Virtual Machines Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Virtual Machine (VM)
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the UK excluding London requiring Virtual Machines skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 10 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 462 346 392
Rank change year-on-year -116 +46 -38
Permanent jobs citing Virtual Machines 111 140 378
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 0.18% 0.54% 0.58%
As % of the System Software category 3.65% 4.47% 4.29%
Number of salaries quoted 71 109 329
10th Percentile £38,750 £37,450 £31,125
25th Percentile £49,000 £45,000 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -4.35% +7.98%
75th Percentile £95,000 £64,010 £62,500
90th Percentile £136,250 £77,500 £70,000
UK median annual salary £90,000 £57,500 £57,500
% change year-on-year +56.52% - -

All System Software Skills
UK excluding London

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 UK excluding London.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for system software skills 3,038 3,132 8,818
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 5.05% 12.13% 13.52%
Number of salaries quoted 2,224 2,497 7,271
10th Percentile £27,250 £26,750 £25,750
25th Percentile £31,250 £32,500 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £50,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% +11.11% -5.26%
75th Percentile £63,750 £68,750 £60,000
90th Percentile £77,500 £85,000 £75,000
UK median annual salary £51,500 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -6.36% +10.00% -9.09%

Virtual Machines
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

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

Virtual Machines job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Virtual Machines
Salary Trend in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Virtual Machines.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Virtual Machines

Virtual Machines
Salary Histogram in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution for jobs citing Virtual Machines in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 10 April 2026.

Salary histogram for Virtual Machines in the UK excluding London

Virtual Machines
Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Virtual Machines within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 10 April 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
South East -39 41 £112,500 +104.55% 14
North of England -82 32 £60,000 +9.09% 17
North West -29 29 £60,000 +3.74% 13
Midlands -54 13 £75,000 +63.04% 4
West Midlands -18 11 £75,000 +63.04% 3
South West -44 9 £51,250 +2.50% 2
East of England -48 9 £55,000 - 11
Scotland -7 6 £39,594 - 3
Yorkshire -63 3 £37,500 -28.57% 4
East Midlands -55 2 £52,500 - 1
Northern Ireland - 1 - -
Virtual Machines
UK

