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

6 months to
6 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 397 283 186
Rank change year-on-year -114 -97 +82
Contract jobs citing C 209 267 565
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.53% 0.86% 1.26%
As % of the Programming Languages category 1.76% 2.55% 4.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 62 97 218
10th Percentile £68 £400 £325
25th Percentile £380 £460 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £530 £535
Median % change year-on-year -10.38% -0.93% -10.83%
75th Percentile £584 £638 £598
90th Percentile £650 £810 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £536
% change year-on-year -5.00% -6.63% -2.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 85 37 199
10th Percentile £60.00 £58.42 £46.25
25th Percentile £65.00 £62.00 £56.45
Median hourly rate £67.50 £70.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -3.57% +7.69% +13.04%
75th Percentile £70.00 £85.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £75.75 £95.00 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.00 £70.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -4.29% +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 11,842 10,464 13,210
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 30.24% 33.58% 29.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,856 6,636 9,369
10th Percentile £350 £356 £350
25th Percentile £413 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -4.44%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £650
90th Percentile £715 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £495 £500
% change year-on-year -2.78% -1.00% -2.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 458 235 517
10th Percentile £40.00 £21.55 £35.59
25th Percentile £52.50 £36.25 £46.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% +4.17% -7.69%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.38 £69.62
90th Percentile £77.15 £85.00 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £63.37 £62.50
% change year-on-year +2.57% +1.40% -3.85%

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 6 February 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 6 February 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for C in the UK

C
Top 16 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 6 February 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 -102 195 £481 -9.20% 380
UK excluding London -60 160 £475 -5.00% 391
East of England -8 64 £463 +7.25% 56
South West -5 58 £475 -20.17% 84
Work from Home -59 55 £442 -18.10% 165
London -86 39 £488 -18.75% 43
South East -51 12 £500 +6.10% 115
North of England -52 12 £475 +18.75% 41
North West -23 9 £463 +15.63% 19
Scotland +9 6 £65 - 49
Northern Ireland -1 5 £425 - 1
Midlands -58 3 £575 +76.65% 55
East Midlands -26 2 - - 38
Yorkshire -59 2 £531 - 14
West Midlands -47 1 £575 - 17
North East - 1 £625 - 8

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 3 (1.44%) Confluence
2 1 (0.48%) Apache
2 1 (0.48%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (0.48%) nginx
2 1 (0.48%) SharePoint
Applications
1 12 (5.74%) Simulink
2 5 (2.39%) Stateflow
3 4 (1.91%) Microsoft Office
4 2 (0.96%) Microsoft Excel
5 1 (0.48%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 5 (2.39%) BASE24
1 5 (2.39%) Payment Gateway
2 2 (0.96%) Teamcenter
3 1 (0.48%) Actimize
3 1 (0.48%) Dynamics NAV
3 1 (0.48%) Oracle Applications
3 1 (0.48%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 16 (7.66%) AWS
1 16 (7.66%) Azure
2 10 (4.78%) GitHub
3 8 (3.83%) GCP
4 3 (1.44%) AWS CloudFormation
