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 3 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 344 253 206
Rank change year-on-year -91 -47 +105
Contract jobs citing MPLS 105 96 201
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.42% 0.75% 0.96%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 3.82% 4.83% 6.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 69 66 88
10th Percentile £302 £269 £263
25th Percentile £400 £400 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £375
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% +26.67% -11.76%
75th Percentile £540 £596 £466
90th Percentile £625 £638 £675
UK median daily rate £450 £500 £405
% change year-on-year -10.00% +23.46% -16.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 0 13
10th Percentile £22.53 - £13.40
25th Percentile £29.88 - £14.00
Median hourly rate £42.25 - £40.00
75th Percentile £42.38 - -
90th Percentile - - -
UK median hourly rate £42.25 £38.75 £32.50
% change year-on-year +9.03% +19.23% -47.58%

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 2,749 1,987 3,295
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 11.04% 15.43% 15.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,612 1,238 1,866
10th Percentile £231 £200 £205
25th Percentile £375 £313 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £465 £480
Median % change year-on-year +2.10% -2.97% +0.95%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £600
90th Percentile £650 £638 £675
UK median daily rate £500 £485 £500
% change year-on-year +3.09% -3.00% -2.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 241 121 355
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.20 £13.25
25th Percentile £21.25 £16.30 £16.30
Median hourly rate £32.50 £31.08 £45.88
Median % change year-on-year +4.57% -32.26% +154.89%
75th Percentile £65.00 £63.75 £63.75
90th Percentile £74.26 £82.10 £71.01
UK median hourly rate £28.96 £41.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year -29.37% +2.50% +118.16%

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 3 June 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
Hourly Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing MPLS in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 3 June 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for MPLS in the UK excluding London

