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 26 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 269 267 280
Rank change year-on-year -2 +13 -6
Contract jobs citing vSphere 132 80 130
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.70% 0.59% 0.63%
As % of the System Software category 5.55% 4.11% 4.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 99 63 81
10th Percentile £304 £350 £300
25th Percentile £393 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £523 £500
Median % change year-on-year -6.70% +4.50% +4.71%
75th Percentile £558 £613 £568
90th Percentile £588 £675 £700
UK median daily rate £500 £510 £500
% change year-on-year -1.96% +2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 2 11
10th Percentile - £26.38 £62.63
25th Percentile - £34.06 £66.65
Median hourly rate - £48.75 £76.53
Median % change year-on-year - -36.30% +69.13%
75th Percentile - £64.06 -
90th Percentile - £72.13 -
UK median hourly rate £97.50 £93.50 £76.53
% change year-on-year +4.28% +22.17% +45.08%

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 2,380 1,948 2,765
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 12.68% 14.25% 13.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,660 1,256 1,858
10th Percentile £185 £185 £170
25th Percentile £316 £303 £263
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £464 £450
Median % change year-on-year +2.48% +3.00% -3.23%
75th Percentile £566 £584 £575
90th Percentile £638 £650 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £513 £495
% change year-on-year -2.44% +3.54% -5.71%
Number of hourly rates quoted 105 65 196
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.33 £14.16
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.05 £18.00
Median hourly rate £58.50 £37.50 £51.25
Median % change year-on-year +56.00% -26.83% +132.95%
75th Percentile £74.26 £64.50 £67.28
90th Percentile £90.40 £75.00 £78.00
UK median hourly rate £41.94 £29.00 £49.88
% change year-on-year +44.62% -41.86% +29.56%

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 26 January 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
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 26 January 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 -34 46 £539 -6.35% 36
Midlands - 40 £313 - 12
West Midlands - 38 £313 - 3
North of England -36 29 £456 +5.74% 22
North West -13 23 £460 +6.67% 4
Scotland +11 8 £434 -25.38% 10
South West -19 8 £555 +18.09% 15
Yorkshire - 6 £394 - 13
East Midlands - 2 £328 - 9
East of England -12 1 - - 17
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 8 (6.06%) Confluence
2 4 (3.03%) OpenStack
3 2 (1.52%) IIS
4 1 (0.76%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.76%) SharePoint
Applications
1 7 (5.30%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 49 (37.12%) AWS
2 46 (34.85%) Azure
3 17 (12.88%) OpenShift
4 13 (9.85%) Datadog
5 12 (9.09%) IaaS
5 12 (9.09%) Microsoft 365
6 7 (5.30%) GCP
7 4 (3.03%) PaaS
8 3 (2.27%) Catchpoint
8 3 (2.27%) Nutanix
9 2 (1.52%) Entra ID
9 2 (1.52%) GitHub
10 1 (0.76%) Azure DevOps
10 1 (0.76%) GitHub Actions
10 1 (0.76%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 33 (25.00%) VSAN
2 28 (21.21%) Firewall
3 25 (18.94%) DNS
4 12 (9.09%) DHCP
5 9 (6.82%) TCP/IP
6 7 (5.30%) VLAN
7 5 (3.79%) Network Security
7 5 (3.79%) SAN
8 4 (3.03%) Fibre Channel
8 4 (3.03%) PCoIP
8 4 (3.03%) Wi-Fi
9 3 (2.27%) BGP
9 3 (2.27%) Cisco Nexus
9 3 (2.27%) NetScaler
9 3 (2.27%) OSPF
10 2 (1.52%) iSCSI
10 2 (1.52%) LAN
10 2 (1.52%) Software-Defined Networking
10 2 (1.52%) WAN
11 1 (0.76%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (2.27%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 7 (5.30%) Jenkins
2 4 (3.03%) Sonatype Nexus
3 2 (1.52%) Artifactory
3 2 (1.52%) GoCD
4 1 (0.76%) Git
4 1 (0.76%) GitLab
4 1 (0.76%) JIRA
4 1 (0.76%) SonarQube
4 1 (0.76%) Subversion
General
1 22 (16.67%) Social Skills
2 13 (9.85%) Finance
3 12 (9.09%) Public Sector
4 6 (4.55%) Analytical Skills
4 6 (4.55%) Documentation Skills
4 6 (4.55%) Presentation Skills
5 2 (1.52%) Influencing Skills
5 2 (1.52%) Legal
6 1 (0.76%) Electronics
6 1 (0.76%) Local Government
6 1 (0.76%) Manufacturing
6 1 (0.76%) Marketing
6 1 (0.76%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 29 (21.97%) Analyst
2 24 (18.18%) Infrastructure Analyst
3 22 (16.67%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 20 (15.15%) Architect
5 19 (14.39%) Storage Analyst
6 11 (8.33%) VMware Engineer
