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

6 months to
9 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 56 45 30
Rank change year-on-year -11 -15 +11
Permanent jobs citing Active Directory 1,822 1,585 4,473
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 2.76% 5.38% 5.85%
As % of the System Software category 54.23% 39.42% 50.93%
Number of salaries quoted 1,416 1,228 3,627
10th Percentile £26,375 £25,750 £23,500
25th Percentile £29,000 £27,750 £26,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £35,000 £34,750 £35,000
Median % change year-on-year +0.72% -0.71% -5.07%
75th Percentile £47,500 £47,500 £48,500
90th Percentile £63,750 £58,750 £57,500
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 3,360 4,021 8,782
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 5.09% 13.65% 11.49%
Number of salaries quoted 2,547 2,316 6,933
10th Percentile £27,750 £26,500 £25,525
25th Percentile £31,875 £31,250 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £46,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -2.17% +2.22% -5.26%
75th Percentile £64,750 £67,500 £60,000
90th Percentile £77,500 £83,750 £72,500
UK median annual salary £52,500 £52,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year - +5.00% -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 9 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 9 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 -8 446 £35,000 +14.75% 104
South East 0 427 £40,000 - 177
Midlands -32 309 £33,500 -1.47% 58
South West -5 259 £35,000 +7.69% 67
North West +59 218 £37,500 - 56
East of England +4 204 £35,000 +7.69% 61
Yorkshire -32 183 £32,500 +8.33% 36
East Midlands -2 163 £32,500 +3.17% 27
West Midlands -47 145 £36,000 +2.86% 31
Scotland +78 100 £30,000 -40.00% 17
Wales -1 56 £45,000 +18.13% 12
North East -43 45 £42,500 +32.81% 13
Northern Ireland -26 15 £32,000 -37.56% 12
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
1 485 (26.62%) Microsoft Exchange
2 379 (20.80%) SharePoint
3 31 (1.70%) IIS
4 17 (0.93%) Confluence
5 11 (0.60%) Exchange Server 2013
6 9 (0.49%) Exchange Server 2007
6 9 (0.49%) Exchange Server 2010
7 5 (0.27%) Skype for Business
8 4 (0.22%) Apache
8 4 (0.22%) CMS
9 3 (0.16%) SAS
10 1 (0.055%) Drupal
10 1 (0.055%) nginx
10 1 (0.055%) Site Server
10 1 (0.055%) WordPress
Applications
1 208 (11.42%) Microsoft Office
2 42 (2.31%) Microsoft Excel
3 10 (0.55%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.16%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 3 (0.16%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.055%) AutoCAD
5 1 (0.055%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 17 (0.93%) Dynamics CRM
2 13 (0.71%) Dynamics NAV
3 7 (0.38%) NetSuite
3 7 (0.38%) Remedy ITSM
4 4 (0.22%) Dynamics GP
4 4 (0.22%) Exchequer
4 4 (0.22%) Primavera
5 3 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
6 2 (0.11%) Alphatax
6 2 (0.11%) Markit EDM
6 2 (0.11%) Oracle ERP
