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 13 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 297 272 111
Rank change year-on-year -25 -161 +39
Contract jobs citing C 176 101 391
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.65% 0.68% 1.89%
As % of the Programming Languages category 2.84% 2.42% 7.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 47 34 154
10th Percentile £400 £270 £400
25th Percentile £420 £300 £455
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £473 £413 £538
Median % change year-on-year +14.67% -23.33% +2.48%
75th Percentile £563 £500 £597
90th Percentile £646 £569 £650
UK median daily rate £475 £500 £535
% change year-on-year -5.00% -6.54% -2.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 57 33 142
10th Percentile £59.37 £52.45 £46.25
25th Percentile £65.00 £59.00 £57.88
Median hourly rate £68.00 £68.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year - +4.62% -
75th Percentile £70.00 £73.75 £70.00
90th Percentile £73.00 £77.25 £85.00
UK median hourly rate £67.50 £68.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -0.74% +4.62% +8.33%

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 6,204 4,175 4,911
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 23.02% 28.09% 23.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,877 2,751 3,246
10th Percentile £335 £313 £324
25th Percentile £408 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £475 £490
Median % change year-on-year +3.16% -3.06% -2.00%
75th Percentile £575 £550 £583
90th Percentile £650 £625 £650
UK median daily rate £513 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +0.49% -2.86% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 460 191 426
10th Percentile £35.00 £29.33 £37.50
25th Percentile £55.00 £48.99 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £63.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +3.17% -3.08% +4.00%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £70.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £78.70 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £56.75 £62.50
% change year-on-year +14.54% -9.20% -

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 13 July 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 13 July 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 13 July 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 59 £613 +53.13% 66
South East -27 57 £488 -2.50% 90
South West -25 30 £450 -18.18% 65
Midlands -33 21 £462 +515.33% 28
West Midlands -46 20 £450 - 11
North of England -79 5 £625 +66.67% 42
Scotland -26 2 - - 6
North East -33 2 £625 - 6
North West -54 2 - - 23
Northern Ireland - 2 - - 12
East Midlands -17 1 £525 +600.00% 17
Yorkshire -54 1 - - 13
Wales - 1 £460 - 1
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 (2.84%) Tuxedo
2 1 (0.57%) ColdFusion
2 1 (0.57%) Confluence
2 1 (0.57%) Oracle SOA Suite
2 1 (0.57%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 10 (5.68%) Simulink
2 3 (1.70%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.57%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 2 (1.14%) Oracle Retail
1 2 (1.14%) Teamcenter
2 1 (0.57%) BASE24
