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

6 months to
23 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 51 38 27
Rank change year-on-year -13 -11 +14
Permanent jobs citing Active Directory 1,816 1,733 3,733
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 3.69% 5.51% 7.34%
As % of the System Software category 62.43% 43.00% 49.25%
Number of salaries quoted 1,271 1,097 3,312
10th Percentile £26,250 £25,700 £24,250
25th Percentile £28,000 £29,000 £27,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £34,000 £37,500 £35,000
Median % change year-on-year -9.33% +7.14% -4.11%
75th Percentile £47,250 £52,500 £48,750
90th Percentile £60,000 £61,250 £57,500
UK median annual salary £37,500 £42,500 £40,000
% change year-on-year -11.76% +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 2,909 4,030 7,580
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 5.91% 12.81% 14.90%
Number of salaries quoted 2,043 2,402 6,357
10th Percentile £26,500 £27,500 £26,000
25th Percentile £30,500 £35,000 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £51,500 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -17.48% +14.44% -5.26%
75th Percentile £62,500 £70,000 £61,250
90th Percentile £75,000 £85,000 £75,500
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 23 February 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 23 February 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 +15 495 £36,000 -20.00% 216
North of England -20 380 £33,500 -10.67% 126
South West +7 300 £32,500 -2.99% 69
Midlands -26 270 £31,500 -14.29% 71
East of England -18 182 £34,420 +4.30% 62
Yorkshire -11 172 £32,500 - 49
North West -13 167 £37,500 -6.25% 68
East Midlands +4 158 £29,000 -4.92% 30
Scotland +10 119 £27,750 -25.00% 28
West Midlands -54 111 £33,000 -17.50% 40
Wales +14 45 £35,000 -27.91% 8
North East -12 41 £31,500 -11.27% 15
Northern Ireland -21 21 £32,000 -39.05% 4
Isle of Man +9 4 £45,000 +91.49% 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
1 532 (29.30%) Microsoft Exchange
2 339 (18.67%) SharePoint
3 23 (1.27%) Exchange Server 2003
4 14 (0.77%) Confluence
5 13 (0.72%) IIS
6 12 (0.66%) Exchange Server 2013
7 10 (0.55%) Exchange Server 2007
7 10 (0.55%) Exchange Server 2010
8 5 (0.28%) CMS
9 4 (0.22%) Skype for Business
10 3 (0.17%) Tomcat
10 3 (0.17%) WebLogic
10 3 (0.17%) WebLogic Portal
11 2 (0.11%) FactoryTalk
11 2 (0.11%) WinCC
11 2 (0.11%) WordPress
12 1 (0.055%) Apache
12 1 (0.055%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 280 (15.42%) Microsoft Office
2 36 (1.98%) Microsoft Excel
3 8 (0.44%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (0.22%) CATIA
5 3 (0.17%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.055%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 18 (0.99%) Oracle ERP
2 15 (0.83%) Dynamics CRM
3 6 (0.33%) NetSuite
3 6 (0.33%) Remedy ITSM
4 5 (0.28%) Dynamics NAV
5 4 (0.22%) Markit EDM
6 3 (0.17%) Dynamics GP
6 3 (0.17%) Oracle EBS
6 3 (0.17%) Primavera
