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

6 months to
8 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 175 105 68
Rank change year-on-year -70 -37 +13
Contract jobs citing Telecoms 783 815 1,324
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.50% 2.55% 3.07%
As % of the General category 2.74% 4.05% 5.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 455 466 628
10th Percentile £213 £303 £200
25th Percentile £377 £400 £342
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £468
Median % change year-on-year - +1.60% -4.10%
75th Percentile £550 £587 £613
90th Percentile £673 £700 £749
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £463 £460
% change year-on-year -2.70% +0.54% +2.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 43 43 106
10th Percentile £16.01 - £12.15
25th Percentile £17.73 £14.00 £14.00
Median hourly rate £24.50 £23.00 £46.78
Median % change year-on-year +6.52% -50.83% -10.90%
75th Percentile £50.00 £59.87 £72.50
90th Percentile £178.75 £65.25 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.00 £15.50 £46.78
% change year-on-year +35.48% -66.87% +87.12%

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 28,542 20,146 24,673
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 54.71% 63.06% 57.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,104 12,653 15,445
10th Percentile £313 £281 £275
25th Percentile £413 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £519 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.80% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £473 £489
% change year-on-year +5.81% -3.37% -2.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,968 1,006 1,928
10th Percentile £14.00 £13.48 £12.80
25th Percentile £18.27 £16.37 £15.62
Median hourly rate £32.36 £27.22 £31.89
Median % change year-on-year +18.91% -14.65% +6.28%
75th Percentile £61.18 £52.42 £53.75
90th Percentile £80.07 £70.71 £67.87
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.00 £23.00 £31.00
% change year-on-year +39.13% -25.81% +19.46%

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 8 July 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 8 July 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 8 July 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 -82 675 £475 -3.06% 646
UK excluding London -88 406 £450 -2.70% 546
London -37 290 £500 +2.04% 217
Work from Home -37 217 £475 - 316
South East -58 182 £463 -7.50% 188
North of England -60 65 £500 -2.44% 113
South West -59 50 £450 -7.69% 40
Midlands -63 39 £475 +24.59% 73
Scotland -9 35 £288 -11.54% 64
East of England -16 35 £190 -50.97% 53
North West -46 35 £506 -3.57% 65
West Midlands -65 33 £460 +31.43% 46
Yorkshire -30 23 £600 +20.00% 39
North East -31 7 £500 - 11
East Midlands -10 6 £500 -20.00% 27
Northern Ireland 0 3 £175 -51.05% 10
Wales -20 1 £500 +132.56% 20

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 (1.28%) OpenStack
2 9 (1.15%) Confluence
3 7 (0.89%) Apache Airflow
4 6 (0.77%) Appian