2 1 (0.57%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 7 (3.98%) AWS
2 6 (3.41%) GitHub
3 5 (2.84%) GitHub Copilot
4 4 (2.27%) Azure
5 3 (1.70%) Azure DevOps
5 3 (1.70%) Power Platform
6 2 (1.14%) GCP
6 2 (1.14%) OCI
6 2 (1.14%) SaaS
7 1 (0.57%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 1 (0.57%) AWS CloudFormation
7 1 (0.57%) BlazeMeter
7 1 (0.57%) Copilot Studio
7 1 (0.57%) Dynamics 365
7 1 (0.57%) GitHub Actions
7 1 (0.57%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 16 (9.09%) Ethernet
1 16 (9.09%) Software-Defined Radio
1 16 (9.09%) Wireless
2 4 (2.27%) RS-232
2 4 (2.27%) RS-485
2 4 (2.27%) Wireshark
3 3 (1.70%) Modbus
3 3 (1.70%) RS-422
3 3 (1.70%) SpaceWire
4 2 (1.14%) 3GPP
4 2 (1.14%) 4G
4 2 (1.14%) 5G
4 2 (1.14%) 5G NR
4 2 (1.14%) Bluetooth
4 2 (1.14%) LTE
4 2 (1.14%) Microwave Backhaul
4 2 (1.14%) MPLS
4 2 (1.14%) Radio Access Network
4 2 (1.14%) VoLTE
4 2 (1.14%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (5.68%) Ingres
2 5 (2.84%) Relational Database
3 4 (2.27%) RDBMS
3 4 (2.27%) SQL Server
4 3 (1.70%) Power BI
4 3 (1.70%) Tableau
5 1 (0.57%) MongoDB
5 1 (0.57%) NonStop SQL
5 1 (0.57%) Oracle Database
5 1 (0.57%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 23 (13.07%) Rational DOORS
2 13 (7.39%) Git
3 11 (6.25%) Rational Rhapsody
4 5 (2.84%) JIRA
4 5 (2.84%) Oracle Forms
4 5 (2.84%) Team Foundation Server
4 5 (2.84%) Visual Studio
5 2 (1.14%) GitLab
6 1 (0.57%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 1 (0.57%) CMake
6 1 (0.57%) GoogleTest
6 1 (0.57%) Jenkins
6 1 (0.57%) JMeter
6 1 (0.57%) LoadRunner
6 1 (0.57%) PetaLinux
6 1 (0.57%) Postman
General
1 33 (18.75%) Social Skills
2 32 (18.18%) Aerospace
3 24 (13.64%) Electronics
4 19 (10.80%) Law
5 11 (6.25%) Analytical Skills
5 11 (6.25%) Manufacturing
6 10 (5.68%) Documentation Skills
7 7 (3.98%) Automotive
8 5 (2.84%) Public Sector
9 4 (2.27%) Avionics
10 2 (1.14%) Military
10 2 (1.14%) Retail
11 1 (0.57%) Finance
11 1 (0.57%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 78 (44.32%) Software Engineer
2 49 (27.84%) Embedded Engineer
3 38 (21.59%) Embedded Software Engineer
4 19 (10.80%) Senior
5 17 (9.66%) Developer
6 15 (8.52%) C++ Software Engineer
7 11 (6.25%) C Software Engineer
7 11 (6.25%) C/C++ Software Engineer
8 10 (5.68%) Lead
8 10 (5.68%) Software Developer
9 9 (5.11%) Test Leader
10 8 (4.55%) DSP Engineer
10 8 (4.55%) DSP Software Engineer
11 6 (3.41%) Senior Developer
11 6 (3.41%) Test Engineer
12 5 (2.84%) Algorithm Engineer
12 5 (2.84%) C Developer
12 5 (2.84%) FPGA Engineer
12 5 (2.84%) SC Cleared Software Engineer
12 5 (2.84%) Senior C Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (6.82%) Yocto
2 7 (3.98%) .NET
3 5 (2.84%) WinForms
4 4 (2.27%) LDAP
5 3 (1.70%) ADO
5 3 (1.70%) COM
5 3 (1.70%) ODBC
5 3 (1.70%) Qt
5 3 (1.70%) REST
6 2 (1.14%) Itk
6 2 (1.14%) QML
6 2 (1.14%) Web Services
6 2 (1.14%) XML
7 1 (0.57%) AngularJS
7 1 (0.57%) GStreamer
7 1 (0.57%) JSON
7 1 (0.57%) Middleware
7 1 (0.57%) PostGIS
7 1 (0.57%) Protocol Buffers
7 1 (0.57%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 25 (14.20%) Embedded Systems
2 24 (13.64%) FPGA
3 13 (7.39%) PCIe
3 13 (7.39%) RISC-V
4 9 (5.11%) Verilog
