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

6 months to
15 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 57 35 28
Rank change year-on-year -22 -7 +16
Permanent jobs citing Active Directory 1,769 1,615 4,256
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 3.32% 5.73% 7.24%
As % of the System Software category 61.08% 44.43% 50.63%
Number of salaries quoted 1,298 1,206 3,705
10th Percentile £26,250 £25,500 £24,000
25th Percentile £28,500 £28,000 £27,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £34,000 £37,000 £35,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.11% +5.71% -2.78%
75th Percentile £47,250 £50,000 £48,750
90th Percentile £60,000 £60,000 £57,500
UK median annual salary £37,500 £40,000 £39,000
% change year-on-year -6.25% +2.56% -2.50%

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 2,896 3,635 8,406
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 5.44% 12.91% 14.31%
Number of salaries quoted 2,108 2,526 6,998
10th Percentile £26,750 £26,750 £25,750
25th Percentile £30,750 £32,500 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £50,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -15.00% +11.11% -5.26%
75th Percentile £62,500 £69,688 £60,750
90th Percentile £75,000 £85,000 £75,000
UK median annual salary £50,000 £57,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year -13.04% +15.00% -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 15 March 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 15 March 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 +8 509 £36,000 -15.29% 179
North of England -29 377 £33,000 -5.71% 126
Midlands -25 274 £32,500 -7.14% 72
South West 0 270 £32,500 -7.14% 64
Yorkshire -19 174 £32,500 +8.33% 40
East of England -28 171 £36,500 +12.31% 57
North West -25 161 £37,500 -6.25% 74
East Midlands -14 149 £31,500 +5.00% 34
West Midlands -41 124 £33,500 -16.25% 38
Scotland +15 103 £27,500 -25.68% 21
Wales +14 42 £35,000 -28.72% 10
North East -2 42 £31,500 -8.70% 19
Northern Ireland -27 17 £32,000 -39.05% 3
Isle of Man +3 6 £45,000 +55.17% 1
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
1 502 (28.38%) Microsoft Exchange
2 346 (19.56%) SharePoint
3 23 (1.30%) Exchange Server 2003
4 13 (0.73%) Confluence
4 13 (0.73%) Exchange Server 2013
4 13 (0.73%) IIS
5 11 (0.62%) Exchange Server 2007
5 11 (0.62%) Exchange Server 2010
6 6 (0.34%) CMS
7 3 (0.17%) Apache
7 3 (0.17%) Tomcat
7 3 (0.17%) WebLogic
7 3 (0.17%) WebLogic Portal
8 2 (0.11%) Skype for Business
8 2 (0.11%) WordPress
9 1 (0.057%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 260 (14.70%) Microsoft Office
2 40 (2.26%) Microsoft Excel
3 13 (0.73%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.17%) AutoCAD
4 3 (0.17%) CATIA
5 1 (0.057%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 14 (0.79%) Oracle ERP
2 13 (0.73%) Dynamics CRM
3 7 (0.40%) NetSuite
4 6 (0.34%) Primavera
5 5 (0.28%) Dynamics NAV
5 5 (0.28%) Remedy ITSM
6 4 (0.23%) Dynamics GP
