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

6 months to
21 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 55 43 30
Rank change year-on-year -12 -13 +10
Permanent jobs citing Active Directory 1,934 1,644 4,535
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 2.85% 5.45% 5.69%
As % of the System Software category 53.54% 40.15% 51.23%
Number of salaries quoted 1,515 1,291 3,631
10th Percentile £26,500 £25,750 £23,750
25th Percentile £29,000 £28,000 £26,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £36,000 £35,000 £35,000
Median % change year-on-year +2.86% - -5.07%
75th Percentile £48,750 £47,500 £48,500
90th Percentile £65,000 £61,250 £58,750
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 3,612 4,095 8,852
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 5.32% 13.58% 11.11%
Number of salaries quoted 2,772 2,392 6,918
10th Percentile £27,750 £26,500 £25,625
25th Percentile £32,000 £31,250 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £46,500 £46,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year +1.09% +2.22% -5.26%
75th Percentile £65,000 £67,500 £60,000
90th Percentile £77,500 £82,751 £72,500
UK median annual salary £52,500 £52,500 £49,941
% change year-on-year - +5.13% -9.20%

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 21 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 21 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 -4 474 £34,000 +6.25% 103
South East -2 469 £40,000 - 170
Midlands -31 319 £34,750 -0.71% 71
South West -9 271 £37,500 +15.38% 57
North West +56 232 £37,500 - 57
East of England +4 222 £35,000 +7.69% 59
Yorkshire -26 192 £32,500 +8.33% 40
East Midlands -3 165 £32,500 +1.56% 46
West Midlands -44 153 £37,000 -3.90% 25
Scotland +71 101 £28,750 -20.69% 21
Wales -8 60 £45,000 +18.13% 16
North East -46 50 £42,500 +32.81% 9
Northern Ireland -21 13 £32,000 -39.05% 35
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
1 533 (27.56%) Microsoft Exchange
2 402 (20.79%) SharePoint
3 36 (1.86%) IIS
4 15 (0.78%) Confluence
5 11 (0.57%) Exchange Server 2013
6 9 (0.47%) Exchange Server 2007
6 9 (0.47%) Exchange Server 2010
7 7 (0.36%) Skype for Business
8 4 (0.21%) Apache
8 4 (0.21%) CMS
9 3 (0.16%) SAS
10 1 (0.052%) Drupal
10 1 (0.052%) nginx
10 1 (0.052%) Site Server
10 1 (0.052%) WordPress
Applications
1 210 (10.86%) Microsoft Office
2 43 (2.22%) Microsoft Excel
3 12 (0.62%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.16%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 3 (0.16%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.052%) AutoCAD
5 1 (0.052%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 17 (0.88%) Dynamics CRM
2 13 (0.67%) Dynamics NAV
3 8 (0.41%) Remedy ITSM
4 6 (0.31%) NetSuite
5 4 (0.21%) Dynamics GP
5 4 (0.21%) Exchequer
5 4 (0.21%) Primavera
6 3 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.10%) Alphatax
7 2 (0.10%) SAP S/4HANA
8 1 (0.052%) Dynamics AX
8 1 (0.052%) JDE EnterpriseOne
8 1 (0.052%) Magento
