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 8 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 489 385 429
Rank change year-on-year -104 +44 -47
Contract jobs citing Visual Studio 93 161 182
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.26% 0.45% 0.40%
As % of the Development Applications category 1.70% 3.41% 3.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 42 79 137
10th Percentile £359 £325 £313
25th Percentile £415 £400 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £465 £550
Median % change year-on-year +7.53% -15.45% +4.76%
75th Percentile £603 £545 £625
90th Percentile £736 £654 £673
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £475 £513
% change year-on-year +10.53% -7.32% +13.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 24 21 3
10th Percentile £62.73 £57.50 £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 £65.06 - £52.85
90th Percentile £67.00 £68.75 £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 5,481 4,716 5,917
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 15.11% 13.21% 13.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,793 2,957 4,102
10th Percentile £331 £340 £363
25th Percentile £406 £413 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £540
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -5.09% -2.70%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £638
90th Percentile £693 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £488 £514
% change year-on-year -2.56% -5.07% -2.19%
Number of hourly rates quoted 123 109 224
10th Percentile £30.35 £34.30 £45.88
25th Percentile £50.50 £50.00 £50.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £64.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +1.56% -1.54% +5.69%
75th Percentile £70.00 £70.00 £77.50
90th Percentile £85.00 £75.00 £89.63
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 8 December 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 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 8 December 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 -109 74 £450 -4.26% 45
UK excluding London -75 56 £525 +10.53% 40
Work from Home -19 45 £456 -1.35% 27
East of England -14 29 - - 11
London -33 29 £463 +2.78% 9
Scotland +15 11 £550 +18.92% 1
Wales +4 6 £675 +255.31%
South East -36 5 £365 -23.16% 22
West Midlands -26 2 £388 -0.96% 2
Midlands -36 2 £388 +10.71% 2
North of England -47 2 £550 +46.67% 7
North East -4 1 - -
South West -28 1 - - 4
Yorkshire - 1 £550 - 1

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 (3.23%) Confluence
2 1 (1.08%) ArcGIS
2 1 (1.08%) BizTalk Server
2 1 (1.08%) CICS
2 1 (1.08%) CMS
2 1 (1.08%) GeoServer
2 1 (1.08%) Oracle Spatial
2 1 (1.08%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 3 (3.23%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (1.08%) Adobe Creative Suite
2 1 (1.08%) Moqups
2 1 (1.08%) Trello
Business Applications
1 3 (3.23%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (2.15%) Fidessa
Cloud Services
1 31 (33.33%) Azure
2 23 (24.73%) Azure DevOps
3 20 (21.51%) GitHub
4 14 (15.05%) AWS
