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

6 months to
23 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 183 103 64
Rank change year-on-year -80 -39 +18
Contract jobs citing Telecoms 735 773 1,365
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.45% 2.58% 3.13%
As % of the General category 2.66% 4.06% 5.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 438 444 649
10th Percentile £205 £306 £200
25th Percentile £396 £400 £315
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £478 £450
Median % change year-on-year -0.52% +6.11% -7.12%
75th Percentile £566 £575 £598
90th Percentile £679 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £460 £471 £450
% change year-on-year -2.49% +4.72% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 41 37 102
10th Percentile £16.01 - £12.15
25th Percentile £19.93 £14.00 £13.89
Median hourly rate £30.00 £27.40 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +9.49% -39.11% -14.29%
75th Percentile £50.00 £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 27,583 19,019 24,847
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 54.32% 63.47% 56.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 16,651 11,970 15,527
10th Percentile £313 £281 £275
25th Percentile £413 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £769
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £470 £490
% change year-on-year +6.38% -4.08% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,865 925 2,025
10th Percentile £14.00 £13.46 £12.78
25th Percentile £18.25 £16.55 £15.50
Median hourly rate £32.23 £28.00 £31.00
Median % change year-on-year +15.09% -9.68% +3.33%
75th Percentile £61.18 £53.75 £52.78
90th Percentile £80.00 £74.50 £67.81
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.50 £24.34 £30.00
% change year-on-year +29.42% -18.87% +17.19%

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 23 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 23 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 23 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 -86 641 £475 -3.06% 511
UK excluding London -99 373 £460 -2.49% 449
London -29 284 £500 +2.56% 149
Work from Home -33 209 £480 +1.05% 178
South East -59 159 £465 -5.87% 156
North of England -57 72 £500 -4.76% 87
South West -56 48 £488 +14.71% 37
Midlands -48 39 £488 -3.70% 72
North West -47 35 £506 -3.57% 48
West Midlands -57 33 £470 +13.94% 48
East of England -18 32 £190 -50.97% 57
Yorkshire -38 26 £481 -6.10% 33
Scotland -22 23 £305 -6.15% 40
North East -26 11 £500 -11.50% 9
East Midlands -14 6 £500 -20.00% 24
Northern Ireland -5 3 £175 -51.05% 9
Wales -17 1 £500 +90.48% 7

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 (1.22%) Confluence
1 9 (1.22%) OpenStack
2 6 (0.82%) Apache Airflow
2 6 (0.82%) Appian
3 5 (0.68%) SharePoint
4 4 (0.54%) Anypoint
4 4 (0.54%) Apache Spark
4 4 (0.54%) Microsoft Exchange
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 22 (2.99%) Microsoft Office
2 20 (2.72%) Microsoft Excel
3 10 (1.36%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 10 (1.36%) MS Visio
4 5 (0.68%) AutoCAD
4 5 (0.68%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.27%) MicroStation
6 1 (0.14%) Autodesk Inventor
6 1 (0.14%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.14%) Revit
6 1 (0.14%) SOLIDWORKS
6 1 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.14%) Trello
Business Applications
1 19 (2.59%) SAP PSCD
2 13 (1.77%) Remedy ITSM
2 13 (1.77%) SAP BRIM
3 12 (1.63%) SAP Hybris
4 6 (0.82%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 5 (0.68%) SAP FI
6 4 (0.54%) BambooHR
6 4 (0.54%) NetSuite
6 4 (0.54%) Sage X3