Virtual Machines
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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 8 (7.21%) Microsoft Exchange
2 7 (6.31%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.90%) Apache
Applications
1 2 (1.80%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.90%) Chatbot
Cloud Services
1 75 (67.57%) Azure
2 29 (26.13%) Entra ID
3 22 (19.82%) Azure AI
3 22 (19.82%) Azure Machine Learning
3 22 (19.82%) Azure Synapse Analytics
3 22 (19.82%) Snowflake
4 15 (13.51%) Microsoft 365
5 12 (10.81%) AWS
5 12 (10.81%) IaaS
5 12 (10.81%) Serverless
6 11 (9.91%) PaaS
7 10 (9.01%) GitHub
8 9 (8.11%) Azure Monitor
8 9 (8.11%) GCP
9 8 (7.21%) SaaS
10 6 (5.41%) Azure DevOps
10 6 (5.41%) Azure Storage
10 6 (5.41%) OneDrive
11 5 (4.50%) Figma
11 5 (4.50%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 23 (20.72%) Firewall
2 20 (18.02%) DNS
3 15 (13.51%) DHCP
4 12 (10.81%) VPN
5 10 (9.01%) TCP/IP
5 10 (9.01%) VLAN
6 7 (6.31%) WAN
7 5 (4.50%) LAN
8 4 (3.60%) Network Security
9 3 (2.70%) SAN
10 2 (1.80%) NAS
10 2 (1.80%) SD-WAN
10 2 (1.80%) Wireless
11 1 (0.90%) 5G
11 1 (0.90%) Fibre Channel
11 1 (0.90%) NetScaler
11 1 (0.90%) Remote Desktop
11 1 (0.90%) VSAN
11 1 (0.90%) Wireshark
11 1 (0.90%) WPA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (24.32%) SQL Server
2 7 (6.31%) Azure SQL Database
3 4 (3.60%) Amazon RDS
4 3 (2.70%) InfluxDB
5 2 (1.80%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 12 (10.81%) Git
2 7 (6.31%) Snyk
3 6 (5.41%) Jenkins
4 5 (4.50%) JIRA
5 4 (3.60%) GitLab
6 3 (2.70%) Cypress.io
6 3 (2.70%) Robot Framework
6 3 (2.70%) Selenium
6 3 (2.70%) TestRail
General
1 37 (33.33%) Finance
2 24 (21.62%) Social Skills
3 12 (10.81%) Banking
4 11 (9.91%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 7 (6.31%) Analytical Skills
5 7 (6.31%) Retail
6 4 (3.60%) Documentation Skills
6 4 (3.60%) Games
6 4 (3.60%) Legal
7 3 (2.70%) Aerospace
8 2 (1.80%) Police
8 2 (1.80%) Public Sector
9 1 (0.90%) Marketing
9 1 (0.90%) Social Housing
9 1 (0.90%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 23 (20.72%) Senior
2 20 (18.02%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 18 (16.22%) Data Manager
3 18 (16.22%) Engineering Manager
3 18 (16.22%) Finance Manager
4 12 (10.81%) Architect
5 11 (9.91%) Security Architect
6 10 (9.01%) Developer
7 9 (8.11%) Cloud Engineer
7 9 (8.11%) Senior Developer
7 9 (8.11%) Senior SQL Developer
7 9 (8.11%) SQL Developer
8 7 (6.31%) Cloud Architect
8 7 (6.31%) Cloud Security Architect
8 7 (6.31%) Senior Architect
8 7 (6.31%) Senior Cloud Architect
8 7 (6.31%) Senior Security Architect
9 6 (5.41%) Software Engineer
9 6 (5.41%) Support Engineer
10 5 (4.50%) Infrastructure Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (4.50%) Django
1 5 (4.50%) React
1 5 (4.50%) REST
1 5 (4.50%) Twisted
1 5 (4.50%) Web Services
1 5 (4.50%) WebSockets
2 3 (2.70%) ARM Templates
2 3 (2.70%) Elastic Stack
2 3 (2.70%) Playwright
2 3 (2.70%) pytest
3 2 (1.80%) Middleware
4 1 (0.90%) Apache NiFi
4 1 (0.90%) Flask
4 1 (0.90%) LDAP
4 1 (0.90%) Microsoft Graph
4 1 (0.90%) Next.js
4 1 (0.90%) Pyramid
Miscellaneous
1 11 (9.91%) Data Centre
2 10 (9.01%) Product Ownership
3 5 (4.50%) Self-Motivation
3 5 (4.50%) Video Conferencing
4 4 (3.60%) CMDB
4 4 (3.60%) Onboarding
5 3 (2.70%) Driving Licence
5 3 (2.70%) Public Cloud
6 2 (1.80%) Cloud Native
7 1 (0.90%) AI Agents
7 1 (0.90%) Analytical Mindset
7 1 (0.90%) Data Structures
7 1 (0.90%) Legacy Systems
