Active Directory Job Trends in the Thames Valley

Microsoft Active Directory
South East > Thames Valley

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the Thames Valley requiring Active Directory skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 3 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 52 71 21
Rank change year-on-year +19 -50 +8
Permanent jobs citing Active Directory 147 110 479
As % of all permanent jobs in the Thames Valley 2.62% 3.61% 7.34%
As % of the System Software category 55.68% 35.37% 46.10%
Number of salaries quoted 118 88 421
10th Percentile £28,000 £26,538 £26,250
25th Percentile £31,250 £31,250 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £35,000 £41,500 £40,000
Median % change year-on-year -15.66% +3.75% +23.08%
75th Percentile £53,750 £52,500 £54,500
90th Percentile £68,750 £70,500 £59,000
South East median annual salary £37,500 £40,000 £37,500
% change year-on-year -6.25% +6.67% +10.29%

All System Software Skills
Thames Valley

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 the Thames Valley.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for system software skills 264 311 1,039
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 4.70% 10.20% 15.92%
Number of salaries quoted 183 229 837
10th Percentile £31,000 £30,950 £27,900
25th Percentile £35,000 £39,000 £36,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £48,000 £60,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -20.00% +20.00% +11.11%
75th Percentile £68,750 £81,250 £68,750
90th Percentile £77,500 £88,300 £86,000
South East median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £47,500
% change year-on-year -9.09% +15.79% -

Active Directory
Job Vacancy Trend in the Thames Valley

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

Active Directory job vacancy trend in the Thames Valley

Active Directory
Salary Trend in the Thames Valley

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing Active Directory.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing Active Directory

Active Directory
Salary Histogram in the Thames Valley

Salary distribution for jobs citing Active Directory in the Thames Valley over the 6 months to 3 May 2026.

Salary histogram for Active Directory in the Thames Valley

Active Directory
Job Locations in the Thames Valley

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Active Directory within the Thames Valley region over the 6 months to 3 May 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
Berkshire +14 56 £52,500 +16.67% 16
Buckinghamshire +6 48 £36,000 -20.00% 19
Oxfordshire +5 43 £35,000 -9.68% 16
Active Directory
South East

