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 13 July 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 178 102 67
Rank change year-on-year -76 -35 +16
Contract jobs citing Telecoms 790 829 1,316
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.50% 2.54% 3.08%
As % of the General category 2.74% 4.02% 5.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 455 476 624
10th Percentile £213 £303 £200
25th Percentile £375 £400 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year - - -1.96%
75th Percentile £556 £588 £613
90th Percentile £673 £700 £768
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £463 £468
% change year-on-year -2.70% -1.07% +3.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 43 46 110
10th Percentile £16.01 - £12.15
25th Percentile £17.73 £14.00 £14.29
Median hourly rate £24.50 £21.88 £51.78
Median % change year-on-year +12.00% -57.75% +0.54%
75th Percentile £50.00 £56.94 £72.50
90th Percentile £178.75 £65.25 £75.13
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.00 £15.50 £48.56
% change year-on-year +35.48% -68.08% +94.24%

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 28,879 20,600 24,454
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 54.81% 63.03% 57.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,287 12,940 15,286
10th Percentile £313 £281 £280
25th Percentile £413 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £626 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £472 £490
% change year-on-year +5.93% -3.67% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,012 1,046 1,883
10th Percentile £14.00 £13.36 £12.99
25th Percentile £18.38 £16.33 £16.00
Median hourly rate £32.50 £27.22 £32.90
Median % change year-on-year +19.42% -17.27% +7.71%
75th Percentile £61.50 £53.25 £55.00
90th Percentile £81.05 £71.88 £68.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.50 £23.10 £32.12
% change year-on-year +40.69% -28.07% +23.52%

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 13 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 13 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 13 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 -86 675 £475 -3.06% 687
UK excluding London -92 410 £450 -2.70% 523
London -31 288 £500 +2.30% 270
Work from Home -46 219 £475 - 254
South East -55 186 £465 -7.00% 187
North of England -61 62 £508 +1.50% 104
South West -60 49 £450 -14.29% 53
Scotland -8 39 £300 -7.69% 53
Midlands -53 39 £475 +24.59% 72
East of England -12 35 £190 -50.97% 43
North West -51 34 £550 +4.76% 61
West Midlands -72 33 £460 +31.43% 47
Yorkshire -42 23 £600 +54.84% 35
East Midlands -11 6 £500 -20.00% 25
North East -30 5 £500 - 10
Northern Ireland -3 3 £175 -51.05% 7
Wales -18 1 £500 +132.56% 17

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 (1.65%) OpenStack
2 10 (1.27%) Confluence
3 7 (0.89%) Apache Airflow
3 7 (0.89%) ArcGIS
3 7 (0.89%) SharePoint
4 5 (0.63%) Appian
5 4 (0.51%) Anypoint
5 4 (0.51%) Apache Spark
5 4 (0.51%) Microsoft Exchange
6 3 (0.38%) IIS
