Active Directory Contract Job Trends in Manchester

Microsoft Active Directory
North West > Manchester

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

6 months to
14 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 43 66 46
Rank change year-on-year +23 -20 -23
Contract jobs citing Active Directory 96 21 41
As % of all contract jobs in Manchester 4.93% 2.08% 3.40%
As % of the System Software category 41.20% 18.75% 38.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 70 11 38
10th Percentile £180 - £213
25th Percentile £193 £200 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +5.56% +38.46%
75th Percentile £525 £513 £519
90th Percentile £590 £612 £645
North West median daily rate £319 £315 £425
% change year-on-year +1.27% -25.88% +54.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 0 1
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £166.25 - £29.50
Median hourly rate £172.50 - £31.00
75th Percentile £178.75 - £32.50
90th Percentile - - -
North West median hourly rate £172.50 - £23.34
% change year-on-year - - +26.16%

All System Software Skills
Manchester

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 Manchester.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for system software skills 233 112 107
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Manchester 11.97% 11.09% 8.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 157 77 78
10th Percentile £192 £340 £283
25th Percentile £400 £425 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +5.26% +5.56%
75th Percentile £568 £563 £609
90th Percentile £627 £650 £675
North West median daily rate £450 £450 £500
% change year-on-year - -10.00% +11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 1 1
10th Percentile £61.48 - -
25th Percentile £66.50 £76.25 £29.50
Median hourly rate £86.00 £82.50 £31.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.24% +166.13% +67.57%
75th Percentile £178.75 £88.75 £32.50
90th Percentile - - -
North West median hourly rate £74.26 £74.50 £29.25
% change year-on-year -0.32% +154.70% +58.11%

Active Directory
Job Vacancy Trend in Manchester

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

Active Directory job vacancy trend in Manchester

Active Directory
Daily Rate Trend in Manchester

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

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

Active Directory
Daily Rate Histogram in Manchester

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Active Directory in Manchester over the 6 months to 14 August 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Active Directory in Manchester

Active Directory
Hourly Rate Trend in Manchester

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

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

Active Directory
Contract Job Locations in Manchester

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 Manchester region over the 6 months to 14 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
Bolton +6 4 £160 - 1
Oldham +1 2 £205 -
Rochdale - 2 - - 1
Salford - 1 £168 - 4
Wigan - 1 £450 - 1
Active Directory
North West

