Visual Studio Contract Job Trends

Microsoft Visual Studio
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring Visual Studio skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 3 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 544 442 376
Rank change year-on-year -102 -66 +68
Contract jobs citing Visual Studio 84 88 217
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.18% 0.30% 0.50%
As % of the Development Applications category 1.45% 2.13% 4.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 50 50 163
10th Percentile £400 £350 £375
25th Percentile £415 £391 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £450 £535
Median % change year-on-year +6.78% -15.89% +4.19%
75th Percentile £703 £538 £592
90th Percentile £805 £750 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £580 £425 £535
% change year-on-year +36.47% -20.56% +18.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 6 15
10th Percentile £61.25 £63.13 -
25th Percentile £64.06 - £46.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
75th Percentile - £65.56 -
90th Percentile - £67.25 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year - - +18.18%

All Development Application Skills
UK

Visual Studio falls under the Development Applications category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring development application skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for development application skills 5,811 4,131 5,175
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 12.26% 14.10% 11.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,843 2,754 3,477
10th Percentile £349 £340 £356
25th Percentile £406 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £625
90th Percentile £688 £716 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £480 £500
% change year-on-year -1.04% -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 235 71 199
10th Percentile £36.65 £27.50 £32.74
25th Percentile £59.63 £50.00 £46.25
Median hourly rate £67.50 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +8.00% -3.85% +5.69%
75th Percentile £73.38 £75.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.25 £81.30
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.50 £62.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year +8.00% -3.85% +5.69%

Visual Studio
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Visual Studio relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Visual Studio job vacancy trend in the UK

Visual Studio
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Visual Studio.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Visual Studio

Visual Studio
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Visual Studio over the 6 months to 3 May 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Visual Studio in the UK

Visual Studio
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Visual Studio.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Visual Studio

Visual Studio
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Visual Studio over the 6 months to 3 May 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Visual Studio in the UK

Visual Studio
Top 13 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Visual Studio within the UK over the 6 months to 3 May 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
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
England -117 72 £450 +5.88% 34
UK excluding London -109 47 £580 +36.47% 32
London -47 34 £415 -40.71% 10
Work from Home -55 22 £474 +8.40% 21
South East -63 14 £525 +23.53% 15
East of England -31 13 - - 5
Scotland -2 7 £763 +67.12% 4
South West -21 7 £375 -33.92% 8
Wales - 3 £700 -
North West -43 2 £580 +36.47%
North of England -77 2 £580 +49.48% 1
West Midlands -60 1 £580 -
Midlands -76 1 £580 +57.82% 1

