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

6 months to
14 Aug 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 169 99 68
Rank change year-on-year -70 -31 +11
Contract jobs citing Telecoms 873 849 1,162
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.64% 2.58% 2.99%
As % of the General category 2.97% 4.06% 5.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 496 497 560
10th Percentile £219 £297 £220
25th Percentile £399 £378 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year - - -1.96%
75th Percentile £565 £575 £613
90th Percentile £672 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £465 £475
% change year-on-year -3.23% -2.11% +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 47 50 106
10th Percentile £15.32 - £12.15
25th Percentile £16.75 £14.00 £17.32
Median hourly rate £21.00 £22.13 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -5.08% -59.77% -15.38%
75th Percentile £50.00 £54.44 £72.50
90th Percentile £178.75 £66.48 £75.63
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.00 £15.50 £53.75
% change year-on-year +35.48% -71.16% -14.00%

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 29,391 20,891 22,351
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 55.05% 63.47% 57.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,419 13,009 14,041
10th Percentile £313 £276 £290
25th Percentile £414 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £630 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £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 2,230 1,139 1,376
10th Percentile £13.95 £13.25 £14.06
25th Percentile £17.24 £16.30 £17.08
Median hourly rate £31.53 £25.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +25.36% -34.02% +38.62%
75th Percentile £57.50 £50.63 £58.12
90th Percentile £80.00 £71.50 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.50 £22.32 £38.12
% change year-on-year +45.61% -41.45% +52.48%

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 14 August 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 14 August 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 14 August 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 -79 725 £475 -3.06% 859
UK excluding London -77 434 £450 -3.23% 613
London -22 331 £513 +7.89% 336
Work from Home -27 263 £480 -0.10% 329
South East -56 193 £465 -7.00% 207
North of England -55 58 £469 -6.25% 128
Scotland +13 54 £300 -7.69% 52
South West -82 45 £450 -14.29% 60
East of England -5 44 £190 -49.33% 46
Midlands -64 37 £475 +25.00% 101
West Midlands -68 34 £473 +21.15% 62
Yorkshire -18 32 £475 +72.73% 36
North West -54 25 £463 -12.74% 66
Wales -12 7 £200 -6.98% 26
Northern Ireland 0 3 £175 +6.06% 2
East Midlands -21 3 £500 +33.33% 39
North East -43 1 - - 29

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 19 (2.18%) Confluence
2 16 (1.83%) OpenStack
3 11 (1.26%) SharePoint
4 10 (1.15%) ArcGIS
5 8 (0.92%) Microsoft Exchange
6 7 (0.80%) Apache Airflow
7 4 (0.46%) Anypoint
8 3 (0.34%) Apache Spark
