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

6 months to
15 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 158 79 63
Rank change year-on-year -79 -16 +19
Contract jobs citing Telecoms 768 905 1,405
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.78% 3.04% 3.16%
As % of the General category 3.11% 4.86% 5.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 478 485 799
10th Percentile £170 £304 £200
25th Percentile £333 £396 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £465 £510 £450
Median % change year-on-year -8.87% +13.33% -8.63%
75th Percentile £575 £623 £588
90th Percentile £675 £700 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £504 £450
% change year-on-year -10.63% +11.89% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 60 30 54
10th Percentile £17.71 £14.00 £12.15
25th Percentile £20.50 £21.38 £12.52
Median hourly rate £23.83 £28.75 £36.75
Median % change year-on-year -17.13% -21.77% -30.00%
75th Percentile £24.81 £60.00 £67.17
90th Percentile £50.50 £64.20 £87.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.83 £24.18 £25.00
% change year-on-year -1.47% -3.28% -52.38%

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 24,692 18,634 25,984
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 57.11% 62.69% 58.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,414 11,787 16,651
10th Percentile £300 £295 £263
25th Percentile £405 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £623 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £490
% change year-on-year - -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,516 658 1,806
10th Percentile £13.66 £15.25 £12.84
25th Percentile £17.00 £20.12 £15.38
Median hourly rate £24.33 £30.00 £25.90
Median % change year-on-year -18.92% +15.85% -24.94%
75th Percentile £56.57 £60.00 £50.00
90th Percentile £76.25 £76.25 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.92 £27.70 £25.00
% change year-on-year -17.26% +10.80% -16.67%

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 15 March 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 15 March 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 15 March 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 -82 672 £475 -7.32% 486
UK excluding London -72 434 £450 -10.63% 421
London -32 271 £475 -10.38% 133
Work from Home -54 184 £475 -6.86% 153
South East -58 156 £469 -6.67% 143
Midlands -28 76 £500 -2.44% 57
North of England -60 71 £388 -22.50% 83
South West -48 56 £525 -2.78% 43
West Midlands -49 52 £550 +7.32% 38
East of England -18 37 £475 -2.06% 61
North West -44 30 £303 -40.69% 36
Scotland +21 27 £330 -18.52% 30
East Midlands -15 24 £158 -74.80% 19
North East -1 23 £175 -51.72% 10
Yorkshire -50 17 £481 -8.33% 42
Northern Ireland +1 9 £150 -72.73% 2
Wales -8 9 £160 -56.16% 15

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 10 (1.30%) SharePoint
2 9 (1.17%) Apache Spark
2 9 (1.17%) Appian
2 9 (1.17%) Microsoft Exchange
