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

6 months to
31 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 54 41 33
Rank change year-on-year -13 -8 +1
Permanent jobs citing Active Directory 2,160 1,842 3,422
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 2.90% 5.38% 5.47%
As % of the System Software category 51.48% 42.17% 51.79%
Number of salaries quoted 1,662 1,472 2,660
10th Percentile £26,750 £26,000 £24,500
25th Percentile £29,250 £28,438 £28,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £37,500 £35,000 £37,500
Median % change year-on-year +7.14% -6.67% +1.35%
75th Percentile £50,000 £48,000 £50,000
90th Percentile £65,000 £62,500 £59,000
UK median annual salary £40,000 £37,500 £40,000
% change year-on-year +6.67% -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 4,196 4,368 6,608
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 5.63% 12.76% 10.57%
Number of salaries quoted 3,187 2,564 5,063
10th Percentile £28,250 £26,500 £26,250
25th Percentile £33,375 £31,250 £31,625
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £45,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year +11.11% - -5.26%
75th Percentile £65,000 £65,000 £61,250
90th Percentile £80,000 £78,750 £73,750
UK median annual salary £54,000 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +8.00% - -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 31 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 31 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 -3 511 £42,500 +6.25% 159
North of England -9 498 £33,738 +5.43% 123
Midlands -32 369 £37,500 +7.14% 75
South West -14 296 £37,500 +8.70% 56
North West +56 259 £35,000 - 67
East of England +4 233 £35,000 +4.48% 56
East Midlands -1 198 £36,750 +16.67% 35
Yorkshire -30 182 £31,000 +3.33% 40
West Midlands -41 171 £42,500 +11.84% 40
Scotland +79 114 £29,500 -4.84% 13
Wales -17 75 £45,000 +18.13% 11
Northern Ireland -10 65 £39,500 -24.76% 2
North East -54 57 £40,000 +25.00% 24
Isle of Man +2 5 £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
1 636 (29.44%) Microsoft Exchange
2 449 (20.79%) SharePoint
3 45 (2.08%) IIS
4 17 (0.79%) Confluence
5 10 (0.46%) Skype for Business
6 8 (0.37%) Exchange Server 2013
7 7 (0.32%) Apache
8 6 (0.28%) Exchange Server 2007
8 6 (0.28%) Exchange Server 2010
9 4 (0.19%) CMS
10 3 (0.14%) SAS
11 2 (0.093%) nginx
12 1 (0.046%) Drupal
12 1 (0.046%) Site Server
12 1 (0.046%) WordPress
Applications
1 188 (8.70%) Microsoft Office
2 45 (2.08%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (0.69%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (0.19%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 3 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (0.093%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.046%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.046%) Revit
Business Applications
1 17 (0.79%) Dynamics CRM
2 11 (0.51%) Dynamics NAV
3 10 (0.46%) Remedy ITSM
4 6 (0.28%) Raiser’s Edge
5 5 (0.23%) JDE EnterpriseOne
5 5 (0.23%) NetSuite
6 4 (0.19%) Dynamics GP
6 4 (0.19%) Exchequer
6 4 (0.19%) Primavera
7 3 (0.14%) Payment Gateway
