VMS Contracts

VMS
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring VMS skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited VMS over the 6 months leading up to 30 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 455 479 545
Rank change year-on-year +24 +66 +85
Contract jobs citing VMS 74 109 150
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.26% 0.25% 0.27%
As % of the Operating Systems category 1.85% 1.89% 1.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 51 74 109
10th Percentile £313 £328 £410
25th Percentile £413 £376 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £448 £600
Median % change year-on-year +17.32% -25.42% +14.29%
75th Percentile £575 £573 £800
90th Percentile £689 £650 £847
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £500 £550
% change year-on-year +10.00% -9.09% -7.37%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 5 2
10th Percentile - - £55.75
25th Percentile £78.75 - £60.63
Median hourly rate £82.50 £25.25 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +226.73% -63.93% +6.06%
75th Percentile £86.25 - £78.13
90th Percentile - £34.25 £82.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £82.50 £25.25 £55.00
% change year-on-year +226.73% -54.09% +29.41%

All Operating Systems
UK

VMS falls under the Operating Systems category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring operating system skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for operating system skills 3,995 5,778 9,066
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 13.81% 13.46% 16.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,635 3,897 6,310
10th Percentile £200 £185 £189
25th Percentile £313 £300 £338
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £467 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.68% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £588 £638
90th Percentile £688 £700 £718
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £465
% change year-on-year - -3.23% +9.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 177 406 393
10th Percentile £15.12 £12.75 £13.38
25th Percentile £17.44 £15.50 £18.03
Median hourly rate £22.00 £22.50 £44.11
Median % change year-on-year -2.22% -48.99% +100.50%
75th Percentile £49.75 £61.56 £65.00
90th Percentile £68.00 £70.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £18.94 £22.50 £39.60
% change year-on-year -15.84% -43.18% +98.00%

VMS
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing VMS as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for VMS in the UK

VMS
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing VMS.

Daily rate trend for VMS in the UK

VMS
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing VMS over the 6 months to 30 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for VMS in the UK

VMS
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing VMS.

Hourly rate trend for VMS in the UK

VMS
Top 16 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing VMS within the UK over the 6 months to 30 May 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 +29 69 £531 +11.79% 389
UK excluding London +38 42 £550 +10.00% 398
Work from Home +45 26 £540 -0.69% 207
London +27 26 £438 -1.46% 49
Midlands +26 14 £551 -32.18% 78
North of England +7 14 £525 -6.67% 88
West Midlands +25 13 £551 -44.90% 42
North West +15 12 £525 +5.00% 46
South East +51 7 £625 +4.17% 100
South West +35 3 £550 +25.22% 45
East of England +34 2 £450 +100.00% 71
East Midlands +10 1 - - 32
Yorkshire +8 1 £275 -53.19% 35
Wales +4 1 - - 18
Scotland +3 1 £350 -2.23% 15
North East - 1 £350 - 8

