VMS Contracts in the UK excluding London

VMS
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the UK excluding London requiring VMS skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited VMS over the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 297 346 409
Rank change year-on-year +49 +63 +51
Contract jobs citing VMS 39 53 53
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 0.31% 0.26% 0.22%
As % of the Operating Systems category 1.78% 1.62% 1.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 25 35 42
10th Percentile £395 £352 £356
25th Percentile £513 £389 £459
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% -9.13% -8.29%
75th Percentile £582 £619 £769
90th Percentile £700 £673 £846
UK median daily rate £539 £444 £643
% change year-on-year +21.28% -30.89% +14.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 5 1
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £78.75 - £52.50
Median hourly rate £82.50 £25.25 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +226.73% -54.09% +29.41%
75th Percentile £86.25 - £57.50
90th Percentile - £34.25 -
UK median hourly rate £82.50 £25.25 £85.00
% change year-on-year +226.73% -70.29% +28.79%

All Operating Systems
UK excluding London

VMS falls under the Operating Systems category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring operating system skills in the UK excluding London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for operating system skills 2,195 3,275 4,635
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 17.19% 15.77% 19.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,415 2,176 3,246
10th Percentile £178 £173 £163
25th Percentile £241 £256 £250
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £450 £475
Median % change year-on-year - -5.26% +11.76%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £588
90th Percentile £638 £675 £675
UK median daily rate £475 £469 £505
% change year-on-year +1.28% -7.13% +1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 156 320 334
10th Percentile £15.72 £12.25 £13.29
25th Percentile £17.44 £14.16 £17.50
Median hourly rate £22.94 £22.00 £31.25
Median % change year-on-year +4.26% -29.60% +56.25%
75th Percentile £62.50 £60.75 £61.25
90th Percentile £68.00 £70.00 £73.74
UK median hourly rate £24.18 £22.00 £39.30
% change year-on-year +9.91% -44.02% +74.67%

VMS
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Job postings citing VMS as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Job vacancy trend for VMS in the UK excluding London

VMS
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing VMS in the UK excluding London.

Daily rate trend for VMS in the UK excluding London

VMS
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing VMS in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for VMS in the UK excluding London

VMS
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing VMS in the UK excluding London.

Hourly rate trend for VMS in the UK excluding London

VMS
Contract Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing VMS within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 1 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
North of England +16 16 £525 -6.67% 28
North West +26 14 £525 +5.00% 11
Midlands +31 13 £551 -44.90% 20
West Midlands +23 12 £551 -44.90% 12
South East +39 6 £625 +4.17% 39
South West +37 3 £550 +25.22% 17
Scotland +10 1 £350 -2.23% 8
East Midlands +10 1 - - 7
Yorkshire -5 1 £275 -51.11% 15
North East - 1 £350 - 2
VMS
UK

