Hybrid/Remote Virtual Machines Job Trends

Virtual Machine (VM)
UK > Work from Home

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for remote or hybrid work requiring Virtual Machines skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 10 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 331 357 309
Rank change year-on-year +26 -48 +158
Permanent jobs citing Virtual Machines 46 65 280
As % of all permanent jobs with remote/hybrid work options 0.28% 0.46% 0.94%
As % of the System Software category 3.53% 2.83% 6.51%
Number of salaries quoted 28 55 235
10th Percentile £38,550 £41,750 £43,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £51,250 £53,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £58,750 £67,500 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year -12.96% +17.39% -
75th Percentile £60,625 £85,625 £63,750
90th Percentile £95,000 £94,000 £79,500
UK median annual salary £60,000 £58,918 £57,500
% change year-on-year +1.84% +2.47% +4.55%

All System Software Skills
Work from Home

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 with remote or hybrid options requiring system software skills.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for system software skills 1,302 2,299 4,298
As % of all permanent jobs with a WFH option 7.85% 16.42% 14.37%
Number of salaries quoted 923 1,564 3,677
10th Percentile £29,750 £31,250 £31,250
25th Percentile £37,500 £44,780 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -8.33%
75th Percentile £76,250 £83,750 £72,500
90th Percentile £90,000 £112,500 £87,200
UK median annual salary £50,000 £57,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year -13.04% +15.00% -9.09%

Virtual Machines
Job Vacancy Trend for Remote/Hybrid Jobs

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Virtual Machines and offering remote or hybrid work options relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised.

Virtual Machines job vacancy trend for remote/hybrid jobs

Virtual Machines
Salary Trend for Remote/Hybrid Jobs

Salary distribution trend for jobs with remote/hybrid work options citing Virtual Machines.

Salary distribution trend for jobs with remote/hybrid work options citing Virtual Machines

Virtual Machines
Salary Histogram for Remote/Hybrid Jobs

Salary distribution for jobs with remote/hybrid work options citing Virtual Machines over the 6 months to 10 March 2026.

