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 27 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 51 41 32
Rank change year-on-year -10 -9 +1
Permanent jobs citing Active Directory 2,154 1,842 3,552
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 2.94% 5.39% 5.59%
As % of the System Software category 52.02% 41.90% 52.11%
Number of salaries quoted 1,655 1,472 2,776
10th Percentile £26,750 £26,000 £24,500
25th Percentile £29,000 £28,250 £28,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £37,500 £35,000 £37,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.14% -5.41% +1.37%
75th Percentile £50,000 £48,000 £50,000
90th Percentile £65,000 £62,463 £59,000
UK median annual salary £40,000 £37,500 £40,000
% change year-on-year +6.67% -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 4,141 4,396 6,817
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 5.64% 12.86% 10.73%
Number of salaries quoted 3,154 2,590 5,243
10th Percentile £28,250 £26,500 £26,250
25th Percentile £32,750 £31,250 £31,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £49,250 £45,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.44% - -5.26%
75th Percentile £65,000 £65,000 £60,847
90th Percentile £80,000 £80,000 £73,750
UK median annual salary £52,750 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +5.50% - -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 27 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 27 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 +1 511 £42,500 +6.25% 164
North of England -13 496 £34,000 +6.25% 131
Midlands -30 365 £37,500 +7.14% 68
South West -17 299 £37,500 +8.70% 57
North West +47 254 £35,000 - 70
East of England +2 231 £35,000 +4.48% 61
East Midlands -4 195 £36,000 +14.29% 32
Yorkshire -27 184 £31,000 +3.33% 44
West Midlands -41 170 £42,500 +8.97% 36
Scotland +86 112 £29,000 -6.45% 22
Wales -11 75 £45,000 +18.13% 13
Northern Ireland -11 65 £35,500 -32.38% 4
North East -53 58 £42,500 +32.81% 25
Isle of Man +4 6 £45,000 +30.43% 1
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
1 635 (29.48%) Microsoft Exchange
2 446 (20.71%) SharePoint
3 44 (2.04%) IIS
4 15 (0.70%) Confluence
5 10 (0.46%) Skype for Business
6 9 (0.42%) Exchange Server 2013
7 7 (0.32%) Apache
7 7 (0.32%) Exchange Server 2007
7 7 (0.32%) Exchange Server 2010
8 4 (0.19%) CMS
9 3 (0.14%) SAS
10 1 (0.046%) Drupal
10 1 (0.046%) nginx
10 1 (0.046%) Site Server
10 1 (0.046%) WordPress
Applications
1 194 (9.01%) Microsoft Office
2 44 (2.04%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (0.70%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (0.19%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 3 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (0.093%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.046%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.046%) Revit
Business Applications
1 17 (0.79%) Dynamics CRM
2 12 (0.56%) Dynamics NAV
3 10 (0.46%) Remedy ITSM
4 6 (0.28%) Raiser’s Edge
5 5 (0.23%) JDE EnterpriseOne
5 5 (0.23%) NetSuite
6 4 (0.19%) Dynamics GP
6 4 (0.19%) Exchequer
