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

6 months to
29 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 175 102 69
Rank change year-on-year -73 -33 +13
Contract jobs citing Telecoms 824 837 1,200
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.57% 2.55% 3.01%
As % of the General category 2.86% 4.05% 5.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 469 491 584
10th Percentile £213 £300 £205
25th Percentile £400 £396 £361
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year - - -1.96%
75th Percentile £575 £576 £607
90th Percentile £694 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £463 £475
% change year-on-year -2.70% -2.63% +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 44 47 107
10th Percentile £16.08 - £12.15
25th Percentile £17.73 £14.00 £14.00
Median hourly rate £25.17 £20.75 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +21.30% -62.27% -10.20%
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% -7.50%

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 28,838 20,685 22,826
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 54.88% 63.03% 57.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,185 12,965 14,402
10th Percentile £313 £280 £288
25th Percentile £413 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £630 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £472 £494
% change year-on-year +5.88% -4.40% -1.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,068 1,090 1,492
10th Percentile £14.00 £13.34 £13.86
25th Percentile £18.00 £16.16 £16.50
Median hourly rate £32.90 £25.15 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +30.83% -32.93% +22.79%
75th Percentile £61.18 £51.21 £57.50
90th Percentile £81.05 £70.02 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.50 £22.14 £38.12
% change year-on-year +51.31% -41.92% +41.19%

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 29 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 29 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 29 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 -76 695 £475 -1.14% 638
UK excluding London -89 417 £450 -2.70% 495
London -30 306 £513 +8.00% 239
Work from Home -53 239 £475 - 244
South East -53 190 £460 -8.00% 172
North of England -58 62 £500 -4.76% 104
Scotland -5 46 £300 -7.69% 35
South West -71 46 £450 -14.29% 50
Midlands -67 39 £478 +27.50% 73
East of England -15 34 £160 -57.33% 43
West Midlands -68 34 £470 +17.50% 48
Yorkshire -24 32 £475 +22.58% 29
North West -56 27 £550 +4.27% 55
East Midlands -11 5 £500 +33.33% 25
Northern Ireland -5 3 £175 -51.05% 4
North East -44 3 £500 - 22
Wales -17 1 £500 +132.56% 25

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 (1.58%) Confluence
1 13 (1.58%) OpenStack
2 10 (1.21%) ArcGIS
2 10 (1.21%) SharePoint
3 8 (0.97%) Microsoft Exchange
4 7 (0.85%) Apache Airflow
5 4 (0.49%) Anypoint
5 4 (0.49%) Apache Spark
6 2 (0.24%) Apache
6 2 (0.24%) Appian
6 2 (0.24%) CMS
7 1 (0.12%) Camunda
7 1 (0.12%) IIS
7 1 (0.12%) JBoss
