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

6 months to
3 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 55 41 35
Rank change year-on-year -14 -6 -1
Permanent jobs citing Active Directory 2,153 1,862 3,195
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 2.87% 5.41% 5.36%
As % of the System Software category 51.06% 42.30% 51.95%
Number of salaries quoted 1,649 1,487 2,452
10th Percentile £26,750 £26,000 £24,700
25th Percentile £29,500 £28,500 £28,250
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 £62,275 £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 4,217 4,402 6,150
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 5.61% 12.78% 10.32%
Number of salaries quoted 3,185 2,587 4,646
10th Percentile £28,350 £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 £67,250 £63,750 £60,918
90th Percentile £80,000 £78,750 £73,750
UK median annual salary £54,875 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +9.75% - -9.91%

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 3 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 3 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 -4 511 £42,500 +6.25% 168
North of England -15 495 £34,000 +6.25% 139
Midlands -31 367 £37,500 +7.14% 88
South West -20 293 £37,500 +8.70% 66
North West +59 260 £35,000 - 76
East of England +2 235 £35,000 +4.48% 59
East Midlands -4 196 £36,750 +16.67% 44
Yorkshire -33 178 £31,000 +3.33% 47
West Midlands -41 171 £42,500 +10.39% 44
Scotland +81 112 £29,500 -4.84% 20
Wales -16 74 £42,500 +11.57% 12
Northern Ireland -17 67 £39,500 -28.18% 12
North East -58 57 £40,000 +25.00% 23
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
1 636 (29.54%) Microsoft Exchange
2 448 (20.81%) SharePoint
3 47 (2.18%) IIS
4 17 (0.79%) Confluence
5 11 (0.51%) 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
1 177 (8.22%) 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%) 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%) SAP EHS
9 1 (0.046%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 1,493 (69.35%) Microsoft 365
2 1,215 (56.43%) Azure
3 922 (42.82%) Entra ID
4 160 (7.43%) AWS
5 148 (6.87%) OneDrive
6 106 (4.92%) SaaS
7 78 (3.62%) Power Platform
8 67 (3.11%) IaaS
9 61 (2.83%) Mimecast
10 54 (2.51%) PaaS
11 46 (2.14%) Azure DevOps
12 38 (1.76%) Microsoft Purview
13 36 (1.67%) Azure Sentinel
14 35 (1.63%) Google Workspace
15 29 (1.35%) Serverless
16 27 (1.25%) Power Automate
17 26 (1.21%) Azure Monitor
18 25 (1.16%) GCP
18 25 (1.16%) Nutanix
19 24 (1.11%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 708 (32.88%) DNS
2 590 (27.40%) DHCP
3 521 (24.20%) Firewall
4 357 (16.58%) VPN
5 252 (11.70%) TCP/IP
6 212 (9.85%) WAN
7 208 (9.66%) Wi-Fi
8 206 (9.57%) LAN
9 199 (9.24%) VLAN
10 133 (6.18%) VoIP
11 130 (6.04%) Wireless
12 85 (3.95%) 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 18 (0.84%) Broadband
19 17 (0.79%) SD-WAN
19 17 (0.79%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 110 (5.11%) SQL Server
2 108 (5.02%) Amazon RDS
3 35 (1.63%) Power BI
4 32 (1.49%) Azure SQL Database
5 24 (1.11%) PostgreSQL
6 23 (1.07%) MySQL
7 6 (0.28%) Crystal Reports
8 5 (0.23%) Relational Database
8 5 (0.23%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 4 (0.19%) Data Warehouse
9 4 (0.19%) Neo4j
