Job Vacancy Trend Daily Rate Trend Daily Rate Histogram Hourly Rate Trend Hourly Rate Histogram Job Locations Skill Sets
Period
to 25 October 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 25 October 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
25 Oct 2021		 Same period 2020 Same period 2019
Rank 442 309 405
Rank change year-on-year -133 +96 +44
Contract jobs citing Virtual Machines 433 233 485
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.51% 0.73% 0.57%
As % of the System Software category 3.66% 5.04% 3.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 260 152 313
10th Percentile £363 £332 £308
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £524 £500 £453
Median % change year-on-year +4.75% +10.50% -7.18%
75th Percentile £600 £588 £550
90th Percentile £688 £650 £638
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £450
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 1 15
10th Percentile £42.13 " £24.29
25th Percentile £62.44 " £37.50
Median hourly rate £69.25 £23.00 £42.00
Median % change year-on-year +201.09% -45.24% +111.59%
75th Percentile £80.44 " £44.50
90th Percentile £81.75 " "
UK excluding London median hourly rate £69.25 £23.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +201.09% -42.50% +108.28%

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 11,831 4,627 13,152
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 13.95% 14.53% 15.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,413 3,107 8,831
10th Percentile £205 £218 £163
25th Percentile £400 £363 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% +5.56% -
75th Percentile £600 £575 £570
90th Percentile £676 £638 £638
UK excluding London median daily rate £428 £432 £413
% change year-on-year -0.93% +4.61% +3.13%
Number of hourly rates quoted 394 180 644
10th Percentile £12.08 £11.17 £11.17
25th Percentile £13.50 £12.50 £13.50
Median hourly rate £17.50 £17.50 £16.50
Median % change year-on-year - +6.06% +3.13%
75th Percentile £37.26 £39.00 £24.41
90th Percentile £65.00 £53.78 £47.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £16.00 £16.00 £16.00

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 25 October 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
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Virtual Machines over the 6 months to 25 October 2021.

Hourly rate histogram 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 25 October 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 -144 300 £475 -5.00% 145
UK excluding London -80 172 £450 - 105
Work from Home -148 161 £575 +2.22% 25
London -182 105 £500 - 48
South East -61 69 £438 -18.83% 23
South West -22 32 £589 +54.49% 20
East of England -38 26 £513 +48.55% 12
North of England -69 20 £425 -5.56% 28
Scotland -84 16 £440 +3.53% 8
Midlands -69 11 £403 -10.56% 12
North West -46 8 £400 +11.11% 16
Yorkshire -47 8 £483 +7.22% 11
West Midlands -65 7 £439 -2.50% 9
East Midlands -38 4 £400 - 3
North East - 4 - - 1
Wales -31 2 £578 +92.50% 1

For the 6 months to 25 October 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.

1 194 (44.80%) Azure
2 176 (40.65%) Windows
3 150 (34.64%) Linux
4 139 (32.10%) VMware
5 125 (28.87%) Active Directory
6 120 (27.71%) DevOps
7 116 (26.79%) VMware Infrastructure
8 115 (26.56%) Microsoft
