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

6 months to
3 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 176 99 68
Rank change year-on-year -77 -31 +13
Contract jobs citing Telecoms 834 846 1,159
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.57% 2.55% 2.97%
As % of the General category 2.86% 4.04% 5.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 471 496 561
10th Percentile £213 £300 £205
25th Percentile £400 £391 £358
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £473 £475
Median % change year-on-year +0.53% -0.53% -3.06%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £600
90th Percentile £694 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £455 £475
% change year-on-year -1.10% -4.21% +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 44 47 105
10th Percentile £16.08 - £12.15
25th Percentile £17.73 £14.00 £15.17
Median hourly rate £25.17 £20.75 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +21.30% -62.27% -15.38%
75th Percentile £50.00 £53.63 £72.50
90th Percentile £178.75 £65.25 £75.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.00 £15.50 £55.00
% change year-on-year +35.48% -71.82% +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 29,208 20,921 22,381
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 54.96% 63.18% 57.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,355 13,077 14,145
10th Percentile £313 £280 £290
25th Percentile £413 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £630 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £494
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.85% -1.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,145 1,118 1,399
10th Percentile £14.00 £13.25 £14.00
25th Percentile £17.87 £16.25 £16.96
Median hourly rate £32.50 £25.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +29.22% -34.02% +27.07%
75th Percentile £60.00 £51.07 £57.75
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.81 £22.14 £38.12
% change year-on-year +48.17% -41.92% +46.62%

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 3 August 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 3 August 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 3 August 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 -83 700 £475 -1.04% 842
UK excluding London -88 419 £450 -1.10% 618
London -29 311 £520 +9.47% 333
Work from Home -41 246 £475 - 343
South East -55 190 £460 -8.00% 229
North of England -59 59 £475 -9.52% 126
Scotland +10 49 £300 -7.69% 48
South West -72 46 £450 -14.29% 61
Midlands -57 39 £475 +25.83% 77
East of England -10 36 £160 -57.33% 43
West Midlands -70 35 £470 +23.68% 48
Yorkshire -26 32 £475 +22.58% 36
North West -61 25 £514 -3.02% 69
East Midlands -15 4 £500 +33.33% 29
Northern Ireland -2 3 £175 -51.05% 11
North East -37 2 £320 - 24
Wales -17 1 £500 +132.56% 31

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 13 (1.56%) Confluence
1 13 (1.56%) OpenStack
2 10 (1.20%) ArcGIS
2 10 (1.20%) SharePoint
3 8 (0.96%) Microsoft Exchange
4 7 (0.84%) Apache Airflow
5 4 (0.48%) Anypoint
