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

6 months to
7 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 350 211 248
Rank change year-on-year -139 +37 +161
Contract jobs citing BGP 242 388 415
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.65% 1.20% 0.97%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 6.14% 9.41% 7.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 147 233 210
10th Percentile £300 £375 £325
25th Percentile £400 £413 £433
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -13.46% -0.95% +5.00%
75th Percentile £550 £625 £600
90th Percentile £630 £738 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £443 £525 £488
% change year-on-year -15.71% +7.69% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 4 10
10th Percentile £67.45 £22.33 £24.25
25th Percentile £70.01 £28.06 £26.75
Median hourly rate £74.26 £33.75 £37.77
Median % change year-on-year +120.03% -10.64% +43.89%
75th Percentile - £35.75 £69.38
90th Percentile - £37.10 £71.33
UK excluding London median hourly rate £74.26 £19.00 £44.00
% change year-on-year +290.84% -56.82% +87.23%

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 3,939 4,125 5,784
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.64% 12.79% 13.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,578 2,418 3,570
10th Percentile £206 £220 £210
25th Percentile £356 £371 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -1.32%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £680 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £474 £473
% change year-on-year -5.01% +0.26% +3.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 176 138 326
10th Percentile £15.50 £14.86 £18.00
25th Percentile £19.75 £20.81 £23.22
Median hourly rate £36.75 £32.50 £56.49
Median % change year-on-year +13.08% -42.47% +125.96%
75th Percentile £66.31 £53.44 £65.98
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.38 £75.13
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £31.79 £59.50
% change year-on-year +33.69% -46.57% +170.45%

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 January 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
Top 15 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 January 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 -117 215 £455 -11.22% 153
UK excluding London -92 147 £443 -15.71% 152
Work from Home -63 81 £445 -20.89% 59
London -71 73 £485 -5.37% 21
South East -38 63 £450 -18.18% 42
West Midlands -6 40 £400 -20.00% 12
Midlands -19 40 £400 -20.00% 27
North of England -81 32 £550 +8.91% 33
North West -52 28 £550 +2.33% 11
Scotland +4 11 £425 +6.25% 5
South West -21 6 £500 +4.44% 17
East of England -21 4 £700 +154.55% 19
Yorkshire -60 4 £600 +118.18% 18
North East -10 3 £550 - 6
Wales 0 1 £400 -11.11% 8

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 16 (6.61%) OpenStack
2 12 (4.96%) SharePoint
3 4 (1.65%) Confluence
Applications
1 14 (5.79%) MS Visio
2 5 (2.07%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 4 (1.65%) Microsoft Office
4 2 (0.83%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 48 (19.83%) AWS
2 38 (15.70%) Azure
3 12 (4.96%) GCP
