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 March 2026.

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

6 months to
7 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 15 16 13
Rank change year-on-year +1 -3 +6
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 3,803 2,613 3,769
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.44% 10.17% 9.86%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.35% 10.94% 10.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,573 1,664 2,489
10th Percentile £461 £477 £500
25th Percentile £513 £550 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -3.70%
75th Percentile £725 £725 £738
90th Percentile £800 £799 £800
UK median daily rate £625 £625 £650
% change year-on-year - -3.85% -0.46%
Number of hourly rates quoted 86 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 £85.00 £78.92 £87.53
90th Percentile £95.00 £86.30 £95.00
UK median hourly rate £70.00 £71.25 £76.53
% change year-on-year -1.75% -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 33,508 23,892 35,472
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.02% 92.95% 92.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,182 15,386 23,744
10th Percentile £306 £300 £270
25th Percentile £412 £409 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £623 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £750 £748
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,169 770 2,257
10th Percentile £15.25 £16.21 £13.05
25th Percentile £19.00 £21.63 £16.25
Median hourly rate £35.71 £36.00 £32.90
Median % change year-on-year -0.81% +9.44% -20.73%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £77.22 £71.87
UK median hourly rate £34.50 £35.00 £33.00
% change year-on-year -1.44% +6.06% -18.67%

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 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 7 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 7 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 1,703 £630 -3.08% 385
South East +6 658 £625 - 242
North of England -2 527 £579 -3.50% 128
Midlands -3 382 £575 -4.17% 89
North West -2 287 £600 - 78
West Midlands +1 285 £600 -1.15% 54
South West 0 266 £703 +12.48% 94
Yorkshire +5 219 £563 -2.00% 34
East of England +15 164 £550 -12.00% 52
East Midlands -4 93 £513 -6.82% 33
North East -5 27 £625 - 18
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 7 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 1,207 (31.74%) Security Cleared
2 956 (25.14%) Azure
3 836 (21.98%) SC Cleared
4 754 (19.83%) AWS
5 560 (14.73%) Roadmaps
6 542 (14.25%) Microsoft
7 508 (13.36%) Agile
8 475 (12.49%) Migration
9 468 (12.31%) Stakeholder Management
10 438 (11.52%) DevOps
11 405 (10.65%) Enterprise Architecture
12 373 (9.81%) CI/CD
13 371 (9.76%) Data Modelling
14 366 (9.62%) TOGAF
15 352 (9.26%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 334 (8.78%) Technical Leadership
17 321 (8.44%) Data Architecture
18 320 (8.41%) Analytics
18 320 (8.41%) GCP
19 318 (8.36%) Problem-Solving
20 313 (8.23%) AI
21 305 (8.02%) Integration Patterns
22 280 (7.36%) DV Cleared
23 276 (7.26%) Python
24 262 (6.89%) Microservices
25 252 (6.63%) Architectural Patterns
26 246 (6.47%) Architectural Design
