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

6 months to
4 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 165 104 71
Rank change year-on-year -61 -33 +4
Contract jobs citing Telecoms 907 822 1,163
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.69% 2.54% 3.05%
As % of the General category 3.06% 4.00% 5.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 509 489 546
10th Percentile £213 £263 £223
25th Percentile £380 £373 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £459 £499
Median % change year-on-year +3.60% -8.07% -0.25%
75th Percentile £563 £575 £613
90th Percentile £675 £678 £729
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £500
% change year-on-year - -10.00% +11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 47 48 94
10th Percentile £14.68 £14.00 £12.33
25th Percentile £16.25 £14.56 £33.13
Median hourly rate £21.00 £20.66 £56.25
Median % change year-on-year +1.65% -63.27% -2.17%
75th Percentile £50.00 £51.44 £72.50
90th Percentile £178.75 £68.93 £77.13
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.47 £16.00 £63.50
% change year-on-year +27.91% -74.80% +20.95%

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 29,647 20,544 21,930
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 55.27% 63.58% 57.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,516 12,745 13,465
10th Percentile £313 £275 £290
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 £498
% change year-on-year +5.26% -4.62% -0.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,299 1,164 1,171
10th Percentile £13.70 £13.47 £14.50
25th Percentile £16.77 £16.17 £17.25
Median hourly rate £30.50 £25.15 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +21.27% -32.93% +36.36%
75th Percentile £55.00 £50.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £68.75 £70.39
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.16 £22.04 £38.12
% change year-on-year +41.36% -42.18% +46.90%

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 4 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 4 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 4 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 -78 746 £488 +2.63% 1,331
UK excluding London -61 450 £450 - 766
London -38 348 £513 +7.89% 661
Work from Home -22 266 £475 -1.14% 526
South East -44 197 £470 -6.00% 241
Scotland +13 63 £300 +9.09% 61
North of England -64 57 £463 +14.20% 167
East of England +4 49 £195 -48.00% 100
South West -81 47 £469 -10.67% 78
Yorkshire -23 32 £475 +95.88% 58
Midlands -69 31 £450 +18.42% 104
West Midlands -66 30 £450 +18.42% 56
North West -53 24 £463 -2.63% 95
Wales -10 8 £200 -6.98% 10
Northern Ireland +1 5 £290 +152.17% 20
Channel Islands -2 1 £600 -
East Midlands -23 1 - - 48
North East -37 1 - - 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 18 (1.98%) Confluence
2 17 (1.87%) OpenStack
3 14 (1.54%) SharePoint
4 10 (1.10%) 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%) Apache Spark
9 1 (0.11%) Camunda
9 1 (0.11%) IIS
9 1 (0.11%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
9 1 (0.11%) Smallworld
Applications
1 36 (3.97%) Microsoft Excel
2 29 (3.20%) Microsoft Office
3 24 (2.65%) MS Visio
4 10 (1.10%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (1.10%) Microsoft Project
5 5 (0.55%) AutoCAD
6 3 (0.33%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 2 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
8 1 (0.11%) Autodesk Inventor
8 1 (0.11%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.11%) InDesign
8 1 (0.11%) MicroStation
8 1 (0.11%) Photoshop
8 1 (0.11%) Revit
8 1 (0.11%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 19 (2.09%) SAP PSCD
2 10 (1.10%) SAP BRIM
3 8 (0.88%) SAP FI
3 8 (0.88%) SAP Hybris
4 7 (0.77%) SAP FI-CA
5 6 (0.66%) Remedy ITSM
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%) Dynamics CRM
