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

6 months to
4 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 307 278 270
Rank change year-on-year -29 -8 +5
Contract jobs citing BGP 436 294 341
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.81% 0.91% 0.90%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 8.63% 7.78% 7.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 261 191 204
10th Percentile £375 £304 £333
25th Percentile £425 £407 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £488
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -2.56% -2.50%
75th Percentile £588 £606 £550
90th Percentile £688 £664 £649
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% +2.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 4 2
10th Percentile £48.55 £37.38 £23.15
25th Percentile £49.00 £39.06 £30.13
Median hourly rate £58.25 £48.75 £42.00
Median % change year-on-year +19.49% +16.07% -30.00%
75th Percentile £73.75 £60.88 £53.63
90th Percentile £85.02 £64.70 £60.45
UK excluding London median hourly rate £58.25 £66.50 £19.00
% change year-on-year -12.41% +250.00% -68.85%

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 5,054 3,781 4,531
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.42% 11.70% 11.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,983 2,320 2,685
10th Percentile £235 £237 £231
25th Percentile £398 £363 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £480 £500
Median % change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £608
90th Percentile £675 £680 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £467 £500
% change year-on-year +2.73% -6.55% +10.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 376 199 279
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.10 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.33 £25.15 £21.31
Median hourly rate £26.00 £43.50 £50.50
Median % change year-on-year -40.23% -13.86% -9.67%
75th Percentile £65.88 £63.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.75 £73.40 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.84 £42.50 £57.35
% change year-on-year -39.20% -25.89% +1.52%

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 4 September 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 4 September 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 4 September 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 -14 401 £510 +7.37% 235
UK excluding London -14 246 £500 +5.26% 87
London -73 134 £500 +5.26% 164
Work from Home -32 112 £500 - 68
North of England +2 106 £500 +5.26% 15
North West +7 77 £488 +2.63% 7
South East -32 76 £525 +5.00% 28
Midlands -42 44 £468 +17.00% 11
West Midlands -42 41 £571 +42.69% 8
South West -39 33 £525 -16.83% 7
Yorkshire -21 22 £495 +23.75% 7
North East -25 13 £650 +160.00% 1
Scotland -23 9 £375 -11.76% 8
East of England -19 7 £475 -32.14% 15
East Midlands -20 2 - - 3
Wales -15 1 £425 -2.86% 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 12 (2.75%) OpenStack
2 8 (1.83%) SAS
3 4 (0.92%) Microsoft Exchange
4 2 (0.46%) Confluence
5 1 (0.23%) SharePoint
Applications
1 9 (2.06%) MS Visio
2 6 (1.38%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (0.92%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (0.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.69%) AutoCAD
Cloud Services
