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

6 months to
9 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 51 43 30
Rank change year-on-year -8 -13 +6
Permanent jobs citing Active Directory 2,083 1,762 4,427
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 2.95% 5.29% 5.96%
As % of the System Software category 52.92% 41.01% 52.38%
Number of salaries quoted 1,624 1,408 3,555
10th Percentile £26,500 £26,000 £23,750
25th Percentile £29,000 £28,250 £26,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £37,500 £35,000 £35,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.14% - -4.11%
75th Percentile £48,750 £48,750 £48,500
90th Percentile £62,599 £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 3,936 4,296 8,452
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 5.58% 12.89% 11.37%
Number of salaries quoted 3,021 2,557 6,663
10th Percentile £28,000 £26,500 £25,750
25th Percentile £32,500 £31,250 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £47,500 £46,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year +3.26% +2.22% -5.26%
75th Percentile £65,000 £66,250 £60,000
90th Percentile £78,750 £82,500 £72,500
UK median annual salary £52,500 £52,500 £49,000
% change year-on-year - +7.14% -10.91%

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 9 July 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 9 July 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 +4 516 £41,250 +3.13% 181
North of England -7 482 £34,000 +6.25% 156
Midlands -30 349 £37,500 +7.14% 60
South West -16 279 £37,500 +8.70% 112
North West +57 242 £35,000 -6.67% 74
East of England +8 237 £35,000 +7.69% 60
Yorkshire -27 189 £32,500 +8.33% 60
East Midlands -1 184 £33,500 +6.35% 34
West Midlands -41 164 £39,500 - 26
Scotland +80 111 £28,500 -21.38% 46
Wales -10 67 £45,000 +18.13% 14
North East -53 51 £42,500 +32.81% 31
Northern Ireland -27 40 £35,500 -32.38% 17
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
1 598 (28.71%) Microsoft Exchange
2 441 (21.17%) SharePoint
3 39 (1.87%) IIS
4 15 (0.72%) Confluence
5 11 (0.53%) Exchange Server 2013
6 9 (0.43%) Exchange Server 2007
6 9 (0.43%) Exchange Server 2010
6 9 (0.43%) Skype for Business
7 6 (0.29%) Apache
8 4 (0.19%) CMS
9 3 (0.14%) SAS
10 1 (0.048%) Drupal
10 1 (0.048%) nginx
10 1 (0.048%) Site Server
10 1 (0.048%) WordPress
Applications
1 210 (10.08%) Microsoft Office
2 42 (2.02%) Microsoft Excel
3 13 (0.62%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.14%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 3 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.048%) AutoCAD
5 1 (0.048%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.048%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.048%) Revit
Business Applications
1 17 (0.82%) Dynamics CRM
2 13 (0.62%) Dynamics NAV
3 9 (0.43%) Remedy ITSM
4 6 (0.29%) Raiser’s Edge
5 5 (0.24%) NetSuite
6 4 (0.19%) Dynamics GP
6 4 (0.19%) Exchequer
6 4 (0.19%) Primavera
7 3 (0.14%) JDE EnterpriseOne
7 3 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
