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

6 months to
10 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 250 186 123
Rank change year-on-year -64 -63 +93
Contract jobs citing C 152 191 406
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.85% 1.21% 2.00%
As % of the Programming Languages category 3.29% 4.54% 7.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 43 56 156
10th Percentile £68 £400 £356
25th Percentile £366 £409 £430
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £550 £588 £588
90th Percentile £619 £625 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £524 £550
% change year-on-year -4.53% -4.77% -8.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 57 44 139
10th Percentile £52.00 £51.63 £52.00
25th Percentile £65.00 £60.69 £61.25
Median hourly rate £67.50 £67.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year - +3.85% -
75th Percentile £72.50 £85.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £75.50 £95.00 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £67.50 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year +3.85% - +13.04%

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 4,614 4,208 5,129
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 25.84% 26.56% 25.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,980 2,507 3,543
10th Percentile £313 £331 £325
25th Percentile £400 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £476 £495 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.94% -1.00% -3.85%
75th Percentile £565 £581 £600
90th Percentile £644 £663 £675
UK median daily rate £508 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -3.33% -4.55% -3.08%
Number of hourly rates quoted 256 219 332
10th Percentile £40.63 £21.85 £32.84
25th Percentile £52.50 £46.18 £48.32
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
75th Percentile £68.00 £69.22 £70.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £78.00 £82.25
UK median hourly rate £64.50 £62.50 £60.50
% change year-on-year +3.20% +3.31% -3.20%

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 10 December 2025.

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 10 December 2025.