7 3 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
7 3 (0.14%) Shopify
8 2 (0.093%) Alphatax
8 2 (0.093%) Sage 200
8 2 (0.093%) SAP S/4HANA
9 1 (0.046%) Dynamics AX
9 1 (0.046%) Magento
9 1 (0.046%) Oracle Payables
9 1 (0.046%) Sage 50
9 1 (0.046%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 1,507 (69.77%) Microsoft 365
2 1,214 (56.20%) Azure
3 921 (42.64%) Entra ID
4 158 (7.31%) AWS
5 153 (7.08%) OneDrive
6 105 (4.86%) SaaS
7 83 (3.84%) Power Platform
8 64 (2.96%) IaaS
9 60 (2.78%) Mimecast
10 53 (2.45%) PaaS
11 45 (2.08%) Azure DevOps
12 39 (1.81%) Google Workspace
12 39 (1.81%) Microsoft Purview
13 36 (1.67%) Azure Sentinel
14 28 (1.30%) Serverless
15 27 (1.25%) Azure Monitor
15 27 (1.25%) Power Automate
16 25 (1.16%) Nutanix
16 25 (1.16%) PowerApps
17 23 (1.06%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 708 (32.78%) DNS
2 590 (27.31%) DHCP
3 524 (24.26%) Firewall
4 361 (16.71%) VPN
5 252 (11.67%) TCP/IP
6 212 (9.81%) WAN
7 206 (9.54%) LAN
8 205 (9.49%) Wi-Fi
9 199 (9.21%) VLAN
10 132 (6.11%) VoIP
11 129 (5.97%) Wireless
12 84 (3.89%) Network Security
13 80 (3.70%) SAN
14 51 (2.36%) Remote Desktop
15 29 (1.34%) Internet
15 29 (1.34%) NAS
16 25 (1.16%) SSL
17 20 (0.93%) Broadband
18 17 (0.79%) SD-WAN
18 17 (0.79%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 110 (5.09%) SQL Server
2 108 (5.00%) Amazon RDS
3 40 (1.85%) Power BI
4 32 (1.48%) Azure SQL Database
5 24 (1.11%) PostgreSQL
6 23 (1.06%) MySQL
7 6 (0.28%) Crystal Reports
8 5 (0.23%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 5 (0.23%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 4 (0.19%) Neo4j
9 4 (0.19%) Relational Database
10 3 (0.14%) Data Warehouse
10 3 (0.14%) GIS
10 3 (0.14%) Oracle Database
11 2 (0.093%) BusinessObjects
11 2 (0.093%) Data Lake
11 2 (0.093%) KNIME
12 1 (0.046%) Geospatial Data
12 1 (0.046%) NoSQL
12 1 (0.046%) Redis
Development Applications
1 75 (3.47%) JIRA
2 27 (1.25%) Git
3 8 (0.37%) Jenkins
4 7 (0.32%) GitLab
5 5 (0.23%) Bitbucket
6 3 (0.14%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
7 2 (0.093%) Artifactory
7 2 (0.093%) Burp Suite
7 2 (0.093%) Metasploit
7 2 (0.093%) Terragrunt
8 1 (0.046%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 1 (0.046%) Carbide.c++
8 1 (0.046%) Gatling
8 1 (0.046%) git-flow
8 1 (0.046%) Ranorex
8 1 (0.046%) Selenium
8 1 (0.046%) Sonatype Nexus
8 1 (0.046%) Subversion
8 1 (0.046%) Team Foundation Server
8 1 (0.046%) Vagrant
General
1 974 (45.09%) Social Skills
2 255 (11.81%) Analytical Skills
3 139 (6.44%) Legal
4 130 (6.02%) Finance
5 101 (4.68%) Organisational Skills
6 90 (4.17%) Law
7 74 (3.43%) Manufacturing
8 73 (3.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 62 (2.87%) Public Sector
10 56 (2.59%) Retail
11 49 (2.27%) Documentation Skills
12 47 (2.18%) Telecoms
13 30 (1.39%) Advertising
14 21 (0.97%) Aerospace
15 18 (0.83%) Local Government
16 14 (0.65%) Games
17 13 (0.60%) Automotive
18 9 (0.42%) Influencing Skills
19 7 (0.32%) Banking
20 6 (0.28%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 803 (37.18%) IT Support
2 555 (25.69%) Support Engineer
