Active Directory Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Microsoft Active Directory
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the UK excluding London requiring Active Directory skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 16 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 51 43 30
Rank change year-on-year -8 -13 +5
Permanent jobs citing Active Directory 2,110 1,808 4,311
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 2.95% 5.35% 5.89%
As % of the System Software category 53.08% 41.56% 52.36%
Number of salaries quoted 1,641 1,444 3,457
10th Percentile £26,500 £26,000 £23,750
25th Percentile £29,000 £28,500 £27,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £37,500 £35,000 £35,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.14% - -4.11%
75th Percentile £48,750 £48,750 £48,500
90th Percentile £63,750 £62,500 £58,750
UK median annual salary £40,000 £38,500 £37,500
% change year-on-year +3.90% +2.67% -6.25%

All System Software Skills
UK excluding London

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 UK excluding London.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for system software skills 3,975 4,350 8,233
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 5.55% 12.87% 11.25%
Number of salaries quoted 3,062 2,578 6,487
10th Percentile £28,000 £26,500 £25,750
25th Percentile £32,500 £31,250 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £47,500 £46,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year +3.26% +2.22% -5.26%
75th Percentile £65,000 £65,750 £60,000
90th Percentile £78,750 £81,250 £72,500
UK median annual salary £52,500 £52,500 £49,500
% change year-on-year - +6.06% -10.00%

Active Directory
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Active Directory relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Active Directory job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Active Directory
Salary Trend in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Active Directory.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Active Directory

Active Directory
Salary Histogram in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution for jobs citing Active Directory in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 16 July 2026.

Salary histogram for Active Directory in the UK excluding London

Active Directory
Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Active Directory within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 16 July 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
South East +1 504 £42,500 +6.25% 177
North of England -6 487 £34,000 +6.25% 140
Midlands -31 362 £37,500 +7.14% 52
South West -19 281 £37,500 +8.70% 65
North West +58 247 £35,000 -4.37% 64
East of England +7 236 £35,000 +7.58% 57
East Midlands -3 194 £33,500 +6.35% 27
Yorkshire -27 188 £32,500 +8.33% 51
West Midlands -46 167 £39,500 +0.64% 25
Scotland +85 111 £29,000 -20.00% 31
Wales -10 72 £45,000 +18.13% 13
Northern Ireland -14 56 £35,500 -32.38% 18
North East -57 52 £42,500 +32.81% 33
Isle of Man +4 6 £45,000 +30.43% 2
Active Directory
UK

