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 2 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 60 42 29
Rank change year-on-year -18 -13 +15
Permanent jobs citing Active Directory 1,760 1,415 4,403
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 3.07% 5.47% 6.93%
As % of the System Software category 59.14% 44.82% 50.80%
Number of salaries quoted 1,327 1,194 3,797
10th Percentile £26,250 £25,500 £23,825
25th Percentile £28,500 £27,750 £26,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £34,500 £35,000 £35,000
Median % change year-on-year -1.43% - -1.13%
75th Percentile £47,500 £48,750 £48,750
90th Percentile £60,000 £59,275 £57,500
UK median annual salary £37,500 £40,000 £38,000
% change year-on-year -6.25% +5.26% -5.00%

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 2,976 3,157 8,668
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 5.18% 12.20% 13.65%
Number of salaries quoted 2,176 2,478 7,184
10th Percentile £27,000 £26,750 £25,750
25th Percentile £31,250 £32,500 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £50,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% +11.11% -5.26%
75th Percentile £62,500 £69,000 £60,000
90th Percentile £77,500 £85,000 £75,000
UK median annual salary £50,351 £57,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year -12.43% +15.00% -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 2 April 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 2 April 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 +6 490 £36,000 -15.29% 175
North of England -32 388 £33,750 +3.85% 133
Midlands -35 280 £32,500 -7.14% 78
South West +3 267 £32,500 -5.80% 71
Yorkshire -20 178 £32,500 +8.33% 39
North West -27 174 £37,500 -6.25% 85
East of England -30 173 £40,000 +23.08% 61
East Midlands -25 143 £31,500 +5.00% 36
West Midlands -42 136 £32,500 -11.97% 42
Scotland +20 94 £30,000 -12.11% 26
Wales +10 44 £37,500 -23.63% 14
North East -14 36 £32,000 -3.61% 13
Northern Ireland -31 18 £32,000 -39.05% 2
Isle of Man +2 6 £45,000 +55.17% 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
1 492 (27.95%) Microsoft Exchange
2 342 (19.43%) SharePoint
3 22 (1.25%) Exchange Server 2003
4 13 (0.74%) IIS
5 12 (0.68%) Exchange Server 2013
6 11 (0.63%) Exchange Server 2007
6 11 (0.63%) Exchange Server 2010
7 10 (0.57%) Confluence
8 6 (0.34%) CMS
9 4 (0.23%) Apache
10 3 (0.17%) Tomcat
10 3 (0.17%) WebLogic
10 3 (0.17%) WebLogic Portal
10 3 (0.17%) WordPress
11 2 (0.11%) Skype for Business
12 1 (0.057%) Drupal
12 1 (0.057%) nginx
12 1 (0.057%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 248 (14.09%) Microsoft Office
2 42 (2.39%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (0.80%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.17%) AutoCAD
4 3 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 16 (0.91%) Dynamics CRM
2 8 (0.45%) Oracle ERP
3 7 (0.40%) NetSuite
3 7 (0.40%) Primavera
4 6 (0.34%) Dynamics NAV
5 5 (0.28%) Remedy ITSM
6 4 (0.23%) Dynamics GP
6 4 (0.23%) Exchequer
6 4 (0.23%) Markit EDM
