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 1 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 127 60 71
Rank change year-on-year -67 +11 +14
Contract jobs citing Telecoms 809 1,251 1,346
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.26% 3.48% 2.95%
As % of the General category 3.64% 5.81% 4.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 527 577 864
10th Percentile £170 £265 £263
25th Percentile £325 £394 £391
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% - +4.17%
75th Percentile £575 £613 £623
90th Percentile £675 £693 £712
UK excluding London median daily rate £445 £500 £450
% change year-on-year -11.00% +11.11% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 67 46 33
10th Percentile £14.75 £21.13 £14.22
25th Percentile £17.44 £24.26 £24.25
Median hourly rate £22.00 £49.28 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -55.36% -6.13% +5.00%
75th Percentile £25.00 £73.44 £80.00
90th Percentile £60.30 £75.63 £88.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.00 £49.28 £63.75
% change year-on-year -55.36% -22.70% +15.91%

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 common skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for common skills 22,251 21,546 27,208
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 62.27% 59.88% 59.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,958 12,764 18,053
10th Percentile £275 £293 £281
25th Percentile £400 £413 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £758 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -2.56% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,425 795 1,123
10th Percentile £13.80 £15.20 £14.25
25th Percentile £16.55 £18.00 £17.00
Median hourly rate £24.00 £28.00 £31.76
Median % change year-on-year -14.29% -11.84% +27.04%
75th Percentile £45.46 £53.75 £58.75
90th Percentile £70.00 £70.15 £70.66
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.01 £26.50 £30.00
% change year-on-year -16.96% -11.67% +36.12%

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 1 December 2025.

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 1 December 2025.

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 1 December 2025. 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 -69 704 £463 -7.50% 625
UK excluding London -62 463 £445 -11.00% 579
London -32 274 £450 -14.29% 165
Work from Home -59 195 £500 - 262
South East -36 172 £500 -1.48% 231
South West -30 79 £550 +4.76% 81
Midlands -38 76 £380 -18.50% 93
North of England -40 61 £275 -32.10% 85
West Midlands -32 59 £438 -6.91% 70
North West -20 34 £225 -44.10% 49
East of England -34 32 £475 +8.57% 54
Scotland +12 30 £281 -31.82% 42
East Midlands -5 17 £158 -10.00% 22
Yorkshire -37 17 £365 -27.00% 26
Northern Ireland 0 11 £150 -18.92% 5
Wales -1 10 £160 -56.16% 13
North East -8 9 £175 -50.00% 10
Channel Islands -7 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 (1.98%) SharePoint
2 15 (1.85%) Confluence
