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

6 months to
10 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 155 81 63
Rank change year-on-year -74 -18 +20
Contract jobs citing Telecoms 765 902 1,404
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.80% 3.05% 3.14%
As % of the General category 3.15% 4.87% 5.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 480 479 797
10th Percentile £170 £300 £200
25th Percentile £338 £379 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £513 £450
Median % change year-on-year -9.76% +13.89% -7.69%
75th Percentile £575 £621 £594
90th Percentile £675 £700 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £504 £450
% change year-on-year -10.63% +11.89% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 58 30 54
10th Percentile £17.66 £14.00 £12.15
25th Percentile £20.50 £21.06 £13.25
Median hourly rate £23.83 £26.92 £36.75
Median % change year-on-year -11.49% -26.76% -30.00%
75th Percentile £24.50 £59.38 £67.17
90th Percentile £44.66 £64.20 £87.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.79 £23.00 £25.00
% change year-on-year +3.42% -8.00% -52.38%

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 24,323 18,503 26,150
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 57.33% 62.59% 58.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,224 11,652 16,729
10th Percentile £300 £293 £263
25th Percentile £405 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £490
% change year-on-year - -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,477 647 1,816
10th Percentile £13.57 £15.26 £13.00
25th Percentile £17.00 £20.12 £15.37
Median hourly rate £24.03 £29.07 £25.75
Median % change year-on-year -17.34% +12.89% -20.77%
75th Percentile £55.00 £60.00 £50.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.81 £27.39 £25.00
% change year-on-year -16.71% +9.54% -7.41%

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 10 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 10 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 10 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 -78 670 £475 -7.51% 520
UK excluding London -75 434 £450 -10.63% 437
London -22 267 £475 -13.64% 95
Work from Home -56 185 £475 -7.54% 167
South East -54 154 £469 -6.20% 154
Midlands -48 75 £500 -2.44% 59
North of England -55 72 £388 -20.51% 79
South West -40 58 £525 -3.23% 46
West Midlands -55 51 £550 +7.32% 35
East of England -24 37 £513 +5.67% 68
North West -44 32 £306 -39.95% 40
Scotland +20 27 £330 -10.51% 29
East Midlands -17 24 £158 -60.63% 24
North East -2 23 £175 -51.72% 7
Yorkshire -52 16 £481 -6.10% 34
Wales +1 9 £160 -56.16% 15
Northern Ireland 0 9 £150 -72.73% 3

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%) Appian
1 10 (1.31%) SharePoint
2 9 (1.18%) Confluence
2 9 (1.18%) Microsoft Exchange
3 8 (1.05%) Apache Spark
4 5 (0.65%) OpenStack
5 4 (0.52%) Apache
5 4 (0.52%) Apache Airflow
5 4 (0.52%) IIS
6 3 (0.39%) JBoss
6 3 (0.39%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 3 (0.39%) Tomcat
6 3 (0.39%) WebLogic
7 2 (0.26%) ArcGIS
7 2 (0.26%) Oracle Spatial
8 1 (0.13%) CMS
8 1 (0.13%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 51 (6.67%) Microsoft Office
2 23 (3.01%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (1.83%) Microsoft Project
4 11 (1.44%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.92%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.52%) Autodesk Inventor
7 2 (0.26%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.26%) Trello
8 1 (0.13%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.13%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.13%) FrameMaker
8 1 (0.13%) MadCap Flare
8 1 (0.13%) MicroStation
Business Applications
1 18 (2.35%) SAP BRIM
1 18 (2.35%) SAP Hybris
1 18 (2.35%) SAP PSCD