8 2 (0.096%) Alphatax
8 2 (0.096%) SAP S/4HANA
9 1 (0.048%) Dynamics AX
9 1 (0.048%) Magento
9 1 (0.048%) Oracle Payables
9 1 (0.048%) Sage 200
9 1 (0.048%) SAP EHS
9 1 (0.048%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 1,463 (70.24%) Microsoft 365
2 1,151 (55.26%) Azure
3 841 (40.37%) Entra ID
4 144 (6.91%) OneDrive
5 141 (6.77%) AWS
6 102 (4.90%) SaaS
7 85 (4.08%) Power Platform
8 62 (2.98%) Google Workspace
8 62 (2.98%) IaaS
9 58 (2.78%) Mimecast
10 55 (2.64%) PaaS
11 44 (2.11%) Azure DevOps
12 34 (1.63%) Microsoft Purview
13 30 (1.44%) Azure Sentinel
14 29 (1.39%) Azure Monitor
15 28 (1.34%) Nutanix
15 28 (1.34%) Serverless
16 25 (1.20%) PowerApps
17 22 (1.06%) Azure Functions
18 21 (1.01%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 696 (33.41%) DNS
2 583 (27.99%) DHCP
3 538 (25.83%) Firewall
4 354 (16.99%) VPN
5 239 (11.47%) TCP/IP
6 210 (10.08%) WAN
7 206 (9.89%) LAN
8 205 (9.84%) VLAN
8 205 (9.84%) Wi-Fi
9 124 (5.95%) VoIP
10 118 (5.66%) Wireless
11 82 (3.94%) Network Security
12 77 (3.70%) SAN
13 50 (2.40%) Remote Desktop
14 34 (1.63%) Broadband
15 30 (1.44%) NAS
16 26 (1.25%) Internet
17 19 (0.91%) SD-WAN
18 17 (0.82%) SSL
19 15 (0.72%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 115 (5.52%) SQL Server
2 102 (4.90%) Amazon RDS
3 47 (2.26%) Power BI
4 31 (1.49%) Azure SQL Database
5 28 (1.34%) PostgreSQL
6 26 (1.25%) MySQL
7 9 (0.43%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 6 (0.29%) Crystal Reports
9 5 (0.24%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 4 (0.19%) GIS
10 4 (0.19%) Neo4j
11 3 (0.14%) Oracle Database
12 2 (0.096%) BusinessObjects
12 2 (0.096%) Data Lake
12 2 (0.096%) Data Warehouse
12 2 (0.096%) KNIME
12 2 (0.096%) Relational Database
13 1 (0.048%) InterSystems Cache
13 1 (0.048%) NoSQL
13 1 (0.048%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 77 (3.70%) JIRA
2 23 (1.10%) Git
3 11 (0.53%) GitLab
4 6 (0.29%) Jenkins
5 5 (0.24%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
6 4 (0.19%) Bitbucket
7 2 (0.096%) Burp Suite
7 2 (0.096%) Metasploit
7 2 (0.096%) Subversion
7 2 (0.096%) Terragrunt
8 1 (0.048%) Artifactory
8 1 (0.048%) Carbide.c++
8 1 (0.048%) Gatling
8 1 (0.048%) JMeter
8 1 (0.048%) Ranorex
8 1 (0.048%) Selenium
8 1 (0.048%) Sonatype Nexus
8 1 (0.048%) Team Foundation Server
8 1 (0.048%) Vagrant
General
1 912 (43.78%) Social Skills
2 226 (10.85%) Analytical Skills
3 135 (6.48%) Organisational Skills
4 122 (5.86%) Finance
5 102 (4.90%) Legal
6 94 (4.51%) Law
7 70 (3.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 69 (3.31%) Manufacturing
9 62 (2.98%) Documentation Skills
10 59 (2.83%) Public Sector
11 46 (2.21%) Retail
12 45 (2.16%) Telecoms
13 28 (1.34%) Advertising
14 27 (1.30%) Games
15 21 (1.01%) Local Government
16 14 (0.67%) Aerospace
17 12 (0.58%) Automotive
18 9 (0.43%) Influencing Skills
18 9 (0.43%) Marketing
19 7 (0.34%) Banking
Job Titles
1 801 (38.45%) IT Support
2 557 (26.74%) Support Engineer
3 518 (24.87%) IT Engineer
4 431 (20.69%) IT Support Engineer
5 344 (16.51%) Analyst
