Active Directory Job Trends in England

Microsoft Active Directory
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in England requiring Active Directory skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 12 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 53 41 28
Rank change year-on-year -12 -13 +6
Permanent jobs citing Active Directory 2,505 2,414 5,288
As % of all permanent jobs in England 2.86% 5.56% 5.97%
As % of the System Software category 49.33% 42.37% 52.68%
Number of salaries quoted 1,970 1,939 4,150
10th Percentile £27,000 £26,250 £24,500
25th Percentile £30,500 £29,750 £28,290
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £40,000 £38,500 £38,000
Median % change year-on-year +3.90% +1.32% -5.00%
75th Percentile £57,500 £53,750 £52,500
90th Percentile £75,000 £73,750 £65,625
UK median annual salary £40,000 £38,500 £37,500
% change year-on-year +3.90% +2.67% -6.25%

All System Software Skills
England

Active Directory falls under the System Software category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies requiring system software skills in England.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for system software skills 5,078 5,698 10,038
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 5.80% 13.13% 11.34%
Number of salaries quoted 3,792 3,609 7,924
10th Percentile £28,626 £27,500 £26,250
25th Percentile £35,750 £33,500 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £53,344 £50,000 £49,500
Median % change year-on-year +6.69% +1.01% -10.00%
75th Percentile £72,625 £75,000 £67,500
90th Percentile £90,000 £95,000 £86,250
UK median annual salary £52,500 £52,500 £49,000
% change year-on-year - +7.14% -10.91%

Active Directory
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Active Directory relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in England.

Active Directory job vacancy trend in England

Active Directory
Salary Trend in England

Salary distribution trend for jobs in England citing Active Directory.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in England citing Active Directory

Active Directory
Salary Histogram in England

Salary distribution for jobs citing Active Directory in England over the 6 months to 12 July 2026.

Salary histogram for Active Directory in England

Active Directory
Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Active Directory within the England region over the 6 months to 12 July 2026. 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
London -23 619 £55,000 +12.24% 157
South East 0 514 £42,500 +6.25% 201
North of England -6 487 £34,000 +6.25% 154
Midlands -30 355 £37,500 +7.14% 57
South West -16 279 £37,500 +8.70% 91
North West +48 247 £35,000 -6.67% 73
East of England +3 235 £35,000 +7.69% 49
East Midlands -3 190 £33,500 +6.35% 32
Yorkshire -27 189 £32,500 +8.33% 58
West Midlands -41 164 £39,500 -0.63% 25
North East -61 51 £42,500 +32.81% 32
Active Directory
UK

Active Directory
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England by Category

The following tables expand on the one above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. They cover the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each category:

