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 1 April 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 160 85 62
Rank change year-on-year -75 -23 +21
Contract jobs citing Telecoms 763 844 1,437
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.71% 2.91% 3.25%
As % of the General category 3.04% 4.63% 5.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 477 470 807
10th Percentile £173 £300 £200
25th Percentile £350 £378 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £450
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +11.11% -6.25%
75th Percentile £575 £618 £588
90th Percentile £675 £700 £730
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £500 £450
% change year-on-year -10.00% +11.11% +0.28%
Number of hourly rates quoted 55 33 60
10th Percentile £18.07 £14.00 £12.15
25th Percentile £20.50 £18.20 £12.28
Median hourly rate £23.83 £26.34 £26.75
Median % change year-on-year -9.53% -1.55% -49.05%
75th Percentile £25.00 £60.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £57.70 £63.60 £81.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.83 £23.00 £23.50
% change year-on-year +3.59% -2.13% -55.24%

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 25,119 18,234 25,765
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 56.22% 62.79% 58.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,660 11,696 16,405
10th Percentile £300 £300 £268
25th Percentile £406 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £640 £650
90th Percentile £738 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £500
% change year-on-year - -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,557 715 1,850
10th Percentile £13.71 £15.00 £12.78
25th Percentile £17.14 £19.00 £15.38
Median hourly rate £25.38 £29.07 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -12.69% +11.81% -25.71%
75th Percentile £59.00 £58.56 £50.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.15 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.00 £27.70 £25.00
% change year-on-year -13.36% +10.80% -19.35%

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 1 April 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 1 April 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 1 April 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 -81 664 £475 -6.86% 512
UK excluding London -75 429 £450 -10.00% 422
London -32 269 £488 -8.02% 139
Work from Home -59 173 £475 -5.00% 175
South East -55 164 £469 -6.20% 141
North of England -71 68 £438 -12.50% 94
Midlands -45 66 £513 - 63
South West -41 56 £525 -0.94% 50
West Midlands -44 45 £550 +7.32% 43
East of England -18 38 £475 +18.75% 56
Scotland +18 27 £281 -16.67% 27
North West -64 26 £406 -21.31% 46
North East -3 21 £338 -6.90% 11
East Midlands -20 21 £158 -74.80% 20
Yorkshire -44 20 £481 -8.33% 42
Wales -5 10 £160 -56.16% 10
Northern Ireland +2 7 £150 -72.73% 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 10 (1.31%) Confluence
