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 24 March 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 149 86 62
Rank change year-on-year -63 -24 +20
Contract jobs citing Telecoms 770 848 1,421
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.76% 2.91% 3.21%
As % of the General category 3.10% 4.63% 5.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 482 472 799
10th Percentile £170 £303 £200
25th Percentile £333 £388 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £510 £450
Median % change year-on-year -8.04% +13.33% -7.69%
75th Percentile £575 £623 £588
90th Percentile £675 £700 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £504 £450
% change year-on-year -10.63% +11.89% +0.28%
Number of hourly rates quoted 59 32 57
10th Percentile £17.68 £14.00 £12.15
25th Percentile £20.50 £18.43 £12.28
Median hourly rate £23.83 £26.92 £28.50
Median % change year-on-year -11.49% -5.55% -45.71%
75th Percentile £24.88 £60.00 £66.00
90th Percentile £51.00 £62.92 £84.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.83 £23.00 £24.75
% change year-on-year +3.59% -7.07% -52.86%

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 24,864 18,322 25,812
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 56.74% 62.89% 58.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,517 11,749 16,454
10th Percentile £300 £296 £265
25th Percentile £405 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £649 £650
90th Percentile £738 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £495
% change year-on-year - -4.04% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,544 678 1,819
10th Percentile £13.72 £15.00 £12.78
25th Percentile £17.00 £20.00 £15.27
Median hourly rate £25.00 £30.00 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -16.67% +15.38% -25.71%
75th Percentile £57.50 £58.75 £50.00
90th Percentile £76.75 £75.55 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.58 £27.97 £25.00
% change year-on-year -15.71% +11.88% -19.70%

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 24 March 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 24 March 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 24 March 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 -81 669 £475 -7.32% 498
UK excluding London -75 435 £450 -10.63% 413
London -18 269 £475 -10.38% 134
Work from Home -63 177 £475 -5.00% 168
South East -60 156 £467 -7.25% 138
Midlands -33 76 £500 -2.44% 56
North of England -67 70 £388 -22.50% 97
South West -43 57 £525 -4.11% 45
West Midlands -40 51 £550 +7.32% 36
East of England -17 38 £475 +8.57% 59
Scotland +16 28 £288 -21.23% 26
North West -52 28 £301 -40.93% 46
East Midlands -16 25 £158 -74.80% 20
North East -6 23 £175 -51.72% 12
Yorkshire -53 18 £481 -8.33% 45
Wales -5 9 £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 (1.30%) SharePoint
2 9 (1.17%) Microsoft Exchange
3 8 (1.04%) Confluence
4 7 (0.91%) Apache Spark
4 7 (0.91%) OpenStack
5 6 (0.78%) 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%) CMS
9 1 (0.13%) Headless CMS
9 1 (0.13%) Smallworld
Applications
1 51 (6.62%) Microsoft Office
2 24 (3.12%) Microsoft Excel
3 13 (1.69%) Microsoft Project
4 12 (1.56%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.91%) MS Visio
6 2 (0.26%) Autodesk Inventor
6 2 (0.26%) MicroStation
6 2 (0.26%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (0.26%) Trello
7 1 (0.13%) AutoCAD
7 1 (0.13%) FrameMaker
7 1 (0.13%) MadCap Flare
Business Applications
1 17 (2.21%) SAP PSCD
2 16 (2.08%) SAP BRIM
2 16 (2.08%) SAP Hybris
3 10 (1.30%) Remedy ITSM
4 6 (0.78%) 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 SRM
7 1 (0.13%) SmartPlant
