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

6 months to
1 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 65 46 31
Rank change year-on-year -19 -15 +10
Permanent jobs citing Active Directory 1,816 1,559 4,429
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 2.69% 5.33% 6.05%
As % of the System Software category 54.50% 39.02% 50.90%
Number of salaries quoted 1,405 1,204 3,645
10th Percentile £26,375 £25,750 £23,500
25th Percentile £29,000 £27,750 £26,700
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £35,000 £35,000 £35,000
Median % change year-on-year - - -5.07%
75th Percentile £47,500 £47,500 £47,716
90th Percentile £63,750 £58,750 £57,500
UK median annual salary £39,500 £39,000 £37,500
% change year-on-year +1.28% +4.00% -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 3,332 3,995 8,702
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 4.93% 13.65% 11.90%
Number of salaries quoted 2,517 2,312 6,968
10th Percentile £27,750 £26,500 £25,500
25th Percentile £32,000 £31,250 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £46,500 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -3.23% +3.33% -5.26%
75th Percentile £64,250 £67,500 £60,000
90th Percentile £77,500 £83,750 £72,500
UK median annual salary £52,500 £53,688 £49,881
% change year-on-year -2.21% +7.63% -9.31%

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 1 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 1 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 -12 454 £35,000 +12.90% 104
South East +5 425 £40,000 - 156
Midlands -40 308 £33,500 +3.08% 57
South West -3 246 £35,000 +7.69% 51
North West +52 226 £37,500 - 57
East of England 0 206 £35,000 +7.69% 56
Yorkshire -39 183 £32,500 +8.33% 36
East Midlands -3 163 £32,500 +3.17% 30
West Midlands -58 144 £35,000 - 27
Scotland +64 103 £30,500 -39.00% 12
Wales -1 52 £45,000 +18.13% 9
North East -42 45 £42,500 +32.81% 13
Northern Ireland -26 16 £32,000 -37.56% 13
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
1 471 (25.94%) Microsoft Exchange
2 380 (20.93%) SharePoint
3 29 (1.60%) IIS
4 17 (0.94%) Confluence
5 11 (0.61%) Exchange Server 2013
6 9 (0.50%) Exchange Server 2007
6 9 (0.50%) Exchange Server 2010
7 5 (0.28%) Skype for Business
8 4 (0.22%) Apache
8 4 (0.22%) CMS
9 3 (0.17%) SAS
10 1 (0.055%) Drupal
10 1 (0.055%) nginx
10 1 (0.055%) WordPress
Applications
1 212 (11.67%) Microsoft Office
2 43 (2.37%) Microsoft Excel
3 10 (0.55%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.17%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 3 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
5 2 (0.11%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.055%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 18 (0.99%) Dynamics CRM
2 13 (0.72%) Dynamics NAV
3 7 (0.39%) NetSuite
3 7 (0.39%) Remedy ITSM
4 4 (0.22%) Dynamics GP
4 4 (0.22%) Exchequer
4 4 (0.22%) Primavera
5 3 (0.17%) Markit EDM
5 3 (0.17%) Oracle ERP
5 3 (0.17%) Salesforce CRM
