Active Directory Contracts

Microsoft Active Directory
UK

The following table provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for Active Directory skills. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that have cited Active Directory over the 6 months to 27 April 2024 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
27 Apr 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 32 31 48
Rank change year-on-year -1 +17 -2
Contract jobs citing Active Directory 2,282 3,528 4,476
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 5.27% 5.90% 5.04%
As % of the System Software category 49.04% 44.66% 37.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,586 2,574 3,190
10th Percentile £160 £163 £150
25th Percentile £213 £225 £200
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £414 £425 £411
Median % change year-on-year -2.65% +3.32% +5.48%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £550
90th Percentile £675 £675 £638
UK excluding London median daily rate £384 £375 £288
% change year-on-year +2.33% +30.43% -11.54%
Number of hourly rates quoted 114 153 240
10th Percentile £14.00 £13.39 £12.87
25th Percentile £14.16 £15.50 £14.25
Median hourly rate £17.69 £20.00 £17.50
Median % change year-on-year -11.55% +14.29% +7.83%
75th Percentile £23.75 £54.00 £23.00
90th Percentile £40.00 £66.00 £37.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.00 £18.00 £17.25
% change year-on-year -5.56% +4.35% +13.11%

All System Software Skills
UK

Active Directory is in the System Software category. The following table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies with a requirement for system software skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for system software skills 4,653 7,900 12,040
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.75% 13.21% 13.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,179 5,646 8,623
10th Percentile £197 £205 £200
25th Percentile £331 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -7.14% - +9.38%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £625
90th Percentile £688 £725 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £460 £485 £450
% change year-on-year -5.13% +7.75% +7.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 232 284 318
10th Percentile £14.06 £14.83 £13.21
25th Percentile £15.50 £18.25 £15.00
Median hourly rate £22.50 £53.75 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year -58.14% +168.75% -
75th Percentile £60.19 £66.00 £44.07
90th Percentile £77.95 £75.35 £60.92
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.50 £44.93 £18.12
% change year-on-year -52.15% +148.01% +2.06%

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 27 April 2024.

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 27 April 2024.

Hourly rate histogram for Active Directory in the UK

Active Directory
Top 17 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 27 April 2024. 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 2,038 £410 -3.53% 958
UK excluding London -4 1,306 £384 +2.33% 794
London +10 844 £425 -8.94% 228
Work from Home 0 656 £465 -2.11% 299
South East +17 443 £480 +8.16% 203
North of England -7 273 £320 -1.54% 182
South West -10 176 £300 -36.84% 85
Midlands -4 153 £338 -10.00% 156
North West -15 140 £338 -3.57% 107
Scotland +13 134 £370 +23.33% 60
Yorkshire -2 110 £300 +6.67% 55
East of England -15 109 £265 -24.29% 102
West Midlands -3 98 £350 -7.89% 104
East Midlands -4 51 £233 -7.00% 52
North East +23 21 £208 -25.89% 24
Wales -10 18 £220 +18.92% 17
Northern Ireland -10 4 £438 +143.06% 9