7 2 (0.11%) Alphatax
7 2 (0.11%) Shopify
8 1 (0.055%) Cognos Business Intelligence
8 1 (0.055%) Dynamics AX
8 1 (0.055%) Sage 200
8 1 (0.055%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 1,288 (70.93%) Microsoft 365
2 1,011 (55.67%) Azure
3 612 (33.70%) Entra ID
4 136 (7.49%) AWS
5 134 (7.38%) OneDrive
6 103 (5.67%) Google Workspace
7 90 (4.96%) SaaS
8 68 (3.74%) Power Platform
9 38 (2.09%) Azure DevOps
10 37 (2.04%) IaaS
11 36 (1.98%) GCP
12 35 (1.93%) Azure Monitor
13 30 (1.65%) PaaS
14 27 (1.49%) GitHub
14 27 (1.49%) PowerApps
15 26 (1.43%) OCI
16 25 (1.38%) Nutanix
17 24 (1.32%) Mimecast
18 23 (1.27%) Azure Logic Apps
19 22 (1.21%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 671 (36.95%) DNS
2 637 (35.08%) DHCP
3 430 (23.68%) Firewall
4 279 (15.36%) VPN
5 247 (13.60%) TCP/IP
6 190 (10.46%) VLAN
7 173 (9.53%) WAN
8 170 (9.36%) LAN
9 134 (7.38%) Wi-Fi
10 84 (4.63%) VoIP
11 76 (4.19%) Wireless
12 54 (2.97%) Remote Desktop
13 53 (2.92%) Network Security
14 49 (2.70%) SAN
15 46 (2.53%) Broadband
16 27 (1.49%) SD-WAN
17 21 (1.16%) Internet
18 17 (0.94%) Unified Communications
19 16 (0.88%) Ethernet
20 15 (0.83%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 130 (7.16%) Amazon RDS
2 61 (3.36%) SQL Server
3 35 (1.93%) Power BI
4 26 (1.43%) Oracle Database
5 23 (1.27%) Oracle Database 10g
6 17 (0.94%) MySQL
7 14 (0.77%) PostgreSQL
8 11 (0.61%) Azure SQL Database
9 9 (0.50%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 8 (0.44%) GIS
11 6 (0.33%) Data Warehouse
11 6 (0.33%) Relational Database
12 4 (0.22%) DTS
13 3 (0.17%) Data Mining
13 3 (0.17%) Oracle Discoverer
13 3 (0.17%) Oracle Reports
14 2 (0.11%) NoSQL
15 1 (0.055%) Cognos Connection
15 1 (0.055%) Cognos Event Studio
15 1 (0.055%) Cognos Framework Manager
Development Applications
1 74 (4.07%) JIRA
2 24 (1.32%) Jenkins
3 22 (1.21%) Git
4 21 (1.16%) Oracle Forms
5 7 (0.39%) GitLab
6 5 (0.28%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
7 4 (0.22%) LabVIEW
8 3 (0.17%) Oracle APEX
8 3 (0.17%) Subversion
9 2 (0.11%) Visual Studio
10 1 (0.055%) Burp Suite
10 1 (0.055%) Metasploit
General
1 879 (48.40%) Social Skills
2 231 (12.72%) Analytical Skills
3 152 (8.37%) Organisational Skills
4 146 (8.04%) Finance
5 80 (4.41%) Manufacturing
6 66 (3.63%) Retail
7 63 (3.47%) Documentation Skills
8 59 (3.25%) Law
9 56 (3.08%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 42 (2.31%) Legal
11 38 (2.09%) Advertising
12 36 (1.98%) Games
12 36 (1.98%) Public Sector
13 28 (1.54%) Telecoms
14 20 (1.10%) Marketing
15 12 (0.66%) French Language
15 12 (0.66%) Swedish Language
16 9 (0.50%) Local Government
17 8 (0.44%) Aerospace
18 4 (0.22%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 701 (38.60%) IT Support
2 475 (26.16%) Support Engineer
3 391 (21.53%) IT Engineer
4 337 (18.56%) IT Support Engineer
5 239 (13.16%) Analyst
6 182 (10.02%) 2nd Line Support
7 174 (9.58%) Support Analyst
