Active Directory Contract Job Trends in the East of England

Microsoft Active Directory
England > East of England

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the East of England requiring Active Directory skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 14 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 37 12 28
Rank change year-on-year -25 +16 -13
Contract jobs citing Active Directory 95 108 104
As % of all contract jobs in the East of England 4.29% 11.36% 5.50%
As % of the System Software category 50.53% 71.52% 68.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 67 52 61
10th Percentile £163 £178 £165
25th Percentile £191 £209 £200
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £375 £467 £250
Median % change year-on-year -19.61% +86.60% -28.57%
75th Percentile £490 £575 £550
90th Percentile £540 - £725
England median daily rate £450 £450 £418
% change year-on-year - +7.78% -1.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 20 34
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £19.00 £14.99 £14.00
Median hourly rate £22.32 £15.24 £14.16
Median % change year-on-year +46.47% +7.59% -16.71%
75th Percentile £23.75 £37.08 £15.12
90th Percentile - £64.65 £16.63
England median hourly rate £27.00 £19.97 £17.50
% change year-on-year +35.20% +14.11% -7.89%

All System Software Skills
East of England

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 the East of England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for system software skills 188 151 151
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the East of England 8.49% 15.88% 7.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 125 77 86
10th Percentile £186 £178 £175
25th Percentile £240 £300 £225
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £490 £400
Median % change year-on-year -8.16% +22.50% -11.11%
75th Percentile £525 £575 £560
90th Percentile £583 £605 £713
England median daily rate £500 £525 £500
% change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 26 39
10th Percentile £19.00 - -
25th Percentile £20.91 £14.99 £14.00
Median hourly rate £22.50 £18.45 £14.16
Median % change year-on-year +21.95% +30.30% -42.49%
75th Percentile £70.00 £65.63 £15.44
90th Percentile - £90.25 £67.00
England median hourly rate £57.50 £28.21 £21.00
% change year-on-year +103.86% +34.31% -58.00%

Active Directory
Job Vacancy Trend in the East of England

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

Active Directory job vacancy trend in the East of England

Active Directory
Daily Rate Trend in the East of England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the East of England citing Active Directory.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the East of England citing Active Directory

Active Directory
Daily Rate Histogram in the East of England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Active Directory in the East of England over the 6 months to 14 May 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Active Directory in the East of England

Active Directory
Hourly Rate Trend in the East of England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the East of England citing Active Directory.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the East of England citing Active Directory

Active Directory
Contract Job Locations in the East of England

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 East of England region over the 6 months to 14 May 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
Hertfordshire -21 36 £475 -13.64% 19
Norfolk -4 29 £201 +27.78% 8
Essex -8 12 £338 +37.76% 7
Cambridgeshire -11 10 £363 -14.61% 10
Suffolk -13 6 £325 +75.68% 7
Bedfordshire -19 1 £525 +10.53% 4
East Anglia - 1 £470 - 5
Active Directory
England

