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 25 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 645 511 528
Rank change year-on-year -134 +17 +41
Contract jobs citing Virtual Servers 25 39 33
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.047% 0.12% 0.085%
As % of the System Software category 0.47% 1.02% 0.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 18 35 20
10th Percentile £321 £425 £228
25th Percentile £388 £525 £317
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £456 £550 £463
Median % change year-on-year -17.05% +18.92% -11.90%
75th Percentile £566 £575 £584
90th Percentile £594 £604 £616
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £550 £375
% change year-on-year -18.18% +46.67% -28.57%

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 5,315 3,835 4,443
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.91% 11.71% 11.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,500 2,426 3,029
10th Percentile £219 £228 £220
25th Percentile £400 £385 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -2.44%
75th Percentile £590 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £499
% change year-on-year - -4.81% +5.05%
Number of hourly rates quoted 221 110 139
10th Percentile £15.81 £13.75 £14.06
25th Percentile £24.25 £18.87 £16.50
Median hourly rate £55.00 £31.39 £24.18
Median % change year-on-year +75.24% +29.80% -51.64%
75th Percentile £74.00 £79.68 £58.69
90th Percentile £85.00 £91.50 £71.65
UK excluding London median hourly rate £60.00 £63.50 £24.50
% change year-on-year -5.51% +159.18% -9.26%

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 25 August 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 11 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 25 August 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 -126 20 £450 -18.18% 14
London -67 13 £488 - 3
UK excluding London -117 10 £450 -18.18% 15
Scotland -12 4 £463 -11.90% 1
South East - 4 £538 - 10
Work from Home -68 3 £386 -14.17% 7
North West -39 1 £325 -31.58%
South West -43 1 £325 -44.09%
Midlands -62 1 - - 1
North of England -67 1 £325 -31.58%
West Midlands - 1 - - 1

