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

6 months to
27 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 166 116 67
Rank change year-on-year -50 -49 +8
Contract jobs citing Telecoms 922 797 1,221
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.69% 2.41% 3.19%
As % of the General category 3.01% 3.80% 5.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 515 474 542
10th Percentile £257 £224 £243
25th Percentile £365 £365 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £470 £450 £500
Median % change year-on-year +4.44% -10.00% -
75th Percentile £550 £573 £600
90th Percentile £669 £675 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £500
% change year-on-year - -10.00% +7.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 49 49 84
10th Percentile £14.08 £14.00 £16.28
25th Percentile £16.01 £14.75 £37.50
Median hourly rate £21.00 £23.00 £64.25
Median % change year-on-year -8.70% -64.20% +42.78%
75th Percentile £34.50 £43.00 £72.50
90th Percentile £79.35 £67.70 £78.38
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.61 £20.75 £70.00
% change year-on-year -15.13% -70.36% +55.56%

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 30,582 20,973 22,309
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 55.96% 63.46% 58.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,867 13,026 13,214
10th Percentile £313 £275 £281
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 £490
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,616 1,223 1,039
10th Percentile £13.50 £13.50 £14.95
25th Percentile £16.25 £16.17 £17.35
Median hourly rate £29.01 £25.15 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +15.35% -28.14% +27.27%
75th Percentile £53.87 £47.12 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £67.00 £71.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £29.07 £21.39 £35.00
% change year-on-year +35.90% -38.89% +29.63%

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 27 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 27 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 27 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 -62 765 £475 +2.70% 1,459
UK excluding London -55 474 £450 - 911
London -32 343 £500 +7.53% 641
Work from Home -10 271 £475 -5.00% 469
South East -42 193 £470 -4.33% 274
East of England +25 72 £325 -23.53% 115
Scotland +9 62 £300 +9.09% 89
North of England -58 58 £463 +58.12% 162
South West -64 48 £494 -5.90% 83
Midlands -63 34 £475 +25.00% 153
West Midlands -66 32 £481 +26.64% 88
Yorkshire -29 31 £475 +95.88% 46
North West -60 25 £463 +48.59% 96
Wales -8 7 £200 +19.40% 17
Northern Ireland -2 6 £358 +116.67% 31
Channel Islands -3 2 £606 - 2
East Midlands -19 2 £475 +171.43% 65
North East -37 2 £298 - 22

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 22 (2.39%) Confluence
2 16 (1.74%) OpenStack
3 14 (1.52%) SharePoint
4 9 (0.98%) ArcGIS
5 8 (0.87%) Microsoft Exchange
