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 8 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 48 50 22
Rank change year-on-year +2 -28 +30
Permanent jobs citing Active Directory 171 201 307
As % of all permanent jobs in the Thames Valley 4.86% 4.67% 9.08%
As % of the System Software category 52.29% 35.20% 52.30%
Number of salaries quoted 147 142 282
10th Percentile £27,580 £26,300 £26,250
25th Percentile £31,375 £31,563 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £37,500 £40,000 £42,500
Median % change year-on-year -6.25% -5.88% +30.77%
75th Percentile £51,000 £52,438 £55,250
90th Percentile £70,000 £59,975 £58,738
South East median annual salary £37,500 £42,500 £42,000
% change year-on-year -11.76% +1.19% +17.48%

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 327 571 587
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 9.29% 13.26% 17.36%
Number of salaries quoted 219 343 501
10th Percentile £30,500 £30,050 £27,500
25th Percentile £34,000 £40,006 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £41,500 £56,252 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -26.22% +7.15% +6.82%
75th Percentile £62,500 £75,000 £71,250
90th Percentile £78,000 £87,500 £85,000
South East median annual salary £41,500 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -24.55% +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 8 November 2025.

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 8 November 2025. 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
Buckinghamshire +15 67 £37,500 - 31
Berkshire -30 59 £40,500 -17.22% 130
Oxfordshire +32 45 £35,000 -1.41% 33
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 38 (22.22%) Microsoft Exchange
2 19 (11.11%) SharePoint
3 4 (2.34%) IIS
4 2 (1.17%) Confluence
5 1 (0.58%) CMS
5 1 (0.58%) WordPress
Applications
1 35 (20.47%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.58%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.58%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 1 (0.58%) Sage 200
Cloud Services
1 120 (70.18%) Microsoft 365
2 108 (63.16%) Azure
3 46 (26.90%) Entra ID
4 28 (16.37%) AWS
5 11 (6.43%) GCP
6 7 (4.09%) Azure Key Vault
7 6 (3.51%) Azure DevOps
7 6 (3.51%) GitHub
7 6 (3.51%) GitHub Actions
7 6 (3.51%) Google Workspace
8 5 (2.92%) Mimecast
9 3 (1.75%) IaaS
9 3 (1.75%) SaaS
10 2 (1.17%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 2 (1.17%) Amazon EC2
10 2 (1.17%) Amazon ELB
10 2 (1.17%) Amazon Glacier
10 2 (1.17%) Amazon S3
10 2 (1.17%) AWS KMS
10 2 (1.17%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 48 (28.07%) DNS
2 45 (26.32%) Firewall
3 42 (24.56%) DHCP
4 19 (11.11%) SAN
5 17 (9.94%) VPN
6 11 (6.43%) TCP/IP
7 9 (5.26%) iSCSI
7 9 (5.26%) Remote Desktop
7 9 (5.26%) WAN
8 8 (4.68%) LAN
8 8 (4.68%) Wireless
9 7 (4.09%) IP Telephony
10 6 (3.51%) SMTP
10 6 (3.51%) VoIP
11 4 (2.34%) VLAN
12 3 (1.75%) Wi-Fi
13 2 (1.17%) Ethernet
13 2 (1.17%) FTP
13 2 (1.17%) HTTP
13 2 (1.17%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (12.87%) SQL Server
2 9 (5.26%) Amazon RDS
2 9 (5.26%) MySQL
2 9 (5.26%) PostgreSQL
3 3 (1.75%) Data Mining
4 1 (0.58%) Azure SQL Database
4 1 (0.58%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 8 (4.68%) Git
1 8 (4.68%) Jenkins
2 2 (1.17%) JIRA
2 2 (1.17%) Sonatype Nexus
2 2 (1.17%) Vagrant
General
1 90 (52.63%) Social Skills
2 11 (6.43%) Organisational Skills
3 8 (4.68%) Telecoms
4 7 (4.09%) Analytical Skills
5 3 (1.75%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 3 (1.75%) Retail
6 2 (1.17%) Finance
6 2 (1.17%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 66 (38.60%) IT Support
2 33 (19.30%) 3rd Line Support
3 28 (16.37%) Support Engineer
4 24 (14.04%) IT Engineer
4 24 (14.04%) Support Technician
5 23 (13.45%) Technical Support
6 22 (12.87%) Analyst
7 20 (11.70%) IT Support Engineer
8 18 (10.53%) Support Analyst
9 17 (9.94%) IT Analyst
9 17 (9.94%) IT Support Technician
9 17 (9.94%) IT Technician
10 16 (9.36%) 3rd Line Technical Support
11 14 (8.19%) 2nd Line Support
12 13 (7.60%) IT Support Analyst
12 13 (7.60%) Senior
