Active Directory Contracts in the North West

Microsoft Active Directory
England > North West

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the North West requiring Active Directory skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Active Directory over the 6 months leading up to 3 July 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Jul 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 34 33 21
Rank change year-on-year -1 -12 +5
Contract jobs citing Active Directory 111 130 211
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the North West 5.35% 4.67% 6.94%
As % of the System Software category 46.25% 47.27% 43.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 69 93 144
10th Percentile £150 £164 £163
25th Percentile £200 £213 £200
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £350 £425 £325
Median % change year-on-year -17.65% +30.77% +30.00%
75th Percentile £450 £500 £483
90th Percentile £528 £643 £538
England median daily rate £450 £450 £425
% change year-on-year - +5.88% +10.39%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 18 22
10th Percentile - - £13.96
25th Percentile - £15.50 £16.05
Median hourly rate - £17.39 £17.50
Median % change year-on-year - -0.61% -
75th Percentile - £17.94 £28.06
90th Percentile - £22.05 £51.70
England median hourly rate £23.00 £17.71 £21.00
% change year-on-year +29.91% -15.69% +20.00%

All System Software Skills
North West

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 North West.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for system software skills 240 275 484
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 11.57% 9.89% 15.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 157 194 347
10th Percentile £200 £210 £200
25th Percentile £320 £331 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £445 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year -6.32% - -
75th Percentile £537 £575 £575
90th Percentile £600 £670 £650
England median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 25 26
10th Percentile - - £13.98
25th Percentile £76.25 £15.50 £15.79
Median hourly rate £82.50 £17.72 £17.50
Median % change year-on-year +365.58% +1.26% -
75th Percentile £88.75 £42.88 £36.89
90th Percentile - £46.18 £57.94
England median hourly rate £29.50 £22.23 £50.00
% change year-on-year +32.73% -55.55% +150.00%

Active Directory
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

Job postings citing Active Directory as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the North West.

Job vacancy trend for Active Directory in the North West

Active Directory
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the North West

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Active Directory in the North West.

Daily rate trend for Active Directory in the North West

Active Directory
Daily Rate Histogram in the North West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Active Directory in the North West over the 6 months to 3 July 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Active Directory in the North West

Active Directory
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the North West

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Active Directory in the North West.

Hourly rate trend for Active Directory in the North West

Active Directory
Contract Job Locations in the North West

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 North West region over the 6 months to 3 July 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
Cheshire +5 40 £359 -6.88% 34
Manchester -14 27 £380 -15.56% 62
Merseyside -5 15 £150 -33.33% 19
Lancashire 0 13 £350 +75.00% 35
Cumbria - 12 £475 - 9
Active Directory
England

