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

 6 months to
3 Apr 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 369 293 295
Rank change year-on-year -76 +2 +29
Contract jobs citing Virtual Machines 215 187 269
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.56% 0.77% 0.72%
As % of the System Software category 4.99% 5.88% 6.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 149 122 181
10th Percentile £349 £350 £281
25th Percentile £413 £432 £394
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £575 £625 £608
90th Percentile £650 £750 £699
UK median daily rate £500 £524 £500
% change year-on-year -4.58% +4.80% -7.92%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 11 24
10th Percentile - £33.25 -
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 £15.19
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 4,305 3,182 4,128
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 11.23% 13.13% 10.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,953 2,207 2,846
10th Percentile £213 £213 £190
25th Percentile £400 £400 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £480
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +9.38% -8.57%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £600
90th Percentile £694 £725 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £485
% change year-on-year -4.76% +8.25% -7.62%
Number of hourly rates quoted 145 81 198
10th Percentile £16.00 £15.22 £14.06
25th Percentile £21.00 £21.46 £15.50
Median hourly rate £50.00 £29.00 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year +72.41% +31.82% -45.00%
75th Percentile £74.00 £66.00 £58.69
90th Percentile £79.80 £86.25 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £29.00 £23.75
% change year-on-year +72.41% +22.11% -52.02%

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 3 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 3 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 -72 87 £510 -11.30% 27
North of England -20 73 £482 +26.51% 17
Yorkshire -27 43 £500 +5.26% 4
North West -31 29 £458 +20.21% 13
South East -51 18 £531 +7.54% 14
Midlands -68 12 £425 -15.08% 4
East of England -43 11 £600 +11.63% 11
West Midlands -69 9 £375 -25.07% 3
South West -27 8 £563 +5.14% 2
North East -15 1 £400 +10.34%
East Midlands -31 1 £500 -2.44% 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 7 (3.26%) Microsoft Exchange
2 4 (1.86%) OpenStack
3 3 (1.40%) Palantir Foundry
3 3 (1.40%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.47%) Apache
4 1 (0.47%) ArcGIS
4 1 (0.47%) nginx
4 1 (0.47%) SharePoint Server
4 1 (0.47%) WebLogic
Applications
1 2 (0.93%) Chatbot
2 1 (0.47%) Adobe Illustrator
2 1 (0.47%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 1 (0.47%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 99 (46.05%) Azure
2 37 (17.21%) AWS
3 31 (14.42%) GitHub
4 29 (13.49%) OpenShift
5 24 (11.16%) Azure DevOps
6 23 (10.70%) GitHub Actions
7 18 (8.37%) GCP
8 17 (7.91%) Azure Monitor
9 15 (6.98%) Entra ID
9 15 (6.98%) Serverless
10 12 (5.58%) Azure AKS
11 11 (5.12%) Azure Storage
11 11 (5.12%) Microsoft 365
12 8 (3.72%) Azure Key Vault
13 7 (3.26%) Azure Functions
14 6 (2.79%) Azure Data Factory
15 5 (2.33%) Amazon ECS
15 5 (2.33%) AWS CodePipeline
15 5 (2.33%) Azure ExpressRoute
15 5 (2.33%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 31 (14.42%) Firewall
2 23 (10.70%) DNS
3 15 (6.98%) VSAN
4 14 (6.51%) VPN
5 13 (6.05%) Network Security
