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

6 months to
23 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 404 345 187
Rank change year-on-year -59 -158 +57
Contract jobs citing C 219 180 546
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.47% 0.61% 1.25%
As % of the Programming Languages category 1.70% 1.79% 4.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 64 75 231
10th Percentile £360 £271 £325
25th Percentile £413 £356 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £500 £535
Median % change year-on-year -3.75% -6.54% -5.31%
75th Percentile £550 £625 £588
90th Percentile £626 £675 £706
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £425 £538
% change year-on-year +17.65% -21.00% +7.60%
Number of hourly rates quoted 89 40 189
10th Percentile £60.00 £54.70 £46.25
25th Percentile £65.00 £61.50 £59.00
Median hourly rate £67.50 £68.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -0.74% +4.62% +13.04%
75th Percentile £70.00 £85.00 £70.00
90th Percentile - £87.75 £85.75
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 12,852 10,050 12,810
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 27.69% 34.03% 29.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,520 6,806 9,111
10th Percentile £352 £358 £350
25th Percentile £413 £415 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £650
90th Percentile £713 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £488
% change year-on-year - -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 554 242 479
10th Percentile £42.50 £22.48 £31.25
25th Percentile £55.00 £35.00 £46.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% +4.17% -1.54%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.00 £68.75
90th Percentile £77.50 £85.00 £78.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £64.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year +1.56% +2.40% -

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 April 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 April 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 April 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 -52 208 £500 - 343
UK excluding London -30 168 £500 +17.65% 333
Work from Home -17 73 £460 -8.00% 128
East of England +6 69 £525 +31.25% 61
South West -3 49 £475 -20.83% 52
London -73 45 £447 -15.26% 39
South East -33 31 £500 - 107
North of England -59 7 £613 - 51
Midlands -61 5 £525 +213.43% 46
Northern Ireland - 5 £425 - 3
West Midlands - 4 £488 - 23
North West - 3 £450 - 22
Scotland -6 2 - - 17
North East -18 2 £625 - 10
Yorkshire -52 2 £613 - 19
Wales -10 1 £460 -12.38% 6
East Midlands -37 1 £525 +213.43% 23

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 4 (1.83%) Confluence
2 2 (0.91%) Oracle SOA Suite
2 2 (0.91%) Oracle Workflow
3 1 (0.46%) Apache
3 1 (0.46%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.46%) SharePoint
Applications
1 9 (4.11%) Simulink
2 4 (1.83%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.46%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 5 (2.28%) BASE24
1 5 (2.28%) Payment Gateway
2 3 (1.37%) Teamcenter
3 1 (0.46%) Actimize
3 1 (0.46%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.46%) Dynamics NAV
3 1 (0.46%) Loan IQ
3 1 (0.46%) Oracle Applications
3 1 (0.46%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 13 (5.94%) AWS
2 12 (5.48%) Azure
3 8 (3.65%) GitHub
4 5 (2.28%) Azure DevOps
4 5 (2.28%) Power Platform
5 4 (1.83%) GCP
6 3 (1.37%) Amazon S3
6 3 (1.37%) AWS CloudFormation