6 4 (0.23%) Markit EDM
7 3 (0.17%) Exchequer
7 3 (0.17%) Oracle EBS
8 2 (0.11%) Alphatax
8 2 (0.11%) Shopify
9 1 (0.057%) Cognos Business Intelligence
9 1 (0.057%) Sage 200
9 1 (0.057%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 1,251 (70.72%) Microsoft 365
2 967 (54.66%) Azure
3 621 (35.10%) Entra ID
4 134 (7.57%) OneDrive
5 132 (7.46%) AWS
6 102 (5.77%) Google Workspace
7 84 (4.75%) SaaS
8 70 (3.96%) Power Platform
9 38 (2.15%) IaaS
10 33 (1.87%) Azure Monitor
10 33 (1.87%) GCP
11 32 (1.81%) Azure DevOps
11 32 (1.81%) PaaS
12 28 (1.58%) Mimecast
12 28 (1.58%) Nutanix
13 24 (1.36%) PowerApps
14 22 (1.24%) OCI
15 20 (1.13%) GitHub
15 20 (1.13%) Microsoft Purview
16 19 (1.07%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 629 (35.56%) DNS
2 588 (33.24%) DHCP
3 422 (23.86%) Firewall
4 282 (15.94%) VPN
5 237 (13.40%) TCP/IP
6 193 (10.91%) VLAN
7 175 (9.89%) WAN
8 172 (9.72%) LAN
9 144 (8.14%) Wi-Fi
10 91 (5.14%) VoIP
11 78 (4.41%) Wireless
12 57 (3.22%) Network Security
12 57 (3.22%) Remote Desktop
13 46 (2.60%) Broadband
14 44 (2.49%) SAN
15 27 (1.53%) SD-WAN
16 18 (1.02%) Internet
17 17 (0.96%) NAS
17 17 (0.96%) Unified Communications
18 15 (0.85%) Ethernet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 91 (5.14%) Amazon RDS
2 71 (4.01%) SQL Server
3 40 (2.26%) Power BI
4 26 (1.47%) Oracle Database
5 23 (1.30%) Oracle Database 10g
6 20 (1.13%) MySQL
6 20 (1.13%) PostgreSQL
7 10 (0.57%) Azure SQL Database
8 9 (0.51%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 8 (0.45%) GIS
10 6 (0.34%) Data Warehouse
11 5 (0.28%) Relational Database
12 3 (0.17%) Data Mining
12 3 (0.17%) Oracle Discoverer
12 3 (0.17%) Oracle Reports
13 2 (0.11%) DTS
13 2 (0.11%) NoSQL
13 2 (0.11%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 1 (0.057%) Cognos Framework Manager
14 1 (0.057%) Neo4j
Development Applications
1 68 (3.84%) JIRA
2 17 (0.96%) Git
2 17 (0.96%) Jenkins
2 17 (0.96%) Oracle Forms
3 7 (0.40%) GitLab
4 5 (0.28%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
5 4 (0.23%) LabVIEW
5 4 (0.23%) Subversion
6 3 (0.17%) Oracle APEX
7 2 (0.11%) Visual Studio
8 1 (0.057%) Burp Suite
8 1 (0.057%) Metasploit
General
1 805 (45.51%) Social Skills
2 190 (10.74%) Analytical Skills
3 161 (9.10%) Organisational Skills
4 142 (8.03%) Finance
5 76 (4.30%) Manufacturing
6 65 (3.67%) Retail
7 60 (3.39%) Documentation Skills
8 49 (2.77%) Law
9 46 (2.60%) Legal
10 45 (2.54%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 37 (2.09%) Advertising
11 37 (2.09%) Games
12 36 (2.04%) Public Sector
13 32 (1.81%) Telecoms
14 21 (1.19%) Marketing
15 10 (0.57%) Local Government
16 8 (0.45%) Aerospace
17 5 (0.28%) Automotive
18 4 (0.23%) Banking
18 4 (0.23%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 712 (40.25%) IT Support
2 489 (27.64%) Support Engineer
3 398 (22.50%) IT Engineer
4 347 (19.62%) IT Support Engineer
5 238 (13.45%) Analyst
6 178 (10.06%) 2nd Line Support
7 177 (10.01%) Support Technician
8 173 (9.78%) Support Analyst
