Active Directory Contract Job Trends in England

Microsoft Active Directory
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in England requiring Active Directory skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 13 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 60 34 33
Rank change year-on-year -26 -1 -1
Contract jobs citing Active Directory 1,592 1,354 1,997
As % of all contract jobs in England 3.73% 5.50% 5.32%
As % of the System Software category 37.04% 43.78% 48.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,091 904 1,402
10th Percentile £163 £187 £163
25th Percentile £213 £235 £231
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £450 £439
Median % change year-on-year - +2.45% +3.35%
75th Percentile £588 £588 £575
90th Percentile £700 £688 £675
UK median daily rate £450 £450 £430
% change year-on-year - +4.65% +1.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 86 41 103
10th Percentile £13.65 £14.99 £14.00
25th Percentile £19.00 £15.09 £14.16
Median hourly rate £26.00 £19.27 £17.69
Median % change year-on-year +34.92% +8.93% -17.72%
75th Percentile £54.31 £26.45 £23.78
90th Percentile £77.50 £34.00 £40.00
UK median hourly rate £24.00 £18.76 £17.69
% change year-on-year +27.93% +6.05% -21.22%

All System Software Skills
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 England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for system software skills 4,298 3,093 4,150
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 10.07% 12.58% 11.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,888 2,066 2,893
10th Percentile £213 £214 £205
25th Percentile £400 £385 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.05% +0.05% -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £608
90th Percentile £683 £700 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 164 71 204
10th Percentile £16.30 £14.99 £14.06
25th Percentile £24.61 £17.73 £14.48
Median hourly rate £52.50 £28.00 £22.40
Median % change year-on-year +87.50% +25.00% -55.20%
75th Percentile £73.00 £69.25 £58.69
90th Percentile £77.50 £88.00 £74.48
UK median hourly rate £51.00 £28.00 £24.18
% change year-on-year +82.14% +15.80% -55.68%

Active Directory
Job Vacancy Trend in England

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

Active Directory job vacancy trend in England

Active Directory
Daily Rate Trend in England

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

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

Active Directory
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Active Directory in England over the 6 months to 13 June 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Active Directory in England

Active Directory
Hourly Rate Trend in England

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

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

Active Directory
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Active Directory in England over the 6 months to 13 June 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Active Directory in England

Active Directory
Contract Job Locations in 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 England region over the 6 months to 13 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
London -24 571 £489 -2.25% 142
South East -9 361 £500 -4.76% 180
North of England -41 238 £288 -25.32% 101
Midlands -28 168 £275 -31.25% 73
North West -14 151 £328 -11.73% 56
South West -12 136 £400 +29.03% 69
West Midlands -39 104 £325 -18.75% 41
East of England -25 101 £388 -17.47% 63
Yorkshire -55 77 £213 -46.88% 34
East Midlands +3 59 £200 -46.67% 32
North East -44 10 £283 -13.08% 14
Active Directory
UK

