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 20 October 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 512 463 570
Rank change year-on-year -49 +107 +162
Contract jobs citing Remote Desktop 49 94 66
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.15% 0.25% 0.14%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 1.29% 2.10% 1.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 25 61 51
10th Percentile £153 £173 -
25th Percentile £171 £250 £148
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £225 £350 £200
Median % change year-on-year -35.71% +75.00% -38.46%
75th Percentile £447 £538 £394
90th Percentile £456 £628 £550
UK excluding London median daily rate £171 £345 £150
% change year-on-year -50.43% +130.00% -53.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 3 2
10th Percentile £17.30 £21.07 £15.58
25th Percentile £18.20 £22.24 £15.69
Median hourly rate £22.08 £24.18 £16.75
Median % change year-on-year -8.71% +44.36% -14.10%
75th Percentile £25.15 - £18.19
90th Percentile - - £18.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £24.18 £16.75
% change year-on-year +4.01% +44.36% -25.56%

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 3,790 4,475 6,550
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 11.42% 12.07% 13.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,427 2,568 4,101
10th Percentile £213 £225 £220
25th Percentile £357 £375 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £676 £685 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £465
% change year-on-year -5.26% +2.15% +3.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 188 173 327
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.33 £17.24
25th Percentile £19.35 £25.75 £22.75
Median hourly rate £34.00 £48.56 £56.40
Median % change year-on-year -29.98% -13.90% +39.99%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £67.25
90th Percentile £75.00 £74.75 £76.16
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.48 £52.50 £56.49
% change year-on-year -21.00% -7.06% +25.53%

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 20 October 2025.

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 20 October 2025. 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 -37 43 £201 -47.24% 31
UK excluding London -48 24 £171 -50.43% 33
London +10 20 £201 -46.53% 3
Midlands -36 9 £281 -6.34% 5
South East +8 7 £155 -68.84% 9
Work from Home +8 6 £449 -11.41% 12
East Midlands -14 6 £171 -15.56% 4
North of England -24 4 £385 +80.12% 8
Scotland -1 3 £225 +9.76% 2
North West -14 3 £385 +80.12% 4
West Midlands -29 3 £545 +81.67% 1
North East -3 1 - - 1
Wales - 1 - -

