vSphere Contract Job Trends in the South East

VMware vSphere
England > South East

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the South East requiring vSphere skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 30 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 133 125 140
Rank change year-on-year -8 +15 +32
Contract jobs citing vSphere 50 46 63
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 1.13% 1.28% 1.27%
As % of the System Software category 9.40% 8.39% 7.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 45 41 30
10th Percentile £468 - £294
25th Percentile £503 £350 £424
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £485 £550
Median % change year-on-year +13.40% -11.82% +7.84%
75th Percentile £588 £613 £602
90th Percentile £650 £675 £674
England median daily rate £525 £470 £525
% change year-on-year +11.70% -10.48% +2.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 9
10th Percentile - - £62.63
25th Percentile - - -
Median hourly rate - - £76.53
75th Percentile - - -
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £97.50 £112.00 £76.53
% change year-on-year -12.95% +46.35% +98.78%

All System Software Skills
South East

vSphere falls under the System Software category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring system software skills in the South East.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for system software skills 532 548 789
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 12.06% 15.26% 15.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 392 382 495
10th Percentile £190 £200 £158
25th Percentile £313 £350 £225
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% - -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £613 £583
90th Percentile £640 £669 £645
England median daily rate £500 £513 £500
% change year-on-year -2.44% +2.50% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 13 56
10th Percentile £45.69 £45.50 £19.25
25th Percentile £70.00 £54.63 £39.06
Median hourly rate £81.00 £57.25 £61.25
Median % change year-on-year +41.48% -6.53% +68.97%
75th Percentile £89.63 £71.25 £71.90
90th Percentile £102.20 £81.00 £77.02
England median hourly rate £48.11 £28.71 £46.18
% change year-on-year +67.60% -37.84% +82.89%

vSphere
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing vSphere relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East.

vSphere job vacancy trend in the South East

vSphere
Daily Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing vSphere.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing vSphere

vSphere
Daily Rate Histogram in the South East

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing vSphere in the South East over the 6 months to 30 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for vSphere in the South East

vSphere
Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing vSphere.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing vSphere

vSphere
Contract Job Locations in the South East

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing vSphere within the South East region over the 6 months to 30 December 2025. 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
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
Hampshire -16 21 £550 -4.35% 18
Berkshire -13 19 £500 +42.86% 4
Thames Valley -13 19 £500 +42.86% 8
West Sussex -10 3 £500 +6.95% 1
Kent - 3 £575 - 7
vSphere
England

vSphere
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South East 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:

