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 17 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 30 25 16
Rank change year-on-year -5 -9 +11
Contract jobs citing Active Directory 320 230 434
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 5.64% 7.66% 7.72%
As % of the System Software category 53.42% 51.57% 55.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 218 177 286
10th Percentile £200 £200 £158
25th Percentile £300 £263 £263
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £537 £475
Median % change year-on-year -6.89% +13.05% +5.56%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £608
90th Percentile £700 £700 £638
England median daily rate £450 £450 £400
% change year-on-year - +12.50% -5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 3 18
10th Percentile £26.80 £21.58 £14.74
25th Percentile £43.81 £23.99 £16.61
Median hourly rate £52.50 £28.00 £17.69
Median % change year-on-year +87.50% +58.28% -4.38%
75th Percentile £88.25 - £18.51
90th Percentile £102.75 - £43.18
England median hourly rate £25.47 £21.46 £17.69
% change year-on-year +18.69% +21.31% -5.02%

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 599 446 788
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 10.56% 14.85% 14.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 450 320 489
10th Percentile £256 £245 £200
25th Percentile £406 £400 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% +5.00% -
75th Percentile £606 £625 £606
90th Percentile £700 £676 £650
England median daily rate £500 £525 £485
% change year-on-year -4.76% +8.25% -7.62%
Number of hourly rates quoted 20 14 48
10th Percentile £27.66 £28.00 £17.26
25th Percentile £44.60 £45.63 £17.80
Median hourly rate £51.25 £57.50 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.87% +15.00% -3.85%
75th Percentile £84.31 £69.69 £62.81
90th Percentile £100.55 £80.25 £65.00
England median hourly rate £55.00 £29.00 £21.00
% change year-on-year +89.66% +38.10% -52.00%

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 17 April 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 17 April 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 17 April 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 -5 165 £469 -18.43% 39
Berkshire -19 100 £481 -23.00% 11
Hampshire -20 80 £555 +0.91% 38
Oxfordshire +6 43 £275 +4.76% 12
Surrey +4 38 £500 +44.93% 7
Buckinghamshire -4 22 £560 +104.25% 16
Kent -3 19 £190 -62.00% 6
West Sussex -9 9 £600 +140.00% 7
East Sussex -2 6 £600 +14.29% 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 68 (21.25%) Microsoft Exchange
2 29 (9.06%) SharePoint
3 5 (1.56%) Confluence
4 2 (0.63%) IIS
4 2 (0.63%) WordPress
5 1 (0.31%) Exchange Server 2010
5 1 (0.31%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 19 (5.94%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (1.25%) Microsoft Project
3 2 (0.63%) SOLIDWORKS
4 1 (0.31%) AutoCAD
4 1 (0.31%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 7 (2.19%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.31%) assyst
2 1 (0.31%) Remedy AR System
Cloud Services
1 152 (47.50%) Azure
2 128 (40.00%) Entra ID
3 101 (31.56%) Microsoft 365
4 40 (12.50%) AWS
5 21 (6.56%) GCP
6 16 (5.00%) OneDrive
6 16 (5.00%) Power Platform
7 12 (3.75%) Azure DevOps
8 10 (3.13%) SaaS
9 8 (2.50%) IaaS
9 8 (2.50%) Power Automate
10 7 (2.19%) Azure Logic Apps
10 7 (2.19%) Azure Monitor
11 6 (1.88%) PowerApps
11 6 (1.88%) Serverless
12 5 (1.56%) Azure Functions
12 5 (1.56%) GitHub
12 5 (1.56%) Nutanix
