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 4 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 404 297 318
Rank change year-on-year -107 +21 +57
Contract jobs citing Virtual Machines 140 223 281
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.48% 0.72% 0.71%
As % of the System Software category 3.76% 6.09% 5.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 94 151 194
10th Percentile £346 £345 £272
25th Percentile £421 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £503 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.95% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £588 £608 £615
90th Percentile £650 £675 £700
UK median daily rate £506 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -1.22% -2.38% -0.10%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 3 9
10th Percentile - £55.60 £63.34
25th Percentile £33.25 £59.50 £73.09
Median hourly rate £34.50 £66.00 £78.73
Median % change year-on-year -47.73% -16.16% +12.46%
75th Percentile £41.88 - £84.36
90th Percentile £52.90 - £90.00
UK median hourly rate £34.50 £66.00 £78.73
% change year-on-year -47.73% -16.16% +12.46%

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 3,720 3,659 5,230
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 12.67% 11.83% 13.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,415 2,352 3,612
10th Percentile £206 £220 £198
25th Percentile £378 £381 £358
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% +2.50% -4.76%
75th Percentile £593 £625 £625
90th Percentile £675 £702 £715
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 124 76 240
10th Percentile £15.50 £17.80 £15.50
25th Percentile £20.74 £22.05 £18.50
Median hourly rate £30.00 £51.25 £43.75
Median % change year-on-year -41.46% +17.14% +86.17%
75th Percentile £72.94 £70.00 £65.98
90th Percentile £88.53 £75.00 £76.53
UK median hourly rate £26.00 £50.00 £44.86
% change year-on-year -48.00% +11.46% +92.95%

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 4 November 2025.

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 4 November 2025.

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 4 November 2025. 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 -18 68 £509 +1.80% 52
South East -30 20 £525 +0.57% 42
South West -6 18 £550 -3.51% 10
North of England -43 17 £447 -8.78% 19
Yorkshire -29 15 £475 +7.95% 3
Midlands -51 7 £510 -11.30% 11
West Midlands -48 6 £510 -12.37% 7
East of England -23 4 £475 +15.85% 11
North West -24 2 £363 -36.96% 15
East Midlands -14 1 - - 4
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 12 (8.57%) Microsoft Exchange
2 7 (5.00%) IIS
3 5 (3.57%) Confluence
4 4 (2.86%) Apache
4 4 (2.86%) SharePoint
5 3 (2.14%) SharePoint Server
6 2 (1.43%) Ethereum
6 2 (1.43%) Hyperledger
7 1 (0.71%) Anypoint
7 1 (0.71%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.71%) Jupyter
7 1 (0.71%) nginx
7 1 (0.71%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 1 (0.71%) MS Visio
1 1 (0.71%) OmniGraffle
Cloud Services
1 60 (42.86%) Azure
2 25 (17.86%) Azure DevOps
3 15 (10.71%) AWS
4 14 (10.00%) GitHub
5 10 (7.14%) Azure Monitor
5 10 (7.14%) Entra ID
6 9 (6.43%) Azure Logic Apps
6 9 (6.43%) Azure Service Bus
7 8 (5.71%) Azure AKS
7 8 (5.71%) Azure API Management
7 8 (5.71%) Serverless
8 6 (4.29%) Azure Key Vault
8 6 (4.29%) Azure Storage
8 6 (4.29%) Cloud Computing
8 6 (4.29%) GitHub Actions
8 6 (4.29%) IaaS
8 6 (4.29%) Microsoft 365
9 5 (3.57%) Azure Functions
9 5 (3.57%) OpenShift
10 4 (2.86%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 25 (17.86%) Firewall
