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

6 months to
15 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 320 287 268
Rank change year-on-year -33 -19 +8
Contract jobs citing BGP 429 293 339
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.79% 0.90% 0.89%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 8.45% 7.83% 7.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 256 189 199
10th Percentile £378 £325 £350
25th Percentile £425 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £613 £575
90th Percentile £688 £664 £669
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% +2.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 4 3
10th Percentile £48.63 £37.38 £22.40
25th Percentile £50.75 £39.06 £28.25
Median hourly rate £57.13 £48.75 £38.00
Median % change year-on-year +17.18% +28.29% -36.67%
75th Percentile £69.91 £60.88 £51.50
90th Percentile £83.14 £64.70 £59.60
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 5,075 3,744 4,522
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.33% 11.54% 11.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,953 2,307 2,642
10th Percentile £235 £228 £231
25th Percentile £385 £363 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £478 £505
Median % change year-on-year +4.69% -5.43% +1.00%
75th Percentile £588 £588 £610
90th Percentile £675 £676 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £454 £500
% change year-on-year +4.74% -9.30% +9.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 406 196 260
10th Percentile £14.57 £15.50 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.33 £25.15 £21.37
Median hourly rate £27.11 £43.00 £51.00
Median % change year-on-year -36.95% -15.69% -9.72%
75th Percentile £65.88 £64.06 £65.00
90th Percentile £82.03 £74.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.14 £42.50 £57.35
% change year-on-year -38.49% -25.89% -0.26%

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 15 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 15 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 15 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 -28 393 £500 - 326
UK excluding London -35 235 £500 +5.26% 147
London -64 134 £500 - 197
Work from Home -40 110 £500 - 106
North of England +7 105 £500 +5.26% 21
North West +8 76 £488 +2.63% 12
South East -38 67 £525 +5.00% 40
Midlands -38 42 £468 +17.00% 18
West Midlands -48 38 £571 +42.69% 10
South West -43 32 £525 -16.67% 13
Yorkshire -12 22 £495 +23.75% 7
North East -26 13 £650 +160.00% 2
Scotland -20 9 £375 -11.76% 16
East of England -30 7 £475 -32.14% 36
East Midlands -9 3 - - 8
Wales -12 1 £425 +6.25% 2

