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 21 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 573 452 523
Rank change year-on-year -121 +71 +137
Contract jobs citing Remote Desktop 29 77 71
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.071% 0.25% 0.16%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 0.69% 1.90% 1.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 12 47 58
10th Percentile - £150 £140
25th Percentile £193 £184 £148
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £295 £200 £200
Median % change year-on-year +47.50% - -23.81%
75th Percentile £424 £255 £360
90th Percentile £474 £422 £473
UK excluding London median daily rate £295 £200 £170
% change year-on-year +47.50% +17.65% -45.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 12 1
10th Percentile £18.78 £20.37 -
25th Percentile £19.21 £21.00 £15.50
Median hourly rate £20.91 £23.53 £16.00
Median % change year-on-year -11.15% +47.05% -11.10%
75th Percentile £23.09 £24.30 £16.50
90th Percentile £23.81 £33.33 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.91 £23.53 £16.00
% change year-on-year -11.15% +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 4,192 4,059 5,973
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.24% 13.21% 13.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,730 2,430 3,567
10th Percentile £204 £210 £205
25th Percentile £356 £361 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £488
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +2.56% -6.25%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £680 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £460 £470 £475
% change year-on-year -2.13% -1.05% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 169 130 401
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.44 £14.36
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.46 £20.00
Median hourly rate £34.00 £32.50 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +4.62% -31.58% +143.59%
75th Percentile £65.00 £61.16 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £70.13 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.54 £27.50 £50.91
% change year-on-year +47.42% -45.98% +156.06%

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 21 February 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 14 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 21 February 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 -116 26 £378 +86.42% 15
London -45 14 £201 -16.25% 4
UK excluding London -122 14 £295 +47.50% 14
North of England -66 5 £195 -9.30% 2
South East -35 3 £450 +136.84% 8
Yorkshire -60 3 £195 -26.42% 1
Scotland -2 2 £208 +20.29%
Work from Home -27 2 - - 7
North West -38 2 £385 +85.54% 1
Midlands -70 2 £390 +95.00%
Wales -3 1 - - 1
South West -23 1 £445 -5.32% 2
East Midlands -39 1 - -
West Midlands -55 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 6 (20.69%) Microsoft Exchange
2 3 (10.34%) SharePoint
Applications
1 1 (3.45%) Microsoft Project
1 1 (3.45%) Trello
Business Applications
1 1 (3.45%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 8 (27.59%) Azure
2 6 (20.69%) Entra ID
3 5 (17.24%) AWS
3 5 (17.24%) Microsoft 365
3 5 (17.24%) SaaS
4 4 (13.79%) Azure DevOps
5 1 (3.45%) Amazon CloudWatch
5 1 (3.45%) Amazon EC2
5 1 (3.45%) Amazon S3
5 1 (3.45%) AWS CodePipeline
5 1 (3.45%) AWS Lambda
5 1 (3.45%) Azure Storage
5 1 (3.45%) GitHub
5 1 (3.45%) GitHub Actions
5 1 (3.45%) Microsoft Purview
5 1 (3.45%) OneDrive
5 1 (3.45%) Serverless
