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 13 March 2026.

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

6 months to
13 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 85 88 62
Rank change year-on-year +3 -26 +5
Contract jobs requiring a Solutions Architect 140 67 171
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 2.68% 2.25% 3.04%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.95% 2.42% 3.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 93 43 117
10th Percentile £461 £470 £482
25th Percentile £500 £513 £558
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £625
Median % change year-on-year - - -1.96%
75th Percentile £700 £713 £688
90th Percentile £770 £798 £738
England median daily rate £625 £625 £650
% change year-on-year - -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 0 1
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £77.55 - -
Median hourly rate £83.82 - £102.87
75th Percentile £94.77 - -
90th Percentile £95.00 - -
England median hourly rate £83.82 £66.00 £81.00
% change year-on-year +27.00% -18.52% +15.71%

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 4,753 2,763 5,216
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.04% 92.72% 92.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,007 1,786 3,187
10th Percentile £280 £237 £207
25th Percentile £406 £400 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
75th Percentile £600 £613 £608
90th Percentile £700 £675 £688
England median daily rate £505 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 422 129 417
10th Percentile £15.00 £17.50 £12.80
25th Percentile £18.90 £24.18 £18.00
Median hourly rate £38.59 £45.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year -14.24% +20.00% -16.67%
75th Percentile £80.80 £63.00 £62.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £72.38
England median hourly rate £36.86 £35.00 £32.50
% change year-on-year +5.30% +7.69% -23.53%

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 13 March 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 13 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
Thames Valley -13 78 £613 -2.00% 17
Berkshire -7 59 £625 +0.81% 10
Hampshire -11 26 £650 +23.81% 4
Buckinghamshire -2 19 £500 -28.57% 2
Surrey +4 18 £663 -11.67% 2
Kent - 7 £625 - 2
West Sussex -14 5 £720 -10.00% 1
East Sussex - 1 £450 - 2
Solutions Architect
England

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

For the 6 months to 13 March 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 35 (25.00%) Azure
2 28 (20.00%) Roadmaps
3 26 (18.57%) Security Cleared
4 22 (15.71%) Microsoft
5 21 (15.00%) Architectural Design
5 21 (15.00%) AWS
5 21 (15.00%) Migration
6 20 (14.29%) TOGAF
7 19 (13.57%) Microservices
8 17 (12.14%) Enterprise Architecture
9 16 (11.43%) Agile
10 15 (10.71%) DevOps
10 15 (10.71%) SC Cleared
10 15 (10.71%) Stakeholder Management
11 13 (9.29%) SAP
11 13 (9.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 12 (8.57%) Containerisation
12 12 (8.57%) Integration Patterns
13 11 (7.86%) ERP
14 10 (7.14%) Cybersecurity
15 9 (6.43%) DV Cleared
15 9 (6.43%) Entra ID
16 8 (5.71%) Architecture Governance
16 8 (5.71%) CI/CD
16 8 (5.71%) CRM
16 8 (5.71%) GCP
16 8 (5.71%) NCSC
16 8 (5.71%) SaaS
16 8 (5.71%) Salesforce
16 8 (5.71%) Zero Trust