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 (2.80%) OpenStack
2 8 (1.86%) SAS
3 4 (0.93%) Microsoft Exchange
4 3 (0.70%) Confluence
5 1 (0.23%) SharePoint
Applications
1 9 (2.10%) MS Visio
2 6 (1.40%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (0.93%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (0.93%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.70%) AutoCAD
Cloud Services
1 107 (24.94%) Azure
2 81 (18.88%) AWS
3 24 (5.59%) GCP
4 23 (5.36%) OCI
5 22 (5.13%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 19 (4.43%) GitHub
7 13 (3.03%) SaaS
8 10 (2.33%) AWS Direct Connect
8 10 (2.33%) Microsoft 365
9 7 (1.63%) Azure Monitor
9 7 (1.63%) Azure Sentinel
9 7 (1.63%) OpenShift
9 7 (1.63%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 5 (1.17%) Nutanix
11 3 (0.70%) Entra ID
12 2 (0.47%) Amazon GuardDuty
12 2 (0.47%) AWS CloudFormation
12 2 (0.47%) IBM Watson
13 1 (0.23%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 1 (0.23%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 244 (56.88%) OSPF
2 239 (55.71%) Firewall
3 202 (47.09%) WAN
4 131 (30.54%) VPN
5 124 (28.90%) VLAN
6 111 (25.87%) LAN
7 102 (23.78%) MPLS
7 102 (23.78%) VXLAN
8 92 (21.45%) Network Security
9 85 (19.81%) DNS
10 84 (19.58%) SD-WAN
11 78 (18.18%) Ethernet VPN
12 67 (15.62%) Wireless
13 64 (14.92%) IPsec
14 62 (14.45%) TCP/IP
14 62 (14.45%) Wi-Fi
15 60 (13.99%) Multicast
16 54 (12.59%) Cisco Nexus
17 52 (12.12%) EIGRP
18 49 (11.42%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
Development Applications
1 27 (6.29%) GitLab
2 21 (4.90%) Git
3 7 (1.63%) Sonatype Nexus
4 6 (1.40%) JIRA
5 1 (0.23%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.23%) Jenkins
General
1 75 (17.48%) Social Skills
2 47 (10.96%) Analytical Skills
3 44 (10.26%) Finance
4 30 (6.99%) Telecoms
5 28 (6.53%) Banking
5 28 (6.53%) Public Sector
6 17 (3.96%) Investment Banking
7 14 (3.26%) Documentation Skills
8 8 (1.86%) Legal
8 8 (1.86%) Police
8 8 (1.86%) Retail
9 6 (1.40%) Military
10 5 (1.17%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 4 (0.93%) Financial Institution
12 3 (0.70%) German Language
12 3 (0.70%) Influencing Skills
12 3 (0.70%) Italian Language
12 3 (0.70%) Spanish Language
13 2 (0.47%) Organisational Skills
13 2 (0.47%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 255 (59.44%) Network Engineer
2 95 (22.14%) Senior
3 62 (14.45%) Senior Network Engineer
4 56 (13.05%) Cisco Engineer
5 53 (12.35%) Cisco Network Engineer
6 45 (10.49%) Architect
7 38 (8.86%) Security Engineer
8 36 (8.39%) Network Security Engineer
9 35 (8.16%) Data Network Engineer
10 34 (7.93%) Consultant
10 34 (7.93%) Network Architect
11 26 (6.06%) Cisco Security Engineer
12 25 (5.83%) Data Engineer
13 23 (5.36%) Network Consultant
14 20 (4.66%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 19 (4.43%) Network Specialist
16 18 (4.20%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
17 17 (3.96%) Developer
18 12 (2.80%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
18 12 (2.80%) Web Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 72 (16.78%) Terraform
2 24 (5.59%) REST
3 19 (4.43%) 802.1X
4 15 (3.50%) NETCONF
5 13 (3.03%) YANG
6 12 (2.80%) YAML
7 10 (2.33%) JSON
8 6 (1.40%) RESTCONF
9 5 (1.17%) OpenConfig
10 4 (0.93%) CSS
11 3 (0.70%) eBPF
11 3 (0.70%) SAML
12 2 (0.47%) gRPC
12 2 (0.47%) Spine.js
13 1 (0.23%) Django
13 1 (0.23%) LDAP
13 1 (0.23%) Model Context Protocol
Miscellaneous
1 174 (40.56%) Data Centre
2 50 (11.66%) Hybrid Cloud
3 28 (6.53%) Cloud Native
4 15 (3.50%) PKI
5 11 (2.56%) Private Cloud
6 10 (2.33%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
7 8 (1.86%) Analytical Mindset
7 8 (1.86%) Digital Signage
7 8 (1.86%) Public Cloud
7 8 (1.86%) Self-Motivation
8 7 (1.63%) Onboarding
9 6 (1.40%) Operational Technology
9 6 (1.40%) Security Posture
10 5 (1.17%) Clustering
10 5 (1.17%) Linux Command Line
11 4 (0.93%) CMDB
11 4 (0.93%) Data Protection Act
11 4 (0.93%) Distributed Systems
12 3 (0.70%) Distributed Applications
12 3 (0.70%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 27 (6.29%) Windows
2 21 (4.90%) Linux
3 4 (0.93%) Windows Server
4 3 (0.70%) Unix
4 3 (0.70%) Windows Server 2012
5 2 (0.47%) 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 89 (20.75%) Load Balancing
2 78 (18.18%) Migration
3 74 (17.25%) High Availability
4 73 (17.02%) Infrastructure as Code
5 72 (16.78%) Network Design
6 69 (16.08%) Zero Trust
7 46 (10.72%) Problem-Solving
7 46 (10.72%) Validation
8 45 (10.49%) Network Architecture
8 45 (10.49%) Project Delivery
9 42 (9.79%) ITIL
10 39 (9.09%) CI/CD
11 35 (8.16%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 34 (7.93%) Network Segmentation
13 31 (7.23%) DevOps
14 29 (6.76%) Technical Leadership
15 28 (6.53%) Change Control
15 28 (6.53%) Mentoring
16 26 (6.06%) Cloud Security
16 26 (6.06%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 127 (29.60%) Python
2 11 (2.56%) Bash
3 6 (1.40%) PowerShell
4 5 (1.17%) SQL
5 3 (0.70%) Shell Script
6 2 (0.47%) Go
6 2 (0.47%) Perl
7 1 (0.23%) C++
7 1 (0.23%) Java
Qualifications
1 128 (29.84%) Security Cleared
2 118 (27.51%) Cisco Certification
3 90 (20.98%) CCNP
4 77 (17.95%) SC Cleared
5 47 (10.96%) CCIE
6 44 (10.26%) DV Cleared
7 22 (5.13%) CCNA
8 18 (4.20%) Degree
9 14 (3.26%) JNCIE
10 6 (1.40%) Azure Certification
10 6 (1.40%) Computer Science Degree
11 5 (1.17%) AWS Certification
12 4 (0.93%) CCIE Security
12 4 (0.93%) CISSP
12 4 (0.93%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 3 (0.70%) PMP
14 2 (0.47%) CWNA
14 2 (0.47%) PMI Certification
14 2 (0.47%) VCDX
15 1 (0.23%) VCAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (1.17%) NIST
2 4 (0.93%) NCSC
3 3 (0.70%) GDPR
3 3 (0.70%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 3 (0.70%) QA
4 2 (0.47%) NIST 800
4 2 (0.47%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.23%) Cyber Essentials
System Software
1 27 (6.29%) VMware Infrastructure
2 16 (3.73%) VMware NSX
3 8 (1.86%) Active Directory
3 8 (1.86%) Hyper-V
4 7 (1.63%) Firmware
5 6 (1.40%) Docker
6 4 (0.93%) vSphere
7 3 (0.70%) Virtual Servers
8 2 (0.47%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.23%) ProxySG
9 1 (0.23%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 120 (27.97%) Ansible
2 39 (9.09%) FortiGate
3 19 (4.43%) Kubernetes
4 11 (2.56%) Cisco Prime
5 10 (2.33%) Grafana
5 10 (2.33%) Prometheus
6 6 (1.40%) Cilium
7 4 (0.93%) Istio
7 4 (0.93%) Nagios
8 2 (0.47%) Puppet
8 2 (0.47%) 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
9 1 (0.23%) VxRail
Vendors
1 301 (70.16%) Cisco
2 129 (30.07%) F5
3 127 (29.60%) Palo Alto
4 97 (22.61%) Fortinet
5 80 (18.65%) Arista
6 56 (13.05%) Juniper
7 42 (9.79%) Aruba
8 40 (9.32%) VMware
9 39 (9.09%) CheckPoint
10 30 (6.99%) Microsoft
11 25 (5.83%) SolarWinds
12 18 (4.20%) Meraki
12 18 (4.20%) Zscaler
13 14 (3.26%) ServiceNow
14 12 (2.80%) Splunk
15 9 (2.10%) Red Hat
16 7 (1.63%) Citrix
16 7 (1.63%) Dell
16 7 (1.63%) Google
17 6 (1.40%) Infoblox