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

6 months to
12 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 21 15
Rank change year-on-year -10 -6 +17
Contract jobs citing Active Directory 385 253 461
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 5.91% 7.48% 8.23%
As % of the System Software category 52.96% 53.83% 55.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 249 183 308
10th Percentile £203 £200 £200
25th Percentile £300 £250 £344
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £523
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +0.48% +30.63%
75th Percentile £590 £615 £608
90th Percentile £650 £700 £650
England median daily rate £450 £450 £450
% change year-on-year - - +5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 26 4 21
10th Percentile £16.00 - £16.00
25th Percentile £21.67 £28.00 £17.69
Median hourly rate £48.13 £30.39 £17.80
Median % change year-on-year +58.40% +70.70% -20.89%
75th Percentile £54.69 £64.58 £28.75
90th Percentile £77.50 £121.83 £50.00
England median hourly rate £26.22 £23.00 £17.72
% change year-on-year +14.00% +29.80% -11.40%

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 727 470 825
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 11.16% 13.89% 14.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 529 327 524
10th Percentile £263 £206 £218
25th Percentile £408 £321 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £501 £538
Median % change year-on-year +4.90% -6.88% +7.50%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £608
90th Percentile £700 £675 £651
England median daily rate £500 £500 £501
% change year-on-year - -0.20% -4.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 33 11 51
10th Percentile £16.00 £28.00 £17.69
25th Percentile £27.88 £41.92 £20.03
Median hourly rate £50.00 £57.50 £54.88
Median % change year-on-year -13.04% +4.78% +11.53%
75th Percentile £60.00 £81.00 £67.34
90th Percentile £77.50 £83.00 £70.00
England median hourly rate £55.00 £34.50 £22.30
% change year-on-year +59.42% +54.71% -53.05%

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 12 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 12 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 12 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 -6 198 £466 -9.07% 68
Hampshire -4 116 £538 -6.52% 39
Berkshire -15 91 £492 -16.26% 34
Oxfordshire +5 78 £250 - 16
Buckinghamshire -26 29 £560 +104.25% 18
Surrey -19 28 £525 +144.19% 14
Kent -3 21 £200 -53.49% 6
West Sussex -15 13 £600 +200.00% 8
East Sussex +7 9 £360 - 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 68 (17.66%) Microsoft Exchange
2 37 (9.61%) SharePoint
3 5 (1.30%) Apache
3 5 (1.30%) Confluence
3 5 (1.30%) IIS
3 5 (1.30%) nginx
4 3 (0.78%) Tomcat
Applications
1 17 (4.42%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (1.04%) Microsoft Project
3 2 (0.52%) SOLIDWORKS
4 1 (0.26%) Microsoft Excel
4 1 (0.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.26%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 14 (3.64%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (0.52%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 180 (46.75%) Azure
2 166 (43.12%) Entra ID
3 115 (29.87%) Microsoft 365
4 36 (9.35%) AWS
5 19 (4.94%) OneDrive
6 18 (4.68%) Power Platform
7 15 (3.90%) GCP
8 13 (3.38%) IaaS
9 9 (2.34%) Azure Logic Apps
9 9 (2.34%) SaaS
10 8 (2.08%) Azure DevOps
11 7 (1.82%) PaaS
12 6 (1.56%) Power Automate
13 5 (1.30%) Microsoft Purview
14 4 (1.04%) Azure Monitor
14 4 (1.04%) Mimecast
14 4 (1.04%) PowerApps
15 3 (0.78%) Cloudflare
