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

6 months to
9 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 193 101 64
Rank change year-on-year -92 -37 +19
Contract jobs citing Telecoms 697 758 1,337
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.40% 2.59% 3.09%
As % of the General category 2.60% 4.09% 5.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 418 434 642
10th Percentile £213 £307 £200
25th Percentile £398 £400 £316
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £484 £450
Median % change year-on-year -0.62% +7.61% -7.69%
75th Percentile £575 £587 £599
90th Percentile £683 £700 £737
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £480 £450
% change year-on-year -3.65% +6.67% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 38 35 101
10th Percentile £17.14 - £12.15
25th Percentile £21.00 £14.00 £13.25
Median hourly rate £33.38 £27.40 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +21.81% -39.11% -14.29%
75th Percentile £53.38 £62.24 £72.50
90th Percentile £178.75 £65.25 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.83 £16.90 £45.00
% change year-on-year +40.96% -62.44% -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 26,812 18,543 24,777
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 53.97% 63.34% 57.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 16,219 11,673 15,531
10th Percentile £313 £281 £275
25th Percentile £413 £403 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.49% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £769
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +4.21% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,788 856 1,998
10th Percentile £13.95 £13.41 £12.78
25th Percentile £17.87 £16.94 £15.50
Median hourly rate £31.46 £28.00 £30.06
Median % change year-on-year +12.36% -6.85% -5.83%
75th Percentile £60.30 £53.95 £52.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.75 £67.38
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.58 £24.50 £28.42
% change year-on-year +24.82% -13.79% +3.35%

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 9 June 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 June 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 9 June 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 -99 613 £475 -4.04% 572
UK excluding London -106 345 £463 -3.65% 450
London -20 281 £500 +2.30% 191
Work from Home -46 191 £500 +5.26% 197
South East -73 137 £450 -8.91% 164
North of England -55 71 £481 -8.77% 85
South West -57 44 £511 +7.58% 43
Midlands -52 39 £500 -3.61% 62
North West -44 33 £463 -12.32% 47
East of England -23 32 £198 -47.33% 56
West Midlands -54 31 £475 +15.15% 38
Yorkshire -45 24 £481 -8.33% 28
Scotland -18 19 £305 -6.15% 36
North East -13 14 £500 -11.50% 10
East Midlands -24 8 £500 -20.00% 24
Northern Ireland -2 3 £175 -51.05% 6
Wales -14 1 £500 +90.48% 9

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 9 (1.29%) OpenStack
2 8 (1.15%) Confluence
3 6 (0.86%) Apache Airflow
3 6 (0.86%) Appian
4 4 (0.57%) Anypoint
