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 19 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 296 270 260
Rank change year-on-year -26 -10 +13
Contract jobs citing BGP 445 315 363
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.83% 0.96% 0.93%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 8.78% 8.14% 7.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 263 199 231
10th Percentile £380 £325 £300
25th Percentile £418 £410 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% - -5.00%
75th Percentile £588 £603 £538
90th Percentile £688 £666 £581
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +5.26% - -2.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 4 2
10th Percentile £51.21 £37.38 £23.15
25th Percentile £55.66 £39.06 £30.13
Median hourly rate £65.38 £48.75 £42.00
Median % change year-on-year +34.10% +16.07% -32.26%
75th Percentile £78.45 £60.88 £53.63
90th Percentile £86.90 £64.70 £60.45
UK excluding London median hourly rate £58.25 £66.50 £19.00
% change year-on-year -12.41% +250.00% -68.33%

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 5,069 3,868 4,764
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.46% 11.79% 12.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,999 2,346 2,887
10th Percentile £250 £243 £221
25th Percentile £400 £374 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £485 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.09% -3.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £608
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £489 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +2.84% -5.00% +9.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 366 203 315
10th Percentile £15.18 £14.99 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.33 £25.15 £20.00
Median hourly rate £26.00 £47.50 £49.00
Median % change year-on-year -45.26% -3.06% -10.91%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £81.95 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.07 £45.00 £54.88
% change year-on-year -42.07% -18.00% -2.86%

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 19 August 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 19 August 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 19 August 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 -23 410 £510 +2.00% 166
UK excluding London -11 262 £500 +5.26% 70
London -68 130 £505 +6.32% 114
North of England -7 111 £500 +5.26% 8
Work from Home -43 110 £500 - 48
South East -24 86 £525 +16.67% 21
North West -5 81 £500 +5.26% 3
Midlands -26 49 £425 +6.25% 12
West Midlands -42 46 £440 +10.06% 9
South West -39 33 £525 -16.67% 6
Yorkshire -23 23 £495 -1.00% 5
North East -26 13 £650 +160.00%
Scotland -14 9 £375 -11.76% 8
East of England -28 6 £500 -28.57% 12
East Midlands -15 2 - - 3
Wales -18 2 £425 -6.59%

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 12 (2.70%) OpenStack
2 7 (1.57%) SAS
3 3 (0.67%) Microsoft Exchange
4 2 (0.45%) Confluence
5 1 (0.22%) SharePoint
Applications
1 11 (2.47%) MS Visio
2 8 (1.80%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (1.35%) Microsoft Excel
3 6 (1.35%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.67%) AutoCAD
Cloud Services
1 112 (25.17%) Azure
2 86 (19.33%) AWS
3 26 (5.84%) GCP
4 23 (5.17%) OCI
