vSphere Contract Job Trends in the UK excluding London

VMware vSphere
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the UK excluding London requiring vSphere skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 6 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
6 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 282 271 232
Rank change year-on-year -11 -39 +36
Contract jobs citing vSphere 195 100 143
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.70% 0.65% 0.80%
As % of the System Software category 6.45% 5.25% 6.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 129 61 109
10th Percentile £346 £406 £325
25th Percentile £424 £500 £456
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £555 £508
Median % change year-on-year -8.11% +9.36% +6.84%
75th Percentile £588 £623 £600
90th Percentile £681 £650 £661
UK median daily rate £510 £550 £500
% change year-on-year -7.27% +10.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 0 1
10th Percentile £50.20 - -
25th Percentile - - £35.58
Median hourly rate £51.00 - £36.17
75th Percentile £98.82 - £36.75
90th Percentile - - -
UK median hourly rate £63.00 - £36.17
% change year-on-year - - -42.14%

All System Software Skills
UK excluding London

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 UK excluding London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for system software skills 3,024 1,904 2,243
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 10.87% 12.45% 12.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,948 1,256 1,516
10th Percentile £200 £200 £191
25th Percentile £358 £313 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £480
Median % change year-on-year - -1.04% +1.05%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £588
90th Percentile £650 £638 £653
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -2.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 217 64 103
10th Percentile £15.81 £14.99 £14.06
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.59 £15.63
Median hourly rate £63.14 £64.25 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year -1.74% +133.64% -20.29%
75th Percentile £75.00 £84.25 £63.75
90th Percentile £92.11 £91.50 £74.65
UK median hourly rate £61.50 £33.39 £24.20
% change year-on-year +84.21% +37.95% -51.60%

vSphere
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

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

vSphere job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

vSphere
Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

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

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

vSphere
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing vSphere in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 6 September 2026.

Daily rate histogram for vSphere in the UK excluding London

vSphere
Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

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

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

vSphere
Hourly Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing vSphere in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 6 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for vSphere in the UK excluding London

vSphere
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 vSphere within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 6 September 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
North of England -40 47 £482 +5.59% 7
South East -84 47 £513 -11.64% 26
Midlands -25 41 £450 -18.18% 12
South West -8 40 £654 +17.79% 18
West Midlands -25 30 £450 -18.18% 7
North West -35 25 £472 -14.18% 5
Yorkshire -26 22 £519 +16.11% 1
East of England -15 13 £510 -7.27% 6
East Midlands -6 11 £425 - 5
Scotland - 9 £388 - 4
vSphere
UK

