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

6 months to
9 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 384 280 196
Rank change year-on-year -104 -84 +77
Contract jobs citing C 198 280 517
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.54% 0.88% 1.22%
As % of the Programming Languages category 1.76% 2.68% 4.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 63 100 214
10th Percentile £68 £400 £325
25th Percentile £381 £463 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £538 £538
Median % change year-on-year -6.98% -0.05% -10.38%
75th Percentile £575 £638 £638
90th Percentile £648 £810 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £535
% change year-on-year -5.00% -6.54% -2.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 73 47 153
10th Percentile £52.35 £53.40 £51.75
25th Percentile £65.00 £61.25 £61.25
Median hourly rate £66.50 £67.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -1.48% +3.85% +12.07%
75th Percentile £70.00 £85.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £76.25 £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 11,278 10,445 12,813
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 30.73% 32.70% 30.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,473 6,644 9,107
10th Percentile £350 £350 £350
25th Percentile £413 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £503 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.29% -4.55% -2.74%
75th Percentile £619 £640 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -1.28% -2.50% -2.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 388 239 411
10th Percentile £34.25 £21.25 £32.32
25th Percentile £51.21 £37.88 £46.32
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £62.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% +0.81% -1.59%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.38 £70.00
90th Percentile £76.48 £85.00 £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £63.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year +3.17% -3.08% -

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 9 January 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 9 January 2026.

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 9 January 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 -109 179 £500 -6.98% 936
UK excluding London -66 153 £475 -5.00% 969
East of England -14 58 £500 -6.98% 185
South West -12 55 £500 -15.97% 164
Work from Home -43 52 £447 -17.22% 333
London -55 36 £527 -12.25% 67
Scotland +7 14 £65 - 43
North of England -47 12 £463 -15.91% 140
North West -26 9 £463 +15.63% 45
South East -46 8 £500 +5.26% 279
Northern Ireland -4 3 £425 - 23
Midlands -42 3 £575 +121.15% 119
Yorkshire -49 3 £531 -24.11% 70
East Midlands -21 2 - - 90
West Midlands -38 1 £575 - 25

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 (2.02%) Confluence
2 3 (1.52%) WebLogic
2 3 (1.52%) WebSphere
3 1 (0.51%) Apache
3 1 (0.51%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.51%) nginx
3 1 (0.51%) SharePoint
Applications
1 13 (6.57%) Simulink
2 8 (4.04%) Microsoft Office
3 5 (2.53%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (2.53%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 5 (2.53%) Stateflow
Business Applications
1 3 (1.52%) BASE24
1 3 (1.52%) Payment Gateway
2 2 (1.01%) Teamcenter
3 1 (0.51%) Actimize
3 1 (0.51%) Oracle Applications
3 1 (0.51%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 18 (9.09%) AWS
2 17 (8.59%) Azure
2 17 (8.59%) GitHub
3 9 (4.55%) GCP
4 4 (2.02%) Amazon EKS
4 4 (2.02%) Amazon S3
5 3 (1.52%) Amazon ECS
