Active Directory Contract Job Trends in the South East

Microsoft Active Directory
England > South East

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the South East requiring Active Directory skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 9 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 30 24 19
Rank change year-on-year -6 -5 -3
Contract jobs citing Active Directory 280 314 414
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 6.60% 7.93% 7.92%
As % of the System Software category 54.16% 51.99% 49.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 203 228 253
10th Percentile £180 £197 £148
25th Percentile £213 £262 £175
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £478 £466 £325
Median % change year-on-year +2.41% +43.46% -15.86%
75th Percentile £539 £638 £525
90th Percentile £606 £670 £615
England median daily rate £445 £425 £400
% change year-on-year +4.71% +6.25% +6.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 5 26
10th Percentile £29.92 £20.88 £15.50
25th Percentile £44.86 £22.25 £19.25
Median hourly rate £84.00 £24.50 £24.75
Median % change year-on-year +242.86% -1.01% +33.78%
75th Percentile £100.00 £53.00 £55.00
90th Percentile £116.40 £63.01 £68.63
England median hourly rate £22.75 £23.80 £19.12
% change year-on-year -4.41% +24.48% -0.83%

All System Software Skills
South East

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 South East.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for system software skills 517 604 839
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 12.19% 15.25% 16.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 366 407 522
10th Percentile £190 £206 £163
25th Percentile £282 £356 £250
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £495 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.01% -1.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £625 £588
90th Percentile £638 £675 £650
England median daily rate £500 £515 £500
% change year-on-year -2.91% +3.00% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 19 21 61
10th Percentile £42.44 £22.40 £18.95
25th Percentile £63.38 £47.50 £24.34
Median hourly rate £81.00 £57.25 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year +41.48% -0.43% +98.28%
75th Percentile £87.82 £70.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £101.10 £71.25 £76.53
England median hourly rate £34.00 £35.33 £40.00
% change year-on-year -3.77% -11.67% +58.42%

Active Directory
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

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

Active Directory job vacancy trend in the South East

Active Directory
Daily Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Active Directory.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Active Directory

Active Directory
Daily Rate Histogram in the South East

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Active Directory in the South East over the 6 months to 9 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Active Directory in the South East

Active Directory
Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Active Directory.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Active Directory

Active Directory
Hourly Rate Histogram in the South East

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Active Directory in the South East over the 6 months to 9 December 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Active Directory in the South East

Active Directory
Contract Job Locations in the South East

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 South East region over the 6 months to 9 December 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
Thames Valley -2 133 £468 -18.61% 69
Hampshire -4 86 £500 - 55
Berkshire -7 84 £476 -23.80% 34
Buckinghamshire +15 32 £484 +28.08% 16
Surrey -6 29 £275 -6.62% 21
Oxfordshire -7 17 £319 -22.73% 23
Kent +6 11 £155 -1.33% 32
East Sussex +2 10 £180 -65.71% 2
West Sussex -24 8 £203 +1.25% 4
Active Directory
England

