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

6 months to
7 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 260 207 114
Rank change year-on-year -53 -93 +90
Contract jobs citing C 166 146 429
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.78% 1.09% 2.02%
As % of the Programming Languages category 3.17% 3.74% 8.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 43 47 135
10th Percentile £68 £272 £353
25th Percentile £419 £358 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £535
Median % change year-on-year - -11.21% +1.90%
75th Percentile £544 £538 £636
90th Percentile £624 £625 £718
UK median daily rate £488 £500 £530
% change year-on-year -2.50% -5.66% -11.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 84 44 186
10th Percentile £60.38 £57.51 £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 £74.63 £95.00 £89.38
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 5,242 3,904 5,128
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 24.60% 29.23% 24.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,407 2,427 3,426
10th Percentile £331 £325 £313
25th Percentile £404 £400 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £478 £490 £495
Median % change year-on-year -2.55% -1.01% -1.98%
75th Percentile £572 £575 £588
90th Percentile £644 £660 £675
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -6.25%
Number of hourly rates quoted 419 190 416
10th Percentile £46.00 £21.00 £35.00
25th Percentile £56.81 £44.51 £46.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £63.37 £62.00
Median % change year-on-year +2.57% +2.21% -4.62%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £70.00
90th Percentile £77.10 £85.00 £77.50
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 7 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 7 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 7 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 -2 67 £525 +31.25% 84
South West -10 58 £450 -24.37% 78
South East -45 17 £500 - 122
Scotland +9 8 £65 -77.19% 29
North of England -67 7 £531 - 65
Northern Ireland +1 5 £425 - 4
North West -36 3 £450 - 28
Yorkshire -62 3 £531 - 26
Midlands -69 3 £550 +228.36% 58
East Midlands -33 2 £525 +213.43% 30
Wales -2 1 £460 -12.38% 12
West Midlands -56 1 £575 - 25
North East - 1 £625 - 11
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 (4.82%) Simulink
2 3 (1.81%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (1.20%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (1.20%) Stateflow
4 1 (0.60%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 2 (1.20%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 5 (3.01%) AWS
2 4 (2.41%) Azure
2 4 (2.41%) GCP
2 4 (2.41%) GitHub
3 2 (1.20%) Amazon CloudWatch
3 2 (1.20%) AWS CloudFormation
3 2 (1.20%) GitHub Actions
3 2 (1.20%) Power Platform
4 1 (0.60%) Amazon ECS
4 1 (0.60%) Amazon EKS
4 1 (0.60%) Amazon GuardDuty
4 1 (0.60%) AWS CloudTrail
4 1 (0.60%) AWS Lambda
4 1 (0.60%) Azure DevOps
4 1 (0.60%) BlazeMeter
