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

6 months to
31 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 55 38 34
Rank change year-on-year -17 -4 -5
Permanent jobs citing Active Directory 2,161 1,909 2,959
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 2.69% 5.46% 5.08%
As % of the System Software category 49.74% 44.30% 50.51%
Number of salaries quoted 1,653 1,501 2,071
10th Percentile £26,775 £26,000 £25,000
25th Percentile £29,500 £28,250 £29,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £37,500 £35,000 £37,500
Median % change year-on-year +7.14% -6.67% +1.35%
75th Percentile £51,000 £47,500 £50,250
90th Percentile £67,500 £60,250 £60,000
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 4,345 4,309 5,858
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 5.40% 12.34% 10.06%
Number of salaries quoted 3,265 2,489 4,031
10th Percentile £28,500 £26,500 £26,750
25th Percentile £34,000 £30,750 £32,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £42,500 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year +17.65% -10.53% -5.00%
75th Percentile £67,500 £62,500 £61,750
90th Percentile £81,250 £76,840 £74,000
UK median annual salary £55,000 £49,500 £52,000
% change year-on-year +11.11% -4.81% -6.31%

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 August 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 August 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 -6 520 £32,988 +3.09% 130
South East -12 495 £42,500 +6.25% 231
Midlands -32 362 £40,000 +23.08% 99
South West -31 290 £38,500 +18.46% 73
North West +65 280 £35,000 - 72
East of England +6 260 £35,000 - 95
East Midlands -18 187 £37,500 +21.95% 39
Yorkshire -32 178 £31,000 +3.33% 36
West Midlands -38 175 £42,500 +11.84% 59
Scotland +60 113 £32,500 +4.84% 17
Northern Ireland -29 65 £40,000 -23.81% 7
Wales -36 64 £45,000 +18.13% 2
North East -59 62 £37,500 +20.97% 28
Isle of Man -2 1 £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
1 635 (29.38%) Microsoft Exchange
2 483 (22.35%) SharePoint
3 54 (2.50%) IIS
4 18 (0.83%) Confluence
5 14 (0.65%) Skype for Business
6 6 (0.28%) Apache
7 3 (0.14%) nginx
7 3 (0.14%) SAS
8 2 (0.093%) Exchange Server 2013
9 1 (0.046%) CMS
9 1 (0.046%) Drupal
9 1 (0.046%) HCL Domino
9 1 (0.046%) HCL Notes
9 1 (0.046%) Site Server
9 1 (0.046%) Tomcat
9 1 (0.046%) WordPress
Applications
1 140 (6.48%) Microsoft Office
2 36 (1.67%) Microsoft Excel
3 10 (0.46%) 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 14 (0.65%) Dynamics CRM
2 8 (0.37%) Dynamics NAV
3 6 (0.28%) NetSuite
3 6 (0.28%) Raiser’s Edge
4 5 (0.23%) JDE EnterpriseOne
4 5 (0.23%) Remedy ITSM
5 4 (0.19%) Payment Gateway
5 4 (0.19%) Shopify
6 3 (0.14%) Exchequer
6 3 (0.14%) Primavera
6 3 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.093%) Sage 200
7 2 (0.093%) Teamcenter
8 1 (0.046%) Dynamics AX
8 1 (0.046%) Dynamics GP
8 1 (0.046%) Magento
8 1 (0.046%) Oracle Payables
8 1 (0.046%) Sage 50
8 1 (0.046%) SAP EHS
