Job Vacancy Trend Daily Rate Trend Daily Rate Histogram Hourly Rate Trend Job Locations Skill Sets
Period
to 22 January 2021

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 22 January 2021 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
22 Jan 2021		 Same period 2020 Same period 2019
Rank 317 361 405
Rank change year-on-year +44 +44 +48
Contract jobs citing Virtual Machines 314 463 611
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.75% 0.64% 0.61%
As % of the System Software category 5.02% 4.08% 4.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 253 331 482
Median daily rate £525 £463 £500
Median daily rate % change year-on-year +13.51% -7.50% +11.11%
10th Percentile £340 £306 £315
90th Percentile £675 £625 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +11.06% -5.26% +10.47%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 13 13
Median hourly rate £41.25 £40.00 £36.67
Median hourly rate % change year-on-year +3.13% +9.08% -23.33%
10th Percentile £40.00 £12.03 £14.10
90th Percentile £48.90 £44.50 £41.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.00 £40.00 £16.86
% change year-on-year +10.00% +137.25% +20.43%

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 6,260 11,335 15,280
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 14.86% 15.60% 15.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,233 7,647 10,212
Median daily rate £475 £450 £463
Median daily rate % change year-on-year +5.56% -2.70% +8.82%
10th Percentile £213 £163 £180
90th Percentile £650 £638 £638
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £413 £415
% change year-on-year +3.03% -0.60% +10.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 264 624 806
Median hourly rate £17.75 £16.50 £16.00
Median hourly rate % change year-on-year +7.58% +3.13% +0.88%
10th Percentile £11.17 £11.25 £10.50
90th Percentile £61.25 £47.09 £44.27
Median hourly rate £16.00 £16.00 £15.50
% change year-on-year - +3.23% +3.33%

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 22 January 2021.

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
Top 16 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 22 January 2021. 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 +34 228 £500 +5.26% 74
UK excluding London +39 133 £500 +11.06% 56
Work from Home -98 111 £600 +33.33% 19
London +81 109 £500 +5.26% 26
South East +80 59 £550 +11.68% 18
Scotland +48 19 £475 +35.71% 2
North of England +24 15 £500 +25.00% 10
South West +59 12 £438 -12.50% 4
Midlands +50 12 £355 -16.47% 10
East of England +41 10 £500 +14.17% 5
West Midlands +36 9 £359 -17.05% 5
Wales +37 6 £300 -25.00% 4
North West +20 6 £360 -5.88% 5
Yorkshire +19 6 £475 +5.56% 4
North East +41 3 £575 +35.29% 1
East Midlands +35 3 £300 -3.23% 5

For the 6 months to 22 January 2021, 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.

1 121 (38.54%) Windows
2 110 (35.03%) Linux
3 101 (32.17%) DevOps
4 88 (28.03%) Azure
5 84 (26.75%) Terraform
6 81 (25.80%) VMware
7 80 (25.48%) Python
8 75 (23.89%) Ansible
9 74 (23.57%) Kubernetes
9 74 (23.57%) Java
10 73 (23.25%) Microsoft
11 68 (21.66%) VMware Infrastructure
12 66 (21.02%) Jenkins
13 63 (20.06%) Migration
14 62 (19.75%) Security Cleared
15 58 (18.47%) Active Directory
16 57 (18.15%) GCP
17 56 (17.83%) Opscode Chef
18 55 (17.52%) Git (software)
19 52 (16.56%) PaaS
20 51 (16.24%) PowerShell
20 51 (16.24%) Oracle
20 51 (16.24%) Mentoring
21 50 (15.92%) DNS
21 50 (15.92%) Node.js
21 50 (15.92%) Maven
22 48 (15.29%) SC Cleared
23 46 (14.65%) nginx
23 46 (14.65%) Gradle
24 45 (14.33%) Agile Software Development

