Solutions Architect Contract Job Trends

Solution Architect
UK

The median Solution Architect daily rate in the UK is £625, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 17 June 2026.

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

6 months to
17 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 71 86 67
Rank change year-on-year +15 -19 +14
Contract jobs requiring a Solutions Architect 1,598 862 1,301
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.18% 2.90% 2.98%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.44% 3.15% 3.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,047 496 868
10th Percentile £463 £463 £472
25th Percentile £513 £525 £535
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £620 £646
Median % change year-on-year +0.81% -4.02% -2.86%
75th Percentile £738 £717 £738
90th Percentile £784 £789 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £639 £600 £650
% change year-on-year +6.46% -7.69% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 12 10
10th Percentile £39.13 £32.34 £51.80
25th Percentile £64.94 £54.75 £64.63
Median hourly rate £71.27 £66.00 £89.00
Median % change year-on-year +7.98% -25.84% +31.85%
75th Percentile £90.25 £74.06 £92.28
90th Percentile £115.48 £75.00 £93.42
UK excluding London median hourly rate £71.27 £66.00 £91.00
% change year-on-year +7.98% -27.47% +19.74%

All Contract IT Job Roles
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies. 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 UK with a recognized job title 46,477 27,381 40,501
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.36% 92.25% 92.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,258 17,617 25,961
10th Percentile £325 £289 £280
25th Percentile £413 £402 £407
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.00% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £624 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +5.26% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,104 1,172 2,957
10th Percentile £15.25 £13.87 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.86 £17.75 £16.37
Median hourly rate £43.61 £27.45 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +58.85% -26.80% -16.67%
75th Percentile £67.50 £57.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -37.13% -1.45%

Solutions Architect
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Solutions Architect job vacancy trend in the UK

Solutions Architect
Daily Rate Trend

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

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

Solutions Architect
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Solutions Architect over the 6 months to 17 June 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Solutions Architect in the UK

Solutions Architect
Hourly Rate Trend

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

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

Solutions Architect
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Solutions Architect over the 6 months to 17 June 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Solutions Architect in the UK

Solutions Architect
Top 17 Contract Job Locations

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 UK over the 6 months to 17 June 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
England +12 1,339 £625 - 631
UK excluding London +23 722 £639 +6.46% 318
London +21 658 £625 -3.85% 364
Work from Home -3 456 £600 - 253
North of England +4 228 £600 - 87
South East +28 192 £631 +1.00% 84
North West +7 159 £588 -2.08% 62
Midlands -7 145 £650 +13.04% 30
West Midlands -4 92 £673 +12.17% 18
South West -7 60 £604 +5.04% 52
Yorkshire -22 58 £650 +4.00% 18
Scotland +4 55 £650 +4.00% 27
East of England +8 50 £525 -19.23% 25
East Midlands -7 49 £575 +15.00% 12
Wales -3 12 £550 -2.22% 11
North East -22 12 £500 -14.89% 8
Northern Ireland +2 2 - - 7

Solutions Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 17 June 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 featuring Solutions Architect in the job title.

1 379 (23.72%) Azure
2 326 (20.40%) AWS
3 323 (20.21%) Security Cleared
4 265 (16.58%) SC Cleared
5 253 (15.83%) Stakeholder Management
6 247 (15.46%) Agile
7 244 (15.27%) Roadmaps
8 220 (13.77%) Microsoft
9 196 (12.27%) Enterprise Architecture
10 191 (11.95%) Migration
11 181 (11.33%) DevOps
12 171 (10.70%) AI
13 163 (10.20%) Integration Patterns
14 158 (9.89%) SAP
15 142 (8.89%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 142 (8.89%) TOGAF
16 135 (8.45%) CI/CD
16 135 (8.45%) ERP
17 131 (8.20%) Architectural Design
18 130 (8.14%) Technical Leadership
19 128 (8.01%) Event-Driven
20 127 (7.95%) Microservices
21 115 (7.20%) Analytics
22 111 (6.95%) Architectural Patterns
23 109 (6.82%) Problem-Solving
24 106 (6.63%) Oracle
25 104 (6.51%) Data Modelling
26 98 (6.13%) GCP
27 95 (5.94%) Middleware
28 87 (5.44%) Continuous Improvement