VMS
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 10 (13.51%) SharePoint
2 9 (12.16%) Microsoft Exchange
3 5 (6.76%) Confluence
4 3 (4.05%) Skype for Business
5 2 (2.70%) IBM Domino
6 1 (1.35%) Anypoint
6 1 (1.35%) Apache Airflow
6 1 (1.35%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 11 (14.86%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 32 (43.24%) Azure
2 16 (21.62%) Entra ID
3 15 (20.27%) Microsoft 365
4 10 (13.51%) GitHub
5 5 (6.76%) Azure DevOps
6 4 (5.41%) AWS
6 4 (5.41%) OpenShift
7 3 (4.05%) Azure Storage
7 3 (4.05%) GCP
7 3 (4.05%) IaaS
7 3 (4.05%) SAP Fieldglass
8 2 (2.70%) Azure App Service
8 2 (2.70%) Azure Data Factory
8 2 (2.70%) Azure Key Vault
9 1 (1.35%) Amazon ELB
9 1 (1.35%) Amazon Glacier
9 1 (1.35%) AWS KMS
9 1 (1.35%) Azure Machine Learning
9 1 (1.35%) Serverless
9 1 (1.35%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 13 (17.57%) DNS
2 10 (13.51%) DHCP
3 6 (8.11%) iSCSI
3 6 (8.11%) SAN
4 5 (6.76%) Firewall
4 5 (6.76%) VPN
5 4 (5.41%) VoIP
6 3 (4.05%) Skype
7 2 (2.70%) Kerberos
8 1 (1.35%) 5G
8 1 (1.35%) FTP
8 1 (1.35%) HTTP
8 1 (1.35%) Network Security
8 1 (1.35%) SMTP
8 1 (1.35%) SSH
8 1 (1.35%) Structured Cabling
8 1 (1.35%) VSAN
8 1 (1.35%) Wi-Fi
8 1 (1.35%) Wireless
8 1 (1.35%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (9.46%) SQL Server
2 4 (5.41%) MySQL
3 2 (2.70%) Oracle Database
3 2 (2.70%) Oracle Database 12c
4 1 (1.35%) Amazon RDS
4 1 (1.35%) Azure SQL Database
4 1 (1.35%) Big Data
4 1 (1.35%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 8 (10.81%) Jenkins
2 5 (6.76%) Git
2 5 (6.76%) JIRA
3 2 (2.70%) Bitbucket
4 1 (1.35%) Artifactory
4 1 (1.35%) Vagrant
General
1 10 (13.51%) Public Sector
2 8 (10.81%) Finance
2 8 (10.81%) Social Skills
3 4 (5.41%) Military
4 3 (4.05%) Financial Institution
5 2 (2.70%) Analytical Skills
5 2 (2.70%) Documentation Skills
5 2 (2.70%) Telecoms
6 1 (1.35%) Aviation
6 1 (1.35%) Banking
6 1 (1.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 1 (1.35%) Law
6 1 (1.35%) Local Government
6 1 (1.35%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 9 (12.16%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
2 8 (10.81%) DevOps Engineer
3 6 (8.11%) Systems Engineer
4 5 (6.76%) Azure Engineer
4 5 (6.76%) Senior
5 4 (5.41%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 4 (5.41%) SAP Engineer
5 4 (5.41%) Support Engineer
6 3 (4.05%) 2nd Line Engineer
6 3 (4.05%) 2nd Line Support
6 3 (4.05%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
6 3 (4.05%) Administrator
6 3 (4.05%) Architect
6 3 (4.05%) Linux Engineer
6 3 (4.05%) Voice Engineer
7 2 (2.70%) Azure DevOps Engineer
7 2 (2.70%) Cloud Engineer
7 2 (2.70%) Control Systems Engineer
7 2 (2.70%) Lead
7 2 (2.70%) VMS Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (2.70%) Flash
1 2 (2.70%) LDAP
1 2 (2.70%) Middleware
1 2 (2.70%) Qt
2 1 (1.35%) ADO
2 1 (1.35%) Anaconda
2 1 (1.35%) Node.js
2 1 (1.35%) OAuth
2 1 (1.35%) React
2 1 (1.35%) STL
2 1 (1.35%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 10 (13.51%) CSOC
2 4 (5.41%) Clustering
3 3 (4.05%) PKI
4 2 (2.70%) CCTV
4 2 (2.70%) Cloud Native
4 2 (2.70%) GNSS
4 2 (2.70%) Hedge funds
4 2 (2.70%) Replication
4 2 (2.70%) SCADA
5 1 (1.35%) Algorithms
5 1 (1.35%) CESG
