Solutions Architect Contract Job Trends in the South West

Solution Architect
England > South West

The median Solution Architect daily rate in the South West is £708, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 13 February 2026.

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

6 months to
13 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 80 62 34
Rank change year-on-year -18 -28 +71
Contract jobs requiring a Solutions Architect 60 63 163
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 2.21% 3.37% 5.23%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.44% 3.57% 5.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 39 43 116
10th Percentile £581 £450 £545
25th Percentile £663 £513 £609
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £708 £575 £650
Median % change year-on-year +23.04% -11.54% -1.14%
75th Percentile £725 £688 £736
90th Percentile £755 £725 £775
England median daily rate £625 £615 £650
% change year-on-year +1.63% -5.38% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 2 0
Median hourly rate £89.00 £69.00 -
Median % change year-on-year +28.99% - -
England median hourly rate £83.82 £66.00 £87.00
% change year-on-year +27.00% -24.14% +24.29%

All Contract IT Job Roles
South West

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the South West. 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 West with a recognized job title 2,464 1,764 2,932
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.72% 94.28% 94.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,371 1,095 1,857
10th Percentile £236 £206 £220
25th Percentile £400 £400 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% - -
75th Percentile £619 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £700 £725
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 412 108 385
10th Percentile £17.90 £18.42 £14.36
25th Percentile £25.15 £46.25 £29.75
Median hourly rate £57.50 £65.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -11.54% +18.18% -15.38%
75th Percentile £65.00 £68.75 £70.00
90th Percentile £67.80 £74.61 £77.60
England median hourly rate £31.46 £35.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year -10.11% - -7.03%

Solutions Architect
Job Vacancy Trend in the South West

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 West.

Solutions Architect job vacancy trend in the South West

Solutions Architect
Daily Rate Trend in the South West

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

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

Solutions Architect
Daily Rate Histogram in the South West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Solutions Architect in the South West over the 6 months to 13 February 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Solutions Architect in the South West

Solutions Architect
Hourly Rate Trend in the South West

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

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

Solutions Architect
Contract Job Locations in the South West

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 West region over the 6 months to 13 February 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
Wiltshire -5 23 £710 +5.19% 3
Bristol -8 22 £700 +55.56% 5
Somerset -9 4 £625 -1.96% 3
Devon - 4 - -
Dorset 0 1 £725 +3.57% 3
Gloucestershire -22 1 - -
Solutions Architect
England

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

For the 6 months to 13 February 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 West region featuring Solutions Architect in the job title.

1 39 (65.00%) Security Cleared
2 20 (33.33%) SC Cleared
3 18 (30.00%) DV Cleared
4 14 (23.33%) Microsoft
5 13 (21.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 12 (20.00%) Identity Access Management
7 11 (18.33%) Technical Leadership
8 10 (16.67%) Enterprise Architecture
8 10 (16.67%) Stakeholder Management
9 9 (15.00%) TOGAF
9 9 (15.00%) Translating Business Requirements
10 8 (13.33%) Roadmaps
10 8 (13.33%) Windows
11 7 (11.67%) Agile
11 7 (11.67%) AWS
11 7 (11.67%) Azure
11 7 (11.67%) Collaborative Working
11 7 (11.67%) PowerShell
11 7 (11.67%) Problem-Solving
11 7 (11.67%) SAP
11 7 (11.67%) Windows Server
12 6 (10.00%) Active Directory
12 6 (10.00%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 6 (10.00%) Architectural Design
12 6 (10.00%) Decision-Making
12 6 (10.00%) DNS
12 6 (10.00%) Firewall
12 6 (10.00%) Load Balancing
12 6 (10.00%) Mentoring
12 6 (10.00%) Microsoft Certification

