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

6 months to
18 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 55 44 30
Rank change year-on-year -11 -14 +10
Permanent jobs citing Active Directory 1,893 1,620 4,540
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 2.81% 5.41% 5.73%
As % of the System Software category 53.75% 39.83% 51.14%
Number of salaries quoted 1,475 1,268 3,642
10th Percentile £26,500 £25,750 £23,525
25th Percentile £29,000 £27,750 £26,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £36,000 £35,000 £35,000
Median % change year-on-year +2.86% - -5.07%
75th Percentile £47,500 £47,500 £48,500
90th Percentile £64,800 £61,250 £57,973
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 3,522 4,067 8,878
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 5.22% 13.59% 11.21%
Number of salaries quoted 2,685 2,363 6,951
10th Percentile £27,750 £26,500 £25,500
25th Percentile £32,000 £31,250 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £46,160 £46,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year +0.35% +2.22% -5.26%
75th Percentile £65,000 £67,500 £60,000
90th Percentile £77,500 £83,550 £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 18 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 18 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 -3 463 £35,000 +12.90% 103
South East -2 456 £40,000 - 169
Midlands -34 314 £35,000 - 77
South West -8 265 £35,000 +7.69% 58
North West +57 228 £37,500 - 56
East of England +3 215 £35,000 +7.69% 59
Yorkshire -32 186 £32,500 +8.33% 38
East Midlands -7 161 £32,500 +1.56% 47
West Midlands -41 152 £37,500 - 30
Scotland +79 102 £29,000 -29.70% 21
Wales -4 60 £45,000 +18.13% 16
North East -44 49 £42,500 +32.81% 11
Northern Ireland -24 13 £32,000 -39.05% 27
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
1 518 (27.36%) Microsoft Exchange
2 396 (20.92%) SharePoint
3 34 (1.80%) IIS
4 16 (0.85%) Confluence
5 11 (0.58%) Exchange Server 2013
6 9 (0.48%) Exchange Server 2007
6 9 (0.48%) Exchange Server 2010
7 6 (0.32%) Skype for Business
8 4 (0.21%) Apache
8 4 (0.21%) CMS
9 3 (0.16%) SAS
10 1 (0.053%) Drupal
10 1 (0.053%) nginx
10 1 (0.053%) Site Server
10 1 (0.053%) WordPress
Applications
1 206 (10.88%) Microsoft Office
2 42 (2.22%) Microsoft Excel
3 12 (0.63%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.16%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 3 (0.16%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.053%) AutoCAD
5 1 (0.053%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 17 (0.90%) Dynamics CRM
2 13 (0.69%) Dynamics NAV
3 8 (0.42%) Remedy ITSM
4 6 (0.32%) 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 (0.11%) Alphatax
7 2 (0.11%) SAP S/4HANA
8 1 (0.053%) Dynamics AX
8 1 (0.053%) JDE EnterpriseOne
8 1 (0.053%) Magento
8 1 (0.053%) Markit EDM
8 1 (0.053%) Oracle ERP
8 1 (0.053%) Oracle Payables
8 1 (0.053%) SAP EHS
8 1 (0.053%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 1,330 (70.26%) Microsoft 365
2 1,040 (54.94%) Azure
3 715 (37.77%) Entra ID
4 141 (7.45%) OneDrive
5 134 (7.08%) AWS
6 93 (4.91%) SaaS
7 83 (4.38%) Power Platform
8 79 (4.17%) Google Workspace
9 56 (2.96%) IaaS
10 48 (2.54%) PaaS
11 45 (2.38%) Mimecast
12 35 (1.85%) Azure DevOps
13 30 (1.58%) Nutanix
14 26 (1.37%) Azure Monitor
14 26 (1.37%) Microsoft Purview
15 25 (1.32%) Azure Sentinel
15 25 (1.32%) PowerApps
16 21 (1.11%) Dynamics 365
16 21 (1.11%) Serverless
17 16 (0.85%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 637 (33.65%) DNS
2 535 (28.26%) DHCP
3 490 (25.88%) Firewall
4 304 (16.06%) VPN
5 199 (10.51%) TCP/IP
6 190 (10.04%) WAN
7 185 (9.77%) LAN
8 176 (9.30%) Wi-Fi
9 167 (8.82%) VLAN
10 111 (5.86%) VoIP
11 87 (4.60%) Wireless
12 76 (4.01%) Network Security
13 74 (3.91%) SAN
14 52 (2.75%) Remote Desktop
15 40 (2.11%) Broadband
16 29 (1.53%) NAS