8 1 (0.052%) Oracle Payables
8 1 (0.052%) SAP EHS
8 1 (0.052%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 1,360 (70.32%) Microsoft 365
2 1,060 (54.81%) Azure
3 731 (37.80%) Entra ID
4 140 (7.24%) OneDrive
5 136 (7.03%) AWS
6 93 (4.81%) SaaS
7 84 (4.34%) Power Platform
8 78 (4.03%) Google Workspace
9 59 (3.05%) IaaS
10 50 (2.59%) PaaS
11 45 (2.33%) Mimecast
12 36 (1.86%) Azure DevOps
13 30 (1.55%) Nutanix
14 28 (1.45%) Azure Monitor
15 27 (1.40%) Azure Sentinel
15 27 (1.40%) Microsoft Purview
16 25 (1.29%) PowerApps
17 23 (1.19%) Serverless
18 19 (0.98%) Dynamics 365
19 18 (0.93%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 648 (33.51%) DNS
2 545 (28.18%) DHCP
3 502 (25.96%) Firewall
4 316 (16.34%) VPN
5 206 (10.65%) TCP/IP
6 198 (10.24%) WAN
7 192 (9.93%) LAN
8 183 (9.46%) Wi-Fi
9 178 (9.20%) VLAN
10 113 (5.84%) VoIP
11 92 (4.76%) Wireless
12 80 (4.14%) Network Security
13 75 (3.88%) SAN
14 52 (2.69%) Remote Desktop
15 40 (2.07%) Broadband
16 29 (1.50%) NAS
17 23 (1.19%) Internet
18 20 (1.03%) SD-WAN
19 17 (0.88%) SSL
20 14 (0.72%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 109 (5.64%) SQL Server
2 101 (5.22%) Amazon RDS
3 46 (2.38%) Power BI
4 30 (1.55%) PostgreSQL
5 26 (1.34%) MySQL
6 25 (1.29%) Azure SQL Database
7 9 (0.47%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 6 (0.31%) GIS
9 5 (0.26%) Crystal Reports
9 5 (0.26%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 4 (0.21%) Neo4j
11 3 (0.16%) Oracle Database
12 2 (0.10%) Data Lake
12 2 (0.10%) Data Warehouse
12 2 (0.10%) Relational Database
13 1 (0.052%) BusinessObjects
13 1 (0.052%) InterSystems Cache
13 1 (0.052%) Metadata
13 1 (0.052%) NoSQL
13 1 (0.052%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 73 (3.77%) JIRA
2 18 (0.93%) Git
3 11 (0.57%) GitLab
4 5 (0.26%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
5 4 (0.21%) Bitbucket
5 4 (0.21%) Jenkins
6 2 (0.10%) Burp Suite
6 2 (0.10%) LabVIEW
6 2 (0.10%) Metasploit
6 2 (0.10%) Subversion
6 2 (0.10%) Terragrunt
7 1 (0.052%) Carbide.c++
7 1 (0.052%) Gatling
7 1 (0.052%) JMeter
7 1 (0.052%) Ranorex
7 1 (0.052%) Selenium
7 1 (0.052%) Team Foundation Server
7 1 (0.052%) Vagrant
General
1 828 (42.81%) Social Skills
2 217 (11.22%) Analytical Skills
3 144 (7.45%) Organisational Skills
4 114 (5.89%) Finance
5 69 (3.57%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 66 (3.41%) Legal
7 63 (3.26%) Manufacturing
8 61 (3.15%) Law
9 58 (3.00%) Documentation Skills
10 56 (2.90%) Public Sector
11 46 (2.38%) Retail
12 36 (1.86%) Telecoms
13 33 (1.71%) Games
14 25 (1.29%) Advertising
15 21 (1.09%) Local Government
16 13 (0.67%) Aerospace
17 10 (0.52%) Automotive
18 9 (0.47%) Influencing Skills
18 9 (0.47%) Marketing
19 5 (0.26%) Banking
Job Titles
1 737 (38.11%) IT Support
2 503 (26.01%) Support Engineer
3 463 (23.94%) IT Engineer
4 386 (19.96%) IT Support Engineer
5 317 (16.39%) Analyst
6 213 (11.01%) Support Analyst
7 189 (9.77%) Senior
