Virtual Desktop Contract Job Trends in Cheshire

Virtual Desktop
North West > Cheshire

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in Cheshire requiring Virtual Desktop skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 15 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 65 56 53
Rank change year-on-year -9 -3 +7
Contract jobs citing Virtual Desktop 6 1 3
As % of all contract jobs in Cheshire 0.87% 0.24% 0.60%
As % of the System Software category 5.56% 1.72% 6.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 3 0 3
10th Percentile - - £501
25th Percentile £313 - £503
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £325 - £513
Median % change year-on-year - - -14.58%
75th Percentile £377 - £598
90th Percentile £400 - £644
North West median daily rate £330 £550 £468
% change year-on-year -40.00% +17.65% -15.00%

All System Software Skills
Cheshire

Virtual Desktop falls under the System Software category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring system software skills in Cheshire.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for system software skills 108 58 47
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Cheshire 15.63% 13.71% 9.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 75 46 24
10th Percentile £333 £230 £126
25th Percentile £358 £339 £155
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £449 £389 £375
Median % change year-on-year +15.35% +3.80% -15.73%
75th Percentile £619 £450 £486
90th Percentile £653 £531 £590
North West median daily rate £450 £425 £450
% change year-on-year +5.88% -5.56% -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 1 7
10th Percentile - - £16.69
25th Percentile - £72.50 £17.26
Median hourly rate - £75.00 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year - +323.25% -2.66%
75th Percentile - £77.50 -
90th Percentile - - £17.74
North West median hourly rate £74.26 £75.00 £17.72
% change year-on-year -0.99% +323.25% -26.79%

Virtual Desktop
Job Vacancy Trend in Cheshire

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Virtual Desktop relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in Cheshire.

Virtual Desktop job vacancy trend in Cheshire

Virtual Desktop
Daily Rate Trend in Cheshire

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Cheshire citing Virtual Desktop.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Cheshire citing Virtual Desktop

Virtual Desktop
Contract Job Locations in Cheshire

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Virtual Desktop within the Cheshire region over the 6 months to 15 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
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
Knutsford - 3 £416 -
Chester - 2 £325 -
Warrington 0 1 £325 -
Virtual Desktop
North West

Virtual Desktop
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Cheshire 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:

Cloud Services
1 3 (50.00%) Azure
2 2 (33.33%) Azure Monitor
2 2 (33.33%) Entra ID
3 1 (16.67%) Azure DevOps
3 1 (16.67%) Cloud Computing
3 1 (16.67%) GitHub
Development Applications
1 1 (16.67%) JIRA
General
1 2 (33.33%) Social Skills
2 1 (16.67%) Finance
2 1 (16.67%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 2 (33.33%) Architect
1 2 (33.33%) Desktop Engineer
1 2 (33.33%) Support Engineer
2 1 (16.67%) Azure DevOps Engineer
2 1 (16.67%) Azure Engineer
2 1 (16.67%) Desktop Support
2 1 (16.67%) Desktop Support Engineer
2 1 (16.67%) DevOps Engineer
2 1 (16.67%) Migration Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (16.67%) ARM Templates
Miscellaneous
1 2 (33.33%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 1 (16.67%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 3 (50.00%) Migration
2 2 (33.33%) Auto-Scaling
2 2 (33.33%) Cloud Security
2 2 (33.33%) Data Protection
2 2 (33.33%) RBAC
2 2 (33.33%) Runbook
2 2 (33.33%) Stakeholder Engagement
3 1 (16.67%) Agile
3 1 (16.67%) CI/CD
3 1 (16.67%) DevOps
3 1 (16.67%) Knowledge Transfer
3 1 (16.67%) Scaled Agile Framework
3 1 (16.67%) Scrum
3 1 (16.67%) Security Hardening
3 1 (16.67%) User Acceptance Testing
Programming Languages
1 1 (16.67%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 2 (33.33%) Azure Certification
2 1 (16.67%) SC Cleared
2 1 (16.67%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (16.67%) QA
System Software
1 2 (33.33%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 1 (16.67%) Terraform
Vendors
1 2 (33.33%) VMware
2 1 (16.67%) Citrix