Virtual Environments Contract Job Trends in the Thames Valley

Virtual Environments
South East > Thames Valley

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the Thames Valley requiring Virtual Environments skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 28 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 142 105 133
Rank change year-on-year -37 +28 +6
Contract jobs citing Virtual Environments 2 6 12
As % of all contract jobs in the Thames Valley 0.080% 0.37% 0.44%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.094% 0.39% 0.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 2 4 12
10th Percentile £604 £286 £416
25th Percentile £611 £506 £446
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £622 £629 £488
Median % change year-on-year -1.20% +29.03% +1.56%
75th Percentile £632 £630 £522
90th Percentile £639 - £612
South East median daily rate £600 £510 £488
% change year-on-year +17.65% +4.62% +1.56%

All Process & Methodology Skills
Thames Valley

Virtual Environments falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in the Thames Valley.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 2,122 1,522 2,462
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 85.05% 92.64% 89.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,394 892 1,462
10th Percentile £268 £263 £213
25th Percentile £400 £400 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
75th Percentile £588 £620 £600
90th Percentile £649 £663 £675
South East median daily rate £500 £500 £500
Number of hourly rates quoted 157 48 158
10th Percentile £15.91 £18.64 £16.25
25th Percentile £19.34 £28.53 £20.25
Median hourly rate £32.50 £56.75 £45.21
Median % change year-on-year -42.73% +25.51% +0.47%
75th Percentile £83.00 £64.73 £62.54
90th Percentile £97.50 £78.03 £80.78
South East median hourly rate £25.15 £45.00 £46.87
% change year-on-year -44.11% -3.99% +4.16%

Virtual Environments
Job Vacancy Trend in the Thames Valley

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Virtual Environments relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley.

Virtual Environments job vacancy trend in the Thames Valley

Virtual Environments
Daily Rate Trend in the Thames Valley

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing Virtual Environments.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing Virtual Environments

Virtual Environments
Hourly Rate Trend in the Thames Valley

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing Virtual Environments.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing Virtual Environments

Virtual Environments
Contract Job Locations in the Thames Valley

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Virtual Environments within the Thames Valley region over the 6 months to 28 February 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
Buckinghamshire -13 2 £622 -1.20% 3
Virtual Environments
South East

Virtual Environments
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the Thames Valley 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:

Cloud Services
1 1 (50.00%) AWS
1 1 (50.00%) Azure
1 1 (50.00%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 1 (50.00%) Firewall
1 1 (50.00%) VPN
1 1 (50.00%) VSAN
1 1 (50.00%) Wireless
Job Titles
1 2 (100.00%) Architect
2 1 (50.00%) Network Architect
2 1 (50.00%) Technical Architect
Miscellaneous
1 2 (100.00%) Public Cloud
2 1 (50.00%) Hybrid Cloud
2 1 (50.00%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 1 (50.00%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 2 (100.00%) IT Strategy
1 2 (100.00%) Matrix Organization
1 2 (100.00%) Requirements Management
1 2 (100.00%) Technology Strategy
2 1 (50.00%) CI/CD
2 1 (50.00%) Containerisation
2 1 (50.00%) Continuous Delivery
2 1 (50.00%) Continuous Integration
2 1 (50.00%) DevSecOps
2 1 (50.00%) Infrastructure as Code
2 1 (50.00%) Microservices
2 1 (50.00%) Migration
2 1 (50.00%) Network Architecture
2 1 (50.00%) Network Load Balancing
2 1 (50.00%) TOGAF
Qualifications
1 2 (100.00%) SC Cleared
1 2 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 1 (50.00%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (100.00%) Cyber Essentials
1 2 (100.00%) NCSC
1 2 (100.00%) NIST
System Software
1 1 (50.00%) VMware Infrastructure
1 1 (50.00%) VMware NSX
Vendors
1 1 (50.00%) Cisco
1 1 (50.00%) Microsoft
1 1 (50.00%) Palo Alto
1 1 (50.00%) VMware