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 1 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
1 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 507 409 412
Rank change year-on-year -98 +3 +96
Contract jobs citing SolarWinds 161 153 157
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.30% 0.47% 0.40%
As % of the Vendors category 0.73% 0.99% 0.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 109 102 98
10th Percentile £306 £301 £360
25th Percentile £415 £400 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £519 £475 £514
Median % change year-on-year +9.26% -7.54% +14.17%
75th Percentile £600 £539 £588
90th Percentile £678 £649 £634
UK excluding London median daily rate £510 £475 £508
% change year-on-year +7.26% -6.54% +15.51%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 1 3
10th Percentile £42.76 - -
25th Percentile £44.86 £56.25 -
Median hourly rate £51.50 £57.50 £23.80
Median % change year-on-year -10.43% +141.60% -61.61%
75th Percentile £58.38 £58.75 -
90th Percentile £66.55 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £51.50 - -

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 22,051 15,518 17,140
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.36% 47.18% 43.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,688 9,504 10,753
10th Percentile £313 £280 £280
25th Percentile £413 £400 £411
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £500 £520
Median % change year-on-year +1.00% -3.85% -0.95%
75th Percentile £601 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £706 £731
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £478 £500
% change year-on-year +4.52% -4.33% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,117 782 883
10th Percentile £15.81 £14.55 £13.50
25th Percentile £19.25 £17.30 £15.62
Median hourly rate £35.00 £25.15 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +39.17% -8.55% -34.21%
75th Percentile £65.25 £50.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £85.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.99 £22.32 £25.60
% change year-on-year +52.32% -12.83% -26.33%

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 1 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 1 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 1 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 -107 137 £500 +4.93% 30
UK excluding London -48 136 £510 +7.26% 21
South East -18 66 £538 +43.33% 6
Work from Home -58 29 £582 +16.35% 15
South West -28 21 £426 -31.29% 3
Scotland +4 18 £475 +5.56% 3
Midlands -48 18 £500 -4.76% 5
London -103 17 £475 -2.56% 12
West Midlands -60 15 £565 +13.00% 4
North of England -88 12 £430 -9.47% 4
North West -56 7 £430 -7.03% 1
Yorkshire -51 4 £519 +7.29% 2
East Midlands -13 3 £475 -26.92% 1
East of England -20 1 - - 2
North East -40 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 2 (1.24%) Confluence
2 1 (0.62%) OpenStack
Applications
1 3 (1.86%) MS Visio
2 2 (1.24%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 3 (1.86%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 36 (22.36%) Azure
2 21 (13.04%) AWS
3 7 (4.35%) Microsoft 365
3 7 (4.35%) Virtual Private Cloud
4 6 (3.73%) Rubrik
5 5 (3.11%) GCP
6 4 (2.48%) SaaS
7 3 (1.86%) Azure Data Factory