5 2 (0.96%) Amazon EKS
5 2 (0.96%) Amazon S3
5 2 (0.96%) Azure DevOps
5 2 (0.96%) Cloud Computing
5 2 (0.96%) Dynamics 365
5 2 (0.96%) Power Platform
6 1 (0.48%) Amazon EC2
6 1 (0.48%) Amazon ECS
6 1 (0.48%) Amazon GuardDuty
6 1 (0.48%) Amazon Kinesis
6 1 (0.48%) Datadog
6 1 (0.48%) GitHub Actions
6 1 (0.48%) Power Automate
6 1 (0.48%) Serverless
6 1 (0.48%) Slack
Communications & Networking
1 17 (8.13%) Ethernet
2 8 (3.83%) RS-232
3 6 (2.87%) SpaceWire
4 5 (2.39%) Network Security
5 4 (1.91%) 3GPP
5 4 (1.91%) Bluetooth
5 4 (1.91%) TCP/IP
6 3 (1.44%) HTTP
6 3 (1.44%) Modbus
6 3 (1.44%) MVNO
6 3 (1.44%) RS-485
6 3 (1.44%) SMPP
6 3 (1.44%) SMS
6 3 (1.44%) Wi-Fi
7 2 (0.96%) SSL
7 2 (0.96%) VSAN
7 2 (0.96%) Wireless
8 1 (0.48%) 5G NR
8 1 (0.48%) Internet
8 1 (0.48%) ZigBee
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (3.35%) NonStop SQL
2 5 (2.39%) OLTP
2 5 (2.39%) Oracle Database
3 3 (1.44%) Elasticsearch
4 2 (0.96%) PostgreSQL
5 1 (0.48%) Data Warehouse
5 1 (0.48%) Hadoop
5 1 (0.48%) Metadata
5 1 (0.48%) MongoDB
5 1 (0.48%) MySQL
5 1 (0.48%) NoSQL
5 1 (0.48%) Oracle Exadata
5 1 (0.48%) Power BI
5 1 (0.48%) SQL Server
5 1 (0.48%) SQL Server Reporting Services
5 1 (0.48%) SQLite
Development Applications
1 27 (12.92%) Rational DOORS
2 18 (8.61%) Git
3 13 (6.22%) JIRA
4 11 (5.26%) Rational Rhapsody
5 9 (4.31%) Jenkins
6 8 (3.83%) PVCS
7 5 (2.39%) GitLab
7 5 (2.39%) Rational Team Concert
8 4 (1.91%) Artifactory
8 4 (1.91%) Visual Studio
8 4 (1.91%) Xcode
9 3 (1.44%) ClearCase
9 3 (1.44%) Gradle
9 3 (1.44%) KGDB
10 2 (0.96%) Selenium
10 2 (0.96%) SonarQube
10 2 (0.96%) Subversion
11 1 (0.48%) CircleCI
11 1 (0.48%) Crashlytics
11 1 (0.48%) Polyspace
General
1 32 (15.31%) Electronics
2 29 (13.88%) Social Skills
3 23 (11.00%) Aerospace
4 22 (10.53%) Analytical Skills
4 22 (10.53%) Finance
5 14 (6.70%) Documentation Skills
6 13 (6.22%) Law
7 11 (5.26%) Public Sector
8 10 (4.78%) Banking
9 7 (3.35%) Military
10 6 (2.87%) Telecoms
11 5 (2.39%) Manufacturing
12 4 (1.91%) Automotive
12 4 (1.91%) Aviation
13 3 (1.44%) Financial Institution
13 3 (1.44%) Games
14 2 (0.96%) Avionics
14 2 (0.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 2 (0.96%) Marketing
14 2 (0.96%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 77 (36.84%) Software Engineer
2 58 (27.75%) Embedded Engineer
3 43 (20.57%) Embedded Software Engineer
4 36 (17.22%) Developer
5 27 (12.92%) C Software Engineer
6 22 (10.53%) C++ Software Engineer
7 21 (10.05%) C/C++ Software Engineer
8 19 (9.09%) Embedded C Engineer
8 19 (9.09%) Embedded C Software Engineer
9 13 (6.22%) C/C++ Embedded Software Engineer
9 13 (6.22%) Embedded C/C++ Engineer
9 13 (6.22%) Embedded C/C++ Software Engineer
9 13 (6.22%) Embedded C++ Engineer
9 13 (6.22%) Embedded C++ Software Engineer
9 13 (6.22%) Senior
9 13 (6.22%) Support Engineer
10 12 (5.74%) Product Engineer
10 12 (5.74%) Products Support Engineer
10 12 (5.74%) Software Support Engineer
11 10 (4.78%) FPGA Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 18 (8.61%) Middleware
2 11 (5.26%) HTML
3 9 (4.31%) Yocto
4 8 (3.83%) CSS
5 7 (3.35%) Flash
6 6 (2.87%) REST
7 4 (1.91%) AngularJS
7 4 (1.91%) Node.js
7 4 (1.91%) React
8 3 (1.44%) Electron
8 3 (1.44%) JNI
8 3 (1.44%) JSON
8 3 (1.44%) Kafka
8 3 (1.44%) OpenEmbedded
8 3 (1.44%) RESTful
9 2 (0.96%) .NET
9 2 (0.96%) Elastic Stack
9 2 (0.96%) OpenID
9 2 (0.96%) OpenMP
9 2 (0.96%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 33 (15.79%) FPGA
2 29 (13.88%) Embedded Systems
3 16 (7.66%) VHDL
4 15 (7.18%) PCIe
5 7 (3.35%) Tandem
6 6 (2.87%) CAN bus
7 5 (2.39%) EMV
7 5 (2.39%) Verilog
8 4 (1.91%) Algorithms
