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

6 months to
12 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 266 245 98
Rank change year-on-year -21 -147 +84
Contract jobs citing C 168 92 436
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.73% 0.72% 2.09%
As % of the Programming Languages category 3.08% 2.51% 8.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 37 38 156
10th Percentile £413 £265 £400
25th Percentile £425 £300 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £464 £538
Median % change year-on-year +7.82% -13.80% +7.60%
75th Percentile £588 £528 £616
90th Percentile £631 £625 £706
UK median daily rate £481 £500 £535
% change year-on-year -3.75% -6.54% -8.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 88 36 183
10th Percentile £60.00 £55.00 £46.25
25th Percentile £65.00 £59.75 £60.00
Median hourly rate £67.50 £72.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -6.90% +11.54% -
75th Percentile £70.00 £85.00 £70.00
90th Percentile - £92.50 £88.75
UK median hourly rate £67.50 £72.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year -6.90% +11.54% +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 5,446 3,659 4,924
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 23.54% 28.82% 23.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,531 2,396 3,334
10th Percentile £331 £325 £319
25th Percentile £404 £400 £402
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £488
Median % change year-on-year - -2.56% -2.50%
75th Percentile £570 £575 £588
90th Percentile £638 £650 £675
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 477 187 387
10th Percentile £46.25 £22.79 £35.50
25th Percentile £58.43 £43.51 £47.75
Median hourly rate £65.00 £63.75 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +1.97% +1.99% -
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £70.00
90th Percentile £77.00 £85.00 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £60.00
% change year-on-year +4.00% +4.17% -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 12 April 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 12 April 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 12 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
East of England -7 70 £525 +27.27% 88
South West +5 49 £463 -21.61% 80
South East -35 29 £500 - 129
North of England -68 8 £531 - 58
Northern Ireland +2 5 £425 - 7
Midlands -65 5 £525 +213.43% 66
West Midlands - 4 £488 - 33
Yorkshire -56 3 £531 - 29
North West - 3 £450 - 20
Scotland -5 2 - - 22
North East - 2 £625 - 9
Wales -10 1 £460 -12.38% 12
East Midlands -38 1 £525 +213.43% 33
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 1 (0.60%) Confluence
1 1 (0.60%) Oracle SOA Suite
1 1 (0.60%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 9 (5.36%) Simulink
2 3 (1.79%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.60%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 2 (1.19%) Teamcenter
2 1 (0.60%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 6 (3.57%) AWS
2 4 (2.38%) Azure
2 4 (2.38%) GCP
3 3 (1.79%) Power Platform
4 2 (1.19%) Amazon CloudWatch
4 2 (1.19%) AWS CloudFormation
