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 23 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 417 365 181
Rank change year-on-year -52 -184 +59
Contract jobs citing C 224 155 566
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.46% 0.54% 1.33%
As % of the Programming Languages category 1.72% 1.59% 4.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 60 63 250
10th Percentile £378 £269 £396
25th Percentile £413 £313 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £492 £537
Median % change year-on-year -3.46% -8.34% -4.15%
75th Percentile £550 £613 £600
90th Percentile £625 £680 £701
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £400 £550
% change year-on-year +21.88% -27.27% +10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 81 35 191
10th Percentile £60.00 £53.20 £46.25
25th Percentile £65.00 £59.50 £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 £81.25 £70.00
90th Percentile £76.25 £85.00 £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 13,001 9,764 12,749
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 26.76% 34.13% 30.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,515 6,648 9,087
10th Percentile £356 £356 £350
25th Percentile £415 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £518 £530
Median % change year-on-year -3.45% -2.29% -3.64%
75th Percentile £600 £630 £650
90th Percentile £713 £763 £763
UK excluding London median daily rate £483 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +1.68% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 564 218 497
10th Percentile £36.33 £26.45 £32.25
25th Percentile £53.69 £34.81 £46.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £57.50 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +13.04% -8.00% -
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £70.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £85.00 £78.30
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £62.50
% change year-on-year +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 23 May 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 23 May 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 23 May 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 -33 212 £494 -1.25% 381
UK excluding London -15 173 £488 +21.88% 340
Work from Home -20 70 £475 -5.00% 138
East of England 0 61 £525 +31.25% 73
South West -4 47 £463 -22.92% 64
South East -33 46 £500 - 128
London -76 45 £475 -24.00% 55
Midlands -69 7 £525 +213.43% 23
West Midlands - 6 £488 - 13
North of England -75 5 £625 +66.67% 36
Northern Ireland - 5 £425 - 5
Scotland -11 2 - - 14
North East -25 2 £625 - 9
North West -39 2 - - 16
Wales -12 1 £460 -12.38% 4
East Midlands -34 1 £525 +213.43% 10
Yorkshire -62 1 - - 11

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 3 (1.34%) Confluence
2 2 (0.89%) Oracle SOA Suite
2 2 (0.89%) Oracle Workflow
3 1 (0.45%) Apache
3 1 (0.45%) Apache Spark
3 1 (0.45%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.45%) SharePoint
Applications
1 13 (5.80%) Simulink
2 4 (1.79%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.45%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 6 (2.68%) BASE24
2 5 (2.23%) Payment Gateway
3 3 (1.34%) Teamcenter
4 1 (0.45%) Actimize
4 1 (0.45%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.45%) Dynamics NAV
4 1 (0.45%) Loan IQ
4 1 (0.45%) Oracle Applications
4 1 (0.45%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 13 (5.80%) Azure
2 12 (5.36%) AWS
3 8 (3.57%) GitHub
4 6 (2.68%) Azure DevOps
5 5 (2.23%) Power Platform
6 4 (1.79%) GCP
