Virtual Machines Contract Job Trends

Virtual Machine (VM)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring Virtual Machines skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 30 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 412 354 325
Rank change year-on-year -58 -29 +39
Contract jobs citing Virtual Machines 172 214 333
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.48% 0.59% 0.73%
As % of the System Software category 3.91% 5.04% 5.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 122 136 223
10th Percentile £350 £348 £300
25th Percentile £421 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.50% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £588 £608 £609
90th Percentile £653 £669 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £483 £525
% change year-on-year +8.81% -8.10% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 8 10
10th Percentile £59.40 £41.79 £68.21
25th Percentile £63.38 £59.38 £73.09
Median hourly rate £70.00 £63.00 £78.73
Median % change year-on-year +11.11% -19.97% +12.46%
75th Percentile - £66.00 £87.65
90th Percentile - - £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £70.00 £63.00 £78.73
% change year-on-year +11.11% -19.97% +12.46%

All System Software Skills
UK

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.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for system software skills 4,400 4,245 5,903
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 12.28% 11.71% 12.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,885 2,711 4,024
10th Percentile £213 £208 £198
25th Percentile £400 £375 £358
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £591 £613 £615
90th Percentile £675 £706 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £475
% change year-on-year - - +4.63%
Number of hourly rates quoted 143 92 243
10th Percentile £15.50 £17.51 £15.04
25th Percentile £19.23 £21.46 £18.39
Median hourly rate £30.00 £31.75 £43.75
Median % change year-on-year -5.51% -27.43% +75.00%
75th Percentile £74.26 £65.25 £65.99
90th Percentile £89.93 £75.00 £77.31
UK excluding London median hourly rate £62.50 £50.00 £33.50
% change year-on-year +25.00% +49.25% +55.81%

Virtual Machines
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Virtual Machines job vacancy trend in the UK

Virtual Machines
Daily Rate Trend

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

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Virtual Machines

Virtual Machines
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Virtual Machines over the 6 months to 30 November 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Virtual Machines in the UK

Virtual Machines
Hourly Rate Trend

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

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Virtual Machines

Virtual Machines
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Virtual Machines over the 6 months to 30 November 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Virtual Machines in the UK

Virtual Machines
Top 14 Contract Job Locations

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 UK over the 6 months to 30 November 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
England -71 154 £510 +1.90% 61
UK excluding London -52 77 £525 +8.81% 59
London +5 76 £509 +1.80% 20
Work from Home +23 68 £515 +0.98% 31
North of England -43 22 £493 +6.02% 6
South West +11 20 £550 +1.85% 9
Yorkshire -26 19 £489 +11.14% 1
South East -28 19 £525 +38.16% 30
East of England -23 7 £475 -7.32% 6
Scotland +8 5 £525 +5.00% 2
Midlands -43 4 £508 +1.50% 3
North West -21 3 £500 -13.04% 5
West Midlands -34 3 £508 +1.50% 1
East Midlands -18 1 - - 2

