Virtual Machines Contracts

Virtual Machine (VM)
UK

The following table provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with 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 15 May 2024 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
15 May 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 320 322 400
Rank change year-on-year +2 +78 -10
Contract jobs citing Virtual Machines 272 443 566
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.64% 0.78% 0.65%
As % of the System Software category 5.95% 5.92% 4.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 186 295 374
10th Percentile £309 £366 £324
25th Percentile £413 £463 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £540 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.17% +2.86% +5.00%
75th Percentile £608 £589 £625
90th Percentile £675 £675 £712
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £525 £500
% change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% +14.29%
Number of hourly rates quoted 27 19 10
10th Percentile - £23.96 £29.18
25th Percentile £14.06 £28.25 £39.11
Median hourly rate £14.63 £66.00 £58.39
Median % change year-on-year -77.84% +13.04% +32.69%
75th Percentile £15.19 £70.13 £83.94
90th Percentile £86.97 £78.00 £85.03
UK excluding London median hourly rate £14.63 £64.50 £82.50
% change year-on-year -77.33% -21.82% +68.37%

All System Software Skills
UK

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 requirement for system software skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for system software skills 4,571 7,489 11,750
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.74% 13.11% 13.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,147 5,323 8,425
10th Percentile £200 £203 £200
25th Percentile £350 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - +7.69%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £625
90th Percentile £688 £725 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £480 £450
% change year-on-year -3.65% +6.67% +5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 230 260 305
10th Percentile £14.06 £15.25 £13.29
25th Percentile £14.48 £18.25 £15.00
Median hourly rate £22.40 £54.00 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year -58.52% +170.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £60.75 £66.00 £40.75
90th Percentile £78.20 £75.77 £60.55
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.18 £41.88 £18.12
% change year-on-year -54.21% +131.16% -0.85%

Virtual Machines
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Virtual Machines as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Virtual Machines in the UK

Virtual Machines
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Virtual Machines.

Daily rate trend for Virtual Machines in the UK

Virtual Machines
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Virtual Machines over the 6 months to 15 May 2024.

Daily rate histogram for Virtual Machines in the UK

Virtual Machines
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Virtual Machines.

Hourly rate trend for Virtual Machines in the UK

Virtual Machines
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Virtual Machines over the 6 months to 15 May 2024.

Hourly rate histogram for Virtual Machines in the UK

Virtual Machines
Top 15 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Virtual Machines within the UK over the 6 months to 15 May 2024. 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
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
England +11 252 £525 -3.49% 108
UK excluding London -10 127 £500 -4.76% 73
London +37 109 £550 - 46
Work from Home +25 97 £500 -8.63% 46
South East +13 46 £550 +0.64% 23
North of England +27 39 £594 +13.10% 12
Yorkshire +33 23 £338 -35.71% 5
North West +13 16 £600 +16.50% 6
Midlands +17 13 £400 -11.11% 9
East of England +5 13 £602 +20.40% 8
West Midlands +8 11 £400 +6.67% 4
South West +7 11 £439 -12.15% 18
Scotland +17 4 £444 -12.39% 3
East Midlands +11 2 £325 -38.10% 5
Wales +20 1 £425 -29.17% 1