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%) SAP EHS
7 1 (0.055%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 1,284 (70.47%) Microsoft 365
2 993 (54.50%) Azure
3 680 (37.32%) Entra ID
4 139 (7.63%) OneDrive
5 135 (7.41%) AWS
6 87 (4.77%) SaaS
7 85 (4.67%) Power Platform
8 83 (4.56%) Google Workspace
9 49 (2.69%) IaaS
10 41 (2.25%) PaaS
11 39 (2.14%) Mimecast
12 32 (1.76%) Nutanix
13 29 (1.59%) Azure DevOps
14 25 (1.37%) Azure Sentinel
14 25 (1.37%) PowerApps
15 24 (1.32%) Microsoft Purview
16 23 (1.26%) Azure Monitor
17 21 (1.15%) Dynamics 365
18 16 (0.88%) GCP
19 15 (0.82%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 609 (33.42%) DNS
2 515 (28.27%) DHCP
3 465 (25.52%) Firewall
4 283 (15.53%) VPN
5 187 (10.26%) WAN
6 185 (10.15%) LAN
7 184 (10.10%) TCP/IP
8 172 (9.44%) Wi-Fi
9 156 (8.56%) VLAN
10 105 (5.76%) VoIP
11 86 (4.72%) Wireless
12 70 (3.84%) SAN
13 69 (3.79%) Network Security
14 53 (2.91%) Remote Desktop
15 41 (2.25%) Broadband
16 29 (1.59%) NAS
17 20 (1.10%) Internet
17 20 (1.10%) SD-WAN
18 17 (0.93%) SSL
19 13 (0.71%) NetScaler
Database & Business Intelligence
1 104 (5.71%) SQL Server
2 93 (5.10%) Amazon RDS
3 44 (2.41%) Power BI
4 30 (1.65%) PostgreSQL
5 26 (1.43%) MySQL
6 15 (0.82%) Azure SQL Database
7 9 (0.49%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 8 (0.44%) GIS
9 5 (0.27%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 4 (0.22%) Crystal Reports
10 4 (0.22%) Neo4j
11 3 (0.16%) Data Warehouse
12 2 (0.11%) Oracle Database
12 2 (0.11%) Relational Database
13 1 (0.055%) Data Lake
13 1 (0.055%) InterSystems Cache
13 1 (0.055%) KNIME
13 1 (0.055%) NoSQL
13 1 (0.055%) RDBMS
13 1 (0.055%) Redis
Development Applications
1 72 (3.95%) JIRA
2 12 (0.66%) Git
3 11 (0.60%) GitLab
4 6 (0.33%) Jenkins
5 5 (0.27%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
6 4 (0.22%) Bitbucket
7 3 (0.16%) Burp Suite
7 3 (0.16%) LabVIEW
7 3 (0.16%) Metasploit
8 2 (0.11%) Oracle Forms
8 2 (0.11%) 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%) Ranorex
9 1 (0.055%) Selenium
9 1 (0.055%) Team Foundation Server
9 1 (0.055%) Vagrant
General
1 779 (42.76%) Social Skills
2 200 (10.98%) Analytical Skills
3 138 (7.57%) Organisational Skills
4 113 (6.20%) Finance
5 66 (3.62%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 62 (3.40%) Manufacturing
7 58 (3.18%) Legal
8 54 (2.96%) Documentation Skills
8 54 (2.96%) Public Sector
9 52 (2.85%) Law
10 44 (2.41%) Retail
11 35 (1.92%) Games
12 31 (1.70%) Telecoms
13 27 (1.48%) Advertising
14 19 (1.04%) Local Government
15 12 (0.66%) Aerospace
16 9 (0.49%) Automotive
16 9 (0.49%) Influencing Skills
16 9 (0.49%) Marketing
17 4 (0.22%) Portuguese Language
Job Titles
1 698 (38.31%) IT Support
2 483 (26.51%) Support Engineer
3 434 (23.82%) IT Engineer
4 361 (19.81%) IT Support Engineer
5 293 (16.08%) Analyst
6 201 (11.03%) Support Analyst
7 180 (9.88%) Support Technician
8 179 (9.82%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 174 (9.55%) Senior
