Job Vacancy Trend Daily Rate Trend Daily Rate Histogram Hourly Rate Trend Hourly Rate Histogram Job Locations Skill Sets
Period
to 26 January 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 26 January 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
26 Jan 2020		 Same period 2019 Same period 2018
Rank 352 389 431
Rank change year-on-year +37 +42 +4
Contract jobs citing Virtual Machines 461 614 541
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 0.65% 0.62% 0.54%
As % of the System Software category 4.17% 4.05% 4.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 310 462 321
UK median daily rate £468 £500 £450
Median daily rate % change year-on-year -6.50% +11.11% -
10th Percentile £318 £315 £250
90th Percentile £625 £700 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £484 £438
% change year-on-year -6.98% +10.57% +2.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 19 23
UK median hourly rate £40.00 £35.00 £47.83
Median hourly rate % change year-on-year +14.29% -26.82% +73.93%
UK excluding London median hourly rate £39.75 £16.86 £14.00
% change year-on-year +135.77% +20.43% -37.78%

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 11,043 15,175 12,891
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 15.55% 15.37% 12.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,237 9,979 8,383
UK median daily rate £450 £465 £425
Median daily rate % change year-on-year -3.23% +9.41% +4.94%
10th Percentile £163 £180 £160
90th Percentile £638 £638 £620
UK excluding London median daily rate £413 £420 £375
% change year-on-year -1.79% +12.00% +7.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 662 795 712
UK median hourly rate £17.33 £16.00 £16.00
Median hourly rate % change year-on-year +8.30% - -
10th Percentile £11.26 £10.50 £10.40
90th Percentile £47.80 £45.05 £45.23
UK excluding London median hourly rate £16.50 £15.34 £15.00
% change year-on-year +7.54% +2.28% -

Virtual Machines
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Job vacancy trend for Virtual Machines in the UK

Virtual Machines
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

This chart provides the 3-month moving average for daily rates quoted in contract jobs citing Virtual Machines.

Contractor daily rate trend for Virtual Machines in the UK

Virtual Machines
Contractor Daily Rate Histogram

The daily rate distribution of IT jobs citing Virtual Machines over the 6 months to 26 January 2020.

Contractor daily rate histogram for Virtual Machines in the UK

Virtual Machines
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

This chart provides the 3-month moving average for contractor hourly rates quoted in IT jobs citing Virtual Machines.

Contractor hourly rate trend for Virtual Machines in the UK

Virtual Machines
Contractor Hourly Rate Histogram

The hourly rate distribution of IT jobs citing Virtual Machines over the 6 months to 26 January 2020.

Contractor 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 26 January 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 +31 432 £475 -5.00% 134
UK excluding London +48 310 £450 -6.98% 116
London +37 139 £475 -9.52% 32
South East +50 107 £500 +5.26% 36
North of England +42 86 £400 -27.27% 27
North West +21 50 £383 -45.36% 12
South West +22 46 £500 +15.61% 13
Yorkshire +52 34 £434 -12.15% 14
Midlands +40 25 £433 -11.28% 18
East of England +24 25 £400 -11.11% 8
West Midlands +53 22 £440 +10.00% 13
Scotland +3 13 £370 -47.14% 6
Northern Ireland +13 6 £384 +28.13% 2
East Midlands +15 3 £310 -38.00% 5
Wales +22 2 £400 -3.03% 6
North East +8 2 £425 -2.86% 1

For the 6 months to 26 January 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.

1 222 (48.16%) Windows
2 170 (36.88%) Azure
3 152 (32.97%) VMware
4 148 (32.10%) Microsoft
5 144 (31.24%) Linux
6 128 (27.77%) Active Directory
7 125 (27.11%) DevOps
8 124 (26.90%) VMware Infrastructure
9 123 (26.68%) Agile Software Development
10 120 (26.03%) SQL
11 116 (25.16%) Windows Server
12 109 (23.64%) Security Cleared
13 96 (20.82%) PowerShell
14 87 (18.87%) IaaS
15 86 (18.66%) Python
16 84 (18.22%) PaaS
17 82 (17.79%) Test Automation
18 79 (17.14%) SC Cleared
19 78 (16.92%) AWS
20 77 (16.70%) Continuous Integration
21 76 (16.49%) Migration
21 76 (16.49%) Docker
22 71 (15.40%) Analytics
23 68 (14.75%) SQL Server
24 65 (14.10%) Data Centre
25 64 (13.88%) Scrum
26 63 (13.67%) Jenkins
26 63 (13.67%) Hyper-V
27 60 (13.02%) DHCP
28 59 (12.80%) Infrastructure as Code

