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 21 July 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 173 99 67
Rank change year-on-year -74 -32 +11
Contract jobs citing Telecoms 828 836 1,266
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.57% 2.57% 3.06%
As % of the General category 2.87% 4.08% 5.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 471 487 606
10th Percentile £213 £300 £200
25th Percentile £396 £395 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year - - -3.55%
75th Percentile £572 £587 £607
90th Percentile £675 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £455 £475
% change year-on-year -1.10% -4.21% +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 44 47 107
10th Percentile £16.01 - £12.15
25th Percentile £17.70 £14.00 £14.00
Median hourly rate £22.75 £20.75 £48.56
Median % change year-on-year +9.64% -57.27% -7.50%
75th Percentile £50.00 £53.63 £72.50
90th Percentile £178.75 £65.25 £75.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.00 £15.50 £48.56
% change year-on-year +35.48% -68.08% +55.39%

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 28,884 20,489 23,664
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 54.79% 62.87% 57.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,206 12,822 14,873
10th Percentile £313 £280 £281
25th Percentile £413 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.05% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £627 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £470 £490
% change year-on-year +6.38% -4.08% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,024 1,064 1,664
10th Percentile £14.10 £13.28 £13.31
25th Percentile £18.38 £16.25 £16.06
Median hourly rate £33.00 £25.50 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +29.41% -27.14% +14.75%
75th Percentile £62.00 £51.31 £55.74
90th Percentile £81.18 £70.11 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.00 £22.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year +46.67% -35.71% +34.62%

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 21 July 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 21 July 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 21 July 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 -78 704 £475 -1.14% 645
UK excluding London -88 426 £450 -1.10% 474
London -32 306 £513 +7.95% 264
Work from Home -44 238 £478 +0.53% 235
South East -52 193 £460 -8.00% 177
North of England -52 68 £500 -2.44% 89
South West -64 47 £450 -14.29% 41
Scotland -5 45 £300 -7.69% 49
Midlands -54 40 £475 +20.63% 62
West Midlands -61 35 £460 +20.66% 39
East of England -19 33 £160 -58.71% 42
North West -49 32 £550 +4.76% 57
Yorkshire -34 31 £475 +22.58% 25
East Midlands -11 5 £500 - 23
North East -38 5 £500 - 9
Northern Ireland -3 3 £175 -51.05% 3
Wales -18 1 £500 +132.56% 21

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 13 (1.57%) Confluence
1 13 (1.57%) OpenStack
2 11 (1.33%) ArcGIS
3 7 (0.85%) Apache Airflow
3 7 (0.85%) SharePoint
4 6 (0.72%) Microsoft Exchange
5 4 (0.48%) Anypoint
