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 25 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 164 102 69
Rank change year-on-year -62 -33 +7
Contract jobs citing Telecoms 891 842 1,173
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.66% 2.57% 3.02%
As % of the General category 3.02% 4.05% 5.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 498 492 560
10th Percentile £213 £290 £225
25th Percentile £396 £377 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £485
Median % change year-on-year - -2.06% -3.00%
75th Percentile £560 £575 £613
90th Percentile £671 £700 £726
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £459 £475
% change year-on-year -1.91% -3.42% +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 47 49 104
10th Percentile £15.32 - £12.15
25th Percentile £16.25 £14.00 £18.11
Median hourly rate £21.00 £20.75 £51.25
Median % change year-on-year +1.20% -59.51% -21.15%
75th Percentile £50.00 £52.00 £72.50
90th Percentile £178.75 £67.70 £75.88
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.00 £15.75 £51.25
% change year-on-year +33.33% -69.27% -14.58%

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 29,490 20,770 22,288
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 54.97% 63.45% 57.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,431 12,916 13,846
10th Percentile £313 £275 £288
25th Percentile £415 £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 £749 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £495
% change year-on-year +5.26% -4.04% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,285 1,168 1,267
10th Percentile £13.89 £13.43 £14.06
25th Percentile £17.11 £16.17 £16.70
Median hourly rate £31.50 £25.15 £35.36
Median % change year-on-year +25.25% -28.87% +28.58%
75th Percentile £56.21 £50.00 £59.98
90th Percentile £78.75 £70.00 £70.31
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.00 £22.14 £35.00
% change year-on-year +44.53% -36.74% +34.74%

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 25 August 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 25 August 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 25 August 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 -83 735 £482 -0.59% 619
UK excluding London -74 437 £450 -1.91% 512
London -26 344 £513 +7.89% 191
Work from Home -33 264 £475 -1.04% 215
South East -45 197 £470 -6.10% 183
Scotland +16 60 £300 +4.35% 29
North of England -59 57 £463 -2.63% 96
East of England -4 44 £190 -49.33% 45
South West -78 44 £460 -12.48% 66
Yorkshire -19 32 £475 +72.73% 35
Midlands -84 30 £460 +21.05% 89
West Midlands -63 29 £460 +21.05% 54
North West -51 24 £463 -5.13% 42
Wales -10 8 £200 -6.98% 14
Northern Ireland -3 4 £300 +114.29% 2
East Midlands -21 1 - - 35
North East -39 1 - - 24

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 19 (2.13%) Confluence
2 17 (1.91%) OpenStack
3 14 (1.57%) SharePoint
4 10 (1.12%) ArcGIS
5 8 (0.90%) Microsoft Exchange
6 6 (0.67%) Apache Airflow
7 4 (0.45%) Anypoint
