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

6 months to
12 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 488 405 428
Rank change year-on-year -83 +23 -43
Contract jobs citing Visual Studio 86 119 171
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.24% 0.38% 0.40%
As % of the Development Applications category 1.63% 2.82% 3.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 51 53 132
10th Percentile £370 £334 £316
25th Percentile £415 £406 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £463 £535
Median % change year-on-year - -13.55% +1.52%
75th Percentile £725 £538 £627
90th Percentile £850 £633 £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 5,290 4,220 5,365
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 14.60% 13.39% 12.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,625 2,653 3,763
10th Percentile £340 £331 £363
25th Percentile £406 £410 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £503 £538
Median % change year-on-year -0.50% -6.51% -3.15%
75th Percentile £600 £626 £638
90th Percentile £688 £725 £713
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £477 £513
% change year-on-year -0.42% -6.93% -2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 134 72 200
10th Percentile £39.00 £28.88 £44.26
25th Percentile £52.50 £46.25 £50.00
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 12 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 12 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 -103 70 £450 - 107
UK excluding London -77 42 £675 +47.95% 114
Work from Home -25 40 £456 +2.87% 21
London -13 37 £450 -6.49% 8
East of England -22 16 - - 17
Scotland +12 9 £725 +56.76% 8
South East -34 8 £569 +28.24% 38
Wales +5 6 £675 +22.73% 4
North East -9 1 - - 2
South West -29 1 - - 13
West Midlands -34 1 £325 -3.70% 7
Midlands -49 1 £325 -7.14% 19
North of England -54 1 - - 17

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 (3.49%) Confluence
2 2 (2.33%) SharePoint
3 1 (1.16%) ArcGIS
3 1 (1.16%) BizTalk Server
3 1 (1.16%) CICS
3 1 (1.16%) CMS
3 1 (1.16%) GeoServer
3 1 (1.16%) Oracle Spatial
3 1 (1.16%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 4 (4.65%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (1.16%) Adobe Creative Suite
2 1 (1.16%) Moqups
2 1 (1.16%) Trello
Business Applications
1 3 (3.49%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (1.16%) Fidessa
Cloud Services
1 35 (40.70%) Azure
2 26 (30.23%) Azure DevOps
3 18 (20.93%) Power Platform
4 15 (17.44%) Dynamics 365
5 11 (12.79%) GitHub
6 5 (5.81%) AWS
6 5 (5.81%) Power Automate
6 5 (5.81%) PowerApps
7 3 (3.49%) Azure Data Factory
7 3 (3.49%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 2 (2.33%) Azure Functions
8 2 (2.33%) npm
8 2 (2.33%) Serverless
8 2 (2.33%) Snowflake
9 1 (1.16%) Azure Cosmos DB
9 1 (1.16%) GCP
9 1 (1.16%) Google Analytics
9 1 (1.16%) PaaS
9 1 (1.16%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
9 1 (1.16%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 15 (17.44%) Ethernet
1 15 (17.44%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (22.09%) SQL Server
2 9 (10.47%) Power BI
3 6 (6.98%) Tick Data
4 5 (5.81%) SQL Server Reporting Services
5 3 (3.49%) Data Warehouse
5 3 (3.49%) MSDE
5 3 (3.49%) Relational Database
5 3 (3.49%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 2 (2.33%) Metadata
7 1 (1.16%) Azure SQL Database
7 1 (1.16%) Big Data
7 1 (1.16%) Data Lake
7 1 (1.16%) DB2
7 1 (1.16%) GIS
7 1 (1.16%) MongoDB
7 1 (1.16%) Power Query
7 1 (1.16%) RDBMS
7 1 (1.16%) Snowflake Schema
7 1 (1.16%) SQL Server Analysis Services
7 1 (1.16%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 15 (17.44%) Eclipse
2 9 (10.47%) Selenium
3 8 (9.30%) JIRA
4 7 (8.14%) JMeter
4 7 (8.14%) MSTest
4 7 (8.14%) Visual Studio Code
5 4 (4.65%) Git
5 4 (4.65%) Jenkins
6 3 (3.49%) Bitbucket
6 3 (3.49%) GitLab
6 3 (3.49%) IntelliJ
6 3 (3.49%) NUnit
6 3 (3.49%) PyCharm
6 3 (3.49%) SpecFlow
7 2 (2.33%) Artifactory
8 1 (1.16%) Team Foundation Server
8 1 (1.16%) Visual Studio Coded UI
General
1 31 (36.05%) Finance
2 24 (27.91%) Social Skills
3 15 (17.44%) Military
4 14 (16.28%) Presentation Skills
5 7 (8.14%) Banking
6 6 (6.98%) Investment Banking
7 5 (5.81%) Analytical Skills
7 5 (5.81%) Public Sector
8 4 (4.65%) General Ledger
9 3 (3.49%) Documentation Skills