5 4 (0.48%) Apache Spark
6 2 (0.24%) Apache
6 2 (0.24%) Appian
6 2 (0.24%) CMS
7 1 (0.12%) Camunda
7 1 (0.12%) IIS
7 1 (0.12%) JBoss
7 1 (0.12%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
7 1 (0.12%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 1 (0.12%) Smallworld
7 1 (0.12%) Tomcat
7 1 (0.12%) WebLogic
Applications
1 24 (2.88%) Microsoft Office
2 23 (2.76%) Microsoft Excel
3 19 (2.28%) MS Visio
4 9 (1.08%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.60%) AutoCAD
5 5 (0.60%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.24%) MicroStation
7 1 (0.12%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 1 (0.12%) Autodesk Inventor
7 1 (0.12%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.12%) Revit
7 1 (0.12%) SOLIDWORKS
7 1 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.12%) Trello
Business Applications
1 20 (2.40%) SAP PSCD
2 11 (1.32%) SAP BRIM
3 9 (1.08%) SAP Hybris
4 8 (0.96%) SAP FI
5 7 (0.84%) SAP FI-CA
6 6 (0.72%) Remedy ITSM
7 5 (0.60%) NetSuite
7 5 (0.60%) Sage X3
7 5 (0.60%) Salesforce CRM
7 5 (0.60%) SAP S/4HANA
8 4 (0.48%) BambooHR
9 3 (0.36%) Remedy AR System
9 3 (0.36%) SAP ERP
10 1 (0.12%) SAP CO
10 1 (0.12%) SAP FI/CO
10 1 (0.12%) SAP IBP
10 1 (0.12%) SAP SD
10 1 (0.12%) SAP SRM
10 1 (0.12%) SmartPlant
10 1 (0.12%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 95 (11.39%) Azure
2 87 (10.43%) AWS
3 64 (7.67%) GCP
4 21 (2.52%) Power Platform
5 19 (2.28%) Microsoft 365
6 15 (1.80%) Entra ID
6 15 (1.80%) GitHub
6 15 (1.80%) SaaS
7 11 (1.32%) dbt
7 11 (1.32%) SAP Commerce Cloud
8 10 (1.20%) Snowflake
9 9 (1.08%) Azure DevOps
9 9 (1.08%) GitHub Actions
10 8 (0.96%) Cloud Computing
11 6 (0.72%) Cloud Functions
11 6 (0.72%) Datadog
11 6 (0.72%) Serverless
12 5 (0.60%) AWS Lambda
12 5 (0.60%) OpenShift
12 5 (0.60%) Prefect
Communications & Networking
1 97 (11.63%) WAN
2 80 (9.59%) LAN
3 75 (8.99%) 5G
4 71 (8.51%) MPLS
5 55 (6.59%) 4G
6 50 (6.00%) Radio Access Network
7 49 (5.88%) Firewall
8 32 (3.84%) SD-WAN
9 29 (3.48%) DNS
10 27 (3.24%) BGP
10 27 (3.24%) Network Security
11 24 (2.88%) 3G
12 23 (2.76%) SDH
12 23 (2.76%) Wi-Fi
13 22 (2.64%) VoIP
13 22 (2.64%) VPN
14 21 (2.52%) 3GPP
14 21 (2.52%) LTE
15 20 (2.40%) TCP/IP
16 18 (2.16%) Broadband
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (2.40%) Power BI
2 19 (2.28%) Data Warehouse
3 15 (1.80%) BigQuery
4 13 (1.56%) Tableau
5 12 (1.44%) Amazon Redshift
5 12 (1.44%) Looker
6 10 (1.20%) GIS
7 8 (0.96%) Big Data
8 6 (0.72%) NoSQL
8 6 (0.72%) SQL Server
9 5 (0.60%) Apache Cassandra
10 4 (0.48%) InfluxDB
10 4 (0.48%) MySQL
10 4 (0.48%) Relational Database
11 3 (0.36%) Amazon Athena
11 3 (0.36%) Data Lake
11 3 (0.36%) Hazelcast
11 3 (0.36%) Oracle Database
11 3 (0.36%) Semantic Layer
11 3 (0.36%) TimescaleDB
Development Applications
1 27 (3.24%) JIRA
2 14 (1.68%) Git
3 7 (0.84%) Jenkins
4 3 (0.36%) GitLab
4 3 (0.36%) Selenium
4 3 (0.36%) Sonatype Nexus
5 2 (0.24%) Robot Framework
6 1 (0.12%) Bitbucket
6 1 (0.12%) Oracle Forms
6 1 (0.12%) Rational DOORS
6 1 (0.12%) TestRail
General
1 237 (28.42%) Social Skills
