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 30 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 277 269 229
Rank change year-on-year -8 -40 +39
Contract jobs citing vSphere 195 104 151
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.70% 0.67% 0.84%
As % of the System Software category 6.50% 5.40% 6.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 130 64 118
10th Percentile £340 £406 £325
25th Percentile £413 £500 £460
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £501 £555 £508
Median % change year-on-year -9.68% +9.36% +6.84%
75th Percentile £584 £626 £619
90th Percentile £658 £650 £664
UK median daily rate £500 £550 £508
% change year-on-year -9.09% +8.37% +1.50%
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 2,998 1,927 2,257
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 10.80% 12.50% 12.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,930 1,272 1,530
10th Percentile £200 £200 £191
25th Percentile £356 £313 £347
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £488
Median % change year-on-year - -2.56% +2.63%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £588
90th Percentile £650 £648 £656
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -2.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 205 66 108
10th Percentile £15.81 £14.99 £14.06
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.03 £14.40
Median hourly rate £60.33 £62.50 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year -3.47% +127.27% -
75th Percentile £75.00 £86.75 £63.75
90th Percentile £89.90 £91.50 £73.78
UK median hourly rate £58.74 £30.00 £24.18
% change year-on-year +95.78% +24.07% -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 30 August 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 30 August 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 30 August 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 -42 50 £480 +5.26% 9
South East -76 45 £513 -11.64% 27
Midlands -18 41 £450 -18.18% 10
South West -12 39 £654 +17.79% 15
West Midlands -23 29 £450 -18.18% 6
North West -35 27 £472 -14.18% 4
Yorkshire -37 23 £510 +13.98% 3
East of England -15 13 £510 -7.27% 9
East Midlands -1 12 £425 - 4
Scotland - 9 £388 -
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%) 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 3 (1.54%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 55 (28.21%) AWS
2 45 (23.08%) Azure
3 13 (6.67%) OpenShift
4 10 (5.13%) Microsoft 365
5 9 (4.62%) GitHub
6 8 (4.10%) Entra ID
7 7 (3.59%) GCP
8 6 (3.08%) Amazon EC2
9 3 (1.54%) IaaS
9 3 (1.54%) Rubrik
9 3 (1.54%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 2 (1.03%) Azure Sentinel
10 2 (1.03%) Azure Storage
10 2 (1.03%) Datadog
10 2 (1.03%) GitHub Actions
10 2 (1.03%) OCI
11 1 (0.51%) Azure AKS
11 1 (0.51%) Google Kubernetes Engine
11 1 (0.51%) IBM Watson
11 1 (0.51%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 58 (29.74%) DNS
2 56 (28.72%) VSAN
3 43 (22.05%) DHCP
4 39 (20.00%) Firewall
5 21 (10.77%) TCP/IP
6 19 (9.74%) SAN
7 18 (9.23%) VLAN
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
General
1 46 (23.59%) Social Skills
2 17 (8.72%) Analytical Skills
3 12 (6.15%) Public Sector
4 8 (4.10%) Finance
5 6 (3.08%) Banking
6 5 (2.56%) Legal
7 3 (1.54%) Advertising
8 2 (1.03%) Documentation Skills
8 2 (1.03%) Manufacturing
8 2 (1.03%) Military
9 1 (0.51%) Aerospace
9 1 (0.51%) Marketing
9 1 (0.51%) Pharmaceutical
9 1 (0.51%) Retail
Job Titles
1 57 (29.23%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 40 (20.51%) VMware Engineer
3 26 (13.33%) Senior
4 19 (9.74%) Platform Engineer
5 16 (8.21%) Cloud Engineer
5 16 (8.21%) Server Engineer
6 15 (7.69%) Virtualisation Engineer
7 14 (7.18%) Senior VMware Engineer
8 13 (6.67%) Consultant
8 13 (6.67%) Storage Engineer
9 12 (6.15%) Architect
10 11 (5.64%) VMware Consultant
10 11 (5.64%) Wintel Engineer
11 10 (5.13%) Network Engineer
