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 11 September 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 162 110 70
Rank change year-on-year -52 -40 +5
Contract jobs citing Telecoms 918 822 1,199
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.68% 2.49% 3.11%
As % of the General category 3.02% 3.91% 5.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 516 483 553
10th Percentile £213 £263 £225
25th Percentile £379 £373 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £455 £500
Median % change year-on-year +4.40% -9.00% -
75th Percentile £550 £575 £600
90th Percentile £669 £675 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £500
% change year-on-year - -10.00% +11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 47 48 91
10th Percentile £14.46 £14.00 £12.75
25th Percentile £16.25 £14.75 £35.00
Median hourly rate £21.00 £21.00 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year - -63.48% +4.55%
75th Percentile £50.00 £51.44 £72.50
90th Percentile £178.75 £68.93 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.93 £16.00 £64.25
% change year-on-year +24.56% -75.10% +22.38%

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 30,363 21,028 22,288
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 55.61% 63.69% 57.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,843 13,030 13,503
10th Percentile £313 £275 £288
25th Percentile £419 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,462 1,194 1,147
10th Percentile £13.50 £13.50 £14.67
25th Percentile £16.38 £16.17 £17.25
Median hourly rate £29.98 £25.15 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +19.20% -32.93% +36.36%
75th Percentile £53.87 £50.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £68.75 £70.31
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 £21.40 £37.50
% change year-on-year +40.19% -42.93% +44.51%

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 11 September 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 11 September 2026.

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 11 September 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 -74 758 £478 +0.58% 851
UK excluding London -62 460 £450 - 570
London -39 352 £507 +6.74% 330
Work from Home -24 267 £475 -5.00% 279
South East -43 199 £470 -6.00% 204
Scotland +22 64 £300 +9.09% 37
North of England -58 57 £463 +14.20% 94
East of England -5 52 £200 -46.67% 79
South West -75 50 £479 -8.86% 68
Yorkshire -20 32 £475 +95.88% 39
Midlands -70 31 £470 +23.68% 84
West Midlands -68 29 £460 +21.05% 45
North West -47 24 £463 -2.63% 47
Wales -9 8 £200 +19.40% 11
Northern Ireland -1 5 £290 +152.17% 7
Channel Islands -2 2 £606 -
East Midlands -14 2 £475 +26.67% 39
North East -46 1 - - 13

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 (2.07%) Confluence
2 17 (1.85%) OpenStack
3 14 (1.53%) SharePoint
4 9 (0.98%) ArcGIS
5 8 (0.87%) Microsoft Exchange
6 4 (0.44%) Anypoint
7 3 (0.33%) Apache Airflow
8 2 (0.22%) CMS
9 1 (0.11%) Apache Spark
