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 20 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 37 25 34
Rank change year-on-year -12 +9 -16
Contract jobs citing Active Directory 137 112 164
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 3.85% 6.41% 4.94%
As % of the System Software category 42.55% 41.03% 38.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 80 89 122
10th Percentile £156 £186 £143
25th Percentile £210 £210 £181
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £275 £450
Median % change year-on-year +45.45% -38.89% -10.00%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £600
90th Percentile £613 £615 £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% +125.35%
75th Percentile £23.50 £45.44 -
90th Percentile £39.73 £61.68 -
England median hourly rate £26.00 £22.75 £17.69
% change year-on-year +14.29% +28.60% -13.71%

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 322 273 422
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 9.04% 15.64% 12.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 192 219 304
10th Percentile £208 £207 £182
25th Percentile £396 £352 £460
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £550 £538
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% +2.33% +6.17%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £600
90th Percentile £650 £700 £672
England median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 41 5 30
10th Percentile £13.65 £16.34 -
25th Percentile £19.25 £18.13 £40.00
Median hourly rate £51.00 £65.00 £68.75
Median % change year-on-year -21.54% -5.45% +14.58%
75th Percentile £65.00 £78.70 £88.75
90th Percentile £72.54 £79.48 £90.00
England median hourly rate £52.50 £28.75 £22.50
% change year-on-year +82.61% +27.78% -55.00%

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 20 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 20 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 20 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 46 £425 +80.85% 5
Gloucestershire +4 37 £215 -14.00% 20
Wiltshire -17 24 £575 +4.55% 5
Devon -13 10 £148 -26.25% 4
Dorset -16 6 £563 +79.28% 12
Somerset -21 6 £478 +91.00% 7
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 (16.06%) SharePoint
2 17 (12.41%) Microsoft Exchange
3 6 (4.38%) Mattermost
4 5 (3.65%) IIS
5 2 (1.46%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 3 (2.19%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 11 (8.03%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (1.46%) assyst
Cloud Services
1 57 (41.61%) Azure
2 40 (29.20%) Entra ID
3 35 (25.55%) Microsoft 365
4 12 (8.76%) SaaS
5 8 (5.84%) AWS
6 7 (5.11%) Google Workspace
7 6 (4.38%) GCP
8 5 (3.65%) Google Drive
8 5 (3.65%) Power Platform
9 4 (2.92%) OCI
10 3 (2.19%) Asana
10 3 (2.19%) PaaS
11 2 (1.46%) Azure Sentinel
11 2 (1.46%) Cloud Computing
11 2 (1.46%) IaaS
11 2 (1.46%) OneDrive
12 1 (0.73%) Azure Cosmos DB
12 1 (0.73%) Azure Key Vault
12 1 (0.73%) Serverless
12 1 (0.73%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 32 (23.36%) DNS
2 20 (14.60%) DHCP
3 16 (11.68%) Firewall
4 14 (10.22%) VPN
5 8 (5.84%) Wi-Fi
6 7 (5.11%) LAN
6 7 (5.11%) Network Security
6 7 (5.11%) VLAN
7 6 (4.38%) SAN
7 6 (4.38%) WAN
8 5 (3.65%) TCP/IP
9 4 (2.92%) NAS
10 3 (2.19%) DKIM
10 3 (2.19%) DMARC
11 2 (1.46%) Cisco Nexus
11 2 (1.46%) Skype
11 2 (1.46%) SSL
11 2 (1.46%) VoIP
12 1 (0.73%) Kerberos
12 1 (0.73%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (3.65%) Power BI
2 3 (2.19%) Oracle BI EE
2 3 (2.19%) SQL Server
2 3 (2.19%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 1 (0.73%) Amazon RDS
3 1 (0.73%) Azure SQL Database
3 1 (0.73%) Data Lake
3 1 (0.73%) Metadata
3 1 (0.73%) NoSQL
3 1 (0.73%) Oracle Database
3 1 (0.73%) Power Query
3 1 (0.73%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 24 (17.52%) JIRA
2 2 (1.46%) AdminStudio
2 2 (1.46%) Git
2 2 (1.46%) InstallShield
3 1 (0.73%) Bitbucket
3 1 (0.73%) GitLab
3 1 (0.73%) Jenkins
General
1 48 (35.04%) Social Skills
2 18 (13.14%) Public Sector
3 9 (6.57%) Analytical Skills
3 9 (6.57%) Finance
4 6 (4.38%) Organisational Skills
5 5 (3.65%) Documentation Skills
6 4 (2.92%) Legal
6 4 (2.92%) Police
7 2 (1.46%) Law
7 2 (1.46%) Military
8 1 (0.73%) Advertising
8 1 (0.73%) Back Office
8 1 (0.73%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 1 (0.73%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 22 (16.06%) Support Engineer
2 18 (13.14%) IT Support
3 17 (12.41%) Analyst
4 15 (10.95%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 13 (9.49%) Architect
