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 26 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 350 338 294
Rank change year-on-year -12 -44 +44
Contract jobs citing Virtual Machines 281 151 274
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.65% 0.60% 0.73%
As % of the System Software category 6.46% 4.77% 6.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 193 102 196
10th Percentile £357 £350 £339
25th Percentile £424 £414 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £507 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.33% -7.86% +4.76%
75th Percentile £575 £611 £608
90th Percentile £650 £750 £675
UK median daily rate £498 £507 £535
% change year-on-year -1.65% -5.28% +1.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 6 25
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - £33.25 £14.06
Median hourly rate £26.00 £34.50 £14.63
Median % change year-on-year -24.64% +135.90% -77.84%
75th Percentile £48.00 £57.31 £15.19
90th Percentile £61.20 £65.25 £56.21
UK median hourly rate £26.00 £34.50 £14.63
% change year-on-year -24.64% +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 4,349 3,164 4,199
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 10.02% 12.55% 11.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,906 2,094 2,916
10th Percentile £213 £215 £207
25th Percentile £400 £379 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £606 £608
90th Percentile £675 £700 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 169 73 201
10th Percentile £16.00 £14.99 £14.06
25th Percentile £23.00 £21.25 £14.48
Median hourly rate £53.00 £28.50 £22.40
Median % change year-on-year +85.96% +27.23% -55.20%
75th Percentile £74.00 £66.00 £58.69
90th Percentile £77.50 £88.60 £70.66
UK median hourly rate £51.00 £28.00 £24.18
% change year-on-year +82.14% +15.80% -55.22%

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 26 June 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 26 June 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 26 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
London -44 108 £525 -4.55% 19
North of England +11 96 £483 +27.78% 9
Yorkshire +3 56 £500 +5.26% 3
South East -33 41 £475 -17.39% 22
North West -15 38 £463 +23.17% 6
Midlands -64 18 £450 -9.64% 5
South West -21 14 £470 -1.05% 7
West Midlands -62 12 £425 -14.66% 4
East of England -29 5 £425 -19.12% 8
East Midlands -8 4 £500 -4.76% 1
North East -31 2 £400 +10.34%
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 4 (1.42%) SharePoint
2 3 (1.07%) Confluence
2 3 (1.07%) Palantir Foundry
3 2 (0.71%) Apache
3 2 (0.71%) CMS
3 2 (0.71%) Microsoft Exchange
3 2 (0.71%) Umbraco
4 1 (0.36%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (0.36%) ArcGIS
4 1 (0.36%) IIS
4 1 (0.36%) nginx
4 1 (0.36%) OpenStack
4 1 (0.36%) WebLogic
Applications
1 5 (1.78%) Adobe Illustrator
1 5 (1.78%) Photoshop
2 2 (0.71%) Chatbot
2 2 (0.71%) InDesign
3 1 (0.36%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 2 (0.71%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.36%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 121 (43.06%) Azure
2 41 (14.59%) AWS
3 34 (12.10%) OpenShift
4 33 (11.74%) Entra ID
5 26 (9.25%) Azure Monitor
5 26 (9.25%) GitHub
6 25 (8.90%) Azure DevOps
7 24 (8.54%) Azure AKS
8 18 (6.41%) GCP
8 18 (6.41%) GitHub Actions
9 15 (5.34%) Serverless
10 14 (4.98%) Azure Key Vault
11 13 (4.63%) Azure Storage
12 11 (3.91%) Azure Functions
12 11 (3.91%) Microsoft 365
13 10 (3.56%) Azure ExpressRoute
14 9 (3.20%) IaaS
15 8 (2.85%) Nutanix
16 7 (2.49%) Azure Logic Apps