8 4 (1.91%) Device Driver
8 4 (1.91%) Distributed Systems
8 4 (1.91%) IoT
8 4 (1.91%) Mobile App
8 4 (1.91%) Self-Motivation
9 3 (1.44%) Cloud Native
9 3 (1.44%) CUDA
9 3 (1.44%) Data Centre
9 3 (1.44%) Hedge funds
9 3 (1.44%) Java Card
9 3 (1.44%) Mobile Banking
Operating Systems
1 55 (26.32%) Linux
2 13 (6.22%) Ubuntu
3 11 (5.26%) Windows
4 8 (3.83%) Embedded Linux
4 8 (3.83%) FreeRTOS
5 4 (1.91%) Android
5 4 (1.91%) Apple iOS
5 4 (1.91%) Unix
6 3 (1.44%) CentOS
6 3 (1.44%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.48%) Debian
7 1 (0.48%) OpenVMS
7 1 (0.48%) Robot Operating System
7 1 (0.48%) Windows Embedded Compact
Processes & Methodologies
1 110 (52.63%) Software Engineering
2 42 (20.10%) Validation
3 30 (14.35%) Problem-Solving
4 26 (12.44%) CI/CD
5 17 (8.13%) Workflow
6 16 (7.66%) Software Testing
6 16 (7.66%) Unit Testing
7 14 (6.70%) AI
7 14 (6.70%) Containerisation
7 14 (6.70%) Signal Processing
7 14 (6.70%) Test Automation
8 13 (6.22%) Agile
8 13 (6.22%) DevOps
8 13 (6.22%) Systems Engineering
9 12 (5.74%) Mathematics
9 12 (5.74%) Requirements Analysis
10 11 (5.26%) Embedded Software Development
10 11 (5.26%) UML
11 10 (4.78%) FPGA Design
12 9 (4.31%) Performance Tuning
Programming Languages
1 122 (58.37%) C++
2 55 (26.32%) Python
3 32 (15.31%) Ada
4 31 (14.83%) Java
5 28 (13.40%) Embedded C
6 26 (12.44%) JavaScript
7 18 (8.61%) Embedded C++
7 18 (8.61%) SQL
8 17 (8.13%) Shell Script
9 16 (7.66%) MATLAB
10 12 (5.74%) Bash
11 8 (3.83%) C#
11 8 (3.83%) Fortran
11 8 (3.83%) Rust
12 7 (3.35%) PL/SQL
13 6 (2.87%) Perl
13 6 (2.87%) SystemVerilog
14 5 (2.39%) COBOL
14 5 (2.39%) ProC
15 4 (1.91%) VBA
Qualifications
1 67 (32.06%) Security Cleared
2 55 (26.32%) SC Cleared
3 21 (10.05%) Degree
4 6 (2.87%) DV Cleared
5 4 (1.91%) Computer Science Degree
6 3 (1.44%) BPSS Clearance
6 3 (1.44%) ISTQB
7 2 (0.96%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
7 2 (0.96%) Master's Degree
7 2 (0.96%) PhD
7 2 (0.96%) Postgraduate
8 1 (0.48%) CCNA
8 1 (0.48%) CCSAS
8 1 (0.48%) Cisco Certification
8 1 (0.48%) GPEN
8 1 (0.48%) GWAPT
8 1 (0.48%) GXPN
8 1 (0.48%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
8 1 (0.48%) OSCE
8 1 (0.48%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (10.05%) Def Stans
2 12 (5.74%) MISRA
3 11 (5.26%) DO-178B
4 10 (4.78%) IEC 61508
5 9 (4.31%) QA
6 5 (2.39%) ISO 26262
6 5 (2.39%) ISO 8583
7 4 (1.91%) PCI DSS
8 3 (1.44%) IEC 62304
9 2 (0.96%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 2 (0.96%) MIL-STD-1553
9 2 (0.96%) MISRA C
9 2 (0.96%) Software Quality Assurance
10 1 (0.48%) Actionable Recommendations
10 1 (0.48%) Data Quality
10 1 (0.48%) DICOM
10 1 (0.48%) DO-254
10 1 (0.48%) HL7
10 1 (0.48%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 1 (0.48%) MiFID
System Software
1 24 (11.48%) Firmware
2 14 (6.70%) Docker
3 12 (5.74%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (4.31%) Virtual Machines
5 5 (2.39%) Embedded Firmware
6 2 (0.96%) vCloud
6 2 (0.96%) VMware NSX
6 2 (0.96%) vSphere
7 1 (0.48%) KVM
Systems Management
1 12 (5.74%) Kubernetes
2 8 (3.83%) Terraform
3 3 (1.44%) Ansible
3 3 (1.44%) Prometheus
4 2 (0.96%) Grafana
4 2 (0.96%) Podman
5 1 (0.48%) Functional Safety
5 1 (0.48%) HP ALM
Vendors
1 16 (7.66%) Red Hat
2 12 (5.74%) IBM
2 12 (5.74%) Oracle
2 12 (5.74%) VMware
3 8 (3.83%) ANSYS
3 8 (3.83%) HP
3 8 (3.83%) MathWorks
4 7 (3.35%) Intel
5 6 (2.87%) Microsoft
6 5 (2.39%) Microsemi
6 5 (2.39%) Xilinx
7 4 (1.91%) Cisco
8 3 (1.44%) Atlassian
8 3 (1.44%) NetApp
8 3 (1.44%) Thales
9 2 (0.96%) Dell
9 2 (0.96%) SAP
9 2 (0.96%) Siemens
10 1 (0.48%) QNX
10 1 (0.48%) Sitecore