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

 6 months to
22 Sep 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 372 368 312
Rank change year-on-year -4 -56 +17
Contract jobs citing Virtual Machines 286 133 227
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.62% 0.49% 0.70%
As % of the System Software category 6.17% 3.95% 5.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 171 94 161
10th Percentile £393 £352 £338
25th Percentile £440 £414 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £535
Median % change year-on-year - -6.54% +1.90%
75th Percentile £600 £588 £608
90th Percentile £716 £646 £663
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £535
% change year-on-year - -6.54% +1.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 4 6
10th Percentile £26.90 - -
25th Percentile £58.44 £33.25 £14.06
Median hourly rate £77.50 £34.50 £14.63
Median % change year-on-year +124.64% +135.90% -81.42%
75th Percentile £92.11 £35.75 £66.46
90th Percentile - - £84.67
UK median hourly rate £77.50 £34.50 £14.63
% change year-on-year +124.64% +135.90% -81.42%

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 4,636 3,363 3,794
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 10.02% 12.27% 11.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,012 2,155 2,535
10th Percentile £218 £213 £220
25th Percentile £389 £375 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year - -2.44% -
75th Percentile £600 £600 £608
90th Percentile £688 £675 £699
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
Number of hourly rates quoted 234 100 98
10th Percentile £17.75 £15.50 £14.16
25th Percentile £33.70 £22.50 £17.44
Median hourly rate £65.00 £34.50 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +88.41% +25.45% -42.31%
75th Percentile £75.00 £80.25 £68.20
90th Percentile £92.11 £90.15 £83.99
UK median hourly rate £63.14 £34.00 £27.50
% change year-on-year +85.69% +23.64% -45.00%

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 22 September 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 22 September 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 22 September 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 -39 107 £521 +2.76% 71
North of England -6 82 £500 +19.05% 28
South East -21 55 £483 -17.87% 39
Yorkshire -15 45 £519 +12.58% 7
North West -19 35 £485 +49.23% 20
South West -34 16 £558 +1.36% 8
Midlands -47 15 £487 -1.62% 20
East of England -22 13 £300 -36.84% 38
West Midlands -48 10 £487 -2.84% 18
East Midlands -12 4 £500 +5.26% 2
North East - 2 £413 - 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 9 (3.15%) IIS
2 6 (2.10%) Confluence
3 5 (1.75%) Microsoft Exchange
4 4 (1.40%) SharePoint
5 2 (0.70%) Apache
5 2 (0.70%) CMS
5 2 (0.70%) Umbraco
6 1 (0.35%) Apache Airflow
6 1 (0.35%) nginx
6 1 (0.35%) OpenStack
6 1 (0.35%) WebLogic
Applications
1 4 (1.40%) Adobe Illustrator
1 4 (1.40%) Photoshop
2 2 (0.70%) InDesign
2 2 (0.70%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.35%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.35%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 2 (0.70%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.35%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 134 (46.85%) Azure
2 54 (18.88%) Entra ID
3 41 (14.34%) AWS
4 38 (13.29%) Azure Monitor
5 30 (10.49%) Azure DevOps
6 27 (9.44%) IaaS
7 25 (8.74%) Azure AKS
7 25 (8.74%) OpenShift
8 20 (6.99%) GitHub
9 15 (5.24%) GitHub Actions
9 15 (5.24%) Microsoft 365
10 12 (4.20%) Azure ExpressRoute
11 11 (3.85%) PaaS
11 11 (3.85%) Power Platform
12 10 (3.50%) Azure Key Vault
12 10 (3.50%) GCP
12 10 (3.50%) SaaS
13 9 (3.15%) Azure Storage
13 9 (3.15%) Serverless
14 8 (2.80%) Cohesity
Communications & Networking
1 45 (15.73%) DNS
2 41 (14.34%) Firewall
3 25 (8.74%) VPN
