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

6 months to
24 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 21 14
Rank change year-on-year -10 -7 +12
Contract jobs citing Active Directory 391 247 406
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 5.86% 6.96% 8.50%
As % of the System Software category 50.13% 53.58% 56.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 237 187 274
10th Percentile £225 £190 £200
25th Percentile £300 £250 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £485
Median % change year-on-year - +3.10% +49.23%
75th Percentile £590 £600 £608
90th Percentile £638 £700 £650
England median daily rate £450 £435 £450
% change year-on-year +3.45% -3.33% +12.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 34 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 £74.99 £64.58 £28.25
90th Percentile £82.75 £121.83 £44.08
England median hourly rate £48.72 £23.00 £18.06
% change year-on-year +111.83% +27.35% -4.95%

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 780 461 724
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 11.69% 12.98% 15.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 526 325 465
10th Percentile £263 £200 £237
25th Percentile £415 £325 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £535
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -6.54% +7.00%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £608
90th Percentile £675 £663 £666
England median daily rate £500 £500 £515
% change year-on-year - -2.91% -1.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 52 12 42
10th Percentile £16.00 £28.48 £17.69
25th Percentile £43.81 £46.49 £18.91
Median hourly rate £53.75 £67.25 £54.88
Median % change year-on-year -20.07% +22.55% +2.51%
75th Percentile £68.06 £81.50 £68.52
90th Percentile £77.50 £88.97 £70.00
England median hourly rate £61.75 £37.50 £23.80
% change year-on-year +64.67% +57.56% -44.65%

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 24 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 24 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 24 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 +3 202 £500 -4.76% 36
Hampshire -4 131 £538 -6.52% 44
Berkshire -3 85 £500 -23.08% 14
Oxfordshire +9 76 £400 +52.38% 8
Buckinghamshire -23 41 £591 +195.38% 14
Surrey -29 19 £444 +77.50% 16
West Sussex -15 17 £220 +10.00% 10
Kent -6 15 £275 +4.76% 18
East Sussex +4 7 £168 -11.84% 7
Home Counties - 1 - -
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 48 (12.28%) Microsoft Exchange
2 29 (7.42%) SharePoint
3 12 (3.07%) Confluence
4 8 (2.05%) Apache
4 8 (2.05%) nginx
5 6 (1.53%) IIS
6 3 (0.77%) Tomcat
Applications
1 21 (5.37%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (1.28%) Microsoft Project
3 1 (0.26%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.26%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 15 (3.84%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (0.51%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (0.51%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 181 (46.29%) Azure
2 144 (36.83%) Entra ID
3 108 (27.62%) Microsoft 365
4 39 (9.97%) AWS
5 18 (4.60%) GCP
6 17 (4.35%) Azure Monitor
7 14 (3.58%) IaaS
7 14 (3.58%) Power Platform
8 11 (2.81%) Azure Sentinel
9 10 (2.56%) OneDrive
10 9 (2.30%) SaaS
11 8 (2.05%) Azure DevOps
11 8 (2.05%) PaaS
12 7 (1.79%) Azure AKS
12 7 (1.79%) Azure Key Vault
12 7 (1.79%) Azure Logic Apps
13 5 (1.28%) Azure App Service
13 5 (1.28%) Azure ExpressRoute
14 4 (1.02%) Power Automate
