Active Directory Contract Job Trends in the North West

Microsoft Active Directory
England > North West

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the North West requiring Active Directory skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 9 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 34 45 39
Rank change year-on-year +11 -6 -16
Contract jobs citing Active Directory 207 100 92
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 5.18% 4.61% 3.91%
As % of the System Software category 42.24% 38.17% 43.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 158 55 65
10th Percentile £154 £185 £186
25th Percentile £186 £206 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £313 £365 £413
Median % change year-on-year -14.25% -11.52% +52.78%
75th Percentile £482 £480 £515
90th Percentile £538 £597 £643
England median daily rate £450 £430 £450
% change year-on-year +4.65% -4.44% +12.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 5 6
10th Percentile £16.79 - £15.85
25th Percentile £17.92 £15.50 £17.44
Median hourly rate £172.50 £17.75 £18.31
Median % change year-on-year +871.83% -3.06% -1.03%
75th Percentile £178.75 £18.87 £26.36
90th Percentile - - £30.63
England median hourly rate £52.54 £23.00 £19.59
% change year-on-year +128.41% +17.41% +0.46%

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 490 262 210
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 12.27% 12.08% 8.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 335 162 140
10th Percentile £185 £214 £213
25th Percentile £307 £351 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £447 £447 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -10.60% +11.11%
75th Percentile £538 £513 £586
90th Percentile £635 £624 £675
England median daily rate £500 £500 £513
% change year-on-year - -2.44% -1.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 7 8
10th Percentile £17.64 £15.50 £16.48
25th Percentile £62.19 £16.44 £17.44
Median hourly rate £77.00 £18.87 £23.34
Median % change year-on-year +308.06% -19.15% +26.16%
75th Percentile £178.75 £43.06 £45.26
90th Percentile - £75.85 £84.22
England median hourly rate £63.48 £37.50 £24.50
% change year-on-year +69.28% +53.06% -48.42%

Active Directory
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

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

Active Directory job vacancy trend in the North West

Active Directory
Daily Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Active Directory.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Active Directory

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 9 September 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Active Directory in the North West

Active Directory
Hourly Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Active Directory.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Active Directory

Active Directory
Hourly Rate Histogram in the North West

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Active Directory in the North West over the 6 months to 9 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram 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 9 September 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
Manchester +25 95 £450 -4.46% 43
Cheshire -20 46 £325 -2.55% 8
Merseyside +9 30 £195 +4.00% 9
Lancashire -3 25 £305 +74.29% 10
Cumbria -9 11 £420 -1.18%
Active Directory
England

