Telecoms Contract Job Trends

Telecommunications
UK

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Telecoms in contract job vacancies. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Telecoms over the 6 months leading up to 22 July 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 168 101 66
Rank change year-on-year -67 -35 +15
Contract jobs citing Telecoms 828 836 1,267
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.57% 2.56% 3.07%
As % of the General category 2.87% 4.07% 5.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 469 489 606
10th Percentile £213 £300 £200
25th Percentile £398 £394 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £470 £475
Median % change year-on-year +1.06% -1.05% -3.06%
75th Percentile £575 £586 £607
90th Percentile £689 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £455 £475
% change year-on-year -1.10% -4.21% +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 44 47 107
10th Percentile £16.01 - £12.15
25th Percentile £17.70 £14.00 £14.00
Median hourly rate £22.75 £20.75 £48.56
Median % change year-on-year +9.64% -57.27% -7.50%
75th Percentile £50.00 £53.63 £72.50
90th Percentile £178.75 £65.25 £75.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.00 £15.50 £48.56
% change year-on-year +35.48% -68.08% +55.39%

All General Skills
UK

Telecoms falls under the General Skills category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring general skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for general skills 28,900 20,520 23,655
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 54.80% 62.89% 57.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,224 12,854 14,870
10th Percentile £313 £279 £281
25th Percentile £413 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £524 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.80% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £630 £635 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £470 £490
% change year-on-year +6.38% -4.08% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,022 1,061 1,661
10th Percentile £14.10 £13.25 £13.31
25th Percentile £18.32 £16.25 £16.06
Median hourly rate £32.81 £25.50 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +28.65% -27.14% +14.60%
75th Percentile £61.50 £51.50 £56.00
90th Percentile £81.05 £70.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.00 £22.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year +46.67% -35.71% +34.62%

Telecoms
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Telecoms job vacancy trend in the UK

Telecoms
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Telecoms.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Telecoms

Telecoms
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Telecoms over the 6 months to 22 July 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Telecoms in the UK

Telecoms
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Telecoms.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Telecoms

Telecoms
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Telecoms over the 6 months to 22 July 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Telecoms in the UK

Telecoms
Top 17 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Telecoms within the UK over the 6 months to 22 July 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
England -76 703 £475 -1.04% 651
UK excluding London -81 424 £450 -1.10% 480
London -34 307 £520 +9.47% 262
Work from Home -36 236 £478 +0.53% 237
South East -52 191 £460 -8.00% 180
North of England -53 68 £500 -2.44% 90
South West -67 47 £450 -14.29% 40
Scotland -6 45 £300 -7.69% 49
Midlands -60 40 £475 +20.63% 64
West Midlands -63 35 £460 +20.66% 41
East of England -17 33 £160 -58.71% 44
North West -49 32 £550 +4.76% 58
Yorkshire -29 31 £475 +22.58% 25
East Midlands -10 5 £500 - 23
North East -32 5 £500 - 9
Northern Ireland -1 3 £175 -51.05% 3
Wales -19 1 £500 +132.56% 21