4 14 (15.05%) Power Platform
5 13 (13.98%) Dynamics 365
6 9 (9.68%) npm
7 6 (6.45%) GitHub Actions
8 3 (3.23%) Azure Data Factory
8 3 (3.23%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 3 (3.23%) Power Automate
8 3 (3.23%) PowerApps
8 3 (3.23%) SaaS
9 2 (2.15%) GitHub Copilot
9 2 (2.15%) Snowflake
10 1 (1.08%) Azure Cosmos DB
10 1 (1.08%) Google Analytics
10 1 (1.08%) Google Data Studio
10 1 (1.08%) Google Sheets
10 1 (1.08%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 21 (22.58%) Ethernet
1 21 (22.58%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 17 (18.28%) SQL Server
2 9 (9.68%) Power BI
3 5 (5.38%) SQL Server Reporting Services
4 4 (4.30%) Data Warehouse
5 3 (3.23%) MSDE
5 3 (3.23%) Relational Database
5 3 (3.23%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 2 (2.15%) Metadata
6 2 (2.15%) MongoDB
7 1 (1.08%) Azure SQL Database
7 1 (1.08%) Big Data
7 1 (1.08%) Data Lake
7 1 (1.08%) GIS
7 1 (1.08%) NoSQL
7 1 (1.08%) Oracle Database
7 1 (1.08%) Oracle Database 12c
7 1 (1.08%) Power Query
7 1 (1.08%) RDBMS
7 1 (1.08%) Snowflake Schema
7 1 (1.08%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 24 (25.81%) JIRA
2 21 (22.58%) Eclipse
3 12 (12.90%) Visual Studio Code
4 11 (11.83%) Jenkins
5 10 (10.75%) Bitbucket
5 10 (10.75%) GitLab
5 10 (10.75%) IntelliJ
5 10 (10.75%) PyCharm
6 9 (9.68%) Artifactory
6 9 (9.68%) Git
6 9 (9.68%) Selenium
7 8 (8.60%) MSTest
8 7 (7.53%) JMeter
9 4 (4.30%) NUnit
10 3 (3.23%) SpecFlow
11 2 (2.15%) Team Foundation Server
12 1 (1.08%) Visual Studio Coded UI
General
1 34 (36.56%) Social Skills
2 29 (31.18%) Finance
3 21 (22.58%) Military
4 20 (21.51%) Presentation Skills
5 7 (7.53%) Banking
6 6 (6.45%) Investment Banking
7 5 (5.38%) Analytical Skills
7 5 (5.38%) Documentation Skills
7 5 (5.38%) Public Sector
8 4 (4.30%) Front Office
8 4 (4.30%) General Ledger
8 4 (4.30%) Law
9 2 (2.15%) Back Office
9 2 (2.15%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (1.08%) Advertising
10 1 (1.08%) Aerospace
10 1 (1.08%) Marketing
10 1 (1.08%) Retail
Job Titles
1 43 (46.24%) Developer
2 26 (27.96%) Software Engineer
3 19 (20.43%) C# Software Engineer
4 13 (13.98%) C++ Software Engineer
5 11 (11.83%) C# Developer
6 9 (9.68%) Senior
7 8 (8.60%) Dynamics 365 Developer
7 8 (8.60%) Python Developer
7 8 (8.60%) Tester
8 6 (6.45%) Automation Tester
8 6 (6.45%) DevOps Engineer
8 6 (6.45%) Python Engineer
8 6 (6.45%) Senior Tester
9 5 (5.38%) Full-Stack Developer
9 5 (5.38%) Full-Stack Engineer
9 5 (5.38%) Full-Stack Software Engineer
9 5 (5.38%) Senior Automation Tester
10 4 (4.30%) .NET Developer
10 4 (4.30%) Software Developer
11 3 (3.23%) C++ Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (32.26%) Node.js
2 28 (30.11%) Web Services
3 23 (24.73%) .NET
4 17 (18.28%) .NET Framework
5 12 (12.90%) HTML
5 12 (12.90%) React
6 11 (11.83%) CSS
7 9 (9.68%) AngularJS
7 9 (9.68%) Svelte
7 9 (9.68%) Vue
8 3 (3.23%) ASP.NET
8 3 (3.23%) PySpark
9 2 (2.15%) ASP.NET MVC
9 2 (2.15%) HTML5
9 2 (2.15%) jQuery
9 2 (2.15%) JSON
9 2 (2.15%) Kafka
9 2 (2.15%) RESTful
10 1 (1.08%) OAuth