5 13 (9.49%) Desktop Engineer
6 12 (8.76%) Desktop Support
6 12 (8.76%) Desktop Support Engineer
7 10 (7.30%) Administrator
8 9 (6.57%) IT Support Specialist
8 9 (6.57%) Service Analyst
8 9 (6.57%) Service Desk Analyst
8 9 (6.57%) Support Specialist
9 8 (5.84%) Service Desk Support
10 7 (5.11%) Active Directory Consultant
10 7 (5.11%) Consultant
10 7 (5.11%) IT Consultant
10 7 (5.11%) Senior
11 6 (4.38%) IT Engineer
11 6 (4.38%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (5.84%) LDAP
1 8 (5.84%) SailPoint
2 6 (4.38%) OAuth
3 5 (3.65%) Elastic Stack
4 3 (2.19%) OpenID
4 3 (2.19%) SAML
5 2 (1.46%) OAuth2
5 2 (1.46%) REST
6 1 (0.73%) Apache NiFi
6 1 (0.73%) ARM Templates
6 1 (0.73%) HTML5 Canvas
6 1 (0.73%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 15 (10.95%) Hybrid Cloud
2 12 (8.76%) Driving Licence
3 11 (8.03%) Enterprise Software
3 11 (8.03%) Management Information System
4 10 (7.30%) Onboarding
5 6 (4.38%) Self-Motivation
6 5 (3.65%) Data Centre
6 5 (3.65%) Product Ownership
7 4 (2.92%) Augmented Reality
7 4 (2.92%) Virtual Reality
8 3 (2.19%) Freedom of Information
8 3 (2.19%) PKI
8 3 (2.19%) Private Cloud
9 2 (1.46%) Legacy Applications
9 2 (1.46%) Replication
10 1 (0.73%) Enterprise Storage
10 1 (0.73%) iPad
10 1 (0.73%) iPhone
10 1 (0.73%) Legacy Systems
10 1 (0.73%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 85 (62.04%) Windows
2 30 (21.90%) Windows Server
3 23 (16.79%) Windows 10
4 21 (15.33%) Linux
5 6 (4.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 5 (3.65%) Android
7 3 (2.19%) CentOS
7 3 (2.19%) Mac OS
7 3 (2.19%) Ubuntu
8 2 (1.46%) Apple iOS
8 2 (1.46%) Windows Server 2016
8 2 (1.46%) Windows Server 2019
9 1 (0.73%) Data ONTAP
9 1 (0.73%) Rocky
9 1 (0.73%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 31 (22.63%) Problem-Solving
2 29 (21.17%) Customer Service
3 28 (20.44%) ITIL
4 23 (16.79%) Continuous Improvement
5 20 (14.60%) ITSM
6 19 (13.87%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 16 (11.68%) Change Management
7 16 (11.68%) Identity Access Management
8 15 (10.95%) Migration
9 13 (9.49%) DevOps
10 12 (8.76%) Agile
10 12 (8.76%) RBAC
11 11 (8.03%) Root Cause Analysis
12 10 (7.30%) Infrastructure as Code
13 9 (6.57%) Configuration Management
13 9 (6.57%) Identity Management
13 9 (6.57%) Project Delivery
13 9 (6.57%) Service Management
13 9 (6.57%) Technical Leadership
13 9 (6.57%) Zero Trust
Programming Languages
1 32 (23.36%) PowerShell
2 6 (4.38%) Java
3 5 (3.65%) BeanShell
4 3 (2.19%) Python
4 3 (2.19%) SQL
5 1 (0.73%) Bash
5 1 (0.73%) C#
5 1 (0.73%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 64 (46.72%) Security Cleared
2 36 (26.28%) SC Cleared
3 28 (20.44%) DV Cleared
4 9 (6.57%) Microsoft Certification
5 8 (5.84%) BPSS Clearance
6 5 (3.65%) Azure Certification
6 5 (3.65%) Degree
7 4 (2.92%) Cisco Certification
8 3 (2.19%) (ISC)2 CCSP
8 3 (2.19%) ACSP
8 3 (2.19%) CISSP
9 2 (1.46%) A+ Certification
9 2 (1.46%) ITIL Certification
10 1 (0.73%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (2.92%) SLA
2 3 (2.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 2 (1.46%) Cyber Essentials
3 2 (1.46%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
4 1 (0.73%) Accessibility
System Software
1 26 (18.98%) VMware Infrastructure
2 14 (10.22%) Hyper-V
3 9 (6.57%) Virtual Desktop
4 7 (5.11%) VMware NSX
5 6 (4.38%) Virtual Machines
6 3 (2.19%) VMware Workstation
6 3 (2.19%) vSphere
7 2 (1.46%) Docker
8 1 (0.73%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.73%) KVM
8 1 (0.73%) NFS
8 1 (0.73%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 25 (18.25%) Microsoft Intune
2 12 (8.76%) Active Directory Federation Services
2 12 (8.76%) Single Sign-On
3 9 (6.57%) SCCM
4 6 (4.38%) Terraform
5 5 (3.65%) Ansible
6 4 (2.92%) Kubernetes
7 2 (1.46%) Grafana
7 2 (1.46%) McAfee ePO
7 2 (1.46%) WSUS
8 1 (0.73%) CA Single Sign-On
8 1 (0.73%) Kibana
8 1 (0.73%) logstash
8 1 (0.73%) Nagios
8 1 (0.73%) OPNET
8 1 (0.73%) Prometheus
8 1 (0.73%) Proxmox
8 1 (0.73%) Puppet
8 1 (0.73%) SCOM
8 1 (0.73%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 75 (54.74%) Microsoft
2 28 (20.44%) VMware
3 12 (8.76%) Remedy
4 8 (5.84%) McAfee
5 7 (5.11%) Cisco
5 7 (5.11%) Google
6 6 (4.38%) Starlink
7 5 (3.65%) CyberArk
8 4 (2.92%) Apple
8 4 (2.92%) Clearswift
8 4 (2.92%) Oracle
8 4 (2.92%) Tanium
8 4 (2.92%) Trend Micro
9 3 (2.19%) Red Hat
10 2 (1.46%) ServiceNow
11 1 (0.73%) Atlassian
11 1 (0.73%) BMC
11 1 (0.73%) Broadcom
11 1 (0.73%) F5
11 1 (0.73%) Splunk