27 223 (5.86%) ServiceNow
28 222 (5.84%) Terraform
29 220 (5.78%) 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
1 111 (2.92%) Confluence
2 100 (2.63%) SharePoint
3 61 (1.60%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (0.71%) SAS
5 20 (0.53%) Apache Spark
5 20 (0.53%) CMS
6 15 (0.39%) Anypoint
6 15 (0.39%) Apache Airflow
6 15 (0.39%) Appian
7 14 (0.37%) Apache
7 14 (0.37%) ArcGIS
8 13 (0.34%) WebLogic
9 12 (0.32%) OpenStack
10 11 (0.29%) nginx
11 9 (0.24%) Smallworld
12 8 (0.21%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 7 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 7 (0.18%) Skype for Business
14 6 (0.16%) Sitecore CMS
14 6 (0.16%) Tomcat
Applications
1 50 (1.31%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (0.82%) Microsoft Project
3 26 (0.68%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 25 (0.66%) Microsoft Excel
5 18 (0.47%) MS Visio
6 7 (0.18%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.026%) ArchiCAD
7 1 (0.026%) AutoCAD
7 1 (0.026%) OrCAD
7 1 (0.026%) PlantUML
7 1 (0.026%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 100 (2.63%) SAP S/4HANA
2 39 (1.03%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 23 (0.60%) Workday HCM
4 20 (0.53%) Dynamics CRM
5 17 (0.45%) Payment Gateway
6 16 (0.42%) Salesforce CRM
7 11 (0.29%) NetSuite
8 10 (0.26%) Oracle EBS
8 10 (0.26%) SAP PM
9 9 (0.24%) Maximo
9 9 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
10 8 (0.21%) Remedy ITSM
10 8 (0.21%) SAP ERP
10 8 (0.21%) SAP EWM
11 7 (0.18%) SAP PP
11 7 (0.18%) Teamcenter
12 6 (0.16%) R3 Corda
12 6 (0.16%) SAP CO
12 6 (0.16%) SAP QM
13 5 (0.13%) Distributed Ledger
Cloud Services
1 956 (25.14%) Azure
2 754 (19.83%) AWS
3 320 (8.41%) GCP
4 151 (3.97%) Power Platform
5 146 (3.84%) Entra ID
6 129 (3.39%) Microsoft 365
6 129 (3.39%) SaaS
7 119 (3.13%) Serverless
8 92 (2.42%) IaaS
9 82 (2.16%) GitHub
10 78 (2.05%) Azure DevOps
10 78 (2.05%) PaaS
11 67 (1.76%) OpenShift
12 65 (1.71%) AWS Lambda
13 63 (1.66%) Microsoft Purview
14 60 (1.58%) Amazon S3
14 60 (1.58%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 58 (1.53%) Dynamics 365
15 58 (1.53%) Snowflake
16 56 (1.47%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 182 (4.79%) Firewall
2 127 (3.34%) Network Security
3 115 (3.02%) DNS
4 112 (2.95%) WAN
5 101 (2.66%) VPN
6 73 (1.92%) LAN
7 58 (1.53%) SD-WAN
8 38 (1.00%) BGP
9 32 (0.84%) DHCP
9 32 (0.84%) MPLS
10 29 (0.76%) OSPF
11 28 (0.74%) Wi-Fi
12 23 (0.60%) TCP/IP
12 23 (0.60%) VLAN
13 20 (0.53%) VSAN
13 20 (0.53%) VXLAN
14 18 (0.47%) SAN
15 17 (0.45%) IPsec
15 17 (0.45%) SSL
16 16 (0.42%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 128 (3.37%) Data Warehouse
2 111 (2.92%) Metadata
3 109 (2.87%) Power BI
4 75 (1.97%) Data Lake
5 69 (1.81%) SQL Server
6 50 (1.31%) PostgreSQL
7 45 (1.18%) Tableau
8 44 (1.16%) NoSQL
9 32 (0.84%) Azure SQL Database
10 29 (0.76%) Oracle Database
11 28 (0.74%) Amazon Redshift
12 25 (0.66%) GIS
13 21 (0.55%) Big Data
14 20 (0.53%) Delta Lake
14 20 (0.53%) Metadata Repository
15 19 (0.50%) Relational Database
16 17 (0.45%) Amazon Athena
16 17 (0.45%) Amazon Aurora
16 17 (0.45%) BigQuery
17 16 (0.42%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 125 (3.29%) JIRA
