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

6 months to
14 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 288 269 244
Rank change year-on-year -19 -25 +34
Contract jobs citing BGP 448 318 361
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.84% 0.97% 0.93%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 8.93% 8.15% 7.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 260 201 230
10th Percentile £375 £325 £300
25th Percentile £416 £413 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% - -5.00%
75th Percentile £582 £606 £538
90th Percentile £675 £675 £576
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +5.26% - -2.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 4 2
10th Percentile £44.80 £37.38 £23.15
25th Percentile £50.72 £39.06 £30.13
Median hourly rate £64.79 £48.75 £42.00
Median % change year-on-year +32.90% +16.07% -32.26%
75th Percentile £73.31 £60.88 £53.63
90th Percentile £83.14 £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 5,018 3,900 4,752
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.40% 11.85% 12.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,969 2,381 2,887
10th Percentile £250 £250 £220
25th Percentile £400 £375 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% -2.50% -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £608
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +3.16% -5.00% +9.36%
Number of hourly rates quoted 365 202 321
10th Percentile £15.21 £14.99 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.33 £25.15 £20.00
Median hourly rate £26.14 £46.88 £49.00
Median % change year-on-year -44.23% -4.34% -9.26%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £82.03 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.14 £45.00 £54.88
% change year-on-year -41.91% -18.00% -3.58%

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 14 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 14 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 14 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 -14 413 £500 - 181
UK excluding London -8 268 £500 +5.26% 62
London -69 127 £505 +1.00% 132
Work from Home -28 110 £500 - 50
North of England +3 108 £500 +5.26% 14
South East -9 99 £525 +16.67% 19
North West +3 81 £500 +5.26% 6
Midlands -35 48 £419 +4.69% 10
West Midlands -39 45 £413 +10.00% 10
South West -46 31 £525 -16.33% 4
Yorkshire -22 20 £500 - 7
North East -31 13 £650 +160.00% 1
Scotland -9 9 £375 -11.76% 8
East of England -20 6 £500 -28.57% 6
Wales -18 2 £425 -6.59% 1
East Midlands -22 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 (2.68%) OpenStack
2 6 (1.34%) SAS
3 3 (0.67%) Microsoft Exchange
4 2 (0.45%) Confluence
5 1 (0.22%) SharePoint
Applications
1 11 (2.46%) MS Visio
2 8 (1.79%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (1.34%) Microsoft Excel
3 6 (1.34%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.67%) AutoCAD
Cloud Services
1 111 (24.78%) Azure
2 88 (19.64%) AWS
3 27 (6.03%) GCP
4 23 (5.13%) OCI
5 21 (4.69%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 14 (3.13%) GitHub
7 13 (2.90%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 12 (2.68%) SaaS
9 10 (2.23%) AWS Direct Connect
10 7 (1.56%) Azure Monitor
10 7 (1.56%) Azure Sentinel
10 7 (1.56%) OpenShift
11 6 (1.34%) Nutanix
12 5 (1.12%) Microsoft 365
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
1 279 (62.28%) OSPF
2 264 (58.93%) Firewall
3 233 (52.01%) WAN
4 143 (31.92%) LAN
5 133 (29.69%) VPN
6 124 (27.68%) VXLAN
7 116 (25.89%) VLAN
8 103 (22.99%) DNS
8 103 (22.99%) MPLS
9 92 (20.54%) Network Security
10 89 (19.87%) Ethernet VPN
11 88 (19.64%) SD-WAN
12 72 (16.07%) TCP/IP
13 68 (15.18%) Multicast
14 66 (14.73%) Wireless
15 65 (14.51%) IPsec
16 60 (13.39%) BIG-IP
17 58 (12.95%) Wi-Fi
18 54 (12.05%) Cisco ASA
18 54 (12.05%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
Development Applications
1 26 (5.80%) GitLab
2 18 (4.02%) Git
3 7 (1.56%) JIRA
3 7 (1.56%) Sonatype Nexus
4 4 (0.89%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.22%) Bitbucket
General
1 70 (15.63%) Social Skills
2 47 (10.49%) Analytical Skills
3 43 (9.60%) Finance
4 30 (6.70%) Banking
5 29 (6.47%) Public Sector
6 27 (6.03%) Telecoms
7 19 (4.24%) Investment Banking
