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 28 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

 6 months to
28 Feb 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 377 300 295
Rank change year-on-year -77 -5 +27
Contract jobs citing Virtual Machines 205 194 270
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.58% 0.76% 0.71%
As % of the System Software category 4.86% 5.95% 6.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 141 128 184
10th Percentile £355 £350 £287
25th Percentile £425 £436 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -8.26%
75th Percentile £580 £625 £608
90th Percentile £650 £750 £700
UK median daily rate £500 £523 £500
% change year-on-year -4.40% +4.60% -6.32%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 11 19
10th Percentile £66.03 £33.25 £14.05
25th Percentile - £57.25 £14.06
Median hourly rate £70.00 £63.00 £14.63
Median % change year-on-year +11.11% +330.77% -77.84%
75th Percentile - £66.00 £84.36
90th Percentile - - £88.75
UK median hourly rate £70.00 £63.00 £14.63
% change year-on-year +11.11% +330.77% -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 4,219 3,259 4,283
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 11.87% 12.69% 11.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,899 2,161 2,960
10th Percentile £205 £205 £188
25th Percentile £400 £381 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £478
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +9.95% -9.05%
75th Percentile £600 £626 £600
90th Percentile £700 £744 £700
UK median daily rate £500 £523 £480
% change year-on-year -4.31% +8.85% -8.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 137 78 213
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.41 £14.06
25th Percentile £20.00 £21.10 £16.92
Median hourly rate £34.00 £30.75 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +10.57% -5.38% -15.58%
75th Percentile £70.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £83.63 £76.53
UK median hourly rate £38.47 £32.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +18.37% -18.75% -

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 28 February 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 28 February 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 28 February 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 -46 84 £505 -14.04% 19
North of England -33 58 £482 +26.51% 8
Yorkshire -35 38 £500 +21.95% 5
North West -31 19 £460 +20.73% 3
South East -35 19 £525 +25.00% 13
South West -22 17 £575 +6.98% 2
East of England -33 13 £475 -8.43% 10
West Midlands -58 4 £450 -10.18% 2
Midlands -66 4 £450 -10.18% 4
North East -15 1 £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 12 (5.85%) Microsoft Exchange
2 4 (1.95%) OpenStack
2 4 (1.95%) SharePoint
3 3 (1.46%) Palantir Foundry
3 3 (1.46%) SharePoint Server
4 2 (0.98%) Ethereum
4 2 (0.98%) Hyperledger
5 1 (0.49%) Confluence
5 1 (0.49%) nginx
Applications
1 1 (0.49%) Adobe Illustrator
1 1 (0.49%) Chatbot
1 1 (0.49%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 1 (0.49%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 81 (39.51%) Azure
2 36 (17.56%) AWS
3 34 (16.59%) GitHub
4 23 (11.22%) OpenShift
5 21 (10.24%) Azure DevOps
5 21 (10.24%) GitHub Actions
6 16 (7.80%) GCP
7 12 (5.85%) Entra ID
7 12 (5.85%) Microsoft 365
7 12 (5.85%) Serverless
8 11 (5.37%) Azure Monitor
9 9 (4.39%) Azure AKS
9 9 (4.39%) Azure Storage
10 6 (2.93%) AWS CodePipeline
10 6 (2.93%) Cloud Computing
11 5 (2.44%) Amazon ECS
11 5 (2.44%) AWS CloudFormation
11 5 (2.44%) AWS Lambda
11 5 (2.44%) Azure Functions
