Job Vacancy Trend Daily Rate Trend Daily Rate Histogram Hourly Rate Trend Hourly Rate Histogram Job Locations Skill Sets
Period
to 16 January 2021

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 16 January 2021 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

Note that daily and hourly rates are treated separately in these statistics. When calculating contractor rate percentiles, daily rates are never derived from quoted hourly rates or vice versa.

Microsoft Active Directory
UK
6 months to
16 Jan 2021		 Same period 2020 Same period 2019
Rank 34 20 33
Rank change year-on-year -14 +13 +3
Contract jobs citing Active Directory 2,183 5,289 6,124
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 5.37% 7.24% 6.16%
As % of the System Software category 36.17% 46.48% 40.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,684 3,467 3,881
Median daily rate £400 £350 £350
Median daily rate % change year-on-year +14.29% - +12.90%
10th Percentile £133 £128 £128
90th Percentile £575 £575 £538
UK excluding London median daily rate £350 £350 £350
% change year-on-year +0.07% - +16.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 207 543 680
Median hourly rate £15.25 £16.00 £15.50
Median hourly rate % change year-on-year -4.69% +3.23% +6.71%
10th Percentile £11.10 £11.17 £10.40
90th Percentile £62.05 £26.33 £34.03
UK excluding London median hourly rate £14.00 £15.86 £15.00
% change year-on-year -11.73% +5.73% +7.14%

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.

All System Software Skills
UK
Contract vacancies with a requirement for system software skills 6,035 11,378 15,216
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 14.84% 15.56% 15.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,094 7,662 10,152
Median daily rate £475 £450 £455
Median daily rate % change year-on-year +5.56% -1.10% +7.06%
10th Percentile £213 £163 £176
90th Percentile £650 £638 £638
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £413 £413
% change year-on-year +3.03% - +10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 257 634 800
Median hourly rate £17.75 £16.50 £16.00
Median hourly rate % change year-on-year +7.58% +3.13% -
10th Percentile £11.17 £11.25 £10.50
90th Percentile £61.25 £47.50 £43.91
Median hourly rate £16.00 £16.00 £15.50
% change year-on-year - +3.23% +3.33%

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 16 January 2021.

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 16 January 2021.

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 16 January 2021. 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
Job
Vacancies
England -16 1,749 £400 +14.14% 656
UK excluding London -6 1,305 £350 +0.07% 524
London -24 631 £450 +34.33% 174
Work from Home -21 428 £450 - 73
South East -6 364 £400 +8.11% 120
North of England -3 262 £338 -3.57% 164
Scotland +4 186 £434 +15.67% 26
Midlands -10 180 £325 +8.33% 101
South West -2 169 £350 - 50
North West 0 154 £350 - 84
West Midlands -13 108 £325 +1.56% 51
East of England -13 98 £253 -27.86% 39
Yorkshire -7 92 £344 -1.71% 62
East Midlands -4 71 £325 +13.04% 48
Wales -6 45 £155 -58.67% 13
North East -12 16 £263 -27.59% 18
Northern Ireland -3 8 - - 11

For the 6 months to 16 January 2021, IT contractor jobs citing Active Directory also mentioned the following skills in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads with a requirement for Active Directory.

1 1,465 (67.11%) Windows
2 1,134 (51.95%) Microsoft
3 791 (36.23%) Azure
4 755 (34.59%) Office 365
5 552 (25.29%) VMware
6 551 (25.24%) Windows 10
7 509 (23.32%) Windows Server
8 461 (21.12%) Security Cleared
9 415 (19.01%) PowerShell
10 397 (18.19%) SCCM
11 390 (17.87%) VMware Infrastructure
12 385 (17.64%) DNS
12 385 (17.64%) Azure Active Directory
13 325 (14.89%) SC Cleared
14 306 (14.02%) ITIL
15 301 (13.79%) Linux
16 294 (13.47%) Migration
17 285 (13.06%) Microsoft Office
18 280 (12.83%) DevOps
19 270 (12.37%) Infrastructure Engineering
19 270 (12.37%) Firewall
20 252 (11.54%) Citrix
21 247 (11.31%) SQL Server
22 242 (11.09%) SharePoint
23 232 (10.63%) Windows 7
24 229 (10.49%) Windows Server 2012
25 225 (10.31%) Cisco
26 220 (10.08%) Finance
27 216 (9.89%) DHCP
28 207 (9.48%) SQL