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
1 506 (22.17%) Microsoft Exchange
2 209 (9.16%) SharePoint
3 64 (2.80%) IIS
4 52 (2.28%) Confluence
5 42 (1.84%) Skype for Business
6 32 (1.40%) Exchange Server 2010
7 29 (1.27%) Exchange Server 2013
8 18 (0.79%) CMS
9 15 (0.66%) Exchange Server 2007
10 11 (0.48%) Exchange Server 2003
11 10 (0.44%) Blackberry Enterprise Server
12 9 (0.39%) Apache
13 7 (0.31%) nginx
13 7 (0.31%) Tomcat
14 5 (0.22%) JBoss
15 3 (0.13%) OpenStack
15 3 (0.13%) SharePoint Server
15 3 (0.13%) WordPress
16 2 (0.088%) IBM Notes
17 1 (0.044%) IBM Domino
Applications
1 248 (10.87%) Microsoft Office
2 70 (3.07%) Microsoft Excel
3 30 (1.31%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.39%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.18%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.13%) Acrobat
7 2 (0.088%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 2 (0.088%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.044%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.044%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.044%) Trello
8 1 (0.044%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 11 (0.48%) Teamcenter
2 10 (0.44%) Remedy ITSM
3 8 (0.35%) Dynamics CRM
4 4 (0.18%) assyst
5 3 (0.13%) Dynamics GP
5 3 (0.13%) Sage X3
6 2 (0.088%) ION MarketView
6 2 (0.088%) SystmOne
7 1 (0.044%) BusinessWorks
7 1 (0.044%) Dynamics NAV
7 1 (0.044%) Oracle EBS
7 1 (0.044%) Oracle ERP
7 1 (0.044%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.044%) SAP S/4HANA
7 1 (0.044%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 940 (41.19%) Microsoft 365
2 923 (40.45%) Azure
3 524 (22.96%) Entra ID
4 208 (9.11%) AWS
5 129 (5.65%) Azure DevOps
6 100 (4.38%) OneDrive
7 87 (3.81%) Azure Monitor
8 85 (3.72%) Azure Cosmos DB
9 72 (3.16%) PaaS
10 64 (2.80%) Power Platform
11 62 (2.72%) IaaS
12 53 (2.32%) Azure Service Bus
13 45 (1.97%) SaaS
14 44 (1.93%) GitHub
15 40 (1.75%) Azure Storage
15 40 (1.75%) GCP
16 35 (1.53%) Dynamics 365
16 35 (1.53%) WhatsApp
17 33 (1.45%) Azure Sentinel
18 29 (1.27%) Mimecast
Communications & Networking
1 399 (17.48%) DNS
2 271 (11.88%) Firewall
3 255 (11.17%) DHCP
4 134 (5.87%) VPN
5 117 (5.13%) SAN
6 110 (4.82%) LAN
7 108 (4.73%) WAN
8 84 (3.68%) TCP/IP
9 70 (3.07%) Wi-Fi
10 59 (2.59%) SSL
10 59 (2.59%) Wireless
11 53 (2.32%) Skype
12 43 (1.88%) NAS
12 43 (1.88%) Network Security
13 39 (1.71%) VLAN
14 36 (1.58%) Remote Desktop
15 27 (1.18%) VoIP
16 26 (1.14%) MPLS
17 23 (1.01%) Kerberos
18 20 (0.88%) FTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 255 (11.17%) SQL Server
2 47 (2.06%) MySQL
3 33 (1.45%) Oracle Reports
4 29 (1.27%) Power BI
5 28 (1.23%) Amazon RDS
6 22 (0.96%) Azure SQL Database
7 20 (0.88%) Elasticsearch
8 18 (0.79%) Relational Database
9 17 (0.74%) NoSQL
10 16 (0.70%) Hadoop
11 15 (0.66%) Oracle Database
12 14 (0.61%) PostgreSQL
13 7 (0.31%) RDBMS
13 7 (0.31%) Redis
14 5 (0.22%) Data Lake
14 5 (0.22%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 4 (0.18%) Big Data
15 4 (0.18%) Metadata
16 3 (0.13%) SQL Server Analysis Services
16 3 (0.13%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 88 (3.86%) Git
2 81 (3.55%) JIRA
3 30 (1.31%) Jenkins
4 22 (0.96%) Selenium
4 22 (0.96%) Sonatype Nexus
5 21 (0.92%) TeamCity
6 17 (0.74%) Robot Framework
7 15 (0.66%) Visual Studio
8 12 (0.53%) SpecFlow
9 11 (0.48%) WebDriver
