Virtual Desktop Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Virtual Desktop
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the UK excluding London requiring Virtual Desktop skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 30 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 432 452 415
Rank change year-on-year +20 -37 +174
Permanent jobs citing Virtual Desktop 91 129 133
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 0.22% 0.35% 0.43%
As % of the System Software category 3.19% 2.87% 2.50%
Number of salaries quoted 29 71 116
10th Percentile £28,500 £30,000 £31,250
25th Percentile £29,500 £34,875 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £40,000 £47,500 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year -15.79% - -5.00%
75th Percentile £62,500 £64,000 £57,625
90th Percentile £67,440 £85,000 £74,250
UK median annual salary £50,860 £52,500 £57,013
% change year-on-year -3.12% -7.91% +8.60%

All System Software Skills
UK excluding London

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

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for system software skills 2,850 4,495 5,311
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 6.78% 12.05% 17.23%
Number of salaries quoted 2,004 2,598 4,407
10th Percentile £26,500 £27,750 £27,000
25th Percentile £30,000 £35,000 £33,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £41,526 £50,000 £47,557
Median % change year-on-year -16.95% +5.14% -1.94%
75th Percentile £60,750 £67,500 £63,750
90th Percentile £77,500 £81,250 £77,500
UK median annual salary £50,000 £57,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year -13.04% +4.55% -1.62%

Virtual Desktop
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Virtual Desktop relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Virtual Desktop job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Virtual Desktop
Salary Trend in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Virtual Desktop.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Virtual Desktop

Virtual Desktop
Salary Histogram in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution for jobs citing Virtual Desktop in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 30 December 2025.

Salary histogram for Virtual Desktop in the UK excluding London

Virtual Desktop
Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Virtual Desktop within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 30 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
Scotland +41 36 £31,000 -53.38% 7
East of England +18 18 £33,500 -39.37% 22
Midlands +17 14 £54,000 +13.08% 21
North of England +7 13 £40,000 -15.91% 35
North West +19 10 £60,000 +87.50% 21
East Midlands -5 10 £45,000 - 9
South East +4 7 £38,500 -14.44% 41
West Midlands +8 4 £64,500 +35.07% 11
South West +12 3 £63,950 -5.26% 14
Yorkshire -4 2 £32,500 -59.38% 11
North East - 1 - - 3
Virtual Desktop
UK

