Active Directory Contracts with Hybrid/Remote/WFH Options

Microsoft Active Directory
UK > Work from Home

The table below provides summary statistics for remote or hybrid contract work 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 12 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 58 42 41
Rank change year-on-year -16 -1 +28
Contract jobs citing Active Directory 370 644 1,281
As % of all contract jobs with a WFH option 3.75% 4.28% 5.12%
As % of the System Software category 31.95% 44.72% 41.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 278 467 947
10th Percentile £225 £178 £200
25th Percentile £388 £319 £305
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £494 £475 £470
Median % change year-on-year +3.95% +1.06% +4.44%
75th Percentile £600 £608 £575
90th Percentile £661 £688 £694
UK median daily rate £450 £425 £425
% change year-on-year +5.88% - +6.25%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 15 37
10th Percentile - - £14.75
25th Percentile £61.50 £15.50 £19.00
Median hourly rate £64.50 £16.00 £54.00
Median % change year-on-year +303.13% -70.37% +151.16%
75th Percentile £66.00 £18.91 £66.00
90th Percentile - £21.85 £79.00
UK median hourly rate £20.73 £17.60 £20.00
% change year-on-year +17.82% -12.03% +14.29%

All System Software Skills
Work from Home

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 with remote or hybrid options requiring system software skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for system software skills 1,158 1,440 3,100
As % of all contract jobs with a WFH option 11.74% 9.57% 12.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 853 1,062 2,220
10th Percentile £359 £271 £300
25th Percentile £425 £405 £415
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £503 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.35% -4.17% -
75th Percentile £625 £619 £631
90th Percentile £775 £683 £715
UK median daily rate £513 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 34 102
10th Percentile £25.25 £15.50 £18.13
25th Percentile £61.50 £15.88 £47.50
Median hourly rate £65.50 £43.32 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +51.20% -33.35% +165.31%
75th Percentile £85.88 £65.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £92.50 £85.00 £77.95
UK median hourly rate £28.00 £22.50 £54.00
% change year-on-year +24.44% -58.33% +170.00%

Active Directory
Trend for Jobs with a WFH Option

Job vacancies with remote working options citing Active Directory as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Active Directory trend for jobs with Hybrid/Remote/WFH options

Active Directory
Daily Rate Trend for Jobs with a WFH Option

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in job vacancies with remote working options citing Active Directory.

Active Directory daily rate for jobs with a WFH option

Active Directory
Daily Rate Histogram for Jobs with a WFH Option

Daily rate distribution for jobs with remote working options citing Active Directory over the 6 months to 12 May 2025.

Active Directory daily rate histogram for jobs with a WFH option

Active Directory
Hourly Rate Trend for Jobs with a WFH Option

3-month moving average hourly rate quoted in job vacancies with remote working options citing Active Directory.

