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

6 months to
27 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 55 38 35
Rank change year-on-year -17 -3 -4
Permanent jobs citing Active Directory 2,165 1,911 3,083
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 2.71% 5.48% 5.14%
As % of the System Software category 49.80% 44.31% 51.20%
Number of salaries quoted 1,661 1,513 2,225
10th Percentile £26,750 £26,000 £24,750
25th Percentile £29,500 £28,250 £28,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £37,500 £35,000 £37,500
Median % change year-on-year +7.14% -6.67% +1.35%
75th Percentile £51,250 £47,500 £50,250
90th Percentile £67,500 £60,000 £60,000
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 4,347 4,313 6,021
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 5.44% 12.37% 10.04%
Number of salaries quoted 3,272 2,505 4,283
10th Percentile £28,500 £26,500 £26,250
25th Percentile £34,188 £30,750 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £42,500 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year +17.65% -10.53% -4.04%
75th Percentile £67,500 £62,500 £61,250
90th Percentile £81,250 £76,840 £73,750
UK median annual salary £55,000 £48,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year +13.40% -3.00% -9.34%

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 August 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 August 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 -12 518 £33,475 +7.98% 159
South East -9 500 £42,500 +6.25% 261
Midlands -31 363 £40,000 +23.08% 103
South West -29 291 £38,500 +18.46% 100
North West +63 281 £35,000 - 92
East of England +2 259 £35,000 +2.94% 108
East Midlands -14 188 £37,500 +25.00% 37
Yorkshire -34 177 £31,000 +3.33% 43
West Midlands -40 175 £42,500 +11.84% 66
Scotland +70 112 £32,500 +4.84% 30
Northern Ireland -24 66 £40,000 -23.81% 12
Wales -29 64 £45,000 +18.13% 4
North East -60 60 £38,750 +25.00% 30
Isle of Man -2 1 £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
1 631 (29.15%) Microsoft Exchange
2 478 (22.08%) SharePoint
3 53 (2.45%) IIS
4 18 (0.83%) Confluence
5 13 (0.60%) Skype for Business
6 5 (0.23%) Apache
7 3 (0.14%) nginx
7 3 (0.14%) SAS
8 2 (0.092%) Exchange Server 2013
9 1 (0.046%) CMS
9 1 (0.046%) Drupal
9 1 (0.046%) HCL Domino
9 1 (0.046%) HCL Notes
9 1 (0.046%) Site Server
9 1 (0.046%) Tomcat
9 1 (0.046%) WordPress
Applications
1 139 (6.42%) Microsoft Office
2 36 (1.66%) Microsoft Excel
3 10 (0.46%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (0.18%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 3 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (0.092%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.046%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.046%) Revit
Business Applications
1 14 (0.65%) Dynamics CRM
2 8 (0.37%) Dynamics NAV
3 6 (0.28%) NetSuite
3 6 (0.28%) Raiser’s Edge
4 5 (0.23%) JDE EnterpriseOne
4 5 (0.23%) Remedy ITSM
5 4 (0.18%) Payment Gateway
5 4 (0.18%) Shopify
6 3 (0.14%) Exchequer
6 3 (0.14%) Primavera