4 1 (0.60%) ChatGPT
4 1 (0.60%) Firebase
4 1 (0.60%) GitHub Copilot
4 1 (0.60%) IaaS
4 1 (0.60%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 16 (9.64%) Ethernet
2 5 (3.01%) RS-232
3 3 (1.81%) 3GPP
3 3 (1.81%) 5G
3 3 (1.81%) 5G NR
3 3 (1.81%) Bluetooth
3 3 (1.81%) LTE
3 3 (1.81%) Modbus
3 3 (1.81%) RS-422
3 3 (1.81%) RS-485
3 3 (1.81%) SpaceWire
4 2 (1.20%) 4G
4 2 (1.20%) HTTP
4 2 (1.20%) Microwave Backhaul
4 2 (1.20%) MPLS
4 2 (1.20%) Radio Access Network
4 2 (1.20%) VoLTE
4 2 (1.20%) Wi-Fi
4 2 (1.20%) Wireless
4 2 (1.20%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (2.41%) Oracle Database
2 2 (1.20%) Power BI
2 2 (1.20%) Tableau
3 1 (0.60%) MongoDB
3 1 (0.60%) SQLite
Development Applications
1 24 (14.46%) Rational DOORS
2 16 (9.64%) Git
3 14 (8.43%) Rational Rhapsody
4 11 (6.63%) JIRA
5 8 (4.82%) PVCS
6 5 (3.01%) Visual Studio
7 2 (1.20%) ClearCase
7 2 (1.20%) GitLab
7 2 (1.20%) Jenkins
7 2 (1.20%) Rational Team Concert
8 1 (0.60%) Artifactory
8 1 (0.60%) Bitbucket
8 1 (0.60%) Crashlytics
8 1 (0.60%) fastlane
8 1 (0.60%) LoadRunner
8 1 (0.60%) Polyspace
8 1 (0.60%) Postman
8 1 (0.60%) SonarQube
8 1 (0.60%) XCTest
8 1 (0.60%) XCUITest
General
1 35 (21.08%) Electronics
2 26 (15.66%) Social Skills
3 20 (12.05%) Aerospace
4 14 (8.43%) Law
5 11 (6.63%) Analytical Skills
6 8 (4.82%) Documentation Skills
7 5 (3.01%) Automotive
8 3 (1.81%) Games
8 3 (1.81%) Manufacturing
8 3 (1.81%) Military
9 2 (1.20%) Avionics
9 2 (1.20%) Publishing
10 1 (0.60%) Aviation
10 1 (0.60%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 74 (44.58%) Software Engineer
2 58 (34.94%) Embedded Engineer
3 43 (25.90%) Embedded Software Engineer
4 27 (16.27%) C Software Engineer
5 23 (13.86%) C++ Software Engineer
6 21 (12.65%) C/C++ Software Engineer
7 19 (11.45%) Embedded C Engineer
7 19 (11.45%) Embedded C Software Engineer
8 13 (7.83%) C/C++ Embedded Software Engineer
8 13 (7.83%) Embedded C/C++ Engineer
8 13 (7.83%) Embedded C/C++ Software Engineer
8 13 (7.83%) Embedded C++ Engineer
8 13 (7.83%) Embedded C++ Software Engineer
8 13 (7.83%) Support Engineer
9 12 (7.23%) Developer
9 12 (7.23%) Product Engineer
9 12 (7.23%) Products Support Engineer
9 12 (7.23%) Software Support Engineer
10 10 (6.02%) Validation Engineer
11 9 (5.42%) FPGA Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (10.24%) Middleware
2 7 (4.22%) Flash
2 7 (4.22%) Yocto
3 6 (3.61%) .NET
4 5 (3.01%) WinForms
5 2 (1.20%) JSON
5 2 (1.20%) Protocol Buffers
5 2 (1.20%) Qt
5 2 (1.20%) REST
5 2 (1.20%) WebSockets
6 1 (0.60%) .NET Compact Framework
6 1 (0.60%) Core Data
6 1 (0.60%) GStreamer
6 1 (0.60%) Itk
6 1 (0.60%) NumPy
6 1 (0.60%) OAuth
6 1 (0.60%) OAuth2
6 1 (0.60%) OpenID
6 1 (0.60%) RESTful
6 1 (0.60%) SciPy
Miscellaneous
1 27 (16.27%) FPGA
2 26 (15.66%) Embedded Systems
3 15 (9.04%) VHDL
4 14 (8.43%) PCIe
5 5 (3.01%) Algorithms
5 5 (3.01%) Verilog
6 4 (2.41%) Data Centre
7 3 (1.81%) CAN bus
7 3 (1.81%) CUDA
7 3 (1.81%) Self-Motivation
8 2 (1.20%) Analogue Electronics
8 2 (1.20%) ASIC