7 3 (1.34%) GitHub Actions
8 2 (0.89%) Amazon S3
8 2 (0.89%) AWS CloudFormation
8 2 (0.89%) AWS IoT
8 2 (0.89%) Azure Monitor
8 2 (0.89%) Dynamics 365
8 2 (0.89%) GitHub Copilot
9 1 (0.45%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 1 (0.45%) Azure Data Factory
9 1 (0.45%) BlazeMeter
9 1 (0.45%) IaaS
9 1 (0.45%) Microsoft 365
9 1 (0.45%) PaaS
9 1 (0.45%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 23 (10.27%) Ethernet
2 17 (7.59%) Wireless
3 16 (7.14%) Software-Defined Radio
4 6 (2.68%) TCP/IP
5 5 (2.23%) 3GPP
5 5 (2.23%) Modbus
5 5 (2.23%) RS-232
5 5 (2.23%) RS-485
6 4 (1.79%) Network Security
7 3 (1.34%) Bluetooth
7 3 (1.34%) DNS
7 3 (1.34%) MQTT
7 3 (1.34%) MVNO
7 3 (1.34%) RS-422
7 3 (1.34%) SMPP
7 3 (1.34%) SMS
7 3 (1.34%) SpaceWire
7 3 (1.34%) VXLAN
8 2 (0.89%) 5G
8 2 (0.89%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (3.13%) NonStop SQL
2 5 (2.23%) OLTP
2 5 (2.23%) Power BI
2 5 (2.23%) SQL Server
3 4 (1.79%) NoSQL
3 4 (1.79%) PostgreSQL
4 3 (1.34%) Data Warehouse
4 3 (1.34%) MongoDB
4 3 (1.34%) Tableau
5 2 (0.89%) Metadata
5 2 (0.89%) Oracle Database
6 1 (0.45%) Amazon Athena
6 1 (0.45%) Amazon Redshift
6 1 (0.45%) Apache Hudi
6 1 (0.45%) Apache Iceberg
6 1 (0.45%) Azure SQL Database
6 1 (0.45%) Data Lake
6 1 (0.45%) Kdb+
6 1 (0.45%) Oracle Exadata
6 1 (0.45%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 25 (11.16%) Rational DOORS
2 19 (8.48%) Git
3 15 (6.70%) Rational Rhapsody
4 13 (5.80%) JIRA
5 9 (4.02%) GitLab
6 5 (2.23%) PVCS
6 5 (2.23%) Visual Studio
7 3 (1.34%) Subversion
8 2 (0.89%) Jenkins
9 1 (0.45%) Appium
9 1 (0.45%) CMake
9 1 (0.45%) Crashlytics
9 1 (0.45%) Cucumber
9 1 (0.45%) ER Studio
9 1 (0.45%) fastlane
9 1 (0.45%) git-flow
9 1 (0.45%) GoogleTest
9 1 (0.45%) Postman
9 1 (0.45%) Robot Framework
9 1 (0.45%) SonarQube
General
1 44 (19.64%) Social Skills
2 29 (12.95%) Aerospace
3 25 (11.16%) Electronics
4 18 (8.04%) Analytical Skills
5 15 (6.70%) Finance
6 13 (5.80%) Documentation Skills
6 13 (5.80%) Law
7 12 (5.36%) Manufacturing
8 9 (4.02%) Banking
9 6 (2.68%) Automotive
10 5 (2.23%) Public Sector
11 4 (1.79%) Avionics
11 4 (1.79%) Games
12 3 (1.34%) Telecoms
13 2 (0.89%) Investment Banking
13 2 (0.89%) Japanese Language
13 2 (0.89%) Military
13 2 (0.89%) Publishing
14 1 (0.45%) Korean Language
14 1 (0.45%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 86 (38.39%) Software Engineer
2 72 (32.14%) Embedded Engineer
3 50 (22.32%) Embedded Software Engineer
4 34 (15.18%) Developer
5 24 (10.71%) C Software Engineer
5 24 (10.71%) C++ Software Engineer
6 23 (10.27%) C/C++ Software Engineer
7 13 (5.80%) FPGA Engineer
8 12 (5.36%) Senior
9 11 (4.91%) Embedded C Engineer
9 11 (4.91%) Embedded C Software Engineer
10 10 (4.46%) C/C++ Embedded Software Engineer
10 10 (4.46%) Embedded C/C++ Engineer
10 10 (4.46%) Embedded C/C++ Software Engineer
10 10 (4.46%) Embedded C++ Engineer
10 10 (4.46%) Embedded C++ Software Engineer
10 10 (4.46%) Lead
10 10 (4.46%) Validation Engineer
11 9 (4.02%) Software Developer
11 9 (4.02%) Test Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (7.14%) Yocto
2 7 (3.13%) .NET
3 6 (2.68%) Middleware
3 6 (2.68%) WinForms
4 5 (2.23%) Kafka
5 4 (1.79%) HTML
5 4 (1.79%) Qt
6 3 (1.34%) ARM Templates
6 3 (1.34%) Itk
6 3 (1.34%) JSON
6 3 (1.34%) REST
7 2 (0.89%) HTML5
7 2 (0.89%) NumPy
7 2 (0.89%) Pandas
7 2 (0.89%) QML
8 1 (0.45%) Boost C++ Libraries
8 1 (0.45%) GStreamer
8 1 (0.45%) OpenMP
8 1 (0.45%) RESTful
8 1 (0.45%) SciPy
Miscellaneous
1 42 (18.75%) FPGA
2 41 (18.30%) Embedded Systems
3 19 (8.48%) PCIe
