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

6 months to
2 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 56 41 35
Rank change year-on-year -15 -6 -1
Permanent jobs citing Active Directory 2,152 1,856 3,205
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 2.87% 5.40% 5.35%
As % of the System Software category 51.13% 42.28% 51.82%
Number of salaries quoted 1,648 1,481 2,463
10th Percentile £26,750 £26,000 £24,700
25th Percentile £29,500 £28,500 £28,270
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £37,500 £35,000 £37,500
Median % change year-on-year +7.14% -6.67% +1.35%
75th Percentile £50,000 £48,000 £50,000
90th Percentile £65,000 £62,500 £59,750
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 4,209 4,390 6,185
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 5.61% 12.77% 10.32%
Number of salaries quoted 3,181 2,578 4,675
10th Percentile £28,250 £26,500 £26,250
25th Percentile £33,500 £31,250 £32,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £45,000 £46,000
Median % change year-on-year +11.11% -2.17% -3.43%
75th Percentile £66,250 £63,938 £61,250
90th Percentile £80,000 £78,750 £73,750
UK median annual salary £55,000 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +10.00% - -9.34%

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 2 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 2 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
South East -6 510 £42,500 +6.25% 168
North of England -15 495 £34,000 +6.25% 139
Midlands -30 368 £37,500 +7.14% 82
South West -18 293 £37,500 +8.70% 67
North West +58 259 £35,000 - 75
East of England +2 232 £35,000 +4.48% 57
East Midlands -6 197 £37,500 +19.05% 40
Yorkshire -31 179 £31,000 +3.33% 48
West Midlands -46 171 £42,500 +10.39% 42
Scotland +82 114 £29,500 -4.84% 17
Wales -19 74 £42,500 +11.57% 12
Northern Ireland -16 67 £39,500 -28.18% 10
North East -58 57 £40,000 +25.00% 25
Isle of Man +2 5 £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
1 634 (29.46%) Microsoft Exchange
2 447 (20.77%) SharePoint
3 47 (2.18%) IIS
4 17 (0.79%) Confluence
5 10 (0.46%) Skype for Business
6 7 (0.33%) Apache
6 7 (0.33%) Exchange Server 2013
7 5 (0.23%) Exchange Server 2007
7 5 (0.23%) Exchange Server 2010
8 4 (0.19%) CMS
9 3 (0.14%) SAS
10 2 (0.093%) nginx
11 1 (0.046%) Drupal
11 1 (0.046%) HCL Domino
11 1 (0.046%) HCL Notes
11 1 (0.046%) Site Server
11 1 (0.046%) WordPress
Applications
1 179 (8.32%) Microsoft Office
2 44 (2.04%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (0.70%) 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 17 (0.79%) Dynamics CRM
2 11 (0.51%) Dynamics NAV
3 10 (0.46%) Remedy ITSM
4 6 (0.28%) Raiser’s Edge
5 5 (0.23%) JDE EnterpriseOne
5 5 (0.23%) NetSuite
6 4 (0.19%) Dynamics GP
6 4 (0.19%) Exchequer
6 4 (0.19%) Primavera
7 3 (0.14%) Payment Gateway
7 3 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
7 3 (0.14%) Shopify
8 2 (0.093%) Alphatax
8 2 (0.093%) Sage 200
8 2 (0.093%) SAP S/4HANA
9 1 (0.046%) Dynamics AX
9 1 (0.046%) Magento
9 1 (0.046%) Oracle Payables