Solutions Architect Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 31 (1.94%) Confluence
2 26 (1.63%) SharePoint
3 9 (0.56%) SAS
4 8 (0.50%) Camunda
5 4 (0.25%) Apache
5 4 (0.25%) Apache Spark
5 4 (0.25%) Documentum
5 4 (0.25%) Microsoft Exchange
6 3 (0.19%) Jupyter
6 3 (0.19%) nginx
6 3 (0.19%) Palantir Foundry
7 2 (0.13%) Apache Airflow
7 2 (0.13%) Apache Solr
7 2 (0.13%) OpenStack
7 2 (0.13%) Tomcat
7 2 (0.13%) WebLogic
7 2 (0.13%) WebSphere
8 1 (0.063%) ArcGIS
8 1 (0.063%) CMS
8 1 (0.063%) OpenROAD
Applications
1 13 (0.81%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 12 (0.75%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (0.25%) Spreadsheet
4 3 (0.19%) Chatbot
4 3 (0.19%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.13%) Microsoft Office
5 2 (0.13%) PlantUML
6 1 (0.063%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 78 (4.88%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (1.00%) Dynamics CRM
2 16 (1.00%) Payment Gateway
3 12 (0.75%) Oracle ERP
3 12 (0.75%) SAP ERP
3 12 (0.75%) Teamcenter
4 9 (0.56%) SAP BRIM
5 6 (0.38%) Maximo
5 6 (0.38%) Oracle Payables
6 5 (0.31%) Oracle Retail
6 5 (0.31%) SAP Oil and Gas
6 5 (0.31%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 4 (0.25%) Avolution ABACUS
7 4 (0.25%) Integrated Workplace Management System
7 4 (0.25%) Oracle EBS
7 4 (0.25%) Oracle Receivables
7 4 (0.25%) SAP Convergent Charging
8 3 (0.19%) SAP FSCM
8 3 (0.19%) SAP GRC
8 3 (0.19%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 379 (23.72%) Azure
2 326 (20.40%) AWS
3 98 (6.13%) GCP
4 76 (4.76%) SaaS
5 70 (4.38%) Power Platform
6 51 (3.19%) Serverless
7 49 (3.07%) Dynamics 365
8 43 (2.69%) Entra ID
9 41 (2.57%) Azure DevOps
10 39 (2.44%) Microsoft 365
11 35 (2.19%) PaaS
12 32 (2.00%) GitHub
13 26 (1.63%) IaaS
14 25 (1.56%) Snowflake
15 22 (1.38%) AWS Lambda
16 21 (1.31%) Power Automate
16 21 (1.31%) PowerApps
17 20 (1.25%) OCI
18 19 (1.19%) Azure Logic Apps
19 18 (1.13%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 33 (2.07%) Firewall
2 21 (1.31%) Network Security
3 19 (1.19%) SD-WAN
4 17 (1.06%) WAN
5 13 (0.81%) VPN
6 12 (0.75%) DNS
7 8 (0.50%) TCP/IP
8 6 (0.38%) MPLS
8 6 (0.38%) Radio Access Network
8 6 (0.38%) VoIP
9 5 (0.31%) IPv4
9 5 (0.31%) IPv6
9 5 (0.31%) Kerberos
9 5 (0.31%) LAN
9 5 (0.31%) RFID
10 4 (0.25%) Cisco Nexus
10 4 (0.25%) Internet
10 4 (0.25%) IPsec
10 4 (0.25%) Wireless
11 3 (0.19%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 44 (2.75%) Data Lake
2 34 (2.13%) Power BI
3 33 (2.07%) Data Warehouse
4 21 (1.31%) Oracle Database
5 17 (1.06%) SQL Server
5 17 (1.06%) Tableau
6 15 (0.94%) NoSQL
7 12 (0.75%) Big Data
7 12 (0.75%) Electronic Patient Records
8 11 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
8 11 (0.69%) Azure SQL Database
8 11 (0.69%) Metadata
8 11 (0.69%) PostgreSQL
9 10 (0.63%) MongoDB
10 6 (0.38%) Delta Lake
11 5 (0.31%) BigQuery
11 5 (0.31%) Flink
11 5 (0.31%) Geospatial Data
11 5 (0.31%) SAP HANA
