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 12 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 294 279 244
Rank change year-on-year -15 -35 +14
Contract jobs citing vSphere 192 102 124
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.68% 0.65% 0.71%
As % of the System Software category 6.37% 4.96% 5.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 125 70 87
10th Percentile £344 £375 £300
25th Percentile £413 £463 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £550 £500
Median % change year-on-year -11.82% +10.00% -
75th Percentile £600 £600 £633
90th Percentile £743 £650 £673
UK median daily rate £500 £535 £485
% change year-on-year -6.54% +10.31% -3.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 0 2
10th Percentile £51.00 - £22.68
25th Percentile - - £24.83
Median hourly rate £68.75 - £29.33
75th Percentile £95.68 - £33.50
90th Percentile £98.82 - £35.45
UK median hourly rate £68.75 - £74.08
% change year-on-year - - +4.84%

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 3,015 2,057 2,223
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 10.70% 13.03% 12.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,909 1,375 1,438
10th Percentile £205 £190 £190
25th Percentile £353 £300 £330
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £475
75th Percentile £575 £573 £588
90th Percentile £657 £638 £658
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
Number of hourly rates quoted 225 78 75
10th Percentile £16.40 £15.23 £14.16
25th Percentile £25.75 £16.33 £18.68
Median hourly rate £63.14 £60.50 £36.17
Median % change year-on-year +4.36% +67.29% -9.59%
75th Percentile £74.00 £81.00 £69.84
90th Percentile £90.00 £91.50 £74.30
UK median hourly rate £62.25 £30.00 £28.75
% change year-on-year +107.50% +4.35% -42.50%

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 12 October 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 12 October 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 12 October 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
Midlands -4 47 £425 +54.55% 14
South East -88 42 £475 -13.64% 18
North of England -42 36 £483 +12.39% 16
South West -2 35 £683 +23.11% 18
West Midlands -23 33 £425 +54.55% 5
Yorkshire -16 23 £525 +27.27% 4
East of England - 21 £588 - 5
East Midlands 0 14 £438 +316.67% 9
North West -37 13 £472 -14.18% 8
Scotland -12 12 £400 +3.23% 6
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 7 (3.65%) Confluence
2 6 (3.13%) SharePoint
3 5 (2.60%) Microsoft Exchange
4 2 (1.04%) Apache
4 2 (1.04%) CloudStack
5 1 (0.52%) MS Project Server
Applications
1 2 (1.04%) Adobe Creative Suite
1 2 (1.04%) Houdini
1 2 (1.04%) NUKE
Business Applications
1 8 (4.17%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 50 (26.04%) AWS
1 50 (26.04%) Azure
2 14 (7.29%) OpenShift
3 13 (6.77%) Entra ID
4 12 (6.25%) Microsoft 365
5 8 (4.17%) GCP
6 4 (2.08%) IaaS
7 3 (1.56%) Rubrik
7 3 (1.56%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 2 (1.04%) Amazon EC2
8 2 (1.04%) Azure Sentinel
8 2 (1.04%) GitHub
8 2 (1.04%) OCI
