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 15 October 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 378 317 326
Rank change year-on-year -61 +9 +53
Contract jobs citing Virtual Machines 143 222 279
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.51% 0.69% 0.69%
As % of the System Software category 4.04% 5.95% 5.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 96 153 188
10th Percentile £354 £345 £300
25th Percentile £424 £400 £411
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £523 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.31% -0.48% -3.89%
75th Percentile £588 £608 £623
90th Percentile £646 £663 £700
UK median daily rate £503 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -3.37% -0.95% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 3 10
10th Percentile - £27.96 £68.21
25th Percentile £33.25 £48.81 £73.09
Median hourly rate £34.50 £83.55 £78.73
Median % change year-on-year -58.71% +6.13% +12.46%
75th Percentile £35.75 £84.67 £88.59
90th Percentile £50.45 £85.33 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £34.50 £83.55 £78.73
% change year-on-year -58.71% +6.13% +12.46%

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 3,539 3,734 5,312
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 12.57% 11.63% 13.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,282 2,435 3,641
10th Percentile £208 £220 £200
25th Percentile £375 £380 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% +2.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £630
90th Percentile £675 £700 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 113 80 253
10th Percentile £15.50 £14.24 £15.50
25th Percentile £21.00 £20.91 £18.00
Median hourly rate £34.00 £30.50 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +11.48% -35.79% +113.48%
75th Percentile £72.50 £70.00 £65.98
90th Percentile £89.45 £81.48 £77.31
UK median hourly rate £30.00 £30.00 £50.00
% change year-on-year - -40.00% +124.72%

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 15 October 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
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Virtual Machines in England over the 6 months to 15 October 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 15 October 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 +2 70 £507 -3.43% 20
South East -29 19 £525 -4.98% 21
South West -1 18 £550 -3.51% 6
North of England -25 17 £447 -12.35% 15
Yorkshire -17 15 £475 +2.15% 5
Midlands -40 9 £508 -12.27% 5
West Midlands -41 7 £510 -12.37% 3
East of England -14 4 £475 +38.69% 2
East Midlands -3 2 £475 -17.39% 2
North West -18 2 £363 -40.72% 10
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 12 (8.39%) Microsoft Exchange
2 7 (4.90%) IIS
3 5 (3.50%) Confluence
4 4 (2.80%) Apache
4 4 (2.80%) SharePoint
5 3 (2.10%) SharePoint Server
6 2 (1.40%) Ethereum
6 2 (1.40%) Hyperledger
6 2 (1.40%) Skype for Business
7 1 (0.70%) Anypoint
7 1 (0.70%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.70%) Jupyter
7 1 (0.70%) nginx
Applications
1 1 (0.70%) MS Visio
1 1 (0.70%) OmniGraffle
Cloud Services
1 59 (41.26%) Azure
2 24 (16.78%) Azure DevOps
3 14 (9.79%) AWS
3 14 (9.79%) GitHub
4 11 (7.69%) Entra ID
5 10 (6.99%) Azure Monitor
6 9 (6.29%) Azure Logic Apps
6 9 (6.29%) Azure Service Bus
7 8 (5.59%) Azure AKS
7 8 (5.59%) Azure API Management
8 7 (4.90%) Serverless
9 6 (4.20%) Azure Key Vault
9 6 (4.20%) Azure Storage
9 6 (4.20%) Cloud Computing
9 6 (4.20%) GitHub Actions
9 6 (4.20%) IaaS
9 6 (4.20%) Microsoft 365
10 5 (3.50%) Azure Functions
10 5 (3.50%) OpenShift
