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

6 months to
24 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 131 59 72
Rank change year-on-year -72 +13 +13
Contract jobs citing Telecoms 813 1,194 1,263
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.20% 3.52% 2.92%
As % of the General category 3.61% 5.75% 4.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 528 571 797
10th Percentile £163 £278 £263
25th Percentile £313 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £500 £495
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% +1.01% +1.54%
75th Percentile £575 £618 £623
90th Percentile £675 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £500 £453
% change year-on-year -10.00% +10.50% +0.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 74 41 32
10th Percentile £14.93 £21.25 £14.00
25th Percentile £19.53 £24.50 £23.19
Median hourly rate £22.79 £50.00 £53.75
Median % change year-on-year -54.43% -6.98% +7.50%
75th Percentile £24.50 £73.75 £77.75
90th Percentile £41.25 £75.00 £80.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.54 £51.25 £60.00
% change year-on-year -54.07% -14.58% +14.29%

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 22,550 20,764 25,767
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 60.96% 61.16% 59.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,096 12,415 17,011
10th Percentile £276 £288 £275
25th Percentile £400 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £545
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -3.67% -0.91%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -2.56% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,442 708 1,080
10th Percentile £13.80 £15.48 £14.25
25th Percentile £16.50 £18.50 £16.70
Median hourly rate £23.54 £27.37 £33.00
Median % change year-on-year -13.99% -17.07% +32.00%
75th Percentile £45.46 £54.06 £60.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £71.63 £70.65
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.00 £26.00 £30.66
% change year-on-year -15.38% -15.21% +40.27%

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 24 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 24 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 24 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 -75 716 £463 -8.87% 852
UK excluding London -57 469 £450 -10.00% 678
London -34 279 £450 -14.29% 259
Work from Home -54 188 £500 -2.44% 333
South East -39 164 £500 -1.48% 226
Midlands -36 81 £380 -24.94% 97
South West -30 78 £550 +2.80% 88
North of England -45 65 £301 -33.06% 147
West Midlands -27 59 £450 -12.20% 66
East of England -25 39 £513 +17.14% 88
North West -27 34 £250 -44.44% 77
Scotland +12 28 £275 -36.23% 36
East Midlands -4 22 £158 -10.00% 28
Yorkshire -35 18 £388 -22.50% 56
Northern Ireland +4 12 £150 - 4
North East -7 12 £175 -51.72% 19
Wales +2 10 £160 -56.16% 13
Channel Islands -2 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 (1.97%) Confluence
2 15 (1.85%) SharePoint
3 10 (1.23%) Microsoft Exchange
4 9 (1.11%) OpenStack
5 7 (0.86%) Appian
6 6 (0.74%) Apache Spark
7 2 (0.25%) Apache
7 2 (0.25%) Apache Airflow
7 2 (0.25%) CMS
7 2 (0.25%) Smallworld
8 1 (0.12%) Headless CMS
8 1 (0.12%) IIS
8 1 (0.12%) Jupyter
Applications
1 49 (6.03%) Microsoft Office
2 24 (2.95%) Microsoft Excel
3 16 (1.97%) Microsoft Project
4 12 (1.48%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 9 (1.11%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.49%) Autodesk Inventor
7 3 (0.37%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.25%) AutoCAD
8 2 (0.25%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.12%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.12%) FrameMaker
9 1 (0.12%) MadCap Flare
9 1 (0.12%) Sketch
9 1 (0.12%) Trello
Business Applications
1 14 (1.72%) SAP BRIM
1 14 (1.72%) SAP Hybris
1 14 (1.72%) 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%) 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
