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

6 months to
7 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 159 73 65
Rank change year-on-year -86 -8 +18
Contract jobs citing Telecoms 770 956 1,398
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.80% 3.12% 3.11%
As % of the General category 3.12% 5.00% 5.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 479 487 802
10th Percentile £170 £300 £200
25th Percentile £328 £395 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £458 £513 £450
Median % change year-on-year -10.63% +13.89% -7.69%
75th Percentile £558 £618 £599
90th Percentile £675 £700 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £504 £450
% change year-on-year -10.63% +11.89% +1.36%
Number of hourly rates quoted 59 29 51
10th Percentile £17.68 £17.36 £12.15
25th Percentile £20.50 £21.25 £13.27
Median hourly rate £23.83 £27.50 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -13.36% -38.89% -14.29%
75th Percentile £24.75 £60.00 £68.16
90th Percentile £44.40 £65.40 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.79 £23.59 £25.00
% change year-on-year +0.84% -5.64% -52.38%

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 24,676 19,133 26,334
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 57.78% 62.43% 58.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,436 11,870 16,871
10th Percentile £300 £292 £264
25th Percentile £405 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £623 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £478 £493
% change year-on-year -0.52% -3.05% -1.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,499 657 1,794
10th Percentile £13.68 £15.61 £13.00
25th Percentile £16.90 £20.26 £15.30
Median hourly rate £24.00 £30.00 £25.50
Median % change year-on-year -20.00% +17.65% -19.28%
75th Percentile £55.00 £60.00 £50.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.68 £27.50 £24.76
% change year-on-year -17.53% +11.07% -7.16%

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 7 March 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 7 March 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 7 March 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 -80 676 £475 -7.51% 510
UK excluding London -75 437 £450 -10.63% 436
London -30 269 £475 -12.84% 141
Work from Home -65 185 £475 -7.32% 167
South East -52 156 £469 -6.20% 172
Midlands -45 76 £500 -2.44% 50
North of England -59 72 £388 -21.52% 87
South West -44 58 £525 -3.67% 40
West Midlands -51 52 £550 +7.32% 30
East of England -20 37 £513 +2.76% 58
North West -46 32 £306 -39.95% 45
Scotland +22 27 £330 -21.66% 27
East Midlands -16 24 £158 -60.63% 20
North East 0 23 £175 -51.72% 9
Yorkshire -57 16 £481 -3.75% 35
Wales +2 9 £160 -56.16% 14
Northern Ireland 0 9 £150 -72.73% 3

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 10 (1.30%) Appian
1 10 (1.30%) Confluence
1 10 (1.30%) SharePoint
2 9 (1.17%) Apache Spark
2 9 (1.17%) Microsoft Exchange
