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 14 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 470 451 408
Rank change year-on-year -19 -43 +133
Contract jobs citing Virtual Desktop 111 113 207
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.30% 0.33% 0.46%
As % of the System Software category 2.48% 2.73% 3.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 68 71 144
10th Percentile £262 £260 £250
25th Percentile £368 £356 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £505
Median % change year-on-year - -1.04% +1.05%
75th Percentile £596 £594 £615
90th Percentile £656 £614 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £483 £523
% change year-on-year -1.55% -7.66% +7.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 1 9
10th Percentile - - £15.74
25th Percentile - £29.50 £15.75
Median hourly rate - £31.00 £16.86
Median % change year-on-year - +83.87% -74.06%
75th Percentile - £32.50 £77.50
90th Percentile - - £80.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate - £31.00 £16.86
% change year-on-year - +83.87% -74.06%

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 4,474 4,138 5,621
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 12.28% 11.97% 12.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,960 2,675 3,828
10th Percentile £213 £205 £198
25th Percentile £400 £369 £358
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £599 £619 £613
90th Percentile £685 £710 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £468 £475
% change year-on-year +1.44% -1.42% +2.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 152 89 232
10th Percentile £15.50 £17.44 £15.50
25th Percentile £20.82 £21.46 £18.27
Median hourly rate £45.09 £29.00 £43.84
Median % change year-on-year +55.49% -33.85% +75.35%
75th Percentile £74.26 £64.50 £66.00
90th Percentile £91.35 £75.00 £77.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £62.75 £31.75 £40.00
% change year-on-year +97.64% -20.63% +92.17%

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 14 December 2025.

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 14 December 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 -29 109 £500 - 34
UK excluding London -54 55 £475 -1.55% 27
London +17 53 £550 - 16
Work from Home +2 23 £538 +2.38% 14
South East -4 21 £510 +8.51% 13
North of England -23 20 £513 +20.59% 5
South West -13 11 £425 -15.00% 3
North West -18 7 £400 -17.95% 4
North East - 7 £475 - 1
Yorkshire -39 6 £525 +40.00%
Midlands -36 5 £390 -22.00%
East Midlands -18 3 £500 +11.11%
West Midlands -35 2 £333 -39.55%
East of England -31 1 £695 +152.73% 1

