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 27 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 30 20 15
Rank change year-on-year -10 -5 +16
Contract jobs citing Active Directory 357 244 460
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 5.72% 7.92% 8.09%
As % of the System Software category 53.68% 54.34% 55.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 232 178 303
10th Percentile £200 £200 £200
25th Percentile £280 £250 £338
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - +23.53%
75th Percentile £592 £623 £608
90th Percentile £700 £700 £644
England median daily rate £450 £450 £450
% change year-on-year - - +5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 24 3 21
10th Percentile £16.00 - £16.00
25th Percentile £19.62 - £17.69
Median hourly rate £47.54 £28.00 £17.80
Median % change year-on-year +69.79% +57.30% -20.89%
75th Percentile £53.75 £30.39 £28.75
90th Percentile £77.50 £31.82 £50.00
England median hourly rate £25.88 £23.00 £17.71
% change year-on-year +12.50% +29.91% -17.65%

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 665 449 836
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 10.65% 14.58% 14.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 490 315 522
10th Percentile £250 £208 £205
25th Percentile £406 £321 £407
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £538
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -6.98% +7.50%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £608
90th Percentile £713 £675 £650
England median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 29 8 51
10th Percentile £16.00 £28.00 £17.69
25th Percentile £25.72 £31.58 £20.03
Median hourly rate £50.00 £56.19 £54.88
Median % change year-on-year -11.01% +2.39% +0.58%
75th Percentile £55.00 £59.09 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £66.39 £70.00
England median hourly rate £53.00 £28.75 £22.35
% change year-on-year +84.35% +28.64% -55.30%

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 27 June 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 27 June 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 27 June 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 -7 187 £465 -7.00% 37
Hampshire -6 103 £575 - 40
Berkshire -20 82 £475 -20.83% 16
Oxfordshire +4 76 £250 - 8
Buckinghamshire -27 29 £560 +104.25% 13
Surrey -21 27 £525 +144.19% 13
Kent -2 20 £200 -53.49% 7
West Sussex -17 11 £600 +200.00% 9
East Sussex +4 8 £500 +81.82% 2
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 (18.49%) Microsoft Exchange
2 33 (9.24%) SharePoint
3 5 (1.40%) IIS
4 4 (1.12%) Confluence
5 3 (0.84%) Apache
5 3 (0.84%) nginx
5 3 (0.84%) Tomcat
Applications
1 16 (4.48%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (1.12%) Microsoft Project
3 2 (0.56%) SOLIDWORKS
4 1 (0.28%) AutoCAD
4 1 (0.28%) Microsoft Excel
4 1 (0.28%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.28%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 13 (3.64%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (0.56%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 173 (48.46%) Azure
2 156 (43.70%) Entra ID
3 107 (29.97%) Microsoft 365
4 32 (8.96%) AWS
5 18 (5.04%) Power Platform
6 16 (4.48%) OneDrive
7 13 (3.64%) GCP
8 12 (3.36%) IaaS
9 9 (2.52%) Azure DevOps
9 9 (2.52%) Azure Logic Apps
10 8 (2.24%) SaaS
11 7 (1.96%) PaaS
12 6 (1.68%) Power Automate
13 5 (1.40%) Azure Monitor
13 5 (1.40%) Mimecast
13 5 (1.40%) PowerApps
14 4 (1.12%) Azure Key Vault
14 4 (1.12%) Microsoft Purview
