Job Vacancy Trend Daily Rate Trend Daily Rate Histogram Hourly Rate Trend Hourly Rate Histogram Job Locations Skill Sets
Period
to 12 August 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 12 August 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
12 Aug 2020		 Same period 2019 Same period 2018
Rank 307 397 451
Rank change year-on-year +90 +54 +10
Contract jobs citing Virtual Machines 235 540 543
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.68% 0.59% 0.53%
As % of the System Software category 4.56% 3.80% 3.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 169 363 376
Median daily rate £500 £475 £493
Median daily rate % change year-on-year +5.26% -3.55% +15.88%
10th Percentile £318 £301 £263
90th Percentile £600 £700 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £450 £470
% change year-on-year +11.11% -4.26% +25.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 12 20
Median hourly rate £23.00 £44.50 £26.88
Median hourly rate % change year-on-year -48.31% +65.58% +48.48%
10th Percentile £18.86 £16.81 £15.24
90th Percentile £45.00 £47.68 £60.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.64 £16.86 £22.64
% change year-on-year +28.37% -25.52% +35.15%

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 5,157 14,209 14,631
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 14.92% 15.64% 14.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,231 9,379 9,482
Median daily rate £475 £475 £450
Median daily rate % change year-on-year - +5.56% +5.88%
10th Percentile £200 £178 £183
90th Percentile £630 £638 £625
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £425 £400
% change year-on-year - +6.25% +6.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 264 644 883
Median hourly rate £20.00 £17.00 £16.50
Median hourly rate % change year-on-year +17.65% +3.03% +3.13%
10th Percentile £11.57 £11.17 £11.00
90th Percentile £48.17 £47.50 £44.45
Median hourly rate £18.00 £16.00 £15.86
% change year-on-year +12.50% +0.88% +5.73%

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 12 August 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 12 August 2020.

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 12 August 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 +76 203 £500 +5.26% 43
UK excluding London +64 117 £500 +11.11% 35
London +108 97 £475 -9.52% 11
South East +99 48 £520 +13.97% 15
Work from Home +12 29 £550 - 14
South West +57 18 £545 +14.74% 5
Scotland +76 15 £500 -23.08% 2
Midlands +55 15 £450 +5.88% 8
West Midlands +64 14 £450 +2.86% 5
East of England +81 11 £345 -23.33% 1
North of England +74 9 £338 -25.00% 3
Yorkshire +68 5 £325 +8.33% 2
North West +63 3 £350 -27.84%
East Midlands +42 1 - - 3
Wales +40 1 - - 1
North East +39 1 - - 1

For the 6 months to 12 August 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.

1 126 (53.62%) Windows
2 84 (35.74%) Linux
3 78 (33.19%) Azure
4 68 (28.94%) Security Cleared
5 63 (26.81%) PaaS
5 63 (26.81%) Microsoft
6 60 (25.53%) SC Cleared
7 59 (25.11%) DNS
8 56 (23.83%) DevOps
9 55 (23.40%) Active Directory
10 54 (22.98%) PowerShell
