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

6 months to
15 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 62 36 29
Rank change year-on-year -26 -7 +15
Permanent jobs citing Active Directory 1,766 1,450 4,473
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 2.86% 5.58% 6.76%
As % of the System Software category 58.25% 45.13% 50.65%
Number of salaries quoted 1,346 1,229 3,835
10th Percentile £26,250 £25,500 £23,750
25th Percentile £28,750 £28,000 £26,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £35,000 £35,000 £35,000
Median % change year-on-year - - -2.78%
75th Percentile £47,500 £48,750 £48,500
90th Percentile £62,500 £58,750 £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 3,032 3,213 8,832
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 4.90% 12.35% 13.34%
Number of salaries quoted 2,231 2,486 7,267
10th Percentile £27,250 £26,750 £25,750
25th Percentile £31,250 £32,207 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £48,507 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -7.23% +7.79% -5.26%
75th Percentile £63,663 £68,063 £60,000
90th Percentile £77,500 £85,000 £75,000
UK median annual salary £50,860 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -7.53% +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 15 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 15 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 -1 468 £36,500 -8.75% 153
North of England -27 399 £33,500 +1.52% 132
Midlands -46 294 £32,500 -7.14% 73
South West -3 259 £32,500 -6.47% 75
North West -18 189 £35,000 -12.50% 79
Yorkshire -29 179 £32,500 +8.33% 37
East of England -31 176 £40,000 +23.08% 52
East Midlands -26 152 £31,500 +4.13% 41
West Midlands -47 141 £32,500 -12.96% 32
Scotland +29 99 £29,000 -21.62% 26
Wales +3 47 £38,500 -21.59% 10
North East -22 31 £32,000 -3.61% 21
Northern Ireland -32 18 £32,000 -39.05% 7
Isle of Man +2 6 £45,000 +55.17%
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
1 469 (26.56%) Microsoft Exchange
2 351 (19.88%) SharePoint
3 19 (1.08%) Exchange Server 2003
4 18 (1.02%) IIS
5 12 (0.68%) Exchange Server 2013
6 10 (0.57%) Confluence
6 10 (0.57%) Exchange Server 2007
6 10 (0.57%) Exchange Server 2010
7 6 (0.34%) CMS
8 5 (0.28%) Skype for Business
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 1 (0.057%) Drupal
11 1 (0.057%) nginx
11 1 (0.057%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 238 (13.48%) Microsoft Office
2 41 (2.32%) Microsoft Excel
3 12 (0.68%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
5 2 (0.11%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.057%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 18 (1.02%) Dynamics CRM
2 8 (0.45%) Dynamics NAV
2 8 (0.45%) Oracle ERP
3 7 (0.40%) NetSuite
3 7 (0.40%) Primavera
4 5 (0.28%) Remedy ITSM
5 4 (0.23%) Dynamics GP
5 4 (0.23%) Exchequer
5 4 (0.23%) Markit EDM
6 3 (0.17%) Oracle EBS
7 2 (0.11%) Alphatax
7 2 (0.11%) Shopify
