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

6 months to
31 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 24 15
Rank change year-on-year -8 -9 +18
Contract jobs citing Active Directory 392 236 420
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 5.90% 6.82% 8.23%
As % of the System Software category 50.91% 52.44% 55.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 239 172 286
10th Percentile £225 £200 £200
25th Percentile £325 £250 £360
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £525 £531
Median % change year-on-year -1.90% -1.18% +51.79%
75th Percentile £597 £607 £608
90th Percentile £650 £700 £648
England median daily rate £450 £445 £450
% change year-on-year +1.12% -1.11% +12.43%
Number of hourly rates quoted 31 4 21
10th Percentile £16.00 - £16.00
25th Percentile £26.80 £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 £47.54 £23.00 £17.80
% change year-on-year +106.70% +29.21% -6.32%

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 770 450 762
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 11.58% 13.00% 14.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 533 313 487
10th Percentile £275 £207 £253
25th Percentile £415 £320 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -9.09% +10.00%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £608
90th Percentile £700 £675 £650
England median daily rate £500 £500 £513
% change year-on-year - -2.44% -2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 41 11 48
10th Percentile £16.00 £28.00 £17.69
25th Percentile £33.70 £41.92 £17.80
Median hourly rate £51.50 £57.50 £54.88
Median % change year-on-year -10.43% +4.78% +7.07%
75th Percentile £67.47 £82.00 £66.17
90th Percentile £77.50 £89.63 £70.00
England median hourly rate £56.25 £37.07 £22.40
% change year-on-year +51.73% +65.50% -44.00%

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 31 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 31 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 31 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 -2 214 £500 +11.11% 38
Hampshire -4 126 £538 -6.52% 32
Berkshire -6 89 £500 -20.32% 18
Oxfordshire +8 86 £350 +40.00% 12
Buckinghamshire -22 39 £583 +60.69% 8
Surrey -27 16 £346 +61.05% 12
Kent -3 15 £275 +4.76% 11
West Sussex -15 14 £600 +200.00% 9
East Sussex +5 7 £168 +1.52% 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 59 (15.05%) Microsoft Exchange
2 32 (8.16%) SharePoint
3 12 (3.06%) Confluence
4 7 (1.79%) Apache
4 7 (1.79%) nginx
5 5 (1.28%) IIS
6 3 (0.77%) Tomcat
Applications
1 16 (4.08%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (1.28%) Microsoft Project
3 1 (0.26%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.26%) SOLIDWORKS
3 1 (0.26%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 16 (4.08%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (0.51%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (0.51%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 172 (43.88%) Azure
2 158 (40.31%) Entra ID
3 110 (28.06%) Microsoft 365
4 36 (9.18%) AWS
5 19 (4.85%) Power Platform
6 16 (4.08%) OneDrive
7 15 (3.83%) Azure Monitor
7 15 (3.83%) GCP
7 15 (3.83%) IaaS
8 12 (3.06%) Azure DevOps
9 10 (2.55%) Azure Sentinel
9 10 (2.55%) PaaS
9 10 (2.55%) SaaS
10 9 (2.30%) Azure AKS
10 9 (2.30%) Azure Key Vault
10 9 (2.30%) Azure Logic Apps
11 6 (1.53%) Azure App Service
11 6 (1.53%) Power Automate
12 5 (1.28%) Azure Storage
13 4 (1.02%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 92 (23.47%) DNS
