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 30 January 2026.

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

6 months to
30 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 16 13
Rank change year-on-year -2 -3 +8
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 3,240 2,655 3,624
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.81% 9.99% 9.61%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.71% 10.74% 10.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,231 1,582 2,435
10th Percentile £458 £477 £500
25th Percentile £513 £550 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -1.37%
75th Percentile £725 £725 £738
90th Percentile £792 £799 £788
UK median daily rate £625 £625 £650
% change year-on-year - -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 46 29 43
10th Percentile £49.40 £59.65 £57.80
25th Percentile £62.00 £61.50 £61.25
Median hourly rate £78.34 £70.00 £78.00
Median % change year-on-year +11.91% -10.26% +11.43%
75th Percentile £92.84 £78.36 £87.27
90th Percentile £95.00 £86.12 £95.00
UK median hourly rate £75.84 £70.00 £76.53
% change year-on-year +8.34% -8.53% +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 30,253 24,723 35,060
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.60% 93.04% 93.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 19,276 15,264 23,666
10th Percentile £300 £300 £275
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 £645
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 1,876 738 1,991
10th Percentile £14.83 £15.98 £13.29
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.25 £17.13
Median hourly rate £30.00 £35.00 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year -14.29% -4.11% +4.29%
75th Percentile £63.75 £64.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £70.36 £75.00 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £28.90 £32.50 £36.50
% change year-on-year -11.09% -10.96% +4.29%

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 30 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 30 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 30 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 -1 1,435 £635 -2.31% 365
South East +10 566 £620 -0.88% 259
North of England -3 450 £570 -5.00% 186
Midlands -3 323 £573 -4.50% 97
North West -5 267 £575 -4.17% 104
South West -2 249 £708 +13.20% 73
West Midlands -4 233 £600 -1.15% 61
Yorkshire -9 171 £554 -7.67% 57
East of England +13 129 £550 -12.00% 61
East Midlands -4 88 £468 -18.70% 36
North East -24 12 £575 -7.89% 25
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 30 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 1,022 (31.54%) Security Cleared
2 844 (26.05%) Azure
3 715 (22.07%) SC Cleared
4 650 (20.06%) AWS
5 475 (14.66%) Microsoft
5 475 (14.66%) Roadmaps
6 453 (13.98%) Agile
7 430 (13.27%) Stakeholder Management
8 389 (12.01%) Migration
9 367 (11.33%) Enterprise Architecture
10 366 (11.30%) DevOps
11 333 (10.28%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 326 (10.06%) Data Modelling
13 322 (9.94%) TOGAF
14 315 (9.72%) Technical Leadership
15 305 (9.41%) CI/CD
16 299 (9.23%) Problem-Solving
17 277 (8.55%) GCP
18 266 (8.21%) AI
19 259 (7.99%) Analytics
20 255 (7.87%) Python
21 253 (7.81%) Data Architecture