13 4 (1.25%) AWS CloudFormation
13 4 (1.25%) Azure Key Vault
Communications & Networking
1 84 (26.25%) DNS
2 63 (19.69%) DHCP
3 36 (11.25%) Firewall
4 27 (8.44%) Wi-Fi
5 19 (5.94%) VPN
6 15 (4.69%) FTP
7 13 (4.06%) Kerberos
7 13 (4.06%) TCP/IP
8 10 (3.13%) LAN
8 10 (3.13%) SAN
8 10 (3.13%) SSL
9 8 (2.50%) SD-WAN
10 7 (2.19%) SSH
10 7 (2.19%) Unified Communications
10 7 (2.19%) VLAN
10 7 (2.19%) WAN
11 6 (1.88%) NAS
12 5 (1.56%) IPsec
12 5 (1.56%) Network Security
13 4 (1.25%) MQTT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 31 (9.69%) SQL Server
2 11 (3.44%) Power BI
3 6 (1.88%) Azure SQL Database
4 3 (0.94%) Data Mining
5 2 (0.63%) MySQL
6 1 (0.31%) Amazon Athena
6 1 (0.31%) Amazon QuickSight
6 1 (0.31%) Amazon Redshift
6 1 (0.31%) MariaDB
6 1 (0.31%) NoSQL
6 1 (0.31%) Parquet
6 1 (0.31%) PostgreSQL
6 1 (0.31%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 15 (4.69%) JIRA
2 6 (1.88%) Robot Framework
3 5 (1.56%) Sonatype Nexus
4 2 (0.63%) Git
4 2 (0.63%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.31%) Artifactory
5 1 (0.31%) Browser DevTools
5 1 (0.31%) Burp Suite
5 1 (0.31%) GitLab
5 1 (0.31%) MSI
General
1 100 (31.25%) Social Skills
2 40 (12.50%) Public Sector
3 34 (10.63%) Documentation Skills
4 14 (4.38%) Analytical Skills
5 13 (4.06%) Military
6 12 (3.75%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 12 (3.75%) Organisational Skills
7 9 (2.81%) Finance
8 8 (2.50%) Legal
9 6 (1.88%) Police
10 5 (1.56%) Retail
11 4 (1.25%) Manufacturing
12 2 (0.63%) Games
13 1 (0.31%) Aerospace
13 1 (0.31%) Back Office
13 1 (0.31%) Electronics
13 1 (0.31%) Front Office
13 1 (0.31%) Law
13 1 (0.31%) Publishing
13 1 (0.31%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 42 (13.13%) Architect
2 36 (11.25%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 36 (11.25%) Support Engineer
3 34 (10.63%) IT Support
4 31 (9.69%) Analyst
5 29 (9.06%) IT Engineer
6 28 (8.75%) Senior
7 24 (7.50%) IT Support Engineer
8 15 (4.69%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
9 12 (3.75%) Lead
10 10 (3.13%) 3rd Line Engineer
10 10 (3.13%) Support Analyst
10 10 (3.13%) Wintel Analyst
11 9 (2.81%) Infrastructure Architect
11 9 (2.81%) Senior Architect
11 9 (2.81%) Service Analyst
11 9 (2.81%) Service Desk Analyst
12 8 (2.50%) IT Analyst
12 8 (2.50%) IT Support Analyst
12 8 (2.50%) Product Owner
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (10.63%) LDAP
2 11 (3.44%) OAuth
2 11 (3.44%) REST
2 11 (3.44%) SAML
3 10 (3.13%) OpenID
4 8 (2.50%) .NET
4 8 (2.50%) OAuth2
5 6 (1.88%) ADO
6 5 (1.56%) Microsoft Graph
6 5 (1.56%) SailPoint
7 4 (1.25%) .NET Core
7 4 (1.25%) .NET Framework
8 3 (0.94%) ARM Templates
9 2 (0.63%) ASP.NET
9 2 (0.63%) Entity Framework
9 2 (0.63%) GraphQL
9 2 (0.63%) Middleware
9 2 (0.63%) Unreal Engine
9 2 (0.63%) Web Services
10 1 (0.31%) HTML
Miscellaneous
1 38 (11.88%) Onboarding
2 36 (11.25%) PKI
3 17 (5.31%) Replication
4 11 (3.44%) Data Centre
5 10 (3.13%) Product Ownership
6 9 (2.81%) Legacy Systems
7 8 (2.50%) Driving Licence
7 8 (2.50%) Management Information System
8 7 (2.19%) Analytical Mindset
8 7 (2.19%) Self-Motivation
9 6 (1.88%) Fat Client
9 6 (1.88%) Thin Client
10 5 (1.56%) CMDB
10 5 (1.56%) Operational Technology
11 4 (1.25%) Enterprise Software
11 4 (1.25%) Hybrid Cloud
12 3 (0.94%) Clustering
12 3 (0.94%) Security Posture
13 2 (0.63%) Cloud Native
13 2 (0.63%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 194 (60.63%) Windows
2 93 (29.06%) Windows Server
3 49 (15.31%) Linux