9 1 (0.11%) Camunda
9 1 (0.11%) IIS
9 1 (0.11%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
Applications
1 36 (3.92%) Microsoft Excel
2 29 (3.16%) Microsoft Office
3 24 (2.61%) MS Visio
4 12 (1.31%) Microsoft Project
5 10 (1.09%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 5 (0.54%) AutoCAD
7 3 (0.33%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 2 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
9 1 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
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
Business Applications
1 22 (2.40%) SAP PSCD
2 13 (1.42%) SAP BRIM
3 11 (1.20%) SAP Hybris
4 7 (0.76%) SAP FI
5 6 (0.65%) Remedy ITSM
5 6 (0.65%) SAP FI-CA
6 5 (0.54%) NetSuite
6 5 (0.54%) Sage X3
6 5 (0.54%) Salesforce CRM
6 5 (0.54%) SAP S/4HANA
7 3 (0.33%) Remedy AR System
7 3 (0.33%) SAP ERP
8 1 (0.11%) Dynamics CRM
8 1 (0.11%) Oracle BRM
8 1 (0.11%) Primavera
8 1 (0.11%) SAP CO
8 1 (0.11%) SAP FI/CO
8 1 (0.11%) SAP FS
8 1 (0.11%) SAP IS-U
8 1 (0.11%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 89 (9.69%) AWS
1 89 (9.69%) Azure
2 62 (6.75%) GCP
3 21 (2.29%) Microsoft 365
4 17 (1.85%) GitHub
5 16 (1.74%) Entra ID
6 14 (1.53%) SaaS
7 13 (1.42%) Power Platform
7 13 (1.42%) SAP Commerce Cloud
8 10 (1.09%) GitHub Actions
9 9 (0.98%) Azure DevOps
9 9 (0.98%) Cloud Computing
10 7 (0.76%) dbt
10 7 (0.76%) OneDrive
10 7 (0.76%) Snowflake
11 6 (0.65%) Cloud Functions
12 5 (0.54%) Figma
12 5 (0.54%) Fivetran
12 5 (0.54%) OpenShift
12 5 (0.54%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 121 (13.18%) WAN
2 95 (10.35%) 5G
3 93 (10.13%) LAN
4 88 (9.59%) MPLS
5 64 (6.97%) 4G
5 64 (6.97%) Radio Access Network
6 57 (6.21%) Firewall
7 38 (4.14%) SD-WAN
8 36 (3.92%) Wi-Fi
9 35 (3.81%) DNS
10 31 (3.38%) 3GPP
10 31 (3.38%) BGP
11 30 (3.27%) Network Security
12 28 (3.05%) SDH
12 28 (3.05%) VoIP
13 27 (2.94%) LTE
13 27 (2.94%) TCP/IP
14 26 (2.83%) Wireshark
15 24 (2.61%) Broadband
15 24 (2.61%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (1.53%) Data Warehouse
2 13 (1.42%) NoSQL
3 12 (1.31%) BigQuery
3 12 (1.31%) Power BI
4 10 (1.09%) PostgreSQL
5 9 (0.98%) GIS
5 9 (0.98%) Tableau
6 8 (0.87%) Amazon Redshift
7 7 (0.76%) MongoDB
7 7 (0.76%) MySQL
8 6 (0.65%) Redis
9 5 (0.54%) Metadata
10 4 (0.44%) Apache Cassandra
10 4 (0.44%) Looker
10 4 (0.44%) SQL Server
11 3 (0.33%) Big Data
11 3 (0.33%) BusinessObjects
11 3 (0.33%) SAP BW
11 3 (0.33%) SAP Data Services
11 3 (0.33%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 39 (4.25%) JIRA
2 31 (3.38%) Git
3 15 (1.63%) Jenkins
4 13 (1.42%) GitLab
5 7 (0.76%) Selenium
6 3 (0.33%) Robot Framework
7 2 (0.22%) JMeter
7 2 (0.22%) Locust
7 2 (0.22%) Sonatype Nexus
7 2 (0.22%) TestCafe
8 1 (0.11%) Bitbucket
8 1 (0.11%) Newman
8 1 (0.11%) Rational DOORS
8 1 (0.11%) TestRail
8 1 (0.11%) Visual Studio
8 1 (0.11%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 269 (29.30%) Social Skills
2 139 (15.14%) Finance
3 118 (12.85%) Analytical Skills
4 64 (6.97%) Public Sector
