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

6 months to
14 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 244 177 117
Rank change year-on-year -67 -60 +106
Contract jobs citing C 155 169 399
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.85% 1.22% 2.06%
As % of the Programming Languages category 3.38% 4.43% 8.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 42 44 139
10th Percentile £68 £400 £324
25th Percentile £362 £441 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £535
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -6.54% -2.73%
75th Percentile £550 £608 £588
90th Percentile £636 £625 £706
UK median daily rate £500 £538 £535
% change year-on-year -6.98% +0.47% -10.83%
Number of hourly rates quoted 77 45 149
10th Percentile £53.05 £53.10 £51.00
25th Percentile £65.00 £61.25 £61.25
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 £66.50 £67.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year -1.48% +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 4,581 3,813 4,895
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 25.00% 27.62% 25.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,968 2,275 3,317
10th Percentile £320 £337 £325
25th Percentile £402 £400 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £482 £489 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.43% -2.20% -2.44%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £599
90th Percentile £650 £663 £675
UK median daily rate £507 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -3.43% -4.55% -3.08%
Number of hourly rates quoted 314 185 331
10th Percentile £42.93 £21.25 £37.50
25th Percentile £52.50 £46.00 £48.42
Median hourly rate £65.00 £63.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +3.17% -3.08% -
75th Percentile £69.40 £68.75 £70.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £85.00 £82.50
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £62.50
% change year-on-year +4.00% - -0.79%

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 14 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 14 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 14 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 -4 58 £500 -3.61% 117
South West -19 57 £475 -20.17% 117
Scotland +8 14 £65 - 42
North of England -54 12 £463 -15.91% 83
North West -22 9 £463 +15.63% 34
South East -49 8 £500 +6.10% 196
Northern Ireland -2 3 £425 - 12
Midlands -43 3 £575 +121.15% 63
Yorkshire -50 3 £531 -24.11% 35
East Midlands -22 2 - - 47
West Midlands -38 1 £575 - 14
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 2 (1.29%) WebLogic
1 2 (1.29%) WebSphere
2 1 (0.65%) Confluence
2 1 (0.65%) nginx
Applications
1 13 (8.39%) Simulink
2 8 (5.16%) Microsoft Office
3 5 (3.23%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (3.23%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 5 (3.23%) Stateflow
Business Applications
1 2 (1.29%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 9 (5.81%) GitHub
2 8 (5.16%) AWS
3 6 (3.87%) Azure
4 4 (2.58%) GCP
5 3 (1.94%) Amazon ECS
5 3 (1.94%) Amazon EKS
5 3 (1.94%) Amazon S3
5 3 (1.94%) AWS Lambda
5 3 (1.94%) Serverless