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 27 (5.86%) SharePoint
2 24 (5.21%) Confluence
3 22 (4.77%) MS Exchange
4 21 (4.56%) IIS
5 17 (3.69%) Apache
6 15 (3.25%) Exchange Server 2010
7 14 (3.04%) Skype for Business
8 11 (2.39%) Exchange Server 2013
9 10 (2.17%) OpenStack
9 10 (2.17%) Tomcat
10 9 (1.95%) nginx
11 8 (1.74%) WebLogic
12 7 (1.52%) CMS
12 7 (1.52%) JBoss
12 7 (1.52%) SharePoint 2013
13 6 (1.30%) Elasticsearch
13 6 (1.30%) Sitecore CMS
13 6 (1.30%) Umbraco
14 5 (1.08%) Oracle Workflow
15 4 (0.87%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 10 (2.17%) Microsoft Office
2 8 (1.74%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (0.65%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.22%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 1 (0.22%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.22%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 9 (1.95%) Dynamics CRM
2 4 (0.87%) Payment Gateway
3 3 (0.65%) assyst
4 1 (0.22%) Dynamics AX
4 1 (0.22%) NetSuite
4 1 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.22%) Remedy ITSM
4 1 (0.22%) SAP ERP
4 1 (0.22%) SAP Oil and Gas
Cloud Services
1 170 (36.88%) Azure
2 87 (18.87%) IaaS
3 84 (18.22%) PaaS
4 78 (16.92%) AWS
5 37 (8.03%) Power Platform
6 34 (7.38%) Azure Active Directory
7 29 (6.29%) Office 365
8 26 (5.64%) GCP
9 21 (4.56%) OpenShift
10 19 (4.12%) Amazon EC2
11 18 (3.90%) Serverless
12 16 (3.47%) Azure Data Factory
13 12 (2.60%) AWS CloudFormation
13 12 (2.60%) GitHub
14 10 (2.17%) Azure Functions
14 10 (2.17%) Data Lake Analytics
14 10 (2.17%) SaaS
15 8 (1.74%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 8 (1.74%) npm
16 7 (1.52%) Azure ExpressRoute
Communications & Networking
1 60 (13.02%) DHCP
2 55 (11.93%) Firewall
3 53 (11.50%) DNS
4 47 (10.20%) VPN
5 40 (8.68%) TCP/IP
6 32 (6.94%) SAN
7 28 (6.07%) HTTP
8 22 (4.77%) Internet
8 22 (4.77%) iSCSI
9 21 (4.56%) VSAN
10 20 (4.34%) Wireless
11 16 (3.47%) Network Security
12 13 (2.82%) Ethernet
12 13 (2.82%) NAS
13 12 (2.60%) IPsec
13 12 (2.60%) IPv4
13 12 (2.60%) Skype
13 12 (2.60%) SSL
14 11 (2.39%) HTTPS
14 11 (2.39%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 68 (14.75%) SQL Server
2 46 (9.98%) Data Lake
3 37 (8.03%) Power BI
4 35 (7.59%) Azure SQL Database
5 32 (6.94%) HDInsight
5 32 (6.94%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 19 (4.12%) Amazon RDS
7 16 (3.47%) MySQL
7 16 (3.47%) PostgreSQL
7 16 (3.47%) SQL Server 2016
8 15 (3.25%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 10 (2.17%) NoSQL
9 10 (2.17%) Oracle Database
9 10 (2.17%) SQL Server 2014
10 9 (1.95%) MongoDB
11 8 (1.74%) Data Warehouse
11 8 (1.74%) Relational Database
11 8 (1.74%) SQL Server 2012
12 7 (1.52%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
13 6 (1.30%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 63 (13.67%) Jenkins
2 57 (12.36%) Git (software)
3 40 (8.68%) Visual Studio
4 33 (7.16%) JIRA
5 23 (4.99%) Visual Studio Team System
6 22 (4.77%) GitLab
7 13 (2.82%) gulp
8 12 (2.60%) SonarQube
8 12 (2.60%) Subversion
9 11 (2.39%) Grunt
9 11 (2.39%) Team Foundation Server
10 9 (1.95%) Octopus Deploy
11 8 (1.74%) TeamCity
11 8 (1.74%) Vagrant
12 7 (1.52%) Maven
13 6 (1.30%) Artifactory
13 6 (1.30%) Bitbucket
