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 20 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 53 44 30
Rank change year-on-year -9 -14 +7
Permanent jobs citing Active Directory 1,918 1,632 4,538
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 2.83% 5.43% 5.70%
As % of the System Software category 53.52% 40.03% 51.29%
Number of salaries quoted 1,502 1,279 3,636
10th Percentile £26,500 £25,750 £23,625
25th Percentile £29,000 £28,000 £26,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £35,500 £35,000 £35,000
Median % change year-on-year +1.43% - -5.41%
75th Percentile £48,563 £47,500 £48,500
90th Percentile £65,000 £61,250 £58,275
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 3,584 4,077 8,848
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 5.29% 13.56% 11.12%
Number of salaries quoted 2,748 2,372 6,917
10th Percentile £27,750 £26,500 £25,575
25th Percentile £32,000 £31,250 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £46,500 £46,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year +1.09% +2.22% -5.26%
75th Percentile £65,000 £67,500 £60,000
90th Percentile £77,500 £82,751 £72,500
UK median annual salary £52,500 £52,500 £49,881
% change year-on-year - +5.25% -9.31%

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 20 June 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 20 June 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 -3 471 £34,000 +6.25% 104
South East -1 463 £40,000 - 174
Midlands -31 314 £34,000 -2.86% 71
South West -12 271 £37,500 +15.38% 63
North West +58 230 £37,500 - 58
East of England +4 221 £35,000 +7.69% 59
Yorkshire -29 191 £32,500 +8.33% 40
East Midlands -3 162 £32,500 +1.56% 46
West Midlands -45 151 £37,000 -5.13% 25
Scotland +78 100 £28,750 -20.69% 23
Wales -3 60 £45,000 +18.13% 14
North East -47 50 £42,500 +32.81% 9
Northern Ireland -23 13 £32,000 -39.05% 14
Isle of Man +4 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
1 526 (27.42%) Microsoft Exchange
2 398 (20.75%) SharePoint
3 36 (1.88%) IIS
4 16 (0.83%) Confluence
5 11 (0.57%) Exchange Server 2013
6 9 (0.47%) Exchange Server 2007
6 9 (0.47%) Exchange Server 2010
7 6 (0.31%) Skype for Business
8 4 (0.21%) Apache
8 4 (0.21%) CMS
9 3 (0.16%) SAS
10 1 (0.052%) Drupal
10 1 (0.052%) nginx
10 1 (0.052%) Site Server
10 1 (0.052%) WordPress
Applications
1 207 (10.79%) Microsoft Office
2 41 (2.14%) Microsoft Excel
3 12 (0.63%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.16%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 3 (0.16%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.052%) AutoCAD
5 1 (0.052%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 17 (0.89%) Dynamics CRM
2 13 (0.68%) Dynamics NAV
3 8 (0.42%) Remedy ITSM
4 6 (0.31%) NetSuite
5 4 (0.21%) Dynamics GP
5 4 (0.21%) Exchequer
5 4 (0.21%) Primavera
6 3 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.10%) Alphatax
7 2 (0.10%) SAP S/4HANA
8 1 (0.052%) Dynamics AX
8 1 (0.052%) JDE EnterpriseOne
