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

6 months to
16 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 64 39 29
Rank change year-on-year -25 -10 +15
Permanent jobs citing Active Directory 1,760 1,440 4,498
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 2.83% 5.47% 6.74%
As % of the System Software category 58.05% 42.25% 50.69%
Number of salaries quoted 1,340 1,218 3,854
10th Percentile £26,250 £25,500 £23,750
25th Percentile £28,750 £27,750 £26,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £35,000 £35,000 £35,000
Median % change year-on-year - - -2.78%
75th Percentile £47,500 £48,750 £48,500
90th Percentile £62,500 £58,750 £57,500
UK median annual salary £37,500 £40,000 £38,000
% change year-on-year -6.25% +5.26% -5.00%

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 3,032 3,408 8,874
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 4.88% 12.95% 13.30%
Number of salaries quoted 2,224 2,470 7,301
10th Percentile £27,250 £26,750 £25,750
25th Percentile £31,250 £32,207 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £48,507 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -7.23% +7.79% -5.26%
75th Percentile £63,750 £68,063 £60,000
90th Percentile £77,500 £85,000 £75,000
UK median annual salary £51,125 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -7.05% +10.00% -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 16 April 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 16 April 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 -3 459 £36,250 -9.38% 150
North of England -13 399 £33,500 +1.52% 119
Midlands -43 296 £32,500 -7.14% 69
South West -7 257 £32,500 -7.14% 70
North West -6 188 £35,000 -12.50% 66
Yorkshire -24 180 £32,500 +8.33% 37
East of England -28 177 £40,000 +23.08% 53
East Midlands -26 154 £31,500 +4.13% 40
West Midlands -45 141 £32,500 -13.15% 29
Scotland +31 101 £29,500 -20.27% 21
Wales -3 47 £38,500 -21.59% 8
North East -27 31 £32,000 -3.61% 21
Northern Ireland -32 18 £32,000 -39.05% 5
Isle of Man +2 6 £45,000 +55.17%
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
1 468 (26.59%) Microsoft Exchange
2 351 (19.94%) SharePoint
3 18 (1.02%) Exchange Server 2003
3 18 (1.02%) IIS
4 11 (0.63%) Exchange Server 2013
5 10 (0.57%) Confluence
6 9 (0.51%) Exchange Server 2007
6 9 (0.51%) Exchange Server 2010
7 6 (0.34%) CMS
8 5 (0.28%) Skype for Business
9 4 (0.23%) Apache
10 3 (0.17%) WordPress
11 2 (0.11%) Tomcat
11 2 (0.11%) WebLogic
11 2 (0.11%) WebLogic Portal
12 1 (0.057%) Drupal
12 1 (0.057%) nginx
12 1 (0.057%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 236 (13.41%) Microsoft Office
2 41 (2.33%) Microsoft Excel
3 12 (0.68%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
5 2 (0.11%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.057%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 19 (1.08%) Dynamics CRM
2 8 (0.45%) Dynamics NAV
2 8 (0.45%) Oracle ERP
3 7 (0.40%) NetSuite
4 6 (0.34%) Primavera
5 5 (0.28%) Remedy ITSM
6 4 (0.23%) Dynamics GP
