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 11 August 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
11 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 512 415 406
Rank change year-on-year -97 -9 +83
Contract jobs citing SolarWinds 160 152 161
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.30% 0.46% 0.41%
As % of the Vendors category 0.72% 0.98% 0.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 106 102 102
10th Percentile £306 £301 £360
25th Percentile £414 £400 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £475 £508
Median % change year-on-year +7.26% -6.54% +12.94%
75th Percentile £597 £537 £588
90th Percentile £663 £649 £634
UK excluding London median daily rate £519 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +9.26% -5.00% +13.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 1 3
10th Percentile £43.11 - -
25th Percentile £44.86 £56.25 -
Median hourly rate £50.11 £57.50 £23.80
Median % change year-on-year -12.85% +141.60% -61.60%
75th Percentile £57.47 £58.75 -
90th Percentile £65.19 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.11 - -

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 22,171 15,556 17,017
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.51% 47.24% 43.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,699 9,514 10,605
10th Percentile £313 £280 £288
25th Percentile £413 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £507 £500 £520
Median % change year-on-year +1.40% -3.85% -0.95%
75th Percentile £606 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £700 £730
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £479 £500
% change year-on-year +4.38% -4.20% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,153 794 841
10th Percentile £14.85 £14.46 £13.69
25th Percentile £18.33 £17.13 £15.62
Median hourly rate £32.50 £25.15 £29.00
Median % change year-on-year +29.22% -13.28% -30.12%
75th Percentile £65.00 £48.44 £61.60
90th Percentile £83.54 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.00 £21.39 £28.00
% change year-on-year +49.60% -23.61% -19.42%

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 11 August 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 11 August 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for SolarWinds in the UK

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 11 August 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 -108 135 £500 +4.93% 24
UK excluding London -55 133 £519 +9.26% 17
South East -31 64 £538 +7.50% 5
Work from Home -60 29 £582 +16.35% 12
South West -23 21 £426 -41.24% 1
Midlands -48 20 £500 -4.76% 5
Scotland +4 18 £475 +5.56% 2
London -113 18 £450 -5.26% 9
West Midlands -51 17 £565 +13.00% 4
North of England -97 9 £425 -10.53% 4
North West -46 4 £425 -5.56% 2
Yorkshire -58 4 £519 +7.29% 1
East Midlands -8 3 £475 -26.92% 1
East of England -23 1 - - 2
North East -43 1 £225 -53.85% 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 3 (1.88%) Confluence
2 1 (0.63%) OpenStack
Applications
1 3 (1.88%) MS Visio
2 2 (1.25%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 3 (1.88%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 35 (21.88%) Azure
2 20 (12.50%) AWS
3 7 (4.38%) Virtual Private Cloud
