Active Directory Contract Job Trends in Central London

Microsoft Active Directory
London > Central London

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in Central London requiring Active Directory skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 19 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 83 43 28
Rank change year-on-year -40 -15 +3
Contract jobs citing Active Directory 62 93 150
As % of all contract jobs in Central London 2.37% 4.84% 6.19%
As % of the System Software category 32.63% 49.21% 51.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 44 62 118
10th Percentile £178 £204 £206
25th Percentile £217 £253 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £536 £450
Median % change year-on-year -20.71% +19.11% -
75th Percentile £588 £620 £574
90th Percentile £638 £680 £775
London median daily rate £475 £500 £450
% change year-on-year -5.00% +11.11% -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 5 4
10th Percentile £19.41 £21.55 -
25th Percentile £19.64 £22.00 £21.25
Median hourly rate £20.88 £26.45 £31.25
Median % change year-on-year -21.05% -15.36% +25.00%
75th Percentile £22.72 £30.25 £40.00
90th Percentile £23.31 £124.60 -
London median hourly rate £23.78 £24.00 £23.80
% change year-on-year -0.92% +0.84% -27.88%

All System Software Skills
Central London

Active Directory falls under the System Software category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring system software skills in Central London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for system software skills 190 189 289
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Central London 7.28% 9.83% 11.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 136 137 214
10th Percentile £223 £217 £250
25th Percentile £413 £363 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £514
Median % change year-on-year - +2.19% -10.65%
75th Percentile £617 £638 £683
90th Percentile £672 £694 £773
London median daily rate £525 £525 £500
% change year-on-year - +5.00% -13.04%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 5 5
10th Percentile £19.72 £21.55 -
25th Percentile £20.43 £22.00 £21.25
Median hourly rate £26.13 £26.45 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -1.20% -33.88% +6.67%
75th Percentile £38.18 £30.25 -
90th Percentile £51.11 £124.60 £46.15
London median hourly rate £30.00 £27.48 £22.50
% change year-on-year +9.19% +22.11% -62.50%

Active Directory
Job Vacancy Trend in Central London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Active Directory relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in Central London.

Active Directory job vacancy trend in Central London

Active Directory
Daily Rate Trend in Central London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Central London citing Active Directory.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Central London citing Active Directory

Active Directory
Daily Rate Histogram in Central London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Active Directory in Central London over the 6 months to 19 June 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Active Directory in Central London

Active Directory
Hourly Rate Trend in Central London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Central London citing Active Directory.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Central London citing Active Directory

Active Directory
Contract Job Locations in Central London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Active Directory within the Central London region over the 6 months to 19 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
City of London -36 53 £425 -21.19% 19
City of Westminster -8 2 £613 -4.30% 2
Kensington and Chelsea - 2 £575 -
Lambeth - 1 £350 -
Active Directory
London

