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 17 April 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 164 86 60
Rank change year-on-year -78 -26 +22
Contract jobs citing Telecoms 734 853 1,423
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.60% 2.91% 3.24%
As % of the General category 2.89% 4.60% 5.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 461 479 771
10th Percentile £181 £305 £200
25th Percentile £363 £387 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £450
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +11.11% -7.69%
75th Percentile £575 £605 £588
90th Percentile £675 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £500 £450
% change year-on-year -7.50% +11.11% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 60 34 69
10th Percentile £20.31 £14.00 £12.15
25th Percentile £20.50 £15.05 £12.28
Median hourly rate £23.83 £23.59 £28.50
Median % change year-on-year +1.00% -17.23% -45.71%
75th Percentile £41.25 £59.38 £65.00
90th Percentile £59.50 £63.53 £86.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.79 £23.00 £15.17
% change year-on-year +3.42% +51.62% -71.10%

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 25,401 18,541 25,534
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 55.20% 63.17% 58.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,764 11,857 16,167
10th Percentile £305 £296 £270
25th Percentile £406 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £623 £640 £650
90th Percentile £738 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £500
% change year-on-year - -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,588 771 1,917
10th Percentile £13.69 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £17.46 £18.17 £15.39
Median hourly rate £27.80 £28.75 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year -3.30% +4.55% -21.43%
75th Percentile £59.63 £56.00 £50.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.31 £26.50 £26.00
% change year-on-year -4.49% +1.92% -15.46%

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 17 April 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 17 April 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 17 April 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 -90 638 £475 -5.00% 504
UK excluding London -88 393 £463 -7.50% 398
London -30 268 £500 -5.66% 150
Work from Home -49 170 £475 -5.00% 156
South East -60 162 £466 -6.80% 120
North of England -79 62 £481 -5.64% 88
Midlands -51 60 £525 +2.44% 47
South West -55 47 £525 - 53
West Midlands -45 43 £550 +7.32% 31
East of England -26 31 £475 +18.75% 77
North West -54 28 £463 -11.69% 45
North East -13 17 £500 +37.93% 10
East Midlands -24 17 £500 -20.00% 16
Scotland -1 16 £215 -36.30% 23
Yorkshire -48 16 £481 -12.50% 38
Wales -3 10 £160 -56.16% 8
Northern Ireland +4 8 £150 -72.73% 2

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 11 (1.50%) Microsoft Exchange
2 9 (1.23%) Confluence
2 9 (1.23%) OpenStack
