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 2 March 2026.

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

6 months to
2 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 3,657 2,567 3,707
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.36% 10.14% 9.77%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.27% 10.91% 10.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,477 1,607 2,446
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% -1.89%
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 32,461 23,524 35,233
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.93% 92.91% 92.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,559 15,031 23,599
10th Percentile £306 £296 £270
25th Percentile £411 £409 £411
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 £747
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,114 739 2,210
10th Percentile £15.18 £16.20 £13.15
25th Percentile £19.00 £22.00 £16.30
Median hourly rate £35.00 £35.00 £34.21
Median % change year-on-year - +2.31% -15.53%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £76.25 £71.91
UK median hourly rate £33.50 £34.06 £34.25
% change year-on-year -1.63% -0.57% -14.38%

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 2 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 2 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 2 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 1,635 £630 -3.08% 386
South East +6 625 £625 - 283
North of England -2 510 £575 -4.17% 153
Midlands -4 368 £575 -4.17% 120
North West -3 278 £600 - 91
West Midlands -2 275 £600 -1.15% 65
South West 0 260 £706 +12.96% 87
Yorkshire +1 213 £560 -2.23% 45
East of England +15 161 £550 -12.00% 59
East Midlands -5 91 £506 -8.78% 52
North East -7 24 £625 -1.96% 19
Architect
UK