Telecoms
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 13 (1.57%) Confluence
1 13 (1.57%) OpenStack
2 11 (1.33%) ArcGIS
3 8 (0.97%) SharePoint
4 7 (0.85%) Apache Airflow
4 7 (0.85%) Microsoft Exchange
5 4 (0.48%) Anypoint
5 4 (0.48%) Apache Spark
6 3 (0.36%) Appian
7 2 (0.24%) Apache
7 2 (0.24%) CMS
7 2 (0.24%) IIS
7 2 (0.24%) JBoss
7 2 (0.24%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 2 (0.24%) Oracle Spatial
7 2 (0.24%) Tomcat
7 2 (0.24%) WebLogic
8 1 (0.12%) Camunda
8 1 (0.12%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
8 1 (0.12%) Smallworld
Applications
1 27 (3.26%) Microsoft Office
2 23 (2.78%) Microsoft Excel
3 19 (2.29%) MS Visio
4 9 (1.09%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.60%) AutoCAD
6 4 (0.48%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.24%) MicroStation
8 1 (0.12%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.12%) Autodesk Inventor
8 1 (0.12%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.12%) Revit
8 1 (0.12%) SOLIDWORKS
8 1 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.12%) Trello
Business Applications
1 19 (2.29%) SAP PSCD
2 11 (1.33%) SAP BRIM
3 9 (1.09%) Remedy ITSM
3 9 (1.09%) SAP Hybris
4 8 (0.97%) SAP FI
5 7 (0.85%) SAP FI-CA
6 5 (0.60%) NetSuite
6 5 (0.60%) Sage X3
6 5 (0.60%) Salesforce CRM
6 5 (0.60%) SAP S/4HANA
7 4 (0.48%) BambooHR
7 4 (0.48%) Remedy AR System
8 3 (0.36%) SAP ERP
9 2 (0.24%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 1 (0.12%) Oracle BRM
10 1 (0.12%) SAP FS
10 1 (0.12%) SAP IBP
10 1 (0.12%) SAP IS-U
10 1 (0.12%) SAP SRM
10 1 (0.12%) SmartPlant
Cloud Services
1 94 (11.35%) Azure
2 86 (10.39%) AWS
3 60 (7.25%) GCP
4 20 (2.42%) Power Platform
5 19 (2.29%) Microsoft 365
6 16 (1.93%) SaaS
7 14 (1.69%) Entra ID
8 12 (1.45%) GitHub
9 11 (1.33%) SAP Commerce Cloud
10 10 (1.21%) Snowflake
11 9 (1.09%) Azure DevOps
11 9 (1.09%) dbt
11 9 (1.09%) GitHub Actions
12 6 (0.72%) Cloud Functions
12 6 (0.72%) Datadog
12 6 (0.72%) OpenShift
12 6 (0.72%) Serverless
13 5 (0.60%) AWS Lambda
13 5 (0.60%) Fivetran
13 5 (0.60%) Prefect
Communications & Networking
1 93 (11.23%) WAN
2 77 (9.30%) LAN
3 71 (8.57%) MPLS
4 68 (8.21%) 5G
5 52 (6.28%) Firewall
6 48 (5.80%) 4G
7 46 (5.56%) Radio Access Network
8 33 (3.99%) SD-WAN
9 29 (3.50%) BGP
10 28 (3.38%) DNS
11 26 (3.14%) Network Security
12 25 (3.02%) VPN
13 22 (2.66%) 3G
14 21 (2.54%) SDH
14 21 (2.54%) TCP/IP
14 21 (2.54%) VoIP
14 21 (2.54%) Wi-Fi
15 19 (2.29%) OSPF
16 18 (2.17%) 3GPP
16 18 (2.17%) LTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (2.29%) Power BI
2 17 (2.05%) Data Warehouse
3 15 (1.81%) BigQuery
4 12 (1.45%) Amazon Redshift
4 12 (1.45%) Looker
5 11 (1.33%) GIS
6 10 (1.21%) Tableau
7 7 (0.85%) Big Data
8 5 (0.60%) Relational Database
8 5 (0.60%) SQL Server
9 4 (0.48%) MySQL
9 4 (0.48%) NoSQL
9 4 (0.48%) Oracle Database
10 3 (0.36%) Amazon Athena
10 3 (0.36%) BusinessObjects
10 3 (0.36%) Data Lake
10 3 (0.36%) InfluxDB
10 3 (0.36%) SAP BW
10 3 (0.36%) Semantic Layer
10 3 (0.36%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 27 (3.26%) JIRA
2 12 (1.45%) Git
3 7 (0.85%) Jenkins
4 3 (0.36%) GitLab
