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

6 months to
10 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 434 370 179
Rank change year-on-year -64 -191 +60
Contract jobs citing C 217 157 585
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.44% 0.53% 1.34%
As % of the Programming Languages category 1.64% 1.57% 4.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 60 66 259
10th Percentile £383 £272 £395
25th Percentile £413 £328 £461
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £535
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -6.54% -4.46%
75th Percentile £538 £638 £588
90th Percentile £625 £684 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £383 £544
% change year-on-year +25.65% -29.56% +8.75%
Number of hourly rates quoted 74 32 188
10th Percentile £58.90 £55.00 £46.25
25th Percentile £65.00 £59.75 £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 £77.50 £70.00
90th Percentile £76.78 £85.00 £85.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.75 £68.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -0.37% +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 13,257 10,013 13,127
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 26.79% 34.09% 30.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,653 6,790 9,257
10th Percentile £358 £355 £350
25th Percentile £416 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.46% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £650
90th Percentile £715 £752 £764
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +2.63% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 539 234 531
10th Percentile £36.25 £26.52 £31.25
25th Percentile £53.64 £34.05 £46.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £55.00 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +18.18% -12.00% -
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £70.00
90th Percentile £77.60 £85.00 £76.25
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 10 June 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 10 June 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 10 June 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 -42 206 £488 -10.55% 343
UK excluding London -2 170 £481 +25.65% 323
Work from Home -17 68 £500 +5.26% 136
East of England +1 54 £525 +31.25% 69
South East -28 47 £500 - 138
South West +4 44 £463 -22.92% 53
London -95 40 £456 -27.00% 37
Midlands -54 14 £483 +188.06% 26
West Midlands - 13 £473 - 19
North of England -76 5 £625 +66.67% 26
Northern Ireland - 4 £425 - 2
North East -22 2 £625 - 2
Scotland -22 2 - - 13
North West -40 2 - - 15
Wales -13 1 £460 -12.38% 5
East Midlands -31 1 £525 +213.43% 7
Yorkshire -56 1 - - 9

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 (1.84%) Tuxedo
2 2 (0.92%) Confluence
2 2 (0.92%) Oracle SOA Suite
2 2 (0.92%) Oracle Workflow
3 1 (0.46%) Apache Spark
3 1 (0.46%) WebSphere
Applications
1 10 (4.61%) Simulink
2 4 (1.84%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.46%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 5 (2.30%) BASE24
2 3 (1.38%) Payment Gateway
2 3 (1.38%) Teamcenter
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 15 (6.91%) AWS
2 12 (5.53%) Azure
3 8 (3.69%) GitHub
4 6 (2.76%) Azure DevOps
4 6 (2.76%) Power Platform
5 5 (2.30%) GitHub Copilot
6 4 (1.84%) GCP
7 3 (1.38%) Amazon S3
7 3 (1.38%) GitHub Actions
8 2 (0.92%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 2 (0.92%) AWS CloudFormation
8 2 (0.92%) AWS IoT