7 3 (1.86%) Datadog
7 3 (1.86%) Entra ID
7 3 (1.86%) OpenShift
8 2 (1.24%) Azure Sentinel
8 2 (1.24%) Azure Storage
8 2 (1.24%) GitHub
8 2 (1.24%) GitHub Actions
8 2 (1.24%) Power Platform
9 1 (0.62%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 1 (0.62%) Azure Monitor
9 1 (0.62%) IaaS
9 1 (0.62%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 70 (43.48%) Firewall
2 68 (42.24%) DNS
2 68 (42.24%) WAN
3 65 (40.37%) LAN
4 52 (32.30%) DHCP
5 46 (28.57%) BGP
6 44 (27.33%) OSPF
7 35 (21.74%) BIG-IP
8 33 (20.50%) Network Security
9 32 (19.88%) SNMP
9 32 (19.88%) VPN
10 27 (16.77%) Ethernet VPN
10 27 (16.77%) VXLAN
11 24 (14.91%) Cisco ISE
11 24 (14.91%) Junos
12 23 (14.29%) Cisco Nexus
13 20 (12.42%) MPLS
13 20 (12.42%) SD-WAN
14 18 (11.18%) VLAN
15 16 (9.94%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (5.59%) SQL Server
2 3 (1.86%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 2 (1.24%) Power BI
4 1 (0.62%) Azure SQL Database
4 1 (0.62%) Oracle Database
4 1 (0.62%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 4 (2.48%) JIRA
1 4 (2.48%) Sonatype Nexus
2 2 (1.24%) Git
2 2 (1.24%) Jenkins
2 2 (1.24%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
3 1 (0.62%) Subversion
General
1 37 (22.98%) Social Skills
2 12 (7.45%) Organisational Skills
3 11 (6.83%) Analytical Skills
4 7 (4.35%) Documentation Skills
4 7 (4.35%) Public Sector
5 5 (3.11%) Finance
5 5 (3.11%) Legal
6 4 (2.48%) Military
6 4 (2.48%) Telecoms
7 3 (1.86%) Influencing Skills
7 3 (1.86%) Law
8 2 (1.24%) Retail
9 1 (0.62%) Aerospace
9 1 (0.62%) Aviation
9 1 (0.62%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 40 (24.84%) Network Engineer
2 22 (13.66%) Senior
3 16 (9.94%) Consultant
4 15 (9.32%) Senior Network Engineer
5 14 (8.70%) Architect
5 14 (8.70%) Firewall Specialist
5 14 (8.70%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 14 (8.70%) Management Consultant
5 14 (8.70%) Network Specialist
6 9 (5.59%) DBA
6 9 (5.59%) Lead
6 9 (5.59%) Network Architect
6 9 (5.59%) SQL DBA
7 8 (4.97%) Cloud Engineer
8 7 (4.35%) Administrator
8 7 (4.35%) Network Manager
9 6 (3.73%) Analyst
9 6 (3.73%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
9 6 (3.73%) Support Engineer
10 5 (3.11%) SQL Server DBA
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (19.25%) 802.1X
2 21 (13.04%) REST
3 4 (2.48%) SAML
4 3 (1.86%) Elastic Stack
4 3 (1.86%) LDAP
5 1 (0.62%) ARM Templates
5 1 (0.62%) Loki
5 1 (0.62%) OpenTelemetry
5 1 (0.62%) SOAP
5 1 (0.62%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 40 (24.84%) Data Centre
2 30 (18.63%) PKI
3 29 (18.01%) Clustering
4 9 (5.59%) Hybrid Cloud
5 7 (4.35%) Cloud Native
5 7 (4.35%) Replication
6 6 (3.73%) CMDB
7 5 (3.11%) Security Posture
8 4 (2.48%) Cyber Threat
8 4 (2.48%) Fibre Optics
8 4 (2.48%) Private Cloud
9 3 (1.86%) CSOC
9 3 (1.86%) Cyber Defence
9 3 (1.86%) Data Protection Act
9 3 (1.86%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
9 3 (1.86%) Security Operations Centre
10 2 (1.24%) EMC VMAX
10 2 (1.24%) EMC VNX
10 2 (1.24%) Enterprise Storage
10 2 (1.24%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 91 (56.52%) Windows
2 50 (31.06%) Linux
3 19 (11.80%) AIX
4 13 (8.07%) Windows Server
5 6 (3.73%) Windows Server 2019