2 10 (1.31%) Remedy ITSM
3 6 (0.78%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 3 (0.39%) BambooHR
4 3 (0.39%) Dynamics CRM
4 3 (0.39%) Primavera
5 2 (0.26%) SAP CO
5 2 (0.26%) SAP FI
5 2 (0.26%) SAP FI/CO
5 2 (0.26%) SAP S/4HANA
6 1 (0.13%) Remedy AR System
6 1 (0.13%) SAP SRM
6 1 (0.13%) SmartPlant
Cloud Services
1 72 (9.41%) Azure
2 53 (6.93%) AWS
3 50 (6.54%) Microsoft 365
4 36 (4.71%) GCP
5 18 (2.35%) SAP Commerce Cloud
6 17 (2.22%) Power Platform
7 13 (1.70%) SaaS
8 10 (1.31%) Azure DevOps
8 10 (1.31%) Dynamics 365
9 9 (1.18%) GitHub
10 7 (0.92%) GitHub Actions
11 5 (0.65%) Datadog
12 4 (0.52%) Entra ID
12 4 (0.52%) Miro
12 4 (0.52%) Slack
12 4 (0.52%) Tricentis Tosca
13 3 (0.39%) Asana
13 3 (0.39%) dbt
13 3 (0.39%) Salesforce Service Cloud
13 3 (0.39%) Smartsheet
Communications & Networking
1 47 (6.14%) WAN
2 44 (5.75%) Firewall
3 36 (4.71%) LAN
3 36 (4.71%) Wireless
4 34 (4.44%) MPLS
5 32 (4.18%) 5G
6 25 (3.27%) Network Security
6 25 (3.27%) SD-WAN
7 24 (3.14%) 4G
7 24 (3.14%) Radio Access Network
8 22 (2.88%) VPN
9 19 (2.48%) BGP
10 18 (2.35%) Broadband
10 18 (2.35%) DNS
10 18 (2.35%) LTE
11 17 (2.22%) VoIP
12 16 (2.09%) Internet
12 16 (2.09%) SDH
13 13 (1.70%) 2G
13 13 (1.70%) 3GPP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (2.09%) Power BI
2 11 (1.44%) MySQL
3 9 (1.18%) Tableau
4 8 (1.05%) Big Data
4 8 (1.05%) Data Warehouse
4 8 (1.05%) Looker
4 8 (1.05%) Oracle Database
5 6 (0.78%) GIS
5 6 (0.78%) Relational Database
5 6 (0.78%) SQL Server
6 5 (0.65%) BigQuery
7 4 (0.52%) Amazon Redshift
7 4 (0.52%) PostgreSQL
8 3 (0.39%) RDBMS
9 2 (0.26%) Data Lake
9 2 (0.26%) Electronic Patient Records
9 2 (0.26%) Metadata
9 2 (0.26%) NoSQL
10 1 (0.13%) Amazon Athena
10 1 (0.13%) Geospatial Data
Development Applications
1 24 (3.14%) JIRA
2 12 (1.57%) GitLab
3 8 (1.05%) Jenkins
4 6 (0.78%) Git
5 5 (0.65%) Robot Framework
5 5 (0.65%) Selenium
6 4 (0.52%) Cucumber
6 4 (0.52%) JUnit
6 4 (0.52%) SonarQube
7 3 (0.39%) Storybook
8 2 (0.26%) Appium
8 2 (0.26%) CircleCI
8 2 (0.26%) JMeter
8 2 (0.26%) Rational DOORS
9 1 (0.13%) Browser DevTools
9 1 (0.13%) Maven
9 1 (0.13%) Mockito
9 1 (0.13%) Oracle Forms
9 1 (0.13%) Sonatype Nexus
9 1 (0.13%) TestRail
General
1 245 (32.03%) Finance
2 225 (29.41%) Social Skills
3 206 (26.93%) Public Sector
4 164 (21.44%) Marketing
5 153 (20.00%) Electronics
6 147 (19.22%) Manufacturing
7 85 (11.11%) Analytical Skills
8 38 (4.97%) Billing
9 22 (2.88%) Organisational Skills
10 19 (2.48%) Documentation Skills
10 19 (2.48%) Legal
11 13 (1.70%) Retail
12 9 (1.18%) Influencing Skills
12 9 (1.18%) Military
13 8 (1.05%) Banking
14 6 (0.78%) Law
15 4 (0.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 4 (0.52%) Presentation Skills
16 2 (0.26%) Aviation
16 2 (0.26%) Health Technology
Job Titles
1 85 (11.11%) Architect
2 78 (10.20%) Analyst
3 48 (6.27%) Business Analyst
4 45 (5.88%) Consultant
4 45 (5.88%) Lead
5 40 (5.23%) IT Support
6 39 (5.10%) Network Engineer
7 38 (4.97%) Senior
8 35 (4.58%) Project Manager
9 34 (4.44%) Desktop Support
10 30 (3.92%) Solutions Architect
11 24 (3.14%) 2nd Line Support
11 24 (3.14%) Developer
12 23 (3.01%) 2nd Line Desktop Support
12 23 (3.01%) SC Cleared Desktop Support
13 20 (2.61%) Coordinator
13 20 (2.61%) Migration Engineer
14 19 (2.48%) IT Engineer
14 19 (2.48%) Telecoms Manager
15 18 (2.35%) SAP Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 27 (3.53%) REST
2 22 (2.88%) SOAP
3 9 (1.18%) .NET
3 9 (1.18%) Elastic Stack
4 7 (0.92%) Kafka
4 7 (0.92%) Web Services
5 6 (0.78%) Middleware
5 6 (0.78%) React
5 6 (0.78%) RESTful
5 6 (0.78%) XML
6 5 (0.65%) JSON
6 5 (0.65%) RFC 2544
7 4 (0.52%) 802.1X
7 4 (0.52%) HTML
7 4 (0.52%) Jinja
7 4 (0.52%) Node.js
7 4 (0.52%) RabbitMQ
7 4 (0.52%) SailPoint
7 4 (0.52%) Spring
7 4 (0.52%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 56 (7.32%) Data Centre
