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 19 October 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 462 372 452
Rank change year-on-year -90 +80 -97
Contract jobs citing Visual Studio 98 195 192
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.30% 0.52% 0.40%
As % of the Development Applications category 1.92% 3.93% 2.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 41 98 143
10th Percentile £358 £323 £353
25th Percentile £425 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £550
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -13.64% +4.31%
75th Percentile £575 £589 £625
90th Percentile £713 £662 £674
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £525
% change year-on-year +5.26% -9.52% +16.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 30 3
10th Percentile - £47.00 £45.28
25th Percentile - - £46.30
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £48.00
Median % change year-on-year - +35.42% -26.15%
75th Percentile £65.19 - £52.85
90th Percentile £67.00 £65.25 £53.84
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £48.00
% change year-on-year - +35.42% -26.15%

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 5,114 4,966 6,431
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 15.43% 13.29% 13.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,461 3,097 4,474
10th Percentile £328 £350 £363
25th Percentile £406 £413 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £545
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -4.59% -1.00%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £644
90th Percentile £688 £723 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £492 £510
% change year-on-year -3.36% -3.63% -2.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 119 168 246
10th Percentile £20.03 £26.43 £46.03
25th Percentile £44.98 £50.94 £51.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year - - +4.84%
75th Percentile £69.38 £70.00 £76.53
90th Percentile £75.50 £72.44 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.00

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 19 October 2025.

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
Top 16 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 19 October 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 -94 74 £469 -1.32% 92
UK excluding London -58 66 £500 +5.26% 79
Work from Home 0 48 £463 -2.63% 53
East of England -18 27 £500 +4.06% 5
London -34 21 £550 +15.18% 20
Scotland +14 13 £500 +5.26% 1
South East -2 8 £401 -15.53% 37
Wales +2 6 £675 +255.31% 2
South West -9 4 £356 -25.78% 12
Midlands -24 4 £385 -13.48% 6
North of England -32 4 £550 +23.60% 17
East Midlands -12 2 £385 +10.00% 3
West Midlands -18 2 £388 -17.25% 3
North West -20 2 - - 10
North East - 1 - - 1
Yorkshire - 1 £550 - 6

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 5 (5.10%) Confluence
2 2 (2.04%) CICS
2 2 (2.04%) SharePoint
3 1 (1.02%) ArcGIS
3 1 (1.02%) BizTalk Server
3 1 (1.02%) GeoServer
3 1 (1.02%) Oracle Spatial
Applications
1 2 (2.04%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (1.02%) Adobe Creative Suite
2 1 (1.02%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (1.02%) Moqups
2 1 (1.02%) Trello
Business Applications
1 2 (2.04%) Fidessa
1 2 (2.04%) Maximo
