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

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 20 May 2022 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
20 May 2022		 Same period 2021 Same period 2020
Rank 387 371 344
Rank change year-on-year -16 -27 +6
Contract jobs citing Virtual Machines 563 340 334
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.64% 0.59% 0.69%
As % of the System Software category 4.76% 4.11% 4.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 369 218 240
10th Percentile £350 £338 £287
25th Percentile £413 £406 £386
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £470
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% +6.38% -3.59%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £538
90th Percentile £711 £700 £587
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £438 £475
% change year-on-year +14.29% -7.89% +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 5 6
10th Percentile £29.18 - £13.50
25th Percentile £39.11 £40.00 £17.19
Median hourly rate £58.39 £42.50 £21.64
Median % change year-on-year +37.38% +96.37% -40.98%
75th Percentile £83.94 £45.75 £23.79
90th Percentile £85.03 £56.55 £41.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £82.50 £45.50 £21.64
% change year-on-year +81.32% +110.23% +28.37%

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 11,837 8,264 7,582
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 13.41% 14.26% 15.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,485 5,730 5,149
10th Percentile £200 £230 £180
25th Percentile £400 £385 £338
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £490 £463
Median % change year-on-year +7.14% +5.95% -2.63%
75th Percentile £625 £575 £563
90th Percentile £700 £660 £638
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £425 £425
% change year-on-year +5.88% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 309 291 382
10th Percentile £13.00 £11.63 £11.25
25th Percentile £15.00 £13.99 £13.28
Median hourly rate £19.00 £21.50 £17.50
Median % change year-on-year -11.63% +22.86% +7.99%
75th Percentile £40.00 £49.13 £24.11
90th Percentile £57.75 £63.00 £51.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.50 £18.27 £16.45
% change year-on-year -4.21% +11.06% +8.29%

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 20 May 2022.

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 20 May 2022.

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 20 May 2022. 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 +8 454 £525 +5.11% 104
Work from Home -26 294 £525 -4.55% 31
London -20 228 £525 -4.55% 35
UK excluding London -12 186 £500 +14.29% 76
South East -9 73 £575 +43.75% 22
East of England -23 23 £475 -4.90% 10
South West -25 23 £500 +8.11% 4
Midlands -43 23 £225 -37.28% 7
North of England -58 22 £505 +1.00% 22
North West -26 20 £505 +34.67% 8
Scotland -8 12 £413 -13.16% 7
West Midlands -56 12 £350 -2.44% 7
East Midlands -15 11 £195 -62.41%
Wales -13 7 £550 +62.96% 2
Yorkshire -37 3 £450 -5.26% 9
Northern Ireland - 3 £300 - 3
North East -9 1 £450 -21.74% 5

For the 6 months to 20 May 2022, 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.

1 252 (44.76%) Azure
2 184 (32.68%) Windows
3 159 (28.24%) Microsoft
4 153 (27.18%) VMware
5 133 (23.62%) PowerShell
6 132 (23.45%) Security Cleared
7 126 (22.38%) VMware Infrastructure
7 126 (22.38%) SQL
8 124 (22.02%) DevOps
9 119 (21.14%) SC Cleared
10 118 (20.96%) Linux
11 116 (20.60%) Social Skills
12 115 (20.43%) Terraform
13 114 (20.25%) Migration
14 102 (18.12%) Finance
15 100 (17.76%) Active Directory
16 89 (15.81%) CI/CD
17 85 (15.10%) Ansible
18 79 (14.03%) Python
19 76 (13.50%) AWS
19 76 (13.50%) Firewall
20 75 (13.32%) Data Centre
21 74 (13.14%) Windows Server
22 71 (12.61%) Agile
23 69 (12.26%) Microsoft 365
24 68 (12.08%) Kubernetes
25 67 (11.90%) Oracle
26 65 (11.55%) Public Sector
27 64 (11.37%) PaaS
28 63 (11.19%) ITIL

