Virtual Machines Contract Job Trends in England

Virtual Machine (VM)
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in England requiring Virtual Machines skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 29 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

 6 months to
29 May 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 350 320 284
Rank change year-on-year -30 -36 +35
Contract jobs citing Virtual Machines 266 156 280
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.64% 0.65% 0.76%
As % of the System Software category 6.21% 5.12% 6.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 184 105 197
10th Percentile £356 £350 £312
25th Percentile £424 £425 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% -3.23%
75th Percentile £570 £625 £608
90th Percentile £650 £750 £675
UK median daily rate £500 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% -2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 7 27
10th Percentile £26.00 - -
25th Percentile £48.00 £33.25 £14.06
Median hourly rate £70.00 £34.50 £14.63
Median % change year-on-year +102.90% +135.90% -77.84%
75th Percentile - £50.13 £15.19
90th Percentile - £65.10 £86.97
UK median hourly rate £70.00 £34.50 £14.63
% change year-on-year +102.90% +135.90% -77.84%

All System Software Skills
England

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 England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for system software skills 4,285 3,046 4,072
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 10.25% 12.73% 11.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,880 2,083 2,863
10th Percentile £213 £214 £200
25th Percentile £400 £388 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% +2.50% -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £620 £608
90th Percentile £688 £700 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 169 68 205
10th Percentile £16.85 £14.99 £14.06
25th Percentile £25.72 £17.93 £14.48
Median hourly rate £53.00 £28.46 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year +86.26% +29.34% -57.80%
75th Percentile £73.00 £63.00 £58.69
90th Percentile £79.00 £88.00 £76.80
UK median hourly rate £52.50 £28.41 £23.80
% change year-on-year +84.79% +19.37% -56.59%

Virtual Machines
Job Vacancy Trend in England

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

Virtual Machines job vacancy trend in England

Virtual Machines
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Virtual Machines.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Virtual Machines

Virtual Machines
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Virtual Machines in England over the 6 months to 29 May 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Virtual Machines in England

Virtual Machines
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Virtual Machines.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Virtual Machines

Virtual Machines
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Virtual Machines in England over the 6 months to 29 May 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Virtual Machines in England

Virtual Machines
Contract Job Locations in England

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 England region over the 6 months to 29 May 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
London -66 98 £531 -7.61% 11
North of England -2 93 £475 +26.67% 6
Yorkshire -10 49 £500 +5.26% 1
North West -6 42 £463 +23.33% 5
South East -23 39 £532 -7.48% 19
Midlands -60 16 £438 -12.15% 4
West Midlands -63 13 £425 -14.66% 3
South West -24 9 £360 -24.21% 3
East of England -28 8 £425 -19.05% 3
North East -27 2 £400 +10.34%
East Midlands -27 1 £500 -4.76% 1
Virtual Machines
UK

