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

6 months to
27 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 183 96 65
Rank change year-on-year -87 -31 +18
Contract jobs citing Telecoms 713 751 1,315
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.46% 2.63% 3.08%
As % of the General category 2.72% 4.15% 5.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 434 428 648
10th Percentile £213 £313 £200
25th Percentile £400 £400 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £488 £450
Median % change year-on-year -1.28% +8.33% -7.69%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £594
90th Percentile £681 £700 £727
UK excluding London median daily rate £464 £480 £450
% change year-on-year -3.39% +6.67% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 47 31 97
10th Percentile £16.98 - £12.15
25th Percentile £21.00 £14.00 £13.25
Median hourly rate £23.83 £27.40 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -13.05% -50.18% +4.76%
75th Percentile £50.00 £56.38 £72.50
90th Percentile £178.75 £63.75 £74.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.83 £18.31 £50.00
% change year-on-year +30.16% -63.39% -4.76%

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 26,189 18,092 24,661
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 53.74% 63.32% 57.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,889 11,502 15,553
10th Percentile £313 £281 £275
25th Percentile £413 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £514 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.29% -2.10% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £763 £773
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £475 £493
% change year-on-year +3.58% -3.65% -1.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,728 774 1,959
10th Percentile £13.72 £13.50 £12.75
25th Percentile £17.50 £16.64 £15.44
Median hourly rate £30.00 £27.45 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year +9.29% -8.50% -7.69%
75th Percentile £60.00 £55.00 £52.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £66.35
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.63 £24.22 £28.00
% change year-on-year +18.19% -13.50% +1.08%

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 27 May 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 27 May 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 27 May 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 -90 625 £481 -2.78% 645
UK excluding London -100 366 £464 -3.39% 476
London -27 272 £500 +2.30% 254
Work from Home -41 190 £500 +5.26% 218
South East -65 146 £459 -4.38% 152
North of England -56 71 £481 -9.20% 88
Midlands -52 49 £500 -12.09% 67
South West -55 45 £511 -2.67% 52
West Midlands -50 38 £550 +7.32% 39
East of England -21 34 £199 -50.31% 58
North West -50 33 £463 -12.74% 51
Yorkshire -39 24 £481 -10.47% 32
Scotland -10 18 £305 -6.15% 48
North East -13 14 £500 -11.50% 5
East Midlands -24 11 £500 -20.00% 28
