Remote Desktop Contract Job Trends

Remote Desktop
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring Remote Desktop skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 25 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 639 487 472
Rank change year-on-year -152 -15 +112
Contract jobs citing Remote Desktop 31 63 89
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.058% 0.19% 0.23%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 0.61% 1.63% 1.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 11 34 63
10th Percentile £156 £153 £170
25th Percentile £159 £171 £228
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £250 £238 £345
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -31.16% +47.59%
75th Percentile £481 £447 £497
90th Percentile £675 £488 £628
UK excluding London median daily rate £175 £171 £343
% change year-on-year +2.34% -50.07% +71.25%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 13 5
10th Percentile £19.33 - £18.11
25th Percentile £20.33 £17.30 -
Median hourly rate £22.80 £18.84 £18.27
Median % change year-on-year +21.05% +3.09% +4.40%
75th Percentile £25.75 £25.15 -
90th Percentile - £27.43 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.80 £21.23 £18.27
% change year-on-year +7.42% +16.17% +4.40%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
UK

Remote Desktop falls under the Communications and Computer Networking category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring communications or computer networking skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 5,060 3,865 4,675
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.43% 11.81% 12.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,979 2,358 2,811
10th Percentile £250 £243 £220
25th Percentile £400 £370 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £484 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.31% -3.20% -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £608
90th Percentile £675 £676 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £472 £500
% change year-on-year +0.58% -5.55% +10.80%
Number of hourly rates quoted 373 201 302
10th Percentile £15.18 £14.99 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.33 £25.15 £20.50
Median hourly rate £26.00 £46.25 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -43.78% -7.50% -11.49%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £81.35 £74.88
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.84 £44.50 £54.94
% change year-on-year -41.93% -19.00% -4.32%

Remote Desktop
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Remote Desktop job vacancy trend in the UK

Remote Desktop
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Remote Desktop.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Remote Desktop

Remote Desktop
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Remote Desktop over the 6 months to 25 August 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Remote Desktop in the UK

Remote Desktop
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Remote Desktop.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Remote Desktop

Remote Desktop
Top 13 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Remote Desktop within the UK over the 6 months to 25 August 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
UK excluding London -108 22 £175 +2.34% 19
England -141 22 £463 +105.56% 24
Midlands -61 9 £250 +46.20% 5
Work from Home -60 8 £316 -29.25% 5
Scotland -12 7 £163 -27.78% 1
East Midlands -17 7 - - 2
London -89 6 £175 -60.85% 6
North West -39 3 £450 +23.29% 3
North of England -69 3 £450 +140.00% 6
West Midlands -45 2 £250 -64.29% 3
East of England -22 1 - - 2
South East -73 1 £475 +206.45% 5
Northern Ireland - 1 £175 -