6 4 (0.19%) Primavera
6 4 (0.19%) Shopify
7 3 (0.14%) Payment Gateway
7 3 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
8 2 (0.093%) Alphatax
8 2 (0.093%) Sage 200
8 2 (0.093%) SAP S/4HANA
9 1 (0.046%) Dynamics AX
9 1 (0.046%) Magento
9 1 (0.046%) Oracle Payables
9 1 (0.046%) SAP EHS
9 1 (0.046%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 1,504 (69.82%) Microsoft 365
2 1,209 (56.13%) Azure
3 902 (41.88%) Entra ID
4 158 (7.34%) AWS
5 150 (6.96%) OneDrive
6 106 (4.92%) SaaS
7 85 (3.95%) Power Platform
8 65 (3.02%) IaaS
9 60 (2.79%) Mimecast
10 54 (2.51%) PaaS
11 44 (2.04%) Azure DevOps
12 38 (1.76%) Google Workspace
12 38 (1.76%) Microsoft Purview
13 33 (1.53%) Azure Sentinel
14 27 (1.25%) Azure Monitor
14 27 (1.25%) Serverless
15 25 (1.16%) Nutanix
15 25 (1.16%) Power Automate
15 25 (1.16%) PowerApps
16 22 (1.02%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 714 (33.15%) DNS
2 598 (27.76%) DHCP
3 523 (24.28%) Firewall
4 356 (16.53%) VPN
5 251 (11.65%) TCP/IP
6 216 (10.03%) WAN
7 212 (9.84%) LAN
8 208 (9.66%) Wi-Fi
9 200 (9.29%) VLAN
10 131 (6.08%) VoIP
11 126 (5.85%) Wireless
12 84 (3.90%) Network Security
13 80 (3.71%) SAN
14 51 (2.37%) Remote Desktop
15 30 (1.39%) NAS
16 29 (1.35%) Internet
17 22 (1.02%) SSL
18 21 (0.97%) Broadband
19 18 (0.84%) SD-WAN
20 17 (0.79%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 117 (5.43%) Amazon RDS
2 112 (5.20%) SQL Server
3 43 (2.00%) Power BI
4 32 (1.49%) Azure SQL Database
5 26 (1.21%) PostgreSQL
6 25 (1.16%) MySQL
7 7 (0.32%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 6 (0.28%) Crystal Reports
9 5 (0.23%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 4 (0.19%) Neo4j
10 4 (0.19%) Relational Database
11 3 (0.14%) Data Warehouse
11 3 (0.14%) GIS
11 3 (0.14%) Oracle Database
12 2 (0.093%) BusinessObjects
12 2 (0.093%) Data Lake
12 2 (0.093%) KNIME
13 1 (0.046%) Geospatial Data
13 1 (0.046%) NoSQL
13 1 (0.046%) Redis
Development Applications
1 73 (3.39%) JIRA
2 26 (1.21%) Git
3 8 (0.37%) GitLab
4 7 (0.32%) Jenkins
5 4 (0.19%) Bitbucket
5 4 (0.19%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
6 2 (0.093%) Artifactory
6 2 (0.093%) Burp Suite
6 2 (0.093%) Metasploit
6 2 (0.093%) Terragrunt
7 1 (0.046%) Carbide.c++
7 1 (0.046%) Gatling
7 1 (0.046%) JMeter
7 1 (0.046%) NUnit
7 1 (0.046%) Ranorex
7 1 (0.046%) Selenium
7 1 (0.046%) Sonatype Nexus
7 1 (0.046%) Subversion
7 1 (0.046%) Team Foundation Server
7 1 (0.046%) Vagrant
General
1 971 (45.08%) Social Skills
2 258 (11.98%) Analytical Skills
3 135 (6.27%) Legal
4 128 (5.94%) Finance
5 104 (4.83%) Organisational Skills
6 93 (4.32%) Law
7 73 (3.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 72 (3.34%) Manufacturing
9 63 (2.92%) Public Sector
10 54 (2.51%) Documentation Skills
10 54 (2.51%) Retail
11 48 (2.23%) Telecoms
12 28 (1.30%) Advertising
13 19 (0.88%) Local Government
14 18 (0.84%) Aerospace
15 16 (0.74%) Games
16 13 (0.60%) Automotive
17 9 (0.42%) Influencing Skills
18 7 (0.32%) Banking
18 7 (0.32%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 804 (37.33%) IT Support
