Active Directory Contracts in the South East

Microsoft Active Directory
England > South East

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the South East requiring Active Directory skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Active Directory over the 6 months leading up to 24 June 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Jun 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 21 15 31
Rank change year-on-year -6 +16 -10
Contract jobs citing Active Directory 238 458 360
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the South East 7.80% 8.02% 6.27%
As % of the System Software category 53.60% 55.05% 45.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 174 303 241
10th Percentile £200 £200 £185
25th Percentile £252 £350 £244
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £425
Median % change year-on-year - +23.53% +13.33%
75th Percentile £623 £608 £550
90th Percentile £700 £645 £675
England median daily rate £450 £450 £425
% change year-on-year - +5.88% +10.39%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 21 15
10th Percentile - £16.00 -
25th Percentile - £17.69 £15.50
Median hourly rate £28.00 £17.80 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +57.30% -20.89% +45.16%
75th Percentile £30.39 £28.75 £39.25
90th Percentile £31.82 £50.00 £74.62
England median hourly rate £23.00 £17.69 £20.50
% change year-on-year +30.02% -13.71% +17.14%

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 444 832 794
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 14.56% 14.57% 13.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 313 519 529
10th Percentile £208 £205 £200
25th Percentile £325 £412 £339
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £538 £500
Median % change year-on-year -6.98% +7.50% +5.26%
75th Percentile £600 £608 £600
90th Percentile £675 £650 £663
England median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 54 44
10th Percentile £28.00 £17.69 £15.50
25th Percentile £31.58 £22.29 £21.06
Median hourly rate £56.19 £54.88 £54.56
Median % change year-on-year +2.39% +0.58% +172.80%
75th Percentile £59.09 £65.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £67.96 £70.00 £75.00
England median hourly rate £28.75 £22.50 £50.00
% change year-on-year +27.78% -55.00% +150.00%

Active Directory
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

Job postings citing Active Directory as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the South East.

Job vacancy trend for Active Directory in the South East

Active Directory
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the South East

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Active Directory in the South East.

Daily rate trend for Active Directory in the South East

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 June 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Active Directory in the South East

Active Directory
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Active Directory in the South East.

Hourly rate trend 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 June 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 0 112 £450 -25.62% 98
Berkshire -4 79 £575 -4.96% 39
Hampshire -3 71 £575 +4.55% 45
Surrey +18 25 £215 -17.31% 26
Kent +11 23 £430 +160.61% 36
Buckinghamshire +9 17 £274 -33.29% 38
Oxfordshire +3 16 £250 +72.41% 22
West Sussex -11 6 £200 -55.56% 22
East Sussex -5 2 £275 -42.11% 17
Active Directory
England

