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 4 March 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 148 72 63
Rank change year-on-year -76 -9 +20
Contract jobs citing Telecoms 767 948 1,367
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.82% 3.16% 3.09%
As % of the General category 3.14% 5.06% 5.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 478 481 784
10th Percentile £170 £300 £200
25th Percentile £318 £385 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £510 £450
Median % change year-on-year -11.76% +13.33% -7.51%
75th Percentile £567 £613 £594
90th Percentile £675 £688 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £504 £450
% change year-on-year -10.63% +11.89% +2.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 58 28 46
10th Percentile £17.66 £16.94 £12.15
25th Percentile £20.50 £21.19 £14.28
Median hourly rate £23.83 £26.92 £51.25
Median % change year-on-year -11.49% -47.48% -2.38%
75th Percentile £24.50 £58.13 £68.45
90th Percentile £45.10 £66.07 £92.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.75 £23.59 £60.00
% change year-on-year +0.68% -60.68% +14.29%

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 24,441 18,741 25,985
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 58.00% 62.38% 58.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,292 11,602 16,667
10th Percentile £300 £287 £263
25th Percentile £405 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £624 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £478 £493
% change year-on-year -0.52% -3.05% -1.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,490 628 1,748
10th Percentile £13.57 £15.53 £13.00
25th Percentile £16.70 £20.24 £15.33
Median hourly rate £23.83 £30.00 £25.50
Median % change year-on-year -20.58% +17.65% -20.20%
75th Percentile £54.00 £58.75 £50.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £75.00 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.29 £27.37 £25.00
% change year-on-year -18.55% +9.47% -6.17%

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 4 March 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 4 March 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 4 March 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 -84 673 £473 -7.80% 645
UK excluding London -76 435 £450 -10.63% 584
London -35 267 £475 -11.21% 136
Work from Home -57 182 £475 -7.32% 248
South East -54 153 £469 -6.20% 200
Midlands -42 78 £500 -2.44% 66
North of England -52 72 £381 -22.78% 113
South West -50 58 £525 -3.67% 68
West Midlands -50 54 £550 +7.32% 36
East of England -22 37 £513 +2.76% 82
North West -45 32 £306 -39.95% 59
Scotland +17 26 £330 -23.26% 47
East Midlands -15 24 £158 -60.63% 28
North East -2 23 £175 -51.72% 16
Yorkshire -58 16 £447 -10.63% 40
Northern Ireland +1 9 £150 -72.73% 9
Wales -1 9 £160 -56.16% 19

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 11 (1.43%) Appian
