Visual Studio Contracts

The following table provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for Visual Studio skills. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that have cited Visual Studio over the 3 months to 29 June 2017 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

Note that daily and hourly rates are treated separately in these statistics. When calculating contractor rate percentiles, daily rates are never derived from quoted hourly rates or vice versa.

Microsoft Visual Studio UK
Location	3 months to 29 Jun 2017	Same period 2016	Same period 2015
Rank	191	201	170
Rank change year-on-year	+10	-31
Contract jobs citing Visual Studio	617	713	789
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK	1.31%	1.33%	1.41%
As % of the Development Applications category	7.43%	8.54%	10.51%
Number of daily rates quoted	407	474	539
UK median daily rate	£400	£375	£343
Median daily rate % change year-on-year	+6.66%	+9.48%
10th Percentile	£300	£275	£212
90th Percentile	£560	£538	£510
UK excluding London median daily rate	£375	£350	£325
% change year-on-year	+7.14%	+7.69%
Number of hourly rates quoted	46	25	18
UK median hourly rate	£40.00	£37.50	£37.00
Median hourly rate % change year-on-year	+6.66%	+1.35%
10th Percentile	£25.29	£21.55	£12.30
90th Percentile	£46.35	£45.00	£48.63
UK excluding London median hourly rate	£40.00	£38.75	£39.50
% change year-on-year	+3.22%	-1.89%

Visual Studio is in the development application skills category. The next table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies with a requirement for development application skills.

Contract Development Application Skills UK
Contract job vacancies with a requirement for development application skills	8300	8352	7507
As % of all contract IT job vacancies advertised in the UK	17.62%	15.55%	13.39%
Number of daily rates quoted	13767	13874	10826
UK median daily rate	£450	£425	£400
Median daily rate % change year-on-year	+5.88%	+6.25%
10th Percentile	£313	£305	£279
90th Percentile	£590	£575	£550
UK excluding London median daily rate	£413	£400	£363
% change year-on-year	+3.12%	+10.34%
Number of hourly rates quoted	290	191	186
UK median hourly rate	£42.50	£42.00	£37.00
Median hourly rate % change year-on-year	+1.19%	+13.51%
10th Percentile	£31.25	£25.00	£21.01
90th Percentile	£63.75	£50.78	£47.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate	£43.25	£42.00	£37.04
% change year-on-year	+2.97%	+13.39%

Visual Studio
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Visual Studio as a percentage of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Visual Studio in the UK

Visual Studio
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

This chart provides the 3-month moving average for daily rates quoted in contract jobs citing Visual Studio.

Contractor daily rate trend for Visual Studio in the UK

Visual Studio
Contractor Daily Rate Histogram

The daily rate distribution of IT jobs citing Visual Studio over the 3 months to 29 June 2017.

Contractor daily rate histogram for Visual Studio in the UK

Visual Studio
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

This chart provides the 3-month moving average for contractor hourly rates quoted in IT jobs citing Visual Studio.

Contractor hourly rate trend for Visual Studio in the UK

Visual Studio
Contractor Hourly Rate Histogram

The hourly rate distribution of IT jobs citing Visual Studio over the 3 months to 29 June 2017.

Contractor hourly rate histogram for Visual Studio in the UK

Visual Studio
Top 11 Contract 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 3 months to 29 June 2017. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 3 month period last year.

Location	Rank Change on Same Period Last Year	Matching Contract IT Job Ads	Median Daily Rate Last 3 Months	Median Daily Rate % Change on Same Period Last Year	Live Job Vacancies
England	-20	521	£400	+6.66%	243
UK excluding London	+3	396	£375	+7.14%	195
London	-5	210	£450	+5.88%	56
South East	-29	102	£400	+14.28%	67
North of England	+31	68	£325	-4.41%	53
South West	-8	54	£375	+7.14%	14
Midlands	-36	41	£350	-	30
Wales	+14	40	£375	-3.84%	2
East of England	+4	40	£400	+14.28%	23
Northern Ireland	-	27	£433	-	2
Scotland	+27	24	£375	+15.38%	4

Visual Studio
Top 30 Co-occurring IT Skills

For the 6 months to 29 June 2017, IT contractor jobs citing Visual Studio also mentioned the following skills in order of popularity. The figures indicate the number co-occurrences and its proportion to all contract ads with a requirement for Visual Studio.