6 2 (1.24%) Data ONTAP
6 2 (1.24%) Unix
6 2 (1.24%) Windows 10
7 1 (0.62%) Check Point GAiA
7 1 (0.62%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.62%) VMS
7 1 (0.62%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 47 (29.19%) ITIL
2 46 (28.57%) High Availability
3 34 (21.12%) ITSM
4 33 (20.50%) Observability
5 31 (19.25%) Load Balancing
6 30 (18.63%) Project Delivery
7 29 (18.01%) Problem-Solving
8 24 (14.91%) Identity Access Management
9 23 (14.29%) Network Monitoring
10 21 (13.04%) Service Management
10 21 (13.04%) Technical Leadership
11 19 (11.80%) Stakeholder Management
12 18 (11.18%) Continuous Improvement
12 18 (11.18%) Network Virtualisation
13 17 (10.56%) Change Management
13 17 (10.56%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 17 (10.56%) Service Delivery
14 15 (9.32%) Agile
14 15 (9.32%) Disaster Recovery
15 14 (8.70%) Dashboard Development
Programming Languages
1 47 (29.19%) PowerShell
2 39 (24.22%) Python
3 32 (19.88%) SQL
4 17 (10.56%) Bash
4 17 (10.56%) Search Processing Language
5 5 (3.11%) T-SQL
6 4 (2.48%) Perl
7 1 (0.62%) Java
7 1 (0.62%) JavaScript
7 1 (0.62%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 96 (59.63%) Security Cleared
2 45 (27.95%) DV Cleared
3 40 (24.84%) Cisco Certification
4 38 (23.60%) SC Cleared
5 13 (8.07%) CCNA
5 13 (8.07%) CCNP
6 9 (5.59%) Microsoft Certification
7 8 (4.97%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
8 7 (4.35%) JNCIA
8 7 (4.35%) JNCIP
8 7 (4.35%) JNCIS
8 7 (4.35%) MCSE
9 5 (3.11%) Azure Certification
9 5 (3.11%) CCIE
9 5 (3.11%) Degree
10 4 (2.48%) MCSA
10 4 (2.48%) PMI Certification
10 4 (2.48%) PMP
11 3 (1.86%) CCA
11 3 (1.86%) Citrix Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (4.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 7 (4.35%) NIST
2 6 (3.73%) NCSC
3 1 (0.62%) Disclosure Scotland
3 1 (0.62%) GDPR
3 1 (0.62%) ISO/IEC 20000
3 1 (0.62%) JSP 440
3 1 (0.62%) PMO
3 1 (0.62%) QA
3 1 (0.62%) SLA
System Software
1 38 (23.60%) VMware Infrastructure
2 35 (21.74%) Active Directory
3 16 (9.94%) VMware NSX
4 12 (7.45%) VMware ESXi
5 10 (6.21%) Hyper-V
5 10 (6.21%) vSphere
6 7 (4.35%) Virtual Machines
7 3 (1.86%) NFS
8 2 (1.24%) EMC RecoverPoint
8 2 (1.24%) Firmware
8 2 (1.24%) SRDF
9 1 (0.62%) Docker
9 1 (0.62%) Samba
9 1 (0.62%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 28 (17.39%) FortiGate
2 27 (16.77%) Nagios
3 20 (12.42%) ZABBIX
4 18 (11.18%) Netcool
5 17 (10.56%) SCOM
5 17 (10.56%) Tivoli
6 15 (9.32%) OpenView
6 15 (9.32%) Tivoli Monitoring
7 13 (8.07%) vCenter Server
8 12 (7.45%) Ansible
8 12 (7.45%) Terraform
9 10 (6.21%) SCCM
10 8 (4.97%) NetBackup
10 8 (4.97%) WMI
11 6 (3.73%) Cisco Prime
12 5 (3.11%) Cisco CUCM
12 5 (3.11%) Kubernetes
13 4 (2.48%) Grafana
14 3 (1.86%) Microsoft Intune
14 3 (1.86%) SolarWinds Orion
Vendors
1 96 (59.63%) Cisco
2 64 (39.75%) Splunk
3 47 (29.19%) F5
4 46 (28.57%) VMware
5 40 (24.84%) Palo Alto
6 36 (22.36%) Juniper
7 32 (19.88%) Microsoft
8 25 (15.53%) ServiceNow
9 22 (13.66%) Extreme Networks
9 22 (13.66%) Fortinet
10 20 (12.42%) BMC
11 18 (11.18%) Aruba
12 16 (9.94%) HP
12 16 (9.94%) IBM
13 11 (6.83%) CheckPoint
14 10 (6.21%) Meraki
15 9 (5.59%) Citrix
16 8 (4.97%) RedGate
16 8 (4.97%) Veeam
17 7 (4.35%) NetApp