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

6 months to
17 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 166 111 67
Rank change year-on-year -55 -44 +8
Contract jobs citing Telecoms 919 818 1,216
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.68% 2.48% 3.18%
As % of the General category 3.02% 3.90% 5.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 517 479 552
10th Percentile £225 £255 £225
25th Percentile £380 £370 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £470 £450 £500
Median % change year-on-year +4.44% -10.00% -
75th Percentile £550 £571 £600
90th Percentile £669 £675 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £500
% change year-on-year - -10.00% +8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 46 47 89
10th Percentile £14.40 £14.00 £12.75
25th Percentile £16.07 £14.75 £35.00
Median hourly rate £21.00 £21.25 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year -1.18% -63.04% +9.52%
75th Percentile £50.00 £49.38 £72.50
90th Percentile £178.75 £70.15 £77.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.74 £16.88 £66.25
% change year-on-year +5.10% -74.53% +26.19%

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 30,471 20,950 22,148
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 55.75% 63.60% 57.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,899 12,987 13,281
10th Percentile £313 £275 £283
25th Percentile £420 £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 2,504 1,199 1,107
10th Percentile £13.50 £13.50 £14.70
25th Percentile £16.38 £16.17 £17.08
Median hourly rate £30.00 £25.15 £36.00
Median % change year-on-year +19.28% -30.14% +30.91%
75th Percentile £55.00 £48.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £67.50 £70.39
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.50 £21.39 £35.36
% change year-on-year +42.59% -39.51% +34.70%

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 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 17 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 17 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 -74 757 £475 +2.15% 1,676
UK excluding London -67 463 £450 - 941
London -42 349 £507 +6.74% 789
Work from Home -18 269 £475 -5.00% 548
South East -41 196 £470 -3.59% 317
Scotland +14 64 £300 +14.29% 78
North of England -68 58 £463 +43.97% 168
East of England -2 55 £308 -20.58% 138
South West -72 50 £479 -8.86% 88
Yorkshire -28 32 £475 +95.88% 58
Midlands -70 32 £473 +24.34% 133
West Midlands -72 30 £470 +23.68% 72
North West -48 25 £463 +25.85% 90
Wales -8 8 £200 +19.40% 14
Northern Ireland 0 6 £358 +155.36% 23
Channel Islands -4 2 £606 -
East Midlands -8 2 £475 +26.67% 61
North East -41 1 - - 23

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 21 (2.29%) Confluence
2 16 (1.74%) OpenStack
3 14 (1.52%) 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%) Camunda
9 1 (0.11%) IIS
9 1 (0.11%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
Applications
1 37 (4.03%) Microsoft Excel
2 28 (3.05%) Microsoft Office
3 25 (2.72%) 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 (2.39%) SAP PSCD
2 14 (1.52%) SAP BRIM
3 12 (1.31%) 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 IBP
8 1 (0.11%) SAP IS-U
Cloud Services
1 89 (9.68%) Azure
2 87 (9.47%) AWS
3 59 (6.42%) GCP
4 21 (2.29%) Microsoft 365
5 19 (2.07%) GitHub
6 16 (1.74%) Entra ID
7 14 (1.52%) Power Platform
7 14 (1.52%) SaaS
8 13 (1.41%) SAP Commerce Cloud
9 10 (1.09%) Azure DevOps
9 10 (1.09%) Cloud Computing
