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 29 January 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
29 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 442 365 432
Rank change year-on-year -77 +67 +146
Contract jobs citing SolarWinds 153 171 159
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.40% 0.54% 0.36%
As % of the Vendors category 0.87% 1.18% 0.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 124 115 109
10th Percentile £312 £305 £323
25th Percentile £411 £413 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% +5.00%
75th Percentile £525 £650 £638
90th Percentile £575 £715 £713
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £488
% change year-on-year - +2.56% +8.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 1 11
10th Percentile - - £32.00
25th Percentile £65.75 - £48.27
Median hourly rate £66.50 £38.00 £65.98
Median % change year-on-year +75.00% -42.41% +4.35%
75th Percentile £67.25 - -
90th Percentile - - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £66.50 - £65.98
% change year-on-year - - +4.35%

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 17,609 14,510 19,245
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 45.75% 46.09% 43.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,336 8,569 12,142
10th Percentile £300 £284 £250
25th Percentile £410 £409 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £523 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.40% -0.38% -2.33%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £700 £713 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -0.10% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 831 427 856
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.62 £13.05
25th Percentile £17.87 £20.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £23.83 £27.50 £32.06
Median % change year-on-year -13.36% -14.22% +3.41%
75th Percentile £51.38 £62.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £72.50 £80.00 £70.66
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.46 £25.00 £30.00
% change year-on-year -14.16% -16.67% +18.76%

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 29 January 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 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 29 January 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 -101 134 £500 - 31
UK excluding London -77 112 £500 - 26
Work from Home -8 48 £450 -10.00% 11
South East -18 40 £500 +14.29% 14
London -26 26 £500 - 14
West Midlands -33 26 £314 -42.97% 4
Midlands -69 26 £314 -46.28% 4
North of England -85 18 £335 -29.29% 1
South West -16 17 £550 +32.13% 1
North West -46 16 £335 -29.10% 1
East of England -8 6 £363 -37.23% 3
Scotland - 5 £500 - 2
Yorkshire -52 2 £238 +5.56%

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 (7.19%) Confluence
1 11 (7.19%) Microsoft Exchange
1 11 (7.19%) SharePoint
2 6 (3.92%) IIS
2 6 (3.92%) Skype for Business
3 5 (3.27%) Apache
4 4 (2.61%) BizTalk Server
4 4 (2.61%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 13 (8.50%) MS Visio
2 6 (3.92%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.65%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 46 (30.07%) Azure
2 30 (19.61%) AWS
3 14 (9.15%) Datadog
