Active Directory Job Trends

Microsoft Active Directory
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs requiring Active Directory skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 17 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 67 45 29
Rank change year-on-year -22 -16 +21
Permanent jobs citing Active Directory 2,434 2,192 6,249
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 2.83% 5.27% 6.61%
As % of the System Software category 52.09% 41.21% 51.00%
Number of salaries quoted 1,826 1,824 5,101
10th Percentile £26,750 £26,250 £25,000
25th Percentile £29,750 £30,000 £28,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £37,500 £40,000 £38,000
Median % change year-on-year -6.25% +5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £56,250 £53,822 £52,500
90th Percentile £75,000 £75,000 £65,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £35,000 £35,000 £35,000
% change year-on-year - - -2.78%

All System Software Skills
UK

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.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for system software skills 4,673 5,319 12,253
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 5.43% 12.79% 12.96%
Number of salaries quoted 3,292 3,917 9,929
10th Percentile £28,250 £28,500 £26,250
25th Percentile £33,500 £37,250 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £51,000 £55,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -7.27% +10.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £73,750 £78,750 £67,500
90th Percentile £90,000 £100,000 £86,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £45,000 £48,500 £45,000
% change year-on-year -7.22% +7.78% -5.26%

Active Directory
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Active Directory relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised.

Active Directory job vacancy trend in the UK

Active Directory
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Active Directory.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Active Directory

Active Directory
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Active Directory over the 6 months to 17 April 2026.

Salary histogram for Active Directory in the UK

Active Directory
Top 18 Job Locations

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 over the 6 months to 17 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
England -21 2,199 £37,500 -6.25% 543
UK excluding London -24 1,753 £35,000 - 479
London -16 598 £52,500 - 131
Work from Home -21 587 £42,500 - 167
South East -4 453 £36,250 -9.38% 149
North of England -14 404 £34,000 +2.72% 120
Midlands -47 294 £32,500 -7.14% 70
South West -1 257 £32,500 -7.14% 70
North West -7 194 £35,000 -12.50% 67
Yorkshire -30 179 £32,500 +8.33% 35
East of England -29 177 £40,000 +23.08% 53
East Midlands -27 152 £32,500 +6.56% 41
West Midlands -49 141 £32,500 -13.15% 29
Scotland +28 98 £29,500 -20.27% 24
Wales -3 46 £39,250 +3.03% 8
North East -31 31 £32,000 -3.61% 23
Northern Ireland -28 18 £32,000 -39.05% 5
Isle of Man +2 6 £45,000 +55.17%