4 2 (1.19%) Azure DevOps
4 2 (1.19%) GitHub
4 2 (1.19%) GitHub Actions
5 1 (0.60%) Amazon EC2
5 1 (0.60%) Amazon S3
5 1 (0.60%) AWS CloudTrail
5 1 (0.60%) AWS Lambda
5 1 (0.60%) BlazeMeter
5 1 (0.60%) ChatGPT
5 1 (0.60%) Dynamics 365
5 1 (0.60%) Firebase
5 1 (0.60%) IaaS
5 1 (0.60%) Microsoft Copilot
5 1 (0.60%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 21 (12.50%) Ethernet
2 11 (6.55%) Wireless
3 9 (5.36%) Software-Defined Radio
4 3 (1.79%) 3GPP
4 3 (1.79%) 5G
4 3 (1.79%) 5G NR
4 3 (1.79%) Bluetooth
4 3 (1.79%) LTE
4 3 (1.79%) Modbus
4 3 (1.79%) RS-232
4 3 (1.79%) RS-422
4 3 (1.79%) RS-485
4 3 (1.79%) SpaceWire
5 2 (1.19%) 4G
5 2 (1.19%) Microwave Backhaul
5 2 (1.19%) MPLS
5 2 (1.19%) Radio Access Network
5 2 (1.19%) VoLTE
5 2 (1.19%) Wi-Fi
5 2 (1.19%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (1.79%) Power BI
1 3 (1.79%) Tableau
2 2 (1.19%) Oracle Database
3 1 (0.60%) MongoDB
3 1 (0.60%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (0.60%) SQL Server
3 1 (0.60%) SQLite
Development Applications
1 29 (17.26%) Rational DOORS
2 17 (10.12%) Git
2 17 (10.12%) Rational Rhapsody
3 12 (7.14%) JIRA
4 8 (4.76%) PVCS
5 5 (2.98%) Visual Studio
6 3 (1.79%) GitLab
7 1 (0.60%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 1 (0.60%) CMake
7 1 (0.60%) Crashlytics
7 1 (0.60%) fastlane
7 1 (0.60%) GoogleTest
7 1 (0.60%) Jenkins
7 1 (0.60%) JMeter
7 1 (0.60%) LoadRunner
7 1 (0.60%) PetaLinux
7 1 (0.60%) Postman
7 1 (0.60%) Xcode
7 1 (0.60%) XCTest
7 1 (0.60%) XCUITest
General
1 30 (17.86%) Electronics
1 30 (17.86%) Social Skills
2 25 (14.88%) Aerospace
3 12 (7.14%) Law
4 9 (5.36%) Analytical Skills
4 9 (5.36%) Documentation Skills
5 8 (4.76%) Manufacturing
6 4 (2.38%) Automotive
6 4 (2.38%) Avionics
7 3 (1.79%) Games
8 2 (1.19%) Military
8 2 (1.19%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 84 (50.00%) Software Engineer
2 66 (39.29%) Embedded Engineer
3 49 (29.17%) Embedded Software Engineer
4 27 (16.07%) C Software Engineer
5 23 (13.69%) C++ Software Engineer
6 21 (12.50%) C/C++ Software Engineer
7 19 (11.31%) Embedded C Engineer
7 19 (11.31%) Embedded C Software Engineer
8 14 (8.33%) Developer
9 13 (7.74%) C/C++ Embedded Software Engineer
9 13 (7.74%) Embedded C/C++ Engineer
9 13 (7.74%) Embedded C/C++ Software Engineer
9 13 (7.74%) Embedded C++ Engineer
9 13 (7.74%) Embedded C++ Software Engineer
10 12 (7.14%) Lead
11 10 (5.95%) Validation Engineer
12 9 (5.36%) FPGA Engineer
12 9 (5.36%) Test Leader
13 8 (4.76%) Senior
14 7 (4.17%) Software Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (6.55%) Yocto
2 7 (4.17%) Middleware
3 6 (3.57%) .NET
4 5 (2.98%) WinForms
5 2 (1.19%) Flash
5 2 (1.19%) Itk
5 2 (1.19%) Qt
6 1 (0.60%) Core Data
6 1 (0.60%) GStreamer
6 1 (0.60%) JSON
6 1 (0.60%) NumPy
6 1 (0.60%) PostGIS
6 1 (0.60%) Protocol Buffers
6 1 (0.60%) REST
6 1 (0.60%) SciPy
6 1 (0.60%) SwiftUI
6 1 (0.60%) Taurus
6 1 (0.60%) Web Services
6 1 (0.60%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 32 (19.05%) Embedded Systems
2 30 (17.86%) FPGA
3 19 (11.31%) PCIe
4 13 (7.74%) VHDL
5 8 (4.76%) Algorithms
5 8 (4.76%) Verilog
6 6 (3.57%) Device Driver
