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

6 months to
28 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 403 354 189
Rank change year-on-year -49 -165 +53
Contract jobs citing C 224 179 545
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.48% 0.61% 1.26%
As % of the Programming Languages category 1.74% 1.79% 4.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 65 73 227
10th Percentile £363 £270 £325
25th Percentile £413 £338 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £535
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -6.54% -5.10%
75th Percentile £550 £625 £588
90th Percentile £626 £675 £695
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 39 189
10th Percentile £60.00 £54.40 £46.25
25th Percentile £65.00 £61.00 £59.00
Median hourly rate £67.50 £68.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -0.74% +4.62% +11.68%
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 12,891 9,990 12,747
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 27.44% 34.03% 29.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,530 6,768 9,054
10th Percentile £355 £359 £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 £766 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £478 £489
% change year-on-year -0.70% -2.17% -2.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 559 247 480
10th Percentile £41.94 £22.49 £31.25
25th Percentile £54.55 £33.91 £46.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £60.07
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% +4.05% -1.04%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £85.00 £78.88
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £64.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year +1.56% +2.40% -

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 28 April 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 28 April 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 28 April 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 -41 213 £500 - 306
UK excluding London -16 173 £500 +21.21% 301
Work from Home -12 74 £460 -8.00% 105
East of England -1 69 £525 +31.25% 60
South West -7 49 £475 -20.83% 49
London -85 45 £447 -15.66% 29
South East -38 36 £500 - 99
North of England -71 7 £613 - 52
Midlands -66 5 £525 +213.43% 29
Northern Ireland - 5 £425 - 3
West Midlands - 4 £488 - 13
North West - 3 £450 - 23
Scotland -12 2 - - 16
North East -18 2 £625 - 11
Yorkshire -61 2 £613 - 18
Wales -12 1 £460 -12.38% 3
East Midlands -40 1 £525 +213.43% 16

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 (1.79%) Confluence
2 2 (0.89%) Oracle SOA Suite
2 2 (0.89%) Oracle Workflow
3 1 (0.45%) Apache
3 1 (0.45%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.45%) SharePoint
Applications
1 9 (4.02%) Simulink
2 4 (1.79%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.45%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 5 (2.23%) BASE24
1 5 (2.23%) Payment Gateway
2 3 (1.34%) Teamcenter
3 1 (0.45%) Actimize
3 1 (0.45%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.45%) Dynamics NAV
3 1 (0.45%) Loan IQ
3 1 (0.45%) Oracle Applications
3 1 (0.45%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 13 (5.80%) AWS
2 12 (5.36%) Azure
3 8 (3.57%) GitHub
4 5 (2.23%) Azure DevOps
4 5 (2.23%) Power Platform
5 4 (1.79%) GCP
6 3 (1.34%) Amazon S3
6 3 (1.34%) AWS CloudFormation
7 2 (0.89%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 2 (0.89%) Amazon EKS
7 2 (0.89%) AWS IoT
