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 17 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 559 437 523
Rank change year-on-year -122 +86 +159
Contract jobs citing Remote Desktop 21 84 76
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.056% 0.26% 0.18%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 0.54% 2.05% 1.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 11 51 61
10th Percentile £153 £149 £133
25th Percentile £190 £189 £148
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £225 £230 £188
Median % change year-on-year -2.17% +22.67% -37.50%
75th Percentile £391 £385 £360
90th Percentile £410 £480 £473
UK excluding London median daily rate £225 £215 £150
% change year-on-year +4.65% +43.33% -52.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 10 1
10th Percentile £19.17 £20.30 -
25th Percentile £20.16 £21.00 £15.50
Median hourly rate £22.08 £23.53 £16.00
Median % change year-on-year -6.17% +47.05% -15.48%
75th Percentile £23.74 £24.18 £16.50
90th Percentile £24.59 £25.62 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.08 £23.53 £16.00
% change year-on-year -6.17% +47.05% -5.88%

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 3,913 4,097 5,909
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.49% 12.88% 13.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,580 2,396 3,637
10th Percentile £204 £213 £210
25th Percentile £356 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -2.44%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £468 £475
% change year-on-year -3.74% -1.58% +2.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 159 141 349
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.22 £17.74
25th Percentile £18.69 £21.46 £23.09
Median hourly rate £30.00 £35.00 £56.49
Median % change year-on-year -14.29% -38.04% +134.16%
75th Percentile £65.00 £57.50 £65.98
90th Percentile £74.41 £70.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.94 £32.50 £58.50
% change year-on-year +29.05% -44.44% +179.48%

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 17 January 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 12 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 17 January 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
England -111 17 £283 +13.20% 20
UK excluding London -91 13 £225 +4.65% 17
London -29 7 £201 -21.37% 5
South East -19 4 £155 -47.68% 8
Scotland -3 3 £225 +30.43%
North West -31 3 £385 +82.25% 2
North of England -67 3 £385 +79.07% 5
Work from Home -24 2 - - 6
Midlands -55 2 £390 +52.94% 1
Wales +1 1 - - 1
East Midlands -36 1 - - 1
West Midlands -45 1 £390 +50.00%

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 5 (23.81%) Microsoft Exchange
1 5 (23.81%) SharePoint
Applications
1 2 (9.52%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (4.76%) Microsoft Project
2 1 (4.76%) Trello
Business Applications
1 1 (4.76%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 8 (38.10%) Microsoft 365
2 5 (23.81%) Azure
3 4 (19.05%) Entra ID
4 3 (14.29%) AWS
4 3 (14.29%) SaaS
5 2 (9.52%) Azure DevOps
6 1 (4.76%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 1 (4.76%) Amazon EC2
6 1 (4.76%) Amazon S3
6 1 (4.76%) AWS CodePipeline
6 1 (4.76%) AWS Lambda
6 1 (4.76%) Azure Storage
6 1 (4.76%) GitHub
6 1 (4.76%) GitHub Actions
6 1 (4.76%) Microsoft Purview
6 1 (4.76%) OneDrive
6 1 (4.76%) Serverless
6 1 (4.76%) ShareGate
6 1 (4.76%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 1 (4.76%) WhatsApp
Communications & Networking
1 8 (38.10%) DNS
1 8 (38.10%) VPN
2 5 (23.81%) Firewall
2 5 (23.81%) TCP/IP
3 3 (14.29%) LAN
4 2 (9.52%) DHCP
4 2 (9.52%) IP Telephony
5 1 (4.76%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (4.76%) Amazon RDS
1 1 (4.76%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 1 (4.76%) JIRA
General
1 8 (38.10%) Social Skills
2 2 (9.52%) Banking
2 2 (9.52%) Finance
2 2 (9.52%) Law
2 2 (9.52%) Legal
2 2 (9.52%) Public Sector
3 1 (4.76%) Analytical Skills
Job Titles
1 7 (33.33%) Support Engineer
2 6 (28.57%) IT Support
3 4 (19.05%) IT Engineer
3 4 (19.05%) IT Support Engineer
3 4 (19.05%) Service Desk Support
4 3 (14.29%) Analyst
4 3 (14.29%) Lead
5 2 (9.52%) Help Desk Officer
5 2 (9.52%) Help Desk Support
5 2 (9.52%) Service Analyst
5 2 (9.52%) Service Desk Analyst
5 2 (9.52%) Service Desk Officer
5 2 (9.52%) Support Officer
6 1 (4.76%) 2nd Line Engineer
6 1 (4.76%) 2nd Line Support
6 1 (4.76%) Field Engineer
6 1 (4.76%) ICT Support
6 1 (4.76%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 1 (4.76%) Infrastructure Support
6 1 (4.76%) Principal DevOps Engineer
Miscellaneous
1 2 (9.52%) Data Centre
1 2 (9.52%) Onboarding
2 1 (4.76%) Data Protection Act
2 1 (4.76%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 11 (52.38%) Windows
2 3 (14.29%) Windows Server
3 2 (9.52%) Windows 10
3 2 (9.52%) Windows Server 2012
3 2 (9.52%) Windows Server 2016
4 1 (4.76%) Android
4 1 (4.76%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 8 (38.10%) Problem-Solving
2 5 (23.81%) Asset Management
3 4 (19.05%) ITIL
3 4 (19.05%) Migration
4 3 (14.29%) CI/CD
4 3 (14.29%) DevOps
4 3 (14.29%) ITSM
4 3 (14.29%) Preventative Maintenance
5 2 (9.52%) Agile
5 2 (9.52%) Continuous Improvement
5 2 (9.52%) Creative Problem-Solving
5 2 (9.52%) Customer Service
5 2 (9.52%) Cybersecurity
5 2 (9.52%) Data Protection
5 2 (9.52%) Infrastructure as Code
5 2 (9.52%) IT Asset Management
5 2 (9.52%) Re-Platforming
5 2 (9.52%) Risk Management
5 2 (9.52%) Service Delivery
5 2 (9.52%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 2 (9.52%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 4 (19.05%) Security Cleared
2 2 (9.52%) SC Cleared
3 1 (4.76%) Azure Certification
3 1 (4.76%) DV Cleared
3 1 (4.76%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
3 1 (4.76%) NVQ Level 3
3 1 (4.76%) VCAP
3 1 (4.76%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (9.52%) GDPR
System Software
1 13 (61.90%) Active Directory
2 6 (28.57%) Virtual Desktop
3 5 (23.81%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (9.52%) Hyper-V
4 2 (9.52%) Terminal Services
5 1 (4.76%) VMware ESXi
5 1 (4.76%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 2 (9.52%) Microsoft Intune
1 2 (9.52%) Terraform
2 1 (4.76%) Autotask
Vendors
1 10 (47.62%) Citrix
1 10 (47.62%) Microsoft
2 5 (23.81%) VMware
3 2 (9.52%) Blue Prism
3 2 (9.52%) ServiceNow
4 1 (4.76%) CrowdStrike
4 1 (4.76%) Oracle
4 1 (4.76%) TOWER Software
4 1 (4.76%) Zscaler