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 31 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
31 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 245 191 113
Rank change year-on-year -54 -78 +113
Contract jobs citing C 159 174 403
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.87% 1.19% 2.08%
As % of the Programming Languages category 3.44% 4.37% 8.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 45 48 151
10th Percentile £68 £400 £338
25th Percentile £375 £409 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £535
Median % change year-on-year - -6.54% -2.73%
75th Percentile £550 £588 £594
90th Percentile £619 £625 £706
UK median daily rate £500 £534 £539
% change year-on-year -6.32% -0.97% -10.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 66 45 143
10th Percentile £52.00 £53.10 £51.75
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 4,616 3,983 4,917
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 25.23% 27.25% 25.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,985 2,391 3,368
10th Percentile £315 £335 £325
25th Percentile £400 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £478 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.05% -2.50% -2.91%
75th Percentile £570 £575 £600
90th Percentile £644 £664 £675
UK median daily rate £505 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -3.81% -4.55% -2.65%
Number of hourly rates quoted 302 187 323
10th Percentile £41.94 £21.25 £37.72
25th Percentile £52.50 £45.50 £48.40
Median hourly rate £65.00 £63.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +3.17% -3.08% -
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £70.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £85.00 £83.99
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £62.50
% change year-on-year +4.00% - -

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 31 December 2025.

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 31 December 2025.

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 31 December 2025. 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 -7 62 £500 -6.98% 81
South West -5 53 £500 -8.34% 60
Scotland +19 14 £65 - 32
North of England -47 14 £475 -13.64% 33
South East -42 11 £500 +5.26% 106
North West -15 9 £463 +15.63% 19
Yorkshire -48 5 £500 -28.57% 7
Midlands -39 3 £575 +48.39% 24
Northern Ireland -6 2 £425 - 4
East Midlands -14 2 - - 16
West Midlands -36 1 £575 +48.39% 8
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 10 (6.29%) WebLogic
1 10 (6.29%) WebSphere
2 1 (0.63%) Confluence
2 1 (0.63%) nginx
Applications
1 14 (8.81%) Simulink
2 8 (5.03%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (3.77%) Stateflow
4 5 (3.14%) Microsoft Excel
4 5 (3.14%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 2 (1.26%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 10 (6.29%) GitHub
2 8 (5.03%) AWS
3 6 (3.77%) Azure
4 4 (2.52%) GCP
5 3 (1.89%) Amazon ECS
5 3 (1.89%) Amazon EKS
5 3 (1.89%) Amazon S3
5 3 (1.89%) AWS Lambda
5 3 (1.89%) Serverless
6 2 (1.26%) AWS CloudFormation
6 2 (1.26%) GitHub Actions
6 2 (1.26%) OpenShift