8 184 (9.51%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 184 (9.51%) Support Technician
9 173 (8.95%) IT Technician
10 157 (8.12%) 2nd Line Support
11 156 (8.07%) Systems Engineer
12 155 (8.01%) IT Support Technician
13 143 (7.39%) IT Analyst
14 127 (6.57%) IT Support Analyst
15 92 (4.76%) 2nd Line Engineer
16 77 (3.98%) Architect
17 76 (3.93%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
18 73 (3.77%) 3rd Line Support
19 72 (3.72%) 1st Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 57 (2.95%) LDAP
2 43 (2.22%) SAML
3 38 (1.96%) OpenID
4 37 (1.91%) OAuth
4 37 (1.91%) REST
5 32 (1.65%) GraphQL
5 32 (1.65%) SOAP
6 22 (1.14%) Regular Expression
7 18 (0.93%) XMPP
8 14 (0.72%) JSON
8 14 (0.72%) XML
9 10 (0.52%) .NET
9 10 (0.52%) ARM Templates
10 9 (0.47%) Microsoft Graph
11 8 (0.41%) Web Services
12 7 (0.36%) Middleware
13 6 (0.31%) HTML
13 6 (0.31%) JSON Schema
14 5 (0.26%) FreeSWITCH
15 4 (0.21%) boto
Miscellaneous
1 268 (13.86%) Driving Licence
2 130 (6.72%) Onboarding
3 105 (5.43%) Self-Motivation
4 94 (4.86%) Legacy Systems
5 82 (4.24%) Hybrid Cloud
6 63 (3.26%) Management Information System
7 62 (3.21%) Data Centre
8 39 (2.02%) Public Cloud
9 38 (1.96%) Cyber Threat
10 37 (1.91%) PKI
10 37 (1.91%) Replication
11 36 (1.86%) Clustering
11 36 (1.86%) Cyberattack
12 27 (1.40%) Cloud Native
12 27 (1.40%) Enterprise Software
13 24 (1.24%) Security Posture
14 22 (1.14%) CCTV
15 16 (0.83%) Client/Server
16 15 (0.78%) Data Structures
17 14 (0.72%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 1,397 (72.23%) Windows
2 839 (43.38%) Windows Server
3 304 (15.72%) Windows 10
4 264 (13.65%) Linux
5 164 (8.48%) Windows Server 2016
6 124 (6.41%) Mac OS
7 90 (4.65%) Windows Server 2019
8 74 (3.83%) Apple iOS
9 65 (3.36%) Android
10 38 (1.96%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 34 (1.76%) Windows Server 2012
12 22 (1.14%) VMS
13 13 (0.67%) Windows 7
14 12 (0.62%) Windows Server 2008
15 8 (0.41%) Ubuntu
16 7 (0.36%) Windows 8
17 5 (0.26%) CentOS
17 5 (0.26%) Debian
18 4 (0.21%) Mac OS X
18 4 (0.21%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 660 (34.13%) Problem-Solving
2 484 (25.03%) Customer Service
3 421 (21.77%) ITIL
4 325 (16.80%) Cybersecurity
5 299 (15.46%) Continuous Improvement
6 258 (13.34%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 207 (10.70%) Mentoring
8 199 (10.29%) Disaster Recovery
9 174 (9.00%) Service Delivery
10 173 (8.95%) ITSM
11 151 (7.81%) Migration
12 128 (6.62%) Vulnerability Remediation
13 119 (6.15%) Project Delivery
14 118 (6.10%) Customer Experience
14 118 (6.10%) Kalman Filter
15 111 (5.74%) Web Filtering
16 108 (5.58%) Change Management
17 102 (5.27%) Incident Management
18 99 (5.12%) Service Management
19 97 (5.02%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 325 (16.80%) PowerShell
2 188 (9.72%) SQL
3 87 (4.50%) Bash
4 56 (2.90%) Python
5 44 (2.28%) T-SQL
6 26 (1.34%) Bicep
7 20 (1.03%) R
8 9 (0.47%) C#
8 9 (0.47%) VBA
9 8 (0.41%) Kusto Query Language
10 7 (0.36%) VB
11 6 (0.31%) Korn
