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 £625, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 15 September 2026.

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

6 months to
15 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 81 77 69
Rank change year-on-year -4 -8 -9
Contract jobs requiring a Solutions Architect 77 31 70
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 2.07% 1.59% 2.65%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.21% 1.79% 2.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 49 20 50
10th Percentile - £519 £469
25th Percentile £525 £525 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £600 £631
Median % change year-on-year +4.17% -4.95% -2.88%
75th Percentile £688 £675 £700
90th Percentile £702 £730 £788
England median daily rate £639 £624 £625
% change year-on-year +2.40% -0.20% -3.85%

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 3,480 1,729 2,442
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 93.60% 88.89% 92.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,886 992 1,493
10th Percentile £329 £225 £221
25th Percentile £438 £368 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £520
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -3.85% -0.95%
75th Percentile £631 £625 £619
90th Percentile £725 £712 £700
England median daily rate £525 £505 £525
% change year-on-year +3.96% -3.81% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 597 202 262
10th Percentile £16.64 £13.50 £14.41
25th Percentile £31.25 £18.13 £40.63
Median hourly rate £62.25 £25.15 £67.50
Median % change year-on-year +147.51% -62.74% +12.50%
75th Percentile £70.00 £59.69 £72.50
90th Percentile £78.70 £69.88 £75.00
England median hourly rate £43.50 £25.15 £47.50
% change year-on-year +72.96% -47.05% +5.56%

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 15 September 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 15 September 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 -6 25 £638 +4.08% 13
Bristol -5 24 £625 - 37
Gloucestershire +4 9 £550 - 24
Dorset - 5 £725 - 3
Somerset -30 4 £600 -4.00% 8
Solutions Architect
England

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

For the 6 months to 15 September 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 31 (40.26%) Security Cleared
2 26 (33.77%) SC Cleared
3 21 (27.27%) Azure
4 19 (24.68%) Microsoft
5 12 (15.58%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 12 (15.58%) Technical Leadership
6 11 (14.29%) DV Cleared
6 11 (14.29%) Stakeholder Management
7 10 (12.99%) ERP
8 9 (11.69%) DevOps
9 8 (10.39%) AWS
9 8 (10.39%) Business Continuity
9 8 (10.39%) Disaster Recovery
9 8 (10.39%) Enterprise Architecture
9 8 (10.39%) Migration
9 8 (10.39%) SQL
10 7 (9.09%) Agile
10 7 (9.09%) Roadmaps
10 7 (9.09%) TOGAF
11 6 (7.79%) CI/CD
11 6 (7.79%) Data Governance
11 6 (7.79%) Project Delivery
11 6 (7.79%) Technology Strategy
12 5 (6.49%) Architecture Governance
12 5 (6.49%) Continuous Improvement
12 5 (6.49%) Decision-Making
12 5 (6.49%) Docker
12 5 (6.49%) Dynamics 365
12 5 (6.49%) Event-Driven
12 5 (6.49%) Firewall

