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 30 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 296 237 270
Rank change year-on-year -59 +33 +29
Contract jobs citing BGP 432 342 371
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.84% 1.12% 0.86%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 8.86% 9.07% 6.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 250 214 234
10th Percentile £350 £336 £313
25th Percentile £405 £423 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £567 £625 £538
90th Percentile £638 £700 £600
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +4.21% - -2.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 3 4
10th Percentile £47.22 £37.00 £19.93
25th Percentile £56.01 £38.13 £22.06
Median hourly rate £71.33 £40.00 £39.25
Median % change year-on-year +78.33% +1.91% -43.93%
75th Percentile £73.13 £49.38 £57.50
90th Percentile £73.81 £55.00 £62.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £71.33 - £19.00
% change year-on-year - - -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 4,877 3,770 5,390
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.50% 12.32% 12.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,980 2,297 3,176
10th Percentile £250 £225 £213
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £480 £500
Median % change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% -1.19%
75th Percentile £588 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £473 £490
% change year-on-year +1.72% -3.57% +3.16%
Number of hourly rates quoted 298 179 432
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.87
25th Percentile £19.34 £21.99 £17.69
Median hourly rate £26.69 £45.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -40.69% - +113.17%
75th Percentile £65.00 £61.75 £63.75
90th Percentile £74.00 £80.20 £73.21
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.44 £36.57 £47.50
% change year-on-year -27.71% -23.01% +114.64%

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 30 June 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 30 June 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 30 June 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 -33 388 £495 -1.00% 65
UK excluding London -28 254 £495 +4.21% 55
Work from Home -36 122 £450 -18.18% 37
London -97 117 £463 -3.65% 24
South East +8 104 £480 +6.67% 17
North of England -36 90 £568 +19.47% 12
North West -22 70 £568 +16.41% 7
Midlands -36 53 £419 +19.64% 5
West Midlands -30 50 £413 +26.92% 5
South West -44 26 £538 -14.00% 7
North East -22 13 £650 +160.00%
Yorkshire -41 13 £483 +37.86% 5
Scotland -15 9 £418 -4.57% 3
East of England -26 5 £500 - 7
Wales -17 4 £425 -5.56%
East Midlands -18 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 11 (2.55%) OpenStack
2 4 (0.93%) Confluence
2 4 (0.93%) SharePoint
3 2 (0.46%) SAS
4 1 (0.23%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 13 (3.01%) MS Visio
2 7 (1.62%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (1.62%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 5 (1.16%) Microsoft Excel
4 3 (0.69%) AutoCAD
Cloud Services
1 101 (23.38%) Azure
2 90 (20.83%) AWS
3 31 (7.18%) GCP
4 22 (5.09%) OCI
5 18 (4.17%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 17 (3.94%) SaaS
7 14 (3.24%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 10 (2.31%) Azure Sentinel
