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 22 January 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 137 65 68
Rank change year-on-year -72 +3 +15
Contract jobs citing Telecoms 790 1,082 1,305
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.09% 3.41% 3.03%
As % of the General category 3.49% 5.52% 5.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 518 510 778
10th Percentile £170 £277 £205
25th Percentile £315 £382 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% +5.26% -1.04%
75th Percentile £560 £604 £623
90th Percentile £675 £686 £714
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £500 £450
% change year-on-year -10.00% +11.11% +3.71%
Number of hourly rates quoted 61 30 38
10th Percentile £17.38 £20.75 £14.78
25th Percentile £20.50 £22.50 £24.31
Median hourly rate £23.83 £33.75 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year -29.41% -43.75% +16.50%
75th Percentile £24.50 £59.38 £76.25
90th Percentile £43.00 £75.00 £95.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.75 £48.56 £67.50
% change year-on-year -51.09% -28.06% +12.50%

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 22,609 19,593 25,374
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 59.81% 61.80% 58.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,246 11,682 16,524
10th Percentile £285 £285 £270
25th Percentile £401 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £730 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -2.56% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,393 656 1,370
10th Percentile £13.80 £15.62 £13.31
25th Percentile £16.45 £20.00 £15.41
Median hourly rate £22.99 £27.84 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year -17.41% +1.22% +10.00%
75th Percentile £46.00 £53.75 £56.37
90th Percentile £70.00 £73.66 £68.84
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.30 £26.50 £26.00
% change year-on-year -19.62% +1.92% +15.56%

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 22 January 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 22 January 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 22 January 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 -71 701 £470 -7.39% 686
UK excluding London -64 448 £450 -10.00% 652
London -35 284 £475 -11.63% 118
Work from Home -44 189 £475 -7.32% 223
South East -50 155 £475 -5.00% 232
Midlands -43 73 £400 -20.99% 99
South West -35 72 £525 -3.67% 76
North of England -54 72 £330 -30.53% 100
West Midlands -45 51 £520 +2.72% 62
East of England -29 38 £513 +13.89% 108
North West -28 35 £288 -41.62% 46
Scotland +7 25 £309 -28.41% 29
East Midlands -10 22 £158 -56.55% 36
North East -6 18 £175 -51.72% 16
Yorkshire -52 18 £481 -3.75% 40
Northern Ireland +4 12 £150 - 10
Wales -4 9 £160 -56.16% 22
Channel Islands -2 1 - -

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 16 (2.03%) Confluence
2 15 (1.90%) SharePoint
3 10 (1.27%) Appian
3 10 (1.27%) Microsoft Exchange
4 7 (0.89%) OpenStack
5 6 (0.76%) Apache Spark
