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 25 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 30 22 15
Rank change year-on-year -8 -7 +17
Contract jobs citing Active Directory 402 242 422
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 6.09% 7.03% 8.07%
As % of the System Software category 52.48% 53.30% 54.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 252 178 285
10th Percentile £225 £200 £200
25th Percentile £325 £250 £360
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £531 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.90% -1.21% +45.27%
75th Percentile £593 £607 £608
90th Percentile £650 £700 £650
England median daily rate £450 £450 £450
% change year-on-year - - +8.43%
Number of hourly rates quoted 29 4 21
10th Percentile £16.00 - £16.00
25th Percentile £25.72 £28.00 £17.69
Median hourly rate £52.50 £30.39 £17.80
Median % change year-on-year +72.78% +70.70% -20.89%
75th Percentile £67.47 £64.58 £28.75
90th Percentile £77.50 £121.83 £50.00
England median hourly rate £27.44 £23.00 £17.72
% change year-on-year +19.30% +29.80% -9.13%

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 766 454 773
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 11.60% 13.20% 14.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 541 318 492
10th Percentile £275 £206 £250
25th Percentile £413 £322 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year +4.95% -9.05% +10.00%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £608
90th Percentile £700 £675 £651
England median daily rate £500 £500 £513
% change year-on-year - -2.44% -2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 38 11 48
10th Percentile £16.00 £28.00 £17.69
25th Percentile £33.70 £41.92 £17.80
Median hourly rate £50.00 £57.50 £54.88
Median % change year-on-year -13.04% +4.78% +7.07%
75th Percentile £62.33 £82.00 £66.17
90th Percentile £77.50 £89.63 £70.00
England median hourly rate £55.00 £35.57 £22.00
% change year-on-year +54.61% +61.69% -45.00%

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 25 July 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 25 July 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 25 July 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 -1 217 £496 -5.52% 49
Hampshire -10 125 £538 -6.52% 28
Berkshire -13 94 £500 -17.36% 24
Oxfordshire +10 84 £350 +40.00% 14
Buckinghamshire -25 39 £590 +62.76% 11
Surrey -23 22 £525 +144.19% 10
Kent -4 17 £275 -36.05% 10
West Sussex -20 14 £575 +187.50% 12
East Sussex +6 7 £168 +1.52% 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 64 (15.92%) Microsoft Exchange
2 34 (8.46%) SharePoint
3 12 (2.99%) Confluence
4 7 (1.74%) Apache
4 7 (1.74%) nginx
5 5 (1.24%) IIS
6 3 (0.75%) Tomcat
Applications
1 16 (3.98%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (1.24%) Microsoft Project
3 2 (0.50%) SOLIDWORKS
4 1 (0.25%) Microsoft Excel
4 1 (0.25%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.25%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 16 (3.98%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (0.50%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (0.50%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 183 (45.52%) Azure
2 166 (41.29%) Entra ID
3 112 (27.86%) Microsoft 365
4 37 (9.20%) AWS
5 20 (4.98%) Power Platform
6 18 (4.48%) OneDrive
7 17 (4.23%) GCP
8 16 (3.98%) Azure Monitor
8 16 (3.98%) IaaS
9 11 (2.74%) Azure DevOps
10 10 (2.49%) PaaS
11 9 (2.24%) Azure Logic Apps
11 9 (2.24%) Azure Sentinel
11 9 (2.24%) SaaS
12 8 (1.99%) Azure AKS
12 8 (1.99%) Azure Key Vault
