Active Directory Contracts

Microsoft Active Directory
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring Active Directory skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Active Directory over the 6 months leading up to 3 April 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Apr 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 35 32 31
Rank change year-on-year -3 -1 +16
Contract jobs citing Active Directory 1,585 2,310 3,742
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 5.45% 5.23% 5.99%
As % of the System Software category 41.74% 48.25% 44.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,072 1,597 2,716
10th Percentile £180 £158 £161
25th Percentile £230 £210 £225
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £400 £425
Median % change year-on-year +12.50% -5.88% +4.94%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £575
90th Percentile £675 £679 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £375 £375
% change year-on-year +13.33% - +36.36%
Number of hourly rates quoted 59 108 194
10th Percentile £15.07 £14.00 £13.13
25th Percentile £18.13 £14.48 £15.25
Median hourly rate £23.59 £17.71 £18.50
Median % change year-on-year +33.24% -4.30% +7.25%
75th Percentile £33.88 £24.06 £51.45
90th Percentile £64.80 £40.00 £67.05
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.46 £17.50 £17.50
% change year-on-year +22.63% - +6.87%

All System Software Skills
UK

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.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for system software skills 3,797 4,788 8,445
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 13.05% 10.84% 13.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,589 3,253 6,033
10th Percentile £213 £192 £205
25th Percentile £400 £325 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £485 £525
Median % change year-on-year +8.25% -7.62% -
75th Percentile £623 £600 £638
90th Percentile £700 £690 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £476 £460 £480
% change year-on-year +3.48% -4.07% +9.60%
Number of hourly rates quoted 93 224 323
10th Percentile £15.24 £14.06 £14.25
25th Percentile £21.46 £15.61 £17.49
Median hourly rate £29.00 £23.75 £49.50
Median % change year-on-year +22.11% -52.02% +164.00%
75th Percentile £66.00 £60.75 £66.00
90th Percentile £87.65 £70.66 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.50 £22.50 £26.99
% change year-on-year +66.67% -16.64% +54.23%

Active Directory
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Active Directory as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Active Directory in the UK

Active Directory
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Active Directory.

Daily rate trend for Active Directory in the UK

Active Directory
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Active Directory over the 6 months to 3 April 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Active Directory in the UK

Active Directory
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Active Directory.

Hourly rate trend for Active Directory in the UK

Active Directory
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Active Directory over the 6 months to 3 April 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Active Directory in the UK

Active Directory
Top 18 Contract Locations

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 UK over the 6 months to 3 April 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 -1 1,360 £450 +12.50% 1,105
UK excluding London 0 961 £425 +13.33% 717
London -18 483 £500 +25.00% 477
Work from Home -6 427 £480 +3.51% 473
North of England +4 258 £350 +15.89% 164
South East -6 228 £531 +11.79% 206
North West +8 154 £350 - 79
South West +5 143 £450 +38.46% 80
Midlands +1 130 £425 +25.93% 143
West Midlands +5 102 £425 +17.24% 65
East of England +17 97 £375 +36.36% 92
Scotland -5 94 £438 -2.78% 33
Yorkshire +5 87 £400 +33.33% 62
East Midlands -2 28 £450 +104.55% 78
Wales +11 25 £400 +100.00% 25
North East -10 16 £263 +38.16% 31
Northern Ireland -2 7 £160 -62.35% 8
Channel Islands - 2 £298 - 1