9 1 (0.046%) Sage 50
9 1 (0.046%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 1,495 (69.47%) Microsoft 365
2 1,213 (56.37%) Azure
3 919 (42.70%) Entra ID
4 159 (7.39%) AWS
5 151 (7.02%) OneDrive
6 105 (4.88%) SaaS
7 83 (3.86%) Power Platform
8 66 (3.07%) IaaS
9 60 (2.79%) Mimecast
10 54 (2.51%) PaaS
11 46 (2.14%) Azure DevOps
12 39 (1.81%) Microsoft Purview
13 36 (1.67%) Azure Sentinel
13 36 (1.67%) Google Workspace
14 29 (1.35%) Serverless
15 27 (1.25%) Azure Monitor
15 27 (1.25%) Power Automate
16 25 (1.16%) GCP
16 25 (1.16%) Nutanix
17 24 (1.12%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 707 (32.85%) DNS
2 590 (27.42%) DHCP
3 521 (24.21%) Firewall
4 358 (16.64%) VPN
5 250 (11.62%) TCP/IP
6 210 (9.76%) WAN
7 207 (9.62%) Wi-Fi
8 205 (9.53%) LAN
9 199 (9.25%) VLAN
10 133 (6.18%) VoIP
11 129 (5.99%) Wireless
12 84 (3.90%) Network Security
13 81 (3.76%) SAN
14 52 (2.42%) Remote Desktop
15 30 (1.39%) NAS
16 29 (1.35%) Internet
17 26 (1.21%) SSL
18 20 (0.93%) Broadband
19 17 (0.79%) WLAN
20 16 (0.74%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 111 (5.16%) SQL Server
2 108 (5.02%) Amazon RDS
3 39 (1.81%) Power BI
4 32 (1.49%) Azure SQL Database
5 25 (1.16%) PostgreSQL
6 24 (1.12%) MySQL
7 6 (0.28%) Crystal Reports
8 5 (0.23%) Relational Database
8 5 (0.23%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 5 (0.23%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 4 (0.19%) Data Warehouse
9 4 (0.19%) Neo4j
10 3 (0.14%) GIS
10 3 (0.14%) Oracle Database
11 2 (0.093%) BusinessObjects
11 2 (0.093%) Data Lake
11 2 (0.093%) KNIME
12 1 (0.046%) InterSystems Cache
12 1 (0.046%) RDBMS
12 1 (0.046%) Redis
Development Applications
1 74 (3.44%) JIRA
2 27 (1.25%) Git
3 8 (0.37%) Jenkins
4 7 (0.33%) GitLab
5 5 (0.23%) Bitbucket
6 3 (0.14%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
7 2 (0.093%) Artifactory
7 2 (0.093%) Burp Suite
7 2 (0.093%) Metasploit
7 2 (0.093%) NUnit
7 2 (0.093%) Terragrunt
8 1 (0.046%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 1 (0.046%) Carbide.c++
8 1 (0.046%) Gatling
8 1 (0.046%) git-flow
8 1 (0.046%) JMeter
8 1 (0.046%) Selenium
8 1 (0.046%) Sonatype Nexus
8 1 (0.046%) Subversion
8 1 (0.046%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 971 (45.12%) Social Skills
2 255 (11.85%) Analytical Skills
3 141 (6.55%) Legal
4 130 (6.04%) Finance
5 97 (4.51%) Organisational Skills
6 90 (4.18%) Law
7 76 (3.53%) Manufacturing
8 73 (3.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 61 (2.83%) Public Sector
10 56 (2.60%) Retail
11 48 (2.23%) Documentation Skills
12 47 (2.18%) Telecoms
13 30 (1.39%) Advertising
14 21 (0.98%) Aerospace
15 18 (0.84%) Local Government
16 14 (0.65%) Games
17 13 (0.60%) Automotive
18 9 (0.42%) Influencing Skills
19 7 (0.33%) Banking
20 6 (0.28%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 788 (36.62%) IT Support
2 542 (25.19%) Support Engineer
3 507 (23.56%) IT Engineer
4 424 (19.70%) IT Support Engineer
5 349 (16.22%) Analyst
6 255 (11.85%) Senior
7 225 (10.46%) Support Analyst