2 84 (2.21%) Jenkins
3 44 (1.16%) GitLab
4 37 (0.97%) Git
5 17 (0.45%) ERwin
6 11 (0.29%) Bitbucket
7 10 (0.26%) SonarQube
8 8 (0.21%) Artifactory
8 8 (0.21%) MLflow
9 5 (0.13%) Oracle Forms
9 5 (0.13%) Postman
9 5 (0.13%) REST Assured
10 4 (0.11%) Cucumber
10 4 (0.11%) PowerDesigner
10 4 (0.11%) Selenium
10 4 (0.11%) Terragrunt
11 3 (0.079%) MSI
11 3 (0.079%) Rational DOORS
11 3 (0.079%) Snyk
11 3 (0.079%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 844 (22.19%) Social Skills
2 609 (16.01%) Finance
3 442 (11.62%) Public Sector
4 267 (7.02%) Analytical Skills
5 228 (6.00%) Banking
6 123 (3.23%) Documentation Skills
7 85 (2.24%) Influencing Skills
7 85 (2.24%) Retail
8 79 (2.08%) Military
9 76 (2.00%) Telecoms
10 75 (1.97%) Legal
11 71 (1.87%) Presentation Skills
12 64 (1.68%) Marketing
13 51 (1.34%) Manufacturing
14 40 (1.05%) Financial Institution
15 36 (0.95%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 35 (0.92%) Billing
17 28 (0.74%) Law
18 25 (0.66%) Investment Banking
19 18 (0.47%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 204 (5.36%) REST
2 152 (4.00%) Middleware
3 108 (2.84%) SOAP
4 77 (2.02%) OpenID
5 74 (1.95%) .NET
5 74 (1.95%) LDAP
6 70 (1.84%) OAuth
7 65 (1.71%) SAML
8 53 (1.39%) Kafka
9 50 (1.31%) JSON
10 43 (1.13%) OAuth2
11 33 (0.87%) AngularJS
12 31 (0.82%) SailPoint
13 27 (0.71%) Oracle Fusion
13 27 (0.71%) React
13 27 (0.71%) RESTful
14 25 (0.66%) PySpark
15 23 (0.60%) Web Services
16 22 (0.58%) Microsoft Graph
17 21 (0.55%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 277 (7.28%) Cloud Native
2 134 (3.52%) Product Ownership
3 113 (2.97%) Legacy Systems
4 109 (2.87%) Onboarding
5 105 (2.76%) Data Centre
6 93 (2.45%) Enterprise Software
7 88 (2.31%) PKI
8 78 (2.05%) Hybrid Cloud
9 62 (1.63%) Public Cloud
10 60 (1.58%) Data Protection Act
11 57 (1.50%) Operational Technology
12 56 (1.47%) Security Posture
13 54 (1.42%) Distributed Systems
13 54 (1.42%) Management Information System
14 46 (1.21%) CMDB
14 46 (1.21%) Self-Motivation
15 40 (1.05%) Data Structures
16 34 (0.89%) AI Agents
17 30 (0.79%) Private Cloud
18 28 (0.74%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 160 (4.21%) Windows
2 90 (2.37%) Linux
3 36 (0.95%) Windows Server
4 19 (0.50%) Android
4 19 (0.50%) Apple iOS
5 18 (0.47%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 16 (0.42%) Windows 7
7 14 (0.37%) Windows 10
8 12 (0.32%) Unix
9 9 (0.24%) Mac OS
9 9 (0.24%) zOS
10 8 (0.21%) VMS
10 8 (0.21%) Windows Server 2016
11 7 (0.18%) Windows Server 2019
12 6 (0.16%) Ubuntu
13 4 (0.11%) CentOS
14 3 (0.079%) Windows Server 2012
15 1 (0.026%) Data ONTAP
15 1 (0.026%) Kali Linux
15 1 (0.026%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 560 (14.73%) Roadmaps
2 508 (13.36%) Agile
3 475 (12.49%) Migration
4 468 (12.31%) Stakeholder Management
5 438 (11.52%) DevOps
6 405 (10.65%) Enterprise Architecture
7 373 (9.81%) CI/CD
8 371 (9.76%) Data Modelling
9 366 (9.62%) TOGAF
10 352 (9.26%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 334 (8.78%) Technical Leadership
12 321 (8.44%) Data Architecture
13 320 (8.41%) Analytics
14 318 (8.36%) Problem-Solving
15 313 (8.23%) AI
16 305 (8.02%) Integration Patterns
17 262 (6.89%) Microservices
18 252 (6.63%) Architectural Patterns
