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 30 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 187 93 64
Rank change year-on-year -94 -29 +18
Contract jobs citing Telecoms 705 754 1,324
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.43% 2.61% 3.09%
As % of the General category 2.66% 4.12% 5.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 427 437 647
10th Percentile £213 £309 £200
25th Percentile £400 £400 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £488 £450
Median % change year-on-year -1.28% +8.33% -7.69%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £600
90th Percentile £681 £700 £727
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £478 £450
% change year-on-year -3.14% +6.11% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 46 31 99
10th Percentile £16.82 - £12.15
25th Percentile £21.00 £14.00 £13.25
Median hourly rate £23.83 £27.40 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -13.05% -39.11% -14.29%
75th Percentile £50.00 £56.38 £72.50
90th Percentile £178.75 £63.75 £74.20
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.83 £18.31 £45.00
% change year-on-year +30.16% -59.32% -14.29%

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 26,471 18,293 24,727
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 53.86% 63.36% 57.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 16,041 11,592 15,561
10th Percentile £313 £281 £275
25th Percentile £413 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £756 £763
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +3.58% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,748 810 1,973
10th Percentile £13.72 £13.50 £12.78
25th Percentile £17.67 £16.95 £15.50
Median hourly rate £30.00 £27.85 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year +7.72% -7.17% -7.69%
75th Percentile £60.00 £55.00 £52.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £66.74
UK excluding London median hourly rate £29.00 £24.34 £28.00
% change year-on-year +19.15% -13.07% +0.57%

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 30 May 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 30 May 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 30 May 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 -94 619 £481 -2.85% 520
UK excluding London -98 362 £463 -3.14% 420
London -19 271 £500 +2.04% 182
Work from Home -49 190 £500 +5.26% 167
South East -72 143 £450 -6.25% 136
North of England -63 71 £481 -9.20% 74
Midlands -44 46 £500 -12.09% 61
South West -57 46 £512 -2.52% 47
West Midlands -59 35 £525 +2.44% 38
East of England -23 33 £199 -48.71% 50
North West -55 33 £463 -12.74% 41
Yorkshire -51 24 £481 -8.33% 29
Scotland -11 19 £305 -6.15% 39
North East -13 14 £500 -11.50% 4
East Midlands -16 11 £500 -20.00% 23
Northern Ireland +1 4 £163 -54.55% 9
Wales -15 1 £500 +90.48% 13

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 (1.42%) Confluence
2 9 (1.28%) OpenStack
3 6 (0.85%) Apache Airflow
3 6 (0.85%) Appian
4 4 (0.57%) Anypoint
