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

6 months to
13 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 37 25 34
Rank change year-on-year -12 +9 -17
Contract jobs citing Active Directory 136 119 159
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 3.90% 6.73% 4.82%
As % of the System Software category 42.77% 41.90% 38.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 82 96 119
10th Percentile £156 £200 £143
25th Percentile £214 £213 £183
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £310 £450
Median % change year-on-year +29.03% -31.11% -10.00%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £599
90th Percentile £613 £650 £676
England median daily rate £450 £450 £439
% change year-on-year - +2.45% +3.35%
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% +122.22%
75th Percentile £23.50 £45.44 -
90th Percentile £39.73 £61.68 -
England median hourly rate £26.00 £19.27 £17.69
% change year-on-year +34.92% +8.93% -17.72%

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 318 284 410
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 9.11% 16.06% 12.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 190 228 297
10th Percentile £207 £210 £183
25th Percentile £389 £391 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £550 £538
Median % change year-on-year -6.82% +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 -0.05% +0.05% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 42 5 31
10th Percentile £13.65 £16.34 -
25th Percentile £19.25 £18.13 £40.00
Median hourly rate £51.00 £65.00 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -21.54% -7.14% +16.67%
75th Percentile £65.00 £78.70 £87.50
90th Percentile £72.44 £79.48 £90.00
England median hourly rate £52.50 £28.00 £22.40
% change year-on-year +87.50% +25.00% -55.20%