13 6 (1.49%) Azure App Service
13 6 (1.49%) Power Automate
14 5 (1.24%) Azure Storage
14 5 (1.24%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 98 (24.38%) DNS
2 53 (13.18%) DHCP
3 44 (10.95%) Firewall
4 35 (8.71%) VPN
5 28 (6.97%) Wi-Fi
6 17 (4.23%) LAN
7 16 (3.98%) Network Security
8 15 (3.73%) SSL
9 14 (3.48%) TCP/IP
10 13 (3.23%) SSH
11 11 (2.74%) WAN
12 9 (2.24%) IPsec
12 9 (2.24%) SAN
13 8 (1.99%) FTP
13 8 (1.99%) Kerberos
14 7 (1.74%) Cisco ASA
14 7 (1.74%) Cisco Firepower
14 7 (1.74%) NAS
14 7 (1.74%) VLAN
15 5 (1.24%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 45 (11.19%) SQL Server
2 17 (4.23%) Power BI
3 7 (1.74%) Azure SQL Database
4 6 (1.49%) NoSQL
5 4 (1.00%) MySQL
6 3 (0.75%) Data Mining
7 2 (0.50%) Parquet
8 1 (0.25%) PostgreSQL
8 1 (0.25%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 18 (4.48%) JIRA
2 4 (1.00%) Atlassian Bamboo
2 4 (1.00%) Bitbucket
2 4 (1.00%) Git
3 3 (0.75%) MSI
3 3 (0.75%) Robot Framework
4 2 (0.50%) Jenkins
4 2 (0.50%) Sonatype Nexus
5 1 (0.25%) Browser DevTools
5 1 (0.25%) GitLab
General
1 124 (30.85%) Social Skills
2 50 (12.44%) Public Sector
3 42 (10.45%) Analytical Skills
4 40 (9.95%) Documentation Skills
5 17 (4.23%) Military
6 13 (3.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 13 (3.23%) Organisational Skills
7 11 (2.74%) Finance
8 10 (2.49%) Marketing
9 6 (1.49%) Legal
10 5 (1.24%) Police
11 4 (1.00%) Aerospace
11 4 (1.00%) Manufacturing
11 4 (1.00%) Retail
12 3 (0.75%) French Language
13 2 (0.50%) Games
13 2 (0.50%) Telecoms
14 1 (0.25%) Advertising
14 1 (0.25%) Pharmaceutical
14 1 (0.25%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 58 (14.43%) Support Engineer
2 51 (12.69%) IT Support
3 49 (12.19%) Senior
4 48 (11.94%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 39 (9.70%) IT Engineer
6 34 (8.46%) Architect
7 33 (8.21%) IT Support Engineer
8 30 (7.46%) Analyst
9 23 (5.72%) Cloud Engineer
10 18 (4.48%) 3rd Line Engineer
10 18 (4.48%) Lead
11 16 (3.98%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
12 14 (3.48%) IAM Specialist
12 14 (3.48%) IT Analyst
13 13 (3.23%) Developer
13 13 (3.23%) IT Support Analyst
13 13 (3.23%) Support Analyst
14 10 (2.49%) 3rd Line Infrastructure Engineer
14 10 (2.49%) Consultant
14 10 (2.49%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 48 (11.94%) LDAP
2 36 (8.96%) OAuth
2 36 (8.96%) SAML
3 35 (8.71%) OpenID
4 24 (5.97%) REST
5 21 (5.22%) OAuth2
6 20 (4.98%) SailPoint
7 17 (4.23%) Web Services
8 11 (2.74%) ARM Templates
9 10 (2.49%) .NET
10 9 (2.24%) Microsoft Graph
11 7 (1.74%) .NET Core
11 7 (1.74%) .NET Framework
11 7 (1.74%) Entity Framework
12 4 (1.00%) 802.1X
12 4 (1.00%) JSON
12 4 (1.00%) RESTful
13 3 (0.75%) LAMP
13 3 (0.75%) LEMP Stack
13 3 (0.75%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 57 (14.18%) Onboarding
2 39 (9.70%) PKI
3 23 (5.72%) Management Information System
4 16 (3.98%) Hybrid Cloud
5 12 (2.99%) Data Centre
6 11 (2.74%) Legacy Systems
6 11 (2.74%) Replication
7 10 (2.49%) Clustering
8 9 (2.24%) Enterprise Software
8 9 (2.24%) Operational Technology
9 8 (1.99%) Product Ownership
9 8 (1.99%) Security Posture
10 7 (1.74%) Driving Licence
11 5 (1.24%) ARM Cortex
11 5 (1.24%) Cyber Defence
12 4 (1.00%) Analytical Mindset
12 4 (1.00%) CMDB
12 4 (1.00%) Fibre Optics
12 4 (1.00%) SCADA
13 3 (0.75%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 258 (64.18%) Windows
2 121 (30.10%) Windows Server
3 88 (21.89%) Linux
4 37 (9.20%) Windows 10
5 30 (7.46%) Unix
6 21 (5.22%) Windows Server 2019
7 8 (1.99%) Mac OS
8 7 (1.74%) CentOS
9 6 (1.49%) Windows 7