7 2 (0.91%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 2 (0.91%) Amazon EKS
7 2 (0.91%) AWS IoT
7 2 (0.91%) Azure Monitor
7 2 (0.91%) Dynamics 365
7 2 (0.91%) GitHub Actions
7 2 (0.91%) GitHub Copilot
7 2 (0.91%) IaaS
8 1 (0.46%) Azure AKS
8 1 (0.46%) ChatGPT
8 1 (0.46%) Copilot Studio
8 1 (0.46%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 22 (10.05%) Ethernet
2 13 (5.94%) Wireless
3 11 (5.02%) Software-Defined Radio
4 7 (3.20%) TCP/IP
5 6 (2.74%) 3GPP
5 6 (2.74%) Modbus
5 6 (2.74%) RS-232
5 6 (2.74%) RS-485
6 4 (1.83%) Network Security
7 3 (1.37%) 5G
7 3 (1.37%) 5G NR
7 3 (1.37%) Bluetooth
7 3 (1.37%) DNS
7 3 (1.37%) LTE
7 3 (1.37%) MVNO
7 3 (1.37%) RS-422
7 3 (1.37%) SMPP
7 3 (1.37%) SMS
7 3 (1.37%) SpaceWire
7 3 (1.37%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (2.74%) NonStop SQL
2 5 (2.28%) OLTP
2 5 (2.28%) Power BI
3 4 (1.83%) SQL Server
4 3 (1.37%) PostgreSQL
4 3 (1.37%) Tableau
5 2 (0.91%) Data Warehouse
5 2 (0.91%) Metadata
5 2 (0.91%) MongoDB
5 2 (0.91%) NoSQL
5 2 (0.91%) Oracle Database
6 1 (0.46%) Amazon Athena
6 1 (0.46%) Amazon Redshift
6 1 (0.46%) Apache Cassandra
6 1 (0.46%) Apache Hudi
6 1 (0.46%) Apache Iceberg
6 1 (0.46%) Azure SQL Database
6 1 (0.46%) Data Lake
6 1 (0.46%) MySQL
6 1 (0.46%) Oracle Exadata
Development Applications
1 27 (12.33%) Rational DOORS
2 22 (10.05%) Git
3 17 (7.76%) JIRA
4 16 (7.31%) Rational Rhapsody
5 8 (3.65%) GitLab
5 8 (3.65%) PVCS
6 6 (2.74%) Visual Studio
7 3 (1.37%) Subversion
8 2 (0.91%) Jenkins
9 1 (0.46%) Appium
9 1 (0.46%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 1 (0.46%) CMake
9 1 (0.46%) Cucumber
9 1 (0.46%) ERwin
9 1 (0.46%) GoogleTest
9 1 (0.46%) LoadRunner
9 1 (0.46%) Oracle Forms
9 1 (0.46%) PowerBuilder
9 1 (0.46%) PowerDesigner
9 1 (0.46%) Selenium
General
1 44 (20.09%) Social Skills
2 31 (14.16%) Electronics
3 25 (11.42%) Aerospace
4 20 (9.13%) Analytical Skills
5 16 (7.31%) Finance
6 13 (5.94%) Documentation Skills
7 12 (5.48%) Law
8 10 (4.57%) Manufacturing
9 7 (3.20%) Banking
10 5 (2.28%) Public Sector
11 4 (1.83%) Automotive
11 4 (1.83%) Avionics
11 4 (1.83%) Games
12 3 (1.37%) Telecoms
13 2 (0.91%) Japanese Language
13 2 (0.91%) Military
13 2 (0.91%) Publishing
14 1 (0.46%) Korean Language
14 1 (0.46%) Local Government
14 1 (0.46%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 87 (39.73%) Software Engineer
2 73 (33.33%) Embedded Engineer
3 50 (22.83%) Embedded Software Engineer
4 34 (15.53%) Developer
5 26 (11.87%) C Software Engineer
6 23 (10.50%) C++ Software Engineer
7 22 (10.05%) C/C++ Software Engineer
8 17 (7.76%) Embedded C Engineer
8 17 (7.76%) Embedded C Software Engineer
9 13 (5.94%) C/C++ Embedded Software Engineer
9 13 (5.94%) Embedded C/C++ Engineer
9 13 (5.94%) Embedded C/C++ Software Engineer
9 13 (5.94%) Embedded C++ Engineer
9 13 (5.94%) Embedded C++ Software Engineer
10 12 (5.48%) Lead
11 11 (5.02%) Senior
12 10 (4.57%) Software Developer
12 10 (4.57%) Validation Engineer
13 9 (4.11%) FPGA Engineer
13 9 (4.11%) Test Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (5.02%) Yocto
2 7 (3.20%) .NET
2 7 (3.20%) Middleware
3 6 (2.74%) WinForms
4 4 (1.83%) HTML
5 3 (1.37%) ARM Templates
5 3 (1.37%) Itk
5 3 (1.37%) Kafka
5 3 (1.37%) REST
6 2 (0.91%) Flash
6 2 (0.91%) HTML5
6 2 (0.91%) JSON
6 2 (0.91%) Qt
7 1 (0.46%) GStreamer
7 1 (0.46%) NumPy
7 1 (0.46%) OpenMP
7 1 (0.46%) RESTful
7 1 (0.46%) SciPy
7 1 (0.46%) WCF
7 1 (0.46%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 39 (17.81%) Embedded Systems
2 38 (17.35%) FPGA
3 18 (8.22%) PCIe
4 14 (6.39%) VHDL
