Job Vacancy Trend Daily Rate Trend Daily Rate Histogram Hourly Rate Trend Hourly Rate Histogram Job Locations Skill Sets
Period
to 22 October 2019

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 October 2019 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 Oct 2019		 Same period 2018 Same period 2017
Rank 412 451 435
Rank change year-on-year +39 -16 +17
Contract jobs citing Virtual Machines 480 534 524
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 0.57% 0.52% 0.53%
As % of the System Software category 3.63% 3.45% 4.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 303 391 305
UK median daily rate £453 £490 £418
Median daily rate % change year-on-year -7.65% +17.37% -3.75%
10th Percentile £308 £285 £213
90th Percentile £638 £700 £588
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £463 £400
% change year-on-year -2.70% +15.63% -3.03%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 11 12
UK median hourly rate £42.00 £21.00 £43.21
Median hourly rate % change year-on-year +100.00% -51.40% +64.60%
10th Percentile £25.57 £15.24 £16.27
90th Percentile £44.50 £47.83 £47.83
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £19.21 £16.00
% change year-on-year +108.28% +20.03% -15.79%

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 13,239 15,471 12,146
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 15.61% 14.98% 12.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,724 10,068 7,830
UK median daily rate £450 £450 £425
Median daily rate % change year-on-year - +5.88% +6.25%
10th Percentile £170 £180 £158
90th Percentile £638 £625 £600
UK excluding London median daily rate £413 £400 £375
% change year-on-year +3.13% +6.67% +4.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 679 902 677
UK median hourly rate £17.00 £16.00 £16.66
Median hourly rate % change year-on-year +6.25% -3.96% +4.13%
10th Percentile £11.17 £10.51 £10.40
90th Percentile £47.50 £43.75 £47.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £16.00 £15.60 £15.50
% change year-on-year +2.56% +0.65% +1.64%

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 22 October 2019.

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 22 October 2019.

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 22 October 2019. 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 +21 443 £463 -6.09% 112
UK excluding London +41 296 £450 -2.70% 84
London +28 166 £493 -10.45% 40
South East +32 106 £463 +9.21% 20
North of England 0 68 £450 -10.00% 19
South West +14 51 £463 -5.61% 10
North West -25 38 £473 -5.50% 11
Midlands +47 33 £403 -1.53% 13
Yorkshire +31 27 £434 -3.61% 7
West Midlands +26 21 £405 +15.71% 7
East of England +29 19 £475 -19.15% 10
Scotland +14 13 £331 -52.68% 8
East Midlands +20 12 £350 -27.65% 6
Northern Ireland - 6 £475 - 2
North East +10 3 £425 -19.05% 1
Wales +20 1 £400 -3.03% 2

For the 6 months to 22 October 2019, 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.

1 253 (52.71%) Windows
2 182 (37.92%) Microsoft
3 175 (36.46%) Azure
4 151 (31.46%) Active Directory
5 146 (30.42%) Linux
6 141 (29.38%) VMware
7 131 (27.29%) Windows Server
8 123 (25.63%) DevOps
8 123 (25.63%) PowerShell
9 114 (23.75%) VMware Infrastructure
10 110 (22.92%) Security Cleared
11 108 (22.50%) Agile Software Development
12 89 (18.54%) AWS
13 88 (18.33%) Docker
14 87 (18.13%) Hyper-V
15 85 (17.71%) SQL
16 80 (16.67%) Kubernetes
17 79 (16.46%) Configuration Management
18 77 (16.04%) Python
19 75 (15.63%) SCCM
19 75 (15.63%) Data Centre
20 74 (15.42%) Jenkins
20 74 (15.42%) DNS
21 73 (15.21%) Git (software)
21 73 (15.21%) Puppet
22 71 (14.79%) Continuous Integration
23 70 (14.58%) DHCP
23 70 (14.58%) ITIL
23 70 (14.58%) SQL Server
24 68 (14.17%) IaaS

