MPLS Contract Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS)
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the UK excluding London requiring MPLS skills. It covers vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 18 September 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 281 223 236
Rank change year-on-year -58 +13 +133
Contract jobs citing MPLS 95 154 191
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 0.61% 0.86% 0.90%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 4.56% 5.97% 5.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 68 78 79
10th Percentile £296 £363 £263
25th Percentile £400 £395 £378
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £500 £450
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% +11.11% +2.27%
75th Percentile £538 £597 £544
90th Percentile £638 £691 £600
UK median daily rate £475 £500 £520
% change year-on-year -5.00% -3.85% +4.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 3 12
10th Percentile - £17.80 £14.45
25th Percentile - £18.06 £23.00
Median hourly rate - £19.00 £65.98
Median % change year-on-year - -71.20% +199.91%
75th Percentile - £20.95 -
90th Percentile - £21.82 -
UK median hourly rate £38.75 £22.40 £65.98
% change year-on-year +72.99% -66.05% +153.77%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
UK excluding London

MPLS 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 UK excluding London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 2,084 2,580 3,497
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 13.47% 14.40% 16.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,306 1,432 2,143
10th Percentile £200 £205 £206
25th Percentile £325 £356 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £500 £453
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% +10.50% +0.56%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £588
90th Percentile £640 £675 £675
UK median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 135 220 243
10th Percentile £15.04 £14.16 £15.85
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.37 £24.42
Median hourly rate £42.50 £57.35 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year -25.89% -0.26% +27.78%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £84.20 £75.00 £75.67
UK median hourly rate £43.00 £50.50 £56.49
% change year-on-year -14.85% -10.60% +34.50%

MPLS
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Job postings citing MPLS as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Job vacancy trend for MPLS in the UK excluding London

MPLS
Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing MPLS.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing MPLS

MPLS
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing MPLS in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 18 September 2025.

Daily rate histogram for MPLS in the UK excluding London

MPLS
Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing MPLS.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing MPLS

MPLS
Contract Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing MPLS within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 18 September 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
South East -5 35 £450 -10.00% 13
West Midlands -8 29 £400 -20.00% 10
Midlands -24 29 £400 -20.00% 16
North of England -33 16 £463 -7.50% 8
North West -19 12 £450 -10.89% 7
South West +21 9 £625 -1.19% 1
Scotland -4 3 £513 +10.81% 1
Yorkshire -29 3 £350 -30.00%
Northern Ireland - 3 £475 -
East of England +5 1 £300 -
North East -2 1 £550 +29.41% 1
MPLS
UK

