BGP Contract Job Trends

Border Gateway Protocol (BGP)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring BGP skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 7 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 294 217 243
Rank change year-on-year -77 +26 +102
Contract jobs citing BGP 381 342 421
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.80% 1.17% 0.97%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 8.31% 9.14% 7.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 213 209 258
10th Percentile £318 £325 £313
25th Percentile £400 £419 £366
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -7.50% +5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £550 £600 £551
90th Percentile £625 £750 £613
UK excluding London median daily rate £470 £483 £450
% change year-on-year -2.69% +7.22% -7.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 3 8
10th Percentile £47.22 £22.05 £21.83
25th Percentile £56.01 £27.38 £24.00
Median hourly rate £71.33 £37.50 £39.75
Median % change year-on-year +90.21% -5.66% -46.10%
75th Percentile £73.13 £39.38 £68.13
90th Percentile £73.81 £39.75 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £71.33 £19.00 £43.75
% change year-on-year +275.42% -56.57% -29.44%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
UK

BGP 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.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 4,583 3,743 5,560
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.61% 12.78% 12.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,847 2,305 3,330
10th Percentile £250 £213 £205
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.54% -2.50% -3.85%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £601
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £463 £475
% change year-on-year +2.70% -2.63% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 233 174 423
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.50
25th Percentile £21.25 £18.22 £16.93
Median hourly rate £40.54 £36.57 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +10.85% -8.57% +111.92%
75th Percentile £66.00 £58.39 £63.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £48.72 £24.71 £45.88
% change year-on-year +97.17% -46.14% +148.00%

BGP
Job Vacancy Trend

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

BGP job vacancy trend in the UK

BGP
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing BGP.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing BGP

BGP
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing BGP over the 6 months to 7 May 2026.

Daily rate histogram for BGP in the UK

BGP
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing BGP.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing BGP

BGP
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing BGP over the 6 months to 7 May 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for BGP in the UK

BGP
Top 16 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing BGP within the UK over the 6 months to 7 May 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
England -62 335 £473 -5.50% 94
UK excluding London -44 219 £470 -2.69% 77
Work from Home -29 118 £445 -13.17% 47
South East +20 106 £450 -5.26% 30
London -82 105 £463 -7.50% 28
North of England -47 64 £568 +13.50% 22
North West -33 55 £568 +8.10% 10
Midlands -47 50 £413 +37.50% 10
West Midlands -32 47 £413 +43.48% 9
South West -39 20 £525 - 7
Scotland -3 6 £450 +9.09% 5
North East -11 6 - - 6
Yorkshire -48 5 £538 +53.57% 6
Wales -19 4 £425 -5.56%
East of England -32 4 £500 +17.65% 4
East Midlands -33 2 - - 1