8 1 (0.052%) Magento
8 1 (0.052%) Oracle Payables
8 1 (0.052%) SAP EHS
8 1 (0.052%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 1,350 (70.39%) Microsoft 365
2 1,049 (54.69%) Azure
3 726 (37.85%) Entra ID
4 141 (7.35%) OneDrive
5 133 (6.93%) AWS
6 92 (4.80%) SaaS
7 83 (4.33%) Power Platform
8 78 (4.07%) Google Workspace
9 58 (3.02%) IaaS
10 50 (2.61%) PaaS
11 45 (2.35%) Mimecast
12 36 (1.88%) Azure DevOps
13 30 (1.56%) Nutanix
14 28 (1.46%) Azure Monitor
15 26 (1.36%) Azure Sentinel
15 26 (1.36%) Microsoft Purview
16 25 (1.30%) PowerApps
17 23 (1.20%) Serverless
18 20 (1.04%) Dynamics 365
19 17 (0.89%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 642 (33.47%) DNS
2 539 (28.10%) DHCP
3 496 (25.86%) Firewall
4 313 (16.32%) VPN
5 204 (10.64%) TCP/IP
6 195 (10.17%) WAN
7 189 (9.85%) LAN
8 180 (9.38%) Wi-Fi
9 172 (8.97%) VLAN
10 113 (5.89%) VoIP
11 91 (4.74%) Wireless
12 77 (4.01%) Network Security
13 74 (3.86%) SAN
14 52 (2.71%) Remote Desktop
15 40 (2.09%) Broadband
16 29 (1.51%) NAS
17 22 (1.15%) Internet
18 20 (1.04%) SD-WAN
19 17 (0.89%) SSL
20 13 (0.68%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 108 (5.63%) SQL Server
2 101 (5.27%) Amazon RDS
3 45 (2.35%) Power BI
4 30 (1.56%) PostgreSQL
5 26 (1.36%) MySQL
6 25 (1.30%) Azure SQL Database
7 9 (0.47%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 7 (0.36%) GIS
9 5 (0.26%) Crystal Reports
9 5 (0.26%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 4 (0.21%) Neo4j
11 3 (0.16%) Oracle Database
12 2 (0.10%) Relational Database
13 1 (0.052%) BusinessObjects
13 1 (0.052%) Data Lake
13 1 (0.052%) Data Warehouse
13 1 (0.052%) InterSystems Cache
13 1 (0.052%) KNIME
13 1 (0.052%) NoSQL
13 1 (0.052%) Redis
Development Applications
1 74 (3.86%) JIRA
2 18 (0.94%) Git
3 11 (0.57%) GitLab
4 5 (0.26%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
5 4 (0.21%) Bitbucket
5 4 (0.21%) Jenkins
6 2 (0.10%) Burp Suite
6 2 (0.10%) LabVIEW
6 2 (0.10%) Metasploit
6 2 (0.10%) Subversion
6 2 (0.10%) Terragrunt
7 1 (0.052%) Carbide.c++
7 1 (0.052%) Gatling
7 1 (0.052%) JMeter
7 1 (0.052%) Ranorex
7 1 (0.052%) Selenium
7 1 (0.052%) Team Foundation Server
7 1 (0.052%) Vagrant
General
1 819 (42.70%) Social Skills
2 216 (11.26%) Analytical Skills
3 142 (7.40%) Organisational Skills
4 114 (5.94%) Finance
5 69 (3.60%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 66 (3.44%) Legal
7 63 (3.28%) Manufacturing
8 61 (3.18%) Law
9 58 (3.02%) Documentation Skills
10 56 (2.92%) Public Sector
11 46 (2.40%) Retail
12 36 (1.88%) Telecoms
13 33 (1.72%) Games
14 26 (1.36%) Advertising
15 21 (1.09%) Local Government
16 13 (0.68%) Aerospace
17 9 (0.47%) Automotive
17 9 (0.47%) Influencing Skills
17 9 (0.47%) Marketing
18 4 (0.21%) Dutch Language
Job Titles
1 732 (38.16%) IT Support
2 501 (26.12%) Support Engineer
3 461 (24.04%) IT Engineer
4 384 (20.02%) IT Support Engineer
5 314 (16.37%) Analyst
6 212 (11.05%) Support Analyst
7 185 (9.65%) Senior
8 182 (9.49%) Support Technician
