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 8 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 440 360 198
Rank change year-on-year -80 -162 +31
Contract jobs citing C 226 189 536
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.43% 0.59% 1.24%
As % of the Programming Languages category 1.61% 1.76% 4.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 71 77 244
10th Percentile £327 £274 £381
25th Percentile £406 £375 £445
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £533
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -6.24% -3.05%
75th Percentile £550 £600 £584
90th Percentile £650 £678 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £473 £400 £538
% change year-on-year +18.25% -25.65% +2.48%
Number of hourly rates quoted 64 34 161
10th Percentile £53.93 £52.68 £46.25
25th Percentile £64.38 £59.00 £56.65
Median hourly rate £67.50 £68.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -0.74% +4.62% +8.33%
75th Percentile £70.00 £74.69 £70.00
90th Percentile £74.38 £77.50 £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 14,047 10,718 13,269
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 26.92% 33.55% 30.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,125 7,225 9,322
10th Percentile £360 £350 £350
25th Percentile £420 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £512 £512 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.04% -2.48% -4.55%
75th Percentile £606 £625 £650
90th Percentile £720 £750 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +3.58% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 536 254 532
10th Percentile £34.01 £27.12 £31.25
25th Percentile £53.46 £35.00 £46.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £55.00 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +18.18% -12.00% -
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £79.00 £78.34 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year +4.00% -3.85% +4.00%

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 8 July 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 8 July 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 8 July 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 -49 216 £475 -9.52% 347
UK excluding London -30 178 £473 +18.25% 306
Work from Home -31 66 £500 - 167
East of England -7 59 £613 +53.13% 75
South East -16 57 £488 -4.88% 88
London -98 40 £488 -18.75% 62
South West -24 32 £450 -18.18% 53
Midlands -43 21 £462 +515.33% 31
West Midlands -39 20 £450 - 12
North of England -82 5 £625 +66.67% 44
Scotland -24 2 - - 9
North East -36 2 £625 - 9
North West -50 2 - - 26
Northern Ireland - 2 - - 10
East Midlands -16 1 £525 +600.00% 19
Yorkshire -43 1 - - 9
Wales - 1 £460 - 2

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 5 (2.21%) Tuxedo
2 2 (0.88%) Oracle SOA Suite
2 2 (0.88%) Oracle Workflow
2 2 (0.88%) WebSphere
3 1 (0.44%) Apache Spark
3 1 (0.44%) ColdFusion
3 1 (0.44%) Confluence
Applications
1 10 (4.42%) Simulink
2 4 (1.77%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.44%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 4 (1.77%) BASE24
2 3 (1.33%) Teamcenter
3 2 (0.88%) Oracle Retail
3 2 (0.88%) Payment Gateway
4 1 (0.44%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.44%) Dynamics NAV
4 1 (0.44%) Loan IQ
Cloud Services
1 16 (7.08%) AWS
2 14 (6.19%) Azure
3 10 (4.42%) GitHub
4 7 (3.10%) GitHub Copilot
5 6 (2.65%) Azure DevOps
5 6 (2.65%) Power Platform
6 4 (1.77%) GCP
6 4 (1.77%) SaaS
7 3 (1.33%) Amazon S3
7 3 (1.33%) GitHub Actions
8 2 (0.88%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 2 (0.88%) AWS CloudFormation
