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

6 months to
3 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 415 335 182
Rank change year-on-year -80 -153 +65
Contract jobs citing C 215 191 557
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.48% 0.66% 1.26%
As % of the Programming Languages category 1.68% 1.93% 4.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 67 84 232
10th Percentile £369 £271 £325
25th Percentile £413 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £535
Median % change year-on-year - -6.54% -10.83%
75th Percentile £550 £625 £588
90th Percentile £631 £737 £706
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £468 £538
% change year-on-year +6.95% -13.10% +6.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 89 41 187
10th Percentile £60.00 £55.00 £46.25
25th Percentile £65.00 £62.00 £59.00
Median hourly rate £67.50 £72.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -6.90% +11.54% +13.04%
75th Percentile £70.00 £85.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £74.25 £95.00 £88.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.50 £72.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year -6.90% +11.54% -

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 12,786 9,872 12,895
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 28.50% 33.95% 29.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,513 6,627 9,117
10th Percentile £353 £356 £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 £719 £758 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £477 £479 £488
% change year-on-year -0.42% -1.74% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 529 244 480
10th Percentile £41.52 £22.30 £30.63
25th Percentile £54.55 £32.88 £46.23
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% +4.17% -4.00%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.56 £67.38
90th Percentile £77.50 £85.00 £73.82
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £64.00 £61.60
% change year-on-year +1.56% +3.90% -1.44%

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 3 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 3 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 3 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 -65 205 £500 - 451
UK excluding London -43 166 £500 +6.95% 448
East of England -8 69 £525 +27.27% 88
Work from Home -23 69 £475 -5.00% 117
South West -5 48 £450 -24.37% 80
London -88 45 £475 -14.80% 43
South East -38 29 £500 - 129
North of England -61 8 £531 - 58
Northern Ireland +1 5 £425 - 7
Midlands -65 4 £525 +213.43% 66
Scotland -2 3 - - 22
Yorkshire -61 3 £531 - 29
North West - 3 £450 - 20
West Midlands - 3 £488 - 33
North East - 2 £625 - 9
Wales -10 1 £460 -12.38% 12
East Midlands -34 1 £525 +213.43% 33

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 (1.86%) Confluence
2 1 (0.47%) Apache
2 1 (0.47%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (0.47%) SharePoint
Applications
1 9 (4.19%) Simulink
2 4 (1.86%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.93%) Microsoft Excel
4 1 (0.47%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 5 (2.33%) BASE24
1 5 (2.33%) Payment Gateway
2 1 (0.47%) Actimize
2 1 (0.47%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.47%) Dynamics NAV
2 1 (0.47%) Loan IQ
2 1 (0.47%) Oracle Applications
2 1 (0.47%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (0.47%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 13 (6.05%) Azure
2 12 (5.58%) AWS
3 10 (4.65%) GitHub
4 6 (2.79%) Azure DevOps
4 6 (2.79%) Power Platform
