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 16 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 396 281 192
Rank change year-on-year -115 -89 +84
Contract jobs citing C 211 295 543
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.57% 0.86% 1.23%
As % of the Programming Languages category 1.83% 2.65% 4.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 70 110 236
10th Percentile £68 £400 £325
25th Percentile £403 £457 £447
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £534 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.32% -2.95% -8.33%
75th Percentile £584 £638 £638
90th Percentile £650 £810 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 62 47 147
10th Percentile £52.00 £52.00 £51.90
25th Percentile £65.00 £61.25 £61.25
Median hourly rate £67.00 £65.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +3.08% - +12.07%
75th Percentile £72.81 £85.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £76.13 £95.00 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £66.50 £67.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year -1.48% +3.85% -

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 11,513 11,120 13,573
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.36% 32.48% 30.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,608 7,150 9,660
10th Percentile £350 £350 £360
25th Percentile £413 £425 £431
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.76% -4.55% -2.65%
75th Percentile £619 £650 £650
90th Percentile £725 £751 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -3.06% -2.00% -3.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 367 264 419
10th Percentile £31.25 £21.48 £32.32
25th Percentile £50.00 £40.06 £47.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% - -
75th Percentile £68.75 £68.19 £70.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £85.00 £78.15
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £63.87 £65.00
% change year-on-year +1.77% -1.73% -

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 16 December 2025.

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 16 December 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for C in the UK

C
Top 15 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 16 December 2025. 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 -103 190 £500 -5.66% 283
UK excluding London -74 159 £500 - 298
East of England -10 66 £475 -11.63% 92
Work from Home -33 52 £450 -10.00% 143
South West -21 47 £500 -0.20% 56
London -50 41 £510 -16.73% 35
Scotland +16 16 £438 - 30
North of England -40 14 £475 -13.64% 30
South East -45 11 £500 +6.95% 89
North West -29 9 £463 +15.63% 20
Yorkshire -44 5 £500 -28.57% 6
Midlands -41 4 £575 +48.39% 20
East Midlands -14 2 - - 12
West Midlands -35 2 £575 +48.39% 8
Northern Ireland -5 1 £425 - 4