4 6 (0.77%) ArcGIS
4 6 (0.77%) SharePoint
5 4 (0.51%) Anypoint
5 4 (0.51%) Apache Spark
5 4 (0.51%) Microsoft Exchange
6 3 (0.38%) IIS
6 3 (0.38%) JBoss
6 3 (0.38%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 3 (0.38%) Tomcat
6 3 (0.38%) WebLogic
7 2 (0.26%) Apache
7 2 (0.26%) CMS
7 2 (0.26%) Oracle Spatial
8 1 (0.13%) Camunda
8 1 (0.13%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
8 1 (0.13%) Smallworld
Applications
1 25 (3.19%) Microsoft Excel
2 24 (3.07%) Microsoft Office
3 15 (1.92%) MS Visio
4 9 (1.15%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.64%) AutoCAD
5 5 (0.64%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.26%) MicroStation
7 1 (0.13%) Autodesk Inventor
7 1 (0.13%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.13%) Revit
7 1 (0.13%) SOLIDWORKS
7 1 (0.13%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.13%) Trello
Business Applications
1 22 (2.81%) SAP PSCD
2 14 (1.79%) Remedy ITSM
3 13 (1.66%) SAP BRIM
4 12 (1.53%) SAP Hybris
5 7 (0.89%) SAP FI
6 6 (0.77%) SAP FI-CA
7 5 (0.64%) NetSuite
7 5 (0.64%) Sage X3
8 4 (0.51%) BambooHR
8 4 (0.51%) Remedy AR System
8 4 (0.51%) Salesforce CRM
9 3 (0.38%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 3 (0.38%) SAP ERP
10 1 (0.13%) Dynamics CRM
10 1 (0.13%) SAP CO
10 1 (0.13%) SAP FI/CO
10 1 (0.13%) SAP S/4HANA
10 1 (0.13%) SAP SD
10 1 (0.13%) SAP SRM
10 1 (0.13%) SmartPlant
Cloud Services
1 76 (9.71%) Azure
2 71 (9.07%) AWS
3 47 (6.00%) GCP
4 18 (2.30%) Microsoft 365
4 18 (2.30%) Power Platform
5 17 (2.17%) SaaS
6 14 (1.79%) SAP Commerce Cloud
7 10 (1.28%) Snowflake
8 9 (1.15%) dbt
9 8 (1.02%) Azure DevOps
9 8 (1.02%) Entra ID
9 8 (1.02%) GitHub
9 8 (1.02%) GitHub Actions
10 6 (0.77%) Datadog
10 6 (0.77%) Serverless
11 5 (0.64%) AWS Lambda
11 5 (0.64%) Cloud Functions
11 5 (0.64%) Fivetran
11 5 (0.64%) Prefect
12 4 (0.51%) Dagster
Communications & Networking
1 77 (9.83%) WAN
2 67 (8.56%) LAN
3 66 (8.43%) MPLS
4 64 (8.17%) 5G
5 44 (5.62%) 4G
6 42 (5.36%) Firewall
7 41 (5.24%) Radio Access Network
8 31 (3.96%) SD-WAN
9 29 (3.70%) BGP
10 23 (2.94%) Network Security
11 21 (2.68%) VoIP
12 20 (2.55%) 3G
12 20 (2.55%) OSPF
12 20 (2.55%) VPN
13 19 (2.43%) DNS
13 19 (2.43%) LTE
13 19 (2.43%) SDH
14 18 (2.30%) 3GPP
15 17 (2.17%) VLAN
16 16 (2.04%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 17 (2.17%) Power BI
2 16 (2.04%) Data Warehouse
3 14 (1.79%) BigQuery
4 12 (1.53%) Amazon Redshift
4 12 (1.53%) Looker
4 12 (1.53%) Tableau
5 7 (0.89%) Big Data
5 7 (0.89%) Relational Database
6 6 (0.77%) GIS
7 5 (0.64%) MySQL
8 4 (0.51%) Oracle Database
9 3 (0.38%) Amazon Athena
9 3 (0.38%) BusinessObjects
9 3 (0.38%) InfluxDB
9 3 (0.38%) PostgreSQL
9 3 (0.38%) SAP BW
9 3 (0.38%) SAP Data Services
9 3 (0.38%) Semantic Layer
9 3 (0.38%) SQL Server
9 3 (0.38%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 24 (3.07%) JIRA
2 10 (1.28%) Git
3 5 (0.64%) Jenkins
4 3 (0.38%) Sonatype Nexus
5 2 (0.26%) GitLab
5 2 (0.26%) Robot Framework
6 1 (0.13%) Bitbucket
6 1 (0.13%) JMeter
