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 6 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
6 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 30 23 16
Rank change year-on-year -7 -7 +18
Contract jobs citing Active Directory 407 245 414
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 6.09% 7.00% 8.33%
As % of the System Software category 51.65% 53.26% 54.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 248 183 284
10th Percentile £225 £190 £200
25th Percentile £311 £250 £345
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £514
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% +2.19% +46.79%
75th Percentile £599 £603 £608
90th Percentile £650 £700 £650
England median daily rate £450 £435 £450
% change year-on-year +3.45% -3.33% +12.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 33 4 21
10th Percentile £16.00 - £16.00
25th Percentile £27.88 £28.00 £17.69
Median hourly rate £52.50 £30.39 £17.80
Median % change year-on-year +72.78% +70.70% -15.24%
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 788 460 757
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 11.80% 13.14% 15.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 540 324 486
10th Percentile £269 £202 £250
25th Percentile £413 £313 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -9.09% +10.00%
75th Percentile £610 £600 £608
90th Percentile £700 £671 £650
England median daily rate £500 £500 £513
% change year-on-year - -2.44% -2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 46 11 47
10th Percentile £16.75 £28.00 £17.69
25th Percentile £33.70 £41.92 £17.80
Median hourly rate £52.50 £57.50 £54.88
Median % change year-on-year -8.70% +4.78% +7.07%
75th Percentile £67.47 £82.00 £67.34
90th Percentile £77.50 £89.63 £70.00
England median hourly rate £60.00 £38.75 £23.80
% change year-on-year +54.84% +62.82% -40.50%

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 6 August 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 6 August 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 6 August 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 -2 220 £500 +11.11% 44
Hampshire -7 131 £538 -6.52% 41
Berkshire -12 92 £500 -16.67% 22
Oxfordshire +9 88 £369 +47.50% 13
Buckinghamshire -22 40 £590 +31.11% 9
Surrey -28 18 £413 +91.86% 14
West Sussex -15 16 £220 +10.00% 12
Kent -4 15 £275 +4.76% 12
East Sussex +8 7 £168 +1.52% 4
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 (14.50%) Microsoft Exchange
2 34 (8.35%) SharePoint
3 14 (3.44%) Confluence
4 8 (1.97%) Apache
4 8 (1.97%) nginx
5 5 (1.23%) IIS
6 3 (0.74%) Tomcat
Applications
1 16 (3.93%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (1.23%) Microsoft Project
3 1 (0.25%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.25%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.25%) SOLIDWORKS
3 1 (0.25%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 16 (3.93%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (0.49%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (0.49%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 181 (44.47%) Azure
2 163 (40.05%) Entra ID
3 115 (28.26%) Microsoft 365
4 39 (9.58%) AWS
5 19 (4.67%) Power Platform
6 17 (4.18%) GCP
7 16 (3.93%) Azure Monitor
7 16 (3.93%) IaaS
7 16 (3.93%) OneDrive
8 12 (2.95%) Azure DevOps
9 11 (2.70%) Azure Sentinel
9 11 (2.70%) SaaS
10 10 (2.46%) PaaS
11 9 (2.21%) Azure AKS
11 9 (2.21%) Azure Key Vault
11 9 (2.21%) Azure Logic Apps
12 6 (1.47%) Azure App Service
12 6 (1.47%) Power Automate
