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

6 months to
28 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 168 115 68
Rank change year-on-year -53 -47 +7
Contract jobs citing Telecoms 917 795 1,214
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.69% 2.42% 3.18%
As % of the General category 3.01% 3.82% 5.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 511 474 536
10th Percentile £255 £214 £245
25th Percentile £363 £365 £379
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £470 £450 £500
Median % change year-on-year +4.44% -10.00% -
75th Percentile £550 £573 £600
90th Percentile £660 £675 £719
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £500
% change year-on-year - -10.00% +6.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 50 49 83
10th Percentile £13.91 £14.00 £16.18
25th Percentile £16.01 £14.75 £37.50
Median hourly rate £20.47 £23.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -11.02% -64.62% +44.44%
75th Percentile £31.00 £43.00 £72.50
90th Percentile £50.45 £67.70 £78.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.50 £20.75 £70.00
% change year-on-year -15.66% -70.36% +55.56%

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 30,424 20,830 22,263
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 55.94% 63.48% 58.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,767 12,947 13,186
10th Percentile £313 £273 £281
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 £489
% change year-on-year +5.26% -2.86% -2.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,613 1,218 1,027
10th Percentile £13.50 £13.50 £14.89
25th Percentile £16.25 £16.17 £17.25
Median hourly rate £29.00 £25.08 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +15.65% -28.36% +27.27%
75th Percentile £53.75 £46.61 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £67.00 £71.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £29.01 £21.39 £35.00
% change year-on-year +35.62% -38.89% +29.63%

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 28 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 28 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 28 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 -67 761 £475 +2.70% 1,365
UK excluding London -55 471 £450 - 825
London -31 342 £500 +7.53% 601
Work from Home -13 269 £475 -5.00% 431
South East -35 191 £470 -5.05% 235
East of England +23 72 £325 -23.53% 108
Scotland +8 62 £300 +9.09% 76
North of England -60 57 £463 +68.18% 149
South West -67 48 £494 -5.90% 75
Midlands -69 34 £475 +25.00% 148
Yorkshire -22 32 £475 +95.88% 43
West Midlands -67 32 £481 +26.64% 85
North West -64 23 £463 +48.59% 87
Wales -10 7 £200 +19.40% 17
Northern Ireland -1 6 £358 +116.67% 30
Channel Islands -2 2 £606 - 2
East Midlands -19 2 £475 +171.43% 63
North East -39 2 £298 +70.00% 21

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 22 (2.40%) Confluence
2 16 (1.74%) 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%) IIS
9 1 (0.11%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
Applications
1 36 (3.93%) Microsoft Excel
2 28 (3.05%) MS Visio
3 26 (2.84%) Microsoft Office
4 12 (1.31%) Microsoft Project
5 8 (0.87%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 5 (0.55%) 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 23 (2.51%) SAP PSCD
2 15 (1.64%) SAP BRIM
3 12 (1.31%) SAP Hybris
4 8 (0.87%) SAP FI
5 7 (0.76%) SAP FI-CA
6 6 (0.65%) Remedy ITSM
7 5 (0.55%) NetSuite
7 5 (0.55%) Sage X3
7 5 (0.55%) Salesforce CRM
7 5 (0.55%) SAP S/4HANA
8 3 (0.33%) Remedy AR System
8 3 (0.33%) SAP ERP
9 1 (0.11%) BambooHR
9 1 (0.11%) Oracle BRM
9 1 (0.11%) Primavera
9 1 (0.11%) SAP FS
9 1 (0.11%) SAP IBP
9 1 (0.11%) SAP IS-U
9 1 (0.11%) SAP SD
9 1 (0.11%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 90 (9.81%) Azure
2 87 (9.49%) AWS
3 57 (6.22%) GCP
4 20 (2.18%) GitHub
