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 19 June 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 179 101 62
Rank change year-on-year -78 -39 +20
Contract jobs citing Telecoms 730 766 1,375
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.44% 2.57% 3.13%
As % of the General category 2.66% 4.04% 5.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 436 439 656
10th Percentile £210 £309 £200
25th Percentile £400 £400 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £480 £480 £450
Median % change year-on-year - +6.67% -7.69%
75th Percentile £575 £579 £600
90th Percentile £684 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £464 £480 £450
% change year-on-year -3.39% +6.67% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 38 37 102
10th Percentile £17.14 - £12.15
25th Percentile £21.00 £14.00 £13.89
Median hourly rate £36.13 £27.40 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +31.84% -39.11% -14.29%
75th Percentile £53.38 £62.24 £72.50
90th Percentile £178.75 £65.25 £76.13
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.00 £15.50 £45.00
% change year-on-year +35.48% -65.56% +16.13%

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 27,395 18,938 25,018
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 54.21% 63.50% 57.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 16,527 11,957 15,649
10th Percentile £313 £281 £275
25th Percentile £413 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £501 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.90% -4.67% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £769
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £470 £488
% change year-on-year +6.38% -3.59% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,837 906 2,015
10th Percentile £13.99 £13.48 £12.78
25th Percentile £18.22 £16.57 £15.50
Median hourly rate £32.00 £27.70 £30.50
Median % change year-on-year +15.52% -9.18% -0.07%
75th Percentile £61.18 £53.95 £52.50
90th Percentile £81.05 £75.00 £67.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.46 £24.34 £29.75
% change year-on-year +29.25% -18.18% +12.31%

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 19 June 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 19 June 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 19 June 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 -78 640 £475 -3.85% 533
UK excluding London -101 369 £464 -3.39% 449
London -23 285 £500 +2.04% 167
Work from Home -31 206 £481 +1.32% 207
South East -64 156 £460 -7.07% 163
North of England -47 74 £496 -5.52% 86
South West -54 47 £505 +6.32% 38
Midlands -54 39 £488 -3.70% 69
North West -43 34 £506 -3.57% 49
West Midlands -60 33 £470 +13.94% 48
East of England -20 32 £194 -48.33% 53
Yorkshire -43 26 £487 -7.31% 27
Scotland -19 21 £305 -6.15% 39
North East -23 14 £500 -11.50% 12
East Midlands -14 6 £500 -20.00% 21
Northern Ireland -4 3 £175 -51.05% 9
Wales -18 1 £500 +90.48% 8

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 9 (1.23%) Confluence
2 8 (1.10%) OpenStack
3 6 (0.82%) Apache Airflow
