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

6 months to
14 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 55 39 37
Rank change year-on-year -16 -2 -4
Permanent jobs citing Active Directory 2,167 1,889 3,138
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 2.80% 5.44% 5.25%
As % of the System Software category 50.27% 43.29% 51.53%
Number of salaries quoted 1,660 1,513 2,348
10th Percentile £26,750 £26,000 £24,640
25th Percentile £29,500 £28,250 £28,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £37,500 £35,000 £37,500
Median % change year-on-year +7.14% -6.67% +1.35%
75th Percentile £50,443 £47,500 £50,000
90th Percentile £65,125 £60,000 £59,913
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 4,311 4,364 6,090
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 5.58% 12.56% 10.19%
Number of salaries quoted 3,233 2,550 4,475
10th Percentile £28,500 £26,500 £26,250
25th Percentile £33,750 £31,250 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £42,500 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year +17.65% -10.53% -3.06%
75th Percentile £67,500 £62,500 £61,250
90th Percentile £80,000 £77,500 £73,750
UK median annual salary £55,000 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +10.00% - -11.50%

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 14 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 14 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 -8 511 £42,500 +6.25% 218
North of England -17 507 £33,238 +7.22% 144
Midlands -32 372 £38,800 +19.38% 82
South West -18 292 £37,500 +8.70% 76
North West +64 272 £35,000 - 86
East of England +2 243 £36,500 +8.96% 72
East Midlands -15 193 £37,500 +19.05% 30
West Midlands -37 179 £42,500 +11.84% 52
Yorkshire -31 175 £30,000 - 41
Scotland +69 109 £31,500 +1.61% 26
Wales -25 70 £45,000 +18.13% 11
Northern Ireland -12 68 £40,000 -27.27% 11
North East -60 60 £40,000 +29.03% 23
Isle of Man 0 3 £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
1 643 (29.67%) Microsoft Exchange
2 462 (21.32%) SharePoint
3 50 (2.31%) IIS
4 18 (0.83%) Confluence
5 12 (0.55%) Skype for Business
6 7 (0.32%) Apache
7 4 (0.18%) Exchange Server 2013
8 3 (0.14%) nginx
8 3 (0.14%) SAS
9 2 (0.092%) CMS
9 2 (0.092%) Exchange Server 2007
9 2 (0.092%) Exchange Server 2010
10 1 (0.046%) Drupal
10 1 (0.046%) HCL Domino
10 1 (0.046%) HCL Notes
10 1 (0.046%) Site Server
10 1 (0.046%) WordPress
Applications
1 153 (7.06%) Microsoft Office
2 44 (2.03%) Microsoft Excel
3 16 (0.74%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (0.18%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 3 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (0.092%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.046%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.046%) Revit
Business Applications
1 15 (0.69%) Dynamics CRM
2 10 (0.46%) Dynamics NAV
3 7 (0.32%) Remedy ITSM
4 6 (0.28%) Raiser’s Edge
5 5 (0.23%) JDE EnterpriseOne
6 4 (0.18%) Exchequer
6 4 (0.18%) NetSuite
6 4 (0.18%) Payment Gateway
6 4 (0.18%) Primavera
