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 13 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 283 270 230
Rank change year-on-year -13 -40 +38
Contract jobs citing vSphere 195 104 139
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.69% 0.67% 0.78%
As % of the System Software category 6.41% 5.33% 6.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 130 66 104
10th Percentile £346 £375 £325
25th Percentile £424 £500 £455
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £555 £508
Median % change year-on-year -8.11% +9.36% +6.84%
75th Percentile £588 £634 £599
90th Percentile £678 £650 £662
UK median daily rate £510 £550 £500
% change year-on-year -7.27% +10.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 0 2
10th Percentile £50.20 - £22.68
25th Percentile - - £24.83
Median hourly rate £51.00 - £29.33
75th Percentile £98.82 - £33.50
90th Percentile - - £35.45
UK median hourly rate £63.00 - £29.33
% change year-on-year - - -55.56%

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 3,040 1,952 2,225
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 10.83% 12.65% 12.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,942 1,297 1,490
10th Percentile £200 £200 £190
25th Percentile £356 £308 £345
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year - - +0.32%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £588
90th Percentile £650 £638 £657
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -1.72%
Number of hourly rates quoted 224 64 98
10th Percentile £15.81 £14.99 £14.06
25th Percentile £26.50 £17.66 £15.57
Median hourly rate £63.31 £64.25 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -1.47% +147.12% -35.00%
75th Percentile £75.00 £84.25 £63.75
90th Percentile £92.11 £91.50 £76.50
UK median hourly rate £62.50 £32.77 £24.18
% change year-on-year +90.72% +35.53% -51.64%

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 13 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 13 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 13 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
South East -78 46 £513 -11.64% 38
Midlands -13 44 £425 +54.55% 12
North of England -42 43 £483 +5.92% 10
South West -12 40 £654 +21.06% 17
West Midlands -26 32 £450 +63.64% 8
North West -39 22 £476 -13.45% 6
Yorkshire -29 21 £519 +16.11% 2
East of England -9 14 £510 -3.77% 17
East Midlands -6 12 £425 +304.76% 4
Scotland - 10 £388 - 3
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 4 (2.05%) Confluence
3 3 (1.54%) Microsoft Exchange
4 2 (1.03%) Apache
4 2 (1.03%) CloudStack
5 1 (0.51%) MS Project Server
Applications
1 2 (1.03%) Adobe Creative Suite
1 2 (1.03%) Houdini
1 2 (1.03%) Microsoft Office
1 2 (1.03%) NUKE
Business Applications
1 5 (2.56%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 53 (27.18%) AWS
2 46 (23.59%) Azure
3 13 (6.67%) OpenShift
4 10 (5.13%) Microsoft 365
5 9 (4.62%) Entra ID
6 8 (4.10%) GitHub
7 6 (3.08%) Amazon EC2
7 6 (3.08%) GCP
8 3 (1.54%) IaaS
8 3 (1.54%) Rubrik
8 3 (1.54%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 2 (1.03%) Azure Sentinel
9 2 (1.03%) Azure Storage
9 2 (1.03%) Datadog
9 2 (1.03%) GitHub Actions
9 2 (1.03%) OCI
10 1 (0.51%) Azure AKS
10 1 (0.51%) Google Kubernetes Engine
10 1 (0.51%) IBM Watson
10 1 (0.51%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 62 (31.79%) DNS
2 51 (26.15%) VSAN
3 46 (23.59%) DHCP
4 39 (20.00%) Firewall
5 21 (10.77%) TCP/IP
6 20 (10.26%) VLAN
7 17 (8.72%) SAN
8 15 (7.69%) NAS
9 12 (6.15%) VPN
10 9 (4.62%) WAN
11 8 (4.10%) 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 2 (1.03%) Data Mining
Development Applications
1 9 (4.62%) Jenkins
2 4 (2.05%) JIRA
3 1 (0.51%) Git
General
1 38 (19.49%) 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 59 (30.26%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 37 (18.97%) VMware Engineer
3 26 (13.33%) Senior
4 19 (9.74%) Platform Engineer
5 16 (8.21%) Cloud Engineer
6 14 (7.18%) Storage Engineer
6 14 (7.18%) Virtualisation Engineer
7 13 (6.67%) Server Engineer
8 11 (5.64%) Architect
