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 18 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 23 14
Rank change year-on-year -9 -9 +12
Contract jobs citing Active Directory 400 246 415
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 5.94% 6.94% 8.58%
As % of the System Software category 50.44% 53.25% 55.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 245 187 290
10th Percentile £225 £190 £200
25th Percentile £306 £250 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - +53.85%
75th Percentile £592 £600 £608
90th Percentile £644 £700 £650
England median daily rate £450 £447 £450
% change year-on-year +0.67% -0.67% +12.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 33 4 18
10th Percentile £16.00 - £14.74
25th Percentile £43.81 £28.00 £17.69
Median hourly rate £52.50 £30.39 £17.80
Median % change year-on-year +72.78% +70.70% -16.22%
75th Percentile £67.47 £64.58 £28.25
90th Percentile £77.50 £121.83 £44.08
England median hourly rate £47.54 £23.00 £17.80
% change year-on-year +106.70% +29.21% -6.32%

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 793 462 750
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 11.78% 13.03% 15.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 542 328 493
10th Percentile £263 £200 £235
25th Percentile £415 £324 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £538
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -6.98% +7.50%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £608
90th Percentile £675 £663 £651
England median daily rate £500 £500 £515
% change year-on-year - -2.91% -1.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 49 11 44
10th Percentile £16.00 £28.00 £17.69
25th Percentile £43.81 £41.92 £21.14
Median hourly rate £52.50 £57.50 £54.88
Median % change year-on-year -8.70% +4.78% +4.52%
75th Percentile £67.47 £82.00 £69.77
90th Percentile £77.50 £89.63 £70.00
England median hourly rate £60.17 £40.00 £24.18
% change year-on-year +50.41% +65.43% -35.52%

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 18 August 2026.

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 18 August 2026.

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 18 August 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
Thames Valley +2 210 £500 +11.11% 35
Hampshire -4 133 £538 -6.52% 45
Berkshire -2 88 £500 -17.36% 18
Oxfordshire +6 78 £394 +57.50% 6
Buckinghamshire -23 44 £590 +195.00% 11
Surrey -27 19 £444 +77.50% 15
West Sussex -17 17 £220 +10.00% 9
Kent -4 15 £275 +4.76% 17
East Sussex +3 7 £168 -5.63% 3
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 51 (12.75%) Microsoft Exchange
2 30 (7.50%) SharePoint
3 13 (3.25%) Confluence
4 8 (2.00%) Apache
4 8 (2.00%) nginx
5 6 (1.50%) IIS
6 3 (0.75%) Tomcat
Applications
1 20 (5.00%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (1.25%) Microsoft Project
3 1 (0.25%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.25%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.25%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 16 (4.00%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (0.50%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (0.50%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 184 (46.00%) Azure
2 153 (38.25%) Entra ID
3 111 (27.75%) Microsoft 365
4 39 (9.75%) AWS
5 17 (4.25%) Azure Monitor
5 17 (4.25%) GCP
6 15 (3.75%) IaaS
6 15 (3.75%) Power Platform
7 12 (3.00%) OneDrive
8 11 (2.75%) Azure Sentinel
9 10 (2.50%) Azure DevOps
9 10 (2.50%) SaaS
10 9 (2.25%) Azure Logic Apps
10 9 (2.25%) PaaS
11 8 (2.00%) Azure AKS
11 8 (2.00%) Azure Key Vault
