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 citing SMS skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 1 November 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

	6 months to 1 Nov 2026	Same period 2025	Same period 2024
Rank	614	512	502
Rank change year-on-year	-102	-10	+72
Contract jobs citing SMS	34	24	13
As % of all contract jobs in England	0.073%	0.082%	0.042%
As % of the Communications & Networking category	0.80%	0.71%	0.34%
Number of daily rates quoted	16	14	10
10^th Percentile	£264	£254	£301
25^th Percentile	£381	£283	£317
Median daily rate (50^th Percentile)	£525	£379	£425
Median % change year-on-year	+38.61%	-10.88%	-10.99%
75^th Percentile	£675	£438	£594
90^th Percentile	£719	£471	£613
UK median daily rate	£550	£370	£488
% change year-on-year	+48.65%	-24.10%	+2.63%
Number of hourly rates quoted	2	0	0
10^th Percentile	-	-	-
25^th Percentile	£15.31	-	-
Median hourly rate	£17.02	-	-
75^th Percentile	£18.72	-	-
90^th Percentile	-	-	-
UK median hourly rate	£17.02	-	-

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 citing communications or computer networking skills in England.

	6 months to 1 Nov 2026	Same period 2025	Same period 2024
Contract vacancies citing communications or computer networking skills	4,269	3,359	3,802
As % of all contract jobs advertised in England	9.21%	11.52%	12.21%
Number of daily rates quoted	2,497	2,167	2,205
10^th Percentile	£263	£213	£236
25^th Percentile	£400	£360	£375
Median daily rate (50^th Percentile)	£500	£488	£500
Median % change year-on-year	+2.56%	-2.50%	-
75^th Percentile	£600	£588	£608
90^th Percentile	£688	£685	£686
UK median daily rate	£500	£475	£500
% change year-on-year	+5.26%	-5.00%	-
Number of hourly rates quoted	380	183	132
10^th Percentile	£16.01	£15.50	£20.00
25^th Percentile	£21.33	£20.09	£29.25
Median hourly rate	£45.00	£34.00	£57.38
Median % change year-on-year	+32.35%	-40.74%	+1.57%
75^th Percentile	£70.06	£65.00	£70.00
90^th Percentile	£98.82	£75.00	£75.00
UK median hourly rate	£35.22	£34.50	£48.56
% change year-on-year	+2.09%	-28.95%	-11.71%

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 Daily Rate Trend in England

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 1 November 2026.

SMS Hourly Rate Trend in England

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 1 November 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	Job Ads Past 6 Months	Median Daily Rate Past 6 Months	Median Daily Rate % Change on Same Period Last Year	Live Jobs
London	-85	23	£538	+85.34%	19
Midlands	-	6	£500	-	9
East Midlands	-	3	£220	-	5
West Midlands	-	3	£588	-	4
North West	-35	2	£625	+31.58%
South East	-61	2	£350	-12.50%	9
North of England	-74	2	£625	+35.14%	1
SMS UK

SMS Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England

For the 6 months to 1 November 2026, contractor job vacancies citing SMS also mentioned the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the England region citing SMS.

Rank	Skill	Share	Job Ads
1	CRM	61.8%	21
2	Stakeholder Management	41.2%	14
3	Personalization	38.2%	13
4	Customer Experience	32.4%	11
5	Collaborative Working	26.5%	9
5	Customer Engagement	26.5%	9
7	Analytics	23.5%	8
7	Bloomreach	23.5%	8
7	Data Privacy	23.5%	8
7	Security Cleared	23.5%	8
11	Customer Insight	20.6%	7
11	Salesforce	20.6%	7
11	Salesforce Marketing Cloud	20.6%	7
14	AI	17.6%	6
14	Customer Retention	17.6%	6
14	E-Commerce	17.6%	6
14	GDPR	17.6%	6
14	Generative AI	17.6%	6
14	Push Notifications	17.6%	6
14	Roadmaps	17.6%	6
21	A/B Testing	14.7%	5
21	Architectural Design	14.7%	5
21	Campaign Management	14.7%	5
21	Event-Driven	14.7%	5
21	Machine Learning	14.7%	5
21	Marketing Strategy	14.7%	5
21	Multichannel Marketing	14.7%	5
21	QA	14.7%	5
21	Strategic Thinking	14.7%	5
21	Technical Architecture	14.7%	5

SMS Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England by Category

The table below expands on the one above by listing co-occurrences one category at a time. It covers the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences in each category.

Communications & Networking

Rank	Skill	Share	Job Ads
1	VoLTE	8.8%	3
2	4G	5.9%	2
2	5G	5.9%	2
2	Broadband	5.9%	2
2	Intrusion Detection	5.9%	2
2	Radio Access Network	5.9%	2
2	SD-WAN	5.9%	2
2	WAN	5.9%	2
2	Wireless	5.9%	2
10	MVNO	2.9%	1
10	SMTP	2.9%	1
10	VoWiFi	2.9%	1