7 3 (0.17%) Oracle EBS
8 2 (0.11%) Alphatax
8 2 (0.11%) Shopify
9 1 (0.057%) Cognos Business Intelligence
9 1 (0.057%) Magento
9 1 (0.057%) Oracle Payables
9 1 (0.057%) Sage 200
9 1 (0.057%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 1,248 (70.91%) Microsoft 365
2 942 (53.52%) Azure
3 615 (34.94%) Entra ID
4 133 (7.56%) OneDrive
5 132 (7.50%) AWS
6 99 (5.63%) Google Workspace
7 84 (4.77%) SaaS
8 79 (4.49%) Power Platform
9 37 (2.10%) IaaS
10 34 (1.93%) Nutanix
11 33 (1.88%) Azure Monitor
11 33 (1.88%) PaaS
12 30 (1.70%) Mimecast
13 29 (1.65%) GCP
14 27 (1.53%) Azure DevOps
14 27 (1.53%) PowerApps
15 22 (1.25%) Microsoft Purview
16 17 (0.97%) Dynamics 365
17 16 (0.91%) OCI
18 15 (0.85%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 627 (35.63%) DNS
2 576 (32.73%) DHCP
3 410 (23.30%) Firewall
4 282 (16.02%) VPN
5 219 (12.44%) TCP/IP
6 193 (10.97%) WAN
7 187 (10.63%) LAN
8 178 (10.11%) VLAN
9 154 (8.75%) Wi-Fi
10 92 (5.23%) VoIP
11 81 (4.60%) Wireless
12 66 (3.75%) Network Security
13 61 (3.47%) Remote Desktop
14 47 (2.67%) Broadband
15 41 (2.33%) SAN
16 28 (1.59%) SD-WAN
17 20 (1.14%) NAS
18 17 (0.97%) SMTP
19 16 (0.91%) Internet
20 15 (0.85%) Ethernet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 90 (5.11%) Amazon RDS
2 76 (4.32%) SQL Server
3 48 (2.73%) Power BI
4 25 (1.42%) Oracle Database
5 23 (1.31%) PostgreSQL
6 22 (1.25%) MySQL
6 22 (1.25%) Oracle Database 10g
7 10 (0.57%) Azure SQL Database
8 8 (0.45%) GIS
8 8 (0.45%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 6 (0.34%) Data Warehouse
10 5 (0.28%) Relational Database
11 4 (0.23%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 3 (0.17%) Data Mining
12 3 (0.17%) Neo4j
12 3 (0.17%) Oracle Discoverer
12 3 (0.17%) Oracle Reports
13 1 (0.057%) Cognos Connection
13 1 (0.057%) Cognos Framework Manager
13 1 (0.057%) Redis
Development Applications
1 71 (4.03%) JIRA
2 13 (0.74%) Git
3 11 (0.63%) Oracle Forms
4 9 (0.51%) Jenkins
5 7 (0.40%) GitLab
6 5 (0.28%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
7 4 (0.23%) LabVIEW
7 4 (0.23%) Subversion
8 3 (0.17%) Oracle APEX
9 1 (0.057%) Burp Suite
9 1 (0.057%) Gatling
9 1 (0.057%) JMeter
9 1 (0.057%) Metasploit
9 1 (0.057%) Vagrant
9 1 (0.057%) Visual Studio
General
1 794 (45.11%) Social Skills
2 196 (11.14%) Analytical Skills
3 165 (9.38%) Organisational Skills
4 123 (6.99%) Finance
5 78 (4.43%) Manufacturing
6 61 (3.47%) Retail
7 59 (3.35%) Legal
8 56 (3.18%) Documentation Skills
9 55 (3.13%) Law
10 51 (2.90%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 44 (2.50%) Public Sector
12 39 (2.22%) Advertising
13 36 (2.05%) Games
14 31 (1.76%) Telecoms
15 21 (1.19%) Marketing
16 12 (0.68%) Local Government
17 8 (0.45%) Aerospace
18 7 (0.40%) Automotive
19 4 (0.23%) Banking
19 4 (0.23%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 715 (40.63%) IT Support
2 502 (28.52%) Support Engineer
3 421 (23.92%) IT Engineer
4 365 (20.74%) IT Support Engineer
5 224 (12.73%) Analyst
6 180 (10.23%) Support Technician
7 179 (10.17%) 2nd Line Support
