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 19 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 42 47 25
Rank change year-on-year +5 -22 +9
Permanent jobs citing Active Directory 160 143 444
As % of all permanent jobs in the Thames Valley 3.39% 5.10% 7.31%
As % of the System Software category 62.50% 36.29% 44.18%
Number of salaries quoted 127 118 401
10th Percentile £27,750 £25,750 £26,250
25th Percentile £31,375 £31,250 £31,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £35,000 £45,000 £41,000
Median % change year-on-year -22.22% +9.76% +26.15%
75th Percentile £43,125 £57,500 £55,000
90th Percentile £68,750 £65,650 £59,000
South East median annual salary £36,000 £42,500 £37,500
% change year-on-year -15.29% +13.33% +10.29%

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 256 394 1,005
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 5.43% 14.05% 16.55%
Number of salaries quoted 172 276 822
10th Percentile £30,050 £28,500 £27,750
25th Percentile £31,375 £42,500 £35,813
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £37,500 £60,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -37.50% +14.29% +23.53%
75th Percentile £62,500 £81,250 £72,500
90th Percentile £73,625 £95,000 £91,250
South East median annual salary £40,000 £57,500 £46,000
% change year-on-year -30.43% +25.00% -3.16%

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 19 March 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 19 March 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 -3 65 £36,000 -28.00% 18
Oxfordshire +10 54 £34,000 +4.62% 11
Buckinghamshire -11 41 £36,500 -18.89% 9
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 30 (18.75%) Microsoft Exchange
2 18 (11.25%) SharePoint
3 3 (1.88%) Apache
3 3 (1.88%) IIS
4 2 (1.25%) CMS
4 2 (1.25%) WordPress
Applications
1 40 (25.00%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.63%) Spreadsheet
Cloud Services
1 103 (64.38%) Microsoft 365
2 80 (50.00%) Azure
3 38 (23.75%) Entra ID
4 18 (11.25%) AWS
5 15 (9.38%) Google Workspace
6 12 (7.50%) GCP
7 7 (4.38%) SaaS
8 4 (2.50%) OneDrive
9 2 (1.25%) Mimecast
10 1 (0.63%) Azure DevOps
10 1 (0.63%) Azure Key Vault
10 1 (0.63%) GitHub
10 1 (0.63%) GitHub Actions
10 1 (0.63%) Power Automate
10 1 (0.63%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 49 (30.63%) Firewall
2 48 (30.00%) DNS
3 32 (20.00%) DHCP
4 23 (14.38%) VPN
5 20 (12.50%) LAN
5 20 (12.50%) TCP/IP
6 19 (11.88%) WAN
7 14 (8.75%) VoIP
8 12 (7.50%) Wi-Fi
9 9 (5.63%) SAN
10 8 (5.00%) Wireless
11 7 (4.38%) Remote Desktop
12 6 (3.75%) NetScaler
12 6 (3.75%) VLAN
13 4 (2.50%) NAS
13 4 (2.50%) Wireshark
14 3 (1.88%) Ethernet
14 3 (1.88%) iSCSI
15 2 (1.25%) PBX
15 2 (1.25%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (5.63%) SQL Server
2 6 (3.75%) PostgreSQL
3 3 (1.88%) Data Mining
3 3 (1.88%) MySQL
4 1 (0.63%) Amazon RDS
4 1 (0.63%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 8 (5.00%) JIRA
2 3 (1.88%) Subversion
3 1 (0.63%) Git
3 1 (0.63%) Jenkins
General
1 80 (50.00%) Social Skills
2 13 (8.13%) Organisational Skills
3 10 (6.25%) Analytical Skills
4 9 (5.63%) Telecoms
5 5 (3.13%) Retail
6 3 (1.88%) Games
7 2 (1.25%) Documentation Skills
7 2 (1.25%) Finance
7 2 (1.25%) Legal
7 2 (1.25%) Manufacturing
8 1 (0.63%) Aviation
8 1 (0.63%) Health Technology
8 1 (0.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 86 (53.75%) IT Support
2 35 (21.88%) Support Engineer
3 30 (18.75%) IT Engineer
4 27 (16.88%) Analyst
4 27 (16.88%) Support Analyst
5 25 (15.63%) IT Support Engineer
6 20 (12.50%) IT Support Technician
6 20 (12.50%) IT Technician
6 20 (12.50%) Support Technician
7 18 (11.25%) 3rd Line Support
7 18 (11.25%) IT Analyst
7 18 (11.25%) IT Support Analyst
8 14 (8.75%) Technical Support
9 13 (8.13%) 2nd Line Support
10 11 (6.88%) Senior
11 10 (6.25%) Architect
12 9 (5.63%) 3rd Line Technical Support
12 9 (5.63%) Microsoft Engineer