5 4 (0.48%) Apache Spark
6 3 (0.36%) Appian
7 2 (0.24%) Apache
7 2 (0.24%) CMS
7 2 (0.24%) IIS
7 2 (0.24%) JBoss
7 2 (0.24%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 2 (0.24%) Oracle Spatial
7 2 (0.24%) Tomcat
7 2 (0.24%) WebLogic
8 1 (0.12%) Camunda
8 1 (0.12%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
8 1 (0.12%) Smallworld
Applications
1 26 (3.14%) Microsoft Office
2 23 (2.78%) Microsoft Excel
3 19 (2.29%) MS Visio
4 9 (1.09%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.60%) AutoCAD
6 4 (0.48%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.24%) MicroStation
8 1 (0.12%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.12%) Autodesk Inventor
8 1 (0.12%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.12%) Revit
8 1 (0.12%) SOLIDWORKS
8 1 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.12%) Trello
Business Applications
1 19 (2.29%) SAP PSCD
2 10 (1.21%) SAP BRIM
3 9 (1.09%) Remedy ITSM
3 9 (1.09%) SAP Hybris
4 7 (0.85%) SAP FI
5 6 (0.72%) SAP FI-CA
6 5 (0.60%) NetSuite
6 5 (0.60%) Sage X3
6 5 (0.60%) Salesforce CRM
7 4 (0.48%) BambooHR
7 4 (0.48%) Remedy AR System
7 4 (0.48%) SAP S/4HANA
8 3 (0.36%) SAP ERP
9 2 (0.24%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 1 (0.12%) SAP CO
10 1 (0.12%) SAP FI/CO
10 1 (0.12%) SAP IBP
10 1 (0.12%) SAP IS-U
10 1 (0.12%) SAP SRM
10 1 (0.12%) SmartPlant
Cloud Services
1 92 (11.11%) Azure
2 84 (10.14%) AWS
3 58 (7.00%) GCP
4 20 (2.42%) Power Platform
5 18 (2.17%) Microsoft 365
6 16 (1.93%) SaaS
7 13 (1.57%) Entra ID
8 11 (1.33%) GitHub
8 11 (1.33%) SAP Commerce Cloud
9 10 (1.21%) Snowflake
10 9 (1.09%) Azure DevOps
10 9 (1.09%) dbt
10 9 (1.09%) GitHub Actions
11 6 (0.72%) Datadog
11 6 (0.72%) OpenShift
11 6 (0.72%) Serverless
12 5 (0.60%) AWS Lambda
12 5 (0.60%) Cloud Functions
12 5 (0.60%) Fivetran
12 5 (0.60%) Prefect
Communications & Networking
1 92 (11.11%) WAN
2 77 (9.30%) LAN
3 70 (8.45%) MPLS
4 66 (7.97%) 5G
5 51 (6.16%) Firewall
6 46 (5.56%) 4G
7 44 (5.31%) Radio Access Network
8 33 (3.99%) SD-WAN
9 30 (3.62%) BGP
10 26 (3.14%) DNS
11 25 (3.02%) Network Security
12 24 (2.90%) VPN
13 22 (2.66%) 3G
14 21 (2.54%) SDH
14 21 (2.54%) VoIP
15 20 (2.42%) OSPF
15 20 (2.42%) Wi-Fi
16 19 (2.29%) TCP/IP
17 18 (2.17%) LTE
18 17 (2.05%) 3GPP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (2.29%) Power BI
2 17 (2.05%) Data Warehouse
3 14 (1.69%) BigQuery
4 12 (1.45%) Amazon Redshift
4 12 (1.45%) Looker
5 11 (1.33%) GIS
6 10 (1.21%) Tableau
7 7 (0.85%) Big Data
8 5 (0.60%) Relational Database
9 4 (0.48%) MySQL
9 4 (0.48%) SQL Server
10 3 (0.36%) Apache Cassandra
10 3 (0.36%) BusinessObjects
10 3 (0.36%) InfluxDB
10 3 (0.36%) NoSQL
10 3 (0.36%) Oracle Database
10 3 (0.36%) PostgreSQL
10 3 (0.36%) SAP BW
10 3 (0.36%) SAP Data Services
10 3 (0.36%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 27 (3.26%) JIRA
2 11 (1.33%) Git
3 6 (0.72%) Jenkins
4 3 (0.36%) Sonatype Nexus
5 2 (0.24%) GitLab
5 2 (0.24%) Robot Framework
6 1 (0.12%) Bitbucket
6 1 (0.12%) Oracle Forms
6 1 (0.12%) Rational DOORS
6 1 (0.12%) Selenium