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 46 (14.65%) nginx
2 26 (8.28%) Cloud Foundry
3 14 (4.46%) IIS
4 10 (3.18%) MS Exchange
4 10 (3.18%) SharePoint
5 9 (2.87%) Exchange Server 2010
6 8 (2.55%) OpenStack
7 6 (1.91%) Elasticsearch
8 5 (1.59%) CMS
8 5 (1.59%) Skype for Business
8 5 (1.59%) Tomcat
9 4 (1.27%) Confluence
10 3 (0.96%) Apache
10 3 (0.96%) JBoss
11 2 (0.64%) Apache Spark
12 1 (0.32%) Jupyter
12 1 (0.32%) SAS
12 1 (0.32%) WebSphere
Applications
1 12 (3.82%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (3.18%) Microsoft Excel
3 6 (1.91%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.32%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.32%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.32%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 2 (0.64%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (0.32%) Oracle Applications
2 1 (0.32%) SAP MDG
2 1 (0.32%) SAP Oil and Gas
2 1 (0.32%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 88 (28.03%) Azure
2 57 (18.15%) GCP
3 52 (16.56%) PaaS
4 44 (14.01%) npm
5 42 (13.38%) AWS
6 39 (12.42%) IaaS
7 23 (7.32%) Office 365
8 16 (5.10%) Serverless
9 14 (4.46%) Azure Active Directory
10 11 (3.50%) Azure Functions
11 9 (2.87%) Power Platform
12 8 (2.55%) Cloud Computing
13 7 (2.23%) Azure Data Factory
14 6 (1.91%) Amazon EC2
14 6 (1.91%) Logic Apps
15 5 (1.59%) AWS CloudFormation
15 5 (1.59%) Azure ExpressRoute
15 5 (1.59%) OpenShift
15 5 (1.59%) PowerApps
16 4 (1.27%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 50 (15.92%) DNS
2 44 (14.01%) Firewall
3 31 (9.87%) DHCP
4 25 (7.96%) VPN
5 24 (7.64%) Network Security
6 20 (6.37%) SAN
7 17 (5.41%) VSAN
8 10 (3.18%) iSCSI
8 10 (3.18%) LAN
8 10 (3.18%) WAN
9 9 (2.87%) Skype
10 8 (2.55%) HTTP
11 7 (2.23%) Ethernet
11 7 (2.23%) IPv4
12 6 (1.91%) BGP
12 6 (1.91%) NAS
12 6 (1.91%) TCP/IP
12 6 (1.91%) VLAN
13 5 (1.59%) Cisco ASA
13 5 (1.59%) EIGRP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 36 (11.46%) BigQuery
2 21 (6.69%) SQL Server
3 14 (4.46%) MySQL
4 9 (2.87%) Azure SQL Database
4 9 (2.87%) Redis
5 8 (2.55%) Amazon Aurora
5 8 (2.55%) Big Data
6 7 (2.23%) Oracle Database
6 7 (2.23%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 6 (1.91%) MongoDB
8 5 (1.59%) Power BI
9 4 (1.27%) Data Lake
9 4 (1.27%) Data Warehouse
9 4 (1.27%) Relational Database
9 4 (1.27%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 3 (0.96%) Oracle Database 10g
10 3 (0.96%) Oracle Database 12c
10 3 (0.96%) Oracle Reports
10 3 (0.96%) SAP HANA
10 3 (0.96%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 66 (21.02%) Jenkins
2 55 (17.52%) Git (software)
3 50 (15.92%) Maven
4 46 (14.65%) Gradle
5 44 (14.01%) CircleCI
5 44 (14.01%) gulp
5 44 (14.01%) Travis CI
6 11 (3.50%) TeamCity
7 9 (2.87%) JIRA
7 9 (2.87%) Octopus Deploy
8 7 (2.23%) JMeter
8 7 (2.23%) Subversion
9 6 (1.91%) Artifactory
10 5 (1.59%) SonarQube
10 5 (1.59%) Sonatype Nexus
11 4 (1.27%) Bitbucket
11 4 (1.27%) ClearCase
11 4 (1.27%) ClearQuest
11 4 (1.27%) MSI
11 4 (1.27%) Rational DOORS
General
1 21 (6.69%) Public Sector
2 19 (6.05%) Finance