3 12 (1.48%) Microsoft Exchange
4 11 (1.36%) Apache Spark
5 10 (1.24%) OpenStack
6 7 (0.87%) Appian
7 4 (0.49%) Apache Airflow
8 3 (0.37%) CMS
9 2 (0.25%) Apache
9 2 (0.25%) Smallworld
10 1 (0.12%) Drupal
10 1 (0.12%) Headless CMS
10 1 (0.12%) IIS
10 1 (0.12%) Jupyter
Applications
1 49 (6.06%) Microsoft Office
2 27 (3.34%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (1.85%) Microsoft Project
4 13 (1.61%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 9 (1.11%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.49%) Autodesk Inventor
7 3 (0.37%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.25%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.12%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.12%) AutoCAD
9 1 (0.12%) Sketch
9 1 (0.12%) Trello
Business Applications
1 13 (1.61%) SAP BRIM
1 13 (1.61%) SAP Hybris
1 13 (1.61%) SAP PSCD
2 5 (0.62%) Endur
3 4 (0.49%) Primavera
3 4 (0.49%) SAP ERP
4 2 (0.25%) Dynamics CRM
4 2 (0.25%) Oracle Assets
4 2 (0.25%) Oracle EBS
4 2 (0.25%) Oracle EBS R12
4 2 (0.25%) Oracle ERP
4 2 (0.25%) Remedy ITSM
4 2 (0.25%) Salesforce CRM
4 2 (0.25%) SAP CO
4 2 (0.25%) SAP FI
4 2 (0.25%) SAP FI/CO
4 2 (0.25%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 74 (9.15%) Azure
2 64 (7.91%) AWS
3 57 (7.05%) Microsoft 365
4 43 (5.32%) GCP
5 29 (3.58%) SaaS
6 21 (2.60%) Power Platform
7 13 (1.61%) SAP Commerce Cloud
8 12 (1.48%) GitHub
9 10 (1.24%) Dynamics 365
10 9 (1.11%) Entra ID
11 8 (0.99%) Azure DevOps
11 8 (0.99%) GitHub Actions
12 7 (0.87%) Miro
12 7 (0.87%) Tricentis Tosca
13 6 (0.74%) IaaS
14 5 (0.62%) Cloud Computing
14 5 (0.62%) OpenShift
15 4 (0.49%) dbt
15 4 (0.49%) PaaS
15 4 (0.49%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 56 (6.92%) Firewall
2 52 (6.43%) WAN
3 49 (6.06%) LAN
3 49 (6.06%) Wireless
4 30 (3.71%) VPN
5 26 (3.21%) 5G
5 26 (3.21%) DNS
5 26 (3.21%) SD-WAN
6 25 (3.09%) 4G
7 24 (2.97%) Broadband
7 24 (2.97%) Radio Access Network
8 21 (2.60%) MPLS
9 20 (2.47%) Wi-Fi
10 19 (2.35%) Network Security
11 18 (2.22%) BGP
11 18 (2.22%) VoIP
11 18 (2.22%) Wireshark
12 16 (1.98%) LTE
13 13 (1.61%) 3GPP
13 13 (1.61%) SDH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (2.35%) Power BI
2 14 (1.73%) Tableau
3 9 (1.11%) Data Warehouse
4 8 (0.99%) Big Data
4 8 (0.99%) GIS
4 8 (0.99%) MySQL
5 7 (0.87%) Oracle Database
6 6 (0.74%) MongoDB
7 5 (0.62%) PostgreSQL
7 5 (0.62%) Relational Database
8 4 (0.49%) BigQuery
8 4 (0.49%) Electronic Patient Records
8 4 (0.49%) SAP BW
9 2 (0.25%) Geospatial Data
9 2 (0.25%) Hadoop
9 2 (0.25%) NoSQL
9 2 (0.25%) Oracle Database 12c
9 2 (0.25%) Power Query
9 2 (0.25%) QGIS
9 2 (0.25%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 26 (3.21%) JIRA
2 22 (2.72%) GitLab
3 11 (1.36%) Jenkins
4 9 (1.11%) Postman
5 8 (0.99%) Robot Framework
5 8 (0.99%) Selenium
6 7 (0.87%) Cucumber
6 7 (0.87%) Git
6 7 (0.87%) SonarQube
7 4 (0.49%) Clang
7 4 (0.49%) Cypress.io
7 4 (0.49%) GCC
7 4 (0.49%) JUnit
8 3 (0.37%) Rational DOORS
