Active Directory Engineer Contract Job Trends in the Thames Valley

Microsoft Active Directory Engineer
South East > Thames Valley

The median Microsoft Active Directory Engineer daily rate in the Thames Valley is £456, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 17 April 2026.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 144 97 130
Rank change year-on-year -47 +33 +26
Contract jobs requiring an Active Directory Engineer 6 4 15
As % of all contract jobs in the Thames Valley 0.21% 0.27% 0.54%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.23% 0.28% 0.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 4 4 14
10th Percentile - £353 £161
25th Percentile £406 £488 £225
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £456 £590 £411
Median % change year-on-year -22.67% +43.55% +82.67%
75th Percentile £515 £608 £428
90th Percentile £542 - £648
South East median daily rate £500 £550 £411
% change year-on-year -9.09% +33.82% -7.64%

All Contract IT Job Roles
Thames Valley

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the Thames Valley. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in the Thames Valley with a recognized job title 2,642 1,407 2,582
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.32% 93.43% 93.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,728 867 1,468
10th Percentile £300 £300 £213
25th Percentile £403 £409 £374
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
75th Percentile £600 £610 £600
90th Percentile £653 £675 £675
South East median daily rate £515 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +3.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 207 57 196
10th Percentile £16.35 £14.20 £15.85
25th Percentile £23.73 £17.50 £19.25
Median hourly rate £80.00 £45.00 £44.00
Median % change year-on-year +77.78% +2.27% +3.53%
75th Percentile £85.50 £65.62 £62.63
90th Percentile £95.00 £76.18 £82.09
South East median hourly rate £50.00 £32.50 £47.50
% change year-on-year +53.85% -31.58% +5.56%

Active Directory Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in the Thames Valley

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Active Directory Engineer' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley.

Active Directory Engineer job vacancy trend in the Thames Valley

Active Directory Engineer
Daily Rate Trend in the Thames Valley

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Active Directory Engineer job vacancies in the Thames Valley.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Active Directory Engineer job vacancies in the Thames Valley

Active Directory Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram in the Thames Valley

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Active Directory Engineer in the Thames Valley over the 6 months to 17 April 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Active Directory Engineer in the Thames Valley

Active Directory Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend in the Thames Valley

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Active Directory Engineer job vacancies in the Thames Valley.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Active Directory Engineer job vacancies in the Thames Valley

Active Directory Engineer
Contract Job Locations in the Thames Valley

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Active Directory Engineer within the Thames Valley region over the 6 months to 17 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
Berkshire -29 5 £413 -31.82%
Buckinghamshire - 1 £560 -
Active Directory Engineer
South East

Active Directory Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the Thames Valley

For the 6 months to 17 April 2026, Active Directory Engineer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the Thames Valley region featuring Active Directory Engineer in the job title.

1 5 (83.33%) Azure
1 5 (83.33%) Entra ID
2 4 (66.67%) Active Directory
2 4 (66.67%) B2C
2 4 (66.67%) DevOps
3 3 (50.00%) .NET
3 3 (50.00%) .NET Core
3 3 (50.00%) AI
3 3 (50.00%) Analytics
3 3 (50.00%) API Management
3 3 (50.00%) ARM Templates
3 3 (50.00%) Azure API Management
3 3 (50.00%) Azure DevOps
3 3 (50.00%) Azure Functions
3 3 (50.00%) Azure Monitor
3 3 (50.00%) Bash
3 3 (50.00%) C#
3 3 (50.00%) CI/CD
3 3 (50.00%) CRM
3 3 (50.00%) Data Governance
3 3 (50.00%) Data Quality
3 3 (50.00%) DevSecOps
3 3 (50.00%) GitHub
3 3 (50.00%) GitHub Actions
3 3 (50.00%) GraphQL
3 3 (50.00%) Identity Management
3 3 (50.00%) Infrastructure as Code
3 3 (50.00%) JavaScript
3 3 (50.00%) Jenkins
3 3 (50.00%) Log Analytics

Active Directory Engineer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the Thames Valley 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:

Cloud Services
1 5 (83.33%) Azure
1 5 (83.33%) Entra ID
2 3 (50.00%) Azure API Management
2 3 (50.00%) Azure DevOps
2 3 (50.00%) Azure Functions
2 3 (50.00%) Azure Monitor
2 3 (50.00%) GitHub
2 3 (50.00%) GitHub Actions
2 3 (50.00%) Serverless
3 1 (16.67%) AWS
3 1 (16.67%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 3 (50.00%) SSL
2 2 (33.33%) DHCP
2 2 (33.33%) DNS
3 1 (16.67%) FTP
3 1 (16.67%) SAN
3 1 (16.67%) TCP/IP
Development Applications
1 3 (50.00%) Jenkins
General
1 3 (50.00%) Analytical Skills
1 3 (50.00%) Billing
1 3 (50.00%) Social Skills
2 2 (33.33%) Retail
3 1 (16.67%) Documentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (50.00%) .NET
1 3 (50.00%) .NET Core
1 3 (50.00%) ARM Templates
1 3 (50.00%) GraphQL
1 3 (50.00%) OAuth
1 3 (50.00%) OAuth2
1 3 (50.00%) OpenID
1 3 (50.00%) REST
1 3 (50.00%) SAML
2 2 (33.33%) .NET Framework
2 2 (33.33%) ASP.NET
2 2 (33.33%) Microsoft Graph
Miscellaneous
1 3 (50.00%) Linux Command Line
2 1 (16.67%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 2 (33.33%) Windows
1 2 (33.33%) Windows Server
2 1 (16.67%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 4 (66.67%) B2C
1 4 (66.67%) DevOps
2 3 (50.00%) AI
2 3 (50.00%) Analytics
2 3 (50.00%) API Management
2 3 (50.00%) CI/CD
2 3 (50.00%) CRM
2 3 (50.00%) Data Governance
2 3 (50.00%) DevSecOps
2 3 (50.00%) Identity Management
2 3 (50.00%) Infrastructure as Code
2 3 (50.00%) Log Analytics
2 3 (50.00%) MLOps
2 3 (50.00%) Problem-Solving
2 3 (50.00%) RBAC
2 3 (50.00%) User Experience
3 2 (33.33%) Knowledge Transfer
3 2 (33.33%) Observability
3 2 (33.33%) Test Automation
3 2 (33.33%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 3 (50.00%) Bash
1 3 (50.00%) C#
1 3 (50.00%) JavaScript
1 3 (50.00%) PHP
1 3 (50.00%) PowerShell
1 3 (50.00%) Python
2 2 (33.33%) Java
Qualifications
1 1 (16.67%) DV Cleared
1 1 (16.67%) SC Cleared
1 1 (16.67%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (50.00%) Data Quality
System Software
1 4 (66.67%) Active Directory
2 1 (16.67%) Hyper-V
2 1 (16.67%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 3 (50.00%) Terraform
Vendors
1 2 (33.33%) Microsoft
2 1 (16.67%) VMware