2 46 (11.73%) DHCP
3 43 (10.97%) Firewall
4 33 (8.42%) VPN
5 25 (6.38%) Wi-Fi
6 16 (4.08%) LAN
6 16 (4.08%) Network Security
7 15 (3.83%) SSL
8 14 (3.57%) SSH
8 14 (3.57%) TCP/IP
9 11 (2.81%) WAN
10 9 (2.30%) IPsec
10 9 (2.30%) SAN
10 9 (2.30%) VLAN
11 7 (1.79%) Cisco ASA
11 7 (1.79%) Cisco Firepower
11 7 (1.79%) FTP
11 7 (1.79%) NAS
12 6 (1.53%) Wireless
13 5 (1.28%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 46 (11.73%) SQL Server
2 16 (4.08%) Power BI
3 7 (1.79%) Azure SQL Database
4 6 (1.53%) NoSQL
5 4 (1.02%) MySQL
6 3 (0.77%) Data Mining
7 2 (0.51%) Parquet
8 1 (0.26%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 18 (4.59%) JIRA
2 4 (1.02%) Atlassian Bamboo
2 4 (1.02%) Bitbucket
2 4 (1.02%) Git
3 3 (0.77%) MSI
3 3 (0.77%) Robot Framework
4 2 (0.51%) Jenkins
4 2 (0.51%) Sonatype Nexus
5 1 (0.26%) Browser DevTools
5 1 (0.26%) GitLab
General
1 124 (31.63%) Social Skills
2 53 (13.52%) Public Sector
3 46 (11.73%) Analytical Skills
4 40 (10.20%) Documentation Skills
5 18 (4.59%) Military
6 15 (3.83%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 13 (3.32%) Organisational Skills
8 11 (2.81%) Finance
9 10 (2.55%) Marketing
10 5 (1.28%) Police
11 4 (1.02%) Aerospace
11 4 (1.02%) French Language
11 4 (1.02%) Legal
11 4 (1.02%) Manufacturing
11 4 (1.02%) Retail
12 2 (0.51%) Telecoms
13 1 (0.26%) Advertising
13 1 (0.26%) Games
13 1 (0.26%) Local Government
13 1 (0.26%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 59 (15.05%) Support Engineer
2 52 (13.27%) IT Support
3 51 (13.01%) Senior
4 48 (12.24%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 42 (10.71%) IT Engineer
6 34 (8.67%) IT Support Engineer
7 32 (8.16%) Architect
8 28 (7.14%) Analyst
9 25 (6.38%) Cloud Engineer
10 19 (4.85%) 3rd Line Engineer
11 18 (4.59%) Lead
12 16 (4.08%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
13 15 (3.83%) IAM Specialist
14 14 (3.57%) IT Analyst
15 13 (3.32%) Developer
15 13 (3.32%) IT Support Analyst
15 13 (3.32%) Support Analyst
16 10 (2.55%) 1st Line Support
16 10 (2.55%) 3rd Line Infrastructure Engineer
16 10 (2.55%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 42 (10.71%) LDAP
2 37 (9.44%) OAuth
2 37 (9.44%) SAML
3 36 (9.18%) OpenID
4 24 (6.12%) REST
5 22 (5.61%) OAuth2
6 21 (5.36%) SailPoint
7 18 (4.59%) Web Services
8 12 (3.06%) ARM Templates
9 10 (2.55%) .NET
10 8 (2.04%) Microsoft Graph
11 7 (1.79%) .NET Core
11 7 (1.79%) .NET Framework
11 7 (1.79%) Entity Framework
12 4 (1.02%) 802.1X
12 4 (1.02%) JSON
12 4 (1.02%) RESTful
13 3 (0.77%) FIDO
13 3 (0.77%) LEMP Stack
13 3 (0.77%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 60 (15.31%) Onboarding
2 38 (9.69%) PKI
3 26 (6.63%) Management Information System
4 17 (4.34%) Hybrid Cloud
5 12 (3.06%) Data Centre
6 10 (2.55%) Clustering
6 10 (2.55%) Legacy Systems
7 9 (2.30%) Enterprise Software
8 8 (2.04%) Operational Technology
8 8 (2.04%) Product Ownership
9 7 (1.79%) Driving Licence
9 7 (1.79%) Security Posture
10 6 (1.53%) Replication
11 5 (1.28%) Analytical Mindset
11 5 (1.28%) ARM Cortex
11 5 (1.28%) Cyber Defence
12 4 (1.02%) CMDB
12 4 (1.02%) Fibre Optics
12 4 (1.02%) SCADA
13 3 (0.77%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 257 (65.56%) Windows
2 125 (31.89%) Windows Server
3 86 (21.94%) Linux
4 37 (9.44%) Windows 10
5 32 (8.16%) Unix
6 23 (5.87%) Windows Server 2019
7 8 (2.04%) Mac OS
8 7 (1.79%) CentOS
9 6 (1.53%) Windows 7
10 5 (1.28%) Ubuntu
11 4 (1.02%) Apple iOS
11 4 (1.02%) Windows Server 2012
