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 vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 17 September 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 65 54 20
Rank change year-on-year -11 -34 +10
Contract jobs citing Active Directory 21 32 113
As % of all contract jobs advertised in Manchester 2.06% 2.72% 6.77%
As % of the System Software category 18.58% 34.04% 41.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 15 29 81
10th Percentile £200 £190 £171
25th Percentile £276 £213 £201
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £471 £450 £300
Median % change year-on-year +4.67% +50.00% +17.65%
75th Percentile £513 £500 £425
90th Percentile £597 £643 £538
North West median daily rate £360 £401 £270
% change year-on-year -10.28% +48.61% -3.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 1 14
10th Percentile - - £16.87
25th Percentile - £29.50 £17.75
Median hourly rate £20.00 £31.00 £18.50
Median % change year-on-year -35.48% +67.57% -5.13%
75th Percentile - £32.50 £19.94
90th Percentile - - £33.72
North West median hourly rate £17.75 £17.44 £18.00
% change year-on-year +1.78% -3.11% +2.86%

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 113 94 274
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Manchester 11.11% 7.98% 16.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 79 68 200
10th Percentile £313 £213 £201
25th Percentile £413 £355 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £463 £450
Median % change year-on-year +2.70% +2.78% -10.00%
75th Percentile £545 £600 £556
90th Percentile £650 £671 £650
North West median daily rate £449 £500 £440
% change year-on-year -10.30% +13.64% -2.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 1 24
10th Percentile £25.63 - £15.75
25th Percentile £34.06 £29.50 £16.22
Median hourly rate £51.25 £31.00 £18.25
Median % change year-on-year +65.32% +69.86% -6.41%
75th Percentile £71.56 £32.50 £24.90
90th Percentile £81.88 - £58.69
North West median hourly rate £18.87 £19.18 £18.00
% change year-on-year -1.62% +6.56% +2.86%

Active Directory
Job Vacancy Trend in Manchester

Job postings citing Active Directory as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in Manchester.

Job vacancy trend for Active Directory 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 17 September 2025.

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 17 September 2025. 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 - 1 - - 2
Active Directory
North West