6 3 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.092%) Sage 200
7 2 (0.092%) Teamcenter
8 1 (0.046%) Dynamics AX
8 1 (0.046%) Dynamics GP
8 1 (0.046%) Magento
8 1 (0.046%) Oracle Payables
8 1 (0.046%) Sage 50
8 1 (0.046%) SAP EHS
8 1 (0.046%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 1,494 (69.01%) Microsoft 365
2 1,213 (56.03%) Azure
3 959 (44.30%) Entra ID
4 159 (7.34%) OneDrive
5 150 (6.93%) AWS
6 101 (4.67%) SaaS
7 70 (3.23%) Power Platform
8 62 (2.86%) IaaS
9 58 (2.68%) Mimecast
10 48 (2.22%) PaaS
11 46 (2.12%) Azure DevOps
12 41 (1.89%) Microsoft Purview
13 38 (1.76%) Azure Sentinel
14 35 (1.62%) Power Automate
15 32 (1.48%) Serverless
16 27 (1.25%) Azure Monitor
16 27 (1.25%) Google Workspace
17 25 (1.15%) Azure ExpressRoute
17 25 (1.15%) PowerApps
18 22 (1.02%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 712 (32.89%) DNS
2 592 (27.34%) DHCP
3 529 (24.43%) Firewall
4 375 (17.32%) VPN
5 265 (12.24%) TCP/IP
6 209 (9.65%) Wi-Fi
7 206 (9.52%) VLAN
8 198 (9.15%) WAN
9 193 (8.91%) LAN
10 143 (6.61%) Wireless
11 132 (6.10%) VoIP
12 95 (4.39%) Network Security
13 78 (3.60%) SAN
14 44 (2.03%) Remote Desktop
15 29 (1.34%) Internet
15 29 (1.34%) SSL
16 26 (1.20%) NAS
17 18 (0.83%) Structured Cabling
18 17 (0.79%) WLAN
19 16 (0.74%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 99 (4.57%) Amazon RDS
1 99 (4.57%) SQL Server
2 33 (1.52%) Azure SQL Database
3 27 (1.25%) Power BI
4 18 (0.83%) MySQL
5 17 (0.79%) PostgreSQL
6 9 (0.42%) Relational Database
7 6 (0.28%) Crystal Reports
8 5 (0.23%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 4 (0.18%) Data Warehouse
9 4 (0.18%) Neo4j
10 3 (0.14%) Oracle Database
11 2 (0.092%) BusinessObjects
11 2 (0.092%) Data Lake
11 2 (0.092%) KNIME
12 1 (0.046%) InterSystems Cache
12 1 (0.046%) NoSQL
12 1 (0.046%) RDBMS
12 1 (0.046%) Redis
12 1 (0.046%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 69 (3.19%) JIRA
2 30 (1.39%) Git
3 9 (0.42%) Jenkins
4 6 (0.28%) Bitbucket
5 5 (0.23%) GitLab
6 2 (0.092%) Artifactory
6 2 (0.092%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 2 (0.092%) Burp Suite
6 2 (0.092%) git-flow
6 2 (0.092%) Metasploit
6 2 (0.092%) NUnit
6 2 (0.092%) Terragrunt
7 1 (0.046%) Carbide.c++
7 1 (0.046%) Gatling
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 1,011 (46.70%) Social Skills
2 258 (11.92%) Analytical Skills
3 143 (6.61%) Legal
4 125 (5.77%) Finance
5 83 (3.83%) Manufacturing
6 82 (3.79%) Organisational Skills
7 81 (3.74%) Law
8 73 (3.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 63 (2.91%) Public Sector
10 55 (2.54%) Retail
11 44 (2.03%) Telecoms
12 39 (1.80%) Documentation Skills
13 34 (1.57%) Aerospace
14 28 (1.29%) Advertising
15 14 (0.65%) Automotive
16 12 (0.55%) Local Government
17 11 (0.51%) Influencing Skills
18 8 (0.37%) Games
19 7 (0.32%) Aviation
20 5 (0.23%) Dutch Language
Job Titles
1 779 (35.98%) IT Support
2 519 (23.97%) Support Engineer
3 512 (23.65%) IT Engineer
4 415 (19.17%) IT Support Engineer
5 351 (16.21%) Analyst
6 267 (12.33%) Senior