Active Directory
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in 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
1 275 (17.27%) Microsoft Exchange
2 196 (12.31%) SharePoint
3 21 (1.32%) IIS
4 15 (0.94%) Confluence
5 6 (0.38%) Mattermost
6 5 (0.31%) Apache
7 4 (0.25%) Tomcat
8 3 (0.19%) nginx
9 2 (0.13%) Oracle Workflow
9 2 (0.13%) SharePoint Server
9 2 (0.13%) Skype for Business
10 1 (0.063%) Apache Spark
10 1 (0.063%) NetWeaver
10 1 (0.063%) WebLogic
10 1 (0.063%) WebSphere
Applications
1 74 (4.65%) Microsoft Office
2 23 (1.44%) Microsoft Excel
3 8 (0.50%) Microsoft Project
4 5 (0.31%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (0.31%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.13%) Chatbot
5 2 (0.13%) SOLIDWORKS
6 1 (0.063%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.063%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 28 (1.76%) Remedy ITSM
2 10 (0.63%) Veritas eDiscovery
3 6 (0.38%) SAP S/4HANA
4 4 (0.25%) Dynamics CRM
5 3 (0.19%) SAP GRC
6 2 (0.13%) assyst
6 2 (0.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 1 (0.063%) Oracle ERP
7 1 (0.063%) SAP Business One
Cloud Services
1 843 (52.95%) Azure
2 669 (42.02%) Microsoft 365
3 665 (41.77%) Entra ID
4 181 (11.37%) AWS
5 93 (5.84%) GCP
6 92 (5.78%) OneDrive
7 81 (5.09%) Power Platform
8 74 (4.65%) Azure DevOps
9 60 (3.77%) SaaS
10 48 (3.02%) IaaS
11 41 (2.58%) PaaS
12 37 (2.32%) PowerApps
13 35 (2.20%) Microsoft Copilot
13 35 (2.20%) Power Automate
14 31 (1.95%) GitHub
15 29 (1.82%) Azure Logic Apps
15 29 (1.82%) Microsoft Purview
15 29 (1.82%) Serverless
16 28 (1.76%) Azure Monitor
16 28 (1.76%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 341 (21.42%) DNS
2 226 (14.20%) DHCP
3 190 (11.93%) Firewall
4 145 (9.11%) VPN
5 91 (5.72%) LAN
6 89 (5.59%) Wi-Fi
7 85 (5.34%) WAN
8 75 (4.71%) TCP/IP
9 55 (3.45%) Network Security
10 52 (3.27%) Kerberos
11 40 (2.51%) SSL
12 36 (2.26%) SAN
13 35 (2.20%) VLAN
14 33 (2.07%) Wireless
15 21 (1.32%) Remote Desktop
15 21 (1.32%) SD-WAN
16 19 (1.19%) IPsec
17 16 (1.01%) Internet
18 15 (0.94%) NAS
18 15 (0.94%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 87 (5.46%) SQL Server
2 47 (2.95%) Power BI
3 10 (0.63%) Azure SQL Database
4 9 (0.57%) Amazon RDS
4 9 (0.57%) MySQL
5 8 (0.50%) Elasticsearch
5 8 (0.50%) Metadata
6 6 (0.38%) Amazon QuickSight
6 6 (0.38%) PostgreSQL
6 6 (0.38%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 5 (0.31%) Amazon Athena
7 5 (0.31%) Amazon Redshift
7 5 (0.31%) Big Data
8 4 (0.25%) NoSQL
8 4 (0.25%) Oracle BI EE
9 3 (0.19%) Data Mining
10 2 (0.13%) Data Lake
10 2 (0.13%) Delta Lake
10 2 (0.13%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 2 (0.13%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 108 (6.78%) JIRA
2 36 (2.26%) Git
3 22 (1.38%) GitLab
4 17 (1.07%) Jenkins
5 12 (0.75%) MSI
6 6 (0.38%) Artifactory
6 6 (0.38%) Browser DevTools
6 6 (0.38%) Chocolatey
7 5 (0.31%) InstallShield
7 5 (0.31%) Robot Framework
8 4 (0.25%) AdminStudio
8 4 (0.25%) Sonatype Nexus
9 3 (0.19%) Fiddler
10 1 (0.063%) AppScan
10 1 (0.063%) Bitbucket
10 1 (0.063%) Cypress.io
10 1 (0.063%) JUnit
10 1 (0.063%) Metasploit
10 1 (0.063%) Selenium
10 1 (0.063%) SpecFlow
General
1 532 (33.42%) Social Skills
2 162 (10.18%) Finance
3 154 (9.67%) Analytical Skills
