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

6 months to
6 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 56 46 31
Rank change year-on-year -10 -15 +10
Permanent jobs citing Active Directory 1,817 1,560 4,472
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 2.74% 5.31% 5.96%
As % of the System Software category 54.32% 39.26% 50.99%
Number of salaries quoted 1,409 1,204 3,646
10th Percentile £26,350 £25,750 £23,500
25th Percentile £29,000 £27,750 £26,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £35,000 £34,750 £35,000
Median % change year-on-year +0.72% -0.71% -4.11%
75th Percentile £47,500 £47,500 £48,344
90th Percentile £63,750 £58,750 £57,500
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 3,345 3,974 8,771
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 5.04% 13.52% 11.70%
Number of salaries quoted 2,530 2,288 6,960
10th Percentile £27,750 £26,500 £25,613
25th Percentile £32,000 £31,250 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £46,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -2.17% +2.22% -5.26%
75th Percentile £64,750 £67,500 £60,000
90th Percentile £77,500 £83,750 £72,500
UK median annual salary £52,500 £52,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year - +5.00% -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 6 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 6 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 -6 448 £35,000 +14.75% 110
South East -1 425 £40,000 - 198
Midlands -41 308 £33,500 -1.47% 61
South West -5 253 £35,000 +7.69% 65
North West +53 218 £37,500 - 63
East of England +3 206 £35,000 +7.69% 68
Yorkshire -36 185 £32,500 +8.33% 35
East Midlands -6 163 £32,500 +3.17% 28
West Midlands -58 144 £35,000 - 33
Scotland +75 101 £30,000 -40.00% 21
Wales -4 54 £45,000 +18.13% 10
North East -43 45 £42,500 +32.81% 14
Northern Ireland -25 16 £32,000 -37.56% 11
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
1 481 (26.47%) Microsoft Exchange
2 376 (20.69%) SharePoint
3 30 (1.65%) IIS
4 17 (0.94%) Confluence
5 11 (0.61%) Exchange Server 2013
6 9 (0.50%) Exchange Server 2007
6 9 (0.50%) Exchange Server 2010
7 5 (0.28%) Skype for Business
8 4 (0.22%) Apache
8 4 (0.22%) CMS
9 3 (0.17%) SAS
10 1 (0.055%) Drupal
10 1 (0.055%) nginx
10 1 (0.055%) Site Server
10 1 (0.055%) WordPress
Applications
1 208 (11.45%) Microsoft Office
2 42 (2.31%) Microsoft Excel
3 10 (0.55%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.17%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 3 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.055%) AutoCAD
5 1 (0.055%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 18 (0.99%) Dynamics CRM
2 13 (0.72%) Dynamics NAV
3 7 (0.39%) NetSuite
3 7 (0.39%) Remedy ITSM
4 4 (0.22%) Dynamics GP
4 4 (0.22%) Exchequer
4 4 (0.22%) Primavera
5 3 (0.17%) Salesforce CRM
6 2 (0.11%) Alphatax
6 2 (0.11%) Markit EDM
6 2 (0.11%) Oracle ERP
6 2 (0.11%) SAP S/4HANA
7 1 (0.055%) Dynamics AX
7 1 (0.055%) Magento
