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 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 125 59 72
Rank change year-on-year -66 +13 +14
Contract jobs citing Telecoms 815 1,263 1,325
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.25% 3.54% 2.91%
As % of the General category 3.62% 5.87% 4.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 529 590 850
10th Percentile £169 £276 £265
25th Percentile £320 £399 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% - +4.17%
75th Percentile £575 £613 £615
90th Percentile £675 £689 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £448 £500 £450
% change year-on-year -10.50% +11.11% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 74 43 33
10th Percentile £14.75 £21.05 £14.22
25th Percentile £17.77 £24.18 £24.25
Median hourly rate £22.79 £48.56 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -53.07% -7.50% +5.00%
75th Percentile £25.00 £71.88 £80.00
90th Percentile £55.28 £75.00 £88.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.79 £49.28 £60.00
% change year-on-year -53.76% -17.87% +9.09%

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 common skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for common skills 22,488 21,514 27,076
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 61.98% 60.24% 59.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,113 12,801 17,952
10th Percentile £275 £291 £281
25th Percentile £400 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £756 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -2.56% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,446 778 1,129
10th Percentile £13.80 £15.21 £14.25
25th Percentile £16.51 £18.00 £16.84
Median hourly rate £23.83 £27.50 £31.71
Median % change year-on-year -13.36% -13.28% +26.84%
75th Percentile £45.46 £53.75 £58.75
90th Percentile £70.00 £70.25 £70.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.00 £26.13 £28.96
% change year-on-year -15.79% -9.79% +31.64%

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 December 2025.

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 December 2025.

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 7 December 2025. 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 -64 711 £467 -6.60% 1,005
UK excluding London -60 469 £448 -10.50% 968
London -31 276 £463 -12.94% 172
Work from Home -62 195 £500 - 449
South East -42 170 £500 -0.50% 317
Midlands -36 80 £385 -18.09% 164
South West -34 79 £550 +3.77% 113
North of England -42 62 £275 -32.35% 189
West Midlands -35 60 £483 -0.52% 102
North West -17 34 £225 -44.44% 103
East of England -32 34 £475 - 113
Scotland +12 30 £275 -36.23% 63
East Midlands -8 20 £158 -10.00% 58
Yorkshire -39 18 £365 -27.00% 72
Northern Ireland +1 12 £150 - 12
Wales +4 10 £160 -56.16% 23
North East -5 9 £175 -50.00% 18
Channel Islands -7 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 16 (1.96%) Confluence
1 16 (1.96%) SharePoint
