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 13 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 416 376 330
Rank change year-on-year -40 -46 +102
Permanent jobs citing Virtual Machines 90 201 266
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 0.21% 0.56% 0.77%
As % of the System Software category 3.26% 4.65% 4.74%
Number of salaries quoted 58 116 161
10th Percentile £30,000 £38,750 £31,125
25th Percentile £38,750 £44,500 £42,292
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £46,080 £52,500 £56,525
Median % change year-on-year -12.23% -7.12% +25.61%
75th Percentile £58,750 £67,813 £67,500
90th Percentile £60,273 £84,375 £77,500
UK median annual salary £57,500 £57,836 £60,000
% change year-on-year -0.58% -3.61% +11.63%

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 2,759 4,320 5,608
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 6.54% 12.04% 16.19%
Number of salaries quoted 1,929 2,451 4,594
10th Percentile £26,750 £27,750 £27,000
25th Percentile £30,000 £35,000 £32,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £50,000 £47,557
Median % change year-on-year -15.00% +5.14% +0.12%
75th Percentile £62,000 £67,500 £63,750
90th Percentile £77,500 £81,250 £77,500
UK median annual salary £50,000 £57,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year -13.04% +4.55% -

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 13 January 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 13 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
South East -4 26 £42,500 -34.62% 24
North West +8 23 £60,000 +20.00% 17
North of England -18 23 £60,000 +13.74% 25
South West +13 15 £35,000 -28.57% 11
Scotland +2 14 £39,594 -34.01% 6
Midlands +10 7 £63,750 +23.79% 10
West Midlands +18 6 £75,000 +42.86% 2
East of England -1 5 £46,160 -12.08% 9
East Midlands -18 1 £52,500 +31.25% 7
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 (8.89%) SharePoint
2 5 (5.56%) Microsoft Exchange
3 2 (2.22%) Apache
Applications
1 2 (2.22%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (1.11%) Spreadsheet
Cloud Services
1 62 (68.89%) Azure
2 30 (33.33%) Entra ID
3 26 (28.89%) Microsoft 365
4 16 (17.78%) Azure Monitor
5 14 (15.56%) Azure DevOps
6 13 (14.44%) SaaS
7 10 (11.11%) IaaS
7 10 (11.11%) PaaS
8 7 (7.78%) AWS
9 4 (4.44%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 4 (4.44%) Azure Storage
9 4 (4.44%) OneDrive
9 4 (4.44%) Serverless
10 3 (3.33%) Azure AKS
10 3 (3.33%) Azure Functions
10 3 (3.33%) Datadog
10 3 (3.33%) GCP
10 3 (3.33%) GitHub
10 3 (3.33%) Power Automate
10 3 (3.33%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 30 (33.33%) Firewall
2 19 (21.11%) DNS
3 14 (15.56%) DHCP
4 11 (12.22%) TCP/IP
4 11 (12.22%) VPN
5 10 (11.11%) VLAN
5 10 (11.11%) Wireless
6 8 (8.89%) NAS
7 7 (7.78%) SAN
8 4 (4.44%) WAN
9 3 (3.33%) Network Security
9 3 (3.33%) SSL
10 2 (2.22%) LAN
10 2 (2.22%) SD-WAN
11 1 (1.11%) 5G
11 1 (1.11%) Remote Desktop
11 1 (1.11%) Telnet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (6.67%) SQL Server
2 2 (2.22%) Amazon RDS
2 2 (2.22%) Azure SQL Database
3 1 (1.11%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 4 (4.44%) JIRA
2 3 (3.33%) Git
2 3 (3.33%) Jenkins
3 1 (1.11%) GitLab
General
1 20 (22.22%) Social Skills
2 18 (20.00%) Finance
3 7 (7.78%) Legal
3 7 (7.78%) Retail
4 6 (6.67%) Banking
5 5 (5.56%) Telecoms
6 2 (2.22%) Aerospace
6 2 (2.22%) Games
7 1 (1.11%) Analytical Skills
7 1 (1.11%) Police
7 1 (1.11%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 19 (21.11%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 13 (14.44%) Senior
3 12 (13.33%) Cloud Engineer
4 11 (12.22%) Support Engineer
5 10 (11.11%) IT Support
6 9 (10.00%) Developer
7 7 (7.78%) Senior Developer
7 7 (7.78%) Senior SQL Developer
7 7 (7.78%) SQL Developer
8 6 (6.67%) 3rd Line Support
8 6 (6.67%) Administrator
9 5 (5.56%) 2nd Line Support