4 4 (0.57%) Apache Spark
5 3 (0.43%) ArcGIS
5 3 (0.43%) IIS
5 3 (0.43%) JBoss
5 3 (0.43%) Microsoft Exchange
5 3 (0.43%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 3 (0.43%) SharePoint
5 3 (0.43%) Tomcat
5 3 (0.43%) WebLogic
6 2 (0.28%) Apache
6 2 (0.28%) Oracle Spatial
7 1 (0.14%) Camunda
7 1 (0.14%) CMS
7 1 (0.14%) Smallworld
Applications
1 22 (3.12%) Microsoft Office
2 13 (1.84%) Microsoft Excel
3 8 (1.13%) MS Visio
4 7 (0.99%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.71%) AutoCAD
5 5 (0.71%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.28%) MicroStation
7 1 (0.14%) Autodesk Inventor
7 1 (0.14%) FrameMaker
7 1 (0.14%) MadCap Flare
7 1 (0.14%) Revit
7 1 (0.14%) SOLIDWORKS
7 1 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.14%) Trello
Business Applications
1 12 (1.70%) SAP PSCD
2 11 (1.56%) Remedy ITSM
2 11 (1.56%) SAP BRIM
3 10 (1.42%) SAP Hybris
4 6 (0.85%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 4 (0.57%) BambooHR
6 3 (0.43%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.28%) SAP FI-CA
8 1 (0.14%) Dynamics CRM
8 1 (0.14%) Remedy AR System
8 1 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
8 1 (0.14%) SAP CO
8 1 (0.14%) SAP FI/CO
8 1 (0.14%) SAP IBP
8 1 (0.14%) SAP S/4HANA
8 1 (0.14%) SAP SD
8 1 (0.14%) SAP SRM
8 1 (0.14%) SmartPlant
Cloud Services
1 56 (7.94%) AWS
1 56 (7.94%) Azure
2 33 (4.68%) GCP
3 18 (2.55%) Power Platform
4 16 (2.27%) Microsoft 365
5 14 (1.99%) SaaS
6 11 (1.56%) SAP Commerce Cloud
7 9 (1.28%) dbt
8 6 (0.85%) Datadog
8 6 (0.85%) Serverless
9 5 (0.71%) AWS Lambda
9 5 (0.71%) Azure DevOps
9 5 (0.71%) Prefect
9 5 (0.71%) Snowflake
10 4 (0.57%) Amazon S3
10 4 (0.57%) Boomi
10 4 (0.57%) Dagster
10 4 (0.57%) Figma
10 4 (0.57%) Salesforce Service Cloud
11 3 (0.43%) Entra ID
Communications & Networking
1 47 (6.67%) MPLS
2 45 (6.38%) WAN
3 44 (6.24%) 5G
4 39 (5.53%) Firewall
5 35 (4.96%) LAN
6 27 (3.83%) Network Security
7 25 (3.55%) 4G
8 24 (3.40%) Radio Access Network
9 23 (3.26%) SD-WAN
10 22 (3.12%) BGP
10 22 (3.12%) VoIP
11 21 (2.98%) Internet
12 18 (2.55%) LTE
13 17 (2.41%) 3GPP
13 17 (2.41%) OSPF
13 17 (2.41%) VPN
14 14 (1.99%) Broadband
14 14 (1.99%) DNS
14 14 (1.99%) VLAN
15 13 (1.84%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 18 (2.55%) Power BI
2 12 (1.70%) Looker
2 12 (1.70%) Tableau
3 11 (1.56%) Data Warehouse
4 9 (1.28%) BigQuery
5 7 (0.99%) Amazon Redshift
5 7 (0.99%) Big Data
5 7 (0.99%) Relational Database
6 6 (0.85%) SQL Server
7 5 (0.71%) MySQL
8 4 (0.57%) Oracle Database
9 3 (0.43%) Amazon Athena
9 3 (0.43%) GIS
9 3 (0.43%) PostgreSQL
9 3 (0.43%) Semantic Layer
9 3 (0.43%) Star Schema
10 2 (0.28%) Apache Cassandra
10 2 (0.28%) MongoDB
10 2 (0.28%) NoSQL
10 2 (0.28%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 21 (2.98%) JIRA
2 9 (1.28%) Git
3 3 (0.43%) Jenkins
4 2 (0.28%) GitLab
4 2 (0.28%) Robot Framework
5 1 (0.14%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.14%) JMeter
5 1 (0.14%) Oracle Forms
5 1 (0.14%) Sonatype Nexus
5 1 (0.14%) TestRail