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

For the 6 months to 2 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 1,161 (31.75%) Security Cleared
2 919 (25.13%) Azure
3 804 (21.99%) SC Cleared
4 727 (19.88%) AWS
5 530 (14.49%) Roadmaps
6 525 (14.36%) Microsoft
7 489 (13.37%) Agile
8 458 (12.52%) Stakeholder Management
9 456 (12.47%) Migration
10 419 (11.46%) DevOps
11 391 (10.69%) Enterprise Architecture
12 361 (9.87%) Data Modelling
13 357 (9.76%) CI/CD
14 356 (9.73%) TOGAF
15 339 (9.27%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 322 (8.81%) Technical Leadership
17 318 (8.70%) Problem-Solving
18 314 (8.59%) GCP
19 309 (8.45%) Data Architecture
20 306 (8.37%) Analytics
21 295 (8.07%) AI
22 289 (7.90%) Integration Patterns
23 269 (7.36%) DV Cleared
23 269 (7.36%) Python
24 253 (6.92%) Microservices
25 237 (6.48%) Architectural Patterns
26 232 (6.34%) Architectural Design
27 218 (5.96%) ServiceNow
28 214 (5.85%) Terraform
29 212 (5.80%) 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 (2.93%) Confluence
2 96 (2.63%) SharePoint
3 61 (1.67%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (0.74%) SAS
5 20 (0.55%) CMS
6 19 (0.52%) 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 (0.36%) WebLogic
10 12 (0.33%) Apache
11 11 (0.30%) nginx
11 11 (0.30%) OpenStack
12 9 (0.25%) 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 (1.37%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (0.88%) Microsoft Project
3 25 (0.68%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 24 (0.66%) Microsoft Excel
5 13 (0.36%) 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 94 (2.57%) SAP S/4HANA
2 37 (1.01%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 23 (0.63%) Workday HCM
4 20 (0.55%) Dynamics CRM
5 17 (0.46%) Payment Gateway
6 16 (0.44%) Salesforce CRM
7 11 (0.30%) NetSuite
8 10 (0.27%) Oracle EBS
8 10 (0.27%) SAP PM
9 9 (0.25%) 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
1 919 (25.13%) Azure
2 727 (19.88%) AWS
3 314 (8.59%) GCP
4 138 (3.77%) Power Platform
5 137 (3.75%) Entra ID
6 128 (3.50%) Microsoft 365
7 124 (3.39%) SaaS
8 114 (3.12%) Serverless
9 85 (2.32%) IaaS
10 80 (2.19%) Azure DevOps
11 79 (2.16%) GitHub
12 70 (1.91%) PaaS
13 65 (1.78%) OpenShift
14 64 (1.75%) AWS Lambda
15 63 (1.72%) Microsoft Purview
16 61 (1.67%) Amazon S3
17 57 (1.56%) Snowflake
18 56 (1.53%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 55 (1.50%) Dynamics 365
20 54 (1.48%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 181 (4.95%) Firewall
2 120 (3.28%) Network Security
3 112 (3.06%) DNS
4 107 (2.93%) WAN
5 95 (2.60%) VPN
6 69 (1.89%) LAN
7 55 (1.50%) SD-WAN
8 34 (0.93%) BGP
9 32 (0.88%) DHCP
10 29 (0.79%) MPLS
11 28 (0.77%) Wi-Fi
12 26 (0.71%) OSPF
13 23 (0.63%) TCP/IP
14 22 (0.60%) VLAN
15 20 (0.55%) VSAN
16 19 (0.52%) SAN
17 17 (0.46%) IPsec
17 17 (0.46%) VXLAN
18 16 (0.44%) SSL
18 16 (0.44%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 126 (3.45%) Data Warehouse
2 107 (2.93%) Metadata
3 98 (2.68%) Power BI
4 74 (2.02%) Data Lake
5 66 (1.80%) SQL Server
6 49 (1.34%) PostgreSQL
7 44 (1.20%) Tableau
8 41 (1.12%) NoSQL
9 29 (0.79%) Oracle Database
10 27 (0.74%) Amazon Redshift
10 27 (0.74%) Azure SQL Database
11 24 (0.66%) GIS
12 20 (0.55%) Big Data
12 20 (0.55%) Metadata Repository
13 19 (0.52%) Relational Database
14 18 (0.49%) Delta Lake
15 17 (0.46%) Amazon Aurora
15 17 (0.46%) BigQuery
16 16 (0.44%) Data Vault
16 16 (0.44%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 125 (3.42%) JIRA
2 83 (2.27%) Jenkins
3 42 (1.15%) GitLab
4 33 (0.90%) Git
5 16 (0.44%) 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%) Selenium
11 4 (0.11%) Terragrunt
12 3 (0.082%) JUnit
12 3 (0.082%) MSI
12 3 (0.082%) PowerDesigner
12 3 (0.082%) Rational DOORS
12 3 (0.082%) Snyk
General
1 829 (22.67%) Social Skills
2 582 (15.91%) Finance
3 418 (11.43%) Public Sector
4 263 (7.19%) Analytical Skills
5 223 (6.10%) Banking
6 120 (3.28%) Documentation Skills
7 81 (2.21%) Influencing Skills
8 80 (2.19%) Retail
9 78 (2.13%) Military
10 73 (2.00%) Legal
10 73 (2.00%) Telecoms
11 69 (1.89%) Presentation Skills
12 64 (1.75%) Marketing
13 50 (1.37%) Manufacturing
14 36 (0.98%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 35 (0.96%) Billing
16 31 (0.85%) Financial Institution
17 24 (0.66%) Law
18 22 (0.60%) Investment Banking
19 14 (0.38%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 201 (5.50%) REST
2 143 (3.91%) Middleware
3 105 (2.87%) SOAP
4 76 (2.08%) OpenID
5 74 (2.02%) LDAP
6 73 (2.00%) .NET
7 68 (1.86%) OAuth
8 63 (1.72%) SAML
9 53 (1.45%) Kafka
10 51 (1.39%) JSON
11 42 (1.15%) OAuth2
12 32 (0.88%) AngularJS
13 30 (0.82%) RESTful
13 30 (0.82%) SailPoint
14 27 (0.74%) Oracle Fusion
14 27 (0.74%) React