12 6 (1.50%) Azure App Service
13 4 (1.00%) Azure ExpressRoute
13 4 (1.00%) Azure Storage
13 4 (1.00%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 97 (24.25%) DNS
2 51 (12.75%) DHCP
3 47 (11.75%) Firewall
4 32 (8.00%) VPN
5 22 (5.50%) Wi-Fi
6 16 (4.00%) LAN
6 16 (4.00%) Network Security
6 16 (4.00%) TCP/IP
7 15 (3.75%) SSL
8 11 (2.75%) WAN
9 10 (2.50%) VLAN
10 9 (2.25%) SAN
10 9 (2.25%) SSH
11 8 (2.00%) IPsec
12 7 (1.75%) Cisco ASA
12 7 (1.75%) Cisco Firepower
12 7 (1.75%) FTP
12 7 (1.75%) NAS
13 5 (1.25%) Unified Communications
13 5 (1.25%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 45 (11.25%) SQL Server
2 13 (3.25%) Power BI
3 10 (2.50%) Azure SQL Database
4 6 (1.50%) NoSQL
5 4 (1.00%) MySQL
6 3 (0.75%) Data Mining
7 2 (0.50%) Parquet
8 1 (0.25%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 21 (5.25%) JIRA
2 5 (1.25%) Atlassian Bamboo
2 5 (1.25%) Bitbucket
3 4 (1.00%) Git
4 3 (0.75%) MSI
4 3 (0.75%) Robot Framework
5 2 (0.50%) Jenkins
6 1 (0.25%) Browser DevTools
6 1 (0.25%) GitLab
6 1 (0.25%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 126 (31.50%) Social Skills
2 50 (12.50%) Public Sector
3 49 (12.25%) Analytical Skills
4 39 (9.75%) Documentation Skills
5 14 (3.50%) Military
5 14 (3.50%) Organisational Skills
6 12 (3.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 11 (2.75%) Finance
8 10 (2.50%) Marketing
9 5 (1.25%) Police
10 4 (1.00%) Aerospace
10 4 (1.00%) French Language
10 4 (1.00%) Legal
10 4 (1.00%) Manufacturing
10 4 (1.00%) Retail
11 2 (0.50%) Advertising
11 2 (0.50%) Telecoms
12 1 (0.25%) Games
12 1 (0.25%) Local Government
12 1 (0.25%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 59 (14.75%) Support Engineer
2 52 (13.00%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 50 (12.50%) Senior
4 48 (12.00%) IT Support
5 40 (10.00%) IT Engineer
6 34 (8.50%) Architect
7 30 (7.50%) IT Support Engineer
8 29 (7.25%) Analyst
9 27 (6.75%) Cloud Engineer
10 20 (5.00%) 3rd Line Engineer
11 18 (4.50%) Lead
12 16 (4.00%) IAM Specialist
12 16 (4.00%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
13 14 (3.50%) IT Analyst
13 14 (3.50%) Technical Architect
14 13 (3.25%) IT Support Analyst
14 13 (3.25%) Support Analyst
15 12 (3.00%) 1st Line Support
16 11 (2.75%) Consultant
16 11 (2.75%) Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 46 (11.50%) LDAP
2 37 (9.25%) OAuth
2 37 (9.25%) SAML
3 36 (9.00%) OpenID
4 23 (5.75%) OAuth2
5 22 (5.50%) REST
5 22 (5.50%) SailPoint
6 18 (4.50%) Web Services
7 14 (3.50%) ARM Templates
8 13 (3.25%) .NET
9 8 (2.00%) Microsoft Graph
10 7 (1.75%) .NET Framework
11 6 (1.50%) .NET Core
11 6 (1.50%) Entity Framework
12 4 (1.00%) 802.1X
12 4 (1.00%) JSON
13 3 (0.75%) LAMP
13 3 (0.75%) LEMP Stack
13 3 (0.75%) Software Packaging
13 3 (0.75%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 57 (14.25%) Onboarding
2 38 (9.50%) PKI
3 23 (5.75%) Management Information System
4 19 (4.75%) Hybrid Cloud
5 11 (2.75%) Data Centre
6 10 (2.50%) Clustering
7 9 (2.25%) Driving Licence
7 9 (2.25%) Enterprise Software
8 8 (2.00%) Operational Technology
9 7 (1.75%) ARM Cortex
9 7 (1.75%) Security Posture
10 6 (1.50%) Legacy Systems
10 6 (1.50%) Replication
11 5 (1.25%) Analytical Mindset
11 5 (1.25%) Cyber Defence
11 5 (1.25%) Product Ownership
12 4 (1.00%) CMDB
12 4 (1.00%) Fibre Optics
12 4 (1.00%) SCADA
13 3 (0.75%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 261 (65.25%) Windows
2 130 (32.50%) Windows Server
3 86 (21.50%) Linux
4 43 (10.75%) Windows 10
5 27 (6.75%) Unix
6 24 (6.00%) Windows Server 2019
7 11 (2.75%) CentOS
8 10 (2.50%) Mac OS
