C Contract Job Trends

C
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring C skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 2 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 385 284 193
Rank change year-on-year -101 -91 +78
Contract jobs citing C 209 269 573
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.54% 0.87% 1.27%
As % of the Programming Languages category 1.79% 2.58% 4.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 62 94 222
10th Percentile £68 £400 £325
25th Percentile £380 £463 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £534 £535
Median % change year-on-year -11.01% -0.23% -10.83%
75th Percentile £597 £638 £598
90th Percentile £650 £810 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £535
% change year-on-year -5.00% -6.54% -2.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 86 39 197
10th Percentile £60.00 £57.53 £46.25
25th Percentile £65.00 £62.00 £56.25
Median hourly rate £67.50 £68.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -0.74% +4.62% +13.04%
75th Percentile £70.00 £85.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £76.25 £95.00 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.50 £68.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -0.74% +4.62% -

All Programming Languages
UK

C falls under the Programming Languages category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring coding skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for coding skills 11,655 10,418 13,329
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 30.33% 33.53% 29.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,727 6,561 9,448
10th Percentile £350 £356 £350
25th Percentile £413 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -4.87%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £650
90th Percentile £716 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £482 £495 £500
% change year-on-year -2.53% -1.10% -2.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 445 240 515
10th Percentile £39.76 £21.25 £35.52
25th Percentile £52.50 £36.50 £46.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% +4.17% -7.69%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.00 £69.31
90th Percentile £76.25 £85.00 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £63.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year +3.17% +0.80% -3.85%

C
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing C relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

C job vacancy trend in the UK

C
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing C.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing C

C
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing C over the 6 months to 2 February 2026.

Daily rate histogram for C in the UK

C
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing C.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing C

C
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing C over the 6 months to 2 February 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for C in the UK

C
Top 16 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing C within the UK over the 6 months to 2 February 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 -111 195 £488 -8.67% 386
UK excluding London -55 161 £475 -5.00% 386
East of England -2 64 £463 -3.90% 62
South West -9 61 £475 -20.17% 86
Work from Home -42 55 £442 -14.95% 158
London -77 38 £488 -18.75% 47
North of England -48 12 £475 +18.75% 42
South East -49 10 £500 +6.10% 119
North West -23 9 £463 +15.63% 19
Scotland +7 6 £65 - 44
Northern Ireland +3 5 £425 - 1
Midlands -55 3 £575 +76.65% 45
East Midlands -22 2 - - 34
Yorkshire -60 2 £531 - 17
West Midlands -43 1 £575 - 11
North East - 1 £625 - 6

