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

6 months to
9 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 30 26 18
Rank change year-on-year -4 -8 +8
Contract jobs citing Active Directory 325 230 434
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 5.77% 7.69% 7.69%
As % of the System Software category 53.81% 50.77% 54.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 224 177 282
10th Percentile £200 £200 £158
25th Percentile £300 £274 £250
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £496 £538 £475
Median % change year-on-year -7.81% +13.26% +5.56%
75th Percentile £586 £638 £608
90th Percentile £699 £700 £638
England median daily rate £450 £455 £400
% change year-on-year -1.10% +13.75% -5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 3 19
10th Percentile £21.94 £21.58 £16.20
25th Percentile £32.13 £23.99 £17.69
Median hourly rate £53.75 £28.00 £17.80
Median % change year-on-year +91.96% +57.30% -3.78%
75th Percentile £92.75 - £29.50
90th Percentile £103.85 - £65.73
England median hourly rate £22.50 £22.50 £17.69
% change year-on-year - +27.19% -4.38%

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 604 453 791
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 10.73% 15.15% 14.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 455 327 487
10th Percentile £256 £209 £200
25th Percentile £406 £400 £323
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -
75th Percentile £600 £625 £600
90th Percentile £700 £675 £646
England median daily rate £500 £525 £480
% change year-on-year -4.76% +9.38% -8.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 14 51
10th Percentile £23.56 £28.00 £17.69
25th Percentile £44.86 £45.63 £17.80
Median hourly rate £50.00 £57.63 £54.88
Median % change year-on-year -13.23% +5.01% +5.53%
75th Percentile £86.00 £69.69 £65.00
90th Percentile £102.20 £80.25 £68.63
England median hourly rate £52.50 £28.71 £21.00
% change year-on-year +82.89% +36.69% -47.50%

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 9 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 9 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 9 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 -7 168 £475 -17.39% 37
Berkshire -15 107 £481 -23.00% 16
Hampshire -18 80 £544 -1.14% 50
Oxfordshire +7 39 £275 - 12
Surrey +3 36 £500 +127.27% 9
Buckinghamshire -4 22 £560 +180.00% 9
Kent 0 20 £200 -64.82% 4
West Sussex -12 10 £600 +158.06% 10
East Sussex -2 8 £600 +14.29% 5
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 66 (20.31%) Microsoft Exchange
2 28 (8.62%) SharePoint
3 5 (1.54%) Confluence
4 2 (0.62%) IIS
4 2 (0.62%) WordPress
5 1 (0.31%) Exchange Server 2010
5 1 (0.31%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 18 (5.54%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (1.23%) Microsoft Project
3 2 (0.62%) SOLIDWORKS
4 1 (0.31%) AutoCAD
4 1 (0.31%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 7 (2.15%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.31%) assyst
2 1 (0.31%) Remedy AR System
2 1 (0.31%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 155 (47.69%) Azure
2 127 (39.08%) Entra ID
3 102 (31.38%) Microsoft 365
4 44 (13.54%) AWS
5 26 (8.00%) GCP
6 17 (5.23%) OneDrive
7 16 (4.92%) Power Platform
8 12 (3.69%) Azure DevOps
9 10 (3.08%) SaaS
10 8 (2.46%) IaaS
10 8 (2.46%) Power Automate
11 7 (2.15%) Azure Logic Apps
11 7 (2.15%) Azure Monitor
12 6 (1.85%) GitHub
