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 16 August 2026.

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

6 months to
16 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 64 73 80
Rank change year-on-year +9 +7 +15
Contract jobs requiring a Solutions Architect 225 90 110
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 3.32% 2.53% 2.26%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.60% 2.80% 2.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 177 68 74
10th Percentile £461 £491 £533
25th Percentile £503 £550 £578
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £600 £628
Median % change year-on-year +4.17% -4.38% -0.40%
75th Percentile £700 £705 £700
90th Percentile £738 £729 £738
England median daily rate £630 £625 £638
% change year-on-year +0.80% -1.96% -1.92%
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 £30.20 £91.00
% change year-on-year +135.99% -66.81% +27.72%

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 6,243 3,220 4,482
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.23% 90.50% 92.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,681 2,084 2,760
10th Percentile £303 £206 £250
25th Percentile £425 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £516
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -3.10% +3.20%
75th Percentile £625 £600 £635
90th Percentile £714 £663 £688
England median daily rate £525 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 751 268 372
10th Percentile £16.00 £13.75 £16.00
25th Percentile £26.25 £15.50 £27.00
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +108.75% -56.15% +16.18%
75th Percentile £73.25 £57.50 £72.69
90th Percentile £86.61 £75.00 £80.00
England median hourly rate £42.50 £25.23 £45.00
% change year-on-year +68.48% -43.94% +8.04%

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 16 August 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 16 August 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 +2 128 £600 - 25
Berkshire +24 105 £638 +10.87% 16
Hampshire -1 43 £625 +4.17% 18
Buckinghamshire -25 23 £488 -30.36% 4
West Sussex -14 18 £675 -6.25% 7
Kent +16 16 £645 +17.27% 9
Surrey -15 14 £505 -14.04% 9
East Sussex +2 5 £616 -33.41% 4
Solutions Architect
England

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

For the 6 months to 16 August 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 56 (24.89%) Azure
2 45 (20.00%) Enterprise Architecture
2 45 (20.00%) Security Cleared
3 42 (18.67%) Stakeholder Management
4 39 (17.33%) Agile
5 38 (16.89%) ERP
6 33 (14.67%) AWS
6 33 (14.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 31 (13.78%) Roadmaps
8 29 (12.89%) Microsoft
8 29 (12.89%) SC Cleared
9 28 (12.44%) Integration Patterns
9 28 (12.44%) Oracle
10 26 (11.56%) Technical Leadership
11 23 (10.22%) Architecture Governance
12 20 (8.89%) Event-Driven
12 20 (8.89%) Migration
12 20 (8.89%) SAP
13 19 (8.44%) Decision-Making
13 19 (8.44%) Middleware
14 18 (8.00%) Architectural Design
15 17 (7.56%) Cybersecurity
15 17 (7.56%) GCP
16 16 (7.11%) Event-Driven Architecture
16 16 (7.11%) Problem-Solving
16 16 (7.11%) SaaS
16 16 (7.11%) Translating Business Requirements
16 16 (7.11%) Zero Trust
17 15 (6.67%) Continuous Improvement
17 15 (6.67%) Data Protection