8 200 (9.29%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 198 (9.20%) Support Technician
10 195 (9.06%) IT Technician
11 173 (8.04%) IT Support Technician
12 169 (7.85%) Systems Engineer
13 153 (7.11%) 2nd Line Support
14 149 (6.92%) IT Analyst
15 133 (6.18%) IT Support Analyst
16 91 (4.23%) 2nd Line Engineer
17 88 (4.09%) Architect
18 82 (3.81%) Administrator
19 81 (3.76%) 3rd Line Support
20 77 (3.58%) Lead
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 45 (2.09%) LDAP
2 29 (1.35%) SAML
3 25 (1.16%) OpenID
4 23 (1.07%) OAuth
4 23 (1.07%) Regular Expression
5 19 (0.88%) XMPP
6 17 (0.79%) REST
7 11 (0.51%) .NET
7 11 (0.51%) ARM Templates
7 11 (0.51%) JSON
7 11 (0.51%) XML
8 10 (0.46%) GraphQL
8 10 (0.46%) Microsoft Graph
8 10 (0.46%) SOAP
9 9 (0.42%) HTML
9 9 (0.42%) Web Services
10 7 (0.33%) JSON Schema
10 7 (0.33%) OAuth2
11 6 (0.28%) Middleware
12 5 (0.23%) ODBC
Miscellaneous
1 299 (13.89%) Driving Licence
2 174 (8.09%) Onboarding
3 123 (5.72%) Self-Motivation
4 103 (4.79%) Legacy Systems
5 86 (4.00%) Hybrid Cloud
6 71 (3.30%) Data Centre
7 66 (3.07%) Management Information System
8 50 (2.32%) PKI
9 48 (2.23%) Clustering
10 39 (1.81%) Public Cloud
11 36 (1.67%) Cloud Native
11 36 (1.67%) Enterprise Software
11 36 (1.67%) Security Posture
12 35 (1.63%) Replication
13 33 (1.53%) CCTV
14 17 (0.79%) Cyber Threat
15 16 (0.74%) Client/Server
15 16 (0.74%) iPhone
16 15 (0.70%) Enterprise Storage
17 14 (0.65%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 1,539 (71.51%) Windows
2 897 (41.68%) Windows Server
3 301 (13.99%) Windows 10
4 286 (13.29%) Linux
5 169 (7.85%) Windows Server 2016
6 150 (6.97%) Mac OS
7 87 (4.04%) Windows Server 2019
8 78 (3.62%) Apple iOS
9 67 (3.11%) Android
10 44 (2.04%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 24 (1.12%) VMS
12 22 (1.02%) Windows Server 2012
13 15 (0.70%) Ubuntu
14 10 (0.46%) Windows 7
15 8 (0.37%) CentOS
15 8 (0.37%) Windows Server 2008
16 5 (0.23%) CoreOS
16 5 (0.23%) Debian
17 4 (0.19%) Mac OS X
17 4 (0.19%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 725 (33.69%) Problem-Solving
2 540 (25.09%) Customer Service
3 498 (23.14%) ITIL
4 413 (19.19%) Continuous Improvement
5 408 (18.96%) Cybersecurity
6 311 (14.45%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 267 (12.41%) Mentoring
8 244 (11.34%) Disaster Recovery
9 203 (9.43%) ITSM
10 179 (8.32%) Service Delivery
11 175 (8.13%) Project Delivery
12 162 (7.53%) Migration
13 160 (7.43%) Identity Access Management
14 144 (6.69%) Customer Experience
15 139 (6.46%) Vulnerability Remediation
16 130 (6.04%) Kalman Filter
17 122 (5.67%) Collaborative Working
17 122 (5.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 121 (5.62%) Service Management
19 120 (5.58%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 332 (15.43%) PowerShell
2 196 (9.11%) SQL
3 69 (3.21%) Python
4 67 (3.11%) Bash
5 43 (2.00%) Bicep
6 28 (1.30%) R
7 16 (0.74%) T-SQL
8 12 (0.56%) Kusto Query Language
8 12 (0.56%) VBA
9 9 (0.42%) C#
10 8 (0.37%) Ruby
11 7 (0.33%) Shell Script
