Virtual Desktop Job Trends

Virtual Desktop
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs requiring Virtual Desktop skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 10 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 649 543 536
Rank change year-on-year -106 -7 -44
Permanent jobs citing Virtual Desktop 156 124 221
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.13% 0.25% 0.30%
As % of the System Software category 2.50% 2.18% 2.88%
Number of salaries quoted 104 54 151
10th Percentile £33,950 £29,500 £35,000
25th Percentile £39,688 £36,480 £42,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £47,500 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -13.64% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £67,500 £73,438 £74,168
90th Percentile £85,000 £81,750 £85,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £45,000 £54,000 £53,409
% change year-on-year -16.67% +1.11% +17.38%

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 permanent job vacancies requiring system software skills.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for system software skills 6,236 5,681 7,673
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 5.28% 11.49% 10.56%
Number of salaries quoted 4,355 3,362 4,480
10th Percentile £29,000 £27,500 £30,000
25th Percentile £36,250 £32,500 £38,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £49,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +12.24% -10.91% -
75th Percentile £72,500 £72,500 £73,750
90th Percentile £90,000 £88,750 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £42,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year +17.65% -15.00% -

Virtual Desktop
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Virtual Desktop job vacancy trend in the UK

Virtual Desktop
Salary Trend

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

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Virtual Desktop

Virtual Desktop
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Virtual Desktop over the 6 months to 10 October 2026.

Salary histogram for Virtual Desktop in the UK

Virtual Desktop
Top 17 Job Locations

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 over the 6 months to 10 October 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
England -76 133 £50,000 -16.67% 91
UK excluding London -109 111 £45,000 -16.67% 54
Work from Home -46 55 £60,000 - 35
London -34 44 £60,000 -17.24% 43
South West -54 23 £61,500 -3.83% 8
East of England -35 20 £60,000 +81.82% 4
Midlands -39 20 £40,000 -27.27% 11
North of England -46 20 £43,000 -28.33% 13
South East -46 15 £40,000 -25.93% 10
North West -15 14 £43,000 -28.33% 11
East Midlands -34 12 £37,500 -31.82% 5
West Midlands -45 8 £42,500 -30.61% 6
Wales -72 8 £45,000 +18.13% 5
Northern Ireland - 4 - -
Yorkshire -28 3 £57,500 +76.92% 2
North East - 3 £35,000 -
Scotland -24 1 - - 4

