Solutions Architect Contract Job Trends in the South East

Solution Architect
England > South East

The median Solution Architect daily rate in the South East is £625, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 18 July 2026.

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

6 months to
18 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 66 86 82
Rank change year-on-year +20 -4 +4
Contract jobs requiring a Solutions Architect 208 81 126
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 3.18% 2.38% 2.29%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.45% 2.63% 2.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 157 58 84
10th Percentile £481 £513 £525
25th Percentile £506 £563 £575
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £628
Median % change year-on-year - -0.40% -0.40%
75th Percentile £738 £720 £690
90th Percentile £750 £766 £738
England median daily rate £625 £625 £638
% change year-on-year - -1.96% -3.77%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 0 4
10th Percentile £103.40 - £90.60
25th Percentile £108.13 - £91.50
Median hourly rate £116.00 - £92.19
75th Percentile - - £92.37
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £71.27 £61.50 £87.50
% change year-on-year +15.89% -29.71% +32.58%

All Contract IT Job Roles
South East

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the South East. 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 the South East with a recognized job title 6,036 3,078 5,078
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.17% 90.48% 92.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,604 1,989 3,022
10th Percentile £303 £213 £250
25th Percentile £425 £375 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -2.44% +2.50%
75th Percentile £619 £600 £627
90th Percentile £711 £663 £699
England median daily rate £525 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 658 240 472
10th Percentile £16.35 £14.18 £13.03
25th Percentile £26.25 £15.50 £19.25
Median hourly rate £52.43 £27.88 £54.94
Median % change year-on-year +88.04% -49.25% +9.88%
75th Percentile £78.25 £62.31 £70.39
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.25 £80.00
England median hourly rate £45.56 £27.64 £40.33
% change year-on-year +64.82% -31.46% -6.22%

Solutions Architect
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Solutions Architect' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East.

Solutions Architect job vacancy trend in the South East

Solutions Architect
Daily Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Solutions Architect job vacancies in the South East.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Solutions Architect job vacancies in the South East

Solutions Architect
Daily Rate Histogram in the South East

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Solutions Architect in the South East over the 6 months to 18 July 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Solutions Architect in the South East

Solutions Architect
Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Solutions Architect job vacancies in the South East.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Solutions Architect job vacancies in the South East

Solutions Architect
Contract Job Locations in the South East

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Solutions Architect within the South East region over the 6 months to 18 July 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
Thames Valley +13 130 £625 -3.85% 10
Berkshire +18 101 £638 +2.00% 4
Hampshire -26 32 £650 +8.33% 8
Buckinghamshire -15 29 £488 -30.36% 4
West Sussex -10 17 £700 -2.78%
Kent +12 13 £645 +17.27% 4
Surrey -17 9 £584 -6.60% 4
East Sussex +5 6 £611 -33.93%
Solutions Architect
England

Solutions Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South East

For the 6 months to 18 July 2026, Solutions 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 South East region featuring Solutions Architect in the job title.

1 46 (22.12%) Azure
2 38 (18.27%) ERP
3 35 (16.83%) Security Cleared
4 34 (16.35%) Roadmaps
5 33 (15.87%) Agile
5 33 (15.87%) Enterprise Architecture
5 33 (15.87%) Stakeholder Management
6 30 (14.42%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 26 (12.50%) Microsoft
8 25 (12.02%) Integration Patterns
9 24 (11.54%) Technical Leadership
10 23 (11.06%) AWS
11 21 (10.10%) Architectural Design
11 21 (10.10%) Architecture Governance
11 21 (10.10%) Oracle
12 20 (9.62%) SAP
12 20 (9.62%) SC Cleared
13 18 (8.65%) Migration
14 17 (8.17%) Decision-Making
15 16 (7.69%) Problem-Solving
15 16 (7.69%) SaaS
15 16 (7.69%) Zero Trust
16 15 (7.21%) Cybersecurity
16 15 (7.21%) Data Modelling
17 14 (6.73%) Architectural Patterns
17 14 (6.73%) Continuous Improvement
17 14 (6.73%) TOGAF
18 13 (6.25%) Translating Business Requirements
19 12 (5.77%) Data Integration
19 12 (5.77%) Event-Driven