7 227 (10.48%) Support Analyst
8 213 (9.84%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 200 (9.24%) IT Technician
10 193 (8.91%) Support Technician
11 176 (8.13%) IT Support Technician
12 164 (7.58%) Systems Engineer
13 146 (6.74%) IT Analyst
14 145 (6.70%) 2nd Line Support
15 130 (6.00%) IT Support Analyst
16 96 (4.43%) 2nd Line Engineer
17 94 (4.34%) Architect
18 86 (3.97%) Administrator
19 80 (3.70%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
19 80 (3.70%) 3rd Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 78 (3.60%) Terraform
2 53 (2.45%) LDAP
3 31 (1.43%) SAML
4 29 (1.34%) OpenID
5 27 (1.25%) OAuth
6 23 (1.06%) Regular Expression
7 19 (0.88%) XMPP
8 15 (0.69%) .NET
9 13 (0.60%) Microsoft Graph
9 13 (0.60%) ModSecurity
10 12 (0.55%) HTML
11 11 (0.51%) ARM Templates
12 10 (0.46%) REST
12 10 (0.46%) Web Services
13 7 (0.32%) JSON
13 7 (0.32%) JSON Schema
13 7 (0.32%) OAuth2
13 7 (0.32%) XML
14 6 (0.28%) SOAP
15 5 (0.23%) ODBC
Miscellaneous
1 299 (13.81%) Driving Licence
2 193 (8.91%) Onboarding
3 121 (5.59%) Self-Motivation
4 94 (4.34%) Legacy Systems
5 84 (3.88%) Hybrid Cloud
6 69 (3.19%) Data Centre
7 65 (3.00%) Management Information System
8 50 (2.31%) PKI
9 44 (2.03%) Clustering
10 42 (1.94%) Security Posture
11 40 (1.85%) Enterprise Software
12 39 (1.80%) Cloud Native
13 36 (1.66%) CCTV
14 35 (1.62%) Replication
15 34 (1.57%) Public Cloud
16 20 (0.92%) iPhone
17 19 (0.88%) Social Media
18 18 (0.83%) Video Conferencing
19 16 (0.74%) Client/Server
20 15 (0.69%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 1,534 (70.85%) Windows
2 901 (41.62%) Windows Server
3 278 (12.84%) Linux
4 270 (12.47%) Windows 10
5 161 (7.44%) Windows Server 2016
6 134 (6.19%) Mac OS
7 87 (4.02%) Windows Server 2019
8 82 (3.79%) Apple iOS
9 57 (2.63%) Android
10 42 (1.94%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 24 (1.11%) VMS
12 23 (1.06%) Ubuntu
13 22 (1.02%) Windows Server 2012
14 7 (0.32%) CentOS
14 7 (0.32%) Debian
15 6 (0.28%) Windows Server 2008
16 5 (0.23%) CoreOS
16 5 (0.23%) Rocky
17 4 (0.18%) Mac OS X
17 4 (0.18%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 763 (35.24%) Problem-Solving
2 536 (24.76%) Customer Service
3 476 (21.99%) ITIL
4 435 (20.09%) Continuous Improvement
5 415 (19.17%) Cybersecurity
6 355 (16.40%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 264 (12.19%) Mentoring
8 263 (12.15%) Disaster Recovery
9 204 (9.42%) ITSM
10 192 (8.87%) Project Delivery
11 185 (8.55%) Identity Access Management
12 183 (8.45%) Service Delivery
13 172 (7.94%) Migration
14 140 (6.47%) Customer Experience
15 137 (6.33%) Service Management
16 132 (6.10%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 130 (6.00%) Collaborative Working
18 129 (5.96%) Vulnerability Remediation
19 125 (5.77%) AI
20 117 (5.40%) Kalman Filter
Programming Languages
1 344 (15.89%) PowerShell
2 199 (9.19%) SQL
3 67 (3.09%) Python
4 57 (2.63%) Bash
5 51 (2.36%) Bicep
6 26 (1.20%) R
7 14 (0.65%) Ruby
8 12 (0.55%) Kusto Query Language
8 12 (0.55%) VBA
