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 31 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
31 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 260 244 249
Rank change year-on-year -16 +5 +5
Contract jobs citing vSphere 188 99 152
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.75% 0.76% 0.73%
As % of the System Software category 7.06% 5.38% 6.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 146 61 116
10th Percentile £334 £375 £300
25th Percentile £423 £510 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £550 £475
Median % change year-on-year -11.82% +15.79% +4.40%
75th Percentile £550 £606 £590
90th Percentile £600 £650 £660
UK median daily rate £490 £550 £508
% change year-on-year -10.91% +8.37% +3.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 0 2
10th Percentile £48.40 - -
25th Percentile £50.50 - -
Median hourly rate £51.00 - £70.66
75th Percentile - - -
90th Percentile - - -
UK median hourly rate £51.00 - £70.66
% change year-on-year - - +7.06%

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 2,663 1,840 2,482
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 10.64% 14.17% 11.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,794 1,259 1,699
10th Percentile £193 £200 £182
25th Percentile £358 £313 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year - - -0.94%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £588
90th Percentile £644 £650 £650
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 162 50 187
10th Percentile £15.77 £14.99 £14.06
25th Percentile £21.25 £15.25 £14.16
Median hourly rate £51.00 £32.32 £24.18
Median % change year-on-year +57.78% +33.67% -50.04%
75th Percentile £71.38 £69.00 £61.63
90th Percentile £76.35 £88.08 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £51.75 £28.21 £24.18
% change year-on-year +83.48% +16.65% -55.90%

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 31 May 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 31 May 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 -31 73 £483 -0.92% 8
Midlands -19 42 £450 -17.05% 4
North West -15 40 £458 -10.20% 5
South East -69 40 £563 -2.17% 20
West Midlands -27 37 £425 -21.66% 3
Yorkshire -40 33 £500 +5.26% 1
South West -24 13 £525 -8.70% 2
Scotland - 13 £463 -
East of England -28 11 £510 -7.27% 3
East Midlands -20 5 £450 - 1
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 2 (1.06%) Apache
1 2 (1.06%) CloudStack
1 2 (1.06%) SharePoint
2 1 (0.53%) Confluence
2 1 (0.53%) IIS
2 1 (0.53%) MS Project Server
Applications
1 3 (1.60%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.53%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 50 (26.60%) AWS
1 50 (26.60%) Azure
2 29 (15.43%) OpenShift
3 18 (9.57%) GitHub
4 11 (5.85%) GCP
4 11 (5.85%) Microsoft 365
5 8 (4.26%) Nutanix
6 6 (3.19%) Amazon EC2
6 6 (3.19%) IaaS
7 5 (2.66%) Datadog
8 4 (2.13%) Entra ID
9 3 (1.60%) Catchpoint
9 3 (1.60%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 2 (1.06%) Azure Storage
10 2 (1.06%) GitHub Actions
10 2 (1.06%) PaaS
10 2 (1.06%) Rubrik
11 1 (0.53%) Amazon EKS
11 1 (0.53%) Azure AKS
11 1 (0.53%) Cloud Computing
Communications & Networking
1 42 (22.34%) DNS
2 30 (15.96%) Firewall
2 30 (15.96%) VSAN
3 26 (13.83%) DHCP
4 25 (13.30%) SAN
5 17 (9.04%) VLAN
6 12 (6.38%) NAS
7 11 (5.85%) LAN
7 11 (5.85%) WAN
8 7 (3.72%) TCP/IP
8 7 (3.72%) Wi-Fi
9 5 (2.66%) Cisco Nexus
10 4 (2.13%) NetScaler
10 4 (2.13%) SD-WAN
10 4 (2.13%) VPN
11 3 (1.60%) BGP
11 3 (1.60%) Network Security
11 3 (1.60%) OSPF
12 2 (1.06%) Fibre Channel
12 2 (1.06%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (4.26%) NonStop SQL
2 3 (1.60%) Data Mining
3 2 (1.06%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 18 (9.57%) Jenkins
2 3 (1.60%) Sonatype Nexus
3 1 (0.53%) GoCD
3 1 (0.53%) JIRA
General
1 35 (18.62%) Social Skills
2 16 (8.51%) Finance
3 12 (6.38%) Analytical Skills
4 11 (5.85%) Banking
5 10 (5.32%) Legal
6 9 (4.79%) Public Sector
7 2 (1.06%) Advertising
8 1 (0.53%) Documentation Skills
8 1 (0.53%) Manufacturing
8 1 (0.53%) Pharmaceutical
8 1 (0.53%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 52 (27.66%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 27 (14.36%) VMware Engineer
3 21 (11.17%) Architect
3 21 (11.17%) Wintel Engineer
4 20 (10.64%) Analyst
5 15 (7.98%) Infrastructure Analyst
5 15 (7.98%) Storage Analyst
6 13 (6.91%) Senior
