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 15 September 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 169 108 69
Rank change year-on-year -61 -39 +6
Contract jobs citing Telecoms 909 807 1,196
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.67% 2.49% 3.14%
As % of the General category 3.01% 3.91% 5.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 513 471 550
10th Percentile £225 £250 £225
25th Percentile £378 £366 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £470 £450 £500
Median % change year-on-year +4.44% -10.00% -
75th Percentile £550 £573 £600
90th Percentile £667 £675 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £500
% change year-on-year - -10.00% +10.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 45 48 89
10th Percentile £14.35 £14.00 £12.75
25th Percentile £16.25 £14.75 £35.00
Median hourly rate £21.00 £21.00 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year - -63.48% +9.52%
75th Percentile £50.00 £48.44 £72.50
90th Percentile £178.75 £68.93 £77.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.75 £16.00 £66.25
% change year-on-year +10.94% -75.85% +26.19%

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 30,249 20,664 22,066
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 55.59% 63.67% 57.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,774 12,794 13,287
10th Percentile £313 £275 £288
25th Percentile £419 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,472 1,190 1,117
10th Percentile £13.50 £13.50 £14.72
25th Percentile £16.38 £16.17 £17.25
Median hourly rate £30.00 £25.15 £37.28
Median % change year-on-year +19.28% -32.54% +35.56%
75th Percentile £54.06 £48.74 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £67.25 £70.39
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 £21.39 £37.28
% change year-on-year +40.25% -42.62% +43.38%

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 15 September 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 15 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Telecoms in the UK

Telecoms
Top 18 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 15 September 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 -80 750 £475 +1.06% 1,791
UK excluding London -68 457 £450 - 978
London -34 347 £507 +6.74% 895
Work from Home -25 265 £475 -5.00% 634
South East -41 195 £470 -5.05% 316
Scotland +21 64 £300 +14.29% 85
North of England -60 56 £463 +40.15% 189
East of England -1 55 £308 -17.93% 136
South West -77 49 £469 -10.67% 97
Yorkshire -15 31 £475 +95.88% 65
Midlands -67 31 £470 +23.68% 132
West Midlands -73 29 £460 +21.05% 78
North West -52 24 £463 +14.20% 113
Wales -7 8 £200 +19.40% 16
Northern Ireland +1 5 £290 +152.17% 25
Channel Islands -4 2 £606 -
East Midlands -12 2 £475 +26.67% 54
North East -38 1 - - 18

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 21 (2.31%) Confluence
2 15 (1.65%) OpenStack
3 14 (1.54%) SharePoint
4 9 (0.99%) ArcGIS
5 8 (0.88%) Microsoft Exchange
6 4 (0.44%) Anypoint
7 3 (0.33%) Apache Airflow
8 2 (0.22%) CMS