Active Directory
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the North West 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 31 (14.98%) SharePoint
2 29 (14.01%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (1.45%) IIS
Applications
1 15 (7.25%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (1.93%) MS Visio
3 3 (1.45%) Microsoft Excel
4 1 (0.48%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 5 (2.42%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 120 (57.97%) Microsoft 365
2 78 (37.68%) Azure
3 74 (35.75%) Entra ID
4 17 (8.21%) GCP
5 14 (6.76%) AWS
6 10 (4.83%) Power Platform
7 9 (4.35%) Google Workspace
7 9 (4.35%) SaaS
8 7 (3.38%) Google Drive
8 7 (3.38%) OneDrive
9 6 (2.90%) Azure DevOps
10 5 (2.42%) AWS KMS
10 5 (2.42%) Mimecast
11 4 (1.93%) Amazon ECS
11 4 (1.93%) Amazon EKS
11 4 (1.93%) Azure Monitor
11 4 (1.93%) Azure Sentinel
11 4 (1.93%) Power Automate
11 4 (1.93%) PowerApps
11 4 (1.93%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 27 (13.04%) VPN
2 26 (12.56%) DNS
3 16 (7.73%) DHCP
4 14 (6.76%) TCP/IP
5 9 (4.35%) NetScaler
6 8 (3.86%) Firewall
6 8 (3.86%) SAN
7 6 (2.90%) LAN
7 6 (2.90%) Network Security
7 6 (2.90%) VLAN
8 5 (2.42%) Wi-Fi
9 4 (1.93%) NAS
9 4 (1.93%) WAN
10 3 (1.45%) DKIM
10 3 (1.45%) DMARC
11 2 (0.97%) PABX
11 2 (0.97%) VoIP
11 2 (0.97%) Wireless
12 1 (0.48%) Kerberos
12 1 (0.48%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (2.42%) Power BI
2 4 (1.93%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 9 (4.35%) JIRA
2 2 (0.97%) MSI
2 2 (0.97%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
3 1 (0.48%) Git
General
1 80 (38.65%) Social Skills
2 29 (14.01%) Analytical Skills
3 25 (12.08%) Finance
3 25 (12.08%) Legal
4 13 (6.28%) Public Sector
5 11 (5.31%) Documentation Skills
6 8 (3.86%) Manufacturing
7 7 (3.38%) Banking
7 7 (3.38%) Telecoms
8 5 (2.42%) Games
9 3 (1.45%) Organisational Skills
10 2 (0.97%) Advertising
10 2 (0.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 2 (0.97%) Military
10 2 (0.97%) Retail
Job Titles
1 56 (27.05%) IT Support
2 52 (25.12%) Support Engineer
3 40 (19.32%) IT Engineer
3 40 (19.32%) IT Support Engineer
4 27 (13.04%) Analyst
5 18 (8.70%) Service Analyst
5 18 (8.70%) Service Desk Analyst
6 11 (5.31%) Administrator
6 11 (5.31%) IT Analyst
7 10 (4.83%) 2nd Line Engineer
7 10 (4.83%) 2nd Line Support
8 9 (4.35%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
8 9 (4.35%) Cloud Engineer
8 9 (4.35%) Desktop Engineer
9 8 (3.86%) 1st Line Support
9 8 (3.86%) Support Analyst
10 7 (3.38%) IT Support Analyst
10 7 (3.38%) Security Engineer
10 7 (3.38%) Systems Engineer
11 6 (2.90%) Desktop Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (7.25%) SailPoint
2 13 (6.28%) SAML
3 12 (5.80%) Terraform
4 9 (4.35%) OAuth
5 5 (2.42%) REST
6 4 (1.93%) ARM Templates
6 4 (1.93%) Azure Blueprints
6 4 (1.93%) JSON
7 3 (1.45%) JDBC
7 3 (1.45%) OpenID
7 3 (1.45%) Web Services
8 2 (0.97%) Microsoft Graph
8 2 (0.97%) ODBC
8 2 (0.97%) Software Packaging
8 2 (0.97%) XML
9 1 (0.48%) .NET
9 1 (0.48%) 802.1X
9 1 (0.48%) LDAP
9 1 (0.48%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 30 (14.49%) Onboarding
2 11 (5.31%) Enterprise Software
3 9 (4.35%) Management Information System
4 7 (3.38%) CMDB
4 7 (3.38%) Driving Licence
5 6 (2.90%) PKI
5 6 (2.90%) Security Posture
6 5 (2.42%) Animation
6 5 (2.42%) Cloud Native
7 4 (1.93%) Analytical Mindset
7 4 (1.93%) Data Centre
7 4 (1.93%) Video Conferencing
8 3 (1.45%) Freedom of Information
9 2 (0.97%) Cloud Security Posture
9 2 (0.97%) Enterprise Storage
9 2 (0.97%) Handset
9 2 (0.97%) Hybrid Cloud
9 2 (0.97%) iPhone
9 2 (0.97%) Operational Technology
