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 vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 13 September 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 21 18 27
Rank change year-on-year -3 +9 -9
Contract jobs citing Active Directory 248 379 402
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the South East 7.11% 8.17% 7.12%
As % of the System Software category 52.43% 55.25% 46.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 187 261 250
10th Percentile £160 £200 £150
25th Percentile £208 £313 £195
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £325
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% +46.15% +4.84%
75th Percentile £600 £608 £513
90th Percentile £625 £650 £602
England median daily rate £430 £445 £400
% change year-on-year -3.37% +11.25% +9.97%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 14 22
10th Percentile - £13.06 £15.50
25th Percentile £28.00 £17.69 £16.44
Median hourly rate £30.39 £20.10 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +51.17% -10.67% +50.00%
75th Percentile £64.58 £28.75 £45.00
90th Percentile £121.83 £49.18 £63.55
England median hourly rate £23.00 £19.18 £19.50
% change year-on-year +19.92% -1.64% +11.43%

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 473 686 862
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 13.56% 14.79% 15.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 330 450 559
10th Percentile £199 £245 £186
25th Percentile £263 £376 £303
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% +2.50% +5.26%
75th Percentile £600 £608 £600
90th Percentile £650 £671 £672
England median daily rate £500 £513 £518
% change year-on-year -2.44% -0.97% -1.43%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 34 59
10th Percentile £29.43 £17.69 £15.50
25th Percentile £56.25 £23.36 £24.13
Median hourly rate £81.00 £54.88 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +47.61% -0.23% +56.03%
75th Percentile - £70.00 £70.63
90th Percentile £87.64 - £76.72
England median hourly rate £34.50 £24.18 £47.86
% change year-on-year +42.68% -49.48% +115.11%

Active Directory
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

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

Job vacancy trend for Active Directory 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 13 September 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 13 September 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 13 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
Hampshire 0 88 £575 +4.55% 54
Thames Valley -11 88 £350 -42.15% 71
Berkshire -28 42 £450 -25.62% 36
Surrey 0 33 £215 -18.56% 33
Buckinghamshire +10 28 £325 -22.62% 21
Kent +5 21 £263 +64.06% 15
Oxfordshire -5 18 £250 -39.39% 18
West Sussex -14 10 £200 - 3
East Sussex +6 7 £170 -62.22% 13
Active Directory
England