5 19 (2.07%) Microsoft 365
6 16 (1.74%) Entra ID
7 14 (1.53%) SAP Commerce Cloud
8 13 (1.42%) Power Platform
8 13 (1.42%) SaaS
9 11 (1.20%) Azure DevOps
10 10 (1.09%) Cloud Computing
10 10 (1.09%) GitHub Actions
11 7 (0.76%) dbt
11 7 (0.76%) Microsoft Purview
11 7 (0.76%) OneDrive
11 7 (0.76%) Snowflake
12 6 (0.65%) Cloud Functions
12 6 (0.65%) Miro
13 5 (0.55%) Fivetran
13 5 (0.55%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 120 (13.09%) WAN
2 94 (10.25%) 5G
3 91 (9.92%) LAN
4 89 (9.71%) MPLS
5 67 (7.31%) 4G
6 65 (7.09%) Radio Access Network
7 56 (6.11%) Firewall
8 47 (5.13%) Wi-Fi
9 38 (4.14%) Broadband
9 38 (4.14%) SD-WAN
10 33 (3.60%) DNS
10 33 (3.60%) VoIP
11 32 (3.49%) BGP
12 31 (3.38%) SDH
13 29 (3.16%) 3GPP
13 29 (3.16%) Network Security
14 28 (3.05%) TCP/IP
14 28 (3.05%) Wireshark
15 24 (2.62%) LTE
15 24 (2.62%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (1.42%) NoSQL
2 12 (1.31%) Data Warehouse
3 11 (1.20%) Power BI
4 10 (1.09%) BigQuery
4 10 (1.09%) PostgreSQL
5 9 (0.98%) GIS
6 8 (0.87%) Tableau
7 7 (0.76%) Amazon Redshift
7 7 (0.76%) Metadata
7 7 (0.76%) MongoDB
7 7 (0.76%) MySQL
7 7 (0.76%) Redis
8 4 (0.44%) SQL Server
9 3 (0.33%) Apache Cassandra
9 3 (0.33%) BusinessObjects
9 3 (0.33%) Cloud Spanner
9 3 (0.33%) Hazelcast
9 3 (0.33%) SAP BW
9 3 (0.33%) SAP Data Services
10 2 (0.22%) InfluxDB
Development Applications
1 46 (5.02%) JIRA
2 40 (4.36%) Git
3 23 (2.51%) GitLab
4 16 (1.74%) Jenkins
5 8 (0.87%) Selenium
6 5 (0.55%) Robot Framework
7 3 (0.33%) JMeter
7 3 (0.33%) Locust
7 3 (0.33%) TestCafe
8 2 (0.22%) Sonatype Nexus
9 1 (0.11%) Bitbucket
9 1 (0.11%) JUnit
9 1 (0.11%) Maven
9 1 (0.11%) Mockito
9 1 (0.11%) Newman
9 1 (0.11%) Rational DOORS
9 1 (0.11%) TestRail
9 1 (0.11%) Visual Studio
9 1 (0.11%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 256 (27.92%) Social Skills
2 138 (15.05%) Finance
3 111 (12.10%) Analytical Skills
4 59 (6.43%) Public Sector
5 35 (3.82%) Billing
6 34 (3.71%) Documentation Skills
7 31 (3.38%) Organisational Skills
8 28 (3.05%) Retail
9 19 (2.07%) Influencing Skills
9 19 (2.07%) Manufacturing
10 18 (1.96%) Legal
11 16 (1.74%) Marketing
12 15 (1.64%) Aerospace
13 14 (1.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 14 (1.53%) Presentation Skills
14 11 (1.20%) Banking
15 9 (0.98%) Publishing
16 7 (0.76%) Police
17 5 (0.55%) Aviation
18 4 (0.44%) Games
Job Titles
1 137 (14.94%) Architect
2 76 (8.29%) Senior
3 73 (7.96%) Lead
4 70 (7.63%) Network Engineer
5 65 (7.09%) Consultant
6 62 (6.76%) Analyst
7 57 (6.22%) Field Engineer
8 54 (5.89%) Project Manager
9 53 (5.78%) Telecoms Engineer
10 38 (4.14%) Developer
11 35 (3.82%) Designer
11 35 (3.82%) Solutions Architect
12 28 (3.05%) ServiceNow Architect
13 27 (2.94%) Telecoms Manager
14 26 (2.84%) Business Analyst
14 26 (2.84%) Enterprise Architect
15 24 (2.62%) SAP Consultant
16 22 (2.40%) Field Telecoms Engineer
17 21 (2.29%) Network Field Engineer
17 21 (2.29%) Telecoms Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 52 (5.67%) REST
2 30 (3.27%) SOAP
3 20 (2.18%) Terraform
4 17 (1.85%) Kafka
5 16 (1.74%) NETCONF
5 16 (1.74%) RESTful
5 16 (1.74%) YANG
6 14 (1.53%) HTML
7 13 (1.42%) CSS
7 13 (1.42%) Elastic Stack
7 13 (1.42%) ONVIF
8 12 (1.31%) JSON
8 12 (1.31%) XML
9 10 (1.09%) AngularJS
9 10 (1.09%) FastAPI
9 10 (1.09%) React
10 8 (0.87%) Middleware
10 8 (0.87%) OpenAPI
10 8 (0.87%) Swagger
11 7 (0.76%) 802.1X
Miscellaneous
1 54 (5.89%) Data Centre
2 46 (5.02%) Driving Licence
3 45 (4.91%) CMDB
4 41 (4.47%) Onboarding
5 32 (3.49%) Cloud Native
6 20 (2.18%) Analytical Mindset
7 19 (2.07%) Management Information System
8 18 (1.96%) Product Ownership
9 17 (1.85%) Data Protection Act
10 15 (1.64%) Video\Live Streaming
11 13 (1.42%) Hybrid Cloud
12 12 (1.31%) Data Structures
12 12 (1.31%) Self-Motivation
12 12 (1.31%) TM Forum
13 11 (1.20%) Virtual Team