15 3 (0.78%) Google Workspace
15 3 (0.78%) Rubrik
Communications & Networking
1 92 (23.90%) DNS
2 50 (12.99%) DHCP
3 31 (8.05%) Firewall
4 30 (7.79%) Wi-Fi
5 27 (7.01%) VPN
6 17 (4.42%) LAN
7 12 (3.12%) Kerberos
7 12 (3.12%) SSL
8 11 (2.86%) FTP
8 11 (2.86%) WAN
9 10 (2.60%) Network Security
10 9 (2.34%) SAN
11 8 (2.08%) IPsec
11 8 (2.08%) SSH
12 7 (1.82%) NAS
12 7 (1.82%) SD-WAN
13 6 (1.56%) TCP/IP
14 5 (1.30%) Unified Communications
14 5 (1.30%) VLAN
15 4 (1.04%) Cisco ASA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 43 (11.17%) SQL Server
2 15 (3.90%) Power BI
3 5 (1.30%) MySQL
4 3 (0.78%) Data Mining
5 2 (0.52%) Azure SQL Database
6 1 (0.26%) Amazon Athena
6 1 (0.26%) Amazon QuickSight
6 1 (0.26%) Amazon Redshift
6 1 (0.26%) MariaDB
6 1 (0.26%) NoSQL
6 1 (0.26%) Parquet
6 1 (0.26%) PostgreSQL
6 1 (0.26%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 14 (3.64%) JIRA
2 3 (0.78%) MSI
2 3 (0.78%) Robot Framework
3 2 (0.52%) Atlassian Bamboo
3 2 (0.52%) Bitbucket
3 2 (0.52%) Git
3 2 (0.52%) GitLab
3 2 (0.52%) Jenkins
3 2 (0.52%) Sonatype Nexus
4 1 (0.26%) Artifactory
4 1 (0.26%) Browser DevTools
General
1 123 (31.95%) Social Skills
2 51 (13.25%) Public Sector
3 40 (10.39%) Documentation Skills
4 38 (9.87%) Analytical Skills
5 15 (3.90%) Military
6 14 (3.64%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 13 (3.38%) Organisational Skills
8 10 (2.60%) Finance
8 10 (2.60%) Marketing
9 7 (1.82%) Legal
10 6 (1.56%) Police
11 5 (1.30%) Manufacturing
12 4 (1.04%) Retail
13 2 (0.52%) Aerospace
13 2 (0.52%) French Language
13 2 (0.52%) Games
13 2 (0.52%) Telecoms
14 1 (0.26%) Health Technology
14 1 (0.26%) Local Government
14 1 (0.26%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 58 (15.06%) Support Engineer
2 52 (13.51%) IT Support
3 42 (10.91%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 41 (10.65%) IT Engineer
4 41 (10.65%) Senior
5 35 (9.09%) Analyst
6 34 (8.83%) Architect
6 34 (8.83%) IT Support Engineer
7 22 (5.71%) Cloud Engineer
8 18 (4.68%) Lead
9 16 (4.16%) 3rd Line Engineer
10 14 (3.64%) IT Analyst
10 14 (3.64%) Support Analyst
11 13 (3.38%) IT Support Analyst
12 12 (3.12%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
13 11 (2.86%) IAM Specialist
14 10 (2.60%) 3rd Line Infrastructure Engineer
15 9 (2.34%) Desktop Engineer
15 9 (2.34%) IT Infrastructure Engineer
15 9 (2.34%) Product Owner
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 49 (12.73%) LDAP
2 28 (7.27%) OAuth
2 28 (7.27%) SAML
3 27 (7.01%) OpenID
4 18 (4.68%) OAuth2
4 18 (4.68%) REST
5 16 (4.16%) SailPoint
6 15 (3.90%) Web Services
7 9 (2.34%) Microsoft Graph
8 5 (1.30%) .NET
9 4 (1.04%) 802.1X
10 3 (0.78%) ADO
10 3 (0.78%) FIDO
10 3 (0.78%) JSON
10 3 (0.78%) LAMP
10 3 (0.78%) LEMP Stack
10 3 (0.78%) Software Packaging
10 3 (0.78%) YAML
11 2 (0.52%) .NET Core
11 2 (0.52%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 49 (12.73%) Onboarding
2 35 (9.09%) PKI
3 19 (4.94%) Management Information System
4 16 (4.16%) Replication
5 12 (3.12%) Data Centre
5 12 (3.12%) Legacy Systems
6 9 (2.34%) Driving Licence
6 9 (2.34%) Product Ownership
7 8 (2.08%) Clustering
7 8 (2.08%) Enterprise Software
7 8 (2.08%) Operational Technology
7 8 (2.08%) Security Posture
8 7 (1.82%) Hybrid Cloud
9 5 (1.30%) Cyber Defence
10 4 (1.04%) Analytical Mindset
10 4 (1.04%) CMDB
10 4 (1.04%) SCADA
11 3 (0.78%) Cloud Native
11 3 (0.78%) Self-Motivation
12 2 (0.52%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 243 (63.12%) Windows
2 108 (28.05%) Windows Server
3 76 (19.74%) Linux
4 34 (8.83%) Windows 10
5 30 (7.79%) Unix
6 20 (5.19%) Windows Server 2019
