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

6 months to
12 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 161 105 71
Rank change year-on-year -56 -34 +4
Contract jobs citing Telecoms 914 828 1,198
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.68% 2.51% 3.11%
As % of the General category 3.01% 3.94% 5.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 514 486 552
10th Percentile £216 £259 £225
25th Percentile £380 £373 £364
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £455 £500
Median % change year-on-year +4.40% -9.00% -
75th Percentile £550 £573 £600
90th Percentile £669 £675 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £500
% change year-on-year - -10.00% +11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 46 49 91
10th Percentile £14.40 £14.00 £12.75
25th Percentile £16.25 £14.75 £35.00
Median hourly rate £21.00 £21.25 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year -1.18% -63.04% +4.55%
75th Percentile £50.00 £51.25 £72.50
90th Percentile £178.75 £67.70 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £18.84 £16.88 £64.25
% change year-on-year +11.64% -73.74% +22.38%

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 30,354 21,013 22,304
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 55.64% 63.65% 57.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,834 13,015 13,481
10th Percentile £313 £275 £288
25th Percentile £419 £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 2,461 1,201 1,144
10th Percentile £13.50 £13.50 £14.59
25th Percentile £16.38 £16.17 £17.25
Median hourly rate £30.00 £25.15 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +19.28% -32.93% +36.36%
75th Percentile £53.87 £50.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £68.50 £70.39
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 £21.39 £37.50
% change year-on-year +40.25% -42.96% +44.23%

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 12 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 12 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 12 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 -84 755 £478 +1.65% 1,087
UK excluding London -68 459 £450 - 659
London -39 350 £507 +6.74% 484
Work from Home -22 266 £475 -5.00% 362
South East -42 198 £470 -6.00% 234
Scotland +15 64 £300 +14.29% 50
North of England -63 56 £463 +25.85% 111
East of England +6 53 £200 -46.67% 92
South West -74 50 £479 -8.86% 73
Yorkshire -27 31 £475 +95.88% 46
Midlands -73 31 £470 +23.68% 95
West Midlands -71 29 £460 +21.05% 52
North West -54 24 £463 +5.11% 56
Wales -11 8 £200 +19.40% 11
Northern Ireland 0 5 £290 +152.17% 9
Channel Islands -3 2 £606 -
East Midlands -18 2 £475 +26.67% 43
North East -45 1 - - 14

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 20 (2.19%) Confluence
2 17 (1.86%) OpenStack
3 14 (1.53%) SharePoint
4 9 (0.98%) ArcGIS
5 8 (0.88%) Microsoft Exchange
6 4 (0.44%) Anypoint
7 3 (0.33%) Apache Airflow
8 2 (0.22%) CMS
9 1 (0.11%) Apache Spark
9 1 (0.11%) Camunda
9 1 (0.11%) IIS
9 1 (0.11%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
Applications
1 36 (3.94%) Microsoft Excel
2 28 (3.06%) Microsoft Office
3 24 (2.63%) MS Visio
4 12 (1.31%) Microsoft Project
5 10 (1.09%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 5 (0.55%) 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 23 (2.52%) SAP PSCD
2 14 (1.53%) SAP BRIM
3 12 (1.31%) SAP Hybris
4 7 (0.77%) SAP FI
5 6 (0.66%) Remedy ITSM
5 6 (0.66%) SAP FI-CA
6 5 (0.55%) NetSuite
6 5 (0.55%) Sage X3
6 5 (0.55%) Salesforce CRM
6 5 (0.55%) SAP S/4HANA
7 3 (0.33%) Remedy AR System
7 3 (0.33%) SAP ERP
8 1 (0.11%) BambooHR
8 1 (0.11%) Dynamics CRM
8 1 (0.11%) Primavera
8 1 (0.11%) SAP CO
8 1 (0.11%) SAP FI/CO
8 1 (0.11%) SAP IBP
8 1 (0.11%) SAP SD
8 1 (0.11%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 88 (9.63%) AWS