2 9 (1.18%) Microsoft Exchange
2 9 (1.18%) SharePoint
3 7 (0.92%) Apache Spark
3 7 (0.92%) OpenStack
4 6 (0.79%) Appian
5 4 (0.52%) Apache
5 4 (0.52%) Apache Airflow
5 4 (0.52%) IIS
6 3 (0.39%) ArcGIS
6 3 (0.39%) JBoss
6 3 (0.39%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 3 (0.39%) Tomcat
6 3 (0.39%) WebLogic
7 2 (0.26%) Oracle Spatial
8 1 (0.13%) Camunda
8 1 (0.13%) CMS
8 1 (0.13%) Headless CMS
8 1 (0.13%) Smallworld
Applications
1 44 (5.77%) Microsoft Office
2 25 (3.28%) Microsoft Excel
3 12 (1.57%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 11 (1.44%) Microsoft Project
5 6 (0.79%) MS Visio
6 2 (0.26%) MicroStation
6 2 (0.26%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (0.26%) Trello
7 1 (0.13%) AutoCAD
7 1 (0.13%) Autodesk Inventor
7 1 (0.13%) FrameMaker
7 1 (0.13%) MadCap Flare
Business Applications
1 17 (2.23%) SAP PSCD
2 16 (2.10%) SAP BRIM
2 16 (2.10%) SAP Hybris
3 10 (1.31%) Remedy ITSM
4 6 (0.79%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 3 (0.39%) BambooHR
5 3 (0.39%) SAP FI
6 2 (0.26%) Primavera
6 2 (0.26%) SAP CO
6 2 (0.26%) SAP FI/CO
6 2 (0.26%) SAP S/4HANA
7 1 (0.13%) Dynamics CRM
7 1 (0.13%) Remedy AR System
7 1 (0.13%) SAP FI-CA
7 1 (0.13%) SAP SRM
7 1 (0.13%) SmartPlant
Cloud Services
1 74 (9.70%) Azure
2 60 (7.86%) AWS
3 44 (5.77%) GCP
3 44 (5.77%) Microsoft 365
4 20 (2.62%) Power Platform
5 17 (2.23%) SAP Commerce Cloud
6 13 (1.70%) SaaS
7 8 (1.05%) Azure DevOps
7 8 (1.05%) GitHub
8 6 (0.79%) Dynamics 365
8 6 (0.79%) GitHub Actions
9 5 (0.66%) Datadog
9 5 (0.66%) dbt
10 4 (0.52%) Entra ID
10 4 (0.52%) Figma
10 4 (0.52%) Miro
10 4 (0.52%) Serverless
10 4 (0.52%) Slack
11 3 (0.39%) Smartsheet
11 3 (0.39%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 48 (6.29%) WAN
2 42 (5.50%) Firewall
3 41 (5.37%) 5G
4 38 (4.98%) MPLS
5 37 (4.85%) LAN
6 28 (3.67%) 4G
6 28 (3.67%) SD-WAN
7 25 (3.28%) Network Security
7 25 (3.28%) Radio Access Network
7 25 (3.28%) Wireless
8 21 (2.75%) BGP
8 21 (2.75%) DNS
9 20 (2.62%) Internet
9 20 (2.62%) VPN
10 19 (2.49%) LTE
11 17 (2.23%) Broadband
11 17 (2.23%) SDH
11 17 (2.23%) VoIP
12 15 (1.97%) 2G
13 14 (1.83%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (2.49%) Power BI
2 12 (1.57%) MySQL
3 11 (1.44%) Data Warehouse
3 11 (1.44%) Looker
4 10 (1.31%) Tableau
5 8 (1.05%) Big Data
5 8 (1.05%) BigQuery
5 8 (1.05%) Oracle Database
5 8 (1.05%) Relational Database
6 7 (0.92%) GIS
7 6 (0.79%) SQL Server
8 5 (0.66%) Amazon Redshift
8 5 (0.66%) PostgreSQL
9 3 (0.39%) Metadata
9 3 (0.39%) NoSQL
9 3 (0.39%) RDBMS
9 3 (0.39%) Semantic Layer
9 3 (0.39%) Star Schema
10 2 (0.26%) Amazon Athena
10 2 (0.26%) TimescaleDB
Development Applications
1 24 (3.15%) JIRA
2 6 (0.79%) GitLab
2 6 (0.79%) Jenkins
3 5 (0.66%) Git
4 4 (0.52%) JUnit
5 3 (0.39%) Storybook
6 2 (0.26%) Appium
6 2 (0.26%) CircleCI
6 2 (0.26%) JMeter
6 2 (0.26%) Rational DOORS
6 2 (0.26%) Robot Framework