6 229 (10.99%) Support Analyst
7 226 (10.85%) Senior
8 191 (9.17%) Support Technician
9 189 (9.07%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 183 (8.79%) IT Technician
11 167 (8.02%) 2nd Line Support
12 164 (7.87%) Systems Engineer
13 163 (7.83%) IT Support Technician
14 160 (7.68%) IT Analyst
15 143 (6.87%) IT Support Analyst
16 100 (4.80%) 2nd Line Engineer
17 87 (4.18%) 3rd Line Support
18 84 (4.03%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
19 78 (3.74%) 1st Line Support
20 76 (3.65%) Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 51 (2.45%) LDAP
2 38 (1.82%) SAML
3 33 (1.58%) OpenID
4 30 (1.44%) OAuth
5 29 (1.39%) REST
6 24 (1.15%) GraphQL
6 24 (1.15%) SOAP
7 23 (1.10%) Regular Expression
8 19 (0.91%) XMPP
9 15 (0.72%) JSON
9 15 (0.72%) XML
10 11 (0.53%) .NET
10 11 (0.53%) ARM Templates
11 10 (0.48%) HTML
12 9 (0.43%) Microsoft Graph
12 9 (0.43%) Web Services
13 7 (0.34%) JSON Schema
14 6 (0.29%) Middleware
15 5 (0.24%) FreeSWITCH
16 4 (0.19%) boto
Miscellaneous
1 293 (14.07%) Driving Licence
2 153 (7.35%) Onboarding
3 125 (6.00%) Self-Motivation
4 94 (4.51%) Legacy Systems
5 87 (4.18%) Hybrid Cloud
6 69 (3.31%) Data Centre
7 63 (3.02%) Management Information System
8 48 (2.30%) PKI
9 45 (2.16%) Clustering
10 40 (1.92%) Public Cloud
11 37 (1.78%) Replication
12 32 (1.54%) Cyber Threat
12 32 (1.54%) Security Posture
13 31 (1.49%) Enterprise Software
14 29 (1.39%) CCTV
15 28 (1.34%) Cloud Native
15 28 (1.34%) Cyberattack
16 16 (0.77%) Client/Server
17 15 (0.72%) Data Structures
17 15 (0.72%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 1,499 (71.96%) Windows
2 892 (42.82%) Windows Server
3 314 (15.07%) Windows 10
4 272 (13.06%) Linux
5 170 (8.16%) Windows Server 2016
6 139 (6.67%) Mac OS
7 92 (4.42%) Windows Server 2019
8 78 (3.74%) Apple iOS
9 71 (3.41%) Android
10 41 (1.97%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 30 (1.44%) Windows Server 2012
12 26 (1.25%) VMS
13 15 (0.72%) Windows 7
14 12 (0.58%) Windows Server 2008
15 11 (0.53%) Ubuntu
16 7 (0.34%) Windows 8
17 6 (0.29%) Debian
18 5 (0.24%) CentOS
19 4 (0.19%) Mac OS X
19 4 (0.19%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 709 (34.04%) Problem-Solving
2 527 (25.30%) Customer Service
3 465 (22.32%) ITIL
4 374 (17.95%) Cybersecurity
5 360 (17.28%) Continuous Improvement
6 279 (13.39%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 251 (12.05%) Mentoring
8 217 (10.42%) Disaster Recovery
9 192 (9.22%) Service Delivery
10 182 (8.74%) ITSM
11 150 (7.20%) Migration
12 146 (7.01%) Project Delivery
13 126 (6.05%) Customer Experience
13 126 (6.05%) Vulnerability Remediation
14 123 (5.90%) Change Management
15 121 (5.81%) Kalman Filter
16 114 (5.47%) Incident Management
16 114 (5.47%) Web Filtering
17 113 (5.42%) Identity Access Management
18 106 (5.09%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 338 (16.23%) PowerShell
2 203 (9.75%) SQL
3 81 (3.89%) Bash
4 64 (3.07%) Python
5 36 (1.73%) Bicep
5 36 (1.73%) T-SQL
6 27 (1.30%) R
7 12 (0.58%) Kusto Query Language