9 2 (0.23%) CMS
10 1 (0.11%) Apache
10 1 (0.11%) Camunda
10 1 (0.11%) IIS
10 1 (0.11%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
10 1 (0.11%) Smallworld
Applications
1 31 (3.55%) Microsoft Excel
2 26 (2.98%) Microsoft Office
3 21 (2.41%) MS Visio
4 12 (1.37%) Microsoft Project
5 10 (1.15%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 5 (0.57%) AutoCAD
7 3 (0.34%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 2 (0.23%) Spreadsheet
9 1 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
9 1 (0.11%) Autodesk Inventor
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
9 1 (0.11%) Trello
Business Applications
1 19 (2.18%) SAP PSCD
2 10 (1.15%) SAP BRIM
3 8 (0.92%) SAP FI
3 8 (0.92%) SAP Hybris
4 7 (0.80%) SAP FI-CA
5 6 (0.69%) Remedy ITSM
6 5 (0.57%) NetSuite
6 5 (0.57%) Sage X3
6 5 (0.57%) Salesforce CRM
6 5 (0.57%) SAP S/4HANA
7 4 (0.46%) BambooHR
8 3 (0.34%) Remedy AR System
8 3 (0.34%) SAP ERP
9 1 (0.11%) SAP CO
9 1 (0.11%) SAP FI/CO
9 1 (0.11%) SAP FS
9 1 (0.11%) SAP IBP
9 1 (0.11%) SAP IS-U
9 1 (0.11%) SAP SRM
9 1 (0.11%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 95 (10.88%) Azure
2 89 (10.19%) AWS
3 65 (7.45%) GCP
4 22 (2.52%) Microsoft 365
5 20 (2.29%) Power Platform
6 16 (1.83%) Entra ID
6 16 (1.83%) GitHub
7 14 (1.60%) SaaS
8 11 (1.26%) Azure DevOps
8 11 (1.26%) dbt
9 10 (1.15%) Cloud Computing
9 10 (1.15%) SAP Commerce Cloud
9 10 (1.15%) Snowflake
10 9 (1.03%) GitHub Actions
11 6 (0.69%) Cloud Functions
11 6 (0.69%) Datadog
11 6 (0.69%) OneDrive
11 6 (0.69%) Serverless
12 5 (0.57%) Figma
12 5 (0.57%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 104 (11.91%) WAN
2 84 (9.62%) LAN
3 81 (9.28%) 5G
4 74 (8.48%) MPLS
5 60 (6.87%) 4G
6 50 (5.73%) Firewall
6 50 (5.73%) Radio Access Network
7 33 (3.78%) DNS
8 32 (3.67%) SD-WAN
9 27 (3.09%) BGP
10 26 (2.98%) Wi-Fi
11 25 (2.86%) 3G
11 25 (2.86%) Network Security
12 24 (2.75%) LTE
12 24 (2.75%) SDH
13 23 (2.63%) TCP/IP
14 22 (2.52%) VPN
15 21 (2.41%) 3GPP
15 21 (2.41%) Broadband
15 21 (2.41%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (2.18%) Data Warehouse
1 19 (2.18%) Power BI
2 14 (1.60%) BigQuery
3 12 (1.37%) Amazon Redshift
3 12 (1.37%) Looker
4 11 (1.26%) NoSQL
4 11 (1.26%) Tableau
5 10 (1.15%) GIS
6 8 (0.92%) Big Data
6 8 (0.92%) PostgreSQL
7 5 (0.57%) Apache Cassandra
7 5 (0.57%) MongoDB
7 5 (0.57%) MySQL
8 4 (0.46%) InfluxDB
8 4 (0.46%) SQL Server
9 3 (0.34%) Data Lake
9 3 (0.34%) Hazelcast
9 3 (0.34%) Redis
9 3 (0.34%) Relational Database
9 3 (0.34%) SAP Data Services
Development Applications
1 35 (4.01%) JIRA
2 23 (2.63%) Git
3 12 (1.37%) Jenkins
4 6 (0.69%) GitLab
5 5 (0.57%) Selenium
6 2 (0.23%) Robot Framework
6 2 (0.23%) Sonatype Nexus
7 1 (0.11%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.11%) Oracle Forms
7 1 (0.11%) Rational DOORS
7 1 (0.11%) TestRail
7 1 (0.11%) Visual Studio
7 1 (0.11%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 245 (28.06%) Social Skills
2 134 (15.35%) Finance
3 116 (13.29%) Analytical Skills