2 12 (1.47%) Microsoft Exchange
3 11 (1.35%) Apache Spark
4 8 (0.98%) OpenStack
5 7 (0.86%) Appian
6 4 (0.49%) Apache Airflow
7 3 (0.37%) CMS
8 2 (0.25%) Apache
8 2 (0.25%) Smallworld
9 1 (0.12%) Drupal
9 1 (0.12%) Headless CMS
9 1 (0.12%) IIS
9 1 (0.12%) Jupyter
Applications
1 49 (6.01%) Microsoft Office
2 24 (2.94%) Microsoft Excel
3 16 (1.96%) Microsoft Project
4 12 (1.47%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 9 (1.10%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.49%) Autodesk Inventor
7 3 (0.37%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.25%) AutoCAD
8 2 (0.25%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.12%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.12%) FrameMaker
9 1 (0.12%) MadCap Flare
9 1 (0.12%) Sketch
9 1 (0.12%) Trello
Business Applications
1 13 (1.60%) SAP BRIM
1 13 (1.60%) SAP Hybris
1 13 (1.60%) SAP PSCD
2 5 (0.61%) Endur
3 4 (0.49%) Primavera
3 4 (0.49%) SAP ERP
4 2 (0.25%) Dynamics CRM
4 2 (0.25%) Oracle EBS
4 2 (0.25%) Remedy ITSM
4 2 (0.25%) Salesforce CRM
4 2 (0.25%) SAP CO
4 2 (0.25%) SAP FI
4 2 (0.25%) SAP FI/CO
4 2 (0.25%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 75 (9.20%) Azure
2 63 (7.73%) AWS
3 57 (6.99%) Microsoft 365
4 44 (5.40%) GCP
5 27 (3.31%) SaaS
6 19 (2.33%) Power Platform
7 13 (1.60%) SAP Commerce Cloud
8 12 (1.47%) GitHub
9 10 (1.23%) Dynamics 365
10 9 (1.10%) Entra ID
11 8 (0.98%) Azure DevOps
11 8 (0.98%) GitHub Actions
12 7 (0.86%) Miro
12 7 (0.86%) Tricentis Tosca
13 6 (0.74%) IaaS
14 5 (0.61%) Cloud Computing
14 5 (0.61%) OpenShift
15 4 (0.49%) dbt
15 4 (0.49%) PaaS
15 4 (0.49%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 57 (6.99%) Firewall
2 53 (6.50%) WAN
3 48 (5.89%) LAN
4 47 (5.77%) Wireless
5 31 (3.80%) VPN
6 28 (3.44%) 5G
6 28 (3.44%) SD-WAN
7 25 (3.07%) 4G
7 25 (3.07%) Broadband
7 25 (3.07%) DNS
8 24 (2.94%) Radio Access Network
9 21 (2.58%) MPLS
9 21 (2.58%) Network Security
10 20 (2.45%) VoIP
11 19 (2.33%) Wi-Fi
12 18 (2.21%) Wireshark
13 17 (2.09%) BGP
14 16 (1.96%) LTE
15 14 (1.72%) SDH
16 13 (1.60%) 3GPP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 17 (2.09%) Power BI
2 14 (1.72%) Tableau
3 9 (1.10%) Data Warehouse
4 8 (0.98%) Big Data
4 8 (0.98%) GIS
4 8 (0.98%) MySQL
5 7 (0.86%) Oracle Database
6 6 (0.74%) MongoDB
7 5 (0.61%) PostgreSQL
7 5 (0.61%) Relational Database
8 4 (0.49%) BigQuery
8 4 (0.49%) Electronic Patient Records
8 4 (0.49%) SAP BW
9 2 (0.25%) Geospatial Data
9 2 (0.25%) Hadoop
9 2 (0.25%) NoSQL
9 2 (0.25%) Oracle Database 12c
9 2 (0.25%) Power Query
9 2 (0.25%) QGIS
9 2 (0.25%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 27 (3.31%) JIRA
2 22 (2.70%) GitLab
3 11 (1.35%) Jenkins
4 9 (1.10%) Postman
5 8 (0.98%) Robot Framework
5 8 (0.98%) Selenium
6 7 (0.86%) Cucumber
6 7 (0.86%) Git
6 7 (0.86%) SonarQube
7 4 (0.49%) Clang
7 4 (0.49%) Cypress.io
7 4 (0.49%) GCC
7 4 (0.49%) JUnit
8 3 (0.37%) Rational DOORS
8 3 (0.37%) Storybook
9 2 (0.25%) Appium
