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

6 months to
23 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 279 266 276
Rank change year-on-year -13 +10 -15
Contract jobs citing vSphere 122 89 130
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.67% 0.60% 0.67%
As % of the System Software category 5.17% 4.36% 4.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 88 65 78
10th Percentile £302 £330 £300
25th Percentile £381 £380 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £503 £470 £500
Median % change year-on-year +6.91% -6.00% +6.38%
75th Percentile £575 £613 £588
90th Percentile £641 £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 2,360 2,039 2,870
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 12.90% 13.81% 14.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,620 1,316 1,918
10th Percentile £190 £185 £170
25th Percentile £315 £313 £275
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £455 £472
Median % change year-on-year +4.40% -3.53% +2.42%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £588
90th Percentile £645 £653 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 118 66 187
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.36 £15.50
25th Percentile £18.87 £20.13 £17.75
Median hourly rate £62.50 £29.50 £43.75
Median % change year-on-year +111.86% -32.57% +117.34%
75th Percentile £77.50 £64.50 £65.98
90th Percentile £91.50 £75.00 £76.53
UK median hourly rate £47.50 £27.50 £46.00
% change year-on-year +72.73% -40.22% +84.00%

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 23 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 23 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 -13 49 £550 +14.58% 28
Midlands -5 35 £309 - 4
West Midlands - 33 £309 - 1
North of England -27 27 £456 +7.29% 17
North West -17 19 £469 +10.40% 5
Yorkshire - 8 £413 - 5
South West -13 7 £540 +14.89% 4
Scotland -2 3 £388 -45.33% 2
East Midlands -17 2 £328 - 3
East of England - 1 - - 4
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 (6.56%) Confluence
2 4 (3.28%) OpenStack
3 2 (1.64%) IIS
4 1 (0.82%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.82%) SharePoint
Applications
1 7 (5.74%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 43 (35.25%) AWS
2 41 (33.61%) Azure
3 17 (13.93%) OpenShift
4 13 (10.66%) Datadog
5 12 (9.84%) IaaS
6 9 (7.38%) Microsoft 365
7 7 (5.74%) GCP
8 4 (3.28%) PaaS
9 3 (2.46%) Entra ID
10 2 (1.64%) GitHub
10 2 (1.64%) Nutanix
11 1 (0.82%) Azure DevOps
11 1 (0.82%) Azure ExpressRoute
11 1 (0.82%) GitHub Actions
11 1 (0.82%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 36 (29.51%) VSAN
2 23 (18.85%) DNS
3 22 (18.03%) Firewall
4 10 (8.20%) Fibre Channel
5 8 (6.56%) DHCP
5 8 (6.56%) iSCSI
6 7 (5.74%) SAN
6 7 (5.74%) TCP/IP
7 4 (3.28%) NAS
7 4 (3.28%) PCoIP
8 3 (2.46%) Network Security
9 2 (1.64%) NetScaler
9 2 (1.64%) Software-Defined Networking
9 2 (1.64%) VLAN
10 1 (0.82%) BIG-IP
10 1 (0.82%) Cisco ASA
10 1 (0.82%) Cisco ISE
10 1 (0.82%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
10 1 (0.82%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
10 1 (0.82%) Remote Desktop
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (3.28%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 10 (8.20%) Jenkins
2 4 (3.28%) Git
2 4 (3.28%) GitLab
3 2 (1.64%) Artifactory
4 1 (0.82%) GoCD
4 1 (0.82%) JIRA
4 1 (0.82%) SonarQube
4 1 (0.82%) Sonatype Nexus
4 1 (0.82%) Subversion
General
1 26 (21.31%) Social Skills
2 11 (9.02%) Finance
3 10 (8.20%) Public Sector
4 6 (4.92%) Documentation Skills
4 6 (4.92%) Presentation Skills
5 5 (4.10%) Analytical Skills
6 2 (1.64%) Influencing Skills
7 1 (0.82%) Electronics
7 1 (0.82%) Local Government
7 1 (0.82%) Manufacturing
7 1 (0.82%) Marketing
7 1 (0.82%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 24 (19.67%) Analyst
1 24 (19.67%) Architect
2 23 (18.85%) Infrastructure Analyst
3 18 (14.75%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 14 (11.48%) Storage Analyst
5 13 (10.66%) VMware Engineer
6 11 (9.02%) VMware Architect
7 9 (7.38%) Infrastructure Architect
7 9 (7.38%) Senior
8 8 (6.56%) Platform Engineer
9 7 (5.74%) Storage Engineer
10 6 (4.92%) Consultant
10 6 (4.92%) Virtualisation Engineer