Visual Studio
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 4 (4.76%) SharePoint
2 2 (2.38%) CMS
2 2 (2.38%) IIS
3 1 (1.19%) CICS
3 1 (1.19%) Confluence
3 1 (1.19%) Sitecore CMS
3 1 (1.19%) Umbraco
Applications
1 4 (4.76%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 1 (1.19%) Dynamics CRM
1 1 (1.19%) Maximo
Cloud Services
1 33 (39.29%) Azure
2 23 (27.38%) Azure DevOps
3 12 (14.29%) Power Platform
4 8 (9.52%) Dynamics 365
4 8 (9.52%) Power Automate
4 8 (9.52%) PowerApps
5 6 (7.14%) GitHub
6 3 (3.57%) Serverless
7 2 (2.38%) AWS
7 2 (2.38%) Azure Functions
8 1 (1.19%) AWS Lambda
8 1 (1.19%) AWS Step Functions
8 1 (1.19%) Azure API Management
8 1 (1.19%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 14 (16.67%) Ethernet
1 14 (16.67%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 26 (30.95%) SQL Server
2 7 (8.33%) Tick Data
3 3 (3.57%) Data Warehouse
4 2 (2.38%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 2 (2.38%) SQL Server Reporting Services
4 2 (2.38%) Tableau
5 1 (1.19%) Big Data
5 1 (1.19%) DB2
5 1 (1.19%) DynamoDB
5 1 (1.19%) NoSQL
5 1 (1.19%) Oracle Database
5 1 (1.19%) PostgreSQL
5 1 (1.19%) Power BI
5 1 (1.19%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 15 (17.86%) Eclipse
2 8 (9.52%) Git
3 6 (7.14%) Selenium
4 5 (5.95%) JIRA
5 4 (4.76%) JMeter
5 4 (4.76%) MSTest
6 3 (3.57%) NUnit
6 3 (3.57%) Visual Studio Code
7 2 (2.38%) Postman
7 2 (2.38%) SpecFlow
7 2 (2.38%) Team Foundation Server
7 2 (2.38%) Visual Studio Coded UI
8 1 (1.19%) ClearCase
8 1 (1.19%) GitLab
8 1 (1.19%) Rational DOORS
8 1 (1.19%) Rational Robot
8 1 (1.19%) WiX
8 1 (1.19%) XPEDITER
General
1 28 (33.33%) Finance
2 18 (21.43%) Social Skills
3 15 (17.86%) Military
4 12 (14.29%) Presentation Skills
5 2 (2.38%) Aerospace
5 2 (2.38%) Law
5 2 (2.38%) Public Sector
6 1 (1.19%) Aviation
6 1 (1.19%) Back Office
6 1 (1.19%) Documentation Skills
6 1 (1.19%) Financial Institution
6 1 (1.19%) General Ledger
6 1 (1.19%) Legal
Job Titles
1 44 (52.38%) Developer
2 17 (20.24%) Software Engineer
3 16 (19.05%) C# Developer
4 13 (15.48%) C# Software Engineer
5 8 (9.52%) Senior
6 7 (8.33%) Analyst
6 7 (8.33%) Microsoft Developer
7 6 (7.14%) .NET Developer
7 6 (7.14%) C++ Software Engineer
7 6 (7.14%) Software Developer
8 5 (5.95%) Full-Stack Developer
8 5 (5.95%) Qualitative Analyst
8 5 (5.95%) Quantitative Analyst
8 5 (5.95%) Tester
9 4 (4.76%) Applications Engineer
10 3 (3.57%) Automation Developer
10 3 (3.57%) Dynamics 365 Developer
10 3 (3.57%) Python Developer
10 3 (3.57%) SC Cleared Software Engineer
10 3 (3.57%) Senior Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 42 (50.00%) .NET
2 20 (23.81%) .NET Framework
3 19 (22.62%) Web Services
4 14 (16.67%) Node.js
5 13 (15.48%) RESTful
6 7 (8.33%) WinForms
7 6 (7.14%) Entity Framework
8 5 (5.95%) ASP.NET
8 5 (5.95%) CSS
8 5 (5.95%) Material-UI
8 5 (5.95%) OAuth
8 5 (5.95%) React
9 4 (4.76%) SAML
10 3 (3.57%) ASP.NET Core
10 3 (3.57%) JSON
10 3 (3.57%) WPF
11 2 (2.38%) LINQ
11 2 (2.38%) REST
11 2 (2.38%) Swagger
11 2 (2.38%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 5 (5.95%) Cloud Native
1 5 (5.95%) Low-Code
2 3 (3.57%) Algorithms
2 3 (3.57%) Derivative
2 3 (3.57%) Distributed Systems
2 3 (3.57%) Equities
2 3 (3.57%) Equity Derivative
3 2 (2.38%) Data Structures
3 2 (2.38%) Mixed Reality
3 2 (2.38%) Virtual Reality
4 1 (1.19%) Data Protection Act
4 1 (1.19%) DataPower
4 1 (1.19%) FPGA
4 1 (1.19%) Greenfield Project
4 1 (1.19%) Mainframe
4 1 (1.19%) PCIe
4 1 (1.19%) Virtual Team
4 1 (1.19%) Wiki
Operating Systems
1 34 (40.48%) Windows
2 16 (19.05%) Linux
3 11 (13.10%) Windows Server
4 1 (1.19%) Debian
4 1 (1.19%) Ubuntu
4 1 (1.19%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 48 (57.14%) Agile
2 41 (48.81%) Unit Testing
3 28 (33.33%) CI/CD
4 27 (32.14%) DevOps
5 18 (21.43%) Software Engineering
6 17 (20.24%) Validation
7 16 (19.05%) Disaster Recovery
7 16 (19.05%) TDD
7 16 (19.05%) Verification and Validation
8 15 (17.86%) Continuous Delivery
8 15 (17.86%) Continuous Integration
8 15 (17.86%) Digital Twin
8 15 (17.86%) Synthetic Environment
8 15 (17.86%) Visualisation
9 13 (15.48%) Business Intelligence
10 12 (14.29%) Change Management
11 11 (13.10%) AI
11 11 (13.10%) Data Analysis
12 10 (11.90%) Scrum
13 9 (10.71%) Workflow
Programming Languages
1 67 (79.76%) C#
2 33 (39.29%) C++
3 31 (36.90%) SQL
4 23 (27.38%) JavaScript
5 18 (21.43%) Python
6 14 (16.67%) T-SQL
7 12 (14.29%) PL/SQL
8 6 (7.14%) C
8 6 (7.14%) TypeScript
8 6 (7.14%) X++
9 2 (2.38%) PowerShell
10 1 (1.19%) Embedded C
10 1 (1.19%) Embedded C++
10 1 (1.19%) Java
10 1 (1.19%) VB
10 1 (1.19%) VB6
10 1 (1.19%) XPath
Qualifications
1 36 (42.86%) Security Cleared
2 31 (36.90%) SC Cleared
3 21 (25.00%) Degree
4 4 (4.76%) ISTQB
4 4 (4.76%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
5 3 (3.57%) DV Cleared
5 3 (3.57%) Numerate Degree
6 2 (2.38%) BPSS Clearance
6 2 (2.38%) Computer Science Degree
7 1 (1.19%) Azure Certification
7 1 (1.19%) HP APS
7 1 (1.19%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (15.48%) QA
2 4 (4.76%) SLA
3 3 (3.57%) HMG Security Policy Framework
3 3 (3.57%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 1 (1.19%) Accessibility
System Software
1 7 (8.33%) Docker
2 2 (2.38%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 4 (4.76%) Kubernetes
1 4 (4.76%) Terraform
2 2 (2.38%) Single Sign-On
3 1 (1.19%) CA Endevor
3 1 (1.19%) HP ALM
3 1 (1.19%) Microsoft Intune
3 1 (1.19%) SCCM
Vendors
1 24 (28.57%) Microsoft
2 12 (14.29%) Oracle
3 11 (13.10%) Citrix
4 2 (2.38%) IBM
5 1 (1.19%) CrowdStrike
5 1 (1.19%) HP
5 1 (1.19%) OpenText
5 1 (1.19%) Serena
5 1 (1.19%) Sitecore