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 12 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 18 24
Rank change year-on-year -9 +6 -8
Contract jobs citing Active Directory 132 103 84
As % of all contract jobs in the East of England 5.49% 7.61% 5.72%
As % of the System Software category 48.89% 56.91% 61.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 70 53 44
10th Percentile £163 £198 £180
25th Percentile £185 £220 £220
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £240 £450 £325
Median % change year-on-year -46.67% +38.46% -35.00%
75th Percentile £475 £575 £441
90th Percentile £575 - £552
England median daily rate £450 £425 £425
% change year-on-year +5.88% - +6.25%
Number of hourly rates quoted 33 17 7
10th Percentile £29.87 £12.88 -
25th Percentile £68.75 £14.99 -
Median hourly rate £70.50 £16.00 £14.16
Median % change year-on-year +340.63% +12.99% -2.34%
75th Percentile £74.00 £16.50 -
90th Percentile £91.44 £22.73 £20.50
England median hourly rate £52.50 £22.00 £22.40
% change year-on-year +138.64% -1.79% +14.87%

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 270 181 137
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the East of England 11.23% 13.37% 9.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 135 85 62
10th Percentile £163 £199 £187
25th Percentile £238 £230 £221
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £483 £339
Median % change year-on-year -11.92% +42.44% -32.25%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £519
90th Percentile £691 £616 £598
England median daily rate £500 £500 £513
% change year-on-year - -2.44% +2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 55 40 15
10th Percentile £58.80 £14.79 -
25th Percentile £68.13 £15.50 £14.16
Median hourly rate £70.50 £58.75 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +20.00% +17.50% -23.08%
75th Percentile £74.16 £88.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £88.64 £91.50 £77.30
England median hourly rate £63.14 £34.50 £30.00
% change year-on-year +83.00% +15.00% -37.32%

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 12 October 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
Hourly Rate Histogram in the East of England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Active Directory in the East of England over the 6 months to 12 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Active Directory in the East of England