9 10 (1.09%) GitHub Actions
10 7 (0.76%) OneDrive
10 7 (0.76%) Snowflake
11 6 (0.65%) Cloud Functions
11 6 (0.65%) dbt
12 5 (0.54%) Figma
12 5 (0.54%) Fivetran
12 5 (0.54%) OpenShift
13 4 (0.44%) Boomi
Communications & Networking
1 119 (12.95%) WAN
2 95 (10.34%) 5G
3 92 (10.01%) LAN
4 85 (9.25%) MPLS
5 66 (7.18%) 4G
6 63 (6.86%) Radio Access Network
7 57 (6.20%) Firewall
8 38 (4.13%) Wi-Fi
9 36 (3.92%) DNS
9 36 (3.92%) SD-WAN
10 32 (3.48%) BGP
11 29 (3.16%) 3GPP
12 28 (3.05%) Network Security
12 28 (3.05%) SDH
12 28 (3.05%) TCP/IP
12 28 (3.05%) VoIP
13 27 (2.94%) Broadband
14 26 (2.83%) Wireshark
15 25 (2.72%) LTE
16 24 (2.61%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (1.52%) Data Warehouse
2 13 (1.41%) NoSQL
2 13 (1.41%) Power BI
3 12 (1.31%) BigQuery
4 10 (1.09%) PostgreSQL
5 9 (0.98%) GIS
6 8 (0.87%) Amazon Redshift
6 8 (0.87%) Tableau
7 7 (0.76%) MongoDB
7 7 (0.76%) MySQL
7 7 (0.76%) Redis
8 5 (0.54%) Metadata
9 4 (0.44%) Looker
9 4 (0.44%) SQL Server
10 3 (0.33%) Apache Cassandra
10 3 (0.33%) BusinessObjects
10 3 (0.33%) Cloud Spanner
10 3 (0.33%) SAP BW
10 3 (0.33%) Semantic Layer
10 3 (0.33%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 41 (4.46%) JIRA
2 34 (3.70%) Git
3 16 (1.74%) GitLab
3 16 (1.74%) Jenkins
4 8 (0.87%) Selenium
5 2 (0.22%) JMeter
5 2 (0.22%) Locust
5 2 (0.22%) Robot Framework
5 2 (0.22%) Sonatype Nexus
5 2 (0.22%) TestCafe
6 1 (0.11%) Bitbucket
6 1 (0.11%) Newman
6 1 (0.11%) Rational DOORS
6 1 (0.11%) TestRail
6 1 (0.11%) Visual Studio
6 1 (0.11%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 268 (29.16%) Social Skills
2 142 (15.45%) Finance
3 117 (12.73%) Analytical Skills
4 62 (6.75%) Public Sector
5 36 (3.92%) Documentation Skills
6 35 (3.81%) Billing
7 29 (3.16%) Organisational Skills
7 29 (3.16%) Retail
8 20 (2.18%) Influencing Skills
9 19 (2.07%) Legal
9 19 (2.07%) Marketing
10 18 (1.96%) Manufacturing
11 15 (1.63%) Aerospace
12 14 (1.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 14 (1.52%) Presentation Skills
13 9 (0.98%) Banking
13 9 (0.98%) Publishing
14 7 (0.76%) Police
15 4 (0.44%) Games
16 3 (0.33%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 133 (14.47%) Architect
2 78 (8.49%) Senior
3 70 (7.62%) Analyst
3 70 (7.62%) Lead
4 68 (7.40%) Consultant
4 68 (7.40%) Network Engineer
5 61 (6.64%) Project Manager
6 56 (6.09%) Field Engineer
7 52 (5.66%) Telecoms Engineer
8 38 (4.13%) Designer
9 36 (3.92%) Developer
10 35 (3.81%) Solutions Architect
11 33 (3.59%) Telecoms Manager
12 29 (3.16%) ServiceNow Architect
13 28 (3.05%) Enterprise Architect
14 27 (2.94%) Business Analyst
15 23 (2.50%) Data Engineer
15 23 (2.50%) SAP Consultant
16 22 (2.39%) Telecoms Architect
17 21 (2.29%) Network Field Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 56 (6.09%) REST
2 33 (3.59%) SOAP
3 20 (2.18%) Terraform
4 18 (1.96%) Kafka
5 16 (1.74%) NETCONF
5 16 (1.74%) YANG
6 15 (1.63%) RESTful
7 14 (1.52%) HTML
8 13 (1.41%) CSS
8 13 (1.41%) Elastic Stack
8 13 (1.41%) ONVIF
9 12 (1.31%) XML
10 10 (1.09%) AngularJS
10 10 (1.09%) FastAPI
10 10 (1.09%) JSON
10 10 (1.09%) React
11 8 (0.87%) Middleware
12 7 (0.76%) 802.1X
12 7 (0.76%) RabbitMQ
12 7 (0.76%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 52 (5.66%) Data Centre
2 47 (5.11%) CMDB
3 46 (5.01%) Driving Licence
4 45 (4.90%) Onboarding
5 34 (3.70%) Cloud Native
6 22 (2.39%) Analytical Mindset
7 19 (2.07%) Management Information System
7 19 (2.07%) Product Ownership
8 16 (1.74%) Data Protection Act
9 15 (1.63%) Hybrid Cloud
9 15 (1.63%) Self-Motivation
