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 12 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 395 323 317
Rank change year-on-year -72 -6 -3
Contract jobs citing Virtual Machines 219 210 307
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.51% 0.71% 0.69%
As % of the System Software category 4.58% 5.47% 6.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 146 138 202
10th Percentile £348 £350 £283
25th Percentile £413 £425 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% +2.50% -6.98%
75th Percentile £575 £611 £608
90th Percentile £650 £746 £698
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £513
% change year-on-year - -2.44% -2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 12 21
10th Percentile £66.03 £35.23 -
25th Percentile - £59.38 £14.06
Median hourly rate £70.00 £63.00 £14.63
Median % change year-on-year +11.11% +330.77% -77.84%
75th Percentile - £66.00 £15.19
90th Percentile - - £88.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £70.00 £63.00 £14.63
% change year-on-year +11.11% +330.77% -77.84%

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 4,778 3,840 4,883
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 11.19% 13.05% 10.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,272 2,580 3,305
10th Percentile £210 £206 £190
25th Percentile £400 £391 £319
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £475
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +10.53% -9.52%
75th Percentile £596 £623 £600
90th Percentile £693 £725 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £450
% change year-on-year - +5.56% -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 146 88 241
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.41 £14.06
25th Percentile £20.82 £21.46 £16.25
Median hourly rate £41.94 £33.25 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +26.14% +2.31% -18.75%
75th Percentile £71.91 £66.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £82.50 £86.78 £76.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.31 £37.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +12.83% -6.25% +53.85%

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 12 March 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 12 March 2026.

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 12 March 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 -80 205 £500 -4.12% 64
UK excluding London -71 115 £500 - 47
Work from Home 0 88 £500 -1.23% 51
London -56 84 £475 -17.39% 32
North of England -28 62 £482 +26.51% 11
Yorkshire -32 40 £500 +13.64% 3
North West -30 21 £460 +20.73% 8
South East -43 20 £500 +2.04% 13
South West -20 13 £550 +2.33% 3
East of England -38 11 £600 +17.07% 10
Scotland +6 5 £550 +7.32% 6
Midlands -68 5 £475 -5.09% 4
West Midlands -68 4 £450 -10.09% 2
North East -15 1 £400 +10.34%

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 11 (5.02%) Microsoft Exchange
2 5 (2.28%) OpenStack
3 4 (1.83%) SharePoint
4 3 (1.37%) Palantir Foundry
5 2 (0.91%) Ethereum
5 2 (0.91%) Hyperledger
5 2 (0.91%) nginx
5 2 (0.91%) SharePoint Server
6 1 (0.46%) Apache
6 1 (0.46%) ArcGIS
6 1 (0.46%) JBoss
Applications
1 2 (0.91%) Chatbot
2 1 (0.46%) Adobe Illustrator
2 1 (0.46%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 1 (0.46%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 93 (42.47%) Azure
2 39 (17.81%) AWS
3 37 (16.89%) GitHub
4 27 (12.33%) OpenShift
5 26 (11.87%) Azure DevOps
6 25 (11.42%) GitHub Actions
7 18 (8.22%) GCP
8 17 (7.76%) Entra ID
9 14 (6.39%) Serverless
10 13 (5.94%) Azure Monitor
10 13 (5.94%) Microsoft 365
11 10 (4.57%) Azure AKS
11 10 (4.57%) Azure Storage