13 8 (5.00%) 2nd Line Support Analyst
13 8 (5.00%) Linux Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (3.75%) Regular Expression
2 5 (3.13%) LDAP
3 3 (1.88%) JSON
3 3 (1.88%) JSON Schema
3 3 (1.88%) XML
3 3 (1.88%) XMPP
4 2 (1.25%) Web Services
5 1 (0.63%) ARM Templates
5 1 (0.63%) OAuth
5 1 (0.63%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 24 (15.00%) Driving Licence
2 18 (11.25%) Self-Motivation
3 11 (6.88%) Onboarding
4 8 (5.00%) Video Conferencing
5 6 (3.75%) PKI
6 5 (3.13%) Social Media
7 4 (2.50%) Linux Command Line
8 3 (1.88%) Management Information System
9 2 (1.25%) Fibre Optics
10 1 (0.63%) Cloud Native
10 1 (0.63%) Clustering
10 1 (0.63%) CMDB
10 1 (0.63%) Data Centre
10 1 (0.63%) FMCG
10 1 (0.63%) Replication
10 1 (0.63%) Security Posture
10 1 (0.63%) Smartphone
10 1 (0.63%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 117 (73.13%) Windows
2 71 (44.38%) Windows Server
3 33 (20.63%) Linux
4 16 (10.00%) Windows 10
5 12 (7.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 8 (5.00%) Android
6 8 (5.00%) Apple iOS
6 8 (5.00%) Mac OS
7 6 (3.75%) Windows Server 2019
8 3 (1.88%) Windows Server 2016
9 2 (1.25%) CentOS
9 2 (1.25%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.63%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 70 (43.75%) Customer Service
2 58 (36.25%) Problem-Solving
3 40 (25.00%) ITIL
4 25 (15.63%) Cybersecurity
5 17 (10.63%) Mentoring
6 14 (8.75%) Customer-Centric Approach
6 14 (8.75%) Customer-Centricity
7 13 (8.13%) ITSM
8 10 (6.25%) Continuous Improvement
9 9 (5.63%) Coaching
9 9 (5.63%) SIEM
10 8 (5.00%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 8 (5.00%) Mobile Device Management
10 8 (5.00%) Network Management
11 7 (4.38%) Data Protection
11 7 (4.38%) Disaster Recovery
11 7 (4.38%) Project Delivery
11 7 (4.38%) Service Delivery
12 6 (3.75%) Process Improvement
12 6 (3.75%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 20 (12.50%) PowerShell
2 9 (5.63%) SQL
3 4 (2.50%) Bash
4 3 (1.88%) Python
4 3 (1.88%) Shell Script
5 2 (1.25%) C
5 2 (1.25%) T-SQL
6 1 (0.63%) Bicep
6 1 (0.63%) Korn
Qualifications
1 24 (15.00%) Security Cleared
2 21 (13.13%) Degree
3 15 (9.38%) DV Cleared
4 14 (8.75%) Microsoft Certification
5 8 (5.00%) SC Cleared
6 7 (4.38%) DBS Check
6 7 (4.38%) Microsoft Certified Professional
7 6 (3.75%) A+ Certification
8 4 (2.50%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 3 (1.88%) MCSA
10 2 (1.25%) CCNA
10 2 (1.25%) Cisco Certification
10 2 (1.25%) ISTQB
10 2 (1.25%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 2 (1.25%) MCSE
10 2 (1.25%) RHCE
10 2 (1.25%) RHCSA
11 1 (0.63%) CCIE
11 1 (0.63%) CISSP
11 1 (0.63%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (5.63%) SLA
2 5 (3.13%) Cyber Essentials
2 5 (3.13%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 1 (0.63%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
3 1 (0.63%) GDPR
System Software
1 32 (20.00%) Hyper-V
2 21 (13.13%) VMware Infrastructure
3 12 (7.50%) vSphere
4 8 (5.00%) Docker
5 3 (1.88%) Citrix Hypervisor
6 2 (1.25%) Samba
6 2 (1.25%) Terminal Server
7 1 (0.63%) Virtual Desktop
7 1 (0.63%) Virtual Machines
7 1 (0.63%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 31 (19.38%) Microsoft Intune
2 21 (13.13%) SCCM
3 5 (3.13%) Jamf Pro
3 5 (3.13%) SCOM
3 5 (3.13%) SmoothWall
3 5 (3.13%) Terraform
4 4 (2.50%) Kubernetes
5 2 (1.25%) Ansible
5 2 (1.25%) SCSM
6 1 (0.63%) Autotask
6 1 (0.63%) Failover Clustering
6 1 (0.63%) FortiGate
Vendors
1 124 (77.50%) Microsoft
2 35 (21.88%) VMware
3 23 (14.38%) Google
4 11 (6.88%) ServiceNow
5 10 (6.25%) Cisco
6 8 (5.00%) Citrix
6 8 (5.00%) Meraki
7 6 (3.75%) Palo Alto
7 6 (3.75%) Red Hat
8 5 (3.13%) Atlassian
8 5 (3.13%) CheckPoint
8 5 (3.13%) McAfee
9 4 (2.50%) Adobe
9 4 (2.50%) NetApp
9 4 (2.50%) Veeam
10 3 (1.88%) Dell
10 3 (1.88%) Oracle
10 3 (1.88%) Trend Micro
11 2 (1.25%) D-Link
11 2 (1.25%) Juniper