Virtual Machines
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 16 (9.30%) Microsoft Exchange
2 6 (3.49%) IIS
3 5 (2.91%) Confluence
4 4 (2.33%) Apache
4 4 (2.33%) SharePoint
5 3 (1.74%) SharePoint Server
6 2 (1.16%) Ethereum
6 2 (1.16%) Hyperledger
7 1 (0.58%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.58%) Jupyter
7 1 (0.58%) nginx
7 1 (0.58%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.58%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 1 (0.58%) MS Visio
1 1 (0.58%) OmniGraffle
Cloud Services
1 73 (42.44%) Azure
2 24 (13.95%) GitHub
3 23 (13.37%) Azure DevOps
4 22 (12.79%) AWS
5 16 (9.30%) Entra ID
6 15 (8.72%) GitHub Actions
7 12 (6.98%) Azure Monitor
7 12 (6.98%) Cloud Computing
8 10 (5.81%) Microsoft 365
9 9 (5.23%) Azure AKS
9 9 (5.23%) Azure Key Vault
9 9 (5.23%) Azure Storage
9 9 (5.23%) OpenShift
9 9 (5.23%) Serverless
10 6 (3.49%) Azure Service Bus
10 6 (3.49%) GCP
10 6 (3.49%) IaaS
11 5 (2.91%) Azure API Management
11 5 (2.91%) Azure ExpressRoute
11 5 (2.91%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 38 (22.09%) Firewall
2 27 (15.70%) DNS
3 18 (10.47%) VPN
4 14 (8.14%) WAN
5 11 (6.40%) DHCP
5 11 (6.40%) Network Security
6 7 (4.07%) Skype
6 7 (4.07%) Wi-Fi
7 6 (3.49%) TCP/IP
8 5 (2.91%) Intrusion Detection
8 5 (2.91%) SAN
8 5 (2.91%) VLAN
9 4 (2.33%) NAS
10 3 (1.74%) Reverse Proxy
10 3 (1.74%) VSAN
11 2 (1.16%) Modbus
12 1 (0.58%) Cisco Wireless
12 1 (0.58%) iSCSI
12 1 (0.58%) MQTT
12 1 (0.58%) NX-OS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (7.56%) SQL Server
2 10 (5.81%) PostgreSQL
3 8 (4.65%) Data Lake
4 6 (3.49%) Azure SQL Database
5 4 (2.33%) OLTP
6 3 (1.74%) Data Mining
7 2 (1.16%) Data Vault
7 2 (1.16%) ImageNet
8 1 (0.58%) Amazon RDS
8 1 (0.58%) Big Data
8 1 (0.58%) Data Hub
8 1 (0.58%) NoSQL
8 1 (0.58%) Oracle Database
8 1 (0.58%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 18 (10.47%) JIRA
2 17 (9.88%) Git
3 11 (6.40%) Jenkins
4 7 (4.07%) GitLab
5 3 (1.74%) PVCS
5 3 (1.74%) Rational DOORS
5 3 (1.74%) RStudio
6 2 (1.16%) Hardhat
6 2 (1.16%) Terragrunt
7 1 (0.58%) Artifactory
7 1 (0.58%) GDB
7 1 (0.58%) Robot Framework
7 1 (0.58%) Snyk
7 1 (0.58%) SonarQube
General
1 38 (22.09%) Social Skills
2 18 (10.47%) Public Sector
3 11 (6.40%) Finance
4 10 (5.81%) Analytical Skills
5 8 (4.65%) Law
6 7 (4.07%) Documentation Skills
7 6 (3.49%) Spanish Language
7 6 (3.49%) Telecoms
8 5 (2.91%) Banking
9 4 (2.33%) Electronics
10 3 (1.74%) Manufacturing
10 3 (1.74%) Social Science
11 1 (0.58%) Aerospace
11 1 (0.58%) Front Office
11 1 (0.58%) Influencing Skills
11 1 (0.58%) Italian Language
11 1 (0.58%) Legal
11 1 (0.58%) Police
11 1 (0.58%) Presentation Skills
11 1 (0.58%) Private Banking
Job Titles
1 22 (12.79%) DevOps Engineer
2 19 (11.05%) Senior
3 17 (9.88%) Security Engineer
4 16 (9.30%) Architect
4 16 (9.30%) Azure Engineer
5 14 (8.14%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 14 (8.14%) Platform Engineer
6 9 (5.23%) Data Engineer
6 9 (5.23%) Software Engineer
6 9 (5.23%) Technical Architect
7 8 (4.65%) Developer
8 7 (4.07%) Azure DevOps Engineer
8 7 (4.07%) C++ Software Engineer
8 7 (4.07%) Embedded C++ Engineer
8 7 (4.07%) Embedded C++ Software Engineer
8 7 (4.07%) Embedded Engineer
8 7 (4.07%) Embedded Software Engineer
8 7 (4.07%) Infrastructure Security Engineer
9 6 (3.49%) Cloud Engineer
9 6 (3.49%) IT Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (7.56%) ARM Templates
2 8 (4.65%) Middleware
3 7 (4.07%) TensorFlow
3 7 (4.07%) YAML
4 6 (3.49%) Hugging Face
4 6 (3.49%) OpenCV
4 6 (3.49%) OpenTelemetry
4 6 (3.49%) PyTorch
4 6 (3.49%) Regular Expression
4 6 (3.49%) SpaCy
5 5 (2.91%) ADO
6 3 (1.74%) Kafka
7 2 (1.16%) Elastic Stack
7 2 (1.16%) JSON
7 2 (1.16%) Loki
7 2 (1.16%) RabbitMQ
7 2 (1.16%) RESTful
7 2 (1.16%) Smart Contracts
7 2 (1.16%) Web Services
7 2 (1.16%) web3js
Miscellaneous
1 14 (8.14%) Data Centre
2 11 (6.40%) Private Cloud
3 8 (4.65%) Hybrid Cloud
3 8 (4.65%) Onboarding
3 8 (4.65%) Replication
4 7 (4.07%) Linux Command Line
4 7 (4.07%) Management Information System
5 6 (3.49%) CAN bus
5 6 (3.49%) Cloud Native
5 6 (3.49%) PKI
