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 27 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
27 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 529 401 420
Rank change year-on-year -128 +19 +59
Contract jobs citing SolarWinds 145 156 151
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.27% 0.48% 0.39%
As % of the Vendors category 0.65% 1.01% 0.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 106 108 89
10th Percentile £306 £312 £313
25th Percentile £413 £400 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £504
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.75% +12.00%
75th Percentile £588 £528 £588
90th Percentile £650 £650 £634
UK excluding London median daily rate £519 £475 £504
% change year-on-year +9.26% -5.75% +12.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 3 3
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% -61.60%
75th Percentile £55.66 £67.25 -
90th Percentile £57.29 - -
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 22,410 15,468 16,983
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.74% 47.22% 43.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,815 9,456 10,461
10th Percentile £313 £275 £285
25th Percentile £413 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £500 £523
Median % change year-on-year +2.00% -4.31% -0.48%
75th Percentile £610 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £700 £726
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,156 806 773
10th Percentile £14.36 £14.59 £13.22
25th Percentile £17.25 £17.30 £15.62
Median hourly rate £29.29 £25.15 £28.00
Median % change year-on-year +16.44% -10.18% -36.00%
75th Percentile £65.00 £46.30 £61.60
90th Percentile £83.13 £67.75 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.00 £21.28 £26.08
% change year-on-year +31.58% -18.40% -34.48%

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 27 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
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 27 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 -118 121 £500 +5.26% 24
UK excluding London -80 117 £519 +9.26% 16
South East -41 46 £538 +19.44% 4
Work from Home -62 27 £582 +29.28% 11
Midlands -45 22 £565 +18.95% 4
South West -29 21 £426 -41.24% 1
West Midlands -43 19 £570 +23.24% 4
London -97 19 £450 -5.26% 10
Scotland 0 17 £475 +5.56% 2
North of England -92 10 £400 -15.79% 5
North West -54 5 £400 -11.11% 5
Yorkshire -62 4 £519 +7.29%
East Midlands -13 3 £475 -26.92%
East of England -25 1 - - 2
North East -42 1 £225 -53.85%

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 (2.07%) Confluence
2 1 (0.69%) OpenStack
Applications
1 3 (2.07%) MS Visio
2 2 (1.38%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 3 (2.07%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 33 (22.76%) Azure
2 16 (11.03%) AWS
3 7 (4.83%) Virtual Private Cloud
4 6 (4.14%) Microsoft 365
4 6 (4.14%) Rubrik
5 5 (3.45%) Datadog
6 3 (2.07%) Azure Data Factory
6 3 (2.07%) GCP
6 3 (2.07%) OpenShift
7 2 (1.38%) AWS Direct Connect
7 2 (1.38%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 2 (1.38%) Azure Monitor
7 2 (1.38%) Azure Storage
7 2 (1.38%) Entra ID
7 2 (1.38%) GitHub
7 2 (1.38%) GitHub Actions
7 2 (1.38%) Power Platform
7 2 (1.38%) SaaS
8 1 (0.69%) Azure AKS
8 1 (0.69%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 54 (37.24%) Firewall
2 53 (36.55%) DNS
2 53 (36.55%) WAN
3 50 (34.48%) LAN
4 36 (24.83%) Network Security
5 35 (24.14%) DHCP
6 31 (21.38%) SNMP
7 30 (20.69%) BGP
7 30 (20.69%) VPN
8 26 (17.93%) OSPF
9 23 (15.86%) Cisco Nexus
10 19 (13.10%) BIG-IP
10 19 (13.10%) MPLS
11 18 (12.41%) Cisco ASA
12 17 (11.72%) SD-WAN
13 16 (11.03%) VLAN
13 16 (11.03%) Wireless
14 15 (10.34%) Cisco ISE
14 15 (10.34%) IPsec
15 13 (8.97%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (6.21%) SQL Server
2 2 (1.38%) Power BI
3 1 (0.69%) Azure SQL Database
3 1 (0.69%) Oracle Database
3 1 (0.69%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 5 (3.45%) JIRA
2 3 (2.07%) Sonatype Nexus
3 2 (1.38%) Git
3 2 (1.38%) Jenkins
3 2 (1.38%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
4 1 (0.69%) Subversion
General
1 38 (26.21%) Social Skills
2 13 (8.97%) Organisational Skills
3 10 (6.90%) Analytical Skills
4 7 (4.83%) Documentation Skills
4 7 (4.83%) Legal
5 5 (3.45%) Finance
6 4 (2.76%) Public Sector
7 3 (2.07%) Influencing Skills
7 3 (2.07%) Telecoms
8 1 (0.69%) Aerospace
8 1 (0.69%) Law
8 1 (0.69%) Manufacturing
8 1 (0.69%) Retail
Job Titles
1 35 (24.14%) Network Engineer
2 17 (11.72%) Consultant
3 15 (10.34%) Senior
4 14 (9.66%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 14 (9.66%) Management Consultant