Application Platforms
1 734 (29.30%) Microsoft Exchange
2 518 (20.68%) SharePoint
3 49 (1.96%) IIS
4 23 (0.92%) Confluence
5 11 (0.44%) Apache
6 10 (0.40%) Exchange Server 2013
7 9 (0.36%) Skype for Business
8 8 (0.32%) Exchange Server 2007
8 8 (0.32%) Exchange Server 2010
9 7 (0.28%) SAS
10 4 (0.16%) CMS
11 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 3 (0.12%) JBoss
12 2 (0.080%) Site Server
13 1 (0.040%) Apache Spark
13 1 (0.040%) Drupal
13 1 (0.040%) nginx
13 1 (0.040%) WordPress
Applications
1 275 (10.98%) Microsoft Office
2 53 (2.12%) Microsoft Excel
3 23 (0.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.12%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 3 (0.12%) MS Visio
4 3 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.040%) AutoCAD
5 1 (0.040%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.040%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.040%) Revit
Business Applications
1 18 (0.72%) Dynamics CRM
2 9 (0.36%) Remedy ITSM
3 6 (0.24%) Raiser’s Edge
4 5 (0.20%) Dynamics NAV
4 5 (0.20%) NetSuite
5 4 (0.16%) Dynamics GP
5 4 (0.16%) Exchequer
5 4 (0.16%) JDE EnterpriseOne
5 4 (0.16%) Primavera
6 3 (0.12%) Elite 3E
6 3 (0.12%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.080%) SAP S/4HANA
7 2 (0.080%) Shopify
8 1 (0.040%) Carpe Diem
8 1 (0.040%) Dynamics AX
8 1 (0.040%) Magento
8 1 (0.040%) Oracle Payables
8 1 (0.040%) Payment Gateway
8 1 (0.040%) Sage 200
8 1 (0.040%) SAP EHS
Cloud Services
1 1,735 (69.26%) Microsoft 365
2 1,456 (58.12%) Azure
3 1,046 (41.76%) Entra ID
4 202 (8.06%) AWS
5 184 (7.35%) OneDrive
6 131 (5.23%) SaaS
7 106 (4.23%) Power Platform
8 94 (3.75%) IaaS
9 93 (3.71%) PaaS
10 76 (3.03%) Mimecast
11 67 (2.67%) Google Workspace
12 62 (2.48%) Azure DevOps
13 50 (2.00%) Azure Sentinel
14 45 (1.80%) GCP
15 42 (1.68%) Azure Monitor
15 42 (1.68%) Microsoft Purview
16 37 (1.48%) PowerApps
17 34 (1.36%) GitHub
18 33 (1.32%) Power Automate
19 32 (1.28%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 804 (32.10%) DNS
2 682 (27.23%) DHCP
3 658 (26.27%) Firewall
4 454 (18.12%) VPN
5 312 (12.46%) TCP/IP
6 288 (11.50%) Wi-Fi
7 258 (10.30%) VLAN
8 256 (10.22%) WAN
9 248 (9.90%) LAN
10 143 (5.71%) Wireless
11 139 (5.55%) VoIP
12 130 (5.19%) SAN
13 115 (4.59%) Network Security
14 42 (1.68%) Remote Desktop
15 36 (1.44%) Internet
16 35 (1.40%) NAS
17 34 (1.36%) SD-WAN
18 29 (1.16%) Kerberos
19 22 (0.88%) Broadband
20 17 (0.68%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 188 (7.50%) SQL Server
2 94 (3.75%) Amazon RDS
3 53 (2.12%) Power BI
4 28 (1.12%) MySQL
4 28 (1.12%) PostgreSQL
5 25 (1.00%) Azure SQL Database
6 16 (0.64%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 6 (0.24%) Crystal Reports
7 6 (0.24%) Data Warehouse
8 5 (0.20%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 4 (0.16%) Data Lake
9 4 (0.16%) GIS
9 4 (0.16%) MongoDB
9 4 (0.16%) Neo4j
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle Database
10 2 (0.080%) BusinessObjects
10 2 (0.080%) KNIME
10 2 (0.080%) Relational Database
11 1 (0.040%) RDBMS
11 1 (0.040%) Sybase ASE
Development Applications
1 108 (4.31%) JIRA
2 58 (2.32%) Git
3 22 (0.88%) GitLab
3 22 (0.88%) Jenkins
4 17 (0.68%) Chocolatey
5 9 (0.36%) Visual Studio Code
6 8 (0.32%) Bitbucket
7 5 (0.20%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
8 3 (0.12%) Burp Suite
8 3 (0.12%) Metasploit
9 2 (0.080%) Artifactory
9 2 (0.080%) Subversion
9 2 (0.080%) Terragrunt
