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

6 months to
23 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 1,951 1,654 4,525
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 2.86% 5.45% 5.71%
As % of the System Software category 53.53% 40.26% 51.30%
Number of salaries quoted 1,533 1,302 3,622
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% - -5.24%
75th Percentile £48,750 £47,875 £48,500
90th Percentile £65,000 £61,250 £58,705
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 3,645 4,108 8,821
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 5.34% 13.54% 11.13%
Number of salaries quoted 2,801 2,406 6,891
10th Percentile £27,750 £26,500 £25,625
25th Percentile £32,000 £31,250 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £47,000 £46,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year +2.17% +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 23 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 23 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 +5 483 £40,000 - 159
North of England 0 476 £34,000 +6.25% 114
Midlands -33 324 £35,000 - 76
South West -12 266 £37,500 +15.38% 60
North West +58 232 £37,500 - 59
East of England +7 224 £35,000 +7.69% 60
Yorkshire -21 192 £32,500 +8.33% 48
East Midlands -5 167 £32,500 +1.56% 49
West Midlands -47 156 £37,500 -2.60% 27
Scotland +81 102 £28,750 -20.69% 21
Wales -5 59 £45,000 +18.13% 15
North East -48 52 £42,500 +32.81% 13
Northern Ireland -28 13 £32,000 -39.05% 17
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
1 539 (27.63%) Microsoft Exchange
2 411 (21.07%) SharePoint
3 37 (1.90%) IIS
4 15 (0.77%) 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 (0.21%) Apache
8 4 (0.21%) 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
1 209 (10.71%) Microsoft Office
2 43 (2.20%) Microsoft Excel
3 12 (0.62%) 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 (0.67%) Dynamics NAV
3 8 (0.41%) Remedy ITSM
4 6 (0.31%) NetSuite
5 4 (0.21%) Dynamics GP
5 4 (0.21%) Exchequer
5 4 (0.21%) Primavera
6 3 (0.15%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.10%) Alphatax
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%) Raiser’s Edge
8 1 (0.051%) SAP EHS
8 1 (0.051%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 1,368 (70.12%) Microsoft 365
2 1,066 (54.64%) Azure
3 746 (38.24%) Entra ID
4 142 (7.28%) OneDrive
5 136 (6.97%) AWS
6 97 (4.97%) SaaS
7 84 (4.31%) Power Platform
8 77 (3.95%) Google Workspace
9 62 (3.18%) IaaS
10 53 (2.72%) PaaS
11 50 (2.56%) Mimecast
12 39 (2.00%) Azure DevOps
13 30 (1.54%) Azure Monitor
13 30 (1.54%) Nutanix
14 28 (1.44%) Microsoft Purview
15 26 (1.33%) Azure Sentinel
15 26 (1.33%) Serverless
16 25 (1.28%) PowerApps
17 20 (1.03%) Azure Functions
18 19 (0.97%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 649 (33.26%) DNS
2 544 (27.88%) DHCP
3 513 (26.29%) Firewall
4 324 (16.61%) VPN
5 212 (10.87%) TCP/IP
6 199 (10.20%) WAN
7 193 (9.89%) LAN
8 188 (9.64%) Wi-Fi
9 185 (9.48%) VLAN
10 116 (5.95%) VoIP
11 95 (4.87%) Wireless
12 82 (4.20%) Network Security
13 76 (3.90%) SAN
14 51 (2.61%) Remote Desktop
15 41 (2.10%) Broadband
16 29 (1.49%) NAS
17 23 (1.18%) Internet
18 20 (1.03%) SD-WAN
19 17 (0.87%) SSL
20 15 (0.77%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 113 (5.79%) SQL Server
2 93 (4.77%) Amazon RDS
3 46 (2.36%) Power BI
4 30 (1.54%) PostgreSQL
5 27 (1.38%) Azure SQL Database
6 26 (1.33%) MySQL