4 4 (0.57%) Apache Spark
5 3 (0.43%) ArcGIS
5 3 (0.43%) IIS
5 3 (0.43%) JBoss
5 3 (0.43%) Microsoft Exchange
5 3 (0.43%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 3 (0.43%) SharePoint
5 3 (0.43%) Tomcat
5 3 (0.43%) WebLogic
6 2 (0.29%) Apache
6 2 (0.29%) Oracle Spatial
7 1 (0.14%) Camunda
7 1 (0.14%) CMS
7 1 (0.14%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
7 1 (0.14%) Smallworld
Applications
1 21 (3.01%) Microsoft Office
2 17 (2.44%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (1.29%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (1.15%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.72%) AutoCAD
6 4 (0.57%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.29%) MicroStation
8 1 (0.14%) Autodesk Inventor
8 1 (0.14%) Revit
8 1 (0.14%) SOLIDWORKS
8 1 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.14%) Trello
Business Applications
1 12 (1.72%) Remedy ITSM
1 12 (1.72%) SAP PSCD
2 11 (1.58%) SAP BRIM
3 10 (1.43%) SAP Hybris
4 6 (0.86%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 4 (0.57%) BambooHR
6 3 (0.43%) Salesforce CRM
6 3 (0.43%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.29%) NetSuite
7 2 (0.29%) Remedy AR System
7 2 (0.29%) Sage X3
7 2 (0.29%) SAP FI-CA
8 1 (0.14%) Dynamics CRM
8 1 (0.14%) SAP CO
8 1 (0.14%) SAP FI/CO
8 1 (0.14%) SAP IBP
8 1 (0.14%) SAP S/4HANA
8 1 (0.14%) SAP SD
8 1 (0.14%) SAP SRM
8 1 (0.14%) SmartPlant
Cloud Services
1 57 (8.18%) AWS
1 57 (8.18%) Azure
2 35 (5.02%) GCP
3 20 (2.87%) Power Platform
4 16 (2.30%) Microsoft 365
5 14 (2.01%) SaaS
6 11 (1.58%) SAP Commerce Cloud
7 9 (1.29%) dbt
8 7 (1.00%) Snowflake
9 6 (0.86%) Datadog
9 6 (0.86%) Serverless
10 5 (0.72%) AWS Lambda
10 5 (0.72%) Azure DevOps
10 5 (0.72%) Prefect
11 4 (0.57%) Amazon S3
11 4 (0.57%) Boomi
11 4 (0.57%) Dagster
11 4 (0.57%) Figma
11 4 (0.57%) GitHub
12 3 (0.43%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 49 (7.03%) MPLS
2 46 (6.60%) 5G
2 46 (6.60%) WAN
3 38 (5.45%) Firewall
4 36 (5.16%) LAN
5 27 (3.87%) 4G
6 26 (3.73%) Radio Access Network
7 24 (3.44%) BGP
7 24 (3.44%) Network Security
8 22 (3.16%) SD-WAN
8 22 (3.16%) VoIP
9 21 (3.01%) Internet
10 19 (2.73%) LTE
11 18 (2.58%) 3GPP
11 18 (2.58%) OSPF
11 18 (2.58%) VPN
12 16 (2.30%) VLAN
13 14 (2.01%) DNS
14 13 (1.87%) Broadband
14 13 (1.87%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (2.87%) Power BI
2 13 (1.87%) Data Warehouse
3 12 (1.72%) Looker
3 12 (1.72%) Tableau
4 11 (1.58%) BigQuery
5 9 (1.29%) Amazon Redshift
6 7 (1.00%) Big Data
6 7 (1.00%) Relational Database
7 6 (0.86%) SQL Server
8 5 (0.72%) MySQL
9 4 (0.57%) Oracle Database
10 3 (0.43%) Amazon Athena
10 3 (0.43%) GIS
10 3 (0.43%) InfluxDB
10 3 (0.43%) PostgreSQL
10 3 (0.43%) Semantic Layer
10 3 (0.43%) Star Schema
11 2 (0.29%) Metadata
11 2 (0.29%) Power Query
11 2 (0.29%) TimescaleDB
Development Applications
1 20 (2.87%) JIRA
2 10 (1.43%) Git
3 3 (0.43%) Jenkins
4 2 (0.29%) GitLab
4 2 (0.29%) Robot Framework
5 1 (0.14%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.14%) JMeter
5 1 (0.14%) Oracle Forms
