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 19 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 385 264 204
Rank change year-on-year -121 -60 +71
Contract jobs citing C 209 336 564
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.59% 0.93% 1.22%
As % of the Programming Languages category 1.82% 2.89% 3.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 74 134 262
10th Percentile £68 £400 £351
25th Percentile £405 £451 £431
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £538 £545
Median % change year-on-year -6.98% -1.38% -9.17%
75th Percentile £614 £638 £638
90th Percentile £675 £810 £782
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £506 £525
% change year-on-year -3.56% -3.71% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 50 47 145
10th Percentile £50.93 £46.90 £51.45
25th Percentile £61.44 £57.50 £56.25
Median hourly rate £67.75 £65.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.23% - +13.04%
75th Percentile £73.75 £70.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £76.25 £95.00 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.50 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year +3.85% - -

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 11,482 11,621 14,388
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.16% 32.06% 31.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,577 7,462 10,246
10th Percentile £350 £350 £363
25th Percentile £413 £425 £431
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £508 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.33% -4.55% -2.65%
75th Percentile £623 £650 £650
90th Percentile £725 £751 £763
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -2.56% -2.50% -2.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 342 281 443
10th Percentile £29.40 £22.00 £32.06
25th Percentile £46.25 £40.00 £47.50
Median hourly rate £62.50 £62.50 £60.50
Median % change year-on-year - +3.31% +0.83%
75th Percentile £67.75 £70.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.00

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 19 November 2025.

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 19 November 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for C in the UK

C
Top 14 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 19 November 2025. 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 -127 184 £500 -6.98% 557
UK excluding London -86 145 £488 -3.56% 487
East of England -13 54 £475 -5.00% 139
London -50 49 £586 +3.17% 128
South West -21 43 £525 +4.79% 95
Work from Home -43 42 £475 -8.65% 254
Scotland +11 17 £438 -48.53% 43
North of England -44 17 £450 -11.76% 45
North West -26 12 £415 -14.87% 19
South East -37 11 £500 -4.31% 141
Yorkshire -44 5 £500 -1.96% 15
Midlands -39 3 - - 49
East Midlands - 2 - - 22
West Midlands -33 1 - - 27

