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 25 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 23 22 20
Rank change year-on-year -1 -2 -3
Contract jobs citing Active Directory 275 319 415
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 6.74% 7.83% 7.84%
As % of the System Software category 54.03% 51.45% 48.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 197 231 250
10th Percentile £181 £200 £148
25th Percentile £208 £261 £175
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £450 £325
Median % change year-on-year +6.94% +38.46% -15.58%
75th Percentile £565 £631 £525
90th Percentile £604 £670 £613
England median daily rate £447 £422 £400
% change year-on-year +5.86% +5.56% +6.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 5 26
10th Percentile £28.49 £22.31 £15.50
25th Percentile £60.69 £22.40 £19.25
Median hourly rate £87.00 £27.50 £27.00
Median % change year-on-year +216.36% +1.85% +45.95%
75th Percentile £101.38 £53.00 £55.00
90th Percentile £121.85 £63.01 £68.63
England median hourly rate £23.00 £23.80 £19.50
% change year-on-year -3.36% +22.05% +3.01%

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 509 620 852
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 12.47% 15.21% 16.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 348 417 530
10th Percentile £190 £207 £164
25th Percentile £275 £350 £250
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
75th Percentile £575 £625 £588
90th Percentile £625 £675 £650
England median daily rate £500 £515 £500
% change year-on-year -2.91% +3.00% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 23 60
10th Percentile £47.16 £28.12 £19.22
25th Percentile £71.00 £53.81 £26.34
Median hourly rate £81.00 £58.49 £58.75
Median % change year-on-year +38.49% -0.44% +46.88%
75th Percentile £89.63 £70.00 £71.41
90th Percentile £102.20 £71.00 £76.63
England median hourly rate £31.86 £50.00 £40.16
% change year-on-year -36.28% +24.49% +60.65%

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 25 November 2025.

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 25 November 2025.

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 25 November 2025. 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 -2 132 £450 -23.73% 73
Hampshire -5 85 £500 - 62
Berkshire -6 84 £476 -23.80% 40
Buckinghamshire +11 31 £274 -27.55% 16
Surrey -5 26 £268 +0.71% 29
Oxfordshire -7 17 £363 -12.12% 23
Kent +4 11 £155 -1.33% 27
East Sussex +3 10 £180 -64.88% 7
West Sussex -22 8 £203 +1.25% 6
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 57 (20.73%) Microsoft Exchange
2 28 (10.18%) SharePoint
3 18 (6.55%) Skype for Business
4 12 (4.36%) Exchange Server 2010
5 10 (3.64%) Exchange Server 2003
5 10 (3.64%) Exchange Server 2007
5 10 (3.64%) Exchange Server 2013
5 10 (3.64%) Office Communications Server
5 10 (3.64%) SharePoint Server
6 7 (2.55%) Mattermost
7 6 (2.18%) Apache
8 3 (1.09%) IIS
9 2 (0.73%) Apache Airflow
9 2 (0.73%) WordPress
Applications
1 30 (10.91%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.36%) Adobe Creative Suite
2 1 (0.36%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 7 (2.55%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.36%) assyst
2 1 (0.36%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.36%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 107 (38.91%) Microsoft 365
2 82 (29.82%) Azure
3 57 (20.73%) Entra ID
4 36 (13.09%) AWS
5 24 (8.73%) GCP
6 15 (5.45%) OneDrive
7 10 (3.64%) GitHub
8 8 (2.91%) IaaS
8 8 (2.91%) Power Platform
8 8 (2.91%) SaaS
9 7 (2.55%) PaaS
10 5 (1.82%) Azure DevOps