4 12 (7.84%) Entra ID
5 8 (5.23%) GCP
6 6 (3.92%) Microsoft 365
7 5 (3.27%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 5 (3.27%) Nutanix
7 5 (3.27%) Power Platform
7 5 (3.27%) SaaS
8 4 (2.61%) Azure Logic Apps
8 4 (2.61%) Azure Monitor
8 4 (2.61%) Cohesity
8 4 (2.61%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 3 (1.96%) Mimecast
9 3 (1.96%) PaaS
10 2 (1.31%) AWS Direct Connect
11 1 (0.65%) Akamai
11 1 (0.65%) Azure Sentinel
11 1 (0.65%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 56 (36.60%) Firewall
2 33 (21.57%) WAN
3 32 (20.92%) DNS
4 30 (19.61%) LAN
5 28 (18.30%) Cisco ISE
6 26 (16.99%) VPN
7 25 (16.34%) Cisco IOS
8 24 (15.69%) VLAN
9 23 (15.03%) Cisco Firepower
10 22 (14.38%) Junos
10 22 (14.38%) Network Security
11 21 (13.73%) TCP/IP
12 20 (13.07%) DHCP
13 18 (11.76%) BGP
13 18 (11.76%) OSPF
14 16 (10.46%) MPLS
15 15 (9.80%) SD-WAN
16 14 (9.15%) Cisco ASA
16 14 (9.15%) Wireless
17 13 (8.50%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (4.58%) SQL Server
2 5 (3.27%) Power BI
3 1 (0.65%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 5 (3.27%) JIRA
2 4 (2.61%) Git
2 4 (2.61%) Jenkins
3 3 (1.96%) Bitbucket
4 1 (0.65%) Subversion
General
1 40 (26.14%) Social Skills
2 28 (18.30%) Public Sector
3 25 (16.34%) Analytical Skills
4 13 (8.50%) Finance
5 6 (3.92%) Documentation Skills
6 5 (3.27%) Law
6 5 (3.27%) Presentation Skills
7 4 (2.61%) Legal
7 4 (2.61%) Manufacturing
8 3 (1.96%) Influencing Skills
8 3 (1.96%) Telecoms
9 2 (1.31%) Retail
10 1 (0.65%) Advertising
10 1 (0.65%) Aerospace
10 1 (0.65%) Aviation
10 1 (0.65%) Financial Institution
10 1 (0.65%) French Language
10 1 (0.65%) Local Government
10 1 (0.65%) Police
Job Titles
1 66 (43.14%) Network Engineer
2 22 (14.38%) 3rd Line Engineer
3 21 (13.73%) 3rd Line Network Engineer
3 21 (13.73%) Cloud Engineer
3 21 (13.73%) Cloud Network Engineer
3 21 (13.73%) Support Engineer
4 19 (12.42%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
5 18 (11.76%) Analyst
5 18 (11.76%) Network Support
5 18 (11.76%) Network Support Engineer
6 17 (11.11%) 3rd Line Support
7 16 (10.46%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
8 13 (8.50%) Infrastructure Analyst
8 13 (8.50%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 10 (6.54%) Senior
9 10 (6.54%) Server Engineer
10 7 (4.58%) Architect
11 6 (3.92%) Network Infrastructure Engineer
12 5 (3.27%) Switch Engineer
12 5 (3.27%) Wintel Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (3.27%) REST
2 4 (2.61%) JSON
3 2 (1.31%) 802.1X
3 2 (1.31%) LDAP
3 2 (1.31%) Middleware
3 2 (1.31%) SAML
4 1 (0.65%) Elastic Stack
Miscellaneous
1 16 (10.46%) Data Centre
2 15 (9.80%) PKI
3 14 (9.15%) Linux Command Line
4 10 (6.54%) Clustering
5 8 (5.23%) Onboarding
5 8 (5.23%) Operational Technology
6 7 (4.58%) CMDB
7 6 (3.92%) Security Posture
8 5 (3.27%) Replication
8 5 (3.27%) Self-Motivation
9 3 (1.96%) Driving Licence
9 3 (1.96%) Enterprise Software
10 2 (1.31%) Data Structures
10 2 (1.31%) Hybrid Cloud
10 2 (1.31%) Management Information System
10 2 (1.31%) SCADA
10 2 (1.31%) Taxonomies
11 1 (0.65%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 53 (34.64%) Windows
2 40 (26.14%) Windows Server
3 27 (17.65%) Linux
4 6 (3.92%) Windows 10
5 5 (3.27%) Windows Server 2016