4 3 (0.36%) Sonatype Nexus
5 2 (0.24%) Robot Framework
6 1 (0.12%) Bitbucket
6 1 (0.12%) Oracle Forms
6 1 (0.12%) Rational DOORS
6 1 (0.12%) Selenium
6 1 (0.12%) TestRail
General
1 240 (28.99%) Social Skills
2 124 (14.98%) Finance
3 109 (13.16%) Analytical Skills
4 61 (7.37%) Public Sector
5 37 (4.47%) Billing
6 31 (3.74%) Documentation Skills
7 25 (3.02%) Retail
8 22 (2.66%) Organisational Skills
9 21 (2.54%) Legal
10 20 (2.42%) Marketing
11 19 (2.29%) Influencing Skills
12 13 (1.57%) Presentation Skills
13 11 (1.33%) Aerospace
14 8 (0.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 8 (0.97%) Manufacturing
14 8 (0.97%) Police
14 8 (0.97%) Publishing
15 6 (0.72%) Electronics
16 4 (0.48%) Military
17 3 (0.36%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 134 (16.18%) Architect
2 75 (9.06%) Senior
3 66 (7.97%) Lead
4 65 (7.85%) Consultant
5 63 (7.61%) Analyst
6 48 (5.80%) Solutions Architect
7 46 (5.56%) Project Manager
8 44 (5.31%) Network Engineer
9 39 (4.71%) Telecoms Manager
10 34 (4.11%) Designer
11 32 (3.86%) Telecoms Engineer
12 31 (3.74%) ServiceNow Architect
13 30 (3.62%) Field Engineer
14 29 (3.50%) Developer
15 26 (3.14%) Data Engineer
16 25 (3.02%) Enterprise Architect
17 21 (2.54%) Business Analyst
17 21 (2.54%) Delivery Manager
17 21 (2.54%) Telecoms Architect
18 20 (2.42%) Platform Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 49 (5.92%) REST
2 35 (4.23%) SOAP
3 13 (1.57%) Kafka
3 13 (1.57%) ONVIF
4 12 (1.45%) Middleware
4 12 (1.45%) XML
5 10 (1.21%) NETCONF
5 10 (1.21%) YANG
6 9 (1.09%) OpenAPI
6 9 (1.09%) Swagger
7 8 (0.97%) .NET
7 8 (0.97%) Elastic Stack
7 8 (0.97%) RESTful
8 7 (0.85%) JSON
9 6 (0.72%) AngularJS
9 6 (0.72%) HTML
9 6 (0.72%) React
10 5 (0.60%) 802.1X
10 5 (0.60%) CSS
10 5 (0.60%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 51 (6.16%) CMDB
2 48 (5.80%) Data Centre
3 35 (4.23%) Onboarding
4 33 (3.99%) Cloud Native
5 29 (3.50%) Driving Licence
6 20 (2.42%) Data Protection Act
7 19 (2.29%) Analytical Mindset
7 19 (2.29%) Virtual Team
8 18 (2.17%) Product Ownership
9 17 (2.05%) Hybrid Cloud
10 16 (1.93%) Management Information System
11 13 (1.57%) Video\Live Streaming
12 11 (1.33%) Distributed Systems
12 11 (1.33%) Self-Motivation
13 9 (1.09%) Private Cloud
13 9 (1.09%) TM Forum
14 8 (0.97%) EPoS
15 7 (0.85%) Algorithms
15 7 (0.85%) Enterprise Software
15 7 (0.85%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 38 (4.59%) Windows
2 26 (3.14%) Linux
3 16 (1.93%) Windows 10
4 12 (1.45%) Unix
5 9 (1.09%) Windows Server
6 6 (0.72%) Mac OS
7 3 (0.36%) Android
7 3 (0.36%) Apple iOS
7 3 (0.36%) VMS
8 2 (0.24%) Embedded Linux
8 2 (0.24%) OpenVMS
8 2 (0.24%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 1 (0.12%) Mac OS X
9 1 (0.12%) Oracle Linux
9 1 (0.12%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.12%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 140 (16.91%) Stakeholder Management
2 116 (14.01%) Agile
3 111 (13.41%) Problem-Solving
4 87 (10.51%) ITIL
5 82 (9.90%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 77 (9.30%) Project Delivery
7 65 (7.85%) CI/CD
7 65 (7.85%) Continuous Improvement