10 5 (1.82%) Azure Sentinel
10 5 (1.82%) Power Automate
11 4 (1.45%) AWS CloudFormation
11 4 (1.45%) Azure ExpressRoute
11 4 (1.45%) Azure Monitor
11 4 (1.45%) GitHub Actions
12 3 (1.09%) Microsoft Purview
12 3 (1.09%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 56 (20.36%) DNS
2 46 (16.73%) Firewall
3 35 (12.73%) DHCP
4 33 (12.00%) Cisco IOS
5 24 (8.73%) VPN
6 17 (6.18%) Cisco Firepower
6 17 (6.18%) Cisco ISE
6 17 (6.18%) Junos
6 17 (6.18%) TCP/IP
7 16 (5.82%) SAN
8 12 (4.36%) Wi-Fi
9 10 (3.64%) DDNS
10 9 (3.27%) 4G
11 8 (2.91%) Skype
12 7 (2.55%) Remote Desktop
13 5 (1.82%) Unified Communications
14 4 (1.45%) SMTP
14 4 (1.45%) SSL
14 4 (1.45%) VLAN
14 4 (1.45%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (2.91%) SQL Server
2 2 (0.73%) Elasticsearch
2 2 (0.73%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 4 (1.45%) JIRA
2 3 (1.09%) Git
2 3 (1.09%) MSI
2 3 (1.09%) Robot Framework
2 3 (1.09%) Sonatype Nexus
3 2 (0.73%) Fiddler
3 2 (0.73%) Jenkins
4 1 (0.36%) Burp Suite
General
1 114 (41.45%) Social Skills
2 21 (7.64%) Finance
3 18 (6.55%) Documentation Skills
4 16 (5.82%) Games
5 12 (4.36%) Public Sector
6 11 (4.00%) Analytical Skills
7 8 (2.91%) Legal
8 6 (2.18%) Law
9 5 (1.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 4 (1.45%) Organisational Skills
11 3 (1.09%) Manufacturing
11 3 (1.09%) Retail
12 2 (0.73%) Aerospace
12 2 (0.73%) Marketing
13 1 (0.36%) Back Office
13 1 (0.36%) Electronics
13 1 (0.36%) French Language
13 1 (0.36%) Front Office
13 1 (0.36%) Local Government
13 1 (0.36%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 62 (22.55%) Support Engineer
2 29 (10.55%) IT Support
3 28 (10.18%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 26 (9.45%) 3rd Line Engineer
5 25 (9.09%) Analyst
6 23 (8.36%) Architect
7 22 (8.00%) IT Engineer
8 19 (6.91%) 3rd Line Support
8 19 (6.91%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
8 19 (6.91%) Platform Engineer
9 17 (6.18%) IT Support Engineer
10 16 (5.82%) 3rd Line Network Engineer
10 16 (5.82%) Cloud Engineer
10 16 (5.82%) Cloud Network Engineer
10 16 (5.82%) Deployment Engineer
10 16 (5.82%) Network Engineer
11 15 (5.45%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
11 15 (5.45%) Network Support
11 15 (5.45%) Network Support Engineer
12 12 (4.36%) Exchange Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (7.64%) LDAP
2 13 (4.73%) SailPoint
3 11 (4.00%) OAuth
4 8 (2.91%) SAML
5 6 (2.18%) OpenID
6 4 (1.45%) .NET
6 4 (1.45%) Microsoft Graph
6 4 (1.45%) OAuth2
7 3 (1.09%) .NET Core
7 3 (1.09%) .NET Framework
7 3 (1.09%) YAML
8 2 (0.73%) ARM Templates
8 2 (0.73%) ASP.NET
8 2 (0.73%) GraphQL
8 2 (0.73%) Jinja
8 2 (0.73%) Kafka
8 2 (0.73%) REST
9 1 (0.36%) Azure Blueprints
9 1 (0.36%) Blazor
9 1 (0.36%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 27 (9.82%) PKI
2 13 (4.73%) Onboarding
3 12 (4.36%) Replication
4 10 (3.64%) Fat Client
4 10 (3.64%) Thin Client
5 9 (3.27%) Video Conferencing
6 7 (2.55%) Data Centre
7 6 (2.18%) Self-Motivation
8 4 (1.45%) Data Protection Act
8 4 (1.45%) Driving Licence
8 4 (1.45%) NHS
8 4 (1.45%) Operational Technology
8 4 (1.45%) Private Cloud
9 3 (1.09%) Hybrid Cloud
9 3 (1.09%) Linux Command Line
9 3 (1.09%) Security Posture
9 3 (1.09%) Virtual Team
10 2 (0.73%) Analytical Mindset
10 2 (0.73%) Enterprise Software
10 2 (0.73%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 180 (65.45%) Windows
2 58 (21.09%) Windows 10
3 53 (19.27%) Windows Server
4 25 (9.09%) Linux
5 22 (8.00%) Mac OS
6 16 (5.82%) Android
7 10 (3.64%) Windows 7
7 10 (3.64%) Windows Server 2003
8 7 (2.55%) Windows Server 2012
