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 22 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 178 92 66
Rank change year-on-year -86 -26 +18
Contract jobs citing Telecoms 713 768 1,308
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.48% 2.67% 3.08%
As % of the General category 2.76% 4.21% 5.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 441 432 645
10th Percentile £213 £313 £200
25th Percentile £400 £395 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £481 £450
Median % change year-on-year +0.16% +6.78% -8.63%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £588
90th Percentile £681 £700 £728
UK excluding London median daily rate £466 £475 £450
% change year-on-year -1.89% +5.56% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 47 32 96
10th Percentile £16.98 - £12.15
25th Percentile £21.00 £14.00 £13.25
Median hourly rate £23.83 £24.67 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -3.42% -55.15% +4.76%
75th Percentile £50.00 £58.69 £72.50
90th Percentile £178.75 £73.88 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.83 £18.65 £55.00
% change year-on-year +27.73% -66.09% +4.76%

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 25,854 18,230 24,647
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 53.50% 63.27% 58.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,737 11,584 15,568
10th Percentile £312 £284 £275
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £515 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.97% -1.90% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £763 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £475 £493
% change year-on-year +3.16% -3.65% -1.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,672 770 1,925
10th Percentile £13.95 £13.90 £12.75
25th Percentile £17.50 £16.95 £15.50
Median hourly rate £30.08 £27.57 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -8.10% -7.69%
75th Percentile £60.00 £55.82 £52.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £66.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £29.00 £24.50 £28.13
% change year-on-year +18.37% -12.89% -1.59%

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 22 May 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 22 May 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 22 May 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 -85 624 £481 -2.78% 591
UK excluding London -95 363 £466 -1.89% 465
London -14 274 £500 +2.04% 219
Work from Home -34 192 £500 +5.26% 183
South East -68 147 £455 -5.31% 149
North of England -58 69 £481 -9.20% 90
Midlands -47 51 £550 +7.32% 52
South West -54 45 £511 -2.67% 52
West Midlands -41 40 £563 +9.76% 31
North West -54 33 £463 -12.32% 45
East of England -24 32 £200 -50.00% 67
Yorkshire -40 22 £481 -10.47% 37
Scotland -13 15 £305 -9.63% 47
North East -17 14 £500 -11.50% 8
East Midlands -18 11 £500 +25.00% 21
Northern Ireland -2 4 £163 -54.55% 8
Wales -16 3 £160 -56.16% 18