13 6 (1.30%) Gerrit
13 6 (1.30%) Sonatype Nexus
13 6 (1.30%) Travis CI
General
1 36 (7.81%) Finance
2 22 (4.77%) Banking
3 17 (3.69%) Public Sector
4 11 (2.39%) Publishing
5 10 (2.17%) Telecoms
6 8 (1.74%) Retail
7 6 (1.30%) Military
8 4 (0.87%) Advertising
8 4 (0.87%) German Language
9 3 (0.65%) French Language
9 3 (0.65%) Manufacturing
9 3 (0.65%) Marketing
10 2 (0.43%) Italian Language
11 1 (0.22%) Automotive
11 1 (0.22%) Avionics
11 1 (0.22%) Billing
11 1 (0.22%) Corporate Banking
11 1 (0.22%) Investment Banking
11 1 (0.22%) Law
11 1 (0.22%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 69 (14.97%) DevOps Engineer
2 48 (10.41%) Azure Engineer
3 44 (9.54%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 42 (9.11%) Developer
5 34 (7.38%) Administrator
6 25 (5.42%) Architect
6 25 (5.42%) Azure DevOps Engineer
7 21 (4.56%) Consultant
8 20 (4.34%) VMware Engineer
9 17 (3.69%) Support Engineer
10 16 (3.47%) Azure DevOps
11 15 (3.25%) Cloud Engineer
12 14 (3.04%) Systems Engineer
12 14 (3.04%) Technical Engineer
13 13 (2.82%) Azure Infrastructure Engineer
14 12 (2.60%) Azure Architect
14 12 (2.60%) Systems Administrator
15 11 (2.39%) Analyst
15 11 (2.39%) Automation Engineer
15 11 (2.39%) Azure Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 39 (8.46%) .NET
2 24 (5.21%) HTML
3 21 (4.56%) Web Services
4 20 (4.34%) Elastic Stack
5 18 (3.90%) 802.1X
6 15 (3.25%) CSS
7 14 (3.04%) YAML
8 13 (2.82%) .NET Framework
9 12 (2.60%) AngularJS
9 12 (2.60%) Middleware
9 12 (2.60%) Node.js
10 10 (2.17%) RESTful
11 9 (1.95%) ASP.NET
12 8 (1.74%) JSON
13 6 (1.30%) Ajax
13 6 (1.30%) ASP.NET MVC
13 6 (1.30%) Razor View Engine
13 6 (1.30%) REST
13 6 (1.30%) Twitter Bootstrap
14 5 (1.08%) LESS
Miscellaneous
1 65 (14.10%) Data Centre
2 43 (9.33%) Clustering
3 26 (5.64%) Analytical Skills
4 21 (4.56%) Hybrid Cloud
5 18 (3.90%) Linux Command Line
6 15 (3.25%) User Experience
7 13 (2.82%) Self-Motivation
8 12 (2.60%) Management Information System
8 12 (2.60%) PKI
9 11 (2.39%) Replication
10 8 (1.74%) Enterprise Software
11 7 (1.52%) Greenfield Project
11 7 (1.52%) IPTV
11 7 (1.52%) Public Cloud
12 5 (1.08%) HP StoreVirtual
12 5 (1.08%) RIA
12 5 (1.08%) Virtual Team
13 4 (0.87%) Private Cloud
13 4 (0.87%) Smartphone
13 4 (0.87%) VxBlock/Vblock
Operating Systems
1 222 (48.16%) Windows
2 144 (31.24%) Linux
3 116 (25.16%) Windows Server
4 44 (9.54%) Windows Server 2012
5 38 (8.24%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 38 (8.24%) Windows 10
6 30 (6.51%) Unix
7 28 (6.07%) Windows Server 2008
8 26 (5.64%) Windows 7
9 22 (4.77%) VMS
10 18 (3.90%) Ubuntu
11 12 (2.60%) CentOS
11 12 (2.60%) Oracle Linux
11 12 (2.60%) Windows 8
12 10 (2.17%) Solaris
13 5 (1.08%) Mac OS
13 5 (1.08%) Windows Server 2003
14 4 (0.87%) Data ONTAP
14 4 (0.87%) HPUX
14 4 (0.87%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 125 (27.11%) DevOps
2 123 (26.68%) Agile Software Development
3 82 (17.79%) Test Automation
4 77 (16.70%) Continuous Integration
5 76 (16.49%) Migration
6 71 (15.40%) Analytics
7 64 (13.88%) Scrum
8 59 (12.80%) Infrastructure as Code
9 57 (12.36%) Configuration Management
10 50 (10.85%) ITIL
11 49 (10.63%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 48 (10.41%) Business Intelligence
