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 24 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 66 47 32
Rank change year-on-year -19 -15 +12
Permanent jobs citing Active Directory 1,754 1,493 4,386
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 2.61% 5.24% 6.24%
As % of the System Software category 54.68% 38.35% 50.66%
Number of salaries quoted 1,341 1,170 3,657
10th Percentile £26,375 £25,750 £23,500
25th Percentile £29,000 £27,750 £26,700
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £35,000 £35,000 £35,000
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.11%
75th Percentile £47,500 £47,500 £47,500
90th Percentile £62,642 £58,750 £57,500
UK median annual salary £39,326 £39,500 £37,500
% change year-on-year -0.44% +5.33% -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 3,208 3,893 8,657
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 4.78% 13.65% 12.32%
Number of salaries quoted 2,382 2,264 7,009
10th Percentile £27,750 £26,500 £25,600
25th Percentile £31,500 £31,250 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £47,404 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -5.07% +5.34% -5.26%
75th Percentile £64,750 £67,500 £60,000
90th Percentile £77,500 £83,750 £73,250
UK median annual salary £52,500 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -4.55% +10.00% -9.09%

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 24 May 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 24 May 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
North of England -2 434 £34,000 +9.68% 98
South East -1 417 £40,000 - 136
Midlands -38 298 £33,500 +3.08% 67
South West -9 238 £35,000 +7.69% 51
North West +41 218 £37,500 - 53
East of England -7 194 £35,000 +7.64% 53
Yorkshire -32 177 £32,500 +8.33% 34
East Midlands -8 158 £32,500 +3.17% 33
West Midlands -57 139 £35,000 - 34
Scotland +61 103 £30,500 -39.00% 15
Wales -4 48 £45,000 +18.13% 11
North East -45 39 £37,500 +17.19% 13
Northern Ireland -28 16 £32,000 -37.56% 15
Isle of Man +2 6 £45,000 +30.43%
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
1 450 (25.66%) Microsoft Exchange
2 357 (20.35%) SharePoint
3 26 (1.48%) IIS
4 16 (0.91%) Confluence
5 11 (0.63%) Exchange Server 2013
6 9 (0.51%) Exchange Server 2007
6 9 (0.51%) Exchange Server 2010
7 5 (0.29%) Skype for Business
8 4 (0.23%) Apache
8 4 (0.23%) CMS
9 2 (0.11%) SAS
10 1 (0.057%) Drupal
10 1 (0.057%) nginx
10 1 (0.057%) WordPress
Applications
1 211 (12.03%) Microsoft Office
2 40 (2.28%) Microsoft Excel
3 10 (0.57%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.17%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 3 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
5 2 (0.11%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.057%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 18 (1.03%) Dynamics CRM
2 13 (0.74%) Dynamics NAV
3 7 (0.40%) NetSuite
4 5 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
4 5 (0.29%) Remedy ITSM
5 4 (0.23%) Dynamics GP
