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

6 months to
4 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 67 45 31
Rank change year-on-year -22 -14 +12
Permanent jobs citing Active Directory 1,688 1,462 4,428
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 2.58% 5.25% 6.50%
As % of the System Software category 56.80% 41.23% 50.66%
Number of salaries quoted 1,279 1,233 3,739
10th Percentile £26,250 £25,625 £23,750
25th Percentile £29,000 £27,750 £26,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £35,000 £35,000 £35,000
Median % change year-on-year - - -2.78%
75th Percentile £47,500 £47,500 £47,716
90th Percentile £63,400 £58,750 £57,500
UK median annual salary £37,750 £40,000 £38,000
% change year-on-year -5.63% +5.26% -5.00%

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 2,972 3,546 8,741
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 4.54% 12.74% 12.84%
Number of salaries quoted 2,176 2,468 7,128
10th Percentile £27,500 £26,500 £25,750
25th Percentile £31,250 £31,500 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £47,500 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +5.56% -5.26%
75th Percentile £63,750 £67,500 £60,000
90th Percentile £77,500 £83,750 £75,000
UK median annual salary £52,500 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -4.55% +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 4 May 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 4 May 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 -9 418 £37,500 -6.25% 150
North of England -9 410 £34,000 +3.03% 112
Midlands -48 288 £32,500 -4.41% 69
South West -7 233 £32,500 -2.99% 71
North West +5 202 £37,500 -5.06% 56
Yorkshire -26 178 £32,500 +8.33% 44
East of England -15 172 £40,000 +23.08% 53
East Midlands -23 151 £32,500 +3.17% 31
West Midlands -52 136 £33,500 -4.29% 38
Scotland +43 99 £29,500 -30.59% 21
Wales -5 44 £42,500 +11.57% 15
North East -30 30 £40,000 +22.70% 16
Northern Ireland -29 18 £32,000 -39.05% 5
Isle of Man +2 6 £45,000 +55.17%
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
1 426 (25.24%) Microsoft Exchange
2 341 (20.20%) SharePoint
3 19 (1.13%) IIS
4 13 (0.77%) Confluence
5 11 (0.65%) Exchange Server 2013
6 9 (0.53%) Exchange Server 2007
6 9 (0.53%) Exchange Server 2010
7 5 (0.30%) CMS
7 5 (0.30%) Skype for Business
8 4 (0.24%) Apache
9 2 (0.12%) WordPress
10 1 (0.059%) Drupal
10 1 (0.059%) nginx
Applications
1 208 (12.32%) Microsoft Office
2 37 (2.19%) Microsoft Excel
3 11 (0.65%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.18%) Spreadsheet
5 2 (0.12%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.059%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 17 (1.01%) Dynamics CRM
2 10 (0.59%) Dynamics NAV
3 8 (0.47%) Oracle ERP
4 5 (0.30%) NetSuite
4 5 (0.30%) Remedy ITSM
5 4 (0.24%) Dynamics GP
5 4 (0.24%) Exchequer
5 4 (0.24%) Markit EDM
5 4 (0.24%) Primavera