9 181 (9.44%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 170 (8.86%) IT Technician
11 157 (8.19%) 2nd Line Support
12 155 (8.08%) Systems Engineer
13 152 (7.92%) IT Support Technician
14 143 (7.46%) IT Analyst
15 127 (6.62%) IT Support Analyst
16 91 (4.74%) 2nd Line Engineer
17 78 (4.07%) Architect
18 76 (3.96%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
19 72 (3.75%) 1st Line Support
19 72 (3.75%) 3rd Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 57 (2.97%) LDAP
2 43 (2.24%) SAML
3 38 (1.98%) OpenID
4 37 (1.93%) OAuth
4 37 (1.93%) REST
5 32 (1.67%) GraphQL
5 32 (1.67%) SOAP
6 22 (1.15%) Regular Expression
7 18 (0.94%) XMPP
8 14 (0.73%) JSON
8 14 (0.73%) XML
9 10 (0.52%) .NET
9 10 (0.52%) ARM Templates
10 9 (0.47%) Microsoft Graph
11 8 (0.42%) Web Services
12 7 (0.36%) Middleware
13 6 (0.31%) HTML
13 6 (0.31%) JSON Schema
14 5 (0.26%) FreeSWITCH
15 4 (0.21%) boto
Miscellaneous
1 264 (13.76%) Driving Licence
2 129 (6.73%) Onboarding
3 101 (5.27%) Self-Motivation
4 94 (4.90%) Legacy Systems
5 81 (4.22%) Hybrid Cloud
6 62 (3.23%) Data Centre
7 61 (3.18%) Management Information System
8 39 (2.03%) Public Cloud
9 37 (1.93%) Cyber Threat
10 36 (1.88%) Cyberattack
10 36 (1.88%) PKI
10 36 (1.88%) Replication
11 34 (1.77%) Clustering
12 27 (1.41%) Cloud Native
13 26 (1.36%) Enterprise Software
14 23 (1.20%) Security Posture
15 21 (1.09%) CCTV
16 16 (0.83%) Client/Server
17 15 (0.78%) Data Structures
18 13 (0.68%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 1,387 (72.31%) Windows
2 830 (43.27%) Windows Server
3 303 (15.80%) Windows 10
4 263 (13.71%) Linux
5 162 (8.45%) Windows Server 2016
6 125 (6.52%) Mac OS
7 89 (4.64%) Windows Server 2019
8 74 (3.86%) Apple iOS
9 65 (3.39%) Android
10 38 (1.98%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 33 (1.72%) Windows Server 2012
12 22 (1.15%) VMS
13 13 (0.68%) Windows 7
14 12 (0.63%) Windows Server 2008
15 8 (0.42%) Ubuntu
16 7 (0.36%) Windows 8
17 5 (0.26%) CentOS
17 5 (0.26%) Debian
18 4 (0.21%) Mac OS X
18 4 (0.21%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 653 (34.05%) Problem-Solving
2 482 (25.13%) Customer Service
3 417 (21.74%) ITIL
4 320 (16.68%) Cybersecurity
5 295 (15.38%) Continuous Improvement
6 255 (13.30%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 204 (10.64%) Mentoring
8 195 (10.17%) Disaster Recovery
9 171 (8.92%) Service Delivery
10 170 (8.86%) ITSM
11 151 (7.87%) Migration
12 128 (6.67%) Vulnerability Remediation
13 118 (6.15%) Customer Experience
13 118 (6.15%) Kalman Filter
14 112 (5.84%) Project Delivery
15 111 (5.79%) Web Filtering
16 108 (5.63%) Change Management
17 100 (5.21%) Incident Management
18 97 (5.06%) Roadmaps
19 96 (5.01%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 322 (16.79%) PowerShell
2 184 (9.59%) SQL
3 87 (4.54%) Bash
4 56 (2.92%) Python
5 44 (2.29%) T-SQL
6 26 (1.36%) Bicep
7 20 (1.04%) R
8 9 (0.47%) C#
9 8 (0.42%) Kusto Query Language
9 8 (0.42%) VBA
10 7 (0.36%) VB