3 519 (24.03%) IT Engineer
4 436 (20.19%) IT Support Engineer
5 350 (16.20%) Analyst
6 252 (11.67%) Senior
7 226 (10.46%) Support Analyst
8 200 (9.26%) Support Technician
9 198 (9.17%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 196 (9.07%) IT Technician
11 174 (8.06%) IT Support Technician
12 169 (7.82%) Systems Engineer
13 155 (7.18%) 2nd Line Support
14 150 (6.94%) IT Analyst
15 134 (6.20%) IT Support Analyst
16 91 (4.21%) 2nd Line Engineer
17 87 (4.03%) Architect
18 83 (3.84%) 3rd Line Support
19 82 (3.80%) Administrator
20 76 (3.52%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 45 (2.08%) LDAP
2 29 (1.34%) SAML
3 25 (1.16%) OpenID
4 23 (1.06%) Regular Expression
5 22 (1.02%) OAuth
6 19 (0.88%) XMPP
7 16 (0.74%) REST
8 11 (0.51%) ARM Templates
8 11 (0.51%) JSON
8 11 (0.51%) XML
9 10 (0.46%) .NET
9 10 (0.46%) GraphQL
9 10 (0.46%) Microsoft Graph
9 10 (0.46%) SOAP
10 9 (0.42%) HTML
10 9 (0.42%) Web Services
11 7 (0.32%) JSON Schema
12 6 (0.28%) Middleware
12 6 (0.28%) OAuth2
13 5 (0.23%) ODBC
Miscellaneous
1 301 (13.94%) Driving Licence
2 174 (8.06%) Onboarding
3 124 (5.74%) Self-Motivation
4 103 (4.77%) Legacy Systems
5 86 (3.98%) Hybrid Cloud
6 71 (3.29%) Data Centre
7 68 (3.15%) Management Information System
8 50 (2.31%) PKI
9 48 (2.22%) Clustering
10 38 (1.76%) Public Cloud
11 36 (1.67%) Cloud Native
11 36 (1.67%) Enterprise Software
11 36 (1.67%) Security Posture
12 34 (1.57%) Replication
13 31 (1.44%) CCTV
14 17 (0.79%) Cyber Threat
15 16 (0.74%) Client/Server
15 16 (0.74%) iPhone
16 15 (0.69%) CMDB
16 15 (0.69%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 1,550 (71.76%) Windows
2 903 (41.81%) Windows Server
3 307 (14.21%) Windows 10
4 283 (13.10%) Linux
5 169 (7.82%) Windows Server 2016
6 154 (7.13%) Mac OS
7 86 (3.98%) Windows Server 2019
8 77 (3.56%) Apple iOS
9 65 (3.01%) Android
10 44 (2.04%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 24 (1.11%) VMS
12 22 (1.02%) Windows Server 2012
13 15 (0.69%) Ubuntu
14 12 (0.56%) Windows 7
15 8 (0.37%) CentOS
15 8 (0.37%) Windows Server 2008
16 5 (0.23%) CoreOS
16 5 (0.23%) Debian
16 5 (0.23%) Windows 8
17 4 (0.19%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 730 (33.80%) Problem-Solving
2 546 (25.28%) Customer Service
3 499 (23.10%) ITIL
4 412 (19.07%) Continuous Improvement
5 407 (18.84%) Cybersecurity
6 309 (14.31%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 266 (12.31%) Mentoring
8 240 (11.11%) Disaster Recovery
9 202 (9.35%) ITSM
10 181 (8.38%) Service Delivery
11 174 (8.06%) Project Delivery
12 162 (7.50%) Migration
13 157 (7.27%) Identity Access Management
14 144 (6.67%) Customer Experience
15 139 (6.44%) Vulnerability Remediation
16 130 (6.02%) Kalman Filter
17 122 (5.65%) Service Management
18 120 (5.56%) Change Management
19 119 (5.51%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 119 (5.51%) Web Filtering
Programming Languages
1 333 (15.42%) PowerShell
2 195 (9.03%) SQL
3 67 (3.10%) Python
4 66 (3.06%) Bash
5 42 (1.94%) Bicep
6 28 (1.30%) R
7 16 (0.74%) T-SQL
8 12 (0.56%) Kusto Query Language
8 12 (0.56%) VBA
9 8 (0.37%) C#
