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 3 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 420 369 175
Rank change year-on-year -51 -194 +67
Contract jobs citing C 219 153 584
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.45% 0.53% 1.36%
As % of the Programming Languages category 1.67% 1.56% 4.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 58 64 260
10th Percentile £369 £271 £400
25th Percentile £413 £322 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £537
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -6.85% -2.41%
75th Percentile £538 £638 £600
90th Percentile £625 £686 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £391 £543
% change year-on-year +24.68% -27.93% +8.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 78 33 192
10th Percentile £59.53 £55.00 £46.25
25th Percentile £65.00 £60.00 £56.65
Median hourly rate £67.50 £68.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -0.74% +4.62% +8.33%
75th Percentile £70.00 £77.50 £70.00
90th Percentile £77.00 £85.00 £85.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.75 £68.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -0.37% +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 13,131 9,828 12,943
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 26.88% 34.16% 30.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,589 6,685 9,180
10th Percentile £358 £358 £350
25th Percentile £415 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £600 £626 £650
90th Percentile £713 £756 £763
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +1.32% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 559 227 522
10th Percentile £36.25 £27.00 £31.25
25th Percentile £53.88 £34.20 £46.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £57.50 £62.00
Median % change year-on-year +13.04% -7.26% -0.80%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £70.00
90th Percentile £78.80 £85.00 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £62.50
% change year-on-year +4.00% - -

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 3 June 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 3 June 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for C in the UK

C
Top 17 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 3 June 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 -40 207 £481 -8.33% 472
UK excluding London -14 167 £488 +24.68% 410
Work from Home -21 68 £488 -2.50% 185
East of England -4 56 £525 +31.25% 98
South West +1 46 £463 -22.92% 72
South East -22 46 £500 - 151
London -93 45 £447 -28.48% 74
Midlands -53 7 £525 +213.43% 37
West Midlands - 6 £488 - 26
North of England -78 5 £625 +66.67% 26
Northern Ireland - 5 £425 - 6
Scotland -12 2 - - 21
North East -29 2 £625 - 1
North West -37 2 - - 17
Wales -12 1 £460 -12.38% 7
East Midlands -31 1 £525 +213.43% 11
Yorkshire -60 1 - - 8

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 2 (0.91%) Confluence
1 2 (0.91%) Oracle SOA Suite
1 2 (0.91%) Oracle Workflow
2 1 (0.46%) Apache
2 1 (0.46%) Apache Spark
2 1 (0.46%) WebSphere
Applications
1 11 (5.02%) Simulink
2 4 (1.83%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.46%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 7 (3.20%) BASE24
2 5 (2.28%) Payment Gateway
3 3 (1.37%) Teamcenter
4 1 (0.46%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.46%) Dynamics NAV
4 1 (0.46%) Loan IQ
4 1 (0.46%) Oracle Applications
4 1 (0.46%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 13 (5.94%) Azure
2 11 (5.02%) AWS
3 7 (3.20%) Azure DevOps
4 6 (2.74%) GitHub
4 6 (2.74%) Power Platform