Active Directory
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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
1 658 (27.03%) Microsoft Exchange
2 490 (20.13%) SharePoint
3 35 (1.44%) Confluence
4 31 (1.27%) IIS
5 17 (0.70%) Exchange Server 2003
6 16 (0.66%) Exchange Server 2013
7 13 (0.53%) Exchange Server 2007
7 13 (0.53%) Exchange Server 2010
8 9 (0.37%) Apache
9 8 (0.33%) Tomcat
10 6 (0.25%) CMS
11 5 (0.21%) Skype for Business
12 4 (0.16%) WordPress
13 2 (0.082%) Apache Spark
13 2 (0.082%) BizTalk Server
13 2 (0.082%) WebLogic
13 2 (0.082%) WebLogic Portal
14 1 (0.041%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 1 (0.041%) JBoss
14 1 (0.041%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 334 (13.72%) Microsoft Office
2 69 (2.83%) Microsoft Excel
3 29 (1.19%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
5 2 (0.082%) AutoCAD
5 2 (0.082%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.041%) Acrobat
6 1 (0.041%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 1 (0.041%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.041%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.041%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 24 (0.99%) Dynamics CRM
2 10 (0.41%) Dynamics NAV
3 8 (0.33%) Oracle ERP
4 7 (0.29%) NetSuite
5 6 (0.25%) Oracle EBS
5 6 (0.25%) Primavera
6 5 (0.21%) Remedy ITSM
7 4 (0.16%) Dynamics GP
7 4 (0.16%) Exchequer
7 4 (0.16%) Markit EDM
7 4 (0.16%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 3 (0.12%) Alphatax
8 3 (0.12%) Fidessa
9 2 (0.082%) Elite 3E
9 2 (0.082%) Shopify
10 1 (0.041%) Cognos Business Intelligence
10 1 (0.041%) Magento
10 1 (0.041%) Oracle Payables
10 1 (0.041%) Sage 200
10 1 (0.041%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 1,649 (67.75%) Microsoft 365
2 1,381 (56.74%) Azure
3 945 (38.82%) Entra ID
4 206 (8.46%) OneDrive
5 203 (8.34%) AWS
6 150 (6.16%) Google Workspace
7 141 (5.79%) SaaS
8 115 (4.72%) Power Platform
9 74 (3.04%) PaaS
10 68 (2.79%) IaaS
11 63 (2.59%) Azure DevOps
12 59 (2.42%) Mimecast
13 55 (2.26%) GCP
13 55 (2.26%) GitHub
14 53 (2.18%) Azure Monitor
15 43 (1.77%) GitHub Actions
15 43 (1.77%) Nutanix
16 42 (1.73%) PowerApps
17 34 (1.40%) Datadog
18 32 (1.31%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 800 (32.87%) DNS
2 724 (29.75%) DHCP
3 573 (23.54%) Firewall
4 426 (17.50%) VPN
5 281 (11.54%) TCP/IP
6 277 (11.38%) WAN
7 259 (10.64%) Wi-Fi
8 249 (10.23%) LAN
9 219 (9.00%) VLAN
10 124 (5.09%) VoIP
11 101 (4.15%) Wireless
12 99 (4.07%) SAN
13 96 (3.94%) Network Security
14 66 (2.71%) Remote Desktop
15 65 (2.67%) Broadband
16 45 (1.85%) SD-WAN
17 27 (1.11%) Internet
18 22 (0.90%) SMTP
19 21 (0.86%) NAS
20 19 (0.78%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 161 (6.61%) SQL Server
2 86 (3.53%) Amazon RDS
3 67 (2.75%) Power BI
4 29 (1.19%) MySQL
5 28 (1.15%) PostgreSQL
6 21 (0.86%) Oracle Database
7 18 (0.74%) Azure SQL Database
8 17 (0.70%) Oracle Database 10g
9 11 (0.45%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 8 (0.33%) GIS
11 7 (0.29%) Data Warehouse
11 7 (0.29%) NoSQL
12 6 (0.25%) Oracle Reports
12 6 (0.25%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 4 (0.16%) Data Lake
13 4 (0.16%) Relational Database
14 3 (0.12%) Neo4j
15 2 (0.082%) Big Data
15 2 (0.082%) SQL Server Analysis Services
15 2 (0.082%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 104 (4.27%) JIRA
2 48 (1.97%) Git
3 27 (1.11%) GitLab
4 24 (0.99%) Jenkins
5 18 (0.74%) Chocolatey
6 15 (0.62%) Bitbucket
7 12 (0.49%) Subversion
8 10 (0.41%) Oracle Forms
9 9 (0.37%) Visual Studio Code
