VMS
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs requiring VMS skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 18 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 635 582 651
Rank change year-on-year -53 +69 +125
Permanent jobs citing VMS 79 54 236
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.091% 0.13% 0.25%
As % of the Operating Systems category 1.46% 0.85% 1.71%
Number of salaries quoted 58 40 195
10th Percentile £44,750 £40,950 £40,000
25th Percentile £51,063 £45,938 £50,625
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £65,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year +15.38% +13.04% +21.05%
75th Percentile £84,375 £72,188 £61,250
90th Percentile £120,000 £88,750 £73,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £49,104 £57,500
% change year-on-year +22.19% -14.60% +15.58%

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 permanent job vacancies requiring operating system skills.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for operating system skills 5,423 6,350 13,763
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 6.26% 15.26% 14.56%
Number of salaries quoted 3,954 4,382 11,008
10th Percentile £27,500 £27,500 £25,759
25th Percentile £31,250 £34,000 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £50,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% +11.11% -14.29%
75th Percentile £67,500 £68,750 £62,500
90th Percentile £85,000 £87,500 £80,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £40,000 £42,500 £42,500
% change year-on-year -5.88% - -5.56%

VMS
Job Vacancy Trend

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

VMS job vacancy trend in the UK

VMS
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing VMS.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing VMS

VMS
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing VMS over the 6 months to 18 April 2026.

Salary histogram for VMS in the UK

VMS
Top 13 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing VMS within the UK over the 6 months to 18 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
England -30 79 £75,000 +15.38% 32
London +28 40 £85,000 +7.94% 13
UK excluding London -64 39 £60,000 +22.19% 20
Work from Home +2 17 £70,000 -6.67% 14
South East -28 17 £47,500 - 10
North of England -57 8 £51,000 -23.02% 2
East of England -31 7 £75,000 +76.47% 1
North West -22 4 £67,500 -
South West - 4 £56,250 - 2
West Midlands -23 3 £65,000 - 1
Midlands -38 3 £65,000 -18.75% 5
Yorkshire -67 2 £43,750 -32.69%
North East - 2 £51,000 - 2