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 26 (4.62%) SharePoint
2 18 (3.20%) IIS
3 16 (2.84%) nginx
4 14 (2.49%) Apache
5 9 (1.60%) Skype for Business
6 8 (1.42%) Tomcat
7 6 (1.07%) Confluence
7 6 (1.07%) OpenStack
8 4 (0.71%) Apache Spark
8 4 (0.71%) Ethereum
8 4 (0.71%) Solana
9 3 (0.53%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 3 (0.53%) Apache Airflow
9 3 (0.53%) CMS
9 3 (0.53%) Exchange Server 2010
9 3 (0.53%) MS Exchange
9 3 (0.53%) Oracle Workflow
9 3 (0.53%) WebLogic
10 2 (0.36%) MQSeries
11 1 (0.18%) IBM Notes
Applications
1 16 (2.84%) Microsoft Office
2 12 (2.13%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (0.53%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 3 (0.53%) Microsoft Project
4 2 (0.36%) Chatbot
4 2 (0.36%) Stata
5 1 (0.18%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 3 (0.53%) Dynamics CRM
1 3 (0.53%) Oracle Cash Management
1 3 (0.53%) Oracle ERP
1 3 (0.53%) PRMS
2 2 (0.36%) Oracle Applications
2 2 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
2 2 (0.36%) Oracle FAH
2 2 (0.36%) Oracle Utilities
3 1 (0.18%) Primavera
3 1 (0.18%) Remedy ITSM
3 1 (0.18%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.18%) Sentinel
3 1 (0.18%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 252 (44.76%) Azure
2 76 (13.50%) AWS
3 69 (12.26%) Microsoft 365
4 64 (11.37%) PaaS
5 47 (8.35%) IaaS
6 36 (6.39%) Azure Monitor
7 31 (5.51%) Azure Active Directory
8 23 (4.09%) GCP
9 22 (3.91%) Azure Data Factory
9 22 (3.91%) Power Platform
9 22 (3.91%) SaaS
10 21 (3.73%) Azure Key Vault
11 20 (3.55%) Cloud Computing
12 19 (3.37%) Azure Sentinel
12 19 (3.37%) Azure Storage
13 17 (3.02%) Azure Stack
13 17 (3.02%) GitHub
14 16 (2.84%) Serverless
15 15 (2.66%) OneDrive
15 15 (2.66%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 76 (13.50%) Firewall
2 62 (11.01%) DNS
3 44 (7.82%) Network Security
4 40 (7.10%) DHCP
5 32 (5.68%) VPN
6 31 (5.51%) SAN
7 25 (4.44%) Internet
8 21 (3.73%) LAN
9 19 (3.37%) VSAN
10 17 (3.02%) DMZ
10 17 (3.02%) WAN
11 16 (2.84%) TCP/IP
12 15 (2.66%) SSL
13 12 (2.13%) Kerberos
14 11 (1.95%) HTTP
15 10 (1.78%) Wi-Fi
16 9 (1.60%) Skype
17 7 (1.24%) 2G
17 7 (1.24%) 3G
17 7 (1.24%) 4G
Database & Business Intelligence
1 54 (9.59%) SQL Server
2 24 (4.26%) Data Lake
3 22 (3.91%) Azure SQL Database
4 20 (3.55%) Power BI
5 18 (3.20%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 15 (2.66%) NoSQL
7 13 (2.31%) MongoDB
8 11 (1.95%) DB2
8 11 (1.95%) PostgreSQL
8 11 (1.95%) Relational Database
9 9 (1.60%) Couchbase
9 9 (1.60%) Oracle Database
10 8 (1.42%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 7 (1.24%) Apache Cassandra
11 7 (1.24%) MySQL
12 6 (1.07%) Big Data
12 6 (1.07%) Hadoop
12 6 (1.07%) ZAP BI
13 5 (0.89%) OLAP
13 5 (0.89%) Parquet
Development Applications
1 54 (9.59%) Git (software)
2 50 (8.88%) Jenkins
3 33 (5.86%) JIRA
4 16 (2.84%) Team Foundation Server
5 14 (2.49%) Maven
6 13 (2.31%) SonarQube
7 8 (1.42%) Selenium
8 7 (1.24%) Cucumber
8 7 (1.24%) MSI
9 6 (1.07%) AppScan
9 6 (1.07%) Bitbucket
9 6 (1.07%) Burp Suite
9 6 (1.07%) Chocolatey
9 6 (1.07%) GitLab
9 6 (1.07%) Sonatype Nexus
10 5 (0.89%) gulp
10 5 (0.89%) Jasmine
10 5 (0.89%) Terragrunt
11 4 (0.71%) Gradle
11 4 (0.71%) Visual Studio Coded UI