Active Directory
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South East 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 53 (18.93%) Microsoft Exchange
2 30 (10.71%) SharePoint
3 18 (6.43%) Skype for Business
4 12 (4.29%) Exchange Server 2010
5 10 (3.57%) Exchange Server 2003
5 10 (3.57%) Exchange Server 2007
5 10 (3.57%) Exchange Server 2013
5 10 (3.57%) Office Communications Server
5 10 (3.57%) SharePoint Server
6 7 (2.50%) Mattermost
7 4 (1.43%) Apache
8 2 (0.71%) Apache Airflow
8 2 (0.71%) IIS
8 2 (0.71%) WordPress
Applications
1 36 (12.86%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.36%) Adobe Creative Suite
2 1 (0.36%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.36%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 7 (2.50%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.36%) assyst
2 1 (0.36%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.36%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 105 (37.50%) Microsoft 365
2 87 (31.07%) Azure
3 60 (21.43%) Entra ID
4 38 (13.57%) AWS
5 24 (8.57%) GCP
6 16 (5.71%) OneDrive
7 10 (3.57%) GitHub
8 9 (3.21%) SaaS
9 7 (2.50%) Power Platform
10 6 (2.14%) IaaS
10 6 (2.14%) PaaS
11 5 (1.79%) Azure DevOps
11 5 (1.79%) Azure Sentinel
11 5 (1.79%) Power Automate
12 4 (1.43%) AWS CloudFormation
12 4 (1.43%) Azure ExpressRoute
12 4 (1.43%) Azure Monitor
12 4 (1.43%) GitHub Actions
13 3 (1.07%) Microsoft Purview
14 2 (0.71%) Azure API Management
Communications & Networking
1 58 (20.71%) DNS
2 42 (15.00%) Firewall
3 37 (13.21%) DHCP
4 29 (10.36%) Cisco IOS
5 25 (8.93%) VPN
6 19 (6.79%) TCP/IP
7 17 (6.07%) Cisco Firepower
7 17 (6.07%) Cisco ISE
7 17 (6.07%) Junos
8 14 (5.00%) SAN
8 14 (5.00%) Wi-Fi
9 10 (3.57%) DDNS
10 9 (3.21%) 4G
11 8 (2.86%) Skype
12 7 (2.50%) Remote Desktop
13 6 (2.14%) VLAN
14 5 (1.79%) Unified Communications
14 5 (1.79%) VoIP
15 4 (1.43%) FTP
15 4 (1.43%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (4.64%) SQL Server
2 4 (1.43%) Azure SQL Database
3 2 (0.71%) Elasticsearch
3 2 (0.71%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 4 (1.43%) JIRA
2 3 (1.07%) Git
2 3 (1.07%) Robot Framework
2 3 (1.07%) Sonatype Nexus
3 2 (0.71%) Fiddler
3 2 (0.71%) Jenkins
3 2 (0.71%) MSI
4 1 (0.36%) Burp Suite
General
1 117 (41.79%) Social Skills
2 21 (7.50%) Documentation Skills
2 21 (7.50%) Finance
3 16 (5.71%) Public Sector
4 13 (4.64%) Games
5 10 (3.57%) Analytical Skills
6 9 (3.21%) Legal
7 6 (2.14%) Law
8 5 (1.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 5 (1.79%) Organisational Skills
9 3 (1.07%) Manufacturing
10 2 (0.71%) Aerospace
10 2 (0.71%) Military
10 2 (0.71%) Retail
11 1 (0.36%) Banking
11 1 (0.36%) Billing
11 1 (0.36%) French Language
11 1 (0.36%) German Language
11 1 (0.36%) Local Government
11 1 (0.36%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 60 (21.43%) Support Engineer
2 30 (10.71%) IT Support
3 29 (10.36%) Analyst
4 27 (9.64%) Architect
4 27 (9.64%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 25 (8.93%) 3rd Line Engineer
6 23 (8.21%) IT Engineer
7 18 (6.43%) 3rd Line Support
7 18 (6.43%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
7 18 (6.43%) IT Support Engineer
8 17 (6.07%) Network Engineer
9 16 (5.71%) 3rd Line Network Engineer
9 16 (5.71%) Cloud Engineer
9 16 (5.71%) Cloud Network Engineer
9 16 (5.71%) Deployment Engineer
9 16 (5.71%) Platform Engineer
9 16 (5.71%) Senior
10 15 (5.36%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
10 15 (5.36%) Network Support
10 15 (5.36%) Network Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (7.50%) LDAP
2 11 (3.93%) OAuth
2 11 (3.93%) SailPoint
3 9 (3.21%) SAML
4 7 (2.50%) .NET
4 7 (2.50%) OpenID
5 5 (1.79%) OAuth2
6 4 (1.43%) Microsoft Graph
7 3 (1.07%) .NET Core
7 3 (1.07%) .NET Framework
8 2 (0.71%) ARM Templates
8 2 (0.71%) ASP.NET
8 2 (0.71%) GraphQL
8 2 (0.71%) Jinja
8 2 (0.71%) Kafka
8 2 (0.71%) REST
8 2 (0.71%) YAML
9 1 (0.36%) Azure Blueprints
9 1 (0.36%) Blazor
9 1 (0.36%) Entity Framework
Miscellaneous
1 28 (10.00%) PKI
2 13 (4.64%) Onboarding
3 12 (4.29%) Replication
4 10 (3.57%) Fat Client
4 10 (3.57%) Thin Client
5 9 (3.21%) Video Conferencing
6 8 (2.86%) Self-Motivation
7 6 (2.14%) Data Centre