9 1 (0.52%) Amazon EKS
9 1 (0.52%) Azure AKS
9 1 (0.52%) Azure Storage
9 1 (0.52%) Datadog
9 1 (0.52%) GitHub Actions
9 1 (0.52%) Google Kubernetes Engine
9 1 (0.52%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 69 (35.94%) DNS
2 51 (26.56%) DHCP
3 50 (26.04%) Firewall
4 44 (22.92%) VSAN
5 32 (16.67%) TCP/IP
6 22 (11.46%) VLAN
7 16 (8.33%) LAN
8 15 (7.81%) VPN
9 13 (6.77%) SSL
10 12 (6.25%) WAN
11 11 (5.73%) BGP
11 11 (5.73%) HTTP
11 11 (5.73%) Network Security
11 11 (5.73%) OSPF
11 11 (5.73%) SAN
12 9 (4.69%) NAS
13 8 (4.17%) HSRP
13 8 (4.17%) VRRP
14 6 (3.13%) SD-WAN
15 5 (2.60%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (2.08%) SQL Server
2 2 (1.04%) Amazon RDS
2 2 (1.04%) NonStop SQL
Development Applications
1 7 (3.65%) JIRA
2 3 (1.56%) Jenkins
3 1 (0.52%) Git
General
1 29 (15.10%) Social Skills
2 17 (8.85%) Analytical Skills
3 11 (5.73%) Finance
3 11 (5.73%) Public Sector
4 4 (2.08%) Banking
5 2 (1.04%) Aerospace
5 2 (1.04%) Documentation Skills
5 2 (1.04%) Military
6 1 (0.52%) Advertising
6 1 (0.52%) Law
6 1 (0.52%) Legal
6 1 (0.52%) Manufacturing
6 1 (0.52%) Marketing
6 1 (0.52%) Retail
Job Titles
1 55 (28.65%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 27 (14.06%) Senior
2 27 (14.06%) VMware Engineer
3 21 (10.94%) Platform Engineer
4 16 (8.33%) Network Engineer
5 15 (7.81%) Virtualisation Engineer
6 13 (6.77%) Wintel Engineer
7 12 (6.25%) Cloud Engineer
7 12 (6.25%) Storage Engineer
8 10 (5.21%) Server Engineer
9 9 (4.69%) Architect
9 9 (4.69%) Consultant
9 9 (4.69%) Lead
9 9 (4.69%) VMware Consultant
10 8 (4.17%) Senior VMware Engineer
11 7 (3.65%) Cloud Infrastructure Engineer
11 7 (3.65%) Principal Engineer
11 7 (3.65%) VMware Infrastructure Engineer
12 6 (3.13%) Support Engineer
12 6 (3.13%) Technical Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 40 (20.83%) Terraform
2 5 (2.60%) Flash
3 2 (1.04%) Elastic Stack
3 2 (1.04%) Unreal Engine
4 1 (0.52%) ModSecurity
4 1 (0.52%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 45 (23.44%) Data Centre
2 24 (12.50%) Hybrid Cloud
2 24 (12.50%) Replication
3 21 (10.94%) PKI
4 11 (5.73%) Clustering
4 11 (5.73%) Public Cloud
5 9 (4.69%) Enterprise Storage
6 7 (3.65%) Self-Motivation
7 6 (3.13%) Cloud Native
8 5 (2.60%) Data Protection Act
8 5 (2.60%) Linux Command Line
8 5 (2.60%) Video Conferencing
9 4 (2.08%) Private Cloud
10 2 (1.04%) Distributed Systems
10 2 (1.04%) Management Information System
10 2 (1.04%) Motion Graphics
10 2 (1.04%) Onboarding
10 2 (1.04%) Social Media
11 1 (0.52%) Enterprise Software
11 1 (0.52%) FMCG
Operating Systems
1 105 (54.69%) Windows
2 82 (42.71%) Windows Server
3 51 (26.56%) Linux
4 14 (7.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 7 (3.65%) VMS
5 7 (3.65%) Windows Server 2012
6 3 (1.56%) Rocky
6 3 (1.56%) Ubuntu
6 3 (1.56%) Unix
6 3 (1.56%) Windows Server 2016
6 3 (1.56%) Windows Server 2019
7 2 (1.04%) Windows 10
8 1 (0.52%) CentOS
8 1 (0.52%) Data ONTAP
8 1 (0.52%) macOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 66 (34.38%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 42 (21.88%) Problem-Solving