9 1 (0.11%) Camunda
9 1 (0.11%) IIS
9 1 (0.11%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
Applications
1 36 (3.96%) Microsoft Excel
2 28 (3.08%) Microsoft Office
3 25 (2.75%) MS Visio
4 12 (1.32%) Microsoft Project
5 10 (1.10%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 5 (0.55%) AutoCAD
7 3 (0.33%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 2 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
9 1 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
9 1 (0.11%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.11%) InDesign
9 1 (0.11%) MicroStation
9 1 (0.11%) Photoshop
9 1 (0.11%) Revit
9 1 (0.11%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 22 (2.42%) SAP PSCD
2 14 (1.54%) SAP BRIM
3 12 (1.32%) SAP Hybris
4 7 (0.77%) SAP FI
5 6 (0.66%) Remedy ITSM
5 6 (0.66%) SAP FI-CA
6 5 (0.55%) NetSuite
6 5 (0.55%) Sage X3
6 5 (0.55%) Salesforce CRM
6 5 (0.55%) SAP S/4HANA
7 3 (0.33%) Remedy AR System
7 3 (0.33%) SAP ERP
8 1 (0.11%) BambooHR
8 1 (0.11%) Oracle BRM
8 1 (0.11%) Primavera
8 1 (0.11%) SAP FI/CO
8 1 (0.11%) SAP FS
8 1 (0.11%) SAP IBP
8 1 (0.11%) SAP IS-U
8 1 (0.11%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 88 (9.68%) Azure
2 86 (9.46%) AWS
3 59 (6.49%) GCP
4 21 (2.31%) Microsoft 365
5 17 (1.87%) GitHub
6 16 (1.76%) Entra ID
7 14 (1.54%) Power Platform
7 14 (1.54%) SaaS
8 13 (1.43%) SAP Commerce Cloud
9 10 (1.10%) Azure DevOps
9 10 (1.10%) GitHub Actions
10 9 (0.99%) Cloud Computing
11 7 (0.77%) OneDrive
11 7 (0.77%) Snowflake
12 6 (0.66%) Cloud Functions
12 6 (0.66%) dbt
13 5 (0.55%) Figma
13 5 (0.55%) Fivetran
13 5 (0.55%) OpenShift
14 4 (0.44%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 118 (12.98%) WAN
2 93 (10.23%) 5G
3 92 (10.12%) LAN
4 85 (9.35%) MPLS
5 64 (7.04%) 4G
6 61 (6.71%) Radio Access Network
7 57 (6.27%) Firewall
8 38 (4.18%) Wi-Fi
9 36 (3.96%) SD-WAN
10 35 (3.85%) DNS
11 30 (3.30%) BGP
12 29 (3.19%) 3GPP
13 28 (3.08%) Network Security
13 28 (3.08%) SDH
13 28 (3.08%) VoIP
14 27 (2.97%) Broadband
14 27 (2.97%) TCP/IP
15 26 (2.86%) Wireshark
16 25 (2.75%) LTE
17 24 (2.64%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (1.54%) Data Warehouse
2 13 (1.43%) Power BI
3 12 (1.32%) BigQuery
3 12 (1.32%) NoSQL
4 9 (0.99%) GIS
4 9 (0.99%) PostgreSQL
5 8 (0.88%) Amazon Redshift
5 8 (0.88%) Tableau
6 6 (0.66%) MongoDB
6 6 (0.66%) MySQL
6 6 (0.66%) Redis
7 5 (0.55%) Metadata
8 4 (0.44%) Looker
8 4 (0.44%) SQL Server
9 3 (0.33%) Apache Cassandra
9 3 (0.33%) BusinessObjects
9 3 (0.33%) Cloud Spanner
9 3 (0.33%) SAP BW
9 3 (0.33%) Semantic Layer
9 3 (0.33%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 41 (4.51%) JIRA
2 31 (3.41%) Git
3 15 (1.65%) Jenkins
4 13 (1.43%) GitLab
5 7 (0.77%) Selenium
6 2 (0.22%) JMeter
6 2 (0.22%) Locust
6 2 (0.22%) Robot Framework
6 2 (0.22%) Sonatype Nexus
6 2 (0.22%) TestCafe
7 1 (0.11%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.11%) Newman
7 1 (0.11%) Rational DOORS
7 1 (0.11%) TestRail
7 1 (0.11%) Visual Studio
7 1 (0.11%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 265 (29.15%) Social Skills