5 1 (3.45%) ShareGate
5 1 (3.45%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 9 (31.03%) Wi-Fi
2 7 (24.14%) DNS
3 6 (20.69%) Firewall
3 6 (20.69%) VPN
3 6 (20.69%) Wireless
4 4 (13.79%) LAN
5 2 (6.90%) DHCP
5 2 (6.90%) TCP/IP
6 1 (3.45%) IP Telephony
6 1 (3.45%) iSCSI
6 1 (3.45%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (3.45%) Amazon RDS
1 1 (3.45%) MySQL
1 1 (3.45%) Oracle Database
1 1 (3.45%) PostgreSQL
1 1 (3.45%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 4 (13.79%) JIRA
General
1 11 (37.93%) Social Skills
2 3 (10.34%) Public Sector
3 2 (6.90%) Banking
3 2 (6.90%) Finance
4 1 (3.45%) Analytical Skills
4 1 (3.45%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 8 (27.59%) IT Support
2 6 (20.69%) IT Support Technician
2 6 (20.69%) IT Technician
2 6 (20.69%) Support Technician
3 4 (13.79%) Support Engineer
4 3 (10.34%) Azure Engineer
4 3 (10.34%) Lead
5 2 (6.90%) Analyst
5 2 (6.90%) Help Desk Support
5 2 (6.90%) Help Desk Support Technician
5 2 (6.90%) Help Desk Technician
5 2 (6.90%) IT Engineer
5 2 (6.90%) IT Support Engineer
5 2 (6.90%) Service Analyst
5 2 (6.90%) Service Desk Analyst
5 2 (6.90%) Service Desk Support
6 1 (3.45%) DevOps Engineer
6 1 (3.45%) Linux Engineer
6 1 (3.45%) Microsoft 365 Architect
6 1 (3.45%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (20.69%) X-Windows
Miscellaneous
1 6 (20.69%) Enterprise Software
2 3 (10.34%) CMDB
2 3 (10.34%) Smartphone
3 2 (6.90%) Data Centre
3 2 (6.90%) Onboarding
4 1 (3.45%) Cloud Native
4 1 (3.45%) Data Protection Act
4 1 (3.45%) Hybrid Cloud
4 1 (3.45%) Management Information System
4 1 (3.45%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 18 (62.07%) Windows
2 9 (31.03%) Windows 10
3 6 (20.69%) Mac OS X
4 3 (10.34%) Mac OS
5 2 (6.90%) Windows 7
6 1 (3.45%) Linux
6 1 (3.45%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (3.45%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 8 (27.59%) Problem-Solving
2 6 (20.69%) Asset Management
2 6 (20.69%) Service Management
3 5 (17.24%) CI/CD
3 5 (17.24%) DevOps
4 4 (13.79%) Infrastructure as Code
4 4 (13.79%) Migration
4 4 (13.79%) Time Management
5 3 (10.34%) Customer Service
5 3 (10.34%) ITIL
5 3 (10.34%) ITSM
5 3 (10.34%) Mentoring
5 3 (10.34%) Software Deployment
6 2 (6.90%) Continuous Improvement
6 2 (6.90%) Cybersecurity
6 2 (6.90%) Data Protection
6 2 (6.90%) Re-Platforming
6 2 (6.90%) Risk Management
6 2 (6.90%) Stakeholder Management
7 1 (3.45%) Process Improvement
Programming Languages
1 6 (20.69%) PowerShell
2 1 (3.45%) Bash
2 1 (3.45%) Korn
2 1 (3.45%) Python
Qualifications
1 5 (17.24%) Security Cleared
2 3 (10.34%) SC Cleared
3 1 (3.45%) Azure Certification
3 1 (3.45%) Degree
3 1 (3.45%) DV Cleared
3 1 (3.45%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
3 1 (3.45%) NVQ Level 3
3 1 (3.45%) VCAP
3 1 (3.45%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
System Software
1 23 (79.31%) Active Directory
2 9 (31.03%) Virtual Desktop
3 4 (13.79%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (6.90%) vSphere
5 1 (3.45%) Citrix Hypervisor
5 1 (3.45%) Docker
5 1 (3.45%) Hyper-V
5 1 (3.45%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 4 (13.79%) Microsoft Intune
1 4 (13.79%) Terraform
2 3 (10.34%) Jamf Pro
2 3 (10.34%) SCCM
3 1 (3.45%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 11 (37.93%) Microsoft
2 8 (27.59%) Citrix
3 4 (13.79%) VMware
4 2 (6.90%) Blue Prism
4 2 (6.90%) ServiceNow
5 1 (3.45%) Dell
5 1 (3.45%) Oracle
5 1 (3.45%) Red Hat
5 1 (3.45%) Zscaler