8 3 (0.37%) Storybook
9 2 (0.25%) Appium
9 2 (0.25%) CircleCI
9 2 (0.25%) Maven
9 2 (0.25%) Mercurial
9 2 (0.25%) Subversion
General
1 310 (38.32%) Finance
2 268 (33.13%) Public Sector
3 264 (32.63%) Social Skills
4 213 (26.33%) Marketing
5 205 (25.34%) Manufacturing
6 201 (24.85%) Electronics
7 97 (11.99%) Analytical Skills
8 29 (3.58%) Documentation Skills
9 26 (3.21%) Legal
10 20 (2.47%) Billing
11 13 (1.61%) Law
11 13 (1.61%) Organisational Skills
12 11 (1.36%) Automotive
12 11 (1.36%) Retail
13 10 (1.24%) Banking
14 7 (0.87%) Back Office
14 7 (0.87%) French Language
14 7 (0.87%) Military
14 7 (0.87%) Presentation Skills
15 5 (0.62%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 94 (11.62%) Architect
2 76 (9.39%) Analyst
3 52 (6.43%) Project Manager
4 51 (6.30%) Consultant
5 47 (5.81%) IT Support
6 43 (5.32%) Desktop Support
7 42 (5.19%) Business Analyst
8 39 (4.82%) Senior
9 35 (4.33%) Lead
10 34 (4.20%) Network Engineer
11 28 (3.46%) 2nd Line Desktop Support
11 28 (3.46%) 2nd Line Support
11 28 (3.46%) SC Cleared Desktop Support
12 26 (3.21%) Network Architect
12 26 (3.21%) Solutions Architect
13 25 (3.09%) Support Engineer
14 23 (2.84%) Developer
14 23 (2.84%) Network Specialist
15 21 (2.60%) Telecoms Manager
16 19 (2.35%) IT Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (2.97%) REST
2 16 (1.98%) SOAP
3 13 (1.61%) React
4 12 (1.48%) JSON
5 11 (1.36%) XML
6 9 (1.11%) RESTful
6 9 (1.11%) SailPoint
7 8 (0.99%) 802.1X
7 8 (0.99%) Node.js
8 7 (0.87%) Jinja
8 7 (0.87%) NETCONF
8 7 (0.87%) Web Services
9 6 (0.74%) CSS
9 6 (0.74%) HTML
9 6 (0.74%) PySpark
9 6 (0.74%) RFC 2544
9 6 (0.74%) YANG
10 5 (0.62%) Kafka
10 5 (0.62%) Spring
10 5 (0.62%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 70 (8.65%) Data Centre
2 33 (4.08%) Driving Licence
3 29 (3.58%) Cloud Native
4 26 (3.21%) Legacy Systems
4 26 (3.21%) Product Ownership
5 19 (2.35%) Data Protection Act
6 18 (2.22%) CMDB
6 18 (2.22%) Onboarding
7 17 (2.10%) Fibre Optics
8 16 (1.98%) Mobile App
9 15 (1.85%) NHS
10 14 (1.73%) Analytical Mindset
11 13 (1.61%) IoT
12 11 (1.36%) Virtual Team
13 10 (1.24%) Self-Motivation
14 9 (1.11%) Algorithms
14 9 (1.11%) Cyber Threat
15 8 (0.99%) Renewable Energy
15 8 (0.99%) SCADA
16 7 (0.87%) Cyber Defence
Operating Systems
1 55 (6.80%) Windows
2 40 (4.94%) Android
3 32 (3.96%) Mac OS
4 24 (2.97%) Linux
5 15 (1.85%) Windows 10
6 10 (1.24%) Windows Server
7 9 (1.11%) Apple iOS
8 6 (0.74%) Unix
9 1 (0.12%) CentOS
9 1 (0.12%) Oracle Linux
9 1 (0.12%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 1 (0.12%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 223 (27.56%) Business Intelligence
2 206 (25.46%) Programme Management
3 200 (24.72%) Digital Marketing
4 143 (17.68%) Problem-Solving
5 132 (16.32%) Agile
6 117 (14.46%) Stakeholder Management
7 92 (11.37%) Migration
8 83 (10.26%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 74 (9.15%) Continuous Improvement
10 72 (8.90%) ITIL