BGP
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 (1.31%) SharePoint
2 4 (1.05%) Confluence
2 4 (1.05%) OpenStack
Applications
1 11 (2.89%) MS Visio
2 8 (2.10%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 6 (1.57%) Microsoft Office
4 5 (1.31%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 67 (17.59%) AWS
1 67 (17.59%) Azure
2 20 (5.25%) GCP
3 15 (3.94%) Virtual Private Cloud
4 12 (3.15%) OCI
5 11 (2.89%) SaaS
6 8 (2.10%) Route 53
7 7 (1.84%) AWS Direct Connect
7 7 (1.84%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 5 (1.31%) Amazon EKS
8 5 (1.31%) Amazon GuardDuty
9 4 (1.05%) Azure Sentinel
9 4 (1.05%) GitHub
9 4 (1.05%) Nutanix
10 3 (0.79%) Amazon S3
10 3 (0.79%) Catchpoint
10 3 (0.79%) IaaS
10 3 (0.79%) PaaS
11 2 (0.52%) AWS Control Tower
11 2 (0.52%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 269 (70.60%) OSPF
2 227 (59.58%) Firewall
3 213 (55.91%) WAN
4 149 (39.11%) LAN
5 117 (30.71%) VPN
6 101 (26.51%) Network Security
7 99 (25.98%) VXLAN
8 92 (24.15%) MPLS
9 82 (21.52%) VLAN
10 81 (21.26%) DNS
11 76 (19.95%) Ethernet VPN
12 68 (17.85%) Multicast
13 67 (17.59%) SD-WAN
14 56 (14.70%) IPsec
15 53 (13.91%) BIG-IP
16 52 (13.65%) TCP/IP
17 44 (11.55%) Wireless
18 43 (11.29%) Cisco ISE
18 43 (11.29%) Cisco Nexus
19 42 (11.02%) Cisco ASA
Development Applications
1 13 (3.41%) GitLab
2 11 (2.89%) Git
3 9 (2.36%) Sonatype Nexus
4 4 (1.05%) JIRA
5 3 (0.79%) Jenkins
6 1 (0.26%) AppScan
6 1 (0.26%) Burp Suite
6 1 (0.26%) Metasploit
General
1 57 (14.96%) Social Skills
2 38 (9.97%) Finance
3 37 (9.71%) Documentation Skills
4 35 (9.19%) Public Sector
5 30 (7.87%) Analytical Skills
6 28 (7.35%) Banking
7 22 (5.77%) Telecoms
8 20 (5.25%) Investment Banking
9 14 (3.67%) Financial Institution
9 14 (3.67%) Manufacturing
10 13 (3.41%) Military
11 6 (1.57%) Retail
12 5 (1.31%) Marketing
13 4 (1.05%) Legal
14 3 (0.79%) French Language
14 3 (0.79%) Police
15 2 (0.52%) Aviation
15 2 (0.52%) Electronics
15 2 (0.52%) Presentation Skills
16 1 (0.26%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 234 (61.42%) Network Engineer
2 64 (16.80%) Senior
3 61 (16.01%) Cisco Engineer
4 58 (15.22%) Cisco Network Engineer
5 47 (12.34%) Security Engineer
6 42 (11.02%) Data Network Engineer
6 42 (11.02%) Network Security Engineer
7 41 (10.76%) Senior Network Engineer
8 39 (10.24%) Architect
9 33 (8.66%) Cisco Security Engineer
10 32 (8.40%) Data Engineer
11 30 (7.87%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
12 26 (6.82%) Network Architect
13 24 (6.30%) Network Specialist
14 17 (4.46%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 15 (3.94%) Web Engineer
16 14 (3.67%) Firewall Specialist
16 14 (3.67%) Juniper Engineer
17 12 (3.15%) Operations Engineer
18 11 (2.89%) Data Centre Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 41 (10.76%) 802.1X
2 10 (2.62%) REST
3 9 (2.36%) NETCONF
3 9 (2.36%) YANG
4 7 (1.84%) LDAP
5 4 (1.05%) Jinja
5 4 (1.05%) OpenConfig
5 4 (1.05%) RESTCONF
5 4 (1.05%) VML
6 2 (0.52%) AWS CDK
6 2 (0.52%) CSS
6 2 (0.52%) HTML
6 2 (0.52%) RFC 2544
7 1 (0.26%) eBPF
7 1 (0.26%) JSON
7 1 (0.26%) SAML
7 1 (0.26%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 168 (44.09%) Data Centre
2 40 (10.50%) PKI
3 25 (6.56%) Clustering
3 25 (6.56%) Hybrid Cloud
4 12 (3.15%) Cloud Native
5 8 (2.10%) Onboarding
6 6 (1.57%) Data Protection Act
7 5 (1.31%) Analytical Mindset
7 5 (1.31%) Self-Motivation
8 4 (1.05%) Distributed Systems
8 4 (1.05%) NHS
8 4 (1.05%) Operational Technology
