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

6 months to
2 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 53 39 34
Rank change year-on-year -14 -5 -10
Permanent jobs citing Active Directory 2,241 1,848 2,649
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 2.59% 5.34% 4.99%
As % of the System Software category 49.16% 44.65% 48.49%
Number of salaries quoted 1,626 1,371 1,567
10th Percentile £27,000 £26,250 £25,750
25th Percentile £29,625 £28,500 £30,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £37,500 £35,000 £39,750
Median % change year-on-year +7.14% -11.95% +6.00%
75th Percentile £50,000 £48,750 £52,500
90th Percentile £65,000 £63,750 £62,500
UK median annual salary £40,000 £37,500 £42,500
% change year-on-year +6.67% -11.76% +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 4,559 4,139 5,463
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 5.27% 11.96% 10.30%
Number of salaries quoted 3,297 2,251 3,157
10th Percentile £28,500 £26,500 £27,750
25th Percentile £34,500 £31,250 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £42,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +17.65% -15.00% +0.88%
75th Percentile £67,500 £62,313 £63,750
90th Percentile £80,000 £75,000 £76,250
UK median annual salary £55,000 £50,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +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 2 October 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 2 October 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 +3 530 £33,750 +3.85% 188
South East -18 518 £42,500 +13.33% 308
Midlands -34 380 £41,000 +17.14% 163
North West +67 291 £35,000 - 111
South West -34 289 £38,500 +18.46% 104
East of England -3 259 £35,000 +2.94% 122
West Midlands -32 194 £42,500 +3.66% 89
East Midlands -15 186 £38,550 +22.38% 74
Yorkshire -26 171 £31,000 +1.64% 55
Scotland +44 118 £32,500 +6.56% 59
Northern Ireland -19 97 £39,000 -25.71% 22
North East -56 68 £37,500 +20.97% 26
Wales -52 59 £45,000 +18.13% 20
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
1 663 (29.59%) Microsoft Exchange
2 512 (22.85%) SharePoint
3 54 (2.41%) IIS
4 17 (0.76%) Confluence
5 16 (0.71%) Skype for Business
6 6 (0.27%) Apache
7 3 (0.13%) SAS
8 2 (0.089%) nginx
9 1 (0.045%) Exchange Server 2013
9 1 (0.045%) HCL Domino
9 1 (0.045%) HCL Notes
9 1 (0.045%) SharePoint Server
9 1 (0.045%) Site Server
9 1 (0.045%) Tomcat
Applications
1 144 (6.43%) Microsoft Office
2 37 (1.65%) Microsoft Excel
3 7 (0.31%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (0.18%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 2 (0.089%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.089%) Notion
6 1 (0.045%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.045%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.045%) Revit
6 1 (0.045%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 9 (0.40%) Dynamics CRM
2 7 (0.31%) Dynamics NAV
3 6 (0.27%) Raiser’s Edge
4 5 (0.22%) JDE EnterpriseOne
4 5 (0.22%) NetSuite
4 5 (0.22%) Remedy ITSM
5 4 (0.18%) Payment Gateway
5 4 (0.18%) Shopify