13 45 (9.76%) Continuous Delivery
13 45 (9.76%) Problem-Solving
14 44 (9.54%) High Availability
15 34 (7.38%) Open Source
16 33 (7.16%) Data Management
17 29 (6.29%) Data Protection
17 29 (6.29%) Data-Driven Testing
17 29 (6.29%) Security Testing
Programming Languages
1 120 (26.03%) SQL
2 96 (20.82%) PowerShell
3 86 (18.66%) Python
4 52 (11.28%) C#
5 43 (9.33%) Java
6 40 (8.68%) Bash Shell
7 26 (5.64%) C
8 23 (4.99%) JavaScript
9 12 (2.60%) Go
10 11 (2.39%) Shell Script
11 10 (2.17%) Perl
12 9 (1.95%) Ruby
13 8 (1.74%) Groovy
13 8 (1.74%) R
14 7 (1.52%) PHP
15 6 (1.30%) VBScript
16 4 (0.87%) MATLAB
16 4 (0.87%) PL/SQL
17 3 (0.65%) T-SQL
18 2 (0.43%) C++
Qualifications
1 109 (23.64%) Security Cleared
2 79 (17.14%) SC Cleared
3 46 (9.98%) DV Cleared
4 26 (5.64%) Microsoft Certification
5 21 (4.56%) Degree
6 11 (2.39%) Cisco Certification
6 11 (2.39%) ITIL Certification
7 9 (1.95%) Citrix Certification
8 8 (1.74%) MCTS
9 7 (1.52%) MCSE
10 6 (1.30%) CCNA
10 6 (1.30%) Computer Science Degree
11 5 (1.08%) A+ Certification
11 5 (1.08%) ACSP
11 5 (1.08%) BPSS Clearance
11 5 (1.08%) MCITP
11 5 (1.08%) MCSA
11 5 (1.08%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 4 (0.87%) CISSP
12 4 (0.87%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (1.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 8 (1.74%) NCSC
1 8 (1.74%) QA
2 6 (1.30%) Cyber Essentials
2 6 (1.30%) Government Security Classifications
2 6 (1.30%) SLA
3 3 (0.65%) COBIT
3 3 (0.65%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
3 3 (0.65%) PCI DSS
4 2 (0.43%) HMG Security Policy Framework
4 2 (0.43%) ISO/IEC 15288
5 1 (0.22%) Data Quality
5 1 (0.22%) Disclosure Scotland
5 1 (0.22%) RMADS
System Software
1 128 (27.77%) Active Directory
2 124 (26.90%) VMware Infrastructure
3 76 (16.49%) Docker
4 63 (13.67%) Hyper-V
5 39 (8.46%) VMware ESXi
6 38 (8.24%) vSphere
7 37 (8.03%) NFS
8 23 (4.99%) VMware NSX
8 23 (4.99%) XenApp
9 22 (4.77%) XenDesktop
10 20 (4.34%) VMFS
11 14 (3.04%) vCloud
11 14 (3.04%) Virtual Servers
12 12 (2.60%) LXC
12 12 (2.60%) Microsoft App-V
12 12 (2.60%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 10 (2.17%) Virtual Desktop
13 10 (2.17%) VirtualBox
14 8 (1.74%) DFS Replication
15 7 (1.52%) Gluster
Systems Management
1 58 (12.58%) Kubernetes
2 57 (12.36%) Ansible
3 53 (11.50%) Puppet
4 43 (9.33%) Opscode Chef
5 40 (8.68%) vCenter Server
6 39 (8.46%) Terraform
7 35 (7.59%) SCCM
8 34 (7.38%) SCVMM
9 33 (7.16%) SCOM
10 27 (5.86%) vRealize
11 26 (5.64%) Microsoft Clustering
12 22 (4.77%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
13 20 (4.34%) vMotion
14 15 (3.25%) WSUS
15 13 (2.82%) Network Intrusion Detection System
16 12 (2.60%) Failover Clustering
16 12 (2.60%) Host Intrusion Detection System
17 10 (2.17%) Single Sign-On
18 9 (1.95%) Grafana
18 9 (1.95%) SCOrch
Vendors
1 152 (32.97%) VMware
2 148 (32.10%) Microsoft
3 46 (9.98%) Oracle
3 46 (9.98%) Red Hat
4 39 (8.46%) Citrix
5 31 (6.72%) Cisco
6 26 (5.64%) HP
7 25 (5.42%) Dell
8 22 (4.77%) Google
9 12 (2.60%) EMC
9 12 (2.60%) Informatica
9 12 (2.60%) NetApp
10 9 (1.95%) Ivanti
11 8 (1.74%) Apple
11 8 (1.74%) PlateSpin
11 8 (1.74%) Qualys
12 7 (1.52%) ArcSight
12 7 (1.52%) Juniper
12 7 (1.52%) Palo Alto
12 7 (1.52%) Splunk