VCAP Contract Job Trends

VMware Certified Advanced Professional (VCAP, VCAP4)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for VCAP qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months leading up to 20 September 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 633 547 540
Rank change year-on-year -86 -7 +80
Contract jobs citing VCAP 41 15 17
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.075% 0.046% 0.044%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.24% 0.15% 0.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 31 6 2
10th Percentile £483 £323 £664
25th Percentile £514 £553 £666
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £575 £688
Median % change year-on-year +4.35% -16.36% +50.95%
75th Percentile £681 £634 £716
90th Percentile £800 £750 £721
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £575 £688
% change year-on-year +4.35% -16.36% +51.93%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 0 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - - -
Median hourly rate £98.82 - -
75th Percentile £99.12 - -
90th Percentile £99.65 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £98.82 - -

All Academic and Professional Certifications
UK

VCAP falls under the Academic Qualifications and Professional Certifications category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications.

Contract vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 17,262 10,340 11,257
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.62% 31.43% 29.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,479 6,462 6,913
10th Percentile £350 £300 £313
25th Percentile £440 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £527 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.29% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £713 £712 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,375 839 651
10th Percentile £17.01 £17.87 £17.00
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £24.18
Median hourly rate £47.54 £25.15 £49.00
Median % change year-on-year +89.03% -48.67% -9.26%
75th Percentile £72.54 £43.88 £68.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £71.00 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £52.50
% change year-on-year +88.87% -52.10% +1.18%

VCAP
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing VCAP relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

VCAP job vacancy trend in the UK

VCAP
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing VCAP.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing VCAP

VCAP
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing VCAP over the 6 months to 20 September 2026.

Daily rate histogram for VCAP in the UK

VCAP
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing VCAP.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing VCAP

VCAP
Top 7 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing VCAP within the UK over the 6 months to 20 September 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 -90 41 £600 +4.35% 20
UK excluding London -77 40 £600 +4.35% 11
South East -51 15 £610 +6.09% 7
Work from Home -58 15 £610 - 7
South West - 15 £715 - 3
North of England -58 10 £484 -
North West - 10 £484 -

VCAP
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:

Applications
1 1 (2.44%) Microsoft Project
Cloud Services
1 16 (39.02%) AWS
2 7 (17.07%) Azure
3 2 (4.88%) GCP
3 2 (4.88%) IaaS
4 1 (2.44%) Azure DevOps
Communications & Networking
1 31 (75.61%) VSAN
2 15 (36.59%) DNS
3 12 (29.27%) DHCP
3 12 (29.27%) Firewall
3 12 (29.27%) TCP/IP
4 2 (4.88%) NAS
4 2 (4.88%) SAN
4 2 (4.88%) Software-Defined Networking
5 1 (2.44%) LAN
5 1 (2.44%) WAN
Development Applications
1 1 (2.44%) JIRA
General
1 9 (21.95%) Public Sector
2 2 (4.88%) Analytical Skills
2 2 (4.88%) Social Skills
3 1 (2.44%) Documentation Skills
3 1 (2.44%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 12 (29.27%) Infrastructure Engineer
1 12 (29.27%) VMware Engineer
2 8 (19.51%) Platform Engineer
2 8 (19.51%) VMware Infrastructure Engineer
2 8 (19.51%) Wintel Engineer
3 7 (17.07%) Senior
4 6 (14.63%) Principal Engineer
4 6 (14.63%) Senior VMware Engineer
5 5 (12.20%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
6 4 (9.76%) Virtualisation Engineer
7 2 (4.88%) Architect
7 2 (4.88%) Infrastructure Architect
7 2 (4.88%) Infrastructure Specialist
7 2 (4.88%) VMware Architect
7 2 (4.88%) VMware Specialist
8 1 (2.44%) Consultant
8 1 (2.44%) Project Manager
8 1 (2.44%) VMware Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (36.59%) Terraform
Miscellaneous
1 17 (41.46%) Data Centre
2 12 (29.27%) PKI
3 11 (26.83%) Public Cloud
4 10 (24.39%) Replication
5 8 (19.51%) Clustering
6 7 (17.07%) Hybrid Cloud
7 4 (9.76%) Private Cloud
8 2 (4.88%) Cloud Native
Operating Systems
1 22 (53.66%) Windows
2 14 (34.15%) Linux
3 10 (24.39%) Windows Server
4 2 (4.88%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 2 (4.88%) Ubuntu
4 2 (4.88%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 22 (53.66%) Network Virtualisation
2 16 (39.02%) Infrastructure as Code
3 15 (36.59%) Disaster Recovery
4 14 (34.15%) Customer Requirements
4 14 (34.15%) Technical Leadership
5 12 (29.27%) Converged Infrastructure
5 12 (29.27%) DevSecOps
5 12 (29.27%) High Availability
5 12 (29.27%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 12 (29.27%) Mentoring
5 12 (29.27%) Platform Engineering
5 12 (29.27%) SIEM
5 12 (29.27%) Systems Engineering
6 10 (24.39%) Capacity Planning
6 10 (24.39%) CI/CD
6 10 (24.39%) Problem-Solving
6 10 (24.39%) Project Delivery
7 9 (21.95%) Agile
8 8 (19.51%) Continuous Improvement
9 7 (17.07%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 24 (58.54%) PowerShell
2 16 (39.02%) Python
3 14 (34.15%) Bash
Qualifications
1 39 (95.12%) Security Cleared
2 29 (70.73%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
3 23 (56.10%) SC Cleared
4 22 (53.66%) DV Cleared
5 8 (19.51%) MCSA
5 8 (19.51%) MCSE
5 8 (19.51%) Microsoft Certification
6 6 (14.63%) AWS Certification
7 3 (7.32%) Degree
8 2 (4.88%) Computer Science Degree
9 1 (2.44%) Azure Certification
9 1 (2.44%) ITIL Certification
9 1 (2.44%) PMI Certification
9 1 (2.44%) PMP
System Software
1 40 (97.56%) VMware Infrastructure
2 33 (80.49%) VMware NSX
3 32 (78.05%) vSphere
4 27 (65.85%) VMware ESXi
5 12 (29.27%) Active Directory
6 10 (24.39%) Virtual Machines
7 7 (17.07%) Docker
7 7 (17.07%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 25 (60.98%) Ansible
1 25 (60.98%) vCenter Server
2 15 (36.59%) Kubernetes
3 12 (29.27%) VxRail
4 5 (12.20%) PowerCLI
5 4 (9.76%) vRealize
6 2 (4.88%) vMotion
6 2 (4.88%) vRealize Orchestrator
7 1 (2.44%) OPNET
Vendors
1 41 (100.00%) VMware
2 8 (19.51%) Cisco
2 8 (19.51%) Microsoft
3 7 (17.07%) Broadcom
4 3 (7.32%) CyberArk
4 3 (7.32%) SaltStack
4 3 (7.32%) Thales
5 1 (2.44%) Atlassian