9 106 (24.48%) Security Cleared
10 100 (23.09%) SQL
11 96 (22.17%) PowerShell
12 88 (20.32%) SC Cleared
12 88 (20.32%) Agile Software Development
13 85 (19.63%) Ansible
14 82 (18.94%) Migration
15 81 (18.71%) Social Skills
16 80 (18.48%) IaaS
17 76 (17.55%) PaaS
18 72 (16.63%) Windows Server
19 71 (16.40%) Firewall
20 69 (15.94%) Terraform
21 66 (15.24%) Python
22 65 (15.01%) Oracle
23 64 (14.78%) Azure Active Directory
24 62 (14.32%) Data Centre
24 62 (14.32%) DNS
25 57 (13.16%) Infrastructure as Code
25 57 (13.16%) AWS
26 55 (12.70%) Analytics
26 55 (12.70%) Kubernetes

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 22 (5.08%) SharePoint
2 18 (4.16%) nginx
3 14 (3.23%) Apache
3 14 (3.23%) OpenStack
4 10 (2.31%) MS Exchange
5 9 (2.08%) IIS
5 9 (2.08%) JBoss
6 6 (1.39%) MS Project Server
7 5 (1.15%) Anypoint
7 5 (1.15%) Confluence
7 5 (1.15%) WebLogic
8 4 (0.92%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 3 (0.69%) CICS
9 3 (0.69%) Elasticsearch
9 3 (0.69%) WebSphere
9 3 (0.69%) WebSphere Application Server
10 2 (0.46%) Apache Spark
10 2 (0.46%) Oracle Workflow
10 2 (0.46%) SAS
10 2 (0.46%) Tomcat
Applications
1 9 (2.08%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (1.15%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (0.69%) GIMP
3 3 (0.69%) Photoshop
4 2 (0.46%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 11 (2.54%) Oracle ERP
2 4 (0.92%) Dynamics CRM
3 3 (0.69%) Sentinel
4 1 (0.23%) Dynamics NAV
Cloud Services
1 194 (44.80%) Azure
2 80 (18.48%) IaaS
3 76 (17.55%) PaaS
4 64 (14.78%) Azure Active Directory
5 57 (13.16%) AWS
6 40 (9.24%) Microsoft 365
7 39 (9.01%) SaaS
8 29 (6.70%) Azure Key Vault
9 25 (5.77%) GCP
10 21 (4.85%) Cloud Computing
11 20 (4.62%) Azure Storage
12 17 (3.93%) Azure ExpressRoute
12 17 (3.93%) Serverless
13 16 (3.70%) Azure App Service
13 16 (3.70%) Azure Data Factory
14 15 (3.46%) Amazon ELB
14 15 (3.46%) Power Platform
15 12 (2.77%) PowerApps
16 11 (2.54%) Azure Cosmos DB
16 11 (2.54%) GitHub
Communications & Networking
1 71 (16.40%) Firewall
2 62 (14.32%) DNS
3 46 (10.62%) Network Security
4 39 (9.01%) VPN
5 31 (7.16%) DHCP
6 25 (5.77%) SAN
7 22 (5.08%) WAN
8 20 (4.62%) VSAN
9 15 (3.46%) SSL
10 12 (2.77%) LAN
10 12 (2.77%) TCP/IP
11 10 (2.31%) Internet
12 9 (2.08%) VLAN
13 7 (1.62%) Fibre Channel
14 6 (1.39%) Cisco ICM
14 6 (1.39%) HTTP
14 6 (1.39%) NAS
15 5 (1.15%) iSCSI
15 5 (1.15%) Radio Access Network
16 4 (0.92%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 36 (8.31%) SQL Server
2 20 (4.62%) MySQL
3 19 (4.39%) MongoDB
4 18 (4.16%) Data Lake
5 16 (3.70%) Azure SQL Database
6 14 (3.23%) Oracle Database
7 10 (2.31%) Amazon RDS
7 10 (2.31%) Power BI
8 9 (2.08%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 7 (1.62%) Big Data
10 6 (1.39%) Data Warehouse
11 5 (1.15%) BigQuery
11 5 (1.15%) NoSQL
11 5 (1.15%) PostgreSQL
12 4 (0.92%) Delta Lake
12 4 (0.92%) Hadoop
12 4 (0.92%) Parquet
13 3 (0.69%) InfluxDB
13 3 (0.69%) Oracle Reports
13 3 (0.69%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 48 (11.09%) Git (software)
2 43 (9.93%) Jenkins
3 17 (3.93%) Maven
4 12 (2.77%) gulp
5 11 (2.54%) Bitbucket
5 11 (2.54%) Gradle
5 11 (2.54%) Postman
5 11 (2.54%) Rational DOORS
6 10 (2.31%) CppUnit
6 10 (2.31%) GitLab
6 10 (2.31%) JIRA
6 10 (2.31%) PVCS
6 10 (2.31%) SoapUI
7 8 (1.85%) Jasmine
