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

6 months to
2 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 329 292 247
Rank change year-on-year -37 -45 +13
Contract jobs citing BGP 413 288 377
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.75% 0.87% 0.99%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 8.13% 7.58% 8.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 237 188 213
10th Percentile £380 £325 £350
25th Percentile £425 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £588 £603 £588
90th Percentile £702 £667 £736
UK excluding London median daily rate £510 £465 £505
% change year-on-year +9.68% -7.92% +3.75%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 4 4
10th Percentile £49.70 £37.38 £23.45
25th Percentile £57.59 £39.06 £30.88
Median hourly rate £68.75 £48.75 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +41.03% +33.56% -39.17%
75th Percentile - £60.88 £44.75
90th Percentile £73.25 £64.70 £56.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £68.75 £66.50 £19.00
% change year-on-year +3.38% +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 5,078 3,800 4,549
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.25% 11.47% 11.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,925 2,382 2,627
10th Percentile £235 £220 £222
25th Percentile £389 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £588 £606
90th Percentile £675 £680 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £485
% change year-on-year +5.56% -7.22% +5.43%
Number of hourly rates quoted 427 207 205
10th Percentile £14.10 £15.50 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.50 £21.04 £24.18
Median hourly rate £32.50 £41.94 £50.50
Median % change year-on-year -22.51% -16.95% -10.60%
75th Percentile £68.75 £63.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £92.11 £73.80 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.72 £42.22 £57.35
% change year-on-year -36.71% -26.38% -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 2 October 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 2 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for BGP in the UK

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 2 October 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 -26 379 £500 - 277
UK excluding London -22 235 £510 +9.68% 123
London -71 124 £488 -2.50% 171
North of England +2 99 £500 +5.26% 27
Work from Home -58 99 £500 -4.76% 90
North West -1 70 £488 +2.63% 15
South East -40 63 £525 +5.00% 31
Midlands -53 38 £571 +42.69% 19
West Midlands -40 37 £571 +42.69% 10
South West -30 30 £525 -16.83% 10
Yorkshire -13 22 £495 +23.75% 10
East of England -15 18 £500 -28.57% 19
North East -30 13 £650 +160.00% 2
Scotland -31 11 £375 -11.76% 13
East Midlands -14 1 - - 9

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 14 (3.39%) OpenStack
2 8 (1.94%) SAS
3 4 (0.97%) Confluence
3 4 (0.97%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.24%) SharePoint
Applications
1 9 (2.18%) MS Visio
2 6 (1.45%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (0.97%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (0.97%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.73%) AutoCAD
Cloud Services
1 104 (25.18%) Azure
2 83 (20.10%) AWS
3 29 (7.02%) GCP
4 23 (5.57%) Azure ExpressRoute