12 6 (0.28%) Java
12 6 (0.28%) Korn
13 5 (0.23%) PHP
14 3 (0.14%) JavaScript
15 2 (0.093%) C
15 2 (0.093%) VB
15 2 (0.093%) VB.NET
15 2 (0.093%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 304 (14.13%) Security Cleared
2 216 (10.04%) SC Cleared
3 204 (9.48%) Degree
4 179 (8.32%) Microsoft Certification
5 102 (4.74%) Azure Certification
6 92 (4.28%) DV Cleared
7 91 (4.23%) A+ Certification
8 90 (4.18%) Network+ Certification
9 65 (3.02%) CISM
9 65 (3.02%) CISSP
10 59 (2.74%) Cisco Certification
11 58 (2.70%) DBS Check
12 54 (2.51%) CCNA
13 27 (1.25%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 24 (1.12%) Microsoft Certified Professional
15 22 (1.02%) Computer Science Degree
16 20 (0.93%) MCSA
17 16 (0.74%) AWS Certification
17 16 (0.74%) CompTIA Security+
18 13 (0.60%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 223 (10.36%) Cyber Essentials
2 170 (7.90%) SLA
3 127 (5.90%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 104 (4.83%) PCI DSS
5 50 (2.32%) GDPR
6 47 (2.18%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 33 (1.53%) NIST
8 21 (0.98%) QA
9 17 (0.79%) Data Quality
9 17 (0.79%) NCSC
10 9 (0.42%) Accessibility
11 6 (0.28%) SOC 2
12 4 (0.19%) GRC
12 4 (0.19%) ITGC
13 3 (0.14%) ISAE 3402
13 3 (0.14%) PMO
14 2 (0.093%) 21 CFR Part 11
14 2 (0.093%) GxP
14 2 (0.093%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 1 (0.046%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 504 (23.42%) Hyper-V
2 369 (17.15%) VMware Infrastructure
3 95 (4.41%) vSphere
4 89 (4.14%) Terminal Server
5 62 (2.88%) Virtual Desktop
6 50 (2.32%) Virtual Machines
7 44 (2.04%) VMware ESXi
8 37 (1.72%) Docker
9 16 (0.74%) Firmware
9 16 (0.74%) Virtual Servers
10 14 (0.65%) VMware NSX
11 13 (0.60%) BitLocker
12 12 (0.56%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 9 (0.42%) Citrix Hypervisor
14 8 (0.37%) DFS Replication
15 5 (0.23%) NDS
15 5 (0.23%) XenApp
16 4 (0.19%) Squid
16 4 (0.19%) VMware Workstation
17 3 (0.14%) VMware Server
Systems Management
1 558 (25.93%) Microsoft Intune
2 104 (4.83%) SCCM
3 64 (2.97%) Terraform
4 42 (1.95%) Single Sign-On
5 32 (1.49%) Ansible
6 31 (1.44%) Jamf Pro
6 31 (1.44%) Kubernetes
7 28 (1.30%) FortiGate
7 28 (1.30%) vCenter Server
8 26 (1.21%) WSUS
9 20 (0.93%) Proxmox
10 18 (0.84%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
11 15 (0.70%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 15 (0.70%) Failover Clustering
11 15 (0.70%) ZABBIX
12 11 (0.51%) Microsoft Clustering
13 9 (0.42%) SCOM
14 6 (0.28%) Autotask
14 6 (0.28%) Grafana
14 6 (0.28%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 1,731 (80.44%) Microsoft
2 564 (26.21%) VMware
3 205 (9.53%) Veeam
4 154 (7.16%) Cisco
5 114 (5.30%) SolarWinds
6 103 (4.79%) Splunk
7 101 (4.69%) Nimble Storage
8 88 (4.09%) Brocade
8 88 (4.09%) Tanium
9 77 (3.58%) Meraki
10 75 (3.49%) Apple
11 72 (3.35%) ServiceNow
12 71 (3.30%) Citrix
12 71 (3.30%) CyberArk
13 58 (2.70%) HP
14 56 (2.60%) Dell
15 44 (2.04%) SonicWALL
16 42 (1.95%) Fortinet
16 42 (1.95%) Google
16 42 (1.95%) Red Hat