2 23 (16.43%) DNS
3 9 (6.43%) DHCP
3 9 (6.43%) Network Security
4 8 (5.71%) VPN
4 8 (5.71%) WAN
5 7 (5.00%) Skype
6 6 (4.29%) VSAN
7 5 (3.57%) TCP/IP
7 5 (3.57%) Wi-Fi
8 4 (2.86%) Intrusion Detection
8 4 (2.86%) VLAN
9 3 (2.14%) NAS
9 3 (2.14%) SAN
10 2 (1.43%) Modbus
11 1 (0.71%) Cisco Wireless
11 1 (0.71%) HTTPS
11 1 (0.71%) NX-OS
11 1 (0.71%) SSL
11 1 (0.71%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (10.71%) SQL Server
2 7 (5.00%) PostgreSQL
3 4 (2.86%) Data Lake
3 4 (2.86%) OLTP
4 3 (2.14%) Data Mining
4 3 (2.14%) Relational Database
4 3 (2.14%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 2 (1.43%) Azure SQL Database
5 2 (1.43%) NoSQL
6 1 (0.71%) Amazon RDS
6 1 (0.71%) Big Data
6 1 (0.71%) Data Hub
6 1 (0.71%) Data Vault
6 1 (0.71%) Oracle Database
6 1 (0.71%) Oracle Reports
6 1 (0.71%) Redis
Development Applications
1 16 (11.43%) JIRA
2 11 (7.86%) Git
3 10 (7.14%) Jenkins
4 6 (4.29%) GitLab
5 2 (1.43%) Hardhat
5 2 (1.43%) RStudio
5 2 (1.43%) Terragrunt
6 1 (0.71%) Artifactory
6 1 (0.71%) Cucumber
6 1 (0.71%) EasyMock
6 1 (0.71%) JBehave
6 1 (0.71%) JUnit
6 1 (0.71%) Mockito
6 1 (0.71%) Robot Framework
6 1 (0.71%) Snyk
6 1 (0.71%) SonarQube
6 1 (0.71%) VisualVM
6 1 (0.71%) YourKit
General
1 25 (17.86%) Social Skills
2 16 (11.43%) Public Sector
3 9 (6.43%) Finance
4 7 (5.00%) Analytical Skills
4 7 (5.00%) Documentation Skills
4 7 (5.00%) Law
5 6 (4.29%) Telecoms
6 5 (3.57%) Banking
7 4 (2.86%) Spanish Language
8 3 (2.14%) Marketing
9 2 (1.43%) Financial Institution
9 2 (1.43%) Manufacturing
9 2 (1.43%) Social Science
10 1 (0.71%) Aerospace
10 1 (0.71%) Back Office
10 1 (0.71%) Electronics
10 1 (0.71%) Front Office
10 1 (0.71%) Influencing Skills
10 1 (0.71%) Legal
10 1 (0.71%) Private Banking
Job Titles
1 16 (11.43%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 15 (10.71%) DevOps Engineer
3 12 (8.57%) Developer
3 12 (8.57%) Security Engineer
4 11 (7.86%) Platform Engineer
5 10 (7.14%) Senior
6 8 (5.71%) Azure Engineer
6 8 (5.71%) Data Engineer
7 7 (5.00%) Project Manager
8 6 (4.29%) Architect
8 6 (4.29%) Software Engineer
9 5 (3.57%) Azure DevOps Engineer
9 5 (3.57%) C++ Software Engineer
9 5 (3.57%) Embedded C++ Engineer
9 5 (3.57%) Embedded C++ Software Engineer
9 5 (3.57%) Embedded Engineer
9 5 (3.57%) Embedded Software Engineer
9 5 (3.57%) Infrastructure Security Engineer
9 5 (3.57%) Network Engineer
9 5 (3.57%) Network Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (9.29%) ARM Templates
2 10 (7.14%) Middleware
3 7 (5.00%) TensorFlow
4 6 (4.29%) Hugging Face
4 6 (4.29%) OpenCV
4 6 (4.29%) OpenTelemetry
4 6 (4.29%) PyTorch
4 6 (4.29%) Regular Expression
4 6 (4.29%) SpaCy
5 5 (3.57%) ADO
5 5 (3.57%) RESTful
5 5 (3.57%) Web Services
5 5 (3.57%) YAML
6 4 (2.86%) .NET
6 4 (2.86%) Kafka
7 3 (2.14%) CSS
7 3 (2.14%) HTML
7 3 (2.14%) XHTML
8 2 (1.43%) JSON
8 2 (1.43%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 10 (7.14%) Data Centre
1 10 (7.14%) Onboarding
2 7 (5.00%) Management Information System
2 7 (5.00%) Replication
3 6 (4.29%) CAN bus
3 6 (4.29%) PKI
3 6 (4.29%) Private Cloud
4 4 (2.86%) Algorithms
4 4 (2.86%) Hybrid Cloud
4 4 (2.86%) Self-Motivation
5 3 (2.14%) Legacy Code
5 3 (2.14%) Linux Command Line
5 3 (2.14%) Public Cloud
5 3 (2.14%) Security Posture
6 2 (1.43%) Analytical Mindset
6 2 (1.43%) Blockchain
6 2 (1.43%) Enterprise Software
6 2 (1.43%) Insider Threat
6 2 (1.43%) Operational Technology
6 2 (1.43%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 55 (39.29%) Windows
2 43 (30.71%) Linux
3 27 (19.29%) Windows Server
4 10 (7.14%) VMS
4 10 (7.14%) Windows 10