3 5 (0.65%) OpenStack
4 4 (0.52%) Apache
4 4 (0.52%) Apache Airflow
4 4 (0.52%) IIS
5 3 (0.39%) JBoss
5 3 (0.39%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 3 (0.39%) Tomcat
5 3 (0.39%) WebLogic
6 2 (0.26%) ArcGIS
6 2 (0.26%) CMS
6 2 (0.26%) Oracle Spatial
7 1 (0.13%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 52 (6.75%) Microsoft Office
2 23 (2.99%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (1.82%) Microsoft Project
4 11 (1.43%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.91%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.52%) Autodesk Inventor
7 3 (0.39%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.26%) AutoCAD
8 2 (0.26%) Trello
9 1 (0.13%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.13%) FrameMaker
9 1 (0.13%) MadCap Flare
9 1 (0.13%) MicroStation
Business Applications
1 18 (2.34%) SAP BRIM
1 18 (2.34%) SAP Hybris
1 18 (2.34%) SAP PSCD
2 10 (1.30%) Remedy ITSM
3 6 (0.78%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 3 (0.39%) BambooHR
4 3 (0.39%) Dynamics CRM
4 3 (0.39%) Primavera
5 2 (0.26%) SAP CO
5 2 (0.26%) SAP FI
5 2 (0.26%) SAP FI/CO
5 2 (0.26%) SAP S/4HANA
6 1 (0.13%) Remedy AR System
6 1 (0.13%) SAP SRM
6 1 (0.13%) SmartPlant
Cloud Services
1 68 (8.83%) Azure
2 50 (6.49%) Microsoft 365
3 49 (6.36%) AWS
4 31 (4.03%) GCP
5 18 (2.34%) SAP Commerce Cloud
6 17 (2.21%) Power Platform
7 13 (1.69%) SaaS
8 10 (1.30%) Azure DevOps
8 10 (1.30%) Dynamics 365
9 9 (1.17%) GitHub
10 7 (0.91%) GitHub Actions
11 4 (0.52%) Entra ID
11 4 (0.52%) Miro
11 4 (0.52%) Slack
11 4 (0.52%) Tricentis Tosca
12 3 (0.39%) Asana
12 3 (0.39%) dbt
12 3 (0.39%) IaaS
12 3 (0.39%) Salesforce Service Cloud
12 3 (0.39%) Smartsheet
Communications & Networking
1 48 (6.23%) WAN
2 45 (5.84%) Firewall
3 36 (4.68%) LAN
3 36 (4.68%) Wireless
4 35 (4.55%) MPLS
5 33 (4.29%) 5G
6 26 (3.38%) 4G
6 26 (3.38%) Network Security
6 26 (3.38%) SD-WAN
7 25 (3.25%) Radio Access Network
8 23 (2.99%) VPN
9 20 (2.60%) BGP
10 19 (2.47%) LTE
11 18 (2.34%) Broadband
11 18 (2.34%) DNS
11 18 (2.34%) VoIP
12 16 (2.08%) Internet
12 16 (2.08%) SDH
13 14 (1.82%) 3GPP
13 14 (1.82%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (2.08%) Power BI
2 11 (1.43%) MySQL
3 9 (1.17%) Tableau
4 8 (1.04%) Data Warehouse
4 8 (1.04%) Looker
4 8 (1.04%) Oracle Database
5 6 (0.78%) GIS
5 6 (0.78%) Relational Database
5 6 (0.78%) SQL Server
6 5 (0.65%) BigQuery
7 4 (0.52%) Amazon Redshift
7 4 (0.52%) Big Data
7 4 (0.52%) PostgreSQL
8 3 (0.39%) RDBMS
9 2 (0.26%) Data Lake
9 2 (0.26%) Electronic Patient Records
9 2 (0.26%) Metadata
9 2 (0.26%) NoSQL
10 1 (0.13%) Amazon Athena
10 1 (0.13%) Geospatial Data
Development Applications
1 25 (3.25%) JIRA
2 12 (1.56%) GitLab
3 8 (1.04%) Jenkins
4 6 (0.78%) Git
5 5 (0.65%) Robot Framework
5 5 (0.65%) Selenium
6 4 (0.52%) Cucumber
6 4 (0.52%) JUnit
6 4 (0.52%) SonarQube
7 3 (0.39%) Storybook
8 2 (0.26%) Appium
8 2 (0.26%) CircleCI
8 2 (0.26%) JMeter
