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 24 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

 6 months to
24 Dec 2025		 Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 378 314 314
Rank change year-on-year -64 0 +44
Contract jobs citing Virtual Machines 164 205 261
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.52% 0.71% 0.71%
As % of the System Software category 4.15% 5.95% 5.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 116 132 176
10th Percentile £370 £346 £270
25th Percentile £447 £398 £394
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £588 £606 £609
90th Percentile £654 £663 £681
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 9 10
10th Percentile £63.38 £29.73 £68.21
25th Percentile - £53.00 £73.09
Median hourly rate £70.00 £63.00 £78.73
Median % change year-on-year +11.11% -19.97% +12.46%
75th Percentile - £66.00 £87.65
90th Percentile - - £88.88
UK median hourly rate £70.00 £63.00 £78.73
% change year-on-year +11.11% -19.97% +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 3,950 3,443 4,661
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 12.50% 11.96% 12.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,652 2,227 3,224
10th Percentile £213 £206 £194
25th Percentile £400 £369 £344
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% +3.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £613
90th Percentile £692 £725 £700
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 140 77 205
10th Percentile £15.50 £16.45 £15.75
25th Percentile £20.98 £21.05 £18.28
Median hourly rate £48.11 £29.00 £43.84
Median % change year-on-year +65.90% -33.84% +75.34%
75th Percentile £70.00 £64.50 £65.98
90th Percentile £90.15 £76.00 £77.11
UK median hourly rate £47.50 £27.50 £46.95
% change year-on-year +72.73% -41.42% +87.78%

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 24 December 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 24 December 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 24 December 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 -25 72 £525 - 33
North of England -45 27 £485 +18.15% 33
South West 0 21 £563 +4.65% 13
South East -25 21 £563 +60.71% 42
Yorkshire -30 20 £489 +11.14% 14
East of England -27 10 £475 -7.32% 25
North West -30 7 £469 +24.13% 19
West Midlands -37 4 £508 +6.84% 9
Midlands -57 4 £508 +6.84% 17
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 14 (8.54%) Microsoft Exchange
2 6 (3.66%) IIS
3 5 (3.05%) Confluence
3 5 (3.05%) SharePoint
4 4 (2.44%) Apache
4 4 (2.44%) OpenStack
5 3 (1.83%) SharePoint Server
6 2 (1.22%) Ethereum
6 2 (1.22%) Hyperledger
7 1 (0.61%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.61%) Jupyter
7 1 (0.61%) nginx
7 1 (0.61%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 1 (0.61%) MS Visio
1 1 (0.61%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 1 (0.61%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 62 (37.80%) Azure
2 28 (17.07%) AWS
3 26 (15.85%) GitHub
4 17 (10.37%) Azure DevOps
4 17 (10.37%) GitHub Actions
5 13 (7.93%) OpenShift
6 11 (6.71%) Microsoft 365
7 8 (4.88%) Azure AKS
7 8 (4.88%) GCP
7 8 (4.88%) Serverless
8 7 (4.27%) Cloud Computing
8 7 (4.27%) IaaS
9 6 (3.66%) AWS CodePipeline
9 6 (3.66%) AWS Lambda
9 6 (3.66%) Azure Monitor
9 6 (3.66%) Entra ID
10 5 (3.05%) Amazon ECS
10 5 (3.05%) AWS CloudFormation
10 5 (3.05%) Azure Storage
10 5 (3.05%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 31 (18.90%) Firewall
2 30 (18.29%) DNS
3 13 (7.93%) DHCP
4 11 (6.71%) VPN