vSphere
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 6 (3.08%) SharePoint
2 3 (1.54%) Microsoft Exchange
3 2 (1.03%) Apache
3 2 (1.03%) CloudStack
4 1 (0.51%) Confluence
4 1 (0.51%) MS Project Server
Applications
1 3 (1.54%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (1.03%) Adobe Creative Suite
2 2 (1.03%) Houdini
2 2 (1.03%) NUKE
Business Applications
1 4 (2.05%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 52 (26.67%) AWS
2 45 (23.08%) Azure
3 14 (7.18%) OpenShift
4 10 (5.13%) Microsoft 365
5 9 (4.62%) Entra ID
5 9 (4.62%) GitHub
6 6 (3.08%) Amazon EC2
6 6 (3.08%) GCP
7 3 (1.54%) IaaS
7 3 (1.54%) Rubrik
7 3 (1.54%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 2 (1.03%) Azure Sentinel
8 2 (1.03%) Azure Storage
8 2 (1.03%) Datadog
8 2 (1.03%) GitHub Actions
8 2 (1.03%) OCI
9 1 (0.51%) Azure AKS
9 1 (0.51%) Google Kubernetes Engine
9 1 (0.51%) IBM Watson
9 1 (0.51%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 58 (29.74%) DNS
2 53 (27.18%) VSAN
3 42 (21.54%) DHCP
4 39 (20.00%) Firewall
5 20 (10.26%) TCP/IP
6 18 (9.23%) VLAN
7 17 (8.72%) SAN
8 15 (7.69%) NAS
9 11 (5.64%) VPN
10 8 (4.10%) WAN
11 7 (3.59%) LAN
12 5 (2.56%) Network Security
12 5 (2.56%) SD-WAN
12 5 (2.56%) SSL
13 4 (2.05%) Software-Defined Networking
13 4 (2.05%) Wi-Fi
14 3 (1.54%) BGP
14 3 (1.54%) HTTP
14 3 (1.54%) iSCSI
14 3 (1.54%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (4.10%) NonStop SQL
2 4 (2.05%) SQL Server
3 3 (1.54%) Data Mining
Development Applications
1 10 (5.13%) Jenkins
2 1 (0.51%) Git
2 1 (0.51%) JIRA
General
1 43 (22.05%) Social Skills
2 17 (8.72%) Analytical Skills
3 10 (5.13%) Public Sector
4 6 (3.08%) Finance
5 4 (2.05%) Banking
5 4 (2.05%) Legal
6 2 (1.03%) Advertising
6 2 (1.03%) Documentation Skills
6 2 (1.03%) Manufacturing
6 2 (1.03%) Military
7 1 (0.51%) Aerospace
7 1 (0.51%) Marketing
7 1 (0.51%) Pharmaceutical
7 1 (0.51%) Retail
Job Titles
1 56 (28.72%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 39 (20.00%) VMware Engineer
3 26 (13.33%) Senior
4 19 (9.74%) Platform Engineer
5 16 (8.21%) Cloud Engineer
6 15 (7.69%) Server Engineer
7 14 (7.18%) Storage Engineer
7 14 (7.18%) Virtualisation Engineer
8 13 (6.67%) Architect
8 13 (6.67%) Senior VMware Engineer
9 11 (5.64%) Consultant
9 11 (5.64%) VMware Consultant
10 10 (5.13%) Network Engineer
10 10 (5.13%) Wintel Engineer
11 8 (4.10%) VMware Infrastructure Engineer
12 7 (3.59%) Cloud Infrastructure Engineer
12 7 (3.59%) Principal Engineer
13 6 (3.08%) Analyst
13 6 (3.08%) Infrastructure Analyst
13 6 (3.08%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 42 (21.54%) Terraform
2 6 (3.08%) Flash
3 5 (2.56%) OpenTelemetry
4 2 (1.03%) Elastic Stack
4 2 (1.03%) Unreal Engine
5 1 (0.51%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 43 (22.05%) Data Centre
2 30 (15.38%) Replication
3 29 (14.87%) Hybrid Cloud
4 15 (7.69%) PKI
5 11 (5.64%) Enterprise Storage
5 11 (5.64%) Public Cloud
6 10 (5.13%) Cloud Native
7 9 (4.62%) Clustering
8 7 (3.59%) Linux Command Line
9 5 (2.56%) Data Protection Act
10 4 (2.05%) Private Cloud
11 3 (1.54%) EMC VMAX
11 3 (1.54%) EMC VNX
12 2 (1.03%) Distributed Systems
12 2 (1.03%) Management Information System
12 2 (1.03%) Motion Graphics
12 2 (1.03%) Onboarding
12 2 (1.03%) Social Media
13 1 (0.51%) Enterprise Software
13 1 (0.51%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 100 (51.28%) Windows
2 72 (36.92%) Windows Server
3 58 (29.74%) Linux