Active Directory hourly rate for jobs with a WFH option

Active Directory
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities with WFH Options 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 68 (18.38%) Microsoft Exchange
2 65 (17.57%) SharePoint
3 10 (2.70%) Confluence
3 10 (2.70%) IIS
4 7 (1.89%) Skype for Business
5 6 (1.62%) JBoss
5 6 (1.62%) WebSphere
6 3 (0.81%) Tomcat
7 1 (0.27%) Apache
7 1 (0.27%) BizTalk Server
7 1 (0.27%) Blackberry Enterprise Server
7 1 (0.27%) CMS
7 1 (0.27%) Exchange Server 2013
Applications
1 33 (8.92%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (1.35%) MS Visio
3 4 (1.08%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (1.08%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.27%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 6 (1.62%) Dynamics CRM
2 3 (0.81%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (0.54%) Remedy ITSM
3 2 (0.54%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 203 (54.86%) Azure
2 155 (41.89%) Entra ID
3 126 (34.05%) Microsoft 365
4 40 (10.81%) AWS
5 29 (7.84%) SaaS
6 21 (5.68%) IaaS
7 18 (4.86%) OneDrive
8 16 (4.32%) GCP
9 13 (3.51%) Power Platform
10 12 (3.24%) Azure DevOps
11 10 (2.70%) PaaS
12 9 (2.43%) Asana
12 9 (2.43%) Slack
13 8 (2.16%) Amazon EC2
13 8 (2.16%) GitHub
14 7 (1.89%) Azure Logic Apps
14 7 (1.89%) Azure Sentinel
14 7 (1.89%) Serverless
15 6 (1.62%) Azure Service Bus
15 6 (1.62%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 76 (20.54%) DNS
2 58 (15.68%) DHCP
3 43 (11.62%) Firewall
4 25 (6.76%) VPN
5 16 (4.32%) Skype
6 15 (4.05%) Network Security
6 15 (4.05%) WAN
7 13 (3.51%) LAN
7 13 (3.51%) SMTP
8 12 (3.24%) Wi-Fi
9 10 (2.70%) Remote Desktop
10 9 (2.43%) TCP/IP
11 8 (2.16%) Cisco ISE
11 8 (2.16%) SAN
11 8 (2.16%) Wireless
12 7 (1.89%) SSL
13 6 (1.62%) Internet
13 6 (1.62%) Intrusion Detection
14 5 (1.35%) NAS
14 5 (1.35%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 33 (8.92%) SQL Server
2 10 (2.70%) Relational Database
3 8 (2.16%) Oracle Database
4 6 (1.62%) DB2
4 6 (1.62%) Elasticsearch
5 5 (1.35%) Azure SQL Database
5 5 (1.35%) Power BI
6 4 (1.08%) RDBMS
7 3 (0.81%) Amazon RDS
7 3 (0.81%) BigQuery
7 3 (0.81%) Neo4j
7 3 (0.81%) PostgreSQL
7 3 (0.81%) Redis
7 3 (0.81%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 2 (0.54%) IDMS
9 1 (0.27%) MongoDB
9 1 (0.27%) NoSQL
9 1 (0.27%) Sybase ASE
Development Applications
1 23 (6.22%) JIRA
2 10 (2.70%) Git
3 6 (1.62%) SonarQube
4 4 (1.08%) Jenkins
4 4 (1.08%) TeamCity
5 3 (0.81%) Bitbucket Server
5 3 (0.81%) CA Release Automation
5 3 (0.81%) JUnit
5 3 (0.81%) MSI
5 3 (0.81%) Oracle Forms
5 3 (0.81%) Selenium
5 3 (0.81%) Sonatype Nexus
6 1 (0.27%) GitLab
6 1 (0.27%) Moq
6 1 (0.27%) Snyk
General
1 108 (29.19%) Social Skills
2 71 (19.19%) Finance
3 30 (8.11%) Public Sector
4 25 (6.76%) Analytical Skills
5 12 (3.24%) Telecoms
6 9 (2.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 8 (2.16%) Documentation Skills
8 7 (1.89%) Banking
9 4 (1.08%) Retail
10 3 (0.81%) Electronics