6 5 (2.91%) Public Cloud
6 5 (2.91%) Security Posture
7 4 (2.33%) Operational Technology
7 4 (2.33%) Self-Motivation
8 3 (1.74%) Algorithms
8 3 (1.74%) Analytical Mindset
8 3 (1.74%) Legacy Code
8 3 (1.74%) Product Ownership
8 3 (1.74%) Renewable Energy
8 3 (1.74%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 55 (31.98%) Windows
2 50 (29.07%) Linux
3 29 (16.86%) Windows Server
4 18 (10.47%) VMS
5 10 (5.81%) Windows 10
6 9 (5.23%) Windows Server 2016
7 5 (2.91%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 4 (2.33%) Windows Server 2012
9 3 (1.74%) Windows Server 2019
10 2 (1.16%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.58%) Apple iOS
11 1 (0.58%) SUSE
11 1 (0.58%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
11 1 (0.58%) Windows 7
11 1 (0.58%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 59 (34.30%) DevOps
2 53 (30.81%) CI/CD
3 43 (25.00%) Infrastructure as Code
4 37 (21.51%) Agile
5 32 (18.60%) Migration
6 30 (17.44%) Problem-Solving
7 26 (15.12%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 22 (12.79%) Analytics
9 20 (11.63%) Cybersecurity
10 16 (9.30%) High Availability
11 15 (8.72%) Infrastructure Automation
12 14 (8.14%) Cloud Security
12 14 (8.14%) Containerisation
12 14 (8.14%) Continuous Integration
12 14 (8.14%) Information Security
12 14 (8.14%) Platform Engineering
12 14 (8.14%) Root Cause Analysis
13 13 (7.56%) Continuous Improvement
13 13 (7.56%) Technical Leadership
14 12 (6.98%) Security Operations
Programming Languages
1 37 (21.51%) Python
2 34 (19.77%) PowerShell
3 22 (12.79%) SQL
4 16 (9.30%) Bicep
5 14 (8.14%) Bash
6 12 (6.98%) C++
6 12 (6.98%) Java
7 9 (5.23%) C#
8 8 (4.65%) Embedded C++
9 7 (4.07%) Shell Script
10 4 (2.33%) C
10 4 (2.33%) Scala
11 3 (1.74%) Ruby
12 2 (1.16%) Embedded C
12 2 (1.16%) PHP
12 2 (1.16%) Solidity
13 1 (0.58%) Go
13 1 (0.58%) JavaScript
13 1 (0.58%) Swift
13 1 (0.58%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 52 (30.23%) Security Cleared
2 39 (22.67%) SC Cleared
3 13 (7.56%) Degree
3 13 (7.56%) DV Cleared
4 8 (4.65%) Azure Certification
5 5 (2.91%) BPSS Clearance
6 4 (2.33%) Computer Science Degree
6 4 (2.33%) OCP
6 4 (2.33%) Oracle Certification
6 4 (2.33%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
7 3 (1.74%) Cisco Certification
7 3 (1.74%) VCAP
8 2 (1.16%) AWS Certification
8 2 (1.16%) CCNA
8 2 (1.16%) CCNP
8 2 (1.16%) CISM
8 2 (1.16%) CISSP
8 2 (1.16%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
8 2 (1.16%) Master's Degree
9 1 (0.58%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (5.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 4 (2.33%) NIST
2 4 (2.33%) QA
2 4 (2.33%) SLA
3 3 (1.74%) Accessibility
3 3 (1.74%) Cyber Essentials
3 3 (1.74%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
4 2 (1.16%) GDPR
4 2 (1.16%) GRC
5 1 (0.58%) RMADS
System Software
1 39 (22.67%) Active Directory
2 38 (22.09%) VMware Infrastructure
3 15 (8.72%) Docker
4 13 (7.56%) vSphere
5 11 (6.40%) VMware ESXi
5 11 (6.40%) VMware NSX
6 8 (4.65%) Hyper-V
7 6 (3.49%) Virtual Desktop
8 3 (1.74%) Firmware
8 3 (1.74%) KVM
9 2 (1.16%) Xen
10 1 (0.58%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 45 (26.16%) Terraform
2 30 (17.44%) Kubernetes
3 24 (13.95%) vCenter Server
4 20 (11.63%) Ansible
5 12 (6.98%) SCCM
6 9 (5.23%) WSUS
7 8 (4.65%) Microsoft Intune
8 7 (4.07%) CASB
8 7 (4.07%) SCOrch
9 6 (3.49%) vRealize
10 4 (2.33%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 4 (2.33%) Rancher
10 4 (2.33%) vMotion
11 3 (1.74%) PowerCLI
12 2 (1.16%) Failover Clustering
12 2 (1.16%) Microsoft Clustering
12 2 (1.16%) NetApp OnCommand
12 2 (1.16%) Packer
12 2 (1.16%) Prometheus
12 2 (1.16%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 58 (33.72%) Microsoft
2 47 (27.33%) VMware
3 11 (6.40%) Cisco
4 9 (5.23%) Databricks
5 7 (4.07%) Oracle
6 6 (3.49%) Veeam
7 5 (2.91%) Dell
7 5 (2.91%) IBM
7 5 (2.91%) NetApp
8 4 (2.33%) Pure Storage
8 4 (2.33%) Remedy
8 4 (2.33%) SolarWinds
8 4 (2.33%) Sophos
9 3 (1.74%) ANSYS
9 3 (1.74%) F5
9 3 (1.74%) Red Hat
9 3 (1.74%) Rockwell
9 3 (1.74%) Tenable
10 2 (1.16%) Citrix
10 2 (1.16%) OpenAI