6 1 (0.13%) Oracle Forms
6 1 (0.13%) Rational DOORS
6 1 (0.13%) TestRail
General
1 228 (29.12%) Social Skills
2 132 (16.86%) Finance
3 107 (13.67%) Analytical Skills
4 66 (8.43%) Public Sector
5 47 (6.00%) Billing
6 27 (3.45%) Documentation Skills
6 27 (3.45%) Retail
7 24 (3.07%) Marketing
8 20 (2.55%) Legal
8 20 (2.55%) Organisational Skills
9 16 (2.04%) Influencing Skills
10 11 (1.40%) Electronics
11 10 (1.28%) Manufacturing
11 10 (1.28%) Presentation Skills
12 8 (1.02%) Aerospace
12 8 (1.02%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 7 (0.89%) Publishing
14 6 (0.77%) Police
15 4 (0.51%) Military
16 3 (0.38%) Banking
Job Titles
1 109 (13.92%) Architect
2 66 (8.43%) Consultant
3 64 (8.17%) Lead
3 64 (8.17%) Senior
4 61 (7.79%) Analyst
5 44 (5.62%) Network Engineer
6 43 (5.49%) Solutions Architect
7 41 (5.24%) Project Manager
8 39 (4.98%) Telecoms Manager
9 28 (3.58%) Designer
9 28 (3.58%) Developer
10 26 (3.32%) Telecoms Engineer
11 25 (3.19%) ServiceNow Architect
12 24 (3.07%) Data Engineer
13 23 (2.94%) Field Engineer
13 23 (2.94%) SAP Consultant
14 21 (2.68%) Delivery Manager
15 20 (2.55%) Enterprise Architect
16 18 (2.30%) Business Analyst
16 18 (2.30%) Telecoms Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 43 (5.49%) REST
2 30 (3.83%) SOAP
3 13 (1.66%) Middleware
3 13 (1.66%) ONVIF
4 12 (1.53%) Kafka
5 9 (1.15%) .NET
5 9 (1.15%) Elastic Stack
5 9 (1.15%) XML
6 8 (1.02%) NETCONF
6 8 (1.02%) OpenAPI
6 8 (1.02%) Swagger
6 8 (1.02%) YANG
7 7 (0.89%) JSON
7 7 (0.89%) RESTful
8 4 (0.51%) .NET Framework
8 4 (0.51%) RAML
9 3 (0.38%) GraphQL
9 3 (0.38%) RabbitMQ
9 3 (0.38%) RFC 2544
9 3 (0.38%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 45 (5.75%) CMDB
1 45 (5.75%) Data Centre
2 35 (4.47%) Onboarding
3 32 (4.09%) Cloud Native
4 24 (3.07%) Driving Licence
5 22 (2.81%) Data Protection Act
6 19 (2.43%) Virtual Team
7 17 (2.17%) Analytical Mindset
8 13 (1.66%) Management Information System
8 13 (1.66%) Video\Live Streaming
9 12 (1.53%) Hybrid Cloud
10 11 (1.40%) Distributed Systems
10 11 (1.40%) Product Ownership
11 10 (1.28%) Self-Motivation
12 8 (1.02%) EPoS
12 8 (1.02%) TM Forum
13 7 (0.89%) Private Cloud
14 6 (0.77%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
14 6 (0.77%) Legacy Systems
14 6 (0.77%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 34 (4.34%) Windows
2 26 (3.32%) Linux
3 17 (2.17%) Windows 10
4 12 (1.53%) Unix
5 6 (0.77%) Mac OS
6 5 (0.64%) Windows Server
7 3 (0.38%) Android
7 3 (0.38%) Apple iOS
7 3 (0.38%) VMS
8 2 (0.26%) Embedded Linux
8 2 (0.26%) OpenVMS
9 1 (0.13%) Mac OS X
9 1 (0.13%) Oracle Linux
9 1 (0.13%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 1 (0.13%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.13%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 132 (16.86%) Stakeholder Management
2 101 (12.90%) Agile
3 100 (12.77%) Problem-Solving
4 87 (11.11%) ITIL
5 73 (9.32%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 64 (8.17%) Project Delivery
7 60 (7.66%) Continuous Improvement