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 3 June 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
South East -50 51 £463 +2.78% 13
Scotland +10 14 £403 -5.29% 17
South West -33 12 £538 -12.24% 5
North of England -87 12 £490 +3.16% 11
Midlands -59 11 £413 +17.86% 2
North West -44 10 £533 +12.11% 7
West Midlands -64 8 £413 +17.86% 2
East of England -27 5 £500 +100.00% 1
Yorkshire -60 2 £475 +35.71% 4
Northern Ireland - 1 £385 -
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 5 (4.76%) Confluence
1 5 (4.76%) OpenStack
2 1 (0.95%) SharePoint
Applications
1 12 (11.43%) MS Visio
2 6 (5.71%) Microsoft Office
3 5 (4.76%) Microsoft Excel
4 2 (1.90%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.95%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 2 (1.90%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 19 (18.10%) Azure
2 13 (12.38%) AWS
3 5 (4.76%) Entra ID
3 5 (4.76%) GCP
4 3 (2.86%) Microsoft 365
5 2 (1.90%) AWS Direct Connect
5 2 (1.90%) Azure ExpressRoute
5 2 (1.90%) Azure Sentinel
5 2 (1.90%) Power Platform
6 1 (0.95%) Amazon ELB
6 1 (0.95%) Amazon GuardDuty
6 1 (0.95%) Amazon Macie
6 1 (0.95%) AWS CloudFormation
6 1 (0.95%) AWS CloudTrail
6 1 (0.95%) Azure DevOps
6 1 (0.95%) IaaS
6 1 (0.95%) IBM Watson
6 1 (0.95%) Route 53
6 1 (0.95%) SaaS
6 1 (0.95%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 74 (70.48%) WAN
2 54 (51.43%) BGP
3 49 (46.67%) Firewall
4 44 (41.90%) LAN
5 41 (39.05%) VPN
6 36 (34.29%) SD-WAN
7 28 (26.67%) OSPF
8 27 (25.71%) IPsec
9 24 (22.86%) Network Security
10 16 (15.24%) VLAN
11 14 (13.33%) Wireshark
12 13 (12.38%) Cisco ASA
13 12 (11.43%) Internet
14 11 (10.48%) TCP/IP
15 10 (9.52%) Cisco IOS
15 10 (9.52%) Cisco Nexus
15 10 (9.52%) TACACS
16 9 (8.57%) Wireless
17 8 (7.62%) Multicast
17 8 (7.62%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (1.90%) Power BI
1 2 (1.90%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 7 (6.67%) JIRA
2 2 (1.90%) Sonatype Nexus
3 1 (0.95%) AppScan
3 1 (0.95%) Bitbucket
3 1 (0.95%) Burp Suite
3 1 (0.95%) Metasploit
General
1 29 (27.62%) Social Skills
2 27 (25.71%) Telecoms
3 12 (11.43%) Analytical Skills
4 10 (9.52%) Finance
5 9 (8.57%) Public Sector
6 6 (5.71%) Legal
7 5 (4.76%) Documentation Skills
8 3 (2.86%) Law
8 3 (2.86%) Organisational Skills
8 3 (2.86%) Retail
9 2 (1.90%) Aviation
9 2 (1.90%) Billing
9 2 (1.90%) Influencing Skills
9 2 (1.90%) Manufacturing
10 1 (0.95%) Aerospace
10 1 (0.95%) Police
Job Titles
1 32 (30.48%) Network Engineer
2 18 (17.14%) Architect
3 16 (15.24%) Network Architect
4 8 (7.62%) Network Manager
4 8 (7.62%) Senior
5 7 (6.67%) Developer
5 7 (6.67%) Test Engineer
6 6 (5.71%) Project Manager
6 6 (5.71%) Security Engineer
7 5 (4.76%) Cisco Engineer
7 5 (4.76%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 5 (4.76%) IP Engineer
8 4 (3.81%) Infrastructure Security Engineer
8 4 (3.81%) IP Architect
8 4 (3.81%) Network Project Manager
8 4 (3.81%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
8 4 (3.81%) SC Cleared Project Manager
8 4 (3.81%) Security Architect
8 4 (3.81%) Senior Network Engineer
8 4 (3.81%) Telecoms Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (6.67%) 802.1X
1 7 (6.67%) NETCONF
1 7 (6.67%) YANG
2 6 (5.71%) LDAP
3 5 (4.76%) REST
4 2 (1.90%) OpenConfig
4 2 (1.90%) RESTCONF
4 2 (1.90%) RFC 2544
5 1 (0.95%) Django
5 1 (0.95%) Java RMI
Miscellaneous
1 17 (16.19%) Data Centre
2 8 (7.62%) Hybrid Cloud
2 8 (7.62%) PKI
3 7 (6.67%) Cloud Native
4 5 (4.76%) Analytical Mindset
4 5 (4.76%) Onboarding
4 5 (4.76%) Operational Technology
5 4 (3.81%) Management Information System
5 4 (3.81%) SCADA
5 4 (3.81%) Security Posture
6 3 (2.86%) Data Protection Act
6 3 (2.86%) Driving Licence
6 3 (2.86%) Fibre Optics
6 3 (2.86%) Self-Motivation
6 3 (2.86%) Wiki
7 2 (1.90%) Public Cloud
7 2 (1.90%) Virtual Team
8 1 (0.95%) Cyber Defence
8 1 (0.95%) Cyber Kill Chain
8 1 (0.95%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 8 (7.62%) Linux
2 6 (5.71%) Ubuntu
3 3 (2.86%) Windows
4 1 (0.95%) Kali Linux
4 1 (0.95%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 17 (16.19%) Network Design
2 16 (15.24%) Network Architecture
3 15 (14.29%) Change Management
3 15 (14.29%) Problem-Solving
4 14 (13.33%) ITIL
4 14 (13.33%) Technical Leadership
5 13 (12.38%) Cybersecurity
5 13 (12.38%) Project Management
5 13 (12.38%) Roadmaps
6 12 (11.43%) Project Delivery
7 11 (10.48%) Migration
8 10 (9.52%) Network Segmentation
8 10 (9.52%) Stakeholder Management
8 10 (9.52%) Zero Trust
9 9 (8.57%) Agile
10 8 (7.62%) DevOps
10 8 (7.62%) Root Cause Analysis
10 8 (7.62%) Service Delivery
11 7 (6.67%) Test Automation
11 7 (6.67%) Vulnerability Management
Programming Languages
1 20 (19.05%) Python
2 4 (3.81%) PHP
3 3 (2.86%) SQL
4 2 (1.90%) Bash
4 2 (1.90%) C
5 1 (0.95%) Lisp
5 1 (0.95%) Perl
5 1 (0.95%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 47 (44.76%) Security Cleared
2 32 (30.48%) SC Cleared
3 31 (29.52%) Cisco Certification
4 18 (17.14%) CCNP
5 16 (15.24%) DV Cleared
6 15 (14.29%) CCIE
7 12 (11.43%) CCNA
8 8 (7.62%) JNCIE
9 4 (3.81%) APMG
9 4 (3.81%) CompTIA Security+
9 4 (3.81%) GIAC
9 4 (3.81%) ISTQB
9 4 (3.81%) PMP
9 4 (3.81%) SSCP
10 3 (2.86%) AWS Certification
10 3 (2.86%) BC Cleared
10 3 (2.86%) Degree
10 3 (2.86%) GSEC
11 2 (1.90%) BPSS Clearance
11 2 (1.90%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (7.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 8 (7.62%) NIST
2 7 (6.67%) SLA
3 5 (4.76%) NCSC
4 4 (3.81%) Cyber Essentials
4 4 (3.81%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 3 (2.86%) QA
6 2 (1.90%) Government Security Classifications
6 2 (1.90%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.95%) COBIT
7 1 (0.95%) GDPR
7 1 (0.95%) GRC
7 1 (0.95%) HMG Security Policy Framework
7 1 (0.95%) NIST 800
7 1 (0.95%) PMO
System Software
1 10 (9.52%) VMware Infrastructure
2 6 (5.71%) VMware ESXi
3 5 (4.76%) Active Directory
4 2 (1.90%) Hyper-V
4 2 (1.90%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 17 (16.19%) Ansible
2 7 (6.67%) Cisco Prime
3 6 (5.71%) vCenter Server
4 4 (3.81%) FortiGate
5 3 (2.86%) SCOM
5 3 (2.86%) Terraform
6 2 (1.90%) Cisco CUCM
6 2 (1.90%) Iperf
6 2 (1.90%) Nmap
7 1 (0.95%) Avamar
7 1 (0.95%) CASB
7 1 (0.95%) Failover Clustering
7 1 (0.95%) Microsoft Intune
7 1 (0.95%) Nessus
7 1 (0.95%) OPNET
7 1 (0.95%) Progress Chef
7 1 (0.95%) QRadar
7 1 (0.95%) SolarWinds Orion
7 1 (0.95%) Suricata
Vendors
1 60 (57.14%) Cisco
2 20 (19.05%) Fortinet
3 19 (18.10%) Microsoft
4 15 (14.29%) Juniper
5 13 (12.38%) Palo Alto
5 13 (12.38%) VMware
6 10 (9.52%) Aruba
7 9 (8.57%) SolarWinds
8 8 (7.62%) F5
8 8 (7.62%) Nokia
9 6 (5.71%) Meraki
10 5 (4.76%) Arista
10 5 (4.76%) CheckPoint
11 4 (3.81%) Splunk
11 4 (3.81%) Zscaler
12 3 (2.86%) BT
12 3 (2.86%) Qualys
12 3 (2.86%) ServiceNow
13 2 (1.90%) HP
13 2 (1.90%) IBM