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

6 months to
27 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 573 441 519
Rank change year-on-year -132 +78 +157
Contract jobs citing Remote Desktop 20 84 74
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.053% 0.27% 0.17%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 0.50% 2.09% 1.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 8 50 59
10th Percentile £192 £149 £133
25th Percentile £208 £183 £148
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £295 £225 £188
Median % change year-on-year +31.11% +20.00% -34.78%
75th Percentile £406 £348 £360
90th Percentile £496 £480 £473
UK excluding London median daily rate £295 £215 £150
% change year-on-year +37.21% +43.33% -52.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 11 1
10th Percentile £19.17 £20.30 -
25th Percentile £20.16 £21.00 £15.50
Median hourly rate £22.08 £22.88 £16.00
Median % change year-on-year -3.50% +42.97% -15.48%
75th Percentile £23.74 £24.18 £16.50
90th Percentile £24.59 £24.66 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.08 £22.88 £16.00
% change year-on-year -3.50% +42.97% -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 3,975 4,025 6,064
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.44% 12.95% 13.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,607 2,333 3,682
10th Percentile £204 £213 £206
25th Percentile £356 £363 £356
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £495
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +1.01% -3.88%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £685 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £468 £475
% change year-on-year -3.74% -1.58% +2.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 164 139 390
10th Percentile £15.50 £17.76 £16.25
25th Percentile £18.97 £21.46 £22.00
Median hourly rate £30.00 £35.00 £51.89
Median % change year-on-year -14.29% -32.55% +150.60%
75th Percentile £65.00 £58.69 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £70.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.54 £31.79 £56.49
% change year-on-year +27.52% -43.72% +187.12%

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 27 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 27 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 -117 16 £390 +69.57% 15
UK excluding London -109 11 £295 +37.21% 14
London -35 8 £201 -20.40% 4
Scotland +2 3 £225 +30.43%
North West -35 3 £385 +82.25% 3
North of England -61 3 £385 +79.07% 5
South East -38 2 - - 6
Work from Home -38 2 - - 5
Midlands -69 2 £390 +56.00%
Wales -4 1 - - 2
East Midlands -33 1 - -
West Midlands -41 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 (25.00%) Microsoft Exchange
2 3 (15.00%) SharePoint
Applications
1 1 (5.00%) Microsoft Project
1 1 (5.00%) Trello
Business Applications
1 1 (5.00%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 5 (25.00%) Azure
1 5 (25.00%) Microsoft 365
2 4 (20.00%) Entra ID
3 3 (15.00%) AWS
3 3 (15.00%) SaaS
4 2 (10.00%) Azure DevOps
5 1 (5.00%) Amazon CloudWatch
5 1 (5.00%) Amazon EC2
5 1 (5.00%) Amazon S3
5 1 (5.00%) AWS CodePipeline
5 1 (5.00%) AWS Lambda
5 1 (5.00%) Azure Storage
5 1 (5.00%) GitHub
5 1 (5.00%) GitHub Actions
5 1 (5.00%) Microsoft Purview
5 1 (5.00%) OneDrive
5 1 (5.00%) Serverless
5 1 (5.00%) ShareGate
5 1 (5.00%) Virtual Private Cloud
5 1 (5.00%) WhatsApp
Communications & Networking
1 6 (30.00%) VPN
2 5 (25.00%) DNS
3 3 (15.00%) Firewall
3 3 (15.00%) LAN
4 2 (10.00%) DHCP
4 2 (10.00%) IP Telephony
4 2 (10.00%) TCP/IP
4 2 (10.00%) Wi-Fi
4 2 (10.00%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (5.00%) Amazon RDS
1 1 (5.00%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 1 (5.00%) JIRA
General
1 8 (40.00%) Social Skills
2 2 (10.00%) Banking
2 2 (10.00%) Finance
2 2 (10.00%) Public Sector
3 1 (5.00%) Analytical Skills
Job Titles
1 6 (30.00%) Support Engineer
2 5 (25.00%) IT Support
3 3 (15.00%) Analyst
3 3 (15.00%) IT Engineer
3 3 (15.00%) IT Support Engineer
3 3 (15.00%) Lead
4 2 (10.00%) IT Support Technician
4 2 (10.00%) IT Technician
4 2 (10.00%) Service Analyst
4 2 (10.00%) Service Desk Analyst
4 2 (10.00%) Service Desk Support
4 2 (10.00%) Support Technician
5 1 (5.00%) DevOps Engineer
5 1 (5.00%) ICT Infrastructure Engineer
5 1 (5.00%) ICT Support Engineer
5 1 (5.00%) Infrastructure Services Engineer
5 1 (5.00%) Microsoft 365 Architect
5 1 (5.00%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
5 1 (5.00%) Service Desk Engineer
5 1 (5.00%) Site Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (10.00%) X-Windows
Miscellaneous
1 2 (10.00%) Data Centre
1 2 (10.00%) Enterprise Software
1 2 (10.00%) Onboarding
2 1 (5.00%) Data Protection Act
2 1 (5.00%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 10 (50.00%) Windows
2 2 (10.00%) Mac OS X
2 2 (10.00%) Windows 10
2 2 (10.00%) Windows 7
3 1 (5.00%) Android
3 1 (5.00%) Apple iOS
3 1 (5.00%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 6 (30.00%) Problem-Solving
2 5 (25.00%) Asset Management
3 4 (20.00%) Migration
4 3 (15.00%) CI/CD
4 3 (15.00%) DevOps
4 3 (15.00%) ITSM
5 2 (10.00%) Continuous Improvement
5 2 (10.00%) Customer Service
5 2 (10.00%) Cybersecurity
5 2 (10.00%) Data Protection
5 2 (10.00%) Infrastructure as Code
5 2 (10.00%) IT Asset Management
5 2 (10.00%) ITIL
5 2 (10.00%) Re-Platforming
5 2 (10.00%) Risk Management
5 2 (10.00%) Service Delivery
5 2 (10.00%) Stakeholder Management
6 1 (5.00%) Agile
6 1 (5.00%) Project Management
6 1 (5.00%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 2 (10.00%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 4 (20.00%) Security Cleared
2 2 (10.00%) SC Cleared
3 1 (5.00%) Azure Certification
3 1 (5.00%) DV Cleared
3 1 (5.00%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
3 1 (5.00%) NVQ Level 3
3 1 (5.00%) VCAP
3 1 (5.00%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
System Software
1 13 (65.00%) Active Directory
2 6 (30.00%) Virtual Desktop
3 3 (15.00%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (5.00%) VMware ESXi
4 1 (5.00%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 2 (10.00%) Microsoft Intune
1 2 (10.00%) Terraform
Vendors
1 8 (40.00%) Citrix
2 7 (35.00%) Microsoft
3 3 (15.00%) VMware
4 2 (10.00%) Blue Prism
4 2 (10.00%) ServiceNow
5 1 (5.00%) CrowdStrike
5 1 (5.00%) Oracle
5 1 (5.00%) Zscaler