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

6 months to
18 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 287 234 254
Rank change year-on-year -53 +20 +77
Contract jobs citing BGP 389 343 380
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.81% 1.17% 0.89%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 8.50% 9.21% 7.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 222 207 242
10th Percentile £313 £325 £314
25th Percentile £400 £425 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -7.50% +5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £550 £600 £550
90th Percentile £625 £744 £613
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £467
% change year-on-year - +1.82% -3.81%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 3 3
10th Percentile £47.22 £22.05 £19.45
25th Percentile £56.01 £27.38 £20.88
Median hourly rate £71.33 £37.50 £23.50
Median % change year-on-year +90.21% +59.57% -68.14%
75th Percentile £73.13 £39.38 £39.38
90th Percentile £73.81 £39.75 £48.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £71.33 £19.00 £19.00
% change year-on-year +275.42% - -69.35%

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 4,578 3,725 5,393
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.55% 12.68% 12.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,829 2,299 3,215
10th Percentile £262 £213 £205
25th Percentile £400 £362 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £488 £490
Median % change year-on-year +1.54% -0.51% -5.50%
75th Percentile £588 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £694
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £463 £475
% change year-on-year +2.70% -2.63% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 247 165 417
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.50
25th Percentile £21.04 £17.30 £16.30
Median hourly rate £37.50 £32.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +15.38% -18.75% +116.22%
75th Percentile £65.88 £58.69 £63.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.25 £24.71 £45.88
% change year-on-year +70.98% -46.14% +158.48%

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 18 May 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 18 May 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 18 May 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 -43 345 £475 -5.00% 90
UK excluding London -35 225 £475 - 76
Work from Home -28 122 £445 -13.17% 43
South East +11 108 £450 - 29
London -78 108 £450 -10.00% 30
North of England -60 68 £571 +14.25% 20
North West -30 57 £568 +8.10% 13
Midlands -39 48 £413 +37.50% 11
West Midlands -32 45 £413 +43.48% 10
South West -29 21 £513 -4.65% 8
North East -13 8 £650 +160.00% 4
Scotland -2 6 £450 +9.09% 9
Yorkshire -56 5 £538 +53.57% 4
Wales -16 4 £425 -5.56%
East of England -28 4 £500 +17.65% 2
East Midlands -29 2 - - 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 4 (1.03%) Confluence
1 4 (1.03%) OpenStack
1 4 (1.03%) SharePoint
Applications
1 9 (2.31%) MS Visio
2 7 (1.80%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 5 (1.29%) Microsoft Office
4 4 (1.03%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 72 (18.51%) AWS
1 72 (18.51%) Azure
2 21 (5.40%) GCP
3 16 (4.11%) OCI
4 15 (3.86%) Virtual Private Cloud
5 13 (3.34%) SaaS
6 8 (2.06%) Route 53
7 7 (1.80%) AWS Direct Connect