10 7 (0.29%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
11 5 (0.21%) Atlassian Bamboo
12 4 (0.16%) LabVIEW
13 3 (0.12%) TeamCity
14 2 (0.082%) Artifactory
14 2 (0.082%) Burp Suite
14 2 (0.082%) Metasploit
14 2 (0.082%) Octopus Deploy
14 2 (0.082%) Oracle APEX
15 1 (0.041%) JMeter
15 1 (0.041%) Vagrant
General
1 1,029 (42.28%) Social Skills
2 293 (12.04%) Finance
3 258 (10.60%) Analytical Skills
4 206 (8.46%) Organisational Skills
5 103 (4.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 93 (3.82%) Legal
7 89 (3.66%) Manufacturing
8 83 (3.41%) Law
9 80 (3.29%) Public Sector
10 73 (3.00%) Documentation Skills
11 71 (2.92%) Retail
12 50 (2.05%) Banking
13 47 (1.93%) Games
14 46 (1.89%) Telecoms
15 41 (1.68%) Advertising
16 29 (1.19%) Marketing
17 15 (0.62%) Local Government
18 14 (0.58%) Influencing Skills
19 13 (0.53%) Automotive
20 11 (0.45%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 836 (34.35%) IT Support
2 641 (26.34%) Support Engineer
3 551 (22.64%) IT Engineer
4 450 (18.49%) IT Support Engineer
5 354 (14.54%) Analyst
6 273 (11.22%) Senior
7 246 (10.11%) Support Analyst
8 217 (8.92%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 216 (8.87%) 2nd Line Support
10 187 (7.68%) Support Technician
11 163 (6.70%) IT Analyst
12 158 (6.49%) IT Technician
13 143 (5.88%) IT Support Technician
14 140 (5.75%) IT Support Analyst
15 136 (5.59%) 2nd Line Engineer
15 136 (5.59%) Systems Engineer
16 126 (5.18%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
17 109 (4.48%) 1st Line Support
18 107 (4.40%) 3rd Line Support
19 95 (3.90%) Lead
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 96 (3.94%) SAML
2 91 (3.74%) OAuth
3 85 (3.49%) LDAP
4 78 (3.20%) REST
5 75 (3.08%) OpenID
6 66 (2.71%) SOAP
7 57 (2.34%) GraphQL
8 22 (0.90%) .NET
9 20 (0.82%) RESTful
10 19 (0.78%) JSON
10 19 (0.78%) XML
11 16 (0.66%) ADO
12 15 (0.62%) Web Services
13 13 (0.53%) HTML
14 12 (0.49%) YAML
15 11 (0.45%) .NET Framework
15 11 (0.45%) React
16 10 (0.41%) CSS
17 9 (0.37%) EDI
17 9 (0.37%) Razor View Engine
Miscellaneous
1 274 (11.26%) Driving Licence
2 155 (6.37%) Onboarding
3 102 (4.19%) Self-Motivation
4 80 (3.29%) Cyber Threat
5 79 (3.25%) Hybrid Cloud
6 70 (2.88%) Enterprise Software
7 69 (2.83%) Legacy Systems
8 68 (2.79%) Cyberattack
9 58 (2.38%) Management Information System
10 50 (2.05%) Data Centre
11 44 (1.81%) Public Cloud
12 43 (1.77%) Replication
13 39 (1.60%) CMDB
14 34 (1.40%) Cloud Native
14 34 (1.40%) Video Conferencing
15 33 (1.36%) PKI
15 33 (1.36%) Security Posture
16 22 (0.90%) iPhone
17 21 (0.86%) Client/Server
18 20 (0.82%) Clustering
Operating Systems
1 1,725 (70.87%) Windows
2 951 (39.07%) Windows Server
3 454 (18.65%) Windows 10
4 303 (12.45%) Linux
5 182 (7.48%) Windows Server 2016
6 136 (5.59%) Mac OS
7 128 (5.26%) Apple iOS
8 93 (3.82%) Windows Server 2019
9 90 (3.70%) Android
10 63 (2.59%) Windows Server 2012
11 36 (1.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 34 (1.40%) Unix
13 33 (1.36%) Windows 7
13 33 (1.36%) Windows Server 2008
14 26 (1.07%) VMS
15 21 (0.86%) Ubuntu
16 20 (0.82%) Solaris
17 17 (0.70%) HPUX
17 17 (0.70%) Windows Server 2003
18 14 (0.58%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 792 (32.54%) Problem-Solving
2 607 (24.94%) Customer Service
3 601 (24.69%) ITIL
4 354 (14.54%) Cybersecurity
5 305 (12.53%) Continuous Improvement
6 285 (11.71%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 283 (11.63%) ITSM
8 269 (11.05%) Mentoring
9 243 (9.98%) Disaster Recovery
10 213 (8.75%) Service Delivery
11 179 (7.35%) Incident Management