6 4 (0.43%) Anypoint
7 3 (0.33%) Apache Airflow
8 2 (0.22%) CMS
9 1 (0.11%) IIS
9 1 (0.11%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
Applications
1 37 (4.01%) Microsoft Excel
2 28 (3.04%) MS Visio
3 27 (2.93%) Microsoft Office
4 12 (1.30%) Microsoft Project
5 9 (0.98%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 5 (0.54%) 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 23 (2.49%) SAP PSCD
2 15 (1.63%) SAP BRIM
3 12 (1.30%) SAP Hybris
4 8 (0.87%) SAP FI
5 7 (0.76%) SAP FI-CA
6 6 (0.65%) Remedy ITSM
7 5 (0.54%) NetSuite
7 5 (0.54%) Sage X3
7 5 (0.54%) Salesforce CRM
7 5 (0.54%) SAP S/4HANA
8 3 (0.33%) Remedy AR System
8 3 (0.33%) SAP ERP
9 1 (0.11%) BambooHR
9 1 (0.11%) Oracle BRM
9 1 (0.11%) Primavera
9 1 (0.11%) SAP FI/CO
9 1 (0.11%) SAP FS
9 1 (0.11%) SAP IBP
9 1 (0.11%) SAP IS-U
9 1 (0.11%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 91 (9.87%) Azure
2 89 (9.65%) AWS
3 58 (6.29%) GCP
4 20 (2.17%) GitHub
4 20 (2.17%) Microsoft 365
5 16 (1.74%) Entra ID
6 15 (1.63%) Power Platform
7 14 (1.52%) SAP Commerce Cloud
8 13 (1.41%) SaaS
9 11 (1.19%) Azure DevOps
10 10 (1.08%) Cloud Computing
10 10 (1.08%) GitHub Actions
11 7 (0.76%) dbt
11 7 (0.76%) Microsoft Purview
11 7 (0.76%) OneDrive
11 7 (0.76%) Snowflake
12 6 (0.65%) Cloud Functions
12 6 (0.65%) Miro
13 5 (0.54%) Fivetran
13 5 (0.54%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 120 (13.02%) WAN
2 95 (10.30%) 5G
3 91 (9.87%) LAN
4 89 (9.65%) MPLS
5 68 (7.38%) 4G
6 66 (7.16%) Radio Access Network
7 56 (6.07%) Firewall
8 46 (4.99%) Wi-Fi
9 38 (4.12%) SD-WAN
10 37 (4.01%) Broadband
11 33 (3.58%) DNS
12 32 (3.47%) BGP
12 32 (3.47%) VoIP
13 31 (3.36%) SDH
14 29 (3.15%) 3GPP
14 29 (3.15%) Network Security
15 28 (3.04%) TCP/IP
15 28 (3.04%) Wireshark
16 25 (2.71%) LTE
17 24 (2.60%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (1.41%) Data Warehouse
1 13 (1.41%) NoSQL
1 13 (1.41%) Power BI
2 10 (1.08%) BigQuery
2 10 (1.08%) PostgreSQL
3 9 (0.98%) GIS
4 8 (0.87%) Amazon Redshift
4 8 (0.87%) Tableau
5 7 (0.76%) Metadata
5 7 (0.76%) MongoDB
5 7 (0.76%) MySQL
5 7 (0.76%) Redis
6 4 (0.43%) SQL Server
7 3 (0.33%) Apache Cassandra
7 3 (0.33%) BusinessObjects
7 3 (0.33%) Cloud Spanner
7 3 (0.33%) Hazelcast
7 3 (0.33%) SAP BW
7 3 (0.33%) SAP Data Services
8 2 (0.22%) Tableau Desktop
Development Applications
1 46 (4.99%) JIRA
2 40 (4.34%) Git
3 23 (2.49%) GitLab
4 16 (1.74%) Jenkins
5 8 (0.87%) Selenium
6 5 (0.54%) Robot Framework
7 3 (0.33%) JMeter
7 3 (0.33%) Locust
7 3 (0.33%) TestCafe
8 2 (0.22%) Sonatype Nexus
9 1 (0.11%) Bitbucket
9 1 (0.11%) JUnit
9 1 (0.11%) Maven
9 1 (0.11%) Mockito
9 1 (0.11%) Newman
9 1 (0.11%) Rational DOORS
9 1 (0.11%) TestRail
9 1 (0.11%) Visual Studio
9 1 (0.11%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 259 (28.09%) Social Skills
2 140 (15.18%) Finance
3 114 (12.36%) Analytical Skills
4 59 (6.40%) Public Sector
5 35 (3.80%) Billing
