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 19 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 317 289 316
Rank change year-on-year -28 +27 +72
Contract jobs citing Virtual Machines 164 259 362
As % of all contract jobs advertised in England 0.67% 0.71% 0.75%
As % of the System Software category 5.38% 6.51% 5.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 106 183 234
10th Percentile £350 £308 £342
25th Percentile £450 £416 £455
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £524 £523 £545
Median % change year-on-year +0.29% -4.13% +3.81%
75th Percentile £625 £608 £600
90th Percentile £750 £675 £718
UK median daily rate £513 £513 £541
% change year-on-year - -5.31% +3.10%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 27 16
10th Percentile - - £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% +30.00%
75th Percentile £64.50 £15.19 £70.56
90th Percentile £66.00 £86.97 £82.50
UK median hourly rate £63.00 £14.63 £66.00
% change year-on-year +330.77% -77.84% +13.04%

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 3,051 3,976 6,224
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 12.54% 10.92% 12.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,100 2,783 4,497
10th Percentile £213 £200 £200
25th Percentile £381 £350 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £625 £600 £650
90th Percentile £700 £688 £738
UK median daily rate £513 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 70 209 220
10th Percentile £14.99 £14.06 £14.49
25th Percentile £18.13 £14.48 £17.50
Median hourly rate £28.71 £21.00 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +36.69% -58.00% +166.67%
75th Percentile £64.50 £58.69 £65.75
90th Percentile £88.08 £75.60 £76.04
UK median hourly rate £28.21 £22.40 £54.00
% change year-on-year +25.92% -58.52% +176.92%

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 19 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 19 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 19 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 +20 89 £575 +7.48% 77
North of England +1 23 £375 -36.84% 43
Midlands +25 20 £500 +25.00% 36
West Midlands +12 18 £500 +25.00% 20
North West +13 15 £375 -37.50% 23
East of England +21 12 £525 -12.79% 24
South East +3 12 £575 +4.55% 51
Yorkshire -5 5 £475 +40.74% 16
South West +33 4 £535 +21.80% 30
North East - 3 £363 - 4
East Midlands +12 2 £525 +61.54% 14
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 (7.93%) Microsoft Exchange
2 9 (5.49%) WebSphere
3 6 (3.66%) SharePoint
4 5 (3.05%) IIS
4 5 (3.05%) Skype for Business
5 4 (2.44%) Confluence
6 3 (1.83%) Apache Spark
6 3 (1.83%) Blackberry Enterprise Server
6 3 (1.83%) Exchange Server 2013
7 2 (1.22%) BizTalk Server
8 1 (0.61%) Apache
8 1 (0.61%) Apache Airflow
8 1 (0.61%) JBoss
8 1 (0.61%) MTS
Applications
1 2 (1.22%) Microsoft Office
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 (45.73%) Azure
2 32 (19.51%) AWS
3 29 (17.68%) Entra ID
4 21 (12.80%) Microsoft 365
5 20 (12.20%) Azure DevOps
6 19 (11.59%) Serverless
7 15 (9.15%) Azure Monitor
7 15 (9.15%) GCP
7 15 (9.15%) PaaS
7 15 (9.15%) SaaS
8 12 (7.32%) Azure AKS
8 12 (7.32%) Azure Functions
9 11 (6.71%) Azure Logic Apps
9 11 (6.71%) IaaS
10 9 (5.49%) Azure Event Grid
11 8 (4.88%) Azure API Management
11 8 (4.88%) Cloud Computing
11 8 (4.88%) OCI
12 7 (4.27%) Azure Sentinel
