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 11 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 263 213 114
Rank change year-on-year -50 -99 +87
Contract jobs citing C 163 128 429
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.77% 1.00% 2.02%
As % of the Programming Languages category 3.14% 3.42% 8.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 41 44 136
10th Percentile £68 £270 £394
25th Percentile £425 £319 £455
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £471 £536
Median % change year-on-year +0.80% -12.08% +2.10%
75th Percentile £550 £538 £636
90th Percentile £625 £625 £716
UK median daily rate £481 £500 £530
% change year-on-year -3.75% -5.66% -11.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 83 41 186
10th Percentile £61.25 £57.50 £46.25
25th Percentile £65.00 £61.25 £56.65
Median hourly rate £67.50 £67.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year - +3.85% -
75th Percentile £70.00 £85.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £74.00 £95.00 £88.75
UK median hourly rate £67.50 £67.50 £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 5,198 3,743 5,059
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 24.40% 29.35% 23.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,365 2,367 3,365
10th Percentile £330 £325 £313
25th Percentile £404 £400 £404
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £476 £490 £488
Median % change year-on-year -2.96% +0.51% -3.89%
75th Percentile £570 £575 £588
90th Percentile £644 £656 £675
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -5.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 423 184 416
10th Percentile £46.25 £21.00 £35.00
25th Percentile £58.43 £44.51 £46.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £63.75 £62.00
Median % change year-on-year +1.97% +2.81% -4.62%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £69.72
90th Percentile £77.40 £85.00 £76.53
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £60.00
% change year-on-year +4.00% +4.17% -5.51%

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 11 March 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 11 March 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 11 March 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 -5 66 £525 +31.25% 66
South West +6 58 £450 -25.00% 72
South East -51 16 £500 - 101
Scotland +12 7 £65 -77.19% 30
North of England -66 7 £531 - 67
Northern Ireland +1 5 £425 - 6
North West -35 3 £450 - 28
Yorkshire -68 3 £531 - 27
Midlands -70 3 £550 +228.36% 46
East Midlands -37 2 £525 +213.43% 23
Wales -6 1 £460 -12.38% 8
West Midlands -58 1 £575 - 23
North East - 1 £625 - 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:

Applications
1 8 (4.91%) Simulink
2 3 (1.84%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (1.23%) Microsoft Excel
4 1 (0.61%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.61%) Stateflow
Business Applications
1 2 (1.23%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 5 (3.07%) AWS
2 4 (2.45%) Azure
2 4 (2.45%) GCP
2 4 (2.45%) GitHub
3 2 (1.23%) Amazon CloudWatch