10 165 (9.06%) IT Technician
11 153 (8.40%) 2nd Line Support
12 150 (8.23%) IT Support Technician
13 134 (7.35%) Systems Engineer
14 133 (7.30%) IT Analyst
15 118 (6.48%) IT Support Analyst
16 90 (4.94%) 2nd Line Engineer
17 77 (4.23%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
18 73 (4.01%) Architect
19 70 (3.84%) 1st Line Support
20 68 (3.73%) Lead
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 52 (2.85%) LDAP
2 45 (2.47%) SAML
3 40 (2.20%) OpenID
4 39 (2.14%) OAuth
5 38 (2.09%) REST
6 35 (1.92%) SOAP
7 33 (1.81%) GraphQL
8 20 (1.10%) Regular Expression
9 16 (0.88%) XMPP
10 14 (0.77%) JSON
10 14 (0.77%) XML
11 8 (0.44%) .NET
11 8 (0.44%) ARM Templates
12 7 (0.38%) Microsoft Graph
13 6 (0.33%) Middleware
13 6 (0.33%) Web Services
14 5 (0.27%) FreeSWITCH
15 4 (0.22%) boto
15 4 (0.22%) OAuth2
15 4 (0.22%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 252 (13.83%) Driving Licence
2 122 (6.70%) Onboarding
3 86 (4.72%) Self-Motivation
4 82 (4.50%) Legacy Systems
5 73 (4.01%) Hybrid Cloud
6 58 (3.18%) Data Centre
7 57 (3.13%) Management Information System
8 37 (2.03%) Replication
9 36 (1.98%) Cyberattack
10 35 (1.92%) Cyber Threat
10 35 (1.92%) Public Cloud
11 33 (1.81%) Clustering
12 30 (1.65%) PKI
13 28 (1.54%) Enterprise Software
14 25 (1.37%) Cloud Native
15 20 (1.10%) CCTV
16 16 (0.88%) Client/Server
16 16 (0.88%) Security Posture
17 15 (0.82%) Data Structures
18 14 (0.77%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 1,314 (72.12%) Windows
2 785 (43.08%) Windows Server
3 288 (15.81%) Windows 10
4 249 (13.67%) Linux
5 151 (8.29%) Windows Server 2016
6 111 (6.09%) Mac OS
7 84 (4.61%) Windows Server 2019
8 75 (4.12%) Apple iOS
9 66 (3.62%) Android
10 36 (1.98%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 34 (1.87%) Windows Server 2012
12 15 (0.82%) VMS
13 12 (0.66%) Windows 7
13 12 (0.66%) Windows Server 2008
14 8 (0.44%) Ubuntu
15 7 (0.38%) Windows 8
16 5 (0.27%) CentOS
16 5 (0.27%) Debian
17 4 (0.22%) Mac OS X
17 4 (0.22%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 615 (33.75%) Problem-Solving
2 456 (25.03%) Customer Service
3 411 (22.56%) ITIL
4 294 (16.14%) Cybersecurity
5 264 (14.49%) Continuous Improvement
6 239 (13.12%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 191 (10.48%) Mentoring
8 179 (9.82%) Disaster Recovery
9 165 (9.06%) ITSM
10 164 (9.00%) Service Delivery
11 133 (7.30%) Migration
12 121 (6.64%) Vulnerability Remediation
13 109 (5.98%) Kalman Filter
14 107 (5.87%) Change Management
14 107 (5.87%) Customer Experience
15 102 (5.60%) Web Filtering
16 101 (5.54%) Project Delivery
17 98 (5.38%) Service Management
18 94 (5.16%) Incident Management
19 93 (5.10%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 305 (16.74%) PowerShell
2 173 (9.50%) SQL
3 85 (4.67%) Bash
4 59 (3.24%) Python
5 44 (2.41%) T-SQL
6 16 (0.88%) Bicep
6 16 (0.88%) R
7 9 (0.49%) C#
8 8 (0.44%) VBA
9 7 (0.38%) Java
9 7 (0.38%) VB
10 6 (0.33%) Korn
10 6 (0.33%) Shell Script