Active Directory
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the South East by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 51 (21.43%) Microsoft Exchange
2 17 (7.14%) SharePoint
3 12 (5.04%) IBM Domino
4 9 (3.78%) IIS
5 8 (3.36%) Apache
6 6 (2.52%) Exchange Server 2003
6 6 (2.52%) Exchange Server 2007
6 6 (2.52%) Exchange Server 2010
6 6 (2.52%) Exchange Server 2013
6 6 (2.52%) Office Communications Server
6 6 (2.52%) SharePoint Server
6 6 (2.52%) Skype for Business
7 2 (0.84%) BizTalk Server
7 2 (0.84%) JBoss
8 1 (0.42%) Confluence
Applications
1 15 (6.30%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (1.68%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (1.68%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.42%) Adobe Creative Suite
Cloud Services
1 77 (32.35%) Microsoft 365
2 68 (28.57%) Azure
3 43 (18.07%) Entra ID
4 23 (9.66%) IaaS
5 19 (7.98%) AWS
6 16 (6.72%) PaaS
7 10 (4.20%) OpenShift
8 8 (3.36%) GCP
8 8 (3.36%) SaaS
9 5 (2.10%) Azure AKS
9 5 (2.10%) Azure DevOps
10 4 (1.68%) Azure Key Vault
10 4 (1.68%) Azure Monitor
10 4 (1.68%) OneDrive
11 3 (1.26%) AWS KMS
11 3 (1.26%) Azure API Management
11 3 (1.26%) Google Workspace
11 3 (1.26%) Serverless
12 2 (0.84%) Azure Event Grid
12 2 (0.84%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 51 (21.43%) DNS
2 37 (15.55%) DHCP
3 36 (15.13%) Firewall
4 25 (10.50%) VPN
5 19 (7.98%) SMTP
6 18 (7.56%) SAN
7 13 (5.46%) WebEx
8 12 (5.04%) Cisco IOS
9 10 (4.20%) WAN
10 9 (3.78%) LAN
11 7 (2.94%) NetScaler
12 6 (2.52%) DDNS
12 6 (2.52%) TCP/IP
12 6 (2.52%) Wi-Fi
13 5 (2.10%) Fibre Channel
14 4 (1.68%) FTP
14 4 (1.68%) SSL
15 3 (1.26%) NAS
15 3 (1.26%) Network Security
15 3 (1.26%) Telnet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (4.20%) Elasticsearch
2 8 (3.36%) Amazon RDS
2 8 (3.36%) Big Data
3 4 (1.68%) Azure SQL Database
3 4 (1.68%) SQL Server
4 2 (0.84%) RDBMS
4 2 (0.84%) Relational Database
5 1 (0.42%) Data Lake
5 1 (0.42%) NoSQL
5 1 (0.42%) Parquet
Development Applications
1 6 (2.52%) Sonatype Nexus
2 4 (1.68%) JIRA
2 4 (1.68%) MSI
2 4 (1.68%) Robot Framework
3 3 (1.26%) Git
4 2 (0.84%) Bitbucket Server
4 2 (0.84%) CA Release Automation
4 2 (0.84%) Jenkins
4 2 (0.84%) SonarQube
4 2 (0.84%) TeamCity
5 1 (0.42%) Burp Suite
5 1 (0.42%) Fiddler
5 1 (0.42%) Metasploit
General
1 44 (18.49%) Social Skills
2 40 (16.81%) Finance
3 36 (15.13%) Public Sector
4 23 (9.66%) Telecoms
5 22 (9.24%) Marketing
6 21 (8.82%) Electronics
6 21 (8.82%) Manufacturing
7 12 (5.04%) Games
8 9 (3.78%) Analytical Skills
9 7 (2.94%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 2 (0.84%) Legal
10 2 (0.84%) Retail
11 1 (0.42%) Aerospace
11 1 (0.42%) Influencing Skills
11 1 (0.42%) Local Government
11 1 (0.42%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 49 (20.59%) Support Engineer
2 48 (20.17%) Architect
3 39 (16.39%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 34 (14.29%) Analyst
5 29 (12.18%) 2nd Line Support
6 28 (11.76%) Active Directory Architect
7 25 (10.50%) 3rd Line Engineer
8 18 (7.56%) Support Analyst
9 16 (6.72%) 3rd Line Support
9 16 (6.72%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
9 16 (6.72%) Desktop Engineer
9 16 (6.72%) IT Support
10 15 (6.30%) Infrastructure Support
11 14 (5.88%) 3rd Line Infrastructure Engineer
11 14 (5.88%) Infrastructure Support Engineer
12 13 (5.46%) 2nd Line Support Analyst
13 12 (5.04%) Desktop Support
13 12 (5.04%) IT Engineer
13 12 (5.04%) Service Analyst
13 12 (5.04%) Service Desk Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (2.94%) OAuth
2 4 (1.68%) Middleware
2 4 (1.68%) OpenID
2 4 (1.68%) SAML
2 4 (1.68%) YAML
3 3 (1.26%) .NET
3 3 (1.26%) SailPoint
3 3 (1.26%) Web Services
4 2 (0.84%) .NET Core
4 2 (0.84%) Apache Axis
4 2 (0.84%) ARM Templates
4 2 (0.84%) Elastic Stack
4 2 (0.84%) React
4 2 (0.84%) REST
4 2 (0.84%) Spring Boot
5 1 (0.42%) 802.1X
5 1 (0.42%) Azure Blueprints
5 1 (0.42%) Entity Framework
5 1 (0.42%) Microsoft Graph
5 1 (0.42%) XACML
Miscellaneous
1 27 (11.34%) PKI
2 22 (9.24%) Onboarding
3 17 (7.14%) Clustering
4 11 (4.62%) Data Centre
5 6 (2.52%) Hybrid Cloud