3 2 (1.23%) AWS CloudFormation
3 2 (1.23%) GitHub Actions
3 2 (1.23%) Power Platform
4 1 (0.61%) Amazon ECS
4 1 (0.61%) Amazon EKS
4 1 (0.61%) Amazon GuardDuty
4 1 (0.61%) AWS CloudTrail
4 1 (0.61%) AWS Lambda
4 1 (0.61%) Azure DevOps
4 1 (0.61%) BlazeMeter
4 1 (0.61%) ChatGPT
4 1 (0.61%) Firebase
4 1 (0.61%) GitHub Copilot
4 1 (0.61%) IaaS
4 1 (0.61%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 16 (9.82%) Ethernet
2 4 (2.45%) RS-232
3 3 (1.84%) 3GPP
3 3 (1.84%) 5G
3 3 (1.84%) 5G NR
3 3 (1.84%) Bluetooth
3 3 (1.84%) LTE
3 3 (1.84%) Modbus
3 3 (1.84%) RS-422
3 3 (1.84%) RS-485
4 2 (1.23%) 4G
4 2 (1.23%) HTTP
4 2 (1.23%) Microwave Backhaul
4 2 (1.23%) MPLS
4 2 (1.23%) Radio Access Network
4 2 (1.23%) SpaceWire
4 2 (1.23%) VoLTE
4 2 (1.23%) Wi-Fi
4 2 (1.23%) Wireless
4 2 (1.23%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (2.45%) Oracle Database
2 2 (1.23%) Power BI
2 2 (1.23%) Tableau
3 1 (0.61%) MongoDB
3 1 (0.61%) SQLite
Development Applications
1 23 (14.11%) Rational DOORS
2 16 (9.82%) Git
3 14 (8.59%) Rational Rhapsody
4 11 (6.75%) JIRA
5 8 (4.91%) PVCS
6 5 (3.07%) Visual Studio
7 2 (1.23%) ClearCase
7 2 (1.23%) GitLab
7 2 (1.23%) Jenkins
8 1 (0.61%) Crashlytics
8 1 (0.61%) fastlane
8 1 (0.61%) LoadRunner
8 1 (0.61%) NUnit
8 1 (0.61%) Polyspace
8 1 (0.61%) Postman
8 1 (0.61%) Rational Team Concert
8 1 (0.61%) SonarQube
8 1 (0.61%) Xcode
8 1 (0.61%) XCTest
8 1 (0.61%) XCUITest
General
1 35 (21.47%) Electronics
2 26 (15.95%) Social Skills
3 18 (11.04%) Aerospace
4 14 (8.59%) Law
5 11 (6.75%) Analytical Skills
6 7 (4.29%) Documentation Skills
7 5 (3.07%) Automotive
8 3 (1.84%) Games
8 3 (1.84%) Manufacturing
8 3 (1.84%) Military
9 2 (1.23%) Avionics
9 2 (1.23%) Publishing
10 1 (0.61%) Aviation
10 1 (0.61%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 74 (45.40%) Software Engineer
2 58 (35.58%) Embedded Engineer
3 43 (26.38%) Embedded Software Engineer
4 27 (16.56%) C Software Engineer
5 23 (14.11%) C++ Software Engineer
6 21 (12.88%) C/C++ Software Engineer
7 19 (11.66%) Embedded C Engineer
7 19 (11.66%) Embedded C Software Engineer
8 13 (7.98%) C/C++ Embedded Software Engineer
8 13 (7.98%) Embedded C/C++ Engineer
8 13 (7.98%) Embedded C/C++ Software Engineer
8 13 (7.98%) Embedded C++ Engineer
8 13 (7.98%) Embedded C++ Software Engineer
8 13 (7.98%) Support Engineer
9 12 (7.36%) Developer
9 12 (7.36%) Product Engineer
9 12 (7.36%) Products Support Engineer
9 12 (7.36%) Software Support Engineer
10 10 (6.13%) Validation Engineer
11 9 (5.52%) FPGA Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (10.43%) Middleware
2 7 (4.29%) Flash
2 7 (4.29%) Yocto
3 6 (3.68%) .NET
4 5 (3.07%) WinForms
5 2 (1.23%) JSON
5 2 (1.23%) Protocol Buffers
5 2 (1.23%) Qt
5 2 (1.23%) REST
5 2 (1.23%) WebSockets
6 1 (0.61%) .NET Compact Framework
6 1 (0.61%) .NET Framework
6 1 (0.61%) GStreamer
6 1 (0.61%) Itk
6 1 (0.61%) NumPy
6 1 (0.61%) OAuth
6 1 (0.61%) OAuth2
6 1 (0.61%) OpenID
6 1 (0.61%) RESTful
6 1 (0.61%) SciPy
Miscellaneous
1 27 (16.56%) Embedded Systems
1 27 (16.56%) FPGA
2 15 (9.20%) VHDL
3 14 (8.59%) PCIe
4 5 (3.07%) Algorithms