8 2 (0.26%) Rational DOORS
9 1 (0.13%) Browser DevTools
9 1 (0.13%) Maven
9 1 (0.13%) Mockito
9 1 (0.13%) Sonatype Nexus
9 1 (0.13%) TestRail
General
1 247 (32.08%) Finance
2 224 (29.09%) Social Skills
3 208 (27.01%) Public Sector
4 165 (21.43%) Marketing
5 154 (20.00%) Electronics
6 148 (19.22%) Manufacturing
7 79 (10.26%) Analytical Skills
8 38 (4.94%) Billing
9 22 (2.86%) Organisational Skills
10 19 (2.47%) Documentation Skills
11 14 (1.82%) Legal
12 13 (1.69%) Retail
13 9 (1.17%) Banking
13 9 (1.17%) Influencing Skills
13 9 (1.17%) Military
14 6 (0.78%) Law
15 4 (0.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 4 (0.52%) Presentation Skills
16 2 (0.26%) Brand Awareness
16 2 (0.26%) Italian Language
Job Titles
1 82 (10.65%) Architect
2 78 (10.13%) Analyst
3 48 (6.23%) Business Analyst
4 45 (5.84%) Lead
5 42 (5.45%) Consultant
6 40 (5.19%) IT Support
7 39 (5.06%) Network Engineer
8 38 (4.94%) Senior
9 35 (4.55%) Project Manager
10 34 (4.42%) Desktop Support
11 26 (3.38%) Solutions Architect
12 25 (3.25%) Developer
13 24 (3.12%) 2nd Line Support
14 23 (2.99%) 2nd Line Desktop Support
14 23 (2.99%) SC Cleared Desktop Support
15 20 (2.60%) Coordinator
15 20 (2.60%) Migration Engineer
16 19 (2.47%) IT Engineer
16 19 (2.47%) Support Engineer
16 19 (2.47%) Telecoms Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 27 (3.51%) REST
2 22 (2.86%) SOAP
3 9 (1.17%) .NET
4 7 (0.91%) Kafka
4 7 (0.91%) React
4 7 (0.91%) Web Services
5 6 (0.78%) RESTful
5 6 (0.78%) XML
6 5 (0.65%) Elastic Stack
6 5 (0.65%) JSON
6 5 (0.65%) RFC 2544
6 5 (0.65%) SailPoint
7 4 (0.52%) 802.1X
7 4 (0.52%) HTML
7 4 (0.52%) Jinja
7 4 (0.52%) NETCONF
7 4 (0.52%) Node.js
7 4 (0.52%) RabbitMQ
7 4 (0.52%) Spring
7 4 (0.52%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 52 (6.75%) Data Centre
2 32 (4.16%) Data Protection Act
3 30 (3.90%) Driving Licence
4 25 (3.25%) Product Ownership
5 20 (2.60%) Onboarding
6 17 (2.21%) CMDB
7 16 (2.08%) IoT
8 15 (1.95%) Cloud Native
8 15 (1.95%) Legacy Systems
9 14 (1.82%) NHS
10 13 (1.69%) Mobile App
11 10 (1.30%) Fibre Optics
12 8 (1.04%) Analytical Mindset
12 8 (1.04%) Distributed Systems
12 8 (1.04%) Virtual Team
13 7 (0.91%) Enterprise Cloud
13 7 (0.91%) SCADA
14 6 (0.78%) Algorithms
14 6 (0.78%) Management Information System
14 6 (0.78%) TM Forum
Operating Systems
1 39 (5.06%) Android
2 37 (4.81%) Windows
3 31 (4.03%) Mac OS
4 19 (2.47%) Linux
5 18 (2.34%) Windows 10
6 7 (0.91%) Apple iOS
6 7 (0.91%) Unix
7 5 (0.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 5 (0.65%) Windows Server
8 3 (0.39%) Debian
8 3 (0.39%) Ubuntu
8 3 (0.39%) VMS
9 2 (0.26%) Oracle Linux
10 1 (0.13%) CentOS
10 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
10 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 159 (20.65%) Business Intelligence
2 153 (19.87%) Programme Management
3 148 (19.22%) Digital Marketing
4 116 (15.06%) Stakeholder Management
5 106 (13.77%) Agile
6 104 (13.51%) Problem-Solving