5 1 (1.35%) Data Structures
5 1 (1.35%) Driving Licence
5 1 (1.35%) Enterprise Software
5 1 (1.35%) Fibre Optics
5 1 (1.35%) IoT
5 1 (1.35%) Legacy Applications
5 1 (1.35%) Legacy Systems
5 1 (1.35%) Private Cloud
5 1 (1.35%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 30 (40.54%) Windows
2 24 (32.43%) Linux
3 13 (17.57%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 13 (17.57%) Windows Server
4 4 (5.41%) Windows 10
5 3 (4.05%) Windows Server 2012
6 2 (2.70%) Android
6 2 (2.70%) Apple iOS
6 2 (2.70%) OpenVMS
7 1 (1.35%) Amazon Linux
7 1 (1.35%) CentOS
7 1 (1.35%) Oracle Linux
7 1 (1.35%) Ubuntu
7 1 (1.35%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 22 (29.73%) DevOps
2 19 (25.68%) Agile
3 17 (22.97%) ITIL
4 14 (18.92%) ITSM
5 13 (17.57%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 11 (14.86%) Containerisation
6 11 (14.86%) Infrastructure as Code
7 10 (13.51%) CI/CD
7 10 (13.51%) Event Correlation
7 10 (13.51%) SIEM
8 8 (10.81%) Collaborative Working
8 8 (10.81%) High Availability
9 7 (9.46%) Configuration Management
9 7 (9.46%) Problem-Solving
10 6 (8.11%) Migration
10 6 (8.11%) Storage Management
10 6 (8.11%) Waterfall
11 5 (6.76%) Runbook
12 4 (5.41%) Storage Virtualisation
12 4 (5.41%) Translating Business Requirements
Programming Languages
1 13 (17.57%) Python
2 9 (12.16%) Bash
2 9 (12.16%) SQL
3 5 (6.76%) PowerShell
4 2 (2.70%) C
4 2 (2.70%) C#
4 2 (2.70%) C++
4 2 (2.70%) COBOL
4 2 (2.70%) Java
4 2 (2.70%) R
5 1 (1.35%) Bicep
5 1 (1.35%) Groovy
5 1 (1.35%) Perl
5 1 (1.35%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 24 (32.43%) Security Cleared
2 20 (27.03%) SC Cleared
3 6 (8.11%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
4 4 (5.41%) Microsoft Certification
5 3 (4.05%) Azure Certification
5 3 (4.05%) Degree
5 3 (4.05%) DV Cleared
6 2 (2.70%) CCNA
6 2 (2.70%) CCNP
6 2 (2.70%) Cisco Certification
6 2 (2.70%) Master's Degree
6 2 (2.70%) MCSA
6 2 (2.70%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (2.70%) SLA
2 1 (1.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 1 (1.35%) JSP 440
2 1 (1.35%) NIST
System Software
1 19 (25.68%) Active Directory
2 12 (16.22%) VMware Infrastructure
3 11 (14.86%) Docker
4 10 (13.51%) Virtual Machines
5 7 (9.46%) Virtual Desktop
5 7 (9.46%) VMware ESXi
6 4 (5.41%) VMware NSX
6 4 (5.41%) vSphere
7 3 (4.05%) KVM
8 2 (2.70%) Oracle RAC
9 1 (1.35%) DFS Replication
9 1 (1.35%) Hyper-V
9 1 (1.35%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 12 (16.22%) Terraform
2 11 (14.86%) Kubernetes
2 11 (14.86%) Microsoft Intune
3 9 (12.16%) Ansible
3 9 (12.16%) WSUS
4 3 (4.05%) Grafana
4 3 (4.05%) Puppet
4 3 (4.05%) vCenter Server
5 2 (2.70%) Data Guard
5 2 (2.70%) Oracle RMAN
5 2 (2.70%) SCOM
5 2 (2.70%) ZABBIX
6 1 (1.35%) Graylog
6 1 (1.35%) PowerCLI
6 1 (1.35%) Prometheus
6 1 (1.35%) SCCM
Vendors
1 25 (33.78%) VMware
2 21 (28.38%) Microsoft
3 16 (21.62%) Cisco
4 12 (16.22%) Red Hat
4 12 (16.22%) ServiceNow
5 11 (14.86%) Palo Alto
6 10 (13.51%) F5
6 10 (13.51%) Fortinet
6 10 (13.51%) SolarWinds
6 10 (13.51%) Splunk
7 6 (8.11%) Oracle
8 4 (5.41%) SAP
9 2 (2.70%) Atlassian
9 2 (2.70%) Databricks
9 2 (2.70%) Google
10 1 (1.35%) CheckPoint
10 1 (1.35%) Foundry
10 1 (1.35%) IBM
10 1 (1.35%) MuleSoft
10 1 (1.35%) Veeam