9 9 (2.08%) AWS Direct Connect
10 7 (1.62%) Azure Monitor
11 6 (1.39%) GitHub
11 6 (1.39%) Nutanix
11 6 (1.39%) Route 53
12 5 (1.16%) Amazon GuardDuty
13 4 (0.93%) Amazon EKS
13 4 (0.93%) AWS CloudFormation
14 3 (0.69%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 3 (0.69%) Amazon S3
14 3 (0.69%) Entra ID
14 3 (0.69%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 284 (65.74%) OSPF
2 253 (58.56%) Firewall
3 245 (56.71%) WAN
4 148 (34.26%) LAN
5 124 (28.70%) VPN
6 118 (27.31%) VXLAN
7 106 (24.54%) Network Security
8 105 (24.31%) MPLS
9 104 (24.07%) VLAN
10 94 (21.76%) DNS
11 92 (21.30%) SD-WAN
12 88 (20.37%) Ethernet VPN
13 71 (16.44%) Multicast
14 64 (14.81%) BIG-IP
14 64 (14.81%) TCP/IP
15 59 (13.66%) IPsec
16 48 (11.11%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
16 48 (11.11%) Wireless
17 46 (10.65%) Cisco Nexus
18 45 (10.42%) Cisco ASA
Development Applications
1 21 (4.86%) GitLab
2 12 (2.78%) Git
3 9 (2.08%) Sonatype Nexus
4 7 (1.62%) JIRA
5 3 (0.69%) Jenkins
6 1 (0.23%) AppScan
6 1 (0.23%) Bitbucket
6 1 (0.23%) Burp Suite
6 1 (0.23%) Metasploit
General
1 66 (15.28%) Social Skills
2 44 (10.19%) Finance
3 37 (8.56%) Analytical Skills
4 34 (7.87%) Public Sector
5 31 (7.18%) Banking
6 30 (6.94%) Telecoms
7 23 (5.32%) Documentation Skills
8 20 (4.63%) Investment Banking
9 13 (3.01%) Financial Institution
10 11 (2.55%) Military
11 7 (1.62%) Legal
12 5 (1.16%) Manufacturing
12 5 (1.16%) Police
12 5 (1.16%) Retail
13 3 (0.69%) French Language
13 3 (0.69%) German Language
13 3 (0.69%) Influencing Skills
13 3 (0.69%) Italian Language
13 3 (0.69%) Marketing
13 3 (0.69%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 240 (55.56%) Network Engineer
2 86 (19.91%) Senior
3 60 (13.89%) Cisco Engineer
4 56 (12.96%) Cisco Network Engineer
5 50 (11.57%) Security Engineer
6 48 (11.11%) Senior Network Engineer
7 45 (10.42%) Architect
7 45 (10.42%) Network Security Engineer
8 44 (10.19%) Data Network Engineer
9 34 (7.87%) Cisco Security Engineer
10 33 (7.64%) Data Engineer
11 32 (7.41%) Network Architect
12 25 (5.79%) Network Specialist
13 24 (5.56%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 20 (4.63%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
15 18 (4.17%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
16 16 (3.70%) Consultant
16 16 (3.70%) Web Engineer
17 14 (3.24%) Firewall Specialist
17 14 (3.24%) Operations Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 40 (9.26%) 802.1X
2 15 (3.47%) REST
3 11 (2.55%) NETCONF
3 11 (2.55%) YANG
4 7 (1.62%) LDAP
5 5 (1.16%) CSS
6 4 (0.93%) Jinja
6 4 (0.93%) OpenConfig
6 4 (0.93%) RESTCONF
7 2 (0.46%) AWS CDK
7 2 (0.46%) RFC 2544
8 1 (0.23%) eBPF
8 1 (0.23%) HTML
8 1 (0.23%) Model Context Protocol
8 1 (0.23%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 192 (44.44%) Data Centre
2 47 (10.88%) Hybrid Cloud
3 38 (8.80%) PKI
4 26 (6.02%) Clustering
5 25 (5.79%) Cloud Native
6 9 (2.08%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
7 8 (1.85%) Private Cloud
8 7 (1.62%) Analytical Mindset
8 7 (1.62%) Security Posture
9 6 (1.39%) Onboarding
10 5 (1.16%) Self-Motivation
11 4 (0.93%) Data Protection Act
11 4 (0.93%) Distributed Systems
11 4 (0.93%) Management Information System
11 4 (0.93%) Operational Technology
11 4 (0.93%) Public Cloud
12 3 (0.69%) Greenfield Project
12 3 (0.69%) Linux Command Line
12 3 (0.69%) SCADA