1 88 (9.63%) Azure
2 60 (6.56%) GCP
3 21 (2.30%) Microsoft 365
4 17 (1.86%) GitHub
5 16 (1.75%) Entra ID
6 14 (1.53%) SaaS
6 14 (1.53%) SAP Commerce Cloud
7 13 (1.42%) Power Platform
8 10 (1.09%) GitHub Actions
9 9 (0.98%) Azure DevOps
9 9 (0.98%) Cloud Computing
10 7 (0.77%) OneDrive
10 7 (0.77%) Snowflake
11 6 (0.66%) Cloud Functions
11 6 (0.66%) dbt
12 5 (0.55%) Figma
12 5 (0.55%) Fivetran
12 5 (0.55%) OpenShift
12 5 (0.55%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 120 (13.13%) WAN
2 96 (10.50%) 5G
3 92 (10.07%) LAN
4 87 (9.52%) MPLS
5 65 (7.11%) 4G
6 64 (7.00%) Radio Access Network
7 57 (6.24%) Firewall
8 37 (4.05%) SD-WAN
9 36 (3.94%) Wi-Fi
10 35 (3.83%) DNS
11 31 (3.39%) 3GPP
11 31 (3.39%) BGP
12 29 (3.17%) Network Security
13 28 (3.06%) SDH
13 28 (3.06%) VoIP
14 27 (2.95%) LTE
14 27 (2.95%) TCP/IP
15 26 (2.84%) Wireshark
16 24 (2.63%) 3G
16 24 (2.63%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (1.42%) Data Warehouse
1 13 (1.42%) NoSQL
2 12 (1.31%) BigQuery
2 12 (1.31%) Power BI
3 10 (1.09%) PostgreSQL
4 9 (0.98%) GIS
5 8 (0.88%) Amazon Redshift
5 8 (0.88%) Tableau
6 7 (0.77%) MongoDB
6 7 (0.77%) MySQL
7 6 (0.66%) Redis
8 4 (0.44%) Apache Cassandra
8 4 (0.44%) Looker
8 4 (0.44%) Metadata
8 4 (0.44%) SQL Server
9 3 (0.33%) BusinessObjects
9 3 (0.33%) Cloud Spanner
9 3 (0.33%) SAP BW
9 3 (0.33%) Semantic Layer
9 3 (0.33%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 40 (4.38%) JIRA
2 31 (3.39%) Git
3 15 (1.64%) Jenkins
4 13 (1.42%) GitLab
5 7 (0.77%) Selenium
6 3 (0.33%) Robot Framework
7 2 (0.22%) JMeter
7 2 (0.22%) Locust
7 2 (0.22%) Sonatype Nexus
7 2 (0.22%) TestCafe
8 1 (0.11%) Bitbucket
8 1 (0.11%) Newman
8 1 (0.11%) Rational DOORS
8 1 (0.11%) TestRail
8 1 (0.11%) Visual Studio
8 1 (0.11%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 268 (29.32%) Social Skills
2 140 (15.32%) Finance
3 116 (12.69%) Analytical Skills
4 64 (7.00%) Public Sector
5 38 (4.16%) Billing
6 36 (3.94%) Documentation Skills
7 30 (3.28%) Retail
8 29 (3.17%) Organisational Skills
9 20 (2.19%) Influencing Skills
10 19 (2.08%) Marketing
11 18 (1.97%) Legal
12 17 (1.86%) Manufacturing
13 15 (1.64%) Aerospace
14 14 (1.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 14 (1.53%) Presentation Skills
15 9 (0.98%) Publishing
16 7 (0.77%) Banking
16 7 (0.77%) Police
17 4 (0.44%) Electronics
17 4 (0.44%) Games
Job Titles
1 133 (14.55%) Architect
2 77 (8.42%) Senior
3 69 (7.55%) Analyst
3 69 (7.55%) Consultant
4 68 (7.44%) Lead
5 66 (7.22%) Network Engineer
6 61 (6.67%) Project Manager
7 56 (6.13%) Field Engineer
8 51 (5.58%) Telecoms Engineer
9 39 (4.27%) Designer
10 37 (4.05%) Solutions Architect
11 35 (3.83%) Developer
12 34 (3.72%) Telecoms Manager
13 29 (3.17%) ServiceNow Architect
14 28 (3.06%) Enterprise Architect
15 26 (2.84%) Business Analyst
16 24 (2.63%) Data Engineer
16 24 (2.63%) SAP Consultant
17 22 (2.41%) Telecoms Architect
18 21 (2.30%) Field Telecoms Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 55 (6.02%) REST
2 33 (3.61%) SOAP
3 21 (2.30%) Terraform
4 18 (1.97%) Kafka
5 16 (1.75%) NETCONF
5 16 (1.75%) YANG
6 15 (1.64%) RESTful
7 13 (1.42%) HTML
7 13 (1.42%) ONVIF
8 12 (1.31%) CSS
8 12 (1.31%) Elastic Stack
8 12 (1.31%) XML
9 10 (1.09%) AngularJS
9 10 (1.09%) React
10 9 (0.98%) FastAPI
11 8 (0.88%) JSON
11 8 (0.88%) Middleware
11 8 (0.88%) OpenAPI
11 8 (0.88%) Swagger
12 7 (0.77%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 50 (5.47%) Data Centre
2 48 (5.25%) CMDB
3 47 (5.14%) Driving Licence
4 43 (4.70%) Onboarding
5 36 (3.94%) Cloud Native
6 22 (2.41%) Analytical Mindset
7 19 (2.08%) Management Information System
7 19 (2.08%) Product Ownership
8 16 (1.75%) Data Protection Act
8 16 (1.75%) Hybrid Cloud
8 16 (1.75%) Self-Motivation
8 16 (1.75%) Virtual Team
9 14 (1.53%) Video\Live Streaming
10 13 (1.42%) TM Forum
11 11 (1.20%) Video Conferencing
