Job Vacancy Trend Daily Rate Trend Daily Rate Histogram Hourly Rate Trend Job Locations Skill Sets
Period
to 3 March 2021

The following table provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for Virtual Desktop skills. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that have cited Virtual Desktop over the 6 months to 3 March 2021 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

Note that daily and hourly rates are treated separately in these statistics. When calculating contractor rate percentiles, daily rates are never derived from quoted hourly rates or vice versa.

Virtual Desktop
UK
6 months to
3 Mar 2021		 Same period 2020 Same period 2019
Rank 523 600 692
Rank change year-on-year +77 +92 +102
Contract jobs citing Virtual Desktop 111 128 190
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.23% 0.19% 0.20%
As % of the System Software category 1.59% 1.23% 1.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 122 72 115
Median daily rate £500 £420 £385
Median daily rate % change year-on-year +19.05% +9.09% -15.38%
10th Percentile £313 £225 £213
90th Percentile £700 £550 £575
UK excluding London median daily rate £350 £428 £385
% change year-on-year -18.19% +11.04% -18.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 9 15
Median hourly rate £46.00 £18.00 £17.50
Median hourly rate % change year-on-year +155.56% +2.86% -30.00%
10th Percentile £43.93 £14.07 £14.80
90th Percentile £46.85 £23.80 £31.85
UK excluding London median hourly rate £46.00 £15.00 £17.50
% change year-on-year +206.67% -14.29% -30.00%

Virtual Desktop is in the System Software category. The following table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies with a requirement for system software skills.

All System Software Skills
UK
Contract vacancies with a requirement for system software skills 7,003 10,413 15,048
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 14.50% 15.56% 15.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,749 7,093 10,084
Median daily rate £475 £450 £473
Median daily rate % change year-on-year +5.56% -4.76% +5.00%
10th Percentile £225 £163 £175
90th Percentile £650 £638 £638
UK excluding London median daily rate £413 £425 £425
% change year-on-year -2.94% - +10.39%
Number of hourly rates quoted 296 551 724
Median hourly rate £18.44 £16.50 £16.00
Median hourly rate % change year-on-year +11.74% +3.13% +1.98%
10th Percentile £11.17 £11.26 £10.58
90th Percentile £61.25 £47.00 £46.37
Median hourly rate £15.70 £16.00 £15.25
% change year-on-year -1.88% +4.92% +1.67%

Virtual Desktop
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Virtual Desktop as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Virtual Desktop in the UK

Virtual Desktop
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Virtual Desktop.

Daily rate trend for Virtual Desktop in the UK

Virtual Desktop
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Virtual Desktop over the 6 months to 3 March 2021.

Daily rate histogram for Virtual Desktop in the UK

Virtual Desktop
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Virtual Desktop.

Hourly rate trend for Virtual Desktop in the UK

Virtual Desktop
Top 17 Contract 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 3 March 2021. 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
Job
Vacancies
England +70 66 £375 -9.64% 39
Work from Home -173 55 £500 +33.33% 10
London +43 34 £435 +8.75% 10
UK excluding London +98 33 £350 -18.19% 29
North of England +71 9 £260 -35.06% 11
South East +86 5 £550 +15.79% 8
South West +63 5 £313 -31.51% 2
North West +48 5 £345 - 4
Midlands +46 5 £425 -2.86% 6
West Midlands +36 5 £425 -2.86% 6
Scotland +29 4 £338 -11.48% 2
Yorkshire +43 3 £125 -68.75% 4
East of England +51 2 - -
North East +30 1 £375 -6.25% 3
Wales +13 1 £375 -28.57%
Northern Ireland +7 1 £155 +3.33%
Channel Islands - 1 - -

For the 6 months to 3 March 2021, IT contractor jobs citing Virtual Desktop also mentioned the following skills in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads with a requirement for Virtual Desktop.

1 84 (75.68%) Windows
2 77 (69.37%) Azure
3 42 (37.84%) Microsoft
4 41 (36.94%) VMware
4 41 (36.94%) Microsoft 365
4 41 (36.94%) VMware Infrastructure
5 33 (29.73%) Citrix
6 27 (24.32%) Active Directory
6 27 (24.32%) PowerShell
7 26 (23.42%) Windows 10
8 23 (20.72%) Windows Server
8 23 (20.72%) DevOps
9 22 (19.82%) Migration
10 19 (17.12%) vSphere
10 19 (17.12%) Security Cleared
10 19 (17.12%) Azure Active Directory
11 17 (15.32%) Microsoft Intune
12 16 (14.41%) AWS
12 16 (14.41%) SC Cleared
13 14 (12.61%) Microsoft Office
13 14 (12.61%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 11 (9.91%) IaaS
14 11 (9.91%) VCAP
14 11 (9.91%) SQL Server
14 11 (9.91%) ITIL
14 11 (9.91%) SharePoint
14 11 (9.91%) Finance
15 10 (9.01%) VCP6
15 10 (9.01%) Hybrid Cloud
15 10 (9.01%) Greenfield Project

