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 24 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 23 16
Rank change year-on-year -4 -7 +1
Contract jobs citing Active Directory 293 247 432
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 6.54% 7.59% 8.16%
As % of the System Software category 54.46% 48.81% 53.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 221 187 274
10th Percentile £180 £188 £148
25th Percentile £255 £231 £185
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £425 £350
Median % change year-on-year +13.24% +21.43% -13.85%
75th Percentile £556 £638 £550
90th Percentile £625 £662 £608
England median daily rate £450 £413 £400
% change year-on-year +9.09% +3.13% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 1 18
10th Percentile £34.32 - £16.03
25th Percentile £57.43 - £19.25
Median hourly rate £84.00 £19.97 £30.25
Median % change year-on-year +320.63% -33.98% +63.51%
75th Percentile £97.50 - £62.85
90th Percentile £102.20 - £71.44
England median hourly rate £22.27 £22.30 £18.78
% change year-on-year -0.13% +18.72% +1.51%

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 538 506 801
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 12.00% 15.54% 15.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 404 348 502
10th Percentile £190 £200 £158
25th Percentile £313 £350 £215
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £463
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% +2.70% -7.50%
75th Percentile £570 £613 £575
90th Percentile £639 £675 £625
England median daily rate £500 £525 £488
% change year-on-year -4.76% +7.69% -9.05%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 14 53
10th Percentile £45.14 £45.75 £19.25
25th Percentile £56.75 £54.81 £40.00
Median hourly rate £81.00 £57.50 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +40.87% -4.17% +14.83%
75th Percentile £86.00 £69.69 £70.00
90th Percentile £99.00 £80.25 £76.53
England median hourly rate £37.97 £29.00 £43.84
% change year-on-year +30.93% -33.85% +13.87%

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 24 January 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 24 January 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 24 January 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 0 133 £467 -18.78% 65
Berkshire 0 100 £478 -23.60% 21
Hampshire -5 85 £500 +7.24% 42
Surrey +1 39 £386 +28.22% 31
Buckinghamshire +3 17 £450 +20.00% 23
Oxfordshire -5 16 £275 -33.33% 21
Kent +6 15 £180 -15.29% 38
East Sussex +3 12 £575 +15.00% 6
West Sussex -21 8 £456 +127.75% 13
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 45 (15.36%) Microsoft Exchange
2 28 (9.56%) SharePoint
3 12 (4.10%) Skype for Business
4 7 (2.39%) Mattermost
5 6 (2.05%) Exchange Server 2010
6 4 (1.37%) Exchange Server 2003
6 4 (1.37%) Exchange Server 2007
6 4 (1.37%) Exchange Server 2013
6 4 (1.37%) Office Communications Server
6 4 (1.37%) SharePoint Server
7 2 (0.68%) Apache Airflow
7 2 (0.68%) Confluence
7 2 (0.68%) WordPress
Applications
1 28 (9.56%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.34%) AutoCAD
2 1 (0.34%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.34%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 8 (2.73%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.34%) assyst
2 1 (0.34%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.34%) Remedy AR System
2 1 (0.34%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 115 (39.25%) Azure
2 93 (31.74%) Microsoft 365
3 80 (27.30%) Entra ID
4 37 (12.63%) AWS
5 25 (8.53%) GCP
6 18 (6.14%) OneDrive
7 10 (3.41%) GitHub