6 4 (0.18%) Shopify
7 3 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
8 2 (0.092%) Dynamics GP
8 2 (0.092%) Sage 200
8 2 (0.092%) SAP S/4HANA
8 2 (0.092%) Teamcenter
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
Cloud Services
1 1,494 (68.94%) Microsoft 365
2 1,224 (56.48%) Azure
3 947 (43.70%) Entra ID
4 161 (7.43%) AWS
5 155 (7.15%) OneDrive
6 103 (4.75%) SaaS
7 75 (3.46%) Power Platform
8 70 (3.23%) IaaS
9 62 (2.86%) Mimecast
10 54 (2.49%) PaaS
11 48 (2.22%) Azure DevOps
12 40 (1.85%) Microsoft Purview
13 37 (1.71%) Azure Sentinel
14 32 (1.48%) Power Automate
15 30 (1.38%) Serverless
16 27 (1.25%) Azure Monitor
16 27 (1.25%) GCP
17 26 (1.20%) Google Workspace
18 25 (1.15%) PowerApps
19 22 (1.02%) Azure ExpressRoute
Communications & Networking
1 697 (32.16%) DNS
2 581 (26.81%) DHCP
3 521 (24.04%) Firewall
4 367 (16.94%) VPN
5 252 (11.63%) TCP/IP
6 212 (9.78%) Wi-Fi
7 204 (9.41%) WAN
8 199 (9.18%) LAN
8 199 (9.18%) VLAN
9 133 (6.14%) Wireless
10 129 (5.95%) VoIP
11 90 (4.15%) Network Security
12 82 (3.78%) SAN
13 49 (2.26%) Remote Desktop
14 29 (1.34%) Internet
15 27 (1.25%) NAS
15 27 (1.25%) SSL
16 17 (0.78%) WLAN
17 16 (0.74%) Structured Cabling
17 16 (0.74%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 102 (4.71%) SQL Server
2 99 (4.57%) Amazon RDS
3 32 (1.48%) Azure SQL Database
4 30 (1.38%) Power BI
5 21 (0.97%) PostgreSQL
6 20 (0.92%) MySQL
7 6 (0.28%) Crystal Reports
7 6 (0.28%) Relational Database
8 5 (0.23%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 4 (0.18%) Data Warehouse
9 4 (0.18%) Neo4j
10 3 (0.14%) Oracle Database
11 2 (0.092%) BusinessObjects
11 2 (0.092%) Data Lake
11 2 (0.092%) KNIME
12 1 (0.046%) Geospatial Data
12 1 (0.046%) GIS
12 1 (0.046%) InterSystems Cache
12 1 (0.046%) RDBMS
12 1 (0.046%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 75 (3.46%) JIRA
2 28 (1.29%) Git
3 9 (0.42%) Jenkins
4 6 (0.28%) Bitbucket
5 5 (0.23%) GitLab
6 2 (0.092%) Artifactory
6 2 (0.092%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 2 (0.092%) Burp Suite
6 2 (0.092%) git-flow
6 2 (0.092%) Metasploit
6 2 (0.092%) NUnit
6 2 (0.092%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
6 2 (0.092%) Terragrunt
7 1 (0.046%) Carbide.c++
7 1 (0.046%) JMeter
7 1 (0.046%) Ranorex
7 1 (0.046%) Selenium
7 1 (0.046%) Subversion
7 1 (0.046%) Team Foundation Server
7 1 (0.046%) Vagrant
General
1 988 (45.59%) Social Skills
2 255 (11.77%) Analytical Skills
3 147 (6.78%) Legal
4 131 (6.05%) Finance
5 84 (3.88%) Law
5 84 (3.88%) Organisational Skills
6 80 (3.69%) Manufacturing
7 74 (3.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 64 (2.95%) Public Sector
9 58 (2.68%) Retail
10 47 (2.17%) Telecoms
11 42 (1.94%) Documentation Skills
12 32 (1.48%) Aerospace
13 30 (1.38%) Advertising
14 14 (0.65%) Automotive
15 13 (0.60%) Local Government
16 9 (0.42%) Influencing Skills
17 7 (0.32%) Games
18 6 (0.28%) Aviation
19 5 (0.23%) Banking
Job Titles
1 777 (35.86%) IT Support
2 534 (24.64%) Support Engineer
3 510 (23.53%) IT Engineer
4 418 (19.29%) IT Support Engineer