5 4 (0.23%) Exchequer
5 4 (0.23%) Markit EDM
5 4 (0.23%) Primavera
6 3 (0.17%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.11%) Alphatax
7 2 (0.11%) SAP S/4HANA
7 2 (0.11%) Shopify
8 1 (0.057%) Magento
8 1 (0.057%) Oracle Payables
8 1 (0.057%) Sage 200
8 1 (0.057%) SAP EHS
Cloud Services
1 1,225 (69.84%) Microsoft 365
2 935 (53.31%) Azure
3 657 (37.46%) Entra ID
4 138 (7.87%) OneDrive
5 137 (7.81%) AWS
6 91 (5.19%) Power Platform
7 89 (5.07%) Google Workspace
8 85 (4.85%) SaaS
9 43 (2.45%) IaaS
10 38 (2.17%) PaaS
11 36 (2.05%) Mimecast
11 36 (2.05%) Nutanix
12 30 (1.71%) Azure DevOps
13 28 (1.60%) PowerApps
14 23 (1.31%) Azure Monitor
14 23 (1.31%) Azure Sentinel
15 22 (1.25%) Microsoft Purview
16 21 (1.20%) Dynamics 365
17 18 (1.03%) Power Automate
18 15 (0.86%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 561 (31.98%) DNS
2 481 (27.42%) DHCP
3 430 (24.52%) Firewall
4 275 (15.68%) VPN
5 188 (10.72%) WAN
6 185 (10.55%) LAN
7 172 (9.81%) TCP/IP
8 162 (9.24%) Wi-Fi
9 148 (8.44%) VLAN
10 99 (5.64%) VoIP
11 79 (4.50%) Wireless
12 64 (3.65%) Network Security
13 61 (3.48%) SAN
14 56 (3.19%) Remote Desktop
15 43 (2.45%) Broadband
16 28 (1.60%) NAS
17 21 (1.20%) SD-WAN
18 19 (1.08%) Internet
19 14 (0.80%) NetScaler
19 14 (0.80%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 95 (5.42%) SQL Server
2 66 (3.76%) Amazon RDS
3 47 (2.68%) Power BI
4 30 (1.71%) PostgreSQL
5 24 (1.37%) MySQL
6 12 (0.68%) Azure SQL Database
7 8 (0.46%) GIS
7 8 (0.46%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 5 (0.29%) Data Warehouse
8 5 (0.29%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 3 (0.17%) Crystal Reports
9 3 (0.17%) Neo4j
10 2 (0.11%) Relational Database
11 1 (0.057%) Data Lake
11 1 (0.057%) InterSystems Cache
11 1 (0.057%) KNIME
11 1 (0.057%) Metadata
11 1 (0.057%) NoSQL
11 1 (0.057%) RDBMS
11 1 (0.057%) Redis
Development Applications
1 73 (4.16%) JIRA
2 10 (0.57%) GitLab
3 9 (0.51%) Git
4 8 (0.46%) Jenkins
5 5 (0.29%) Oracle Forms
5 5 (0.29%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
6 4 (0.23%) LabVIEW
6 4 (0.23%) Subversion
7 3 (0.17%) Bitbucket
8 2 (0.11%) Burp Suite
8 2 (0.11%) Metasploit
9 1 (0.057%) Gatling
9 1 (0.057%) JMeter
9 1 (0.057%) Terragrunt
9 1 (0.057%) Vagrant
General
1 730 (41.62%) Social Skills
2 172 (9.81%) Analytical Skills
3 139 (7.92%) Organisational Skills
4 123 (7.01%) Finance
5 69 (3.93%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 65 (3.71%) Manufacturing
7 59 (3.36%) Legal
8 51 (2.91%) Documentation Skills
9 49 (2.79%) Public Sector
9 49 (2.79%) Retail
10 46 (2.62%) Law
11 36 (2.05%) Games
12 32 (1.82%) Advertising
13 30 (1.71%) Telecoms
14 19 (1.08%) Local Government
15 11 (0.63%) Marketing
16 10 (0.57%) Aerospace
17 9 (0.51%) Automotive
17 9 (0.51%) Influencing Skills
18 4 (0.23%) Police
Job Titles
1 669 (38.14%) IT Support
2 467 (26.62%) Support Engineer
3 413 (23.55%) IT Engineer
4 347 (19.78%) IT Support Engineer
5 268 (15.28%) Analyst
6 182 (10.38%) Support Analyst