12 9 (4.62%) VMware Infrastructure Engineer
13 8 (4.10%) Analyst
14 7 (3.59%) Cloud Infrastructure Engineer
14 7 (3.59%) Infrastructure Analyst
14 7 (3.59%) Principal Engineer
14 7 (3.59%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 40 (20.51%) Terraform
2 8 (4.10%) 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 32 (16.41%) Replication
3 31 (15.90%) 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
7 9 (4.62%) Linux Command Line
8 5 (2.56%) Private Cloud
9 3 (1.54%) Data Protection Act
9 3 (1.54%) Distributed Systems
9 3 (1.54%) EMC VMAX
9 3 (1.54%) EMC VNX
10 2 (1.03%) Management Information System
10 2 (1.03%) Motion Graphics
10 2 (1.03%) Social Media
11 1 (0.51%) Fat Client
11 1 (0.51%) Life Science
11 1 (0.51%) Thin Client
Operating Systems
1 99 (50.77%) Windows
2 71 (36.41%) Windows Server
3 58 (29.74%) Linux
4 9 (4.62%) Ubuntu
4 9 (4.62%) VMS
5 7 (3.59%) Windows Server 2019
6 6 (3.08%) Windows Server 2016
7 5 (2.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 5 (2.56%) Unix
7 5 (2.56%) Windows Server 2012
8 4 (2.05%) Data ONTAP
9 1 (0.51%) CentOS
9 1 (0.51%) CoreOS
9 1 (0.51%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
9 1 (0.51%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 62 (31.79%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 46 (23.59%) Disaster Recovery
3 41 (21.03%) Problem-Solving
4 40 (20.51%) Migration
5 33 (16.92%) Network Virtualisation
5 33 (16.92%) Platform Engineering
6 32 (16.41%) High Availability
6 32 (16.41%) Infrastructure as Code
6 32 (16.41%) Technical Leadership
7 25 (12.82%) Capacity Planning
7 25 (12.82%) CI/CD
8 24 (12.31%) Continuous Improvement
9 21 (10.77%) Root Cause Analysis
10 20 (10.26%) Agile
11 19 (9.74%) Infrastructure Automation
11 19 (9.74%) Performance Tuning
12 18 (9.23%) Mentoring
13 17 (8.72%) DevOps
13 17 (8.72%) Systems Engineering
13 17 (8.72%) Virtual Infrastructure
Programming Languages
1 54 (27.69%) PowerShell
2 34 (17.44%) Python
3 30 (15.38%) Bash
4 2 (1.03%) Perl
5 1 (0.51%) Go
Qualifications
1 95 (48.72%) Security Cleared
2 53 (27.18%) SC Cleared
3 40 (20.51%) DV Cleared
4 35 (17.95%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
5 31 (15.90%) 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
10 5 (2.56%) OCP
10 5 (2.56%) Oracle Certification
11 3 (1.54%) CCA
11 3 (1.54%) Citrix Certification
11 3 (1.54%) ITIL Certification
12 2 (1.03%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 2 (1.03%) NCDA
12 2 (1.03%) NCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (3.08%) 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 97 (49.74%) VMware ESXi
3 74 (37.95%) VMware NSX
4 51 (26.15%) Active Directory
5 36 (18.46%) Virtual Machines
6 29 (14.87%) Hyper-V
7 11 (5.64%) Docker
7 11 (5.64%) NFS
8 9 (4.62%) Virtual Desktop
9 8 (4.10%) GPFS
10 3 (1.54%) Firmware
10 3 (1.54%) VMware Server
11 2 (1.03%) EMC RecoverPoint
11 2 (1.03%) SRDF
12 1 (0.51%) KVM
12 1 (0.51%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 1 (0.51%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 65 (33.33%) vCenter Server
2 56 (28.72%) Ansible
3 35 (17.95%) Kubernetes
4 22 (11.28%) vRealize
5 21 (10.77%) VxRail
6 18 (9.23%) PowerCLI
7 14 (7.18%) vMotion
8 12 (6.15%) NetBackup
8 12 (6.15%) SCCM
9 9 (4.62%) Grafana
10 8 (4.10%) Argo
11 6 (3.08%) Microsoft Intune
11 6 (3.08%) SCOM
12 4 (2.05%) Prometheus
12 4 (2.05%) SnapMirror
12 4 (2.05%) WSUS
13 3 (1.54%) EMC NetWorker
13 3 (1.54%) EMC VPLEX
13 3 (1.54%) SCSM
13 3 (1.54%) SnapVault
Vendors
1 193 (98.97%) VMware
2 47 (24.10%) Microsoft
3 41 (21.03%) Cisco
4 21 (10.77%) Veeam
5 16 (8.21%) NetApp
6 14 (7.18%) Dell
7 11 (5.64%) ServiceNow
8 10 (5.13%) Oracle
8 10 (5.13%) Red Hat
8 10 (5.13%) SolarWinds
8 10 (5.13%) Zerto
9 9 (4.62%) IBM
9 9 (4.62%) Pure Storage
9 9 (4.62%) Veritas
10 7 (3.59%) 3PAR
11 6 (3.08%) Citrix
11 6 (3.08%) Commvault
11 6 (3.08%) Splunk
12 5 (2.56%) CheckPoint
13 4 (2.05%) EMC