•Growth of epitaxial VO2 films on sapphire by DC Reactive magnetron sputtering.•Films exhibit state of the art five orders of magnitude electrical resistivity change.•Electrical performances highly influenced by the deposition and annealing temperatures.•Excellent reproducibility and stability of thermal switching. Epitaxial vanadium dioxide (VO2) films exhibiting an abrupt metal-insulator transition with resistivity ratios of five orders of magnitude have been grown on (001)-oriented sapphire substrates by reactive magnetron sputtering. The influence of deposition and annealing temperature on the structure and morphology of the layers are discussed as well as their impact on the films’ electrical properties. Thus, the VO2 layers obtained using the optimal experimental conditions have electrical resistivity ratios over 105 and can be obtained on substrates as large as three-inch in diameter. The combination of the scalability of magnetron sputtering and the high quality of the films enables the large-scale industrial applications of high quality VO2 layers.