5 6 (2.52%) Replication
6 5 (2.10%) Public Cloud
7 4 (1.68%) Data Protection Act
8 3 (1.26%) Cloud Native
8 3 (1.26%) Driving Licence
8 3 (1.26%) Self-Motivation
9 2 (0.84%) Enterprise Software
9 2 (0.84%) Fat Client
9 2 (0.84%) Legacy Systems
9 2 (0.84%) Management Information System
9 2 (0.84%) Thin Client
10 1 (0.42%) Private Cloud
10 1 (0.42%) Security Posture
10 1 (0.42%) Video Conferencing
10 1 (0.42%) Wiki
Operating Systems
1 175 (73.53%) Windows
2 52 (21.85%) Windows Server
3 48 (20.17%) Windows 10
4 26 (10.92%) Linux
5 16 (6.72%) Mac OS
6 14 (5.88%) Android
7 13 (5.46%) Windows Server 2003
8 10 (4.20%) Windows Server 2019
9 6 (2.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 5 (2.10%) Windows 7
11 4 (1.68%) CentOS
11 4 (1.68%) Windows Server 2016
12 3 (1.26%) Apple iOS
13 2 (0.84%) Windows Server 2012
14 1 (0.42%) Rocky
14 1 (0.42%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 45 (18.91%) ITIL
2 41 (17.23%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 41 (17.23%) Problem-Solving
3 40 (16.81%) Agile
4 35 (14.71%) DevOps
4 35 (14.71%) Identity Access Management
5 32 (13.45%) Test Automation
6 27 (11.34%) Business Intelligence
7 21 (8.82%) Digital Marketing
7 21 (8.82%) Programme Management
8 20 (8.40%) Migration
9 19 (7.98%) Customer Service
10 18 (7.56%) Cybersecurity
10 18 (7.56%) Mobile Device Management
11 15 (6.30%) Service Management
12 13 (5.46%) Patch Management
13 12 (5.04%) E-Commerce
14 11 (4.62%) Infrastructure as Code
15 10 (4.20%) Prototyping
16 9 (3.78%) Security Patching
Programming Languages
1 88 (36.97%) PowerShell
2 15 (6.30%) SQL
3 14 (5.88%) Python
4 8 (3.36%) C#
5 6 (2.52%) Bicep
6 5 (2.10%) Java
7 4 (1.68%) PHP
7 4 (1.68%) Ruby
7 4 (1.68%) Shell Script
8 3 (1.26%) Bash
8 3 (1.26%) JavaScript
9 2 (0.84%) Perl
10 1 (0.42%) C
10 1 (0.42%) C++
10 1 (0.42%) VB
10 1 (0.42%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 99 (41.60%) Security Cleared
2 71 (29.83%) DV Cleared
3 25 (10.50%) SC Cleared
4 24 (10.08%) Degree
5 9 (3.78%) A+ Certification
6 7 (2.94%) Microsoft Certification
7 5 (2.10%) DBS Check
7 5 (2.10%) ITIL Certification
8 4 (1.68%) MCP
9 3 (1.26%) Computer Science Degree
9 3 (1.26%) MCSA
10 2 (0.84%) CISSP
10 2 (0.84%) CompTIA Security+
10 2 (0.84%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 2 (0.84%) Master's Degree
11 1 (0.42%) Azure Certification
11 1 (0.42%) GPEN
11 1 (0.42%) GWAPT
11 1 (0.42%) OSCE
11 1 (0.42%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (6.72%) SLA
2 3 (1.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 2 (0.84%) PCI DSS
4 1 (0.42%) GDPR
4 1 (0.42%) Government Security Classifications
4 1 (0.42%) HIPAA
4 1 (0.42%) JSP 440
4 1 (0.42%) NCSC
4 1 (0.42%) NIST
System Software
1 35 (14.71%) VMware Infrastructure
2 24 (10.08%) VMware ESXi
3 17 (7.14%) vSphere
4 16 (6.72%) Hyper-V
5 11 (4.62%) Docker
6 9 (3.78%) DFS Replication
6 9 (3.78%) Microsoft App-V
7 8 (3.36%) BitLocker
7 8 (3.36%) Terminal Services
8 6 (2.52%) Brightmail
8 6 (2.52%) ISA Server
8 6 (2.52%) Virtual Desktop
8 6 (2.52%) XenApp
9 5 (2.10%) XenDesktop
10 3 (1.26%) NFS
10 3 (1.26%) Virtual Machines
11 1 (0.42%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 42 (17.65%) Microsoft Intune
2 34 (14.29%) SCCM
3 17 (7.14%) Ansible
4 14 (5.88%) vCenter Server
5 13 (5.46%) Kubernetes
6 11 (4.62%) Terraform
7 10 (4.20%) Microsoft Clustering
8 9 (3.78%) WSUS
9 8 (3.36%) Nagios
9 8 (3.36%) Puppet
9 8 (3.36%) Single Sign-On
9 8 (3.36%) vMotion
10 5 (2.10%) SCOM
11 4 (1.68%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 4 (1.68%) WMI
12 3 (1.26%) Failover Clustering
12 3 (1.26%) Norton AntiVirus
13 2 (0.84%) Kibana
13 2 (0.84%) Progress Chef
13 2 (0.84%) SCVMM
Vendors
1 126 (52.94%) Microsoft
2 60 (25.21%) VMware
3 37 (15.55%) Citrix
4 21 (8.82%) SAP
4 21 (8.82%) ServiceNow
5 20 (8.40%) Cisco
6 16 (6.72%) Dell
7 15 (6.30%) Splunk
8 14 (5.88%) Meraki
9 13 (5.46%) HP
9 13 (5.46%) Sage
10 12 (5.04%) Wyse
11 11 (4.62%) Google
11 11 (4.62%) Symantec
12 7 (2.94%) CyberArk
12 7 (2.94%) SolarWinds
13 4 (1.68%) MuleSoft
14 3 (1.26%) F5
14 3 (1.26%) Thales
14 3 (1.26%) TP-LINK