Virtual Machines
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities 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 30 (11.03%) Microsoft Exchange
2 22 (8.09%) OpenStack
3 9 (3.31%) Confluence
4 7 (2.57%) IIS
5 6 (2.21%) nginx
6 5 (1.84%) Apache
7 2 (0.74%) SharePoint
7 2 (0.74%) Tomcat
Applications
1 5 (1.84%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.37%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 3 (1.10%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (0.37%) Oracle BPM
Cloud Services
1 121 (44.49%) Azure
2 51 (18.75%) Entra ID
3 41 (15.07%) Microsoft 365
4 38 (13.97%) AWS
5 28 (10.29%) Azure DevOps
6 25 (9.19%) Azure Storage
7 23 (8.46%) Azure Monitor
8 22 (8.09%) PaaS
9 17 (6.25%) Azure Logic Apps
9 17 (6.25%) Power Platform
10 16 (5.88%) IaaS
11 12 (4.41%) Azure Key Vault
11 12 (4.41%) Serverless
12 9 (3.31%) Azure Cosmos DB
12 9 (3.31%) Cloud Computing
12 9 (3.31%) GCP
13 8 (2.94%) Azure Data Factory
13 8 (2.94%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 8 (2.94%) GitHub
14 7 (2.57%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 60 (22.06%) Firewall
2 47 (17.28%) DNS
3 36 (13.24%) DHCP
4 23 (8.46%) VPN
5 15 (5.51%) TCP/IP
6 11 (4.04%) Network Security
7 6 (2.21%) IPsec
8 5 (1.84%) WAN
8 5 (1.84%) Wi-Fi
9 4 (1.47%) BGP
9 4 (1.47%) Internet
9 4 (1.47%) NAS
9 4 (1.47%) OpenLDAP
9 4 (1.47%) SAN
10 3 (1.10%) LAN
10 3 (1.10%) MPLS
10 3 (1.10%) Remote Desktop
10 3 (1.10%) SD-WAN
10 3 (1.10%) VLAN
11 2 (0.74%) 5G
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (7.72%) SQL Server
2 17 (6.25%) Azure SQL Database
3 16 (5.88%) Power BI
4 10 (3.68%) Elasticsearch
4 10 (3.68%) PostgreSQL
5 8 (2.94%) Data Lake
5 8 (2.94%) Oracle Database
6 6 (2.21%) Amazon RDS
6 6 (2.21%) NoSQL
6 6 (2.21%) Redis
7 5 (1.84%) Couchbase
8 4 (1.47%) Amazon Redshift
8 4 (1.47%) MongoDB
8 4 (1.47%) Relational Database
9 2 (0.74%) MySQL
9 2 (0.74%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 1 (0.37%) Data Warehouse
10 1 (0.37%) MariaDB
10 1 (0.37%) SAP HANA
10 1 (0.37%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 20 (7.35%) Git
2 18 (6.62%) GitLab
2 18 (6.62%) Jenkins
3 11 (4.04%) JIRA
4 8 (2.94%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
5 7 (2.57%) Artifactory
5 7 (2.57%) Visual Studio
6 5 (1.84%) Selenium
7 4 (1.47%) Bitbucket
8 3 (1.10%) CppUnit
8 3 (1.10%) PVCS
8 3 (1.10%) Rational DOORS
9 2 (0.74%) Maven
9 2 (0.74%) Terragrunt
10 1 (0.37%) Cucumber
10 1 (0.37%) Hudson
10 1 (0.37%) IntelliJ
10 1 (0.37%) JUnit
10 1 (0.37%) Spinnaker
10 1 (0.37%) TestNG
General
1 78 (28.68%) Social Skills
2 42 (15.44%) Finance
3 24 (8.82%) Public Sector
4 13 (4.78%) Banking
5 10 (3.68%) Financial Institution
5 10 (3.68%) Telecoms
6 9 (3.31%) Documentation Skills
7 7 (2.57%) Electronics
8 6 (2.21%) Analytical Skills
8 6 (2.21%) German Language
9 4 (1.47%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 4 (1.47%) Local Government
10 3 (1.10%) Front Office
10 3 (1.10%) Manufacturing