1	768 (63.52%)	.NET
2	702 (58.06%)	C#
3	554 (45.82%)	Microsoft
4	532 (44.00%)	SQL Server
5	490 (40.53%)	SQL
6	476 (39.37%)	Agile Software Development
7	400 (33.09%)	JavaScript
8	362 (29.94%)	Team Foundation Server
9	315 (26.05%)	HTML
10	307 (25.39%)	CSS
11	294 (24.32%)	ASP.NET
12	287 (23.74%)	Windows
13	279 (23.08%)	MVC
14	263 (21.75%)	.NET Framework
15	233 (19.27%)	Scrum

16	204 (16.87%)	WCF
17	194 (16.05%)	jQuery
18	177 (14.64%)	Test Automation
19	174 (14.39%)	Finance
20	170 (14.06%)	T-SQL
21	168 (13.90%)	Microsoft Azure
22	165 (13.65%)	Web Services
23	157 (12.99%)	TDD
24	150 (12.41%)	Software Engineering
24	150 (12.41%)	C++
24	150 (12.41%)	ASP.NET Web API
25	148 (12.24%)	XML
26	142 (11.75%)	Unit Testing
27	141 (11.66%)	Git (software)
28	138 (11.41%)	AngularJS

Visual Studio
Co-occurring IT Skills by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same job type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
Applications
Business Applications
Cloud Services
Communications & Networking
Database & Business Intelligence
Development Applications
General
Job Titles
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
Miscellaneous
Operating Systems
Processes & Methodologies
Programming Languages
Qualifications
Quality Assurance & Compliance
System Software
Systems Management
Vendors

Application Platforms
1	135 (11.17%)	SharePoint
2	93 (7.69%)	IIS
3	69 (5.71%)	CMS
4	35 (2.89%)	SharePoint 2013
5	31 (2.56%)	Sitecore CMS
6	30 (2.48%)	SharePoint 2010
7	25 (2.07%)	BizTalk Server
8	15 (1.24%)	WebSphere
9	14 (1.16%)	EPiServer
10	13 (1.08%)	Umbraco
11	12 (0.99%)	SharePoint Server
12	7 (0.58%)	Apache Spark
12	7 (0.58%)	DNN
12	7 (0.58%)	Elasticsearch
12	7 (0.58%)	SAS
13	6 (0.50%)	Apache Solr
13	6 (0.50%)	Confluence
13	6 (0.50%)	DataSynapse
13	6 (0.50%)	Oracle SOA Suite
14	5 (0.41%)	NServiceBus

Applications
1	60 (4.96%)	Microsoft Office
2	34 (2.81%)	Microsoft Excel
3	12 (0.99%)	Photoshop
4	7 (0.58%)	Adobe Illustrator
5	6 (0.50%)	Microsoft PowerPoint
6	5 (0.41%)	InfoPath
6	5 (0.41%)	Spreadsheet
7	3 (0.25%)	Adobe Premiere
7	3 (0.25%)	MS Visio
8	2 (0.17%)	Microsoft Project
9	1 (0.083%)	Adobe Creative Suite
9	1 (0.083%)	Fireworks
9	1 (0.083%)	Mingle

Business Applications
1	116 (9.59%)	Dynamics CRM
2	18 (1.49%)	Dynamics AX
3	13 (1.08%)	RMDS
4	5 (0.41%)	Oracle Applications
5	4 (0.33%)	Dynamics NAV
5	4 (0.33%)	Eloqua
5	4 (0.33%)	SystmOne
6	3 (0.25%)	Cognos TM1
6	3 (0.25%)	SunGard GMI
6	3 (0.25%)	SunGard Martini
7	2 (0.17%)	Endur
7	2 (0.17%)	ION MarketView
7	2 (0.17%)	SAP Oil and Gas
8	1 (0.083%)	CSG Singleview
8	1 (0.083%)	Magento
8	1 (0.083%)	osCommerce
8	1 (0.083%)	Sage 1000
8	1 (0.083%)	Sage 50
8	1 (0.083%)	SAP Business One
8	1 (0.083%)	Shopify

