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

6 months to
22 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 453 355 210
Rank change year-on-year -98 -145 +19
Contract jobs citing C 215 192 475
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.41% 0.59% 1.15%
As % of the Programming Languages category 1.53% 1.78% 3.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 71 78 232
10th Percentile £340 £274 £388
25th Percentile £413 £347 £449
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £500 £534
Median % change year-on-year -1.60% -6.28% -3.00%
75th Percentile £594 £597 £588
90th Percentile £650 £675 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £400 £538
% change year-on-year +18.75% -25.65% +4.98%
Number of hourly rates quoted 55 36 126
10th Percentile £51.55 £52.00 £46.25
25th Percentile £65.00 £58.00 £60.00
Median hourly rate £67.50 £68.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -0.74% +4.62% +4.00%
75th Percentile £70.00 £74.06 £70.00
90th Percentile £74.50 £77.50 £85.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £68.00 £68.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year - +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 14,098 10,796 12,725
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 26.73% 33.09% 30.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,151 7,254 8,989
10th Percentile £360 £344 £350
25th Percentile £423 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £505 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.49% -3.81% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £475 £495
% change year-on-year +3.16% -4.04% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 520 260 461
10th Percentile £33.74 £28.16 £30.63
25th Percentile £51.25 £36.25 £46.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £56.38 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +15.30% -9.80% +3.09%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £81.00 £80.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £63.75 £65.00
% change year-on-year +1.96% -1.92% +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 22 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 22 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 22 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 -60 205 £492 -6.26% 354
UK excluding London -47 170 £475 +18.75% 302
Work from Home -44 62 £500 -2.44% 129
South East -12 58 £500 -2.44% 92
East of England -8 56 £613 +53.13% 66
London -96 38 £513 -12.54% 79
South West -35 26 £450 -18.18% 50
Midlands -37 21 £462 +559.29% 31
West Midlands -36 20 £450 - 10
North of England -77 5 £625 +66.67% 43
Scotland -29 2 - - 8
North East -35 2 £625 - 9
North West -49 2 - - 22
Northern Ireland - 2 - - 13
East Midlands -14 1 £525 +650.00% 20
Yorkshire -50 1 - - 13
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 (2.33%) Tuxedo
2 2 (0.93%) Oracle SOA Suite
2 2 (0.93%) Oracle Workflow
2 2 (0.93%) WebSphere
3 1 (0.47%) Apache Spark
3 1 (0.47%) ColdFusion
3 1 (0.47%) Confluence
Applications
1 10 (4.65%) Simulink
2 4 (1.86%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.47%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 3 (1.40%) Teamcenter
2 2 (0.93%) BASE24
2 2 (0.93%) Oracle Retail
3 1 (0.47%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.47%) Dynamics NAV
3 1 (0.47%) Loan IQ
Cloud Services
1 16 (7.44%) AWS
1 16 (7.44%) Azure
2 10 (4.65%) GitHub
3 8 (3.72%) Azure DevOps
4 7 (3.26%) GitHub Copilot
5 6 (2.79%) Power Platform
6 4 (1.86%) GCP
6 4 (1.86%) SaaS
7 3 (1.40%) Amazon S3
7 3 (1.40%) GitHub Actions