11 5 (2.44%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 28 (13.66%) Firewall
2 27 (13.17%) DNS
3 11 (5.37%) TCP/IP
3 11 (5.37%) VPN
4 10 (4.88%) DHCP
4 10 (4.88%) Network Security
5 9 (4.39%) WAN
6 6 (2.93%) Reverse Proxy
6 6 (2.93%) SAN
6 6 (2.93%) Wi-Fi
7 5 (2.44%) Skype
8 4 (1.95%) SSL
8 4 (1.95%) VLAN
9 2 (0.98%) FTP
9 2 (0.98%) Intrusion Detection
10 1 (0.49%) Internet
10 1 (0.49%) LAN
10 1 (0.49%) NAS
10 1 (0.49%) OSPF
10 1 (0.49%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (5.37%) SQL Server
2 6 (2.93%) DB2
2 6 (2.93%) PostgreSQL
3 5 (2.44%) Azure SQL Database
4 3 (1.46%) Amazon RDS
4 3 (1.46%) Data Lake
4 3 (1.46%) Oracle Database
4 3 (1.46%) Oracle Reports
4 3 (1.46%) Power BI
5 2 (0.98%) Data Hub
5 2 (0.98%) Data Vault
5 2 (0.98%) ImageNet
6 1 (0.49%) NoSQL
6 1 (0.49%) Relational Database
6 1 (0.49%) Weaviate
Development Applications
1 29 (14.15%) Git
2 19 (9.27%) JIRA
3 14 (6.83%) Jenkins
4 11 (5.37%) GitLab
5 8 (3.90%) PVCS
5 8 (3.90%) Rational DOORS
6 4 (1.95%) RStudio
7 2 (0.98%) Hardhat
7 2 (0.98%) JMeter
7 2 (0.98%) Postman
7 2 (0.98%) Selenium
8 1 (0.49%) Artifactory
8 1 (0.49%) Gradle
8 1 (0.49%) SonarQube
8 1 (0.49%) Terragrunt
General
1 37 (18.05%) Social Skills
2 13 (6.34%) Analytical Skills
3 11 (5.37%) Finance
4 10 (4.88%) Banking
5 9 (4.39%) Public Sector
6 8 (3.90%) Electronics
7 6 (2.93%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 6 (2.93%) Spanish Language
8 5 (2.44%) Documentation Skills
8 5 (2.44%) Legal
9 4 (1.95%) Social Science
10 2 (0.98%) Retail
11 1 (0.49%) Aerospace
11 1 (0.49%) Back Office
11 1 (0.49%) Front Office
11 1 (0.49%) Italian Language
11 1 (0.49%) Law
11 1 (0.49%) Marketing
11 1 (0.49%) Police
11 1 (0.49%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 34 (16.59%) DevOps Engineer
2 19 (9.27%) Azure Engineer
3 18 (8.78%) Senior
4 16 (7.80%) Security Engineer
5 15 (7.32%) Platform Engineer
6 14 (6.83%) Software Engineer
7 13 (6.34%) Architect
8 12 (5.85%) C++ Software Engineer
8 12 (5.85%) Embedded C++ Engineer
8 12 (5.85%) Embedded C++ Software Engineer
8 12 (5.85%) Embedded Engineer
8 12 (5.85%) Embedded Software Engineer
9 11 (5.37%) Cloud Engineer
9 11 (5.37%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 10 (4.88%) Azure DevOps Engineer
10 10 (4.88%) Wintel Engineer
11 9 (4.39%) Site Reliability Engineer
12 7 (3.41%) C/C++ Embedded Software Engineer
12 7 (3.41%) Data Engineer
12 7 (3.41%) Kubernetes Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (4.39%) ARM Templates
2 3 (1.46%) .NET
2 3 (1.46%) Elastic Stack
2 3 (1.46%) Hugging Face
3 2 (0.98%) Kafka
3 2 (0.98%) OpenCV
3 2 (0.98%) PySpark
3 2 (0.98%) PyTorch
3 2 (0.98%) Regular Expression
3 2 (0.98%) Smart Contracts
3 2 (0.98%) SpaCy
3 2 (0.98%) TensorFlow
3 2 (0.98%) Truffle
3 2 (0.98%) web3js
3 2 (0.98%) YAML
4 1 (0.49%) RabbitMQ
4 1 (0.49%) React
4 1 (0.49%) RESTful
4 1 (0.49%) Retrofit
4 1 (0.49%) UIKit
Miscellaneous
1 23 (11.22%) Data Centre
2 16 (7.80%) Private Cloud
3 14 (6.83%) Cloud Native
4 13 (6.34%) Replication
5 11 (5.37%) Clustering
6 10 (4.88%) Hybrid Cloud
7 9 (4.39%) Linux Command Line
8 6 (2.93%) CAN bus
8 6 (2.93%) Onboarding
8 6 (2.93%) Public Cloud
9 5 (2.44%) Cyber Threat
10 4 (1.95%) Analytical Mindset
10 4 (1.95%) FlexPod
11 3 (1.46%) Data Protection Act
11 3 (1.46%) Enterprise Software
11 3 (1.46%) NHS
11 3 (1.46%) PKI
11 3 (1.46%) Product Ownership
12 2 (0.98%) CCTV
12 2 (0.98%) PACS
Operating Systems
1 64 (31.22%) Linux
2 59 (28.78%) Windows
3 31 (15.12%) Windows Server
4 28 (13.66%) VMS
5 10 (4.88%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 9 (4.39%) Windows 10