2 31 (4.05%) Data Protection Act
3 30 (3.92%) Driving Licence
4 26 (3.40%) Product Ownership
5 24 (3.14%) Onboarding
6 18 (2.35%) CMDB
7 16 (2.09%) IoT
8 14 (1.83%) NHS
9 13 (1.70%) Cloud Native
9 13 (1.70%) Legacy Systems
9 13 (1.70%) Mobile App
10 10 (1.31%) Fibre Optics
11 8 (1.05%) Analytical Mindset
11 8 (1.05%) Distributed Systems
11 8 (1.05%) Virtual Team
12 7 (0.92%) Enterprise Cloud
12 7 (0.92%) SCADA
13 6 (0.78%) Algorithms
13 6 (0.78%) NB-IoT
13 6 (0.78%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 39 (5.10%) Android
2 36 (4.71%) Windows
3 31 (4.05%) Mac OS
4 19 (2.48%) Linux
5 18 (2.35%) Windows 10
6 7 (0.92%) 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
1 158 (20.65%) Business Intelligence
2 152 (19.87%) Programme Management
3 147 (19.22%) Digital Marketing
4 118 (15.42%) Stakeholder Management
5 105 (13.73%) Agile
6 103 (13.46%) Problem-Solving
7 85 (11.11%) Continuous Improvement
8 84 (10.98%) Migration
9 64 (8.37%) ITIL
10 59 (7.71%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 58 (7.58%) Workflow
12 56 (7.32%) Logistics
13 51 (6.67%) Customer Service
14 45 (5.88%) Project Management
15 41 (5.36%) CI/CD
15 41 (5.36%) Data Protection
16 39 (5.10%) Decision-Making
16 39 (5.10%) DevOps
17 38 (4.97%) Roadmaps
18 37 (4.84%) ITSM
Programming Languages
1 51 (6.67%) Python
2 34 (4.44%) SQL
3 26 (3.40%) JavaScript
4 18 (2.35%) Java
5 10 (1.31%) PowerShell
6 9 (1.18%) Bash
7 8 (1.05%) TypeScript
8 6 (0.78%) C#
9 5 (0.65%) C++
9 5 (0.65%) Go
10 4 (0.52%) Shell Script
11 3 (0.39%) C
11 3 (0.39%) PHP
11 3 (0.39%) R
12 2 (0.26%) BeanShell
12 2 (0.26%) PL/SQL
13 1 (0.13%) Bicep
13 1 (0.13%) Cypher
13 1 (0.13%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 185 (24.18%) Security Cleared
2 158 (20.65%) SC Cleared
3 58 (7.58%) Degree
4 23 (3.01%) DV Cleared
5 19 (2.48%) BPSS Clearance
6 17 (2.22%) Cisco Certification
7 12 (1.57%) CCNP
7 12 (1.57%) PMP
8 10 (1.31%) ACCA
9 9 (1.18%) Computer Science Degree
9 9 (1.18%) ITIL Certification
9 9 (1.18%) PMI Certification
10 8 (1.05%) Azure Certification
11 7 (0.92%) CCNA
11 7 (0.92%) CIMA
12 6 (0.78%) AWS Certification
12 6 (0.78%) CCIE
12 6 (0.78%) ISTQB
12 6 (0.78%) Microsoft Certification
13 5 (0.65%) JNCIP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 32 (4.18%) SLA
2 28 (3.66%) QA
3 26 (3.40%) GDPR
4 20 (2.61%) PMO
5 17 (2.22%) Data Quality
5 17 (2.22%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 12 (1.57%) NIST
7 9 (1.18%) GRC
7 9 (1.18%) NCSC
8 7 (0.92%) RMADS
9 5 (0.65%) Accessibility
9 5 (0.65%) JSP 440
10 4 (0.52%) IFRS
10 4 (0.52%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 3 (0.39%) GAAP
12 2 (0.26%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 2 (0.26%) HIPAA
12 2 (0.26%) PCI DSS
13 1 (0.13%) Cyber Essentials
13 1 (0.13%) IFRS 9
System Software
1 19 (2.48%) Active Directory
2 17 (2.22%) 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 26 (3.40%) Kubernetes
2 15 (1.96%) Ansible
3 11 (1.44%) Grafana
4 9 (1.18%) Terraform
5 8 (1.05%) Prometheus
6 6 (0.78%) SCCM
7 5 (0.65%) Microsoft Intune
8 4 (0.52%) Argo
9 3 (0.39%) Cisco Prime
9 3 (0.39%) Iperf
9 3 (0.39%) Podman
10 2 (0.26%) Amdocs OSS
10 2 (0.26%) EMC NetWorker
10 2 (0.26%) Nmap
10 2 (0.26%) vRealize
11 1 (0.13%) Cisco CUCM
11 1 (0.13%) Data Guard
11 1 (0.13%) FortiGate
11 1 (0.13%) HAProxy
11 1 (0.13%) Kibana
Vendors
1 174 (22.75%) SAP
2 111 (14.51%) Cisco
3 90 (11.76%) Microsoft
4 47 (6.14%) ServiceNow
5 31 (4.05%) Nokia
6 27 (3.53%) Juniper
7 25 (3.27%) HP
8 24 (3.14%) Dell
8 24 (3.14%) Oracle
9 23 (3.01%) Apple
10 21 (2.75%) Fortinet
11 16 (2.09%) Ericsson
12 14 (1.83%) Salesforce
13 13 (1.70%) CheckPoint
13 13 (1.70%) F5
13 13 (1.70%) Google
14 12 (1.57%) Meraki
14 12 (1.57%) Remedy
15 11 (1.44%) Palo Alto
16 9 (1.18%) BT