Virtual Desktop
Co-occurring IT Skills by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same job type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 11 (9.91%) SharePoint
2 5 (4.50%) MS Exchange
3 4 (3.60%) Skype for Business
4 3 (2.70%) Exchange Server 2010
5 1 (0.90%) Confluence
5 1 (0.90%) IIS
Applications
1 14 (12.61%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.90%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.90%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.90%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 1 (0.90%) Dynamics CRM
1 1 (0.90%) ION MarketView
Cloud Services
1 77 (69.37%) Azure
2 41 (36.94%) Microsoft 365
3 19 (17.12%) Azure Active Directory
4 16 (14.41%) AWS
5 11 (9.91%) IaaS
6 10 (9.01%) PaaS
7 7 (6.31%) OneDrive
8 4 (3.60%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 3 (2.70%) SaaS
10 2 (1.80%) GCP
11 1 (0.90%) Cloud Computing
11 1 (0.90%) GitHub
11 1 (0.90%) Mimecast
11 1 (0.90%) Power Platform
11 1 (0.90%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 7 (6.31%) DNS
1 7 (6.31%) LAN
1 7 (6.31%) VPN
2 6 (5.41%) Firewall
2 6 (5.41%) WAN
3 5 (4.50%) NetScaler
3 5 (4.50%) Skype
4 4 (3.60%) DHCP
4 4 (3.60%) Remote Desktop
5 3 (2.70%) Internet
5 3 (2.70%) Intranet
5 3 (2.70%) IP Telephony
5 3 (2.70%) TCP/IP
6 2 (1.80%) MPLS
6 2 (1.80%) Network Security
6 2 (1.80%) SNMP
6 2 (1.80%) SSH
6 2 (1.80%) VLAN
6 2 (1.80%) VSAN
7 1 (0.90%) Software-Defined Networking
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (9.91%) SQL Server
2 5 (4.50%) Azure SQL Database
3 3 (2.70%) Amazon RDS
3 3 (2.70%) MySQL
4 2 (1.80%) MariaDB
5 1 (0.90%) Cosmos DB
5 1 (0.90%) Data Warehouse
5 1 (0.90%) Oracle Database
5 1 (0.90%) Oracle Database 11g
5 1 (0.90%) PostgreSQL
5 1 (0.90%) Power BI
5 1 (0.90%) SQL Server 2012
Development Applications
1 4 (3.60%) Octopus Deploy
2 2 (1.80%) Atlassian Bamboo
2 2 (1.80%) Git (software)
2 2 (1.80%) Jenkins
2 2 (1.80%) JIRA
2 2 (1.80%) MSI
3 1 (0.90%) GitLab
3 1 (0.90%) Hudson
3 1 (0.90%) Visual Studio Team System
General
1 11 (9.91%) Finance
2 6 (5.41%) Public Sector
3 2 (1.80%) Banking
3 2 (1.80%) Legal
4 1 (0.90%) Billing
4 1 (0.90%) Front Office
4 1 (0.90%) Investment Banking
4 1 (0.90%) Law
4 1 (0.90%) Retail
Job Titles
1 18 (16.22%) Architect
2 16 (14.41%) Windows Engineer
3 15 (13.51%) Desktop Engineer
4 14 (12.61%) Consultant
5 12 (10.81%) Product Owner
6 11 (9.91%) Azure Engineer
6 11 (9.91%) VMware Engineer
7 9 (8.11%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 9 (8.11%) Support Engineer
8 5 (4.50%) Analyst
8 5 (4.50%) Azure Architect
8 5 (4.50%) Azure DevOps Engineer
8 5 (4.50%) DevOps Engineer
8 5 (4.50%) Software Engineer
9 4 (3.60%) Citrix Engineer
9 4 (3.60%) Desktop Support
9 4 (3.60%) IT Engineer
9 4 (3.60%) Solutions Architect
10 3 (2.70%) Infrastructure Support Engineer
10 3 (2.70%) IT Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (1.80%) Anaconda
1 2 (1.80%) Software Packaging
2 1 (0.90%) .NET
2 1 (0.90%) .NET Core
2 1 (0.90%) .NET Framework
2 1 (0.90%) Elastic Stack
2 1 (0.90%) RESTful
2 1 (0.90%) SOAP
2 1 (0.90%) Web Services
2 1 (0.90%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 10 (9.01%) Greenfield Project
1 10 (9.01%) Hybrid Cloud
1 10 (9.01%) Tandem
2 5 (4.50%) Analytical Skills
2 5 (4.50%) Video Conferencing
3 4 (3.60%) Data Centre
3 4 (3.60%) Mobile App
4 3 (2.70%) PKI
4 3 (2.70%) User Experience
5 2 (1.80%) EMC VMAX
5 2 (1.80%) Enterprise Storage
5 2 (1.80%) Fat Client
5 2 (1.80%) Microsoft Licensing
