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 12 September 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
12 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 524 409 430
Rank change year-on-year -115 +21 +41
Contract jobs citing SolarWinds 147 154 138
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.27% 0.47% 0.36%
As % of the Vendors category 0.64% 0.99% 0.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 107 111 77
10th Percentile £350 £335 £300
25th Percentile £425 £403 £360
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £478 £500
Median % change year-on-year +9.83% -4.40% +11.11%
75th Percentile £588 £544 £588
90th Percentile £660 £650 £634
UK excluding London median daily rate £538 £478 £475
% change year-on-year +12.45% +0.63% +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 3 4
10th Percentile - £58.15 -
25th Percentile £44.86 £61.00 -
Median hourly rate £50.11 £66.50 £23.80
Median % change year-on-year -24.65% +179.41% -63.93%
75th Percentile £55.66 £67.25 £27.35
90th Percentile £57.29 - £33.74
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.11 £66.50 -
% change year-on-year -24.65% - -

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 22,867 15,556 17,055
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.91% 47.12% 44.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,033 9,517 10,292
10th Percentile £313 £276 £288
25th Percentile £413 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £613 £613 £626
90th Percentile £700 £700 £731
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £478 £500
% change year-on-year +4.60% -4.40% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,255 792 694
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.70 £14.25
25th Percentile £16.72 £17.42 £15.62
Median hourly rate £27.50 £25.15 £30.80
Median % change year-on-year +9.34% -18.33% -27.54%
75th Percentile £62.25 £43.75 £63.75
90th Percentile £81.25 £67.95 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.19 £21.24 £30.00
% change year-on-year +23.31% -29.20% -25.00%

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 12 September 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
Top 15 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 12 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
England -143 122 £525 +8.53% 84
UK excluding London -90 117 £538 +12.45% 68
South East -45 45 £538 +7.50% 15
Work from Home -70 26 £582 +29.28% 21
Midlands -41 22 £575 +16.46% 5
West Midlands -43 19 £575 +16.46% 3
London -96 19 £450 -7.69% 17
Scotland -8 18 £475 +5.56% 2
South West -38 18 £491 -10.77% 13
North of England -93 13 £400 -15.79% 11
North West -55 6 £400 - 7
Yorkshire -58 4 £519 +8.58% 1
North East -43 3 £225 -55.00% 3
East Midlands - 3 £475 - 2
East of England -22 1 - - 22

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 3 (2.04%) Confluence
2 1 (0.68%) OpenStack
Applications
1 2 (1.36%) Microsoft Excel
1 2 (1.36%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 3 (2.04%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 35 (23.81%) Azure
2 15 (10.20%) AWS
3 6 (4.08%) Datadog
3 6 (4.08%) Rubrik
3 6 (4.08%) Virtual Private Cloud
4 5 (3.40%) Microsoft 365