7 10 (3.41%) SaaS
8 9 (3.07%) Azure DevOps
8 9 (3.07%) Power Platform
9 7 (2.39%) IaaS
9 7 (2.39%) PaaS
9 7 (2.39%) Power Automate
10 5 (1.71%) Azure Monitor
10 5 (1.71%) Serverless
11 4 (1.37%) AWS CloudFormation
11 4 (1.37%) Azure Functions
11 4 (1.37%) Nutanix
11 4 (1.37%) PowerApps
12 3 (1.02%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 64 (21.84%) DNS
2 50 (17.06%) DHCP
3 28 (9.56%) Firewall
4 17 (5.80%) Cisco Firepower
4 17 (5.80%) Cisco IOS
4 17 (5.80%) Cisco ISE
4 17 (5.80%) Junos
4 17 (5.80%) Wi-Fi
5 15 (5.12%) VPN
6 13 (4.44%) TCP/IP
7 9 (3.07%) 4G
7 9 (3.07%) FTP
7 9 (3.07%) SAN
8 8 (2.73%) Skype
9 7 (2.39%) Kerberos
10 6 (2.05%) VLAN
11 5 (1.71%) IPsec
11 5 (1.71%) SD-WAN
11 5 (1.71%) Unified Communications
12 4 (1.37%) DDNS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (4.44%) SQL Server
2 4 (1.37%) Azure SQL Database
2 4 (1.37%) Power BI
3 2 (0.68%) Elasticsearch
4 1 (0.34%) Amazon Athena
4 1 (0.34%) Amazon QuickSight
4 1 (0.34%) Amazon Redshift
4 1 (0.34%) MariaDB
4 1 (0.34%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 8 (2.73%) JIRA
2 4 (1.37%) Git
2 4 (1.37%) Robot Framework
2 4 (1.37%) Sonatype Nexus
3 2 (0.68%) Jenkins
4 1 (0.34%) Artifactory
4 1 (0.34%) Burp Suite
4 1 (0.34%) Fiddler
4 1 (0.34%) GitLab
General
1 120 (40.96%) Social Skills
2 25 (8.53%) Documentation Skills
3 21 (7.17%) Public Sector
4 18 (6.14%) Finance
5 10 (3.41%) Analytical Skills
6 5 (1.71%) Organisational Skills
7 4 (1.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 4 (1.37%) Manufacturing
8 3 (1.02%) Legal
8 3 (1.02%) Military
9 2 (0.68%) Back Office
9 2 (0.68%) Front Office
9 2 (0.68%) Retail
10 1 (0.34%) Aerospace
10 1 (0.34%) Banking
10 1 (0.34%) Billing
10 1 (0.34%) Electronics
10 1 (0.34%) Games
10 1 (0.34%) Law
10 1 (0.34%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 54 (18.43%) Support Engineer
2 35 (11.95%) Analyst
3 33 (11.26%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 32 (10.92%) Architect
5 26 (8.87%) IT Support
6 24 (8.19%) IT Engineer
7 21 (7.17%) 3rd Line Engineer
8 19 (6.48%) IT Support Engineer
8 19 (6.48%) Senior
9 17 (5.80%) Cloud Engineer
9 17 (5.80%) Network Engineer
10 16 (5.46%) 3rd Line Network Engineer
10 16 (5.46%) 3rd Line Support
10 16 (5.46%) Cloud Network Engineer
11 15 (5.12%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
11 15 (5.12%) Deployment Engineer
11 15 (5.12%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
11 15 (5.12%) Network Support
11 15 (5.12%) Network Support Engineer
12 13 (4.44%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (10.24%) LDAP
2 10 (3.41%) SailPoint
3 9 (3.07%) OAuth
4 8 (2.73%) SAML
5 7 (2.39%) .NET
6 6 (2.05%) OpenID
7 5 (1.71%) ADO
7 5 (1.71%) OAuth2
8 3 (1.02%) .NET Core
8 3 (1.02%) .NET Framework
8 3 (1.02%) Microsoft Graph
8 3 (1.02%) Middleware
8 3 (1.02%) REST
9 2 (0.68%) ARM Templates
9 2 (0.68%) ASP.NET
9 2 (0.68%) GraphQL
9 2 (0.68%) Jinja
9 2 (0.68%) Kafka
10 1 (0.34%) CSS
10 1 (0.34%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 30 (10.24%) PKI
2 15 (5.12%) Onboarding
3 12 (4.10%) Replication
4 11 (3.75%) Fat Client
4 11 (3.75%) Thin Client
5 9 (3.07%) Video Conferencing
6 8 (2.73%) Self-Motivation
7 7 (2.39%) Driving Licence
7 7 (2.39%) Operational Technology
8 4 (1.37%) Analytical Mindset
8 4 (1.37%) NHS
8 4 (1.37%) Product Ownership
9 3 (1.02%) CMDB
9 3 (1.02%) Data Centre
9 3 (1.02%) Enterprise Software
9 3 (1.02%) Linux Command Line
9 3 (1.02%) Private Cloud
9 3 (1.02%) Security Posture
9 3 (1.02%) Virtual Team
10 2 (0.68%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 178 (60.75%) Windows