8 4 (1.43%) Driving Licence
8 4 (1.43%) NHS
8 4 (1.43%) Operational Technology
8 4 (1.43%) Private Cloud
9 3 (1.07%) Data Protection Act
9 3 (1.07%) Hybrid Cloud
9 3 (1.07%) Linux Command Line
9 3 (1.07%) Security Posture
9 3 (1.07%) Virtual Team
10 2 (0.71%) CMDB
10 2 (0.71%) Enterprise Software
10 2 (0.71%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 179 (63.93%) Windows
2 59 (21.07%) Windows 10
3 58 (20.71%) Windows Server
4 24 (8.57%) Linux
5 18 (6.43%) Mac OS
6 12 (4.29%) Android
7 10 (3.57%) Windows 7
7 10 (3.57%) Windows Server 2003
8 7 (2.50%) Windows Server 2012
9 6 (2.14%) Windows Server 2016
10 5 (1.79%) Windows Server 2019
11 4 (1.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 2 (0.71%) CentOS
13 1 (0.36%) Kali Linux
13 1 (0.36%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 56 (20.00%) Problem-Solving
2 51 (18.21%) ITIL
3 44 (15.71%) Cybersecurity
4 40 (14.29%) ITSM
5 37 (13.21%) DevOps
6 34 (12.14%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 29 (10.36%) CI/CD
8 25 (8.93%) Customer Service
8 25 (8.93%) Service Management
9 23 (8.21%) Agile
9 23 (8.21%) DevSecOps
9 23 (8.21%) SIEM
10 20 (7.14%) Identity Access Management
11 16 (5.71%) Infrastructure as Code
11 16 (5.71%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 15 (5.36%) High Availability
12 15 (5.36%) Migration
12 15 (5.36%) Prototyping
13 14 (5.00%) Validation
14 13 (4.64%) Identity Management
Programming Languages
1 88 (31.43%) PowerShell
2 41 (14.64%) Python
3 19 (6.79%) SQL
4 11 (3.93%) Bash
4 11 (3.93%) Java
5 8 (2.86%) BeanShell
6 4 (1.43%) PHP
7 3 (1.07%) C#
7 3 (1.07%) JavaScript
8 2 (0.71%) Shell Script
9 1 (0.36%) Bicep
9 1 (0.36%) VB
Qualifications
1 125 (44.64%) Security Cleared
2 69 (24.64%) SC Cleared
3 52 (18.57%) DV Cleared
4 17 (6.07%) CISSP
5 16 (5.71%) CISM
5 16 (5.71%) Microsoft Certification
6 15 (5.36%) Degree
7 7 (2.50%) ITIL Certification
8 6 (2.14%) DBS Check
8 6 (2.14%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
8 6 (2.14%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 4 (1.43%) AWS Certification
9 4 (1.43%) Azure Certification
9 4 (1.43%) Computer Science Degree
10 3 (1.07%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 3 (1.07%) Master's Degree
11 2 (0.71%) A+ Certification
11 2 (0.71%) CCNP
11 2 (0.71%) Cisco Certification
11 2 (0.71%) Citrix Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 30 (10.71%) GDPR
2 28 (10.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 22 (7.86%) NIST
4 4 (1.43%) SLA
5 3 (1.07%) Cyber Essentials
6 2 (0.71%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 2 (0.71%) Data Quality
6 2 (0.71%) JSP 440
7 1 (0.36%) Accessibility
7 1 (0.36%) Government Security Classifications
7 1 (0.36%) NCSC
7 1 (0.36%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.36%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 43 (15.36%) VMware Infrastructure
2 19 (6.79%) VMware NSX
3 14 (5.00%) Hyper-V
4 10 (3.57%) Brightmail
4 10 (3.57%) ISA Server
5 8 (2.86%) Virtual Desktop
6 6 (2.14%) Terminal Services
6 6 (2.14%) vSphere
7 4 (1.43%) Docker
8 2 (0.71%) NFS
8 2 (0.71%) Virtual Machines
8 2 (0.71%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.36%) DFS Replication
9 1 (0.36%) Sendmail
9 1 (0.36%) UAG
Systems Management
1 52 (18.57%) SCCM
2 41 (14.64%) Microsoft Intune
3 21 (7.50%) Terraform
3 21 (7.50%) vCenter Server
4 13 (4.64%) Ansible
5 11 (3.93%) SCOM
5 11 (3.93%) Single Sign-On
5 11 (3.93%) WMI
6 10 (3.57%) Microsoft Clustering
7 9 (3.21%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 7 (2.50%) HP SiteScope
8 7 (2.50%) Kubernetes
9 6 (2.14%) Jamf Pro
10 2 (0.71%) logstash
10 2 (0.71%) WhatsUp Gold
11 1 (0.36%) Cisco CUCM
11 1 (0.36%) Cisco UCCE
11 1 (0.36%) EMC NetWorker
11 1 (0.36%) Red Hat Satellite
11 1 (0.36%) WSUS
Vendors
1 174 (62.14%) Microsoft
2 63 (22.50%) VMware
3 44 (15.71%) Cisco
4 27 (9.64%) ServiceNow
5 26 (9.29%) CyberArk
6 23 (8.21%) Splunk
7 20 (7.14%) BeyondTrust
7 20 (7.14%) Citrix
8 17 (6.07%) Juniper
8 17 (6.07%) SolarWinds
9 13 (4.64%) Meraki
10 9 (3.21%) Remedy
11 4 (1.43%) Dell
11 4 (1.43%) Google
11 4 (1.43%) McAfee
12 3 (1.07%) NetApp
12 3 (1.07%) Veeam
13 2 (0.71%) F5
13 2 (0.71%) Palo Alto
13 2 (0.71%) Thales