5 1 (0.12%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 65 (8.00%) Azure
2 57 (7.01%) AWS
3 53 (6.52%) Microsoft 365
4 36 (4.43%) GCP
5 21 (2.58%) SaaS
6 17 (2.09%) Power Platform
7 14 (1.72%) SAP Commerce Cloud
8 12 (1.48%) GitHub
9 10 (1.23%) Dynamics 365
10 8 (0.98%) Azure DevOps
10 8 (0.98%) Entra ID
10 8 (0.98%) GitHub Actions
11 7 (0.86%) Tricentis Tosca
12 6 (0.74%) IaaS
12 6 (0.74%) Miro
13 5 (0.62%) OpenShift
14 4 (0.49%) PaaS
14 4 (0.49%) Power Automate
15 3 (0.37%) Asana
15 3 (0.37%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 58 (7.13%) Firewall
2 52 (6.40%) WAN
3 47 (5.78%) LAN
4 43 (5.29%) Wireless
5 32 (3.94%) VPN
6 29 (3.57%) SD-WAN
7 26 (3.20%) 5G
8 25 (3.08%) Broadband
8 25 (3.08%) Radio Access Network
9 24 (2.95%) DNS
10 23 (2.83%) 4G
11 22 (2.71%) Network Security
11 22 (2.71%) VoIP
12 21 (2.58%) MPLS
13 19 (2.34%) Wi-Fi
14 17 (2.09%) BGP
15 16 (1.97%) LTE
15 16 (1.97%) Wireshark
16 15 (1.85%) SDH
17 14 (1.72%) 3GPP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (1.85%) Power BI
2 9 (1.11%) Tableau
3 8 (0.98%) MySQL
4 7 (0.86%) Data Warehouse
5 6 (0.74%) GIS
5 6 (0.74%) MongoDB
6 5 (0.62%) Big Data
7 4 (0.49%) Electronic Patient Records
7 4 (0.49%) Oracle Database
7 4 (0.49%) PostgreSQL
7 4 (0.49%) SAP BW
8 3 (0.37%) BigQuery
8 3 (0.37%) Relational Database
8 3 (0.37%) SQL Server
9 2 (0.25%) NoSQL
9 2 (0.25%) Power Query
10 1 (0.12%) Azure SQL Database
10 1 (0.12%) Data Lake
10 1 (0.12%) Looker
10 1 (0.12%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 27 (3.32%) JIRA
2 22 (2.71%) GitLab
3 11 (1.35%) Jenkins
4 9 (1.11%) Postman
5 8 (0.98%) Robot Framework
5 8 (0.98%) Selenium
6 7 (0.86%) Cucumber
6 7 (0.86%) SonarQube
7 6 (0.74%) Git
8 4 (0.49%) Cypress.io
8 4 (0.49%) JUnit
9 3 (0.37%) Rational DOORS
9 3 (0.37%) Storybook
10 2 (0.25%) Appium
10 2 (0.25%) CircleCI
10 2 (0.25%) Clang
10 2 (0.25%) GCC
10 2 (0.25%) Maven
11 1 (0.12%) JMeter
11 1 (0.12%) Rational Rhapsody
General
1 299 (36.78%) Finance
2 274 (33.70%) Public Sector
3 256 (31.49%) Social Skills
4 216 (26.57%) Marketing
5 208 (25.58%) Manufacturing
6 205 (25.22%) Electronics
7 85 (10.46%) Analytical Skills
8 31 (3.81%) Documentation Skills
9 26 (3.20%) Legal
10 22 (2.71%) Organisational Skills
11 21 (2.58%) Billing
12 14 (1.72%) Law
13 11 (1.35%) Banking
13 11 (1.35%) Retail
14 9 (1.11%) Automotive
14 9 (1.11%) Military
15 7 (0.86%) Back Office
16 6 (0.74%) Influencing Skills
17 5 (0.62%) Presentation Skills
18 4 (0.49%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 97 (11.93%) Architect
2 77 (9.47%) Analyst
3 49 (6.03%) Project Manager
4 46 (5.66%) IT Support
5 45 (5.54%) Business Analyst
6 44 (5.41%) Desktop Support
7 42 (5.17%) Consultant
8 41 (5.04%) Senior
9 39 (4.80%) Lead
10 30 (3.69%) Network Engineer
11 29 (3.57%) 2nd Line Support
12 28 (3.44%) 2nd Line Desktop Support
12 28 (3.44%) SC Cleared Desktop Support
13 26 (3.20%) Network Architect
13 26 (3.20%) Solutions Architect
14 25 (3.08%) Network Specialist
15 22 (2.71%) Developer
15 22 (2.71%) Support Engineer
16 21 (2.58%) Support Technician
16 21 (2.58%) Telecoms Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (2.95%) REST
2 17 (2.09%) SOAP
3 12 (1.48%) JSON
3 12 (1.48%) React
4 11 (1.35%) XML
5 9 (1.11%) RESTful
5 9 (1.11%) SailPoint
6 8 (0.98%) 802.1X
7 7 (0.86%) Jinja
7 7 (0.86%) NETCONF
7 7 (0.86%) Web Services
8 6 (0.74%) RFC 2544
8 6 (0.74%) YANG
9 5 (0.62%) HTML
9 5 (0.62%) Node.js
9 5 (0.62%) Spring
9 5 (0.62%) Swagger
10 4 (0.49%) CSS
10 4 (0.49%) Elastic Stack
10 4 (0.49%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 68 (8.36%) Data Centre
2 35 (4.31%) Driving Licence
3 26 (3.20%) Legacy Systems
3 26 (3.20%) Product Ownership
4 23 (2.83%) Cloud Native
4 23 (2.83%) Data Protection Act
5 20 (2.46%) CMDB
6 19 (2.34%) Onboarding
7 17 (2.09%) Fibre Optics
8 16 (1.97%) Mobile App
8 16 (1.97%) NHS
9 14 (1.72%) IoT
10 13 (1.60%) Analytical Mindset
11 11 (1.35%) Virtual Team
12 10 (1.23%) Self-Motivation
13 9 (1.11%) Cyber Threat