Active Directory
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the East of England 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 11 (11.58%) Microsoft Exchange
2 7 (7.37%) SharePoint
3 3 (3.16%) Apache
3 3 (3.16%) IIS
4 1 (1.05%) Exchange Server 2010
Applications
1 1 (1.05%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 1 (1.05%) assyst
Cloud Services
1 45 (47.37%) Microsoft 365
2 20 (21.05%) Azure
3 13 (13.68%) Entra ID
4 6 (6.32%) Cohesity
5 3 (3.16%) AWS
5 3 (3.16%) Mimecast
5 3 (3.16%) Nutanix
6 2 (2.11%) Google Workspace
6 2 (2.11%) Route 53
7 1 (1.05%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 1 (1.05%) AWS CloudFormation
7 1 (1.05%) AWS CloudTrail
7 1 (1.05%) AWS Lambda
7 1 (1.05%) Azure DevOps
7 1 (1.05%) Azure Sentinel
7 1 (1.05%) Datadog
7 1 (1.05%) IaaS
7 1 (1.05%) OneDrive
7 1 (1.05%) Serverless
7 1 (1.05%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 25 (26.32%) DNS
2 20 (21.05%) Firewall
3 18 (18.95%) WAN
4 15 (15.79%) LAN
5 14 (14.74%) VPN
6 8 (8.42%) DHCP
7 7 (7.37%) TCP/IP
7 7 (7.37%) Wi-Fi
8 6 (6.32%) Skype
9 3 (3.16%) 4G
9 3 (3.16%) IPsec
9 3 (3.16%) MPLS
9 3 (3.16%) SAN
9 3 (3.16%) VLAN
10 2 (2.11%) iSCSI
10 2 (2.11%) NAS
10 2 (2.11%) SSL
11 1 (1.05%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.05%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 12 (12.63%) Git
1 12 (12.63%) GitLab
2 11 (11.58%) Jenkins
3 6 (6.32%) JIRA
General
1 41 (43.16%) Social Skills
2 17 (17.89%) Documentation Skills
3 10 (10.53%) Aerospace
4 9 (9.47%) Analytical Skills
4 9 (9.47%) Manufacturing
5 6 (6.32%) Public Sector
6 2 (2.11%) Finance
6 2 (2.11%) Legal
6 2 (2.11%) Organisational Skills
7 1 (1.05%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 1 (1.05%) Pharmaceutical
7 1 (1.05%) Retail
Job Titles
1 38 (40.00%) IT Support
2 27 (28.42%) IT Engineer
3 26 (27.37%) Support Engineer
4 24 (25.26%) IT Support Engineer
5 14 (14.74%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 13 (13.68%) Administrator
6 13 (13.68%) Analyst
7 11 (11.58%) Linux Administrator
8 6 (6.32%) IT Analyst
8 6 (6.32%) IT Support Analyst
8 6 (6.32%) Support Analyst
9 5 (5.26%) 3rd Line Support
9 5 (5.26%) 3rd Line Support Analyst
9 5 (5.26%) 3rd Line Technical Support
9 5 (5.26%) Architect
9 5 (5.26%) Technical Analyst
9 5 (5.26%) Technical Support
9 5 (5.26%) Technical Support Analyst
10 4 (4.21%) Network Architect
10 4 (4.21%) Senior
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (12.63%) LDAP
2 11 (11.58%) Middleware
3 1 (1.05%) OAuth
3 1 (1.05%) OAuth2
3 1 (1.05%) OpenID
3 1 (1.05%) REST
3 1 (1.05%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 11 (11.58%) Data Centre
2 9 (9.47%) Management Information System
2 9 (9.47%) Onboarding
3 7 (7.37%) Driving Licence
4 6 (6.32%) Smartcard
4 6 (6.32%) YubiKey
5 5 (5.26%) NHS
6 4 (4.21%) Enterprise Software
6 4 (4.21%) Operational Technology
7 3 (3.16%) SCADA
7 3 (3.16%) Self-Motivation
8 2 (2.11%) Fat Client
8 2 (2.11%) PKI
8 2 (2.11%) Renewable Energy
8 2 (2.11%) Thin Client
8 2 (2.11%) Video Conferencing
9 1 (1.05%) Enterprise Storage
9 1 (1.05%) Hybrid Cloud
9 1 (1.05%) Security Posture
9 1 (1.05%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 70 (73.68%) Windows
2 31 (32.63%) Windows Server
3 28 (29.47%) Windows 10
4 12 (12.63%) Linux
5 11 (11.58%) CentOS
5 11 (11.58%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 5 (5.26%) Windows Server 2019
7 4 (4.21%) Windows Server 2016
8 1 (1.05%) Apple iOS
8 1 (1.05%) Data ONTAP
8 1 (1.05%) Mac OS
8 1 (1.05%) Mac OS X
8 1 (1.05%) VMS
8 1 (1.05%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 26 (27.37%) ITIL
2 17 (17.89%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 11 (11.58%) Information Management
3 11 (11.58%) Infrastructure Monitoring
4 10 (10.53%) Customer Service
5 7 (7.37%) ITSM
5 7 (7.37%) Proactive Monitoring
5 7 (7.37%) Problem-Solving
6 5 (5.26%) Agile
6 5 (5.26%) SIEM
7 4 (4.21%) Cybersecurity
7 4 (4.21%) Migration
7 4 (4.21%) Server Building
7 4 (4.21%) Service Delivery
7 4 (4.21%) Zero Trust
8 3 (3.16%) Disaster Recovery
8 3 (3.16%) PRINCE2
8 3 (3.16%) User Experience
8 3 (3.16%) Vulnerability Scanning
9 2 (2.11%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 11 (11.58%) MATLAB
1 11 (11.58%) Shell Script
2 7 (7.37%) PowerShell
3 2 (2.11%) Bash
4 1 (1.05%) Groovy
4 1 (1.05%) Python
4 1 (1.05%) SQL
Qualifications
1 24 (25.26%) Security Cleared
2 19 (20.00%) SC Cleared
3 14 (14.74%) Degree
4 10 (10.53%) DV Cleared
5 4 (4.21%) Microsoft Certification
6 3 (3.16%) CCNA
6 3 (3.16%) CCNP
6 3 (3.16%) Cisco Certification
7 2 (2.11%) AWS Certification
7 2 (2.11%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 2 (2.11%) CompTIA Security+
7 2 (2.11%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
7 2 (2.11%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (17.89%) SLA
2 1 (1.05%) GxP
2 1 (1.05%) PMO
2 1 (1.05%) QA
System Software
1 11 (11.58%) Hyper-V
1 11 (11.58%) VMware Infrastructure
2 3 (3.16%) vSphere
3 2 (2.11%) VMware ESXi
4 1 (1.05%) Sendmail
4 1 (1.05%) Squid
Systems Management
1 18 (18.95%) Ansible
2 15 (15.79%) Microsoft Intune
3 11 (11.58%) Check_MK
3 11 (11.58%) Podman
3 11 (11.58%) Red Hat Satellite
4 10 (10.53%) SCCM
5 7 (7.37%) WSUS
6 6 (6.32%) Nessus
7 4 (4.21%) vCenter Server
8 3 (3.16%) Terraform
9 2 (2.11%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
10 1 (1.05%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 56 (58.95%) Microsoft
2 21 (22.11%) VMware
3 11 (11.58%) Red Hat
4 8 (8.42%) Cisco
5 6 (6.32%) Tenable
6 4 (4.21%) ServiceNow
7 3 (3.16%) Palo Alto
7 3 (3.16%) Qualys
7 3 (3.16%) SolarWinds
8 2 (2.11%) Google
8 2 (2.11%) NetApp
8 2 (2.11%) Rockwell
8 2 (2.11%) Veeam
9 1 (1.05%) Altiris
9 1 (1.05%) Apple
9 1 (1.05%) Infoblox
9 1 (1.05%) McAfee
9 1 (1.05%) PagerDuty
9 1 (1.05%) Trend Micro
9 1 (1.05%) Wyse