Job Vacancy Trend Daily Rate Trend Daily Rate Histogram Hourly Rate Trend Hourly Rate Histogram Job Locations Skill Sets
Period
to

The following table provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in England with a requirement for Virtual Machines skills. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that have cited Virtual Machines over the 6 months to 16 May 2022 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

Note that daily and hourly rates are treated separately in these statistics. When calculating contractor rate percentiles, daily rates are never derived from quoted hourly rates or vice versa.

Virtual Machine (VM)
UK > England
6 months to
16 May 2022		 Same period 2021 Same period 2020
Rank 375 383 329
Rank change year-on-year +8 -54 +5
Contract jobs citing Virtual Machines 454 244 317
As % of all contract jobs advertised in England 0.65% 0.54% 0.71%
As % of the System Software category 4.67% 3.72% 4.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 300 147 224
10th Percentile £350 £333 £285
25th Percentile £425 £400 £393
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £473
Median % change year-on-year +5.11% +5.55% -5.35%
75th Percentile £638 £613 £538
90th Percentile £713 £675 £588
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £470
% change year-on-year +5.00% +6.38% -4.08%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 3 5
10th Percentile £27.10 £42.05 £13.00
25th Percentile £37.25 £43.25 £16.00
Median hourly rate £50.77 £45.50 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year +11.58% +116.67% -42.73%
75th Percentile £84.00 £54.75 £23.75
90th Percentile £85.30 £60.15 £23.78
UK median hourly rate £58.39 £42.50 £21.64
% change year-on-year +37.38% +96.37% -40.44%

Virtual Machines is in the System Software category. The following table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies advertised in England with a requirement for system software skills.

All System Software Skills
England
Contract vacancies with a requirement for system software skills 9,729 6,559 7,024
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 13.85% 14.53% 15.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,061 4,585 4,804
10th Percentile £198 £225 £180
25th Percentile £400 £375 £338
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £490 £475
Median % change year-on-year +7.14% +3.16% -
75th Percentile £631 £575 £575
90th Percentile £700 £658 £639
UK median daily rate £525 £488 £463
% change year-on-year +7.69% +5.41% -2.63%
Number of hourly rates quoted 267 227 337
10th Percentile £13.31 £11.29 £11.17
25th Percentile £15.00 £13.25 £13.00
Median hourly rate £19.00 £20.00 £16.95
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +17.99% +2.73%
75th Percentile £28.75 £45.42 £21.00
90th Percentile £53.20 £60.00 £41.45
UK median hourly rate £20.00 £22.00 £17.50
% change year-on-year -9.09% +25.71% +7.97%

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
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in England

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Virtual Machines in England.

Daily rate trend for Virtual Machines in England

Virtual Machines
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Virtual Machines in England over the 6 months to 16 May 2022.

Daily rate histogram for Virtual Machines in England

Virtual Machines
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in England

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Virtual Machines in England.

Hourly rate trend for Virtual Machines in England

Virtual Machines
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Virtual Machines in England over the 6 months to 16 May 2022.

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 16 May 2022. 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 -25 227 £525 -4.55% 41
South East -2 74 £575 +43.75% 19
South West -26 26 £500 +8.11% 4
East of England -21 23 £475 -4.90% 14
North of England -50 22 £505 -1.46% 18
North West -18 20 £505 +34.67% 8
Midlands -46 20 £200 -44.25% 11
East Midlands -14 10 £195 -62.41% 1
West Midlands -46 10 £490 +36.59% 10
Yorkshire -40 2 £538 +10.26% 8
Virtual Machines
UK

For the 6 months to 16 May 2022, IT contractor jobs citing Virtual Machines also mentioned the following skills in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the England region with a requirement for Virtual Machines.

1 206 (45.37%) Azure
2 163 (35.90%) Windows
3 146 (32.16%) Microsoft
4 119 (26.21%) VMware
5 111 (24.45%) Social Skills
6 108 (23.79%) PowerShell
7 102 (22.47%) Finance
7 102 (22.47%) SQL
8 101 (22.25%) DevOps
9 100 (22.03%) Terraform
10 99 (21.81%) Linux
11 98 (21.59%) Security Cleared
12 97 (21.37%) VMware Infrastructure
13 89 (19.60%) Migration
14 87 (19.16%) Active Directory
14 87 (19.16%) SC Cleared
15 76 (16.74%) Ansible
16 74 (16.30%) CI/CD
17 70 (15.42%) Data Centre
18 68 (14.98%) Python
19 65 (14.32%) Windows Server
20 63 (13.88%) Firewall
21 62 (13.66%) ITIL
21 62 (13.66%) PaaS
22 61 (13.44%) Agile
23 60 (13.22%) AWS
23 60 (13.22%) Kubernetes
24 59 (13.00%) Microsoft 365
24 59 (13.00%) Oracle
25 56 (12.33%) DNS