Active Directory
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Central London 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 12 (19.35%) Microsoft Exchange
2 9 (14.52%) SharePoint
3 2 (3.23%) IIS
4 1 (1.61%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 1 (1.61%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (1.61%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (1.61%) Veritas eDiscovery
Cloud Services
1 33 (53.23%) Azure
1 33 (53.23%) Entra ID
2 30 (48.39%) Microsoft 365
3 9 (14.52%) AWS
4 6 (9.68%) Power Platform
5 5 (8.06%) Azure DevOps
6 4 (6.45%) GitHub
7 3 (4.84%) GCP
7 3 (4.84%) IaaS
7 3 (4.84%) OpenShift
7 3 (4.84%) PaaS
7 3 (4.84%) PowerApps
8 2 (3.23%) Azure Monitor
8 2 (3.23%) Azure Stack
8 2 (3.23%) GitHub Actions
8 2 (3.23%) Microsoft Purview
8 2 (3.23%) OneDrive
8 2 (3.23%) Power Automate
8 2 (3.23%) Serverless
9 1 (1.61%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 19 (30.65%) DNS
2 15 (24.19%) DHCP
3 11 (17.74%) VPN
4 8 (12.90%) Firewall
5 5 (8.06%) TCP/IP
6 3 (4.84%) SMTP
7 1 (1.61%) Cisco ISE
7 1 (1.61%) DKIM
7 1 (1.61%) DMARC
7 1 (1.61%) DMZ
7 1 (1.61%) Internet
7 1 (1.61%) IPv4
7 1 (1.61%) IPv6
7 1 (1.61%) Network Security
7 1 (1.61%) Reverse Proxy
7 1 (1.61%) TACACS
7 1 (1.61%) Unified Communications
7 1 (1.61%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (9.68%) SQL Server
2 4 (6.45%) Big Data
2 4 (6.45%) Power BI
3 3 (4.84%) Amazon RDS
3 3 (4.84%) Elasticsearch
3 3 (4.84%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 1 (1.61%) Amazon Athena
4 1 (1.61%) Amazon QuickSight
4 1 (1.61%) Amazon Redshift
4 1 (1.61%) Delta Lake
4 1 (1.61%) NoSQL
4 1 (1.61%) Oracle BI EE
4 1 (1.61%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 5 (8.06%) JIRA
2 1 (1.61%) Artifactory
2 1 (1.61%) Cypress.io
2 1 (1.61%) Git
2 1 (1.61%) GitLab
2 1 (1.61%) Selenium
2 1 (1.61%) SpecFlow
General
1 25 (40.32%) Social Skills
2 8 (12.90%) Finance
3 6 (9.68%) Analytical Skills
4 3 (4.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 3 (4.84%) Public Sector
5 2 (3.23%) Banking
5 2 (3.23%) Presentation Skills
6 1 (1.61%) Documentation Skills
6 1 (1.61%) Financial Institution
6 1 (1.61%) Front Office
6 1 (1.61%) International Banking
6 1 (1.61%) Law
6 1 (1.61%) Mandarin Language
6 1 (1.61%) Manufacturing
6 1 (1.61%) Military
6 1 (1.61%) Organisational Skills
6 1 (1.61%) Police
6 1 (1.61%) Retail
Job Titles
1 17 (27.42%) Support Engineer
2 9 (14.52%) Analyst
3 7 (11.29%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 7 (11.29%) IT Support
3 7 (11.29%) Senior
4 6 (9.68%) Active Directory Engineer
4 6 (9.68%) IT Engineer
4 6 (9.68%) IT Support Engineer
5 5 (8.06%) Desktop Support
5 5 (8.06%) Infrastructure Support
5 5 (8.06%) Infrastructure Support Engineer
6 4 (6.45%) 3rd Line Engineer
6 4 (6.45%) Architect
6 4 (6.45%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
6 4 (6.45%) Support Analyst
7 3 (4.84%) 3rd Line Infrastructure Engineer
7 3 (4.84%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
7 3 (4.84%) Active Directory Support
7 3 (4.84%) Active Directory Support Engineer
7 3 (4.84%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (6.45%) OpenID
1 4 (6.45%) REST
1 4 (6.45%) SAML
2 2 (3.23%) 802.1X
2 2 (3.23%) SailPoint
3 1 (1.61%) .NET
3 1 (1.61%) .NET Core
3 1 (1.61%) ASP.NET
3 1 (1.61%) Blazor
3 1 (1.61%) J2EE
3 1 (1.61%) JDBC
3 1 (1.61%) JSON
3 1 (1.61%) LDAP
3 1 (1.61%) Microsoft Graph
3 1 (1.61%) OAuth
3 1 (1.61%) Playwright
