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

6 months to
6 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 163 84 61
Rank change year-on-year -79 -23 +22
Contract jobs citing Telecoms 762 857 1,427
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.68% 2.93% 3.25%
As % of the General category 3.01% 4.65% 5.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 479 473 793
10th Percentile £175 £303 £200
25th Percentile £350 £367 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £450
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +11.11% -6.25%
75th Percentile £575 £613 £588
90th Percentile £675 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £453 £500 £450
% change year-on-year -9.40% +11.11% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 56 34 62
10th Percentile £19.01 £14.00 £12.15
25th Percentile £20.50 £18.20 £12.28
Median hourly rate £23.83 £25.26 £26.75
Median % change year-on-year -5.67% -5.58% -49.05%
75th Percentile £29.06 £60.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £59.50 £63.53 £76.70
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.83 £23.00 £14.59
% change year-on-year +3.59% +57.70% -72.22%

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 25,287 18,421 25,526
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 55.91% 63.00% 58.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,739 11,798 16,205
10th Percentile £303 £300 £270
25th Percentile £406 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £624 £643 £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 1,575 734 1,865
10th Percentile £13.67 £14.78 £12.78
25th Percentile £17.20 £18.51 £15.39
Median hourly rate £25.77 £29.00 £26.24
Median % change year-on-year -11.14% +10.52% -25.03%
75th Percentile £59.00 £57.50 £50.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.00 £27.24 £25.22
% change year-on-year -8.21% +8.02% -19.36%

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 6 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 6 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 6 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 -87 664 £475 -5.47% 512
UK excluding London -79 425 £453 -9.40% 422
London -24 271 £500 -2.44% 139
Work from Home -58 175 £475 -5.00% 175
South East -57 164 £469 -6.20% 141
North of England -78 65 £463 -9.31% 94
Midlands -45 63 £513 - 63
South West -42 57 £525 - 50
West Midlands -42 45 £550 +7.32% 43
East of England -22 38 £475 +18.75% 56
North West -61 26 £450 -13.88% 46
Scotland +10 25 £275 -18.52% 27
North East -7 19 £500 +37.93% 11
Yorkshire -44 19 £481 -10.47% 42
East Midlands -24 18 £329 -47.40% 20
Wales -6 10 £160 -56.16% 10
Northern Ireland -2 8 £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
1 10 (1.31%) Microsoft Exchange
2 8 (1.05%) OpenStack
2 8 (1.05%) SharePoint
3 7 (0.92%) Apache Spark
4 6 (0.79%) Appian
5 5 (0.66%) Apache Airflow
6 4 (0.52%) Apache
6 4 (0.52%) IIS
7 3 (0.39%) ArcGIS
7 3 (0.39%) JBoss
7 3 (0.39%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 3 (0.39%) Tomcat
7 3 (0.39%) WebLogic
8 2 (0.26%) Oracle Spatial
9 1 (0.13%) Camunda
9 1 (0.13%) CMS
9 1 (0.13%) Headless CMS
9 1 (0.13%) Smallworld
Applications
1 40 (5.25%) Microsoft Office
2 24 (3.15%) Microsoft Excel
3 11 (1.44%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (1.31%) Microsoft Project
5 5 (0.66%) 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 4 (0.52%) BambooHR
