Active Directory Federation Services Contract Job Trends

Microsoft Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring Active Directory Federation Services skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 9 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 482 481 431
Rank change year-on-year -1 -50 +91
Contract jobs citing Active Directory Federation Services 97 53 171
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.26% 0.17% 0.40%
As % of the Systems Management category 1.68% 1.12% 3.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 80 39 121
10th Percentile £366 £400 £363
25th Percentile £475 £428 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% -9.09% +10.00%
75th Percentile £585 £650 £658
90th Percentile £694 £708 £713
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £450 £600
% change year-on-year +22.22% -25.00% +23.08%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 4
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - - £55.00
Median hourly rate - - £55.70
75th Percentile - - £57.93
90th Percentile - - £60.67
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - £55.70

All Systems Management Skills
UK

Active Directory Federation Services falls under the Systems Management category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring systems management skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for systems management skills 5,791 4,722 5,620
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 15.78% 14.78% 13.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,979 3,042 4,006
10th Percentile £313 £313 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -2.86% -2.33% -6.52%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £638
90th Percentile £688 £737 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £490 £500
% change year-on-year +2.04% -2.00% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 119 66 158
10th Percentile £17.24 £15.36 £16.45
25th Percentile £20.25 £21.10 £21.44
Median hourly rate £48.72 £24.84 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +96.14% -46.21% +31.94%
75th Percentile £63.32 £49.05 £68.63
90th Percentile £83.00 £74.22 £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £53.25 £24.18 £46.18
% change year-on-year +120.22% -47.64% +23.15%

Active Directory Federation Services
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Active Directory Federation Services relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Active Directory Federation Services job vacancy trend in the UK

Active Directory Federation Services
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Active Directory Federation Services.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Active Directory Federation Services

Active Directory Federation Services
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Active Directory Federation Services over the 6 months to 9 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Active Directory Federation Services in the UK

Active Directory Federation Services
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Active Directory Federation Services.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Active Directory Federation Services

Active Directory Federation Services
Top 10 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Active Directory Federation Services within the UK over the 6 months to 9 January 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
England -6 88 £550 +7.32% 23
UK excluding London -27 60 £550 +22.22% 19
South West +21 33 £565 - 6
London +1 25 £555 +20.00% 4
Work from Home -9 23 £545 +21.21% 7
North of England -39 14 £510 +27.42% 7
South East -11 13 £474 -25.73% 6
North West -26 9 £550 +37.50% 3
Yorkshire -42 4 £469 -35.31% 4
North East - 2 £550 -