13 5 (1.23%) Azure Storage
14 4 (0.98%) Rubrik
Communications & Networking
1 97 (23.83%) DNS
2 49 (12.04%) DHCP
3 47 (11.55%) Firewall
4 34 (8.35%) VPN
5 25 (6.14%) Wi-Fi
6 17 (4.18%) LAN
7 16 (3.93%) Network Security
8 15 (3.69%) SSL
9 14 (3.44%) SSH
9 14 (3.44%) TCP/IP
10 12 (2.95%) WAN
11 9 (2.21%) IPsec
11 9 (2.21%) SAN
11 9 (2.21%) VLAN
12 7 (1.72%) Cisco ASA
12 7 (1.72%) Cisco Firepower
12 7 (1.72%) FTP
12 7 (1.72%) NAS
13 6 (1.47%) Wireless
14 5 (1.23%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 46 (11.30%) SQL Server
2 16 (3.93%) Power BI
3 7 (1.72%) Azure SQL Database
4 6 (1.47%) NoSQL
5 4 (0.98%) MySQL
6 3 (0.74%) Data Mining
7 2 (0.49%) Parquet
8 1 (0.25%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 20 (4.91%) JIRA
2 5 (1.23%) Atlassian Bamboo
2 5 (1.23%) Bitbucket
3 4 (0.98%) Git
4 3 (0.74%) MSI
4 3 (0.74%) Robot Framework
5 2 (0.49%) Jenkins
5 2 (0.49%) Sonatype Nexus
6 1 (0.25%) Browser DevTools
6 1 (0.25%) GitLab
General
1 130 (31.94%) Social Skills
2 54 (13.27%) Public Sector
3 46 (11.30%) Analytical Skills
4 42 (10.32%) Documentation Skills
5 18 (4.42%) Military
6 15 (3.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 14 (3.44%) Organisational Skills
8 11 (2.70%) Finance
9 10 (2.46%) Marketing
10 5 (1.23%) Police
11 4 (0.98%) Aerospace
11 4 (0.98%) French Language
11 4 (0.98%) Legal
11 4 (0.98%) Manufacturing
11 4 (0.98%) Retail
12 2 (0.49%) Telecoms
13 1 (0.25%) Advertising
13 1 (0.25%) Games
13 1 (0.25%) Local Government
13 1 (0.25%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 62 (15.23%) Support Engineer
2 53 (13.02%) IT Support
3 51 (12.53%) Senior
4 50 (12.29%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 44 (10.81%) IT Engineer
6 35 (8.60%) IT Support Engineer
7 34 (8.35%) Architect
8 28 (6.88%) Analyst
9 25 (6.14%) Cloud Engineer
10 19 (4.67%) 3rd Line Engineer
10 19 (4.67%) Lead
11 16 (3.93%) IAM Specialist
11 16 (3.93%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
12 14 (3.44%) IT Analyst
13 13 (3.19%) Developer
13 13 (3.19%) IT Support Analyst
13 13 (3.19%) Support Analyst
14 12 (2.95%) 1st Line Support
15 11 (2.70%) Consultant
16 10 (2.46%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 45 (11.06%) LDAP
2 38 (9.34%) OAuth
2 38 (9.34%) SAML
3 37 (9.09%) OpenID
4 24 (5.90%) REST
5 23 (5.65%) OAuth2
6 22 (5.41%) SailPoint
7 18 (4.42%) Web Services
8 13 (3.19%) ARM Templates
9 10 (2.46%) .NET
10 8 (1.97%) Microsoft Graph
11 7 (1.72%) .NET Core
11 7 (1.72%) .NET Framework
11 7 (1.72%) Entity Framework
12 4 (0.98%) 802.1X
12 4 (0.98%) JSON
12 4 (0.98%) RESTful
13 3 (0.74%) FIDO
13 3 (0.74%) LEMP Stack
13 3 (0.74%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 63 (15.48%) Onboarding
2 38 (9.34%) PKI
3 26 (6.39%) Management Information System
4 19 (4.67%) Hybrid Cloud
5 12 (2.95%) Data Centre
6 10 (2.46%) Clustering
6 10 (2.46%) Legacy Systems
7 9 (2.21%) Enterprise Software
8 8 (1.97%) Driving Licence
8 8 (1.97%) Operational Technology
8 8 (1.97%) Product Ownership
9 7 (1.72%) Security Posture
10 6 (1.47%) ARM Cortex
10 6 (1.47%) Replication
11 5 (1.23%) Analytical Mindset
11 5 (1.23%) Cyber Defence
12 4 (0.98%) CMDB
12 4 (0.98%) Fibre Optics
12 4 (0.98%) SCADA
13 3 (0.74%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 267 (65.60%) Windows
2 130 (31.94%) Windows Server
3 92 (22.60%) Linux
4 42 (10.32%) Windows 10
5 33 (8.11%) Unix
6 24 (5.90%) Windows Server 2019
7 9 (2.21%) Mac OS
8 8 (1.97%) CentOS
9 6 (1.47%) Ubuntu
9 6 (1.47%) Windows 7
10 4 (0.98%) Apple iOS