2 125 (14.99%) Finance
3 102 (12.23%) Analytical Skills
4 60 (7.19%) Public Sector
5 36 (4.32%) Billing
6 30 (3.60%) Documentation Skills
7 24 (2.88%) Retail
8 23 (2.76%) Organisational Skills
9 22 (2.64%) Legal
9 22 (2.64%) Marketing
10 20 (2.40%) Influencing Skills
11 14 (1.68%) Presentation Skills
12 12 (1.44%) Aerospace
13 10 (1.20%) Manufacturing
13 10 (1.20%) Publishing
14 8 (0.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 8 (0.96%) Police
15 6 (0.72%) Electronics
16 4 (0.48%) Military
17 3 (0.36%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 132 (15.83%) Architect
2 79 (9.47%) Senior
3 66 (7.91%) Consultant
3 66 (7.91%) Lead
4 61 (7.31%) Analyst
5 50 (6.00%) Project Manager
6 48 (5.76%) Network Engineer
7 46 (5.52%) Solutions Architect
8 37 (4.44%) Designer
8 37 (4.44%) Telecoms Engineer
9 35 (4.20%) Field Engineer
10 34 (4.08%) Telecoms Manager
11 29 (3.48%) ServiceNow Architect
12 28 (3.36%) Developer
13 27 (3.24%) Data Engineer
14 26 (3.12%) Enterprise Architect
15 21 (2.52%) SAP Consultant
15 21 (2.52%) Telecoms Architect
16 20 (2.40%) Delivery Manager
16 20 (2.40%) Platform Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 48 (5.76%) REST
2 33 (3.96%) SOAP
3 16 (1.92%) Kafka
4 13 (1.56%) ONVIF
4 13 (1.56%) XML
5 12 (1.44%) Middleware
6 10 (1.20%) NETCONF
6 10 (1.20%) YANG
7 9 (1.08%) Elastic Stack
7 9 (1.08%) OpenAPI
7 9 (1.08%) Swagger
8 8 (0.96%) AngularJS
8 8 (0.96%) React
8 8 (0.96%) RESTful
9 7 (0.84%) HTML
9 7 (0.84%) JSON
10 6 (0.72%) .NET
10 6 (0.72%) CSS
11 5 (0.60%) 802.1X
11 5 (0.60%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 50 (6.00%) CMDB
2 48 (5.76%) Data Centre
3 36 (4.32%) Onboarding
4 33 (3.96%) Cloud Native
5 30 (3.60%) Driving Licence
6 19 (2.28%) Analytical Mindset
6 19 (2.28%) Data Protection Act
6 19 (2.28%) Virtual Team
7 18 (2.16%) Product Ownership
8 17 (2.04%) Hybrid Cloud
9 14 (1.68%) Management Information System
9 14 (1.68%) Self-Motivation
10 13 (1.56%) Video\Live Streaming
11 12 (1.44%) Distributed Systems
12 9 (1.08%) Algorithms
12 9 (1.08%) Private Cloud
12 9 (1.08%) TM Forum
13 8 (0.96%) Data Structures
13 8 (0.96%) EPoS
14 7 (0.84%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 39 (4.68%) Windows
2 27 (3.24%) Linux
3 15 (1.80%) Windows 10
4 10 (1.20%) Windows Server
5 9 (1.08%) Unix
6 6 (0.72%) Mac OS
7 4 (0.48%) Android
8 3 (0.36%) Apple iOS
8 3 (0.36%) VMS
9 2 (0.24%) Embedded Linux
9 2 (0.24%) OpenVMS
9 2 (0.24%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 1 (0.12%) Mac OS X
10 1 (0.12%) Oracle Linux
10 1 (0.12%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.12%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 152 (18.23%) Stakeholder Management
2 118 (14.15%) Agile
3 106 (12.71%) Problem-Solving
4 82 (9.83%) ITIL
5 81 (9.71%) Project Delivery
6 80 (9.59%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 69 (8.27%) AI
8 66 (7.91%) Roadmaps
9 65 (7.79%) CI/CD
10 63 (7.55%) Service Management
11 62 (7.43%) Continuous Improvement
12 61 (7.31%) Migration
13 59 (7.07%) Project Management
