Virtual Machines Contract Job Trends in the East Midlands

Virtual Machine (VM)
England > East Midlands

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the East Midlands requiring Virtual Machines skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 4 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 73 67 61
Rank change year-on-year -6 -6 +1
Contract jobs citing Virtual Machines 4 2 1
As % of all contract jobs in the East Midlands 0.34% 0.26% 0.13%
As % of the System Software category 3.77% 2.33% 1.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 2 1 1
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - £463 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £575
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -17.39% +0.88%
75th Percentile - £488 £588
90th Percentile - - -
England median daily rate £500 £500 £550
% change year-on-year - -9.09% +4.76%

All System Software Skills
East Midlands

Virtual Machines 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 in the East Midlands.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for system software skills 106 86 100
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the East Midlands 9.12% 11.15% 13.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 62 60 67
10th Percentile £131 £185 £160
25th Percentile £194 £265 £263
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £401 £415 £375
Median % change year-on-year -3.37% +10.67% +11.11%
75th Percentile £519 £523 £499
90th Percentile £668 £550 £549
England median daily rate £500 £500 £513
% change year-on-year - -2.44% -2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 1 3
10th Percentile - - £19.15
25th Percentile £12.76 - £20.63
Median hourly rate £21.63 £15.09 £24.20
Median % change year-on-year +43.31% -37.64% +15.24%
75th Percentile £74.00 - £38.60
90th Percentile - - £46.58
England median hourly rate £60.00 £37.50 £23.80
% change year-on-year +60.00% +57.56% -40.50%

Virtual Machines
Job Vacancy Trend in the East Midlands

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Virtual Machines relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the East Midlands.

Virtual Machines job vacancy trend in the East Midlands

Virtual Machines
Daily Rate Trend in the East Midlands

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the East Midlands citing Virtual Machines.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the East Midlands citing Virtual Machines

Virtual Machines
Hourly Rate Trend in the East Midlands

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the East Midlands citing Virtual Machines.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the East Midlands citing Virtual Machines

Virtual Machines
Contract Job Locations in the East Midlands

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Virtual Machines within the East Midlands region over the 6 months to 4 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
Derbyshire - 4 £500 -
Virtual Machines
England

Virtual Machines
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the East Midlands 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:

Cloud Services
1 3 (75.00%) Azure
1 3 (75.00%) Azure AKS
1 3 (75.00%) Azure Data Factory
1 3 (75.00%) Azure Monitor
1 3 (75.00%) Entra ID
1 3 (75.00%) IaaS
1 3 (75.00%) PaaS
1 3 (75.00%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 3 (75.00%) Firewall
2 1 (25.00%) Network Security
2 1 (25.00%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (75.00%) Data Lake
1 3 (75.00%) PostgreSQL
2 2 (50.00%) Azure SQL Database
3 1 (25.00%) SQL Server
General
1 2 (50.00%) Manufacturing
2 1 (25.00%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 3 (75.00%) Cloud Engineer
2 2 (50.00%) Azure Engineer
3 1 (25.00%) Azure Infrastructure Engineer
3 1 (25.00%) Cloud Infrastructure Engineer
3 1 (25.00%) Configuration Engineer
3 1 (25.00%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 1 (25.00%) Microsoft Engineer
3 1 (25.00%) Senior
3 1 (25.00%) Senior Cloud Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (75.00%) ARM Templates
Miscellaneous
1 1 (25.00%) Device Driver
1 1 (25.00%) Enterprise Cloud
1 1 (25.00%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 3 (75.00%) Linux
1 3 (75.00%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
1 3 (75.00%) Ubuntu
2 2 (50.00%) Windows
3 1 (25.00%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 3 (75.00%) Analytics
1 3 (75.00%) DevOps
1 3 (75.00%) Log Analytics
1 3 (75.00%) Migration
2 2 (50.00%) Agile
2 2 (50.00%) Architecture Governance
2 2 (50.00%) Cloud Security
2 2 (50.00%) Containerisation
2 2 (50.00%) Deployment Automation
2 2 (50.00%) Disaster Recovery
2 2 (50.00%) High Availability
2 2 (50.00%) Infrastructure as Code
2 2 (50.00%) Network Virtualisation
3 1 (25.00%) Application Packaging
3 1 (25.00%) Batch Scripting
3 1 (25.00%) Digital Engineering
3 1 (25.00%) Information Security
3 1 (25.00%) Load Balancing
3 1 (25.00%) Platform Engineering
3 1 (25.00%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 4 (100.00%) PowerShell
2 2 (50.00%) SQL
Qualifications
1 4 (100.00%) SC Cleared
1 4 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 1 (25.00%) Computer Science Degree
2 1 (25.00%) Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (25.00%) QA
System Software
1 2 (50.00%) Active Directory
1 2 (50.00%) Docker
2 1 (25.00%) BitLocker
2 1 (25.00%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 3 (75.00%) Kubernetes
2 1 (25.00%) SCCM
Vendors
1 3 (75.00%) Databricks
2 2 (50.00%) Microsoft
3 1 (25.00%) Dell
3 1 (25.00%) HP