4 10 (4.13%) Virtual Private Cloud
5 7 (2.89%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 6 (2.48%) OpenShift
7 5 (2.07%) AWS Direct Connect
8 3 (1.24%) Route 53
9 2 (0.83%) Azure Sentinel
9 2 (0.83%) Cloud Computing
10 1 (0.41%) Amazon EC2
10 1 (0.41%) Amazon ECS
10 1 (0.41%) Amazon EKS
10 1 (0.41%) Amazon GuardDuty
10 1 (0.41%) Amazon S3
10 1 (0.41%) AWS KMS
10 1 (0.41%) Cloud Run
10 1 (0.41%) OCI
10 1 (0.41%) PaaS
10 1 (0.41%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 154 (63.64%) OSPF
2 148 (61.16%) Firewall
3 122 (50.41%) WAN
4 96 (39.67%) VPN
5 91 (37.60%) MPLS
6 78 (32.23%) LAN
7 70 (28.93%) IPsec
8 57 (23.55%) Network Security
9 54 (22.31%) VLAN
10 47 (19.42%) Wireless
11 42 (17.36%) SD-WAN
12 38 (15.70%) EIGRP
13 37 (15.29%) VXLAN
14 35 (14.46%) DNS
15 29 (11.98%) TCP/IP
16 28 (11.57%) Cisco ASA
17 24 (9.92%) Cisco ISE
18 23 (9.50%) Cisco Nexus
18 23 (9.50%) DHCP
18 23 (9.50%) Ethernet VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.41%) Redis
1 1 (0.41%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 14 (5.79%) Git
2 5 (2.07%) GitLab
2 5 (2.07%) Sonatype Nexus
3 2 (0.83%) JIRA
4 1 (0.41%) Bitbucket
4 1 (0.41%) Jenkins
4 1 (0.41%) Robot Framework
General
1 70 (28.93%) Social Skills
2 34 (14.05%) Documentation Skills
3 33 (13.64%) Public Sector
4 28 (11.57%) Analytical Skills
5 16 (6.61%) Finance
5 16 (6.61%) Telecoms
6 12 (4.96%) Manufacturing
7 11 (4.55%) Banking
8 10 (4.13%) Investment Banking
9 5 (2.07%) Military
10 4 (1.65%) Financial Institution
10 4 (1.65%) Legal
10 4 (1.65%) Retail
11 3 (1.24%) Electronics
11 3 (1.24%) Influencing Skills
11 3 (1.24%) Marketing
12 2 (0.83%) Advertising
12 2 (0.83%) Pharmaceutical
12 2 (0.83%) Presentation Skills
13 1 (0.41%) Police
Job Titles
1 137 (56.61%) Network Engineer
2 35 (14.46%) Architect
3 32 (13.22%) Cisco Engineer
4 28 (11.57%) Cisco Network Engineer
5 27 (11.16%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
6 20 (8.26%) Senior
7 18 (7.44%) Network Architect
8 16 (6.61%) Support Engineer
9 14 (5.79%) Senior Network Engineer
10 13 (5.37%) Network Security Engineer
10 13 (5.37%) Security Engineer
10 13 (5.37%) WAN Engineer
11 12 (4.96%) 3rd Line Engineer
11 12 (4.96%) 3rd Line Support
11 12 (4.96%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
12 11 (4.55%) Solutions Architect
13 10 (4.13%) 2nd Line Engineer
13 10 (4.13%) Juniper Engineer
14 9 (3.72%) Consultant
15 8 (3.31%) Design Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (4.96%) 802.1X
2 11 (4.55%) YANG
3 10 (4.13%) NETCONF
4 8 (3.31%) REST
5 5 (2.07%) Jinja
6 4 (1.65%) JSON
6 4 (1.65%) VML
7 3 (1.24%) OpenConfig
7 3 (1.24%) SAML
8 2 (0.83%) RESTCONF
8 2 (0.83%) XML
9 1 (0.41%) CrewAI
9 1 (0.41%) CSS
9 1 (0.41%) Elastic Stack
9 1 (0.41%) gRPC
9 1 (0.41%) HTML
9 1 (0.41%) JFC
9 1 (0.41%) LangChain
9 1 (0.41%) RabbitMQ
9 1 (0.41%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 78 (32.23%) Data Centre
2 35 (14.46%) PKI
3 18 (7.44%) Hybrid Cloud
4 8 (3.31%) Product Ownership
5 7 (2.89%) Cloud Native
5 7 (2.89%) Self-Motivation
6 5 (2.07%) Analytical Mindset
6 5 (2.07%) Data Protection Act
6 5 (2.07%) Operational Technology