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 53 (33.97%) Microsoft Exchange
2 40 (25.64%) SharePoint
3 7 (4.49%) nginx
4 5 (3.21%) Apache
4 5 (3.21%) JBoss
5 3 (1.92%) IIS
5 3 (1.92%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 6 (3.85%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (2.56%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.64%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 1 (0.64%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 138 (88.46%) Azure
2 109 (69.87%) Microsoft 365
3 67 (42.95%) Entra ID
4 37 (23.72%) OneDrive
5 22 (14.10%) PaaS
6 20 (12.82%) IaaS
7 19 (12.18%) Azure DevOps
8 18 (11.54%) Azure Monitor
9 17 (10.90%) AWS
9 17 (10.90%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 17 (10.90%) GitHub
10 16 (10.26%) Microsoft Copilot
11 12 (7.69%) Azure Functions
11 12 (7.69%) Azure Key Vault
11 12 (7.69%) Serverless
12 11 (7.05%) Datadog
13 10 (6.41%) Microsoft Purview
14 7 (4.49%) Power Platform
14 7 (4.49%) SaaS
15 5 (3.21%) ShareGate
Communications & Networking
1 45 (28.85%) Firewall
2 40 (25.64%) VPN
3 38 (24.36%) DNS
4 34 (21.79%) DHCP
5 14 (8.97%) TCP/IP
5 14 (8.97%) VLAN
6 9 (5.77%) Wi-Fi
7 7 (4.49%) SAN
8 6 (3.85%) LAN
8 6 (3.85%) SSL
9 5 (3.21%) Remote Desktop
9 5 (3.21%) VoIP
9 5 (3.21%) WAN
10 4 (2.56%) Cisco IOS
11 3 (1.92%) SD-WAN
11 3 (1.92%) Skype
11 3 (1.92%) Wireless
12 2 (1.28%) NetScaler
12 2 (1.28%) OpenVPN
13 1 (0.64%) Software-Defined Networking
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (7.69%) Azure SQL Database
2 9 (5.77%) SQL Server
3 6 (3.85%) Power BI
4 5 (3.21%) Amazon RDS
5 2 (1.28%) PostgreSQL
6 1 (0.64%) Data Warehouse
Development Applications
1 17 (10.90%) Git
2 6 (3.85%) Chocolatey
3 5 (3.21%) Bitbucket
4 4 (2.56%) Subversion
5 3 (1.92%) Jenkins
6 2 (1.28%) GitLab
7 1 (0.64%) InstallShield
7 1 (0.64%) MSI
7 1 (0.64%) Robot Framework
7 1 (0.64%) Selenium
7 1 (0.64%) TeamCity
General
1 66 (42.31%) Social Skills
2 18 (11.54%) Analytical Skills
3 16 (10.26%) Organisational Skills
4 15 (9.62%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 15 (9.62%) Law
5 14 (8.97%) Finance
6 12 (7.69%) Banking
7 9 (5.77%) Public Sector
8 5 (3.21%) Legal
9 4 (2.56%) Aerospace
9 4 (2.56%) Electronics
10 2 (1.28%) Social Housing
10 2 (1.28%) Telecoms
11 1 (0.64%) Documentation Skills
11 1 (0.64%) Retail
Job Titles
1 33 (21.15%) Analyst
2 27 (17.31%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 27 (17.31%) Support Engineer
3 24 (15.38%) IT Support
4 19 (12.18%) Cloud Engineer
4 19 (12.18%) Senior
5 18 (11.54%) IT Engineer
5 18 (11.54%) IT Support Engineer
6 16 (10.26%) Azure Engineer
7 14 (8.97%) Cloud Infrastructure Engineer
8 13 (8.33%) Consultant
8 13 (8.33%) Infrastructure Analyst
9 12 (7.69%) Desktop Engineer
10 11 (7.05%) 3rd Line Engineer
10 11 (7.05%) Lead
10 11 (7.05%) Support Analyst
11 10 (6.41%) Service Analyst
12 9 (5.77%) 3rd Line Support
12 9 (5.77%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
12 9 (5.77%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (19.23%) Terraform
2 7 (4.49%) React
3 6 (3.85%) Microsoft Graph
3 6 (3.85%) OAuth
3 6 (3.85%) OAuth2
3 6 (3.85%) OpenID
4 5 (3.21%) CSS
4 5 (3.21%) CSS3
4 5 (3.21%) HTML
4 5 (3.21%) HTML5
4 5 (3.21%) Keycloak
5 2 (1.28%) .NET
5 2 (1.28%) REST
6 1 (0.64%) 802.1X
Miscellaneous
1 16 (10.26%) Security Posture
2 15 (9.62%) Public Cloud
3 14 (8.97%) Data Centre
3 14 (8.97%) Onboarding
4 13 (8.33%) Driving Licence
5 12 (7.69%) Podcast
6 11 (7.05%) Private Cloud
