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 31 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
31 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 23 27
Rank change year-on-year -8 +4 -8
Contract jobs citing Active Directory 174 160 150
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 5.59% 8.15% 5.32%
As % of the System Software category 39.10% 55.75% 52.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 126 110 105
10th Percentile £133 £149 £144
25th Percentile £151 £191 £200
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £329 £350 £350
Median % change year-on-year -6.07% - -
75th Percentile £550 £450 £488
90th Percentile £636 £525 £647
England median daily rate £450 £450 £400
% change year-on-year - +12.50% -5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 3 19
10th Percentile £17.37 £21.67 -
25th Percentile £41.94 £22.61 £15.50
Median hourly rate £74.26 £24.18 £17.29
Median % change year-on-year +207.11% +39.89% -10.21%
75th Percentile - £26.59 £17.75
90th Percentile £136.95 £28.04 £18.85
England median hourly rate £22.50 £23.05 £17.71
% change year-on-year -2.36% +30.16% -4.30%

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 445 287 285
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 14.29% 14.63% 10.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 291 184 208
10th Percentile £150 £156 £181
25th Percentile £326 £250 £306
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £400 £450
Median % change year-on-year +12.50% -11.11% -7.69%
75th Percentile £571 £524 £550
90th Percentile £638 £575 £675
England median daily rate £500 £525 £480
% change year-on-year -4.76% +9.38% -8.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 5 25
10th Percentile £20.08 £22.30 -
25th Percentile £41.94 £24.18 £15.50
Median hourly rate £74.26 £29.00 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year +156.07% +63.66% -33.76%
75th Percentile - £77.50 £21.50
90th Percentile £95.00 £84.25 £46.18
England median hourly rate £50.00 £29.00 £22.00
% change year-on-year +72.41% +31.82% -45.00%

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 31 March 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 31 March 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 31 March 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 -23 61 £400 +3.90% 44
Merseyside +1 54 £138 -8.33% 8
Cheshire -26 35 £457 +16.28% 14
Lancashire -3 22 £550 +57.14% 30
Cumbria -11 2 £513 -2.38% 4
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 41 (23.56%) Microsoft Exchange
2 30 (17.24%) SharePoint
3 3 (1.72%) IIS
4 1 (0.57%) Apache
4 1 (0.57%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 5 (2.87%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (1.15%) Chatbot
3 1 (0.57%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 104 (59.77%) Microsoft 365
2 96 (55.17%) Azure
3 73 (41.95%) Entra ID
4 12 (6.90%) OneDrive
5 11 (6.32%) Power Platform
6 9 (5.17%) AWS
7 8 (4.60%) PowerApps
8 7 (4.02%) Power Automate
9 6 (3.45%) Microsoft Copilot
10 5 (2.87%) Nutanix
11 4 (2.30%) Azure DevOps
11 4 (2.30%) Azure Logic Apps
11 4 (2.30%) Azure Monitor
11 4 (2.30%) Azure Sentinel
11 4 (2.30%) GCP
12 3 (1.72%) Cloud Computing
12 3 (1.72%) GitHub
12 3 (1.72%) GitHub Actions
12 3 (1.72%) SaaS
13 2 (1.15%) Azure Key Vault
Communications & Networking
1 28 (16.09%) Firewall
2 25 (14.37%) DNS
3 14 (8.05%) TCP/IP
4 12 (6.90%) Wi-Fi
5 11 (6.32%) DHCP
6 10 (5.75%) VLAN
6 10 (5.75%) WebEx
7 9 (5.17%) Network Security
8 8 (4.60%) Kerberos
8 8 (4.60%) WAN
9 6 (3.45%) LAN
9 6 (3.45%) NetScaler
10 5 (2.87%) SSL
10 5 (2.87%) VPN
11 4 (2.30%) BGP
12 3 (1.72%) Software-Defined Networking
12 3 (1.72%) Wireless
13 2 (1.15%) Internet
14 1 (0.57%) Cisco ISE
14 1 (0.57%) NGN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.57%) Power BI
1 1 (0.57%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 4 (2.30%) JIRA
2 3 (1.72%) Git
3 1 (0.57%) MSI
General
1 55 (31.61%) Social Skills
2 30 (17.24%) Legal
3 27 (15.52%) Analytical Skills
4 22 (12.64%) Finance
5 17 (9.77%) Public Sector
6 6 (3.45%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 5 (2.87%) Telecoms
8 4 (2.30%) Banking
8 4 (2.30%) Retail
9 3 (1.72%) Documentation Skills
10 2 (1.15%) Military
10 2 (1.15%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 35 (20.11%) IT Support
2 29 (16.67%) Analyst
3 26 (14.94%) Support Engineer
4 19 (10.92%) IT Engineer
4 19 (10.92%) IT Support Engineer