10 3 (1.10%) Marketing
10 3 (1.10%) Retail
11 2 (0.74%) Aerospace
12 1 (0.37%) Automotive
12 1 (0.37%) Legal
12 1 (0.37%) Private Banking
Job Titles
1 40 (14.71%) Architect
2 28 (10.29%) Senior
3 25 (9.19%) Azure Engineer
4 21 (7.72%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 18 (6.62%) DevOps Engineer
6 17 (6.25%) Active Directory Support
7 16 (5.88%) Developer
8 15 (5.51%) Azure Specialist
9 14 (5.15%) Active Directory Specialist
9 14 (5.15%) Support Specialist
10 13 (4.78%) Analyst
10 13 (4.78%) Cloud Engineer
11 11 (4.04%) Lead
12 10 (3.68%) Azure DevOps Engineer
12 10 (3.68%) Software Engineer
13 9 (3.31%) Azure Architect
13 9 (3.31%) Linux Engineer
13 9 (3.31%) Network Engineer
13 9 (3.31%) Platform Engineer
13 9 (3.31%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 27 (9.93%) ARM Templates
2 18 (6.62%) XML
3 14 (5.15%) .NET
3 14 (5.15%) Elastic Stack
4 10 (3.68%) JSON
4 10 (3.68%) YAML
5 8 (2.94%) Spring
6 7 (2.57%) Microsoft Graph
6 7 (2.57%) REST
7 6 (2.21%) http4s
7 6 (2.21%) LDAP
7 6 (2.21%) Web Services
8 5 (1.84%) Lambda Expressions
8 5 (1.84%) LAPP Stack
8 5 (1.84%) Node.js
8 5 (1.84%) RESTful
9 4 (1.47%) ASP.NET
9 4 (1.47%) JWT
9 4 (1.47%) pytest
9 4 (1.47%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 25 (9.19%) PKI
2 21 (7.72%) Driving Licence
2 21 (7.72%) Self-Motivation
3 14 (5.15%) Public Cloud
4 13 (4.78%) Data Centre
5 11 (4.04%) Management Information System
6 9 (3.31%) Linux Command Line
7 7 (2.57%) Onboarding
8 6 (2.21%) Distributed Architecture
8 6 (2.21%) Distributed Systems
8 6 (2.21%) Replication
9 4 (1.47%) Contactless
9 4 (1.47%) Video\Live Streaming
10 3 (1.10%) Cyber Threat
10 3 (1.10%) Data Protection Act
10 3 (1.10%) Hybrid Cloud
10 3 (1.10%) Private Cloud
10 3 (1.10%) Team-Oriented Environment
11 2 (0.74%) Data Structures
11 2 (0.74%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 90 (33.09%) Linux
2 77 (28.31%) Windows
3 37 (13.60%) Windows Server
4 26 (9.56%) VMS
5 24 (8.82%) Windows Server 2016
6 23 (8.46%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 23 (8.46%) Windows Server 2019
7 15 (5.51%) CentOS
8 13 (4.78%) Unix
9 9 (3.31%) Windows 10
10 8 (2.94%) Ubuntu
11 6 (2.21%) Oracle Linux
11 6 (2.21%) Solaris
12 5 (1.84%) Mac OS
13 4 (1.47%) Alpine Linux
13 4 (1.47%) Embedded Linux
13 4 (1.47%) Windows Server 2012
14 3 (1.10%) Windows 7
15 2 (0.74%) Mac OS X
16 1 (0.37%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 73 (26.84%) CI/CD
2 65 (23.90%) DevOps
3 54 (19.85%) Agile
4 53 (19.49%) Infrastructure as Code
5 48 (17.65%) Migration
6 29 (10.66%) ITIL
7 27 (9.93%) Analytics
7 27 (9.93%) Disaster Recovery
7 27 (9.93%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 26 (9.56%) RBAC
9 24 (8.82%) High Availability
9 24 (8.82%) Problem-Solving
9 24 (8.82%) Release Management
10 22 (8.09%) Computer Science
10 22 (8.09%) Containerisation
10 22 (8.09%) Multi-Factor Authentication
11 19 (6.99%) Business Intelligence