5 5 (2.33%) GCP
6 3 (1.40%) Amazon S3
6 3 (1.40%) AWS CloudFormation
6 3 (1.40%) Dynamics 365
7 2 (0.93%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 2 (0.93%) Amazon EKS
7 2 (0.93%) Azure Monitor
7 2 (0.93%) GitHub Actions
7 2 (0.93%) GitHub Copilot
7 2 (0.93%) IaaS
8 1 (0.47%) Azure AKS
8 1 (0.47%) ChatGPT
8 1 (0.47%) Copilot Studio
8 1 (0.47%) Microsoft Copilot
8 1 (0.47%) Slack
Communications & Networking
1 22 (10.23%) Ethernet
2 8 (3.72%) Wireless
3 7 (3.26%) Software-Defined Radio
3 7 (3.26%) TCP/IP
4 6 (2.79%) 3GPP
4 6 (2.79%) Modbus
4 6 (2.79%) RS-232
4 6 (2.79%) RS-485
5 4 (1.86%) Network Security
6 3 (1.40%) 5G
6 3 (1.40%) 5G NR
6 3 (1.40%) Bluetooth
6 3 (1.40%) LTE
6 3 (1.40%) MVNO
6 3 (1.40%) RS-422
6 3 (1.40%) SMPP
6 3 (1.40%) SMS
6 3 (1.40%) SpaceWire
7 2 (0.93%) Microwave Backhaul
7 2 (0.93%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (2.79%) NonStop SQL
2 5 (2.33%) OLTP
2 5 (2.33%) Power BI
3 3 (1.40%) Oracle Database
3 3 (1.40%) PostgreSQL
3 3 (1.40%) Tableau
4 2 (0.93%) Data Warehouse
4 2 (0.93%) Metadata
4 2 (0.93%) MongoDB
4 2 (0.93%) NoSQL
4 2 (0.93%) SQL Server
5 1 (0.47%) Amazon Athena
5 1 (0.47%) Amazon Redshift
5 1 (0.47%) Apache Cassandra
5 1 (0.47%) Apache Hudi
5 1 (0.47%) Apache Iceberg
5 1 (0.47%) Azure SQL Database
5 1 (0.47%) Data Lake
5 1 (0.47%) MySQL
5 1 (0.47%) Oracle Exadata
Development Applications
1 26 (12.09%) Rational DOORS
2 22 (10.23%) Git
3 16 (7.44%) JIRA
3 16 (7.44%) Rational Rhapsody
4 8 (3.72%) GitLab
4 8 (3.72%) PVCS
5 7 (3.26%) Visual Studio
6 3 (1.40%) Subversion
7 2 (0.93%) Jenkins
7 2 (0.93%) JMeter
7 2 (0.93%) Selenium
8 1 (0.47%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 1 (0.47%) Crashlytics
8 1 (0.47%) Cucumber
8 1 (0.47%) ER Studio
8 1 (0.47%) fastlane
8 1 (0.47%) MSTest
8 1 (0.47%) Robot Framework
8 1 (0.47%) SonarQube
8 1 (0.47%) Xcode
General
1 39 (18.14%) Social Skills
2 32 (14.88%) Electronics
3 25 (11.63%) Aerospace
4 18 (8.37%) Analytical Skills
5 17 (7.91%) Finance
6 13 (6.05%) Documentation Skills
7 11 (5.12%) Law
8 9 (4.19%) Manufacturing
9 7 (3.26%) Banking
9 7 (3.26%) Public Sector
10 4 (1.86%) Automotive
10 4 (1.86%) Avionics
10 4 (1.86%) Games
11 3 (1.40%) Military
11 3 (1.40%) Telecoms
12 2 (0.93%) Japanese Language
12 2 (0.93%) Publishing
13 1 (0.47%) Korean Language
13 1 (0.47%) Local Government
13 1 (0.47%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 80 (37.21%) Software Engineer
2 68 (31.63%) Embedded Engineer
3 45 (20.93%) Embedded Software Engineer
4 34 (15.81%) Developer
5 27 (12.56%) C Software Engineer
6 23 (10.70%) C++ Software Engineer
7 21 (9.77%) C/C++ Software Engineer
8 19 (8.84%) Embedded C Engineer
8 19 (8.84%) Embedded C Software Engineer
9 13 (6.05%) C/C++ Embedded Software Engineer
9 13 (6.05%) Embedded C/C++ Engineer
9 13 (6.05%) Embedded C/C++ Software Engineer
9 13 (6.05%) Embedded C++ Engineer
9 13 (6.05%) Embedded C++ Software Engineer
9 13 (6.05%) Lead
10 11 (5.12%) Senior
11 10 (4.65%) Software Developer
11 10 (4.65%) Validation Engineer
12 9 (4.19%) FPGA Engineer
12 9 (4.19%) Test Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (4.65%) Middleware
1 10 (4.65%) Yocto
2 7 (3.26%) .NET
3 6 (2.79%) WinForms
4 5 (2.33%) HTML
5 4 (1.86%) Flash
6 3 (1.40%) ARM Templates
6 3 (1.40%) JSON
6 3 (1.40%) Kafka
7 2 (0.93%) HTML5
7 2 (0.93%) Protocol Buffers
7 2 (0.93%) Qt
7 2 (0.93%) WebSockets
8 1 (0.47%) GStreamer
8 1 (0.47%) NumPy
8 1 (0.47%) PostGIS
8 1 (0.47%) REST
8 1 (0.47%) RESTful
8 1 (0.47%) SciPy
8 1 (0.47%) WCF
Miscellaneous
1 38 (17.67%) Embedded Systems