Virtual Machines
Co-occurring IT Skills in England by Category

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

Application Platforms
1 25 (5.51%) SharePoint
2 18 (3.96%) IIS
3 15 (3.30%) nginx
4 11 (2.42%) Apache
5 8 (1.76%) Skype for Business
6 6 (1.32%) Tomcat
7 5 (1.10%) OpenStack
8 4 (0.88%) Ethereum
8 4 (0.88%) Solana
9 3 (0.66%) Apache Airflow
9 3 (0.66%) Apache Spark
9 3 (0.66%) CMS
9 3 (0.66%) Exchange Server 2010
9 3 (0.66%) MS Exchange
10 2 (0.44%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 2 (0.44%) MQSeries
10 2 (0.44%) Oracle Workflow
10 2 (0.44%) WebLogic
11 1 (0.22%) Confluence
11 1 (0.22%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 16 (3.52%) Microsoft Office
2 12 (2.64%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (0.66%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 3 (0.66%) Microsoft Project
4 2 (0.44%) Stata
5 1 (0.22%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.22%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 3 (0.66%) PRMS
2 2 (0.44%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.44%) Oracle Cash Management
3 1 (0.22%) Oracle Applications
3 1 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.22%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.22%) Oracle FAH
3 1 (0.22%) Oracle Utilities
3 1 (0.22%) Primavera
3 1 (0.22%) Remedy ITSM
3 1 (0.22%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.22%) Sentinel
Cloud Services
1 206 (45.37%) Azure
2 62 (13.66%) PaaS
3 60 (13.22%) AWS
4 59 (13.00%) Microsoft 365
5 43 (9.47%) IaaS
6 31 (6.83%) Azure Monitor
7 27 (5.95%) Azure Active Directory
8 21 (4.63%) SaaS
9 18 (3.96%) Azure Data Factory
9 18 (3.96%) Azure Key Vault
9 18 (3.96%) Azure Sentinel
9 18 (3.96%) Azure Storage
10 17 (3.74%) Cloud Computing
11 16 (3.52%) Power Platform
12 15 (3.30%) GitHub
13 14 (3.08%) OneDrive
14 13 (2.86%) Serverless
15 12 (2.64%) Azure Cosmos DB
16 11 (2.42%) Azure Logic Apps
16 11 (2.42%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 63 (13.88%) Firewall
2 56 (12.33%) DNS
3 37 (8.15%) DHCP
4 35 (7.71%) Network Security
5 29 (6.39%) VPN
6 28 (6.17%) SAN
7 25 (5.51%) Internet
8 19 (4.19%) LAN
8 19 (4.19%) VSAN
9 17 (3.74%) WAN
10 16 (3.52%) DMZ
11 13 (2.86%) SSL
11 13 (2.86%) TCP/IP
12 12 (2.64%) Kerberos
13 9 (1.98%) Wi-Fi
14 8 (1.76%) HTTP
14 8 (1.76%) Skype
15 6 (1.32%) 3G
15 6 (1.32%) 4G
15 6 (1.32%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 51 (11.23%) SQL Server
2 22 (4.85%) Data Lake
3 21 (4.63%) Azure SQL Database
4 14 (3.08%) Power BI
5 13 (2.86%) NoSQL
6 12 (2.64%) MongoDB
7 10 (2.20%) DB2
7 10 (2.20%) Relational Database
8 9 (1.98%) Couchbase
9 7 (1.54%) Oracle Database
9 7 (1.54%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 6 (1.32%) Apache Cassandra
10 6 (1.32%) Big Data
10 6 (1.32%) MySQL
10 6 (1.32%) PostgreSQL
10 6 (1.32%) ZAP BI
11 5 (1.10%) Hadoop
11 5 (1.10%) OLAP
11 5 (1.10%) Parquet
11 5 (1.10%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 40 (8.81%) Jenkins
2 38 (8.37%) Git (software)
3 19 (4.19%) JIRA
4 16 (3.52%) Team Foundation Server
5 13 (2.86%) Maven
6 9 (1.98%) SonarQube
7 8 (1.76%) Selenium
8 7 (1.54%) Cucumber
8 7 (1.54%) MSI
9 5 (1.10%) Chocolatey
9 5 (1.10%) GitLab
9 5 (1.10%) gulp
9 5 (1.10%) Jasmine
9 5 (1.10%) Terragrunt
10 4 (0.88%) Burp Suite
10 4 (0.88%) CircleCI
