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

6 months to
29 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 379 270 207
Rank change year-on-year -109 -63 +76
Contract jobs citing C 207 337 554
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.57% 0.92% 1.21%
As % of the Programming Languages category 1.81% 2.87% 3.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 72 130 247
10th Percentile £68 £400 £325
25th Percentile £414 £455 £430
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £530 £540
Median % change year-on-year -5.66% -1.85% -10.00%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £638
90th Percentile £650 £810 £786
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 56 46 145
10th Percentile £52.00 £51.75 £51.75
25th Percentile £64.25 £61.25 £57.50
Median hourly rate £67.50 £65.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +3.85% - +13.04%
75th Percentile £73.75 £82.50 £70.00
90th Percentile £75.63 £95.00 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.50 £67.50 £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 11,446 11,723 14,187
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.75% 32.16% 30.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,551 7,479 10,108
10th Percentile £345 £350 £360
25th Percentile £413 £425 £431
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% -4.55% -3.08%
75th Percentile £619 £650 £650
90th Percentile £725 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £491 £500
% change year-on-year -3.16% -1.90% -3.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 341 297 433
10th Percentile £31.25 £22.00 £31.60
25th Percentile £50.00 £40.06 £47.50
Median hourly rate £64.63 £63.00 £60.14
Median % change year-on-year +2.59% +4.76% -0.60%
75th Percentile £68.00 £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 29 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 29 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 29 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 -116 184 £500 -5.21% 358
UK excluding London -72 148 £500 - 376
East of England -8 59 £475 -11.63% 107
London -37 46 £577 +2.12% 41
South West -17 44 £500 -0.20% 75
Work from Home -39 44 £475 -5.00% 157
Scotland +14 17 £438 -48.53% 29
North of England -48 14 £475 -2.56% 30
South East -33 11 £500 +3.36% 126
North West -30 9 £463 +1.65% 15
Yorkshire -29 5 £500 -28.57% 8
Midlands -37 3 - - 39
East Midlands - 2 - - 18
West Midlands -31 1 - - 21

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 (7.73%) WebLogic
2 15 (7.25%) WebSphere
3 4 (1.93%) Confluence
4 2 (0.97%) Apache Spark
4 2 (0.97%) OpenStack
5 1 (0.48%) Microsoft Exchange
5 1 (0.48%) nginx
5 1 (0.48%) SharePoint
5 1 (0.48%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 13 (6.28%) Simulink
2 9 (4.35%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (2.90%) Stateflow
4 5 (2.42%) Microsoft Excel
4 5 (2.42%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 2 (0.97%) Teamcenter
2 1 (0.48%) Actimize
2 1 (0.48%) Dynamics NAV
Cloud Services
1 27 (13.04%) AWS
2 23 (11.11%) Azure
3 19 (9.18%) GitHub
4 12 (5.80%) GCP
5 5 (2.42%) OpenShift
6 4 (1.93%) Amazon S3
7 3 (1.45%) Amazon ECS
7 3 (1.45%) Amazon EKS
7 3 (1.45%) AWS CloudFormation
7 3 (1.45%) AWS Lambda
7 3 (1.45%) IaaS
7 3 (1.45%) Serverless
8 2 (0.97%) Cloud Computing
8 2 (0.97%) Dynamics 365
