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 9 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 34 21 24
Rank change year-on-year -13 +3 -7
Contract jobs citing Active Directory 140 143 189
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 4.45% 8.36% 5.88%
As % of the System Software category 44.59% 45.11% 51.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 104 117 140
10th Percentile £156 £200 £143
25th Percentile £269 £223 £174
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £516 £450 £300
Median % change year-on-year +14.72% +50.00% -33.33%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £588
90th Percentile £715 £675 £700
England median daily rate £450 £455 £400
% change year-on-year -1.10% +13.75% -5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 3 12
10th Percentile - £15.75 £14.03
25th Percentile £12.43 £16.64 £33.56
Median hourly rate £14.60 £18.25 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -20.00% -54.38% +10.57%
75th Percentile £197.50 £41.44 -
90th Percentile - £55.28 -
England median hourly rate £22.50 £22.50 £17.69
% change year-on-year - +27.19% -4.38%

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 314 317 366
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 9.98% 18.54% 11.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 217 259 270
10th Percentile £205 £213 £157
25th Percentile £413 £418 £263
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £550 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.27% +10.00% -
75th Percentile £613 £625 £600
90th Percentile £715 £701 £701
England median daily rate £500 £525 £480
% change year-on-year -4.76% +9.38% -8.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 39 4 28
10th Percentile £13.41 £16.05 £32.28
25th Percentile £46.00 £17.38 £40.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £40.63 £67.25
Median % change year-on-year +60.00% -39.59% +12.08%
75th Percentile £72.02 £68.05 £81.00
90th Percentile £102.70 £74.44 £90.00
England median hourly rate £52.50 £28.71 £21.00
% change year-on-year +82.89% +36.69% -47.50%

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 9 April 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 9 April 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 9 April 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
Gloucestershire +3 42 £210 -50.59% 23
Wiltshire -18 42 £588 +6.82% 8
Bristol -26 23 £373 +65.56% 10
Somerset -6 17 £550 +120.00% 13
Devon -2 10 £148 -26.25% 7
Dorset -25 1 £550 +29.41% 4
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 20 (14.29%) Microsoft Exchange
2 13 (9.29%) SharePoint
3 5 (3.57%) Mattermost
4 3 (2.14%) IIS
5 2 (1.43%) Skype for Business
6 1 (0.71%) Confluence
Applications
1 9 (6.43%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 7 (5.00%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.71%) assyst
Cloud Services
1 56 (40.00%) Azure
2 33 (23.57%) Entra ID
3 30 (21.43%) Microsoft 365
4 10 (7.14%) AWS
5 7 (5.00%) Azure Monitor
6 6 (4.29%) Azure Sentinel
6 6 (4.29%) PaaS
7 5 (3.57%) GCP
7 5 (3.57%) IaaS
7 5 (3.57%) OCI
8 4 (2.86%) OneDrive
9 3 (2.14%) Azure DevOps
10 2 (1.43%) Azure AKS
10 2 (1.43%) Azure Key Vault
10 2 (1.43%) Azure Logic Apps
10 2 (1.43%) Microsoft Copilot
10 2 (1.43%) Power Platform
10 2 (1.43%) Serverless
11 1 (0.71%) Amazon GuardDuty
11 1 (0.71%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 32 (22.86%) Firewall
2 29 (20.71%) DNS
3 17 (12.14%) VPN
4 15 (10.71%) DHCP
5 8 (5.71%) Network Security
6 6 (4.29%) LAN
7 5 (3.57%) Skype
7 5 (3.57%) VLAN
8 4 (2.86%) WAN
8 4 (2.86%) Wi-Fi
9 3 (2.14%) SAN
9 3 (2.14%) TCP/IP
10 2 (1.43%) Cisco Nexus
10 2 (1.43%) NAS
10 2 (1.43%) Wireless
11 1 (0.71%) BGP
11 1 (0.71%) BIG-IP
11 1 (0.71%) EIGRP
11 1 (0.71%) OSPF
11 1 (0.71%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (3.57%) SQL Server
2 2 (1.43%) Power BI
3 1 (0.71%) Metadata
3 1 (0.71%) NoSQL
3 1 (0.71%) Oracle BI EE
3 1 (0.71%) Power Query
3 1 (0.71%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 1 (0.71%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 17 (12.14%) JIRA
2 3 (2.14%) Git
3 2 (1.43%) AdminStudio
3 2 (1.43%) InstallShield
4 1 (0.71%) Bitbucket
4 1 (0.71%) GitLab
4 1 (0.71%) Jenkins
4 1 (0.71%) MSI
General
1 59 (42.14%) Social Skills
2 13 (9.29%) Analytical Skills
3 11 (7.86%) Documentation Skills
3 11 (7.86%) Public Sector
4 9 (6.43%) Finance
5 5 (3.57%) Organisational Skills
6 2 (1.43%) Legal
7 1 (0.71%) Aerospace
7 1 (0.71%) Back Office
7 1 (0.71%) Electronics
7 1 (0.71%) Influencing Skills
7 1 (0.71%) Manufacturing