4 23 (5.57%) GitHub
4 23 (5.57%) OCI
5 15 (3.63%) AWS Direct Connect
6 13 (3.15%) SaaS
7 10 (2.42%) Microsoft 365
8 8 (1.94%) Azure Monitor
9 7 (1.69%) Azure Sentinel
9 7 (1.69%) OpenShift
10 6 (1.45%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 5 (1.21%) Nutanix
12 4 (0.97%) Entra ID
13 2 (0.48%) AWS CloudFormation
13 2 (0.48%) IBM Watson
14 1 (0.24%) Amazon EKS
14 1 (0.24%) Amazon GuardDuty
14 1 (0.24%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 230 (55.69%) Firewall
2 229 (55.45%) OSPF
3 187 (45.28%) WAN
4 129 (31.23%) VPN
5 114 (27.60%) VLAN
6 109 (26.39%) LAN
7 102 (24.70%) MPLS
8 99 (23.97%) VXLAN
9 95 (23.00%) Network Security
10 85 (20.58%) SD-WAN
11 79 (19.13%) DNS
12 78 (18.89%) Ethernet VPN
13 69 (16.71%) TCP/IP
14 65 (15.74%) IPsec
15 64 (15.50%) Wireless
16 59 (14.29%) Wi-Fi
17 53 (12.83%) Cisco Nexus
18 52 (12.59%) EIGRP
19 51 (12.35%) Multicast
20 47 (11.38%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.24%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 30 (7.26%) GitLab
2 27 (6.54%) Git
3 7 (1.69%) JIRA
3 7 (1.69%) Sonatype Nexus
4 1 (0.24%) Bitbucket
4 1 (0.24%) Jenkins
General
1 74 (17.92%) Social Skills
2 46 (11.14%) Analytical Skills
3 44 (10.65%) Finance
4 32 (7.75%) Telecoms
5 27 (6.54%) Banking
6 26 (6.30%) Public Sector
7 15 (3.63%) Investment Banking
8 13 (3.15%) Documentation Skills
9 8 (1.94%) Legal
10 7 (1.69%) Retail
11 6 (1.45%) Military
11 6 (1.45%) Police
12 5 (1.21%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 4 (0.97%) Financial Institution
14 3 (0.73%) German Language
14 3 (0.73%) Influencing Skills
14 3 (0.73%) Italian Language
14 3 (0.73%) Spanish Language
15 2 (0.48%) Organisational Skills
15 2 (0.48%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 243 (58.84%) Network Engineer
2 93 (22.52%) Senior
3 60 (14.53%) Senior Network Engineer
4 49 (11.86%) Cisco Engineer
5 48 (11.62%) Architect
6 46 (11.14%) Cisco Network Engineer
7 38 (9.20%) Network Architect
8 35 (8.47%) Security Engineer
9 34 (8.23%) Consultant
10 33 (7.99%) Network Security Engineer
11 27 (6.54%) Data Network Engineer
12 23 (5.57%) Network Consultant
13 22 (5.33%) Cisco Security Engineer
14 21 (5.08%) Data Engineer
15 19 (4.60%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 17 (4.12%) Developer
16 17 (4.12%) Network Specialist
16 17 (4.12%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
17 13 (3.15%) Operations Engineer
18 12 (2.91%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 71 (17.19%) Terraform
2 29 (7.02%) REST
3 19 (4.60%) 802.1X
4 17 (4.12%) YAML
5 16 (3.87%) NETCONF
6 15 (3.63%) JSON
7 14 (3.39%) YANG
8 6 (1.45%) RESTCONF
9 5 (1.21%) OpenConfig
10 4 (0.97%) CSS
11 3 (0.73%) eBPF
11 3 (0.73%) SAML
12 2 (0.48%) gRPC
12 2 (0.48%) Spine.js
13 1 (0.24%) Django
13 1 (0.24%) LDAP
13 1 (0.24%) Model Context Protocol
13 1 (0.24%) ModSecurity
Miscellaneous
1 164 (39.71%) Data Centre
2 49 (11.86%) Hybrid Cloud
3 28 (6.78%) Cloud Native
4 14 (3.39%) Self-Motivation
5 13 (3.15%) PKI
6 12 (2.91%) Private Cloud
7 10 (2.42%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 8 (1.94%) Analytical Mindset
8 8 (1.94%) Digital Signage
8 8 (1.94%) Public Cloud
9 6 (1.45%) Security Posture
10 5 (1.21%) CMDB
10 5 (1.21%) Data Structures
10 5 (1.21%) Linux Command Line
10 5 (1.21%) Operational Technology