MPLS
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the UK excluding London by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 16 (16.84%) OpenStack
2 7 (7.37%) Confluence
3 2 (2.11%) Camunda
3 2 (2.11%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (1.05%) SharePoint
Applications
1 7 (7.37%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (3.16%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (3.16%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 3 (3.16%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 24 (25.26%) AWS
2 16 (16.84%) Azure
3 6 (6.32%) GCP
3 6 (6.32%) OpenShift
4 3 (3.16%) Microsoft 365
5 1 (1.05%) Mimecast
Communications & Networking
1 57 (60.00%) BGP
2 55 (57.89%) WAN
3 53 (55.79%) VPN
4 38 (40.00%) LAN
5 32 (33.68%) IPsec
6 30 (31.58%) Firewall
7 20 (21.05%) OSPF
8 17 (17.89%) Wireshark
9 15 (15.79%) Wireless
10 14 (14.74%) Ethernet
10 14 (14.74%) SDH
11 13 (13.68%) LTE
11 13 (13.68%) VLAN
12 12 (12.63%) DNS
13 11 (11.58%) SAN
13 11 (11.58%) Unified Communications
14 10 (10.53%) ATM
14 10 (10.53%) GPRS
14 10 (10.53%) GSM
14 10 (10.53%) UMTS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.05%) MongoDB
1 1 (1.05%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 8 (8.42%) JIRA
2 2 (2.11%) GitLab
3 1 (1.05%) Robot Framework
General
1 42 (44.21%) Social Skills
2 21 (22.11%) Telecoms
3 10 (10.53%) Public Sector
4 9 (9.47%) Analytical Skills
5 6 (6.32%) Documentation Skills
6 4 (4.21%) Legal
7 2 (2.11%) Law
8 1 (1.05%) Billing
8 1 (1.05%) Electronics
8 1 (1.05%) Finance
8 1 (1.05%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 41 (43.16%) Network Engineer
2 17 (17.89%) Support Engineer
3 15 (15.79%) Architect
4 14 (14.74%) Designer
5 10 (10.53%) 3rd Line Engineer
5 10 (10.53%) Senior
6 9 (9.47%) 2nd Line Engineer
6 9 (9.47%) 3rd Line Support
6 9 (9.47%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
6 9 (9.47%) IP Engineer
6 9 (9.47%) Network Support
6 9 (9.47%) Network Support Engineer
7 8 (8.42%) 2nd Line Support
7 8 (8.42%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
7 8 (8.42%) Network Designer
7 8 (8.42%) Test Engineer
8 7 (7.37%) 2nd Line Network Engineer
8 7 (7.37%) Senior Network Engineer
9 6 (6.32%) IP Network Engineer
9 6 (6.32%) Network Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (14.74%) NETCONF
2 8 (8.42%) RESTCONF
2 8 (8.42%) YANG
3 7 (7.37%) REST
4 2 (2.11%) JSON
5 1 (1.05%) gRPC
5 1 (1.05%) Java RMI
5 1 (1.05%) Jinja
5 1 (1.05%) SOAP
5 1 (1.05%) XML
5 1 (1.05%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 26 (27.37%) PKI
2 16 (16.84%) Hybrid Cloud
3 14 (14.74%) Data Centre
3 14 (14.74%) Self-Motivation
4 11 (11.58%) Cloud Native
5 6 (6.32%) Operational Technology
6 5 (5.26%) SCADA
7 3 (3.16%) Data Protection Act
7 3 (3.16%) Management Information System
7 3 (3.16%) TM Forum
7 3 (3.16%) Virtual Team
8 2 (2.11%) Legacy Systems
8 2 (2.11%) Security Posture
9 1 (1.05%) Driving Licence
9 1 (1.05%) Fibre Optics
9 1 (1.05%) NHS
9 1 (1.05%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 11 (11.58%) Linux
1 11 (11.58%) Unix
2 3 (3.16%) Windows
3 1 (1.05%) CentOS
3 1 (1.05%) Mac OS
3 1 (1.05%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 27 (28.42%) Network Design
2 20 (21.05%) Network Virtualisation
2 20 (21.05%) Problem-Solving
3 17 (17.89%) Load Balancing
4 16 (16.84%) Validation
5 14 (14.74%) Network Architecture
6 13 (13.68%) Fault Management
6 13 (13.68%) TOGAF
7 12 (12.63%) Network Monitoring
7 12 (12.63%) Roadmaps
8 11 (11.58%) Project Management
9 10 (10.53%) Regression Testing
9 10 (10.53%) Test Strategy
10 9 (9.47%) DevOps
10 9 (9.47%) ITIL
10 9 (9.47%) Microservices
10 9 (9.47%) Project Delivery
10 9 (9.47%) Service Management
11 8 (8.42%) NsoIT
11 8 (8.42%) System Testing
Programming Languages
1 24 (25.26%) Python
2 10 (10.53%) Java
3 3 (3.16%) Bash
4 2 (2.11%) SQL
Qualifications
1 49 (51.58%) Cisco Certification
2 41 (43.16%) Security Cleared
3 34 (35.79%) CCNP
3 34 (35.79%) SC Cleared
4 22 (23.16%) CCIE
5 17 (17.89%) Degree
5 17 (17.89%) JNCIE
6 10 (10.53%) ISEB
6 10 (10.53%) ISTQB
6 10 (10.53%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
7 8 (8.42%) AWS Certification
7 8 (8.42%) CCNA
8 6 (6.32%) Master's Degree
9 4 (4.21%) Computer Science Degree
10 2 (2.11%) Azure Certification
10 2 (2.11%) Microsoft Certification
10 2 (2.11%) TOGAF Certification
11 1 (1.05%) A+ Certification
11 1 (1.05%) HNC
11 1 (1.05%) MCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (2.11%) OASIS TOSCA
1 2 (2.11%) PCI DSS
2 1 (1.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 1 (1.05%) QA
2 1 (1.05%) SLA
System Software
1 15 (15.79%) VMware Infrastructure
2 7 (7.37%) VMware ESXi
3 6 (6.32%) VMware NSX
4 5 (5.26%) Docker
5 2 (2.11%) Active Directory
6 1 (1.05%) Hyper-V
6 1 (1.05%) vSphere
6 1 (1.05%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 24 (25.26%) Ansible
2 6 (6.32%) Terraform
3 4 (4.21%) Kubernetes
4 3 (3.16%) Iperf
4 3 (3.16%) Nmap
5 2 (2.11%) Amdocs OSS
5 2 (2.11%) Cisco CUCM
5 2 (2.11%) Cisco Prime
5 2 (2.11%) SCCM
6 1 (1.05%) FortiGate
Vendors
1 59 (62.11%) Cisco
2 39 (41.05%) Juniper
3 21 (22.11%) Fortinet
4 16 (16.84%) Microsoft
5 15 (15.79%) VMware
6 14 (14.74%) F5
7 10 (10.53%) Palo Alto
8 7 (7.37%) Atlassian
9 6 (6.32%) Aruba
9 6 (6.32%) CheckPoint
9 6 (6.32%) SolarWinds
10 4 (4.21%) Dell
10 4 (4.21%) Meraki
11 3 (3.16%) Nokia
12 2 (2.11%) Amdocs
12 2 (2.11%) Citrix
12 2 (2.11%) Ericsson
12 2 (2.11%) Huawei
12 2 (2.11%) NetCracker
13 1 (1.05%) Google