Virtual Machines Job Trends

Virtual Machine (VM)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs requiring Virtual Machines skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 11 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 515 445 438
Rank change year-on-year -70 -7 +3
Permanent jobs citing Virtual Machines 200 217 515
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.22% 0.49% 0.53%
As % of the System Software category 4.24% 3.81% 4.34%
Number of salaries quoted 136 153 437
10th Percentile £40,625 £37,550 £33,750
25th Percentile £56,625 £50,000 £45,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £90,000 £57,500 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year +56.52% - -
75th Percentile £120,000 £85,000 £67,500
90th Percentile £143,750 £99,500 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year +9.09% -4.35% +6.48%

All System Software Skills
UK

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.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for system software skills 4,712 5,696 11,869
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 5.21% 12.97% 12.29%
Number of salaries quoted 3,302 3,859 9,549
10th Percentile £28,500 £28,200 £26,250
25th Percentile £35,000 £36,250 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £55,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% +10.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £73,750 £77,500 £67,500
90th Percentile £91,250 £98,750 £85,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £45,000 £47,500 £45,000
% change year-on-year -5.26% +5.56% -5.26%

Virtual Machines
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Virtual Machines job vacancy trend in the UK

Virtual Machines
Salary Trend

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

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Virtual Machines

Virtual Machines
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Virtual Machines over the 6 months to 11 May 2026.

Salary histogram for Virtual Machines in the UK

Virtual Machines
Top 16 Job Locations

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 over the 6 months to 11 May 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
England -58 188 £95,000 +65.22% 76
Work from Home +59 127 £112,500 +104.55% 35
UK excluding London -89 115 £60,000 +9.09% 59
London -8 74 £112,500 +28.57% 26
North of England -60 40 £60,000 +14.29% 15
South East -36 38 £112,500 +104.55% 21
North West 0 36 £60,000 +3.74% 9
Midlands -41 13 £63,750 +38.59% 6
West Midlands -28 11 £75,000 +63.04% 3
East of England -19 9 £55,000 +2.33% 3
South West -47 8 £58,000 -7.20% 4
Scotland 0 4 £27,000 - 3
Yorkshire -61 4 £45,000 +20.00% 5
East Midlands -29 2 £52,500 - 3
Wales - 2 £35,000 - 5
Northern Ireland - 1 - - 2