6 1 (0.12%) TestRail
General
1 238 (28.74%) Social Skills
2 123 (14.86%) Finance
3 109 (13.16%) Analytical Skills
4 61 (7.37%) Public Sector
5 36 (4.35%) Billing
6 31 (3.74%) Documentation Skills
7 25 (3.02%) Retail
8 22 (2.66%) Organisational Skills
9 21 (2.54%) Legal
10 20 (2.42%) Influencing Skills
10 20 (2.42%) Marketing
11 13 (1.57%) Presentation Skills
12 10 (1.21%) Aerospace
13 8 (0.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 8 (0.97%) Police
13 8 (0.97%) Publishing
14 7 (0.85%) Manufacturing
15 6 (0.72%) Electronics
16 4 (0.48%) Military
17 3 (0.36%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 131 (15.82%) Architect
2 74 (8.94%) Senior
3 66 (7.97%) Analyst
3 66 (7.97%) Lead
4 65 (7.85%) Consultant
5 48 (5.80%) Solutions Architect
6 47 (5.68%) Project Manager
7 43 (5.19%) Network Engineer
8 39 (4.71%) Telecoms Manager
9 34 (4.11%) Designer
10 32 (3.86%) Telecoms Engineer
11 31 (3.74%) ServiceNow Architect
12 30 (3.62%) Developer
12 30 (3.62%) Field Engineer
13 26 (3.14%) Data Engineer
14 23 (2.78%) Business Analyst
14 23 (2.78%) Enterprise Architect
15 21 (2.54%) Delivery Manager
15 21 (2.54%) Telecoms Architect
16 20 (2.42%) SAP Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 50 (6.04%) REST
2 36 (4.35%) SOAP
3 13 (1.57%) Kafka
3 13 (1.57%) ONVIF
4 12 (1.45%) Middleware
4 12 (1.45%) XML
5 10 (1.21%) NETCONF
5 10 (1.21%) YANG
6 9 (1.09%) OpenAPI
6 9 (1.09%) Swagger
7 8 (0.97%) .NET
7 8 (0.97%) Elastic Stack
7 8 (0.97%) RESTful
8 7 (0.85%) JSON
9 6 (0.72%) HTML
10 5 (0.60%) 802.1X
10 5 (0.60%) AngularJS
10 5 (0.60%) CSS
10 5 (0.60%) React
10 5 (0.60%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 52 (6.28%) CMDB
2 48 (5.80%) Data Centre
3 35 (4.23%) Onboarding
4 32 (3.86%) Cloud Native
5 29 (3.50%) Driving Licence
6 19 (2.29%) Analytical Mindset
6 19 (2.29%) Data Protection Act
6 19 (2.29%) Virtual Team
7 18 (2.17%) Product Ownership
8 16 (1.93%) Management Information System
9 15 (1.81%) Hybrid Cloud
10 13 (1.57%) Video\Live Streaming
11 11 (1.33%) Distributed Systems
11 11 (1.33%) Self-Motivation
12 9 (1.09%) Private Cloud
12 9 (1.09%) TM Forum
13 8 (0.97%) EPoS
14 7 (0.85%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
14 7 (0.85%) Video Conferencing
15 6 (0.72%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 36 (4.35%) Windows
2 26 (3.14%) Linux
3 16 (1.93%) Windows 10
4 12 (1.45%) Unix
5 8 (0.97%) Windows Server
6 6 (0.72%) Mac OS
7 3 (0.36%) Android
7 3 (0.36%) Apple iOS
7 3 (0.36%) VMS
8 2 (0.24%) Embedded Linux
8 2 (0.24%) OpenVMS
8 2 (0.24%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 1 (0.12%) Mac OS X
9 1 (0.12%) Oracle Linux
9 1 (0.12%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.12%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 140 (16.91%) Stakeholder Management
2 115 (13.89%) Agile
3 112 (13.53%) Problem-Solving
4 86 (10.39%) ITIL
5 82 (9.90%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 75 (9.06%) Project Delivery
7 65 (7.85%) Continuous Improvement
8 64 (7.73%) CI/CD
8 64 (7.73%) Roadmaps
9 63 (7.61%) AI
10 61 (7.37%) Migration
