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

6 months to
4 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 273 263 286
Rank change year-on-year -10 +23 -12
Contract jobs citing vSphere 126 85 120
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.69% 0.60% 0.62%
As % of the System Software category 5.39% 4.36% 4.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 93 64 70
10th Percentile £303 £350 £300
25th Percentile £393 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% +5.26%
75th Percentile £569 £613 £588
90th Percentile £610 £675 £700
UK median daily rate £525 £470 £510
% change year-on-year +11.70% -7.84% +0.99%
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 2,337 1,951 2,775
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 12.86% 13.74% 14.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,612 1,257 1,855
10th Percentile £190 £185 £170
25th Percentile £316 £313 £270
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £455 £463
Median % change year-on-year +4.40% -1.73% +1.15%
75th Percentile £573 £575 £585
90th Percentile £644 £651 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 120 67 188
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.39 £14.80
25th Percentile £18.87 £20.52 £17.94
Median hourly rate £62.50 £32.50 £48.95
Median % change year-on-year +92.31% -33.60% +144.74%
75th Percentile £75.00 £64.50 £68.63
90th Percentile £91.50 £75.00 £77.65
UK median hourly rate £48.72 £28.41 £49.88
% change year-on-year +71.49% -43.04% +93.71%

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 4 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 4 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 -11 52 £550 +10.00% 26
Midlands - 37 £310 - 2
West Midlands - 35 £310 -
North of England -38 26 £456 +7.29% 13
North West -18 18 £469 +10.40% 3
Yorkshire - 8 £413 - 3
South West -14 7 £540 +14.89% 3
Scotland -5 3 £388 -45.33% 3
East Midlands - 2 £328 - 2
East of England -13 1 - - 3
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 (6.35%) Confluence
2 4 (3.17%) OpenStack
3 2 (1.59%) IIS
4 1 (0.79%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.79%) SharePoint
Applications
1 7 (5.56%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 45 (35.71%) AWS
2 42 (33.33%) Azure
3 17 (13.49%) OpenShift
4 13 (10.32%) Datadog
5 12 (9.52%) IaaS
6 11 (8.73%) Microsoft 365
7 7 (5.56%) GCP
8 4 (3.17%) PaaS
9 2 (1.59%) Entra ID
9 2 (1.59%) GitHub
9 2 (1.59%) Nutanix
10 1 (0.79%) Azure DevOps
10 1 (0.79%) GitHub Actions
10 1 (0.79%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 34 (26.98%) VSAN
2 26 (20.63%) Firewall
3 23 (18.25%) DNS
4 8 (6.35%) DHCP
4 8 (6.35%) Fibre Channel
5 7 (5.56%) SAN
5 7 (5.56%) TCP/IP
6 6 (4.76%) iSCSI
6 6 (4.76%) VLAN
7 4 (3.17%) NAS
7 4 (3.17%) PCoIP
8 3 (2.38%) Network Security
9 2 (1.59%) NetScaler
9 2 (1.59%) Software-Defined Networking
10 1 (0.79%) BIG-IP
10 1 (0.79%) Cisco ASA
10 1 (0.79%) Cisco ISE
10 1 (0.79%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
10 1 (0.79%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
10 1 (0.79%) Remote Desktop
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (3.17%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 10 (7.94%) Jenkins
2 4 (3.17%) Git
2 4 (3.17%) GitLab
3 2 (1.59%) Artifactory
4 1 (0.79%) GoCD
4 1 (0.79%) JIRA
4 1 (0.79%) SonarQube
4 1 (0.79%) Sonatype Nexus
4 1 (0.79%) Subversion
General
1 26 (20.63%) Social Skills
2 11 (8.73%) Finance
3 10 (7.94%) Public Sector
4 6 (4.76%) Documentation Skills
4 6 (4.76%) Presentation Skills
5 5 (3.97%) Analytical Skills
6 2 (1.59%) Influencing Skills
7 1 (0.79%) Electronics
7 1 (0.79%) Local Government
7 1 (0.79%) Manufacturing
7 1 (0.79%) Marketing
7 1 (0.79%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 26 (20.63%) Analyst
2 23 (18.25%) Architect
2 23 (18.25%) Infrastructure Analyst
3 20 (15.87%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 16 (12.70%) Storage Analyst
5 13 (10.32%) VMware Engineer
6 9 (7.14%) Infrastructure Architect
6 9 (7.14%) Senior
7 8 (6.35%) Platform Engineer
7 8 (6.35%) VMware Architect
8 7 (5.56%) Storage Engineer
9 6 (4.76%) Virtualisation Engineer
10 5 (3.97%) Site Engineer
10 5 (3.97%) Site Reliability Engineer
