C Contract Job Trends in the UK excluding London

C
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the UK excluding London requiring C skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 4 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 303 257 121
Rank change year-on-year -46 -136 +15
Contract jobs citing C 167 112 327
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.62% 0.74% 1.77%
As % of the Programming Languages category 2.75% 2.67% 7.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 49 35 139
10th Percentile £400 £270 £400
25th Percentile £413 £300 £453
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £438 £550
Median % change year-on-year +8.57% -20.45% +10.00%
75th Percentile £538 £538 £600
90th Percentile £652 £575 £650
UK median daily rate £492 £500 £535
% change year-on-year -1.58% -6.54% -2.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 52 36 95
10th Percentile £58.59 £52.00 £54.14
25th Percentile £65.00 £55.00 £61.25
Median hourly rate £68.00 £68.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year - +4.62% -
75th Percentile £70.00 £72.81 £73.75
90th Percentile £76.75 £76.88 £85.00
UK median hourly rate £67.50 £68.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -0.74% +4.62% -

All Programming Languages
UK excluding London

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 in the UK excluding London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for coding skills 6,075 4,197 4,409
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 22.49% 27.63% 23.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,755 2,768 2,949
10th Percentile £335 £308 £325
25th Percentile £410 £393 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £493 £475 £498
Median % change year-on-year +3.68% -4.52% -0.50%
75th Percentile £580 £550 £588
90th Percentile £662 £619 £650
UK median daily rate £513 £502 £525
% change year-on-year +2.14% -4.43% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 453 186 328
10th Percentile £33.70 £29.29 £30.55
25th Percentile £53.53 £50.00 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £64.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +1.56% -1.54% +4.00%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.38 £70.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £79.35 £78.35
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £57.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year +13.04% -11.54% +4.00%

C
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing C relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

C job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

C
Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing C.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing C

C
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing C in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 4 August 2026.

Daily rate histogram for C in the UK excluding London

C
Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing C.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing C

C
Hourly Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing C in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 4 August 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for C in the UK excluding London

C
Contract Job Locations in the UK excluding London

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 excluding London region over the 6 months to 4 August 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
South East -17 57 £500 -2.44% 109
East of England -4 55 £626 +47.18% 86
South West -45 25 £450 -18.18% 58
Midlands -34 21 £462 +559.29% 30
West Midlands -37 20 £450 - 13
North of England -61 6 £400 +6.67% 53
Scotland -31 3 - - 4
Yorkshire -43 3 £400 -20.00% 14
North West -53 2 - - 24
East Midlands -10 1 £525 +650.00% 17
North East -40 1 - - 16
Wales - 1 £460 - 5
C
UK

