SolarWinds Contract Job Trends in the UK excluding London

SolarWinds
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the UK excluding London requiring knowledge or experience of SolarWinds products and/or services. It includes a benchmarking guide to contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited SolarWinds over the 6 months leading up to 2 January 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

The figures below represent the IT contractor job market in general and are not representative of contractor rates within SolarWinds.

6 months to
2 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 297 236 303
Rank change year-on-year -61 +67 +71
Contract jobs citing SolarWinds 104 114 93
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.57% 0.79% 0.48%
As % of the Vendors category 1.23% 1.72% 1.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 86 76 60
10th Percentile £306 £300 £323
25th Percentile £356 £406 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% - +11.76%
75th Percentile £519 £623 £626
90th Percentile £575 £715 £690
UK median daily rate £500 £475 £525
% change year-on-year +5.26% -9.52% +10.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 0 10
10th Percentile - - £58.05
25th Percentile £65.75 - -
Median hourly rate £66.50 - £65.98
75th Percentile £67.25 - -
90th Percentile - - £66.13
UK median hourly rate £66.50 £38.00 £65.98
% change year-on-year +75.00% -42.41% +29.96%

All Vendors
UK excluding London

SolarWinds falls under the Vendor Products and Services category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring knowledge or experience of all vendor products and services in the UK excluding London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for knowledge or experience of vendor products and services 8,481 6,644 9,087
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 46.30% 46.15% 46.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,553 3,949 5,739
10th Percentile £220 £215 £209
25th Percentile £375 £375 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.60% - -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £688 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 642 348 528
10th Percentile £14.51 £15.22 £14.00
25th Percentile £17.40 £16.92 £17.72
Median hourly rate £21.50 £25.00 £46.09
Median % change year-on-year -14.00% -45.76% +101.80%
75th Percentile £44.94 £58.47 £62.50
90th Percentile £74.26 £75.00 £74.37
UK median hourly rate £23.83 £27.50 £45.21
% change year-on-year -13.36% -39.17% +73.88%

SolarWinds
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing SolarWinds relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

SolarWinds job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

SolarWinds
Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing SolarWinds.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing SolarWinds

SolarWinds
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing SolarWinds in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 2 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for SolarWinds in the UK excluding London

SolarWinds
Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing SolarWinds.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing SolarWinds

SolarWinds
Contract Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing SolarWinds within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 2 January 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
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
South East -8 38 £500 +18.34% 14
West Midlands -30 25 £318 -42.18% 9
Midlands -45 25 £318 -45.32% 11
South West -6 17 £550 +32.13% 2
North of England -55 16 £335 -29.29% 3
North West -46 15 £338 -28.95% 3
East of England -15 5 £363 -37.23%
Scotland - 3 £500 - 2
Yorkshire -51 1 £238 +5.56%
SolarWinds
UK

