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 7 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 409 333 316
Rank change year-on-year -76 -17 +45
Contract jobs citing Virtual Machines 173 221 329
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.48% 0.62% 0.72%
As % of the System Software category 3.89% 5.22% 5.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 121 142 218
10th Percentile £350 £350 £293
25th Percentile £425 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £588 £608 £605
90th Percentile £655 £674 £691
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £490 £525
% change year-on-year +7.14% -6.67% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 9 11
10th Percentile £60.73 £29.73 -
25th Percentile £66.69 £53.00 £73.09
Median hourly rate £70.00 £63.00 £78.73
Median % change year-on-year +11.11% -19.97% +12.46%
75th Percentile - £66.00 £89.38
90th Percentile - - £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £70.00 £63.00 £78.73
% change year-on-year +11.11% -19.97% +12.46%

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 4,445 4,230 5,762
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 12.25% 11.85% 12.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,931 2,722 3,918
10th Percentile £213 £208 £197
25th Percentile £400 £375 £359
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £589 £613 £613
90th Percentile £675 £706 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £475
% change year-on-year - - +3.71%
Number of hourly rates quoted 144 92 248
10th Percentile £15.50 £17.51 £15.33
25th Percentile £19.35 £21.41 £18.19
Median hourly rate £33.39 £30.50 £43.79
Median % change year-on-year +9.46% -30.35% +73.44%
75th Percentile £74.26 £65.00 £66.00
90th Percentile £91.50 £75.00 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £62.50 £34.33 £37.50
% change year-on-year +82.04% -8.45% +74.42%

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 7 December 2025.

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
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Virtual Machines over the 6 months to 7 December 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Virtual Machines in the UK

Virtual Machines
Top 14 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 7 December 2025. 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 -82 154 £525 +5.00% 67
UK excluding London -78 79 £525 +7.14% 59
London -14 73 £525 - 20
Work from Home +12 69 £531 +1.67% 31
North of England -39 23 £493 +12.05% 8
South West -9 20 £550 +1.85% 6
Yorkshire -34 20 £489 +11.14% 1
South East -36 19 £475 +25.00% 32
East of England -27 8 £475 -7.32% 7
Scotland +7 5 £525 +5.00% 3
Midlands -47 4 £508 +1.50% 5
North West -19 3 £500 +13.51% 7
West Midlands -40 3 £508 +1.50% 2
East Midlands -18 1 - - 3