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 16 (7.66%) WebLogic
2 15 (7.18%) WebSphere
3 5 (2.39%) Apache Spark
4 4 (1.91%) Confluence
5 2 (0.96%) nginx
5 2 (0.96%) OpenStack
6 1 (0.48%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 13 (6.22%) Simulink
2 9 (4.31%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (2.87%) Stateflow
4 5 (2.39%) Microsoft Excel
4 5 (2.39%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 2 (0.96%) Teamcenter
2 1 (0.48%) Dynamics NAV
Cloud Services
1 30 (14.35%) AWS
2 24 (11.48%) Azure
3 17 (8.13%) GitHub
4 14 (6.70%) GCP
5 5 (2.39%) OpenShift
6 3 (1.44%) Amazon ECS
6 3 (1.44%) Amazon EKS
6 3 (1.44%) Amazon S3
6 3 (1.44%) AWS CloudFormation
6 3 (1.44%) AWS Lambda
6 3 (1.44%) IaaS
6 3 (1.44%) Serverless
7 2 (0.96%) Cloud Computing
7 2 (0.96%) Dynamics 365
7 2 (0.96%) npm
7 2 (0.96%) PaaS
7 2 (0.96%) SaaS
8 1 (0.48%) Amazon EC2
8 1 (0.48%) Datadog
8 1 (0.48%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 8 (3.83%) Ethernet
2 6 (2.87%) RS-232
3 5 (2.39%) SpaceWire
4 4 (1.91%) Firewall
4 4 (1.91%) TCP/IP
5 3 (1.44%) 3GPP
5 3 (1.44%) HTTP
5 3 (1.44%) Wi-Fi
6 2 (0.96%) AMQP
6 2 (0.96%) Anycast
6 2 (0.96%) BGP
6 2 (0.96%) Bluetooth
6 2 (0.96%) DNS
6 2 (0.96%) Ethernet VPN
6 2 (0.96%) Internet
6 2 (0.96%) Network Security
6 2 (0.96%) Radio Access Network
6 2 (0.96%) Software-Defined Networking
6 2 (0.96%) VXLAN
6 2 (0.96%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (4.31%) Oracle Database
2 5 (2.39%) Big Data
2 5 (2.39%) HPCC
3 3 (1.44%) Data Lake
3 3 (1.44%) Data Mining
3 3 (1.44%) Elasticsearch
3 3 (1.44%) MongoDB
3 3 (1.44%) PostgreSQL
3 3 (1.44%) Relational Database
4 2 (0.96%) Amazon RDS
4 2 (0.96%) InfluxDB
4 2 (0.96%) RDBMS
5 1 (0.48%) DB2
5 1 (0.48%) NonStop SQL
5 1 (0.48%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 24 (11.48%) Git
2 17 (8.13%) Rational DOORS
3 15 (7.18%) Jenkins
4 11 (5.26%) Gradle
5 10 (4.78%) GitLab
6 9 (4.31%) ClearCase
7 8 (3.83%) JIRA
8 7 (3.35%) Xcode
9 6 (2.87%) Rational Team Concert
10 5 (2.39%) Maven
11 4 (1.91%) Artifactory
11 4 (1.91%) Clang
11 4 (1.91%) GCC
11 4 (1.91%) Rational Rhapsody
11 4 (1.91%) Visual Studio
12 3 (1.44%) Bitbucket
12 3 (1.44%) KGDB
13 2 (0.96%) CMake
13 2 (0.96%) PVCS
14 1 (0.48%) JMeter
General
1 35 (16.75%) Social Skills
2 26 (12.44%) Electronics
3 23 (11.00%) Finance
4 20 (9.57%) Aerospace
5 19 (9.09%) Analytical Skills
6 15 (7.18%) Public Sector
7 13 (6.22%) Banking
8 11 (5.26%) Law
9 10 (4.78%) Telecoms
10 7 (3.35%) Manufacturing
11 6 (2.87%) Documentation Skills
11 6 (2.87%) Marketing
11 6 (2.87%) Military
12 5 (2.39%) Aviation
13 4 (1.91%) Financial Institution
14 3 (1.44%) Investment Banking
15 2 (0.96%) Automotive
15 2 (0.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 1 (0.48%) Health Technology
16 1 (0.48%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 55 (26.32%) Software Engineer
2 34 (16.27%) Developer
3 21 (10.05%) Embedded Engineer
4 19 (9.09%) Embedded Software Engineer
5 16 (7.66%) Support Engineer
6 15 (7.18%) Consultant
7 12 (5.74%) Architect
7 12 (5.74%) Product Engineer
7 12 (5.74%) Products Support Engineer
7 12 (5.74%) Software Support Engineer
8 11 (5.26%) C Software Engineer
8 11 (5.26%) Design Engineer
8 11 (5.26%) Senior
9 10 (4.78%) C++ Software Engineer
9 10 (4.78%) Digital Design Engineer
9 10 (4.78%) Systems Engineer
10 9 (4.31%) C++ Developer
11 7 (3.35%) C/C++ Software Engineer
11 7 (3.35%) Java Engineer
11 7 (3.35%) Lead
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (16.27%) HTML
2 27 (12.92%) Middleware
3 23 (11.00%) Node.js
4 17 (8.13%) .NET
5 12 (5.74%) CSS
6 10 (4.78%) Flash
7 8 (3.83%) JSON
7 8 (3.83%) React
7 8 (3.83%) XML
8 7 (3.35%) REST
9 5 (2.39%) AngularJS
9 5 (2.39%) PyTorch
9 5 (2.39%) Spring
10 4 (1.91%) Google JAX
10 4 (1.91%) JAX
10 4 (1.91%) TensorFlow
10 4 (1.91%) Yocto
11 3 (1.44%) Electron
11 3 (1.44%) OpenEmbedded
