Active Directory Contract Job Trends in the South West

Microsoft Active Directory
England > South West

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the South West requiring Active Directory skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 27 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 28 33
Rank change year-on-year -12 +5 -12
Contract jobs citing Active Directory 141 108 163
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 3.97% 6.16% 4.96%
As % of the System Software category 43.52% 41.70% 37.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 82 86 121
10th Percentile £158 £184 £143
25th Percentile £225 £210 £185
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £413 £275 £470
Median % change year-on-year +50.00% -41.49% -6.00%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £600
90th Percentile £613 £619 £675
England median daily rate £450 £450 £450
% change year-on-year - - +5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 3 10
10th Percentile £12.43 £15.75 £14.00
25th Percentile £13.65 £16.64 -
Median hourly rate £14.60 £18.25 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -20.00% -54.38% +128.57%
75th Percentile £23.50 £45.44 -
90th Percentile £39.73 £61.68 -
England median hourly rate £25.88 £23.00 £17.71
% change year-on-year +12.50% +29.91% -17.65%

All System Software Skills
South West

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 West.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for system software skills 324 259 430
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 9.11% 14.78% 13.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 192 206 311
10th Percentile £210 £209 £188
25th Percentile £396 £329 £461
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £504 £550 £538
Median % change year-on-year -8.41% +2.33% +4.88%
75th Percentile £600 £623 £600
90th Percentile £650 £698 £672
England median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 41 5 26
10th Percentile £13.65 £16.34 -
25th Percentile £19.25 £18.13 £40.00
Median hourly rate £51.00 £65.00 £67.25
Median % change year-on-year -21.54% -3.35% +12.08%
75th Percentile £65.00 £78.70 £85.00
90th Percentile £72.54 £79.48 £90.00
England median hourly rate £53.00 £28.75 £22.35
% change year-on-year +84.35% +28.64% -55.30%

Active Directory
Job Vacancy Trend in the South West

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Active Directory relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West.

Active Directory job vacancy trend in the South West

Active Directory
Daily Rate Trend in the South West

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing Active Directory.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing Active Directory

Active Directory
Daily Rate Histogram in the South West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Active Directory in the South West over the 6 months to 27 June 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Active Directory in the South West

Active Directory
Hourly Rate Trend in the South West

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing Active Directory.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing Active Directory

Active Directory
Hourly Rate Histogram in the South West

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Active Directory in the South West over the 6 months to 27 June 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Active Directory in the South West

Active Directory
Contract Job Locations in the South West

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 West region over the 6 months to 27 June 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
Bristol -1 47 £463 +96.81% 10
Gloucestershire +2 36 £226 -9.50% 21
Wiltshire -16 27 £575 +4.55% 5
Devon -10 10 £148 -26.25% 6
Dorset -15 7 £550 +75.30% 10
Somerset -24 6 £478 +91.00% 10
Active Directory
England

