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 8 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 22 17
Rank change year-on-year -10 -5 +10
Contract jobs citing Active Directory 380 243 387
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 5.76% 7.01% 8.35%
As % of the System Software category 49.74% 52.48% 55.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 227 184 263
10th Percentile £225 £182 £200
25th Percentile £300 £250 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year - +5.26% +46.15%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £608
90th Percentile £638 £659 £650
England median daily rate £450 £430 £450
% change year-on-year +4.65% -4.44% +12.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 36 4 14
10th Percentile £16.00 - £13.06
25th Percentile £43.81 £28.00 £17.69
Median hourly rate £52.50 £30.39 £20.10
Median % change year-on-year +72.78% +51.17% -10.67%
75th Percentile £77.50 £64.58 £28.75
90th Percentile £96.00 £121.83 £49.18
England median hourly rate £52.50 £23.00 £20.00
% change year-on-year +128.26% +15.00% +2.56%

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 764 463 700
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 11.57% 13.35% 15.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 513 325 453
10th Percentile £263 £200 £243
25th Percentile £425 £274 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £515
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -2.91% +3.00%
75th Percentile £608 £600 £608
90th Percentile £675 £650 £671
England median daily rate £500 £500 £513
% change year-on-year - -2.44% -2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 56 13 36
10th Percentile £16.00 £28.95 £17.69
25th Percentile £43.81 £56.25 £25.29
Median hourly rate £59.37 £81.00 £54.88
Median % change year-on-year -26.71% +47.61% +0.58%
75th Percentile £69.99 - £70.00
90th Percentile £84.38 £88.30 -
England median hourly rate £65.00 £37.50 £24.50
% change year-on-year +73.33% +53.06% -48.42%

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 8 September 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 8 September 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 8 September 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 +4 195 £500 +33.33% 41
Hampshire -9 128 £538 -6.52% 56
Berkshire +7 83 £500 -6.72% 25
Oxfordshire +9 74 £400 +60.00% 5
Buckinghamshire -24 38 £592 +195.75% 11
West Sussex -14 19 £525 +162.50% 13
Surrey -28 19 £444 +90.86% 38
Kent -5 14 £275 +4.76% 19
East Sussex 0 5 £115 -36.11% 6
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 43 (11.32%) Microsoft Exchange
2 26 (6.84%) SharePoint
3 12 (3.16%) Confluence
4 8 (2.11%) Apache
4 8 (2.11%) nginx
5 4 (1.05%) IIS
6 3 (0.79%) Tomcat
Applications
1 21 (5.53%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (1.32%) Microsoft Project
3 1 (0.26%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.26%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 14 (3.68%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (0.53%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (0.53%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 176 (46.32%) Azure
2 134 (35.26%) Entra ID
3 101 (26.58%) Microsoft 365
4 41 (10.79%) AWS
5 19 (5.00%) GCP
6 17 (4.47%) Azure Monitor
7 13 (3.42%) IaaS
8 12 (3.16%) Power Platform
9 11 (2.89%) Azure Sentinel
10 9 (2.37%) OneDrive
10 9 (2.37%) SaaS
11 8 (2.11%) Azure DevOps
11 8 (2.11%) PaaS
12 7 (1.84%) Azure AKS
12 7 (1.84%) Azure Key Vault
