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

6 months to
22 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 167 111 68
Rank change year-on-year -56 -43 +6
Contract jobs citing Telecoms 918 796 1,201
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.68% 2.45% 3.16%
As % of the General category 3.02% 3.86% 5.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 516 467 547
10th Percentile £225 £250 £237
25th Percentile £376 £374 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £470 £450 £500
Median % change year-on-year +4.44% -10.00% -
75th Percentile £550 £571 £600
90th Percentile £669 £675 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £500
% change year-on-year - -10.00% +8.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 48 47 86
10th Percentile £14.06 £14.00 £15.45
25th Percentile £16.01 £14.75 £37.50
Median hourly rate £21.00 £21.25 £61.75
Median % change year-on-year -1.18% -65.59% +17.62%
75th Percentile £50.00 £49.38 £72.50
90th Percentile £178.75 £70.15 £78.13
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.74 £16.88 £67.50
% change year-on-year +5.10% -75.00% +50.00%

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 30,427 20,617 22,081
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 55.76% 63.48% 58.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,821 12,765 13,200
10th Percentile £313 £275 £283
25th Percentile £420 £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 £495
% change year-on-year +5.26% -4.04% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,558 1,199 1,073
10th Percentile £13.50 £13.50 £14.73
25th Percentile £16.25 £16.17 £17.25
Median hourly rate £29.78 £25.15 £35.36
Median % change year-on-year +18.41% -28.87% +28.58%
75th Percentile £54.36 £47.31 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £67.00 £71.08
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 £21.00 £35.03
% change year-on-year +42.86% -40.05% +28.79%

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 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 22 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 22 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 -67 761 £475 +2.15% 1,535
UK excluding London -61 466 £450 - 954
London -39 348 £500 +5.26% 646
Work from Home -18 269 £475 -5.00% 486
South East -36 196 £470 -2.08% 315
Scotland +13 62 £300 +20.00% 80
East of England +5 61 £325 -23.53% 117
North of England -57 58 £463 +43.97% 171
South West -66 49 £488 -7.05% 96
Yorkshire -26 32 £475 +95.88% 49
Midlands -72 32 £475 +25.00% 148
West Midlands -70 30 £476 +25.16% 80
North West -57 25 £463 +25.85% 100
Wales -4 8 £200 +19.40% 16
Northern Ireland +2 6 £358 +155.36% 25
Channel Islands -4 2 £606 - 2
East Midlands -15 2 £475 +26.67% 68
North East -35 1 - - 25

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 23 (2.51%) Confluence
2 16 (1.74%) OpenStack
3 14 (1.53%) SharePoint
4 9 (0.98%) ArcGIS
5 8 (0.87%) Microsoft Exchange
6 4 (0.44%) Anypoint
7 3 (0.33%) Apache Airflow
8 2 (0.22%) CMS
9 1 (0.11%) Camunda
9 1 (0.11%) IIS
9 1 (0.11%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
Applications
1 37 (4.03%) Microsoft Excel
2 28 (3.05%) Microsoft Office
3 27 (2.94%) MS Visio
4 12 (1.31%) Microsoft Project
5 10 (1.09%) 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 (2.51%) SAP PSCD
2 15 (1.63%) SAP BRIM
3 12 (1.31%) 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%) Dynamics CRM
9 1 (0.11%) Oracle BRM
9 1 (0.11%) Primavera
9 1 (0.11%) SAP CO
9 1 (0.11%) SAP FI/CO
9 1 (0.11%) SAP FS
9 1 (0.11%) SAP IS-U
9 1 (0.11%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 93 (10.13%) Azure
2 90 (9.80%) AWS
3 61 (6.64%) GCP
4 20 (2.18%) Microsoft 365
5 19 (2.07%) GitHub
6 16 (1.74%) Entra ID