5 9 (5.49%) TCP/IP
5 9 (5.49%) WAN
6 7 (4.27%) Network Security
6 7 (4.27%) Skype
7 6 (3.66%) Wi-Fi
8 5 (3.05%) Reverse Proxy
8 5 (3.05%) VLAN
9 4 (2.44%) Intrusion Detection
9 4 (2.44%) NAS
9 4 (2.44%) SAN
10 2 (1.22%) LAN
10 2 (1.22%) Modbus
10 2 (1.22%) Wireless
11 1 (0.61%) MQTT
11 1 (0.61%) NX-OS
11 1 (0.61%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (5.49%) PostgreSQL
1 9 (5.49%) SQL Server
2 5 (3.05%) Data Lake
3 4 (2.44%) Amazon RDS
3 4 (2.44%) OLTP
3 4 (2.44%) Oracle Database
3 4 (2.44%) Oracle Reports
4 3 (1.83%) Azure SQL Database
4 3 (1.83%) Data Mining
5 2 (1.22%) Data Hub
5 2 (1.22%) Data Vault
5 2 (1.22%) ImageNet
6 1 (0.61%) Big Data
6 1 (0.61%) NoSQL
6 1 (0.61%) Weaviate
Development Applications
1 24 (14.63%) Git
2 21 (12.80%) JIRA
3 14 (8.54%) Jenkins
4 10 (6.10%) GitLab
5 6 (3.66%) PVCS
5 6 (3.66%) Rational DOORS
6 3 (1.83%) RStudio
7 2 (1.22%) Hardhat
7 2 (1.22%) Terragrunt
8 1 (0.61%) Artifactory
8 1 (0.61%) Robot Framework
8 1 (0.61%) Snyk
8 1 (0.61%) SonarQube
General
1 36 (21.95%) Social Skills
2 12 (7.32%) Analytical Skills
3 11 (6.71%) Public Sector
4 9 (5.49%) Finance
5 7 (4.27%) Electronics
6 6 (3.66%) Spanish Language
6 6 (3.66%) Telecoms
7 5 (3.05%) Banking
8 4 (2.44%) Documentation Skills
9 3 (1.83%) Law
9 3 (1.83%) Social Science
10 2 (1.22%) Back Office
10 2 (1.22%) Front Office
10 2 (1.22%) Manufacturing
11 1 (0.61%) Aerospace
11 1 (0.61%) Italian Language
11 1 (0.61%) Legal
11 1 (0.61%) Police
11 1 (0.61%) Presentation Skills
11 1 (0.61%) Private Banking
Job Titles
1 19 (11.59%) DevOps Engineer
2 17 (10.37%) Security Engineer
3 15 (9.15%) Senior
4 14 (8.54%) Architect
5 13 (7.93%) Platform Engineer
6 12 (7.32%) Software Engineer
7 11 (6.71%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 10 (6.10%) C++ Software Engineer
8 10 (6.10%) Embedded C++ Engineer
8 10 (6.10%) Embedded C++ Software Engineer
8 10 (6.10%) Embedded Engineer
8 10 (6.10%) Embedded Software Engineer
9 9 (5.49%) Data Engineer
10 8 (4.88%) Azure Engineer
10 8 (4.88%) Developer
11 6 (3.66%) Infrastructure Security Engineer
11 6 (3.66%) Site Engineer
11 6 (3.66%) Site Reliability Engineer
12 5 (3.05%) Senior DevOps Engineer
12 5 (3.05%) VMware Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (5.49%) Middleware
2 8 (4.88%) ARM Templates
3 7 (4.27%) TensorFlow
4 6 (3.66%) Hugging Face
4 6 (3.66%) OpenCV
4 6 (3.66%) OpenTelemetry
4 6 (3.66%) PyTorch
4 6 (3.66%) Regular Expression
4 6 (3.66%) SpaCy
5 3 (1.83%) Elastic Stack
5 3 (1.83%) Kafka
5 3 (1.83%) YAML
6 2 (1.22%) .NET
6 2 (1.22%) Loki
6 2 (1.22%) RESTful
6 2 (1.22%) Smart Contracts
6 2 (1.22%) Truffle
6 2 (1.22%) Web Services
6 2 (1.22%) web3js
7 1 (0.61%) Express.js
Miscellaneous
1 16 (9.76%) Data Centre
2 13 (7.93%) Private Cloud
3 10 (6.10%) Replication
4 9 (5.49%) Cloud Native
5 7 (4.27%) Management Information System
5 7 (4.27%) Onboarding
6 6 (3.66%) CAN bus
7 5 (3.05%) Clustering
7 5 (3.05%) Hybrid Cloud
7 5 (3.05%) Linux Command Line
7 5 (3.05%) PKI
7 5 (3.05%) Self-Motivation
8 4 (2.44%) Public Cloud
9 3 (1.83%) Algorithms
9 3 (1.83%) Analytical Mindset
9 3 (1.83%) NHS
9 3 (1.83%) Operational Technology
9 3 (1.83%) Security Posture
10 2 (1.22%) Insider Threat
10 2 (1.22%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 51 (31.10%) Linux
2 49 (29.88%) Windows
3 26 (15.85%) Windows Server
4 23 (14.02%) VMS
5 10 (6.10%) Windows 10
6 8 (4.88%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 8 (4.88%) Windows Server 2016
7 3 (1.83%) Windows Server 2012
8 2 (1.22%) Windows Server 2019