15 24 (0.66%) PySpark
16 22 (0.60%) Microsoft Graph
17 21 (0.57%) Web Services
18 20 (0.55%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 264 (7.22%) Cloud Native
2 132 (3.61%) Product Ownership
3 108 (2.95%) Legacy Systems
4 107 (2.93%) Onboarding
5 100 (2.73%) Data Centre
6 92 (2.52%) Enterprise Software
7 90 (2.46%) PKI
8 74 (2.02%) Hybrid Cloud
9 57 (1.56%) Operational Technology
10 56 (1.53%) Public Cloud
11 55 (1.50%) Security Posture
12 53 (1.45%) Management Information System
13 52 (1.42%) Data Protection Act
14 49 (1.34%) Distributed Systems
15 45 (1.23%) CMDB
15 45 (1.23%) Self-Motivation
16 37 (1.01%) Data Structures
17 30 (0.82%) Private Cloud
18 28 (0.77%) AI Agents
18 28 (0.77%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 159 (4.35%) Windows
2 88 (2.41%) Linux
3 37 (1.01%) Windows Server
4 19 (0.52%) Android
4 19 (0.52%) Apple iOS
5 18 (0.49%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 17 (0.46%) Windows 7
7 14 (0.38%) Windows 10
8 13 (0.36%) Unix
9 9 (0.25%) Mac OS
9 9 (0.25%) 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 (0.082%) Windows Server 2012
15 1 (0.027%) Data ONTAP
15 1 (0.027%) Kali Linux
15 1 (0.027%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 530 (14.49%) Roadmaps
2 489 (13.37%) Agile
3 458 (12.52%) Stakeholder Management
4 456 (12.47%) Migration
5 419 (11.46%) DevOps
6 391 (10.69%) Enterprise Architecture
7 361 (9.87%) Data Modelling
8 357 (9.76%) CI/CD
9 356 (9.73%) TOGAF
10 339 (9.27%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 322 (8.81%) Technical Leadership
12 318 (8.70%) Problem-Solving
13 309 (8.45%) Data Architecture
14 306 (8.37%) Analytics
15 295 (8.07%) AI
16 289 (7.90%) Integration Patterns
17 253 (6.92%) Microservices
18 237 (6.48%) Architectural Patterns
19 232 (6.34%) Architectural Design
20 212 (5.80%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 269 (7.36%) Python
2 190 (5.20%) SQL
3 171 (4.68%) PowerShell
4 114 (3.12%) Java
5 60 (1.64%) JavaScript
6 47 (1.29%) C#
7 36 (0.98%) Bash
8 30 (0.82%) TypeScript
9 29 (0.79%) Bicep
10 18 (0.49%) Apex Code
11 16 (0.44%) PL/SQL
12 14 (0.38%) Kusto Query Language
13 13 (0.36%) R
14 9 (0.25%) Ruby
14 9 (0.25%) Scala
14 9 (0.25%) T-SQL
15 8 (0.22%) VB
16 7 (0.19%) VBScript
17 6 (0.16%) Korn
17 6 (0.16%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 1,161 (31.75%) Security Cleared
2 804 (21.99%) SC Cleared
3 269 (7.36%) DV Cleared
4 171 (4.68%) Degree
5 112 (3.06%) TOGAF Certification
6 97 (2.65%) Azure Certification
7 96 (2.63%) CISSP
8 95 (2.60%) AWS Certification
9 70 (1.91%) Computer Science Degree
10 69 (1.89%) Cisco Certification
11 56 (1.53%) Microsoft Certification
12 55 (1.50%) BPSS Clearance
13 45 (1.23%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 45 (1.23%) CISM
14 43 (1.18%) CCNP
15 42 (1.15%) Master's Degree
16 30 (0.82%) ITIL Certification
17 29 (0.79%) CCIE
18 28 (0.77%) ISEB
19 23 (0.63%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 160 (4.38%) GDPR
2 120 (3.28%) NIST
3 118 (3.23%) Data Quality
4 102 (2.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 79 (2.16%) NCSC
6 57 (1.56%) QA
7 47 (1.29%) PCI DSS
8 32 (0.88%) COBIT
9 30 (0.82%) 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 (0.36%) FINRA
13 13 (0.36%) 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
1 166 (4.54%) Active Directory
2 117 (3.20%) Docker
3 82 (2.24%) VMware Infrastructure
4 63 (1.72%) VMware NSX
5 35 (0.96%) vSphere
6 20 (0.55%) Virtual Desktop
7 13 (0.36%) Hyper-V
7 13 (0.36%) Virtual Machines
7 13 (0.36%) 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 3 (0.082%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
12 3 (0.082%) Firmware
12 3 (0.082%) Varnish
13 2 (0.055%) Ceph
13 2 (0.055%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 214 (5.85%) Terraform
2 190 (5.20%) Kubernetes
3 97 (2.65%) Ansible
4 55 (1.50%) Single Sign-On
5 40 (1.09%) Microsoft Intune
6 30 (0.82%) OPNET
7 29 (0.79%) vCenter Server
8 23 (0.63%) FortiGate
8 23 (0.63%) Grafana
9 22 (0.60%) SCCM
10 20 (0.55%) Prometheus
11 16 (0.44%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 16 (0.44%) Argo
11 16 (0.44%) WMI
12 7 (0.19%) Consul
12 7 (0.19%) Istio
13 6 (0.16%) Puppet
14 5 (0.14%) Kibana
14 5 (0.14%) Progress Chef
15 3 (0.082%) SCOM
Vendors
1 525 (14.36%) Microsoft
2 218 (5.96%) ServiceNow
3 198 (5.41%) SAP
4 164 (4.48%) VMware
5 161 (4.40%) Oracle
6 160 (4.38%) Salesforce
7 118 (3.23%) Databricks
8 100 (2.73%) Cisco
9 89 (2.43%) CyberArk
9 89 (2.43%) Google
10 57 (1.56%) MuleSoft
11 56 (1.53%) Splunk
12 53 (1.45%) Palo Alto
13 49 (1.34%) Centrify
13 49 (1.34%) Remedy
14 45 (1.23%) Red Hat
15 44 (1.20%) Atlassian
15 44 (1.20%) Workday
16 38 (1.04%) BeyondTrust
16 38 (1.04%) Citrix