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 2 April 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 164 83 62
Rank change year-on-year -81 -21 +20
Contract jobs citing Telecoms 764 850 1,436
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.71% 2.92% 3.25%
As % of the General category 3.04% 4.65% 5.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 480 473 803
10th Percentile £175 £301 £200
25th Percentile £350 £373 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £450
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +11.11% -6.25%
75th Percentile £575 £618 £588
90th Percentile £675 £700 £736
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £500 £450
% change year-on-year -10.00% +11.11% +0.28%
Number of hourly rates quoted 54 33 61
10th Percentile £18.84 £14.00 £12.15
25th Percentile £20.50 £18.20 £12.28
Median hourly rate £23.83 £26.34 £28.50
Median % change year-on-year -9.53% -7.60% -45.71%
75th Percentile £25.00 £60.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £58.15 £63.60 £80.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.83 £23.00 £24.50
% change year-on-year +3.59% -6.12% -53.33%

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 25,165 18,276 25,730
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 56.21% 62.88% 58.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,671 11,716 16,376
10th Percentile £300 £300 £269
25th Percentile £406 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £623 £640 £650
90th Percentile £738 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £500
% change year-on-year - -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,561 716 1,854
10th Percentile £13.69 £15.00 £12.78
25th Percentile £17.14 £19.00 £15.38
Median hourly rate £25.39 £29.04 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -12.57% +11.67% -25.71%
75th Percentile £59.00 £58.62 £50.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.09 £27.50 £25.00
% change year-on-year -12.40% +10.00% -19.03%

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 2 April 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 2 April 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 2 April 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 -83 663 £475 -5.66% 512
UK excluding London -77 428 £450 -10.00% 422
London -17 270 £488 -8.02% 139
Work from Home -53 175 £475 -5.00% 175
South East -60 163 £469 -6.20% 141
North of England -73 67 £431 -13.75% 94
Midlands -37 66 £500 -2.44% 63
South West -41 55 £525 - 50
West Midlands -47 46 £550 +7.32% 43
East of England -25 37 £475 +18.75% 56
Scotland +17 27 £281 -16.67% 27
North West -57 26 £406 -21.31% 46
North East -4 21 £338 -6.90% 11
East Midlands -23 20 £158 -74.80% 20
Yorkshire -48 19 £481 -8.33% 42
Wales -5 10 £160 -56.16% 10
Northern Ireland +2 8 £150 -72.73% 1

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 10 (1.31%) Confluence
1 10 (1.31%) Microsoft Exchange