12 3 (0.69%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 48 (11.11%) Windows
2 17 (3.94%) Linux
3 6 (1.39%) Ubuntu
4 3 (0.69%) Windows Server
5 2 (0.46%) Unix
5 2 (0.46%) VMS
6 1 (0.23%) Kali Linux
6 1 (0.23%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.23%) Windows Server 2012
6 1 (0.23%) Windows Server 2016
6 1 (0.23%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 108 (25.00%) Load Balancing
2 78 (18.06%) High Availability
3 69 (15.97%) Network Design
4 66 (15.28%) Infrastructure as Code
5 64 (14.81%) Migration
6 62 (14.35%) Zero Trust
7 50 (11.57%) Problem-Solving
8 47 (10.88%) Network Architecture
9 41 (9.49%) CI/CD
10 39 (9.03%) ITIL
11 35 (8.10%) Observability
12 34 (7.87%) DevOps
12 34 (7.87%) Project Delivery
13 33 (7.64%) Change Management
13 33 (7.64%) Infrastructure Engineering
14 32 (7.41%) Validation
15 30 (6.94%) Network Segmentation
16 27 (6.25%) Identity Access Management
17 26 (6.02%) Agile
17 26 (6.02%) Network Monitoring
Programming Languages
1 117 (27.08%) Python
2 9 (2.08%) Bash
3 7 (1.62%) PowerShell
4 6 (1.39%) SQL
5 4 (0.93%) PHP
6 3 (0.69%) Perl
7 1 (0.23%) JavaScript
7 1 (0.23%) Lisp
Qualifications
1 158 (36.57%) Cisco Certification
2 138 (31.94%) Security Cleared
3 113 (26.16%) CCNP
4 95 (21.99%) SC Cleared
5 58 (13.43%) CCIE
6 44 (10.19%) DV Cleared
7 29 (6.71%) Degree
8 23 (5.32%) CCNA
9 16 (3.70%) JNCIE
10 14 (3.24%) JNCIP
11 11 (2.55%) JNCIS
12 10 (2.31%) AWS Certification
12 10 (2.31%) JNCIA
13 8 (1.85%) Azure Certification
13 8 (1.85%) Computer Science Degree
14 6 (1.39%) CISSP
14 6 (1.39%) GIAC
15 5 (1.16%) CompTIA Security+
16 4 (0.93%) ISTQB
16 4 (0.93%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (3.01%) NCSC
2 11 (2.55%) NIST
3 10 (2.31%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 5 (1.16%) Cyber Essentials
4 5 (1.16%) SLA
5 4 (0.93%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 4 (0.93%) GDPR
5 4 (0.93%) QA
6 3 (0.69%) PCI DSS
7 2 (0.46%) NIST 800
7 2 (0.46%) RMADS
8 1 (0.23%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.23%) COBIT
8 1 (0.23%) GRC
8 1 (0.23%) HMG Security Policy Framework
8 1 (0.23%) JSP 440
System Software
1 29 (6.71%) VMware Infrastructure
2 14 (3.24%) VMware NSX
3 8 (1.85%) Active Directory
3 8 (1.85%) VMware ESXi
4 7 (1.62%) Firmware
5 6 (1.39%) Hyper-V
6 4 (0.93%) vSphere
7 2 (0.46%) Docker
7 2 (0.46%) vCloud
7 2 (0.46%) Virtual Machines
7 2 (0.46%) Virtual Servers
8 1 (0.23%) KVM
8 1 (0.23%) ProxySG
Systems Management
1 116 (26.85%) Ansible
2 70 (16.20%) Terraform
3 57 (13.19%) FortiGate
4 20 (4.63%) Grafana
5 17 (3.94%) Prometheus
6 7 (1.62%) Kubernetes
7 6 (1.39%) vCenter Server
8 3 (0.69%) Cisco Prime
8 3 (0.69%) SCOM
9 2 (0.46%) CASB
9 2 (0.46%) Iperf
9 2 (0.46%) Microsoft Intune
9 2 (0.46%) Nagios
9 2 (0.46%) Nmap
9 2 (0.46%) QRadar
9 2 (0.46%) Single Sign-On
10 1 (0.23%) Cilium
10 1 (0.23%) Progress Chef
10 1 (0.23%) Suricata
10 1 (0.23%) VxRail
Vendors
1 292 (67.59%) Cisco
2 152 (35.19%) F5
3 122 (28.24%) Palo Alto
4 91 (21.06%) Juniper
5 87 (20.14%) Fortinet
6 80 (18.52%) Arista
7 42 (9.72%) Aruba
8 40 (9.26%) VMware
9 38 (8.80%) CheckPoint
10 36 (8.33%) SolarWinds
11 31 (7.18%) Splunk
12 26 (6.02%) Extreme Networks
13 22 (5.09%) Microsoft
13 22 (5.09%) Zscaler
14 14 (3.24%) Meraki
15 10 (2.31%) ServiceNow
16 9 (2.08%) Google
17 7 (1.62%) Ekahau
18 6 (1.39%) Nokia
19 5 (1.16%) Citrix