General
1 116 (20.60%) Social Skills
2 102 (18.12%) Finance
3 65 (11.55%) Public Sector
4 38 (6.75%) Analytical Skills
5 32 (5.68%) Telecoms
6 27 (4.80%) Banking
6 27 (4.80%) Documentation Skills
7 12 (2.13%) Presentation Skills
8 11 (1.95%) Manufacturing
8 11 (1.95%) Marketing
9 9 (1.60%) Billing
9 9 (1.60%) Electronics
10 8 (1.42%) French Language
11 7 (1.24%) Back Office
11 7 (1.24%) Legal
11 7 (1.24%) Organisational Skills
12 5 (0.89%) Front Office
12 5 (0.89%) German Language
13 3 (0.53%) Dutch Language
13 3 (0.53%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 78 (13.85%) Azure Engineer
2 65 (11.55%) Architect
3 48 (8.53%) DevOps Engineer
4 41 (7.28%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 39 (6.93%) Cloud Engineer
6 34 (6.04%) Analyst
7 31 (5.51%) Developer
8 24 (4.26%) Consultant
9 23 (4.09%) Administrator
9 23 (4.09%) Azure DevOps Engineer
10 22 (3.91%) Cloud Architect
10 22 (3.91%) VMware Engineer
11 19 (3.37%) Azure DevOps
12 18 (3.20%) Data Engineer
12 18 (3.20%) Project Manager
13 16 (2.84%) DBA
13 16 (2.84%) Service Desk Manager
13 16 (2.84%) Service Manager
14 14 (2.49%) Solutions Architect
14 14 (2.49%) Storage Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 45 (7.99%) .NET
2 30 (5.33%) JSON
3 26 (4.62%) ARM Templates
4 20 (3.55%) Node.js
5 16 (2.84%) LDAP
6 13 (2.31%) React
6 13 (2.31%) REST
7 12 (2.13%) Kafka
8 11 (1.95%) HTML
8 11 (1.95%) Middleware
8 11 (1.95%) SOAP
9 10 (1.78%) Vue.js
9 10 (1.78%) XML
10 9 (1.60%) Cytoscape.js
11 8 (1.42%) Spring
12 7 (1.24%) .NET Core
12 7 (1.24%) Elastic Stack
12 7 (1.24%) RESTful
12 7 (1.24%) Spring Boot
12 7 (1.24%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 75 (13.32%) Data Centre
2 33 (5.86%) Replication
3 30 (5.33%) Public Cloud
4 28 (4.97%) Management Information System
5 22 (3.91%) Clustering
6 12 (2.13%) Hybrid Cloud
6 12 (2.13%) Linux Command Line
7 10 (1.78%) Cloud Native
8 9 (1.60%) Mainframe
8 9 (1.60%) PKI
9 7 (1.24%) Wiki
10 6 (1.07%) Data Protection Act
10 6 (1.07%) Private Cloud
10 6 (1.07%) Smartphone
11 4 (0.71%) Fibre Optics
11 4 (0.71%) Life Science
11 4 (0.71%) Self-Motivation
11 4 (0.71%) User Experience
12 3 (0.53%) Fat Client
12 3 (0.53%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 184 (32.68%) Windows
2 118 (20.96%) Linux
3 74 (13.14%) Windows Server
4 41 (7.28%) Unix
5 28 (4.97%) Windows Server 2016
6 27 (4.80%) Windows 10
7 25 (4.44%) Windows Server 2012
8 22 (3.91%) Windows Server 2019
9 19 (3.37%) Windows 7
9 19 (3.37%) Windows Server 2008
10 18 (3.20%) VMS
11 16 (2.84%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 8 (1.42%) Mac OS
13 7 (1.24%) AIX
13 7 (1.24%) MVS
14 6 (1.07%) Solaris
15 5 (0.89%) Apple iOS
15 5 (0.89%) CentOS
15 5 (0.89%) Ubuntu
16 4 (0.71%) Android
Processes & Methodologies
1 124 (22.02%) DevOps
2 114 (20.25%) Migration
3 89 (15.81%) CI/CD
4 71 (12.61%) Agile
5 63 (11.19%) Infrastructure as Code
5 63 (11.19%) ITIL
6 52 (9.24%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 52 (9.24%) Network Virtualisation
7 51 (9.06%) Configuration Management
8 47 (8.35%) Problem-Solving
9 46 (8.17%) Analytics
10 45 (7.99%) Disaster Recovery
11 38 (6.75%) High Availability
12 37 (6.57%) Change Management
12 37 (6.57%) Scrum