12 4 (0.25%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 35 (2.19%) JIRA
2 10 (0.63%) Git
3 8 (0.50%) Jenkins
4 6 (0.38%) MLflow
5 5 (0.31%) Hudson
6 4 (0.25%) ERwin
6 4 (0.25%) SonarQube
7 3 (0.19%) Maven
8 2 (0.13%) Artifactory
8 2 (0.13%) Bitbucket
8 2 (0.13%) GitLab
9 1 (0.063%) MSI
9 1 (0.063%) Oracle Forms
9 1 (0.063%) PowerDesigner
9 1 (0.063%) Rational Rhapsody
9 1 (0.063%) Robot Framework
9 1 (0.063%) Subversion
9 1 (0.063%) Team Foundation Server
9 1 (0.063%) VersionOne
General
1 351 (21.96%) Finance
2 307 (19.21%) Social Skills
3 143 (8.95%) Banking
3 143 (8.95%) Public Sector
4 88 (5.51%) Retail
5 72 (4.51%) Analytical Skills
6 45 (2.82%) Manufacturing
7 44 (2.75%) Legal
8 42 (2.63%) Telecoms
9 31 (1.94%) Documentation Skills
10 28 (1.75%) Investment Banking
11 25 (1.56%) Billing
12 20 (1.25%) Influencing Skills
13 13 (0.81%) Presentation Skills
14 12 (0.75%) Marketing
14 12 (0.75%) Military
15 11 (0.69%) Corporate Banking
15 11 (0.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 11 (0.69%) Local Government
16 10 (0.63%) Back Office
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 95 (5.94%) Middleware
2 72 (4.51%) .NET
3 71 (4.44%) REST
4 41 (2.57%) Kafka
5 30 (1.88%) React
6 25 (1.56%) Oracle Fusion
7 20 (1.25%) .NET Framework
7 20 (1.25%) SOAP
8 19 (1.19%) AngularJS
9 14 (0.88%) RESTful
10 13 (0.81%) OAuth
11 12 (0.75%) CSS
11 12 (0.75%) HTML
12 11 (0.69%) FHIR
13 10 (0.63%) OpenID
13 10 (0.63%) SAML
14 9 (0.56%) Vue
15 8 (0.50%) PySpark
16 7 (0.44%) MACH
16 7 (0.44%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 126 (7.88%) Cloud Native
2 60 (3.75%) Product Ownership
3 57 (3.57%) Management Information System
4 44 (2.75%) Data Centre
5 41 (2.57%) Legacy Systems
6 34 (2.13%) Operational Technology
7 32 (2.00%) Public Cloud
8 31 (1.94%) Data Protection Act
9 30 (1.88%) Onboarding
10 28 (1.75%) Mainframe
11 26 (1.63%) Enterprise Software
11 26 (1.63%) Hybrid Cloud
12 24 (1.50%) Distributed Systems
13 17 (1.06%) SWIFT Messaging Network
14 15 (0.94%) IoT
15 13 (0.81%) Greenfield Project
15 13 (0.81%) Private Cloud
16 12 (0.75%) SCADA
17 11 (0.69%) CMDB
17 11 (0.69%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 38 (2.38%) Windows
2 14 (0.88%) Linux
3 13 (0.81%) Windows Server
4 5 (0.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 4 (0.25%) Android
5 4 (0.25%) Apple iOS
6 3 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
6 3 (0.19%) Windows Server 2019
7 2 (0.13%) Mac OS
7 2 (0.13%) zOS
8 1 (0.063%) CatOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 253 (15.83%) Stakeholder Management
2 247 (15.46%) Agile
3 244 (15.27%) Roadmaps
4 196 (12.27%) Enterprise Architecture
5 191 (11.95%) Migration
6 181 (11.33%) DevOps
7 171 (10.70%) AI
8 163 (10.20%) Integration Patterns
9 142 (8.89%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 142 (8.89%) TOGAF
10 135 (8.45%) CI/CD
10 135 (8.45%) ERP
11 131 (8.20%) Architectural Design
12 130 (8.14%) Technical Leadership
13 128 (8.01%) Event-Driven
14 127 (7.95%) Microservices