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 12 October 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 +7 77 £450 -18.18% 38
Norfolk +4 21 £175 -63.16% 7
Essex -8 15 £240 +6.67% 6
Cambridgeshire -1 12 £400 -10.11% 18
Bedfordshire -22 4 £235 -25.10% 1
Suffolk -28 3 £210 -5.62% 6
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 18 (13.64%) Microsoft Exchange
2 14 (10.61%) SharePoint
3 7 (5.30%) IIS
4 2 (1.52%) Confluence
Applications
1 5 (3.79%) Spreadsheet
2 1 (0.76%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 5 (3.79%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 64 (48.48%) Microsoft 365
2 37 (28.03%) Azure
3 26 (19.70%) Entra ID
4 6 (4.55%) AWS
4 6 (4.55%) SaaS
5 5 (3.79%) Cohesity
5 5 (3.79%) Mimecast
6 3 (2.27%) IaaS
6 3 (2.27%) PaaS
7 2 (1.52%) Azure DevOps
7 2 (1.52%) Azure Monitor
7 2 (1.52%) Azure Sentinel
7 2 (1.52%) GCP
8 1 (0.76%) AWS CloudFormation
8 1 (0.76%) AWS KMS
8 1 (0.76%) AWS Lambda
8 1 (0.76%) AWS Step Functions
8 1 (0.76%) Datadog
8 1 (0.76%) Serverless
8 1 (0.76%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 22 (16.67%) Firewall
2 18 (13.64%) DNS
3 15 (11.36%) HTTP
3 15 (11.36%) TCP/IP
4 12 (9.09%) DHCP
5 11 (8.33%) LAN
6 10 (7.58%) Network Security
7 9 (6.82%) SSL
7 9 (6.82%) Wi-Fi
8 8 (6.06%) BGP
8 8 (6.06%) HSRP
8 8 (6.06%) OSPF
8 8 (6.06%) VRRP
8 8 (6.06%) WAN
9 5 (3.79%) IP Telephony
9 5 (3.79%) NAS
9 5 (3.79%) Skype
9 5 (3.79%) Unified Communications
9 5 (3.79%) VPN
9 5 (3.79%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.76%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 4 (3.03%) Git
2 3 (2.27%) GitLab
2 3 (2.27%) Jenkins
2 3 (2.27%) JIRA
General
1 58 (43.94%) Social Skills
2 11 (8.33%) Documentation Skills
3 7 (5.30%) Aerospace
4 6 (4.55%) Back Office
5 5 (3.79%) Analytical Skills
5 5 (3.79%) Law
6 3 (2.27%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 3 (2.27%) Organisational Skills
7 2 (1.52%) Automotive
7 2 (1.52%) Manufacturing
7 2 (1.52%) Presentation Skills
7 2 (1.52%) Public Sector
8 1 (0.76%) Advertising
8 1 (0.76%) Retail
8 1 (0.76%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 43 (32.58%) Support Engineer
2 35 (26.52%) IT Support
3 32 (24.24%) IT Engineer
3 32 (24.24%) IT Support Engineer
4 18 (13.64%) Windows Engineer
5 12 (9.09%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 11 (8.33%) Network Engineer
7 9 (6.82%) 2nd Line Support
8 8 (6.06%) 2nd Line Engineer
8 8 (6.06%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
8 8 (6.06%) Security Engineer
9 7 (5.30%) 1st/2nd Line Support
9 7 (5.30%) 1st/2nd Line Support Engineer
9 7 (5.30%) Consultant
9 7 (5.30%) Cybersecurity Engineer
9 7 (5.30%) Desktop Support
10 6 (4.55%) Analyst
10 6 (4.55%) Desktop Engineer
11 5 (3.79%) Desktop Support Engineer
11 5 (3.79%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (11.36%) LDAP
2 8 (6.06%) JSON
3 7 (5.30%) Regular Expression
3 7 (5.30%) Terraform
4 5 (3.79%) SailPoint
5 2 (1.52%) 802.1X
5 2 (1.52%) ARM Templates
5 2 (1.52%) Middleware
5 2 (1.52%) OAuth
5 2 (1.52%) REST
6 1 (0.76%) ModSecurity
6 1 (0.76%) OAuth2
6 1 (0.76%) OpenID
6 1 (0.76%) SAML
6 1 (0.76%) Web Services
6 1 (0.76%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 15 (11.36%) Security Posture
2 9 (6.82%) Onboarding
3 8 (6.06%) Self-Motivation
4 7 (5.30%) Cyber Threat
5 6 (4.55%) PKI
5 6 (4.55%) Video Conferencing
6 5 (3.79%) Driving Licence
6 5 (3.79%) Smartcard
6 5 (3.79%) YubiKey
7 4 (3.03%) CMDB
7 4 (3.03%) NHS
8 3 (2.27%) Virtual Team
9 2 (1.52%) CSOC
9 2 (1.52%) Cyber Kill Chain
9 2 (1.52%) Data Centre
9 2 (1.52%) Enterprise Software
9 2 (1.52%) Insider Threat
9 2 (1.52%) Management Information System
9 2 (1.52%) Security Operations Centre
10 1 (0.76%) Legacy Applications
Operating Systems
1 110 (83.33%) Windows
2 51 (38.64%) Windows Server
3 38 (28.79%) Windows 10
4 18 (13.64%) Linux
5 12 (9.09%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 7 (5.30%) macOS
7 4 (3.03%) Windows Server 2016
8 3 (2.27%) Android
9 2 (1.52%) CentOS
10 1 (0.76%) Apple iOS
10 1 (0.76%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 27 (20.45%) ITIL
1 27 (20.45%) Root Cause Analysis
2 20 (15.15%) Customer Service
2 20 (15.15%) Incident Response
3 19 (14.39%) Cybersecurity
3 19 (14.39%) Problem-Solving
4 18 (13.64%) Configuration Management
5 17 (12.88%) Continuous Improvement
6 16 (12.12%) Incident Management
6 16 (12.12%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 15 (11.36%) Network Management
8 13 (9.85%) Migration
8 13 (9.85%) Storage Management
9 12 (9.09%) SIEM
10 10 (7.58%) Identity Access Management
11 9 (6.82%) AI
11 9 (6.82%) Roadmaps
12 8 (6.06%) Asset Management
12 8 (6.06%) Data Modelling
12 8 (6.06%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 16 (12.12%) PowerShell
2 11 (8.33%) Python
3 2 (1.52%) Bash
3 2 (1.52%) Bicep
3 2 (1.52%) Kusto Query Language
3 2 (1.52%) MATLAB
3 2 (1.52%) Shell Script
4 1 (0.76%) BeanShell
4 1 (0.76%) Groovy
4 1 (0.76%) Java
4 1 (0.76%) SQL
Qualifications
1 56 (42.42%) Security Cleared
2 35 (26.52%) DV Cleared
3 18 (13.64%) SC Cleared
4 8 (6.06%) CCNA
4 8 (6.06%) CCNP
4 8 (6.06%) Cisco Certification
4 8 (6.06%) Degree
5 1 (0.76%) BPSS Clearance
5 1 (0.76%) CISM
5 1 (0.76%) CISSP
5 1 (0.76%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
5 1 (0.76%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (12.12%) SLA
2 4 (3.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 3 (2.27%) GDPR
3 3 (2.27%) NIST
3 3 (2.27%) Sarbanes-Oxley
4 2 (1.52%) QA
System Software
1 17 (12.88%) VMware Infrastructure
2 14 (10.61%) Hyper-V
3 9 (6.82%) Virtual Machines
3 9 (6.82%) vSphere
4 7 (5.30%) NFS
5 1 (0.76%) BitLocker
5 1 (0.76%) Squid
5 1 (0.76%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 27 (20.45%) Microsoft Intune
2 13 (9.85%) SCCM
3 8 (6.06%) Nagios
4 5 (3.79%) Ansible
4 5 (3.79%) Nessus
4 5 (3.79%) WSUS
5 2 (1.52%) Check_MK
5 2 (1.52%) Jamf Pro
5 2 (1.52%) Podman
5 2 (1.52%) QRadar
5 2 (1.52%) Red Hat Satellite
5 2 (1.52%) SCOM
6 1 (0.76%) Packer
6 1 (0.76%) Puppet
6 1 (0.76%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 72 (54.55%) Microsoft
2 24 (18.18%) VMware
3 11 (8.33%) Cisco
4 8 (6.06%) SolarWinds
5 7 (5.30%) Citrix
5 7 (5.30%) Sophos
6 6 (4.55%) Meraki
7 5 (3.79%) Adobe
7 5 (3.79%) Synology
7 5 (3.79%) Tenable
7 5 (3.79%) Ubiquiti
8 4 (3.03%) Red Hat
9 3 (2.27%) Google
9 3 (2.27%) ServiceNow
10 2 (1.52%) Apple
10 2 (1.52%) CyberArk
10 2 (1.52%) IBM
10 2 (1.52%) Infoblox
10 2 (1.52%) Salesforce
11 1 (0.76%) PagerDuty