10 1 (1.08%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 11 (11.83%) Algorithms
1 11 (11.83%) Distributed Systems
2 9 (9.68%) Data Structures
3 7 (7.53%) Public Cloud
4 5 (5.38%) Derivative
5 4 (4.30%) Equity Derivative
5 4 (4.30%) Fixed Income
6 3 (3.23%) Analytical Mindset
6 3 (3.23%) Data Protection Act
6 3 (3.23%) Mobile App
6 3 (3.23%) Virtual Team
7 2 (2.15%) Distributed Computing
7 2 (2.15%) Equities
7 2 (2.15%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 2 (2.15%) Legacy Systems
8 1 (1.08%) FPGA
8 1 (1.08%) PCIe
8 1 (1.08%) Product Ownership
8 1 (1.08%) Self-Motivation
8 1 (1.08%) Wiki
Operating Systems
1 41 (44.09%) Linux
2 39 (41.94%) Windows
3 5 (5.38%) Windows Server
4 2 (2.15%) Android
4 2 (2.15%) Apple iOS
5 1 (1.08%) Debian
5 1 (1.08%) Ubuntu
5 1 (1.08%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 55 (59.14%) Agile
2 49 (52.69%) CI/CD
3 37 (39.78%) DevOps
4 35 (37.63%) Unit Testing
5 30 (32.26%) TDD
6 26 (27.96%) Validation
7 25 (26.88%) Software Engineering
8 24 (25.81%) Continuous Integration
8 24 (25.81%) SDLC
9 23 (24.73%) Visualisation
10 22 (23.66%) Continuous Delivery
11 21 (22.58%) Synthetic Environment
11 21 (22.58%) Verification and Validation
12 20 (21.51%) Digital Twin
13 15 (16.13%) Computer Science
13 15 (16.13%) Design Patterns
13 15 (16.13%) Test Automation
14 14 (15.05%) Business Intelligence
15 12 (12.90%) Containerisation
16 10 (10.75%) Full-Stack Development
Programming Languages
1 69 (74.19%) C#
2 44 (47.31%) JavaScript
3 34 (36.56%) C++
4 24 (25.81%) Python
5 21 (22.58%) SQL
6 20 (21.51%) TypeScript
7 13 (13.98%) Java
8 10 (10.75%) T-SQL
9 7 (7.53%) PL/SQL
10 4 (4.30%) C
10 4 (4.30%) X++
11 2 (2.15%) Ada
11 2 (2.15%) Assembly Language
11 2 (2.15%) MATLAB
11 2 (2.15%) PowerShell
12 1 (1.08%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 1 (1.08%) Embedded C
12 1 (1.08%) Embedded C++
12 1 (1.08%) VBA
12 1 (1.08%) XPath
Qualifications
1 22 (23.66%) Security Cleared
2 19 (20.43%) Degree
3 17 (18.28%) SC Cleared
4 5 (5.38%) ISTQB
4 5 (5.38%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
5 3 (3.23%) Numerate Degree
6 2 (2.15%) Master's Degree
7 1 (1.08%) BPSS Clearance
7 1 (1.08%) Computer Science Degree
7 1 (1.08%) DBS Check
7 1 (1.08%) HP APS
7 1 (1.08%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (9.68%) QA
2 7 (7.53%) HMG Security Policy Framework
2 7 (7.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 4 (4.30%) SLA
4 2 (2.15%) EMIR
4 2 (2.15%) MiFID
5 1 (1.08%) Accessibility
5 1 (1.08%) Actionable Recommendations
5 1 (1.08%) Data Quality
5 1 (1.08%) GDPR
System Software
1 14 (15.05%) Docker
Systems Management
1 19 (20.43%) Kubernetes
2 10 (10.75%) Ansible
2 10 (10.75%) Terraform
3 1 (1.08%) CA Endevor
3 1 (1.08%) Grafana
3 1 (1.08%) HP ALM
Vendors
1 29 (31.18%) Microsoft
2 7 (7.53%) Oracle
3 5 (5.38%) Citrix
4 3 (3.23%) Salesforce
5 2 (2.15%) CQG
5 2 (2.15%) RedGate
5 2 (2.15%) TOWER Software
6 1 (1.08%) Adobe
6 1 (1.08%) ESRI
6 1 (1.08%) Google
6 1 (1.08%) HP
6 1 (1.08%) IBM
6 1 (1.08%) SAP
6 1 (1.08%) Sitecore
6 1 (1.08%) Xamarin