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 2 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 265 260 275
Rank change year-on-year -5 +15 +13
Contract jobs citing vSphere 154 81 140
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.74% 0.62% 0.67%
As % of the System Software category 6.18% 4.08% 5.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 117 60 80
10th Percentile £305 £350 £315
25th Percentile £402 £462 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £562 £475
Median % change year-on-year -12.81% +18.32% -
75th Percentile £550 £613 £550
90th Percentile £600 £675 £639
UK median daily rate £500 £538 £500
% change year-on-year -7.06% +7.60% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 2 11
10th Percentile - £26.38 £62.63
25th Percentile - £34.06 £70.66
Median hourly rate - £48.75 £76.53
Median % change year-on-year - -36.30% +69.13%
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% +45.08%

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 2,492 1,986 2,650
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 12.05% 15.12% 12.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,743 1,316 1,753
10th Percentile £185 £188 £170
25th Percentile £325 £314 £263
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year - +5.56% -5.26%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £575
90th Percentile £643 £656 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £523 £480
% change year-on-year -4.40% +8.96% -8.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 117 66 200
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.28 £14.06
25th Percentile £19.00 £20.26 £16.25
Median hourly rate £41.94 £37.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +11.84% -6.25% +53.85%
75th Percentile £74.26 £65.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £82.60 £76.25 £76.53
UK median hourly rate £38.47 £32.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +18.37% -18.75% -

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 2 March 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 2 March 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 -33 50 £496 +0.75% 13
Midlands -13 45 £325 -39.25% 7
South East -31 44 £545 -5.22% 19
West Midlands -12 40 £321 -40.09% 6
Yorkshire -42 26 £500 -11.11% 5
North West -26 24 £458 -3.32% 7
Scotland +18 11 £463 -20.43% 6
East Midlands - 5 £450 - 1
South West -22 4 £488 +3.72% 7
East of England -27 3 £563 - 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 (5.19%) Confluence
2 4 (2.60%) OpenStack
3 1 (0.65%) IIS
3 1 (0.65%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.65%) SharePoint
Applications
1 7 (4.55%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 58 (37.66%) Azure
2 55 (35.71%) AWS
3 36 (23.38%) OpenShift
4 13 (8.44%) Datadog
5 12 (7.79%) Microsoft 365
6 11 (7.14%) GCP
6 11 (7.14%) GitHub
6 11 (7.14%) IaaS
7 7 (4.55%) Nutanix
8 4 (2.60%) Entra ID
8 4 (2.60%) PaaS
9 3 (1.95%) Catchpoint
10 1 (0.65%) Azure DevOps
10 1 (0.65%) Cloud Computing
10 1 (0.65%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 38 (24.68%) DNS
2 32 (20.78%) Firewall
2 32 (20.78%) VSAN
3 17 (11.04%) DHCP
4 13 (8.44%) SAN
5 9 (5.84%) TCP/IP
6 8 (5.19%) VLAN
7 6 (3.90%) LAN
7 6 (3.90%) WAN
8 5 (3.25%) Network Security
9 4 (2.60%) Cisco Nexus
9 4 (2.60%) Fibre Channel
9 4 (2.60%) NetScaler
10 3 (1.95%) BGP
10 3 (1.95%) OSPF
10 3 (1.95%) Wi-Fi
11 2 (1.30%) iSCSI
11 2 (1.30%) NAS
11 2 (1.30%) PCoIP
11 2 (1.30%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (1.30%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 17 (11.04%) Jenkins
2 3 (1.95%) Sonatype Nexus
3 1 (0.65%) Artifactory
3 1 (0.65%) Git
3 1 (0.65%) GitLab
3 1 (0.65%) GoCD
3 1 (0.65%) JIRA
3 1 (0.65%) SonarQube
3 1 (0.65%) Subversion
General
1 30 (19.48%) Social Skills
2 18 (11.69%) Finance
3 10 (6.49%) Public Sector
4 6 (3.90%) Banking
4 6 (3.90%) Legal
4 6 (3.90%) Presentation Skills
5 5 (3.25%) Analytical Skills
6 2 (1.30%) Documentation Skills
6 2 (1.30%) Influencing Skills
7 1 (0.65%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 31 (20.13%) Analyst
2 27 (17.53%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 26 (16.88%) Infrastructure Analyst
4 25 (16.23%) Architect
5 20 (12.99%) Storage Analyst
6 12 (7.79%) VMware Engineer
7 11 (7.14%) Wintel Engineer
8 8 (5.19%) Platform Engineer
8 8 (5.19%) Senior
8 8 (5.19%) Virtualisation Engineer
