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 9 February 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 139 68 64
Rank change year-on-year -71 -4 +17
Contract jobs citing Telecoms 789 1,038 1,394
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.02% 3.36% 3.09%
As % of the General category 3.44% 5.42% 5.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 512 490 820
10th Percentile £170 £278 £200
25th Percentile £313 £386 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £510 £475
Median % change year-on-year -11.76% +7.37% -
75th Percentile £550 £600 £613
90th Percentile £675 £680 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £500 £450
% change year-on-year -10.00% +11.11% +5.39%
Number of hourly rates quoted 60 29 44
10th Percentile £16.90 £18.44 £12.89
25th Percentile £20.50 £22.50 £21.88
Median hourly rate £23.75 £30.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -20.83% -45.45% +64.18%
75th Percentile £24.50 £57.50 £74.00
90th Percentile £41.43 £64.79 £93.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.66 £26.92 £60.00
% change year-on-year -12.09% -55.14% +43.71%

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 22,948 19,150 26,438
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 58.85% 62.00% 58.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,398 11,439 17,095
10th Percentile £290 £281 £265
25th Percentile £401 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £649 £650
90th Percentile £730 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £480 £500
% change year-on-year -1.04% -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,416 611 1,641
10th Percentile £13.70 £15.62 £13.00
25th Percentile £16.35 £20.12 £15.00
Median hourly rate £22.81 £29.00 £25.25
Median % change year-on-year -21.34% +14.85% -2.88%
75th Percentile £49.00 £57.50 £54.56
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £67.56
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.65 £27.13 £24.50
% change year-on-year -20.18% +10.71% +2.08%

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 9 February 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 9 February 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 9 February 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 -74 699 £473 -7.58% 516
UK excluding London -66 448 £450 -10.00% 461
London -36 284 £475 -11.01% 123
Work from Home -56 183 £475 -7.54% 186
South East -49 155 £475 -5.00% 176
North of England -41 78 £365 -18.89% 83
Midlands -37 71 £425 -15.00% 59
South West -39 66 £525 -6.25% 45
West Midlands -56 48 £525 +3.70% 39
East of England -27 37 £513 +6.77% 78
North West -23 36 £301 -38.83% 53
Scotland +23 26 £309 -37.94% 25
North East -3 23 £175 -51.72% 12
East Midlands -13 23 £158 -10.00% 20
Yorkshire -55 18 £481 -3.75% 20
Northern Ireland +6 12 £150 - 4
Wales -1 9 £160 -56.16% 13
Channel Islands -1 1 - -

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 14 (1.77%) Confluence
2 13 (1.65%) SharePoint
3 11 (1.39%) Appian
