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 1 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

 6 months to
1 Sep 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 391 396 351
Rank change year-on-year +5 -45 -21
Contract jobs citing Virtual Machines 296 160 244
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.55% 0.49% 0.63%
As % of the System Software category 5.56% 4.17% 5.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 185 108 162
10th Percentile £390 £338 £345
25th Percentile £425 £406 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £480 £535
Median % change year-on-year +4.17% -10.28% +1.90%
75th Percentile £588 £578 £610
90th Percentile £712 £650 £670
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £450 £564
% change year-on-year +8.89% -20.14% +7.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 4 12
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £26.00 £33.25 £14.06
Median hourly rate £35.00 £34.50 £14.63
Median % change year-on-year +1.45% +135.90% -79.26%
75th Percentile £68.75 £35.75 £15.19
90th Percentile £69.50 - £76.71
UK excluding London median hourly rate £46.75 - £14.63
% change year-on-year - - -81.42%

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 5,320 3,834 4,417
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.92% 11.71% 11.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,499 2,421 3,006
10th Percentile £218 £225 £220
25th Percentile £400 £383 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -2.44%
75th Percentile £590 £588 £602
90th Percentile £675 £670 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £490
% change year-on-year - -3.06% +3.16%
Number of hourly rates quoted 226 111 130
10th Percentile £15.81 £13.75 £14.06
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £17.50
Median hourly rate £60.00 £30.00 £24.18
Median % change year-on-year +100.00% +24.07% -51.64%
75th Percentile £74.75 £79.35 £59.58
90th Percentile £88.63 £91.50 £71.45
UK excluding London median hourly rate £60.92 £62.50 £27.50
% change year-on-year -2.54% +127.27% -

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 1 September 2026.

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 1 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Virtual Machines in the UK

Virtual Machines
Top 15 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 1 September 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
England +6 274 £500 +5.26% 189
UK excluding London +4 165 £490 +8.89% 104
London -38 110 £532 +6.40% 97
Work from Home -35 81 £500 +7.24% 84
North of England -13 74 £497 +19.35% 21
South East -21 53 £475 -15.56% 30
Yorkshire -14 37 £524 +18.49% 5
North West -23 36 £482 +42.67% 13
South West -29 17 £540 +20.00% 9
Midlands -52 17 £487 +0.41% 10
West Midlands -51 11 £406 -17.98% 9
East of England -18 5 £425 +41.67% 32
East Midlands -12 4 £500 +5.26% 1
Scotland -22 4 £375 -25.00% 4
North East - 1 £400 - 3

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 6 (2.03%) Confluence