9 7 (4.55%) Infrastructure Architect
10 5 (3.25%) Site Engineer
10 5 (3.25%) Site Reliability Engineer
10 5 (3.25%) VMware Architect
11 4 (2.60%) Infrastructure Services Engineer
11 4 (2.60%) Lead
11 4 (2.60%) NetApp Engineer
11 4 (2.60%) Server Engineer
11 4 (2.60%) Storage Engineer
11 4 (2.60%) VMware Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (9.74%) Flash
2 8 (5.19%) Loki
3 7 (4.55%) OpenTelemetry
4 2 (1.30%) Elastic Stack
5 1 (0.65%) .NET
5 1 (0.65%) React
Miscellaneous
1 28 (18.18%) Linux Command Line
2 26 (16.88%) Replication
3 17 (11.04%) Cloud Native
4 15 (9.74%) Hybrid Cloud
5 10 (6.49%) Clustering
5 10 (6.49%) Data Centre
6 8 (5.19%) Virtual Team
7 5 (3.25%) Private Cloud
8 4 (2.60%) FlexPod
8 4 (2.60%) PKI
8 4 (2.60%) Public Cloud
9 3 (1.95%) Data Protection Act
9 3 (1.95%) Greenfield Project
10 2 (1.30%) Enterprise Storage
10 2 (1.30%) Legacy Systems
11 1 (0.65%) Distributed Computing
11 1 (0.65%) Distributed Systems
11 1 (0.65%) Onboarding
11 1 (0.65%) Product Ownership
11 1 (0.65%) RSA SecurID
Operating Systems
1 69 (44.81%) Linux
2 49 (31.82%) Windows
3 39 (25.32%) Windows Server
4 16 (10.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 15 (9.74%) Windows Server 2019
6 9 (5.84%) Windows Server 2016
7 6 (3.90%) VMS
8 5 (3.25%) Data ONTAP
8 5 (3.25%) Windows Server 2012
9 4 (2.60%) CoreOS
9 4 (2.60%) Windows 10
10 2 (1.30%) CentOS
11 1 (0.65%) Solaris
11 1 (0.65%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.65%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 44 (28.57%) Agile
2 40 (25.97%) CI/CD
3 34 (22.08%) DevOps
4 33 (21.43%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 31 (20.13%) Migration
6 28 (18.18%) Disaster Recovery
6 28 (18.18%) Problem-Solving
7 27 (17.53%) Containerisation
7 27 (17.53%) High Availability
8 25 (16.23%) Infrastructure as Code
9 19 (12.34%) Load Balancing
10 16 (10.39%) Observability
11 14 (9.09%) Capacity Planning
11 14 (9.09%) Mentoring
11 14 (9.09%) Ticket Management
12 13 (8.44%) Network Virtualisation
12 13 (8.44%) Project Delivery
13 12 (7.79%) RBAC
13 12 (7.79%) Site Reliability Engineering
14 10 (6.49%) Platform Engineering
Programming Languages
1 44 (28.57%) Python
2 37 (24.03%) Bash
3 32 (20.78%) PowerShell
4 4 (2.60%) SQL
5 3 (1.95%) Go
6 1 (0.65%) C#
6 1 (0.65%) Perl
6 1 (0.65%) TypeScript
6 1 (0.65%) VB
6 1 (0.65%) VBA
Qualifications
1 51 (33.12%) Security Cleared
2 36 (23.38%) SC Cleared
3 16 (10.39%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
4 13 (8.44%) DV Cleared
5 12 (7.79%) VCAP
6 10 (6.49%) MCSE
6 10 (6.49%) Microsoft Certification
7 8 (5.19%) MCSA
8 7 (4.55%) BPSS Clearance
9 5 (3.25%) OCP
9 5 (3.25%) Oracle Certification
10 4 (2.60%) Cisco Certification
10 4 (2.60%) Degree
11 3 (1.95%) CCNP
12 2 (1.30%) CCIE
12 2 (1.30%) VCDX
13 1 (0.65%) Azure Certification
13 1 (0.65%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (2.60%) SLA
2 2 (1.30%) GDPR
3 1 (0.65%) Cyber Essentials
3 1 (0.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 1 (0.65%) PCI DSS
3 1 (0.65%) QA
3 1 (0.65%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 113 (73.38%) VMware Infrastructure
2 54 (35.06%) VMware ESXi
3 33 (21.43%) VMware NSX
4 24 (15.58%) Active Directory
5 21 (13.64%) NFS
5 21 (13.64%) Virtual Machines
6 20 (12.99%) Docker
7 15 (9.74%) GPFS
8 7 (4.55%) Hyper-V
8 7 (4.55%) Virtual Desktop
9 4 (2.60%) KVM
10 3 (1.95%) DFS Replication
Systems Management
1 48 (31.17%) vCenter Server
2 46 (29.87%) Kubernetes
3 43 (27.92%) Ansible
4 33 (21.43%) vRealize
5 32 (20.78%) Terraform
6 26 (16.88%) Argo
7 25 (16.23%) VxRail
8 16 (10.39%) Grafana
9 9 (5.84%) Prometheus
9 9 (5.84%) SCCM
10 8 (5.19%) Kustomize
10 8 (5.19%) Microsoft Intune
11 4 (2.60%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 4 (2.60%) SCOM
11 4 (2.60%) SnapMirror
12 3 (1.95%) PowerCLI
13 1 (0.65%) Avamar
13 1 (0.65%) Podman
13 1 (0.65%) Rancher
13 1 (0.65%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 146 (94.81%) VMware
2 50 (32.47%) Cisco
3 30 (19.48%) Dell
4 29 (18.83%) Microsoft
4 29 (18.83%) Red Hat
5 28 (18.18%) IBM
6 17 (11.04%) Pure Storage
7 16 (10.39%) SolarWinds
7 16 (10.39%) Veeam
8 15 (9.74%) Oracle
8 15 (9.74%) ServiceNow
9 13 (8.44%) AppDynamics
9 13 (8.44%) Commvault
10 12 (7.79%) HP
11 10 (6.49%) F5
12 9 (5.84%) Palo Alto
12 9 (5.84%) Splunk
13 8 (5.19%) NetApp
14 4 (2.60%) Google
15 3 (1.95%) Citrix