7 2 (0.89%) Azure Monitor
7 2 (0.89%) Dynamics 365
7 2 (0.89%) GitHub Actions
7 2 (0.89%) GitHub Copilot
7 2 (0.89%) IaaS
8 1 (0.45%) Azure AKS
8 1 (0.45%) ChatGPT
8 1 (0.45%) Copilot Studio
8 1 (0.45%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 22 (9.82%) Ethernet
2 15 (6.70%) Wireless
3 13 (5.80%) Software-Defined Radio
4 7 (3.13%) TCP/IP
5 6 (2.68%) 3GPP
5 6 (2.68%) Modbus
5 6 (2.68%) RS-232
5 6 (2.68%) RS-485
6 4 (1.79%) Network Security
7 3 (1.34%) 5G
7 3 (1.34%) Bluetooth
7 3 (1.34%) DNS
7 3 (1.34%) LTE
7 3 (1.34%) MQTT
7 3 (1.34%) MVNO
7 3 (1.34%) RS-422
7 3 (1.34%) SMPP
7 3 (1.34%) SMS
7 3 (1.34%) SpaceWire
7 3 (1.34%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (2.68%) NonStop SQL
2 5 (2.23%) OLTP
2 5 (2.23%) Power BI
3 4 (1.79%) SQL Server
4 3 (1.34%) PostgreSQL
4 3 (1.34%) Tableau
5 2 (0.89%) Data Warehouse
5 2 (0.89%) Metadata
5 2 (0.89%) MongoDB
5 2 (0.89%) NoSQL
5 2 (0.89%) Oracle Database
6 1 (0.45%) Amazon Athena
6 1 (0.45%) Amazon Redshift
6 1 (0.45%) Apache Cassandra
6 1 (0.45%) Apache Hudi
6 1 (0.45%) Apache Iceberg
6 1 (0.45%) Azure SQL Database
6 1 (0.45%) Data Lake
6 1 (0.45%) MySQL
6 1 (0.45%) Oracle Exadata
Development Applications
1 27 (12.05%) Rational DOORS
2 22 (9.82%) Git
3 17 (7.59%) JIRA
4 16 (7.14%) Rational Rhapsody
5 8 (3.57%) GitLab
5 8 (3.57%) PVCS
6 6 (2.68%) Visual Studio
7 3 (1.34%) Subversion
8 2 (0.89%) Jenkins
9 1 (0.45%) Appium
9 1 (0.45%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 1 (0.45%) CMake
9 1 (0.45%) Cucumber
9 1 (0.45%) ERwin
9 1 (0.45%) GoogleTest
9 1 (0.45%) LoadRunner
9 1 (0.45%) Oracle Forms
9 1 (0.45%) PowerBuilder
9 1 (0.45%) PowerDesigner
9 1 (0.45%) Selenium
General
1 44 (19.64%) Social Skills
2 31 (13.84%) Electronics
3 25 (11.16%) Aerospace
4 20 (8.93%) Analytical Skills
5 16 (7.14%) Finance
6 13 (5.80%) Documentation Skills
7 12 (5.36%) Law
8 10 (4.46%) Manufacturing
9 7 (3.13%) Banking
10 5 (2.23%) Public Sector
11 4 (1.79%) Automotive
11 4 (1.79%) Avionics
11 4 (1.79%) Games
12 3 (1.34%) Telecoms
13 2 (0.89%) Japanese Language
13 2 (0.89%) Military
13 2 (0.89%) Publishing
14 1 (0.45%) Korean Language
14 1 (0.45%) Local Government
14 1 (0.45%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 91 (40.63%) Software Engineer
2 76 (33.93%) Embedded Engineer
3 53 (23.66%) Embedded Software Engineer
4 35 (15.63%) Developer
5 27 (12.05%) C Software Engineer
6 24 (10.71%) C++ Software Engineer
7 23 (10.27%) C/C++ Software Engineer
8 17 (7.59%) Embedded C Engineer
8 17 (7.59%) Embedded C Software Engineer
9 13 (5.80%) C/C++ Embedded Software Engineer
9 13 (5.80%) Embedded C/C++ Engineer
9 13 (5.80%) Embedded C/C++ Software Engineer
9 13 (5.80%) Embedded C++ Engineer
9 13 (5.80%) Embedded C++ Software Engineer
10 12 (5.36%) Lead
11 11 (4.91%) Senior
12 10 (4.46%) Software Developer
12 10 (4.46%) Validation Engineer
13 9 (4.02%) FPGA Engineer
13 9 (4.02%) Test Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (5.80%) Yocto
2 7 (3.13%) .NET
2 7 (3.13%) Middleware
3 6 (2.68%) WinForms
4 4 (1.79%) HTML
5 3 (1.34%) ARM Templates
5 3 (1.34%) Itk
5 3 (1.34%) Kafka
5 3 (1.34%) REST
6 2 (0.89%) Flash
6 2 (0.89%) HTML5
6 2 (0.89%) JSON
6 2 (0.89%) Qt
7 1 (0.45%) GStreamer
7 1 (0.45%) J2EE
7 1 (0.45%) NumPy
7 1 (0.45%) SciPy
7 1 (0.45%) WCF
7 1 (0.45%) Web Services
7 1 (0.45%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 41 (18.30%) Embedded Systems
2 38 (16.96%) FPGA
3 18 (8.04%) PCIe
4 14 (6.25%) VHDL
5 9 (4.02%) Algorithms
6 8 (3.57%) Device Driver