6 2 (0.25%) Apache
6 2 (0.25%) CMS
6 2 (0.25%) IIS
7 1 (0.13%) Headless CMS
7 1 (0.13%) JBoss
7 1 (0.13%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 1 (0.13%) Tomcat
7 1 (0.13%) WebLogic
Applications
1 49 (6.20%) Microsoft Office
2 22 (2.78%) Microsoft Excel
3 13 (1.65%) Microsoft Project
4 12 (1.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 9 (1.14%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.51%) Autodesk Inventor
7 3 (0.38%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.25%) AutoCAD
8 2 (0.25%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.13%) FrameMaker
9 1 (0.13%) MadCap Flare
9 1 (0.13%) Trello
Business Applications
1 17 (2.15%) SAP BRIM
1 17 (2.15%) SAP Hybris
1 17 (2.15%) SAP PSCD
2 7 (0.89%) Remedy ITSM
3 4 (0.51%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 4 (0.51%) SAP ERP
4 3 (0.38%) Dynamics CRM
4 3 (0.38%) Primavera
5 2 (0.25%) Salesforce CRM
5 2 (0.25%) SAP CO
5 2 (0.25%) SAP FI
5 2 (0.25%) SAP FI/CO
5 2 (0.25%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 61 (7.72%) Azure
2 53 (6.71%) Microsoft 365
3 47 (5.95%) AWS
4 31 (3.92%) GCP
5 17 (2.15%) SAP Commerce Cloud
6 14 (1.77%) SaaS
7 13 (1.65%) GitHub
8 12 (1.52%) Power Platform
9 11 (1.39%) Dynamics 365
10 9 (1.14%) Azure DevOps
11 8 (1.01%) Entra ID
11 8 (1.01%) GitHub Actions
12 7 (0.89%) Tricentis Tosca
13 5 (0.63%) Miro
14 4 (0.51%) Power Automate
15 3 (0.38%) Asana
15 3 (0.38%) IaaS
15 3 (0.38%) Salesforce Service Cloud
15 3 (0.38%) Slack
15 3 (0.38%) Smartsheet
Communications & Networking
1 51 (6.46%) Firewall
2 47 (5.95%) WAN
3 44 (5.57%) Wireless
4 38 (4.81%) LAN
5 28 (3.54%) MPLS
6 26 (3.29%) VPN
7 25 (3.16%) 5G
7 25 (3.16%) Network Security
8 22 (2.78%) 4G
9 21 (2.66%) DNS
9 21 (2.66%) Radio Access Network
9 21 (2.66%) SD-WAN
10 19 (2.41%) Broadband
10 19 (2.41%) LTE
10 19 (2.41%) VoIP
11 18 (2.28%) BGP
12 15 (1.90%) SDH
13 14 (1.77%) Wireshark
14 13 (1.65%) 3GPP
15 12 (1.52%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (1.27%) Power BI
2 9 (1.14%) MySQL
3 6 (0.76%) Tableau
4 5 (0.63%) Oracle Database
4 5 (0.63%) SQL Server
5 4 (0.51%) Big Data
5 4 (0.51%) Data Warehouse
5 4 (0.51%) Electronic Patient Records
5 4 (0.51%) GIS
5 4 (0.51%) PostgreSQL
5 4 (0.51%) SAP BW
6 3 (0.38%) Relational Database
7 2 (0.25%) BigQuery
7 2 (0.25%) NoSQL
7 2 (0.25%) Power Query
7 2 (0.25%) RDBMS
8 1 (0.13%) Azure SQL Database
8 1 (0.13%) Looker
8 1 (0.13%) Oracle Exadata
8 1 (0.13%) Redis
Development Applications
1 29 (3.67%) JIRA
2 20 (2.53%) GitLab
3 10 (1.27%) Jenkins
4 8 (1.01%) Robot Framework
4 8 (1.01%) Selenium
5 7 (0.89%) Cucumber
5 7 (0.89%) SonarQube
6 6 (0.76%) Git
6 6 (0.76%) Postman
7 4 (0.51%) JUnit
8 3 (0.38%) Cypress.io
8 3 (0.38%) Rational DOORS
8 3 (0.38%) Storybook
9 2 (0.25%) Appium
9 2 (0.25%) CircleCI
9 2 (0.25%) JMeter
9 2 (0.25%) Maven
10 1 (0.13%) Mocha
10 1 (0.13%) Mockito
10 1 (0.13%) Rational Rhapsody
General
1 278 (35.19%) Finance
2 252 (31.90%) Public Sector