10 1 (0.48%) Virtual Reality
Operating Systems
1 141 (68.12%) Windows
2 69 (33.33%) Windows 10
3 38 (18.36%) Windows Server
4 10 (4.83%) Android
4 10 (4.83%) Linux
5 7 (3.38%) Mac OS
5 7 (3.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 6 (2.90%) Apple iOS
6 6 (2.90%) Windows Server 2003
7 5 (2.42%) Windows 7
8 4 (1.93%) Windows Server 2012
9 3 (1.45%) Windows Server 2019
10 2 (0.97%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.48%) CentOS
11 1 (0.48%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.48%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 77 (37.20%) ITIL
2 69 (33.33%) Customer Service
3 52 (25.12%) Problem-Solving
4 27 (13.04%) Continuous Improvement
5 25 (12.08%) RBAC
6 24 (11.59%) User Experience
7 23 (11.11%) Identity Access Management
8 22 (10.63%) Service Management
9 19 (9.18%) Migration
10 18 (8.70%) ITSM
10 18 (8.70%) Knowledge Transfer
11 16 (7.73%) Privileged Access Management
12 15 (7.25%) Cybersecurity
12 15 (7.25%) Root Cause Analysis
13 14 (6.76%) Infrastructure as Code
14 13 (6.28%) Application Packaging
14 13 (6.28%) Stakeholder Management
15 12 (5.80%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 11 (5.31%) Computer Science
16 11 (5.31%) Infrastructure Engineering
Programming Languages
1 28 (13.53%) PowerShell
2 9 (4.35%) Bicep
2 9 (4.35%) Python
3 6 (2.90%) Bash
3 6 (2.90%) Java
4 4 (1.93%) SQL
5 2 (0.97%) BeanShell
5 2 (0.97%) T-SQL
6 1 (0.48%) C#
6 1 (0.48%) Google Apps Script
6 1 (0.48%) Lisp
6 1 (0.48%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 43 (20.77%) Security Cleared
2 33 (15.94%) SC Cleared
3 17 (8.21%) Degree
3 17 (8.21%) Microsoft Certification
4 10 (4.83%) BPSS Clearance
5 8 (3.86%) A+ Certification
6 7 (3.38%) Computer Science Degree
6 7 (3.38%) Network+ Certification
7 6 (2.90%) Azure Certification
7 6 (2.90%) DBS Check
8 5 (2.42%) CISSP
8 5 (2.42%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 4 (1.93%) AWS Certification
9 4 (1.93%) ITIL Certification
10 3 (1.45%) Cisco Certification
11 1 (0.48%) CCIE
11 1 (0.48%) CCNA
11 1 (0.48%) CCNP
11 1 (0.48%) PMI Certification
11 1 (0.48%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (10.14%) SLA
2 9 (4.35%) NIST
3 7 (3.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 3 (1.45%) GDPR
5 2 (0.97%) Cyber Essentials
5 2 (0.97%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 1 (0.48%) PCI DSS
6 1 (0.48%) QA
6 1 (0.48%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 19 (9.18%) VMware Infrastructure
2 14 (6.76%) Hyper-V
3 9 (4.35%) Citrix Hypervisor
4 6 (2.90%) Virtual Desktop
5 5 (2.42%) Docker
5 5 (2.42%) XenApp
5 5 (2.42%) XenDesktop
6 3 (1.45%) Virtual Machines
7 2 (0.97%) Microsoft App-V
8 1 (0.48%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 41 (19.81%) Microsoft Intune
2 38 (18.36%) SCCM
3 18 (8.70%) Single Sign-On
4 6 (2.90%) SysTrack
5 5 (2.42%) Ansible
5 5 (2.42%) Kubernetes
5 5 (2.42%) WSUS
6 4 (1.93%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 4 (1.93%) Progress Chef
7 3 (1.45%) McAfee ePO
8 2 (0.97%) AirWatch
8 2 (0.97%) Jamf Pro
8 2 (0.97%) vCenter Server
8 2 (0.97%) WMI
9 1 (0.48%) Backup Exec
9 1 (0.48%) Microsoft Clustering
9 1 (0.48%) NetApp OnCommand
9 1 (0.48%) QRadar
9 1 (0.48%) vMotion
Vendors
1 153 (73.91%) Microsoft
2 50 (24.15%) ServiceNow
3 22 (10.63%) VMware
4 18 (8.70%) BeyondTrust
4 18 (8.70%) iManage
5 15 (7.25%) Citrix
5 15 (7.25%) Google
6 7 (3.38%) Bomgar
6 7 (3.38%) Okta
7 6 (2.90%) Ivanti
7 6 (2.90%) Nexthink
7 6 (2.90%) Perforce
7 6 (2.90%) Tanium
8 5 (2.42%) CyberArk
8 5 (2.42%) Red Hat
8 5 (2.42%) Remedy
8 5 (2.42%) Sophos
9 4 (1.93%) Cisco
10 3 (1.45%) Apple
10 3 (1.45%) McAfee