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

6 months to
5 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 288 284 247
Rank change year-on-year -4 -37 +29
Contract jobs citing vSphere 196 94 126
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.70% 0.60% 0.72%
As % of the System Software category 6.54% 4.67% 5.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 128 66 89
10th Percentile £345 £375 £300
25th Percentile £413 £469 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £493 £550 £500
Median % change year-on-year -10.29% +10.00% +5.26%
75th Percentile £600 £603 £613
90th Percentile £738 £650 £670
UK median daily rate £500 £550 £500
% change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -
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 - - +7.42%

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 2,999 2,015 2,209
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 10.68% 12.84% 12.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,888 1,340 1,436
10th Percentile £200 £190 £190
25th Percentile £350 £300 £330
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £475
75th Percentile £575 £575 £585
90th Percentile £656 £638 £655
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
Number of hourly rates quoted 225 77 84
10th Percentile £16.00 £14.99 £14.16
25th Percentile £25.84 £17.33 £17.44
Median hourly rate £63.14 £58.50 £33.58
Median % change year-on-year +7.92% +74.20% -15.20%
75th Percentile £74.00 £81.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £91.27 £91.50 £80.88
UK median hourly rate £62.50 £33.39 £28.75
% change year-on-year +87.21% +16.12% -39.93%

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 5 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 5 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 5 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 -8 47 £425 +54.55% 15
South East -77 41 £489 -14.03% 26
North of England -42 39 £485 +6.36% 21
South West -8 35 £683 +23.11% 18
West Midlands -25 34 £425 +54.55% 8
Yorkshire -17 25 £525 +17.45% 6
East of England - 23 £545 - 14
North West -33 14 £472 -14.18% 11
East Midlands +1 13 £425 +304.76% 7
Scotland -5 12 £400 +3.23% 5
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 (3.57%) Confluence
2 6 (3.06%) SharePoint
3 5 (2.55%) Microsoft Exchange
4 2 (1.02%) Apache
4 2 (1.02%) CloudStack
5 1 (0.51%) MS Project Server
Applications
1 2 (1.02%) Adobe Creative Suite
1 2 (1.02%) Houdini
1 2 (1.02%) NUKE
Business Applications
1 8 (4.08%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 52 (26.53%) AWS
2 50 (25.51%) Azure
3 15 (7.65%) OpenShift
4 13 (6.63%) Entra ID
5 12 (6.12%) Microsoft 365
6 8 (4.08%) GCP
7 4 (2.04%) Amazon EC2
7 4 (2.04%) IaaS
8 3 (1.53%) GitHub
8 3 (1.53%) Rubrik
8 3 (1.53%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 2 (1.02%) Azure Sentinel
9 2 (1.02%) Azure Storage
9 2 (1.02%) Datadog
9 2 (1.02%) GitHub Actions
9 2 (1.02%) OCI
10 1 (0.51%) Amazon EKS
10 1 (0.51%) Azure AKS
10 1 (0.51%) Google Kubernetes Engine