1 109 (25.00%) Azure
2 83 (19.04%) AWS
3 23 (5.28%) OCI
4 22 (5.05%) GCP
5 21 (4.82%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 17 (3.90%) GitHub
7 13 (2.98%) SaaS
8 10 (2.29%) AWS Direct Connect
8 10 (2.29%) Microsoft 365
9 7 (1.61%) Azure Monitor
9 7 (1.61%) Azure Sentinel
9 7 (1.61%) OpenShift
9 7 (1.61%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 5 (1.15%) Nutanix
11 3 (0.69%) Entra ID
12 2 (0.46%) Amazon GuardDuty
12 2 (0.46%) AWS CloudFormation
12 2 (0.46%) Azure DevOps
13 1 (0.23%) Amazon EKS
13 1 (0.23%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 250 (57.34%) OSPF
2 244 (55.96%) Firewall
3 209 (47.94%) WAN
4 130 (29.82%) VPN
5 123 (28.21%) VLAN
6 120 (27.52%) LAN
7 107 (24.54%) VXLAN
8 100 (22.94%) MPLS
9 96 (22.02%) Network Security
10 87 (19.95%) DNS
11 86 (19.72%) SD-WAN
12 76 (17.43%) Ethernet VPN
13 71 (16.28%) Wireless
14 66 (15.14%) IPsec
15 65 (14.91%) TCP/IP
16 63 (14.45%) Wi-Fi
17 61 (13.99%) Multicast
18 53 (12.16%) Cisco Nexus
18 53 (12.16%) EIGRP
18 53 (12.16%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
Development Applications
1 28 (6.42%) GitLab
2 17 (3.90%) Git
3 7 (1.61%) Sonatype Nexus
4 6 (1.38%) JIRA
5 2 (0.46%) Jenkins
6 1 (0.23%) Bitbucket
General
1 75 (17.20%) Social Skills
2 46 (10.55%) Analytical Skills
3 43 (9.86%) Finance
4 30 (6.88%) Public Sector
4 30 (6.88%) Telecoms
5 28 (6.42%) Banking
6 18 (4.13%) Investment Banking
7 16 (3.67%) Documentation Skills
8 8 (1.83%) Legal
8 8 (1.83%) Police
8 8 (1.83%) Retail
9 6 (1.38%) Military
10 4 (0.92%) Financial Institution
10 4 (0.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 3 (0.69%) German Language
11 3 (0.69%) Influencing Skills
11 3 (0.69%) Italian Language
11 3 (0.69%) Spanish Language
12 2 (0.46%) Law
12 2 (0.46%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 259 (59.40%) Network Engineer
2 98 (22.48%) Senior
3 64 (14.68%) Senior Network Engineer
4 60 (13.76%) Cisco Engineer
5 57 (13.07%) Cisco Network Engineer
6 46 (10.55%) Architect
7 38 (8.72%) Network Security Engineer
7 38 (8.72%) Security Engineer
8 37 (8.49%) Data Network Engineer
9 35 (8.03%) Network Architect
10 33 (7.57%) Consultant
11 28 (6.42%) Cisco Security Engineer
12 27 (6.19%) Data Engineer
13 23 (5.28%) Network Consultant
14 20 (4.59%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 19 (4.36%) Network Specialist
16 18 (4.13%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
17 17 (3.90%) Developer
18 13 (2.98%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
18 13 (2.98%) Web Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 70 (16.06%) Terraform
2 22 (5.05%) REST
3 21 (4.82%) 802.1X
4 12 (2.75%) NETCONF
5 10 (2.29%) YAML
5 10 (2.29%) YANG
6 8 (1.83%) JSON
7 6 (1.38%) RESTCONF
8 5 (1.15%) OpenConfig
9 4 (0.92%) CSS
10 3 (0.69%) eBPF
10 3 (0.69%) SAML
11 2 (0.46%) gRPC
11 2 (0.46%) Spine.js
12 1 (0.23%) Django
12 1 (0.23%) LDAP
12 1 (0.23%) Model Context Protocol
Miscellaneous
1 176 (40.37%) Data Centre
2 49 (11.24%) Hybrid Cloud
3 28 (6.42%) Cloud Native
4 17 (3.90%) PKI
5 11 (2.52%) Private Cloud
6 10 (2.29%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
7 8 (1.83%) Analytical Mindset
7 8 (1.83%) Operational Technology
7 8 (1.83%) Public Cloud
7 8 (1.83%) Self-Motivation
8 7 (1.61%) Clustering
8 7 (1.61%) Digital Signage
8 7 (1.61%) Onboarding