Virtual Machines
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England 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 (1.88%) SharePoint
2 4 (1.50%) OpenStack
3 3 (1.13%) Confluence
3 3 (1.13%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (1.13%) Palantir Foundry
4 2 (0.75%) Apache
4 2 (0.75%) CMS
4 2 (0.75%) Umbraco
5 1 (0.38%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.38%) ArcGIS
5 1 (0.38%) IIS
5 1 (0.38%) nginx
5 1 (0.38%) WebLogic
Applications
1 4 (1.50%) Adobe Illustrator
1 4 (1.50%) Photoshop
2 2 (0.75%) Chatbot
3 1 (0.38%) InDesign
3 1 (0.38%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 1 (0.38%) SAP SD
1 1 (0.38%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 102 (38.35%) Azure
2 41 (15.41%) AWS
3 33 (12.41%) OpenShift
4 26 (9.77%) Azure DevOps
4 26 (9.77%) GitHub
5 23 (8.65%) Entra ID
6 18 (6.77%) Azure Monitor
6 18 (6.77%) GitHub Actions
7 17 (6.39%) GCP
8 16 (6.02%) Azure AKS
9 13 (4.89%) Serverless
10 12 (4.51%) Microsoft 365
11 11 (4.14%) Azure Storage
12 10 (3.76%) Azure Key Vault
13 9 (3.38%) Nutanix
14 7 (2.63%) Azure Functions
14 7 (2.63%) IaaS
15 6 (2.26%) Azure Logic Apps
15 6 (2.26%) Cohesity
15 6 (2.26%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 34 (12.78%) DNS
2 33 (12.41%) Firewall
3 23 (8.65%) VPN
4 20 (7.52%) Network Security
5 18 (6.77%) VLAN
6 17 (6.39%) DHCP
7 15 (5.64%) VSAN
8 12 (4.51%) WAN
9 11 (4.14%) SSL
10 10 (3.76%) SD-WAN
11 8 (3.01%) SAN
12 7 (2.63%) LAN
12 7 (2.63%) TCP/IP
13 6 (2.26%) FTP
14 4 (1.50%) Reverse Proxy
14 4 (1.50%) Wi-Fi
15 2 (0.75%) Cisco Nexus
15 2 (0.75%) IPsec
15 2 (0.75%) NAS
15 2 (0.75%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (7.14%) SQL Server
2 7 (2.63%) Azure SQL Database
3 6 (2.26%) DB2
3 6 (2.26%) PostgreSQL
3 6 (2.26%) Power BI
4 5 (1.88%) Oracle Database
5 4 (1.50%) Oracle Reports
6 3 (1.13%) Amazon RDS
6 3 (1.13%) Data Warehouse
7 1 (0.38%) Amazon QuickSight
7 1 (0.38%) Data Hub
7 1 (0.38%) Oracle Exadata
7 1 (0.38%) Power Query
7 1 (0.38%) Relational Database
7 1 (0.38%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 1 (0.38%) Weaviate
Development Applications
1 24 (9.02%) Git
2 14 (5.26%) Jenkins
3 11 (4.14%) GitLab
4 10 (3.76%) JIRA
5 5 (1.88%) PVCS
5 5 (1.88%) Rational DOORS
6 2 (0.75%) JMeter
6 2 (0.75%) Postman
6 2 (0.75%) Selenium
6 2 (0.75%) Sonatype Nexus
6 2 (0.75%) Team Foundation Server
6 2 (0.75%) Terragrunt
7 1 (0.38%) Gradle
7 1 (0.38%) RStudio
General
1 35 (13.16%) Social Skills
2 23 (8.65%) Finance
3 12 (4.51%) Analytical Skills
4 11 (4.14%) Banking
4 11 (4.14%) Legal
5 10 (3.76%) Public Sector
6 7 (2.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 6 (2.26%) Retail
8 5 (1.88%) Electronics
9 4 (1.50%) Front Office
10 3 (1.13%) Documentation Skills
10 3 (1.13%) Marketing
11 2 (0.75%) Law
11 2 (0.75%) Manufacturing
11 2 (0.75%) Pharmaceutical
12 1 (0.38%) Advertising
12 1 (0.38%) Back Office
12 1 (0.38%) Influencing Skills
12 1 (0.38%) Publishing
12 1 (0.38%) Social Science
Job Titles
1 33 (12.41%) DevOps Engineer
2 23 (8.65%) Azure Engineer
3 21 (7.89%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 19 (7.14%) Senior
5 18 (6.77%) Wintel Engineer
6 15 (5.64%) Cloud Engineer
7 14 (5.26%) Lead
8 13 (4.89%) Analyst
9 12 (4.51%) Architect
10 10 (3.76%) Administrator
10 10 (3.76%) VMware Engineer
11 8 (3.01%) Azure DevOps Engineer
11 8 (3.01%) Security Engineer
12 7 (2.63%) Linux Engineer
13 6 (2.26%) Consultant
13 6 (2.26%) Data Engineer
13 6 (2.26%) Product Owner
13 6 (2.26%) Senior VMware Engineer
13 6 (2.26%) Technical Specialist
14 5 (1.88%) C/C++ Embedded Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (3.01%) ARM Templates
1 8 (3.01%) REST
2 6 (2.26%) YAML
3 5 (1.88%) Middleware
4 3 (1.13%) Hugging Face
4 3 (1.13%) JSON
5 2 (0.75%) OpenCV
5 2 (0.75%) PySpark
5 2 (0.75%) PyTorch
5 2 (0.75%) Regular Expression
5 2 (0.75%) SOAP
5 2 (0.75%) SpaCy
5 2 (0.75%) TensorFlow
6 1 (0.38%) Elastic Stack
6 1 (0.38%) Kafka
6 1 (0.38%) Lambda Expressions
6 1 (0.38%) Node.js
6 1 (0.38%) Oracle GoldenGate
6 1 (0.38%) Pandas
6 1 (0.38%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 29 (10.90%) Replication
2 25 (9.40%) Data Centre
3 23 (8.65%) Clustering
4 14 (5.26%) Hybrid Cloud
5 11 (4.14%) Linux Command Line
6 10 (3.76%) Cloud Native
7 9 (3.38%) Product Ownership
8 7 (2.63%) Private Cloud