11 19 (6.99%) Identity Management
11 19 (6.99%) Log Analytics
12 18 (6.62%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 57 (20.96%) SQL
2 51 (18.75%) PowerShell
3 46 (16.91%) Python
4 31 (11.40%) Bicep
5 22 (8.09%) C#
6 21 (7.72%) VB
7 20 (7.35%) Java
8 18 (6.62%) Shell Script
9 17 (6.25%) VBScript
10 14 (5.15%) Bash
11 9 (3.31%) C++
12 8 (2.94%) Scala
13 7 (2.57%) Go
14 3 (1.10%) C
14 3 (1.10%) PHP
14 3 (1.10%) Ruby
14 3 (1.10%) VB.NET
15 2 (0.74%) Kotlin
15 2 (0.74%) Kusto Query Language
16 1 (0.37%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 64 (23.53%) Security Cleared
2 53 (19.49%) Degree
3 47 (17.28%) SC Cleared
4 30 (11.03%) DV Cleared
5 19 (6.99%) Azure Certification
6 17 (6.25%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
7 13 (4.78%) Computer Science Degree
8 7 (2.57%) Cisco Certification
8 7 (2.57%) Microsoft Certification
9 6 (2.21%) AWS Certification
9 6 (2.21%) CCNA
10 4 (1.47%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
10 4 (1.47%) ITIL Certification
10 4 (1.47%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 3 (1.10%) A+ Certification
11 3 (1.10%) CCNP
11 3 (1.10%) ISEB
11 3 (1.10%) ISTQB
11 3 (1.10%) Network+ Certification
12 2 (0.74%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (4.41%) QA
2 7 (2.57%) SLA
3 3 (1.10%) ISO 9001
3 3 (1.10%) ISO/IEC 20000
4 1 (0.37%) Cyber Essentials
4 1 (0.37%) Data Quality
4 1 (0.37%) Def Stans
4 1 (0.37%) Disclosure Scotland
4 1 (0.37%) GDPR
4 1 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 1 (0.37%) NIST
4 1 (0.37%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 78 (28.68%) Active Directory
2 41 (15.07%) VMware Infrastructure
3 23 (8.46%) Docker
4 19 (6.99%) Virtual Desktop
5 16 (5.88%) Hyper-V
6 14 (5.15%) vSphere
7 11 (4.04%) KVM
8 9 (3.31%) Firmware
9 5 (1.84%) VMware ESXi
10 4 (1.47%) VirtualBox
11 3 (1.10%) VMware Workstation
12 2 (0.74%) Ceph
12 2 (0.74%) PowerDNS
12 2 (0.74%) Terminal Services
12 2 (0.74%) Veritas Cluster Server
12 2 (0.74%) VMware NSX
12 2 (0.74%) VMware Server
13 1 (0.37%) iptables
13 1 (0.37%) LXC
Systems Management
1 52 (19.12%) Kubernetes
2 43 (15.81%) Terraform
3 31 (11.40%) Ansible
4 25 (9.19%) WSUS
5 24 (8.82%) Microsoft Intune
6 21 (7.72%) SCCM
7 19 (6.99%) Grafana
7 19 (6.99%) Prometheus
8 18 (6.62%) SCOM
9 17 (6.25%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 15 (5.51%) Single Sign-On
11 9 (3.31%) Kibana
11 9 (3.31%) logstash
12 8 (2.94%) vCenter Server
13 5 (1.84%) ZABBIX
14 4 (1.47%) Packer
15 3 (1.10%) Nessus
16 2 (0.74%) Pacemaker
16 2 (0.74%) QRadar
16 2 (0.74%) vRealize
Vendors
1 82 (30.15%) Microsoft
2 50 (18.38%) VMware
3 23 (8.46%) Oracle
4 20 (7.35%) BT
4 20 (7.35%) Virgin Media
5 18 (6.62%) Red Hat
6 10 (3.68%) Google
7 9 (3.31%) Dell
8 8 (2.94%) CA
8 8 (2.94%) Cisco
8 8 (2.94%) Okta
9 7 (2.57%) Palo Alto
9 7 (2.57%) SEEBURGER
10 6 (2.21%) Amdocs
11 4 (1.47%) Roku
11 4 (1.47%) SAP
12 3 (1.10%) Databricks
12 3 (1.10%) F5
12 3 (1.10%) Juniper
12 3 (1.10%) New Relic