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 24 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 457 369 221
Rank change year-on-year -88 -148 -6
Contract jobs citing C 226 192 427
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.41% 0.58% 1.12%
As % of the Programming Languages category 1.58% 1.77% 3.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 66 68 191
10th Percentile £345 £352 £400
25th Percentile £400 £419 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £474 £513 £540
Median % change year-on-year -7.51% -5.09% -1.82%
75th Percentile £646 £638 £625
90th Percentile £706 £677 £710
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £500 £538
% change year-on-year -10.00% -7.06% +2.48%
Number of hourly rates quoted 72 36 78
10th Percentile £52.10 £41.25 £42.39
25th Percentile £63.44 £53.31 £57.50
Median hourly rate £70.00 £68.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% +4.62% -
75th Percentile - £73.75 £71.41
90th Percentile - £75.00 £85.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £70.00 £68.00 £70.00
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% +7.69%

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 14,300 10,866 12,199
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 26.05% 32.96% 32.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,286 7,175 8,156
10th Percentile £363 £344 £350
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £523 £505 £528
Median % change year-on-year +3.51% -4.27% -4.09%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 556 292 342
10th Percentile £26.25 £29.00 £26.33
25th Percentile £46.63 £40.00 £46.18
Median hourly rate £65.00 £55.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +18.18% -15.38% +3.17%
75th Percentile £70.00 £67.25 £70.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £78.75 £78.63
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.00

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 24 September 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 24 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for C in the UK

C
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 C within the UK over the 6 months to 24 September 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 -75 214 £473 -12.89% 1,226
UK excluding London -44 173 £450 -10.00% 873
Work from Home -44 70 £500 - 413
South East -15 56 £450 -10.00% 231
East of England -11 55 £705 +76.25% 228
London -94 43 £550 -6.14% 337
South West -43 31 £450 -18.18% 159
West Midlands -25 20 £450 - 46
Midlands -29 20 £450 - 90
North of England -73 7 £410 -4.09% 88
Scotland -35 5 - - 60
Yorkshire -34 3 £400 -20.00% 27
North West -59 3 £420 +10.53% 44
North East -44 1 - - 18

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 5 (2.21%) Tuxedo
2 3 (1.33%) WebSphere
3 2 (0.88%) Apache Spark
3 2 (0.88%) Confluence
3 2 (0.88%) Oracle SOA Suite
3 2 (0.88%) Oracle Workflow
4 1 (0.44%) ColdFusion
Applications
1 9 (3.98%) Simulink
2 2 (0.88%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 2 (0.88%) BASE24
1 2 (0.88%) Oracle Retail
1 2 (0.88%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 18 (7.96%) AWS
2 15 (6.64%) Azure
3 14 (6.19%) GitHub
4 9 (3.98%) GitHub Copilot
5 8 (3.54%) Azure DevOps
6 7 (3.10%) IaaS
7 5 (2.21%) Datadog
7 5 (2.21%) GitHub Actions
8 3 (1.33%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 3 (1.33%) Amazon EKS
8 3 (1.33%) AWS CloudFormation
8 3 (1.33%) Azure AKS
8 3 (1.33%) GCP
8 3 (1.33%) SaaS
8 3 (1.33%) Serverless