10 1 (0.51%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 68 (34.69%) DNS
2 50 (25.51%) DHCP
3 49 (25.00%) Firewall
4 46 (23.47%) VSAN
5 31 (15.82%) TCP/IP
6 21 (10.71%) VLAN
7 15 (7.65%) LAN
8 14 (7.14%) VPN
9 13 (6.63%) SAN
9 13 (6.63%) SSL
10 11 (5.61%) BGP
10 11 (5.61%) HTTP
10 11 (5.61%) NAS
10 11 (5.61%) Network Security
10 11 (5.61%) OSPF
10 11 (5.61%) WAN
11 8 (4.08%) HSRP
11 8 (4.08%) VRRP
12 6 (3.06%) SD-WAN
13 5 (2.55%) Software-Defined Networking
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (2.04%) SQL Server
2 2 (1.02%) Amazon RDS
2 2 (1.02%) NonStop SQL
Development Applications
1 7 (3.57%) JIRA
2 4 (2.04%) Jenkins
3 1 (0.51%) Git
General
1 31 (15.82%) Social Skills
2 18 (9.18%) Analytical Skills
3 12 (6.12%) Finance
4 11 (5.61%) Public Sector
5 5 (2.55%) Banking
6 2 (1.02%) Aerospace
6 2 (1.02%) Documentation Skills
6 2 (1.02%) Military
7 1 (0.51%) Advertising
7 1 (0.51%) Law
7 1 (0.51%) Legal
7 1 (0.51%) Manufacturing
7 1 (0.51%) Marketing
7 1 (0.51%) Retail
Job Titles
1 54 (27.55%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 28 (14.29%) Senior
3 27 (13.78%) VMware Engineer
4 21 (10.71%) Platform Engineer
5 17 (8.67%) Network Engineer
6 15 (7.65%) Virtualisation Engineer
7 14 (7.14%) Cloud Engineer
7 14 (7.14%) Storage Engineer
8 13 (6.63%) Wintel Engineer
9 11 (5.61%) Architect
10 10 (5.10%) Server Engineer
11 9 (4.59%) Consultant
11 9 (4.59%) Lead
11 9 (4.59%) VMware Consultant
12 8 (4.08%) Senior VMware Engineer
13 7 (3.57%) Cloud Infrastructure Engineer
13 7 (3.57%) Principal Engineer
13 7 (3.57%) VMware Infrastructure Engineer
14 6 (3.06%) Analyst
14 6 (3.06%) Technical Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 41 (20.92%) Terraform
2 6 (3.06%) Flash
3 2 (1.02%) Elastic Stack
3 2 (1.02%) Unreal Engine
4 1 (0.51%) ModSecurity
4 1 (0.51%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 46 (23.47%) Data Centre
2 27 (13.78%) Replication
3 24 (12.24%) Hybrid Cloud
4 21 (10.71%) PKI
5 11 (5.61%) Clustering
5 11 (5.61%) Enterprise Storage
5 11 (5.61%) Public Cloud
6 7 (3.57%) Cloud Native
6 7 (3.57%) Self-Motivation
7 6 (3.06%) Linux Command Line
8 5 (2.55%) Data Protection Act
8 5 (2.55%) Video Conferencing
9 4 (2.04%) Private Cloud
10 3 (1.53%) EMC VMAX
10 3 (1.53%) EMC VNX
11 2 (1.02%) Distributed Systems
11 2 (1.02%) Management Information System
11 2 (1.02%) Motion Graphics
11 2 (1.02%) Onboarding
11 2 (1.02%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 105 (53.57%) Windows
2 82 (41.84%) Windows Server
3 55 (28.06%) Linux
4 15 (7.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 7 (3.57%) VMS
6 6 (3.06%) Windows Server 2012
7 4 (2.04%) Ubuntu
7 4 (2.04%) Unix
8 3 (1.53%) Data ONTAP
8 3 (1.53%) Rocky
8 3 (1.53%) Windows Server 2016
8 3 (1.53%) Windows Server 2019
9 2 (1.02%) Windows 10
10 1 (0.51%) CentOS
10 1 (0.51%) Mac OS
10 1 (0.51%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 65 (33.16%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 43 (21.94%) Problem-Solving