10 3 (0.81%) German Language
10 3 (0.81%) Law
10 3 (0.81%) Legal
10 3 (0.81%) Local Government
10 3 (0.81%) Manufacturing
10 3 (0.81%) Marketing
10 3 (0.81%) Organisational Skills
11 2 (0.54%) Influencing Skills
11 2 (0.54%) Italian Language
12 1 (0.27%) French Language
Job Titles
1 58 (15.68%) Architect
2 36 (9.73%) Analyst
3 35 (9.46%) Support Engineer
4 33 (8.92%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 29 (7.84%) Senior
6 26 (7.03%) IT Support
7 24 (6.49%) Developer
8 21 (5.68%) IT Engineer
9 20 (5.41%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
10 19 (5.14%) Lead
11 17 (4.59%) Consultant
11 17 (4.59%) Service Analyst
12 16 (4.32%) IT Support Engineer
12 16 (4.32%) Service Desk Analyst
13 15 (4.05%) Azure Engineer
14 14 (3.78%) Solutions Architect
14 14 (3.78%) Windows Engineer
15 12 (3.24%) Active Directory Engineer
15 12 (3.24%) Infrastructure Architect
16 10 (2.70%) 2nd Line Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 28 (7.57%) LDAP
2 19 (5.14%) .NET
2 19 (5.14%) SailPoint
3 14 (3.78%) SAML
4 13 (3.51%) OAuth
4 13 (3.51%) REST
5 9 (2.43%) AngularJS
6 7 (1.89%) Web Services
7 6 (1.62%) CSS
7 6 (1.62%) HTML
7 6 (1.62%) Middleware
7 6 (1.62%) OpenID
7 6 (1.62%) React
7 6 (1.62%) Spring Boot
8 5 (1.35%) ARM Templates
8 5 (1.35%) OAuth2
8 5 (1.35%) XML
9 4 (1.08%) ASP.NET
9 4 (1.08%) Keycloak
10 3 (0.81%) X-Windows
Miscellaneous
1 26 (7.03%) Onboarding
2 23 (6.22%) PKI
3 20 (5.41%) Data Centre
4 18 (4.86%) Management Information System
5 15 (4.05%) Self-Motivation
6 13 (3.51%) Hybrid Cloud
7 12 (3.24%) Security Posture
8 8 (2.16%) Video Conferencing
9 7 (1.89%) Cloud Native
10 6 (1.62%) Enterprise Software
10 6 (1.62%) Replication
11 5 (1.35%) Clustering
11 5 (1.35%) Driving Licence
12 4 (1.08%) Blackberry
12 4 (1.08%) Data Protection Act
12 4 (1.08%) Product Ownership
12 4 (1.08%) Reinsurance
12 4 (1.08%) Social Media
12 4 (1.08%) Virtual Team
13 3 (0.81%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 186 (50.27%) Windows
2 88 (23.78%) Windows Server
3 53 (14.32%) Linux
4 38 (10.27%) Windows 10
5 20 (5.41%) Windows Server 2016
6 19 (5.14%) Android
6 19 (5.14%) Apple iOS
7 17 (4.59%) Windows Server 2012
8 16 (4.32%) Windows Server 2019
9 15 (4.05%) Unix
10 9 (2.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 6 (1.62%) VMS
12 4 (1.08%) Mac OS
13 2 (0.54%) Windows Server 2003
14 1 (0.27%) CentOS
14 1 (0.27%) Oracle Linux
14 1 (0.27%) Solaris
14 1 (0.27%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 89 (24.05%) Problem-Solving
2 71 (19.19%) Migration
3 60 (16.22%) ITIL
4 54 (14.59%) Identity Access Management
5 49 (13.24%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 43 (11.62%) DevOps
7 42 (11.35%) RBAC
8 37 (10.00%) Agile
9 32 (8.65%) ITSM
10 29 (7.84%) Customer Service
11 27 (7.30%) Privileged Access Management
12 25 (6.76%) Identity Management
13 24 (6.49%) Cloud Security
14 23 (6.22%) Roadmaps
15 22 (5.95%) Collaborative Working
16 20 (5.41%) Cybersecurity
16 20 (5.41%) Project Management
16 20 (5.41%) Service Management
