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

6 months to
21 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 500 385 429
Rank change year-on-year -115 +44 -43
Contract jobs citing Visual Studio 86 150 176
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.23% 0.44% 0.40%
As % of the Development Applications category 1.57% 3.33% 3.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 40 77 138
10th Percentile £358 £325 £313
25th Percentile £415 £400 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £450 £550
Median % change year-on-year +11.11% -18.18% +4.56%
75th Percentile £641 £538 £630
90th Percentile £978 £644 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £456 £525
% change year-on-year +20.55% -13.10% +16.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 11 2
10th Percentile - £47.00 £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 £65.25 - £53.67
90th Percentile £67.00 £68.75 £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 5,477 4,501 5,701
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 14.91% 13.26% 13.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,765 2,845 3,958
10th Percentile £341 £330 £363
25th Percentile £409 £410 £440
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £538
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -4.74% -3.93%
75th Percentile £600 £627 £638
90th Percentile £692 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £485 £513
% change year-on-year -2.06% -5.41% -2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 135 84 212
10th Percentile £39.00 £41.63 £44.73
25th Percentile £53.75 £50.00 £49.62
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -3.85% +4.84%
75th Percentile £70.00 £70.00 £76.77
90th Percentile £84.20 £75.18 £88.75
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 21 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 21 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 -99 69 £450 - 35
UK excluding London -65 50 £550 +20.55% 46
Work from Home -30 40 £456 +1.96% 31
London -31 29 £463 +2.78% 5
East of England -18 25 - - 6
Scotland +14 10 £550 +18.92% 13
Wales +1 6 £675 +255.31%
South East -38 5 £365 -21.51% 18
North of England -46 2 £550 +47.65% 3
North East -7 1 - -
South West -26 1 - - 4
West Midlands -29 1 £325 -16.93% 4
Midlands -40 1 £325 -7.14% 5
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 (3.49%) Confluence
2 1 (1.16%) ArcGIS
2 1 (1.16%) BizTalk Server
2 1 (1.16%) CICS
2 1 (1.16%) CMS
2 1 (1.16%) GeoServer
2 1 (1.16%) Oracle Spatial
2 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 29 (33.72%) Azure
2 22 (25.58%) Azure DevOps
3 17 (19.77%) GitHub
4 15 (17.44%) Power Platform
5 14 (16.28%) Dynamics 365
6 11 (12.79%) AWS
7 9 (10.47%) npm
8 5 (5.81%) GitHub Actions
9 4 (4.65%) Power Automate
9 4 (4.65%) PowerApps
10 3 (3.49%) Azure Data Factory
10 3 (3.49%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 2 (2.33%) SaaS
11 2 (2.33%) Snowflake
12 1 (1.16%) Azure Cosmos DB
12 1 (1.16%) GCP
12 1 (1.16%) Google Analytics
12 1 (1.16%) PaaS
12 1 (1.16%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
12 1 (1.16%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 17 (19.77%) Ethernet
1 17 (19.77%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (17.44%) SQL Server
2 9 (10.47%) Power BI
3 5 (5.81%) SQL Server Reporting Services
4 4 (4.65%) 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
6 2 (2.33%) MongoDB
7 1 (1.16%) Azure SQL Database
7 1 (1.16%) Big Data
7 1 (1.16%) Data Lake
7 1 (1.16%) GIS
7 1 (1.16%) NoSQL
7 1 (1.16%) Oracle Database
7 1 (1.16%) Oracle Database 12c
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
Development Applications
1 21 (24.42%) JIRA
2 17 (19.77%) Eclipse
3 11 (12.79%) Visual Studio Code
4 10 (11.63%) GitLab
5 9 (10.47%) Artifactory
5 9 (10.47%) Bitbucket
5 9 (10.47%) IntelliJ
5 9 (10.47%) Jenkins
5 9 (10.47%) PyCharm
5 9 (10.47%) Selenium
6 8 (9.30%) Git
7 7 (8.14%) JMeter
7 7 (8.14%) MSTest
8 3 (3.49%) NUnit
8 3 (3.49%) SpecFlow
9 1 (1.16%) Team Foundation Server
