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

6 months to
28 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 281 282 244
Rank change year-on-year +1 -38 +35
Contract jobs citing vSphere 195 93 127
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.69% 0.60% 0.72%
As % of the System Software category 6.45% 4.66% 5.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 127 63 95
10th Percentile £340 £375 £310
25th Percentile £418 £493 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £550 £500
Median % change year-on-year -10.91% +10.00% +5.26%
75th Percentile £594 £613 £600
90th Percentile £725 £650 £665
UK median daily rate £500 £550 £500
% change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 0 2
10th Percentile £51.00 - £22.68
25th Percentile - - £24.83
Median hourly rate £68.75 - £29.33
75th Percentile £97.25 - £33.50
90th Percentile £98.82 - £35.45
UK median hourly rate £68.75 - £74.08
% change year-on-year - - +10.14%

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 3,023 1,994 2,226
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 10.75% 12.85% 12.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,916 1,327 1,467
10th Percentile £200 £190 £190
25th Percentile £350 £300 £335
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £475
75th Percentile £575 £575 £584
90th Percentile £650 £638 £653
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
Number of hourly rates quoted 220 71 85
10th Percentile £16.00 £14.99 £14.16
25th Percentile £26.00 £17.35 £16.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £61.50 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year +5.69% +105.00% -22.18%
75th Percentile £74.08 £81.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £92.11 £91.50 £80.75
UK median hourly rate £63.14 £34.00 £27.50
% change year-on-year +85.69% +23.64% -45.00%