5 9 (6.43%) Windows Server 2016
6 8 (5.71%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 5 (3.57%) Ubuntu
8 4 (2.86%) Windows Server 2012
8 4 (2.86%) Windows Server 2019
9 1 (0.71%) Apple iOS
9 1 (0.71%) CentOS
9 1 (0.71%) SUSE
9 1 (0.71%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
9 1 (0.71%) Windows 7
9 1 (0.71%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 49 (35.00%) DevOps
2 40 (28.57%) CI/CD
3 32 (22.86%) Agile
4 28 (20.00%) Problem-Solving
5 27 (19.29%) Infrastructure as Code
6 26 (18.57%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 22 (15.71%) Analytics
8 20 (14.29%) Migration
9 15 (10.71%) Cybersecurity
10 14 (10.00%) Continuous Integration
10 14 (10.00%) High Availability
11 12 (8.57%) Root Cause Analysis
12 11 (7.86%) Machine Learning
12 11 (7.86%) Platform Engineering
13 10 (7.14%) AI
13 10 (7.14%) API Management
13 10 (7.14%) Cloud Security
13 10 (7.14%) Information Security
13 10 (7.14%) Infrastructure Automation
13 10 (7.14%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 31 (22.14%) Python
2 28 (20.00%) PowerShell
3 13 (9.29%) SQL
4 12 (8.57%) C#
5 11 (7.86%) Java
6 9 (6.43%) Bash
6 9 (6.43%) Bicep
7 8 (5.71%) C++
8 6 (4.29%) Embedded C++
9 5 (3.57%) JavaScript
10 4 (2.86%) Scala
10 4 (2.86%) Shell Script
11 3 (2.14%) PHP
12 2 (1.43%) Solidity
13 1 (0.71%) Go
13 1 (0.71%) Korn
13 1 (0.71%) Ruby
13 1 (0.71%) Swift
13 1 (0.71%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 44 (31.43%) Security Cleared
2 33 (23.57%) SC Cleared
3 9 (6.43%) Degree
3 9 (6.43%) DV Cleared
4 4 (2.86%) Computer Science Degree
5 3 (2.14%) Cisco Certification
5 3 (2.14%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
6 2 (1.43%) AWS Certification
6 2 (1.43%) Azure Certification
6 2 (1.43%) BPSS Clearance
6 2 (1.43%) CCNA
6 2 (1.43%) CCNP
6 2 (1.43%) CISM
6 2 (1.43%) CISSP
6 2 (1.43%) Master's Degree
6 2 (1.43%) VCAP
7 1 (0.71%) (ISC)2 CCSP
7 1 (0.71%) AWS Certified SysOps Administrator
7 1 (0.71%) CCSP
7 1 (0.71%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (5.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 6 (4.29%) Accessibility
3 5 (3.57%) NIST
4 4 (2.86%) SLA
5 3 (2.14%) QA
6 2 (1.43%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
7 1 (0.71%) Cyber Essentials
7 1 (0.71%) GRC
7 1 (0.71%) RMADS
System Software
1 37 (26.43%) VMware Infrastructure
2 32 (22.86%) Active Directory
3 15 (10.71%) VMware ESXi
3 15 (10.71%) vSphere
4 12 (8.57%) Docker
5 10 (7.14%) VMware NSX
6 8 (5.71%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (5.00%) Hyper-V
8 3 (2.14%) Firmware
9 2 (1.43%) KVM
10 1 (0.71%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 25 (17.86%) Terraform
1 25 (17.86%) vCenter Server
2 20 (14.29%) Kubernetes
3 11 (7.86%) Ansible
4 9 (6.43%) SCCM
4 9 (6.43%) WSUS
5 6 (4.29%) Microsoft Intune
5 6 (4.29%) vRealize
6 5 (3.57%) CASB
6 5 (3.57%) SCOrch
6 5 (3.57%) vMotion
7 4 (2.86%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 3 (2.14%) Grafana
8 3 (2.14%) Microsoft Clustering
8 3 (2.14%) NetApp OnCommand
8 3 (2.14%) Rancher
9 2 (1.43%) Fluentd
9 2 (1.43%) PowerCLI
9 2 (1.43%) Prometheus
9 2 (1.43%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 45 (32.14%) VMware
2 43 (30.71%) Microsoft
3 10 (7.14%) Cisco
4 7 (5.00%) Oracle
5 6 (4.29%) Databricks
5 6 (4.29%) NetApp
5 6 (4.29%) Veeam
6 4 (2.86%) Citrix
6 4 (2.86%) Red Hat
6 4 (2.86%) Remedy
6 4 (2.86%) SolarWinds
7 3 (2.14%) F5
7 3 (2.14%) Sophos
7 3 (2.14%) Tenable
8 2 (1.43%) IBM
8 2 (1.43%) Rockwell
8 2 (1.43%) ServiceNow
9 1 (0.71%) CloudEndure
9 1 (0.71%) Dell
9 1 (0.71%) SAP