8 1 (0.057%) Cognos Business Intelligence
8 1 (0.057%) Magento
8 1 (0.057%) Oracle Payables
8 1 (0.057%) Sage 200
8 1 (0.057%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 1,241 (70.27%) Microsoft 365
2 935 (52.94%) Azure
3 638 (36.13%) Entra ID
4 136 (7.70%) OneDrive
5 132 (7.47%) AWS
6 99 (5.61%) Google Workspace
7 87 (4.93%) SaaS
8 82 (4.64%) Power Platform
9 42 (2.38%) IaaS
10 37 (2.10%) PaaS
11 35 (1.98%) Nutanix
12 34 (1.93%) Azure Monitor
13 31 (1.76%) Azure DevOps
13 31 (1.76%) Mimecast
14 29 (1.64%) PowerApps
15 26 (1.47%) GCP
16 22 (1.25%) Microsoft Purview
17 19 (1.08%) Dynamics 365
18 17 (0.96%) GitHub
19 16 (0.91%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 605 (34.26%) DNS
2 549 (31.09%) DHCP
3 408 (23.10%) Firewall
4 282 (15.97%) VPN
5 198 (11.21%) WAN
6 197 (11.16%) TCP/IP
7 193 (10.93%) LAN
8 166 (9.40%) VLAN
9 159 (9.00%) Wi-Fi
10 93 (5.27%) VoIP
11 84 (4.76%) Wireless
12 69 (3.91%) Network Security
13 62 (3.51%) Remote Desktop
14 47 (2.66%) Broadband
14 47 (2.66%) SAN
15 28 (1.59%) SD-WAN
16 21 (1.19%) NAS
17 16 (0.91%) SMTP
18 15 (0.85%) Ethernet
18 15 (0.85%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 83 (4.70%) Amazon RDS
1 83 (4.70%) SQL Server
2 51 (2.89%) Power BI
3 27 (1.53%) PostgreSQL
4 25 (1.42%) MySQL
5 22 (1.25%) Oracle Database
6 19 (1.08%) Oracle Database 10g
7 13 (0.74%) Azure SQL Database
8 8 (0.45%) GIS
8 8 (0.45%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 6 (0.34%) Data Warehouse
9 6 (0.34%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 5 (0.28%) Relational Database
11 3 (0.17%) Neo4j
11 3 (0.17%) Oracle Discoverer
11 3 (0.17%) Oracle Reports
12 1 (0.057%) Data Mining
12 1 (0.057%) InterSystems Cache
12 1 (0.057%) OLAP
12 1 (0.057%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 70 (3.96%) JIRA
2 11 (0.62%) Git
2 11 (0.62%) Oracle Forms
3 8 (0.45%) Jenkins
4 6 (0.34%) GitLab
5 5 (0.28%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
6 4 (0.23%) LabVIEW
6 4 (0.23%) Subversion
7 3 (0.17%) Oracle APEX
8 1 (0.057%) Burp Suite
8 1 (0.057%) Gatling
8 1 (0.057%) JMeter
8 1 (0.057%) Metasploit
8 1 (0.057%) Vagrant
General
1 787 (44.56%) Social Skills
2 195 (11.04%) Analytical Skills
3 166 (9.40%) Organisational Skills
4 123 (6.96%) Finance
5 74 (4.19%) Manufacturing
6 61 (3.45%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 60 (3.40%) Legal
8 58 (3.28%) Documentation Skills
9 54 (3.06%) Retail
10 52 (2.94%) Public Sector
11 51 (2.89%) Law
12 37 (2.10%) Advertising
12 37 (2.10%) Games
13 31 (1.76%) Telecoms
14 19 (1.08%) Marketing
15 15 (0.85%) Local Government
16 10 (0.57%) Automotive
17 8 (0.45%) Aerospace
18 4 (0.23%) General Ledger
18 4 (0.23%) Military
Job Titles
1 713 (40.37%) IT Support
2 504 (28.54%) Support Engineer
3 432 (24.46%) IT Engineer
4 373 (21.12%) IT Support Engineer
5 239 (13.53%) Analyst
6 181 (10.25%) 2nd Line Support
7 178 (10.08%) Support Technician
8 177 (10.02%) Support Analyst