7 1 (0.63%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 1 (0.63%) Amazon EC2
7 1 (0.63%) AWS CloudTrail
7 1 (0.63%) ChatGPT
7 1 (0.63%) Cloud Computing
7 1 (0.63%) Firebase
7 1 (0.63%) IaaS
7 1 (0.63%) npm
Communications & Networking
1 7 (4.40%) Ethernet
2 5 (3.14%) RS-232
3 4 (2.52%) SpaceWire
4 3 (1.89%) HTTP
5 2 (1.26%) Bluetooth
5 2 (1.26%) SSL
5 2 (1.26%) Wireless
6 1 (0.63%) 3GPP
6 1 (0.63%) 5G
6 1 (0.63%) 5G NR
6 1 (0.63%) AMQP
6 1 (0.63%) HTTPS
6 1 (0.63%) Internet
6 1 (0.63%) LTE
6 1 (0.63%) MQTT
6 1 (0.63%) Network Security
6 1 (0.63%) UWB
6 1 (0.63%) Wi-Fi
6 1 (0.63%) ZigBee
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (5.66%) Oracle Database
2 2 (1.26%) Amazon RDS
2 2 (1.26%) MongoDB
2 2 (1.26%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (0.63%) InfluxDB
3 1 (0.63%) RDBMS
3 1 (0.63%) Relational Database
3 1 (0.63%) SQLite
Development Applications
1 22 (13.84%) Rational DOORS
2 16 (10.06%) Git
3 10 (6.29%) Jenkins
3 10 (6.29%) JIRA
4 8 (5.03%) ClearCase
5 7 (4.40%) PVCS
6 6 (3.77%) Rational Rhapsody
6 6 (3.77%) Rational Team Concert
7 5 (3.14%) GitLab
8 4 (2.52%) Artifactory
8 4 (2.52%) Gradle
8 4 (2.52%) Xcode
9 2 (1.26%) Bitbucket
9 2 (1.26%) Visual Studio
10 1 (0.63%) CircleCI
10 1 (0.63%) CMake
10 1 (0.63%) Crashlytics
10 1 (0.63%) NUnit
10 1 (0.63%) SonarQube
10 1 (0.63%) Subversion
General
1 29 (18.24%) Electronics
2 25 (15.72%) Social Skills
3 20 (12.58%) Aerospace
4 13 (8.18%) Analytical Skills
5 9 (5.66%) Law
6 6 (3.77%) Documentation Skills
6 6 (3.77%) Public Sector
7 5 (3.14%) Aviation
8 4 (2.52%) Military
8 4 (2.52%) Telecoms
9 3 (1.89%) Banking
10 2 (1.26%) Finance
10 2 (1.26%) Games
10 2 (1.26%) Manufacturing
10 2 (1.26%) Marketing
11 1 (0.63%) Automotive
11 1 (0.63%) Organisational Skills
11 1 (0.63%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 54 (33.96%) Software Engineer
2 33 (20.75%) Embedded Engineer
3 30 (18.87%) Embedded Software Engineer
4 18 (11.32%) C Software Engineer
5 17 (10.69%) Developer
6 14 (8.81%) C++ Software Engineer
6 14 (8.81%) Embedded C Engineer
6 14 (8.81%) Embedded C Software Engineer
6 14 (8.81%) Support Engineer
7 13 (8.18%) Design Engineer
8 12 (7.55%) C/C++ Software Engineer
8 12 (7.55%) Product Engineer
8 12 (7.55%) Products Support Engineer
8 12 (7.55%) Software Support Engineer
9 10 (6.29%) Consultant
9 10 (6.29%) FPGA Engineer
10 9 (5.66%) Digital Design Engineer
11 8 (5.03%) Embedded C/C++ Engineer
11 8 (5.03%) Embedded C/C++ Software Engineer
11 8 (5.03%) Embedded C++ Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (16.35%) Middleware
2 14 (8.81%) HTML
3 13 (8.18%) Node.js
4 11 (6.92%) .NET
5 9 (5.66%) Flash
6 4 (2.52%) PyTorch
6 4 (2.52%) REST
7 3 (1.89%) CSS
7 3 (1.89%) Google JAX
7 3 (1.89%) JAX
7 3 (1.89%) React
7 3 (1.89%) RESTful
7 3 (1.89%) scikit-learn
7 3 (1.89%) TensorFlow
7 3 (1.89%) Yocto
8 2 (1.26%) OpenID
8 2 (1.26%) XML
9 1 (0.63%) Bazel
9 1 (0.63%) SwiftUI
9 1 (0.63%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 23 (14.47%) FPGA
2 21 (13.21%) Embedded Systems
3 17 (10.69%) VHDL
4 8 (5.03%) PCIe
5 7 (4.40%) Verilog
6 6 (3.77%) Analogue Electronics