VMS
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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 10 (25.64%) Microsoft Exchange
1 10 (25.64%) SharePoint
2 3 (7.69%) Confluence
Applications
1 12 (30.77%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 16 (41.03%) Azure
2 13 (33.33%) Entra ID
3 11 (28.21%) Microsoft 365
4 3 (7.69%) GitHub
5 2 (5.13%) AWS
6 1 (2.56%) Anthos
6 1 (2.56%) Azure DevOps
6 1 (2.56%) Azure Storage
6 1 (2.56%) Cloud Computing
6 1 (2.56%) GCP
6 1 (2.56%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 11 (28.21%) DHCP
1 11 (28.21%) DNS
2 6 (15.38%) iSCSI
3 2 (5.13%) Firewall
3 2 (5.13%) Kerberos
3 2 (5.13%) SAN
4 1 (2.56%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (5.13%) Oracle Database
1 2 (5.13%) Oracle Database 12c
2 1 (2.56%) BigQuery
2 1 (2.56%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 3 (7.69%) JIRA
2 1 (2.56%) Bitbucket
2 1 (2.56%) Git
2 1 (2.56%) Jenkins
General
1 9 (23.08%) Public Sector
2 5 (12.82%) Military
3 4 (10.26%) Social Skills
4 2 (5.13%) Analytical Skills
4 2 (5.13%) Documentation Skills
5 1 (2.56%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 1 (2.56%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 11 (28.21%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
2 3 (7.69%) Architect
2 3 (7.69%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 3 (7.69%) Linux Engineer
3 2 (5.13%) Consultant
3 2 (5.13%) DevOps Engineer
3 2 (5.13%) Oracle Architect
3 2 (5.13%) Virtualisation Engineer
3 2 (5.13%) VMware Consultant
4 1 (2.56%) Azure DevOps Engineer
4 1 (2.56%) Azure Engineer
4 1 (2.56%) Control Systems Engineer
4 1 (2.56%) Linux Support
4 1 (2.56%) Linux Support Engineer
4 1 (2.56%) Senior DevOps
4 1 (2.56%) Senior DevOps Engineer
4 1 (2.56%) Server Engineer
4 1 (2.56%) Support Engineer
4 1 (2.56%) Systems Engineer
4 1 (2.56%) VMS Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (5.13%) Flash
1 2 (5.13%) LDAP
2 1 (2.56%) Qt
2 1 (2.56%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 8 (20.51%) CSOC
2 3 (7.69%) PKI
3 2 (5.13%) Clustering
3 2 (5.13%) SCADA
4 1 (2.56%) CCTV
4 1 (2.56%) CESG
4 1 (2.56%) Driving Licence
4 1 (2.56%) GNSS
4 1 (2.56%) Legacy Systems
4 1 (2.56%) Reinsurance
Operating Systems
1 23 (58.97%) Windows
2 14 (35.90%) Linux
2 14 (35.90%) Windows Server
3 10 (25.64%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 3 (7.69%) Windows Server 2012
5 1 (2.56%) Oracle Linux
5 1 (2.56%) Windows 10
5 1 (2.56%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 14 (35.90%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 13 (33.33%) DevOps
3 12 (30.77%) ITIL
4 10 (25.64%) ITSM
5 8 (20.51%) Collaborative Working
5 8 (20.51%) Event Correlation
5 8 (20.51%) SIEM
6 6 (15.38%) Agile
7 4 (10.26%) High Availability
7 4 (10.26%) Migration
7 4 (10.26%) Storage Management
7 4 (10.26%) Storage Virtualisation
8 3 (7.69%) Configuration Management
8 3 (7.69%) Containerisation
9 2 (5.13%) BCP
9 2 (5.13%) Business Continuity
9 2 (5.13%) Business Continuity Planning
9 2 (5.13%) Computer Science
9 2 (5.13%) Service Management
9 2 (5.13%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 4 (10.26%) Python
2 3 (7.69%) Bash
3 2 (5.13%) PowerShell
4 1 (2.56%) Bicep
4 1 (2.56%) C++
4 1 (2.56%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 19 (48.72%) Security Cleared
2 16 (41.03%) SC Cleared
3 6 (15.38%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
4 3 (7.69%) DV Cleared
4 3 (7.69%) Microsoft Certification
5 2 (5.13%) CCNA
5 2 (5.13%) CCNP
5 2 (5.13%) Cisco Certification
5 2 (5.13%) Degree
5 2 (5.13%) Master's Degree
5 2 (5.13%) MCSA
5 2 (5.13%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (2.56%) JSP 440
System Software
1 14 (35.90%) Active Directory
2 9 (23.08%) VMware Infrastructure
3 4 (10.26%) VMware ESXi
3 4 (10.26%) VMware NSX
4 2 (5.13%) Docker
4 2 (5.13%) Oracle RAC
5 1 (2.56%) Hyper-V
5 1 (2.56%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 11 (28.21%) WSUS
2 10 (25.64%) Microsoft Intune
3 4 (10.26%) Ansible
3 4 (10.26%) Kubernetes
4 3 (7.69%) Puppet
5 2 (5.13%) Data Guard
5 2 (5.13%) Grafana
5 2 (5.13%) Oracle RMAN
5 2 (5.13%) SCOM
5 2 (5.13%) Terraform
5 2 (5.13%) vCenter Server
5 2 (5.13%) ZABBIX
6 1 (2.56%) Graylog
6 1 (2.56%) PowerCLI
6 1 (2.56%) SCCM
Vendors
1 22 (56.41%) VMware
2 17 (43.59%) Microsoft
3 11 (28.21%) Cisco
4 10 (25.64%) Red Hat
5 9 (23.08%) ServiceNow
6 8 (20.51%) F5
6 8 (20.51%) Fortinet
6 8 (20.51%) Palo Alto
6 8 (20.51%) SolarWinds
6 8 (20.51%) Splunk
7 3 (7.69%) Oracle
8 2 (5.13%) Atlassian
9 1 (2.56%) Citrix
9 1 (2.56%) EMC
9 1 (2.56%) Foundry
9 1 (2.56%) Google
9 1 (2.56%) NetApp
9 1 (2.56%) Veeam