10 10 (0.44%) Bitbucket
10 10 (0.44%) Postman
10 10 (0.44%) SonarQube
11 9 (0.39%) GitLab
12 7 (0.31%) Hudson
13 5 (0.22%) Bitbucket Server
13 5 (0.22%) CA Release Automation
14 4 (0.18%) Fiddler
14 4 (0.18%) MSI
14 4 (0.18%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 623 (27.30%) Social Skills
2 273 (11.96%) Finance
3 235 (10.30%) Public Sector
4 139 (6.09%) Analytical Skills
5 89 (3.90%) Banking
6 60 (2.63%) Organisational Skills
7 58 (2.54%) Documentation Skills
8 53 (2.32%) Manufacturing
9 48 (2.10%) Legal
10 46 (2.02%) Telecoms
11 38 (1.67%) Financial Institution
12 35 (1.53%) Presentation Skills
13 33 (1.45%) Marketing
14 28 (1.23%) Retail
15 25 (1.10%) Law
16 22 (0.96%) Back Office
16 22 (0.96%) Electronics
17 21 (0.92%) French Language
18 19 (0.83%) Military
19 14 (0.61%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 289 (12.66%) Analyst
2 284 (12.45%) Support Engineer
3 254 (11.13%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 207 (9.07%) Senior
5 189 (8.28%) Architect
5 189 (8.28%) IT Support
6 133 (5.83%) IT Engineer
7 131 (5.74%) Service Analyst
8 127 (5.57%) Service Desk Analyst
9 126 (5.52%) Developer
10 112 (4.91%) 2nd Line Support
11 103 (4.51%) Desktop Support
12 83 (3.64%) Consultant
12 83 (3.64%) Desktop Engineer
13 82 (3.59%) Support Analyst
14 80 (3.51%) IT Support Engineer
15 76 (3.33%) Windows Engineer
16 72 (3.16%) 2nd Line Engineer
16 72 (3.16%) IT Analyst
17 70 (3.07%) Active Directory Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 130 (5.70%) .NET
2 121 (5.30%) LDAP
3 116 (5.08%) XML
4 99 (4.34%) Web Services
5 92 (4.03%) SailPoint
6 71 (3.11%) HTML
7 66 (2.89%) .NET Core
8 45 (1.97%) React
9 44 (1.93%) SOAP
10 42 (1.84%) JSP
10 42 (1.84%) SAML
10 42 (1.84%) Servlets
10 42 (1.84%) SPML
11 34 (1.49%) .NET Framework
12 33 (1.45%) CSS
13 31 (1.36%) AngularJS
14 29 (1.27%) JDBC
15 28 (1.23%) ASP.NET
16 27 (1.18%) ARM Templates
17 25 (1.10%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 179 (7.84%) PKI
2 98 (4.29%) Data Centre
3 77 (3.37%) Onboarding
4 75 (3.29%) Replication
5 61 (2.67%) Clustering
5 61 (2.67%) Management Information System
5 61 (2.67%) Product Ownership
6 53 (2.32%) Video Conferencing
7 50 (2.19%) Self-Motivation
8 37 (1.62%) iPhone
9 29 (1.27%) Driving Licence
10 25 (1.10%) iPad
11 24 (1.05%) Data Protection Act
12 22 (0.96%) Smartphone
13 21 (0.92%) CMDB
13 21 (0.92%) Linux Command Line
13 21 (0.92%) Public Cloud
14 19 (0.83%) NHS
15 17 (0.74%) Mobile App
16 16 (0.70%) Mainframe
Operating Systems
1 1,429 (62.62%) Windows
2 594 (26.03%) Windows Server
3 508 (22.26%) Windows 10
4 251 (11.00%) Linux
5 199 (8.72%) Windows Server 2012
6 180 (7.89%) Windows Server 2016
7 173 (7.58%) Windows Server 2019
8 100 (4.38%) Apple iOS
9 93 (4.08%) Windows 7
10 67 (2.94%) Android
11 62 (2.72%) Windows Server 2008
12 60 (2.63%) Mac OS
13 52 (2.28%) Unix
14 43 (1.88%) Ubuntu
15 40 (1.75%) VMS
16 33 (1.45%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
17 28 (1.23%) Windows Server 2003
18 21 (0.92%) Windows NT
19 19 (0.83%) Mac OS X
20 16 (0.70%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 346 (15.16%) Customer Service
2 340 (14.90%) ITIL
3 304 (13.32%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 295 (12.93%) Problem-Solving
5 281 (12.31%) Migration
6 246 (10.78%) Agile
7 233 (10.21%) DevOps
8 158 (6.92%) CI/CD
9 123 (5.39%) RBAC
10 115 (5.04%) Identity Access Management