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 16 (7.58%) WebLogic
2 15 (7.11%) WebSphere
3 3 (1.42%) Confluence
4 2 (0.95%) OpenStack
5 1 (0.47%) Apache
5 1 (0.47%) Microsoft Exchange
5 1 (0.47%) nginx
5 1 (0.47%) SharePoint
5 1 (0.47%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 17 (8.06%) Simulink
2 9 (4.27%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (2.84%) Stateflow
4 5 (2.37%) Microsoft Excel
4 5 (2.37%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 3 (1.42%) BASE24
1 3 (1.42%) Payment Gateway
2 2 (0.95%) Teamcenter
3 1 (0.47%) Actimize
3 1 (0.47%) Oracle Applications
3 1 (0.47%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 22 (10.43%) AWS
2 20 (9.48%) Azure
3 16 (7.58%) GitHub
4 12 (5.69%) GCP
5 5 (2.37%) OpenShift
6 4 (1.90%) Amazon EKS
6 4 (1.90%) Amazon S3
7 3 (1.42%) Amazon ECS
7 3 (1.42%) AWS CloudFormation
7 3 (1.42%) AWS Lambda
7 3 (1.42%) IaaS
7 3 (1.42%) Serverless
8 2 (0.95%) Azure DevOps
8 2 (0.95%) Cloud Computing
8 2 (0.95%) npm
8 2 (0.95%) PaaS
8 2 (0.95%) SaaS
9 1 (0.47%) Amazon EC2
9 1 (0.47%) Microsoft 365
9 1 (0.47%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 9 (4.27%) Ethernet
2 7 (3.32%) RS-232
3 5 (2.37%) SpaceWire
3 5 (2.37%) TCP/IP
4 3 (1.42%) 3GPP
4 3 (1.42%) Firewall
4 3 (1.42%) HTTP
4 3 (1.42%) Wi-Fi
5 2 (0.95%) AMQP
5 2 (0.95%) Anycast
5 2 (0.95%) BGP
5 2 (0.95%) Bluetooth
5 2 (0.95%) DNS
5 2 (0.95%) Modbus
5 2 (0.95%) Network Security
5 2 (0.95%) Radio Access Network
5 2 (0.95%) RS-485
5 2 (0.95%) Software-Defined Networking
5 2 (0.95%) VXLAN
5 2 (0.95%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (4.74%) Oracle Database
2 4 (1.90%) NonStop SQL
2 4 (1.90%) OLTP
3 3 (1.42%) Elasticsearch
3 3 (1.42%) PostgreSQL
4 2 (0.95%) Amazon RDS
4 2 (0.95%) InfluxDB
4 2 (0.95%) MongoDB
4 2 (0.95%) RDBMS
4 2 (0.95%) Relational Database
5 1 (0.47%) Big Data
5 1 (0.47%) Data Lake
5 1 (0.47%) HPCC
5 1 (0.47%) Metadata
5 1 (0.47%) MySQL
5 1 (0.47%) Oracle Exadata
5 1 (0.47%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 20 (9.48%) Rational DOORS
2 19 (9.00%) Git
3 12 (5.69%) Jenkins
4 10 (4.74%) JIRA
5 9 (4.27%) ClearCase
5 9 (4.27%) GitLab
6 6 (2.84%) Rational Team Concert
7 5 (2.37%) Gradle
7 5 (2.37%) PVCS
7 5 (2.37%) Rational Rhapsody
8 4 (1.90%) Artifactory
8 4 (1.90%) Clang
8 4 (1.90%) GCC
8 4 (1.90%) Visual Studio
9 3 (1.42%) KGDB
9 3 (1.42%) Maven
9 3 (1.42%) Xcode
10 2 (0.95%) Bitbucket
10 2 (0.95%) CMake
10 2 (0.95%) Selenium
General
1 34 (16.11%) Social Skills
2 32 (15.17%) Electronics
3 25 (11.85%) Finance
4 22 (10.43%) Analytical Skills
5 21 (9.95%) Aerospace
6 18 (8.53%) Public Sector
7 12 (5.69%) Law
8 10 (4.74%) Telecoms
9 9 (4.27%) Banking
10 7 (3.32%) Documentation Skills
10 7 (3.32%) Manufacturing
10 7 (3.32%) Military
11 6 (2.84%) Marketing
12 5 (2.37%) Aviation
13 3 (1.42%) Financial Institution
14 2 (0.95%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 1 (0.47%) Health Technology
15 1 (0.47%) Investment Banking
15 1 (0.47%) Local Government
15 1 (0.47%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 61 (28.91%) Software Engineer
2 32 (15.17%) Developer
3 31 (14.69%) Embedded Engineer
4 27 (12.80%) Embedded Software Engineer
5 16 (7.58%) Support Engineer
6 15 (7.11%) Consultant
7 14 (6.64%) C Software Engineer
8 13 (6.16%) Design Engineer
9 12 (5.69%) Architect
9 12 (5.69%) Product Engineer
9 12 (5.69%) Products Support Engineer
9 12 (5.69%) Senior
9 12 (5.69%) Software Support Engineer
10 11 (5.21%) Embedded C Engineer
10 11 (5.21%) Embedded C Software Engineer
10 11 (5.21%) Systems Engineer
11 10 (4.74%) C++ Software Engineer
11 10 (4.74%) Digital Design Engineer
12 8 (3.79%) C/C++ Software Engineer
12 8 (3.79%) C++ Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (14.69%) Middleware
2 27 (12.80%) HTML
3 21 (9.95%) Node.js
4 17 (8.06%) .NET
5 10 (4.74%) Flash
6 8 (3.79%) CSS
7 7 (3.32%) REST
8 6 (2.84%) React
8 6 (2.84%) Yocto
9 5 (2.37%) PyTorch
10 4 (1.90%) AngularJS
10 4 (1.90%) Google JAX
10 4 (1.90%) JAX
10 4 (1.90%) JSON