11 4 (0.97%) Data Protection Act
11 4 (0.97%) Onboarding
11 4 (0.97%) Video Conferencing
12 3 (0.73%) Distributed Applications
12 3 (0.73%) Distributed Systems
Operating Systems
1 39 (9.44%) Windows
2 30 (7.26%) Linux
3 11 (2.66%) Windows Server
4 9 (2.18%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 3 (0.73%) Unix
5 3 (0.73%) Windows Server 2012
6 1 (0.24%) Mac OS
6 1 (0.24%) VMS
6 1 (0.24%) Windows Server 2016
6 1 (0.24%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 85 (20.58%) Load Balancing
2 79 (19.13%) Migration
3 78 (18.89%) Infrastructure as Code
4 72 (17.43%) Zero Trust
5 70 (16.95%) Network Design
6 68 (16.46%) High Availability
7 49 (11.86%) Validation
8 48 (11.62%) Problem-Solving
9 46 (11.14%) CI/CD
10 44 (10.65%) Network Architecture
11 39 (9.44%) Project Delivery
12 38 (9.20%) ITIL
13 36 (8.72%) DevOps
14 35 (8.47%) Infrastructure Engineering
15 33 (7.99%) Network Segmentation
16 30 (7.26%) Change Control
16 30 (7.26%) Technical Leadership
17 29 (7.02%) Runbook
18 27 (6.54%) Continuous Improvement
18 27 (6.54%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 123 (29.78%) Python
2 13 (3.15%) Bash
3 9 (2.18%) PowerShell
4 5 (1.21%) SQL
5 3 (0.73%) Shell Script
6 2 (0.48%) Go
6 2 (0.48%) Perl
7 1 (0.24%) C++
7 1 (0.24%) Java
Qualifications
1 126 (30.51%) Security Cleared
2 112 (27.12%) Cisco Certification
3 87 (21.07%) CCNP
4 70 (16.95%) SC Cleared
5 51 (12.35%) DV Cleared
6 47 (11.38%) CCIE
7 23 (5.57%) CCNA
8 16 (3.87%) Degree
9 13 (3.15%) JNCIE
10 4 (0.97%) AWS Certification
10 4 (0.97%) Azure Certification
10 4 (0.97%) CCIE Security
10 4 (0.97%) CISSP
10 4 (0.97%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 3 (0.73%) Computer Science Degree
12 2 (0.48%) CWNA
12 2 (0.48%) JNCIP
12 2 (0.48%) PMI Certification
12 2 (0.48%) PMP
13 1 (0.24%) JNCIS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (1.45%) NIST
2 4 (0.97%) NCSC
3 3 (0.73%) GDPR
3 3 (0.73%) NIST 800
3 3 (0.73%) QA
4 2 (0.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 2 (0.48%) PCI DSS
4 2 (0.48%) SLA
5 1 (0.24%) Cyber Essentials
5 1 (0.24%) Data Quality
System Software
1 33 (7.99%) VMware Infrastructure
2 19 (4.60%) VMware NSX
3 15 (3.63%) Active Directory
4 11 (2.66%) vSphere
5 10 (2.42%) Docker
6 8 (1.94%) Hyper-V
7 6 (1.45%) Firmware
8 3 (0.73%) Virtual Servers
9 2 (0.48%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.24%) ProxySG
10 1 (0.24%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 120 (29.06%) Ansible
2 37 (8.96%) FortiGate
3 20 (4.84%) Kubernetes
4 11 (2.66%) Cisco Prime
4 11 (2.66%) Grafana
4 11 (2.66%) Nagios
5 10 (2.42%) Prometheus
6 6 (1.45%) Cilium
7 4 (0.97%) Istio
8 2 (0.48%) Puppet
8 2 (0.48%) Single Sign-On
8 2 (0.48%) VxRail
9 1 (0.24%) CASB
9 1 (0.24%) Microsoft Intune
9 1 (0.24%) OPNET
9 1 (0.24%) Progress Chef
9 1 (0.24%) QRadar
9 1 (0.24%) Rancher
9 1 (0.24%) Suricata
Vendors
1 289 (69.98%) Cisco
2 123 (29.78%) Palo Alto
3 119 (28.81%) F5
4 89 (21.55%) Fortinet
5 73 (17.68%) Arista
6 52 (12.59%) Juniper
7 49 (11.86%) VMware
8 40 (9.69%) Aruba
9 38 (9.20%) CheckPoint
10 32 (7.75%) Microsoft
11 31 (7.51%) SolarWinds
12 18 (4.36%) ServiceNow
13 17 (4.12%) Meraki
13 17 (4.12%) Zscaler
14 12 (2.91%) Red Hat
15 10 (2.42%) Splunk
16 8 (1.94%) Google
17 7 (1.69%) Citrix
17 7 (1.69%) Dell
17 7 (1.69%) Infoblox