OSPF Contract Job Trends in the Midlands

Open Shortest Path First (OSPF)
England > Midlands

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the Midlands requiring OSPF skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 16 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 153 116 118
Rank change year-on-year -37 +2 +74
Contract jobs citing OSPF 9 9 10
As % of all contract jobs in the Midlands 0.29% 0.39% 0.38%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 2.24% 2.80% 1.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 6 5 6
10th Percentile £444 £448 -
25th Percentile £473 - -
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £519 £500 £200
Median % change year-on-year +3.75% +150.00% -58.44%
75th Percentile £552 £575 £373
90th Percentile £597 £665 £503
England median daily rate £475 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -9.52% -4.55% +8.91%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
Midlands

OSPF falls under the Communications and Computer Networking category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring communications or computer networking skills in the Midlands.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 402 322 513
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the Midlands 12.79% 13.98% 19.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 249 173 288
10th Percentile £163 £166 £213
25th Percentile £290 £255 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £425 £425
Median % change year-on-year -5.88% - -3.95%
75th Percentile £508 £583 £554
90th Percentile £582 £707 £675
England median daily rate £485 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -3.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 15 28
10th Percentile £16.20 £13.40 £13.95
25th Percentile £18.50 £18.28 £20.74
Median hourly rate £25.15 £24.18 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.01% +5.13% -5.15%
75th Percentile £31.00 £34.38 £67.50
90th Percentile £34.20 £35.00 -
England median hourly rate £35.00 £41.00 £56.45
% change year-on-year -14.63% -27.36% +27.13%

OSPF
Job Vacancy Trend in the Midlands

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing OSPF relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the Midlands.

OSPF job vacancy trend in the Midlands

OSPF
Daily Rate Trend in the Midlands

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the Midlands citing OSPF.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the Midlands citing OSPF

OSPF
Daily Rate Histogram in the Midlands

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing OSPF in the Midlands over the 6 months to 16 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for OSPF in the Midlands

OSPF
Hourly Rate Trend in the Midlands

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the Midlands citing OSPF.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the Midlands citing OSPF

OSPF
Contract Job Locations in the Midlands

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing OSPF within the Midlands region over the 6 months to 16 December 2025. 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
West Midlands -29 9 £519 +3.75% 11
OSPF
England

OSPF
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the Midlands 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:

Cloud Services
1 5 (55.56%) AWS
1 5 (55.56%) Azure
1 5 (55.56%) GCP
2 4 (44.44%) Azure ExpressRoute
2 4 (44.44%) Virtual Private Cloud
3 2 (22.22%) AWS Direct Connect
Communications & Networking
1 9 (100.00%) BGP
2 8 (88.89%) Firewall
3 6 (66.67%) LAN
3 6 (66.67%) SD-WAN
3 6 (66.67%) VLAN
3 6 (66.67%) VPN
3 6 (66.67%) WAN
3 6 (66.67%) WLAN
4 5 (55.56%) EIGRP
4 5 (55.56%) IPv4
4 5 (55.56%) IPv6
4 5 (55.56%) MPLS
4 5 (55.56%) VXLAN
4 5 (55.56%) Wireless
5 4 (44.44%) Cisco ASA
5 4 (44.44%) DHCP
5 4 (44.44%) DNS
6 3 (33.33%) Cisco ISE
6 3 (33.33%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
7 2 (22.22%) Software-Defined Networking
General
1 5 (55.56%) Social Skills
2 4 (44.44%) Analytical Skills
3 3 (33.33%) Influencing Skills
4 2 (22.22%) Presentation Skills
5 1 (11.11%) Documentation Skills
5 1 (11.11%) Public Sector
5 1 (11.11%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 5 (55.56%) Architect
1 5 (55.56%) Network Architect
2 4 (44.44%) Solutions Architect
3 1 (11.11%) Administrator
3 1 (11.11%) Cisco Administrator
3 1 (11.11%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 1 (11.11%) IT Engineer
3 1 (11.11%) IT Infrastructure Engineer
3 1 (11.11%) Lead
3 1 (11.11%) Network Engineer
3 1 (11.11%) Unified Communications Engineer
Miscellaneous
1 6 (66.67%) Data Centre
2 1 (11.11%) Educational Technology
Operating Systems
1 1 (11.11%) Windows
1 1 (11.11%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 5 (55.56%) Roadmaps
1 5 (55.56%) Zero Trust
2 4 (44.44%) Cybersecurity
2 4 (44.44%) ITIL
2 4 (44.44%) Load Balancing
2 4 (44.44%) Mentoring
2 4 (44.44%) Network Architecture
2 4 (44.44%) Network Design
2 4 (44.44%) Network Management
2 4 (44.44%) Performance Monitoring
2 4 (44.44%) Security Architecture
2 4 (44.44%) Strategic Thinking
2 4 (44.44%) TOGAF
3 3 (33.33%) Analytical Thinking
3 3 (33.33%) Computer Science
3 3 (33.33%) Data Protection
3 3 (33.33%) Enterprise Architecture
3 3 (33.33%) IT Strategy
3 3 (33.33%) Network Virtualisation
3 3 (33.33%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 4 (44.44%) Python
Qualifications
1 8 (88.89%) CCNP
1 8 (88.89%) Cisco Certification
2 5 (55.56%) CCIE
2 5 (55.56%) Degree
3 4 (44.44%) (ISC)2 CCSP
3 4 (44.44%) AWS Certification
3 4 (44.44%) CCSP
3 4 (44.44%) CISSP
4 3 (33.33%) Azure Certification
4 3 (33.33%) CCIE Security
4 3 (33.33%) Security Cleared
5 2 (22.22%) CCNA
5 2 (22.22%) DV Cleared
5 2 (22.22%) JNCIE
5 2 (22.22%) JNCIP
6 1 (11.11%) CCIE Routing and Switching
6 1 (11.11%) CCIE Wireless
6 1 (11.11%) CWSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (55.56%) GDPR
1 5 (55.56%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 5 (55.56%) NIST
1 5 (55.56%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 5 (55.56%) VMware Infrastructure
2 4 (44.44%) VMware NSX
3 1 (11.11%) Active Directory
3 1 (11.11%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 5 (55.56%) Ansible
1 5 (55.56%) Terraform
2 1 (11.11%) Cisco CUCM
Vendors
1 8 (88.89%) Cisco
2 6 (66.67%) F5
3 5 (55.56%) Fortinet
3 5 (55.56%) Meraki
3 5 (55.56%) Palo Alto
3 5 (55.56%) SolarWinds
3 5 (55.56%) VMware
4 3 (33.33%) Juniper
5 2 (22.22%) Forcepoint
6 1 (11.11%) Aruba
6 1 (11.11%) Oracle
6 1 (11.11%) Zscaler