4 17 (7.59%) VHDL
5 12 (5.36%) Verilog
6 9 (4.02%) Algorithms
6 9 (4.02%) Device Driver
7 7 (3.13%) MicroBlaze
7 7 (3.13%) RISC-V
7 7 (3.13%) Tandem
8 6 (2.68%) IoT
9 5 (2.23%) Data Centre
9 5 (2.23%) EMV
10 3 (1.34%) ARM Cortex
10 3 (1.34%) Cloud Native
10 3 (1.34%) Cyber Threat
10 3 (1.34%) Java Card
10 3 (1.34%) Legacy Systems
11 2 (0.89%) Data Structures
11 2 (0.89%) Legacy Code
Operating Systems
1 57 (25.45%) Linux
2 22 (9.82%) Embedded Linux
3 14 (6.25%) FreeRTOS
4 11 (4.91%) Windows
5 3 (1.34%) Unix
6 1 (0.45%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.45%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 117 (52.23%) Software Engineering
2 45 (20.09%) Validation
3 38 (16.96%) Problem-Solving
4 32 (14.29%) Test Automation
5 27 (12.05%) CI/CD
5 27 (12.05%) Signal Processing
5 27 (12.05%) Workflow
6 21 (9.38%) Digital Signal Processing
7 19 (8.48%) Embedded Software Development
8 17 (7.59%) Workflow Management
9 16 (7.14%) Agile
9 16 (7.14%) Verification and Validation
10 15 (6.70%) DevOps
10 15 (6.70%) FPGA Design
11 14 (6.25%) Unit Testing
12 13 (5.80%) Requirements Analysis
12 13 (5.80%) Software Testing
12 13 (5.80%) Systems Engineering
12 13 (5.80%) UML
13 12 (5.36%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 117 (52.23%) C++
2 54 (24.11%) Python
3 37 (16.52%) Embedded C
4 29 (12.95%) Ada
5 26 (11.61%) SQL
6 21 (9.38%) MATLAB
7 20 (8.93%) Java
8 15 (6.70%) Embedded C++
9 11 (4.91%) Bash
9 11 (4.91%) SystemVerilog
10 8 (3.57%) C#
11 7 (3.13%) PL/SQL
11 7 (3.13%) Shell Script
12 6 (2.68%) COBOL
13 5 (2.23%) Rust
14 4 (1.79%) JavaScript
14 4 (1.79%) ProC
15 2 (0.89%) Perl
15 2 (0.89%) VB
16 1 (0.45%) Fortran
Qualifications
1 57 (25.45%) Security Cleared
2 42 (18.75%) SC Cleared
3 19 (8.48%) Degree
4 9 (4.02%) BPSS Clearance
4 9 (4.02%) DV Cleared
5 2 (0.89%) CCNA
5 2 (0.89%) Cisco Certification
5 2 (0.89%) Computer Science Degree
5 2 (0.89%) ISTQB
6 1 (0.45%) Azure Certification
6 1 (0.45%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
6 1 (0.45%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
6 1 (0.45%) Master's Degree
6 1 (0.45%) PhD
6 1 (0.45%) Six Sigma Black Belt
6 1 (0.45%) Six Sigma Green Belt
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (8.48%) Def Stans
2 11 (4.91%) QA
3 7 (3.13%) MISRA
4 6 (2.68%) ISO 8583
5 5 (2.23%) DO-178B
5 5 (2.23%) IEC 61508
6 4 (1.79%) PCI DSS
7 3 (1.34%) Data Quality
7 3 (1.34%) MIL-STD-1553
8 2 (0.89%) ISO 26262
9 1 (0.45%) Accessibility
9 1 (0.45%) DICOM
9 1 (0.45%) DO-254
9 1 (0.45%) HL7
9 1 (0.45%) IFRS
9 1 (0.45%) IFRS 9
9 1 (0.45%) ISO 14001
9 1 (0.45%) ISO 9001
9 1 (0.45%) MiFID
9 1 (0.45%) MISRA C
System Software
1 21 (9.38%) Firmware
2 12 (5.36%) Docker
3 8 (3.57%) Embedded Firmware
4 7 (3.13%) Virtual Machines
4 7 (3.13%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (0.89%) Oracle RAC
5 2 (0.89%) vCloud
5 2 (0.89%) VMware NSX
5 2 (0.89%) vSphere
6 1 (0.45%) FreeRADIUS
6 1 (0.45%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 9 (4.02%) Kubernetes
2 6 (2.68%) Terraform
3 3 (1.34%) Ansible
4 2 (0.89%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.45%) Grafana
5 1 (0.45%) HP ALM
5 1 (0.45%) Nagios
Vendors
1 13 (5.80%) IBM
1 13 (5.80%) Xilinx
2 12 (5.36%) Intel
3 9 (4.02%) Microsemi
4 8 (3.57%) Cisco
4 8 (3.57%) HP
4 8 (3.57%) Oracle
5 7 (3.13%) MathWorks
5 7 (3.13%) Microsoft
5 7 (3.13%) VMware
6 5 (2.23%) ANSYS
7 4 (1.79%) Lauterbach
7 4 (1.79%) SAP
8 3 (1.34%) Google
8 3 (1.34%) Thales
9 2 (0.89%) Dell
9 2 (0.89%) Perforce
9 2 (0.89%) QNX
10 1 (0.45%) Citrix
10 1 (0.45%) EMC