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 26 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 458 375 226
Rank change year-on-year -83 -149 -8
Contract jobs citing C 224 186 434
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.42% 0.57% 1.12%
As % of the Programming Languages category 1.60% 1.73% 3.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 69 70 211
10th Percentile £337 £356 £396
25th Percentile £400 £419 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -6.24% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £603
90th Percentile £690 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £460 £500 £540
% change year-on-year -8.00% -7.45% +2.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 67 37 93
10th Percentile £51.70 £52.00 £44.79
25th Percentile £64.38 £55.00 £60.00
Median hourly rate £67.50 £68.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -0.74% +4.62% -
75th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £75.00
90th Percentile £70.50 £87.50 £85.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £68.00 £68.00 £70.00
% change year-on-year - -2.86% +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 13,990 10,743 12,235
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 26.08% 32.84% 31.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,106 7,166 8,475
10th Percentile £363 £340 £350
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £519 £505 £530
Median % change year-on-year +2.77% -4.72% -3.64%
75th Percentile £619 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £498 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +4.93% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 518 297 383
10th Percentile £28.50 £28.25 £27.00
25th Percentile £50.00 £36.25 £46.18
Median hourly rate £65.00 £55.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +18.18% -15.38% +4.55%
75th Percentile £70.00 £67.50 £70.00
90th Percentile £78.23 £79.25 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £62.25 £65.00
% change year-on-year +4.42% -4.23% +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 26 August 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 26 August 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 26 August 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 -61 212 £492 -9.93% 315
UK excluding London -26 176 £460 -8.00% 307
Work from Home -43 66 £500 -9.09% 88
South East -20 59 £500 - 87
East of England -14 52 £700 +49.33% 69
London -91 40 £525 -11.47% 31
South West -41 33 £450 -20.88% 68
Midlands -33 21 £462 - 36
West Midlands -39 20 £450 - 16
Scotland -25 6 - - 10
North of England -81 5 £400 +5.96% 48
Yorkshire -39 3 £400 -20.00% 12
East Midlands -15 1 £525 - 20
North East -41 1 - - 13
North West -57 1 - - 25
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 (2.23%) Tuxedo
2 3 (1.34%) WebSphere
3 2 (0.89%) Oracle SOA Suite
3 2 (0.89%) Oracle Workflow
4 1 (0.45%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.45%) ColdFusion
4 1 (0.45%) Confluence
Applications
1 11 (4.91%) Simulink
2 3 (1.34%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 2 (0.89%) BASE24
1 2 (0.89%) Oracle Retail
1 2 (0.89%) Teamcenter
2 1 (0.45%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.45%) Loan IQ
Cloud Services
1 14 (6.25%) AWS
2 13 (5.80%) Azure
3 10 (4.46%) GitHub
4 7 (3.13%) Azure DevOps
4 7 (3.13%) GitHub Copilot
4 7 (3.13%) IaaS
5 4 (1.79%) SaaS
6 3 (1.34%) Amazon S3
6 3 (1.34%) GCP
6 3 (1.34%) GitHub Actions
6 3 (1.34%) Power Platform