9 4 (0.19%) SQL Server Reporting Services
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%) Geospatial Data
12 1 (0.046%) InterSystems Cache
12 1 (0.046%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 75 (3.48%) 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
1 975 (45.29%) Social Skills
2 255 (11.84%) Analytical Skills
3 141 (6.55%) Legal
4 128 (5.95%) Finance
5 97 (4.51%) Organisational Skills
6 90 (4.18%) Law
7 75 (3.48%) Manufacturing
8 72 (3.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 62 (2.88%) Public Sector
10 56 (2.60%) Retail
11 48 (2.23%) Documentation Skills
11 48 (2.23%) Telecoms
12 29 (1.35%) Advertising
13 23 (1.07%) Aerospace
14 18 (0.84%) Local Government
15 14 (0.65%) Games
16 13 (0.60%) Automotive
17 9 (0.42%) Influencing Skills
18 7 (0.33%) Banking
19 6 (0.28%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 787 (36.55%) IT Support
2 542 (25.17%) Support Engineer
3 507 (23.55%) IT Engineer
4 424 (19.69%) IT Support Engineer
5 347 (16.12%) Analyst
6 255 (11.84%) Senior
7 223 (10.36%) Support Analyst
8 199 (9.24%) 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
13 151 (7.01%) 2nd Line Support
14 147 (6.83%) IT Analyst
15 131 (6.08%) IT Support Analyst
16 91 (4.23%) 2nd Line Engineer
17 89 (4.13%) Architect
18 83 (3.86%) Administrator
19 82 (3.81%) 3rd Line Support
20 77 (3.58%) Lead
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 46 (2.14%) LDAP
2 31 (1.44%) SAML
3 27 (1.25%) OpenID
4 25 (1.16%) OAuth
5 23 (1.07%) Regular Expression
6 19 (0.88%) XMPP
7 17 (0.79%) REST
8 11 (0.51%) .NET
8 11 (0.51%) ARM Templates
9 10 (0.46%) GraphQL
9 10 (0.46%) JSON
9 10 (0.46%) Microsoft Graph
9 10 (0.46%) SOAP
9 10 (0.46%) XML
10 9 (0.42%) HTML
11 7 (0.33%) JSON Schema
11 7 (0.33%) OAuth2
11 7 (0.33%) Web Services
12 6 (0.28%) Middleware
12 6 (0.28%) ModSecurity
Miscellaneous
1 300 (13.93%) Driving Licence
2 173 (8.04%) Onboarding
3 125 (5.81%) Self-Motivation
4 103 (4.78%) Legacy Systems
5 86 (3.99%) Hybrid Cloud
6 71 (3.30%) Data Centre
7 65 (3.02%) Management Information System
8 50 (2.32%) PKI
9 48 (2.23%) Clustering
10 39 (1.81%) Public Cloud
11 38 (1.76%) Enterprise Software
12 37 (1.72%) Cloud Native
13 36 (1.67%) Security Posture
14 35 (1.63%) Replication
15 33 (1.53%) CCTV
16 17 (0.79%) Cyber Threat
17 16 (0.74%) Client/Server
18 15 (0.70%) Enterprise Storage
18 15 (0.70%) Social Media
19 14 (0.65%) iPhone
Operating Systems
1 1,544 (71.71%) Windows
2 901 (41.85%) Windows Server
3 302 (14.03%) Windows 10
4 286 (13.28%) Linux
5 170 (7.90%) Windows Server 2016
6 150 (6.97%) Mac OS
7 87 (4.04%) Windows Server 2019
8 77 (3.58%) Apple iOS
9 67 (3.11%) Android
10 44 (2.04%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 24 (1.11%) VMS
12 20 (0.93%) 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
1 726 (33.72%) Problem-Solving
2 537 (24.94%) Customer Service
3 502 (23.32%) ITIL
4 415 (19.28%) Continuous Improvement
5 409 (19.00%) Cybersecurity
6 312 (14.49%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 266 (12.35%) Mentoring
8 245 (11.38%) Disaster Recovery
9 204 (9.48%) ITSM
10 180 (8.36%) Service Delivery
11 175 (8.13%) Project Delivery
12 161 (7.48%) Identity Access Management
13 160 (7.43%) Migration
14 144 (6.69%) Customer Experience
15 138 (6.41%) Vulnerability Remediation