5 344 (15.87%) Analyst
6 265 (12.23%) Senior
7 221 (10.20%) Support Analyst
8 214 (9.88%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 201 (9.28%) IT Technician
10 199 (9.18%) Support Technician
11 177 (8.17%) IT Support Technician
12 162 (7.48%) Systems Engineer
13 146 (6.74%) 2nd Line Support
14 140 (6.46%) IT Analyst
15 124 (5.72%) IT Support Analyst
16 93 (4.29%) Architect
17 92 (4.25%) 2nd Line Engineer
18 84 (3.88%) 3rd Line Support
19 83 (3.83%) Administrator
20 77 (3.55%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 48 (2.22%) LDAP
2 30 (1.38%) SAML
3 27 (1.25%) OpenID
4 25 (1.15%) OAuth
5 23 (1.06%) Regular Expression
6 19 (0.88%) XMPP
7 12 (0.55%) .NET
7 12 (0.55%) Microsoft Graph
8 11 (0.51%) ARM Templates
8 11 (0.51%) ModSecurity
9 10 (0.46%) HTML
10 9 (0.42%) REST
11 7 (0.32%) JSON
11 7 (0.32%) JSON Schema
11 7 (0.32%) OAuth2
11 7 (0.32%) Web Services
11 7 (0.32%) XML
12 6 (0.28%) Middleware
13 5 (0.23%) ODBC
13 5 (0.23%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 301 (13.89%) Driving Licence
2 185 (8.54%) Onboarding
3 122 (5.63%) Self-Motivation
4 95 (4.38%) Legacy Systems
5 83 (3.83%) Hybrid Cloud
6 68 (3.14%) Data Centre
7 66 (3.05%) Management Information System
8 48 (2.22%) PKI
9 45 (2.08%) Clustering
10 43 (1.98%) Cloud Native
11 42 (1.94%) Enterprise Software
12 41 (1.89%) Security Posture
13 37 (1.71%) Public Cloud
14 35 (1.62%) CCTV
14 35 (1.62%) Replication
15 18 (0.83%) CMDB
15 18 (0.83%) Social Media
16 17 (0.78%) Video Conferencing
17 16 (0.74%) Client/Server
17 16 (0.74%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 1,538 (70.97%) Windows
2 892 (41.16%) Windows Server
3 291 (13.43%) Windows 10
4 278 (12.83%) Linux
5 159 (7.34%) Windows Server 2016
6 144 (6.65%) Mac OS
7 86 (3.97%) Windows Server 2019
8 77 (3.55%) Apple iOS
9 61 (2.81%) Android
10 45 (2.08%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 23 (1.06%) VMS
12 19 (0.88%) Ubuntu
13 18 (0.83%) Windows Server 2012
14 8 (0.37%) CentOS
14 8 (0.37%) Windows 7
15 6 (0.28%) Debian
15 6 (0.28%) Windows Server 2008
16 5 (0.23%) CoreOS
17 4 (0.18%) Mac OS X
17 4 (0.18%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 738 (34.06%) Problem-Solving
2 532 (24.55%) Customer Service
3 494 (22.80%) ITIL
4 436 (20.12%) Continuous Improvement
5 409 (18.87%) Cybersecurity
6 339 (15.64%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 268 (12.37%) Mentoring
8 259 (11.95%) Disaster Recovery
9 206 (9.51%) ITSM
10 186 (8.58%) Project Delivery
11 183 (8.44%) Service Delivery
12 178 (8.21%) Identity Access Management
13 163 (7.52%) Migration
14 136 (6.28%) Customer Experience
15 135 (6.23%) Service Management
16 133 (6.14%) Vulnerability Remediation
17 132 (6.09%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 130 (6.00%) Collaborative Working
19 124 (5.72%) AI
20 119 (5.49%) Kalman Filter
Programming Languages
1 336 (15.51%) PowerShell
2 194 (8.95%) SQL
3 67 (3.09%) Python
4 60 (2.77%) Bash
5 49 (2.26%) Bicep
6 29 (1.34%) R
7 12 (0.55%) Kusto Query Language
7 12 (0.55%) VBA
8 11 (0.51%) Ruby