2 35 (16.28%) FPGA
3 18 (8.37%) PCIe
4 16 (7.44%) VHDL
5 8 (3.72%) Verilog
6 7 (3.26%) Algorithms
7 6 (2.79%) Tandem
8 5 (2.33%) Device Driver
8 5 (2.33%) EMV
9 4 (1.86%) Cloud Native
9 4 (1.86%) Data Centre
9 4 (1.86%) IoT
9 4 (1.86%) MicroBlaze
9 4 (1.86%) RISC-V
10 3 (1.40%) CUDA
10 3 (1.40%) Cyber Threat
10 3 (1.40%) Java Card
10 3 (1.40%) Legacy Systems
11 2 (0.93%) ASIC
11 2 (0.93%) Legacy Code
Operating Systems
1 51 (23.72%) Linux
2 16 (7.44%) Embedded Linux
3 11 (5.12%) Windows
4 10 (4.65%) FreeRTOS
5 4 (1.86%) Ubuntu
6 3 (1.40%) Unix
7 1 (0.47%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.47%) Debian
7 1 (0.47%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 116 (53.95%) Software Engineering
2 41 (19.07%) Validation
3 35 (16.28%) Problem-Solving
4 32 (14.88%) Test Automation
5 31 (14.42%) CI/CD
6 25 (11.63%) Workflow
7 20 (9.30%) DevOps
8 19 (8.84%) Signal Processing
9 18 (8.37%) Unit Testing
10 17 (7.91%) Agile
10 17 (7.91%) Embedded Software Development
11 16 (7.44%) Requirements Analysis
11 16 (7.44%) Software Testing
11 16 (7.44%) Verification and Validation
12 15 (6.98%) Workflow Management
13 13 (6.05%) Digital Signal Processing
13 13 (6.05%) Technical Leadership
14 12 (5.58%) AI
14 12 (5.58%) TDD
14 12 (5.58%) Test Strategy
Programming Languages
1 117 (54.42%) C++
2 49 (22.79%) Python
3 37 (17.21%) Embedded C
4 26 (12.09%) Ada
5 23 (10.70%) SQL
6 21 (9.77%) Embedded C++
7 17 (7.91%) MATLAB
8 16 (7.44%) Java
9 10 (4.65%) Bash
9 10 (4.65%) JavaScript
10 8 (3.72%) PL/SQL
10 8 (3.72%) Shell Script
11 7 (3.26%) C#
11 7 (3.26%) Rust
11 7 (3.26%) SystemVerilog
12 5 (2.33%) COBOL
12 5 (2.33%) ProC
13 2 (0.93%) Go
13 2 (0.93%) Perl
13 2 (0.93%) VB
Qualifications
1 61 (28.37%) Security Cleared
2 48 (22.33%) SC Cleared
3 15 (6.98%) Degree
4 8 (3.72%) BPSS Clearance
4 8 (3.72%) DV Cleared
5 3 (1.40%) Computer Science Degree
5 3 (1.40%) ISTQB
6 2 (0.93%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
7 1 (0.47%) Azure Certification
7 1 (0.47%) CCNA
7 1 (0.47%) Cisco Certification
7 1 (0.47%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
7 1 (0.47%) Six Sigma Black Belt
7 1 (0.47%) Six Sigma Green Belt
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (10.70%) Def Stans
2 10 (4.65%) QA
3 8 (3.72%) DO-178B
3 8 (3.72%) MISRA
4 6 (2.79%) IEC 61508
5 5 (2.33%) ISO 8583
6 4 (1.86%) PCI DSS
7 3 (1.40%) Data Quality
7 3 (1.40%) MIL-STD-1553
8 2 (0.93%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 1 (0.47%) Accessibility
9 1 (0.47%) DICOM
9 1 (0.47%) DO-254
9 1 (0.47%) HL7
9 1 (0.47%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 1 (0.47%) ISO 14001
9 1 (0.47%) ISO 9001
9 1 (0.47%) MiFID
9 1 (0.47%) MISRA C
9 1 (0.47%) NIST
System Software
1 20 (9.30%) Firmware
2 15 (6.98%) Docker
3 11 (5.12%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (4.65%) Virtual Machines
5 6 (2.79%) Embedded Firmware
6 2 (0.93%) vCloud
6 2 (0.93%) VMware NSX
6 2 (0.93%) vSphere
7 1 (0.47%) FreeRADIUS
Systems Management
1 12 (5.58%) Kubernetes
2 9 (4.19%) Terraform
3 3 (1.40%) Ansible
4 2 (0.93%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.47%) Grafana
5 1 (0.47%) HP ALM
Vendors
1 14 (6.51%) IBM
2 11 (5.12%) VMware
3 9 (4.19%) Xilinx
4 8 (3.72%) ANSYS
4 8 (3.72%) Intel
4 8 (3.72%) Oracle
5 7 (3.26%) HP
5 7 (3.26%) Microsoft
6 5 (2.33%) MathWorks
6 5 (2.33%) Microsemi
7 4 (1.86%) Cisco
7 4 (1.86%) Lauterbach
7 4 (1.86%) SAP
8 3 (1.40%) Google
8 3 (1.40%) Red Hat
8 3 (1.40%) Thales
9 2 (0.93%) Dell
9 2 (0.93%) Perforce
10 1 (0.47%) EMC
10 1 (0.47%) Salesforce