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 1 June 2024 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
1 Jun 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 304 322 393
Rank change year-on-year +18 +71 +10
Contract jobs citing Virtual Machines 298 426 575
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.69% 0.76% 0.66%
As % of the System Software category 6.34% 5.81% 4.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 203 286 379
10th Percentile £314 £338 £350
25th Percentile £419 £455 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £538 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.33% +2.38% +5.00%
75th Percentile £608 £600 £634
90th Percentile £675 £700 £702
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £525 £513
% change year-on-year - +2.44% +17.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 27 19 8
10th Percentile - £23.96 £25.03
25th Percentile £14.06 £28.25 £45.89
Median hourly rate £14.63 £66.00 £74.25
Median % change year-on-year -77.84% -11.11% +73.68%
75th Percentile £15.19 £70.13 £84.19
90th Percentile £86.97 £78.00 £85.58
UK excluding London median hourly rate £14.63 £64.50 £83.25
% change year-on-year -77.33% -22.52% +54.17%

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 4,701 7,331 11,619
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.92% 13.08% 13.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,266 5,173 8,348
10th Percentile £200 £200 £200
25th Percentile £350 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - +6.06%
75th Percentile £607 £638 £625
90th Percentile £688 £725 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £479 £450
% change year-on-year -0.84% +6.44% +5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 228 248 287
10th Percentile £14.06 £15.23 £13.00
25th Percentile £15.25 £19.75 £14.75
Median hourly rate £24.18 £55.00 £19.00
Median % change year-on-year -56.04% +189.47% -5.00%
75th Percentile £60.75 £66.00 £37.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.82 £58.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £48.40 £17.50
% change year-on-year -43.18% +176.57% -3.39%

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 1 June 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 1 June 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 1 June 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 +27 276 £535 -1.38% 107
UK excluding London +6 152 £525 - 66
London +28 109 £535 -2.73% 46
Work from Home +28 101 £500 -8.63% 45
South East +16 60 £585 +7.83% 15
North of England +32 39 £600 +14.29% 13
Midlands +19 27 £541 +19.04% 10
South West +10 26 £450 -12.20% 15
West Midlands +14 25 £564 +50.27% 6
Yorkshire +31 23 £340 -35.24% 7
North West +18 16 £600 +14.29% 4
East of England +3 15 £533 +6.65% 10
Scotland +12 4 £444 -11.25% 3
East Midlands +8 2 £325 -38.10% 4
Wales +14 1 £425 -29.17%

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 36 (12.08%) Microsoft Exchange
2 15 (5.03%) OpenStack
3 9 (3.02%) Confluence
3 9 (3.02%) IIS
4 4 (1.34%) SharePoint
4 4 (1.34%) Tomcat
5 2 (0.67%) Exchange Server 2013
6 1 (0.34%) Apache Solr
6 1 (0.34%) nginx
6 1 (0.34%) ThingWorx
Applications
1 5 (1.68%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.34%) PTC Creo
2 1 (0.34%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 3 (1.01%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (0.34%) Oracle BPM
2 1 (0.34%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 129 (43.29%) Azure
2 59 (19.80%) Entra ID
3 47 (15.77%) Microsoft 365
4 31 (10.40%) AWS
5 30 (10.07%) Azure DevOps
5 30 (10.07%) Azure Monitor
6 29 (9.73%) Azure Storage
7 24 (8.05%) PaaS
8 18 (6.04%) IaaS
9 17 (5.70%) Azure Logic Apps
9 17 (5.70%) Power Platform
10 15 (5.03%) Serverless
11 13 (4.36%) Azure Key Vault
12 12 (4.03%) SaaS
13 9 (3.02%) Azure App Service
13 9 (3.02%) Azure Cosmos DB
13 9 (3.02%) Cloud Computing
13 9 (3.02%) GCP
14 8 (2.68%) Azure Sentinel