4 10 (1.27%) Microsoft Exchange
5 6 (0.76%) Apache Spark
6 4 (0.51%) OpenStack
7 3 (0.38%) Apache
7 3 (0.38%) IIS
8 2 (0.25%) ArcGIS
8 2 (0.25%) CMS
8 2 (0.25%) JBoss
8 2 (0.25%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 2 (0.25%) Oracle Spatial
8 2 (0.25%) Tomcat
8 2 (0.25%) WebLogic
9 1 (0.13%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 54 (6.84%) Microsoft Office
2 24 (3.04%) Microsoft Excel
3 13 (1.65%) Microsoft Project
4 12 (1.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.89%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.51%) Autodesk Inventor
7 3 (0.38%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.25%) AutoCAD
8 2 (0.25%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.13%) FrameMaker
9 1 (0.13%) MadCap Flare
9 1 (0.13%) MicroStation
9 1 (0.13%) Trello
Business Applications
1 18 (2.28%) SAP BRIM
1 18 (2.28%) SAP Hybris
1 18 (2.28%) SAP PSCD
2 10 (1.27%) Remedy ITSM
3 6 (0.76%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 3 (0.38%) Dynamics CRM
4 3 (0.38%) Primavera
5 2 (0.25%) SAP CO
5 2 (0.25%) SAP FI
5 2 (0.25%) SAP FI/CO
5 2 (0.25%) SAP S/4HANA
6 1 (0.13%) Remedy AR System
6 1 (0.13%) Salesforce CRM
6 1 (0.13%) SmartPlant
Cloud Services
1 61 (7.73%) Azure
2 53 (6.72%) Microsoft 365
3 46 (5.83%) AWS
4 30 (3.80%) GCP
5 18 (2.28%) SAP Commerce Cloud
6 13 (1.65%) SaaS
7 11 (1.39%) GitHub
7 11 (1.39%) Power Platform
8 10 (1.27%) Dynamics 365
9 9 (1.14%) Azure DevOps
10 8 (1.01%) GitHub Actions
11 7 (0.89%) Entra ID
11 7 (0.89%) Tricentis Tosca
12 4 (0.51%) Miro
13 3 (0.38%) Asana
13 3 (0.38%) IaaS
13 3 (0.38%) Power Automate
13 3 (0.38%) Salesforce Service Cloud
13 3 (0.38%) Slack
13 3 (0.38%) Smartsheet
Communications & Networking
1 50 (6.34%) Firewall
2 44 (5.58%) WAN
3 40 (5.07%) Wireless
4 38 (4.82%) LAN
5 32 (4.06%) MPLS
6 27 (3.42%) 5G
7 25 (3.17%) VPN
8 23 (2.92%) 4G
8 23 (2.92%) Network Security
9 21 (2.66%) Radio Access Network
10 20 (2.53%) VoIP
11 19 (2.41%) BGP
11 19 (2.41%) LTE
11 19 (2.41%) SD-WAN
12 18 (2.28%) DNS
13 17 (2.15%) Broadband
14 16 (2.03%) SDH
14 16 (2.03%) Wireshark
15 15 (1.90%) VLAN
16 14 (1.77%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (1.27%) Power BI
2 8 (1.01%) MySQL
3 6 (0.76%) GIS
3 6 (0.76%) Oracle Database
4 4 (0.51%) Big Data
4 4 (0.51%) Data Warehouse
4 4 (0.51%) Electronic Patient Records
4 4 (0.51%) Relational Database
4 4 (0.51%) SQL Server
4 4 (0.51%) Tableau
5 3 (0.38%) PostgreSQL
6 2 (0.25%) BigQuery
6 2 (0.25%) Power Query
6 2 (0.25%) RDBMS
7 1 (0.13%) Data Lake
7 1 (0.13%) Geospatial Data
7 1 (0.13%) Hadoop
7 1 (0.13%) Looker
7 1 (0.13%) Metadata
7 1 (0.13%) Spatial Data
Development Applications
1 30 (3.80%) JIRA
2 18 (2.28%) GitLab
3 9 (1.14%) Jenkins
4 8 (1.01%) Robot Framework
4 8 (1.01%) Selenium
5 7 (0.89%) Cucumber
5 7 (0.89%) SonarQube
6 6 (0.76%) Git
7 4 (0.51%) JUnit
8 3 (0.38%) Rational DOORS
8 3 (0.38%) Storybook
9 2 (0.25%) Appium
9 2 (0.25%) CircleCI
9 2 (0.25%) Cypress.io
9 2 (0.25%) JMeter
9 2 (0.25%) Postman