C
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 (1.44%) Confluence
2 1 (0.48%) Apache
2 1 (0.48%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (0.48%) nginx
2 1 (0.48%) SharePoint
Applications
1 12 (5.74%) Simulink
2 5 (2.39%) Stateflow
3 3 (1.44%) Microsoft Office
4 1 (0.48%) Microsoft Excel
4 1 (0.48%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 5 (2.39%) BASE24
1 5 (2.39%) Payment Gateway
2 2 (0.96%) Teamcenter
3 1 (0.48%) Actimize
3 1 (0.48%) Dynamics NAV
3 1 (0.48%) Oracle Applications
3 1 (0.48%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 17 (8.13%) AWS
2 15 (7.18%) Azure
3 10 (4.78%) GitHub
4 8 (3.83%) GCP
5 4 (1.91%) Amazon EKS
5 4 (1.91%) Amazon S3
6 3 (1.44%) Amazon ECS
6 3 (1.44%) AWS CloudFormation
6 3 (1.44%) AWS Lambda
6 3 (1.44%) Serverless
7 2 (0.96%) Azure DevOps
7 2 (0.96%) Cloud Computing
7 2 (0.96%) Dynamics 365
7 2 (0.96%) Power Platform
8 1 (0.48%) Amazon EC2
8 1 (0.48%) Amazon GuardDuty
8 1 (0.48%) ChatGPT
8 1 (0.48%) GitHub Actions
8 1 (0.48%) GitHub Copilot
8 1 (0.48%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 17 (8.13%) Ethernet
2 8 (3.83%) RS-232
3 6 (2.87%) SpaceWire
4 5 (2.39%) Network Security
5 4 (1.91%) 3GPP
5 4 (1.91%) Bluetooth
5 4 (1.91%) TCP/IP
6 3 (1.44%) Modbus
6 3 (1.44%) MVNO
6 3 (1.44%) RS-485
6 3 (1.44%) SMPP
6 3 (1.44%) SMS
6 3 (1.44%) Wi-Fi
7 2 (0.96%) HTTP
7 2 (0.96%) SSL
7 2 (0.96%) VSAN
7 2 (0.96%) Wireless
8 1 (0.48%) 5G NR
8 1 (0.48%) Firewall
8 1 (0.48%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (3.35%) NonStop SQL
2 5 (2.39%) OLTP
2 5 (2.39%) Oracle Database
3 3 (1.44%) Elasticsearch
4 2 (0.96%) Amazon RDS
4 2 (0.96%) PostgreSQL
5 1 (0.48%) Metadata
5 1 (0.48%) MongoDB
5 1 (0.48%) MySQL
5 1 (0.48%) Oracle Exadata
5 1 (0.48%) Power BI
5 1 (0.48%) SQL Server
5 1 (0.48%) SQL Server Reporting Services
5 1 (0.48%) SQLite
Development Applications
1 27 (12.92%) Rational DOORS
2 18 (8.61%) Git
3 12 (5.74%) JIRA
4 11 (5.26%) Jenkins
4 11 (5.26%) Rational Rhapsody
5 8 (3.83%) PVCS
6 7 (3.35%) GitLab
7 5 (2.39%) Rational Team Concert
8 4 (1.91%) Artifactory
8 4 (1.91%) Visual Studio
8 4 (1.91%) Xcode
9 3 (1.44%) ClearCase
9 3 (1.44%) Gradle
9 3 (1.44%) KGDB
10 2 (0.96%) Selenium
10 2 (0.96%) SonarQube
10 2 (0.96%) Subversion
11 1 (0.48%) CircleCI
11 1 (0.48%) Crashlytics
11 1 (0.48%) Polyspace
General
1 32 (15.31%) Electronics
2 29 (13.88%) Social Skills
3 23 (11.00%) Aerospace
4 22 (10.53%) Finance
5 21 (10.05%) Analytical Skills
6 14 (6.70%) Documentation Skills
7 13 (6.22%) Law
8 11 (5.26%) Public Sector
9 10 (4.78%) Banking
10 7 (3.35%) Military
10 7 (3.35%) Telecoms
11 5 (2.39%) Manufacturing
12 4 (1.91%) Automotive
12 4 (1.91%) Aviation
13 3 (1.44%) Financial Institution
13 3 (1.44%) Games
14 2 (0.96%) Avionics
14 2 (0.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 2 (0.96%) Marketing
14 2 (0.96%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 78 (37.32%) Software Engineer
2 58 (27.75%) Embedded Engineer
3 43 (20.57%) Embedded Software Engineer
4 36 (17.22%) Developer
5 27 (12.92%) C Software Engineer
6 22 (10.53%) C++ Software Engineer
7 21 (10.05%) C/C++ Software Engineer
8 19 (9.09%) Embedded C Engineer
8 19 (9.09%) Embedded C Software Engineer
9 13 (6.22%) C/C++ Embedded Software Engineer
9 13 (6.22%) Embedded C/C++ Engineer
9 13 (6.22%) Embedded C/C++ Software Engineer
9 13 (6.22%) Embedded C++ Engineer
9 13 (6.22%) Embedded C++ Software Engineer
9 13 (6.22%) Senior
9 13 (6.22%) Support Engineer
10 12 (5.74%) Product Engineer
10 12 (5.74%) Products Support Engineer
10 12 (5.74%) Software Support Engineer
11 11 (5.26%) FPGA Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 18 (8.61%) Middleware
2 11 (5.26%) HTML
3 9 (4.31%) Yocto
4 8 (3.83%) CSS
5 7 (3.35%) Flash
6 6 (2.87%) Node.js
6 6 (2.87%) REST
7 4 (1.91%) AngularJS
7 4 (1.91%) React
7 4 (1.91%) RESTful
8 3 (1.44%) Electron
8 3 (1.44%) JNI
8 3 (1.44%) OpenEmbedded