Virtual Machines
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 17 (8.50%) Microsoft Exchange
2 16 (8.00%) SharePoint
3 6 (3.00%) Confluence
4 1 (0.50%) Apache
4 1 (0.50%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 6 (3.00%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.50%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 1 (0.50%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 138 (69.00%) Azure
2 55 (27.50%) Azure AI
2 55 (27.50%) Azure Machine Learning
2 55 (27.50%) Azure Synapse Analytics
2 55 (27.50%) Snowflake
3 47 (23.50%) Entra ID
4 33 (16.50%) Serverless
5 30 (15.00%) Microsoft 365
6 25 (12.50%) AWS
7 24 (12.00%) GitHub
8 22 (11.00%) Azure AKS
9 21 (10.50%) Azure Monitor
10 18 (9.00%) Azure DevOps
10 18 (9.00%) GitHub Actions
11 15 (7.50%) GCP
12 14 (7.00%) Azure Key Vault
12 14 (7.00%) OpenShift
13 13 (6.50%) Azure ExpressRoute
14 12 (6.00%) Datadog
14 12 (6.00%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 39 (19.50%) Firewall
2 31 (15.50%) VPN
3 26 (13.00%) WAN
4 24 (12.00%) DNS
5 22 (11.00%) DHCP
6 12 (6.00%) TCP/IP
7 9 (4.50%) VLAN
8 7 (3.50%) Network Security
8 7 (3.50%) SD-WAN
9 6 (3.00%) LAN
10 5 (2.50%) Wireless
11 4 (2.00%) Broadband
12 2 (1.00%) SAN
12 2 (1.00%) Wireshark
12 2 (1.00%) WPA
13 1 (0.50%) BGP
13 1 (0.50%) Fibre Channel
13 1 (0.50%) Kerberos
13 1 (0.50%) NAS
13 1 (0.50%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 68 (34.00%) SQL Server
2 17 (8.50%) Azure SQL Database
3 5 (2.50%) MySQL
4 4 (2.00%) Amazon RDS
4 4 (2.00%) InfluxDB
5 3 (1.50%) Power BI
6 1 (0.50%) MongoDB
6 1 (0.50%) MS Access
6 1 (0.50%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 23 (11.50%) Snyk
2 14 (7.00%) Git
3 10 (5.00%) Jenkins
4 6 (3.00%) GitLab
5 5 (2.50%) Selenium
6 4 (2.00%) Cypress.io
6 4 (2.00%) Robot Framework
6 4 (2.00%) TestRail
7 2 (1.00%) JIRA
8 1 (0.50%) Artifactory
General
1 96 (48.00%) Finance
2 31 (15.50%) Social Skills
3 25 (12.50%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 24 (12.00%) Banking
5 8 (4.00%) Analytical Skills
6 6 (3.00%) Games
7 4 (2.00%) Documentation Skills
8 2 (1.00%) Advertising
8 2 (1.00%) Aerospace
8 2 (1.00%) Public Sector
8 2 (1.00%) Social Housing
9 1 (0.50%) Influencing Skills
9 1 (0.50%) Marketing
9 1 (0.50%) Police
9 1 (0.50%) Retail
Job Titles
1 55 (27.50%) Senior
2 43 (21.50%) Architect
3 35 (17.50%) Engineering Manager
4 33 (16.50%) Data Manager
4 33 (16.50%) Finance Manager
5 29 (14.50%) Security Architect
6 23 (11.50%) Cloud Architect
6 23 (11.50%) Cloud Security Architect
6 23 (11.50%) Senior Architect
6 23 (11.50%) Senior Cloud Architect
6 23 (11.50%) Senior Security Architect
7 19 (9.50%) Cloud Engineer
7 19 (9.50%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 18 (9.00%) DevOps Engineer
9 14 (7.00%) Azure Engineer
10 12 (6.00%) Azure Architect
10 12 (6.00%) Azure Data Architect
10 12 (6.00%) Data Architect
11 11 (5.50%) Developer
12 10 (5.00%) Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (6.00%) ADO
1 12 (6.00%) OAuth
1 12 (6.00%) SAML
1 12 (6.00%) YAML
2 9 (4.50%) Django
2 9 (4.50%) React
3 8 (4.00%) Kafka
4 6 (3.00%) REST
5 5 (2.50%) Twisted
5 5 (2.50%) Web Services
5 5 (2.50%) WebSockets
6 4 (2.00%) Elastic Stack
6 4 (2.00%) Model Context Protocol
6 4 (2.00%) Playwright
6 4 (2.00%) pytest
7 3 (1.50%) ARM Templates
7 3 (1.50%) Middleware
8 2 (1.00%) LAMP
9 1 (0.50%) .NET
9 1 (0.50%) LDAP
Miscellaneous
1 29 (14.50%) Data Centre
2 9 (4.50%) Product Ownership
2 9 (4.50%) Video Conferencing
3 7 (3.50%) Enterprise Software
3 7 (3.50%) Onboarding
4 6 (3.00%) Cloud Native
5 5 (2.50%) Distributed Systems
5 5 (2.50%) Raspberry Pi
5 5 (2.50%) Self-Motivation
6 4 (2.00%) iPad
6 4 (2.00%) iPhone
6 4 (2.00%) Mobile App
6 4 (2.00%) Public Cloud
7 2 (1.00%) Management Information System
8 1 (0.50%) Analytical Mindset
8 1 (0.50%) Distributed Architecture