7 173 (9.86%) Support Technician
8 170 (9.69%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 170 (9.69%) Senior
9 152 (8.67%) IT Technician
10 151 (8.61%) 2nd Line Support
11 137 (7.81%) IT Support Technician
12 124 (7.07%) IT Analyst
13 106 (6.04%) IT Support Analyst
14 105 (5.99%) Systems Engineer
15 89 (5.07%) 2nd Line Engineer
16 77 (4.39%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
17 69 (3.93%) 1st Line Support
17 69 (3.93%) Lead
18 66 (3.76%) Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 48 (2.74%) LDAP
2 47 (2.68%) SAML
3 43 (2.45%) OpenID
4 42 (2.39%) OAuth
5 40 (2.28%) REST
5 40 (2.28%) SOAP
6 35 (2.00%) GraphQL
7 17 (0.97%) JSON
7 17 (0.97%) XML
8 16 (0.91%) Regular Expression
9 12 (0.68%) XMPP
10 7 (0.40%) Microsoft Graph
10 7 (0.40%) RESTful
11 5 (0.29%) .NET
11 5 (0.29%) FreeSWITCH
11 5 (0.29%) OAuth2
11 5 (0.29%) Web Services
12 4 (0.23%) JSON Schema
12 4 (0.23%) Middleware
12 4 (0.23%) OpenTelemetry
Miscellaneous
1 239 (13.63%) Driving Licence
2 111 (6.33%) Onboarding
3 77 (4.39%) Self-Motivation
4 62 (3.53%) Hybrid Cloud
5 57 (3.25%) Legacy Systems
6 51 (2.91%) Management Information System
7 49 (2.79%) Data Centre
8 38 (2.17%) Cyberattack
9 37 (2.11%) Enterprise Software
10 36 (2.05%) Cyber Threat
10 36 (2.05%) Public Cloud
11 35 (2.00%) Replication
12 30 (1.71%) Clustering
13 26 (1.48%) Cloud Native
14 25 (1.43%) PKI
15 19 (1.08%) CCTV
16 16 (0.91%) Client/Server
17 15 (0.86%) CMDB
17 15 (0.86%) Data Structures
17 15 (0.86%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 1,244 (70.92%) Windows
2 723 (41.22%) Windows Server
3 283 (16.13%) Windows 10
4 212 (12.09%) Linux
5 118 (6.73%) Windows Server 2016
6 101 (5.76%) Mac OS
7 78 (4.45%) Apple iOS
8 69 (3.93%) Android
9 67 (3.82%) Windows Server 2019
10 34 (1.94%) Windows Server 2012
11 32 (1.82%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 13 (0.74%) Windows 7
13 12 (0.68%) Windows Server 2008
14 11 (0.63%) VMS
15 7 (0.40%) Windows 8
16 6 (0.34%) Ubuntu
17 5 (0.29%) CentOS
17 5 (0.29%) Debian
18 4 (0.23%) Mac OS X
18 4 (0.23%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 572 (32.61%) Problem-Solving
2 436 (24.86%) Customer Service
3 410 (23.38%) ITIL
4 280 (15.96%) Cybersecurity
5 239 (13.63%) Continuous Improvement
6 221 (12.60%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 179 (10.21%) Mentoring
8 166 (9.46%) Disaster Recovery
9 162 (9.24%) ITSM
10 153 (8.72%) Service Delivery
11 114 (6.50%) Change Management
12 102 (5.82%) Migration
13 99 (5.64%) Vulnerability Remediation
14 97 (5.53%) Coaching
15 96 (5.47%) Incident Management
16 92 (5.25%) Service Management
17 91 (5.19%) Root Cause Analysis
18 89 (5.07%) Project Delivery
19 87 (4.96%) ERP
20 86 (4.90%) Time Management
Programming Languages
1 287 (16.36%) PowerShell
2 162 (9.24%) SQL
3 85 (4.85%) Bash
4 64 (3.65%) Python
5 46 (2.62%) T-SQL
6 16 (0.91%) R
7 11 (0.63%) Bicep
8 9 (0.51%) Shell Script
9 8 (0.46%) Java
10 7 (0.40%) VB
11 6 (0.34%) Korn