5 9 (4.11%) Algorithms
6 8 (3.65%) Verilog
7 7 (3.20%) IoT
8 6 (2.74%) Device Driver
8 6 (2.74%) Tandem
9 5 (2.28%) Data Centre
9 5 (2.28%) EMV
10 4 (1.83%) MicroBlaze
10 4 (1.83%) RISC-V
11 3 (1.37%) Cloud Native
11 3 (1.37%) Cyber Threat
11 3 (1.37%) Java Card
11 3 (1.37%) Legacy Systems
12 2 (0.91%) ASIC
12 2 (0.91%) Legacy Code
12 2 (0.91%) Video\Live Streaming
Operating Systems
1 52 (23.74%) Linux
2 17 (7.76%) Embedded Linux
3 11 (5.02%) FreeRTOS
3 11 (5.02%) Windows
4 3 (1.37%) Unix
5 1 (0.46%) Apple iOS
5 1 (0.46%) Debian
5 1 (0.46%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.46%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 118 (53.88%) Software Engineering
2 44 (20.09%) Validation
3 38 (17.35%) Problem-Solving
4 32 (14.61%) Test Automation
5 29 (13.24%) Workflow
6 28 (12.79%) CI/CD
7 21 (9.59%) Signal Processing
8 18 (8.22%) Embedded Software Development
9 17 (7.76%) DevOps
9 17 (7.76%) Workflow Management
10 16 (7.31%) Digital Signal Processing
10 16 (7.31%) Requirements Analysis
10 16 (7.31%) Unit Testing
10 16 (7.31%) Verification and Validation
11 14 (6.39%) Agile
12 13 (5.94%) Technical Leadership
13 12 (5.48%) Software Testing
14 11 (5.02%) Data Acquisition
14 11 (5.02%) TDD
14 11 (5.02%) UML
Programming Languages
1 119 (54.34%) C++
2 54 (24.66%) Python
3 40 (18.26%) Embedded C
4 28 (12.79%) Ada
5 23 (10.50%) SQL
6 21 (9.59%) Embedded C++
7 20 (9.13%) MATLAB
8 18 (8.22%) Java
9 11 (5.02%) Bash
10 8 (3.65%) C#
11 7 (3.20%) PL/SQL
11 7 (3.20%) SystemVerilog
12 5 (2.28%) COBOL
12 5 (2.28%) Rust
12 5 (2.28%) Shell Script
13 4 (1.83%) JavaScript
13 4 (1.83%) ProC
14 2 (0.91%) Perl
14 2 (0.91%) PowerShell
14 2 (0.91%) VB
Qualifications
1 58 (26.48%) Security Cleared
2 44 (20.09%) SC Cleared
3 15 (6.85%) Degree
4 9 (4.11%) DV Cleared
5 8 (3.65%) BPSS Clearance
6 2 (0.91%) CCNA
6 2 (0.91%) Cisco Certification
6 2 (0.91%) Computer Science Degree
6 2 (0.91%) ISTQB
7 1 (0.46%) Azure Certification
7 1 (0.46%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
7 1 (0.46%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
7 1 (0.46%) Six Sigma Black Belt
7 1 (0.46%) Six Sigma Green Belt
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 22 (10.05%) Def Stans
2 11 (5.02%) QA
3 7 (3.20%) DO-178B
3 7 (3.20%) MISRA
4 6 (2.74%) IEC 61508
5 5 (2.28%) ISO 8583
6 4 (1.83%) PCI DSS
7 3 (1.37%) Data Quality
7 3 (1.37%) MIL-STD-1553
8 1 (0.46%) Accessibility
8 1 (0.46%) DICOM
8 1 (0.46%) DO-254
8 1 (0.46%) HL7
8 1 (0.46%) IFRS
8 1 (0.46%) IFRS 9
8 1 (0.46%) ISO 9001
8 1 (0.46%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 1 (0.46%) MiFID
8 1 (0.46%) MISRA C
8 1 (0.46%) NIST
System Software
1 21 (9.59%) Firmware
2 12 (5.48%) Docker
3 11 (5.02%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (4.57%) Virtual Machines
5 6 (2.74%) Embedded Firmware
6 2 (0.91%) Oracle RAC
6 2 (0.91%) vCloud
6 2 (0.91%) VMware NSX
6 2 (0.91%) vSphere
7 1 (0.46%) FreeRADIUS
Systems Management
1 9 (4.11%) Kubernetes
2 8 (3.65%) Terraform
3 4 (1.83%) Ansible
4 2 (0.91%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.46%) Grafana
5 1 (0.46%) HP ALM
5 1 (0.46%) Nagios
Vendors
1 16 (7.31%) IBM
2 11 (5.02%) VMware
3 9 (4.11%) Xilinx
4 8 (3.65%) ANSYS
4 8 (3.65%) Cisco
4 8 (3.65%) Intel
4 8 (3.65%) Oracle
5 7 (3.20%) HP
5 7 (3.20%) MathWorks
5 7 (3.20%) Microsoft
6 5 (2.28%) Microsemi
7 4 (1.83%) Lauterbach
7 4 (1.83%) SAP
8 3 (1.37%) Google
8 3 (1.37%) Thales
9 2 (0.91%) Dell
9 2 (0.91%) Perforce
10 1 (0.46%) Citrix
10 1 (0.46%) EMC
10 1 (0.46%) Veritas