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 (2.67%) Documentum
2 3 (1.33%) Palantir Foundry
3 1 (0.44%) CMS
3 1 (0.44%) Confluence
Applications
1 2 (0.89%) Spreadsheet
2 1 (0.44%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 9 (4.00%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (2.22%) Oracle ERP
3 3 (1.33%) Maximo
4 2 (0.89%) Cognos Controller
4 2 (0.89%) Oracle Payables
4 2 (0.89%) Oracle Receivables
4 2 (0.89%) Oracle Retail
5 1 (0.44%) Avolution ABACUS
5 1 (0.44%) IBM Planning Analytics
5 1 (0.44%) NetSuite
5 1 (0.44%) Oracle Assets
5 1 (0.44%) Oracle Cash Management
5 1 (0.44%) Remedy ITSM
5 1 (0.44%) Salesforce CRM
5 1 (0.44%) SAP ERP
5 1 (0.44%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 56 (24.89%) Azure
2 33 (14.67%) AWS
3 17 (7.56%) GCP
4 16 (7.11%) SaaS
5 7 (3.11%) iPaaS
5 7 (3.11%) Power Platform
6 6 (2.67%) Azure DevOps
6 6 (2.67%) IaaS
6 6 (2.67%) PaaS
7 5 (2.22%) Amazon EventBridge
7 5 (2.22%) Amazon S3
7 5 (2.22%) Amazon SQS
7 5 (2.22%) AWS Step Functions
7 5 (2.22%) Azure Service Bus
7 5 (2.22%) Boomi
7 5 (2.22%) dbt
7 5 (2.22%) OCI
7 5 (2.22%) Snowflake
8 4 (1.78%) Dynamics 365
8 4 (1.78%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 7 (3.11%) SD-WAN
1 7 (3.11%) VoIP
2 6 (2.67%) WAN
3 5 (2.22%) Firewall
3 5 (2.22%) HTTP
3 5 (2.22%) Unified Communications
4 4 (1.78%) Internet
4 4 (1.78%) Radio Access Network
5 3 (1.33%) LAN
5 3 (1.33%) MPLS
5 3 (1.33%) Network Security
5 3 (1.33%) SAN
6 2 (0.89%) 4G
6 2 (0.89%) Broadband
6 2 (0.89%) DNS
6 2 (0.89%) Intrusion Detection
6 2 (0.89%) PBX
6 2 (0.89%) SMS
6 2 (0.89%) TCP/IP
6 2 (0.89%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (1.78%) Data Warehouse
1 4 (1.78%) Power BI
2 3 (1.33%) Geospatial Data
2 3 (1.33%) GIS
3 2 (0.89%) Flink
4 1 (0.44%) Ataccama
4 1 (0.44%) Delta Lake
4 1 (0.44%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 5 (2.22%) Git
2 3 (1.33%) ERwin
3 1 (0.44%) JIRA
General
1 51 (22.67%) Social Skills
2 40 (17.78%) Retail
3 39 (17.33%) Finance
4 18 (8.00%) Manufacturing
4 18 (8.00%) Public Sector
5 10 (4.44%) Telecoms
6 9 (4.00%) Analytical Skills
7 6 (2.67%) Legal
8 5 (2.22%) Aerospace
9 4 (1.78%) Banking
9 4 (1.78%) Documentation Skills
10 3 (1.33%) Billing
10 3 (1.33%) Financial Institution
10 3 (1.33%) Influencing Skills
11 2 (0.89%) Police
11 2 (0.89%) Retail Banking
12 1 (0.44%) Automotive
12 1 (0.44%) General Ledger
12 1 (0.44%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (8.44%) Middleware
2 15 (6.67%) REST
3 13 (5.78%) Oracle Fusion
4 10 (4.44%) SOAP
5 6 (2.67%) ADO
5 6 (2.67%) JSON
5 6 (2.67%) MACH
5 6 (2.67%) XML
6 5 (2.22%) ActiveMQ
6 5 (2.22%) EDI
6 5 (2.22%) GraphQL
6 5 (2.22%) JWT
6 5 (2.22%) Kafka
6 5 (2.22%) OAuth
6 5 (2.22%) OpenAPI
6 5 (2.22%) RabbitMQ
6 5 (2.22%) SAML
6 5 (2.22%) Swagger
7 4 (1.78%) 802.1X
7 4 (1.78%) LDAP
Miscellaneous
1 18 (8.00%) Operational Technology
2 12 (5.33%) Cloud Native
3 9 (4.00%) Data Protection Act
4 8 (3.56%) Distributed Systems
4 8 (3.56%) Enterprise Software