9 6 (1.38%) Security Posture
10 5 (1.15%) Linux Command Line
11 4 (0.92%) CMDB
11 4 (0.92%) Distributed Systems
12 3 (0.69%) Data Protection Act
12 3 (0.69%) Distributed Applications
12 3 (0.69%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 29 (6.65%) Windows
2 21 (4.82%) Linux
3 4 (0.92%) Windows Server
4 3 (0.69%) Unix
4 3 (0.69%) Windows Server 2012
5 2 (0.46%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.23%) Mac OS
6 1 (0.23%) VMS
6 1 (0.23%) Windows Server 2016
6 1 (0.23%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 94 (21.56%) Load Balancing
2 81 (18.58%) High Availability
3 77 (17.66%) Migration
4 74 (16.97%) Network Design
5 70 (16.06%) Zero Trust
6 69 (15.83%) Infrastructure as Code
7 48 (11.01%) Problem-Solving
8 46 (10.55%) ITIL
8 46 (10.55%) Project Delivery
9 45 (10.32%) Validation
10 44 (10.09%) Network Architecture
11 40 (9.17%) CI/CD
12 35 (8.03%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 35 (8.03%) Network Segmentation
13 31 (7.11%) Technical Leadership
14 30 (6.88%) DevOps
15 29 (6.65%) Stakeholder Management
16 28 (6.42%) Change Control
16 28 (6.42%) Mentoring
17 26 (5.96%) Low Latency
Programming Languages
1 125 (28.67%) Python
2 11 (2.52%) Bash
3 6 (1.38%) PowerShell
4 5 (1.15%) SQL
5 3 (0.69%) Shell Script
6 2 (0.46%) Go
6 2 (0.46%) Perl
7 1 (0.23%) C++
7 1 (0.23%) Java
Qualifications
1 135 (30.96%) Security Cleared
2 123 (28.21%) Cisco Certification
3 91 (20.87%) CCNP
4 83 (19.04%) SC Cleared
5 49 (11.24%) CCIE
6 47 (10.78%) DV Cleared
7 23 (5.28%) CCNA
8 20 (4.59%) Degree
9 14 (3.21%) JNCIE
10 8 (1.83%) Computer Science Degree
11 7 (1.61%) Azure Certification
12 5 (1.15%) AWS Certification
13 4 (0.92%) CCIE Security
13 4 (0.92%) CISSP
13 4 (0.92%) PMP
13 4 (0.92%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 3 (0.69%) VCDX
15 2 (0.46%) CWNA
15 2 (0.46%) PMI Certification
15 2 (0.46%) VCAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (0.92%) NCSC
1 4 (0.92%) NIST
2 3 (0.69%) GDPR
2 3 (0.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 3 (0.69%) QA
3 2 (0.46%) PCI DSS
4 1 (0.23%) Cyber Essentials
4 1 (0.23%) NIST 800
System Software
1 30 (6.88%) VMware Infrastructure
2 15 (3.44%) VMware NSX
3 8 (1.83%) Active Directory
4 7 (1.61%) Firmware
4 7 (1.61%) Hyper-V
5 5 (1.15%) Docker
6 4 (0.92%) vSphere
7 3 (0.69%) Virtual Servers
8 2 (0.46%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.23%) ProxySG
9 1 (0.23%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 120 (27.52%) Ansible
2 41 (9.40%) FortiGate
3 20 (4.59%) Kubernetes
4 12 (2.75%) Grafana
4 12 (2.75%) Prometheus
5 10 (2.29%) Cisco Prime
6 6 (1.38%) Cilium
7 4 (0.92%) Istio
7 4 (0.92%) Nagios
8 2 (0.46%) Puppet
8 2 (0.46%) Single Sign-On
9 1 (0.23%) CASB
9 1 (0.23%) Microsoft Intune
9 1 (0.23%) OPNET
9 1 (0.23%) Progress Chef
9 1 (0.23%) QRadar
9 1 (0.23%) Rancher
9 1 (0.23%) Suricata
Vendors
1 306 (70.18%) Cisco
2 138 (31.65%) F5
3 129 (29.59%) Palo Alto
4 99 (22.71%) Fortinet
5 78 (17.89%) Arista
6 58 (13.30%) Juniper
7 43 (9.86%) VMware
8 42 (9.63%) Aruba
9 40 (9.17%) CheckPoint
10 29 (6.65%) Microsoft
11 27 (6.19%) SolarWinds
12 17 (3.90%) Meraki
12 17 (3.90%) ServiceNow
13 16 (3.67%) Zscaler
14 13 (2.98%) Splunk
15 9 (2.06%) Red Hat
16 8 (1.83%) Extreme Networks
17 7 (1.61%) Citrix
17 7 (1.61%) Dell
17 7 (1.61%) Google