7 15 (1.63%) Power Platform
8 14 (1.53%) SaaS
8 14 (1.53%) SAP Commerce Cloud
9 11 (1.20%) Azure DevOps
10 10 (1.09%) Cloud Computing
10 10 (1.09%) GitHub Actions
11 7 (0.76%) OneDrive
11 7 (0.76%) Snowflake
12 6 (0.65%) Cloud Functions
12 6 (0.65%) dbt
13 5 (0.54%) Figma
13 5 (0.54%) Fivetran
13 5 (0.54%) Microsoft Purview
13 5 (0.54%) Miro
Communications & Networking
1 120 (13.07%) WAN
2 96 (10.46%) 5G
3 92 (10.02%) LAN
4 87 (9.48%) MPLS
5 67 (7.30%) 4G
6 64 (6.97%) Radio Access Network
7 57 (6.21%) Firewall
8 42 (4.58%) Wi-Fi
9 37 (4.03%) SD-WAN
10 35 (3.81%) DNS
11 32 (3.49%) BGP
12 31 (3.38%) Broadband
12 31 (3.38%) VoIP
13 29 (3.16%) 3GPP
13 29 (3.16%) Network Security
13 29 (3.16%) SDH
14 28 (3.05%) TCP/IP
15 27 (2.94%) Wireshark
16 25 (2.72%) LTE
17 24 (2.61%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (1.63%) Data Warehouse
2 14 (1.53%) Power BI
3 13 (1.42%) NoSQL
4 12 (1.31%) BigQuery
5 10 (1.09%) PostgreSQL
6 9 (0.98%) GIS
7 8 (0.87%) Amazon Redshift
7 8 (0.87%) Tableau
8 7 (0.76%) MongoDB
8 7 (0.76%) MySQL
8 7 (0.76%) Redis
9 6 (0.65%) Metadata
10 4 (0.44%) Looker
10 4 (0.44%) SQL Server
11 3 (0.33%) Apache Cassandra
11 3 (0.33%) Big Data
11 3 (0.33%) BusinessObjects
11 3 (0.33%) SAP BW
11 3 (0.33%) SAP Data Services
11 3 (0.33%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 45 (4.90%) JIRA
2 36 (3.92%) Git
3 18 (1.96%) GitLab
4 16 (1.74%) Jenkins
5 8 (0.87%) 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%) Rational DOORS
8 1 (0.11%) TestRail
8 1 (0.11%) Visual Studio
8 1 (0.11%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 263 (28.65%) Social Skills
2 141 (15.36%) Finance
3 118 (12.85%) Analytical Skills
4 61 (6.64%) Public Sector
5 36 (3.92%) Billing
6 35 (3.81%) Documentation Skills
7 30 (3.27%) Organisational Skills
8 28 (3.05%) Retail
9 21 (2.29%) Influencing Skills
10 19 (2.07%) Legal
10 19 (2.07%) Marketing
11 18 (1.96%) Manufacturing
12 15 (1.63%) Aerospace
13 14 (1.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 14 (1.53%) Presentation Skills
14 9 (0.98%) Banking
14 9 (0.98%) Publishing
15 7 (0.76%) Police
16 4 (0.44%) Aviation
16 4 (0.44%) Games
Job Titles
1 132 (14.38%) Architect
2 78 (8.50%) Senior
3 72 (7.84%) Lead
4 69 (7.52%) Analyst
4 69 (7.52%) Network Engineer
5 67 (7.30%) Consultant
6 56 (6.10%) Field Engineer
7 55 (5.99%) Project Manager
8 52 (5.66%) Telecoms Engineer
9 38 (4.14%) Developer
10 37 (4.03%) Designer
11 35 (3.81%) Solutions Architect
12 30 (3.27%) Telecoms Manager
13 28 (3.05%) ServiceNow Architect
14 26 (2.83%) Business Analyst
14 26 (2.83%) Enterprise Architect
15 24 (2.61%) SAP Consultant
16 22 (2.40%) Data Engineer
17 21 (2.29%) Network Field Engineer
17 21 (2.29%) Telecoms Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 54 (5.88%) REST
2 32 (3.49%) SOAP
3 20 (2.18%) Terraform
4 18 (1.96%) Kafka
5 16 (1.74%) NETCONF
5 16 (1.74%) YANG
6 15 (1.63%) RESTful
7 14 (1.53%) HTML
8 13 (1.42%) CSS
8 13 (1.42%) Elastic Stack
8 13 (1.42%) ONVIF
9 12 (1.31%) XML
10 10 (1.09%) AngularJS
10 10 (1.09%) FastAPI
10 10 (1.09%) JSON
10 10 (1.09%) React
11 8 (0.87%) Middleware
12 7 (0.76%) Flask
12 7 (0.76%) Jinja
12 7 (0.76%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 52 (5.66%) Data Centre
2 46 (5.01%) Driving Licence
2 46 (5.01%) Onboarding
3 45 (4.90%) CMDB
4 32 (3.49%) Cloud Native
5 22 (2.40%) Analytical Mindset
6 19 (2.07%) Management Information System
6 19 (2.07%) Product Ownership
7 16 (1.74%) Data Protection Act
8 15 (1.63%) Video\Live Streaming
9 14 (1.53%) Hybrid Cloud
9 14 (1.53%) Virtual Team
10 13 (1.42%) Data Structures
10 13 (1.42%) Self-Motivation
11 12 (1.31%) TM Forum
12 10 (1.09%) Enterprise Software
12 10 (1.09%) Video Conferencing
13 9 (0.98%) Algorithms
13 9 (0.98%) Legacy Systems