10 1 (0.13%) Maven
10 1 (0.13%) Mockito
10 1 (0.13%) Sonatype Nexus
10 1 (0.13%) TestRail
General
1 265 (33.59%) Finance
2 254 (32.19%) Social Skills
3 240 (30.42%) Public Sector
4 189 (23.95%) Marketing
5 180 (22.81%) Electronics
6 177 (22.43%) Manufacturing
7 89 (11.28%) Analytical Skills
8 37 (4.69%) Billing
9 23 (2.92%) Documentation Skills
9 23 (2.92%) Organisational Skills
10 15 (1.90%) Banking
11 14 (1.77%) Legal
12 12 (1.52%) Retail
13 8 (1.01%) Influencing Skills
13 8 (1.01%) Military
14 6 (0.76%) Law
15 4 (0.51%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 4 (0.51%) Presentation Skills
16 3 (0.38%) Aviation
16 3 (0.38%) Health Technology
Job Titles
1 79 (10.01%) Analyst
2 75 (9.51%) Architect
3 49 (6.21%) Business Analyst
4 46 (5.83%) Lead
5 43 (5.45%) IT Support
6 42 (5.32%) Project Manager
7 40 (5.07%) Senior
8 37 (4.69%) Consultant
9 36 (4.56%) Desktop Support
10 35 (4.44%) Network Engineer
11 26 (3.30%) 2nd Line Support
12 25 (3.17%) 2nd Line Desktop Support
12 25 (3.17%) SC Cleared Desktop Support
13 24 (3.04%) Developer
14 23 (2.92%) Solutions Architect
15 21 (2.66%) Support Engineer
16 20 (2.53%) Coordinator
16 20 (2.53%) Migration Engineer
16 20 (2.53%) Network Specialist
17 19 (2.41%) IT Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (3.17%) REST
2 22 (2.79%) SOAP
3 9 (1.14%) XML
4 8 (1.01%) JSON
4 8 (1.01%) SailPoint
4 8 (1.01%) Web Services
5 7 (0.89%) Jinja
5 7 (0.89%) NETCONF
5 7 (0.89%) React
5 7 (0.89%) RESTful
6 6 (0.76%) .NET
6 6 (0.76%) RFC 2544
6 6 (0.76%) YANG
7 5 (0.63%) 802.1X
7 5 (0.63%) Elastic Stack
8 4 (0.51%) HTML
8 4 (0.51%) Kafka
8 4 (0.51%) Spring
8 4 (0.51%) Spring Boot
9 3 (0.38%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 53 (6.72%) Data Centre
2 33 (4.18%) Driving Licence
3 30 (3.80%) Data Protection Act
4 26 (3.30%) Product Ownership
5 21 (2.66%) CMDB
6 20 (2.53%) Onboarding
7 18 (2.28%) NHS
8 15 (1.90%) Cloud Native
8 15 (1.90%) IoT
8 15 (1.90%) Legacy Systems
9 13 (1.65%) Mobile App
10 12 (1.52%) Fibre Optics
11 9 (1.14%) Cyber Threat
11 9 (1.14%) Management Information System
11 9 (1.14%) SCADA
11 9 (1.14%) Self-Motivation
11 9 (1.14%) Virtual Team
12 8 (1.01%) Analytical Mindset
12 8 (1.01%) Operational Technology
13 7 (0.89%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 39 (4.94%) Android
2 38 (4.82%) Windows
3 32 (4.06%) Mac OS
4 19 (2.41%) Windows 10
5 17 (2.15%) Linux
6 8 (1.01%) Apple iOS
7 7 (0.89%) Unix
7 7 (0.89%) Windows Server
8 4 (0.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 3 (0.38%) Debian
9 3 (0.38%) Ubuntu
9 3 (0.38%) VMS
10 1 (0.13%) CentOS
10 1 (0.13%) Oracle Linux
10 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
10 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 181 (22.94%) Business Intelligence
2 180 (22.81%) Programme Management
3 176 (22.31%) Digital Marketing
4 124 (15.72%) Problem-Solving
5 115 (14.58%) Agile
5 115 (14.58%) Stakeholder Management
6 90 (11.41%) Migration
7 77 (9.76%) Continuous Improvement
