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

6 months to
24 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 56 43 30
Rank change year-on-year -13 -13 +9
Permanent jobs citing Active Directory 1,963 1,655 4,510
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 2.87% 5.44% 5.75%
As % of the System Software category 53.52% 40.18% 51.34%
Number of salaries quoted 1,543 1,305 3,613
10th Percentile £26,500 £25,750 £23,750
25th Percentile £29,000 £28,000 £26,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £37,000 £35,000 £35,000
Median % change year-on-year +5.71% - -5.41%
75th Percentile £48,750 £47,500 £48,500
90th Percentile £64,900 £61,250 £58,650
UK median annual salary £40,000 £38,500 £37,500
% change year-on-year +3.90% +2.67% -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 3,668 4,119 8,784
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 5.35% 13.55% 11.20%
Number of salaries quoted 2,820 2,414 6,865
10th Percentile £27,750 £26,500 £25,625
25th Percentile £32,000 £31,250 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £47,083 £46,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year +2.35% +2.22% -5.26%
75th Percentile £65,000 £67,500 £60,000
90th Percentile £77,500 £82,751 £72,500
UK median annual salary £52,500 £52,500 £49,500
% change year-on-year - +6.06% -10.00%

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 24 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 24 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
South East +1 486 £40,000 - 160
North of England -1 479 £34,000 +6.25% 115
Midlands -34 325 £35,000 - 74
South West -13 267 £37,500 +15.38% 57
North West +53 235 £37,500 - 57
East of England +5 225 £35,000 +7.69% 61
Yorkshire -25 192 £32,500 +8.33% 50
East Midlands -3 167 £32,500 +1.56% 45
West Midlands -44 157 £37,500 -1.32% 29
Scotland +79 103 £28,500 -21.38% 21
Wales -5 61 £45,000 +18.13% 14
North East -42 52 £42,500 +32.81% 14
Northern Ireland -26 13 £32,000 -39.05% 16
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
1 542 (27.61%) Microsoft Exchange
2 415 (21.14%) SharePoint
3 37 (1.88%) IIS
4 15 (0.76%) Confluence
5 11 (0.56%) Exchange Server 2013
6 9 (0.46%) Exchange Server 2007
6 9 (0.46%) Exchange Server 2010
7 7 (0.36%) Skype for Business
8 4 (0.20%) Apache
8 4 (0.20%) CMS
9 3 (0.15%) SAS
10 1 (0.051%) Drupal
10 1 (0.051%) nginx
10 1 (0.051%) Site Server
10 1 (0.051%) WordPress
Applications
1 210 (10.70%) Microsoft Office
2 42 (2.14%) Microsoft Excel
3 12 (0.61%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.15%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 3 (0.15%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.051%) AutoCAD
5 1 (0.051%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 17 (0.87%) Dynamics CRM
2 13 (0.66%) Dynamics NAV
3 8 (0.41%) Remedy ITSM
4 6 (0.31%) NetSuite
5 4 (0.20%) Dynamics GP
5 4 (0.20%) Exchequer
5 4 (0.20%) Primavera
6 3 (0.15%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.10%) Alphatax
7 2 (0.10%) Raiser’s Edge