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 15 (8.67%) Microsoft Exchange
2 6 (3.47%) IIS
3 5 (2.89%) Confluence
4 4 (2.31%) Apache
4 4 (2.31%) SharePoint
5 3 (1.73%) SharePoint Server
6 2 (1.16%) Ethereum
6 2 (1.16%) Hyperledger
6 2 (1.16%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.58%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.58%) Jupyter
7 1 (0.58%) nginx
7 1 (0.58%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 1 (0.58%) MS Visio
1 1 (0.58%) OmniGraffle
Cloud Services
1 71 (41.04%) Azure
2 27 (15.61%) GitHub
3 26 (15.03%) AWS
4 19 (10.98%) Azure DevOps
5 18 (10.40%) GitHub Actions
6 16 (9.25%) Entra ID
7 12 (6.94%) Cloud Computing
8 11 (6.36%) Microsoft 365
8 11 (6.36%) Serverless
9 10 (5.78%) OpenShift
10 9 (5.20%) Azure AKS
11 8 (4.62%) Azure Monitor
12 7 (4.05%) GCP
13 6 (3.47%) AWS CodePipeline
13 6 (3.47%) AWS Lambda
13 6 (3.47%) IaaS
14 5 (2.89%) Amazon ECS
14 5 (2.89%) AWS CloudFormation
14 5 (2.89%) Azure ExpressRoute
14 5 (2.89%) Azure Key Vault
Communications & Networking
1 39 (22.54%) Firewall
2 30 (17.34%) DNS
3 18 (10.40%) VPN
4 14 (8.09%) WAN
5 12 (6.94%) DHCP
6 7 (4.05%) Network Security
6 7 (4.05%) Skype
6 7 (4.05%) TCP/IP
6 7 (4.05%) Wi-Fi
7 5 (2.89%) Intrusion Detection
7 5 (2.89%) Reverse Proxy
7 5 (2.89%) SAN
7 5 (2.89%) VLAN
8 4 (2.31%) NAS
9 2 (1.16%) Modbus
9 2 (1.16%) VSAN
10 1 (0.58%) Cisco Wireless
10 1 (0.58%) MQTT
10 1 (0.58%) NX-OS
10 1 (0.58%) RTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (7.51%) SQL Server
2 10 (5.78%) PostgreSQL
3 8 (4.62%) Data Lake
4 6 (3.47%) Azure SQL Database
5 4 (2.31%) OLTP
6 3 (1.73%) Data Hub
6 3 (1.73%) Data Mining
7 2 (1.16%) Data Vault
7 2 (1.16%) ImageNet
8 1 (0.58%) Amazon RDS
8 1 (0.58%) Big Data
8 1 (0.58%) NoSQL
8 1 (0.58%) Oracle Database
8 1 (0.58%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 21 (12.14%) Git
2 19 (10.98%) JIRA
3 12 (6.94%) Jenkins
4 8 (4.62%) GitLab
5 4 (2.31%) PVCS
5 4 (2.31%) Rational DOORS
6 3 (1.73%) RStudio
7 2 (1.16%) Hardhat
7 2 (1.16%) Terragrunt
8 1 (0.58%) Artifactory
8 1 (0.58%) GDB
8 1 (0.58%) Robot Framework
8 1 (0.58%) Snyk
8 1 (0.58%) SonarQube
General
1 39 (22.54%) Social Skills
2 18 (10.40%) Public Sector
3 11 (6.36%) Analytical Skills
3 11 (6.36%) Finance
4 6 (3.47%) Documentation Skills
4 6 (3.47%) Spanish Language
4 6 (3.47%) Telecoms
5 5 (2.89%) Banking
5 5 (2.89%) Electronics
6 4 (2.31%) Law
7 3 (1.73%) Manufacturing
7 3 (1.73%) Social Science
8 1 (0.58%) Aerospace
8 1 (0.58%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 1 (0.58%) Influencing Skills
8 1 (0.58%) Italian Language
8 1 (0.58%) Legal
8 1 (0.58%) Police
8 1 (0.58%) Presentation Skills
8 1 (0.58%) Private Banking
Job Titles
1 20 (11.56%) DevOps Engineer
2 19 (10.98%) Senior
3 18 (10.40%) Security Engineer
4 17 (9.83%) Architect
5 15 (8.67%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 14 (8.09%) Azure Engineer
6 14 (8.09%) Platform Engineer
7 10 (5.78%) Software Engineer
8 9 (5.20%) Data Engineer
8 9 (5.20%) Technical Architect
9 8 (4.62%) C++ Software Engineer
9 8 (4.62%) Developer
9 8 (4.62%) Embedded C++ Engineer
9 8 (4.62%) Embedded C++ Software Engineer
9 8 (4.62%) Embedded Engineer
9 8 (4.62%) Embedded Software Engineer
10 7 (4.05%) Infrastructure Security Engineer
10 7 (4.05%) Site Engineer
10 7 (4.05%) Site Reliability Engineer
11 6 (3.47%) Cloud Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (5.20%) ARM Templates
2 8 (4.62%) Middleware
3 7 (4.05%) TensorFlow
4 6 (3.47%) Hugging Face
4 6 (3.47%) OpenCV
4 6 (3.47%) OpenTelemetry
4 6 (3.47%) PyTorch
4 6 (3.47%) Regular Expression
4 6 (3.47%) SpaCy
5 3 (1.73%) Kafka
5 3 (1.73%) YAML
6 2 (1.16%) .NET
6 2 (1.16%) Elastic Stack
6 2 (1.16%) Loki
6 2 (1.16%) RabbitMQ
6 2 (1.16%) RESTful
6 2 (1.16%) Smart Contracts
6 2 (1.16%) Truffle
6 2 (1.16%) Web Services
6 2 (1.16%) web3js
Miscellaneous
1 15 (8.67%) Data Centre
2 12 (6.94%) Private Cloud
3 9 (5.20%) Hybrid Cloud
4 8 (4.62%) Onboarding
4 8 (4.62%) Replication
5 7 (4.05%) Linux Command Line
5 7 (4.05%) Management Information System
6 6 (3.47%) CAN bus
6 6 (3.47%) Cloud Native
6 6 (3.47%) PKI