3 242 (30.63%) Social Skills
4 202 (25.57%) Marketing
5 192 (24.30%) Electronics
6 189 (23.92%) Manufacturing
7 85 (10.76%) Analytical Skills
8 35 (4.43%) Billing
9 31 (3.92%) Documentation Skills
10 21 (2.66%) Organisational Skills
11 16 (2.03%) Banking
12 12 (1.52%) Legal
13 11 (1.39%) Retail
14 8 (1.01%) Military
15 5 (0.63%) Influencing Skills
15 5 (0.63%) Law
16 4 (0.51%) General Ledger
16 4 (0.51%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 4 (0.51%) Presentation Skills
17 3 (0.38%) Health Technology
Job Titles
1 81 (10.25%) Analyst
2 79 (10.00%) Architect
3 48 (6.08%) Business Analyst
4 47 (5.95%) Project Manager
5 44 (5.57%) Senior
6 42 (5.32%) Consultant
6 42 (5.32%) IT Support
7 40 (5.06%) Lead
8 36 (4.56%) Desktop Support
8 36 (4.56%) Network Engineer
9 26 (3.29%) 2nd Line Support
10 25 (3.16%) 2nd Line Desktop Support
10 25 (3.16%) SC Cleared Desktop Support
11 23 (2.91%) Developer
11 23 (2.91%) Solutions Architect
12 21 (2.66%) SAP Consultant
12 21 (2.66%) Support Engineer
13 20 (2.53%) Migration Engineer
13 20 (2.53%) Network Specialist
14 19 (2.41%) Coordinator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (3.04%) REST
2 19 (2.41%) SOAP
3 11 (1.39%) XML
4 9 (1.14%) JSON
4 9 (1.14%) RESTful
4 9 (1.14%) SailPoint
5 8 (1.01%) 802.1X
6 7 (0.89%) Jinja
6 7 (0.89%) NETCONF
6 7 (0.89%) React
6 7 (0.89%) Web Services
7 6 (0.76%) RFC 2544
7 6 (0.76%) YANG
8 5 (0.63%) Elastic Stack
8 5 (0.63%) Node.js
8 5 (0.63%) Spring
9 4 (0.51%) .NET
9 4 (0.51%) HTML
9 4 (0.51%) Spring Boot
10 3 (0.38%) ADO
Miscellaneous
1 57 (7.22%) Data Centre
2 33 (4.18%) Driving Licence
3 29 (3.67%) Data Protection Act
4 28 (3.54%) Product Ownership
5 21 (2.66%) CMDB
6 20 (2.53%) Onboarding
7 18 (2.28%) Legacy Systems
7 18 (2.28%) NHS
8 17 (2.15%) Cloud Native
9 15 (1.90%) IoT
10 13 (1.65%) Fibre Optics
10 13 (1.65%) Mobile App
11 10 (1.27%) Self-Motivation
11 10 (1.27%) Virtual Team
12 9 (1.14%) Analytical Mindset
12 9 (1.14%) Cyber Threat
12 9 (1.14%) SCADA
13 8 (1.01%) Operational Technology
14 7 (0.89%) Management Information System
14 7 (0.89%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 42 (5.32%) Windows
2 39 (4.94%) Android
3 32 (4.05%) Mac OS
4 18 (2.28%) Windows 10
5 17 (2.15%) Linux
6 9 (1.14%) Windows Server
7 8 (1.01%) Apple iOS
8 4 (0.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 3 (0.38%) Debian
9 3 (0.38%) Ubuntu
9 3 (0.38%) Unix
9 3 (0.38%) VMS
10 1 (0.13%) CentOS
10 1 (0.13%) Oracle Linux
10 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
10 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 194 (24.56%) Business Intelligence
2 193 (24.43%) Programme Management
3 187 (23.67%) Digital Marketing
4 129 (16.33%) Agile
5 120 (15.19%) Problem-Solving
6 116 (14.68%) Stakeholder Management
7 93 (11.77%) Migration
8 77 (9.75%) Continuous Improvement
9 74 (9.37%) ITIL
10 72 (9.11%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 56 (7.09%) Logistics
12 54 (6.84%) Workflow
13 51 (6.46%) Customer Service