8 72 (9.13%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 70 (8.87%) ITIL
10 56 (7.10%) Logistics
10 56 (7.10%) Workflow
11 55 (6.97%) Customer Service
12 50 (6.34%) Project Management
13 43 (5.45%) CI/CD
13 43 (5.45%) DevOps
13 43 (5.45%) Roadmaps
14 42 (5.32%) Change Management
14 42 (5.32%) Service Delivery
15 39 (4.94%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 54 (6.84%) Python
2 34 (4.31%) JavaScript
3 30 (3.80%) SQL
4 17 (2.15%) Java
5 12 (1.52%) PowerShell
6 11 (1.39%) Bash
6 11 (1.39%) TypeScript
7 6 (0.76%) C++
8 5 (0.63%) C
8 5 (0.63%) Go
9 4 (0.51%) C#
9 4 (0.51%) Shell Script
10 3 (0.38%) PHP
10 3 (0.38%) PL/SQL
10 3 (0.38%) R
11 2 (0.25%) BeanShell
12 1 (0.13%) Bicep
12 1 (0.13%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 194 (24.59%) Security Cleared
2 160 (20.28%) SC Cleared
3 60 (7.60%) Degree
4 25 (3.17%) DV Cleared
5 21 (2.66%) BPSS Clearance
5 21 (2.66%) Cisco Certification
6 16 (2.03%) CCNP
7 12 (1.52%) PMP
8 11 (1.39%) Computer Science Degree
9 10 (1.27%) ACCA
10 9 (1.14%) PMI Certification
11 8 (1.01%) CCIE
11 8 (1.01%) CCNA
11 8 (1.01%) ITIL Certification
12 7 (0.89%) CIMA
12 7 (0.89%) Microsoft Certification
13 5 (0.63%) Azure Certification
13 5 (0.63%) DBS Check
13 5 (0.63%) ISTQB
13 5 (0.63%) JNCIP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 34 (4.31%) QA
2 32 (4.06%) SLA
3 20 (2.53%) PMO
4 18 (2.28%) GDPR
5 13 (1.65%) Data Quality
5 13 (1.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 9 (1.14%) Accessibility
6 9 (1.14%) GRC
7 8 (1.01%) NCSC
8 7 (0.89%) NIST
8 7 (0.89%) RMADS
9 5 (0.63%) JSP 440
10 4 (0.51%) IFRS
10 4 (0.51%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 3 (0.38%) GAAP
12 2 (0.25%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 2 (0.25%) HIPAA
12 2 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 2 (0.25%) WCAG
13 1 (0.13%) Actionable Recommendations
System Software
1 25 (3.17%) Active Directory
2 15 (1.90%) Docker
3 6 (0.76%) Virtual Machines
4 3 (0.38%) QEMU
4 3 (0.38%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (0.25%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.13%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 23 (2.92%) Ansible
2 18 (2.28%) Kubernetes
3 8 (1.01%) Terraform
4 7 (0.89%) SCCM
5 5 (0.63%) Argo
5 5 (0.63%) Grafana
5 5 (0.63%) Iperf
5 5 (0.63%) Microsoft Intune
6 4 (0.51%) Nmap
7 3 (0.38%) Cisco Prime
7 3 (0.38%) Podman
8 2 (0.25%) EMC NetWorker
8 2 (0.25%) Prometheus
8 2 (0.25%) Single Sign-On
8 2 (0.25%) vRealize
9 1 (0.13%) Cisco CUCM
9 1 (0.13%) Data Guard
9 1 (0.13%) FortiGate
9 1 (0.13%) HAProxy
9 1 (0.13%) Kibana
Vendors
1 204 (25.86%) SAP
2 118 (14.96%) Cisco
3 97 (12.29%) Microsoft
4 44 (5.58%) ServiceNow
5 33 (4.18%) Nokia
6 29 (3.68%) Juniper
7 25 (3.17%) HP
8 24 (3.04%) Apple
8 24 (3.04%) Dell
9 23 (2.92%) Oracle
10 20 (2.53%) Fortinet
11 19 (2.41%) Ericsson
11 19 (2.41%) Remedy
12 18 (2.28%) Salesforce
13 15 (1.90%) CheckPoint
13 15 (1.90%) F5
14 14 (1.77%) Palo Alto
15 11 (1.39%) Meraki
16 9 (1.14%) Google
17 8 (1.01%) BT