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

6 months to
27 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 406 327 188
Rank change year-on-year -79 -139 +66
Contract jobs citing C 216 199 550
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.49% 0.69% 1.24%
As % of the Programming Languages category 1.71% 2.01% 4.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 68 86 225
10th Percentile £335 £272 £325
25th Percentile £413 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £500 £534
Median % change year-on-year -3.75% -6.28% -11.08%
75th Percentile £550 £625 £588
90th Percentile £625 £750 £704
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £471 £538
% change year-on-year +2.12% -12.33% +4.62%
Number of hourly rates quoted 88 42 185
10th Percentile £60.00 £55.25 £46.25
25th Percentile £65.00 £62.00 £59.00
Median hourly rate £67.50 £70.25 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -3.91% +8.08% +13.04%
75th Percentile £70.00 £85.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £71.13 £94.50 £88.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.50 £70.25 £65.00
% change year-on-year -3.91% +8.08% -

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 12,666 9,904 12,925
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 28.72% 34.12% 29.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,400 6,663 9,134
10th Percentile £352 £356 £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 £716 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £480 £488
% change year-on-year -1.04% -1.54% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 516 243 482
10th Percentile £40.63 £22.27 £30.69
25th Percentile £53.69 £34.13 £46.20
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% +4.17% -4.00%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £67.38
90th Percentile £77.25 £85.00 £74.94
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £64.00 £61.60
% change year-on-year +1.56% +3.90% -3.75%

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 27 March 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 27 March 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 27 March 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 -77 204 £500 - 451
UK excluding London -42 168 £481 +2.12% 448
East of England -3 68 £500 +21.21% 88
Work from Home -31 66 £475 -5.00% 117
South West +2 51 £450 -24.37% 80
London -94 44 £475 -17.39% 43
South East -41 27 £500 - 129
North of England -63 8 £531 - 58
Northern Ireland +1 5 £425 - 7
Scotland -4 5 £65 -77.19% 22
Midlands -67 4 £525 +213.43% 66
Yorkshire -54 3 £531 - 29
North West - 3 £450 - 20
West Midlands - 3 £488 - 33
North East - 2 £625 - 9
Wales -10 1 £460 -12.38% 12
East Midlands -35 1 £525 +213.43% 33

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 (1.85%) Confluence
2 1 (0.46%) Apache
2 1 (0.46%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (0.46%) SharePoint
Applications
1 9 (4.17%) Simulink
2 4 (1.85%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.93%) Microsoft Excel
4 1 (0.46%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 5 (2.31%) BASE24
1 5 (2.31%) Payment Gateway
2 1 (0.46%) Actimize
2 1 (0.46%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.46%) Dynamics NAV
2 1 (0.46%) Loan IQ
2 1 (0.46%) Oracle Applications
2 1 (0.46%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (0.46%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 13 (6.02%) Azure
2 12 (5.56%) AWS
3 9 (4.17%) GitHub
4 6 (2.78%) Azure DevOps
4 6 (2.78%) Power Platform
5 5 (2.31%) GCP
