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 7 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

 6 months to
7 Jun 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 336 324 298
Rank change year-on-year -12 -26 +30
Contract jobs citing Virtual Machines 271 151 279
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.64% 0.62% 0.75%
As % of the System Software category 6.30% 4.92% 6.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 187 102 200
10th Percentile £356 £350 £313
25th Percentile £415 £413 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £496 £513 £535
Median % change year-on-year -3.18% -4.21% -1.15%
75th Percentile £568 £611 £608
90th Percentile £650 £750 £675
UK median daily rate £493 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -3.79% -2.38% -2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 6 26
10th Percentile £26.00 - -
25th Percentile £37.00 £33.25 £14.06
Median hourly rate £70.00 £34.50 £14.63
Median % change year-on-year +102.90% +135.90% -77.84%
75th Percentile - £57.31 £15.19
90th Percentile - £65.25 £84.67
UK median hourly rate £70.00 £34.50 £14.63
% change year-on-year +102.90% +135.90% -77.84%

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 4,305 3,072 4,133
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 10.18% 12.63% 11.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,890 2,073 2,893
10th Percentile £213 £214 £205
25th Percentile £400 £381 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £505 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.99% +1.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £608
90th Percentile £688 £700 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 168 70 200
10th Percentile £17.64 £14.99 £14.06
25th Percentile £25.74 £17.53 £14.48
Median hourly rate £55.00 £28.46 £22.15
Median % change year-on-year +93.29% +28.47% -57.51%
75th Percentile £73.00 £65.63 £58.69
90th Percentile £77.50 £88.00 £75.30
UK median hourly rate £52.50 £28.46 £24.18
% change year-on-year +84.50% +17.68% -55.90%

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 7 June 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 7 June 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 7 June 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 -59 102 £525 -4.55% 19
North of England -1 93 £478 +27.33% 8
Yorkshire -11 49 £500 +5.26% 3
North West -14 42 £463 +25.00% 5
South East -29 42 £514 -6.55% 23
Midlands -51 16 £438 -12.15% 3
West Midlands -60 13 £425 -14.66% 3
South West -20 9 £360 -24.21% 5
East of England -20 7 £425 -19.12% 9
North East -24 2 £400 +10.34%
East Midlands -27 1 £500 -4.76%
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 5 (1.85%) SharePoint
2 3 (1.11%) Confluence
2 3 (1.11%) Microsoft Exchange
2 3 (1.11%) OpenStack
2 3 (1.11%) Palantir Foundry
3 2 (0.74%) Apache
3 2 (0.74%) CMS
3 2 (0.74%) Umbraco
4 1 (0.37%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (0.37%) ArcGIS
4 1 (0.37%) IIS
4 1 (0.37%) nginx
4 1 (0.37%) WebLogic
Applications
1 4 (1.48%) Adobe Illustrator
1 4 (1.48%) Photoshop
2 2 (0.74%) Chatbot
3 1 (0.37%) InDesign
3 1 (0.37%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 2 (0.74%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.37%) SAP SD
2 1 (0.37%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 105 (38.75%) Azure
2 41 (15.13%) AWS
3 33 (12.18%) OpenShift
4 26 (9.59%) Azure DevOps
5 24 (8.86%) GitHub
6 23 (8.49%) Entra ID
7 18 (6.64%) Azure Monitor
8 16 (5.90%) Azure AKS
8 16 (5.90%) GCP
8 16 (5.90%) GitHub Actions
9 13 (4.80%) Microsoft 365
10 12 (4.43%) Serverless
11 11 (4.06%) Azure Storage
12 10 (3.69%) Azure Key Vault
13 9 (3.32%) Nutanix
14 7 (2.58%) Azure Functions
14 7 (2.58%) IaaS