14 8 (2.68%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 64 (21.48%) Firewall
2 48 (16.11%) DNS
3 36 (12.08%) DHCP
4 22 (7.38%) VPN
5 15 (5.03%) TCP/IP
6 12 (4.03%) Network Security
7 9 (3.02%) Remote Desktop
8 8 (2.68%) WAN
9 7 (2.35%) Internet
10 6 (2.01%) IPsec
10 6 (2.01%) Wi-Fi
11 4 (1.34%) BGP
11 4 (1.34%) LAN
11 4 (1.34%) NAS
11 4 (1.34%) OpenLDAP
11 4 (1.34%) SAN
12 3 (1.01%) MPLS
12 3 (1.01%) SD-WAN
12 3 (1.01%) VLAN
13 2 (0.67%) 5G
Database & Business Intelligence
1 24 (8.05%) SQL Server
2 17 (5.70%) Azure SQL Database
3 16 (5.37%) Power BI
4 8 (2.68%) Elasticsearch
4 8 (2.68%) Oracle Database
5 7 (2.35%) Data Lake
5 7 (2.35%) PostgreSQL
5 7 (2.35%) Redis
6 6 (2.01%) Amazon RDS
7 4 (1.34%) Amazon Redshift
7 4 (1.34%) MongoDB
7 4 (1.34%) Relational Database
8 3 (1.01%) MySQL
9 2 (0.67%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 1 (0.34%) Data Warehouse
10 1 (0.34%) DynamoDB
10 1 (0.34%) MariaDB
10 1 (0.34%) NoSQL
10 1 (0.34%) SAP HANA
10 1 (0.34%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 32 (10.74%) Git
2 18 (6.04%) GitLab
3 17 (5.70%) Jenkins
4 11 (3.69%) JIRA
5 9 (3.02%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
6 7 (2.35%) Artifactory
6 7 (2.35%) Visual Studio
7 6 (2.01%) Selenium
8 4 (1.34%) Bitbucket
9 3 (1.01%) CppUnit
9 3 (1.01%) PVCS
9 3 (1.01%) Rational DOORS
10 2 (0.67%) Maven
11 1 (0.34%) Cucumber
11 1 (0.34%) Gradle
11 1 (0.34%) Hudson
11 1 (0.34%) IntelliJ
11 1 (0.34%) JUnit
11 1 (0.34%) Team Foundation Server
11 1 (0.34%) TestNG
General
1 83 (27.85%) Social Skills
2 43 (14.43%) Finance
3 27 (9.06%) Public Sector
4 12 (4.03%) Banking
5 10 (3.36%) Financial Institution
6 9 (3.02%) Analytical Skills
6 9 (3.02%) Documentation Skills
7 6 (2.01%) Electronics
7 6 (2.01%) Telecoms
8 5 (1.68%) German Language
9 4 (1.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 4 (1.34%) Local Government
10 3 (1.01%) Billing
10 3 (1.01%) Front Office
11 2 (0.67%) Aerospace
11 2 (0.67%) Manufacturing
11 2 (0.67%) Marketing
11 2 (0.67%) Retail
12 1 (0.34%) Automotive
12 1 (0.34%) Legal
Job Titles
1 40 (13.42%) Architect
2 29 (9.73%) Senior
3 25 (8.39%) Azure Engineer
4 24 (8.05%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 20 (6.71%) Active Directory Support
6 17 (5.70%) Platform Engineer
7 16 (5.37%) DevOps Engineer
8 15 (5.03%) Analyst
8 15 (5.03%) Azure Specialist
8 15 (5.03%) Developer
9 14 (4.70%) Active Directory Specialist
9 14 (4.70%) Support Specialist
10 13 (4.36%) Cloud Engineer
11 12 (4.03%) Support Engineer
12 11 (3.69%) Lead
13 10 (3.36%) Administrator
13 10 (3.36%) Software Engineer
14 9 (3.02%) Azure Architect
14 9 (3.02%) Linux Engineer
14 9 (3.02%) Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (10.40%) ARM Templates
2 26 (8.72%) YAML
3 18 (6.04%) XML
4 14 (4.70%) .NET
5 10 (3.36%) JSON
6 8 (2.68%) Spring
6 8 (2.68%) Web Services
7 7 (2.35%) Elastic Stack
7 7 (2.35%) Microsoft Graph
7 7 (2.35%) REST
8 6 (2.01%) http4s
8 6 (2.01%) LDAP
9 5 (1.68%) Lambda Expressions
9 5 (1.68%) Node.js
9 5 (1.68%) Oracle Fusion
9 5 (1.68%) RESTful
10 4 (1.34%) ASP.NET
10 4 (1.34%) JWT
10 4 (1.34%) Kafka
10 4 (1.34%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 28 (9.40%) Self-Motivation
2 26 (8.72%) PKI
3 21 (7.05%) Driving Licence
4 15 (5.03%) Management Information System
5 14 (4.70%) Data Centre
6 10 (3.36%) Linux Command Line
7 9 (3.02%) Public Cloud
8 7 (2.35%) Distributed Systems
8 7 (2.35%) Onboarding
8 7 (2.35%) Replication
9 6 (2.01%) Cyber Threat
9 6 (2.01%) Distributed Architecture
10 5 (1.68%) Data Protection Act
11 4 (1.34%) Contactless
11 4 (1.34%) Video\Live Streaming
12 3 (1.01%) Hybrid Cloud
12 3 (1.01%) IoT
12 3 (1.01%) Private Cloud
13 2 (0.67%) Enterprise Software
13 2 (0.67%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 106 (35.57%) Windows
2 101 (33.89%) Linux
3 45 (15.10%) Windows Server
4 37 (12.42%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 34 (11.41%) Windows Server 2019