7 10 (6.41%) Hybrid Cloud
8 6 (3.85%) Cyber Threat
8 6 (3.85%) Self-Motivation
8 6 (3.85%) Web Conferencing
9 5 (3.21%) Mobile App
9 5 (3.21%) Social Media
10 4 (2.56%) Cloud Security Posture
10 4 (2.56%) iPhone
10 4 (2.56%) Smartphone
10 4 (2.56%) Virtual Team
11 3 (1.92%) BYOD
12 2 (1.28%) Augmented Reality
12 2 (1.28%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 105 (67.31%) Windows
2 37 (23.72%) Windows Server
3 20 (12.82%) Windows 10
4 13 (8.33%) Mac OS
5 12 (7.69%) VMS
6 11 (7.05%) Android
7 10 (6.41%) Apple iOS
8 8 (5.13%) Linux
9 4 (2.56%) Windows Server 2016
9 4 (2.56%) Windows Server 2019
10 2 (1.28%) Windows 7
11 1 (0.64%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 55 (35.26%) Problem-Solving
2 43 (27.56%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 42 (26.92%) ITIL
4 33 (21.15%) Mentoring
5 29 (18.59%) Cloud Security
5 29 (18.59%) Infrastructure as Code
5 29 (18.59%) Root Cause Analysis
6 27 (17.31%) AI
7 26 (16.67%) Disaster Recovery
7 26 (16.67%) Migration
8 23 (14.74%) Continuous Improvement
8 23 (14.74%) DevOps
9 22 (14.10%) Analytics
9 22 (14.10%) Computer Science
10 20 (12.82%) Cybersecurity
11 19 (12.18%) Identity Access Management
12 18 (11.54%) CI/CD
12 18 (11.54%) Log Analytics
12 18 (11.54%) Project Delivery
13 17 (10.90%) Observability
Programming Languages
1 61 (39.10%) PowerShell
2 24 (15.38%) Bicep
3 16 (10.26%) SQL
4 13 (8.33%) Bash
5 12 (7.69%) Kusto Query Language
6 7 (4.49%) JavaScript
6 7 (4.49%) Python
7 2 (1.28%) C#
7 2 (1.28%) Groovy
7 2 (1.28%) VB
7 2 (1.28%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 34 (21.79%) Microsoft Certification
2 30 (19.23%) Azure Certification
3 20 (12.82%) Degree
4 16 (10.26%) Security Cleared
5 15 (9.62%) SC Cleared
6 10 (6.41%) Computer Science Degree
7 6 (3.85%) CCNP
7 6 (3.85%) Cisco Certification
8 5 (3.21%) ITIL Certification
9 2 (1.28%) CompTIA Security+
9 2 (1.28%) Network+ Certification
10 1 (0.64%) A+ Certification
10 1 (0.64%) CCA
10 1 (0.64%) CCNA
10 1 (0.64%) CESG Certified Professional
10 1 (0.64%) Citrix Certification
10 1 (0.64%) DV Cleared
10 1 (0.64%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (8.33%) SLA
2 5 (3.21%) Cyber Essentials
3 3 (1.92%) GDPR
4 2 (1.28%) Accessibility
5 1 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 1 (0.64%) PMO
System Software
1 102 (65.38%) Active Directory
2 46 (29.49%) VMware Infrastructure
3 27 (17.31%) Hyper-V
4 13 (8.33%) vSphere
5 12 (7.69%) Virtual Machines
6 6 (3.85%) BitLocker
7 3 (1.92%) Docker
8 1 (0.64%) Microsoft App-V
8 1 (0.64%) XenApp
8 1 (0.64%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 69 (44.23%) Microsoft Intune
2 29 (18.59%) SCCM
3 11 (7.05%) Single Sign-On
4 8 (5.13%) Proxmox
4 8 (5.13%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
5 6 (3.85%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 5 (3.21%) Nagios
7 2 (1.28%) Kibana
8 1 (0.64%) Ansible
8 1 (0.64%) Forefront Identity Manager
8 1 (0.64%) FortiGate
8 1 (0.64%) Grafana
8 1 (0.64%) Kubernetes
8 1 (0.64%) Progress Chef
8 1 (0.64%) Puppet
Vendors
1 128 (82.05%) Microsoft
2 46 (29.49%) VMware
3 13 (8.33%) Cisco
4 12 (7.69%) ScienceLogic
5 7 (4.49%) Citrix
5 7 (4.49%) Dynatrace
6 6 (3.85%) AppDynamics
6 6 (3.85%) Tenable
7 5 (3.21%) Atlassian
7 5 (3.21%) iManage
7 5 (3.21%) New Relic
7 5 (3.21%) Red Hat
7 5 (3.21%) ServiceNow
7 5 (3.21%) Splunk
8 4 (2.56%) Apple
8 4 (2.56%) Thales
9 3 (1.92%) ConnectWise
9 3 (1.92%) Ubiquiti
9 3 (1.92%) Veeam
10 2 (1.28%) Google