6 4 (0.54%) SAP FI-CA
7 3 (0.41%) Remedy AR System
7 3 (0.41%) Salesforce CRM
8 2 (0.27%) SAP ERP
9 1 (0.14%) SAP CO
9 1 (0.14%) SAP FI/CO
9 1 (0.14%) SAP IBP
9 1 (0.14%) SAP S/4HANA
9 1 (0.14%) SAP SD
9 1 (0.14%) SAP SRM
9 1 (0.14%) SmartPlant
Cloud Services
1 63 (8.57%) Azure
2 59 (8.03%) AWS
3 39 (5.31%) GCP
4 20 (2.72%) Power Platform
5 18 (2.45%) Microsoft 365
6 15 (2.04%) SaaS
7 14 (1.90%) SAP Commerce Cloud
8 9 (1.22%) dbt
8 9 (1.22%) Snowflake
9 6 (0.82%) Datadog
9 6 (0.82%) Entra ID
9 6 (0.82%) GitHub
9 6 (0.82%) Serverless
10 5 (0.68%) AWS Lambda
10 5 (0.68%) Azure DevOps
10 5 (0.68%) GitHub Actions
10 5 (0.68%) Prefect
11 4 (0.54%) Cloud Functions
11 4 (0.54%) Dagster
11 4 (0.54%) Fivetran
Communications & Networking
1 56 (7.62%) WAN
2 54 (7.35%) 5G
2 54 (7.35%) MPLS
3 46 (6.26%) LAN
4 38 (5.17%) Firewall
5 33 (4.49%) 4G
6 32 (4.35%) Radio Access Network
7 28 (3.81%) BGP
8 27 (3.67%) SD-WAN
9 24 (3.27%) Network Security
10 20 (2.72%) 3GPP
10 20 (2.72%) VoIP
11 19 (2.59%) LTE
12 18 (2.45%) OSPF
12 18 (2.45%) VPN
13 17 (2.31%) DNS
13 17 (2.31%) Internet
14 16 (2.18%) VLAN
15 15 (2.04%) Structured Cabling
16 14 (1.90%) 3G
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (2.59%) Power BI
2 15 (2.04%) Data Warehouse
3 13 (1.77%) BigQuery
4 12 (1.63%) Looker
4 12 (1.63%) Tableau
5 11 (1.50%) Amazon Redshift
6 7 (0.95%) Big Data
6 7 (0.95%) Relational Database
7 5 (0.68%) MySQL
7 5 (0.68%) SQL Server
8 4 (0.54%) 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 (3.13%) JIRA
2 9 (1.22%) 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
1 208 (28.30%) Social Skills
2 127 (17.28%) Finance
3 105 (14.29%) Analytical Skills
4 68 (9.25%) Public Sector
5 46 (6.26%) Billing
6 29 (3.95%) Marketing
7 27 (3.67%) Retail
8 25 (3.40%) Documentation Skills
9 19 (2.59%) Electronics
9 19 (2.59%) Legal
10 15 (2.04%) Manufacturing
11 14 (1.90%) Influencing Skills
11 14 (1.90%) Organisational Skills
12 9 (1.22%) Presentation Skills
13 7 (0.95%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 6 (0.82%) Aerospace
14 6 (0.82%) Banking
15 5 (0.68%) Police
15 5 (0.68%) Publishing
16 4 (0.54%) Military
Job Titles
1 95 (12.93%) Architect
2 61 (8.30%) Lead
3 59 (8.03%) Consultant
3 59 (8.03%) Senior
4 58 (7.89%) Analyst
5 40 (5.44%) Network Engineer
5 40 (5.44%) Solutions Architect
6 39 (5.31%) Telecoms Manager
7 37 (5.03%) Project Manager
8 28 (3.81%) Designer
9 27 (3.67%) Developer
10 25 (3.40%) ServiceNow Architect
11 23 (3.13%) Data Engineer
12 21 (2.86%) Delivery Manager
13 20 (2.72%) Business Analyst
13 20 (2.72%) SAP Consultant
14 18 (2.45%) Sales Manager
15 17 (2.31%) Enterprise Architect
15 17 (2.31%) Programme Manager
15 17 (2.31%) Telecoms Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 38 (5.17%) REST
2 25 (3.40%) SOAP
3 12 (1.63%) Middleware
3 12 (1.63%) ONVIF
4 10 (1.36%) Kafka
5 9 (1.22%) .NET
5 9 (1.22%) Elastic Stack
6 8 (1.09%) XML
7 6 (0.82%) JSON
7 6 (0.82%) OpenAPI
7 6 (0.82%) Swagger
8 5 (0.68%) NETCONF
8 5 (0.68%) RESTful
8 5 (0.68%) YANG
9 4 (0.54%) .NET Framework
9 4 (0.54%) RAML
10 3 (0.41%) GraphQL
10 3 (0.41%) Model Context Protocol
10 3 (0.41%) RabbitMQ
10 3 (0.41%) RFC 2544
Miscellaneous
1 39 (5.31%) CMDB
2 38 (5.17%) Data Centre
3 34 (4.63%) Onboarding
4 28 (3.81%) Cloud Native
5 23 (3.13%) Data Protection Act
6 20 (2.72%) Driving Licence
7 17 (2.31%) Product Ownership
7 17 (2.31%) Virtual Team
8 16 (2.18%) Analytical Mindset
9 13 (1.77%) Distributed Systems
10 12 (1.63%) Video\Live Streaming
11 9 (1.22%) Hybrid Cloud
11 9 (1.22%) Management Information System
12 8 (1.09%) EPoS
12 8 (1.09%) Self-Motivation
12 8 (1.09%) TM Forum
13 7 (0.95%) NHS