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 10 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
East of England -5 63 £475 -11.63% 160
South West -26 45 £500 -0.20% 105
Scotland +17 17 £438 - 52
North of England -43 13 £475 +5.67% 109
South East -45 11 £500 +6.95% 180
North West -17 8 £463 +4.17% 56
Yorkshire -41 5 £500 -28.57% 41
Midlands -37 3 - - 90
East Midlands - 2 - - 41
West Midlands -33 1 - - 45
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 16 (10.53%) WebLogic
2 15 (9.87%) WebSphere
3 2 (1.32%) Confluence
4 1 (0.66%) nginx
4 1 (0.66%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 16 (10.53%) Simulink
2 8 (5.26%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (3.95%) Stateflow
4 5 (3.29%) Microsoft Excel
4 5 (3.29%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 2 (1.32%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 9 (5.92%) GitHub
2 7 (4.61%) AWS
3 6 (3.95%) Azure
4 4 (2.63%) GCP
5 3 (1.97%) Amazon ECS
5 3 (1.97%) Amazon EKS
5 3 (1.97%) Amazon S3
5 3 (1.97%) AWS Lambda
5 3 (1.97%) OpenShift
5 3 (1.97%) Serverless
6 2 (1.32%) AWS CloudFormation
6 2 (1.32%) npm
7 1 (0.66%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 1 (0.66%) Amazon EC2
7 1 (0.66%) Amazon GuardDuty
7 1 (0.66%) AWS CloudTrail
7 1 (0.66%) ChatGPT
7 1 (0.66%) Cloud Computing
7 1 (0.66%) GitHub Actions
7 1 (0.66%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 5 (3.29%) RS-232
1 5 (3.29%) SpaceWire
2 4 (2.63%) Ethernet
3 3 (1.97%) HTTP
4 2 (1.32%) AMQP
5 1 (0.66%) 3GPP
5 1 (0.66%) 5G
5 1 (0.66%) 5G NR
5 1 (0.66%) Bluetooth
5 1 (0.66%) HTTPS
5 1 (0.66%) Internet
5 1 (0.66%) LTE
5 1 (0.66%) MQTT
5 1 (0.66%) Network Security
5 1 (0.66%) NFC
5 1 (0.66%) SSL
5 1 (0.66%) UWB
5 1 (0.66%) Wi-Fi
5 1 (0.66%) Wireless
5 1 (0.66%) ZigBee
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (5.26%) Oracle Database
2 2 (1.32%) Amazon RDS
2 2 (1.32%) InfluxDB
2 2 (1.32%) MongoDB
2 2 (1.32%) PostgreSQL
2 2 (1.32%) RDBMS
2 2 (1.32%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 19 (12.50%) Rational DOORS
2 15 (9.87%) Git
3 11 (7.24%) Jenkins
4 8 (5.26%) ClearCase
4 8 (5.26%) JIRA
5 6 (3.95%) Rational Team Concert
6 5 (3.29%) GitLab
6 5 (3.29%) Rational Rhapsody
7 4 (2.63%) Artifactory
7 4 (2.63%) Gradle
7 4 (2.63%) PVCS
8 3 (1.97%) Bitbucket
8 3 (1.97%) Xcode
9 2 (1.32%) Maven
9 2 (1.32%) Visual Studio
10 1 (0.66%) Atlassian Bamboo
10 1 (0.66%) CMake
10 1 (0.66%) NUnit
10 1 (0.66%) SonarQube
10 1 (0.66%) Subversion
General
1 26 (17.11%) Electronics
2 24 (15.79%) Social Skills
3 20 (13.16%) Aerospace
4 12 (7.89%) Analytical Skills
4 12 (7.89%) Law
5 6 (3.95%) Documentation Skills
5 6 (3.95%) Public Sector
6 5 (3.29%) Aviation
7 4 (2.63%) Military
7 4 (2.63%) Telecoms
8 3 (1.97%) Banking
8 3 (1.97%) Manufacturing
9 2 (1.32%) Finance
9 2 (1.32%) Marketing
10 1 (0.66%) Automotive
10 1 (0.66%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 49 (32.24%) Software Engineer
2 25 (16.45%) Embedded Engineer
3 24 (15.79%) Embedded Software Engineer
4 15 (9.87%) Consultant
4 15 (9.87%) Developer
4 15 (9.87%) Support Engineer
5 13 (8.55%) C Software Engineer
6 12 (7.89%) Design Engineer
6 12 (7.89%) Product Engineer
6 12 (7.89%) Products Support Engineer
6 12 (7.89%) Software Support Engineer
7 10 (6.58%) C++ Software Engineer
7 10 (6.58%) Digital Design Engineer
7 10 (6.58%) Embedded C Engineer
7 10 (6.58%) Embedded C Software Engineer
7 10 (6.58%) Systems Engineer
8 7 (4.61%) C/C++ Software Engineer
9 6 (3.95%) Architect
9 6 (3.95%) Security Engineer
10 5 (3.29%) FPGA Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 28 (18.42%) Middleware
2 19 (12.50%) HTML
3 18 (11.84%) Node.js
4 16 (10.53%) .NET