10 5 (3.97%) Wintel Engineer
11 4 (3.17%) Consultant
11 4 (3.17%) Server Engineer
11 4 (3.17%) VMware Consultant
11 4 (3.17%) VMware Infrastructure Engineer
12 3 (2.38%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (11.11%) Flash
2 8 (6.35%) Loki
3 5 (3.97%) Middleware
4 2 (1.59%) Elastic Stack
5 1 (0.79%) .NET
5 1 (0.79%) OpenTelemetry
5 1 (0.79%) React
Miscellaneous
1 27 (21.43%) Linux Command Line
2 19 (15.08%) Replication
3 9 (7.14%) Cloud Native
4 8 (6.35%) Virtual Team
5 5 (3.97%) Clustering
5 5 (3.97%) Data Centre
5 5 (3.97%) Management Information System
6 4 (3.17%) Hybrid Cloud
7 3 (2.38%) Greenfield Project
7 3 (2.38%) PKI
7 3 (2.38%) Private Cloud
8 2 (1.59%) Enterprise Storage
8 2 (1.59%) Legacy Systems
8 2 (1.59%) Public Cloud
9 1 (0.79%) CMDB
9 1 (0.79%) Distributed Systems
9 1 (0.79%) IBM XIV
9 1 (0.79%) RSA SecurID
Operating Systems
1 65 (51.59%) Linux
2 39 (30.95%) Windows
3 29 (23.02%) Windows Server
4 11 (8.73%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 10 (7.94%) Windows Server 2019
6 5 (3.97%) Windows Server 2016
7 4 (3.17%) Windows 10
8 3 (2.38%) VMS
9 2 (1.59%) CentOS
9 2 (1.59%) Ubuntu
9 2 (1.59%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.79%) Solaris
10 1 (0.79%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 45 (35.71%) Agile
2 30 (23.81%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 29 (23.02%) CI/CD
4 27 (21.43%) Infrastructure as Code
5 23 (18.25%) DevOps
6 20 (15.87%) Problem-Solving
7 16 (12.70%) Containerisation
7 16 (12.70%) Migration
8 15 (11.90%) Infrastructure Automation
9 14 (11.11%) Mentoring
10 13 (10.32%) Observability
11 12 (9.52%) Site Reliability Engineering
12 10 (7.94%) Continuous Improvement
12 10 (7.94%) Ticket Management
13 9 (7.14%) Load Balancing
14 8 (6.35%) Capacity Planning
14 8 (6.35%) High Availability
14 8 (6.35%) Infrastructure Management
14 8 (6.35%) Project Delivery
15 6 (4.76%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 33 (26.19%) Python
2 29 (23.02%) Bash
3 21 (16.67%) PowerShell
4 7 (5.56%) SQL
5 3 (2.38%) Go
6 2 (1.59%) Shell Script
7 1 (0.79%) C#
7 1 (0.79%) Java
7 1 (0.79%) Perl
7 1 (0.79%) TypeScript
7 1 (0.79%) VB
7 1 (0.79%) VBA
Qualifications
1 54 (42.86%) Security Cleared
2 29 (23.02%) SC Cleared
3 20 (15.87%) DV Cleared
4 16 (12.70%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
5 10 (7.94%) MCSE
5 10 (7.94%) Microsoft Certification
5 10 (7.94%) VCAP
6 6 (4.76%) Degree
7 5 (3.97%) BPSS Clearance
8 4 (3.17%) MCSA
9 3 (2.38%) Computer Science Degree
10 2 (1.59%) VCDX
10 2 (1.59%) VCP5
10 2 (1.59%) VCP6
11 1 (0.79%) Azure Certification
11 1 (0.79%) CCA
11 1 (0.79%) CCNA
11 1 (0.79%) Cisco Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (2.38%) SLA
2 2 (1.59%) GDPR
2 2 (1.59%) PCI DSS
3 1 (0.79%) Cyber Essentials
3 1 (0.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 1 (0.79%) QA
3 1 (0.79%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 94 (74.60%) VMware Infrastructure
2 48 (38.10%) VMware ESXi
3 28 (22.22%) VMware NSX
4 20 (15.87%) NFS
5 17 (13.49%) Active Directory
5 17 (13.49%) Docker
6 14 (11.11%) GPFS
7 9 (7.14%) Virtual Machines
8 5 (3.97%) Virtual Desktop
9 3 (2.38%) DFS Replication
10 2 (1.59%) Hyper-V
11 1 (0.79%) Firmware
11 1 (0.79%) VMware Server
Systems Management
1 37 (29.37%) vRealize
2 34 (26.98%) vCenter Server
3 29 (23.02%) Ansible
4 28 (22.22%) Kubernetes
5 24 (19.05%) Terraform
6 23 (18.25%) VxRail
7 16 (12.70%) Argo
8 10 (7.94%) Grafana
9 9 (7.14%) Prometheus
10 8 (6.35%) Kustomize
10 8 (6.35%) SCCM
11 6 (4.76%) Microsoft Intune
12 3 (2.38%) SCOM
13 2 (1.59%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 2 (1.59%) Single Sign-On
13 2 (1.59%) vRealize Orchestrator
14 1 (0.79%) Avamar
14 1 (0.79%) Podman
14 1 (0.79%) PowerCLI
14 1 (0.79%) Rancher
Vendors
1 120 (95.24%) VMware
2 38 (30.16%) Cisco
3 28 (22.22%) IBM
3 28 (22.22%) Microsoft
4 20 (15.87%) Dell
4 20 (15.87%) Red Hat
5 15 (11.90%) SolarWinds
5 15 (11.90%) Veeam
6 14 (11.11%) Oracle
6 14 (11.11%) ServiceNow
7 13 (10.32%) AppDynamics
7 13 (10.32%) Commvault
8 11 (8.73%) F5
8 11 (8.73%) HP
9 7 (5.56%) NetApp
9 7 (5.56%) Pure Storage
9 7 (5.56%) Splunk
10 6 (4.76%) Palo Alto
11 4 (3.17%) Citrix
12 3 (2.38%) EMC