8 1 (0.50%) Hybrid Cloud
8 1 (0.50%) IoT
8 1 (0.50%) Legacy Systems
8 1 (0.50%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 40 (20.00%) Windows
2 30 (15.00%) Linux
3 26 (13.00%) Windows Server
4 16 (8.00%) VMS
5 7 (3.50%) Ubuntu
6 6 (3.00%) CentOS
7 5 (2.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 5 (2.50%) Windows Server 2016
8 4 (2.00%) Apple iOS
8 4 (2.00%) Windows 10
9 3 (1.50%) Mac OS
10 2 (1.00%) Debian
10 2 (1.00%) Unix
11 1 (0.50%) Oracle Linux
11 1 (0.50%) Windows Server 2012
11 1 (0.50%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 94 (47.00%) AI
2 66 (33.00%) Agile
3 64 (32.00%) Roadmaps
4 62 (31.00%) Migration
5 57 (28.50%) Data Engineering
6 56 (28.00%) Data Governance
6 56 (28.00%) Line Management
6 56 (28.00%) Machine Learning
7 55 (27.50%) Data Architecture
7 55 (27.50%) Data Development
7 55 (27.50%) Regulatory Compliance
8 54 (27.00%) CI/CD
9 41 (20.50%) Cybersecurity
10 37 (18.50%) Containerisation
11 36 (18.00%) Infrastructure as Code
12 34 (17.00%) DevOps
13 30 (15.00%) Disaster Recovery
14 29 (14.50%) Continuous Improvement
15 27 (13.50%) Application Security
16 26 (13.00%) RBAC
Programming Languages
1 90 (45.00%) SQL
2 34 (17.00%) Python
3 33 (16.50%) PowerShell
4 12 (6.00%) Kusto Query Language
5 10 (5.00%) JavaScript
6 8 (4.00%) Go
7 7 (3.50%) Bash
8 6 (3.00%) TypeScript
9 4 (2.00%) Bicep
10 3 (1.50%) C#
11 2 (1.00%) Java
11 2 (1.00%) Perl
11 2 (1.00%) T-SQL
12 1 (0.50%) C
12 1 (0.50%) C++
12 1 (0.50%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 17 (8.50%) Security Cleared
2 13 (6.50%) Degree
3 12 (6.00%) Azure Certification
4 8 (4.00%) Microsoft Certification
5 6 (3.00%) DV Cleared
5 6 (3.00%) SC Cleared
6 5 (2.50%) Computer Science Degree
6 5 (2.50%) HNC
6 5 (2.50%) HND
6 5 (2.50%) Network+ Certification
7 4 (2.00%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
8 2 (1.00%) BPSS Clearance
9 1 (0.50%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 1 (0.50%) CCSP
9 1 (0.50%) Cisco Certification
9 1 (0.50%) CISM
9 1 (0.50%) CISSP
9 1 (0.50%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 1 (0.50%) MCSE
9 1 (0.50%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (11.50%) GRC
2 18 (9.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 17 (8.50%) GDPR
4 12 (6.00%) SOC 2
5 6 (3.00%) QA
6 4 (2.00%) Cyber Essentials
6 4 (2.00%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 4 (2.00%) SLA
7 1 (0.50%) NCSC
7 1 (0.50%) NIST
7 1 (0.50%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 52 (26.00%) Active Directory
2 32 (16.00%) VMware Infrastructure
3 28 (14.00%) Docker
4 14 (7.00%) vSphere
5 13 (6.50%) Hyper-V
6 6 (3.00%) Virtual Desktop
7 3 (1.50%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.50%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.50%) Firmware
8 1 (0.50%) KVM
8 1 (0.50%) VMware NSX
8 1 (0.50%) XenApp
8 1 (0.50%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 41 (20.50%) Terraform
2 30 (15.00%) Kubernetes
3 21 (10.50%) Ansible
4 16 (8.00%) Microsoft Intune
5 11 (5.50%) vCenter Server
6 8 (4.00%) Istio
7 5 (2.50%) Grafana
8 4 (2.00%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 4 (2.00%) FortiGate
8 4 (2.00%) Kibana
8 4 (2.00%) logstash
8 4 (2.00%) SolarWinds Orion
9 2 (1.00%) Packer
10 1 (0.50%) EMC NetWorker
10 1 (0.50%) Graylog
10 1 (0.50%) Nagios
10 1 (0.50%) PowerCLI
10 1 (0.50%) Red Hat Satellite
10 1 (0.50%) SCCM
10 1 (0.50%) WSUS
Vendors
1 113 (56.50%) Microsoft
2 56 (28.00%) Databricks
3 36 (18.00%) Palo Alto
4 33 (16.50%) VMware
5 25 (12.50%) CrowdStrike
6 24 (12.00%) Tenable
7 13 (6.50%) Zscaler
8 9 (4.50%) Red Hat
9 8 (4.00%) Confluent
10 6 (3.00%) Veeam
11 5 (2.50%) Cisco
11 5 (2.50%) Meraki
11 5 (2.50%) Splunk
11 5 (2.50%) Synology
12 4 (2.00%) Atlassian
12 4 (2.00%) SolarWinds
13 3 (1.50%) Apple
13 3 (1.50%) Fortinet
14 2 (1.00%) Citrix
14 2 (1.00%) Commvault