7 1 (0.13%) Maven
7 1 (0.13%) Mockito
7 1 (0.13%) Oracle Forms
7 1 (0.13%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 224 (29.36%) Finance
2 223 (29.23%) Social Skills
3 183 (23.98%) Public Sector
4 135 (17.69%) Marketing
5 129 (16.91%) Electronics
6 123 (16.12%) Manufacturing
7 87 (11.40%) Analytical Skills
8 40 (5.24%) Billing
9 22 (2.88%) Organisational Skills
10 19 (2.49%) Documentation Skills
11 18 (2.36%) Legal
12 13 (1.70%) Retail
13 12 (1.57%) Influencing Skills
14 10 (1.31%) Military
15 8 (1.05%) Banking
16 5 (0.66%) Law
16 5 (0.66%) Presentation Skills
17 3 (0.39%) Financial Institution
17 3 (0.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 2 (0.26%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 82 (10.75%) Architect
2 75 (9.83%) Analyst
3 46 (6.03%) Lead
4 43 (5.64%) Consultant
4 43 (5.64%) Senior
5 41 (5.37%) Business Analyst
5 41 (5.37%) Project Manager
6 32 (4.19%) IT Support
6 32 (4.19%) Network Engineer
7 29 (3.80%) Solutions Architect
8 26 (3.41%) Desktop Support
8 26 (3.41%) Developer
8 26 (3.41%) Telecoms Manager
9 19 (2.49%) Data Engineer
10 18 (2.36%) Coordinator
10 18 (2.36%) ServiceNow Architect
10 18 (2.36%) Telecoms Engineer
11 17 (2.23%) Programme Manager
11 17 (2.23%) SAP Consultant
12 16 (2.10%) 2nd Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (3.41%) REST
2 17 (2.23%) SOAP
3 9 (1.18%) Kafka
4 8 (1.05%) .NET
4 8 (1.05%) Elastic Stack
5 6 (0.79%) Middleware
5 6 (0.79%) RabbitMQ
5 6 (0.79%) RESTful
6 5 (0.66%) Spring
6 5 (0.66%) Spring Boot
7 4 (0.52%) HTML
7 4 (0.52%) React
8 3 (0.39%) CSS
8 3 (0.39%) GraphQL
8 3 (0.39%) Node.js
8 3 (0.39%) PySpark
8 3 (0.39%) RFC 2544
8 3 (0.39%) Swagger
8 3 (0.39%) Vitest
8 3 (0.39%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 43 (5.64%) Data Centre
2 31 (4.06%) Driving Licence
3 28 (3.67%) Data Protection Act
4 27 (3.54%) Onboarding
5 26 (3.41%) Product Ownership
6 19 (2.49%) Cloud Native
7 17 (2.23%) CMDB
8 16 (2.10%) IoT
9 14 (1.83%) NHS
10 13 (1.70%) Legacy Systems
10 13 (1.70%) Mobile App
11 11 (1.44%) Distributed Systems
11 11 (1.44%) Virtual Team
12 9 (1.18%) Algorithms
12 9 (1.18%) Analytical Mindset
12 9 (1.18%) Self-Motivation
13 7 (0.92%) Enterprise Cloud
13 7 (0.92%) Fibre Optics
14 6 (0.79%) Management Information System
14 6 (0.79%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 39 (5.11%) Windows
2 29 (3.80%) Android
3 23 (3.01%) Mac OS
4 22 (2.88%) Linux
5 20 (2.62%) Windows 10
6 8 (1.05%) Unix
7 6 (0.79%) Apple iOS
8 5 (0.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 5 (0.66%) Windows Server
9 3 (0.39%) Debian
9 3 (0.39%) Ubuntu
9 3 (0.39%) VMS
10 2 (0.26%) Oracle Linux
11 1 (0.13%) CentOS
11 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 142 (18.61%) Business Intelligence
2 128 (16.78%) Programme Management
3 122 (15.99%) Digital Marketing
4 115 (15.07%) Stakeholder Management
5 104 (13.63%) Agile
6 96 (12.58%) Problem-Solving