Active Directory
Co-occurring IT Skills by Category

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

Application Platforms
1 242 (11.09%) SharePoint
2 190 (8.70%) MS Exchange
3 100 (4.58%) IIS
4 92 (4.21%) Skype for Business
5 60 (2.75%) Exchange Server 2010
6 32 (1.47%) Exchange Server 2013
7 24 (1.10%) BizTalk Server
8 19 (0.87%) Confluence
9 15 (0.69%) Apache
10 14 (0.64%) ArcGIS
10 14 (0.64%) CMS
10 14 (0.64%) Exchange Server 2003
11 13 (0.60%) Exchange Server 2007
12 11 (0.50%) Elasticsearch
12 11 (0.50%) JBoss
13 10 (0.46%) WebSphere
14 9 (0.41%) OpenStack
15 8 (0.37%) nginx
15 8 (0.37%) Tomcat
16 7 (0.32%) Office Communications Server
Applications
1 285 (13.06%) Microsoft Office
2 69 (3.16%) Microsoft Excel
3 29 (1.33%) MS Visio
4 18 (0.82%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 14 (0.64%) Photoshop
6 13 (0.60%) Microsoft Project
7 4 (0.18%) CATIA
8 2 (0.092%) InfoPath
9 1 (0.046%) Acrobat
9 1 (0.046%) Spreadsheet
9 1 (0.046%) Stata
Business Applications
1 10 (0.46%) Dynamics CRM
2 5 (0.23%) Remedy ITSM
3 4 (0.18%) Dynamics AX
4 3 (0.14%) Infor M3
4 3 (0.14%) Payment Gateway
5 2 (0.092%) assyst
5 2 (0.092%) Sentinel
6 1 (0.046%) iTrent
6 1 (0.046%) Oracle EBS
6 1 (0.046%) Oracle EBS R12
6 1 (0.046%) Oracle Retail
6 1 (0.046%) Orchard Housing
6 1 (0.046%) ReMetrica
6 1 (0.046%) ResourceLink
6 1 (0.046%) SAP Hybris
6 1 (0.046%) SAP Oil and Gas
6 1 (0.046%) Towers Watson Igloo
Cloud Services
1 791 (36.23%) Azure
2 755 (34.59%) Office 365
3 385 (17.64%) Azure Active Directory
4 176 (8.06%) AWS
5 98 (4.49%) IaaS
6 88 (4.03%) PaaS
7 77 (3.53%) OneDrive
7 77 (3.53%) SaaS
8 51 (2.34%) Power Platform
9 23 (1.05%) GCP
10 22 (1.01%) Cloud Computing
11 21 (0.96%) OpenShift
12 20 (0.92%) GitHub
13 19 (0.87%) Serverless
14 17 (0.78%) Mimecast
14 17 (0.78%) PowerApps
15 16 (0.73%) Logic Apps
16 14 (0.64%) AWS CloudFormation
16 14 (0.64%) Azure ExpressRoute
16 14 (0.64%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 385 (17.64%) DNS
2 270 (12.37%) Firewall
3 216 (9.89%) DHCP
4 162 (7.42%) VPN
5 160 (7.33%) WAN
6 127 (5.82%) Skype
7 120 (5.50%) LAN
8 106 (4.86%) SAN
9 100 (4.58%) TCP/IP
10 62 (2.84%) Kerberos
11 57 (2.61%) Network Security
12 51 (2.34%) Wi-Fi
13 48 (2.20%) VSAN
13 48 (2.20%) Wireless
14 41 (1.88%) X.500
15 40 (1.83%) Internet
16 39 (1.79%) VoIP
17 38 (1.74%) SSL
18 36 (1.65%) VLAN
19 32 (1.47%) DMZ
Database & Business Intelligence
1 247 (11.31%) SQL Server
2 40 (1.83%) Azure SQL Database
3 32 (1.47%) Cosmos DB
4 27 (1.24%) Power BI
5 23 (1.05%) MySQL
6 20 (0.92%) Hadoop