10 4 (0.88%) Gradle
10 4 (0.88%) JBehave
10 4 (0.88%) Travis CI
10 4 (0.88%) Visual Studio Coded UI
General
1 111 (24.45%) Social Skills
2 102 (22.47%) Finance
3 54 (11.89%) Public Sector
4 35 (7.71%) Analytical Skills
5 33 (7.27%) Telecoms
6 25 (5.51%) Banking
7 21 (4.63%) Documentation Skills
8 12 (2.64%) Manufacturing
8 12 (2.64%) Marketing
8 12 (2.64%) Presentation Skills
9 11 (2.42%) Electronics
10 10 (2.20%) Organisational Skills
11 9 (1.98%) Billing
12 7 (1.54%) Legal
13 6 (1.32%) Back Office
14 5 (1.10%) Front Office
15 4 (0.88%) French Language
15 4 (0.88%) German Language
16 3 (0.66%) Financial Institution
16 3 (0.66%) Law
Job Titles
1 73 (16.08%) Azure Engineer
2 56 (12.33%) Architect
3 42 (9.25%) DevOps Engineer
4 34 (7.49%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 26 (5.73%) Cloud Engineer
6 24 (5.29%) Analyst
7 23 (5.07%) Consultant
7 23 (5.07%) Developer
8 21 (4.63%) Azure DevOps Engineer
9 20 (4.41%) Cloud Architect
10 19 (4.19%) Administrator
11 18 (3.96%) Data Engineer
11 18 (3.96%) Project Manager
12 17 (3.74%) Azure DevOps
13 16 (3.52%) Service Desk Manager
13 16 (3.52%) Service Manager
14 15 (3.30%) VMware Engineer
15 14 (3.08%) Azure Architect
15 14 (3.08%) Site Reliability Engineer
16 13 (2.86%) IT Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 28 (6.17%) .NET
2 27 (5.95%) ARM Templates
3 25 (5.51%) JSON
4 19 (4.19%) Node.js
5 14 (3.08%) LDAP
6 12 (2.64%) React
7 11 (2.42%) Kafka
8 9 (1.98%) REST
9 7 (1.54%) AngularJS
9 7 (1.54%) Middleware
9 7 (1.54%) SOAP
9 7 (1.54%) Spring
10 6 (1.32%) ADO
10 6 (1.32%) Django
10 6 (1.32%) Elastic Stack
10 6 (1.32%) XML
11 5 (1.10%) .NET Core
11 5 (1.10%) Spring Boot
11 5 (1.10%) YAML
12 4 (0.88%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 70 (15.42%) Data Centre
2 33 (7.27%) Replication
3 28 (6.17%) Management Information System
3 28 (6.17%) Public Cloud
4 21 (4.63%) Clustering
5 11 (2.42%) Hybrid Cloud
6 8 (1.76%) Mainframe
7 7 (1.54%) Cloud Native
7 7 (1.54%) Linux Command Line
7 7 (1.54%) PKI
7 7 (1.54%) Wiki
8 6 (1.32%) Data Protection Act
8 6 (1.32%) Smartphone
9 5 (1.10%) Private Cloud
10 4 (0.88%) Fibre Optics
10 4 (0.88%) Self-Motivation
10 4 (0.88%) User Experience
11 3 (0.66%) Enterprise Software
11 3 (0.66%) Fat Client
11 3 (0.66%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 163 (35.90%) Windows
2 99 (21.81%) Linux
3 65 (14.32%) Windows Server
4 35 (7.71%) Unix
5 26 (5.73%) Windows 10
5 26 (5.73%) Windows Server 2016
6 25 (5.51%) Windows Server 2012
7 19 (4.19%) Windows Server 2008
7 19 (4.19%) Windows Server 2019
8 18 (3.96%) Windows 7
9 13 (2.86%) VMS
10 11 (2.42%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 8 (1.76%) Mac OS
12 6 (1.32%) AIX
12 6 (1.32%) MVS
12 6 (1.32%) Solaris
13 5 (1.10%) Apple iOS
13 5 (1.10%) Windows Server 2003
14 4 (0.88%) Android
14 4 (0.88%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 101 (22.25%) DevOps
2 89 (19.60%) Migration
3 74 (16.30%) CI/CD
4 62 (13.66%) ITIL
5 61 (13.44%) Agile
6 52 (11.45%) Infrastructure as Code
7 49 (10.79%) Configuration Management
8 46 (10.13%) Analytics
9 43 (9.47%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 43 (9.47%) Network Virtualisation
10 40 (8.81%) Disaster Recovery
11 37 (8.15%) Problem-Solving
12 34 (7.49%) Change Management
12 34 (7.49%) Service Management