8 2 (0.92%) Azure Monitor
8 2 (0.92%) Dynamics 365
9 1 (0.46%) AWS CloudTrail
9 1 (0.46%) AWS Lambda
9 1 (0.46%) Datadog
9 1 (0.46%) Entra ID
9 1 (0.46%) Firebase
9 1 (0.46%) Google Drive
Communications & Networking
1 22 (10.14%) Ethernet
2 17 (7.83%) Software-Defined Radio
2 17 (7.83%) Wireless
3 5 (2.30%) 3GPP
3 5 (2.30%) TCP/IP
4 4 (1.84%) DNS
4 4 (1.84%) Modbus
4 4 (1.84%) Network Security
4 4 (1.84%) RS-232
4 4 (1.84%) RS-485
5 3 (1.38%) Bluetooth
5 3 (1.38%) Internet
5 3 (1.38%) MQTT
5 3 (1.38%) MVNO
5 3 (1.38%) RS-422
5 3 (1.38%) SMPP
5 3 (1.38%) SMS
5 3 (1.38%) SpaceWire
5 3 (1.38%) VXLAN
6 2 (0.92%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (3.23%) SQL Server
2 6 (2.76%) Ingres
2 6 (2.76%) NonStop SQL
2 6 (2.76%) Power BI
3 4 (1.84%) NoSQL
3 4 (1.84%) Relational Database
4 3 (1.38%) Data Warehouse
4 3 (1.38%) MongoDB
4 3 (1.38%) OLTP
4 3 (1.38%) Oracle Database
4 3 (1.38%) PostgreSQL
4 3 (1.38%) RDBMS
4 3 (1.38%) Tableau
5 1 (0.46%) Amazon Athena
5 1 (0.46%) Amazon Redshift
5 1 (0.46%) Data Lake
5 1 (0.46%) Kdb+
5 1 (0.46%) Metadata
5 1 (0.46%) Snowflake Schema
5 1 (0.46%) SQLPlus
Development Applications
1 23 (10.60%) Rational DOORS
2 20 (9.22%) Git
3 13 (5.99%) Rational Rhapsody
4 10 (4.61%) JIRA
5 6 (2.76%) GitLab
6 5 (2.30%) Visual Studio
7 3 (1.38%) Oracle Forms
7 3 (1.38%) PVCS
7 3 (1.38%) Team Foundation Server
8 2 (0.92%) Jenkins
8 2 (0.92%) Subversion
9 1 (0.46%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 1 (0.46%) Crashlytics
9 1 (0.46%) ER Studio
9 1 (0.46%) ERwin
9 1 (0.46%) git-flow
9 1 (0.46%) JMeter
9 1 (0.46%) LoadRunner
9 1 (0.46%) PowerDesigner
9 1 (0.46%) Xcode
General
1 45 (20.74%) Social Skills
2 29 (13.36%) Aerospace
3 21 (9.68%) Electronics
4 15 (6.91%) Analytical Skills
5 13 (5.99%) Documentation Skills
5 13 (5.99%) Finance
6 12 (5.53%) Law
6 12 (5.53%) Manufacturing
7 8 (3.69%) Banking
8 7 (3.23%) Public Sector
9 6 (2.76%) Automotive
10 4 (1.84%) Avionics
11 3 (1.38%) Games
11 3 (1.38%) Telecoms
12 2 (0.92%) Investment Banking
12 2 (0.92%) Japanese Language
12 2 (0.92%) Publishing
13 1 (0.46%) Korean Language
13 1 (0.46%) Local Government
13 1 (0.46%) Military
Job Titles
1 77 (35.48%) Software Engineer
2 65 (29.95%) Embedded Engineer
3 45 (20.74%) Embedded Software Engineer
4 33 (15.21%) Developer
5 21 (9.68%) C++ Software Engineer
6 20 (9.22%) C Software Engineer
6 20 (9.22%) C/C++ Software Engineer
7 16 (7.37%) Senior
8 10 (4.61%) Lead
8 10 (4.61%) Validation Engineer
9 9 (4.15%) Software Developer
9 9 (4.15%) Test Leader
10 8 (3.69%) DSP Engineer
10 8 (3.69%) Embedded C Engineer
10 8 (3.69%) Embedded C Software Engineer
10 8 (3.69%) Embedded C/C++ Engineer
10 8 (3.69%) Embedded C/C++ Software Engineer
10 8 (3.69%) Embedded C++ Engineer
10 8 (3.69%) Embedded C++ Software Engineer
10 8 (3.69%) FPGA Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (6.45%) Yocto
2 9 (4.15%) .NET
3 6 (2.76%) WinForms
4 4 (1.84%) JSON
4 4 (1.84%) Middleware
4 4 (1.84%) Qt
5 3 (1.38%) ADO
5 3 (1.38%) COM
5 3 (1.38%) Itk
5 3 (1.38%) Kafka
5 3 (1.38%) ODBC
5 3 (1.38%) REST
6 2 (0.92%) ARM Templates
6 2 (0.92%) HTML
6 2 (0.92%) HTML5
6 2 (0.92%) QML
6 2 (0.92%) Web Services
7 1 (0.46%) GStreamer
7 1 (0.46%) NumPy
7 1 (0.46%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 36 (16.59%) FPGA
2 35 (16.13%) Embedded Systems
3 19 (8.76%) PCIe
4 13 (5.99%) VHDL
5 9 (4.15%) Algorithms
5 9 (4.15%) Device Driver
5 9 (4.15%) Verilog
6 6 (2.76%) IoT
6 6 (2.76%) MicroBlaze
6 6 (2.76%) RISC-V