7 14 (0.64%) Big Data
8 13 (0.60%) Amazon RDS
8 13 (0.60%) Relational Database
8 13 (0.60%) SQL Server 2012
9 10 (0.46%) DB2
9 10 (0.46%) GIS
9 10 (0.46%) SQL Server 2016
10 9 (0.41%) Data Lake
10 9 (0.41%) HBase
10 9 (0.41%) PostgreSQL
10 9 (0.41%) RDBMS
11 8 (0.37%) Apache Hive
11 8 (0.37%) MariaDB
11 8 (0.37%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 49 (2.24%) Jenkins
2 43 (1.97%) JIRA
3 42 (1.92%) Git (software)
4 19 (0.87%) MSI
5 17 (0.78%) Bitbucket
5 17 (0.78%) Visual Studio
6 16 (0.73%) ReSharper
7 15 (0.69%) Sonatype Nexus
8 12 (0.55%) TeamCity
9 10 (0.46%) Hudson
9 10 (0.46%) SonarQube
10 9 (0.41%) GitLab
10 9 (0.41%) Team Foundation Server
11 8 (0.37%) Subversion
12 7 (0.32%) Artifactory
12 7 (0.32%) InstallShield
13 6 (0.27%) Bitbucket Server
13 6 (0.27%) CA Release Automation
14 5 (0.23%) Postman
14 5 (0.23%) REST Assured
General
1 220 (10.08%) Finance
2 179 (8.20%) Public Sector
3 67 (3.07%) Banking
4 53 (2.43%) Telecoms
5 31 (1.42%) Manufacturing
6 29 (1.33%) Legal
6 29 (1.33%) Retail
7 25 (1.15%) Electronics
7 25 (1.15%) Marketing
8 15 (0.69%) Financial Institution
9 14 (0.64%) German Language
10 12 (0.55%) Investment Banking
10 12 (0.55%) Pharmaceutical
11 11 (0.50%) Back Office
12 10 (0.46%) Law
12 10 (0.46%) Publishing
13 9 (0.41%) French Language
14 8 (0.37%) Automotive
14 8 (0.37%) Local Government
14 8 (0.37%) Military
Job Titles
1 264 (12.09%) Analyst
2 209 (9.57%) Architect
3 208 (9.53%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 175 (8.02%) Support Engineer
5 157 (7.19%) Consultant
6 127 (5.82%) Service Analyst
7 117 (5.36%) Service Desk Analyst
8 107 (4.90%) Azure Engineer
9 103 (4.72%) Windows Engineer
10 96 (4.40%) Desktop Support
11 95 (4.35%) 2nd Line Support
12 90 (4.12%) IT Support
13 84 (3.85%) IT Engineer
14 76 (3.48%) Active Directory Engineer
14 76 (3.48%) DevOps Engineer
15 75 (3.44%) Desktop Engineer
16 71 (3.25%) Cloud Engineer
17 69 (3.16%) Support Analyst
18 68 (3.11%) Developer
19 64 (2.93%) VMware Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 131 (6.00%) LDAP
2 83 (3.80%) .NET
3 52 (2.38%) SailPoint
4 46 (2.11%) SAML
5 43 (1.97%) REST
6 40 (1.83%) Middleware
7 31 (1.42%) Web Services
8 23 (1.05%) ASP.NET
9 20 (0.92%) OAuth
10 19 (0.87%) .NET Framework
11 18 (0.82%) HTML
11 18 (0.82%) XML
12 17 (0.78%) .NET Core
12 17 (0.78%) OpenID
13 15 (0.69%) CSS
13 15 (0.69%) SOAP
14 14 (0.64%) RESTful
15 13 (0.60%) Software Packaging
16 12 (0.55%) Elastic Stack
17 11 (0.50%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 143 (6.55%) Data Centre