2 139 (15.29%) Finance
3 115 (12.65%) Analytical Skills
4 63 (6.93%) Public Sector
5 36 (3.96%) Documentation Skills
6 35 (3.85%) Billing
7 29 (3.19%) Organisational Skills
7 29 (3.19%) Retail
8 20 (2.20%) Influencing Skills
9 19 (2.09%) Legal
9 19 (2.09%) Marketing
10 17 (1.87%) Manufacturing
11 15 (1.65%) Aerospace
12 14 (1.54%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 14 (1.54%) Presentation Skills
13 9 (0.99%) Publishing
14 7 (0.77%) Banking
14 7 (0.77%) Police
15 4 (0.44%) Games
16 3 (0.33%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 130 (14.30%) Architect
2 76 (8.36%) Senior
3 70 (7.70%) Analyst
4 68 (7.48%) Consultant
4 68 (7.48%) Lead
5 66 (7.26%) Network Engineer
6 61 (6.71%) Project Manager
7 56 (6.16%) Field Engineer
8 52 (5.72%) Telecoms Engineer
9 38 (4.18%) Designer
10 35 (3.85%) Developer
10 35 (3.85%) Solutions Architect
11 33 (3.63%) Telecoms Manager
12 29 (3.19%) ServiceNow Architect
13 28 (3.08%) Enterprise Architect
14 27 (2.97%) Business Analyst
15 23 (2.53%) Data Engineer
15 23 (2.53%) SAP Consultant
16 22 (2.42%) Telecoms Architect
17 21 (2.31%) Field Telecoms Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 53 (5.83%) REST
2 33 (3.63%) SOAP
3 20 (2.20%) Terraform
4 17 (1.87%) Kafka
5 16 (1.76%) NETCONF
5 16 (1.76%) YANG
6 14 (1.54%) RESTful
7 13 (1.43%) HTML
7 13 (1.43%) ONVIF
8 12 (1.32%) CSS
8 12 (1.32%) Elastic Stack
8 12 (1.32%) XML
9 10 (1.10%) AngularJS
9 10 (1.10%) React
10 9 (0.99%) FastAPI
11 8 (0.88%) JSON
11 8 (0.88%) Middleware
12 7 (0.77%) 802.1X
12 7 (0.77%) OpenAPI
12 7 (0.77%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 49 (5.39%) Data Centre
2 47 (5.17%) CMDB
3 46 (5.06%) Driving Licence
4 44 (4.84%) Onboarding
5 33 (3.63%) Cloud Native
6 22 (2.42%) Analytical Mindset
7 19 (2.09%) Management Information System
7 19 (2.09%) Product Ownership
8 16 (1.76%) Data Protection Act
9 15 (1.65%) Hybrid Cloud
9 15 (1.65%) Self-Motivation
9 15 (1.65%) Virtual Team
10 14 (1.54%) Video\Live Streaming
11 13 (1.43%) TM Forum
12 11 (1.21%) Video Conferencing
13 10 (1.10%) Data Structures
13 10 (1.10%) Enterprise Software
14 9 (0.99%) Algorithms
14 9 (0.99%) Social Media
15 8 (0.88%) EPoS
Operating Systems
1 53 (5.83%) Windows
2 49 (5.39%) Linux
3 14 (1.54%) Windows 10
4 12 (1.32%) Windows Server
5 11 (1.21%) Unix
6 9 (0.99%) Mac OS
7 5 (0.55%) VMS
8 3 (0.33%) Android
8 3 (0.33%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 2 (0.22%) Apple iOS
9 2 (0.22%) CentOS
9 2 (0.22%) Embedded Linux
9 2 (0.22%) OpenVMS
10 1 (0.11%) Mac OS X
10 1 (0.11%) OpenWrt
10 1 (0.11%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.11%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 205 (22.55%) Stakeholder Management
2 125 (13.75%) Agile
3 113 (12.43%) Problem-Solving
4 93 (10.23%) Project Delivery
5 88 (9.68%) ITIL
6 83 (9.13%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 80 (8.80%) AI
8 75 (8.25%) Service Management
9 74 (8.14%) Roadmaps
10 73 (8.03%) Migration
10 73 (8.03%) Project Management
11 66 (7.26%) CI/CD
11 66 (7.26%) Validation