8 2 (0.22%) Apache Spark
8 2 (0.22%) CMS
9 1 (0.11%) Camunda
9 1 (0.11%) IIS
9 1 (0.11%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
9 1 (0.11%) Smallworld
Applications
1 34 (3.82%) Microsoft Excel
2 29 (3.25%) Microsoft Office
3 24 (2.69%) MS Visio
4 12 (1.35%) Microsoft Project
5 10 (1.12%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 5 (0.56%) AutoCAD
7 3 (0.34%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 2 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
9 1 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
9 1 (0.11%) Autodesk Inventor
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
9 1 (0.11%) Trello
Business Applications
1 19 (2.13%) SAP PSCD
2 10 (1.12%) SAP BRIM
3 8 (0.90%) SAP FI
3 8 (0.90%) SAP Hybris
4 7 (0.79%) SAP FI-CA
5 6 (0.67%) Remedy ITSM
6 5 (0.56%) NetSuite
6 5 (0.56%) Sage X3
6 5 (0.56%) Salesforce CRM
6 5 (0.56%) SAP S/4HANA
7 4 (0.45%) BambooHR
8 3 (0.34%) Remedy AR System
8 3 (0.34%) SAP ERP
9 1 (0.11%) Oracle BRM
9 1 (0.11%) SAP FI/CO
9 1 (0.11%) SAP FS
9 1 (0.11%) SAP IBP
9 1 (0.11%) SAP IS-U
9 1 (0.11%) SAP SRM
9 1 (0.11%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 94 (10.55%) Azure
2 89 (9.99%) AWS
3 67 (7.52%) GCP
4 21 (2.36%) Microsoft 365
5 16 (1.80%) Entra ID
5 16 (1.80%) GitHub
5 16 (1.80%) Power Platform
6 14 (1.57%) SaaS
7 11 (1.23%) Azure DevOps
7 11 (1.23%) dbt
8 10 (1.12%) Cloud Computing
8 10 (1.12%) SAP Commerce Cloud
8 10 (1.12%) Snowflake
9 9 (1.01%) GitHub Actions
10 6 (0.67%) Cloud Functions
10 6 (0.67%) Datadog
10 6 (0.67%) OneDrive
11 5 (0.56%) Figma
11 5 (0.56%) OpenShift
11 5 (0.56%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 112 (12.57%) WAN
2 90 (10.10%) LAN
3 85 (9.54%) 5G
4 82 (9.20%) MPLS
5 61 (6.85%) 4G
6 57 (6.40%) Radio Access Network
7 53 (5.95%) Firewall
8 33 (3.70%) DNS
8 33 (3.70%) SD-WAN
9 29 (3.25%) BGP
9 29 (3.25%) Wi-Fi
10 28 (3.14%) SDH
11 26 (2.92%) LTE
12 25 (2.81%) Network Security
13 24 (2.69%) 3G
13 24 (2.69%) TCP/IP
13 24 (2.69%) VPN
14 22 (2.47%) 3GPP
15 21 (2.36%) Structured Cabling
15 21 (2.36%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 18 (2.02%) Data Warehouse
2 16 (1.80%) BigQuery
3 15 (1.68%) Power BI
4 13 (1.46%) NoSQL
5 11 (1.23%) Amazon Redshift
5 11 (1.23%) Tableau
6 10 (1.12%) GIS
6 10 (1.12%) PostgreSQL
7 8 (0.90%) Big Data
7 8 (0.90%) Looker
8 7 (0.79%) MongoDB
8 7 (0.79%) MySQL
9 5 (0.56%) Apache Cassandra
9 5 (0.56%) Metadata
9 5 (0.56%) Redis
10 4 (0.45%) InfluxDB
10 4 (0.45%) SQL Server
11 3 (0.34%) BusinessObjects
11 3 (0.34%) SAP BW
11 3 (0.34%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 34 (3.82%) JIRA
2 26 (2.92%) Git
3 14 (1.57%) Jenkins
4 8 (0.90%) GitLab
5 6 (0.67%) Selenium
6 2 (0.22%) Robot Framework
6 2 (0.22%) Sonatype Nexus
7 1 (0.11%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.11%) Oracle Forms
7 1 (0.11%) Rational DOORS
7 1 (0.11%) TestRail
7 1 (0.11%) Visual Studio
7 1 (0.11%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 251 (28.17%) Social Skills
2 135 (15.15%) Finance