5 2 (1.80%) Private Cloud
5 2 (1.80%) Replication
5 2 (1.80%) Thin Client
5 2 (1.80%) VxBlock/Vblock
6 1 (0.90%) Blackberry
6 1 (0.90%) NHS
6 1 (0.90%) PMI
Operating Systems
1 84 (75.68%) Windows
2 26 (23.42%) Windows 10
3 23 (20.72%) Windows Server
4 9 (8.11%) Linux
5 8 (7.21%) Windows Server 2012
6 4 (3.60%) Windows 7
6 4 (3.60%) Windows Server 2019
7 3 (2.70%) Mac OS
7 3 (2.70%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 2 (1.80%) Android
8 2 (1.80%) Apple iOS
8 2 (1.80%) CentOS
8 2 (1.80%) Debian
8 2 (1.80%) Solaris
8 2 (1.80%) Unix
8 2 (1.80%) Windows Server 2016
9 1 (0.90%) SUSE
9 1 (0.90%) Windows 8
9 1 (0.90%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 23 (20.72%) DevOps
2 22 (19.82%) Migration
3 11 (9.91%) ITIL
4 10 (9.01%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 8 (7.21%) Software Engineering
6 7 (6.31%) Application Packaging
6 7 (6.31%) Identity Management
6 7 (6.31%) Incident Management
7 5 (4.50%) Problem-Solving
8 4 (3.60%) Continuous Integration
8 4 (3.60%) Customer-Centricity
9 3 (2.70%) Agile Software Development
9 3 (2.70%) Analytics
9 3 (2.70%) Architectural Design
9 3 (2.70%) Change Management
9 3 (2.70%) Configuration Management
9 3 (2.70%) Decision-Making
9 3 (2.70%) Disaster Recovery
9 3 (2.70%) Stakeholder Management
9 3 (2.70%) Storage Management
Programming Languages
1 27 (24.32%) PowerShell
2 9 (8.11%) SQL
3 6 (5.41%) Python
4 4 (3.60%) Bash Shell
5 3 (2.70%) Perl
6 2 (1.80%) C
7 1 (0.90%) Ruby
7 1 (0.90%) VB
7 1 (0.90%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 19 (17.12%) Security Cleared
2 16 (14.41%) SC Cleared
3 14 (12.61%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
4 11 (9.91%) VCAP
5 10 (9.01%) VCDX
5 10 (9.01%) VCP6
6 6 (5.41%) Microsoft Certification
7 4 (3.60%) MCSA
8 3 (2.70%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
8 3 (2.70%) MCSE
8 3 (2.70%) MOS
9 2 (1.80%) BPSS Clearance
9 2 (1.80%) ITIL Certification
10 1 (0.90%) A+ Certification
10 1 (0.90%) CCA
10 1 (0.90%) CISA
10 1 (0.90%) CISSP
10 1 (0.90%) Citrix Certification
10 1 (0.90%) MCP
10 1 (0.90%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (1.80%) SLA
2 1 (0.90%) COBIT
2 1 (0.90%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 1 (0.90%) NIST
2 1 (0.90%) PMO
2 1 (0.90%) QA
System Software
1 41 (36.94%) VMware Infrastructure
2 27 (24.32%) Active Directory
3 19 (17.12%) vSphere
4 9 (8.11%) XenApp
5 8 (7.21%) XenDesktop
6 7 (6.31%) VMware ESXi
7 6 (5.41%) Microsoft App-V
8 3 (2.70%) Hyper-V
8 3 (2.70%) Virtual Machines
9 2 (1.80%) VMware NSX
10 1 (0.90%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.90%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 17 (15.32%) Microsoft Intune
2 9 (8.11%) SCCM
3 2 (1.80%) Ansible
3 2 (1.80%) PowerCLI
3 2 (1.80%) Puppet
3 2 (1.80%) SCOM
3 2 (1.80%) Single Sign-On
3 2 (1.80%) Terraform
3 2 (1.80%) vCenter Server
3 2 (1.80%) vRealize
3 2 (1.80%) WSUS
4 1 (0.90%) AirWatch
4 1 (0.90%) Data Guard
4 1 (0.90%) Grafana
4 1 (0.90%) OPNET
4 1 (0.90%) Prometheus
4 1 (0.90%) Sysprep
4 1 (0.90%) ThinApp
4 1 (0.90%) WMI
4 1 (0.90%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 42 (37.84%) Microsoft
2 41 (36.94%) VMware
3 33 (29.73%) Citrix
4 5 (4.50%) Cisco
5 4 (3.60%) Dell
5 4 (3.60%) EMC
6 3 (2.70%) Apple
6 3 (2.70%) Atlassian
6 3 (2.70%) Avaya
6 3 (2.70%) Polycom
6 3 (2.70%) Wyse
7 2 (1.80%) CommVault
7 2 (1.80%) Google
7 2 (1.80%) Isilon
7 2 (1.80%) Ivanti
7 2 (1.80%) NetApp
7 2 (1.80%) Oracle
7 2 (1.80%) Red Hat
7 2 (1.80%) Symantec
7 2 (1.80%) Veeam