3 1 (1.61%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 10 (16.13%) Onboarding
2 9 (14.52%) PKI
3 5 (8.06%) Video Conferencing
4 3 (4.84%) BYOD
4 3 (4.84%) Clustering
4 3 (4.84%) Data Centre
4 3 (4.84%) Hybrid Cloud
5 2 (3.23%) Enterprise Software
5 2 (3.23%) IoT
5 2 (3.23%) Virtual Team
6 1 (1.61%) CMDB
6 1 (1.61%) Fat Client
6 1 (1.61%) FMCG
6 1 (1.61%) Life Science
6 1 (1.61%) Operational Technology
6 1 (1.61%) Security Posture
6 1 (1.61%) Thin Client
Operating Systems
1 40 (64.52%) Windows
2 17 (27.42%) Windows Server
3 11 (17.74%) Mac OS
4 6 (9.68%) Windows 10
5 5 (8.06%) Linux
6 2 (3.23%) Windows Server 2012
7 1 (1.61%) Android
7 1 (1.61%) Mac OS X
7 1 (1.61%) Ubuntu
7 1 (1.61%) VMS
7 1 (1.61%) Windows 7
7 1 (1.61%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 17 (27.42%) Problem-Solving
2 12 (19.35%) Identity Access Management
3 11 (17.74%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 10 (16.13%) DevOps
4 10 (16.13%) ITIL
5 7 (11.29%) AI
5 7 (11.29%) CI/CD
5 7 (11.29%) Customer Service
6 6 (9.68%) Continuous Improvement
6 6 (9.68%) High Availability
6 6 (9.68%) Project Delivery
6 6 (9.68%) Stakeholder Management
7 5 (8.06%) Agile
7 5 (8.06%) Cloud Security
7 5 (8.06%) Identity Management
7 5 (8.06%) Migration
7 5 (8.06%) Service Delivery
8 4 (6.45%) Change Management
8 4 (6.45%) Infrastructure as Code
8 4 (6.45%) Zero Trust
Programming Languages
1 18 (29.03%) PowerShell
2 6 (9.68%) Python
3 5 (8.06%) Bash
4 3 (4.84%) SQL
5 2 (3.23%) Java
6 1 (1.61%) C#
6 1 (1.61%) Kusto Query Language
6 1 (1.61%) VB
Qualifications
1 8 (12.90%) Security Cleared
2 6 (9.68%) Microsoft Certification
3 5 (8.06%) Degree
4 4 (6.45%) DV Cleared
5 3 (4.84%) Azure Certification
5 3 (4.84%) SC Cleared
6 2 (3.23%) Cisco Certification
6 2 (3.23%) CISM
6 2 (3.23%) CISSP
6 2 (3.23%) MCSE
7 1 (1.61%) CCIE
7 1 (1.61%) CCNA
7 1 (1.61%) CCNP
7 1 (1.61%) ISTQB
7 1 (1.61%) MCSA
7 1 (1.61%) Network+ Certification
7 1 (1.61%) PMI Certification
7 1 (1.61%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (4.84%) QA
2 2 (3.23%) Cyber Essentials
2 2 (3.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 2 (3.23%) Sarbanes-Oxley
3 1 (1.61%) Accessibility
3 1 (1.61%) GDPR
3 1 (1.61%) Government Security Classifications
3 1 (1.61%) HIPAA
3 1 (1.61%) NIST
3 1 (1.61%) SLA
System Software
1 10 (16.13%) Virtual Desktop
2 9 (14.52%) VMware Infrastructure
3 6 (9.68%) VMware ESXi
4 5 (8.06%) Docker
5 4 (6.45%) Hyper-V
6 3 (4.84%) BitLocker
6 3 (4.84%) Microsoft App-V
6 3 (4.84%) Terminal Services
7 2 (3.23%) vSphere
8 1 (1.61%) Firmware
8 1 (1.61%) zsh
Systems Management
1 16 (25.81%) Microsoft Intune
2 6 (9.68%) Ansible
3 5 (8.06%) Kubernetes
3 5 (8.06%) SCCM
3 5 (8.06%) Single Sign-On
3 5 (8.06%) vCenter Server
4 4 (6.45%) Puppet
4 4 (6.45%) Terraform
5 3 (4.84%) Jamf Pro
5 3 (4.84%) Nagios
5 3 (4.84%) vMotion
6 1 (1.61%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 1 (1.61%) FortiGate
6 1 (1.61%) Grafana
6 1 (1.61%) Nessus
6 1 (1.61%) Prometheus
6 1 (1.61%) Salt
6 1 (1.61%) TrustSec
Vendors
1 46 (74.19%) Microsoft
2 11 (17.74%) Citrix
3 9 (14.52%) VMware
4 7 (11.29%) ServiceNow
5 4 (6.45%) Apple
5 4 (6.45%) Cisco
5 4 (6.45%) Google
6 3 (4.84%) Bloomberg
6 3 (4.84%) HP
6 3 (4.84%) Symantec
6 3 (4.84%) Zscaler
7 2 (3.23%) Oracle
7 2 (3.23%) Palo Alto
7 2 (3.23%) SAP
8 1 (1.61%) Databricks
8 1 (1.61%) EMC
8 1 (1.61%) ION Trading
8 1 (1.61%) Reuters
8 1 (1.61%) Tenable
8 1 (1.61%) Workday