12 3 (0.77%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 2 (0.51%) VMS
13 2 (0.51%) Windows Server 2016
14 1 (0.26%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 94 (23.98%) Problem-Solving
2 83 (21.17%) ITSM
3 81 (20.66%) ITIL
4 66 (16.84%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 58 (14.80%) Cybersecurity
6 49 (12.50%) Agile
7 48 (12.24%) Runbook
7 48 (12.24%) SIEM
8 47 (11.99%) RBAC
9 46 (11.73%) Customer Service
9 46 (11.73%) Privileged Access Management
10 43 (10.97%) Information Security
11 38 (9.69%) Change Control
11 38 (9.69%) Technical Leadership
12 37 (9.44%) DevOps
13 36 (9.18%) Computer Science
14 35 (8.93%) Analytics
14 35 (8.93%) CI/CD
14 35 (8.93%) Identity Access Management
15 32 (8.16%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 147 (37.50%) PowerShell
2 70 (17.86%) Python
3 34 (8.67%) SQL
4 15 (3.83%) Bicep
5 14 (3.57%) Bash
6 13 (3.32%) JavaScript
7 11 (2.81%) C#
8 5 (1.28%) Java
9 4 (1.02%) C
10 2 (0.51%) BeanShell
11 1 (0.26%) Korn
11 1 (0.26%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 188 (47.96%) Security Cleared
2 97 (24.74%) SC Cleared
3 87 (22.19%) DV Cleared
4 62 (15.82%) Degree
5 30 (7.65%) Microsoft Certification
6 16 (4.08%) Azure Certification
7 15 (3.83%) CISSP
8 14 (3.57%) CISM
9 12 (3.06%) BPSS Clearance
10 9 (2.30%) CESG Certified Professional
10 9 (2.30%) MCSA
11 8 (2.04%) MCSE
12 7 (1.79%) CCA
12 7 (1.79%) Citrix Certification
13 6 (1.53%) AWS Certification
13 6 (1.53%) Cisco Certification
14 5 (1.28%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 5 (1.28%) CRISC
14 5 (1.28%) GIAC
14 5 (1.28%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 72 (18.37%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 66 (16.84%) NIST
3 23 (5.87%) GDPR
4 13 (3.32%) SLA
5 11 (2.81%) NCSC
6 9 (2.30%) Cyber Essentials
6 9 (2.30%) Data Quality
7 5 (1.28%) ISO 31000
8 3 (0.77%) ISO/IEC 42001
8 3 (0.77%) PCI DSS
9 2 (0.51%) GxP
9 2 (0.51%) NIST 800
10 1 (0.26%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 1 (0.26%) Disclosure Scotland
10 1 (0.26%) GRC
10 1 (0.26%) ISO 9001
10 1 (0.26%) JSP 440
10 1 (0.26%) QA
System Software
1 86 (21.94%) VMware Infrastructure
2 43 (10.97%) VMware ESXi
3 34 (8.67%) Hyper-V
4 26 (6.63%) VMware NSX
5 13 (3.32%) vCloud
6 12 (3.06%) Virtual Machines
6 12 (3.06%) vSphere
7 11 (2.81%) Virtual Desktop
8 7 (1.79%) Firmware
9 3 (0.77%) Docker
9 3 (0.77%) Dovecot
9 3 (0.77%) OpenAM
9 3 (0.77%) Postfix
10 2 (0.51%) UAG
11 1 (0.26%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.26%) Citrix Hypervisor
Systems Management
1 47 (11.99%) Microsoft Intune
2 39 (9.95%) Terraform
3 38 (9.69%) vCenter Server
4 28 (7.14%) SCCM
4 28 (7.14%) SCOM
5 18 (4.59%) Ansible
6 15 (3.83%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 13 (3.32%) Single Sign-On
8 5 (1.28%) Cisco CUCM
9 4 (1.02%) Clonezilla
9 4 (1.02%) Kubernetes
9 4 (1.02%) Packer
9 4 (1.02%) WMI
10 3 (0.77%) HAProxy
10 3 (0.77%) SCSM
11 2 (0.51%) Dell DRAC
11 2 (0.51%) vMotion
11 2 (0.51%) WSUS
12 1 (0.26%) CASB
12 1 (0.26%) NetBackup
Vendors
1 221 (56.38%) Microsoft
2 101 (25.77%) VMware
3 44 (11.22%) ServiceNow
4 41 (10.46%) CyberArk
5 37 (9.44%) BeyondTrust
6 23 (5.87%) Cisco
7 21 (5.36%) SolarWinds
8 19 (4.85%) Oracle
9 18 (4.59%) Meraki
9 18 (4.59%) Remedy
10 14 (3.57%) BMC
11 12 (3.06%) Avaya
11 12 (3.06%) Citrix
11 12 (3.06%) Juniper
11 12 (3.06%) Mitel
12 9 (2.30%) CrowdStrike
13 8 (2.04%) Palo Alto
14 6 (1.53%) Broadcom
14 6 (1.53%) Veeam
15 5 (1.28%) Becrypt