6 8 (3.57%) Verilog
7 7 (3.13%) IoT
8 6 (2.68%) MicroBlaze
8 6 (2.68%) RISC-V
8 6 (2.68%) Tandem
9 5 (2.23%) Data Centre
9 5 (2.23%) EMV
10 3 (1.34%) Cloud Native
10 3 (1.34%) Cyber Threat
10 3 (1.34%) Java Card
10 3 (1.34%) Legacy Systems
11 2 (0.89%) ASIC
11 2 (0.89%) Legacy Code
11 2 (0.89%) Video\Live Streaming
Operating Systems
1 54 (24.11%) Linux
2 19 (8.48%) Embedded Linux
3 11 (4.91%) FreeRTOS
3 11 (4.91%) Windows
4 3 (1.34%) Unix
5 1 (0.45%) Apple iOS
5 1 (0.45%) Debian
5 1 (0.45%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.45%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 123 (54.91%) Software Engineering
2 44 (19.64%) Validation
3 38 (16.96%) Problem-Solving
4 32 (14.29%) Test Automation
5 29 (12.95%) Workflow
6 28 (12.50%) CI/CD
7 23 (10.27%) Signal Processing
8 18 (8.04%) Digital Signal Processing
8 18 (8.04%) Embedded Software Development
9 17 (7.59%) DevOps
9 17 (7.59%) Workflow Management
10 16 (7.14%) Agile
10 16 (7.14%) Requirements Analysis
10 16 (7.14%) Unit Testing
10 16 (7.14%) Verification and Validation
11 13 (5.80%) Technical Leadership
12 12 (5.36%) Software Testing
13 11 (4.91%) Systems Engineering
13 11 (4.91%) TDD
13 11 (4.91%) UML
Programming Languages
1 122 (54.46%) C++
2 54 (24.11%) Python
3 42 (18.75%) Embedded C
4 28 (12.50%) Ada
5 23 (10.27%) SQL
6 21 (9.38%) Embedded C++
7 20 (8.93%) MATLAB
8 18 (8.04%) Java
9 11 (4.91%) Bash
10 8 (3.57%) C#
11 7 (3.13%) PL/SQL
11 7 (3.13%) SystemVerilog
12 5 (2.23%) COBOL
12 5 (2.23%) Rust
12 5 (2.23%) Shell Script
13 4 (1.79%) JavaScript
13 4 (1.79%) ProC
14 2 (0.89%) Perl
14 2 (0.89%) PowerShell
14 2 (0.89%) VB
Qualifications
1 60 (26.79%) Security Cleared
2 46 (20.54%) SC Cleared
3 15 (6.70%) Degree
4 9 (4.02%) DV Cleared
5 8 (3.57%) BPSS Clearance
6 2 (0.89%) CCNA
6 2 (0.89%) Cisco Certification
6 2 (0.89%) Computer Science Degree
6 2 (0.89%) ISTQB
7 1 (0.45%) Azure Certification
7 1 (0.45%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
7 1 (0.45%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
7 1 (0.45%) Six Sigma Black Belt
7 1 (0.45%) Six Sigma Green Belt
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 22 (9.82%) Def Stans
2 11 (4.91%) QA
3 7 (3.13%) DO-178B
3 7 (3.13%) MISRA
4 6 (2.68%) IEC 61508
5 5 (2.23%) ISO 8583
6 4 (1.79%) PCI DSS
7 3 (1.34%) Data Quality
7 3 (1.34%) MIL-STD-1553
8 1 (0.45%) Accessibility
8 1 (0.45%) DICOM
8 1 (0.45%) DO-254
8 1 (0.45%) HL7
8 1 (0.45%) IFRS
8 1 (0.45%) IFRS 9
8 1 (0.45%) ISO 9001
8 1 (0.45%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 1 (0.45%) MiFID
8 1 (0.45%) MISRA C
8 1 (0.45%) NIST
System Software
1 23 (10.27%) Firmware
2 12 (5.36%) Docker
3 11 (4.91%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (4.46%) Virtual Machines
5 8 (3.57%) Embedded Firmware
6 2 (0.89%) Oracle RAC
6 2 (0.89%) vCloud
6 2 (0.89%) VMware NSX
6 2 (0.89%) vSphere
7 1 (0.45%) FreeRADIUS
Systems Management
1 9 (4.02%) Kubernetes
2 8 (3.57%) Terraform
3 4 (1.79%) Ansible
4 2 (0.89%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.45%) Grafana
5 1 (0.45%) HP ALM
5 1 (0.45%) Nagios
Vendors
1 16 (7.14%) IBM
2 11 (4.91%) VMware
3 9 (4.02%) Xilinx
4 8 (3.57%) ANSYS
4 8 (3.57%) Cisco
4 8 (3.57%) Intel
4 8 (3.57%) Oracle
5 7 (3.13%) HP
5 7 (3.13%) MathWorks
5 7 (3.13%) Microsoft
6 5 (2.23%) Microsemi
7 4 (1.79%) Lauterbach
7 4 (1.79%) SAP
8 3 (1.34%) Google
8 3 (1.34%) Thales
9 2 (0.89%) Dell
9 2 (0.89%) Perforce
10 1 (0.45%) Citrix
10 1 (0.45%) EMC
10 1 (0.45%) Veritas