Virtual Machines Contracts

Virtual Machine (VM)
UK

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 5 May 2024 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
5 May 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 322 329 405
Rank change year-on-year +7 +76 -10
Contract jobs citing Virtual Machines 290 460 577
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.67% 0.78% 0.65%
As % of the System Software category 6.22% 5.92% 4.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 194 312 383
10th Percentile £302 £363 £350
25th Percentile £400 £461 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £507 £539 £525
Median % change year-on-year -5.99% +2.62% +5.00%
75th Percentile £608 £588 £625
90th Percentile £675 £693 £713
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £525 £500
% change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% +11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 28 19 11
10th Percentile - £23.96 £11.49
25th Percentile £14.06 £28.25 £34.25
Median hourly rate £14.63 £66.00 £50.77
Median % change year-on-year -77.84% +30.00% +19.46%
75th Percentile £15.19 £70.13 £83.88
90th Percentile £88.75 £78.00 £84.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £14.63 £64.50 £66.64
% change year-on-year -77.33% -3.20% +51.44%

All System Software Skills
UK

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.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for system software skills 4,664 7,771 11,994
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.81% 13.16% 13.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,192 5,549 8,597
10th Percentile £200 £204 £200
25th Percentile £338 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -5.71% - +7.69%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £625
90th Percentile £688 £725 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £460 £480 £450
% change year-on-year -4.17% +6.67% +6.16%
Number of hourly rates quoted 233 277 320
10th Percentile £14.06 £15.23 £13.24
25th Percentile £15.50 £18.25 £15.00
Median hourly rate £22.50 £54.00 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year -58.33% +170.00% -
75th Percentile £60.75 £66.00 £45.85
90th Percentile £79.60 £75.20 £61.09
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.98 £44.93 £18.12
% change year-on-year -53.31% +148.01% +2.49%

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 5 May 2024.

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 5 May 2024.

Hourly rate histogram for Virtual Machines in the UK

Virtual Machines
Top 15 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 5 May 2024. 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 +32 270 £513 -5.62% 117
UK excluding London -2 135 £500 -4.76% 77
London +58 117 £535 -2.73% 48
Work from Home +23 104 £500 -8.26% 58
South East +11 48 £538 -2.27% 23
North of England +39 42 £588 +11.90% 13
Yorkshire +37 27 £340 -35.24% 5
North West +18 15 £618 +19.95% 6
East of England +8 14 £602 +20.40% 9
South West +16 13 £439 -14.30% 16
Midlands +12 13 £400 +6.67% 13
West Midlands +10 11 £400 +6.67% 5
Scotland +11 4 £444 -12.39% 4
East Midlands +15 2 £325 -38.10% 8
Wales +14 1 £425 -19.05% 1