Solutions Architect Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South East 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 6 (2.88%) Documentum
2 3 (1.44%) Palantir Foundry
3 1 (0.48%) ArcGIS
3 1 (0.48%) CMS
3 1 (0.48%) Confluence
Applications
1 2 (0.96%) Spreadsheet
2 1 (0.48%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 9 (4.33%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (2.40%) Oracle ERP
3 4 (1.92%) SAP ERP
4 3 (1.44%) Maximo
5 2 (0.96%) Avolution ABACUS
5 2 (0.96%) Cognos Controller
5 2 (0.96%) Oracle Retail
5 2 (0.96%) Remedy ITSM
6 1 (0.48%) IBM Planning Analytics
6 1 (0.48%) Oracle Payables
6 1 (0.48%) Oracle Receivables
6 1 (0.48%) Salesforce CRM
6 1 (0.48%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 46 (22.12%) Azure
2 23 (11.06%) AWS
3 16 (7.69%) SaaS
4 9 (4.33%) GCP
5 7 (3.37%) Azure DevOps
5 7 (3.37%) Power Platform
6 6 (2.88%) Entra ID
6 6 (2.88%) IaaS
6 6 (2.88%) PaaS
7 5 (2.40%) Amazon EventBridge
7 5 (2.40%) Amazon S3
7 5 (2.40%) Amazon SQS
7 5 (2.40%) AWS Step Functions
7 5 (2.40%) dbt
7 5 (2.40%) Dynamics 365
7 5 (2.40%) Snowflake
8 4 (1.92%) AWS Lambda
8 4 (1.92%) Microsoft 365
8 4 (1.92%) OCI
8 4 (1.92%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 8 (3.85%) SD-WAN
2 6 (2.88%) WAN
3 4 (1.92%) Firewall
3 4 (1.92%) Radio Access Network
4 3 (1.44%) Internet
4 3 (1.44%) LAN
4 3 (1.44%) RFID
4 3 (1.44%) VoIP
5 2 (0.96%) BGP
5 2 (0.96%) Broadband
5 2 (0.96%) DNS
5 2 (0.96%) Intrusion Detection
5 2 (0.96%) IPsec
5 2 (0.96%) MPLS
5 2 (0.96%) PBX
5 2 (0.96%) SAN
5 2 (0.96%) SMS
5 2 (0.96%) TCP/IP
5 2 (0.96%) VPN
5 2 (0.96%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (1.92%) GIS
1 4 (1.92%) Power BI
2 3 (1.44%) Data Warehouse
2 3 (1.44%) Geospatial Data
3 2 (0.96%) Flink
4 1 (0.48%) Ataccama
4 1 (0.48%) Delta Lake
4 1 (0.48%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 5 (2.40%) Git
2 3 (1.44%) ERwin
3 1 (0.48%) JIRA
General
1 40 (19.23%) Social Skills
2 36 (17.31%) Finance
3 35 (16.83%) Retail
4 18 (8.65%) Public Sector
5 13 (6.25%) Manufacturing
6 11 (5.29%) Telecoms
7 10 (4.81%) Analytical Skills
8 7 (3.37%) Banking
9 5 (2.40%) Aerospace
9 5 (2.40%) Documentation Skills
10 4 (1.92%) Billing
11 3 (1.44%) Financial Institution
11 3 (1.44%) Legal
12 2 (0.96%) Police
12 2 (0.96%) Retail Banking
13 1 (0.48%) Automotive
13 1 (0.48%) General Ledger
13 1 (0.48%) Influencing Skills
13 1 (0.48%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (5.77%) Middleware
1 12 (5.77%) Oracle Fusion
1 12 (5.77%) REST
2 7 (3.37%) ADO
3 6 (2.88%) MACH
4 5 (2.40%) SOAP
5 3 (1.44%) 802.1X
6 2 (0.96%) .NET
6 2 (0.96%) LDAP
6 2 (0.96%) OAuth
6 2 (0.96%) RESTful
7 1 (0.48%) CSS
7 1 (0.48%) CSS3
7 1 (0.48%) HTML
7 1 (0.48%) HTML5
7 1 (0.48%) JSON
7 1 (0.48%) OAuth2
7 1 (0.48%) OpenID
7 1 (0.48%) SAML
7 1 (0.48%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 19 (9.13%) Operational Technology
2 6 (2.88%) Data Protection Act
3 5 (2.40%) Cloud Native
3 5 (2.40%) Enterprise Software
3 5 (2.40%) Legacy Systems
3 5 (2.40%) Mainframe