Active Directory
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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
1 616 (29.19%) Microsoft Exchange
2 440 (20.85%) SharePoint
3 40 (1.90%) IIS
4 14 (0.66%) Confluence
5 10 (0.47%) Exchange Server 2013
6 9 (0.43%) Skype for Business
7 8 (0.38%) Exchange Server 2007
7 8 (0.38%) Exchange Server 2010
8 7 (0.33%) Apache
9 4 (0.19%) CMS
10 3 (0.14%) SAS
11 1 (0.047%) Drupal
11 1 (0.047%) nginx
11 1 (0.047%) Site Server
11 1 (0.047%) WordPress
Applications
1 209 (9.91%) Microsoft Office
2 44 (2.09%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (0.66%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.14%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 3 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
5 2 (0.095%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.047%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.047%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.047%) Revit
Business Applications
1 17 (0.81%) Dynamics CRM
2 13 (0.62%) Dynamics NAV
3 9 (0.43%) Remedy ITSM
4 6 (0.28%) Raiser’s Edge
5 5 (0.24%) JDE EnterpriseOne
5 5 (0.24%) NetSuite
6 4 (0.19%) Dynamics GP
6 4 (0.19%) Exchequer
6 4 (0.19%) Primavera
7 3 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
8 2 (0.095%) Alphatax
8 2 (0.095%) Sage 200
8 2 (0.095%) SAP S/4HANA
8 2 (0.095%) Shopify
9 1 (0.047%) Dynamics AX
9 1 (0.047%) Magento
9 1 (0.047%) Oracle Payables
9 1 (0.047%) Payment Gateway
9 1 (0.047%) SAP EHS
Cloud Services
1 1,485 (70.38%) Microsoft 365
2 1,178 (55.83%) Azure
3 870 (41.23%) Entra ID
4 144 (6.82%) AWS
4 144 (6.82%) OneDrive
5 101 (4.79%) SaaS
6 85 (4.03%) Power Platform
7 62 (2.94%) IaaS
8 59 (2.80%) Mimecast
9 54 (2.56%) PaaS
10 51 (2.42%) Google Workspace
11 45 (2.13%) Azure DevOps
12 35 (1.66%) Microsoft Purview
13 30 (1.42%) Azure Sentinel
14 29 (1.37%) Azure Monitor
15 28 (1.33%) Serverless
16 25 (1.18%) Nutanix
16 25 (1.18%) PowerApps
17 22 (1.04%) Azure Functions
17 22 (1.04%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 702 (33.27%) DNS
2 588 (27.87%) DHCP
3 530 (25.12%) Firewall
4 356 (16.87%) VPN
5 250 (11.85%) TCP/IP
6 209 (9.91%) WAN
7 206 (9.76%) Wi-Fi
8 204 (9.67%) LAN
9 202 (9.57%) VLAN
10 128 (6.07%) VoIP
11 125 (5.92%) Wireless
12 82 (3.89%) Network Security
13 74 (3.51%) SAN
14 49 (2.32%) Remote Desktop
15 28 (1.33%) Internet
15 28 (1.33%) NAS
16 27 (1.28%) Broadband
17 20 (0.95%) SD-WAN
18 16 (0.76%) SSL
19 15 (0.71%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 113 (5.36%) SQL Server
2 109 (5.17%) Amazon RDS
3 47 (2.23%) Power BI
4 32 (1.52%) Azure SQL Database
5 27 (1.28%) PostgreSQL
6 26 (1.23%) MySQL
7 9 (0.43%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 6 (0.28%) Crystal Reports
9 5 (0.24%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 4 (0.19%) GIS
10 4 (0.19%) Neo4j
11 3 (0.14%) Oracle Database
12 2 (0.095%) BusinessObjects
12 2 (0.095%) Data Lake
12 2 (0.095%) Data Warehouse
12 2 (0.095%) KNIME
12 2 (0.095%) Relational Database
13 1 (0.047%) InterSystems Cache
13 1 (0.047%) RDBMS
13 1 (0.047%) Redis
Development Applications
1 75 (3.55%) JIRA
2 23 (1.09%) Git
3 9 (0.43%) GitLab
4 7 (0.33%) Jenkins
5 5 (0.24%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
6 4 (0.19%) Bitbucket
7 2 (0.095%) Artifactory
7 2 (0.095%) Burp Suite
7 2 (0.095%) Metasploit
7 2 (0.095%) Subversion
7 2 (0.095%) Terragrunt
8 1 (0.047%) Carbide.c++
8 1 (0.047%) Gatling
8 1 (0.047%) JMeter
8 1 (0.047%) Ranorex
8 1 (0.047%) Selenium
