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

6 months to
2 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 397 354 189
Rank change year-on-year -43 -165 +48
Contract jobs citing C 226 176 560
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.48% 0.60% 1.29%
As % of the Programming Languages category 1.75% 1.76% 4.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 63 70 237
10th Percentile £356 £269 £325
25th Percentile £413 £328 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £535
Median % change year-on-year - -11.21% -4.80%
75th Percentile £550 £594 £588
90th Percentile £626 £669 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £413 £538
% change year-on-year +21.21% -23.33% +7.60%
Number of hourly rates quoted 90 40 191
10th Percentile £60.00 £54.70 £46.25
25th Percentile £65.00 £61.50 £59.00
Median hourly rate £67.50 £68.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -0.74% +4.62% +12.07%
75th Percentile £70.00 £85.00 £70.00
90th Percentile - £87.50 £85.00
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 12,905 10,011 12,860
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 27.28% 34.13% 29.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,540 6,791 9,134
10th Percentile £355 £360 £350
25th Percentile £413 £419 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £650
90th Percentile £713 £769 £763
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £488
% change year-on-year - -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 561 247 486
10th Percentile £41.94 £22.49 £31.63
25th Percentile £54.55 £33.91 £46.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £60.50
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% +3.31% +0.83%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £85.00 £79.59
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £64.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year +1.56% +2.40% +2.17%

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 May 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 May 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 2 May 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 -38 214 £500 - 374
UK excluding London -18 175 £500 +21.21% 357
Work from Home -25 74 £468 -6.50% 132
East of England 0 70 £525 +31.25% 78
South West -2 49 £475 -20.83% 58
London -87 44 £447 -10.60% 46
South East -28 39 £500 - 107
North of England -58 5 £625 - 65
Midlands -69 5 £525 +213.43% 35
Northern Ireland - 5 £425 -
West Midlands - 4 £488 - 14
Scotland -9 2 - - 19
North East -18 2 £625 - 15
North West - 2 - - 31
Wales -8 1 £460 -12.38% 8
East Midlands -39 1 £525 +213.43% 21
Yorkshire -49 1 - - 19

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 4 (1.77%) Confluence
2 2 (0.88%) Oracle SOA Suite
2 2 (0.88%) Oracle Workflow
3 1 (0.44%) Apache
3 1 (0.44%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.44%) SharePoint
Applications
1 9 (3.98%) Simulink
2 4 (1.77%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.44%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 5 (2.21%) BASE24
1 5 (2.21%) Payment Gateway
2 3 (1.33%) Teamcenter
3 1 (0.44%) Actimize
3 1 (0.44%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.44%) Dynamics NAV
3 1 (0.44%) Loan IQ
3 1 (0.44%) Oracle Applications
3 1 (0.44%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 12 (5.31%) Azure
2 11 (4.87%) AWS
3 9 (3.98%) GitHub
4 6 (2.65%) Azure DevOps
5 5 (2.21%) Power Platform
6 3 (1.33%) GCP
6 3 (1.33%) GitHub Actions
7 2 (0.88%) Amazon S3
