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 25 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 249 194 108
Rank change year-on-year -55 -86 +108
Contract jobs citing C 162 155 445
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.86% 1.13% 2.17%
As % of the Programming Languages category 3.45% 3.98% 8.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 41 41 145
10th Percentile £68 - £353
25th Percentile £375 £400 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £536
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -6.72% -2.55%
75th Percentile £550 £603 £588
90th Percentile £638 £625 £706
UK median daily rate £488 £538 £535
% change year-on-year -9.30% +0.47% -10.83%
Number of hourly rates quoted 83 39 183
10th Percentile £60.00 £57.53 £46.25
25th Percentile £65.00 £61.63 £55.00
Median hourly rate £66.50 £67.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -1.48% +3.85% -
75th Percentile £70.00 £85.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £76.25 £95.00 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £67.00 £67.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year -0.74% +3.85% +11.11%

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 4,698 3,896 5,101
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 24.92% 28.33% 24.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,039 2,320 3,398
10th Percentile £325 £335 £319
25th Percentile £402 £400 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £490 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.02% -2.00% -2.44%
75th Percentile £573 £575 £588
90th Percentile £650 £663 £675
UK median daily rate £505 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -3.81% -2.78% -4.42%
Number of hourly rates quoted 350 188 401
10th Percentile £46.13 £21.18 £37.50
25th Percentile £53.53 £45.00 £46.39
Median hourly rate £65.00 £63.00 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +3.17% +0.80% -3.85%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £70.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £85.00 £78.75
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £60.00
% change year-on-year +4.00% +4.17% -7.69%

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 25 January 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 25 January 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 25 January 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 -1 60 £500 - 97
South West -7 60 £475 -20.17% 106
Scotland +21 13 £283 - 54
North of England -55 12 £463 +15.63% 73
North West -23 9 £463 +15.63% 31
South East -44 9 £500 +6.10% 175
Northern Ireland +1 5 £425 - 6
Midlands -47 3 £575 +76.65% 59
Yorkshire -50 3 £531 - 32
East Midlands -26 2 - - 45
West Midlands -48 1 £575 - 12
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 (0.62%) Confluence
1 1 (0.62%) nginx
1 1 (0.62%) WebLogic
1 1 (0.62%) WebSphere
Applications
1 12 (7.41%) Simulink
2 8 (4.94%) Microsoft Office
3 5 (3.09%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (3.09%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 5 (3.09%) Stateflow
Business Applications
1 2 (1.23%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 9 (5.56%) GitHub
2 8 (4.94%) AWS