11 6 (0.31%) Korn
11 6 (0.31%) Shell Script
12 5 (0.26%) Java
12 5 (0.26%) JavaScript
12 5 (0.26%) PHP
13 2 (0.10%) C
13 2 (0.10%) VB.NET
14 1 (0.052%) PL/SQL
14 1 (0.052%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 279 (14.55%) Security Cleared
2 191 (9.96%) Degree
3 186 (9.70%) SC Cleared
4 167 (8.71%) Microsoft Certification
5 84 (4.38%) DV Cleared
6 77 (4.01%) Azure Certification
7 59 (3.08%) DBS Check
8 46 (2.40%) A+ Certification
9 42 (2.19%) Cisco Certification
10 40 (2.09%) CCNA
11 36 (1.88%) Network+ Certification
12 33 (1.72%) Microsoft Certified Professional
13 21 (1.09%) Computer Science Degree
14 20 (1.04%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
15 17 (0.89%) MCSA
16 16 (0.83%) CompTIA Security+
16 16 (0.83%) HNC
17 15 (0.78%) ITIL Certification
18 13 (0.68%) MCSE
19 10 (0.52%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 189 (9.85%) Cyber Essentials
2 177 (9.23%) SLA
3 130 (6.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 96 (5.01%) PCI DSS
5 58 (3.02%) NIST
6 41 (2.14%) GDPR
7 40 (2.09%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 37 (1.93%) NCSC
9 21 (1.09%) Data Quality
9 21 (1.09%) QA
10 9 (0.47%) Accessibility
11 6 (0.31%) SOC 2
12 5 (0.26%) PMO
13 4 (0.21%) 21 CFR Part 11
13 4 (0.21%) GRC
13 4 (0.21%) GxP
13 4 (0.21%) ITGC
14 3 (0.16%) ISO 22301
15 2 (0.10%) ISAE 3402
15 2 (0.10%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 428 (22.31%) Hyper-V
2 328 (17.10%) VMware Infrastructure
3 90 (4.69%) vSphere
4 82 (4.28%) Terminal Server
5 59 (3.08%) Virtual Desktop
6 49 (2.55%) VMware ESXi
7 42 (2.19%) Virtual Machines
8 33 (1.72%) Docker
9 17 (0.89%) VMware NSX
10 15 (0.78%) BitLocker
11 11 (0.57%) Virtual Servers
12 10 (0.52%) Firmware
13 9 (0.47%) DFS Replication
14 8 (0.42%) Citrix Hypervisor
15 7 (0.36%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 7 (0.36%) VMware Workstation
16 6 (0.31%) XenApp
17 4 (0.21%) Squid
18 2 (0.10%) Samba
18 2 (0.10%) VMware Server
Systems Management
1 402 (20.96%) Microsoft Intune
2 107 (5.58%) SCCM
3 42 (2.19%) Terraform
4 36 (1.88%) vCenter Server
5 32 (1.67%) Single Sign-On
6 31 (1.62%) Jamf Pro
7 27 (1.41%) FortiGate
7 27 (1.41%) WSUS
8 26 (1.36%) Ansible
9 23 (1.20%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 21 (1.09%) Kubernetes
10 21 (1.09%) Proxmox
11 14 (0.73%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
12 11 (0.57%) Autotask
13 10 (0.52%) ZABBIX
14 9 (0.47%) Backup Exec
15 8 (0.42%) SCOM
16 6 (0.31%) Failover Clustering
16 6 (0.31%) VxRail
17 5 (0.26%) Packer
Vendors
1 1,456 (75.91%) Microsoft
2 526 (27.42%) VMware
3 185 (9.65%) Veeam
4 114 (5.94%) Cisco
5 108 (5.63%) SolarWinds
6 99 (5.16%) Nimble Storage
7 98 (5.11%) Splunk
8 83 (4.33%) Citrix
9 80 (4.17%) Apple
9 80 (4.17%) Brocade
9 80 (4.17%) Tanium
10 73 (3.81%) ServiceNow
11 61 (3.18%) Dell
11 61 (3.18%) Meraki
12 59 (3.08%) HP
13 58 (3.02%) Google
14 36 (1.88%) McAfee
15 35 (1.82%) Red Hat
16 33 (1.72%) CrowdStrike
17 31 (1.62%) Ubiquiti