Northern Ireland 0 4 £163 -54.55% 8
Wales -18 2 £330 +25.71% 14

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 (1.40%) Confluence
2 9 (1.26%) OpenStack
3 6 (0.84%) Apache Airflow
3 6 (0.84%) Appian
4 4 (0.56%) Anypoint
4 4 (0.56%) Apache Spark
4 4 (0.56%) Microsoft Exchange
5 3 (0.42%) ArcGIS
5 3 (0.42%) IIS
5 3 (0.42%) JBoss
5 3 (0.42%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 3 (0.42%) SharePoint
5 3 (0.42%) Tomcat
5 3 (0.42%) WebLogic
6 2 (0.28%) Apache
6 2 (0.28%) Oracle Spatial
7 1 (0.14%) Camunda
7 1 (0.14%) CMS
7 1 (0.14%) Smallworld
Applications
1 23 (3.23%) Microsoft Office
2 14 (1.96%) Microsoft Excel
3 7 (0.98%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (0.98%) MS Visio
4 5 (0.70%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.56%) AutoCAD
6 2 (0.28%) MicroStation
7 1 (0.14%) Autodesk Inventor
7 1 (0.14%) FrameMaker
7 1 (0.14%) MadCap Flare
7 1 (0.14%) Revit
7 1 (0.14%) SOLIDWORKS
7 1 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.14%) Trello
Business Applications
1 11 (1.54%) Remedy ITSM
1 11 (1.54%) SAP PSCD
2 10 (1.40%) SAP BRIM
3 9 (1.26%) SAP Hybris
4 6 (0.84%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 4 (0.56%) BambooHR
6 2 (0.28%) SAP FI
7 1 (0.14%) Dynamics CRM
7 1 (0.14%) Remedy AR System
7 1 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
7 1 (0.14%) SAP CO
7 1 (0.14%) SAP FI/CO
7 1 (0.14%) SAP FI-CA
7 1 (0.14%) SAP IBP
7 1 (0.14%) SAP S/4HANA
7 1 (0.14%) SAP SD
7 1 (0.14%) SAP SRM
7 1 (0.14%) SmartPlant
Cloud Services
1 56 (7.85%) Azure
2 55 (7.71%) AWS
3 32 (4.49%) GCP
4 19 (2.66%) Power Platform
5 17 (2.38%) Microsoft 365
6 14 (1.96%) SaaS
7 10 (1.40%) SAP Commerce Cloud
8 9 (1.26%) dbt
9 6 (0.84%) Datadog
9 6 (0.84%) Serverless
10 5 (0.70%) AWS Lambda
10 5 (0.70%) Azure DevOps
10 5 (0.70%) Prefect
10 5 (0.70%) Salesforce Service Cloud
10 5 (0.70%) Snowflake
11 4 (0.56%) Amazon S3
11 4 (0.56%) Boomi
11 4 (0.56%) Dagster
11 4 (0.56%) Figma
12 3 (0.42%) Entra ID
Communications & Networking
1 45 (6.31%) MPLS
2 44 (6.17%) 5G
2 44 (6.17%) WAN
3 39 (5.47%) Firewall
4 34 (4.77%) LAN
5 27 (3.79%) Network Security
6 25 (3.51%) 4G
7 24 (3.37%) Radio Access Network
8 22 (3.09%) BGP
8 22 (3.09%) SD-WAN
9 21 (2.95%) Internet
9 21 (2.95%) VoIP
10 18 (2.52%) LTE
11 17 (2.38%) 3GPP
11 17 (2.38%) VPN
12 16 (2.24%) OSPF
13 15 (2.10%) Broadband
13 15 (2.10%) DNS
14 14 (1.96%) VLAN
15 13 (1.82%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (2.66%) Power BI
2 12 (1.68%) Looker
2 12 (1.68%) Tableau
3 11 (1.54%) Data Warehouse
4 9 (1.26%) BigQuery
5 7 (0.98%) Amazon Redshift
5 7 (0.98%) Big Data
5 7 (0.98%) Relational Database
6 6 (0.84%) SQL Server
7 5 (0.70%) MySQL
7 5 (0.70%) Oracle Database
8 3 (0.42%) Amazon Athena
8 3 (0.42%) GIS
8 3 (0.42%) PostgreSQL
8 3 (0.42%) Semantic Layer
8 3 (0.42%) Star Schema
9 2 (0.28%) Metadata
9 2 (0.28%) MongoDB
9 2 (0.28%) Power Query
9 2 (0.28%) TimescaleDB