7 8 (2.08%) Mac OS
8 6 (1.56%) Windows 7
9 5 (1.30%) CentOS
9 5 (1.30%) Windows Server 2012
10 4 (1.04%) Apple iOS
10 4 (1.04%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 3 (0.78%) Ubuntu
11 3 (0.78%) Windows Server 2016
12 2 (0.52%) VMS
13 1 (0.26%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 93 (24.16%) Problem-Solving
2 76 (19.74%) ITIL
3 75 (19.48%) ITSM
4 57 (14.81%) Cybersecurity
5 55 (14.29%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 51 (13.25%) Customer Service
7 46 (11.95%) SIEM
8 42 (10.91%) Runbook
9 40 (10.39%) Agile
9 40 (10.39%) Privileged Access Management
10 37 (9.61%) Information Security
11 35 (9.09%) Change Control
11 35 (9.09%) DevOps
12 34 (8.83%) Technical Leadership
13 32 (8.31%) RBAC
14 31 (8.05%) CI/CD
14 31 (8.05%) Identity Access Management
15 29 (7.53%) Computer Science
15 29 (7.53%) Migration
16 26 (6.75%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 143 (37.14%) PowerShell
2 64 (16.62%) Python
3 27 (7.01%) SQL
4 12 (3.12%) JavaScript
5 8 (2.08%) Bash
6 6 (1.56%) C#
7 5 (1.30%) Bicep
7 5 (1.30%) Java
8 4 (1.04%) C
9 2 (0.52%) BeanShell
10 1 (0.26%) Korn
10 1 (0.26%) PHP
10 1 (0.26%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 184 (47.79%) Security Cleared
2 111 (28.83%) SC Cleared
3 70 (18.18%) DV Cleared
4 52 (13.51%) Degree
5 27 (7.01%) Microsoft Certification
6 20 (5.19%) CISSP
7 19 (4.94%) CISM
8 12 (3.12%) BPSS Clearance
9 11 (2.86%) Azure Certification
10 9 (2.34%) MCSA
11 8 (2.08%) CESG Certified Professional
11 8 (2.08%) MCSE
12 6 (1.56%) CCA
12 6 (1.56%) Cisco Certification
12 6 (1.56%) Citrix Certification
13 5 (1.30%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 5 (1.30%) AWS Certification
13 5 (1.30%) CRISC
13 5 (1.30%) GIAC
13 5 (1.30%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 70 (18.18%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 66 (17.14%) NIST
3 30 (7.79%) GDPR
4 12 (3.12%) NCSC
5 10 (2.60%) Cyber Essentials
5 10 (2.60%) SLA
6 5 (1.30%) Data Quality
6 5 (1.30%) ISO 31000
7 4 (1.04%) NIST 800
7 4 (1.04%) PCI DSS
8 3 (0.78%) ISO/IEC 42001
9 1 (0.26%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 1 (0.26%) Disclosure Scotland
9 1 (0.26%) GRC
9 1 (0.26%) ISO 9001
9 1 (0.26%) JSP 440
9 1 (0.26%) QA
System Software
1 83 (21.56%) VMware Infrastructure
2 36 (9.35%) VMware ESXi
3 33 (8.57%) Hyper-V
4 24 (6.23%) VMware NSX
5 13 (3.38%) vCloud
6 12 (3.12%) Virtual Machines
6 12 (3.12%) vSphere
7 11 (2.86%) Virtual Desktop
8 8 (2.08%) Firmware
9 3 (0.78%) Docker
9 3 (0.78%) Dovecot
9 3 (0.78%) OpenAM
9 3 (0.78%) Postfix
10 2 (0.52%) BitLocker
10 2 (0.52%) UAG
11 1 (0.26%) Citrix Hypervisor
11 1 (0.26%) NFS
Systems Management
1 52 (13.51%) Microsoft Intune
2 30 (7.79%) vCenter Server
3 28 (7.27%) Terraform
4 26 (6.75%) Active Directory Federation Services
4 26 (6.75%) SCCM
4 26 (6.75%) SCOM
5 15 (3.90%) Ansible
6 14 (3.64%) Single Sign-On
7 4 (1.04%) Clonezilla
7 4 (1.04%) Kubernetes
7 4 (1.04%) WMI
8 3 (0.78%) HAProxy
8 3 (0.78%) Jamf Pro
8 3 (0.78%) SCSM
9 2 (0.52%) Cisco CUCM
9 2 (0.52%) Dell DRAC
9 2 (0.52%) Grafana
9 2 (0.52%) Packer
9 2 (0.52%) vMotion
9 2 (0.52%) WSUS
Vendors
1 225 (58.44%) Microsoft
2 97 (25.19%) VMware
3 40 (10.39%) ServiceNow
4 39 (10.13%) BeyondTrust
4 39 (10.13%) CyberArk
5 20 (5.19%) Cisco
6 18 (4.68%) Meraki
6 18 (4.68%) Oracle
7 17 (4.42%) Citrix
8 16 (4.16%) Remedy
8 16 (4.16%) SolarWinds
9 12 (3.12%) Avaya
9 12 (3.12%) BMC
9 12 (3.12%) Mitel
10 10 (2.60%) Juniper
11 6 (1.56%) Broadcom
11 6 (1.56%) Red Hat
11 6 (1.56%) Veeam
12 5 (1.30%) F5
12 5 (1.30%) Palo Alto