5 4 (1.83%) GCP
6 3 (1.37%) Amazon S3
6 3 (1.37%) GitHub Actions
7 2 (0.91%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 2 (0.91%) AWS CloudFormation
7 2 (0.91%) AWS IoT
7 2 (0.91%) Azure Monitor
7 2 (0.91%) Dynamics 365
7 2 (0.91%) GitHub Copilot
8 1 (0.46%) AWS CloudTrail
8 1 (0.46%) AWS Lambda
8 1 (0.46%) Datadog
8 1 (0.46%) Entra ID
8 1 (0.46%) Firebase
8 1 (0.46%) Google Drive
Communications & Networking
1 22 (10.05%) Ethernet
2 17 (7.76%) Software-Defined Radio
2 17 (7.76%) Wireless
3 6 (2.74%) TCP/IP
4 5 (2.28%) 3GPP
5 4 (1.83%) DNS
5 4 (1.83%) Modbus
5 4 (1.83%) Network Security
5 4 (1.83%) RS-232
5 4 (1.83%) RS-485
6 3 (1.37%) Bluetooth
6 3 (1.37%) Internet
6 3 (1.37%) MQTT
6 3 (1.37%) MVNO
6 3 (1.37%) RS-422
6 3 (1.37%) SMPP
6 3 (1.37%) SMS
6 3 (1.37%) SpaceWire
6 3 (1.37%) VXLAN
7 2 (0.91%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (3.65%) NonStop SQL
2 6 (2.74%) Power BI
3 5 (2.28%) OLTP
3 5 (2.28%) SQL Server
4 4 (1.83%) NoSQL
4 4 (1.83%) PostgreSQL
5 3 (1.37%) Data Warehouse
5 3 (1.37%) MongoDB
5 3 (1.37%) Tableau
6 2 (0.91%) Oracle Database
7 1 (0.46%) Amazon Athena
7 1 (0.46%) Amazon Redshift
7 1 (0.46%) Apache Hudi
7 1 (0.46%) Apache Iceberg
7 1 (0.46%) Big Data
7 1 (0.46%) Data Lake
7 1 (0.46%) Kdb+
7 1 (0.46%) Metadata
7 1 (0.46%) Redis
7 1 (0.46%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 24 (10.96%) Rational DOORS
2 19 (8.68%) Git
3 14 (6.39%) Rational Rhapsody
4 11 (5.02%) JIRA
5 8 (3.65%) GitLab
6 5 (2.28%) Visual Studio
7 4 (1.83%) PVCS
8 3 (1.37%) Subversion
9 2 (0.91%) Jenkins
10 1 (0.46%) Appium
10 1 (0.46%) Atlassian Bamboo
10 1 (0.46%) CMake
10 1 (0.46%) Crashlytics
10 1 (0.46%) Cucumber
10 1 (0.46%) ER Studio
10 1 (0.46%) git-flow
10 1 (0.46%) GoogleTest
10 1 (0.46%) Robot Framework
10 1 (0.46%) Selenium
10 1 (0.46%) SonarQube
General
1 44 (20.09%) Social Skills
2 30 (13.70%) Aerospace
3 23 (10.50%) Electronics
4 18 (8.22%) Analytical Skills
5 15 (6.85%) Finance
6 12 (5.48%) Documentation Skills
6 12 (5.48%) Law
6 12 (5.48%) Manufacturing
7 9 (4.11%) Banking
8 6 (2.74%) Automotive
9 4 (1.83%) Avionics
9 4 (1.83%) Games
9 4 (1.83%) Public Sector
10 3 (1.37%) Telecoms
11 2 (0.91%) Investment Banking
11 2 (0.91%) Japanese Language
11 2 (0.91%) Publishing
12 1 (0.46%) Korean Language
12 1 (0.46%) Local Government
12 1 (0.46%) Military
Job Titles
1 81 (36.99%) Software Engineer
2 68 (31.05%) Embedded Engineer
3 47 (21.46%) Embedded Software Engineer
4 35 (15.98%) Developer
5 22 (10.05%) C++ Software Engineer
6 21 (9.59%) C Software Engineer
6 21 (9.59%) C/C++ Software Engineer
7 11 (5.02%) FPGA Engineer
7 11 (5.02%) Senior
8 10 (4.57%) Lead
8 10 (4.57%) Validation Engineer
9 9 (4.11%) C/C++ Embedded Software Engineer
9 9 (4.11%) Embedded C Engineer
9 9 (4.11%) Embedded C Software Engineer
9 9 (4.11%) Embedded C/C++ Engineer
9 9 (4.11%) Embedded C/C++ Software Engineer
9 9 (4.11%) Embedded C++ Engineer
9 9 (4.11%) Embedded C++ Software Engineer
9 9 (4.11%) Software Developer
9 9 (4.11%) Test Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (7.31%) Yocto
2 8 (3.65%) .NET
3 6 (2.74%) WinForms
4 5 (2.28%) Middleware
5 4 (1.83%) JSON
5 4 (1.83%) Kafka
5 4 (1.83%) Qt
6 3 (1.37%) ARM Templates
6 3 (1.37%) HTML
6 3 (1.37%) Itk
6 3 (1.37%) REST
7 2 (0.91%) HTML5
7 2 (0.91%) NumPy
7 2 (0.91%) QML
7 2 (0.91%) Web Services
8 1 (0.46%) PostGIS
8 1 (0.46%) Protocol Buffers
8 1 (0.46%) RabbitMQ
8 1 (0.46%) WebSockets
8 1 (0.46%) ZeroMQ
Miscellaneous
1 40 (18.26%) FPGA
2 39 (17.81%) Embedded Systems
3 19 (8.68%) PCIe
4 15 (6.85%) VHDL
5 10 (4.57%) Verilog
6 9 (4.11%) Algorithms