5 3 (1.52%) AWS CloudFormation
5 3 (1.52%) AWS Lambda
5 3 (1.52%) Serverless
6 2 (1.01%) Azure DevOps
6 2 (1.01%) Cloud Computing
6 2 (1.01%) OpenShift
7 1 (0.51%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 1 (0.51%) Amazon EC2
7 1 (0.51%) AWS CloudTrail
7 1 (0.51%) Firebase
7 1 (0.51%) IaaS
7 1 (0.51%) Microsoft 365
7 1 (0.51%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 14 (7.07%) Ethernet
2 8 (4.04%) RS-232
3 4 (2.02%) Network Security
3 4 (2.02%) SpaceWire
3 4 (2.02%) TCP/IP
4 3 (1.52%) 3GPP
4 3 (1.52%) HTTP
4 3 (1.52%) Modbus
4 3 (1.52%) RS-485
5 2 (1.01%) Bluetooth
5 2 (1.01%) MVNO
5 2 (1.01%) SMPP
5 2 (1.01%) SMS
5 2 (1.01%) SSL
5 2 (1.01%) Wireless
6 1 (0.51%) Firewall
6 1 (0.51%) Internet
6 1 (0.51%) UWB
6 1 (0.51%) Wi-Fi
6 1 (0.51%) ZigBee
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (5.05%) Oracle Database
2 5 (2.53%) NonStop SQL
3 4 (2.02%) OLTP
4 3 (1.52%) Elasticsearch
5 2 (1.01%) Amazon RDS
5 2 (1.01%) PostgreSQL
6 1 (0.51%) Big Data
6 1 (0.51%) Data Lake
6 1 (0.51%) HPCC
6 1 (0.51%) InfluxDB
6 1 (0.51%) Metadata
6 1 (0.51%) MongoDB
6 1 (0.51%) MySQL
6 1 (0.51%) Oracle Exadata
6 1 (0.51%) RDBMS
6 1 (0.51%) Relational Database
6 1 (0.51%) SQL Server
6 1 (0.51%) SQLite
Development Applications
1 22 (11.11%) Rational DOORS
2 17 (8.59%) Git
3 14 (7.07%) JIRA
4 11 (5.56%) Jenkins
5 9 (4.55%) ClearCase
5 9 (4.55%) GitLab
6 8 (4.04%) PVCS
7 7 (3.54%) Rational Rhapsody
8 5 (2.53%) Rational Team Concert
9 4 (2.02%) Artifactory
9 4 (2.02%) Gradle
9 4 (2.02%) Visual Studio
9 4 (2.02%) Xcode
10 3 (1.52%) KGDB
11 2 (1.01%) Bitbucket
11 2 (1.01%) Maven
11 2 (1.01%) Selenium
11 2 (1.01%) SonarQube
11 2 (1.01%) Subversion
12 1 (0.51%) Atlassian Bamboo
General
1 31 (15.66%) Electronics
2 29 (14.65%) Social Skills
3 22 (11.11%) Finance
4 20 (10.10%) Aerospace
5 19 (9.60%) Analytical Skills
6 14 (7.07%) Public Sector
7 9 (4.55%) Law
8 8 (4.04%) Banking
9 7 (3.54%) Documentation Skills
9 7 (3.54%) Military
9 7 (3.54%) Telecoms
10 4 (2.02%) Aviation
11 3 (1.52%) Financial Institution
11 3 (1.52%) Games
11 3 (1.52%) Manufacturing
11 3 (1.52%) Marketing
12 2 (1.01%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 2 (1.01%) Publishing
13 1 (0.51%) Automotive
13 1 (0.51%) Health Technology
Job Titles
1 68 (34.34%) Software Engineer
2 41 (20.71%) Embedded Engineer
3 35 (17.68%) Developer
4 33 (16.67%) Embedded Software Engineer
5 22 (11.11%) C Software Engineer
6 18 (9.09%) C++ Software Engineer
7 16 (8.08%) C/C++ Software Engineer
7 16 (8.08%) Embedded C Engineer
7 16 (8.08%) Embedded C Software Engineer
8 14 (7.07%) Support Engineer
9 13 (6.57%) Design Engineer
10 12 (6.06%) Product Engineer
10 12 (6.06%) Products Support Engineer
10 12 (6.06%) Software Support Engineer
11 11 (5.56%) FPGA Engineer
12 10 (5.05%) C/C++ Embedded Software Engineer
12 10 (5.05%) Embedded C/C++ Engineer
12 10 (5.05%) Embedded C/C++ Software Engineer
12 10 (5.05%) Embedded C++ Engineer
12 10 (5.05%) Embedded C++ Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (10.61%) Middleware
2 15 (7.58%) HTML
3 9 (4.55%) Flash
3 9 (4.55%) Node.js
4 8 (4.04%) CSS
5 7 (3.54%) Yocto
6 6 (3.03%) REST
7 5 (2.53%) .NET
7 5 (2.53%) React
8 4 (2.02%) AngularJS
8 4 (2.02%) RESTful
9 3 (1.52%) Electron
9 3 (1.52%) JNI
9 3 (1.52%) JSON
9 3 (1.52%) OpenEmbedded
9 3 (1.52%) XML
10 2 (1.01%) Elastic Stack
10 2 (1.01%) Kafka
10 2 (1.01%) OpenID
10 2 (1.01%) OpenMP
Miscellaneous
1 31 (15.66%) FPGA
2 27 (13.64%) Embedded Systems
3 18 (9.09%) VHDL
4 10 (5.05%) PCIe
5 7 (3.54%) Verilog
6 6 (3.03%) Self-Motivation
7 5 (2.53%) Analogue Electronics
7 5 (2.53%) Tandem