8 2 (0.88%) AWS IoT
8 2 (0.88%) AWS Lambda
8 2 (0.88%) Azure Monitor
8 2 (0.88%) Dynamics 365
8 2 (0.88%) Entra ID
8 2 (0.88%) OCI
8 2 (0.88%) Serverless
9 1 (0.44%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 17 (7.52%) Ethernet
1 17 (7.52%) Software-Defined Radio
2 16 (7.08%) Wireless
3 6 (2.65%) TCP/IP
4 5 (2.21%) DNS
5 3 (1.33%) 3GPP
5 3 (1.33%) Internet
5 3 (1.33%) Modbus
5 3 (1.33%) MQTT
5 3 (1.33%) RS-232
5 3 (1.33%) RS-422
5 3 (1.33%) RS-485
5 3 (1.33%) SpaceWire
5 3 (1.33%) VXLAN
5 3 (1.33%) Wireshark
6 2 (0.88%) 4G
6 2 (0.88%) LTE
6 2 (0.88%) Network Security
6 2 (0.88%) Radio Access Network
6 2 (0.88%) VoLTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (4.42%) Ingres
2 7 (3.10%) SQL Server
3 6 (2.65%) Power BI
3 6 (2.65%) Relational Database
4 4 (1.77%) NonStop SQL
4 4 (1.77%) NoSQL
4 4 (1.77%) RDBMS
5 3 (1.33%) Data Warehouse
5 3 (1.33%) MongoDB
5 3 (1.33%) Oracle Database
5 3 (1.33%) PostgreSQL
5 3 (1.33%) Tableau
6 2 (0.88%) SQLPlus
7 1 (0.44%) Apache Cassandra
7 1 (0.44%) Big Data
7 1 (0.44%) Elasticsearch
7 1 (0.44%) Hadoop
7 1 (0.44%) KDB
7 1 (0.44%) Redis
7 1 (0.44%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 22 (9.73%) Rational DOORS
2 20 (8.85%) Git
3 11 (4.87%) Rational Rhapsody
4 7 (3.10%) JIRA
5 6 (2.65%) GitLab
6 5 (2.21%) Oracle Forms
6 5 (2.21%) Visual Studio
7 4 (1.77%) Team Foundation Server
8 3 (1.33%) Jenkins
9 2 (0.88%) CMake
9 2 (0.88%) Subversion
10 1 (0.44%) Atlassian Bamboo
10 1 (0.44%) ER Studio
10 1 (0.44%) ERwin
10 1 (0.44%) git-flow
10 1 (0.44%) GoogleTest
10 1 (0.44%) LoadRunner
10 1 (0.44%) PetaLinux
10 1 (0.44%) Postman
10 1 (0.44%) PowerDesigner
General
1 50 (22.12%) Social Skills
2 31 (13.72%) Aerospace
3 25 (11.06%) Electronics
4 23 (10.18%) Analytical Skills
5 18 (7.96%) Law
6 14 (6.19%) Documentation Skills
7 12 (5.31%) Finance
7 12 (5.31%) Manufacturing
8 9 (3.98%) Public Sector
9 8 (3.54%) Banking
10 7 (3.10%) Automotive
11 4 (1.77%) Avionics
12 2 (0.88%) Games
12 2 (0.88%) Investment Banking
12 2 (0.88%) Japanese Language
12 2 (0.88%) Military
12 2 (0.88%) Retail
12 2 (0.88%) Telecoms
13 1 (0.44%) Korean Language
13 1 (0.44%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 81 (35.84%) Software Engineer
2 55 (24.34%) Embedded Engineer
3 40 (17.70%) Embedded Software Engineer
4 32 (14.16%) Developer
5 23 (10.18%) Senior
6 17 (7.52%) C++ Software Engineer
7 13 (5.75%) C Software Engineer
7 13 (5.75%) C/C++ Software Engineer
8 11 (4.87%) Software Developer
9 10 (4.42%) Lead
10 9 (3.98%) Test Leader
11 8 (3.54%) DSP Engineer
11 8 (3.54%) DSP Software Engineer
11 8 (3.54%) Senior Developer
12 6 (2.65%) Algorithm Engineer
12 6 (2.65%) Analyst
12 6 (2.65%) C Developer
12 6 (2.65%) SC Cleared Software Engineer
12 6 (2.65%) Senior Software Engineer
12 6 (2.65%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (5.31%) Yocto
2 11 (4.87%) .NET
3 6 (2.65%) WinForms
4 5 (2.21%) JSON
4 5 (2.21%) REST
5 4 (1.77%) LDAP
5 4 (1.77%) XML
6 3 (1.33%) ADO
6 3 (1.33%) COM
6 3 (1.33%) Itk
6 3 (1.33%) Kafka
6 3 (1.33%) ODBC
6 3 (1.33%) Qt
7 2 (0.88%) ARM Templates
7 2 (0.88%) FastAPI
7 2 (0.88%) HTML5
7 2 (0.88%) Middleware
7 2 (0.88%) QML
7 2 (0.88%) Web Services
7 2 (0.88%) WebSphere MQ
Miscellaneous
1 31 (13.72%) Embedded Systems
2 29 (12.83%) FPGA
3 14 (6.19%) PCIe
4 13 (5.75%) RISC-V
5 12 (5.31%) VHDL
6 10 (4.42%) Legacy Systems
7 9 (3.98%) Verilog
8 8 (3.54%) Algorithms
8 8 (3.54%) Device Driver
9 6 (2.65%) MicroBlaze
10 5 (2.21%) IoT
11 4 (1.77%) Cyber Threat
11 4 (1.77%) Tandem
12 3 (1.33%) ARM Cortex
12 3 (1.33%) Cloud Native