Development Applications
1 21 (2.95%) JIRA
2 9 (1.26%) Git
3 3 (0.42%) Jenkins
4 2 (0.28%) GitLab
4 2 (0.28%) 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
1 194 (27.21%) Social Skills
2 130 (18.23%) Finance
3 93 (13.04%) Analytical Skills
4 88 (12.34%) Public Sector
5 53 (7.43%) Marketing
6 43 (6.03%) Electronics
7 39 (5.47%) Manufacturing
8 38 (5.33%) Billing
9 27 (3.79%) Retail
10 21 (2.95%) Organisational Skills
11 18 (2.52%) Legal
12 14 (1.96%) Documentation Skills
12 14 (1.96%) Influencing Skills
13 7 (0.98%) Presentation Skills
14 6 (0.84%) Banking
14 6 (0.84%) Military
15 5 (0.70%) Publishing
16 4 (0.56%) Aerospace
17 3 (0.42%) Financial Institution
17 3 (0.42%) Police
Job Titles
1 98 (13.74%) Architect
2 60 (8.42%) Analyst
3 53 (7.43%) Lead
4 50 (7.01%) Senior
5 41 (5.75%) Solutions Architect
6 39 (5.47%) Telecoms Manager
7 36 (5.05%) Consultant
7 36 (5.05%) Network Engineer
7 36 (5.05%) Project Manager
8 29 (4.07%) ServiceNow Architect
9 27 (3.79%) Designer
10 26 (3.65%) Developer
11 24 (3.37%) Business Analyst
12 20 (2.81%) Data Engineer
12 20 (2.81%) Sales Manager
13 19 (2.66%) Programme Manager
14 17 (2.38%) Enterprise Architect
15 16 (2.24%) Telecoms Architect
16 15 (2.10%) Delivery Manager
17 14 (1.96%) Telecoms Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 37 (5.19%) REST
2 23 (3.23%) SOAP
3 11 (1.54%) Middleware
4 10 (1.40%) Kafka
5 9 (1.26%) .NET
6 8 (1.12%) Elastic Stack
6 8 (1.12%) XML
7 7 (0.98%) ONVIF
8 6 (0.84%) JSON
8 6 (0.84%) OpenAPI
8 6 (0.84%) Swagger
9 5 (0.70%) RESTful
10 4 (0.56%) .NET Framework
10 4 (0.56%) RAML
11 3 (0.42%) 802.1X
11 3 (0.42%) GraphQL
11 3 (0.42%) RabbitMQ
11 3 (0.42%) RFC 2544
11 3 (0.42%) Web Services
12 2 (0.28%) J2EE
Miscellaneous
1 31 (4.35%) Data Centre
1 31 (4.35%) Onboarding
2 25 (3.51%) Data Protection Act
3 21 (2.95%) CMDB
4 20 (2.81%) Cloud Native
5 19 (2.66%) Product Ownership
6 18 (2.52%) Driving Licence
7 16 (2.24%) Virtual Team
8 12 (1.68%) Analytical Mindset
8 12 (1.68%) Distributed Systems
9 8 (1.12%) EPoS
9 8 (1.12%) Management Information System
9 8 (1.12%) Self-Motivation
9 8 (1.12%) TM Forum
10 7 (0.98%) Hybrid Cloud
10 7 (0.98%) NHS
10 7 (0.98%) Video\Live Streaming
11 6 (0.84%) IoT
11 6 (0.84%) Legacy Systems
11 6 (0.84%) Web Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 29 (4.07%) Windows
2 24 (3.37%) Linux
3 15 (2.10%) Windows 10
4 11 (1.54%) Unix
5 4 (0.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 3 (0.42%) Android
6 3 (0.42%) Debian
6 3 (0.42%) Ubuntu
6 3 (0.42%) VMS
6 3 (0.42%) Windows Server
7 2 (0.28%) Embedded Linux
8 1 (0.14%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.14%) Mac OS
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
1 108 (15.15%) Stakeholder Management
2 91 (12.76%) Agile
2 91 (12.76%) Problem-Solving
3 67 (9.40%) ITIL
4 63 (8.84%) Continuous Improvement
5 55 (7.71%) Business Intelligence
5 55 (7.71%) Project Management
6 54 (7.57%) Migration
7 53 (7.43%) Decision-Making