13 6 (3.66%) Azure Storage
Communications & Networking
1 27 (16.46%) Firewall
2 22 (13.41%) DNS
3 16 (9.76%) DHCP
4 12 (7.32%) VPN
5 11 (6.71%) SAN
6 9 (5.49%) TCP/IP
7 7 (4.27%) Network Security
8 5 (3.05%) Skype
8 5 (3.05%) WAN
9 3 (1.83%) IMAP
9 3 (1.83%) NAS
9 3 (1.83%) NGFW
9 3 (1.83%) SMTP
9 3 (1.83%) VLAN
9 3 (1.83%) Wi-Fi
10 2 (1.22%) Broadband
10 2 (1.22%) IPsec
10 2 (1.22%) VoIP
11 1 (0.61%) HTTPS
11 1 (0.61%) SNA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (7.32%) Azure SQL Database
2 11 (6.71%) SQL Server
3 9 (5.49%) DB2
4 5 (3.05%) Amazon RDS
5 3 (1.83%) Hadoop
5 3 (1.83%) Power BI
5 3 (1.83%) Relational Database
5 3 (1.83%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 2 (1.22%) Data Lake
6 2 (1.22%) Data Warehouse
6 2 (1.22%) MySQL
6 2 (1.22%) Oracle Database
6 2 (1.22%) PostgreSQL
7 1 (0.61%) Apache Cassandra
7 1 (0.61%) Apache Hive
7 1 (0.61%) Big Data
7 1 (0.61%) HBase
7 1 (0.61%) HDInsight
7 1 (0.61%) Impala
7 1 (0.61%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 8 (4.88%) Jenkins
2 7 (4.27%) Git
3 4 (2.44%) GitLab
3 4 (2.44%) JIRA
4 1 (0.61%) Maven
General
1 26 (15.85%) Finance
2 25 (15.24%) Social Skills
3 19 (11.59%) Analytical Skills
4 13 (7.93%) Public Sector
5 6 (3.66%) Banking
5 6 (3.66%) Financial Institution
5 6 (3.66%) Marketing
6 5 (3.05%) Telecoms
7 4 (2.44%) Law
7 4 (2.44%) Legal
8 2 (1.22%) Electronics
8 2 (1.22%) Manufacturing
8 2 (1.22%) Organisational Skills
8 2 (1.22%) Retail
9 1 (0.61%) Aerospace
9 1 (0.61%) Documentation Skills
9 1 (0.61%) Pharmaceutical
9 1 (0.61%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 40 (24.39%) Architect
2 18 (10.98%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 17 (10.37%) Cloud Architect
4 15 (9.15%) Senior
5 14 (8.54%) Azure Architect
5 14 (8.54%) Security Engineer
6 12 (7.32%) Solutions Architect
6 12 (7.32%) Technical Architect
7 11 (6.71%) Azure Engineer
7 11 (6.71%) Operations Engineer
8 9 (5.49%) Cloud Infrastructure Architect
8 9 (5.49%) Consultant
9 8 (4.88%) Automation Engineer
9 8 (4.88%) Cloud Engineer
9 8 (4.88%) Lead
10 7 (4.27%) Oracle Architect
10 7 (4.27%) Systems Architect
11 6 (3.66%) Developer
11 6 (3.66%) Information Architect
11 6 (3.66%) Oracle Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (6.71%) ARM Templates
2 6 (3.66%) Middleware
3 4 (2.44%) Azure Blueprints
3 4 (2.44%) CSS
3 4 (2.44%) HTML
3 4 (2.44%) RESTful
3 4 (2.44%) Web Services
3 4 (2.44%) XHTML
4 3 (1.83%) .NET
5 2 (1.22%) OAuth
5 2 (1.22%) OpenID
5 2 (1.22%) SAML
6 1 (0.61%) ADO
6 1 (0.61%) EJB
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%) PySpark
6 1 (0.61%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 14 (8.54%) Management Information System
2 11 (6.71%) Product Ownership
3 9 (5.49%) Hybrid Cloud
4 7 (4.27%) Data Centre
4 7 (4.27%) Mainframe
5 5 (3.05%) Cloud Native
5 5 (3.05%) Linux Command Line
5 5 (3.05%) PKI
6 4 (2.44%) Onboarding
6 4 (2.44%) Replication
7 3 (1.83%) Blackberry
7 3 (1.83%) Cyber Threat
7 3 (1.83%) Public Cloud
7 3 (1.83%) Reinsurance
7 3 (1.83%) Self-Motivation
8 2 (1.22%) Clustering
8 2 (1.22%) Data Protection Act
8 2 (1.22%) Hedge funds
8 2 (1.22%) Operational Technology
9 1 (0.61%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 49 (29.88%) Windows
2 31 (18.90%) Windows Server
3 26 (15.85%) Linux
4 11 (6.71%) Windows Server 2019