8 6 (1.54%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 5 (1.29%) Amazon EKS
9 5 (1.29%) Amazon GuardDuty
10 4 (1.03%) Azure Sentinel
10 4 (1.03%) GitHub
10 4 (1.03%) Nutanix
11 3 (0.77%) Amazon S3
11 3 (0.77%) AWS CloudFormation
11 3 (0.77%) Catchpoint
11 3 (0.77%) IaaS
11 3 (0.77%) PaaS
12 2 (0.51%) Google Ads
Communications & Networking
1 274 (70.44%) OSPF
2 230 (59.13%) Firewall
3 219 (56.30%) WAN
4 151 (38.82%) LAN
5 110 (28.28%) VPN
6 105 (26.99%) VXLAN
7 97 (24.94%) Network Security
8 88 (22.62%) MPLS
9 84 (21.59%) VLAN
10 80 (20.57%) Ethernet VPN
11 79 (20.31%) DNS
12 71 (18.25%) SD-WAN
13 69 (17.74%) Multicast
14 57 (14.65%) BIG-IP
14 57 (14.65%) IPsec
15 54 (13.88%) TCP/IP
16 44 (11.31%) Cisco Nexus
17 42 (10.80%) Cisco ISE
17 42 (10.80%) Wireless
18 41 (10.54%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
Development Applications
1 17 (4.37%) GitLab
2 11 (2.83%) Git
3 9 (2.31%) Sonatype Nexus
4 4 (1.03%) JIRA
5 3 (0.77%) Jenkins
6 1 (0.26%) AppScan
6 1 (0.26%) Burp Suite
6 1 (0.26%) Metasploit
General
1 53 (13.62%) Social Skills
2 39 (10.03%) Finance
3 36 (9.25%) Public Sector
4 35 (9.00%) Documentation Skills
5 31 (7.97%) Analytical Skills
6 27 (6.94%) Banking
7 21 (5.40%) Telecoms
8 19 (4.88%) Investment Banking
9 13 (3.34%) Manufacturing
9 13 (3.34%) Military
10 12 (3.08%) Financial Institution
11 6 (1.54%) Retail
12 4 (1.03%) Legal
12 4 (1.03%) Marketing
13 3 (0.77%) French Language
13 3 (0.77%) Police
14 2 (0.51%) German Language
14 2 (0.51%) Italian Language
14 2 (0.51%) Presentation Skills
14 2 (0.51%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 230 (59.13%) Network Engineer
2 68 (17.48%) Senior
3 63 (16.20%) Cisco Engineer
4 59 (15.17%) Cisco Network Engineer
5 45 (11.57%) Security Engineer
6 42 (10.80%) Data Network Engineer
7 40 (10.28%) Network Security Engineer
7 40 (10.28%) Senior Network Engineer
8 39 (10.03%) Architect
9 33 (8.48%) Cisco Security Engineer
10 32 (8.23%) Data Engineer
11 30 (7.71%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
12 26 (6.68%) Network Architect
13 23 (5.91%) Network Specialist
14 20 (5.14%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 15 (3.86%) Web Engineer
16 14 (3.60%) Firewall Specialist
16 14 (3.60%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
17 13 (3.34%) Juniper Engineer
17 13 (3.34%) Operations Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 40 (10.28%) 802.1X
2 10 (2.57%) REST
3 8 (2.06%) NETCONF
3 8 (2.06%) YANG
4 7 (1.80%) LDAP
5 4 (1.03%) Jinja
5 4 (1.03%) VML
6 3 (0.77%) OpenConfig
6 3 (0.77%) RESTCONF
7 2 (0.51%) AWS CDK
7 2 (0.51%) CSS
7 2 (0.51%) HTML
7 2 (0.51%) RFC 2544
8 1 (0.26%) eBPF
8 1 (0.26%) JSON
8 1 (0.26%) SAML
8 1 (0.26%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 174 (44.73%) Data Centre
2 39 (10.03%) PKI
3 28 (7.20%) Hybrid Cloud
4 25 (6.43%) Clustering
5 14 (3.60%) Cloud Native
6 8 (2.06%) Onboarding
7 6 (1.54%) Data Protection Act
7 6 (1.54%) Security Posture
8 5 (1.29%) Self-Motivation
9 4 (1.03%) Analytical Mindset
9 4 (1.03%) Distributed Systems
9 4 (1.03%) Operational Technology
9 4 (1.03%) Public Cloud
10 3 (0.77%) CESG
10 3 (0.77%) Greenfield Project
10 3 (0.77%) Linux Command Line
10 3 (0.77%) Management Information System
10 3 (0.77%) NHS
10 3 (0.77%) SCADA
10 3 (0.77%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 39 (10.03%) Windows