5 21 (4.72%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 17 (3.82%) GitHub
7 13 (2.92%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 12 (2.70%) SaaS
9 10 (2.25%) AWS Direct Connect
10 8 (1.80%) Microsoft 365
11 7 (1.57%) Azure Monitor
11 7 (1.57%) Azure Sentinel
11 7 (1.57%) OpenShift
12 6 (1.35%) Nutanix
13 3 (0.67%) Azure DevOps
14 2 (0.45%) Amazon EKS
14 2 (0.45%) Amazon GuardDuty
14 2 (0.45%) AWS CloudFormation
14 2 (0.45%) Entra ID
14 2 (0.45%) Route 53
Communications & Networking
1 271 (60.90%) OSPF
2 256 (57.53%) Firewall
3 226 (50.79%) WAN
4 137 (30.79%) VPN
5 135 (30.34%) LAN
6 117 (26.29%) VLAN
6 117 (26.29%) VXLAN
7 105 (23.60%) MPLS
8 95 (21.35%) DNS
8 95 (21.35%) Network Security
9 89 (20.00%) SD-WAN
10 83 (18.65%) Ethernet VPN
11 73 (16.40%) TCP/IP
12 69 (15.51%) Wireless
13 66 (14.83%) Multicast
14 65 (14.61%) IPsec
15 61 (13.71%) Wi-Fi
16 57 (12.81%) Cisco ASA
17 56 (12.58%) Cisco Nexus
18 54 (12.13%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
Development Applications
1 29 (6.52%) GitLab
2 21 (4.72%) Git
3 7 (1.57%) JIRA
3 7 (1.57%) Sonatype Nexus
4 4 (0.90%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.22%) Bitbucket
General
1 72 (16.18%) Social Skills
2 48 (10.79%) Analytical Skills
3 43 (9.66%) Finance
4 29 (6.52%) Public Sector
5 28 (6.29%) Banking
5 28 (6.29%) Telecoms
6 18 (4.04%) Investment Banking
7 12 (2.70%) Documentation Skills
8 10 (2.25%) Financial Institution
9 8 (1.80%) Legal
9 8 (1.80%) Police
9 8 (1.80%) Retail
10 6 (1.35%) Military
11 4 (0.90%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 3 (0.67%) German Language
12 3 (0.67%) Influencing Skills
12 3 (0.67%) Italian Language
12 3 (0.67%) Spanish Language
13 2 (0.45%) Organisational Skills
13 2 (0.45%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 270 (60.67%) Network Engineer
2 94 (21.12%) Senior
3 63 (14.16%) Senior Network Engineer
4 61 (13.71%) Cisco Engineer
5 58 (13.03%) Cisco Network Engineer
6 47 (10.56%) Architect
7 42 (9.44%) Data Network Engineer
8 41 (9.21%) Network Security Engineer
8 41 (9.21%) Security Engineer
9 32 (7.19%) Network Architect
10 31 (6.97%) Cisco Security Engineer
11 30 (6.74%) Data Engineer
12 22 (4.94%) Consultant
12 22 (4.94%) Network Specialist
13 20 (4.49%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 18 (4.04%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
15 17 (3.82%) Developer
16 15 (3.37%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
16 15 (3.37%) Web Engineer
17 14 (3.15%) Network Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 28 (6.29%) 802.1X
2 20 (4.49%) REST
3 12 (2.70%) NETCONF
3 12 (2.70%) YANG
4 8 (1.80%) JSON
4 8 (1.80%) YAML
5 7 (1.57%) OpenConfig
6 6 (1.35%) RESTCONF
7 4 (0.90%) CSS
7 4 (0.90%) Jinja
8 3 (0.67%) eBPF
9 2 (0.45%) SAML
10 1 (0.22%) LDAP
10 1 (0.22%) Model Context Protocol
10 1 (0.22%) Spine.js
Miscellaneous
1 180 (40.45%) Data Centre
2 52 (11.69%) Hybrid Cloud
3 27 (6.07%) Cloud Native
4 25 (5.62%) PKI
5 13 (2.92%) Clustering
6 11 (2.47%) Private Cloud
7 10 (2.25%) Analytical Mindset
7 10 (2.25%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
7 10 (2.25%) Self-Motivation
8 8 (1.80%) Operational Technology
8 8 (1.80%) Public Cloud
9 5 (1.12%) Data Protection Act
9 5 (1.12%) Digital Signage
9 5 (1.12%) Linux Command Line
9 5 (1.12%) Onboarding