6 6 (3.77%) Self-Motivation
7 4 (2.52%) CAN bus
7 4 (2.52%) CUDA
7 4 (2.52%) Mobile App
8 3 (1.89%) Algorithms
8 3 (1.89%) Data Centre
8 3 (1.89%) Distributed Systems
8 3 (1.89%) Mobile Banking
8 3 (1.89%) Security Posture
9 1 (0.63%) Legacy Systems
9 1 (0.63%) MicroBlaze
9 1 (0.63%) NB-IoT
9 1 (0.63%) PKI
9 1 (0.63%) RISC-V
Operating Systems
1 40 (25.16%) Linux
2 15 (9.43%) Windows
3 12 (7.55%) Ubuntu
4 5 (3.14%) FreeRTOS
5 4 (2.52%) Android
5 4 (2.52%) Apple iOS
5 4 (2.52%) Embedded Linux
6 1 (0.63%) CentOS
6 1 (0.63%) OpenVMS
6 1 (0.63%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.63%) VMS
6 1 (0.63%) Windows Embedded Compact
Processes & Methodologies
1 77 (48.43%) Software Engineering
2 26 (16.35%) Validation
3 20 (12.58%) CI/CD
4 17 (10.69%) Problem-Solving
5 15 (9.43%) AI
5 15 (9.43%) Signal Processing
5 15 (9.43%) Unit Testing
6 14 (8.81%) Software Testing
7 13 (8.18%) Systems Engineering
8 12 (7.55%) Agile
9 11 (6.92%) Containerisation
9 11 (6.92%) Mathematics
9 11 (6.92%) UML
9 11 (6.92%) Workflow
10 10 (6.29%) DevOps
10 10 (6.29%) Integration Testing
10 10 (6.29%) Requirements Gathering
11 9 (5.66%) Requirements Management
12 8 (5.03%) Machine Learning
12 8 (5.03%) Requirements Analysis
Programming Languages
1 100 (62.89%) C++
2 43 (27.04%) Java
2 43 (27.04%) Python
3 21 (13.21%) Shell Script
4 20 (12.58%) Ada
4 20 (12.58%) Embedded C
4 20 (12.58%) JavaScript
5 14 (8.81%) MATLAB
6 10 (6.29%) Embedded C++
6 10 (6.29%) PHP
6 10 (6.29%) SQL
7 8 (5.03%) C#
7 8 (5.03%) Fortran
8 7 (4.40%) SystemVerilog
9 5 (3.14%) Bash
9 5 (3.14%) Tcl
10 4 (2.52%) R
10 4 (2.52%) Ruby
10 4 (2.52%) Swift
10 4 (2.52%) VBA
Qualifications
1 60 (37.74%) Security Cleared
2 48 (30.19%) SC Cleared
3 14 (8.81%) Degree
4 7 (4.40%) DV Cleared
5 2 (1.26%) Master's Degree
5 2 (1.26%) PhD
6 1 (0.63%) BPSS Clearance
6 1 (0.63%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (8.18%) Def Stans
2 11 (6.92%) MISRA
3 9 (5.66%) DO-178B
3 9 (5.66%) QA
4 8 (5.03%) IEC 61508
5 5 (3.14%) ISO 26262
6 4 (2.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 3 (1.89%) EU AI Act
7 3 (1.89%) GDPR
7 3 (1.89%) IEC 62304
7 3 (1.89%) NIST
8 2 (1.26%) MISRA C
9 1 (0.63%) Actionable Recommendations
9 1 (0.63%) AUTOSAR
9 1 (0.63%) DICOM
9 1 (0.63%) HL7
9 1 (0.63%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 20 (12.58%) Firmware
2 12 (7.55%) Docker
3 8 (5.03%) VMware Infrastructure
4 7 (4.40%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.63%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 12 (7.55%) Kubernetes
2 5 (3.14%) Ansible
2 5 (3.14%) Terraform
3 2 (1.26%) Grafana
3 2 (1.26%) Podman
4 1 (0.63%) Functional Safety
4 1 (0.63%) Prometheus
4 1 (0.63%) Rsyslog
4 1 (0.63%) SCOM
Vendors
1 13 (8.18%) Red Hat
2 11 (6.92%) Oracle
3 10 (6.29%) Dynatrace
4 9 (5.66%) IBM
5 8 (5.03%) NetApp
5 8 (5.03%) VMware
6 7 (4.40%) ANSYS
7 6 (3.77%) Intel
7 6 (3.77%) MathWorks
8 5 (3.14%) Microsemi
8 5 (3.14%) Xilinx
9 3 (1.89%) Atlassian
10 2 (1.26%) Microsoft
10 2 (1.26%) SAP
10 2 (1.26%) Siemens
11 1 (0.63%) OpenAI
11 1 (0.63%) QNX
11 1 (0.63%) Sitecore
11 1 (0.63%) Splunk
11 1 (0.63%) Xamarin