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 (1.26%) Confluence
1 9 (1.26%) OpenStack
2 6 (0.84%) Appian
3 5 (0.70%) Apache Airflow
3 5 (0.70%) Apache Spark
3 5 (0.70%) Microsoft Exchange
4 4 (0.56%) Anypoint
4 4 (0.56%) SharePoint
5 3 (0.42%) ArcGIS
5 3 (0.42%) IIS
5 3 (0.42%) JBoss
5 3 (0.42%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 3 (0.42%) Tomcat
5 3 (0.42%) WebLogic
6 2 (0.28%) Apache
6 2 (0.28%) Oracle Spatial
7 1 (0.14%) Camunda
7 1 (0.14%) CMS
7 1 (0.14%) Smallworld
Applications
1 24 (3.37%) Microsoft Office
2 14 (1.96%) Microsoft Excel
3 7 (0.98%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 6 (0.84%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.70%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.56%) AutoCAD
7 2 (0.28%) MicroStation
8 1 (0.14%) Autodesk Inventor
8 1 (0.14%) FrameMaker
8 1 (0.14%) MadCap Flare
8 1 (0.14%) Revit
8 1 (0.14%) SOLIDWORKS
8 1 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.14%) Trello
Business Applications
1 11 (1.54%) Remedy ITSM
1 11 (1.54%) SAP PSCD
2 10 (1.40%) SAP BRIM
3 9 (1.26%) SAP Hybris
4 6 (0.84%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 4 (0.56%) BambooHR
6 2 (0.28%) SAP FI
7 1 (0.14%) Dynamics CRM
7 1 (0.14%) Remedy AR System
7 1 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
7 1 (0.14%) SAP CO
7 1 (0.14%) SAP FI/CO
7 1 (0.14%) SAP FI-CA
7 1 (0.14%) SAP IBP
7 1 (0.14%) SAP S/4HANA
7 1 (0.14%) SAP SD
7 1 (0.14%) SAP SRM
7 1 (0.14%) SmartPlant
Cloud Services
1 61 (8.56%) Azure
2 55 (7.71%) AWS
3 32 (4.49%) GCP
4 22 (3.09%) Microsoft 365
5 20 (2.81%) Power Platform
6 14 (1.96%) SaaS
7 10 (1.40%) SAP Commerce Cloud
8 8 (1.12%) dbt
9 6 (0.84%) Azure DevOps
10 5 (0.70%) Datadog
10 5 (0.70%) Salesforce Service Cloud
10 5 (0.70%) Serverless
11 4 (0.56%) AWS Lambda
11 4 (0.56%) Boomi
11 4 (0.56%) Dagster
11 4 (0.56%) Entra ID
11 4 (0.56%) Figma
11 4 (0.56%) Prefect
11 4 (0.56%) Snowflake
12 3 (0.42%) GitHub
Communications & Networking
1 44 (6.17%) 5G
2 41 (5.75%) MPLS
3 40 (5.61%) Firewall
4 39 (5.47%) WAN
5 29 (4.07%) LAN
6 27 (3.79%) Network Security
7 25 (3.51%) 4G
8 24 (3.37%) Radio Access Network
9 22 (3.09%) BGP
9 22 (3.09%) SD-WAN
10 21 (2.95%) Internet
11 19 (2.66%) VoIP
12 18 (2.52%) LTE
13 17 (2.38%) 3GPP
13 17 (2.38%) DNS
13 17 (2.38%) VPN
14 15 (2.10%) Broadband
15 14 (1.96%) OSPF
16 13 (1.82%) HTTP
17 12 (1.68%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (2.66%) Power BI
2 12 (1.68%) Data Warehouse
2 12 (1.68%) Looker
2 12 (1.68%) Tableau
3 9 (1.26%) BigQuery
4 8 (1.12%) Big Data
5 7 (0.98%) Amazon Redshift
5 7 (0.98%) Relational Database
6 6 (0.84%) SQL Server
7 5 (0.70%) MySQL
7 5 (0.70%) Oracle Database
8 3 (0.42%) Amazon Athena
8 3 (0.42%) Data Lake
8 3 (0.42%) GIS
8 3 (0.42%) PostgreSQL
8 3 (0.42%) Semantic Layer
8 3 (0.42%) Star Schema
9 2 (0.28%) Apache Cassandra
9 2 (0.28%) MongoDB
9 2 (0.28%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 21 (2.95%) JIRA
2 9 (1.26%) Git
3 2 (0.28%) GitLab
3 2 (0.28%) Jenkins