4 153 (9.61%) Public Sector
5 84 (5.28%) Documentation Skills
6 59 (3.71%) Legal
7 52 (3.27%) Banking
8 49 (3.08%) Organisational Skills
9 35 (2.20%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 25 (1.57%) Manufacturing
10 25 (1.57%) Military
11 22 (1.38%) Law
11 22 (1.38%) Retail
12 17 (1.07%) Police
13 14 (0.88%) Financial Institution
13 14 (0.88%) Investment Banking
13 14 (0.88%) Telecoms
14 11 (0.69%) Aerospace
14 11 (0.69%) Local Government
14 11 (0.69%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 254 (15.95%) Support Engineer
2 242 (15.20%) IT Support
3 175 (10.99%) IT Engineer
4 172 (10.80%) Architect
5 163 (10.24%) Analyst
6 154 (9.67%) IT Support Engineer
7 146 (9.17%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 114 (7.16%) Senior
9 65 (4.08%) Administrator
10 63 (3.96%) Desktop Engineer
10 63 (3.96%) Desktop Support
11 59 (3.71%) IT Analyst
12 56 (3.52%) Lead
12 56 (3.52%) Support Analyst
13 53 (3.33%) 2nd Line Support
14 50 (3.14%) Service Analyst
15 49 (3.08%) Service Desk Analyst
16 44 (2.76%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
17 43 (2.70%) Consultant
17 43 (2.70%) Desktop Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 166 (10.43%) LDAP
2 86 (5.40%) SAML
3 84 (5.28%) OAuth
4 75 (4.71%) REST
5 71 (4.46%) SailPoint
6 61 (3.83%) OpenID
7 40 (2.51%) OAuth2
8 38 (2.39%) SOAP
9 27 (1.70%) Microsoft Graph
10 26 (1.63%) Web Services
11 18 (1.13%) YAML
12 17 (1.07%) ARM Templates
13 15 (0.94%) .NET
13 15 (0.94%) Middleware
14 13 (0.82%) JSON
15 9 (0.57%) 802.1X
15 9 (0.57%) Entity Framework
16 7 (0.44%) ADO
16 7 (0.44%) JDBC
16 7 (0.44%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 209 (13.13%) Onboarding
2 86 (5.40%) Enterprise Software
3 69 (4.33%) PKI
4 58 (3.64%) Security Posture
5 53 (3.33%) Data Centre
6 49 (3.08%) Management Information System
7 46 (2.89%) Hybrid Cloud
8 41 (2.58%) Replication
9 33 (2.07%) Driving Licence
10 26 (1.63%) Clustering
10 26 (1.63%) Operational Technology
11 25 (1.57%) Self-Motivation
12 24 (1.51%) Product Ownership
13 20 (1.26%) Cloud Native
14 19 (1.19%) Data Protection Act
14 19 (1.19%) Smartphone
15 17 (1.07%) Virtual Team
16 16 (1.01%) Legacy Systems
17 15 (0.94%) BYOD
18 14 (0.88%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 957 (60.11%) Windows
2 355 (22.30%) Windows Server
3 272 (17.09%) Windows 10
4 181 (11.37%) Linux
5 62 (3.89%) Mac OS
6 47 (2.95%) Apple iOS
6 47 (2.95%) Windows Server 2019
7 41 (2.58%) Android
7 41 (2.58%) Unix
8 28 (1.76%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 26 (1.63%) Windows Server 2012
9 26 (1.63%) Windows Server 2016
10 22 (1.38%) Windows 7
11 21 (1.32%) CentOS
12 11 (0.69%) Ubuntu
13 9 (0.57%) Mac OS X
14 8 (0.50%) Windows Server 2003
15 6 (0.38%) VMS
16 4 (0.25%) Windows 8
17 3 (0.19%) CatOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 354 (22.24%) Problem-Solving
2 293 (18.40%) ITIL
3 220 (13.82%) Customer Service
4 197 (12.37%) Migration
5 191 (12.00%) Identity Access Management
6 190 (11.93%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 190 (11.93%) ITSM
7 164 (10.30%) DevOps
8 141 (8.86%) Cybersecurity
9 131 (8.23%) SIEM
10 121 (7.60%) CI/CD
11 118 (7.41%) RBAC
12 117 (7.35%) Agile
12 117 (7.35%) Continuous Improvement
13 113 (7.10%) Change Management