Virtual Machines salary histogram for jobs with remote/hybrid work options

Virtual Machines
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Remote/Hybrid Jobs 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 (10.87%) Microsoft Exchange
1 5 (10.87%) SharePoint
Applications
1 1 (2.17%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (2.17%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 39 (84.78%) Azure
2 20 (43.48%) Entra ID
3 17 (36.96%) Azure Monitor
4 14 (30.43%) Microsoft 365
5 9 (19.57%) Azure DevOps
6 7 (15.22%) IaaS
6 7 (15.22%) PaaS
7 6 (13.04%) AWS
8 5 (10.87%) Azure Sentinel
8 5 (10.87%) OneDrive
9 4 (8.70%) GCP
9 4 (8.70%) OpenShift
9 4 (8.70%) SaaS
10 3 (6.52%) GitHub
10 3 (6.52%) Serverless
11 2 (4.35%) Amazon EKS
11 2 (4.35%) Azure Functions
11 2 (4.35%) Figma
11 2 (4.35%) Power Platform
11 2 (4.35%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 13 (28.26%) DNS
1 13 (28.26%) VPN
2 11 (23.91%) Firewall
3 9 (19.57%) WAN
4 7 (15.22%) DHCP
4 7 (15.22%) SD-WAN
4 7 (15.22%) TCP/IP
5 4 (8.70%) LAN
5 4 (8.70%) Wireless
6 1 (2.17%) Network Security
6 1 (2.17%) Remote Desktop
6 1 (2.17%) Telnet
6 1 (2.17%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (6.52%) SQL Server
2 1 (2.17%) Azure SQL Database
2 1 (2.17%) MS Access
2 1 (2.17%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 3 (6.52%) Git
2 1 (2.17%) Jenkins
2 1 (2.17%) Selenium
General
1 21 (45.65%) Social Skills
2 15 (32.61%) Finance
3 6 (13.04%) Analytical Skills
4 3 (6.52%) Public Sector
5 2 (4.35%) Banking
6 1 (2.17%) Advertising
6 1 (2.17%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 16 (34.78%) Senior
2 7 (15.22%) Developer
2 7 (15.22%) Senior Developer
2 7 (15.22%) Senior SQL Developer
2 7 (15.22%) SQL Developer
3 6 (13.04%) Analyst
4 5 (10.87%) Azure Engineer
4 5 (10.87%) Infrastructure Support
4 5 (10.87%) Support Analyst
4 5 (10.87%) Support Engineer
5 4 (8.70%) Cloud Engineer
5 4 (8.70%) DevOps Engineer
5 4 (8.70%) Infrastructure Analyst
5 4 (8.70%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 4 (8.70%) Infrastructure Support Analyst
5 4 (8.70%) Senior Analyst
5 4 (8.70%) Senior Infrastructure Analyst
5 4 (8.70%) Senior Infrastructure Support Analyst
5 4 (8.70%) Senior Support Analyst
6 3 (6.52%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (4.35%) Django
1 2 (4.35%) Kafka
1 2 (4.35%) LAMP
1 2 (4.35%) React
1 2 (4.35%) REST
1 2 (4.35%) Twisted
1 2 (4.35%) Web Services
1 2 (4.35%) WebSockets
2 1 (2.17%) ARM Templates
2 1 (2.17%) Microsoft Graph
2 1 (2.17%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 11 (23.91%) Onboarding
2 8 (17.39%) Product Ownership
3 6 (13.04%) Video Conferencing
4 5 (10.87%) Enterprise Software
4 5 (10.87%) Hybrid Cloud
5 4 (8.70%) iPad
5 4 (8.70%) iPhone
5 4 (8.70%) Mobile App
5 4 (8.70%) Self-Motivation
6 1 (2.17%) Analytical Mindset
6 1 (2.17%) Cloud Native
6 1 (2.17%) Data Centre
6 1 (2.17%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 12 (26.09%) Windows
2 7 (15.22%) Linux
2 7 (15.22%) Windows Server
3 4 (8.70%) Apple iOS
3 4 (8.70%) Windows 10
4 2 (4.35%) CentOS
4 2 (4.35%) Debian
4 2 (4.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 2 (4.35%) Ubuntu
4 2 (4.35%) Unix
4 2 (4.35%) VMS
5 1 (2.17%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 19 (41.30%) DevOps
1 19 (41.30%) ITIL
2 15 (32.61%) Infrastructure as Code
3 14 (30.43%) Analytics
4 12 (26.09%) Cost Management
4 12 (26.09%) Log Analytics
5 11 (23.91%) Continuous Improvement
6 10 (21.74%) Disaster Recovery
7 8 (17.39%) Agile
7 8 (17.39%) AI
7 8 (17.39%) Cybersecurity
7 8 (17.39%) Problem-Solving
7 8 (17.39%) User Experience
8 7 (15.22%) Coaching
8 7 (15.22%) Containerisation
8 7 (15.22%) Infrastructure Management
8 7 (15.22%) Mentoring
8 7 (15.22%) Migration
8 7 (15.22%) Root Cause Analysis
9 6 (13.04%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 20 (43.48%) PowerShell
2 12 (26.09%) SQL
3 11 (23.91%) Python
4 8 (17.39%) Bash
5 7 (15.22%) Bicep
6 2 (4.35%) Go
6 2 (4.35%) JavaScript
6 2 (4.35%) Perl
6 2 (4.35%) TypeScript
7 1 (2.17%) C#
Qualifications
1 10 (21.74%) Azure Certification
2 8 (17.39%) Microsoft Certification
3 6 (13.04%) SC Cleared
3 6 (13.04%) Security Cleared
4 5 (10.87%) BPSS Clearance
5 2 (4.35%) Computer Science Degree
5 2 (4.35%) Degree
6 1 (2.17%) A+ Certification
6 1 (2.17%) DV Cleared
6 1 (2.17%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
6 1 (2.17%) Microsoft Certified Professional
6 1 (2.17%) Network+ Certification
6 1 (2.17%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (8.70%) SLA
2 3 (6.52%) QA
3 1 (2.17%) GDPR
3 1 (2.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 15 (32.61%) Active Directory
2 13 (28.26%) Hyper-V
3 11 (23.91%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (19.57%) Virtual Desktop
5 8 (17.39%) Docker
6 2 (4.35%) vSphere
7 1 (2.17%) BitLocker
7 1 (2.17%) Firmware
7 1 (2.17%) KVM
7 1 (2.17%) Virtual Servers
7 1 (2.17%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (2.17%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 19 (41.30%) Terraform
2 13 (28.26%) Microsoft Intune
3 7 (15.22%) Kubernetes
4 5 (10.87%) SCOM
5 4 (8.70%) Ansible
6 2 (4.35%) FortiGate
6 2 (4.35%) Istio
7 1 (2.17%) PowerCLI
7 1 (2.17%) Prometheus
7 1 (2.17%) vCenter Server
7 1 (2.17%) WSUS
Vendors
1 19 (41.30%) Microsoft
2 11 (23.91%) VMware
3 2 (4.35%) Confluent
3 2 (4.35%) Fortinet
4 1 (2.17%) Apple
4 1 (2.17%) Citrix
4 1 (2.17%) Concur
4 1 (2.17%) Red Hat
4 1 (2.17%) SAP
4 1 (2.17%) Zscaler