Virtual Machines Contract Job Trends

Virtual Machine (VM)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring Virtual Machines skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 25 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 374 367 322
Rank change year-on-year -7 -45 -3
Contract jobs citing Virtual Machines 316 188 272
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.60% 0.57% 0.67%
As % of the System Software category 6.04% 4.89% 5.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 205 133 189
10th Percentile £371 £350 £332
25th Percentile £425 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £535
Median % change year-on-year - -6.54% +1.90%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £608
90th Percentile £650 £738 £670
UK excluding London median daily rate £487 £494 £575
% change year-on-year -1.42% -14.09% +9.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 4 21
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - £33.25 £14.06
Median hourly rate £26.00 £34.50 £14.63
Median % change year-on-year -24.64% +135.90% -77.84%
75th Percentile £30.50 £35.75 £15.19
90th Percentile £33.20 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.00 - £14.63
% change year-on-year - - -69.09%

All System Software Skills
UK

Virtual Machines falls under the System Software category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring system software skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for system software skills 5,230 3,847 4,602
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.87% 11.76% 11.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,444 2,469 3,188
10th Percentile £225 £225 £213
25th Percentile £400 £384 £378
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -3.85%
75th Percentile £590 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £688 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £500
% change year-on-year - -5.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 208 103 180
10th Percentile £13.97 £13.99 £14.06
25th Percentile £21.00 £17.33 £15.25
Median hourly rate £51.75 £30.00 £22.23
Median % change year-on-year +72.50% +34.98% -55.55%
75th Percentile £74.00 £75.60 £58.69
90th Percentile £80.78 £91.20 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £51.00 £57.50 £20.29
% change year-on-year -11.30% +183.46% -24.87%

Virtual Machines
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Virtual Machines relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Virtual Machines job vacancy trend in the UK

Virtual Machines
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Virtual Machines.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Virtual Machines

Virtual Machines
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Virtual Machines over the 6 months to 25 July 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Virtual Machines in the UK

Virtual Machines
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Virtual Machines.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Virtual Machines

Virtual Machines
Top 15 Contract Job 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 July 2026. 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 +8 293 £500 -0.20% 74
UK excluding London +17 183 £487 -1.42% 56
London -46 111 £525 -4.55% 28
North of England -9 95 £486 +17.88% 13
Work from Home -44 94 £500 - 38
Yorkshire -7 55 £500 +13.06% 5
South East -33 52 £475 -17.39% 22
North West -24 38 £476 +26.76% 8
Midlands -53 18 £487 +0.41% 4
South West -17 16 £540 -8.09% 5
West Midlands -57 12 £425 -7.61% 4
East Midlands -13 4 £500 -4.76%
East of England -16 4 £425 -19.12% 9
Scotland -22 4 - - 1
North East -42 2 £400 +10.34%

Virtual Machines
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities by Category

The following tables expand on the one above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. They cover the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each category:

Application Platforms
1 5 (1.58%) Confluence
1 5 (1.58%) SharePoint
2 3 (0.95%) Apache
2 3 (0.95%) Apache Spark
2 3 (0.95%) Microsoft Exchange
3 2 (0.63%) CMS
3 2 (0.63%) IIS
3 2 (0.63%) nginx
3 2 (0.63%) OpenStack
3 2 (0.63%) Palantir Foundry
3 2 (0.63%) Umbraco
4 1 (0.32%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (0.32%) ArcGIS
4 1 (0.32%) JBoss
4 1 (0.32%) WebLogic
Applications
1 5 (1.58%) Adobe Illustrator
1 5 (1.58%) Photoshop
2 2 (0.63%) Chatbot
2 2 (0.63%) InDesign
3 1 (0.32%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.32%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.32%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 2 (0.63%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.32%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 137 (43.35%) Azure
2 49 (15.51%) AWS
3 43 (13.61%) Entra ID
4 39 (12.34%) OpenShift
5 34 (10.76%) Azure DevOps
6 33 (10.44%) Azure Monitor
7 25 (7.91%) GitHub
8 24 (7.59%) Azure AKS
9 18 (5.70%) GCP
10 17 (5.38%) GitHub Actions
10 17 (5.38%) Serverless
11 15 (4.75%) IaaS
11 15 (4.75%) Microsoft 365
12 12 (3.80%) Azure Key Vault
13 11 (3.48%) Azure ExpressRoute
13 11 (3.48%) Azure Storage
14 10 (3.16%) Azure Functions
14 10 (3.16%) Nutanix
14 10 (3.16%) Power Platform
15 9 (2.85%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 44 (13.92%) DNS
2 39 (12.34%) Firewall
3 27 (8.54%) VPN
4 22 (6.96%) VLAN
5 21 (6.65%) Network Security
5 21 (6.65%) SSL
6 20 (6.33%) DHCP
7 17 (5.38%) WAN
8 16 (5.06%) VSAN
9 10 (3.16%) SD-WAN
10 8 (2.53%) FTP
10 8 (2.53%) SAN
11 7 (2.22%) LAN
11 7 (2.22%) SSH
12 6 (1.90%) TCP/IP
13 5 (1.58%) Wi-Fi
14 4 (1.27%) HTTPS
14 4 (1.27%) Reverse Proxy
15 3 (0.95%) Cisco Nexus
16 2 (0.63%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 32 (10.13%) SQL Server
2 11 (3.48%) PostgreSQL
3 10 (3.16%) Azure SQL Database
3 10 (3.16%) Power BI
4 8 (2.53%) Data Lake
4 8 (2.53%) MySQL
5 6 (1.90%) Db2
5 6 (1.90%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 3 (0.95%) Amazon Athena
6 3 (0.95%) Amazon Redshift
6 3 (0.95%) Apache Hive
6 3 (0.95%) Big Data
6 3 (0.95%) Data Warehouse
6 3 (0.95%) DynamoDB
6 3 (0.95%) Hadoop
6 3 (0.95%) Oracle Database
7 2 (0.63%) Relational Database
8 1 (0.32%) Neo4j
8 1 (0.32%) OpenStack Swift
8 1 (0.32%) Oracle Exadata
Development Applications
1 18 (5.70%) Git
2 16 (5.06%) Jenkins
3 13 (4.11%) GitLab
4 7 (2.22%) JIRA
5 3 (0.95%) Selenium
5 3 (0.95%) SonarQube
5 3 (0.95%) Terragrunt
6 2 (0.63%) JMeter
6 2 (0.63%) Postman
6 2 (0.63%) Sonatype Nexus
6 2 (0.63%) Team Foundation Server
7 1 (0.32%) PVCS
7 1 (0.32%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
7 1 (0.32%) Visual Studio
General
1 42 (13.29%) Social Skills
2 32 (10.13%) Finance
3 15 (4.75%) Legal
4 14 (4.43%) Banking
5 13 (4.11%) Analytical Skills
6 11 (3.48%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 10 (3.16%) Public Sector
8 7 (2.22%) Retail
9 6 (1.90%) Documentation Skills