Active Directory
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
1 341 (21.51%) Microsoft Exchange
2 233 (14.70%) SharePoint
3 44 (2.78%) IIS
4 31 (1.96%) Skype for Business
5 29 (1.83%) Confluence
6 18 (1.14%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 16 (1.01%) WebSphere
8 14 (0.88%) JBoss
9 12 (0.76%) Blackberry Enterprise Server
10 10 (0.63%) Exchange Server 2013
11 8 (0.50%) Exchange Server 2010
12 6 (0.38%) Apache
13 5 (0.32%) Exchange Server 2003
13 5 (0.32%) Exchange Server 2007
13 5 (0.32%) SharePoint Server
13 5 (0.32%) Tomcat
14 4 (0.25%) BizTalk Server
14 4 (0.25%) nginx
15 3 (0.19%) CMS
15 3 (0.19%) WebLogic
Applications
1 187 (11.80%) Microsoft Office
2 58 (3.66%) Microsoft Excel
3 39 (2.46%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 32 (2.02%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.13%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.063%) Acrobat
6 1 (0.063%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 1 (0.063%) CANalyzer
6 1 (0.063%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.063%) Final Cut Pro
6 1 (0.063%) QuarkXPress
Business Applications
1 8 (0.50%) Dynamics CRM
2 7 (0.44%) Remedy ITSM
3 5 (0.32%) Dynamics GP
4 3 (0.19%) SAP S/4HANA
5 2 (0.13%) assyst
5 2 (0.13%) Oracle EBS
5 2 (0.13%) SAP MM
6 1 (0.063%) Fidessa
Cloud Services
1 644 (40.63%) Azure
2 631 (39.81%) Microsoft 365
3 473 (29.84%) Entra ID
4 127 (8.01%) AWS
5 112 (7.07%) OneDrive
6 75 (4.73%) IaaS
7 60 (3.79%) SaaS
8 46 (2.90%) PaaS
8 46 (2.90%) Power Platform
9 45 (2.84%) GCP
10 35 (2.21%) Azure DevOps
11 30 (1.89%) Serverless
12 28 (1.77%) GitHub
13 24 (1.51%) Azure Monitor
13 24 (1.51%) Google Workspace
14 23 (1.45%) Power Automate
15 20 (1.26%) Nutanix
16 19 (1.20%) Azure Functions
16 19 (1.20%) Azure Logic Apps
17 18 (1.14%) Cloud Computing
Communications & Networking
1 304 (19.18%) DNS
2 212 (13.38%) DHCP
3 202 (12.74%) Firewall
4 183 (11.55%) VPN
5 94 (5.93%) Wi-Fi
6 71 (4.48%) SMTP
7 69 (4.35%) Network Security
8 65 (4.10%) LAN
9 63 (3.97%) TCP/IP
10 60 (3.79%) WAN
11 46 (2.90%) Skype
12 41 (2.59%) SAN
13 39 (2.46%) SSL
14 38 (2.40%) VLAN
15 36 (2.27%) Remote Desktop
16 23 (1.45%) VoIP
17 21 (1.32%) HTTP
18 19 (1.20%) Cisco ISE
19 17 (1.07%) Wireless
20 15 (0.95%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 101 (6.37%) SQL Server
2 33 (2.08%) Relational Database
3 27 (1.70%) Oracle Database
4 22 (1.39%) RDBMS
5 20 (1.26%) Elasticsearch
6 16 (1.01%) Amazon RDS
7 15 (0.95%) DB2
8 12 (0.76%) Azure SQL Database
9 11 (0.69%) NoSQL
10 9 (0.57%) Power BI
11 8 (0.50%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 7 (0.44%) Big Data
13 5 (0.32%) MongoDB
13 5 (0.32%) MySQL
13 5 (0.32%) PostgreSQL
14 4 (0.25%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 3 (0.19%) BigQuery
15 3 (0.19%) Neo4j
16 2 (0.13%) IDMS
16 2 (0.13%) Sybase ASE
Development Applications
1 65 (4.10%) JIRA
2 38 (2.40%) Git
3 23 (1.45%) Jenkins
4 15 (0.95%) GitLab
4 15 (0.95%) SonarQube
4 15 (0.95%) TeamCity
5 14 (0.88%) Sonatype Nexus
6 12 (0.76%) MSI
7 10 (0.63%) Bitbucket Server
7 10 (0.63%) CA Release Automation
8 9 (0.57%) Selenium
9 8 (0.50%) Bitbucket
10 4 (0.25%) Subversion
11 3 (0.19%) Hudson
11 3 (0.19%) JUnit
11 3 (0.19%) Oracle Forms
12 2 (0.13%) Maven
13 1 (0.063%) Moq
13 1 (0.063%) Serena SBM
13 1 (0.063%) Visual Studio
