Virtual Machines Contract Job Trends in Reading

Virtual Machine (VM)
Berkshire > Reading

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in Reading requiring Virtual Machines skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 3 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 67 81 56
Rank change year-on-year +14 -25 +28
Contract jobs citing Virtual Machines 5 11 31
As % of all contract jobs in Reading 0.72% 1.03% 3.00%
As % of the System Software category 5.49% 7.86% 22.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 2 7 30
10th Percentile £518 £449 £400
25th Percentile £525 £603 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £605 £610
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% -0.82% +19.61%
75th Percentile £575 £648 £615
90th Percentile £583 £693 £626
Berkshire median daily rate £525 £350 £600
% change year-on-year +50.00% -41.67% +17.65%

All System Software Skills
Reading

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 Reading.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for system software skills 91 140 138
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Reading 13.04% 13.06% 13.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 56 83 109
10th Percentile £255 £400 £205
25th Percentile £270 £506 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £625 £525
Median % change year-on-year -24.00% +19.05% +7.69%
75th Percentile £599 £650 £615
90th Percentile £647 £685 £638
Berkshire median daily rate £475 £534 £500
% change year-on-year -11.01% +6.75% +4.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 1 2
10th Percentile £74.80 - £59.38
25th Percentile £82.00 £69.06 £60.31
Median hourly rate £90.00 £69.38 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +29.73% +11.00% +71.89%
75th Percentile £100.00 £69.69 £64.06
90th Percentile £103.30 - £64.63
Berkshire median hourly rate £90.00 £56.75 £65.00
% change year-on-year +58.60% -12.70% +18.18%

Virtual Machines
Job Vacancy Trend in Reading

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Virtual Machines relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in Reading.

Virtual Machines job vacancy trend in Reading

Virtual Machines
Daily Rate Trend in Reading

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Reading citing Virtual Machines.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Reading citing Virtual Machines

Virtual Machines
Hourly Rate Trend in Reading

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Reading citing Virtual Machines.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Reading citing Virtual Machines

Virtual Machines
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Reading 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 3 (60.00%) Confluence
Cloud Services
1 2 (40.00%) AWS
2 1 (20.00%) Azure
2 1 (20.00%) Azure DevOps
2 1 (20.00%) Entra ID
2 1 (20.00%) GitHub
2 1 (20.00%) GitHub Actions
2 1 (20.00%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 1 (20.00%) Firewall
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (20.00%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 4 (80.00%) JIRA
General
1 4 (80.00%) Social Skills
2 3 (60.00%) Telecoms
3 1 (20.00%) Analytical Skills
Job Titles
1 3 (60.00%) Project Manager
2 2 (40.00%) DevOps Engineer
3 1 (20.00%) AWS DevOps
3 1 (20.00%) AWS DevOps Engineer
3 1 (20.00%) AWS Engineer
3 1 (20.00%) Cloud Engineer
3 1 (20.00%) Data Analytics Engineer
Miscellaneous
1 3 (60.00%) Self-Motivation
2 1 (20.00%) Enterprise Software
2 1 (20.00%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 2 (40.00%) Linux
2 1 (20.00%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 4 (80.00%) Agile
1 4 (80.00%) Problem-Solving
2 3 (60.00%) Change Control
2 3 (60.00%) Change Management
2 3 (60.00%) Conflict Resolution
2 3 (60.00%) Project Delivery
2 3 (60.00%) Project Management
2 3 (60.00%) Waterfall
3 2 (40.00%) CI/CD
3 2 (40.00%) DevOps
4 1 (20.00%) Analytics
4 1 (20.00%) Continuous Delivery
4 1 (20.00%) Data Analytics
4 1 (20.00%) End-to-End Testing
4 1 (20.00%) Infrastructure as Code
4 1 (20.00%) Privileged Identity Management
4 1 (20.00%) Runbook
4 1 (20.00%) Scenario Testing
4 1 (20.00%) Server Patching
4 1 (20.00%) Verification and Validation
Programming Languages
1 2 (40.00%) Python
1 2 (40.00%) SQL
2 1 (20.00%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 1 (20.00%) AWS Certification
1 1 (20.00%) SC Cleared
1 1 (20.00%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (20.00%) QA
System Software
1 1 (20.00%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 1 (20.00%) Kubernetes
1 1 (20.00%) Terraform
Vendors
1 3 (60.00%) Oracle
1 3 (60.00%) Remedy
2 1 (20.00%) Databricks
2 1 (20.00%) Microsoft