Job Vacancy Trend Daily Rate Trend Daily Rate Histogram Hourly Rate Trend Hourly Rate Histogram Job Locations Skill Sets
Period
to 1 April 2020

The following table provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for Virtual Machines skills. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that have cited Virtual Machines over the 6 months to 1 April 2020 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

Note that daily and hourly rates are treated separately in these statistics. When calculating contractor rate percentiles, daily rates are never derived from quoted hourly rates or vice versa.

Virtual Machine (VM)
UK
6 months to
1 Apr 2020		 Same period 2019 Same period 2018
Rank 325 353 449
Rank change year-on-year +28 +96 +19
Contract jobs citing Virtual Machines 423 701 520
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.68% 0.73% 0.51%
As % of the System Software category 4.42% 4.72% 3.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 315 513 327
Median daily rate £470 £488 £475
Median daily rate % change year-on-year -3.59% +2.63% +5.56%
10th Percentile £315 £313 £263
90th Percentile £623 £700 £665
UK excluding London median daily rate £473 £460 £450
% change year-on-year +2.88% +2.22% +11.80%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 23 24
Median hourly rate £35.00 £36.00 £47.83
Median hourly rate % change year-on-year -2.78% -24.73% +73.93%
10th Percentile £15.50 £14.70 £18.70
90th Percentile £51.23 £46.37 £59.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.50 £16.86 £60.00
% change year-on-year +33.45% -71.90% +242.86%

Virtual Machines is in the System Software category. The following table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies with a requirement for system software skills.

All System Software Skills
UK
Contract vacancies with a requirement for system software skills 9,577 14,841 13,173
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 15.42% 15.40% 12.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,139 9,807 8,586
Median daily rate £450 £468 £450
Median daily rate % change year-on-year -3.74% +3.89% +9.09%
10th Percentile £163 £179 £170
90th Percentile £638 £638 £625
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £425 £400
% change year-on-year - +6.25% +14.29%
Number of hourly rates quoted 592 709 708
Median hourly rate £17.63 £16.00 £15.86
Median hourly rate % change year-on-year +10.16% +0.88% -0.88%
10th Percentile £11.43 £10.75 £10.50
90th Percentile £48.12 £47.50 £45.16
Median hourly rate £17.00 £15.37 £15.00
% change year-on-year +10.61% +2.47% -

Virtual Machines
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Virtual Machines as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Virtual Machines in the UK

Virtual Machines
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Virtual Machines.

Daily rate trend for Virtual Machines in the UK

Virtual Machines
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Virtual Machines over the 6 months to 1 April 2020.

Daily rate histogram for Virtual Machines in the UK

Virtual Machines
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Virtual Machines.

Hourly rate trend for Virtual Machines in the UK

Virtual Machines
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Virtual Machines over the 6 months to 1 April 2020.

Hourly rate histogram for Virtual Machines in the UK

Virtual Machines
Top 17 Contract 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 April 2020. 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
Job
Vacancies
England +18 397 £472 -5.51% 92
UK excluding London +30 274 £473 +2.88% 64
London +10 137 £470 -10.48% 31
South East +42 97 £500 +6.67% 28
North of England +29 61 £375 -25.00% 16
South West +31 49 £513 +12.95% 5
North West +35 38 £368 -42.35% 10
Midlands +48 27 £440 -2.22% 8
West Midlands +49 24 £445 -1.11% 5
Yorkshire +31 22 £442 -6.97% 5
East of England +30 22 £400 -5.88% 3
Scotland +14 11 £458 -34.64% 3
Work from Home +4 11 £450 +5.88% 12
Northern Ireland +18 6 £384 +28.13%
East Midlands +20 3 £308 -36.10% 3
North East +9 1 - - 1
Wales +7 1 - - 1

For the 6 months to 1 April 2020, IT contractor jobs citing Virtual Machines also mentioned the following skills in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads with a requirement for Virtual Machines.

1 195 (46.10%) Windows
2 144 (34.04%) Azure
3 129 (30.50%) VMware
4 127 (30.02%) Linux
4 127 (30.02%) Microsoft
5 117 (27.66%) Security Cleared
6 115 (27.19%) SQL
7 113 (26.71%) VMware Infrastructure
8 107 (25.30%) Windows Server
9 106 (25.06%) Active Directory
10 104 (24.59%) DevOps
11 90 (21.28%) Agile Software Development
12 89 (21.04%) PowerShell
13 88 (20.80%) SC Cleared
14 71 (16.78%) Test Automation
15 70 (16.55%) Python
16 69 (16.31%) Migration
17 67 (15.84%) IaaS
18 66 (15.60%) Analytics
18 66 (15.60%) PaaS
19 62 (14.66%) Hyper-V
20 59 (13.95%) AWS
21 58 (13.71%) Continuous Integration
21 58 (13.71%) SQL Server
22 57 (13.48%) Docker
23 56 (13.24%) DNS
24 54 (12.77%) Data Centre
25 53 (12.53%) Scrum
26 51 (12.06%) DHCP
26 51 (12.06%) C#