3 2 (0.28%) JMeter
3 2 (0.28%) Robot Framework
4 1 (0.14%) Appium
4 1 (0.14%) Bitbucket
4 1 (0.14%) Oracle Forms
4 1 (0.14%) Sonatype Nexus
4 1 (0.14%) TestRail
General
1 193 (27.07%) Social Skills
2 133 (18.65%) Finance
3 92 (12.90%) Public Sector
4 91 (12.76%) Analytical Skills
5 57 (7.99%) Marketing
6 47 (6.59%) Electronics
7 42 (5.89%) Manufacturing
8 38 (5.33%) Billing
9 26 (3.65%) Retail
10 20 (2.81%) Organisational Skills
11 17 (2.38%) Legal
12 14 (1.96%) Documentation Skills
12 14 (1.96%) Influencing Skills
13 7 (0.98%) Presentation Skills
14 6 (0.84%) Banking
14 6 (0.84%) Military
15 5 (0.70%) Publishing
16 4 (0.56%) Aerospace
17 3 (0.42%) Financial Institution
17 3 (0.42%) Police
Job Titles
1 97 (13.60%) Architect
2 62 (8.70%) Analyst
3 55 (7.71%) Lead
4 49 (6.87%) Senior
5 41 (5.75%) Solutions Architect
6 37 (5.19%) Project Manager
6 37 (5.19%) Telecoms Manager
7 36 (5.05%) Consultant
8 34 (4.77%) Network Engineer
9 27 (3.79%) Designer
10 26 (3.65%) Business Analyst
10 26 (3.65%) ServiceNow Architect
11 25 (3.51%) Developer
12 21 (2.95%) Data Engineer
13 19 (2.66%) Programme Manager
14 18 (2.52%) Sales Manager
15 17 (2.38%) Enterprise Architect
16 15 (2.10%) Delivery Manager
17 14 (1.96%) IT Analyst
17 14 (1.96%) Telecoms Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 35 (4.91%) REST
2 21 (2.95%) SOAP
3 11 (1.54%) Middleware
4 10 (1.40%) Kafka
5 8 (1.12%) .NET
5 8 (1.12%) Elastic Stack
5 8 (1.12%) XML
6 6 (0.84%) JSON
6 6 (0.84%) OpenAPI
6 6 (0.84%) Swagger
7 5 (0.70%) ONVIF
8 4 (0.56%) RAML
8 4 (0.56%) RESTful
9 3 (0.42%) .NET Framework
9 3 (0.42%) 802.1X
9 3 (0.42%) GraphQL
9 3 (0.42%) RabbitMQ
9 3 (0.42%) RFC 2544
9 3 (0.42%) Web Services
10 2 (0.28%) Yocto
Miscellaneous
1 31 (4.35%) Onboarding
2 29 (4.07%) Data Centre
3 26 (3.65%) Data Protection Act
4 20 (2.81%) Product Ownership
5 19 (2.66%) Cloud Native
5 19 (2.66%) CMDB
6 17 (2.38%) Driving Licence
7 16 (2.24%) Virtual Team
8 12 (1.68%) Distributed Systems
9 10 (1.40%) Analytical Mindset
10 8 (1.12%) EPoS
10 8 (1.12%) Management Information System
10 8 (1.12%) Self-Motivation
10 8 (1.12%) TM Forum
11 7 (0.98%) Hybrid Cloud
11 7 (0.98%) NHS
12 6 (0.84%) IoT
12 6 (0.84%) Legacy Systems
12 6 (0.84%) Web Conferencing
13 5 (0.70%) Algorithms
Operating Systems
1 30 (4.21%) Windows
2 24 (3.37%) Linux
3 15 (2.10%) Windows 10
4 11 (1.54%) Unix
5 5 (0.70%) Android
6 4 (0.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 3 (0.42%) Debian
7 3 (0.42%) Ubuntu
7 3 (0.42%) VMS
7 3 (0.42%) Windows Server
8 2 (0.28%) Apple iOS
8 2 (0.28%) Embedded Linux
8 2 (0.28%) Mac OS
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
1 110 (15.43%) Stakeholder Management
2 91 (12.76%) Agile
2 91 (12.76%) Problem-Solving
3 66 (9.26%) ITIL
4 63 (8.84%) Continuous Improvement
5 59 (8.27%) Business Intelligence
6 55 (7.71%) Decision-Making
6 55 (7.71%) Migration
6 55 (7.71%) Project Management
7 54 (7.57%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 48 (6.73%) Analytics