9 153 (8.65%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 138 (7.80%) Senior
11 132 (7.46%) IT Technician
12 131 (7.41%) IT Analyst
13 125 (7.07%) IT Support Technician
14 115 (6.50%) Systems Engineer
15 114 (6.44%) IT Support Analyst
16 98 (5.54%) 3rd Line Support
17 94 (5.31%) 2nd Line Engineer
18 87 (4.92%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
19 80 (4.52%) 1st Line Support
20 62 (3.50%) Infrastructure Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 53 (3.00%) SOAP
2 52 (2.94%) SAML
3 49 (2.77%) LDAP
4 48 (2.71%) OAuth
4 48 (2.71%) OpenID
5 44 (2.49%) REST
6 39 (2.20%) GraphQL
7 25 (1.41%) JSON
7 25 (1.41%) XML
8 19 (1.07%) RESTful
9 17 (0.96%) .NET
10 11 (0.62%) ARM Templates
11 10 (0.57%) CSS
11 10 (0.57%) HTML
11 10 (0.57%) React
12 9 (0.51%) .NET Framework
12 9 (0.51%) OAuth2
13 7 (0.40%) Web Services
14 5 (0.28%) FreeSWITCH
14 5 (0.28%) Regular Expression
Miscellaneous
1 279 (15.77%) Driving Licence
2 119 (6.73%) Onboarding
3 80 (4.52%) Self-Motivation
4 78 (4.41%) Legacy Systems
5 59 (3.34%) Enterprise Software
6 43 (2.43%) Hybrid Cloud
7 42 (2.37%) Cyberattack
8 41 (2.32%) Cyber Threat
9 33 (1.87%) Replication
10 31 (1.75%) Management Information System
11 30 (1.70%) Data Centre
12 29 (1.64%) Cloud Native
13 25 (1.41%) Public Cloud
14 21 (1.19%) CMDB
15 18 (1.02%) Client/Server
16 17 (0.96%) PKI
17 15 (0.85%) Clustering
18 13 (0.73%) iPad
18 13 (0.73%) Linux Command Line
18 13 (0.73%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 1,263 (71.40%) Windows
2 750 (42.40%) Windows Server
3 296 (16.73%) Windows 10
4 205 (11.59%) Linux
5 133 (7.52%) Windows Server 2016
6 93 (5.26%) Mac OS
7 78 (4.41%) Apple iOS
8 73 (4.13%) Android
9 55 (3.11%) Windows Server 2019
10 42 (2.37%) Windows 7
11 33 (1.87%) Windows Server 2012
12 32 (1.81%) Windows Server 2008
13 28 (1.58%) Unix
14 23 (1.30%) HPUX
14 23 (1.30%) Solaris
14 23 (1.30%) Windows Server 2003
15 16 (0.90%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
16 12 (0.68%) Windows 8
17 7 (0.40%) VMS
18 6 (0.34%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 631 (35.67%) Problem-Solving
2 526 (29.73%) Customer Service
3 418 (23.63%) ITIL
4 263 (14.87%) Cybersecurity
5 216 (12.21%) Mentoring
6 202 (11.42%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 188 (10.63%) Continuous Improvement
8 172 (9.72%) ITSM
9 161 (9.10%) Service Delivery
10 148 (8.37%) Disaster Recovery
11 128 (7.24%) Migration
12 126 (7.12%) Incident Management
13 116 (6.56%) Coaching
14 114 (6.44%) Vulnerability Remediation
15 95 (5.37%) Kalman Filter
16 93 (5.26%) Asset Management
16 93 (5.26%) Identity Access Management
16 93 (5.26%) Web Filtering
17 92 (5.20%) Agile
18 91 (5.14%) Customer Experience
Programming Languages
1 302 (17.07%) PowerShell
2 125 (7.07%) SQL
3 79 (4.47%) Bash
4 54 (3.05%) Python
5 49 (2.77%) T-SQL
6 22 (1.24%) Perl
7 19 (1.07%) Shell Script
8 18 (1.02%) JavaScript
9 17 (0.96%) PL/SQL
10 16 (0.90%) Java
11 14 (0.79%) C#
12 10 (0.57%) R