5 4 (2.72%) Azure Monitor
5 4 (2.72%) Entra ID
6 3 (2.04%) Azure Data Factory
6 3 (2.04%) GCP
6 3 (2.04%) GitHub
6 3 (2.04%) GitHub Actions
6 3 (2.04%) OpenShift
6 3 (2.04%) Power Platform
6 3 (2.04%) SaaS
7 2 (1.36%) Azure Storage
7 2 (1.36%) IaaS
7 2 (1.36%) PaaS
8 1 (0.68%) Amazon ECS
8 1 (0.68%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 50 (34.01%) DNS
2 49 (33.33%) Firewall
3 47 (31.97%) WAN
4 45 (30.61%) LAN
5 36 (24.49%) Network Security
6 30 (20.41%) DHCP
7 29 (19.73%) VPN
8 27 (18.37%) SNMP
9 25 (17.01%) BGP
10 21 (14.29%) Cisco Nexus
10 21 (14.29%) OSPF
11 19 (12.93%) MPLS
12 18 (12.24%) Cisco ASA
13 16 (10.88%) SD-WAN
13 16 (10.88%) Wireless
14 15 (10.20%) VLAN
15 14 (9.52%) BIG-IP
15 14 (9.52%) Cisco ISE
15 14 (9.52%) IPsec
15 14 (9.52%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (9.52%) SQL Server
2 4 (2.72%) Azure SQL Database
3 3 (2.04%) Power BI
4 1 (0.68%) MySQL
4 1 (0.68%) Oracle Database
4 1 (0.68%) PostgreSQL
4 1 (0.68%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 5 (3.40%) JIRA
2 3 (2.04%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
3 2 (1.36%) Jenkins
3 2 (1.36%) Sonatype Nexus
4 1 (0.68%) Git
4 1 (0.68%) Subversion
General
1 39 (26.53%) Social Skills
2 13 (8.84%) Organisational Skills
3 10 (6.80%) Analytical Skills
4 8 (5.44%) Legal
5 7 (4.76%) Documentation Skills
6 6 (4.08%) Finance
7 5 (3.40%) Public Sector
8 4 (2.72%) Telecoms
9 3 (2.04%) Influencing Skills
10 1 (0.68%) Aerospace
10 1 (0.68%) Aviation
10 1 (0.68%) Electronics
10 1 (0.68%) Law
10 1 (0.68%) Manufacturing
10 1 (0.68%) Presentation Skills
10 1 (0.68%) Retail
Job Titles
1 35 (23.81%) Network Engineer
2 14 (9.52%) Consultant
2 14 (9.52%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 13 (8.84%) Cloud Engineer
3 13 (8.84%) Senior
4 11 (7.48%) Management Consultant
5 10 (6.80%) Support Engineer
6 9 (6.12%) Architect
7 8 (5.44%) Senior Network Engineer
8 7 (4.76%) Administrator
8 7 (4.76%) DBA
8 7 (4.76%) Lead
8 7 (4.76%) SQL DBA
9 6 (4.08%) Analyst
9 6 (4.08%) Network Architect
9 6 (4.08%) Network Manager
10 5 (3.40%) Data Centre Engineer
10 5 (3.40%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
10 5 (3.40%) Principal Engineer
10 5 (3.40%) SQL Server DBA
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (10.88%) REST
2 13 (8.84%) Terraform
3 12 (8.16%) 802.1X
4 3 (2.04%) Elastic Stack
4 3 (2.04%) SAML
5 2 (1.36%) LDAP
5 2 (1.36%) YAML
6 1 (0.68%) JSON
6 1 (0.68%) Loki
6 1 (0.68%) NETCONF
6 1 (0.68%) OpenTelemetry
6 1 (0.68%) RESTCONF
Miscellaneous
1 22 (14.97%) Data Centre
2 11 (7.48%) PKI
3 7 (4.76%) Cloud Native
3 7 (4.76%) CMDB
3 7 (4.76%) Onboarding
4 6 (4.08%) Clustering
4 6 (4.08%) Hybrid Cloud
5 5 (3.40%) Replication
6 4 (2.72%) Cyber Threat
6 4 (2.72%) Data Protection Act
6 4 (2.72%) Fibre Optics
6 4 (2.72%) Private Cloud
7 3 (2.04%) CSOC
7 3 (2.04%) Cyber Defence
7 3 (2.04%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
7 3 (2.04%) Driving Licence
7 3 (2.04%) Operational Technology
7 3 (2.04%) Security Operations Centre
7 3 (2.04%) Security Posture
8 2 (1.36%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 76 (51.70%) Windows
2 47 (31.97%) Linux
3 15 (10.20%) AIX
3 15 (10.20%) Windows Server