12 64 (7.04%) Continuous Improvement
13 57 (6.27%) Decision-Making
14 55 (6.05%) Change Management
15 52 (5.72%) ITSM
16 51 (5.61%) Customer Service
17 50 (5.50%) Technical Leadership
18 49 (5.39%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 80 (8.80%) Python
2 38 (4.18%) SQL
3 31 (3.41%) JavaScript
4 25 (2.75%) Bash
5 14 (1.54%) Java
6 10 (1.10%) PowerShell
7 8 (0.88%) Apex Code
8 7 (0.77%) C#
8 7 (0.77%) R
9 6 (0.66%) Shell Script
10 5 (0.55%) SOQL
11 4 (0.44%) ABAP
11 4 (0.44%) DataWeave
11 4 (0.44%) TypeScript
12 3 (0.33%) C++
12 3 (0.33%) LookML
13 2 (0.22%) Bicep
13 2 (0.22%) C
13 2 (0.22%) DCL
14 1 (0.11%) Ada
Qualifications
1 164 (18.04%) Security Cleared
2 101 (11.11%) SC Cleared
3 91 (10.01%) Degree
4 72 (7.92%) Cisco Certification
5 47 (5.17%) CCNA
6 30 (3.30%) DV Cleared
7 27 (2.97%) CCNP
8 24 (2.64%) BPSS Clearance
8 24 (2.64%) Microsoft Certification
8 24 (2.64%) PMP
9 22 (2.42%) A+ Certification
10 19 (2.09%) Computer Science Degree
11 18 (1.98%) PMI Certification
12 15 (1.65%) CCIE
13 14 (1.54%) CISSP
14 13 (1.43%) MCSA
15 12 (1.32%) Master's Degree
16 10 (1.10%) JNCIE
17 9 (0.99%) CISM
17 9 (0.99%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 40 (4.40%) QA
2 24 (2.64%) SLA
3 23 (2.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 23 (2.53%) PMO
4 21 (2.31%) GRC
5 18 (1.98%) NCSC
6 14 (1.54%) GDPR
7 11 (1.21%) Data Quality
8 4 (0.44%) Actionable Recommendations
8 4 (0.44%) NIST
9 3 (0.33%) Accessibility
9 3 (0.33%) Cyber Essentials
9 3 (0.33%) PCI DSS
9 3 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 2 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 2 (0.22%) EU AI Act
11 1 (0.11%) ISO 31000
11 1 (0.11%) ISO/IEC 15288
11 1 (0.11%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 1 (0.11%) SOC 1
System Software
1 25 (2.75%) Docker
2 23 (2.53%) Active Directory
3 21 (2.31%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (0.88%) VMware NSX
5 5 (0.55%) VMware ESXi
5 5 (0.55%) vSphere
6 3 (0.33%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.22%) Firmware
8 1 (0.11%) Ceph
8 1 (0.11%) KVM
8 1 (0.11%) NDS
8 1 (0.11%) NetIQ eDirectory
8 1 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 43 (4.73%) Kubernetes
2 22 (2.42%) Ansible
3 11 (1.21%) Grafana
3 11 (1.21%) Prometheus
4 8 (0.88%) Microsoft Intune
5 5 (0.55%) Jamf Pro
6 4 (0.44%) Cilium
6 4 (0.44%) Cisco Prime
6 4 (0.44%) Istio
6 4 (0.44%) SolarWinds Orion
7 3 (0.33%) Check_MK
7 3 (0.33%) Kibana
7 3 (0.33%) Podman
7 3 (0.33%) vCenter Server
7 3 (0.33%) vRealize
8 2 (0.22%) NSN NetAct
8 2 (0.22%) QRadar
9 1 (0.11%) Amdocs OSS
9 1 (0.11%) FortiGate
9 1 (0.11%) SCCM
Vendors
1 124 (13.64%) Microsoft
2 122 (13.42%) Cisco
3 87 (9.57%) ServiceNow
4 62 (6.82%) Nokia
5 46 (5.06%) Salesforce
6 35 (3.85%) VMware
7 31 (3.41%) SAP
8 25 (2.75%) Ericsson
9 23 (2.53%) Juniper
10 21 (2.31%) BT
11 20 (2.20%) Google
12 19 (2.09%) F5
12 19 (2.09%) MuleSoft
13 17 (1.87%) Fortinet
14 14 (1.54%) Palo Alto
15 12 (1.32%) BMC
16 11 (1.21%) Splunk
17 10 (1.10%) Arista
17 10 (1.10%) Zscaler
18 9 (0.99%) CheckPoint