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 14 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 495 407 420
Rank change year-on-year -88 +13 -26
Contract jobs citing Visual Studio 89 120 170
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.24% 0.38% 0.40%
As % of the Development Applications category 1.65% 2.83% 3.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 53 54 131
10th Percentile £376 £335 £313
25th Percentile £415 £413 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £464 £535
Median % change year-on-year -0.27% -13.32% +1.90%
75th Percentile £725 £538 £628
90th Percentile £850 £648 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £675 £456 £525
% change year-on-year +47.95% -13.10% +16.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 6 2
10th Percentile - £56.00 £45.59
25th Percentile - - £47.07
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £51.20
Median % change year-on-year - +26.96% -21.23%
75th Percentile - £67.81 £53.67
90th Percentile - £74.38 £54.17
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £51.20
% change year-on-year - +26.96% -21.23%

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 5,384 4,238 5,302
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 14.56% 13.41% 12.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,689 2,673 3,713
10th Percentile £340 £331 £363
25th Percentile £406 £413 £439
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -6.98% -4.02%
75th Percentile £600 £626 £638
90th Percentile £693 £725 £717
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £477 £513
% change year-on-year -0.42% -6.93% -2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 136 72 199
10th Percentile £39.00 £28.88 £43.93
25th Percentile £52.50 £46.25 £51.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -3.85% +5.69%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £77.50
90th Percentile £85.00 £76.15 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year +4.00% -3.85% -

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 14 January 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
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 14 January 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 -99 72 £444 -2.74% 45
UK excluding London -86 43 £675 +47.95% 43
Work from Home -14 42 £450 +1.47% 18
London -27 39 £415 -17.00% 8
East of England -18 16 - - 7
Scotland +8 10 £725 +56.76% 3
South East -39 8 £569 +28.24% 17
Wales +2 6 £675 +22.73%
North East -13 1 - -
South West -31 1 - - 2
West Midlands -34 1 £325 -3.70% 3
Midlands -45 1 £325 -7.14% 7
North of England -60 1 - - 8

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 3 (3.37%) Confluence
2 2 (2.25%) SharePoint
3 1 (1.12%) ArcGIS
3 1 (1.12%) BizTalk Server
3 1 (1.12%) CICS
3 1 (1.12%) CMS
3 1 (1.12%) GeoServer
3 1 (1.12%) Oracle Spatial
3 1 (1.12%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 4 (4.49%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (1.12%) Adobe Creative Suite
2 1 (1.12%) Moqups
2 1 (1.12%) Trello
Business Applications
1 3 (3.37%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (1.12%) Fidessa