13 51 (6.46%) Project Management
14 46 (5.82%) Change Management
14 46 (5.82%) CI/CD
15 45 (5.70%) Service Delivery
16 44 (5.57%) DevOps
16 44 (5.57%) Roadmaps
17 41 (5.19%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 55 (6.96%) Python
2 35 (4.43%) JavaScript
3 28 (3.54%) SQL
4 16 (2.03%) Java
5 14 (1.77%) PowerShell
6 11 (1.39%) TypeScript
7 9 (1.14%) Bash
8 7 (0.89%) C
8 7 (0.89%) C++
9 5 (0.63%) C#
9 5 (0.63%) Go
10 4 (0.51%) ABAP
11 3 (0.38%) BeanShell
11 3 (0.38%) PHP
12 2 (0.25%) R
12 2 (0.25%) Shell Script
13 1 (0.13%) Groovy
13 1 (0.13%) PL/SQL
13 1 (0.13%) Scala
13 1 (0.13%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 205 (25.95%) Security Cleared
2 168 (21.27%) SC Cleared
3 58 (7.34%) Degree
4 27 (3.42%) DV Cleared
5 20 (2.53%) Cisco Certification
6 19 (2.41%) BPSS Clearance
7 14 (1.77%) CCNP
8 11 (1.39%) Computer Science Degree
8 11 (1.39%) PMP
9 9 (1.14%) ACCA
9 9 (1.14%) ITIL Certification
10 8 (1.01%) CCIE
10 8 (1.01%) CCNA
10 8 (1.01%) PMI Certification
11 7 (0.89%) CIMA
12 6 (0.76%) JNCIP
12 6 (0.76%) Master's Degree
12 6 (0.76%) Microsoft Certification
13 5 (0.63%) Azure Certification
13 5 (0.63%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 34 (4.30%) SLA
2 31 (3.92%) QA
3 20 (2.53%) PMO
4 18 (2.28%) GDPR
5 12 (1.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 11 (1.39%) Data Quality
7 9 (1.14%) GRC
8 8 (1.01%) Accessibility
9 6 (0.76%) JSP 440
10 5 (0.63%) NIST
10 5 (0.63%) RMADS
10 5 (0.63%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 4 (0.51%) NCSC
12 3 (0.38%) GAAP
12 3 (0.38%) IFRS
13 2 (0.25%) California Consumer Privacy Act
13 2 (0.25%) HIPAA
13 2 (0.25%) IEC 61508
13 2 (0.25%) ISO 26262
13 2 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
System Software
1 27 (3.42%) Active Directory
2 19 (2.41%) Docker
3 6 (0.76%) Virtual Machines
4 3 (0.38%) QEMU
4 3 (0.38%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (0.25%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.13%) Firmware
6 1 (0.13%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (0.13%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 25 (3.16%) Ansible
2 19 (2.41%) Kubernetes
3 11 (1.39%) Terraform
4 7 (0.89%) SCCM
5 5 (0.63%) Argo
5 5 (0.63%) Grafana
5 5 (0.63%) Microsoft Intune
6 3 (0.38%) Podman
6 3 (0.38%) Single Sign-On
6 3 (0.38%) vRealize
7 2 (0.25%) EMC NetWorker
7 2 (0.25%) Iperf
7 2 (0.25%) Nmap
7 2 (0.25%) Puppet
8 1 (0.13%) Cisco CUCM
8 1 (0.13%) Cisco Prime
8 1 (0.13%) HP ALM
8 1 (0.13%) Istio
8 1 (0.13%) SCOM
8 1 (0.13%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
Vendors
1 218 (27.59%) SAP
2 122 (15.44%) Cisco
3 93 (11.77%) Microsoft
4 43 (5.44%) ServiceNow
5 33 (4.18%) Juniper
5 33 (4.18%) Nokia
6 25 (3.16%) HP
7 24 (3.04%) Apple
7 24 (3.04%) Dell
8 21 (2.66%) Salesforce
9 20 (2.53%) F5
9 20 (2.53%) Remedy
10 17 (2.15%) Ericsson
10 17 (2.15%) Oracle
11 16 (2.03%) CheckPoint
12 15 (1.90%) Fortinet
13 13 (1.65%) Google
14 11 (1.39%) Meraki
14 11 (1.39%) Palo Alto
15 8 (1.01%) Actix