7 9 (0.46%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 6 (0.31%) Crystal Reports
8 6 (0.31%) GIS
9 5 (0.26%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 4 (0.21%) 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%) Metadata
13 1 (0.051%) NoSQL
13 1 (0.051%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 75 (3.84%) JIRA
2 20 (1.03%) Git
3 11 (0.56%) GitLab
4 5 (0.26%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
5 4 (0.21%) Bitbucket
5 4 (0.21%) 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
1 832 (42.64%) Social Skills
2 212 (10.87%) Analytical Skills
3 146 (7.48%) Organisational Skills
4 115 (5.89%) Finance
5 71 (3.64%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 68 (3.49%) Legal
7 64 (3.28%) Manufacturing
8 63 (3.23%) Law
9 61 (3.13%) Documentation Skills
10 56 (2.87%) Public Sector
11 46 (2.36%) Retail
12 38 (1.95%) Telecoms
13 33 (1.69%) Games
14 25 (1.28%) Advertising
15 21 (1.08%) Local Government
16 13 (0.67%) Aerospace
17 11 (0.56%) Automotive
18 9 (0.46%) Influencing Skills
18 9 (0.46%) Marketing
19 5 (0.26%) Banking
Job Titles
1 741 (37.98%) IT Support
2 507 (25.99%) Support Engineer
3 469 (24.04%) IT Engineer
4 389 (19.94%) IT Support Engineer
5 322 (16.50%) Analyst
6 215 (11.02%) Support Analyst
7 195 (9.99%) Senior
8 188 (9.64%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 185 (9.48%) Support Technician
10 175 (8.97%) IT Technician
11 158 (8.10%) 2nd Line Support
12 156 (8.00%) IT Support Technician
13 152 (7.79%) Systems Engineer
14 144 (7.38%) IT Analyst
15 128 (6.56%) IT Support Analyst
16 92 (4.72%) 2nd Line Engineer
17 78 (4.00%) Architect
18 76 (3.90%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
19 75 (3.84%) 3rd Line Support
20 73 (3.74%) 1st Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 58 (2.97%) LDAP
2 43 (2.20%) SAML
3 38 (1.95%) OpenID
4 37 (1.90%) OAuth
4 37 (1.90%) REST
5 32 (1.64%) GraphQL
5 32 (1.64%) SOAP
6 22 (1.13%) Regular Expression
7 18 (0.92%) XMPP
8 14 (0.72%) JSON
8 14 (0.72%) 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 (0.26%) FreeSWITCH
16 4 (0.21%) COM
Miscellaneous
1 272 (13.94%) Driving Licence
2 132 (6.77%) Onboarding
3 109 (5.59%) Self-Motivation
4 86 (4.41%) Legacy Systems
5 85 (4.36%) Hybrid Cloud
6 64 (3.28%) Data Centre
7 63 (3.23%) Management Information System
8 41 (2.10%) Public Cloud
9 40 (2.05%) PKI
10 38 (1.95%) Cyber Threat
11 37 (1.90%) Clustering
11 37 (1.90%) Replication
12 36 (1.85%) Cyberattack
13 28 (1.44%) Cloud Native
14 27 (1.38%) Enterprise Software
14 27 (1.38%) Security Posture
15 24 (1.23%) CCTV
16 16 (0.82%) Client/Server
17 15 (0.77%) Data Structures
18 14 (0.72%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 1,406 (72.07%) Windows
2 844 (43.26%) Windows Server
3 310 (15.89%) Windows 10
4 258 (13.22%) Linux
5 156 (8.00%) Windows Server 2016
6 124 (6.36%) Mac OS
7 91 (4.66%) Windows Server 2019
8 74 (3.79%) Apple iOS
9 66 (3.38%) Android
10 38 (1.95%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 34 (1.74%) Windows Server 2012
12 24 (1.23%) VMS
13 14 (0.72%) Windows 7
14 12 (0.62%) Windows Server 2008
15 8 (0.41%) Ubuntu
16 7 (0.36%) Windows 8
17 5 (0.26%) CentOS
17 5 (0.26%) Debian
18 4 (0.21%) Mac OS X
18 4 (0.21%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 662 (33.93%) Problem-Solving
2 482 (24.71%) Customer Service
3 426 (21.83%) ITIL
4 327 (16.76%) Cybersecurity
5 309 (15.84%) Continuous Improvement
6 263 (13.48%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 213 (10.92%) Mentoring