13 9 (0.98%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 56 (6.10%) Windows
2 51 (5.56%) Linux
3 14 (1.53%) Windows 10
4 12 (1.31%) Windows Server
5 11 (1.20%) Unix
6 9 (0.98%) Mac OS
7 6 (0.65%) VMS
8 3 (0.33%) Android
8 3 (0.33%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 2 (0.22%) Apple iOS
9 2 (0.22%) CentOS
9 2 (0.22%) Embedded Linux
9 2 (0.22%) OpenVMS
10 1 (0.11%) Mac OS X
10 1 (0.11%) OpenWrt
10 1 (0.11%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.11%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 208 (22.66%) Stakeholder Management
2 123 (13.40%) Agile
3 121 (13.18%) Problem-Solving
4 88 (9.59%) ITIL
4 88 (9.59%) Project Delivery
5 84 (9.15%) AI
6 80 (8.71%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 76 (8.28%) Migration
8 74 (8.06%) Service Management
9 72 (7.84%) Roadmaps
9 72 (7.84%) Validation
10 70 (7.63%) CI/CD
10 70 (7.63%) Project Management
11 68 (7.41%) Continuous Improvement
12 55 (5.99%) Change Management
13 53 (5.77%) Decision-Making
13 53 (5.77%) Test Automation
14 52 (5.66%) ITSM
14 52 (5.66%) Technical Leadership
15 51 (5.56%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 86 (9.37%) Python
2 39 (4.25%) SQL
3 31 (3.38%) JavaScript
4 26 (2.83%) Bash
5 18 (1.96%) Java
6 10 (1.09%) PowerShell
7 8 (0.87%) Apex Code
8 7 (0.76%) C#
8 7 (0.76%) R
8 7 (0.76%) Shell Script
9 5 (0.54%) SOQL
10 4 (0.44%) ABAP
10 4 (0.44%) C++
10 4 (0.44%) DataWeave
10 4 (0.44%) TypeScript
11 3 (0.33%) C
11 3 (0.33%) LookML
12 2 (0.22%) Bicep
12 2 (0.22%) DCL
13 1 (0.11%) Ada
Qualifications
1 166 (18.08%) Security Cleared
2 102 (11.11%) SC Cleared
3 92 (10.02%) Degree
4 75 (8.17%) Cisco Certification
5 48 (5.23%) CCNA
6 32 (3.49%) DV Cleared
7 29 (3.16%) CCNP
8 24 (2.61%) BPSS Clearance
8 24 (2.61%) Microsoft Certification
9 23 (2.51%) PMP
10 22 (2.40%) A+ Certification
11 19 (2.07%) Computer Science Degree
12 18 (1.96%) PMI Certification
13 17 (1.85%) CCIE
14 16 (1.74%) CISSP
15 13 (1.42%) Master's Degree
15 13 (1.42%) MCSA
16 11 (1.20%) JNCIE
17 10 (1.09%) CISM
18 9 (0.98%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 41 (4.47%) QA
2 24 (2.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 24 (2.61%) SLA
3 21 (2.29%) GRC
3 21 (2.29%) PMO
4 18 (1.96%) NCSC
5 14 (1.53%) GDPR
6 12 (1.31%) Data Quality
7 5 (0.54%) Actionable Recommendations
7 5 (0.54%) NIST
8 3 (0.33%) Accessibility
8 3 (0.33%) Cyber Essentials
8 3 (0.33%) PCI DSS
8 3 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 2 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 2 (0.22%) EU AI Act
10 1 (0.11%) GAAP
10 1 (0.11%) ISO 31000
10 1 (0.11%) ISO/IEC 15288
10 1 (0.11%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 30 (3.27%) Docker
2 23 (2.51%) Active Directory
2 23 (2.51%) VMware Infrastructure
3 10 (1.09%) VMware NSX
4 5 (0.54%) VMware ESXi
4 5 (0.54%) vSphere
5 4 (0.44%) Firmware
6 3 (0.33%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.11%) Ceph
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 43 (4.68%) Kubernetes
2 23 (2.51%) Ansible
3 12 (1.31%) Grafana
3 12 (1.31%) Prometheus
4 8 (0.87%) Microsoft Intune
5 5 (0.54%) Jamf Pro
6 4 (0.44%) Cilium
6 4 (0.44%) Cisco Prime
6 4 (0.44%) Istio
6 4 (0.44%) SolarWinds Orion
7 3 (0.33%) Check_MK
7 3 (0.33%) Kibana
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 (13.94%) Cisco
2 125 (13.62%) Microsoft
3 84 (9.15%) ServiceNow
4 63 (6.86%) Nokia
5 46 (5.01%) Salesforce
6 37 (4.03%) VMware
7 32 (3.49%) SAP
8 26 (2.83%) Ericsson
9 24 (2.61%) Juniper
10 21 (2.29%) Google
11 19 (2.07%) MuleSoft
12 18 (1.96%) BT
12 18 (1.96%) F5
12 18 (1.96%) Fortinet
13 14 (1.53%) Palo Alto
14 12 (1.31%) BMC
15 11 (1.20%) Arista
15 11 (1.20%) Splunk
16 10 (1.09%) Oracle
16 10 (1.09%) Zscaler