14 4 (1.02%) Rubrik
Communications & Networking
1 94 (24.04%) DNS
2 49 (12.53%) DHCP
3 47 (12.02%) Firewall
4 33 (8.44%) VPN
5 19 (4.86%) Wi-Fi
6 17 (4.35%) Network Security
6 17 (4.35%) TCP/IP
7 15 (3.84%) LAN
8 13 (3.32%) SSL
9 11 (2.81%) WAN
10 10 (2.56%) SSH
10 10 (2.56%) VLAN
11 8 (2.05%) SAN
12 7 (1.79%) Cisco ASA
12 7 (1.79%) Cisco Firepower
12 7 (1.79%) IPsec
12 7 (1.79%) NAS
13 5 (1.28%) FTP
13 5 (1.28%) Unified Communications
13 5 (1.28%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 44 (11.25%) SQL Server
2 12 (3.07%) Power BI
3 10 (2.56%) Azure SQL Database
4 5 (1.28%) NoSQL
5 3 (0.77%) Data Mining
5 3 (0.77%) MySQL
6 1 (0.26%) Parquet
Development Applications
1 20 (5.12%) JIRA
2 5 (1.28%) Atlassian Bamboo
2 5 (1.28%) Bitbucket
3 3 (0.77%) Git
3 3 (0.77%) MSI
4 2 (0.51%) Jenkins
4 2 (0.51%) Robot Framework
5 1 (0.26%) Browser DevTools
5 1 (0.26%) GitLab
5 1 (0.26%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 121 (30.95%) Social Skills
2 48 (12.28%) Analytical Skills
2 48 (12.28%) Public Sector
3 40 (10.23%) Documentation Skills
4 15 (3.84%) Organisational Skills
5 13 (3.32%) Military
6 11 (2.81%) Finance
6 11 (2.81%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 10 (2.56%) Marketing
8 4 (1.02%) Aerospace
8 4 (1.02%) French Language
8 4 (1.02%) Legal
8 4 (1.02%) Manufacturing
8 4 (1.02%) Police
8 4 (1.02%) Retail
9 2 (0.51%) Advertising
9 2 (0.51%) Telecoms
10 1 (0.26%) Games
10 1 (0.26%) Local Government
10 1 (0.26%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 61 (15.60%) Support Engineer
2 51 (13.04%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 47 (12.02%) Senior
4 45 (11.51%) IT Support
5 39 (9.97%) IT Engineer
6 35 (8.95%) Architect
7 29 (7.42%) IT Support Engineer
8 28 (7.16%) Cloud Engineer
9 27 (6.91%) Analyst
10 20 (5.12%) 3rd Line Engineer
11 18 (4.60%) Lead
12 16 (4.09%) IAM Specialist
13 15 (3.84%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
13 15 (3.84%) Technical Architect
14 12 (3.07%) 1st Line Support
14 12 (3.07%) Consultant
14 12 (3.07%) IT Analyst
15 11 (2.81%) IT Infrastructure Engineer
15 11 (2.81%) IT Support Analyst
15 11 (2.81%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 47 (12.02%) LDAP
2 39 (9.97%) Terraform
3 36 (9.21%) OAuth
3 36 (9.21%) SAML
4 35 (8.95%) OpenID
5 23 (5.88%) OAuth2
6 22 (5.63%) SailPoint
7 20 (5.12%) REST
8 18 (4.60%) Web Services
9 14 (3.58%) ARM Templates
10 13 (3.32%) .NET
11 8 (2.05%) Microsoft Graph
12 6 (1.53%) .NET Framework
13 5 (1.28%) .NET Core
13 5 (1.28%) 802.1X
13 5 (1.28%) Entity Framework
14 4 (1.02%) OpenTofu
15 3 (0.77%) FIDO
15 3 (0.77%) LEMP Stack
15 3 (0.77%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 58 (14.83%) Onboarding
2 37 (9.46%) PKI
3 23 (5.88%) Management Information System
4 20 (5.12%) Hybrid Cloud
5 11 (2.81%) Data Centre
6 10 (2.56%) Clustering
7 9 (2.30%) Driving Licence
8 8 (2.05%) Enterprise Software
9 7 (1.79%) ARM Cortex
9 7 (1.79%) Operational Technology
9 7 (1.79%) Security Posture
10 6 (1.53%) Replication
11 5 (1.28%) Cyber Defence
11 5 (1.28%) Legacy Systems
12 4 (1.02%) Analytical Mindset
12 4 (1.02%) Fibre Optics
12 4 (1.02%) Product Ownership
12 4 (1.02%) SCADA
13 3 (0.77%) CMDB
13 3 (0.77%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 254 (64.96%) Windows
2 126 (32.23%) Windows Server
3 84 (21.48%) Linux
4 42 (10.74%) Windows 10
5 27 (6.91%) Unix
6 23 (5.88%) Windows Server 2019
7 10 (2.56%) CentOS
7 10 (2.56%) Mac OS
8 9 (2.30%) Ubuntu
9 7 (1.79%) Windows 7