11 114 (5.00%) Cybersecurity
12 113 (4.95%) Service Management
13 105 (4.60%) Disaster Recovery
14 103 (4.51%) Mobile Device Management
15 86 (3.77%) Scrum
15 86 (3.77%) Service Delivery
16 80 (3.51%) Change Management
17 77 (3.37%) Project Delivery
18 76 (3.33%) ITSM
19 73 (3.20%) High Availability
Programming Languages
1 470 (20.60%) PowerShell
2 212 (9.29%) SQL
3 121 (5.30%) C#
4 113 (4.95%) Python
5 84 (3.68%) JavaScript
6 76 (3.33%) Bicep
7 70 (3.07%) Java
8 27 (1.18%) Bash
8 27 (1.18%) TypeScript
9 24 (1.05%) VB
9 24 (1.05%) VBScript
10 11 (0.48%) MATLAB
10 11 (0.48%) PL/SQL
11 10 (0.44%) C
11 10 (0.44%) C++
11 10 (0.44%) R
12 8 (0.35%) Go
13 7 (0.31%) Perl
13 7 (0.31%) PHP
14 5 (0.22%) VBA
Qualifications
1 522 (22.87%) Security Cleared
2 320 (14.02%) SC Cleared
3 290 (12.71%) Degree
4 225 (9.86%) DV Cleared
5 141 (6.18%) Microsoft Certification
6 53 (2.32%) MCSE
7 49 (2.15%) Azure Certification
8 48 (2.10%) MCSA
9 46 (2.02%) Cisco Certification
10 42 (1.84%) CCNA
11 39 (1.71%) ITIL Certification
12 34 (1.49%) A+ Certification
13 32 (1.40%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 29 (1.27%) Computer Science Degree
15 25 (1.10%) BPSS Clearance
15 25 (1.10%) DBS Check
16 22 (0.96%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
17 21 (0.92%) CCNP
18 20 (0.88%) AWS Certification
18 20 (0.88%) MCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 109 (4.78%) SLA
2 55 (2.41%) QA
3 21 (0.92%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 19 (0.83%) GDPR
4 19 (0.83%) NIST
5 15 (0.66%) Accessibility
5 15 (0.66%) WCAG
6 11 (0.48%) Disclosure Scotland
6 11 (0.48%) PCI DSS
6 11 (0.48%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 9 (0.39%) ISO 9001
8 7 (0.31%) RMADS
9 6 (0.26%) Cyber Essentials
10 5 (0.22%) ISO/IEC 20000
11 4 (0.18%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 4 (0.18%) GRC
12 2 (0.088%) Data Quality
12 2 (0.088%) PMO
13 1 (0.044%) COBIT
13 1 (0.044%) JSP 440
System Software
1 306 (13.41%) VMware Infrastructure
2 129 (5.65%) Hyper-V
3 85 (3.72%) Virtual Machines
4 76 (3.33%) VMware ESXi
5 57 (2.50%) vSphere
6 51 (2.23%) Virtual Desktop
7 42 (1.84%) IAG
8 41 (1.80%) ACF2
8 41 (1.80%) Docker
8 41 (1.80%) RACF
9 37 (1.62%) XenApp
10 36 (1.58%) Firmware
11 25 (1.10%) VMware NSX
12 23 (1.01%) VMware Workstation
13 21 (0.92%) NFS
14 20 (0.88%) XenDesktop
15 19 (0.83%) BitLocker
15 19 (0.83%) Virtual Servers
16 16 (0.70%) HDFS
17 13 (0.57%) KVM
Systems Management
1 411 (18.01%) SCCM
2 272 (11.92%) Microsoft Intune
3 104 (4.56%) Active Directory Federation Services
4 102 (4.47%) WSUS
5 73 (3.20%) Single Sign-On
6 70 (3.07%) Terraform
7 68 (2.98%) Kubernetes
7 68 (2.98%) SCOM
8 59 (2.59%) Ansible
8 59 (2.59%) vCenter Server
9 50 (2.19%) Jamf Pro
10 25 (1.10%) EMC NetWorker
10 25 (1.10%) NetBackup
11 21 (0.92%) Sysprep
12 18 (0.79%) Kibana
12 18 (0.79%) Microsoft Clustering
13 15 (0.66%) Failover Clustering
14 13 (0.57%) Tivoli
15 12 (0.53%) Nessus
16 11 (0.48%) Netcool
Vendors
1 1,172 (51.36%) Microsoft
2 454 (19.89%) VMware
3 213 (9.33%) Citrix
4 208 (9.11%) ServiceNow
5 117 (5.13%) Cisco
6 116 (5.08%) Apple
7 114 (5.00%) Oracle
8 75 (3.29%) Dell
9 74 (3.24%) HP
10 72 (3.16%) Veeam
11 67 (2.94%) CyberArk
12 51 (2.23%) SAP
13 47 (2.06%) EMC
13 47 (2.06%) Red Hat
14 41 (1.80%) Okta
15 35 (1.53%) Isilon
16 30 (1.31%) Palo Alto
17 29 (1.27%) Sybase
18 27 (1.18%) CA
18 27 (1.18%) SolarWinds