Virtual Servers Contract Job Trends

Virtual Servers
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring Virtual Servers skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 9 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 569 490 521
Rank change year-on-year -79 +31 +122
Contract jobs citing Virtual Servers 23 36 78
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.059% 0.12% 0.17%
As % of the System Software category 0.50% 0.96% 1.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 18 23 39
10th Percentile £344 £208 £206
25th Percentile £358 £281 £341
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £409 £413 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.85% -21.43% -
75th Percentile £556 £513 £600
90th Percentile £575 £606 £684
UK excluding London median daily rate £363 £406 £528
% change year-on-year -10.65% -22.99% +5.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 10
10th Percentile - - £16.00
25th Percentile - - -
Median hourly rate - - £40.00
75th Percentile - - -
90th Percentile - - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - £40.00

All System Software Skills
UK

Virtual Servers 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 4,631 3,761 5,213
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 11.88% 12.18% 11.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,159 2,433 3,569
10th Percentile £205 £200 £190
25th Percentile £400 £375 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £485
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% +6.19% -7.62%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £600
90th Percentile £688 £725 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £470 £450
% change year-on-year +1.06% +4.44% -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 141 91 254
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.50 £14.06
25th Percentile £20.82 £21.15 £17.72
Median hourly rate £41.94 £29.00 £43.75
Median % change year-on-year +44.62% -33.71% +13.64%
75th Percentile £72.54 £64.50 £65.98
90th Percentile £91.50 £75.00 £77.21
UK excluding London median hourly rate £48.11 £37.50 £46.18
% change year-on-year +28.29% -18.80% +92.42%

Virtual Servers
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Virtual Servers job vacancy trend in the UK

Virtual Servers
Daily Rate Trend

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

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

Virtual Servers
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Virtual Servers over the 6 months to 9 February 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Virtual Servers in the UK

Virtual Servers
Hourly Rate Trend

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

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

Virtual Servers
Top 9 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 Servers within the UK over the 6 months to 9 February 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 -81 18 £468 +16.88% 10
UK excluding London -81 14 £363 -10.65% 10
London -39 8 £450 +5.88%
Work from Home -7 7 £450 +63.64% 1
Scotland +10 5 £358 -20.44%
South West -20 5 £550 -11.11% 1
North West -24 2 £363 +68.84% 2
South East -25 2 £325 - 5
North of England -57 2 £363 +68.84% 2