9 2 (0.25%) CircleCI
9 2 (0.25%) Maven
9 2 (0.25%) Mercurial
9 2 (0.25%) Subversion
General
1 313 (38.40%) Finance
2 275 (33.74%) Public Sector
3 263 (32.27%) Social Skills
4 219 (26.87%) Marketing
5 212 (26.01%) Manufacturing
6 209 (25.64%) Electronics
7 93 (11.41%) Analytical Skills
8 29 (3.56%) Documentation Skills
9 26 (3.19%) Legal
10 20 (2.45%) Billing
11 19 (2.33%) Organisational Skills
12 13 (1.60%) Law
13 11 (1.35%) Automotive
13 11 (1.35%) Retail
14 10 (1.23%) Banking
15 7 (0.86%) Back Office
15 7 (0.86%) French Language
15 7 (0.86%) Military
15 7 (0.86%) Presentation Skills
16 6 (0.74%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 96 (11.78%) Architect
2 76 (9.33%) Analyst
3 52 (6.38%) Project Manager
4 48 (5.89%) Consultant
5 47 (5.77%) IT Support
6 43 (5.28%) Business Analyst
6 43 (5.28%) Desktop Support
7 38 (4.66%) Lead
7 38 (4.66%) Senior
8 33 (4.05%) Network Engineer
9 28 (3.44%) 2nd Line Desktop Support
9 28 (3.44%) 2nd Line Support
9 28 (3.44%) SC Cleared Desktop Support
10 27 (3.31%) Solutions Architect
11 26 (3.19%) Network Architect
12 23 (2.82%) Network Specialist
13 22 (2.70%) Developer
13 22 (2.70%) Support Engineer
13 22 (2.70%) Telecoms Manager
14 20 (2.45%) Delivery Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (3.07%) REST
2 17 (2.09%) SOAP
3 12 (1.47%) JSON
3 12 (1.47%) React
4 11 (1.35%) XML
5 9 (1.10%) RESTful
5 9 (1.10%) SailPoint
6 8 (0.98%) 802.1X
7 7 (0.86%) Jinja
7 7 (0.86%) NETCONF
7 7 (0.86%) Node.js
7 7 (0.86%) Web Services
8 6 (0.74%) HTML
8 6 (0.74%) PySpark
8 6 (0.74%) RFC 2544
8 6 (0.74%) YANG
9 5 (0.61%) CSS
9 5 (0.61%) Kafka
9 5 (0.61%) Spring
9 5 (0.61%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 68 (8.34%) Data Centre
2 34 (4.17%) Driving Licence
3 29 (3.56%) Cloud Native
4 27 (3.31%) Legacy Systems
4 27 (3.31%) Product Ownership
5 20 (2.45%) Data Protection Act
6 19 (2.33%) CMDB
6 19 (2.33%) Onboarding
7 17 (2.09%) Fibre Optics
8 16 (1.96%) Mobile App
9 15 (1.84%) NHS
10 14 (1.72%) Analytical Mindset
10 14 (1.72%) IoT
11 11 (1.35%) Virtual Team
12 10 (1.23%) Self-Motivation
13 9 (1.10%) Algorithms
13 9 (1.10%) Cyber Threat
14 8 (0.98%) Renewable Energy
14 8 (0.98%) SCADA
15 7 (0.86%) Cyber Defence
Operating Systems
1 55 (6.75%) Windows
2 40 (4.91%) Android
3 32 (3.93%) Mac OS
4 22 (2.70%) Linux
5 15 (1.84%) Windows 10
6 10 (1.23%) Windows Server
7 9 (1.10%) Apple iOS
8 6 (0.74%) Unix
9 1 (0.12%) CentOS
9 1 (0.12%) Oracle Linux
9 1 (0.12%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 1 (0.12%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 228 (27.98%) Business Intelligence
2 213 (26.13%) Programme Management
3 207 (25.40%) Digital Marketing
4 147 (18.04%) Problem-Solving
5 135 (16.56%) Agile
6 115 (14.11%) Stakeholder Management
7 100 (12.27%) Migration
8 82 (10.06%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 76 (9.33%) Continuous Improvement
10 72 (8.83%) ITIL
11 59 (7.24%) Workflow
12 55 (6.75%) Logistics