8 7 (1.62%) CircleCI
8 7 (1.62%) SonarQube
8 7 (1.62%) TeamCity
9 5 (1.15%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 5 (1.15%) Octopus Deploy
9 5 (1.15%) Travis CI
General
1 81 (18.71%) Social Skills
2 52 (12.01%) Finance
3 27 (6.24%) Public Sector
4 21 (4.85%) Banking
5 20 (4.62%) Telecoms
6 18 (4.16%) Analytical Skills
7 14 (3.23%) Documentation Skills
8 11 (2.54%) Billing
9 9 (2.08%) Presentation Skills
10 5 (1.15%) Law
10 5 (1.15%) Legal
11 4 (0.92%) Retail
12 3 (0.69%) French Language
12 3 (0.69%) German Language
13 2 (0.46%) Manufacturing
13 2 (0.46%) Marketing
13 2 (0.46%) Military
13 2 (0.46%) Organisational Skills
13 2 (0.46%) Pharmaceutical
14 1 (0.23%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 63 (14.55%) Azure Engineer
2 56 (12.93%) Architect
3 41 (9.47%) Consultant
4 40 (9.24%) DevOps Engineer
5 34 (7.85%) Developer
6 31 (7.16%) Cloud Engineer
6 31 (7.16%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 25 (5.77%) Azure Architect
8 19 (4.39%) Azure DevOps
9 18 (4.16%) Azure DevOps Engineer
9 18 (4.16%) Technical Architect
10 15 (3.46%) Analyst
10 15 (3.46%) Support Engineer
11 13 (3.00%) Build Engineer
11 13 (3.00%) Solutions Architect
12 12 (2.77%) VMware Engineer
13 11 (2.54%) Embedded Engineer
13 11 (2.54%) Software Engineer
13 11 (2.54%) Virtualisation Engineer
14 10 (2.31%) Embedded C/C++ Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (7.16%) JSON
2 29 (6.70%) .NET
3 20 (4.62%) ARM Templates
4 18 (4.16%) XML
5 16 (3.70%) React
5 16 (3.70%) REST
6 15 (3.46%) Web Services
6 15 (3.46%) YAML
7 13 (3.00%) SOAP
8 11 (2.54%) Django
8 11 (2.54%) Oracle Fusion
8 11 (2.54%) RESTful
9 10 (2.31%) HTML
9 10 (2.31%) Node.js
9 10 (2.31%) XSLT
10 7 (1.62%) AngularJS
10 7 (1.62%) CSS
10 7 (1.62%) HTML5
11 6 (1.39%) .NET Core
11 6 (1.39%) Flask
Miscellaneous
1 62 (14.32%) Data Centre
2 25 (5.77%) Public Cloud
3 19 (4.39%) Clustering
3 19 (4.39%) Replication
4 16 (3.70%) Linux Command Line
5 15 (3.46%) Hybrid Cloud
6 11 (2.54%) Cloud Native
6 11 (2.54%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
6 11 (2.54%) Virtual Team
7 10 (2.31%) Management Information System
7 10 (2.31%) Self-Motivation
8 9 (2.08%) Data Protection Act
9 7 (1.62%) PKI
10 6 (1.39%) User Experience
11 5 (1.15%) Enterprise Storage
11 5 (1.15%) Video Conferencing
12 4 (0.92%) EMC VMAX
12 4 (0.92%) Enterprise Software
13 3 (0.69%) Mobile App
13 3 (0.69%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 176 (40.65%) Windows
2 150 (34.64%) Linux
3 72 (16.63%) Windows Server
4 32 (7.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 23 (5.31%) Unix
5 23 (5.31%) VMS
6 22 (5.08%) Windows Server 2016
7 19 (4.39%) Windows 10
7 19 (4.39%) Windows Server 2012
8 10 (2.31%) Windows Server 2008
9 9 (2.08%) CentOS
9 9 (2.08%) Solaris
10 8 (1.85%) Windows Server 2019
11 7 (1.62%) Ubuntu
11 7 (1.62%) Windows Server 2003
12 5 (1.15%) AIX
12 5 (1.15%) Android
13 4 (0.92%) Apple iOS
13 4 (0.92%) Data ONTAP
13 4 (0.92%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 120 (27.71%) DevOps
2 88 (20.32%) Agile Software Development
3 82 (18.94%) Migration
4 57 (13.16%) Infrastructure as Code
5 55 (12.70%) Analytics
6 48 (11.09%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 46 (10.62%) ITIL
8 39 (9.01%) Disaster Recovery
8 39 (9.01%) Problem-Solving