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 19 (17.12%) Microsoft Exchange
2 5 (4.50%) SharePoint
3 3 (2.70%) Skype for Business
4 2 (1.80%) Confluence
4 2 (1.80%) IIS
Applications
1 9 (8.11%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (1.80%) Microsoft Project
3 1 (0.90%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.90%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.90%) Trello
Business Applications
1 1 (0.90%) SAP HCM
1 1 (0.90%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 58 (52.25%) Azure
2 34 (30.63%) Microsoft 365
3 20 (18.02%) Entra ID
4 13 (11.71%) OneDrive
5 12 (10.81%) AWS
6 9 (8.11%) Azure DevOps
7 6 (5.41%) Amazon GuardDuty
7 6 (5.41%) AWS CloudFormation
7 6 (5.41%) AWS CloudTrail
7 6 (5.41%) AWS Control Tower
7 6 (5.41%) AWS KMS
7 6 (5.41%) GitHub
7 6 (5.41%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 5 (4.50%) Cloud Computing
9 4 (3.60%) Nutanix
9 4 (3.60%) SaaS
10 3 (2.70%) Cohesity
10 3 (2.70%) Power Platform
11 2 (1.80%) Azure Monitor
11 2 (1.80%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 10 (9.01%) NetScaler
2 8 (7.21%) DNS
2 8 (7.21%) Firewall
3 7 (6.31%) VPN
4 6 (5.41%) Remote Desktop
5 5 (4.50%) LAN
6 4 (3.60%) WAN
6 4 (3.60%) Wi-Fi
7 3 (2.70%) DHCP
7 3 (2.70%) TCP/IP
7 3 (2.70%) VSAN
7 3 (2.70%) WebEx
8 2 (1.80%) SD-WAN
9 1 (0.90%) Cisco Firepower
9 1 (0.90%) HTTP
9 1 (0.90%) PCoIP
9 1 (0.90%) SAN
9 1 (0.90%) Skype
9 1 (0.90%) SMTP
9 1 (0.90%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (5.41%) SQL Server
2 4 (3.60%) Azure SQL Database
3 2 (1.80%) Power BI
4 1 (0.90%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 7 (6.31%) JIRA
2 2 (1.80%) Git
2 2 (1.80%) Hudson
3 1 (0.90%) GCC
3 1 (0.90%) Jenkins
3 1 (0.90%) MSI
General
1 54 (48.65%) Social Skills
2 36 (32.43%) Finance
3 20 (18.02%) Public Sector
4 15 (13.51%) Banking
5 8 (7.21%) Analytical Skills
6 6 (5.41%) Organisational Skills
7 5 (4.50%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 4 (3.60%) Documentation Skills
9 3 (2.70%) International Banking
9 3 (2.70%) Retail
10 2 (1.80%) Influencing Skills
10 2 (1.80%) Legal
10 2 (1.80%) Presentation Skills
11 1 (0.90%) Military
11 1 (0.90%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 19 (17.12%) Architect
2 15 (13.51%) Support Engineer
3 14 (12.61%) Desktop Support
4 10 (9.01%) Desktop Specialist
4 10 (9.01%) Desktop Support Specialist
4 10 (9.01%) Support Specialist
5 8 (7.21%) Consultant
5 8 (7.21%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 7 (6.31%) Programme Manager
7 6 (5.41%) Cloud Architect
7 6 (5.41%) Migration Engineer
7 6 (5.41%) Senior
7 6 (5.41%) Technical Architect
7 6 (5.41%) Technical Manager
8 5 (4.50%) Analyst
8 5 (4.50%) Desktop Engineer
8 5 (4.50%) IT Engineer
8 5 (4.50%) Lead
8 5 (4.50%) Technical Programme Manager
9 4 (3.60%) IT Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (6.31%) ARM Templates
2 5 (4.50%) .NET
3 3 (2.70%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 8 (7.21%) Data Protection Act
2 4 (3.60%) Cloud Native
2 4 (3.60%) Private Cloud
2 4 (3.60%) Replication
3 3 (2.70%) Analytical Mindset
3 3 (2.70%) Client/Server
3 3 (2.70%) Hybrid Cloud
3 3 (2.70%) Legacy Systems
4 2 (1.80%) Data Centre
4 2 (1.80%) Onboarding
5 1 (0.90%) Cyber Defence
5 1 (0.90%) Enterprise Software
5 1 (0.90%) Fat Client
5 1 (0.90%) Hedge funds
5 1 (0.90%) Legacy Applications
5 1 (0.90%) Public Cloud
5 1 (0.90%) Thin Client
5 1 (0.90%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 56 (50.45%) Windows
2 21 (18.92%) Windows 10
3 8 (7.21%) Linux
3 8 (7.21%) Windows Server
4 6 (5.41%) Windows Server 2016
5 3 (2.70%) Ubuntu
6 1 (0.90%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.90%) Mac OS
6 1 (0.90%) Windows Server 2012
6 1 (0.90%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 32 (28.83%) Migration
2 21 (18.92%) ITIL
3 16 (14.41%) Problem-Solving
4 15 (13.51%) Mobile Device Management
5 13 (11.71%) Inventory Management
6 12 (10.81%) Agile
6 12 (10.81%) Data Protection
6 12 (10.81%) User Acceptance Testing
7 11 (9.91%) DevOps
7 11 (9.91%) Patch Management
7 11 (9.91%) Service Management
8 10 (9.01%) Stakeholder Management
9 9 (8.11%) CI/CD
9 9 (8.11%) Runbook
9 9 (8.11%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 9 (8.11%) User Experience
10 8 (7.21%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 8 (7.21%) RBAC
11 7 (6.31%) High Availability
11 7 (6.31%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 37 (33.33%) PowerShell
2 4 (3.60%) Python
2 4 (3.60%) SQL
3 2 (1.80%) Bash
4 1 (0.90%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 31 (27.93%) Security Cleared
2 25 (22.52%) SC Cleared
3 6 (5.41%) AWS Certification
3 6 (5.41%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
3 6 (5.41%) DV Cleared
4 5 (4.50%) Degree
5 3 (2.70%) Microsoft Certification
6 2 (1.80%) ITIL Certification
6 2 (1.80%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
6 2 (1.80%) PMI Certification
6 2 (1.80%) PMP
6 2 (1.80%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
7 1 (0.90%) Azure Certification
7 1 (0.90%) CCA
7 1 (0.90%) Citrix Certification
7 1 (0.90%) CTC Cleared
7 1 (0.90%) MCSE
7 1 (0.90%) VCAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (5.41%) Cyber Essentials
1 6 (5.41%) NCSC
2 4 (3.60%) QA
3 1 (0.90%) GxP
System Software
1 40 (36.04%) Active Directory
2 22 (19.82%) VMware Infrastructure
3 6 (5.41%) Virtual Machines
4 4 (3.60%) Docker
4 4 (3.60%) VMware ESXi
4 4 (3.60%) vSphere
5 2 (1.80%) NFS
5 2 (1.80%) Virtual Servers
6 1 (0.90%) Microsoft App-V
6 1 (0.90%) UAG
Systems Management
1 20 (18.02%) Microsoft Intune
2 16 (14.41%) Terraform
3 15 (13.51%) SCCM
4 4 (3.60%) vCenter Server
5 3 (2.70%) Ansible
5 3 (2.70%) Jamf Pro
6 2 (1.80%) WMI
7 1 (0.90%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 1 (0.90%) Kubernetes
7 1 (0.90%) NetBackup
7 1 (0.90%) SCOM
Vendors
1 39 (35.14%) Citrix
2 33 (29.73%) Microsoft
3 22 (19.82%) VMware
4 7 (6.31%) Veeam
4 7 (6.31%) Zscaler
5 6 (5.41%) CloudEndure
5 6 (5.41%) NetApp
6 4 (3.60%) CyberArk
6 4 (3.60%) ServiceNow
7 2 (1.80%) Cisco
7 2 (1.80%) Palo Alto
7 2 (1.80%) Sage
8 1 (0.90%) Apple
8 1 (0.90%) EMC
8 1 (0.90%) Meraki
8 1 (0.90%) NetIQ
8 1 (0.90%) SAP
8 1 (0.90%) Sophos
8 1 (0.90%) Veritas
8 1 (0.90%) Wyse