8 2 (0.97%) npm
8 2 (0.97%) PaaS
8 2 (0.97%) SaaS
9 1 (0.48%) Amazon EC2
9 1 (0.48%) Azure DevOps
9 1 (0.48%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 9 (4.35%) Ethernet
2 7 (3.38%) RS-232
3 5 (2.42%) SpaceWire
4 4 (1.93%) TCP/IP
5 3 (1.45%) 3GPP
5 3 (1.45%) Firewall
5 3 (1.45%) HTTP
5 3 (1.45%) Wi-Fi
6 2 (0.97%) AMQP
6 2 (0.97%) Anycast
6 2 (0.97%) BGP
6 2 (0.97%) Bluetooth
6 2 (0.97%) DNS
6 2 (0.97%) Ethernet VPN
6 2 (0.97%) Modbus
6 2 (0.97%) Network Security
6 2 (0.97%) Radio Access Network
6 2 (0.97%) RS-485
6 2 (0.97%) VXLAN
6 2 (0.97%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (4.35%) Oracle Database
2 5 (2.42%) Big Data
2 5 (2.42%) HPCC
3 3 (1.45%) Data Lake
3 3 (1.45%) Elasticsearch
4 2 (0.97%) Amazon RDS
4 2 (0.97%) InfluxDB
4 2 (0.97%) MongoDB
4 2 (0.97%) PostgreSQL
4 2 (0.97%) RDBMS
4 2 (0.97%) Relational Database
5 1 (0.48%) Data Mining
5 1 (0.48%) Metadata
5 1 (0.48%) NonStop SQL
Development Applications
1 21 (10.14%) Git
2 18 (8.70%) Rational DOORS
3 13 (6.28%) Jenkins
4 11 (5.31%) GitLab
5 9 (4.35%) ClearCase
5 9 (4.35%) JIRA
6 8 (3.86%) Gradle
7 6 (2.90%) Rational Team Concert
8 5 (2.42%) Maven
8 5 (2.42%) Rational Rhapsody
9 4 (1.93%) Artifactory
9 4 (1.93%) Clang
9 4 (1.93%) GCC
9 4 (1.93%) Visual Studio
9 4 (1.93%) Xcode
10 3 (1.45%) Bitbucket
10 3 (1.45%) KGDB
10 3 (1.45%) PVCS
11 2 (0.97%) CMake
12 1 (0.48%) GDB
General
1 34 (16.43%) Social Skills
2 28 (13.53%) Electronics
3 22 (10.63%) Finance
4 20 (9.66%) Aerospace
5 17 (8.21%) Analytical Skills
6 16 (7.73%) Public Sector
7 11 (5.31%) Law
8 10 (4.83%) Telecoms
9 8 (3.86%) Banking
10 7 (3.38%) Documentation Skills
10 7 (3.38%) Manufacturing
10 7 (3.38%) Military
11 6 (2.90%) Marketing
12 5 (2.42%) Aviation
13 4 (1.93%) Financial Institution
14 2 (0.97%) Automotive
14 2 (0.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 1 (0.48%) Health Technology
15 1 (0.48%) Investment Banking
15 1 (0.48%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 59 (28.50%) Software Engineer
2 29 (14.01%) Developer
3 26 (12.56%) Embedded Engineer
4 23 (11.11%) Embedded Software Engineer
5 16 (7.73%) Support Engineer
6 15 (7.25%) Consultant
7 13 (6.28%) Architect
7 13 (6.28%) C Software Engineer
8 12 (5.80%) Product Engineer
8 12 (5.80%) Products Support Engineer
8 12 (5.80%) Senior
8 12 (5.80%) Software Support Engineer
9 11 (5.31%) Design Engineer
9 11 (5.31%) Systems Engineer
10 10 (4.83%) C++ Software Engineer
10 10 (4.83%) Digital Design Engineer
11 9 (4.35%) Embedded C Engineer
11 9 (4.35%) Embedded C Software Engineer
12 7 (3.38%) C++ Developer
12 7 (3.38%) Lead
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (14.98%) HTML
2 29 (14.01%) Middleware
3 21 (10.14%) Node.js
4 17 (8.21%) .NET
5 10 (4.83%) Flash
6 9 (4.35%) CSS
7 8 (3.86%) JSON
8 7 (3.38%) REST
8 7 (3.38%) XML
9 6 (2.90%) React
10 5 (2.42%) PyTorch
11 4 (1.93%) AngularJS
11 4 (1.93%) Google JAX
11 4 (1.93%) JAX
11 4 (1.93%) RESTful
11 4 (1.93%) Spring
11 4 (1.93%) TensorFlow
11 4 (1.93%) Yocto
12 3 (1.45%) Electron
12 3 (1.45%) JNI
Miscellaneous
1 21 (10.14%) Embedded Systems
2 19 (9.18%) FPGA
3 13 (6.28%) VHDL
4 7 (3.38%) Analogue Electronics
4 7 (3.38%) CUDA
4 7 (3.38%) Self-Motivation
5 6 (2.90%) Distributed Systems
6 5 (2.42%) PCIe
7 4 (1.93%) Algorithms
7 4 (1.93%) CAN bus
7 4 (1.93%) Cloud Native
7 4 (1.93%) Data Centre
7 4 (1.93%) Device Driver