7 1 (0.055%) Oracle Payables
7 1 (0.055%) Sage 200
7 1 (0.055%) SAP EHS
7 1 (0.055%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 1,274 (70.12%) Microsoft 365
2 984 (54.16%) Azure
3 673 (37.04%) Entra ID
4 141 (7.76%) AWS
5 137 (7.54%) OneDrive
6 88 (4.84%) SaaS
7 87 (4.79%) Power Platform
8 85 (4.68%) Google Workspace
9 50 (2.75%) IaaS
10 42 (2.31%) PaaS
11 39 (2.15%) Mimecast
12 35 (1.93%) Nutanix
13 31 (1.71%) Azure DevOps
14 26 (1.43%) PowerApps
15 24 (1.32%) Azure Sentinel
16 23 (1.27%) Azure Monitor
16 23 (1.27%) Microsoft Purview
17 21 (1.16%) Dynamics 365
18 17 (0.94%) Power Automate
19 15 (0.83%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 603 (33.19%) DNS
2 510 (28.07%) DHCP
3 463 (25.48%) Firewall
4 284 (15.63%) VPN
5 190 (10.46%) WAN
6 186 (10.24%) LAN
7 183 (10.07%) TCP/IP
8 170 (9.36%) Wi-Fi
9 156 (8.59%) VLAN
10 104 (5.72%) VoIP
11 84 (4.62%) Wireless
12 71 (3.91%) Network Security
13 69 (3.80%) SAN
14 58 (3.19%) Remote Desktop
15 43 (2.37%) Broadband
16 29 (1.60%) NAS
17 21 (1.16%) SD-WAN
18 19 (1.05%) Internet
19 15 (0.83%) SSL
20 13 (0.72%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 103 (5.67%) SQL Server
2 85 (4.68%) Amazon RDS
3 45 (2.48%) Power BI
4 30 (1.65%) PostgreSQL
5 26 (1.43%) MySQL
6 15 (0.83%) Azure SQL Database
7 9 (0.50%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 8 (0.44%) GIS
9 5 (0.28%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 4 (0.22%) Crystal Reports
10 4 (0.22%) Neo4j
11 3 (0.17%) Data Warehouse
12 2 (0.11%) Relational Database
13 1 (0.055%) Data Lake
13 1 (0.055%) InterSystems Cache
13 1 (0.055%) KNIME
13 1 (0.055%) Metadata
13 1 (0.055%) NoSQL
13 1 (0.055%) RDBMS
13 1 (0.055%) Redis
Development Applications
1 73 (4.02%) JIRA
2 11 (0.61%) Git
2 11 (0.61%) GitLab
3 6 (0.33%) Jenkins
4 5 (0.28%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
5 4 (0.22%) Bitbucket
5 4 (0.22%) LabVIEW
6 3 (0.17%) Burp Suite
6 3 (0.17%) Metasploit
7 2 (0.11%) Oracle Forms
7 2 (0.11%) Subversion
7 2 (0.11%) Terragrunt
8 1 (0.055%) Carbide.c++
8 1 (0.055%) Gatling
8 1 (0.055%) JMeter
8 1 (0.055%) Vagrant
General
1 772 (42.49%) Social Skills
2 192 (10.57%) Analytical Skills
3 142 (7.82%) Organisational Skills
4 116 (6.38%) Finance
5 68 (3.74%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 64 (3.52%) Manufacturing
7 58 (3.19%) Legal
8 53 (2.92%) Public Sector
9 52 (2.86%) Documentation Skills
9 52 (2.86%) Law
10 44 (2.42%) Retail
11 37 (2.04%) Games
12 31 (1.71%) Telecoms
13 28 (1.54%) Advertising
14 19 (1.05%) Local Government
15 11 (0.61%) Aerospace
15 11 (0.61%) Marketing
16 9 (0.50%) Automotive
16 9 (0.50%) Influencing Skills
17 4 (0.22%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 690 (37.97%) IT Support
2 480 (26.42%) Support Engineer
3 431 (23.72%) IT Engineer
4 358 (19.70%) IT Support Engineer
5 287 (15.80%) Analyst
6 197 (10.84%) Support Analyst
7 179 (9.85%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 178 (9.80%) Support Technician
