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 31 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
31 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 527 409 427
Rank change year-on-year -118 +18 +56
Contract jobs citing SolarWinds 148 157 147
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.28% 0.48% 0.38%
As % of the Vendors category 0.66% 1.01% 0.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 109 111 87
10th Percentile £306 £313 £308
25th Percentile £413 £400 £411
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% +11.11%
75th Percentile £588 £544 £588
90th Percentile £655 £650 £634
UK excluding London median daily rate £520 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +9.37% -5.00% +11.11%
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% -63.93%
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 22,440 15,554 16,988
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.75% 47.20% 44.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,821 9,526 10,400
10th Percentile £313 £275 £287
25th Percentile £413 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.00% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £613 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £700 £730
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,170 794 740
10th Percentile £14.35 £14.69 £13.69
25th Percentile £17.25 £17.30 £15.62
Median hourly rate £29.29 £25.15 £29.00
Median % change year-on-year +16.44% -13.28% -31.76%
75th Percentile £65.00 £44.01 £62.51
90th Percentile £81.36 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.00 £21.24 £27.50
% change year-on-year +31.83% -22.76% -30.51%

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 31 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 31 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 -128 123 £519 +9.26% 32
UK excluding London -65 119 £520 +9.37% 19
South East -52 46 £538 +19.44% 7
Work from Home -52 27 £582 +29.28% 8
Midlands -41 22 £565 +18.95% 3
South West -30 21 £426 -31.29% 3
London -94 20 £450 -5.26% 16
West Midlands -38 19 £575 +24.32% 2
Scotland -3 18 £475 +5.56% 1
North of England -91 11 £400 -15.79% 4
North West -56 6 £400 -11.11% 4
Yorkshire -57 4 £519 +7.29%
East Midlands -11 3 £475 -26.92% 1
East of England -19 1 - - 2
North East -37 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 (2.03%) Confluence
2 1 (0.68%) OpenStack
Applications
1 3 (2.03%) MS Visio
2 2 (1.35%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 3 (2.03%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 33 (22.30%) Azure
2 15 (10.14%) AWS
3 6 (4.05%) Microsoft 365
3 6 (4.05%) Rubrik
3 6 (4.05%) Virtual Private Cloud
4 5 (3.38%) Datadog
5 3 (2.03%) Azure Data Factory
5 3 (2.03%) GCP
5 3 (2.03%) OpenShift
6 2 (1.35%) Azure Monitor
6 2 (1.35%) Azure Storage
6 2 (1.35%) Entra ID
6 2 (1.35%) GitHub
6 2 (1.35%) GitHub Actions
6 2 (1.35%) Power Platform
6 2 (1.35%) SaaS
7 1 (0.68%) AWS Direct Connect
7 1 (0.68%) Azure AKS
7 1 (0.68%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 1 (0.68%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 54 (36.49%) Firewall
2 53 (35.81%) DNS
3 52 (35.14%) WAN
4 50 (33.78%) LAN
5 36 (24.32%) Network Security
6 34 (22.97%) DHCP
7 31 (20.95%) SNMP
7 31 (20.95%) VPN
8 28 (18.92%) BGP
9 24 (16.22%) OSPF
10 22 (14.86%) Cisco Nexus
11 19 (12.84%) Cisco ASA
11 19 (12.84%) MPLS
12 18 (12.16%) BIG-IP
13 17 (11.49%) Wireless
14 16 (10.81%) Cisco ISE
14 16 (10.81%) SD-WAN
15 15 (10.14%) IPsec
15 15 (10.14%) VLAN
16 14 (9.46%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (7.43%) SQL Server
2 2 (1.35%) Azure SQL Database
2 2 (1.35%) Power BI
3 1 (0.68%) MySQL
3 1 (0.68%) Oracle Database
3 1 (0.68%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (0.68%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 5 (3.38%) JIRA
2 3 (2.03%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
3 2 (1.35%) Jenkins
3 2 (1.35%) Sonatype Nexus
4 1 (0.68%) Git
4 1 (0.68%) Subversion
General
1 39 (26.35%) Social Skills
2 13 (8.78%) Organisational Skills
3 10 (6.76%) Analytical Skills
4 8 (5.41%) Legal
5 7 (4.73%) Documentation Skills
6 6 (4.05%) Finance
7 4 (2.70%) Public Sector
7 4 (2.70%) Telecoms
8 3 (2.03%) Influencing Skills
9 1 (0.68%) Aerospace
9 1 (0.68%) Aviation
9 1 (0.68%) Electronics
9 1 (0.68%) Law
9 1 (0.68%) Manufacturing
9 1 (0.68%) Presentation Skills
9 1 (0.68%) Retail
Job Titles
1 36 (24.32%) Network Engineer
2 17 (11.49%) Consultant
3 15 (10.14%) Senior
4 14 (9.46%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 14 (9.46%) Management Consultant
5 10 (6.76%) Cloud Engineer