Cloud Services
1 14 (28.00%) OpenShift
2 13 (26.00%) Azure
3 11 (22.00%) IaaS
4 7 (14.00%) AWS
5 3 (6.00%) Microsoft 365
6 2 (4.00%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 11 (22.00%) DNS
2 10 (20.00%) VSAN
3 9 (18.00%) Fibre Channel
4 7 (14.00%) Firewall
4 7 (14.00%) iSCSI
5 5 (10.00%) DHCP
6 4 (8.00%) PCoIP
6 4 (8.00%) SAN
7 3 (6.00%) VLAN
8 2 (4.00%) Software-Defined Networking
9 1 (2.00%) NAS
9 1 (2.00%) Remote Desktop
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (2.00%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 6 (12.00%) Jenkins
2 1 (2.00%) Git
2 1 (2.00%) Subversion
General
1 15 (30.00%) Social Skills
2 6 (12.00%) Public Sector
3 2 (4.00%) Analytical Skills
4 1 (2.00%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 21 (42.00%) Architect
2 9 (18.00%) Infrastructure Architect
2 9 (18.00%) VMware Architect
2 9 (18.00%) VMware Engineer
3 8 (16.00%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 6 (12.00%) Senior
5 5 (10.00%) Site Engineer
5 5 (10.00%) Site Reliability Engineer
6 3 (6.00%) Senior Architect
6 3 (6.00%) VMware Infrastructure Engineer
7 2 (4.00%) Cloud Architect
7 2 (4.00%) Server Engineer
7 2 (4.00%) Storage Engineer
7 2 (4.00%) VMware Specialist
8 1 (2.00%) Infrastructure Specialist
8 1 (2.00%) Linux Administrator
8 1 (2.00%) Linux Engineer
8 1 (2.00%) Principal Engineer
8 1 (2.00%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
8 1 (2.00%) Wintel Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (16.00%) Loki
Miscellaneous
1 8 (16.00%) Cloud Native
1 8 (16.00%) Virtual Team
2 3 (6.00%) Data Centre
3 1 (2.00%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 20 (40.00%) Linux
2 17 (34.00%) Windows
3 13 (26.00%) Windows Server
4 10 (20.00%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 8 (16.00%) Windows Server 2019
6 3 (6.00%) Windows Server 2016
7 2 (4.00%) CentOS
7 2 (4.00%) Ubuntu
8 1 (2.00%) Solaris
8 1 (2.00%) Unix
8 1 (2.00%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 14 (28.00%) CI/CD
1 14 (28.00%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 11 (22.00%) Agile
2 11 (22.00%) Infrastructure as Code
3 9 (18.00%) DevOps
4 8 (16.00%) Infrastructure Management
4 8 (16.00%) Observability
4 8 (16.00%) Site Reliability Engineering
5 6 (12.00%) Containerisation
5 6 (12.00%) Continuous Improvement
5 6 (12.00%) Load Balancing
5 6 (12.00%) RBAC
6 5 (10.00%) Mentoring
7 4 (8.00%) Customer Requirements
7 4 (8.00%) High Availability
7 4 (8.00%) Migration
7 4 (8.00%) Performance Optimisation
7 4 (8.00%) Problem-Solving
7 4 (8.00%) Validation
8 3 (6.00%) Performance Analysis
Programming Languages
1 17 (34.00%) Python
2 16 (32.00%) Bash
3 7 (14.00%) SQL
4 6 (12.00%) PowerShell
5 1 (2.00%) Perl
5 1 (2.00%) VB
Qualifications
1 36 (72.00%) Security Cleared
2 20 (40.00%) SC Cleared
3 14 (28.00%) DV Cleared
4 10 (20.00%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
5 7 (14.00%) MCSE
5 7 (14.00%) Microsoft Certification
6 3 (6.00%) VCAP
6 3 (6.00%) VCP5
6 3 (6.00%) VCP6
7 2 (4.00%) VCDX
8 1 (2.00%) Azure Certification
8 1 (2.00%) Computer Science Degree
8 1 (2.00%) Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (6.00%) SLA
2 2 (4.00%) GDPR
3 1 (2.00%) PCI DSS
3 1 (2.00%) QA
3 1 (2.00%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 33 (66.00%) VMware Infrastructure
2 22 (44.00%) VMware ESXi
3 12 (24.00%) VMware NSX
4 7 (14.00%) Active Directory
4 7 (14.00%) NFS
5 6 (12.00%) Docker
6 3 (6.00%) DFS Replication
7 2 (4.00%) Virtual Desktop
8 1 (2.00%) Firmware
8 1 (2.00%) Virtual Machines
8 1 (2.00%) VMware Server
Systems Management
1 18 (36.00%) vCenter Server
2 15 (30.00%) Kubernetes
3 14 (28.00%) Argo
4 8 (16.00%) Ansible
4 8 (16.00%) Grafana
4 8 (16.00%) Kustomize
4 8 (16.00%) Prometheus
4 8 (16.00%) Terraform
5 7 (14.00%) VxRail
6 2 (4.00%) vRealize
6 2 (4.00%) vRealize Orchestrator
7 1 (2.00%) Avamar
7 1 (2.00%) EMC NetWorker
7 1 (2.00%) Nessus
7 1 (2.00%) Red Hat Satellite
7 1 (2.00%) SELinux
Vendors
1 46 (92.00%) VMware
2 17 (34.00%) Red Hat
3 16 (32.00%) Microsoft
4 11 (22.00%) Veeam
5 7 (14.00%) NetApp
5 7 (14.00%) Splunk
6 6 (12.00%) Pure Storage
7 5 (10.00%) Dell
8 3 (6.00%) EMC
9 1 (2.00%) Citrix
9 1 (2.00%) SolarWinds
9 1 (2.00%) Symantec
9 1 (2.00%) Veritas