13 35 (6.22%) Service Management
14 31 (5.51%) Project Management
15 30 (5.33%) Continuous Integration
16 28 (4.97%) Information Security
16 28 (4.97%) Runbook
Programming Languages
1 133 (23.62%) PowerShell
2 126 (22.38%) SQL
3 79 (14.03%) Python
4 61 (10.83%) Bash
5 46 (8.17%) Java
6 30 (5.33%) C
6 30 (5.33%) C#
7 24 (4.26%) JavaScript
8 21 (3.73%) Go
9 19 (3.37%) Shell Script
10 16 (2.84%) Groovy
11 15 (2.66%) Ruby
12 14 (2.49%) Perl
13 9 (1.60%) VBScript
14 8 (1.42%) T-SQL
15 7 (1.24%) PHP
16 5 (0.89%) C++
17 4 (0.71%) Rust
17 4 (0.71%) Solidity
17 4 (0.71%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 132 (23.45%) Security Cleared
2 119 (21.14%) SC Cleared
3 39 (6.93%) Degree
4 13 (2.31%) Microsoft Certification
5 12 (2.13%) CISSP
6 8 (1.42%) MCSE
7 7 (1.24%) BPSS Clearance
7 7 (1.24%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
8 6 (1.07%) CISM
9 5 (0.89%) CEH
9 5 (0.89%) CSSLP
9 5 (0.89%) DV Cleared
9 5 (0.89%) GIAC
9 5 (0.89%) MCSA
9 5 (0.89%) RHCSA
10 4 (0.71%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 3 (0.53%) CompTIA Security+
11 3 (0.53%) HND
11 3 (0.53%) ITIL Certification
11 3 (0.53%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 34 (6.04%) SLA
2 15 (2.66%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 11 (1.95%) QA
4 9 (1.60%) GDPR
5 7 (1.24%) NCSC
5 7 (1.24%) NIST
6 5 (0.89%) Actionable Recommendations
7 4 (0.71%) Accessibility
8 3 (0.53%) DICOM
8 3 (0.53%) HL7
8 3 (0.53%) OASIS TOSCA
9 2 (0.36%) Data Quality
9 2 (0.36%) HIPAA
9 2 (0.36%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 1 (0.18%) COBIT
10 1 (0.18%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 1 (0.18%) PCI DSS
10 1 (0.18%) RMADS
System Software
1 126 (22.38%) VMware Infrastructure
2 100 (17.76%) Active Directory
3 56 (9.95%) Docker
4 33 (5.86%) vSphere
5 28 (4.97%) Hyper-V
6 26 (4.62%) Firmware
7 20 (3.55%) VMware ESXi
8 18 (3.20%) VMware NSX
9 11 (1.95%) vCloud
10 6 (1.07%) UAG
10 6 (1.07%) Virtual Servers
10 6 (1.07%) VirtualBox
11 5 (0.89%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
11 5 (0.89%) XenApp
12 4 (0.71%) BitLocker
12 4 (0.71%) DFS Replication
13 3 (0.53%) Apache ZooKeeper
13 3 (0.53%) Veritas Cluster Server
14 2 (0.36%) Citrix Hypervisor
14 2 (0.36%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 115 (20.43%) Terraform
2 85 (15.10%) Ansible
3 68 (12.08%) Kubernetes
4 31 (5.51%) Microsoft Intune
5 28 (4.97%) vCenter Server
6 27 (4.80%) SCCM
7 26 (4.62%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 26 (4.62%) Puppet
8 24 (4.26%) Opscode Chef
8 24 (4.26%) Packer
8 24 (4.26%) SCVMM
9 20 (3.55%) Single Sign-On
10 16 (2.84%) SCOM
11 15 (2.66%) Consul
11 15 (2.66%) Microsoft Clustering
11 15 (2.66%) Prometheus
12 14 (2.49%) Docker Swarm
13 12 (2.13%) Failover Clustering
14 9 (1.60%) Grafana
14 9 (1.60%) WSUS
Vendors
1 159 (28.24%) Microsoft
2 153 (27.18%) VMware
3 67 (11.90%) Oracle
4 50 (8.88%) Cisco
5 34 (6.04%) Citrix
6 25 (4.44%) ServiceNow
7 23 (4.09%) Databricks
8 22 (3.91%) F5
8 22 (3.91%) NetApp
9 20 (3.55%) IBM
10 18 (3.20%) Dell
11 17 (3.02%) Red Hat
11 17 (3.02%) Splunk
12 16 (2.84%) Altiris
13 15 (2.66%) Bloomberg
13 15 (2.66%) Reuters
13 15 (2.66%) SAP
14 13 (2.31%) CheckPoint
14 13 (2.31%) Ericsson
14 13 (2.31%) Google