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

6 months to
1 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 56 91 37
Rank change year-on-year +35 -54 -17
Permanent jobs citing Active Directory 170 124 279
As % of all permanent jobs in the Thames Valley 2.46% 3.18% 5.52%
As % of the System Software category 46.45% 37.13% 46.27%
Number of salaries quoted 138 107 215
10th Percentile £29,000 £28,250 £27,750
25th Percentile £35,000 £33,750 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £37,500 £41,500
Median % change year-on-year +20.00% -9.64% +10.67%
75th Percentile £62,188 £49,375 £52,500
90th Percentile £68,750 £70,000 £56,416
South East median annual salary £43,750 £40,000 £42,250
% change year-on-year +9.38% -5.33% +5.63%

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 366 334 603
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 5.29% 8.56% 11.93%
Number of salaries quoted 255 212 448
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 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +16.67% -10.00% -
75th Percentile £68,750 £71,500 £71,563
90th Percentile £76,500 £83,750 £85,000
South East median annual salary £60,000 £45,000 £51,000
% change year-on-year +33.33% -11.76% +2.00%

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 1 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 1 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 +50 86 £47,500 +26.67% 22
Buckinghamshire +5 55 £36,250 -3.33% 16
Oxfordshire -24 29 £47,166 +20.94% 5
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 (34.71%) Microsoft Exchange
2 57 (33.53%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.59%) Confluence
3 1 (0.59%) IIS
Applications
1 8 (4.71%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.59%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 6 (3.53%) Raiser’s Edge
Cloud Services
1 96 (56.47%) Azure
2 89 (52.35%) Microsoft 365
3 71 (41.76%) Entra ID
4 20 (11.76%) Google Workspace
5 19 (11.18%) 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 2 (1.18%) SaaS
12 1 (0.59%) Azure Stack
12 1 (0.59%) GCP
12 1 (0.59%) Slack
Communications & Networking
1 102 (60.00%) DNS
2 90 (52.94%) Firewall
3 65 (38.24%) DHCP
4 43 (25.29%) Wi-Fi
5 41 (24.12%) VPN
6 34 (20.00%) VLAN
7 21 (12.35%) SSL
8 17 (10.00%) TCP/IP
9 14 (8.24%) LAN
9 14 (8.24%) VoIP
10 13 (7.65%) Wireless
11 12 (7.06%) Network Security
11 12 (7.06%) Remote Desktop
12 11 (6.47%) SAN
13 10 (5.88%) WAN
14 9 (5.29%) NetScaler
15 6 (3.53%) NAS
15 6 (3.53%) Wireshark
16 5 (2.94%) iSCSI
17 4 (2.35%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (5.29%) SQL Server
2 6 (3.53%) PostgreSQL
3 5 (2.94%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 3 (1.76%) JIRA
General
1 79 (46.47%) Social Skills
2 15 (8.82%) Analytical Skills
3 7 (4.12%) Finance
4 6 (3.53%) Documentation Skills
4 6 (3.53%) Influencing Skills
5 5 (2.94%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 5 (2.94%) Local Government
5 5 (2.94%) Organisational Skills
5 5 (2.94%) Retail
6 4 (2.35%) Law
7 3 (1.76%) Manufacturing
8 2 (1.18%) Legal
9 1 (0.59%) Aviation
9 1 (0.59%) Games
9 1 (0.59%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 54 (31.76%) IT Support
2 38 (22.35%) IT Engineer
3 34 (20.00%) Support Engineer
4 29 (17.06%) IT Support Engineer
5 28 (16.47%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 27 (15.88%) Senior
7 25 (14.71%) Architect
8 18 (10.59%) Applications Architect
9 15 (8.82%) Analyst
10 14 (8.24%) Security Architect
11 11 (6.47%) Senior IT Engineer
11 11 (6.47%) Senior IT Support
11 11 (6.47%) Senior Support Engineer
12 10 (5.88%) IT Support Technician
12 10 (5.88%) IT Technician
12 10 (5.88%) Support Technician
13 8 (4.71%) 1st Line Support