Virtual Machines
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 31 (10.69%) Microsoft Exchange
2 27 (9.31%) OpenStack
3 9 (3.10%) Confluence
4 7 (2.41%) IIS
5 6 (2.07%) nginx
6 5 (1.72%) Apache
7 3 (1.03%) SharePoint
8 2 (0.69%) CICS
8 2 (0.69%) Tomcat
9 1 (0.34%) CMS
9 1 (0.34%) Umbraco
Applications
1 6 (2.07%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.34%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 3 (1.03%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 125 (43.10%) Azure
2 53 (18.28%) Entra ID
3 41 (14.14%) Microsoft 365
4 39 (13.45%) AWS
5 27 (9.31%) Azure DevOps
6 26 (8.97%) Azure Storage
7 23 (7.93%) PaaS
8 22 (7.59%) Azure Monitor
9 17 (5.86%) Azure Logic Apps
9 17 (5.86%) IaaS
9 17 (5.86%) Power Platform
10 12 (4.14%) Azure Key Vault
10 12 (4.14%) Serverless
11 10 (3.45%) Azure Cosmos DB
11 10 (3.45%) GCP
11 10 (3.45%) Slack
12 9 (3.10%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 8 (2.76%) Azure Data Factory
13 8 (2.76%) GitHub
13 8 (2.76%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 60 (20.69%) Firewall
2 53 (18.28%) DNS
3 40 (13.79%) DHCP
4 24 (8.28%) VPN
5 16 (5.52%) TCP/IP
6 11 (3.79%) Network Security
7 9 (3.10%) Wi-Fi
8 7 (2.41%) Remote Desktop
9 6 (2.07%) IPsec
10 5 (1.72%) BGP
10 5 (1.72%) NAS
10 5 (1.72%) SAN
10 5 (1.72%) WAN
11 4 (1.38%) Internet
11 4 (1.38%) OpenLDAP
12 3 (1.03%) LAN
12 3 (1.03%) MPLS
12 3 (1.03%) SD-WAN
13 2 (0.69%) 5G
13 2 (0.69%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (7.24%) SQL Server
2 17 (5.86%) Azure SQL Database
3 16 (5.52%) Power BI
4 15 (5.17%) Elasticsearch
5 10 (3.45%) PostgreSQL
6 8 (2.76%) Data Lake
6 8 (2.76%) Oracle Database
7 6 (2.07%) Amazon RDS
7 6 (2.07%) NoSQL
7 6 (2.07%) Redis
8 5 (1.72%) Couchbase
9 4 (1.38%) Amazon Redshift
9 4 (1.38%) MongoDB
9 4 (1.38%) Relational Database
10 2 (0.69%) DB2
10 2 (0.69%) Metadata
10 2 (0.69%) MySQL
10 2 (0.69%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 1 (0.34%) Data Warehouse
11 1 (0.34%) Scylla
Development Applications
1 23 (7.93%) Jenkins
2 20 (6.90%) Git
3 18 (6.21%) GitLab
4 11 (3.79%) JIRA
5 8 (2.76%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
6 7 (2.41%) Artifactory
6 7 (2.41%) Visual Studio
7 5 (1.72%) Selenium
8 4 (1.38%) Bitbucket
8 4 (1.38%) CppUnit
8 4 (1.38%) PVCS
8 4 (1.38%) Rational DOORS
9 2 (0.69%) JMeter
9 2 (0.69%) LoadRunner
9 2 (0.69%) Maven
9 2 (0.69%) Terragrunt
10 1 (0.34%) Gradle
10 1 (0.34%) IntelliJ
10 1 (0.34%) JUnit
10 1 (0.34%) Spinnaker
General
1 81 (27.93%) Social Skills
2 39 (13.45%) Finance
3 26 (8.97%) Public Sector
4 16 (5.52%) Banking
5 10 (3.45%) Financial Institution
5 10 (3.45%) Telecoms
6 9 (3.10%) Documentation Skills
7 8 (2.76%) Electronics
8 6 (2.07%) German Language
9 5 (1.72%) Analytical Skills
10 4 (1.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 4 (1.38%) Local Government
11 3 (1.03%) Aerospace
11 3 (1.03%) Front Office
11 3 (1.03%) Manufacturing
11 3 (1.03%) Marketing