3 38 (19.79%) Migration
3 38 (19.79%) Platform Engineering
3 38 (19.79%) Technical Leadership
4 37 (19.27%) Infrastructure as Code
5 36 (18.75%) Disaster Recovery
6 30 (15.63%) Network Virtualisation
7 26 (13.54%) Continuous Improvement
8 25 (13.02%) Agile
8 25 (13.02%) High Availability
8 25 (13.02%) Project Delivery
9 23 (11.98%) Infrastructure Automation
10 21 (10.94%) CI/CD
10 21 (10.94%) DevOps
11 19 (9.90%) ITIL
11 19 (9.90%) Root Cause Analysis
11 19 (9.90%) Stakeholder Management
12 17 (8.85%) Capacity Planning
12 17 (8.85%) SIEM
Programming Languages
1 53 (27.60%) PowerShell
2 26 (13.54%) Python
3 23 (11.98%) Bash
4 2 (1.04%) Perl
4 2 (1.04%) Shell Script
5 1 (0.52%) Go
Qualifications
1 105 (54.69%) Security Cleared
2 57 (29.69%) SC Cleared
3 46 (23.96%) DV Cleared
4 32 (16.67%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
5 29 (15.10%) VCAP
6 13 (6.77%) MCSA
6 13 (6.77%) MCSE
6 13 (6.77%) Microsoft Certification
7 11 (5.73%) Cisco Certification
8 10 (5.21%) AWS Certification
8 10 (5.21%) CCNP
9 8 (4.17%) Azure Certification
10 6 (3.13%) CCNA
11 5 (2.60%) Degree
12 3 (1.56%) CCA
12 3 (1.56%) Citrix Certification
12 3 (1.56%) ITIL Certification
13 2 (1.04%) PMI Certification
13 2 (1.04%) PMP
13 2 (1.04%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (1.56%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 2 (1.04%) Cyber Essentials
2 2 (1.04%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
2 2 (1.04%) GRC
2 2 (1.04%) NCSC
2 2 (1.04%) SLA
3 1 (0.52%) Data Quality
3 1 (0.52%) Government Security Classifications
3 1 (0.52%) NIST
3 1 (0.52%) QA
System Software
1 165 (85.94%) VMware Infrastructure
2 90 (46.88%) VMware ESXi
3 69 (35.94%) Active Directory
4 49 (25.52%) VMware NSX
5 33 (17.19%) Hyper-V
5 33 (17.19%) Virtual Machines
6 14 (7.29%) Docker
7 13 (6.77%) Virtual Desktop
8 6 (3.13%) NFS
9 5 (2.60%) GPFS
10 4 (2.08%) VMware Server
11 3 (1.56%) Firmware
11 3 (1.56%) UAG
12 2 (1.04%) DFS Replication
13 1 (0.52%) EMC RecoverPoint
13 1 (0.52%) KVM
13 1 (0.52%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 1 (0.52%) SRDF
13 1 (0.52%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 49 (25.52%) vCenter Server
2 47 (24.48%) Ansible
3 36 (18.75%) Kubernetes
4 19 (9.90%) VxRail
5 13 (6.77%) SCCM
6 11 (5.73%) vMotion
7 10 (5.21%) PowerCLI
7 10 (5.21%) vRealize
8 8 (4.17%) Nagios
9 7 (3.65%) Microsoft Intune
10 5 (2.60%) Grafana
10 5 (2.60%) Prometheus
11 4 (2.08%) Check_MK
12 3 (1.56%) NetBackup
12 3 (1.56%) Podman
12 3 (1.56%) SCOM
13 2 (1.04%) Failover Clustering
13 2 (1.04%) Microsoft Clustering
13 2 (1.04%) Perfmon
13 2 (1.04%) WSUS
Vendors
1 190 (98.96%) VMware
2 57 (29.69%) Microsoft
3 45 (23.44%) Cisco
4 21 (10.94%) Veeam
5 18 (9.38%) NetApp
5 18 (9.38%) SolarWinds
6 13 (6.77%) Dell
7 9 (4.69%) Commvault
7 9 (4.69%) Red Hat
8 8 (4.17%) Citrix
8 8 (4.17%) Remedy
8 8 (4.17%) ServiceNow
9 7 (3.65%) Oracle
10 6 (3.13%) CheckPoint
10 6 (3.13%) IBM
11 5 (2.60%) 3PAR
11 5 (2.60%) BT
11 5 (2.60%) Meraki
11 5 (2.60%) SaltStack
11 5 (2.60%) Xerox