7 4 (1.93%) Hedge funds
7 4 (1.93%) Mobile App
7 4 (1.93%) Mobile Banking
7 4 (1.93%) Verilog
8 3 (1.45%) Security Posture
9 2 (0.97%) CBDC
9 2 (0.97%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 63 (30.43%) Linux
2 29 (14.01%) Windows
3 13 (6.28%) Ubuntu
4 11 (5.31%) Unix
5 9 (4.35%) FreeRTOS
6 5 (2.42%) Android
6 5 (2.42%) CentOS
7 4 (1.93%) Apple iOS
8 3 (1.45%) Mac OS
9 2 (0.97%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 1 (0.48%) Debian
10 1 (0.48%) OpenVMS
10 1 (0.48%) Robot Operating System
10 1 (0.48%) VMS
10 1 (0.48%) VxWorks
10 1 (0.48%) Windows Embedded Compact
Processes & Methodologies
1 89 (43.00%) Software Engineering
2 29 (14.01%) CI/CD
3 26 (12.56%) Problem-Solving
4 25 (12.08%) Agile
5 20 (9.66%) AI
5 20 (9.66%) Validation
6 19 (9.18%) DevOps
7 17 (8.21%) Mathematics
7 17 (8.21%) Software Testing
8 15 (7.25%) Requirements Gathering
9 14 (6.76%) Signal Processing
10 13 (6.28%) Containerisation
10 13 (6.28%) UML
11 12 (5.80%) Machine Learning
11 12 (5.80%) Systems Engineering
11 12 (5.80%) TDD
11 12 (5.80%) Unit Testing
12 11 (5.31%) Computer Science
12 11 (5.31%) Data Pipeline
12 11 (5.31%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 139 (67.15%) C++
2 78 (37.68%) Python
3 72 (34.78%) Java
4 29 (14.01%) JavaScript
5 26 (12.56%) Shell Script
6 21 (10.14%) SQL
7 20 (9.66%) Ada
8 16 (7.73%) Embedded C
8 16 (7.73%) MATLAB
9 15 (7.25%) Bash
9 15 (7.25%) PHP
10 13 (6.28%) C#
11 9 (4.35%) Fortran
11 9 (4.35%) Perl
11 9 (4.35%) PowerShell
12 8 (3.86%) Embedded C++
13 7 (3.38%) PL/SQL
14 6 (2.90%) Go
14 6 (2.90%) Tcl
15 5 (2.42%) Rust
Qualifications
1 72 (34.78%) Security Cleared
2 55 (26.57%) SC Cleared
3 18 (8.70%) Degree
4 10 (4.83%) DV Cleared
5 4 (1.93%) Master's Degree
5 4 (1.93%) PhD
6 3 (1.45%) Computer Science Degree
7 2 (0.97%) CCIE
7 2 (0.97%) Cisco Certification
7 2 (0.97%) CISSP
7 2 (0.97%) JNCIE
7 2 (0.97%) 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 (6.28%) QA
2 10 (4.83%) MISRA
3 9 (4.35%) Def Stans
4 8 (3.86%) DO-178B
5 6 (2.90%) IEC 61508
6 5 (2.42%) ISO 26262
6 5 (2.42%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 3 (1.45%) EU AI Act
7 3 (1.45%) GDPR
7 3 (1.45%) IEC 62304
7 3 (1.45%) MISRA C
7 3 (1.45%) NIST
8 2 (0.97%) AUTOSAR
8 2 (0.97%) Software Quality Assurance
9 1 (0.48%) Actionable Recommendations
9 1 (0.48%) Data Quality
9 1 (0.48%) DO-254
9 1 (0.48%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 1 (0.48%) MiFID
System Software
1 25 (12.08%) Firmware
2 21 (10.14%) Docker
3 6 (2.90%) Embedded Firmware
4 5 (2.42%) VMware Infrastructure
5 4 (1.93%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.97%) Active Directory
7 1 (0.48%) KVM
Systems Management
1 18 (8.70%) Kubernetes
2 11 (5.31%) Terraform
3 8 (3.86%) Ansible
4 4 (1.93%) Grafana
5 2 (0.97%) Podman
5 2 (0.97%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.48%) Functional Safety
6 1 (0.48%) Istio
6 1 (0.48%) Rsyslog
6 1 (0.48%) SCOM
Vendors
1 19 (9.18%) Oracle
2 18 (8.70%) Red Hat
3 15 (7.25%) Dynatrace
4 10 (4.83%) Microsoft
5 9 (4.35%) NetApp
6 8 (3.86%) SAP
7 6 (2.90%) MathWorks
8 5 (2.42%) IBM
8 5 (2.42%) VMware
9 3 (1.45%) ANSYS
9 3 (1.45%) Atlassian
9 3 (1.45%) Cisco
9 3 (1.45%) ServiceNow
10 2 (0.97%) Arista
10 2 (0.97%) HP
10 2 (0.97%) Intel
10 2 (0.97%) Salesforce
10 2 (0.97%) Siemens
10 2 (0.97%) Wind River
11 1 (0.48%) Hitachi