3 8 (1.04%) Confluence
4 7 (0.91%) OpenStack
5 4 (0.52%) Apache
5 4 (0.52%) Apache Airflow
5 4 (0.52%) IIS
6 3 (0.39%) ArcGIS
6 3 (0.39%) JBoss
6 3 (0.39%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 3 (0.39%) Tomcat
6 3 (0.39%) WebLogic
7 2 (0.26%) Oracle Spatial
8 1 (0.13%) CMS
8 1 (0.13%) Headless CMS
8 1 (0.13%) Smallworld
Applications
1 52 (6.77%) Microsoft Office
2 24 (3.13%) Microsoft Excel
3 13 (1.69%) Microsoft Project
4 11 (1.43%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.91%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.52%) Autodesk Inventor
7 2 (0.26%) MicroStation
7 2 (0.26%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.26%) Trello
8 1 (0.13%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.13%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.13%) FrameMaker
8 1 (0.13%) MadCap Flare
Business Applications
1 17 (2.21%) SAP PSCD
2 16 (2.08%) SAP BRIM
2 16 (2.08%) SAP Hybris
3 10 (1.30%) Remedy ITSM
4 6 (0.78%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 3 (0.39%) BambooHR
5 3 (0.39%) SAP FI
6 2 (0.26%) Dynamics CRM
6 2 (0.26%) Primavera
6 2 (0.26%) SAP CO
6 2 (0.26%) SAP FI/CO
6 2 (0.26%) SAP S/4HANA
7 1 (0.13%) Remedy AR System
7 1 (0.13%) SAP FI-CA
7 1 (0.13%) SAP SRM
7 1 (0.13%) SmartPlant
Cloud Services
1 75 (9.77%) Azure
2 57 (7.42%) AWS
3 49 (6.38%) Microsoft 365
4 41 (5.34%) GCP
5 18 (2.34%) Power Platform
6 17 (2.21%) SAP Commerce Cloud
7 13 (1.69%) SaaS
8 10 (1.30%) Azure DevOps
9 9 (1.17%) Dynamics 365
9 9 (1.17%) GitHub
10 7 (0.91%) GitHub Actions
11 5 (0.65%) Datadog
11 5 (0.65%) dbt
12 4 (0.52%) Entra ID
12 4 (0.52%) Miro
12 4 (0.52%) Slack
13 3 (0.39%) Salesforce Service Cloud
13 3 (0.39%) Serverless
13 3 (0.39%) Snowflake
13 3 (0.39%) Tricentis Tosca
Communications & Networking
1 49 (6.38%) WAN
2 42 (5.47%) Firewall
3 37 (4.82%) LAN
3 37 (4.82%) MPLS
4 35 (4.56%) 5G
4 35 (4.56%) Wireless
5 27 (3.52%) Radio Access Network
5 27 (3.52%) SD-WAN
6 26 (3.39%) Network Security
7 25 (3.26%) 4G
8 21 (2.73%) VPN
9 20 (2.60%) BGP
9 20 (2.60%) LTE
10 19 (2.47%) Internet
11 18 (2.34%) Broadband
12 17 (2.21%) DNS
12 17 (2.21%) SDH
12 17 (2.21%) VoIP
13 15 (1.95%) 3GPP
14 13 (1.69%) 2G
Database & Business Intelligence
1 17 (2.21%) Power BI
2 12 (1.56%) MySQL
3 10 (1.30%) Data Warehouse
3 10 (1.30%) Tableau
4 9 (1.17%) Looker
5 8 (1.04%) Big Data
5 8 (1.04%) Oracle Database
6 7 (0.91%) GIS
6 7 (0.91%) Relational Database
7 6 (0.78%) BigQuery
7 6 (0.78%) SQL Server
8 5 (0.65%) PostgreSQL
9 4 (0.52%) Amazon Redshift
10 3 (0.39%) Metadata
10 3 (0.39%) NoSQL
10 3 (0.39%) RDBMS
11 2 (0.26%) Apache Cassandra
11 2 (0.26%) Flink
11 2 (0.26%) InfluxDB
11 2 (0.26%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 23 (2.99%) JIRA
2 10 (1.30%) GitLab
3 8 (1.04%) Jenkins
4 6 (0.78%) Git
5 5 (0.65%) Robot Framework
6 4 (0.52%) JUnit
6 4 (0.52%) Selenium
7 3 (0.39%) Cucumber
7 3 (0.39%) SonarQube
7 3 (0.39%) Storybook
8 2 (0.26%) Appium
8 2 (0.26%) CircleCI
