Virtual Desktop Contract Job Trends

Virtual Desktop
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring Virtual Desktop skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 16 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 480 426 474
Rank change year-on-year -54 +48 -13
Contract jobs citing Virtual Desktop 160 94 99
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.33% 0.32% 0.23%
As % of the System Software category 3.31% 2.62% 2.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 116 69 66
10th Percentile £309 £330 £283
25th Percentile £406 £408 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £500 £575
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% -13.04% +4.55%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £608
90th Percentile £658 £695 -
UK excluding London median daily rate £413 £478 £605
% change year-on-year -13.61% -21.07% +5.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 2
10th Percentile - - £18.12
25th Percentile - - £18.29
Median hourly rate £28.00 - £18.59
75th Percentile - - £18.88
90th Percentile - - £19.05
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.00 - £18.59
% change year-on-year - - -10.91%

All System Software Skills
UK

Virtual Desktop falls under the System Software category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring system software skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for system software skills 4,831 3,586 4,571
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.06% 12.31% 10.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,243 2,435 3,147
10th Percentile £219 £213 £200
25th Percentile £400 £388 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% +2.50% -4.76%
75th Percentile £594 £611 £600
90th Percentile £680 £700 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £463
% change year-on-year - +2.70% -3.65%
Number of hourly rates quoted 184 84 230
10th Percentile £16.25 £14.99 £14.06
25th Percentile £21.25 £15.41 £14.48
Median hourly rate £52.50 £28.00 £22.40
Median % change year-on-year +87.50% +25.00% -58.52%
75th Percentile £74.00 £64.50 £60.75
90th Percentile £91.00 £88.53 £78.20
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.50 £32.32 £19.18
% change year-on-year +62.43% +68.57% -54.21%

Virtual Desktop
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Virtual Desktop job vacancy trend in the UK

Virtual Desktop
Daily Rate Trend

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

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

Virtual Desktop
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Virtual Desktop over the 6 months to 16 May 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Virtual Desktop in the UK

Virtual Desktop
Hourly Rate Trend

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

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

Virtual 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 Virtual Desktop within the UK over the 6 months to 16 May 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 -55 149 £450 -10.00% 25
UK excluding London -59 80 £413 -13.61% 23
London -42 69 £525 +10.53% 12
Work from Home -8 44 £475 -1.04% 10
South East -44 34 £463 +1.65% 5
North of England -56 21 £330 -32.31% 3
North West -26 15 £328 -31.05% 2
South West -35 9 £435 -33.08% 2
East of England -24 8 £413 - 2
Scotland +3 7 £575 +4.55% 3
Yorkshire -52 5 £700 +75.00% 1
West Midlands -61 2 £250 - 4
Midlands -66 2 £250 - 4
North East -24 1 £475 -13.64%