Active Directory
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in Manchester by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 7 (33.33%) Microsoft Exchange
2 3 (14.29%) IIS
2 3 (14.29%) WebSphere
3 2 (9.52%) Apache
3 2 (9.52%) iPlanet
3 2 (9.52%) JBoss
3 2 (9.52%) SharePoint
3 2 (9.52%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 1 (4.76%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (4.76%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 11 (52.38%) Azure
2 10 (47.62%) Microsoft 365
3 6 (28.57%) AWS
3 6 (28.57%) Entra ID
4 3 (14.29%) IaaS
4 3 (14.29%) SaaS
5 2 (9.52%) GCP
6 1 (4.76%) Azure Stack
6 1 (4.76%) OneDrive
6 1 (4.76%) OpenShift
6 1 (4.76%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 4 (19.05%) DNS
1 4 (19.05%) TCP/IP
1 4 (19.05%) VPN
2 3 (14.29%) Firewall
2 3 (14.29%) Network Security
2 3 (14.29%) SAN
2 3 (14.29%) VLAN
3 2 (9.52%) Intrusion Detection
3 2 (9.52%) iSCSI
3 2 (9.52%) Kerberos
3 2 (9.52%) Remote Desktop
3 2 (9.52%) SSL
4 1 (4.76%) DHCP
4 1 (4.76%) IP Telephony
4 1 (4.76%) VoIP
4 1 (4.76%) WebEx
4 1 (4.76%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (14.29%) SQL Server
2 2 (9.52%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 2 (9.52%) Bitbucket Server
1 2 (9.52%) CA Release Automation
1 2 (9.52%) Git
1 2 (9.52%) Jenkins
2 1 (4.76%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 7 (33.33%) Social Skills
2 5 (23.81%) Finance
3 2 (9.52%) Telecoms
4 1 (4.76%) Banking
4 1 (4.76%) Italian Language
4 1 (4.76%) Organisational Skills
4 1 (4.76%) Polish Language
4 1 (4.76%) Public Sector
4 1 (4.76%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 4 (19.05%) IT Engineer
1 4 (19.05%) Support Engineer
2 3 (14.29%) Analyst
2 3 (14.29%) IT Support
2 3 (14.29%) IT Support Engineer
2 3 (14.29%) Security Engineer
2 3 (14.29%) Senior
3 2 (9.52%) 1st Line Support
3 2 (9.52%) 2nd Line Engineer
3 2 (9.52%) 2nd Line Support
3 2 (9.52%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
3 2 (9.52%) Deployment Engineer
3 2 (9.52%) Infrastructure Analyst
3 2 (9.52%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 2 (9.52%) Lead
3 2 (9.52%) Platform Engineer
3 2 (9.52%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
3 2 (9.52%) Server Engineer
3 2 (9.52%) Storage Engineer
3 2 (9.52%) Windows Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (14.29%) LDAP
2 2 (9.52%) Middleware
2 2 (9.52%) OAuth
2 2 (9.52%) OpenID
2 2 (9.52%) SAML
3 1 (4.76%) XMPP
Miscellaneous
1 3 (14.29%) Clustering
1 3 (14.29%) Onboarding
1 3 (14.29%) Replication
2 2 (9.52%) Data Centre
3 1 (4.76%) Cloud Native
3 1 (4.76%) Cloud Security Posture
3 1 (4.76%) Data Protection Act
3 1 (4.76%) Enterprise Storage
3 1 (4.76%) IBM XIV
3 1 (4.76%) Legacy Applications
3 1 (4.76%) Private Cloud
3 1 (4.76%) Security Posture
3 1 (4.76%) Self-Motivation
3 1 (4.76%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 17 (80.95%) Windows
2 9 (42.86%) Windows Server
3 5 (23.81%) Linux
4 3 (14.29%) Unix
4 3 (14.29%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 6 (28.57%) Project Delivery
2 4 (19.05%) Cybersecurity
2 4 (19.05%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 4 (19.05%) ITIL
3 3 (14.29%) Customer Service
3 3 (14.29%) DevOps
3 3 (14.29%) High Availability
3 3 (14.29%) Problem-Solving
3 3 (14.29%) Stakeholder Management
3 3 (14.29%) Vulnerability Scanning
4 2 (9.52%) Analytics
4 2 (9.52%) Business Continuity
4 2 (9.52%) Business Continuity Planning
4 2 (9.52%) CI/CD
4 2 (9.52%) Identity Access Management
4 2 (9.52%) Infrastructure Transformation
4 2 (9.52%) Line Management
4 2 (9.52%) Mentoring
4 2 (9.52%) Re-Platforming
4 2 (9.52%) Web Operations
Programming Languages
1 4 (19.05%) PowerShell
2 2 (9.52%) Groovy
3 1 (4.76%) Shell Script
3 1 (4.76%) SQL
Qualifications
1 4 (19.05%) Microsoft Certification
2 3 (14.29%) Azure Certification
3 2 (9.52%) Degree
4 1 (4.76%) AWS Certification
4 1 (4.76%) CISSP
4 1 (4.76%) CompTIA Security+
4 1 (4.76%) DBS Check
4 1 (4.76%) MCSA
4 1 (4.76%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (4.76%) NCSC
1 1 (4.76%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 5 (23.81%) VMware Infrastructure
2 3 (14.29%) vSphere
3 2 (9.52%) Virtual Servers
4 1 (4.76%) Docker
4 1 (4.76%) Hyper-V
4 1 (4.76%) Tivoli Directory Server
Systems Management
1 7 (33.33%) Microsoft Intune
2 4 (19.05%) SCCM
3 2 (9.52%) CA Single Sign-On
3 2 (9.52%) CA Wily
4 1 (4.76%) Ansible
4 1 (4.76%) CASB
4 1 (4.76%) Jamf Pro
4 1 (4.76%) Kubernetes
4 1 (4.76%) Nessus
4 1 (4.76%) Progress Chef
4 1 (4.76%) Single Sign-On
4 1 (4.76%) Terraform
4 1 (4.76%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 15 (71.43%) Microsoft
2 6 (28.57%) VMware
3 4 (19.05%) Cisco
3 4 (19.05%) Citrix
3 4 (19.05%) IBM
3 4 (19.05%) Oracle
4 3 (14.29%) Splunk
5 2 (9.52%) AppDynamics
5 2 (9.52%) Blue Prism
5 2 (9.52%) Broadcom
5 2 (9.52%) Dell
5 2 (9.52%) NetApp
5 2 (9.52%) SolarWinds
5 2 (9.52%) Veeam
6 1 (4.76%) Apple
6 1 (4.76%) CyberArk
6 1 (4.76%) HP
6 1 (4.76%) Meraki
6 1 (4.76%) Tenable
6 1 (4.76%) Zscaler