9 3 (3.49%) Front Office
10 2 (2.33%) Aerospace
10 2 (2.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 2 (2.33%) Law
11 1 (1.16%) Advertising
11 1 (1.16%) Back Office
11 1 (1.16%) Marketing
11 1 (1.16%) Retail
Job Titles
1 43 (50.00%) Developer
2 19 (22.09%) Software Engineer
3 14 (16.28%) C# Developer
4 13 (15.12%) C# Software Engineer
5 9 (10.47%) C++ Software Engineer
5 9 (10.47%) Dynamics 365 Developer
6 8 (9.30%) Senior
6 8 (9.30%) Tester
7 7 (8.14%) Analyst
7 7 (8.14%) Python Developer
8 6 (6.98%) Automation Tester
8 6 (6.98%) Senior Tester
9 5 (5.81%) .NET Developer
9 5 (5.81%) Senior Automation Tester
10 4 (4.65%) Qualitative Analyst
10 4 (4.65%) Quantitative Analyst
11 3 (3.49%) C++ Developer
11 3 (3.49%) Power Platform Developer
11 3 (3.49%) Quantitative Developer
12 2 (2.33%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 27 (31.40%) .NET
2 21 (24.42%) Web Services
3 17 (19.77%) Node.js
4 13 (15.12%) .NET Framework
5 5 (5.81%) ASP.NET
5 5 (5.81%) HTML
6 4 (4.65%) CSS
6 4 (4.65%) React
7 3 (3.49%) ASP.NET Core
7 3 (3.49%) OAuth
7 3 (3.49%) PySpark
7 3 (3.49%) RESTful
8 2 (2.33%) AngularJS
8 2 (2.33%) ASP.NET MVC
8 2 (2.33%) HTML5
8 2 (2.33%) jQuery
8 2 (2.33%) Svelte
8 2 (2.33%) Unity (Game Engine)
8 2 (2.33%) Unreal Engine
8 2 (2.33%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 6 (6.98%) Derivative
2 5 (5.81%) Algorithms
2 5 (5.81%) Distributed Systems
2 5 (5.81%) Equity Derivative
3 3 (3.49%) Analytical Mindset
3 3 (3.49%) Data Structures
3 3 (3.49%) Equities
3 3 (3.49%) Fixed Income
3 3 (3.49%) Mobile App
4 2 (2.33%) Cloud Native
4 2 (2.33%) Data Protection Act
4 2 (2.33%) Distributed Computing
4 2 (2.33%) Mixed Reality
4 2 (2.33%) Virtual Reality
5 1 (1.16%) DataPower
5 1 (1.16%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
5 1 (1.16%) PCIe
5 1 (1.16%) Product Ownership
5 1 (1.16%) Social Media
5 1 (1.16%) Wiki
Operating Systems
1 29 (33.72%) Windows
2 22 (25.58%) Linux
3 8 (9.30%) Windows Server
4 2 (2.33%) Android
4 2 (2.33%) Apple iOS
5 1 (1.16%) Debian
5 1 (1.16%) Ubuntu
5 1 (1.16%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 42 (48.84%) Agile
2 34 (39.53%) Unit Testing
3 32 (37.21%) CI/CD
4 31 (36.05%) DevOps
5 19 (22.09%) Validation
6 18 (20.93%) Software Engineering
7 17 (19.77%) TDD
7 17 (19.77%) Visualisation
8 16 (18.60%) Business Intelligence
9 15 (17.44%) Synthetic Environment
9 15 (17.44%) Verification and Validation
10 14 (16.28%) Continuous Delivery
10 14 (16.28%) Continuous Integration
10 14 (16.28%) Digital Twin
11 13 (15.12%) AI
12 12 (13.95%) Machine Learning
13 10 (11.63%) Test Automation
14 9 (10.47%) Change Management
14 9 (10.47%) Computer Science
14 9 (10.47%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 61 (70.93%) C#
2 31 (36.05%) JavaScript
3 29 (33.72%) C++
3 29 (33.72%) SQL
4 26 (30.23%) Python
5 12 (13.95%) T-SQL
6 10 (11.63%) PL/SQL
7 6 (6.98%) Java
7 6 (6.98%) TypeScript
8 5 (5.81%) X++
9 4 (4.65%) C
10 2 (2.33%) Ada
10 2 (2.33%) Assembly Language
10 2 (2.33%) MATLAB
10 2 (2.33%) PowerShell
11 1 (1.16%) Bicep
11 1 (1.16%) Embedded C
11 1 (1.16%) Embedded C++
11 1 (1.16%) VBA
11 1 (1.16%) XPath
Qualifications
1 26 (30.23%) Degree
2 19 (22.09%) Security Cleared
3 14 (16.28%) SC Cleared
4 5 (5.81%) ISTQB
4 5 (5.81%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
5 4 (4.65%) Numerate Degree
6 2 (2.33%) Computer Science Degree
6 2 (2.33%) Master's Degree
7 1 (1.16%) BPSS Clearance
7 1 (1.16%) DBS Check
7 1 (1.16%) HP APS
7 1 (1.16%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (13.95%) QA
2 7 (8.14%) HMG Security Policy Framework
2 7 (8.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 5 (5.81%) SLA
4 1 (1.16%) Accessibility
4 1 (1.16%) Actionable Recommendations
4 1 (1.16%) Data Quality
4 1 (1.16%) EMIR
4 1 (1.16%) MiFID
System Software
1 9 (10.47%) Docker
2 2 (2.33%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 7 (8.14%) Kubernetes
2 5 (5.81%) Terraform
3 3 (3.49%) Ansible
4 1 (1.16%) CA Endevor
4 1 (1.16%) Grafana
4 1 (1.16%) HP ALM
Vendors
1 24 (27.91%) Microsoft
2 10 (11.63%) Oracle
3 8 (9.30%) Citrix
4 2 (2.33%) RedGate
5 1 (1.16%) Adobe
5 1 (1.16%) CQG
5 1 (1.16%) ESRI
5 1 (1.16%) Google
5 1 (1.16%) HP
5 1 (1.16%) IBM
5 1 (1.16%) Salesforce
5 1 (1.16%) SAP
5 1 (1.16%) Sitecore
5 1 (1.16%) TOWER Software
5 1 (1.16%) Xamarin