6 4 (2.61%) Unix
7 3 (1.96%) Windows Server 2019
8 1 (0.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.65%) Solaris
8 1 (0.65%) Windows 7
8 1 (0.65%) Windows Server 2003
8 1 (0.65%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 33 (21.57%) Service Management
2 27 (17.65%) ITSM
3 24 (15.69%) Agile
3 24 (15.69%) Problem-Solving
4 23 (15.03%) ITIL
5 19 (12.42%) Network Monitoring
6 18 (11.76%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 13 (8.50%) Change Management
8 12 (7.84%) Disaster Recovery
9 11 (7.19%) Continuous Improvement
9 11 (7.19%) Network Design
9 11 (7.19%) Project Delivery
10 9 (5.88%) Infrastructure Automation
10 9 (5.88%) Mentoring
10 9 (5.88%) Network Virtualisation
10 9 (5.88%) Roadmaps
11 8 (5.23%) Computer Science
11 8 (5.23%) Cybersecurity
11 8 (5.23%) Decision-Making
11 8 (5.23%) System Testing
Programming Languages
1 22 (14.38%) PowerShell
2 16 (10.46%) Python
3 9 (5.88%) SQL
4 8 (5.23%) Bash
5 6 (3.92%) Perl
Qualifications
1 66 (43.14%) Security Cleared
2 31 (20.26%) Cisco Certification
3 30 (19.61%) DV Cleared
4 29 (18.95%) SC Cleared
5 28 (18.30%) CCNP
6 19 (12.42%) CCNA
7 13 (8.50%) Degree
8 9 (5.88%) Microsoft Certification
9 8 (5.23%) MCSE
10 6 (3.92%) CCIE
10 6 (3.92%) ITIL Certification
11 5 (3.27%) Master's Degree
12 4 (2.61%) CISSP
12 4 (2.61%) JNCIS
13 3 (1.96%) CCSP
13 3 (1.96%) MCSA
13 3 (1.96%) Network+ Certification
13 3 (1.96%) OCA
13 3 (1.96%) Oracle Certification
13 3 (1.96%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (3.92%) PCI DSS
2 5 (3.27%) GDPR
3 4 (2.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 4 (2.61%) NIST
4 3 (1.96%) QA
5 2 (1.31%) Data Quality
6 1 (0.65%) Disclosure Scotland
6 1 (0.65%) GRC
6 1 (0.65%) ISO/IEC 20000
6 1 (0.65%) NCSC
6 1 (0.65%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 53 (34.64%) Active Directory
2 47 (30.72%) VMware Infrastructure
3 35 (22.88%) VMware NSX
4 17 (11.11%) vSphere
5 12 (7.84%) Hyper-V
6 6 (3.92%) Virtual Servers
7 5 (3.27%) Firmware
7 5 (3.27%) Microsoft Virtual Server
7 5 (3.27%) Virtual Machines
8 1 (0.65%) KVM
8 1 (0.65%) RHEV
8 1 (0.65%) Terminal Services
8 1 (0.65%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.65%) Xen
8 1 (0.65%) XenApp
8 1 (0.65%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 34 (22.22%) vCenter Server
2 25 (16.34%) Ansible
3 18 (11.76%) Terraform
4 17 (11.11%) SCCM
5 16 (10.46%) Nagios
6 13 (8.50%) vRealize
7 12 (7.84%) VxRail
8 9 (5.88%) WSUS
9 6 (3.92%) Cisco Prime
9 6 (3.92%) Microsoft Clustering
10 5 (3.27%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 5 (3.27%) Microsoft Intune
11 4 (2.61%) FortiGate
11 4 (2.61%) Iperf
11 4 (2.61%) Nmap
11 4 (2.61%) Pingdom
12 3 (1.96%) Red Hat Satellite
12 3 (1.96%) Single Sign-On
13 2 (1.31%) PowerCLI
14 1 (0.65%) Failover Clustering
Vendors
1 112 (73.20%) Cisco
2 51 (33.33%) VMware
3 33 (21.57%) Juniper
4 30 (19.61%) Palo Alto
5 25 (16.34%) Fortinet
6 24 (15.69%) Veeam
7 23 (15.03%) Microsoft
8 18 (11.76%) CheckPoint
8 18 (11.76%) Dell
9 15 (9.80%) Commvault
9 15 (9.80%) F5
10 14 (9.15%) AppDynamics
10 14 (9.15%) IBM
10 14 (9.15%) ServiceNow
11 13 (8.50%) Meraki
12 12 (7.84%) HP
13 10 (6.54%) LogicMonitor
13 10 (6.54%) Splunk
14 7 (4.58%) Aruba
15 6 (3.92%) Tanium