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

6 months to
16 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 64 80 37
Rank change year-on-year +16 -43 -17
Permanent jobs citing Active Directory 165 136 248
As % of all permanent jobs in the Thames Valley 2.29% 3.52% 5.12%
As % of the System Software category 45.96% 40.48% 42.61%
Number of salaries quoted 132 118 181
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 £40,000
Median % change year-on-year +20.00% -6.25% -
75th Percentile £57,500 £50,000 £52,500
90th Percentile £68,750 £70,000 £56,525
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 359 336 582
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 4.98% 8.69% 12.02%
Number of salaries quoted 253 215 391
10th Percentile £29,500 £31,250 £31,250
25th Percentile £38,500 £36,250 £38,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £45,000 £51,350
Median % change year-on-year +16.67% -12.37% -0.58%
75th Percentile £68,750 £70,000 £72,500
90th Percentile £75,000 £83,750 £83,750
South East median annual salary £60,000 £45,000 £53,818
% change year-on-year +33.33% -16.38% +7.64%

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 16 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 16 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 +42 81 £46,250 +14.20% 32
Buckinghamshire 0 55 £37,500 - 17
Oxfordshire -32 29 £47,166 +24.12% 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 59 (35.76%) Microsoft Exchange
1 59 (35.76%) SharePoint
2 1 (0.61%) Confluence
Applications
1 9 (5.45%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.61%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.61%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 6 (3.64%) Raiser’s Edge
Cloud Services
1 95 (57.58%) Azure
2 91 (55.15%) Microsoft 365
3 73 (44.24%) Entra ID
4 21 (12.73%) Google Workspace
5 18 (10.91%) AWS
6 13 (7.88%) IaaS
7 7 (4.24%) OneDrive
7 7 (4.24%) Power Automate
8 6 (3.64%) Azure Sentinel
8 6 (3.64%) Cloudflare
9 4 (2.42%) PaaS
10 3 (1.82%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 2 (1.21%) SaaS
12 1 (0.61%) Azure Stack
12 1 (0.61%) Slack
Communications & Networking
1 96 (58.18%) DNS
2 84 (50.91%) Firewall
3 65 (39.39%) DHCP
4 41 (24.85%) VPN
4 41 (24.85%) Wi-Fi
5 34 (20.61%) VLAN
6 21 (12.73%) SSL
7 17 (10.30%) TCP/IP
8 16 (9.70%) VoIP
9 14 (8.48%) LAN
10 13 (7.88%) WAN
10 13 (7.88%) Wireless
11 12 (7.27%) Network Security
12 10 (6.06%) Remote Desktop
13 9 (5.45%) SAN
14 5 (3.03%) iSCSI
14 5 (3.03%) NetScaler
15 4 (2.42%) Internet
15 4 (2.42%) NAS
15 4 (2.42%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (4.24%) SQL Server
2 5 (3.03%) MySQL
2 5 (3.03%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 2 (1.21%) JIRA
General
1 81 (49.09%) Social Skills
2 14 (8.48%) Analytical Skills
3 7 (4.24%) Finance
4 6 (3.64%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 6 (3.64%) Influencing Skills
4 6 (3.64%) Retail
5 5 (3.03%) Documentation Skills
5 5 (3.03%) Law
5 5 (3.03%) Local Government
5 5 (3.03%) Organisational Skills
6 3 (1.82%) Legal
6 3 (1.82%) Manufacturing
7 1 (0.61%) Automotive
7 1 (0.61%) Billing
7 1 (0.61%) Legal Technology
7 1 (0.61%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 53 (32.12%) IT Support
2 38 (23.03%) IT Engineer
3 32 (19.39%) Support Engineer
4 30 (18.18%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 28 (16.97%) IT Support Engineer
5 28 (16.97%) Senior
6 19 (11.52%) Architect
7 14 (8.48%) Analyst
7 14 (8.48%) Applications Architect
8 12 (7.27%) Security Architect
9 11 (6.67%) Senior IT Engineer
9 11 (6.67%) Senior IT Support
9 11 (6.67%) Senior Support Engineer
10 10 (6.06%) IT Support Technician
10 10 (6.06%) IT Technician
10 10 (6.06%) Support Technician
11 9 (5.45%) Infrastructure Support
11 9 (5.45%) Infrastructure Support Engineer
12 8 (4.85%) 1st Line Support
12 8 (4.85%) IT Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 18 (10.91%) Regular Expression