7 4 (1.65%) Onboarding
8 3 (1.24%) Distributed Architecture
8 3 (1.24%) Legacy Systems
8 3 (1.24%) NHS
9 2 (0.83%) Distributed Systems
9 2 (0.83%) Linux Command Line
9 2 (0.83%) Public Cloud
10 1 (0.41%) EMC VMAX
10 1 (0.41%) Enterprise Storage
10 1 (0.41%) Fat Client
10 1 (0.41%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 14 (5.79%) Linux
2 12 (4.96%) Windows
3 8 (3.31%) Windows Server
4 6 (2.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.41%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 42 (17.36%) Network Design
2 40 (16.53%) Load Balancing
3 37 (15.29%) Problem-Solving
4 25 (10.33%) Migration
5 22 (9.09%) High Availability
6 21 (8.68%) Network Monitoring
7 20 (8.26%) Network Segmentation
7 20 (8.26%) Project Delivery
8 19 (7.85%) Cybersecurity
8 19 (7.85%) DevOps
8 19 (7.85%) Network Virtualisation
8 19 (7.85%) Roadmaps
8 19 (7.85%) Zero Trust
9 18 (7.44%) Network Architecture
10 17 (7.02%) Performance Tuning
10 17 (7.02%) Strategic Thinking
11 16 (6.61%) Knowledge Transfer
11 16 (6.61%) Stakeholder Management
12 15 (6.20%) TOGAF
13 14 (5.79%) Incident Response
Programming Languages
1 70 (28.93%) Python
2 19 (7.85%) Bash
3 15 (6.20%) Perl
4 10 (4.13%) PowerShell
5 8 (3.31%) Lisp
6 5 (2.07%) C++
7 1 (0.41%) Go
7 1 (0.41%) JavaScript
7 1 (0.41%) Shell Script
7 1 (0.41%) SQL
Qualifications
1 120 (49.59%) Cisco Certification
2 106 (43.80%) Security Cleared
3 101 (41.74%) CCNP
4 87 (35.95%) SC Cleared
5 42 (17.36%) CCIE
6 22 (9.09%) JNCIE
7 20 (8.26%) CCNA
8 19 (7.85%) Degree
9 16 (6.61%) DV Cleared
10 14 (5.79%) JNCIS
11 11 (4.55%) AWS Certification
12 10 (4.13%) JNCIP
13 9 (3.72%) CCDP
13 9 (3.72%) JNCIA
14 8 (3.31%) CISSP
15 5 (2.07%) CCSE
16 4 (1.65%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 4 (1.65%) Azure Certification
16 4 (1.65%) CCIE Security
16 4 (1.65%) CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (3.31%) NIST
1 8 (3.31%) SLA
2 7 (2.89%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 6 (2.48%) GDPR
3 6 (2.48%) PCI DSS
4 2 (0.83%) NCSC
5 1 (0.41%) JSP 440
5 1 (0.41%) NIST 800
5 1 (0.41%) RMADS
5 1 (0.41%) SOC 2
System Software
1 18 (7.44%) VMware Infrastructure
2 16 (6.61%) VMware NSX
3 9 (3.72%) Docker
4 7 (2.89%) Active Directory
5 6 (2.48%) Firmware
6 3 (1.24%) KVM
7 2 (0.83%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.41%) Squid
Systems Management
1 57 (23.55%) Ansible
2 34 (14.05%) FortiGate
3 28 (11.57%) Terraform
4 7 (2.89%) Kubernetes
5 3 (1.24%) Iperf
5 3 (1.24%) Nagios
5 3 (1.24%) Nmap
5 3 (1.24%) Single Sign-On
6 2 (0.83%) Grafana
6 2 (0.83%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.41%) CASB
7 1 (0.41%) Cisco CUCM
7 1 (0.41%) Failover Clustering
7 1 (0.41%) vRealize
7 1 (0.41%) VxRail
Vendors
1 165 (68.18%) Cisco
2 73 (30.17%) Palo Alto
3 72 (29.75%) Juniper
4 51 (21.07%) Fortinet
5 47 (19.42%) F5
6 35 (14.46%) CheckPoint
7 29 (11.98%) Meraki
8 26 (10.74%) Aruba
9 20 (8.26%) VMware
10 18 (7.44%) SolarWinds
11 16 (6.61%) Arista
12 14 (5.79%) Zscaler
13 12 (4.96%) Remedy
13 12 (4.96%) ServiceNow
14 10 (4.13%) Nokia
15 8 (3.31%) Ekahau
15 8 (3.31%) Microsoft
16 6 (2.48%) Red Hat
17 5 (2.07%) Dell
17 5 (2.07%) Splunk