7 5 (2.98%) Data Centre
8 4 (2.38%) MicroBlaze
8 4 (2.38%) RISC-V
9 3 (1.79%) CUDA
9 3 (1.79%) Cyber Threat
10 2 (1.19%) ASIC
10 2 (1.19%) CAN bus
10 2 (1.19%) Cloud Native
10 2 (1.19%) Video\Live Streaming
11 1 (0.60%) Enterprise Software
11 1 (0.60%) IoT
11 1 (0.60%) Legacy Systems
11 1 (0.60%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 40 (23.81%) Linux
2 17 (10.12%) Embedded Linux
3 11 (6.55%) Windows
4 10 (5.95%) FreeRTOS
5 3 (1.79%) Unix
6 1 (0.60%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.60%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 108 (64.29%) Software Engineering
2 36 (21.43%) Validation
3 29 (17.26%) Test Automation
4 26 (15.48%) Workflow
5 24 (14.29%) Problem-Solving
6 20 (11.90%) CI/CD
7 19 (11.31%) Signal Processing
8 16 (9.52%) Embedded Software Development
8 16 (9.52%) Software Testing
8 16 (9.52%) Unit Testing
8 16 (9.52%) Verification and Validation
8 16 (9.52%) Workflow Management
9 15 (8.93%) Requirements Analysis
10 14 (8.33%) Digital Signal Processing
11 13 (7.74%) Agile
12 12 (7.14%) Technical Leadership
12 12 (7.14%) UML
13 11 (6.55%) Data Acquisition
13 11 (6.55%) TDD
14 10 (5.95%) FPGA Design
Programming Languages
1 92 (54.76%) C++
2 36 (21.43%) Embedded C
3 31 (18.45%) Python
4 27 (16.07%) Ada
5 18 (10.71%) MATLAB
6 17 (10.12%) Embedded C++
7 9 (5.36%) Java
8 7 (4.17%) SystemVerilog
9 6 (3.57%) SQL
10 5 (2.98%) C#
11 4 (2.38%) Bash
12 3 (1.79%) JavaScript
12 3 (1.79%) PL/SQL
12 3 (1.79%) Rust
12 3 (1.79%) Shell Script
13 2 (1.19%) Perl
13 2 (1.19%) PowerShell
14 1 (0.60%) ProC
14 1 (0.60%) Ruby
14 1 (0.60%) Swift
Qualifications
1 50 (29.76%) Security Cleared
2 43 (25.60%) SC Cleared
3 9 (5.36%) Degree
4 7 (4.17%) DV Cleared
5 6 (3.57%) BPSS Clearance
6 1 (0.60%) CCNA
6 1 (0.60%) Cisco Certification
6 1 (0.60%) ISTQB
6 1 (0.60%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
6 1 (0.60%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
6 1 (0.60%) Six Sigma Black Belt
6 1 (0.60%) Six Sigma Green Belt
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 22 (13.10%) Def Stans
2 9 (5.36%) QA
3 7 (4.17%) MISRA
4 6 (3.57%) DO-178B
4 6 (3.57%) IEC 61508
5 3 (1.79%) MIL-STD-1553
6 1 (0.60%) Data Quality
6 1 (0.60%) DICOM
6 1 (0.60%) HL7
6 1 (0.60%) ISO 14001
6 1 (0.60%) ISO 9001
6 1 (0.60%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 1 (0.60%) MISRA C
6 1 (0.60%) NIST
System Software
1 14 (8.33%) Firmware
2 9 (5.36%) VMware Infrastructure
3 8 (4.76%) Virtual Machines
4 6 (3.57%) Docker
5 3 (1.79%) Embedded Firmware
6 1 (0.60%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 5 (2.98%) Kubernetes
2 3 (1.79%) Terraform
3 1 (0.60%) Ansible
3 1 (0.60%) Grafana
3 1 (0.60%) HP ALM
3 1 (0.60%) Nagios
3 1 (0.60%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 15 (8.93%) IBM
2 9 (5.36%) VMware
2 9 (5.36%) Xilinx
3 8 (4.76%) ANSYS
3 8 (4.76%) Intel
4 6 (3.57%) MathWorks
5 5 (2.98%) Microsemi
6 4 (2.38%) Lauterbach
7 3 (1.79%) Oracle
7 3 (1.79%) SAP
8 2 (1.19%) Google
8 2 (1.19%) Microsoft
9 1 (0.60%) Cisco
9 1 (0.60%) Citrix
9 1 (0.60%) EMC
9 1 (0.60%) HP
9 1 (0.60%) NVIDIA
9 1 (0.60%) OpenAI
9 1 (0.60%) Red Hat
9 1 (0.60%) Remedy