6 2 (0.12%) Alphatax
6 2 (0.12%) SAP S/4HANA
6 2 (0.12%) Shopify
7 1 (0.059%) Magento
7 1 (0.059%) Oracle Payables
7 1 (0.059%) Sage 200
7 1 (0.059%) SAP EHS
Cloud Services
1 1,193 (70.68%) Microsoft 365
2 890 (52.73%) Azure
3 634 (37.56%) Entra ID
4 132 (7.82%) AWS
5 131 (7.76%) OneDrive
6 91 (5.39%) Google Workspace
7 89 (5.27%) SaaS
8 88 (5.21%) Power Platform
9 39 (2.31%) IaaS
9 39 (2.31%) Nutanix
10 34 (2.01%) PaaS
11 33 (1.95%) Azure DevOps
11 33 (1.95%) Mimecast
12 30 (1.78%) PowerApps
13 28 (1.66%) Azure Monitor
14 21 (1.24%) Microsoft Purview
15 19 (1.13%) GCP
16 18 (1.07%) Dynamics 365
17 17 (1.01%) Power Automate
18 16 (0.95%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 552 (32.70%) DNS
2 480 (28.44%) DHCP
3 408 (24.17%) Firewall
4 270 (16.00%) VPN
5 191 (11.32%) WAN
6 188 (11.14%) LAN
7 166 (9.83%) TCP/IP
8 152 (9.00%) VLAN
9 151 (8.95%) Wi-Fi
10 100 (5.92%) VoIP
11 81 (4.80%) Wireless
12 62 (3.67%) Network Security
13 59 (3.50%) Remote Desktop
14 56 (3.32%) SAN
15 44 (2.61%) Broadband
16 26 (1.54%) NAS
17 23 (1.36%) SD-WAN
18 21 (1.24%) Internet
19 16 (0.95%) Wireshark
20 14 (0.83%) NetScaler
Database & Business Intelligence
1 90 (5.33%) SQL Server
2 63 (3.73%) Amazon RDS
3 51 (3.02%) Power BI
4 30 (1.78%) PostgreSQL
5 26 (1.54%) MySQL
6 13 (0.77%) Azure SQL Database
7 8 (0.47%) GIS
7 8 (0.47%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 6 (0.36%) Data Warehouse
9 5 (0.30%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 3 (0.18%) Neo4j
11 2 (0.12%) Relational Database
12 1 (0.059%) Data Lake
12 1 (0.059%) InterSystems Cache
12 1 (0.059%) Metadata
12 1 (0.059%) NoSQL
12 1 (0.059%) RDBMS
12 1 (0.059%) Redis
Development Applications
1 69 (4.09%) JIRA
2 8 (0.47%) Jenkins
2 8 (0.47%) Oracle Forms
3 7 (0.41%) Git
3 7 (0.41%) GitLab
4 5 (0.30%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
5 4 (0.24%) LabVIEW
5 4 (0.24%) Subversion
6 1 (0.059%) Burp Suite
6 1 (0.059%) Gatling
6 1 (0.059%) JMeter
6 1 (0.059%) Metasploit
6 1 (0.059%) Vagrant
General
1 736 (43.60%) Social Skills
2 178 (10.55%) Analytical Skills
3 143 (8.47%) Organisational Skills
4 116 (6.87%) Finance
5 67 (3.97%) Manufacturing
6 66 (3.91%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 59 (3.50%) Legal
8 54 (3.20%) Documentation Skills
9 50 (2.96%) Retail
10 48 (2.84%) Public Sector
11 47 (2.78%) Law
12 34 (2.01%) Games
13 33 (1.95%) Advertising
14 30 (1.78%) Telecoms
15 17 (1.01%) Local Government
16 13 (0.77%) Marketing
17 11 (0.65%) Automotive
18 6 (0.36%) Aerospace
19 5 (0.30%) Influencing Skills
20 4 (0.24%) Police
Job Titles
1 656 (38.86%) IT Support
2 472 (27.96%) Support Engineer
3 410 (24.29%) IT Engineer
4 348 (20.62%) IT Support Engineer
5 245 (14.51%) Analyst
6 172 (10.19%) Support Analyst
7 160 (9.48%) Support Technician
8 154 (9.12%) 2nd Line Support
8 154 (9.12%) Senior