2 5 (1.69%) SharePoint
3 4 (1.35%) Microsoft Exchange
4 3 (1.01%) Apache
4 3 (1.01%) Apache Spark
4 3 (1.01%) IIS
5 2 (0.68%) CMS
5 2 (0.68%) OpenStack
5 2 (0.68%) Umbraco
6 1 (0.34%) Apache Airflow
6 1 (0.34%) ArcGIS
6 1 (0.34%) JBoss
6 1 (0.34%) NetWeaver
6 1 (0.34%) nginx
6 1 (0.34%) WebLogic
Applications
1 4 (1.35%) Adobe Illustrator
1 4 (1.35%) Photoshop
2 2 (0.68%) InDesign
3 1 (0.34%) Chatbot
3 1 (0.34%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.34%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.34%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 2 (0.68%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.34%) SAP BPC
2 1 (0.34%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 143 (48.31%) Azure
2 54 (18.24%) Entra ID
3 46 (15.54%) AWS
4 38 (12.84%) Azure Monitor
5 36 (12.16%) Azure DevOps
6 26 (8.78%) Azure AKS
6 26 (8.78%) GitHub
7 24 (8.11%) OpenShift
8 23 (7.77%) IaaS
9 20 (6.76%) GitHub Actions
10 13 (4.39%) Azure Key Vault
10 13 (4.39%) Microsoft 365
10 13 (4.39%) PaaS
10 13 (4.39%) Serverless
11 12 (4.05%) Azure ExpressRoute
11 12 (4.05%) Power Platform
12 11 (3.72%) GCP
13 10 (3.38%) SaaS
14 9 (3.04%) Amazon EC2
14 9 (3.04%) Azure Storage
Communications & Networking
1 44 (14.86%) DNS
2 43 (14.53%) Firewall
3 24 (8.11%) VPN
4 22 (7.43%) SSL
4 22 (7.43%) VLAN
5 21 (7.09%) Network Security
6 20 (6.76%) VSAN
7 18 (6.08%) DHCP
8 17 (5.74%) WAN
9 10 (3.38%) SD-WAN
10 7 (2.36%) FTP
10 7 (2.36%) LAN
11 6 (2.03%) SAN
11 6 (2.03%) SSH
12 5 (1.69%) HTTPS
12 5 (1.69%) Wi-Fi
13 4 (1.35%) TCP/IP
14 3 (1.01%) Cisco Nexus
14 3 (1.01%) NAS
15 2 (0.68%) NetScaler
Database & Business Intelligence
1 32 (10.81%) SQL Server
2 14 (4.73%) MySQL
3 12 (4.05%) Power BI
4 11 (3.72%) Azure SQL Database
5 10 (3.38%) PostgreSQL
5 10 (3.38%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 8 (2.70%) Data Lake
7 3 (1.01%) Amazon Athena
7 3 (1.01%) Amazon Redshift
7 3 (1.01%) Apache Hive
7 3 (1.01%) Big Data
7 3 (1.01%) Data Warehouse
7 3 (1.01%) DynamoDB
7 3 (1.01%) Hadoop
7 3 (1.01%) Oracle Database
8 1 (0.34%) Amazon RDS
8 1 (0.34%) MariaDB
8 1 (0.34%) OpenStack Swift
8 1 (0.34%) Oracle Exadata
8 1 (0.34%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 17 (5.74%) Git
2 14 (4.73%) Jenkins
3 9 (3.04%) GitLab
4 7 (2.36%) JIRA
5 5 (1.69%) SonarQube
6 3 (1.01%) PVCS
6 3 (1.01%) Sonatype Nexus
6 3 (1.01%) Terragrunt
7 2 (0.68%) CppUnit
7 2 (0.68%) Rational DOORS
7 2 (0.68%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
7 2 (0.68%) Team Foundation Server
8 1 (0.34%) Maven
8 1 (0.34%) Selenium
8 1 (0.34%) Vagrant
8 1 (0.34%) Visual Studio
General
1 42 (14.19%) Social Skills
2 27 (9.12%) Finance
3 13 (4.39%) Legal
4 10 (3.38%) Analytical Skills
5 9 (3.04%) Public Sector
6 8 (2.70%) Banking
7 6 (2.03%) Front Office
7 6 (2.03%) Retail
8 5 (1.69%) Manufacturing
9 4 (1.35%) Documentation Skills
9 4 (1.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 4 (1.35%) Marketing
10 2 (0.68%) Law
10 2 (0.68%) Local Government