5 38 (4.14%) Billing
6 36 (3.92%) Documentation Skills
7 30 (3.27%) Retail
8 28 (3.05%) Organisational Skills
9 19 (2.07%) Influencing Skills
9 19 (2.07%) Marketing
10 18 (1.96%) Legal
10 18 (1.96%) Manufacturing
11 15 (1.63%) Aerospace
11 15 (1.63%) Presentation Skills
12 14 (1.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 10 (1.09%) Publishing
14 8 (0.87%) Police
15 7 (0.76%) Banking
16 4 (0.44%) Electronics
16 4 (0.44%) Games
Job Titles
1 134 (14.60%) Architect
2 79 (8.61%) Senior
3 70 (7.63%) Analyst
4 68 (7.41%) Consultant
4 68 (7.41%) Lead
5 66 (7.19%) Network Engineer
6 61 (6.64%) Project Manager
7 55 (5.99%) Field Engineer
8 51 (5.56%) Telecoms Engineer
9 39 (4.25%) Designer
10 37 (4.03%) Solutions Architect
11 35 (3.81%) Developer
12 34 (3.70%) Telecoms Manager
13 30 (3.27%) ServiceNow Architect
14 28 (3.05%) Enterprise Architect
15 26 (2.83%) Business Analyst
16 24 (2.61%) Data Engineer
17 23 (2.51%) SAP Consultant
17 23 (2.51%) Telecoms Architect
18 21 (2.29%) Field Telecoms Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 56 (6.10%) REST
2 34 (3.70%) SOAP
3 21 (2.29%) Terraform
4 18 (1.96%) Kafka
5 16 (1.74%) NETCONF
5 16 (1.74%) YANG
6 15 (1.63%) RESTful
7 13 (1.42%) HTML
7 13 (1.42%) ONVIF
8 12 (1.31%) CSS
8 12 (1.31%) Elastic Stack
8 12 (1.31%) XML
9 10 (1.09%) AngularJS
9 10 (1.09%) React
10 9 (0.98%) FastAPI
11 8 (0.87%) JSON
11 8 (0.87%) Middleware
11 8 (0.87%) OpenAPI
11 8 (0.87%) Swagger
12 7 (0.76%) 802.1X
Miscellaneous
1 51 (5.56%) Data Centre
2 49 (5.34%) CMDB
3 47 (5.12%) Driving Licence
4 43 (4.68%) Onboarding
5 36 (3.92%) Cloud Native
6 22 (2.40%) Analytical Mindset
7 19 (2.07%) Management Information System
8 18 (1.96%) Product Ownership
9 16 (1.74%) Data Protection Act
9 16 (1.74%) Hybrid Cloud
9 16 (1.74%) Self-Motivation
9 16 (1.74%) Virtual Team
10 14 (1.53%) Video\Live Streaming
11 13 (1.42%) TM Forum
12 11 (1.20%) Video Conferencing
13 10 (1.09%) Data Structures
14 9 (0.98%) Algorithms
14 9 (0.98%) Enterprise Software
14 9 (0.98%) Private Cloud
14 9 (0.98%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 53 (5.77%) Windows
2 50 (5.45%) Linux
3 14 (1.53%) Windows 10
4 12 (1.31%) Windows Server
5 11 (1.20%) Unix
6 9 (0.98%) Mac OS
7 5 (0.54%) VMS
8 3 (0.33%) Android
8 3 (0.33%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 2 (0.22%) Apple iOS
9 2 (0.22%) CentOS
9 2 (0.22%) Embedded Linux
9 2 (0.22%) OpenVMS
10 1 (0.11%) Mac OS X
10 1 (0.11%) OpenWrt
10 1 (0.11%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.11%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 205 (22.33%) Stakeholder Management
2 128 (13.94%) Agile
3 118 (12.85%) Problem-Solving
4 94 (10.24%) Project Delivery
5 91 (9.91%) ITIL
6 85 (9.26%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 82 (8.93%) AI
8 77 (8.39%) Project Management
8 77 (8.39%) Roadmaps
9 75 (8.17%) Service Management
10 73 (7.95%) Migration
11 69 (7.52%) CI/CD
12 67 (7.30%) Validation
13 64 (6.97%) Continuous Improvement
14 60 (6.54%) Decision-Making