14 6 (0.82%) Web Conferencing
15 5 (0.68%) Algorithms
15 5 (0.68%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 29 (3.95%) Windows
2 22 (2.99%) Linux
3 14 (1.90%) Windows 10
4 11 (1.50%) Unix
5 3 (0.41%) Android
5 3 (0.41%) Mac OS
5 3 (0.41%) Windows Server
6 2 (0.27%) Apple iOS
6 2 (0.27%) Embedded Linux
6 2 (0.27%) VMS
7 1 (0.14%) Mac OS X
7 1 (0.14%) OpenVMS
7 1 (0.14%) Oracle Linux
7 1 (0.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.14%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 119 (16.19%) Stakeholder Management
2 98 (13.33%) Problem-Solving
3 97 (13.20%) Agile
4 76 (10.34%) ITIL
5 67 (9.12%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 61 (8.30%) Continuous Improvement
6 61 (8.30%) Decision-Making
7 56 (7.62%) Project Delivery
8 52 (7.07%) CI/CD
8 52 (7.07%) CRM
8 52 (7.07%) Migration
9 51 (6.94%) Project Management
10 50 (6.80%) Service Management
11 49 (6.67%) Roadmaps
12 47 (6.39%) Customer Service
13 46 (6.26%) Validation
14 45 (6.12%) Analytics
15 44 (5.99%) ITSM
16 41 (5.58%) Risk Management
17 39 (5.31%) AI
Programming Languages
1 56 (7.62%) Python
2 34 (4.63%) SQL
3 17 (2.31%) Java
4 16 (2.18%) JavaScript
5 10 (1.36%) C#
6 8 (1.09%) Bash
6 8 (1.09%) C++
7 6 (0.82%) R
8 4 (0.54%) DataWeave
8 4 (0.54%) TypeScript
9 3 (0.41%) ABAP
9 3 (0.41%) Apex Code
9 3 (0.41%) C
9 3 (0.41%) LookML
9 3 (0.41%) PowerShell
10 2 (0.27%) PL/SQL
10 2 (0.27%) Shell Script
11 1 (0.14%) DCL
11 1 (0.14%) Go
11 1 (0.14%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 119 (16.19%) Security Cleared
2 84 (11.43%) SC Cleared
3 72 (9.80%) Degree
4 44 (5.99%) Cisco Certification
5 29 (3.95%) CCNA
6 23 (3.13%) Microsoft Certification
7 22 (2.99%) A+ Certification
7 22 (2.99%) DV Cleared
8 20 (2.72%) CCNP
9 18 (2.45%) Computer Science Degree
10 17 (2.31%) PMP
11 16 (2.18%) BPSS Clearance
12 13 (1.77%) PMI Certification
13 12 (1.63%) MCSA
14 11 (1.50%) Network+ Certification
15 9 (1.22%) Azure Certification
16 8 (1.09%) AWS Certification
16 8 (1.09%) Master's Degree
17 7 (0.95%) CCIE
18 6 (0.82%) ACCA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (3.27%) SLA
2 20 (2.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 17 (2.31%) GDPR
3 17 (2.31%) NCSC
4 16 (2.18%) PMO
5 15 (2.04%) QA
6 13 (1.77%) Data Quality
7 11 (1.50%) GRC
8 8 (1.09%) NIST
9 5 (0.68%) RMADS
10 3 (0.41%) JSP 440
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%) NEBOSH
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 15 (2.04%) Active Directory
2 14 (1.90%) VMware Infrastructure
3 12 (1.63%) Docker
4 6 (0.82%) VMware NSX
5 5 (0.68%) vSphere
6 3 (0.41%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (0.27%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.14%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 40 (5.44%) Kubernetes
2 18 (2.45%) Terraform
3 15 (2.04%) Ansible
4 13 (1.77%) Grafana
4 13 (1.77%) Prometheus
5 3 (0.41%) Cisco Prime
5 3 (0.41%) Iperf
5 3 (0.41%) Jamf Pro
5 3 (0.41%) vCenter Server
5 3 (0.41%) vRealize
6 2 (0.27%) Amdocs OSS
6 2 (0.27%) FortiGate
6 2 (0.27%) Microsoft Intune
6 2 (0.27%) Nmap
6 2 (0.27%) NSN NetAct
7 1 (0.14%) Fluentd
7 1 (0.14%) Kibana
7 1 (0.14%) Oracle RMAN
7 1 (0.14%) Single Sign-On
7 1 (0.14%) SolarWinds Orion
Vendors
1 82 (11.16%) Microsoft
2 72 (9.80%) ServiceNow
3 66 (8.98%) Cisco
4 38 (5.17%) Nokia
5 36 (4.90%) SAP
6 28 (3.81%) Salesforce
7 23 (3.13%) BT
7 23 (3.13%) Oracle
8 19 (2.59%) VMware
9 18 (2.45%) Ericsson
9 18 (2.45%) Fortinet
10 16 (2.18%) Remedy
11 15 (2.04%) Juniper
12 14 (1.90%) Huawei
13 12 (1.63%) F5
14 11 (1.50%) CheckPoint
14 11 (1.50%) Google
14 11 (1.50%) MuleSoft
15 10 (1.36%) BMC
16 9 (1.22%) Palo Alto