8 58 (7.41%) CI/CD
8 58 (7.41%) Decision-Making
9 57 (7.28%) Migration
10 56 (7.15%) Roadmaps
11 55 (7.02%) CRM
12 54 (6.90%) Validation
13 53 (6.77%) Service Management
14 52 (6.64%) Customer Service
14 52 (6.64%) Project Management
15 48 (6.13%) ITSM
16 47 (6.00%) Analytics
17 46 (5.87%) AI
18 40 (5.11%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 61 (7.79%) Python
2 36 (4.60%) SQL
3 20 (2.55%) JavaScript
4 16 (2.04%) Java
5 10 (1.28%) C#
6 8 (1.02%) Bash
7 7 (0.89%) C++
7 7 (0.89%) R
8 5 (0.64%) Apex Code
8 5 (0.64%) PowerShell
9 4 (0.51%) ABAP
9 4 (0.51%) DataWeave
9 4 (0.51%) TypeScript
10 3 (0.38%) LookML
10 3 (0.38%) Shell Script
11 2 (0.26%) C
11 2 (0.26%) DCL
11 2 (0.26%) PL/SQL
11 2 (0.26%) SOQL
12 1 (0.13%) Ada
Qualifications
1 136 (17.37%) Security Cleared
2 94 (12.01%) SC Cleared
3 72 (9.20%) Degree
4 55 (7.02%) Cisco Certification
5 37 (4.73%) CCNA
6 25 (3.19%) CCNP
7 24 (3.07%) DV Cleared
7 24 (3.07%) Microsoft Certification
8 23 (2.94%) A+ Certification
9 18 (2.30%) Computer Science Degree
10 17 (2.17%) PMP
11 16 (2.04%) BPSS Clearance
12 13 (1.66%) MCSA
12 13 (1.66%) PMI Certification
13 11 (1.40%) Network+ Certification
14 10 (1.28%) Azure Certification
14 10 (1.28%) CCIE
15 9 (1.15%) AWS Certification
16 6 (0.77%) Master's Degree
17 5 (0.64%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (3.58%) SLA
2 22 (2.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 21 (2.68%) NCSC
4 19 (2.43%) GDPR
5 16 (2.04%) Data Quality
5 16 (2.04%) GRC
5 16 (2.04%) PMO
5 16 (2.04%) QA
6 8 (1.02%) NIST
7 4 (0.51%) RMADS
8 2 (0.26%) JSP 440
8 2 (0.26%) PCI DSS
8 2 (0.26%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 1 (0.13%) Accessibility
9 1 (0.13%) EU AI Act
9 1 (0.13%) ISO 22301
9 1 (0.13%) ISO 31000
9 1 (0.13%) ISO/IEC 42001
9 1 (0.13%) NEBOSH
9 1 (0.13%) WCAG
System Software
1 17 (2.17%) Active Directory
2 16 (2.04%) VMware Infrastructure
3 14 (1.79%) Docker
4 8 (1.02%) VMware NSX
5 5 (0.64%) vSphere
6 3 (0.38%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (0.26%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.13%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 43 (5.49%) Kubernetes
2 23 (2.94%) Terraform
3 18 (2.30%) Ansible
4 13 (1.66%) Grafana
4 13 (1.66%) Prometheus
5 5 (0.64%) Jamf Pro
6 3 (0.38%) Amdocs OSS
6 3 (0.38%) Cisco Prime
6 3 (0.38%) Iperf
6 3 (0.38%) Microsoft Intune
6 3 (0.38%) vCenter Server
6 3 (0.38%) vRealize
7 2 (0.26%) FortiGate
7 2 (0.26%) Nmap
7 2 (0.26%) NSN NetAct
8 1 (0.13%) AirWatch
8 1 (0.13%) Fluentd
8 1 (0.13%) Kibana
8 1 (0.13%) QRadar
8 1 (0.13%) SolarWinds Orion
Vendors
1 99 (12.64%) Microsoft
2 81 (10.34%) Cisco
3 74 (9.45%) ServiceNow
4 44 (5.62%) Nokia
5 34 (4.34%) Salesforce
5 34 (4.34%) SAP
6 24 (3.07%) VMware
7 23 (2.94%) BT
8 21 (2.68%) Ericsson
9 20 (2.55%) Fortinet
9 20 (2.55%) Oracle
10 17 (2.17%) Remedy
11 16 (2.04%) Google
11 16 (2.04%) Juniper
12 15 (1.92%) F5
12 15 (1.92%) Huawei
12 15 (1.92%) MuleSoft
13 13 (1.66%) BMC
14 11 (1.40%) CheckPoint
14 11 (1.40%) Palo Alto