6 2 (0.11%) Alphatax
6 2 (0.11%) SAP S/4HANA
7 1 (0.055%) Dynamics AX
7 1 (0.055%) Magento
7 1 (0.055%) Oracle Payables
7 1 (0.055%) Sage 200
7 1 (0.055%) SAP EHS
7 1 (0.055%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 1,274 (70.15%) Microsoft 365
2 980 (53.96%) Azure
3 679 (37.39%) Entra ID
4 143 (7.87%) OneDrive
5 142 (7.82%) AWS
6 89 (4.90%) Google Workspace
7 88 (4.85%) Power Platform
7 88 (4.85%) SaaS
8 47 (2.59%) IaaS
9 39 (2.15%) PaaS
10 38 (2.09%) Mimecast
11 36 (1.98%) Nutanix
12 29 (1.60%) Azure DevOps
13 26 (1.43%) PowerApps
14 24 (1.32%) Azure Sentinel
15 23 (1.27%) Microsoft Purview
16 21 (1.16%) Azure Monitor
16 21 (1.16%) Dynamics 365
17 17 (0.94%) Power Automate
18 15 (0.83%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 593 (32.65%) DNS
2 502 (27.64%) DHCP
3 457 (25.17%) Firewall
4 286 (15.75%) VPN
5 192 (10.57%) WAN
6 187 (10.30%) LAN
7 184 (10.13%) TCP/IP
8 170 (9.36%) Wi-Fi
9 156 (8.59%) VLAN
10 103 (5.67%) VoIP
11 83 (4.57%) Wireless
12 68 (3.74%) Network Security
13 66 (3.63%) SAN
14 59 (3.25%) Remote Desktop
15 43 (2.37%) Broadband
16 28 (1.54%) NAS
17 21 (1.16%) SD-WAN
18 20 (1.10%) Internet
19 15 (0.83%) SSL
20 14 (0.77%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 102 (5.62%) SQL Server
2 77 (4.24%) Amazon RDS
3 46 (2.53%) Power BI
4 30 (1.65%) PostgreSQL
5 25 (1.38%) MySQL
6 13 (0.72%) Azure SQL Database
7 9 (0.50%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 8 (0.44%) GIS
9 5 (0.28%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 4 (0.22%) Crystal Reports
10 4 (0.22%) Data Warehouse
10 4 (0.22%) Neo4j
11 2 (0.11%) Relational Database
12 1 (0.055%) Data Lake
12 1 (0.055%) InterSystems Cache
12 1 (0.055%) KNIME
12 1 (0.055%) Metadata
12 1 (0.055%) NoSQL
12 1 (0.055%) RDBMS
12 1 (0.055%) Redis
Development Applications
1 76 (4.19%) JIRA
2 11 (0.61%) GitLab
3 9 (0.50%) Git
4 7 (0.39%) Jenkins
5 5 (0.28%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
6 4 (0.22%) Bitbucket
6 4 (0.22%) LabVIEW
7 3 (0.17%) Burp Suite
7 3 (0.17%) Metasploit
7 3 (0.17%) Oracle Forms
7 3 (0.17%) Subversion
8 2 (0.11%) Terragrunt
9 1 (0.055%) Carbide.c++
9 1 (0.055%) Gatling
9 1 (0.055%) JMeter
9 1 (0.055%) Vagrant
General
1 766 (42.18%) Social Skills
2 182 (10.02%) Analytical Skills
3 143 (7.87%) Organisational Skills
4 121 (6.66%) Finance
5 67 (3.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 66 (3.63%) Manufacturing
7 60 (3.30%) Legal
8 53 (2.92%) Documentation Skills
8 53 (2.92%) Public Sector
9 51 (2.81%) Law
10 45 (2.48%) Retail
11 37 (2.04%) Games
12 30 (1.65%) Advertising
12 30 (1.65%) Telecoms
13 19 (1.05%) Local Government
14 11 (0.61%) Aerospace
14 11 (0.61%) Marketing
15 9 (0.50%) Automotive
15 9 (0.50%) Influencing Skills
16 4 (0.22%) Banking
Job Titles
1 694 (38.22%) IT Support
2 480 (26.43%) Support Engineer
3 430 (23.68%) IT Engineer
4 359 (19.77%) IT Support Engineer
5 285 (15.69%) Analyst
6 197 (10.85%) Support Analyst
7 182 (10.02%) Support Technician