3 7 (0.95%) Apache Spark
3 7 (0.95%) SharePoint
4 6 (0.82%) Appian
5 5 (0.68%) Apache Airflow
6 4 (0.54%) Apache
7 3 (0.41%) ArcGIS
7 3 (0.41%) IIS
7 3 (0.41%) JBoss
7 3 (0.41%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 3 (0.41%) Tomcat
7 3 (0.41%) WebLogic
8 2 (0.27%) CMS
8 2 (0.27%) Oracle Spatial
9 1 (0.14%) Camunda
9 1 (0.14%) Headless CMS
9 1 (0.14%) Smallworld
Applications
1 36 (4.90%) Microsoft Office
2 21 (2.86%) Microsoft Excel
3 11 (1.50%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (1.23%) Microsoft Project
5 5 (0.68%) MS Visio
6 2 (0.27%) MicroStation
6 2 (0.27%) Trello
7 1 (0.14%) AutoCAD
7 1 (0.14%) Autodesk Inventor
7 1 (0.14%) FrameMaker
7 1 (0.14%) MadCap Flare
7 1 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 13 (1.77%) SAP PSCD
2 12 (1.63%) SAP BRIM
2 12 (1.63%) SAP Hybris
3 9 (1.23%) Remedy ITSM
4 6 (0.82%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 4 (0.54%) BambooHR
6 3 (0.41%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.27%) SAP CO
7 2 (0.27%) SAP FI/CO
7 2 (0.27%) SAP S/4HANA
8 1 (0.14%) Dynamics CRM
8 1 (0.14%) Primavera
8 1 (0.14%) Remedy AR System
8 1 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
8 1 (0.14%) SAP FI-CA
8 1 (0.14%) SAP IBP
8 1 (0.14%) SAP SRM
8 1 (0.14%) SmartPlant
Cloud Services
1 69 (9.40%) Azure
2 61 (8.31%) AWS
3 42 (5.72%) GCP
4 39 (5.31%) Microsoft 365
5 21 (2.86%) Power Platform
6 13 (1.77%) SAP Commerce Cloud
7 12 (1.63%) SaaS
8 9 (1.23%) GitHub
9 8 (1.09%) Azure DevOps
10 7 (0.95%) dbt
10 7 (0.95%) GitHub Actions
11 5 (0.68%) Datadog
11 5 (0.68%) Serverless
12 4 (0.54%) AWS Lambda
12 4 (0.54%) Dagster
12 4 (0.54%) Entra ID
12 4 (0.54%) Figma
12 4 (0.54%) IaaS
12 4 (0.54%) Slack
12 4 (0.54%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 41 (5.59%) Firewall
1 41 (5.59%) WAN
2 39 (5.31%) 5G
3 35 (4.77%) MPLS
4 28 (3.81%) LAN
5 27 (3.68%) SD-WAN
6 26 (3.54%) Network Security
7 24 (3.27%) 4G
8 22 (3.00%) DNS
9 21 (2.86%) BGP
9 21 (2.86%) Internet
10 20 (2.72%) VPN
11 19 (2.59%) LTE
12 18 (2.45%) Radio Access Network
13 16 (2.18%) Wireless
14 15 (2.04%) 3GPP
14 15 (2.04%) Broadband
14 15 (2.04%) VoIP
15 14 (1.91%) OSPF
15 14 (1.91%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (2.72%) Power BI
2 12 (1.63%) Data Warehouse
2 12 (1.63%) Looker
3 11 (1.50%) Tableau
4 9 (1.23%) BigQuery
5 8 (1.09%) Big Data
5 8 (1.09%) MySQL
6 7 (0.95%) Amazon Redshift
6 7 (0.95%) Relational Database
7 6 (0.82%) PostgreSQL
7 6 (0.82%) SQL Server
8 5 (0.68%) Oracle Database
9 3 (0.41%) Amazon Athena
9 3 (0.41%) GIS
9 3 (0.41%) Metadata
9 3 (0.41%) Semantic Layer
9 3 (0.41%) Star Schema
10 2 (0.27%) Apache Cassandra
10 2 (0.27%) MongoDB
10 2 (0.27%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 23 (3.13%) JIRA
2 8 (1.09%) Jenkins
3 7 (0.95%) GitLab
4 4 (0.54%) Git
4 4 (0.54%) JUnit
5 3 (0.41%) Storybook
6 2 (0.27%) Appium
6 2 (0.27%) CircleCI
6 2 (0.27%) JMeter
6 2 (0.27%) Robot Framework
7 1 (0.14%) Maven
