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 6 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
6 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 517 422 430
Rank change year-on-year -95 +8 -18
Contract jobs citing Visual Studio 95 105 166
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.22% 0.34% 0.37%
As % of the Development Applications category 1.63% 2.53% 3.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 57 55 125
10th Percentile £400 £347 £315
25th Percentile £415 £414 £404
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £463 £535
Median % change year-on-year +2.70% -13.55% +2.88%
75th Percentile £713 £540 £594
90th Percentile £820 £663 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £434 £533
% change year-on-year +38.17% -18.45% +18.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 5 6
10th Percentile £61.25 £62.75 £35.30
25th Percentile - £65.00 £45.01
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.50 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year -0.76% +37.89% -26.92%
75th Percentile - £68.75 £48.75
90th Percentile - £75.50 £49.97
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £65.50 £47.50
% change year-on-year -0.76% +37.89% -26.92%

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 5,842 4,147 5,325
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 13.70% 13.60% 12.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,962 2,692 3,662
10th Percentile £343 £331 £357
25th Percentile £405 £408 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £588 £615 £630
90th Percentile £688 £725 £719
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £480 £500
% change year-on-year -1.04% -4.00% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 180 64 215
10th Percentile £34.53 £26.10 £37.50
25th Percentile £53.44 £52.19 £46.22
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% - +1.63%
75th Percentile £71.75 £71.88 £73.75
90th Percentile £88.00 £80.00 £84.36
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year +4.00% -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 6 March 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 6 March 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Visual Studio in the UK

Visual Studio
Top 14 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 6 March 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 -100 81 £450 -0.88% 43
UK excluding London -98 50 £600 +38.17% 39
London -30 40 £415 -17.00% 6
Work from Home -38 34 £481 +13.24% 20
East of England -18 16 - - 6
South East -56 14 £525 +23.53% 13
Scotland +15 7 £763 +67.12%
Wales - 6 £675 - 1
South West -30 4 £375 -28.57% 9
North of England -70 2 £580 +56.76% 6
North East -15 1 - -
North West -26 1 £580 +85.60% 5
West Midlands -52 1 £580 +71.85% 3
Midlands -64 1 £580 +65.71% 5