4 6 (3.75%) Microsoft 365
4 6 (3.75%) Rubrik
5 4 (2.50%) GCP
6 3 (1.88%) Azure Data Factory
6 3 (1.88%) Datadog
6 3 (1.88%) OpenShift
6 3 (1.88%) SaaS
7 2 (1.25%) AWS Direct Connect
7 2 (1.25%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 2 (1.25%) Azure Storage
7 2 (1.25%) Entra ID
7 2 (1.25%) GitHub
7 2 (1.25%) GitHub Actions
7 2 (1.25%) Power Platform
8 1 (0.63%) Azure AKS
8 1 (0.63%) Azure Monitor
8 1 (0.63%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 70 (43.75%) DNS
1 70 (43.75%) Firewall
2 69 (43.13%) WAN
3 68 (42.50%) LAN
4 53 (33.13%) DHCP
5 46 (28.75%) BGP
6 44 (27.50%) OSPF
7 35 (21.88%) BIG-IP
8 34 (21.25%) Network Security
9 32 (20.00%) SNMP
9 32 (20.00%) VPN
10 27 (16.88%) VXLAN
11 26 (16.25%) Cisco ISE
11 26 (16.25%) Ethernet VPN
12 24 (15.00%) Junos
13 23 (14.38%) Cisco Nexus
14 19 (11.88%) MPLS
14 19 (11.88%) SD-WAN
15 18 (11.25%) VLAN
16 16 (10.00%) Cisco ASA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (4.38%) SQL Server
2 2 (1.25%) Power BI
3 1 (0.63%) Azure SQL Database
3 1 (0.63%) Oracle Database
3 1 (0.63%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 5 (3.13%) JIRA
2 3 (1.88%) Sonatype Nexus
3 2 (1.25%) Git
3 2 (1.25%) Jenkins
3 2 (1.25%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
4 1 (0.63%) Subversion
General
1 37 (23.13%) Social Skills
2 13 (8.13%) Organisational Skills
3 9 (5.63%) Analytical Skills
4 6 (3.75%) Documentation Skills
4 6 (3.75%) Public Sector
5 5 (3.13%) Finance
5 5 (3.13%) Legal
6 4 (2.50%) Military
7 3 (1.88%) Influencing Skills
7 3 (1.88%) Law
7 3 (1.88%) Telecoms
8 2 (1.25%) Retail
9 1 (0.63%) Aerospace
9 1 (0.63%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 42 (26.25%) Network Engineer
2 22 (13.75%) Senior
3 16 (10.00%) Consultant
3 16 (10.00%) Senior Network Engineer
4 14 (8.75%) Firewall Specialist
4 14 (8.75%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 14 (8.75%) Management Consultant
4 14 (8.75%) Network Specialist
5 13 (8.13%) Architect
6 9 (5.63%) Lead
7 8 (5.00%) Cloud Engineer
7 8 (5.00%) Network Architect
8 6 (3.75%) Administrator
8 6 (3.75%) Analyst
8 6 (3.75%) DBA
8 6 (3.75%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
8 6 (3.75%) Network Manager
8 6 (3.75%) SQL DBA
8 6 (3.75%) Support Engineer
9 5 (3.13%) SQL Server DBA
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (18.75%) 802.1X
2 21 (13.13%) REST
3 4 (2.50%) SAML
4 3 (1.88%) Elastic Stack
4 3 (1.88%) LDAP
5 1 (0.63%) ARM Templates
5 1 (0.63%) Loki
5 1 (0.63%) OpenTelemetry
5 1 (0.63%) SOAP
5 1 (0.63%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 39 (24.38%) Data Centre
2 30 (18.75%) PKI
3 26 (16.25%) Clustering
4 8 (5.00%) Hybrid Cloud
5 7 (4.38%) Cloud Native
5 7 (4.38%) CMDB
6 5 (3.13%) Security Posture
7 4 (2.50%) Cyber Threat
7 4 (2.50%) Data Protection Act
7 4 (2.50%) Fibre Optics
7 4 (2.50%) Private Cloud
7 4 (2.50%) Replication
8 3 (1.88%) CSOC
8 3 (1.88%) Cyber Defence
8 3 (1.88%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 3 (1.88%) Onboarding
8 3 (1.88%) Security Operations Centre
9 2 (1.25%) EMC VMAX
9 2 (1.25%) EMC VNX
9 2 (1.25%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 91 (56.88%) Windows
2 50 (31.25%) Linux
3 19 (11.88%) AIX
4 13 (8.13%) Windows Server
5 6 (3.75%) Windows Server 2019