Active Directory
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Manchester 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 21 (21.88%) Microsoft Exchange
2 18 (18.75%) SharePoint
3 2 (2.08%) IIS
Applications
1 9 (9.38%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (3.13%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (2.08%) Chatbot
Cloud Services
1 64 (66.67%) Microsoft 365
2 46 (47.92%) Entra ID
3 37 (38.54%) Azure
4 9 (9.38%) GCP
4 9 (9.38%) OneDrive
4 9 (9.38%) Power Platform
5 8 (8.33%) AWS
5 8 (8.33%) Google Workspace
5 8 (8.33%) Power Automate
5 8 (8.33%) PowerApps
5 8 (8.33%) SaaS
6 7 (7.29%) Google Drive
7 6 (6.25%) Microsoft Copilot
8 3 (3.13%) Asana
8 3 (3.13%) Azure DevOps
9 2 (2.08%) Azure Functions
9 2 (2.08%) Azure Logic Apps
9 2 (2.08%) GitHub
9 2 (2.08%) IaaS
9 2 (2.08%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 10 (10.42%) DNS
2 8 (8.33%) VPN
3 6 (6.25%) VLAN
4 5 (5.21%) DHCP
4 5 (5.21%) Firewall
4 5 (5.21%) SAN
5 4 (4.17%) LAN
5 4 (4.17%) NAS
6 3 (3.13%) DKIM
6 3 (3.13%) DMARC
6 3 (3.13%) TCP/IP
6 3 (3.13%) WAN
7 2 (2.08%) PABX
7 2 (2.08%) VoIP
7 2 (2.08%) Wi-Fi
8 1 (1.04%) BGP
8 1 (1.04%) Kerberos
8 1 (1.04%) Network Security
8 1 (1.04%) OSPF
8 1 (1.04%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (3.13%) SQL Server
2 1 (1.04%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 5 (5.21%) JIRA
2 2 (2.08%) Git
2 2 (2.08%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
3 1 (1.04%) MSI
General
1 40 (41.67%) Social Skills
2 16 (16.67%) Public Sector
3 13 (13.54%) Finance
4 11 (11.46%) Analytical Skills
5 7 (7.29%) Telecoms
6 6 (6.25%) Documentation Skills
6 6 (6.25%) Legal
7 5 (5.21%) Games
8 4 (4.17%) Banking
9 3 (3.13%) Organisational Skills
10 2 (2.08%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 2 (2.08%) Retail
11 1 (1.04%) Military
Job Titles
1 29 (30.21%) IT Support
2 27 (28.13%) Support Engineer
3 19 (19.79%) IT Engineer
3 19 (19.79%) IT Support Engineer
4 11 (11.46%) Analyst
5 9 (9.38%) Administrator
6 8 (8.33%) IT Analyst
7 7 (7.29%) IT Support Analyst
7 7 (7.29%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
7 7 (7.29%) Support Analyst
7 7 (7.29%) Systems Engineer
8 6 (6.25%) Microsoft Engineer
9 4 (4.17%) 2nd Line Engineer
9 4 (4.17%) 2nd Line Support
9 4 (4.17%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
9 4 (4.17%) SailPoint Engineer
10 3 (3.13%) Migration Engineer
11 2 (2.08%) Exchange Engineer
11 2 (2.08%) IT Support Assistant
11 2 (2.08%) Windows Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (8.33%) SAML
2 7 (7.29%) SailPoint
3 4 (4.17%) OAuth
4 3 (3.13%) JDBC
4 3 (3.13%) REST
4 3 (3.13%) Web Services
5 2 (2.08%) ARM Templates
5 2 (2.08%) JSON
5 2 (2.08%) LDAP
5 2 (2.08%) ODBC
5 2 (2.08%) Software Packaging
6 1 (1.04%) Microsoft Graph
Miscellaneous
1 21 (21.88%) Onboarding
2 5 (5.21%) Animation
3 4 (4.17%) Driving Licence
4 3 (3.13%) Freedom of Information
4 3 (3.13%) Management Information System
4 3 (3.13%) PKI
5 2 (2.08%) AI Agents
5 2 (2.08%) Enterprise Software
5 2 (2.08%) Handset
5 2 (2.08%) iPhone
6 1 (1.04%) Analytical Mindset
6 1 (1.04%) Cloud Native
6 1 (1.04%) Cloud Security Posture
6 1 (1.04%) Data Centre
6 1 (1.04%) Enterprise Storage
6 1 (1.04%) Hybrid Cloud
6 1 (1.04%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 53 (55.21%) Windows
2 32 (33.33%) Windows 10
3 17 (17.71%) Windows Server
4 4 (4.17%) Linux
5 3 (3.13%) Windows Server 2012
6 2 (2.08%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (2.08%) Unix
7 1 (1.04%) Android
7 1 (1.04%) Windows Server 2016
7 1 (1.04%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 37 (38.54%) ITIL
2 19 (19.79%) Problem-Solving
3 17 (17.71%) Customer Service
4 16 (16.67%) Migration
5 14 (14.58%) Identity Access Management
5 14 (14.58%) RBAC
6 13 (13.54%) Knowledge Transfer
7 11 (11.46%) Service Management
8 10 (10.42%) Continuous Improvement
8 10 (10.42%) Infrastructure as Code
9 9 (9.38%) Project Delivery
10 8 (8.33%) Inventory Management
10 8 (8.33%) Privileged Access Management
11 7 (7.29%) Cloud Operations
11 7 (7.29%) Computer Science
11 7 (7.29%) Conflict Resolution
11 7 (7.29%) Creative Problem-Solving
11 7 (7.29%) Data Loss Prevention
11 7 (7.29%) High Availability
11 7 (7.29%) Knowledge Management
Programming Languages
1 14 (14.58%) PowerShell
2 6 (6.25%) Python
3 5 (5.21%) Bicep
4 4 (4.17%) SQL
5 2 (2.08%) BeanShell
5 2 (2.08%) Java
5 2 (2.08%) T-SQL
6 1 (1.04%) Bash
Qualifications
1 14 (14.58%) Degree
1 14 (14.58%) Microsoft Certification
2 12 (12.50%) Security Cleared
3 8 (8.33%) A+ Certification
3 8 (8.33%) SC Cleared
4 7 (7.29%) Computer Science Degree
4 7 (7.29%) Network+ Certification
5 4 (4.17%) BPSS Clearance
5 4 (4.17%) DBS Check
6 2 (2.08%) Azure Certification
6 2 (2.08%) ITIL Certification
7 1 (1.04%) CCNA
7 1 (1.04%) Cisco Certification
7 1 (1.04%) CISSP
7 1 (1.04%) CompTIA Security+
7 1 (1.04%) MCSA
7 1 (1.04%) MCSE
7 1 (1.04%) PMI Certification
7 1 (1.04%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (5.21%) NIST
2 4 (4.17%) SLA
3 1 (1.04%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 1 (1.04%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 6 (6.25%) VMware Infrastructure
2 4 (4.17%) Hyper-V
3 3 (3.13%) Docker
4 2 (2.08%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 26 (27.08%) Microsoft Intune
2 14 (14.58%) Single Sign-On
3 7 (7.29%) Terraform
4 5 (5.21%) SCCM
5 3 (3.13%) Kubernetes
6 2 (2.08%) AirWatch
6 2 (2.08%) Ansible
6 2 (2.08%) Jamf Pro
7 1 (1.04%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 1 (1.04%) CASB
7 1 (1.04%) Nessus
7 1 (1.04%) WSUS
Vendors
1 74 (77.08%) Microsoft
2 13 (13.54%) BeyondTrust
3 9 (9.38%) Google
4 6 (6.25%) Perforce
4 6 (6.25%) VMware
5 5 (5.21%) ServiceNow
6 3 (3.13%) CyberArk
6 3 (3.13%) Okta
7 2 (2.08%) Bloomberg
7 2 (2.08%) Cisco
7 2 (2.08%) HP
7 2 (2.08%) Meraki
8 1 (1.04%) Aruba
8 1 (1.04%) Citrix
8 1 (1.04%) Fortinet
8 1 (1.04%) Juniper
8 1 (1.04%) Palo Alto
8 1 (1.04%) Rapid7
8 1 (1.04%) Red Hat
8 1 (1.04%) Remedy