3 6 (0.82%) Appian
4 4 (0.55%) Anypoint
4 4 (0.55%) Apache Spark
4 4 (0.55%) Microsoft Exchange
4 4 (0.55%) SharePoint
5 3 (0.41%) ArcGIS
5 3 (0.41%) IIS
5 3 (0.41%) JBoss
5 3 (0.41%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 3 (0.41%) Tomcat
5 3 (0.41%) WebLogic
6 2 (0.27%) Apache
6 2 (0.27%) Oracle Spatial
7 1 (0.14%) Camunda
7 1 (0.14%) CMS
7 1 (0.14%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
7 1 (0.14%) Smallworld
Applications
1 21 (2.88%) Microsoft Office
2 19 (2.60%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (1.23%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (1.10%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.68%) AutoCAD
5 5 (0.68%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.27%) MicroStation
7 1 (0.14%) Autodesk Inventor
7 1 (0.14%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.14%) Revit
7 1 (0.14%) SOLIDWORKS
7 1 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.14%) Trello
Business Applications
1 18 (2.47%) SAP PSCD
2 13 (1.78%) Remedy ITSM
2 13 (1.78%) SAP BRIM
3 12 (1.64%) SAP Hybris
4 6 (0.82%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 4 (0.55%) BambooHR
5 4 (0.55%) SAP FI
6 3 (0.41%) NetSuite
6 3 (0.41%) Remedy AR System
6 3 (0.41%) Sage X3
6 3 (0.41%) Salesforce CRM
6 3 (0.41%) SAP FI-CA
7 2 (0.27%) SAP ERP
8 1 (0.14%) Dynamics CRM
8 1 (0.14%) SAP CO
8 1 (0.14%) SAP FI/CO
8 1 (0.14%) SAP IBP
8 1 (0.14%) SAP S/4HANA
8 1 (0.14%) SAP SRM
8 1 (0.14%) SmartPlant
Cloud Services
1 63 (8.63%) Azure
2 60 (8.22%) AWS
3 39 (5.34%) GCP
4 21 (2.88%) Power Platform
5 18 (2.47%) Microsoft 365
6 15 (2.05%) SaaS
7 14 (1.92%) SAP Commerce Cloud
8 9 (1.23%) dbt
9 8 (1.10%) Snowflake
10 6 (0.82%) Datadog
10 6 (0.82%) Serverless
11 5 (0.68%) AWS Lambda
11 5 (0.68%) Azure DevOps
11 5 (0.68%) Entra ID
11 5 (0.68%) GitHub
11 5 (0.68%) Prefect
12 4 (0.55%) Boomi
12 4 (0.55%) Dagster
12 4 (0.55%) Figma
12 4 (0.55%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 53 (7.26%) 5G
2 51 (6.99%) WAN
3 50 (6.85%) MPLS
4 39 (5.34%) LAN
5 36 (4.93%) Firewall
6 32 (4.38%) 4G
7 31 (4.25%) Radio Access Network
8 26 (3.56%) SD-WAN
9 25 (3.42%) BGP
10 24 (3.29%) Network Security
11 20 (2.74%) 3GPP
11 20 (2.74%) Internet
11 20 (2.74%) VoIP
12 19 (2.60%) LTE
13 17 (2.33%) OSPF
14 16 (2.19%) VPN
15 15 (2.05%) DNS
15 15 (2.05%) Structured Cabling
16 14 (1.92%) 3G
16 14 (1.92%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (2.74%) Power BI
2 14 (1.92%) Data Warehouse
3 12 (1.64%) BigQuery
3 12 (1.64%) Looker
3 12 (1.64%) Tableau
4 10 (1.37%) Amazon Redshift
5 7 (0.96%) Big Data
5 7 (0.96%) Relational Database
6 6 (0.82%) SQL Server
7 5 (0.68%) MySQL
8 4 (0.55%) Oracle Database
9 3 (0.41%) Amazon Athena
9 3 (0.41%) GIS
9 3 (0.41%) InfluxDB
9 3 (0.41%) PostgreSQL
9 3 (0.41%) Semantic Layer
9 3 (0.41%) Star Schema
10 2 (0.27%) Metadata
10 2 (0.27%) Power Query
10 2 (0.27%) TimescaleDB
Development Applications
1 23 (3.15%) JIRA
2 12 (1.64%) Git
3 3 (0.41%) Jenkins
4 2 (0.27%) GitLab
4 2 (0.27%) Robot Framework
5 1 (0.14%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.14%) JMeter