8 1 (0.046%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 1,494 (69.13%) Microsoft 365
2 1,212 (56.09%) Azure
3 961 (44.47%) Entra ID
4 162 (7.50%) OneDrive
5 150 (6.94%) AWS
6 100 (4.63%) SaaS
7 69 (3.19%) Power Platform
8 62 (2.87%) IaaS
9 58 (2.68%) Mimecast
10 48 (2.22%) PaaS
11 46 (2.13%) Azure DevOps
12 41 (1.90%) Microsoft Purview
13 38 (1.76%) Azure Sentinel
14 35 (1.62%) Power Automate
15 34 (1.57%) Serverless
16 28 (1.30%) Google Workspace
17 27 (1.25%) Azure Monitor
18 25 (1.16%) Azure ExpressRoute
19 23 (1.06%) PowerApps
20 22 (1.02%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 712 (32.95%) DNS
2 595 (27.53%) DHCP
3 534 (24.71%) Firewall
4 383 (17.72%) VPN
5 269 (12.45%) TCP/IP
6 213 (9.86%) Wi-Fi
7 212 (9.81%) VLAN
8 200 (9.25%) WAN
9 195 (9.02%) LAN
10 146 (6.76%) Wireless
11 134 (6.20%) VoIP
12 97 (4.49%) Network Security
13 76 (3.52%) SAN
14 43 (1.99%) Remote Desktop
15 30 (1.39%) SSL
16 29 (1.34%) Internet
17 24 (1.11%) NAS
18 17 (0.79%) Structured Cabling
18 17 (0.79%) WLAN
19 14 (0.65%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 101 (4.67%) SQL Server
2 99 (4.58%) Amazon RDS
3 33 (1.53%) Azure SQL Database
4 25 (1.16%) Power BI
5 19 (0.88%) MySQL
6 15 (0.69%) PostgreSQL
7 9 (0.42%) Relational Database
8 6 (0.28%) Crystal Reports
9 5 (0.23%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 4 (0.19%) Data Warehouse
10 4 (0.19%) Neo4j
11 3 (0.14%) Oracle Database
12 2 (0.093%) BusinessObjects
12 2 (0.093%) Data Lake
12 2 (0.093%) KNIME
13 1 (0.046%) Geospatial Data
13 1 (0.046%) InterSystems Cache
13 1 (0.046%) RDBMS
13 1 (0.046%) Redis
13 1 (0.046%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 68 (3.15%) JIRA
2 30 (1.39%) Git
3 9 (0.42%) Jenkins
4 6 (0.28%) Bitbucket
5 5 (0.23%) GitLab
6 2 (0.093%) Artifactory
6 2 (0.093%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 2 (0.093%) Burp Suite
6 2 (0.093%) git-flow
6 2 (0.093%) Metasploit
6 2 (0.093%) NUnit
6 2 (0.093%) Terragrunt
7 1 (0.046%) Carbide.c++
7 1 (0.046%) Gatling
7 1 (0.046%) JMeter
7 1 (0.046%) Selenium
7 1 (0.046%) Sonatype Nexus
7 1 (0.046%) Subversion
7 1 (0.046%) Team Foundation Server
7 1 (0.046%) Vagrant
General
1 1,013 (46.88%) Social Skills
2 260 (12.03%) Analytical Skills
3 141 (6.52%) Legal
4 125 (5.78%) Finance
5 82 (3.79%) Organisational Skills
6 81 (3.75%) Manufacturing
7 80 (3.70%) Law
8 72 (3.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 63 (2.92%) Public Sector
10 55 (2.55%) Retail
11 45 (2.08%) Telecoms
12 37 (1.71%) Documentation Skills
13 34 (1.57%) Aerospace
14 26 (1.20%) Advertising
15 14 (0.65%) Automotive
16 12 (0.56%) Local Government
17 11 (0.51%) Influencing Skills
18 8 (0.37%) Games
19 7 (0.32%) Aviation
20 5 (0.23%) Dutch Language
Job Titles
1 783 (36.23%) IT Support
2 525 (24.29%) Support Engineer
3 515 (23.83%) IT Engineer
4 420 (19.44%) IT Support Engineer
5 351 (16.24%) Analyst
6 267 (12.36%) Senior
7 227 (10.50%) Support Analyst