3 41 (20.92%) Migration
4 39 (19.90%) Platform Engineering
5 38 (19.39%) Infrastructure as Code
5 38 (19.39%) Technical Leadership
6 36 (18.37%) Disaster Recovery
7 31 (15.82%) Network Virtualisation
8 26 (13.27%) Agile
8 26 (13.27%) Continuous Improvement
9 25 (12.76%) High Availability
10 24 (12.24%) Project Delivery
11 23 (11.73%) DevOps
11 23 (11.73%) Infrastructure Automation
12 22 (11.22%) CI/CD
13 20 (10.20%) Stakeholder Management
14 19 (9.69%) Capacity Planning
14 19 (9.69%) ITIL
15 18 (9.18%) Root Cause Analysis
16 17 (8.67%) SIEM
Programming Languages
1 53 (27.04%) PowerShell
2 28 (14.29%) Python
3 25 (12.76%) Bash
4 2 (1.02%) Perl
4 2 (1.02%) Shell Script
5 1 (0.51%) Go
Qualifications
1 105 (53.57%) Security Cleared
2 56 (28.57%) SC Cleared
3 46 (23.47%) DV Cleared
4 33 (16.84%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
5 29 (14.80%) VCAP
6 13 (6.63%) MCSA
6 13 (6.63%) MCSE
6 13 (6.63%) Microsoft Certification
7 11 (5.61%) Cisco Certification
8 10 (5.10%) AWS Certification
8 10 (5.10%) CCNP
9 9 (4.59%) Azure Certification
10 6 (3.06%) CCNA
11 5 (2.55%) Degree
12 3 (1.53%) CCA
12 3 (1.53%) Citrix Certification
12 3 (1.53%) ITIL Certification
13 2 (1.02%) PMI Certification
13 2 (1.02%) PMP
13 2 (1.02%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (1.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 2 (1.02%) Cyber Essentials
2 2 (1.02%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
2 2 (1.02%) GRC
2 2 (1.02%) NCSC
2 2 (1.02%) SLA
3 1 (0.51%) Data Quality
3 1 (0.51%) Government Security Classifications
3 1 (0.51%) NIST
3 1 (0.51%) QA
System Software
1 166 (84.69%) VMware Infrastructure
2 93 (47.45%) VMware ESXi
3 67 (34.18%) Active Directory
4 51 (26.02%) VMware NSX
5 34 (17.35%) Hyper-V
6 33 (16.84%) Virtual Machines
7 14 (7.14%) Docker
8 13 (6.63%) Virtual Desktop
9 8 (4.08%) NFS
10 6 (3.06%) GPFS
11 4 (2.04%) VMware Server
12 3 (1.53%) Firmware
12 3 (1.53%) UAG
13 2 (1.02%) DFS Replication
13 2 (1.02%) EMC RecoverPoint
13 2 (1.02%) SRDF
14 1 (0.51%) KVM
14 1 (0.51%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 1 (0.51%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 50 (25.51%) vCenter Server
2 49 (25.00%) Ansible
3 37 (18.88%) Kubernetes
4 20 (10.20%) VxRail
5 12 (6.12%) SCCM
6 11 (5.61%) vMotion
6 11 (5.61%) vRealize
7 10 (5.10%) PowerCLI
8 8 (4.08%) Nagios
9 7 (3.57%) Microsoft Intune
10 6 (3.06%) Grafana
10 6 (3.06%) Prometheus
11 5 (2.55%) NetBackup
12 4 (2.04%) Check_MK
13 3 (1.53%) EMC NetWorker
13 3 (1.53%) EMC VPLEX
13 3 (1.53%) Podman
13 3 (1.53%) SCOM
13 3 (1.53%) SnapMirror
13 3 (1.53%) SnapVault
Vendors
1 194 (98.98%) VMware
2 58 (29.59%) Microsoft
3 48 (24.49%) Cisco
4 23 (11.73%) Veeam
5 20 (10.20%) NetApp
6 19 (9.69%) SolarWinds
7 14 (7.14%) Dell
8 10 (5.10%) Red Hat
9 9 (4.59%) Commvault
9 9 (4.59%) ServiceNow
10 8 (4.08%) Citrix
10 8 (4.08%) Oracle
10 8 (4.08%) Remedy
11 7 (3.57%) 3PAR
11 7 (3.57%) IBM
12 6 (3.06%) CheckPoint
13 5 (2.55%) BT
13 5 (2.55%) Meraki
13 5 (2.55%) SaltStack
13 5 (2.55%) Xerox