15 3 (0.84%) Azure AKS
15 3 (0.84%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 80 (22.41%) DNS
2 45 (12.61%) DHCP
3 28 (7.84%) Wi-Fi
4 27 (7.56%) Firewall
5 24 (6.72%) VPN
6 17 (4.76%) LAN
7 13 (3.64%) Kerberos
8 12 (3.36%) SSL
9 11 (3.08%) FTP
9 11 (3.08%) WAN
10 9 (2.52%) Network Security
10 9 (2.52%) SAN
11 8 (2.24%) IPsec
11 8 (2.24%) SSH
12 7 (1.96%) NAS
12 7 (1.96%) SD-WAN
13 5 (1.40%) Unified Communications
14 4 (1.12%) BIG-IP
14 4 (1.12%) Cisco ASA
14 4 (1.12%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 40 (11.20%) SQL Server
2 15 (4.20%) Power BI
3 5 (1.40%) MySQL
4 3 (0.84%) Data Mining
5 2 (0.56%) Azure SQL Database
6 1 (0.28%) Amazon Athena
6 1 (0.28%) Amazon QuickSight
6 1 (0.28%) Amazon Redshift
6 1 (0.28%) MariaDB
6 1 (0.28%) NoSQL
6 1 (0.28%) Parquet
6 1 (0.28%) PostgreSQL
6 1 (0.28%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 13 (3.64%) JIRA
2 4 (1.12%) Robot Framework
3 3 (0.84%) MSI
3 3 (0.84%) Sonatype Nexus
4 2 (0.56%) Git
4 2 (0.56%) GitLab
5 1 (0.28%) Artifactory
5 1 (0.28%) Browser DevTools
5 1 (0.28%) Jenkins
General
1 105 (29.41%) Social Skills
2 52 (14.57%) Public Sector
3 37 (10.36%) Documentation Skills
4 30 (8.40%) Analytical Skills
5 15 (4.20%) Military
6 13 (3.64%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 13 (3.64%) Organisational Skills
7 10 (2.80%) Marketing
8 9 (2.52%) Finance
9 7 (1.96%) Legal
10 6 (1.68%) Police
11 5 (1.40%) Manufacturing
12 4 (1.12%) Retail
13 2 (0.56%) Aerospace
13 2 (0.56%) Games
13 2 (0.56%) Telecoms
14 1 (0.28%) Health Technology
14 1 (0.28%) Local Government
14 1 (0.28%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 50 (14.01%) Support Engineer
2 47 (13.17%) IT Support
3 41 (11.48%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 39 (10.92%) Senior
5 37 (10.36%) IT Engineer
6 35 (9.80%) Architect
7 32 (8.96%) Analyst
8 31 (8.68%) IT Support Engineer
9 17 (4.76%) Cloud Engineer
10 15 (4.20%) Lead
11 13 (3.64%) 3rd Line Engineer
11 13 (3.64%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
11 13 (3.64%) Support Analyst
12 12 (3.36%) IT Analyst
13 11 (3.08%) IAM Specialist
13 11 (3.08%) IT Support Analyst
14 10 (2.80%) 3rd Line Infrastructure Engineer
14 10 (2.80%) Product Owner
15 9 (2.52%) 3rd Line Support
15 9 (2.52%) Desktop Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 47 (13.17%) LDAP
2 27 (7.56%) OAuth
2 27 (7.56%) SAML
3 26 (7.28%) OpenID
4 17 (4.76%) OAuth2
5 16 (4.48%) SailPoint
6 15 (4.20%) REST
6 15 (4.20%) Web Services
7 7 (1.96%) Microsoft Graph
8 5 (1.40%) .NET
9 4 (1.12%) 802.1X
9 4 (1.12%) ADO
10 3 (0.84%) JSON
10 3 (0.84%) LAMP
10 3 (0.84%) LEMP Stack
10 3 (0.84%) Software Packaging
10 3 (0.84%) YAML
11 2 (0.56%) .NET Framework
11 2 (0.56%) SOAP
11 2 (0.56%) Unreal Engine
Miscellaneous
1 45 (12.61%) Onboarding
2 36 (10.08%) PKI
3 18 (5.04%) Management Information System
4 16 (4.48%) Replication
5 12 (3.36%) Data Centre
5 12 (3.36%) Legacy Systems
6 11 (3.08%) Product Ownership
7 9 (2.52%) Driving Licence
8 8 (2.24%) Operational Technology
8 8 (2.24%) Security Posture
9 7 (1.96%) Clustering
9 7 (1.96%) Hybrid Cloud
10 6 (1.68%) Enterprise Software
11 4 (1.12%) Analytical Mindset
11 4 (1.12%) CMDB
11 4 (1.12%) Cyber Defence
11 4 (1.12%) SCADA
12 3 (0.84%) Cloud Native
12 3 (0.84%) Self-Motivation
13 2 (0.56%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 222 (62.18%) Windows
2 101 (28.29%) Windows Server
3 70 (19.61%) Linux
4 30 (8.40%) Unix
5 28 (7.84%) Windows 10
6 13 (3.64%) Windows Server 2019
7 7 (1.96%) Mac OS