22 236 (7.28%) Integration Patterns
23 235 (7.25%) DV Cleared
24 229 (7.07%) Microservices
25 223 (6.88%) Architectural Design
26 200 (6.17%) Terraform
27 189 (5.83%) Cybersecurity
27 189 (5.83%) Data Governance
28 188 (5.80%) 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
1 103 (3.18%) Confluence
2 78 (2.41%) SharePoint
3 56 (1.73%) Microsoft Exchange
4 24 (0.74%) SAS
5 21 (0.65%) CMS
6 18 (0.56%) OpenStack
7 14 (0.43%) Anypoint
7 14 (0.43%) Apache Spark
8 13 (0.40%) Apache Airflow
9 12 (0.37%) ArcGIS
10 11 (0.34%) Apache
10 11 (0.34%) WebLogic
11 9 (0.28%) Appian
11 9 (0.28%) Smallworld
12 7 (0.22%) nginx
12 7 (0.22%) Skype for Business
12 7 (0.22%) Tomcat
13 6 (0.19%) Ethereum
13 6 (0.19%) GeoServer
13 6 (0.19%) Hyperledger
Applications
1 49 (1.51%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (0.99%) Microsoft Project
3 30 (0.93%) Microsoft Excel
4 28 (0.86%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 15 (0.46%) MS Visio
6 6 (0.19%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.093%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.062%) Siemens NX
9 1 (0.031%) ArchiCAD
9 1 (0.031%) AutoCAD
9 1 (0.031%) FrameMaker
9 1 (0.031%) OrCAD
9 1 (0.031%) Revit
9 1 (0.031%) Trello
Business Applications
1 89 (2.75%) SAP S/4HANA
2 39 (1.20%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 26 (0.80%) Dynamics CRM
4 22 (0.68%) Workday HCM
5 16 (0.49%) Salesforce CRM
6 15 (0.46%) Payment Gateway
7 13 (0.40%) NetSuite
8 9 (0.28%) Oracle Receivables
8 9 (0.28%) SAP CO
8 9 (0.28%) SAP PM
9 8 (0.25%) SAP EWM
9 8 (0.25%) SAP PP
10 7 (0.22%) Maximo
10 7 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
10 7 (0.22%) SAP FI
10 7 (0.22%) SAP FI/CO
11 6 (0.19%) Oracle SCM
11 6 (0.19%) R3 Corda
11 6 (0.19%) SAP ERP
11 6 (0.19%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 844 (26.05%) Azure
2 650 (20.06%) AWS
3 277 (8.55%) GCP
4 132 (4.07%) Power Platform
5 117 (3.61%) SaaS
6 115 (3.55%) Serverless
7 113 (3.49%) Microsoft 365
8 110 (3.40%) Entra ID
9 75 (2.31%) Azure DevOps
10 72 (2.22%) GitHub
11 69 (2.13%) IaaS
12 68 (2.10%) AWS Lambda
13 62 (1.91%) Microsoft Purview
14 61 (1.88%) Dynamics 365
15 58 (1.79%) Amazon S3
15 58 (1.79%) PaaS
16 57 (1.76%) OpenShift
17 48 (1.48%) Azure Data Factory
17 48 (1.48%) Snowflake
18 47 (1.45%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 161 (4.97%) Firewall
2 113 (3.49%) WAN
3 96 (2.96%) Network Security
4 90 (2.78%) DNS
4 90 (2.78%) VPN
5 76 (2.35%) LAN
6 56 (1.73%) SD-WAN
7 35 (1.08%) BGP
8 30 (0.93%) Wi-Fi
9 28 (0.86%) MPLS
10 25 (0.77%) DHCP
11 21 (0.65%) OSPF
11 21 (0.65%) SAN
11 21 (0.65%) VSAN
12 19 (0.59%) TCP/IP
13 18 (0.56%) Internet
14 17 (0.52%) IPsec
15 16 (0.49%) VLAN
16 15 (0.46%) SSL
17 12 (0.37%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 103 (3.18%) Data Warehouse
2 88 (2.72%) Power BI
3 87 (2.69%) Metadata
4 64 (1.98%) Data Lake
5 53 (1.64%) SQL Server
6 51 (1.57%) PostgreSQL
7 45 (1.39%) Tableau
8 42 (1.30%) NoSQL
9 28 (0.86%) Amazon Redshift
9 28 (0.86%) DynamoDB
10 24 (0.74%) Azure SQL Database
11 22 (0.68%) Amazon Aurora
11 22 (0.68%) Oracle Database
12 21 (0.65%) GIS
12 21 (0.65%) Relational Database
13 20 (0.62%) Redis
14 19 (0.59%) BigQuery
15 18 (0.56%) Amazon RDS
16 17 (0.52%) Metadata Repository