13 33 (7.27%) High Availability
14 27 (5.95%) Project Management
15 24 (5.29%) Continuous Integration
15 24 (5.29%) Scrum
16 23 (5.07%) Runbook
16 23 (5.07%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 108 (23.79%) PowerShell
2 102 (22.47%) SQL
3 68 (14.98%) Python
4 53 (11.67%) Bash
5 42 (9.25%) Java
6 25 (5.51%) C
7 20 (4.41%) Go
8 15 (3.30%) Ruby
8 15 (3.30%) Shell Script
9 14 (3.08%) JavaScript
10 13 (2.86%) C#
11 12 (2.64%) Groovy
12 9 (1.98%) Perl
13 8 (1.76%) VBScript
14 7 (1.54%) T-SQL
15 5 (1.10%) C++
15 5 (1.10%) PHP
16 4 (0.88%) Rust
16 4 (0.88%) Solidity
16 4 (0.88%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 98 (21.59%) Security Cleared
2 87 (19.16%) SC Cleared
3 35 (7.71%) Degree
4 16 (3.52%) Microsoft Certification
5 10 (2.20%) MCSE
6 8 (1.76%) CISSP
6 8 (1.76%) MCSA
7 7 (1.54%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
8 6 (1.32%) CompTIA Security+
9 5 (1.10%) DV Cleared
10 4 (0.88%) CEH
10 4 (0.88%) CSSLP
10 4 (0.88%) GIAC
10 4 (0.88%) RHCSA
10 4 (0.88%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 3 (0.66%) BPSS Clearance
11 3 (0.66%) HND
11 3 (0.66%) ITIL Certification
12 2 (0.44%) Network+ Certification
12 2 (0.44%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 30 (6.61%) SLA
2 10 (2.20%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 10 (2.20%) QA
3 9 (1.98%) GDPR
4 4 (0.88%) Accessibility
4 4 (0.88%) Actionable Recommendations
5 3 (0.66%) OASIS TOSCA
6 2 (0.44%) Data Quality
6 2 (0.44%) HIPAA
6 2 (0.44%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 1 (0.22%) COBIT
7 1 (0.22%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
7 1 (0.22%) JSP 440
7 1 (0.22%) NCSC
7 1 (0.22%) NIST
7 1 (0.22%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.22%) RMADS
System Software
1 97 (21.37%) VMware Infrastructure
2 87 (19.16%) Active Directory
3 45 (9.91%) Docker
4 27 (5.95%) vSphere
5 23 (5.07%) Firmware
6 19 (4.19%) Hyper-V
7 15 (3.30%) VMware NSX
8 11 (2.42%) vCloud
9 10 (2.20%) VMware ESXi
10 6 (1.32%) Virtual Servers
11 5 (1.10%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
12 4 (0.88%) BitLocker
12 4 (0.88%) DFS Replication
12 4 (0.88%) XenApp
13 3 (0.66%) Apache ZooKeeper
13 3 (0.66%) Veritas Cluster Server
13 3 (0.66%) VirtualBox
14 2 (0.44%) PowerHA
14 2 (0.44%) UAG
14 2 (0.44%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 100 (22.03%) Terraform
2 76 (16.74%) Ansible
3 60 (13.22%) Kubernetes
4 31 (6.83%) Microsoft Intune
5 26 (5.73%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 26 (5.73%) Puppet
6 25 (5.51%) SCCM
7 22 (4.85%) Packer
8 20 (4.41%) Opscode Chef
8 20 (4.41%) vCenter Server
9 19 (4.19%) Single Sign-On
10 15 (3.30%) Microsoft Clustering
11 13 (2.86%) Consul
11 13 (2.86%) Failover Clustering
12 11 (2.42%) Docker Swarm
13 10 (2.20%) Prometheus
14 9 (1.98%) WSUS
15 7 (1.54%) Grafana
16 5 (1.10%) Istio
16 5 (1.10%) SCOrch
Vendors
1 146 (32.16%) Microsoft
2 119 (26.21%) VMware
3 59 (13.00%) Oracle
4 42 (9.25%) Cisco
5 29 (6.39%) Citrix
6 23 (5.07%) Databricks
7 22 (4.85%) ServiceNow
8 21 (4.63%) F5
8 21 (4.63%) NetApp
9 17 (3.74%) SAP
10 16 (3.52%) Altiris
10 16 (3.52%) Dell
11 15 (3.30%) Bloomberg
11 15 (3.30%) Reuters
12 14 (3.08%) Red Hat
13 13 (2.86%) CheckPoint
14 12 (2.64%) IBM
15 11 (2.42%) Ericsson
15 11 (2.42%) Splunk
16 10 (2.20%) Isilon