7 7 (1.96%) Windows 7
8 5 (1.40%) CentOS
8 5 (1.40%) Windows Server 2012
9 4 (1.12%) Apple iOS
9 4 (1.12%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 3 (0.84%) Ubuntu
10 3 (0.84%) Windows Server 2016
11 2 (0.56%) VMS
12 1 (0.28%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 84 (23.53%) Problem-Solving
2 69 (19.33%) ITSM
3 65 (18.21%) ITIL
4 56 (15.69%) Cybersecurity
5 54 (15.13%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 47 (13.17%) Customer Service
7 44 (12.32%) SIEM
8 41 (11.48%) Runbook
9 37 (10.36%) Information Security
9 37 (10.36%) Privileged Access Management
10 36 (10.08%) Agile
10 36 (10.08%) DevOps
11 35 (9.80%) Change Control
12 31 (8.68%) CI/CD
12 31 (8.68%) RBAC
13 29 (8.12%) Computer Science
13 29 (8.12%) Identity Access Management
13 29 (8.12%) Migration
13 29 (8.12%) Technical Leadership
14 25 (7.00%) High Availability
Programming Languages
1 136 (38.10%) PowerShell
2 62 (17.37%) Python
3 25 (7.00%) SQL
4 11 (3.08%) JavaScript
5 6 (1.68%) Bash
5 6 (1.68%) C#
6 5 (1.40%) Bicep
6 5 (1.40%) Java
7 3 (0.84%) C
8 2 (0.56%) BeanShell
9 1 (0.28%) Korn
9 1 (0.28%) PHP
Qualifications
1 177 (49.58%) Security Cleared
2 109 (30.53%) SC Cleared
3 63 (17.65%) DV Cleared
4 48 (13.45%) Degree
5 23 (6.44%) Microsoft Certification
6 20 (5.60%) CISSP
7 19 (5.32%) CISM
8 11 (3.08%) Azure Certification
8 11 (3.08%) BPSS Clearance
9 8 (2.24%) CESG Certified Professional
9 8 (2.24%) MCSA
9 8 (2.24%) MCSE
10 6 (1.68%) CCA
10 6 (1.68%) Cisco Certification
10 6 (1.68%) Citrix Certification
11 5 (1.40%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 5 (1.40%) AWS Certification
11 5 (1.40%) CRISC
11 5 (1.40%) GIAC
11 5 (1.40%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 67 (18.77%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 64 (17.93%) NIST
3 30 (8.40%) GDPR
4 12 (3.36%) NCSC
5 11 (3.08%) Cyber Essentials
6 8 (2.24%) SLA
7 5 (1.40%) ISO 31000
7 5 (1.40%) PCI DSS
8 4 (1.12%) Data Quality
8 4 (1.12%) NIST 800
9 3 (0.84%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 1 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 1 (0.28%) GRC
10 1 (0.28%) ISO 9001
10 1 (0.28%) JSP 440
10 1 (0.28%) QA
System Software
1 73 (20.45%) VMware Infrastructure
2 30 (8.40%) Hyper-V
2 30 (8.40%) VMware ESXi
3 23 (6.44%) VMware NSX
4 12 (3.36%) vCloud
4 12 (3.36%) Virtual Machines
4 12 (3.36%) vSphere
5 10 (2.80%) Virtual Desktop
6 8 (2.24%) Firmware
7 3 (0.84%) Docker
7 3 (0.84%) Dovecot
7 3 (0.84%) OpenAM
7 3 (0.84%) Postfix
8 2 (0.56%) BitLocker
8 2 (0.56%) UAG
9 1 (0.28%) Citrix Hypervisor
9 1 (0.28%) NFS
Systems Management
1 48 (13.45%) Microsoft Intune
2 27 (7.56%) Active Directory Federation Services
3 26 (7.28%) Terraform
4 22 (6.16%) vCenter Server
5 21 (5.88%) SCCM
6 20 (5.60%) SCOM
7 15 (4.20%) Ansible
8 14 (3.92%) Single Sign-On
9 5 (1.40%) WMI
10 4 (1.12%) Clonezilla
10 4 (1.12%) Kubernetes
11 3 (0.84%) HAProxy
11 3 (0.84%) Jamf Pro
11 3 (0.84%) SCSM
12 2 (0.56%) Cisco CUCM
12 2 (0.56%) Grafana
12 2 (0.56%) vMotion
12 2 (0.56%) WSUS
13 1 (0.28%) CASB
13 1 (0.28%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 212 (59.38%) Microsoft
2 83 (23.25%) VMware
3 38 (10.64%) BeyondTrust
4 35 (9.80%) CyberArk
5 33 (9.24%) ServiceNow
6 20 (5.60%) Cisco
7 17 (4.76%) Citrix
7 17 (4.76%) Oracle
8 16 (4.48%) Meraki
9 14 (3.92%) Remedy
10 11 (3.08%) SolarWinds
11 10 (2.80%) Avaya
11 10 (2.80%) BMC
11 10 (2.80%) Mitel
12 7 (1.96%) Juniper
13 6 (1.68%) Red Hat
14 5 (1.40%) F5
14 5 (1.40%) Palo Alto
14 5 (1.40%) Veeam
15 4 (1.12%) Okta