Virtual Machines Job Trends in the North West

Virtual Machine (VM)
England > North West

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the North West requiring Virtual Machines skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 14 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 162 162 176
Rank change year-on-year 0 +14 +100
Permanent jobs citing Virtual Machines 24 43 27
As % of all permanent jobs in the North West 0.38% 0.85% 0.60%
As % of the System Software category 8.16% 9.21% 4.46%
Number of salaries quoted 22 27 22
10th Percentile £41,000 £39,750 £45,000
25th Percentile £50,500 £41,500 £56,875
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £50,000 £75,000
Median % change year-on-year +20.00% -33.33% +30.43%
75th Percentile - £60,000 £77,500
90th Percentile £80,500 £67,906 £95,000
England median annual salary £57,500 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -4.17% - +9.09%

All System Software Skills
North West

Virtual Machines falls under the System Software category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies requiring system software skills in the North West.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for system software skills 294 467 606
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North West 4.61% 9.24% 13.53%
Number of salaries quoted 239 284 505
10th Percentile £28,000 £30,150 £27,000
25th Percentile £33,125 £38,938 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £47,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% +6.24%
75th Percentile £64,737 £65,625 £68,000
90th Percentile £81,250 £77,500 £78,250
England median annual salary £48,790 £57,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year -15.15% +4.55% -

Virtual Machines
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Virtual Machines relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the North West.

Virtual Machines job vacancy trend in the North West

Virtual Machines
Salary Trend in the North West

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Virtual Machines.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Virtual Machines

Virtual Machines
Salary Histogram in the North West

Salary distribution for jobs citing Virtual Machines in the North West over the 6 months to 14 January 2026.

Salary histogram for Virtual Machines in the North West

Virtual Machines
Job Locations in the North West

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Virtual Machines within the North West region over the 6 months to 14 January 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
Manchester +15 11 £57,500 +4.55% 7
Merseyside -6 7 £60,000 +33.33% 1
Cheshire -17 5 £50,000 +53.85% 3
Lancashire +6 1 £60,326 +4.31% 5
Virtual Machines
England

Virtual Machines
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the North West 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 3 (12.50%) Microsoft Exchange
1 3 (12.50%) SharePoint
Cloud Services
1 19 (79.17%) Azure
2 9 (37.50%) Entra ID
3 4 (16.67%) Azure DevOps
3 4 (16.67%) Microsoft 365
4 3 (12.50%) Azure Monitor
4 3 (12.50%) OneDrive
5 2 (8.33%) Azure AKS
5 2 (8.33%) Azure Functions
5 2 (8.33%) Azure Logic Apps
5 2 (8.33%) Azure Storage
5 2 (8.33%) Dynamics 365
5 2 (8.33%) GitHub
5 2 (8.33%) GitHub Actions
5 2 (8.33%) iPaaS
5 2 (8.33%) Power Automate
5 2 (8.33%) Power Platform
5 2 (8.33%) PowerApps
5 2 (8.33%) SaaS
5 2 (8.33%) Serverless
6 1 (4.17%) AWS
Communications & Networking
1 3 (12.50%) DHCP
1 3 (12.50%) DNS
1 3 (12.50%) Firewall
2 1 (4.17%) Network Security
2 1 (4.17%) SD-WAN
2 1 (4.17%) TCP/IP
2 1 (4.17%) VLAN
2 1 (4.17%) VPN
2 1 (4.17%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (12.50%) SQL Server
2 1 (4.17%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 2 (8.33%) Git
2 1 (4.17%) GitLab
General
1 3 (12.50%) Social Skills
2 2 (8.33%) Finance
2 2 (8.33%) Retail
2 2 (8.33%) Telecoms
3 1 (4.17%) Aerospace
3 1 (4.17%) Analytical Skills
Job Titles
1 13 (54.17%) Senior
2 7 (29.17%) Developer
2 7 (29.17%) Senior Developer
2 7 (29.17%) Senior SQL Developer
2 7 (29.17%) SQL Developer
3 3 (12.50%) Administrator
3 3 (12.50%) Azure Administrator
3 3 (12.50%) Cloud Administrator
3 3 (12.50%) Cloud Engineer
3 3 (12.50%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 3 (12.50%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
4 2 (8.33%) Azure Engineer
4 2 (8.33%) Cloud Infrastructure Engineer
4 2 (8.33%) Linux Engineer
4 2 (8.33%) Linux Systems Engineer
4 2 (8.33%) Senior Cloud Engineer
4 2 (8.33%) Systems Engineer
4 2 (8.33%) Windows Engineer
4 2 (8.33%) Windows Systems Engineer
5 1 (4.17%) IT Technician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (8.33%) ARM Templates
1 2 (8.33%) Middleware
2 1 (4.17%) Microsoft Graph
2 1 (4.17%) Pyramid
Miscellaneous
1 4 (16.67%) Onboarding
2 2 (8.33%) Driving Licence
3 1 (4.17%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 7 (29.17%) Windows
2 4 (16.67%) Linux
3 3 (12.50%) Windows Server
4 2 (8.33%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 7 (29.17%) DevOps
2 6 (25.00%) CI/CD
2 6 (25.00%) Containerisation
2 6 (25.00%) Disaster Recovery
2 6 (25.00%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 5 (20.83%) Business Continuity
4 4 (16.67%) Business Strategy
4 4 (16.67%) Cybersecurity
5 3 (12.50%) Analytics
5 3 (12.50%) Cloud Security
5 3 (12.50%) Identity Access Management
5 3 (12.50%) Infrastructure as Code
5 3 (12.50%) ITIL
5 3 (12.50%) Network Virtualisation
5 3 (12.50%) Problem-Solving
5 3 (12.50%) Project Management
5 3 (12.50%) Storage Management
6 2 (8.33%) Agile
6 2 (8.33%) Migration
6 2 (8.33%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 9 (37.50%) SQL
2 8 (33.33%) PowerShell
3 3 (12.50%) Python
4 2 (8.33%) Bash
4 2 (8.33%) Bicep
5 1 (4.17%) C
5 1 (4.17%) Java
Qualifications
1 3 (12.50%) Azure Certification
2 1 (4.17%) A+ Certification
2 1 (4.17%) BPSS Clearance
2 1 (4.17%) Computer Science Degree
2 1 (4.17%) Degree
2 1 (4.17%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
2 1 (4.17%) Microsoft Certification
2 1 (4.17%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (4.17%) GDPR
1 1 (4.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 9 (37.50%) Active Directory
2 4 (16.67%) Docker
3 3 (12.50%) Virtual Desktop
4 2 (8.33%) VMware Infrastructure
5 1 (4.17%) Firmware
5 1 (4.17%) Hyper-V
5 1 (4.17%) VMware NSX
5 1 (4.17%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 4 (16.67%) Kubernetes
1 4 (16.67%) Microsoft Intune
2 3 (12.50%) Terraform
3 2 (8.33%) FortiGate
4 1 (4.17%) Ansible
4 1 (4.17%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 7 (29.17%) Microsoft
2 2 (8.33%) Fortinet
2 2 (8.33%) VMware