7 5 (2.89%) Public Cloud
7 5 (2.89%) Security Posture
8 4 (2.31%) Operational Technology
8 4 (2.31%) Self-Motivation
9 3 (1.73%) Algorithms
9 3 (1.73%) Analytical Mindset
9 3 (1.73%) Life Science
9 3 (1.73%) Product Ownership
9 3 (1.73%) Renewable Energy
9 3 (1.73%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 54 (31.21%) Windows
2 52 (30.06%) Linux
3 29 (16.76%) Windows Server
4 20 (11.56%) VMS
5 10 (5.78%) Windows 10
6 9 (5.20%) Windows Server 2016
7 4 (2.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 4 (2.31%) Windows Server 2012
8 3 (1.73%) Windows Server 2019
9 2 (1.16%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.58%) Apple iOS
10 1 (0.58%) SUSE
10 1 (0.58%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
10 1 (0.58%) Windows 7
10 1 (0.58%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 58 (33.53%) DevOps
2 51 (29.48%) CI/CD
3 42 (24.28%) Infrastructure as Code
4 36 (20.81%) Agile
5 31 (17.92%) Migration
6 25 (14.45%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 25 (14.45%) Problem-Solving
7 20 (11.56%) Cybersecurity
8 19 (10.98%) Analytics
9 17 (9.83%) Containerisation
9 17 (9.83%) High Availability
10 16 (9.25%) Platform Engineering
10 16 (9.25%) Technical Leadership
11 15 (8.67%) Information Security
12 14 (8.09%) Cloud Security
12 14 (8.09%) Continuous Improvement
12 14 (8.09%) Root Cause Analysis
13 13 (7.51%) Infrastructure Automation
13 13 (7.51%) Security Operations
14 12 (6.94%) Configuration Management
Programming Languages
1 37 (21.39%) Python
2 30 (17.34%) PowerShell
3 21 (12.14%) SQL
4 13 (7.51%) C++
5 12 (6.94%) Bash
5 12 (6.94%) Bicep
5 12 (6.94%) Java
6 9 (5.20%) C#
6 9 (5.20%) Embedded C++
7 7 (4.05%) Shell Script
8 5 (2.89%) C
8 5 (2.89%) Ruby
9 4 (2.31%) Scala
10 3 (1.73%) Embedded C
11 2 (1.16%) PHP
11 2 (1.16%) Solidity
12 1 (0.58%) Go
12 1 (0.58%) Korn
12 1 (0.58%) Swift
12 1 (0.58%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 50 (28.90%) Security Cleared
2 38 (21.97%) SC Cleared
3 13 (7.51%) Degree
4 12 (6.94%) DV Cleared
5 8 (4.62%) Azure Certification
6 5 (2.89%) BPSS Clearance
7 4 (2.31%) Computer Science Degree
7 4 (2.31%) OCP
7 4 (2.31%) Oracle Certification
7 4 (2.31%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
8 3 (1.73%) Cisco Certification
8 3 (1.73%) VCAP
9 2 (1.16%) AWS Certification
9 2 (1.16%) CCNA
9 2 (1.16%) CCNP
9 2 (1.16%) CISM
9 2 (1.16%) CISSP
9 2 (1.16%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 2 (1.16%) Master's Degree
10 1 (0.58%) CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (5.20%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 5 (2.89%) Accessibility
2 5 (2.89%) QA
3 4 (2.31%) NIST
3 4 (2.31%) SLA
4 3 (1.73%) Cyber Essentials
4 3 (1.73%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
5 2 (1.16%) GDPR
5 2 (1.16%) GRC
6 1 (0.58%) RMADS
System Software
1 39 (22.54%) Active Directory
1 39 (22.54%) VMware Infrastructure
2 15 (8.67%) Docker
3 12 (6.94%) vSphere
4 11 (6.36%) VMware NSX
5 10 (5.78%) VMware ESXi
6 9 (5.20%) Hyper-V
7 6 (3.47%) Virtual Desktop
8 3 (1.73%) Firmware
9 2 (1.16%) KVM
9 2 (1.16%) Xen
10 1 (0.58%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 49 (28.32%) Terraform
2 33 (19.08%) Kubernetes
3 23 (13.29%) vCenter Server
4 21 (12.14%) Ansible
5 13 (7.51%) SCCM
6 10 (5.78%) WSUS
7 9 (5.20%) Microsoft Intune
8 7 (4.05%) CASB
8 7 (4.05%) SCOrch
9 6 (3.47%) vRealize
10 4 (2.31%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 4 (2.31%) Rancher
10 4 (2.31%) vMotion
11 3 (1.73%) PowerCLI
12 2 (1.16%) Failover Clustering
12 2 (1.16%) NetApp OnCommand
12 2 (1.16%) Pacemaker
12 2 (1.16%) Prometheus
12 2 (1.16%) SCOM
12 2 (1.16%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 57 (32.95%) Microsoft
2 47 (27.17%) VMware
3 11 (6.36%) Cisco
4 9 (5.20%) Databricks
5 7 (4.05%) Oracle
6 6 (3.47%) IBM
6 6 (3.47%) Veeam
7 5 (2.89%) Dell
7 5 (2.89%) NetApp
7 5 (2.89%) Sophos
8 4 (2.31%) ANSYS
8 4 (2.31%) Pure Storage
8 4 (2.31%) Remedy
8 4 (2.31%) SolarWinds
9 3 (1.73%) F5
9 3 (1.73%) Rockwell
9 3 (1.73%) Tenable
10 2 (1.16%) Citrix
10 2 (1.16%) OpenAI
10 2 (1.16%) ServiceNow