7 1 (0.71%) Marketing
7 1 (0.71%) Military
7 1 (0.71%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 21 (15.00%) Support Engineer
2 20 (14.29%) Architect
3 16 (11.43%) Desktop Engineer
4 15 (10.71%) Desktop Support
4 15 (10.71%) Desktop Support Engineer
4 15 (10.71%) IT Support
5 14 (10.00%) Analyst
6 13 (9.29%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 9 (6.43%) IT Support Specialist
7 9 (6.43%) Support Specialist
8 7 (5.00%) Senior
8 7 (5.00%) Solutions Architect
8 7 (5.00%) Technical Architect
9 6 (4.29%) Applications Packager
9 6 (4.29%) IT Engineer
9 6 (4.29%) Wintel Engineer
10 5 (3.57%) 2nd Line Support
10 5 (3.57%) Service Analyst
10 5 (3.57%) Service Desk Analyst
11 4 (2.86%) Security Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (15.00%) OAuth
1 21 (15.00%) SAML
2 19 (13.57%) OpenID
3 17 (12.14%) OAuth2
4 4 (2.86%) ARM Templates
4 4 (2.86%) SailPoint
5 2 (1.43%) .NET
5 2 (1.43%) Elastic Stack
5 2 (1.43%) LDAP
5 2 (1.43%) YAML
6 1 (0.71%) Apache NiFi
6 1 (0.71%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 13 (9.29%) Hybrid Cloud
2 10 (7.14%) Driving Licence
3 8 (5.71%) Private Cloud
4 7 (5.00%) Data Centre
4 7 (5.00%) Replication
5 6 (4.29%) PKI
5 6 (4.29%) Self-Motivation
6 4 (2.86%) Onboarding
7 3 (2.14%) Cloud Native
7 3 (2.14%) Enterprise Software
7 3 (2.14%) Product Ownership
7 3 (2.14%) Security Posture
8 2 (1.43%) Legacy Applications
8 2 (1.43%) Management Information System
9 1 (0.71%) Augmented Reality
9 1 (0.71%) Device Driver
9 1 (0.71%) Enterprise Storage
9 1 (0.71%) Legacy Systems
9 1 (0.71%) Operational Technology
9 1 (0.71%) Virtual Reality
Operating Systems
1 97 (69.29%) Windows
2 44 (31.43%) Windows Server
3 21 (15.00%) Windows 10
4 20 (14.29%) Linux
5 4 (2.86%) Windows Server 2012
5 4 (2.86%) Windows Server 2016
6 3 (2.14%) CentOS
7 2 (1.43%) Windows Server 2019
8 1 (0.71%) Android
8 1 (0.71%) Data ONTAP
8 1 (0.71%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.71%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 35 (25.00%) Problem-Solving
2 30 (21.43%) ITIL
3 27 (19.29%) Identity Access Management
4 25 (17.86%) RBAC
5 23 (16.43%) Customer Service
5 23 (16.43%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 21 (15.00%) Change Management
7 20 (14.29%) DevOps
8 17 (12.14%) Infrastructure as Code
9 15 (10.71%) Agile
9 15 (10.71%) Technical Leadership
10 13 (9.29%) Continuous Improvement
10 13 (9.29%) Load Balancing
11 12 (8.57%) Identity Management
11 12 (8.57%) ITSM
12 11 (7.86%) Configuration Management
12 11 (7.86%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 10 (7.14%) Mentoring
13 10 (7.14%) Service Management
13 10 (7.14%) SIEM
Programming Languages
1 52 (37.14%) PowerShell
2 8 (5.71%) Bicep
3 5 (3.57%) Python
3 5 (3.57%) SQL
4 3 (2.14%) C#
5 2 (1.43%) JavaScript
5 2 (1.43%) TypeScript
6 1 (0.71%) Data Analysis Expressions
6 1 (0.71%) Java
Qualifications
1 79 (56.43%) Security Cleared
2 40 (28.57%) SC Cleared
3 37 (26.43%) DV Cleared
4 27 (19.29%) Microsoft Certification
5 11 (7.86%) Azure Certification
6 4 (2.86%) BPSS Clearance
6 4 (2.86%) Degree
7 3 (2.14%) ITIL Certification
7 3 (2.14%) MCSE
8 1 (0.71%) ACSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (2.86%) NCSC
2 3 (2.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 2 (1.43%) NIST
4 1 (0.71%) Government Security Classifications
4 1 (0.71%) SLA
System Software
1 20 (14.29%) VMware Infrastructure
2 12 (8.57%) Hyper-V
3 7 (5.00%) VMware NSX
4 3 (2.14%) Docker
5 2 (1.43%) Virtual Desktop
6 1 (0.71%) Firmware
6 1 (0.71%) UAG
6 1 (0.71%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.71%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (0.71%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 32 (22.86%) Active Directory Federation Services
2 29 (20.71%) Single Sign-On
3 25 (17.86%) Microsoft Intune
4 15 (10.71%) Terraform
5 13 (9.29%) SCCM
6 6 (4.29%) Ansible
7 5 (3.57%) Kubernetes
7 5 (3.57%) WSUS
8 2 (1.43%) CA Single Sign-On
8 2 (1.43%) McAfee ePO
8 2 (1.43%) Puppet
9 1 (0.71%) Failover Clustering
9 1 (0.71%) Grafana
9 1 (0.71%) Kibana
9 1 (0.71%) logstash
9 1 (0.71%) NetBackup
9 1 (0.71%) SCOM
Vendors
1 88 (62.86%) Microsoft
2 28 (20.00%) VMware
3 8 (5.71%) McAfee
3 8 (5.71%) Remedy
4 6 (4.29%) Starlink
5 5 (3.57%) Cisco
6 4 (2.86%) Red Hat
7 3 (2.14%) Google
7 3 (2.14%) NetApp
8 2 (1.43%) Broadcom
8 2 (1.43%) CheckPoint
8 2 (1.43%) Citrix
8 2 (1.43%) Clearswift
8 2 (1.43%) Tanium
8 2 (1.43%) Trend Micro
9 1 (0.71%) Databricks
9 1 (0.71%) F5
9 1 (0.71%) IFS
9 1 (0.71%) Palo Alto
9 1 (0.71%) ServiceNow