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 contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 2 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 344 288 215
Rank change year-on-year -56 -73 +20
Contract jobs citing MPLS 138 92 156
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.49% 0.59% 0.89%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 4.67% 4.38% 6.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 90 68 73
10th Percentile £297 £300 £363
25th Percentile £325 £400 £394
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £450 £500
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% -10.00% +2.88%
75th Percentile £538 £538 £575
90th Percentile £688 £638 £675
UK median daily rate £463 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -2.58% -5.00% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 1 3
10th Percentile £17.51 - £17.80
25th Percentile £17.53 £19.00 £18.06
Median hourly rate £17.63 £20.00 £19.00
Median % change year-on-year -11.88% +5.26% -71.20%
75th Percentile £17.78 £21.00 £20.95
90th Percentile £17.84 - £21.82
UK median hourly rate £17.75 £37.50 £23.29
% change year-on-year -52.67% +61.01% -64.70%

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 2,954 2,102 2,546
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 10.43% 13.41% 14.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,619 1,335 1,397
10th Percentile £213 £200 £200
25th Percentile £355 £313 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £450 £485
Median % change year-on-year +5.56% -7.22% +5.43%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £588
90th Percentile £650 £643 £663
UK median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 351 138 172
10th Percentile £14.10 £15.45 £14.27
25th Percentile £19.33 £17.97 £23.91
Median hourly rate £26.72 £42.22 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -36.71% -26.38% -0.26%
75th Percentile £65.88 £65.00 £65.51
90th Percentile £85.00 £80.41 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £32.50 £41.94 £50.50
% change year-on-year -22.51% -16.95% -10.60%

MPLS
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing MPLS relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

MPLS job vacancy trend 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 2 October 2026.

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 2 October 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
Scotland +17 48 £308 -40.00% 4
South East -48 48 £450 - 18
South West -27 17 £525 -16.00% 4
North of England -75 13 £575 +27.78% 10
North West -52 11 £575 +28.21% 5
Midlands -74 7 £447 +11.63% 6
West Midlands -62 6 £447 +11.63% 2
East of England -21 5 £500 +66.67% 3
Yorkshire -33 2 £483 +37.86% 5
MPLS
UK