2 70 (23.89%) Windows Server
3 55 (18.77%) Windows 10
4 21 (7.17%) Linux
5 12 (4.10%) Windows 7
6 9 (3.07%) Mac OS
7 6 (2.05%) Windows Server 2019
8 4 (1.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 4 (1.37%) Windows Server 2003
8 4 (1.37%) Windows Server 2012
8 4 (1.37%) Windows Server 2016
9 1 (0.34%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 58 (19.80%) Problem-Solving
2 47 (16.04%) Cybersecurity
3 45 (15.36%) DevOps
3 45 (15.36%) ITIL
3 45 (15.36%) ITSM
4 38 (12.97%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 33 (11.26%) CI/CD
6 31 (10.58%) Customer Service
7 28 (9.56%) Agile
8 26 (8.87%) DevSecOps
9 25 (8.53%) Service Management
10 24 (8.19%) SIEM
11 18 (6.14%) Infrastructure as Code
12 17 (5.80%) Identity Access Management
13 16 (5.46%) Privileged Access Management
13 16 (5.46%) Prototyping
14 15 (5.12%) Migration
15 14 (4.78%) Validation
16 13 (4.44%) Identity Management
16 13 (4.44%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 84 (28.67%) PowerShell
2 48 (16.38%) Python
3 20 (6.83%) SQL
4 12 (4.10%) Java
5 10 (3.41%) Bash
6 8 (2.73%) BeanShell
7 4 (1.37%) JavaScript
8 3 (1.02%) C#
8 3 (1.02%) PHP
9 2 (0.68%) Shell Script
10 1 (0.34%) VB
Qualifications
1 149 (50.85%) Security Cleared
2 90 (30.72%) SC Cleared
3 53 (18.09%) DV Cleared
4 20 (6.83%) CISSP
5 19 (6.48%) CISM
6 13 (4.44%) Microsoft Certification
7 10 (3.41%) Degree
8 7 (2.39%) ITIL Certification
9 6 (2.05%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 5 (1.71%) DBS Check
10 5 (1.71%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 4 (1.37%) AWS Certification
12 3 (1.02%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 2 (0.68%) A+ Certification
13 2 (0.68%) Azure Certification
13 2 (0.68%) CCNP
13 2 (0.68%) Cisco Certification
13 2 (0.68%) MCSE
14 1 (0.34%) HND
14 1 (0.34%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (9.90%) GDPR
2 28 (9.56%) NIST
3 26 (8.87%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 6 (2.05%) SLA
5 4 (1.37%) Cyber Essentials
5 4 (1.37%) Data Quality
6 3 (1.02%) NCSC
6 3 (1.02%) NIST 800
6 3 (1.02%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.34%) Accessibility
7 1 (0.34%) JSP 440
7 1 (0.34%) PMO
7 1 (0.34%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 40 (13.65%) VMware Infrastructure
2 20 (6.83%) VMware NSX
3 8 (2.73%) Hyper-V
3 8 (2.73%) Virtual Desktop
4 6 (2.05%) vSphere
5 5 (1.71%) Docker
6 4 (1.37%) Brightmail
6 4 (1.37%) ISA Server
6 4 (1.37%) VMware ESXi
7 3 (1.02%) DFS Replication
7 3 (1.02%) NFS
7 3 (1.02%) Virtual Machines
8 2 (0.68%) Terminal Services
9 1 (0.34%) Sendmail
9 1 (0.34%) UAG
Systems Management
1 42 (14.33%) SCCM
2 32 (10.92%) Microsoft Intune
3 23 (7.85%) vCenter Server
4 21 (7.17%) Terraform
5 14 (4.78%) Single Sign-On
6 13 (4.44%) Ansible
6 13 (4.44%) SCOM
7 12 (4.10%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 11 (3.75%) WMI
9 8 (2.73%) Jamf Pro
10 7 (2.39%) HP SiteScope
10 7 (2.39%) Kubernetes
11 4 (1.37%) Microsoft Clustering
12 2 (0.68%) logstash
12 2 (0.68%) WhatsUp Gold
13 1 (0.34%) Cisco CUCM
13 1 (0.34%) Cisco UCCE
13 1 (0.34%) Puppet
13 1 (0.34%) Red Hat Satellite
13 1 (0.34%) Salt
Vendors
1 164 (55.97%) Microsoft
2 65 (22.18%) VMware
3 34 (11.60%) ServiceNow
4 28 (9.56%) Cisco
5 27 (9.22%) CyberArk
6 23 (7.85%) BeyondTrust
7 19 (6.48%) Citrix
8 17 (5.80%) Juniper
8 17 (5.80%) SolarWinds
9 11 (3.75%) Splunk
10 8 (2.73%) Remedy
11 5 (1.71%) Google
12 4 (1.37%) McAfee
13 3 (1.02%) BiZZdesign
13 3 (1.02%) F5
13 3 (1.02%) Fortinet
13 3 (1.02%) Veeam
14 2 (0.68%) OpenAI
14 2 (0.68%) Palo Alto
14 2 (0.68%) Thales