.33%) MiFID
16 10 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 137 (4.51%) Active Directory
2 106 (3.49%) Docker
3 83 (2.73%) VMware Infrastructure
4 36 (1.19%) VMware NSX
5 30 (0.99%) vSphere
6 19 (0.63%) Virtual Desktop
7 18 (0.59%) VMware ESXi
8 15 (0.49%) Virtual Machines
9 14 (0.46%) Hyper-V
10 7 (0.23%) NFS
11 5 (0.16%) BitLocker
12 4 (0.13%) Dovecot
12 4 (0.13%) Postfix
12 4 (0.13%) vCloud
13 3 (0.099%) Firmware
13 3 (0.099%) Lustre
13 3 (0.099%) Slurm Workload Manager
14 2 (0.066%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
14 2 (0.066%) Ceph
14 2 (0.066%) KVM
Systems Management
1 189 (6.23%) Terraform
2 144 (4.74%) Kubernetes
3 87 (2.87%) Ansible
4 40 (1.32%) Single Sign-On
5 33 (1.09%) OPNET
6 24 (0.79%) vCenter Server
7 20 (0.66%) SCCM
8 17 (0.56%) Microsoft Intune
8 17 (0.56%) WMI
9 14 (0.46%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 12 (0.40%) FortiGate
11 9 (0.30%) Argo
12 8 (0.26%) Prometheus
13 7 (0.23%) Grafana
14 5 (0.16%) Kibana
15 4 (0.13%) Istio
16 3 (0.099%) Endace
16 3 (0.099%) Karpenter
16 3 (0.099%) Puppet
16 3 (0.099%) vRealize
Vendors
1 446 (14.69%) Microsoft
2 185 (6.09%) SAP
3 175 (5.76%) ServiceNow
4 168 (5.53%) Salesforce
5 139 (4.58%) VMware
6 128 (4.22%) Oracle
7 101 (3.33%) Cisco
8 92 (3.03%) Databricks
9 78 (2.57%) CyberArk
10 68 (2.24%) Google
11 55 (1.81%) Palo Alto
12 49 (1.61%) Centrify
13 44 (1.45%) Remedy
14 42 (1.38%) MuleSoft
15 41 (1.35%) Splunk
15 41 (1.35%) Workday
16 38 (1.25%) Atlassian
17 36 (1.19%) Sparx
18 34 (1.12%) BeyondTrust
19 33 (1.09%) Red Hat