6 3 (0.38%) JBoss
6 3 (0.38%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 3 (0.38%) Tomcat
6 3 (0.38%) WebLogic
7 2 (0.25%) Apache
7 2 (0.25%) CMS
7 2 (0.25%) Oracle Spatial
8 1 (0.13%) Camunda
8 1 (0.13%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
8 1 (0.13%) Smallworld
Applications
1 25 (3.16%) Microsoft Excel
1 25 (3.16%) Microsoft Office
2 18 (2.28%) MS Visio
3 11 (1.39%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (0.63%) AutoCAD
4 5 (0.63%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.25%) MicroStation
6 1 (0.13%) Autodesk Inventor
6 1 (0.13%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.13%) Revit
6 1 (0.13%) SOLIDWORKS
6 1 (0.13%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.13%) Trello
Business Applications
1 22 (2.78%) SAP PSCD
2 14 (1.77%) Remedy ITSM
3 13 (1.65%) SAP BRIM
4 12 (1.52%) SAP Hybris
5 7 (0.89%) SAP FI
6 6 (0.76%) SAP FI-CA
7 5 (0.63%) NetSuite
7 5 (0.63%) Sage X3
7 5 (0.63%) Salesforce CRM
8 4 (0.51%) BambooHR
8 4 (0.51%) Remedy AR System
9 3 (0.38%) SAP ERP
10 2 (0.25%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 1 (0.13%) SAP CO
11 1 (0.13%) SAP FI/CO
11 1 (0.13%) SAP IBP
11 1 (0.13%) SAP S/4HANA
11 1 (0.13%) SAP SD
11 1 (0.13%) SAP SRM
11 1 (0.13%) SmartPlant
Cloud Services
1 78 (9.87%) Azure
2 73 (9.24%) AWS
3 47 (5.95%) GCP
4 19 (2.41%) Power Platform
5 17 (2.15%) Microsoft 365
5 17 (2.15%) SaaS
6 14 (1.77%) SAP Commerce Cloud
7 10 (1.27%) Snowflake
8 9 (1.14%) dbt
9 8 (1.01%) Azure DevOps
9 8 (1.01%) Entra ID
9 8 (1.01%) GitHub
9 8 (1.01%) GitHub Actions
10 6 (0.76%) Datadog
10 6 (0.76%) OpenShift
10 6 (0.76%) Serverless
11 5 (0.63%) AWS Lambda
11 5 (0.63%) Cloud Functions
11 5 (0.63%) Fivetran
11 5 (0.63%) Prefect
Communications & Networking
1 83 (10.51%) WAN
2 72 (9.11%) LAN
3 69 (8.73%) MPLS
4 64 (8.10%) 5G
5 44 (5.57%) 4G
5 44 (5.57%) Firewall
6 43 (5.44%) Radio Access Network
7 33 (4.18%) SD-WAN
8 31 (3.92%) BGP
9 22 (2.78%) Network Security
10 21 (2.66%) OSPF
10 21 (2.66%) VoIP
11 20 (2.53%) 3G
11 20 (2.53%) SDH
11 20 (2.53%) VPN
12 19 (2.41%) DNS
12 19 (2.41%) LTE
13 17 (2.15%) 3GPP
14 16 (2.03%) VLAN
14 16 (2.03%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 18 (2.28%) Power BI
2 16 (2.03%) Data Warehouse
3 14 (1.77%) BigQuery
4 12 (1.52%) Amazon Redshift
4 12 (1.52%) Looker
4 12 (1.52%) Tableau
5 7 (0.89%) Big Data
5 7 (0.89%) GIS
5 7 (0.89%) Relational Database
6 5 (0.63%) MySQL
7 4 (0.51%) Oracle Database
8 3 (0.38%) Amazon Athena
8 3 (0.38%) BusinessObjects
8 3 (0.38%) InfluxDB
8 3 (0.38%) PostgreSQL
8 3 (0.38%) SAP BW
8 3 (0.38%) SAP Data Services
8 3 (0.38%) Semantic Layer
8 3 (0.38%) SQL Server
8 3 (0.38%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 25 (3.16%) JIRA
2 10 (1.27%) Git
3 5 (0.63%) Jenkins
4 3 (0.38%) Sonatype Nexus
5 2 (0.25%) GitLab
5 2 (0.25%) Robot Framework
6 1 (0.13%) Bitbucket
6 1 (0.13%) JMeter
6 1 (0.13%) Oracle Forms
6 1 (0.13%) Rational DOORS
6 1 (0.13%) TestRail
General
1 231 (29.24%) Social Skills
2 130 (16.46%) Finance