3 12 (3.82%) Banking
4 8 (2.55%) Front Office
5 7 (2.23%) Telecoms
6 6 (1.91%) Back Office
7 5 (1.59%) Law
8 3 (0.96%) Aerospace
9 2 (0.64%) Billing
9 2 (0.64%) Publishing
10 1 (0.32%) Financial Institution
10 1 (0.32%) French Language
10 1 (0.32%) Manufacturing
10 1 (0.32%) Military
10 1 (0.32%) Multimedia
Job Titles
1 56 (17.83%) DevOps Engineer
2 37 (11.78%) Architect
3 24 (7.64%) Consultant
4 21 (6.69%) Azure Engineer
5 19 (6.05%) Cloud Engineer
6 18 (5.73%) Developer
7 17 (5.41%) Administrator
8 15 (4.78%) Kubernetes Engineer
9 12 (3.82%) Cloud Architect
10 11 (3.50%) Linux Engineer
11 10 (3.18%) DBA
11 10 (3.18%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 9 (2.87%) Network Engineer
12 9 (2.87%) VMWare Administrator
13 8 (2.55%) VMware Engineer
14 7 (2.23%) Oracle DBA
15 6 (1.91%) Deployment Engineer
15 6 (1.91%) Security Engineer
15 6 (1.91%) Systems Administrator
15 6 (1.91%) Unix Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 50 (15.92%) Node.js
2 15 (4.78%) .NET
2 15 (4.78%) XML
3 8 (2.55%) J2EE
3 8 (2.55%) JSP
3 8 (2.55%) Middleware
3 8 (2.55%) Oracle Fusion
3 8 (2.55%) Servlets
4 7 (2.23%) .NET Core
4 7 (2.23%) REST
4 7 (2.23%) XML Schema
4 7 (2.23%) XSLT
5 6 (1.91%) ASP.NET
5 6 (1.91%) Web Services
6 5 (1.59%) AngularJS
7 4 (1.27%) WebRTC
8 3 (0.96%) Elastic Stack
8 3 (0.96%) HTML
8 3 (0.96%) Kafka
8 3 (0.96%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 29 (9.24%) Data Centre
2 17 (5.41%) Hybrid Cloud
3 14 (4.46%) Analytical Skills
3 14 (4.46%) Public Cloud
4 13 (4.14%) Linux Command Line
4 13 (4.14%) Private Cloud
5 11 (3.50%) Replication
6 8 (2.55%) Clustering
6 8 (2.55%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
7 7 (2.23%) Management Information System
8 6 (1.91%) Enterprise Software
8 6 (1.91%) Self-Motivation
8 6 (1.91%) Video Conferencing
9 5 (1.59%) Cloud Native
9 5 (1.59%) HP StoreVirtual
9 5 (1.59%) iPad
9 5 (1.59%) PKI
9 5 (1.59%) User Experience
10 4 (1.27%) Enterprise Cloud
10 4 (1.27%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 121 (38.54%) Windows
2 110 (35.03%) Linux
3 39 (12.42%) Windows Server
4 37 (11.78%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 30 (9.55%) Unix
6 28 (8.92%) Windows 10
7 23 (7.32%) Windows Server 2008
8 16 (5.10%) Windows Server 2016
9 14 (4.46%) Windows Server 2012
10 13 (4.14%) CentOS
10 13 (4.14%) Solaris
11 11 (3.50%) VMS
12 8 (2.55%) Windows Server 2019
13 7 (2.23%) Data ONTAP
13 7 (2.23%) Oracle Linux
13 7 (2.23%) Ubuntu
14 6 (1.91%) Windows 7
15 5 (1.59%) Windows NT
15 5 (1.59%) Windows XP
16 3 (0.96%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 101 (32.17%) DevOps
2 63 (20.06%) Migration
3 51 (16.24%) Mentoring
4 45 (14.33%) Agile Software Development
5 41 (13.06%) Open Source
6 33 (10.51%) High Availability
7 29 (9.24%) ITIL
8 24 (7.64%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 23 (7.32%) Infrastructure as Code
10 22 (7.01%) Patch Management
11 21 (6.69%) Capacity Planning
11 21 (6.69%) Disaster Recovery
12 19 (6.05%) Continuous Integration
12 19 (6.05%) Data Protection
12 19 (6.05%) Problem-Solving
13 18 (5.73%) Configuration Management