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 38 (7.92%) SharePoint
2 25 (5.21%) Skype for Business
3 22 (4.58%) MS Exchange
4 19 (3.96%) Apache
4 19 (3.96%) IIS
5 17 (3.54%) Confluence
5 17 (3.54%) Tomcat
6 14 (2.92%) Exchange Server 2010
6 14 (2.92%) nginx
7 13 (2.71%) OpenStack
8 12 (2.50%) Exchange Server 2013
9 10 (2.08%) WebSphere
10 7 (1.46%) SharePoint 2013
11 6 (1.25%) JBoss
11 6 (1.25%) WebLogic
12 5 (1.04%) Cloud Foundry
12 5 (1.04%) CMS
12 5 (1.04%) Elasticsearch
12 5 (1.04%) Sitecore CMS
12 5 (1.04%) Umbraco
Applications
1 20 (4.17%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (2.08%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (0.83%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 4 (0.83%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.21%) Acrobat
4 1 (0.21%) Adobe Illustrator
4 1 (0.21%) AutoCAD
4 1 (0.21%) InDesign
4 1 (0.21%) Photoshop
4 1 (0.21%) SketchUp
4 1 (0.21%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 6 (1.25%) Dynamics CRM
2 4 (0.83%) Payment Gateway
3 3 (0.63%) Oracle Applications
4 1 (0.21%) FLEXCUBE
4 1 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.21%) SAP ERP
4 1 (0.21%) SAP Oil and Gas
Cloud Services
1 175 (36.46%) Azure
2 89 (18.54%) AWS
3 68 (14.17%) IaaS
4 67 (13.96%) PaaS
5 31 (6.46%) Office 365
6 29 (6.04%) GCP
7 25 (5.21%) Azure Active Directory
8 16 (3.33%) npm
9 15 (3.13%) Azure Data Factory
9 15 (3.13%) Serverless
10 14 (2.92%) OpenShift
11 13 (2.71%) Amazon EC2
11 13 (2.71%) Azure ExpressRoute
12 12 (2.50%) Power Platform
13 10 (2.08%) Amazon ECS
13 10 (2.08%) Dynamics 365
14 9 (1.88%) GitHub
14 9 (1.88%) SaaS
15 7 (1.46%) AWS CloudFormation
16 5 (1.04%) Data Lake Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 74 (15.42%) DNS
2 70 (14.58%) DHCP
3 43 (8.96%) Firewall
4 34 (7.08%) SAN
5 33 (6.88%) VPN
6 30 (6.25%) TCP/IP
7 27 (5.63%) iSCSI
8 24 (5.00%) HTTP
9 20 (4.17%) Skype
10 15 (3.13%) Network Security
11 14 (2.92%) FTP
11 14 (2.92%) SSL
11 14 (2.92%) VSAN
12 12 (2.50%) Internet
12 12 (2.50%) IPsec
12 12 (2.50%) LAN
13 11 (2.29%) NAS
13 11 (2.29%) VoIP
13 11 (2.29%) WAN
14 7 (1.46%) Remote Desktop
Database & Business Intelligence
1 70 (14.58%) SQL Server
2 31 (6.46%) Azure SQL Database
3 26 (5.42%) MySQL
4 16 (3.33%) Data Lake
5 15 (3.13%) Data Warehouse
5 15 (3.13%) NoSQL
5 15 (3.13%) SQL Server 2016
6 14 (2.92%) Amazon RDS
6 14 (2.92%) PostgreSQL
6 14 (2.92%) Relational Database
7 13 (2.71%) MongoDB
7 13 (2.71%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 12 (2.50%) Power BI
9 11 (2.29%) RDBMS
9 11 (2.29%) SQL Server 2014
10 9 (1.88%) Cosmos DB
10 9 (1.88%) Oracle Database
10 9 (1.88%) SQL Server 2012
11 8 (1.67%) HDInsight
11 8 (1.67%) Redis
Development Applications
1 74 (15.42%) Jenkins
2 73 (15.21%) Git (software)
3 38 (7.92%) Visual Studio Team System
4 29 (6.04%) JIRA
4 29 (6.04%) Visual Studio
5 20 (4.17%) GitLab
6 19 (3.96%) Maven
7 17 (3.54%) gulp
8 16 (3.33%) Gradle
9 15 (3.13%) Travis CI
10 14 (2.92%) MSI
11 12 (2.50%) Bitbucket
12 10 (2.08%) Grunt
12 10 (2.08%) TeamCity
13 9 (1.88%) Sonatype Nexus
14 8 (1.67%) Jasmine
14 8 (1.67%) SonarQube
14 8 (1.67%) Vagrant
15 6 (1.25%) Gerrit
15 6 (1.25%) Octopus Deploy
General
1 56 (11.67%) Finance