10 6 (4.92%) VMware Consultant
11 5 (4.10%) Site Engineer
11 5 (4.10%) Site Reliability Engineer
11 5 (4.10%) Wintel Engineer
12 4 (3.28%) Server Engineer
12 4 (3.28%) VMware Infrastructure Engineer
13 3 (2.46%) Server Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (9.84%) Flash
2 8 (6.56%) Loki
3 5 (4.10%) Middleware
4 2 (1.64%) Elastic Stack
5 1 (0.82%) .NET
5 1 (0.82%) OpenTelemetry
5 1 (0.82%) React
Miscellaneous
1 25 (20.49%) Linux Command Line
2 17 (13.93%) Replication
3 10 (8.20%) Cloud Native
4 8 (6.56%) Virtual Team
5 7 (5.74%) Data Centre
6 6 (4.92%) Hybrid Cloud
7 5 (4.10%) Clustering
7 5 (4.10%) Management Information System
8 3 (2.46%) Greenfield Project
8 3 (2.46%) PKI
8 3 (2.46%) Private Cloud
9 2 (1.64%) Enterprise Storage
9 2 (1.64%) Legacy Systems
9 2 (1.64%) Public Cloud
10 1 (0.82%) CMDB
10 1 (0.82%) Distributed Systems
10 1 (0.82%) IBM XIV
10 1 (0.82%) RSA SecurID
Operating Systems
1 61 (50.00%) Linux
2 39 (31.97%) Windows
3 29 (23.77%) Windows Server
4 12 (9.84%) Windows Server 2019
5 11 (9.02%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 4 (3.28%) Windows 10
7 3 (2.46%) VMS
7 3 (2.46%) Windows Server 2016
8 2 (1.64%) CentOS
8 2 (1.64%) Ubuntu
8 2 (1.64%) Windows Server 2012
9 1 (0.82%) Solaris
9 1 (0.82%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 43 (35.25%) Agile
2 29 (23.77%) CI/CD
3 28 (22.95%) Infrastructure as Code
3 28 (22.95%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 23 (18.85%) DevOps
5 20 (16.39%) Problem-Solving
6 17 (13.93%) Migration
7 16 (13.11%) Containerisation
8 15 (12.30%) Infrastructure Automation
8 15 (12.30%) Mentoring
9 13 (10.66%) Observability
10 12 (9.84%) Site Reliability Engineering
11 10 (8.20%) Continuous Improvement
12 9 (7.38%) Load Balancing
13 8 (6.56%) Capacity Planning
13 8 (6.56%) High Availability
13 8 (6.56%) Infrastructure Management
13 8 (6.56%) Project Delivery
13 8 (6.56%) Ticket Management
14 7 (5.74%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 33 (27.05%) Python
2 29 (23.77%) Bash
3 19 (15.57%) PowerShell
4 9 (7.38%) SQL
5 3 (2.46%) Go
6 2 (1.64%) Shell Script
7 1 (0.82%) C#
7 1 (0.82%) Java
7 1 (0.82%) Perl
7 1 (0.82%) TypeScript
7 1 (0.82%) VB
7 1 (0.82%) VBA
Qualifications
1 51 (41.80%) Security Cleared
2 26 (21.31%) SC Cleared
3 22 (18.03%) DV Cleared
4 18 (14.75%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
5 13 (10.66%) Microsoft Certification
6 12 (9.84%) MCSE
7 10 (8.20%) VCAP
8 6 (4.92%) Degree
9 5 (4.10%) BPSS Clearance
10 4 (3.28%) MCSA
11 3 (2.46%) Computer Science Degree
11 3 (2.46%) VCP5
11 3 (2.46%) VCP6
12 2 (1.64%) Azure Certification
12 2 (1.64%) VCDX
13 1 (0.82%) CCA
13 1 (0.82%) CCNA
13 1 (0.82%) Cisco Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (2.46%) SLA
2 2 (1.64%) GDPR
2 2 (1.64%) PCI DSS
3 1 (0.82%) Cyber Essentials
3 1 (0.82%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 1 (0.82%) QA
3 1 (0.82%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 96 (78.69%) VMware Infrastructure
2 44 (36.07%) VMware ESXi
3 30 (24.59%) VMware NSX
4 20 (16.39%) NFS
5 18 (14.75%) Active Directory
6 17 (13.93%) Docker
7 12 (9.84%) GPFS
8 9 (7.38%) Virtual Machines
9 5 (4.10%) Virtual Desktop
10 3 (2.46%) DFS Replication
10 3 (2.46%) Hyper-V
11 1 (0.82%) Firmware
11 1 (0.82%) VMware Server
Systems Management
1 35 (28.69%) vRealize
2 30 (24.59%) Ansible
3 28 (22.95%) Kubernetes
3 28 (22.95%) vCenter Server
4 25 (20.49%) Terraform
5 19 (15.57%) VxRail
6 16 (13.11%) Argo
7 10 (8.20%) Grafana
8 9 (7.38%) Prometheus
9 8 (6.56%) Kustomize
9 8 (6.56%) SCCM
10 6 (4.92%) Microsoft Intune
11 3 (2.46%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 3 (2.46%) SCOM
11 3 (2.46%) Single Sign-On
12 2 (1.64%) PowerCLI
12 2 (1.64%) vRealize Orchestrator
13 1 (0.82%) Avamar
13 1 (0.82%) Podman
13 1 (0.82%) Rancher
Vendors
1 120 (98.36%) VMware
2 36 (29.51%) Cisco
3 31 (25.41%) Microsoft
4 26 (21.31%) IBM
5 20 (16.39%) Red Hat
6 16 (13.11%) Dell
7 15 (12.30%) SolarWinds
8 13 (10.66%) AppDynamics
8 13 (10.66%) Commvault
8 13 (10.66%) Veeam
9 12 (9.84%) Oracle
9 12 (9.84%) ServiceNow
10 11 (9.02%) F5
10 11 (9.02%) HP
11 9 (7.38%) NetApp
11 9 (7.38%) Splunk
12 7 (5.74%) Pure Storage
13 6 (4.92%) Palo Alto
14 4 (3.28%) Citrix
15 3 (2.46%) EMC