10 61 (7.37%) Service Management
11 56 (6.76%) Decision-Making
12 55 (6.64%) Validation
13 53 (6.40%) Customer Service
14 52 (6.28%) CRM
14 52 (6.28%) ITSM
15 51 (6.16%) Analytics
15 51 (6.16%) Project Management
16 49 (5.92%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 66 (7.97%) Python
2 37 (4.47%) SQL
3 28 (3.38%) JavaScript
4 15 (1.81%) Java
5 10 (1.21%) C#
6 8 (0.97%) Bash
7 7 (0.85%) PowerShell
7 7 (0.85%) R
8 6 (0.72%) Apex Code
8 6 (0.72%) C++
9 4 (0.48%) ABAP
9 4 (0.48%) DataWeave
9 4 (0.48%) TypeScript
10 3 (0.36%) LookML
10 3 (0.36%) Shell Script
10 3 (0.36%) SOQL
11 2 (0.24%) C
11 2 (0.24%) DCL
11 2 (0.24%) PL/SQL
12 1 (0.12%) Ada
Qualifications
1 146 (17.63%) Security Cleared
2 99 (11.96%) SC Cleared
3 74 (8.94%) Degree
4 58 (7.00%) Cisco Certification
5 39 (4.71%) CCNA
6 25 (3.02%) CCNP
7 23 (2.78%) DV Cleared
7 23 (2.78%) Microsoft Certification
8 21 (2.54%) A+ Certification
9 18 (2.17%) Computer Science Degree
9 18 (2.17%) PMP
10 16 (1.93%) BPSS Clearance
11 14 (1.69%) PMI Certification
12 13 (1.57%) MCSA
13 11 (1.33%) CCIE
14 10 (1.21%) Azure Certification
15 9 (1.09%) AWS Certification
15 9 (1.09%) Network+ Certification
16 7 (0.85%) CISSP
17 6 (0.72%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (3.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 25 (3.02%) SLA
3 21 (2.54%) GDPR
3 21 (2.54%) GRC
3 21 (2.54%) QA
4 20 (2.42%) NCSC
5 16 (1.93%) Data Quality
6 14 (1.69%) PMO
7 11 (1.33%) NIST
8 3 (0.36%) Cyber Essentials
8 3 (0.36%) PCI DSS
8 3 (0.36%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 2 (0.24%) Actionable Recommendations
9 2 (0.24%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 2 (0.24%) RMADS
10 1 (0.12%) Accessibility
10 1 (0.12%) EU AI Act
10 1 (0.12%) ISO 31000
10 1 (0.12%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 1 (0.12%) SOC 1
System Software
1 20 (2.42%) Active Directory
2 18 (2.17%) VMware Infrastructure
3 16 (1.93%) Docker
4 8 (0.97%) VMware NSX
5 5 (0.60%) vSphere
6 4 (0.48%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (0.24%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.12%) Ceph
8 1 (0.12%) KVM
8 1 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 47 (5.68%) Kubernetes
2 23 (2.78%) Terraform
3 18 (2.17%) Ansible
4 13 (1.57%) Grafana
4 13 (1.57%) Prometheus
5 5 (0.60%) Jamf Pro
5 5 (0.60%) Microsoft Intune
6 3 (0.36%) Amdocs OSS
6 3 (0.36%) Cisco Prime
6 3 (0.36%) Iperf
6 3 (0.36%) vCenter Server
6 3 (0.36%) vRealize
7 2 (0.24%) FortiGate
7 2 (0.24%) Nmap
7 2 (0.24%) NSN NetAct
7 2 (0.24%) QRadar
8 1 (0.12%) Check_MK
8 1 (0.12%) Kibana
8 1 (0.12%) SCCM
8 1 (0.12%) SolarWinds Orion
Vendors
1 111 (13.41%) Microsoft
2 90 (10.87%) Cisco
3 84 (10.14%) ServiceNow
4 45 (5.43%) Nokia
5 38 (4.59%) Salesforce
6 29 (3.50%) VMware
7 27 (3.26%) SAP
8 25 (3.02%) Fortinet
9 24 (2.90%) BT
10 22 (2.66%) Ericsson
11 21 (2.54%) Juniper
12 19 (2.29%) F5
13 17 (2.05%) Google
13 17 (2.05%) Oracle
14 16 (1.93%) Huawei
14 16 (1.93%) MuleSoft
15 15 (1.81%) Palo Alto
16 14 (1.69%) CheckPoint
17 13 (1.57%) BMC
18 10 (1.21%) Remedy