10 4 (0.98%) Windows Server 2012
11 3 (0.74%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 2 (0.49%) VMS
12 2 (0.49%) Windows Server 2016
13 1 (0.25%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 96 (23.59%) Problem-Solving
2 84 (20.64%) ITSM
3 83 (20.39%) ITIL
4 68 (16.71%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 62 (15.23%) Cybersecurity
6 51 (12.53%) Agile
6 51 (12.53%) SIEM
7 50 (12.29%) Privileged Access Management
8 48 (11.79%) Customer Service
8 48 (11.79%) RBAC
8 48 (11.79%) Runbook
9 43 (10.57%) Information Security
10 39 (9.58%) Change Control
10 39 (9.58%) Technical Leadership
11 38 (9.34%) Analytics
11 38 (9.34%) DevOps
12 36 (8.85%) Computer Science
12 36 (8.85%) Identity Access Management
13 35 (8.60%) CI/CD
14 32 (7.86%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 151 (37.10%) PowerShell
2 71 (17.44%) Python
3 34 (8.35%) SQL
4 16 (3.93%) Bash
4 16 (3.93%) Bicep
5 13 (3.19%) JavaScript
6 11 (2.70%) C#
7 5 (1.23%) Java
8 4 (0.98%) C
9 2 (0.49%) BeanShell
10 1 (0.25%) Korn
10 1 (0.25%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 194 (47.67%) Security Cleared
2 101 (24.82%) SC Cleared
3 91 (22.36%) DV Cleared
4 62 (15.23%) Degree
5 31 (7.62%) Microsoft Certification
6 16 (3.93%) Azure Certification
7 15 (3.69%) CISSP
8 14 (3.44%) CISM
9 12 (2.95%) BPSS Clearance
10 10 (2.46%) MCSA
11 9 (2.21%) CESG Certified Professional
12 8 (1.97%) MCSE
13 7 (1.72%) CCA
13 7 (1.72%) Citrix Certification
14 6 (1.47%) AWS Certification
14 6 (1.47%) Cisco Certification
15 5 (1.23%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 5 (1.23%) CRISC
15 5 (1.23%) GIAC
15 5 (1.23%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 74 (18.18%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 68 (16.71%) NIST
3 23 (5.65%) GDPR
4 13 (3.19%) SLA
5 11 (2.70%) NCSC
6 9 (2.21%) Cyber Essentials
6 9 (2.21%) Data Quality
7 5 (1.23%) ISO 31000
8 3 (0.74%) ISO/IEC 42001
8 3 (0.74%) PCI DSS
9 2 (0.49%) GxP
9 2 (0.49%) JSP 440
9 2 (0.49%) NIST 800
10 1 (0.25%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 1 (0.25%) Disclosure Scotland
10 1 (0.25%) GRC
10 1 (0.25%) ISO 9001
10 1 (0.25%) QA
System Software
1 88 (21.62%) VMware Infrastructure
2 44 (10.81%) VMware ESXi
3 35 (8.60%) Hyper-V
4 26 (6.39%) VMware NSX
5 13 (3.19%) vCloud
6 12 (2.95%) Virtual Machines
6 12 (2.95%) vSphere
7 11 (2.70%) Virtual Desktop
8 7 (1.72%) Firmware
9 3 (0.74%) Docker
9 3 (0.74%) Dovecot
9 3 (0.74%) OpenAM
9 3 (0.74%) Postfix
10 2 (0.49%) UAG
11 1 (0.25%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.25%) Citrix Hypervisor
Systems Management
1 50 (12.29%) Microsoft Intune
2 41 (10.07%) Terraform
3 40 (9.83%) vCenter Server
4 30 (7.37%) SCCM
5 29 (7.13%) SCOM
6 18 (4.42%) Ansible
7 15 (3.69%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 13 (3.19%) Single Sign-On
9 5 (1.23%) Cisco CUCM
9 5 (1.23%) Packer
10 4 (0.98%) Clonezilla
10 4 (0.98%) Kubernetes
10 4 (0.98%) WMI
11 3 (0.74%) Dell DRAC
11 3 (0.74%) HAProxy
11 3 (0.74%) SCSM
11 3 (0.74%) WSUS
12 2 (0.49%) FortiGate
12 2 (0.49%) NetBackup
12 2 (0.49%) vMotion
Vendors
1 231 (56.76%) Microsoft
2 104 (25.55%) VMware
3 45 (11.06%) ServiceNow
4 44 (10.81%) CyberArk
5 38 (9.34%) BeyondTrust
6 24 (5.90%) Cisco
7 23 (5.65%) SolarWinds
8 19 (4.67%) Oracle
8 19 (4.67%) Remedy
9 18 (4.42%) Meraki
10 14 (3.44%) BMC
11 13 (3.19%) Citrix
12 12 (2.95%) Avaya
12 12 (2.95%) Juniper
12 12 (2.95%) Mitel
13 10 (2.46%) CrowdStrike
14 8 (1.97%) Palo Alto
15 7 (1.72%) Splunk
16 6 (1.47%) Broadcom
16 6 (1.47%) Veeam