8 1 (0.047%) Sonatype Nexus
8 1 (0.047%) Team Foundation Server
8 1 (0.047%) Vagrant
General
1 935 (44.31%) Social Skills
2 239 (11.33%) Analytical Skills
3 126 (5.97%) Organisational Skills
4 122 (5.78%) Legal
5 121 (5.73%) Finance
6 94 (4.45%) Law
7 70 (3.32%) Manufacturing
8 68 (3.22%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 61 (2.89%) Public Sector
10 58 (2.75%) Documentation Skills
11 47 (2.23%) Retail
12 46 (2.18%) Telecoms
13 27 (1.28%) Advertising
14 22 (1.04%) Games
15 20 (0.95%) Local Government
16 13 (0.62%) Aerospace
16 13 (0.62%) Automotive
17 9 (0.43%) Influencing Skills
17 9 (0.43%) Marketing
18 7 (0.33%) Banking
Job Titles
1 815 (38.63%) IT Support
2 564 (26.73%) Support Engineer
3 529 (25.07%) IT Engineer
4 441 (20.90%) IT Support Engineer
5 349 (16.54%) Analyst
6 239 (11.33%) Senior
7 231 (10.95%) Support Analyst
8 196 (9.29%) Support Technician
9 193 (9.15%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 187 (8.86%) IT Technician
11 171 (8.10%) Systems Engineer
12 167 (7.91%) IT Support Technician
13 164 (7.77%) 2nd Line Support
14 159 (7.54%) IT Analyst
15 144 (6.82%) IT Support Analyst
16 96 (4.55%) 2nd Line Engineer
17 87 (4.12%) 3rd Line Support
18 80 (3.79%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
19 78 (3.70%) 1st Line Support
20 76 (3.60%) Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 44 (2.09%) LDAP
2 33 (1.56%) SAML
3 27 (1.28%) OpenID
4 24 (1.14%) OAuth
5 23 (1.09%) Regular Expression
6 22 (1.04%) REST
7 19 (0.90%) XMPP
8 17 (0.81%) GraphQL
8 17 (0.81%) SOAP
9 15 (0.71%) JSON
9 15 (0.71%) XML
10 11 (0.52%) .NET
10 11 (0.52%) ARM Templates
11 10 (0.47%) HTML
12 9 (0.43%) Microsoft Graph
12 9 (0.43%) Web Services
13 7 (0.33%) JSON Schema
14 6 (0.28%) Middleware
15 5 (0.24%) FreeSWITCH
15 5 (0.24%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 296 (14.03%) Driving Licence
2 162 (7.68%) Onboarding
3 124 (5.88%) Self-Motivation
4 102 (4.83%) Legacy Systems
5 85 (4.03%) Hybrid Cloud
6 68 (3.22%) Data Centre
7 63 (2.99%) Management Information System
8 50 (2.37%) PKI
9 46 (2.18%) Clustering
10 37 (1.75%) Public Cloud
11 35 (1.66%) Enterprise Software
12 34 (1.61%) Replication
13 32 (1.52%) Security Posture
14 29 (1.37%) CCTV
15 28 (1.33%) Cloud Native
16 25 (1.18%) Cyber Threat
17 21 (1.00%) Cyberattack
18 16 (0.76%) Client/Server
19 15 (0.71%) Data Structures
20 14 (0.66%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 1,515 (71.80%) Windows
2 893 (42.32%) Windows Server
3 316 (14.98%) Windows 10
4 277 (13.13%) Linux
5 175 (8.29%) Windows Server 2016
6 142 (6.73%) Mac OS
7 89 (4.22%) Windows Server 2019
8 79 (3.74%) Apple iOS
9 72 (3.41%) Android
10 42 (1.99%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 28 (1.33%) Windows Server 2012
12 25 (1.18%) VMS
13 15 (0.71%) Windows 7
14 13 (0.62%) Ubuntu
15 11 (0.52%) Windows Server 2008
16 7 (0.33%) Debian
16 7 (0.33%) Windows 8
17 5 (0.24%) CentOS
18 4 (0.19%) Mac OS X
18 4 (0.19%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 716 (33.93%) Problem-Solving
2 539 (25.55%) Customer Service
3 481 (22.80%) ITIL
4 392 (18.58%) Cybersecurity
5 382 (18.10%) Continuous Improvement
6 292 (13.84%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 262 (12.42%) Mentoring
8 218 (10.33%) Disaster Recovery
9 193 (9.15%) Service Delivery
10 186 (8.82%) ITSM
11 159 (7.54%) Migration
12 152 (7.20%) Project Delivery
13 135 (6.40%) Customer Experience
14 132 (6.26%) Vulnerability Remediation
15 128 (6.07%) Kalman Filter