5 1 (0.14%) Sonatype Nexus
5 1 (0.14%) TestRail
General
1 192 (27.55%) Social Skills
2 116 (16.64%) Finance
3 99 (14.20%) Analytical Skills
4 70 (10.04%) Public Sector
5 40 (5.74%) Billing
6 37 (5.31%) Marketing
7 27 (3.87%) Retail
8 26 (3.73%) Electronics
9 22 (3.16%) Manufacturing
10 18 (2.58%) Documentation Skills
11 17 (2.44%) Legal
12 14 (2.01%) Organisational Skills
13 13 (1.87%) Influencing Skills
14 8 (1.15%) Presentation Skills
15 6 (0.86%) Banking
15 6 (0.86%) Military
16 5 (0.72%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 5 (0.72%) Publishing
17 4 (0.57%) Aerospace
18 3 (0.43%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 95 (13.63%) Architect
2 58 (8.32%) Analyst
3 54 (7.75%) Senior
4 51 (7.32%) Lead
5 43 (6.17%) Consultant
6 40 (5.74%) Solutions Architect
7 38 (5.45%) Network Engineer
7 38 (5.45%) Telecoms Manager
8 33 (4.73%) Project Manager
9 28 (4.02%) Designer
10 26 (3.73%) Developer
11 25 (3.59%) ServiceNow Architect
12 22 (3.16%) Business Analyst
13 21 (3.01%) Data Engineer
13 21 (3.01%) Sales Manager
14 19 (2.73%) Delivery Manager
15 18 (2.58%) Programme Manager
16 17 (2.44%) Enterprise Architect
16 17 (2.44%) Telecoms Architect
17 15 (2.15%) Telecoms Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 38 (5.45%) REST
2 24 (3.44%) SOAP
3 11 (1.58%) Middleware
4 10 (1.43%) Kafka
5 9 (1.29%) .NET
5 9 (1.29%) ONVIF
6 8 (1.15%) Elastic Stack
6 8 (1.15%) XML
7 6 (0.86%) JSON
7 6 (0.86%) OpenAPI
7 6 (0.86%) Swagger
8 5 (0.72%) RESTful
9 4 (0.57%) .NET Framework
9 4 (0.57%) RAML
10 3 (0.43%) GraphQL
10 3 (0.43%) OpenTelemetry
10 3 (0.43%) RabbitMQ
10 3 (0.43%) RFC 2544
10 3 (0.43%) Web Services
11 2 (0.29%) SAP Basis
Miscellaneous
1 32 (4.59%) Data Centre
2 29 (4.16%) Onboarding
3 27 (3.87%) CMDB
4 25 (3.59%) Cloud Native
4 25 (3.59%) Data Protection Act
5 18 (2.58%) Driving Licence
5 18 (2.58%) Product Ownership
6 17 (2.44%) Virtual Team
7 14 (2.01%) Analytical Mindset
8 13 (1.87%) Distributed Systems
9 9 (1.29%) Video\Live Streaming
10 8 (1.15%) EPoS
10 8 (1.15%) Management Information System
10 8 (1.15%) Self-Motivation
10 8 (1.15%) TM Forum
11 7 (1.00%) Hybrid Cloud
11 7 (1.00%) NHS
12 6 (0.86%) Web Conferencing
13 5 (0.72%) Algorithms
13 5 (0.72%) Mainframe
Operating Systems
1 26 (3.73%) Windows
2 23 (3.30%) Linux
3 12 (1.72%) Windows 10
4 10 (1.43%) Unix
5 4 (0.57%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 3 (0.43%) Debian
6 3 (0.43%) Ubuntu
6 3 (0.43%) VMS
6 3 (0.43%) Windows Server
7 2 (0.29%) Android
7 2 (0.29%) Embedded Linux
8 1 (0.14%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.14%) Oracle Linux
8 1 (0.14%) Windows 7
8 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2016
8 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 114 (16.36%) Stakeholder Management
2 91 (13.06%) Problem-Solving
3 89 (12.77%) Agile
4 67 (9.61%) ITIL
5 61 (8.75%) Continuous Improvement
5 61 (8.75%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 58 (8.32%) Decision-Making
7 53 (7.60%) Project Management
8 49 (7.03%) Migration