2 1 (1.02%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (1.02%) Eikon
2 1 (1.02%) RMDS
Cloud Services
1 41 (41.84%) Azure
2 31 (31.63%) Azure DevOps
3 25 (25.51%) GitHub
4 17 (17.35%) AWS
5 14 (14.29%) Power Platform
6 11 (11.22%) Dynamics 365
7 9 (9.18%) GitHub Actions
7 9 (9.18%) npm
8 6 (6.12%) SaaS
9 3 (3.06%) Power Automate
10 2 (2.04%) Azure Data Factory
10 2 (2.04%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 2 (2.04%) GitHub Copilot
10 2 (2.04%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
10 2 (2.04%) Snowflake
11 1 (1.02%) Azure Cosmos DB
11 1 (1.02%) Google Data Studio
11 1 (1.02%) Google Sheets
11 1 (1.02%) PaaS
11 1 (1.02%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 20 (20.41%) TCP/IP
2 18 (18.37%) Ethernet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (21.43%) SQL Server
2 8 (8.16%) Power BI
3 4 (4.08%) MongoDB
3 4 (4.08%) SQL Server Reporting Services
4 3 (3.06%) Metadata
4 3 (3.06%) MSDE
4 3 (3.06%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 2 (2.04%) Data Warehouse
5 2 (2.04%) DB2
5 2 (2.04%) NoSQL
5 2 (2.04%) PostgreSQL
5 2 (2.04%) Relational Database
6 1 (1.02%) Azure SQL Database
6 1 (1.02%) GIS
6 1 (1.02%) MS Access
6 1 (1.02%) MySQL
6 1 (1.02%) Oracle Database
6 1 (1.02%) Oracle Database 12c
6 1 (1.02%) RDBMS
6 1 (1.02%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 29 (29.59%) JIRA
2 18 (18.37%) Eclipse
3 15 (15.31%) Bitbucket
3 15 (15.31%) Jenkins
3 15 (15.31%) Visual Studio Code
4 13 (13.27%) GitLab
4 13 (13.27%) IntelliJ
4 13 (13.27%) PyCharm
5 12 (12.24%) Git
6 11 (11.22%) MSTest
7 9 (9.18%) Artifactory
8 8 (8.16%) Selenium
9 7 (7.14%) JMeter
10 5 (5.10%) NUnit
11 4 (4.08%) Team Foundation Server
12 2 (2.04%) SpecFlow
12 2 (2.04%) Subversion
13 1 (1.02%) Browser DevTools
13 1 (1.02%) JetBrains Rider
13 1 (1.02%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 38 (38.78%) Social Skills
2 27 (27.55%) Finance
3 18 (18.37%) Military
3 18 (18.37%) Presentation Skills
4 7 (7.14%) Analytical Skills
5 6 (6.12%) Banking
6 5 (5.10%) Investment Banking
7 4 (4.08%) Documentation Skills
7 4 (4.08%) Front Office
7 4 (4.08%) Law
7 4 (4.08%) Public Sector
8 3 (3.06%) General Ledger
9 2 (2.04%) Back Office
9 2 (2.04%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (1.02%) Advertising
10 1 (1.02%) Aerospace
10 1 (1.02%) Manufacturing
10 1 (1.02%) Marketing
10 1 (1.02%) Retail
Job Titles
1 44 (44.90%) Developer
2 25 (25.51%) Software Engineer
3 18 (18.37%) C# Software Engineer
4 14 (14.29%) C++ Software Engineer
5 11 (11.22%) Senior
6 8 (8.16%) Python Developer
6 8 (8.16%) Python Engineer
6 8 (8.16%) Tester
7 7 (7.14%) .NET Developer
7 7 (7.14%) DevOps Engineer
7 7 (7.14%) Full-Stack Developer
8 6 (6.12%) Automation Tester
8 6 (6.12%) C# Developer
9 5 (5.10%) Dynamics 365 Developer
9 5 (5.10%) Full-Stack Engineer
9 5 (5.10%) Full-Stack Software Engineer
9 5 (5.10%) Senior Automation Tester
9 5 (5.10%) Senior Developer
9 5 (5.10%) Senior Tester
9 5 (5.10%) Software Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (30.61%) Web Services
2 29 (29.59%) .NET
3 27 (27.55%) Node.js
4 14 (14.29%) .NET Framework
4 14 (14.29%) CSS
4 14 (14.29%) HTML
5 12 (12.24%) React
6 11 (11.22%) AngularJS
7 9 (9.18%) Svelte
7 9 (9.18%) Vue
8 6 (6.12%) REST