2 9 (1.18%) SharePoint
3 8 (1.05%) OpenStack
4 7 (0.92%) Apache Spark
5 6 (0.79%) Appian
6 4 (0.52%) Apache
6 4 (0.52%) Apache Airflow
6 4 (0.52%) IIS
7 3 (0.39%) ArcGIS
7 3 (0.39%) JBoss
7 3 (0.39%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 3 (0.39%) Tomcat
7 3 (0.39%) WebLogic
8 2 (0.26%) Oracle Spatial
9 1 (0.13%) Camunda
9 1 (0.13%) CMS
9 1 (0.13%) Headless CMS
9 1 (0.13%) Smallworld
Applications
1 44 (5.76%) Microsoft Office
2 25 (3.27%) Microsoft Excel
3 12 (1.57%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 11 (1.44%) Microsoft Project
5 6 (0.79%) MS Visio
6 2 (0.26%) MicroStation
6 2 (0.26%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (0.26%) Trello
7 1 (0.13%) AutoCAD
7 1 (0.13%) Autodesk Inventor
7 1 (0.13%) FrameMaker
7 1 (0.13%) MadCap Flare
Business Applications
1 17 (2.23%) SAP PSCD
2 16 (2.09%) SAP BRIM
2 16 (2.09%) SAP Hybris
3 10 (1.31%) Remedy ITSM
4 6 (0.79%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 3 (0.39%) BambooHR
5 3 (0.39%) SAP FI
6 2 (0.26%) Primavera
6 2 (0.26%) SAP CO
6 2 (0.26%) SAP FI/CO
6 2 (0.26%) SAP S/4HANA
7 1 (0.13%) Dynamics CRM
7 1 (0.13%) Remedy AR System
7 1 (0.13%) SAP FI-CA
7 1 (0.13%) SAP IBP
7 1 (0.13%) SAP SRM
7 1 (0.13%) SmartPlant
Cloud Services
1 75 (9.82%) Azure
2 60 (7.85%) AWS
3 44 (5.76%) GCP
3 44 (5.76%) Microsoft 365
4 20 (2.62%) Power Platform
5 17 (2.23%) SAP Commerce Cloud
6 13 (1.70%) SaaS
7 8 (1.05%) Azure DevOps
7 8 (1.05%) GitHub
8 6 (0.79%) Dynamics 365
8 6 (0.79%) GitHub Actions
9 5 (0.65%) Datadog
9 5 (0.65%) dbt
10 4 (0.52%) Entra ID
10 4 (0.52%) Figma
10 4 (0.52%) Miro
10 4 (0.52%) Serverless
10 4 (0.52%) Slack
11 3 (0.39%) Dagster
11 3 (0.39%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 49 (6.41%) WAN
2 43 (5.63%) Firewall
3 42 (5.50%) 5G
4 38 (4.97%) MPLS
5 37 (4.84%) LAN
6 28 (3.66%) 4G
6 28 (3.66%) SD-WAN
7 26 (3.40%) Network Security
8 25 (3.27%) Radio Access Network
8 25 (3.27%) Wireless
9 22 (2.88%) DNS
10 21 (2.75%) BGP
10 21 (2.75%) VPN
11 20 (2.62%) Internet
11 20 (2.62%) LTE
12 17 (2.23%) Broadband
12 17 (2.23%) VoIP
13 16 (2.09%) SDH
14 15 (1.96%) 2G
15 14 (1.83%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (2.49%) Power BI
2 12 (1.57%) MySQL
3 11 (1.44%) Data Warehouse
3 11 (1.44%) Looker
4 10 (1.31%) Tableau
5 8 (1.05%) Big Data
5 8 (1.05%) BigQuery
5 8 (1.05%) Oracle Database
5 8 (1.05%) Relational Database
6 7 (0.92%) GIS
7 6 (0.79%) SQL Server
8 5 (0.65%) Amazon Redshift
8 5 (0.65%) PostgreSQL
9 3 (0.39%) Metadata
9 3 (0.39%) NoSQL
9 3 (0.39%) RDBMS
9 3 (0.39%) Semantic Layer
9 3 (0.39%) Star Schema
10 2 (0.26%) Amazon Athena
10 2 (0.26%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 24 (3.14%) JIRA
2 6 (0.79%) GitLab
2 6 (0.79%) Jenkins
3 5 (0.65%) Git
4 4 (0.52%) JUnit
5 3 (0.39%) Storybook
6 2 (0.26%) Appium
6 2 (0.26%) CircleCI
6 2 (0.26%) JMeter
6 2 (0.26%) Robot Framework
7 1 (0.13%) Maven
7 1 (0.13%) Mockito
7 1 (0.13%) Oracle Forms
7 1 (0.13%) Rational DOORS