General
1 489 (30.85%) Social Skills
2 208 (13.12%) Finance
3 166 (10.47%) Public Sector
4 137 (8.64%) Analytical Skills
5 57 (3.60%) Telecoms
6 54 (3.41%) Legal
7 49 (3.09%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 43 (2.71%) Banking
9 41 (2.59%) Manufacturing
10 38 (2.40%) Marketing
11 35 (2.21%) Electronics
12 28 (1.77%) Documentation Skills
13 20 (1.26%) Law
14 16 (1.01%) Local Government
15 15 (0.95%) Retail
16 12 (0.76%) Military
17 9 (0.57%) Investment Banking
18 8 (0.50%) Pharmaceutical
19 7 (0.44%) Organisational Skills
20 6 (0.38%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 216 (13.63%) Support Engineer
2 209 (13.19%) Analyst
3 188 (11.86%) Architect
4 176 (11.10%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 111 (7.00%) Service Analyst
6 110 (6.94%) Service Desk Analyst
7 101 (6.37%) Senior
8 91 (5.74%) IT Support
9 86 (5.43%) 2nd Line Support
10 85 (5.36%) Desktop Engineer
11 84 (5.30%) IT Engineer
12 81 (5.11%) Desktop Support
13 63 (3.97%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
14 62 (3.91%) Desktop Support Engineer
15 56 (3.53%) Developer
16 53 (3.34%) 2nd Line Engineer
17 51 (3.22%) IT Support Engineer
17 51 (3.22%) Support Analyst
18 48 (3.03%) Azure Engineer
19 47 (2.97%) Windows Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 67 (4.23%) LDAP
2 51 (3.22%) SAML
3 44 (2.78%) OAuth
3 44 (2.78%) REST
3 44 (2.78%) SailPoint
4 40 (2.52%) .NET
5 29 (1.83%) Middleware
6 27 (1.70%) OpenID
7 23 (1.45%) React
8 21 (1.32%) AngularJS
8 21 (1.32%) Microsoft Graph
9 19 (1.20%) HTML
10 18 (1.14%) Web Services
11 16 (1.01%) SOAP
12 14 (0.88%) JSON
13 13 (0.82%) CSS
13 13 (0.82%) Spring Boot
14 12 (0.76%) ASP.NET
15 11 (0.69%) OAuth2
15 11 (0.69%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 107 (6.75%) PKI
2 85 (5.36%) Onboarding
3 63 (3.97%) Clustering
4 60 (3.79%) Data Centre
5 49 (3.09%) Management Information System
6 45 (2.84%) Video Conferencing
7 43 (2.71%) Self-Motivation
8 39 (2.46%) Hybrid Cloud
9 28 (1.77%) Security Posture
10 24 (1.51%) Product Ownership
11 23 (1.45%) Linux Command Line
11 23 (1.45%) Replication
12 22 (1.39%) Driving Licence
13 20 (1.26%) Data Protection Act
14 18 (1.14%) Enterprise Software
14 18 (1.14%) iPhone
14 18 (1.14%) NHS
15 17 (1.07%) iPad
16 16 (1.01%) Blackberry
17 14 (0.88%) Cloud Native
Operating Systems
1 1,007 (63.53%) Windows
2 422 (26.62%) Windows Server
3 335 (21.14%) Windows 10
4 188 (11.86%) Linux
5 84 (5.30%) Windows Server 2012
6 77 (4.86%) Windows Server 2016
7 57 (3.60%) Apple iOS
8 54 (3.41%) Windows Server 2019
9 49 (3.09%) Android
10 48 (3.03%) Unix
11 36 (2.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 35 (2.21%) Windows 7
13 30 (1.89%) Mac OS
14 27 (1.70%) Windows Server 2003
15 22 (1.39%) Windows Server 2008
16 21 (1.32%) VMS
17 8 (0.50%) CentOS
18 6 (0.38%) Solaris
19 5 (0.32%) Windows XP
20 4 (0.25%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 357 (22.52%) Problem-Solving
2 295 (18.61%) ITIL
3 274 (17.29%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 244 (15.39%) Customer Service
5 196 (12.37%) Migration
6 186 (11.74%) Agile
7 162 (10.22%) Identity Access Management
8 138 (8.71%) ITSM
9 133 (8.39%) DevOps
10 103 (6.50%) RBAC
11 99 (6.25%) Cybersecurity
12 95 (5.99%) Incident Management
13 88 (5.55%) Identity Management