3 110 (13.92%) Analytical Skills
4 63 (7.97%) Public Sector
5 46 (5.82%) Billing
6 31 (3.92%) Documentation Skills
7 27 (3.42%) Retail
8 21 (2.66%) Marketing
8 21 (2.66%) Organisational Skills
9 20 (2.53%) Legal
10 18 (2.28%) Influencing Skills
11 11 (1.39%) Presentation Skills
12 8 (1.01%) Aerospace
12 8 (1.01%) Electronics
12 8 (1.01%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 7 (0.89%) Manufacturing
13 7 (0.89%) Police
13 7 (0.89%) Publishing
14 4 (0.51%) Military
15 3 (0.38%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 116 (14.68%) Architect
2 68 (8.61%) Consultant
3 65 (8.23%) Lead
3 65 (8.23%) Senior
4 60 (7.59%) Analyst
5 43 (5.44%) Solutions Architect
6 41 (5.19%) Network Engineer
7 40 (5.06%) Project Manager
7 40 (5.06%) Telecoms Manager
8 30 (3.80%) Designer
9 29 (3.67%) Telecoms Engineer
10 27 (3.42%) Developer
11 26 (3.29%) Field Engineer
12 25 (3.16%) Data Engineer
12 25 (3.16%) ServiceNow Architect
13 23 (2.91%) SAP Consultant
14 21 (2.66%) Delivery Manager
14 21 (2.66%) Enterprise Architect
15 18 (2.28%) Business Analyst
15 18 (2.28%) Programme Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 45 (5.70%) REST
2 31 (3.92%) SOAP
3 13 (1.65%) Middleware
3 13 (1.65%) ONVIF
4 12 (1.52%) Kafka
5 10 (1.27%) NETCONF
5 10 (1.27%) XML
5 10 (1.27%) YANG
6 9 (1.14%) .NET
6 9 (1.14%) Elastic Stack
7 8 (1.01%) OpenAPI
7 8 (1.01%) Swagger
8 7 (0.89%) JSON
8 7 (0.89%) RESTful
9 4 (0.51%) .NET Framework
9 4 (0.51%) OpenConfig
9 4 (0.51%) RAML
9 4 (0.51%) RESTCONF
9 4 (0.51%) Web Services
10 3 (0.38%) RFC 2544
Miscellaneous
1 48 (6.08%) Data Centre
2 45 (5.70%) CMDB
3 35 (4.43%) Onboarding
4 31 (3.92%) Cloud Native
5 25 (3.16%) Driving Licence
6 20 (2.53%) Data Protection Act
7 19 (2.41%) Analytical Mindset
7 19 (2.41%) Virtual Team
8 15 (1.90%) Hybrid Cloud
9 13 (1.65%) Management Information System
9 13 (1.65%) Video\Live Streaming
10 11 (1.39%) Distributed Systems
10 11 (1.39%) Product Ownership
11 10 (1.27%) Self-Motivation
12 9 (1.14%) Private Cloud
13 8 (1.01%) EPoS
13 8 (1.01%) TM Forum
14 7 (0.89%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
15 6 (0.76%) Enterprise Software
15 6 (0.76%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 34 (4.30%) Windows
2 27 (3.42%) Linux
3 16 (2.03%) Windows 10
4 12 (1.52%) Unix
5 6 (0.76%) Mac OS
6 5 (0.63%) Windows Server
7 3 (0.38%) Android
7 3 (0.38%) Apple iOS
7 3 (0.38%) VMS
8 2 (0.25%) Embedded Linux
8 2 (0.25%) OpenVMS
8 2 (0.25%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 1 (0.13%) Mac OS X
9 1 (0.13%) Oracle Linux
9 1 (0.13%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.13%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 132 (16.71%) Stakeholder Management
2 103 (13.04%) Problem-Solving
3 102 (12.91%) Agile
4 89 (11.27%) ITIL
5 74 (9.37%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 68 (8.61%) Project Delivery
7 61 (7.72%) Continuous Improvement
8 58 (7.34%) Decision-Making
9 57 (7.22%) Migration
10 56 (7.09%) CI/CD
10 56 (7.09%) CRM
11 55 (6.96%) Roadmaps