2 119 (5.45%) PKI
3 100 (4.58%) Analytical Skills
4 79 (3.62%) Replication
5 70 (3.21%) Management Information System
6 62 (2.84%) NHS
7 52 (2.38%) Clustering
8 46 (2.11%) Self-Motivation
9 37 (1.69%) Public Cloud
10 33 (1.51%) Video Conferencing
11 29 (1.33%) Private Cloud
12 26 (1.19%) Blackberry
13 25 (1.15%) Smartphone
14 23 (1.05%) Driving Licence
14 23 (1.05%) EMC VNX
14 23 (1.05%) Enterprise Software
15 21 (0.96%) Enterprise Cloud
15 21 (0.96%) Hybrid Cloud
16 20 (0.92%) CMDB
17 19 (0.87%) Smartcard
Operating Systems
1 1,465 (67.11%) Windows
2 551 (25.24%) Windows 10
3 509 (23.32%) Windows Server
4 301 (13.79%) Linux
5 232 (10.63%) Windows 7
6 229 (10.49%) Windows Server 2012
7 163 (7.47%) Windows Server 2016
8 142 (6.50%) Windows Server 2008
9 98 (4.49%) Unix
10 96 (4.40%) Windows Server 2019
11 82 (3.76%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 47 (2.15%) CentOS
13 44 (2.02%) Apple iOS
14 42 (1.92%) Windows XP
15 35 (1.60%) Android
16 32 (1.47%) Ubuntu
16 32 (1.47%) Windows Server 2003
17 29 (1.33%) Windows 8
18 28 (1.28%) Solaris
19 20 (0.92%) Windows Mobile
Processes & Methodologies
1 306 (14.02%) ITIL
2 294 (13.47%) Migration
3 280 (12.83%) DevOps
4 270 (12.37%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 160 (7.33%) Agile Software Development
6 156 (7.15%) Problem-Solving
7 131 (6.00%) Identity Management
8 108 (4.95%) Identity Access Management
9 88 (4.03%) Configuration Management
10 81 (3.71%) Cybersecurity
11 78 (3.57%) Change Management
12 74 (3.39%) Project Delivery
13 72 (3.30%) Disaster Recovery
13 72 (3.30%) Service Delivery
14 70 (3.21%) Service Management
15 69 (3.16%) Information Security
16 66 (3.02%) Incident Management
17 64 (2.93%) Scrum
18 63 (2.89%) Virtual Environments
19 62 (2.84%) High Availability
Programming Languages
1 415 (19.01%) PowerShell
2 207 (9.48%) SQL
3 96 (4.40%) Python
4 54 (2.47%) Bash Shell
5 51 (2.34%) C#
6 45 (2.06%) Java
7 38 (1.74%) JavaScript
8 34 (1.56%) C
9 33 (1.51%) VB
10 30 (1.37%) VBScript
11 27 (1.24%) Perl
12 18 (0.82%) Ruby
13 14 (0.64%) Shell Script
14 12 (0.55%) PHP
15 8 (0.37%) T-SQL
16 7 (0.32%) VB.NET
17 5 (0.23%) BeanShell
17 5 (0.23%) Java 8
17 5 (0.23%) MATLAB
18 4 (0.18%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 461 (21.12%) Security Cleared
2 325 (14.89%) SC Cleared
3 146 (6.69%) DV Cleared
4 138 (6.32%) Microsoft Certification
5 78 (3.57%) MCSE
6 53 (2.43%) Degree
7 48 (2.20%) Cisco Certification
8 37 (1.69%) CISSP
9 35 (1.60%) CCNA
9 35 (1.60%) DBS Check
