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

6 months to
26 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 374 294 297
Rank change year-on-year -80 +3 +27
Contract jobs citing Virtual Machines 206 191 266
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.58% 0.74% 0.71%
As % of the System Software category 4.89% 5.87% 6.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 143 125 181
10th Percentile £343 £350 £281
25th Percentile £419 £425 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -8.26%
75th Percentile £582 £625 £608
90th Percentile £650 £750 £700
UK median daily rate £500 £523 £500
% change year-on-year -4.31% +4.50% -4.76%
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 4,213 3,254 4,233
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 11.91% 12.63% 11.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,895 2,154 2,932
10th Percentile £205 £205 £188
25th Percentile £400 £380 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £475
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +10.53% -9.52%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £600
90th Percentile £695 £744 £700
UK median daily rate £500 £520 £480
% change year-on-year -3.85% +8.33% -8.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 137 78 211
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.41 £14.06
25th Percentile £20.00 £21.10 £16.89
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 £80.40 £83.63 £76.53
UK median hourly rate £35.00 £32.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +7.69% -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 26 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 26 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 26 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 -31 84 £509 -13.36% 11
North of England -33 58 £482 +26.51% 9
Yorkshire -36 38 £500 +21.95% 6
South East -33 20 £513 +22.02% 4
North West -25 19 £460 +20.73% 3
South West -20 18 £563 +4.65% 1
East of England -29 12 £475 -8.43% 6
West Midlands -58 4 £450 -10.09% 2
Midlands -62 4 £450 -10.09% 3
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 13 (6.31%) Microsoft Exchange
2 5 (2.43%) SharePoint
3 4 (1.94%) OpenStack
4 3 (1.46%) Palantir Foundry
4 3 (1.46%) SharePoint Server
5 2 (0.97%) Confluence
5 2 (0.97%) Ethereum
5 2 (0.97%) Hyperledger
6 1 (0.49%) nginx
6 1 (0.49%) Skype for Business
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 82 (39.81%) Azure
2 36 (17.48%) AWS
3 34 (16.50%) GitHub
4 23 (11.17%) OpenShift
5 21 (10.19%) Azure DevOps
5 21 (10.19%) GitHub Actions
6 16 (7.77%) GCP
7 12 (5.83%) Entra ID
7 12 (5.83%) Microsoft 365
7 12 (5.83%) Serverless
8 11 (5.34%) Azure Monitor
9 9 (4.37%) Azure AKS
9 9 (4.37%) Azure Storage
10 6 (2.91%) AWS CodePipeline
10 6 (2.91%) Cloud Computing
11 5 (2.43%) Amazon ECS
11 5 (2.43%) AWS CloudFormation
11 5 (2.43%) AWS Lambda
11 5 (2.43%) Azure Functions
11 5 (2.43%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 28 (13.59%) DNS
1 28 (13.59%) Firewall
2 11 (5.34%) TCP/IP
2 11 (5.34%) VPN
3 10 (4.85%) DHCP
3 10 (4.85%) Network Security
4 9 (4.37%) WAN
5 6 (2.91%) Reverse Proxy
5 6 (2.91%) SAN
5 6 (2.91%) Skype
5 6 (2.91%) Wi-Fi
6 4 (1.94%) SSL
6 4 (1.94%) VLAN
7 2 (0.97%) FTP
7 2 (0.97%) Intrusion Detection
8 1 (0.49%) BGP