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 28 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 28 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 28 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
Midlands -9 47 £425 +54.55% 16
South East -76 44 £504 -12.39% 14
North of England -40 39 £483 +5.92% 21
South West -11 34 £670 +24.07% 18
West Midlands -22 34 £425 +54.55% 9
Yorkshire -24 24 £525 +17.45% 6
East of England - 22 £513 - 12
North West -43 15 £461 -16.18% 11
East Midlands -4 13 £425 +304.76% 7
Scotland - 10 £375 - 6
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%) Confluence
1 6 (3.08%) SharePoint
2 5 (2.56%) Microsoft Exchange
3 2 (1.03%) Apache
3 2 (1.03%) CloudStack
4 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 7 (3.59%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 53 (27.18%) AWS
2 48 (24.62%) Azure
3 14 (7.18%) OpenShift
4 12 (6.15%) Microsoft 365
5 11 (5.64%) Entra ID
6 8 (4.10%) GCP
7 5 (2.56%) Amazon EC2
8 4 (2.05%) GitHub
8 4 (2.05%) 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 65 (33.33%) DNS
2 50 (25.64%) DHCP
3 47 (24.10%) Firewall
4 45 (23.08%) VSAN
5 30 (15.38%) TCP/IP
6 20 (10.26%) VLAN
7 14 (7.18%) LAN
7 14 (7.18%) VPN
8 13 (6.67%) SAN
9 12 (6.15%) SSL
10 11 (5.64%) NAS
10 11 (5.64%) WAN
11 10 (5.13%) BGP
11 10 (5.13%) HTTP
11 10 (5.13%) OSPF
12 9 (4.62%) Network Security
13 7 (3.59%) HSRP
13 7 (3.59%) VRRP
14 6 (3.08%) SD-WAN
15 5 (2.56%) Software-Defined Networking
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (2.05%) SQL Server
2 2 (1.03%) Data Mining
2 2 (1.03%) NonStop SQL
Development Applications
1 6 (3.08%) JIRA
2 5 (2.56%) Jenkins
3 1 (0.51%) Git
General
1 32 (16.41%) Social Skills
2 18 (9.23%) Analytical Skills
3 11 (5.64%) Finance
4 9 (4.62%) Public Sector
5 5 (2.56%) Banking
6 2 (1.03%) Aerospace
6 2 (1.03%) Documentation Skills
6 2 (1.03%) Military
7 1 (0.51%) Advertising
7 1 (0.51%) Law
7 1 (0.51%) Legal
7 1 (0.51%) Manufacturing
7 1 (0.51%) Marketing
7 1 (0.51%) Retail
Job Titles
1 55 (28.21%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 29 (14.87%) VMware Engineer
3 26 (13.33%) Senior
4 21 (10.77%) Platform Engineer
5 16 (8.21%) Network Engineer
6 15 (7.69%) Cloud Engineer
7 14 (7.18%) Storage Engineer
7 14 (7.18%) Virtualisation Engineer
8 11 (5.64%) Architect
8 11 (5.64%) Server Engineer
8 11 (5.64%) Wintel Engineer
9 9 (4.62%) Consultant
9 9 (4.62%) VMware Consultant
10 8 (4.10%) Senior VMware Engineer
11 7 (3.59%) Cloud Infrastructure Engineer
11 7 (3.59%) Lead
11 7 (3.59%) Principal Engineer
11 7 (3.59%) VMware Infrastructure Engineer
12 6 (3.08%) Analyst
12 6 (3.08%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 40 (20.51%) Terraform
2 6 (3.08%) Flash
3 2 (1.03%) Elastic Stack
3 2 (1.03%) Unreal Engine
4 1 (0.51%) ModSecurity
4 1 (0.51%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 45 (23.08%) Data Centre
2 25 (12.82%) Replication
3 23 (11.79%) Hybrid Cloud
4 19 (9.74%) PKI
5 11 (5.64%) Enterprise Storage
5 11 (5.64%) Public Cloud
6 9 (4.62%) Clustering
7 8 (4.10%) Cloud Native
8 7 (3.59%) Linux Command Line
9 6 (3.08%) Self-Motivation
10 5 (2.56%) Data Protection Act
11 4 (2.05%) Private Cloud
11 4 (2.05%) Video Conferencing
12 3 (1.54%) EMC VMAX
12 3 (1.54%) EMC VNX
13 2 (1.03%) Distributed Systems
13 2 (1.03%) Management Information System
13 2 (1.03%) Motion Graphics
13 2 (1.03%) Onboarding
13 2 (1.03%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 107 (54.87%) Windows
2 82 (42.05%) Windows Server
3 56 (28.72%) Linux
4 14 (7.18%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 7 (3.59%) VMS
6 6 (3.08%) Windows Server 2012
7 4 (2.05%) Ubuntu
7 4 (2.05%) Unix
8 3 (1.54%) Data ONTAP
8 3 (1.54%) Rocky
8 3 (1.54%) Windows Server 2016
8 3 (1.54%) Windows Server 2019
9 2 (1.03%) Windows 10
10 1 (0.51%) CentOS
10 1 (0.51%) Mac OS
10 1 (0.51%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 63 (32.31%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 43 (22.05%) Problem-Solving
3 40 (20.51%) Migration
4 37 (18.97%) Disaster Recovery
4 37 (18.97%) Infrastructure as Code
4 37 (18.97%) Technical Leadership
5 36 (18.46%) Platform Engineering
6 31 (15.90%) Network Virtualisation
7 27 (13.85%) Continuous Improvement
8 26 (13.33%) High Availability
9 25 (12.82%) Agile
10 23 (11.79%) CI/CD
10 23 (11.79%) Project Delivery
11 22 (11.28%) DevOps
11 22 (11.28%) Infrastructure Automation
12 19 (9.74%) Capacity Planning
12 19 (9.74%) Stakeholder Management
13 18 (9.23%) Root Cause Analysis
14 17 (8.72%) ITIL
14 17 (8.72%) SIEM
Programming Languages
1 54 (27.69%) PowerShell
2 28 (14.36%) Python
3 26 (13.33%) Bash
4 2 (1.03%) Perl
4 2 (1.03%) Shell Script
5 1 (0.51%) Go
Qualifications
1 105 (53.85%) Security Cleared
2 56 (28.72%) SC Cleared
3 46 (23.59%) DV Cleared
4 34 (17.44%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
5 29 (14.87%) VCAP
6 11 (5.64%) MCSA
6 11 (5.64%) MCSE
6 11 (5.64%) Microsoft Certification
7 10 (5.13%) AWS Certification
7 10 (5.13%) Cisco Certification
8 9 (4.62%) Azure Certification
8 9 (4.62%) CCNP
9 5 (2.56%) CCNA
9 5 (2.56%) Degree
10 3 (1.54%) CCA
10 3 (1.54%) Citrix Certification
10 3 (1.54%) ITIL Certification
11 2 (1.03%) PMI Certification
11 2 (1.03%) PMP
11 2 (1.03%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (1.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 3 (1.54%) SLA
2 2 (1.03%) Cyber Essentials
2 2 (1.03%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
2 2 (1.03%) GRC
2 2 (1.03%) NCSC
3 1 (0.51%) Data Quality
3 1 (0.51%) Government Security Classifications
3 1 (0.51%) NIST
3 1 (0.51%) QA
System Software
1 163 (83.59%) VMware Infrastructure
2 92 (47.18%) VMware ESXi
3 67 (34.36%) Active Directory
4 53 (27.18%) VMware NSX
5 32 (16.41%) Hyper-V
5 32 (16.41%) Virtual Machines
6 14 (7.18%) Docker
7 13 (6.67%) Virtual Desktop
8 8 (4.10%) NFS
9 6 (3.08%) GPFS
10 4 (2.05%) VMware Server
11 3 (1.54%) Firmware
11 3 (1.54%) UAG
12 2 (1.03%) EMC RecoverPoint
12 2 (1.03%) SRDF
13 1 (0.51%) KVM
13 1 (0.51%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 1 (0.51%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 52 (26.67%) vCenter Server
2 48 (24.62%) Ansible
3 35 (17.95%) Kubernetes
4 20 (10.26%) VxRail
5 12 (6.15%) SCCM
6 11 (5.64%) vMotion
6 11 (5.64%) vRealize
7 9 (4.62%) PowerCLI
8 7 (3.59%) Microsoft Intune
8 7 (3.59%) Nagios
9 6 (3.08%) Grafana
9 6 (3.08%) Prometheus
10 5 (2.56%) NetBackup
10 5 (2.56%) SCOM
11 4 (2.05%) Check_MK
12 3 (1.54%) EMC NetWorker
12 3 (1.54%) EMC VPLEX
12 3 (1.54%) Podman
12 3 (1.54%) SnapMirror
12 3 (1.54%) SnapVault
Vendors
1 193 (98.97%) VMware
2 58 (29.74%) Microsoft
3 47 (24.10%) Cisco
4 22 (11.28%) Veeam
5 19 (9.74%) NetApp
6 18 (9.23%) SolarWinds
7 14 (7.18%) Dell
8 9 (4.62%) Red Hat
8 9 (4.62%) ServiceNow
9 8 (4.10%) Oracle
10 7 (3.59%) 3PAR
10 7 (3.59%) Commvault
10 7 (3.59%) IBM
10 7 (3.59%) Remedy
11 6 (3.08%) CheckPoint
11 6 (3.08%) Citrix
12 5 (2.56%) BT
12 5 (2.56%) Meraki
12 5 (2.56%) Xerox
13 4 (2.05%) SaltStack