12 10 (1.09%) Data Structures
13 9 (0.98%) Algorithms
13 9 (0.98%) Enterprise Software
13 9 (0.98%) Private Cloud
13 9 (0.98%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 52 (5.69%) Windows
2 50 (5.47%) Linux
3 14 (1.53%) Windows 10
4 12 (1.31%) Windows Server
5 11 (1.20%) Unix
6 9 (0.98%) Mac OS
7 5 (0.55%) 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
1 205 (22.43%) Stakeholder Management
2 127 (13.89%) Agile
3 115 (12.58%) Problem-Solving
4 94 (10.28%) Project Delivery
5 89 (9.74%) ITIL
6 84 (9.19%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 82 (8.97%) AI
8 76 (8.32%) Roadmaps
9 75 (8.21%) Project Management
9 75 (8.21%) Service Management
10 73 (7.99%) Migration
11 69 (7.55%) CI/CD
12 65 (7.11%) Validation
13 64 (7.00%) Continuous Improvement
14 59 (6.46%) Decision-Making
15 56 (6.13%) Change Management
16 52 (5.69%) Customer Service
16 52 (5.69%) ITSM
17 51 (5.58%) Technical Leadership
18 50 (5.47%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 83 (9.08%) Python
2 40 (4.38%) SQL
3 31 (3.39%) JavaScript
4 25 (2.74%) Bash
5 15 (1.64%) Java
6 10 (1.09%) PowerShell
7 8 (0.88%) Apex Code
8 7 (0.77%) C#
8 7 (0.77%) R
9 6 (0.66%) Shell Script
10 5 (0.55%) SOQL
11 4 (0.44%) ABAP
11 4 (0.44%) C++
11 4 (0.44%) DataWeave
11 4 (0.44%) TypeScript
12 3 (0.33%) LookML
13 2 (0.22%) Bicep
13 2 (0.22%) C
13 2 (0.22%) DCL
14 1 (0.11%) Ada
Qualifications
1 165 (18.05%) Security Cleared
2 102 (11.16%) SC Cleared
3 94 (10.28%) Degree
4 72 (7.88%) Cisco Certification
5 47 (5.14%) CCNA
6 30 (3.28%) DV Cleared
7 27 (2.95%) CCNP
8 25 (2.74%) BPSS Clearance
9 24 (2.63%) Microsoft Certification
9 24 (2.63%) PMP
10 22 (2.41%) A+ Certification
11 21 (2.30%) Computer Science Degree
12 18 (1.97%) PMI Certification
13 15 (1.64%) CCIE
14 14 (1.53%) CISSP
15 13 (1.42%) Master's Degree
15 13 (1.42%) MCSA
16 10 (1.09%) JNCIE
17 9 (0.98%) CISM
17 9 (0.98%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 39 (4.27%) QA
2 25 (2.74%) SLA
3 23 (2.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 23 (2.52%) PMO
4 20 (2.19%) GRC
5 18 (1.97%) NCSC
6 14 (1.53%) GDPR
7 10 (1.09%) Data Quality
8 4 (0.44%) NIST
9 3 (0.33%) Accessibility
9 3 (0.33%) Actionable Recommendations
9 3 (0.33%) Cyber Essentials
9 3 (0.33%) PCI DSS
9 3 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 2 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 2 (0.22%) EU AI Act
11 1 (0.11%) ISO 31000
11 1 (0.11%) ISO/IEC 15288
11 1 (0.11%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 1 (0.11%) SOC 1
System Software
1 26 (2.84%) Docker
2 23 (2.52%) Active Directory
3 21 (2.30%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (0.88%) VMware NSX
5 5 (0.55%) VMware ESXi
5 5 (0.55%) vSphere
6 3 (0.33%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.22%) Firmware
8 1 (0.11%) Ceph
8 1 (0.11%) KVM
8 1 (0.11%) NDS
8 1 (0.11%) NetIQ eDirectory
8 1 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 45 (4.92%) Kubernetes
2 23 (2.52%) Ansible
3 12 (1.31%) Grafana
3 12 (1.31%) Prometheus
4 8 (0.88%) Microsoft Intune
5 5 (0.55%) Jamf Pro
6 4 (0.44%) Cilium
6 4 (0.44%) Cisco Prime
6 4 (0.44%) Istio
7 3 (0.33%) Check_MK
7 3 (0.33%) Kibana
7 3 (0.33%) Podman
7 3 (0.33%) SolarWinds Orion
7 3 (0.33%) vCenter Server
7 3 (0.33%) vRealize
8 2 (0.22%) Amdocs OSS
8 2 (0.22%) NSN NetAct
8 2 (0.22%) QRadar
9 1 (0.11%) Proxmox
9 1 (0.11%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 122 (13.35%) Cisco
1 122 (13.35%) Microsoft
2 87 (9.52%) ServiceNow
3 65 (7.11%) Nokia
4 47 (5.14%) Salesforce
5 35 (3.83%) VMware
6 32 (3.50%) SAP
7 27 (2.95%) Ericsson
8 23 (2.52%) Juniper
9 21 (2.30%) BT
10 20 (2.19%) Google
11 19 (2.08%) F5
11 19 (2.08%) MuleSoft
12 17 (1.86%) Fortinet
13 13 (1.42%) Palo Alto
14 12 (1.31%) BMC
15 11 (1.20%) Splunk
16 10 (1.09%) Arista
16 10 (1.09%) Huawei
16 10 (1.09%) Zscaler