4 9 (5.11%) VHDL
5 8 (4.55%) Device Driver
5 8 (4.55%) Legacy Systems
6 6 (3.41%) Algorithms
6 6 (3.41%) MicroBlaze
7 3 (1.70%) ARM Cortex
7 3 (1.70%) Cyber Threat
7 3 (1.70%) Low-Code
8 2 (1.14%) Analytical Mindset
8 2 (1.14%) ASIC
8 2 (1.14%) CAN bus
8 2 (1.14%) Cloud Native
8 2 (1.14%) Data Centre
8 2 (1.14%) Legacy Applications
8 2 (1.14%) Video\Live Streaming
Operating Systems
1 51 (28.98%) Linux
2 17 (9.66%) Embedded Linux
3 12 (6.82%) FreeRTOS
4 11 (6.25%) Windows
5 5 (2.84%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 111 (63.07%) Software Engineering
2 33 (18.75%) Agile
2 33 (18.75%) Problem-Solving
3 32 (18.18%) Test Automation
4 30 (17.05%) Validation
5 20 (11.36%) Signal Processing
5 20 (11.36%) Software Testing
6 19 (10.80%) Embedded Software Development
7 18 (10.23%) Digital Signal Processing
8 17 (9.66%) Data Management
8 17 (9.66%) Workflow
9 16 (9.09%) CI/CD
9 16 (9.09%) Verification and Validation
10 15 (8.52%) Workflow Management
11 13 (7.39%) DevOps
11 13 (7.39%) UML
12 12 (6.82%) Systems Engineering
13 11 (6.25%) Customer Requirements
13 11 (6.25%) Data Acquisition
13 11 (6.25%) System Integration Testing
Programming Languages
1 89 (50.57%) C++
2 37 (21.02%) Ada
3 29 (16.48%) Python
4 23 (13.07%) Embedded C
5 20 (11.36%) SQL
6 17 (9.66%) MATLAB
7 13 (7.39%) PL/SQL
8 11 (6.25%) ProC
9 10 (5.68%) Java
10 8 (4.55%) C#
11 6 (3.41%) SystemVerilog
11 6 (3.41%) VB
12 5 (2.84%) Embedded C++
12 5 (2.84%) Rust
12 5 (2.84%) VB6
13 4 (2.27%) Bash
14 2 (1.14%) Lua
14 2 (1.14%) PowerShell
14 2 (1.14%) Shell Script
15 1 (0.57%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 59 (33.52%) Security Cleared
2 47 (26.70%) SC Cleared
3 12 (6.82%) Degree
4 10 (5.68%) DV Cleared
5 6 (3.41%) BPSS Clearance
6 1 (0.57%) CCNA
6 1 (0.57%) Cisco Certification
6 1 (0.57%) ISTQB
6 1 (0.57%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
6 1 (0.57%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
6 1 (0.57%) Master's Degree
6 1 (0.57%) Six Sigma Black Belt
6 1 (0.57%) Six Sigma Green Belt
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (10.80%) Def Stans
2 13 (7.39%) QA
3 11 (6.25%) MISRA
4 8 (4.55%) DO-178B
5 3 (1.70%) MIL-STD-1553
6 2 (1.14%) ISO 26262
7 1 (0.57%) Data Quality
7 1 (0.57%) IEC 61508
7 1 (0.57%) ISO 14001
7 1 (0.57%) ISO 8583
7 1 (0.57%) ISO 9001
7 1 (0.57%) MISRA C
7 1 (0.57%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 19 (10.80%) Firmware
2 8 (4.55%) Docker
2 8 (4.55%) Embedded Firmware
3 4 (2.27%) Active Directory
3 4 (2.27%) Virtual Machines
4 2 (1.14%) VMware Infrastructure
5 1 (0.57%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 5 (2.84%) Terraform
2 4 (2.27%) Kubernetes
3 1 (0.57%) Grafana
3 1 (0.57%) HP ALM
3 1 (0.57%) Nagios
3 1 (0.57%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 17 (9.66%) Oracle
2 9 (5.11%) Xilinx
3 8 (4.55%) IBM
3 8 (4.55%) Intel
4 5 (2.84%) MathWorks
4 5 (2.84%) Microsemi
5 4 (2.27%) Lauterbach
6 3 (1.70%) Actian
6 3 (1.70%) Microsoft
6 3 (1.70%) SAP
7 2 (1.14%) Google
7 2 (1.14%) HP
7 2 (1.14%) QNX
7 2 (1.14%) VMware
8 1 (0.57%) Cisco
8 1 (0.57%) Citrix
8 1 (0.57%) EMC
8 1 (0.57%) NetScout
8 1 (0.57%) NVIDIA
8 1 (0.57%) Remedy