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

 6 months to
4 Jun 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 352 330 294
Rank change year-on-year -22 -36 +23
Contract jobs citing Virtual Machines 265 153 276
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.63% 0.64% 0.75%
As % of the System Software category 6.22% 5.03% 6.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 184 102 194
10th Percentile £356 £350 £313
25th Percentile £415 £413 £421
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £493 £513 £535
Median % change year-on-year -3.79% -4.21% -0.76%
75th Percentile £563 £611 £608
90th Percentile £650 £750 £675
UK median daily rate £490 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -4.39% -2.38% -2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 7 27
10th Percentile £26.00 - -
25th Percentile £37.00 £33.25 £14.06
Median hourly rate £70.00 £34.50 £14.63
Median % change year-on-year +102.90% +135.90% -77.84%
75th Percentile - £50.13 £15.19
90th Percentile - £65.10 £86.97
UK median hourly rate £70.00 £34.50 £14.63
% change year-on-year +102.90% +135.90% -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 4,263 3,040 4,075
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 10.20% 12.67% 11.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,873 2,058 2,861
10th Percentile £213 £213 £203
25th Percentile £400 £380 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £506 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.23% +1.25% -4.76%
75th Percentile £599 £615 £608
90th Percentile £688 £700 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 164 72 202
10th Percentile £17.28 £14.99 £14.06
25th Percentile £25.58 £17.93 £14.48
Median hourly rate £52.75 £28.46 £22.23
Median % change year-on-year +85.38% +28.03% -57.37%
75th Percentile £73.00 £64.88 £58.69
90th Percentile £77.50 £88.00 £77.70
UK median hourly rate £51.75 £28.46 £24.18
% change year-on-year +81.87% +17.68% -55.97%

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 June 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 4 June 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 4 June 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 -60 99 £525 -4.55% 19
North of England -4 92 £475 +26.67% 8
Yorkshire -17 48 £500 +5.26% 3
North West -2 42 £463 +23.33% 5
South East -34 40 £514 -10.61% 22
Midlands -63 16 £438 -12.15% 4
West Midlands -62 13 £425 -14.66% 3
South West -26 9 £360 -24.21% 6
East of England -30 7 £425 -19.12% 6
North East -28 2 £400 +10.34%
East Midlands -26 1 £500 -4.76% 1
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 5 (1.89%) SharePoint
2 3 (1.13%) Confluence
2 3 (1.13%) Microsoft Exchange
2 3 (1.13%) OpenStack
2 3 (1.13%) Palantir Foundry
3 2 (0.75%) Apache
3 2 (0.75%) CMS
3 2 (0.75%) Umbraco
4 1 (0.38%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (0.38%) ArcGIS
4 1 (0.38%) IIS
4 1 (0.38%) nginx
4 1 (0.38%) WebLogic
Applications
1 4 (1.51%) Adobe Illustrator
1 4 (1.51%) Photoshop
2 2 (0.75%) Chatbot
3 1 (0.38%) InDesign
3 1 (0.38%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 1 (0.38%) Remedy ITSM
1 1 (0.38%) SAP SD
1 1 (0.38%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 104 (39.25%) Azure
2 41 (15.47%) AWS
3 31 (11.70%) OpenShift
4 26 (9.81%) Azure DevOps
5 24 (9.06%) GitHub
6 23 (8.68%) Entra ID
7 18 (6.79%) Azure Monitor
8 16 (6.04%) Azure AKS
8 16 (6.04%) GCP
8 16 (6.04%) GitHub Actions
9 12 (4.53%) Microsoft 365
9 12 (4.53%) Serverless
10 11 (4.15%) Azure Storage
11 10 (3.77%) Azure Key Vault
12 9 (3.40%) Nutanix
13 7 (2.64%) Azure Functions
13 7 (2.64%) IaaS
14 6 (2.26%) Azure Logic Apps
14 6 (2.26%) Cohesity
14 6 (2.26%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 33 (12.45%) DNS