Active Directory
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South West 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 22 (15.60%) SharePoint
2 20 (14.18%) Microsoft Exchange
3 6 (4.26%) Mattermost
4 5 (3.55%) IIS
5 2 (1.42%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 3 (2.13%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 11 (7.80%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (1.42%) assyst
Cloud Services
1 58 (41.13%) Azure
2 41 (29.08%) Entra ID
3 36 (25.53%) Microsoft 365
4 12 (8.51%) SaaS
5 8 (5.67%) AWS
6 7 (4.96%) Google Workspace
7 6 (4.26%) GCP
8 5 (3.55%) Google Drive
8 5 (3.55%) Power Platform
9 4 (2.84%) OCI
10 3 (2.13%) Asana
10 3 (2.13%) PaaS
11 2 (1.42%) Azure Sentinel
11 2 (1.42%) Cloud Computing
11 2 (1.42%) IaaS
11 2 (1.42%) OneDrive
12 1 (0.71%) Azure Cosmos DB
12 1 (0.71%) Azure DevOps
12 1 (0.71%) Azure Key Vault
12 1 (0.71%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 35 (24.82%) DNS
2 23 (16.31%) DHCP
3 16 (11.35%) Firewall
4 14 (9.93%) VPN
5 9 (6.38%) SAN
6 8 (5.67%) Wi-Fi
7 7 (4.96%) LAN
7 7 (4.96%) Network Security
7 7 (4.96%) VLAN
8 6 (4.26%) WAN
9 5 (3.55%) TCP/IP
9 5 (3.55%) VoIP
10 4 (2.84%) NAS
11 3 (2.13%) DKIM
11 3 (2.13%) DMARC
12 2 (1.42%) Cisco Nexus
12 2 (1.42%) Skype
12 2 (1.42%) SSL
13 1 (0.71%) Kerberos
13 1 (0.71%) Remote Desktop
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (4.26%) SQL Server
2 5 (3.55%) Power BI
3 3 (2.13%) Oracle BI EE
3 3 (2.13%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 1 (0.71%) Amazon RDS
4 1 (0.71%) Azure SQL Database
4 1 (0.71%) Data Lake
4 1 (0.71%) Metadata
4 1 (0.71%) NoSQL
4 1 (0.71%) Oracle Database
4 1 (0.71%) Power Query
4 1 (0.71%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 24 (17.02%) JIRA
2 2 (1.42%) AdminStudio
2 2 (1.42%) Git
2 2 (1.42%) InstallShield
3 1 (0.71%) Bitbucket
3 1 (0.71%) GitLab
3 1 (0.71%) Jenkins
General
1 47 (33.33%) Social Skills
2 18 (12.77%) Public Sector
3 9 (6.38%) Analytical Skills
3 9 (6.38%) Finance
4 8 (5.67%) Documentation Skills
5 6 (4.26%) Organisational Skills
6 5 (3.55%) Legal
7 4 (2.84%) Police
8 3 (2.13%) Military
9 2 (1.42%) Law
10 1 (0.71%) Advertising
10 1 (0.71%) Back Office
10 1 (0.71%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (0.71%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 21 (14.89%) Support Engineer
2 18 (12.77%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 18 (12.77%) IT Support
3 17 (12.06%) Analyst
4 14 (9.93%) Architect
5 12 (8.51%) Desktop Engineer
6 11 (7.80%) Desktop Support
6 11 (7.80%) Desktop Support Engineer
7 10 (7.09%) Administrator
8 9 (6.38%) IT Support Specialist
8 9 (6.38%) Senior
8 9 (6.38%) Service Analyst
8 9 (6.38%) Service Desk Analyst
8 9 (6.38%) Support Specialist
9 8 (5.67%) Service Desk Support
10 7 (4.96%) Active Directory Consultant
10 7 (4.96%) Consultant
10 7 (4.96%) IT Consultant
10 7 (4.96%) IT Engineer
10 7 (4.96%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (5.67%) LDAP
1 8 (5.67%) SailPoint
2 6 (4.26%) OAuth
3 5 (3.55%) Elastic Stack
4 3 (2.13%) OpenID
4 3 (2.13%) SAML
5 2 (1.42%) OAuth2
5 2 (1.42%) REST
6 1 (0.71%) Apache NiFi
6 1 (0.71%) ARM Templates
6 1 (0.71%) HTML5 Canvas
6 1 (0.71%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 14 (9.93%) Hybrid Cloud
2 12 (8.51%) Driving Licence
3 11 (7.80%) Enterprise Software
3 11 (7.80%) Management Information System
4 10 (7.09%) Onboarding
5 6 (4.26%) PKI
5 6 (4.26%) Self-Motivation
6 5 (3.55%) Data Centre