9 9 (2.25%) Ubuntu
10 7 (1.75%) Windows 7
11 4 (1.00%) Apple iOS
11 4 (1.00%) Windows Server 2012
12 3 (0.75%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 2 (0.50%) Windows Server 2016
14 1 (0.25%) VMS
14 1 (0.25%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 100 (25.00%) Problem-Solving
2 86 (21.50%) ITIL
3 84 (21.00%) ITSM
4 71 (17.75%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 58 (14.50%) Cybersecurity
6 50 (12.50%) Agile
7 48 (12.00%) Customer Service
8 47 (11.75%) RBAC
9 46 (11.50%) Privileged Access Management
10 45 (11.25%) SIEM
11 44 (11.00%) Runbook
12 42 (10.50%) Technical Leadership
13 39 (9.75%) Analytics
13 39 (9.75%) Information Security
14 36 (9.00%) Change Control
14 36 (9.00%) DevOps
15 34 (8.50%) Identity Access Management
16 33 (8.25%) CI/CD
16 33 (8.25%) Service Management
17 32 (8.00%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 149 (37.25%) PowerShell
2 66 (16.50%) Python
3 38 (9.50%) SQL
4 17 (4.25%) Bash
5 16 (4.00%) Bicep
6 12 (3.00%) JavaScript
7 9 (2.25%) C#
8 5 (1.25%) Java
9 4 (1.00%) C
10 2 (0.50%) BeanShell
11 1 (0.25%) Korn
11 1 (0.25%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 193 (48.25%) Security Cleared
2 101 (25.25%) SC Cleared
3 95 (23.75%) DV Cleared
4 59 (14.75%) Degree
5 28 (7.00%) Microsoft Certification
6 16 (4.00%) Azure Certification
7 15 (3.75%) CISSP
8 14 (3.50%) CISM
9 10 (2.50%) BPSS Clearance
9 10 (2.50%) MCSA
10 9 (2.25%) CESG Certified Professional
11 8 (2.00%) MCSE
12 7 (1.75%) CCA
12 7 (1.75%) Citrix Certification
13 5 (1.25%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 5 (1.25%) AWS Certification
13 5 (1.25%) Cisco Certification
13 5 (1.25%) GIAC
13 5 (1.25%) SANS
13 5 (1.25%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 68 (17.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 63 (15.75%) NIST
3 23 (5.75%) GDPR
4 13 (3.25%) SLA
5 12 (3.00%) NCSC
6 9 (2.25%) Cyber Essentials
6 9 (2.25%) Data Quality
7 5 (1.25%) ISO 31000
8 3 (0.75%) ISO/IEC 42001
8 3 (0.75%) JSP 440
8 3 (0.75%) PCI DSS
9 2 (0.50%) GxP
9 2 (0.50%) NIST 800
10 1 (0.25%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 1 (0.25%) Disclosure Scotland
10 1 (0.25%) GRC
10 1 (0.25%) ISO 9001
10 1 (0.25%) QA
System Software
1 82 (20.50%) VMware Infrastructure
2 45 (11.25%) VMware ESXi
3 33 (8.25%) Hyper-V
4 27 (6.75%) VMware NSX
5 15 (3.75%) Virtual Desktop
6 14 (3.50%) vCloud
7 12 (3.00%) Virtual Machines
7 12 (3.00%) vSphere
8 7 (1.75%) Firmware
9 3 (0.75%) Docker
9 3 (0.75%) Dovecot
9 3 (0.75%) OpenAM
9 3 (0.75%) Postfix
10 2 (0.50%) UAG
11 1 (0.25%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.25%) Citrix Hypervisor
Systems Management
1 49 (12.25%) Microsoft Intune
2 41 (10.25%) vCenter Server
3 40 (10.00%) Terraform
4 32 (8.00%) SCCM
5 30 (7.50%) SCOM
6 17 (4.25%) Ansible
7 15 (3.75%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 13 (3.25%) Single Sign-On
9 5 (1.25%) Packer
10 4 (1.00%) Cisco CUCM
10 4 (1.00%) Clonezilla
10 4 (1.00%) Kubernetes
10 4 (1.00%) WMI
10 4 (1.00%) WSUS
11 3 (0.75%) Dell DRAC
11 3 (0.75%) HAProxy
11 3 (0.75%) SCSM
12 2 (0.50%) FortiGate
12 2 (0.50%) NetBackup
12 2 (0.50%) vMotion
Vendors
1 230 (57.50%) Microsoft
2 99 (24.75%) VMware
3 45 (11.25%) ServiceNow
4 41 (10.25%) CyberArk
5 32 (8.00%) BeyondTrust
6 23 (5.75%) Cisco
7 22 (5.50%) SolarWinds
8 19 (4.75%) Remedy
9 16 (4.00%) Meraki
9 16 (4.00%) Oracle
10 13 (3.25%) BMC
11 12 (3.00%) Citrix
12 11 (2.75%) Avaya
12 11 (2.75%) CrowdStrike
12 11 (2.75%) Juniper
12 11 (2.75%) Mitel
13 7 (1.75%) Palo Alto
13 7 (1.75%) Splunk
14 6 (1.50%) Broadcom
14 6 (1.50%) Veeam