6 3 (0.13%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.089%) Sage 200
7 2 (0.089%) Teamcenter
8 1 (0.045%) Dynamics AX
8 1 (0.045%) Sage 50
8 1 (0.045%) SAP EHS
8 1 (0.045%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 1,541 (68.76%) Microsoft 365
2 1,228 (54.80%) Azure
3 1,063 (47.43%) Entra ID
4 191 (8.52%) OneDrive
5 143 (6.38%) AWS
6 90 (4.02%) SaaS
7 61 (2.72%) Power Platform
8 60 (2.68%) IaaS
9 51 (2.28%) Mimecast
10 46 (2.05%) Azure DevOps
11 42 (1.87%) Microsoft Purview
12 41 (1.83%) PaaS
13 40 (1.78%) Azure Sentinel
13 40 (1.78%) Google Workspace
14 37 (1.65%) Power Automate
15 35 (1.56%) Serverless
16 27 (1.20%) Azure Monitor
17 26 (1.16%) Azure ExpressRoute
18 24 (1.07%) Dynamics 365
19 22 (0.98%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 744 (33.20%) DNS
2 636 (28.38%) DHCP
3 550 (24.54%) Firewall
4 411 (18.34%) VPN
5 299 (13.34%) TCP/IP
6 239 (10.66%) VLAN
7 226 (10.08%) Wi-Fi
8 213 (9.50%) WAN
9 209 (9.33%) LAN
10 157 (7.01%) Wireless
11 139 (6.20%) VoIP
12 94 (4.19%) Network Security
13 68 (3.03%) SAN
14 36 (1.61%) Remote Desktop
14 36 (1.61%) SSL
15 28 (1.25%) Internet
16 22 (0.98%) NAS
17 21 (0.94%) WLAN
18 20 (0.89%) Cisco IOS
19 17 (0.76%) Skype
Database & Business Intelligence
1 105 (4.69%) SQL Server
2 90 (4.02%) Amazon RDS
3 31 (1.38%) Azure SQL Database
4 17 (0.76%) MySQL
4 17 (0.76%) Power BI
5 12 (0.54%) PostgreSQL
6 11 (0.49%) Relational Database
7 6 (0.27%) Crystal Reports
8 4 (0.18%) Data Warehouse
9 3 (0.13%) Data Lake
9 3 (0.13%) Oracle Database
10 2 (0.089%) BusinessObjects
10 2 (0.089%) KNIME
10 2 (0.089%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 1 (0.045%) Elasticsearch
11 1 (0.045%) Geospatial Data
11 1 (0.045%) Neo4j
11 1 (0.045%) NoSQL
11 1 (0.045%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 1 (0.045%) SSDT
Development Applications
1 55 (2.45%) JIRA
2 33 (1.47%) Git
3 9 (0.40%) Jenkins
4 6 (0.27%) Bitbucket
5 5 (0.22%) GitLab
6 2 (0.089%) Artifactory
6 2 (0.089%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 2 (0.089%) Burp Suite
6 2 (0.089%) git-flow
6 2 (0.089%) Metasploit
6 2 (0.089%) NUnit
6 2 (0.089%) Terragrunt
7 1 (0.045%) Carbide.c++
7 1 (0.045%) Flyway
7 1 (0.045%) Ranorex
7 1 (0.045%) Selenium
7 1 (0.045%) Sonatype Nexus
7 1 (0.045%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 1,102 (49.17%) Social Skills
2 284 (12.67%) Analytical Skills
3 135 (6.02%) Legal
4 124 (5.53%) Finance
5 85 (3.79%) Manufacturing
6 83 (3.70%) Organisational Skills
7 75 (3.35%) Law
8 74 (3.30%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 70 (3.12%) Public Sector
10 55 (2.45%) Retail
11 46 (2.05%) Aerospace
12 43 (1.92%) Telecoms
13 34 (1.52%) Documentation Skills
14 21 (0.94%) Advertising
15 13 (0.58%) Automotive
16 12 (0.54%) Local Government
17 11 (0.49%) Games
17 11 (0.49%) Influencing Skills
18 7 (0.31%) Aviation
19 5 (0.22%) Dutch Language
Job Titles
1 837 (37.35%) IT Support
2 543 (24.23%) IT Engineer
3 538 (24.01%) Support Engineer
4 438 (19.54%) IT Support Engineer
5 397 (17.72%) Analyst
6 287 (12.81%) Senior