11 47 (20.00%) VMware
12 46 (19.57%) Firewall
12 46 (19.57%) IaaS
13 45 (19.15%) Oracle
14 44 (18.72%) SQL
14 44 (18.72%) VMware Infrastructure
14 44 (18.72%) Windows Server
15 38 (16.17%) Hyper-V
16 36 (15.32%) ITIL
16 36 (15.32%) Windows 10
17 34 (14.47%) DHCP
18 33 (14.04%) Migration
18 33 (14.04%) Agile Software Development
19 31 (13.19%) Analytics
19 31 (13.19%) VPN
20 30 (12.77%) Shell Script
20 30 (12.77%) Java
21 29 (12.34%) SAN
21 29 (12.34%) Ansible

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 19 (8.09%) nginx
2 16 (6.81%) MS Exchange
3 14 (5.96%) Exchange Server 2010
4 13 (5.53%) Cloud Foundry
5 12 (5.11%) SharePoint
6 11 (4.68%) IIS
6 11 (4.68%) Tomcat
7 6 (2.55%) CMS
7 6 (2.55%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 3 (1.28%) OpenStack
8 3 (1.28%) SAS
8 3 (1.28%) Skype for Business
9 2 (0.85%) Confluence
10 1 (0.43%) Exchange Server 2013
10 1 (0.43%) MQSeries
10 1 (0.43%) Oracle Service Bus
Applications
1 4 (1.70%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (1.28%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (1.28%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.43%) AutoCAD
3 1 (0.43%) Microsoft Project
3 1 (0.43%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.43%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 1 (0.43%) Actimize
Cloud Services
1 78 (33.19%) Azure
2 63 (26.81%) PaaS
3 46 (19.57%) IaaS
4 25 (10.64%) Office 365
5 23 (9.79%) Power Platform
6 13 (5.53%) GCP
6 13 (5.53%) npm
7 12 (5.11%) AWS
8 10 (4.26%) GitHub
8 10 (4.26%) SaaS
9 7 (2.98%) Azure Active Directory
9 7 (2.98%) OpenShift
9 7 (2.98%) Serverless
10 6 (2.55%) Apigee
10 6 (2.55%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 5 (2.13%) Amazon EC2
11 5 (2.13%) Amazon S3
11 5 (2.13%) Route 53
12 4 (1.70%) OneDrive
13 3 (1.28%) AWS Elastic Beanstalk
Communications & Networking
1 59 (25.11%) DNS
2 46 (19.57%) Firewall
3 34 (14.47%) DHCP
4 31 (13.19%) VPN
5 29 (12.34%) SAN
6 25 (10.64%) Network Security
7 23 (9.79%) LAN
8 20 (8.51%) TCP/IP
9 17 (7.23%) WAN
10 16 (6.81%) SNMP
11 14 (5.96%) Internet
12 12 (5.11%) OSPF
12 12 (5.11%) TACACS
13 10 (4.26%) Remote Desktop
14 9 (3.83%) DMZ
15 8 (3.40%) IPv4
16 7 (2.98%) NAS
17 6 (2.55%) HTTP
17 6 (2.55%) SSL
18 5 (2.13%) Skype
Database & Business Intelligence
1 23 (9.79%) SQL Server
2 22 (9.36%) Data Lake
3 21 (8.94%) HDInsight
3 21 (8.94%) Power BI
4 20 (8.51%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 12 (5.11%) BigQuery
6 11 (4.68%) Hadoop
7 8 (3.40%) Cosmos DB
8 6 (2.55%) Azure SQL Database
8 6 (2.55%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 5 (2.13%) Oracle Reports
10 4 (1.70%) SQL Server 2016
11 3 (1.28%) Big Data
11 3 (1.28%) Oracle Database
11 3 (1.28%) SQL Server 2012
12 2 (0.85%) Amazon RDS
12 2 (0.85%) Data Warehouse
12 2 (0.85%) DB2
12 2 (0.85%) MySQL
12 2 (0.85%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 26 (11.06%) Git (software)
2 22 (9.36%) Jenkins
3 20 (8.51%) Visual Studio
4 17 (7.23%) Maven
5 14 (5.96%) gulp
6 13 (5.53%) CircleCI
6 13 (5.53%) Gradle
6 13 (5.53%) Travis CI
7 8 (3.40%) Subversion
8 5 (2.13%) JIRA