5 10 (6.10%) Windows Server 2012
5 10 (6.10%) Windows Server 2016
6 9 (5.49%) Unix
7 7 (4.27%) VMS
8 5 (3.05%) Windows 10
8 5 (3.05%) Windows 7
9 3 (1.83%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 3 (1.83%) Windows XP
10 2 (1.22%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.61%) AIX
11 1 (0.61%) Mac OS X
11 1 (0.61%) Oracle Linux
11 1 (0.61%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 41 (25.00%) Problem-Solving
2 37 (22.56%) DevOps
3 30 (18.29%) Migration
4 25 (15.24%) CI/CD
4 25 (15.24%) High Availability
5 24 (14.63%) Cloud Security
6 21 (12.80%) Agile
6 21 (12.80%) Infrastructure as Code
6 21 (12.80%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 16 (9.76%) Analytics
8 15 (9.15%) Disaster Recovery
8 15 (9.15%) ITIL
9 14 (8.54%) Project Management
10 13 (7.93%) RBAC
10 13 (7.93%) Security Operations
11 12 (7.32%) Incident Response
11 12 (7.32%) Roadmaps
11 12 (7.32%) SIEM
12 11 (6.71%) Identity Access Management
12 11 (6.71%) Patch Management
Programming Languages
1 33 (20.12%) PowerShell
2 29 (17.68%) SQL
3 22 (13.41%) Python
4 10 (6.10%) Bicep
5 8 (4.88%) Bash
5 8 (4.88%) C#
6 7 (4.27%) JavaScript
7 4 (2.44%) PHP
7 4 (2.44%) Shell Script
8 3 (1.83%) Java
9 1 (0.61%) ActionScript
9 1 (0.61%) ActionScript 2.0
9 1 (0.61%) JCL
9 1 (0.61%) Kusto Query Language
9 1 (0.61%) Perl
9 1 (0.61%) REXX
9 1 (0.61%) VB
9 1 (0.61%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 41 (25.00%) Security Cleared
2 36 (21.95%) SC Cleared
3 12 (7.32%) Degree
4 9 (5.49%) Azure Certification
5 5 (3.05%) Computer Science Degree
5 5 (3.05%) Microsoft Certification
6 4 (2.44%) DV Cleared
6 4 (2.44%) MCSE
6 4 (2.44%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
7 3 (1.83%) AWS Certification
7 3 (1.83%) CTC Cleared
8 2 (1.22%) PMI Certification
8 2 (1.22%) 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 (5.49%) GDPR
2 7 (4.27%) SLA
3 5 (3.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 4 (2.44%) Accessibility
4 4 (2.44%) NCSC
4 4 (2.44%) NIST
4 4 (2.44%) SOC 2
5 3 (1.83%) GRC
5 3 (1.83%) HIPAA
5 3 (1.83%) PCI DSS
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 55 (33.54%) Active Directory
2 33 (20.12%) VMware Infrastructure
3 16 (9.76%) VMware ESXi
4 8 (4.88%) Hyper-V
5 5 (3.05%) Docker
5 5 (3.05%) Virtual Desktop
5 5 (3.05%) vSphere
6 3 (1.83%) VMware NSX
7 2 (1.22%) KVM
8 1 (0.61%) Apache Flume
8 1 (0.61%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 26 (15.85%) Terraform
2 16 (9.76%) Kubernetes
3 15 (9.15%) Microsoft Intune
3 15 (9.15%) vCenter Server
4 14 (8.54%) WSUS
5 12 (7.32%) Ansible
6 8 (4.88%) SCCM
7 5 (3.05%) Data Guard
7 5 (3.05%) Microsoft Clustering
7 5 (3.05%) NetApp OnCommand
7 5 (3.05%) vMotion
8 4 (2.44%) vRealize
9 2 (1.22%) CASB
9 2 (1.22%) Proxmox
9 2 (1.22%) Puppet
9 2 (1.22%) SCOM
9 2 (1.22%) SCOrch
10 1 (0.61%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 1 (0.61%) Single Sign-On
10 1 (0.61%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 63 (38.41%) Microsoft
2 35 (21.34%) VMware
3 16 (9.76%) Google
4 15 (9.15%) Oracle
5 14 (8.54%) Palo Alto
6 9 (5.49%) IBM
7 7 (4.27%) Cisco
8 6 (3.66%) Citrix
9 5 (3.05%) ServiceNow
10 4 (2.44%) Broadcom
11 3 (1.83%) NetApp
11 3 (1.83%) Qualys
11 3 (1.83%) Rapid7
11 3 (1.83%) SAP
11 3 (1.83%) Sophos
12 2 (1.22%) Adobe
12 2 (1.22%) Apple
12 2 (1.22%) Databricks
12 2 (1.22%) QAD
12 2 (1.22%) Veeam