Virtual Machines
Co-occurring IT Skills by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same job type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 21 (4.96%) SharePoint
2 18 (4.26%) MS Exchange
3 17 (4.02%) IIS
4 13 (3.07%) Confluence
5 11 (2.60%) nginx
6 10 (2.36%) OpenStack
7 9 (2.13%) Exchange Server 2010
8 8 (1.89%) Exchange Server 2013
8 8 (1.89%) Skype for Business
9 5 (1.18%) Tomcat
10 4 (0.95%) Cloud Foundry
10 4 (0.95%) CMS
11 3 (0.71%) Apache
11 3 (0.71%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 3 (0.71%) SharePoint 2013
12 2 (0.47%) Elasticsearch
12 2 (0.47%) Oracle Service Bus
12 2 (0.47%) Sitecore CMS
12 2 (0.47%) Umbraco
12 2 (0.47%) WebLogic
Applications
1 8 (1.89%) Microsoft Excel
1 8 (1.89%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (0.95%) MS Visio
3 3 (0.71%) Microsoft Project
4 2 (0.47%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.24%) Adobe Creative Suite
Business Applications
1 5 (1.18%) Dynamics CRM
2 3 (0.71%) assyst
3 1 (0.24%) Actimize
3 1 (0.24%) Dynamics AX
3 1 (0.24%) NetSuite
3 1 (0.24%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.24%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 144 (34.04%) Azure
2 67 (15.84%) IaaS
3 66 (15.60%) PaaS
4 59 (13.95%) AWS
5 36 (8.51%) Office 365
6 33 (7.80%) Power Platform
7 30 (7.09%) Azure Active Directory
8 20 (4.73%) Serverless
9 19 (4.49%) Amazon EC2
10 18 (4.26%) OpenShift
11 16 (3.78%) Azure Data Factory
12 14 (3.31%) GCP
13 12 (2.84%) Azure Functions
14 10 (2.36%) GitHub
15 9 (2.13%) AWS CloudFormation
16 7 (1.65%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 7 (1.65%) Data Lake Analytics
17 6 (1.42%) npm
18 5 (1.18%) Apigee
18 5 (1.18%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 56 (13.24%) DNS
2 51 (12.06%) DHCP
3 46 (10.87%) Firewall
4 45 (10.64%) VPN
5 36 (8.51%) TCP/IP
6 26 (6.15%) SAN
7 21 (4.96%) Internet
7 21 (4.96%) Network Security
8 20 (4.73%) Wireless
9 17 (4.02%) WAN
10 16 (3.78%) HTTP
10 16 (3.78%) VSAN
11 15 (3.55%) LAN
12 14 (3.31%) IPv4
12 14 (3.31%) iSCSI
13 13 (3.07%) Ethernet
14 12 (2.84%) IPv6
15 11 (2.60%) NetScaler
15 11 (2.60%) SSL
15 11 (2.60%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 58 (13.71%) SQL Server
2 47 (11.11%) Data Lake
3 33 (7.80%) Power BI
4 32 (7.57%) Azure SQL Database
4 32 (7.57%) HDInsight
5 30 (7.09%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 20 (4.73%) Amazon RDS
7 16 (3.78%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 15 (3.55%) PostgreSQL
8 15 (3.55%) SQL Server 2016
9 11 (2.60%) SQL Server Analysis Services
10 10 (2.36%) Microsoft Analysis Services
10 10 (2.36%) SQL Server 2012
11 9 (2.13%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
11 9 (2.13%) Data Warehouse
11 9 (2.13%) Snowflake Schema
12 8 (1.89%) Oracle Database
12 8 (1.89%) Oracle Reports
13 6 (1.42%) SQL Server 2014
14 5 (1.18%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 45 (10.64%) Git (software)
2 43 (10.17%) Jenkins
3 32 (7.57%) Visual Studio
4 18 (4.26%) GitLab
5 16 (3.78%) JIRA
6 13 (3.07%) Subversion
7 10 (2.36%) Visual Studio Team System
8 9 (2.13%) gulp
9 8 (1.89%) SonarQube
10 6 (1.42%) CircleCI
10 6 (1.42%) Maven
10 6 (1.42%) Team Foundation Server
11 5 (1.18%) Grunt
11 5 (1.18%) Octopus Deploy