7 238 (10.62%) Support Analyst
8 231 (10.31%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 200 (8.92%) IT Technician
9 200 (8.92%) Support Technician
10 179 (7.99%) IT Support Technician
11 173 (7.72%) IT Analyst
12 154 (6.87%) IT Support Analyst
13 146 (6.51%) Systems Engineer
14 145 (6.47%) 2nd Line Support
15 107 (4.77%) 2nd Line Engineer
16 96 (4.28%) Architect
17 91 (4.06%) Administrator
18 87 (3.88%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
19 81 (3.61%) 1st Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 76 (3.39%) Terraform
2 62 (2.77%) LDAP
3 37 (1.65%) SAML
4 32 (1.43%) OpenID
5 30 (1.34%) OAuth
6 25 (1.12%) .NET
7 17 (0.76%) Microsoft Graph
8 16 (0.71%) Regular Expression
9 15 (0.67%) REST
10 14 (0.62%) ModSecurity
10 14 (0.62%) SailPoint
11 13 (0.58%) XMPP
12 12 (0.54%) ARM Templates
13 11 (0.49%) ASP.NET Web Forms
13 11 (0.49%) HTML
13 11 (0.49%) WinForms
14 8 (0.36%) OAuth2
14 8 (0.36%) Web Services
15 7 (0.31%) JSON
15 7 (0.31%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 313 (13.97%) Driving Licence
2 206 (9.19%) Onboarding
3 118 (5.27%) Self-Motivation
4 85 (3.79%) Legacy Systems
5 79 (3.53%) Hybrid Cloud
6 69 (3.08%) Management Information System
7 65 (2.90%) Data Centre
8 52 (2.32%) PKI
9 48 (2.14%) Security Posture
10 47 (2.10%) Enterprise Software
11 41 (1.83%) Cloud Native
12 39 (1.74%) Clustering
13 34 (1.52%) Replication
14 31 (1.38%) CCTV
15 30 (1.34%) iPhone
16 23 (1.03%) Public Cloud
17 21 (0.94%) iPad
18 19 (0.85%) Video Conferencing
19 16 (0.71%) Enterprise Storage
19 16 (0.71%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 1,591 (71.00%) Windows
2 915 (40.83%) Windows Server
3 261 (11.65%) Linux
4 259 (11.56%) Windows 10
5 151 (6.74%) Windows Server 2016
6 128 (5.71%) Mac OS
7 84 (3.75%) Windows Server 2019
8 75 (3.35%) Apple iOS
9 60 (2.68%) Android
10 31 (1.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 26 (1.16%) Ubuntu
12 24 (1.07%) VMS
13 22 (0.98%) Windows Server 2012
14 8 (0.36%) Debian
14 8 (0.36%) Rocky
15 7 (0.31%) CentOS
16 5 (0.22%) CoreOS
17 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2008
18 3 (0.13%) Unix
18 3 (0.13%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 868 (38.73%) Problem-Solving
2 578 (25.79%) Customer Service
3 485 (21.64%) Cybersecurity
4 471 (21.02%) ITIL
5 463 (20.66%) Continuous Improvement
6 390 (17.40%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 282 (12.58%) Disaster Recovery
8 265 (11.83%) Mentoring
9 235 (10.49%) Identity Access Management
10 227 (10.13%) ITSM
11 208 (9.28%) Project Delivery
12 199 (8.88%) Migration
13 185 (8.26%) Service Delivery
14 161 (7.18%) Service Management
15 141 (6.29%) Collaborative Working
15 141 (6.29%) Customer Experience
16 132 (5.89%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 131 (5.85%) AI
18 128 (5.71%) Vulnerability Remediation
19 126 (5.62%) Information Security
Programming Languages
1 353 (15.75%) PowerShell
2 192 (8.57%) SQL
3 72 (3.21%) Python
4 55 (2.45%) Bash
5 52 (2.32%) Bicep
6 27 (1.20%) Ruby
7 20 (0.89%) C#
8 18 (0.80%) R
