Virtual Desktop Contract Job Trends in the Thames Valley

Virtual Desktop
South East > Thames Valley

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the Thames Valley requiring Virtual Desktop skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 8 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 124 108 130
Rank change year-on-year -16 +22 +11
Contract jobs citing Virtual Desktop 18 2 17
As % of all contract jobs in the Thames Valley 0.69% 0.13% 0.61%
As % of the System Software category 6.52% 0.88% 4.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 14 1 17
10th Percentile £449 - -
25th Percentile £494 £603 £603
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £605 £605
Median % change year-on-year -0.83% - -5.10%
75th Percentile £633 £608 £615
90th Percentile £640 - -
South East median daily rate £520 £503 £605
% change year-on-year +3.48% -16.94% +2.98%

All System Software Skills
Thames Valley

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 the Thames Valley.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for system software skills 276 227 341
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 10.57% 14.35% 12.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 195 151 244
10th Percentile £250 £206 £148
25th Percentile £308 £378 £205
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -9.52% +5.00% +3.63%
75th Percentile £560 £638 £608
90th Percentile £616 £700 £650
South East median daily rate £500 £500 £475
% change year-on-year - +5.26% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 2 17
10th Percentile £24.10 - £17.87
25th Percentile £27.34 £55.87 £46.25
Median hourly rate £79.50 £56.75 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +40.10% +13.49% -9.09%
75th Percentile £96.25 £57.62 £65.00
90th Percentile £101.65 - £67.80
South East median hourly rate £58.50 £57.75 £62.50
% change year-on-year +1.30% -7.60% +42.86%

Virtual Desktop
Job Vacancy Trend in the Thames Valley

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

Virtual Desktop job vacancy trend in the Thames Valley

Virtual Desktop
Daily Rate Trend in the Thames Valley

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing Virtual Desktop.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing Virtual Desktop

Virtual Desktop
Daily Rate Histogram in the Thames Valley

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Virtual Desktop in the Thames Valley over the 6 months to 8 March 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Virtual Desktop in the Thames Valley

Virtual Desktop
Hourly Rate Trend in the Thames Valley

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing Virtual Desktop.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing Virtual Desktop

Virtual Desktop
Contract Job Locations in the Thames Valley

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 Thames Valley region over the 6 months to 8 March 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
Berkshire -9 9 £490 -19.01% 1
Buckinghamshire - 9 £640 - 1
Virtual Desktop
South East

Virtual Desktop
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the Thames Valley 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 1 (5.56%) Confluence
Applications
1 4 (22.22%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 8 (44.44%) Azure
2 7 (38.89%) Entra ID
3 4 (22.22%) Amazon GuardDuty
3 4 (22.22%) AWS
3 4 (22.22%) AWS CloudFormation
3 4 (22.22%) AWS CloudTrail
3 4 (22.22%) AWS Control Tower
3 4 (22.22%) AWS KMS
3 4 (22.22%) Virtual Private Cloud
4 2 (11.11%) Microsoft 365
5 1 (5.56%) Azure Storage
5 1 (5.56%) OneDrive
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (22.22%) Azure SQL Database
1 4 (22.22%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 1 (5.56%) JIRA
General
1 8 (44.44%) Public Sector
2 4 (22.22%) Finance
3 3 (16.67%) Social Skills
4 1 (5.56%) Presentation Skills
4 1 (5.56%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 10 (55.56%) Architect
2 4 (22.22%) Cloud Architect
2 4 (22.22%) Senior
2 4 (22.22%) Technical Architect
3 3 (16.67%) Systems Engineer
4 2 (11.11%) AWS Architect
4 2 (11.11%) Citrix Engineer
4 2 (11.11%) Citrix Infrastructure Engineer
4 2 (11.11%) Infrastructure Architect
4 2 (11.11%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 2 (11.11%) Infrastructure Solutions Architect
4 2 (11.11%) Lead
4 2 (11.11%) Lead Architect
4 2 (11.11%) Lead Cloud Architect
4 2 (11.11%) Senior Architect
4 2 (11.11%) Senior Citrix Engineer
4 2 (11.11%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
4 2 (11.11%) Senior Technical Architect
4 2 (11.11%) Solutions Architect
5 1 (5.56%) SQL Server Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (22.22%) .NET
2 3 (16.67%) Software Packaging
Operating Systems
1 4 (22.22%) Windows
2 3 (16.67%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 8 (44.44%) ITIL
2 7 (38.89%) Migration
3 6 (33.33%) FinOps
3 6 (33.33%) Roadmaps
3 6 (33.33%) User Experience
4 5 (27.78%) Runbook
4 5 (27.78%) Validation
5 4 (22.22%) Network Segmentation
5 4 (22.22%) RBAC
5 4 (22.22%) Threat Detection
5 4 (22.22%) User Acceptance Testing
6 3 (16.67%) Analytics
6 3 (16.67%) Compatibility Testing
6 3 (16.67%) Decision-Making
6 3 (16.67%) Digital Transformation Programme
6 3 (16.67%) High Availability
6 3 (16.67%) Infrastructure as Code
6 3 (16.67%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 3 (16.67%) Performance Tuning
6 3 (16.67%) Software Testing
Programming Languages
1 4 (22.22%) SQL
2 2 (11.11%) Bicep
3 1 (5.56%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 9 (50.00%) Security Cleared
2 6 (33.33%) SC Cleared
3 4 (22.22%) AWS Certification
3 4 (22.22%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
4 3 (16.67%) CCA
4 3 (16.67%) CESG Certified Professional
4 3 (16.67%) Citrix Certification
4 3 (16.67%) DV Cleared
5 2 (11.11%) Azure Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (22.22%) Cyber Essentials
1 4 (22.22%) NCSC
System Software
1 9 (50.00%) Active Directory
2 5 (27.78%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 7 (38.89%) Terraform
2 5 (27.78%) Microsoft Intune
3 3 (16.67%) SCCM
Vendors
1 13 (72.22%) Citrix
2 9 (50.00%) Microsoft
3 5 (27.78%) VMware
4 4 (22.22%) CloudEndure