4 5 (3.07%) Verilog
5 4 (2.45%) Data Centre
6 3 (1.84%) CUDA
7 2 (1.23%) Analogue Electronics
7 2 (1.23%) ASIC
7 2 (1.23%) CAN bus
7 2 (1.23%) Cloud Native
7 2 (1.23%) Cyber Threat
7 2 (1.23%) Device Driver
7 2 (1.23%) Self-Motivation
8 1 (0.61%) Acoustics
8 1 (0.61%) Legacy Systems
8 1 (0.61%) MicroBlaze
8 1 (0.61%) NB-IoT
8 1 (0.61%) RISC-V
Operating Systems
1 39 (23.93%) Linux
2 12 (7.36%) Ubuntu
2 12 (7.36%) Windows
3 10 (6.13%) Embedded Linux
4 5 (3.07%) FreeRTOS
5 2 (1.23%) Unix
6 1 (0.61%) Android
6 1 (0.61%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.61%) OpenVMS
6 1 (0.61%) Windows Embedded Compact
Processes & Methodologies
1 104 (63.80%) Software Engineering
2 37 (22.70%) Validation
3 21 (12.88%) Problem-Solving
3 21 (12.88%) Test Automation
4 20 (12.27%) Workflow
5 18 (11.04%) CI/CD
5 18 (11.04%) Unit Testing
6 16 (9.82%) Software Testing
7 15 (9.20%) Requirements Analysis
7 15 (9.20%) Signal Processing
8 14 (8.59%) Embedded Software Development
9 13 (7.98%) Verification and Validation
10 12 (7.36%) Workflow Management
11 11 (6.75%) Agile
12 10 (6.13%) DevOps
12 10 (6.13%) Systems Engineering
13 9 (5.52%) AI
13 9 (5.52%) Data Acquisition
13 9 (5.52%) FPGA Design
13 9 (5.52%) TDD
Programming Languages
1 101 (61.96%) C++
2 30 (18.40%) Ada
2 30 (18.40%) Python
3 28 (17.18%) Embedded C
4 15 (9.20%) Embedded C++
4 15 (9.20%) Shell Script
5 14 (8.59%) JavaScript
5 14 (8.59%) MATLAB
6 8 (4.91%) Java
6 8 (4.91%) SQL
7 6 (3.68%) C#
7 6 (3.68%) SystemVerilog
8 4 (2.45%) PL/SQL
9 3 (1.84%) Bash
9 3 (1.84%) Fortran
9 3 (1.84%) Rust
10 2 (1.23%) Perl
10 2 (1.23%) PowerShell
10 2 (1.23%) ProC
11 1 (0.61%) VB
Qualifications
1 53 (32.52%) Security Cleared
2 47 (28.83%) SC Cleared
3 9 (5.52%) Degree
4 4 (2.45%) DV Cleared
5 3 (1.84%) BPSS Clearance
6 1 (0.61%) ISTQB
6 1 (0.61%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
6 1 (0.61%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
6 1 (0.61%) Master's Degree
6 1 (0.61%) PhD
6 1 (0.61%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (14.72%) Def Stans
2 12 (7.36%) MISRA
3 10 (6.13%) DO-178B
4 6 (3.68%) IEC 61508
4 6 (3.68%) QA
5 2 (1.23%) MIL-STD-1553
5 2 (1.23%) MISRA C
6 1 (0.61%) AUTOSAR
6 1 (0.61%) DICOM
6 1 (0.61%) HL7
6 1 (0.61%) ISO 26262
6 1 (0.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 1 (0.61%) NIST
6 1 (0.61%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 19 (11.66%) Firmware
2 9 (5.52%) VMware Infrastructure
3 8 (4.91%) Virtual Machines
4 5 (3.07%) Docker
Systems Management
1 6 (3.68%) Kubernetes
2 3 (1.84%) Terraform
3 1 (0.61%) Ansible
3 1 (0.61%) Functional Safety
3 1 (0.61%) Grafana
3 1 (0.61%) HP ALM
3 1 (0.61%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 12 (7.36%) IBM
1 12 (7.36%) Red Hat
2 9 (5.52%) VMware
3 8 (4.91%) ANSYS
4 6 (3.68%) Intel
4 6 (3.68%) Xilinx
5 5 (3.07%) Microsemi
5 5 (3.07%) Oracle
6 4 (2.45%) MathWorks
7 2 (1.23%) Lauterbach
7 2 (1.23%) Microsoft
7 2 (1.23%) NetApp
8 1 (0.61%) Citrix
8 1 (0.61%) Google
8 1 (0.61%) HP
8 1 (0.61%) OpenAI
8 1 (0.61%) QNX
8 1 (0.61%) Remedy
8 1 (0.61%) SAP
8 1 (0.61%) Siemens