9 8 (0.37%) Ruby
10 7 (0.32%) Shell Script
11 6 (0.28%) Java
11 6 (0.28%) Korn
12 5 (0.23%) PHP
13 3 (0.14%) JavaScript
13 3 (0.14%) VB
14 2 (0.093%) C
14 2 (0.093%) VB.NET
14 2 (0.093%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 306 (14.17%) Security Cleared
2 218 (10.09%) SC Cleared
3 202 (9.35%) Degree
4 180 (8.33%) Microsoft Certification
5 101 (4.68%) Azure Certification
6 92 (4.26%) DV Cleared
7 89 (4.12%) A+ Certification
8 87 (4.03%) Network+ Certification
9 62 (2.87%) CISM
9 62 (2.87%) CISSP
10 58 (2.69%) Cisco Certification
10 58 (2.69%) DBS Check
11 53 (2.45%) CCNA
12 27 (1.25%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 24 (1.11%) Microsoft Certified Professional
14 21 (0.97%) Computer Science Degree
15 20 (0.93%) MCSA
16 16 (0.74%) AWS Certification
17 15 (0.69%) CompTIA Security+
18 13 (0.60%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 224 (10.37%) Cyber Essentials
2 169 (7.82%) SLA
3 126 (5.83%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 104 (4.81%) PCI DSS
5 49 (2.27%) GDPR
6 46 (2.13%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 33 (1.53%) NIST
8 21 (0.97%) QA
9 17 (0.79%) Data Quality
9 17 (0.79%) NCSC
10 9 (0.42%) Accessibility
11 6 (0.28%) SOC 2
12 4 (0.19%) GRC
12 4 (0.19%) ITGC
12 4 (0.19%) PMO
13 3 (0.14%) ISAE 3402
14 2 (0.093%) 21 CFR Part 11
14 2 (0.093%) GxP
14 2 (0.093%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 1 (0.046%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 504 (23.33%) Hyper-V
2 369 (17.08%) VMware Infrastructure
3 96 (4.44%) vSphere
4 89 (4.12%) Terminal Server
5 62 (2.87%) Virtual Desktop
6 50 (2.31%) Virtual Machines
7 45 (2.08%) VMware ESXi
8 36 (1.67%) Docker
9 16 (0.74%) Firmware
9 16 (0.74%) Virtual Servers
10 14 (0.65%) VMware NSX
11 13 (0.60%) BitLocker
12 12 (0.56%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 9 (0.42%) Citrix Hypervisor
14 8 (0.37%) DFS Replication
15 5 (0.23%) NDS
15 5 (0.23%) VMware Workstation
15 5 (0.23%) XenApp
16 4 (0.19%) Squid
17 3 (0.14%) VMware Server
Systems Management
1 556 (25.74%) Microsoft Intune
2 106 (4.91%) SCCM
3 63 (2.92%) Terraform
4 42 (1.94%) Single Sign-On
5 32 (1.48%) Jamf Pro
6 31 (1.44%) Ansible
7 30 (1.39%) Kubernetes
8 29 (1.34%) vCenter Server
9 28 (1.30%) FortiGate
10 25 (1.16%) WSUS
11 21 (0.97%) Proxmox
12 19 (0.88%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
13 15 (0.69%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 15 (0.69%) Failover Clustering
13 15 (0.69%) ZABBIX
14 11 (0.51%) Microsoft Clustering
15 8 (0.37%) SCOM
16 7 (0.32%) Autotask
17 6 (0.28%) Grafana
17 6 (0.28%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 1,730 (80.09%) Microsoft
2 566 (26.20%) VMware
3 203 (9.40%) Veeam
4 152 (7.04%) Cisco
5 114 (5.28%) SolarWinds
6 102 (4.72%) Splunk
7 101 (4.68%) Nimble Storage
8 88 (4.07%) Brocade
8 88 (4.07%) Tanium
9 78 (3.61%) Apple
10 76 (3.52%) Meraki
11 73 (3.38%) Citrix
12 71 (3.29%) ServiceNow
13 68 (3.15%) CyberArk
14 59 (2.73%) HP
15 57 (2.64%) Dell
16 45 (2.08%) Google
17 41 (1.90%) CrowdStrike
17 41 (1.90%) Red Hat
17 41 (1.90%) SonicWALL