9 152 (9.00%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 136 (8.06%) IT Technician
11 124 (7.35%) IT Support Technician
12 111 (6.58%) IT Analyst
13 100 (5.92%) Systems Engineer
14 98 (5.81%) IT Support Analyst
15 90 (5.33%) 2nd Line Engineer
16 78 (4.62%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
17 74 (4.38%) 1st Line Support
18 70 (4.15%) 3rd Line Support
19 68 (4.03%) Lead
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 48 (2.84%) LDAP
2 45 (2.67%) SAML
3 43 (2.55%) SOAP
4 42 (2.49%) OpenID
5 41 (2.43%) OAuth
6 40 (2.37%) REST
7 35 (2.07%) GraphQL
8 20 (1.18%) JSON
8 20 (1.18%) XML
9 16 (0.95%) Regular Expression
10 12 (0.71%) XMPP
11 10 (0.59%) RESTful
12 6 (0.36%) Web Services
13 5 (0.30%) .NET
13 5 (0.30%) FreeSWITCH
13 5 (0.30%) OAuth2
14 4 (0.24%) ARM Templates
14 4 (0.24%) JSON Schema
14 4 (0.24%) Middleware
14 4 (0.24%) OpenTelemetry
Miscellaneous
1 243 (14.40%) Driving Licence
2 107 (6.34%) Onboarding
3 74 (4.38%) Self-Motivation
4 54 (3.20%) Hybrid Cloud
4 54 (3.20%) Legacy Systems
5 43 (2.55%) Enterprise Software
6 41 (2.43%) Management Information System
7 40 (2.37%) Cyberattack
7 40 (2.37%) Data Centre
8 36 (2.13%) Cyber Threat
9 35 (2.07%) Public Cloud
10 34 (2.01%) Replication
11 27 (1.60%) Cloud Native
12 24 (1.42%) PKI
13 19 (1.13%) Clustering
14 18 (1.07%) CCTV
15 17 (1.01%) Client/Server
16 16 (0.95%) CMDB
17 14 (0.83%) Data Structures
17 14 (0.83%) iPad
Operating Systems
1 1,194 (70.73%) Windows
2 695 (41.17%) Windows Server
3 294 (17.42%) Windows 10
4 203 (12.03%) Linux
5 113 (6.69%) Windows Server 2016
6 91 (5.39%) Mac OS
7 82 (4.86%) Apple iOS
8 69 (4.09%) Android
9 53 (3.14%) Windows Server 2019
10 34 (2.01%) Windows Server 2012
11 31 (1.84%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 14 (0.83%) Windows 7
13 12 (0.71%) Windows Server 2008
14 10 (0.59%) VMS
15 8 (0.47%) Windows 8
16 6 (0.36%) Ubuntu
17 5 (0.30%) Debian
18 4 (0.24%) CentOS
18 4 (0.24%) Mac OS X
18 4 (0.24%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 554 (32.82%) Problem-Solving
2 446 (26.42%) Customer Service
3 406 (24.05%) ITIL
4 252 (14.93%) Cybersecurity
5 213 (12.62%) Continuous Improvement
6 201 (11.91%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 179 (10.60%) Mentoring
8 160 (9.48%) ITSM
9 151 (8.95%) Disaster Recovery
10 141 (8.35%) Service Delivery
11 113 (6.69%) Change Management
12 99 (5.86%) Coaching
13 98 (5.81%) Incident Management
13 98 (5.81%) Migration
13 98 (5.81%) Vulnerability Remediation
14 90 (5.33%) Time Management
15 88 (5.21%) Identity Access Management
16 86 (5.09%) Root Cause Analysis
17 85 (5.04%) ERP
18 80 (4.74%) Asset Management
Programming Languages
1 258 (15.28%) PowerShell
2 153 (9.06%) SQL
3 81 (4.80%) Bash
4 63 (3.73%) Python
5 45 (2.67%) T-SQL
6 16 (0.95%) R
7 12 (0.71%) Shell Script
8 10 (0.59%) Bicep
9 9 (0.53%) PL/SQL
10 8 (0.47%) Java
11 7 (0.41%) VB
12 6 (0.36%) Korn