4 59 (6.76%) Public Sector
5 38 (4.35%) Billing
6 31 (3.55%) Documentation Skills
7 30 (3.44%) Retail
8 25 (2.86%) Organisational Skills
9 24 (2.75%) Legal
10 22 (2.52%) Marketing
11 18 (2.06%) Influencing Skills
12 15 (1.72%) Aerospace
13 14 (1.60%) Presentation Skills
14 12 (1.37%) Manufacturing
15 10 (1.15%) Publishing
16 9 (1.03%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 8 (0.92%) Police
18 6 (0.69%) Electronics
19 4 (0.46%) Military
20 3 (0.34%) Banking
Job Titles
1 133 (15.23%) Architect
2 78 (8.93%) Senior
3 68 (7.79%) Consultant
3 68 (7.79%) Lead
4 59 (6.76%) Analyst
5 58 (6.64%) Project Manager
6 54 (6.19%) Network Engineer
7 46 (5.27%) Solutions Architect
8 45 (5.15%) Field Engineer
9 42 (4.81%) Telecoms Engineer
10 39 (4.47%) Designer
11 34 (3.89%) Telecoms Manager
12 32 (3.67%) Developer
13 29 (3.32%) ServiceNow Architect
14 27 (3.09%) Enterprise Architect
15 26 (2.98%) Data Engineer
16 21 (2.41%) Telecoms Architect
17 20 (2.29%) Platform Engineer
17 20 (2.29%) SAP Consultant
18 19 (2.18%) Programme Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 53 (6.07%) REST
2 33 (3.78%) SOAP
3 18 (2.06%) Kafka
4 13 (1.49%) ONVIF
4 13 (1.49%) RESTful
4 13 (1.49%) XML
5 12 (1.37%) Elastic Stack
5 12 (1.37%) Middleware
5 12 (1.37%) NETCONF
5 12 (1.37%) YANG
6 10 (1.15%) AngularJS
6 10 (1.15%) HTML
6 10 (1.15%) React
7 9 (1.03%) CSS
7 9 (1.03%) OpenAPI
7 9 (1.03%) Swagger
8 8 (0.92%) JSON
9 7 (0.80%) 802.1X
10 6 (0.69%) Redux
10 6 (0.69%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 50 (5.73%) CMDB
2 48 (5.50%) Data Centre
3 40 (4.58%) Onboarding
4 37 (4.24%) Driving Licence
5 34 (3.89%) Cloud Native
6 22 (2.52%) Analytical Mindset
7 19 (2.18%) Product Ownership
7 19 (2.18%) Virtual Team
8 18 (2.06%) Data Protection Act
9 17 (1.95%) Management Information System
9 17 (1.95%) Self-Motivation
10 16 (1.83%) Hybrid Cloud
11 13 (1.49%) Video\Live Streaming
12 11 (1.26%) Algorithms
12 11 (1.26%) TM Forum
13 10 (1.15%) Data Structures
13 10 (1.15%) Video Conferencing
14 9 (1.03%) Distributed Systems
14 9 (1.03%) Private Cloud
15 8 (0.92%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 45 (5.15%) Windows
2 36 (4.12%) Linux
3 15 (1.72%) Windows 10
4 11 (1.26%) Unix
4 11 (1.26%) Windows Server
5 8 (0.92%) Mac OS
6 4 (0.46%) Android
7 3 (0.34%) Apple iOS
7 3 (0.34%) VMS
8 2 (0.23%) Embedded Linux
8 2 (0.23%) OpenVMS
8 2 (0.23%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 1 (0.11%) Mac OS X
9 1 (0.11%) Oracle Linux
9 1 (0.11%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.11%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 172 (19.70%) Stakeholder Management
2 126 (14.43%) Agile
3 114 (13.06%) Problem-Solving
4 88 (10.08%) Project Delivery
5 87 (9.97%) ITIL
6 81 (9.28%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 71 (8.13%) Roadmaps
8 70 (8.02%) CI/CD
9 69 (7.90%) AI
9 69 (7.90%) Project Management
10 67 (7.67%) Migration
11 66 (7.56%) Service Management
12 65 (7.45%) Continuous Improvement