Active Directory
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the North West 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 37 (33.33%) Microsoft Exchange
2 25 (22.52%) SharePoint
3 9 (8.11%) JBoss
3 9 (8.11%) Skype for Business
4 8 (7.21%) Mattermost
5 4 (3.60%) IIS
6 1 (0.90%) Confluence
6 1 (0.90%) WebSphere
Applications
1 9 (8.11%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (4.50%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 5 (4.50%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 1 (0.90%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 51 (45.95%) Microsoft 365
2 45 (40.54%) Azure
3 41 (36.94%) Entra ID
4 16 (14.41%) AWS
5 9 (8.11%) OpenShift
6 7 (6.31%) IaaS
7 6 (5.41%) SaaS
8 5 (4.50%) OneDrive
9 3 (2.70%) Google Workspace
10 2 (1.80%) Amazon EC2
10 2 (1.80%) Amazon S3
10 2 (1.80%) AWS CloudFormation
10 2 (1.80%) Nutanix
10 2 (1.80%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 1 (0.90%) Azure Sentinel
11 1 (0.90%) Azure Stack
11 1 (0.90%) Cloudflare
11 1 (0.90%) GCP
11 1 (0.90%) Microsoft Purview
11 1 (0.90%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 23 (20.72%) DHCP
2 18 (16.22%) DNS
3 16 (14.41%) Firewall
4 10 (9.01%) LAN
4 10 (9.01%) Network Security
4 10 (9.01%) VPN
5 9 (8.11%) Skype
5 9 (8.11%) WebEx
6 8 (7.21%) SAN
6 8 (7.21%) Softphone
6 8 (7.21%) Unified Communications
7 6 (5.41%) Intrusion Detection
8 4 (3.60%) WAN
9 3 (2.70%) DMZ
9 3 (2.70%) WLAN
10 2 (1.80%) Kerberos
10 2 (1.80%) TCP/IP
10 2 (1.80%) Wi-Fi
10 2 (1.80%) Wireless
11 1 (0.90%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (8.11%) RDBMS
1 9 (8.11%) Relational Database
2 8 (7.21%) Elasticsearch
3 7 (6.31%) SQL Server
4 1 (0.90%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 9 (8.11%) Git
1 9 (8.11%) Jenkins
1 9 (8.11%) JIRA
1 9 (8.11%) SonarQube
1 9 (8.11%) Sonatype Nexus
1 9 (8.11%) TeamCity
2 8 (7.21%) Bitbucket Server
2 8 (7.21%) CA Release Automation
3 4 (3.60%) GitLab
4 1 (0.90%) Bitbucket
4 1 (0.90%) MSI
General
1 37 (33.33%) Social Skills
2 11 (9.91%) Public Sector
3 6 (5.41%) Documentation Skills
3 6 (5.41%) Telecoms
4 5 (4.50%) Analytical Skills
4 5 (4.50%) Manufacturing
4 5 (4.50%) Presentation Skills
5 4 (3.60%) Finance
5 4 (3.60%) Legal
6 2 (1.80%) Japanese Language
6 2 (1.80%) Military
6 2 (1.80%) Organisational Skills
7 1 (0.90%) Automotive
7 1 (0.90%) Banking
7 1 (0.90%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 1 (0.90%) Retail
Job Titles
1 25 (22.52%) Support Engineer
2 21 (18.92%) Analyst
3 15 (13.51%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 12 (10.81%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
5 8 (7.21%) Desktop Engineer
5 8 (7.21%) IT Engineer
5 8 (7.21%) Messaging Engineer
5 8 (7.21%) Messaging Support
5 8 (7.21%) Messaging Support Engineer
5 8 (7.21%) Operations Engineer
5 8 (7.21%) Operations Support Engineer
5 8 (7.21%) Service Analyst
5 8 (7.21%) Service Desk Analyst
5 8 (7.21%) Support Analyst
6 7 (6.31%) 2nd Line Support
6 7 (6.31%) Messaging Analyst
6 7 (6.31%) Messaging Support Analyst
6 7 (6.31%) Operational Support Analyst
6 7 (6.31%) Operations Support Analyst
6 7 (6.31%) Windows Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (8.11%) Elastic Stack
1 9 (8.11%) Spring Boot
2 8 (7.21%) XMPP
3 3 (2.70%) LDAP
3 3 (2.70%) Software Packaging
4 1 (0.90%) 802.1X
4 1 (0.90%) Microsoft Graph
4 1 (0.90%) Middleware
4 1 (0.90%) OAuth
4 1 (0.90%) SailPoint