9 2 (0.88%) AWS IoT
9 2 (0.88%) AWS Lambda
9 2 (0.88%) Entra ID
9 2 (0.88%) Microsoft 365
9 2 (0.88%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 23 (10.18%) Wireless
2 22 (9.73%) Software-Defined Radio
3 10 (4.42%) Ethernet
4 4 (1.77%) Bluetooth
4 4 (1.77%) Internet
4 4 (1.77%) RS-232
4 4 (1.77%) Wi-Fi
4 4 (1.77%) Wireshark
5 3 (1.33%) DNS
5 3 (1.33%) Firewall
5 3 (1.33%) MQTT
5 3 (1.33%) RS-485
5 3 (1.33%) TCP/IP
5 3 (1.33%) VXLAN
5 3 (1.33%) WAN
6 2 (0.88%) ATM
6 2 (0.88%) Broadband
6 2 (0.88%) DHCP
6 2 (0.88%) VPN
7 1 (0.44%) LAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (4.42%) Ingres
2 7 (3.10%) SQL Server
3 6 (2.65%) Relational Database
4 4 (1.77%) RDBMS
5 3 (1.33%) NoSQL
5 3 (1.33%) Oracle Database
5 3 (1.33%) PostgreSQL
6 2 (0.88%) NonStop SQL
6 2 (0.88%) Redis
6 2 (0.88%) SQLPlus
7 1 (0.44%) Big Data
7 1 (0.44%) Data Warehouse
7 1 (0.44%) Elasticsearch
7 1 (0.44%) KDB
7 1 (0.44%) Kdb+
7 1 (0.44%) MongoDB
7 1 (0.44%) Parquet
7 1 (0.44%) Power BI
7 1 (0.44%) Snowflake Schema
7 1 (0.44%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 27 (11.95%) Git
2 21 (9.29%) Rational DOORS
3 16 (7.08%) JIRA
4 13 (5.75%) Rational Rhapsody
5 12 (5.31%) Jenkins
6 7 (3.10%) Team Foundation Server
7 5 (2.21%) GitLab
7 5 (2.21%) Oracle Forms
8 4 (1.77%) CppUnit
8 4 (1.77%) PVCS
9 2 (0.88%) CMake
9 2 (0.88%) PetaLinux
10 1 (0.44%) Atlassian Bamboo
10 1 (0.44%) Claude Code
10 1 (0.44%) Eclipse
10 1 (0.44%) git-flow
10 1 (0.44%) GoogleTest
10 1 (0.44%) Mocha
10 1 (0.44%) Sinon.JS
10 1 (0.44%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 50 (22.12%) Social Skills
2 21 (9.29%) Aerospace
2 21 (9.29%) Analytical Skills
3 18 (7.96%) Electronics
4 14 (6.19%) Law
5 9 (3.98%) Finance
6 8 (3.54%) Manufacturing
6 8 (3.54%) Public Sector
7 7 (3.10%) Banking
8 4 (1.77%) Automotive
8 4 (1.77%) Documentation Skills
8 4 (1.77%) Military
9 3 (1.33%) Avionics
9 3 (1.33%) Front Office
9 3 (1.33%) Investment Banking
9 3 (1.33%) Telecoms
10 2 (0.88%) Games
10 2 (0.88%) Retail
11 1 (0.44%) Japanese Language
11 1 (0.44%) Polish Language
Job Titles
1 90 (39.82%) Software Engineer
2 55 (24.34%) Embedded Engineer
3 50 (22.12%) Embedded Software Engineer
4 30 (13.27%) Developer
4 30 (13.27%) Senior
5 26 (11.50%) C Software Engineer
6 18 (7.96%) C++ Software Engineer
7 15 (6.64%) Lead
8 14 (6.19%) Embedded C Engineer
8 14 (6.19%) Embedded C Software Engineer
9 13 (5.75%) C/C++ Software Engineer
10 12 (5.31%) Development Engineer
10 12 (5.31%) Software Development Engineer
11 11 (4.87%) Software Developer
11 11 (4.87%) Software Team Leader
11 11 (4.87%) Team Leader
12 10 (4.42%) C Developer
12 10 (4.42%) Senior Developer
13 9 (3.98%) Linux Engineer
13 9 (3.98%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (7.08%) Yocto
2 12 (5.31%) Terraform
3 7 (3.10%) .NET
3 7 (3.10%) LDAP
3 7 (3.10%) OpenTofu
3 7 (3.10%) XML
4 6 (2.65%) JSON
4 6 (2.65%) REST
5 5 (2.21%) Middleware
6 4 (1.77%) HTML
7 3 (1.33%) ADO
7 3 (1.33%) COM
7 3 (1.33%) CSS
7 3 (1.33%) FastAPI
7 3 (1.33%) HTML5
7 3 (1.33%) Kafka
7 3 (1.33%) ODBC
7 3 (1.33%) WebSphere MQ
8 2 (0.88%) Keycloak
8 2 (0.88%) QML
Miscellaneous
1 34 (15.04%) Embedded Systems
2 19 (8.41%) Device Driver
3 18 (7.96%) FPGA
3 18 (7.96%) RISC-V
4 11 (4.87%) Legacy Systems
4 11 (4.87%) MicroBlaze
5 10 (4.42%) Private Cloud
6 9 (3.98%) Algorithms
6 9 (3.98%) PCIe
7 8 (3.54%) Distributed Systems
8 7 (3.10%) Verilog
8 7 (3.10%) VHDL
9 5 (2.21%) Cloud Native
9 5 (2.21%) Data Protection Act
9 5 (2.21%) IoT
9 5 (2.21%) Virtual Team