15 56 (6.10%) Change Management
16 53 (5.77%) Customer Service
16 53 (5.77%) ITSM
17 52 (5.66%) Technical Leadership
18 50 (5.45%) CRM
Programming Languages
1 83 (9.04%) Python
2 41 (4.47%) SQL
3 32 (3.49%) JavaScript
4 25 (2.72%) Bash
5 15 (1.63%) Java
6 10 (1.09%) PowerShell
7 8 (0.87%) Apex Code
8 7 (0.76%) C#
8 7 (0.76%) R
9 6 (0.65%) Shell Script
10 5 (0.54%) SOQL
11 4 (0.44%) ABAP
11 4 (0.44%) C++
11 4 (0.44%) DataWeave
11 4 (0.44%) TypeScript
12 3 (0.33%) LookML
13 2 (0.22%) Bicep
13 2 (0.22%) C
13 2 (0.22%) DCL
14 1 (0.11%) Ada
Qualifications
1 166 (18.08%) Security Cleared
2 102 (11.11%) SC Cleared
3 95 (10.35%) Degree
4 72 (7.84%) Cisco Certification
5 47 (5.12%) CCNA
6 31 (3.38%) DV Cleared
7 27 (2.94%) CCNP
8 25 (2.72%) BPSS Clearance
9 24 (2.61%) Microsoft Certification
9 24 (2.61%) PMP
10 22 (2.40%) A+ Certification
11 21 (2.29%) Computer Science Degree
12 18 (1.96%) PMI Certification
13 15 (1.63%) CCIE
14 14 (1.53%) CISSP
15 13 (1.42%) Master's Degree
15 13 (1.42%) MCSA
16 10 (1.09%) JNCIE
17 9 (0.98%) CISM
17 9 (0.98%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 39 (4.25%) QA
2 25 (2.72%) SLA
3 23 (2.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 23 (2.51%) PMO
4 21 (2.29%) GRC
5 18 (1.96%) NCSC
6 15 (1.63%) GDPR
7 10 (1.09%) Data Quality
8 4 (0.44%) NIST
9 3 (0.33%) Accessibility
9 3 (0.33%) Actionable Recommendations
9 3 (0.33%) Cyber Essentials
9 3 (0.33%) PCI DSS
9 3 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 2 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 2 (0.22%) EU AI Act
11 1 (0.11%) ISO 31000
11 1 (0.11%) ISO/IEC 15288
11 1 (0.11%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 1 (0.11%) SOC 1
System Software
1 26 (2.83%) Docker
2 23 (2.51%) Active Directory
3 21 (2.29%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (0.87%) VMware NSX
5 5 (0.54%) VMware ESXi
5 5 (0.54%) vSphere
6 3 (0.33%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.22%) Firmware
8 1 (0.11%) Ceph
8 1 (0.11%) KVM
8 1 (0.11%) NDS
8 1 (0.11%) NetIQ eDirectory
8 1 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 45 (4.90%) Kubernetes
2 23 (2.51%) Ansible
3 12 (1.31%) Grafana
3 12 (1.31%) Prometheus
4 8 (0.87%) Microsoft Intune
5 5 (0.54%) Jamf Pro
6 4 (0.44%) Cilium
6 4 (0.44%) Cisco Prime
6 4 (0.44%) Istio
7 3 (0.33%) Check_MK
7 3 (0.33%) Kibana
7 3 (0.33%) Podman
7 3 (0.33%) SolarWinds Orion
7 3 (0.33%) vCenter Server
7 3 (0.33%) vRealize
8 2 (0.22%) Amdocs OSS
8 2 (0.22%) NSN NetAct
8 2 (0.22%) QRadar
9 1 (0.11%) Proxmox
9 1 (0.11%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 123 (13.40%) Microsoft
2 122 (13.29%) Cisco
3 88 (9.59%) ServiceNow
4 64 (6.97%) Nokia
5 47 (5.12%) Salesforce
6 35 (3.81%) VMware
7 31 (3.38%) SAP
8 26 (2.83%) Ericsson
9 23 (2.51%) Juniper
10 21 (2.29%) BT
10 21 (2.29%) Google
11 19 (2.07%) F5
11 19 (2.07%) MuleSoft
12 17 (1.85%) Fortinet
13 13 (1.42%) Palo Alto
14 12 (1.31%) BMC
15 11 (1.20%) Splunk
16 10 (1.09%) Arista
16 10 (1.09%) Huawei
16 10 (1.09%) Zscaler