7 7 (3.41%) Windows Server 2016
8 6 (2.93%) AIX
8 6 (2.93%) Unix
9 5 (2.44%) Data ONTAP
10 4 (1.95%) CoreOS
11 3 (1.46%) Apple iOS
12 2 (0.98%) Windows Server 2019
13 1 (0.49%) Android
13 1 (0.49%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
13 1 (0.49%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 73 (35.61%) DevOps
2 67 (32.68%) CI/CD
3 49 (23.90%) Infrastructure as Code
4 32 (15.61%) Migration
5 30 (14.63%) High Availability
6 27 (13.17%) Agile
7 25 (12.20%) Disaster Recovery
8 24 (11.71%) Containerisation
8 24 (11.71%) Continuous Improvement
8 24 (11.71%) Cybersecurity
9 21 (10.24%) Network Virtualisation
9 21 (10.24%) Platform Engineering
9 21 (10.24%) Technical Leadership
10 20 (9.76%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 18 (8.78%) Problem-Solving
12 15 (7.32%) Analytics
12 15 (7.32%) Runbook
13 14 (6.83%) Root Cause Analysis
13 14 (6.83%) Site Reliability Engineering
13 14 (6.83%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 46 (22.44%) PowerShell
1 46 (22.44%) Python
2 28 (13.66%) Bash
2 28 (13.66%) SQL
3 14 (6.83%) C++
4 13 (6.34%) Embedded C++
5 10 (4.88%) C
6 9 (4.39%) C#
6 9 (4.39%) Shell Script
7 7 (3.41%) Embedded C
8 5 (2.44%) Bicep
8 5 (2.44%) Java
8 5 (2.44%) Ruby
9 2 (0.98%) Korn
9 2 (0.98%) PHP
9 2 (0.98%) Solidity
10 1 (0.49%) Go
10 1 (0.49%) Swift
10 1 (0.49%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 58 (28.29%) Security Cleared
2 47 (22.93%) SC Cleared
3 13 (6.34%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
4 12 (5.85%) OCP
4 12 (5.85%) Oracle Certification
5 11 (5.37%) VCAP
6 9 (4.39%) DV Cleared
7 8 (3.90%) MCSA
7 8 (3.90%) MCSE
7 8 (3.90%) Microsoft Certification
8 7 (3.41%) Azure Certification
9 4 (1.95%) Degree
10 2 (0.98%) BPSS Clearance
10 2 (0.98%) Computer Science Degree
10 2 (0.98%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 2 (0.98%) Master's Degree
11 1 (0.49%) AWS Certification
11 1 (0.49%) CompTIA Security+
11 1 (0.49%) RHCE
11 1 (0.49%) RHCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (2.93%) QA
2 5 (2.44%) GDPR
3 4 (1.95%) Cyber Essentials
4 3 (1.46%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 2 (0.98%) Accessibility
6 1 (0.49%) Data Quality
6 1 (0.49%) GRC
6 1 (0.49%) NIST
System Software
1 56 (27.32%) VMware Infrastructure
2 30 (14.63%) Active Directory
3 27 (13.17%) vSphere
4 20 (9.76%) Hyper-V
4 20 (9.76%) VMware ESXi
5 19 (9.27%) Docker
6 18 (8.78%) KVM
7 8 (3.90%) Virtual Desktop
8 7 (3.41%) Firmware
9 6 (2.93%) VMware NSX
10 5 (2.44%) NFS
11 2 (0.98%) Xen
12 1 (0.49%) Ceph
12 1 (0.49%) NLBS
Systems Management
1 63 (30.73%) Terraform
2 48 (23.41%) Kubernetes
3 42 (20.49%) Ansible
4 33 (16.10%) vCenter Server
5 12 (5.85%) SCCM
6 9 (4.39%) Microsoft Intune
6 9 (4.39%) WSUS
7 6 (2.93%) CASB
7 6 (2.93%) IBM BigFix
7 6 (2.93%) SCOrch
8 5 (2.44%) PowerCLI
8 5 (2.44%) Rancher
8 5 (2.44%) SnapMirror
9 3 (1.46%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 3 (1.46%) Data Guard
9 3 (1.46%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
9 3 (1.46%) Oracle RMAN
9 3 (1.46%) vRealize
10 2 (0.98%) Grafana
10 2 (0.98%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 63 (30.73%) Microsoft
2 62 (30.24%) VMware
3 19 (9.27%) Cisco
4 15 (7.32%) IBM
5 10 (4.88%) Red Hat
6 8 (3.90%) ANSYS
6 8 (3.90%) Google
6 8 (3.90%) NetApp
7 7 (3.41%) Databricks
8 5 (2.44%) OpenAI
8 5 (2.44%) Oracle
8 5 (2.44%) Sophos
8 5 (2.44%) Tenable
9 4 (1.95%) Dell
9 4 (1.95%) Pure Storage
9 4 (1.95%) SolarWinds
9 4 (1.95%) Veeam
10 3 (1.46%) Alibaba
10 3 (1.46%) Foundry
10 3 (1.46%) Palantir
46 Virtual Machines jobs in England