9 176 (9.69%) Senior
10 160 (8.81%) IT Technician
11 154 (8.48%) 2nd Line Support
12 145 (7.98%) IT Support Technician
13 130 (7.15%) IT Analyst
14 124 (6.82%) Systems Engineer
15 115 (6.33%) IT Support Analyst
16 91 (5.01%) 2nd Line Engineer
17 78 (4.29%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
18 74 (4.07%) Architect
19 71 (3.91%) 1st Line Support
20 70 (3.85%) Lead
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 54 (2.97%) LDAP
2 47 (2.59%) SAML
3 42 (2.31%) OpenID
4 41 (2.26%) OAuth
5 40 (2.20%) REST
6 37 (2.04%) SOAP
7 35 (1.93%) GraphQL
8 20 (1.10%) Regular Expression
9 16 (0.88%) XMPP
10 14 (0.77%) JSON
10 14 (0.77%) XML
11 8 (0.44%) .NET
11 8 (0.44%) ARM Templates
12 7 (0.39%) Microsoft Graph
13 6 (0.33%) Middleware
13 6 (0.33%) Web Services
14 5 (0.28%) FreeSWITCH
15 4 (0.22%) boto
15 4 (0.22%) OAuth2
15 4 (0.22%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 246 (13.54%) Driving Licence
2 122 (6.71%) Onboarding
3 85 (4.68%) Self-Motivation
4 74 (4.07%) Hybrid Cloud
4 74 (4.07%) Legacy Systems
5 59 (3.25%) Data Centre
6 55 (3.03%) Management Information System
7 39 (2.15%) Replication
8 38 (2.09%) Cyberattack
8 38 (2.09%) Public Cloud
9 36 (1.98%) Cyber Threat
10 32 (1.76%) Clustering
11 30 (1.65%) Enterprise Software
11 30 (1.65%) PKI
12 26 (1.43%) Cloud Native
13 20 (1.10%) CCTV
14 16 (0.88%) Client/Server
15 15 (0.83%) Data Structures
15 15 (0.83%) Security Posture
16 14 (0.77%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 1,309 (72.04%) Windows
2 781 (42.98%) Windows Server
3 289 (15.91%) Windows 10
4 242 (13.32%) Linux
5 142 (7.82%) Windows Server 2016
6 107 (5.89%) Mac OS
7 82 (4.51%) Windows Server 2019
8 74 (4.07%) Apple iOS
9 68 (3.74%) Android
10 36 (1.98%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 35 (1.93%) Windows Server 2012
12 15 (0.83%) VMS
13 12 (0.66%) Windows 7
13 12 (0.66%) Windows Server 2008
14 8 (0.44%) Ubuntu
15 7 (0.39%) Windows 8
16 5 (0.28%) CentOS
16 5 (0.28%) Debian
17 4 (0.22%) Mac OS X
17 4 (0.22%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 599 (32.97%) Problem-Solving
2 450 (24.77%) Customer Service
3 412 (22.67%) ITIL
4 291 (16.02%) Cybersecurity
5 258 (14.20%) Continuous Improvement
6 238 (13.10%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 192 (10.57%) Mentoring
8 180 (9.91%) Disaster Recovery
9 167 (9.19%) ITSM
10 161 (8.86%) Service Delivery
11 125 (6.88%) Migration
12 116 (6.38%) Vulnerability Remediation
13 111 (6.11%) Change Management
14 100 (5.50%) Customer Experience
15 99 (5.45%) Kalman Filter
15 99 (5.45%) Project Delivery
16 98 (5.39%) Service Management
17 93 (5.12%) Root Cause Analysis
17 93 (5.12%) Web Filtering
18 92 (5.06%) Incident Management
Programming Languages
1 309 (17.01%) PowerShell
2 169 (9.30%) SQL
3 89 (4.90%) Bash
4 61 (3.36%) Python
5 46 (2.53%) T-SQL
6 16 (0.88%) Bicep
6 16 (0.88%) R
7 8 (0.44%) C#
8 7 (0.39%) VB
9 6 (0.33%) Java
9 6 (0.33%) Korn
9 6 (0.33%) Shell Script
9 6 (0.33%) VBA