8 2 (0.26%) JMeter
8 2 (0.26%) Rational DOORS
9 1 (0.13%) Browser DevTools
9 1 (0.13%) Maven
9 1 (0.13%) Mockito
9 1 (0.13%) Oracle Forms
9 1 (0.13%) Sonatype Nexus
9 1 (0.13%) TestRail
General
1 240 (31.25%) Finance
2 223 (29.04%) Social Skills
3 202 (26.30%) Public Sector
4 159 (20.70%) Marketing
5 150 (19.53%) Electronics
6 144 (18.75%) Manufacturing
7 87 (11.33%) Analytical Skills
8 40 (5.21%) Billing
9 21 (2.73%) Organisational Skills
10 19 (2.47%) Legal
11 18 (2.34%) Documentation Skills
12 13 (1.69%) Retail
13 10 (1.30%) Military
14 9 (1.17%) Influencing Skills
15 8 (1.04%) Banking
16 6 (0.78%) Law
17 5 (0.65%) Presentation Skills
18 4 (0.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 2 (0.26%) Aviation
19 2 (0.26%) Health Technology
Job Titles
1 88 (11.46%) Architect
2 74 (9.64%) Analyst
3 45 (5.86%) Business Analyst
3 45 (5.86%) Consultant
3 45 (5.86%) Lead
4 42 (5.47%) Senior
5 40 (5.21%) IT Support
6 37 (4.82%) Network Engineer
7 36 (4.69%) Project Manager
8 34 (4.43%) Desktop Support
9 31 (4.04%) Solutions Architect
10 24 (3.13%) 2nd Line Support
11 23 (2.99%) 2nd Line Desktop Support
11 23 (2.99%) Developer
11 23 (2.99%) SC Cleared Desktop Support
12 20 (2.60%) Coordinator
12 20 (2.60%) Migration Engineer
12 20 (2.60%) Telecoms Manager
13 19 (2.47%) IT Engineer
14 18 (2.34%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 29 (3.78%) REST
2 22 (2.86%) SOAP
3 8 (1.04%) .NET
3 8 (1.04%) Elastic Stack
3 8 (1.04%) Kafka
4 7 (0.91%) RESTful
5 6 (0.78%) Middleware
5 6 (0.78%) Web Services
6 5 (0.65%) RabbitMQ
6 5 (0.65%) React
6 5 (0.65%) XML
7 4 (0.52%) HTML
7 4 (0.52%) JSON
7 4 (0.52%) Node.js
7 4 (0.52%) RFC 2544
7 4 (0.52%) Spring
7 4 (0.52%) Spring Boot
8 3 (0.39%) ADO
8 3 (0.39%) CSS
8 3 (0.39%) Jinja
Miscellaneous
1 56 (7.29%) Data Centre
2 31 (4.04%) Data Protection Act
2 31 (4.04%) Driving Licence
3 26 (3.39%) Product Ownership
4 22 (2.86%) Onboarding
5 19 (2.47%) CMDB
6 17 (2.21%) IoT
7 16 (2.08%) Cloud Native
8 14 (1.82%) NHS
9 13 (1.69%) Mobile App
10 12 (1.56%) Legacy Systems
11 9 (1.17%) Distributed Systems
11 9 (1.17%) Fibre Optics
11 9 (1.17%) Virtual Team
12 7 (0.91%) Analytical Mindset
12 7 (0.91%) Enterprise Cloud
12 7 (0.91%) SCADA
13 6 (0.78%) Algorithms
13 6 (0.78%) Management Information System
13 6 (0.78%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 39 (5.08%) Android
2 36 (4.69%) Windows
3 31 (4.04%) Mac OS
4 19 (2.47%) Linux
5 18 (2.34%) Windows 10
6 7 (0.91%) Unix
7 6 (0.78%) Apple iOS
8 5 (0.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 5 (0.65%) Windows Server
9 3 (0.39%) Debian
9 3 (0.39%) Ubuntu
9 3 (0.39%) VMS
10 2 (0.26%) Oracle Linux
11 1 (0.13%) CentOS
11 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 157 (20.44%) Business Intelligence
2 148 (19.27%) Programme Management
3 143 (18.62%) Digital Marketing
4 114 (14.84%) Stakeholder Management
5 108 (14.06%) Agile
6 106 (13.80%) Problem-Solving
7 85 (11.07%) Migration