9 154 (8.72%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 149 (8.44%) IT Technician
11 145 (8.21%) Senior
12 138 (7.81%) IT Support Technician
13 119 (6.74%) IT Analyst
14 114 (6.46%) Systems Engineer
15 109 (6.17%) IT Support Analyst
16 101 (5.72%) 2nd Line Engineer
17 92 (5.21%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
18 88 (4.98%) 3rd Line Support
19 80 (4.53%) 1st Line Support
20 65 (3.68%) Infrastructure Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 49 (2.77%) LDAP
2 46 (2.60%) SAML
2 46 (2.60%) SOAP
3 43 (2.43%) OAuth
3 43 (2.43%) OpenID
3 43 (2.43%) REST
4 38 (2.15%) GraphQL
5 19 (1.08%) JSON
5 19 (1.08%) XML
6 10 (0.57%) RESTful
7 9 (0.51%) Regular Expression
8 7 (0.40%) .NET
8 7 (0.40%) Web Services
9 6 (0.34%) ARM Templates
9 6 (0.34%) XMPP
10 5 (0.28%) FreeSWITCH
11 4 (0.23%) EDI
11 4 (0.23%) HTML
11 4 (0.23%) Middleware
11 4 (0.23%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 269 (15.23%) Driving Licence
2 109 (6.17%) Onboarding
3 79 (4.47%) Self-Motivation
4 68 (3.85%) Legacy Systems
5 53 (3.00%) Hybrid Cloud
6 46 (2.60%) Enterprise Software
7 43 (2.43%) Cyberattack
8 39 (2.21%) Cyber Threat
9 37 (2.10%) Management Information System
10 35 (1.98%) Data Centre
11 34 (1.93%) Public Cloud
11 34 (1.93%) Replication
12 25 (1.42%) Cloud Native
13 20 (1.13%) Client/Server
13 20 (1.13%) PKI
14 17 (0.96%) CMDB
15 15 (0.85%) Clustering
16 14 (0.79%) iPad
17 12 (0.68%) FMCG
17 12 (0.68%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 1,260 (71.35%) Windows
2 734 (41.56%) Windows Server
3 307 (17.38%) Windows 10
4 214 (12.12%) Linux
5 134 (7.59%) Windows Server 2016
6 91 (5.15%) Mac OS
7 86 (4.87%) Apple iOS
8 75 (4.25%) Android
9 57 (3.23%) Windows Server 2019
10 35 (1.98%) Windows 7
11 33 (1.87%) Windows Server 2012
12 29 (1.64%) Windows Server 2008
13 28 (1.59%) Unix
14 22 (1.25%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
15 19 (1.08%) HPUX
15 19 (1.08%) Solaris
15 19 (1.08%) Windows Server 2003
16 10 (0.57%) Windows 8
17 7 (0.40%) VMS
18 6 (0.34%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 614 (34.77%) Problem-Solving
2 494 (27.97%) Customer Service
3 436 (24.69%) ITIL
4 268 (15.18%) Cybersecurity
5 207 (11.72%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 193 (10.93%) Mentoring
7 188 (10.65%) Continuous Improvement
8 180 (10.19%) ITSM
9 160 (9.06%) Service Delivery
10 152 (8.61%) Disaster Recovery
11 119 (6.74%) Incident Management
12 114 (6.46%) Migration
13 113 (6.40%) Vulnerability Remediation
14 111 (6.29%) Change Management
15 101 (5.72%) Coaching
16 94 (5.32%) Identity Access Management
17 91 (5.15%) Customer Experience
18 88 (4.98%) Kalman Filter
19 87 (4.93%) Web Filtering
20 86 (4.87%) Time Management
Programming Languages
1 290 (16.42%) PowerShell
2 142 (8.04%) SQL
3 82 (4.64%) Bash
4 58 (3.28%) Python
5 49 (2.77%) T-SQL
6 18 (1.02%) Perl
7 16 (0.91%) R
8 12 (0.68%) PL/SQL
8 12 (0.68%) Shell Script
9 10 (0.57%) Bicep
10 9 (0.51%) JavaScript