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 (2.60%) Confluence
2 1 (1.30%) Apache Airflow
2 1 (1.30%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (1.30%) Oracle Coherence
2 1 (1.30%) SharePoint
Applications
1 1 (1.30%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 3 (3.90%) Dynamics NAV
2 1 (1.30%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (1.30%) Oracle Applications
2 1 (1.30%) Oracle Assets
2 1 (1.30%) Oracle Cash Management
2 1 (1.30%) Oracle Payables
2 1 (1.30%) Oracle Receivables
2 1 (1.30%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
2 1 (1.30%) SAP CO
2 1 (1.30%) SAP FI
2 1 (1.30%) SAP FI/CO
2 1 (1.30%) SAP GRC
2 1 (1.30%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 21 (27.27%) Azure
2 8 (10.39%) AWS
3 5 (6.49%) Dynamics 365
3 5 (6.49%) Microsoft 365
4 4 (5.19%) PaaS
5 3 (3.90%) Entra ID
5 3 (3.90%) iPaaS
5 3 (3.90%) OpenShift
6 2 (2.60%) Azure DevOps
6 2 (2.60%) Azure Key Vault
6 2 (2.60%) Azure Logic Apps
6 2 (2.60%) Azure Monitor
6 2 (2.60%) Boomi
6 2 (2.60%) GCP
6 2 (2.60%) IaaS
6 2 (2.60%) SaaS
6 2 (2.60%) Serverless
7 1 (1.30%) Cloud Composer
7 1 (1.30%) dbt
7 1 (1.30%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 5 (6.49%) Firewall
2 2 (2.60%) DNS
2 2 (2.60%) Wireless
3 1 (1.30%) Asterisk PBX
3 1 (1.30%) BGP
3 1 (1.30%) BIG-IP
3 1 (1.30%) Cisco ASA
3 1 (1.30%) Cisco IOS
3 1 (1.30%) Cisco Nexus
3 1 (1.30%) DHCP
3 1 (1.30%) EIGRP
3 1 (1.30%) Network Security
3 1 (1.30%) NX-OS
3 1 (1.30%) OSPF
3 1 (1.30%) PABX
3 1 (1.30%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (3.90%) EDRMS
2 2 (2.60%) Azure SQL Database
2 2 (2.60%) Geospatial Data
2 2 (2.60%) Metadata
2 2 (2.60%) MongoDB
2 2 (2.60%) NoSQL
2 2 (2.60%) SQL Server
2 2 (2.60%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 1 (1.30%) BigQuery
3 1 (1.30%) Data Lake
3 1 (1.30%) Data Warehouse
3 1 (1.30%) Electronic Patient Records
3 1 (1.30%) Oracle Database
3 1 (1.30%) Oracle Reports
General
1 16 (20.78%) Social Skills
2 12 (15.58%) Finance
3 5 (6.49%) Military
4 4 (5.19%) Analytical Skills
4 4 (5.19%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 4 (5.19%) Public Sector
5 2 (2.60%) Aviation
5 2 (2.60%) Banking
5 2 (2.60%) Influencing Skills
6 1 (1.30%) Aerospace
6 1 (1.30%) General Ledger
6 1 (1.30%) Legal
6 1 (1.30%) Manufacturing
6 1 (1.30%) Pharmaceutical
6 1 (1.30%) Presentation Skills
6 1 (1.30%) Publishing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (5.19%) Symfony
2 3 (3.90%) Middleware
2 3 (3.90%) Swagger
2 3 (3.90%) Terraform
3 2 (2.60%) .NET
3 2 (2.60%) GeoJSON
3 2 (2.60%) OpenAPI
3 2 (2.60%) REST
3 2 (2.60%) RESTful
3 2 (2.60%) WebSockets
4 1 (1.30%) A2A Protocol
4 1 (1.30%) EDI
4 1 (1.30%) FHIR
4 1 (1.30%) Model Context Protocol
4 1 (1.30%) OAuth
4 1 (1.30%) Oracle Fusion
4 1 (1.30%) Quarkus
4 1 (1.30%) SOAP
4 1 (1.30%) Web Services
4 1 (1.30%) WSDL
Miscellaneous
1 8 (10.39%) Cloud Native
2 6 (7.79%) Product Ownership
3 3 (3.90%) Legacy Systems
3 3 (3.90%) PKI
4 2 (2.60%) Data Centre
4 2 (2.60%) Enterprise Software
4 2 (2.60%) EPoS
4 2 (2.60%) Hybrid Cloud
4 2 (2.60%) Onboarding
5 1 (1.30%) AI Agents
5 1 (1.30%) Distributed Architecture
5 1 (1.30%) Distributed Systems
5 1 (1.30%) Greenfield Project
5 1 (1.30%) Life Science
5 1 (1.30%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 2 (2.60%) Windows
1 2 (2.60%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 12 (15.58%) Stakeholder Engagement
1 12 (15.58%) Technical Leadership
2 11 (14.29%) Stakeholder Management
3 10 (12.99%) ERP
4 9 (11.69%) DevOps
5 8 (10.39%) Business Continuity
5 8 (10.39%) Disaster Recovery
5 8 (10.39%) Enterprise Architecture
5 8 (10.39%) Migration
6 7 (9.09%) Agile
6 7 (9.09%) Roadmaps
6 7 (9.09%) TOGAF
7 6 (7.79%) CI/CD
7 6 (7.79%) Data Governance
7 6 (7.79%) Project Delivery
7 6 (7.79%) Technology Strategy
8 5 (6.49%) Architecture Governance
8 5 (6.49%) Continuous Improvement
8 5 (6.49%) Decision-Making
8 5 (6.49%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 8 (10.39%) SQL
2 4 (5.19%) PHP
3 2 (2.60%) Bicep
3 2 (2.60%) Java
3 2 (2.60%) Python
4 1 (1.30%) Bash
4 1 (1.30%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 31 (40.26%) Security Cleared
2 26 (33.77%) SC Cleared
3 11 (14.29%) DV Cleared
4 3 (3.90%) TOGAF Certification
5 2 (2.60%) CCNA
5 2 (2.60%) Cisco Certification
5 2 (2.60%) MCSE
5 2 (2.60%) Microsoft Certification
6 1 (1.30%) Azure Certification
6 1 (1.30%) BC Cleared
6 1 (1.30%) BPSS Clearance
6 1 (1.30%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (2.60%) NCSC
2 1 (1.30%) Accessibility
2 1 (1.30%) DICOM
2 1 (1.30%) GRC
2 1 (1.30%) HL7
2 1 (1.30%) IFRS
2 1 (1.30%) ISO 22301
2 1 (1.30%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 1 (1.30%) QA
System Software
1 5 (6.49%) Docker
2 3 (3.90%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 4 (5.19%) Kubernetes
2 1 (1.30%) Active Directory Federation Services
2 1 (1.30%) Ansible
2 1 (1.30%) Argo
2 1 (1.30%) CASB
2 1 (1.30%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 19 (24.68%) Microsoft
2 4 (5.19%) Cisco
2 4 (5.19%) Oracle
3 3 (3.90%) Databricks
3 3 (3.90%) MuleSoft
3 3 (3.90%) Red Hat
4 2 (2.60%) SnapLogic
5 1 (1.30%) BiZZdesign
5 1 (1.30%) CheckPoint
5 1 (1.30%) Civica
5 1 (1.30%) F5
5 1 (1.30%) Foundry
5 1 (1.30%) Google
5 1 (1.30%) IBM
5 1 (1.30%) OpenAI
5 1 (1.30%) Palo Alto
5 1 (1.30%) SAP
5 1 (1.30%) webMethods