8 216 (10.00%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 194 (8.98%) IT Technician
10 189 (8.75%) Support Technician
11 172 (7.96%) IT Support Technician
12 163 (7.54%) Systems Engineer
13 147 (6.80%) 2nd Line Support
13 147 (6.80%) IT Analyst
14 131 (6.06%) IT Support Analyst
15 98 (4.53%) 2nd Line Engineer
16 92 (4.26%) Architect
17 86 (3.98%) Administrator
18 82 (3.79%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
19 80 (3.70%) 3rd Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 78 (3.61%) Terraform
2 52 (2.41%) LDAP
3 31 (1.43%) SAML
4 29 (1.34%) OpenID
5 27 (1.25%) OAuth
6 21 (0.97%) Regular Expression
7 19 (0.88%) XMPP
8 16 (0.74%) .NET
9 13 (0.60%) Microsoft Graph
9 13 (0.60%) ModSecurity
10 12 (0.56%) HTML
11 11 (0.51%) ARM Templates
12 10 (0.46%) REST
12 10 (0.46%) Web Services
13 7 (0.32%) OAuth2
14 6 (0.28%) SOAP
15 5 (0.23%) JSON
15 5 (0.23%) ODBC
15 5 (0.23%) SailPoint
15 5 (0.23%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 294 (13.60%) Driving Licence
2 192 (8.88%) Onboarding
3 122 (5.65%) Self-Motivation
4 94 (4.35%) Legacy Systems
5 84 (3.89%) Hybrid Cloud
6 68 (3.15%) Data Centre
6 68 (3.15%) Management Information System
7 48 (2.22%) PKI
8 44 (2.04%) Clustering
9 43 (1.99%) Security Posture
10 40 (1.85%) Enterprise Software
11 39 (1.80%) Cloud Native
12 36 (1.67%) CCTV
13 35 (1.62%) Replication
14 34 (1.57%) Public Cloud
15 21 (0.97%) iPhone
16 19 (0.88%) Social Media
17 18 (0.83%) Video Conferencing
18 16 (0.74%) Client/Server
18 16 (0.74%) iPad
Operating Systems
1 1,530 (70.80%) Windows
2 900 (41.65%) Windows Server
3 272 (12.59%) Linux
4 266 (12.31%) Windows 10
5 162 (7.50%) Windows Server 2016
6 133 (6.15%) Mac OS
7 88 (4.07%) Windows Server 2019
8 81 (3.75%) Apple iOS
9 55 (2.55%) Android
10 38 (1.76%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 24 (1.11%) Ubuntu
11 24 (1.11%) VMS
12 22 (1.02%) Windows Server 2012
13 7 (0.32%) CentOS
13 7 (0.32%) Debian
14 6 (0.28%) Windows Server 2008
15 5 (0.23%) CoreOS
15 5 (0.23%) Rocky
16 4 (0.19%) Unix
16 4 (0.19%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 766 (35.45%) Problem-Solving
2 538 (24.90%) Customer Service
3 470 (21.75%) ITIL
4 435 (20.13%) Continuous Improvement
5 421 (19.48%) Cybersecurity
6 359 (16.61%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 266 (12.31%) Disaster Recovery
8 265 (12.26%) Mentoring
9 204 (9.44%) ITSM
10 191 (8.84%) Project Delivery
11 186 (8.61%) Identity Access Management
12 183 (8.47%) Service Delivery
13 174 (8.05%) Migration
14 140 (6.48%) Service Management
15 138 (6.39%) Customer Experience
16 131 (6.06%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 131 (6.06%) Vulnerability Remediation
17 130 (6.02%) Collaborative Working
18 126 (5.83%) AI
19 117 (5.41%) Kalman Filter
Programming Languages
1 342 (15.83%) PowerShell
2 198 (9.16%) SQL
3 66 (3.05%) Python
4 57 (2.64%) Bash
5 51 (2.36%) Bicep
6 26 (1.20%) R
7 16 (0.74%) Ruby
8 12 (0.56%) C#
8 12 (0.56%) Kusto Query Language
8 12 (0.56%) VBA