9 4 (1.70%) Ant
9 4 (1.70%) IntelliJ
10 3 (1.28%) GitLab
11 2 (0.85%) Atlassian Bamboo
11 2 (0.85%) MSI
11 2 (0.85%) Sonatype Nexus
12 1 (0.43%) AdminStudio
12 1 (0.43%) InstallShield
12 1 (0.43%) Jasmine
12 1 (0.43%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 25 (10.64%) Finance
2 15 (6.38%) Banking
3 12 (5.11%) Telecoms
4 11 (4.68%) Public Sector
5 3 (1.28%) Financial Institution
5 3 (1.28%) Retail
6 2 (0.85%) Manufacturing
6 2 (0.85%) Publishing
7 1 (0.43%) Corporate Banking
7 1 (0.43%) Investment Banking
7 1 (0.43%) Law
7 1 (0.43%) Legal
7 1 (0.43%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 35 (14.89%) DevOps Engineer
2 21 (8.94%) Developer
3 15 (6.38%) Consultant
4 14 (5.96%) Architect
5 13 (5.53%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 12 (5.11%) Administrator
6 12 (5.11%) Cloud Engineer
7 10 (4.26%) 3rd Line Engineer
7 10 (4.26%) Azure Engineer
7 10 (4.26%) Linux Engineer
8 9 (3.83%) Technical Engineer
9 8 (3.40%) Support Engineer
9 8 (3.40%) Technical Support
10 7 (2.98%) Analyst
10 7 (2.98%) Kubernetes Engineer
10 7 (2.98%) Systems Engineer
11 6 (2.55%) Azure DevOps
11 6 (2.55%) Azure DevOps Engineer
11 6 (2.55%) Support Officer
11 6 (2.55%) Systems Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (5.96%) Node.js
2 12 (5.11%) REST
3 8 (3.40%) Oracle Fusion
3 8 (3.40%) XML
4 7 (2.98%) SAML
5 6 (2.55%) .NET
5 6 (2.55%) CSS
5 6 (2.55%) HTML
5 6 (2.55%) RESTful
6 5 (2.13%) Ajax
6 5 (2.13%) Middleware
6 5 (2.13%) OAuth
6 5 (2.13%) OpenID
7 4 (1.70%) Hibernate
7 4 (1.70%) Java EE
7 4 (1.70%) JPA
7 4 (1.70%) LDAP
7 4 (1.70%) Spring
7 4 (1.70%) XSL
7 4 (1.70%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 19 (8.09%) Public Cloud
2 15 (6.38%) Analytical Skills
2 15 (6.38%) Clustering
3 14 (5.96%) Data Centre
3 14 (5.96%) Management Information System
4 11 (4.68%) HP StoreVirtual
5 9 (3.83%) User Experience
6 8 (3.40%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
6 8 (3.40%) Replication
7 6 (2.55%) Enterprise Software
8 5 (2.13%) Cloud Native
8 5 (2.13%) iPad
8 5 (2.13%) Self-Motivation
9 4 (1.70%) FMCG
9 4 (1.70%) Virtual Team
10 3 (1.28%) Analytical Mindset
10 3 (1.28%) CCTV
10 3 (1.28%) Hedge funds
10 3 (1.28%) Linux Command Line
10 3 (1.28%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 126 (53.62%) Windows
2 84 (35.74%) Linux
3 44 (18.72%) Windows Server
4 36 (15.32%) Windows 10
5 25 (10.64%) Unix
6 22 (9.36%) Windows Server 2012
7 21 (8.94%) Windows Server 2016
8 19 (8.09%) Windows Server 2008
9 18 (7.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 8 (3.40%) Solaris
10 8 (3.40%) Windows Server 2019
11 7 (2.98%) Windows 7
12 6 (2.55%) CentOS
13 5 (2.13%) Windows Server 2003
14 4 (1.70%) Windows XP
15 3 (1.28%) Android
15 3 (1.28%) Mac OS X
15 3 (1.28%) Ubuntu
15 3 (1.28%) Windows NT
16 2 (0.85%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 56 (23.83%) DevOps
2 36 (15.32%) ITIL
3 33 (14.04%) Agile Software Development
3 33 (14.04%) Migration
4 31 (13.19%) Analytics
5 27 (11.49%) Mentoring
5 27 (11.49%) Patch Management
6 24 (10.21%) Continuous Integration
6 24 (10.21%) Test Automation