11 5 (0.27%) JavaScript
12 3 (0.16%) PHP
12 3 (0.16%) PL/SQL
13 2 (0.11%) C
13 2 (0.11%) Kusto Query Language
14 1 (0.055%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 260 (14.27%) Security Cleared
2 181 (9.93%) Degree
3 172 (9.44%) SC Cleared
4 158 (8.67%) Microsoft Certification
5 83 (4.56%) DV Cleared
6 64 (3.51%) Azure Certification
7 55 (3.02%) DBS Check
8 44 (2.41%) A+ Certification
9 37 (2.03%) Cisco Certification
10 36 (1.98%) CCNA
11 35 (1.92%) Network+ Certification
12 32 (1.76%) Microsoft Certified Professional
13 20 (1.10%) Computer Science Degree
14 19 (1.04%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
15 16 (0.88%) CompTIA Security+
15 16 (0.88%) HNC
15 16 (0.88%) ITIL Certification
16 15 (0.82%) MCSA
17 14 (0.77%) MCSE
18 9 (0.49%) RHCE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 175 (9.60%) Cyber Essentials
2 167 (9.17%) SLA
3 117 (6.42%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 88 (4.83%) PCI DSS
5 61 (3.35%) NIST
6 38 (2.09%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 37 (2.03%) NCSC
8 33 (1.81%) GDPR
9 22 (1.21%) QA
10 21 (1.15%) Data Quality
11 10 (0.55%) Accessibility
12 6 (0.33%) SOC 2
13 5 (0.27%) GRC
13 5 (0.27%) PMO
14 4 (0.22%) 21 CFR Part 11
14 4 (0.22%) GxP
14 4 (0.22%) ITGC
15 3 (0.16%) ISO 22301
16 2 (0.11%) ISO 9001
17 1 (0.055%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 396 (21.73%) Hyper-V
2 299 (16.41%) VMware Infrastructure
3 77 (4.23%) vSphere
4 74 (4.06%) Terminal Server
5 50 (2.74%) Virtual Desktop
6 48 (2.63%) VMware ESXi
7 35 (1.92%) Virtual Machines
8 32 (1.76%) Docker
9 18 (0.99%) BitLocker
10 17 (0.93%) VMware NSX
11 11 (0.60%) Virtual Servers
12 9 (0.49%) DFS Replication
13 8 (0.44%) Citrix Hypervisor
13 8 (0.44%) VMware Workstation
14 7 (0.38%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 6 (0.33%) XenApp
16 5 (0.27%) Firmware
17 4 (0.22%) Squid
18 2 (0.11%) Samba
18 2 (0.11%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 381 (20.91%) Microsoft Intune
2 110 (6.04%) SCCM
3 39 (2.14%) vCenter Server
4 37 (2.03%) Single Sign-On
5 36 (1.98%) Terraform
6 31 (1.70%) Jamf Pro
7 27 (1.48%) Ansible
7 27 (1.48%) WSUS
8 25 (1.37%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 23 (1.26%) FortiGate
10 21 (1.15%) Proxmox
11 20 (1.10%) Kubernetes
12 13 (0.71%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
13 11 (0.60%) Autotask
14 10 (0.55%) SCOM
15 9 (0.49%) Backup Exec
15 9 (0.49%) ZABBIX
16 7 (0.38%) VxRail
17 5 (0.27%) Failover Clustering
17 5 (0.27%) Packer
Vendors
1 1,367 (75.03%) Microsoft
2 491 (26.95%) VMware
3 177 (9.71%) Veeam
4 104 (5.71%) Cisco
5 103 (5.65%) SolarWinds
6 93 (5.10%) Nimble Storage
6 93 (5.10%) Splunk
7 88 (4.83%) Apple
8 85 (4.67%) Citrix
9 72 (3.95%) Brocade
9 72 (3.95%) ServiceNow
9 72 (3.95%) Tanium
10 61 (3.35%) Google
10 61 (3.35%) HP
11 60 (3.29%) Dell
11 60 (3.29%) Meraki
12 36 (1.98%) McAfee
12 36 (1.98%) Red Hat
13 31 (1.70%) CrowdStrike
14 28 (1.54%) Ubiquiti