11 3 (1.03%) Retail
12 2 (0.69%) Legal
13 1 (0.34%) Automotive
13 1 (0.34%) Billing
Job Titles
1 41 (14.14%) Architect
2 29 (10.00%) Senior
3 22 (7.59%) Azure Engineer
3 22 (7.59%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 19 (6.55%) Developer
5 18 (6.21%) DevOps Engineer
6 16 (5.52%) Active Directory Support
7 15 (5.17%) Azure Specialist
7 15 (5.17%) Support Specialist
8 14 (4.83%) Active Directory Specialist
8 14 (4.83%) Analyst
8 14 (4.83%) Lead
9 12 (4.14%) Cloud Engineer
10 10 (3.45%) Azure Architect
10 10 (3.45%) Azure DevOps Engineer
10 10 (3.45%) Software Engineer
11 9 (3.10%) Linux Engineer
11 9 (3.10%) Network Engineer
11 9 (3.10%) Platform Engineer
11 9 (3.10%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (8.28%) ARM Templates
2 19 (6.55%) Elastic Stack
3 18 (6.21%) XML
4 15 (5.17%) .NET
5 10 (3.45%) JSON
5 10 (3.45%) YAML
6 8 (2.76%) Web Services
7 7 (2.41%) http4s
7 7 (2.41%) Microsoft Graph
7 7 (2.41%) REST
8 6 (2.07%) Lambda Expressions
8 6 (2.07%) LDAP
8 6 (2.07%) Spring
9 5 (1.72%) LAPP Stack
9 5 (1.72%) Node.js
9 5 (1.72%) RESTful
10 4 (1.38%) ASP.NET
10 4 (1.38%) JWT
10 4 (1.38%) pytest
10 4 (1.38%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 25 (8.62%) PKI
2 21 (7.24%) Driving Licence
2 21 (7.24%) Self-Motivation
3 19 (6.55%) Data Centre
4 14 (4.83%) Public Cloud
5 10 (3.45%) Management Information System
5 10 (3.45%) Onboarding
6 9 (3.10%) Linux Command Line
7 6 (2.07%) Distributed Architecture
7 6 (2.07%) Distributed Systems
8 5 (1.72%) Replication
9 4 (1.38%) Contactless
9 4 (1.38%) Data Protection Act
9 4 (1.38%) Hybrid Cloud
9 4 (1.38%) Team-Oriented Environment
9 4 (1.38%) Video\Live Streaming
10 3 (1.03%) Cyber Threat
10 3 (1.03%) Private Cloud
11 2 (0.69%) Data Structures
11 2 (0.69%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 96 (33.10%) Linux
2 89 (30.69%) Windows
3 40 (13.79%) Windows Server
4 28 (9.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 24 (8.28%) VMS
5 24 (8.28%) Windows Server 2016
5 24 (8.28%) Windows Server 2019
6 20 (6.90%) CentOS
7 13 (4.48%) Windows 10
8 11 (3.79%) Unix
9 8 (2.76%) Ubuntu
10 7 (2.41%) Windows 7
11 6 (2.07%) Oracle Linux
11 6 (2.07%) Solaris
12 5 (1.72%) Mac OS
12 5 (1.72%) Windows Server 2012
13 4 (1.38%) Alpine Linux
13 4 (1.38%) Embedded Linux
14 2 (0.69%) Mac OS X
14 2 (0.69%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 77 (26.55%) CI/CD
2 64 (22.07%) DevOps
3 60 (20.69%) Agile
4 56 (19.31%) Infrastructure as Code
5 52 (17.93%) Migration
6 29 (10.00%) Analytics
6 29 (10.00%) Disaster Recovery
6 29 (10.00%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 29 (10.00%) ITIL
7 25 (8.62%) Problem-Solving
7 25 (8.62%) RBAC
8 24 (8.28%) Computer Science
8 24 (8.28%) Release Management
9 23 (7.93%) High Availability
10 22 (7.59%) Containerisation
11 21 (7.24%) Multi-Factor Authentication
12 19 (6.55%) Business Intelligence
12 19 (6.55%) Log Analytics
12 19 (6.55%) Scrum