Cloud Services
1 74 (9.61%) Azure
2 56 (7.27%) AWS
3 50 (6.49%) Microsoft 365
4 42 (5.45%) GCP
5 17 (2.21%) Power Platform
5 17 (2.21%) SAP Commerce Cloud
6 14 (1.82%) SaaS
7 10 (1.30%) Azure DevOps
8 8 (1.04%) Dynamics 365
8 8 (1.04%) GitHub
9 6 (0.78%) GitHub Actions
10 5 (0.65%) Datadog
10 5 (0.65%) dbt
11 4 (0.52%) Entra ID
11 4 (0.52%) Miro
11 4 (0.52%) Slack
12 3 (0.39%) Dagster
12 3 (0.39%) IaaS
12 3 (0.39%) Prefect
12 3 (0.39%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 49 (6.36%) WAN
2 40 (5.19%) Firewall
3 37 (4.81%) 5G
3 37 (4.81%) LAN
3 37 (4.81%) MPLS
4 35 (4.55%) Wireless
5 27 (3.51%) Network Security
5 27 (3.51%) SD-WAN
6 25 (3.25%) 4G
6 25 (3.25%) Radio Access Network
7 21 (2.73%) VPN
8 20 (2.60%) BGP
9 19 (2.47%) Internet
10 18 (2.34%) Broadband
10 18 (2.34%) DNS
10 18 (2.34%) LTE
10 18 (2.34%) SDH
11 17 (2.21%) VoIP
12 14 (1.82%) 2G
13 13 (1.69%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (2.08%) Power BI
2 12 (1.56%) MySQL
3 11 (1.43%) Data Warehouse
3 11 (1.43%) Looker
4 10 (1.30%) Tableau
5 8 (1.04%) BigQuery
5 8 (1.04%) Oracle Database
6 7 (0.91%) GIS
6 7 (0.91%) Relational Database
7 6 (0.78%) Big Data
7 6 (0.78%) SQL Server
8 5 (0.65%) PostgreSQL
9 4 (0.52%) Amazon Redshift
10 3 (0.39%) Metadata
10 3 (0.39%) NoSQL
10 3 (0.39%) RDBMS
10 3 (0.39%) Semantic Layer
10 3 (0.39%) Star Schema
11 2 (0.26%) Apache Cassandra
11 2 (0.26%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 23 (2.99%) JIRA
2 7 (0.91%) Jenkins
3 6 (0.78%) Git
3 6 (0.78%) GitLab
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%) Rational DOORS
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%) Selenium
7 1 (0.13%) Sonatype Nexus
7 1 (0.13%) TestRail
General
1 242 (31.43%) Finance
2 223 (28.96%) Social Skills
3 200 (25.97%) Public Sector
4 155 (20.13%) Marketing
5 146 (18.96%) Electronics
6 140 (18.18%) Manufacturing
7 86 (11.17%) Analytical Skills
8 40 (5.19%) Billing
9 22 (2.86%) Organisational Skills
10 20 (2.60%) Legal
11 17 (2.21%) Documentation Skills
12 13 (1.69%) Retail
13 10 (1.30%) Influencing Skills
13 10 (1.30%) Military
14 8 (1.04%) Banking
15 6 (0.78%) Law
16 5 (0.65%) Presentation Skills
17 3 (0.39%) Financial Institution
17 3 (0.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 2 (0.26%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 86 (11.17%) Architect
2 72 (9.35%) Analyst
3 47 (6.10%) Consultant
4 45 (5.84%) Lead
5 43 (5.58%) Business Analyst
6 42 (5.45%) Project Manager
6 42 (5.45%) Senior
7 40 (5.19%) IT Support
8 35 (4.55%) Network Engineer
9 34 (4.42%) Desktop Support
10 29 (3.77%) Solutions Architect
11 24 (3.12%) 2nd Line Support
12 23 (2.99%) 2nd Line Desktop Support
12 23 (2.99%) SC Cleared Desktop Support
12 23 (2.99%) Telecoms Manager
13 22 (2.86%) Developer
14 19 (2.47%) Coordinator
14 19 (2.47%) Migration Engineer
15 18 (2.34%) IT Engineer
15 18 (2.34%) Telecoms Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (3.38%) REST
2 18 (2.34%) SOAP
3 8 (1.04%) .NET
3 8 (1.04%) Elastic Stack
3 8 (1.04%) Kafka
4 6 (0.78%) Middleware
4 6 (0.78%) RESTful
5 5 (0.65%) RabbitMQ
6 4 (0.52%) HTML
6 4 (0.52%) React
6 4 (0.52%) Spring
6 4 (0.52%) Spring Boot
6 4 (0.52%) Web Services
7 3 (0.39%) 802.1X
7 3 (0.39%) GraphQL
7 3 (0.39%) OpenAPI
7 3 (0.39%) PySpark
7 3 (0.39%) RFC 2544
7 3 (0.39%) Swagger
7 3 (0.39%) Vitest
Miscellaneous
1 53 (6.88%) Data Centre
2 31 (4.03%) Driving Licence
3 29 (3.77%) Data Protection Act
4 26 (3.38%) Product Ownership
5 22 (2.86%) Onboarding
6 18 (2.34%) Cloud Native
6 18 (2.34%) CMDB
7 17 (2.21%) IoT
8 14 (1.82%) NHS
9 13 (1.69%) Legacy Systems
9 13 (1.69%) Mobile App
10 9 (1.17%) Distributed Systems