7 80 (10.48%) Migration
8 79 (10.35%) Continuous Improvement
9 68 (8.91%) ITIL
10 66 (8.65%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 54 (7.08%) Project Management
12 53 (6.95%) Logistics
13 50 (6.55%) Workflow
14 48 (6.29%) Customer Service
15 47 (6.16%) Decision-Making
16 46 (6.03%) Analytics
17 44 (5.77%) Roadmaps
18 43 (5.64%) Project Delivery
19 41 (5.37%) DevOps
20 40 (5.24%) CI/CD
Programming Languages
1 56 (7.34%) Python
2 43 (5.64%) SQL
3 21 (2.75%) JavaScript
4 19 (2.49%) Java
5 9 (1.18%) Bash
5 9 (1.18%) PowerShell
6 7 (0.92%) C++
6 7 (0.92%) R
7 6 (0.79%) TypeScript
8 5 (0.66%) C#
8 5 (0.66%) Go
9 4 (0.52%) Shell Script
10 3 (0.39%) C
10 3 (0.39%) LookML
11 2 (0.26%) Apex Code
11 2 (0.26%) PHP
11 2 (0.26%) PL/SQL
12 1 (0.13%) BeanShell
12 1 (0.13%) Bicep
12 1 (0.13%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 172 (22.54%) Security Cleared
2 140 (18.35%) SC Cleared
3 65 (8.52%) Degree
4 27 (3.54%) DV Cleared
5 19 (2.49%) BPSS Clearance
6 17 (2.23%) Cisco Certification
6 17 (2.23%) PMP
7 14 (1.83%) Computer Science Degree
8 12 (1.57%) CCNP
8 12 (1.57%) PMI Certification
9 11 (1.44%) ITIL Certification
10 10 (1.31%) ACCA
11 9 (1.18%) Azure Certification
12 8 (1.05%) Microsoft Certification
13 7 (0.92%) AWS Certification
13 7 (0.92%) CCIE
13 7 (0.92%) CIMA
14 6 (0.79%) CCNA
14 6 (0.79%) Network+ Certification
15 5 (0.66%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (3.80%) SLA
2 23 (3.01%) GDPR
3 21 (2.75%) PMO
4 19 (2.49%) QA
5 16 (2.10%) Data Quality
6 15 (1.97%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 11 (1.44%) GRC
8 10 (1.31%) NIST
9 9 (1.18%) NCSC
10 7 (0.92%) RMADS
11 5 (0.66%) JSP 440
12 4 (0.52%) IFRS
13 3 (0.39%) Accessibility
13 3 (0.39%) GAAP
14 2 (0.26%) California Consumer Privacy Act
14 2 (0.26%) HIPAA
14 2 (0.26%) PCI DSS
14 2 (0.26%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 1 (0.13%) Cyber Essentials
15 1 (0.13%) IFRS 9
System Software
1 20 (2.62%) Active Directory
2 14 (1.83%) 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 28 (3.67%) Kubernetes
2 14 (1.83%) Ansible
3 12 (1.57%) Grafana
4 9 (1.18%) Prometheus
4 9 (1.18%) Terraform
5 6 (0.79%) SCCM
6 5 (0.66%) Microsoft Intune
7 4 (0.52%) Argo
8 3 (0.39%) Cisco Prime
8 3 (0.39%) Iperf
8 3 (0.39%) Podman
9 2 (0.26%) Amdocs OSS
9 2 (0.26%) EMC NetWorker
9 2 (0.26%) Nmap
9 2 (0.26%) vRealize
10 1 (0.13%) Cisco CUCM
10 1 (0.13%) Consul
10 1 (0.13%) Data Guard
10 1 (0.13%) Failover Clustering
10 1 (0.13%) Rancher
Vendors
1 146 (19.13%) SAP
2 92 (12.06%) Cisco
2 92 (12.06%) Microsoft
3 54 (7.08%) ServiceNow
4 34 (4.46%) Nokia
5 23 (3.01%) Juniper
5 23 (3.01%) Oracle
6 20 (2.62%) Fortinet
7 17 (2.23%) Dell
7 17 (2.23%) Ericsson
8 16 (2.10%) HP
9 15 (1.97%) Apple
9 15 (1.97%) Google
10 13 (1.70%) F5
10 13 (1.70%) Salesforce
11 12 (1.57%) BT
11 12 (1.57%) Huawei
11 12 (1.57%) Remedy
12 11 (1.44%) CheckPoint
12 11 (1.44%) Meraki