10 32 (1.47%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 31 (1.42%) ITIL Certification
11 31 (1.42%) MCSA
12 19 (0.87%) MCP
13 18 (0.82%) Novell Certification
14 14 (0.64%) BPSS Clearance
15 11 (0.50%) CCNP
15 11 (0.50%) CISM
16 10 (0.46%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
17 7 (0.32%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 133 (6.09%) SLA
2 34 (1.56%) NIST
3 30 (1.37%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 18 (0.82%) QA
5 17 (0.78%) GDPR
6 15 (0.69%) COBIT
7 10 (0.46%) PCI DSS
8 9 (0.41%) NCSC
9 7 (0.32%) Data Quality
9 7 (0.32%) Government Security Classifications
10 6 (0.27%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 5 (0.23%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 4 (0.18%) Disclosure Scotland
12 4 (0.18%) ISO 9001
13 3 (0.14%) Cyber Essentials
13 3 (0.14%) GxP
13 3 (0.14%) ISO 31000
13 3 (0.14%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
14 2 (0.092%) ISO/IEC 20000
14 2 (0.092%) PMO
System Software
1 390 (17.87%) VMware Infrastructure
2 134 (6.14%) VMware ESXi
3 130 (5.96%) Hyper-V
4 102 (4.67%) vSphere
5 69 (3.16%) VMware NSX
6 65 (2.98%) Docker
7 62 (2.84%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
8 57 (2.61%) Microsoft App-V
8 57 (2.61%) Virtual Machines
9 45 (2.06%) XenApp
10 28 (1.28%) Virtual Desktop
11 22 (1.01%) XenDesktop
12 19 (0.87%) BitLocker
13 16 (0.73%) Firmware
13 16 (0.73%) NDS
13 16 (0.73%) NetIQ eDirectory
14 14 (0.64%) Terminal Services
15 11 (0.50%) HDFS
15 11 (0.50%) NFS
16 10 (0.46%) vCloud
Systems Management
1 397 (18.19%) SCCM
2 185 (8.47%) Microsoft Intune
3 115 (5.27%) Ansible
3 115 (5.27%) Terraform
4 84 (3.85%) Single Sign-On
5 81 (3.71%) vCenter Server
6 67 (3.07%) Kubernetes
7 58 (2.66%) WSUS
8 56 (2.57%) SCOM
9 46 (2.11%) Puppet
9 46 (2.11%) vRealize
10 40 (1.83%) Opscode Chef
11 38 (1.74%) Microsoft Clustering
12 22 (1.01%) IBM BigFix
13 21 (0.96%) PowerCLI
14 18 (0.82%) AirWatch
15 15 (0.69%) McAfee ePO
15 15 (0.69%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
16 14 (0.64%) Jamf Pro
17 13 (0.60%) NetIQ Identity Manager
Vendors
1 1,134 (51.95%) Microsoft
2 552 (25.29%) VMware
3 252 (11.54%) Citrix
4 225 (10.31%) Cisco
5 108 (4.95%) HP
6 99 (4.54%) Oracle
7 80 (3.66%) Dell
8 78 (3.57%) Red Hat
9 64 (2.93%) ServiceNow
10 62 (2.84%) EMC
10 62 (2.84%) Ivanti
11 55 (2.52%) SAP
12 48 (2.20%) Veeam
13 43 (1.97%) SolarWinds
14 41 (1.88%) Apple
15 37 (1.69%) CyberArk
15 37 (1.69%) McAfee
16 31 (1.42%) Symantec
17 30 (1.37%) Google
17 30 (1.37%) NetApp
731 Active Directory job vacancies Nationwide