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

6 months to
19 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 182 88 64
Rank change year-on-year -94 -24 +20
Contract jobs citing Telecoms 718 811 1,326
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.49% 2.78% 3.11%
As % of the General category 2.79% 4.39% 5.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 447 457 660
10th Percentile £211 £312 £200
25th Percentile £400 £395 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £488 £450
Median % change year-on-year -1.28% +8.33% -10.00%
75th Percentile £575 £594 £594
90th Percentile £681 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £465 £480 £450
% change year-on-year -3.13% +6.67% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 49 35 96
10th Percentile £17.30 - £12.15
25th Percentile £21.00 £14.00 £13.25
Median hourly rate £23.83 £26.34 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -9.53% -52.12% +4.76%
75th Percentile £50.00 £58.75 £72.50
90th Percentile £178.75 £70.50 £85.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.83 £22.00 £60.00
% change year-on-year +8.30% -63.33% +14.29%

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 25,725 18,470 24,687
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 53.55% 63.25% 57.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,701 11,732 15,577
10th Percentile £310 £285 £275
25th Percentile £411 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £506 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.69% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £763 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £475 £498
% change year-on-year +2.63% -4.62% -0.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,648 796 1,927
10th Percentile £13.95 £13.95 £12.75
25th Percentile £17.25 £16.95 £15.41
Median hourly rate £30.00 £27.50 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -8.33% -7.69%
75th Percentile £59.63 £56.00 £52.50
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £66.45
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.96 £24.62 £28.00
% change year-on-year +13.55% -12.06% -3.45%

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 19 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 19 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 19 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 -89 628 £481 -3.90% 602
UK excluding London -104 370 £465 -3.13% 494
London -28 273 £500 - 203
Work from Home -45 191 £500 +4.17% 204
South East -72 150 £453 -7.08% 172
North of England -58 71 £481 -8.33% 92
Midlands -40 54 £550 +7.32% 52
South West -54 44 £511 -2.67% 55
West Midlands -38 43 £550 +7.32% 28
North West -49 34 £463 -12.32% 50
East of England -25 32 £200 -50.00% 70
Yorkshire -40 23 £481 -12.50% 34
North East -14 14 £500 -0.25% 9
Scotland -16 14 £275 -18.52% 53
East Midlands -26 11 £500 +25.00% 23
Northern Ireland -1 6 £150 -58.04% 5
Wales -13 3 £160 -56.16% 16

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 (1.25%) Confluence
2 8 (1.11%) OpenStack
3 6 (0.84%) Appian
4 5 (0.70%) Apache Airflow
4 5 (0.70%) Apache Spark
4 5 (0.70%) Microsoft Exchange
5 4 (0.56%) Anypoint
5 4 (0.56%) SharePoint
6 3 (0.42%) ArcGIS
6 3 (0.42%) IIS
6 3 (0.42%) JBoss
6 3 (0.42%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 3 (0.42%) Tomcat
6 3 (0.42%) WebLogic
7 2 (0.28%) Apache
7 2 (0.28%) Oracle Spatial
8 1 (0.14%) Camunda
8 1 (0.14%) CMS
8 1 (0.14%) Smallworld
Applications
1 24 (3.34%) Microsoft Office
2 14 (1.95%) Microsoft Excel
3 7 (0.97%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (0.70%) Microsoft Project
4 5 (0.70%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.42%) AutoCAD
6 2 (0.28%) MicroStation
7 1 (0.14%) Autodesk Inventor
7 1 (0.14%) FrameMaker
7 1 (0.14%) MadCap Flare