8 179 (9.86%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 175 (9.64%) Senior
10 161 (8.87%) IT Technician
11 154 (8.48%) 2nd Line Support
12 146 (8.04%) IT Support Technician
13 130 (7.16%) IT Analyst
14 115 (6.33%) Systems Engineer
15 114 (6.28%) IT Support Analyst
16 90 (4.96%) 2nd Line Engineer
17 78 (4.30%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
18 71 (3.91%) Architect
19 70 (3.85%) 1st Line Support
19 70 (3.85%) Lead
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 51 (2.81%) LDAP
2 47 (2.59%) SAML
3 42 (2.31%) OpenID
4 41 (2.26%) OAuth
5 40 (2.20%) REST
6 38 (2.09%) SOAP
7 35 (1.93%) GraphQL
8 18 (0.99%) Regular Expression
9 15 (0.83%) JSON
9 15 (0.83%) XML
10 14 (0.77%) XMPP
11 8 (0.44%) Microsoft Graph
12 7 (0.39%) .NET
12 7 (0.39%) ARM Templates
13 6 (0.33%) Web Services
14 5 (0.28%) FreeSWITCH
14 5 (0.28%) Middleware
14 5 (0.28%) RESTful
15 4 (0.22%) boto
15 4 (0.22%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 245 (13.49%) Driving Licence
2 122 (6.72%) Onboarding
3 82 (4.52%) Self-Motivation
4 74 (4.07%) Hybrid Cloud
5 66 (3.63%) Legacy Systems
6 56 (3.08%) Data Centre
6 56 (3.08%) Management Information System
7 38 (2.09%) Cyberattack
7 38 (2.09%) Replication
8 37 (2.04%) Public Cloud
9 36 (1.98%) Cyber Threat
10 33 (1.82%) Enterprise Software
11 30 (1.65%) Clustering
12 29 (1.60%) PKI
13 26 (1.43%) Cloud Native
14 19 (1.05%) CCTV
15 16 (0.88%) Client/Server
16 15 (0.83%) Data Structures
16 15 (0.83%) Video Conferencing
17 14 (0.77%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 1,300 (71.59%) Windows
2 769 (42.35%) Windows Server
3 290 (15.97%) Windows 10
4 230 (12.67%) Linux
5 132 (7.27%) Windows Server 2016
6 107 (5.89%) Mac OS
7 79 (4.35%) Apple iOS
7 79 (4.35%) Windows Server 2019
8 70 (3.85%) Android
9 35 (1.93%) Windows Server 2012
10 34 (1.87%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 13 (0.72%) VMS
12 12 (0.66%) Windows 7
12 12 (0.66%) Windows Server 2008
13 7 (0.39%) Ubuntu
13 7 (0.39%) Windows 8
14 5 (0.28%) CentOS
14 5 (0.28%) Debian
15 4 (0.22%) Mac OS X
15 4 (0.22%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 598 (32.93%) Problem-Solving
2 448 (24.67%) Customer Service
3 420 (23.13%) ITIL
4 292 (16.08%) Cybersecurity
5 257 (14.15%) Continuous Improvement
6 235 (12.94%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 193 (10.63%) Mentoring
8 181 (9.97%) Disaster Recovery
9 171 (9.42%) ITSM
10 163 (8.98%) Service Delivery
11 116 (6.39%) Change Management
12 115 (6.33%) Migration
13 109 (6.00%) Vulnerability Remediation
14 99 (5.45%) Service Management
15 97 (5.34%) Project Delivery
16 94 (5.18%) Incident Management
17 93 (5.12%) Coaching
17 93 (5.12%) Root Cause Analysis
18 92 (5.07%) Kalman Filter
19 91 (5.01%) Customer Experience
Programming Languages
1 306 (16.85%) PowerShell
2 170 (9.36%) SQL
3 87 (4.79%) Bash
4 63 (3.47%) Python
5 46 (2.53%) T-SQL
6 16 (0.88%) R
7 13 (0.72%) Bicep
8 7 (0.39%) C#
8 7 (0.39%) Java
8 7 (0.39%) Shell Script
