Virtual Machines Contracts in England

Virtual Machine (VM)
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in England requiring Virtual Machines skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Virtual Machines over the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 323 294 320
Rank change year-on-year -29 +26 +69
Contract jobs citing Virtual Machines 165 268 380
As % of all contract jobs advertised in England 0.68% 0.72% 0.75%
As % of the System Software category 5.34% 6.65% 5.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 109 185 255
10th Percentile £350 £300 £338
25th Percentile £456 £400 £456
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £545
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -5.96% +3.81%
75th Percentile £625 £608 £600
90th Percentile £750 £675 £715
UK median daily rate £513 £507 £540
% change year-on-year +1.18% -6.20% +2.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 27 16
10th Percentile £29.73 - £22.97
25th Percentile £33.25 £14.06 £25.09
Median hourly rate £63.00 £14.63 £66.00
Median % change year-on-year +330.77% -77.84% +38.28%
75th Percentile £64.50 £15.19 £70.56
90th Percentile £66.00 £88.75 £82.50
UK median hourly rate £63.00 £14.63 £66.00
% change year-on-year +330.77% -77.84% +38.28%

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 3,088 4,031 6,595
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 12.68% 10.84% 13.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,136 2,794 4,778
10th Percentile £213 £190 £204
25th Percentile £400 £325 £394
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £494 £525
Median % change year-on-year +6.33% -5.95% -
75th Percentile £625 £600 £650
90th Percentile £725 £688 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £488 £525
% change year-on-year +7.69% -7.14% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 73 209 243
10th Percentile £14.99 £14.06 £14.25
25th Percentile £18.13 £14.48 £17.72
Median hourly rate £27.94 £21.00 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +33.05% -58.00% +163.16%
75th Percentile £64.50 £58.69 £65.00
90th Percentile £87.65 £72.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £27.50 £22.50 £53.43
% change year-on-year +22.22% -57.88% +167.13%

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 1 May 2025.

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 1 May 2025.