4 10 (6.80%) Windows Server 2019
5 2 (1.36%) Data ONTAP
5 2 (1.36%) Unix
6 1 (0.68%) Check Point GAiA
6 1 (0.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.68%) Windows 10
6 1 (0.68%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 44 (29.93%) ITIL
2 30 (20.41%) ITSM
2 30 (20.41%) Project Delivery
3 26 (17.69%) Network Monitoring
4 25 (17.01%) Technical Leadership
5 24 (16.33%) High Availability
6 23 (15.65%) Network Virtualisation
7 20 (13.61%) Continuous Improvement
7 20 (13.61%) Service Delivery
8 19 (12.93%) Stakeholder Management
9 18 (12.24%) Agile
9 18 (12.24%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 18 (12.24%) Problem-Solving
10 17 (11.56%) Service Management
11 16 (10.88%) Observability
12 14 (9.52%) Disaster Recovery
12 14 (9.52%) Load Balancing
12 14 (9.52%) Task Automation
13 13 (8.84%) Change Management
13 13 (8.84%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 41 (27.89%) PowerShell
2 33 (22.45%) Python
3 28 (19.05%) SQL
4 16 (10.88%) Bash
5 13 (8.84%) Search Processing Language
6 6 (4.08%) T-SQL
7 4 (2.72%) Perl
8 1 (0.68%) Java
8 1 (0.68%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 82 (55.78%) Security Cleared
2 42 (28.57%) DV Cleared
3 34 (23.13%) SC Cleared
4 20 (13.61%) Cisco Certification
5 11 (7.48%) CCNA
6 8 (5.44%) CCNP
6 8 (5.44%) Microsoft Certification
6 8 (5.44%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
7 7 (4.76%) Degree
7 7 (4.76%) MCSE
8 5 (3.40%) Azure Certification
9 4 (2.72%) CCIE
9 4 (2.72%) MCSA
10 3 (2.04%) CCA
10 3 (2.04%) Citrix Certification
10 3 (2.04%) PMI Certification
10 3 (2.04%) PMP
11 2 (1.36%) CompTIA Security+
11 2 (1.36%) NCDA
11 2 (1.36%) NCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (4.76%) NIST
2 5 (3.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 4 (2.72%) NCSC
4 2 (1.36%) JSP 440
4 2 (1.36%) SLA
5 1 (0.68%) Disclosure Scotland
5 1 (0.68%) ISO/IEC 20000
5 1 (0.68%) PMO
5 1 (0.68%) QA
System Software
1 40 (27.21%) VMware Infrastructure
2 38 (25.85%) Active Directory
3 16 (10.88%) VMware ESXi
4 15 (10.20%) VMware NSX
5 10 (6.80%) vSphere
6 9 (6.12%) Hyper-V
7 8 (5.44%) Virtual Machines
8 3 (2.04%) NFS
9 2 (1.36%) Docker
9 2 (1.36%) EMC RecoverPoint
9 2 (1.36%) Firmware
9 2 (1.36%) SRDF
10 1 (0.68%) Samba
10 1 (0.68%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 24 (16.33%) SCOM
2 22 (14.97%) Nagios
3 17 (11.56%) vCenter Server
3 17 (11.56%) ZABBIX
4 14 (9.52%) Netcool
5 13 (8.84%) Tivoli
6 11 (7.48%) OpenView
6 11 (7.48%) Tivoli Monitoring
7 10 (6.80%) Ansible
7 10 (6.80%) FortiGate
7 10 (6.80%) SCCM
8 8 (5.44%) NetBackup
8 8 (5.44%) WMI
9 6 (4.08%) Grafana
10 5 (3.40%) Kubernetes
11 4 (2.72%) Cisco CUCM
12 3 (2.04%) Cisco Prime
12 3 (2.04%) Microsoft Intune
12 3 (2.04%) Prometheus
12 3 (2.04%) SolarWinds Orion
Vendors
1 76 (51.70%) Cisco
2 48 (32.65%) Splunk
2 48 (32.65%) VMware
3 42 (28.57%) Palo Alto
4 32 (21.77%) Microsoft
5 30 (20.41%) F5
6 26 (17.69%) ServiceNow
7 20 (13.61%) Fortinet
8 17 (11.56%) BMC
9 16 (10.88%) Aruba
10 12 (8.16%) IBM
10 12 (8.16%) Juniper
11 11 (7.48%) HP
11 11 (7.48%) Meraki
12 10 (6.80%) Broadcom
12 10 (6.80%) Veeam
13 9 (6.12%) Citrix
14 8 (5.44%) CheckPoint
15 7 (4.76%) NetApp
16 6 (4.08%) Commvault