Azure Architect Contract Job Trends in Manchester

Microsoft Azure Architect
North West > Manchester

The median Microsoft Azure Architect daily rate in Manchester is £650, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 28 March 2026.

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

6 months to
28 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 105 82 92
Rank change year-on-year -23 +10 +14
Contract jobs requiring an Azure Architect 4 5 6
As % of all contract jobs in Manchester 0.25% 0.52% 0.38%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.28% 0.55% 0.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 4 5 6
10th Percentile £524 - £531
25th Percentile £605 £450 £553
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £650 £550 £600
Median % change year-on-year +18.18% -8.33% -
75th Percentile £659 £563 £713
90th Percentile £676 £645 £750
North West median daily rate £650 £538 £625
% change year-on-year +20.93% -14.00% +4.17%

All Contract IT Job Roles
Manchester

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in Manchester. 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 Manchester with a recognized job title 1,442 902 1,507
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.73% 94.15% 95.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 902 642 1,072
10th Percentile £313 £300 £306
25th Percentile £400 £385 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £455 £450 £495
Median % change year-on-year +1.11% -9.09% -1.00%
75th Percentile £575 £562 £575
90th Percentile £650 £675 £675
North West median daily rate £456 £468 £500
% change year-on-year -2.46% -6.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 132 41 84
10th Percentile £18.65 £13.00 £12.07
25th Percentile £22.68 £16.06 £13.31
Median hourly rate £52.94 £32.50 £28.50
Median % change year-on-year +62.88% +14.04% -28.75%
75th Percentile £74.06 £60.00 £61.56
90th Percentile £80.78 £73.75 £73.75
North West median hourly rate £45.00 £31.51 £26.39
% change year-on-year +42.81% +19.40% -14.17%

Azure Architect
Job Vacancy Trend in Manchester

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

Azure Architect job vacancy trend in Manchester

Azure Architect
Daily Rate Trend in Manchester

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Azure Architect job vacancies in Manchester.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Azure Architect job vacancies in Manchester

Azure Architect
Daily Rate Histogram in Manchester

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Azure Architect in Manchester over the 6 months to 28 March 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Azure Architect in Manchester

Azure Architect
Contract Job Locations in Manchester

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Azure Architect within the Manchester region over the 6 months to 28 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
Bolton - 2 £650 -
Azure Architect
North West

Azure Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Manchester

For the 6 months to 28 March 2026, Azure 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 Manchester region featuring Azure Architect in the job title.

1 4 (100.00%) Azure
2 3 (75.00%) Azure Key Vault
2 3 (75.00%) DevOps
2 3 (75.00%) Network Security
3 2 (50.00%) AI
3 2 (50.00%) Analytics
3 2 (50.00%) Azure AI
3 2 (50.00%) Azure Data Factory
3 2 (50.00%) Azure Machine Learning
3 2 (50.00%) Azure Synapse Analytics
3 2 (50.00%) Databricks
3 2 (50.00%) Event-Driven
3 2 (50.00%) Foundry
3 2 (50.00%) Generative AI
3 2 (50.00%) Kalman Filter
3 2 (50.00%) LLM
3 2 (50.00%) Machine Learning
3 2 (50.00%) Mentoring
3 2 (50.00%) Microservices
3 2 (50.00%) Observability
3 2 (50.00%) OpenAI
3 2 (50.00%) Power Platform
3 2 (50.00%) Prompt Engineering
3 2 (50.00%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
3 2 (50.00%) Semantic Search
3 2 (50.00%) Use Case
4 1 (25.00%) Active Directory
4 1 (25.00%) AWS
4 1 (25.00%) Azure Sentinel
4 1 (25.00%) Bicep

Azure Architect Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Manchester 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:

Business Applications
1 1 (25.00%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 4 (100.00%) Azure
2 3 (75.00%) Azure Key Vault
3 2 (50.00%) Azure AI
3 2 (50.00%) Azure Data Factory
3 2 (50.00%) Azure Machine Learning
3 2 (50.00%) Azure Synapse Analytics
3 2 (50.00%) Power Platform
4 1 (25.00%) AWS
4 1 (25.00%) Azure Sentinel
4 1 (25.00%) Dynamics 365
4 1 (25.00%) Entra ID
4 1 (25.00%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 3 (75.00%) Network Security
2 1 (25.00%) Firewall
General
1 1 (25.00%) Banking
1 1 (25.00%) Documentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (25.00%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 1 (25.00%) Cloud Native
Processes & Methodologies
1 3 (75.00%) DevOps
2 2 (50.00%) AI
2 2 (50.00%) Analytics
2 2 (50.00%) Event-Driven
2 2 (50.00%) Generative AI
2 2 (50.00%) Kalman Filter
2 2 (50.00%) LLM
2 2 (50.00%) Machine Learning
2 2 (50.00%) Mentoring
2 2 (50.00%) Microservices
2 2 (50.00%) Observability
2 2 (50.00%) Prompt Engineering
2 2 (50.00%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
2 2 (50.00%) Semantic Search
2 2 (50.00%) Use Case
3 1 (25.00%) Cloud Security
3 1 (25.00%) Principle of Least Privilege
3 1 (25.00%) RBAC
3 1 (25.00%) Requirements Gathering
3 1 (25.00%) Zero Trust
Programming Languages
1 1 (25.00%) Bicep
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (25.00%) NIST
System Software
1 1 (25.00%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 1 (25.00%) Terraform
Vendors
1 2 (50.00%) Databricks
1 2 (50.00%) Foundry
1 2 (50.00%) OpenAI
2 1 (25.00%) Microsoft