6 9 (6.08%) Architect
6 9 (6.08%) Senior Network Engineer
7 8 (5.41%) Support Engineer
8 7 (4.73%) Administrator
8 7 (4.73%) DBA
8 7 (4.73%) Lead
8 7 (4.73%) SQL DBA
9 6 (4.05%) Analyst
9 6 (4.05%) Firewall Specialist
9 6 (4.05%) Network Architect
9 6 (4.05%) Network Manager
9 6 (4.05%) Network Specialist
10 5 (3.38%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
10 5 (3.38%) SQL Server DBA
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (13.51%) REST
2 15 (10.14%) 802.1X
3 11 (7.43%) Terraform
4 4 (2.70%) SAML
5 3 (2.03%) Elastic Stack
5 3 (2.03%) LDAP
6 1 (0.68%) ARM Templates
6 1 (0.68%) Loki
6 1 (0.68%) OpenTelemetry
6 1 (0.68%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 23 (15.54%) Data Centre
2 14 (9.46%) PKI
3 9 (6.08%) Clustering
4 7 (4.73%) Cloud Native
4 7 (4.73%) CMDB
4 7 (4.73%) Hybrid Cloud
5 6 (4.05%) Onboarding
6 5 (3.38%) Replication
7 4 (2.70%) Cyber Threat
7 4 (2.70%) Data Protection Act
7 4 (2.70%) Fibre Optics
7 4 (2.70%) Private Cloud
8 3 (2.03%) CSOC
8 3 (2.03%) Cyber Defence
8 3 (2.03%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 3 (2.03%) Driving Licence
8 3 (2.03%) Operational Technology
8 3 (2.03%) Security Operations Centre
8 3 (2.03%) Security Posture
9 2 (1.35%) EMC VNX
Operating Systems
1 79 (53.38%) Windows
2 51 (34.46%) Linux
3 19 (12.84%) AIX
4 14 (9.46%) Windows Server
5 8 (5.41%) Windows Server 2019
6 2 (1.35%) Data ONTAP
6 2 (1.35%) Unix
7 1 (0.68%) Check Point GAiA
7 1 (0.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.68%) Windows 10
7 1 (0.68%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 41 (27.70%) ITIL
2 30 (20.27%) Project Delivery
3 29 (19.59%) ITSM
4 28 (18.92%) High Availability
5 26 (17.57%) Network Monitoring
6 23 (15.54%) Technical Leadership
7 21 (14.19%) Network Virtualisation
8 20 (13.51%) Problem-Solving
9 19 (12.84%) Continuous Improvement
9 19 (12.84%) Stakeholder Management
10 18 (12.16%) Observability
10 18 (12.16%) Service Delivery
11 17 (11.49%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 17 (11.49%) Load Balancing
11 17 (11.49%) Service Management
12 16 (10.81%) Agile
13 15 (10.14%) Disaster Recovery
14 14 (9.46%) Dashboard Development
15 13 (8.78%) Change Management
16 12 (8.11%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 44 (29.73%) PowerShell
2 37 (25.00%) Python
3 30 (20.27%) SQL
4 17 (11.49%) Search Processing Language
5 16 (10.81%) Bash
6 6 (4.05%) T-SQL
7 4 (2.70%) Perl
8 1 (0.68%) Java
8 1 (0.68%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 83 (56.08%) Security Cleared
2 39 (26.35%) DV Cleared
3 36 (24.32%) SC Cleared
4 24 (16.22%) Cisco Certification
5 12 (8.11%) CCNA
6 9 (6.08%) CCNP
7 8 (5.41%) Microsoft Certification
7 8 (5.41%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
8 7 (4.73%) Degree
8 7 (4.73%) MCSE
9 5 (3.38%) Azure Certification
10 4 (2.70%) CCIE
10 4 (2.70%) MCSA
11 3 (2.03%) CCA
11 3 (2.03%) Citrix Certification
11 3 (2.03%) PMI Certification
11 3 (2.03%) PMP
12 2 (1.35%) CompTIA CySA+
12 2 (1.35%) NCDA
12 2 (1.35%) NCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (4.73%) NIST
2 6 (4.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 4 (2.70%) NCSC
4 2 (1.35%) JSP 440
4 2 (1.35%) SLA
5 1 (0.68%) Disclosure Scotland
5 1 (0.68%) GDPR
5 1 (0.68%) ISO/IEC 20000
5 1 (0.68%) PMO
5 1 (0.68%) QA
System Software
1 39 (26.35%) VMware Infrastructure
2 36 (24.32%) Active Directory
3 16 (10.81%) VMware NSX
4 14 (9.46%) VMware ESXi
5 10 (6.76%) vSphere
6 9 (6.08%) Hyper-V
7 8 (5.41%) Virtual Machines
8 3 (2.03%) NFS
9 2 (1.35%) EMC RecoverPoint
9 2 (1.35%) Firmware
9 2 (1.35%) SRDF
10 1 (0.68%) Docker
10 1 (0.68%) Samba
10 1 (0.68%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 26 (17.57%) Nagios
2 21 (14.19%) SCOM
2 21 (14.19%) ZABBIX
3 18 (12.16%) Netcool
4 17 (11.49%) Tivoli
5 15 (10.14%) OpenView
5 15 (10.14%) Tivoli Monitoring
5 15 (10.14%) vCenter Server
6 14 (9.46%) FortiGate
7 10 (6.76%) Ansible
7 10 (6.76%) SCCM
8 8 (5.41%) NetBackup
8 8 (5.41%) WMI
9 5 (3.38%) Kubernetes
10 4 (2.70%) Cisco CUCM
10 4 (2.70%) Grafana
11 3 (2.03%) Microsoft Intune
11 3 (2.03%) Prometheus
11 3 (2.03%) Single Sign-On
11 3 (2.03%) SolarWinds Orion
Vendors
1 80 (54.05%) Cisco
2 53 (35.81%) Splunk
3 47 (31.76%) VMware
4 43 (29.05%) Palo Alto
5 34 (22.97%) F5
6 33 (22.30%) Microsoft
7 25 (16.89%) ServiceNow
8 20 (13.51%) BMC
8 20 (13.51%) Fortinet
9 16 (10.81%) Aruba
9 16 (10.81%) IBM
10 15 (10.14%) HP
10 15 (10.14%) Juniper
11 11 (7.43%) Meraki
12 9 (6.08%) CheckPoint
12 9 (6.08%) Citrix
13 8 (5.41%) Broadcom
13 8 (5.41%) Veeam
14 7 (4.73%) Extreme Networks
14 7 (4.73%) NetApp