4 1 (0.90%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 16 (14.41%) Management Information System
2 8 (7.21%) Data Centre
3 5 (4.50%) Hybrid Cloud
4 4 (3.60%) Onboarding
5 2 (1.80%) Clustering
5 2 (1.80%) NHS
6 1 (0.90%) Cloud Native
6 1 (0.90%) Enterprise Software
6 1 (0.90%) iPad
6 1 (0.90%) IVR
6 1 (0.90%) Legacy Applications
6 1 (0.90%) Linux Command Line
6 1 (0.90%) PMI
6 1 (0.90%) Private Cloud
6 1 (0.90%) Product Ownership
6 1 (0.90%) Reinsurance
6 1 (0.90%) Self-Motivation
6 1 (0.90%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 84 (75.68%) Windows
2 46 (41.44%) Windows Server
3 33 (29.73%) Linux
4 24 (21.62%) Windows 10
5 15 (13.51%) Windows Server 2016
6 12 (10.81%) Windows Server 2012
7 10 (9.01%) VMS
7 10 (9.01%) Windows Server 2019
8 9 (8.11%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 8 (7.21%) Windows Server 2003
10 6 (5.41%) Android
10 6 (5.41%) Unix
11 5 (4.50%) Apple iOS
11 5 (4.50%) Windows 8
11 5 (4.50%) Windows Server 2008
11 5 (4.50%) Windows XP
12 2 (1.80%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 43 (38.74%) ITIL
2 28 (25.23%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 27 (24.32%) Problem-Solving
4 21 (18.92%) DevOps
5 15 (13.51%) Migration
6 14 (12.61%) Change Management
6 14 (12.61%) Customer Service
6 14 (12.61%) ITSM
7 13 (11.71%) Analytics
7 13 (11.71%) CI/CD
7 13 (11.71%) High Availability
8 12 (10.81%) Project Delivery
9 11 (9.91%) Problem Management
10 10 (9.01%) Asset Management
10 10 (9.01%) Business Continuity
10 10 (9.01%) Microservices
11 9 (8.11%) Agile
11 9 (8.11%) Code Quality
11 9 (8.11%) RBAC
12 8 (7.21%) Proactive Maintenance
Programming Languages
1 30 (27.03%) PowerShell
2 11 (9.91%) Python
3 9 (8.11%) Perl
3 9 (8.11%) SQL
4 6 (5.41%) Java
5 3 (2.70%) Bash
Qualifications
1 19 (17.12%) Microsoft Certification
2 17 (15.32%) SC Cleared
2 17 (15.32%) Security Cleared
3 8 (7.21%) ITIL Certification
4 6 (5.41%) Azure Certification
5 4 (3.60%) MCSE
5 4 (3.60%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
6 3 (2.70%) DBS Check
7 1 (0.90%) CBAP
7 1 (0.90%) Degree
7 1 (0.90%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (7.21%) SLA
2 2 (1.80%) PCI DSS
3 1 (0.90%) GDPR
3 1 (0.90%) HIPAA
3 1 (0.90%) NCSC
3 1 (0.90%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 20 (18.02%) VMware Infrastructure
2 9 (8.11%) Docker
2 9 (8.11%) VMware ESXi
3 7 (6.31%) Virtual Machines
4 6 (5.41%) vSphere
5 5 (4.50%) Hyper-V
6 3 (2.70%) BitLocker
7 2 (1.80%) Virtual Servers
7 2 (1.80%) VMware NSX
8 1 (0.90%) Microsoft Virtual Server
8 1 (0.90%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 26 (23.42%) Microsoft Intune
2 16 (14.41%) SCCM
3 15 (13.51%) WSUS
4 11 (9.91%) Kubernetes
4 11 (9.91%) Single Sign-On
5 10 (9.01%) vCenter Server
6 9 (8.11%) Kibana
6 9 (8.11%) Progress Chef
7 8 (7.21%) SCOM
8 4 (3.60%) Ansible
8 4 (3.60%) Dell DRAC
8 4 (3.60%) Jamf Pro
8 4 (3.60%) ZABBIX
9 3 (2.70%) Backup Exec
10 2 (1.80%) Microsoft Clustering
10 2 (1.80%) Nagios
10 2 (1.80%) NetApp OnCommand
10 2 (1.80%) Prometheus
10 2 (1.80%) Puppet
10 2 (1.80%) vMotion
Vendors
1 84 (75.68%) Microsoft
2 32 (28.83%) VMware
3 17 (15.32%) Red Hat
3 17 (15.32%) Splunk
4 14 (12.61%) Cisco
4 14 (12.61%) ServiceNow
5 9 (8.11%) AppDynamics
5 9 (8.11%) Dell
6 8 (7.21%) Citrix
7 7 (6.31%) Cloudera
7 7 (6.31%) CyberArk
8 6 (5.41%) HP
9 5 (4.50%) Canon
10 3 (2.70%) CheckPoint
10 3 (2.70%) Google
10 3 (2.70%) IBM
10 3 (2.70%) iManage
10 3 (2.70%) Remedy
10 3 (2.70%) Symantec
10 3 (2.70%) Zscaler