5 10 (6.90%) Architect
6 9 (6.21%) Cloud Engineer
6 9 (6.21%) Senior Network Engineer
7 7 (4.83%) Firewall Specialist
7 7 (4.83%) Lead
7 7 (4.83%) Network Architect
7 7 (4.83%) Network Specialist
7 7 (4.83%) Support Engineer
8 6 (4.14%) Administrator
8 6 (4.14%) Analyst
8 6 (4.14%) DBA
8 6 (4.14%) Network Manager
8 6 (4.14%) SQL DBA
9 5 (3.45%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
9 5 (3.45%) SQL Server DBA
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (13.79%) REST
2 16 (11.03%) 802.1X
3 12 (8.28%) Terraform
4 4 (2.76%) SAML
5 3 (2.07%) Elastic Stack
5 3 (2.07%) LDAP
6 1 (0.69%) ARM Templates
6 1 (0.69%) Loki
6 1 (0.69%) OpenTelemetry
6 1 (0.69%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 25 (17.24%) Data Centre
2 15 (10.34%) PKI
3 10 (6.90%) Clustering
4 8 (5.52%) Hybrid Cloud
5 7 (4.83%) Cloud Native
5 7 (4.83%) CMDB
6 5 (3.45%) Onboarding
7 4 (2.76%) Cyber Threat
7 4 (2.76%) Data Protection Act
7 4 (2.76%) Fibre Optics
7 4 (2.76%) Private Cloud
7 4 (2.76%) Replication
8 3 (2.07%) CSOC
8 3 (2.07%) Cyber Defence
8 3 (2.07%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 3 (2.07%) Security Operations Centre
8 3 (2.07%) Security Posture
9 2 (1.38%) EMC VMAX
9 2 (1.38%) EMC VNX
9 2 (1.38%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 77 (53.10%) Windows
2 50 (34.48%) Linux
3 19 (13.10%) AIX
4 13 (8.97%) Windows Server
5 7 (4.83%) Windows Server 2019
6 2 (1.38%) Data ONTAP
6 2 (1.38%) Unix
7 1 (0.69%) Check Point GAiA
7 1 (0.69%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.69%) Windows 10
7 1 (0.69%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 40 (27.59%) ITIL
2 29 (20.00%) Project Delivery
3 28 (19.31%) High Availability
3 28 (19.31%) ITSM
4 25 (17.24%) Network Monitoring
5 22 (15.17%) Technical Leadership
6 20 (13.79%) Network Virtualisation
6 20 (13.79%) Observability
7 19 (13.10%) Problem-Solving
7 19 (13.10%) Stakeholder Management
8 18 (12.41%) Continuous Improvement
8 18 (12.41%) Load Balancing
9 17 (11.72%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 17 (11.72%) Service Delivery
9 17 (11.72%) Service Management
10 15 (10.34%) Agile
11 14 (9.66%) Dashboard Development
12 13 (8.97%) Change Management
12 13 (8.97%) Disaster Recovery
13 12 (8.28%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 43 (29.66%) PowerShell
2 38 (26.21%) Python
3 29 (20.00%) SQL
4 17 (11.72%) Search Processing Language
5 16 (11.03%) Bash
6 5 (3.45%) T-SQL
7 4 (2.76%) Perl
8 1 (0.69%) Java
8 1 (0.69%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 80 (55.17%) Security Cleared
2 38 (26.21%) DV Cleared
3 34 (23.45%) SC Cleared
4 24 (16.55%) Cisco Certification
5 11 (7.59%) CCNA
6 9 (6.21%) CCNP
7 8 (5.52%) Microsoft Certification
7 8 (5.52%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
8 7 (4.83%) MCSE
9 5 (3.45%) Azure Certification
9 5 (3.45%) Degree
10 4 (2.76%) CCIE
10 4 (2.76%) MCSA
11 3 (2.07%) CCA
11 3 (2.07%) Citrix Certification
11 3 (2.07%) PMI Certification
11 3 (2.07%) PMP
12 2 (1.38%) CompTIA Security+
12 2 (1.38%) NCDA
12 2 (1.38%) NCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (4.83%) NIST
2 6 (4.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 4 (2.76%) NCSC
4 2 (1.38%) JSP 440
5 1 (0.69%) Disclosure Scotland
5 1 (0.69%) GDPR
5 1 (0.69%) ISO/IEC 20000
5 1 (0.69%) PMO
5 1 (0.69%) QA
5 1 (0.69%) SLA
System Software
1 38 (26.21%) VMware Infrastructure
2 35 (24.14%) Active Directory
3 16 (11.03%) VMware NSX
4 13 (8.97%) VMware ESXi
5 10 (6.90%) vSphere
6 9 (6.21%) Hyper-V
7 7 (4.83%) Virtual Machines
8 3 (2.07%) Firmware
8 3 (2.07%) NFS
9 2 (1.38%) EMC RecoverPoint
9 2 (1.38%) SRDF
10 1 (0.69%) Docker
10 1 (0.69%) Samba
10 1 (0.69%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 26 (17.93%) Nagios
2 21 (14.48%) ZABBIX
3 19 (13.10%) SCOM
4 18 (12.41%) Netcool
5 17 (11.72%) Tivoli
6 15 (10.34%) FortiGate
6 15 (10.34%) OpenView
6 15 (10.34%) Tivoli Monitoring
7 14 (9.66%) vCenter Server
8 11 (7.59%) Ansible
9 10 (6.90%) SCCM
10 8 (5.52%) NetBackup
10 8 (5.52%) WMI
11 5 (3.45%) Grafana
11 5 (3.45%) Kubernetes
12 4 (2.76%) Cisco CUCM
13 3 (2.07%) Microsoft Intune
13 3 (2.07%) Prometheus
13 3 (2.07%) Single Sign-On
13 3 (2.07%) SolarWinds Orion
Vendors
1 80 (55.17%) Cisco
2 52 (35.86%) Splunk
3 46 (31.72%) VMware
4 42 (28.97%) Palo Alto
5 34 (23.45%) F5
6 32 (22.07%) Microsoft
7 25 (17.24%) ServiceNow
8 20 (13.79%) BMC
8 20 (13.79%) Fortinet
9 16 (11.03%) Aruba
9 16 (11.03%) IBM
9 16 (11.03%) Juniper
10 15 (10.34%) HP
11 11 (7.59%) Meraki
12 9 (6.21%) CheckPoint
12 9 (6.21%) Citrix
13 8 (5.52%) Extreme Networks
13 8 (5.52%) Veeam
14 7 (4.83%) Broadcom
14 7 (4.83%) NetApp