9 5 (1.12%) Security Posture
10 4 (0.90%) CMDB
10 4 (0.90%) Distributed Systems
11 3 (0.67%) Driving Licence
11 3 (0.67%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 34 (7.64%) Windows
2 20 (4.49%) Linux
3 5 (1.12%) Windows Server
4 3 (0.67%) Unix
4 3 (0.67%) Windows Server 2012
5 2 (0.45%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.22%) VMS
6 1 (0.22%) Windows Server 2016
6 1 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 101 (22.70%) Load Balancing
2 75 (16.85%) High Availability
3 73 (16.40%) Infrastructure as Code
4 72 (16.18%) Network Design
5 69 (15.51%) Migration
6 66 (14.83%) Zero Trust
7 52 (11.69%) Problem-Solving
8 48 (10.79%) ITIL
9 46 (10.34%) CI/CD
10 45 (10.11%) Project Delivery
11 42 (9.44%) Network Architecture
11 42 (9.44%) Validation
12 34 (7.64%) DevOps
13 33 (7.42%) Network Segmentation
14 32 (7.19%) Infrastructure Engineering
15 29 (6.52%) Continuous Improvement
16 28 (6.29%) Change Management
16 28 (6.29%) Mentoring
16 28 (6.29%) Observability
17 27 (6.07%) Network Monitoring
Programming Languages
1 125 (28.09%) Python
2 11 (2.47%) Bash
3 6 (1.35%) PowerShell
3 6 (1.35%) SQL
4 3 (0.67%) Shell Script
5 2 (0.45%) Perl
6 1 (0.22%) Go
Qualifications
1 136 (30.56%) Security Cleared
2 134 (30.11%) Cisco Certification
3 97 (21.80%) CCNP
4 79 (17.75%) SC Cleared
5 50 (11.24%) CCIE
6 48 (10.79%) DV Cleared
7 22 (4.94%) CCNA
8 20 (4.49%) Degree
9 14 (3.15%) JNCIE
10 8 (1.80%) Azure Certification
10 8 (1.80%) Computer Science Degree
11 6 (1.35%) AWS Certification
12 4 (0.90%) CISSP
12 4 (0.90%) JNCIA
12 4 (0.90%) JNCIP
12 4 (0.90%) JNCIS
12 4 (0.90%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 3 (0.67%) CCIE Security
13 3 (0.67%) PMP
13 3 (0.67%) VCDX
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (1.12%) NCSC
1 5 (1.12%) NIST
2 3 (0.67%) GDPR
2 3 (0.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 3 (0.67%) QA
2 3 (0.67%) SLA
3 2 (0.45%) NIST 800
3 2 (0.45%) PCI DSS
4 1 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials
System Software
1 31 (6.97%) VMware Infrastructure
2 15 (3.37%) VMware NSX
3 8 (1.80%) Firmware
4 7 (1.57%) Active Directory
4 7 (1.57%) Docker
4 7 (1.57%) Hyper-V
5 4 (0.90%) vSphere
6 3 (0.67%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (0.45%) Virtual Servers
8 1 (0.22%) KVM
8 1 (0.22%) ProxySG
8 1 (0.22%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 122 (27.42%) Ansible
2 74 (16.63%) Terraform
3 50 (11.24%) FortiGate
4 21 (4.72%) Kubernetes
5 15 (3.37%) Grafana
6 14 (3.15%) Prometheus
7 8 (1.80%) Cisco Prime
8 5 (1.12%) Cilium
8 5 (1.12%) Nagios
9 3 (0.67%) Istio
10 2 (0.45%) Single Sign-On
11 1 (0.22%) CASB
11 1 (0.22%) Microsoft Intune
11 1 (0.22%) OPNET
11 1 (0.22%) Progress Chef
11 1 (0.22%) Puppet
11 1 (0.22%) QRadar
11 1 (0.22%) Rancher
11 1 (0.22%) Suricata
11 1 (0.22%) VxRail
Vendors
1 311 (69.89%) Cisco
2 153 (34.38%) F5
3 132 (29.66%) Palo Alto
4 101 (22.70%) Fortinet
5 79 (17.75%) Arista
6 70 (15.73%) Juniper
7 45 (10.11%) CheckPoint
8 43 (9.66%) VMware
9 42 (9.44%) Aruba
10 35 (7.87%) SolarWinds
11 31 (6.97%) Microsoft
12 20 (4.49%) Splunk
13 19 (4.27%) Meraki
13 19 (4.27%) Zscaler
14 16 (3.60%) ServiceNow
15 14 (3.15%) Extreme Networks
16 12 (2.70%) Google
17 9 (2.02%) Red Hat
18 8 (1.80%) Citrix
19 7 (1.57%) Ekahau