Cloud Services
1	168 (13.90%)	Microsoft Azure
2	53 (4.38%)	Amazon AWS
3	24 (1.99%)	PaaS
4	22 (1.82%)	Office 365
5	18 (1.49%)	GitHub
6	15 (1.24%)	IaaS
7	11 (0.91%)	Dynamics 365
8	10 (0.83%)	SaaS
9	8 (0.66%)	Amazon EC2
10	6 (0.50%)	Amazon S3
10	6 (0.50%)	Azure Data Factory
10	6 (0.50%)	Google Cloud Platform
11	5 (0.41%)	Data Lake Analytics
12	4 (0.33%)	Amazon CloudWatch
12	4 (0.33%)	Amazon SQS
12	4 (0.33%)	AWS Lambda
12	4 (0.33%)	Route 53
13	3 (0.25%)	Akamai
13	3 (0.25%)	Google Analytics
13	3 (0.25%)	MailChimp

Communications & Networking
1	40 (3.31%)	Internet
2	28 (2.32%)	Firewall
3	21 (1.74%)	Intranet
4	20 (1.65%)	TCP/IP
5	19 (1.57%)	HTTP
6	15 (1.24%)	DNS
7	13 (1.08%)	VLAN
8	11 (0.91%)	LAN
8	11 (0.91%)	LDAP
9	10 (0.83%)	Kerberos
9	10 (0.83%)	VPN
10	9 (0.74%)	SSL
11	8 (0.66%)	Ethernet
11	8 (0.66%)	NetScaler
11	8 (0.66%)	Wi-Fi
12	7 (0.58%)	WAN
13	6 (0.50%)	DHCP
14	5 (0.41%)	IMAP
14	5 (0.41%)	SMTP
15	4 (0.33%)	FTP

Database & Business Intelligence
1	532 (44.00%)	SQL Server
2	134 (11.08%)	SQL Server 2008
3	122 (10.09%)	SQL Server Integration Services
4	117 (9.68%)	SQL Server Reporting Services
5	113 (9.35%)	SQL Server 2012
6	77 (6.37%)	Relational Database
7	55 (4.55%)	Data Warehouse
8	51 (4.22%)	SQL Server Analysis Services
9	46 (3.80%)	Oracle Database
10	38 (3.14%)	NoSQL
10	38 (3.14%)	Power BI
11	37 (3.06%)	SQL Server 2016
12	36 (2.98%)	SQL Server 2014
13	33 (2.73%)	RDBMS
14	28 (2.32%)	Oracle Database 11g
15	25 (2.07%)	MongoDB
16	22 (1.82%)	MS Access
16	22 (1.82%)	SQL Server 2005
17	20 (1.65%)	Microsoft Analysis Services
17	20 (1.65%)	QlikView

Development Applications
1	362 (29.94%)	Team Foundation Server
2	141 (11.66%)	Git (software)
3	83 (6.87%)	Selenium
4	79 (6.53%)	Visual Studio Team System
5	71 (5.87%)	JIRA
6	68 (5.62%)	NUnit
7	60 (4.96%)	TeamCity
8	53 (4.38%)	SpecFlow
9	50 (4.14%)	Subversion
10	43 (3.56%)	Eclipse
11	39 (3.23%)	Octopus Deploy
12	30 (2.48%)	Jenkins
12	30 (2.48%)	MSBuild
12	30 (2.48%)	WebDriver
13	29 (2.40%)	MSTest
14	21 (1.74%)	ReSharper
14	21 (1.74%)	SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
15	20 (1.65%)	Oracle Forms
16	19 (1.57%)	Bitbucket
17	16 (1.32%)	Moq

General
1	174 (14.39%)	Finance
2	61 (5.05%)	Banking
3	30 (2.48%)	Front Office
4	27 (2.23%)	Advertising
5	23 (1.90%)	Marketing
6	19 (1.57%)	Investment Banking
7	18 (1.49%)	Back Office
8	13 (1.08%)	Manufacturing
8	13 (1.08%)	Retail
9	12 (0.99%)	Automotive
9	12 (0.99%)	Publishing
10	11 (0.91%)	Electronics
11	9 (0.74%)	Telecoms
12	8 (0.66%)	Aerospace
13	7 (0.58%)	Law
14	6 (0.50%)	Financial Institution
15	4 (0.33%)	Avionics
15	4 (0.33%)	Games
15	4 (0.33%)	Military
16	3 (0.25%)	Legal