13 12 (7.02%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 12 (7.02%) Linux Engineer
14 11 (6.43%) Infrastructure Manager
15 10 (5.85%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (3.51%) ARM Templates
2 2 (1.17%) SAML
3 1 (0.58%) Azure Blueprints
3 1 (0.58%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 23 (13.45%) Self-Motivation
2 22 (12.87%) Driving Licence
3 16 (9.36%) Onboarding
4 10 (5.85%) Cloud Native
5 9 (5.26%) Management Information System
6 6 (3.51%) Data Centre
6 6 (3.51%) Linux Command Line
6 6 (3.51%) PKI
7 5 (2.92%) NHS
8 4 (2.34%) Replication
9 3 (1.75%) Virtual Team
10 2 (1.17%) Clustering
10 2 (1.17%) Hybrid Cloud
11 1 (0.58%) CMDB
11 1 (0.58%) Fibre Optics
11 1 (0.58%) FMCG
11 1 (0.58%) Legacy Systems
11 1 (0.58%) Social Media
11 1 (0.58%) Team-Oriented Environment
11 1 (0.58%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 138 (80.70%) Windows
2 81 (47.37%) Windows Server
3 27 (15.79%) Linux
4 17 (9.94%) Mac OS
5 16 (9.36%) Windows Server 2019
6 12 (7.02%) Windows 10
7 10 (5.85%) Apple iOS
7 10 (5.85%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 8 (4.68%) VMS
9 6 (3.51%) Android
10 4 (2.34%) Unix
11 2 (1.17%) Amazon Linux
11 2 (1.17%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (1.17%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 66 (38.60%) Customer Service
2 49 (28.65%) Problem-Solving
3 41 (23.98%) ITIL
4 37 (21.64%) Cybersecurity
5 36 (21.05%) Mentoring
6 16 (9.36%) Coaching
6 16 (9.36%) Customer-Centric Approach
6 16 (9.36%) Customer-Centricity
7 15 (8.77%) Disaster Recovery
8 14 (8.19%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 10 (5.85%) ITSM
9 10 (5.85%) Project Delivery
10 9 (5.26%) DevOps
10 9 (5.26%) Time Management
11 8 (4.68%) Agile
11 8 (4.68%) Business Continuity
11 8 (4.68%) Servant Leadership
11 8 (4.68%) Server Management
12 7 (4.09%) Cloud Security
12 7 (4.09%) Observability
Programming Languages
1 30 (17.54%) PowerShell
2 15 (8.77%) Bash
3 9 (5.26%) Korn
3 9 (5.26%) SQL
4 3 (1.75%) Python
5 2 (1.17%) Groovy
5 2 (1.17%) Java
5 2 (1.17%) Perl
6 1 (0.58%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 32 (18.71%) Degree
2 19 (11.11%) Microsoft Certification
3 13 (7.60%) Security Cleared
4 12 (7.02%) SC Cleared
5 10 (5.85%) A+ Certification
5 10 (5.85%) DBS Check
5 10 (5.85%) MCP
6 7 (4.09%) Azure Certification
7 3 (1.75%) CCNA
7 3 (1.75%) Cisco Certification
7 3 (1.75%) MCSA
8 2 (1.17%) AWS Certification
8 2 (1.17%) BPSS Clearance
8 2 (1.17%) CCNP
8 2 (1.17%) MCSE
8 2 (1.17%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 1 (0.58%) DV Cleared
9 1 (0.58%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 1 (0.58%) MCITP
9 1 (0.58%) RHCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (5.26%) Cyber Essentials
2 6 (3.51%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
2 6 (3.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 6 (3.51%) SLA
3 2 (1.17%) GDPR
4 1 (0.58%) Accessibility
4 1 (0.58%) ISO 22301
System Software
1 49 (28.65%) Hyper-V
2 31 (18.13%) VMware Infrastructure
3 20 (11.70%) Docker
4 9 (5.26%) Citrix Hypervisor
5 8 (4.68%) Virtual Servers
5 8 (4.68%) VMware ESXi
6 7 (4.09%) Terminal Services
7 3 (1.75%) vSphere
8 2 (1.17%) DFS Replication
8 2 (1.17%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 1 (0.58%) Virtual Machines
9 1 (0.58%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 44 (25.73%) Microsoft Intune
2 18 (10.53%) SCCM
3 15 (8.77%) Kubernetes
4 10 (5.85%) Terraform
5 5 (2.92%) WSUS
6 3 (1.75%) SCOM
7 2 (1.17%) Failover Clustering
7 2 (1.17%) Grafana
7 2 (1.17%) Prometheus
7 2 (1.17%) SCSM
7 2 (1.17%) Single Sign-On
8 1 (0.58%) Ansible
8 1 (0.58%) Jamf Pro
8 1 (0.58%) Red Hat Satellite
8 1 (0.58%) SmoothWall
Vendors
1 157 (91.81%) Microsoft
2 46 (26.90%) VMware
3 14 (8.19%) Dell
3 14 (8.19%) Google
4 13 (7.60%) Apple
5 10 (5.85%) Red Hat
6 9 (5.26%) Sophos
6 9 (5.26%) Splunk
7 8 (4.68%) ServiceNow
8 6 (3.51%) Cisco
8 6 (3.51%) Veeam
9 5 (2.92%) Barracuda Networks
9 5 (2.92%) Citrix
9 5 (2.92%) HP
9 5 (2.92%) Ubiquiti
10 3 (1.75%) Atlassian
10 3 (1.75%) Juniper
10 3 (1.75%) Trend Micro
11 2 (1.17%) SolarWinds
12 1 (0.58%) HubSpot