4 9 (4.62%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 8 (4.10%) Ubuntu
5 8 (4.10%) VMS
6 5 (2.56%) Windows Server 2012
6 5 (2.56%) Windows Server 2019
7 4 (2.05%) Unix
7 4 (2.05%) Windows Server 2016
8 3 (1.54%) Data ONTAP
8 3 (1.54%) Rocky
9 2 (1.03%) Windows 10
10 1 (0.51%) CentOS
10 1 (0.51%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 61 (31.28%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 44 (22.56%) Disaster Recovery
3 42 (21.54%) Migration
3 42 (21.54%) Problem-Solving
4 35 (17.95%) Platform Engineering
5 33 (16.92%) Infrastructure as Code
5 33 (16.92%) Network Virtualisation
6 32 (16.41%) High Availability
6 32 (16.41%) Technical Leadership
7 28 (14.36%) CI/CD
8 24 (12.31%) Capacity Planning
8 24 (12.31%) Continuous Improvement
9 21 (10.77%) Infrastructure Automation
9 21 (10.77%) Root Cause Analysis
10 19 (9.74%) Performance Tuning
11 18 (9.23%) Agile
11 18 (9.23%) DevOps
11 18 (9.23%) Mentoring
12 17 (8.72%) Systems Engineering
12 17 (8.72%) Virtual Infrastructure
Programming Languages
1 54 (27.69%) PowerShell
2 33 (16.92%) Bash
2 33 (16.92%) Python
3 2 (1.03%) Perl
3 2 (1.03%) Shell Script
4 1 (0.51%) Go
Qualifications
1 97 (49.74%) Security Cleared
2 54 (27.69%) SC Cleared
3 43 (22.05%) DV Cleared
4 34 (17.44%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
5 30 (15.38%) VCAP
6 11 (5.64%) MCSA
6 11 (5.64%) MCSE
6 11 (5.64%) Microsoft Certification
7 9 (4.62%) AWS Certification
8 8 (4.10%) Azure Certification
9 6 (3.08%) Cisco Certification
10 5 (2.56%) CCNP
11 4 (2.05%) OCP
11 4 (2.05%) Oracle Certification
12 3 (1.54%) CCA
12 3 (1.54%) Citrix Certification
12 3 (1.54%) ITIL Certification
13 2 (1.03%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 2 (1.03%) NCDA
13 2 (1.03%) NCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (2.56%) SLA
2 3 (1.54%) Government Security Classifications
2 3 (1.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 3 (1.54%) NCSC
3 2 (1.03%) Cyber Essentials
3 2 (1.03%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
3 2 (1.03%) RMADS
4 1 (0.51%) Data Quality
4 1 (0.51%) NIST
4 1 (0.51%) QA
System Software
1 162 (83.08%) VMware Infrastructure
2 101 (51.79%) VMware ESXi
3 72 (36.92%) VMware NSX
4 51 (26.15%) Active Directory
5 38 (19.49%) Virtual Machines
6 29 (14.87%) Hyper-V
7 14 (7.18%) Docker
8 10 (5.13%) Virtual Desktop
9 8 (4.10%) NFS
10 6 (3.08%) GPFS
11 4 (2.05%) VMware Server
12 3 (1.54%) Firmware
13 2 (1.03%) EMC RecoverPoint
13 2 (1.03%) SRDF
14 1 (0.51%) KVM
14 1 (0.51%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 1 (0.51%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 64 (32.82%) vCenter Server
2 59 (30.26%) Ansible
3 36 (18.46%) Kubernetes
4 20 (10.26%) VxRail
5 19 (9.74%) vRealize
6 17 (8.72%) PowerCLI
7 14 (7.18%) vMotion
8 12 (6.15%) NetBackup
8 12 (6.15%) SCCM
9 11 (5.64%) Grafana
10 8 (4.10%) Argo
11 7 (3.59%) Microsoft Intune
12 6 (3.08%) Prometheus
12 6 (3.08%) SCOM
13 4 (2.05%) Check_MK
14 3 (1.54%) EMC VPLEX
14 3 (1.54%) Podman
14 3 (1.54%) SCSM
14 3 (1.54%) SnapMirror
14 3 (1.54%) SnapVault
Vendors
1 193 (98.97%) VMware
2 49 (25.13%) Microsoft
3 38 (19.49%) Cisco
4 21 (10.77%) Veeam
5 16 (8.21%) NetApp
6 14 (7.18%) Dell
7 10 (5.13%) Red Hat
7 10 (5.13%) SolarWinds
7 10 (5.13%) Zerto
8 9 (4.62%) Pure Storage
8 9 (4.62%) ServiceNow
8 9 (4.62%) Veritas
9 8 (4.10%) Oracle
10 7 (3.59%) 3PAR
10 7 (3.59%) Citrix
10 7 (3.59%) IBM
11 6 (3.08%) Commvault
11 6 (3.08%) Splunk
12 5 (2.56%) CheckPoint
13 4 (2.05%) Remedy