8 64 (7.73%) AI
8 64 (7.73%) Roadmaps
9 62 (7.49%) Migration
9 62 (7.49%) Service Management
10 56 (6.76%) Decision-Making
11 55 (6.64%) Validation
12 52 (6.28%) Customer Service
13 51 (6.16%) Analytics
13 51 (6.16%) CRM
13 51 (6.16%) ITSM
13 51 (6.16%) Project Management
14 50 (6.04%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 68 (8.21%) Python
2 39 (4.71%) SQL
3 28 (3.38%) JavaScript
4 15 (1.81%) Java
5 10 (1.21%) C#
6 9 (1.09%) Bash
6 9 (1.09%) PowerShell
7 7 (0.85%) R
8 6 (0.72%) Apex Code
8 6 (0.72%) C++
9 4 (0.48%) ABAP
9 4 (0.48%) DataWeave
9 4 (0.48%) TypeScript
10 3 (0.36%) LookML
10 3 (0.36%) Shell Script
10 3 (0.36%) SOQL
11 2 (0.24%) C
11 2 (0.24%) DCL
11 2 (0.24%) PL/SQL
12 1 (0.12%) Ada
Qualifications
1 147 (17.75%) Security Cleared
2 101 (12.20%) SC Cleared
3 76 (9.18%) Degree
4 58 (7.00%) Cisco Certification
5 39 (4.71%) CCNA
6 25 (3.02%) CCNP
7 23 (2.78%) Microsoft Certification
8 22 (2.66%) DV Cleared
9 21 (2.54%) A+ Certification
10 19 (2.29%) PMP
11 18 (2.17%) Computer Science Degree
12 16 (1.93%) BPSS Clearance
13 15 (1.81%) PMI Certification
14 13 (1.57%) MCSA
15 11 (1.33%) CCIE
16 10 (1.21%) Azure Certification
17 9 (1.09%) AWS Certification
17 9 (1.09%) Network+ Certification
18 7 (0.85%) CISSP
19 6 (0.72%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (3.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 26 (3.14%) SLA
3 21 (2.54%) GDPR
3 21 (2.54%) GRC
3 21 (2.54%) NCSC
3 21 (2.54%) QA
4 16 (1.93%) Data Quality
5 13 (1.57%) PMO
6 11 (1.33%) NIST
7 3 (0.36%) Cyber Essentials
7 3 (0.36%) PCI DSS
7 3 (0.36%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 2 (0.24%) Actionable Recommendations
8 2 (0.24%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 2 (0.24%) RMADS
9 1 (0.12%) Accessibility
9 1 (0.12%) EU AI Act
9 1 (0.12%) ISO 31000
9 1 (0.12%) ISO/IEC 42001
9 1 (0.12%) SOC 1
System Software
1 21 (2.54%) Active Directory
2 18 (2.17%) VMware Infrastructure
3 17 (2.05%) Docker
4 8 (0.97%) VMware NSX
5 5 (0.60%) vSphere
6 4 (0.48%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (0.24%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.12%) Ceph
8 1 (0.12%) KVM
8 1 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 48 (5.80%) Kubernetes
2 24 (2.90%) Terraform
3 18 (2.17%) Ansible
4 13 (1.57%) Grafana
4 13 (1.57%) Prometheus
5 6 (0.72%) Microsoft Intune
6 5 (0.60%) Jamf Pro
7 3 (0.36%) Amdocs OSS
7 3 (0.36%) Cisco Prime
7 3 (0.36%) Iperf
7 3 (0.36%) vCenter Server
7 3 (0.36%) vRealize
8 2 (0.24%) Nmap
8 2 (0.24%) NSN NetAct
8 2 (0.24%) QRadar
9 1 (0.12%) AirWatch
9 1 (0.12%) Fluentd
9 1 (0.12%) Podman
9 1 (0.12%) Proxmox
9 1 (0.12%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 111 (13.41%) Microsoft
2 91 (10.99%) Cisco
3 83 (10.02%) ServiceNow
4 45 (5.43%) Nokia
5 38 (4.59%) Salesforce
6 30 (3.62%) VMware
7 29 (3.50%) SAP
8 24 (2.90%) BT
8 24 (2.90%) Fortinet
9 22 (2.66%) Ericsson
10 21 (2.54%) Juniper
11 19 (2.29%) F5
11 19 (2.29%) Google
12 18 (2.17%) Oracle
13 16 (1.93%) Huawei
13 16 (1.93%) MuleSoft
14 15 (1.81%) Palo Alto
15 14 (1.69%) CheckPoint
16 13 (1.57%) BMC
17 10 (1.21%) Remedy