8 4 (1.05%) Public Cloud
8 4 (1.05%) Virtual Team
9 3 (0.79%) CESG
9 3 (0.79%) Greenfield Project
9 3 (0.79%) Linux Command Line
9 3 (0.79%) Management Information System
9 3 (0.79%) SCADA
9 3 (0.79%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 39 (10.24%) Windows
2 18 (4.72%) Linux
3 6 (1.57%) Ubuntu
4 3 (0.79%) Windows Server
5 2 (0.52%) Unix
6 1 (0.26%) Kali Linux
6 1 (0.26%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.26%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 95 (24.93%) Load Balancing
2 65 (17.06%) High Availability
3 50 (13.12%) Problem-Solving
4 49 (12.86%) Network Design
5 44 (11.55%) Migration
6 40 (10.50%) Infrastructure as Code
7 36 (9.45%) Zero Trust
8 32 (8.40%) Change Management
8 32 (8.40%) Observability
9 31 (8.14%) ITIL
10 27 (7.09%) Network Monitoring
11 26 (6.82%) Identity Access Management
11 26 (6.82%) Network Architecture
11 26 (6.82%) Network Segmentation
11 26 (6.82%) Project Delivery
12 25 (6.56%) CI/CD
12 25 (6.56%) DevOps
12 25 (6.56%) Technical Leadership
13 23 (6.04%) Root Cause Analysis
14 22 (5.77%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 83 (21.78%) Python
2 5 (1.31%) Bash
3 4 (1.05%) PHP
4 2 (0.52%) JavaScript
4 2 (0.52%) Lisp
4 2 (0.52%) PowerShell
4 2 (0.52%) SQL
5 1 (0.26%) Perl
Qualifications
1 157 (41.21%) Cisco Certification
2 146 (38.32%) Security Cleared
3 116 (30.45%) CCNP
4 109 (28.61%) SC Cleared
5 51 (13.39%) CCIE
6 41 (10.76%) DV Cleared
7 27 (7.09%) CCNA
7 27 (7.09%) Degree
8 18 (4.72%) JNCIS
9 17 (4.46%) JNCIP
10 14 (3.67%) JNCIE
11 13 (3.41%) JNCIA
12 9 (2.36%) Computer Science Degree
13 7 (1.84%) AWS Certification
13 7 (1.84%) Azure Certification
13 7 (1.84%) GIAC
14 6 (1.57%) CISSP
15 5 (1.31%) CompTIA Security+
15 5 (1.31%) Network+ Certification
16 4 (1.05%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (2.62%) NCSC
2 9 (2.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 9 (2.36%) NIST
2 9 (2.36%) SLA
3 4 (1.05%) Cyber Essentials
3 4 (1.05%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
4 3 (0.79%) RMADS
5 2 (0.52%) JSP 440
5 2 (0.52%) PCI DSS
6 1 (0.26%) Actionable Recommendations
6 1 (0.26%) COBIT
6 1 (0.26%) GDPR
6 1 (0.26%) GRC
6 1 (0.26%) HMG Security Policy Framework
6 1 (0.26%) NIST 800
6 1 (0.26%) QA
System Software
1 26 (6.82%) VMware Infrastructure
2 11 (2.89%) VMware NSX
3 8 (2.10%) VMware ESXi
4 6 (1.57%) Active Directory
5 3 (0.79%) vSphere
6 2 (0.52%) Docker
6 2 (0.52%) Firmware
6 2 (0.52%) Hyper-V
6 2 (0.52%) vCloud
6 2 (0.52%) Virtual Servers
7 1 (0.26%) KVM
7 1 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 86 (22.57%) Ansible
2 50 (13.12%) FortiGate
3 44 (11.55%) Terraform
4 16 (4.20%) Grafana
5 13 (3.41%) Prometheus
6 6 (1.57%) vCenter Server
7 5 (1.31%) Kubernetes
7 5 (1.31%) Nagios
8 3 (0.79%) SCOM
9 2 (0.52%) CASB
9 2 (0.52%) Cisco Prime
9 2 (0.52%) Iperf
9 2 (0.52%) Nmap
10 1 (0.26%) Cilium
10 1 (0.26%) Failover Clustering
10 1 (0.26%) Nessus
10 1 (0.26%) QRadar
10 1 (0.26%) Single Sign-On
10 1 (0.26%) vRealize
10 1 (0.26%) VxRail
Vendors
1 281 (73.75%) Cisco
2 137 (35.96%) F5
3 110 (28.87%) Palo Alto
4 90 (23.62%) Juniper
5 64 (16.80%) Fortinet
6 54 (14.17%) Arista
7 53 (13.91%) CheckPoint
8 48 (12.60%) Aruba
9 33 (8.66%) SolarWinds
10 32 (8.40%) VMware
11 28 (7.35%) Splunk
12 26 (6.82%) Extreme Networks
13 21 (5.51%) Meraki
14 18 (4.72%) Zscaler
15 10 (2.62%) Nokia
16 9 (2.36%) Microsoft
17 8 (2.10%) Ekahau
17 8 (2.10%) ServiceNow
18 5 (1.31%) Netskope
18 5 (1.31%) NVIDIA