7 10 (7.58%) Senior
7 10 (7.58%) Wintel Engineer
8 9 (6.82%) Platform Engineer
9 7 (5.30%) Storage Engineer
10 6 (4.55%) Infrastructure Architect
10 6 (4.55%) Server Engineer
10 6 (4.55%) Virtualisation Engineer
11 5 (3.79%) Site Engineer
11 5 (3.79%) Site Reliability Engineer
12 4 (3.03%) Network Engineer
12 4 (3.03%) Support Engineer
12 4 (3.03%) VMware Architect
12 4 (3.03%) VMware Infrastructure Engineer
12 4 (3.03%) Windows Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (12.88%) Flash
2 8 (6.06%) Loki
3 2 (1.52%) Elastic Stack
3 2 (1.52%) Middleware
4 1 (0.76%) .NET
4 1 (0.76%) OpenTelemetry
4 1 (0.76%) React
Miscellaneous
1 30 (22.73%) Linux Command Line
2 27 (20.45%) Replication
3 10 (7.58%) Clustering
4 8 (6.06%) Cloud Native
4 8 (6.06%) Virtual Team
5 7 (5.30%) Data Centre
6 4 (3.03%) Private Cloud
7 3 (2.27%) Greenfield Project
7 3 (2.27%) Hybrid Cloud
7 3 (2.27%) Management Information System
7 3 (2.27%) PKI
7 3 (2.27%) Public Cloud
8 2 (1.52%) Enterprise Storage
8 2 (1.52%) Legacy Systems
9 1 (0.76%) CMDB
9 1 (0.76%) Distributed Systems
9 1 (0.76%) IBM XIV
9 1 (0.76%) Onboarding
9 1 (0.76%) RSA SecurID
Operating Systems
1 66 (50.00%) Linux
2 42 (31.82%) Windows
3 33 (25.00%) Windows Server
4 12 (9.09%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 9 (6.82%) Windows Server 2019
6 6 (4.55%) Windows Server 2016
7 4 (3.03%) Windows 10
7 4 (3.03%) Windows Server 2012
8 2 (1.52%) CentOS
9 1 (0.76%) Solaris
9 1 (0.76%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.76%) Unix
9 1 (0.76%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 48 (36.36%) Agile
2 32 (24.24%) CI/CD
3 28 (21.21%) Infrastructure as Code
3 28 (21.21%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 24 (18.18%) DevOps
5 19 (14.39%) Problem-Solving
6 16 (12.12%) Containerisation
7 14 (10.61%) High Availability
7 14 (10.61%) Migration
8 13 (9.85%) Capacity Planning
8 13 (9.85%) Disaster Recovery
8 13 (9.85%) Mentoring
8 13 (9.85%) Observability
8 13 (9.85%) Ticket Management
9 12 (9.09%) Infrastructure Automation
9 12 (9.09%) Project Delivery
9 12 (9.09%) Site Reliability Engineering
10 10 (7.58%) Continuous Improvement
10 10 (7.58%) Load Balancing
10 10 (7.58%) Network Virtualisation
Programming Languages
1 32 (24.24%) Python
2 29 (21.97%) Bash
3 27 (20.45%) PowerShell
4 3 (2.27%) Go
4 3 (2.27%) SQL
5 1 (0.76%) C#
5 1 (0.76%) Java
5 1 (0.76%) Perl
5 1 (0.76%) TypeScript
5 1 (0.76%) VB
5 1 (0.76%) VBA
Qualifications
1 54 (40.91%) Security Cleared
2 33 (25.00%) SC Cleared
3 18 (13.64%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
4 15 (11.36%) DV Cleared
5 14 (10.61%) VCAP
6 10 (7.58%) MCSE
6 10 (7.58%) Microsoft Certification
7 8 (6.06%) MCSA
8 7 (5.30%) BPSS Clearance
9 4 (3.03%) Cisco Certification
9 4 (3.03%) Degree
10 3 (2.27%) CCNP
11 2 (1.52%) CCIE
11 2 (1.52%) VCDX
12 1 (0.76%) Azure Certification
12 1 (0.76%) CCA
12 1 (0.76%) CCNA
12 1 (0.76%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (2.27%) SLA
2 2 (1.52%) GDPR
2 2 (1.52%) PCI DSS
3 1 (0.76%) Cyber Essentials
3 1 (0.76%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 1 (0.76%) QA
3 1 (0.76%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 100 (75.76%) VMware Infrastructure
2 50 (37.88%) VMware ESXi
3 27 (20.45%) VMware NSX
4 19 (14.39%) NFS
5 18 (13.64%) Active Directory
5 18 (13.64%) Docker
6 17 (12.88%) GPFS
7 12 (9.09%) Virtual Machines
8 6 (4.55%) Virtual Desktop
9 3 (2.27%) DFS Replication
10 2 (1.52%) Hyper-V
11 1 (0.76%) Firmware
11 1 (0.76%) VMware Server
Systems Management
1 37 (28.03%) vCenter Server
1 37 (28.03%) vRealize
2 32 (24.24%) Ansible
3 29 (21.97%) Kubernetes
4 23 (17.42%) Terraform
4 23 (17.42%) VxRail
5 16 (12.12%) Argo
6 10 (7.58%) Grafana
7 9 (6.82%) Prometheus
7 9 (6.82%) SCCM
8 8 (6.06%) Kustomize
9 7 (5.30%) Microsoft Intune
10 5 (3.79%) SCOM
11 3 (2.27%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 2 (1.52%) FreeIPA
12 2 (1.52%) vRealize Orchestrator
13 1 (0.76%) FortiGate
13 1 (0.76%) Packer
13 1 (0.76%) Red Hat Satellite
13 1 (0.76%) SELinux
Vendors
1 127 (96.21%) VMware
2 50 (37.88%) Cisco
3 31 (23.48%) IBM
4 28 (21.21%) Microsoft
5 21 (15.91%) Dell
6 19 (14.39%) Red Hat
7 17 (12.88%) Oracle
7 17 (12.88%) ServiceNow
8 15 (11.36%) SolarWinds
9 13 (9.85%) AppDynamics
9 13 (9.85%) Commvault
9 13 (9.85%) Veeam
10 12 (9.09%) HP
11 9 (6.82%) F5
11 9 (6.82%) Palo Alto
12 7 (5.30%) Pure Storage
13 4 (3.03%) Citrix
14 3 (2.27%) Juniper
14 3 (2.27%) NetApp
14 3 (2.27%) Splunk