11 4 (2.80%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 25 (17.48%) Firewall
2 22 (15.38%) DNS
3 9 (6.29%) DHCP
3 9 (6.29%) Network Security
4 8 (5.59%) Skype
4 8 (5.59%) VPN
4 8 (5.59%) WAN
5 6 (4.20%) VSAN
6 5 (3.50%) TCP/IP
6 5 (3.50%) Wi-Fi
7 4 (2.80%) Intrusion Detection
7 4 (2.80%) VLAN
8 3 (2.10%) NAS
8 3 (2.10%) SAN
9 2 (1.40%) Modbus
10 1 (0.70%) Cisco IOS
10 1 (0.70%) iSCSI
10 1 (0.70%) NGFW
10 1 (0.70%) NX-OS
10 1 (0.70%) RTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (11.19%) SQL Server
2 7 (4.90%) PostgreSQL
3 4 (2.80%) OLTP
4 3 (2.10%) Data Mining
4 3 (2.10%) Relational Database
4 3 (2.10%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 2 (1.40%) Azure SQL Database
5 2 (1.40%) Data Lake
5 2 (1.40%) NoSQL
6 1 (0.70%) Amazon RDS
6 1 (0.70%) Big Data
6 1 (0.70%) MySQL
6 1 (0.70%) Oracle Database
6 1 (0.70%) Oracle Reports
6 1 (0.70%) Redis
Development Applications
1 15 (10.49%) JIRA
2 10 (6.99%) Git
3 9 (6.29%) Jenkins
4 5 (3.50%) GitLab
5 2 (1.40%) Hardhat
5 2 (1.40%) RStudio
6 1 (0.70%) Artifactory
6 1 (0.70%) Cucumber
6 1 (0.70%) EasyMock
6 1 (0.70%) JBehave
6 1 (0.70%) JUnit
6 1 (0.70%) Mockito
6 1 (0.70%) Robot Framework
6 1 (0.70%) Snyk
6 1 (0.70%) SonarQube
6 1 (0.70%) Terragrunt
6 1 (0.70%) VisualVM
6 1 (0.70%) YourKit
General
1 25 (17.48%) Social Skills
2 14 (9.79%) Public Sector
3 9 (6.29%) Finance
4 7 (4.90%) Analytical Skills
4 7 (4.90%) Documentation Skills
4 7 (4.90%) Law
5 6 (4.20%) Telecoms
6 5 (3.50%) Banking
7 4 (2.80%) Marketing
7 4 (2.80%) Spanish Language
8 2 (1.40%) Financial Institution
8 2 (1.40%) Manufacturing
8 2 (1.40%) Social Science
9 1 (0.70%) Aerospace
9 1 (0.70%) Back Office
9 1 (0.70%) Electronics
9 1 (0.70%) Front Office
9 1 (0.70%) Influencing Skills
9 1 (0.70%) Legal
9 1 (0.70%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 17 (11.89%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 14 (9.79%) DevOps Engineer
3 12 (8.39%) Developer
3 12 (8.39%) Security Engineer
4 11 (7.69%) Senior
5 10 (6.99%) Platform Engineer
6 7 (4.90%) Azure Engineer
6 7 (4.90%) Project Manager
7 6 (4.20%) Architect
7 6 (4.20%) Data Engineer
8 5 (3.50%) Consultant
8 5 (3.50%) Infrastructure Security Engineer
8 5 (3.50%) IT Engineer
8 5 (3.50%) Network Engineer
8 5 (3.50%) Network Security Engineer
8 5 (3.50%) Software Engineer
9 4 (2.80%) Applications Engineer
9 4 (2.80%) Embedded C++ Engineer
9 4 (2.80%) Embedded C++ Software Engineer
9 4 (2.80%) Network Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (9.09%) ARM Templates
2 10 (6.99%) Middleware
3 7 (4.90%) TensorFlow
4 6 (4.20%) Hugging Face
4 6 (4.20%) OpenCV
4 6 (4.20%) OpenTelemetry
4 6 (4.20%) PyTorch
4 6 (4.20%) Regular Expression
4 6 (4.20%) SpaCy
4 6 (4.20%) YAML
5 5 (3.50%) ADO
5 5 (3.50%) RESTful
5 5 (3.50%) Web Services
6 4 (2.80%) .NET
6 4 (2.80%) CSS
6 4 (2.80%) HTML
6 4 (2.80%) XHTML
7 3 (2.10%) Kafka
8 2 (1.40%) Smart Contracts
8 2 (1.40%) web3js
Miscellaneous
1 11 (7.69%) Onboarding
2 10 (6.99%) Data Centre
3 7 (4.90%) Management Information System
3 7 (4.90%) Replication
4 6 (4.20%) PKI
4 6 (4.20%) Private Cloud
5 5 (3.50%) CAN bus
6 4 (2.80%) Algorithms
6 4 (2.80%) Hybrid Cloud
6 4 (2.80%) Public Cloud
6 4 (2.80%) Self-Motivation
7 3 (2.10%) Legacy Code
7 3 (2.10%) Linux Command Line
7 3 (2.10%) Security Posture
8 2 (1.40%) Analytical Mindset
8 2 (1.40%) Blockchain
8 2 (1.40%) Enterprise Software
8 2 (1.40%) Insider Threat
8 2 (1.40%) Operational Technology
8 2 (1.40%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 56 (39.16%) Windows
2 43 (30.07%) Linux
3 28 (19.58%) Windows Server