Active Directory
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the South East 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 66 (26.61%) Microsoft Exchange
2 28 (11.29%) SharePoint
3 20 (8.06%) Skype for Business
4 16 (6.45%) IBM Domino
5 14 (5.65%) Exchange Server 2010
6 13 (5.24%) Exchange Server 2003
6 13 (5.24%) Exchange Server 2007
6 13 (5.24%) Exchange Server 2013
6 13 (5.24%) Office Communications Server
6 13 (5.24%) SharePoint Server
7 8 (3.23%) Apache
8 7 (2.82%) Mattermost
9 5 (2.02%) IIS
10 2 (0.81%) Apache Airflow
Applications
1 33 (13.31%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (1.61%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (1.61%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.40%) Adobe Creative Suite
Business Applications
1 7 (2.82%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 98 (39.52%) Microsoft 365
2 61 (24.60%) Azure
3 47 (18.95%) Entra ID
4 22 (8.87%) AWS
5 19 (7.66%) IaaS
6 16 (6.45%) PaaS
7 15 (6.05%) GCP
8 8 (3.23%) OpenShift
9 4 (1.61%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 3 (1.21%) AWS KMS
10 3 (1.21%) Azure Sentinel
10 3 (1.21%) OneDrive
10 3 (1.21%) SaaS
11 2 (0.81%) dbt
11 2 (0.81%) Fivetran
11 2 (0.81%) GitHub
11 2 (0.81%) Google Workspace
11 2 (0.81%) Power Platform
11 2 (0.81%) PowerApps
11 2 (0.81%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 52 (20.97%) DNS
2 44 (17.74%) Firewall
3 38 (15.32%) DHCP
4 32 (12.90%) VPN
5 25 (10.08%) Cisco IOS
6 21 (8.47%) SAN
7 13 (5.24%) DDNS
7 13 (5.24%) TCP/IP
7 13 (5.24%) WebEx
8 12 (4.84%) SMTP
9 10 (4.03%) Cisco ISE
10 9 (3.63%) Cisco Firepower
10 9 (3.63%) Junos
10 9 (3.63%) WAN
11 8 (3.23%) LAN
11 8 (3.23%) Skype
12 7 (2.82%) Remote Desktop
13 4 (1.61%) Fibre Channel
13 4 (1.61%) SD-WAN
13 4 (1.61%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (4.03%) Elasticsearch
2 8 (3.23%) Amazon RDS
2 8 (3.23%) Big Data
3 6 (2.42%) SQL Server
4 1 (0.40%) Data Lake
Development Applications
1 4 (1.61%) MSI
1 4 (1.61%) Robot Framework
1 4 (1.61%) Sonatype Nexus
2 2 (0.81%) Git
3 1 (0.40%) Fiddler
General
1 69 (27.82%) Social Skills
2 36 (14.52%) Finance
3 22 (8.87%) Public Sector
4 16 (6.45%) Games
5 7 (2.82%) Legal
5 7 (2.82%) Manufacturing
5 7 (2.82%) Telecoms
6 6 (2.42%) Marketing
7 5 (2.02%) Analytical Skills
7 5 (2.02%) Electronics
7 5 (2.02%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 5 (2.02%) Law
8 2 (0.81%) Retail
9 1 (0.40%) Aerospace
9 1 (0.40%) Back Office
9 1 (0.40%) French Language
9 1 (0.40%) Front Office
9 1 (0.40%) German Language
9 1 (0.40%) Local Government
9 1 (0.40%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 66 (26.61%) Support Engineer
2 36 (14.52%) Analyst
2 36 (14.52%) Architect
3 33 (13.31%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 32 (12.90%) 3rd Line Engineer
5 28 (11.29%) IT Support
6 25 (10.08%) Support Analyst
7 23 (9.27%) 3rd Line Support
7 23 (9.27%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
8 19 (7.66%) 2nd Line Support
9 18 (7.26%) Desktop Engineer
9 18 (7.26%) Platform Engineer
10 17 (6.85%) IT Engineer
11 16 (6.45%) Exchange Engineer
12 15 (6.05%) IT Support Engineer
13 14 (5.65%) Desktop Support
13 14 (5.65%) Infrastructure Support
14 13 (5.24%) 2nd Line Support Analyst
14 13 (5.24%) Exchange Support
14 13 (5.24%) Infrastructure Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (2.02%) Middleware
1 5 (2.02%) OAuth
2 4 (1.61%) YAML
3 3 (1.21%) SailPoint
3 3 (1.21%) SAML
3 3 (1.21%) Web Services
4 2 (0.81%) Apache Axis
4 2 (0.81%) Jinja
4 2 (0.81%) Kafka
4 2 (0.81%) LDAP
5 1 (0.40%) .NET
5 1 (0.40%) 802.1X
5 1 (0.40%) ARM Templates
5 1 (0.40%) Azure Blueprints
5 1 (0.40%) CSS
5 1 (0.40%) HTML
5 1 (0.40%) Microsoft Graph
5 1 (0.40%) OpenID
5 1 (0.40%) React
5 1 (0.40%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 24 (9.68%) PKI
2 14 (5.65%) Data Centre
3 13 (5.24%) Onboarding
3 13 (5.24%) Replication
4 10 (4.03%) Clustering
5 5 (2.02%) Fat Client
5 5 (2.02%) Public Cloud
5 5 (2.02%) Thin Client
6 4 (1.61%) Driving Licence
6 4 (1.61%) Hybrid Cloud