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 1 May 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 +12 92 £575 +7.48% 62
North of England +1 23 £381 -35.15% 24
Midlands +26 17 £488 +21.88% 19
North West +18 15 £381 -38.32% 15
West Midlands +18 15 £463 +15.63% 13
East of England +29 13 £538 -10.71% 9
South East +12 12 £575 +6.98% 32
Yorkshire -14 5 £475 +39.71% 9
South West +37 4 £535 +21.80% 15
North East - 3 £363 -
East Midlands +10 2 £525 +61.54% 5
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 13 (7.88%) Microsoft Exchange
2 9 (5.45%) WebSphere
3 6 (3.64%) SharePoint
4 5 (3.03%) Apache Spark
4 5 (3.03%) Skype for Business
5 4 (2.42%) Confluence
5 4 (2.42%) IIS
6 3 (1.82%) Blackberry Enterprise Server
6 3 (1.82%) Exchange Server 2013
7 2 (1.21%) BizTalk Server
8 1 (0.61%) Apache
8 1 (0.61%) Apache Airflow
8 1 (0.61%) JBoss
8 1 (0.61%) MTS
8 1 (0.61%) OpenStack
Applications
1 2 (1.21%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.61%) AutoCAD
2 1 (0.61%) Final Cut Pro
2 1 (0.61%) Microsoft Project
2 1 (0.61%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.61%) QuarkXPress
2 1 (0.61%) SketchUp
Cloud Services
1 75 (45.45%) Azure
2 33 (20.00%) AWS
3 26 (15.76%) Entra ID
4 21 (12.73%) Microsoft 365
5 20 (12.12%) Azure DevOps
6 17 (10.30%) PaaS
6 17 (10.30%) SaaS
7 16 (9.70%) Serverless
8 15 (9.09%) GCP
9 12 (7.27%) Azure AKS
9 12 (7.27%) Azure Monitor
10 10 (6.06%) IaaS
10 10 (6.06%) OCI
11 8 (4.85%) Azure Functions
11 8 (4.85%) Azure Sentinel
11 8 (4.85%) Cloud Computing
11 8 (4.85%) GitHub
12 7 (4.24%) Azure Logic Apps
13 6 (3.64%) Azure Event Grid
13 6 (3.64%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 29 (17.58%) Firewall
2 21 (12.73%) DNS
3 15 (9.09%) DHCP
4 12 (7.27%) SAN
4 12 (7.27%) VPN
5 9 (5.45%) TCP/IP
6 7 (4.24%) Network Security
7 5 (3.03%) Skype
7 5 (3.03%) WAN
8 3 (1.82%) IMAP
8 3 (1.82%) NAS
8 3 (1.82%) NGFW
8 3 (1.82%) SMTP
8 3 (1.82%) VLAN
8 3 (1.82%) Wi-Fi
9 2 (1.21%) Broadband
9 2 (1.21%) IPsec
9 2 (1.21%) VoIP
10 1 (0.61%) LAN
10 1 (0.61%) SNA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (7.27%) Azure SQL Database
2 9 (5.45%) DB2
3 8 (4.85%) SQL Server
4 5 (3.03%) Amazon RDS
4 5 (3.03%) Power BI
5 3 (1.82%) Hadoop
5 3 (1.82%) PostgreSQL
6 2 (1.21%) Data Lake
6 2 (1.21%) Data Warehouse
6 2 (1.21%) MySQL
6 2 (1.21%) Oracle Database
7 1 (0.61%) Apache Cassandra
7 1 (0.61%) Apache Hive
7 1 (0.61%) Big Data
7 1 (0.61%) Couchbase
7 1 (0.61%) HBase
7 1 (0.61%) HDInsight
7 1 (0.61%) Impala
7 1 (0.61%) Spatial Data
7 1 (0.61%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 9 (5.45%) Jenkins
2 8 (4.85%) Git
3 5 (3.03%) GitLab
4 4 (2.42%) JIRA
5 1 (0.61%) Maven
General
1 27 (16.36%) Social Skills
2 26 (15.76%) Finance
3 19 (11.52%) Analytical Skills
4 12 (7.27%) Public Sector
5 6 (3.64%) Banking
6 5 (3.03%) Financial Institution
6 5 (3.03%) Law
6 5 (3.03%) Telecoms
7 4 (2.42%) Legal
7 4 (2.42%) Marketing
8 2 (1.21%) Electronics
8 2 (1.21%) Manufacturing
8 2 (1.21%) Organisational Skills
8 2 (1.21%) Retail
9 1 (0.61%) Aerospace
9 1 (0.61%) Billing
9 1 (0.61%) Documentation Skills
9 1 (0.61%) Pharmaceutical
9 1 (0.61%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 39 (23.64%) Architect
2 17 (10.30%) Cloud Architect
2 17 (10.30%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 17 (10.30%) Senior
3 15 (9.09%) Security Engineer
4 14 (8.48%) Azure Architect
4 14 (8.48%) Azure Engineer
5 12 (7.27%) Operations Engineer
5 12 (7.27%) Solutions Architect
5 12 (7.27%) Technical Architect
6 11 (6.67%) Consultant
7 9 (5.45%) Automation Engineer
7 9 (5.45%) Cloud Infrastructure Architect
8 8 (4.85%) Cloud Engineer
9 7 (4.24%) Administrator
9 7 (4.24%) DevOps Engineer
9 7 (4.24%) Lead
9 7 (4.24%) Oracle Architect
9 7 (4.24%) Systems Architect
10 6 (3.64%) Oracle Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (6.67%) ARM Templates
2 6 (3.64%) Middleware
3 4 (2.42%) Azure Blueprints
4 3 (1.82%) YAML
5 2 (1.21%) CSS
5 2 (1.21%) HTML
5 2 (1.21%) OAuth
5 2 (1.21%) OpenID
5 2 (1.21%) SAML
5 2 (1.21%) XHTML
6 1 (0.61%) ADO
6 1 (0.61%) EJB
6 1 (0.61%) Elastic Stack
6 1 (0.61%) Hibernate
6 1 (0.61%) Java EE
6 1 (0.61%) JSP
6 1 (0.61%) Kafka
6 1 (0.61%) Keycloak
6 1 (0.61%) RESTful
6 1 (0.61%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 14 (8.48%) Management Information System