8 207 (10.61%) Disaster Recovery
9 179 (9.17%) Service Delivery
10 175 (8.97%) ITSM
11 144 (7.38%) Migration
12 122 (6.25%) Project Delivery
13 121 (6.20%) Vulnerability Remediation
14 113 (5.79%) Change Management
15 112 (5.74%) Customer Experience
16 111 (5.69%) Kalman Filter
17 105 (5.38%) Incident Management
18 104 (5.33%) Web Filtering
19 101 (5.18%) Roadmaps
20 100 (5.13%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 332 (17.02%) PowerShell
2 193 (9.89%) SQL
3 89 (4.56%) Bash
4 57 (2.92%) Python
5 44 (2.26%) T-SQL
6 30 (1.54%) Bicep
7 22 (1.13%) R
8 10 (0.51%) 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 (0.26%) Java
12 5 (0.26%) JavaScript
12 5 (0.26%) PHP
13 2 (0.10%) C
13 2 (0.10%) Ruby
13 2 (0.10%) VB.NET
13 2 (0.10%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 272 (13.94%) Security Cleared
2 193 (9.89%) Degree
3 179 (9.17%) SC Cleared
4 174 (8.92%) Microsoft Certification
5 85 (4.36%) DV Cleared
6 84 (4.31%) Azure Certification
7 59 (3.02%) DBS Check
8 46 (2.36%) A+ Certification
8 46 (2.36%) Cisco Certification
9 43 (2.20%) CCNA
10 35 (1.79%) Network+ Certification
11 33 (1.69%) Microsoft Certified Professional
12 20 (1.03%) Computer Science Degree
12 20 (1.03%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 19 (0.97%) MCSA
14 16 (0.82%) HNC
15 15 (0.77%) CompTIA Security+
15 15 (0.77%) ITIL Certification
16 13 (0.67%) MCSE
17 11 (0.56%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 187 (9.58%) Cyber Essentials
2 179 (9.17%) SLA
3 135 (6.92%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 88 (4.51%) PCI DSS
5 58 (2.97%) NIST
6 43 (2.20%) GDPR
7 42 (2.15%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 37 (1.90%) NCSC
9 21 (1.08%) Data Quality
9 21 (1.08%) QA
10 9 (0.46%) Accessibility
11 6 (0.31%) SOC 2
12 5 (0.26%) PMO
13 4 (0.21%) 21 CFR Part 11
13 4 (0.21%) GRC
13 4 (0.21%) GxP
13 4 (0.21%) ITGC
14 3 (0.15%) ISO 22301
15 2 (0.10%) ISAE 3402
15 2 (0.10%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 438 (22.45%) Hyper-V
2 341 (17.48%) VMware Infrastructure
3 94 (4.82%) vSphere
4 74 (3.79%) Terminal Server
5 62 (3.18%) Virtual Desktop
6 51 (2.61%) VMware ESXi
7 47 (2.41%) Virtual Machines
8 33 (1.69%) Docker
9 17 (0.87%) VMware NSX
10 15 (0.77%) 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 (0.21%) Squid
17 2 (0.10%) Samba
17 2 (0.10%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 414 (21.22%) Microsoft Intune
2 107 (5.48%) SCCM
3 46 (2.36%) Terraform
4 37 (1.90%) vCenter Server
5 32 (1.64%) Single Sign-On
6 31 (1.59%) Jamf Pro
7 30 (1.54%) FortiGate
8 27 (1.38%) WSUS
9 25 (1.28%) Ansible
10 23 (1.18%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 22 (1.13%) Kubernetes
11 22 (1.13%) Proxmox
12 14 (0.72%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
13 11 (0.56%) Autotask
14 10 (0.51%) ZABBIX
15 9 (0.46%) Backup Exec
15 9 (0.46%) SCOM
16 8 (0.41%) Failover Clustering
17 6 (0.31%) VxRail
18 5 (0.26%) Microsoft Clustering
Vendors
1 1,487 (76.22%) Microsoft
2 531 (27.22%) VMware
3 180 (9.23%) Veeam
4 119 (6.10%) Cisco
5 101 (5.18%) SolarWinds
6 91 (4.66%) Nimble Storage
7 90 (4.61%) Splunk
8 82 (4.20%) Citrix
9 79 (4.05%) Apple
10 75 (3.84%) ServiceNow
11 72 (3.69%) Brocade
11 72 (3.69%) Tanium
12 62 (3.18%) Meraki
13 61 (3.13%) Dell
14 59 (3.02%) HP
15 57 (2.92%) Google
16 36 (1.85%) McAfee
17 35 (1.79%) CrowdStrike
18 34 (1.74%) Red Hat
19 33 (1.69%) Ubiquiti