8 1 (0.49%) Internet
8 1 (0.49%) LAN
8 1 (0.49%) NAS
8 1 (0.49%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (5.83%) SQL Server
2 6 (2.91%) DB2
2 6 (2.91%) PostgreSQL
3 5 (2.43%) 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 (0.97%) Data Hub
5 2 (0.97%) Data Vault
5 2 (0.97%) ImageNet
6 1 (0.49%) NoSQL
6 1 (0.49%) Relational Database
6 1 (0.49%) Weaviate
Development Applications
1 29 (14.08%) Git
2 20 (9.71%) JIRA
3 14 (6.80%) Jenkins
4 11 (5.34%) GitLab
5 8 (3.88%) PVCS
5 8 (3.88%) Rational DOORS
6 4 (1.94%) RStudio
7 2 (0.97%) Hardhat
7 2 (0.97%) JMeter
7 2 (0.97%) Postman
7 2 (0.97%) Selenium
8 1 (0.49%) Artifactory
8 1 (0.49%) Gradle
8 1 (0.49%) SonarQube
8 1 (0.49%) Terragrunt
General
1 38 (18.45%) Social Skills
2 13 (6.31%) Analytical Skills
3 11 (5.34%) Finance
4 10 (4.85%) Banking
5 9 (4.37%) Electronics
5 9 (4.37%) Public Sector
6 6 (2.91%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 6 (2.91%) Legal
6 6 (2.91%) Spanish Language
7 5 (2.43%) Documentation Skills
8 4 (1.94%) Social Science
9 2 (0.97%) Retail
9 2 (0.97%) Telecoms
10 1 (0.49%) Aerospace
10 1 (0.49%) Back Office
10 1 (0.49%) Front Office
10 1 (0.49%) Italian Language
10 1 (0.49%) Law
10 1 (0.49%) Marketing
10 1 (0.49%) Police
Job Titles
1 34 (16.50%) DevOps Engineer
2 19 (9.22%) Azure Engineer
3 17 (8.25%) Senior
4 16 (7.77%) Security Engineer
5 15 (7.28%) Platform Engineer
6 14 (6.80%) Software Engineer
7 13 (6.31%) Architect
8 12 (5.83%) C++ Software Engineer
8 12 (5.83%) Embedded C++ Engineer
8 12 (5.83%) Embedded C++ Software Engineer
8 12 (5.83%) Embedded Engineer
8 12 (5.83%) Embedded Software Engineer
8 12 (5.83%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 11 (5.34%) Cloud Engineer
10 10 (4.85%) Azure DevOps Engineer
10 10 (4.85%) Wintel Engineer
11 9 (4.37%) Site Reliability Engineer
12 7 (3.40%) C/C++ Embedded Software Engineer
12 7 (3.40%) C/C++ Software Engineer
12 7 (3.40%) Kubernetes Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (4.37%) ARM Templates
2 3 (1.46%) .NET
2 3 (1.46%) Elastic Stack
2 3 (1.46%) Hugging Face
2 3 (1.46%) TensorFlow
3 2 (0.97%) Kafka
3 2 (0.97%) OpenCV
3 2 (0.97%) PySpark
3 2 (0.97%) PyTorch
3 2 (0.97%) Regular Expression
3 2 (0.97%) Smart Contracts
3 2 (0.97%) SpaCy
3 2 (0.97%) Truffle
3 2 (0.97%) web3js
3 2 (0.97%) YAML
4 1 (0.49%) Express.js
4 1 (0.49%) Node.js
4 1 (0.49%) RabbitMQ
4 1 (0.49%) React
4 1 (0.49%) UIKit
Miscellaneous
1 23 (11.17%) Data Centre
2 16 (7.77%) Private Cloud
3 14 (6.80%) Cloud Native
4 13 (6.31%) Replication
5 10 (4.85%) Clustering
5 10 (4.85%) Hybrid Cloud
6 9 (4.37%) Linux Command Line
7 6 (2.91%) CAN bus
7 6 (2.91%) Onboarding
7 6 (2.91%) Public Cloud
8 5 (2.43%) Cyber Threat
9 4 (1.94%) Analytical Mindset
9 4 (1.94%) FlexPod
9 4 (1.94%) PKI
10 3 (1.46%) Data Protection Act
10 3 (1.46%) Enterprise Software
10 3 (1.46%) NHS
10 3 (1.46%) Product Ownership
10 3 (1.46%) Self-Motivation
11 2 (0.97%) Blockchain
Operating Systems
1 65 (31.55%) Linux
2 60 (29.13%) Windows
3 31 (15.05%) Windows Server
4 28 (13.59%) VMS
5 10 (4.85%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 10 (4.85%) Windows 10
6 7 (3.40%) Windows Server 2016
7 6 (2.91%) AIX
7 6 (2.91%) Unix
8 4 (1.94%) CoreOS
8 4 (1.94%) Data ONTAP
9 3 (1.46%) Apple iOS
10 2 (0.97%) Windows Server 2019