13 5 (0.30%) JavaScript
14 3 (0.18%) C#
14 3 (0.18%) PHP
15 2 (0.12%) C
Qualifications
1 212 (12.56%) Security Cleared
2 170 (10.07%) Degree
3 148 (8.77%) Microsoft Certification
4 138 (8.18%) SC Cleared
5 72 (4.27%) DV Cleared
6 47 (2.78%) DBS Check
7 40 (2.37%) A+ Certification
8 38 (2.25%) Azure Certification
9 33 (1.95%) Cisco Certification
10 30 (1.78%) Microsoft Certified Professional
10 30 (1.78%) Network+ Certification
11 28 (1.66%) CCNA
12 23 (1.36%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 20 (1.18%) Computer Science Degree
14 17 (1.01%) HNC
14 17 (1.01%) MCSE
15 16 (0.95%) ITIL Certification
16 12 (0.71%) MCSA
17 11 (0.65%) CompTIA Security+
18 10 (0.59%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 159 (9.42%) SLA
2 125 (7.41%) Cyber Essentials
3 102 (6.04%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 60 (3.55%) PCI DSS
5 50 (2.96%) NIST
6 38 (2.25%) NCSC
7 34 (2.01%) GDPR
8 30 (1.78%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 22 (1.30%) QA
10 20 (1.18%) Data Quality
11 11 (0.65%) Accessibility
12 5 (0.30%) GRC
12 5 (0.30%) PMO
12 5 (0.30%) SOC 2
13 4 (0.24%) 21 CFR Part 11
13 4 (0.24%) GxP
13 4 (0.24%) ISO 22301
13 4 (0.24%) ITGC
14 2 (0.12%) ISO 9001
14 2 (0.12%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 314 (18.60%) Hyper-V
2 252 (14.93%) VMware Infrastructure
3 56 (3.32%) vSphere
4 51 (3.02%) Terminal Server
5 46 (2.73%) VMware ESXi
6 45 (2.67%) Virtual Desktop
7 31 (1.84%) Virtual Machines
8 28 (1.66%) Docker
9 17 (1.01%) BitLocker
10 11 (0.65%) VMware NSX
11 9 (0.53%) VMware Workstation
12 8 (0.47%) Citrix Hypervisor
13 7 (0.41%) XenApp
14 6 (0.36%) DFS Replication
15 5 (0.30%) Terminal Services
16 4 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
17 3 (0.18%) Lustre
17 3 (0.18%) Microsoft Virtual Server
17 3 (0.18%) Slurm Workload Manager
18 2 (0.12%) Samba
Systems Management
1 330 (19.55%) Microsoft Intune
2 117 (6.93%) SCCM
3 41 (2.43%) Single Sign-On
4 40 (2.37%) vCenter Server
5 34 (2.01%) Terraform
6 32 (1.90%) Jamf Pro
7 25 (1.48%) Ansible
7 25 (1.48%) WSUS
8 23 (1.36%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 19 (1.13%) FortiGate
10 17 (1.01%) Kubernetes
11 14 (0.83%) SCOM
12 11 (0.65%) Autotask
12 11 (0.65%) Proxmox
13 9 (0.53%) Backup Exec
13 9 (0.53%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
14 7 (0.41%) VxRail
15 5 (0.30%) SmoothWall
15 5 (0.30%) Tivoli Identity Manager
16 4 (0.24%) SCVMM
Vendors
1 1,210 (71.68%) Microsoft
2 407 (24.11%) VMware
3 122 (7.23%) Veeam
4 90 (5.33%) Apple
4 90 (5.33%) Citrix
5 89 (5.27%) Cisco
6 85 (5.04%) SolarWinds
7 75 (4.44%) Nimble Storage
8 72 (4.27%) ServiceNow
9 69 (4.09%) Dell
10 68 (4.03%) HP
10 68 (4.03%) Splunk
11 66 (3.91%) Google
12 48 (2.84%) Brocade
12 48 (2.84%) Tanium
13 44 (2.61%) Meraki
14 35 (2.07%) McAfee
15 30 (1.78%) CrowdStrike
15 30 (1.78%) Red Hat
16 27 (1.60%) Dell Compellent