8 11 (5.64%) Consultant
8 11 (5.64%) Senior VMware Engineer
8 11 (5.64%) VMware Consultant
9 10 (5.13%) Network Engineer
9 10 (5.13%) Wintel Engineer
10 9 (4.62%) VMware Infrastructure Engineer
11 7 (3.59%) Cloud Infrastructure Engineer
11 7 (3.59%) Principal Engineer
12 6 (3.08%) Analyst
12 6 (3.08%) Infrastructure Analyst
12 6 (3.08%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 42 (21.54%) Terraform
2 6 (3.08%) Flash
3 4 (2.05%) OpenTelemetry
4 2 (1.03%) Elastic Stack
4 2 (1.03%) Unreal Engine
5 1 (0.51%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 42 (21.54%) Data Centre
2 30 (15.38%) Replication
3 28 (14.36%) Hybrid Cloud
4 18 (9.23%) PKI
5 11 (5.64%) Enterprise Storage
5 11 (5.64%) Public Cloud
6 9 (4.62%) Cloud Native
6 9 (4.62%) Clustering
7 7 (3.59%) Linux Command Line
8 5 (2.56%) Data Protection Act
9 4 (2.05%) Private Cloud
10 3 (1.54%) EMC VMAX
10 3 (1.54%) EMC VNX
11 2 (1.03%) Distributed Systems
11 2 (1.03%) Management Information System
11 2 (1.03%) Motion Graphics
11 2 (1.03%) Onboarding
11 2 (1.03%) Social Media
12 1 (0.51%) FMCG
12 1 (0.51%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 99 (50.77%) Windows
2 73 (37.44%) Windows Server
3 53 (27.18%) Linux
4 9 (4.62%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 7 (3.59%) Ubuntu
5 7 (3.59%) VMS
6 6 (3.08%) Windows Server 2012
7 4 (2.05%) Unix
7 4 (2.05%) Windows Server 2019
8 3 (1.54%) Data ONTAP
8 3 (1.54%) Rocky
8 3 (1.54%) Windows Server 2016
9 2 (1.03%) Windows 10
10 1 (0.51%) CentOS
10 1 (0.51%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 64 (32.82%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 44 (22.56%) Disaster Recovery
3 42 (21.54%) Migration
3 42 (21.54%) Problem-Solving
4 34 (17.44%) Infrastructure as Code
5 33 (16.92%) Network Virtualisation
5 33 (16.92%) Platform Engineering
6 32 (16.41%) Technical Leadership
7 31 (15.90%) High Availability
8 27 (13.85%) CI/CD
9 24 (12.31%) Continuous Improvement
10 22 (11.28%) Capacity Planning
11 21 (10.77%) Agile
11 21 (10.77%) Infrastructure Automation
12 20 (10.26%) DevOps
12 20 (10.26%) Root Cause Analysis
13 18 (9.23%) Project Delivery
14 17 (8.72%) Performance Tuning
14 17 (8.72%) Runbook
14 17 (8.72%) Systems Engineering
Programming Languages
1 55 (28.21%) PowerShell
2 32 (16.41%) Bash
2 32 (16.41%) Python
3 2 (1.03%) Perl
3 2 (1.03%) Shell Script
4 1 (0.51%) Go
Qualifications
1 98 (50.26%) Security Cleared
2 53 (27.18%) SC Cleared
3 41 (21.03%) 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%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 2 (1.03%) Cyber Essentials
3 2 (1.03%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
4 1 (0.51%) Data Quality
4 1 (0.51%) Government Security Classifications
4 1 (0.51%) NCSC
4 1 (0.51%) NIST
4 1 (0.51%) QA
System Software
1 162 (83.08%) VMware Infrastructure
2 104 (53.33%) VMware ESXi
3 69 (35.38%) VMware NSX
4 54 (27.69%) Active Directory
5 37 (18.97%) Virtual Machines
6 28 (14.36%) Hyper-V
7 14 (7.18%) Docker
8 12 (6.15%) Virtual Desktop
9 8 (4.10%) NFS
10 6 (3.08%) GPFS
11 4 (2.05%) VMware Server
12 3 (1.54%) Firmware
12 3 (1.54%) UAG
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 66 (33.85%) vCenter Server
2 56 (28.72%) Ansible
3 35 (17.95%) Kubernetes
4 20 (10.26%) VxRail
5 19 (9.74%) vRealize
6 15 (7.69%) PowerCLI
7 14 (7.18%) vMotion
8 12 (6.15%) NetBackup
9 11 (5.64%) SCCM
10 10 (5.13%) Grafana
11 7 (3.59%) Argo
11 7 (3.59%) Microsoft Intune
12 6 (3.08%) Prometheus
13 5 (2.56%) SCOM
14 4 (2.05%) Check_MK
15 3 (1.54%) EMC NetWorker
15 3 (1.54%) EMC VPLEX
15 3 (1.54%) Podman
15 3 (1.54%) SnapMirror
15 3 (1.54%) SnapVault
Vendors
1 193 (98.97%) VMware
2 52 (26.67%) Microsoft
3 38 (19.49%) Cisco
4 21 (10.77%) Veeam
5 17 (8.72%) NetApp
6 14 (7.18%) Dell
7 10 (5.13%) SolarWinds
7 10 (5.13%) Zerto
8 9 (4.62%) Red Hat
8 9 (4.62%) ServiceNow
8 9 (4.62%) Veritas
9 8 (4.10%) Oracle
9 8 (4.10%) Pure Storage
10 7 (3.59%) 3PAR
10 7 (3.59%) IBM
11 6 (3.08%) Commvault
12 5 (2.56%) CheckPoint
12 5 (2.56%) Citrix
12 5 (2.56%) Remedy
12 5 (2.56%) Splunk