10 5 (0.28%) JavaScript
11 3 (0.17%) PHP
11 3 (0.17%) PL/SQL
12 2 (0.11%) C
12 2 (0.11%) Kusto Query Language
13 1 (0.055%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 250 (13.76%) Security Cleared
2 180 (9.91%) Degree
3 163 (8.97%) SC Cleared
4 160 (8.81%) Microsoft Certification
5 83 (4.57%) DV Cleared
6 63 (3.47%) Azure Certification
7 55 (3.03%) DBS Check
8 43 (2.37%) A+ Certification
9 36 (1.98%) Cisco Certification
10 35 (1.93%) CCNA
11 33 (1.82%) Microsoft Certified Professional
11 33 (1.82%) Network+ Certification
12 20 (1.10%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 19 (1.05%) Computer Science Degree
14 17 (0.94%) HNC
14 17 (0.94%) ITIL Certification
15 16 (0.88%) MCSA
15 16 (0.88%) MCSE
16 15 (0.83%) CompTIA Security+
17 10 (0.55%) CREST Certified
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 169 (9.30%) SLA
2 164 (9.03%) Cyber Essentials
3 118 (6.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 80 (4.40%) PCI DSS
5 62 (3.41%) NIST
6 39 (2.15%) NCSC
7 37 (2.04%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 32 (1.76%) GDPR
9 22 (1.21%) QA
10 21 (1.16%) Data Quality
11 10 (0.55%) Accessibility
12 6 (0.33%) SOC 2
13 5 (0.28%) GRC
13 5 (0.28%) PMO
14 4 (0.22%) 21 CFR Part 11
14 4 (0.22%) GxP
14 4 (0.22%) ISO 22301
14 4 (0.22%) ITGC
15 2 (0.11%) ISO 9001
16 1 (0.055%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 386 (21.24%) Hyper-V
2 304 (16.73%) VMware Infrastructure
3 77 (4.24%) vSphere
4 66 (3.63%) Terminal Server
5 50 (2.75%) Virtual Desktop
6 48 (2.64%) VMware ESXi
7 35 (1.93%) Virtual Machines
8 33 (1.82%) Docker
9 18 (0.99%) BitLocker
10 17 (0.94%) VMware NSX
11 12 (0.66%) Virtual Servers
12 9 (0.50%) DFS Replication
13 8 (0.44%) Citrix Hypervisor
13 8 (0.44%) VMware Workstation
14 7 (0.39%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 6 (0.33%) XenApp
16 5 (0.28%) Firmware
17 4 (0.22%) Squid
18 3 (0.17%) Slurm Workload Manager
18 3 (0.17%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 374 (20.58%) Microsoft Intune
2 111 (6.11%) SCCM
3 40 (2.20%) vCenter Server
4 37 (2.04%) Single Sign-On
5 36 (1.98%) Terraform
6 32 (1.76%) Jamf Pro
7 28 (1.54%) Ansible
7 28 (1.54%) WSUS
8 25 (1.38%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 24 (1.32%) FortiGate
10 21 (1.16%) Kubernetes
11 19 (1.05%) Proxmox
12 12 (0.66%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
13 11 (0.61%) Autotask
13 11 (0.61%) SCOM
14 9 (0.50%) Backup Exec
14 9 (0.50%) ZABBIX
15 7 (0.39%) VxRail
16 5 (0.28%) Nessus
16 5 (0.28%) Tivoli Identity Manager
Vendors
1 1,354 (74.52%) Microsoft
2 488 (26.86%) VMware
3 170 (9.36%) Veeam
4 106 (5.83%) Cisco
5 97 (5.34%) SolarWinds
6 90 (4.95%) Apple
7 88 (4.84%) Nimble Storage
8 85 (4.68%) Citrix
8 85 (4.68%) Splunk
9 72 (3.96%) ServiceNow
10 64 (3.52%) Brocade
10 64 (3.52%) Dell
10 64 (3.52%) HP
10 64 (3.52%) Tanium
11 60 (3.30%) Google
11 60 (3.30%) Meraki
12 37 (2.04%) McAfee
12 37 (2.04%) Red Hat
13 31 (1.71%) CrowdStrike
14 27 (1.49%) Ubiquiti