4 11 (7.69%) VMS
5 10 (6.99%) Windows 10
6 9 (6.29%) Windows Server 2016
7 8 (5.59%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 6 (4.20%) Ubuntu
9 4 (2.80%) Windows Server 2012
9 4 (2.80%) Windows Server 2019
10 1 (0.70%) Apple iOS
10 1 (0.70%) CentOS
10 1 (0.70%) SUSE
10 1 (0.70%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
10 1 (0.70%) Windows 7
10 1 (0.70%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 47 (32.87%) DevOps
2 40 (27.97%) CI/CD
3 32 (22.38%) Agile
4 28 (19.58%) Problem-Solving
5 27 (18.88%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 26 (18.18%) Infrastructure as Code
7 23 (16.08%) Analytics
8 20 (13.99%) Migration
9 15 (10.49%) Cybersecurity
10 14 (9.79%) Continuous Integration
10 14 (9.79%) High Availability
11 12 (8.39%) Root Cause Analysis
12 11 (7.69%) Machine Learning
12 11 (7.69%) Project Management
13 10 (6.99%) API Management
13 10 (6.99%) Cloud Security
13 10 (6.99%) Information Security
13 10 (6.99%) Infrastructure Automation
13 10 (6.99%) Platform Engineering
14 9 (6.29%) Knowledge Transfer
Programming Languages
1 31 (21.68%) Python
2 27 (18.88%) PowerShell
3 13 (9.09%) SQL
4 11 (7.69%) C#
4 11 (7.69%) Java
5 9 (6.29%) Bicep
6 8 (5.59%) Bash
7 7 (4.90%) C++
8 6 (4.20%) JavaScript
9 5 (3.50%) Embedded C++
9 5 (3.50%) Shell Script
10 4 (2.80%) PHP
10 4 (2.80%) Scala
11 2 (1.40%) Solidity
12 1 (0.70%) Go
12 1 (0.70%) Korn
12 1 (0.70%) Swift
12 1 (0.70%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 42 (29.37%) Security Cleared
2 31 (21.68%) SC Cleared
3 9 (6.29%) Degree
3 9 (6.29%) DV Cleared
4 4 (2.80%) Computer Science Degree
5 3 (2.10%) Cisco Certification
5 3 (2.10%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
6 2 (1.40%) AWS Certification
6 2 (1.40%) Azure Certification
6 2 (1.40%) BPSS Clearance
6 2 (1.40%) CCNA
6 2 (1.40%) CCNP
6 2 (1.40%) CISM
6 2 (1.40%) CISSP
6 2 (1.40%) Master's Degree
6 2 (1.40%) VCAP
7 1 (0.70%) (ISC)2 CCSP
7 1 (0.70%) AWS Certified SysOps Administrator
7 1 (0.70%) CEH
7 1 (0.70%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (4.90%) Accessibility
1 7 (4.90%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 5 (3.50%) NIST
2 5 (3.50%) SLA
3 3 (2.10%) QA
4 2 (1.40%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
5 1 (0.70%) Cyber Essentials
5 1 (0.70%) GRC
5 1 (0.70%) RMADS
System Software
1 40 (27.97%) VMware Infrastructure
2 34 (23.78%) Active Directory
3 17 (11.89%) VMware ESXi
4 15 (10.49%) vSphere
5 11 (7.69%) Docker
6 10 (6.99%) VMware NSX
7 9 (6.29%) Virtual Desktop
8 7 (4.90%) Hyper-V
9 3 (2.10%) Firmware
9 3 (2.10%) KVM
10 1 (0.70%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 26 (18.18%) vCenter Server
2 24 (16.78%) Terraform
3 20 (13.99%) Kubernetes
4 11 (7.69%) Ansible
5 9 (6.29%) SCCM
5 9 (6.29%) WSUS
6 6 (4.20%) Microsoft Intune
6 6 (4.20%) vRealize
7 5 (3.50%) CASB
7 5 (3.50%) SCOrch
7 5 (3.50%) vMotion
8 4 (2.80%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 3 (2.10%) Grafana
9 3 (2.10%) Microsoft Clustering
9 3 (2.10%) NetApp OnCommand
9 3 (2.10%) Rancher
10 2 (1.40%) PowerCLI
10 2 (1.40%) Prometheus
10 2 (1.40%) SCOM
10 2 (1.40%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 48 (33.57%) VMware
2 45 (31.47%) Microsoft
3 11 (7.69%) Cisco
4 7 (4.90%) Oracle
5 6 (4.20%) NetApp
5 6 (4.20%) Veeam
6 5 (3.50%) Citrix
6 5 (3.50%) Databricks
7 4 (2.80%) Red Hat
7 4 (2.80%) Remedy
7 4 (2.80%) SolarWinds
8 3 (2.10%) F5
8 3 (2.10%) Sophos
8 3 (2.10%) Tenable
9 2 (1.40%) IBM
9 2 (1.40%) Palo Alto
9 2 (1.40%) Rockwell
9 2 (1.40%) ServiceNow
10 1 (0.70%) Dell
10 1 (0.70%) SAP