6 9 (4.19%) DHCP
6 9 (4.19%) SAN
7 8 (3.72%) SSL
7 8 (3.72%) TCP/IP
7 8 (3.72%) VLAN
8 7 (3.26%) Reverse Proxy
9 5 (2.33%) WAN
10 3 (1.40%) NAS
10 3 (1.40%) Wi-Fi
11 2 (0.93%) Cisco Nexus
11 2 (0.93%) FTP
11 2 (0.93%) SD-WAN
11 2 (0.93%) SSH
12 1 (0.47%) Internet
12 1 (0.47%) LAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (5.12%) SQL Server
2 7 (3.26%) Azure SQL Database
2 7 (3.26%) PostgreSQL
3 6 (2.79%) DB2
4 5 (2.33%) Power BI
5 4 (1.86%) Oracle Database
6 3 (1.40%) Amazon RDS
6 3 (1.40%) Data Lake
6 3 (1.40%) Data Warehouse
6 3 (1.40%) Oracle Reports
7 2 (0.93%) Data Hub
7 2 (0.93%) Data Vault
7 2 (0.93%) ImageNet
8 1 (0.47%) Relational Database
8 1 (0.47%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 1 (0.47%) Weaviate
Development Applications
1 29 (13.49%) Git
2 11 (5.12%) JIRA
3 10 (4.65%) GitLab
3 10 (4.65%) Jenkins
4 8 (3.72%) PVCS
4 8 (3.72%) Rational DOORS
5 2 (0.93%) JMeter
5 2 (0.93%) Postman
5 2 (0.93%) RStudio
5 2 (0.93%) Selenium
5 2 (0.93%) Sonatype Nexus
6 1 (0.47%) Gradle
6 1 (0.47%) Terragrunt
General
1 30 (13.95%) Social Skills
2 15 (6.98%) Finance
3 11 (5.12%) Analytical Skills
3 11 (5.12%) Public Sector
4 9 (4.19%) Banking
4 9 (4.19%) Legal
5 8 (3.72%) Electronics
6 6 (2.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 3 (1.40%) Retail
7 3 (1.40%) Spanish Language
8 2 (0.93%) Documentation Skills
8 2 (0.93%) Social Science
9 1 (0.47%) Advertising
9 1 (0.47%) Back Office
9 1 (0.47%) Front Office
9 1 (0.47%) Italian Language
9 1 (0.47%) Law
9 1 (0.47%) Marketing
9 1 (0.47%) Police
Job Titles
1 28 (13.02%) DevOps Engineer
2 25 (11.63%) Azure Engineer
3 22 (10.23%) Senior
4 16 (7.44%) Architect
5 14 (6.51%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 13 (6.05%) VMware Engineer
7 11 (5.12%) Cloud Engineer
8 10 (4.65%) Azure DevOps Engineer
8 10 (4.65%) Software Engineer
8 10 (4.65%) Wintel Engineer
9 9 (4.19%) Analyst
9 9 (4.19%) C++ Software Engineer
9 9 (4.19%) Data Engineer
9 9 (4.19%) Embedded C++ Engineer
9 9 (4.19%) Embedded C++ Software Engineer
9 9 (4.19%) Embedded Engineer
9 9 (4.19%) Embedded Software Engineer
9 9 (4.19%) Platform Engineer
9 9 (4.19%) Security Engineer
9 9 (4.19%) Site Reliability Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (3.72%) ARM Templates
2 6 (2.79%) YAML
3 4 (1.86%) Middleware
4 3 (1.40%) Hugging Face
4 3 (1.40%) REST
5 2 (0.93%) .NET
5 2 (0.93%) Kafka
5 2 (0.93%) OpenCV
5 2 (0.93%) PySpark
5 2 (0.93%) PyTorch
5 2 (0.93%) Regular Expression
5 2 (0.93%) SpaCy
5 2 (0.93%) TensorFlow
6 1 (0.47%) cloud-init
6 1 (0.47%) Java SE
6 1 (0.47%) JSON
6 1 (0.47%) LDAP
6 1 (0.47%) OpenID
6 1 (0.47%) SOAP
6 1 (0.47%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 21 (9.77%) Data Centre
2 15 (6.98%) Replication
3 14 (6.51%) Cloud Native
3 14 (6.51%) Clustering
4 12 (5.58%) Private Cloud
5 11 (5.12%) Hybrid Cloud
5 11 (5.12%) Linux Command Line
6 7 (3.26%) Product Ownership
7 5 (2.33%) Cyber Threat
7 5 (2.33%) FlexPod
7 5 (2.33%) Onboarding
8 3 (1.40%) Data Protection Act
8 3 (1.40%) PKI
8 3 (1.40%) Public Cloud
8 3 (1.40%) SCADA
9 2 (0.93%) CAN bus
9 2 (0.93%) Celerra
9 2 (0.93%) Enterprise Software
9 2 (0.93%) Enterprise Storage
9 2 (0.93%) Symmetrix DMX
Operating Systems
1 65 (30.23%) Linux
2 57 (26.51%) Windows
3 33 (15.35%) VMS
4 31 (14.42%) Windows Server
5 19 (8.84%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 6 (2.79%) AIX
6 6 (2.79%) Data ONTAP
6 6 (2.79%) Unix
7 5 (2.33%) CoreOS
8 4 (1.86%) SUSE