5 1 (0.14%) Oracle Forms
5 1 (0.14%) Sonatype Nexus
5 1 (0.14%) TestRail
General
1 205 (28.08%) Social Skills
2 127 (17.40%) Finance
3 105 (14.38%) Analytical Skills
4 68 (9.32%) Public Sector
5 45 (6.16%) Billing
6 31 (4.25%) Marketing
7 27 (3.70%) Retail
8 21 (2.88%) Documentation Skills
8 21 (2.88%) Electronics
9 19 (2.60%) Legal
10 17 (2.33%) Manufacturing
11 13 (1.78%) Influencing Skills
12 12 (1.64%) Organisational Skills
13 9 (1.23%) Presentation Skills
14 6 (0.82%) Aerospace
14 6 (0.82%) Banking
14 6 (0.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 5 (0.68%) Police
15 5 (0.68%) Publishing
16 4 (0.55%) Military
Job Titles
1 95 (13.01%) Architect
2 60 (8.22%) Lead
3 59 (8.08%) Senior
4 57 (7.81%) Consultant
5 56 (7.67%) Analyst
6 41 (5.62%) Solutions Architect
7 40 (5.48%) Network Engineer
8 39 (5.34%) Telecoms Manager
9 37 (5.07%) Project Manager
10 29 (3.97%) Designer
11 27 (3.70%) Developer
12 25 (3.42%) ServiceNow Architect
13 23 (3.15%) Data Engineer
14 21 (2.88%) Sales Manager
15 20 (2.74%) Business Analyst
15 20 (2.74%) Delivery Manager
16 19 (2.60%) SAP Consultant
17 17 (2.33%) Enterprise Architect
17 17 (2.33%) Programme Manager
17 17 (2.33%) Telecoms Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 38 (5.21%) REST
2 25 (3.42%) SOAP
3 12 (1.64%) Middleware
4 11 (1.51%) ONVIF
5 10 (1.37%) Kafka
6 9 (1.23%) .NET
6 9 (1.23%) Elastic Stack
7 8 (1.10%) XML
8 6 (0.82%) JSON
8 6 (0.82%) OpenAPI
8 6 (0.82%) Swagger
9 5 (0.68%) RESTful
10 4 (0.55%) .NET Framework
10 4 (0.55%) NETCONF
10 4 (0.55%) RAML
10 4 (0.55%) YANG
11 3 (0.41%) GraphQL
11 3 (0.41%) RabbitMQ
11 3 (0.41%) RFC 2544
11 3 (0.41%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 37 (5.07%) CMDB
1 37 (5.07%) Data Centre
2 34 (4.66%) Onboarding
3 26 (3.56%) Cloud Native
4 24 (3.29%) Data Protection Act
5 18 (2.47%) Driving Licence
5 18 (2.47%) Product Ownership
6 17 (2.33%) Virtual Team
7 15 (2.05%) Analytical Mindset
8 13 (1.78%) Distributed Systems
9 11 (1.51%) Video\Live Streaming
10 8 (1.10%) EPoS
10 8 (1.10%) Self-Motivation
11 7 (0.96%) Hybrid Cloud
11 7 (0.96%) Management Information System
11 7 (0.96%) NHS
11 7 (0.96%) TM Forum
12 6 (0.82%) Web Conferencing
13 5 (0.68%) AI Agents
13 5 (0.68%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 27 (3.70%) Windows
2 25 (3.42%) Linux
3 12 (1.64%) Windows 10
4 11 (1.51%) Unix
5 4 (0.55%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 4 (0.55%) VMS
6 3 (0.41%) Android
6 3 (0.41%) Debian
6 3 (0.41%) Mac OS
6 3 (0.41%) Ubuntu
6 3 (0.41%) Windows Server
7 2 (0.27%) Apple iOS
7 2 (0.27%) Embedded Linux
8 1 (0.14%) Mac OS X
8 1 (0.14%) OpenVMS
8 1 (0.14%) Oracle Linux
8 1 (0.14%) Windows 7
8 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2016
8 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 118 (16.16%) Stakeholder Management
2 97 (13.29%) Problem-Solving
3 95 (13.01%) Agile
4 73 (10.00%) ITIL
5 66 (9.04%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 62 (8.49%) Continuous Improvement
6 62 (8.49%) Decision-Making