10 2 (0.68%) Pharmaceutical
10 2 (0.68%) Publishing
11 1 (0.34%) Advertising
11 1 (0.34%) Aerospace
11 1 (0.34%) Influencing Skills
11 1 (0.34%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 44 (14.86%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 35 (11.82%) Azure Engineer
3 32 (10.81%) Cloud Engineer
3 32 (10.81%) DevOps Engineer
4 27 (9.12%) Senior
5 24 (8.11%) Lead
6 19 (6.42%) Architect
7 17 (5.74%) Cloud Infrastructure Engineer
8 14 (4.73%) Analyst
8 14 (4.73%) Azure Infrastructure Engineer
9 12 (4.05%) DBA
9 12 (4.05%) Platform Engineer
10 11 (3.72%) Administrator
10 11 (3.72%) Consultant
11 10 (3.38%) Linux Engineer
11 10 (3.38%) SQL DBA
12 9 (3.04%) Solutions Architect
12 9 (3.04%) VMware Engineer
12 9 (3.04%) Wintel Engineer
13 8 (2.70%) Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 67 (22.64%) Terraform
2 11 (3.72%) ARM Templates
3 8 (2.70%) REST
3 8 (2.70%) YAML
4 5 (1.69%) Middleware
5 3 (1.01%) Elastic Stack
5 3 (1.01%) JSON
6 2 (0.68%) SOAP
7 1 (0.34%) cloud-init
7 1 (0.34%) Java SE
7 1 (0.34%) Lambda Expressions
7 1 (0.34%) Microsoft Graph
7 1 (0.34%) Node.js
7 1 (0.34%) NumPy
7 1 (0.34%) Oracle GoldenGate
7 1 (0.34%) Pandas
7 1 (0.34%) SAP Basis
7 1 (0.34%) SciPy
7 1 (0.34%) Web Services
7 1 (0.34%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 39 (13.18%) Replication
2 27 (9.12%) Clustering
3 18 (6.08%) Hybrid Cloud
4 15 (5.07%) Data Centre
5 11 (3.72%) Linux Command Line
6 10 (3.38%) Cloud Native
7 8 (2.70%) Enterprise Storage
7 8 (2.70%) Mainframe
7 8 (2.70%) Onboarding
7 8 (2.70%) Product Ownership
7 8 (2.70%) Public Cloud
8 7 (2.36%) PKI
9 6 (2.03%) Fixed Income
9 6 (2.03%) Market Risk
9 6 (2.03%) Operational Technology
9 6 (2.03%) Self-Motivation
10 5 (1.69%) Security Posture
11 3 (1.01%) EMC VNX
11 3 (1.01%) Enterprise Cloud
11 3 (1.01%) IBM XIV
Operating Systems
1 100 (33.78%) Windows
2 77 (26.01%) Linux
3 61 (20.61%) Windows Server
4 33 (11.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 30 (10.14%) VMS
6 9 (3.04%) Ubuntu
7 7 (2.36%) Unix
8 5 (1.69%) SUSE
9 4 (1.35%) Windows Server 2016
9 4 (1.35%) Windows Server 2019
10 3 (1.01%) AIX
10 3 (1.01%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.68%) CoreOS
11 2 (0.68%) Rocky
12 1 (0.34%) Amazon Linux
12 1 (0.34%) Android
12 1 (0.34%) Apple iOS
12 1 (0.34%) Solaris
12 1 (0.34%) Windows Server 2008
12 1 (0.34%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 82 (27.70%) DevOps
2 78 (26.35%) CI/CD
3 65 (21.96%) Migration
4 61 (20.61%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 60 (20.27%) Infrastructure as Code
6 43 (14.53%) Performance Tuning
7 37 (12.50%) High Availability
7 37 (12.50%) RBAC
7 37 (12.50%) Validation
8 36 (12.16%) Continuous Improvement
8 36 (12.16%) Disaster Recovery
9 30 (10.14%) Problem-Solving
10 28 (9.46%) Runbook
10 28 (9.46%) Stakeholder Management
11 27 (9.12%) Platform Engineering
12 26 (8.78%) ITIL
12 26 (8.78%) Network Virtualisation
13 24 (8.11%) Capacity Planning
14 22 (7.43%) Containerisation
