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

6 months to
29 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 329 322 293
Rank change year-on-year -7 -29 +28
Contract jobs citing Virtual Machines 253 165 268
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.63% 0.68% 0.72%
As % of the System Software category 5.88% 5.31% 6.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 172 110 184
10th Percentile £356 £350 £300
25th Percentile £424 £455 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £513
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +2.44% -5.96%
75th Percentile £576 £625 £608
90th Percentile £653 £750 £675
UK median daily rate £500 £518 £501
% change year-on-year -3.43% +3.45% -7.31%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 9 27
10th Percentile - £29.73 -
25th Percentile - £33.25 £14.06
Median hourly rate £70.00 £63.00 £14.63
Median % change year-on-year +11.11% +330.77% -77.84%
75th Percentile - £64.50 £15.19
90th Percentile - £66.00 £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 4,306 3,105 4,023
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 10.70% 12.78% 10.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,923 2,151 2,784
10th Percentile £213 £213 £190
25th Percentile £400 £400 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £488
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +7.69% -7.14%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £600
90th Percentile £694 £725 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £488
% change year-on-year -4.76% +7.69% -7.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 161 72 208
10th Percentile £17.92 £14.99 £14.06
25th Percentile £26.25 £18.13 £14.48
Median hourly rate £57.77 £27.97 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year +106.52% +33.19% -58.00%
75th Percentile £74.00 £64.50 £57.80
90th Percentile £95.00 £87.83 £72.38
UK median hourly rate £54.00 £27.72 £22.50
% change year-on-year +94.81% +23.20% -57.83%

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 April 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
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 April 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 -63 102 £525 -8.70% 16
North of England -8 88 £482 +26.51% 10
Yorkshire -17 48 £500 +5.26% 4
North West -9 39 £460 +20.73% 5
South East -45 25 £525 -8.70% 20
Midlands -64 15 £425 -15.00% 1
West Midlands -61 12 £375 -18.92% 1
East of England -38 11 £425 -20.93% 4
South West -29 8 £538 +7.50% 2
North East -17 1 £400 +10.34% 1
East Midlands -38 1 £500 -13.04%
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 6 (2.37%) Microsoft Exchange
2 4 (1.58%) OpenStack
3 3 (1.19%) Palantir Foundry
3 3 (1.19%) SharePoint
4 2 (0.79%) CMS
4 2 (0.79%) Umbraco
5 1 (0.40%) Apache
5 1 (0.40%) ArcGIS
5 1 (0.40%) IIS
5 1 (0.40%) nginx
5 1 (0.40%) WebLogic
Applications
1 3 (1.19%) Adobe Illustrator
1 3 (1.19%) Photoshop
2 2 (0.79%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 1 (0.40%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 107 (42.29%) Azure
2 40 (15.81%) AWS
3 35 (13.83%) OpenShift
4 33 (13.04%) GitHub
5 25 (9.88%) GitHub Actions
6 24 (9.49%) Azure DevOps
7 20 (7.91%) Azure Monitor
8 18 (7.11%) Entra ID
8 18 (7.11%) GCP
9 16 (6.32%) Azure AKS
10 15 (5.93%) Serverless
11 12 (4.74%) Microsoft 365
12 11 (4.35%) Azure Storage
13 8 (3.16%) Azure Key Vault
14 7 (2.77%) Azure Functions
15 6 (2.37%) Azure Logic Apps
16 5 (1.98%) Amazon ECS
16 5 (1.98%) AWS CodePipeline
16 5 (1.98%) Azure ExpressRoute
16 5 (1.98%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 35 (13.83%) Firewall
2 30 (11.86%) DNS
3 18 (7.11%) VPN
4 15 (5.93%) VSAN