Virtual Servers
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 6 (26.09%) Microsoft Exchange
2 5 (21.74%) SharePoint
2 5 (21.74%) Skype for Business
3 1 (4.35%) CMS
Applications
1 6 (26.09%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 11 (47.83%) Serverless
2 8 (34.78%) Amazon EC2
2 8 (34.78%) Amazon ECS
2 8 (34.78%) Amazon EKS
2 8 (34.78%) Amazon MSK
2 8 (34.78%) AWS
2 8 (34.78%) AWS CloudFormation
2 8 (34.78%) AWS Lambda
3 7 (30.43%) Virtual Private Cloud
4 3 (13.04%) IaaS
4 3 (13.04%) Microsoft 365
5 2 (8.70%) Azure
Communications & Networking
1 8 (34.78%) Firewall
2 7 (30.43%) DNS
3 5 (21.74%) DHCP
3 5 (21.74%) Skype
3 5 (21.74%) Unified Communications
4 3 (13.04%) Network Security
5 2 (8.70%) VSAN
6 1 (4.35%) LAN
6 1 (4.35%) VoIP
6 1 (4.35%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (34.78%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 8 (34.78%) Bitbucket
1 8 (34.78%) Git
1 8 (34.78%) GitLab
1 8 (34.78%) Jenkins
1 8 (34.78%) JIRA
1 8 (34.78%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 10 (43.48%) Banking
2 9 (39.13%) Social Skills
3 8 (34.78%) Finance
4 6 (26.09%) Analytical Skills
4 6 (26.09%) Public Sector
5 3 (13.04%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 1 (4.35%) Marketing
6 1 (4.35%) Police
Job Titles
1 6 (26.09%) DevOps Engineer
2 5 (21.74%) Wintel Engineer
3 3 (13.04%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 3 (13.04%) Migration Engineer
3 3 (13.04%) Support Engineer
4 2 (8.70%) Cloud Engineer
4 2 (8.70%) Senior
4 2 (8.70%) Senior DevOps
4 2 (8.70%) Senior DevOps Engineer
5 1 (4.35%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
5 1 (4.35%) Audio Visual Engineer
5 1 (4.35%) AWS DevOps
5 1 (4.35%) AWS DevOps Engineer
5 1 (4.35%) AWS Engineer
5 1 (4.35%) Network Engineer
5 1 (4.35%) Network Security Engineer
5 1 (4.35%) Security Engineer
5 1 (4.35%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (34.78%) Node.js
2 1 (4.35%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 5 (21.74%) PKI
2 2 (8.70%) Data Protection Act
3 1 (4.35%) Digital Signage
3 1 (4.35%) Graphic Design
3 1 (4.35%) iPhone
Operating Systems
1 14 (60.87%) Windows
2 12 (52.17%) Linux
3 11 (47.83%) Windows Server
4 3 (13.04%) Windows 10
5 1 (4.35%) Windows Server 2012
5 1 (4.35%) Windows Server 2016
5 1 (4.35%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 11 (47.83%) DevOps
2 8 (34.78%) Microservices
3 7 (30.43%) Service Management
4 5 (21.74%) Computer Science
4 5 (21.74%) Critical Thinking
4 5 (21.74%) ITIL
4 5 (21.74%) System Testing
5 4 (17.39%) CI/CD
5 4 (17.39%) Continuous Integration
5 4 (17.39%) Migration
6 3 (13.04%) Continuous Delivery
6 3 (13.04%) Infrastructure Automation
6 3 (13.04%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 3 (13.04%) Performance Testing
6 3 (13.04%) Roadmaps
6 3 (13.04%) Secrets Management
6 3 (13.04%) Technology Roadmap
6 3 (13.04%) Test Automation
7 2 (8.70%) Infrastructure Monitoring
7 2 (8.70%) Software Delivery
Programming Languages
1 16 (69.57%) PowerShell
2 8 (34.78%) Java
2 8 (34.78%) Perl
2 8 (34.78%) Python
2 8 (34.78%) Ruby
3 5 (21.74%) SQL
4 1 (4.35%) JavaScript
Qualifications
1 8 (34.78%) AWS Certification
2 7 (30.43%) Degree
2 7 (30.43%) Security Cleared
3 5 (21.74%) CCNA
3 5 (21.74%) CCNP
3 5 (21.74%) Cisco Certification
3 5 (21.74%) ITIL Certification
3 5 (21.74%) Master's Degree
3 5 (21.74%) MCSE
3 5 (21.74%) Microsoft Certification
3 5 (21.74%) SC Cleared
4 2 (8.70%) DV Cleared
5 1 (4.35%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
5 1 (4.35%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (4.35%) Disclosure Scotland
System Software
1 8 (34.78%) Active Directory
1 8 (34.78%) Docker
2 7 (30.43%) VMware Infrastructure
3 6 (26.09%) Microsoft Virtual Server
4 2 (8.70%) NFS
4 2 (8.70%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 8 (34.78%) Kubernetes
2 5 (21.74%) SCCM
2 5 (21.74%) WSUS
3 3 (13.04%) Terraform
4 2 (8.70%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 7 (30.43%) VMware
2 6 (26.09%) Microsoft
2 6 (26.09%) Oracle
3 5 (21.74%) Cisco
3 5 (21.74%) SolarWinds
3 5 (21.74%) Splunk
3 5 (21.74%) Veeam
4 1 (4.35%) F5
4 1 (4.35%) ServiceNow