2 32 (12.08%) Firewall
3 23 (8.68%) VPN
4 20 (7.55%) Network Security
5 18 (6.79%) VLAN
6 17 (6.42%) DHCP
7 15 (5.66%) VSAN
8 12 (4.53%) WAN
9 11 (4.15%) SSL
10 10 (3.77%) SD-WAN
11 8 (3.02%) SAN
12 7 (2.64%) LAN
13 6 (2.26%) FTP
13 6 (2.26%) TCP/IP
14 4 (1.51%) Wi-Fi
15 3 (1.13%) Reverse Proxy
16 2 (0.75%) Cisco Nexus
16 2 (0.75%) IPsec
16 2 (0.75%) NAS
16 2 (0.75%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (7.17%) SQL Server
2 7 (2.64%) Azure SQL Database
3 6 (2.26%) DB2
3 6 (2.26%) PostgreSQL
3 6 (2.26%) Power BI
4 5 (1.89%) Oracle Database
5 4 (1.51%) Oracle Reports
6 3 (1.13%) Amazon RDS
6 3 (1.13%) Data Warehouse
7 1 (0.38%) Amazon QuickSight
7 1 (0.38%) Oracle Exadata
7 1 (0.38%) Power Query
7 1 (0.38%) Relational Database
7 1 (0.38%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 1 (0.38%) Weaviate
Development Applications
1 21 (7.92%) Git
2 14 (5.28%) Jenkins
3 10 (3.77%) GitLab
4 9 (3.40%) JIRA
5 4 (1.51%) PVCS
5 4 (1.51%) Rational DOORS
6 2 (0.75%) JMeter
6 2 (0.75%) Postman
6 2 (0.75%) Selenium
6 2 (0.75%) Sonatype Nexus
6 2 (0.75%) Team Foundation Server
6 2 (0.75%) Terragrunt
7 1 (0.38%) Gradle
7 1 (0.38%) RStudio
General
1 37 (13.96%) Social Skills
2 23 (8.68%) Finance
3 13 (4.91%) Analytical Skills
4 11 (4.15%) Banking
4 11 (4.15%) Legal
5 9 (3.40%) Public Sector
6 7 (2.64%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 6 (2.26%) Retail
8 4 (1.51%) Electronics
8 4 (1.51%) Front Office
9 3 (1.13%) Documentation Skills
9 3 (1.13%) Marketing
10 2 (0.75%) Law
10 2 (0.75%) Manufacturing
10 2 (0.75%) Pharmaceutical
11 1 (0.38%) Advertising
11 1 (0.38%) Back Office
11 1 (0.38%) Influencing Skills
11 1 (0.38%) Publishing
11 1 (0.38%) Social Science
Job Titles
1 34 (12.83%) DevOps Engineer
2 23 (8.68%) Azure Engineer
3 20 (7.55%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 19 (7.17%) Senior
5 18 (6.79%) Wintel Engineer
6 15 (5.66%) Cloud Engineer
7 14 (5.28%) Lead
8 12 (4.53%) Analyst
9 11 (4.15%) Administrator
9 11 (4.15%) Architect
10 10 (3.77%) VMware Engineer
11 8 (3.02%) Azure DevOps Engineer
12 7 (2.64%) Consultant
12 7 (2.64%) Security Engineer
13 6 (2.26%) Data Engineer
13 6 (2.26%) Linux Engineer
13 6 (2.26%) Product Owner
13 6 (2.26%) Senior VMware Engineer
13 6 (2.26%) Technical Specialist
14 5 (1.89%) Azure Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (3.02%) ARM Templates
1 8 (3.02%) REST
2 6 (2.26%) YAML
3 5 (1.89%) Middleware
4 3 (1.13%) Hugging Face
4 3 (1.13%) JSON
5 2 (0.75%) OpenCV
5 2 (0.75%) PySpark
5 2 (0.75%) PyTorch
5 2 (0.75%) Regular Expression
5 2 (0.75%) SOAP
5 2 (0.75%) SpaCy
5 2 (0.75%) TensorFlow
6 1 (0.38%) Elastic Stack
6 1 (0.38%) Kafka
6 1 (0.38%) Node.js
6 1 (0.38%) OpenID
6 1 (0.38%) Oracle GoldenGate
6 1 (0.38%) Pandas
6 1 (0.38%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 29 (10.94%) Replication
2 24 (9.06%) Data Centre
3 23 (8.68%) Clustering
4 13 (4.91%) Hybrid Cloud
5 11 (4.15%) Cloud Native
5 11 (4.15%) Linux Command Line
6 9 (3.40%) Product Ownership
7 6 (2.26%) Operational Technology
7 6 (2.26%) Private Cloud
8 5 (1.89%) Cyber Threat
8 5 (1.89%) FlexPod
8 5 (1.89%) Onboarding
8 5 (1.89%) PKI
9 4 (1.51%) Mainframe
9 4 (1.51%) Security Posture
10 3 (1.13%) Data Protection Act
10 3 (1.13%) Enterprise Storage
10 3 (1.13%) Fixed Income
10 3 (1.13%) Public Cloud
10 3 (1.13%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 86 (32.45%) Windows
2 68 (25.66%) Linux
3 50 (18.87%) Windows Server
4 31 (11.70%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 25 (9.43%) VMS
6 9 (3.40%) AIX
6 9 (3.40%) Unix
7 7 (2.64%) CoreOS
8 6 (2.26%) Data ONTAP
9 4 (1.51%) SUSE
10 3 (1.13%) Apple iOS
10 3 (1.13%) Ubuntu