11 3 (1.44%) scikit-learn
Miscellaneous
1 19 (9.09%) Embedded Systems
1 19 (9.09%) FPGA
2 13 (6.22%) VHDL
3 8 (3.83%) Distributed Systems
4 7 (3.35%) Analogue Electronics
4 7 (3.35%) CUDA
4 7 (3.35%) Mobile App
4 7 (3.35%) Mobile Banking
4 7 (3.35%) Self-Motivation
5 5 (2.39%) Data Centre
5 5 (2.39%) Distributed Computing
5 5 (2.39%) PCIe
6 4 (1.91%) Algorithms
6 4 (1.91%) CAN bus
6 4 (1.91%) Cloud Native
6 4 (1.91%) Device Driver
6 4 (1.91%) Hedge funds
6 4 (1.91%) Verilog
7 3 (1.44%) Security Posture
8 2 (0.96%) CBDC
Operating Systems
1 67 (32.06%) Linux
2 30 (14.35%) Windows
3 13 (6.22%) Ubuntu
3 13 (6.22%) Unix
4 8 (3.83%) Android
4 8 (3.83%) FreeRTOS
5 7 (3.35%) Apple iOS
6 5 (2.39%) CentOS
7 3 (1.44%) Mac OS
8 2 (0.96%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 1 (0.48%) Debian
9 1 (0.48%) OpenVMS
9 1 (0.48%) Robot Operating System
9 1 (0.48%) VMS
9 1 (0.48%) VxWorks
9 1 (0.48%) Windows Embedded Compact
9 1 (0.48%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 85 (40.67%) Software Engineering
2 29 (13.88%) CI/CD
3 28 (13.40%) Agile
4 26 (12.44%) Problem-Solving
5 21 (10.05%) AI
6 18 (8.61%) DevOps
6 18 (8.61%) Validation
7 17 (8.13%) Mathematics
7 17 (8.13%) Software Testing
8 15 (7.18%) Machine Learning
8 15 (7.18%) Requirements Gathering
8 15 (7.18%) TDD
9 14 (6.70%) Containerisation
9 14 (6.70%) Signal Processing
9 14 (6.70%) Unit Testing
10 13 (6.22%) UML
11 12 (5.74%) Scrum
12 11 (5.26%) Computer Science
12 11 (5.26%) Systems Engineering
12 11 (5.26%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 145 (69.38%) C++
2 85 (40.67%) Python
3 82 (39.23%) Java
4 33 (15.79%) JavaScript
5 30 (14.35%) Shell Script
6 24 (11.48%) SQL
7 20 (9.57%) Ada
8 17 (8.13%) Bash
9 16 (7.66%) MATLAB
10 15 (7.18%) PHP
11 14 (6.70%) C#
12 12 (5.74%) Embedded C
13 11 (5.26%) PowerShell
14 9 (4.31%) Fortran
14 9 (4.31%) Go
14 9 (4.31%) Perl
15 8 (3.83%) Ruby
15 8 (3.83%) Scala
16 7 (3.35%) Objective-C
16 7 (3.35%) Swift
Qualifications
1 70 (33.49%) Security Cleared
2 52 (24.88%) SC Cleared
3 21 (10.05%) Degree
4 11 (5.26%) DV Cleared
5 7 (3.35%) Master's Degree
5 7 (3.35%) PhD
6 3 (1.44%) Computer Science Degree
7 2 (0.96%) CCIE
7 2 (0.96%) Cisco Certification
7 2 (0.96%) CISSP
7 2 (0.96%) JNCIE
7 2 (0.96%) Postgraduate
8 1 (0.48%) CCSAS
8 1 (0.48%) GPEN
8 1 (0.48%) GWAPT
8 1 (0.48%) GXPN
8 1 (0.48%) ISTQB
8 1 (0.48%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 1 (0.48%) OSCE
8 1 (0.48%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (6.22%) QA
2 9 (4.31%) MISRA
3 7 (3.35%) Def Stans
3 7 (3.35%) DO-178B
4 5 (2.39%) IEC 61508
4 5 (2.39%) ISO 26262
4 5 (2.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 3 (1.44%) EU AI Act
5 3 (1.44%) GDPR
5 3 (1.44%) IEC 62304
5 3 (1.44%) MISRA C
5 3 (1.44%) NIST
6 2 (0.96%) AUTOSAR
6 2 (0.96%) Software Quality Assurance
7 1 (0.48%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (0.48%) DO-254
7 1 (0.48%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 23 (11.00%) Firmware
2 22 (10.53%) Docker
3 5 (2.39%) Embedded Firmware
4 4 (1.91%) VMware Infrastructure
5 3 (1.44%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.96%) Active Directory
7 1 (0.48%) KVM
Systems Management
1 21 (10.05%) Kubernetes
2 11 (5.26%) Terraform
3 9 (4.31%) Ansible
4 4 (1.91%) Grafana
5 3 (1.44%) Istio
5 3 (1.44%) Podman
6 2 (0.96%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.48%) Functional Safety
7 1 (0.48%) ITRS Geneos
7 1 (0.48%) Rsyslog
7 1 (0.48%) SCOM
Vendors
1 18 (8.61%) Oracle
1 18 (8.61%) Red Hat
2 16 (7.66%) Dynatrace
3 9 (4.31%) Microsoft
3 9 (4.31%) NetApp
4 8 (3.83%) SAP
5 6 (2.87%) MathWorks
6 5 (2.39%) IBM
7 4 (1.91%) ServiceNow
7 4 (1.91%) VMware
8 3 (1.44%) Atlassian
8 3 (1.44%) Hitachi
9 2 (0.96%) ANSYS
9 2 (0.96%) Arista
9 2 (0.96%) Cisco
9 2 (0.96%) HP
9 2 (0.96%) Intel
9 2 (0.96%) Siemens
9 2 (0.96%) Splunk
9 2 (0.96%) Wind River