9 11 (0.51%) C#
10 7 (0.32%) Java
10 7 (0.32%) Shell Script
10 7 (0.32%) T-SQL
11 5 (0.23%) Korn
11 5 (0.23%) PHP
12 3 (0.14%) JavaScript
12 3 (0.14%) VB
12 3 (0.14%) VB.NET
13 2 (0.092%) Google Apps Script
13 2 (0.092%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 314 (14.50%) Security Cleared
2 213 (9.84%) SC Cleared
3 203 (9.38%) Degree
4 188 (8.68%) Microsoft Certification
5 121 (5.59%) Azure Certification
6 104 (4.80%) DV Cleared
7 100 (4.62%) A+ Certification
8 99 (4.57%) Network+ Certification
9 75 (3.46%) CISM
9 75 (3.46%) CISSP
10 62 (2.86%) DBS Check
11 61 (2.82%) Cisco Certification
12 52 (2.40%) CCNA
13 34 (1.57%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 23 (1.06%) Computer Science Degree
15 22 (1.02%) CompTIA Security+
16 21 (0.97%) Microsoft Certified Professional
17 19 (0.88%) AWS Certification
17 19 (0.88%) MCSA
18 15 (0.69%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 222 (10.25%) Cyber Essentials
2 157 (7.25%) SLA
3 124 (5.73%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 96 (4.43%) PCI DSS
5 55 (2.54%) GDPR
6 46 (2.12%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 28 (1.29%) NIST
8 18 (0.83%) QA
9 13 (0.60%) Accessibility
9 13 (0.60%) Data Quality
10 12 (0.55%) NCSC
11 6 (0.28%) SOC 2
12 4 (0.18%) GRC
13 3 (0.14%) ISAE 3402
13 3 (0.14%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 1 (0.046%) ISO 9001
14 1 (0.046%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 507 (23.42%) Hyper-V
2 381 (17.60%) VMware Infrastructure
3 89 (4.11%) vSphere
4 81 (3.74%) Terminal Server
5 71 (3.28%) Virtual Desktop
6 55 (2.54%) Virtual Machines
7 37 (1.71%) VMware ESXi
8 36 (1.66%) Docker
9 20 (0.92%) Firmware
10 19 (0.88%) Virtual Servers
11 14 (0.65%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 12 (0.55%) VMware NSX
13 9 (0.42%) Citrix Hypervisor
14 8 (0.37%) BitLocker
15 5 (0.23%) NDS
16 4 (0.18%) DFS Replication
16 4 (0.18%) Squid
17 3 (0.14%) VMware Server
17 3 (0.14%) XenApp
18 2 (0.092%) Xen
Systems Management
1 585 (27.02%) Microsoft Intune
2 106 (4.90%) SCCM
3 55 (2.54%) Single Sign-On
4 37 (1.71%) Ansible
5 34 (1.57%) Kubernetes
6 31 (1.43%) FortiGate
7 28 (1.29%) Jamf Pro
8 26 (1.20%) WSUS
9 21 (0.97%) vCenter Server
10 18 (0.83%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 17 (0.79%) Proxmox
12 15 (0.69%) Failover Clustering
12 15 (0.69%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
13 12 (0.55%) ZABBIX
14 11 (0.51%) Microsoft Clustering
15 10 (0.46%) SCOM
16 6 (0.28%) Grafana
16 6 (0.28%) Graylog
16 6 (0.28%) Prometheus
17 5 (0.23%) VxRail
Vendors
1 1,784 (82.40%) Microsoft
2 560 (25.87%) VMware
3 203 (9.38%) Veeam
4 162 (7.48%) Cisco
5 101 (4.67%) SolarWinds
6 97 (4.48%) Splunk
7 88 (4.06%) Nimble Storage
8 80 (3.70%) Brocade
8 80 (3.70%) Tanium
9 79 (3.65%) Meraki
10 75 (3.46%) Apple
11 74 (3.42%) CyberArk
12 69 (3.19%) ServiceNow
13 61 (2.82%) Citrix
14 55 (2.54%) SonicWALL
15 53 (2.45%) Fortinet
16 45 (2.08%) Dell
16 45 (2.08%) HP
17 42 (1.94%) Red Hat
18 38 (1.76%) Palo Alto