10 5 (1.24%) Ubuntu
11 4 (1.00%) Apple iOS
11 4 (1.00%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 4 (1.00%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.50%) VMS
12 2 (0.50%) Windows Server 2016
13 1 (0.25%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 94 (23.38%) Problem-Solving
2 83 (20.65%) ITIL
2 83 (20.65%) ITSM
3 66 (16.42%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 59 (14.68%) Cybersecurity
5 50 (12.44%) Customer Service
6 48 (11.94%) Agile
6 48 (11.94%) SIEM
7 45 (11.19%) Runbook
8 44 (10.95%) Privileged Access Management
8 44 (10.95%) RBAC
9 41 (10.20%) Information Security
10 39 (9.70%) DevOps
11 38 (9.45%) Technical Leadership
12 37 (9.20%) Change Control
12 37 (9.20%) CI/CD
12 37 (9.20%) Identity Access Management
13 34 (8.46%) Analytics
13 34 (8.46%) Computer Science
14 32 (7.96%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 156 (38.81%) PowerShell
2 71 (17.66%) Python
3 34 (8.46%) SQL
4 15 (3.73%) Bicep
5 14 (3.48%) Bash
6 13 (3.23%) JavaScript
7 11 (2.74%) C#
8 5 (1.24%) Java
9 4 (1.00%) C
10 2 (0.50%) BeanShell
11 1 (0.25%) Korn
11 1 (0.25%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 197 (49.00%) Security Cleared
2 105 (26.12%) SC Cleared
3 88 (21.89%) DV Cleared
4 59 (14.68%) Degree
5 31 (7.71%) Microsoft Certification
6 18 (4.48%) CISSP
7 17 (4.23%) CISM
8 16 (3.98%) Azure Certification
9 12 (2.99%) BPSS Clearance
10 9 (2.24%) CESG Certified Professional
10 9 (2.24%) MCSA
11 8 (1.99%) MCSE
12 7 (1.74%) CCA
12 7 (1.74%) Citrix Certification
13 6 (1.49%) Cisco Certification
14 5 (1.24%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 5 (1.24%) AWS Certification
14 5 (1.24%) CRISC
14 5 (1.24%) GIAC
14 5 (1.24%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 71 (17.66%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 66 (16.42%) NIST
3 26 (6.47%) GDPR
4 11 (2.74%) SLA
5 10 (2.49%) NCSC
6 9 (2.24%) Cyber Essentials
7 8 (1.99%) Data Quality
8 5 (1.24%) ISO 31000
9 3 (0.75%) ISO/IEC 42001
9 3 (0.75%) PCI DSS
10 2 (0.50%) GxP
10 2 (0.50%) NIST 800
11 1 (0.25%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 1 (0.25%) Disclosure Scotland
11 1 (0.25%) GRC
11 1 (0.25%) ISO 9001
11 1 (0.25%) JSP 440
11 1 (0.25%) QA
System Software
1 90 (22.39%) VMware Infrastructure
2 42 (10.45%) VMware ESXi
3 35 (8.71%) Hyper-V
4 26 (6.47%) VMware NSX
5 13 (3.23%) vCloud
5 13 (3.23%) Virtual Desktop
6 12 (2.99%) Virtual Machines
6 12 (2.99%) vSphere
7 8 (1.99%) Firmware
8 3 (0.75%) Dovecot
8 3 (0.75%) OpenAM
8 3 (0.75%) Postfix
9 2 (0.50%) BitLocker
9 2 (0.50%) Docker
9 2 (0.50%) UAG
10 1 (0.25%) Citrix Hypervisor
Systems Management
1 52 (12.94%) Microsoft Intune
2 39 (9.70%) Terraform
3 37 (9.20%) vCenter Server
4 30 (7.46%) SCCM
5 27 (6.72%) SCOM
6 20 (4.98%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 18 (4.48%) Ansible
8 13 (3.23%) Single Sign-On
9 5 (1.24%) Cisco CUCM
10 4 (1.00%) Clonezilla
10 4 (1.00%) Packer
10 4 (1.00%) WMI
11 3 (0.75%) HAProxy
11 3 (0.75%) Kubernetes
11 3 (0.75%) SCSM
12 2 (0.50%) Dell DRAC
12 2 (0.50%) vMotion
12 2 (0.50%) WSUS
13 1 (0.25%) CASB
13 1 (0.25%) NetBackup
Vendors
1 231 (57.46%) Microsoft
2 105 (26.12%) VMware
3 45 (11.19%) ServiceNow
4 41 (10.20%) CyberArk
5 39 (9.70%) BeyondTrust
6 23 (5.72%) Cisco
7 20 (4.98%) SolarWinds
8 18 (4.48%) Meraki
8 18 (4.48%) Oracle
8 18 (4.48%) Remedy
9 14 (3.48%) BMC
9 14 (3.48%) Citrix
10 12 (2.99%) Avaya
10 12 (2.99%) Mitel
11 11 (2.74%) Juniper
12 9 (2.24%) CrowdStrike
13 8 (1.99%) Palo Alto
14 7 (1.74%) Broadcom
15 6 (1.49%) Red Hat
15 6 (1.49%) Veeam