1 11 (1.43%) Confluence
1 11 (1.43%) SharePoint
2 9 (1.17%) Apache Spark
2 9 (1.17%) Microsoft Exchange
3 5 (0.65%) OpenStack
4 4 (0.52%) Apache
4 4 (0.52%) IIS
5 3 (0.39%) JBoss
5 3 (0.39%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 3 (0.39%) Tomcat
5 3 (0.39%) WebLogic
6 2 (0.26%) ArcGIS
6 2 (0.26%) CMS
6 2 (0.26%) Oracle Spatial
7 1 (0.13%) Apache Airflow
7 1 (0.13%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 52 (6.78%) Microsoft Office
2 24 (3.13%) Microsoft Excel
3 13 (1.69%) Microsoft Project
4 11 (1.43%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.91%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.52%) Autodesk Inventor
7 3 (0.39%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.26%) AutoCAD
9 1 (0.13%) 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 (2.35%) SAP BRIM
1 18 (2.35%) SAP Hybris
1 18 (2.35%) SAP PSCD
2 10 (1.30%) Remedy ITSM
3 6 (0.78%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 3 (0.39%) Dynamics CRM
4 3 (0.39%) Primavera
5 2 (0.26%) SAP CO
5 2 (0.26%) SAP FI
5 2 (0.26%) SAP FI/CO
5 2 (0.26%) SAP S/4HANA
6 1 (0.13%) Remedy AR System
6 1 (0.13%) SAP SRM
6 1 (0.13%) SmartPlant
Cloud Services
1 65 (8.47%) Azure
2 52 (6.78%) Microsoft 365
3 49 (6.39%) AWS
4 32 (4.17%) GCP
5 18 (2.35%) SAP Commerce Cloud
6 15 (1.96%) Power Platform
7 13 (1.69%) SaaS
8 10 (1.30%) Dynamics 365
9 9 (1.17%) Azure DevOps
9 9 (1.17%) GitHub
10 7 (0.91%) GitHub Actions
11 5 (0.65%) Tricentis Tosca
12 4 (0.52%) Entra ID
12 4 (0.52%) Miro
12 4 (0.52%) Slack
13 3 (0.39%) IaaS
13 3 (0.39%) Salesforce Service Cloud
13 3 (0.39%) Smartsheet
14 2 (0.26%) BlazeMeter
14 2 (0.26%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 46 (6.00%) WAN
2 45 (5.87%) Firewall
3 37 (4.82%) LAN
4 36 (4.69%) Wireless
5 33 (4.30%) MPLS
6 29 (3.78%) 5G
7 25 (3.26%) Network Security
8 24 (3.13%) Radio Access Network
8 24 (3.13%) SD-WAN
9 23 (3.00%) 4G
9 23 (3.00%) VPN
10 20 (2.61%) LTE
11 19 (2.48%) BGP
11 19 (2.48%) VoIP
12 18 (2.35%) Broadband
12 18 (2.35%) DNS
13 16 (2.09%) SDH
14 15 (1.96%) 3GPP
15 14 (1.83%) Internet
15 14 (1.83%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (1.83%) Power BI
2 11 (1.43%) MySQL
3 7 (0.91%) Oracle Database
4 6 (0.78%) GIS
4 6 (0.78%) Relational Database
4 6 (0.78%) SQL Server
4 6 (0.78%) Tableau
5 5 (0.65%) Data Warehouse
5 5 (0.65%) Looker
6 4 (0.52%) Big Data
6 4 (0.52%) PostgreSQL
7 3 (0.39%) RDBMS
8 2 (0.26%) BigQuery
8 2 (0.26%) Data Lake
8 2 (0.26%) Electronic Patient Records
8 2 (0.26%) Metadata
8 2 (0.26%) NoSQL
9 1 (0.13%) Amazon Athena
9 1 (0.13%) Geospatial Data
9 1 (0.13%) TimescaleDB
Development Applications
1 27 (3.52%) JIRA
2 14 (1.83%) GitLab
3 8 (1.04%) Jenkins
4 6 (0.78%) Git
4 6 (0.78%) Robot Framework
4 6 (0.78%) Selenium
5 5 (0.65%) Cucumber
5 5 (0.65%) SonarQube
6 4 (0.52%) JUnit
7 3 (0.39%) Storybook
8 2 (0.26%) Appium
8 2 (0.26%) CircleCI
8 2 (0.26%) JMeter