Active Directory Federation Services
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 30 (30.93%) Microsoft Exchange
2 18 (18.56%) SharePoint
3 4 (4.12%) SharePoint Server
4 1 (1.03%) Confluence
4 1 (1.03%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 11 (11.34%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 7 (7.22%) Veritas eDiscovery
Cloud Services
1 40 (41.24%) Entra ID
2 39 (40.21%) Azure
3 27 (27.84%) Microsoft 365
4 10 (10.31%) OneDrive
5 6 (6.19%) AWS
5 6 (6.19%) Azure Service Fabric
5 6 (6.19%) PaaS
5 6 (6.19%) SaaS
6 4 (4.12%) GCP
6 4 (4.12%) ShareGate
7 2 (2.06%) Azure Logic Apps
7 2 (2.06%) Azure Monitor
7 2 (2.06%) Azure Sentinel
7 2 (2.06%) Nutanix
8 1 (1.03%) Azure DevOps
Communications & Networking
1 33 (34.02%) DNS
2 20 (20.62%) Firewall
3 13 (13.40%) Kerberos
4 8 (8.25%) DHCP
4 8 (8.25%) Skype
5 5 (5.15%) WebEx
6 3 (3.09%) HTTP
6 3 (3.09%) TCP/IP
6 3 (3.09%) VSAN
7 2 (2.06%) DKIM
7 2 (2.06%) DMARC
7 2 (2.06%) NetScaler
7 2 (2.06%) Wireshark
7 2 (2.06%) X.500
8 1 (1.03%) Internet
8 1 (1.03%) Intranet
8 1 (1.03%) SMTP
8 1 (1.03%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (7.22%) SQL Server
2 1 (1.03%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 4 (4.12%) JIRA
2 2 (2.06%) Fiddler
2 2 (2.06%) MSI
General
1 29 (29.90%) Social Skills
2 11 (11.34%) Documentation Skills
3 10 (10.31%) Analytical Skills
4 9 (9.28%) Public Sector
5 5 (5.15%) Legal
6 4 (4.12%) Finance
7 1 (1.03%) Banking
7 1 (1.03%) International Banking
7 1 (1.03%) Military
7 1 (1.03%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 13 (13.40%) Architect
2 12 (12.37%) Platform Engineer
3 7 (7.22%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
4 6 (6.19%) Analyst
4 6 (6.19%) Consultant
4 6 (6.19%) Data Analyst
4 6 (6.19%) DevOps Engineer
5 5 (5.15%) Solutions Architect
6 4 (4.12%) Azure Engineer
6 4 (4.12%) Microsoft 365 Consultant
6 4 (4.12%) Migration Consultant
6 4 (4.12%) Senior
7 3 (3.09%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 3 (3.09%) Microsoft Consultant
7 3 (3.09%) Security Architect
7 3 (3.09%) Support Engineer
8 2 (2.06%) Infrastructure Services Engineer
8 2 (2.06%) Security Engineer
8 2 (2.06%) SharePoint Consultant
8 2 (2.06%) Technical Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (31.96%) OAuth
2 29 (29.90%) SAML
3 24 (24.74%) OpenID
4 16 (16.49%) OAuth2
5 15 (15.46%) LDAP
6 10 (10.31%) SailPoint
7 6 (6.19%) ARM Templates
7 6 (6.19%) Entity Framework
7 6 (6.19%) YAML
8 5 (5.15%) XMPP
9 3 (3.09%) Microsoft Graph
10 2 (2.06%) JSON
10 2 (2.06%) ModSecurity
Miscellaneous
1 15 (15.46%) Replication
2 13 (13.40%) PKI
3 12 (12.37%) Private Cloud
4 11 (11.34%) Onboarding
5 7 (7.22%) BYOD
6 5 (5.15%) Product Ownership
7 3 (3.09%) Cyber Defence
7 3 (3.09%) Data Centre
7 3 (3.09%) Data Protection Act
8 2 (2.06%) Public Cloud
9 1 (1.03%) Blackberry
9 1 (1.03%) Driving Licence
9 1 (1.03%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 51 (52.58%) Windows
2 30 (30.93%) Windows Server
3 13 (13.40%) Linux
4 8 (8.25%) Windows 10
5 5 (5.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 4 (4.12%) Windows Server 2016
6 4 (4.12%) Windows Server 2019
7 3 (3.09%) Windows Server 2008
8 2 (2.06%) Android
8 2 (2.06%) Apple iOS
8 2 (2.06%) Mac OS
8 2 (2.06%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 34 (35.05%) RBAC
2 30 (30.93%) Identity Access Management
3 21 (21.65%) Migration
4 18 (18.56%) Problem-Solving
5 16 (16.49%) Root Cause Analysis
6 15 (15.46%) Roadmaps
7 14 (14.43%) Identity Management
8 13 (13.40%) DevOps
8 13 (13.40%) Load Balancing
9 11 (11.34%) Mentoring
9 11 (11.34%) Service Management
10 10 (10.31%) Platform Engineering
10 10 (10.31%) Zero Trust
11 9 (9.28%) Disaster Recovery
11 9 (9.28%) High Availability
11 9 (9.28%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 9 (9.28%) Mobile Device Management
11 9 (9.28%) Validation
12 8 (8.25%) ITSM
12 8 (8.25%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 56 (57.73%) PowerShell
2 9 (9.28%) SQL
3 6 (6.19%) Python
4 5 (5.15%) Bash
4 5 (5.15%) Perl
5 3 (3.09%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 68 (70.10%) Security Cleared
2 42 (43.30%) SC Cleared
3 29 (29.90%) Microsoft Certification
4 27 (27.84%) DV Cleared
5 11 (11.34%) Degree
6 9 (9.28%) MCSA
6 9 (9.28%) MCSE
7 5 (5.15%) CCDP
7 5 (5.15%) CCNA
7 5 (5.15%) CCNP
7 5 (5.15%) Cisco Certification
8 3 (3.09%) Azure Certification
8 3 (3.09%) CISM
8 3 (3.09%) CISSP
9 2 (2.06%) MCITP
9 2 (2.06%) MCP
9 2 (2.06%) MCTS
9 2 (2.06%) Microsoft Certified Master
10 1 (1.03%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (9.28%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 8 (8.25%) GDPR
3 7 (7.22%) NCSC
4 3 (3.09%) NIST
4 3 (3.09%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 1 (1.03%) SLA
System Software
1 85 (87.63%) Active Directory
2 13 (13.40%) VMware Infrastructure
3 7 (7.22%) Docker
4 5 (5.15%) VMware NSX
5 4 (4.12%) Virtual Machines
6 3 (3.09%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (2.06%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
7 2 (2.06%) Virtual Desktop
7 2 (2.06%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 43 (44.33%) Single Sign-On
2 14 (14.43%) Microsoft Intune
3 8 (8.25%) vCenter Server
4 3 (3.09%) OPNET
4 3 (3.09%) WSUS
5 2 (2.06%) Kubernetes
5 2 (2.06%) SCCM
5 2 (2.06%) Terraform
6 1 (1.03%) Ansible
6 1 (1.03%) CA Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 78 (80.41%) Microsoft
2 25 (25.77%) VMware
3 10 (10.31%) Cisco
4 7 (7.22%) Veeam
5 6 (6.19%) Okta
6 5 (5.15%) Citrix
6 5 (5.15%) Red Hat
6 5 (5.15%) SolarWinds
7 2 (2.06%) CyberArk
7 2 (2.06%) F5
7 2 (2.06%) LogRhythm
8 1 (1.03%) BeyondTrust
8 1 (1.03%) Proofpoint