2 20 (4.17%) Banking
3 13 (2.71%) Publishing
4 12 (2.50%) Public Sector
5 11 (2.29%) Retail
6 9 (1.88%) Marketing
6 9 (1.88%) Military
7 8 (1.67%) Billing
8 7 (1.46%) Advertising
9 6 (1.25%) Telecoms
10 4 (0.83%) French Language
10 4 (0.83%) German Language
10 4 (0.83%) Manufacturing
11 2 (0.42%) Electronics
12 1 (0.21%) Back Office
12 1 (0.21%) Financial Institution
12 1 (0.21%) Italian Language
12 1 (0.21%) Law
12 1 (0.21%) Legal
12 1 (0.21%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 69 (14.38%) DevOps Engineer
2 43 (8.96%) Azure Engineer
3 42 (8.75%) Developer
4 38 (7.92%) Administrator
5 37 (7.71%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 34 (7.08%) Architect
7 30 (6.25%) Azure DevOps
8 28 (5.83%) Support Engineer
9 26 (5.42%) Azure DevOps Engineer
10 23 (4.79%) Automation Engineer
11 22 (4.58%) Analyst
12 20 (4.17%) Wintel Engineer
13 18 (3.75%) Azure Architect
14 16 (3.33%) Systems Administrator
14 16 (3.33%) VMware Engineer
15 15 (3.13%) 3rd Line Engineer
16 14 (2.92%) Cloud Engineer
16 14 (2.92%) Consultant
17 12 (2.50%) C# Developer
17 12 (2.50%) Server Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 48 (10.00%) .NET
2 34 (7.08%) Web Services
3 21 (4.38%) .NET Framework
3 21 (4.38%) HTML
4 20 (4.17%) CSS
5 19 (3.96%) Node.js
6 18 (3.75%) JSON
7 17 (3.54%) Elastic Stack
8 14 (2.92%) AngularJS
9 11 (2.29%) jQuery
9 11 (2.29%) Middleware
10 10 (2.08%) RESTful
10 10 (2.08%) SAML
10 10 (2.08%) Spring
11 7 (1.46%) ASP.NET
11 7 (1.46%) REST
11 7 (1.46%) YAML
12 6 (1.25%) LDAP
12 6 (1.25%) LESS
12 6 (1.25%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 75 (15.63%) Data Centre
2 51 (10.63%) Clustering
3 35 (7.29%) Analytical Skills
4 30 (6.25%) Linux Command Line
5 18 (3.75%) Hybrid Cloud
5 18 (3.75%) Public Cloud
5 18 (3.75%) User Experience
6 16 (3.33%) Management Information System
7 12 (2.50%) VxBlock/Vblock
8 11 (2.29%) Greenfield Project
8 11 (2.29%) Replication
9 9 (1.88%) Self-Motivation
10 8 (1.67%) Enterprise Software
10 8 (1.67%) PKI
11 5 (1.04%) Private Cloud
11 5 (1.04%) RIA
11 5 (1.04%) Video Conferencing
12 4 (0.83%) HP StoreVirtual
12 4 (0.83%) NHS
13 3 (0.63%) Blog
Operating Systems
1 253 (52.71%) Windows
2 146 (30.42%) Linux
3 131 (27.29%) Windows Server
4 60 (12.50%) Windows 10
5 56 (11.67%) Windows Server 2012
6 38 (7.92%) Windows Server 2008
7 30 (6.25%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 29 (6.04%) Windows 7
9 24 (5.00%) Unix
10 15 (3.13%) Ubuntu
11 14 (2.92%) VMS
12 10 (2.08%) Solaris
13 9 (1.88%) CentOS
13 9 (1.88%) Oracle Linux
14 7 (1.46%) Data ONTAP
15 6 (1.25%) Windows Server 2003
16 4 (0.83%) AIX
16 4 (0.83%) Android
16 4 (0.83%) Mac OS X
16 4 (0.83%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 123 (25.63%) DevOps
2 108 (22.50%) Agile Software Development
3 79 (16.46%) Configuration Management
4 71 (14.79%) Continuous Integration
5 70 (14.58%) ITIL
6 59 (12.29%) Migration
6 59 (12.29%) Test Automation
7 53 (11.04%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 49 (10.21%) Problem-Solving
9 41 (8.54%) Microservices
10 38 (7.92%) Scrum
11 36 (7.50%) Analytics
11 36 (7.50%) High Availability
12 35 (7.29%) Data Protection
12 35 (7.29%) Open Source
13 32 (6.67%) Infrastructure as Code