7 2 (0.88%) AWS CloudFormation
7 2 (0.88%) AWS IoT
7 2 (0.88%) Azure Monitor
7 2 (0.88%) Dynamics 365
7 2 (0.88%) GitHub Copilot
7 2 (0.88%) IaaS
8 1 (0.44%) Amazon EKS
8 1 (0.44%) Azure Data Factory
8 1 (0.44%) Azure Storage
8 1 (0.44%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 1 (0.44%) BlazeMeter
8 1 (0.44%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 24 (10.62%) Ethernet
2 18 (7.96%) Wireless
3 16 (7.08%) Software-Defined Radio
4 6 (2.65%) 3GPP
4 6 (2.65%) Modbus
4 6 (2.65%) RS-232
4 6 (2.65%) RS-485
4 6 (2.65%) TCP/IP
5 4 (1.77%) Network Security
6 3 (1.33%) 5G
6 3 (1.33%) 5G NR
6 3 (1.33%) Bluetooth
6 3 (1.33%) DNS
6 3 (1.33%) LTE
6 3 (1.33%) MQTT
6 3 (1.33%) MVNO
6 3 (1.33%) RS-422
6 3 (1.33%) SMPP
6 3 (1.33%) SpaceWire
6 3 (1.33%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (2.65%) NonStop SQL
2 5 (2.21%) OLTP
2 5 (2.21%) Power BI
2 5 (2.21%) SQL Server
3 4 (1.77%) PostgreSQL
4 3 (1.33%) MongoDB
4 3 (1.33%) NoSQL
4 3 (1.33%) Tableau
5 2 (0.88%) Data Warehouse
5 2 (0.88%) Metadata
5 2 (0.88%) Oracle Database
6 1 (0.44%) Amazon Athena
6 1 (0.44%) Amazon Redshift
6 1 (0.44%) Apache Hudi
6 1 (0.44%) Apache Iceberg
6 1 (0.44%) Data Lake
6 1 (0.44%) MySQL
6 1 (0.44%) Redis
6 1 (0.44%) Relational Database
6 1 (0.44%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 29 (12.83%) Rational DOORS
2 22 (9.73%) Git
3 17 (7.52%) JIRA
4 15 (6.64%) Rational Rhapsody
5 9 (3.98%) GitLab
6 8 (3.54%) PVCS
7 6 (2.65%) Visual Studio
8 3 (1.33%) Subversion
9 2 (0.88%) Jenkins
10 1 (0.44%) Appium
10 1 (0.44%) CMake
10 1 (0.44%) Crashlytics
10 1 (0.44%) Cucumber
10 1 (0.44%) ER Studio
10 1 (0.44%) fastlane
10 1 (0.44%) git-flow
10 1 (0.44%) GoogleTest
10 1 (0.44%) Postman
10 1 (0.44%) Robot Framework
10 1 (0.44%) SonarQube
General
1 44 (19.47%) Social Skills
2 32 (14.16%) Electronics
3 26 (11.50%) Aerospace
4 20 (8.85%) Analytical Skills
5 15 (6.64%) Finance
6 13 (5.75%) Documentation Skills
6 13 (5.75%) Law
7 10 (4.42%) Manufacturing
8 7 (3.10%) Banking
9 5 (2.21%) Public Sector
10 4 (1.77%) Automotive
10 4 (1.77%) Avionics
10 4 (1.77%) Games
11 3 (1.33%) Military
11 3 (1.33%) Telecoms
12 2 (0.88%) Japanese Language
12 2 (0.88%) Publishing
13 1 (0.44%) Korean Language
13 1 (0.44%) Local Government
13 1 (0.44%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 94 (41.59%) Software Engineer
2 80 (35.40%) Embedded Engineer
3 57 (25.22%) Embedded Software Engineer
4 34 (15.04%) Developer
5 27 (11.95%) C Software Engineer
6 24 (10.62%) C++ Software Engineer
7 23 (10.18%) C/C++ Software Engineer
8 17 (7.52%) Embedded C Engineer
8 17 (7.52%) Embedded C Software Engineer
9 13 (5.75%) C/C++ Embedded Software Engineer
9 13 (5.75%) Embedded C/C++ Engineer
9 13 (5.75%) Embedded C/C++ Software Engineer
9 13 (5.75%) Embedded C++ Engineer
9 13 (5.75%) Embedded C++ Software Engineer
10 12 (5.31%) Lead
10 12 (5.31%) Senior
11 10 (4.42%) Software Developer
11 10 (4.42%) Validation Engineer
12 9 (3.98%) FPGA Engineer
12 9 (3.98%) Test Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (6.19%) Yocto
2 7 (3.10%) .NET
3 6 (2.65%) Middleware
3 6 (2.65%) WinForms
4 4 (1.77%) HTML
4 4 (1.77%) Kafka
5 3 (1.33%) ARM Templates
5 3 (1.33%) Itk
5 3 (1.33%) JSON
5 3 (1.33%) REST
6 2 (0.88%) Flash
6 2 (0.88%) HTML5
6 2 (0.88%) Qt
6 2 (0.88%) RESTful
7 1 (0.44%) GStreamer
7 1 (0.44%) NumPy
7 1 (0.44%) OpenID
7 1 (0.44%) RabbitMQ
7 1 (0.44%) SciPy
7 1 (0.44%) SQLAlchemy
Miscellaneous
1 43 (19.03%) Embedded Systems
2 40 (17.70%) FPGA
3 20 (8.85%) PCIe