7 1 (0.14%) Revit
7 1 (0.14%) SOLIDWORKS
7 1 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.14%) Trello
Business Applications
1 13 (1.81%) SAP PSCD
2 12 (1.67%) SAP BRIM
3 11 (1.53%) SAP Hybris
4 10 (1.39%) Remedy ITSM
5 6 (0.84%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 4 (0.56%) BambooHR
7 2 (0.28%) SAP FI
8 1 (0.14%) Dynamics CRM
8 1 (0.14%) Remedy AR System
8 1 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
8 1 (0.14%) SAP CO
8 1 (0.14%) SAP FI/CO
8 1 (0.14%) SAP FI-CA
8 1 (0.14%) SAP IBP
8 1 (0.14%) SAP S/4HANA
8 1 (0.14%) SAP SD
8 1 (0.14%) SAP SRM
8 1 (0.14%) SmartPlant
Cloud Services
1 63 (8.77%) Azure
2 57 (7.94%) AWS
3 34 (4.74%) GCP
4 23 (3.20%) Microsoft 365
5 20 (2.79%) Power Platform
6 14 (1.95%) SaaS
7 12 (1.67%) SAP Commerce Cloud
8 8 (1.11%) 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%) Figma
11 4 (0.56%) Prefect
11 4 (0.56%) Snowflake
12 3 (0.42%) AWS Step Functions
12 3 (0.42%) GitHub
Communications & Networking
1 43 (5.99%) 5G
2 38 (5.29%) Firewall
2 38 (5.29%) MPLS
3 37 (5.15%) WAN
4 27 (3.76%) LAN
4 27 (3.76%) Network Security
5 24 (3.34%) 4G
6 23 (3.20%) Radio Access Network
6 23 (3.20%) SD-WAN
7 21 (2.92%) BGP
7 21 (2.92%) Internet
8 19 (2.65%) DNS
8 19 (2.65%) VoIP
9 18 (2.51%) LTE
10 17 (2.37%) 3GPP
11 16 (2.23%) VPN
12 15 (2.09%) Broadband
13 13 (1.81%) HTTP
13 13 (1.81%) OSPF
14 12 (1.67%) Ethernet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (2.65%) Power BI
2 12 (1.67%) Data Warehouse
2 12 (1.67%) Looker
2 12 (1.67%) Tableau
3 9 (1.25%) BigQuery
4 8 (1.11%) Big Data
5 7 (0.97%) Amazon Redshift
5 7 (0.97%) 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%) Metadata
9 2 (0.28%) Power Query
9 2 (0.28%) TimescaleDB
Development Applications
1 21 (2.92%) JIRA
2 9 (1.25%) Git
3 3 (0.42%) GitLab
4 2 (0.28%) Jenkins
4 2 (0.28%) JMeter
4 2 (0.28%) Robot Framework
5 1 (0.14%) Appium
5 1 (0.14%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.14%) JUnit
5 1 (0.14%) Maven
5 1 (0.14%) Mockito
5 1 (0.14%) Oracle Forms
5 1 (0.14%) Sonatype Nexus
5 1 (0.14%) TestRail
General
1 195 (27.16%) Social Skills
2 138 (19.22%) Finance
3 98 (13.65%) Public Sector
4 91 (12.67%) Analytical Skills
5 60 (8.36%) Marketing
6 50 (6.96%) Electronics
7 46 (6.41%) Manufacturing
8 40 (5.57%) Billing
9 26 (3.62%) Retail
10 20 (2.79%) Organisational Skills
11 17 (2.37%) Legal
12 15 (2.09%) Documentation Skills
13 14 (1.95%) Influencing Skills
14 7 (0.97%) Banking
14 7 (0.97%) Presentation Skills
15 6 (0.84%) Military
16 5 (0.70%) Publishing
17 3 (0.42%) Aerospace
17 3 (0.42%) Financial Institution
17 3 (0.42%) Police
Job Titles
1 95 (13.23%) Architect
2 64 (8.91%) Analyst
3 55 (7.66%) Lead
4 50 (6.96%) Senior
5 42 (5.85%) Solutions Architect
6 38 (5.29%) Consultant
7 37 (5.15%) Network Engineer
7 37 (5.15%) Telecoms Manager
8 36 (5.01%) Project Manager
9 27 (3.76%) Business Analyst
10 26 (3.62%) Designer
10 26 (3.62%) Developer
10 26 (3.62%) ServiceNow Architect
11 21 (2.92%) Data Engineer
12 19 (2.65%) Programme Manager
13 18 (2.51%) Sales Manager
14 15 (2.09%) Enterprise Architect
15 14 (1.95%) Delivery Manager
15 14 (1.95%) IT Analyst
15 14 (1.95%) SAP Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 36 (5.01%) REST
2 21 (2.92%) SOAP
3 11 (1.53%) Middleware
4 10 (1.39%) Kafka
5 8 (1.11%) .NET
5 8 (1.11%) Elastic Stack
5 8 (1.11%) XML
6 7 (0.97%) JSON
6 7 (0.97%) OpenAPI
6 7 (0.97%) Swagger
7 5 (0.70%) ONVIF
7 5 (0.70%) RESTful
8 4 (0.56%) RAML
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%) Spring
9 3 (0.42%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 30 (4.18%) Onboarding
2 27 (3.76%) Data Centre
3 26 (3.62%) Data Protection Act
4 20 (2.79%) Product Ownership
5 19 (2.65%) Driving Licence
6 18 (2.51%) CMDB
7 17 (2.37%) Cloud Native
8 16 (2.23%) Virtual Team
9 12 (1.67%) Distributed Systems