7 1 (0.13%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 223 (29.19%) Social Skills
2 222 (29.06%) Finance
3 180 (23.56%) Public Sector
4 133 (17.41%) Marketing
5 127 (16.62%) Electronics
6 121 (15.84%) Manufacturing
7 87 (11.39%) Analytical Skills
8 40 (5.24%) Billing
9 22 (2.88%) Organisational Skills
10 19 (2.49%) Documentation Skills
11 18 (2.36%) Legal
12 13 (1.70%) Retail
13 12 (1.57%) Influencing Skills
14 10 (1.31%) Military
15 8 (1.05%) Banking
16 5 (0.65%) Law
16 5 (0.65%) Presentation Skills
17 3 (0.39%) Financial Institution
17 3 (0.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 2 (0.26%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 81 (10.60%) Architect
2 74 (9.69%) Analyst
3 46 (6.02%) Lead
4 44 (5.76%) Consultant
4 44 (5.76%) Senior
5 42 (5.50%) Project Manager
6 40 (5.24%) Business Analyst
7 33 (4.32%) Network Engineer
8 32 (4.19%) IT Support
9 28 (3.66%) Solutions Architect
10 26 (3.40%) Desktop Support
10 26 (3.40%) Developer
10 26 (3.40%) Telecoms Manager
11 19 (2.49%) Data Engineer
12 18 (2.36%) Coordinator
12 18 (2.36%) Programme Manager
12 18 (2.36%) SAP Consultant
12 18 (2.36%) ServiceNow Architect
12 18 (2.36%) Telecoms Engineer
13 17 (2.23%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (3.40%) REST
2 17 (2.23%) SOAP
3 9 (1.18%) Kafka
4 8 (1.05%) .NET
4 8 (1.05%) Elastic Stack
5 6 (0.79%) Middleware
5 6 (0.79%) RabbitMQ
5 6 (0.79%) RESTful
6 5 (0.65%) Spring
6 5 (0.65%) Spring Boot
7 4 (0.52%) HTML
7 4 (0.52%) React
8 3 (0.39%) CSS
8 3 (0.39%) GraphQL
8 3 (0.39%) Node.js
8 3 (0.39%) OpenAPI
8 3 (0.39%) PySpark
8 3 (0.39%) RFC 2544
8 3 (0.39%) Swagger
8 3 (0.39%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 44 (5.76%) Data Centre
2 30 (3.93%) Driving Licence
3 28 (3.66%) Data Protection Act
4 27 (3.53%) Onboarding
5 26 (3.40%) Product Ownership
6 20 (2.62%) Cloud Native
7 17 (2.23%) CMDB
8 16 (2.09%) IoT
9 14 (1.83%) NHS
10 13 (1.70%) Legacy Systems
10 13 (1.70%) Mobile App
11 11 (1.44%) Distributed Systems
11 11 (1.44%) Virtual Team
12 9 (1.18%) Algorithms
12 9 (1.18%) Analytical Mindset
12 9 (1.18%) Self-Motivation
13 7 (0.92%) Enterprise Cloud
13 7 (0.92%) Fibre Optics
14 6 (0.79%) NB-IoT
14 6 (0.79%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 40 (5.24%) Windows
2 29 (3.80%) Android
3 23 (3.01%) Mac OS
4 22 (2.88%) Linux
5 20 (2.62%) Windows 10
6 8 (1.05%) Unix
7 6 (0.79%) Apple iOS
7 6 (0.79%) Windows Server
8 5 (0.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 3 (0.39%) Debian
9 3 (0.39%) Ubuntu
9 3 (0.39%) VMS
10 2 (0.26%) Oracle Linux
11 1 (0.13%) CentOS
11 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 140 (18.32%) Business Intelligence
2 126 (16.49%) Programme Management
3 120 (15.71%) Digital Marketing
4 115 (15.05%) Stakeholder Management
5 104 (13.61%) Agile
6 95 (12.43%) Problem-Solving
7 82 (10.73%) Migration
8 80 (10.47%) Continuous Improvement
9 68 (8.90%) ITIL