9 16 (0.71%) Kusto Query Language
10 12 (0.54%) VBA
11 7 (0.31%) Java
11 7 (0.31%) T-SQL
12 5 (0.22%) Korn
12 5 (0.22%) Shell Script
13 4 (0.18%) JavaScript
13 4 (0.18%) VB.NET
14 3 (0.13%) PHP
14 3 (0.13%) TypeScript
14 3 (0.13%) VB
14 3 (0.13%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 304 (13.57%) Security Cleared
2 203 (9.06%) SC Cleared
3 199 (8.88%) Degree
4 191 (8.52%) Microsoft Certification
5 129 (5.76%) Azure Certification
6 122 (5.44%) A+ Certification
7 106 (4.73%) Network+ Certification
8 90 (4.02%) DV Cleared
9 77 (3.44%) CISM
9 77 (3.44%) CISSP
10 66 (2.95%) DBS Check
11 63 (2.81%) Cisco Certification
12 47 (2.10%) CCNA
13 28 (1.25%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 27 (1.20%) CompTIA Security+
15 22 (0.98%) BPSS Clearance
16 20 (0.89%) Computer Science Degree
17 18 (0.80%) AWS Certification
18 17 (0.76%) Microsoft Certified Professional
19 14 (0.62%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 218 (9.73%) Cyber Essentials
2 127 (5.67%) SLA
3 117 (5.22%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 85 (3.79%) PCI DSS
5 60 (2.68%) GDPR
6 43 (1.92%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 33 (1.47%) NIST
8 19 (0.85%) QA
9 17 (0.76%) Accessibility
10 13 (0.58%) Data Quality
10 13 (0.58%) NCSC
11 6 (0.27%) SOC 2
12 4 (0.18%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 3 (0.13%) ISAE 3402
14 1 (0.045%) ISO/IEC 20000
14 1 (0.045%) ISO/IEC 42001
14 1 (0.045%) PMO
System Software
1 506 (22.58%) Hyper-V
2 414 (18.47%) VMware Infrastructure
3 88 (3.93%) vSphere
4 81 (3.61%) Virtual Desktop
5 72 (3.21%) Terminal Server
6 67 (2.99%) Virtual Machines
7 36 (1.61%) VMware ESXi
8 28 (1.25%) Docker
9 25 (1.12%) Virtual Servers
10 22 (0.98%) Firmware
11 13 (0.58%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 10 (0.45%) BitLocker
12 10 (0.45%) NDS
12 10 (0.45%) VMware NSX
13 8 (0.36%) Citrix Hypervisor
14 4 (0.18%) DFS Replication
14 4 (0.18%) Squid
15 3 (0.13%) NFS
15 3 (0.13%) Slurm Workload Manager
15 3 (0.13%) VMware Server
Systems Management
1 620 (27.67%) Microsoft Intune
2 96 (4.28%) SCCM
3 57 (2.54%) Single Sign-On
4 36 (1.61%) Jamf Pro
5 35 (1.56%) FortiGate
6 33 (1.47%) Ansible
6 33 (1.47%) Kubernetes
7 25 (1.12%) WSUS
8 22 (0.98%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
9 18 (0.80%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 17 (0.76%) Proxmox
11 15 (0.67%) Failover Clustering
11 15 (0.67%) vCenter Server
12 12 (0.54%) ZABBIX
13 11 (0.49%) Microsoft Clustering
14 7 (0.31%) SCOM
15 6 (0.27%) Autotask
15 6 (0.27%) Graylog
16 5 (0.22%) McAfee ePO
16 5 (0.22%) VxRail
Vendors
1 1,879 (83.85%) Microsoft
2 604 (26.95%) VMware
3 213 (9.50%) Veeam
4 206 (9.19%) Cisco
5 109 (4.86%) Meraki
6 94 (4.19%) SolarWinds
7 87 (3.88%) Splunk
8 81 (3.61%) CyberArk
9 77 (3.44%) Apple
10 75 (3.35%) Nimble Storage
11 72 (3.21%) Brocade
11 72 (3.21%) Tanium
12 69 (3.08%) Fortinet
13 62 (2.77%) SonicWALL
14 60 (2.68%) ServiceNow
15 54 (2.41%) Citrix
16 47 (2.10%) Google
16 47 (2.10%) HP
17 44 (1.96%) Palo Alto
18 41 (1.83%) Dell