17 16 (0.49%) Data Vault
Development Applications
1 119 (3.67%) JIRA
2 85 (2.62%) Jenkins
3 35 (1.08%) Git
4 34 (1.05%) GitLab
5 16 (0.49%) ERwin
6 14 (0.43%) SonarQube
7 9 (0.28%) Artifactory
7 9 (0.28%) Bitbucket
8 6 (0.19%) Postman
9 5 (0.15%) Gradle
9 5 (0.15%) Maven
9 5 (0.15%) MSI
9 5 (0.15%) Oracle Forms
9 5 (0.15%) SonarLint
10 4 (0.12%) MLflow
10 4 (0.12%) Rational DOORS
10 4 (0.12%) Terragrunt
11 3 (0.093%) Selenium
11 3 (0.093%) Visual Studio Code
12 2 (0.062%) Cucumber
General
1 791 (24.41%) Social Skills
2 525 (16.20%) Finance
3 372 (11.48%) Public Sector
4 242 (7.47%) Analytical Skills
5 199 (6.14%) Banking
6 99 (3.06%) Documentation Skills
7 79 (2.44%) Legal
8 77 (2.38%) Influencing Skills
9 74 (2.28%) Telecoms
10 73 (2.25%) Military
11 70 (2.16%) Retail
12 67 (2.07%) Marketing
12 67 (2.07%) Presentation Skills
13 49 (1.51%) Manufacturing
14 36 (1.11%) Billing
14 36 (1.11%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 26 (0.80%) Financial Institution
16 23 (0.71%) Law
17 21 (0.65%) Back Office
18 16 (0.49%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 185 (5.71%) REST
2 105 (3.24%) Middleware
3 104 (3.21%) SOAP
4 72 (2.22%) LDAP
5 71 (2.19%) .NET
6 64 (1.98%) OpenID
7 59 (1.82%) OAuth
8 58 (1.79%) SAML
9 49 (1.51%) Kafka
10 48 (1.48%) JSON
11 38 (1.17%) RESTful
12 33 (1.02%) OAuth2
13 27 (0.83%) AngularJS
14 26 (0.80%) Spring Boot
15 24 (0.74%) SailPoint
16 23 (0.71%) PySpark
17 21 (0.65%) Web Services
18 20 (0.62%) Spring
19 19 (0.59%) Microsoft Graph
19 19 (0.59%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 241 (7.44%) Cloud Native
2 131 (4.04%) Product Ownership
3 101 (3.12%) Legacy Systems
3 101 (3.12%) Onboarding
4 94 (2.90%) Data Centre
5 86 (2.65%) PKI
6 82 (2.53%) Enterprise Software
7 65 (2.01%) Hybrid Cloud
8 56 (1.73%) Security Posture
9 50 (1.54%) Public Cloud
10 49 (1.51%) Operational Technology
11 45 (1.39%) Distributed Systems
11 45 (1.39%) Management Information System
12 42 (1.30%) CMDB
12 42 (1.30%) Self-Motivation
13 40 (1.23%) Data Protection Act
14 34 (1.05%) Data Structures
15 28 (0.86%) Private Cloud
16 26 (0.80%) SCADA
17 25 (0.77%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 144 (4.44%) Windows
2 86 (2.65%) Linux
3 40 (1.23%) Windows Server
4 18 (0.56%) Windows 7
5 17 (0.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 17 (0.52%) Windows 10
6 12 (0.37%) Unix
6 12 (0.37%) Windows Server 2019
7 10 (0.31%) Android
7 10 (0.31%) Apple iOS
7 10 (0.31%) Windows Server 2016
8 9 (0.28%) Mac OS
9 7 (0.22%) VMS
10 6 (0.19%) Ubuntu
11 5 (0.15%) zOS
12 4 (0.12%) CentOS
13 3 (0.093%) Solaris
13 3 (0.093%) Windows Server 2008
14 2 (0.062%) Windows Server 2012
15 1 (0.031%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 475 (14.66%) Roadmaps
2 453 (13.98%) Agile
3 430 (13.27%) Stakeholder Management
4 389 (12.01%) Migration
5 367 (11.33%) Enterprise Architecture
6 366 (11.30%) DevOps
7 333 (10.28%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 326 (10.06%) Data Modelling
9 322 (9.94%) TOGAF
10 315 (9.72%) Technical Leadership
11 305 (9.41%) CI/CD
12 299 (9.23%) Problem-Solving
13 266 (8.21%) AI
14 259 (7.99%) Analytics
15 253 (7.81%) Data Architecture
16 236 (7.28%) Integration Patterns
17 229 (7.07%) Microservices