8 165 (9.38%) Support Analyst
9 154 (8.75%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 148 (8.41%) IT Technician
11 137 (7.78%) IT Support Technician
12 136 (7.73%) Senior
13 117 (6.65%) IT Analyst
13 117 (6.65%) Systems Engineer
14 107 (6.08%) IT Support Analyst
15 103 (5.85%) 2nd Line Engineer
16 92 (5.23%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
16 92 (5.23%) 3rd Line Support
17 75 (4.26%) 1st Line Support
18 61 (3.47%) Lead
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 50 (2.84%) LDAP
2 47 (2.67%) SAML
3 46 (2.61%) SOAP
4 44 (2.50%) OAuth
4 44 (2.50%) OpenID
5 43 (2.44%) REST
6 38 (2.16%) GraphQL
7 19 (1.08%) JSON
7 19 (1.08%) XML
8 11 (0.63%) RESTful
9 10 (0.57%) .NET
10 9 (0.51%) Regular Expression
11 8 (0.45%) ARM Templates
12 7 (0.40%) HTML
12 7 (0.40%) Web Services
13 6 (0.34%) CSS
13 6 (0.34%) XMPP
14 5 (0.28%) .NET Framework
14 5 (0.28%) FreeSWITCH
14 5 (0.28%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 274 (15.57%) Driving Licence
2 111 (6.31%) Onboarding
3 84 (4.77%) Self-Motivation
4 77 (4.38%) Legacy Systems
5 48 (2.73%) Enterprise Software
5 48 (2.73%) Hybrid Cloud
6 41 (2.33%) Cyberattack
7 40 (2.27%) Cyber Threat
8 34 (1.93%) Replication
9 33 (1.88%) Public Cloud
10 32 (1.82%) Data Centre
11 29 (1.65%) Management Information System
12 22 (1.25%) Cloud Native
13 19 (1.08%) Client/Server
13 19 (1.08%) PKI
14 18 (1.02%) CMDB
15 13 (0.74%) Clustering
15 13 (0.74%) Video Conferencing
16 12 (0.68%) FMCG
16 12 (0.68%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 1,264 (71.82%) Windows
2 748 (42.50%) Windows Server
3 304 (17.27%) Windows 10
4 220 (12.50%) Linux
5 141 (8.01%) Windows Server 2016
6 89 (5.06%) Mac OS
7 82 (4.66%) Apple iOS
8 73 (4.15%) Android
9 55 (3.13%) Windows Server 2019
10 41 (2.33%) Windows 7
11 32 (1.82%) Windows Server 2012
12 29 (1.65%) Unix
12 29 (1.65%) Windows Server 2008
13 22 (1.25%) HPUX
13 22 (1.25%) Solaris
13 22 (1.25%) Windows Server 2003
14 20 (1.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
15 12 (0.68%) Windows 8
16 7 (0.40%) VMS
17 6 (0.34%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 631 (35.85%) Problem-Solving
2 511 (29.03%) Customer Service
3 428 (24.32%) ITIL
4 267 (15.17%) Cybersecurity
5 208 (11.82%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 195 (11.08%) Mentoring
7 186 (10.57%) Continuous Improvement
8 176 (10.00%) ITSM
9 157 (8.92%) Service Delivery
10 154 (8.75%) Disaster Recovery
11 123 (6.99%) Incident Management
12 120 (6.82%) Migration
12 120 (6.82%) Vulnerability Remediation
13 104 (5.91%) Change Management
14 103 (5.85%) Coaching
15 96 (5.45%) Kalman Filter
16 95 (5.40%) Customer Experience
16 95 (5.40%) Web Filtering
17 91 (5.17%) Identity Access Management
18 85 (4.83%) Asset Management
Programming Languages
1 291 (16.53%) PowerShell
2 126 (7.16%) SQL
3 79 (4.49%) Bash
4 50 (2.84%) Python
5 49 (2.78%) T-SQL
6 21 (1.19%) Perl
7 16 (0.91%) R
8 13 (0.74%) JavaScript
8 13 (0.74%) Shell Script
9 12 (0.68%) PL/SQL
10 9 (0.51%) Java