11 1 (0.49%) Android
11 1 (0.49%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
11 1 (0.49%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 72 (34.95%) DevOps
2 67 (32.52%) CI/CD
3 49 (23.79%) Infrastructure as Code
4 32 (15.53%) Migration
5 29 (14.08%) High Availability
6 28 (13.59%) Agile
7 24 (11.65%) Containerisation
7 24 (11.65%) Continuous Improvement
7 24 (11.65%) Cybersecurity
7 24 (11.65%) Disaster Recovery
8 21 (10.19%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 21 (10.19%) Network Virtualisation
8 21 (10.19%) Platform Engineering
8 21 (10.19%) Technical Leadership
9 19 (9.22%) Problem-Solving
10 16 (7.77%) Analytics
11 15 (7.28%) Root Cause Analysis
11 15 (7.28%) Runbook
12 14 (6.80%) AI
12 14 (6.80%) Site Reliability Engineering
Programming Languages
1 46 (22.33%) PowerShell
1 46 (22.33%) Python
2 28 (13.59%) Bash
2 28 (13.59%) SQL
3 14 (6.80%) C++
4 13 (6.31%) Embedded C++
5 10 (4.85%) C
6 9 (4.37%) C#
6 9 (4.37%) Shell Script
7 7 (3.40%) Embedded C
8 5 (2.43%) Bicep
8 5 (2.43%) Java
8 5 (2.43%) Ruby
9 2 (0.97%) PHP
9 2 (0.97%) Solidity
10 1 (0.49%) Go
10 1 (0.49%) JavaScript
10 1 (0.49%) Korn
10 1 (0.49%) Swift
10 1 (0.49%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 58 (28.16%) Security Cleared
2 46 (22.33%) SC Cleared
3 13 (6.31%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
4 12 (5.83%) OCP
4 12 (5.83%) Oracle Certification
5 11 (5.34%) VCAP
6 10 (4.85%) DV Cleared
7 8 (3.88%) MCSA
7 8 (3.88%) MCSE
7 8 (3.88%) Microsoft Certification
8 7 (3.40%) Azure Certification
9 4 (1.94%) Degree
10 2 (0.97%) BPSS Clearance
10 2 (0.97%) Computer Science Degree
10 2 (0.97%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 2 (0.97%) 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 (2.91%) QA
2 5 (2.43%) GDPR
3 4 (1.94%) Cyber Essentials
4 3 (1.46%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 2 (0.97%) Accessibility
6 1 (0.49%) Data Quality
6 1 (0.49%) GRC
6 1 (0.49%) NIST
System Software
1 56 (27.18%) VMware Infrastructure
2 31 (15.05%) Active Directory
3 27 (13.11%) vSphere
4 20 (9.71%) Hyper-V
4 20 (9.71%) VMware ESXi
5 19 (9.22%) Docker
6 18 (8.74%) KVM
7 8 (3.88%) Virtual Desktop
8 7 (3.40%) VMware NSX
9 6 (2.91%) Firmware
10 4 (1.94%) NFS
11 2 (0.97%) Xen
12 1 (0.49%) Ceph
12 1 (0.49%) NLBS
Systems Management
1 63 (30.58%) Terraform
2 48 (23.30%) Kubernetes
3 42 (20.39%) Ansible
4 34 (16.50%) vCenter Server
5 12 (5.83%) SCCM
6 9 (4.37%) Microsoft Intune
6 9 (4.37%) WSUS
7 6 (2.91%) CASB
7 6 (2.91%) IBM BigFix
7 6 (2.91%) SCOrch
8 5 (2.43%) PowerCLI
8 5 (2.43%) Rancher
9 4 (1.94%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 4 (1.94%) SnapMirror
10 3 (1.46%) Data Guard
10 3 (1.46%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
10 3 (1.46%) Oracle RMAN
10 3 (1.46%) vRealize
11 2 (0.97%) Grafana
11 2 (0.97%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 65 (31.55%) Microsoft
2 62 (30.10%) VMware
3 20 (9.71%) Cisco
4 15 (7.28%) IBM
5 10 (4.85%) Red Hat
6 8 (3.88%) ANSYS
6 8 (3.88%) Google
7 7 (3.40%) Databricks
7 7 (3.40%) NetApp
8 6 (2.91%) Oracle
9 5 (2.43%) OpenAI
9 5 (2.43%) SolarWinds
9 5 (2.43%) Sophos
9 5 (2.43%) Veeam
10 4 (1.94%) Dell
10 4 (1.94%) Pure Storage
10 4 (1.94%) Tenable
11 3 (1.46%) Alibaba
11 3 (1.46%) Foundry
11 3 (1.46%) Palantir