12 7 (1.84%) Azure Logic Apps
13 5 (1.32%) Azure App Service
13 5 (1.32%) Azure ExpressRoute
14 4 (1.05%) Microsoft Purview
14 4 (1.05%) Rubrik
Communications & Networking
1 94 (24.74%) DNS
2 48 (12.63%) DHCP
3 43 (11.32%) Firewall
4 33 (8.68%) VPN
5 18 (4.74%) TCP/IP
6 17 (4.47%) Wi-Fi
7 16 (4.21%) LAN
7 16 (4.21%) Network Security
8 13 (3.42%) SSL
9 12 (3.16%) WAN
10 10 (2.63%) VLAN
11 9 (2.37%) SSH
12 8 (2.11%) SAN
13 7 (1.84%) Cisco ASA
13 7 (1.84%) Cisco Firepower
13 7 (1.84%) IPsec
13 7 (1.84%) NAS
14 6 (1.58%) Wireless
15 5 (1.32%) FTP
15 5 (1.32%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 44 (11.58%) SQL Server
2 11 (2.89%) Power BI
3 10 (2.63%) Azure SQL Database
4 5 (1.32%) NoSQL
5 3 (0.79%) Data Mining
5 3 (0.79%) MySQL
6 1 (0.26%) Parquet
Development Applications
1 22 (5.79%) JIRA
2 5 (1.32%) Atlassian Bamboo
2 5 (1.32%) Bitbucket
3 3 (0.79%) Git
3 3 (0.79%) Jenkins
3 3 (0.79%) MSI
4 1 (0.26%) Browser DevTools
4 1 (0.26%) GitLab
4 1 (0.26%) Robot Framework
4 1 (0.26%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 117 (30.79%) Social Skills
2 49 (12.89%) Analytical Skills
3 45 (11.84%) Public Sector
4 39 (10.26%) Documentation Skills
5 14 (3.68%) Organisational Skills
6 13 (3.42%) Military
7 10 (2.63%) Marketing
8 9 (2.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 8 (2.11%) Finance
10 4 (1.05%) Aerospace
10 4 (1.05%) French Language
10 4 (1.05%) Manufacturing
11 3 (0.79%) Legal
11 3 (0.79%) Police
12 2 (0.53%) Advertising
12 2 (0.53%) Telecoms
13 1 (0.26%) Games
13 1 (0.26%) Local Government
13 1 (0.26%) Pharmaceutical
13 1 (0.26%) Retail
Job Titles
1 66 (17.37%) Support Engineer
2 50 (13.16%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 45 (11.84%) Senior
4 42 (11.05%) IT Support
5 38 (10.00%) IT Engineer
6 35 (9.21%) Architect
7 32 (8.42%) Cloud Engineer
8 28 (7.37%) IT Support Engineer
9 25 (6.58%) Analyst
10 20 (5.26%) 3rd Line Engineer
11 17 (4.47%) Lead
12 15 (3.95%) IAM Specialist
12 15 (3.95%) Technical Architect
13 14 (3.68%) Consultant
13 14 (3.68%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
14 12 (3.16%) 1st Line Support
14 12 (3.16%) IT Infrastructure Engineer
15 10 (2.63%) 3rd Line Infrastructure Engineer
15 10 (2.63%) 3rd Line Support
15 10 (2.63%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 47 (12.37%) LDAP
2 39 (10.26%) Terraform
3 34 (8.95%) SAML
4 33 (8.68%) OAuth
4 33 (8.68%) OpenID
5 21 (5.53%) OAuth2
6 20 (5.26%) SailPoint
7 19 (5.00%) REST
8 17 (4.47%) Web Services
9 15 (3.95%) ARM Templates
10 13 (3.42%) .NET
11 7 (1.84%) 802.1X
11 7 (1.84%) Microsoft Graph
12 6 (1.58%) .NET Framework
13 5 (1.32%) .NET Core
13 5 (1.32%) Entity Framework
14 4 (1.05%) OpenTofu
15 3 (0.79%) FIDO
15 3 (0.79%) LEMP Stack
15 3 (0.79%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 55 (14.47%) Onboarding
2 37 (9.74%) PKI
3 24 (6.32%) Management Information System
4 19 (5.00%) Hybrid Cloud
5 10 (2.63%) Data Centre
6 9 (2.37%) Clustering
7 8 (2.11%) Driving Licence
7 8 (2.11%) Enterprise Software
8 7 (1.84%) ARM Cortex
8 7 (1.84%) Operational Technology
8 7 (1.84%) Security Posture
9 5 (1.32%) Cyber Defence
9 5 (1.32%) Replication
10 4 (1.05%) Analytical Mindset
10 4 (1.05%) Fibre Optics
10 4 (1.05%) SCADA
11 3 (0.79%) CMDB
11 3 (0.79%) Legacy Systems
11 3 (0.79%) Self-Motivation
12 2 (0.53%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 250 (65.79%) Windows
2 121 (31.84%) Windows Server
3 82 (21.58%) Linux
4 45 (11.84%) Windows 10
5 27 (7.11%) Unix
6 25 (6.58%) Windows Server 2019
