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 24 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 35 13 31
Rank change year-on-year -22 +18 -11
Contract jobs citing Active Directory 92 110 72
As % of all contract jobs in the East of England 4.16% 8.64% 4.61%
As % of the System Software category 44.66% 59.46% 61.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 62 52 41
10th Percentile £163 £198 £156
25th Percentile £167 £225 £205
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £300 £525 £240
Median % change year-on-year -42.86% +118.75% -31.43%
75th Percentile £488 £575 £350
90th Percentile £575 - £475
England median daily rate £450 £435 £450
% change year-on-year +3.45% -3.33% +12.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 14 17
10th Percentile £22.68 £13.58 -
25th Percentile £37.14 £14.99 -
Median hourly rate £62.50 £15.14 £14.16
Median % change year-on-year +312.81% +6.92% -7.15%
75th Percentile £65.63 £19.73 £15.12
90th Percentile £66.75 £25.92 £16.26
England median hourly rate £48.72 £23.00 £18.06
% change year-on-year +111.83% +27.35% -4.95%

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 206 185 117
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the East of England 9.32% 14.53% 7.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 121 83 59
10th Percentile £163 £198 £177
25th Percentile £240 £231 £220
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £525 £345
Median % change year-on-year -14.29% +52.17% -23.33%
75th Percentile £525 £575 £500
90th Percentile £588 £610 £590
England median daily rate £500 £500 £515
% change year-on-year - -2.91% -1.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 20 38 24
10th Percentile £47.37 £14.99 -
25th Percentile £64.38 £15.58 £14.16
Median hourly rate £70.00 £64.75 £14.48
Median % change year-on-year +8.11% +347.17% -77.72%
75th Percentile £72.00 £88.56 £53.44
90th Percentile £75.40 £91.50 £70.40
England median hourly rate £61.75 £37.50 £23.80
% change year-on-year +64.67% +57.56% -44.65%

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 24 August 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 24 August 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 24 August 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 -16 37 £491 -10.68% 37
Norfolk +5 22 £175 -12.50% 10
Essex -7 18 £258 +14.44% 6
Cambridgeshire -9 9 £475 +63.09% 11
Suffolk -19 3 £225 - 4
Bedfordshire -22 3 £525 +133.33% 4
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 15 (16.30%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (2.17%) Confluence
2 2 (2.17%) SharePoint
Applications
1 5 (5.43%) Spreadsheet
2 1 (1.09%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (1.09%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 5 (5.43%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 50 (54.35%) Microsoft 365
2 26 (28.26%) Azure
3 19 (20.65%) Entra ID
4 6 (6.52%) AWS
5 5 (5.43%) Cohesity
5 5 (5.43%) Mimecast
6 4 (4.35%) SaaS
7 2 (2.17%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 2 (2.17%) Amazon EC2
7 2 (2.17%) Amazon S3
7 2 (2.17%) AWS CloudFormation
7 2 (2.17%) AWS CloudTrail
7 2 (2.17%) AWS Lambda
7 2 (2.17%) AWS Step Functions
7 2 (2.17%) Azure DevOps
7 2 (2.17%) Azure Monitor
7 2 (2.17%) Datadog
7 2 (2.17%) Serverless
7 2 (2.17%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 1 (1.09%) AWS Control Tower
Communications & Networking
1 23 (25.00%) Firewall
2 18 (19.57%) DNS
3 12 (13.04%) Wi-Fi
4 9 (9.78%) DHCP
4 9 (9.78%) WAN
5 8 (8.70%) VPN
6 7 (7.61%) LAN
6 7 (7.61%) NAS
7 5 (5.43%) Skype
7 5 (5.43%) TCP/IP
8 3 (3.26%) Network Security
8 3 (3.26%) Wireless
9 2 (2.17%) Cisco ISE
9 2 (2.17%) iSCSI
9 2 (2.17%) SAN
9 2 (2.17%) SSL
10 1 (1.09%) Remote Desktop
10 1 (1.09%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.09%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 6 (6.52%) Git
2 5 (5.43%) GitLab
2 5 (5.43%) Jenkins
3 4 (4.35%) JIRA
General
1 47 (51.09%) Social Skills
2 9 (9.78%) Documentation Skills
3 5 (5.43%) Analytical Skills
4 3 (3.26%) Aerospace
4 3 (3.26%) Manufacturing
5 2 (2.17%) Legal
5 2 (2.17%) Organisational Skills
5 2 (2.17%) Presentation Skills
6 1 (1.09%) Advertising
6 1 (1.09%) Finance