7 2 (0.89%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 2 (0.89%) AWS CloudFormation
7 2 (0.89%) AWS IoT
7 2 (0.89%) AWS Lambda
7 2 (0.89%) Entra ID
7 2 (0.89%) OCI
7 2 (0.89%) Serverless
8 1 (0.45%) AWS CloudTrail
8 1 (0.45%) Google Drive
Communications & Networking
1 21 (9.38%) Software-Defined Radio
1 21 (9.38%) Wireless
2 10 (4.46%) Ethernet
3 5 (2.23%) Wireshark
4 4 (1.79%) Bluetooth
4 4 (1.79%) TCP/IP
5 3 (1.34%) DNS
5 3 (1.34%) Internet
5 3 (1.34%) MQTT
5 3 (1.34%) RS-232
5 3 (1.34%) RS-485
5 3 (1.34%) VXLAN
6 2 (0.89%) 4G
6 2 (0.89%) 5G
6 2 (0.89%) ATM
6 2 (0.89%) Firewall
6 2 (0.89%) LTE
6 2 (0.89%) Network Security
6 2 (0.89%) WAN
7 1 (0.45%) DHCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (4.46%) Ingres
2 7 (3.13%) SQL Server
3 6 (2.68%) Relational Database
4 4 (1.79%) NoSQL
4 4 (1.79%) RDBMS
5 3 (1.34%) MongoDB
5 3 (1.34%) PostgreSQL
5 3 (1.34%) Power BI
6 2 (0.89%) Data Warehouse
6 2 (0.89%) NonStop SQL
6 2 (0.89%) Oracle Database
6 2 (0.89%) SQLPlus
6 2 (0.89%) Tableau
7 1 (0.45%) Amazon Redshift
7 1 (0.45%) Azure SQL Database
7 1 (0.45%) Big Data
7 1 (0.45%) Elasticsearch
7 1 (0.45%) KDB
7 1 (0.45%) Redis
7 1 (0.45%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 25 (11.16%) Git
2 21 (9.38%) Rational DOORS
3 11 (4.91%) Rational Rhapsody
4 10 (4.46%) Jenkins
4 10 (4.46%) JIRA
5 7 (3.13%) Team Foundation Server
6 5 (2.23%) Oracle Forms
7 4 (1.79%) GitLab
7 4 (1.79%) Visual Studio
8 2 (0.89%) CMake
8 2 (0.89%) CppUnit
8 2 (0.89%) PetaLinux
8 2 (0.89%) PVCS
8 2 (0.89%) Subversion
9 1 (0.45%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 1 (0.45%) ERwin
9 1 (0.45%) GoogleTest
9 1 (0.45%) JMeter
9 1 (0.45%) LoadRunner
9 1 (0.45%) PowerDesigner
General
1 57 (25.45%) Social Skills
2 27 (12.05%) Aerospace
3 23 (10.27%) Analytical Skills
4 18 (8.04%) Electronics
5 14 (6.25%) Law
6 10 (4.46%) Manufacturing
7 9 (4.02%) Finance
7 9 (4.02%) Public Sector
8 7 (3.13%) Banking
8 7 (3.13%) Documentation Skills
9 4 (1.79%) Military
10 3 (1.34%) Automotive
10 3 (1.34%) Front Office
10 3 (1.34%) Investment Banking
11 2 (0.89%) Avionics
11 2 (0.89%) Games
11 2 (0.89%) Japanese Language
11 2 (0.89%) Retail
11 2 (0.89%) Telecoms
12 1 (0.45%) Korean Language
Job Titles
1 83 (37.05%) Software Engineer
2 51 (22.77%) Embedded Engineer
3 41 (18.30%) Embedded Software Engineer
4 26 (11.61%) Developer
5 25 (11.16%) Senior
6 19 (8.48%) C Software Engineer
6 19 (8.48%) C++ Software Engineer
7 17 (7.59%) Lead
8 13 (5.80%) C/C++ Software Engineer
9 12 (5.36%) Software Developer
10 10 (4.46%) Linux Engineer
11 9 (4.02%) Test Leader
12 8 (3.57%) DSP Engineer
12 8 (3.57%) DSP Software Engineer
12 8 (3.57%) Senior Developer
13 7 (3.13%) Analyst
13 7 (3.13%) Embedded C Engineer
13 7 (3.13%) Embedded C Software Engineer
14 6 (2.68%) C Developer
14 6 (2.68%) FPGA Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (6.70%) Yocto
2 10 (4.46%) .NET
3 9 (4.02%) Terraform
4 5 (2.23%) JSON
4 5 (2.23%) Middleware
4 5 (2.23%) REST
4 5 (2.23%) XML
5 4 (1.79%) LDAP
5 4 (1.79%) OpenTofu
5 4 (1.79%) WinForms
6 3 (1.34%) ADO
6 3 (1.34%) COM
6 3 (1.34%) ODBC
6 3 (1.34%) WebSphere MQ
7 2 (0.89%) FastAPI
7 2 (0.89%) HTML
7 2 (0.89%) HTML5
7 2 (0.89%) PyTorch
7 2 (0.89%) Qt
7 2 (0.89%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 39 (17.41%) Embedded Systems
2 21 (9.38%) FPGA
3 17 (7.59%) Device Driver
3 17 (7.59%) RISC-V
4 11 (4.91%) Legacy Systems
5 10 (4.46%) MicroBlaze
5 10 (4.46%) Verilog
5 10 (4.46%) VHDL
6 9 (4.02%) PCIe
7 7 (3.13%) Algorithms
7 7 (3.13%) Private Cloud
8 5 (2.23%) Data Protection Act
8 5 (2.23%) IoT
