Virtual Machines Contracts with Work from Home Options

Virtual Machine (VM)
UK > Work from Home

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with an option to work from home (WFH) and a requirement for Virtual Machines skills. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that have cited Virtual Machines over the 6 months to 16 May 2024 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
16 May 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 249 270 344
Rank change year-on-year +21 +74 -25
Contract jobs citing Virtual Machines 98 207 297
As % of all contract jobs with a WFH option 0.66% 0.84% 0.68%
As % of the System Software category 6.88% 6.78% 5.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 75 131 206
10th Percentile £277 £400 £363
25th Percentile £367 £500 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £550 £525
Median % change year-on-year -9.01% +4.67% -4.55%
75th Percentile £608 £587 £626
90th Percentile - £646 £716
UK median daily rate £515 £541 £525
% change year-on-year -4.85% +3.10% +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 14 3
10th Percentile £84.00 £22.30 £69.30
25th Percentile £84.67 £65.25 £74.25
Median hourly rate £85.78 £66.00 £84.00
Median % change year-on-year +29.97% -21.43% +110.00%
75th Percentile £87.89 £70.19 £85.75
90th Percentile £89.16 £73.95 £86.80
UK median hourly rate £14.63 £66.00 £58.39
% change year-on-year -77.84% +13.04% +37.38%

All System Software Skills
Work from Home

Virtual Machines is in the System Software category. The following table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies with a WFH option and a requirement for system software skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for system software skills 1,424 3,052 5,421
As % of all contract jobs with a WFH option 9.62% 12.38% 12.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,051 2,184 4,044
10th Percentile £275 £300 £319
25th Percentile £405 £415 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - +5.00%
75th Percentile £619 £631 £625
90th Percentile £683 £713 £700
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - +7.69%
Number of hourly rates quoted 31 102 94
10th Percentile - £18.13 £14.55
25th Percentile £15.50 £47.50 £17.75
Median hourly rate £40.25 £65.00 £24.50
Median % change year-on-year -38.08% +165.31% -27.94%
75th Percentile £65.00 £70.00 £53.44
90th Percentile £85.00 £77.95 £66.00
UK median hourly rate £22.30 £54.00 £20.00
% change year-on-year -58.70% +170.00% -9.09%

Virtual Machines
Trend for Jobs with a WFH Option

Job vacancies with a work from home option citing Virtual Machines as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Virtual Machines trend for jobs with a WFH option

Virtual Machines
Daily Rate Trend for Jobs with a WFH Option

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in job vacancies with a work from home option citing Virtual Machines.

Virtual Machines daily rate for jobs with a WFH option

Virtual Machines
Daily Rate Histogram for Jobs with a WFH Option

Daily rate distribution for jobs with a work from home option citing Virtual Machines over the 6 months to 16 May 2024.

Virtual Machines daily rate histogram for jobs with a WFH option

Virtual Machines
Hourly Rate Trend for Jobs with a WFH Option

3-month moving average hourly rate quoted in job vacancies with a work from home option citing Virtual Machines.