6 4 (0.23%) Exchequer
6 4 (0.23%) Markit EDM
7 2 (0.11%) Alphatax
7 2 (0.11%) Oracle EBS
7 2 (0.11%) Shopify
8 1 (0.057%) Cognos Business Intelligence
8 1 (0.057%) Magento
8 1 (0.057%) Oracle Payables
8 1 (0.057%) Sage 200
8 1 (0.057%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 1,236 (70.23%) Microsoft 365
2 929 (52.78%) Azure
3 637 (36.19%) Entra ID
4 136 (7.73%) OneDrive
5 130 (7.39%) AWS
6 98 (5.57%) Google Workspace
7 86 (4.89%) SaaS
8 84 (4.77%) Power Platform
9 42 (2.39%) IaaS
10 37 (2.10%) PaaS
11 36 (2.05%) Nutanix
12 34 (1.93%) Azure Monitor
13 32 (1.82%) Mimecast
14 31 (1.76%) Azure DevOps
15 30 (1.70%) PowerApps
16 25 (1.42%) GCP
17 22 (1.25%) Microsoft Purview
18 19 (1.08%) Dynamics 365
19 17 (0.97%) GitHub
19 17 (0.97%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 601 (34.15%) DNS
2 544 (30.91%) DHCP
3 405 (23.01%) Firewall
4 280 (15.91%) VPN
5 197 (11.19%) WAN
6 192 (10.91%) LAN
6 192 (10.91%) TCP/IP
7 162 (9.20%) VLAN
8 159 (9.03%) Wi-Fi
9 93 (5.28%) VoIP
10 82 (4.66%) Wireless
11 69 (3.92%) Network Security
12 62 (3.52%) Remote Desktop
13 48 (2.73%) SAN
14 46 (2.61%) Broadband
15 28 (1.59%) SD-WAN
16 20 (1.14%) NAS
17 16 (0.91%) Internet
17 16 (0.91%) SMTP
18 14 (0.80%) Ethernet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 84 (4.77%) SQL Server
2 82 (4.66%) Amazon RDS
3 52 (2.95%) Power BI
4 28 (1.59%) PostgreSQL
5 25 (1.42%) MySQL
6 20 (1.14%) Oracle Database
7 18 (1.02%) Oracle Database 10g
8 13 (0.74%) Azure SQL Database
9 8 (0.45%) GIS
9 8 (0.45%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 6 (0.34%) Data Warehouse
10 6 (0.34%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 4 (0.23%) Relational Database
12 3 (0.17%) Neo4j
13 2 (0.11%) Oracle Discoverer
13 2 (0.11%) Oracle Reports
14 1 (0.057%) Data Mining
14 1 (0.057%) InterSystems Cache
14 1 (0.057%) OLAP
14 1 (0.057%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 70 (3.98%) JIRA
2 11 (0.63%) Git
3 10 (0.57%) Oracle Forms
4 8 (0.45%) Jenkins
5 6 (0.34%) GitLab
6 5 (0.28%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
7 4 (0.23%) LabVIEW
7 4 (0.23%) Subversion
8 2 (0.11%) Oracle APEX
9 1 (0.057%) Burp Suite
9 1 (0.057%) Gatling
9 1 (0.057%) JMeter
9 1 (0.057%) Metasploit
9 1 (0.057%) Vagrant
General
1 783 (44.49%) Social Skills
2 194 (11.02%) Analytical Skills
3 165 (9.38%) Organisational Skills
4 121 (6.88%) Finance
5 73 (4.15%) Manufacturing
6 63 (3.58%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 60 (3.41%) Legal
8 58 (3.30%) Documentation Skills
9 53 (3.01%) Retail
10 51 (2.90%) Public Sector
11 50 (2.84%) Law
12 37 (2.10%) Advertising
12 37 (2.10%) Games
13 30 (1.70%) Telecoms
14 18 (1.02%) Marketing
15 15 (0.85%) Local Government
16 10 (0.57%) Automotive
17 8 (0.45%) Aerospace
18 4 (0.23%) General Ledger
18 4 (0.23%) Military
Job Titles
1 708 (40.23%) IT Support
2 499 (28.35%) Support Engineer
3 429 (24.38%) IT Engineer
4 369 (20.97%) IT Support Engineer
5 240 (13.64%) Analyst
6 177 (10.06%) 2nd Line Support
