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 18 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 52 89 34
Rank change year-on-year +37 -55 -12
Permanent jobs citing Active Directory 179 125 296
As % of all permanent jobs in the Thames Valley 2.63% 3.31% 5.75%
As % of the System Software category 47.35% 37.09% 47.82%
Number of salaries quoted 145 105 238
10th Percentile £29,000 £28,250 £27,750
25th Percentile £33,750 £34,000 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £37,500 £42,500
Median % change year-on-year +20.00% -11.76% +20.06%
75th Percentile £64,500 £50,000 £53,000
90th Percentile £68,750 £70,000 £56,525
South East median annual salary £42,500 £40,000 £41,500
% change year-on-year +6.25% -3.61% +9.21%

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 378 337 619
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 5.56% 8.94% 12.02%
Number of salaries quoted 264 212 491
10th Percentile £29,000 £31,250 £31,250
25th Percentile £38,500 £36,250 £38,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £45,500 £51,350
Median % change year-on-year +20.88% -11.39% +6.42%
75th Percentile £68,750 £71,500 £68,750
90th Percentile £73,288 £83,750 £85,000
South East median annual salary £60,000 £45,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +33.33% -10.00% -

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 18 August 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 18 August 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 +46 86 £50,000 +37.93% 20
Buckinghamshire +8 63 £37,500 - 13
Oxfordshire -18 30 £44,833 +12.08% 6
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 60 (33.52%) Microsoft Exchange
2 52 (29.05%) SharePoint
3 3 (1.68%) Apache
4 1 (0.56%) Confluence
4 1 (0.56%) IIS
Applications
1 8 (4.47%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.56%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 6 (3.35%) Raiser’s Edge
Cloud Services
1 96 (53.63%) Azure
2 87 (48.60%) Microsoft 365
3 66 (36.87%) Entra ID
4 24 (13.41%) AWS
5 16 (8.94%) Google Workspace
6 13 (7.26%) IaaS
7 7 (3.91%) OneDrive
7 7 (3.91%) Power Automate
8 6 (3.35%) Azure Sentinel
8 6 (3.35%) Cloudflare
9 4 (2.23%) PaaS
9 4 (2.23%) SaaS
10 3 (1.68%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 3 (1.68%) GCP
11 1 (0.56%) Azure Stack
11 1 (0.56%) Slack
Communications & Networking
1 99 (55.31%) DNS
2 94 (52.51%) Firewall
3 58 (32.40%) DHCP
4 42 (23.46%) Wi-Fi
5 37 (20.67%) VPN
6 28 (15.64%) VLAN
7 19 (10.61%) SSL
8 17 (9.50%) Remote Desktop
9 16 (8.94%) SAN
10 13 (7.26%) LAN
10 13 (7.26%) TCP/IP
11 12 (6.70%) Network Security
12 11 (6.15%) NetScaler
12 11 (6.15%) VoIP
12 11 (6.15%) Wireless
13 8 (4.47%) iSCSI
13 8 (4.47%) NAS
13 8 (4.47%) WAN
13 8 (4.47%) Wireshark
14 4 (2.23%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (7.82%) SQL Server
2 11 (6.15%) PostgreSQL
3 8 (4.47%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 5 (2.79%) JIRA
General
1 86 (48.04%) Social Skills
2 15 (8.38%) Analytical Skills
3 8 (4.47%) Organisational Skills
4 7 (3.91%) Documentation Skills
5 6 (3.35%) Finance
5 6 (3.35%) Influencing Skills
6 5 (2.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 5 (2.79%) Local Government
6 5 (2.79%) Retail
7 4 (2.23%) Law
8 3 (1.68%) Games
8 3 (1.68%) Manufacturing
9 2 (1.12%) Legal
10 1 (0.56%) Aviation
10 1 (0.56%) Health Technology
10 1 (0.56%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 55 (30.73%) IT Support
2 36 (20.11%) IT Engineer
3 33 (18.44%) Support Engineer
4 29 (16.20%) Senior
5 27 (15.08%) Architect
5 27 (15.08%) IT Support Engineer
6 23 (12.85%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 20 (11.17%) Applications Architect
8 17 (9.50%) Analyst
9 15 (8.38%) Security Architect
10 14 (7.82%) IT Support Technician
10 14 (7.82%) IT Technician
10 14 (7.82%) Support Technician
11 9 (5.03%) Senior IT Engineer
11 9 (5.03%) Senior IT Support
11 9 (5.03%) Senior Support Engineer
12 8 (4.47%) 1st Line Support
12 8 (4.47%) Linux Engineer
12 8 (4.47%) Senior Linux Engineer
