vSphere Contract Job Trends

VMware vSphere
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring vSphere skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 7 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 391 350 375
Rank change year-on-year -41 +25 +9
Contract jobs citing vSphere 259 169 222
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.52% 0.58% 0.51%
As % of the System Software category 5.27% 4.70% 4.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 177 104 170
10th Percentile £365 £352 £300
25th Percentile £425 £472 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £550 £508
Median % change year-on-year -10.91% +8.37% +4.64%
75th Percentile £550 £603 £592
90th Percentile £600 £650 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £484 £550 £475
% change year-on-year -12.00% +15.79% +4.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 0 2
10th Percentile £48.40 - -
25th Percentile £50.50 - -
Median hourly rate £51.00 - £70.66
75th Percentile - - -
90th Percentile - - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £51.00 - £70.66
% change year-on-year - - +83.53%

All System Software Skills
UK

vSphere falls under the System Software category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring system software skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for system software skills 4,914 3,599 4,747
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.93% 12.31% 10.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,270 2,393 3,288
10th Percentile £220 £215 £203
25th Percentile £400 £388 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £592 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £700 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £475
% change year-on-year - - -0.84%
Number of hourly rates quoted 190 84 223
10th Percentile £16.00 £14.99 £14.06
25th Percentile £21.25 £15.44 £14.99
Median hourly rate £52.50 £28.46 £24.18
Median % change year-on-year +84.50% +17.68% -55.90%
75th Percentile £73.00 £66.00 £60.75
90th Percentile £77.65 £88.00 £79.60
UK excluding London median hourly rate £51.00 £37.07 £25.84
% change year-on-year +37.57% +43.47% -46.30%

vSphere
Job Vacancy Trend

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

vSphere job vacancy trend in the UK

vSphere
Daily Rate Trend

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

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

vSphere
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing vSphere over the 6 months to 7 June 2026.

Daily rate histogram for vSphere in the UK

vSphere
Hourly Rate Trend

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

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

vSphere
Top 14 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing vSphere within the UK over the 6 months to 7 June 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 -50 226 £490 -10.91% 65
UK excluding London -25 185 £484 -12.00% 56
North of England -30 72 £483 -0.92% 12
Work from Home -40 64 £500 -1.96% 33
London -75 45 £500 -4.76% 14
South East -70 43 £550 -4.35% 22
North West -17 39 £460 -9.80% 7
Midlands -19 36 £450 -17.05% 6
Yorkshire -37 33 £500 +5.26% 3
West Midlands -30 32 £450 -17.05% 4
Scotland - 14 £456 - 1
South West -19 13 £525 -8.70% 8
East of England -19 11 £510 -7.27% 3
East Midlands -23 4 £450 - 2