8 166 (9.14%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 164 (9.03%) Support Technician
10 150 (8.26%) Systems Engineer
11 140 (7.71%) IT Analyst
12 139 (7.65%) Senior
13 122 (6.72%) IT Support Analyst
14 112 (6.17%) IT Technician
15 109 (6.00%) IT Support Technician
16 101 (5.56%) 3rd Line Support
17 94 (5.18%) 2nd Line Engineer
18 93 (5.12%) 1st Line Support
19 85 (4.68%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
20 70 (3.85%) Cloud Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 58 (3.19%) SOAP
2 53 (2.92%) SAML
3 49 (2.70%) OAuth
3 49 (2.70%) OpenID
4 47 (2.59%) LDAP
5 45 (2.48%) REST
6 40 (2.20%) GraphQL
7 26 (1.43%) JSON
7 26 (1.43%) XML
8 23 (1.27%) RESTful
9 18 (0.99%) .NET
10 14 (0.77%) ARM Templates
11 12 (0.66%) CSS
11 12 (0.66%) HTML
11 12 (0.66%) React
12 9 (0.50%) .NET Framework
12 9 (0.50%) OAuth2
13 6 (0.33%) Web Services
14 5 (0.28%) FreeSWITCH
15 4 (0.22%) Razor View Engine
Miscellaneous
1 278 (15.31%) Driving Licence
2 126 (6.94%) Onboarding
3 117 (6.44%) Legacy Systems
4 84 (4.63%) Self-Motivation
5 67 (3.69%) Enterprise Software
6 43 (2.37%) Cyberattack
7 42 (2.31%) Cyber Threat
8 38 (2.09%) Hybrid Cloud
9 34 (1.87%) Cloud Native
9 34 (1.87%) Management Information System
10 33 (1.82%) Data Centre
11 29 (1.60%) Replication
12 22 (1.21%) Public Cloud
13 19 (1.05%) CMDB
14 17 (0.94%) iPad
14 17 (0.94%) Video Conferencing
15 16 (0.88%) Client/Server
16 15 (0.83%) Clustering
17 14 (0.77%) Linux Command Line
18 13 (0.72%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 1,285 (70.76%) Windows
2 799 (44.00%) Windows Server
3 275 (15.14%) Windows 10
4 234 (12.89%) Linux
5 167 (9.20%) Windows Server 2016
6 96 (5.29%) Mac OS
7 72 (3.96%) Android
8 71 (3.91%) Apple iOS
9 62 (3.41%) Windows Server 2019
10 40 (2.20%) Windows 7
11 34 (1.87%) Windows Server 2008
11 34 (1.87%) Windows Server 2012
12 28 (1.54%) Unix
13 23 (1.27%) HPUX
13 23 (1.27%) Solaris
13 23 (1.27%) Windows Server 2003
14 11 (0.61%) Windows 8
15 10 (0.55%) VMS
16 8 (0.44%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
17 6 (0.33%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 681 (37.50%) Problem-Solving
2 578 (31.83%) Customer Service
3 406 (22.36%) ITIL
4 259 (14.26%) Cybersecurity
5 237 (13.05%) Mentoring
6 213 (11.73%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 206 (11.34%) Continuous Improvement
8 182 (10.02%) Migration
9 181 (9.97%) ITSM
10 155 (8.54%) Service Delivery
11 149 (8.20%) Vulnerability Remediation
12 141 (7.76%) Disaster Recovery
13 133 (7.32%) Coaching
14 131 (7.21%) Kalman Filter
15 129 (7.10%) Web Filtering
16 127 (6.99%) Customer Experience
17 123 (6.77%) Incident Management
18 117 (6.44%) Email Filtering
19 115 (6.33%) Vulnerability Scanning
20 101 (5.56%) Agile
Programming Languages
1 305 (16.80%) PowerShell
2 137 (7.54%) SQL
3 82 (4.52%) Bash
4 59 (3.25%) Python
5 50 (2.75%) T-SQL
6 22 (1.21%) Perl
7 21 (1.16%) PL/SQL
8 20 (1.10%) Java
8 20 (1.10%) JavaScript
8 20 (1.10%) Shell Script
9 16 (0.88%) C#