14 30 (6.25%) Network Virtualisation
15 29 (6.04%) Server Management
16 26 (5.42%) OO
16 26 (5.42%) Patch Management
Programming Languages
1 123 (25.63%) PowerShell
2 85 (17.71%) SQL
3 77 (16.04%) Python
4 58 (12.08%) Java
5 57 (11.88%) C#
6 52 (10.83%) Bash Shell
7 33 (6.88%) JavaScript
8 17 (3.54%) Ruby
9 13 (2.71%) Go
9 13 (2.71%) Shell Script
10 9 (1.88%) C
10 9 (1.88%) Perl
11 8 (1.67%) Groovy
11 8 (1.67%) VBScript
12 7 (1.46%) PHP
13 6 (1.25%) R
14 5 (1.04%) VB
15 4 (0.83%) C++
15 4 (0.83%) TypeScript
16 3 (0.63%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 110 (22.92%) Security Cleared
2 64 (13.33%) SC Cleared
3 53 (11.04%) DV Cleared
4 28 (5.83%) Degree
5 25 (5.21%) Microsoft Certification
6 16 (3.33%) MCSE
7 11 (2.29%) Cisco Certification
7 11 (2.29%) ITIL Certification
8 10 (2.08%) CCNA
8 10 (2.08%) Computer Science Degree
8 10 (2.08%) MCSA
9 8 (1.67%) MCP
9 8 (1.67%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 7 (1.46%) Citrix Certification
11 5 (1.04%) CCA
11 5 (1.04%) MCTS
11 5 (1.04%) VCAP
11 5 (1.04%) VCP4
11 5 (1.04%) VCP5
12 4 (0.83%) NCSIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (3.54%) SLA
2 9 (1.88%) QA
3 7 (1.46%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 7 (1.46%) NCSC
4 5 (1.04%) PCI DSS
5 4 (0.83%) Government Security Classifications
6 3 (0.63%) COBIT
6 3 (0.63%) Cyber Essentials
7 1 (0.21%) Data Quality
7 1 (0.21%) Disclosure Scotland
7 1 (0.21%) GAMP
7 1 (0.21%) GDPR
7 1 (0.21%) HIPAA
7 1 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 20000
7 1 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
7 1 (0.21%) NIST
7 1 (0.21%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 1 (0.21%) SSAE 16
System Software
1 151 (31.46%) Active Directory
2 114 (23.75%) VMware Infrastructure
3 88 (18.33%) Docker
4 87 (18.13%) Hyper-V
5 49 (10.21%) VMware ESXi
6 42 (8.75%) vSphere
7 30 (6.25%) NFS
8 25 (5.21%) Virtual Desktop
9 21 (4.38%) XenDesktop
10 18 (3.75%) Microsoft App-V
11 17 (3.54%) XenApp
12 15 (3.13%) VMware NSX
13 13 (2.71%) DFS Replication
13 13 (2.71%) vCloud
14 11 (2.29%) Virtual Servers
14 11 (2.29%) VMFS
15 9 (1.88%) Citrix Hypervisor
15 9 (1.88%) Firmware
16 8 (1.67%) LXC
17 7 (1.46%) VirtualBox
Systems Management
1 80 (16.67%) Kubernetes
2 75 (15.63%) SCCM
3 73 (15.21%) Puppet
4 60 (12.50%) Ansible
5 49 (10.21%) Opscode Chef
6 46 (9.58%) SCVMM
7 45 (9.38%) Terraform
8 42 (8.75%) SCOM
9 39 (8.13%) vCenter Server
10 32 (6.67%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
11 31 (6.46%) Microsoft Clustering
12 26 (5.42%) WSUS
13 17 (3.54%) Failover Clustering
13 17 (3.54%) vRealize
14 14 (2.92%) SCDPM
15 13 (2.71%) Microsoft Intune
15 13 (2.71%) SCSM
15 13 (2.71%) vMotion
16 12 (2.50%) Host Intrusion Detection System
16 12 (2.50%) Network Intrusion Detection System
Vendors
1 182 (37.92%) Microsoft
2 141 (29.38%) VMware
3 53 (11.04%) Citrix
4 40 (8.33%) Oracle
5 37 (7.71%) Red Hat
6 35 (7.29%) Cisco
7 23 (4.79%) HP
8 22 (4.58%) Google
9 17 (3.54%) Dell
10 13 (2.71%) NetApp
11 12 (2.50%) EMC
12 10 (2.08%) Qualys
13 8 (1.67%) Databricks
13 8 (1.67%) Ivanti
13 8 (1.67%) Symantec
13 8 (1.67%) Veeam
14 7 (1.46%) McAfee
15 6 (1.25%) 3PAR
15 6 (1.25%) Apple
15 6 (1.25%) Splunk