12 8 (4.47%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (12.85%) Regular Expression
2 19 (10.61%) LDAP
2 19 (10.61%) XMPP
3 7 (3.91%) JSON
3 7 (3.91%) JSON Schema
3 7 (3.91%) XML
4 5 (2.79%) HTML
4 5 (2.79%) ODBC
5 2 (1.12%) OpenID
6 1 (0.56%) OAuth
6 1 (0.56%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 29 (16.20%) Driving Licence
2 18 (10.06%) Self-Motivation
3 15 (8.38%) Onboarding
4 13 (7.26%) Management Information System
5 11 (6.15%) PKI
6 6 (3.35%) CCTV
6 6 (3.35%) Cloud Native
6 6 (3.35%) Cyber Defence
6 6 (3.35%) Security Operations Centre
6 6 (3.35%) Security Posture
7 5 (2.79%) Team-Oriented Environment
8 4 (2.23%) Hybrid Cloud
9 3 (1.68%) Distributed Systems
9 3 (1.68%) EPoS
9 3 (1.68%) Life Science
9 3 (1.68%) Private Cloud
9 3 (1.68%) Public Cloud
9 3 (1.68%) Renewable Energy
9 3 (1.68%) Replication
9 3 (1.68%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 129 (72.07%) Windows
2 73 (40.78%) Windows Server
3 50 (27.93%) Linux
4 35 (19.55%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 22 (12.29%) Windows 10
6 12 (6.70%) Mac OS
7 8 (4.47%) Windows Server 2019
8 3 (1.68%) Windows 7
9 2 (1.12%) Android
9 2 (1.12%) Apple iOS
9 2 (1.12%) CentOS
9 2 (1.12%) Rocky
9 2 (1.12%) Ubuntu
9 2 (1.12%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.56%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 49 (27.37%) Problem-Solving
2 41 (22.91%) Cybersecurity
3 37 (20.67%) Customer Service
4 35 (19.55%) Continuous Improvement
4 35 (19.55%) Disaster Recovery
5 34 (18.99%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 32 (17.88%) ITIL
7 29 (16.20%) SIEM
8 25 (13.97%) High Availability
9 19 (10.61%) Project Delivery
9 19 (10.61%) Validation
10 16 (8.94%) Antivirus Management
10 16 (8.94%) Application Security
10 16 (8.94%) Business Continuity
10 16 (8.94%) Data Protection
10 16 (8.94%) Pattern Matching
10 16 (8.94%) Platform Engineering
11 15 (8.38%) Kalman Filter
12 14 (7.82%) Server Management
12 14 (7.82%) Time Management
Programming Languages
1 56 (31.28%) PowerShell
2 18 (10.06%) Python
3 12 (6.70%) Bash
4 7 (3.91%) Shell Script
5 6 (3.35%) Korn
6 5 (2.79%) SQL
7 2 (1.12%) C
Qualifications
1 53 (29.61%) Security Cleared
2 37 (20.67%) DV Cleared
3 36 (20.11%) Degree
4 26 (14.53%) Microsoft Certification
5 16 (8.94%) SC Cleared
6 15 (8.38%) CompTIA Security+
7 12 (6.70%) Network+ Certification
8 9 (5.03%) CCNA
8 9 (5.03%) Cisco Certification
8 9 (5.03%) DBS Check
8 9 (5.03%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 8 (4.47%) Azure Certification
10 4 (2.23%) CCNP
10 4 (2.23%) Computer Science Degree
11 3 (1.68%) ICAEW
12 2 (1.12%) A+ Certification
12 2 (1.12%) RHCE
12 2 (1.12%) RHCSA
13 1 (0.56%) CISSP
13 1 (0.56%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 31 (17.32%) Cyber Essentials
2 17 (9.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 12 (6.70%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
4 8 (4.47%) GDPR
4 8 (4.47%) SLA
5 5 (2.79%) NCSC
6 4 (2.23%) SOC 2
7 3 (1.68%) NIST
7 3 (1.68%) QA
System Software
1 36 (20.11%) vSphere
2 31 (17.32%) Hyper-V
3 30 (16.76%) VMware Infrastructure
4 15 (8.38%) Docker
5 8 (4.47%) Citrix Hypervisor
6 5 (2.79%) Virtual Machines
7 2 (1.12%) Samba
8 1 (0.56%) Firmware
8 1 (0.56%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 48 (26.82%) Microsoft Intune
2 11 (6.15%) Kubernetes
3 10 (5.59%) Jamf Pro
4 6 (3.35%) Graylog
5 3 (1.68%) Ansible
5 3 (1.68%) Grafana
5 3 (1.68%) Prometheus
5 3 (1.68%) Terraform
6 2 (1.12%) SCCM
6 2 (1.12%) Single Sign-On
6 2 (1.12%) vCenter Server
7 1 (0.56%) Autotask
7 1 (0.56%) Failover Clustering
7 1 (0.56%) FortiGate
Vendors
1 132 (73.74%) Microsoft
2 66 (36.87%) VMware
3 27 (15.08%) Red Hat
4 19 (10.61%) Google
5 15 (8.38%) Cisco
5 15 (8.38%) McAfee
6 12 (6.70%) Apple
6 12 (6.70%) Citrix
7 11 (6.15%) Veeam
8 10 (5.59%) Datto
8 10 (5.59%) Dell
9 9 (5.03%) SonicWALL
10 8 (4.47%) Aruba
10 8 (4.47%) Fortinet
10 8 (4.47%) NetApp
11 6 (3.35%) ServiceNow
12 4 (2.23%) Palo Alto
13 3 (1.68%) ConnectWise
13 3 (1.68%) Juniper
13 3 (1.68%) Oracle