13 18 (6.21%) Identity Management
Programming Languages
1 54 (18.62%) SQL
2 50 (17.24%) Python
3 49 (16.90%) PowerShell
4 28 (9.66%) Bicep
5 22 (7.59%) C#
6 21 (7.24%) Java
6 21 (7.24%) Shell Script
6 21 (7.24%) VB
7 17 (5.86%) VBScript
8 13 (4.48%) Bash
9 10 (3.45%) C++
10 9 (3.10%) Scala
11 7 (2.41%) Go
12 4 (1.38%) C
13 3 (1.03%) Kotlin
13 3 (1.03%) PHP
13 3 (1.03%) Ruby
13 3 (1.03%) VB.NET
14 2 (0.69%) Kusto Query Language
15 1 (0.34%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 65 (22.41%) Security Cleared
2 53 (18.28%) Degree
3 49 (16.90%) SC Cleared
4 30 (10.34%) DV Cleared
5 18 (6.21%) Azure Certification
6 17 (5.86%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
7 15 (5.17%) Computer Science Degree
8 9 (3.10%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 7 (2.41%) CCNA
9 7 (2.41%) Cisco Certification
10 6 (2.07%) AWS Certification
11 5 (1.72%) Microsoft Certification
12 4 (1.38%) A+ Certification
12 4 (1.38%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
12 4 (1.38%) ITIL Certification
12 4 (1.38%) Network+ Certification
13 3 (1.03%) CCNP
13 3 (1.03%) ISEB
13 3 (1.03%) ISTQB
14 2 (0.69%) GCIA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (4.83%) QA
2 7 (2.41%) SLA
3 3 (1.03%) ISO 9001
3 3 (1.03%) ISO/IEC 20000
4 2 (0.69%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials
5 1 (0.34%) Data Quality
5 1 (0.34%) Def Stans
5 1 (0.34%) Disclosure Scotland
5 1 (0.34%) GDPR
5 1 (0.34%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 1 (0.34%) NIST
System Software
1 86 (29.66%) Active Directory
2 47 (16.21%) VMware Infrastructure
3 23 (7.93%) Docker
4 18 (6.21%) Hyper-V
5 17 (5.86%) Virtual Desktop
6 15 (5.17%) KVM
7 14 (4.83%) vSphere
8 8 (2.76%) Firmware
8 8 (2.76%) VMware ESXi
9 7 (2.41%) VMware Workstation
10 4 (1.38%) VirtualBox
11 3 (1.03%) VMware NSX
12 2 (0.69%) Ceph
12 2 (0.69%) PowerDNS
12 2 (0.69%) Terminal Services
12 2 (0.69%) Veritas Cluster Server
12 2 (0.69%) VMware Server
13 1 (0.34%) iptables
13 1 (0.34%) LXC
13 1 (0.34%) RACF
Systems Management
1 52 (17.93%) Kubernetes
2 43 (14.83%) Terraform
3 36 (12.41%) Ansible
4 26 (8.97%) WSUS
5 24 (8.28%) Grafana
5 24 (8.28%) Prometheus
6 23 (7.93%) Microsoft Intune
7 22 (7.59%) SCCM
8 19 (6.55%) SCOM
9 17 (5.86%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 15 (5.17%) Single Sign-On
11 14 (4.83%) Kibana
11 14 (4.83%) logstash
11 14 (4.83%) vCenter Server
12 5 (1.72%) ZABBIX
13 4 (1.38%) Packer
14 3 (1.03%) Nessus
15 2 (0.69%) Pacemaker
15 2 (0.69%) QRadar
15 2 (0.69%) vRealize
Vendors
1 82 (28.28%) Microsoft
2 56 (19.31%) VMware
3 22 (7.59%) Red Hat
4 21 (7.24%) Oracle
5 20 (6.90%) BT
5 20 (6.90%) Virgin Media
6 13 (4.48%) Google
7 9 (3.10%) Amdocs
7 9 (3.10%) Dell
8 8 (2.76%) CA
8 8 (2.76%) Cisco
8 8 (2.76%) Okta
9 7 (2.41%) Palo Alto
10 5 (1.72%) SEEBURGER
11 4 (1.38%) Roku
11 4 (1.38%) SAP
12 3 (1.03%) Databricks
12 3 (1.03%) F5
12 3 (1.03%) Juniper
12 3 (1.03%) New Relic