10 66 (8.64%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 55 (7.20%) Project Management
12 53 (6.94%) Logistics
13 50 (6.54%) Workflow
14 47 (6.15%) Customer Service
15 46 (6.02%) Analytics
16 45 (5.89%) Decision-Making
17 43 (5.63%) Project Delivery
17 43 (5.63%) Roadmaps
18 41 (5.37%) CI/CD
18 41 (5.37%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 56 (7.33%) Python
2 43 (5.63%) SQL
3 21 (2.75%) JavaScript
4 19 (2.49%) Java
5 9 (1.18%) Bash
5 9 (1.18%) PowerShell
6 7 (0.92%) C++
6 7 (0.92%) R
7 6 (0.79%) TypeScript
8 5 (0.65%) C#
8 5 (0.65%) Go
9 4 (0.52%) Shell Script
10 3 (0.39%) C
10 3 (0.39%) LookML
11 2 (0.26%) Apex Code
11 2 (0.26%) PHP
11 2 (0.26%) PL/SQL
12 1 (0.13%) BeanShell
12 1 (0.13%) Cypher
12 1 (0.13%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 174 (22.77%) Security Cleared
2 142 (18.59%) SC Cleared
3 66 (8.64%) Degree
4 28 (3.66%) DV Cleared
5 19 (2.49%) BPSS Clearance
6 18 (2.36%) PMP
7 17 (2.23%) Cisco Certification
8 14 (1.83%) Computer Science Degree
9 13 (1.70%) PMI Certification
10 12 (1.57%) CCNP
11 11 (1.44%) ITIL Certification
12 10 (1.31%) ACCA
13 9 (1.18%) Azure Certification
14 8 (1.05%) Microsoft Certification
15 7 (0.92%) AWS Certification
15 7 (0.92%) CCIE
15 7 (0.92%) CIMA
16 6 (0.79%) CCNA
16 6 (0.79%) Network+ Certification
17 5 (0.65%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (3.80%) SLA
2 22 (2.88%) GDPR
3 21 (2.75%) PMO
4 19 (2.49%) QA
5 16 (2.09%) Data Quality
6 14 (1.83%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 11 (1.44%) GRC
8 9 (1.18%) NCSC
8 9 (1.18%) NIST
9 7 (0.92%) RMADS
10 5 (0.65%) JSP 440
11 4 (0.52%) IFRS
12 3 (0.39%) Accessibility
12 3 (0.39%) GAAP
13 2 (0.26%) California Consumer Privacy Act
13 2 (0.26%) HIPAA
13 2 (0.26%) PCI DSS
13 2 (0.26%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 1 (0.13%) IFRS 9
14 1 (0.13%) SOC 1
System Software
1 21 (2.75%) Active Directory
2 14 (1.83%) Docker
3 3 (0.39%) QEMU
3 3 (0.39%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (0.26%) Hyper-V
5 1 (0.13%) Firmware
5 1 (0.13%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 29 (3.80%) Kubernetes
2 14 (1.83%) Ansible
3 12 (1.57%) Grafana
4 9 (1.18%) Prometheus
4 9 (1.18%) Terraform
5 6 (0.79%) SCCM
6 5 (0.65%) Microsoft Intune
7 4 (0.52%) Argo
8 3 (0.39%) Cisco Prime
8 3 (0.39%) Iperf
8 3 (0.39%) Podman
9 2 (0.26%) Amdocs OSS
9 2 (0.26%) EMC NetWorker
9 2 (0.26%) Nmap
9 2 (0.26%) vRealize
10 1 (0.13%) Consul
10 1 (0.13%) Failover Clustering
10 1 (0.13%) Fluentd
10 1 (0.13%) FortiGate
10 1 (0.13%) Rancher
Vendors
1 145 (18.98%) SAP
2 94 (12.30%) Cisco
3 92 (12.04%) Microsoft
4 54 (7.07%) ServiceNow
5 34 (4.45%) Nokia
6 23 (3.01%) Juniper
6 23 (3.01%) Oracle
7 20 (2.62%) Fortinet
8 18 (2.36%) Ericsson
9 17 (2.23%) Dell
10 16 (2.09%) HP
11 15 (1.96%) Apple
11 15 (1.96%) Google
12 13 (1.70%) F5
12 13 (1.70%) Huawei
12 13 (1.70%) Salesforce
13 12 (1.57%) BT
13 12 (1.57%) CheckPoint
13 12 (1.57%) Remedy
14 11 (1.44%) Meraki