10 9 (1.17%) Virtual Team
11 8 (1.04%) Analytical Mindset
11 8 (1.04%) Fibre Optics
11 8 (1.04%) Self-Motivation
12 7 (0.91%) Algorithms
12 7 (0.91%) Enterprise Cloud
12 7 (0.91%) SCADA
13 6 (0.78%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 39 (5.06%) Android
2 37 (4.81%) Windows
3 31 (4.03%) Mac OS
4 20 (2.60%) Linux
5 18 (2.34%) Windows 10
6 7 (0.91%) Unix
7 6 (0.78%) Apple iOS
8 5 (0.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 5 (0.65%) Windows Server
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
1 155 (20.13%) Business Intelligence
2 144 (18.70%) Programme Management
3 139 (18.05%) Digital Marketing
4 114 (14.81%) Stakeholder Management
5 104 (13.51%) Agile
6 98 (12.73%) Problem-Solving
7 84 (10.91%) Migration
8 80 (10.39%) Continuous Improvement
9 67 (8.70%) ITIL
10 64 (8.31%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 55 (7.14%) Logistics
12 54 (7.01%) Project Management
12 54 (7.01%) Workflow
13 48 (6.23%) Customer Service
14 45 (5.84%) Decision-Making
15 41 (5.32%) Roadmaps
16 40 (5.19%) AI
16 40 (5.19%) Data Protection
16 40 (5.19%) DevOps
17 39 (5.06%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 52 (6.75%) Python
2 38 (4.94%) SQL
3 21 (2.73%) JavaScript
4 19 (2.47%) Java
5 10 (1.30%) PowerShell
6 9 (1.17%) Bash
7 6 (0.78%) C++
7 6 (0.78%) TypeScript
8 5 (0.65%) Go
9 4 (0.52%) C#
9 4 (0.52%) Shell Script
10 3 (0.39%) C
10 3 (0.39%) LookML
10 3 (0.39%) R
11 2 (0.26%) BeanShell
11 2 (0.26%) PHP
11 2 (0.26%) PL/SQL
12 1 (0.13%) Bicep
12 1 (0.13%) Cypher
12 1 (0.13%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 182 (23.64%) Security Cleared
2 153 (19.87%) SC Cleared
3 65 (8.44%) Degree
4 23 (2.99%) DV Cleared
5 20 (2.60%) BPSS Clearance
6 16 (2.08%) Cisco Certification
7 15 (1.95%) PMP
8 12 (1.56%) Computer Science Degree
9 11 (1.43%) CCNP
9 11 (1.43%) ITIL Certification
9 11 (1.43%) PMI Certification
10 10 (1.30%) ACCA
11 9 (1.17%) Azure Certification
12 7 (0.91%) AWS Certification
12 7 (0.91%) CIMA
13 6 (0.78%) CCIE
13 6 (0.78%) CCNA
13 6 (0.78%) ISTQB
13 6 (0.78%) Microsoft Certification
14 5 (0.65%) JNCIP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 31 (4.03%) SLA
2 25 (3.25%) GDPR
3 21 (2.73%) PMO
4 20 (2.60%) QA
5 17 (2.21%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 15 (1.95%) Data Quality
7 12 (1.56%) NIST
8 11 (1.43%) GRC
9 9 (1.17%) NCSC
10 7 (0.91%) RMADS
11 5 (0.65%) JSP 440
11 5 (0.65%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 4 (0.52%) IFRS
13 3 (0.39%) Accessibility
13 3 (0.39%) GAAP
14 2 (0.26%) California Consumer Privacy Act
14 2 (0.26%) HIPAA
14 2 (0.26%) PCI DSS
15 1 (0.13%) COSO
15 1 (0.13%) WCAG
System Software
1 19 (2.47%) Active Directory
2 13 (1.69%) Docker
3 3 (0.39%) QEMU
4 2 (0.26%) VMware Infrastructure
5 1 (0.13%) Firmware
5 1 (0.13%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 27 (3.51%) Kubernetes
2 13 (1.69%) Ansible
3 12 (1.56%) Grafana
4 9 (1.17%) Prometheus
4 9 (1.17%) Terraform
5 6 (0.78%) SCCM
6 5 (0.65%) Microsoft Intune
7 4 (0.52%) Argo
8 3 (0.39%) Amdocs OSS
8 3 (0.39%) Cisco Prime
8 3 (0.39%) Iperf
8 3 (0.39%) Podman
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%) HP ALM
10 1 (0.13%) Rancher
10 1 (0.13%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 164 (21.30%) SAP
2 102 (13.25%) Cisco
3 88 (11.43%) Microsoft
4 50 (6.49%) ServiceNow
5 33 (4.29%) Nokia
6 25 (3.25%) Dell
6 25 (3.25%) HP
6 25 (3.25%) Juniper
7 24 (3.12%) Oracle
8 23 (2.99%) Apple
9 21 (2.73%) Fortinet
10 16 (2.08%) Ericsson
11 15 (1.95%) Google
12 13 (1.69%) Salesforce
13 12 (1.56%) BT
13 12 (1.56%) CheckPoint
13 12 (1.56%) F5
13 12 (1.56%) Huawei
13 12 (1.56%) Remedy
14 11 (1.43%) Meraki