10 10 (1.39%) Analytical Mindset
10 10 (1.39%) Self-Motivation
11 8 (1.11%) EPoS
11 8 (1.11%) Legacy Systems
11 8 (1.11%) Management Information System
11 8 (1.11%) TM Forum
12 7 (0.97%) Hybrid Cloud
12 7 (0.97%) NHS
13 6 (0.84%) IoT
13 6 (0.84%) Web Conferencing
14 5 (0.70%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 33 (4.60%) Windows
2 23 (3.20%) Linux
3 16 (2.23%) Windows 10
4 11 (1.53%) Unix
5 6 (0.84%) Android
6 4 (0.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 3 (0.42%) Apple iOS
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%) Mac OS
9 1 (0.14%) Embedded Linux
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
1 113 (15.74%) Stakeholder Management
2 92 (12.81%) Agile
3 90 (12.53%) Problem-Solving
4 65 (9.05%) ITIL
5 64 (8.91%) Continuous Improvement
6 62 (8.64%) Business Intelligence
7 56 (7.80%) Project Management
8 55 (7.66%) Migration
9 54 (7.52%) Decision-Making
10 53 (7.38%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 48 (6.69%) Analytics
11 48 (6.69%) Programme Management
12 47 (6.55%) Customer Service
13 46 (6.41%) Project Delivery
14 44 (6.13%) Roadmaps
15 42 (5.85%) Digital Marketing
16 41 (5.71%) Data Protection
17 40 (5.57%) ITSM
18 38 (5.29%) CI/CD
18 38 (5.29%) CRM
Programming Languages
1 50 (6.96%) Python
2 37 (5.15%) SQL
3 17 (2.37%) Java
4 13 (1.81%) JavaScript
5 10 (1.39%) Bash
6 9 (1.25%) C#
7 8 (1.11%) C++
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%) Shell Script
10 3 (0.42%) TypeScript
11 2 (0.28%) PL/SQL
12 1 (0.14%) ABAP
12 1 (0.14%) Kotlin
12 1 (0.14%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 126 (17.55%) Security Cleared
2 96 (13.37%) SC Cleared
3 66 (9.19%) Degree
4 27 (3.76%) Cisco Certification
5 23 (3.20%) DV Cleared
6 18 (2.51%) Computer Science Degree
7 17 (2.37%) Microsoft Certification
8 16 (2.23%) CCNP
9 15 (2.09%) A+ Certification
10 14 (1.95%) CCNA
10 14 (1.95%) PMP
11 13 (1.81%) BPSS Clearance
12 9 (1.25%) Network+ Certification
12 9 (1.25%) PMI Certification
13 8 (1.11%) Master's Degree
14 7 (0.97%) ACCA
14 7 (0.97%) AWS Certification
14 7 (0.97%) Azure Certification
14 7 (0.97%) CIMA
15 6 (0.84%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 22 (3.06%) SLA
2 18 (2.51%) GDPR
2 18 (2.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 16 (2.23%) PMO
3 16 (2.23%) QA
4 13 (1.81%) Data Quality
5 11 (1.53%) NCSC
6 9 (1.25%) NIST
7 8 (1.11%) GRC
8 7 (0.97%) RMADS
9 5 (0.70%) JSP 440
10 2 (0.28%) Accessibility
10 2 (0.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
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%) SOC 1
11 1 (0.14%) WCAG
System Software
1 16 (2.23%) Active Directory
2 10 (1.39%) Docker
3 8 (1.11%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (0.56%) vSphere
5 3 (0.42%) Hyper-V
5 3 (0.42%) QEMU
6 2 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (0.28%) VMware NSX
7 1 (0.14%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 35 (4.87%) Kubernetes
2 13 (1.81%) Ansible
3 12 (1.67%) Grafana
3 12 (1.67%) Prometheus
4 8 (1.11%) Terraform
5 4 (0.56%) Cisco Prime
5 4 (0.56%) SCCM
6 3 (0.42%) Iperf
6 3 (0.42%) Podman
7 2 (0.28%) Amdocs OSS
7 2 (0.28%) FortiGate
7 2 (0.28%) Kibana
7 2 (0.28%) Microsoft Intune
7 2 (0.28%) Nmap
7 2 (0.28%) NSN NetAct
7 2 (0.28%) vCenter Server
7 2 (0.28%) vRealize
8 1 (0.14%) Cisco CUCM
8 1 (0.14%) Data Guard
8 1 (0.14%) SolarWinds Orion
Vendors
1 81 (11.28%) Microsoft
2 62 (8.64%) Cisco
2 62 (8.64%) SAP
2 62 (8.64%) ServiceNow
3 37 (5.15%) Nokia
4 25 (3.48%) Salesforce
5 21 (2.92%) Oracle
6 20 (2.79%) BT
7 19 (2.65%) Ericsson
8 16 (2.23%) Fortinet
8 16 (2.23%) Juniper
9 15 (2.09%) Google
10 14 (1.95%) CheckPoint
10 14 (1.95%) Huawei
11 12 (1.67%) Remedy
12 11 (1.53%) F5
12 11 (1.53%) MuleSoft
12 11 (1.53%) VMware
13 10 (1.39%) Meraki
13 10 (1.39%) Palo Alto