10 4 (1.77%) AI Agents
10 4 (1.77%) ARM Cortex
10 4 (1.77%) Data Structures
11 3 (1.33%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 73 (32.30%) Linux
2 24 (10.62%) Embedded Linux
3 15 (6.64%) Unix
4 13 (5.75%) FreeRTOS
4 13 (5.75%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 8 (3.54%) Windows
6 2 (0.88%) Android
7 1 (0.44%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.44%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.44%) VxWorks
7 1 (0.44%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 124 (54.87%) Software Engineering
2 43 (19.03%) Agile
3 27 (11.95%) Problem-Solving
3 27 (11.95%) Signal Processing
4 24 (10.62%) DevOps
4 24 (10.62%) Validation
5 23 (10.18%) CI/CD
5 23 (10.18%) UML
6 22 (9.73%) Test Automation
7 21 (9.29%) Digital Signal Processing
8 20 (8.85%) Systems Engineering
9 19 (8.41%) Data Management
10 16 (7.08%) Configuration Management
10 16 (7.08%) Integration Testing
10 16 (7.08%) Software Testing
11 15 (6.64%) Technical Leadership
12 13 (5.75%) AI
12 13 (5.75%) Migration
13 12 (5.31%) System Integration Testing
14 11 (4.87%) Open Source
Programming Languages
1 124 (54.87%) C++
2 56 (24.78%) Python
3 36 (15.93%) Embedded C
4 30 (13.27%) SQL
5 21 (9.29%) Java
6 18 (7.96%) Ada
6 18 (7.96%) PL/SQL
7 15 (6.64%) ProC
8 11 (4.87%) MATLAB
9 10 (4.42%) C#
10 9 (3.98%) Perl
11 7 (3.10%) Embedded C++
11 7 (3.10%) Rust
11 7 (3.10%) SystemVerilog
12 6 (2.65%) PowerShell
13 5 (2.21%) Bash
13 5 (2.21%) JavaScript
13 5 (2.21%) VB
13 5 (2.21%) VB6
14 4 (1.77%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 54 (23.89%) Security Cleared
2 43 (19.03%) SC Cleared
3 22 (9.73%) Degree
4 6 (2.65%) DV Cleared
5 5 (2.21%) Master's Degree
6 4 (1.77%) BPSS Clearance
7 2 (0.88%) Computer Science Degree
8 1 (0.44%) AWS Certification
8 1 (0.44%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 1 (0.44%) CCNA
8 1 (0.44%) Cisco Certification
8 1 (0.44%) CompTIA CySA+
8 1 (0.44%) GCIA
8 1 (0.44%) GCIH
8 1 (0.44%) GIAC
8 1 (0.44%) Microsoft Certified Professional
8 1 (0.44%) PhD
8 1 (0.44%) Six Sigma Black Belt
8 1 (0.44%) Six Sigma Green Belt
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (7.52%) QA
2 9 (3.98%) Def Stans
2 9 (3.98%) MISRA
3 8 (3.54%) DO-178B
4 3 (1.33%) ISO 15022
4 3 (1.33%) ISO 20022
5 2 (0.88%) ISO 26262
6 1 (0.44%) Data Quality
6 1 (0.44%) Disclosure Scotland
6 1 (0.44%) ISO 14001
6 1 (0.44%) ISO 8583
6 1 (0.44%) ISO 9001
6 1 (0.44%) MIL-STD-1553
6 1 (0.44%) NCSC
6 1 (0.44%) NIST
6 1 (0.44%) NIST 800
6 1 (0.44%) PCI DSS
6 1 (0.44%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 33 (14.60%) Firmware
2 18 (7.96%) Embedded Firmware
3 11 (4.87%) Docker
4 9 (3.98%) Active Directory
4 9 (3.98%) VMware Infrastructure
5 8 (3.54%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.88%) Oracle RAC
7 1 (0.44%) KVM
7 1 (0.44%) Slurm Workload Manager
7 1 (0.44%) Squid
Systems Management
1 11 (4.87%) Puppet
2 10 (4.42%) Kubernetes
2 10 (4.42%) Progress Chef
3 5 (2.21%) Ansible
4 3 (1.33%) Grafana
5 2 (0.88%) Prometheus
5 2 (0.88%) Salt
6 1 (0.44%) Control-M
6 1 (0.44%) Kibana
6 1 (0.44%) Nagios
6 1 (0.44%) Packer
Vendors
1 27 (11.95%) Oracle
2 12 (5.31%) IBM
3 11 (4.87%) VMware
4 10 (4.42%) SaltStack
5 8 (3.54%) Red Hat
6 7 (3.10%) Xilinx
7 5 (2.21%) Intel
7 5 (2.21%) Microsemi
7 5 (2.21%) Microsoft
8 4 (1.77%) Cisco
9 3 (1.33%) Actian
9 3 (1.33%) MathWorks
9 3 (1.33%) Splunk
10 2 (0.88%) Dynatrace
10 2 (0.88%) EMC
10 2 (0.88%) HP
10 2 (0.88%) OpenAI
10 2 (0.88%) QNX
10 2 (0.88%) Sitecore
11 1 (0.44%) Murex