vSphere
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 5 (1.93%) OpenStack
2 4 (1.54%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (1.16%) SharePoint
4 2 (0.77%) Apache
4 2 (0.77%) CloudStack
5 1 (0.39%) MS Project Server
5 1 (0.39%) WordPress
Applications
1 3 (1.16%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.39%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 3 (1.16%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 70 (27.03%) Azure
2 50 (19.31%) AWS
3 38 (14.67%) OpenShift
4 21 (8.11%) GitHub
5 14 (5.41%) GCP
5 14 (5.41%) Microsoft 365
6 10 (3.86%) Nutanix
7 6 (2.32%) Amazon EC2
7 6 (2.32%) Entra ID
7 6 (2.32%) IaaS
8 4 (1.54%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 4 (1.54%) Azure Monitor
8 4 (1.54%) Azure Stack
9 3 (1.16%) Catchpoint
9 3 (1.16%) Rubrik
9 3 (1.16%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 2 (0.77%) Azure AKS
10 2 (0.77%) Azure Storage
10 2 (0.77%) Datadog
10 2 (0.77%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 60 (23.17%) VSAN
2 56 (21.62%) DNS
3 38 (14.67%) Firewall
4 37 (14.29%) DHCP
5 29 (11.20%) SAN
6 23 (8.88%) VLAN
7 19 (7.34%) WAN
8 18 (6.95%) LAN
9 14 (5.41%) NAS
10 11 (4.25%) Network Security
11 10 (3.86%) VPN
12 8 (3.09%) TCP/IP
13 7 (2.70%) NetScaler
13 7 (2.70%) Wi-Fi
14 5 (1.93%) Cisco Nexus
15 4 (1.54%) BGP
15 4 (1.54%) OSPF
15 4 (1.54%) SD-WAN
16 3 (1.16%) Calico
16 3 (1.16%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (3.09%) NonStop SQL
2 3 (1.16%) Data Mining
3 2 (0.77%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 22 (8.49%) Jenkins
2 3 (1.16%) GitLab
2 3 (1.16%) Sonatype Nexus
3 1 (0.39%) Git
3 1 (0.39%) GoCD
General
1 48 (18.53%) Social Skills
2 28 (10.81%) Finance
3 17 (6.56%) Legal
4 16 (6.18%) Analytical Skills
5 14 (5.41%) Banking
6 10 (3.86%) Public Sector
7 7 (2.70%) Documentation Skills
8 6 (2.32%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 5 (1.93%) Telecoms
10 2 (0.77%) Advertising
10 2 (0.77%) Pharmaceutical
11 1 (0.39%) Mandarin Language
11 1 (0.39%) Manufacturing
11 1 (0.39%) Military
11 1 (0.39%) Police
11 1 (0.39%) Presentation Skills
11 1 (0.39%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 63 (24.32%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 43 (16.60%) VMware Engineer
3 31 (11.97%) Architect
4 27 (10.42%) Senior
5 26 (10.04%) Consultant
6 21 (8.11%) Wintel Engineer
7 17 (6.56%) Senior VMware Engineer
8 16 (6.18%) Analyst
8 16 (6.18%) VMware Consultant
9 13 (5.02%) Cloud Engineer
9 13 (5.02%) Server Engineer
10 12 (4.63%) Storage Analyst
11 10 (3.86%) Infrastructure Analyst
12 9 (3.47%) Network Engineer
12 9 (3.47%) VMware Infrastructure Engineer
13 8 (3.09%) Infrastructure Services Engineer
14 7 (2.70%) Lead
14 7 (2.70%) Storage Engineer
14 7 (2.70%) VMware Architect
15 6 (2.32%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (5.79%) Flash
2 12 (4.63%) OpenTelemetry
3 3 (1.16%) REST
3 3 (1.16%) YAML
4 2 (0.77%) Elastic Stack
5 1 (0.39%) 802.1X
5 1 (0.39%) cloud-init
5 1 (0.39%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 50 (19.31%) Replication
2 40 (15.44%) Hybrid Cloud
3 33 (12.74%) Data Centre
4 23 (8.88%) Clustering
5 22 (8.49%) Cloud Native
6 18 (6.95%) Linux Command Line
7 9 (3.47%) Private Cloud
8 7 (2.70%) Enterprise Storage
9 6 (2.32%) FlexPod
9 6 (2.32%) Public Cloud
10 4 (1.54%) Data Protection Act
11 3 (1.16%) Distributed Systems
11 3 (1.16%) EMC VMAX
11 3 (1.16%) EMC VNX
11 3 (1.16%) Onboarding
12 2 (0.77%) Distributed Computing
12 2 (0.77%) Greenfield Project
12 2 (0.77%) PKI
12 2 (0.77%) Product Ownership