6 34 (3.69%) Documentation Skills
7 30 (3.25%) Organisational Skills
8 28 (3.04%) Retail
9 21 (2.28%) Influencing Skills
10 19 (2.06%) Manufacturing
11 18 (1.95%) Legal
12 16 (1.74%) Marketing
13 15 (1.63%) Aerospace
14 14 (1.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 14 (1.52%) Presentation Skills
15 11 (1.19%) Banking
16 9 (0.98%) Publishing
17 7 (0.76%) Police
18 5 (0.54%) Aviation
19 4 (0.43%) Games
Job Titles
1 137 (14.86%) Architect
2 78 (8.46%) Senior
3 73 (7.92%) Lead
4 70 (7.59%) Network Engineer
5 66 (7.16%) Consultant
6 64 (6.94%) Analyst
7 57 (6.18%) Field Engineer
8 54 (5.86%) Project Manager
8 54 (5.86%) Telecoms Engineer
9 38 (4.12%) Developer
10 35 (3.80%) Designer
10 35 (3.80%) Solutions Architect
11 28 (3.04%) ServiceNow Architect
12 27 (2.93%) Telecoms Manager
13 26 (2.82%) Business Analyst
13 26 (2.82%) Enterprise Architect
14 24 (2.60%) SAP Consultant
15 22 (2.39%) Field Telecoms Engineer
16 21 (2.28%) Network Field Engineer
16 21 (2.28%) Telecoms Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 52 (5.64%) REST
2 30 (3.25%) SOAP
3 20 (2.17%) Terraform
4 17 (1.84%) Kafka
5 16 (1.74%) NETCONF
5 16 (1.74%) RESTful
5 16 (1.74%) YANG
6 14 (1.52%) HTML
7 13 (1.41%) CSS
7 13 (1.41%) Elastic Stack
7 13 (1.41%) ONVIF
8 12 (1.30%) JSON
8 12 (1.30%) XML
9 10 (1.08%) AngularJS
9 10 (1.08%) FastAPI
9 10 (1.08%) React
10 8 (0.87%) Middleware
10 8 (0.87%) OpenAPI
10 8 (0.87%) Swagger
11 7 (0.76%) 802.1X
Miscellaneous
1 54 (5.86%) Data Centre
2 46 (4.99%) Driving Licence
3 45 (4.88%) CMDB
4 43 (4.66%) Onboarding
5 32 (3.47%) Cloud Native
6 20 (2.17%) Analytical Mindset
7 19 (2.06%) Management Information System
8 18 (1.95%) Product Ownership
9 17 (1.84%) Data Protection Act
10 15 (1.63%) Video\Live Streaming
11 13 (1.41%) Hybrid Cloud
12 12 (1.30%) Data Structures
12 12 (1.30%) Self-Motivation
12 12 (1.30%) TM Forum
13 11 (1.19%) Virtual Team
14 10 (1.08%) AI Agents
14 10 (1.08%) Enterprise Software
14 10 (1.08%) Legacy Systems
14 10 (1.08%) Video Conferencing
15 9 (0.98%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 57 (6.18%) Windows
2 54 (5.86%) Linux
3 13 (1.41%) Windows 10
4 12 (1.30%) Windows Server
5 11 (1.19%) Unix
6 9 (0.98%) Mac OS
7 7 (0.76%) VMS
8 4 (0.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 3 (0.33%) Android
9 3 (0.33%) CentOS
10 2 (0.22%) Apple iOS
10 2 (0.22%) Embedded Linux
10 2 (0.22%) OpenVMS
11 1 (0.11%) Mac OS X
11 1 (0.11%) OpenWrt
11 1 (0.11%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.11%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 202 (21.91%) Stakeholder Management
2 121 (13.12%) Problem-Solving
3 120 (13.02%) Agile
4 90 (9.76%) ITIL
5 86 (9.33%) Project Delivery
6 84 (9.11%) AI
7 77 (8.35%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 76 (8.24%) Migration
9 72 (7.81%) Validation
10 70 (7.59%) CI/CD
10 70 (7.59%) Roadmaps
10 70 (7.59%) Service Management
