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 24 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 383 289 198
Rank change year-on-year -94 -91 +76
Contract jobs citing C 210 294 523
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.57% 0.87% 1.21%
As % of the Programming Languages category 1.82% 2.66% 3.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 69 110 223
10th Percentile £68 £400 £325
25th Percentile £382 £459 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £534 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.32% -2.95% -8.33%
75th Percentile £575 £638 £638
90th Percentile £640 £810 £706
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £500 £530
% change year-on-year -2.50% -5.66% -3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 62 47 146
10th Percentile £52.00 £53.40 £51.88
25th Percentile £65.00 £61.25 £61.25
Median hourly rate £67.50 £67.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year - +3.85% +13.04%
75th Percentile £72.81 £85.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £76.13 £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 11,512 11,049 13,245
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.12% 32.55% 30.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,607 7,086 9,417
10th Percentile £350 £350 £358
25th Percentile £413 £425 £430
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% -4.55% -2.65%
75th Percentile £618 £650 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -2.56% -2.50% -3.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 377 252 407
10th Percentile £31.25 £21.33 £35.00
25th Percentile £50.00 £40.06 £47.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% - -
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £70.00
90th Percentile £76.25 £85.00 £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £64.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year +1.56% -1.54% -

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 24 December 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 24 December 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for C in the UK

C
Top 15 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 24 December 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 -97 189 £500 -6.32% 903
UK excluding London -54 160 £488 -2.50% 873
East of England -1 66 £475 -11.63% 175
Work from Home -26 54 £450 -10.00% 415
South West -11 49 £500 -0.20% 131
London -63 39 £510 -18.40% 117
Scotland +15 16 £438 - 54
North of England -47 14 £475 -13.64% 137
South East -37 11 £500 +6.10% 252
North West -26 9 £463 +15.63% 64
Yorkshire -37 5 £500 -28.57% 53
Midlands -48 3 £575 +48.39% 125
East Midlands -15 2 - - 62
Northern Ireland -4 1 £425 - 9
West Midlands -31 1 £575 +48.39% 57

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 15 (7.14%) WebLogic
1 15 (7.14%) WebSphere
2 4 (1.90%) Confluence
3 2 (0.95%) OpenStack
4 1 (0.48%) Apache
4 1 (0.48%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.48%) nginx
4 1 (0.48%) SharePoint
Applications
1 16 (7.62%) Simulink
2 9 (4.29%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (2.86%) Stateflow
4 5 (2.38%) Microsoft Excel
4 5 (2.38%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 3 (1.43%) BASE24
1 3 (1.43%) Payment Gateway
2 2 (0.95%) Teamcenter
3 1 (0.48%) Actimize
3 1 (0.48%) Oracle Applications
3 1 (0.48%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 19 (9.05%) AWS
2 18 (8.57%) Azure
2 18 (8.57%) GitHub
3 10 (4.76%) GCP
4 4 (1.90%) Amazon EKS
4 4 (1.90%) Amazon S3
4 4 (1.90%) OpenShift