9 5 (5.56%) 2nd/3rd Line Support
9 5 (5.56%) Analyst
9 5 (5.56%) Azure Engineer
9 5 (5.56%) Cloud Infrastructure Engineer
9 5 (5.56%) Infrastructure Support
9 5 (5.56%) Infrastructure Support Engineer
9 5 (5.56%) IT Engineer
10 4 (4.44%) IT Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (3.33%) Flash
2 2 (2.22%) Apache NiFi
2 2 (2.22%) ARM Templates
2 2 (2.22%) Middleware
3 1 (1.11%) Flask
3 1 (1.11%) LDAP
3 1 (1.11%) Microsoft Graph
3 1 (1.11%) Next.js
3 1 (1.11%) Pyramid
Miscellaneous
1 10 (11.11%) Product Ownership
2 6 (6.67%) Cloud Native
3 5 (5.56%) CMDB
3 5 (5.56%) Onboarding
3 5 (5.56%) Public Cloud
4 4 (4.44%) Data Centre
4 4 (4.44%) Enterprise Software
5 3 (3.33%) Enterprise Cloud
5 3 (3.33%) IBM Storwize
6 2 (2.22%) AS400
6 2 (2.22%) Driving Licence
7 1 (1.11%) Analytical Mindset
7 1 (1.11%) Data Structures
7 1 (1.11%) Legacy Systems
7 1 (1.11%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 27 (30.00%) Windows
2 14 (15.56%) Windows Server
3 7 (7.78%) Linux
4 5 (5.56%) Windows Server 2019
5 3 (3.33%) VMS
6 2 (2.22%) Windows Server 2016
7 1 (1.11%) Mac OS
7 1 (1.11%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 37 (41.11%) Cybersecurity
2 22 (24.44%) DevOps
2 22 (24.44%) ITIL
3 21 (23.33%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 20 (22.22%) Agile
5 19 (21.11%) Continuous Improvement
5 19 (21.11%) Infrastructure as Code
6 17 (18.89%) AI
6 17 (18.89%) Asset Management
7 16 (17.78%) Disaster Recovery
7 16 (17.78%) Problem-Solving
8 15 (16.67%) Analytics
9 14 (15.56%) Business Strategy
9 14 (15.56%) User Experience
10 13 (14.44%) Information Security
11 12 (13.33%) CI/CD
11 12 (13.33%) Containerisation
11 12 (13.33%) Deployment Automation
11 12 (13.33%) Log Analytics
11 12 (13.33%) Machine Learning
Programming Languages
1 27 (30.00%) PowerShell
2 16 (17.78%) SQL
3 14 (15.56%) Python
4 13 (14.44%) Bash
5 7 (7.78%) Bicep
6 1 (1.11%) C
6 1 (1.11%) Java
6 1 (1.11%) JavaScript
6 1 (1.11%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 12 (13.33%) Azure Certification
2 6 (6.67%) Security Cleared
3 4 (4.44%) DV Cleared
3 4 (4.44%) Microsoft Certification
3 4 (4.44%) SC Cleared
4 3 (3.33%) Degree
5 2 (2.22%) A+ Certification
5 2 (2.22%) MCP
5 2 (2.22%) Network+ Certification
6 1 (1.11%) BPSS Clearance
6 1 (1.11%) CCNA
6 1 (1.11%) Cisco Certification
6 1 (1.11%) Computer Science Degree
6 1 (1.11%) HND
6 1 (1.11%) HP APS
6 1 (1.11%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
6 1 (1.11%) MCSA
6 1 (1.11%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (4.44%) ISO/IEC 19770
1 4 (4.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 3 (3.33%) SLA
3 1 (1.11%) Cyber Essentials
3 1 (1.11%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
3 1 (1.11%) GDPR
3 1 (1.11%) NCSC
System Software
1 24 (26.67%) Active Directory
2 17 (18.89%) VMware Infrastructure
3 14 (15.56%) Hyper-V
3 14 (15.56%) Virtual Desktop
4 8 (8.89%) vSphere
5 7 (7.78%) Docker
6 3 (3.33%) Virtual Servers
6 3 (3.33%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (1.11%) Firmware
7 1 (1.11%) pfSense
7 1 (1.11%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 28 (31.11%) Microsoft Intune
2 18 (20.00%) Terraform
3 7 (7.78%) Kubernetes
4 5 (5.56%) ZABBIX
5 3 (3.33%) vCenter Server
6 2 (2.22%) FortiGate
6 2 (2.22%) PaperCut
7 1 (1.11%) Ansible
7 1 (1.11%) Grafana
7 1 (1.11%) Nagios
7 1 (1.11%) Prometheus
7 1 (1.11%) Puppet
7 1 (1.11%) SCCM
7 1 (1.11%) VxRail
Vendors
1 44 (48.89%) Microsoft
2 19 (21.11%) VMware
3 12 (13.33%) Fortinet
4 10 (11.11%) Palo Alto
5 9 (10.00%) Cisco
5 9 (10.00%) ServiceNow
6 6 (6.67%) LogicMonitor
7 5 (5.56%) Datto
8 4 (4.44%) Aruba
8 4 (4.44%) CrowdStrike
8 4 (4.44%) Draytek
8 4 (4.44%) Meraki
8 4 (4.44%) Sophos
9 3 (3.33%) Google
9 3 (3.33%) IBM
9 3 (3.33%) Red Hat
10 2 (2.22%) NVIDIA
11 1 (1.11%) Citrix
11 1 (1.11%) ConnectWise
11 1 (1.11%) HP