Cloud Services
1 36 (40.45%) Azure
2 27 (30.34%) Azure DevOps
3 18 (20.22%) Power Platform
4 15 (16.85%) Dynamics 365
5 11 (12.36%) GitHub
6 6 (6.74%) AWS
7 5 (5.62%) Power Automate
7 5 (5.62%) PowerApps
8 3 (3.37%) Azure Data Factory
8 3 (3.37%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 2 (2.25%) Azure Functions
9 2 (2.25%) npm
9 2 (2.25%) Serverless
9 2 (2.25%) Snowflake
10 1 (1.12%) Azure Cosmos DB
10 1 (1.12%) GCP
10 1 (1.12%) Google Data Studio
10 1 (1.12%) Google Sheets
10 1 (1.12%) Google Tag Manager
10 1 (1.12%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 15 (16.85%) Ethernet
1 15 (16.85%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (23.60%) SQL Server
2 9 (10.11%) Power BI
3 7 (7.87%) Tick Data
4 5 (5.62%) SQL Server Reporting Services
5 3 (3.37%) Data Warehouse
5 3 (3.37%) MSDE
5 3 (3.37%) Relational Database
5 3 (3.37%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 2 (2.25%) Metadata
7 1 (1.12%) Azure SQL Database
7 1 (1.12%) Big Data
7 1 (1.12%) Data Lake
7 1 (1.12%) DB2
7 1 (1.12%) GIS
7 1 (1.12%) MongoDB
7 1 (1.12%) Power Query
7 1 (1.12%) RDBMS
7 1 (1.12%) Snowflake Schema
7 1 (1.12%) SQL Server Analysis Services
7 1 (1.12%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 15 (16.85%) Eclipse
2 9 (10.11%) Selenium
3 8 (8.99%) JIRA
3 8 (8.99%) Visual Studio Code
4 7 (7.87%) JMeter
4 7 (7.87%) MSTest
5 4 (4.49%) Git
5 4 (4.49%) Jenkins
6 3 (3.37%) Bitbucket
6 3 (3.37%) GitLab
6 3 (3.37%) IntelliJ
6 3 (3.37%) NUnit
6 3 (3.37%) PyCharm
6 3 (3.37%) SpecFlow
7 2 (2.25%) Artifactory
8 1 (1.12%) Team Foundation Server
8 1 (1.12%) Visual Studio Coded UI
General
1 33 (37.08%) Finance
2 24 (26.97%) Social Skills
3 15 (16.85%) Military
4 14 (15.73%) Presentation Skills
5 7 (7.87%) Banking
6 6 (6.74%) Investment Banking
7 5 (5.62%) Analytical Skills
7 5 (5.62%) Public Sector
8 4 (4.49%) General Ledger
9 3 (3.37%) Documentation Skills
9 3 (3.37%) Front Office
10 2 (2.25%) Aerospace
10 2 (2.25%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 2 (2.25%) Law
11 1 (1.12%) Advertising
11 1 (1.12%) Back Office
11 1 (1.12%) Marketing
11 1 (1.12%) Retail
Job Titles
1 45 (50.56%) Developer
2 19 (21.35%) Software Engineer
3 15 (16.85%) C# Developer
4 13 (14.61%) C# Software Engineer
5 9 (10.11%) C++ Software Engineer
5 9 (10.11%) Dynamics 365 Developer
6 8 (8.99%) Analyst
6 8 (8.99%) Senior
6 8 (8.99%) Tester
7 7 (7.87%) Python Developer
8 6 (6.74%) .NET Developer
8 6 (6.74%) Automation Tester
8 6 (6.74%) Senior Tester
9 5 (5.62%) Qualitative Analyst
9 5 (5.62%) Quantitative Analyst
9 5 (5.62%) Senior Automation Tester
10 3 (3.37%) C++ Developer
10 3 (3.37%) Power Platform Developer
10 3 (3.37%) Quantitative Developer
11 2 (2.25%) Full-Stack Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (33.71%) .NET
2 21 (23.60%) Web Services
3 17 (19.10%) Node.js
4 14 (15.73%) .NET Framework
5 6 (6.74%) ASP.NET
6 5 (5.62%) HTML
7 4 (4.49%) ASP.NET Core
7 4 (4.49%) CSS
7 4 (4.49%) React
8 3 (3.37%) OAuth
8 3 (3.37%) PySpark
8 3 (3.37%) RESTful
9 2 (2.25%) AngularJS
9 2 (2.25%) ASP.NET MVC
9 2 (2.25%) HTML5