17 21 (1.11%) Internet
18 20 (1.06%) SD-WAN
19 17 (0.90%) SSL
20 13 (0.69%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 106 (5.60%) SQL Server
2 102 (5.39%) Amazon RDS
3 44 (2.32%) Power BI
4 30 (1.58%) PostgreSQL
5 26 (1.37%) MySQL
6 22 (1.16%) Azure SQL Database
7 9 (0.48%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 8 (0.42%) 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 (0.11%) Data Warehouse
12 2 (0.11%) Relational Database
13 1 (0.053%) BusinessObjects
13 1 (0.053%) InterSystems Cache
13 1 (0.053%) KNIME
13 1 (0.053%) NoSQL
13 1 (0.053%) RDBMS
13 1 (0.053%) Redis
Development Applications
1 74 (3.91%) JIRA
2 16 (0.85%) Git
3 11 (0.58%) GitLab
4 5 (0.26%) Jenkins
4 5 (0.26%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
5 4 (0.21%) Bitbucket
6 2 (0.11%) Burp Suite
6 2 (0.11%) LabVIEW
6 2 (0.11%) Metasploit
6 2 (0.11%) Subversion
6 2 (0.11%) Terragrunt
7 1 (0.053%) Carbide.c++
7 1 (0.053%) Gatling
7 1 (0.053%) JMeter
7 1 (0.053%) Oracle Forms
7 1 (0.053%) Ranorex
7 1 (0.053%) Selenium
7 1 (0.053%) Team Foundation Server
7 1 (0.053%) Vagrant
General
1 810 (42.79%) Social Skills
2 215 (11.36%) Analytical Skills
3 140 (7.40%) Organisational Skills
4 116 (6.13%) Finance
5 68 (3.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 66 (3.49%) Legal
7 64 (3.38%) Manufacturing
8 59 (3.12%) Law
9 56 (2.96%) Documentation Skills
10 55 (2.91%) Public Sector
11 44 (2.32%) Retail
12 35 (1.85%) Telecoms
13 33 (1.74%) Games
14 26 (1.37%) Advertising
15 20 (1.06%) Local Government
16 13 (0.69%) Aerospace
17 9 (0.48%) Automotive
17 9 (0.48%) Influencing Skills
17 9 (0.48%) Marketing
18 4 (0.21%) Portuguese Language
Job Titles
1 719 (37.98%) IT Support
2 496 (26.20%) Support Engineer
3 450 (23.77%) IT Engineer
4 376 (19.86%) IT Support Engineer
5 307 (16.22%) Analyst
6 208 (10.99%) Support Analyst
7 183 (9.67%) Senior
8 181 (9.56%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 180 (9.51%) Support Technician
10 169 (8.93%) IT Technician
11 154 (8.14%) 2nd Line Support
12 151 (7.98%) IT Support Technician
12 151 (7.98%) Systems Engineer
13 139 (7.34%) IT Analyst
14 123 (6.50%) IT Support Analyst
15 91 (4.81%) 2nd Line Engineer
16 77 (4.07%) Architect
17 76 (4.01%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
18 73 (3.86%) 3rd Line Support
19 71 (3.75%) 1st Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 57 (3.01%) LDAP
2 43 (2.27%) SAML
3 38 (2.01%) OpenID
4 37 (1.95%) OAuth
4 37 (1.95%) REST
5 33 (1.74%) SOAP
6 32 (1.69%) GraphQL
7 22 (1.16%) Regular Expression
8 18 (0.95%) XMPP
9 15 (0.79%) JSON
9 15 (0.79%) XML
10 10 (0.53%) .NET
10 10 (0.53%) ARM Templates
11 9 (0.48%) Microsoft Graph
12 8 (0.42%) Web Services
13 7 (0.37%) Middleware
14 6 (0.32%) HTML
14 6 (0.32%) JSON Schema
15 5 (0.26%) FreeSWITCH
16 4 (0.21%) boto
Miscellaneous
1 259 (13.68%) Driving Licence
2 127 (6.71%) Onboarding
3 97 (5.12%) Self-Motivation
4 91 (4.81%) Legacy Systems
5 78 (4.12%) Hybrid Cloud
6 61 (3.22%) Management Information System
7 60 (3.17%) Data Centre
8 37 (1.95%) Cyber Threat
8 37 (1.95%) Public Cloud
9 36 (1.90%) Cyberattack
10 35 (1.85%) PKI
10 35 (1.85%) Replication
11 34 (1.80%) Clustering
12 29 (1.53%) Cloud Native
13 27 (1.43%) Enterprise Software
14 21 (1.11%) CCTV
14 21 (1.11%) Security Posture
15 16 (0.85%) Client/Server
16 15 (0.79%) Data Structures
17 13 (0.69%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 1,364 (72.05%) Windows
2 817 (43.16%) Windows Server
3 297 (15.69%) Windows 10
4 264 (13.95%) Linux
5 162 (8.56%) Windows Server 2016
6 121 (6.39%) Mac OS
7 90 (4.75%) Windows Server 2019
8 75 (3.96%) Apple iOS
9 66 (3.49%) Android
10 38 (2.01%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 34 (1.80%) Windows Server 2012
12 19 (1.00%) VMS
13 13 (0.69%) Windows 7
14 12 (0.63%) Windows Server 2008
15 8 (0.42%) Ubuntu