10 9 (0.50%) VB
11 7 (0.39%) R
12 6 (0.33%) Bicep
13 5 (0.28%) VBA
14 2 (0.11%) Groovy
14 2 (0.11%) TypeScript
15 1 (0.055%) Korn
15 1 (0.055%) PHP
15 1 (0.055%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 255 (14.04%) Security Cleared
2 209 (11.51%) SC Cleared
3 168 (9.25%) Degree
4 160 (8.81%) Microsoft Certification
5 68 (3.74%) DV Cleared
6 53 (2.92%) DBS Check
7 45 (2.48%) Azure Certification
8 40 (2.20%) Cisco Certification
9 36 (1.98%) A+ Certification
10 33 (1.82%) CCNA
11 32 (1.76%) Microsoft Certified Professional
12 30 (1.65%) MCSE
13 21 (1.16%) ITIL Certification
13 21 (1.16%) Network+ Certification
14 17 (0.94%) HNC
14 17 (0.94%) HND
14 17 (0.94%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
15 13 (0.72%) MCSA
16 12 (0.66%) CCNP
17 11 (0.61%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 175 (9.64%) Cyber Essentials
2 136 (7.49%) SLA
3 120 (6.61%) PCI DSS
4 86 (4.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 53 (2.92%) NIST
6 50 (2.75%) GDPR
7 40 (2.20%) NCSC
8 19 (1.05%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 13 (0.72%) QA
10 9 (0.50%) Accessibility
11 8 (0.44%) Data Quality
12 5 (0.28%) PMO
13 4 (0.22%) 21 CFR Part 11
13 4 (0.22%) GxP
13 4 (0.22%) ISO 22301
13 4 (0.22%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 3 (0.17%) ITGC
15 2 (0.11%) Disclosure Scotland
16 1 (0.055%) GRC
16 1 (0.055%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 393 (21.64%) Hyper-V
2 251 (13.82%) VMware Infrastructure
3 114 (6.28%) Terminal Server
4 45 (2.48%) Virtual Desktop
5 43 (2.37%) vSphere
6 41 (2.26%) VMware ESXi
7 23 (1.27%) Virtual Machines
8 16 (0.88%) Docker
9 12 (0.66%) Firmware
10 11 (0.61%) BitLocker
11 10 (0.55%) VMware Workstation
12 9 (0.50%) VMware NSX
13 7 (0.39%) XenApp
14 6 (0.33%) Virtual Servers
15 4 (0.22%) DFS Replication
15 4 (0.22%) Terminal Services
16 3 (0.17%) Lustre
16 3 (0.17%) Slurm Workload Manager
17 1 (0.055%) Citrix Hypervisor
17 1 (0.055%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 369 (20.32%) Microsoft Intune
2 135 (7.43%) SCCM
3 51 (2.81%) Terraform
4 44 (2.42%) Single Sign-On
4 44 (2.42%) vCenter Server
5 30 (1.65%) Jamf Pro
6 21 (1.16%) Autotask
7 19 (1.05%) Ansible
8 18 (0.99%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 17 (0.94%) WSUS
10 16 (0.88%) FortiGate
10 16 (0.88%) Kubernetes
11 11 (0.61%) SCOM
11 11 (0.61%) ZABBIX
12 9 (0.50%) Backup Exec
12 9 (0.50%) Failover Clustering
13 8 (0.44%) Nagios
14 7 (0.39%) SCVMM
15 6 (0.33%) Proxmox
15 6 (0.33%) SmoothWall
Vendors
1 1,326 (73.02%) Microsoft
2 503 (27.70%) VMware
3 202 (11.12%) Veeam
4 155 (8.54%) SolarWinds
5 134 (7.38%) Nimble Storage
6 127 (6.99%) Splunk
7 116 (6.39%) Tanium
8 112 (6.17%) Brocade
9 101 (5.56%) Cisco
10 89 (4.90%) Apple
11 82 (4.52%) Google
12 81 (4.46%) Citrix
13 73 (4.02%) ServiceNow
14 62 (3.41%) HP
15 48 (2.64%) Oracle
16 46 (2.53%) Dell
17 35 (1.93%) Meraki
18 24 (1.32%) SonicWALL
19 22 (1.21%) Dell Compellent
19 22 (1.21%) Fortinet