VMS
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 5 (6.33%) Apache
2 3 (3.80%) OpenStack
3 2 (2.53%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (1.27%) CMS
4 1 (1.27%) IIS
4 1 (1.27%) SharePoint
Business Applications
1 2 (2.53%) Misys Midas
Cloud Services
1 51 (64.56%) Azure
2 26 (32.91%) Azure Monitor
3 22 (27.85%) Entra ID
4 18 (22.78%) SaaS
5 17 (21.52%) Azure DevOps
6 16 (20.25%) Azure Functions
6 16 (20.25%) Serverless
7 15 (18.99%) GitHub
8 14 (17.72%) AWS
8 14 (17.72%) Azure AKS
8 14 (17.72%) Azure Key Vault
9 13 (16.46%) Azure Logic Apps
9 13 (16.46%) Datadog
9 13 (16.46%) GitHub Actions
10 12 (15.19%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 12 (15.19%) Power Platform
11 10 (12.66%) Azure Storage
11 10 (12.66%) IaaS
11 10 (12.66%) PaaS
12 5 (6.33%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 29 (36.71%) Firewall
2 23 (29.11%) VPN
3 13 (16.46%) WAN
4 10 (12.66%) DNS
5 8 (10.13%) DHCP
6 6 (7.59%) PuTTY
6 6 (7.59%) SSH
7 5 (6.33%) Software-Defined Networking
8 4 (5.06%) Network Security
8 4 (5.06%) TCP/IP
8 4 (5.06%) VLAN
9 1 (1.27%) NGFW
9 1 (1.27%) SD-WAN
9 1 (1.27%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (27.85%) SQL Server
2 15 (18.99%) Azure SQL Database
3 12 (15.19%) Power BI
4 5 (6.33%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 4 (5.06%) Amazon RDS
6 3 (3.80%) MongoDB
6 3 (3.80%) MySQL
7 2 (2.53%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 6 (7.59%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
2 5 (6.33%) Git
3 2 (2.53%) Bitbucket
General
1 17 (21.52%) Finance
1 17 (21.52%) Social Skills
2 5 (6.33%) Documentation Skills
2 5 (6.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
3 4 (5.06%) Analytical Skills
3 4 (5.06%) Legal
4 2 (2.53%) Electronics
4 2 (2.53%) Telecoms
5 1 (1.27%) Back Office
5 1 (1.27%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 25 (31.65%) Azure Engineer
2 22 (27.85%) Senior
3 21 (26.58%) Support Engineer
4 12 (15.19%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 10 (12.66%) Lead
5 10 (12.66%) Senior Support Engineer
5 10 (12.66%) Team Leader
6 9 (11.39%) Cloud Engineer
6 9 (11.39%) DevOps Engineer
7 8 (10.13%) Azure DevOps Engineer
7 8 (10.13%) Reliability Engineer
7 8 (10.13%) Senior Reliability Engineer
8 6 (7.59%) Platform Engineer
8 6 (7.59%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
8 6 (7.59%) Technical Engineer
8 6 (7.59%) Technical Support
8 6 (7.59%) Technical Support Engineer
9 5 (6.33%) DBA
9 5 (6.33%) Linux Engineer
9 5 (6.33%) SQL DBA
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 18 (22.78%) .NET
2 13 (16.46%) .NET Core
2 13 (16.46%) OAuth
3 12 (15.19%) ADO
3 12 (15.19%) SAML
3 12 (15.19%) YAML
4 2 (2.53%) .NET Framework
4 2 (2.53%) ASP.NET Web API
5 1 (1.27%) ARM Templates
5 1 (1.27%) ASP.NET MVC
5 1 (1.27%) ASP.NET MVC 5
5 1 (1.27%) ASP.NET Web Forms
5 1 (1.27%) Entity Framework
5 1 (1.27%) jQuery
5 1 (1.27%) OAuth2
5 1 (1.27%) OpenID
5 1 (1.27%) RabbitMQ
5 1 (1.27%) React
5 1 (1.27%) React Native
5 1 (1.27%) WCF
Miscellaneous
1 10 (12.66%) Data Centre
2 5 (6.33%) Clustering
3 4 (5.06%) CCTV
3 4 (5.06%) Cloud Native
3 4 (5.06%) Legacy Applications
4 3 (3.80%) Legacy Systems
5 2 (2.53%) Driving Licence
5 2 (2.53%) Legacy Code
5 2 (2.53%) Self-Motivation
6 1 (1.27%) Hybrid Cloud
6 1 (1.27%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 20 (25.32%) Windows
2 18 (22.78%) Linux
3 7 (8.86%) Windows Server
4 5 (6.33%) Ubuntu
5 4 (5.06%) Windows Server 2016
6 3 (3.80%) CentOS
6 3 (3.80%) Debian
6 3 (3.80%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (1.27%) Android
7 1 (1.27%) Apple iOS
7 1 (1.27%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 29 (36.71%) Infrastructure as Code
2 27 (34.18%) DevOps
3 25 (31.65%) Analytics
4 24 (30.38%) Continuous Improvement
4 24 (30.38%) Log Analytics
5 23 (29.11%) CI/CD
6 22 (27.85%) Problem-Solving
7 19 (24.05%) Runbook
8 17 (21.52%) Root Cause Analysis
9 16 (20.25%) Cost Management
9 16 (20.25%) Disaster Recovery
9 16 (20.25%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 16 (20.25%) Observability
10 13 (16.46%) Cloud Operations
10 13 (16.46%) MVC
10 13 (16.46%) Performance Tuning
10 13 (16.46%) RBAC
10 13 (16.46%) Zero Trust
11 12 (15.19%) Business Continuity
11 12 (15.19%) Capacity Planning
Programming Languages
1 38 (48.10%) SQL
2 24 (30.38%) Kusto Query Language
3 22 (27.85%) PowerShell
4 14 (17.72%) C#
5 7 (8.86%) T-SQL
6 6 (7.59%) DCL
6 6 (7.59%) Python
6 6 (7.59%) Tcl
7 3 (3.80%) Bicep
8 2 (2.53%) Bash
9 1 (1.27%) JavaScript
9 1 (1.27%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 11 (13.92%) Security Cleared
2 6 (7.59%) Microsoft Certification
3 5 (6.33%) Azure Certification
3 5 (6.33%) DV Cleared
4 4 (5.06%) Network+ Certification
5 2 (2.53%) BPSS Clearance
5 2 (2.53%) SC Cleared
6 1 (1.27%) Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (15.19%) GDPR
1 12 (15.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 12 (15.19%) SOC 2
2 5 (6.33%) SLA
System Software
1 26 (32.91%) Active Directory
2 16 (20.25%) Virtual Machines
3 14 (17.72%) Docker
4 6 (7.59%) VMware Infrastructure
4 6 (7.59%) vSphere
5 3 (3.80%) Slurm Workload Manager
6 2 (2.53%) VMware NSX
7 1 (1.27%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 25 (31.65%) Terraform
2 22 (27.85%) Ansible
3 17 (21.52%) Kubernetes
4 9 (11.39%) Grafana
5 6 (7.59%) Prometheus
6 5 (6.33%) Argo
6 5 (6.33%) Docker Swarm
6 5 (6.33%) Istio
6 5 (6.33%) linkerd
6 5 (6.33%) Mesos
7 4 (5.06%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 4 (5.06%) SolarWinds Orion
7 4 (5.06%) vCenter Server
8 3 (3.80%) Microsoft Intune
8 3 (3.80%) Puppet
8 3 (3.80%) ZABBIX
9 1 (1.27%) Proxmox
Vendors
1 22 (27.85%) Microsoft
2 13 (16.46%) Palo Alto
3 12 (15.19%) Zscaler
4 8 (10.13%) VMware
5 4 (5.06%) SolarWinds
6 3 (3.80%) AppDynamics
6 3 (3.80%) New Relic
7 2 (2.53%) Cisco
7 2 (2.53%) Informatica
7 2 (2.53%) Meraki
7 2 (2.53%) RedGate
7 2 (2.53%) Talend
8 1 (1.27%) CrowdStrike
8 1 (1.27%) Foundry