16 127 (6.02%) Identity Access Management
17 121 (5.73%) Web Filtering
18 120 (5.69%) Change Management
19 113 (5.36%) Incident Management
20 109 (5.17%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 333 (15.78%) PowerShell
2 201 (9.53%) SQL
3 78 (3.70%) Bash
4 65 (3.08%) Python
5 38 (1.80%) Bicep
6 29 (1.37%) T-SQL
7 27 (1.28%) R
8 12 (0.57%) Kusto Query Language
8 12 (0.57%) VBA
9 9 (0.43%) C#
10 7 (0.33%) Shell Script
10 7 (0.33%) VB
11 6 (0.28%) Korn
11 6 (0.28%) PHP
12 5 (0.24%) Java
12 5 (0.24%) JavaScript
12 5 (0.24%) Ruby
13 2 (0.095%) C
13 2 (0.095%) VB.NET
13 2 (0.095%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 284 (13.46%) Security Cleared
2 200 (9.48%) Degree
2 200 (9.48%) SC Cleared
3 178 (8.44%) Microsoft Certification
4 96 (4.55%) Azure Certification
5 86 (4.08%) A+ Certification
6 81 (3.84%) DV Cleared
7 78 (3.70%) Network+ Certification
8 56 (2.65%) Cisco Certification
9 54 (2.56%) DBS Check
10 51 (2.42%) CCNA
11 48 (2.27%) CISM
11 48 (2.27%) CISSP
12 27 (1.28%) Microsoft Certified Professional
13 21 (1.00%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 21 (1.00%) MCSA
14 19 (0.90%) Computer Science Degree
15 13 (0.62%) CompTIA Security+
15 13 (0.62%) ITIL Certification
16 12 (0.57%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 216 (10.24%) Cyber Essentials
2 172 (8.15%) SLA
3 127 (6.02%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 104 (4.93%) PCI DSS
5 45 (2.13%) GDPR
6 43 (2.04%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 40 (1.90%) NIST
8 23 (1.09%) QA
9 22 (1.04%) NCSC
10 21 (1.00%) Data Quality
11 8 (0.38%) Accessibility
12 6 (0.28%) SOC 2
13 5 (0.24%) PMO
14 4 (0.19%) 21 CFR Part 11
14 4 (0.19%) GRC
14 4 (0.19%) GxP
14 4 (0.19%) ITGC
15 2 (0.095%) ISAE 3402
15 2 (0.095%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 1 (0.047%) ISO 22301
System Software
1 490 (23.22%) Hyper-V
2 356 (16.87%) VMware Infrastructure
3 100 (4.74%) vSphere
4 90 (4.27%) Terminal Server
5 62 (2.94%) Virtual Desktop
6 48 (2.27%) Virtual Machines
7 46 (2.18%) VMware ESXi
8 34 (1.61%) Docker
9 16 (0.76%) VMware NSX
10 13 (0.62%) Virtual Servers
11 12 (0.57%) Firmware
12 11 (0.52%) BitLocker
13 9 (0.43%) DFS Replication
13 9 (0.43%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 8 (0.38%) Citrix Hypervisor
15 7 (0.33%) VMware Workstation
16 6 (0.28%) XenApp
17 4 (0.19%) Squid
18 3 (0.14%) VMware Server
19 2 (0.095%) Xen
Systems Management
1 511 (24.22%) Microsoft Intune
2 106 (5.02%) SCCM
3 54 (2.56%) Terraform
4 35 (1.66%) Single Sign-On
5 33 (1.56%) vCenter Server
6 29 (1.37%) Jamf Pro
7 28 (1.33%) Ansible
7 28 (1.33%) FortiGate
7 28 (1.33%) Kubernetes
7 28 (1.33%) WSUS
8 21 (1.00%) Proxmox
9 18 (0.85%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 18 (0.85%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
10 15 (0.71%) Failover Clustering
11 13 (0.62%) ZABBIX
12 11 (0.52%) Microsoft Clustering
13 9 (0.43%) Autotask
13 9 (0.43%) SCOM
14 8 (0.38%) Backup Exec
15 6 (0.28%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 1,667 (79.00%) Microsoft
2 557 (26.40%) VMware
3 200 (9.48%) Veeam
4 139 (6.59%) Cisco
5 116 (5.50%) SolarWinds
6 102 (4.83%) Splunk
7 101 (4.79%) Nimble Storage
8 88 (4.17%) Brocade
8 88 (4.17%) Tanium
9 80 (3.79%) Citrix
10 75 (3.55%) Meraki
11 74 (3.51%) Apple
12 73 (3.46%) ServiceNow
13 61 (2.89%) HP
14 60 (2.84%) Dell
15 57 (2.70%) CyberArk
16 47 (2.23%) Google
17 42 (1.99%) CrowdStrike
18 39 (1.85%) Ubiquiti
19 38 (1.80%) SonicWALL