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 9 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 54 38 35
Rank change year-on-year -16 -3 -11
Permanent jobs citing Active Directory 2,229 1,857 2,538
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 2.58% 5.33% 4.96%
As % of the System Software category 49.06% 45.01% 48.28%
Number of salaries quoted 1,599 1,369 1,482
10th Percentile £27,000 £26,139 £25,750
25th Percentile £29,750 £28,500 £30,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £37,500 £35,000 £40,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.14% -12.50% +6.67%
75th Percentile £50,000 £48,750 £53,000
90th Percentile £65,000 £62,500 £62,500
UK median annual salary £40,000 £37,500 £42,500
% change year-on-year +6.67% -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 4,543 4,126 5,257
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 5.26% 11.85% 10.27%
Number of salaries quoted 3,268 2,228 2,990
10th Percentile £28,500 £26,500 £27,750
25th Percentile £35,000 £30,750 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £42,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +17.65% -15.00% -
75th Percentile £67,906 £62,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £80,000 £76,000 £77,500
UK median annual salary £55,000 £49,800 £55,000
% change year-on-year +10.44% -9.45% -

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 9 October 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 9 October 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 -5 522 £34,000 +4.62% 158
South East -17 515 £42,500 +13.33% 205
Midlands -31 374 £41,000 +17.14% 126
South West -36 291 £39,500 +21.54% 106
North West +71 287 £35,000 - 87
East of England -3 252 £35,000 +4.48% 84
West Midlands -25 194 £42,500 -3.95% 74
East Midlands -15 180 £38,600 +28.67% 52
Yorkshire -30 168 £32,000 +4.92% 54
Scotland +44 117 £32,500 +8.33% 48
Northern Ireland -8 110 £39,000 -25.71% 21
North East -64 67 £36,250 +16.94% 21
Wales -51 57 £37,500 -9.74% 14
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
1 671 (30.10%) Microsoft Exchange
2 508 (22.79%) SharePoint
3 51 (2.29%) IIS
4 17 (0.76%) Confluence
5 16 (0.72%) Skype for Business
6 7 (0.31%) Apache
7 3 (0.13%) SAS
8 2 (0.090%) nginx
9 1 (0.045%) HCL Domino
9 1 (0.045%) HCL Notes
9 1 (0.045%) SharePoint Server
9 1 (0.045%) Site Server
9 1 (0.045%) Tomcat
Applications
1 143 (6.42%) Microsoft Office
2 39 (1.75%) Microsoft Excel
3 8 (0.36%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (0.18%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 3 (0.13%) Notion
6 2 (0.090%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.045%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.045%) Revit
7 1 (0.045%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 8 (0.36%) Dynamics CRM
2 6 (0.27%) Dynamics NAV
2 6 (0.27%) NetSuite
2 6 (0.27%) Raiser’s Edge
2 6 (0.27%) Remedy ITSM
3 5 (0.22%) JDE EnterpriseOne
4 4 (0.18%) Payment Gateway
4 4 (0.18%) Shopify
5 3 (0.13%) Salesforce CRM
