  We investigate the $1+1+2$ covariant formalism in the presence of
nonmetricity. Focusing on static and Locally Rotationally Symmetric spacetimes,
we show how nonmetricity affects all the kinematic quantities involved in the
covariant $1+1+2$ decomposition. We apply the resulting geometrical framework
to study spherically symmetric solutions in the context of $f(\mathcal{Q})$
gravity in vacuum. We obtain explicit solutions and sufficient conditions for
the existence of Schwarzschild-de Sitter type solutions.
