Desktop Engineer Contracts with Hybrid/Remote/WFH Options

Desktop Engineer
UK > Work from Home

The median Desktop Engineer daily rate for remote or hybrid work is £400, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 3 May 2025.

The table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 285 317 400
Rank change year-on-year +32 +83 +154
Contract jobs requiring a Desktop Engineer 16 27 71
As % of all contract jobs with a WFH option 0.16% 0.18% 0.28%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.17% 0.19% 0.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 15 19 53
10th Percentile £253 £103 £185
25th Percentile £294 £167 £200
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £225 £220
Median % change year-on-year +77.78% +2.27% -4.35%
75th Percentile £480 £600 £268
90th Percentile £492 - £322
UK median daily rate £210 £205 £200
% change year-on-year +2.44% +2.50% +11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 1
Median hourly rate - - £25.00
UK median hourly rate £23.00 £18.13 £17.00
% change year-on-year +26.86% +6.65% -11.03%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
Work from Home

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies with WFH or hybrid options. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in Work from Home with a recognized job title 9,280 14,264 24,476
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 93.76% 93.50% 95.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,354 9,548 17,287
10th Percentile £338 £325 £356
25th Percentile £413 £425 £443
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% +2.38%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £650
90th Percentile £774 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £515 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -1.90% -2.78% +2.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 226 576 563
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.34 £18.50
25th Percentile £18.13 £23.32 £25.98
Median hourly rate £35.13 £43.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -18.31% -21.82% +57.14%
75th Percentile £66.00 £63.00 £68.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.25 £80.25
UK median hourly rate £28.88 £36.42 £45.00
% change year-on-year -20.71% -19.07% +94.45%

Desktop Engineer
Trend for Jobs with a WFH Option

Job vacancies with remote working options which featured Desktop Engineer in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Desktop Engineer trend for jobs with Hybrid/Remote/WFH options

Desktop Engineer
Daily Rate Trend for Jobs with a WFH Option

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in job vacancies with remote working options citing Desktop Engineer.

Desktop Engineer daily rate for jobs with a WFH option

Desktop Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram for Jobs with a WFH Option

Daily rate distribution for jobs with remote working options citing Desktop Engineer over the 6 months to 3 May 2025.

Desktop Engineer daily rate histogram for jobs with a WFH option

Desktop Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend for Jobs with a WFH Option

3-month moving average hourly rate quoted in job vacancies with remote working options citing Desktop Engineer.

Desktop Engineer hourly rate for jobs with a WFH option

Desktop Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in Job Vacancies with WFH Options

For the 6 months to 3 May 2025, Desktop Engineer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract jobs with a WFH option featuring Desktop Engineer in the job title.

1 13 (81.25%) Windows
2 10 (62.50%) SCCM
3 8 (50.00%) PowerShell
4 7 (43.75%) Azure
4 7 (43.75%) Microsoft
5 6 (37.50%) Active Directory
6 5 (31.25%) Migration
6 5 (31.25%) Microsoft Intune
6 5 (31.25%) Social Skills
7 4 (25.00%) Microsoft 365
7 4 (25.00%) Entra ID
7 4 (25.00%) Windows 10
7 4 (25.00%) Finance
8 3 (18.75%) WSUS
8 3 (18.75%) SharePoint
8 3 (18.75%) DNS
8 3 (18.75%) Data Protection
8 3 (18.75%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 3 (18.75%) Customer Service
9 2 (12.50%) OneDrive
9 2 (12.50%) Inventory Management
9 2 (12.50%) Organisational Skills
9 2 (12.50%) SC Cleared
9 2 (12.50%) Security Cleared
9 2 (12.50%) Change Control
9 2 (12.50%) Patch Management
9 2 (12.50%) Security Patching
9 2 (12.50%) VBScript
9 2 (12.50%) ITIL
9 2 (12.50%) VLAN

Desktop Engineer Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities with WFH Options by Category

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

Application Platforms
1 3 (18.75%) SharePoint
2 1 (6.25%) Microsoft Exchange
Cloud Services
1 7 (43.75%) Azure
2 4 (25.00%) Entra ID
2 4 (25.00%) Microsoft 365
3 2 (12.50%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 3 (18.75%) DNS
2 2 (12.50%) DHCP
2 2 (12.50%) VLAN
Development Applications
1 2 (12.50%) JIRA
General
1 5 (31.25%) Social Skills
2 4 (25.00%) Finance
3 3 (18.75%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 2 (12.50%) Organisational Skills
5 1 (6.25%) Banking
5 1 (6.25%) Investment Banking
5 1 (6.25%) Telecoms
Miscellaneous
1 1 (6.25%) Client/Server
1 1 (6.25%) Data Protection Act
1 1 (6.25%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 13 (81.25%) Windows
2 4 (25.00%) Windows 10
3 1 (6.25%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 5 (31.25%) Migration
2 3 (18.75%) Customer Service
2 3 (18.75%) Data Protection
3 2 (12.50%) Asset Management
3 2 (12.50%) Change Control
3 2 (12.50%) Inventory Management
3 2 (12.50%) ITIL
3 2 (12.50%) Patch Management
3 2 (12.50%) Security Patching
3 2 (12.50%) Time Management
4 1 (6.25%) Agile
4 1 (6.25%) CI/CD
4 1 (6.25%) Deployment Automation
4 1 (6.25%) DevOps
4 1 (6.25%) Infrastructure as Code
4 1 (6.25%) Problem-Solving
4 1 (6.25%) Scrum
4 1 (6.25%) Service Management
4 1 (6.25%) Vulnerability Remediation
Programming Languages
1 8 (50.00%) PowerShell
2 2 (12.50%) VBScript
3 1 (6.25%) Bash
3 1 (6.25%) Python
Qualifications
1 2 (12.50%) SC Cleared
1 2 (12.50%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (6.25%) SLA
System Software
1 6 (37.50%) Active Directory
2 1 (6.25%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 10 (62.50%) SCCM
2 5 (31.25%) Microsoft Intune
3 3 (18.75%) WSUS
4 1 (6.25%) Jamf Pro
4 1 (6.25%) Terraform
Vendors
1 7 (43.75%) Microsoft
2 1 (6.25%) Apple
2 1 (6.25%) Cisco
2 1 (6.25%) Citrix
2 1 (6.25%) Dell
2 1 (6.25%) Qualys