SolarWinds Contract Job Trends

SolarWinds
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring knowledge or experience of SolarWinds products and/or services. It includes a benchmarking guide to contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited SolarWinds over the 6 months leading up to 7 March 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

The figures below represent the IT contractor job market in general and are not representative of contractor rates within SolarWinds.

6 months to
7 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 473 350 449
Rank change year-on-year -123 +99 +112
Contract jobs citing SolarWinds 157 184 154
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.37% 0.60% 0.34%
As % of the Vendors category 0.83% 1.28% 0.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 114 124 112
10th Percentile £305 £363 £326
25th Percentile £383 £414 £424
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% +9.38%
75th Percentile £530 £619 £625
90th Percentile £579 £707 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £525 £500
% change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% +17.65%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 1 6
10th Percentile £44.28 - £44.88
25th Percentile £48.68 - £60.37
Median hourly rate £57.02 £38.00 £65.98
Median % change year-on-year +50.05% -42.41% +5.37%
75th Percentile £65.01 - -
90th Percentile £69.20 - £66.74
UK excluding London median hourly rate £57.02 - £65.98
% change year-on-year - - +5.37%

All Vendors
UK

SolarWinds falls under the Vendor Products and Services category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring knowledge or experience of all vendor products and services.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for knowledge or experience of vendor products and services 18,869 14,335 19,416
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 44.18% 46.77% 43.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,083 8,807 12,126
10th Percentile £306 £285 £256
25th Percentile £413 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £513
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% +1.46% -3.12%
75th Percentile £600 £623 £625
90th Percentile £700 £713 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 939 454 1,014
10th Percentile £15.25 £15.62 £12.50
25th Percentile £18.47 £21.24 £14.71
Median hourly rate £25.00 £30.00 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year -16.67% +20.00% -28.57%
75th Percentile £58.75 £63.75 £54.39
90th Percentile £75.00 £80.75 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.68 £27.50 £24.00
% change year-on-year -17.53% +14.58% -26.15%

SolarWinds
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing SolarWinds relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

SolarWinds job vacancy trend in the UK

SolarWinds
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing SolarWinds.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing SolarWinds

SolarWinds
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing SolarWinds over the 6 months to 7 March 2026.

Daily rate histogram for SolarWinds in the UK

SolarWinds
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing SolarWinds.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing SolarWinds

SolarWinds
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing SolarWinds over the 6 months to 7 March 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for SolarWinds in the UK

SolarWinds
Top 13 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing SolarWinds within the UK over the 6 months to 7 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
England -137 135 £500 -4.76% 34
UK excluding London -90 117 £500 -4.76% 33
South East -14 48 £500 -4.76% 20
Work from Home -32 46 £425 -15.00% 6
West Midlands -54 25 £313 -43.28% 2
Midlands -79 25 £313 -46.58% 4
London -55 24 £510 +2.00% 7
South West -27 16 £550 +32.13% 4
North of England -89 16 £348 -26.84% 3
North West -57 14 £348 -26.84% 2
East of England -19 6 £363 -34.09%
Scotland - 6 £500 - 1
Yorkshire -58 3 - - 1