5 6 (2.67%) Legacy Systems
5 6 (2.67%) Onboarding
6 5 (2.22%) Hybrid Cloud
6 5 (2.22%) Mainframe
6 5 (2.22%) Management Information System
7 3 (1.33%) CMDB
7 3 (1.33%) Data Centre
7 3 (1.33%) Product Ownership
7 3 (1.33%) Security Posture
8 2 (0.89%) Data Structures
8 2 (0.89%) Enterprise Storage
8 2 (0.89%) EPoS
8 2 (0.89%) IoT
8 2 (0.89%) PKI
8 2 (0.89%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 8 (3.56%) Windows
2 4 (1.78%) Linux
3 2 (0.89%) AIX
3 2 (0.89%) HPUX
3 2 (0.89%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 2 (0.89%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 45 (20.00%) Enterprise Architecture
2 42 (18.67%) Stakeholder Management
3 39 (17.33%) Agile
4 38 (16.89%) ERP
5 33 (14.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 31 (13.78%) Roadmaps
7 28 (12.44%) Integration Patterns
8 26 (11.56%) Technical Leadership
9 23 (10.22%) Architecture Governance
10 20 (8.89%) Event-Driven
10 20 (8.89%) Migration
11 19 (8.44%) Decision-Making
12 18 (8.00%) Architectural Design
13 17 (7.56%) Cybersecurity
14 16 (7.11%) Event-Driven Architecture
14 16 (7.11%) Problem-Solving
14 16 (7.11%) Translating Business Requirements
14 16 (7.11%) Zero Trust
15 15 (6.67%) Continuous Improvement
15 15 (6.67%) Data Protection
Programming Languages
1 6 (2.67%) Java
2 3 (1.33%) JavaScript
3 2 (0.89%) Shell Script
3 2 (0.89%) SQL
Qualifications
1 45 (20.00%) Security Cleared
2 29 (12.89%) SC Cleared
3 10 (4.44%) Azure Certification
3 10 (4.44%) DV Cleared
4 3 (1.33%) DBS Check
4 3 (1.33%) Degree
5 2 (0.89%) AWS Certification
6 1 (0.44%) CISSP
6 1 (0.44%) Computer Science Degree
6 1 (0.44%) ITIL Certification
6 1 (0.44%) NVQ Level 3
6 1 (0.44%) NVQ Level 4
6 1 (0.44%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (3.11%) QA
2 5 (2.22%) GDPR
2 5 (2.22%) NCSC
3 4 (1.78%) Data Quality
3 4 (1.78%) IFRS
4 3 (1.33%) ISO 19650
4 3 (1.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 2 (0.89%) GAAP
5 2 (0.89%) NIST
6 1 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials
6 1 (0.44%) NIST 800
6 1 (0.44%) PMO
System Software
1 6 (2.67%) Active Directory
2 4 (1.78%) Virtual Machines
3 3 (1.33%) VMware ESXi
3 3 (1.33%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.44%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.44%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 6 (2.67%) Kubernetes
2 4 (1.78%) FortiGate
3 3 (1.33%) Cisco CUCM
4 2 (0.89%) Ansible
4 2 (0.89%) Grafana
4 2 (0.89%) MOM
4 2 (0.89%) NetBackup
4 2 (0.89%) Prometheus
4 2 (0.89%) Terraform
5 1 (0.44%) CASB
5 1 (0.44%) Microsoft Intune
5 1 (0.44%) Rancher
Vendors
1 29 (12.89%) Microsoft
2 28 (12.44%) Oracle
3 20 (8.89%) SAP
4 11 (4.89%) Google
4 11 (4.89%) ServiceNow
5 8 (3.56%) Cisco
5 8 (3.56%) IBM
6 7 (3.11%) VMware
7 6 (2.67%) Informatica
7 6 (2.67%) Salesforce
7 6 (2.67%) TIBCO
8 5 (2.22%) MuleSoft
8 5 (2.22%) WSO2
9 4 (1.78%) CyberArk
9 4 (1.78%) Red Hat
9 4 (1.78%) Workday
10 3 (1.33%) Databricks
10 3 (1.33%) ESRI
10 3 (1.33%) Foundry
10 3 (1.33%) Palantir