11 55 (6.80%) DevOps
12 54 (6.67%) CI/CD
13 53 (6.55%) AI
13 53 (6.55%) Customer Service
13 53 (6.55%) Logistics
13 53 (6.55%) Workflow
14 52 (6.43%) Service Delivery
15 50 (6.18%) Change Management
15 50 (6.18%) Project Management
16 48 (5.93%) Network Design
Programming Languages
1 74 (9.15%) Python
2 42 (5.19%) SQL
3 37 (4.57%) JavaScript
4 18 (2.22%) Java
4 18 (2.22%) PowerShell
5 15 (1.85%) Bash
6 13 (1.61%) TypeScript
7 10 (1.24%) C
7 10 (1.24%) C++
8 8 (0.99%) C#
9 6 (0.74%) Go
9 6 (0.74%) PHP
10 4 (0.49%) ABAP
11 3 (0.37%) BeanShell
11 3 (0.37%) PL/SQL
11 3 (0.37%) R
12 2 (0.25%) Kotlin
12 2 (0.25%) Shell Script
13 1 (0.12%) Groovy
13 1 (0.12%) Scala
Qualifications
1 225 (27.81%) Security Cleared
2 178 (22.00%) SC Cleared
3 75 (9.27%) Degree
4 43 (5.32%) DV Cleared
5 27 (3.34%) Cisco Certification
6 16 (1.98%) CCNP
6 16 (1.98%) Master's Degree
7 15 (1.85%) CISSP
8 14 (1.73%) BPSS Clearance
8 14 (1.73%) CCNA
9 12 (1.48%) PMP
10 11 (1.36%) CCIE
10 11 (1.36%) Computer Science Degree
11 9 (1.11%) ITIL Certification
11 9 (1.11%) PMI Certification
12 8 (0.99%) Azure Certification
12 8 (0.99%) CISM
13 7 (0.87%) ACCA
13 7 (0.87%) CESG Certified Professional
14 6 (0.74%) JNCIP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 36 (4.45%) QA
2 34 (4.20%) SLA
3 19 (2.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 17 (2.10%) GDPR
5 16 (1.98%) PMO
6 13 (1.61%) Data Quality
7 10 (1.24%) Accessibility
8 9 (1.11%) GRC
8 9 (1.11%) NIST
9 8 (0.99%) NCSC
10 7 (0.87%) RMADS
10 7 (0.87%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 5 (0.62%) JSP 440
12 3 (0.37%) GAAP
12 3 (0.37%) IFRS
12 3 (0.37%) WCAG
13 2 (0.25%) HIPAA
13 2 (0.25%) IEC 61508
13 2 (0.25%) ISO 26262
13 2 (0.25%) NEBOSH
System Software
1 30 (3.71%) Active Directory
2 26 (3.21%) Docker
3 6 (0.74%) Virtual Machines
3 6 (0.74%) VMware Infrastructure
4 3 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
4 3 (0.37%) vSphere
5 2 (0.25%) Hyper-V
5 2 (0.25%) Oracle RAC
6 1 (0.12%) BitLocker
6 1 (0.12%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 31 (3.83%) Ansible
2 27 (3.34%) Kubernetes
3 20 (2.47%) Terraform
4 6 (0.74%) Grafana
4 6 (0.74%) Microsoft Intune
5 5 (0.62%) SCCM
6 4 (0.49%) Argo
6 4 (0.49%) Data Guard
6 4 (0.49%) Puppet
6 4 (0.49%) Single Sign-On
7 3 (0.37%) HP ALM
7 3 (0.37%) NSN NetAct
7 3 (0.37%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
7 3 (0.37%) Oracle RMAN
7 3 (0.37%) vCenter Server
7 3 (0.37%) vRealize
8 2 (0.25%) Cisco Prime
8 2 (0.25%) EMC NetWorker
8 2 (0.25%) Nmap
8 2 (0.25%) OpenView
Vendors
1 237 (29.30%) SAP
2 132 (16.32%) Cisco
3 95 (11.74%) Microsoft
4 42 (5.19%) ServiceNow
5 32 (3.96%) Salesforce
6 31 (3.83%) Juniper
7 27 (3.34%) HP
8 26 (3.21%) Nokia
9 25 (3.09%) Dell
10 24 (2.97%) Apple
11 22 (2.72%) Oracle
12 21 (2.60%) F5
12 21 (2.60%) Fortinet
13 18 (2.22%) Ericsson
14 16 (1.98%) Google
15 15 (1.85%) CheckPoint
16 14 (1.73%) Remedy
17 11 (1.36%) Meraki
17 11 (1.36%) VMware
18 10 (1.24%) Actix