9 6 (2.26%) Operational Technology
10 5 (1.88%) Cyber Threat
10 5 (1.88%) FlexPod
10 5 (1.88%) Onboarding
10 5 (1.88%) PKI
11 4 (1.50%) Mainframe
12 3 (1.13%) Data Protection Act
12 3 (1.13%) Enterprise Storage
12 3 (1.13%) Fixed Income
12 3 (1.13%) Market Risk
12 3 (1.13%) Public Cloud
12 3 (1.13%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 84 (31.58%) Windows
2 69 (25.94%) Linux
3 48 (18.05%) Windows Server
4 30 (11.28%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 27 (10.15%) VMS
6 9 (3.38%) AIX
6 9 (3.38%) Unix
7 7 (2.63%) CoreOS
8 6 (2.26%) Data ONTAP
9 4 (1.50%) SUSE
10 3 (1.13%) Apple iOS
10 3 (1.13%) Ubuntu
10 3 (1.13%) Windows Server 2019
11 2 (0.75%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.75%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.38%) Android
12 1 (0.38%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 72 (27.07%) CI/CD
2 69 (25.94%) DevOps
3 57 (21.43%) Migration
4 47 (17.67%) Infrastructure as Code
5 43 (16.17%) High Availability
6 41 (15.41%) Disaster Recovery
7 37 (13.91%) Network Virtualisation
7 37 (13.91%) Performance Tuning
8 34 (12.78%) Continuous Improvement
8 34 (12.78%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 32 (12.03%) Capacity Planning
10 23 (8.65%) Containerisation
11 22 (8.27%) Storage Management
12 21 (7.89%) Cybersecurity
12 21 (7.89%) Vulnerability Management
13 20 (7.52%) Problem-Solving
13 20 (7.52%) Validation
14 19 (7.14%) Platform Engineering
14 19 (7.14%) RBAC
15 18 (6.77%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 73 (27.44%) PowerShell
2 65 (24.44%) Python
3 44 (16.54%) Bash
4 35 (13.16%) SQL
5 9 (3.38%) Bicep
6 7 (2.63%) C
7 6 (2.26%) Shell Script
8 5 (1.88%) C++
8 5 (1.88%) Embedded C
8 5 (1.88%) Embedded C++
9 4 (1.50%) C#
9 4 (1.50%) Java
9 4 (1.50%) PL/SQL
10 2 (0.75%) Go
10 2 (0.75%) Korn
10 2 (0.75%) Ruby
11 1 (0.38%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 1 (0.38%) Groovy
11 1 (0.38%) Kotlin
11 1 (0.38%) RPG
Qualifications
1 63 (23.68%) Security Cleared
2 50 (18.80%) SC Cleared
3 22 (8.27%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
4 19 (7.14%) VCAP
5 17 (6.39%) Microsoft Certification
6 16 (6.02%) MCSA
6 16 (6.02%) MCSE
7 14 (5.26%) Azure Certification
8 10 (3.76%) OCP
8 10 (3.76%) Oracle Certification
9 8 (3.01%) Degree
10 5 (1.88%) DV Cleared
11 3 (1.13%) BPSS Clearance
11 3 (1.13%) CISSP
11 3 (1.13%) ISTQB
11 3 (1.13%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
11 3 (1.13%) PMI Certification
11 3 (1.13%) PMP
12 2 (0.75%) CISM
12 2 (0.75%) RHCE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (4.14%) QA
2 4 (1.50%) GDPR
3 2 (0.75%) Accessibility
3 2 (0.75%) GMP
3 2 (0.75%) GxP
4 1 (0.38%) Cyber Essentials
4 1 (0.38%) Data Quality
4 1 (0.38%) HIPAA
4 1 (0.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 1 (0.38%) NIST
4 1 (0.38%) PCI DSS
4 1 (0.38%) SLA
4 1 (0.38%) SOC 2
4 1 (0.38%) WCAG
System Software
1 89 (33.46%) VMware Infrastructure
2 49 (18.42%) vSphere
3 42 (15.79%) VMware ESXi
4 34 (12.78%) Active Directory
5 29 (10.90%) Hyper-V
6 18 (6.77%) Docker
7 16 (6.02%) KVM
8 9 (3.38%) Firmware
8 9 (3.38%) NFS
8 9 (3.38%) VMware NSX
9 8 (3.01%) Ceph
10 5 (1.88%) Virtual Desktop
11 3 (1.13%) VMware Workstation
12 2 (0.75%) EMC RecoverPoint
12 2 (0.75%) Veritas Volume Manager
13 1 (0.38%) BitLocker
13 1 (0.38%) NLBS
13 1 (0.38%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 61 (22.93%) Ansible
1 61 (22.93%) Terraform
2 47 (17.67%) Kubernetes
3 39 (14.66%) vCenter Server
4 14 (5.26%) PowerCLI
5 8 (3.01%) Grafana
5 8 (3.01%) SCCM
6 6 (2.26%) IBM BigFix
6 6 (2.26%) Prometheus
6 6 (2.26%) SnapMirror
6 6 (2.26%) VxRail
7 5 (1.88%) Microsoft Intune
7 5 (1.88%) WSUS
8 4 (1.50%) Argo
8 4 (1.50%) Data Guard
8 4 (1.50%) Failover Clustering
8 4 (1.50%) Microsoft Clustering
8 4 (1.50%) Oracle RMAN
9 3 (1.13%) Podman
9 3 (1.13%) vMotion
Vendors
1 93 (34.96%) VMware
2 70 (26.32%) Microsoft
3 34 (12.78%) Cisco
4 20 (7.52%) Red Hat
5 17 (6.39%) IBM
6 13 (4.89%) Google
6 13 (4.89%) Oracle
7 12 (4.51%) NetApp
8 10 (3.76%) Veeam
9 9 (3.38%) Dell
10 7 (2.63%) Qualys
11 6 (2.26%) CyberArk
11 6 (2.26%) Palo Alto
11 6 (2.26%) ServiceNow
11 6 (2.26%) SolarWinds
11 6 (2.26%) Tenable
12 5 (1.88%) ANSYS
12 5 (1.88%) Commvault
12 5 (1.88%) Databricks
13 4 (1.50%) CheckPoint
44 Virtual Machines jobs in England