13 54 (6.63%) Customer Service
14 53 (6.50%) DevOps
15 52 (6.38%) AI
15 52 (6.38%) CI/CD
16 50 (6.13%) Project Management
16 50 (6.13%) Service Delivery
17 49 (6.01%) Change Management
18 48 (5.89%) Network Design
Programming Languages
1 73 (8.96%) Python
2 40 (4.91%) SQL
3 38 (4.66%) JavaScript
4 19 (2.33%) PowerShell
5 18 (2.21%) Java
6 13 (1.60%) Bash
7 11 (1.35%) TypeScript
8 10 (1.23%) C
8 10 (1.23%) C++
9 8 (0.98%) C#
10 7 (0.86%) Go
11 6 (0.74%) PHP
12 4 (0.49%) ABAP
13 3 (0.37%) BeanShell
13 3 (0.37%) PL/SQL
13 3 (0.37%) R
14 2 (0.25%) Kotlin
14 2 (0.25%) Shell Script
15 1 (0.12%) Groovy
15 1 (0.12%) Scala
Qualifications
1 231 (28.34%) Security Cleared
2 184 (22.58%) SC Cleared
3 75 (9.20%) Degree
4 43 (5.28%) DV Cleared
5 25 (3.07%) Cisco Certification
6 16 (1.96%) CCNP
6 16 (1.96%) Master's Degree
7 14 (1.72%) BPSS Clearance
7 14 (1.72%) CISSP
8 13 (1.60%) CCNA
8 13 (1.60%) PMP
9 11 (1.35%) Computer Science Degree
10 10 (1.23%) CCIE
10 10 (1.23%) PMI Certification
11 9 (1.10%) ITIL Certification
12 8 (0.98%) Azure Certification
13 7 (0.86%) CESG Certified Professional
13 7 (0.86%) CISM
14 6 (0.74%) AWS Certification
15 5 (0.61%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 37 (4.54%) QA
2 32 (3.93%) SLA
3 18 (2.21%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 17 (2.09%) GDPR
5 16 (1.96%) PMO
6 14 (1.72%) Data Quality
7 10 (1.23%) Accessibility
7 10 (1.23%) GRC
8 8 (0.98%) NCSC
8 8 (0.98%) NIST
9 7 (0.86%) RMADS
10 5 (0.61%) JSP 440
10 5 (0.61%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 3 (0.37%) GAAP
11 3 (0.37%) IFRS
11 3 (0.37%) WCAG
12 2 (0.25%) Def Stans
12 2 (0.25%) ISO 26262
12 2 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 2 (0.25%) NEBOSH
System Software
1 30 (3.68%) Active Directory
2 26 (3.19%) Docker
3 6 (0.74%) Virtual Machines
3 6 (0.74%) VMware Infrastructure
4 3 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
5 2 (0.25%) Hyper-V
5 2 (0.25%) Oracle RAC
6 1 (0.12%) BitLocker
6 1 (0.12%) Firmware
6 1 (0.12%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 29 (3.56%) Ansible
2 24 (2.94%) Kubernetes
3 20 (2.45%) Terraform
4 6 (0.74%) Grafana
4 6 (0.74%) Microsoft Intune
5 5 (0.61%) SCCM
6 4 (0.49%) Argo
6 4 (0.49%) Data Guard
6 4 (0.49%) Puppet
6 4 (0.49%) Single Sign-On
7 3 (0.37%) HP ALM
7 3 (0.37%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
7 3 (0.37%) Oracle RMAN
7 3 (0.37%) vCenter Server
7 3 (0.37%) vRealize
8 2 (0.25%) Cisco CUCM
8 2 (0.25%) EMC NetWorker
8 2 (0.25%) Iperf
8 2 (0.25%) Nmap
8 2 (0.25%) NSN NetAct
Vendors
1 242 (29.69%) SAP
2 130 (15.95%) Cisco
3 94 (11.53%) Microsoft
4 44 (5.40%) ServiceNow
5 33 (4.05%) Salesforce
6 30 (3.68%) Juniper
7 27 (3.31%) HP
8 25 (3.07%) Dell
8 25 (3.07%) Nokia
9 24 (2.94%) Apple
10 21 (2.58%) F5
10 21 (2.58%) Fortinet
11 18 (2.21%) Oracle
12 17 (2.09%) Ericsson
13 15 (1.84%) CheckPoint
13 15 (1.84%) Google
14 14 (1.72%) Remedy
15 11 (1.35%) Meraki
15 11 (1.35%) VMware
16 10 (1.23%) Actix