Solutions Architect Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South West 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 2 (3.33%) Confluence
2 1 (1.67%) Apache
2 1 (1.67%) SharePoint
Business Applications
1 4 (6.67%) SAP PP
2 3 (5.00%) SAP EWM
2 3 (5.00%) SAP PM
2 3 (5.00%) SAP QM
2 3 (5.00%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (3.33%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (3.33%) NetSuite
3 2 (3.33%) SAP WM
Cloud Services
1 7 (11.67%) AWS
1 7 (11.67%) Azure
2 4 (6.67%) Dynamics 365
3 3 (5.00%) GCP
4 2 (3.33%) Azure DevOps
4 2 (3.33%) GitHub
4 2 (3.33%) SaaS
5 1 (1.67%) Amazon Bedrock
5 1 (1.67%) Azure AI
5 1 (1.67%) Azure API Management
5 1 (1.67%) Azure Event Grid
5 1 (1.67%) Azure Key Vault
5 1 (1.67%) Intacct
Communications & Networking
1 6 (10.00%) DNS
1 6 (10.00%) Firewall
2 2 (3.33%) DWDM
2 2 (3.33%) SDH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (5.00%) Data Warehouse
Development Applications
1 3 (5.00%) Artifactory
2 2 (3.33%) JIRA
2 2 (3.33%) Rational DOORS
3 1 (1.67%) GitLab
General
1 19 (31.67%) Social Skills
2 10 (16.67%) Public Sector
3 8 (13.33%) Documentation Skills
4 5 (8.33%) Manufacturing
5 4 (6.67%) Finance
5 4 (6.67%) Military
6 2 (3.33%) Analytical Skills
6 2 (3.33%) Pharmaceutical
6 2 (3.33%) Telecoms
7 1 (1.67%) Legal
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (10.00%) OAuth
1 6 (10.00%) OAuth2
1 6 (10.00%) OpenID
1 6 (10.00%) SAML
2 4 (6.67%) Middleware
3 3 (5.00%) REST
4 2 (3.33%) RESTful
4 2 (3.33%) SOAP
5 1 (1.67%) .NET
5 1 (1.67%) ADO
5 1 (1.67%) Apache NiFi
Miscellaneous
1 2 (3.33%) Data Centre
1 2 (3.33%) Legacy Applications
1 2 (3.33%) Legacy Systems
1 2 (3.33%) Wiki
2 1 (1.67%) Blackberry
2 1 (1.67%) Client/Server
2 1 (1.67%) FMCG
2 1 (1.67%) Greenfield Project
2 1 (1.67%) Operational Technology
2 1 (1.67%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 8 (13.33%) Windows
2 7 (11.67%) Windows Server
3 2 (3.33%) Linux
3 2 (3.33%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 2 (3.33%) Ubuntu
4 1 (1.67%) Android
4 1 (1.67%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 13 (21.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
2 12 (20.00%) Identity Access Management
3 11 (18.33%) Technical Leadership
4 10 (16.67%) Enterprise Architecture
4 10 (16.67%) Stakeholder Management
5 9 (15.00%) TOGAF
5 9 (15.00%) Translating Business Requirements
6 8 (13.33%) Roadmaps
7 7 (11.67%) Agile
7 7 (11.67%) Collaborative Working
7 7 (11.67%) Problem-Solving
8 6 (10.00%) Architectural Design
8 6 (10.00%) Decision-Making
8 6 (10.00%) Load Balancing
8 6 (10.00%) Mentoring
8 6 (10.00%) RBAC
8 6 (10.00%) Service Management
9 5 (8.33%) ERP
9 5 (8.33%) Identity Management
9 5 (8.33%) Integration Patterns
Programming Languages
1 7 (11.67%) PowerShell
2 1 (1.67%) Java
2 1 (1.67%) Python
Qualifications
1 39 (65.00%) Security Cleared
2 20 (33.33%) SC Cleared
3 18 (30.00%) DV Cleared
4 6 (10.00%) Microsoft Certification
5 2 (3.33%) AWS Certification
5 2 (3.33%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
5 2 (3.33%) Azure Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (3.33%) NCSC
1 2 (3.33%) QA
2 1 (1.67%) Accessibility
2 1 (1.67%) GDPR
2 1 (1.67%) Government Security Classifications
2 1 (1.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 1 (1.67%) NIST
System Software
1 6 (10.00%) Active Directory
2 2 (3.33%) Docker
Systems Management
1 6 (10.00%) Active Directory Federation Services
1 6 (10.00%) Single Sign-On
2 5 (8.33%) Kubernetes
3 2 (3.33%) SCOM
4 1 (1.67%) Ansible
4 1 (1.67%) Microsoft Intune
4 1 (1.67%) Terraform
Vendors
1 14 (23.33%) Microsoft
2 7 (11.67%) SAP
3 4 (6.67%) IBM
3 4 (6.67%) ServiceNow
4 3 (5.00%) Oracle
4 3 (5.00%) Workday
5 2 (3.33%) Atlassian
5 2 (3.33%) Cisco
5 2 (3.33%) F5
5 2 (3.33%) Juniper
5 2 (3.33%) Nokia
5 2 (3.33%) Palo Alto
5 2 (3.33%) Salesforce
6 1 (1.67%) Foundry
6 1 (1.67%) IFS
6 1 (1.67%) MobileIron
6 1 (1.67%) MuleSoft
6 1 (1.67%) NVIDIA
6 1 (1.67%) Talend
6 1 (1.67%) VMware