13 8 (0.45%) VB
14 5 (0.28%) VBA
15 4 (0.23%) Bicep
16 2 (0.11%) C
16 2 (0.11%) Groovy
16 2 (0.11%) TypeScript
17 1 (0.057%) Korn
17 1 (0.057%) PHP
Qualifications
1 230 (13.00%) Security Cleared
2 176 (9.95%) SC Cleared
3 160 (9.04%) Degree
4 153 (8.65%) Microsoft Certification
5 80 (4.52%) DV Cleared
6 45 (2.54%) DBS Check
7 43 (2.43%) Azure Certification
8 36 (2.04%) Cisco Certification
9 35 (1.98%) A+ Certification
9 35 (1.98%) Microsoft Certified Professional
10 30 (1.70%) CCNA
11 22 (1.24%) Network+ Certification
12 21 (1.19%) ITIL Certification
13 19 (1.07%) HNC
13 19 (1.07%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 17 (0.96%) MCSE
15 16 (0.90%) MCSA
16 15 (0.85%) HND
17 12 (0.68%) CCNP
18 11 (0.62%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 156 (8.82%) SLA
2 147 (8.31%) Cyber Essentials
3 92 (5.20%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 83 (4.69%) PCI DSS
5 52 (2.94%) NIST
6 43 (2.43%) GDPR
7 39 (2.20%) NCSC
8 28 (1.58%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 16 (0.90%) QA
10 9 (0.51%) Accessibility
11 8 (0.45%) Data Quality
12 5 (0.28%) PMO
13 4 (0.23%) 21 CFR Part 11
13 4 (0.23%) GxP
13 4 (0.23%) ISO 22301
13 4 (0.23%) ITGC
14 3 (0.17%) GRC
14 3 (0.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 2 (0.11%) Disclosure Scotland
16 1 (0.057%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 352 (19.90%) Hyper-V
2 245 (13.85%) VMware Infrastructure
3 75 (4.24%) Terminal Server
4 47 (2.66%) vSphere
5 39 (2.20%) VMware ESXi
6 37 (2.09%) Virtual Desktop
7 23 (1.30%) Virtual Machines
8 15 (0.85%) BitLocker
8 15 (0.85%) Docker
9 11 (0.62%) Firmware
9 11 (0.62%) VMware Workstation
10 10 (0.57%) XenApp
11 9 (0.51%) VMware NSX
12 6 (0.34%) DFS Replication
13 5 (0.28%) Virtual Servers
14 4 (0.23%) Terminal Services
15 3 (0.17%) Citrix Hypervisor
15 3 (0.17%) Lustre
15 3 (0.17%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 3 (0.17%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 366 (20.69%) Microsoft Intune
2 137 (7.74%) SCCM
3 45 (2.54%) Single Sign-On
3 45 (2.54%) vCenter Server
4 40 (2.26%) Terraform
5 33 (1.87%) Jamf Pro
6 20 (1.13%) FortiGate
7 19 (1.07%) Autotask
8 17 (0.96%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 17 (0.96%) Ansible
9 15 (0.85%) WSUS
10 12 (0.68%) Kubernetes
10 12 (0.68%) SCOM
11 10 (0.57%) ZABBIX
12 9 (0.51%) Backup Exec
13 7 (0.40%) Proxmox
14 6 (0.34%) Failover Clustering
14 6 (0.34%) Nagios
14 6 (0.34%) SmoothWall
14 6 (0.34%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
Vendors
1 1,278 (72.24%) Microsoft
2 458 (25.89%) VMware
3 160 (9.04%) Veeam
4 112 (6.33%) SolarWinds
5 97 (5.48%) Nimble Storage
6 96 (5.43%) Cisco
7 93 (5.26%) Citrix
8 92 (5.20%) Apple
9 87 (4.92%) Splunk
10 82 (4.64%) Google
11 75 (4.24%) ServiceNow
12 74 (4.18%) Tanium
13 72 (4.07%) Brocade
14 63 (3.56%) HP
15 49 (2.77%) Dell
16 46 (2.60%) Oracle
17 35 (1.98%) Meraki
18 25 (1.41%) Dell Compellent
18 25 (1.41%) SonicWALL
19 21 (1.19%) Fortinet