15 21 (7.09%) Storage Management
Programming Languages
1 88 (29.73%) PowerShell
2 62 (20.95%) Python
3 42 (14.19%) SQL
4 35 (11.82%) Bash
5 13 (4.39%) Bicep
6 10 (3.38%) T-SQL
7 8 (2.70%) C#
8 7 (2.36%) Shell Script
9 6 (2.03%) C
10 4 (1.35%) Java
10 4 (1.35%) PL/SQL
11 3 (1.01%) Groovy
11 3 (1.01%) Korn
12 2 (0.68%) C++
12 2 (0.68%) Embedded C
13 1 (0.34%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 1 (0.34%) Go
13 1 (0.34%) JavaScript
13 1 (0.34%) RPG
13 1 (0.34%) VBA
Qualifications
1 83 (28.04%) Security Cleared
2 67 (22.64%) SC Cleared
3 23 (7.77%) Azure Certification
4 20 (6.76%) Degree
4 20 (6.76%) Microsoft Certification
5 14 (4.73%) BPSS Clearance
5 14 (4.73%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
6 11 (3.72%) VCAP
7 10 (3.38%) MCSA
7 10 (3.38%) MCSE
8 9 (3.04%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 8 (2.70%) DV Cleared
10 6 (2.03%) ISTQB
11 5 (1.69%) CCNA
11 5 (1.69%) Cisco Certification
11 5 (1.69%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
12 3 (1.01%) CISM
12 3 (1.01%) CISSP
12 3 (1.01%) PMI Certification
12 3 (1.01%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (3.38%) QA
2 4 (1.35%) SLA
3 3 (1.01%) PCI DSS
4 2 (0.68%) Actionable Recommendations
4 2 (0.68%) Cyber Essentials
4 2 (0.68%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
4 2 (0.68%) GMP
4 2 (0.68%) GxP
4 2 (0.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 2 (0.68%) NIST
5 1 (0.34%) Accessibility
5 1 (0.34%) GDPR
5 1 (0.34%) HIPAA
5 1 (0.34%) SOC 2
5 1 (0.34%) WCAG
System Software
1 88 (29.73%) VMware Infrastructure
2 46 (15.54%) Active Directory
3 44 (14.86%) vSphere
4 39 (13.18%) VMware ESXi
5 27 (9.12%) Docker
6 22 (7.43%) Hyper-V
7 14 (4.73%) VMware NSX
8 8 (2.70%) Virtual Desktop
9 7 (2.36%) Ceph
10 6 (2.03%) KVM
11 5 (1.69%) Firmware
12 4 (1.35%) NFS
13 3 (1.01%) EMC RecoverPoint
13 3 (1.01%) VMware Workstation
14 2 (0.68%) HDFS
14 2 (0.68%) Veritas Volume Manager
15 1 (0.34%) BitLocker
15 1 (0.34%) DFS Replication
15 1 (0.34%) iptables
15 1 (0.34%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 46 (15.54%) Kubernetes
2 44 (14.86%) Ansible
3 27 (9.12%) vCenter Server
4 19 (6.42%) Grafana
5 14 (4.73%) Prometheus
5 14 (4.73%) SCOM
6 12 (4.05%) PowerCLI
7 9 (3.04%) Failover Clustering
8 8 (2.70%) SCCM
8 8 (2.70%) VxRail
9 7 (2.36%) Packer
9 7 (2.36%) Podman
9 7 (2.36%) vMotion
10 6 (2.03%) Microsoft Clustering
10 6 (2.03%) Microsoft Intune
10 6 (2.03%) Proxmox
11 4 (1.35%) Avamar
11 4 (1.35%) OPNET
12 3 (1.01%) Argo
12 3 (1.01%) EMC VPLEX
Vendors
1 99 (33.45%) Microsoft
2 93 (31.42%) VMware
3 29 (9.80%) Cisco
4 24 (8.11%) ServiceNow
5 23 (7.77%) Oracle
6 16 (5.41%) Dell
7 13 (4.39%) Red Hat
8 12 (4.05%) NetApp
8 12 (4.05%) Veeam
9 11 (3.72%) IBM
10 9 (3.04%) CyberArk
10 9 (3.04%) Splunk
11 8 (2.70%) Qualys
11 8 (2.70%) SolarWinds
12 7 (2.36%) Commvault
12 7 (2.36%) Google
13 6 (2.03%) Databricks
14 5 (1.69%) Meraki
14 5 (1.69%) Palo Alto
14 5 (1.69%) Tenable
208 Virtual Machines jobs Nationwide