9 30 (6.93%) Configuration Management
10 29 (6.70%) Network Virtualisation
11 28 (6.47%) Continuous Integration
12 26 (6.00%) Data Protection
13 25 (5.77%) Microservices
13 25 (5.77%) Open Source
13 25 (5.77%) Patch Management
13 25 (5.77%) Unit Testing
14 22 (5.08%) Cybersecurity
15 20 (4.62%) Storage Management
16 19 (4.39%) High Availability
Programming Languages
1 100 (23.09%) SQL
2 96 (22.17%) PowerShell
3 66 (15.24%) Python
4 27 (6.24%) Bash Shell
5 25 (5.77%) Java
6 18 (4.16%) C
6 18 (4.16%) C++
7 17 (3.93%) C#
8 16 (3.70%) JavaScript
9 14 (3.23%) Perl
9 14 (3.23%) Shell Script
10 13 (3.00%) PL/SQL
11 11 (2.54%) Embedded C
11 11 (2.54%) Embedded C++
11 11 (2.54%) Ruby
12 7 (1.62%) Groovy
12 7 (1.62%) PHP
12 7 (1.62%) VBScript
13 6 (1.39%) VB
14 5 (1.15%) Scala
Qualifications
1 106 (24.48%) Security Cleared
2 88 (20.32%) SC Cleared
3 21 (4.85%) DV Cleared
4 16 (3.70%) Degree
5 10 (2.31%) Microsoft Certification
6 9 (2.08%) MCSE
7 7 (1.62%) Cisco Certification
8 6 (1.39%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 5 (1.15%) AWS Certification
9 5 (1.15%) CCNA
9 5 (1.15%) MCSA
10 4 (0.92%) CCNP
10 4 (0.92%) ISTQB
10 4 (0.92%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 4 (0.92%) MCITP
11 2 (0.46%) BC Cleared
11 2 (0.46%) BPSS Clearance
11 2 (0.46%) PMP
11 2 (0.46%) VCAP
11 2 (0.46%) VCP6
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (6.70%) QA
2 14 (3.23%) SLA
3 11 (2.54%) Data Quality
4 5 (1.15%) Accessibility
5 4 (0.92%) GDPR
6 3 (0.69%) Cyber Essentials
6 3 (0.69%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 2 (0.46%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 1 (0.23%) Disclosure Scotland
8 1 (0.23%) ISO 8583
8 1 (0.23%) NIST
8 1 (0.23%) OpenSCAP
8 1 (0.23%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 125 (28.87%) Active Directory
2 116 (26.79%) VMware Infrastructure
3 32 (7.39%) vSphere
4 28 (6.47%) Docker
4 28 (6.47%) VMware ESXi
5 27 (6.24%) VMware NSX
6 25 (5.77%) Hyper-V
6 25 (5.77%) Virtual Desktop
7 13 (3.00%) vCloud
8 12 (2.77%) Virtual Servers
9 8 (1.85%) NFS
10 7 (1.62%) Firmware
10 7 (1.62%) Microsoft App-V
11 6 (1.39%) Oracle RAC
12 4 (0.92%) BitLocker
13 3 (0.69%) DFS Replication
13 3 (0.69%) KVM
13 3 (0.69%) RACF
13 3 (0.69%) Samba
14 2 (0.46%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 85 (19.63%) Ansible
2 69 (15.94%) Terraform
3 55 (12.70%) Kubernetes
4 31 (7.16%) vCenter Server
5 30 (6.93%) SCCM
6 23 (5.31%) SCVMM
7 22 (5.08%) Puppet
8 18 (4.16%) Opscode Chef
8 18 (4.16%) SCOM
9 13 (3.00%) vRealize
10 12 (2.77%) Microsoft Intune
10 12 (2.77%) WSUS
11 10 (2.31%) Grafana
12 9 (2.08%) Nagios
12 9 (2.08%) OpenView Configuration Management
12 9 (2.08%) PowerCLI
13 7 (1.62%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 7 (1.62%) Istio
13 7 (1.62%) Nessus
14 5 (1.15%) Argo
Vendors
1 139 (32.10%) VMware
2 115 (26.56%) Microsoft
3 65 (15.01%) Oracle
4 44 (10.16%) Cisco
5 42 (9.70%) Dell
6 27 (6.24%) Google
6 27 (6.24%) Red Hat
7 25 (5.77%) HP
8 23 (5.31%) NetApp
9 20 (4.62%) F5
10 18 (4.16%) Citrix
11 16 (3.70%) Splunk
12 14 (3.23%) Palo Alto
13 13 (3.00%) CheckPoint
14 12 (2.77%) Databricks
14 12 (2.77%) Ericsson
14 12 (2.77%) Fortinet
15 10 (2.31%) IBM
15 10 (2.31%) Lumension
15 10 (2.31%) ServiceNow
163 Virtual Machines job vacancies Nationwide