6 177 (10.06%) Support Analyst
6 177 (10.06%) Support Technician
7 154 (8.75%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 148 (8.41%) IT Technician
9 145 (8.24%) Senior
10 137 (7.78%) IT Support Technician
11 119 (6.76%) IT Analyst
12 114 (6.48%) Systems Engineer
13 109 (6.19%) IT Support Analyst
14 98 (5.57%) 2nd Line Engineer
15 89 (5.06%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
16 87 (4.94%) 3rd Line Support
17 80 (4.55%) 1st Line Support
18 65 (3.69%) Infrastructure Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 49 (2.78%) LDAP
2 46 (2.61%) SAML
2 46 (2.61%) SOAP
3 43 (2.44%) OAuth
3 43 (2.44%) OpenID
3 43 (2.44%) REST
4 38 (2.16%) GraphQL
5 19 (1.08%) JSON
5 19 (1.08%) XML
6 10 (0.57%) RESTful
7 9 (0.51%) Regular Expression
8 7 (0.40%) .NET
8 7 (0.40%) Web Services
9 6 (0.34%) ARM Templates
9 6 (0.34%) XMPP
10 5 (0.28%) FreeSWITCH
11 4 (0.23%) EDI
11 4 (0.23%) HTML
11 4 (0.23%) Middleware
11 4 (0.23%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 267 (15.17%) Driving Licence
2 111 (6.31%) Onboarding
3 79 (4.49%) Self-Motivation
4 68 (3.86%) Legacy Systems
5 54 (3.07%) Hybrid Cloud
6 46 (2.61%) Enterprise Software
7 43 (2.44%) Cyberattack
8 39 (2.22%) Cyber Threat
8 39 (2.22%) Management Information System
9 36 (2.05%) Data Centre
10 35 (1.99%) Public Cloud
11 34 (1.93%) Replication
12 25 (1.42%) Cloud Native
13 20 (1.14%) Client/Server
13 20 (1.14%) PKI
14 17 (0.97%) Clustering
14 17 (0.97%) CMDB
15 14 (0.80%) iPad
16 12 (0.68%) Video Conferencing
17 11 (0.63%) FMCG
Operating Systems
1 1,256 (71.36%) Windows
2 734 (41.70%) Windows Server
3 306 (17.39%) Windows 10
4 210 (11.93%) Linux
5 135 (7.67%) Windows Server 2016
6 91 (5.17%) Mac OS
7 87 (4.94%) Apple iOS
8 76 (4.32%) Android
9 57 (3.24%) Windows Server 2019
10 33 (1.88%) Windows 7
10 33 (1.88%) Windows Server 2012
11 28 (1.59%) Windows Server 2008
12 26 (1.48%) Unix
13 22 (1.25%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
14 18 (1.02%) HPUX
14 18 (1.02%) Solaris
14 18 (1.02%) Windows Server 2003
15 10 (0.57%) Windows 8
16 7 (0.40%) VMS
17 6 (0.34%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 611 (34.72%) Problem-Solving
2 495 (28.13%) Customer Service
3 437 (24.83%) ITIL
4 267 (15.17%) Cybersecurity
5 204 (11.59%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 192 (10.91%) Mentoring
7 189 (10.74%) Continuous Improvement
8 181 (10.28%) ITSM
9 160 (9.09%) Service Delivery
10 152 (8.64%) Disaster Recovery
11 121 (6.88%) Incident Management
12 114 (6.48%) Migration
13 113 (6.42%) Vulnerability Remediation
14 112 (6.36%) Change Management
15 100 (5.68%) Coaching
16 93 (5.28%) Identity Access Management
17 92 (5.23%) Customer Experience
18 88 (5.00%) Kalman Filter
19 87 (4.94%) Time Management
19 87 (4.94%) Web Filtering
Programming Languages
1 288 (16.36%) PowerShell
2 143 (8.13%) SQL
3 82 (4.66%) Bash
4 57 (3.24%) Python
5 49 (2.78%) T-SQL
6 17 (0.97%) Perl
7 16 (0.91%) R
8 12 (0.68%) Shell Script
9 11 (0.63%) PL/SQL