7 2 (0.10%) SAP S/4HANA
8 1 (0.051%) Dynamics AX
8 1 (0.051%) JDE EnterpriseOne
8 1 (0.051%) Magento
8 1 (0.051%) Oracle Payables
8 1 (0.051%) SAP EHS
8 1 (0.051%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 1,378 (70.20%) Microsoft 365
2 1,074 (54.71%) Azure
3 752 (38.31%) Entra ID
4 144 (7.34%) OneDrive
5 137 (6.98%) AWS
6 97 (4.94%) SaaS
7 84 (4.28%) Power Platform
8 76 (3.87%) Google Workspace
9 64 (3.26%) IaaS
10 55 (2.80%) PaaS
11 50 (2.55%) Mimecast
12 41 (2.09%) Azure DevOps
13 32 (1.63%) Azure Monitor
14 30 (1.53%) Nutanix
15 29 (1.48%) Microsoft Purview
16 28 (1.43%) Serverless
17 26 (1.32%) Azure Sentinel
18 25 (1.27%) PowerApps
19 22 (1.12%) Azure Functions
20 20 (1.02%) GitHub
Communications & Networking
1 656 (33.42%) DNS
2 550 (28.02%) DHCP
3 514 (26.18%) Firewall
4 328 (16.71%) VPN
5 215 (10.95%) TCP/IP
6 198 (10.09%) WAN
7 192 (9.78%) LAN
8 190 (9.68%) Wi-Fi
9 186 (9.48%) VLAN
10 116 (5.91%) VoIP
11 96 (4.89%) Wireless
12 83 (4.23%) Network Security
13 76 (3.87%) SAN
14 51 (2.60%) Remote Desktop
15 41 (2.09%) Broadband
16 29 (1.48%) NAS
17 23 (1.17%) Internet
18 20 (1.02%) SD-WAN
19 17 (0.87%) SSL
20 15 (0.76%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 113 (5.76%) SQL Server
2 93 (4.74%) Amazon RDS
3 46 (2.34%) Power BI
4 30 (1.53%) PostgreSQL
5 29 (1.48%) Azure SQL Database
6 26 (1.32%) MySQL
7 9 (0.46%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 6 (0.31%) Crystal Reports
8 6 (0.31%) GIS
9 5 (0.25%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 4 (0.20%) Neo4j
11 3 (0.15%) Oracle Database
12 2 (0.10%) BusinessObjects
12 2 (0.10%) Data Lake
12 2 (0.10%) Data Warehouse
12 2 (0.10%) Relational Database
13 1 (0.051%) InterSystems Cache
13 1 (0.051%) KNIME
13 1 (0.051%) RDBMS
13 1 (0.051%) Redis
Development Applications
1 75 (3.82%) JIRA
2 22 (1.12%) Git
3 11 (0.56%) GitLab
4 5 (0.25%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
5 4 (0.20%) Bitbucket
5 4 (0.20%) Jenkins
6 2 (0.10%) Burp Suite
6 2 (0.10%) LabVIEW
6 2 (0.10%) Metasploit
6 2 (0.10%) Subversion
6 2 (0.10%) Terragrunt
7 1 (0.051%) Carbide.c++
7 1 (0.051%) Gatling
7 1 (0.051%) JMeter
7 1 (0.051%) Ranorex
7 1 (0.051%) Selenium
7 1 (0.051%) Team Foundation Server
7 1 (0.051%) Vagrant
General
1 841 (42.84%) Social Skills
2 212 (10.80%) Analytical Skills
3 146 (7.44%) Organisational Skills
4 116 (5.91%) Finance
5 73 (3.72%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 68 (3.46%) Legal
7 66 (3.36%) Manufacturing
8 65 (3.31%) Law
9 61 (3.11%) Documentation Skills
10 58 (2.95%) Public Sector
11 47 (2.39%) Retail
12 38 (1.94%) Telecoms
13 33 (1.68%) Games
14 25 (1.27%) Advertising
15 21 (1.07%) Local Government
16 14 (0.71%) Aerospace
17 11 (0.56%) Automotive
18 9 (0.46%) Influencing Skills
18 9 (0.46%) Marketing
19 5 (0.25%) Banking
Job Titles
1 749 (38.16%) IT Support
2 511 (26.03%) Support Engineer
3 474 (24.15%) IT Engineer
4 394 (20.07%) IT Support Engineer
5 328 (16.71%) Analyst
6 219 (11.16%) Support Analyst