13 8 (4.71%) Infrastructure Support
13 8 (4.71%) Infrastructure Support Engineer
14 7 (4.12%) IT Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (12.35%) Regular Expression
2 19 (11.18%) XMPP
3 17 (10.00%) LDAP
4 5 (2.94%) HTML
4 5 (2.94%) JSON
4 5 (2.94%) JSON Schema
4 5 (2.94%) ODBC
4 5 (2.94%) XML
5 3 (1.76%) Terraform
6 2 (1.18%) OpenID
7 1 (0.59%) OAuth
7 1 (0.59%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 29 (17.06%) Driving Licence
2 16 (9.41%) Self-Motivation
3 14 (8.24%) 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%) Replication
7 5 (2.94%) Security Posture
7 5 (2.94%) Team-Oriented Environment
8 4 (2.35%) Hybrid Cloud
9 3 (1.76%) Data Centre
9 3 (1.76%) Distributed Systems
9 3 (1.76%) Life Science
9 3 (1.76%) Private Cloud
9 3 (1.76%) Public Cloud
9 3 (1.76%) Renewable Energy
9 3 (1.76%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 125 (73.53%) Windows
2 70 (41.18%) Windows Server
3 43 (25.29%) Linux
4 28 (16.47%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 22 (12.94%) Windows 10
6 13 (7.65%) Mac OS
7 10 (5.88%) Windows Server 2019
8 4 (2.35%) Rocky
8 4 (2.35%) Ubuntu
9 3 (1.76%) Windows 7
9 3 (1.76%) Windows Server 2012
10 2 (1.18%) Android
10 2 (1.18%) Apple iOS
11 1 (0.59%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 53 (31.18%) Problem-Solving
2 43 (25.29%) Customer Service
3 42 (24.71%) Cybersecurity
4 38 (22.35%) Disaster Recovery
4 38 (22.35%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 37 (21.76%) Continuous Improvement
6 28 (16.47%) ITIL
7 25 (14.71%) SIEM
8 21 (12.35%) High Availability
8 21 (12.35%) Project Delivery
9 19 (11.18%) Validation
10 17 (10.00%) Kalman Filter
11 16 (9.41%) Antivirus Management
11 16 (9.41%) Business Continuity
11 16 (9.41%) Data Protection
11 16 (9.41%) Migration
11 16 (9.41%) Pattern Matching
11 16 (9.41%) Platform Engineering
11 16 (9.41%) Server Management
12 15 (8.82%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 56 (32.94%) PowerShell
2 16 (9.41%) Python
3 9 (5.29%) Bash
4 5 (2.94%) Korn
4 5 (2.94%) Shell Script
5 2 (1.18%) SQL
Qualifications
1 47 (27.65%) Security Cleared
2 34 (20.00%) Degree
3 31 (18.24%) DV Cleared
3 31 (18.24%) Microsoft Certification
4 17 (10.00%) CompTIA Security+
5 15 (8.82%) Network+ Certification
6 14 (8.24%) 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 7 (4.12%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
11 4 (2.35%) CCNP
11 4 (2.35%) Computer Science Degree
12 3 (1.76%) A+ Certification
12 3 (1.76%) ICAEW
13 1 (0.59%) CISM
13 1 (0.59%) CISSP
13 1 (0.59%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (19.41%) Cyber Essentials
2 16 (9.41%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 14 (8.24%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
4 8 (4.71%) GDPR
5 7 (4.12%) SLA
6 5 (2.94%) NCSC
7 4 (2.35%) SOC 2
8 3 (1.76%) NIST
8 3 (1.76%) QA
System Software
1 34 (20.00%) VMware Infrastructure
2 33 (19.41%) Hyper-V
2 33 (19.41%) vSphere
3 10 (5.88%) Docker
4 5 (2.94%) Citrix Hypervisor
4 5 (2.94%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.59%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 52 (30.59%) 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%) vCenter Server
6 2 (1.18%) Single Sign-On
7 1 (0.59%) Autotask
7 1 (0.59%) Failover Clustering
7 1 (0.59%) FortiGate
Vendors
1 130 (76.47%) Microsoft
2 69 (40.59%) VMware
3 24 (14.12%) Red Hat
4 21 (12.35%) Google
5 17 (10.00%) Cisco
6 15 (8.82%) Apple
6 15 (8.82%) McAfee
6 15 (8.82%) Veeam
7 12 (7.06%) Datto
8 11 (6.47%) SonicWALL
9 9 (5.29%) Citrix
9 9 (5.29%) Dell
10 8 (4.71%) Aruba
10 8 (4.71%) Fortinet
11 6 (3.53%) NetApp
12 4 (2.35%) ConnectWise
12 4 (2.35%) Palo Alto
12 4 (2.35%) ServiceNow
13 3 (1.76%) Juniper
14 2 (1.18%) Meraki