General
1 191 (27.09%) Social Skills
2 127 (18.01%) Finance
3 94 (13.33%) Analytical Skills
4 86 (12.20%) Public Sector
5 51 (7.23%) Marketing
6 41 (5.82%) Electronics
7 38 (5.39%) Billing
8 37 (5.25%) Manufacturing
9 27 (3.83%) Retail
10 21 (2.98%) Organisational Skills
11 17 (2.41%) Legal
12 15 (2.13%) Documentation Skills
13 14 (1.99%) Influencing Skills
14 7 (0.99%) Presentation Skills
15 6 (0.85%) Banking
15 6 (0.85%) Military
16 5 (0.71%) Publishing
17 4 (0.57%) Aerospace
18 3 (0.43%) Financial Institution
18 3 (0.43%) Police
Job Titles
1 95 (13.48%) Architect
2 58 (8.23%) Analyst
3 52 (7.38%) Lead
4 50 (7.09%) Senior
5 41 (5.82%) Solutions Architect
6 39 (5.53%) Consultant
7 38 (5.39%) Telecoms Manager
8 37 (5.25%) Network Engineer
9 33 (4.68%) Project Manager
10 27 (3.83%) Designer
10 27 (3.83%) ServiceNow Architect
11 26 (3.69%) Developer
12 23 (3.26%) Business Analyst
13 20 (2.84%) Sales Manager
14 19 (2.70%) Data Engineer
14 19 (2.70%) Programme Manager
15 17 (2.41%) Enterprise Architect
16 16 (2.27%) Delivery Manager
16 16 (2.27%) Telecoms Architect
17 14 (1.99%) Telecoms Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 38 (5.39%) REST
2 24 (3.40%) SOAP
3 11 (1.56%) Middleware
4 10 (1.42%) Kafka
5 9 (1.28%) .NET
6 8 (1.13%) Elastic Stack
6 8 (1.13%) XML
7 7 (0.99%) ONVIF
8 6 (0.85%) JSON
8 6 (0.85%) OpenAPI
8 6 (0.85%) Swagger
9 5 (0.71%) RESTful
10 4 (0.57%) .NET Framework
10 4 (0.57%) RAML
11 3 (0.43%) GraphQL
11 3 (0.43%) RabbitMQ
11 3 (0.43%) RFC 2544
11 3 (0.43%) Web Services
12 2 (0.28%) SAP Basis
12 2 (0.28%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 31 (4.40%) Data Centre
1 31 (4.40%) Onboarding
2 26 (3.69%) Data Protection Act
3 24 (3.40%) CMDB
4 20 (2.84%) Cloud Native
5 19 (2.70%) Product Ownership
6 18 (2.55%) Driving Licence
7 16 (2.27%) Virtual Team
8 12 (1.70%) Analytical Mindset
8 12 (1.70%) Distributed Systems
9 8 (1.13%) EPoS
9 8 (1.13%) Management Information System
9 8 (1.13%) Self-Motivation
9 8 (1.13%) TM Forum
10 7 (0.99%) Hybrid Cloud
10 7 (0.99%) NHS
10 7 (0.99%) Video\Live Streaming
11 6 (0.85%) IoT
11 6 (0.85%) Legacy Systems
11 6 (0.85%) Web Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 27 (3.83%) Windows
2 23 (3.26%) Linux
3 14 (1.99%) Windows 10
4 10 (1.42%) Unix
5 4 (0.57%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 3 (0.43%) Debian
6 3 (0.43%) Ubuntu
6 3 (0.43%) VMS
6 3 (0.43%) Windows Server
7 2 (0.28%) Android
7 2 (0.28%) Embedded Linux
8 1 (0.14%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.14%) Oracle Linux
8 1 (0.14%) Windows 7
8 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2016
8 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 108 (15.32%) Stakeholder Management
2 91 (12.91%) Problem-Solving
3 89 (12.62%) Agile
4 68 (9.65%) ITIL
5 62 (8.79%) Continuous Improvement
6 55 (7.80%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 53 (7.52%) Decision-Making
7 53 (7.52%) Project Management
8 52 (7.38%) Business Intelligence
9 51 (7.23%) Migration
10 49 (6.95%) Customer Service