9 2 (2.25%) jQuery
9 2 (2.25%) JSON
9 2 (2.25%) SAML
9 2 (2.25%) Unity (Game Engine)
9 2 (2.25%) Unreal Engine
Miscellaneous
1 6 (6.74%) Derivative
2 5 (5.62%) Algorithms
2 5 (5.62%) Distributed Systems
2 5 (5.62%) Equity Derivative
3 3 (3.37%) Analytical Mindset
3 3 (3.37%) Data Structures
3 3 (3.37%) Equities
3 3 (3.37%) Fixed Income
3 3 (3.37%) Mobile App
4 2 (2.25%) Cloud Native
4 2 (2.25%) Data Protection Act
4 2 (2.25%) Distributed Computing
4 2 (2.25%) Mixed Reality
4 2 (2.25%) Virtual Reality
5 1 (1.12%) DataPower
5 1 (1.12%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
5 1 (1.12%) PCIe
5 1 (1.12%) Product Ownership
5 1 (1.12%) Social Media
5 1 (1.12%) Wiki
Operating Systems
1 30 (33.71%) Windows
2 22 (24.72%) Linux
3 9 (10.11%) Windows Server
4 2 (2.25%) Android
4 2 (2.25%) Apple iOS
5 1 (1.12%) Debian
5 1 (1.12%) Ubuntu
5 1 (1.12%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 42 (47.19%) Agile
2 35 (39.33%) Unit Testing
3 32 (35.96%) CI/CD
3 32 (35.96%) DevOps
4 19 (21.35%) Validation
5 18 (20.22%) Software Engineering
6 17 (19.10%) Business Intelligence
6 17 (19.10%) TDD
6 17 (19.10%) Visualisation
7 15 (16.85%) Synthetic Environment
7 15 (16.85%) Verification and Validation
8 14 (15.73%) AI
8 14 (15.73%) Continuous Delivery
8 14 (15.73%) Continuous Integration
8 14 (15.73%) Digital Twin
9 13 (14.61%) Machine Learning
10 10 (11.24%) Change Management
10 10 (11.24%) Computer Science
10 10 (11.24%) Data Analysis
10 10 (11.24%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 64 (71.91%) C#
2 31 (34.83%) JavaScript
2 31 (34.83%) SQL
3 30 (33.71%) C++
4 27 (30.34%) Python
5 13 (14.61%) T-SQL
6 11 (12.36%) PL/SQL
7 6 (6.74%) Java
7 6 (6.74%) TypeScript
8 5 (5.62%) X++
9 4 (4.49%) C
10 2 (2.25%) Ada
10 2 (2.25%) Assembly Language
10 2 (2.25%) MATLAB
10 2 (2.25%) PowerShell
11 1 (1.12%) Bicep
11 1 (1.12%) Embedded C
11 1 (1.12%) Embedded C++
11 1 (1.12%) VBA
11 1 (1.12%) XPath
Qualifications
1 28 (31.46%) Degree
2 20 (22.47%) Security Cleared
3 15 (16.85%) SC Cleared
4 5 (5.62%) ISTQB
4 5 (5.62%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
5 4 (4.49%) Numerate Degree
6 2 (2.25%) Computer Science Degree
6 2 (2.25%) Master's Degree
6 2 (2.25%) PhD
7 1 (1.12%) BPSS Clearance
7 1 (1.12%) DBS Check
7 1 (1.12%) HP APS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (14.61%) QA
2 7 (7.87%) HMG Security Policy Framework
2 7 (7.87%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 5 (5.62%) SLA
4 1 (1.12%) Accessibility
4 1 (1.12%) Actionable Recommendations
4 1 (1.12%) Data Quality
4 1 (1.12%) EMIR
4 1 (1.12%) MiFID
System Software
1 9 (10.11%) Docker
2 2 (2.25%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 7 (7.87%) Kubernetes
2 5 (5.62%) Terraform
3 3 (3.37%) Ansible
4 1 (1.12%) CA Endevor
4 1 (1.12%) Grafana
4 1 (1.12%) HP ALM
Vendors
1 24 (26.97%) Microsoft
2 11 (12.36%) Oracle
3 9 (10.11%) Citrix
4 2 (2.25%) RedGate
5 1 (1.12%) Adobe
5 1 (1.12%) CQG
5 1 (1.12%) ESRI
5 1 (1.12%) Google
5 1 (1.12%) HP
5 1 (1.12%) IBM
5 1 (1.12%) Salesforce
5 1 (1.12%) SAP
5 1 (1.12%) Sitecore
5 1 (1.12%) TOWER Software
5 1 (1.12%) Xamarin