14 17 (5.41%) Performance Monitoring
15 16 (5.10%) Load Balancing
15 16 (5.10%) Runbook
15 16 (5.10%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 80 (25.48%) Python
2 74 (23.57%) Java
3 51 (16.24%) PowerShell
4 38 (12.10%) Groovy
5 31 (9.87%) SQL
6 29 (9.24%) Bash Shell
7 15 (4.78%) C#
8 12 (3.82%) C
9 9 (2.87%) T-SQL
10 7 (2.23%) C++
10 7 (2.23%) Perl
11 6 (1.91%) Ruby
12 5 (1.59%) Go
12 5 (1.59%) JavaScript
12 5 (1.59%) VB
12 5 (1.59%) VBScript
13 3 (0.96%) Korn
13 3 (0.96%) PHP
13 3 (0.96%) Shell Script
14 2 (0.64%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 62 (19.75%) Security Cleared
2 48 (15.29%) SC Cleared
3 20 (6.37%) DV Cleared
4 12 (3.82%) Cisco Certification
5 9 (2.87%) Degree
5 9 (2.87%) ITIL Certification
6 7 (2.23%) CISSP
7 5 (1.59%) CCIE
7 5 (1.59%) CISM
8 4 (1.27%) (ISC)2 CCSP
8 4 (1.27%) Microsoft Certification
9 3 (0.96%) CCNP
9 3 (0.96%) CCSP
9 3 (0.96%) DBS Check
10 2 (0.64%) CCNA
10 2 (0.64%) VCAP
10 2 (0.64%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 1 (0.32%) AWS Certification
11 1 (0.32%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
11 1 (0.32%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (3.18%) NCSC
2 9 (2.87%) SLA
3 7 (2.23%) Government Security Classifications
3 7 (2.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 6 (1.91%) HMG Security Policy Framework
5 5 (1.59%) QA
6 4 (1.27%) NIST
7 2 (0.64%) PMO
8 1 (0.32%) Cyber Essentials
8 1 (0.32%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 1 (0.32%) Disclosure Scotland
8 1 (0.32%) ISO 9001
8 1 (0.32%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 68 (21.66%) VMware Infrastructure
2 58 (18.47%) Active Directory
3 35 (11.15%) Docker
4 32 (10.19%) VMware ESXi
5 30 (9.55%) Hyper-V
6 29 (9.24%) vSphere
7 21 (6.69%) VMware NSX
8 20 (6.37%) NFS
9 9 (2.87%) VMFS
10 6 (1.91%) Firmware
10 6 (1.91%) KVM
10 6 (1.91%) Virtual Servers
10 6 (1.91%) VMware Server
11 5 (1.59%) Microsoft App-V
11 5 (1.59%) Oracle RAC
12 4 (1.27%) vCloud
12 4 (1.27%) Virtual Desktop
12 4 (1.27%) VirtualBox
13 3 (0.96%) iptables
13 3 (0.96%) Platform Symphony
Systems Management
1 84 (26.75%) Terraform
2 75 (23.89%) Ansible
3 74 (23.57%) Kubernetes
4 56 (17.83%) Opscode Chef
5 35 (11.15%) Argo
6 23 (7.32%) Puppet
7 21 (6.69%) vCenter Server
8 20 (6.37%) vRealize
9 18 (5.73%) SCCM
10 11 (3.50%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
10 11 (3.50%) SCOM
10 11 (3.50%) vRealize Orchestrator
11 10 (3.18%) vMotion
12 8 (2.55%) Nessus
12 8 (2.55%) WSUS
13 7 (2.23%) Norton AntiVirus
13 7 (2.23%) SCVMM
14 6 (1.91%) Microsoft Intune
14 6 (1.91%) Nexpose
14 6 (1.91%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 81 (25.80%) VMware
2 73 (23.25%) Microsoft
3 51 (16.24%) Oracle
4 44 (14.01%) Google
5 34 (10.83%) Cisco
6 24 (7.64%) Palo Alto
7 22 (7.01%) Red Hat
8 21 (6.69%) HP
8 21 (6.69%) Splunk
9 18 (5.73%) Dell
10 15 (4.78%) Fortinet
11 14 (4.46%) Citrix
12 13 (4.14%) Symantec
13 11 (3.50%) NetApp
14 8 (2.55%) Ivanti
15 7 (2.23%) Atlassian
15 7 (2.23%) New Relic
15 7 (2.23%) SolarWinds
15 7 (2.23%) Veeam
16 6 (1.91%) LogRhythm