6 1 (1.09%) Pharmaceutical
6 1 (1.09%) Retail
6 1 (1.09%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 31 (33.70%) IT Support
2 30 (32.61%) Support Engineer
3 26 (28.26%) IT Engineer
4 24 (26.09%) IT Support Engineer
5 10 (10.87%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 7 (7.61%) 2nd Line Engineer
6 7 (7.61%) 2nd Line Support
6 7 (7.61%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
7 6 (6.52%) 1st/2nd Line Support
7 6 (6.52%) 1st/2nd Line Support Engineer
7 6 (6.52%) Administrator
7 6 (6.52%) Consultant
8 5 (5.43%) Lead
9 4 (4.35%) Applications Support
9 4 (4.35%) Architect
9 4 (4.35%) Linux Administrator
10 3 (3.26%) Lead Architect
10 3 (3.26%) Network Engineer
10 3 (3.26%) Technical Architect
10 3 (3.26%) Technical Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (8.70%) LDAP
2 5 (5.43%) Terraform
3 4 (4.35%) Middleware
3 4 (4.35%) SailPoint
4 2 (2.17%) 802.1X
5 1 (1.09%) OAuth
5 1 (1.09%) OAuth2
5 1 (1.09%) OpenID
5 1 (1.09%) REST
5 1 (1.09%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 8 (8.70%) Driving Licence
1 8 (8.70%) Onboarding
2 5 (5.43%) PKI
2 5 (5.43%) Smartcard
2 5 (5.43%) YubiKey
3 4 (4.35%) Data Centre
3 4 (4.35%) Virtual Team
4 3 (3.26%) Management Information System
4 3 (3.26%) NHS
5 2 (2.17%) CMDB
5 2 (2.17%) Fat Client
5 2 (2.17%) Renewable Energy
5 2 (2.17%) Security Posture
5 2 (2.17%) Thin Client
6 1 (1.09%) Enterprise Software
6 1 (1.09%) Life Science
6 1 (1.09%) Linux Command Line
6 1 (1.09%) Operational Technology
6 1 (1.09%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 70 (76.09%) Windows
2 29 (31.52%) Windows Server
3 25 (27.17%) Windows 10
4 10 (10.87%) Linux
5 5 (5.43%) Mac OS
5 5 (5.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 4 (4.35%) CentOS
7 3 (3.26%) Android
7 3 (3.26%) Windows Server 2016
8 2 (2.17%) Windows Server 2019
9 1 (1.09%) Apple iOS
9 1 (1.09%) Mac OS X
9 1 (1.09%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 29 (31.52%) ITIL
2 11 (11.96%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 11 (11.96%) Problem-Solving
3 10 (10.87%) Migration
4 9 (9.78%) Cybersecurity
5 7 (7.61%) Identity Access Management
5 7 (7.61%) Proactive Monitoring
6 6 (6.52%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 6 (6.52%) User Experience
7 5 (5.43%) Antivirus Management
7 5 (5.43%) Asset Management
7 5 (5.43%) CRM
7 5 (5.43%) Customer Service
7 5 (5.43%) SIEM
7 5 (5.43%) Technical Leadership
8 4 (4.35%) Agile
8 4 (4.35%) Change Management
8 4 (4.35%) Information Management
8 4 (4.35%) RBAC
8 4 (4.35%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 8 (8.70%) PowerShell
2 4 (4.35%) MATLAB
2 4 (4.35%) Shell Script
3 3 (3.26%) Bash
4 2 (2.17%) Groovy
4 2 (2.17%) Python
Qualifications
1 27 (29.35%) Security Cleared
2 16 (17.39%) SC Cleared
3 12 (13.04%) DV Cleared
4 5 (5.43%) Degree
5 2 (2.17%) CCNA
5 2 (2.17%) CCNP
5 2 (2.17%) Cisco Certification
5 2 (2.17%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
5 2 (2.17%) Microsoft Certification
5 2 (2.17%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
6 1 (1.09%) BPSS Clearance
6 1 (1.09%) CISM
6 1 (1.09%) CISSP
6 1 (1.09%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (8.70%) SLA
2 3 (3.26%) GDPR
2 3 (3.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 3 (3.26%) QA
2 3 (3.26%) Sarbanes-Oxley
3 1 (1.09%) GxP
3 1 (1.09%) PMO
System Software
1 9 (9.78%) VMware Infrastructure
2 5 (5.43%) Hyper-V
3 2 (2.17%) Squid
3 2 (2.17%) VMware ESXi
3 2 (2.17%) vSphere
4 1 (1.09%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 22 (23.91%) Microsoft Intune
2 9 (9.78%) Ansible
3 8 (8.70%) SCCM
4 6 (6.52%) WSUS
5 5 (5.43%) Nessus
6 4 (4.35%) Check_MK
6 4 (4.35%) Podman
6 4 (4.35%) Red Hat Satellite
7 3 (3.26%) vCenter Server
8 2 (2.17%) SCOM
9 1 (1.09%) Jamf Pro
9 1 (1.09%) Packer
9 1 (1.09%) Puppet
Vendors
1 57 (61.96%) Microsoft
2 14 (15.22%) VMware
3 6 (6.52%) Citrix
3 6 (6.52%) Meraki
3 6 (6.52%) Sophos
4 5 (5.43%) Adobe
4 5 (5.43%) Cisco
4 5 (5.43%) Red Hat
4 5 (5.43%) Synology
4 5 (5.43%) Tenable
4 5 (5.43%) Ubiquiti
5 3 (3.26%) ServiceNow
6 2 (2.17%) Infoblox
6 2 (2.17%) PagerDuty
6 2 (2.17%) Trend Micro
7 1 (1.09%) Apple
7 1 (1.09%) BeyondTrust
7 1 (1.09%) CyberArk
7 1 (1.09%) HP
7 1 (1.09%) SOTI