7 1 (0.12%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
7 1 (0.12%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 1 (0.12%) Smallworld
7 1 (0.12%) Tomcat
7 1 (0.12%) WebLogic
Applications
1 23 (2.79%) Microsoft Excel
1 23 (2.79%) Microsoft Office
2 19 (2.31%) MS Visio
3 9 (1.09%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (0.61%) AutoCAD
4 5 (0.61%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.24%) MicroStation
6 1 (0.12%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 1 (0.12%) Autodesk Inventor
6 1 (0.12%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.12%) Revit
6 1 (0.12%) SOLIDWORKS
6 1 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.12%) Trello
Business Applications
1 20 (2.43%) SAP PSCD
2 11 (1.33%) SAP BRIM
3 9 (1.09%) SAP Hybris
4 8 (0.97%) SAP FI
5 7 (0.85%) Remedy ITSM
5 7 (0.85%) SAP FI-CA
6 5 (0.61%) NetSuite
6 5 (0.61%) Sage X3
6 5 (0.61%) Salesforce CRM
6 5 (0.61%) SAP S/4HANA
7 4 (0.49%) BambooHR
8 3 (0.36%) Remedy AR System
8 3 (0.36%) SAP ERP
9 1 (0.12%) Oracle BRM
9 1 (0.12%) SAP CO
9 1 (0.12%) SAP FI/CO
9 1 (0.12%) SAP FS
9 1 (0.12%) SAP IS-U
9 1 (0.12%) SAP SD
9 1 (0.12%) SAP SRM
Cloud Services
1 97 (11.77%) Azure
2 86 (10.44%) AWS
3 64 (7.77%) GCP
4 21 (2.55%) Power Platform
5 19 (2.31%) Microsoft 365
6 15 (1.82%) Entra ID
6 15 (1.82%) GitHub
6 15 (1.82%) SaaS
7 11 (1.33%) dbt
7 11 (1.33%) SAP Commerce Cloud
8 10 (1.21%) Snowflake
9 9 (1.09%) Azure DevOps
9 9 (1.09%) GitHub Actions
10 8 (0.97%) Cloud Computing
11 6 (0.73%) Cloud Functions
11 6 (0.73%) Datadog
11 6 (0.73%) Serverless
12 5 (0.61%) AWS Lambda
12 5 (0.61%) Fivetran
12 5 (0.61%) Prefect
Communications & Networking
1 96 (11.65%) WAN
2 80 (9.71%) LAN
3 71 (8.62%) 5G
3 71 (8.62%) MPLS
4 51 (6.19%) 4G
4 51 (6.19%) Firewall
5 49 (5.95%) Radio Access Network
6 33 (4.00%) SD-WAN
7 29 (3.52%) DNS
8 28 (3.40%) BGP
9 27 (3.28%) Network Security
10 23 (2.79%) 3G
10 23 (2.79%) VPN
10 23 (2.79%) Wi-Fi
11 22 (2.67%) SDH
12 21 (2.55%) TCP/IP
12 21 (2.55%) VoIP
13 20 (2.43%) 3GPP
13 20 (2.43%) LTE
14 18 (2.18%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (2.43%) Power BI
2 19 (2.31%) Data Warehouse
3 15 (1.82%) BigQuery
4 13 (1.58%) Tableau
5 12 (1.46%) Amazon Redshift
5 12 (1.46%) Looker
6 10 (1.21%) GIS
7 8 (0.97%) Big Data
8 6 (0.73%) NoSQL
8 6 (0.73%) SQL Server
9 4 (0.49%) Apache Cassandra
9 4 (0.49%) MySQL
9 4 (0.49%) Relational Database
10 3 (0.36%) Amazon Athena
10 3 (0.36%) Data Lake
10 3 (0.36%) InfluxDB
10 3 (0.36%) Oracle Database
10 3 (0.36%) Semantic Layer
10 3 (0.36%) Star Schema
10 3 (0.36%) Tableau Desktop
Development Applications
1 27 (3.28%) JIRA
2 14 (1.70%) Git
3 7 (0.85%) Jenkins
4 3 (0.36%) GitLab
4 3 (0.36%) Sonatype Nexus
5 2 (0.24%) Robot Framework
5 2 (0.24%) Selenium
6 1 (0.12%) Bitbucket
6 1 (0.12%) Oracle Forms
6 1 (0.12%) Rational DOORS
6 1 (0.12%) TestRail
General
1 235 (28.52%) Social Skills
2 126 (15.29%) Finance
3 101 (12.26%) Analytical Skills
4 60 (7.28%) Public Sector
5 37 (4.49%) Billing