16 7 (2.49%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 40 (14.23%) DNS
2 38 (13.52%) Firewall
3 26 (9.25%) VPN
4 23 (8.19%) Network Security
5 19 (6.76%) DHCP
6 18 (6.41%) VLAN
7 17 (6.05%) WAN
8 15 (5.34%) SSL
8 15 (5.34%) VSAN
9 11 (3.91%) SD-WAN
10 8 (2.85%) FTP
10 8 (2.85%) SAN
11 7 (2.49%) LAN
12 5 (1.78%) SSH
12 5 (1.78%) Wi-Fi
13 4 (1.42%) HTTPS
13 4 (1.42%) TCP/IP
14 3 (1.07%) Cisco Nexus
14 3 (1.07%) Reverse Proxy
15 2 (0.71%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (8.90%) SQL Server
2 13 (4.63%) Azure SQL Database
3 11 (3.91%) PostgreSQL
4 7 (2.49%) Data Lake
5 6 (2.14%) Db2
5 6 (2.14%) Power BI
6 3 (1.07%) Data Warehouse
6 3 (1.07%) Oracle Database
7 1 (0.36%) Amazon QuickSight
7 1 (0.36%) Neo4j
7 1 (0.36%) Oracle Exadata
7 1 (0.36%) Oracle Reports
7 1 (0.36%) Power Query
7 1 (0.36%) Relational Database
7 1 (0.36%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 17 (6.05%) Git
2 12 (4.27%) Jenkins
3 9 (3.20%) GitLab
4 6 (2.14%) JIRA
5 2 (0.71%) JMeter
5 2 (0.71%) Postman
5 2 (0.71%) Selenium
5 2 (0.71%) Sonatype Nexus
5 2 (0.71%) Team Foundation Server
5 2 (0.71%) Terragrunt
6 1 (0.36%) PVCS
6 1 (0.36%) Rational DOORS
6 1 (0.36%) RStudio
General
1 40 (14.23%) Social Skills
2 28 (9.96%) Finance
3 13 (4.63%) Banking
3 13 (4.63%) Legal
4 12 (4.27%) Analytical Skills
5 9 (3.20%) Public Sector
6 7 (2.49%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 7 (2.49%) Retail
7 5 (1.78%) Documentation Skills
8 4 (1.42%) Front Office
8 4 (1.42%) Manufacturing
8 4 (1.42%) Marketing
9 2 (0.71%) Law
9 2 (0.71%) Pharmaceutical
9 2 (0.71%) Publishing
10 1 (0.36%) Advertising
10 1 (0.36%) Aerospace
10 1 (0.36%) Electronics
10 1 (0.36%) Influencing Skills
10 1 (0.36%) Social Science
Job Titles
1 35 (12.46%) DevOps Engineer
2 27 (9.61%) Azure Engineer
3 25 (8.90%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 23 (8.19%) Cloud Engineer
4 23 (8.19%) Senior
5 16 (5.69%) Architect
6 15 (5.34%) Lead
7 14 (4.98%) Wintel Engineer
8 13 (4.63%) Analyst
9 10 (3.56%) VMware Engineer
10 9 (3.20%) Administrator
10 9 (3.20%) Technical Specialist
11 8 (2.85%) Azure DevOps Engineer
11 8 (2.85%) Linux Engineer
12 7 (2.49%) Azure Architect
12 7 (2.49%) Migration Engineer
12 7 (2.49%) Solutions Architect
13 6 (2.14%) Consultant
13 6 (2.14%) Security Engineer
13 6 (2.14%) Senior VMware Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (3.91%) ARM Templates
2 8 (2.85%) REST
3 7 (2.49%) YAML
4 4 (1.42%) Middleware
5 3 (1.07%) Hugging Face
5 3 (1.07%) JSON
6 2 (0.71%) Elastic Stack
6 2 (0.71%) OpenCV
6 2 (0.71%) PySpark
6 2 (0.71%) PyTorch
6 2 (0.71%) Regular Expression
6 2 (0.71%) SOAP
6 2 (0.71%) SpaCy
6 2 (0.71%) TensorFlow
7 1 (0.36%) Kafka
7 1 (0.36%) Node.js
7 1 (0.36%) NumPy
7 1 (0.36%) OpenID
7 1 (0.36%) SciPy
7 1 (0.36%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 25 (8.90%) Replication
2 22 (7.83%) Data Centre
3 19 (6.76%) Clustering
4 17 (6.05%) Hybrid Cloud
5 15 (5.34%) Linux Command Line
6 12 (4.27%) Cloud Native
7 9 (3.20%) Onboarding
7 9 (3.20%) Product Ownership
8 6 (2.14%) Mainframe
8 6 (2.14%) Operational Technology
8 6 (2.14%) Public Cloud
9 5 (1.78%) FlexPod
9 5 (1.78%) PKI
9 5 (1.78%) Private Cloud
10 4 (1.42%) Cyber Threat
10 4 (1.42%) Fixed Income
10 4 (1.42%) Market Risk
10 4 (1.42%) Security Posture
10 4 (1.42%) Self-Motivation
11 3 (1.07%) Symmetrix
Operating Systems
1 93 (33.10%) Windows
2 79 (28.11%) Linux
3 49 (17.44%) Windows Server
4 32 (11.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 23 (8.19%) VMS
6 11 (3.91%) Unix
7 9 (3.20%) AIX
8 7 (2.49%) CoreOS
9 6 (2.14%) Data ONTAP
9 6 (2.14%) Ubuntu
10 4 (1.42%) SUSE
11 3 (1.07%) Apple iOS
