Active Directory Support Contract Job Trends

Microsoft Active Directory Support
UK

The median Microsoft Active Directory Support daily rate in the UK is £536, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 16 September 2025.

The table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 539 525 631
Rank change year-on-year -14 +106 +157
Contract jobs requiring an Active Directory Support 8 44 31
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.024% 0.12% 0.062%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.027% 0.12% 0.066%
Number of daily rates quoted 8 30 10
10th Percentile £209 £223 £193
25th Percentile £213 £541 £198
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £536 £605 £215
Median % change year-on-year -11.40% +181.40% +21.13%
75th Percentile £554 £608 £246
90th Percentile £570 - £255
UK excluding London median daily rate £605 £605 £233
% change year-on-year - +160.22% +32.86%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies. 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 UK with a recognized job title 29,740 35,350 47,152
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.05% 92.95% 94.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,772 21,777 32,303
10th Percentile £278 £300 £300
25th Percentile £400 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £530
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -0.94% -3.64%
75th Percentile £620 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - +0.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,564 1,687 1,507
10th Percentile £13.75 £14.73 £14.77
25th Percentile £17.30 £20.30 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £43.00 £43.86
Median % change year-on-year -41.51% -1.96% +68.69%
75th Percentile £52.25 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £45.00 £42.08
% change year-on-year -44.11% +6.95% +91.26%

Active Directory Support
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings that featured Active Directory Support in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Active Directory Support in the UK

Active Directory Support
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Active Directory Support job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Active Directory Support job vacancies in the UK

Active Directory Support
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Active Directory Support over the 6 months to 16 September 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Active Directory Support in the UK

Active Directory Support
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Active Directory Support job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Active Directory Support job vacancies in the UK

Active Directory Support
Top 5 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 Support within the UK over the 6 months to 16 September 2025. 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 -22 8 £536 -11.40% 2
London +32 7 £536 +94.91% 1
Work from Home +24 5 £536 -11.40% 1
South East -12 1 £605 - 2
UK excluding London -33 1 £605 - 2

Active Directory Support Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities

For the 6 months to 16 September 2025, Active Directory Support contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads featuring Active Directory Support in the job title.

1 8 (100.00%) Active Directory
2 6 (75.00%) Azure
2 6 (75.00%) Entra ID
3 5 (62.50%) Firewall
4 4 (50.00%) Finance
4 4 (50.00%) Cisco
4 4 (50.00%) WAN
4 4 (50.00%) Palo Alto
4 4 (50.00%) Network Management
4 4 (50.00%) Microsoft 365
4 4 (50.00%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 4 (50.00%) Social Skills
4 4 (50.00%) SD-WAN
5 3 (37.50%) Patch Management
5 3 (37.50%) Security Patching
5 3 (37.50%) SQL
5 3 (37.50%) Microsoft
6 2 (25.00%) Wi-Fi
6 2 (25.00%) PowerShell
6 2 (25.00%) Smartphone
6 2 (25.00%) HP
6 2 (25.00%) Windows
6 2 (25.00%) Vulnerability Management
6 2 (25.00%) Virtual Environments
6 2 (25.00%) Customer Service
7 1 (12.50%) Azure Storage
7 1 (12.50%) Multi-Factor Authentication
7 1 (12.50%) Virtual Machines
7 1 (12.50%) Virtual Desktop
7 1 (12.50%) Privileged Identity Management

Active Directory Support Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 1 (12.50%) Microsoft Exchange
Cloud Services
1 6 (75.00%) Azure
1 6 (75.00%) Entra ID
2 4 (50.00%) Microsoft 365
3 1 (12.50%) Azure Monitor
3 1 (12.50%) Azure Storage
Communications & Networking
1 5 (62.50%) Firewall
2 4 (50.00%) SD-WAN
2 4 (50.00%) WAN
3 2 (25.00%) Wi-Fi
4 1 (12.50%) DHCP
4 1 (12.50%) DNS
General
1 4 (50.00%) Finance
1 4 (50.00%) Social Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (12.50%) ARM Templates
Miscellaneous
1 2 (25.00%) Smartphone
2 1 (12.50%) PKI
2 1 (12.50%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 2 (25.00%) Windows
2 1 (12.50%) Linux
2 1 (12.50%) Windows Server
2 1 (12.50%) Windows Server 2016
2 1 (12.50%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 4 (50.00%) Infrastructure Engineering
1 4 (50.00%) Network Management
2 3 (37.50%) Patch Management
2 3 (37.50%) Security Patching
3 2 (25.00%) Customer Service
3 2 (25.00%) Virtual Environments
3 2 (25.00%) Vulnerability Management
4 1 (12.50%) Agile
4 1 (12.50%) Analytics
4 1 (12.50%) DevOps
4 1 (12.50%) Identity Management
4 1 (12.50%) Infrastructure as Code
4 1 (12.50%) ITIL
4 1 (12.50%) Log Analytics
4 1 (12.50%) Multi-Factor Authentication
4 1 (12.50%) Privileged Identity Management
4 1 (12.50%) Problem-Solving
4 1 (12.50%) RBAC
4 1 (12.50%) Release Management
4 1 (12.50%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 3 (37.50%) SQL
2 2 (25.00%) PowerShell
3 1 (12.50%) Bicep
3 1 (12.50%) C#
3 1 (12.50%) VB
3 1 (12.50%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1 (12.50%) Degree
1 1 (12.50%) DV Cleared
1 1 (12.50%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
1 1 (12.50%) SC Cleared
1 1 (12.50%) Security Cleared
System Software
1 8 (100.00%) Active Directory
2 1 (12.50%) Virtual Desktop
2 1 (12.50%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 1 (12.50%) Active Directory Federation Services
1 1 (12.50%) Kubernetes
1 1 (12.50%) Microsoft Intune
1 1 (12.50%) SCCM
1 1 (12.50%) SCOM
1 1 (12.50%) WSUS
Vendors
1 4 (50.00%) Cisco
1 4 (50.00%) Palo Alto
2 3 (37.50%) Microsoft
3 2 (25.00%) HP