7 10 (5.32%) Cloud Engineer
7 10 (5.32%) Consultant
7 10 (5.32%) Server Engineer
8 9 (4.79%) VMware Infrastructure Engineer
9 8 (4.26%) Infrastructure Services Engineer
9 8 (4.26%) Senior VMware Engineer
9 8 (4.26%) VMware Consultant
10 7 (3.72%) Network Engineer
10 7 (3.72%) Storage Engineer
11 6 (3.19%) Lead
12 5 (2.66%) Data Centre Engineer
12 5 (2.66%) Data Centre Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (7.98%) Flash
2 11 (5.85%) OpenTelemetry
3 2 (1.06%) Elastic Stack
4 1 (0.53%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 45 (23.94%) Replication
2 32 (17.02%) Hybrid Cloud
3 27 (14.36%) Data Centre
4 19 (10.11%) Clustering
4 19 (10.11%) Linux Command Line
5 18 (9.57%) Cloud Native
6 7 (3.72%) Private Cloud
7 6 (3.19%) Public Cloud
8 5 (2.66%) Enterprise Storage
8 5 (2.66%) FlexPod
9 4 (2.13%) Data Protection Act
10 3 (1.60%) EMC VMAX
10 3 (1.60%) EMC VNX
11 2 (1.06%) PKI
12 1 (0.53%) Distributed Computing
12 1 (0.53%) Distributed Systems
12 1 (0.53%) Fat Client
12 1 (0.53%) Life Science
12 1 (0.53%) Product Ownership
12 1 (0.53%) Thin Client
Operating Systems
1 84 (44.68%) Windows
2 70 (37.23%) Windows Server
3 53 (28.19%) Linux
4 18 (9.57%) Windows Server 2019
5 13 (6.91%) Windows Server 2016
6 10 (5.32%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 9 (4.79%) Data ONTAP
7 9 (4.79%) Ubuntu
7 9 (4.79%) VMS
8 5 (2.66%) CoreOS
8 5 (2.66%) Unix
8 5 (2.66%) Windows Server 2012
9 2 (1.06%) CentOS
10 1 (0.53%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 61 (32.45%) Disaster Recovery
2 55 (29.26%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 51 (27.13%) Migration
4 47 (25.00%) High Availability
5 34 (18.09%) Problem-Solving
6 32 (17.02%) Capacity Planning
7 28 (14.89%) DevOps
8 26 (13.83%) Network Virtualisation
9 24 (12.77%) Agile
9 24 (12.77%) Performance Tuning
9 24 (12.77%) Project Delivery
10 22 (11.70%) CI/CD
11 20 (10.64%) Containerisation
11 20 (10.64%) Root Cause Analysis
12 19 (10.11%) Load Balancing
13 15 (7.98%) RBAC
14 14 (7.45%) Data Migration
14 14 (7.45%) ITIL
14 14 (7.45%) Platform Engineering
15 13 (6.91%) Virtual Infrastructure
Programming Languages
1 50 (26.60%) PowerShell
2 29 (15.43%) Python
3 21 (11.17%) Bash
4 2 (1.06%) SQL
Qualifications
1 64 (34.04%) Security Cleared
2 45 (23.94%) SC Cleared
3 35 (18.62%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
4 22 (11.70%) VCAP
5 16 (8.51%) MCSA
5 16 (8.51%) MCSE
5 16 (8.51%) Microsoft Certification
6 15 (7.98%) DV Cleared
7 10 (5.32%) OCP
7 10 (5.32%) Oracle Certification
8 8 (4.26%) Cisco Certification
9 7 (3.72%) CCNP
10 6 (3.19%) BPSS Clearance
11 4 (2.13%) Azure Certification
12 2 (1.06%) AWS Certification
12 2 (1.06%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 2 (1.06%) CCIE
12 2 (1.06%) NCDA
12 2 (1.06%) NCIE
13 1 (0.53%) CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (4.26%) SLA
2 3 (1.60%) Government Security Classifications
2 3 (1.60%) NCSC
3 2 (1.06%) RMADS
4 1 (0.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 1 (0.53%) NIST
4 1 (0.53%) QA
System Software
1 138 (73.40%) VMware Infrastructure
2 100 (53.19%) VMware ESXi
3 54 (28.72%) VMware NSX
4 44 (23.40%) Virtual Machines
5 37 (19.68%) Active Directory
6 22 (11.70%) NFS
7 17 (9.04%) Hyper-V
8 15 (7.98%) GPFS
9 7 (3.72%) Virtual Desktop
10 6 (3.19%) Docker
11 5 (2.66%) KVM
12 3 (1.60%) DFS Replication
13 2 (1.06%) EMC RecoverPoint
13 2 (1.06%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 78 (41.49%) vCenter Server
2 57 (30.32%) Ansible
3 38 (20.21%) Kubernetes
4 33 (17.55%) vRealize
5 24 (12.77%) Terraform
6 18 (9.57%) Argo
6 18 (9.57%) VxRail
7 16 (8.51%) PowerCLI
8 15 (7.98%) Grafana
9 12 (6.38%) NetBackup
10 11 (5.85%) SCCM
11 8 (4.26%) SnapMirror
12 7 (3.72%) vMotion
13 5 (2.66%) Microsoft Intune
13 5 (2.66%) SCOM
14 4 (2.13%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 4 (2.13%) Prometheus
14 4 (2.13%) WSUS
15 3 (1.60%) EMC NetWorker
15 3 (1.60%) SnapVault
Vendors
1 179 (95.21%) VMware
2 56 (29.79%) Cisco
3 49 (26.06%) Microsoft
4 30 (15.96%) Veeam
5 22 (11.70%) Dell
6 21 (11.17%) Red Hat
7 19 (10.11%) Pure Storage
8 18 (9.57%) IBM
9 15 (7.98%) NetApp
9 15 (7.98%) Oracle
9 15 (7.98%) ServiceNow
10 12 (6.38%) Zerto
11 11 (5.85%) SolarWinds
11 11 (5.85%) Splunk
12 9 (4.79%) Commvault
12 9 (4.79%) Veritas
13 7 (3.72%) 3PAR
14 6 (3.19%) Citrix
14 6 (3.19%) HP
15 5 (2.66%) Google