6 2 (0.090%) Sage 200
6 2 (0.090%) Teamcenter
7 1 (0.045%) Dynamics AX
7 1 (0.045%) Sage 50
7 1 (0.045%) SAP EHS
7 1 (0.045%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 1,534 (68.82%) Microsoft 365
2 1,217 (54.60%) Azure
3 1,076 (48.27%) Entra ID
4 191 (8.57%) OneDrive
5 138 (6.19%) AWS
6 88 (3.95%) SaaS
7 58 (2.60%) IaaS
8 57 (2.56%) Power Platform
9 52 (2.33%) Mimecast
10 44 (1.97%) Azure DevOps
11 43 (1.93%) Google Workspace
12 42 (1.88%) Microsoft Purview
13 39 (1.75%) Azure Sentinel
14 36 (1.62%) Power Automate
15 35 (1.57%) PaaS
16 33 (1.48%) Serverless
17 26 (1.17%) Azure ExpressRoute
17 26 (1.17%) Azure Monitor
18 22 (0.99%) Dynamics 365
19 21 (0.94%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 742 (33.29%) DNS
2 635 (28.49%) DHCP
3 545 (24.45%) Firewall
4 404 (18.12%) VPN
5 304 (13.64%) TCP/IP
6 240 (10.77%) VLAN
7 225 (10.09%) Wi-Fi
8 203 (9.11%) WAN
9 202 (9.06%) LAN
10 157 (7.04%) Wireless
11 138 (6.19%) VoIP
12 93 (4.17%) Network Security
13 67 (3.01%) SAN
14 38 (1.70%) SSL
15 36 (1.62%) Remote Desktop
16 28 (1.26%) Internet
17 25 (1.12%) NAS
18 22 (0.99%) WLAN
19 20 (0.90%) Cisco IOS
20 17 (0.76%) Skype
Database & Business Intelligence
1 107 (4.80%) SQL Server
2 87 (3.90%) Amazon RDS
3 30 (1.35%) Azure SQL Database
4 16 (0.72%) MySQL
5 14 (0.63%) Power BI
6 10 (0.45%) Relational Database
7 9 (0.40%) PostgreSQL
8 6 (0.27%) Crystal Reports
9 4 (0.18%) Data Warehouse
10 3 (0.13%) Data Lake
10 3 (0.13%) Oracle Database
11 2 (0.090%) BusinessObjects
11 2 (0.090%) KNIME
12 1 (0.045%) Elasticsearch
12 1 (0.045%) Geospatial Data
12 1 (0.045%) Neo4j
12 1 (0.045%) NoSQL
12 1 (0.045%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 1 (0.045%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 1 (0.045%) SSDT
Development Applications
1 54 (2.42%) JIRA
2 32 (1.44%) Git
3 9 (0.40%) Jenkins
4 6 (0.27%) Bitbucket
5 5 (0.22%) GitLab
6 2 (0.090%) Artifactory
6 2 (0.090%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 2 (0.090%) Burp Suite
6 2 (0.090%) git-flow
6 2 (0.090%) Metasploit
6 2 (0.090%) NUnit
6 2 (0.090%) Terragrunt
7 1 (0.045%) Carbide.c++
7 1 (0.045%) Flyway
7 1 (0.045%) Ranorex
7 1 (0.045%) Selenium
7 1 (0.045%) Sonatype Nexus
7 1 (0.045%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 1,108 (49.71%) Social Skills
2 298 (13.37%) Analytical Skills
3 136 (6.10%) Legal
4 121 (5.43%) Finance
5 84 (3.77%) Manufacturing
5 84 (3.77%) Organisational Skills
6 77 (3.45%) Law
7 71 (3.19%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 63 (2.83%) Public Sector
9 55 (2.47%) Retail
10 51 (2.29%) Aerospace
11 41 (1.84%) Telecoms
12 36 (1.62%) Documentation Skills
13 19 (0.85%) Advertising
14 12 (0.54%) Automotive
15 11 (0.49%) Influencing Skills
16 10 (0.45%) Games
16 10 (0.45%) Local Government
17 7 (0.31%) Aviation
18 5 (0.22%) Italian Language
Job Titles
1 831 (37.28%) IT Support
2 531 (23.82%) IT Engineer
3 523 (23.46%) Support Engineer
4 428 (19.20%) IT Support Engineer
5 407 (18.26%) Analyst
6 284 (12.74%) Senior