12 6 (1.85%) PowerApps
12 6 (1.85%) Serverless
13 5 (1.54%) Azure Functions
13 5 (1.54%) Nutanix
14 4 (1.23%) Azure Key Vault
14 4 (1.23%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 83 (25.54%) DNS
2 61 (18.77%) DHCP
3 37 (11.38%) Firewall
4 28 (8.62%) Wi-Fi
5 20 (6.15%) VPN
6 15 (4.62%) FTP
7 13 (4.00%) Kerberos
7 13 (4.00%) TCP/IP
8 10 (3.08%) LAN
8 10 (3.08%) SAN
8 10 (3.08%) SSL
9 8 (2.46%) SD-WAN
10 7 (2.15%) SSH
10 7 (2.15%) Unified Communications
10 7 (2.15%) VLAN
10 7 (2.15%) WAN
11 5 (1.54%) IPsec
11 5 (1.54%) NAS
12 4 (1.23%) Cisco IOS
12 4 (1.23%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (8.62%) SQL Server
2 11 (3.38%) Power BI
3 6 (1.85%) Azure SQL Database
4 3 (0.92%) Data Mining
5 2 (0.62%) 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 (4.62%) JIRA
2 6 (1.85%) Robot Framework
3 5 (1.54%) Sonatype Nexus
4 2 (0.62%) Git
4 2 (0.62%) 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
1 108 (33.23%) Social Skills
2 40 (12.31%) Public Sector
3 35 (10.77%) Documentation Skills
4 14 (4.31%) Analytical Skills
5 13 (4.00%) Military
6 12 (3.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 12 (3.69%) Organisational Skills
7 9 (2.77%) Finance
8 8 (2.46%) Legal
9 6 (1.85%) Police
10 5 (1.54%) Retail
11 4 (1.23%) Manufacturing
12 2 (0.62%) Games
13 1 (0.31%) Aerospace
13 1 (0.31%) Banking
13 1 (0.31%) Billing
13 1 (0.31%) Electronics
13 1 (0.31%) Law
13 1 (0.31%) Publishing
13 1 (0.31%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 42 (12.92%) Architect
2 39 (12.00%) Support Engineer
3 36 (11.08%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 35 (10.77%) IT Support
5 32 (9.85%) Analyst
6 30 (9.23%) IT Engineer
7 29 (8.92%) Senior
8 25 (7.69%) IT Support Engineer
9 15 (4.62%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
10 11 (3.38%) 3rd Line Engineer
10 11 (3.38%) Lead
11 10 (3.08%) Service Analyst
11 10 (3.08%) Service Desk Analyst
11 10 (3.08%) Support Analyst
11 10 (3.08%) Wintel Analyst
12 9 (2.77%) Infrastructure Architect
12 9 (2.77%) Senior Architect
13 8 (2.46%) IT Analyst
13 8 (2.46%) IT Support Analyst
13 8 (2.46%) Product Owner
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 39 (12.00%) LDAP
2 11 (3.38%) REST
3 10 (3.08%) OAuth
3 10 (3.08%) SAML
4 9 (2.77%) OpenID
5 8 (2.46%) .NET
6 7 (2.15%) OAuth2
7 6 (1.85%) ADO
7 6 (1.85%) SailPoint
8 4 (1.23%) .NET Core
8 4 (1.23%) .NET Framework
8 4 (1.23%) Microsoft Graph
9 3 (0.92%) ARM Templates
10 2 (0.62%) ASP.NET
10 2 (0.62%) Entity Framework
10 2 (0.62%) GraphQL
10 2 (0.62%) Middleware
10 2 (0.62%) Unreal Engine
10 2 (0.62%) Web Services
11 1 (0.31%) 802.1X
Miscellaneous
1 37 (11.38%) PKI
2 33 (10.15%) Onboarding
3 17 (5.23%) Replication
4 10 (3.08%) Data Centre
4 10 (3.08%) Product Ownership
5 9 (2.77%) Legacy Systems
6 8 (2.46%) Driving Licence
6 8 (2.46%) Management Information System
7 7 (2.15%) Analytical Mindset
7 7 (2.15%) Fat Client
7 7 (2.15%) Self-Motivation
7 7 (2.15%) Thin Client
8 5 (1.54%) CMDB
8 5 (1.54%) Operational Technology
9 4 (1.23%) Enterprise Software
9 4 (1.23%) Hybrid Cloud
9 4 (1.23%) Security Posture
10 3 (0.92%) Clustering
11 2 (0.62%) Linux Command Line
11 2 (0.62%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 195 (60.00%) Windows
2 93 (28.62%) Windows Server
3 44 (13.54%) Linux
4 29 (8.92%) Windows 10
5 11 (3.38%) Unix
6 9 (2.77%) Windows 7
7 8 (2.46%) Mac OS