10 1 (0.040%) Carbide.c++
10 1 (0.040%) Gatling
10 1 (0.040%) JMeter
10 1 (0.040%) Ranorex
10 1 (0.040%) Sonatype Nexus
10 1 (0.040%) TeamCity
10 1 (0.040%) Vagrant
General
1 1,005 (40.12%) Social Skills
2 266 (10.62%) Finance
3 260 (10.38%) Analytical Skills
4 137 (5.47%) Organisational Skills
5 118 (4.71%) Legal
6 99 (3.95%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 94 (3.75%) Law
8 79 (3.15%) Documentation Skills
9 68 (2.71%) Manufacturing
10 58 (2.32%) Retail
11 52 (2.08%) Banking
12 48 (1.92%) Public Sector
13 42 (1.68%) Telecoms
14 37 (1.48%) Advertising
15 22 (0.88%) Influencing Skills
15 22 (0.88%) Local Government
16 18 (0.72%) Aerospace
17 16 (0.64%) Automotive
18 10 (0.40%) Marketing
19 9 (0.36%) Games
Job Titles
1 858 (34.25%) IT Support
2 637 (25.43%) Support Engineer
3 607 (24.23%) IT Engineer
4 484 (19.32%) IT Support Engineer
5 375 (14.97%) Analyst
6 257 (10.26%) Senior
7 251 (10.02%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 234 (9.34%) Support Analyst
9 197 (7.86%) Support Technician
10 192 (7.66%) 2nd Line Support
11 189 (7.54%) IT Technician
12 172 (6.87%) Systems Engineer
13 166 (6.63%) IT Support Technician
14 153 (6.11%) IT Analyst
15 130 (5.19%) IT Support Analyst
16 128 (5.11%) 2nd Line Engineer
17 110 (4.39%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
18 109 (4.35%) Architect
19 107 (4.27%) Lead
20 102 (4.07%) Azure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 68 (2.71%) LDAP
2 66 (2.63%) SAML
3 54 (2.16%) OAuth
4 53 (2.12%) OpenID
5 42 (1.68%) REST
6 24 (0.96%) HTML
7 23 (0.92%) Regular Expression
8 21 (0.84%) ARM Templates
9 19 (0.76%) XMPP
10 18 (0.72%) GraphQL
11 17 (0.68%) SOAP
11 17 (0.68%) Web Services
12 16 (0.64%) .NET
13 15 (0.60%) JSON
13 15 (0.60%) XML
14 14 (0.56%) CSS
15 12 (0.48%) ADO
16 10 (0.40%) Microsoft Graph
16 10 (0.40%) SailPoint
17 9 (0.36%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 284 (11.34%) Driving Licence
2 188 (7.50%) Onboarding
3 138 (5.51%) Self-Motivation
4 103 (4.11%) Hybrid Cloud
5 94 (3.75%) Data Centre
6 92 (3.67%) Legacy Systems
7 79 (3.15%) Management Information System
8 66 (2.63%) Security Posture
9 54 (2.16%) PKI
10 49 (1.96%) Enterprise Software
11 43 (1.72%) Clustering
11 43 (1.72%) Cyber Threat
12 42 (1.68%) Public Cloud
13 41 (1.64%) Cloud Native
14 36 (1.44%) CMDB
15 33 (1.32%) Replication
16 32 (1.28%) CCTV
17 24 (0.96%) Cyberattack
18 22 (0.88%) Video Conferencing
19 21 (0.84%) iPhone
Operating Systems
1 1,808 (72.18%) Windows
2 1,031 (41.16%) Windows Server
3 380 (15.17%) Windows 10
4 349 (13.93%) Linux
5 180 (7.19%) Windows Server 2016
6 146 (5.83%) Mac OS
7 107 (4.27%) Apple iOS
8 104 (4.15%) Windows Server 2019
9 81 (3.23%) Android
10 55 (2.20%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 40 (1.60%) VMS
12 34 (1.36%) Windows Server 2012
13 18 (0.72%) Ubuntu
14 15 (0.60%) Windows 7
15 11 (0.44%) Windows Server 2008
16 9 (0.36%) Mac OS X
17 7 (0.28%) CentOS
17 7 (0.28%) Debian
17 7 (0.28%) Windows 8
18 4 (0.16%) CoreOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 804 (32.10%) Problem-Solving
2 563 (22.48%) Customer Service
3 523 (20.88%) ITIL
4 438 (17.49%) Continuous Improvement
5 427 (17.05%) Cybersecurity
6 356 (14.21%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 282 (11.26%) Disaster Recovery
8 266 (10.62%) ITSM
9 235 (9.38%) Service Delivery
10 233 (9.30%) Mentoring
11 218 (8.70%) Migration
12 181 (7.23%) Project Delivery
13 172 (6.87%) Incident Management