6 2 (1.29%) AWS CloudFormation
7 1 (0.65%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 1 (0.65%) Amazon EC2
7 1 (0.65%) Amazon GuardDuty
7 1 (0.65%) AWS CloudTrail
7 1 (0.65%) ChatGPT
7 1 (0.65%) Firebase
7 1 (0.65%) GitHub Actions
7 1 (0.65%) GitHub Copilot
7 1 (0.65%) IaaS
7 1 (0.65%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 9 (5.81%) Ethernet
2 5 (3.23%) RS-232
3 4 (2.58%) SpaceWire
4 2 (1.29%) Bluetooth
4 2 (1.29%) HTTP
4 2 (1.29%) SSL
4 2 (1.29%) Wireless
5 1 (0.65%) 3GPP
5 1 (0.65%) 5G
5 1 (0.65%) 5G NR
5 1 (0.65%) Internet
5 1 (0.65%) LTE
5 1 (0.65%) MQTT
5 1 (0.65%) Network Security
5 1 (0.65%) Software-Defined Radio
5 1 (0.65%) UWB
5 1 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
5 1 (0.65%) ZigBee
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (5.81%) Oracle Database
2 2 (1.29%) Amazon RDS
3 1 (0.65%) MongoDB
3 1 (0.65%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (0.65%) SQLite
Development Applications
1 22 (14.19%) Rational DOORS
2 14 (9.03%) Git
3 10 (6.45%) Jenkins
3 10 (6.45%) JIRA
4 8 (5.16%) ClearCase
4 8 (5.16%) PVCS
5 7 (4.52%) Rational Rhapsody
6 5 (3.23%) GitLab
6 5 (3.23%) Rational Team Concert
7 4 (2.58%) Artifactory
7 4 (2.58%) Xcode
8 3 (1.94%) Gradle
9 2 (1.29%) Bitbucket
9 2 (1.29%) Visual Studio
10 1 (0.65%) Atlassian Bamboo
10 1 (0.65%) CircleCI
10 1 (0.65%) NUnit
10 1 (0.65%) Polyspace
10 1 (0.65%) SonarQube
10 1 (0.65%) Subversion
General
1 29 (18.71%) Electronics
2 22 (14.19%) Social Skills
3 20 (12.90%) Aerospace
4 10 (6.45%) Analytical Skills
5 9 (5.81%) Law
6 6 (3.87%) Documentation Skills
7 4 (2.58%) Aviation
7 4 (2.58%) Military
7 4 (2.58%) Public Sector
7 4 (2.58%) Telecoms
8 3 (1.94%) Banking
8 3 (1.94%) Games
9 2 (1.29%) Finance
9 2 (1.29%) Manufacturing
9 2 (1.29%) Marketing
9 2 (1.29%) Publishing
10 1 (0.65%) Automotive
10 1 (0.65%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 64 (41.29%) Software Engineer
2 40 (25.81%) Embedded Engineer
3 34 (21.94%) Embedded Software Engineer
4 25 (16.13%) C Software Engineer
5 21 (13.55%) C++ Software Engineer
6 19 (12.26%) C/C++ Software Engineer
7 17 (10.97%) Embedded C Engineer
7 17 (10.97%) Embedded C Software Engineer
8 15 (9.68%) Developer
9 13 (8.39%) Support Engineer
10 12 (7.74%) Design Engineer
10 12 (7.74%) Product Engineer
10 12 (7.74%) Products Support Engineer
10 12 (7.74%) Software Support Engineer
11 11 (7.10%) C/C++ Embedded Software Engineer
11 11 (7.10%) Embedded C/C++ Engineer
11 11 (7.10%) Embedded C/C++ Software Engineer
11 11 (7.10%) Embedded C++ Engineer
11 11 (7.10%) Embedded C++ Software Engineer
11 11 (7.10%) FPGA Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (12.26%) Middleware
2 9 (5.81%) Flash
3 6 (3.87%) HTML
4 5 (3.23%) Node.js
5 4 (2.58%) REST
5 4 (2.58%) Yocto
6 3 (1.94%) .NET
6 3 (1.94%) CSS
6 3 (1.94%) RESTful
7 2 (1.29%) OpenID
7 2 (1.29%) React
7 2 (1.29%) XML
8 1 (0.65%) Core Data
8 1 (0.65%) Elastic Stack
8 1 (0.65%) NumPy
8 1 (0.65%) OAuth2
8 1 (0.65%) PyTorch
8 1 (0.65%) SciPy
8 1 (0.65%) SwiftUI
8 1 (0.65%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 27 (17.42%) FPGA
2 23 (14.84%) Embedded Systems
3 18 (11.61%) VHDL