9 6 (2.18%) Windows Server 2016
10 5 (1.82%) Windows Server 2019
11 4 (1.45%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 3 (1.09%) CentOS
13 1 (0.36%) Apple iOS
13 1 (0.36%) Kali Linux
13 1 (0.36%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 59 (21.45%) Problem-Solving
2 46 (16.73%) ITIL
3 44 (16.00%) Cybersecurity
4 41 (14.91%) DevOps
5 38 (13.82%) ITSM
6 34 (12.36%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 28 (10.18%) CI/CD
8 26 (9.45%) Service Management
9 24 (8.73%) Agile
10 23 (8.36%) Customer Service
10 23 (8.36%) SIEM
11 22 (8.00%) DevSecOps
12 21 (7.64%) Identity Access Management
13 18 (6.55%) Infrastructure as Code
14 17 (6.18%) Migration
15 16 (5.82%) E-Commerce
15 16 (5.82%) Prototyping
16 15 (5.45%) Continuous Improvement
16 15 (5.45%) High Availability
16 15 (5.45%) Privileged Access Management
Programming Languages
1 93 (33.82%) PowerShell
2 40 (14.55%) Python
3 14 (5.09%) SQL
4 11 (4.00%) Java
5 10 (3.64%) Bash
6 8 (2.91%) BeanShell
7 5 (1.82%) PHP
8 4 (1.45%) C#
8 4 (1.45%) JavaScript
9 2 (0.73%) Shell Script
10 1 (0.36%) Bicep
10 1 (0.36%) VB
Qualifications
1 114 (41.45%) Security Cleared
2 60 (21.82%) SC Cleared
3 50 (18.18%) DV Cleared
4 17 (6.18%) CISSP
4 17 (6.18%) Degree
5 16 (5.82%) CISM
5 16 (5.82%) Microsoft Certification
6 7 (2.55%) DBS Check
6 7 (2.55%) ITIL Certification
7 6 (2.18%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
7 6 (2.18%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
8 4 (1.45%) AWS Certification
8 4 (1.45%) Azure Certification
8 4 (1.45%) Computer Science Degree
9 3 (1.09%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 3 (1.09%) Master's Degree
10 2 (0.73%) A+ Certification
10 2 (0.73%) CCNP
10 2 (0.73%) Cisco Certification
10 2 (0.73%) Citrix Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 30 (10.91%) GDPR
2 28 (10.18%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 22 (8.00%) NIST
4 6 (2.18%) SLA
5 2 (0.73%) Cyber Essentials
5 2 (0.73%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 2 (0.73%) Data Quality
6 1 (0.36%) Accessibility
6 1 (0.36%) Government Security Classifications
6 1 (0.36%) JSP 440
6 1 (0.36%) NCSC
6 1 (0.36%) PCI DSS
6 1 (0.36%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 45 (16.36%) VMware Infrastructure
2 19 (6.91%) VMware NSX
3 14 (5.09%) Hyper-V
4 10 (3.64%) Brightmail
4 10 (3.64%) ISA Server
5 8 (2.91%) vSphere
6 6 (2.18%) Terminal Services
7 4 (1.45%) Docker
7 4 (1.45%) Virtual Desktop
8 3 (1.09%) DFS Replication
9 2 (0.73%) NFS
9 2 (0.73%) Virtual Machines
9 2 (0.73%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.36%) Sendmail
10 1 (0.36%) UAG
Systems Management
1 53 (19.27%) SCCM
2 44 (16.00%) Microsoft Intune
3 22 (8.00%) Terraform
4 20 (7.27%) vCenter Server
5 14 (5.09%) Ansible
6 12 (4.36%) Single Sign-On
6 12 (4.36%) WMI
7 10 (3.64%) Microsoft Clustering
8 9 (3.27%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 9 (3.27%) SCOM
9 7 (2.55%) HP SiteScope
9 7 (2.55%) Kubernetes
10 5 (1.82%) Jamf Pro
11 2 (0.73%) logstash
12 1 (0.36%) Avamar
12 1 (0.36%) Cisco CUCM
12 1 (0.36%) Cisco UCCE
12 1 (0.36%) EMC NetWorker
12 1 (0.36%) Nmap
12 1 (0.36%) VxRail
Vendors
1 176 (64.00%) Microsoft
2 64 (23.27%) VMware
3 47 (17.09%) Cisco
4 26 (9.45%) CyberArk
4 26 (9.45%) ServiceNow
4 26 (9.45%) Splunk
5 19 (6.91%) BeyondTrust
5 19 (6.91%) Citrix
6 17 (6.18%) Juniper
6 17 (6.18%) Meraki
6 17 (6.18%) SolarWinds
7 9 (3.27%) Remedy
8 4 (1.45%) Dell
8 4 (1.45%) Google
9 3 (1.09%) McAfee
9 3 (1.09%) NetApp
9 3 (1.09%) Veeam
10 2 (0.73%) Palo Alto
10 2 (0.73%) Sophos
10 2 (0.73%) Thales