12 175 (7.19%) Identity Access Management
13 173 (7.11%) Change Management
14 169 (6.94%) Migration
15 155 (6.37%) Roadmaps
16 144 (5.92%) DevOps
17 139 (5.71%) Vulnerability Remediation
18 136 (5.59%) Coaching
19 129 (5.30%) Root Cause Analysis
20 127 (5.22%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 470 (19.31%) PowerShell
2 218 (8.96%) SQL
3 120 (4.93%) Bash
4 113 (4.64%) Python
5 70 (2.88%) T-SQL
6 17 (0.70%) Bicep
6 17 (0.70%) Perl
7 16 (0.66%) JavaScript
7 16 (0.66%) R
8 15 (0.62%) Java
8 15 (0.62%) Kusto Query Language
9 13 (0.53%) C#
10 12 (0.49%) Shell Script
11 11 (0.45%) PL/SQL
12 9 (0.37%) TypeScript
12 9 (0.37%) VB
13 5 (0.21%) VBA
14 4 (0.16%) C
14 4 (0.16%) Korn
15 3 (0.12%) PHP
Qualifications
1 304 (12.49%) Degree
2 271 (11.13%) Security Cleared
3 216 (8.87%) Microsoft Certification
4 187 (7.68%) SC Cleared
5 97 (3.99%) DV Cleared
6 79 (3.25%) Azure Certification
7 55 (2.26%) Cisco Certification
8 54 (2.22%) A+ Certification
8 54 (2.22%) DBS Check
9 53 (2.18%) Computer Science Degree
10 40 (1.64%) Microsoft Certified Professional
11 38 (1.56%) CCNA
12 37 (1.52%) Network+ Certification
13 32 (1.31%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 28 (1.15%) CISSP
14 28 (1.15%) MCSE
15 25 (1.03%) ITIL Certification
16 19 (0.78%) CCNP
16 19 (0.78%) HNC
17 16 (0.66%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 244 (10.02%) SLA
2 162 (6.66%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 157 (6.45%) Cyber Essentials
4 92 (3.78%) NIST
5 79 (3.25%) PCI DSS
6 60 (2.47%) GDPR
7 57 (2.34%) NCSC
8 33 (1.36%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 32 (1.31%) QA
10 23 (0.94%) SOC 2
11 20 (0.82%) Data Quality
12 10 (0.41%) Accessibility
13 8 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 7 (0.29%) GRC
15 5 (0.21%) GxP
15 5 (0.21%) PMO
16 4 (0.16%) 21 CFR Part 11
16 4 (0.16%) ISO 22301
16 4 (0.16%) ITGC
17 2 (0.082%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 406 (16.68%) Hyper-V
2 380 (15.61%) VMware Infrastructure
3 85 (3.49%) vSphere
4 68 (2.79%) Virtual Desktop
5 67 (2.75%) Terminal Server
6 55 (2.26%) Virtual Machines
7 52 (2.14%) Docker
8 51 (2.10%) VMware ESXi
9 25 (1.03%) BitLocker
10 15 (0.62%) Firmware
11 14 (0.58%) VMware NSX
12 11 (0.45%) VMware Workstation
12 11 (0.45%) XenApp
13 8 (0.33%) Citrix Hypervisor
14 6 (0.25%) DFS Replication
15 5 (0.21%) XenDesktop
16 4 (0.16%) Terminal Services
16 4 (0.16%) Virtual Servers
17 3 (0.12%) Microsoft Virtual Server
17 3 (0.12%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 549 (22.56%) Microsoft Intune
2 202 (8.30%) SCCM
3 96 (3.94%) Terraform
4 85 (3.49%) Single Sign-On
5 75 (3.08%) Ansible
6 65 (2.67%) Kubernetes
7 50 (2.05%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 44 (1.81%) Jamf Pro
9 42 (1.73%) vCenter Server
10 37 (1.52%) WSUS
11 29 (1.19%) FortiGate
12 19 (0.78%) SCOM
13 17 (0.70%) Autotask
14 14 (0.58%) VxRail
15 12 (0.49%) Grafana
16 10 (0.41%) Prometheus
17 9 (0.37%) Backup Exec
17 9 (0.37%) Proxmox
18 7 (0.29%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
18 7 (0.29%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 1,763 (72.43%) Microsoft
2 608 (24.98%) VMware
3 145 (5.96%) Veeam
4 141 (5.79%) ServiceNow
5 134 (5.51%) Cisco
6 125 (5.14%) Citrix
7 119 (4.89%) Apple
8 112 (4.60%) Google
9 107 (4.40%) SolarWinds
10 94 (3.86%) Splunk
11 92 (3.78%) Nimble Storage
12 91 (3.74%) Dell
13 82 (3.37%) HP
14 64 (2.63%) Brocade
14 64 (2.63%) Tanium
15 52 (2.14%) Meraki
15 52 (2.14%) Oracle
16 42 (1.73%) Palo Alto
17 41 (1.68%) McAfee
17 41 (1.68%) Tenable