5 14 (5.53%) Network Security
6 13 (5.14%) DHCP
7 11 (4.35%) VLAN
8 10 (3.95%) SSL
9 9 (3.56%) SAN
9 9 (3.56%) WAN
10 8 (3.16%) TCP/IP
11 7 (2.77%) Reverse Proxy
12 5 (1.98%) FTP
12 5 (1.98%) SD-WAN
13 4 (1.58%) LAN
14 3 (1.19%) NAS
14 3 (1.19%) Wi-Fi
15 2 (0.79%) Cisco Nexus
15 2 (0.79%) IPsec
15 2 (0.79%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (5.93%) SQL Server
2 8 (3.16%) PostgreSQL
3 7 (2.77%) Azure SQL Database
4 6 (2.37%) DB2
5 5 (1.98%) Oracle Database
5 5 (1.98%) Power BI
6 4 (1.58%) Oracle Reports
7 3 (1.19%) Amazon RDS
7 3 (1.19%) Data Warehouse
8 2 (0.79%) Data Hub
8 2 (0.79%) ImageNet
9 1 (0.40%) Data Lake
9 1 (0.40%) Data Vault
9 1 (0.40%) Oracle Exadata
9 1 (0.40%) Power Query
9 1 (0.40%) Relational Database
9 1 (0.40%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 1 (0.40%) Weaviate
Development Applications
1 29 (11.46%) Git
2 10 (3.95%) GitLab
3 9 (3.56%) Jenkins
3 9 (3.56%) JIRA
4 8 (3.16%) PVCS
4 8 (3.16%) Rational DOORS
5 2 (0.79%) JMeter
5 2 (0.79%) Postman
5 2 (0.79%) RStudio
5 2 (0.79%) Selenium
5 2 (0.79%) Sonatype Nexus
5 2 (0.79%) Team Foundation Server
5 2 (0.79%) Terragrunt
6 1 (0.40%) Gradle
General
1 34 (13.44%) Social Skills
2 18 (7.11%) Finance
3 12 (4.74%) Public Sector
4 11 (4.35%) Analytical Skills
5 9 (3.56%) Banking
5 9 (3.56%) Legal
6 8 (3.16%) Electronics
7 7 (2.77%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 5 (1.98%) Retail
9 3 (1.19%) Documentation Skills
9 3 (1.19%) Marketing
10 2 (0.79%) Front Office
10 2 (0.79%) Manufacturing
10 2 (0.79%) Pharmaceutical
10 2 (0.79%) Social Science
10 2 (0.79%) Spanish Language
11 1 (0.40%) Advertising
11 1 (0.40%) Back Office
11 1 (0.40%) Italian Language
11 1 (0.40%) Law
Job Titles
1 31 (12.25%) DevOps Engineer
2 25 (9.88%) Azure Engineer
3 22 (8.70%) Senior
4 19 (7.51%) Architect
5 17 (6.72%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 16 (6.32%) Wintel Engineer
7 13 (5.14%) Cloud Engineer
8 12 (4.74%) VMware Engineer
9 10 (3.95%) Analyst
9 10 (3.95%) Security Engineer
10 9 (3.56%) Azure DevOps Engineer
10 9 (3.56%) Lead
10 9 (3.56%) Site Reliability Engineer
11 8 (3.16%) Software Engineer
12 7 (2.77%) Administrator
12 7 (2.77%) C Software Engineer
12 7 (2.77%) C++ Software Engineer
12 7 (2.77%) Embedded C Engineer
12 7 (2.77%) Embedded C Software Engineer
12 7 (2.77%) Embedded Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (3.16%) ARM Templates
1 8 (3.16%) YAML
2 7 (2.77%) REST
3 4 (1.58%) Middleware
4 3 (1.19%) Hugging Face
4 3 (1.19%) JSON
5 2 (0.79%) .NET
5 2 (0.79%) OpenCV
5 2 (0.79%) PySpark
5 2 (0.79%) PyTorch
5 2 (0.79%) Regular Expression
5 2 (0.79%) SpaCy
5 2 (0.79%) TensorFlow
6 1 (0.40%) Elastic Stack
6 1 (0.40%) Kafka
6 1 (0.40%) Node.js
6 1 (0.40%) OpenID
6 1 (0.40%) Oracle GoldenGate
6 1 (0.40%) Pandas
6 1 (0.40%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 22 (8.70%) Replication
2 21 (8.30%) Clustering
2 21 (8.30%) Data Centre
3 14 (5.53%) Cloud Native
4 12 (4.74%) Linux Command Line
4 12 (4.74%) Private Cloud
5 11 (4.35%) Hybrid Cloud
6 10 (3.95%) Product Ownership
7 6 (2.37%) Operational Technology
8 5 (1.98%) Cyber Threat
8 5 (1.98%) FlexPod
8 5 (1.98%) Onboarding
8 5 (1.98%) PKI
9 3 (1.19%) Data Protection Act
9 3 (1.19%) Public Cloud
9 3 (1.19%) SCADA
9 3 (1.19%) Self-Motivation
10 2 (0.79%) AI Agents
10 2 (0.79%) Analytical Mindset
10 2 (0.79%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 71 (28.06%) Windows
2 69 (27.27%) Linux
3 41 (16.21%) Windows Server
4 34 (13.44%) VMS
5 23 (9.09%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 8 (3.16%) Unix
7 7 (2.77%) AIX
7 7 (2.77%) CoreOS
8 6 (2.37%) Data ONTAP
9 4 (1.58%) SUSE
10 3 (1.19%) Apple iOS
10 3 (1.19%) Windows Server 2019