6 3 (0.39%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.26%) Primavera
7 2 (0.26%) SAP CO
7 2 (0.26%) SAP FI/CO
7 2 (0.26%) SAP S/4HANA
8 1 (0.13%) Dynamics CRM
8 1 (0.13%) Remedy AR System
8 1 (0.13%) SAP FI-CA
8 1 (0.13%) SAP IBP
8 1 (0.13%) SAP SRM
8 1 (0.13%) SmartPlant
Cloud Services
1 75 (9.84%) Azure
2 62 (8.14%) AWS
3 44 (5.77%) GCP
4 41 (5.38%) Microsoft 365
5 22 (2.89%) Power Platform
6 17 (2.23%) SAP Commerce Cloud
7 14 (1.84%) SaaS
8 8 (1.05%) Azure DevOps
8 8 (1.05%) GitHub
9 6 (0.79%) dbt
9 6 (0.79%) Dynamics 365
9 6 (0.79%) GitHub Actions
10 5 (0.66%) Datadog
10 5 (0.66%) Serverless
11 4 (0.52%) AWS Lambda
11 4 (0.52%) Dagster
11 4 (0.52%) Figma
11 4 (0.52%) Prefect
11 4 (0.52%) Slack
11 4 (0.52%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 47 (6.17%) WAN
2 42 (5.51%) 5G
2 42 (5.51%) Firewall
3 37 (4.86%) MPLS
4 35 (4.59%) LAN
5 29 (3.81%) 4G
6 28 (3.67%) SD-WAN
7 26 (3.41%) Network Security
8 25 (3.28%) Radio Access Network
9 22 (2.89%) DNS
10 21 (2.76%) Wireless
11 20 (2.62%) BGP
11 20 (2.62%) Internet
11 20 (2.62%) LTE
11 20 (2.62%) VPN
12 17 (2.23%) VoIP
13 16 (2.10%) Broadband
13 16 (2.10%) SDH
14 15 (1.97%) 2G
15 14 (1.84%) 3GPP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (2.76%) Power BI
2 12 (1.57%) Data Warehouse
2 12 (1.57%) Looker
3 11 (1.44%) MySQL
3 11 (1.44%) Tableau
4 9 (1.18%) BigQuery
5 8 (1.05%) Big Data
5 8 (1.05%) Relational Database
6 7 (0.92%) Amazon Redshift
6 7 (0.92%) GIS
6 7 (0.92%) Oracle Database
7 6 (0.79%) SQL Server
8 5 (0.66%) PostgreSQL
9 3 (0.39%) Amazon Athena
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%) 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%) Robot Framework
7 1 (0.13%) Maven
7 1 (0.13%) Mockito
7 1 (0.13%) Oracle Forms
7 1 (0.13%) Rational DOORS
7 1 (0.13%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 222 (29.13%) Social Skills
2 217 (28.48%) Finance
3 175 (22.97%) Public Sector
4 128 (16.80%) Marketing
5 121 (15.88%) Electronics
6 115 (15.09%) Manufacturing
7 90 (11.81%) Analytical Skills
8 40 (5.25%) Billing
9 21 (2.76%) Organisational Skills
10 19 (2.49%) Legal
11 17 (2.23%) Documentation Skills
12 13 (1.71%) Influencing Skills
12 13 (1.71%) Retail
13 10 (1.31%) Military
14 8 (1.05%) Banking
15 6 (0.79%) Presentation Skills
16 5 (0.66%) Law
17 3 (0.39%) Financial Institution
17 3 (0.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 2 (0.26%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 82 (10.76%) Architect
2 74 (9.71%) Analyst
3 48 (6.30%) Lead
4 45 (5.91%) Consultant
4 45 (5.91%) Senior
5 42 (5.51%) Project Manager
6 39 (5.12%) Business Analyst
7 32 (4.20%) Network Engineer
8 29 (3.81%) IT Support
9 28 (3.67%) Solutions Architect
9 28 (3.67%) Telecoms Manager
10 27 (3.54%) Developer
11 22 (2.89%) Desktop Support
12 20 (2.62%) Data Engineer
13 19 (2.49%) Programme Manager
14 18 (2.36%) Coordinator
14 18 (2.36%) SAP Consultant
14 18 (2.36%) ServiceNow Architect
14 18 (2.36%) Telecoms Engineer
15 17 (2.23%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (3.28%) REST
2 16 (2.10%) 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 39 (5.12%) Data Centre
2 28 (3.67%) Data Protection Act
2 28 (3.67%) Driving Licence
3 26 (3.41%) Onboarding
4 25 (3.28%) Product Ownership
5 20 (2.62%) Cloud Native
6 18 (2.36%) CMDB
7 16 (2.10%) IoT
8 13 (1.71%) Mobile App
8 13 (1.71%) NHS
9 11 (1.44%) Distributed Systems
9 11 (1.44%) Legacy Systems
9 11 (1.44%) Virtual Team
10 10 (1.31%) Analytical Mindset