5 10 (6.58%) Flash
6 5 (3.29%) REST
7 4 (2.63%) PyTorch
8 3 (1.97%) CSS
8 3 (1.97%) Google JAX
8 3 (1.97%) JAX
8 3 (1.97%) React
8 3 (1.97%) RESTful
8 3 (1.97%) scikit-learn
8 3 (1.97%) TensorFlow
9 2 (1.32%) JSON
9 2 (1.32%) OpenID
9 2 (1.32%) SOAP
9 2 (1.32%) XML
10 1 (0.66%) .NET Framework
10 1 (0.66%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 17 (11.18%) Embedded Systems
2 16 (10.53%) FPGA
3 15 (9.87%) VHDL
4 7 (4.61%) Analogue Electronics
4 7 (4.61%) CUDA
5 6 (3.95%) Self-Motivation
5 6 (3.95%) Verilog
6 4 (2.63%) CAN bus
6 4 (2.63%) PCIe
7 3 (1.97%) Algorithms
7 3 (1.97%) Distributed Systems
7 3 (1.97%) Mobile App
7 3 (1.97%) Mobile Banking
7 3 (1.97%) Security Posture
8 2 (1.32%) Data Centre
8 2 (1.32%) Legacy Systems
9 1 (0.66%) Acoustics
9 1 (0.66%) Cloud Native
9 1 (0.66%) IoT
9 1 (0.66%) NB-IoT
Operating Systems
1 39 (25.66%) Linux
2 16 (10.53%) Windows
3 12 (7.89%) Ubuntu
4 6 (3.95%) FreeRTOS
5 4 (2.63%) Android
6 3 (1.97%) Apple iOS
7 2 (1.32%) CentOS
7 2 (1.32%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.66%) OpenVMS
8 1 (0.66%) Unix
8 1 (0.66%) VMS
8 1 (0.66%) VxWorks
8 1 (0.66%) Windows Embedded Compact
Processes & Methodologies
1 72 (47.37%) Software Engineering
2 22 (14.47%) CI/CD
3 18 (11.84%) Problem-Solving
3 18 (11.84%) Validation
4 17 (11.18%) Signal Processing
5 16 (10.53%) AI
6 15 (9.87%) Requirements Gathering
7 14 (9.21%) Agile
8 13 (8.55%) Software Testing
8 13 (8.55%) Systems Engineering
9 12 (7.89%) Mathematics
9 12 (7.89%) UML
10 11 (7.24%) Containerisation
10 11 (7.24%) DevOps
10 11 (7.24%) Unit Testing
11 10 (6.58%) Integration Testing
12 9 (5.92%) Requirements Management
13 8 (5.26%) Machine Learning
13 8 (5.26%) Sensor Fusion
13 8 (5.26%) Workflow
Programming Languages
1 101 (66.45%) C++
2 50 (32.89%) Java
3 41 (26.97%) Python
4 22 (14.47%) Shell Script
5 20 (13.16%) Ada
5 20 (13.16%) JavaScript
6 16 (10.53%) MATLAB
7 15 (9.87%) PHP
8 13 (8.55%) Embedded C
9 10 (6.58%) SQL
10 8 (5.26%) C#
10 8 (5.26%) Fortran
11 7 (4.61%) Bash
12 6 (3.95%) Embedded C++
12 6 (3.95%) Tcl
13 5 (3.29%) VBA
14 4 (2.63%) R
14 4 (2.63%) Ruby
14 4 (2.63%) Scala
14 4 (2.63%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 60 (39.47%) Security Cleared
2 46 (30.26%) SC Cleared
3 12 (7.89%) Degree
4 8 (5.26%) DV Cleared
5 2 (1.32%) Master's Degree
5 2 (1.32%) PhD
6 1 (0.66%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (7.24%) MISRA
2 10 (6.58%) Def Stans
2 10 (6.58%) QA
3 8 (5.26%) DO-178B
4 6 (3.95%) IEC 61508
5 5 (3.29%) ISO 26262
6 4 (2.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 3 (1.97%) EU AI Act
7 3 (1.97%) GDPR
7 3 (1.97%) IEC 62304
7 3 (1.97%) MISRA C
7 3 (1.97%) NIST
8 1 (0.66%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.66%) AUTOSAR
8 1 (0.66%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 20 (13.16%) Firmware
2 12 (7.89%) Docker
3 5 (3.29%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (2.63%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (1.32%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 12 (7.89%) Kubernetes
2 6 (3.95%) Ansible
2 6 (3.95%) Terraform
3 3 (1.97%) Grafana
4 2 (1.32%) Podman
5 1 (0.66%) Functional Safety
5 1 (0.66%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.66%) Rsyslog
5 1 (0.66%) SCOM
Vendors
1 15 (9.87%) Dynatrace
2 13 (8.55%) Red Hat
3 12 (7.89%) Oracle
4 8 (5.26%) NetApp
5 6 (3.95%) IBM
5 6 (3.95%) MathWorks
6 5 (3.29%) VMware
7 4 (2.63%) ANSYS
7 4 (2.63%) Intel
8 3 (1.97%) Atlassian
8 3 (1.97%) Microsemi
8 3 (1.97%) Xilinx
9 2 (1.32%) Microsoft
9 2 (1.32%) SAP
9 2 (1.32%) Siemens
10 1 (0.66%) QNX
10 1 (0.66%) Sitecore
10 1 (0.66%) Splunk
10 1 (0.66%) Trillium
10 1 (0.66%) webMethods