2 11 (6.67%) Product Ownership
3 9 (5.45%) Hybrid Cloud
4 7 (4.24%) Cloud Native
4 7 (4.24%) Data Centre
4 7 (4.24%) Mainframe
5 5 (3.03%) Linux Command Line
5 5 (3.03%) PKI
5 5 (3.03%) Replication
6 4 (2.42%) Public Cloud
7 3 (1.82%) Blackberry
7 3 (1.82%) Cyber Threat
7 3 (1.82%) Reinsurance
7 3 (1.82%) Self-Motivation
8 2 (1.21%) Clustering
8 2 (1.21%) Data Protection Act
8 2 (1.21%) Hedge funds
8 2 (1.21%) Legacy Applications
8 2 (1.21%) Onboarding
8 2 (1.21%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 47 (28.48%) Windows
2 29 (17.58%) Windows Server
3 25 (15.15%) Linux
4 11 (6.67%) VMS
5 10 (6.06%) Windows Server 2019
6 9 (5.45%) Unix
6 9 (5.45%) Windows Server 2012
6 9 (5.45%) Windows Server 2016
7 5 (3.03%) Windows 10
7 5 (3.03%) Windows 7
8 3 (1.82%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 3 (1.82%) Windows XP
9 2 (1.21%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.61%) AIX
10 1 (0.61%) Debian
10 1 (0.61%) Mac OS X
10 1 (0.61%) Oracle Linux
10 1 (0.61%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 39 (23.64%) Problem-Solving
2 38 (23.03%) DevOps
3 29 (17.58%) Migration
4 26 (15.76%) CI/CD
4 26 (15.76%) Cloud Security
4 26 (15.76%) High Availability
5 24 (14.55%) Infrastructure as Code
6 21 (12.73%) Agile
7 20 (12.12%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 15 (9.09%) SIEM
9 14 (8.48%) Disaster Recovery
9 14 (8.48%) ITIL
9 14 (8.48%) Security Operations
10 13 (7.88%) Analytics
11 12 (7.27%) Incident Response
11 12 (7.27%) Project Management
12 11 (6.67%) Identity Access Management
12 11 (6.67%) RBAC
12 11 (6.67%) Roadmaps
13 10 (6.06%) Patch Management
Programming Languages
1 34 (20.61%) PowerShell
2 31 (18.79%) SQL
3 24 (14.55%) Python
4 9 (5.45%) Bash
4 9 (5.45%) Bicep
5 4 (2.42%) C#
5 4 (2.42%) JavaScript
5 4 (2.42%) Shell Script
6 3 (1.82%) Java
7 2 (1.21%) PHP
8 1 (0.61%) ActionScript
8 1 (0.61%) ActionScript 2.0
8 1 (0.61%) Go
8 1 (0.61%) JCL
8 1 (0.61%) Kusto Query Language
8 1 (0.61%) Perl
8 1 (0.61%) REXX
8 1 (0.61%) VB
8 1 (0.61%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 40 (24.24%) Security Cleared
2 35 (21.21%) SC Cleared
3 12 (7.27%) Degree
4 9 (5.45%) Azure Certification
5 5 (3.03%) Computer Science Degree
5 5 (3.03%) Microsoft Certification
6 4 (2.42%) DV Cleared
6 4 (2.42%) MCSE
6 4 (2.42%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
7 3 (1.82%) AWS Certification
7 3 (1.82%) CTC Cleared
8 2 (1.21%) PMI Certification
8 2 (1.21%) PMP
9 1 (0.61%) CCIE
9 1 (0.61%) CCNA
9 1 (0.61%) CCNP
9 1 (0.61%) Cisco Certification
9 1 (0.61%) IBM Certification
9 1 (0.61%) OCP
9 1 (0.61%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (5.45%) GDPR
2 6 (3.64%) SLA
3 4 (2.42%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 4 (2.42%) NCSC
3 4 (2.42%) SOC 2
4 3 (1.82%) GRC
4 3 (1.82%) HIPAA
4 3 (1.82%) NIST
4 3 (1.82%) PCI DSS
5 2 (1.21%) Accessibility
6 1 (0.61%) 21 CFR Part 11
6 1 (0.61%) Basel III
6 1 (0.61%) California Consumer Privacy Act
6 1 (0.61%) Data Quality
6 1 (0.61%) GxP
System Software
1 52 (31.52%) Active Directory
2 29 (17.58%) VMware Infrastructure
3 12 (7.27%) VMware ESXi
4 7 (4.24%) Hyper-V
5 6 (3.64%) Docker
6 4 (2.42%) Virtual Desktop
6 4 (2.42%) vSphere
7 3 (1.82%) VMware NSX
8 2 (1.21%) KVM
9 1 (0.61%) Apache Flume
9 1 (0.61%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 29 (17.58%) Terraform
2 20 (12.12%) Kubernetes
3 14 (8.48%) Microsoft Intune
4 13 (7.88%) Ansible
4 13 (7.88%) vCenter Server
4 13 (7.88%) WSUS
5 8 (4.85%) SCCM
6 6 (3.64%) Data Guard
7 4 (2.42%) Microsoft Clustering
7 4 (2.42%) NetApp OnCommand
7 4 (2.42%) vMotion
7 4 (2.42%) vRealize
8 3 (1.82%) CASB
9 2 (1.21%) Proxmox
9 2 (1.21%) Puppet
9 2 (1.21%) SCOM
9 2 (1.21%) SCOrch
10 1 (0.61%) Grafana
10 1 (0.61%) Tivoli NetView
10 1 (0.61%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 61 (36.97%) Microsoft
2 31 (18.79%) VMware
3 17 (10.30%) Google
3 17 (10.30%) Palo Alto
4 16 (9.70%) Oracle
5 9 (5.45%) IBM
6 7 (4.24%) Cisco
7 6 (3.64%) ServiceNow
8 5 (3.03%) Citrix
9 4 (2.42%) Broadcom
10 3 (1.82%) NetApp
10 3 (1.82%) Qualys
10 3 (1.82%) Rapid7
10 3 (1.82%) SAP
10 3 (1.82%) Sophos
11 2 (1.21%) Adobe
11 2 (1.21%) Apple
11 2 (1.21%) F5
11 2 (1.21%) QAD
11 2 (1.21%) Splunk