9 8 (0.37%) C#
10 7 (0.32%) Java
10 7 (0.32%) Shell Script
11 6 (0.28%) Korn
11 6 (0.28%) T-SQL
12 5 (0.23%) PHP
13 3 (0.14%) VB.NET
14 2 (0.092%) C
14 2 (0.092%) VB
14 2 (0.092%) VBScript
15 1 (0.046%) JavaScript
Qualifications
1 311 (14.35%) Security Cleared
2 216 (9.97%) SC Cleared
3 205 (9.46%) Degree
4 186 (8.58%) Microsoft Certification
5 117 (5.40%) Azure Certification
6 101 (4.66%) DV Cleared
7 93 (4.29%) A+ Certification
8 92 (4.25%) Network+ Certification
9 74 (3.41%) CISM
9 74 (3.41%) CISSP
10 63 (2.91%) Cisco Certification
11 58 (2.68%) DBS Check
12 56 (2.58%) CCNA
13 33 (1.52%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 24 (1.11%) Computer Science Degree
15 23 (1.06%) Microsoft Certified Professional
16 19 (0.88%) AWS Certification
16 19 (0.88%) MCSA
17 18 (0.83%) CompTIA Security+
18 14 (0.65%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 220 (10.15%) Cyber Essentials
2 170 (7.84%) SLA
3 126 (5.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 96 (4.43%) PCI DSS
5 52 (2.40%) GDPR
6 50 (2.31%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 27 (1.25%) NIST
8 20 (0.92%) QA
9 13 (0.60%) Accessibility
9 13 (0.60%) Data Quality
10 11 (0.51%) NCSC
11 6 (0.28%) SOC 2
12 4 (0.18%) GRC
13 3 (0.14%) ISAE 3402
13 3 (0.14%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 2 (0.092%) ITGC
14 2 (0.092%) PMO
15 1 (0.046%) ISO 9001
15 1 (0.046%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 506 (23.35%) Hyper-V
2 381 (17.58%) VMware Infrastructure
3 91 (4.20%) vSphere
4 81 (3.74%) Terminal Server
5 67 (3.09%) Virtual Desktop
6 51 (2.35%) Virtual Machines
7 39 (1.80%) VMware ESXi
8 38 (1.75%) Docker
9 20 (0.92%) Firmware
10 18 (0.83%) Virtual Servers
11 14 (0.65%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 12 (0.55%) VMware NSX
13 11 (0.51%) Citrix Hypervisor
14 10 (0.46%) BitLocker
15 6 (0.28%) DFS Replication
16 5 (0.23%) NDS
16 5 (0.23%) XenApp
17 4 (0.18%) Squid
18 3 (0.14%) VMware Server
18 3 (0.14%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 574 (26.49%) Microsoft Intune
2 116 (5.35%) SCCM
3 73 (3.37%) Terraform
4 53 (2.45%) Single Sign-On
5 35 (1.62%) Ansible
6 34 (1.57%) Kubernetes
7 31 (1.43%) FortiGate
8 26 (1.20%) Jamf Pro
8 26 (1.20%) WSUS
9 23 (1.06%) vCenter Server
10 19 (0.88%) Proxmox
11 17 (0.78%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 17 (0.78%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
12 15 (0.69%) Failover Clustering
13 13 (0.60%) ZABBIX
14 11 (0.51%) Microsoft Clustering
15 10 (0.46%) SCOM
16 6 (0.28%) Grafana
16 6 (0.28%) Prometheus
17 5 (0.23%) Packer
Vendors
1 1,767 (81.54%) Microsoft
2 563 (25.98%) VMware
3 199 (9.18%) Veeam
4 159 (7.34%) Cisco
5 103 (4.75%) SolarWinds
6 97 (4.48%) Splunk
7 91 (4.20%) Nimble Storage
8 80 (3.69%) Brocade
8 80 (3.69%) Tanium
9 74 (3.41%) Apple
9 74 (3.41%) Meraki
10 73 (3.37%) CyberArk
11 70 (3.23%) Citrix
12 68 (3.14%) ServiceNow
13 51 (2.35%) Dell
13 51 (2.35%) HP
14 49 (2.26%) SonicWALL
15 47 (2.17%) Fortinet
16 45 (2.08%) Red Hat
17 40 (1.85%) CrowdStrike