9 7 (0.32%) Java
9 7 (0.32%) T-SQL
10 5 (0.23%) Korn
10 5 (0.23%) PHP
10 5 (0.23%) Shell Script
11 3 (0.14%) JavaScript
11 3 (0.14%) VB
11 3 (0.14%) VB.NET
11 3 (0.14%) VBScript
12 2 (0.093%) Google Apps Script
Qualifications
1 308 (14.25%) Security Cleared
2 211 (9.76%) SC Cleared
3 203 (9.39%) Degree
4 188 (8.70%) Microsoft Certification
5 122 (5.65%) Azure Certification
6 100 (4.63%) A+ Certification
7 99 (4.58%) DV Cleared
7 99 (4.58%) Network+ Certification
8 75 (3.47%) CISM
8 75 (3.47%) CISSP
9 63 (2.92%) DBS Check
10 62 (2.87%) Cisco Certification
11 52 (2.41%) CCNA
12 32 (1.48%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 24 (1.11%) Computer Science Degree
14 23 (1.06%) CompTIA Security+
15 21 (0.97%) Microsoft Certified Professional
16 19 (0.88%) AWS Certification
16 19 (0.88%) MCSA
17 15 (0.69%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 222 (10.27%) Cyber Essentials
2 151 (6.99%) SLA
3 124 (5.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 96 (4.44%) PCI DSS
5 55 (2.55%) GDPR
6 45 (2.08%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 28 (1.30%) NIST
8 17 (0.79%) QA
9 13 (0.60%) Accessibility
9 13 (0.60%) Data Quality
10 12 (0.56%) NCSC
11 6 (0.28%) SOC 2
12 4 (0.19%) GRC
13 3 (0.14%) ISAE 3402
13 3 (0.14%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 1 (0.046%) ISO 9001
14 1 (0.046%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 512 (23.69%) Hyper-V
2 388 (17.95%) VMware Infrastructure
3 85 (3.93%) vSphere
4 81 (3.75%) Terminal Server
5 71 (3.29%) Virtual Desktop
6 55 (2.55%) Virtual Machines
7 38 (1.76%) VMware ESXi
8 35 (1.62%) Docker
9 20 (0.93%) Firmware
9 20 (0.93%) Virtual Servers
10 14 (0.65%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 12 (0.56%) VMware NSX
12 9 (0.42%) BitLocker
12 9 (0.42%) Citrix Hypervisor
13 5 (0.23%) NDS
14 4 (0.19%) DFS Replication
14 4 (0.19%) Squid
15 3 (0.14%) VMware Server
15 3 (0.14%) XenApp
16 2 (0.093%) Xen
Systems Management
1 584 (27.02%) Microsoft Intune
2 103 (4.77%) SCCM
3 56 (2.59%) Single Sign-On
4 37 (1.71%) Ansible
5 34 (1.57%) Kubernetes
6 32 (1.48%) FortiGate
7 28 (1.30%) Jamf Pro
8 27 (1.25%) WSUS
9 21 (0.97%) vCenter Server
10 18 (0.83%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 17 (0.79%) Proxmox
12 15 (0.69%) Failover Clustering
12 15 (0.69%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
13 11 (0.51%) Microsoft Clustering
13 11 (0.51%) ZABBIX
14 10 (0.46%) SCOM
15 6 (0.28%) Grafana
15 6 (0.28%) Graylog
15 6 (0.28%) Prometheus
16 5 (0.23%) Packer
Vendors
1 1,783 (82.51%) Microsoft
2 565 (26.15%) VMware
3 206 (9.53%) Veeam
4 165 (7.64%) Cisco
5 100 (4.63%) SolarWinds
6 97 (4.49%) Splunk
7 88 (4.07%) Nimble Storage
8 81 (3.75%) Meraki
9 80 (3.70%) Brocade
9 80 (3.70%) Tanium
10 75 (3.47%) Apple
11 74 (3.42%) CyberArk
12 67 (3.10%) ServiceNow
13 60 (2.78%) Citrix
14 57 (2.64%) SonicWALL
15 54 (2.50%) Fortinet
16 47 (2.17%) HP
17 46 (2.13%) Dell
18 42 (1.94%) Red Hat
19 38 (1.76%) Palo Alto