5G Contracts

5G
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring 5G skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited 5G over the 6 months leading up to 30 April 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Apr 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 383 420 565
Rank change year-on-year +37 +145 +15
Contract jobs citing 5G 136 182 148
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.47% 0.42% 0.25%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 3.64% 3.23% 2.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 89 60 81
10th Percentile £329 £361 £225
25th Percentile £413 £418 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £400
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +18.75% -11.11%
75th Percentile £556 £540 £550
90th Percentile £660 £588 £606
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £438 £400
% change year-on-year +5.71% +9.38% -5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 2 9
10th Percentile - £24.43 £53.07
25th Percentile - £24.69 £62.50
Median hourly rate - £25.25 £67.50
Median % change year-on-year - -62.59% +7.14%
75th Percentile - £25.69 £70.00
90th Percentile - £25.88 £71.20
UK excluding London median hourly rate - £25.25 £65.00
% change year-on-year - -61.15% -

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
UK

5G 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.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 3,739 5,643 7,361
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 12.79% 12.94% 12.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,297 3,382 4,789
10th Percentile £213 £205 £235
25th Percentile £363 £350 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £495 £519
Median % change year-on-year -1.52% -4.53% +3.70%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £638
90th Percentile £675 £700 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -2.63% - +8.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 181 423 478
10th Percentile £14.20 £13.57 £9.80
25th Percentile £17.30 £17.35 £10.63
Median hourly rate £32.50 £38.50 £19.00
Median % change year-on-year -15.58% +102.63% -31.84%
75th Percentile £58.75 £62.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £67.40 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.59 £45.88 £18.50
% change year-on-year -46.41% +148.00% -13.95%

5G
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing 5G as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for 5G in the UK

5G
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing 5G.

Daily rate trend for 5G in the UK

5G
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing 5G over the 6 months to 30 April 2025.

Daily rate histogram for 5G in the UK

5G
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing 5G.

Hourly rate trend for 5G in the UK

5G
Top 12 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing 5G within the UK over the 6 months to 30 April 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
England +14 117 £480 +1.05% 96
UK excluding London -8 77 £463 +5.71% 62
London +39 38 £575 +10.58% 36
South East +3 32 £404 -3.58% 24
Work from Home -2 28 £425 -10.53% 42
East of England +23 21 £538 +22.16% 20
South West +57 20 £425 -29.17% 5
North of England +20 8 £205 -43.84% 7
North West +12 8 £205 -43.84% 4
Midlands +21 3 £650 - 8
West Midlands +12 2 £625 - 6
East Midlands - 1 £650 - 2