4 20 (6.99%) DHCP
4 20 (6.99%) VLAN
5 19 (6.64%) Network Security
6 18 (6.29%) SSL
6 18 (6.29%) WAN
7 15 (5.24%) VSAN
8 10 (3.50%) SD-WAN
9 9 (3.15%) HTTP
9 9 (3.15%) LAN
10 7 (2.45%) FTP
10 7 (2.45%) SAN
11 6 (2.10%) TCP/IP
12 5 (1.75%) HTTPS
12 5 (1.75%) Wi-Fi
13 4 (1.40%) SSH
14 3 (1.05%) NAS
14 3 (1.05%) NetScaler
Database & Business Intelligence
1 33 (11.54%) SQL Server
2 11 (3.85%) MySQL
2 11 (3.85%) Power BI
2 11 (3.85%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 9 (3.15%) Azure SQL Database
4 8 (2.80%) PostgreSQL
5 7 (2.45%) Data Lake
6 2 (0.70%) Amazon RDS
6 2 (0.70%) Oracle Database
7 1 (0.35%) Amazon Aurora
7 1 (0.35%) Amazon QuickSight
7 1 (0.35%) Data Warehouse
7 1 (0.35%) Neo4j
7 1 (0.35%) Oracle Exadata
7 1 (0.35%) Oracle Reports
7 1 (0.35%) Power Query
7 1 (0.35%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 16 (5.59%) Jenkins
2 14 (4.90%) Git
3 7 (2.45%) GitLab
3 7 (2.45%) JIRA
4 4 (1.40%) CppUnit
4 4 (1.40%) PVCS
4 4 (1.40%) Rational DOORS
4 4 (1.40%) Sonatype Nexus
5 3 (1.05%) SonarQube
6 2 (0.70%) Maven
6 2 (0.70%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
6 2 (0.70%) Team Foundation Server
6 2 (0.70%) Terragrunt
7 1 (0.35%) Selenium
7 1 (0.35%) Vagrant
7 1 (0.35%) Visual Studio
General
1 50 (17.48%) Social Skills
2 27 (9.44%) Finance
3 13 (4.55%) Analytical Skills
4 10 (3.50%) Legal
5 8 (2.80%) Banking
6 7 (2.45%) Documentation Skills
7 6 (2.10%) Back Office
7 6 (2.10%) Front Office
7 6 (2.10%) Manufacturing
8 5 (1.75%) Retail
9 4 (1.40%) Law
9 4 (1.40%) Marketing
9 4 (1.40%) Public Sector
10 2 (0.70%) Aerospace
10 2 (0.70%) Local Government
10 2 (0.70%) Pharmaceutical
10 2 (0.70%) Publishing
11 1 (0.35%) Advertising
11 1 (0.35%) Influencing Skills
11 1 (0.35%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 44 (15.38%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 39 (13.64%) Azure Engineer
3 34 (11.89%) Cloud Engineer
4 29 (10.14%) DevOps Engineer
5 23 (8.04%) Senior
6 22 (7.69%) Lead
7 19 (6.64%) Cloud Infrastructure Engineer
8 16 (5.59%) Architect
8 16 (5.59%) Azure Infrastructure Engineer
9 13 (4.55%) Analyst
9 13 (4.55%) DBA
10 11 (3.85%) Security Engineer
10 11 (3.85%) SQL DBA
11 10 (3.50%) Administrator
11 10 (3.50%) Platform Engineer
11 10 (3.50%) Wintel Engineer
12 9 (3.15%) Solutions Architect
12 9 (3.15%) Storage Engineer
13 8 (2.80%) Linux Engineer
13 8 (2.80%) Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 60 (20.98%) Terraform
2 13 (4.55%) ARM Templates
3 9 (3.15%) JSON
4 8 (2.80%) REST
5 7 (2.45%) LDAP
5 7 (2.45%) Regular Expression
6 5 (1.75%) Middleware
6 5 (1.75%) YAML
7 3 (1.05%) Elastic Stack
8 2 (0.70%) SOAP
8 2 (0.70%) Web Services
9 1 (0.35%) ADO
9 1 (0.35%) Java SE
9 1 (0.35%) Lambda Expressions
9 1 (0.35%) Node.js
9 1 (0.35%) NumPy
9 1 (0.35%) Oracle GoldenGate
9 1 (0.35%) Pandas
9 1 (0.35%) SciPy
9 1 (0.35%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 39 (13.64%) Replication
2 33 (11.54%) Clustering
3 19 (6.64%) Hybrid Cloud
4 13 (4.55%) Data Centre
5 12 (4.20%) Linux Command Line
6 11 (3.85%) Cloud Native
6 11 (3.85%) Enterprise Storage
7 9 (3.15%) Mainframe
8 8 (2.80%) Product Ownership
8 8 (2.80%) Public Cloud
9 7 (2.45%) Cyber Threat
9 7 (2.45%) Data Protection Act
9 7 (2.45%) Operational Technology
10 6 (2.10%) Fixed Income
10 6 (2.10%) Market Risk
10 6 (2.10%) Onboarding
10 6 (2.10%) Self-Motivation
11 5 (1.75%) Security Posture
12 4 (1.40%) EMC VNX
12 4 (1.40%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 103 (36.01%) Windows
2 66 (23.08%) Linux
3 59 (20.63%) Windows Server
4 31 (10.84%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 24 (8.39%) VMS
6 9 (3.15%) Unix
7 8 (2.80%) Ubuntu
8 4 (1.40%) SUSE
8 4 (1.40%) Windows Server 2016
8 4 (1.40%) Windows Server 2019
9 3 (1.05%) AIX
9 3 (1.05%) Data ONTAP