4 14 (6.19%) VHDL
5 9 (3.98%) Algorithms
5 9 (3.98%) Device Driver
6 8 (3.54%) Verilog
7 7 (3.10%) IoT
7 7 (3.10%) MicroBlaze
7 7 (3.10%) RISC-V
8 6 (2.65%) Tandem
9 5 (2.21%) Data Centre
9 5 (2.21%) EMV
10 3 (1.33%) Cloud Native
10 3 (1.33%) Cyber Threat
10 3 (1.33%) Java Card
10 3 (1.33%) Legacy Systems
11 2 (0.88%) Data Structures
11 2 (0.88%) Legacy Code
11 2 (0.88%) Video\Live Streaming
Operating Systems
1 56 (24.78%) Linux
2 20 (8.85%) Embedded Linux
3 13 (5.75%) FreeRTOS
4 11 (4.87%) Windows
5 3 (1.33%) Unix
6 1 (0.44%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.44%) Debian
6 1 (0.44%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.44%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 126 (55.75%) Software Engineering
2 47 (20.80%) Validation
3 38 (16.81%) Problem-Solving
4 33 (14.60%) Test Automation
5 30 (13.27%) Workflow
6 27 (11.95%) CI/CD
7 26 (11.50%) Signal Processing
8 21 (9.29%) Digital Signal Processing
9 19 (8.41%) Embedded Software Development
10 18 (7.96%) Agile
11 17 (7.52%) Unit Testing
11 17 (7.52%) Workflow Management
12 16 (7.08%) DevOps
12 16 (7.08%) Requirements Analysis
12 16 (7.08%) Verification and Validation
13 14 (6.19%) Technical Leadership
13 14 (6.19%) UML
14 13 (5.75%) Software Testing
15 12 (5.31%) Systems Engineering
15 12 (5.31%) TDD
Programming Languages
1 121 (53.54%) C++
2 55 (24.34%) Python
3 44 (19.47%) Embedded C
4 29 (12.83%) Ada
5 24 (10.62%) SQL
6 21 (9.29%) Embedded C++
6 21 (9.29%) MATLAB
7 18 (7.96%) Java
8 11 (4.87%) Bash
9 9 (3.98%) C#
10 7 (3.10%) PL/SQL
10 7 (3.10%) SystemVerilog
11 6 (2.65%) Shell Script
12 5 (2.21%) COBOL
12 5 (2.21%) Rust
13 4 (1.77%) JavaScript
13 4 (1.77%) ProC
14 2 (0.88%) Perl
14 2 (0.88%) VB
15 1 (0.44%) Swift
Qualifications
1 60 (26.55%) Security Cleared
2 45 (19.91%) SC Cleared
3 15 (6.64%) Degree
4 9 (3.98%) DV Cleared
5 8 (3.54%) BPSS Clearance
6 2 (0.88%) CCNA
6 2 (0.88%) Cisco Certification
6 2 (0.88%) Computer Science Degree
6 2 (0.88%) ISTQB
7 1 (0.44%) Azure Certification
7 1 (0.44%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
7 1 (0.44%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
7 1 (0.44%) Six Sigma Black Belt
7 1 (0.44%) Six Sigma Green Belt
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (9.29%) Def Stans
2 12 (5.31%) QA
3 7 (3.10%) DO-178B
3 7 (3.10%) MISRA
4 5 (2.21%) IEC 61508
4 5 (2.21%) ISO 8583
5 4 (1.77%) PCI DSS
6 3 (1.33%) Data Quality
6 3 (1.33%) MIL-STD-1553
7 1 (0.44%) Accessibility
7 1 (0.44%) DICOM
7 1 (0.44%) DO-254
7 1 (0.44%) HL7
7 1 (0.44%) IFRS
7 1 (0.44%) IFRS 9
7 1 (0.44%) ISO 14001
7 1 (0.44%) ISO 9001
7 1 (0.44%) MiFID
7 1 (0.44%) MISRA C
System Software
1 25 (11.06%) Firmware
2 12 (5.31%) Docker
3 11 (4.87%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (4.42%) Virtual Machines
5 9 (3.98%) Embedded Firmware
6 2 (0.88%) Oracle RAC
6 2 (0.88%) vCloud
6 2 (0.88%) VMware NSX
6 2 (0.88%) vSphere
7 1 (0.44%) FreeRADIUS
Systems Management
1 9 (3.98%) Kubernetes
2 7 (3.10%) Terraform
3 4 (1.77%) Ansible
4 2 (0.88%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.44%) Grafana
5 1 (0.44%) HP ALM
5 1 (0.44%) Nagios
Vendors
1 16 (7.08%) IBM
2 11 (4.87%) VMware
3 9 (3.98%) Xilinx
4 8 (3.54%) ANSYS
4 8 (3.54%) Cisco
4 8 (3.54%) Intel
4 8 (3.54%) Oracle
5 7 (3.10%) HP
5 7 (3.10%) MathWorks
5 7 (3.10%) Microsoft
6 5 (2.21%) Microsemi
7 4 (1.77%) Lauterbach
7 4 (1.77%) SAP
8 3 (1.33%) Google
8 3 (1.33%) Thales
9 2 (0.88%) Dell
9 2 (0.88%) Perforce
10 1 (0.44%) Citrix
10 1 (0.44%) EMC
10 1 (0.44%) Veritas