11 5 (1.18%) Vagrant
12 4 (0.95%) Bitbucket
12 4 (0.95%) Gradle
12 4 (0.95%) Travis CI
13 3 (0.71%) Jasmine
13 3 (0.71%) Protractor
General
1 32 (7.57%) Finance
2 25 (5.91%) Banking
3 19 (4.49%) Public Sector
4 17 (4.02%) Telecoms
5 15 (3.55%) Retail
6 6 (1.42%) Military
6 6 (1.42%) Publishing
7 4 (0.95%) German Language
8 3 (0.71%) Financial Institution
8 3 (0.71%) French Language
8 3 (0.71%) Manufacturing
9 2 (0.47%) Advertising
9 2 (0.47%) Investment Banking
9 2 (0.47%) Italian Language
9 2 (0.47%) Legal
9 2 (0.47%) Marketing
9 2 (0.47%) Retail Banking
10 1 (0.24%) Avionics
10 1 (0.24%) Corporate Banking
10 1 (0.24%) Police
Job Titles
1 64 (15.13%) DevOps Engineer
2 42 (9.93%) Azure Engineer
3 36 (8.51%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 30 (7.09%) Developer
5 26 (6.15%) Consultant
6 24 (5.67%) Administrator
6 24 (5.67%) Support Engineer
7 19 (4.49%) Azure DevOps Engineer
7 19 (4.49%) Systems Engineer
8 18 (4.26%) VMware Engineer
9 16 (3.78%) Architect
10 14 (3.31%) Azure DevOps
10 14 (3.31%) Data Engineer
11 13 (3.07%) Cloud Engineer
11 13 (3.07%) Systems Administrator
12 11 (2.60%) Project Manager
13 10 (2.36%) Analyst
13 10 (2.36%) Azure Infrastructure Engineer
13 10 (2.36%) Unix Engineer
13 10 (2.36%) Unix Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (7.33%) .NET
2 20 (4.73%) Elastic Stack
3 18 (4.26%) 802.1X
4 15 (3.55%) HTML
5 12 (2.84%) Web Services
5 12 (2.84%) YAML
6 11 (2.60%) Middleware
7 9 (2.13%) RESTful
8 8 (1.89%) .NET Framework
8 8 (1.89%) REST
9 7 (1.65%) AngularJS
9 7 (1.65%) CSS
9 7 (1.65%) Node.js
10 4 (0.95%) Ajax
10 4 (0.95%) ASP.NET
10 4 (0.95%) HTML5
10 4 (0.95%) JSON
11 3 (0.71%) J2EE
11 3 (0.71%) jQuery
11 3 (0.71%) LDAP
Miscellaneous
1 54 (12.77%) Data Centre
2 39 (9.22%) Clustering
3 28 (6.62%) Analytical Skills
4 17 (4.02%) User Experience
5 13 (3.07%) Hybrid Cloud
6 12 (2.84%) PKI
7 11 (2.60%) Replication
7 11 (2.60%) Self-Motivation
8 10 (2.36%) Management Information System
9 9 (2.13%) Linux Command Line
10 8 (1.89%) HP StoreVirtual
11 7 (1.65%) IPTV
12 5 (1.18%) Virtual Team
13 4 (0.95%) CCTV
13 4 (0.95%) Enterprise Software
13 4 (0.95%) Greenfield Project
13 4 (0.95%) Hedge funds
14 3 (0.71%) CMDB
14 3 (0.71%) Mainframe
14 3 (0.71%) Smartphone
Operating Systems
1 195 (46.10%) Windows
2 127 (30.02%) Linux
3 107 (25.30%) Windows Server
4 46 (10.87%) Windows Server 2012
5 42 (9.93%) Windows 10
6 35 (8.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 27 (6.38%) Unix
8 25 (5.91%) Windows Server 2016
9 23 (5.44%) Windows Server 2008
10 22 (5.20%) Windows 7
11 20 (4.73%) VMS
12 19 (4.49%) Ubuntu
13 17 (4.02%) Solaris
14 13 (3.07%) Windows 8
15 12 (2.84%) CentOS
16 8 (1.89%) Windows Server 2003
17 7 (1.65%) Mac OS
18 6 (1.42%) Windows Server 2019
19 5 (1.18%) SUSE
20 4 (0.95%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 104 (24.59%) DevOps
2 90 (21.28%) Agile Software Development
3 71 (16.78%) Test Automation
4 69 (16.31%) Migration
5 66 (15.60%) Analytics
6 58 (13.71%) Continuous Integration
7 53 (12.53%) Scrum
8 51 (12.06%) Infrastructure as Code
9 45 (10.64%) Business Intelligence
10 44 (10.40%) ITIL
11 41 (9.69%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 39 (9.22%) High Availability