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 (4.29%) ArcGIS
2 3 (2.14%) Microsoft Exchange
2 3 (2.14%) SharePoint
3 2 (1.43%) Confluence
Applications
1 1 (0.71%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 7 (5.00%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (3.57%) Maximo
2 5 (3.57%) Workday HCM
3 4 (2.86%) SAP ERP
4 2 (1.43%) Oracle Retail
5 1 (0.71%) Avolution ABACUS
5 1 (0.71%) Remedy ITSM
5 1 (0.71%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 35 (25.00%) Azure
2 21 (15.00%) AWS
3 9 (6.43%) Entra ID
4 8 (5.71%) GCP
4 8 (5.71%) SaaS
5 7 (5.00%) Microsoft 365
6 5 (3.57%) Azure DevOps
6 5 (3.57%) Dynamics 365
6 5 (3.57%) OpenShift
7 4 (2.86%) Microsoft Purview
8 3 (2.14%) OneDrive
9 2 (1.43%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 2 (1.43%) Amazon S3
9 2 (1.43%) AWS Lambda
9 2 (1.43%) CloudFront
9 2 (1.43%) Datadog
9 2 (1.43%) IaaS
9 2 (1.43%) PaaS
9 2 (1.43%) Serverless
9 2 (1.43%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 4 (2.86%) IPsec
1 4 (2.86%) MQTT
1 4 (2.86%) SD-WAN
2 3 (2.14%) DWDM
2 3 (2.14%) RFID
3 2 (1.43%) Firewall
3 2 (1.43%) Network Security
3 2 (1.43%) SDH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (4.29%) GIS
2 3 (2.14%) Electronic Patient Records
3 1 (0.71%) SAP HANA
3 1 (0.71%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 6 (4.29%) Git
2 5 (3.57%) Jenkins
3 2 (1.43%) JIRA
3 2 (1.43%) Rational DOORS
4 1 (0.71%) Bitbucket
General
1 24 (17.14%) Social Skills
2 17 (12.14%) Finance
3 12 (8.57%) Retail
4 8 (5.71%) Telecoms
5 7 (5.00%) Public Sector
6 6 (4.29%) Banking
7 4 (2.86%) Billing
7 4 (2.86%) Documentation Skills
7 4 (2.86%) Marketing
8 3 (2.14%) Presentation Skills
9 2 (1.43%) Financial Institution
10 1 (0.71%) Analytical Skills
10 1 (0.71%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (0.71%) Retail Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (3.57%) .NET
2 4 (2.86%) ADO
2 4 (2.86%) REST
3 2 (1.43%) JSON
3 2 (1.43%) OAuth
3 2 (1.43%) SOAP
3 2 (1.43%) XML
4 1 (0.71%) Ajax
4 1 (0.71%) COM
4 1 (0.71%) COM+
4 1 (0.71%) CSS
4 1 (0.71%) CSS3
4 1 (0.71%) HTML
4 1 (0.71%) HTML5
4 1 (0.71%) Middleware
4 1 (0.71%) MSMQ
4 1 (0.71%) OpenID
4 1 (0.71%) Oracle Fusion
4 1 (0.71%) RESTful
4 1 (0.71%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 11 (7.86%) Cloud Native
2 9 (6.43%) Legacy Systems
3 7 (5.00%) Operational Technology
4 5 (3.57%) Onboarding
5 3 (2.14%) LIMS
5 3 (2.14%) NHS
5 3 (2.14%) PACS
5 3 (2.14%) PKI
5 3 (2.14%) Product Ownership
6 2 (1.43%) Algorithms
6 2 (1.43%) CMDB
6 2 (1.43%) Data Centre
6 2 (1.43%) Data Protection Act
6 2 (1.43%) EPoS
6 2 (1.43%) Marketing Technology
6 2 (1.43%) SCADA
6 2 (1.43%) Security Operations Centre
6 2 (1.43%) SWIFT Messaging Network
7 1 (0.71%) Fibre Optics
7 1 (0.71%) TM Forum
Operating Systems
1 7 (5.00%) Linux
2 6 (4.29%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 28 (20.00%) Roadmaps
2 21 (15.00%) Architectural Design
2 21 (15.00%) Migration
3 20 (14.29%) TOGAF
4 19 (13.57%) Microservices
5 17 (12.14%) Enterprise Architecture
6 16 (11.43%) Agile
7 15 (10.71%) DevOps
7 15 (10.71%) Stakeholder Management
8 13 (9.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 12 (8.57%) Containerisation
9 12 (8.57%) Integration Patterns
10 11 (7.86%) ERP
11 10 (7.14%) Cybersecurity
12 8 (5.71%) Architecture Governance
12 8 (5.71%) CI/CD
12 8 (5.71%) CRM
12 8 (5.71%) Zero Trust
13 7 (5.00%) Order Management
13 7 (5.00%) Problem-Solving
Programming Languages
1 3 (2.14%) JavaScript
1 3 (2.14%) Python
2 2 (1.43%) Bicep
2 2 (1.43%) SQL
3 1 (0.71%) Java
3 1 (0.71%) Perl
3 1 (0.71%) PHP
3 1 (0.71%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 26 (18.57%) Security Cleared
2 15 (10.71%) SC Cleared
3 9 (6.43%) DV Cleared
4 7 (5.00%) Azure Certification
5 5 (3.57%) RHCE
5 5 (3.57%) TOGAF Certification
6 4 (2.86%) AWS Certification
6 4 (2.86%) Microsoft Certification
7 3 (2.14%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 3 (2.14%) CISSP
8 2 (1.43%) Degree
9 1 (0.71%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (5.71%) NCSC
2 7 (5.00%) GDPR
2 7 (5.00%) NIST
3 4 (2.86%) NIST 800
4 2 (1.43%) ISO 20022
4 2 (1.43%) PCI DSS
4 2 (1.43%) SEPA
5 1 (0.71%) Cyber Essentials
5 1 (0.71%) GRC
5 1 (0.71%) HIPAA
5 1 (0.71%) HL7
5 1 (0.71%) PMO
System Software
1 7 (5.00%) Active Directory
2 2 (1.43%) Virtual Desktop
2 2 (1.43%) VMware Infrastructure
3 1 (0.71%) Docker
Systems Management
1 7 (5.00%) Terraform
2 6 (4.29%) Kubernetes
3 5 (3.57%) Ansible
4 3 (2.14%) Microsoft Intune
5 2 (1.43%) MOM
5 2 (1.43%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.71%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 1 (0.71%) Netcool
6 1 (0.71%) Netcool/OMNIbus
6 1 (0.71%) SCCM
Vendors
1 22 (15.71%) Microsoft
2 13 (9.29%) SAP
3 8 (5.71%) Salesforce
4 7 (5.00%) IBM
4 7 (5.00%) Oracle
5 5 (3.57%) Red Hat
5 5 (3.57%) Workday
6 4 (2.86%) BiZZdesign
6 4 (2.86%) Sage
6 4 (2.86%) Virgin Media
6 4 (2.86%) VMware
7 3 (2.14%) Cisco
7 3 (2.14%) Citrix
7 3 (2.14%) ESRI
7 3 (2.14%) Nokia
7 3 (2.14%) Palantir
7 3 (2.14%) Palo Alto
8 2 (1.43%) F5
8 2 (1.43%) HubSpot
8 2 (1.43%) ServiceNow