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 23 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 63 82 41
Rank change year-on-year +19 -41 -18
Permanent jobs citing Active Directory 170 137 234
As % of all permanent jobs in the Thames Valley 2.30% 3.57% 4.92%
As % of the System Software category 45.95% 41.02% 41.12%
Number of salaries quoted 135 118 166
10th Percentile £29,000 £28,250 £27,625
25th Percentile £33,750 £34,000 £31,563
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £37,500 £38,000
Median % change year-on-year +20.00% -1.32% -7.32%
75th Percentile £57,500 £51,000 £52,500
90th Percentile £68,750 £70,000 £57,013
South East median annual salary £42,500 £37,500 £42,500
% change year-on-year +13.33% -11.76% +6.25%

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 370 334 569
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 5.01% 8.71% 11.97%
Number of salaries quoted 260 214 371
10th Percentile £29,500 £31,250 £31,250
25th Percentile £38,500 £36,250 £37,125
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £45,500 £54,500
Median % change year-on-year +15.38% -16.51% +3.81%
75th Percentile £68,750 £70,000 £73,750
90th Percentile £75,250 £83,375 £85,000
South East median annual salary £60,000 £45,000 £53,909
% change year-on-year +33.33% -16.53% +7.82%

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 23 September 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 23 September 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 +40 85 £45,000 +11.11% 40
Buckinghamshire -1 56 £38,750 +3.33% 13
Oxfordshire -31 29 £47,166 +31.02% 17
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 61 (35.88%) Microsoft Exchange
2 60 (35.29%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.59%) Confluence
Applications
1 10 (5.88%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (1.18%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.59%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 6 (3.53%) Raiser’s Edge
Cloud Services
1 98 (57.65%) Azure
2 95 (55.88%) Microsoft 365
3 74 (43.53%) Entra ID
4 21 (12.35%) Google Workspace
5 18 (10.59%) AWS
6 13 (7.65%) IaaS
7 7 (4.12%) OneDrive
7 7 (4.12%) Power Automate
8 6 (3.53%) Azure Sentinel
8 6 (3.53%) Cloudflare
9 4 (2.35%) PaaS
10 3 (1.76%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 1 (0.59%) Azure Stack
11 1 (0.59%) SaaS
11 1 (0.59%) Slack
Communications & Networking
1 97 (57.06%) DNS
2 84 (49.41%) Firewall
3 67 (39.41%) DHCP
4 42 (24.71%) VPN
5 41 (24.12%) Wi-Fi
6 35 (20.59%) VLAN
7 22 (12.94%) SSL
8 19 (11.18%) TCP/IP
9 17 (10.00%) VoIP
10 16 (9.41%) LAN
11 15 (8.82%) WAN
12 14 (8.24%) Wireless
13 13 (7.65%) Network Security
14 10 (5.88%) Remote Desktop
15 9 (5.29%) SAN
16 5 (2.94%) iSCSI
16 5 (2.94%) NetScaler
17 4 (2.35%) Internet
17 4 (2.35%) NAS
17 4 (2.35%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (4.12%) SQL Server
2 5 (2.94%) MySQL
2 5 (2.94%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 3 (1.76%) JIRA
General
1 83 (48.82%) Social Skills
2 14 (8.24%) Analytical Skills
3 8 (4.71%) Finance
4 6 (3.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 6 (3.53%) Influencing Skills
4 6 (3.53%) Organisational Skills
4 6 (3.53%) Retail
5 5 (2.94%) Documentation Skills
5 5 (2.94%) Law
5 5 (2.94%) Local Government
6 3 (1.76%) Legal
6 3 (1.76%) Manufacturing
7 1 (0.59%) Aerospace
7 1 (0.59%) Automotive
7 1 (0.59%) Billing
7 1 (0.59%) Italian Language
7 1 (0.59%) Japanese Language
7 1 (0.59%) Police
7 1 (0.59%) Public Sector
7 1 (0.59%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 56 (32.94%) IT Support
2 40 (23.53%) IT Engineer
3 33 (19.41%) Support Engineer
4 31 (18.24%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 29 (17.06%) IT Support Engineer
5 29 (17.06%) Senior
6 18 (10.59%) Architect
7 15 (8.82%) Analyst
8 13 (7.65%) Applications Architect
9 11 (6.47%) Senior IT Engineer
9 11 (6.47%) Senior IT Support
9 11 (6.47%) Senior Support Engineer
10 10 (5.88%) IT Support Technician
10 10 (5.88%) IT Technician
10 10 (5.88%) Security Architect
10 10 (5.88%) Support Technician
11 9 (5.29%) 1st Line Support