7 11 (2.89%) CentOS
7 11 (2.89%) Ubuntu
8 10 (2.63%) Mac OS
9 7 (1.84%) Windows 7
10 4 (1.05%) Apple iOS
11 3 (0.79%) Windows Server 2012
12 1 (0.26%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 1 (0.26%) VMS
12 1 (0.26%) Windows Server 2008
12 1 (0.26%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 93 (24.47%) Problem-Solving
2 83 (21.84%) ITSM
3 81 (21.32%) ITIL
4 68 (17.89%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 52 (13.68%) Cybersecurity
6 49 (12.89%) Agile
7 48 (12.63%) Technical Leadership
8 47 (12.37%) Privileged Access Management
8 47 (12.37%) Runbook
9 46 (12.11%) SIEM
10 42 (11.05%) RBAC
11 41 (10.79%) Analytics
12 37 (9.74%) Customer Service
13 36 (9.47%) Change Control
13 36 (9.47%) Information Security
14 32 (8.42%) CI/CD
14 32 (8.42%) Computer Science
14 32 (8.42%) Identity Access Management
15 30 (7.89%) Migration
15 30 (7.89%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 146 (38.42%) PowerShell
2 63 (16.58%) Python
3 38 (10.00%) SQL
4 18 (4.74%) Bash
5 16 (4.21%) Bicep
6 10 (2.63%) JavaScript
7 6 (1.58%) C#
8 5 (1.32%) Java
9 4 (1.05%) C
10 2 (0.53%) BeanShell
11 1 (0.26%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 194 (51.05%) Security Cleared
2 98 (25.79%) DV Cleared
3 95 (25.00%) SC Cleared
4 58 (15.26%) Degree
5 27 (7.11%) Microsoft Certification
6 14 (3.68%) CISSP
7 13 (3.42%) Azure Certification
7 13 (3.42%) CISM
8 10 (2.63%) BPSS Clearance
8 10 (2.63%) MCSA
9 8 (2.11%) MCSE
10 6 (1.58%) CESG Certified Professional
10 6 (1.58%) Cisco Certification
11 5 (1.32%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 5 (1.32%) AWS Certification
11 5 (1.32%) CRISC
11 5 (1.32%) GIAC
11 5 (1.32%) SANS
11 5 (1.32%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 4 (1.05%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 64 (16.84%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 61 (16.05%) NIST
3 19 (5.00%) GDPR
4 15 (3.95%) NCSC
5 12 (3.16%) SLA
6 9 (2.37%) Cyber Essentials
6 9 (2.37%) Data Quality
7 6 (1.58%) JSP 440
8 5 (1.32%) ISO 31000
9 3 (0.79%) ISO/IEC 42001
9 3 (0.79%) PCI DSS
10 2 (0.53%) 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 77 (20.26%) VMware Infrastructure
2 48 (12.63%) VMware ESXi
3 28 (7.37%) VMware NSX
4 27 (7.11%) Hyper-V
5 16 (4.21%) vCloud
6 13 (3.42%) Virtual Desktop
7 11 (2.89%) vSphere
8 10 (2.63%) Virtual Machines
9 6 (1.58%) Firmware
10 3 (0.79%) Dovecot
10 3 (0.79%) OpenAM
10 3 (0.79%) Postfix
11 2 (0.53%) Docker
11 2 (0.53%) UAG
12 1 (0.26%) BitLocker
12 1 (0.26%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 47 (12.37%) vCenter Server
2 42 (11.05%) Microsoft Intune
3 35 (9.21%) SCOM
4 34 (8.95%) SCCM
5 16 (4.21%) Ansible
6 14 (3.68%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 11 (2.89%) Single Sign-On
8 5 (1.32%) Packer
9 4 (1.05%) Cisco CUCM
9 4 (1.05%) Clonezilla
9 4 (1.05%) WMI
10 3 (0.79%) Dell DRAC
10 3 (0.79%) HAProxy
10 3 (0.79%) Kubernetes
10 3 (0.79%) SCSM
10 3 (0.79%) WSUS
11 2 (0.53%) FortiGate
11 2 (0.53%) NetBackup
11 2 (0.53%) vMotion
12 1 (0.26%) McAfee ePO
Vendors
1 211 (55.53%) Microsoft
2 95 (25.00%) VMware
3 43 (11.32%) CyberArk
4 41 (10.79%) ServiceNow
5 31 (8.16%) BeyondTrust
6 24 (6.32%) Cisco
6 24 (6.32%) SolarWinds
7 17 (4.47%) Remedy
8 16 (4.21%) Oracle
9 12 (3.16%) Juniper
9 12 (3.16%) Meraki
10 11 (2.89%) BMC
10 11 (2.89%) CrowdStrike
11 9 (2.37%) Broadcom
11 9 (2.37%) Citrix
12 7 (1.84%) Avaya
12 7 (1.84%) Mitel
12 7 (1.84%) Palo Alto
12 7 (1.84%) Splunk
13 6 (1.58%) Google