9 2 (0.96%) Elastic Stack
9 2 (0.96%) JSON
9 2 (0.96%) Kafka
9 2 (0.96%) OpenID
9 2 (0.96%) OpenMP
9 2 (0.96%) Qt
9 2 (0.96%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 34 (16.27%) FPGA
2 29 (13.88%) Embedded Systems
3 17 (8.13%) VHDL
4 15 (7.18%) PCIe
5 7 (3.35%) Tandem
6 6 (2.87%) CAN bus
6 6 (2.87%) Verilog
7 5 (2.39%) EMV
7 5 (2.39%) Self-Motivation
8 4 (1.91%) Algorithms
8 4 (1.91%) Device Driver
8 4 (1.91%) Distributed Systems
8 4 (1.91%) IoT
8 4 (1.91%) Mobile App
9 3 (1.44%) Cloud Native
9 3 (1.44%) CUDA
9 3 (1.44%) Data Centre
9 3 (1.44%) Hedge funds
9 3 (1.44%) Java Card
9 3 (1.44%) Mobile Banking
Operating Systems
1 55 (26.32%) Linux
2 13 (6.22%) Ubuntu
3 11 (5.26%) Windows
4 8 (3.83%) Embedded Linux
4 8 (3.83%) FreeRTOS
5 4 (1.91%) Android
5 4 (1.91%) Apple iOS
5 4 (1.91%) Unix
6 3 (1.44%) CentOS
6 3 (1.44%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.48%) Debian
7 1 (0.48%) OpenVMS
7 1 (0.48%) Robot Operating System
7 1 (0.48%) Windows Embedded Compact
Processes & Methodologies
1 111 (53.11%) Software Engineering
2 42 (20.10%) Validation
3 29 (13.88%) Problem-Solving
4 28 (13.40%) CI/CD
5 17 (8.13%) Workflow
6 16 (7.66%) Agile
6 16 (7.66%) Unit Testing
7 15 (7.18%) Containerisation
7 15 (7.18%) Software Testing
8 14 (6.70%) DevOps
8 14 (6.70%) Signal Processing
8 14 (6.70%) Test Automation
9 13 (6.22%) AI
9 13 (6.22%) Systems Engineering
10 12 (5.74%) Mathematics
10 12 (5.74%) Requirements Analysis
11 11 (5.26%) Embedded Software Development
11 11 (5.26%) UML
12 10 (4.78%) FPGA Design
13 9 (4.31%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 121 (57.89%) C++
2 54 (25.84%) Python
3 32 (15.31%) Ada
3 32 (15.31%) Java
4 28 (13.40%) Embedded C
5 26 (12.44%) JavaScript
6 18 (8.61%) Embedded C++
7 17 (8.13%) Shell Script
8 16 (7.66%) MATLAB
8 16 (7.66%) SQL
9 12 (5.74%) Bash
10 9 (4.31%) C#
11 8 (3.83%) Fortran
11 8 (3.83%) Rust
12 6 (2.87%) Perl
12 6 (2.87%) PL/SQL
12 6 (2.87%) SystemVerilog
13 5 (2.39%) COBOL
13 5 (2.39%) ProC
14 4 (1.91%) VBA
Qualifications
1 69 (33.01%) Security Cleared
2 55 (26.32%) SC Cleared
3 20 (9.57%) Degree
4 8 (3.83%) DV Cleared
5 4 (1.91%) Computer Science Degree
6 3 (1.44%) BPSS Clearance
7 2 (0.96%) ISTQB
7 2 (0.96%) Master's Degree
7 2 (0.96%) PhD
7 2 (0.96%) Postgraduate
8 1 (0.48%) CCNA
8 1 (0.48%) CCSAS
8 1 (0.48%) Cisco Certification
8 1 (0.48%) GPEN
8 1 (0.48%) GWAPT
8 1 (0.48%) GXPN
8 1 (0.48%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 1 (0.48%) OSCE
8 1 (0.48%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (10.05%) Def Stans
2 12 (5.74%) MISRA
3 11 (5.26%) DO-178B
4 10 (4.78%) IEC 61508
5 9 (4.31%) QA
6 5 (2.39%) ISO 26262
6 5 (2.39%) ISO 8583
7 4 (1.91%) PCI DSS
8 3 (1.44%) IEC 62304
9 2 (0.96%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 2 (0.96%) MIL-STD-1553
9 2 (0.96%) MISRA C
9 2 (0.96%) Software Quality Assurance
10 1 (0.48%) Actionable Recommendations
10 1 (0.48%) AUTOSAR
10 1 (0.48%) Data Quality
10 1 (0.48%) DO-254
10 1 (0.48%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 1 (0.48%) MiFID
10 1 (0.48%) NIST
System Software
1 24 (11.48%) Firmware
2 17 (8.13%) Docker
3 12 (5.74%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (4.31%) Virtual Machines
5 5 (2.39%) Embedded Firmware
6 2 (0.96%) vCloud
6 2 (0.96%) VMware NSX
6 2 (0.96%) vSphere
7 1 (0.48%) KVM
Systems Management
1 11 (5.26%) Kubernetes
2 8 (3.83%) Terraform
3 3 (1.44%) Ansible
3 3 (1.44%) Prometheus
4 2 (0.96%) Grafana
4 2 (0.96%) Podman
5 1 (0.48%) Functional Safety
Vendors
1 16 (7.66%) Red Hat
2 12 (5.74%) IBM
2 12 (5.74%) Oracle
2 12 (5.74%) VMware
3 8 (3.83%) ANSYS
3 8 (3.83%) MathWorks
4 7 (3.35%) HP
4 7 (3.35%) Intel
5 6 (2.87%) Microsoft
6 5 (2.39%) Microsemi
6 5 (2.39%) Xilinx
7 4 (1.91%) Cisco
8 3 (1.44%) Atlassian
8 3 (1.44%) NetApp
8 3 (1.44%) Thales
9 2 (0.96%) Dell
9 2 (0.96%) SAP
9 2 (0.96%) Siemens
10 1 (0.48%) Bloomberg
10 1 (0.48%) Salesforce