SolarWinds
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 11 (7.01%) Confluence
2 7 (4.46%) Microsoft Exchange
2 7 (4.46%) SharePoint
3 6 (3.82%) IIS
4 5 (3.18%) Apache
5 4 (2.55%) BizTalk Server
6 3 (1.91%) SharePoint Server
6 3 (1.91%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 13 (8.28%) MS Visio
2 4 (2.55%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.64%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 47 (29.94%) Azure
2 35 (22.29%) AWS
3 14 (8.92%) Datadog
4 13 (8.28%) Entra ID
5 10 (6.37%) GCP
6 7 (4.46%) Microsoft 365
7 6 (3.82%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 5 (3.18%) Nutanix
8 5 (3.18%) Power Platform
8 5 (3.18%) SaaS
8 5 (3.18%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 4 (2.55%) Azure Logic Apps
9 4 (2.55%) Azure Monitor
9 4 (2.55%) Cohesity
9 4 (2.55%) PaaS
10 3 (1.91%) AWS Direct Connect
10 3 (1.91%) Mimecast
11 2 (1.27%) Azure Sentinel
11 2 (1.27%) IaaS
12 1 (0.64%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 69 (43.95%) Firewall
2 52 (33.12%) WAN
3 45 (28.66%) LAN
4 42 (26.75%) DNS
5 38 (24.20%) OSPF
6 36 (22.93%) BGP
6 36 (22.93%) DHCP
7 32 (20.38%) Cisco ISE
7 32 (20.38%) Junos
8 27 (17.20%) VPN
9 25 (15.92%) VXLAN
10 21 (13.38%) Ethernet VPN
10 21 (13.38%) VLAN
11 20 (12.74%) BIG-IP
12 18 (11.46%) Network Security
13 16 (10.19%) MPLS
14 15 (9.55%) Cisco Firepower
14 15 (9.55%) Cisco IOS
14 15 (9.55%) SD-WAN
15 13 (8.28%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (5.73%) SQL Server
2 6 (3.82%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 5 (3.18%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 5 (3.18%) Git
1 5 (3.18%) JIRA
2 4 (2.55%) Jenkins
3 3 (1.91%) Bitbucket
4 2 (1.27%) Sonatype Nexus
5 1 (0.64%) Subversion
General
1 36 (22.93%) Social Skills
2 21 (13.38%) Analytical Skills
2 21 (13.38%) Public Sector
3 13 (8.28%) Finance
4 7 (4.46%) Documentation Skills
5 6 (3.82%) Law
5 6 (3.82%) Legal
6 5 (3.18%) Presentation Skills
7 4 (2.55%) Manufacturing
7 4 (2.55%) Military
8 3 (1.91%) Influencing Skills
8 3 (1.91%) Retail
8 3 (1.91%) Telecoms
9 2 (1.27%) Aviation
10 1 (0.64%) Advertising
10 1 (0.64%) Aerospace
10 1 (0.64%) Financial Institution
10 1 (0.64%) French Language
10 1 (0.64%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 57 (36.31%) Network Engineer
2 17 (10.83%) Analyst
3 13 (8.28%) 3rd Line Engineer
3 13 (8.28%) 3rd Line Network Engineer
3 13 (8.28%) Cloud Engineer
3 13 (8.28%) Cloud Network Engineer
3 13 (8.28%) Infrastructure Analyst
3 13 (8.28%) Senior
4 12 (7.64%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
4 12 (7.64%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 11 (7.01%) Architect
5 11 (7.01%) Network Specialist
6 10 (6.37%) Network Support
6 10 (6.37%) Support Engineer
7 9 (5.73%) Firewall Specialist
7 9 (5.73%) Network Support Engineer
8 8 (5.10%) 3rd Line Support
8 8 (5.10%) Senior Network Engineer
9 7 (4.46%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
9 7 (4.46%) Network Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (13.38%) 802.1X
2 9 (5.73%) REST
3 4 (2.55%) JSON
4 2 (1.27%) LDAP
4 2 (1.27%) Middleware
4 2 (1.27%) SAML
5 1 (0.64%) Elastic Stack
5 1 (0.64%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 32 (20.38%) Data Centre
2 30 (19.11%) Clustering
3 28 (17.83%) PKI
4 14 (8.92%) Linux Command Line
5 8 (5.10%) CMDB
5 8 (5.10%) Operational Technology
6 7 (4.46%) Onboarding
6 7 (4.46%) Security Posture
7 6 (3.82%) Replication
8 5 (3.18%) Self-Motivation
9 3 (1.91%) Enterprise Software
9 3 (1.91%) Hybrid Cloud
10 2 (1.27%) Data Structures
10 2 (1.27%) Management Information System
10 2 (1.27%) SCADA
10 2 (1.27%) Taxonomies