10 3 (1.13%) Windows Server 2019
11 2 (0.75%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.75%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.38%) Android
12 1 (0.38%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 72 (27.17%) CI/CD
2 68 (25.66%) DevOps
3 57 (21.51%) Migration
4 45 (16.98%) Infrastructure as Code
5 42 (15.85%) High Availability
6 40 (15.09%) Disaster Recovery
7 37 (13.96%) Network Virtualisation
7 37 (13.96%) Performance Tuning
8 34 (12.83%) Continuous Improvement
9 32 (12.08%) Capacity Planning
9 32 (12.08%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 23 (8.68%) Cybersecurity
11 22 (8.30%) Storage Management
11 22 (8.30%) Vulnerability Management
12 21 (7.92%) Problem-Solving
13 20 (7.55%) Containerisation
13 20 (7.55%) Validation
14 19 (7.17%) RBAC
15 18 (6.79%) Platform Engineering
15 18 (6.79%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 74 (27.92%) PowerShell
2 63 (23.77%) Python
3 42 (15.85%) Bash
4 36 (13.58%) SQL
5 9 (3.40%) Bicep
6 6 (2.26%) C
6 6 (2.26%) Shell Script
7 4 (1.51%) C#
7 4 (1.51%) C++
7 4 (1.51%) Embedded C
7 4 (1.51%) Embedded C++
7 4 (1.51%) Java
7 4 (1.51%) PL/SQL
8 2 (0.75%) Go
8 2 (0.75%) Korn
9 1 (0.38%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 1 (0.38%) Groovy
9 1 (0.38%) Kotlin
9 1 (0.38%) RPG
9 1 (0.38%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 66 (24.91%) Security Cleared
2 52 (19.62%) SC Cleared
3 23 (8.68%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
4 19 (7.17%) VCAP
5 18 (6.79%) Microsoft Certification
6 17 (6.42%) MCSA
6 17 (6.42%) MCSE
7 15 (5.66%) Azure Certification
8 10 (3.77%) OCP
8 10 (3.77%) Oracle Certification
9 8 (3.02%) Degree
10 5 (1.89%) DV Cleared
11 4 (1.51%) CISSP
11 4 (1.51%) ISTQB
11 4 (1.51%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
12 3 (1.13%) BPSS Clearance
12 3 (1.13%) CISM
12 3 (1.13%) PMI Certification
12 3 (1.13%) PMP
13 2 (0.75%) RHCE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (4.15%) QA
2 4 (1.51%) GDPR
3 2 (0.75%) GMP
3 2 (0.75%) GxP
3 2 (0.75%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 2 (0.75%) NIST
3 2 (0.75%) SLA
4 1 (0.38%) Accessibility
4 1 (0.38%) Cyber Essentials
4 1 (0.38%) Data Quality
4 1 (0.38%) HIPAA
4 1 (0.38%) PCI DSS
4 1 (0.38%) SOC 2
4 1 (0.38%) WCAG
System Software
1 89 (33.58%) VMware Infrastructure
2 50 (18.87%) vSphere
3 43 (16.23%) VMware ESXi
4 35 (13.21%) Active Directory
5 28 (10.57%) Hyper-V
6 18 (6.79%) Docker
7 16 (6.04%) KVM
8 9 (3.40%) Firmware
8 9 (3.40%) NFS
8 9 (3.40%) VMware NSX
9 8 (3.02%) Ceph
10 6 (2.26%) Virtual Desktop
11 3 (1.13%) VMware Workstation
12 2 (0.75%) EMC RecoverPoint
12 2 (0.75%) Veritas Volume Manager
13 1 (0.38%) BitLocker
13 1 (0.38%) NLBS
13 1 (0.38%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 59 (22.26%) Ansible
2 58 (21.89%) Terraform
3 44 (16.60%) Kubernetes
4 40 (15.09%) vCenter Server
5 14 (5.28%) PowerCLI
6 8 (3.02%) Grafana
6 8 (3.02%) SCCM
7 6 (2.26%) IBM BigFix
7 6 (2.26%) Prometheus
7 6 (2.26%) SnapMirror
7 6 (2.26%) VxRail
8 5 (1.89%) Microsoft Intune
9 4 (1.51%) Argo
9 4 (1.51%) Data Guard
9 4 (1.51%) Failover Clustering
9 4 (1.51%) Microsoft Clustering
9 4 (1.51%) Oracle RMAN
9 4 (1.51%) vMotion
9 4 (1.51%) WSUS
10 3 (1.13%) Podman
Vendors
1 93 (35.09%) VMware
2 72 (27.17%) Microsoft
3 35 (13.21%) Cisco
4 20 (7.55%) Red Hat
5 16 (6.04%) IBM
6 14 (5.28%) Oracle
7 13 (4.91%) Google
8 12 (4.53%) NetApp
9 10 (3.77%) Veeam
10 9 (3.40%) Dell
10 9 (3.40%) Qualys
11 8 (3.02%) ServiceNow
12 7 (2.64%) SolarWinds
12 7 (2.64%) Tenable
13 6 (2.26%) CyberArk
13 6 (2.26%) Palo Alto
14 5 (1.89%) Commvault
14 5 (1.89%) Databricks
15 4 (1.51%) OpenAI
15 4 (1.51%) Xerox
66 Virtual Machines jobs in England