7 197 (10.04%) Senior
8 189 (9.63%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 186 (9.48%) Support Technician
10 177 (9.02%) IT Technician
11 159 (8.10%) 2nd Line Support
12 157 (8.00%) IT Support Technician
13 152 (7.74%) Systems Engineer
14 148 (7.54%) IT Analyst
15 132 (6.72%) IT Support Analyst
16 93 (4.74%) 2nd Line Engineer
17 78 (3.97%) Architect
18 77 (3.92%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
19 76 (3.87%) 3rd Line Support
20 73 (3.72%) 1st Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 58 (2.95%) LDAP
2 43 (2.19%) SAML
3 38 (1.94%) OpenID
4 37 (1.88%) OAuth
4 37 (1.88%) REST
5 32 (1.63%) GraphQL
5 32 (1.63%) SOAP
6 22 (1.12%) Regular Expression
7 18 (0.92%) XMPP
8 14 (0.71%) JSON
8 14 (0.71%) XML
9 11 (0.56%) ARM Templates
10 10 (0.51%) .NET
11 9 (0.46%) Microsoft Graph
12 8 (0.41%) Middleware
12 8 (0.41%) Web Services
13 7 (0.36%) HTML
14 6 (0.31%) JSON Schema
15 5 (0.25%) FreeSWITCH
16 4 (0.20%) boto
Miscellaneous
1 272 (13.86%) Driving Licence
2 134 (6.83%) Onboarding
3 112 (5.71%) Self-Motivation
4 86 (4.38%) Hybrid Cloud
4 86 (4.38%) Legacy Systems
5 64 (3.26%) Data Centre
6 63 (3.21%) Management Information System
7 43 (2.19%) Public Cloud
8 40 (2.04%) PKI
9 38 (1.94%) Cyber Threat
10 37 (1.88%) Clustering
10 37 (1.88%) Replication
11 36 (1.83%) Cyberattack
12 29 (1.48%) Security Posture
13 28 (1.43%) Cloud Native
14 27 (1.38%) Enterprise Software
15 25 (1.27%) CCTV
16 16 (0.82%) Client/Server
17 15 (0.76%) Data Structures
18 14 (0.71%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 1,415 (72.08%) Windows
2 848 (43.20%) Windows Server
3 310 (15.79%) Windows 10
4 258 (13.14%) Linux
5 156 (7.95%) Windows Server 2016
6 126 (6.42%) Mac OS
7 91 (4.64%) Windows Server 2019
8 74 (3.77%) Apple iOS
9 67 (3.41%) Android
10 38 (1.94%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 34 (1.73%) Windows Server 2012
12 26 (1.32%) VMS
13 14 (0.71%) Windows 7
14 12 (0.61%) Windows Server 2008
15 8 (0.41%) Ubuntu
16 7 (0.36%) Windows 8
17 5 (0.25%) CentOS
17 5 (0.25%) Debian
18 4 (0.20%) Mac OS X
18 4 (0.20%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 668 (34.03%) Problem-Solving
2 487 (24.81%) Customer Service
3 430 (21.91%) ITIL
4 331 (16.86%) Cybersecurity
5 313 (15.94%) Continuous Improvement
6 265 (13.50%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 217 (11.05%) Mentoring
8 209 (10.65%) Disaster Recovery
9 181 (9.22%) Service Delivery
10 176 (8.97%) ITSM
11 145 (7.39%) Migration
12 122 (6.21%) Project Delivery
13 121 (6.16%) Vulnerability Remediation
14 113 (5.76%) Change Management
15 112 (5.71%) Customer Experience
16 111 (5.65%) Kalman Filter
17 107 (5.45%) Incident Management
18 104 (5.30%) Web Filtering
19 102 (5.20%) Roadmaps
19 102 (5.20%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 336 (17.12%) PowerShell
2 195 (9.93%) SQL
3 91 (4.64%) Bash
4 58 (2.95%) Python
5 44 (2.24%) T-SQL
6 32 (1.63%) Bicep
7 22 (1.12%) R
8 12 (0.61%) Kusto Query Language
9 9 (0.46%) C#
9 9 (0.46%) VBA