6 3 (1.39%) Amazon S3
6 3 (1.39%) AWS CloudFormation
6 3 (1.39%) Dynamics 365
7 2 (0.93%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 2 (0.93%) Amazon EKS
7 2 (0.93%) Azure Monitor
7 2 (0.93%) GitHub Actions
7 2 (0.93%) IaaS
8 1 (0.46%) Amazon ECS
8 1 (0.46%) Azure AKS
8 1 (0.46%) ChatGPT
8 1 (0.46%) Copilot Studio
8 1 (0.46%) GitHub Copilot
8 1 (0.46%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 19 (8.80%) Ethernet
2 7 (3.24%) RS-232
2 7 (3.24%) TCP/IP
3 6 (2.78%) 3GPP
3 6 (2.78%) Modbus
3 6 (2.78%) RS-485
4 5 (2.31%) Wireless
5 4 (1.85%) Network Security
5 4 (1.85%) Software-Defined Radio
6 3 (1.39%) 5G
6 3 (1.39%) 5G NR
6 3 (1.39%) Bluetooth
6 3 (1.39%) LTE
6 3 (1.39%) MVNO
6 3 (1.39%) RS-422
6 3 (1.39%) SMPP
6 3 (1.39%) SMS
7 2 (0.93%) HTTP
7 2 (0.93%) MPLS
7 2 (0.93%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (2.78%) NonStop SQL
2 5 (2.31%) OLTP
2 5 (2.31%) Power BI
3 3 (1.39%) Oracle Database
3 3 (1.39%) PostgreSQL
3 3 (1.39%) Tableau
4 2 (0.93%) Data Warehouse
4 2 (0.93%) Metadata
4 2 (0.93%) MongoDB
4 2 (0.93%) NoSQL
4 2 (0.93%) SQL Server
5 1 (0.46%) Amazon Athena
5 1 (0.46%) Amazon Redshift
5 1 (0.46%) Apache Cassandra
5 1 (0.46%) Apache Hudi
5 1 (0.46%) Apache Iceberg
5 1 (0.46%) Azure SQL Database
5 1 (0.46%) Data Lake
5 1 (0.46%) MySQL
5 1 (0.46%) Oracle Exadata
Development Applications
1 24 (11.11%) Rational DOORS
2 22 (10.19%) Git
3 17 (7.87%) JIRA
4 16 (7.41%) Rational Rhapsody
5 8 (3.70%) PVCS
6 7 (3.24%) GitLab
6 7 (3.24%) Visual Studio
7 3 (1.39%) Jenkins
7 3 (1.39%) Subversion
8 2 (0.93%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 2 (0.93%) JMeter
8 2 (0.93%) Selenium
8 2 (0.93%) SonarQube
9 1 (0.46%) ClearCase
9 1 (0.46%) LoadRunner
9 1 (0.46%) NUnit
9 1 (0.46%) Oracle Forms
9 1 (0.46%) PowerBuilder
9 1 (0.46%) PowerDesigner
9 1 (0.46%) Xcode
General
1 38 (17.59%) Social Skills
2 36 (16.67%) Electronics
3 23 (10.65%) Aerospace
4 21 (9.72%) Analytical Skills
5 17 (7.87%) Finance
6 13 (6.02%) Documentation Skills
7 12 (5.56%) Law
8 9 (4.17%) Manufacturing
9 7 (3.24%) Banking
9 7 (3.24%) Public Sector
10 5 (2.31%) Automotive
11 4 (1.85%) Avionics
11 4 (1.85%) Games
12 3 (1.39%) Military
12 3 (1.39%) Telecoms
13 2 (0.93%) Japanese Language
13 2 (0.93%) Publishing
14 1 (0.46%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 1 (0.46%) Korean Language
14 1 (0.46%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 81 (37.50%) Software Engineer
2 70 (32.41%) Embedded Engineer
3 47 (21.76%) Embedded Software Engineer
4 34 (15.74%) Developer
5 27 (12.50%) C Software Engineer
6 23 (10.65%) C++ Software Engineer
7 21 (9.72%) C/C++ Software Engineer
8 19 (8.80%) Embedded C Engineer
8 19 (8.80%) Embedded C Software Engineer
9 13 (6.02%) C/C++ Embedded Software Engineer
9 13 (6.02%) Embedded C/C++ Engineer
9 13 (6.02%) Embedded C/C++ Software Engineer
9 13 (6.02%) Embedded C++ Engineer
9 13 (6.02%) Embedded C++ Software Engineer
10 12 (5.56%) Lead
11 10 (4.63%) Senior
11 10 (4.63%) Software Developer
11 10 (4.63%) Validation Engineer
12 9 (4.17%) FPGA Engineer
13 8 (3.70%) C++ Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (5.09%) Middleware
2 10 (4.63%) Yocto
3 8 (3.70%) .NET
4 6 (2.78%) WinForms
5 5 (2.31%) Flash
5 5 (2.31%) HTML
6 3 (1.39%) ARM Templates
6 3 (1.39%) JSON
6 3 (1.39%) Kafka
7 2 (0.93%) HTML5
7 2 (0.93%) Protocol Buffers
7 2 (0.93%) Qt
7 2 (0.93%) REST
7 2 (0.93%) RESTful
7 2 (0.93%) WebSockets
8 1 (0.46%) .NET Framework
8 1 (0.46%) OAuth
8 1 (0.46%) OpenID
8 1 (0.46%) WCF