4 10 (6.45%) PCIe
5 7 (4.52%) Verilog
6 6 (3.87%) Self-Motivation
7 4 (2.58%) Analogue Electronics
7 4 (2.58%) CAN bus
7 4 (2.58%) CUDA
7 4 (2.58%) Mobile App
8 3 (1.94%) Algorithms
8 3 (1.94%) Data Centre
8 3 (1.94%) Distributed Systems
8 3 (1.94%) Mobile Banking
9 1 (0.65%) Cloud Native
9 1 (0.65%) Contactless
9 1 (0.65%) IoT
9 1 (0.65%) MicroBlaze
9 1 (0.65%) RISC-V
9 1 (0.65%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 40 (25.81%) Linux
2 15 (9.68%) Windows
3 12 (7.74%) Ubuntu
4 6 (3.87%) Embedded Linux
5 5 (3.23%) FreeRTOS
6 4 (2.58%) Android
6 4 (2.58%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.65%) OpenVMS
7 1 (0.65%) Windows Embedded Compact
Processes & Methodologies
1 84 (54.19%) Software Engineering
2 28 (18.06%) Validation
3 16 (10.32%) CI/CD
3 16 (10.32%) Signal Processing
3 16 (10.32%) Unit Testing
4 13 (8.39%) Problem-Solving
4 13 (8.39%) Software Testing
4 13 (8.39%) Systems Engineering
5 12 (7.74%) Agile
6 11 (7.10%) AI
6 11 (7.10%) UML
6 11 (7.10%) Workflow
7 10 (6.45%) Containerisation
7 10 (6.45%) Mathematics
8 9 (5.81%) FPGA Design
8 9 (5.81%) Requirements Analysis
9 8 (5.16%) Code Coverage
9 8 (5.16%) DevOps
9 8 (5.16%) Integration Testing
9 8 (5.16%) Requirements Management
Programming Languages
1 95 (61.29%) C++
2 38 (24.52%) Python
3 30 (19.35%) Java
4 22 (14.19%) Embedded C
5 21 (13.55%) Ada
5 21 (13.55%) Shell Script
6 19 (12.26%) JavaScript
7 16 (10.32%) MATLAB
8 12 (7.74%) Embedded C++
9 10 (6.45%) SQL
10 7 (4.52%) C#
10 7 (4.52%) Fortran
10 7 (4.52%) SystemVerilog
11 5 (3.23%) Bash
11 5 (3.23%) Tcl
12 4 (2.58%) Ruby
12 4 (2.58%) Swift
12 4 (2.58%) VBA
13 3 (1.94%) Kotlin
13 3 (1.94%) Objective-C
Qualifications
1 56 (36.13%) Security Cleared
2 46 (29.68%) SC Cleared
3 14 (9.03%) Degree
4 6 (3.87%) DV Cleared
5 2 (1.29%) Master's Degree
5 2 (1.29%) PhD
6 1 (0.65%) BPSS Clearance
6 1 (0.65%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (9.03%) Def Stans
2 11 (7.10%) MISRA
3 9 (5.81%) DO-178B
3 9 (5.81%) IEC 61508
4 7 (4.52%) QA
5 5 (3.23%) ISO 26262
6 3 (1.94%) IEC 62304
7 2 (1.29%) MISRA C
8 1 (0.65%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.65%) AUTOSAR
8 1 (0.65%) DICOM
8 1 (0.65%) HL7
8 1 (0.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 1 (0.65%) NIST
8 1 (0.65%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 20 (12.90%) Firmware
2 10 (6.45%) Docker
3 9 (5.81%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (5.16%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.65%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 7 (4.52%) Kubernetes
2 4 (2.58%) Terraform
3 3 (1.94%) Ansible
4 2 (1.29%) Podman
5 1 (0.65%) Functional Safety
5 1 (0.65%) Grafana
5 1 (0.65%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 13 (8.39%) Red Hat
2 12 (7.74%) IBM
3 10 (6.45%) Oracle
4 9 (5.81%) VMware
5 8 (5.16%) ANSYS
5 8 (5.16%) NetApp
6 7 (4.52%) MathWorks
7 6 (3.87%) Intel
8 5 (3.23%) Microsemi
8 5 (3.23%) Xilinx
9 3 (1.94%) Atlassian
10 2 (1.29%) Dynatrace
10 2 (1.29%) Microsoft
10 2 (1.29%) SAP
10 2 (1.29%) Siemens
11 1 (0.65%) OpenAI
11 1 (0.65%) QNX
11 1 (0.65%) Sitecore
11 1 (0.65%) Splunk
11 1 (0.65%) Xamarin