11 47 (6.67%) Roadmaps
12 46 (6.52%) Project Delivery
13 45 (6.38%) Analytics
14 41 (5.82%) Data Protection
14 41 (5.82%) ITSM
15 40 (5.67%) CRM
16 39 (5.53%) Programme Management
17 37 (5.25%) Service Management
18 36 (5.11%) CI/CD
Programming Languages
1 47 (6.67%) Python
2 35 (4.96%) SQL
3 16 (2.27%) Java
4 15 (2.13%) JavaScript
5 10 (1.42%) C#
6 8 (1.13%) C++
7 6 (0.85%) Bash
7 6 (0.85%) R
8 4 (0.57%) DataWeave
9 3 (0.43%) Apex Code
9 3 (0.43%) C
9 3 (0.43%) Go
9 3 (0.43%) LookML
9 3 (0.43%) PowerShell
10 2 (0.28%) PL/SQL
10 2 (0.28%) Shell Script
10 2 (0.28%) TypeScript
11 1 (0.14%) Cypher
11 1 (0.14%) Kotlin
11 1 (0.14%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 127 (18.01%) Security Cleared
2 94 (13.33%) SC Cleared
3 65 (9.22%) Degree
4 35 (4.96%) Cisco Certification
5 23 (3.26%) DV Cleared
6 21 (2.98%) CCNA
7 19 (2.70%) Microsoft Certification
8 18 (2.55%) CCNP
8 18 (2.55%) Computer Science Degree
9 17 (2.41%) A+ Certification
10 13 (1.84%) BPSS Clearance
10 13 (1.84%) PMP
11 9 (1.28%) Network+ Certification
11 9 (1.28%) PMI Certification
12 8 (1.13%) Master's Degree
13 7 (0.99%) MCSA
14 6 (0.85%) ACCA
14 6 (0.85%) CCIE
14 6 (0.85%) CIMA
15 5 (0.71%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (3.40%) SLA
2 19 (2.70%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 18 (2.55%) GDPR
4 15 (2.13%) PMO
4 15 (2.13%) QA
5 14 (1.99%) NCSC
6 13 (1.84%) Data Quality
7 10 (1.42%) GRC
7 10 (1.42%) NIST
8 7 (0.99%) RMADS
9 5 (0.71%) JSP 440
10 1 (0.14%) Accessibility
10 1 (0.14%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 1 (0.14%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 1 (0.14%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 1 (0.14%) NEBOSH
10 1 (0.14%) PCI DSS
10 1 (0.14%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 1 (0.14%) SOC 1
10 1 (0.14%) WCAG
System Software
1 13 (1.84%) Active Directory
2 11 (1.56%) Docker
3 9 (1.28%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (0.71%) vSphere
5 3 (0.43%) Hyper-V
5 3 (0.43%) QEMU
5 3 (0.43%) VMware ESXi
5 3 (0.43%) VMware NSX
6 1 (0.14%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 37 (5.25%) Kubernetes
2 13 (1.84%) Ansible
2 13 (1.84%) Grafana
2 13 (1.84%) Prometheus
3 11 (1.56%) Terraform
4 4 (0.57%) Cisco Prime
5 3 (0.43%) Iperf
5 3 (0.43%) Podman
5 3 (0.43%) vCenter Server
5 3 (0.43%) vRealize
6 2 (0.28%) Amdocs OSS
6 2 (0.28%) FortiGate
6 2 (0.28%) Nmap
6 2 (0.28%) NSN NetAct
6 2 (0.28%) SCCM
7 1 (0.14%) Argo
7 1 (0.14%) Failover Clustering
7 1 (0.14%) Oracle RMAN
7 1 (0.14%) Rancher
7 1 (0.14%) SolarWinds Orion
Vendors
1 76 (10.78%) Microsoft
2 63 (8.94%) ServiceNow
3 59 (8.37%) Cisco
4 52 (7.38%) SAP
5 41 (5.82%) Nokia
6 24 (3.40%) Salesforce
7 21 (2.98%) BT
7 21 (2.98%) Oracle
8 20 (2.84%) Ericsson
9 16 (2.27%) Juniper
10 15 (2.13%) Fortinet
10 15 (2.13%) Huawei
11 14 (1.99%) Remedy
12 13 (1.84%) CheckPoint
12 13 (1.84%) Google
13 12 (1.70%) VMware
14 11 (1.56%) MuleSoft
15 10 (1.42%) F5
16 9 (1.28%) Palo Alto
17 8 (1.13%) Databricks