12 3 (1.33%) Distributed Systems
12 3 (1.33%) EMV
12 3 (1.33%) Low-Code
13 2 (0.88%) Analytical Mindset
13 2 (0.88%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 66 (29.20%) Linux
2 18 (7.96%) Embedded Linux
3 14 (6.19%) Windows
4 12 (5.31%) FreeRTOS
5 7 (3.10%) Unix
6 4 (1.77%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.44%) Android
7 1 (0.44%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.44%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.44%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 119 (52.65%) Software Engineering
2 44 (19.47%) Problem-Solving
3 39 (17.26%) Agile
4 36 (15.93%) Validation
5 34 (15.04%) Test Automation
6 26 (11.50%) CI/CD
7 22 (9.73%) Signal Processing
8 21 (9.29%) DevOps
8 21 (9.29%) Workflow
9 20 (8.85%) Data Management
9 20 (8.85%) Digital Signal Processing
9 20 (8.85%) Embedded Software Development
9 20 (8.85%) Software Testing
10 16 (7.08%) Verification and Validation
10 16 (7.08%) Workflow Management
11 15 (6.64%) Migration
12 13 (5.75%) TDD
12 13 (5.75%) Technical Leadership
12 13 (5.75%) UML
13 12 (5.31%) Systems Engineering
Programming Languages
1 113 (50.00%) C++
2 57 (25.22%) Python
3 38 (16.81%) SQL
4 36 (15.93%) Ada
5 25 (11.06%) Embedded C
6 19 (8.41%) MATLAB
6 19 (8.41%) PL/SQL
7 17 (7.52%) Java
8 14 (6.19%) ProC
9 11 (4.87%) C#
10 10 (4.42%) Bash
11 7 (3.10%) Embedded C++
12 6 (2.65%) Shell Script
12 6 (2.65%) SystemVerilog
12 6 (2.65%) VB
13 5 (2.21%) VB6
14 4 (1.77%) Rust
15 3 (1.33%) COBOL
15 3 (1.33%) JavaScript
15 3 (1.33%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 69 (30.53%) Security Cleared
2 50 (22.12%) SC Cleared
3 17 (7.52%) Degree
4 11 (4.87%) DV Cleared
5 9 (3.98%) BPSS Clearance
6 1 (0.44%) Azure Certification
6 1 (0.44%) CCNA
6 1 (0.44%) Cisco Certification
6 1 (0.44%) CompTIA CySA+
6 1 (0.44%) Computer Science Degree
6 1 (0.44%) GCIA
6 1 (0.44%) GCIH
6 1 (0.44%) GIAC
6 1 (0.44%) ISTQB
6 1 (0.44%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
6 1 (0.44%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
6 1 (0.44%) Master's Degree
6 1 (0.44%) PhD
6 1 (0.44%) Six Sigma Black Belt
6 1 (0.44%) Six Sigma Green Belt
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (8.41%) Def Stans
2 17 (7.52%) QA
3 11 (4.87%) MISRA
4 9 (3.98%) DO-178B
5 3 (1.33%) ISO 8583
5 3 (1.33%) MIL-STD-1553
5 3 (1.33%) PCI DSS
6 2 (0.88%) Data Quality
6 2 (0.88%) ISO 15022
6 2 (0.88%) ISO 20022
6 2 (0.88%) ISO 26262
7 1 (0.44%) Accessibility
7 1 (0.44%) DO-254
7 1 (0.44%) IEC 61508
7 1 (0.44%) ISO 14001
7 1 (0.44%) ISO 9001
7 1 (0.44%) NCSC
7 1 (0.44%) NIST
7 1 (0.44%) NIST 800
7 1 (0.44%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 23 (10.18%) Firmware
2 14 (6.19%) Docker
3 8 (3.54%) Embedded Firmware
4 6 (2.65%) Active Directory
4 6 (2.65%) Virtual Machines
5 4 (1.77%) VMware Infrastructure
6 2 (0.88%) Oracle RAC
6 2 (0.88%) vCloud
6 2 (0.88%) VMware NSX
6 2 (0.88%) vSphere
7 1 (0.44%) FreeRADIUS
7 1 (0.44%) Slurm Workload Manager
7 1 (0.44%) Squid
Systems Management
1 11 (4.87%) Terraform
2 9 (3.98%) Kubernetes
3 5 (2.21%) Ansible
4 1 (0.44%) Grafana
4 1 (0.44%) HP ALM
4 1 (0.44%) Nagios
4 1 (0.44%) Packer
4 1 (0.44%) Prometheus
4 1 (0.44%) Puppet
Vendors
1 24 (10.62%) Oracle
2 10 (4.42%) IBM
3 9 (3.98%) Xilinx
4 8 (3.54%) Intel
5 6 (2.65%) Cisco
5 6 (2.65%) MathWorks
6 5 (2.21%) HP
6 5 (2.21%) Microsemi
6 5 (2.21%) Microsoft
7 4 (1.77%) Lauterbach
7 4 (1.77%) SAP
7 4 (1.77%) VMware
8 3 (1.33%) Actian
8 3 (1.33%) Google
9 2 (0.88%) Dell
9 2 (0.88%) Perforce
9 2 (0.88%) QNX
9 2 (0.88%) Sitecore
10 1 (0.44%) Citrix
10 1 (0.44%) EMC