Virtual Desktop
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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 21 (23.08%) Microsoft Exchange
2 20 (21.98%) SharePoint
3 9 (9.89%) Skype for Business
4 2 (2.20%) Confluence
5 1 (1.10%) Apache
5 1 (1.10%) JBoss
5 1 (1.10%) nginx
Applications
1 4 (4.40%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (2.20%) Acrobat
Cloud Services
1 82 (90.11%) Azure
2 78 (85.71%) Microsoft 365
3 52 (57.14%) Entra ID
4 15 (16.48%) Azure DevOps
5 14 (15.38%) Azure Monitor
6 12 (13.19%) AWS
7 9 (9.89%) Azure Sentinel
7 9 (9.89%) GCP
8 8 (8.79%) Microsoft Purview
9 6 (6.59%) Power Automate
10 5 (5.49%) Microsoft Copilot
10 5 (5.49%) SaaS
11 4 (4.40%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 3 (3.30%) AWS CloudFormation
12 3 (3.30%) Copilot Studio
13 2 (2.20%) IaaS
13 2 (2.20%) OneDrive
14 1 (1.10%) Azure Key Vault
14 1 (1.10%) Datadog
14 1 (1.10%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 22 (24.18%) Firewall
2 9 (9.89%) Skype
3 5 (5.49%) Broadband
4 2 (2.20%) DHCP
4 2 (2.20%) DNS
4 2 (2.20%) VPN
5 1 (1.10%) Network Security
5 1 (1.10%) SD-WAN
5 1 (1.10%) SSL
5 1 (1.10%) TCP/IP
5 1 (1.10%) VLAN
5 1 (1.10%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (9.89%) DTS
2 1 (1.10%) Azure SQL Database
2 1 (1.10%) Power BI
2 1 (1.10%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 2 (2.20%) JIRA
2 1 (1.10%) Bitbucket
2 1 (1.10%) Git
2 1 (1.10%) Subversion
General
1 39 (42.86%) Finance
2 32 (35.16%) Social Skills
3 11 (12.09%) Manufacturing
3 11 (12.09%) Retail
4 6 (6.59%) Organisational Skills
5 5 (5.49%) Financial Institution
6 4 (4.40%) Law
7 2 (2.20%) Analytical Skills
7 2 (2.20%) Documentation Skills
8 1 (1.10%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 23 (25.27%) Analyst
2 21 (23.08%) IT Support
3 19 (20.88%) Support Engineer
4 16 (17.58%) Support Analyst
5 14 (15.38%) IT Analyst
6 12 (13.19%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 12 (13.19%) Senior
7 11 (12.09%) 1st Line Support
7 11 (12.09%) 1st Line Support Analyst
7 11 (12.09%) IT Support Analyst
8 10 (10.99%) IT Engineer
8 10 (10.99%) IT Support Engineer
9 9 (9.89%) Infrastructure Support
9 9 (9.89%) Infrastructure Support Engineer
10 8 (8.79%) 2nd Line Support
11 6 (6.59%) 2nd Line Engineer
11 6 (6.59%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
11 6 (6.59%) IT Support Specialist
11 6 (6.59%) Service Analyst
11 6 (6.59%) Support Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (3.30%) React
2 2 (2.20%) Software Packaging
3 1 (1.10%) CSS
3 1 (1.10%) CSS3
3 1 (1.10%) HTML
3 1 (1.10%) HTML5
3 1 (1.10%) Keycloak
3 1 (1.10%) Microsoft Graph
3 1 (1.10%) OAuth
3 1 (1.10%) OAuth2
3 1 (1.10%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 26 (28.57%) Product Ownership
2 16 (17.58%) Onboarding
2 16 (17.58%) Security Posture
3 9 (9.89%) CMDB
3 9 (9.89%) Video Conferencing
4 8 (8.79%) Enterprise Software
5 5 (5.49%) Team-Oriented Environment
6 3 (3.30%) AI Agents
6 3 (3.30%) Cloud Native
7 2 (2.20%) Driving Licence
8 1 (1.10%) Analytical Mindset
8 1 (1.10%) Legacy Applications
8 1 (1.10%) Legacy Systems
8 1 (1.10%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 54 (59.34%) Windows
2 32 (35.16%) Windows Server
3 17 (18.68%) Windows Server 2019
4 11 (12.09%) Mac OS
5 9 (9.89%) Windows Server 2008
6 6 (6.59%) Apple iOS
6 6 (6.59%) Windows Server 2016
7 2 (2.20%) Windows 10
8 1 (1.10%) Linux
8 1 (1.10%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 35 (38.46%) ITIL
2 29 (31.87%) Roadmaps
3 28 (30.77%) Asset Management
3 28 (30.77%) Continuous Improvement
4 27 (29.67%) Coaching
4 27 (29.67%) Customer Service
5 26 (28.57%) Technology Roadmap
6 22 (24.18%) Problem-Solving
7 21 (23.08%) AI
7 21 (23.08%) Infrastructure as Code
8 20 (21.98%) Agile
9 18 (19.78%) Analytics
9 18 (19.78%) FinOps
9 18 (19.78%) Machine Learning
10 17 (18.68%) Mentoring
11 15 (16.48%) DevOps
11 15 (16.48%) Server Management
12 13 (14.29%) Cybersecurity
12 13 (14.29%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 13 (14.29%) Preventative Maintenance
Programming Languages
1 36 (39.56%) PowerShell
2 13 (14.29%) Python
3 10 (10.99%) Bash
4 4 (4.40%) SQL
5 3 (3.30%) JavaScript
6 2 (2.20%) Java
Qualifications
1 18 (19.78%) Microsoft Certification
2 6 (6.59%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
3 2 (2.20%) A+ Certification
3 2 (2.20%) Security Cleared
4 1 (1.10%) Azure Certification
4 1 (1.10%) Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (8.79%) NIST
2 1 (1.10%) GDPR
2 1 (1.10%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 50 (54.95%) Active Directory
2 15 (16.48%) VMware Infrastructure
3 14 (15.38%) Virtual Machines
4 3 (3.30%) vSphere
5 2 (2.20%) Hyper-V
5 2 (2.20%) XenDesktop
6 1 (1.10%) Docker
6 1 (1.10%) Firmware
6 1 (1.10%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 59 (64.84%) Microsoft Intune
2 22 (24.18%) Terraform
3 12 (13.19%) SCCM
4 10 (10.99%) Nagios
5 9 (9.89%) ZABBIX
6 4 (4.40%) Prometheus
7 2 (2.20%) FortiGate
8 1 (1.10%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 1 (1.10%) Jamf Pro
8 1 (1.10%) Kubernetes
8 1 (1.10%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 65 (71.43%) Microsoft
2 22 (24.18%) Citrix
3 15 (16.48%) VMware
4 10 (10.99%) Red Hat
5 9 (9.89%) BMC
5 9 (9.89%) Darktrace
5 9 (9.89%) Google
5 9 (9.89%) Proofpoint
5 9 (9.89%) SolarWinds
5 9 (9.89%) Tanium
5 9 (9.89%) Trend Micro
6 7 (7.69%) Cisco
7 6 (6.59%) Apple
8 5 (5.49%) Freshdesk
8 5 (5.49%) Meraki
9 3 (3.30%) Atlassian
9 3 (3.30%) Foundry
10 2 (2.20%) Dell
10 2 (2.20%) Fortinet
10 2 (2.20%) Veeam