5G
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 3 (2.21%) OpenStack
Applications
1 7 (5.15%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (2.94%) MS Visio
3 2 (1.47%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (1.47%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 1 (0.74%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 3 (2.21%) OpenShift
2 2 (1.47%) Azure
2 2 (1.47%) PaaS
2 2 (1.47%) SaaS
3 1 (0.74%) AWS
3 1 (0.74%) Azure DevOps
3 1 (0.74%) Cloud Computing
3 1 (0.74%) GCP
3 1 (0.74%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 83 (61.03%) 4G
2 77 (56.62%) Radio Access Network
3 58 (42.65%) LTE
4 44 (32.35%) 3G
5 29 (21.32%) 2G
5 29 (21.32%) 5G NR
6 28 (20.59%) Wireshark
7 26 (19.12%) VoLTE
8 23 (16.91%) Diameter Protocol
9 20 (14.71%) RANAP
10 17 (12.50%) Wireless
11 7 (5.15%) 3GPP
12 6 (4.41%) Network Security
12 6 (4.41%) VoWiFi
13 5 (3.68%) MPLS
13 5 (3.68%) VoIP
14 4 (2.94%) Ethernet
14 4 (2.94%) Software-Defined Radio
15 3 (2.21%) Firewall
15 3 (2.21%) PBX
Development Applications
1 2 (1.47%) Git
1 2 (1.47%) JIRA
General
1 66 (48.53%) Telecoms
2 37 (27.21%) Social Skills
3 7 (5.15%) Billing
4 6 (4.41%) Analytical Skills
5 3 (2.21%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 3 (2.21%) Multimedia
5 3 (2.21%) Public Sector
6 2 (1.47%) Presentation Skills
7 1 (0.74%) Aviation
7 1 (0.74%) Electronics
7 1 (0.74%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 11 (8.09%) Designer
2 8 (5.88%) Network Specialist
3 7 (5.15%) CUDA Engineer
3 7 (5.15%) Embedded Engineer
3 7 (5.15%) Embedded Linux Engineer
3 7 (5.15%) Linux Engineer
3 7 (5.15%) Network Design Specialist
3 7 (5.15%) Project Manager
3 7 (5.15%) Senior
4 6 (4.41%) Architect
4 6 (4.41%) Design Engineer
5 5 (3.68%) Analyst
5 5 (3.68%) Field Engineer
5 5 (3.68%) Field Test Engineer
5 5 (3.68%) Test Analyst
5 5 (3.68%) Test Engineer
6 4 (2.94%) OSS Project Manager
6 4 (2.94%) Solutions Designer
6 4 (2.94%) Telecoms Manager
6 4 (2.94%) Telecoms Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (1.47%) OpenAPI
1 2 (1.47%) REST
1 2 (1.47%) RESTful
1 2 (1.47%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 20 (14.71%) Cloud Native
2 15 (11.03%) IoT
3 12 (8.82%) Team-Oriented Environment
4 7 (5.15%) CUDA
4 7 (5.15%) Smartphone
5 6 (4.41%) FPGA
6 4 (2.94%) Driving Licence
6 4 (2.94%) Embedded Systems
6 4 (2.94%) NB-IoT
7 3 (2.21%) Data Centre
7 3 (2.21%) Onboarding
8 2 (1.47%) ASIC
8 2 (1.47%) CCTV
8 2 (1.47%) Fibre Optics
8 2 (1.47%) Industrial Internet of Things
8 2 (1.47%) Operational Technology
8 2 (1.47%) Replication
8 2 (1.47%) SCADA
8 2 (1.47%) VHDL
8 2 (1.47%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 18 (13.24%) Linux
2 7 (5.15%) Android
2 7 (5.15%) Apple iOS
2 7 (5.15%) Embedded Linux
3 1 (0.74%) VMS
3 1 (0.74%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 34 (25.00%) Problem-Solving
2 31 (22.79%) Network Architecture
3 23 (16.91%) Customer Experience
4 22 (16.18%) Agile
5 21 (15.44%) Network Design
6 20 (14.71%) Performance Analysis
6 20 (14.71%) Performance Improvement
7 19 (13.97%) Translating Business Requirements
8 18 (13.24%) Fault Management
9 17 (12.50%) Performance Optimisation
10 16 (11.76%) Continuous Improvement
10 16 (11.76%) DevOps
10 16 (11.76%) High Availability
11 15 (11.03%) CI/CD
12 14 (10.29%) Collaborative Working
13 11 (8.09%) Validation
14 10 (7.35%) Computer Science
15 9 (6.62%) Network Planning
15 9 (6.62%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 8 (5.88%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 19 (13.97%) Python
2 3 (2.21%) C++
3 2 (1.47%) Go
3 2 (1.47%) Java
3 2 (1.47%) Tcl
4 1 (0.74%) C#
Qualifications
1 15 (11.03%) Degree
2 9 (6.62%) Security Cleared
3 5 (3.68%) BPSS Clearance
3 5 (3.68%) SC Cleared
4 4 (2.94%) PMI Certification
4 4 (2.94%) PMP
5 3 (2.21%) DV Cleared
6 2 (1.47%) CCNP
6 2 (1.47%) Cisco Certification
6 2 (1.47%) Computer Science Degree
7 1 (0.74%) AWS Certification
7 1 (0.74%) Azure Certification
7 1 (0.74%) ISEB
7 1 (0.74%) ISTQB
7 1 (0.74%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (2.21%) QA
2 2 (1.47%) NCSC
2 2 (1.47%) SLA
3 1 (0.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 2 (1.47%) Docker
1 2 (1.47%) VMware Infrastructure
2 1 (0.74%) VMware NSX
2 1 (0.74%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 15 (11.03%) Ansible
2 10 (7.35%) NSN NetAct
3 5 (3.68%) Kubernetes
4 4 (2.94%) Amdocs OSS
Vendors
1 35 (25.74%) Ericsson
2 33 (24.26%) Nokia
3 20 (14.71%) Empirix
3 20 (14.71%) NetScout
4 10 (7.35%) Microsoft
5 7 (5.15%) NVIDIA
6 5 (3.68%) Cisco
6 5 (3.68%) VMware
7 4 (2.94%) Amdocs
7 4 (2.94%) Ciena
7 4 (2.94%) Juniper
7 4 (2.94%) NetCracker
7 4 (2.94%) ServiceNow
8 3 (2.21%) F5
8 3 (2.21%) Palo Alto
9 2 (1.47%) Huawei
9 2 (1.47%) Mavenir
10 1 (0.74%) Avaya
10 1 (0.74%) Dell
10 1 (0.74%) Red Hat