8 2 (0.26%) Rational DOORS
9 1 (0.13%) Cypress.io
9 1 (0.13%) Maven
9 1 (0.13%) Mockito
9 1 (0.13%) Postman
9 1 (0.13%) Sonatype Nexus
9 1 (0.13%) TestRail
General
1 243 (31.68%) Finance
2 224 (29.20%) Social Skills
3 212 (27.64%) Public Sector
4 166 (21.64%) Marketing
5 155 (20.21%) Electronics
6 149 (19.43%) Manufacturing
7 76 (9.91%) Analytical Skills
8 37 (4.82%) Billing
9 21 (2.74%) Organisational Skills
10 19 (2.48%) Documentation Skills
11 13 (1.69%) Retail
12 11 (1.43%) Legal
13 9 (1.17%) Banking
13 9 (1.17%) Influencing Skills
13 9 (1.17%) Military
14 6 (0.78%) Law
15 5 (0.65%) Presentation Skills
16 4 (0.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 2 (0.26%) Aviation
17 2 (0.26%) Health Technology
Job Titles
1 81 (10.56%) Architect
2 78 (10.17%) Analyst
3 48 (6.26%) Business Analyst
4 44 (5.74%) Lead
5 42 (5.48%) Consultant
6 40 (5.22%) IT Support
7 38 (4.95%) Network Engineer
7 38 (4.95%) Senior
8 34 (4.43%) Desktop Support
8 34 (4.43%) Project Manager
9 26 (3.39%) Solutions Architect
10 24 (3.13%) 2nd Line Support
10 24 (3.13%) Developer
11 23 (3.00%) 2nd Line Desktop Support
11 23 (3.00%) SC Cleared Desktop Support
12 21 (2.74%) Coordinator
13 20 (2.61%) Migration Engineer
14 19 (2.48%) IT Engineer
14 19 (2.48%) Support Engineer
14 19 (2.48%) Telecoms Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 27 (3.52%) REST
2 22 (2.87%) SOAP
3 8 (1.04%) .NET
4 7 (0.91%) Kafka
4 7 (0.91%) React
4 7 (0.91%) Web Services
4 7 (0.91%) XML
5 6 (0.78%) JSON
5 6 (0.78%) RESTful
6 5 (0.65%) Elastic Stack
6 5 (0.65%) Jinja
6 5 (0.65%) NETCONF
6 5 (0.65%) RFC 2544
6 5 (0.65%) SailPoint
7 4 (0.52%) 802.1X
7 4 (0.52%) Node.js
7 4 (0.52%) RabbitMQ
7 4 (0.52%) Spring
7 4 (0.52%) Spring Boot
7 4 (0.52%) YANG
Miscellaneous
1 52 (6.78%) Data Centre
2 31 (4.04%) Data Protection Act
3 30 (3.91%) Driving Licence
4 26 (3.39%) Product Ownership
5 21 (2.74%) Onboarding
6 17 (2.22%) CMDB
7 16 (2.09%) IoT
8 15 (1.96%) Cloud Native
8 15 (1.96%) Legacy Systems
8 15 (1.96%) NHS
9 13 (1.69%) Mobile App
10 11 (1.43%) Fibre Optics
11 7 (0.91%) Analytical Mindset
11 7 (0.91%) Distributed Systems
11 7 (0.91%) Enterprise Cloud
11 7 (0.91%) SCADA
12 6 (0.78%) NB-IoT
12 6 (0.78%) Operational Technology
12 6 (0.78%) TM Forum
12 6 (0.78%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 39 (5.08%) Android
2 38 (4.95%) Windows
3 31 (4.04%) Mac OS
4 18 (2.35%) Linux
4 18 (2.35%) Windows 10
5 7 (0.91%) Apple iOS
5 7 (0.91%) Unix
6 5 (0.65%) Windows Server
7 4 (0.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 3 (0.39%) Debian
8 3 (0.39%) Ubuntu
8 3 (0.39%) VMS
9 1 (0.13%) CentOS
9 1 (0.13%) Oracle Linux
9 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
9 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 158 (20.60%) Business Intelligence
2 154 (20.08%) Programme Management
3 149 (19.43%) Digital Marketing
4 115 (14.99%) Stakeholder Management