2 18 (4.63%) Linux
3 6 (1.54%) Ubuntu
4 3 (0.77%) Windows Server
5 2 (0.51%) Unix
6 1 (0.26%) Kali Linux
6 1 (0.26%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.26%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 98 (25.19%) Load Balancing
2 65 (16.71%) High Availability
3 50 (12.85%) Network Design
4 48 (12.34%) Problem-Solving
5 45 (11.57%) Infrastructure as Code
6 44 (11.31%) Migration
7 42 (10.80%) Zero Trust
8 32 (8.23%) ITIL
8 32 (8.23%) Observability
9 31 (7.97%) Change Management
10 30 (7.71%) CI/CD
10 30 (7.71%) Network Architecture
11 28 (7.20%) DevOps
12 27 (6.94%) Project Delivery
12 27 (6.94%) Technical Leadership
13 26 (6.68%) Identity Access Management
14 25 (6.43%) Infrastructure Engineering
14 25 (6.43%) Network Monitoring
15 24 (6.17%) Network Segmentation
16 22 (5.66%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 85 (21.85%) Python
2 5 (1.29%) Bash
3 4 (1.03%) PHP
4 2 (0.51%) JavaScript
4 2 (0.51%) PowerShell
4 2 (0.51%) SQL
5 1 (0.26%) Lisp
5 1 (0.26%) Perl
Qualifications
1 160 (41.13%) Cisco Certification
2 146 (37.53%) Security Cleared
3 120 (30.85%) CCNP
4 109 (28.02%) SC Cleared
5 54 (13.88%) CCIE
6 40 (10.28%) DV Cleared
7 28 (7.20%) Degree
8 24 (6.17%) CCNA
9 16 (4.11%) JNCIP
10 15 (3.86%) JNCIS
11 13 (3.34%) JNCIE
12 12 (3.08%) JNCIA
13 9 (2.31%) Computer Science Degree
14 8 (2.06%) AWS Certification
15 7 (1.80%) Azure Certification
16 6 (1.54%) GIAC
17 5 (1.29%) CISSP
17 5 (1.29%) CompTIA Security+
17 5 (1.29%) Network+ Certification
18 4 (1.03%) APMG
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (2.57%) NCSC
2 9 (2.31%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 9 (2.31%) NIST
3 7 (1.80%) SLA
4 4 (1.03%) Cyber Essentials
4 4 (1.03%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 3 (0.77%) RMADS
6 2 (0.51%) JSP 440
6 2 (0.51%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.26%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (0.26%) COBIT
7 1 (0.26%) GDPR
7 1 (0.26%) GRC
7 1 (0.26%) HMG Security Policy Framework
7 1 (0.26%) NIST 800
7 1 (0.26%) QA
System Software
1 26 (6.68%) VMware Infrastructure
2 11 (2.83%) VMware NSX
3 8 (2.06%) VMware ESXi
4 6 (1.54%) Active Directory
5 5 (1.29%) Firmware
6 3 (0.77%) vSphere
7 2 (0.51%) Docker
7 2 (0.51%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.51%) vCloud
7 2 (0.51%) Virtual Servers
8 1 (0.26%) KVM
8 1 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 92 (23.65%) Ansible
2 49 (12.60%) Terraform
3 47 (12.08%) FortiGate
4 17 (4.37%) Grafana
5 14 (3.60%) Prometheus
6 6 (1.54%) vCenter Server
7 5 (1.29%) Kubernetes
7 5 (1.29%) Nagios
8 3 (0.77%) Cisco Prime
8 3 (0.77%) SCOM
9 2 (0.51%) CASB
9 2 (0.51%) Iperf
9 2 (0.51%) Nmap
10 1 (0.26%) Cilium
10 1 (0.26%) Failover Clustering
10 1 (0.26%) Progress Chef
10 1 (0.26%) QRadar
10 1 (0.26%) Single Sign-On
10 1 (0.26%) vRealize
10 1 (0.26%) VxRail
Vendors
1 281 (72.24%) Cisco
2 143 (36.76%) F5
3 112 (28.79%) Palo Alto
4 85 (21.85%) Juniper
5 61 (15.68%) Arista
6 60 (15.42%) Fortinet
7 51 (13.11%) CheckPoint
8 50 (12.85%) Aruba
9 33 (8.48%) SolarWinds
10 32 (8.23%) VMware
11 28 (7.20%) Splunk
12 26 (6.68%) Extreme Networks
13 19 (4.88%) Meraki
14 16 (4.11%) Zscaler
15 10 (2.57%) ServiceNow
16 9 (2.31%) Nokia
17 7 (1.80%) Ekahau
17 7 (1.80%) Microsoft
18 5 (1.29%) Netskope
18 5 (1.29%) NVIDIA