3 5 (2.40%) Management Information System
4 4 (1.92%) Onboarding
5 3 (1.44%) CMDB
5 3 (1.44%) Data Centre
5 3 (1.44%) Hybrid Cloud
5 3 (1.44%) PKI
5 3 (1.44%) SCADA
5 3 (1.44%) Security Posture
6 2 (0.96%) Data Structures
6 2 (0.96%) EPoS
6 2 (0.96%) Product Ownership
6 2 (0.96%) SWIFT Messaging Network
7 1 (0.48%) Distributed Systems
7 1 (0.48%) Legacy Applications
Operating Systems
1 8 (3.85%) Windows
2 3 (1.44%) Linux
3 2 (0.96%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (0.48%) AIX
4 1 (0.48%) HPUX
4 1 (0.48%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 38 (18.27%) ERP
2 34 (16.35%) Roadmaps
3 33 (15.87%) Agile
3 33 (15.87%) Enterprise Architecture
3 33 (15.87%) Stakeholder Management
4 30 (14.42%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 25 (12.02%) Integration Patterns
6 24 (11.54%) Technical Leadership
7 21 (10.10%) Architectural Design
7 21 (10.10%) Architecture Governance
8 18 (8.65%) Migration
9 17 (8.17%) Decision-Making
10 16 (7.69%) Problem-Solving
10 16 (7.69%) Zero Trust
11 15 (7.21%) Cybersecurity
11 15 (7.21%) Data Modelling
12 14 (6.73%) Architectural Patterns
12 14 (6.73%) Continuous Improvement
12 14 (6.73%) TOGAF
13 13 (6.25%) Translating Business Requirements
Programming Languages
1 6 (2.88%) Java
2 4 (1.92%) JavaScript
2 4 (1.92%) SQL
3 2 (0.96%) Bicep
4 1 (0.48%) PL/SQL
4 1 (0.48%) Python
4 1 (0.48%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 35 (16.83%) Security Cleared
2 20 (9.62%) SC Cleared
3 11 (5.29%) Azure Certification
4 9 (4.33%) DV Cleared
5 3 (1.44%) DBS Check
5 3 (1.44%) Degree
6 2 (0.96%) AWS Certification
7 1 (0.48%) Computer Science Degree
7 1 (0.48%) ITIL Certification
7 1 (0.48%) NVQ Level 3
7 1 (0.48%) NVQ Level 4
7 1 (0.48%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (3.37%) QA
2 6 (2.88%) NCSC
3 3 (1.44%) IFRS
4 2 (0.96%) Data Quality
4 2 (0.96%) ISO 20022
4 2 (0.96%) NIST
4 2 (0.96%) NIST 800
4 2 (0.96%) Sarbanes-Oxley
4 2 (0.96%) SEPA
5 1 (0.48%) GAAP
5 1 (0.48%) GDPR
5 1 (0.48%) PMO
System Software
1 8 (3.85%) Active Directory
2 5 (2.40%) VMware Infrastructure
3 4 (1.92%) Virtual Machines
4 3 (1.44%) VMware ESXi
5 2 (0.96%) Virtual Desktop
6 1 (0.48%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.48%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 5 (2.40%) Kubernetes
2 4 (1.92%) Microsoft Intune
3 3 (1.44%) FortiGate
3 3 (1.44%) Terraform
4 2 (0.96%) Grafana
4 2 (0.96%) MOM
4 2 (0.96%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.48%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 1 (0.48%) Ansible
5 1 (0.48%) CASB
5 1 (0.48%) NetBackup
5 1 (0.48%) Rancher
Vendors
1 26 (12.50%) Microsoft
2 21 (10.10%) Oracle
3 20 (9.62%) SAP
4 11 (5.29%) ServiceNow
5 9 (4.33%) VMware
6 6 (2.88%) Salesforce
7 5 (2.40%) Google
8 4 (1.92%) Cisco
8 4 (1.92%) ESRI
8 4 (1.92%) Red Hat
9 3 (1.44%) Citrix
9 3 (1.44%) Databricks
9 3 (1.44%) Foundry
9 3 (1.44%) IBM
9 3 (1.44%) Palantir
9 3 (1.44%) Sage
10 2 (0.96%) BiZZdesign
10 2 (0.96%) CyberArk
10 2 (0.96%) Fortinet
10 2 (0.96%) Workday