9 15 (1.63%) Virtual Team
10 14 (1.52%) Video\Live Streaming
11 13 (1.41%) Data Structures
11 13 (1.41%) TM Forum
12 11 (1.20%) Video Conferencing
13 10 (1.09%) Algorithms
13 10 (1.09%) Enterprise Software
14 9 (0.98%) Social Media
15 8 (0.87%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 57 (6.20%) Windows
2 50 (5.44%) Linux
3 14 (1.52%) 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
1 207 (22.52%) Stakeholder Management
2 125 (13.60%) Agile
3 117 (12.73%) Problem-Solving
4 93 (10.12%) Project Delivery
5 88 (9.58%) ITIL
6 82 (8.92%) AI
6 82 (8.92%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 76 (8.27%) Migration
8 75 (8.16%) Roadmaps
8 75 (8.16%) Service Management
9 72 (7.83%) Project Management
10 70 (7.62%) Validation
11 69 (7.51%) CI/CD
12 66 (7.18%) Continuous Improvement
13 57 (6.20%) Decision-Making
14 54 (5.88%) Change Management
15 52 (5.66%) ITSM
16 51 (5.55%) Customer Service
16 51 (5.55%) Technical Leadership
17 50 (5.44%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 84 (9.14%) Python
2 39 (4.24%) SQL
3 31 (3.37%) JavaScript
4 26 (2.83%) 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
8 7 (0.76%) Shell Script
9 5 (0.54%) SOQL
10 4 (0.44%) ABAP
10 4 (0.44%) C++
10 4 (0.44%) DataWeave
10 4 (0.44%) TypeScript
11 3 (0.33%) C
11 3 (0.33%) LookML
12 2 (0.22%) Bicep
12 2 (0.22%) DCL
13 1 (0.11%) Ada
Qualifications
1 165 (17.95%) Security Cleared
2 101 (10.99%) SC Cleared
3 92 (10.01%) Degree
4 73 (7.94%) Cisco Certification
5 47 (5.11%) CCNA
6 31 (3.37%) DV Cleared
7 28 (3.05%) CCNP
8 24 (2.61%) BPSS Clearance
8 24 (2.61%) Microsoft Certification
8 24 (2.61%) PMP
9 22 (2.39%) A+ Certification
10 20 (2.18%) Computer Science Degree
11 18 (1.96%) PMI Certification
12 16 (1.74%) CCIE
13 14 (1.52%) CISSP
14 13 (1.41%) MCSA
15 12 (1.31%) Master's Degree
16 10 (1.09%) JNCIE
17 9 (0.98%) CISM
17 9 (0.98%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 41 (4.46%) QA
2 24 (2.61%) SLA
3 23 (2.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 22 (2.39%) PMO
5 21 (2.29%) GRC
6 18 (1.96%) NCSC
7 14 (1.52%) GDPR
8 11 (1.20%) Data Quality
9 4 (0.44%) Actionable Recommendations
9 4 (0.44%) NIST
10 3 (0.33%) Accessibility
10 3 (0.33%) Cyber Essentials
10 3 (0.33%) PCI DSS
11 2 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 2 (0.22%) EU AI Act
11 2 (0.22%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 1 (0.11%) GAAP
12 1 (0.11%) ISO 22301
12 1 (0.11%) ISO 31000
12 1 (0.11%) ISO/IEC 15288
System Software
1 28 (3.05%) Docker
2 23 (2.50%) Active Directory
2 23 (2.50%) VMware Infrastructure
3 10 (1.09%) VMware NSX
4 5 (0.54%) VMware ESXi
4 5 (0.54%) vSphere
5 3 (0.33%) Hyper-V
6 2 (0.22%) Firmware
7 1 (0.11%) Ceph
7 1 (0.11%) KVM
7 1 (0.11%) NDS
7 1 (0.11%) NetIQ eDirectory
7 1 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 43 (4.68%) Kubernetes
2 24 (2.61%) 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
6 4 (0.44%) SolarWinds Orion
7 3 (0.33%) Check_MK
7 3 (0.33%) Kibana
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%) FortiGate
9 1 (0.11%) SCCM
Vendors
1 126 (13.71%) Cisco
2 125 (13.60%) Microsoft
3 88 (9.58%) ServiceNow
4 62 (6.75%) Nokia
5 46 (5.01%) Salesforce
6 37 (4.03%) VMware
7 31 (3.37%) SAP
8 25 (2.72%) Ericsson
9 23 (2.50%) Juniper
10 21 (2.29%) BT
11 20 (2.18%) Google
12 19 (2.07%) F5
12 19 (2.07%) MuleSoft
13 18 (1.96%) Fortinet
14 14 (1.52%) Palo Alto
15 12 (1.31%) BMC
16 11 (1.20%) Arista
16 11 (1.20%) Splunk
17 10 (1.09%) Zscaler
18 9 (0.98%) CheckPoint