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

6 months to
4 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 485 403 423
Rank change year-on-year -82 +20 -50
Contract jobs citing Visual Studio 93 132 176
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.25% 0.41% 0.41%
As % of the Development Applications category 1.71% 3.07% 3.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 50 65 134
10th Percentile £369 £325 £313
25th Percentile £415 £375 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £463 £536
Median % change year-on-year +8.11% -13.63% +2.00%
75th Percentile £725 £540 £625
90th Percentile £863 £656 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £675 £463 £525
% change year-on-year +45.95% -11.90% +16.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 20 6 2
10th Percentile £64.68 £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 £65.56 £67.81 £53.67
90th Percentile £67.00 £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 5,436 4,296 5,417
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 14.77% 13.26% 12.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,737 2,703 3,790
10th Percentile £338 £330 £363
25th Percentile £406 £410 £439
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £538
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% -5.12% -2.27%
75th Percentile £600 £626 £638
90th Percentile £688 £725 £713
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £485 £513
% change year-on-year -2.06% -5.37% -2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 138 72 201
10th Percentile £39.00 £28.88 £41.25
25th Percentile £52.81 £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 £83.60 £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 4 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 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 4 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 -94 76 £450 -2.70% 33
UK excluding London -77 52 £675 +45.95% 36
Work from Home -20 43 £456 +2.87% 24
London -20 34 £433 -6.49% 8
East of England -8 24 - - 3
Scotland +11 10 £638 +37.84% 8
South East -40 8 £569 +24.32% 18
Wales 0 6 £675 +210.34%
North of England -55 2 £550 +48.65% 5
North East -13 1 - -
South West -19 1 - - 2
West Midlands -42 1 £325 -3.70% 2
Midlands -47 1 £325 -7.14% 3
Yorkshire - 1 £550 -

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%) SharePoint
2 1 (1.08%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 4 (4.30%) 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 1 (1.08%) Fidessa
Cloud Services
1 35 (37.63%) Azure
2 26 (27.96%) Azure DevOps
3 16 (17.20%) Power Platform
4 14 (15.05%) Dynamics 365
5 12 (12.90%) GitHub
6 9 (9.68%) npm
7 6 (6.45%) AWS
8 4 (4.30%) Power Automate
8 4 (4.30%) PowerApps
9 3 (3.23%) Azure Data Factory
9 3 (3.23%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 2 (2.15%) Azure Functions
10 2 (2.15%) Serverless
10 2 (2.15%) Snowflake
11 1 (1.08%) Azure Cosmos DB
11 1 (1.08%) GitHub Actions
11 1 (1.08%) Google Data Studio
11 1 (1.08%) Google Sheets
11 1 (1.08%) PaaS
11 1 (1.08%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 16 (17.20%) Ethernet
1 16 (17.20%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 18 (19.35%) SQL Server
2 9 (9.68%) Power BI
3 6 (6.45%) Tick Data
4 5 (5.38%) SQL Server Reporting Services
5 4 (4.30%) Data Warehouse
6 3 (3.23%) MSDE
6 3 (3.23%) Relational Database
6 3 (3.23%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 2 (2.15%) Metadata
7 2 (2.15%) MongoDB
8 1 (1.08%) Azure SQL Database
8 1 (1.08%) Big Data
8 1 (1.08%) GIS
8 1 (1.08%) NoSQL
8 1 (1.08%) Oracle Database
8 1 (1.08%) Oracle Database 12c
8 1 (1.08%) Power Query
8 1 (1.08%) RDBMS
8 1 (1.08%) Snowflake Schema
8 1 (1.08%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 16 (17.20%) Eclipse
1 16 (17.20%) JIRA
2 10 (10.75%) GitLab
3 9 (9.68%) Artifactory
3 9 (9.68%) Selenium
4 8 (8.60%) Visual Studio Code
5 7 (7.53%) JMeter
5 7 (7.53%) MSTest
6 5 (5.38%) Git
6 5 (5.38%) Jenkins
7 4 (4.30%) Bitbucket
7 4 (4.30%) IntelliJ
7 4 (4.30%) PyCharm
8 3 (3.23%) NUnit
8 3 (3.23%) SpecFlow
9 1 (1.08%) Team Foundation Server
9 1 (1.08%) Visual Studio Coded UI
General
1 30 (32.26%) Finance
2 29 (31.18%) Social Skills
3 16 (17.20%) Military
4 15 (16.13%) Presentation Skills
5 7 (7.53%) Banking
6 6 (6.45%) Investment Banking
7 5 (5.38%) Analytical Skills