14 164 (6.55%) Roadmaps
15 154 (6.15%) Change Management
16 149 (5.95%) Vulnerability Remediation
17 140 (5.59%) Service Management
18 129 (5.15%) Identity Access Management
19 127 (5.07%) Infrastructure as Code
20 126 (5.03%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 473 (18.88%) PowerShell
2 230 (9.18%) SQL
3 112 (4.47%) Python
4 94 (3.75%) Bash
5 50 (2.00%) Bicep
6 34 (1.36%) T-SQL
7 27 (1.08%) R
8 20 (0.80%) C#
9 18 (0.72%) VBA
10 17 (0.68%) Java
10 17 (0.68%) Kusto Query Language
11 12 (0.48%) JavaScript
12 9 (0.36%) VBScript
13 8 (0.32%) VB
14 7 (0.28%) Shell Script
15 6 (0.24%) Korn
15 6 (0.24%) PHP
16 5 (0.20%) Ruby
17 4 (0.16%) VB.NET
18 3 (0.12%) C
Qualifications
1 311 (12.42%) Security Cleared
2 265 (10.58%) Degree
3 234 (9.34%) Microsoft Certification
4 188 (7.50%) SC Cleared
5 141 (5.63%) Azure Certification
6 102 (4.07%) DV Cleared
7 93 (3.71%) Cisco Certification
8 72 (2.87%) CCNA
9 68 (2.71%) DBS Check
10 39 (1.56%) A+ Certification
10 39 (1.56%) CISSP
11 33 (1.32%) CCNP
12 31 (1.24%) Network+ Certification
13 29 (1.16%) Computer Science Degree
14 28 (1.12%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
15 24 (0.96%) Microsoft Certified Professional
16 23 (0.92%) MCSA
17 18 (0.72%) CompTIA Security+
17 18 (0.72%) MCSE
18 17 (0.68%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 227 (9.06%) SLA
2 219 (8.74%) Cyber Essentials
3 179 (7.15%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 91 (3.63%) PCI DSS
5 64 (2.55%) GDPR
6 59 (2.36%) NIST
7 50 (2.00%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 34 (1.36%) QA
9 27 (1.08%) Data Quality
10 19 (0.76%) NCSC
11 14 (0.56%) SOC 2
12 10 (0.40%) Accessibility
13 9 (0.36%) PMO
14 5 (0.20%) COBIT
15 4 (0.16%) 21 CFR Part 11
15 4 (0.16%) GRC
15 4 (0.16%) GxP
15 4 (0.16%) ISO 22301
15 4 (0.16%) ITGC
15 4 (0.16%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 483 (19.28%) Hyper-V
2 410 (16.37%) VMware Infrastructure
3 124 (4.95%) vSphere
4 84 (3.35%) Virtual Desktop
5 72 (2.87%) Terminal Server
6 55 (2.20%) Docker
7 53 (2.12%) Virtual Machines
8 49 (1.96%) VMware ESXi
9 23 (0.92%) BitLocker
10 20 (0.80%) VMware NSX
11 15 (0.60%) Firmware
12 11 (0.44%) Virtual Servers
13 8 (0.32%) Citrix Hypervisor
13 8 (0.32%) Squid
14 7 (0.28%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 7 (0.28%) VMware Workstation
14 7 (0.28%) XenApp
15 6 (0.24%) VMware Server
16 4 (0.16%) EMC RecoverPoint
17 3 (0.12%) DFS Replication
Systems Management
1 628 (25.07%) Microsoft Intune
2 168 (6.71%) SCCM
3 114 (4.55%) Terraform
4 72 (2.87%) Single Sign-On
5 71 (2.83%) Kubernetes
6 68 (2.71%) Ansible
7 46 (1.84%) Jamf Pro
8 43 (1.72%) WSUS
9 38 (1.52%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 34 (1.36%) FortiGate
11 30 (1.20%) vCenter Server
12 15 (0.60%) Failover Clustering
12 15 (0.60%) Packer
12 15 (0.60%) ZABBIX
13 14 (0.56%) VxRail
14 13 (0.52%) SCOM
15 11 (0.44%) Microsoft Clustering
16 10 (0.40%) Grafana
16 10 (0.40%) Prometheus
16 10 (0.40%) Proxmox
Vendors
1 1,960 (78.24%) Microsoft
2 629 (25.11%) VMware
3 189 (7.54%) Veeam
4 165 (6.59%) Cisco
5 129 (5.15%) ServiceNow
6 108 (4.31%) Citrix
7 106 (4.23%) SolarWinds
8 97 (3.87%) Apple
9 95 (3.79%) Splunk
10 79 (3.15%) Nimble Storage
11 77 (3.07%) Meraki
12 74 (2.95%) Google
13 73 (2.91%) Dell
14 71 (2.83%) Brocade
15 70 (2.79%) Tanium
16 63 (2.51%) HP
17 52 (2.08%) Red Hat
18 50 (2.00%) CrowdStrike
19 47 (1.88%) SonicWALL
20 46 (1.84%) Tenable