Virtual 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 7 (4.38%) Microsoft Exchange
1 7 (4.38%) SharePoint
2 2 (1.25%) Confluence
Applications
1 6 (3.75%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 120 (75.00%) Azure
2 56 (35.00%) Entra ID
3 37 (23.13%) Microsoft 365
4 20 (12.50%) AWS
5 13 (8.13%) Azure DevOps
6 9 (5.63%) GitHub
7 7 (4.38%) Azure Monitor
7 7 (4.38%) OneDrive
8 6 (3.75%) Amazon GuardDuty
8 6 (3.75%) AWS CloudFormation
8 6 (3.75%) AWS CloudTrail
8 6 (3.75%) AWS Control Tower
8 6 (3.75%) AWS KMS
8 6 (3.75%) GCP
8 6 (3.75%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 5 (3.13%) Azure Key Vault
9 5 (3.13%) GitHub Actions
9 5 (3.13%) Microsoft Purview
9 5 (3.13%) Power Platform
9 5 (3.13%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 22 (13.75%) DNS
2 21 (13.13%) Firewall
3 17 (10.63%) DHCP
4 14 (8.75%) VPN
5 10 (6.25%) NetScaler
6 8 (5.00%) Remote Desktop
6 8 (5.00%) TCP/IP
7 5 (3.13%) Network Security
8 4 (2.50%) SAN
8 4 (2.50%) Wi-Fi
9 3 (1.88%) LAN
9 3 (1.88%) VLAN
9 3 (1.88%) WAN
10 2 (1.25%) FTP
10 2 (1.25%) PCoIP
10 2 (1.25%) SD-WAN
11 1 (0.63%) HTTP
11 1 (0.63%) Internet
11 1 (0.63%) Kerberos
11 1 (0.63%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (6.88%) SQL Server
2 6 (3.75%) Azure SQL Database
3 4 (2.50%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 3 (1.88%) BigQuery
5 2 (1.25%) Amazon RDS
6 1 (0.63%) BusinessObjects
6 1 (0.63%) Power BI
6 1 (0.63%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 8 (5.00%) JIRA
2 3 (1.88%) Appium
2 3 (1.88%) Git
2 3 (1.88%) JUnit
2 3 (1.88%) Selenium
2 3 (1.88%) TestNG
2 3 (1.88%) Visual Studio Code
3 2 (1.25%) AdminStudio
3 2 (1.25%) Chocolatey
3 2 (1.25%) InstallShield
3 2 (1.25%) MSI
General
1 29 (18.13%) Social Skills
2 27 (16.88%) Finance
3 15 (9.38%) Public Sector
4 13 (8.13%) Banking
5 10 (6.25%) Analytical Skills
6 8 (5.00%) Legal
7 3 (1.88%) International Banking
8 2 (1.25%) Influencing Skills
8 2 (1.25%) Publishing
8 2 (1.25%) Retail
9 1 (0.63%) Investment Banking
9 1 (0.63%) Marketing
9 1 (0.63%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 28 (17.50%) Architect
2 20 (12.50%) Senior
3 17 (10.63%) Cloud Engineer
4 14 (8.75%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 13 (8.13%) Azure Engineer
6 12 (7.50%) Citrix Engineer
7 10 (6.25%) Desktop Engineer
7 10 (6.25%) Lead
8 9 (5.63%) Consultant
9 8 (5.00%) Analyst
9 8 (5.00%) Support Engineer
10 7 (4.38%) Solutions Architect
11 6 (3.75%) Cloud Architect
11 6 (3.75%) Windows Engineer
12 5 (3.13%) Senior Citrix Engineer
12 5 (3.13%) Systems Engineer
12 5 (3.13%) Wintel Engineer
13 4 (2.50%) Desktop Support
13 4 (2.50%) QA Engineer
13 4 (2.50%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (3.75%) .NET
2 4 (2.50%) ADO
2 4 (2.50%) ARM Templates
2 4 (2.50%) Software Packaging
3 3 (1.88%) Microsoft Graph
3 3 (1.88%) YAML
4 2 (1.25%) ebXML
4 2 (1.25%) FIDO
4 2 (1.25%) JSON
4 2 (1.25%) OAuth
4 2 (1.25%) OAuth2
4 2 (1.25%) OpenGL
4 2 (1.25%) OpenID
4 2 (1.25%) Qt
4 2 (1.25%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 12 (7.50%) Onboarding
2 10 (6.25%) Data Protection Act
3 7 (4.38%) Cyber Threat
4 6 (3.75%) Data Centre
4 6 (3.75%) Hybrid Cloud
5 5 (3.13%) Augmented Reality
5 5 (3.13%) Virtual Reality
6 4 (2.50%) Enterprise Software
6 4 (2.50%) Private Cloud