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 (4.21%) SharePoint
2 2 (2.11%) Confluence
2 2 (2.11%) IIS
3 1 (1.05%) ArcGIS
3 1 (1.05%) BizTalk Server
3 1 (1.05%) CICS
3 1 (1.05%) CMS
3 1 (1.05%) GeoServer
3 1 (1.05%) Oracle Spatial
3 1 (1.05%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 3 (3.16%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 3 (3.16%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (1.05%) Maximo
Cloud Services
1 42 (44.21%) Azure
2 31 (32.63%) Azure DevOps
3 19 (20.00%) Power Platform
4 15 (15.79%) Dynamics 365
5 8 (8.42%) GitHub
6 5 (5.26%) Power Automate
6 5 (5.26%) PowerApps
7 3 (3.16%) AWS
7 3 (3.16%) Azure Data Factory
7 3 (3.16%) Azure Synapse Analytics
7 3 (3.16%) Serverless
8 2 (2.11%) Azure Functions
8 2 (2.11%) Snowflake
9 1 (1.05%) AWS Lambda
9 1 (1.05%) AWS Step Functions
9 1 (1.05%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 16 (16.84%) Ethernet
1 16 (16.84%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (29.47%) SQL Server
2 8 (8.42%) Power BI
3 7 (7.37%) Tick Data
4 6 (6.32%) SQL Server Reporting Services
5 5 (5.26%) Data Warehouse
6 4 (4.21%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 3 (3.16%) Relational Database
8 2 (2.11%) Metadata
8 2 (2.11%) Tableau
9 1 (1.05%) Big Data
9 1 (1.05%) Data Lake
9 1 (1.05%) DB2
9 1 (1.05%) DynamoDB
9 1 (1.05%) MongoDB
9 1 (1.05%) NoSQL
9 1 (1.05%) Oracle Database
9 1 (1.05%) Oracle Database 12c
9 1 (1.05%) RDBMS
9 1 (1.05%) Snowflake Schema
9 1 (1.05%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 17 (17.89%) Eclipse
2 9 (9.47%) Selenium
3 7 (7.37%) Git
3 7 (7.37%) JMeter
3 7 (7.37%) MSTest
4 6 (6.32%) JIRA
5 4 (4.21%) Visual Studio Code
6 3 (3.16%) NUnit
6 3 (3.16%) SpecFlow
7 2 (2.11%) Postman
8 1 (1.05%) GitLab
8 1 (1.05%) Rational DOORS
8 1 (1.05%) Team Foundation Server
8 1 (1.05%) Visual Studio Coded UI
8 1 (1.05%) XPEDITER
General
1 31 (32.63%) Finance
2 22 (23.16%) Social Skills
3 16 (16.84%) Military
4 15 (15.79%) Presentation Skills
5 5 (5.26%) Public Sector
6 4 (4.21%) General Ledger
7 3 (3.16%) Banking
8 2 (2.11%) Aerospace
8 2 (2.11%) Documentation Skills
8 2 (2.11%) Investment Banking
8 2 (2.11%) Law
9 1 (1.05%) Analytical Skills
9 1 (1.05%) Financial Institution
9 1 (1.05%) Front Office
9 1 (1.05%) Retail
Job Titles
1 47 (49.47%) Developer
2 19 (20.00%) Software Engineer
3 15 (15.79%) C# Developer
3 15 (15.79%) C# Software Engineer
4 10 (10.53%) Senior
5 9 (9.47%) Dynamics 365 Developer
5 9 (9.47%) Tester
6 7 (7.37%) Analyst
6 7 (7.37%) C++ Software Engineer
7 6 (6.32%) .NET Developer
7 6 (6.32%) Automation Tester
7 6 (6.32%) Senior Tester
8 5 (5.26%) Qualitative Analyst
8 5 (5.26%) Quantitative Analyst
8 5 (5.26%) Senior Automation Tester
8 5 (5.26%) Software Developer
9 4 (4.21%) Applications Engineer
9 4 (4.21%) Data Engineer
9 4 (4.21%) Full-Stack Developer
9 4 (4.21%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 41 (43.16%) .NET
2 22 (23.16%) Web Services
3 19 (20.00%) .NET Framework
4 16 (16.84%) Node.js
5 6 (6.32%) ASP.NET
5 6 (6.32%) RESTful
5 6 (6.32%) WinForms
6 5 (5.26%) CSS
6 5 (5.26%) OAuth
7 4 (4.21%) ASP.NET Core
7 4 (4.21%) Entity Framework
7 4 (4.21%) Material-UI
7 4 (4.21%) React
7 4 (4.21%) SAML
8 3 (3.16%) JSON
8 3 (3.16%) PySpark
9 2 (2.11%) ASP.NET MVC
9 2 (2.11%) REST
9 2 (2.11%) Unity (Game Engine)
9 2 (2.11%) Unreal Engine
Miscellaneous
1 5 (5.26%) Cloud Native
1 5 (5.26%) Derivative
2 4 (4.21%) Equity Derivative
3 3 (3.16%) Algorithms
3 3 (3.16%) Data Protection Act
3 3 (3.16%) Distributed Systems
3 3 (3.16%) Equities
4 2 (2.11%) Fixed Income
4 2 (2.11%) Mixed Reality
4 2 (2.11%) Virtual Reality
5 1 (1.05%) Data Structures
5 1 (1.05%) DataPower
5 1 (1.05%) Distributed Computing
5 1 (1.05%) FPGA
5 1 (1.05%) Low-Code
5 1 (1.05%) Mainframe
5 1 (1.05%) Mobile App
5 1 (1.05%) PCIe
5 1 (1.05%) Virtual Team
5 1 (1.05%) Wiki
Operating Systems
1 36 (37.89%) Windows
2 18 (18.95%) Linux
3 11 (11.58%) Windows Server
4 1 (1.05%) Debian
4 1 (1.05%) Ubuntu
4 1 (1.05%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 47 (49.47%) Unit Testing
2 46 (48.42%) Agile
3 38 (40.00%) CI/CD
4 35 (36.84%) DevOps
5 23 (24.21%) Validation
6 19 (20.00%) Software Engineering
7 18 (18.95%) Business Intelligence
7 18 (18.95%) Verification and Validation
8 17 (17.89%) Continuous Delivery
8 17 (17.89%) Continuous Integration
8 17 (17.89%) Digital Twin
8 17 (17.89%) Synthetic Environment
8 17 (17.89%) TDD
8 17 (17.89%) Visualisation
9 15 (15.79%) Disaster Recovery
10 14 (14.74%) AI
11 12 (12.63%) Change Management
11 12 (12.63%) Machine Learning
12 11 (11.58%) Data Analysis
12 11 (11.58%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 66 (69.47%) C#
2 36 (37.89%) C++
3 35 (36.84%) SQL
4 31 (32.63%) JavaScript
5 26 (27.37%) Python
6 15 (15.79%) T-SQL
7 13 (13.68%) PL/SQL
8 7 (7.37%) C
9 5 (5.26%) X++
10 4 (4.21%) TypeScript
11 1 (1.05%) Bicep
11 1 (1.05%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 1 (1.05%) Embedded C
11 1 (1.05%) Embedded C++
11 1 (1.05%) Java
11 1 (1.05%) PowerShell
11 1 (1.05%) XPath
Qualifications
1 35 (36.84%) Security Cleared
2 29 (30.53%) SC Cleared
3 27 (28.42%) Degree
4 6 (6.32%) ISTQB
4 6 (6.32%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
5 3 (3.16%) Numerate Degree
6 2 (2.11%) BPSS Clearance
6 2 (2.11%) Computer Science Degree
6 2 (2.11%) Master's Degree
6 2 (2.11%) PhD
7 1 (1.05%) Azure Certification
7 1 (1.05%) HP APS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (16.84%) QA
2 7 (7.37%) HMG Security Policy Framework
2 7 (7.37%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 5 (5.26%) SLA
4 1 (1.05%) Accessibility
4 1 (1.05%) Data Quality
System Software
1 9 (9.47%) Docker
2 2 (2.11%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 4 (4.21%) Kubernetes
1 4 (4.21%) Terraform
2 2 (2.11%) Single Sign-On
3 1 (1.05%) CA Endevor
3 1 (1.05%) Grafana
3 1 (1.05%) HP ALM
Vendors
1 25 (26.32%) Microsoft
2 13 (13.68%) Oracle
3 11 (11.58%) Citrix
4 2 (2.11%) IBM
4 2 (2.11%) RedGate
5 1 (1.05%) ESRI
5 1 (1.05%) HP
5 1 (1.05%) OpenText
5 1 (1.05%) SAP
5 1 (1.05%) Serena
5 1 (1.05%) Sitecore