8 2 (0.93%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 2 (0.93%) AWS CloudFormation
8 2 (0.93%) AWS IoT
8 2 (0.93%) AWS Lambda
8 2 (0.93%) Azure Monitor
8 2 (0.93%) Dynamics 365
8 2 (0.93%) Entra ID
8 2 (0.93%) OCI
8 2 (0.93%) Serverless
9 1 (0.47%) AWS CloudTrail
Communications & Networking
1 16 (7.44%) Software-Defined Radio
1 16 (7.44%) Wireless
2 15 (6.98%) Ethernet
3 6 (2.79%) TCP/IP
3 6 (2.79%) Wireshark
4 5 (2.33%) DNS
4 5 (2.33%) RS-232
4 5 (2.33%) RS-485
5 3 (1.40%) 4G
5 3 (1.40%) 5G
5 3 (1.40%) Internet
5 3 (1.40%) LTE
5 3 (1.40%) Modbus
5 3 (1.40%) MQTT
5 3 (1.40%) RS-422
5 3 (1.40%) SpaceWire
5 3 (1.40%) VXLAN
6 2 (0.93%) Microwave Backhaul
6 2 (0.93%) Radio Access Network
6 2 (0.93%) VoLTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (4.65%) Ingres
2 7 (3.26%) SQL Server
3 6 (2.79%) Power BI
3 6 (2.79%) Relational Database
4 4 (1.86%) NoSQL
4 4 (1.86%) RDBMS
5 3 (1.40%) Data Warehouse
5 3 (1.40%) MongoDB
5 3 (1.40%) Oracle Database
5 3 (1.40%) PostgreSQL
5 3 (1.40%) Tableau
6 2 (0.93%) NonStop SQL
6 2 (0.93%) SQLPlus
7 1 (0.47%) Apache Cassandra
7 1 (0.47%) Azure SQL Database
7 1 (0.47%) Data Lake
7 1 (0.47%) Hadoop
7 1 (0.47%) KDB
7 1 (0.47%) Snowflake Schema
7 1 (0.47%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 20 (9.30%) Git
1 20 (9.30%) Rational DOORS
2 7 (3.26%) JIRA
2 7 (3.26%) Rational Rhapsody
3 6 (2.79%) GitLab
3 6 (2.79%) Team Foundation Server
4 5 (2.33%) Oracle Forms
4 5 (2.33%) Visual Studio
5 3 (1.40%) Jenkins
6 2 (0.93%) CMake
6 2 (0.93%) Subversion
7 1 (0.47%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 1 (0.47%) ER Studio
7 1 (0.47%) ERwin
7 1 (0.47%) git-flow
7 1 (0.47%) GoogleTest
7 1 (0.47%) LoadRunner
7 1 (0.47%) PetaLinux
7 1 (0.47%) Postman
7 1 (0.47%) PowerDesigner
General
1 51 (23.72%) Social Skills
2 30 (13.95%) Aerospace
3 24 (11.16%) Electronics
4 20 (9.30%) Analytical Skills
5 16 (7.44%) Law
6 14 (6.51%) Manufacturing
7 11 (5.12%) Finance
8 10 (4.65%) Documentation Skills
9 9 (4.19%) Public Sector
10 6 (2.79%) Banking
11 5 (2.33%) Automotive
12 4 (1.86%) Avionics
12 4 (1.86%) Military
13 2 (0.93%) Games
13 2 (0.93%) Investment Banking
13 2 (0.93%) Japanese Language
13 2 (0.93%) Retail
13 2 (0.93%) Telecoms
14 1 (0.47%) Korean Language
14 1 (0.47%) Polish Language
Job Titles
1 76 (35.35%) Software Engineer
2 47 (21.86%) Embedded Engineer
3 35 (16.28%) Embedded Software Engineer
4 31 (14.42%) Developer
5 24 (11.16%) Senior
6 16 (7.44%) C++ Software Engineer
7 13 (6.05%) Software Developer
8 12 (5.58%) C Software Engineer
8 12 (5.58%) C/C++ Software Engineer
9 11 (5.12%) Lead
10 9 (4.19%) Test Leader
11 8 (3.72%) DSP Engineer
11 8 (3.72%) DSP Software Engineer
11 8 (3.72%) Senior Developer
12 6 (2.79%) Analyst
12 6 (2.79%) C Developer
12 6 (2.79%) Test Engineer
13 5 (2.33%) Architect
13 5 (2.33%) FPGA Engineer
13 5 (2.33%) Senior C Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (5.58%) Yocto
2 11 (5.12%) .NET
3 6 (2.79%) WinForms
4 5 (2.33%) JSON
4 5 (2.33%) REST
5 4 (1.86%) LDAP
5 4 (1.86%) XML
6 3 (1.40%) ADO
6 3 (1.40%) COM
6 3 (1.40%) Itk
6 3 (1.40%) Kafka
6 3 (1.40%) Middleware
6 3 (1.40%) ODBC
6 3 (1.40%) Qt
6 3 (1.40%) Web Services
7 2 (0.93%) ARM Templates
7 2 (0.93%) FastAPI
7 2 (0.93%) HTML
7 2 (0.93%) HTML5
7 2 (0.93%) QML
Miscellaneous
1 29 (13.49%) Embedded Systems
2 24 (11.16%) FPGA
3 13 (6.05%) RISC-V
4 12 (5.58%) PCIe
5 11 (5.12%) Legacy Systems
6 9 (4.19%) Device Driver
6 9 (4.19%) Verilog
6 9 (4.19%) VHDL
7 6 (2.79%) MicroBlaze
8 5 (2.33%) Algorithms
9 4 (1.86%) Cyber Threat
9 4 (1.86%) Distributed Systems
9 4 (1.86%) IoT
10 3 (1.40%) ARM Cortex
10 3 (1.40%) Cloud Native
10 3 (1.40%) Low-Code
11 2 (0.93%) Analytical Mindset