7 5 (5.38%) Public Sector
8 4 (4.30%) General Ledger
9 3 (3.23%) Aerospace
9 3 (3.23%) Documentation Skills
9 3 (3.23%) Front Office
9 3 (3.23%) Law
10 2 (2.15%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 1 (1.08%) Advertising
11 1 (1.08%) Back Office
11 1 (1.08%) Marketing
11 1 (1.08%) Retail
Job Titles
1 46 (49.46%) Developer
2 23 (24.73%) Software Engineer
3 14 (15.05%) C# Software Engineer
4 13 (13.98%) C# Developer
5 10 (10.75%) C++ Software Engineer
6 8 (8.60%) Dynamics 365 Developer
6 8 (8.60%) Python Developer
6 8 (8.60%) Senior
6 8 (8.60%) Tester
7 7 (7.53%) Analyst
8 6 (6.45%) Automation Tester
8 6 (6.45%) Senior Tester
9 5 (5.38%) .NET Developer
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%) Qualitative Analyst
10 4 (4.30%) Quantitative Analyst
10 4 (4.30%) Software Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 32 (34.41%) .NET
2 25 (26.88%) Node.js
3 22 (23.66%) Web Services
4 19 (20.43%) .NET Framework
5 12 (12.90%) HTML
6 11 (11.83%) CSS
6 11 (11.83%) React
7 9 (9.68%) AngularJS
7 9 (9.68%) Svelte
7 9 (9.68%) Vue
8 5 (5.38%) ASP.NET
9 3 (3.23%) ASP.NET Core
9 3 (3.23%) PySpark
10 2 (2.15%) ASP.NET MVC
10 2 (2.15%) HTML5
10 2 (2.15%) jQuery
10 2 (2.15%) JSON
10 2 (2.15%) RESTful
10 2 (2.15%) Unity (Game Engine)
10 2 (2.15%) Unreal Engine
Miscellaneous
1 12 (12.90%) Algorithms
1 12 (12.90%) Distributed Systems
2 9 (9.68%) Data Structures
3 6 (6.45%) Derivative
4 5 (5.38%) Equity Derivative
5 3 (3.23%) Analytical Mindset
5 3 (3.23%) Equities
5 3 (3.23%) Fixed Income
5 3 (3.23%) Mobile App
6 2 (2.15%) Data Protection Act
6 2 (2.15%) Distributed Computing
6 2 (2.15%) Mixed Reality
6 2 (2.15%) Virtual Reality
7 1 (1.08%) DataPower
7 1 (1.08%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 1 (1.08%) Legacy Systems
7 1 (1.08%) PCIe
7 1 (1.08%) Product Ownership
7 1 (1.08%) Social Media
7 1 (1.08%) Wiki
Operating Systems
1 30 (32.26%) Linux
1 30 (32.26%) Windows
2 7 (7.53%) Windows Server
3 2 (2.15%) Android
3 2 (2.15%) Apple iOS
4 1 (1.08%) Debian
4 1 (1.08%) Ubuntu
4 1 (1.08%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 50 (53.76%) Agile
2 40 (43.01%) CI/CD
3 38 (40.86%) DevOps
4 33 (35.48%) Unit Testing
5 25 (26.88%) TDD
6 21 (22.58%) Software Engineering
6 21 (22.58%) Validation
7 18 (19.35%) Visualisation
8 16 (17.20%) Business Intelligence
8 16 (17.20%) Computer Science
8 16 (17.20%) Synthetic Environment
8 16 (17.20%) Verification and Validation
9 15 (16.13%) Continuous Delivery
9 15 (16.13%) Continuous Integration
9 15 (16.13%) Design Patterns
9 15 (16.13%) Digital Twin
9 15 (16.13%) SDLC
10 13 (13.98%) AI
10 13 (13.98%) Machine Learning
11 12 (12.90%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 67 (72.04%) C#
2 39 (41.94%) JavaScript
3 36 (38.71%) C++
4 28 (30.11%) SQL
5 26 (27.96%) Python
6 14 (15.05%) TypeScript
7 11 (11.83%) T-SQL
8 9 (9.68%) PL/SQL
9 7 (7.53%) Java
10 5 (5.38%) X++
11 4 (4.30%) C
12 2 (2.15%) Ada
12 2 (2.15%) Assembly Language
12 2 (2.15%) MATLAB
12 2 (2.15%) PowerShell
13 1 (1.08%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 1 (1.08%) Embedded C
13 1 (1.08%) Embedded C++
13 1 (1.08%) VBA
13 1 (1.08%) XPath
Qualifications
1 24 (25.81%) Degree
2 23 (24.73%) Security Cleared
3 17 (18.28%) SC Cleared
4 5 (5.38%) ISTQB
4 5 (5.38%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
5 4 (4.30%) Numerate Degree
6 2 (2.15%) Computer Science Degree
6 2 (2.15%) Master's Degree
7 1 (1.08%) BPSS Clearance
7 1 (1.08%) DBS Check
7 1 (1.08%) HP APS
7 1 (1.08%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (11.83%) QA
2 7 (7.53%) HMG Security Policy Framework
2 7 (7.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 5 (5.38%) SLA
4 1 (1.08%) Accessibility
4 1 (1.08%) Actionable Recommendations
4 1 (1.08%) Data Quality
4 1 (1.08%) EMIR
4 1 (1.08%) GDPR
4 1 (1.08%) MiFID
System Software
1 15 (16.13%) Docker
2 2 (2.15%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 14 (15.05%) Kubernetes
2 5 (5.38%) Terraform
3 4 (4.30%) Ansible
4 1 (1.08%) CA Endevor
4 1 (1.08%) Grafana
4 1 (1.08%) HP ALM
Vendors
1 25 (26.88%) Microsoft
2 9 (9.68%) Oracle
3 7 (7.53%) Citrix
4 2 (2.15%) RedGate
5 1 (1.08%) Adobe
5 1 (1.08%) CQG
5 1 (1.08%) ESRI
5 1 (1.08%) Google
5 1 (1.08%) HP
5 1 (1.08%) IBM
5 1 (1.08%) Salesforce
5 1 (1.08%) SAP
5 1 (1.08%) Sitecore
5 1 (1.08%) TOWER Software
5 1 (1.08%) Xamarin