10 10 (0.57%) Bicep
11 8 (0.45%) Java
11 8 (0.45%) JavaScript
11 8 (0.45%) VB
12 4 (0.23%) C#
12 4 (0.23%) Korn
13 3 (0.17%) PHP
13 3 (0.17%) VBA
14 2 (0.11%) C
15 1 (0.057%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 232 (13.18%) Security Cleared
2 173 (9.83%) Degree
3 171 (9.72%) SC Cleared
4 156 (8.86%) Microsoft Certification
5 81 (4.60%) DV Cleared
6 45 (2.56%) DBS Check
7 42 (2.39%) A+ Certification
8 41 (2.33%) Azure Certification
9 36 (2.05%) Cisco Certification
10 31 (1.76%) Network+ Certification
11 30 (1.70%) CCNA
12 29 (1.65%) Microsoft Certified Professional
13 25 (1.42%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 19 (1.08%) Computer Science Degree
15 18 (1.02%) MCSE
16 17 (0.97%) ITIL Certification
17 16 (0.91%) HNC
18 12 (0.68%) CCNP
18 12 (0.68%) MCSA
19 10 (0.57%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 172 (9.77%) SLA
2 140 (7.95%) Cyber Essentials
3 104 (5.91%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 75 (4.26%) PCI DSS
5 50 (2.84%) NIST
6 39 (2.22%) NCSC
7 38 (2.16%) GDPR
8 28 (1.59%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 17 (0.97%) QA
10 14 (0.80%) Data Quality
11 9 (0.51%) Accessibility
12 5 (0.28%) GRC
12 5 (0.28%) PMO
13 4 (0.23%) 21 CFR Part 11
13 4 (0.23%) GxP
13 4 (0.23%) ISO 22301
13 4 (0.23%) ITGC
14 3 (0.17%) SOC 2
15 2 (0.11%) ISO 9001
15 2 (0.11%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 343 (19.49%) Hyper-V
2 260 (14.77%) VMware Infrastructure
3 67 (3.81%) Terminal Server
4 48 (2.73%) vSphere
5 42 (2.39%) VMware ESXi
6 31 (1.76%) Virtual Desktop
7 30 (1.70%) Virtual Machines
8 23 (1.31%) Docker
9 17 (0.97%) BitLocker
10 11 (0.63%) VMware NSX
10 11 (0.63%) VMware Workstation
11 9 (0.51%) XenApp
12 6 (0.34%) Citrix Hypervisor
12 6 (0.34%) DFS Replication
13 5 (0.28%) Firmware
14 4 (0.23%) Terminal Services
14 4 (0.23%) Virtual Servers
15 3 (0.17%) Lustre
15 3 (0.17%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 3 (0.17%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 340 (19.32%) Microsoft Intune
2 124 (7.05%) SCCM
3 42 (2.39%) Single Sign-On
4 39 (2.22%) vCenter Server
5 35 (1.99%) Terraform
6 32 (1.82%) Jamf Pro
7 25 (1.42%) Ansible
8 23 (1.31%) WSUS
9 20 (1.14%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 20 (1.14%) FortiGate
10 15 (0.85%) Kubernetes
10 15 (0.85%) SCOM
11 14 (0.80%) Autotask
12 9 (0.51%) Backup Exec
12 9 (0.51%) Proxmox
13 7 (0.40%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
14 6 (0.34%) ZABBIX
15 5 (0.28%) SCVMM
15 5 (0.28%) SmoothWall
15 5 (0.28%) VxRail
Vendors
1 1,260 (71.59%) Microsoft
2 446 (25.34%) VMware
3 140 (7.95%) Veeam
4 101 (5.74%) SolarWinds
5 92 (5.23%) Apple
5 92 (5.23%) Nimble Storage
6 91 (5.17%) Cisco
6 91 (5.17%) Citrix
7 83 (4.72%) Splunk
8 82 (4.66%) ServiceNow
9 74 (4.20%) Google
10 71 (4.03%) HP
11 65 (3.69%) Dell
12 64 (3.64%) Brocade
12 64 (3.64%) Tanium
13 39 (2.22%) Meraki
14 35 (1.99%) Oracle
15 32 (1.82%) McAfee
16 28 (1.59%) Dell Compellent
17 27 (1.53%) CrowdStrike