15 6 (2.21%) Azure Logic Apps
15 6 (2.21%) Cohesity
15 6 (2.21%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 34 (12.55%) DNS
2 33 (12.18%) Firewall
3 23 (8.49%) VPN
4 21 (7.75%) Network Security
5 19 (7.01%) VLAN
6 18 (6.64%) DHCP
7 15 (5.54%) VSAN
8 12 (4.43%) WAN
9 11 (4.06%) SSL
10 10 (3.69%) SD-WAN
11 8 (2.95%) SAN
12 7 (2.58%) LAN
13 6 (2.21%) FTP
13 6 (2.21%) TCP/IP
14 4 (1.48%) Wi-Fi
15 3 (1.11%) Reverse Proxy
16 2 (0.74%) IPsec
16 2 (0.74%) NAS
16 2 (0.74%) NetScaler
16 2 (0.74%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (7.01%) SQL Server
2 7 (2.58%) Azure SQL Database
3 6 (2.21%) Db2
3 6 (2.21%) PostgreSQL
3 6 (2.21%) Power BI
4 5 (1.85%) Oracle Database
5 4 (1.48%) Oracle Reports
6 3 (1.11%) Amazon RDS
6 3 (1.11%) Data Warehouse
7 1 (0.37%) Amazon QuickSight
7 1 (0.37%) Oracle Exadata
7 1 (0.37%) Power Query
7 1 (0.37%) Relational Database
7 1 (0.37%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 1 (0.37%) Weaviate
Development Applications
1 22 (8.12%) Git
2 14 (5.17%) Jenkins
3 11 (4.06%) GitLab
4 9 (3.32%) JIRA
5 4 (1.48%) PVCS
5 4 (1.48%) Rational DOORS
6 2 (0.74%) JMeter
6 2 (0.74%) Postman
6 2 (0.74%) Selenium
6 2 (0.74%) Sonatype Nexus
6 2 (0.74%) Team Foundation Server
6 2 (0.74%) Terragrunt
7 1 (0.37%) Gradle
7 1 (0.37%) RStudio
General
1 38 (14.02%) Social Skills
2 25 (9.23%) Finance
3 14 (5.17%) Analytical Skills
4 12 (4.43%) Banking
4 12 (4.43%) Legal
5 9 (3.32%) Public Sector
6 7 (2.58%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 6 (2.21%) Retail
8 4 (1.48%) Electronics
8 4 (1.48%) Front Office
9 3 (1.11%) Documentation Skills
9 3 (1.11%) Marketing
10 2 (0.74%) Law
10 2 (0.74%) Manufacturing
10 2 (0.74%) Pharmaceutical
11 1 (0.37%) Advertising
11 1 (0.37%) Back Office
11 1 (0.37%) Influencing Skills
11 1 (0.37%) Publishing
11 1 (0.37%) Social Science
Job Titles
1 34 (12.55%) DevOps Engineer
2 23 (8.49%) Azure Engineer
3 20 (7.38%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 20 (7.38%) Senior
4 18 (6.64%) Wintel Engineer
5 15 (5.54%) Cloud Engineer
6 14 (5.17%) Lead
7 12 (4.43%) Administrator
7 12 (4.43%) Analyst
7 12 (4.43%) Architect
8 10 (3.69%) VMware Engineer
9 8 (2.95%) Azure DevOps Engineer
10 7 (2.58%) Consultant
10 7 (2.58%) Linux Engineer
10 7 (2.58%) Security Engineer
11 6 (2.21%) Data Engineer
11 6 (2.21%) Product Owner
11 6 (2.21%) Senior VMware Engineer
11 6 (2.21%) Solutions Architect
11 6 (2.21%) Technical Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (2.95%) ARM Templates
1 8 (2.95%) REST
2 6 (2.21%) YAML
3 5 (1.85%) Middleware
4 3 (1.11%) Hugging Face
4 3 (1.11%) JSON
5 2 (0.74%) OpenCV
5 2 (0.74%) PySpark
5 2 (0.74%) PyTorch
5 2 (0.74%) Regular Expression
5 2 (0.74%) SOAP
5 2 (0.74%) SpaCy
5 2 (0.74%) TensorFlow
6 1 (0.37%) .NET
6 1 (0.37%) Java SE
6 1 (0.37%) LDAP
6 1 (0.37%) OpenID
6 1 (0.37%) SciPy
6 1 (0.37%) Software Packaging
6 1 (0.37%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 29 (10.70%) Replication
2 24 (8.86%) Data Centre
3 23 (8.49%) Clustering
4 14 (5.17%) Hybrid Cloud
5 11 (4.06%) Cloud Native
5 11 (4.06%) Linux Command Line
6 9 (3.32%) Product Ownership
7 6 (2.21%) Operational Technology
7 6 (2.21%) Private Cloud
8 5 (1.85%) Cyber Threat
8 5 (1.85%) FlexPod
8 5 (1.85%) Mainframe
8 5 (1.85%) Onboarding
8 5 (1.85%) PKI
9 4 (1.48%) Security Posture
10 3 (1.11%) Data Protection Act
10 3 (1.11%) Fixed Income
10 3 (1.11%) Public Cloud
10 3 (1.11%) SCADA
10 3 (1.11%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 87 (32.10%) Windows
2 72 (26.57%) Linux
3 51 (18.82%) Windows Server
4 32 (11.81%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 25 (9.23%) VMS
6 10 (3.69%) Unix
7 9 (3.32%) AIX
8 7 (2.58%) CoreOS
9 6 (2.21%) Data ONTAP