2 558 (25.91%) Support Engineer
3 517 (24.00%) IT Engineer
4 434 (20.15%) IT Support Engineer
5 348 (16.16%) Analyst
6 247 (11.47%) Senior
7 227 (10.54%) Support Analyst
8 202 (9.38%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 201 (9.33%) Support Technician
10 194 (9.01%) IT Technician
11 178 (8.26%) Systems Engineer
12 174 (8.08%) IT Support Technician
13 157 (7.29%) 2nd Line Support
14 151 (7.01%) IT Analyst
15 136 (6.31%) IT Support Analyst
16 94 (4.36%) 2nd Line Engineer
17 85 (3.95%) 3rd Line Support
18 83 (3.85%) Architect
19 80 (3.71%) Administrator
20 78 (3.62%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 43 (2.00%) LDAP
2 28 (1.30%) SAML
3 23 (1.07%) OpenID
3 23 (1.07%) Regular Expression
4 20 (0.93%) OAuth
5 19 (0.88%) XMPP
6 17 (0.79%) REST
7 13 (0.60%) JSON
7 13 (0.60%) XML
8 11 (0.51%) ARM Templates
8 11 (0.51%) GraphQL
8 11 (0.51%) SOAP
9 10 (0.46%) .NET
9 10 (0.46%) Microsoft Graph
10 9 (0.42%) HTML
10 9 (0.42%) Web Services
11 7 (0.32%) JSON Schema
12 6 (0.28%) Middleware
12 6 (0.28%) OAuth2
13 5 (0.23%) ODBC
Miscellaneous
1 298 (13.83%) Driving Licence
2 175 (8.12%) Onboarding
3 124 (5.76%) Self-Motivation
4 110 (5.11%) Legacy Systems
5 87 (4.04%) Hybrid Cloud
6 71 (3.30%) Data Centre
7 66 (3.06%) Management Information System
8 51 (2.37%) PKI
9 47 (2.18%) Clustering
10 38 (1.76%) Public Cloud
11 36 (1.67%) Security Posture
12 35 (1.62%) Enterprise Software
12 35 (1.62%) Replication
13 32 (1.49%) Cloud Native
14 30 (1.39%) CCTV
15 17 (0.79%) Cyber Threat
16 16 (0.74%) Client/Server
16 16 (0.74%) iPhone
17 15 (0.70%) Enterprise Storage
18 13 (0.60%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 1,545 (71.73%) Windows
2 906 (42.06%) Windows Server
3 305 (14.16%) Windows 10
4 289 (13.42%) Linux
5 178 (8.26%) Windows Server 2016
6 148 (6.87%) Mac OS
7 85 (3.95%) Windows Server 2019
8 77 (3.57%) Apple iOS
9 67 (3.11%) Android
10 44 (2.04%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 25 (1.16%) VMS
12 23 (1.07%) Windows Server 2012
13 15 (0.70%) Ubuntu
14 12 (0.56%) Windows 7
15 9 (0.42%) Windows Server 2008
16 8 (0.37%) CentOS
17 6 (0.28%) Debian
18 5 (0.23%) CoreOS
18 5 (0.23%) Windows 8
19 4 (0.19%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 723 (33.57%) Problem-Solving
2 549 (25.49%) Customer Service
3 498 (23.12%) ITIL
4 403 (18.71%) Cybersecurity
5 402 (18.66%) Continuous Improvement
6 312 (14.48%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 265 (12.30%) Mentoring
8 232 (10.77%) Disaster Recovery
9 199 (9.24%) ITSM
10 184 (8.54%) Service Delivery
11 167 (7.75%) Migration
11 167 (7.75%) Project Delivery
12 150 (6.96%) Customer Experience
13 146 (6.78%) Identity Access Management
14 144 (6.69%) Vulnerability Remediation
15 136 (6.31%) Kalman Filter
16 127 (5.90%) Web Filtering
17 121 (5.62%) Change Management
18 120 (5.57%) Collaborative Working
19 119 (5.52%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 331 (15.37%) PowerShell
2 198 (9.19%) SQL
3 68 (3.16%) Bash
3 68 (3.16%) Python
4 41 (1.90%) Bicep
5 28 (1.30%) R
6 19 (0.88%) T-SQL
7 12 (0.56%) Kusto Query Language