9 6 (1.90%) Front Office
10 5 (1.58%) Manufacturing
11 4 (1.27%) Marketing
12 2 (0.63%) Law
12 2 (0.63%) Pharmaceutical
12 2 (0.63%) Publishing
13 1 (0.32%) Advertising
13 1 (0.32%) Aerospace
13 1 (0.32%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 39 (12.34%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 37 (11.71%) DevOps Engineer
3 35 (11.08%) Azure Engineer
4 27 (8.54%) Cloud Engineer
5 22 (6.96%) Senior
6 21 (6.65%) Lead
7 17 (5.38%) Analyst
8 16 (5.06%) Architect
9 13 (4.11%) Azure Infrastructure Engineer
9 13 (4.11%) Cloud Infrastructure Engineer
10 11 (3.48%) Consultant
11 10 (3.16%) Administrator
11 10 (3.16%) Linux Engineer
11 10 (3.16%) Technical Specialist
11 10 (3.16%) VMware Engineer
12 9 (2.85%) Wintel Engineer
13 8 (2.53%) Azure DevOps Engineer
13 8 (2.53%) DBA
13 8 (2.53%) Migration Engineer
13 8 (2.53%) Storage Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (3.80%) ARM Templates
2 9 (2.85%) REST
3 8 (2.53%) YAML
4 5 (1.58%) Middleware
5 3 (0.95%) Elastic Stack
5 3 (0.95%) JSON
6 2 (0.63%) Hugging Face
6 2 (0.63%) SOAP
7 1 (0.32%) .NET
7 1 (0.32%) Java SE
7 1 (0.32%) Kafka
7 1 (0.32%) LangChain
7 1 (0.32%) LDAP
7 1 (0.32%) OpenCV
7 1 (0.32%) Oracle GoldenGate
7 1 (0.32%) Pandas
7 1 (0.32%) Regular Expression
7 1 (0.32%) TensorFlow
7 1 (0.32%) vLLM
7 1 (0.32%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 30 (9.49%) Replication
2 21 (6.65%) Data Centre
3 20 (6.33%) Hybrid Cloud
4 19 (6.01%) Clustering
5 17 (5.38%) Linux Command Line
6 10 (3.16%) Cloud Native
6 10 (3.16%) Onboarding
7 8 (2.53%) PKI
7 8 (2.53%) Product Ownership
8 7 (2.22%) Mainframe
9 6 (1.90%) Enterprise Storage
9 6 (1.90%) Fixed Income
9 6 (1.90%) FlexPod
9 6 (1.90%) Market Risk
9 6 (1.90%) Operational Technology
10 5 (1.58%) Public Cloud
10 5 (1.58%) Security Posture
10 5 (1.58%) Self-Motivation
11 3 (0.95%) IBM XIV
11 3 (0.95%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 101 (31.96%) Windows
2 94 (29.75%) Linux
3 55 (17.41%) Windows Server
4 39 (12.34%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 33 (10.44%) VMS
6 11 (3.48%) Unix
7 9 (2.85%) AIX
8 8 (2.53%) CoreOS
8 8 (2.53%) Ubuntu
9 7 (2.22%) Data ONTAP
10 4 (1.27%) SUSE
11 3 (0.95%) Apple iOS
11 3 (0.95%) Windows Server 2016
11 3 (0.95%) Windows Server 2019
12 2 (0.63%) Windows Server 2012
13 1 (0.32%) Rocky
13 1 (0.32%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 83 (26.27%) DevOps
2 80 (25.32%) CI/CD
3 69 (21.84%) Migration
4 57 (18.04%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 55 (17.41%) Infrastructure as Code
6 43 (13.61%) Performance Tuning
7 41 (12.97%) High Availability
8 40 (12.66%) Disaster Recovery
9 33 (10.44%) Validation
10 31 (9.81%) Problem-Solving
10 31 (9.81%) RBAC
11 29 (9.18%) Continuous Improvement
11 29 (9.18%) Network Virtualisation
12 28 (8.86%) Vulnerability Management
13 25 (7.91%) Capacity Planning
13 25 (7.91%) Platform Engineering