Virtual Machines hourly rate for jobs with a WFH option

Virtual Machines
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities with WFH Options by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 21 (21.43%) Microsoft Exchange
2 11 (11.22%) OpenStack
3 6 (6.12%) Confluence
4 4 (4.08%) IIS
5 3 (3.06%) nginx
6 2 (2.04%) Apache
Business Applications
1 2 (2.04%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 56 (57.14%) Azure
2 28 (28.57%) Entra ID
3 23 (23.47%) Microsoft 365
4 20 (20.41%) Azure Storage
5 19 (19.39%) Azure Monitor
6 16 (16.33%) AWS
7 13 (13.27%) Azure DevOps
8 7 (7.14%) IaaS
8 7 (7.14%) Serverless
9 6 (6.12%) PaaS
10 5 (5.10%) Amazon EC2
10 5 (5.10%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 4 (4.08%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 4 (4.08%) AWS CloudTrail
11 4 (4.08%) AWS Lambda
12 3 (3.06%) Amazon ECR
12 3 (3.06%) Amazon Kinesis
12 3 (3.06%) Amazon SQS
12 3 (3.06%) Azure App Service
12 3 (3.06%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 36 (36.73%) Firewall
2 33 (33.67%) DNS
3 25 (25.51%) DHCP
4 14 (14.29%) VPN
5 9 (9.18%) TCP/IP
6 6 (6.12%) Network Security
7 3 (3.06%) OpenLDAP
8 2 (2.04%) Cisco IOS
8 2 (2.04%) IPsec
8 2 (2.04%) NAS
8 2 (2.04%) SAN
8 2 (2.04%) VLAN
8 2 (2.04%) Wi-Fi
9 1 (1.02%) BGP
9 1 (1.02%) Intrusion Detection
9 1 (1.02%) LAN
9 1 (1.02%) MQTT
9 1 (1.02%) Remote Desktop
9 1 (1.02%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (5.10%) Amazon RDS
2 4 (4.08%) Azure SQL Database
2 4 (4.08%) Elasticsearch
2 4 (4.08%) SQL Server
3 3 (3.06%) Amazon Redshift
3 3 (3.06%) Data Lake
3 3 (3.06%) NoSQL
3 3 (3.06%) PostgreSQL
4 2 (2.04%) Couchbase
4 2 (2.04%) Power BI
4 2 (2.04%) Redis
4 2 (2.04%) SQL Server Reporting Services
5 1 (1.02%) MongoDB
5 1 (1.02%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 13 (13.27%) Git
2 8 (8.16%) Jenkins
3 7 (7.14%) JIRA
4 5 (5.10%) GitLab
5 3 (3.06%) Artifactory
5 3 (3.06%) Bitbucket
5 3 (3.06%) Selenium
6 2 (2.04%) Terragrunt
7 1 (1.02%) CppUnit
7 1 (1.02%) Cucumber
7 1 (1.02%) IntelliJ
7 1 (1.02%) Maven
7 1 (1.02%) PVCS
7 1 (1.02%) Rational DOORS
7 1 (1.02%) Visual Studio
General
1 29 (29.59%) Social Skills
2 8 (8.16%) Finance
3 6 (6.12%) Public Sector
4 4 (4.08%) Documentation Skills
5 2 (2.04%) Banking
5 2 (2.04%) Front Office
5 2 (2.04%) Retail
5 2 (2.04%) Telecoms
6 1 (1.02%) Aviation
6 1 (1.02%) Billing
6 1 (1.02%) Electronics
6 1 (1.02%) Manufacturing
6 1 (1.02%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 17 (17.35%) Active Directory Support
2 15 (15.31%) Azure Specialist
2 15 (15.31%) Senior
3 14 (14.29%) Active Directory Specialist
3 14 (14.29%) Support Specialist
4 10 (10.20%) Azure Engineer
4 10 (10.20%) DevOps Engineer
5 9 (9.18%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 8 (8.16%) Architect
7 7 (7.14%) Support Engineer
8 5 (5.10%) Developer
8 5 (5.10%) Linux Engineer
8 5 (5.10%) Senior Developer
8 5 (5.10%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
8 5 (5.10%) Server Engineer
9 4 (4.08%) Azure DevOps Engineer
9 4 (4.08%) Development Engineer
9 4 (4.08%) Network Engineer
9 4 (4.08%) Software Engineer
9 4 (4.08%) Virtualisation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (24.49%) ARM Templates
2 11 (11.22%) .NET
3 8 (8.16%) XML
4 5 (5.10%) Elastic Stack
4 5 (5.10%) YAML
5 4 (4.08%) ASP.NET
5 4 (4.08%) LDAP
6 3 (3.06%) Node.js
6 3 (3.06%) RESTful
6 3 (3.06%) SOAP
7 2 (2.04%) .NET Core
7 2 (2.04%) LAPP Stack
7 2 (2.04%) Middleware
7 2 (2.04%) Oracle Fusion
7 2 (2.04%) pytest
8 1 (1.02%) http4s
8 1 (1.02%) JSON
8 1 (1.02%) OAuth
8 1 (1.02%) OpenTelemetry
8 1 (1.02%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 19 (19.39%) PKI
2 17 (17.35%) Self-Motivation
3 7 (7.14%) Data Centre
3 7 (7.14%) Public Cloud
4 4 (4.08%) Contactless
4 4 (4.08%) Linux Command Line
5 3 (3.06%) Private Cloud
6 2 (2.04%) Data Protection Act
6 2 (2.04%) IoT
6 2 (2.04%) Tandem
6 2 (2.04%) Video Conferencing
7 1 (1.02%) Cyber Threat
