SMS Contract Job Trends in England

Short Message Service (SMS)
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in England requiring SMS skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 4 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 619 502 523
Rank change year-on-year -117 +21 +48
Contract jobs citing SMS 27 20 9
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.058% 0.071% 0.028%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 0.63% 0.61% 0.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 17 9 7
10th Percentile £297 £250 £343
25th Percentile £415 £264 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £388 £585
Median % change year-on-year +41.94% -33.76% +23.16%
75th Percentile £675 £400 £604
90th Percentile £718 £455 £621
UK median daily rate £588 £388 £500
% change year-on-year +51.61% -22.50% +8.11%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
England

SMS falls under the Communications and Computer Networking category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring communications or computer networking skills in England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 4,289 3,304 3,921
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.26% 11.77% 12.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,527 2,089 2,260
10th Percentile £250 £222 £242
25th Percentile £400 £363 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% -2.50% -
75th Percentile £594 £600 £608
90th Percentile £688 £688 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 388 174 169
10th Percentile £16.01 £15.50 £16.08
25th Percentile £21.33 £20.94 £25.00
Median hourly rate £43.50 £36.25 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +20.00% -36.79% +1.52%
75th Percentile £68.75 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £93.27 £75.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £32.50 £41.94 £50.00
% change year-on-year -22.51% -16.12% -11.49%

SMS
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing SMS relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in England.

SMS job vacancy trend in England

SMS
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing SMS.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing SMS

SMS
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing SMS in England over the 6 months to 4 October 2026.

Daily rate histogram for SMS in England

SMS
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing SMS.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing SMS

SMS
Contract Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing SMS within the England region over the 6 months to 4 October 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
London -80 18 £625 +120.26% 109
North of England -67 3 £625 +35.14% 23
Midlands - 3 £435 - 13
North West -42 2 £625 +31.58% 12
South East -58 2 £350 -12.50% 12
East Midlands - 2 £435 - 7
Yorkshire -42 1 - - 11
West Midlands - 1 £675 - 6
SMS
UK

SMS
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England 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 3 (11.11%) CMS
2 1 (3.70%) Adobe Experience Manager
Business Applications
1 4 (14.81%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 5 (18.52%) Bloomreach
2 4 (14.81%) Azure
3 3 (11.11%) Dynamics 365
3 3 (11.11%) Salesforce Einstein
4 2 (7.41%) Copilot Studio
4 2 (7.41%) Microsoft Copilot
4 2 (7.41%) Power Automate
5 1 (3.70%) Adobe Analytics
5 1 (3.70%) Azure Event Grid
5 1 (3.70%) Azure Logic Apps
5 1 (3.70%) Azure Service Bus
5 1 (3.70%) Boomi
5 1 (3.70%) Entra ID
5 1 (3.70%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 2 (7.41%) 4G
1 2 (7.41%) 5G
1 2 (7.41%) Broadband
1 2 (7.41%) Radio Access Network
1 2 (7.41%) SD-WAN
1 2 (7.41%) VoLTE
1 2 (7.41%) WAN
2 1 (3.70%) DKIM
2 1 (3.70%) DMARC
2 1 (3.70%) SMTP
General
1 14 (51.85%) Marketing
2 8 (29.63%) Social Skills
3 4 (14.81%) Retail
4 3 (11.11%) Finance
4 3 (11.11%) Telecoms
5 2 (7.41%) Billing
5 2 (7.41%) Legal
6 1 (3.70%) Analytical Skills
6 1 (3.70%) Documentation Skills
6 1 (3.70%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 10 (37.04%) Architect
2 5 (18.52%) Enterprise Architect
3 4 (14.81%) Cloud Developer
3 4 (14.81%) Developer
3 4 (14.81%) Salesforce Developer
3 4 (14.81%) Solutions Architect
4 3 (11.11%) Consultant
5 2 (7.41%) CRM Specialist
5 2 (7.41%) Designer
5 2 (7.41%) Network Architect
5 2 (7.41%) Network Designer
5 2 (7.41%) Product Manager
5 2 (7.41%) Solutions Designer
5 2 (7.41%) Telephony Consultant
6 1 (3.70%) CRM Architect
6 1 (3.70%) Customer Communications Manager
6 1 (3.70%) Enterprise Solutions Architect
6 1 (3.70%) Head of Communications
6 1 (3.70%) Mainframe Specialist
6 1 (3.70%) Marketing Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (11.11%) REST
2 1 (3.70%) CSS
2 1 (3.70%) EDI
2 1 (3.70%) HTML
2 1 (3.70%) JSON
2 1 (3.70%) Middleware
2 1 (3.70%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 5 (18.52%) Marketing Technology
1 5 (18.52%) Onboarding
2 4 (14.81%) Cloud Native
3 2 (7.41%) Data Protection Act
3 2 (7.41%) IVR
3 2 (7.41%) Mainframe
3 2 (7.41%) Replication
4 1 (3.70%) Data Structures
4 1 (3.70%) IoT
4 1 (3.70%) Life Science
4 1 (3.70%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 2 (7.41%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 14 (51.85%) CRM
2 12 (44.44%) Personalization
3 8 (29.63%) Analytics
3 8 (29.63%) Event-Driven
4 7 (25.93%) Data Privacy
4 7 (25.93%) Roadmaps
4 7 (25.93%) Stakeholder Management
5 5 (18.52%) Agile
6 4 (14.81%) Continuous Improvement
6 4 (14.81%) Customer Engagement
6 4 (14.81%) Customer Experience
6 4 (14.81%) Data Management
6 4 (14.81%) Data Protection
6 4 (14.81%) Enterprise Architecture
6 4 (14.81%) Machine Learning
6 4 (14.81%) Performance Optimisation
6 4 (14.81%) Strategic Thinking
6 4 (14.81%) Technical Architecture
6 4 (14.81%) Technology Transformation
6 4 (14.81%) Use Case
Programming Languages
1 3 (11.11%) SQL
2 2 (7.41%) JCL
3 1 (3.70%) JavaScript
Qualifications
1 6 (22.22%) Security Cleared
2 4 (14.81%) SC Cleared
3 3 (11.11%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (18.52%) GDPR
2 4 (14.81%) QA
System Software
1 1 (3.70%) Active Directory
Vendors
1 6 (22.22%) Salesforce
1 6 (22.22%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
2 3 (11.11%) Pardot
3 2 (7.41%) Adobe
4 1 (3.70%) Braze
4 1 (3.70%) Broadcom
4 1 (3.70%) EMC
4 1 (3.70%) IBM
4 1 (3.70%) MuleSoft