7 53 (7.26%) Project Delivery
8 51 (6.99%) CRM
8 51 (6.99%) Migration
9 50 (6.85%) CI/CD
9 50 (6.85%) Project Management
10 49 (6.71%) Roadmaps
11 47 (6.44%) Service Management
12 46 (6.30%) Customer Service
12 46 (6.30%) Validation
13 45 (6.16%) Analytics
14 44 (6.03%) ITSM
15 41 (5.62%) Risk Management
16 38 (5.21%) AI
Programming Languages
1 53 (7.26%) Python
2 34 (4.66%) SQL
3 17 (2.33%) Java
4 16 (2.19%) JavaScript
5 10 (1.37%) C#
6 8 (1.10%) C++
7 7 (0.96%) Bash
8 6 (0.82%) R
9 4 (0.55%) DataWeave
9 4 (0.55%) TypeScript
10 3 (0.41%) ABAP
10 3 (0.41%) Apex Code
10 3 (0.41%) C
10 3 (0.41%) LookML
11 2 (0.27%) PL/SQL
11 2 (0.27%) PowerShell
11 2 (0.27%) Shell Script
12 1 (0.14%) Go
12 1 (0.14%) Kotlin
12 1 (0.14%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 117 (16.03%) Security Cleared
2 83 (11.37%) SC Cleared
3 69 (9.45%) Degree
4 41 (5.62%) Cisco Certification
5 28 (3.84%) CCNA
6 21 (2.88%) A+ Certification
6 21 (2.88%) DV Cleared
6 21 (2.88%) Microsoft Certification
7 19 (2.60%) CCNP
8 18 (2.47%) Computer Science Degree
9 16 (2.19%) PMP
10 14 (1.92%) BPSS Clearance
11 12 (1.64%) PMI Certification
12 11 (1.51%) MCSA
12 11 (1.51%) Network+ Certification
13 8 (1.10%) Master's Degree
14 7 (0.96%) AWS Certification
14 7 (0.96%) Azure Certification
15 6 (0.82%) ACCA
15 6 (0.82%) CIMA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 22 (3.01%) SLA
2 19 (2.60%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 17 (2.33%) GDPR
4 16 (2.19%) NCSC
4 16 (2.19%) PMO
5 15 (2.05%) QA
6 13 (1.78%) Data Quality
7 11 (1.51%) GRC
8 8 (1.10%) NIST
9 5 (0.68%) RMADS
10 3 (0.41%) JSP 440
11 1 (0.14%) Accessibility
11 1 (0.14%) EU AI Act
11 1 (0.14%) HMG Security Policy Framework
11 1 (0.14%) IFRS
11 1 (0.14%) ISO 22301
11 1 (0.14%) ISO 31000
11 1 (0.14%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 1 (0.14%) NEBOSH
11 1 (0.14%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 15 (2.05%) Active Directory
2 13 (1.78%) VMware Infrastructure
3 12 (1.64%) Docker
4 5 (0.68%) VMware NSX
4 5 (0.68%) vSphere
5 3 (0.41%) Hyper-V
5 3 (0.41%) QEMU
5 3 (0.41%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (0.14%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 40 (5.48%) Kubernetes
2 17 (2.33%) Ansible
2 17 (2.33%) Terraform
3 13 (1.78%) Grafana
3 13 (1.78%) Prometheus
4 3 (0.41%) Cisco Prime
4 3 (0.41%) Iperf
4 3 (0.41%) Jamf Pro
4 3 (0.41%) Podman
4 3 (0.41%) vCenter Server
4 3 (0.41%) vRealize
5 2 (0.27%) Amdocs OSS
5 2 (0.27%) FortiGate
5 2 (0.27%) Nmap
5 2 (0.27%) NSN NetAct
6 1 (0.14%) Failover Clustering
6 1 (0.14%) Kibana
6 1 (0.14%) Microsoft Intune
6 1 (0.14%) SCCM
6 1 (0.14%) SolarWinds Orion
Vendors
1 79 (10.82%) Microsoft
2 69 (9.45%) ServiceNow
3 62 (8.49%) Cisco
4 38 (5.21%) Nokia
5 37 (5.07%) SAP
6 27 (3.70%) Salesforce
7 23 (3.15%) BT
7 23 (3.15%) Oracle
8 18 (2.47%) Ericsson
8 18 (2.47%) VMware
9 16 (2.19%) Fortinet
9 16 (2.19%) Remedy
10 14 (1.92%) Huawei
10 14 (1.92%) Juniper
11 13 (1.78%) Google
12 11 (1.51%) CheckPoint
12 11 (1.51%) MuleSoft
13 10 (1.37%) BMC
13 10 (1.37%) F5
14 8 (1.10%) Databricks