6 5 (3.55%) Product Ownership
7 4 (2.84%) Augmented Reality
7 4 (2.84%) Virtual Reality
8 3 (2.13%) Clustering
8 3 (2.13%) Fat Client
8 3 (2.13%) Freedom of Information
8 3 (2.13%) Private Cloud
8 3 (2.13%) Smartcard
8 3 (2.13%) Thin Client
9 2 (1.42%) Legacy Applications
9 2 (1.42%) Linux Command Line
9 2 (1.42%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 88 (62.41%) Windows
2 33 (23.40%) Windows Server
3 25 (17.73%) Linux
4 23 (16.31%) Windows 10
5 9 (6.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 5 (3.55%) Android
7 3 (2.13%) CentOS
7 3 (2.13%) Mac OS
7 3 (2.13%) Ubuntu
8 2 (1.42%) Apple iOS
8 2 (1.42%) Windows Server 2016
8 2 (1.42%) Windows Server 2019
9 1 (0.71%) Data ONTAP
9 1 (0.71%) Rocky
9 1 (0.71%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 35 (24.82%) Problem-Solving
2 29 (20.57%) Customer Service
3 28 (19.86%) ITIL
4 23 (16.31%) Continuous Improvement
5 22 (15.60%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 20 (14.18%) ITSM
7 16 (11.35%) Change Management
7 16 (11.35%) Identity Access Management
8 15 (10.64%) Migration
9 13 (9.22%) DevOps
10 12 (8.51%) Agile
10 12 (8.51%) RBAC
11 11 (7.80%) Patch Management
11 11 (7.80%) Root Cause Analysis
12 10 (7.09%) Infrastructure as Code
12 10 (7.09%) Server Management
13 9 (6.38%) Identity Management
13 9 (6.38%) Project Delivery
13 9 (6.38%) Technical Leadership
13 9 (6.38%) Zero Trust
Programming Languages
1 31 (21.99%) PowerShell
2 6 (4.26%) Java
3 5 (3.55%) BeanShell
4 3 (2.13%) Python
4 3 (2.13%) SQL
5 1 (0.71%) Bash
5 1 (0.71%) C#
5 1 (0.71%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 68 (48.23%) Security Cleared
2 38 (26.95%) SC Cleared
3 29 (20.57%) DV Cleared
4 9 (6.38%) Microsoft Certification
5 8 (5.67%) BPSS Clearance
6 5 (3.55%) Azure Certification
6 5 (3.55%) Cisco Certification
6 5 (3.55%) Degree
7 3 (2.13%) (ISC)2 CCSP
7 3 (2.13%) ACSP
7 3 (2.13%) CISSP
8 2 (1.42%) A+ Certification
8 2 (1.42%) CCNA
8 2 (1.42%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (2.84%) SLA
2 3 (2.13%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 2 (1.42%) Cyber Essentials
3 2 (1.42%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
4 1 (0.71%) Accessibility
System Software
1 27 (19.15%) VMware Infrastructure
2 18 (12.77%) Hyper-V
3 9 (6.38%) Virtual Desktop
4 7 (4.96%) Virtual Machines
4 7 (4.96%) VMware NSX
5 3 (2.13%) VMware Workstation
5 3 (2.13%) vSphere
6 2 (1.42%) Docker
7 1 (0.71%) BitLocker
7 1 (0.71%) KVM
7 1 (0.71%) NFS
7 1 (0.71%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 24 (17.02%) Microsoft Intune
2 12 (8.51%) Active Directory Federation Services
2 12 (8.51%) Single Sign-On
3 9 (6.38%) SCCM
4 6 (4.26%) Terraform
5 5 (3.55%) Ansible
5 5 (3.55%) Kubernetes
5 5 (3.55%) WSUS
6 3 (2.13%) Failover Clustering
7 2 (1.42%) Grafana
7 2 (1.42%) McAfee ePO
7 2 (1.42%) OPNET
7 2 (1.42%) Proxmox
8 1 (0.71%) CA Single Sign-On
8 1 (0.71%) Kibana
8 1 (0.71%) logstash
8 1 (0.71%) Nagios
8 1 (0.71%) Puppet
8 1 (0.71%) SCOM
8 1 (0.71%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 78 (55.32%) Microsoft
2 29 (20.57%) VMware
3 12 (8.51%) Remedy
4 11 (7.80%) McAfee
5 10 (7.09%) Cisco
6 7 (4.96%) Google
7 6 (4.26%) Red Hat
7 6 (4.26%) Starlink
8 5 (3.55%) CyberArk
8 5 (3.55%) Oracle
9 4 (2.84%) Apple
9 4 (2.84%) Clearswift
9 4 (2.84%) Tanium
9 4 (2.84%) Trend Micro
10 2 (1.42%) ServiceNow
11 1 (0.71%) Darktrace
11 1 (0.71%) Databricks
11 1 (0.71%) F5
11 1 (0.71%) Palo Alto
11 1 (0.71%) Samsung