14 8 (0.98%) Renewable Energy
14 8 (0.98%) SCADA
15 7 (0.86%) Management Information System
15 7 (0.86%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 50 (6.15%) Windows
2 39 (4.80%) Android
3 32 (3.94%) Mac OS
4 19 (2.34%) Linux
5 17 (2.09%) Windows 10
6 10 (1.23%) Windows Server
7 8 (0.98%) Apple iOS
8 4 (0.49%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 3 (0.37%) Debian
9 3 (0.37%) Ubuntu
9 3 (0.37%) Unix
9 3 (0.37%) VMS
10 1 (0.12%) CentOS
10 1 (0.12%) Oracle Linux
10 1 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
10 1 (0.12%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 218 (26.81%) Business Intelligence
2 210 (25.83%) Programme Management
3 204 (25.09%) Digital Marketing
4 135 (16.61%) Agile
5 134 (16.48%) Problem-Solving
6 115 (14.15%) Stakeholder Management
7 100 (12.30%) Migration
8 80 (9.84%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 73 (8.98%) ITIL
10 72 (8.86%) Continuous Improvement
11 59 (7.26%) Workflow
12 57 (7.01%) Logistics
13 55 (6.77%) Customer Service
14 53 (6.52%) Project Management
15 51 (6.27%) DevOps
15 51 (6.27%) Service Delivery
16 48 (5.90%) CI/CD
17 47 (5.78%) AI
17 47 (5.78%) Change Management
17 47 (5.78%) Network Design
Programming Languages
1 64 (7.87%) Python
2 37 (4.55%) JavaScript
3 34 (4.18%) SQL
4 16 (1.97%) Java
4 16 (1.97%) PowerShell
5 11 (1.35%) Bash
5 11 (1.35%) TypeScript
6 9 (1.11%) C
7 8 (0.98%) C#
8 7 (0.86%) C++
9 6 (0.74%) Go
10 4 (0.49%) ABAP
11 3 (0.37%) BeanShell
11 3 (0.37%) PHP
12 2 (0.25%) R
12 2 (0.25%) Shell Script
13 1 (0.12%) Apex Code
13 1 (0.12%) Groovy
13 1 (0.12%) Scala
13 1 (0.12%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 235 (28.91%) Security Cleared
2 187 (23.00%) SC Cleared
3 68 (8.36%) Degree
4 40 (4.92%) DV Cleared
5 23 (2.83%) Cisco Certification
6 16 (1.97%) CCNP
7 15 (1.85%) BPSS Clearance
8 14 (1.72%) PMP
9 12 (1.48%) CISSP
10 11 (1.35%) PMI Certification
11 10 (1.23%) CCIE
11 10 (1.23%) Computer Science Degree
11 10 (1.23%) Master's Degree
12 9 (1.11%) CCNA
12 9 (1.11%) ITIL Certification
13 7 (0.86%) Azure Certification
14 6 (0.74%) CESG Certified Professional
14 6 (0.74%) JNCIP
15 5 (0.62%) CISM
15 5 (0.62%) JNCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 37 (4.55%) QA
2 32 (3.94%) SLA
3 20 (2.46%) GDPR
4 17 (2.09%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 17 (2.09%) PMO
5 13 (1.60%) Data Quality
6 9 (1.11%) Accessibility
6 9 (1.11%) GRC
7 8 (0.98%) NIST
8 7 (0.86%) NCSC
9 6 (0.74%) RMADS
10 5 (0.62%) JSP 440
10 5 (0.62%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 3 (0.37%) GAAP
11 3 (0.37%) IFRS
12 2 (0.25%) Actionable Recommendations
12 2 (0.25%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 2 (0.25%) Def Stans
12 2 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 2 (0.25%) PERC
System Software
1 31 (3.81%) Active Directory
2 24 (2.95%) Docker
3 6 (0.74%) Virtual Machines
4 4 (0.49%) VMware Infrastructure
5 3 (0.37%) Hyper-V
5 3 (0.37%) QEMU
6 1 (0.12%) Firmware
6 1 (0.12%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (0.12%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 29 (3.57%) Ansible
2 25 (3.08%) Kubernetes
3 17 (2.09%) Terraform
4 7 (0.86%) SCCM
5 6 (0.74%) Grafana
6 5 (0.62%) Argo
6 5 (0.62%) Microsoft Intune
7 4 (0.49%) Single Sign-On
8 3 (0.37%) Cisco CUCM
8 3 (0.37%) Podman
8 3 (0.37%) vRealize
9 2 (0.25%) EMC NetWorker
9 2 (0.25%) Iperf
9 2 (0.25%) Nmap
9 2 (0.25%) Prometheus
9 2 (0.25%) Puppet
10 1 (0.12%) Cisco Prime
10 1 (0.12%) HP ALM
10 1 (0.12%) Istio
10 1 (0.12%) Kubeflow
Vendors
1 236 (29.03%) SAP
2 134 (16.48%) Cisco
3 97 (11.93%) Microsoft
4 44 (5.41%) ServiceNow
5 33 (4.06%) Juniper
6 29 (3.57%) Salesforce
7 28 (3.44%) Nokia
8 25 (3.08%) Dell
8 25 (3.08%) HP
9 24 (2.95%) Apple
10 22 (2.71%) Fortinet
11 21 (2.58%) F5
12 20 (2.46%) Ericsson
13 17 (2.09%) CheckPoint
14 16 (1.97%) Google
15 14 (1.72%) Remedy
16 13 (1.60%) Oracle
17 11 (1.35%) Meraki
17 11 (1.35%) Palo Alto
18 10 (1.23%) Actix