9 48 (6.89%) Customer Service
9 48 (6.89%) Project Delivery
10 46 (6.60%) CRM
11 45 (6.46%) Analytics
11 45 (6.46%) Roadmaps
12 42 (6.03%) CI/CD
13 41 (5.88%) Service Management
14 39 (5.60%) Business Intelligence
14 39 (5.60%) Data Protection
14 39 (5.60%) ITSM
15 37 (5.31%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 49 (7.03%) Python
2 35 (5.02%) SQL
3 16 (2.30%) Java
4 14 (2.01%) JavaScript
5 10 (1.43%) C#
6 8 (1.15%) C++
7 6 (0.86%) Bash
7 6 (0.86%) R
8 4 (0.57%) DataWeave
9 3 (0.43%) Apex Code
9 3 (0.43%) C
9 3 (0.43%) LookML
10 2 (0.29%) PL/SQL
10 2 (0.29%) Shell Script
10 2 (0.29%) TypeScript
11 1 (0.14%) ABAP
11 1 (0.14%) Go
11 1 (0.14%) Kotlin
11 1 (0.14%) PowerShell
11 1 (0.14%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 117 (16.79%) Security Cleared
2 84 (12.05%) SC Cleared
3 68 (9.76%) Degree
4 40 (5.74%) Cisco Certification
5 25 (3.59%) CCNA
6 21 (3.01%) DV Cleared
6 21 (3.01%) Microsoft Certification
7 19 (2.73%) A+ Certification
7 19 (2.73%) CCNP
8 18 (2.58%) Computer Science Degree
9 14 (2.01%) PMP
10 13 (1.87%) BPSS Clearance
11 11 (1.58%) Network+ Certification
12 10 (1.43%) PMI Certification
13 9 (1.29%) MCSA
14 8 (1.15%) Master's Degree
15 6 (0.86%) ACCA
15 6 (0.86%) CCIE
15 6 (0.86%) CIMA
16 5 (0.72%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (3.30%) SLA
2 18 (2.58%) GDPR
3 17 (2.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 17 (2.44%) PMO
4 14 (2.01%) NCSC
4 14 (2.01%) QA
5 12 (1.72%) Data Quality
6 11 (1.58%) GRC
7 8 (1.15%) NIST
8 5 (0.72%) RMADS
9 3 (0.43%) JSP 440
10 1 (0.14%) Accessibility
10 1 (0.14%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 1 (0.14%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 1 (0.14%) IFRS
10 1 (0.14%) IFRS 9
10 1 (0.14%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 1 (0.14%) NEBOSH
10 1 (0.14%) PCI DSS
10 1 (0.14%) SOC 1
System Software
1 13 (1.87%) Active Directory
2 11 (1.58%) Docker
3 10 (1.43%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (0.72%) vSphere
5 3 (0.43%) Hyper-V
5 3 (0.43%) QEMU
5 3 (0.43%) VMware ESXi
5 3 (0.43%) VMware NSX
6 1 (0.14%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 39 (5.60%) Kubernetes
2 14 (2.01%) Ansible
2 14 (2.01%) Grafana
2 14 (2.01%) Prometheus
2 14 (2.01%) Terraform
3 4 (0.57%) Cisco Prime
4 3 (0.43%) Iperf
4 3 (0.43%) Podman
4 3 (0.43%) vCenter Server
4 3 (0.43%) vRealize
5 2 (0.29%) Amdocs OSS
5 2 (0.29%) FortiGate
5 2 (0.29%) Nmap
5 2 (0.29%) NSN NetAct
6 1 (0.14%) Cisco CUCM
6 1 (0.14%) Failover Clustering
6 1 (0.14%) Kibana
6 1 (0.14%) Oracle RMAN
6 1 (0.14%) SCCM
6 1 (0.14%) SolarWinds Orion
Vendors
1 77 (11.05%) Microsoft
2 64 (9.18%) Cisco
3 63 (9.04%) ServiceNow
4 42 (6.03%) Nokia
5 36 (5.16%) SAP
6 27 (3.87%) Salesforce
7 23 (3.30%) Oracle
8 22 (3.16%) BT
9 21 (3.01%) Ericsson
10 17 (2.44%) Juniper
11 16 (2.30%) Fortinet
12 15 (2.15%) Huawei
12 15 (2.15%) Remedy
13 13 (1.87%) CheckPoint
13 13 (1.87%) Google
13 13 (1.87%) VMware
14 11 (1.58%) F5
14 11 (1.58%) MuleSoft
15 8 (1.15%) Databricks
15 8 (1.15%) Palo Alto