8 7 (0.39%) VB
9 6 (0.33%) Korn
9 6 (0.33%) VBA
10 5 (0.28%) JavaScript
11 4 (0.22%) PL/SQL
12 3 (0.17%) PHP
13 2 (0.11%) C
14 1 (0.055%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 242 (13.33%) Security Cleared
2 182 (10.02%) Degree
3 161 (8.87%) Microsoft Certification
3 161 (8.87%) SC Cleared
4 83 (4.57%) DV Cleared
5 59 (3.25%) Azure Certification
6 54 (2.97%) DBS Check
7 45 (2.48%) A+ Certification
8 35 (1.93%) Cisco Certification
8 35 (1.93%) Microsoft Certified Professional
9 34 (1.87%) CCNA
10 33 (1.82%) Network+ Certification
11 21 (1.16%) Computer Science Degree
12 20 (1.10%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 18 (0.99%) MCSE
14 17 (0.94%) HNC
15 16 (0.88%) CompTIA Security+
15 16 (0.88%) ITIL Certification
15 16 (0.88%) MCSA
16 11 (0.61%) RHCE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 169 (9.31%) SLA
2 153 (8.43%) Cyber Essentials
3 116 (6.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 71 (3.91%) PCI DSS
5 63 (3.47%) NIST
6 39 (2.15%) NCSC
7 36 (1.98%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 33 (1.82%) GDPR
9 22 (1.21%) QA
10 21 (1.16%) Data Quality
11 11 (0.61%) Accessibility
12 6 (0.33%) SOC 2
13 5 (0.28%) GRC
13 5 (0.28%) PMO
14 4 (0.22%) 21 CFR Part 11
14 4 (0.22%) GxP
14 4 (0.22%) ISO 22301
14 4 (0.22%) ITGC
15 2 (0.11%) ISO 9001
16 1 (0.055%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 375 (20.65%) Hyper-V
2 302 (16.63%) VMware Infrastructure
3 71 (3.91%) vSphere
4 59 (3.25%) Terminal Server
5 50 (2.75%) Virtual Desktop
6 48 (2.64%) VMware ESXi
7 34 (1.87%) Virtual Machines
8 33 (1.82%) Docker
9 17 (0.94%) BitLocker
9 17 (0.94%) VMware NSX
10 12 (0.66%) Virtual Servers
11 9 (0.50%) DFS Replication
12 8 (0.44%) Citrix Hypervisor
12 8 (0.44%) VMware Workstation
13 7 (0.39%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 6 (0.33%) XenApp
15 5 (0.28%) Firmware
16 4 (0.22%) Squid
17 3 (0.17%) Slurm Workload Manager
17 3 (0.17%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 381 (20.98%) Microsoft Intune
2 116 (6.39%) SCCM
3 40 (2.20%) vCenter Server
4 39 (2.15%) Single Sign-On
5 35 (1.93%) Terraform
6 32 (1.76%) Jamf Pro
7 29 (1.60%) Ansible
8 26 (1.43%) WSUS
9 25 (1.38%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 23 (1.27%) FortiGate
11 21 (1.16%) Kubernetes
12 18 (0.99%) Proxmox
13 13 (0.72%) SCOM
14 12 (0.66%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
15 11 (0.61%) Autotask
16 9 (0.50%) Backup Exec
16 9 (0.50%) ZABBIX
17 7 (0.39%) VxRail
18 5 (0.28%) Packer
18 5 (0.28%) SmoothWall
Vendors
1 1,346 (74.12%) Microsoft
2 477 (26.27%) VMware
3 160 (8.81%) Veeam
4 104 (5.73%) Cisco
5 92 (5.07%) Apple
6 90 (4.96%) SolarWinds
7 87 (4.79%) Citrix
8 81 (4.46%) Nimble Storage
9 77 (4.24%) Splunk
10 74 (4.07%) ServiceNow
11 65 (3.58%) Dell
11 65 (3.58%) HP
12 64 (3.52%) Google
13 58 (3.19%) Meraki
14 56 (3.08%) Brocade
14 56 (3.08%) Tanium
15 37 (2.04%) McAfee
16 36 (1.98%) Red Hat
17 30 (1.65%) CrowdStrike
18 27 (1.49%) Ubiquiti