Job Titles
1	753 (62.28%)	Developer
2	288 (23.82%)	.NET Developer
3	169 (13.98%)	C# Developer
4	127 (10.50%)	Analyst
5	111 (9.18%)	C# .NET Developer
6	88 (7.28%)	Software Engineer
7	86 (7.11%)	SQL Developer
8	78 (6.45%)	CRM Developer
9	71 (5.87%)	Dynamics CRM Developer
10	64 (5.29%)	C++ Developer
11	63 (5.21%)	Microsoft Developer
11	63 (5.21%)	Test Analyst
12	60 (4.96%)	Senior Developer
12	60 (4.96%)	Software Developer
13	53 (4.38%)	ASP.NET Developer
14	46 (3.80%)	Consultant
15	43 (3.56%)	ASP.NET MVC Developer
16	41 (3.39%)	Front End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
17	40 (3.31%)	Full Stack Developer
18	39 (3.23%)	Tester

Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1	768 (63.52%)	.NET
2	315 (26.05%)	HTML
3	307 (25.39%)	CSS
4	294 (24.32%)	ASP.NET
5	263 (21.75%)	.NET Framework
6	204 (16.87%)	WCF
7	194 (16.05%)	jQuery
8	165 (13.65%)	Web Services
9	150 (12.41%)	ASP.NET Web API
10	148 (12.24%)	XML
11	138 (11.41%)	AngularJS
12	121 (10.01%)	ASP.NET MVC
13	116 (9.59%)	Entity Framework
14	92 (7.61%)	HTML5
15	81 (6.70%)	Ajax
16	79 (6.53%)	LINQ
17	71 (5.87%)	REST
17	71 (5.87%)	WPF
18	68 (5.62%)	Twitter Bootstrap
19	61 (5.05%)	CSS3

Miscellaneous
1	103 (8.52%)	Analytical Skills
2	70 (5.79%)	User Experience
3	27 (2.23%)	Fixed Income
3	27 (2.23%)	W3C
4	21 (1.74%)	Mobile App
5	20 (1.65%)	NHS
6	19 (1.57%)	Computer Science
7	18 (1.49%)	Greenfield Project
8	15 (1.24%)	Client/Server
9	14 (1.16%)	Enterprise Software
10	13 (1.08%)	Equities
10	13 (1.08%)	Management Information System
11	11 (0.91%)	Foreign Exchange (FX)
12	10 (0.83%)	Market Risk
13	9 (0.74%)	Credit Risk
14	8 (0.66%)	Embedded Systems
14	8 (0.66%)	N-Tier
14	8 (0.66%)	Wiki
15	7 (0.58%)	Data Structures
15	7 (0.58%)	Private Cloud

Operating Systems
1	287 (23.74%)	Windows
2	85 (7.03%)	Linux
3	45 (3.72%)	Windows Server
4	16 (1.32%)	Android
5	15 (1.24%)	Windows Server 2012
6	14 (1.16%)	Ubuntu
6	14 (1.16%)	Windows Server 2008
7	10 (0.83%)	Unix
7	10 (0.83%)	Windows 10
8	8 (0.66%)	Windows Server 2003
9	7 (0.58%)	Apple iOS
10	5 (0.41%)	Embedded Linux
11	4 (0.33%)	Windows 7
11	4 (0.33%)	Windows Embedded Compact
12	2 (0.17%)	CentOS
12	2 (0.17%)	Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12	2 (0.17%)	VxWorks
13	1 (0.083%)	Mac OS X
13	1 (0.083%)	Windows 8
13	1 (0.083%)	Windows Mobile

Processes & Methodologies
1	476 (39.37%)	Agile Software Development
2	279 (23.08%)	MVC
3	233 (19.27%)	Scrum
4	177 (14.64%)	Test Automation
5	157 (12.99%)	TDD
6	150 (12.41%)	Software Engineering
7	142 (11.75%)	Unit Testing
8	132 (10.92%)	CRM
9	122 (10.09%)	Web Development
10	110 (9.10%)	Continuous Integration
11	100 (8.27%)	Business Intelligence
12	94 (7.78%)	SDLC
13	91 (7.53%)	OO
14	78 (6.45%)	DevOps
15	76 (6.29%)	UML
16	75 (6.20%)	BDD
17	74 (6.12%)	Migration
18	62 (5.13%)	ETL
19	59 (4.88%)	Front End Development
20	55 (4.55%)	Analytics