10 4 (1.90%) RESTful
10 4 (1.90%) TensorFlow
11 3 (1.42%) Electron
11 3 (1.42%) JNI
11 3 (1.42%) OpenEmbedded
11 3 (1.42%) scikit-learn
Miscellaneous
1 26 (12.32%) FPGA
2 25 (11.85%) Embedded Systems
3 18 (8.53%) VHDL
4 7 (3.32%) Analogue Electronics
4 7 (3.32%) CUDA
4 7 (3.32%) Verilog
5 6 (2.84%) Self-Motivation
6 5 (2.37%) Cloud Native
6 5 (2.37%) Data Centre
6 5 (2.37%) PCIe
7 4 (1.90%) CAN bus
7 4 (1.90%) Device Driver
7 4 (1.90%) Distributed Systems
7 4 (1.90%) EMV
7 4 (1.90%) Tandem
8 3 (1.42%) Algorithms
8 3 (1.42%) Hedge funds
8 3 (1.42%) Mobile App
8 3 (1.42%) Mobile Banking
8 3 (1.42%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 66 (31.28%) Linux
2 24 (11.37%) Windows
3 13 (6.16%) Ubuntu
4 9 (4.27%) FreeRTOS
5 6 (2.84%) Unix
6 5 (2.37%) CentOS
7 4 (1.90%) Android
8 3 (1.42%) Apple iOS
8 3 (1.42%) Mac OS
9 2 (0.95%) Embedded Linux
9 2 (0.95%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 1 (0.47%) Debian
10 1 (0.47%) OpenVMS
10 1 (0.47%) Robot Operating System
10 1 (0.47%) VMS
10 1 (0.47%) VxWorks
10 1 (0.47%) Windows Embedded Compact
Processes & Methodologies
1 90 (42.65%) Software Engineering
2 32 (15.17%) CI/CD
3 29 (13.74%) Problem-Solving
4 24 (11.37%) Validation
5 20 (9.48%) Agile
5 20 (9.48%) AI
6 19 (9.00%) DevOps
6 19 (9.00%) Signal Processing
7 18 (8.53%) Software Testing
8 17 (8.06%) Mathematics
9 16 (7.58%) Containerisation
10 15 (7.11%) Requirements Gathering
11 14 (6.64%) Systems Engineering
12 13 (6.16%) Unit Testing
13 12 (5.69%) UML
14 11 (5.21%) Test Automation
15 10 (4.74%) Integration Testing
15 10 (4.74%) Machine Learning
15 10 (4.74%) SDLC
16 9 (4.27%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 134 (63.51%) C++
2 68 (32.23%) Python
3 63 (29.86%) Java
4 28 (13.27%) JavaScript
5 25 (11.85%) Shell Script
6 21 (9.95%) SQL
7 20 (9.48%) Ada
8 18 (8.53%) Embedded C
9 17 (8.06%) Bash
9 17 (8.06%) MATLAB
10 15 (7.11%) PHP
11 12 (5.69%) C#
12 10 (4.74%) Embedded C++
13 9 (4.27%) Fortran
14 8 (3.79%) PowerShell
15 7 (3.32%) PL/SQL
16 6 (2.84%) Perl
16 6 (2.84%) Rust
16 6 (2.84%) SystemVerilog
16 6 (2.84%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 78 (36.97%) Security Cleared
2 59 (27.96%) SC Cleared
3 20 (9.48%) Degree
4 11 (5.21%) DV Cleared
5 3 (1.42%) Cisco Certification
5 3 (1.42%) Computer Science Degree
6 2 (0.95%) CCIE
6 2 (0.95%) CISSP
6 2 (0.95%) ISTQB
6 2 (0.95%) JNCIE
6 2 (0.95%) Master's Degree
6 2 (0.95%) PhD
6 2 (0.95%) Postgraduate
7 1 (0.47%) CCNA
7 1 (0.47%) CCSAS
7 1 (0.47%) GPEN
7 1 (0.47%) GWAPT
7 1 (0.47%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
7 1 (0.47%) OSCE
7 1 (0.47%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (6.16%) QA
2 12 (5.69%) Def Stans
3 11 (5.21%) MISRA
4 10 (4.74%) DO-178B
5 7 (3.32%) IEC 61508
6 5 (2.37%) ISO 26262
6 5 (2.37%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 3 (1.42%) EU AI Act
7 3 (1.42%) GDPR
7 3 (1.42%) IEC 62304
7 3 (1.42%) ISO 8583
7 3 (1.42%) NIST
8 2 (0.95%) MISRA C
8 2 (0.95%) PCI DSS
8 2 (0.95%) Software Quality Assurance
9 1 (0.47%) AUTOSAR
9 1 (0.47%) Data Quality
9 1 (0.47%) DO-254
9 1 (0.47%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 1 (0.47%) MiFID
System Software
1 27 (12.80%) Firmware
2 24 (11.37%) Docker
3 7 (3.32%) VMware Infrastructure
4 6 (2.84%) Embedded Firmware
4 6 (2.84%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.47%) Active Directory
5 1 (0.47%) KVM
Systems Management
1 19 (9.00%) Kubernetes
2 12 (5.69%) Terraform
3 8 (3.79%) Ansible
4 4 (1.90%) Grafana
5 3 (1.42%) Prometheus
6 2 (0.95%) Podman
7 1 (0.47%) Functional Safety
7 1 (0.47%) Rsyslog
7 1 (0.47%) SCOM
Vendors
1 21 (9.95%) Oracle
2 18 (8.53%) Red Hat
3 16 (7.58%) Dynatrace
4 9 (4.27%) NetApp
5 7 (3.32%) IBM
5 7 (3.32%) Microsoft
5 7 (3.32%) SAP
5 7 (3.32%) VMware
6 6 (2.84%) Intel
6 6 (2.84%) MathWorks
7 5 (2.37%) ANSYS
7 5 (2.37%) HP
8 4 (1.90%) Cisco
8 4 (1.90%) Microsemi
8 4 (1.90%) Xilinx
9 3 (1.42%) Atlassian
10 2 (0.95%) Arista
10 2 (0.95%) Salesforce
10 2 (0.95%) Siemens
10 2 (0.95%) Wind River