11 2 (0.93%) ASIC
11 2 (0.93%) Data Centre
11 2 (0.93%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 68 (31.63%) Linux
2 18 (8.37%) Embedded Linux
3 15 (6.98%) Windows
4 12 (5.58%) FreeRTOS
5 8 (3.72%) Unix
6 4 (1.86%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.47%) Android
7 1 (0.47%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.47%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.47%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 111 (51.63%) Software Engineering
2 39 (18.14%) Agile
3 36 (16.74%) Problem-Solving
4 29 (13.49%) Test Automation
5 27 (12.56%) Validation
6 25 (11.63%) CI/CD
7 24 (11.16%) DevOps
8 21 (9.77%) Signal Processing
9 20 (9.30%) Data Management
9 20 (9.30%) Software Testing
10 18 (8.37%) Digital Signal Processing
11 17 (7.91%) Migration
12 15 (6.98%) Workflow
13 14 (6.51%) Embedded Software Development
13 14 (6.51%) Systems Engineering
13 14 (6.51%) Technical Leadership
14 13 (6.05%) TDD
14 13 (6.05%) UML
15 12 (5.58%) Integration Testing
15 12 (5.58%) System Integration Testing
Programming Languages
1 110 (51.16%) C++
2 56 (26.05%) Python
3 36 (16.74%) SQL
4 30 (13.95%) Ada
5 25 (11.63%) Embedded C
6 19 (8.84%) PL/SQL
7 18 (8.37%) Java
8 16 (7.44%) MATLAB
9 14 (6.51%) ProC
10 12 (5.58%) C#
11 10 (4.65%) Bash
12 7 (3.26%) Embedded C++
13 6 (2.79%) Shell Script
13 6 (2.79%) SystemVerilog
13 6 (2.79%) VB
14 5 (2.33%) PowerShell
14 5 (2.33%) Rust
14 5 (2.33%) VB6
15 3 (1.40%) JavaScript
15 3 (1.40%) Lua
Qualifications
1 63 (29.30%) Security Cleared
2 45 (20.93%) SC Cleared
3 21 (9.77%) Degree
4 11 (5.12%) DV Cleared
5 7 (3.26%) BPSS Clearance
6 3 (1.40%) Master's Degree
7 1 (0.47%) Azure Certification
7 1 (0.47%) CCNA
7 1 (0.47%) Cisco Certification
7 1 (0.47%) CompTIA CySA+
7 1 (0.47%) Computer Science Degree
7 1 (0.47%) GCIA
7 1 (0.47%) GCIH
7 1 (0.47%) GIAC
7 1 (0.47%) ISTQB
7 1 (0.47%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
7 1 (0.47%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
7 1 (0.47%) PhD
7 1 (0.47%) Six Sigma Black Belt
7 1 (0.47%) Six Sigma Green Belt
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (7.91%) QA
2 14 (6.51%) Def Stans
3 10 (4.65%) MISRA
4 8 (3.72%) DO-178B
5 3 (1.40%) MIL-STD-1553
6 2 (0.93%) Data Quality
6 2 (0.93%) ISO 15022
6 2 (0.93%) ISO 20022
6 2 (0.93%) ISO 26262
7 1 (0.47%) Accessibility
7 1 (0.47%) IEC 61508
7 1 (0.47%) ISO 14001
7 1 (0.47%) ISO 8583
7 1 (0.47%) ISO 9001
7 1 (0.47%) MISRA C
7 1 (0.47%) NCSC
7 1 (0.47%) NIST
7 1 (0.47%) NIST 800
7 1 (0.47%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.47%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 23 (10.70%) Firmware
2 16 (7.44%) Docker
3 10 (4.65%) Embedded Firmware
4 6 (2.79%) Active Directory
4 6 (2.79%) Virtual Machines
4 6 (2.79%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (0.93%) Oracle RAC
6 1 (0.47%) FreeRADIUS
6 1 (0.47%) KVM
6 1 (0.47%) Slurm Workload Manager
6 1 (0.47%) Squid
6 1 (0.47%) vCloud
6 1 (0.47%) VMware NSX
6 1 (0.47%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 11 (5.12%) Kubernetes
1 11 (5.12%) Terraform
2 5 (2.33%) Ansible
3 1 (0.47%) Grafana
3 1 (0.47%) HP ALM
3 1 (0.47%) Nagios
3 1 (0.47%) Packer
3 1 (0.47%) Prometheus
3 1 (0.47%) Puppet
Vendors
1 24 (11.16%) Oracle
2 10 (4.65%) IBM
3 9 (4.19%) Xilinx
4 8 (3.72%) Intel
5 6 (2.79%) VMware
6 5 (2.33%) Cisco
6 5 (2.33%) Microsemi
6 5 (2.33%) Microsoft
7 4 (1.86%) Lauterbach
7 4 (1.86%) MathWorks
7 4 (1.86%) SAP
8 3 (1.40%) Actian
8 3 (1.40%) Google
8 3 (1.40%) HP
9 2 (0.93%) Perforce
9 2 (0.93%) QNX
9 2 (0.93%) Sitecore
10 1 (0.47%) Citrix
10 1 (0.47%) Red Hat
10 1 (0.47%) Remedy