7 235 (10.54%) Support Analyst
8 227 (10.18%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 204 (9.15%) IT Technician
10 203 (9.11%) Support Technician
11 181 (8.12%) IT Support Technician
12 176 (7.90%) IT Analyst
13 156 (7.00%) IT Support Analyst
14 143 (6.42%) Systems Engineer
15 139 (6.24%) 2nd Line Support
16 106 (4.76%) 2nd Line Engineer
17 98 (4.40%) Architect
18 88 (3.95%) Administrator
19 85 (3.81%) 3rd Line Support
20 84 (3.77%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 74 (3.32%) Terraform
2 63 (2.83%) LDAP
3 40 (1.79%) SAML
4 33 (1.48%) OpenID
5 31 (1.39%) OAuth
6 26 (1.17%) .NET
7 17 (0.76%) Microsoft Graph
8 16 (0.72%) Regular Expression
9 15 (0.67%) ModSecurity
9 15 (0.67%) REST
10 14 (0.63%) SailPoint
11 13 (0.58%) XMPP
12 12 (0.54%) ASP.NET Web Forms
12 12 (0.54%) WinForms
13 11 (0.49%) ARM Templates
13 11 (0.49%) HTML
14 9 (0.40%) OAuth2
15 8 (0.36%) Web Services
16 7 (0.31%) JSON
16 7 (0.31%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 316 (14.18%) Driving Licence
2 199 (8.93%) Onboarding
3 116 (5.20%) Self-Motivation
4 84 (3.77%) Legacy Systems
5 75 (3.36%) Hybrid Cloud
6 64 (2.87%) Data Centre
6 64 (2.87%) Management Information System
7 53 (2.38%) PKI
8 51 (2.29%) Security Posture
9 50 (2.24%) Enterprise Software
10 40 (1.79%) Cloud Native
11 39 (1.75%) Clustering
11 39 (1.75%) Replication
12 30 (1.35%) iPhone
13 28 (1.26%) CCTV
14 22 (0.99%) Public Cloud
15 21 (0.94%) iPad
16 19 (0.85%) Video Conferencing
17 18 (0.81%) Enterprise Storage
18 16 (0.72%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 1,574 (70.61%) Windows
2 908 (40.74%) Windows Server
3 254 (11.40%) Linux
4 247 (11.08%) Windows 10
5 152 (6.82%) Windows Server 2016
6 126 (5.65%) Mac OS
7 82 (3.68%) Windows Server 2019
8 73 (3.28%) Apple iOS
9 60 (2.69%) Android
10 30 (1.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 27 (1.21%) Ubuntu
12 23 (1.03%) VMS
13 19 (0.85%) Windows Server 2012
14 8 (0.36%) Debian
14 8 (0.36%) Rocky
15 7 (0.31%) CentOS
16 5 (0.22%) CoreOS
17 4 (0.18%) Windows 7
18 2 (0.090%) Mac OS X
18 2 (0.090%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 894 (40.11%) Problem-Solving
2 572 (25.66%) Customer Service
3 501 (22.48%) Cybersecurity
4 464 (20.82%) ITIL
5 462 (20.73%) Continuous Improvement
6 386 (17.32%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 286 (12.83%) Disaster Recovery
8 265 (11.89%) Mentoring
9 250 (11.22%) Identity Access Management
10 228 (10.23%) ITSM
11 205 (9.20%) Project Delivery
12 204 (9.15%) Migration
13 175 (7.85%) Service Delivery
14 167 (7.49%) Service Management
15 145 (6.51%) Collaborative Working
16 143 (6.42%) Customer Experience
16 143 (6.42%) Information Security
17 131 (5.88%) Vulnerability Remediation
18 129 (5.79%) AI
18 129 (5.79%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 350 (15.70%) PowerShell
2 185 (8.30%) SQL
3 65 (2.92%) Python
4 53 (2.38%) Bash
5 49 (2.20%) Bicep
6 29 (1.30%) Ruby
7 21 (0.94%) C#
8 18 (0.81%) R
9 16 (0.72%) Kusto Query Language
10 12 (0.54%) VBA