4 27 (8.44%) Windows 10
5 15 (4.69%) Unix
6 9 (2.81%) Windows 7
7 7 (2.19%) Mac OS
7 7 (2.19%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 7 (2.19%) Windows Server 2019
8 5 (1.56%) Windows Server 2012
9 4 (1.25%) Windows Server 2016
10 2 (0.63%) CentOS
10 2 (0.63%) VMS
11 1 (0.31%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 73 (22.81%) Problem-Solving
2 59 (18.44%) ITIL
3 57 (17.81%) Cybersecurity
4 47 (14.69%) DevOps
5 46 (14.38%) Customer Service
6 45 (14.06%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 41 (12.81%) SIEM
8 39 (12.19%) ITSM
9 33 (10.31%) Agile
10 30 (9.38%) CI/CD
11 28 (8.75%) DevSecOps
11 28 (8.75%) Privileged Access Management
12 26 (8.13%) Roadmaps
13 25 (7.81%) Migration
14 24 (7.50%) High Availability
15 20 (6.25%) Disaster Recovery
16 19 (5.94%) Identity Access Management
16 19 (5.94%) Runbook
17 18 (5.63%) Change Management
17 18 (5.63%) RBAC
Programming Languages
1 103 (32.19%) PowerShell
2 56 (17.50%) Python
3 18 (5.63%) SQL
4 9 (2.81%) Bash
4 9 (2.81%) JavaScript
5 8 (2.50%) C#
6 5 (1.56%) Java
7 3 (0.94%) Bicep
7 3 (0.94%) PHP
8 2 (0.63%) BeanShell
9 1 (0.31%) Korn
Qualifications
1 168 (52.50%) Security Cleared
2 111 (34.69%) SC Cleared
3 49 (15.31%) DV Cleared
4 21 (6.56%) Degree
5 20 (6.25%) CISSP
6 19 (5.94%) CISM
7 12 (3.75%) Microsoft Certification
8 6 (1.88%) Azure Certification
9 5 (1.56%) AWS Certification
9 5 (1.56%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 4 (1.25%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 4 (1.25%) BPSS Clearance
11 3 (0.94%) A+ Certification
11 3 (0.94%) CCA
11 3 (0.94%) CESG Certified Professional
11 3 (0.94%) Citrix Certification
12 2 (0.63%) CCNA
12 2 (0.63%) CCNP
12 2 (0.63%) Cisco Certification
12 2 (0.63%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 46 (14.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 46 (14.38%) NIST
2 30 (9.38%) GDPR
3 8 (2.50%) SLA
4 7 (2.19%) NCSC
5 5 (1.56%) NIST 800
6 4 (1.25%) Cyber Essentials
6 4 (1.25%) Data Quality
7 2 (0.63%) ISO/IEC 42001
7 2 (0.63%) JSP 440
7 2 (0.63%) PCI DSS
8 1 (0.31%) PMO
System Software
1 65 (20.31%) VMware Infrastructure
2 27 (8.44%) Hyper-V
3 11 (3.44%) Virtual Desktop
4 9 (2.81%) VMware ESXi
5 8 (2.50%) Firmware
5 8 (2.50%) VMware NSX
5 8 (2.50%) vSphere
6 6 (1.88%) Docker
6 6 (1.88%) Virtual Machines
7 3 (0.94%) DFS Replication
8 2 (0.63%) NFS
8 2 (0.63%) Terminal Services
8 2 (0.63%) UAG
9 1 (0.31%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.31%) Citrix Hypervisor
9 1 (0.31%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 48 (15.00%) Microsoft Intune
2 30 (9.38%) SCCM
3 19 (5.94%) Terraform
4 17 (5.31%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 15 (4.69%) Single Sign-On
6 13 (4.06%) Ansible
7 10 (3.13%) vCenter Server
8 9 (2.81%) Jamf Pro
8 9 (2.81%) SCOM
9 6 (1.88%) Kubernetes
9 6 (1.88%) WMI
10 3 (0.94%) SCSM
10 3 (0.94%) WSUS
11 2 (0.63%) WhatsUp Gold
12 1 (0.31%) Backup Exec
12 1 (0.31%) Cisco CUCM
12 1 (0.31%) McAfee ePO
12 1 (0.31%) Norton AntiVirus
12 1 (0.31%) Puppet
12 1 (0.31%) Red Hat Satellite
Vendors
1 187 (58.44%) Microsoft
2 81 (25.31%) VMware
3 39 (12.19%) BeyondTrust
3 39 (12.19%) CyberArk
4 32 (10.00%) ServiceNow
5 21 (6.56%) Citrix
6 13 (4.06%) Cisco
7 12 (3.75%) Meraki
7 12 (3.75%) Oracle
8 8 (2.50%) Avaya
8 8 (2.50%) Mitel
9 7 (2.19%) BMC
9 7 (2.19%) Remedy
10 5 (1.56%) Fortinet
10 5 (1.56%) Red Hat
10 5 (1.56%) SolarWinds
10 5 (1.56%) Veeam
11 4 (1.25%) BiZZdesign
11 4 (1.25%) F5
11 4 (1.25%) Splunk