6 29 (9.73%) Windows Server 2016
7 26 (8.72%) VMS
8 13 (4.36%) Unix
9 8 (2.68%) CentOS
9 8 (2.68%) Windows 10
10 6 (2.01%) Mac OS
10 6 (2.01%) Oracle Linux
10 6 (2.01%) Solaris
10 6 (2.01%) Windows Server 2012
11 4 (1.34%) Alpine Linux
11 4 (1.34%) Embedded Linux
12 3 (1.01%) Ubuntu
13 2 (0.67%) Mac OS X
13 2 (0.67%) Windows 7
14 1 (0.34%) Android
Processes & Methodologies
1 70 (23.49%) DevOps
1 70 (23.49%) Infrastructure as Code
2 69 (23.15%) CI/CD
3 60 (20.13%) Agile
4 50 (16.78%) Migration
5 33 (11.07%) ITIL
6 32 (10.74%) Analytics
6 32 (10.74%) Validation
7 31 (10.40%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 30 (10.07%) RBAC
9 28 (9.40%) Release Management
10 26 (8.72%) Identity Management
11 25 (8.39%) Multi-Factor Authentication
11 25 (8.39%) Problem-Solving
12 24 (8.05%) High Availability
12 24 (8.05%) Log Analytics
13 23 (7.72%) Disaster Recovery
14 22 (7.38%) Computer Science
14 22 (7.38%) Configuration Management
14 22 (7.38%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 79 (26.51%) PowerShell
2 55 (18.46%) SQL
3 43 (14.43%) Python
4 35 (11.74%) Bicep
5 25 (8.39%) C#
6 24 (8.05%) VB
7 20 (6.71%) Java
7 20 (6.71%) VBScript
8 16 (5.37%) Shell Script
9 10 (3.36%) Bash
10 9 (3.02%) C++
11 8 (2.68%) Scala
12 4 (1.34%) Ruby
13 3 (1.01%) C
13 3 (1.01%) PHP
13 3 (1.01%) VB.NET
14 2 (0.67%) Go
14 2 (0.67%) Kotlin
14 2 (0.67%) Kusto Query Language
15 1 (0.34%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 93 (31.21%) Security Cleared
2 71 (23.83%) SC Cleared
3 59 (19.80%) Degree
4 35 (11.74%) DV Cleared
5 21 (7.05%) Azure Certification
6 20 (6.71%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
7 12 (4.03%) Computer Science Degree
8 9 (3.02%) Microsoft Certification
9 8 (2.68%) Cisco Certification
10 6 (2.01%) AWS Certification
10 6 (2.01%) CCNA
11 4 (1.34%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
11 4 (1.34%) CCNP
11 4 (1.34%) ITIL Certification
12 3 (1.01%) GCIA
12 3 (1.01%) GCIH
12 3 (1.01%) GIAC
12 3 (1.01%) ISEB
12 3 (1.01%) ISTQB
12 3 (1.01%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (3.36%) QA
1 10 (3.36%) SLA
2 3 (1.01%) GDPR
2 3 (1.01%) ISO 9001
2 3 (1.01%) ISO/IEC 20000
2 3 (1.01%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 3 (1.01%) PCI DSS
3 2 (0.67%) COBIT
3 2 (0.67%) NCSC
4 1 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials
4 1 (0.34%) Data Quality
4 1 (0.34%) Disclosure Scotland
4 1 (0.34%) NIST
System Software
1 87 (29.19%) Active Directory
2 61 (20.47%) VMware Infrastructure
3 24 (8.05%) Docker
4 22 (7.38%) Virtual Desktop
5 17 (5.70%) Hyper-V
6 14 (4.70%) vSphere
7 11 (3.69%) VMware ESXi
8 10 (3.36%) KVM
9 9 (3.02%) Firmware
10 6 (2.01%) VMFS
11 4 (1.34%) VirtualBox
12 2 (0.67%) Ceph
12 2 (0.67%) PowerDNS
12 2 (0.67%) Terminal Services
12 2 (0.67%) Veritas Cluster Server
12 2 (0.67%) VMware NSX
12 2 (0.67%) VMware Server
12 2 (0.67%) VMware Workstation
13 1 (0.34%) Citrix Presentation Server
13 1 (0.34%) LXC
Systems Management
1 59 (19.80%) Kubernetes
2 56 (18.79%) Terraform
3 41 (13.76%) Ansible
4 29 (9.73%) WSUS
5 28 (9.40%) SCCM
6 27 (9.06%) Microsoft Intune
7 21 (7.05%) SCOM
8 20 (6.71%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 17 (5.70%) Single Sign-On
10 16 (5.37%) Progress Chef
10 16 (5.37%) Puppet
11 14 (4.70%) Salt
12 13 (4.36%) Grafana
12 13 (4.36%) Prometheus
13 7 (2.35%) Kibana
13 7 (2.35%) logstash
14 5 (1.68%) vCenter Server
15 4 (1.34%) Data Guard
15 4 (1.34%) Nessus
15 4 (1.34%) Packer
Vendors
1 92 (30.87%) Microsoft
2 71 (23.83%) VMware
3 33 (11.07%) Red Hat
4 30 (10.07%) Oracle
5 20 (6.71%) BT
5 20 (6.71%) Virgin Media
6 13 (4.36%) SaltStack
7 10 (3.36%) Okta
8 9 (3.02%) Google
8 9 (3.02%) Palo Alto
9 8 (2.68%) CA
9 8 (2.68%) Cisco
9 8 (2.68%) Dell
10 7 (2.35%) SEEBURGER
11 6 (2.01%) Amdocs
12 4 (1.34%) CrowdStrike
12 4 (1.34%) Roku
13 3 (1.01%) BeyondTrust
13 3 (1.01%) Databricks
13 3 (1.01%) New Relic