6 6 (2.76%) Tandem
7 5 (2.30%) Legacy Systems
8 4 (1.84%) Data Centre
8 4 (1.84%) EMV
9 3 (1.38%) ARM Cortex
9 3 (1.38%) Cyber Threat
9 3 (1.38%) Java Card
9 3 (1.38%) Low-Code
10 2 (0.92%) Cloud Native
10 2 (0.92%) Distributed Systems
Operating Systems
1 57 (26.27%) Linux
2 20 (9.22%) Embedded Linux
3 13 (5.99%) FreeRTOS
3 13 (5.99%) Windows
4 4 (1.84%) Unix
5 3 (1.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.46%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.46%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 109 (50.23%) Software Engineering
2 43 (19.82%) Validation
3 37 (17.05%) Problem-Solving
4 31 (14.29%) Test Automation
5 26 (11.98%) CI/CD
6 25 (11.52%) Agile
6 25 (11.52%) Workflow
7 22 (10.14%) Signal Processing
8 20 (9.22%) Digital Signal Processing
9 18 (8.29%) Embedded Software Development
10 17 (7.83%) Workflow Management
11 15 (6.91%) Verification and Validation
12 14 (6.45%) DevOps
12 14 (6.45%) Migration
13 13 (5.99%) Technical Leadership
13 13 (5.99%) UML
13 13 (5.99%) Unit Testing
14 12 (5.53%) Data Management
14 12 (5.53%) Software Testing
14 12 (5.53%) TDD
Programming Languages
1 110 (50.69%) C++
2 55 (25.35%) Python
3 33 (15.21%) Embedded C
4 32 (14.75%) SQL
5 29 (13.36%) Ada
6 20 (9.22%) MATLAB
7 19 (8.76%) Java
8 12 (5.53%) Embedded C++
8 12 (5.53%) PL/SQL
9 11 (5.07%) Bash
10 9 (4.15%) C#
11 7 (3.23%) ProC
11 7 (3.23%) Shell Script
11 7 (3.23%) SystemVerilog
12 5 (2.30%) VB
13 4 (1.84%) COBOL
13 4 (1.84%) Rust
13 4 (1.84%) VB6
14 3 (1.38%) JavaScript
14 3 (1.38%) Perl
Qualifications
1 59 (27.19%) Security Cleared
2 44 (20.28%) SC Cleared
3 17 (7.83%) Degree
4 9 (4.15%) BPSS Clearance
4 9 (4.15%) DV Cleared
5 2 (0.92%) Computer Science Degree
6 1 (0.46%) Azure Certification
6 1 (0.46%) CCNA
6 1 (0.46%) Cisco Certification
6 1 (0.46%) ISTQB
6 1 (0.46%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
6 1 (0.46%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
6 1 (0.46%) Master's Degree
6 1 (0.46%) PhD
6 1 (0.46%) Six Sigma Black Belt
6 1 (0.46%) Six Sigma Green Belt
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (6.91%) Def Stans
1 15 (6.91%) QA
2 5 (2.30%) MISRA
3 4 (1.84%) ISO 8583
4 3 (1.38%) DO-178B
4 3 (1.38%) IEC 61508
4 3 (1.38%) MIL-STD-1553
4 3 (1.38%) PCI DSS
5 2 (0.92%) Data Quality
5 2 (0.92%) ISO 26262
6 1 (0.46%) DICOM
6 1 (0.46%) DO-254
6 1 (0.46%) HL7
6 1 (0.46%) IFRS
6 1 (0.46%) IFRS 9
6 1 (0.46%) ISO 14001
6 1 (0.46%) ISO 15022
6 1 (0.46%) ISO 20022
6 1 (0.46%) ISO 9001
6 1 (0.46%) MISRA C
System Software
1 18 (8.29%) Firmware
2 9 (4.15%) Docker
3 7 (3.23%) Embedded Firmware
4 6 (2.76%) Virtual Machines
4 6 (2.76%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (0.92%) Oracle RAC
5 2 (0.92%) vCloud
5 2 (0.92%) VMware NSX
5 2 (0.92%) vSphere
6 1 (0.46%) Active Directory
6 1 (0.46%) FreeRADIUS
6 1 (0.46%) Slurm Workload Manager
6 1 (0.46%) Squid
Systems Management
1 6 (2.76%) Kubernetes
1 6 (2.76%) Terraform
2 5 (2.30%) Ansible
3 2 (0.92%) Prometheus
4 1 (0.46%) Grafana
4 1 (0.46%) HP ALM
4 1 (0.46%) Nagios
4 1 (0.46%) Packer
4 1 (0.46%) Puppet
Vendors
1 16 (7.37%) Oracle
2 11 (5.07%) IBM
3 10 (4.61%) Xilinx
4 9 (4.15%) Intel
5 7 (3.23%) HP
5 7 (3.23%) MathWorks
6 6 (2.76%) Cisco
6 6 (2.76%) Microsemi
6 6 (2.76%) VMware
7 5 (2.30%) Microsoft
8 4 (1.84%) Lauterbach
8 4 (1.84%) SAP
9 3 (1.38%) Actian
9 3 (1.38%) ANSYS
9 3 (1.38%) Google
9 3 (1.38%) Thales
10 2 (0.92%) Dell
10 2 (0.92%) Perforce
10 2 (0.92%) QNX
11 1 (0.46%) EMC