4 19 (10.92%) Support Analyst
5 17 (9.77%) 1st Line Support
5 17 (9.77%) IT Analyst
6 15 (8.62%) IT Support Analyst
7 14 (8.05%) Architect
8 13 (7.47%) Platform Engineer
9 11 (6.32%) Administrator
10 8 (4.60%) Deployment Engineer
11 7 (4.02%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
11 7 (4.02%) Microsoft Engineer
12 6 (3.45%) 2nd Line Engineer
12 6 (3.45%) 2nd Line Support
12 6 (3.45%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
12 6 (3.45%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 6 (3.45%) Server Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (7.47%) LDAP
2 10 (5.75%) XMPP
3 6 (3.45%) SailPoint
4 5 (2.87%) OAuth
4 5 (2.87%) SAML
5 4 (2.30%) OpenID
6 3 (1.72%) ARM Templates
7 2 (1.15%) JDBC
7 2 (1.15%) JSON
7 2 (1.15%) Microsoft Graph
7 2 (1.15%) OAuth2
7 2 (1.15%) REST
7 2 (1.15%) Web Services
8 1 (0.57%) 802.1X
8 1 (0.57%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 19 (10.92%) Onboarding
2 14 (8.05%) Product Ownership
3 11 (6.32%) Driving Licence
4 6 (3.45%) Clustering
4 6 (3.45%) Security Posture
5 5 (2.87%) Cloud Security Posture
5 5 (2.87%) Data Centre
5 5 (2.87%) Fat Client
5 5 (2.87%) Private Cloud
5 5 (2.87%) Thin Client
6 4 (2.30%) Enterprise Software
6 4 (2.30%) Public Cloud
7 3 (1.72%) Cyber Threat
7 3 (1.72%) PKI
8 2 (1.15%) AI Agents
8 2 (1.15%) Data Protection Act
8 2 (1.15%) Management Information System
8 2 (1.15%) Operational Technology
9 1 (0.57%) Analytical Mindset
9 1 (0.57%) Cloud Native
Operating Systems
1 108 (62.07%) Windows
2 51 (29.31%) Windows 10
3 28 (16.09%) Windows Server
4 18 (10.34%) Linux
5 9 (5.17%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 9 (5.17%) Windows Server 2019
6 5 (2.87%) Unix
6 5 (2.87%) Windows Server 2012
7 4 (2.30%) Mac OS
8 2 (1.15%) Windows Server 2016
9 1 (0.57%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 49 (28.16%) Customer Service
2 43 (24.71%) Problem-Solving
3 38 (21.84%) Identity Access Management
4 30 (17.24%) ITIL
5 17 (9.77%) Cybersecurity
5 17 (9.77%) Platform Engineering
5 17 (9.77%) Service Management
6 13 (7.47%) Continuous Improvement
6 13 (7.47%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 12 (6.90%) Knowledge Management
8 11 (6.32%) Acceptance Criteria
8 11 (6.32%) Migration
8 11 (6.32%) Project Delivery
8 11 (6.32%) User Stories
9 10 (5.75%) Change Control
9 10 (5.75%) Digital Transformation Programme
9 10 (5.75%) Disaster Recovery
9 10 (5.75%) ITSM
9 10 (5.75%) Product Requirements
10 9 (5.17%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 55 (31.61%) PowerShell
2 14 (8.05%) Python
3 12 (6.90%) Bash
4 9 (5.17%) Perl
5 3 (1.72%) Bicep
5 3 (1.72%) SQL
6 2 (1.15%) Kusto Query Language
7 1 (0.57%) BeanShell
7 1 (0.57%) Java
Qualifications
1 29 (16.67%) Security Cleared
2 24 (13.79%) SC Cleared
3 22 (12.64%) Degree
4 18 (10.34%) Microsoft Certification
5 8 (4.60%) CCDP
5 8 (4.60%) CCNA
5 8 (4.60%) CCNP
5 8 (4.60%) Cisco Certification
5 8 (4.60%) CISSP
5 8 (4.60%) CompTIA Security+
6 7 (4.02%) BPSS Clearance
7 6 (3.45%) DBS Check
8 5 (2.87%) A+ Certification
8 5 (2.87%) Azure Certification
8 5 (2.87%) Computer Science Degree
8 5 (2.87%) MCSA
8 5 (2.87%) MCSE
8 5 (2.87%) Network+ Certification
9 3 (1.72%) CISM
10 2 (1.15%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (5.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 7 (4.02%) GDPR
3 6 (3.45%) NIST
4 3 (1.72%) SLA
5 1 (0.57%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 15 (8.62%) VMware Infrastructure
2 9 (5.17%) Hyper-V
3 6 (3.45%) Docker
4 5 (2.87%) Virtual Desktop
4 5 (2.87%) vSphere
5 3 (1.72%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 36 (20.69%) Microsoft Intune
2 19 (10.92%) Active Directory Federation Services
3 16 (9.20%) SCCM
4 13 (7.47%) Single Sign-On
5 10 (5.75%) Terraform
6 7 (4.02%) Ansible
7 6 (3.45%) Kubernetes
7 6 (3.45%) Microsoft Clustering
7 6 (3.45%) Nagios
8 5 (2.87%) CASB
8 5 (2.87%) Jamf Pro
8 5 (2.87%) Nessus
9 2 (1.15%) CA Single Sign-On
10 1 (0.57%) AirWatch
Vendors
1 119 (68.39%) Microsoft
2 31 (17.82%) ServiceNow
3 21 (12.07%) VMware
4 20 (11.49%) Citrix
5 17 (9.77%) Bomgar
5 17 (9.77%) Cisco
5 17 (9.77%) iManage
6 9 (5.17%) Red Hat
7 8 (4.60%) CyberArk
8 7 (4.02%) Meraki
8 7 (4.02%) SolarWinds
9 6 (3.45%) Remedy
10 5 (2.87%) Tenable
11 4 (2.30%) F5
11 4 (2.30%) Splunk
11 4 (2.30%) Veeam
12 3 (1.72%) Google
13 2 (1.15%) BeyondTrust
13 2 (1.15%) LogRhythm
13 2 (1.15%) Palo Alto