7 53 (7.43%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 49 (6.87%) Customer Service
9 47 (6.59%) Project Delivery
10 46 (6.45%) Roadmaps
11 45 (6.31%) Analytics
12 41 (5.75%) ITSM
12 41 (5.75%) Programme Management
13 40 (5.61%) CRM
13 40 (5.61%) Data Protection
14 36 (5.05%) CI/CD
15 35 (4.91%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 47 (6.59%) Python
2 35 (4.91%) SQL
3 16 (2.24%) Java
4 14 (1.96%) JavaScript
5 10 (1.40%) C#
6 8 (1.12%) C++
7 6 (0.84%) Bash
7 6 (0.84%) R
8 4 (0.56%) DataWeave
9 3 (0.42%) Apex Code
9 3 (0.42%) C
9 3 (0.42%) Go
9 3 (0.42%) LookML
9 3 (0.42%) PowerShell
10 2 (0.28%) PL/SQL
10 2 (0.28%) Shell Script
10 2 (0.28%) TypeScript
11 1 (0.14%) Cypher
11 1 (0.14%) Kotlin
11 1 (0.14%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 127 (17.81%) Security Cleared
2 94 (13.18%) SC Cleared
3 66 (9.26%) Degree
4 34 (4.77%) Cisco Certification
5 23 (3.23%) DV Cleared
6 20 (2.81%) CCNA
7 19 (2.66%) Microsoft Certification
8 18 (2.52%) CCNP
8 18 (2.52%) Computer Science Degree
9 17 (2.38%) A+ Certification
10 13 (1.82%) BPSS Clearance
10 13 (1.82%) PMP
11 9 (1.26%) Network+ Certification
11 9 (1.26%) PMI Certification
12 8 (1.12%) Master's Degree
13 7 (0.98%) ACCA
13 7 (0.98%) CIMA
13 7 (0.98%) MCSA
14 6 (0.84%) CCIE
15 5 (0.70%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (3.37%) SLA
2 19 (2.66%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 18 (2.52%) GDPR
4 15 (2.10%) PMO
4 15 (2.10%) QA
5 14 (1.96%) NCSC
6 13 (1.82%) Data Quality
7 10 (1.40%) GRC
7 10 (1.40%) NIST
8 7 (0.98%) RMADS
9 5 (0.70%) JSP 440
10 1 (0.14%) Accessibility
10 1 (0.14%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 1 (0.14%) EU AI 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
System Software
1 14 (1.96%) Active Directory
2 11 (1.54%) Docker
3 9 (1.26%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (0.70%) vSphere
5 3 (0.42%) Hyper-V
5 3 (0.42%) QEMU
5 3 (0.42%) VMware ESXi
5 3 (0.42%) VMware NSX
6 1 (0.14%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 37 (5.19%) Kubernetes
2 13 (1.82%) Ansible
2 13 (1.82%) Grafana
2 13 (1.82%) Prometheus
3 10 (1.40%) Terraform
4 4 (0.56%) Cisco Prime
5 3 (0.42%) Iperf
5 3 (0.42%) Podman
5 3 (0.42%) vCenter Server
5 3 (0.42%) vRealize
6 2 (0.28%) Amdocs OSS
6 2 (0.28%) FortiGate
6 2 (0.28%) Nmap
6 2 (0.28%) NSN NetAct
6 2 (0.28%) SCCM
7 1 (0.14%) Cisco CUCM
7 1 (0.14%) Data Guard
7 1 (0.14%) Failover Clustering
7 1 (0.14%) Oracle RMAN
7 1 (0.14%) SolarWinds Orion
Vendors
1 77 (10.80%) Microsoft
2 64 (8.98%) ServiceNow
3 61 (8.56%) Cisco
4 53 (7.43%) SAP
5 40 (5.61%) Nokia
6 25 (3.51%) Salesforce
7 22 (3.09%) Oracle
8 21 (2.95%) BT
9 20 (2.81%) Ericsson
10 17 (2.38%) Juniper
11 15 (2.10%) Fortinet
12 14 (1.96%) CheckPoint
12 14 (1.96%) Google
12 14 (1.96%) Huawei
13 13 (1.82%) Remedy
14 12 (1.68%) VMware
15 11 (1.54%) F5
15 11 (1.54%) MuleSoft
16 9 (1.26%) Palo Alto
17 8 (1.12%) Databricks