13 1 (0.39%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 103 (39.77%) Windows
2 82 (31.66%) Windows Server
3 65 (25.10%) Linux
4 23 (8.88%) Windows Server 2019
5 17 (6.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 14 (5.41%) VMS
7 13 (5.02%) Windows Server 2016
8 11 (4.25%) Ubuntu
9 10 (3.86%) Data ONTAP
10 7 (2.70%) SUSE
11 6 (2.32%) CoreOS
12 5 (1.93%) Unix
12 5 (1.93%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.77%) CentOS
13 2 (0.77%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
14 1 (0.39%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 70 (27.03%) Migration
2 66 (25.48%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 65 (25.10%) Disaster Recovery
4 57 (22.01%) High Availability
5 43 (16.60%) Problem-Solving
6 35 (13.51%) DevOps
7 34 (13.13%) Capacity Planning
8 33 (12.74%) Network Virtualisation
9 32 (12.36%) CI/CD
10 29 (11.20%) Load Balancing
11 28 (10.81%) Performance Tuning
12 27 (10.42%) Containerisation
13 23 (8.88%) Project Delivery
14 21 (8.11%) Root Cause Analysis
15 20 (7.72%) Infrastructure as Code
15 20 (7.72%) Platform Engineering
16 19 (7.34%) Agile
17 18 (6.95%) RBAC
17 18 (6.95%) Virtual Infrastructure
18 16 (6.18%) Knowledge Transfer
Programming Languages
1 65 (25.10%) PowerShell
2 40 (15.44%) Python
3 26 (10.04%) Bash
4 2 (0.77%) C
5 1 (0.39%) SQL
5 1 (0.39%) VB
Qualifications
1 84 (32.43%) Security Cleared
2 62 (23.94%) SC Cleared
3 40 (15.44%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
4 23 (8.88%) VCAP
5 22 (8.49%) DV Cleared
6 20 (7.72%) MCSE
6 20 (7.72%) Microsoft Certification
7 19 (7.34%) MCSA
8 13 (5.02%) OCP
8 13 (5.02%) Oracle Certification
9 9 (3.47%) Cisco Certification
10 8 (3.09%) Azure Certification
11 7 (2.70%) CCNP
12 6 (2.32%) Degree
13 4 (1.54%) BPSS Clearance
14 3 (1.16%) CCA
14 3 (1.16%) Citrix Certification
15 2 (0.77%) AWS Certification
15 2 (0.77%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 2 (0.77%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (3.47%) SLA
2 3 (1.16%) Government Security Classifications
2 3 (1.16%) NCSC
3 2 (0.77%) RMADS
4 1 (0.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 1 (0.39%) NIST
4 1 (0.39%) QA
System Software
1 183 (70.66%) VMware Infrastructure
2 118 (45.56%) VMware ESXi
3 91 (35.14%) VMware NSX
4 54 (20.85%) Virtual Machines
5 52 (20.08%) Active Directory
6 26 (10.04%) Hyper-V
7 22 (8.49%) NFS
8 14 (5.41%) GPFS
9 8 (3.09%) Virtual Desktop
10 7 (2.70%) Docker
10 7 (2.70%) KVM
11 5 (1.93%) Firmware
12 3 (1.16%) DFS Replication
13 2 (0.77%) EMC RecoverPoint
13 2 (0.77%) SRDF
13 2 (0.77%) vCloud
14 1 (0.39%) ProxySG
14 1 (0.39%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 101 (39.00%) vCenter Server
2 74 (28.57%) Ansible
3 54 (20.85%) Kubernetes
4 34 (13.13%) vRealize
5 32 (12.36%) Terraform
6 22 (8.49%) Argo
7 21 (8.11%) PowerCLI
8 19 (7.34%) VxRail
9 17 (6.56%) Grafana
10 13 (5.02%) SCCM
11 12 (4.63%) NetBackup
12 10 (3.86%) vMotion
13 9 (3.47%) SnapMirror
14 8 (3.09%) Microsoft Intune
14 8 (3.09%) SCOM
15 5 (1.93%) Prometheus
16 4 (1.54%) Active Directory Federation Services
16 4 (1.54%) Failover Clustering
16 4 (1.54%) WSUS
17 3 (1.16%) EMC NetWorker
Vendors
1 247 (95.37%) VMware
2 57 (22.01%) Cisco
3 56 (21.62%) Microsoft
4 34 (13.13%) Dell
5 31 (11.97%) Veeam
6 25 (9.65%) Red Hat
7 23 (8.88%) Pure Storage
8 19 (7.34%) ServiceNow
9 18 (6.95%) NetApp
10 14 (5.41%) IBM
10 14 (5.41%) Oracle
11 13 (5.02%) Zerto
12 12 (4.63%) Splunk
13 11 (4.25%) SolarWinds
14 10 (3.86%) Citrix
14 10 (3.86%) Veritas
15 7 (2.70%) 3PAR
16 6 (2.32%) F5
16 6 (2.32%) Fortinet
16 6 (2.32%) Google