18 223 (6.88%) Architectural Design
19 189 (5.83%) Cybersecurity
19 189 (5.83%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 255 (7.87%) Python
2 166 (5.12%) SQL
3 163 (5.03%) PowerShell
4 123 (3.80%) Java
5 52 (1.60%) JavaScript
6 37 (1.14%) C#
7 29 (0.90%) Bash
8 28 (0.86%) TypeScript
9 27 (0.83%) Bicep
10 16 (0.49%) Apex Code
10 16 (0.49%) PL/SQL
11 13 (0.40%) R
12 12 (0.37%) Kusto Query Language
13 9 (0.28%) T-SQL
14 8 (0.25%) Ruby
14 8 (0.25%) Scala
14 8 (0.25%) VB
15 7 (0.22%) VBScript
16 6 (0.19%) ABAP
16 6 (0.19%) Korn
Qualifications
1 1,022 (31.54%) Security Cleared
2 715 (22.07%) SC Cleared
3 235 (7.25%) DV Cleared
4 160 (4.94%) Degree
5 97 (2.99%) TOGAF Certification
6 90 (2.78%) AWS Certification
7 87 (2.69%) Azure Certification
8 78 (2.41%) CISSP
9 63 (1.94%) Computer Science Degree
10 57 (1.76%) Microsoft Certification
11 53 (1.64%) Cisco Certification
12 52 (1.60%) BPSS Clearance
13 41 (1.27%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 40 (1.23%) Master's Degree
15 39 (1.20%) CISM
16 32 (0.99%) CCNP
17 30 (0.93%) CCIE
18 29 (0.90%) ITIL Certification
19 28 (0.86%) ISEB
20 15 (0.46%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 145 (4.48%) GDPR
2 124 (3.83%) NIST
3 109 (3.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 100 (3.09%) Data Quality
5 79 (2.44%) NCSC
6 54 (1.67%) QA
7 43 (1.33%) PCI DSS
8 32 (0.99%) COBIT
9 29 (0.90%) GRC
10 19 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials
11 18 (0.56%) ISO 20022
11 18 (0.56%) JSP 440
12 17 (0.52%) Accessibility
13 16 (0.49%) HIPAA
14 15 (0.46%) California Consumer Privacy Act
15 14 (0.43%) MiFID
16 11 (0.34%) FINRA
16 11 (0.34%) HMG Security Policy Framework
17 10 (0.31%) Sarbanes-Oxley
18 9 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 151 (4.66%) Active Directory
2 115 (3.55%) Docker
3 76 (2.35%) VMware Infrastructure
4 45 (1.39%) VMware NSX
5 29 (0.90%) vSphere
6 21 (0.65%) Virtual Desktop
7 17 (0.52%) VMware ESXi
8 14 (0.43%) Hyper-V
8 14 (0.43%) Virtual Machines
9 7 (0.22%) BitLocker
10 5 (0.15%) NFS
10 5 (0.15%) Oracle RAC
10 5 (0.15%) Squid
11 4 (0.12%) vCloud
12 3 (0.093%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
12 3 (0.093%) Firmware
12 3 (0.093%) Lustre
13 2 (0.062%) KVM
13 2 (0.062%) RACF
13 2 (0.062%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 200 (6.17%) Terraform
2 170 (5.25%) Kubernetes
3 86 (2.65%) Ansible
4 51 (1.57%) Single Sign-On
5 33 (1.02%) OPNET
6 25 (0.77%) vCenter Server
7 23 (0.71%) Microsoft Intune
7 23 (0.71%) SCCM
8 18 (0.56%) FortiGate
9 17 (0.52%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 17 (0.52%) WMI
10 16 (0.49%) Prometheus
11 14 (0.43%) Grafana
12 10 (0.31%) Argo
13 7 (0.22%) Istio
14 6 (0.19%) Puppet
15 5 (0.15%) Consul
15 5 (0.15%) Kibana
16 4 (0.12%) Progress Chef
17 3 (0.093%) Endace
Vendors
1 475 (14.66%) Microsoft
2 188 (5.80%) ServiceNow
3 187 (5.77%) SAP
4 162 (5.00%) Salesforce
5 143 (4.41%) Oracle
6 134 (4.14%) VMware
7 99 (3.06%) Databricks
8 91 (2.81%) Cisco
8 91 (2.81%) CyberArk
9 86 (2.65%) Google
10 56 (1.73%) Splunk
11 50 (1.54%) Palo Alto
12 49 (1.51%) Centrify
12 49 (1.51%) MuleSoft
13 45 (1.39%) Remedy
14 44 (1.36%) Atlassian
15 38 (1.17%) Sparx
15 38 (1.17%) Workday
16 37 (1.14%) Red Hat
17 35 (1.08%) BeyondTrust