11 6 (0.34%) PL/SQL
12 5 (0.29%) C#
12 5 (0.29%) JavaScript
13 3 (0.17%) PHP
13 3 (0.17%) VBA
14 2 (0.11%) C
15 1 (0.057%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 229 (13.06%) Security Cleared
2 181 (10.32%) Degree
3 158 (9.01%) Microsoft Certification
4 147 (8.38%) SC Cleared
5 80 (4.56%) DV Cleared
6 51 (2.91%) Azure Certification
6 51 (2.91%) DBS Check
7 45 (2.57%) A+ Certification
8 34 (1.94%) Microsoft Certified Professional
9 33 (1.88%) Cisco Certification
10 32 (1.82%) CCNA
10 32 (1.82%) Network+ Certification
11 21 (1.20%) Computer Science Degree
12 20 (1.14%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 19 (1.08%) MCSE
14 17 (0.97%) HNC
14 17 (0.97%) ITIL Certification
15 16 (0.91%) MCSA
16 15 (0.86%) CompTIA Security+
17 10 (0.57%) RHCE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 160 (9.12%) SLA
2 135 (7.70%) Cyber Essentials
3 109 (6.21%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 64 (3.65%) PCI DSS
5 59 (3.36%) NIST
6 38 (2.17%) NCSC
7 34 (1.94%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 33 (1.88%) GDPR
9 23 (1.31%) QA
10 21 (1.20%) Data Quality
11 12 (0.68%) Accessibility
12 6 (0.34%) SOC 2
13 5 (0.29%) GRC
13 5 (0.29%) PMO
14 4 (0.23%) 21 CFR Part 11
14 4 (0.23%) GxP
14 4 (0.23%) ISO 22301
14 4 (0.23%) ITGC
15 2 (0.11%) ISO 9001
15 2 (0.11%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 337 (19.21%) Hyper-V
2 274 (15.62%) VMware Infrastructure
3 64 (3.65%) vSphere
4 51 (2.91%) Terminal Server
5 48 (2.74%) VMware ESXi
6 46 (2.62%) Virtual Desktop
7 32 (1.82%) Docker
8 31 (1.77%) Virtual Machines
9 17 (0.97%) BitLocker
10 14 (0.80%) VMware NSX
11 9 (0.51%) Virtual Servers
12 8 (0.46%) Citrix Hypervisor
12 8 (0.46%) DFS Replication
12 8 (0.46%) VMware Workstation
13 6 (0.34%) XenApp
14 5 (0.29%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 3 (0.17%) Lustre
15 3 (0.17%) Slurm Workload Manager
15 3 (0.17%) Squid
15 3 (0.17%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 361 (20.58%) Microsoft Intune
2 117 (6.67%) SCCM
3 40 (2.28%) Single Sign-On
3 40 (2.28%) vCenter Server
4 33 (1.88%) Terraform
5 31 (1.77%) Jamf Pro
6 27 (1.54%) Ansible
7 25 (1.43%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 25 (1.43%) WSUS
8 20 (1.14%) FortiGate
8 20 (1.14%) Kubernetes
9 14 (0.80%) Proxmox
9 14 (0.80%) SCOM
10 11 (0.63%) Autotask
11 10 (0.57%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
12 9 (0.51%) Backup Exec
13 8 (0.46%) VxRail
13 8 (0.46%) ZABBIX
14 5 (0.29%) SmoothWall
14 5 (0.29%) Tivoli Identity Manager
Vendors
1 1,275 (72.69%) Microsoft
2 434 (24.74%) VMware
3 142 (8.10%) Veeam
4 94 (5.36%) Cisco
5 92 (5.25%) Apple
6 86 (4.90%) Citrix
7 82 (4.68%) SolarWinds
8 73 (4.16%) ServiceNow
9 72 (4.10%) Nimble Storage
10 69 (3.93%) Splunk
11 66 (3.76%) Dell
11 66 (3.76%) HP
12 64 (3.65%) Google
13 52 (2.96%) Meraki
14 48 (2.74%) Brocade
14 48 (2.74%) Tanium
15 35 (2.00%) McAfee
16 33 (1.88%) Red Hat
17 30 (1.71%) CrowdStrike
18 25 (1.43%) Ubiquiti