12 7 (3.20%) AWS CodePipeline
12 7 (3.20%) Cloud Computing
13 6 (2.74%) Amazon ECS
13 6 (2.74%) AWS CloudFormation
13 6 (2.74%) AWS Lambda
13 6 (2.74%) Azure Functions
13 6 (2.74%) Azure Key Vault
Communications & Networking
1 27 (12.33%) Firewall
2 25 (11.42%) DNS
3 12 (5.48%) VPN
4 11 (5.02%) WAN
5 9 (4.11%) DHCP
5 9 (4.11%) SAN
6 8 (3.65%) Network Security
6 8 (3.65%) Reverse Proxy
6 8 (3.65%) TCP/IP
7 6 (2.74%) Wi-Fi
8 5 (2.28%) SSL
9 4 (1.83%) Skype
10 3 (1.37%) SSH
10 3 (1.37%) VLAN
11 2 (0.91%) FTP
11 2 (0.91%) VSAN
12 1 (0.46%) IPsec
12 1 (0.46%) LAN
12 1 (0.46%) SD-WAN
12 1 (0.46%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (5.94%) SQL Server
2 8 (3.65%) PostgreSQL
3 7 (3.20%) Azure SQL Database
4 6 (2.74%) DB2
5 5 (2.28%) Oracle Database
5 5 (2.28%) Power BI
6 3 (1.37%) Amazon RDS
6 3 (1.37%) Data Hub
6 3 (1.37%) Data Lake
6 3 (1.37%) Oracle Reports
7 2 (0.91%) Data Vault
7 2 (0.91%) ImageNet
8 1 (0.46%) Data Warehouse
8 1 (0.46%) NoSQL
8 1 (0.46%) OpenStack Swift
8 1 (0.46%) Relational Database
8 1 (0.46%) Weaviate
Development Applications
1 33 (15.07%) Git
2 18 (8.22%) JIRA
3 14 (6.39%) Jenkins
4 11 (5.02%) GitLab
5 8 (3.65%) PVCS
5 8 (3.65%) Rational DOORS
6 3 (1.37%) RStudio
7 2 (0.91%) Hardhat
7 2 (0.91%) JMeter
7 2 (0.91%) Postman
7 2 (0.91%) Selenium
8 1 (0.46%) Gradle
8 1 (0.46%) Terragrunt
General
1 39 (17.81%) Social Skills
2 16 (7.31%) Public Sector
3 14 (6.39%) Analytical Skills
4 13 (5.94%) Finance
5 11 (5.02%) Banking
6 8 (3.65%) Electronics
7 7 (3.20%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 7 (3.20%) Legal
8 6 (2.74%) Spanish Language
9 4 (1.83%) Documentation Skills
10 3 (1.37%) Retail
10 3 (1.37%) Social Science
11 1 (0.46%) Aerospace
11 1 (0.46%) Back Office
11 1 (0.46%) Front Office
11 1 (0.46%) Italian Language
11 1 (0.46%) Law
11 1 (0.46%) Manufacturing
11 1 (0.46%) Marketing
11 1 (0.46%) Police
Job Titles
1 34 (15.53%) DevOps Engineer
2 23 (10.50%) Azure Engineer
3 21 (9.59%) Senior
4 14 (6.39%) Software Engineer
5 13 (5.94%) Architect
5 13 (5.94%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 13 (5.94%) Security Engineer
6 12 (5.48%) C++ Software Engineer
6 12 (5.48%) Cloud Engineer
6 12 (5.48%) Embedded C++ Engineer
6 12 (5.48%) Embedded C++ Software Engineer
6 12 (5.48%) Embedded Engineer
6 12 (5.48%) Embedded Software Engineer
7 11 (5.02%) Analyst
7 11 (5.02%) Azure DevOps Engineer
7 11 (5.02%) Platform Engineer
8 10 (4.57%) Site Reliability Engineer
8 10 (4.57%) Wintel Engineer
9 8 (3.65%) Data Engineer
9 8 (3.65%) Site Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (4.57%) ARM Templates
2 4 (1.83%) YAML
3 3 (1.37%) Hugging Face
4 2 (0.91%) .NET
4 2 (0.91%) Elastic Stack
4 2 (0.91%) Kafka
4 2 (0.91%) OpenCV
4 2 (0.91%) PySpark
4 2 (0.91%) PyTorch
4 2 (0.91%) RabbitMQ
4 2 (0.91%) Regular Expression
4 2 (0.91%) Smart Contracts
4 2 (0.91%) SpaCy
4 2 (0.91%) TensorFlow
4 2 (0.91%) Truffle
4 2 (0.91%) web3js
5 1 (0.46%) JSON
5 1 (0.46%) LDAP
5 1 (0.46%) Middleware
5 1 (0.46%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 24 (10.96%) Data Centre
2 15 (6.85%) Cloud Native
3 14 (6.39%) Private Cloud
4 13 (5.94%) Hybrid Cloud
4 13 (5.94%) Replication
5 12 (5.48%) Clustering
6 10 (4.57%) Linux Command Line
7 8 (3.65%) Onboarding
8 6 (2.74%) CAN bus
8 6 (2.74%) FlexPod
8 6 (2.74%) Public Cloud
9 5 (2.28%) Cyber Threat
10 4 (1.83%) Enterprise Software
10 4 (1.83%) PKI
11 3 (1.37%) Analytical Mindset
11 3 (1.37%) Data Protection Act
11 3 (1.37%) NHS
11 3 (1.37%) Product Ownership
12 2 (0.91%) Self-Motivation
12 2 (0.91%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 68 (31.05%) Linux