15 115 (7.20%) Analytics
16 111 (6.95%) Architectural Patterns
17 109 (6.82%) Problem-Solving
18 104 (6.51%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 76 (4.76%) Java
2 67 (4.19%) Python
3 58 (3.63%) SQL
4 31 (1.94%) C#
5 30 (1.88%) JavaScript
6 21 (1.31%) PowerShell
7 15 (0.94%) TypeScript
8 14 (0.88%) Bicep
9 6 (0.38%) Bash
10 4 (0.25%) PL/SQL
11 3 (0.19%) R
12 2 (0.13%) Korn
12 2 (0.13%) Perl
12 2 (0.13%) Scala
13 1 (0.063%) Apex Code
13 1 (0.063%) C++
13 1 (0.063%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 1 (0.063%) Groovy
13 1 (0.063%) PHP
13 1 (0.063%) X++
Qualifications
1 323 (20.21%) Security Cleared
2 265 (16.58%) SC Cleared
3 76 (4.76%) Degree
4 33 (2.07%) Azure Certification
5 30 (1.88%) Computer Science Degree
6 28 (1.75%) TOGAF Certification
7 23 (1.44%) BPSS Clearance
7 23 (1.44%) DV Cleared
8 22 (1.38%) AWS Certification
9 20 (1.25%) Master's Degree
10 17 (1.06%) Microsoft Certification
11 8 (0.50%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 7 (0.44%) Cisco Certification
12 7 (0.44%) DBS Check
13 6 (0.38%) SAP Certification
14 5 (0.31%) CISA
14 5 (0.31%) CISSP
15 4 (0.25%) CCNP
15 4 (0.25%) CFA
16 3 (0.19%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 46 (2.88%) GDPR
2 24 (1.50%) NIST
3 21 (1.31%) QA
4 20 (1.25%) Data Quality
4 20 (1.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 19 (1.19%) ISO 20022
5 19 (1.19%) SEPA
6 15 (0.94%) NCSC
7 12 (0.75%) PSD2
8 11 (0.69%) PCI DSS
9 9 (0.56%) GRC
9 9 (0.56%) HL7
10 7 (0.44%) IFRS
11 6 (0.38%) Cyber Essentials
12 5 (0.31%) Accessibility
12 5 (0.31%) DICOM
13 3 (0.19%) Disclosure Scotland
13 3 (0.19%) IFRS 17
13 3 (0.19%) Solvency II
13 3 (0.19%) TARGET2
System Software
1 40 (2.50%) Active Directory
1 40 (2.50%) Docker
2 10 (0.63%) Virtual Desktop
3 9 (0.56%) VMware Infrastructure
4 6 (0.38%) Virtual Machines
5 4 (0.25%) VMware NSX
5 4 (0.25%) vSphere
6 3 (0.19%) Squid
7 2 (0.13%) Oracle RAC
8 1 (0.063%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.063%) Microsoft App-V
8 1 (0.063%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 68 (4.26%) Terraform
2 62 (3.88%) Kubernetes
3 23 (1.44%) Ansible
4 16 (1.00%) Single Sign-On
5 14 (0.88%) Microsoft Intune
6 13 (0.81%) FortiGate
7 12 (0.75%) Grafana
8 11 (0.69%) Prometheus
9 9 (0.56%) Jamf Pro
10 7 (0.44%) Argo
11 3 (0.19%) SCCM
11 3 (0.19%) vCenter Server
12 2 (0.13%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 2 (0.13%) Consul
12 2 (0.13%) Data Guard
12 2 (0.13%) Istio
12 2 (0.13%) Kubeflow
12 2 (0.13%) MOM
12 2 (0.13%) Oracle RMAN
13 1 (0.063%) CASB
Vendors
1 220 (13.77%) Microsoft
2 158 (9.89%) SAP
3 106 (6.63%) Oracle
4 80 (5.01%) ServiceNow
5 55 (3.44%) Salesforce
6 49 (3.07%) Databricks
7 42 (2.63%) Google
8 29 (1.81%) Cisco
9 20 (1.25%) VMware
10 17 (1.06%) Ariba
10 17 (1.06%) Workday
11 16 (1.00%) MuleSoft
12 15 (0.94%) IFS
13 14 (0.88%) IBM
13 14 (0.88%) OutSystems
14 13 (0.81%) Palo Alto
14 13 (0.81%) Red Hat
15 11 (0.69%) Informatica
16 8 (0.50%) Aruba
16 8 (0.50%) Software AG