6 2 (1.25%) Data ONTAP
6 2 (1.25%) Unix
6 2 (1.25%) Windows 10
7 1 (0.63%) Check Point GAiA
7 1 (0.63%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.63%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 48 (30.00%) ITIL
2 45 (28.13%) High Availability
3 34 (21.25%) ITSM
3 34 (21.25%) Observability
4 31 (19.38%) Load Balancing
5 29 (18.13%) Problem-Solving
6 27 (16.88%) Project Delivery
7 24 (15.00%) Identity Access Management
7 24 (15.00%) Network Monitoring
8 22 (13.75%) Service Management
8 22 (13.75%) Technical Leadership
9 19 (11.88%) Network Virtualisation
9 19 (11.88%) Stakeholder Management
10 17 (10.63%) Continuous Improvement
10 17 (10.63%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 17 (10.63%) Service Delivery
11 16 (10.00%) Change Management
12 14 (8.75%) Agile
12 14 (8.75%) Dashboard Development
13 13 (8.13%) Disaster Recovery
Programming Languages
1 44 (27.50%) PowerShell
2 38 (23.75%) Python
3 29 (18.13%) SQL
4 17 (10.63%) Search Processing Language
5 16 (10.00%) Bash
6 5 (3.13%) T-SQL
7 4 (2.50%) Perl
8 1 (0.63%) Java
8 1 (0.63%) JavaScript
8 1 (0.63%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 93 (58.13%) Security Cleared
2 45 (28.13%) DV Cleared
3 38 (23.75%) Cisco Certification
4 35 (21.88%) SC Cleared
5 11 (6.88%) CCNA
5 11 (6.88%) CCNP
6 8 (5.00%) Microsoft Certification
6 8 (5.00%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
7 7 (4.38%) JNCIA
7 7 (4.38%) JNCIP
7 7 (4.38%) JNCIS
7 7 (4.38%) MCSE
8 5 (3.13%) Azure Certification
8 5 (3.13%) Degree
9 4 (2.50%) CCIE
9 4 (2.50%) MCSA
10 3 (1.88%) CCA
10 3 (1.88%) Citrix Certification
10 3 (1.88%) PMI Certification
10 3 (1.88%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (4.38%) NIST
2 6 (3.75%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 4 (2.50%) NCSC
4 2 (1.25%) JSP 440
5 1 (0.63%) Disclosure Scotland
5 1 (0.63%) GDPR
5 1 (0.63%) ISO/IEC 20000
5 1 (0.63%) PMO
5 1 (0.63%) QA
5 1 (0.63%) SLA
System Software
1 37 (23.13%) VMware Infrastructure
2 35 (21.88%) Active Directory
3 16 (10.00%) VMware NSX
4 12 (7.50%) VMware ESXi
5 10 (6.25%) vSphere
6 9 (5.63%) Hyper-V
7 7 (4.38%) Virtual Machines
8 3 (1.88%) NFS
9 2 (1.25%) EMC RecoverPoint
9 2 (1.25%) Firmware
9 2 (1.25%) SRDF
10 1 (0.63%) Docker
10 1 (0.63%) Samba
10 1 (0.63%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 29 (18.13%) FortiGate
2 27 (16.88%) Nagios
3 20 (12.50%) ZABBIX
4 18 (11.25%) Netcool
5 17 (10.63%) SCOM
5 17 (10.63%) Tivoli
6 15 (9.38%) OpenView
6 15 (9.38%) Tivoli Monitoring
7 13 (8.13%) vCenter Server
8 12 (7.50%) Terraform
9 11 (6.88%) Ansible
10 10 (6.25%) SCCM
11 8 (5.00%) NetBackup
11 8 (5.00%) WMI
12 5 (3.13%) Cisco Prime
12 5 (3.13%) Kubernetes
13 4 (2.50%) Cisco CUCM
13 4 (2.50%) Grafana
14 3 (1.88%) Microsoft Intune
14 3 (1.88%) SolarWinds Orion
Vendors
1 97 (60.63%) Cisco
2 66 (41.25%) Splunk
3 47 (29.38%) F5
4 45 (28.13%) VMware
5 40 (25.00%) Palo Alto
6 34 (21.25%) Juniper
7 33 (20.63%) Microsoft
8 25 (15.63%) ServiceNow
9 22 (13.75%) Extreme Networks
10 21 (13.13%) Fortinet
11 20 (12.50%) BMC
12 16 (10.00%) Aruba
12 16 (10.00%) IBM
13 15 (9.38%) HP
14 10 (6.25%) Meraki
15 9 (5.63%) CheckPoint
15 9 (5.63%) Citrix
16 8 (5.00%) Veeam
17 7 (4.38%) NetApp
18 6 (3.75%) CyberArk