8 11 (0.53%) VBA
9 9 (0.43%) C#
10 7 (0.34%) Shell Script
10 7 (0.34%) VB
11 6 (0.29%) Korn
11 6 (0.29%) PHP
12 5 (0.24%) Java
12 5 (0.24%) JavaScript
12 5 (0.24%) Ruby
13 2 (0.096%) C
13 2 (0.096%) VB.NET
13 2 (0.096%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 283 (13.59%) Security Cleared
2 199 (9.55%) Degree
3 190 (9.12%) SC Cleared
4 183 (8.79%) Microsoft Certification
5 96 (4.61%) Azure Certification
6 85 (4.08%) DV Cleared
7 70 (3.36%) A+ Certification
8 62 (2.98%) Network+ Certification
9 56 (2.69%) Cisco Certification
10 55 (2.64%) DBS Check
11 51 (2.45%) CCNA
12 30 (1.44%) CISM
12 30 (1.44%) CISSP
12 30 (1.44%) Microsoft Certified Professional
13 21 (1.01%) MCSA
14 20 (0.96%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
15 19 (0.91%) Computer Science Degree
16 14 (0.67%) CompTIA Security+
17 13 (0.62%) HNC
17 13 (0.62%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 208 (9.99%) Cyber Essentials
2 178 (8.55%) SLA
3 132 (6.34%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 96 (4.61%) PCI DSS
5 47 (2.26%) GDPR
6 46 (2.21%) NIST
7 43 (2.06%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 29 (1.39%) NCSC
9 23 (1.10%) QA
10 21 (1.01%) Data Quality
11 9 (0.43%) Accessibility
12 6 (0.29%) SOC 2
13 5 (0.24%) PMO
14 4 (0.19%) 21 CFR Part 11
14 4 (0.19%) GRC
14 4 (0.19%) GxP
14 4 (0.19%) ITGC
15 2 (0.096%) ISAE 3402
15 2 (0.096%) ISO 22301
15 2 (0.096%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 481 (23.09%) Hyper-V
2 359 (17.23%) VMware Infrastructure
3 101 (4.85%) vSphere
4 82 (3.94%) Terminal Server
5 63 (3.02%) Virtual Desktop
6 50 (2.40%) VMware ESXi
7 47 (2.26%) Virtual Machines
8 34 (1.63%) Docker
9 17 (0.82%) VMware NSX
10 12 (0.58%) Firmware
10 12 (0.58%) Virtual Servers
11 11 (0.53%) BitLocker
12 9 (0.43%) DFS Replication
13 8 (0.38%) Citrix Hypervisor
13 8 (0.38%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 7 (0.34%) VMware Workstation
15 6 (0.29%) XenApp
16 4 (0.19%) Squid
17 3 (0.14%) VMware Server
18 2 (0.096%) Samba
Systems Management
1 479 (23.00%) Microsoft Intune
2 105 (5.04%) SCCM
3 51 (2.45%) Terraform
4 36 (1.73%) Single Sign-On
4 36 (1.73%) vCenter Server
5 29 (1.39%) Jamf Pro
6 28 (1.34%) Ansible
6 28 (1.34%) FortiGate
6 28 (1.34%) WSUS
7 26 (1.25%) Kubernetes
8 23 (1.10%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 22 (1.06%) Proxmox
10 17 (0.82%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
11 14 (0.67%) Failover Clustering
12 12 (0.58%) ZABBIX
13 10 (0.48%) Microsoft Clustering
14 9 (0.43%) Autotask
14 9 (0.43%) Backup Exec
14 9 (0.43%) SCOM
15 6 (0.29%) VxRail
Vendors
1 1,624 (77.96%) Microsoft
2 552 (26.50%) VMware
3 193 (9.27%) Veeam
4 133 (6.39%) Cisco
5 109 (5.23%) SolarWinds
6 96 (4.61%) Nimble Storage
7 95 (4.56%) Splunk
8 83 (3.98%) Citrix
9 80 (3.84%) Brocade
9 80 (3.84%) Tanium
10 75 (3.60%) Apple
11 73 (3.50%) ServiceNow
12 71 (3.41%) Meraki
13 63 (3.02%) Dell
14 62 (2.98%) HP
15 51 (2.45%) Google
16 43 (2.06%) CrowdStrike
17 39 (1.87%) Ubiquiti
18 38 (1.82%) SonicWALL
19 37 (1.78%) Red Hat