11 69 (7.48%) Project Management
12 68 (7.38%) Continuous Improvement
13 58 (6.29%) Test Automation
14 57 (6.18%) Change Management
15 52 (5.64%) Technical Leadership
16 50 (5.42%) Decision-Making
16 50 (5.42%) ITSM
17 49 (5.31%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 86 (9.33%) Python
2 36 (3.90%) SQL
3 31 (3.36%) JavaScript
4 26 (2.82%) Bash
5 20 (2.17%) Java
6 10 (1.08%) PowerShell
7 8 (0.87%) Shell Script
8 7 (0.76%) C#
9 6 (0.65%) Apex Code
10 5 (0.54%) R
10 5 (0.54%) SOQL
11 4 (0.43%) ABAP
11 4 (0.43%) C++
11 4 (0.43%) DataWeave
11 4 (0.43%) TypeScript
12 3 (0.33%) C
13 2 (0.22%) Bicep
13 2 (0.22%) DCL
14 1 (0.11%) Go
14 1 (0.11%) Rust
Qualifications
1 164 (17.79%) Security Cleared
2 101 (10.95%) SC Cleared
3 92 (9.98%) Degree
4 75 (8.13%) Cisco Certification
5 48 (5.21%) CCNA
6 31 (3.36%) DV Cleared
7 29 (3.15%) CCNP
8 25 (2.71%) BPSS Clearance
9 23 (2.49%) Microsoft Certification
10 22 (2.39%) PMP
11 21 (2.28%) A+ Certification
12 17 (1.84%) CCIE
12 17 (1.84%) CISSP
12 17 (1.84%) Computer Science Degree
12 17 (1.84%) PMI Certification
13 13 (1.41%) Master's Degree
13 13 (1.41%) MCSA
14 12 (1.30%) JNCIE
15 10 (1.08%) CISM
16 8 (0.87%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 44 (4.77%) QA
2 24 (2.60%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 24 (2.60%) SLA
3 21 (2.28%) PMO
4 20 (2.17%) GRC
5 18 (1.95%) NCSC
6 14 (1.52%) GDPR
7 12 (1.30%) Data Quality
8 5 (0.54%) Actionable Recommendations
8 5 (0.54%) NIST
9 4 (0.43%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 3 (0.33%) Accessibility
10 3 (0.33%) Cyber Essentials
10 3 (0.33%) PCI DSS
11 2 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 1 (0.11%) EU AI Act
12 1 (0.11%) GAAP
12 1 (0.11%) ISO 22301
12 1 (0.11%) ISO 31000
12 1 (0.11%) ISO/IEC 15288
System Software
1 32 (3.47%) Docker
2 24 (2.60%) VMware Infrastructure
3 22 (2.39%) Active Directory
4 11 (1.19%) VMware NSX
5 6 (0.65%) Firmware
6 5 (0.54%) VMware ESXi
6 5 (0.54%) vSphere
7 3 (0.33%) Hyper-V
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 Machines
8 1 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 43 (4.66%) Kubernetes
2 23 (2.49%) Ansible
3 12 (1.30%) Grafana
3 12 (1.30%) Prometheus
4 8 (0.87%) Microsoft Intune
5 5 (0.54%) Jamf Pro
6 4 (0.43%) Cilium
6 4 (0.43%) Cisco Prime
6 4 (0.43%) Istio
6 4 (0.43%) Kibana
6 4 (0.43%) SolarWinds Orion
7 3 (0.33%) Check_MK
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%) AirWatch
9 1 (0.11%) FortiGate
9 1 (0.11%) SCCM
Vendors
1 128 (13.88%) Cisco
2 122 (13.23%) Microsoft
3 81 (8.79%) ServiceNow
4 63 (6.83%) Nokia
5 44 (4.77%) Salesforce
6 38 (4.12%) VMware
7 32 (3.47%) SAP
8 27 (2.93%) Ericsson
9 23 (2.49%) Juniper
10 18 (1.95%) BT
10 18 (1.95%) Fortinet
10 18 (1.95%) Google
10 18 (1.95%) MuleSoft
11 17 (1.84%) F5
12 14 (1.52%) Palo Alto
13 12 (1.30%) BMC
14 11 (1.19%) Arista
14 11 (1.19%) Splunk
15 10 (1.08%) Oracle
15 10 (1.08%) Zscaler