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 8 (16.33%) SharePoint
2 6 (12.24%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 8 (16.33%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (4.08%) Microsoft Project
2 2 (4.08%) Trello
Business Applications
1 2 (4.08%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (2.04%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 14 (28.57%) Microsoft 365
2 9 (18.37%) AWS
3 8 (16.33%) GitHub
3 8 (16.33%) GitHub Actions
4 6 (12.24%) Amazon CloudWatch
4 6 (12.24%) Amazon EC2
4 6 (12.24%) Amazon S3
4 6 (12.24%) AWS CodePipeline
4 6 (12.24%) AWS Lambda
4 6 (12.24%) Azure
4 6 (12.24%) Serverless
4 6 (12.24%) Virtual Private Cloud
5 5 (10.20%) Entra ID
6 3 (6.12%) Azure DevOps
6 3 (6.12%) SaaS
7 2 (4.08%) Azure Monitor
7 2 (4.08%) Azure Storage
7 2 (4.08%) OneDrive
7 2 (4.08%) ShareGate
8 1 (2.04%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 18 (36.73%) VPN
2 12 (24.49%) DNS
3 10 (20.41%) TCP/IP
4 9 (18.37%) Firewall
5 4 (8.16%) DHCP
6 2 (4.08%) LAN
7 1 (2.04%) IP Telephony
7 1 (2.04%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (12.24%) Amazon RDS
2 1 (2.04%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 2 (4.08%) Jenkins
1 2 (4.08%) JIRA
General
1 15 (30.61%) Social Skills
2 6 (12.24%) Finance
3 5 (10.20%) Law
3 5 (10.20%) Legal
4 4 (8.16%) Analytical Skills
4 4 (8.16%) Banking
4 4 (8.16%) Public Sector
5 1 (2.04%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 12 (24.49%) Support Engineer
2 9 (18.37%) IT Support
3 8 (16.33%) Service Desk Support
4 7 (14.29%) Analyst
5 6 (12.24%) Desktop Support
6 5 (10.20%) AWS Engineer
6 5 (10.20%) DevOps Engineer
6 5 (10.20%) Help Desk Officer
6 5 (10.20%) Help Desk Support
6 5 (10.20%) Service Desk Officer
6 5 (10.20%) Support Officer
7 4 (8.16%) AWS DevOps
7 4 (8.16%) AWS DevOps Engineer
7 4 (8.16%) Desktop Engineer
7 4 (8.16%) Desktop Support Engineer
7 4 (8.16%) IT Engineer
8 3 (6.12%) Architect
8 3 (6.12%) Field Engineer
8 3 (6.12%) IT Support Engineer
8 3 (6.12%) Support Analyst
Miscellaneous
1 3 (6.12%) Onboarding
1 3 (6.12%) Smartphone
2 2 (4.08%) Data Centre
2 2 (4.08%) Driving Licence
2 2 (4.08%) Hybrid Cloud
3 1 (2.04%) Data Protection Act
3 1 (2.04%) Device Driver
3 1 (2.04%) Legacy Applications
3 1 (2.04%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 23 (46.94%) Windows
2 8 (16.33%) Windows Server
3 7 (14.29%) Windows 10
4 5 (10.20%) Windows Server 2012
4 5 (10.20%) Windows Server 2016
5 4 (8.16%) Apple iOS
6 2 (4.08%) Linux
6 2 (4.08%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (2.04%) Android
7 1 (2.04%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 18 (36.73%) Problem-Solving
2 14 (28.57%) ITIL
3 9 (18.37%) Asset Management
3 9 (18.37%) CI/CD
3 9 (18.37%) DevOps
4 8 (16.33%) Break/Fix
4 8 (16.33%) ITSM
5 7 (14.29%) Agile
5 7 (14.29%) Customer Service
5 7 (14.29%) Migration
6 6 (12.24%) Cloud Security
6 6 (12.24%) Infrastructure as Code
6 6 (12.24%) Infrastructure Automation
6 6 (12.24%) Load Balancing
6 6 (12.24%) Performance Monitoring
6 6 (12.24%) Preventative Maintenance
7 5 (10.20%) Creative Problem-Solving
7 5 (10.20%) CRM
7 5 (10.20%) PRINCE2
7 5 (10.20%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 2 (4.08%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 14 (28.57%) Security Cleared
2 10 (20.41%) SC Cleared
3 3 (6.12%) Azure Certification
4 2 (4.08%) A+ Certification
4 2 (4.08%) Microsoft Certification
5 1 (2.04%) DV Cleared
5 1 (2.04%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
5 1 (2.04%) NVQ Level 3
5 1 (2.04%) VCAP
5 1 (2.04%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (10.20%) GDPR
2 2 (4.08%) QA
System Software
1 25 (51.02%) Active Directory
2 10 (20.41%) VMware Infrastructure
3 8 (16.33%) Virtual Desktop
4 7 (14.29%) Hyper-V
5 5 (10.20%) Terminal Services
6 1 (2.04%) Microsoft App-V
6 1 (2.04%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (2.04%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 6 (12.24%) Terraform
2 1 (2.04%) Autotask
2 1 (2.04%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 24 (48.98%) Microsoft
2 14 (28.57%) Citrix
3 10 (20.41%) VMware
4 9 (18.37%) ServiceNow
5 2 (4.08%) Blue Prism
5 2 (4.08%) Dell
5 2 (4.08%) Red Hat
5 2 (4.08%) Remedy
6 1 (2.04%) CrowdStrike
6 1 (2.04%) Oracle
6 1 (2.04%) TOWER Software
6 1 (2.04%) Zscaler