10 4 (1.48%) SUSE
11 3 (1.11%) Apple iOS
11 3 (1.11%) Ubuntu
11 3 (1.11%) Windows Server 2019
12 2 (0.74%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.74%) Windows Server 2016
13 1 (0.37%) Android
13 1 (0.37%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 74 (27.31%) CI/CD
2 69 (25.46%) DevOps
3 58 (21.40%) Migration
4 47 (17.34%) Infrastructure as Code
5 42 (15.50%) High Availability
6 40 (14.76%) Disaster Recovery
7 37 (13.65%) Network Virtualisation
7 37 (13.65%) Performance Tuning
8 35 (12.92%) Continuous Improvement
9 33 (12.18%) Capacity Planning
9 33 (12.18%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 23 (8.49%) Cybersecurity
10 23 (8.49%) Vulnerability Management
11 22 (8.12%) Problem-Solving
11 22 (8.12%) Storage Management
12 21 (7.75%) Containerisation
13 20 (7.38%) Validation
14 19 (7.01%) RBAC
15 18 (6.64%) Platform Engineering
15 18 (6.64%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 76 (28.04%) PowerShell
2 65 (23.99%) Python
3 43 (15.87%) Bash
4 36 (13.28%) SQL
5 9 (3.32%) Bicep
6 7 (2.58%) C
6 7 (2.58%) Shell Script
7 4 (1.48%) C#
7 4 (1.48%) C++
7 4 (1.48%) Embedded C
7 4 (1.48%) Embedded C++
7 4 (1.48%) Java
7 4 (1.48%) PL/SQL
8 2 (0.74%) Go
8 2 (0.74%) Korn
9 1 (0.37%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 1 (0.37%) Groovy
9 1 (0.37%) Kotlin
9 1 (0.37%) RPG
9 1 (0.37%) VBA
Qualifications
1 68 (25.09%) Security Cleared
2 54 (19.93%) SC Cleared
3 24 (8.86%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
4 19 (7.01%) Microsoft Certification
4 19 (7.01%) VCAP
5 18 (6.64%) MCSA
5 18 (6.64%) MCSE
6 15 (5.54%) Azure Certification
7 10 (3.69%) OCP
7 10 (3.69%) Oracle Certification
8 8 (2.95%) Degree
9 5 (1.85%) DV Cleared
10 4 (1.48%) CISSP
10 4 (1.48%) ISTQB
10 4 (1.48%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
11 3 (1.11%) BPSS Clearance
11 3 (1.11%) CISM
11 3 (1.11%) PMI Certification
11 3 (1.11%) PMP
12 2 (0.74%) RHCA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (4.06%) QA
2 4 (1.48%) GDPR
3 2 (0.74%) GMP
3 2 (0.74%) GxP
3 2 (0.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 2 (0.74%) NIST
3 2 (0.74%) SLA
4 1 (0.37%) Accessibility
4 1 (0.37%) Cyber Essentials
4 1 (0.37%) Data Quality
4 1 (0.37%) HIPAA
4 1 (0.37%) PCI DSS
4 1 (0.37%) SOC 2
4 1 (0.37%) WCAG
System Software
1 91 (33.58%) VMware Infrastructure
2 51 (18.82%) vSphere
3 44 (16.24%) VMware ESXi
4 36 (13.28%) Active Directory
5 28 (10.33%) Hyper-V
6 20 (7.38%) Docker
7 16 (5.90%) KVM
8 10 (3.69%) VMware NSX
9 9 (3.32%) Firmware
9 9 (3.32%) NFS
10 8 (2.95%) Ceph
11 6 (2.21%) Virtual Desktop
12 3 (1.11%) VMware Workstation
13 2 (0.74%) EMC RecoverPoint
13 2 (0.74%) Veritas Volume Manager
14 1 (0.37%) BitLocker
14 1 (0.37%) NLBS
14 1 (0.37%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 63 (23.25%) Ansible
2 59 (21.77%) Terraform
3 44 (16.24%) Kubernetes
4 41 (15.13%) vCenter Server
5 14 (5.17%) PowerCLI
6 10 (3.69%) SCCM
7 8 (2.95%) Grafana
8 6 (2.21%) IBM BigFix
8 6 (2.21%) Microsoft Intune
8 6 (2.21%) Prometheus
8 6 (2.21%) SnapMirror
8 6 (2.21%) VxRail
9 5 (1.85%) vMotion
10 4 (1.48%) Argo
10 4 (1.48%) Data Guard
10 4 (1.48%) Failover Clustering
10 4 (1.48%) Microsoft Clustering
10 4 (1.48%) Oracle RMAN
10 4 (1.48%) SCOM
10 4 (1.48%) WSUS
Vendors
1 95 (35.06%) VMware
2 74 (27.31%) Microsoft
3 36 (13.28%) Cisco
4 20 (7.38%) Red Hat
5 17 (6.27%) IBM
6 14 (5.17%) Oracle
7 13 (4.80%) Google
8 12 (4.43%) NetApp
9 10 (3.69%) Qualys
9 10 (3.69%) Veeam
10 9 (3.32%) Dell
10 9 (3.32%) ServiceNow
11 8 (2.95%) SolarWinds
12 7 (2.58%) Tenable
13 6 (2.21%) CyberArk
13 6 (2.21%) Palo Alto
14 5 (1.85%) Commvault
14 5 (1.85%) Databricks
15 4 (1.48%) Citrix
15 4 (1.48%) EMC
68 Virtual Machines jobs in England