7 1 (0.14%) Mockito
7 1 (0.14%) Oracle Forms
7 1 (0.14%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 215 (29.29%) Social Skills
2 189 (25.75%) Finance
3 155 (21.12%) Public Sector
4 116 (15.80%) Marketing
5 106 (14.44%) Electronics
6 100 (13.62%) Manufacturing
7 88 (11.99%) Analytical Skills
8 35 (4.77%) Billing
9 19 (2.59%) Organisational Skills
10 18 (2.45%) Documentation Skills
10 18 (2.45%) Legal
10 18 (2.45%) Retail
11 13 (1.77%) Influencing Skills
12 8 (1.09%) Military
12 8 (1.09%) Presentation Skills
13 7 (0.95%) Banking
14 3 (0.41%) Financial Institution
15 2 (0.27%) Aerospace
15 2 (0.27%) Law
15 2 (0.27%) Mandarin Language
Job Titles
1 81 (11.04%) Architect
2 70 (9.54%) Analyst
3 49 (6.68%) Lead
4 45 (6.13%) Senior
5 41 (5.59%) Consultant
6 39 (5.31%) Project Manager
7 36 (4.90%) Business Analyst
8 33 (4.50%) Network Engineer
9 29 (3.95%) Developer
9 29 (3.95%) Telecoms Manager
10 26 (3.54%) Solutions Architect
11 25 (3.41%) IT Support
12 21 (2.86%) Data Engineer
13 19 (2.59%) Desktop Support
13 19 (2.59%) Programme Manager
13 19 (2.59%) ServiceNow Architect
14 17 (2.32%) Coordinator
14 17 (2.32%) Designer
15 15 (2.04%) IT Engineer
15 15 (2.04%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 28 (3.81%) REST
2 18 (2.45%) SOAP
3 12 (1.63%) Kafka
4 11 (1.50%) Elastic Stack
5 8 (1.09%) RESTful
6 7 (0.95%) .NET
7 6 (0.82%) Middleware
7 6 (0.82%) RabbitMQ
7 6 (0.82%) Spring
8 5 (0.68%) React
8 5 (0.68%) Spring Boot
9 4 (0.54%) HTML
10 3 (0.41%) 802.1X
10 3 (0.41%) CSS
10 3 (0.41%) GraphQL
10 3 (0.41%) Node.js
10 3 (0.41%) PySpark
10 3 (0.41%) RFC 2544
10 3 (0.41%) Swagger
10 3 (0.41%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 34 (4.63%) Data Centre
2 29 (3.95%) Data Protection Act
3 27 (3.68%) Onboarding
4 25 (3.41%) Driving Licence
4 25 (3.41%) Product Ownership
5 22 (3.00%) Cloud Native
6 16 (2.18%) CMDB
7 13 (1.77%) Mobile App
8 12 (1.63%) NHS
8 12 (1.63%) Virtual Team
9 11 (1.50%) Analytical Mindset
9 11 (1.50%) Distributed Systems
10 10 (1.36%) Legacy Systems
11 9 (1.23%) IoT
11 9 (1.23%) Self-Motivation
12 8 (1.09%) Algorithms
12 8 (1.09%) Hybrid Cloud
13 6 (0.82%) Fibre Optics
13 6 (0.82%) Management Information System
13 6 (0.82%) TM Forum
Operating Systems
1 40 (5.45%) Windows
2 23 (3.13%) Windows 10
3 21 (2.86%) Android
3 21 (2.86%) Linux
4 15 (2.04%) Mac OS
5 7 (0.95%) Unix
6 5 (0.68%) Apple iOS
6 5 (0.68%) Windows Server
7 4 (0.54%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 3 (0.41%) Debian
8 3 (0.41%) Ubuntu
8 3 (0.41%) VMS
9 1 (0.14%) Oracle Linux
9 1 (0.14%) Windows 7
9 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2016
9 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 120 (16.35%) Business Intelligence
2 111 (15.12%) Stakeholder Management
3 104 (14.17%) Agile
3 104 (14.17%) Programme Management
4 99 (13.49%) Digital Marketing
5 92 (12.53%) Problem-Solving
6 81 (11.04%) Migration
7 78 (10.63%) Continuous Improvement
8 67 (9.13%) ITIL
