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 13 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 168 103 70
Rank change year-on-year -65 -33 +8
Contract jobs citing Telecoms 866 842 1,154
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.62% 2.56% 2.96%
As % of the General category 2.95% 4.03% 5.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 491 495 553
10th Percentile £225 £300 £219
25th Percentile £400 £381 £358
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year - - -1.96%
75th Percentile £571 £579 £607
90th Percentile £679 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £478 £475
% change year-on-year -5.76% +0.53% +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 47 49 105
10th Percentile £15.32 - £12.15
25th Percentile £16.75 £14.00 £16.92
Median hourly rate £21.00 £21.25 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -1.18% -61.36% -15.38%
75th Percentile £50.00 £52.00 £72.50
90th Percentile £178.75 £65.25 £75.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.00 £15.50 £55.00
% change year-on-year +35.48% -71.82% -4.35%

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 29,373 20,896 22,365
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 55.05% 63.45% 57.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,418 13,029 14,038
10th Percentile £313 £278 £290
25th Percentile £415 £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 £475 £494
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.85% -1.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,225 1,136 1,378
10th Percentile £13.92 £13.25 £14.06
25th Percentile £17.25 £16.30 £17.08
Median hourly rate £32.00 £25.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +27.24% -34.02% +31.45%
75th Percentile £57.50 £50.00 £58.37
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.08 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.50 £22.14 £38.12
% change year-on-year +46.79% -41.92% +51.72%

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 13 August 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 13 August 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 13 August 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 -78 724 £475 -3.06% 1,229
UK excluding London -82 431 £450 -5.76% 744
London -38 329 £513 +7.89% 609
Work from Home -23 259 £480 -0.21% 512
South East -51 193 £465 -7.00% 234
North of England -49 60 £475 -7.32% 165
Scotland +10 53 £300 -7.69% 74
South West -73 45 £450 -14.29% 68
East of England -6 44 £190 -49.33% 66
Midlands -68 36 £478 +26.66% 103
Yorkshire -18 33 £475 +72.73% 47
West Midlands -58 33 £475 +25.00% 64
North West -53 26 £488 -7.88% 89
Wales -12 4 £500 +132.56% 29
Northern Ireland +2 3 £175 -51.05% 13
East Midlands -17 3 £500 +33.33% 39
North East -42 1 - - 33

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 18 (2.08%) Confluence
2 16 (1.85%) OpenStack
3 10 (1.15%) ArcGIS
3 10 (1.15%) SharePoint
4 8 (0.92%) Microsoft Exchange
5 7 (0.81%) Apache Airflow
6 4 (0.46%) Anypoint
7 3 (0.35%) Apache Spark
8 2 (0.23%) CMS
9 1 (0.12%) Apache
9 1 (0.12%) Camunda
9 1 (0.12%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
9 1 (0.12%) Smallworld
Applications
1 29 (3.35%) Microsoft Excel
2 27 (3.12%) Microsoft Office
3 21 (2.42%) MS Visio
4 10 (1.15%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (1.15%) Microsoft Project
5 5 (0.58%) AutoCAD
6 3 (0.35%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 2 (0.23%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.12%) Adobe Illustrator
8 1 (0.12%) Autodesk Inventor
8 1 (0.12%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.12%) InDesign
8 1 (0.12%) MicroStation
8 1 (0.12%) Photoshop
8 1 (0.12%) Revit
8 1 (0.12%) SOLIDWORKS
8 1 (0.12%) Trello
Business Applications
1 19 (2.19%) SAP PSCD
2 10 (1.15%) SAP BRIM
3 8 (0.92%) SAP FI
3 8 (0.92%) SAP Hybris
4 7 (0.81%) SAP FI-CA
5 6 (0.69%) Remedy ITSM
6 5 (0.58%) NetSuite
6 5 (0.58%) Sage X3