Remote Desktop
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 4 (12.90%) SharePoint
2 3 (9.68%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (3.23%) Confluence
Applications
1 1 (3.23%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 12 (38.71%) Microsoft 365
2 11 (35.48%) Azure
3 8 (25.81%) Entra ID
4 4 (12.90%) AWS
5 2 (6.45%) Amazon EKS
5 2 (6.45%) GitHub
5 2 (6.45%) GitHub Actions
5 2 (6.45%) OneDrive
6 1 (3.23%) AWS Direct Connect
6 1 (3.23%) IaaS
6 1 (3.23%) PaaS
6 1 (3.23%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 5 (16.13%) DHCP
1 5 (16.13%) DNS
2 4 (12.90%) VPN
3 3 (9.68%) PCoIP
4 2 (6.45%) TCP/IP
5 1 (3.23%) Cisco IOS
5 1 (3.23%) Firewall
5 1 (3.23%) Internet
5 1 (3.23%) SAN
5 1 (3.23%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (6.45%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 3 (9.68%) JIRA
General
1 10 (32.26%) Social Skills
2 8 (25.81%) Finance
3 3 (9.68%) Organisational Skills
3 3 (9.68%) Public Sector
4 2 (6.45%) Analytical Skills
4 2 (6.45%) Automotive
4 2 (6.45%) Banking
4 2 (6.45%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 7 (22.58%) Analyst
2 6 (19.35%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 5 (16.13%) Desktop Engineer
4 4 (12.90%) IT Engineer
4 4 (12.90%) IT Support
4 4 (12.90%) Remote Desktop Engineer
4 4 (12.90%) Service Analyst
4 4 (12.90%) Service Desk Analyst
4 4 (12.90%) Support Engineer
5 3 (9.68%) 1st Line Support
5 3 (9.68%) 1st Line Support Analyst
5 3 (9.68%) IT Technician
5 3 (9.68%) Support Analyst
5 3 (9.68%) Support Technician
6 2 (6.45%) Desktop Support
6 2 (6.45%) IT Support Engineer
6 2 (6.45%) IT Support Technician
6 2 (6.45%) Senior
6 2 (6.45%) Systems Engineer
6 2 (6.45%) Wintel Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (6.45%) OpenGL
1 2 (6.45%) Qt
1 2 (6.45%) Terraform
2 1 (3.23%) XMPP
Miscellaneous
1 5 (16.13%) Onboarding
2 3 (9.68%) Chip and PIN
2 3 (9.68%) Data Protection Act
3 2 (6.45%) CUDA
3 2 (6.45%) Data Centre
4 1 (3.23%) Driving Licence
4 1 (3.23%) Enterprise Cloud
4 1 (3.23%) Hybrid Cloud
4 1 (3.23%) Management Information System
4 1 (3.23%) Replication
4 1 (3.23%) Video Editing
Operating Systems
1 16 (51.61%) Windows
2 5 (16.13%) Linux
2 5 (16.13%) Windows 10
3 3 (9.68%) Android
4 2 (6.45%) Apple iOS
4 2 (6.45%) Windows Server
5 1 (3.23%) Mac OS
5 1 (3.23%) Mac OS X
5 1 (3.23%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 13 (41.94%) Problem-Solving
2 10 (32.26%) Customer Service
3 6 (19.35%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 5 (16.13%) ITIL
4 5 (16.13%) ITSM
5 4 (12.90%) Break/Fix
5 4 (12.90%) Data Protection
5 4 (12.90%) Low Latency
6 3 (9.68%) Chat Support
6 3 (9.68%) Identity Access Management
6 3 (9.68%) Kalman Filter
6 3 (9.68%) Service Management
6 3 (9.68%) User Experience
7 2 (6.45%) Agile
7 2 (6.45%) Configuration Management
7 2 (6.45%) Continuous Improvement
7 2 (6.45%) CRM
7 2 (6.45%) Machine Learning
7 2 (6.45%) Service Delivery
7 2 (6.45%) Visualisation
Programming Languages
1 3 (9.68%) PowerShell
1 3 (9.68%) Python
2 2 (6.45%) Bash
Qualifications
1 5 (16.13%) SC Cleared
1 5 (16.13%) Security Cleared
2 4 (12.90%) Microsoft Certification
3 3 (9.68%) AWS Certification
3 3 (9.68%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
4 2 (6.45%) A+ Certification
4 2 (6.45%) Azure Certification
4 2 (6.45%) Microsoft Certified Professional
4 2 (6.45%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
5 1 (3.23%) Degree
5 1 (3.23%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (6.45%) SLA
System Software
1 14 (45.16%) Active Directory
2 9 (29.03%) Virtual Desktop
3 7 (22.58%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (6.45%) Docker
4 2 (6.45%) Hyper-V
4 2 (6.45%) Microsoft App-V
4 2 (6.45%) VMware Workstation
5 1 (3.23%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 3 (9.68%) Microsoft Intune
2 2 (6.45%) Ansible
2 2 (6.45%) Packer
2 2 (6.45%) SCCM
Vendors
1 15 (48.39%) Microsoft
2 8 (25.81%) Citrix
3 7 (22.58%) VMware
4 5 (16.13%) ServiceNow
5 3 (9.68%) Dell
6 2 (6.45%) Dynatrace
6 2 (6.45%) HP
6 2 (6.45%) Leostream
6 2 (6.45%) NVIDIA
6 2 (6.45%) Ping Identity
7 1 (3.23%) Apple
7 1 (3.23%) Avid
7 1 (3.23%) Cisco
7 1 (3.23%) Teradici
7 1 (3.23%) Veeam