Programming Languages
1	702 (58.06%)	C#
2	490 (40.53%)	SQL
3	400 (33.09%)	JavaScript
4	170 (14.06%)	T-SQL
5	150 (12.41%)	C++
6	94 (7.78%)	PowerShell
7	86 (7.11%)	Java
8	55 (4.55%)	Python
9	53 (4.38%)	C
10	47 (3.89%)	VB.NET
11	40 (3.31%)	VBA
12	37 (3.06%)	TypeScript
13	35 (2.89%)	VB
14	33 (2.73%)	PL/SQL
15	21 (1.74%)	PHP
16	20 (1.65%)	XAML
17	18 (1.49%)	Ruby
18	13 (1.08%)	VB6
19	12 (0.99%)	Bash Shell
20	11 (0.91%)	Embedded C

Qualifications
1	114 (9.43%)	Security Cleared
2	70 (5.79%)	Degree
3	67 (5.54%)	SC Cleared
4	39 (3.23%)	ISTQB
5	31 (2.56%)	Microsoft Certification
6	25 (2.07%)	DV Cleared
7	17 (1.41%)	Computer Science Degree
7	17 (1.41%)	ISEB
8	14 (1.16%)	ISTQB Foundation Certification
9	10 (0.83%)	MCSE
10	6 (0.50%)	BPSS Clearance
10	6 (0.50%)	HNC
11	5 (0.41%)	MCITP
11	5 (0.41%)	MCTS
12	4 (0.33%)	Master's Degree
13	2 (0.17%)	CISA
13	2 (0.17%)	DBS Check
13	2 (0.17%)	MCP
13	2 (0.17%)	PMI Certification
14	1 (0.083%)	MCSD

Quality Assurance & Compliance
1	61 (5.05%)	QA
2	12 (0.99%)	Data Quality
3	10 (0.83%)	MISRA
4	7 (0.58%)	Dodd-Frank
4	7 (0.58%)	MISRA C
5	6 (0.50%)	ISO/IEC 27001
6	5 (0.41%)	Def Stans
6	5 (0.41%)	Disclosure Scotland
6	5 (0.41%)	PCI DSS
7	4 (0.33%)	MiFID
8	3 (0.25%)	EMIR
9	2 (0.17%)	ISO 20022
9	2 (0.17%)	Solvency II
10	1 (0.083%)	ISO 13485
10	1 (0.083%)	ISO 8583
10	1 (0.083%)	SLA

System Software
1	31 (2.56%)	Active Directory
2	15 (1.24%)	Docker
3	11 (0.91%)	VMware Infrastructure
4	10 (0.83%)	Hyper-V
4	10 (0.83%)	Virtual Machines
5	5 (0.41%)	Firmware
6	2 (0.17%)	LXC
7	1 (0.083%)	Microsoft Virtual Server
7	1 (0.083%)	Virtual Servers
7	1 (0.083%)	VirtualBox

Systems Management
1	20 (1.65%)	Opscode Chef
2	15 (1.24%)	Ansible
3	14 (1.16%)	Puppet
4	13 (1.08%)	HP Quality Center
5	9 (0.74%)	HP Fortify
6	8 (0.66%)	CA Single Sign-On
7	7 (0.58%)	SCOM
8	5 (0.41%)	Kubernetes
9	3 (0.25%)	Terraform
10	2 (0.17%)	Microsoft Clustering
10	2 (0.17%)	SCCM
10	2 (0.17%)	Systems Management Server (SMS)
11	1 (0.083%)	Kibana
11	1 (0.083%)	Oozie
11	1 (0.083%)	Oracle RMAN
11	1 (0.083%)	Wonderware InTouch

Vendors
1	554 (45.82%)	Microsoft
2	97 (8.02%)	Oracle
3	39 (3.23%)	Sitecore
4	34 (2.81%)	HP
5	26 (2.15%)	Google
6	19 (1.57%)	Telerik
7	15 (1.24%)	Apple
7	15 (1.24%)	ION Trading
7	15 (1.24%)	TIBCO
8	14 (1.16%)	Reuters
8	14 (1.16%)	SAP
9	13 (1.08%)	Citrix
10	11 (0.91%)	IBM
10	11 (0.91%)	Nintex
10	11 (0.91%)	Perforce
10	11 (0.91%)	Tableau
10	11 (0.91%)	VMware
11	9 (0.74%)	Xamarin
12	8 (0.66%)	Cisco
12	8 (0.66%)	SolarWinds