7 1 (0.90%) NHS
7 1 (0.90%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 25 (22.52%) Windows
2 16 (14.41%) Linux
3 13 (11.71%) Windows Server
4 5 (4.50%) Windows Server 2016
5 4 (3.60%) VMS
6 3 (2.70%) CentOS
7 2 (1.80%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.90%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.90%) Oracle Linux
8 1 (0.90%) Windows 10
8 1 (0.90%) Windows Server 2012
8 1 (0.90%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 39 (35.14%) AI
2 31 (27.93%) Agile
3 28 (25.23%) Cybersecurity
4 26 (23.42%) Migration
4 26 (23.42%) Roadmaps
5 25 (22.52%) Machine Learning
6 24 (21.62%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 23 (20.72%) Data Governance
7 23 (20.72%) Line Management
8 22 (19.82%) Data Architecture
8 22 (19.82%) Data Development
8 22 (19.82%) Data Engineering
8 22 (19.82%) Regulatory Compliance
9 20 (18.02%) Containerisation
9 20 (18.02%) ITIL
10 19 (17.12%) CI/CD
11 17 (15.32%) High Availability
11 17 (15.32%) Infrastructure as Code
11 17 (15.32%) Problem-Solving
12 15 (13.51%) Asset Management
Programming Languages
1 38 (34.23%) SQL
2 26 (23.42%) PowerShell
3 17 (15.32%) Python
4 9 (8.11%) JavaScript
5 7 (6.31%) Bash
6 5 (4.50%) TypeScript
7 4 (3.60%) Bicep
8 2 (1.80%) T-SQL
9 1 (0.90%) C
9 1 (0.90%) Java
9 1 (0.90%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 15 (13.51%) Azure Certification
2 12 (10.81%) Security Cleared
3 9 (8.11%) Microsoft Certification
4 7 (6.31%) Network+ Certification
5 6 (5.41%) DV Cleared
6 5 (4.50%) Degree
6 5 (4.50%) SC Cleared
7 3 (2.70%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
7 3 (2.70%) Computer Science Degree
8 2 (1.80%) A+ Certification
8 2 (1.80%) BPSS Clearance
9 1 (0.90%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 1 (0.90%) MCSE
9 1 (0.90%) Microsoft Certified Professional
9 1 (0.90%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (6.31%) GRC
2 5 (4.50%) QA
3 4 (3.60%) ISO/IEC 19770
3 4 (3.60%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 3 (2.70%) Cyber Essentials
4 3 (2.70%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
4 3 (2.70%) GDPR
4 3 (2.70%) SLA
5 1 (0.90%) NCSC
System Software
1 27 (24.32%) Active Directory
2 19 (17.12%) VMware Infrastructure
3 16 (14.41%) Docker
4 10 (9.01%) Hyper-V
4 10 (9.01%) vSphere
5 6 (5.41%) Virtual Desktop
6 3 (2.70%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.90%) Firmware
7 1 (0.90%) KVM
7 1 (0.90%) pfSense
7 1 (0.90%) Virtual Servers
7 1 (0.90%) VMware NSX
7 1 (0.90%) XenApp
7 1 (0.90%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 12 (10.81%) Microsoft Intune
2 11 (9.91%) Kubernetes
2 11 (9.91%) Terraform
2 11 (9.91%) vCenter Server
3 7 (6.31%) Ansible
4 5 (4.50%) Grafana
5 4 (3.60%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 4 (3.60%) SolarWinds Orion
6 3 (2.70%) FortiGate
6 3 (2.70%) Kibana
6 3 (2.70%) logstash
7 2 (1.80%) Nagios
7 2 (1.80%) SCCM
7 2 (1.80%) ZABBIX
8 1 (0.90%) EMC NetWorker
8 1 (0.90%) Graylog
8 1 (0.90%) Packer
8 1 (0.90%) PowerCLI
8 1 (0.90%) Puppet
Vendors
1 56 (50.45%) Microsoft
2 22 (19.82%) Databricks
3 21 (18.92%) VMware
4 9 (8.11%) Palo Alto
5 8 (7.21%) CrowdStrike
5 8 (7.21%) ServiceNow
6 7 (6.31%) Red Hat
6 7 (6.31%) Tenable
7 5 (4.50%) Fortinet
8 4 (3.60%) Google
8 4 (3.60%) SolarWinds
9 3 (2.70%) Atlassian
9 3 (2.70%) Splunk
10 2 (1.80%) Commvault
10 2 (1.80%) LogicMonitor
10 2 (1.80%) NVIDIA
10 2 (1.80%) Zerto
11 1 (0.90%) Dynatrace
11 1 (0.90%) Juniper
11 1 (0.90%) Netskope