19 246 (6.47%) Architectural Design
20 220 (5.78%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 276 (7.26%) Python
2 199 (5.23%) SQL
3 174 (4.58%) PowerShell
4 117 (3.08%) Java
5 58 (1.53%) JavaScript
6 45 (1.18%) C#
7 36 (0.95%) Bash
8 33 (0.87%) Bicep
9 31 (0.82%) TypeScript
10 18 (0.47%) Apex Code
11 16 (0.42%) PL/SQL
12 14 (0.37%) Kusto Query Language
13 13 (0.34%) R
14 9 (0.24%) Ruby
14 9 (0.24%) Scala
14 9 (0.24%) T-SQL
15 8 (0.21%) VB
16 7 (0.18%) Kotlin
16 7 (0.18%) VBScript
17 6 (0.16%) X++
Qualifications
1 1,207 (31.74%) Security Cleared
2 836 (21.98%) SC Cleared
3 280 (7.36%) DV Cleared
4 176 (4.63%) Degree
5 114 (3.00%) TOGAF Certification
6 108 (2.84%) Azure Certification
7 99 (2.60%) AWS Certification
8 97 (2.55%) CISSP
9 72 (1.89%) Cisco Certification
9 72 (1.89%) Computer Science Degree
10 56 (1.47%) BPSS Clearance
10 56 (1.47%) Microsoft Certification
11 46 (1.21%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 46 (1.21%) CISM
12 45 (1.18%) CCNP
13 41 (1.08%) Master's Degree
14 32 (0.84%) ITIL Certification
15 31 (0.82%) CCIE
16 28 (0.74%) ISEB
17 24 (0.63%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 162 (4.26%) GDPR
2 126 (3.31%) Data Quality
3 124 (3.26%) NIST
4 106 (2.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 82 (2.16%) NCSC
6 57 (1.50%) QA
7 51 (1.34%) PCI DSS
8 32 (0.84%) COBIT
9 30 (0.79%) GRC
10 25 (0.66%) Cyber Essentials
10 25 (0.66%) ISO 20022
11 17 (0.45%) Accessibility
12 15 (0.39%) MiFID
13 14 (0.37%) JSP 440
14 13 (0.34%) FINRA
14 13 (0.34%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 12 (0.32%) California Consumer Privacy Act
15 12 (0.32%) HIPAA
15 12 (0.32%) PSD2
16 11 (0.29%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 172 (4.52%) Active Directory
2 118 (3.10%) Docker
3 85 (2.24%) VMware Infrastructure
4 64 (1.68%) VMware NSX
5 35 (0.92%) vSphere
6 19 (0.50%) Virtual Desktop
7 14 (0.37%) Hyper-V
8 13 (0.34%) Virtual Machines
8 13 (0.34%) VMware ESXi
9 8 (0.21%) Squid
10 7 (0.18%) BitLocker
10 7 (0.18%) vCloud
11 6 (0.16%) NFS
12 5 (0.13%) Oracle RAC
12 5 (0.13%) RACF
12 5 (0.13%) Varnish
13 4 (0.11%) Firmware
14 3 (0.079%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
14 3 (0.079%) IAG
14 3 (0.079%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 222 (5.84%) Terraform
2 196 (5.15%) Kubernetes
3 101 (2.66%) Ansible
4 54 (1.42%) Single Sign-On
5 40 (1.05%) Microsoft Intune
6 30 (0.79%) OPNET
6 30 (0.79%) vCenter Server
7 24 (0.63%) Grafana
8 23 (0.60%) FortiGate
9 22 (0.58%) SCCM
10 20 (0.53%) Prometheus
11 16 (0.42%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 16 (0.42%) Argo
12 15 (0.39%) WMI
13 8 (0.21%) Istio
14 7 (0.18%) Consul
15 6 (0.16%) Puppet
16 5 (0.13%) Kibana
16 5 (0.13%) Progress Chef
17 3 (0.079%) Endace
Vendors
1 542 (14.25%) Microsoft
2 223 (5.86%) ServiceNow
3 210 (5.52%) SAP
4 168 (4.42%) VMware
5 162 (4.26%) Oracle
6 161 (4.23%) Salesforce
7 124 (3.26%) Databricks
8 106 (2.79%) Cisco
9 91 (2.39%) CyberArk
9 91 (2.39%) Google
10 60 (1.58%) MuleSoft
11 57 (1.50%) Splunk
12 52 (1.37%) Palo Alto
13 49 (1.29%) Centrify
13 49 (1.29%) Remedy
14 46 (1.21%) Red Hat
15 45 (1.18%) Atlassian
15 45 (1.18%) Workday
16 39 (1.03%) IBM
17 38 (1.00%) Citrix