6 9 (4.11%) Device Driver
7 8 (3.65%) Tandem
8 7 (3.20%) MicroBlaze
8 7 (3.20%) RISC-V
9 6 (2.74%) EMV
9 6 (2.74%) IoT
10 5 (2.28%) Data Centre
11 3 (1.37%) ARM Cortex
11 3 (1.37%) Cloud Native
11 3 (1.37%) Cyber Threat
11 3 (1.37%) Java Card
11 3 (1.37%) Legacy Systems
12 2 (0.91%) ASIC
12 2 (0.91%) Video\Live Streaming
Operating Systems
1 60 (27.40%) Linux
2 22 (10.05%) Embedded Linux
3 13 (5.94%) FreeRTOS
3 13 (5.94%) Windows
4 3 (1.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 3 (1.37%) Unix
5 1 (0.46%) Apple iOS
5 1 (0.46%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 112 (51.14%) Software Engineering
2 43 (19.63%) Validation
3 37 (16.89%) Problem-Solving
4 32 (14.61%) Test Automation
5 28 (12.79%) CI/CD
6 26 (11.87%) Workflow
7 24 (10.96%) Signal Processing
8 21 (9.59%) Digital Signal Processing
9 19 (8.68%) Embedded Software Development
10 18 (8.22%) Agile
11 17 (7.76%) Workflow Management
12 16 (7.31%) Verification and Validation
13 15 (6.85%) DevOps
14 13 (5.94%) FPGA Design
14 13 (5.94%) Software Testing
14 13 (5.94%) UML
14 13 (5.94%) Unit Testing
15 12 (5.48%) Systems Engineering
15 12 (5.48%) TDD
15 12 (5.48%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 116 (52.97%) C++
2 56 (25.57%) Python
3 34 (15.53%) Embedded C
4 29 (13.24%) Ada
5 27 (12.33%) SQL
6 21 (9.59%) MATLAB
7 20 (9.13%) Java
8 13 (5.94%) Bash
8 13 (5.94%) Embedded C++
9 9 (4.11%) SystemVerilog
10 8 (3.65%) C#
11 7 (3.20%) PL/SQL
11 7 (3.20%) Shell Script
12 6 (2.74%) COBOL
13 5 (2.28%) Rust
14 4 (1.83%) JavaScript
15 3 (1.37%) Perl
15 3 (1.37%) ProC
16 2 (0.91%) PowerShell
16 2 (0.91%) VB
Qualifications
1 57 (26.03%) Security Cleared
2 42 (19.18%) SC Cleared
3 17 (7.76%) Degree
4 10 (4.57%) DV Cleared
5 9 (4.11%) BPSS Clearance
6 2 (0.91%) CCNA
6 2 (0.91%) Cisco Certification
6 2 (0.91%) Computer Science Degree
6 2 (0.91%) ISTQB
7 1 (0.46%) Azure Certification
7 1 (0.46%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
7 1 (0.46%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
7 1 (0.46%) Master's Degree
7 1 (0.46%) PhD
7 1 (0.46%) Six Sigma Black Belt
7 1 (0.46%) Six Sigma Green Belt
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (7.76%) Def Stans
2 11 (5.02%) QA
3 6 (2.74%) ISO 8583
3 6 (2.74%) MISRA
4 5 (2.28%) PCI DSS
5 4 (1.83%) DO-178B
5 4 (1.83%) IEC 61508
6 3 (1.37%) MIL-STD-1553
7 2 (0.91%) Data Quality
7 2 (0.91%) ISO 26262
8 1 (0.46%) Accessibility
8 1 (0.46%) DICOM
8 1 (0.46%) DO-254
8 1 (0.46%) HL7
8 1 (0.46%) IFRS
8 1 (0.46%) IFRS 9
8 1 (0.46%) ISO 15022
8 1 (0.46%) ISO 20022
8 1 (0.46%) ISO 9001
8 1 (0.46%) MISRA C
System Software
1 19 (8.68%) Firmware
2 11 (5.02%) Docker
3 7 (3.20%) Embedded Firmware
3 7 (3.20%) VMware Infrastructure
4 6 (2.74%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.91%) Oracle RAC
5 2 (0.91%) vCloud
5 2 (0.91%) VMware NSX
5 2 (0.91%) vSphere
6 1 (0.46%) Active Directory
6 1 (0.46%) FreeRADIUS
6 1 (0.46%) Slurm Workload Manager
6 1 (0.46%) Squid
Systems Management
1 8 (3.65%) Kubernetes
2 7 (3.20%) Terraform
3 5 (2.28%) Ansible
4 2 (0.91%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.46%) Grafana
5 1 (0.46%) HP ALM
5 1 (0.46%) Nagios
5 1 (0.46%) Packer
5 1 (0.46%) Puppet
Vendors
1 13 (5.94%) IBM
2 11 (5.02%) Xilinx
3 10 (4.57%) Intel
4 9 (4.11%) HP
5 8 (3.65%) Oracle
6 7 (3.20%) Cisco
6 7 (3.20%) MathWorks
6 7 (3.20%) Microsemi
6 7 (3.20%) VMware
7 6 (2.74%) Microsoft
8 4 (1.83%) ANSYS
8 4 (1.83%) Lauterbach
8 4 (1.83%) SAP
9 3 (1.37%) Google
9 3 (1.37%) Thales
10 2 (0.91%) Dell
10 2 (0.91%) Perforce
10 2 (0.91%) QNX
11 1 (0.46%) Citrix
11 1 (0.46%) EMC