MPLS
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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 (7.25%) OpenStack
2 3 (2.17%) Confluence
3 2 (1.45%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 26 (18.84%) MS Visio
2 10 (7.25%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (5.07%) Microsoft Excel
4 4 (2.90%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.72%) Microsoft Project
Cloud Services
1 18 (13.04%) AWS
1 18 (13.04%) Azure
2 5 (3.62%) Virtual Private Cloud
3 4 (2.90%) AWS Direct Connect
3 4 (2.90%) GCP
3 4 (2.90%) OpenShift
4 2 (1.45%) Azure ExpressRoute
4 2 (1.45%) GitHub
5 1 (0.72%) AWS CloudFormation
5 1 (0.72%) Azure DevOps
5 1 (0.72%) Azure Monitor
5 1 (0.72%) GitHub Actions
5 1 (0.72%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 109 (78.99%) WAN
2 86 (62.32%) LAN
3 60 (43.48%) BGP
4 44 (31.88%) Firewall
5 29 (21.01%) Network Security
6 28 (20.29%) IPsec
7 26 (18.84%) OSPF
7 26 (18.84%) SD-WAN
8 23 (16.67%) SDH
8 23 (16.67%) VPN
9 18 (13.04%) Cisco Nexus
10 13 (9.42%) TCP/IP
10 13 (9.42%) Wi-Fi
11 12 (8.70%) DNS
12 11 (7.97%) VLAN
13 10 (7.25%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
14 9 (6.52%) Cisco IOS
14 9 (6.52%) Wireshark
15 8 (5.80%) Wireless
16 7 (5.07%) DWDM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.72%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 3 (2.17%) Git
1 3 (2.17%) JIRA
1 3 (2.17%) Sonatype Nexus
2 1 (0.72%) Bitbucket
2 1 (0.72%) GitLab
2 1 (0.72%) Jenkins
General
1 64 (46.38%) Telecoms
2 49 (35.51%) Social Skills
3 20 (14.49%) Analytical Skills
4 9 (6.52%) Organisational Skills
5 5 (3.62%) Banking
5 5 (3.62%) Documentation Skills
5 5 (3.62%) Legal
6 4 (2.90%) Military
7 3 (2.17%) Influencing Skills
7 3 (2.17%) Investment Banking
8 2 (1.45%) Finance
8 2 (1.45%) Retail
9 1 (0.72%) Financial Institution
9 1 (0.72%) Manufacturing
9 1 (0.72%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 51 (36.96%) Network Engineer
2 31 (22.46%) Architect
3 28 (20.29%) Telecoms Engineer
4 24 (17.39%) Network Architect
5 17 (12.32%) Developer
6 16 (11.59%) Field Engineer
6 16 (11.59%) Project Engineer
7 13 (9.42%) Field Telecoms Engineer
7 13 (9.42%) Senior
8 11 (7.97%) Senior Network Engineer
9 10 (7.25%) Network Field Engineer
10 8 (5.80%) Cisco Engineer
10 8 (5.80%) Cisco Network Engineer
11 7 (5.07%) Lead
12 6 (4.35%) IP Architect
12 6 (4.35%) Principal Architect
13 5 (3.62%) Senior Cisco Engineer
13 5 (3.62%) Senior Cisco Network Engineer
14 4 (2.90%) Core Network Engineer
14 4 (2.90%) Design Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (7.97%) NETCONF
1 11 (7.97%) YANG
2 9 (6.52%) REST
2 9 (6.52%) Terraform
3 5 (3.62%) OpenConfig
4 4 (2.90%) RESTCONF
5 3 (2.17%) Java RMI
6 2 (1.45%) 802.1X
7 1 (0.72%) JSON
7 1 (0.72%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 15 (10.87%) Driving Licence
1 15 (10.87%) Hybrid Cloud
2 12 (8.70%) Data Centre
3 9 (6.52%) Cloud Native
4 8 (5.80%) Management Information System
4 8 (5.80%) Private Cloud
5 6 (4.35%) Onboarding
6 5 (3.62%) Data Protection Act
7 4 (2.90%) Analytical Mindset
7 4 (2.90%) Operational Technology
7 4 (2.90%) PKI
7 4 (2.90%) Public Cloud
8 3 (2.17%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
9 2 (1.45%) CMDB
9 2 (1.45%) Legacy Systems
9 2 (1.45%) Self-Motivation
10 1 (0.72%) Enterprise Cloud
10 1 (0.72%) Fibre Optics
10 1 (0.72%) TM Forum
10 1 (0.72%) Wiki
Operating Systems
1 3 (2.17%) Windows
1 3 (2.17%) Windows Server
2 2 (1.45%) Windows Server 2012
3 1 (0.72%) Linux
3 1 (0.72%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 37 (26.81%) Project Delivery
2 24 (17.39%) Network Architecture
3 20 (14.49%) Network Design
3 20 (14.49%) Problem-Solving
3 20 (14.49%) Technical Leadership
4 18 (13.04%) ITIL
4 18 (13.04%) Roadmaps
4 18 (13.04%) TOGAF
5 17 (12.32%) Stakeholder Management
6 14 (10.14%) Network Monitoring
7 13 (9.42%) Zero Trust
8 12 (8.70%) Change Management
8 12 (8.70%) Vulnerability Management
9 9 (6.52%) Agile
9 9 (6.52%) Architecture Governance
10 8 (5.80%) Continuous Improvement
10 8 (5.80%) Infrastructure as Code
10 8 (5.80%) Network Segmentation
10 8 (5.80%) Network Virtualisation
10 8 (5.80%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 19 (13.77%) Python
2 4 (2.90%) PowerShell
3 2 (1.45%) Perl
4 1 (0.72%) Bash
Qualifications
1 54 (39.13%) Cisco Certification
2 50 (36.23%) Security Cleared
3 32 (23.19%) DV Cleared
4 31 (22.46%) CCNP
5 29 (21.01%) CCIE
6 17 (12.32%) CCNA
6 17 (12.32%) JNCIE
7 12 (8.70%) SC Cleared
8 10 (7.25%) Degree
9 9 (6.52%) JNCIP
10 7 (5.07%) CISSP
11 6 (4.35%) BPSS Clearance
12 4 (2.90%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 3 (2.17%) AWS Certification
14 2 (1.45%) Azure Certification
14 2 (1.45%) BC Cleared
14 2 (1.45%) CCDP
15 1 (0.72%) CCDA
15 1 (0.72%) CCDE
15 1 (0.72%) VCDX
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (7.97%) SLA
2 4 (2.90%) NCSC
3 3 (2.17%) QA
4 2 (1.45%) GDPR
5 1 (0.72%) Data Quality
5 1 (0.72%) NIST
5 1 (0.72%) NIST 800
5 1 (0.72%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.72%) PMO
System Software
1 6 (4.35%) VMware Infrastructure
1 6 (4.35%) VMware NSX
2 2 (1.45%) Active Directory
2 2 (1.45%) Firmware
3 1 (0.72%) Docker
Systems Management
1 21 (15.22%) Ansible
2 6 (4.35%) Cisco Prime
3 3 (2.17%) SolarWinds Orion
4 2 (1.45%) FortiGate
4 2 (1.45%) Kubernetes
5 1 (0.72%) Avamar
5 1 (0.72%) Grafana
5 1 (0.72%) OPNET
5 1 (0.72%) Progress Chef
5 1 (0.72%) Puppet
5 1 (0.72%) QRadar
5 1 (0.72%) Suricata
Vendors
1 93 (67.39%) Cisco
2 34 (24.64%) Microsoft
3 25 (18.12%) Nokia
4 21 (15.22%) F5
5 19 (13.77%) Fortinet
5 19 (13.77%) Juniper
5 19 (13.77%) Palo Alto
6 15 (10.87%) SolarWinds
7 12 (8.70%) VMware
8 9 (6.52%) Arista
8 9 (6.52%) Aruba
9 4 (2.90%) Meraki
10 3 (2.17%) Google
10 3 (2.17%) Splunk
11 2 (1.45%) BT
11 2 (1.45%) EMC
11 2 (1.45%) Forcepoint
11 2 (1.45%) HP
11 2 (1.45%) McAfee
11 2 (1.45%) ServiceNow