UK Salary Guide 2023

Our 2023 UK Salary Guide and Market Report provides the latest salaries and market commentary for the six specialisms within the telecommunications recruitment market. Wireless Network Infrastructure, Open RAN & Disaggregated Networks. Cloud, Edge &, Network Virtualization, Transport, Optical & IP Networks, Wireless Network Design, Testing & Optimisation and Technology Sales & Professional Services. The salaries within this report are displayed as yearly earnings in UK GBP and are based data collected from speaking with candidates and clients and the projected salaries within each role that fall under the six specialisms. I hope you find this report a useful guide and should you have any questions, please contact Philip Jones.

Click here to download our salary guide that shows the salaries for jobs in telecommunications and network technology. You can find below a few of the specialisms included in the guide.

WIRELESS NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE

The Wireless Network Infrastructure sector in the UK continued to be a very busy area for recruitment activity in 2022. 5G rollouts increased in pace from 2021 with each operator aggressively competing to provide their customers with increased download speeds, and just as importantly – to be able to call themselves the best 5G provider in the UK market. Following a big year of implementation and upgrades in 2022, the latest report provided by Statista stated that 68% of the nation now has access to 5G signal. The UK Government have the ambition to push 5G coverage across the UK by 2030, with 4G still expected to be in high demand. 2023 will see many more telco professionals adapt and grow their skillsets to support 5G rollouts. We continue to see a strong demand for roles which require customer management skills; roles such as Technical Project Manager, Rollout Implementation Manager, and Solution Architect, remain in high volume and we see this increasing into 2023.

OPEN RAN & DISAGGREGATED NETWORKS

Research firm Dell’Oro predicts the global Open RAN market to reach $15 billion by 2025 with further market reports predicting it to reach $32 billion by 2030. Services will be a key contributor to this market as Open RAN is expected to have a growth rate of 42% between 2022 to 2030. The UK Government still have ambitions to boost deployments so that 35% of the UK’s mobile network traffic is carried over Open RAN by 2030. The UK’s Diversification Strategy was backed in investing £250 million into Open RAN and R&D, which will continue to run until 2025.

2023 saw key movements in the OpenRAN market with some companies falling behind while others made key advances in their product offering and market wins which saw emergence of a few dominant players firmly establishing themselves as leaders in the field.

We still see a strong demand in recruitment for PHY Layer Engineers, Pre-Sales Engineers/Managers, and Technical Project Managers. The demand for Open RAN talent remains strong with there continuing to be a shortage of skilled resources in the UK labour market. We have assisted many companies in resolving this challenge through the UK government skilled worker VISA programme by bringing in talent from overseas.

CLOUD, EDGE & NETWORK VIRTUALIZATION

Cloud and Network Virtualization continued to be a very busy sector in 2022 as Cloud Core projects progressed and expanded. The demand for NFV/VNF Design Engineers with customer liaison experience continues to be very high as projects progress within the UK and parts of Northern Europe, with Southern Europe also joining the scene with many projects getting going in 2022.

With more projects ongoing the need for wider talent in this area has also increased. We continue to see a high rate of remote working adoption in this sector with companies realising the need for access to the services of highly specialised resources who are based in all corners of the world. Embracing this way of working has offered access to better talent and with reduced costs. We have seen a high demand for the following roles: Technical Project Managers, NFVI Designers/Solution Architects, Network Test and Integration Engineers.