11 7 (0.31%) Java
11 7 (0.31%) T-SQL
12 5 (0.22%) Shell Script
13 4 (0.18%) JavaScript
13 4 (0.18%) VB.NET
14 3 (0.13%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 3 (0.13%) Korn
14 3 (0.13%) PHP
14 3 (0.13%) VB
14 3 (0.13%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 303 (13.59%) Security Cleared
2 201 (9.02%) SC Cleared
3 195 (8.75%) Microsoft Certification
4 191 (8.57%) Degree
5 132 (5.92%) Azure Certification
6 121 (5.43%) A+ Certification
7 104 (4.67%) Network+ Certification
8 87 (3.90%) DV Cleared
9 78 (3.50%) CISM
9 78 (3.50%) CISSP
10 68 (3.05%) Cisco Certification
11 65 (2.92%) DBS Check
12 51 (2.29%) CCNA
13 29 (1.30%) CompTIA Security+
14 28 (1.26%) BPSS Clearance
15 26 (1.17%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
16 20 (0.90%) Microsoft Certified Professional
17 18 (0.81%) AWS Certification
18 17 (0.76%) MCSA
19 16 (0.72%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 215 (9.65%) Cyber Essentials
2 122 (5.47%) SLA
3 114 (5.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 83 (3.72%) PCI DSS
5 53 (2.38%) GDPR
6 40 (1.79%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 34 (1.53%) NIST
8 19 (0.85%) QA
9 17 (0.76%) Accessibility
10 13 (0.58%) NCSC
11 11 (0.49%) Data Quality
12 4 (0.18%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 4 (0.18%) SOC 2
13 3 (0.13%) ISAE 3402
14 1 (0.045%) ISO/IEC 20000
14 1 (0.045%) ISO/IEC 42001
14 1 (0.045%) PMO
System Software
1 502 (22.52%) Hyper-V
2 410 (18.39%) VMware Infrastructure
3 88 (3.95%) vSphere
4 82 (3.68%) Virtual Desktop
5 72 (3.23%) Terminal Server
6 64 (2.87%) Virtual Machines
7 33 (1.48%) VMware ESXi
8 25 (1.12%) Virtual Servers
9 23 (1.03%) Docker
10 22 (0.99%) Firmware
11 13 (0.58%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 10 (0.45%) BitLocker
12 10 (0.45%) NDS
13 8 (0.36%) VMware NSX
14 6 (0.27%) Citrix Hypervisor
15 5 (0.22%) DFS Replication
16 4 (0.18%) Squid
17 3 (0.13%) NFS
17 3 (0.13%) Slurm Workload Manager
17 3 (0.13%) VMware Server
Systems Management
1 624 (27.99%) Microsoft Intune
2 97 (4.35%) SCCM
3 63 (2.83%) Single Sign-On
4 38 (1.70%) FortiGate
5 37 (1.66%) Jamf Pro
6 30 (1.35%) Ansible
6 30 (1.35%) Kubernetes
7 24 (1.08%) WSUS
8 23 (1.03%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
9 20 (0.90%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 16 (0.72%) Failover Clustering
10 16 (0.72%) Proxmox
11 13 (0.58%) vCenter Server
11 13 (0.58%) ZABBIX
12 11 (0.49%) Microsoft Clustering
13 7 (0.31%) Autotask
13 7 (0.31%) SCVMM
14 6 (0.27%) Backup Exec
14 6 (0.27%) Graylog
14 6 (0.27%) SCOM
Vendors
1 1,881 (84.39%) Microsoft
2 601 (26.96%) VMware
3 216 (9.69%) Veeam
4 212 (9.51%) Cisco
5 112 (5.02%) Meraki
6 98 (4.40%) SolarWinds
7 85 (3.81%) Splunk
8 81 (3.63%) CyberArk
9 79 (3.54%) Apple
10 75 (3.36%) Nimble Storage
11 72 (3.23%) Brocade
11 72 (3.23%) Tanium
12 68 (3.05%) Fortinet
13 61 (2.74%) SonicWALL
14 57 (2.56%) ServiceNow
15 56 (2.51%) Citrix
16 50 (2.24%) Google
17 47 (2.11%) Palo Alto
18 45 (2.02%) HP
19 43 (1.93%) Okta