Active Directory
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the Thames Valley 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 32 (21.77%) Microsoft Exchange
2 17 (11.56%) SharePoint
3 3 (2.04%) Apache
4 1 (0.68%) CMS
4 1 (0.68%) Confluence
4 1 (0.68%) IIS
4 1 (0.68%) WordPress
Applications
1 18 (12.24%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.68%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 80 (54.42%) Microsoft 365
2 70 (47.62%) Azure
3 32 (21.77%) Entra ID
4 20 (13.61%) AWS
5 17 (11.56%) Google Workspace
6 9 (6.12%) OneDrive
7 7 (4.76%) SaaS
8 6 (4.08%) GCP
9 3 (2.04%) Azure Sentinel
9 3 (2.04%) Cloudflare
10 2 (1.36%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 2 (1.36%) Mimecast
11 1 (0.68%) IaaS
11 1 (0.68%) PaaS
11 1 (0.68%) Power Automate
11 1 (0.68%) Power Platform
11 1 (0.68%) Slack
Communications & Networking
1 63 (42.86%) Firewall
2 58 (39.46%) DNS
3 26 (17.69%) DHCP
4 21 (14.29%) LAN
5 17 (11.56%) VPN
6 16 (10.88%) SAN
6 16 (10.88%) WAN
7 15 (10.20%) Wi-Fi
8 14 (9.52%) Remote Desktop
8 14 (9.52%) TCP/IP
9 11 (7.48%) NetScaler
10 9 (6.12%) VoIP
11 8 (5.44%) iSCSI
11 8 (5.44%) NAS
11 8 (5.44%) Wireshark
12 7 (4.76%) Network Security
12 7 (4.76%) Wireless
13 4 (2.72%) SSL
13 4 (2.72%) VLAN
14 2 (1.36%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (8.84%) SQL Server
2 11 (7.48%) PostgreSQL
3 8 (5.44%) MySQL
4 1 (0.68%) Amazon RDS
4 1 (0.68%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 9 (6.12%) JIRA
2 3 (2.04%) Subversion
General
1 63 (42.86%) Social Skills
2 17 (11.56%) Organisational Skills
3 12 (8.16%) Analytical Skills
4 5 (3.40%) Local Government
5 4 (2.72%) Influencing Skills
5 4 (2.72%) Manufacturing
6 3 (2.04%) Games
6 3 (2.04%) Retail
6 3 (2.04%) Telecoms
7 2 (1.36%) Documentation Skills
7 2 (1.36%) Legal
8 1 (0.68%) Aviation
8 1 (0.68%) Finance
8 1 (0.68%) Health Technology
8 1 (0.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 60 (40.82%) IT Support
2 26 (17.69%) Support Engineer
3 23 (15.65%) Analyst
4 22 (14.97%) IT Engineer
5 20 (13.61%) Architect
5 20 (13.61%) Support Analyst
6 19 (12.93%) Senior
7 18 (12.24%) IT Support Engineer
8 16 (10.88%) Applications Architect
9 13 (8.84%) IT Support Technician
9 13 (8.84%) IT Technician
9 13 (8.84%) Support Technician
10 12 (8.16%) IT Analyst
10 12 (8.16%) IT Support Analyst
10 12 (8.16%) Technical Support
11 11 (7.48%) Linux Engineer
11 11 (7.48%) Security Architect
12 8 (5.44%) 2nd Line Support
12 8 (5.44%) 3rd Line Support
12 8 (5.44%) Senior Linux Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (10.88%) Regular Expression
2 12 (8.16%) LDAP
2 12 (8.16%) XMPP
3 4 (2.72%) JSON
3 4 (2.72%) JSON Schema
3 4 (2.72%) XML
4 2 (1.36%) OpenID
5 1 (0.68%) OAuth
5 1 (0.68%) SAML
5 1 (0.68%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 16 (10.88%) Driving Licence
2 13 (8.84%) Management Information System
2 13 (8.84%) Onboarding
3 11 (7.48%) Self-Motivation
4 10 (6.80%) PKI
5 8 (5.44%) Video Conferencing
6 6 (4.08%) Cloud Native
7 4 (2.72%) Social Media
8 3 (2.04%) Cyber Defence
8 3 (2.04%) EPoS
8 3 (2.04%) Linux Command Line
8 3 (2.04%) Security Operations Centre
9 2 (1.36%) Distributed Systems
9 2 (1.36%) Life Science
9 2 (1.36%) Private Cloud
9 2 (1.36%) Public Cloud
9 2 (1.36%) Renewable Energy
9 2 (1.36%) Security Posture
9 2 (1.36%) Virtual Team
10 1 (0.68%) Smartphone
Operating Systems
1 106 (72.11%) Windows
2 69 (46.94%) Windows Server
3 47 (31.97%) Linux
4 28 (19.05%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 14 (9.52%) Windows 10
6 9 (6.12%) Mac OS
7 8 (5.44%) Android
7 8 (5.44%) Apple iOS
8 3 (2.04%) Windows Server 2019
9 2 (1.36%) CentOS
10 1 (0.68%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 44 (29.93%) Problem-Solving
2 41 (27.89%) Customer Service
3 37 (25.17%) ITIL
4 20 (13.61%) SIEM
5 19 (12.93%) Cybersecurity
6 17 (11.56%) Continuous Improvement
7 15 (10.20%) Root Cause Analysis
8 12 (8.16%) Antivirus Management
8 12 (8.16%) Application Security
8 12 (8.16%) Pattern Matching
8 12 (8.16%) Platform Engineering
8 12 (8.16%) Validation
9 11 (7.48%) High Availability
10 10 (6.80%) Architectural Design
10 10 (6.80%) Data Protection
10 10 (6.80%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 9 (6.12%) Server Management
12 8 (5.44%) Mentoring
12 8 (5.44%) Resource Management
12 8 (5.44%) Time Management
Programming Languages
1 26 (17.69%) PowerShell
2 11 (7.48%) Bash
3 8 (5.44%) Python
4 7 (4.76%) SQL
5 6 (4.08%) Korn
6 4 (2.72%) Shell Script
7 2 (1.36%) C
8 1 (0.68%) Bicep
8 1 (0.68%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 36 (24.49%) Security Cleared
2 25 (17.01%) DV Cleared
3 24 (16.33%) Degree
4 9 (6.12%) SC Cleared
5 6 (4.08%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
6 4 (2.72%) CompTIA Security+
6 4 (2.72%) Computer Science Degree
6 4 (2.72%) DBS Check
6 4 (2.72%) Microsoft Certification
7 2 (1.36%) A+ Certification
7 2 (1.36%) ISTQB
7 2 (1.36%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
7 2 (1.36%) MCSE
7 2 (1.36%) Network+ Certification
7 2 (1.36%) RHCE
7 2 (1.36%) RHCSA
8 1 (0.68%) CCIE
8 1 (0.68%) CCNA
8 1 (0.68%) CISM
8 1 (0.68%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (6.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 6 (4.08%) SLA
3 3 (2.04%) Cyber Essentials
3 3 (2.04%) SOC 2
4 2 (1.36%) QA
5 1 (0.68%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 1 (0.68%) GDPR
System Software
1 22 (14.97%) Hyper-V
2 20 (13.61%) vSphere
3 17 (11.56%) VMware Infrastructure
4 14 (9.52%) Docker
5 8 (5.44%) Citrix Hypervisor
6 2 (1.36%) Samba
6 2 (1.36%) Terminal Server
7 1 (0.68%) Virtual Desktop
7 1 (0.68%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 23 (15.65%) Microsoft Intune
2 14 (9.52%) SCCM
3 10 (6.80%) Kubernetes
4 5 (3.40%) Jamf Pro
4 5 (3.40%) Terraform
5 4 (2.72%) Ansible
5 4 (2.72%) SmoothWall
6 3 (2.04%) Graylog
6 3 (2.04%) SCOM
7 2 (1.36%) Grafana
7 2 (1.36%) Prometheus
7 2 (1.36%) Single Sign-On
8 1 (0.68%) Autotask
8 1 (0.68%) Failover Clustering
8 1 (0.68%) FortiGate
Vendors
1 108 (73.47%) Microsoft
2 38 (25.85%) VMware
3 20 (13.61%) Google
3 20 (13.61%) Red Hat
4 13 (8.84%) Citrix
5 10 (6.80%) McAfee
6 9 (6.12%) Cisco
7 8 (5.44%) Dell
7 8 (5.44%) NetApp
7 8 (5.44%) ServiceNow
8 7 (4.76%) Meraki
9 6 (4.08%) Palo Alto
10 5 (3.40%) CheckPoint
11 4 (2.72%) Atlassian
12 3 (2.04%) Adobe
12 3 (2.04%) Oracle
13 2 (1.36%) D-Link
13 2 (1.36%) Juniper
14 1 (0.68%) ConnectWise
14 1 (0.68%) Zscaler