13 58 (6.64%) Decision-Making
14 57 (6.53%) Validation
15 56 (6.41%) Change Management
15 56 (6.41%) CRM
16 55 (6.30%) Technical Leadership
17 53 (6.07%) Customer Service
18 51 (5.84%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 76 (8.71%) Python
2 44 (5.04%) SQL
3 32 (3.67%) JavaScript
4 18 (2.06%) Bash
5 15 (1.72%) Java
6 10 (1.15%) PowerShell
7 9 (1.03%) C#
8 7 (0.80%) Apex Code
8 7 (0.80%) R
9 5 (0.57%) C++
10 4 (0.46%) ABAP
10 4 (0.46%) DataWeave
10 4 (0.46%) Shell Script
10 4 (0.46%) SOQL
10 4 (0.46%) TypeScript
11 3 (0.34%) LookML
12 2 (0.23%) Bicep
12 2 (0.23%) C
12 2 (0.23%) DCL
13 1 (0.11%) Ada
Qualifications
1 153 (17.53%) Security Cleared
2 99 (11.34%) SC Cleared
3 89 (10.19%) Degree
4 59 (6.76%) Cisco Certification
5 41 (4.70%) CCNA
6 24 (2.75%) DV Cleared
6 24 (2.75%) Microsoft Certification
7 23 (2.63%) PMP
8 22 (2.52%) A+ Certification
8 22 (2.52%) Computer Science Degree
9 20 (2.29%) CCNP
10 18 (2.06%) PMI Certification
11 17 (1.95%) BPSS Clearance
12 13 (1.49%) MCSA
13 11 (1.26%) Azure Certification
14 9 (1.03%) AWS Certification
14 9 (1.03%) CCIE
14 9 (1.03%) CISSP
14 9 (1.03%) Network+ Certification
15 8 (0.92%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (3.32%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 29 (3.32%) SLA
2 26 (2.98%) QA
3 23 (2.63%) GDPR
4 20 (2.29%) GRC
4 20 (2.29%) PMO
5 18 (2.06%) NCSC
6 14 (1.60%) Data Quality
7 9 (1.03%) NIST
8 3 (0.34%) Actionable Recommendations
8 3 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials
8 3 (0.34%) PCI DSS
8 3 (0.34%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 2 (0.23%) Accessibility
9 2 (0.23%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 2 (0.23%) EU AI Act
10 1 (0.11%) ISO 31000
10 1 (0.11%) ISO/IEC 15288
10 1 (0.11%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 1 (0.11%) SOC 1
System Software
1 25 (2.86%) Docker
2 23 (2.63%) Active Directory
3 21 (2.41%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (0.92%) VMware NSX
5 5 (0.57%) VMware ESXi
5 5 (0.57%) vSphere
6 3 (0.34%) 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 (5.73%) Kubernetes
2 22 (2.52%) Terraform
3 20 (2.29%) Ansible
4 16 (1.83%) Grafana
4 16 (1.83%) Prometheus
5 8 (0.92%) Microsoft Intune
6 5 (0.57%) Jamf Pro
7 3 (0.34%) Amdocs OSS
7 3 (0.34%) Check_MK
7 3 (0.34%) Cisco Prime
7 3 (0.34%) Kibana
7 3 (0.34%) Podman
7 3 (0.34%) vCenter Server
7 3 (0.34%) vRealize
8 2 (0.23%) Cilium
8 2 (0.23%) Istio
8 2 (0.23%) NSN NetAct
8 2 (0.23%) QRadar
8 2 (0.23%) SolarWinds Orion
9 1 (0.11%) AirWatch
Vendors
1 118 (13.52%) Microsoft
2 105 (12.03%) Cisco
3 88 (10.08%) ServiceNow
4 55 (6.30%) Nokia
5 45 (5.15%) Salesforce
6 35 (4.01%) VMware
7 29 (3.32%) SAP
8 24 (2.75%) Ericsson
8 24 (2.75%) Google
9 22 (2.52%) BT
9 22 (2.52%) Juniper
10 19 (2.18%) F5
11 18 (2.06%) MuleSoft
12 17 (1.95%) Fortinet
13 16 (1.83%) Huawei
14 12 (1.37%) BMC
14 12 (1.37%) Palo Alto
15 9 (1.03%) CheckPoint
15 9 (1.03%) Oracle
15 9 (1.03%) Zscaler
1,007 Telecoms jobs Nationwide