8 4 (2.02%) CAN bus
8 4 (2.02%) CUDA
8 4 (2.02%) Data Centre
8 4 (2.02%) Device Driver
8 4 (2.02%) Distributed Systems
8 4 (2.02%) Mobile App
9 3 (1.52%) Cloud Native
9 3 (1.52%) EMV
9 3 (1.52%) Hedge funds
9 3 (1.52%) IoT
9 3 (1.52%) Mobile Banking
10 2 (1.01%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 58 (29.29%) Linux
2 18 (9.09%) Windows
3 13 (6.57%) Ubuntu
4 8 (4.04%) FreeRTOS
5 5 (2.53%) Embedded Linux
6 4 (2.02%) Android
6 4 (2.02%) Apple iOS
6 4 (2.02%) CentOS
6 4 (2.02%) Unix
7 3 (1.52%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.51%) Debian
8 1 (0.51%) OpenVMS
8 1 (0.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.51%) Robot Operating System
8 1 (0.51%) VMS
8 1 (0.51%) Windows Embedded Compact
Processes & Methodologies
1 94 (47.47%) Software Engineering
2 32 (16.16%) Validation
3 27 (13.64%) CI/CD
4 23 (11.62%) Problem-Solving
5 18 (9.09%) Agile
5 18 (9.09%) Software Testing
6 17 (8.59%) Unit Testing
7 15 (7.58%) Containerisation
7 15 (7.58%) Signal Processing
8 14 (7.07%) AI
8 14 (7.07%) DevOps
8 14 (7.07%) Mathematics
9 13 (6.57%) Systems Engineering
10 12 (6.06%) UML
11 10 (5.05%) FPGA Design
11 10 (5.05%) Requirements Analysis
11 10 (5.05%) Workflow
12 9 (4.55%) Collaborative Culture
12 9 (4.55%) Computer Science
12 9 (4.55%) Integration Testing
Programming Languages
1 119 (60.10%) C++
2 58 (29.29%) Python
3 44 (22.22%) Java
4 26 (13.13%) Embedded C
4 26 (13.13%) JavaScript
5 23 (11.62%) Shell Script
6 20 (10.10%) Ada
6 20 (10.10%) SQL
7 16 (8.08%) Embedded C++
8 14 (7.07%) MATLAB
9 11 (5.56%) Bash
9 11 (5.56%) C#
10 8 (4.04%) Fortran
11 7 (3.54%) Perl
11 7 (3.54%) SystemVerilog
12 6 (3.03%) Rust
13 5 (2.53%) Go
13 5 (2.53%) PL/SQL
13 5 (2.53%) Tcl
14 4 (2.02%) VBA
Qualifications
1 69 (34.85%) Security Cleared
2 53 (26.77%) SC Cleared
3 21 (10.61%) Degree
4 10 (5.05%) DV Cleared
5 4 (2.02%) Computer Science Degree
6 2 (1.01%) ISTQB
6 2 (1.01%) Master's Degree
6 2 (1.01%) PhD
6 2 (1.01%) Postgraduate
7 1 (0.51%) BPSS Clearance
7 1 (0.51%) CCNA
7 1 (0.51%) CCSAS
7 1 (0.51%) Cisco Certification
7 1 (0.51%) GPEN
7 1 (0.51%) GWAPT
7 1 (0.51%) GXPN
7 1 (0.51%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
7 1 (0.51%) OSCE
7 1 (0.51%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (7.07%) Def Stans
2 12 (6.06%) QA
3 11 (5.56%) MISRA
4 10 (5.05%) DO-178B
5 9 (4.55%) IEC 61508
6 5 (2.53%) ISO 26262
7 3 (1.52%) IEC 62304
7 3 (1.52%) ISO 8583
8 2 (1.01%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 2 (1.01%) MISRA C
8 2 (1.01%) PCI DSS
8 2 (1.01%) Software Quality Assurance
9 1 (0.51%) Actionable Recommendations
9 1 (0.51%) AUTOSAR
9 1 (0.51%) Data Quality
9 1 (0.51%) DICOM
9 1 (0.51%) DO-254
9 1 (0.51%) HL7
9 1 (0.51%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 1 (0.51%) NIST
System Software
1 24 (12.12%) Firmware
2 19 (9.60%) Docker
3 10 (5.05%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (4.55%) Virtual Machines
5 5 (2.53%) Embedded Firmware
6 1 (0.51%) KVM
Systems Management
1 12 (6.06%) Kubernetes
2 9 (4.55%) Terraform
3 5 (2.53%) Ansible
4 3 (1.52%) Grafana
4 3 (1.52%) Prometheus
5 2 (1.01%) Podman
6 1 (0.51%) Functional Safety
6 1 (0.51%) Rsyslog
6 1 (0.51%) SCOM
Vendors
1 18 (9.09%) Oracle
2 16 (8.08%) Red Hat
3 11 (5.56%) IBM
4 10 (5.05%) VMware
5 9 (4.55%) NetApp
6 8 (4.04%) ANSYS
7 7 (3.54%) Intel
8 6 (3.03%) MathWorks
8 6 (3.03%) Microsoft
9 5 (2.53%) HP
9 5 (2.53%) Microsemi
9 5 (2.53%) Xilinx
10 4 (2.02%) Dynatrace
11 3 (1.52%) Atlassian
11 3 (1.52%) SAP
12 2 (1.01%) Cisco
12 2 (1.01%) Siemens
12 2 (1.01%) Thales
13 1 (0.51%) OutSystems
13 1 (0.51%) Refinitiv