8 82 (10.68%) Continuous Improvement
9 66 (8.59%) ITIL
10 63 (8.20%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 58 (7.55%) Workflow
12 56 (7.29%) Logistics
13 50 (6.51%) Customer Service
13 50 (6.51%) Project Management
14 42 (5.47%) CI/CD
14 42 (5.47%) Data Protection
15 41 (5.34%) Decision-Making
16 40 (5.21%) DevOps
16 40 (5.21%) Roadmaps
17 39 (5.08%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 52 (6.77%) Python
2 38 (4.95%) SQL
3 26 (3.39%) JavaScript
4 19 (2.47%) Java
5 10 (1.30%) PowerShell
6 9 (1.17%) Bash
7 7 (0.91%) TypeScript
8 6 (0.78%) C++
9 5 (0.65%) Go
10 4 (0.52%) C#
10 4 (0.52%) Shell Script
11 3 (0.39%) C
11 3 (0.39%) R
12 2 (0.26%) BeanShell
12 2 (0.26%) PHP
12 2 (0.26%) PL/SQL
13 1 (0.13%) Bicep
13 1 (0.13%) Cypher
13 1 (0.13%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 186 (24.22%) Security Cleared
2 157 (20.44%) SC Cleared
3 63 (8.20%) Degree
4 23 (2.99%) DV Cleared
5 20 (2.60%) BPSS Clearance
6 16 (2.08%) Cisco Certification
7 13 (1.69%) PMP
8 11 (1.43%) CCNP
8 11 (1.43%) Computer Science Degree
8 11 (1.43%) ITIL Certification
9 10 (1.30%) ACCA
9 10 (1.30%) PMI Certification
10 9 (1.17%) Azure Certification
11 7 (0.91%) AWS Certification
11 7 (0.91%) CIMA
12 6 (0.78%) CCIE
12 6 (0.78%) CCNA
12 6 (0.78%) ISTQB
12 6 (0.78%) Microsoft Certification
13 5 (0.65%) JNCIP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 32 (4.17%) SLA
2 26 (3.39%) GDPR
2 26 (3.39%) QA
3 20 (2.60%) PMO
4 18 (2.34%) Data Quality
5 17 (2.21%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 12 (1.56%) NIST
7 10 (1.30%) GRC
8 9 (1.17%) NCSC
9 7 (0.91%) RMADS
10 5 (0.65%) Accessibility
10 5 (0.65%) JSP 440
11 4 (0.52%) IFRS
11 4 (0.52%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 3 (0.39%) GAAP
13 2 (0.26%) California Consumer Privacy Act
13 2 (0.26%) HIPAA
13 2 (0.26%) PCI DSS
14 1 (0.13%) Cyber Essentials
14 1 (0.13%) IFRS 9
System Software
1 19 (2.47%) Active Directory
2 16 (2.08%) Docker
3 3 (0.39%) QEMU
4 2 (0.26%) VMware Infrastructure
5 1 (0.13%) Firmware
5 1 (0.13%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 27 (3.52%) Kubernetes
2 15 (1.95%) Ansible
3 12 (1.56%) Grafana
4 10 (1.30%) Terraform
5 9 (1.17%) Prometheus
6 6 (0.78%) SCCM
7 5 (0.65%) Microsoft Intune
8 4 (0.52%) Argo
9 3 (0.39%) Amdocs OSS
9 3 (0.39%) Cisco Prime
9 3 (0.39%) Iperf
9 3 (0.39%) Podman
10 2 (0.26%) EMC NetWorker
10 2 (0.26%) Nmap
10 2 (0.26%) vRealize
11 1 (0.13%) Consul
11 1 (0.13%) Failover Clustering
11 1 (0.13%) Fluentd
11 1 (0.13%) Kibana
11 1 (0.13%) Rancher
Vendors
1 168 (21.88%) SAP
2 109 (14.19%) Cisco
3 89 (11.59%) Microsoft
4 48 (6.25%) ServiceNow
5 34 (4.43%) Nokia
6 26 (3.39%) Juniper
7 25 (3.26%) HP
7 25 (3.26%) Oracle
8 24 (3.13%) Dell
9 23 (2.99%) Apple
10 21 (2.73%) Fortinet
11 18 (2.34%) Ericsson
12 14 (1.82%) Google
13 13 (1.69%) Salesforce
14 12 (1.56%) CheckPoint
14 12 (1.56%) F5
14 12 (1.56%) Huawei
14 12 (1.56%) Meraki
14 12 (1.56%) Remedy
15 11 (1.43%) Palo Alto