7 86 (11.17%) Migration
8 78 (10.13%) Continuous Improvement
9 63 (8.18%) ITIL
10 61 (7.92%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 56 (7.27%) Logistics
12 53 (6.88%) Customer Service
13 51 (6.62%) Workflow
14 45 (5.84%) Project Management
15 41 (5.32%) Decision-Making
15 41 (5.32%) Roadmaps
16 40 (5.19%) DevOps
17 38 (4.94%) CI/CD
17 38 (4.94%) Data Protection
18 37 (4.81%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 53 (6.88%) Python
2 35 (4.55%) SQL
3 27 (3.51%) JavaScript
4 18 (2.34%) Java
5 10 (1.30%) Bash
5 10 (1.30%) PowerShell
6 9 (1.17%) TypeScript
7 6 (0.78%) C#
8 5 (0.65%) C++
8 5 (0.65%) Go
9 4 (0.52%) Shell Script
10 3 (0.39%) C
10 3 (0.39%) PHP
10 3 (0.39%) R
11 2 (0.26%) BeanShell
11 2 (0.26%) PL/SQL
12 1 (0.13%) Bicep
12 1 (0.13%) Cypher
12 1 (0.13%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 183 (23.77%) Security Cleared
2 155 (20.13%) SC Cleared
3 56 (7.27%) Degree
4 23 (2.99%) DV Cleared
5 19 (2.47%) BPSS Clearance
6 18 (2.34%) Cisco Certification
7 13 (1.69%) CCNP
8 12 (1.56%) PMP
9 10 (1.30%) ACCA
10 9 (1.17%) ITIL Certification
10 9 (1.17%) PMI Certification
11 7 (0.91%) CCIE
11 7 (0.91%) CCNA
11 7 (0.91%) CIMA
11 7 (0.91%) Microsoft Certification
12 6 (0.78%) Computer Science Degree
12 6 (0.78%) ISTQB
13 5 (0.65%) Azure Certification
13 5 (0.65%) JNCIP
14 4 (0.52%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 30 (3.90%) QA
2 29 (3.77%) SLA
3 21 (2.73%) GDPR
4 19 (2.47%) PMO
5 18 (2.34%) Data Quality
6 12 (1.56%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 9 (1.17%) GRC
7 9 (1.17%) NCSC
8 7 (0.91%) NIST
8 7 (0.91%) RMADS
9 6 (0.78%) Accessibility
10 5 (0.65%) JSP 440
11 4 (0.52%) IFRS
11 4 (0.52%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 3 (0.39%) GAAP
13 2 (0.26%) California Consumer Privacy Act
13 2 (0.26%) HIPAA
13 2 (0.26%) PCI DSS
14 1 (0.13%) Cyber Essentials
14 1 (0.13%) IFRS 9
System Software
1 19 (2.47%) Active Directory
2 12 (1.56%) Docker
3 3 (0.39%) QEMU
4 2 (0.26%) VMware Infrastructure
5 1 (0.13%) Firmware
5 1 (0.13%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 21 (2.73%) Kubernetes
2 16 (2.08%) Ansible
3 9 (1.17%) Terraform
4 6 (0.78%) Grafana
4 6 (0.78%) SCCM
5 5 (0.65%) Microsoft Intune
6 4 (0.52%) Argo
6 4 (0.52%) Iperf
7 3 (0.39%) Cisco Prime
7 3 (0.39%) Nmap
7 3 (0.39%) Podman
7 3 (0.39%) Prometheus
8 2 (0.26%) Amdocs OSS
8 2 (0.26%) EMC NetWorker
8 2 (0.26%) vRealize
9 1 (0.13%) Consul
9 1 (0.13%) Failover Clustering
9 1 (0.13%) Fluentd
9 1 (0.13%) FortiGate
9 1 (0.13%) Rancher
Vendors
1 175 (22.73%) SAP
2 113 (14.68%) Cisco
3 90 (11.69%) Microsoft
4 45 (5.84%) ServiceNow
5 32 (4.16%) Nokia
6 27 (3.51%) Juniper
7 25 (3.25%) HP
8 24 (3.12%) Dell
9 23 (2.99%) Apple
9 23 (2.99%) Fortinet
9 23 (2.99%) Oracle
10 17 (2.21%) Ericsson
11 16 (2.08%) Salesforce
12 14 (1.82%) CheckPoint
13 13 (1.69%) F5
14 12 (1.56%) Meraki
14 12 (1.56%) Palo Alto
14 12 (1.56%) Remedy
15 9 (1.17%) BT
15 9 (1.17%) Huawei