9 3 (1.05%) Windows Server 2012
10 2 (0.70%) Android
10 2 (0.70%) Apple iOS
10 2 (0.70%) CoreOS
10 2 (0.70%) zOS
11 1 (0.35%) Amazon Linux
11 1 (0.35%) Rocky
11 1 (0.35%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 71 (24.83%) DevOps
2 70 (24.48%) CI/CD
3 65 (22.73%) Migration
4 61 (21.33%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 56 (19.58%) Infrastructure as Code
6 44 (15.38%) Disaster Recovery
7 42 (14.69%) Performance Tuning
8 39 (13.64%) High Availability
9 38 (13.29%) Continuous Improvement
10 36 (12.59%) RBAC
11 30 (10.49%) Problem-Solving
11 30 (10.49%) Validation
12 28 (9.79%) ITIL
13 27 (9.44%) Runbook
14 26 (9.09%) Cybersecurity
15 25 (8.74%) Capacity Planning
15 25 (8.74%) Platform Engineering
15 25 (8.74%) Root Cause Analysis
15 25 (8.74%) Stakeholder Management
16 24 (8.39%) AI
Programming Languages
1 98 (34.27%) PowerShell
2 60 (20.98%) Python
3 37 (12.94%) SQL
4 31 (10.84%) Bash
5 11 (3.85%) Bicep
5 11 (3.85%) T-SQL
6 8 (2.80%) C
6 8 (2.80%) C#
7 6 (2.10%) Java
7 6 (2.10%) Shell Script
8 4 (1.40%) C++
8 4 (1.40%) Groovy
9 3 (1.05%) Embedded C
10 2 (0.70%) Korn
10 2 (0.70%) PL/SQL
11 1 (0.35%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 1 (0.35%) Go
11 1 (0.35%) JavaScript
11 1 (0.35%) RPG
11 1 (0.35%) VBA
Qualifications
1 85 (29.72%) Security Cleared
2 68 (23.78%) SC Cleared
3 23 (8.04%) Azure Certification
4 22 (7.69%) Degree
4 22 (7.69%) Microsoft Certification
5 13 (4.55%) BPSS Clearance
5 13 (4.55%) DV Cleared
5 13 (4.55%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
6 10 (3.50%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
6 10 (3.50%) MCSA
6 10 (3.50%) MCSE
6 10 (3.50%) VCAP
7 6 (2.10%) ISTQB
8 5 (1.75%) CCNA
8 5 (1.75%) Cisco Certification
8 5 (1.75%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
9 3 (1.05%) CISM
9 3 (1.05%) CISSP
9 3 (1.05%) PMI Certification
9 3 (1.05%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (3.85%) QA
2 3 (1.05%) Accessibility
2 3 (1.05%) PCI DSS
2 3 (1.05%) SLA
3 2 (0.70%) Actionable Recommendations
3 2 (0.70%) Cyber Essentials
3 2 (0.70%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
3 2 (0.70%) GMP
3 2 (0.70%) GxP
3 2 (0.70%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 2 (0.70%) NIST
4 1 (0.35%) GDPR
4 1 (0.35%) HIPAA
4 1 (0.35%) SOC 2
4 1 (0.35%) WCAG
System Software
1 93 (32.52%) VMware Infrastructure
2 51 (17.83%) Active Directory
3 43 (15.03%) vSphere
4 36 (12.59%) VMware ESXi
5 29 (10.14%) Hyper-V
6 24 (8.39%) Docker
7 13 (4.55%) NFS
8 11 (3.85%) VMware NSX
9 8 (2.80%) Virtual Desktop
10 7 (2.45%) Ceph
10 7 (2.45%) Firmware
11 5 (1.75%) KVM
12 3 (1.05%) EMC RecoverPoint
12 3 (1.05%) VMware Workstation
13 2 (0.70%) Veritas Volume Manager
14 1 (0.35%) DFS Replication
14 1 (0.35%) Oracle RAC
14 1 (0.35%) Postfix
14 1 (0.35%) Squid
14 1 (0.35%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 45 (15.73%) Ansible
2 40 (13.99%) Kubernetes
3 29 (10.14%) vCenter Server
4 16 (5.59%) SCOM
5 14 (4.90%) Grafana
6 11 (3.85%) Failover Clustering
7 9 (3.15%) PowerCLI
7 9 (3.15%) Prometheus
8 8 (2.80%) SCCM
9 7 (2.45%) Podman
10 6 (2.10%) Microsoft Clustering
10 6 (2.10%) Microsoft Intune
10 6 (2.10%) Packer
10 6 (2.10%) vMotion
10 6 (2.10%) VxRail
11 5 (1.75%) Proxmox
12 4 (1.40%) Avamar
12 4 (1.40%) OPNET
13 3 (1.05%) Argo
13 3 (1.05%) EMC VPLEX
Vendors
1 99 (34.62%) Microsoft
2 98 (34.27%) VMware
3 29 (10.14%) Cisco
4 23 (8.04%) ServiceNow
5 19 (6.64%) Oracle
6 16 (5.59%) Dell
7 15 (5.24%) NetApp
8 12 (4.20%) IBM
8 12 (4.20%) Veeam
9 9 (3.15%) CyberArk
10 8 (2.80%) Qualys
10 8 (2.80%) Red Hat
10 8 (2.80%) SolarWinds
11 7 (2.45%) Google
11 7 (2.45%) Splunk
12 5 (1.75%) Commvault
12 5 (1.75%) EMC
12 5 (1.75%) Meraki
12 5 (1.75%) Okta
12 5 (1.75%) Palo Alto
204 Virtual Machines jobs in England