Summary Prebiotic oligosaccharides are increasingly demanded within the Food Science domain because of the interesting healthy properties that these compounds may induce to the organism, thanks to their beneficial intestinal microbiota growth promotion ability. In this regard, the development of new efficient, convenient and affordable methods to obtain this class of compounds might expand even further their use as functional ingredients. This review presents an overview on the most recent interesting approaches to synthesize lactose‐derived oligosaccharides with potential prebiotic activity paying special focus on the microbial glycoside hydrolases that can be effectively employed to obtain these prebiotic compounds. The most notable advantages of using lactose‐derived carbohydrates such as lactosucrose, galactooligosaccharides from lactulose, lactulosucrose and 2‐α‐glucosyl‐lactose are also described and commented.