5 3 (1.43%) Amazon ECS
5 3 (1.43%) AWS CloudFormation
5 3 (1.43%) AWS Lambda
5 3 (1.43%) IaaS
5 3 (1.43%) Serverless
6 2 (0.95%) Azure DevOps
6 2 (0.95%) Cloud Computing
6 2 (0.95%) GitHub Actions
6 2 (0.95%) PaaS
6 2 (0.95%) SaaS
7 1 (0.48%) ChatGPT
7 1 (0.48%) GitHub Copilot
7 1 (0.48%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 11 (5.24%) Ethernet
2 8 (3.81%) RS-232
3 5 (2.38%) TCP/IP
4 4 (1.90%) 3GPP
4 4 (1.90%) SpaceWire
5 3 (1.43%) Firewall
5 3 (1.43%) HTTP
5 3 (1.43%) Modbus
5 3 (1.43%) Network Security
5 3 (1.43%) RS-485
5 3 (1.43%) Wi-Fi
6 2 (0.95%) Anycast
6 2 (0.95%) BGP
6 2 (0.95%) Bluetooth
6 2 (0.95%) DNS
6 2 (0.95%) Radio Access Network
6 2 (0.95%) Software-Defined Networking
6 2 (0.95%) SSL
6 2 (0.95%) VXLAN
6 2 (0.95%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (4.76%) Oracle Database
2 5 (2.38%) NonStop SQL
3 4 (1.90%) OLTP
4 3 (1.43%) Elasticsearch
4 3 (1.43%) PostgreSQL
5 2 (0.95%) Amazon RDS
5 2 (0.95%) MongoDB
6 1 (0.48%) Big Data
6 1 (0.48%) Data Lake
6 1 (0.48%) HPCC
6 1 (0.48%) InfluxDB
6 1 (0.48%) Metadata
6 1 (0.48%) MySQL
6 1 (0.48%) Oracle Exadata
6 1 (0.48%) RDBMS
6 1 (0.48%) Relational Database
6 1 (0.48%) SQL Server
6 1 (0.48%) SQLite
Development Applications
1 21 (10.00%) Rational DOORS
2 19 (9.05%) Git
3 12 (5.71%) Jenkins
3 12 (5.71%) JIRA
4 9 (4.29%) ClearCase
4 9 (4.29%) GitLab
5 6 (2.86%) PVCS
5 6 (2.86%) Rational Team Concert
6 5 (2.38%) Gradle
6 5 (2.38%) Rational Rhapsody
7 4 (1.90%) Artifactory
7 4 (1.90%) Visual Studio
7 4 (1.90%) Xcode
8 3 (1.43%) KGDB
9 2 (0.95%) Bitbucket
9 2 (0.95%) Clang
9 2 (0.95%) CMake
9 2 (0.95%) Selenium
9 2 (0.95%) SonarQube
9 2 (0.95%) Subversion
General
1 33 (15.71%) Social Skills
2 31 (14.76%) Electronics
3 24 (11.43%) Finance
4 22 (10.48%) Analytical Skills
5 20 (9.52%) Aerospace
6 16 (7.62%) Public Sector
7 11 (5.24%) Law
8 9 (4.29%) Telecoms
9 8 (3.81%) Banking
10 7 (3.33%) Documentation Skills
10 7 (3.33%) Military
11 5 (2.38%) Aviation
12 4 (1.90%) Manufacturing
12 4 (1.90%) Marketing
13 3 (1.43%) Financial Institution
14 2 (0.95%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 1 (0.48%) Games
15 1 (0.48%) Health Technology
15 1 (0.48%) Investment Banking
15 1 (0.48%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 62 (29.52%) Software Engineer
2 35 (16.67%) Developer
3 34 (16.19%) Embedded Engineer
4 29 (13.81%) Embedded Software Engineer
5 15 (7.14%) C Software Engineer
5 15 (7.14%) Consultant
5 15 (7.14%) Support Engineer
6 13 (6.19%) Design Engineer
7 12 (5.71%) Embedded C Engineer
7 12 (5.71%) Embedded C Software Engineer
7 12 (5.71%) Product Engineer
7 12 (5.71%) Products Support Engineer
7 12 (5.71%) Senior
7 12 (5.71%) Software Support Engineer
8 11 (5.24%) Architect
8 11 (5.24%) C++ Software Engineer
9 10 (4.76%) Digital Design Engineer
9 10 (4.76%) Systems Engineer
10 9 (4.29%) C/C++ Software Engineer
11 8 (3.81%) Linux Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (14.76%) Middleware
2 27 (12.86%) HTML
3 21 (10.00%) Node.js
4 17 (8.10%) .NET
5 10 (4.76%) Flash
6 8 (3.81%) CSS
7 7 (3.33%) REST
8 6 (2.86%) React
8 6 (2.86%) Yocto
9 4 (1.90%) AngularJS
9 4 (1.90%) PyTorch
9 4 (1.90%) RESTful
10 3 (1.43%) Electron
10 3 (1.43%) Google JAX
10 3 (1.43%) JAX
10 3 (1.43%) JNI
10 3 (1.43%) OpenEmbedded
10 3 (1.43%) scikit-learn
10 3 (1.43%) TensorFlow
10 3 (1.43%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 27 (12.86%) FPGA
2 26 (12.38%) Embedded Systems
3 18 (8.57%) VHDL
4 7 (3.33%) Analogue Electronics
4 7 (3.33%) CUDA
4 7 (3.33%) PCIe
4 7 (3.33%) Verilog