11 55 (6.96%) Validation
12 54 (6.84%) Service Management
13 52 (6.58%) Customer Service
14 51 (6.46%) Project Management
15 49 (6.20%) ITSM
16 48 (6.08%) AI
17 47 (5.95%) Analytics
18 42 (5.32%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 63 (7.97%) Python
2 37 (4.68%) SQL
3 20 (2.53%) JavaScript
4 15 (1.90%) Java
5 10 (1.27%) C#
6 8 (1.01%) Bash
7 7 (0.89%) R
8 6 (0.76%) C++
9 5 (0.63%) Apex Code
9 5 (0.63%) PowerShell
10 4 (0.51%) ABAP
10 4 (0.51%) DataWeave
10 4 (0.51%) TypeScript
11 3 (0.38%) LookML
11 3 (0.38%) Shell Script
12 2 (0.25%) DCL
12 2 (0.25%) PL/SQL
12 2 (0.25%) SOQL
13 1 (0.13%) Ada
13 1 (0.13%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 139 (17.59%) Security Cleared
2 95 (12.03%) SC Cleared
3 72 (9.11%) Degree
4 58 (7.34%) Cisco Certification
5 38 (4.81%) CCNA
6 26 (3.29%) CCNP
7 24 (3.04%) DV Cleared
8 23 (2.91%) Microsoft Certification
9 22 (2.78%) A+ Certification
10 17 (2.15%) BPSS Clearance
10 17 (2.15%) Computer Science Degree
10 17 (2.15%) PMP
11 13 (1.65%) MCSA
11 13 (1.65%) PMI Certification
12 12 (1.52%) CCIE
13 10 (1.27%) Azure Certification
13 10 (1.27%) Network+ Certification
14 9 (1.14%) AWS Certification
15 6 (0.76%) JNCIE
15 6 (0.76%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (3.54%) SLA
2 23 (2.91%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 20 (2.53%) NCSC
4 19 (2.41%) GDPR
5 17 (2.15%) QA
6 16 (2.03%) Data Quality
7 15 (1.90%) GRC
8 13 (1.65%) PMO
9 9 (1.14%) NIST
10 3 (0.38%) RMADS
11 2 (0.25%) PCI DSS
11 2 (0.25%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 1 (0.13%) Actionable Recommendations
12 1 (0.13%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 1 (0.13%) IFRS
12 1 (0.13%) ISO 22301
12 1 (0.13%) ISO 31000
12 1 (0.13%) JSP 440
12 1 (0.13%) NEBOSH
12 1 (0.13%) WCAG
System Software
1 17 (2.15%) Active Directory
1 17 (2.15%) VMware Infrastructure
2 14 (1.77%) Docker
3 8 (1.01%) VMware NSX
4 5 (0.63%) vSphere
5 4 (0.51%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (0.25%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.13%) Ceph
7 1 (0.13%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 44 (5.57%) Kubernetes
2 23 (2.91%) Terraform
3 20 (2.53%) Ansible
4 13 (1.65%) Grafana
4 13 (1.65%) Prometheus
5 5 (0.63%) Jamf Pro
6 3 (0.38%) Amdocs OSS
6 3 (0.38%) Cisco Prime
6 3 (0.38%) Iperf
6 3 (0.38%) Microsoft Intune
6 3 (0.38%) vCenter Server
6 3 (0.38%) vRealize
7 2 (0.25%) FortiGate
7 2 (0.25%) Nmap
7 2 (0.25%) NSN NetAct
8 1 (0.13%) Kibana
8 1 (0.13%) Oracle RMAN
8 1 (0.13%) Proxmox
8 1 (0.13%) Single Sign-On
8 1 (0.13%) SolarWinds Orion
Vendors
1 100 (12.66%) Microsoft
2 82 (10.38%) Cisco
3 76 (9.62%) ServiceNow
4 44 (5.57%) Nokia
5 36 (4.56%) Salesforce
6 31 (3.92%) SAP
7 25 (3.16%) VMware
8 24 (3.04%) BT
8 24 (3.04%) Fortinet
9 22 (2.78%) Ericsson
10 19 (2.41%) Juniper
10 19 (2.41%) Oracle
11 17 (2.15%) F5
11 17 (2.15%) Remedy
12 16 (2.03%) Google
12 16 (2.03%) Huawei
13 15 (1.90%) MuleSoft
14 13 (1.65%) BMC
15 12 (1.52%) CheckPoint
15 12 (1.52%) Palo Alto