9 3 (1.40%) Apple iOS
10 2 (0.93%) Ubuntu
10 2 (0.93%) Windows 10
10 2 (0.93%) Windows Server 2016
10 2 (0.93%) Windows Server 2019
11 1 (0.47%) Android
11 1 (0.47%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 67 (31.16%) DevOps
2 60 (27.91%) CI/CD
3 46 (21.40%) Infrastructure as Code
4 45 (20.93%) Migration
5 34 (15.81%) High Availability
6 32 (14.88%) Disaster Recovery
7 28 (13.02%) Network Virtualisation
8 26 (12.09%) Performance Tuning
9 25 (11.63%) Containerisation
9 25 (11.63%) Continuous Improvement
10 24 (11.16%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 22 (10.23%) Platform Engineering
12 21 (9.77%) Cybersecurity
12 21 (9.77%) Technical Leadership
13 18 (8.37%) Capacity Planning
13 18 (8.37%) Deployment Automation
14 16 (7.44%) Agile
14 16 (7.44%) Problem-Solving
15 15 (6.98%) AI
15 15 (6.98%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 56 (26.05%) PowerShell
2 53 (24.65%) Python
3 33 (15.35%) Bash
3 33 (15.35%) SQL
4 10 (4.65%) C
4 10 (4.65%) C++
5 9 (4.19%) Embedded C++
6 8 (3.72%) Bicep
6 8 (3.72%) Shell Script
7 7 (3.26%) Embedded C
8 5 (2.33%) Java
8 5 (2.33%) Ruby
9 4 (1.86%) C#
10 3 (1.40%) PL/SQL
11 2 (0.93%) Korn
11 2 (0.93%) PHP
12 1 (0.47%) Go
12 1 (0.47%) JavaScript
12 1 (0.47%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 52 (24.19%) Security Cleared
2 42 (19.53%) SC Cleared
3 15 (6.98%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
4 14 (6.51%) Azure Certification
4 14 (6.51%) OCP
4 14 (6.51%) Oracle Certification
5 12 (5.58%) VCAP
6 9 (4.19%) Microsoft Certification
7 8 (3.72%) MCSA
7 8 (3.72%) MCSE
8 6 (2.79%) DV Cleared
9 4 (1.86%) BPSS Clearance
10 2 (0.93%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
11 1 (0.47%) CompTIA Security+
11 1 (0.47%) Degree
11 1 (0.47%) Master's Degree
11 1 (0.47%) PMI Certification
11 1 (0.47%) PMP
11 1 (0.47%) RHCE
11 1 (0.47%) RHCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (2.79%) GDPR
1 6 (2.79%) QA
2 4 (1.86%) Cyber Essentials
3 3 (1.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 2 (0.93%) Accessibility
4 2 (0.93%) NIST
5 1 (0.47%) Data Quality
5 1 (0.47%) GRC
5 1 (0.47%) WCAG
System Software
1 64 (29.77%) VMware Infrastructure
2 38 (17.67%) vSphere
3 31 (14.42%) VMware ESXi
4 28 (13.02%) Active Directory
5 22 (10.23%) Hyper-V
6 17 (7.91%) KVM
7 14 (6.51%) Docker
8 11 (5.12%) VMware NSX
9 9 (4.19%) Firmware
10 6 (2.79%) NFS
11 5 (2.33%) Virtual Desktop
12 4 (1.86%) Ceph
13 2 (0.93%) EMC RecoverPoint
13 2 (0.93%) Xen
14 1 (0.47%) BitLocker
14 1 (0.47%) NLBS
Systems Management
1 62 (28.84%) Terraform
2 52 (24.19%) Ansible
3 47 (21.86%) Kubernetes
4 33 (15.35%) vCenter Server
5 13 (6.05%) PowerCLI
6 9 (4.19%) SCCM
7 7 (3.26%) Microsoft Intune
8 6 (2.79%) IBM BigFix
8 6 (2.79%) SnapMirror
8 6 (2.79%) VxRail
8 6 (2.79%) WSUS
9 4 (1.86%) Failover Clustering
10 3 (1.40%) CASB
10 3 (1.40%) Data Guard
10 3 (1.40%) Grafana
10 3 (1.40%) Microsoft Clustering
10 3 (1.40%) Prometheus
10 3 (1.40%) SCOrch
10 3 (1.40%) systemd
10 3 (1.40%) vRealize
Vendors
1 68 (31.63%) VMware
2 62 (28.84%) Microsoft
3 18 (8.37%) IBM
4 14 (6.51%) Cisco
5 13 (6.05%) Red Hat
6 10 (4.65%) Dell
7 9 (4.19%) Google
7 9 (4.19%) Oracle
8 8 (3.72%) ANSYS
8 8 (3.72%) NetApp
9 7 (3.26%) Databricks
10 6 (2.79%) Tenable
10 6 (2.79%) Veeam
11 5 (2.33%) OpenAI
12 4 (1.86%) Pure Storage
12 4 (1.86%) Sophos
13 3 (1.40%) Alibaba
13 3 (1.40%) Foundry
13 3 (1.40%) Palantir
13 3 (1.40%) ServiceNow
68 Virtual Machines jobs in England