9 5 (5.10%) ASP.NET
9 5 (5.10%) jQuery
9 5 (5.10%) WCF
10 4 (4.08%) ADO
10 4 (4.08%) JSON
10 4 (4.08%) RESTful
11 3 (3.06%) Blazor
11 3 (3.06%) HTML5
12 2 (2.04%) Entity Framework
Miscellaneous
1 10 (10.20%) Public Cloud
2 9 (9.18%) Algorithms
2 9 (9.18%) Data Structures
2 9 (9.18%) Distributed Systems
3 6 (6.12%) Virtual Team
4 5 (5.10%) Legacy Systems
5 4 (4.08%) Self-Motivation
6 3 (3.06%) Analytical Mindset
6 3 (3.06%) Data Protection Act
6 3 (3.06%) Fixed Income
6 3 (3.06%) Mobile App
7 2 (2.04%) DataPower
7 2 (2.04%) Derivative
7 2 (2.04%) Distributed Computing
7 2 (2.04%) Equity Derivative
7 2 (2.04%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 2 (2.04%) Product Ownership
7 2 (2.04%) Wiki
8 1 (1.02%) Enterprise Software
8 1 (1.02%) Legacy Applications
Operating Systems
1 40 (40.82%) Linux
2 36 (36.73%) Windows
3 3 (3.06%) Windows Server
4 2 (2.04%) Android
4 2 (2.04%) Apple iOS
4 2 (2.04%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 65 (66.33%) Agile
2 48 (48.98%) DevOps
3 46 (46.94%) CI/CD
4 34 (34.69%) SDLC
5 28 (28.57%) TDD
6 27 (27.55%) Unit Testing
7 24 (24.49%) Software Engineering
8 23 (23.47%) Continuous Integration
8 23 (23.47%) Validation
9 19 (19.39%) Continuous Delivery
9 19 (19.39%) Test Automation
9 19 (19.39%) Visualisation
10 18 (18.37%) Synthetic Environment
10 18 (18.37%) Verification and Validation
11 17 (17.35%) Digital Twin
12 16 (16.33%) Design Patterns
13 14 (14.29%) Computer Science
14 13 (13.27%) Full-Stack Development
15 12 (12.24%) Containerisation
15 12 (12.24%) Software Testing
Programming Languages
1 69 (70.41%) C#
2 42 (42.86%) JavaScript
3 29 (29.59%) C++
4 26 (26.53%) Python
5 24 (24.49%) SQL
6 23 (23.47%) TypeScript
7 17 (17.35%) Java
8 5 (5.10%) PowerShell
8 5 (5.10%) T-SQL
9 3 (3.06%) C
9 3 (3.06%) X++
10 2 (2.04%) Ada
10 2 (2.04%) Assembly Language
10 2 (2.04%) Korn
10 2 (2.04%) MATLAB
10 2 (2.04%) PL/SQL
10 2 (2.04%) VB
10 2 (2.04%) VBA
10 2 (2.04%) XPath
11 1 (1.02%) VB6
Qualifications
1 24 (24.49%) Security Cleared
2 17 (17.35%) SC Cleared
3 10 (10.20%) Degree
4 7 (7.14%) ISTQB
4 7 (7.14%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
5 3 (3.06%) DV Cleared
6 1 (1.02%) Azure Certification
6 1 (1.02%) BPSS Clearance
6 1 (1.02%) Computer Science Degree
6 1 (1.02%) DBS Check
6 1 (1.02%) Master's Degree
6 1 (1.02%) Numerate Degree
6 1 (1.02%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (7.14%) HMG Security Policy Framework
1 7 (7.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 6 (6.12%) QA
3 2 (2.04%) EMIR
3 2 (2.04%) MiFID
3 2 (2.04%) SLA
4 1 (1.02%) Accessibility
4 1 (1.02%) Actionable Recommendations
4 1 (1.02%) Data Quality
4 1 (1.02%) GDPR
4 1 (1.02%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 14 (14.29%) Docker
2 2 (2.04%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 22 (22.45%) Kubernetes
2 14 (14.29%) Terraform
3 13 (13.27%) Ansible
4 2 (2.04%) CA Endevor
4 2 (2.04%) Single Sign-On
5 1 (1.02%) Grafana
Vendors
1 32 (32.65%) Microsoft
2 6 (6.12%) Oracle
3 4 (4.08%) IBM
3 4 (4.08%) Salesforce
4 2 (2.04%) CQG
4 2 (2.04%) Nintex
4 2 (2.04%) RedGate
4 2 (2.04%) TOWER Software
5 1 (1.02%) Adobe
5 1 (1.02%) Bloomberg
5 1 (1.02%) ESRI
5 1 (1.02%) Google
5 1 (1.02%) Reuters
5 1 (1.02%) SAP
5 1 (1.02%) Xamarin