OSPF Contract Job Trends in the South East

Open Shortest Path First (OSPF)
England > South East

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the South East requiring OSPF skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 17 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 150 126 130
Rank change year-on-year -24 +4 +43
Contract jobs citing OSPF 38 48 73
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 0.87% 1.27% 1.46%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 6.09% 6.87% 6.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 24 38 27
10th Percentile £374 £409 £335
25th Percentile £400 £475 £356
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £453 £550 £490
Median % change year-on-year -17.73% +12.24% -10.17%
75th Percentile £538 £625 £575
90th Percentile £693 £649 £617
England median daily rate £475 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -9.52% -4.55% +7.32%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 1 3
10th Percentile - - £24.40
25th Percentile - £18.50 £24.63
Median hourly rate - £19.00 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year - -24.00% +6.38%
75th Percentile - £19.50 £46.25
90th Percentile - - £59.00
England median hourly rate - £32.50 £33.72
% change year-on-year - -3.62% +2.18%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
South East

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 South East.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 624 699 1,127
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 14.29% 18.49% 22.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 452 400 609
10th Percentile £204 £222 £200
25th Percentile £333 £398 £272
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £450
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +11.11% -5.26%
75th Percentile £575 £602 £561
90th Percentile £638 £650 £650
England median daily rate £487 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -2.55% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 25 70
10th Percentile £18.50 £25.94 £20.93
25th Percentile £32.77 £35.00 £30.00
Median hourly rate £70.16 £62.50 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +12.26% +4.17% +33.33%
75th Percentile £86.00 £67.02 £74.41
90th Percentile £89.63 £73.50 £78.00
England median hourly rate £35.00 £41.00 £56.45
% change year-on-year -14.63% -27.36% +25.43%

OSPF
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

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

OSPF job vacancy trend in the South East

OSPF
Daily Rate Trend in the South East

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

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing OSPF

OSPF
Daily Rate Histogram in the South East

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing OSPF in the South East over the 6 months to 17 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for OSPF in the South East

OSPF
Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

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

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing OSPF

OSPF
Contract Job Locations in the South East

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing OSPF within the South East region over the 6 months to 17 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
Hampshire -15 12 £650 +8.33% 2
Thames Valley -23 10 £460 -16.36%
Kent - 10 £438 - 5
Berkshire -12 9 £458 -14.79%
West Sussex - 3 £400 - 1
Surrey -2 2 - - 2
Oxfordshire - 1 £475 -
M4 Corridor - 1 £375 -
OSPF
England

OSPF
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South East 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 6 (15.79%) OpenStack
Cloud Services
1 13 (34.21%) AWS
2 6 (15.79%) OpenShift
3 3 (7.89%) Azure
4 1 (2.63%) Google Ads
Communications & Networking
1 38 (100.00%) BGP
2 31 (81.58%) Firewall
3 19 (50.00%) LAN
3 19 (50.00%) VPN
3 19 (50.00%) WAN
4 14 (36.84%) MPLS
5 12 (31.58%) VLAN
6 10 (26.32%) IPsec
6 10 (26.32%) Network Security
6 10 (26.32%) Wireless
7 8 (21.05%) TCP/IP
8 7 (18.42%) Structured Cabling
9 6 (15.79%) SNMP
9 6 (15.79%) TACACS
10 4 (10.53%) DHCP
10 4 (10.53%) DNS
11 3 (7.89%) Intrusion Detection
11 3 (7.89%) Junos
11 3 (7.89%) Multicast
11 3 (7.89%) WLAN
General
1 19 (50.00%) Documentation Skills
2 17 (44.74%) Social Skills
3 8 (21.05%) Manufacturing
4 7 (18.42%) Analytical Skills
5 5 (13.16%) Public Sector
5 5 (13.16%) Telecoms
6 3 (7.89%) Electronics
6 3 (7.89%) Finance
6 3 (7.89%) Marketing
7 2 (5.26%) Advertising
7 2 (5.26%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 26 (68.42%) Network Engineer
2 8 (21.05%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
3 6 (15.79%) Designer
3 6 (15.79%) IP Designer
4 4 (10.53%) IP Engineer
5 3 (7.89%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
5 3 (7.89%) IP Network Engineer
5 3 (7.89%) Juniper Engineer
5 3 (7.89%) Juniper Specialist
5 3 (7.89%) Network Security Engineer
5 3 (7.89%) Network Specialist
5 3 (7.89%) Security Engineer
5 3 (7.89%) Tester
6 2 (5.26%) Cisco Engineer
6 2 (5.26%) Cisco Network Engineer
6 2 (5.26%) Senior
6 2 (5.26%) Senior Tester
6 2 (5.26%) Validation Tester
7 1 (2.63%) Design Engineer
7 1 (2.63%) IP Design Engineer
Miscellaneous
1 13 (34.21%) Data Centre
2 6 (15.79%) Hybrid Cloud
3 3 (7.89%) NHS
4 2 (5.26%) Legacy Systems
5 1 (2.63%) Linux Command Line
5 1 (2.63%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 1 (2.63%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 11 (28.95%) Validation
2 9 (23.68%) Incident Response
3 7 (18.42%) High Availability
3 7 (18.42%) Network Monitoring
4 6 (15.79%) Network Virtualisation
4 6 (15.79%) Problem-Solving
5 5 (13.16%) Knowledge Transfer
5 5 (13.16%) Network Segmentation
6 4 (10.53%) Customer Requirements
7 3 (7.89%) Business Intelligence
7 3 (7.89%) Digital Marketing
7 3 (7.89%) Integration Testing
7 3 (7.89%) Network Load Balancing
7 3 (7.89%) Network Optimisation
7 3 (7.89%) Performance Tuning
7 3 (7.89%) Programme Management
7 3 (7.89%) Test Automation
7 3 (7.89%) Test Scripting
8 2 (5.26%) Migration
8 2 (5.26%) Network Architecture
Programming Languages
1 12 (31.58%) Python
2 3 (7.89%) Bash
Qualifications
1 25 (65.79%) Cisco Certification
2 22 (57.89%) Security Cleared
3 19 (50.00%) CCNP
4 16 (42.11%) SC Cleared
5 8 (21.05%) CCIE
6 6 (15.79%) AWS Certification
6 6 (15.79%) JNCIE
7 4 (10.53%) CCNA
7 4 (10.53%) Degree
8 3 (7.89%) DV Cleared
8 3 (7.89%) JNCIA
8 3 (7.89%) JNCIP
8 3 (7.89%) JNCIS
8 3 (7.89%) Network+ Certification
9 1 (2.63%) BPSS Clearance
9 1 (2.63%) CCDP
System Software
1 6 (15.79%) VMware Infrastructure
1 6 (15.79%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 13 (34.21%) Ansible
2 7 (18.42%) Terraform
3 4 (10.53%) FortiGate
4 3 (7.89%) Iperf
4 3 (7.89%) Nagios
4 3 (7.89%) Nmap
Vendors
1 31 (81.58%) Cisco
2 21 (55.26%) Palo Alto
3 16 (42.11%) Fortinet
4 15 (39.47%) Juniper
5 10 (26.32%) CheckPoint
6 7 (18.42%) Aruba
7 6 (15.79%) F5
7 6 (15.79%) SolarWinds
7 6 (15.79%) VMware
8 4 (10.53%) Meraki
9 3 (7.89%) Nokia
9 3 (7.89%) SAP
10 2 (5.26%) Microsoft
11 1 (2.63%) Infoblox
11 1 (2.63%) LogicMonitor
11 1 (2.63%) Mellanox
11 1 (2.63%) NVIDIA
11 1 (2.63%) Pegasus