8 12 (2.68%) Documentation Skills
9 10 (2.23%) Financial Institution
10 8 (1.79%) Legal
10 8 (1.79%) Military
10 8 (1.79%) Police
10 8 (1.79%) Retail
11 4 (0.89%) 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%) Law
13 2 (0.45%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 266 (59.38%) Network Engineer
2 93 (20.76%) Senior
3 62 (13.84%) Cisco Engineer
3 62 (13.84%) Senior Network Engineer
4 59 (13.17%) Cisco Network Engineer
5 47 (10.49%) Architect
6 43 (9.60%) Data Network Engineer
7 42 (9.38%) Network Security Engineer
7 42 (9.38%) Security Engineer
8 33 (7.37%) Network Architect
9 32 (7.14%) Cisco Security Engineer
10 31 (6.92%) Data Engineer
11 26 (5.80%) Network Specialist
12 22 (4.91%) Consultant
13 20 (4.46%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 18 (4.02%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
15 17 (3.79%) Developer
16 15 (3.35%) Web Engineer
17 14 (3.13%) Network Consultant
17 14 (3.13%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 38 (8.48%) 802.1X
2 17 (3.79%) REST
3 12 (2.68%) NETCONF
3 12 (2.68%) YANG
4 7 (1.56%) OpenConfig
5 6 (1.34%) RESTCONF
6 5 (1.12%) JSON
6 5 (1.12%) YAML
7 4 (0.89%) CSS
7 4 (0.89%) 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
1 182 (40.63%) Data Centre
2 52 (11.61%) Hybrid Cloud
3 33 (7.37%) PKI
4 26 (5.80%) Cloud Native
5 24 (5.36%) Clustering
6 11 (2.46%) Private Cloud
7 10 (2.23%) Analytical Mindset
7 10 (2.23%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
7 10 (2.23%) Self-Motivation
8 8 (1.79%) Public Cloud
9 7 (1.56%) Operational Technology
10 5 (1.12%) Data Protection Act
10 5 (1.12%) Digital Signage
10 5 (1.12%) Linux Command Line
10 5 (1.12%) Onboarding
10 5 (1.12%) Security Posture
11 4 (0.89%) CMDB
11 4 (0.89%) Distributed Systems
12 3 (0.67%) Distributed Applications
12 3 (0.67%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 44 (9.82%) Windows
2 17 (3.79%) 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
1 111 (24.78%) Load Balancing
2 86 (19.20%) High Availability
3 73 (16.29%) Network Design
4 69 (15.40%) Infrastructure as Code
5 67 (14.96%) Migration
5 67 (14.96%) Zero Trust
6 55 (12.28%) Problem-Solving
7 51 (11.38%) ITIL
8 45 (10.04%) Project Delivery
9 44 (9.82%) Network Architecture
10 42 (9.38%) CI/CD
11 39 (8.71%) Validation
12 37 (8.26%) Observability
13 32 (7.14%) DevOps
13 32 (7.14%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 32 (7.14%) Network Segmentation
14 28 (6.25%) Change Management
14 28 (6.25%) Mentoring
14 28 (6.25%) Network Monitoring
15 27 (6.03%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 120 (26.79%) Python
2 10 (2.23%) Bash
3 6 (1.34%) PowerShell
3 6 (1.34%) SQL
4 3 (0.67%) Shell Script
5 2 (0.45%) Perl
6 1 (0.22%) Go
Qualifications
1 144 (32.14%) Security Cleared
2 141 (31.47%) Cisco Certification
3 94 (20.98%) CCNP
4 76 (16.96%) SC Cleared
5 56 (12.50%) DV Cleared
6 51 (11.38%) CCIE
7 22 (4.91%) CCNA
8 20 (4.46%) Degree
9 14 (3.13%) JNCIE
10 8 (1.79%) Azure Certification
10 8 (1.79%) Computer Science Degree
10 8 (1.79%) JNCIA
10 8 (1.79%) JNCIP
10 8 (1.79%) JNCIS
11 6 (1.34%) AWS Certification
12 4 (0.89%) CISSP
12 4 (0.89%) 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 30 (6.70%) VMware Infrastructure
2 14 (3.13%) VMware NSX
3 8 (1.79%) Firmware
4 7 (1.56%) Active Directory
4 7 (1.56%) Hyper-V
5 6 (1.34%) Docker
6 4 (0.89%) vSphere
7 3 (0.67%) VMware ESXi
8 2 (0.45%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.22%) KVM
9 1 (0.22%) ProxySG
9 1 (0.22%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 118 (26.34%) Ansible
2 74 (16.52%) Terraform
3 60 (13.39%) FortiGate
4 19 (4.24%) Kubernetes
5 16 (3.57%) Grafana
6 15 (3.35%) Prometheus
7 8 (1.79%) Cisco Prime
8 6 (1.34%) Nagios
9 4 (0.89%) Cilium
10 2 (0.45%) 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
1 314 (70.09%) Cisco
2 163 (36.38%) F5
3 130 (29.02%) Palo Alto
4 102 (22.77%) Fortinet
5 82 (18.30%) Juniper
6 81 (18.08%) Arista
7 46 (10.27%) SolarWinds
8 42 (9.38%) Aruba
8 42 (9.38%) VMware
9 41 (9.15%) CheckPoint
10 30 (6.70%) Splunk
11 29 (6.47%) Microsoft
12 22 (4.91%) Extreme Networks
13 20 (4.46%) Zscaler
14 19 (4.24%) Meraki
15 13 (2.90%) ServiceNow
16 12 (2.68%) Google
17 8 (1.79%) Citrix
18 7 (1.56%) Ekahau
19 6 (1.34%) Red Hat