14 57 (6.83%) Decision-Making
15 53 (6.35%) Analytics
15 53 (6.35%) Change Management
15 53 (6.35%) Validation
16 51 (6.12%) CRM
17 50 (6.00%) Customer Service
17 50 (6.00%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 69 (8.27%) Python
2 43 (5.16%) SQL
3 30 (3.60%) JavaScript
4 15 (1.80%) Java
5 10 (1.20%) Bash
6 9 (1.08%) C#
6 9 (1.08%) PowerShell
7 7 (0.84%) Apex Code
7 7 (0.84%) R
8 5 (0.60%) C++
9 4 (0.48%) ABAP
9 4 (0.48%) DataWeave
9 4 (0.48%) SOQL
9 4 (0.48%) TypeScript
10 3 (0.36%) LookML
11 2 (0.24%) C
11 2 (0.24%) DCL
12 1 (0.12%) Ada
12 1 (0.12%) Go
12 1 (0.12%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 149 (17.87%) Security Cleared
2 101 (12.11%) SC Cleared
3 76 (9.11%) Degree
4 58 (6.95%) Cisco Certification
5 40 (4.80%) CCNA
6 23 (2.76%) CCNP
6 23 (2.76%) Microsoft Certification
7 21 (2.52%) A+ Certification
7 21 (2.52%) DV Cleared
8 19 (2.28%) PMP
9 17 (2.04%) Computer Science Degree
10 16 (1.92%) BPSS Clearance
11 15 (1.80%) PMI Certification
12 13 (1.56%) MCSA
13 10 (1.20%) Azure Certification
14 9 (1.08%) AWS Certification
14 9 (1.08%) CCIE
15 8 (0.96%) CISSP
15 8 (0.96%) Network+ Certification
16 7 (0.84%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (3.24%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 26 (3.12%) SLA
3 23 (2.76%) GDPR
4 21 (2.52%) QA
5 20 (2.40%) GRC
6 19 (2.28%) NCSC
7 16 (1.92%) PMO
8 15 (1.80%) Data Quality
9 9 (1.08%) NIST
10 3 (0.36%) Actionable Recommendations
10 3 (0.36%) Cyber Essentials
10 3 (0.36%) PCI DSS
10 3 (0.36%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 2 (0.24%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 2 (0.24%) EU AI Act
12 1 (0.12%) Accessibility
12 1 (0.12%) ISO 31000
12 1 (0.12%) ISO/IEC 15288
12 1 (0.12%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 1 (0.12%) SOC 1
System Software
1 22 (2.64%) Active Directory
2 20 (2.40%) Docker
3 19 (2.28%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (0.96%) VMware NSX
5 5 (0.60%) vSphere
6 4 (0.48%) VMware ESXi
7 3 (0.36%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.12%) Ceph
8 1 (0.12%) KVM
8 1 (0.12%) NDS
8 1 (0.12%) NetIQ eDirectory
8 1 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 45 (5.40%) Kubernetes
2 24 (2.88%) Terraform
3 17 (2.04%) Ansible
4 12 (1.44%) Grafana
4 12 (1.44%) Prometheus
5 7 (0.84%) Microsoft Intune
6 5 (0.60%) Jamf Pro
7 3 (0.36%) Amdocs OSS
7 3 (0.36%) Check_MK
7 3 (0.36%) Podman
7 3 (0.36%) vCenter Server
7 3 (0.36%) vRealize
8 2 (0.24%) NSN NetAct
8 2 (0.24%) QRadar
9 1 (0.12%) AirWatch
9 1 (0.12%) Cisco Prime
9 1 (0.12%) FortiGate
9 1 (0.12%) Oracle RMAN
9 1 (0.12%) SCCM
9 1 (0.12%) SolarWinds Orion
Vendors
1 109 (13.07%) Microsoft
2 95 (11.39%) Cisco
3 83 (9.95%) ServiceNow
4 52 (6.24%) Nokia
5 41 (4.92%) Salesforce
6 33 (3.96%) VMware
7 29 (3.48%) SAP
8 24 (2.88%) BT
8 24 (2.88%) Ericsson
9 22 (2.64%) Google
10 21 (2.52%) Juniper
11 20 (2.40%) Fortinet
12 19 (2.28%) F5
13 18 (2.16%) MuleSoft
14 16 (1.92%) Huawei
15 13 (1.56%) Palo Alto
16 12 (1.44%) BMC
16 12 (1.44%) CheckPoint
16 12 (1.44%) Oracle
17 9 (1.08%) Zscaler