14 10 (1.09%) AI Agents
14 10 (1.09%) Enterprise Software
14 10 (1.09%) Legacy Systems
14 10 (1.09%) Video Conferencing
15 9 (0.98%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 56 (6.11%) Windows
2 54 (5.89%) Linux
3 12 (1.31%) Windows 10
3 12 (1.31%) Windows Server
4 11 (1.20%) Unix
5 9 (0.98%) Mac OS
6 7 (0.76%) VMS
7 4 (0.44%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 3 (0.33%) Android
8 3 (0.33%) CentOS
9 2 (0.22%) Apple iOS
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
1 200 (21.81%) Stakeholder Management
2 120 (13.09%) Agile
2 120 (13.09%) Problem-Solving
3 88 (9.60%) ITIL
4 84 (9.16%) AI
4 84 (9.16%) Project Delivery
5 77 (8.40%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 76 (8.29%) Migration
7 70 (7.63%) CI/CD
7 70 (7.63%) Roadmaps
7 70 (7.63%) Validation
8 69 (7.52%) Service Management
9 68 (7.42%) Continuous Improvement
9 68 (7.42%) Project Management
10 58 (6.32%) Test Automation
11 57 (6.22%) Change Management
12 52 (5.67%) Technical Leadership
13 50 (5.45%) ITSM
14 49 (5.34%) Decision-Making
14 49 (5.34%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 84 (9.16%) Python
2 34 (3.71%) SQL
3 31 (3.38%) JavaScript
4 26 (2.84%) Bash
5 20 (2.18%) Java
6 10 (1.09%) PowerShell
7 8 (0.87%) Shell Script
8 7 (0.76%) C#
9 6 (0.65%) Apex Code
10 5 (0.55%) SOQL
11 4 (0.44%) ABAP
11 4 (0.44%) C++
11 4 (0.44%) DataWeave
11 4 (0.44%) R
11 4 (0.44%) TypeScript
12 3 (0.33%) C
13 2 (0.22%) Bicep
13 2 (0.22%) DCL
14 1 (0.11%) LookML
14 1 (0.11%) Rust
Qualifications
1 163 (17.78%) Security Cleared
2 101 (11.01%) SC Cleared
3 91 (9.92%) Degree
4 75 (8.18%) Cisco Certification
5 48 (5.23%) CCNA
6 30 (3.27%) DV Cleared
7 29 (3.16%) CCNP
8 25 (2.73%) BPSS Clearance
9 22 (2.40%) Microsoft Certification
10 21 (2.29%) PMP
11 20 (2.18%) A+ Certification
12 17 (1.85%) CCIE
12 17 (1.85%) CISSP
12 17 (1.85%) PMI Certification
13 16 (1.74%) Computer Science Degree
14 13 (1.42%) Master's Degree
14 13 (1.42%) MCSA
15 12 (1.31%) JNCIE
16 10 (1.09%) CISM
17 7 (0.76%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 43 (4.69%) QA
2 24 (2.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 23 (2.51%) SLA
4 21 (2.29%) PMO
5 20 (2.18%) GRC
6 18 (1.96%) NCSC
7 14 (1.53%) GDPR
8 11 (1.20%) Data Quality
9 5 (0.55%) Actionable Recommendations
9 5 (0.55%) NIST
10 4 (0.44%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 3 (0.33%) Accessibility
11 3 (0.33%) Cyber Essentials
11 3 (0.33%) PCI DSS
12 2 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 1 (0.11%) EU AI Act
13 1 (0.11%) GAAP
13 1 (0.11%) ISO 22301
13 1 (0.11%) ISO 31000
13 1 (0.11%) ISO/IEC 15288
System Software
1 32 (3.49%) Docker
2 24 (2.62%) VMware Infrastructure
3 21 (2.29%) Active Directory
4 11 (1.20%) VMware NSX
5 6 (0.65%) Firmware
6 5 (0.55%) VMware ESXi
6 5 (0.55%) vSphere
7 3 (0.33%) Hyper-V
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 Machines
8 1 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 43 (4.69%) Kubernetes
2 23 (2.51%) Ansible
3 12 (1.31%) Grafana
3 12 (1.31%) Prometheus
4 8 (0.87%) Microsoft Intune
5 5 (0.55%) Jamf Pro
6 4 (0.44%) Cilium
6 4 (0.44%) Cisco Prime
6 4 (0.44%) Istio
6 4 (0.44%) Kibana
6 4 (0.44%) SolarWinds Orion
7 3 (0.33%) Check_MK
7 3 (0.33%) Podman
7 3 (0.33%) vCenter Server
7 3 (0.33%) vRealize
8 2 (0.22%) NSN NetAct
8 2 (0.22%) QRadar
9 1 (0.11%) AirWatch
9 1 (0.11%) Amdocs OSS
9 1 (0.11%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 128 (13.96%) Cisco
2 120 (13.09%) Microsoft
3 80 (8.72%) ServiceNow
4 63 (6.87%) Nokia
5 44 (4.80%) Salesforce
6 38 (4.14%) VMware
7 32 (3.49%) SAP
8 27 (2.94%) Ericsson
9 23 (2.51%) Juniper
10 18 (1.96%) BT
10 18 (1.96%) Fortinet
10 18 (1.96%) Google
10 18 (1.96%) MuleSoft
11 17 (1.85%) F5
12 14 (1.53%) Palo Alto
13 12 (1.31%) BMC
14 11 (1.20%) Arista
14 11 (1.20%) Splunk
15 10 (1.09%) Oracle
15 10 (1.09%) Zscaler