3 6 (3.70%) Azure
4 4 (2.47%) GCP
5 3 (1.85%) Amazon ECS
5 3 (1.85%) Amazon EKS
5 3 (1.85%) Amazon S3
5 3 (1.85%) AWS Lambda
5 3 (1.85%) Serverless
6 2 (1.23%) AWS CloudFormation
7 1 (0.62%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 1 (0.62%) Amazon EC2
7 1 (0.62%) Amazon GuardDuty
7 1 (0.62%) AWS CloudTrail
7 1 (0.62%) ChatGPT
7 1 (0.62%) Firebase
7 1 (0.62%) GitHub Actions
7 1 (0.62%) GitHub Copilot
7 1 (0.62%) IaaS
7 1 (0.62%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 10 (6.17%) Ethernet
2 5 (3.09%) RS-232
3 4 (2.47%) SpaceWire
4 3 (1.85%) Bluetooth
5 2 (1.23%) HTTP
5 2 (1.23%) SSL
5 2 (1.23%) Wi-Fi
5 2 (1.23%) Wireless
6 1 (0.62%) 3GPP
6 1 (0.62%) 5G
6 1 (0.62%) 5G NR
6 1 (0.62%) Internet
6 1 (0.62%) LTE
6 1 (0.62%) MQTT
6 1 (0.62%) Network Security
6 1 (0.62%) Software-Defined Radio
6 1 (0.62%) UWB
6 1 (0.62%) ZigBee
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (5.56%) Oracle Database
2 2 (1.23%) Amazon RDS
3 1 (0.62%) MongoDB
3 1 (0.62%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (0.62%) SQLite
Development Applications
1 26 (16.05%) Rational DOORS
2 16 (9.88%) Git
3 11 (6.79%) Rational Rhapsody
4 10 (6.17%) Jenkins
4 10 (6.17%) JIRA
5 8 (4.94%) ClearCase
5 8 (4.94%) PVCS
6 5 (3.09%) GitLab
6 5 (3.09%) Rational Team Concert
7 4 (2.47%) Artifactory
7 4 (2.47%) Xcode
8 3 (1.85%) Gradle
9 2 (1.23%) Bitbucket
9 2 (1.23%) Visual Studio
10 1 (0.62%) Atlassian Bamboo
10 1 (0.62%) CircleCI
10 1 (0.62%) NUnit
10 1 (0.62%) Polyspace
10 1 (0.62%) SonarQube
10 1 (0.62%) Subversion
General
1 29 (17.90%) Electronics
2 24 (14.81%) Social Skills
3 22 (13.58%) Aerospace
4 12 (7.41%) Law
5 11 (6.79%) Analytical Skills
6 9 (5.56%) Documentation Skills
7 4 (2.47%) Aviation
7 4 (2.47%) Military
7 4 (2.47%) Public Sector
7 4 (2.47%) Telecoms
8 3 (1.85%) Automotive
8 3 (1.85%) Banking
8 3 (1.85%) Games
9 2 (1.23%) Finance
9 2 (1.23%) Manufacturing
9 2 (1.23%) Marketing
9 2 (1.23%) Publishing
10 1 (0.62%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 69 (42.59%) Software Engineer
2 50 (30.86%) Embedded Engineer
3 40 (24.69%) Embedded Software Engineer
4 26 (16.05%) C Software Engineer
5 22 (13.58%) C++ Software Engineer
6 20 (12.35%) C/C++ Software Engineer
7 18 (11.11%) Embedded C Engineer
7 18 (11.11%) Embedded C Software Engineer
8 15 (9.26%) Developer
9 13 (8.02%) Support Engineer
10 12 (7.41%) C/C++ Embedded Software Engineer
10 12 (7.41%) Embedded C/C++ Engineer
10 12 (7.41%) Embedded C/C++ Software Engineer
10 12 (7.41%) Embedded C++ Engineer
10 12 (7.41%) Embedded C++ Software Engineer
10 12 (7.41%) Product Engineer
10 12 (7.41%) Products Support Engineer
10 12 (7.41%) Software Support Engineer
11 11 (6.79%) FPGA Engineer
12 10 (6.17%) Design Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 18 (11.11%) Middleware
2 7 (4.32%) Flash
3 6 (3.70%) Yocto
4 5 (3.09%) HTML
5 4 (2.47%) Node.js
5 4 (2.47%) REST
6 3 (1.85%) CSS
6 3 (1.85%) RESTful
7 2 (1.23%) .NET
7 2 (1.23%) OpenID
7 2 (1.23%) Qt
7 2 (1.23%) React
7 2 (1.23%) XML
8 1 (0.62%) .NET Framework
8 1 (0.62%) Core Data
8 1 (0.62%) Elastic Stack
8 1 (0.62%) OAuth
8 1 (0.62%) PyTorch
8 1 (0.62%) SwiftUI
8 1 (0.62%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 25 (15.43%) FPGA