8 1 (0.46%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 39 (18.06%) Embedded Systems
2 33 (15.28%) FPGA
3 17 (7.87%) VHDL
4 15 (6.94%) PCIe
5 8 (3.70%) Verilog
6 6 (2.78%) Algorithms
6 6 (2.78%) Tandem
7 5 (2.31%) Device Driver
7 5 (2.31%) EMV
8 4 (1.85%) Cloud Native
8 4 (1.85%) Data Centre
8 4 (1.85%) IoT
8 4 (1.85%) MicroBlaze
8 4 (1.85%) RISC-V
9 3 (1.39%) CUDA
9 3 (1.39%) Cyber Threat
9 3 (1.39%) Java Card
9 3 (1.39%) Legacy Systems
10 2 (0.93%) CAN bus
10 2 (0.93%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 51 (23.61%) Linux
2 16 (7.41%) Embedded Linux
3 11 (5.09%) Windows
4 8 (3.70%) FreeRTOS
5 5 (2.31%) Ubuntu
6 2 (0.93%) Unix
7 1 (0.46%) Android
7 1 (0.46%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.46%) Debian
7 1 (0.46%) OpenVMS
7 1 (0.46%) Windows Embedded Compact
Processes & Methodologies
1 117 (54.17%) Software Engineering
2 45 (20.83%) Validation
3 36 (16.67%) Problem-Solving
4 32 (14.81%) CI/CD
5 31 (14.35%) Test Automation
6 25 (11.57%) Workflow
7 19 (8.80%) DevOps
7 19 (8.80%) Unit Testing
8 18 (8.33%) Embedded Software Development
8 18 (8.33%) Signal Processing
9 17 (7.87%) Agile
10 16 (7.41%) Requirements Analysis
10 16 (7.41%) Verification and Validation
11 15 (6.94%) Software Testing
11 15 (6.94%) Workflow Management
12 12 (5.56%) AI
12 12 (5.56%) TDD
13 11 (5.09%) Containerisation
13 11 (5.09%) Performance Tuning
13 11 (5.09%) Test Strategy
Programming Languages
1 122 (56.48%) C++
2 49 (22.69%) Python
3 35 (16.20%) Embedded C
4 26 (12.04%) Ada
5 23 (10.65%) SQL
6 21 (9.72%) Embedded C++
7 16 (7.41%) MATLAB
8 14 (6.48%) Java
9 12 (5.56%) JavaScript
10 9 (4.17%) Bash
10 9 (4.17%) Shell Script
11 8 (3.70%) C#
11 8 (3.70%) PL/SQL
12 7 (3.24%) Rust
12 7 (3.24%) SystemVerilog
13 5 (2.31%) COBOL
13 5 (2.31%) ProC
14 2 (0.93%) Perl
14 2 (0.93%) PowerShell
14 2 (0.93%) VB
Qualifications
1 63 (29.17%) Security Cleared
2 49 (22.69%) SC Cleared
3 16 (7.41%) Degree
4 8 (3.70%) BPSS Clearance
4 8 (3.70%) DV Cleared
5 3 (1.39%) Computer Science Degree
5 3 (1.39%) ISTQB
6 2 (0.93%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
7 1 (0.46%) Azure Certification
7 1 (0.46%) CCNA
7 1 (0.46%) Cisco Certification
7 1 (0.46%) ISTQB Advanced 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 26 (12.04%) Def Stans
2 12 (5.56%) MISRA
3 11 (5.09%) DO-178B
4 9 (4.17%) QA
5 6 (2.78%) IEC 61508
6 5 (2.31%) ISO 8583
7 4 (1.85%) PCI DSS
8 3 (1.39%) Data Quality
9 2 (0.93%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 2 (0.93%) MIL-STD-1553
9 2 (0.93%) MISRA C
10 1 (0.46%) Accessibility
10 1 (0.46%) AUTOSAR
10 1 (0.46%) DICOM
10 1 (0.46%) HL7
10 1 (0.46%) IFRS
10 1 (0.46%) IFRS 9
10 1 (0.46%) ISO 26262
10 1 (0.46%) MiFID
10 1 (0.46%) NIST
System Software
1 25 (11.57%) Firmware
2 15 (6.94%) Docker
3 11 (5.09%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (4.63%) Virtual Machines
5 6 (2.78%) Embedded Firmware
6 2 (0.93%) vCloud
6 2 (0.93%) VMware NSX
6 2 (0.93%) vSphere
7 1 (0.46%) FreeRADIUS
Systems Management
1 12 (5.56%) Kubernetes
2 9 (4.17%) Terraform
3 3 (1.39%) Ansible
4 2 (0.93%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.46%) Functional Safety
5 1 (0.46%) Grafana
5 1 (0.46%) HP ALM
Vendors
1 13 (6.02%) IBM
2 11 (5.09%) VMware
3 9 (4.17%) Xilinx
4 8 (3.70%) ANSYS
4 8 (3.70%) Intel
4 8 (3.70%) Oracle
5 7 (3.24%) HP
5 7 (3.24%) Microsoft
6 5 (2.31%) Microsemi
7 4 (1.85%) Cisco
7 4 (1.85%) Lauterbach
7 4 (1.85%) MathWorks
7 4 (1.85%) Red Hat
7 4 (1.85%) SAP
8 3 (1.39%) Thales
9 2 (0.93%) Dell
9 2 (0.93%) Google
9 2 (0.93%) Perforce
10 1 (0.46%) Bloomberg
10 1 (0.46%) Salesforce