14 108 (6.78%) Privileged Access Management
15 105 (6.60%) High Availability
16 102 (6.41%) Service Management
17 97 (6.09%) Roadmaps
18 95 (5.97%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 430 (27.01%) PowerShell
2 137 (8.61%) Python
3 92 (5.78%) SQL
4 37 (2.32%) Bash
5 31 (1.95%) Java
6 25 (1.57%) C#
7 22 (1.38%) Bicep
8 21 (1.32%) JavaScript
9 12 (0.75%) Shell Script
10 11 (0.69%) MATLAB
11 9 (0.57%) BeanShell
12 6 (0.38%) Groovy
12 6 (0.38%) Perl
13 5 (0.31%) Kusto Query Language
14 4 (0.25%) TypeScript
14 4 (0.25%) VBScript
15 3 (0.19%) C++
15 3 (0.19%) Lisp
15 3 (0.19%) PL/SQL
15 3 (0.19%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 432 (27.14%) Security Cleared
2 299 (18.78%) SC Cleared
3 163 (10.24%) Degree
4 120 (7.54%) DV Cleared
5 106 (6.66%) Microsoft Certification
6 53 (3.33%) Azure Certification
7 50 (3.14%) CISSP
8 34 (2.14%) CISM
9 33 (2.07%) Computer Science Degree
10 31 (1.95%) Cisco Certification
11 27 (1.70%) BPSS Clearance
12 24 (1.51%) MCSE
13 19 (1.19%) MCSA
14 16 (1.01%) A+ Certification
14 16 (1.01%) CCNP
15 14 (0.88%) AWS Certification
16 13 (0.82%) CompTIA Security+
17 12 (0.75%) (ISC)2 CCSP
17 12 (0.75%) CCNA
18 11 (0.69%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 111 (6.97%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 101 (6.34%) NIST
3 74 (4.65%) GDPR
4 66 (4.15%) SLA
5 29 (1.82%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 19 (1.19%) NCSC
7 17 (1.07%) Cyber Essentials
8 15 (0.94%) QA
9 10 (0.63%) NIST 800
9 10 (0.63%) PCI DSS
10 9 (0.57%) GRC
10 9 (0.57%) HIPAA
11 7 (0.44%) Data Quality
12 5 (0.31%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 5 (0.31%) ISO 31000
12 5 (0.31%) ISO/IEC 42001
13 4 (0.25%) SOC 2
14 3 (0.19%) Accessibility
14 3 (0.19%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 3 (0.19%) GxP
System Software
1 193 (12.12%) VMware Infrastructure
2 98 (6.16%) Hyper-V
3 60 (3.77%) Virtual Desktop
4 53 (3.33%) VMware ESXi
5 44 (2.76%) vSphere
6 39 (2.45%) Docker
6 39 (2.45%) VMware NSX
7 38 (2.39%) Virtual Machines
8 18 (1.13%) Microsoft App-V
9 16 (1.01%) BitLocker
9 16 (1.01%) Firmware
10 11 (0.69%) vCloud
11 8 (0.50%) VMware Workstation
12 5 (0.31%) Terminal Services
13 4 (0.25%) Squid
13 4 (0.25%) Virtual Servers
13 4 (0.25%) XenDesktop
14 3 (0.19%) DFS Replication
14 3 (0.19%) Dovecot
14 3 (0.19%) IAG
Systems Management
1 333 (20.92%) Microsoft Intune
2 140 (8.79%) SCCM
3 119 (7.47%) Single Sign-On
4 92 (5.78%) Terraform
5 89 (5.59%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 68 (4.27%) Ansible
7 40 (2.51%) vCenter Server
8 33 (2.07%) Kubernetes
9 28 (1.76%) Jamf Pro
10 25 (1.57%) SCOM
11 16 (1.01%) Puppet
11 16 (1.01%) WSUS
12 13 (0.82%) Nessus
13 12 (0.75%) vMotion
14 11 (0.69%) Check_MK
14 11 (0.69%) Podman
14 11 (0.69%) Red Hat Satellite
15 10 (0.63%) Grafana
16 8 (0.50%) Prometheus
17 7 (0.44%) FortiGate
Vendors
1 988 (62.06%) Microsoft
2 240 (15.08%) VMware
3 171 (10.74%) ServiceNow
4 112 (7.04%) CyberArk
5 78 (4.90%) Cisco
6 77 (4.84%) BeyondTrust
7 69 (4.33%) Citrix
8 47 (2.95%) Google
9 41 (2.58%) Okta
10 39 (2.45%) Oracle
11 37 (2.32%) Remedy
12 33 (2.07%) Centrify
13 29 (1.82%) Apple
14 26 (1.63%) Red Hat
15 22 (1.38%) HP
15 22 (1.38%) Palo Alto
15 22 (1.38%) SolarWinds
16 21 (1.32%) Meraki
16 21 (1.32%) SAP
17 20 (1.26%) F5