6 31 (3.76%) Documentation Skills
7 23 (2.79%) Organisational Skills
7 23 (2.79%) Retail
8 21 (2.55%) Legal
8 21 (2.55%) Marketing
9 20 (2.43%) Influencing Skills
10 14 (1.70%) Presentation Skills
11 12 (1.46%) Aerospace
12 10 (1.21%) Manufacturing
12 10 (1.21%) Publishing
13 8 (0.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 8 (0.97%) Police
14 6 (0.73%) Electronics
15 4 (0.49%) Military
16 3 (0.36%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 131 (15.90%) Architect
2 78 (9.47%) Senior
3 66 (8.01%) Consultant
4 64 (7.77%) Lead
5 60 (7.28%) Analyst
6 49 (5.95%) Project Manager
7 47 (5.70%) Network Engineer
8 46 (5.58%) Solutions Architect
9 35 (4.25%) Designer
9 35 (4.25%) Telecoms Manager
10 34 (4.13%) Telecoms Engineer
11 33 (4.00%) Field Engineer
12 29 (3.52%) ServiceNow Architect
13 27 (3.28%) Data Engineer
13 27 (3.28%) Developer
14 26 (3.16%) Enterprise Architect
15 21 (2.55%) SAP Consultant
15 21 (2.55%) Telecoms Architect
16 20 (2.43%) Delivery Manager
16 20 (2.43%) Platform Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 47 (5.70%) REST
2 33 (4.00%) SOAP
3 14 (1.70%) Kafka
4 13 (1.58%) ONVIF
4 13 (1.58%) XML
5 12 (1.46%) Middleware
6 10 (1.21%) NETCONF
6 10 (1.21%) YANG
7 9 (1.09%) OpenAPI
7 9 (1.09%) Swagger
8 8 (0.97%) AngularJS
8 8 (0.97%) Elastic Stack
8 8 (0.97%) React
8 8 (0.97%) RESTful
9 7 (0.85%) HTML
9 7 (0.85%) JSON
10 6 (0.73%) .NET
10 6 (0.73%) CSS
11 5 (0.61%) 802.1X
11 5 (0.61%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 50 (6.07%) CMDB
2 48 (5.83%) Data Centre
3 35 (4.25%) Onboarding
4 33 (4.00%) Cloud Native
5 29 (3.52%) Driving Licence
6 19 (2.31%) Analytical Mindset
6 19 (2.31%) Data Protection Act
6 19 (2.31%) Virtual Team
7 18 (2.18%) Product Ownership
8 17 (2.06%) Hybrid Cloud
9 14 (1.70%) Management Information System
10 13 (1.58%) Self-Motivation
10 13 (1.58%) Video\Live Streaming
11 11 (1.33%) Distributed Systems
12 9 (1.09%) Algorithms
12 9 (1.09%) Private Cloud
12 9 (1.09%) TM Forum
13 8 (0.97%) Data Structures
13 8 (0.97%) EPoS
14 7 (0.85%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 38 (4.61%) Windows
2 25 (3.03%) Linux
3 15 (1.82%) Windows 10
4 10 (1.21%) Windows Server
5 9 (1.09%) Unix
6 6 (0.73%) Mac OS
7 4 (0.49%) Android
8 3 (0.36%) Apple iOS
8 3 (0.36%) VMS
9 2 (0.24%) Embedded Linux
9 2 (0.24%) OpenVMS
9 2 (0.24%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 1 (0.12%) Mac OS X
10 1 (0.12%) Oracle Linux
10 1 (0.12%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.12%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 147 (17.84%) Stakeholder Management
2 116 (14.08%) Agile
3 105 (12.74%) Problem-Solving
4 83 (10.07%) ITIL
5 79 (9.59%) Project Delivery
5 79 (9.59%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 69 (8.37%) AI
7 65 (7.89%) CI/CD
8 64 (7.77%) Roadmaps
9 63 (7.65%) Service Management
10 61 (7.40%) Continuous Improvement
11 60 (7.28%) Migration
12 59 (7.16%) Decision-Making
13 56 (6.80%) Project Management
14 53 (6.43%) Analytics