11 1 (0.64%) Cyber Kill Chain
11 1 (0.64%) Enterprise Cloud
11 1 (0.64%) Enterprise Storage
11 1 (0.64%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 62 (39.49%) Windows
2 29 (18.47%) Windows Server
3 28 (17.83%) Linux
4 5 (3.18%) Windows 10
5 4 (2.55%) Windows Server 2016
6 3 (1.91%) AIX
6 3 (1.91%) Unix
6 3 (1.91%) Windows Server 2019
7 1 (0.64%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.64%) Solaris
7 1 (0.64%) VMS
7 1 (0.64%) Windows 7
7 1 (0.64%) Windows Server 2003
7 1 (0.64%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 34 (21.66%) Problem-Solving
2 33 (21.02%) ITIL
3 30 (19.11%) High Availability
4 28 (17.83%) Service Management
5 25 (15.92%) Load Balancing
6 24 (15.29%) Agile
6 24 (15.29%) ITSM
7 22 (14.01%) Observability
8 19 (12.10%) Network Monitoring
9 18 (11.46%) Identity Access Management
10 17 (10.83%) Change Management
11 16 (10.19%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 14 (8.92%) Disaster Recovery
13 13 (8.28%) Continuous Improvement
14 12 (7.64%) Project Delivery
15 11 (7.01%) Capacity Planning
16 10 (6.37%) Network Design
16 10 (6.37%) Roadmaps
17 9 (5.73%) Incident Response
17 9 (5.73%) Network Virtualisation
Programming Languages
1 26 (16.56%) PowerShell
2 18 (11.46%) Python
3 13 (8.28%) SQL
4 7 (4.46%) Bash
5 4 (2.55%) Perl
6 3 (1.91%) Search Processing Language
7 1 (0.64%) JavaScript
Qualifications
1 75 (47.77%) Security Cleared
2 39 (24.84%) Cisco Certification
3 33 (21.02%) SC Cleared
4 30 (19.11%) DV Cleared
5 24 (15.29%) CCNP
6 13 (8.28%) CCNA
7 11 (7.01%) Degree
8 10 (6.37%) JNCIS
9 8 (5.10%) JNCIP
9 8 (5.10%) Microsoft Certification
10 7 (4.46%) CCIE
10 7 (4.46%) JNCIA
11 6 (3.82%) MCSE
12 5 (3.18%) Network+ Certification
13 4 (2.55%) AWS Certification
13 4 (2.55%) ITIL Certification
14 3 (1.91%) CISSP
14 3 (1.91%) MCSA
14 3 (1.91%) OCA
14 3 (1.91%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (3.18%) GDPR
1 5 (3.18%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 4 (2.55%) NIST
2 4 (2.55%) PCI DSS
3 3 (1.91%) NCSC
3 3 (1.91%) QA
4 2 (1.27%) Data Quality
5 1 (0.64%) Disclosure Scotland
5 1 (0.64%) GRC
5 1 (0.64%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 41 (26.11%) Active Directory
2 40 (25.48%) VMware Infrastructure
3 25 (15.92%) VMware NSX
4 17 (10.83%) vSphere
5 12 (7.64%) Hyper-V
6 6 (3.82%) Firmware
7 4 (2.55%) Virtual Machines
8 3 (1.91%) Microsoft Virtual Server
8 3 (1.91%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.64%) KVM
9 1 (0.64%) RHEV
9 1 (0.64%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.64%) Xen
9 1 (0.64%) XenApp
9 1 (0.64%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 26 (16.56%) Ansible
2 22 (14.01%) vCenter Server
3 21 (13.38%) Nagios
4 20 (12.74%) Terraform
5 19 (12.10%) FortiGate
6 14 (8.92%) SCCM
7 13 (8.28%) vRealize
8 12 (7.64%) VxRail
9 8 (5.10%) Cisco Prime
9 8 (5.10%) WSUS
10 6 (3.82%) Microsoft Clustering
11 5 (3.18%) Microsoft Intune
12 4 (2.55%) Pingdom
13 3 (1.91%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 3 (1.91%) Iperf
13 3 (1.91%) Nmap
13 3 (1.91%) Red Hat Satellite
13 3 (1.91%) Single Sign-On
13 3 (1.91%) Tivoli
13 3 (1.91%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 107 (68.15%) Cisco
2 46 (29.30%) Juniper
3 44 (28.03%) VMware
4 31 (19.75%) Splunk
5 30 (19.11%) F5
6 27 (17.20%) Palo Alto
7 20 (12.74%) Fortinet
8 19 (12.10%) Microsoft
9 18 (11.46%) Extreme Networks
10 17 (10.83%) IBM
11 16 (10.19%) AppDynamics
11 16 (10.19%) HP
11 16 (10.19%) ServiceNow
11 16 (10.19%) Veeam
12 15 (9.55%) Commvault
13 14 (8.92%) Dell
14 13 (8.28%) Meraki
15 10 (6.37%) Aruba
15 10 (6.37%) CheckPoint
16 8 (5.10%) LogicMonitor