13 35 (8.27%) Continuous Delivery
14 34 (8.04%) Data Management
15 32 (7.57%) Configuration Management
15 32 (7.57%) Problem-Solving
16 27 (6.38%) Data-Driven Testing
16 27 (6.38%) Security Testing
17 26 (6.15%) Project Delivery
18 25 (5.91%) Data Protection
Programming Languages
1 115 (27.19%) SQL
2 89 (21.04%) PowerShell
3 70 (16.55%) Python
4 51 (12.06%) C#
5 29 (6.86%) Bash Shell
5 29 (6.86%) Java
6 27 (6.38%) C
7 18 (4.26%) JavaScript
8 13 (3.07%) Perl
9 12 (2.84%) Shell Script
10 9 (2.13%) Groovy
10 9 (2.13%) R
11 7 (1.65%) Go
11 7 (1.65%) PHP
12 6 (1.42%) MATLAB
13 3 (0.71%) C++
13 3 (0.71%) PL/SQL
13 3 (0.71%) T-SQL
14 2 (0.47%) COBOL
14 2 (0.47%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 117 (27.66%) Security Cleared
2 88 (20.80%) SC Cleared
3 48 (11.35%) DV Cleared
4 20 (4.73%) Microsoft Certification
5 15 (3.55%) Degree
6 10 (2.36%) ITIL Certification
7 7 (1.65%) MCTS
8 6 (1.42%) Citrix Certification
8 6 (1.42%) MCSA
9 5 (1.18%) A+ Certification
9 5 (1.18%) ACSP
9 5 (1.18%) Cisco Certification
9 5 (1.18%) MCITP
10 4 (0.95%) AWS Certification
10 4 (0.95%) Network+ Certification
10 4 (0.95%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 3 (0.71%) BC Cleared
11 3 (0.71%) CCIE
11 3 (0.71%) CompTIA Security+
12 2 (0.47%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (3.55%) SLA
2 8 (1.89%) Government Security Classifications
2 8 (1.89%) QA
3 7 (1.65%) NCSC
4 4 (0.95%) HMG Security Policy Framework
5 3 (0.71%) Cyber Essentials
5 3 (0.71%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 3 (0.71%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 3 (0.71%) RMADS
6 2 (0.47%) Data Quality
6 2 (0.47%) ISO/IEC 15288
7 1 (0.24%) GDPR
System Software
1 113 (26.71%) VMware Infrastructure
2 106 (25.06%) Active Directory
3 62 (14.66%) Hyper-V
4 57 (13.48%) Docker
5 34 (8.04%) VMware ESXi
6 29 (6.86%) vSphere
7 21 (4.96%) NFS
8 20 (4.73%) XenApp
9 18 (4.26%) XenDesktop
10 16 (3.78%) Virtual Servers
10 16 (3.78%) VMware NSX
11 15 (3.55%) VMFS
12 14 (3.31%) Microsoft App-V
12 14 (3.31%) Virtual Desktop
13 13 (3.07%) vCloud
14 12 (2.84%) LXC
14 12 (2.84%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 9 (2.13%) DFS Replication
16 7 (1.65%) Squid
17 4 (0.95%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 48 (11.35%) Ansible
2 43 (10.17%) Puppet
3 42 (9.93%) Kubernetes
4 35 (8.27%) SCVMM
5 34 (8.04%) Terraform
6 31 (7.33%) SCOM
7 29 (6.86%) vCenter Server
8 28 (6.62%) Opscode Chef
9 25 (5.91%) SCCM
10 24 (5.67%) Microsoft Clustering
11 21 (4.96%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
11 21 (4.96%) vRealize
12 17 (4.02%) vMotion
13 15 (3.55%) Failover Clustering
13 15 (3.55%) Network Intrusion Detection System
13 15 (3.55%) WSUS
14 12 (2.84%) Host Intrusion Detection System
15 10 (2.36%) Microsoft Intune
16 9 (2.13%) SCDPM
16 9 (2.13%) SCSM
Vendors
1 129 (30.50%) VMware
2 127 (30.02%) Microsoft
3 45 (10.64%) Oracle
4 38 (8.98%) Red Hat
5 29 (6.86%) Cisco
5 29 (6.86%) Citrix
6 26 (6.15%) Dell
6 26 (6.15%) HP
7 20 (4.73%) Informatica
8 18 (4.26%) Google
9 14 (3.31%) EMC
10 13 (3.07%) Splunk
11 9 (2.13%) Databricks
11 9 (2.13%) Symantec
12 8 (1.89%) ArcSight
12 8 (1.89%) CheckPoint
12 8 (1.89%) IBM
12 8 (1.89%) NetApp
13 7 (1.65%) PlateSpin
13 7 (1.65%) Veeam