16 130 (6.04%) Kalman Filter
17 122 (5.67%) Collaborative Working
17 122 (5.67%) Service Management
18 121 (5.62%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 119 (5.53%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 329 (15.28%) PowerShell
2 195 (9.06%) SQL
3 68 (3.16%) Python
4 66 (3.07%) Bash
5 43 (2.00%) Bicep
6 28 (1.30%) R
7 15 (0.70%) T-SQL
8 12 (0.56%) Kusto Query Language
8 12 (0.56%) VBA
9 9 (0.42%) C#
9 9 (0.42%) Ruby
10 7 (0.33%) Shell Script
11 6 (0.28%) Java
11 6 (0.28%) Korn
12 5 (0.23%) PHP
13 3 (0.14%) JavaScript
14 2 (0.093%) C
14 2 (0.093%) VB
14 2 (0.093%) VB.NET
14 2 (0.093%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 305 (14.17%) Security Cleared
2 216 (10.03%) SC Cleared
3 205 (9.52%) Degree
4 179 (8.31%) Microsoft Certification
5 104 (4.83%) Azure Certification
6 94 (4.37%) DV Cleared
7 91 (4.23%) A+ Certification
8 90 (4.18%) Network+ Certification
9 66 (3.07%) CISM
9 66 (3.07%) CISSP
10 60 (2.79%) Cisco Certification
11 58 (2.69%) DBS Check
12 54 (2.51%) CCNA
13 28 (1.30%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 24 (1.11%) Microsoft Certified Professional
15 23 (1.07%) Computer Science Degree
16 20 (0.93%) MCSA
17 17 (0.79%) AWS Certification
18 16 (0.74%) CompTIA Security+
19 14 (0.65%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 223 (10.36%) Cyber Essentials
2 170 (7.90%) SLA
3 126 (5.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 104 (4.83%) PCI DSS
5 49 (2.28%) GDPR
6 47 (2.18%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 33 (1.53%) NIST
8 21 (0.98%) QA
9 17 (0.79%) NCSC
10 16 (0.74%) Data Quality
11 10 (0.46%) Accessibility
12 6 (0.28%) SOC 2
13 4 (0.19%) GRC
14 3 (0.14%) ISAE 3402
14 3 (0.14%) ITGC
14 3 (0.14%) PMO
15 2 (0.093%) 21 CFR Part 11
15 2 (0.093%) GxP
15 2 (0.093%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 1 (0.046%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 506 (23.50%) Hyper-V
2 371 (17.23%) VMware Infrastructure
3 94 (4.37%) vSphere
4 89 (4.13%) Terminal Server
5 60 (2.79%) Virtual Desktop
6 51 (2.37%) 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 12 (0.56%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 11 (0.51%) BitLocker
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 (25.92%) Microsoft Intune
2 105 (4.88%) SCCM
3 64 (2.97%) Terraform
4 43 (2.00%) Single Sign-On
5 32 (1.49%) Ansible
6 31 (1.44%) Jamf Pro
6 31 (1.44%) Kubernetes
7 30 (1.39%) FortiGate
8 28 (1.30%) vCenter Server
9 26 (1.21%) WSUS
10 20 (0.93%) Proxmox
11 18 (0.84%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
12 15 (0.70%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 15 (0.70%) Failover Clustering
12 15 (0.70%) ZABBIX
13 11 (0.51%) Microsoft Clustering
14 9 (0.42%) SCOM
15 6 (0.28%) Autotask
15 6 (0.28%) Grafana
15 6 (0.28%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 1,731 (80.40%) Microsoft
2 566 (26.29%) VMware
3 205 (9.52%) Veeam
4 155 (7.20%) Cisco
5 115 (5.34%) SolarWinds
6 103 (4.78%) Splunk
7 101 (4.69%) Nimble Storage
8 88 (4.09%) Brocade
8 88 (4.09%) Tanium
9 77 (3.58%) Meraki
10 76 (3.53%) Apple
11 71 (3.30%) Citrix
11 71 (3.30%) CyberArk
11 71 (3.30%) ServiceNow
12 59 (2.74%) HP
13 56 (2.60%) Dell
14 44 (2.04%) SonicWALL
15 42 (1.95%) Fortinet
15 42 (1.95%) Red Hat
16 41 (1.90%) Google