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 vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 14 September 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 380 305 330
Rank change year-on-year -75 +25 +37
Contract jobs citing Virtual Machines 131 223 293
As % of all contract jobs advertised in England 0.48% 0.68% 0.68%
As % of the System Software category 3.94% 5.83% 5.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 92 158 196
10th Percentile £350 £345 £300
25th Percentile £411 £425 £417
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £494 £535 £525
Median % change year-on-year -7.66% +1.90% -
75th Percentile £588 £608 £625
90th Percentile £649 £672 £725
UK median daily rate £498 £535 £525
% change year-on-year -7.01% +1.90% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 8 14
10th Percentile - - £37.70
25th Percentile £33.25 £14.06 £70.13
Median hourly rate £34.50 £14.63 £78.73
Median % change year-on-year +135.90% -81.42% -6.28%
75th Percentile £35.75 £32.28 £84.36
90th Percentile - £84.22 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £34.50 £14.63 £78.73
% change year-on-year +135.90% -81.42% -6.28%

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 3,329 3,828 5,604
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 12.08% 11.67% 13.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,139 2,583 3,850
10th Percentile £219 £221 £200
25th Percentile £375 £381 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £513
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% - -2.38%
75th Percentile £600 £610 £638
90th Percentile £675 £695 £738
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £502
% change year-on-year - -0.40% -4.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 94 103 248
10th Percentile £16.05 £14.16 £15.43
25th Percentile £23.00 £16.00 £18.45
Median hourly rate £36.00 £24.18 £47.86
Median % change year-on-year +48.88% -49.48% +117.56%
75th Percentile £81.00 £63.13 £70.00
90th Percentile £91.05 £78.65 £78.00
UK median hourly rate £33.39 £24.18 £50.00
% change year-on-year +38.07% -51.64% +122.22%

Virtual Machines
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Job postings citing Virtual Machines as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in England.

Job vacancy trend for Virtual Machines 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 14 September 2025.

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 14 September 2025. 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 -4 66 £507 -5.23% 25
North of England -13 20 £429 -31.40% 14
Yorkshire -9 17 £447 -14.04% 3
Midlands -27 13 £485 -16.16% 5
South West +8 12 £550 -3.51% 13
South East -36 12 £600 +4.17% 20
West Midlands -33 11 £495 -14.95% 3
East of England +2 3 £475 +38.69% 12
North West -17 3 £325 -49.44% 11
East Midlands +1 2 £475 -17.39% 2
Virtual Machines
UK