14 23 (7.28%) Analytics
14 23 (7.28%) Runbook
14 23 (7.28%) Vulnerability Remediation
15 22 (6.96%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 90 (28.48%) PowerShell
2 75 (23.73%) Python
3 46 (14.56%) Bash
4 44 (13.92%) SQL
5 9 (2.85%) Bicep
6 7 (2.22%) C#
6 7 (2.22%) Shell Script
7 6 (1.90%) C
8 5 (1.58%) T-SQL
9 4 (1.27%) PL/SQL
10 3 (0.95%) Java
10 3 (0.95%) Korn
11 1 (0.32%) Cypher
11 1 (0.32%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 1 (0.32%) Go
11 1 (0.32%) Groovy
11 1 (0.32%) JavaScript
11 1 (0.32%) Kotlin
11 1 (0.32%) RPG
11 1 (0.32%) VBA
Qualifications
1 81 (25.63%) Security Cleared
2 64 (20.25%) SC Cleared
3 19 (6.01%) Azure Certification
4 16 (5.06%) Degree
4 16 (5.06%) Microsoft Certification
4 16 (5.06%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
5 11 (3.48%) VCAP
6 10 (3.16%) MCSA
6 10 (3.16%) MCSE
7 9 (2.85%) BPSS Clearance
7 9 (2.85%) OCP
7 9 (2.85%) Oracle Certification
8 6 (1.90%) Cisco Certification
8 6 (1.90%) DV Cleared
8 6 (1.90%) ISTQB
9 5 (1.58%) CCNA
9 5 (1.58%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
9 5 (1.58%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 4 (1.27%) CISSP
11 3 (0.95%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (3.80%) QA
2 4 (1.27%) SLA
3 2 (0.63%) GMP
3 2 (0.63%) GxP
3 2 (0.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 2 (0.63%) NIST
3 2 (0.63%) PCI DSS
4 1 (0.32%) Accessibility
4 1 (0.32%) Data Quality
4 1 (0.32%) GDPR
4 1 (0.32%) HIPAA
4 1 (0.32%) SOC 2
4 1 (0.32%) WCAG
System Software
1 94 (29.75%) VMware Infrastructure
2 50 (15.82%) vSphere
3 49 (15.51%) Active Directory
4 42 (13.29%) VMware ESXi
5 31 (9.81%) Hyper-V
6 28 (8.86%) Docker
7 19 (6.01%) KVM
8 12 (3.80%) VMware NSX
9 11 (3.48%) NFS
10 9 (2.85%) Firmware
11 7 (2.22%) Ceph
12 6 (1.90%) Virtual Desktop
13 3 (0.95%) EMC RecoverPoint
13 3 (0.95%) VMware Workstation
14 2 (0.63%) HDFS
14 2 (0.63%) Veritas Volume Manager
15 1 (0.32%) BitLocker
15 1 (0.32%) iptables
15 1 (0.32%) Oracle RAC
15 1 (0.32%) Samba
Systems Management
1 70 (22.15%) Terraform
2 58 (18.35%) Kubernetes
3 56 (17.72%) Ansible
4 34 (10.76%) vCenter Server
5 16 (5.06%) Grafana
6 15 (4.75%) PowerCLI
7 12 (3.80%) Prometheus
8 8 (2.53%) SCCM
8 8 (2.53%) SCOM
9 7 (2.22%) SnapMirror
10 6 (1.90%) IBM BigFix
10 6 (1.90%) Microsoft Intune
10 6 (1.90%) Podman
10 6 (1.90%) vMotion
10 6 (1.90%) VxRail
11 5 (1.58%) Proxmox
12 4 (1.27%) Argo
12 4 (1.27%) Avamar
12 4 (1.27%) Failover Clustering
12 4 (1.27%) Microsoft Clustering
Vendors
1 99 (31.33%) VMware
2 87 (27.53%) Microsoft
3 29 (9.18%) Cisco
4 22 (6.96%) ServiceNow
5 19 (6.01%) Oracle
5 19 (6.01%) Red Hat
6 17 (5.38%) NetApp
7 16 (5.06%) IBM
8 13 (4.11%) Dell
8 13 (4.11%) Google
9 11 (3.48%) Tenable
9 11 (3.48%) Veeam
10 10 (3.16%) Qualys
11 9 (2.85%) CyberArk
12 7 (2.22%) Commvault
12 7 (2.22%) Databricks
12 7 (2.22%) SolarWinds
12 7 (2.22%) Splunk
13 6 (1.90%) Palo Alto
14 5 (1.58%) Meraki