7 23 (9.79%) Data Protection
8 22 (9.36%) Infrastructure as Code
8 22 (9.36%) Scrum
9 21 (8.94%) Business Intelligence
9 21 (8.94%) Security Testing
10 20 (8.51%) Data Management
10 20 (8.51%) Network Virtualisation
10 20 (8.51%) Problem-Solving
11 19 (8.09%) Continuous Delivery
11 19 (8.09%) Project Delivery
12 17 (7.23%) Data-Driven Testing
Programming Languages
1 54 (22.98%) PowerShell
2 44 (18.72%) SQL
3 30 (12.77%) Java
3 30 (12.77%) Shell Script
4 23 (9.79%) Python
5 20 (8.51%) Bash Shell
5 20 (8.51%) C
6 11 (4.68%) C#
7 9 (3.83%) Groovy
7 9 (3.83%) Perl
8 7 (2.98%) JavaScript
9 4 (1.70%) Go
9 4 (1.70%) XPath
10 3 (1.28%) VBScript
11 2 (0.85%) VB
12 1 (0.43%) PHP
12 1 (0.43%) Ruby
12 1 (0.43%) SAS Macro
12 1 (0.43%) T-SQL
12 1 (0.43%) VBA
Qualifications
1 68 (28.94%) Security Cleared
2 60 (25.53%) SC Cleared
3 21 (8.94%) DV Cleared
4 11 (4.68%) ITIL Certification
5 7 (2.98%) Microsoft Certification
6 6 (2.55%) MCSA
7 5 (2.13%) Cisco Certification
8 4 (1.70%) (ISC)2 CCSP
8 4 (1.70%) CISM
8 4 (1.70%) CISSP
8 4 (1.70%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 3 (1.28%) CCSP
9 3 (1.28%) Degree
10 1 (0.43%) AWS Certification
10 1 (0.43%) BPSS Clearance
10 1 (0.43%) DBS Check
10 1 (0.43%) PMI Certification
10 1 (0.43%) PMP
10 1 (0.43%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
10 1 (0.43%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (6.38%) NCSC
2 11 (4.68%) Government Security Classifications
3 10 (4.26%) SLA
4 6 (2.55%) HMG Security Policy Framework
5 4 (1.70%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 4 (1.70%) NIST
6 1 (0.43%) Disclosure Scotland
6 1 (0.43%) GDPR
System Software
1 55 (23.40%) Active Directory
2 44 (18.72%) VMware Infrastructure
3 38 (16.17%) Hyper-V
4 25 (10.64%) Docker
5 18 (7.66%) VMware ESXi
6 12 (5.11%) Virtual Desktop
7 10 (4.26%) vSphere
8 8 (3.40%) Microsoft App-V
9 7 (2.98%) LXC
10 6 (2.55%) Squid
11 5 (2.13%) DFS Replication
12 3 (1.28%) XenApp
13 2 (0.85%) Firmware
13 2 (0.85%) vCloud
13 2 (0.85%) Virtual Servers
14 1 (0.43%) Samba
14 1 (0.43%) Terminal Server
14 1 (0.43%) Terminal Services
14 1 (0.43%) VMware Workstation
14 1 (0.43%) Xen
Systems Management
1 29 (12.34%) Ansible
2 27 (11.49%) Kubernetes
2 27 (11.49%) Terraform
3 22 (9.36%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
4 18 (7.66%) SCVMM
5 16 (6.81%) Opscode Chef
6 13 (5.53%) WSUS
7 12 (5.11%) Puppet
8 11 (4.68%) Argo
8 11 (4.68%) SCCM
8 11 (4.68%) SCOM
9 9 (3.83%) Failover Clustering
9 9 (3.83%) Norton AntiVirus
10 8 (3.40%) Nessus
11 7 (2.98%) Microsoft Clustering
11 7 (2.98%) Microsoft Intune
11 7 (2.98%) SCDPM
11 7 (2.98%) SCSM
11 7 (2.98%) vCenter Server
12 6 (2.55%) Nagios
Vendors
1 63 (26.81%) Microsoft
2 47 (20.00%) VMware
3 45 (19.15%) Oracle
4 26 (11.06%) Splunk
5 20 (8.51%) Red Hat
6 18 (7.66%) HP
6 18 (7.66%) Informatica
7 17 (7.23%) Google
8 14 (5.96%) Palo Alto
9 13 (5.53%) Dell
9 13 (5.53%) Fortinet
9 13 (5.53%) Symantec
10 9 (3.83%) Cisco
10 9 (3.83%) Hortonworks
11 7 (2.98%) AppDynamics
11 7 (2.98%) Citrix
11 7 (2.98%) IBM
11 7 (2.98%) Lumension
11 7 (2.98%) NetApp
11 7 (2.98%) Sophos