3 121 (13.58%) Analytical Skills
4 60 (6.73%) Public Sector
5 37 (4.15%) Billing
6 32 (3.59%) Documentation Skills
7 30 (3.37%) Retail
8 26 (2.92%) Organisational Skills
9 25 (2.81%) Legal
10 19 (2.13%) Marketing
11 17 (1.91%) Influencing Skills
12 15 (1.68%) Aerospace
12 15 (1.68%) Presentation Skills
13 13 (1.46%) Manufacturing
14 10 (1.12%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 10 (1.12%) Publishing
15 8 (0.90%) Police
16 6 (0.67%) Banking
17 5 (0.56%) Electronics
18 4 (0.45%) Games
Job Titles
1 135 (15.15%) Architect
2 78 (8.75%) Senior
3 67 (7.52%) Lead
4 65 (7.30%) Consultant
5 63 (7.07%) Analyst
6 62 (6.96%) Network Engineer
7 59 (6.62%) Project Manager
8 51 (5.72%) Field Engineer
9 48 (5.39%) Telecoms Engineer
10 43 (4.83%) Solutions Architect
11 38 (4.26%) Designer
12 34 (3.82%) Developer
13 32 (3.59%) Telecoms Manager
14 29 (3.25%) Enterprise Architect
14 29 (3.25%) ServiceNow Architect
15 25 (2.81%) Data Engineer
16 21 (2.36%) Business Analyst
16 21 (2.36%) Telecoms Architect
17 20 (2.24%) Network Field Engineer
17 20 (2.24%) SAP Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 56 (6.29%) REST
2 34 (3.82%) SOAP
3 21 (2.36%) Terraform
4 18 (2.02%) Kafka
5 15 (1.68%) RESTful
6 13 (1.46%) Elastic Stack
6 13 (1.46%) NETCONF
6 13 (1.46%) ONVIF
6 13 (1.46%) YANG
7 12 (1.35%) HTML
7 12 (1.35%) Middleware
7 12 (1.35%) XML
8 11 (1.23%) CSS
9 10 (1.12%) AngularJS
9 10 (1.12%) React
10 9 (1.01%) OpenAPI
10 9 (1.01%) Swagger
11 8 (0.90%) FastAPI
11 8 (0.90%) JSON
12 7 (0.79%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 52 (5.84%) Data Centre
2 50 (5.61%) CMDB
3 43 (4.83%) Onboarding
4 42 (4.71%) Driving Licence
5 38 (4.26%) Cloud Native
6 22 (2.47%) Analytical Mindset
7 20 (2.24%) Product Ownership
8 19 (2.13%) Virtual Team
9 18 (2.02%) Management Information System
10 17 (1.91%) Data Protection Act
10 17 (1.91%) Self-Motivation
11 16 (1.80%) Hybrid Cloud
12 13 (1.46%) TM Forum
12 13 (1.46%) Video\Live Streaming
13 10 (1.12%) Data Structures
13 10 (1.12%) Video Conferencing
14 9 (1.01%) Algorithms
14 9 (1.01%) Distributed Systems
14 9 (1.01%) Enterprise Software
14 9 (1.01%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 49 (5.50%) Windows
2 41 (4.60%) Linux
3 14 (1.57%) Windows 10
4 11 (1.23%) Unix
4 11 (1.23%) Windows Server
5 8 (0.90%) Mac OS
6 3 (0.34%) Android
6 3 (0.34%) VMS
7 2 (0.22%) Apple iOS
7 2 (0.22%) Embedded Linux
7 2 (0.22%) OpenVMS
7 2 (0.22%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.11%) Mac OS X
8 1 (0.11%) Oracle Linux
8 1 (0.11%) Ubuntu
8 1 (0.11%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 182 (20.43%) Stakeholder Management
2 125 (14.03%) Agile
3 117 (13.13%) Problem-Solving
4 91 (10.21%) Project Delivery
5 86 (9.65%) ITIL
6 82 (9.20%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 78 (8.75%) AI
8 74 (8.31%) Roadmaps
9 73 (8.19%) Project Management
10 72 (8.08%) Service Management
11 71 (7.97%) CI/CD
12 69 (7.74%) Continuous Improvement
13 68 (7.63%) Migration
14 65 (7.30%) Decision-Making