11 9 (5.29%) Infrastructure Support
11 9 (5.29%) Infrastructure Support Engineer
12 8 (4.71%) IT Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (10.00%) Regular Expression
2 16 (9.41%) XMPP
3 15 (8.82%) LDAP
4 5 (2.94%) HTML
4 5 (2.94%) ODBC
5 4 (2.35%) JSON
5 4 (2.35%) JSON Schema
5 4 (2.35%) XML
6 3 (1.76%) Terraform
7 1 (0.59%) OpenID
7 1 (0.59%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 31 (18.24%) Driving Licence
2 14 (8.24%) Self-Motivation
3 11 (6.47%) Onboarding
4 10 (5.88%) Management Information System
5 9 (5.29%) PKI
6 6 (3.53%) CCTV
6 6 (3.53%) Cyber Defence
6 6 (3.53%) Security Operations Centre
7 5 (2.94%) Cloud Native
7 5 (2.94%) Hybrid Cloud
7 5 (2.94%) Replication
7 5 (2.94%) Security Posture
7 5 (2.94%) Team-Oriented Environment
8 3 (1.76%) Distributed Systems
8 3 (1.76%) EPoS
8 3 (1.76%) Life Science
8 3 (1.76%) Private Cloud
8 3 (1.76%) Public Cloud
8 3 (1.76%) Renewable Energy
8 3 (1.76%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 122 (71.76%) Windows
2 65 (38.24%) Windows Server
3 37 (21.76%) Linux
4 23 (13.53%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 21 (12.35%) Windows 10
6 13 (7.65%) Mac OS
7 10 (5.88%) Windows Server 2019
8 5 (2.94%) Rocky
8 5 (2.94%) Ubuntu
9 4 (2.35%) Android
9 4 (2.35%) Windows Server 2012
10 3 (1.76%) Apple iOS
10 3 (1.76%) Windows 7
11 2 (1.18%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 57 (33.53%) Problem-Solving
2 50 (29.41%) Customer Service
3 43 (25.29%) Cybersecurity
4 41 (24.12%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 38 (22.35%) Disaster Recovery
6 37 (21.76%) Continuous Improvement
7 28 (16.47%) ITIL
8 23 (13.53%) High Availability
9 22 (12.94%) Project Delivery
10 21 (12.35%) SIEM
11 18 (10.59%) Kalman Filter
11 18 (10.59%) Migration
12 17 (10.00%) Data Protection
12 17 (10.00%) Validation
13 16 (9.41%) Business Continuity
14 15 (8.82%) Root Cause Analysis
14 15 (8.82%) Server Management
15 13 (7.65%) Antivirus Management
15 13 (7.65%) Pattern Matching
15 13 (7.65%) Platform Engineering
Programming Languages
1 55 (32.35%) PowerShell
2 15 (8.82%) Python
3 9 (5.29%) Bash
4 5 (2.94%) Korn
5 4 (2.35%) Shell Script
6 1 (0.59%) SQL
Qualifications
1 41 (24.12%) Security Cleared
2 33 (19.41%) Degree
3 32 (18.82%) Microsoft Certification
4 27 (15.88%) DV Cleared
5 17 (10.00%) CompTIA Security+
5 17 (10.00%) Network+ Certification
6 13 (7.65%) SC Cleared
7 11 (6.47%) DBS Check
8 10 (5.88%) Azure Certification
9 9 (5.29%) CCNA
9 9 (5.29%) Cisco Certification
10 6 (3.53%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
11 5 (2.94%) A+ Certification
12 4 (2.35%) CCNP
12 4 (2.35%) Computer Science Degree
13 3 (1.76%) ICAEW
14 1 (0.59%) BPSS Clearance
14 1 (0.59%) CCA
14 1 (0.59%) Citrix Certification
14 1 (0.59%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (19.41%) Cyber Essentials
2 14 (8.24%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
3 13 (7.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 8 (4.71%) GDPR
5 6 (3.53%) SLA
6 5 (2.94%) NCSC
7 4 (2.35%) SOC 2
8 3 (1.76%) NIST
8 3 (1.76%) QA
9 1 (0.59%) PMO
System Software
1 34 (20.00%) VMware Infrastructure
2 32 (18.82%) Hyper-V
3 28 (16.47%) vSphere
4 8 (4.71%) Docker
5 5 (2.94%) Citrix Hypervisor
5 5 (2.94%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.59%) Firmware
6 1 (0.59%) Virtual Desktop
6 1 (0.59%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 54 (31.76%) Microsoft Intune
2 12 (7.06%) Jamf Pro
3 8 (4.71%) Kubernetes
4 6 (3.53%) Graylog
5 3 (1.76%) Ansible
5 3 (1.76%) Grafana
5 3 (1.76%) Prometheus
5 3 (1.76%) SCCM
5 3 (1.76%) Single Sign-On
5 3 (1.76%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 134 (78.82%) Microsoft
2 66 (38.82%) VMware
3 21 (12.35%) Google
3 21 (12.35%) Red Hat
4 18 (10.59%) Cisco
5 17 (10.00%) Apple
6 16 (9.41%) Veeam
7 13 (7.65%) McAfee
8 11 (6.47%) Datto
8 11 (6.47%) SonicWALL
9 10 (5.88%) Dell
10 9 (5.29%) Fortinet
11 8 (4.71%) Aruba
12 6 (3.53%) Citrix
13 4 (2.35%) ConnectWise
13 4 (2.35%) NetApp
13 4 (2.35%) Palo Alto
13 4 (2.35%) ServiceNow
14 3 (1.76%) Juniper
15 2 (1.18%) Adobe