8 2 (1.20%) Cloud Native
8 2 (1.20%) Cyber Threat
8 2 (1.20%) Device Driver
9 1 (0.60%) Acoustics
9 1 (0.60%) Contactless
9 1 (0.60%) Legacy Systems
9 1 (0.60%) MicroBlaze
9 1 (0.60%) RISC-V
Operating Systems
1 40 (24.10%) Linux
2 13 (7.83%) Windows
3 12 (7.23%) Ubuntu
4 10 (6.02%) Embedded Linux
5 5 (3.01%) FreeRTOS
6 2 (1.20%) Unix
7 1 (0.60%) Android
7 1 (0.60%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.60%) OpenVMS
7 1 (0.60%) Windows Embedded Compact
Processes & Methodologies
1 103 (62.05%) Software Engineering
2 39 (23.49%) Validation
3 22 (13.25%) Problem-Solving
4 20 (12.05%) Test Automation
4 20 (12.05%) Workflow
5 18 (10.84%) Unit Testing
6 17 (10.24%) CI/CD
6 17 (10.24%) Software Testing
7 15 (9.04%) Requirements Analysis
7 15 (9.04%) Signal Processing
8 14 (8.43%) Embedded Software Development
9 13 (7.83%) Verification and Validation
10 12 (7.23%) Workflow Management
11 11 (6.63%) Agile
11 11 (6.63%) Systems Engineering
12 10 (6.02%) DevOps
13 9 (5.42%) AI
13 9 (5.42%) Data Acquisition
13 9 (5.42%) FPGA Design
14 8 (4.82%) TDD
Programming Languages
1 102 (61.45%) C++
2 31 (18.67%) Ada
2 31 (18.67%) Python
3 28 (16.87%) Embedded C
4 15 (9.04%) Embedded C++
4 15 (9.04%) Shell Script
5 14 (8.43%) JavaScript
5 14 (8.43%) MATLAB
6 9 (5.42%) Java
7 8 (4.82%) SQL
8 6 (3.61%) C#
8 6 (3.61%) SystemVerilog
9 4 (2.41%) Bash
9 4 (2.41%) Fortran
9 4 (2.41%) PL/SQL
10 3 (1.81%) Rust
11 2 (1.20%) Perl
11 2 (1.20%) PowerShell
11 2 (1.20%) ProC
12 1 (0.60%) VB
Qualifications
1 55 (33.13%) Security Cleared
2 48 (28.92%) SC Cleared
3 10 (6.02%) Degree
4 5 (3.01%) DV Cleared
5 2 (1.20%) BPSS Clearance
5 2 (1.20%) Master's Degree
6 1 (0.60%) ISTQB
6 1 (0.60%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
6 1 (0.60%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
6 1 (0.60%) PhD
6 1 (0.60%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (14.46%) Def Stans
2 12 (7.23%) MISRA
3 10 (6.02%) DO-178B
4 6 (3.61%) IEC 61508
5 5 (3.01%) QA
6 2 (1.20%) MIL-STD-1553
6 2 (1.20%) MISRA C
7 1 (0.60%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (0.60%) AUTOSAR
7 1 (0.60%) DICOM
7 1 (0.60%) HL7
7 1 (0.60%) ISO 26262
7 1 (0.60%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 1 (0.60%) NIST
7 1 (0.60%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 19 (11.45%) Firmware
2 9 (5.42%) VMware Infrastructure
3 8 (4.82%) Virtual Machines
4 5 (3.01%) Docker
Systems Management
1 6 (3.61%) Kubernetes
2 3 (1.81%) Terraform
3 1 (0.60%) Ansible
3 1 (0.60%) Functional Safety
3 1 (0.60%) Grafana
3 1 (0.60%) HP ALM
3 1 (0.60%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 12 (7.23%) IBM
1 12 (7.23%) Red Hat
2 9 (5.42%) VMware
3 8 (4.82%) ANSYS
4 7 (4.22%) Intel
5 6 (3.61%) Xilinx
6 5 (3.01%) MathWorks
6 5 (3.01%) Microsemi
6 5 (3.01%) Oracle
7 2 (1.20%) Lauterbach
7 2 (1.20%) Microsoft
7 2 (1.20%) NetApp
8 1 (0.60%) Citrix
8 1 (0.60%) Google
8 1 (0.60%) OpenAI
8 1 (0.60%) QNX
8 1 (0.60%) Siemens
8 1 (0.60%) Sitecore
8 1 (0.60%) Splunk
8 1 (0.60%) Xamarin