9 61 (8.31%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 59 (8.04%) Project Management
11 50 (6.81%) Customer Service
12 49 (6.68%) Decision-Making
12 49 (6.68%) Logistics
12 49 (6.68%) Workflow
13 46 (6.27%) Analytics
14 44 (5.99%) Project Delivery
15 43 (5.86%) Roadmaps
16 42 (5.72%) CI/CD
17 41 (5.59%) Data Protection
Programming Languages
1 55 (7.49%) Python
2 39 (5.31%) SQL
3 22 (3.00%) JavaScript
4 18 (2.45%) Java
5 11 (1.50%) Bash
6 8 (1.09%) PowerShell
7 7 (0.95%) C++
7 7 (0.95%) TypeScript
8 6 (0.82%) Go
8 6 (0.82%) R
9 5 (0.68%) C#
10 3 (0.41%) C
10 3 (0.41%) LookML
10 3 (0.41%) Shell Script
11 2 (0.27%) Apex Code
11 2 (0.27%) PHP
11 2 (0.27%) PL/SQL
12 1 (0.14%) Bicep
12 1 (0.14%) Cypher
12 1 (0.14%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 161 (21.93%) Security Cleared
2 132 (17.98%) SC Cleared
3 66 (8.99%) Degree
4 25 (3.41%) DV Cleared
5 20 (2.72%) PMP
6 17 (2.32%) Cisco Certification
7 16 (2.18%) BPSS Clearance
7 16 (2.18%) Computer Science Degree
8 13 (1.77%) PMI Certification
9 12 (1.63%) CCNP
10 11 (1.50%) ITIL Certification
11 10 (1.36%) Microsoft Certification
12 8 (1.09%) A+ Certification
12 8 (1.09%) Azure Certification
12 8 (1.09%) Network+ Certification
13 7 (0.95%) ACCA
13 7 (0.95%) AWS Certification
13 7 (0.95%) CCIE
13 7 (0.95%) CIMA
14 6 (0.82%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (3.68%) SLA
2 20 (2.72%) PMO
3 19 (2.59%) GDPR
3 19 (2.59%) QA
4 18 (2.45%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 15 (2.04%) Data Quality
6 11 (1.50%) NCSC
7 9 (1.23%) GRC
7 9 (1.23%) NIST
8 7 (0.95%) RMADS
9 5 (0.68%) JSP 440
10 3 (0.41%) Accessibility
11 2 (0.27%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 1 (0.14%) HIPAA
12 1 (0.14%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 1 (0.14%) IFRS
12 1 (0.14%) NEBOSH
12 1 (0.14%) PCI DSS
12 1 (0.14%) SOC 1
12 1 (0.14%) WCAG
System Software
1 23 (3.13%) Active Directory
2 14 (1.91%) Docker
3 8 (1.09%) VMware Infrastructure
4 3 (0.41%) Hyper-V
4 3 (0.41%) QEMU
5 2 (0.27%) vSphere
6 1 (0.14%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 36 (4.90%) Kubernetes
2 15 (2.04%) Ansible
3 14 (1.91%) Grafana
4 11 (1.50%) Prometheus
4 11 (1.50%) Terraform
5 6 (0.82%) SCCM
6 4 (0.54%) Argo
6 4 (0.54%) Microsoft Intune
7 3 (0.41%) Cisco Prime
7 3 (0.41%) Iperf
7 3 (0.41%) Podman
8 2 (0.27%) Amdocs OSS
8 2 (0.27%) FortiGate
8 2 (0.27%) Kibana
8 2 (0.27%) Nmap
8 2 (0.27%) vRealize
9 1 (0.14%) Failover Clustering
9 1 (0.14%) Fluentd
9 1 (0.14%) Oracle RMAN
9 1 (0.14%) Rancher
Vendors
1 119 (16.21%) SAP
2 89 (12.13%) Microsoft
3 82 (11.17%) Cisco
4 54 (7.36%) ServiceNow
5 34 (4.63%) Nokia
6 20 (2.72%) Ericsson
6 20 (2.72%) Fortinet
7 19 (2.59%) Juniper
7 19 (2.59%) Oracle
8 16 (2.18%) BT
8 16 (2.18%) Google
8 16 (2.18%) Salesforce
9 14 (1.91%) Huawei
10 13 (1.77%) CheckPoint
11 12 (1.63%) F5
12 11 (1.50%) Meraki
12 11 (1.50%) Remedy
12 11 (1.50%) VMware
13 10 (1.36%) Palo Alto
14 8 (1.09%) Apple