SMS Contract Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Short Message Service (SMS)
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the UK excluding London requiring SMS skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 16 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 388 355 404
Rank change year-on-year -33 +49 +102
Contract jobs citing SMS 4 9 14
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.023% 0.054% 0.067%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 0.18% 0.36% 0.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 1 4 8
10th Percentile - - £378
25th Percentile - £500 £448
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £543 £515
Median % change year-on-year -17.05% +5.34% -6.36%
75th Percentile - £591 £715
90th Percentile - £603 £888
UK median daily rate £370 £475 £478
% change year-on-year -22.11% -0.52% -11.90%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
UK excluding London

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 the UK excluding London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 2,271 2,488 3,745
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 13.12% 14.95% 17.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,495 1,372 2,255
10th Percentile £191 £200 £205
25th Percentile £300 £345 £338
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £454 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year -4.42% - +5.56%
75th Percentile £575 £582 £594
90th Percentile £647 £660 £675
UK median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 144 134 280
10th Percentile £15.50 £18.95 £17.67
25th Percentile £18.50 £24.81 £24.69
Median hourly rate £42.50 £49.50 £56.49
Median % change year-on-year -14.14% -12.37% +25.53%
75th Percentile £67.25 £68.44 £67.50
90th Percentile £78.50 £75.00 £75.67
UK median hourly rate £35.00 £45.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year -22.22% -18.18% +30.95%

SMS
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

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

SMS job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

SMS
Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing SMS.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing SMS

SMS
Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing SMS.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing SMS

SMS
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 SMS within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 16 November 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
North of England -35 3 £450 -24.69% 5
Yorkshire -37 3 £450 -
East of England - 1 - -
SMS
UK

SMS
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 2 (50.00%) Confluence
Business Applications
1 1 (25.00%) Dynamics NAV
Cloud Services
1 1 (25.00%) WhatsApp
Communications & Networking
1 3 (75.00%) Firewall
1 3 (75.00%) NGFW
Development Applications
1 2 (50.00%) JIRA
General
1 1 (25.00%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 1 (25.00%) Firewall Engineer
1 1 (25.00%) Infrastructure Engineer
1 1 (25.00%) Infrastructure Security Engineer
1 1 (25.00%) Network Engineer
1 1 (25.00%) Network Infrastructure Engineer
1 1 (25.00%) Network Security Engineer
1 1 (25.00%) Security Engineer
Miscellaneous
1 1 (25.00%) Mobile App
Processes & Methodologies
1 3 (75.00%) High Availability
2 2 (50.00%) Migration
3 1 (25.00%) Analytics
3 1 (25.00%) CRM
3 1 (25.00%) Customer Engagement
3 1 (25.00%) Dashboard Development
3 1 (25.00%) Data Analytics
3 1 (25.00%) Roadmaps
3 1 (25.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
3 1 (25.00%) Stakeholder Management
Qualifications
1 3 (75.00%) SC Cleared
1 3 (75.00%) Security Cleared
Vendors
1 3 (75.00%) CheckPoint
2 2 (50.00%) Cisco