7 1 (1.02%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
7 1 (1.02%) Hybrid Cloud
7 1 (1.02%) Legacy Systems
7 1 (1.02%) Machine to Machine
7 1 (1.02%) Management Information System
7 1 (1.02%) Replication
7 1 (1.02%) Security Operations Centre
7 1 (1.02%) TAXII
Operating Systems
1 46 (46.94%) Windows
2 45 (45.92%) Linux
3 29 (29.59%) Windows Server
4 19 (19.39%) Windows Server 2016
5 17 (17.35%) Windows Server 2019
6 5 (5.10%) CentOS
6 5 (5.10%) Mac OS
6 5 (5.10%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 4 (4.08%) Ubuntu
7 4 (4.08%) VMS
8 3 (3.06%) Embedded Linux
8 3 (3.06%) Windows 10
9 2 (2.04%) Alpine Linux
9 2 (2.04%) Mac OS X
9 2 (2.04%) Unix
9 2 (2.04%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (1.02%) Android
10 1 (1.02%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 38 (38.78%) DevOps
2 35 (35.71%) CI/CD
3 31 (31.63%) Infrastructure as Code
4 29 (29.59%) Agile
5 22 (22.45%) ITIL
6 20 (20.41%) Analytics
6 20 (20.41%) RBAC
6 20 (20.41%) Release Management
7 18 (18.37%) Identity Management
7 18 (18.37%) Log Analytics
7 18 (18.37%) Multi-Factor Authentication
7 18 (18.37%) Service Management
8 17 (17.35%) Privileged Identity Management
9 12 (12.24%) High Availability
10 10 (10.20%) Migration
11 9 (9.18%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 8 (8.16%) Disaster Recovery
12 8 (8.16%) Problem-Solving
13 7 (7.14%) Open Source
13 7 (7.14%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 31 (31.63%) PowerShell
2 23 (23.47%) Bicep
3 21 (21.43%) VB
4 20 (20.41%) C#
4 20 (20.41%) Python
5 17 (17.35%) VBScript
6 15 (15.31%) SQL
7 6 (6.12%) Bash
7 6 (6.12%) C++
8 3 (3.06%) Go
8 3 (3.06%) Java
8 3 (3.06%) Shell Script
9 2 (2.04%) Kusto Query Language
9 2 (2.04%) Scala
9 2 (2.04%) VB.NET
10 1 (1.02%) C
10 1 (1.02%) Kotlin
10 1 (1.02%) PHP
10 1 (1.02%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 31 (31.63%) Security Cleared
2 27 (27.55%) SC Cleared
3 23 (23.47%) Degree
4 17 (17.35%) DV Cleared
4 17 (17.35%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
5 4 (4.08%) Azure Certification
5 4 (4.08%) Microsoft Certification
6 3 (3.06%) AWS Certification
6 3 (3.06%) CCNA
6 3 (3.06%) CCNP
6 3 (3.06%) Cisco Certification
7 2 (2.04%) ITIL Certification
8 1 (1.02%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
8 1 (1.02%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 1 (1.02%) MCSA
8 1 (1.02%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (2.04%) ISO 9001
1 2 (2.04%) ISO/IEC 20000
1 2 (2.04%) SLA
2 1 (1.02%) Cyber Essentials
2 1 (1.02%) GDPR
2 1 (1.02%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 1 (1.02%) NIST
2 1 (1.02%) PCI DSS
2 1 (1.02%) QA
System Software
1 38 (38.78%) Active Directory
2 18 (18.37%) Virtual Desktop
3 12 (12.24%) VMware Infrastructure
4 11 (11.22%) Docker
5 10 (10.20%) vSphere
6 6 (6.12%) Firmware
7 5 (5.10%) Hyper-V
8 3 (3.06%) VirtualBox
9 2 (2.04%) Ceph
9 2 (2.04%) Terminal Services
9 2 (2.04%) Veritas Cluster Server
9 2 (2.04%) VMware NSX
9 2 (2.04%) VMware Server
10 1 (1.02%) iptables
10 1 (1.02%) PowerDNS
Systems Management
1 28 (28.57%) Kubernetes
2 21 (21.43%) WSUS
3 20 (20.41%) Microsoft Intune
4 18 (18.37%) SCOM
4 18 (18.37%) Terraform
5 17 (17.35%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 17 (17.35%) SCCM
6 10 (10.20%) Ansible
7 7 (7.14%) Grafana
7 7 (7.14%) Prometheus
8 3 (3.06%) Kibana
8 3 (3.06%) logstash
8 3 (3.06%) vCenter Server
9 2 (2.04%) Pacemaker
9 2 (2.04%) Podman
9 2 (2.04%) Single Sign-On
9 2 (2.04%) ZABBIX
10 1 (1.02%) Dell DRAC
10 1 (1.02%) Docker Swarm
10 1 (1.02%) Puppet
Vendors
1 36 (36.73%) Microsoft
2 19 (19.39%) VMware
3 6 (6.12%) Dell
3 6 (6.12%) Palo Alto
4 5 (5.10%) Oracle
5 4 (4.08%) Cisco
5 4 (4.08%) Okta
6 2 (2.04%) Commvault
6 2 (2.04%) Fortinet
6 2 (2.04%) Juniper
6 2 (2.04%) Red Hat
6 2 (2.04%) Sun
7 1 (1.02%) CA
7 1 (1.02%) Databricks
7 1 (1.02%) F5
7 1 (1.02%) New Relic
7 1 (1.02%) Qualys
7 1 (1.02%) SAP
7 1 (1.02%) Zscaler