11 2 (0.79%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.79%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.79%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.40%) Android
12 1 (0.40%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 69 (27.27%) DevOps
2 68 (26.88%) CI/CD
3 54 (21.34%) Migration
4 52 (20.55%) Infrastructure as Code
5 43 (17.00%) High Availability
6 41 (16.21%) Disaster Recovery
7 35 (13.83%) Network Virtualisation
8 34 (13.44%) Performance Tuning
9 30 (11.86%) Capacity Planning
10 29 (11.46%) Continuous Improvement
11 27 (10.67%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 26 (10.28%) Containerisation
13 24 (9.49%) Cybersecurity
14 21 (8.30%) Platform Engineering
14 21 (8.30%) Technical Leadership
15 18 (7.11%) Deployment Automation
15 18 (7.11%) Problem-Solving
15 18 (7.11%) Root Cause Analysis
16 17 (6.72%) Vulnerability Management
17 16 (6.32%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 67 (26.48%) PowerShell
2 59 (23.32%) Python
3 39 (15.42%) Bash
4 35 (13.83%) SQL
5 10 (3.95%) C
6 9 (3.56%) Shell Script
7 8 (3.16%) Bicep
7 8 (3.16%) C++
8 7 (2.77%) Embedded C
8 7 (2.77%) Embedded C++
9 6 (2.37%) Java
10 5 (1.98%) C#
10 5 (1.98%) Ruby
11 4 (1.58%) PL/SQL
12 2 (0.79%) Go
12 2 (0.79%) Korn
12 2 (0.79%) PHP
13 1 (0.40%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 1 (0.40%) Kotlin
13 1 (0.40%) RPG
Qualifications
1 66 (26.09%) Security Cleared
2 53 (20.95%) SC Cleared
3 21 (8.30%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
4 18 (7.11%) VCAP
5 15 (5.93%) Azure Certification
5 15 (5.93%) Microsoft Certification
6 14 (5.53%) MCSA
6 14 (5.53%) MCSE
6 14 (5.53%) OCP
6 14 (5.53%) Oracle Certification
7 6 (2.37%) DV Cleared
8 5 (1.98%) BPSS Clearance
9 3 (1.19%) CISSP
9 3 (1.19%) Degree
9 3 (1.19%) PMI Certification
9 3 (1.19%) PMP
10 2 (0.79%) CISM
10 2 (0.79%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 2 (0.79%) RHCA
10 2 (0.79%) RHCE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (2.37%) GDPR
1 6 (2.37%) QA
2 3 (1.19%) Cyber Essentials
2 3 (1.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 2 (0.79%) Accessibility
3 2 (0.79%) GMP
3 2 (0.79%) GxP
4 1 (0.40%) Data Quality
4 1 (0.40%) HIPAA
4 1 (0.40%) NIST
4 1 (0.40%) PCI DSS
4 1 (0.40%) SLA
4 1 (0.40%) SOC 2
4 1 (0.40%) WCAG
System Software
1 79 (31.23%) VMware Infrastructure
2 45 (17.79%) vSphere
3 41 (16.21%) VMware ESXi
4 32 (12.65%) Active Directory
5 25 (9.88%) Hyper-V
6 17 (6.72%) KVM
7 14 (5.53%) Docker
8 10 (3.95%) VMware NSX
9 9 (3.56%) Firmware
10 8 (3.16%) Ceph
10 8 (3.16%) NFS
11 5 (1.98%) Virtual Desktop
12 2 (0.79%) EMC RecoverPoint
12 2 (0.79%) Xen
13 1 (0.40%) BitLocker
13 1 (0.40%) NLBS
13 1 (0.40%) Oracle RAC
13 1 (0.40%) Veritas Volume Manager
Systems Management
1 69 (27.27%) Terraform
2 62 (24.51%) Ansible
3 52 (20.55%) Kubernetes
4 40 (15.81%) vCenter Server
5 13 (5.14%) PowerCLI
6 8 (3.16%) Microsoft Intune
6 8 (3.16%) SCCM
7 6 (2.37%) Grafana
7 6 (2.37%) IBM BigFix
7 6 (2.37%) SnapMirror
7 6 (2.37%) VxRail
7 6 (2.37%) WSUS
8 5 (1.98%) Prometheus
9 4 (1.58%) Argo
9 4 (1.58%) Data Guard
9 4 (1.58%) Failover Clustering
9 4 (1.58%) Microsoft Clustering
9 4 (1.58%) Oracle RMAN
10 3 (1.19%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
10 3 (1.19%) systemd
Vendors
1 83 (32.81%) VMware
2 74 (29.25%) Microsoft
3 23 (9.09%) Cisco
4 18 (7.11%) IBM
4 18 (7.11%) Red Hat
5 12 (4.74%) Oracle
6 11 (4.35%) Dell
7 9 (3.56%) Google
7 9 (3.56%) NetApp
8 8 (3.16%) ANSYS
9 7 (2.77%) Veeam
10 6 (2.37%) Tenable
11 5 (1.98%) Databricks
11 5 (1.98%) OpenAI
12 4 (1.58%) OpenText
12 4 (1.58%) Palo Alto
12 4 (1.58%) Pure Storage
12 4 (1.58%) Qualys
12 4 (1.58%) Sophos
13 3 (1.19%) Alibaba