5 108 (14.08%) Agile
6 102 (13.30%) Problem-Solving
7 88 (11.47%) Migration
8 77 (10.04%) Continuous Improvement
9 62 (8.08%) ITIL
9 62 (8.08%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 56 (7.30%) Logistics
11 54 (7.04%) Customer Service
12 52 (6.78%) Workflow
13 42 (5.48%) Project Management
14 40 (5.22%) CI/CD
15 39 (5.08%) DevOps
15 39 (5.08%) Roadmaps
16 37 (4.82%) AI
16 37 (4.82%) Decision-Making
17 36 (4.69%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 50 (6.52%) Python
2 31 (4.04%) SQL
3 29 (3.78%) JavaScript
4 18 (2.35%) Java
5 10 (1.30%) Bash
5 10 (1.30%) PowerShell
6 9 (1.17%) TypeScript
7 5 (0.65%) C#
7 5 (0.65%) C++
7 5 (0.65%) Go
8 4 (0.52%) Shell Script
9 3 (0.39%) C
9 3 (0.39%) PHP
9 3 (0.39%) R
10 2 (0.26%) BeanShell
10 2 (0.26%) PL/SQL
11 1 (0.13%) Bicep
11 1 (0.13%) Cypher
11 1 (0.13%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 185 (24.12%) Security Cleared
2 155 (20.21%) SC Cleared
3 56 (7.30%) Degree
4 24 (3.13%) DV Cleared
5 19 (2.48%) BPSS Clearance
6 18 (2.35%) Cisco Certification
7 13 (1.69%) CCNP
8 11 (1.43%) PMP
9 10 (1.30%) ACCA
10 8 (1.04%) ITIL Certification
10 8 (1.04%) PMI Certification
11 7 (0.91%) CCIE
11 7 (0.91%) CCNA
11 7 (0.91%) CIMA
11 7 (0.91%) Microsoft Certification
12 6 (0.78%) Computer Science Degree
12 6 (0.78%) ISTQB
13 5 (0.65%) Azure Certification
13 5 (0.65%) JNCIP
14 4 (0.52%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 31 (4.04%) QA
2 29 (3.78%) SLA
3 19 (2.48%) PMO
4 18 (2.35%) GDPR
5 15 (1.96%) Data Quality
6 12 (1.56%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 9 (1.17%) GRC
7 9 (1.17%) NCSC
8 7 (0.91%) Accessibility
8 7 (0.91%) NIST
8 7 (0.91%) RMADS
9 5 (0.65%) JSP 440
10 4 (0.52%) IFRS
10 4 (0.52%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 3 (0.39%) GAAP
12 2 (0.26%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 2 (0.26%) HIPAA
12 2 (0.26%) PCI DSS
12 2 (0.26%) WCAG
13 1 (0.13%) IFRS 9
System Software
1 20 (2.61%) Active Directory
2 13 (1.69%) 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 19 (2.48%) Kubernetes
2 17 (2.22%) Ansible
3 9 (1.17%) Terraform
4 6 (0.78%) Grafana
4 6 (0.78%) SCCM
5 5 (0.65%) Microsoft Intune
6 4 (0.52%) Argo
6 4 (0.52%) Iperf
7 3 (0.39%) Cisco Prime
7 3 (0.39%) Nmap
7 3 (0.39%) Podman
7 3 (0.39%) Prometheus
8 2 (0.26%) Amdocs OSS
8 2 (0.26%) EMC NetWorker
8 2 (0.26%) vRealize
9 1 (0.13%) Consul
9 1 (0.13%) Failover Clustering
9 1 (0.13%) FortiGate
9 1 (0.13%) HAProxy
9 1 (0.13%) Rancher
Vendors
1 177 (23.08%) SAP
2 114 (14.86%) Cisco
3 91 (11.86%) Microsoft
4 45 (5.87%) ServiceNow
5 31 (4.04%) Nokia
6 28 (3.65%) Juniper
7 25 (3.26%) HP
8 24 (3.13%) Dell
9 23 (3.00%) Apple
9 23 (3.00%) Fortinet
10 22 (2.87%) Oracle
11 17 (2.22%) Salesforce
12 15 (1.96%) Ericsson
13 14 (1.83%) CheckPoint
14 13 (1.69%) F5
15 12 (1.56%) Palo Alto
15 12 (1.56%) Remedy
16 11 (1.43%) Meraki
17 10 (1.30%) BT
18 9 (1.17%) Google