5 6 (2.86%) Self-Motivation
6 5 (2.38%) Cloud Native
6 5 (2.38%) Device Driver
6 5 (2.38%) Tandem
7 4 (1.90%) CAN bus
7 4 (1.90%) Data Centre
7 4 (1.90%) Distributed Systems
7 4 (1.90%) EMV
7 4 (1.90%) Mobile App
8 3 (1.43%) Algorithms
8 3 (1.43%) IoT
8 3 (1.43%) Mobile Banking
8 3 (1.43%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 60 (28.57%) Linux
2 21 (10.00%) Windows
3 13 (6.19%) Ubuntu
4 10 (4.76%) FreeRTOS
5 4 (1.90%) Android
5 4 (1.90%) Apple iOS
5 4 (1.90%) CentOS
5 4 (1.90%) Unix
6 3 (1.43%) Mac OS
7 2 (0.95%) Embedded Linux
8 1 (0.48%) Debian
8 1 (0.48%) OpenVMS
8 1 (0.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.48%) Robot Operating System
8 1 (0.48%) VMS
8 1 (0.48%) VxWorks
8 1 (0.48%) Windows Embedded Compact
Processes & Methodologies
1 90 (42.86%) Software Engineering
2 32 (15.24%) CI/CD
3 27 (12.86%) Problem-Solving
3 27 (12.86%) Validation
4 19 (9.05%) Agile
4 19 (9.05%) AI
4 19 (9.05%) Signal Processing
5 18 (8.57%) Software Testing
6 17 (8.10%) DevOps
7 16 (7.62%) Containerisation
8 15 (7.14%) Mathematics
8 15 (7.14%) Requirements Gathering
8 15 (7.14%) Unit Testing
9 14 (6.67%) Systems Engineering
10 12 (5.71%) UML
11 10 (4.76%) Integration Testing
11 10 (4.76%) SDLC
11 10 (4.76%) Workflow
12 9 (4.29%) Collaborative Culture
12 9 (4.29%) Requirements Management
Programming Languages
1 132 (62.86%) C++
2 66 (31.43%) Python
3 59 (28.10%) Java
4 27 (12.86%) JavaScript
5 23 (10.95%) Shell Script
6 22 (10.48%) Embedded C
7 20 (9.52%) Ada
7 20 (9.52%) SQL
8 16 (7.62%) MATLAB
9 15 (7.14%) PHP
10 12 (5.71%) Bash
10 12 (5.71%) Embedded C++
11 11 (5.24%) C#
12 9 (4.29%) Fortran
13 6 (2.86%) Rust
13 6 (2.86%) SystemVerilog
14 5 (2.38%) Go
14 5 (2.38%) PL/SQL
14 5 (2.38%) PowerShell
14 5 (2.38%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 72 (34.29%) Security Cleared
2 55 (26.19%) SC Cleared
3 20 (9.52%) Degree
4 10 (4.76%) DV Cleared
5 4 (1.90%) Computer Science Degree
6 3 (1.43%) Cisco Certification
7 2 (0.95%) CCIE
7 2 (0.95%) CISSP
7 2 (0.95%) ISTQB
7 2 (0.95%) JNCIE
7 2 (0.95%) Master's Degree
7 2 (0.95%) PhD
7 2 (0.95%) Postgraduate
8 1 (0.48%) CCNA
8 1 (0.48%) CCSAS
8 1 (0.48%) GPEN
8 1 (0.48%) GWAPT
8 1 (0.48%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 1 (0.48%) OSCE
8 1 (0.48%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (6.67%) QA
2 12 (5.71%) Def Stans
3 11 (5.24%) MISRA
4 10 (4.76%) DO-178B
5 7 (3.33%) IEC 61508
6 5 (2.38%) ISO 26262
6 5 (2.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 3 (1.43%) EU AI Act
7 3 (1.43%) GDPR
7 3 (1.43%) IEC 62304
7 3 (1.43%) ISO 8583
7 3 (1.43%) NIST
8 2 (0.95%) MISRA C
8 2 (0.95%) PCI DSS
8 2 (0.95%) Software Quality Assurance
9 1 (0.48%) AUTOSAR
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 29 (13.81%) Firmware
2 21 (10.00%) Docker
3 8 (3.81%) VMware Infrastructure
4 7 (3.33%) Embedded Firmware
4 7 (3.33%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.48%) KVM
Systems Management
1 19 (9.05%) Kubernetes
2 11 (5.24%) Terraform
3 7 (3.33%) Ansible
4 3 (1.43%) Grafana
4 3 (1.43%) Prometheus
5 2 (0.95%) Podman
6 1 (0.48%) Functional Safety
6 1 (0.48%) Rsyslog
6 1 (0.48%) SCOM
Vendors
1 18 (8.57%) Oracle
1 18 (8.57%) Red Hat
2 16 (7.62%) Dynatrace
3 9 (4.29%) NetApp
4 8 (3.81%) IBM
4 8 (3.81%) VMware
5 7 (3.33%) Microsoft
6 6 (2.86%) ANSYS
6 6 (2.86%) HP
6 6 (2.86%) Intel
6 6 (2.86%) MathWorks
7 4 (1.90%) Cisco
7 4 (1.90%) Microsemi
7 4 (1.90%) SAP
7 4 (1.90%) Xilinx
8 3 (1.43%) Atlassian
9 2 (0.95%) Arista
9 2 (0.95%) Siemens
9 2 (0.95%) Wind River
10 1 (0.48%) Veritas