7 12 (0.56%) VBA
8 8 (0.37%) C#
8 8 (0.37%) Ruby
9 7 (0.32%) Shell Script
10 6 (0.28%) Korn
10 6 (0.28%) PHP
11 5 (0.23%) Java
12 3 (0.14%) JavaScript
12 3 (0.14%) VB
13 2 (0.093%) C
13 2 (0.093%) VB.NET
13 2 (0.093%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 308 (14.30%) Security Cleared
2 223 (10.35%) SC Cleared
3 200 (9.29%) Degree
4 177 (8.22%) Microsoft Certification
5 98 (4.55%) Azure Certification
6 91 (4.22%) A+ Certification
7 89 (4.13%) DV Cleared
8 87 (4.04%) Network+ Certification
9 59 (2.74%) CISM
9 59 (2.74%) CISSP
10 58 (2.69%) Cisco Certification
11 56 (2.60%) DBS Check
12 53 (2.46%) CCNA
13 25 (1.16%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 24 (1.11%) Microsoft Certified Professional
15 21 (0.97%) Computer Science Degree
16 20 (0.93%) MCSA
17 15 (0.70%) AWS Certification
18 14 (0.65%) CompTIA Security+
19 13 (0.60%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 227 (10.54%) Cyber Essentials
2 173 (8.03%) SLA
3 126 (5.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 112 (5.20%) PCI DSS
5 47 (2.18%) GDPR
6 44 (2.04%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 34 (1.58%) NIST
8 22 (1.02%) QA
9 19 (0.88%) Data Quality
10 17 (0.79%) NCSC
11 10 (0.46%) Accessibility
12 6 (0.28%) SOC 2
13 4 (0.19%) GRC
13 4 (0.19%) ITGC
13 4 (0.19%) PMO
14 3 (0.14%) 21 CFR Part 11
14 3 (0.14%) GxP
14 3 (0.14%) ISAE 3402
15 2 (0.093%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 1 (0.046%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 510 (23.68%) Hyper-V
2 368 (17.08%) VMware Infrastructure
3 98 (4.55%) vSphere
4 97 (4.50%) Terminal Server
5 61 (2.83%) Virtual Desktop
6 52 (2.41%) Virtual Machines
7 48 (2.23%) VMware ESXi
8 35 (1.62%) Docker
9 15 (0.70%) Firmware
9 15 (0.70%) Virtual Servers
9 15 (0.70%) VMware NSX
10 13 (0.60%) BitLocker
11 11 (0.51%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 9 (0.42%) DFS Replication
13 8 (0.37%) Citrix Hypervisor
14 6 (0.28%) XenApp
15 5 (0.23%) NDS
15 5 (0.23%) VMware Workstation
16 4 (0.19%) Squid
17 3 (0.14%) VMware Server
Systems Management
1 542 (25.16%) Microsoft Intune
2 105 (4.87%) SCCM
3 60 (2.79%) Terraform
4 37 (1.72%) Single Sign-On
5 31 (1.44%) vCenter Server
6 30 (1.39%) Ansible
6 30 (1.39%) Jamf Pro
6 30 (1.39%) Kubernetes
7 29 (1.35%) FortiGate
8 26 (1.21%) WSUS
9 21 (0.97%) Proxmox
10 19 (0.88%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
11 15 (0.70%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 15 (0.70%) Failover Clustering
11 15 (0.70%) ZABBIX
12 11 (0.51%) Microsoft Clustering
13 8 (0.37%) SCOM
14 7 (0.32%) Autotask
15 6 (0.28%) Prometheus
15 6 (0.28%) VxRail
Vendors
1 1,717 (79.71%) Microsoft
2 578 (26.83%) VMware
3 211 (9.80%) Veeam
4 148 (6.87%) Cisco
5 123 (5.71%) SolarWinds
6 110 (5.11%) Splunk
7 109 (5.06%) Nimble Storage
8 96 (4.46%) Brocade
8 96 (4.46%) Tanium
9 78 (3.62%) Citrix
10 77 (3.57%) Meraki
11 73 (3.39%) Apple
12 71 (3.30%) ServiceNow
13 69 (3.20%) CyberArk
14 61 (2.83%) HP
15 60 (2.79%) Dell
16 43 (2.00%) Google
17 42 (1.95%) CrowdStrike
18 40 (1.86%) Red Hat
18 40 (1.86%) Ubiquiti