C
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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 5 (2.99%) Tuxedo
2 1 (0.60%) ColdFusion
2 1 (0.60%) Confluence
2 1 (0.60%) Oracle SOA Suite
2 1 (0.60%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 10 (5.99%) Simulink
2 2 (1.20%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 2 (1.20%) Oracle Retail
1 2 (1.20%) Teamcenter
2 1 (0.60%) BASE24
2 1 (0.60%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 7 (4.19%) AWS
2 6 (3.59%) Azure
2 6 (3.59%) GitHub
3 5 (2.99%) Azure DevOps
3 5 (2.99%) GitHub Copilot
4 3 (1.80%) Power Platform
5 2 (1.20%) GCP
5 2 (1.20%) OCI
5 2 (1.20%) SaaS
6 1 (0.60%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 1 (0.60%) AWS CloudFormation
6 1 (0.60%) BlazeMeter
6 1 (0.60%) Copilot Studio
6 1 (0.60%) Dynamics 365
6 1 (0.60%) GitHub Actions
6 1 (0.60%) IaaS
6 1 (0.60%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 16 (9.58%) Software-Defined Radio
1 16 (9.58%) Wireless
2 14 (8.38%) Ethernet
3 6 (3.59%) RS-232
3 6 (3.59%) RS-485
4 5 (2.99%) Wireshark
5 3 (1.80%) Bluetooth
5 3 (1.80%) Modbus
5 3 (1.80%) RS-422
6 2 (1.20%) 3GPP
6 2 (1.20%) 4G
6 2 (1.20%) 5G
6 2 (1.20%) 5G NR
6 2 (1.20%) LTE
6 2 (1.20%) Microwave Backhaul
6 2 (1.20%) MPLS
6 2 (1.20%) Radio Access Network
6 2 (1.20%) VoLTE
7 1 (0.60%) WAN
7 1 (0.60%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (5.99%) Ingres
2 5 (2.99%) Relational Database
3 4 (2.40%) RDBMS
3 4 (2.40%) SQL Server
4 3 (1.80%) Power BI
4 3 (1.80%) Tableau
5 1 (0.60%) MongoDB
5 1 (0.60%) NonStop SQL
5 1 (0.60%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 21 (12.57%) Rational DOORS
2 15 (8.98%) Git
3 7 (4.19%) Team Foundation Server
4 6 (3.59%) Rational Rhapsody
5 5 (2.99%) Oracle Forms
5 5 (2.99%) Visual Studio
6 4 (2.40%) JIRA
7 2 (1.20%) CppUnit
7 2 (1.20%) GitLab
7 2 (1.20%) Jenkins
7 2 (1.20%) PVCS
8 1 (0.60%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 1 (0.60%) CMake
8 1 (0.60%) GoogleTest
8 1 (0.60%) JMeter
8 1 (0.60%) LoadRunner
8 1 (0.60%) PetaLinux
8 1 (0.60%) Postman
General
1 30 (17.96%) Social Skills
2 27 (16.17%) Aerospace
3 21 (12.57%) Electronics
4 14 (8.38%) Law
5 11 (6.59%) Manufacturing
6 10 (5.99%) Analytical Skills
7 6 (3.59%) Documentation Skills
8 5 (2.99%) Public Sector
9 4 (2.40%) Automotive
10 3 (1.80%) Military
11 2 (1.20%) Avionics
11 2 (1.20%) Retail
12 1 (0.60%) Finance
12 1 (0.60%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 77 (46.11%) Software Engineer
2 42 (25.15%) Embedded Engineer
3 34 (20.36%) Embedded Software Engineer
4 19 (11.38%) Senior
5 18 (10.78%) Developer
6 16 (9.58%) C++ Software Engineer
7 15 (8.98%) C Software Engineer
8 12 (7.19%) Software Developer
9 11 (6.59%) C/C++ Software Engineer
10 10 (5.99%) Lead
11 9 (5.39%) Test Leader
12 8 (4.79%) DSP Engineer
12 8 (4.79%) DSP Software Engineer
13 6 (3.59%) Senior Developer
13 6 (3.59%) Test Engineer
14 5 (2.99%) C Developer
14 5 (2.99%) FPGA Engineer
14 5 (2.99%) Linux Engineer
14 5 (2.99%) SC Cleared Software Engineer
14 5 (2.99%) Senior C Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (5.99%) Yocto
2 7 (4.19%) .NET
3 5 (2.99%) WinForms
4 4 (2.40%) LDAP
5 3 (1.80%) ADO
5 3 (1.80%) COM
5 3 (1.80%) ODBC
5 3 (1.80%) REST
6 2 (1.20%) Itk
6 2 (1.20%) QML
6 2 (1.20%) Qt
6 2 (1.20%) Web Services
6 2 (1.20%) XML
7 1 (0.60%) .NET Core