8 7 (2.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 6 (1.85%) Windows Server 2019
10 5 (1.54%) Windows Server 2012
11 4 (1.23%) Windows Server 2016
12 2 (0.62%) CentOS
12 2 (0.62%) VMS
13 1 (0.31%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 75 (23.08%) Problem-Solving
2 62 (19.08%) Cybersecurity
3 58 (17.85%) ITIL
4 53 (16.31%) DevOps
5 48 (14.77%) Customer Service
6 45 (13.85%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 42 (12.92%) SIEM
8 39 (12.00%) ITSM
9 35 (10.77%) CI/CD
10 33 (10.15%) DevSecOps
11 32 (9.85%) Agile
12 26 (8.00%) Privileged Access Management
13 25 (7.69%) Roadmaps
14 24 (7.38%) High Availability
14 24 (7.38%) Migration
15 20 (6.15%) Disaster Recovery
16 18 (5.54%) Identity Access Management
16 18 (5.54%) Service Management
17 17 (5.23%) Change Management
17 17 (5.23%) RBAC
Programming Languages
1 104 (32.00%) PowerShell
2 58 (17.85%) Python
3 18 (5.54%) SQL
4 9 (2.77%) Bash
4 9 (2.77%) JavaScript
5 8 (2.46%) C#
6 6 (1.85%) Java
7 3 (0.92%) BeanShell
7 3 (0.92%) Bicep
7 3 (0.92%) PHP
8 1 (0.31%) Korn
Qualifications
1 169 (52.00%) Security Cleared
2 111 (34.15%) SC Cleared
3 49 (15.08%) DV Cleared
4 25 (7.69%) CISSP
5 24 (7.38%) CISM
6 18 (5.54%) Degree
7 12 (3.69%) Microsoft Certification
8 7 (2.15%) Azure Certification
9 6 (1.85%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 5 (1.54%) AWS Certification
11 4 (1.23%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 3 (0.92%) A+ Certification
12 3 (0.92%) BPSS Clearance
12 3 (0.92%) CCA
12 3 (0.92%) CESG Certified Professional
12 3 (0.92%) Citrix Certification
13 2 (0.62%) CCNP
13 2 (0.62%) Cisco Certification
13 2 (0.62%) PMI Certification
13 2 (0.62%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 46 (14.15%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 46 (14.15%) NIST
2 35 (10.77%) GDPR
3 8 (2.46%) SLA
4 5 (1.54%) NCSC
5 4 (1.23%) Cyber Essentials
5 4 (1.23%) Data Quality
5 4 (1.23%) NIST 800
6 2 (0.62%) JSP 440
6 2 (0.62%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.31%) ISO/IEC 42001
7 1 (0.31%) PMO
System Software
1 66 (20.31%) VMware Infrastructure
2 27 (8.31%) Hyper-V
3 12 (3.69%) Virtual Desktop
4 9 (2.77%) VMware ESXi
4 9 (2.77%) VMware NSX
4 9 (2.77%) vSphere
5 8 (2.46%) Firmware
6 6 (1.85%) Docker
6 6 (1.85%) Virtual Machines
7 3 (0.92%) DFS Replication
8 2 (0.62%) NFS
8 2 (0.62%) Terminal Services
9 1 (0.31%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.31%) Citrix Hypervisor
9 1 (0.31%) Sendmail
9 1 (0.31%) UAG
Systems Management
1 47 (14.46%) Microsoft Intune
2 32 (9.85%) SCCM
3 20 (6.15%) Terraform
4 16 (4.92%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 14 (4.31%) Single Sign-On
6 13 (4.00%) Ansible
7 11 (3.38%) vCenter Server
8 9 (2.77%) Jamf Pro
8 9 (2.77%) SCOM
9 7 (2.15%) WMI
10 6 (1.85%) Kubernetes
11 3 (0.92%) SCSM
11 3 (0.92%) WSUS
12 2 (0.62%) WhatsUp Gold
13 1 (0.31%) Cisco CUCM
13 1 (0.31%) FortiGate
13 1 (0.31%) Grafana
13 1 (0.31%) Puppet
13 1 (0.31%) Red Hat Satellite
13 1 (0.31%) Salt
Vendors
1 189 (58.15%) Microsoft
2 84 (25.85%) VMware
3 40 (12.31%) BeyondTrust
3 40 (12.31%) CyberArk
4 34 (10.46%) ServiceNow
5 22 (6.77%) Citrix
6 14 (4.31%) Cisco
7 11 (3.38%) Meraki
8 10 (3.08%) Oracle
9 8 (2.46%) Avaya
9 8 (2.46%) Mitel
10 7 (2.15%) BMC
10 7 (2.15%) Remedy
10 7 (2.15%) SolarWinds
11 5 (1.54%) Fortinet
11 5 (1.54%) Juniper
11 5 (1.54%) Red Hat
11 5 (1.54%) Veeam
12 4 (1.23%) Google
12 4 (1.23%) Splunk