11 3 (1.07%) Windows Server 2012
11 3 (1.07%) Windows Server 2019
12 2 (0.71%) Windows Server 2016
13 1 (0.36%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 75 (26.69%) CI/CD
2 72 (25.62%) DevOps
3 66 (23.49%) Migration
4 51 (18.15%) Infrastructure as Code
5 45 (16.01%) High Availability
6 41 (14.59%) Disaster Recovery
7 39 (13.88%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 36 (12.81%) Performance Tuning
9 35 (12.46%) Network Virtualisation
10 33 (11.74%) Continuous Improvement
11 28 (9.96%) Capacity Planning
12 26 (9.25%) Problem-Solving
13 25 (8.90%) RBAC
13 25 (8.90%) Vulnerability Management
14 24 (8.54%) Containerisation
14 24 (8.54%) Validation
15 23 (8.19%) Cybersecurity
16 22 (7.83%) Platform Engineering
17 20 (7.12%) Analytics
17 20 (7.12%) Storage Management
Programming Languages
1 78 (27.76%) PowerShell
2 66 (23.49%) Python
3 44 (15.66%) Bash
4 42 (14.95%) SQL
5 8 (2.85%) Bicep
6 7 (2.49%) C#
7 5 (1.78%) Shell Script
8 4 (1.42%) C
8 4 (1.42%) PL/SQL
9 3 (1.07%) Java
10 2 (0.71%) Korn
11 1 (0.36%) C++
11 1 (0.36%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 1 (0.36%) Embedded C
11 1 (0.36%) Embedded C++
11 1 (0.36%) Go
11 1 (0.36%) Groovy
11 1 (0.36%) JavaScript
11 1 (0.36%) RPG
11 1 (0.36%) VBA
Qualifications
1 71 (25.27%) Security Cleared
2 55 (19.57%) SC Cleared
3 20 (7.12%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
4 15 (5.34%) Microsoft Certification
4 15 (5.34%) VCAP
5 14 (4.98%) MCSA
5 14 (4.98%) MCSE
6 12 (4.27%) Azure Certification
7 10 (3.56%) Degree
8 6 (2.14%) OCP
8 6 (2.14%) Oracle Certification
9 5 (1.78%) BPSS Clearance
9 5 (1.78%) DV Cleared
9 5 (1.78%) ISTQB
9 5 (1.78%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
10 4 (1.42%) Cisco Certification
10 4 (1.42%) CISSP
11 3 (1.07%) CISM
11 3 (1.07%) PMI Certification
11 3 (1.07%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (3.91%) QA
2 2 (0.71%) GMP
2 2 (0.71%) GxP
2 2 (0.71%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 2 (0.71%) NIST
2 2 (0.71%) SLA
3 1 (0.36%) Accessibility
3 1 (0.36%) Cyber Essentials
3 1 (0.36%) Data Quality
3 1 (0.36%) GDPR
3 1 (0.36%) HIPAA
3 1 (0.36%) PCI DSS
3 1 (0.36%) SOC 2
3 1 (0.36%) WCAG
System Software
1 89 (31.67%) VMware Infrastructure
2 48 (17.08%) vSphere
3 41 (14.59%) VMware ESXi
4 40 (14.23%) Active Directory
5 29 (10.32%) Hyper-V
6 23 (8.19%) Docker
7 19 (6.76%) KVM
8 10 (3.56%) VMware NSX
9 9 (3.20%) Firmware
9 9 (3.20%) NFS
9 9 (3.20%) Virtual Desktop
10 7 (2.49%) Ceph
11 3 (1.07%) EMC RecoverPoint
11 3 (1.07%) VMware Workstation
12 2 (0.71%) Veritas Volume Manager
13 1 (0.36%) BitLocker
13 1 (0.36%) NLBS
13 1 (0.36%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 64 (22.78%) Terraform
2 58 (20.64%) Ansible
3 52 (18.51%) Kubernetes
4 36 (12.81%) vCenter Server
5 14 (4.98%) PowerCLI
6 11 (3.91%) Grafana
7 9 (3.20%) Prometheus
8 8 (2.85%) SCCM
9 6 (2.14%) IBM BigFix
9 6 (2.14%) SnapMirror
9 6 (2.14%) VxRail
10 5 (1.78%) Microsoft Intune
10 5 (1.78%) vMotion
11 4 (1.42%) Argo
11 4 (1.42%) Failover Clustering
11 4 (1.42%) Microsoft Clustering
11 4 (1.42%) Podman
11 4 (1.42%) SCOM
12 3 (1.07%) Avamar
12 3 (1.07%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 94 (33.45%) VMware
2 75 (26.69%) Microsoft
3 35 (12.46%) Cisco
4 17 (6.05%) Oracle
5 16 (5.69%) IBM
5 16 (5.69%) Red Hat
6 14 (4.98%) ServiceNow
7 13 (4.63%) Google
7 13 (4.63%) NetApp
8 10 (3.56%) Qualys
8 10 (3.56%) Veeam
9 9 (3.20%) CyberArk
9 9 (3.20%) Dell
10 8 (2.85%) Databricks
11 7 (2.49%) Palo Alto
11 7 (2.49%) SolarWinds
11 7 (2.49%) Tenable
12 5 (1.78%) Commvault
12 5 (1.78%) EMC
12 5 (1.78%) Meraki