16 7 (0.37%) 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
1 644 (34.02%) Problem-Solving
2 473 (24.99%) Customer Service
3 419 (22.13%) ITIL
4 312 (16.48%) Cybersecurity
5 291 (15.37%) Continuous Improvement
6 251 (13.26%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 203 (10.72%) Mentoring
8 191 (10.09%) Disaster Recovery
9 171 (9.03%) ITSM
9 171 (9.03%) Service Delivery
10 150 (7.92%) Migration
11 127 (6.71%) Vulnerability Remediation
12 118 (6.23%) Kalman Filter
13 117 (6.18%) Customer Experience
14 111 (5.86%) Project Delivery
14 111 (5.86%) Web Filtering
15 109 (5.76%) Change Management
16 98 (5.18%) Incident Management
17 97 (5.12%) Service Management
18 95 (5.02%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 316 (16.69%) PowerShell
2 180 (9.51%) SQL
3 85 (4.49%) Bash
4 57 (3.01%) Python
5 43 (2.27%) T-SQL
6 24 (1.27%) Bicep
7 20 (1.06%) R
8 9 (0.48%) C#
9 8 (0.42%) VBA
10 7 (0.37%) Shell Script
10 7 (0.37%) VB
11 6 (0.32%) Java
11 6 (0.32%) Korn
11 6 (0.32%) Kusto Query Language
12 5 (0.26%) JavaScript
12 5 (0.26%) PHP
13 2 (0.11%) C
13 2 (0.11%) PL/SQL
13 2 (0.11%) VB.NET
14 1 (0.053%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 278 (14.69%) Security Cleared
2 188 (9.93%) Degree
3 185 (9.77%) SC Cleared
4 164 (8.66%) Microsoft Certification
5 83 (4.38%) DV Cleared
6 74 (3.91%) Azure Certification
7 59 (3.12%) DBS Check
8 47 (2.48%) A+ Certification
9 41 (2.17%) Cisco Certification
10 39 (2.06%) CCNA
11 36 (1.90%) Network+ Certification
12 32 (1.69%) Microsoft Certified Professional
13 20 (1.06%) Computer Science Degree
13 20 (1.06%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 16 (0.85%) CompTIA Security+
14 16 (0.85%) ITIL Certification
14 16 (0.85%) MCSA
15 15 (0.79%) HNC
16 13 (0.69%) MCSE
17 9 (0.48%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 188 (9.93%) Cyber Essentials
2 174 (9.19%) SLA
3 128 (6.76%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 96 (5.07%) PCI DSS
5 58 (3.06%) NIST
6 40 (2.11%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 40 (2.11%) GDPR
7 36 (1.90%) NCSC
8 21 (1.11%) Data Quality
9 20 (1.06%) QA
10 9 (0.48%) Accessibility
11 6 (0.32%) 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 (0.11%) ISAE 3402
15 2 (0.11%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 425 (22.45%) Hyper-V
2 323 (17.06%) VMware Infrastructure
3 87 (4.60%) vSphere
4 82 (4.33%) Terminal Server
5 57 (3.01%) Virtual Desktop
6 49 (2.59%) VMware ESXi
7 40 (2.11%) Virtual Machines
8 33 (1.74%) Docker
9 17 (0.90%) VMware NSX
10 15 (0.79%) BitLocker
11 11 (0.58%) Virtual Servers
12 9 (0.48%) DFS Replication
13 8 (0.42%) Citrix Hypervisor
13 8 (0.42%) VMware Workstation
14 7 (0.37%) Firmware
14 7 (0.37%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 6 (0.32%) XenApp
16 4 (0.21%) Squid
17 2 (0.11%) Samba
17 2 (0.11%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 397 (20.97%) Microsoft Intune
2 106 (5.60%) SCCM
3 41 (2.17%) Terraform
4 37 (1.95%) vCenter Server
5 34 (1.80%) Single Sign-On
6 30 (1.58%) Jamf Pro
7 27 (1.43%) FortiGate
7 27 (1.43%) WSUS
8 26 (1.37%) Ansible
9 23 (1.22%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 22 (1.16%) Proxmox
11 21 (1.11%) Kubernetes
12 14 (0.74%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
13 11 (0.58%) Autotask
14 10 (0.53%) ZABBIX
15 9 (0.48%) Backup Exec
16 8 (0.42%) SCOM
17 6 (0.32%) Failover Clustering
17 6 (0.32%) VxRail
18 5 (0.26%) Packer
Vendors
1 1,435 (75.81%) Microsoft
2 521 (27.52%) VMware
3 184 (9.72%) Veeam
4 113 (5.97%) Cisco
5 109 (5.76%) SolarWinds
6 99 (5.23%) Nimble Storage
6 99 (5.23%) Splunk
7 83 (4.38%) Citrix
8 80 (4.23%) Apple
8 80 (4.23%) Brocade
8 80 (4.23%) Tanium
9 73 (3.86%) ServiceNow
10 60 (3.17%) Meraki
11 59 (3.12%) Google
11 59 (3.12%) HP
12 58 (3.06%) Dell
13 36 (1.90%) McAfee
14 35 (1.85%) Red Hat
15 33 (1.74%) CrowdStrike
16 31 (1.64%) Ubiquiti