9 1 (0.61%) Apple iOS
9 1 (0.61%) SUSE
9 1 (0.61%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
9 1 (0.61%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.61%) Windows 7
9 1 (0.61%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 59 (35.98%) DevOps
2 51 (31.10%) CI/CD
3 39 (23.78%) Infrastructure as Code
4 35 (21.34%) Agile
5 23 (14.02%) Migration
6 22 (13.41%) High Availability
7 21 (12.80%) Problem-Solving
8 19 (11.59%) Cybersecurity
8 19 (11.59%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 17 (10.37%) Continuous Improvement
10 16 (9.76%) Containerisation
11 15 (9.15%) Analytics
11 15 (9.15%) Infrastructure Automation
11 15 (9.15%) Technical Leadership
12 14 (8.54%) Information Security
12 14 (8.54%) Platform Engineering
13 13 (7.93%) Root Cause Analysis
13 13 (7.93%) Security Operations
14 12 (7.32%) AI
14 12 (7.32%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 38 (23.17%) Python
2 29 (17.68%) PowerShell
3 17 (10.37%) SQL
4 14 (8.54%) C++
5 13 (7.93%) Java
6 12 (7.32%) Bash
7 11 (6.71%) Embedded C++
8 10 (6.10%) Shell Script
9 9 (5.49%) C#
10 6 (3.66%) C
11 5 (3.05%) Bicep
11 5 (3.05%) Embedded C
11 5 (3.05%) Ruby
12 4 (2.44%) Scala
13 2 (1.22%) Go
13 2 (1.22%) PHP
13 2 (1.22%) Solidity
14 1 (0.61%) JavaScript
14 1 (0.61%) Swift
14 1 (0.61%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 53 (32.32%) Security Cleared
2 43 (26.22%) SC Cleared
3 10 (6.10%) DV Cleared
4 9 (5.49%) Degree
5 8 (4.88%) OCP
5 8 (4.88%) Oracle Certification
5 8 (4.88%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
6 7 (4.27%) Azure Certification
6 7 (4.27%) VCAP
7 4 (2.44%) BPSS Clearance
7 4 (2.44%) Computer Science Degree
7 4 (2.44%) MCSA
7 4 (2.44%) MCSE
7 4 (2.44%) Microsoft Certification
8 3 (1.83%) Cisco Certification
9 2 (1.22%) CCNA
9 2 (1.22%) CCNP
9 2 (1.22%) CISM
9 2 (1.22%) CISSP
9 2 (1.22%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (4.88%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 6 (3.66%) QA
3 5 (3.05%) GDPR
4 4 (2.44%) Accessibility
4 4 (2.44%) NIST
5 3 (1.83%) Cyber Essentials
5 3 (1.83%) SLA
6 2 (1.22%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
7 1 (0.61%) GRC
7 1 (0.61%) RMADS
System Software
1 42 (25.61%) VMware Infrastructure
2 34 (20.73%) Active Directory
3 16 (9.76%) vSphere
4 14 (8.54%) Docker
5 13 (7.93%) VMware ESXi
6 11 (6.71%) VMware NSX
7 6 (3.66%) Hyper-V
7 6 (3.66%) Virtual Desktop
8 4 (2.44%) KVM
9 3 (1.83%) Firmware
10 2 (1.22%) Xen
11 1 (0.61%) Ceph
Systems Management
1 45 (27.44%) Terraform
2 32 (19.51%) Kubernetes
3 27 (16.46%) Ansible
3 27 (16.46%) vCenter Server
4 14 (8.54%) SCCM
5 12 (7.32%) WSUS
6 10 (6.10%) Microsoft Intune
7 6 (3.66%) CASB
7 6 (3.66%) SCOrch
7 6 (3.66%) vRealize
8 4 (2.44%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 4 (2.44%) Rancher
8 4 (2.44%) vMotion
9 3 (1.83%) Data Guard
9 3 (1.83%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
9 3 (1.83%) Oracle RMAN
9 3 (1.83%) PowerCLI
10 2 (1.22%) NetApp OnCommand
10 2 (1.22%) Prometheus
10 2 (1.22%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 54 (32.93%) Microsoft
2 49 (29.88%) VMware
3 15 (9.15%) Cisco
4 11 (6.71%) Oracle
5 7 (4.27%) IBM
6 6 (3.66%) ANSYS
6 6 (3.66%) Sophos
6 6 (3.66%) Veeam
7 5 (3.05%) Databricks
7 5 (3.05%) NetApp
7 5 (3.05%) Red Hat
7 5 (3.05%) SolarWinds
8 4 (2.44%) Dell
8 4 (2.44%) Pure Storage
8 4 (2.44%) Remedy
9 3 (1.83%) Citrix
9 3 (1.83%) F5
9 3 (1.83%) Tenable
10 2 (1.22%) Rockwell
10 2 (1.22%) ServiceNow
152 Virtual Machines jobs in England