11 6 (0.31%) Shell Script
12 5 (0.26%) Java
12 5 (0.26%) JavaScript
12 5 (0.26%) PHP
13 2 (0.10%) C
13 2 (0.10%) Ruby
13 2 (0.10%) VB.NET
13 2 (0.10%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 280 (14.48%) Security Cleared
2 192 (9.93%) Degree
3 187 (9.67%) SC Cleared
4 170 (8.79%) Microsoft Certification
5 84 (4.34%) DV Cleared
6 79 (4.08%) Azure Certification
7 59 (3.05%) DBS Check
8 46 (2.38%) A+ Certification
9 45 (2.33%) Cisco Certification
10 42 (2.17%) CCNA
11 36 (1.86%) Network+ Certification
12 33 (1.71%) Microsoft Certified Professional
13 20 (1.03%) Computer Science Degree
13 20 (1.03%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 18 (0.93%) MCSA
15 16 (0.83%) CompTIA Security+
15 16 (0.83%) HNC
16 15 (0.78%) ITIL Certification
17 13 (0.67%) MCSE
18 11 (0.57%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 193 (9.98%) Cyber Essentials
2 178 (9.20%) SLA
3 131 (6.77%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 96 (4.96%) PCI DSS
5 59 (3.05%) NIST
6 42 (2.17%) GDPR
7 41 (2.12%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 37 (1.91%) NCSC
9 21 (1.09%) Data Quality
9 21 (1.09%) QA
10 9 (0.47%) Accessibility
11 6 (0.31%) SOC 2
12 5 (0.26%) PMO
13 4 (0.21%) 21 CFR Part 11
13 4 (0.21%) GRC
13 4 (0.21%) GxP
13 4 (0.21%) ITGC
14 3 (0.16%) ISO 22301
15 2 (0.10%) ISAE 3402
15 2 (0.10%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 435 (22.49%) Hyper-V
2 331 (17.11%) VMware Infrastructure
3 91 (4.71%) vSphere
4 82 (4.24%) Terminal Server
5 59 (3.05%) Virtual Desktop
6 50 (2.59%) VMware ESXi
7 45 (2.33%) Virtual Machines
8 33 (1.71%) Docker
9 17 (0.88%) VMware NSX
10 15 (0.78%) BitLocker
11 11 (0.57%) Firmware
11 11 (0.57%) Virtual Servers
12 9 (0.47%) DFS Replication
13 8 (0.41%) Citrix Hypervisor
14 7 (0.36%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 7 (0.36%) VMware Workstation
15 6 (0.31%) XenApp
16 4 (0.21%) Squid
17 2 (0.10%) Samba
17 2 (0.10%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 408 (21.10%) Microsoft Intune
2 107 (5.53%) SCCM
3 42 (2.17%) Terraform
4 36 (1.86%) vCenter Server
5 32 (1.65%) Single Sign-On
6 31 (1.60%) Jamf Pro
7 29 (1.50%) FortiGate
8 27 (1.40%) WSUS
9 26 (1.34%) Ansible
10 23 (1.19%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 21 (1.09%) Kubernetes
11 21 (1.09%) Proxmox
12 14 (0.72%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
13 11 (0.57%) Autotask
14 10 (0.52%) ZABBIX
15 9 (0.47%) Backup Exec
15 9 (0.47%) SCOM
16 7 (0.36%) Failover Clustering
17 6 (0.31%) VxRail
18 5 (0.26%) Packer
Vendors
1 1,471 (76.06%) Microsoft
2 530 (27.40%) VMware
3 186 (9.62%) Veeam
4 117 (6.05%) Cisco
5 109 (5.64%) SolarWinds
6 99 (5.12%) Nimble Storage
7 98 (5.07%) Splunk
8 83 (4.29%) Citrix
9 80 (4.14%) Apple
9 80 (4.14%) Brocade
9 80 (4.14%) Tanium
10 74 (3.83%) ServiceNow
11 61 (3.15%) Dell
11 61 (3.15%) Meraki
12 59 (3.05%) HP
13 58 (3.00%) Google
14 36 (1.86%) McAfee
15 35 (1.81%) Red Hat
16 33 (1.71%) CrowdStrike
17 31 (1.60%) Ubiquiti