14 84 (5.30%) Project Delivery
15 81 (5.11%) Service Delivery
16 77 (4.86%) Service Management
17 72 (4.54%) High Availability
18 71 (4.48%) Roadmaps
19 69 (4.35%) Multi-Factor Authentication
19 69 (4.35%) Privileged Access Management
Programming Languages
1 411 (25.93%) PowerShell
2 155 (9.78%) SQL
3 96 (6.06%) Python
4 43 (2.71%) JavaScript
5 42 (2.65%) Bash
6 41 (2.59%) C#
7 37 (2.33%) Java
8 32 (2.02%) Perl
9 22 (1.39%) PL/SQL
10 17 (1.07%) Shell Script
11 10 (0.63%) Bicep
11 10 (0.63%) Ruby
12 8 (0.50%) VBScript
13 6 (0.38%) T-SQL
14 5 (0.32%) BeanShell
14 5 (0.32%) VB
15 3 (0.19%) C
15 3 (0.19%) TypeScript
15 3 (0.19%) VBA
16 2 (0.13%) C++
Qualifications
1 439 (27.70%) Security Cleared
2 258 (16.28%) SC Cleared
3 179 (11.29%) DV Cleared
4 145 (9.15%) Degree
5 113 (7.13%) Microsoft Certification
6 57 (3.60%) Azure Certification
7 47 (2.97%) A+ Certification
8 36 (2.27%) Cisco Certification
9 29 (1.83%) CISSP
9 29 (1.83%) ITIL Certification
10 27 (1.70%) MCSA
11 25 (1.58%) MCSE
12 20 (1.26%) Computer Science Degree
13 19 (1.20%) CISM
14 18 (1.14%) AWS Certification
14 18 (1.14%) DBS Check
15 16 (1.01%) CCNA
16 12 (0.76%) MCP
17 10 (0.63%) Network+ Certification
18 9 (0.57%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 62 (3.91%) SLA
2 40 (2.52%) GDPR
3 24 (1.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 24 (1.51%) Sarbanes-Oxley
4 22 (1.39%) QA
5 20 (1.26%) NIST
6 17 (1.07%) HIPAA
7 10 (0.63%) PCI DSS
8 9 (0.57%) NCSC
9 8 (0.50%) SOC 2
10 7 (0.44%) GxP
10 7 (0.44%) PMO
11 6 (0.38%) Data Quality
11 6 (0.38%) Disclosure Scotland
12 4 (0.25%) Government Security Classifications
13 3 (0.19%) Cyber Essentials
13 3 (0.19%) GRC
14 2 (0.13%) Accessibility
14 2 (0.13%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 1 (0.063%) NIST 800
System Software
1 216 (13.63%) VMware Infrastructure
2 120 (7.57%) Hyper-V
3 99 (6.25%) VMware ESXi
4 61 (3.85%) Microsoft App-V
4 61 (3.85%) Virtual Machines
5 60 (3.79%) vSphere
6 56 (3.53%) BitLocker
7 37 (2.33%) Terminal Services
8 35 (2.21%) Docker
9 30 (1.89%) Virtual Desktop
10 22 (1.39%) VMware NSX
11 14 (0.88%) Virtual Servers
11 14 (0.88%) XenApp
11 14 (0.88%) XenDesktop
12 10 (0.63%) NFS
13 9 (0.57%) Firmware
13 9 (0.57%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 5 (0.32%) VMware Workstation
15 4 (0.25%) DFS Replication
16 3 (0.19%) Brightmail
Systems Management
1 277 (17.48%) Microsoft Intune
2 227 (14.32%) SCCM
3 89 (5.62%) Single Sign-On
4 83 (5.24%) vCenter Server
5 73 (4.61%) WSUS
6 68 (4.29%) Ansible
7 58 (3.66%) Terraform
8 52 (3.28%) Kubernetes
9 38 (2.40%) vMotion
10 34 (2.15%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 19 (1.20%) Progress Chef
12 18 (1.14%) Microsoft Clustering
13 16 (1.01%) Puppet
14 15 (0.95%) Jamf Pro
15 14 (0.88%) AppManager
16 13 (0.82%) SCOM
17 12 (0.76%) Kibana
18 9 (0.57%) AirWatch
18 9 (0.57%) vRealize
19 7 (0.44%) Failover Clustering
Vendors
1 916 (57.79%) Microsoft
2 353 (22.27%) VMware
3 145 (9.15%) ServiceNow
4 127 (8.01%) Citrix
5 114 (7.19%) Cisco
6 71 (4.48%) Oracle
7 68 (4.29%) CyberArk
8 50 (3.15%) SAP
9 47 (2.97%) Dell
9 47 (2.97%) Google
10 38 (2.40%) HP
11 37 (2.33%) Apple
12 34 (2.15%) Red Hat
13 26 (1.64%) SolarWinds
14 23 (1.45%) Meraki
15 22 (1.39%) Veeam
16 21 (1.32%) McAfee
16 21 (1.32%) Okta
16 21 (1.32%) Splunk
16 21 (1.32%) Zscaler