17 19 (5.14%) Disaster Recovery
17 19 (5.14%) Information Security
Programming Languages
1 106 (28.65%) PowerShell
2 36 (9.73%) SQL
3 25 (6.76%) Python
4 14 (3.78%) C#
5 12 (3.24%) JavaScript
6 11 (2.97%) Bicep
7 10 (2.70%) Bash
8 9 (2.43%) Java
9 5 (1.35%) Perl
9 5 (1.35%) PL/SQL
9 5 (1.35%) Shell Script
10 3 (0.81%) C
10 3 (0.81%) TypeScript
10 3 (0.81%) VBA
10 3 (0.81%) VBScript
11 2 (0.54%) ABAP
11 2 (0.54%) BeanShell
11 2 (0.54%) Ruby
11 2 (0.54%) T-SQL
12 1 (0.27%) VB
Qualifications
1 75 (20.27%) Security Cleared
2 63 (17.03%) SC Cleared
3 30 (8.11%) Degree
4 26 (7.03%) Microsoft Certification
5 22 (5.95%) Azure Certification
6 12 (3.24%) DV Cleared
7 9 (2.43%) AWS Certification
8 7 (1.89%) CISSP
8 7 (1.89%) Computer Science Degree
8 7 (1.89%) MCSE
9 6 (1.62%) CISM
10 4 (1.08%) BPSS Clearance
10 4 (1.08%) Cisco Certification
11 3 (0.81%) MCSA
11 3 (0.81%) PMI Certification
12 2 (0.54%) CCIE
12 2 (0.54%) CCNA
12 2 (0.54%) CCNP
12 2 (0.54%) CEH
12 2 (0.54%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (5.68%) GDPR
2 16 (4.32%) SLA
3 13 (3.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 13 (3.51%) NIST
4 11 (2.97%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 10 (2.70%) PCI DSS
6 9 (2.43%) HIPAA
6 9 (2.43%) SOC 2
7 5 (1.35%) Accessibility
8 3 (0.81%) Cyber Essentials
8 3 (0.81%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 3 (0.81%) GRC
8 3 (0.81%) PMO
9 2 (0.54%) FIPS 140-2
9 2 (0.54%) NIST 800
9 2 (0.54%) QA
10 1 (0.27%) Data Quality
System Software
1 38 (10.27%) VMware Infrastructure
2 22 (5.95%) VMware ESXi
3 21 (5.68%) Hyper-V
4 19 (5.14%) Virtual Machines
5 17 (4.59%) vSphere
6 10 (2.70%) Docker
6 10 (2.70%) Virtual Servers
7 9 (2.43%) Virtual Desktop
8 5 (1.35%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 4 (1.08%) BitLocker
10 3 (0.81%) DFS Replication
10 3 (0.81%) NFS
10 3 (0.81%) VMware NSX
10 3 (0.81%) XenDesktop
11 2 (0.54%) Firmware
11 2 (0.54%) RACF
11 2 (0.54%) XenApp
12 1 (0.27%) Microsoft App-V
12 1 (0.27%) Terminal Services
12 1 (0.27%) VMware Server
Systems Management
1 67 (18.11%) Microsoft Intune
2 39 (10.54%) Single Sign-On
3 32 (8.65%) SCCM
4 26 (7.03%) Ansible
5 22 (5.95%) Terraform
6 19 (5.14%) WSUS
7 15 (4.05%) Kubernetes
8 12 (3.24%) vCenter Server
9 7 (1.89%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 6 (1.62%) Progress Chef
11 4 (1.08%) FortiGate
11 4 (1.08%) Puppet
12 3 (0.81%) Kibana
12 3 (0.81%) SCOM
13 2 (0.54%) Grafana
13 2 (0.54%) Microsoft Clustering
13 2 (0.54%) OPNET
13 2 (0.54%) Packer
13 2 (0.54%) Prometheus
13 2 (0.54%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 211 (57.03%) Microsoft
2 79 (21.35%) VMware
3 32 (8.65%) CyberArk
4 28 (7.57%) ServiceNow
5 27 (7.30%) Cisco
6 19 (5.14%) Oracle
7 13 (3.51%) Palo Alto
8 11 (2.97%) Citrix
8 11 (2.97%) Zscaler
9 9 (2.43%) Apple
10 8 (2.16%) Okta
10 8 (2.16%) Red Hat
10 8 (2.16%) SAP
10 8 (2.16%) Splunk
11 7 (1.89%) F5
11 7 (1.89%) HP
12 6 (1.62%) BeyondTrust
12 6 (1.62%) Dell
12 6 (1.62%) Google
13 5 (1.35%) NetApp