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 1 (4.00%) Confluence
Business Applications
1 1 (4.00%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 8 (32.00%) Azure
2 7 (28.00%) AWS
3 3 (12.00%) IaaS
4 1 (4.00%) Amazon ECS
4 1 (4.00%) Amazon EKS
4 1 (4.00%) Amazon MSK
4 1 (4.00%) AWS Lambda
4 1 (4.00%) Azure DevOps
4 1 (4.00%) GitHub
4 1 (4.00%) Microsoft 365
4 1 (4.00%) OpenShift
4 1 (4.00%) Power Platform
4 1 (4.00%) Rubrik
4 1 (4.00%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 10 (40.00%) DNS
2 7 (28.00%) DHCP
3 4 (16.00%) Firewall
3 4 (16.00%) LAN
3 4 (16.00%) VPN
3 4 (16.00%) WAN
4 3 (12.00%) BIG-IP
4 3 (12.00%) Cisco Nexus
4 3 (12.00%) SSL
5 2 (8.00%) BGP
5 2 (8.00%) EIGRP
5 2 (8.00%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
5 2 (8.00%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
5 2 (8.00%) Network Security
5 2 (8.00%) OSPF
5 2 (8.00%) VXLAN
5 2 (8.00%) WLAN
6 1 (4.00%) Cisco IOS
6 1 (4.00%) VLAN
6 1 (4.00%) VRRP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (16.00%) SQL Server
2 1 (4.00%) PostgreSQL
2 1 (4.00%) Power BI
2 1 (4.00%) SQL Server Analysis Services
2 1 (4.00%) SQL Server Integration Services
2 1 (4.00%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 2 (8.00%) Sonatype Nexus
2 1 (4.00%) Git
2 1 (4.00%) JIRA
General
1 6 (24.00%) Social Skills
2 5 (20.00%) Analytical Skills
2 5 (20.00%) Finance
3 3 (12.00%) Documentation Skills
4 2 (8.00%) Banking
4 2 (8.00%) Military
4 2 (8.00%) Public Sector
5 1 (4.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 1 (4.00%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 8 (32.00%) Infrastructure Engineer
1 8 (32.00%) Senior
2 3 (12.00%) Lead
2 3 (12.00%) Network Engineer
2 3 (12.00%) Security Engineer
2 3 (12.00%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
2 3 (12.00%) Senior Network Engineer
3 2 (8.00%) Cloud Engineer
3 2 (8.00%) Implementation Engineer
3 2 (8.00%) IP Engineer
3 2 (8.00%) IP Network Engineer
3 2 (8.00%) IP Security Engineer
3 2 (8.00%) Lead Cloud Engineer
3 2 (8.00%) Network Security Engineer
3 2 (8.00%) Platform Engineer
3 2 (8.00%) Senior IP Engineer
3 2 (8.00%) Senior IP Network Engineer
3 2 (8.00%) Senior Network Security Engineer
3 2 (8.00%) Senior Security Engineer
3 2 (8.00%) Server Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (8.00%) 802.1X
1 2 (8.00%) Middleware
1 2 (8.00%) Terraform
Miscellaneous
1 5 (20.00%) Data Centre
2 4 (16.00%) Data Protection Act
2 4 (16.00%) Private Cloud
3 1 (4.00%) Cloud Native
3 1 (4.00%) Clustering
3 1 (4.00%) Distributed Systems
3 1 (4.00%) Enterprise Storage
3 1 (4.00%) Hybrid Cloud
3 1 (4.00%) Linux Command Line
3 1 (4.00%) Onboarding
3 1 (4.00%) PKI
3 1 (4.00%) Replication
3 1 (4.00%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 16 (64.00%) Linux
2 14 (56.00%) Windows
2 14 (56.00%) Windows Server
3 2 (8.00%) Windows Server 2016
3 2 (8.00%) Windows Server 2019
4 1 (4.00%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (4.00%) Unix
4 1 (4.00%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 12 (48.00%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 8 (32.00%) Problem-Solving
3 7 (28.00%) ITIL
3 7 (28.00%) Migration
3 7 (28.00%) Root Cause Analysis
3 7 (28.00%) Vulnerability Remediation
4 6 (24.00%) High Availability
4 6 (24.00%) Service Management
5 5 (20.00%) Cybersecurity
5 5 (20.00%) Data Protection
5 5 (20.00%) DevOps
5 5 (20.00%) Infrastructure as Code
5 5 (20.00%) Server Management
5 5 (20.00%) Validation
6 4 (16.00%) Mentoring
6 4 (16.00%) Patch Management
6 4 (16.00%) Platform Engineering
6 4 (16.00%) Runbook
6 4 (16.00%) Security Hardening
6 4 (16.00%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 9 (36.00%) PowerShell
2 5 (20.00%) Python
3 3 (12.00%) Bash
4 1 (4.00%) ActionScript
4 1 (4.00%) Perl
4 1 (4.00%) SQL
Qualifications
1 13 (52.00%) SC Cleared
1 13 (52.00%) Security Cleared
2 2 (8.00%) AWS Certification
2 2 (8.00%) Azure Certification
2 2 (8.00%) CCNP
2 2 (8.00%) Cisco Certification
2 2 (8.00%) Microsoft Certification
3 1 (4.00%) CCIE
3 1 (4.00%) Computer Science Degree
3 1 (4.00%) Degree
3 1 (4.00%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (8.00%) JSP 440
1 2 (8.00%) NCSC
1 2 (8.00%) SLA
1 2 (8.00%) SOC 2
2 1 (4.00%) QA
System Software
1 12 (48.00%) VMware Infrastructure
2 9 (36.00%) Active Directory
3 7 (28.00%) Hyper-V
3 7 (28.00%) vSphere
4 4 (16.00%) Microsoft Virtual Server
5 2 (8.00%) Virtual Desktop
6 1 (4.00%) Ceph
6 1 (4.00%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 5 (20.00%) Ansible
2 4 (16.00%) Microsoft Intune
2 4 (16.00%) SCCM
3 2 (8.00%) FortiGate
3 2 (8.00%) Kubernetes
4 1 (4.00%) Microsoft Clustering
4 1 (4.00%) SCOM
Vendors
1 12 (48.00%) VMware
2 8 (32.00%) Microsoft
3 4 (16.00%) Cisco
3 4 (16.00%) F5
4 3 (12.00%) Palo Alto
5 2 (8.00%) Ekahau
5 2 (8.00%) Fortinet
6 1 (4.00%) BMC
6 1 (4.00%) CheckPoint
6 1 (4.00%) Commvault
6 1 (4.00%) Infoblox
6 1 (4.00%) Red Hat
6 1 (4.00%) Remedy
6 1 (4.00%) SaltStack