10 4 (1.02%) Apple iOS
10 4 (1.02%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.51%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.26%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 1 (0.26%) VMS
12 1 (0.26%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 97 (24.81%) Problem-Solving
2 83 (21.23%) ITSM
3 82 (20.97%) ITIL
4 68 (17.39%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 58 (14.83%) Cybersecurity
6 48 (12.28%) Agile
7 47 (12.02%) Privileged Access Management
8 46 (11.76%) RBAC
8 46 (11.76%) SIEM
9 45 (11.51%) Runbook
10 44 (11.25%) Customer Service
10 44 (11.25%) Technical Leadership
11 40 (10.23%) Analytics
12 39 (9.97%) Information Security
13 36 (9.21%) Change Control
14 33 (8.44%) DevOps
15 32 (8.18%) CI/CD
15 32 (8.18%) Computer Science
15 32 (8.18%) Service Management
16 31 (7.93%) Identity Access Management
Programming Languages
1 144 (36.83%) PowerShell
2 64 (16.37%) Python
3 38 (9.72%) SQL
4 17 (4.35%) Bash
5 16 (4.09%) Bicep
6 11 (2.81%) JavaScript
7 7 (1.79%) C#
8 5 (1.28%) Java
9 4 (1.02%) C
10 2 (0.51%) BeanShell
11 1 (0.26%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 192 (49.10%) Security Cleared
2 98 (25.06%) SC Cleared
3 95 (24.30%) DV Cleared
4 59 (15.09%) Degree
5 27 (6.91%) Microsoft Certification
6 15 (3.84%) CISSP
7 14 (3.58%) Azure Certification
7 14 (3.58%) CISM
8 10 (2.56%) BPSS Clearance
8 10 (2.56%) MCSA
9 8 (2.05%) MCSE
10 7 (1.79%) CESG Certified Professional
11 5 (1.28%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 5 (1.28%) AWS Certification
11 5 (1.28%) CCA
11 5 (1.28%) Cisco Certification
11 5 (1.28%) Citrix Certification
11 5 (1.28%) CRISC
11 5 (1.28%) SANS
11 5 (1.28%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 68 (17.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 62 (15.86%) NIST
3 23 (5.88%) GDPR
4 13 (3.32%) SLA
5 12 (3.07%) NCSC
6 9 (2.30%) Cyber Essentials
6 9 (2.30%) Data Quality
7 5 (1.28%) ISO 31000
8 4 (1.02%) JSP 440
9 3 (0.77%) ISO/IEC 42001
9 3 (0.77%) PCI DSS
10 2 (0.51%) GxP
11 1 (0.26%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 1 (0.26%) Disclosure Scotland
11 1 (0.26%) GRC
11 1 (0.26%) ISO 9001
11 1 (0.26%) NIST 800
11 1 (0.26%) QA
System Software
1 78 (19.95%) VMware Infrastructure
2 44 (11.25%) VMware ESXi
3 29 (7.42%) Hyper-V
4 27 (6.91%) VMware NSX
5 15 (3.84%) vCloud
6 14 (3.58%) Virtual Desktop
7 11 (2.81%) vSphere
8 10 (2.56%) Virtual Machines
9 7 (1.79%) Firmware
10 3 (0.77%) Dovecot
10 3 (0.77%) OpenAM
10 3 (0.77%) Postfix
11 2 (0.51%) Docker
11 2 (0.51%) UAG
12 1 (0.26%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 46 (11.76%) Microsoft Intune
2 42 (10.74%) vCenter Server
3 31 (7.93%) SCCM
3 31 (7.93%) SCOM
4 16 (4.09%) Ansible
5 15 (3.84%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 13 (3.32%) Single Sign-On
7 5 (1.28%) Packer
8 4 (1.02%) Cisco CUCM
8 4 (1.02%) Clonezilla
8 4 (1.02%) WMI
9 3 (0.77%) Dell DRAC
9 3 (0.77%) HAProxy
9 3 (0.77%) Kubernetes
9 3 (0.77%) SCSM
9 3 (0.77%) WSUS
10 2 (0.51%) FortiGate
10 2 (0.51%) NetBackup
10 2 (0.51%) vMotion
11 1 (0.26%) McAfee ePO
Vendors
1 221 (56.52%) Microsoft
2 95 (24.30%) VMware
3 43 (11.00%) ServiceNow
4 42 (10.74%) CyberArk
5 32 (8.18%) BeyondTrust
6 23 (5.88%) Cisco
7 21 (5.37%) SolarWinds
8 18 (4.60%) Remedy
9 16 (4.09%) Oracle
10 14 (3.58%) Meraki
11 12 (3.07%) BMC
12 11 (2.81%) CrowdStrike
12 11 (2.81%) Juniper
13 10 (2.56%) Citrix
14 9 (2.30%) Avaya
14 9 (2.30%) Mitel
15 7 (1.79%) Palo Alto
15 7 (1.79%) Splunk
16 6 (1.53%) Broadcom
16 6 (1.53%) Veeam