2 60 (27.40%) Windows
3 32 (14.61%) Windows Server
4 28 (12.79%) VMS
5 14 (6.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 7 (3.20%) Data ONTAP
7 6 (2.74%) AIX
7 6 (2.74%) CoreOS
7 6 (2.74%) Unix
7 6 (2.74%) Windows Server 2016
8 5 (2.28%) Windows 10
9 3 (1.37%) Apple iOS
10 2 (0.91%) Windows Server 2019
11 1 (0.46%) Android
11 1 (0.46%) Rocky
11 1 (0.46%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.46%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 78 (35.62%) DevOps
2 70 (31.96%) CI/CD
3 52 (23.74%) Infrastructure as Code
4 37 (16.89%) Migration
5 33 (15.07%) High Availability
6 29 (13.24%) Disaster Recovery
7 25 (11.42%) Containerisation
7 25 (11.42%) Cybersecurity
7 25 (11.42%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 24 (10.96%) Agile
8 24 (10.96%) Network Virtualisation
9 23 (10.50%) Continuous Improvement
9 23 (10.50%) Technical Leadership
10 20 (9.13%) Platform Engineering
11 19 (8.68%) Problem-Solving
12 18 (8.22%) Runbook
13 17 (7.76%) Analytics
14 16 (7.31%) AI
15 15 (6.85%) Configuration Management
15 15 (6.85%) Deployment Automation
Programming Languages
1 55 (25.11%) Python
2 52 (23.74%) PowerShell
3 33 (15.07%) SQL
4 29 (13.24%) Bash
5 14 (6.39%) C++
6 13 (5.94%) Embedded C++
7 10 (4.57%) C
8 9 (4.11%) Shell Script
9 8 (3.65%) Bicep
9 8 (3.65%) C#
10 7 (3.20%) Embedded C
11 6 (2.74%) Ruby
12 5 (2.28%) Java
13 2 (0.91%) Korn
13 2 (0.91%) PHP
13 2 (0.91%) Solidity
14 1 (0.46%) Go
Qualifications
1 58 (26.48%) Security Cleared
2 48 (21.92%) SC Cleared
3 16 (7.31%) OCP
3 16 (7.31%) Oracle Certification
4 14 (6.39%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
5 12 (5.48%) Azure Certification
5 12 (5.48%) VCAP
6 10 (4.57%) Microsoft Certification
7 8 (3.65%) MCSA
7 8 (3.65%) MCSE
8 6 (2.74%) DV Cleared
9 5 (2.28%) Degree
10 3 (1.37%) BPSS Clearance
10 3 (1.37%) Master's Degree
11 2 (0.91%) Computer Science Degree
11 2 (0.91%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
12 1 (0.46%) AWS Certification
12 1 (0.46%) CCNP
12 1 (0.46%) RHCE
12 1 (0.46%) RHCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (2.74%) QA
2 5 (2.28%) GDPR
3 4 (1.83%) Cyber Essentials
4 3 (1.37%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 2 (0.91%) Accessibility
6 1 (0.46%) Data Quality
6 1 (0.46%) GRC
6 1 (0.46%) NIST
6 1 (0.46%) SLA
System Software
1 51 (23.29%) VMware Infrastructure
2 31 (14.16%) Active Directory
3 29 (13.24%) vSphere
4 20 (9.13%) Docker
4 20 (9.13%) VMware ESXi
5 18 (8.22%) Hyper-V
5 18 (8.22%) KVM
6 8 (3.65%) NFS
6 8 (3.65%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (3.20%) Firmware
7 7 (3.20%) VMware NSX
8 2 (0.91%) Xen
9 1 (0.46%) Ceph
9 1 (0.46%) iptables
9 1 (0.46%) NLBS
9 1 (0.46%) Samba
Systems Management
1 70 (31.96%) Terraform
2 52 (23.74%) Kubernetes
3 46 (21.00%) Ansible
4 29 (13.24%) vCenter Server
5 11 (5.02%) SCCM
6 8 (3.65%) Microsoft Intune
7 7 (3.20%) SnapMirror
7 7 (3.20%) WSUS
8 6 (2.74%) CASB
8 6 (2.74%) IBM BigFix
8 6 (2.74%) PowerCLI
8 6 (2.74%) SCOrch
9 3 (1.37%) Data Guard
9 3 (1.37%) Grafana
9 3 (1.37%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
9 3 (1.37%) Oracle RMAN
9 3 (1.37%) Rancher
9 3 (1.37%) systemd
10 2 (0.91%) Failover Clustering
10 2 (0.91%) Opsview
Vendors
1 68 (31.05%) Microsoft
2 56 (25.57%) VMware
3 15 (6.85%) Cisco
3 15 (6.85%) IBM
4 13 (5.94%) Red Hat
5 10 (4.57%) Databricks
5 10 (4.57%) Google
5 10 (4.57%) NetApp
6 8 (3.65%) ANSYS
7 7 (3.20%) Tenable
8 6 (2.74%) Oracle
9 5 (2.28%) OpenAI
10 4 (1.83%) Dell
10 4 (1.83%) Pure Storage
10 4 (1.83%) ServiceNow
10 4 (1.83%) Sophos
11 3 (1.37%) Alibaba
11 3 (1.37%) Foundry
11 3 (1.37%) SolarWinds
11 3 (1.37%) Veeam