11 8 (0.45%) VB
12 7 (0.40%) C#
13 6 (0.34%) Bicep
14 5 (0.28%) VBA
15 3 (0.17%) PHP
16 2 (0.11%) C
17 1 (0.057%) Groovy
17 1 (0.057%) Korn
17 1 (0.057%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 242 (13.75%) Security Cleared
2 178 (10.11%) SC Cleared
3 162 (9.20%) Degree
4 159 (9.03%) Microsoft Certification
5 83 (4.72%) DV Cleared
6 47 (2.67%) DBS Check
7 44 (2.50%) Azure Certification
8 42 (2.39%) A+ Certification
9 37 (2.10%) Cisco Certification
10 33 (1.88%) Microsoft Certified Professional
11 31 (1.76%) CCNA
12 25 (1.42%) Network+ Certification
13 21 (1.19%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 20 (1.14%) ITIL Certification
14 20 (1.14%) MCSE
15 17 (0.97%) HNC
16 16 (0.91%) MCSA
17 15 (0.85%) Computer Science Degree
18 12 (0.68%) CCNP
18 12 (0.68%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 171 (9.72%) SLA
2 145 (8.24%) Cyber Essentials
3 98 (5.57%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 85 (4.83%) PCI DSS
5 50 (2.84%) NIST
6 39 (2.22%) NCSC
7 38 (2.16%) GDPR
8 25 (1.42%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 17 (0.97%) QA
10 10 (0.57%) Data Quality
11 7 (0.40%) Accessibility
12 5 (0.28%) GRC
12 5 (0.28%) PMO
13 4 (0.23%) 21 CFR Part 11
13 4 (0.23%) GxP
13 4 (0.23%) ISO 22301
13 4 (0.23%) ITGC
14 2 (0.11%) Disclosure Scotland
14 2 (0.11%) ISO 9001
14 2 (0.11%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 354 (20.11%) Hyper-V
2 258 (14.66%) VMware Infrastructure
3 75 (4.26%) Terminal Server
4 50 (2.84%) vSphere
5 38 (2.16%) VMware ESXi
6 28 (1.59%) Virtual Desktop
7 24 (1.36%) Virtual Machines
8 17 (0.97%) BitLocker
9 16 (0.91%) Docker
10 11 (0.63%) Firmware
10 11 (0.63%) VMware NSX
10 11 (0.63%) VMware Workstation
11 10 (0.57%) XenApp
12 6 (0.34%) DFS Replication
13 5 (0.28%) Virtual Servers
14 4 (0.23%) Terminal Services
15 3 (0.17%) Citrix Hypervisor
15 3 (0.17%) Lustre
15 3 (0.17%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 3 (0.17%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 347 (19.72%) Microsoft Intune
2 126 (7.16%) SCCM
3 43 (2.44%) Single Sign-On
4 42 (2.39%) vCenter Server
5 34 (1.93%) Terraform
6 33 (1.88%) Jamf Pro
7 23 (1.31%) Ansible
8 21 (1.19%) WSUS
9 20 (1.14%) FortiGate
10 18 (1.02%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 15 (0.85%) Autotask
12 13 (0.74%) SCOM
13 11 (0.63%) Kubernetes
14 9 (0.51%) Backup Exec
15 8 (0.45%) Proxmox
16 7 (0.40%) ZABBIX
17 6 (0.34%) SmoothWall
17 6 (0.34%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
18 5 (0.28%) SCVMM
19 4 (0.23%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 1,273 (72.33%) Microsoft
2 464 (26.36%) VMware
3 154 (8.75%) Veeam
4 109 (6.19%) SolarWinds
5 100 (5.68%) Nimble Storage
6 95 (5.40%) Cisco
7 94 (5.34%) Apple
8 93 (5.28%) Citrix
9 89 (5.06%) Splunk
10 78 (4.43%) Google
11 77 (4.38%) ServiceNow
12 72 (4.09%) Brocade
12 72 (4.09%) Tanium
13 66 (3.75%) HP
14 57 (3.24%) Dell
15 40 (2.27%) Oracle
16 38 (2.16%) Meraki
17 28 (1.59%) Dell Compellent
18 27 (1.53%) McAfee
19 26 (1.48%) CrowdStrike