9 1 (1.16%) Visual Studio Coded UI
General
1 30 (34.88%) Social Skills
2 28 (32.56%) Finance
3 17 (19.77%) Military
4 16 (18.60%) 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
9 3 (3.49%) Law
10 2 (2.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 1 (1.16%) Advertising
11 1 (1.16%) Aerospace
11 1 (1.16%) Back Office
11 1 (1.16%) Marketing
11 1 (1.16%) Retail
Job Titles
1 43 (50.00%) Developer
2 22 (25.58%) Software Engineer
3 15 (17.44%) C# Software Engineer
4 11 (12.79%) C# Developer
4 11 (12.79%) C++ Software Engineer
5 9 (10.47%) Python Developer
6 8 (9.30%) Dynamics 365 Developer
6 8 (9.30%) Senior
6 8 (9.30%) Tester
7 6 (6.98%) Automation Tester
7 6 (6.98%) Senior Tester
8 5 (5.81%) DevOps Engineer
8 5 (5.81%) Full-Stack Developer
8 5 (5.81%) Full-Stack Engineer
8 5 (5.81%) Full-Stack Software Engineer
8 5 (5.81%) Python Engineer
8 5 (5.81%) Senior Automation Tester
9 4 (4.65%) Software Developer
10 3 (3.49%) .NET Developer
10 3 (3.49%) C++ Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (30.23%) Node.js
2 23 (26.74%) Web Services
3 21 (24.42%) .NET
4 17 (19.77%) .NET Framework
5 12 (13.95%) HTML
6 11 (12.79%) CSS
6 11 (12.79%) React
7 9 (10.47%) AngularJS
7 9 (10.47%) Svelte
7 9 (10.47%) Vue
8 3 (3.49%) ASP.NET
8 3 (3.49%) PySpark
9 2 (2.33%) ASP.NET MVC
9 2 (2.33%) HTML5
9 2 (2.33%) jQuery
9 2 (2.33%) JSON
9 2 (2.33%) RESTful
10 1 (1.16%) OAuth
10 1 (1.16%) SAP PI
10 1 (1.16%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 12 (13.95%) Algorithms
1 12 (13.95%) Distributed Systems
2 9 (10.47%) Data Structures
3 6 (6.98%) Derivative
3 6 (6.98%) Public Cloud
4 5 (5.81%) Equity Derivative
5 3 (3.49%) Analytical Mindset
5 3 (3.49%) Data Protection Act
5 3 (3.49%) Equities
5 3 (3.49%) Fixed Income
5 3 (3.49%) Mobile App
6 2 (2.33%) Distributed Computing
6 2 (2.33%) Virtual Team
7 1 (1.16%) DataPower
7 1 (1.16%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 1 (1.16%) FPGA
7 1 (1.16%) Legacy Systems
7 1 (1.16%) PCIe
7 1 (1.16%) Social Media
7 1 (1.16%) Wiki
Operating Systems
1 36 (41.86%) Linux
2 34 (39.53%) Windows
3 5 (5.81%) 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 48 (55.81%) Agile
2 43 (50.00%) CI/CD
3 34 (39.53%) DevOps
4 32 (37.21%) Unit Testing
5 26 (30.23%) TDD
6 22 (25.58%) Validation
7 21 (24.42%) Software Engineering
8 20 (23.26%) SDLC
9 19 (22.09%) Visualisation
10 18 (20.93%) Continuous Integration
11 17 (19.77%) Synthetic Environment
11 17 (19.77%) Verification and Validation
12 16 (18.60%) Continuous Delivery
12 16 (18.60%) Digital Twin
13 15 (17.44%) Computer Science
13 15 (17.44%) Design Patterns
14 14 (16.28%) Business Intelligence
14 14 (16.28%) Test Automation
15 12 (13.95%) Containerisation
16 10 (11.63%) Full-Stack Development
Programming Languages
1 62 (72.09%) C#
2 40 (46.51%) JavaScript
3 31 (36.05%) C++
4 24 (27.91%) Python
5 20 (23.26%) SQL
6 19 (22.09%) TypeScript
7 12 (13.95%) Java
8 9 (10.47%) T-SQL
9 7 (8.14%) PL/SQL
10 5 (5.81%) X++
11 4 (4.65%) C
12 2 (2.33%) Ada
12 2 (2.33%) Assembly Language
12 2 (2.33%) MATLAB
12 2 (2.33%) PowerShell
13 1 (1.16%) Bicep
13 1 (1.16%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 1 (1.16%) Embedded C
13 1 (1.16%) Embedded C++
13 1 (1.16%) XPath
Qualifications
1 21 (24.42%) Degree
1 21 (24.42%) Security Cleared
2 15 (17.44%) SC Cleared
3 5 (5.81%) ISTQB
3 5 (5.81%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
4 4 (4.65%) Numerate Degree
5 2 (2.33%) Master's Degree
6 1 (1.16%) BPSS Clearance
6 1 (1.16%) Computer Science Degree
6 1 (1.16%) DBS Check
6 1 (1.16%) HP APS
6 1 (1.16%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (10.47%) 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%) GDPR
4 1 (1.16%) MiFID
System Software
1 14 (16.28%) Docker
Systems Management
1 18 (20.93%) Kubernetes
2 9 (10.47%) Ansible
2 9 (10.47%) Terraform
3 1 (1.16%) CA Endevor
3 1 (1.16%) Grafana
3 1 (1.16%) HP ALM
Vendors
1 26 (30.23%) Microsoft
2 7 (8.14%) Oracle
3 5 (5.81%) 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