11 9 (1.18%) Algorithms
11 9 (1.18%) Self-Motivation
12 7 (0.92%) Fibre Optics
13 6 (0.79%) Enterprise Cloud
13 6 (0.79%) Hybrid Cloud
13 6 (0.79%) NB-IoT
Operating Systems
1 41 (5.38%) Windows
2 24 (3.15%) Android
3 22 (2.89%) Linux
4 21 (2.76%) Windows 10
5 19 (2.49%) Mac OS
6 8 (1.05%) Unix
7 6 (0.79%) Apple iOS
7 6 (0.79%) Windows Server
8 5 (0.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
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
1 136 (17.85%) Business Intelligence
2 120 (15.75%) Programme Management
3 118 (15.49%) Stakeholder Management
4 114 (14.96%) Digital Marketing
5 105 (13.78%) Agile
6 94 (12.34%) Problem-Solving
7 83 (10.89%) Migration
8 76 (9.97%) Continuous Improvement
9 69 (9.06%) ITIL
10 65 (8.53%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 56 (7.35%) Project Management
12 52 (6.82%) Logistics
13 49 (6.43%) Workflow
14 48 (6.30%) Analytics
14 48 (6.30%) Customer Service
15 47 (6.17%) Decision-Making
16 44 (5.77%) Project Delivery
17 43 (5.64%) Roadmaps
18 40 (5.25%) CI/CD
18 40 (5.25%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 58 (7.61%) Python
2 45 (5.91%) SQL
3 21 (2.76%) JavaScript
4 18 (2.36%) Java
5 9 (1.18%) Bash
6 8 (1.05%) PowerShell
7 7 (0.92%) C++
7 7 (0.92%) R
8 6 (0.79%) TypeScript
9 5 (0.66%) C#
9 5 (0.66%) Go
10 4 (0.52%) Shell Script
11 3 (0.39%) C
11 3 (0.39%) LookML
12 2 (0.26%) Apex Code
12 2 (0.26%) PHP
12 2 (0.26%) PL/SQL
13 1 (0.13%) Bicep
13 1 (0.13%) Cypher
13 1 (0.13%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 171 (22.44%) Security Cleared
2 138 (18.11%) SC Cleared
3 65 (8.53%) Degree
4 29 (3.81%) DV Cleared
5 19 (2.49%) BPSS Clearance
5 19 (2.49%) PMP
6 17 (2.23%) Cisco Certification
7 15 (1.97%) Computer Science Degree
8 13 (1.71%) PMI Certification
9 12 (1.57%) CCNP
10 11 (1.44%) ITIL Certification
11 10 (1.31%) ACCA
12 9 (1.18%) Azure Certification
12 9 (1.18%) Microsoft Certification
13 7 (0.92%) AWS Certification
13 7 (0.92%) CCIE
13 7 (0.92%) CIMA
13 7 (0.92%) Network+ Certification
14 6 (0.79%) A+ Certification
14 6 (0.79%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (3.81%) SLA
2 22 (2.89%) GDPR
3 20 (2.62%) PMO
4 19 (2.49%) QA
5 17 (2.23%) Data Quality
6 15 (1.97%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 10 (1.31%) GRC
7 10 (1.31%) NCSC
8 9 (1.18%) NIST
9 7 (0.92%) RMADS
10 5 (0.66%) JSP 440
11 4 (0.52%) IFRS
12 3 (0.39%) Accessibility
12 3 (0.39%) GAAP
13 2 (0.26%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 1 (0.13%) HIPAA
14 1 (0.13%) HMG Security Policy Framework
14 1 (0.13%) NEBOSH
14 1 (0.13%) PCI DSS
14 1 (0.13%) WCAG
System Software
1 21 (2.76%) Active Directory
2 14 (1.84%) Docker
3 3 (0.39%) QEMU
3 3 (0.39%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (0.26%) Hyper-V
5 1 (0.13%) Firmware
5 1 (0.13%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 29 (3.81%) Kubernetes
2 14 (1.84%) 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%) Consul
10 1 (0.13%) Failover Clustering
10 1 (0.13%) Fluentd
10 1 (0.13%) Kibana
10 1 (0.13%) Rancher
Vendors
1 139 (18.24%) SAP
2 93 (12.20%) Microsoft
3 89 (11.68%) Cisco
4 53 (6.96%) ServiceNow
5 35 (4.59%) Nokia
6 22 (2.89%) Juniper
6 22 (2.89%) Oracle
7 20 (2.62%) Fortinet
8 19 (2.49%) Ericsson
9 16 (2.10%) Google
10 14 (1.84%) Salesforce
11 13 (1.71%) BT
11 13 (1.71%) Dell
11 13 (1.71%) F5
11 13 (1.71%) Huawei
12 12 (1.57%) CheckPoint
12 12 (1.57%) HP
12 12 (1.57%) Remedy
13 11 (1.44%) Apple
13 11 (1.44%) Meraki