10 7 (0.36%) VB
11 6 (0.31%) Korn
11 6 (0.31%) Shell Script
12 5 (0.25%) Java
12 5 (0.25%) JavaScript
12 5 (0.25%) PHP
13 2 (0.10%) C
13 2 (0.10%) Ruby
13 2 (0.10%) VB.NET
13 2 (0.10%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 273 (13.91%) Security Cleared
2 194 (9.88%) Degree
3 180 (9.17%) SC Cleared
4 176 (8.97%) Microsoft Certification
5 87 (4.43%) Azure Certification
6 85 (4.33%) DV Cleared
7 58 (2.95%) DBS Check
8 46 (2.34%) A+ Certification
8 46 (2.34%) Cisco Certification
9 43 (2.19%) CCNA
10 35 (1.78%) Network+ Certification
11 33 (1.68%) Microsoft Certified Professional
12 20 (1.02%) Computer Science Degree
12 20 (1.02%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 19 (0.97%) MCSA
14 16 (0.82%) HNC
15 15 (0.76%) CompTIA Security+
15 15 (0.76%) ITIL Certification
16 13 (0.66%) MCSE
17 11 (0.56%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 189 (9.63%) Cyber Essentials
2 179 (9.12%) SLA
3 136 (6.93%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 88 (4.48%) PCI DSS
5 58 (2.95%) NIST
6 45 (2.29%) GDPR
7 42 (2.14%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 37 (1.88%) NCSC
9 22 (1.12%) QA
10 21 (1.07%) Data Quality
11 9 (0.46%) Accessibility
12 6 (0.31%) SOC 2
13 5 (0.25%) PMO
14 4 (0.20%) 21 CFR Part 11
14 4 (0.20%) GRC
14 4 (0.20%) GxP
14 4 (0.20%) ITGC
15 3 (0.15%) ISO 22301
16 2 (0.10%) ISAE 3402
16 2 (0.10%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 443 (22.57%) Hyper-V
2 345 (17.58%) VMware Infrastructure
3 97 (4.94%) vSphere
4 74 (3.77%) Terminal Server
5 64 (3.26%) Virtual Desktop
6 51 (2.60%) VMware ESXi
7 47 (2.39%) Virtual Machines
8 33 (1.68%) Docker
9 17 (0.87%) VMware NSX
10 14 (0.71%) BitLocker
11 11 (0.56%) Firmware
11 11 (0.56%) Virtual Servers
12 9 (0.46%) DFS Replication
13 8 (0.41%) Citrix Hypervisor
14 7 (0.36%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 7 (0.36%) VMware Workstation
15 6 (0.31%) XenApp
16 4 (0.20%) Squid
17 2 (0.10%) Samba
17 2 (0.10%) VMware Server
Systems Management
1 419 (21.34%) Microsoft Intune
2 106 (5.40%) SCCM
3 48 (2.45%) Terraform
4 37 (1.88%) vCenter Server
5 32 (1.63%) Single Sign-On
6 30 (1.53%) FortiGate
6 30 (1.53%) Jamf Pro
7 27 (1.38%) WSUS
8 25 (1.27%) Ansible
9 23 (1.17%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 22 (1.12%) Kubernetes
10 22 (1.12%) Proxmox
11 16 (0.82%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
12 11 (0.56%) Autotask
13 10 (0.51%) ZABBIX
14 9 (0.46%) Backup Exec
14 9 (0.46%) SCOM
15 8 (0.41%) Failover Clustering
16 6 (0.31%) VxRail
17 5 (0.25%) Microsoft Clustering
Vendors
1 1,500 (76.41%) Microsoft
2 535 (27.25%) VMware
3 181 (9.22%) Veeam
4 120 (6.11%) Cisco
5 101 (5.15%) SolarWinds
6 91 (4.64%) Nimble Storage
7 90 (4.58%) Splunk
8 82 (4.18%) Citrix
9 78 (3.97%) Apple
10 75 (3.82%) ServiceNow
11 72 (3.67%) Brocade
11 72 (3.67%) Tanium
12 62 (3.16%) Meraki
13 61 (3.11%) Dell
14 59 (3.01%) HP
15 56 (2.85%) Google
16 36 (1.83%) McAfee
17 35 (1.78%) CrowdStrike
18 34 (1.73%) Red Hat
19 33 (1.68%) Ubiquiti