15 62 (6.96%) Validation
16 56 (6.29%) Change Management
17 54 (6.06%) CRM
17 54 (6.06%) ITSM
17 54 (6.06%) Technical Leadership
18 52 (5.84%) Customer Service
Programming Languages
1 79 (8.87%) Python
2 45 (5.05%) SQL
3 32 (3.59%) JavaScript
4 22 (2.47%) Bash
5 14 (1.57%) Java
6 10 (1.12%) PowerShell
7 8 (0.90%) Apex Code
7 8 (0.90%) C#
8 7 (0.79%) R
9 6 (0.67%) Shell Script
10 5 (0.56%) C++
10 5 (0.56%) SOQL
11 4 (0.45%) ABAP
11 4 (0.45%) DataWeave
11 4 (0.45%) TypeScript
12 3 (0.34%) LookML
13 2 (0.22%) Bicep
13 2 (0.22%) C
13 2 (0.22%) DCL
14 1 (0.11%) Ada
Qualifications
1 165 (18.52%) Security Cleared
2 103 (11.56%) SC Cleared
3 91 (10.21%) Degree
4 64 (7.18%) Cisco Certification
5 45 (5.05%) CCNA
6 27 (3.03%) DV Cleared
7 24 (2.69%) Computer Science Degree
7 24 (2.69%) Microsoft Certification
7 24 (2.69%) PMP
8 23 (2.58%) CCNP
9 22 (2.47%) A+ Certification
10 19 (2.13%) BPSS Clearance
11 18 (2.02%) PMI Certification
12 13 (1.46%) MCSA
13 11 (1.23%) Azure Certification
14 10 (1.12%) CCIE
15 9 (1.01%) AWS Certification
15 9 (1.01%) CISSP
15 9 (1.01%) Master's Degree
15 9 (1.01%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 30 (3.37%) QA
2 29 (3.25%) SLA
3 28 (3.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 23 (2.58%) GDPR
5 21 (2.36%) GRC
6 20 (2.24%) PMO
7 18 (2.02%) NCSC
8 14 (1.57%) Data Quality
9 9 (1.01%) NIST
10 3 (0.34%) Accessibility
10 3 (0.34%) Actionable Recommendations
10 3 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials
10 3 (0.34%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 2 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 2 (0.22%) EU AI Act
11 2 (0.22%) PCI DSS
12 1 (0.11%) ISO 31000
12 1 (0.11%) ISO/IEC 15288
12 1 (0.11%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 1 (0.11%) SOC 1
System Software
1 27 (3.03%) Docker
2 23 (2.58%) Active Directory
3 21 (2.36%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (0.90%) VMware NSX
5 5 (0.56%) VMware ESXi
5 5 (0.56%) vSphere
6 3 (0.34%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.11%) Ceph
7 1 (0.11%) Firmware
7 1 (0.11%) KVM
7 1 (0.11%) NDS
7 1 (0.11%) NetIQ eDirectory
7 1 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 51 (5.72%) Kubernetes
2 20 (2.24%) Ansible
3 17 (1.91%) Grafana
3 17 (1.91%) Prometheus
4 8 (0.90%) Microsoft Intune
5 5 (0.56%) Jamf Pro
6 4 (0.45%) Cilium
6 4 (0.45%) Cisco Prime
6 4 (0.45%) Istio
7 3 (0.34%) Amdocs OSS
7 3 (0.34%) Check_MK
7 3 (0.34%) Kibana
7 3 (0.34%) Podman
7 3 (0.34%) SolarWinds Orion
7 3 (0.34%) vCenter Server
7 3 (0.34%) vRealize
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 (13.69%) Microsoft
2 114 (12.79%) Cisco
3 90 (10.10%) ServiceNow
4 62 (6.96%) Nokia
5 47 (5.27%) Salesforce
6 35 (3.93%) VMware
7 29 (3.25%) SAP
8 28 (3.14%) Ericsson
9 26 (2.92%) Google
10 23 (2.58%) BT
11 21 (2.36%) Juniper
12 19 (2.13%) F5
12 19 (2.13%) MuleSoft
13 17 (1.91%) Fortinet
14 16 (1.80%) Huawei
15 13 (1.46%) Palo Alto
16 12 (1.35%) BMC
17 10 (1.12%) Zscaler
18 9 (1.01%) Arista
18 9 (1.01%) Oracle