6 4 (2.50%) Public Cloud
7 3 (1.88%) Hedge funds
7 3 (1.88%) Replication
8 2 (1.25%) Client/Server
8 2 (1.25%) CUDA
8 2 (1.25%) Product Ownership
8 2 (1.25%) Video Conferencing
8 2 (1.25%) YubiKey
9 1 (0.63%) Enterprise Cloud
9 1 (0.63%) Management Information System
9 1 (0.63%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 59 (36.88%) Windows
2 18 (11.25%) Windows 10
3 13 (8.13%) Windows Server
4 10 (6.25%) Mac OS
5 6 (3.75%) Windows Server 2019
6 5 (3.13%) Android
6 5 (3.13%) Linux
7 4 (2.50%) Windows Server 2012
7 4 (2.50%) Windows Server 2016
8 2 (1.25%) Apple iOS
8 2 (1.25%) Ubuntu
8 2 (1.25%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 42 (26.25%) Infrastructure as Code
2 30 (18.75%) Migration
3 26 (16.25%) ITIL
4 24 (15.00%) Problem-Solving
5 23 (14.38%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 20 (12.50%) User Experience
7 19 (11.88%) CI/CD
8 18 (11.25%) DevOps
9 17 (10.63%) Data Protection
9 17 (10.63%) RBAC
10 16 (10.00%) Identity Access Management
11 15 (9.38%) Runbook
12 13 (8.13%) Project Delivery
12 13 (8.13%) Roadmaps
13 11 (6.88%) Mentoring
13 11 (6.88%) User Acceptance Testing
13 11 (6.88%) Validation
13 11 (6.88%) Zero Trust
14 10 (6.25%) Application Packaging
14 10 (6.25%) Identity Management
Programming Languages
1 40 (25.00%) PowerShell
2 9 (5.63%) Bicep
2 9 (5.63%) SQL
3 8 (5.00%) Python
4 2 (1.25%) Bash
Qualifications
1 23 (14.38%) Security Cleared
2 20 (12.50%) Azure Certification
3 19 (11.88%) SC Cleared
4 17 (10.63%) Microsoft Certification
5 8 (5.00%) AWS Certification
5 8 (5.00%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
6 7 (4.38%) Citrix Certification
6 7 (4.38%) Degree
7 5 (3.13%) CCA
7 5 (3.13%) DV Cleared
8 4 (2.50%) BPSS Clearance
9 3 (1.88%) ACSP
9 3 (1.88%) CESG Certified Professional
9 3 (1.88%) MCSE
9 3 (1.88%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 2 (1.25%) Computer Science Degree
10 2 (1.25%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
11 1 (0.63%) ISTQB
11 1 (0.63%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 1 (0.63%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (3.75%) Cyber Essentials
1 6 (3.75%) NCSC
1 6 (3.75%) QA
1 6 (3.75%) SLA
2 1 (0.63%) GxP
2 1 (0.63%) NIST
System Software
1 54 (33.75%) Active Directory
2 30 (18.75%) VMware Infrastructure
3 8 (5.00%) Docker
4 7 (4.38%) vSphere
5 6 (3.75%) Hyper-V
5 6 (3.75%) Microsoft App-V
6 5 (3.13%) Virtual Machines
7 3 (1.88%) VMware Workstation
8 2 (1.25%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.63%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.63%) UAG
Systems Management
1 54 (33.75%) Terraform
2 45 (28.13%) Microsoft Intune
3 21 (13.13%) SCCM
4 7 (4.38%) Kubernetes
5 5 (3.13%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 4 (2.50%) Jamf Pro
7 2 (1.25%) Ansible
7 2 (1.25%) Packer
8 1 (0.63%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 78 (48.75%) Microsoft
2 44 (27.50%) Citrix
3 30 (18.75%) VMware
4 11 (6.88%) Zscaler
5 8 (5.00%) Veeam
6 6 (3.75%) Apple
6 6 (3.75%) CloudEndure
7 5 (3.13%) Cisco
7 5 (3.13%) CyberArk
7 5 (3.13%) Palo Alto
8 4 (2.50%) Dynatrace
8 4 (2.50%) F5
8 4 (2.50%) NetApp
9 3 (1.88%) Google
10 2 (1.25%) Aruba
10 2 (1.25%) Bloomberg
10 2 (1.25%) HP
10 2 (1.25%) Leostream
10 2 (1.25%) NVIDIA
10 2 (1.25%) Qualys