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 13 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 13 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 13 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 -6 44 £425 +80.85% 10
Gloucestershire 0 38 £213 -15.00% 22
Wiltshire -13 23 £575 +4.55% 5
Devon -11 10 £148 -26.25% 3
Somerset -21 10 £563 +125.00% 12
Dorset -16 4 £550 +33.33% 15
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 21 (15.44%) Microsoft Exchange
1 21 (15.44%) SharePoint
2 6 (4.41%) Mattermost
3 5 (3.68%) IIS
4 2 (1.47%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 2 (1.47%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 11 (8.09%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (1.47%) assyst
Cloud Services
1 57 (41.91%) Azure
2 36 (26.47%) Microsoft 365
3 35 (25.74%) Entra ID
4 11 (8.09%) AWS
5 10 (7.35%) SaaS
6 9 (6.62%) GCP
7 7 (5.15%) Google Workspace
8 5 (3.68%) Google Drive
8 5 (3.68%) Power Platform
9 4 (2.94%) OCI
9 4 (2.94%) PaaS
10 3 (2.21%) Asana
10 3 (2.21%) IaaS
11 2 (1.47%) Azure Sentinel
11 2 (1.47%) Cloud Computing
11 2 (1.47%) OneDrive
12 1 (0.74%) Azure Cosmos DB
12 1 (0.74%) Azure Key Vault
12 1 (0.74%) Azure Monitor
12 1 (0.74%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 32 (23.53%) DNS
2 23 (16.91%) DHCP
3 17 (12.50%) Firewall
4 15 (11.03%) VPN
5 8 (5.88%) Wi-Fi
6 7 (5.15%) LAN
6 7 (5.15%) Network Security
7 6 (4.41%) VLAN
8 5 (3.68%) TCP/IP
8 5 (3.68%) WAN
9 4 (2.94%) SAN
10 3 (2.21%) DKIM
10 3 (2.21%) DMARC
10 3 (2.21%) NAS
11 2 (1.47%) Cisco Nexus
11 2 (1.47%) Skype
11 2 (1.47%) Wireless
12 1 (0.74%) BIG-IP
12 1 (0.74%) OSPF
12 1 (0.74%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (3.68%) Power BI
2 4 (2.94%) SQL Server
3 3 (2.21%) Oracle BI EE
3 3 (2.21%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 1 (0.74%) Amazon RDS
4 1 (0.74%) Azure SQL Database
4 1 (0.74%) Data Lake
4 1 (0.74%) Metadata
4 1 (0.74%) NoSQL
4 1 (0.74%) Power Query
4 1 (0.74%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 24 (17.65%) JIRA
2 2 (1.47%) AdminStudio
2 2 (1.47%) Git
2 2 (1.47%) InstallShield
3 1 (0.74%) Bitbucket
3 1 (0.74%) GitLab
3 1 (0.74%) Jenkins
General
1 50 (36.76%) Social Skills
2 16 (11.76%) Public Sector
3 10 (7.35%) Analytical Skills
3 10 (7.35%) Finance
4 5 (3.68%) Organisational Skills
5 4 (2.94%) Documentation Skills
5 4 (2.94%) Legal
5 4 (2.94%) Police
6 2 (1.47%) Law
7 1 (0.74%) Advertising
7 1 (0.74%) Back Office
7 1 (0.74%) Electronics
7 1 (0.74%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 1 (0.74%) Influencing Skills
7 1 (0.74%) Manufacturing
7 1 (0.74%) Marketing
7 1 (0.74%) Military
7 1 (0.74%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 22 (16.18%) Support Engineer
2 18 (13.24%) IT Support
3 17 (12.50%) Analyst
4 14 (10.29%) Administrator
4 14 (10.29%) Desktop Engineer
5 13 (9.56%) Architect
5 13 (9.56%) Desktop Support
5 13 (9.56%) Desktop Support Engineer
6 12 (8.82%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 9 (6.62%) IT Support Specialist
7 9 (6.62%) Service Analyst
7 9 (6.62%) Service Desk Analyst
7 9 (6.62%) Support Specialist
7 9 (6.62%) Systems Administrator
8 8 (5.88%) Service Desk Support
9 7 (5.15%) Active Directory Consultant
9 7 (5.15%) Consultant
9 7 (5.15%) IT Consultant
9 7 (5.15%) Senior
10 6 (4.41%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (4.41%) LDAP
1 6 (4.41%) OAuth
1 6 (4.41%) SailPoint
2 5 (3.68%) Elastic Stack
3 3 (2.21%) OpenID
3 3 (2.21%) SAML
4 2 (1.47%) OAuth2
4 2 (1.47%) REST
5 1 (0.74%) Apache NiFi
5 1 (0.74%) ARM Templates
5 1 (0.74%) HTML5 Canvas
5 1 (0.74%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 14 (10.29%) Hybrid Cloud
2 12 (8.82%) Driving Licence
3 11 (8.09%) Management Information System
4 9 (6.62%) Enterprise Software
5 8 (5.88%) Onboarding
6 6 (4.41%) Data Centre
6 6 (4.41%) Self-Motivation
7 5 (3.68%) Product Ownership
8 4 (2.94%) Augmented Reality
8 4 (2.94%) Virtual Reality
9 3 (2.21%) Freedom of Information
9 3 (2.21%) PKI
9 3 (2.21%) Private Cloud
10 2 (1.47%) Legacy Applications
10 2 (1.47%) Replication
11 1 (0.74%) Enterprise Storage
11 1 (0.74%) iPad
11 1 (0.74%) iPhone
11 1 (0.74%) Legacy Systems
11 1 (0.74%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 85 (62.50%) Windows
2 31 (22.79%) Windows Server
3 22 (16.18%) Windows 10
4 21 (15.44%) Linux
5 5 (3.68%) Android
5 5 (3.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 4 (2.94%) Windows Server 2016
7 3 (2.21%) CentOS
7 3 (2.21%) Mac OS
7 3 (2.21%) Ubuntu
7 3 (2.21%) Windows Server 2019
8 2 (1.47%) Apple iOS
9 1 (0.74%) Data ONTAP
9 1 (0.74%) Rocky
9 1 (0.74%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 31 (22.79%) Problem-Solving
2 29 (21.32%) ITIL
3 28 (20.59%) Customer Service
4 23 (16.91%) Continuous Improvement
5 19 (13.97%) ITSM
6 18 (13.24%) Change Management
7 17 (12.50%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 16 (11.76%) Identity Access Management
9 15 (11.03%) Migration
10 13 (9.56%) DevOps
11 12 (8.82%) Agile
12 11 (8.09%) Infrastructure as Code
12 11 (8.09%) Root Cause Analysis
13 10 (7.35%) Configuration Management
13 10 (7.35%) RBAC
14 9 (6.62%) Identity Management
14 9 (6.62%) Service Management
14 9 (6.62%) Technical Leadership
14 9 (6.62%) Zero Trust
15 8 (5.88%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 32 (23.53%) PowerShell
2 4 (2.94%) Java
3 3 (2.21%) BeanShell
3 3 (2.21%) Python
3 3 (2.21%) SQL
4 1 (0.74%) Bash
4 1 (0.74%) Bicep
4 1 (0.74%) C#
4 1 (0.74%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 63 (46.32%) Security Cleared
2 37 (27.21%) SC Cleared
3 28 (20.59%) DV Cleared
4 8 (5.88%) BPSS Clearance
4 8 (5.88%) Microsoft Certification
5 6 (4.41%) Azure Certification
6 5 (3.68%) Degree
7 3 (2.21%) ACSP
8 2 (1.47%) (ISC)2 CCSP
8 2 (1.47%) Cisco Certification
8 2 (1.47%) CISSP
8 2 (1.47%) ITIL Certification
9 1 (0.74%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (2.21%) SLA
2 2 (1.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 1 (0.74%) Accessibility
3 1 (0.74%) Cyber Essentials
3 1 (0.74%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 25 (18.38%) VMware Infrastructure
2 17 (12.50%) Hyper-V
3 8 (5.88%) Virtual Desktop
4 7 (5.15%) VMware NSX
5 6 (4.41%) Virtual Machines
6 3 (2.21%) VMware Workstation
7 2 (1.47%) Docker
7 2 (1.47%) vSphere
8 1 (0.74%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.74%) KVM
8 1 (0.74%) NFS
8 1 (0.74%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 24 (17.65%) Microsoft Intune
2 12 (8.82%) Active Directory Federation Services
2 12 (8.82%) SCCM
3 11 (8.09%) Single Sign-On
4 7 (5.15%) Terraform
5 5 (3.68%) Ansible
6 3 (2.21%) Kubernetes
7 2 (1.47%) Grafana
7 2 (1.47%) McAfee ePO
8 1 (0.74%) CA Single Sign-On
8 1 (0.74%) Failover Clustering
8 1 (0.74%) Kibana
8 1 (0.74%) logstash
8 1 (0.74%) Nagios
8 1 (0.74%) Prometheus
8 1 (0.74%) Puppet
8 1 (0.74%) SCOM
8 1 (0.74%) WSUS
8 1 (0.74%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 76 (55.88%) Microsoft
2 27 (19.85%) VMware
3 12 (8.82%) Remedy
4 10 (7.35%) Google
5 8 (5.88%) McAfee
6 6 (4.41%) Starlink
7 5 (3.68%) Cisco
8 4 (2.94%) Apple
8 4 (2.94%) Clearswift
8 4 (2.94%) Tanium
8 4 (2.94%) Trend Micro
9 3 (2.21%) CyberArk
9 3 (2.21%) NetApp
9 3 (2.21%) Oracle
10 2 (1.47%) Citrix
10 2 (1.47%) Red Hat
10 2 (1.47%) ServiceNow
11 1 (0.74%) Adobe
11 1 (0.74%) BMC
11 1 (0.74%) SAP