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 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 279 258 276
Rank change year-on-year -21 +18 -11
Contract jobs citing vSphere 124 89 125
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.68% 0.61% 0.64%
As % of the System Software category 5.27% 4.42% 4.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 90 66 74
10th Percentile £302 £350 £300
25th Percentile £384 £388 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £473 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.82% -5.50% +5.26%
75th Percentile £569 £613 £588
90th Percentile £626 £675 £700
UK median daily rate £525 £470 £500
% change year-on-year +11.70% -6.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 2 12
10th Percentile - £26.38 £62.63
25th Percentile - £34.06 £68.65
Median hourly rate - £48.75 £76.53
Median % change year-on-year - -36.30% +98.78%
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% +69.13%

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 2,352 2,012 2,816
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 12.86% 13.80% 14.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,618 1,306 1,879
10th Percentile £190 £185 £170
25th Percentile £315 £313 £275
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £453 £468
Median % change year-on-year +4.97% -3.31% +1.74%
75th Percentile £573 £575 £588
90th Percentile £643 £652 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 119 66 189
10th Percentile £15.50 £16.25 £15.39
25th Percentile £18.87 £20.64 £18.00
Median hourly rate £62.50 £31.25 £47.90
Median % change year-on-year +100.00% -34.75% +130.82%
75th Percentile £76.25 £64.50 £68.63
90th Percentile £91.50 £75.00 £77.60
UK median hourly rate £48.11 £27.96 £50.00
% change year-on-year +72.10% -44.09% +96.08%

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 December 2025.