8 1 (0.11%) Oracle BRM
8 1 (0.11%) SAP CO
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%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 94 (10.36%) Azure
2 93 (10.25%) AWS
3 68 (7.50%) GCP
4 21 (2.32%) 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 10 (1.10%) Cloud Computing
8 10 (1.10%) GitHub Actions
8 10 (1.10%) SAP Commerce Cloud
9 9 (0.99%) Azure DevOps
10 8 (0.88%) dbt
11 7 (0.77%) OneDrive
11 7 (0.77%) Snowflake
12 6 (0.66%) Cloud Functions
12 6 (0.66%) Datadog
13 5 (0.55%) Figma
13 5 (0.55%) Fivetran
13 5 (0.55%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 118 (13.01%) WAN
2 92 (10.14%) LAN
3 89 (9.81%) 5G
4 85 (9.37%) MPLS
5 61 (6.73%) Radio Access Network
6 60 (6.62%) 4G
7 56 (6.17%) Firewall
8 35 (3.86%) DNS
8 35 (3.86%) SD-WAN
9 33 (3.64%) Wi-Fi
10 30 (3.31%) BGP
11 29 (3.20%) SDH
12 28 (3.09%) 3GPP
12 28 (3.09%) Network Security
12 28 (3.09%) VoIP
13 26 (2.87%) LTE
13 26 (2.87%) TCP/IP
14 24 (2.65%) VPN
14 24 (2.65%) Wireshark
15 23 (2.54%) 3G
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (1.65%) Data Warehouse
2 13 (1.43%) BigQuery
2 13 (1.43%) NoSQL
2 13 (1.43%) Power BI
3 10 (1.10%) GIS
3 10 (1.10%) PostgreSQL
4 9 (0.99%) Tableau
5 8 (0.88%) Amazon Redshift
5 8 (0.88%) Big Data
6 7 (0.77%) MongoDB
6 7 (0.77%) MySQL
7 6 (0.66%) Redis
8 5 (0.55%) Looker
8 5 (0.55%) Metadata
9 4 (0.44%) Apache Cassandra
9 4 (0.44%) SQL Server
10 3 (0.33%) BusinessObjects
10 3 (0.33%) SAP BW
10 3 (0.33%) SAP Data Services
10 3 (0.33%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 34 (3.75%) JIRA
2 28 (3.09%) Git
3 15 (1.65%) Jenkins
4 10 (1.10%) GitLab
5 7 (0.77%) Selenium
6 3 (0.33%) Robot Framework
7 2 (0.22%) JMeter
7 2 (0.22%) Locust
7 2 (0.22%) Sonatype Nexus
7 2 (0.22%) TestCafe
8 1 (0.11%) Bitbucket
8 1 (0.11%) Newman
8 1 (0.11%) Oracle Forms
8 1 (0.11%) Rational DOORS
8 1 (0.11%) TestRail
8 1 (0.11%) Visual Studio
8 1 (0.11%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 263 (29.00%) Social Skills
2 136 (14.99%) Finance
3 123 (13.56%) Analytical Skills
4 61 (6.73%) Public Sector
5 36 (3.97%) Documentation Skills
6 35 (3.86%) Billing
7 30 (3.31%) Retail
8 26 (2.87%) Organisational Skills
9 22 (2.43%) Legal
10 19 (2.09%) Marketing
11 18 (1.98%) Influencing Skills
12 16 (1.76%) Manufacturing
12 16 (1.76%) Presentation Skills
13 15 (1.65%) Aerospace
14 13 (1.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 10 (1.10%) Publishing
16 8 (0.88%) Police
17 7 (0.77%) Banking
18 4 (0.44%) Electronics
18 4 (0.44%) Games
Job Titles
1 136 (14.99%) Architect
2 80 (8.82%) Senior
3 69 (7.61%) Analyst
4 68 (7.50%) Consultant
5 66 (7.28%) Network Engineer
6 65 (7.17%) Lead
7 61 (6.73%) Project Manager
8 54 (5.95%) Field Engineer
9 52 (5.73%) Telecoms Engineer
10 42 (4.63%) Solutions Architect
11 39 (4.30%) Designer
12 35 (3.86%) Developer
13 33 (3.64%) Telecoms Manager
14 29 (3.20%) ServiceNow Architect
15 28 (3.09%) Enterprise Architect
16 25 (2.76%) Business Analyst
17 24 (2.65%) Data Engineer
18 22 (2.43%) Telecoms Architect
19 21 (2.32%) Field Telecoms Engineer
19 21 (2.32%) Network Field Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 56 (6.17%) REST
2 34 (3.75%) SOAP
3 21 (2.32%) Terraform
4 18 (1.98%) Kafka
5 15 (1.65%) Elastic Stack
5 15 (1.65%) NETCONF
5 15 (1.65%) RESTful
5 15 (1.65%) YANG
6 13 (1.43%) HTML
6 13 (1.43%) Middleware
6 13 (1.43%) ONVIF
7 12 (1.32%) CSS
7 12 (1.32%) XML
8 10 (1.10%) AngularJS
8 10 (1.10%) React
9 9 (0.99%) FastAPI
10 8 (0.88%) JSON
10 8 (0.88%) OpenAPI
10 8 (0.88%) Swagger
11 7 (0.77%) 802.1X
Miscellaneous
1 54 (5.95%) Data Centre
2 50 (5.51%) CMDB
3 45 (4.96%) Driving Licence
3 45 (4.96%) Onboarding
4 36 (3.97%) Cloud Native
5 22 (2.43%) Analytical Mindset
6 20 (2.21%) Product Ownership
7 18 (1.98%) Management Information System
8 17 (1.87%) Virtual Team