2 24 (14.81%) Embedded Systems
3 16 (9.88%) VHDL
4 13 (8.02%) PCIe
5 6 (3.70%) Verilog
6 5 (3.09%) Self-Motivation
7 4 (2.47%) Algorithms
7 4 (2.47%) CAN bus
7 4 (2.47%) Mobile App
8 3 (1.85%) CUDA
8 3 (1.85%) Data Centre
8 3 (1.85%) Distributed Systems
8 3 (1.85%) Mobile Banking
9 2 (1.23%) Analogue Electronics
10 1 (0.62%) Acoustics
10 1 (0.62%) Contactless
10 1 (0.62%) IoT
10 1 (0.62%) MicroBlaze
10 1 (0.62%) NB-IoT
10 1 (0.62%) RISC-V
Operating Systems
1 43 (26.54%) Linux
2 15 (9.26%) Windows
3 12 (7.41%) Ubuntu
4 8 (4.94%) Embedded Linux
5 5 (3.09%) FreeRTOS
6 4 (2.47%) Android
6 4 (2.47%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.62%) OpenVMS
7 1 (0.62%) Windows Embedded Compact
Processes & Methodologies
1 94 (58.02%) Software Engineering
2 34 (20.99%) Validation
3 17 (10.49%) CI/CD
4 16 (9.88%) Problem-Solving
4 16 (9.88%) Workflow
5 15 (9.26%) Unit Testing
6 14 (8.64%) Signal Processing
7 13 (8.02%) Systems Engineering
8 12 (7.41%) Agile
9 11 (6.79%) Software Testing
9 11 (6.79%) UML
10 10 (6.17%) Containerisation
10 10 (6.17%) Requirements Analysis
11 9 (5.56%) AI
11 9 (5.56%) FPGA Design
11 9 (5.56%) Mathematics
12 8 (4.94%) Code Coverage
12 8 (4.94%) Embedded Software Development
12 8 (4.94%) Requirements Management
12 8 (4.94%) Workflow Management
Programming Languages
1 97 (59.88%) C++
2 36 (22.22%) Python
3 30 (18.52%) Ada
4 28 (17.28%) Java
5 23 (14.20%) Embedded C
6 20 (12.35%) Shell Script
7 19 (11.73%) JavaScript
8 16 (9.88%) MATLAB
9 13 (8.02%) Embedded C++
10 10 (6.17%) SQL
11 7 (4.32%) Bash
11 7 (4.32%) C#
11 7 (4.32%) Fortran
12 6 (3.70%) SystemVerilog
13 4 (2.47%) Ruby
13 4 (2.47%) Swift
13 4 (2.47%) Tcl
13 4 (2.47%) VBA
14 3 (1.85%) Objective-C
14 3 (1.85%) Scala
Qualifications
1 56 (34.57%) Security Cleared
2 47 (29.01%) SC Cleared
3 14 (8.64%) Degree
4 5 (3.09%) DV Cleared
5 2 (1.23%) Master's Degree
5 2 (1.23%) PhD
6 1 (0.62%) BPSS Clearance
6 1 (0.62%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (12.35%) Def Stans
2 13 (8.02%) MISRA
3 10 (6.17%) DO-178B
3 10 (6.17%) IEC 61508
4 6 (3.70%) QA
5 5 (3.09%) ISO 26262
6 3 (1.85%) IEC 62304
6 3 (1.85%) MISRA C
7 1 (0.62%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (0.62%) AUTOSAR
7 1 (0.62%) DICOM
7 1 (0.62%) HL7
7 1 (0.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 1 (0.62%) NIST
7 1 (0.62%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 19 (11.73%) Firmware
2 10 (6.17%) Docker
3 9 (5.56%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (4.94%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.62%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 7 (4.32%) Kubernetes
2 4 (2.47%) Terraform
3 3 (1.85%) Ansible
4 2 (1.23%) Podman
5 1 (0.62%) Functional Safety
5 1 (0.62%) Grafana
5 1 (0.62%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 13 (8.02%) IBM
1 13 (8.02%) Red Hat
2 10 (6.17%) Oracle
3 9 (5.56%) VMware
4 8 (4.94%) ANSYS
4 8 (4.94%) MathWorks
4 8 (4.94%) NetApp
5 6 (3.70%) Intel
6 5 (3.09%) Microsemi
6 5 (3.09%) Xilinx
7 3 (1.85%) Atlassian
8 2 (1.23%) Microsoft
8 2 (1.23%) SAP
8 2 (1.23%) Siemens
9 1 (0.62%) Dynatrace
9 1 (0.62%) OpenAI
9 1 (0.62%) QNX
9 1 (0.62%) Sitecore
9 1 (0.62%) Splunk
9 1 (0.62%) Xamarin