9 47 (6.59%) Customer Service
10 46 (6.45%) Project Delivery
11 45 (6.31%) Programme Management
12 43 (6.03%) Roadmaps
13 41 (5.75%) Data Protection
14 39 (5.47%) Digital Marketing
14 39 (5.47%) ITSM
15 38 (5.33%) CRM
16 37 (5.19%) CI/CD
Programming Languages
1 47 (6.59%) Python
2 36 (5.05%) SQL
3 16 (2.24%) Java
4 13 (1.82%) JavaScript
5 9 (1.26%) C#
6 8 (1.12%) C++
7 7 (0.98%) Bash
8 6 (0.84%) R
9 4 (0.56%) DataWeave
9 4 (0.56%) PowerShell
10 3 (0.42%) Apex Code
10 3 (0.42%) C
10 3 (0.42%) Go
10 3 (0.42%) LookML
10 3 (0.42%) TypeScript
11 2 (0.28%) PL/SQL
11 2 (0.28%) Shell Script
12 1 (0.14%) ABAP
12 1 (0.14%) Kotlin
12 1 (0.14%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 127 (17.81%) Security Cleared
2 95 (13.32%) SC Cleared
3 65 (9.12%) Degree
4 29 (4.07%) Cisco Certification
5 23 (3.23%) DV Cleared
6 18 (2.52%) Computer Science Degree
7 17 (2.38%) Microsoft Certification
8 16 (2.24%) CCNP
9 15 (2.10%) A+ Certification
9 15 (2.10%) CCNA
10 14 (1.96%) PMP
11 13 (1.82%) BPSS Clearance
12 9 (1.26%) Network+ Certification
12 9 (1.26%) PMI Certification
13 8 (1.12%) Master's Degree
14 7 (0.98%) ACCA
14 7 (0.98%) CIMA
15 6 (0.84%) CCIE
16 5 (0.70%) CISSP
16 5 (0.70%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 22 (3.09%) SLA
2 20 (2.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 19 (2.66%) GDPR
4 16 (2.24%) PMO
4 16 (2.24%) QA
5 14 (1.96%) NCSC
6 13 (1.82%) Data Quality
7 10 (1.40%) GRC
7 10 (1.40%) NIST
8 7 (0.98%) RMADS
9 5 (0.70%) JSP 440
10 2 (0.28%) Accessibility
11 1 (0.14%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 1 (0.14%) EU AI Act
11 1 (0.14%) HIPAA
11 1 (0.14%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 1 (0.14%) PCI DSS
11 1 (0.14%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 1 (0.14%) SOC 1
11 1 (0.14%) WCAG
System Software
1 16 (2.24%) Active Directory
2 10 (1.40%) Docker
3 9 (1.26%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (0.70%) vSphere
5 3 (0.42%) Hyper-V
5 3 (0.42%) QEMU
5 3 (0.42%) VMware ESXi
5 3 (0.42%) VMware NSX
6 1 (0.14%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 35 (4.91%) Kubernetes
2 13 (1.82%) Ansible
3 12 (1.68%) Grafana
3 12 (1.68%) Prometheus
4 9 (1.26%) Terraform
5 4 (0.56%) Cisco Prime
6 3 (0.42%) Iperf
6 3 (0.42%) Podman
6 3 (0.42%) vCenter Server
6 3 (0.42%) vRealize
7 2 (0.28%) Amdocs OSS
7 2 (0.28%) FortiGate
7 2 (0.28%) Microsoft Intune
7 2 (0.28%) Nmap
7 2 (0.28%) NSN NetAct
7 2 (0.28%) SCCM
8 1 (0.14%) Cisco CUCM
8 1 (0.14%) Data Guard
8 1 (0.14%) Failover Clustering
8 1 (0.14%) SolarWinds Orion
Vendors
1 83 (11.64%) Microsoft
2 63 (8.84%) ServiceNow
3 59 (8.27%) Cisco
4 57 (7.99%) SAP
5 39 (5.47%) Nokia
6 25 (3.51%) Salesforce
7 22 (3.09%) Oracle
8 21 (2.95%) BT
9 20 (2.81%) Ericsson
10 16 (2.24%) Fortinet
10 16 (2.24%) Juniper
11 14 (1.96%) CheckPoint
11 14 (1.96%) Google
11 14 (1.96%) Huawei
12 13 (1.82%) Remedy
13 12 (1.68%) VMware
14 11 (1.54%) F5
14 11 (1.54%) MuleSoft
15 10 (1.40%) Palo Alto
16 9 (1.26%) Databricks