2 17 (10.30%) XMPP
3 15 (9.09%) LDAP
4 5 (3.03%) HTML
4 5 (3.03%) ODBC
5 4 (2.42%) JSON
5 4 (2.42%) JSON Schema
5 4 (2.42%) XML
6 3 (1.82%) Terraform
7 2 (1.21%) OpenID
8 1 (0.61%) OAuth
8 1 (0.61%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 29 (17.58%) Driving Licence
2 14 (8.48%) Self-Motivation
3 11 (6.67%) Onboarding
4 10 (6.06%) Management Information System
5 7 (4.24%) PKI
6 6 (3.64%) CCTV
6 6 (3.64%) Cyber Defence
6 6 (3.64%) Security Operations Centre
7 5 (3.03%) Cloud Native
7 5 (3.03%) Hybrid Cloud
7 5 (3.03%) Replication
7 5 (3.03%) Security Posture
7 5 (3.03%) Team-Oriented Environment
8 3 (1.82%) Distributed Systems
8 3 (1.82%) EPoS
8 3 (1.82%) Life Science
8 3 (1.82%) Private Cloud
8 3 (1.82%) Public Cloud
8 3 (1.82%) Renewable Energy
8 3 (1.82%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 120 (72.73%) Windows
2 64 (38.79%) Windows Server
3 38 (23.03%) Linux
4 24 (14.55%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 21 (12.73%) Windows 10
6 13 (7.88%) Mac OS
7 10 (6.06%) Windows Server 2019
8 5 (3.03%) Rocky
8 5 (3.03%) Ubuntu
9 4 (2.42%) Windows Server 2012
10 3 (1.82%) Android
10 3 (1.82%) Windows 7
11 2 (1.21%) Apple iOS
12 1 (0.61%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 56 (33.94%) Problem-Solving
2 46 (27.88%) Customer Service
3 42 (25.45%) Cybersecurity
4 40 (24.24%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 38 (23.03%) Disaster Recovery
6 37 (22.42%) Continuous Improvement
7 28 (16.97%) ITIL
8 22 (13.33%) High Availability
8 22 (13.33%) Project Delivery
8 22 (13.33%) SIEM
9 17 (10.30%) Kalman Filter
9 17 (10.30%) Migration
9 17 (10.30%) Validation
10 16 (9.70%) Business Continuity
10 16 (9.70%) Data Protection
10 16 (9.70%) Server Management
11 15 (9.09%) Root Cause Analysis
12 14 (8.48%) Antivirus Management
12 14 (8.48%) Pattern Matching
12 14 (8.48%) Platform Engineering
Programming Languages
1 55 (33.33%) PowerShell
2 15 (9.09%) Python
3 9 (5.45%) Bash
4 5 (3.03%) Korn
5 4 (2.42%) Shell Script
6 1 (0.61%) SQL
Qualifications
1 41 (24.85%) Security Cleared
2 33 (20.00%) Degree
3 32 (19.39%) Microsoft Certification
4 27 (16.36%) DV Cleared
5 17 (10.30%) CompTIA Security+
5 17 (10.30%) Network+ Certification
6 13 (7.88%) SC Cleared
7 11 (6.67%) DBS Check
8 10 (6.06%) Azure Certification
9 9 (5.45%) CCNA
9 9 (5.45%) Cisco Certification
10 6 (3.64%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
11 5 (3.03%) A+ Certification
12 4 (2.42%) CCNP
12 4 (2.42%) Computer Science Degree
13 3 (1.82%) ICAEW
14 1 (0.61%) CCA
14 1 (0.61%) CISSP
14 1 (0.61%) Citrix Certification
14 1 (0.61%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (20.00%) Cyber Essentials
2 14 (8.48%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
3 13 (7.88%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 8 (4.85%) GDPR
5 6 (3.64%) SLA
6 5 (3.03%) NCSC
7 4 (2.42%) SOC 2
8 3 (1.82%) NIST
8 3 (1.82%) QA
9 1 (0.61%) PMO
System Software
1 34 (20.61%) VMware Infrastructure
2 31 (18.79%) Hyper-V
3 29 (17.58%) vSphere
4 8 (4.85%) Docker
5 5 (3.03%) Citrix Hypervisor
5 5 (3.03%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.61%) Firmware
6 1 (0.61%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 53 (32.12%) Microsoft Intune
2 12 (7.27%) Jamf Pro
3 8 (4.85%) Kubernetes
4 6 (3.64%) Graylog
5 3 (1.82%) Ansible
5 3 (1.82%) Grafana
5 3 (1.82%) Prometheus
5 3 (1.82%) SCCM
5 3 (1.82%) vCenter Server
6 2 (1.21%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 130 (78.79%) Microsoft
2 66 (40.00%) VMware
3 22 (13.33%) Red Hat
4 21 (12.73%) Google
5 17 (10.30%) Apple
5 17 (10.30%) Cisco
6 16 (9.70%) Veeam
7 14 (8.48%) McAfee
8 11 (6.67%) Datto
8 11 (6.67%) SonicWALL
9 10 (6.06%) Dell
10 9 (5.45%) Fortinet
11 8 (4.85%) Aruba
12 6 (3.64%) Citrix
13 4 (2.42%) ConnectWise
13 4 (2.42%) NetApp
13 4 (2.42%) Palo Alto
14 3 (1.82%) Juniper
14 3 (1.82%) ServiceNow
15 1 (0.61%) Meraki