Virtual Machines
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in England by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 8 (6.11%) IIS
1 8 (6.11%) Microsoft Exchange
2 5 (3.82%) Confluence
3 4 (3.05%) Apache
4 3 (2.29%) SharePoint
4 3 (2.29%) Skype for Business
5 1 (0.76%) Anypoint
5 1 (0.76%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.76%) Jupyter
5 1 (0.76%) nginx
5 1 (0.76%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 1 (0.76%) MS Visio
1 1 (0.76%) OmniGraffle
Cloud Services
1 60 (45.80%) Azure
2 26 (19.85%) Azure DevOps
3 19 (14.50%) Entra ID
4 17 (12.98%) Azure Monitor
5 11 (8.40%) Azure API Management
5 11 (8.40%) Serverless
6 10 (7.63%) Azure Logic Apps
7 9 (6.87%) Azure AKS
7 9 (6.87%) Azure Functions
7 9 (6.87%) Azure Service Bus
7 9 (6.87%) Azure Storage
8 8 (6.11%) AWS
8 8 (6.11%) GCP
8 8 (6.11%) GitHub
9 6 (4.58%) Azure Key Vault
9 6 (4.58%) Microsoft 365
10 5 (3.82%) IaaS
11 4 (3.05%) Azure ExpressRoute
11 4 (3.05%) Cloud Computing
11 4 (3.05%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 25 (19.08%) DNS
2 19 (14.50%) Firewall
3 13 (9.92%) DHCP
4 12 (9.16%) VPN
5 8 (6.11%) Network Security
6 7 (5.34%) TCP/IP
7 6 (4.58%) NAS
7 6 (4.58%) SAN
7 6 (4.58%) VSAN
8 5 (3.82%) Skype
8 5 (3.82%) WAN
9 4 (3.05%) Intrusion Detection
9 4 (3.05%) VLAN
10 2 (1.53%) Modbus
10 2 (1.53%) VoIP
10 2 (1.53%) Wi-Fi
11 1 (0.76%) Cisco Wireless
11 1 (0.76%) LAN
11 1 (0.76%) NX-OS
11 1 (0.76%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (11.45%) SQL Server
2 6 (4.58%) Azure SQL Database
2 6 (4.58%) PostgreSQL
3 4 (3.05%) Amazon RDS
3 4 (3.05%) OLTP
4 3 (2.29%) Data Mining
4 3 (2.29%) Relational Database
4 3 (2.29%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 2 (1.53%) Data Lake
5 2 (1.53%) MySQL
6 1 (0.76%) Big Data
6 1 (0.76%) NoSQL
6 1 (0.76%) Oracle Database
6 1 (0.76%) Oracle Reports
6 1 (0.76%) Redis
6 1 (0.76%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 8 (6.11%) Git
1 8 (6.11%) GitLab
2 7 (5.34%) JIRA
3 6 (4.58%) Jenkins
4 1 (0.76%) Artifactory
4 1 (0.76%) Cucumber
4 1 (0.76%) EasyMock
4 1 (0.76%) JBehave
4 1 (0.76%) JUnit
4 1 (0.76%) Mockito
4 1 (0.76%) Robot Framework
4 1 (0.76%) RStudio
4 1 (0.76%) Snyk
4 1 (0.76%) SonarQube
4 1 (0.76%) Terragrunt
4 1 (0.76%) VisualVM
4 1 (0.76%) YourKit
General
1 19 (14.50%) Social Skills
2 17 (12.98%) Public Sector
3 12 (9.16%) Finance
4 7 (5.34%) Analytical Skills
4 7 (5.34%) Law
5 6 (4.58%) Telecoms
6 5 (3.82%) Documentation Skills
7 4 (3.05%) Marketing
8 3 (2.29%) Banking
9 2 (1.53%) Financial Institution
9 2 (1.53%) Manufacturing
10 1 (0.76%) Back Office
10 1 (0.76%) Electronics
10 1 (0.76%) Front Office
10 1 (0.76%) Influencing Skills
10 1 (0.76%) Legal
10 1 (0.76%) Pharmaceutical
10 1 (0.76%) Private Banking
10 1 (0.76%) Retail Banking
10 1 (0.76%) Social Science
Job Titles
1 17 (12.98%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 12 (9.16%) Architect
3 11 (8.40%) Developer
4 9 (6.87%) Azure Engineer
4 9 (6.87%) Senior
5 8 (6.11%) DevOps Engineer
5 8 (6.11%) Security Engineer
6 6 (4.58%) Azure Architect
6 6 (4.58%) Platform Engineer
6 6 (4.58%) Project Manager
7 5 (3.82%) Azure DevOps Engineer
7 5 (3.82%) Lead
8 4 (3.05%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
8 4 (3.05%) Cloud Engineer
8 4 (3.05%) Data Engineer
8 4 (3.05%) Integration Engineer
8 4 (3.05%) IT Engineer
8 4 (3.05%) Solutions Architect
8 4 (3.05%) Technical Architect
8 4 (3.05%) VMware Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (11.45%) Middleware
2 13 (9.92%) ARM Templates
3 7 (5.34%) TensorFlow
4 6 (4.58%) Hugging Face
4 6 (4.58%) OpenCV
4 6 (4.58%) OpenTelemetry
4 6 (4.58%) PyTorch
4 6 (4.58%) Regular Expression
4 6 (4.58%) SpaCy
4 6 (4.58%) YAML
5 5 (3.82%) ADO
5 5 (3.82%) RESTful
5 5 (3.82%) Web Services
6 4 (3.05%) .NET
6 4 (3.05%) CSS
6 4 (3.05%) HTML
6 4 (3.05%) XHTML
7 3 (2.29%) Kafka
8 2 (1.53%) JSON
8 2 (1.53%) Loki
Miscellaneous
1 12 (9.16%) Management Information System
2 10 (7.63%) Onboarding
3 8 (6.11%) PKI
4 5 (3.82%) Hybrid Cloud
4 5 (3.82%) Self-Motivation
5 4 (3.05%) Algorithms