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 30 December 2025. 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 -8 50 £550 +13.40% 59
Midlands - 36 £310 - 24
West Midlands - 34 £310 - 11
North of England -42 27 £456 +7.29% 42
North West -21 19 £469 +10.40% 15
Yorkshire - 8 £413 - 14
South West -11 7 £540 +14.89% 18
Scotland -3 3 £388 -45.33% 6
East Midlands - 2 £328 - 12
East of England -16 1 - - 20
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 (6.45%) Confluence
2 4 (3.23%) OpenStack
3 2 (1.61%) IIS
4 1 (0.81%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.81%) SharePoint
Applications
1 7 (5.65%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 44 (35.48%) AWS
2 41 (33.06%) Azure
3 17 (13.71%) OpenShift
4 13 (10.48%) Datadog
5 12 (9.68%) IaaS
6 10 (8.06%) Microsoft 365
7 7 (5.65%) GCP
8 4 (3.23%) PaaS
9 2 (1.61%) Entra ID
9 2 (1.61%) GitHub
9 2 (1.61%) Nutanix
10 1 (0.81%) Azure DevOps
10 1 (0.81%) GitHub Actions
10 1 (0.81%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 35 (28.23%) VSAN
2 24 (19.35%) Firewall
3 23 (18.55%) DNS
4 9 (7.26%) Fibre Channel
5 8 (6.45%) DHCP
6 7 (5.65%) iSCSI
6 7 (5.65%) SAN
6 7 (5.65%) TCP/IP
7 4 (3.23%) NAS
7 4 (3.23%) PCoIP
7 4 (3.23%) VLAN
8 3 (2.42%) Network Security
9 2 (1.61%) NetScaler
9 2 (1.61%) Software-Defined Networking
10 1 (0.81%) BIG-IP
10 1 (0.81%) Cisco ISE
10 1 (0.81%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
10 1 (0.81%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
10 1 (0.81%) Remote Desktop
10 1 (0.81%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (3.23%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 10 (8.06%) Jenkins
2 4 (3.23%) Git
2 4 (3.23%) GitLab
3 2 (1.61%) Artifactory
4 1 (0.81%) GoCD
4 1 (0.81%) JIRA
4 1 (0.81%) SonarQube
4 1 (0.81%) Sonatype Nexus
4 1 (0.81%) Subversion
General
1 26 (20.97%) Social Skills
2 11 (8.87%) Finance
3 10 (8.06%) Public Sector
4 6 (4.84%) Documentation Skills
4 6 (4.84%) Presentation Skills
5 5 (4.03%) Analytical Skills
6 2 (1.61%) Influencing Skills
7 1 (0.81%) Electronics
7 1 (0.81%) Local Government
7 1 (0.81%) Manufacturing
7 1 (0.81%) Marketing
7 1 (0.81%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 25 (20.16%) Analyst
2 23 (18.55%) Architect
2 23 (18.55%) Infrastructure Analyst
3 19 (15.32%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 15 (12.10%) Storage Analyst
5 13 (10.48%) VMware Engineer
6 9 (7.26%) Infrastructure Architect
6 9 (7.26%) Senior
6 9 (7.26%) VMware Architect
7 8 (6.45%) Platform Engineer
8 7 (5.65%) Storage Engineer
9 6 (4.84%) Virtualisation Engineer
10 5 (4.03%) Consultant
10 5 (4.03%) Site Engineer
10 5 (4.03%) Site Reliability Engineer
10 5 (4.03%) VMware Consultant
10 5 (4.03%) Wintel Engineer
11 4 (3.23%) Server Engineer
11 4 (3.23%) VMware Infrastructure Engineer
12 3 (2.42%) Server Migration Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (10.48%) Flash
2 8 (6.45%) Loki
3 5 (4.03%) Middleware
4 2 (1.61%) Elastic Stack
5 1 (0.81%) .NET
5 1 (0.81%) OpenTelemetry
5 1 (0.81%) React
Miscellaneous
1 26 (20.97%) Linux Command Line
2 18 (14.52%) Replication
3 10 (8.06%) Cloud Native
4 8 (6.45%) Virtual Team
5 6 (4.84%) Data Centre
6 5 (4.03%) Clustering
6 5 (4.03%) Hybrid Cloud
6 5 (4.03%) Management Information System
7 3 (2.42%) Greenfield Project
7 3 (2.42%) PKI
7 3 (2.42%) Private Cloud
8 2 (1.61%) Enterprise Storage
8 2 (1.61%) Legacy Systems
8 2 (1.61%) Public Cloud
9 1 (0.81%) CMDB
9 1 (0.81%) Distributed Systems
9 1 (0.81%) IBM XIV
9 1 (0.81%) RSA SecurID
Operating Systems
1 63 (50.81%) Linux
2 39 (31.45%) Windows
3 29 (23.39%) Windows Server
4 11 (8.87%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 11 (8.87%) Windows Server 2019
5 4 (3.23%) Windows 10
5 4 (3.23%) Windows Server 2016
6 3 (2.42%) VMS
7 2 (1.61%) CentOS
7 2 (1.61%) Ubuntu
7 2 (1.61%) Windows Server 2012
8 1 (0.81%) Solaris
8 1 (0.81%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 44 (35.48%) Agile
2 29 (23.39%) CI/CD
2 29 (23.39%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 28 (22.58%) Infrastructure as Code
4 23 (18.55%) DevOps
5 20 (16.13%) Problem-Solving
6 16 (12.90%) Containerisation
6 16 (12.90%) Migration
7 15 (12.10%) Infrastructure Automation
8 14 (11.29%) Mentoring
9 13 (10.48%) Observability
10 12 (9.68%) Site Reliability Engineering
11 10 (8.06%) Continuous Improvement
12 9 (7.26%) Load Balancing
12 9 (7.26%) Ticket Management
13 8 (6.45%) Capacity Planning
13 8 (6.45%) High Availability
13 8 (6.45%) Infrastructure Management
13 8 (6.45%) Project Delivery
14 7 (5.65%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 33 (26.61%) Python
2 29 (23.39%) Bash
3 20 (16.13%) PowerShell
4 8 (6.45%) SQL
5 3 (2.42%) Go
6 2 (1.61%) Shell Script
7 1 (0.81%) C#
7 1 (0.81%) Java
7 1 (0.81%) Perl
7 1 (0.81%) TypeScript
7 1 (0.81%) VB
7 1 (0.81%) VBA
Qualifications
1 53 (42.74%) Security Cleared
2 28 (22.58%) SC Cleared
3 21 (16.94%) DV Cleared
4 17 (13.71%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
5 11 (8.87%) MCSE
5 11 (8.87%) Microsoft Certification
6 10 (8.06%) VCAP
7 6 (4.84%) Degree
8 5 (4.03%) BPSS Clearance
9 4 (3.23%) MCSA
10 3 (2.42%) Computer Science Degree
10 3 (2.42%) VCP5
10 3 (2.42%) VCP6
11 2 (1.61%) VCDX
12 1 (0.81%) Azure Certification
12 1 (0.81%) CCA
12 1 (0.81%) CCNA
12 1 (0.81%) Cisco Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (2.42%) SLA
2 2 (1.61%) GDPR
2 2 (1.61%) PCI DSS
3 1 (0.81%) Cyber Essentials
3 1 (0.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 1 (0.81%) QA
3 1 (0.81%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 95 (76.61%) VMware Infrastructure
2 46 (37.10%) VMware ESXi
3 29 (23.39%) VMware NSX
4 20 (16.13%) NFS
5 17 (13.71%) Active Directory
5 17 (13.71%) Docker
6 13 (10.48%) GPFS
7 9 (7.26%) Virtual Machines
8 5 (4.03%) Virtual Desktop
9 3 (2.42%) DFS Replication
10 2 (1.61%) Hyper-V
11 1 (0.81%) Firmware
11 1 (0.81%) VMware Server
Systems Management
1 36 (29.03%) vRealize
2 31 (25.00%) vCenter Server
3 30 (24.19%) Ansible
4 28 (22.58%) Kubernetes
5 25 (20.16%) Terraform
6 21 (16.94%) VxRail
7 16 (12.90%) Argo
8 10 (8.06%) Grafana
9 9 (7.26%) Prometheus
10 8 (6.45%) Kustomize
10 8 (6.45%) SCCM
11 6 (4.84%) Microsoft Intune
12 3 (2.42%) SCOM
12 3 (2.42%) Single Sign-On
13 2 (1.61%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 2 (1.61%) PowerCLI
13 2 (1.61%) vRealize Orchestrator
14 1 (0.81%) Avamar
14 1 (0.81%) Podman
14 1 (0.81%) Rancher
Vendors
1 120 (96.77%) VMware
2 37 (29.84%) Cisco
3 29 (23.39%) Microsoft
4 27 (21.77%) IBM
5 20 (16.13%) Red Hat
6 18 (14.52%) Dell
7 15 (12.10%) SolarWinds
8 14 (11.29%) Veeam
9 13 (10.48%) AppDynamics
9 13 (10.48%) Commvault
9 13 (10.48%) Oracle
9 13 (10.48%) ServiceNow
10 11 (8.87%) F5
10 11 (8.87%) HP
11 8 (6.45%) NetApp
11 8 (6.45%) Splunk
12 7 (5.65%) Pure Storage
13 6 (4.84%) Palo Alto
14 4 (3.23%) Citrix
15 3 (2.42%) EMC