14 53 (6.43%) Validation
15 52 (6.31%) Change Management
15 52 (6.31%) CRM
16 51 (6.19%) Customer Service
17 50 (6.07%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 70 (8.50%) Python
2 41 (4.98%) SQL
3 30 (3.64%) JavaScript
4 15 (1.82%) Java
5 9 (1.09%) Bash
5 9 (1.09%) C#
5 9 (1.09%) PowerShell
6 7 (0.85%) R
7 6 (0.73%) Apex Code
8 5 (0.61%) C++
9 4 (0.49%) ABAP
9 4 (0.49%) DataWeave
9 4 (0.49%) TypeScript
10 3 (0.36%) LookML
10 3 (0.36%) SOQL
11 2 (0.24%) C
11 2 (0.24%) DCL
12 1 (0.12%) Bicep
12 1 (0.12%) Cypher
12 1 (0.12%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 146 (17.72%) Security Cleared
2 99 (12.01%) SC Cleared
3 75 (9.10%) Degree
4 58 (7.04%) Cisco Certification
5 40 (4.85%) CCNA
6 24 (2.91%) CCNP
7 23 (2.79%) Microsoft Certification
8 22 (2.67%) DV Cleared
9 21 (2.55%) A+ Certification
10 18 (2.18%) PMP
11 17 (2.06%) Computer Science Degree
12 16 (1.94%) BPSS Clearance
13 14 (1.70%) PMI Certification
14 13 (1.58%) MCSA
15 10 (1.21%) Azure Certification
15 10 (1.21%) CCIE
16 9 (1.09%) AWS Certification
17 8 (0.97%) Network+ Certification
18 7 (0.85%) CISSP
19 6 (0.73%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (3.28%) SLA
2 26 (3.16%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 22 (2.67%) GDPR
4 20 (2.43%) GRC
5 19 (2.31%) QA
6 18 (2.18%) NCSC
7 15 (1.82%) Data Quality
7 15 (1.82%) PMO
8 9 (1.09%) NIST
9 3 (0.36%) Actionable Recommendations
9 3 (0.36%) Cyber Essentials
9 3 (0.36%) PCI DSS
9 3 (0.36%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 2 (0.24%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 2 (0.24%) EU AI Act
11 1 (0.12%) ISO 22301
11 1 (0.12%) ISO 31000
11 1 (0.12%) ISO/IEC 15288
11 1 (0.12%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 1 (0.12%) SOC 1
System Software
1 22 (2.67%) Active Directory
2 19 (2.31%) VMware Infrastructure
3 18 (2.18%) Docker
4 8 (0.97%) VMware NSX
5 5 (0.61%) vSphere
6 4 (0.49%) VMware ESXi
7 3 (0.36%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.12%) Ceph
8 1 (0.12%) KVM
8 1 (0.12%) NDS
8 1 (0.12%) NetIQ eDirectory
8 1 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 45 (5.46%) Kubernetes
2 24 (2.91%) Terraform
3 17 (2.06%) Ansible
4 12 (1.46%) Grafana
4 12 (1.46%) Prometheus
5 7 (0.85%) Microsoft Intune
6 5 (0.61%) Jamf Pro
7 3 (0.36%) Amdocs OSS
7 3 (0.36%) vCenter Server
7 3 (0.36%) vRealize
8 2 (0.24%) Check_MK
8 2 (0.24%) Cisco Prime
8 2 (0.24%) Iperf
8 2 (0.24%) NSN NetAct
8 2 (0.24%) Podman
8 2 (0.24%) QRadar
9 1 (0.12%) Nmap
9 1 (0.12%) Oracle RMAN
9 1 (0.12%) SCCM
9 1 (0.12%) SolarWinds Orion
Vendors
1 110 (13.35%) Microsoft
2 93 (11.29%) Cisco
3 81 (9.83%) ServiceNow
4 49 (5.95%) Nokia
5 39 (4.73%) Salesforce
6 32 (3.88%) VMware
7 29 (3.52%) SAP
8 24 (2.91%) BT
9 23 (2.79%) Ericsson
10 22 (2.67%) Fortinet
11 21 (2.55%) Google
11 21 (2.55%) Juniper
12 19 (2.31%) F5
13 17 (2.06%) MuleSoft
14 16 (1.94%) Huawei
15 14 (1.70%) Palo Alto
16 13 (1.58%) CheckPoint
17 12 (1.46%) BMC
17 12 (1.46%) Oracle
18 9 (1.09%) Zscaler