5 4 (3.05%) Data Centre
5 4 (3.05%) Replication
6 3 (2.29%) Legacy Code
6 3 (2.29%) Life Science
6 3 (2.29%) Operational Technology
6 3 (2.29%) Private Cloud
6 3 (2.29%) SCADA
6 3 (2.29%) Security Posture
7 2 (1.53%) CCTV
7 2 (1.53%) Cloud Native
7 2 (1.53%) Insider Threat
7 2 (1.53%) Linux Command Line
7 2 (1.53%) Public Cloud
7 2 (1.53%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 49 (37.40%) Windows
2 32 (24.43%) Linux
3 30 (22.90%) Windows Server
4 11 (8.40%) VMS
5 8 (6.11%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 6 (4.58%) Ubuntu
6 6 (4.58%) Windows Server 2016
6 6 (4.58%) Windows Server 2019
7 5 (3.82%) Windows 10
7 5 (3.82%) Windows Server 2012
8 1 (0.76%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.76%) CentOS
8 1 (0.76%) SUSE
8 1 (0.76%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
8 1 (0.76%) Windows 7
8 1 (0.76%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 40 (30.53%) DevOps
2 33 (25.19%) CI/CD
3 30 (22.90%) Problem-Solving
4 28 (21.37%) Agile
5 27 (20.61%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 23 (17.56%) Analytics
7 22 (16.79%) Infrastructure as Code
8 20 (15.27%) Migration
9 15 (11.45%) Infrastructure Automation
10 13 (9.92%) API Management
10 13 (9.92%) High Availability
11 12 (9.16%) Cybersecurity
12 11 (8.40%) Machine Learning
12 11 (8.40%) Project Management
13 10 (7.63%) Cloud Security
13 10 (7.63%) Disaster Recovery
13 10 (7.63%) Identity Management
13 10 (7.63%) Log Analytics
13 10 (7.63%) Patch Management
13 10 (7.63%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 33 (25.19%) Python
2 32 (24.43%) PowerShell
3 15 (11.45%) SQL
4 13 (9.92%) Bicep
5 9 (6.87%) Java
6 8 (6.11%) Bash
7 7 (5.34%) C#
7 7 (5.34%) Shell Script
8 6 (4.58%) JavaScript
9 4 (3.05%) PHP
9 4 (3.05%) Scala
10 2 (1.53%) C++
11 1 (0.76%) Go
11 1 (0.76%) Korn
11 1 (0.76%) Swift
11 1 (0.76%) TypeScript
11 1 (0.76%) VB
11 1 (0.76%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 33 (25.19%) Security Cleared
2 24 (18.32%) SC Cleared
3 12 (9.16%) Degree
4 8 (6.11%) DV Cleared
5 5 (3.82%) Computer Science Degree
6 3 (2.29%) Azure Certification
6 3 (2.29%) Cisco Certification
7 2 (1.53%) BPSS Clearance
7 2 (1.53%) CCNA
7 2 (1.53%) CCNP
7 2 (1.53%) CISM
7 2 (1.53%) CISSP
8 1 (0.76%) (ISC)2 CCSP
8 1 (0.76%) AWS Certification
8 1 (0.76%) CCSP
8 1 (0.76%) CFA
8 1 (0.76%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
8 1 (0.76%) Master's Degree
8 1 (0.76%) Microsoft Certification
8 1 (0.76%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (6.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 7 (5.34%) Accessibility
2 7 (5.34%) SLA
3 4 (3.05%) NIST
4 3 (2.29%) GDPR
4 3 (2.29%) NCSC
5 2 (1.53%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
5 2 (1.53%) QA
6 1 (0.76%) 21 CFR Part 11
6 1 (0.76%) Basel III
6 1 (0.76%) GxP
6 1 (0.76%) HIPAA
6 1 (0.76%) RMADS
System Software
1 42 (32.06%) VMware Infrastructure
2 41 (31.30%) Active Directory
3 19 (14.50%) VMware ESXi
4 15 (11.45%) vSphere
5 9 (6.87%) VMware NSX
6 8 (6.11%) Hyper-V
6 8 (6.11%) Virtual Desktop
7 4 (3.05%) Docker
8 3 (2.29%) KVM
9 1 (0.76%) Firmware
9 1 (0.76%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 24 (18.32%) vCenter Server
2 22 (16.79%) Terraform
3 15 (11.45%) Kubernetes
4 14 (10.69%) Ansible
5 9 (6.87%) Microsoft Intune
6 8 (6.11%) vRealize
6 8 (6.11%) WSUS
7 7 (5.34%) SCCM
8 4 (3.05%) Microsoft Clustering
8 4 (3.05%) NetApp OnCommand
8 4 (3.05%) vMotion
9 3 (2.29%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 3 (2.29%) SCOM
10 2 (1.53%) CASB
10 2 (1.53%) Grafana
10 2 (1.53%) PowerCLI
10 2 (1.53%) Rancher
10 2 (1.53%) SCOrch
10 2 (1.53%) vRealize Orchestrator
11 1 (0.76%) Packer
Vendors
1 47 (35.88%) VMware
2 42 (32.06%) Microsoft
3 8 (6.11%) Cisco
4 7 (5.34%) Oracle
5 6 (4.58%) Google
6 5 (3.82%) Citrix
7 4 (3.05%) Broadcom
7 4 (3.05%) Red Hat
7 4 (3.05%) Remedy
7 4 (3.05%) Veeam
8 3 (2.29%) F5
8 3 (2.29%) NetApp
8 3 (2.29%) Tenable
9 2 (1.53%) IBM
9 2 (1.53%) Palo Alto
9 2 (1.53%) QAD
9 2 (1.53%) Rockwell
9 2 (1.53%) ServiceNow
9 2 (1.53%) SolarWinds
9 2 (1.53%) Sophos