6 5 (0.58%) Salesforce CRM
6 5 (0.58%) SAP S/4HANA
7 4 (0.46%) BambooHR
8 3 (0.35%) Remedy AR System
8 3 (0.35%) 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 94 (10.85%) Azure
2 89 (10.28%) AWS
3 65 (7.51%) GCP
4 21 (2.42%) Microsoft 365
5 20 (2.31%) Power Platform
6 16 (1.85%) GitHub
7 15 (1.73%) Entra ID
8 14 (1.62%) SaaS
9 11 (1.27%) dbt
10 10 (1.15%) Azure DevOps
10 10 (1.15%) Cloud Computing
10 10 (1.15%) SAP Commerce Cloud
10 10 (1.15%) Snowflake
11 9 (1.04%) GitHub Actions
12 6 (0.69%) Cloud Functions
12 6 (0.69%) Datadog
12 6 (0.69%) OneDrive
12 6 (0.69%) Serverless
13 5 (0.58%) AWS Lambda
13 5 (0.58%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 99 (11.43%) WAN
2 82 (9.47%) 5G
3 80 (9.24%) LAN
4 73 (8.43%) MPLS
5 61 (7.04%) 4G
6 51 (5.89%) Radio Access Network
7 46 (5.31%) Firewall
8 33 (3.81%) DNS
9 31 (3.58%) SD-WAN
10 26 (3.00%) 3G
10 26 (3.00%) BGP
10 26 (3.00%) Wi-Fi
11 25 (2.89%) LTE
11 25 (2.89%) Network Security
12 24 (2.77%) SDH
13 23 (2.66%) TCP/IP
14 22 (2.54%) 3GPP
15 21 (2.42%) Broadband
15 21 (2.42%) VoIP
15 21 (2.42%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (2.19%) Data Warehouse
1 19 (2.19%) Power BI
2 14 (1.62%) BigQuery
3 12 (1.39%) Amazon Redshift
3 12 (1.39%) Looker
4 11 (1.27%) NoSQL
4 11 (1.27%) Tableau
5 10 (1.15%) GIS
6 8 (0.92%) Big Data
6 8 (0.92%) PostgreSQL
7 6 (0.69%) MySQL
8 5 (0.58%) Apache Cassandra
8 5 (0.58%) MongoDB
9 4 (0.46%) InfluxDB
9 4 (0.46%) SQL Server
10 3 (0.35%) Hazelcast
10 3 (0.35%) Oracle Database
10 3 (0.35%) Redis
10 3 (0.35%) Relational Database
10 3 (0.35%) SAP Data Services
Development Applications
1 31 (3.58%) JIRA
2 22 (2.54%) Git
3 12 (1.39%) Jenkins
4 6 (0.69%) GitLab
5 5 (0.58%) Selenium
6 2 (0.23%) Robot Framework
6 2 (0.23%) Sonatype Nexus
7 1 (0.12%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.12%) Oracle Forms
7 1 (0.12%) Rational DOORS
7 1 (0.12%) TestRail
7 1 (0.12%) Visual Studio
7 1 (0.12%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 244 (28.18%) Social Skills
2 135 (15.59%) Finance
3 115 (13.28%) Analytical Skills
4 60 (6.93%) Public Sector
5 37 (4.27%) Billing
6 30 (3.46%) Retail
7 29 (3.35%) Documentation Skills
8 25 (2.89%) Organisational Skills
9 24 (2.77%) Legal
10 22 (2.54%) Marketing
11 18 (2.08%) Influencing Skills
12 15 (1.73%) Aerospace
13 14 (1.62%) Presentation Skills
14 12 (1.39%) Manufacturing
15 10 (1.15%) Publishing
16 9 (1.04%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 8 (0.92%) Police
18 6 (0.69%) Electronics
19 4 (0.46%) Military
20 3 (0.35%) Banking
Job Titles
1 134 (15.47%) Architect
2 79 (9.12%) Senior
3 68 (7.85%) Consultant
4 67 (7.74%) Lead
5 61 (7.04%) Analyst
6 57 (6.58%) Project Manager
7 52 (6.00%) Network Engineer
8 46 (5.31%) Solutions Architect
9 42 (4.85%) Telecoms Engineer
10 41 (4.73%) Field Engineer
11 39 (4.50%) Designer
12 34 (3.93%) Telecoms Manager
13 32 (3.70%) Developer
14 29 (3.35%) ServiceNow Architect
15 27 (3.12%) Enterprise Architect
16 26 (3.00%) Data Engineer
17 21 (2.42%) Telecoms Architect
18 20 (2.31%) Platform Engineer
18 20 (2.31%) SAP Consultant
19 19 (2.19%) Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 53 (6.12%) REST
2 33 (3.81%) SOAP
3 18 (2.08%) Kafka
4 13 (1.50%) ONVIF
4 13 (1.50%) RESTful
4 13 (1.50%) XML
5 12 (1.39%) Elastic Stack
5 12 (1.39%) Middleware
5 12 (1.39%) NETCONF
5 12 (1.39%) YANG
6 10 (1.15%) AngularJS
6 10 (1.15%) HTML
6 10 (1.15%) React
7 9 (1.04%) CSS
7 9 (1.04%) OpenAPI
7 9 (1.04%) Swagger
8 8 (0.92%) JSON
9 7 (0.81%) 802.1X
10 6 (0.69%) Redux
10 6 (0.69%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 50 (5.77%) CMDB
2 45 (5.20%) Data Centre
3 39 (4.50%) Onboarding
4 34 (3.93%) Driving Licence
5 33 (3.81%) Cloud Native
6 21 (2.42%) Analytical Mindset
7 19 (2.19%) Virtual Team
8 18 (2.08%) Data Protection Act
8 18 (2.08%) Product Ownership
9 17 (1.96%) Hybrid Cloud
10 16 (1.85%) Management Information System
10 16 (1.85%) Self-Motivation
11 13 (1.50%) Video\Live Streaming