9 16 (1.76%) Data Protection Act
9 16 (1.76%) Hybrid Cloud
9 16 (1.76%) Self-Motivation
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
14 9 (0.99%) Algorithms
14 9 (0.99%) Enterprise Software
14 9 (0.99%) Private Cloud
14 9 (0.99%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 53 (5.84%) Windows
2 46 (5.07%) 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 3 (0.33%) Android
7 3 (0.33%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 3 (0.33%) VMS
8 2 (0.22%) Apple iOS
8 2 (0.22%) CentOS
8 2 (0.22%) Embedded Linux
8 2 (0.22%) OpenVMS
9 1 (0.11%) Mac OS X
9 1 (0.11%) OpenWrt
9 1 (0.11%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.11%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 197 (21.72%) Stakeholder Management
2 129 (14.22%) Agile
3 117 (12.90%) Problem-Solving
4 91 (10.03%) ITIL
4 91 (10.03%) Project Delivery
5 89 (9.81%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 81 (8.93%) AI
7 76 (8.38%) Service Management
8 75 (8.27%) Roadmaps
9 74 (8.16%) CI/CD
10 72 (7.94%) Migration
10 72 (7.94%) Project Management
11 70 (7.72%) Continuous Improvement
12 69 (7.61%) Validation
13 60 (6.62%) Decision-Making
14 57 (6.28%) CRM
15 56 (6.17%) Change Management
16 55 (6.06%) Technical Leadership
17 54 (5.95%) ITSM
18 53 (5.84%) Customer Service
Programming Languages
1 80 (8.82%) Python
2 42 (4.63%) SQL
3 32 (3.53%) JavaScript
4 24 (2.65%) Bash
5 15 (1.65%) 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%) C++
11 4 (0.44%) DataWeave
11 4 (0.44%) TypeScript
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
1 167 (18.41%) Security Cleared
2 104 (11.47%) SC Cleared
3 94 (10.36%) Degree
4 70 (7.72%) Cisco Certification
5 47 (5.18%) CCNA
6 29 (3.20%) DV Cleared
7 25 (2.76%) CCNP
7 25 (2.76%) PMP
8 24 (2.65%) Computer Science Degree
8 24 (2.65%) Microsoft Certification
9 22 (2.43%) A+ Certification
9 22 (2.43%) BPSS Clearance
10 19 (2.09%) PMI Certification
11 13 (1.43%) CCIE
11 13 (1.43%) MCSA
12 12 (1.32%) CISSP
12 12 (1.32%) Master's Degree
13 11 (1.21%) Azure Certification
14 9 (0.99%) CISM
14 9 (0.99%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (3.64%) QA
2 29 (3.20%) SLA
3 28 (3.09%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 23 (2.54%) PMO
5 21 (2.32%) GRC
6 20 (2.21%) GDPR
7 18 (1.98%) NCSC
8 11 (1.21%) Data Quality
9 9 (0.99%) NIST
10 3 (0.33%) Accessibility
10 3 (0.33%) Actionable Recommendations
10 3 (0.33%) Cyber Essentials
10 3 (0.33%) PCI DSS
10 3 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 2 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 2 (0.22%) EU AI Act
12 1 (0.11%) ISO 31000
12 1 (0.11%) ISO/IEC 15288
12 1 (0.11%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 1 (0.11%) SOC 1
System Software
1 29 (3.20%) Docker
2 23 (2.54%) Active Directory
3 21 (2.32%) 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 1 (0.11%) Ceph
7 1 (0.11%) Firmware
7 1 (0.11%) KVM
7 1 (0.11%) NDS
7 1 (0.11%) NetIQ eDirectory
7 1 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 50 (5.51%) Kubernetes
2 22 (2.43%) Ansible
3 17 (1.87%) Grafana
3 17 (1.87%) 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
7 3 (0.33%) Check_MK
7 3 (0.33%) Kibana
7 3 (0.33%) Podman
7 3 (0.33%) SolarWinds Orion
7 3 (0.33%) vCenter Server
7 3 (0.33%) vRealize
8 2 (0.22%) Amdocs OSS
8 2 (0.22%) NSN NetAct
8 2 (0.22%) QRadar
9 1 (0.11%) Proxmox
9 1 (0.11%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 123 (13.56%) Microsoft
2 121 (13.34%) Cisco
3 90 (9.92%) ServiceNow
4 62 (6.84%) Nokia
5 47 (5.18%) Salesforce
6 35 (3.86%) VMware
7 28 (3.09%) SAP
8 26 (2.87%) Google
9 25 (2.76%) Ericsson
10 22 (2.43%) Juniper
11 21 (2.32%) BT
12 19 (2.09%) F5
12 19 (2.09%) MuleSoft
13 17 (1.87%) Fortinet
14 13 (1.43%) Palo Alto
15 12 (1.32%) BMC
16 10 (1.10%) Arista
16 10 (1.10%) Huawei
16 10 (1.10%) Oracle
16 10 (1.10%) Splunk