7 1 (0.60%) AngularJS
7 1 (0.60%) GStreamer
7 1 (0.60%) Middleware
7 1 (0.60%) PostGIS
7 1 (0.60%) Razor View Engine
7 1 (0.60%) Taurus
Miscellaneous
1 27 (16.17%) Embedded Systems
2 20 (11.98%) FPGA
3 13 (7.78%) RISC-V
4 11 (6.59%) Device Driver
5 9 (5.39%) PCIe
5 9 (5.39%) Verilog
5 9 (5.39%) VHDL
6 7 (4.19%) Legacy Systems
7 6 (3.59%) MicroBlaze
8 5 (2.99%) Algorithms
9 4 (2.40%) Cloud Native
10 3 (1.80%) ARM Cortex
10 3 (1.80%) Cyber Threat
10 3 (1.80%) Low-Code
11 2 (1.20%) Analytical Mindset
11 2 (1.20%) Data Centre
11 2 (1.20%) Legacy Applications
11 2 (1.20%) Video\Live Streaming
12 1 (0.60%) Enterprise Software
12 1 (0.60%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 50 (29.94%) Linux
2 18 (10.78%) Embedded Linux
3 12 (7.19%) FreeRTOS
4 10 (5.99%) Windows
5 5 (2.99%) Unix
6 1 (0.60%) Android
6 1 (0.60%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 104 (62.28%) Software Engineering
2 32 (19.16%) Agile
3 26 (15.57%) Test Automation
4 23 (13.77%) Problem-Solving
4 23 (13.77%) Signal Processing
5 20 (11.98%) Validation
6 19 (11.38%) Software Testing
7 18 (10.78%) Digital Signal Processing
8 16 (9.58%) Data Management
9 15 (8.98%) DevOps
10 14 (8.38%) CI/CD
11 13 (7.78%) Systems Engineering
11 13 (7.78%) UML
12 12 (7.19%) Integration Testing
12 12 (7.19%) Migration
12 12 (7.19%) System Integration Testing
13 11 (6.59%) Embedded Software Development
13 11 (6.59%) TDD
13 11 (6.59%) Workflow
14 10 (5.99%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 87 (52.10%) C++
2 29 (17.37%) Python
3 28 (16.77%) Embedded C
4 26 (15.57%) Ada
5 18 (10.78%) SQL
6 16 (9.58%) MATLAB
7 11 (6.59%) PL/SQL
8 10 (5.99%) Java
8 10 (5.99%) ProC
9 8 (4.79%) C#
10 6 (3.59%) Embedded C++
10 6 (3.59%) SystemVerilog
11 5 (2.99%) VB
11 5 (2.99%) VB6
12 4 (2.40%) Rust
13 3 (1.80%) Lua
13 3 (1.80%) PowerShell
14 2 (1.20%) Bash
14 2 (1.20%) JavaScript
14 2 (1.20%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 54 (32.34%) Security Cleared
2 44 (26.35%) SC Cleared
3 14 (8.38%) Degree
4 10 (5.99%) DV Cleared
5 6 (3.59%) BPSS Clearance
6 3 (1.80%) Master's Degree
7 1 (0.60%) CCNA
7 1 (0.60%) Cisco Certification
7 1 (0.60%) Six Sigma Black Belt
7 1 (0.60%) Six Sigma Green Belt
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (7.78%) QA
2 12 (7.19%) Def Stans
3 9 (5.39%) MISRA
4 7 (4.19%) DO-178B
5 2 (1.20%) ISO 26262
6 1 (0.60%) Data Quality
6 1 (0.60%) Disclosure Scotland
6 1 (0.60%) ISO 14001
6 1 (0.60%) ISO 8583
6 1 (0.60%) ISO 9001
6 1 (0.60%) MIL-STD-1553
6 1 (0.60%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 23 (13.77%) Firmware
2 10 (5.99%) Embedded Firmware
3 9 (5.39%) Docker
4 6 (3.59%) Virtual Machines
5 5 (2.99%) VMware Infrastructure
6 4 (2.40%) Active Directory
7 1 (0.60%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 5 (2.99%) Terraform
2 3 (1.80%) Kubernetes
3 1 (0.60%) Grafana
3 1 (0.60%) Nagios
3 1 (0.60%) Progress Chef
3 1 (0.60%) Prometheus
3 1 (0.60%) Puppet
3 1 (0.60%) Salt
Vendors
1 16 (9.58%) Oracle
2 9 (5.39%) Xilinx
3 8 (4.79%) IBM
3 8 (4.79%) Intel
4 5 (2.99%) Microsemi
4 5 (2.99%) VMware
5 4 (2.40%) Lauterbach
5 4 (2.40%) MathWorks
6 3 (1.80%) Actian
6 3 (1.80%) Microsoft
6 3 (1.80%) SAP
7 2 (1.20%) Google
7 2 (1.20%) QNX
8 1 (0.60%) Cisco
8 1 (0.60%) Citrix
8 1 (0.60%) EMC
8 1 (0.60%) HP
8 1 (0.60%) Infoblox
8 1 (0.60%) NetScout
8 1 (0.60%) Red Hat