12 11 (1.27%) Algorithms
13 10 (1.15%) Data Structures
13 10 (1.15%) Distributed Systems
13 10 (1.15%) TM Forum
13 10 (1.15%) Video Conferencing
14 9 (1.04%) Private Cloud
15 8 (0.92%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 42 (4.85%) Windows
2 35 (4.04%) Linux
3 15 (1.73%) Windows 10
4 11 (1.27%) Unix
5 10 (1.15%) Windows Server
6 8 (0.92%) Mac OS
7 4 (0.46%) Android
8 3 (0.35%) Apple iOS
8 3 (0.35%) VMS
9 2 (0.23%) Embedded Linux
9 2 (0.23%) OpenVMS
9 2 (0.23%) 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
1 170 (19.63%) Stakeholder Management
2 126 (14.55%) Agile
3 113 (13.05%) Problem-Solving
4 86 (9.93%) ITIL
4 86 (9.93%) Project Delivery
5 82 (9.47%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 71 (8.20%) AI
6 71 (8.20%) Roadmaps
7 70 (8.08%) CI/CD
8 66 (7.62%) Migration
8 66 (7.62%) Project Management
8 66 (7.62%) Service Management
9 64 (7.39%) Continuous Improvement
10 58 (6.70%) Decision-Making
11 57 (6.58%) Validation
12 56 (6.47%) Technical Leadership
13 55 (6.35%) Change Management
13 55 (6.35%) CRM
14 53 (6.12%) Customer Service
15 51 (5.89%) ITSM
Programming Languages
1 75 (8.66%) Python
2 44 (5.08%) SQL
3 32 (3.70%) JavaScript
4 17 (1.96%) Bash
5 15 (1.73%) Java
6 9 (1.04%) C#
6 9 (1.04%) PowerShell
7 7 (0.81%) Apex Code
7 7 (0.81%) R
8 5 (0.58%) C++
9 4 (0.46%) ABAP
9 4 (0.46%) DataWeave
9 4 (0.46%) Shell Script
9 4 (0.46%) SOQL
9 4 (0.46%) TypeScript
10 3 (0.35%) LookML
11 2 (0.23%) C
11 2 (0.23%) DCL
12 1 (0.12%) Ada
12 1 (0.12%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 153 (17.67%) Security Cleared
2 100 (11.55%) SC Cleared
3 88 (10.16%) Degree
4 57 (6.58%) Cisco Certification
5 40 (4.62%) CCNA
6 24 (2.77%) Microsoft Certification
7 23 (2.66%) DV Cleared
8 22 (2.54%) A+ Certification
8 22 (2.54%) Computer Science Degree
8 22 (2.54%) PMP
9 20 (2.31%) CCNP
10 17 (1.96%) BPSS Clearance
10 17 (1.96%) PMI Certification
11 13 (1.50%) MCSA
12 10 (1.15%) Azure Certification
13 9 (1.04%) AWS Certification
13 9 (1.04%) CCIE
13 9 (1.04%) Network+ Certification
14 8 (0.92%) CISSP
14 8 (0.92%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (3.35%) SLA
2 27 (3.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 25 (2.89%) QA
4 23 (2.66%) GDPR
5 20 (2.31%) GRC
5 20 (2.31%) PMO
6 17 (1.96%) NCSC
7 14 (1.62%) Data Quality
8 9 (1.04%) NIST
9 3 (0.35%) Actionable Recommendations
9 3 (0.35%) Cyber Essentials
9 3 (0.35%) PCI DSS
9 3 (0.35%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 2 (0.23%) Accessibility
10 2 (0.23%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 2 (0.23%) EU AI Act
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 25 (2.89%) Docker
2 23 (2.66%) Active Directory
3 21 (2.42%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (0.92%) VMware NSX
5 5 (0.58%) VMware ESXi
5 5 (0.58%) vSphere
6 3 (0.35%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.12%) Ceph
7 1 (0.12%) Firmware
7 1 (0.12%) KVM
7 1 (0.12%) NDS
7 1 (0.12%) NetIQ eDirectory
7 1 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 49 (5.66%) Kubernetes
2 22 (2.54%) Terraform
3 20 (2.31%) Ansible
4 16 (1.85%) Grafana
4 16 (1.85%) Prometheus
5 7 (0.81%) Microsoft Intune
6 5 (0.58%) Jamf Pro
7 3 (0.35%) Amdocs OSS
7 3 (0.35%) Check_MK
7 3 (0.35%) Cisco Prime
7 3 (0.35%) Kibana
7 3 (0.35%) Podman
7 3 (0.35%) vCenter Server
7 3 (0.35%) vRealize
8 2 (0.23%) NSN NetAct
8 2 (0.23%) QRadar
8 2 (0.23%) SolarWinds Orion
9 1 (0.12%) AirWatch
9 1 (0.12%) FortiGate
9 1 (0.12%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 116 (13.39%) Microsoft
2 103 (11.89%) Cisco
3 88 (10.16%) ServiceNow
4 55 (6.35%) Nokia
5 44 (5.08%) Salesforce
6 35 (4.04%) VMware
7 28 (3.23%) SAP
8 24 (2.77%) Ericsson
8 24 (2.77%) Google
9 22 (2.54%) BT
10 21 (2.42%) Juniper
11 19 (2.19%) F5
12 18 (2.08%) MuleSoft
13 16 (1.85%) Fortinet
13 16 (1.85%) Huawei
14 12 (1.39%) BMC
14 12 (1.39%) Palo Alto
15 10 (1.15%) Oracle
16 9 (1.04%) CheckPoint
16 9 (1.04%) Zscaler