11 8 (0.45%) Java
11 8 (0.45%) VB
12 4 (0.23%) C#
12 4 (0.23%) Korn
13 3 (0.17%) PHP
13 3 (0.17%) VBA
14 2 (0.11%) C
15 1 (0.057%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 234 (13.25%) Security Cleared
2 173 (9.80%) SC Cleared
3 171 (9.68%) Degree
4 157 (8.89%) Microsoft Certification
5 83 (4.70%) DV Cleared
6 48 (2.72%) DBS Check
7 42 (2.38%) A+ Certification
7 42 (2.38%) Azure Certification
8 36 (2.04%) Cisco Certification
9 30 (1.70%) CCNA
9 30 (1.70%) Network+ Certification
10 29 (1.64%) Microsoft Certified Professional
11 25 (1.42%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
12 18 (1.02%) Computer Science Degree
12 18 (1.02%) MCSE
13 17 (0.96%) ITIL Certification
14 16 (0.91%) HNC
15 12 (0.68%) CCNP
15 12 (0.68%) MCSA
16 10 (0.57%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 174 (9.85%) SLA
2 139 (7.87%) Cyber Essentials
3 105 (5.95%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 75 (4.25%) PCI DSS
5 50 (2.83%) NIST
6 39 (2.21%) GDPR
6 39 (2.21%) NCSC
7 27 (1.53%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 17 (0.96%) QA
9 14 (0.79%) Data Quality
10 9 (0.51%) Accessibility
11 5 (0.28%) GRC
11 5 (0.28%) PMO
12 4 (0.23%) 21 CFR Part 11
12 4 (0.23%) GxP
12 4 (0.23%) ISO 22301
12 4 (0.23%) ITGC
13 3 (0.17%) SOC 2
14 2 (0.11%) ISO 9001
14 2 (0.11%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 345 (19.54%) Hyper-V
2 261 (14.78%) VMware Infrastructure
3 67 (3.79%) Terminal Server
4 48 (2.72%) vSphere
5 42 (2.38%) VMware ESXi
6 31 (1.76%) Virtual Desktop
7 30 (1.70%) Virtual Machines
8 23 (1.30%) Docker
9 17 (0.96%) BitLocker
10 11 (0.62%) VMware NSX
10 11 (0.62%) VMware Workstation
11 9 (0.51%) Firmware
11 9 (0.51%) XenApp
12 6 (0.34%) Citrix Hypervisor
12 6 (0.34%) DFS Replication
13 4 (0.23%) Terminal Services
13 4 (0.23%) Virtual Servers
14 3 (0.17%) Lustre
14 3 (0.17%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 3 (0.17%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 342 (19.37%) Microsoft Intune
2 124 (7.02%) SCCM
3 41 (2.32%) Single Sign-On
4 39 (2.21%) vCenter Server
5 34 (1.93%) Terraform
6 32 (1.81%) Jamf Pro
7 24 (1.36%) Ansible
8 23 (1.30%) WSUS
9 21 (1.19%) FortiGate
10 19 (1.08%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 15 (0.85%) Kubernetes
11 15 (0.85%) SCOM
12 14 (0.79%) Autotask
13 9 (0.51%) Backup Exec
13 9 (0.51%) Proxmox
14 7 (0.40%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
15 6 (0.34%) ZABBIX
16 5 (0.28%) SCVMM
16 5 (0.28%) SmoothWall
16 5 (0.28%) VxRail
Vendors
1 1,263 (71.52%) Microsoft
2 450 (25.48%) VMware
3 141 (7.98%) Veeam
4 101 (5.72%) SolarWinds
5 95 (5.38%) Cisco
6 92 (5.21%) Apple
6 92 (5.21%) Nimble Storage
7 91 (5.15%) Citrix
8 83 (4.70%) Splunk
9 82 (4.64%) ServiceNow
10 75 (4.25%) Google
11 72 (4.08%) HP
12 66 (3.74%) Dell
13 64 (3.62%) Brocade
13 64 (3.62%) Tanium
14 40 (2.27%) Meraki
15 37 (2.10%) Oracle
16 32 (1.81%) McAfee
17 28 (1.59%) Dell Compellent
18 27 (1.53%) CrowdStrike