SolarWinds
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 11 (10.58%) Microsoft Exchange
1 11 (10.58%) SharePoint
2 10 (9.62%) Confluence
3 6 (5.77%) IIS
3 6 (5.77%) Skype for Business
4 5 (4.81%) Apache
5 4 (3.85%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 11 (10.58%) MS Visio
2 6 (5.77%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.96%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 32 (30.77%) Azure
2 24 (23.08%) AWS
3 14 (13.46%) Datadog
4 7 (6.73%) Entra ID
5 5 (4.81%) GCP
6 4 (3.85%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 4 (3.85%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 3 (2.88%) Microsoft 365
7 3 (2.88%) Mimecast
7 3 (2.88%) Nutanix
7 3 (2.88%) SaaS
8 2 (1.92%) AWS Direct Connect
Communications & Networking
1 39 (37.50%) Firewall
2 30 (28.85%) DNS
3 26 (25.00%) Cisco ISE
4 24 (23.08%) Cisco IOS
5 22 (21.15%) Cisco Firepower
6 21 (20.19%) Junos
7 20 (19.23%) Network Security
7 20 (19.23%) TCP/IP
8 19 (18.27%) WAN
9 18 (17.31%) DHCP
9 18 (17.31%) LAN
9 18 (17.31%) VLAN
9 18 (17.31%) VPN
10 16 (15.38%) BGP
11 13 (12.50%) OSPF
12 12 (11.54%) VSAN
12 12 (11.54%) Wireless
13 11 (10.58%) Cisco ASA
13 11 (10.58%) MPLS
13 11 (10.58%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (4.81%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 4 (3.85%) Git
1 4 (3.85%) Jenkins
1 4 (3.85%) JIRA
2 3 (2.88%) Bitbucket
3 1 (0.96%) Subversion
General
1 33 (31.73%) Social Skills
2 27 (25.96%) Public Sector
3 20 (19.23%) Analytical Skills
4 5 (4.81%) Presentation Skills
5 4 (3.85%) Documentation Skills
6 3 (2.88%) Influencing Skills
7 2 (1.92%) Finance
7 2 (1.92%) Telecoms
8 1 (0.96%) Advertising
8 1 (0.96%) Financial Institution
8 1 (0.96%) French Language
8 1 (0.96%) Law
8 1 (0.96%) Legal
8 1 (0.96%) Local Government
8 1 (0.96%) Police
Job Titles
1 45 (43.27%) Network Engineer
2 21 (20.19%) 3rd Line Engineer
2 21 (20.19%) Support Engineer
3 20 (19.23%) 3rd Line Network Engineer
3 20 (19.23%) Cloud Engineer
3 20 (19.23%) Cloud Network Engineer
4 19 (18.27%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
5 18 (17.31%) Network Support
5 18 (17.31%) Network Support Engineer
6 16 (15.38%) 3rd Line Support
6 16 (15.38%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
6 16 (15.38%) Analyst
7 13 (12.50%) Infrastructure Analyst
8 11 (10.58%) Server Engineer
9 8 (7.69%) Senior
10 5 (4.81%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 5 (4.81%) Platform Engineer
10 5 (4.81%) Switch Engineer
10 5 (4.81%) Wintel Engineer
11 4 (3.85%) Network Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (1.92%) 802.1X
2 1 (0.96%) Elastic Stack
2 1 (0.96%) LDAP
2 1 (0.96%) REST
2 1 (0.96%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 15 (14.42%) PKI
2 14 (13.46%) Linux Command Line
3 9 (8.65%) Clustering
3 9 (8.65%) Data Centre
4 5 (4.81%) Self-Motivation
5 4 (3.85%) Replication
6 3 (2.88%) Driving Licence
6 3 (2.88%) Enterprise Software
7 2 (1.92%) Security Posture
8 1 (0.96%) Enterprise Storage
8 1 (0.96%) Hybrid Cloud
8 1 (0.96%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 49 (47.12%) Windows
2 38 (36.54%) Windows Server
3 24 (23.08%) Linux
4 5 (4.81%) Windows 10
4 5 (4.81%) Windows Server 2016
5 2 (1.92%) Unix
6 1 (0.96%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.96%) Solaris
6 1 (0.96%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 31 (29.81%) Service Management
2 24 (23.08%) Agile
3 22 (21.15%) ITSM
4 17 (16.35%) ITIL
5 15 (14.42%) Problem-Solving
6 10 (9.62%) Disaster Recovery
6 10 (9.62%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 10 (9.62%) Mentoring
7 9 (8.65%) Project Delivery
8 8 (7.69%) Change Management
8 8 (7.69%) Computer Science
8 8 (7.69%) Critical Thinking
8 8 (7.69%) Infrastructure Automation
8 8 (7.69%) Network Monitoring
8 8 (7.69%) System Testing
9 7 (6.73%) Incident Response
9 7 (6.73%) Network Design
9 7 (6.73%) Network Virtualisation
10 6 (5.77%) Continuous Improvement
10 6 (5.77%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 20 (19.23%) PowerShell
2 15 (14.42%) Python
3 7 (6.73%) SQL
4 5 (4.81%) Perl
5 4 (3.85%) Bash
Qualifications
1 61 (58.65%) Security Cleared
2 27 (25.96%) DV Cleared
2 27 (25.96%) SC Cleared
3 26 (25.00%) Cisco Certification
4 24 (23.08%) CCNP
5 13 (12.50%) CCNA
5 13 (12.50%) Degree
6 9 (8.65%) Microsoft Certification
7 8 (7.69%) MCSE
8 6 (5.77%) CCIE
9 5 (4.81%) ITIL Certification
9 5 (4.81%) Master's Degree
10 4 (3.85%) CISSP
11 3 (2.88%) Azure Certification
11 3 (2.88%) CCDP
11 3 (2.88%) CCSP
11 3 (2.88%) MCSA
11 3 (2.88%) Network+ Certification
11 3 (2.88%) OCA
11 3 (2.88%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (4.81%) GDPR
1 5 (4.81%) PCI DSS
2 4 (3.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 4 (3.85%) NIST
3 1 (0.96%) Disclosure Scotland
3 1 (0.96%) QA
3 1 (0.96%) SLA
System Software
1 45 (43.27%) Active Directory
2 38 (36.54%) VMware Infrastructure
3 31 (29.81%) VMware NSX
4 15 (14.42%) vSphere
5 12 (11.54%) Hyper-V
6 7 (6.73%) Virtual Servers
7 5 (4.81%) Microsoft Virtual Server
7 5 (4.81%) Virtual Machines
8 4 (3.85%) Firmware
9 1 (0.96%) KVM
9 1 (0.96%) RHEV
9 1 (0.96%) Terminal Services
9 1 (0.96%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.96%) Xen
Systems Management
1 28 (26.92%) vCenter Server
2 24 (23.08%) Ansible
3 14 (13.46%) Terraform
4 13 (12.50%) vRealize
5 12 (11.54%) Nagios
5 12 (11.54%) VxRail
6 8 (7.69%) WSUS
7 7 (6.73%) SCCM
8 6 (5.77%) Microsoft Clustering
9 5 (4.81%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 3 (2.88%) Iperf
10 3 (2.88%) Nmap
11 2 (1.92%) FortiGate
11 2 (1.92%) Microsoft Intune
11 2 (1.92%) PowerCLI
11 2 (1.92%) Single Sign-On
12 1 (0.96%) Failover Clustering
12 1 (0.96%) Proxmox
12 1 (0.96%) SCOM
12 1 (0.96%) SELinux
Vendors
1 88 (84.62%) Cisco
2 42 (40.38%) VMware
3 30 (28.85%) Juniper
4 22 (21.15%) Veeam
5 19 (18.27%) Palo Alto
6 18 (17.31%) Fortinet
7 17 (16.35%) Dell
8 16 (15.38%) Microsoft
9 15 (14.42%) Commvault
10 14 (13.46%) AppDynamics
10 14 (13.46%) IBM
11 13 (12.50%) CheckPoint
11 13 (12.50%) F5
12 12 (11.54%) HP
13 9 (8.65%) Meraki
14 5 (4.81%) Splunk
15 4 (3.85%) Broadcom
15 4 (3.85%) NetApp
15 4 (3.85%) Oracle
16 3 (2.88%) Atlassian