8 5 (2.23%) Virtual Team
9 4 (1.79%) ARM Cortex
9 4 (1.79%) Cloud Native
9 4 (1.79%) Distributed Systems
10 3 (1.34%) Cyber Threat
10 3 (1.34%) Low-Code
10 3 (1.34%) SWIFT Messaging Network
Operating Systems
1 79 (35.27%) Linux
2 26 (11.61%) Embedded Linux
3 15 (6.70%) Unix
4 13 (5.80%) FreeRTOS
5 12 (5.36%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 12 (5.36%) Windows
6 2 (0.89%) Android
7 1 (0.45%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.45%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.45%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 117 (52.23%) Software Engineering
2 39 (17.41%) Agile
3 33 (14.73%) Problem-Solving
4 31 (13.84%) Test Automation
5 29 (12.95%) Signal Processing
6 27 (12.05%) CI/CD
7 26 (11.61%) Validation
8 23 (10.27%) DevOps
8 23 (10.27%) Digital Signal Processing
9 19 (8.48%) Data Management
10 18 (8.04%) UML
11 17 (7.59%) Software Testing
11 17 (7.59%) Systems Engineering
12 16 (7.14%) Technical Leadership
13 15 (6.70%) Migration
14 14 (6.25%) Integration Testing
14 14 (6.25%) Workflow
15 12 (5.36%) Configuration Management
15 12 (5.36%) Embedded Software Development
15 12 (5.36%) Test Strategy
Programming Languages
1 129 (57.59%) C++
2 57 (25.45%) Python
3 32 (14.29%) Embedded C
4 31 (13.84%) SQL
5 23 (10.27%) Ada
6 19 (8.48%) Java
7 18 (8.04%) MATLAB
7 18 (8.04%) PL/SQL
8 13 (5.80%) ProC
9 10 (4.46%) Embedded C++
10 9 (4.02%) C#
11 8 (3.57%) Perl
12 7 (3.13%) SystemVerilog
13 6 (2.68%) Bash
14 5 (2.23%) PowerShell
14 5 (2.23%) Shell Script
14 5 (2.23%) VB
14 5 (2.23%) VB6
15 4 (1.79%) JavaScript
15 4 (1.79%) Rust
Qualifications
1 66 (29.46%) Security Cleared
2 50 (22.32%) SC Cleared
3 24 (10.71%) Degree
4 10 (4.46%) DV Cleared
5 7 (3.13%) BPSS Clearance
6 5 (2.23%) Master's Degree
7 2 (0.89%) Computer Science Degree
8 1 (0.45%) Azure Certification
8 1 (0.45%) CCNA
8 1 (0.45%) Cisco Certification
8 1 (0.45%) CompTIA CySA+
8 1 (0.45%) GCIA
8 1 (0.45%) GCIH
8 1 (0.45%) GIAC
8 1 (0.45%) PhD
8 1 (0.45%) Six Sigma Black Belt
8 1 (0.45%) Six Sigma Green Belt
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (8.48%) QA
2 12 (5.36%) Def Stans
3 9 (4.02%) MISRA
4 8 (3.57%) DO-178B
5 3 (1.34%) ISO 15022
5 3 (1.34%) ISO 20022
6 2 (0.89%) Data Quality
6 2 (0.89%) ISO 26262
7 1 (0.45%) Disclosure Scotland
7 1 (0.45%) IFRS
7 1 (0.45%) IFRS 9
7 1 (0.45%) ISO 14001
7 1 (0.45%) ISO 8583
7 1 (0.45%) ISO 9001
7 1 (0.45%) MIL-STD-1553
7 1 (0.45%) NCSC
7 1 (0.45%) NIST
7 1 (0.45%) NIST 800
7 1 (0.45%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.45%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 31 (13.84%) Firmware
2 17 (7.59%) Embedded Firmware
3 13 (5.80%) Docker
4 7 (3.13%) VMware Infrastructure
5 6 (2.68%) Active Directory
5 6 (2.68%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.89%) Oracle RAC
7 1 (0.45%) FreeRADIUS
7 1 (0.45%) KVM
7 1 (0.45%) Slurm Workload Manager
7 1 (0.45%) Squid
Systems Management
1 10 (4.46%) Kubernetes
2 8 (3.57%) Puppet
3 7 (3.13%) Progress Chef
4 3 (1.34%) Ansible
5 2 (0.89%) Salt
6 1 (0.45%) Grafana
6 1 (0.45%) Nagios
6 1 (0.45%) Packer
6 1 (0.45%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 24 (10.71%) Oracle
2 13 (5.80%) IBM
3 10 (4.46%) Xilinx
4 8 (3.57%) Intel
5 7 (3.13%) Red Hat
5 7 (3.13%) SaltStack
5 7 (3.13%) VMware
6 5 (2.23%) Microsemi
7 4 (1.79%) Cisco
7 4 (1.79%) MathWorks
7 4 (1.79%) Microsoft
8 3 (1.34%) Actian
8 3 (1.34%) Google
8 3 (1.34%) Lauterbach
8 3 (1.34%) SAP
9 2 (0.89%) HP
9 2 (0.89%) Perforce
9 2 (0.89%) QNX
9 2 (0.89%) Sitecore
10 1 (0.45%) EMC