6 4 (1.61%) Operational Technology
6 4 (1.61%) Self-Motivation
7 3 (1.21%) Data Protection Act
7 3 (1.21%) Private Cloud
8 2 (0.81%) Enterprise Software
8 2 (0.81%) Legacy Systems
8 2 (0.81%) NHS
8 2 (0.81%) SCADA
9 1 (0.40%) Cyber Defence
9 1 (0.40%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 180 (72.58%) Windows
2 53 (21.37%) Windows 10
3 52 (20.97%) Windows Server
4 34 (13.71%) Linux
5 21 (8.47%) Mac OS
6 18 (7.26%) Android
7 16 (6.45%) Windows Server 2003
8 9 (3.63%) Windows Server 2016
9 7 (2.82%) Windows 7
9 7 (2.82%) Windows Server 2019
10 6 (2.42%) Windows Server 2012
11 5 (2.02%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 4 (1.61%) CentOS
13 3 (1.21%) Apple iOS
14 1 (0.40%) Rocky
14 1 (0.40%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 57 (22.98%) ITIL
2 41 (16.53%) Problem-Solving
3 34 (13.71%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 29 (11.69%) DevOps
5 25 (10.08%) Agile
6 24 (9.68%) Identity Access Management
6 24 (9.68%) ITSM
7 22 (8.87%) Migration
8 21 (8.47%) Service Management
9 20 (8.06%) Customer Service
10 18 (7.26%) Business Intelligence
11 17 (6.85%) Cybersecurity
11 17 (6.85%) High Availability
11 17 (6.85%) Mobile Device Management
12 16 (6.45%) Architectural Design
12 16 (6.45%) E-Commerce
12 16 (6.45%) Test Automation
13 13 (5.24%) Content Management
13 13 (5.24%) Enterprise Content Management
13 13 (5.24%) Enterprise Search
Programming Languages
1 76 (30.65%) PowerShell
2 18 (7.26%) SQL
3 10 (4.03%) Python
4 4 (1.61%) Bash
4 4 (1.61%) Bicep
4 4 (1.61%) C#
4 4 (1.61%) PHP
5 3 (1.21%) Java
6 2 (0.81%) Ruby
6 2 (0.81%) Shell Script
7 1 (0.40%) JavaScript
7 1 (0.40%) VB
7 1 (0.40%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 89 (35.89%) Security Cleared
2 66 (26.61%) DV Cleared
3 25 (10.08%) Degree
4 19 (7.66%) SC Cleared
5 11 (4.44%) Microsoft Certification
6 10 (4.03%) ITIL Certification
7 7 (2.82%) A+ Certification
8 6 (2.42%) DBS Check
9 3 (1.21%) Computer Science Degree
9 3 (1.21%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 3 (1.21%) Master's Degree
9 3 (1.21%) MCSA
10 2 (0.81%) Azure Certification
10 2 (0.81%) CISSP
10 2 (0.81%) Citrix Certification
10 2 (0.81%) CompTIA Security+
10 2 (0.81%) MCP
11 1 (0.40%) MCSE
11 1 (0.40%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (4.44%) SLA
2 10 (4.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 9 (3.63%) GDPR
4 2 (0.81%) Cyber Essentials
4 2 (0.81%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 1 (0.40%) Accessibility
5 1 (0.40%) Government Security Classifications
5 1 (0.40%) JSP 440
5 1 (0.40%) NCSC
5 1 (0.40%) NIST
5 1 (0.40%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 45 (18.15%) VMware Infrastructure
2 19 (7.66%) Hyper-V
3 17 (6.85%) VMware ESXi
4 14 (5.65%) Terminal Services
5 13 (5.24%) Brightmail
5 13 (5.24%) ISA Server
6 11 (4.44%) VMware NSX
7 9 (3.63%) Microsoft App-V
7 9 (3.63%) Virtual Desktop
7 9 (3.63%) vSphere
8 8 (3.23%) BitLocker
8 8 (3.23%) Docker
9 5 (2.02%) DFS Replication
10 2 (0.81%) Virtual Machines
10 2 (0.81%) XenApp
11 1 (0.40%) NFS
11 1 (0.40%) UAG
11 1 (0.40%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 46 (18.55%) Microsoft Intune
1 46 (18.55%) SCCM
2 19 (7.66%) Ansible
2 19 (7.66%) vCenter Server
3 13 (5.24%) Microsoft Clustering
3 13 (5.24%) Terraform
4 12 (4.84%) Kubernetes
5 10 (4.03%) SCOM
6 8 (3.23%) Nagios
6 8 (3.23%) Puppet
6 8 (3.23%) Single Sign-On
6 8 (3.23%) vMotion
7 7 (2.82%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 7 (2.82%) HP SiteScope
8 6 (2.42%) WMI
9 2 (0.81%) logstash
9 2 (0.81%) SCVMM
9 2 (0.81%) WSUS
10 1 (0.40%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 161 (64.92%) Microsoft
2 60 (24.19%) VMware
3 44 (17.74%) Citrix
4 41 (16.53%) Cisco
5 24 (9.68%) Splunk
6 21 (8.47%) ServiceNow
7 18 (7.26%) Meraki
8 13 (5.24%) Sage
9 12 (4.84%) Google
9 12 (4.84%) SolarWinds
10 9 (3.63%) Juniper
10 9 (3.63%) Remedy
11 8 (3.23%) HP
11 8 (3.23%) Symantec
12 7 (2.82%) Dell
12 7 (2.82%) Wyse
13 5 (2.02%) SAP
14 4 (1.61%) CyberArk
14 4 (1.61%) MuleSoft
15 3 (1.21%) Thales