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 11 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 348 197 245
Rank change year-on-year -151 +48 +139
Contract jobs citing BGP 275 399 440
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.69% 1.30% 0.99%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 6.69% 9.93% 7.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 165 244 232
10th Percentile £291 £375 £325
25th Percentile £400 £427 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £445 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -15.24% +5.00% -
75th Percentile £525 £661 £600
90th Percentile £588 £800 £719
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £525 £490
% change year-on-year -14.29% +7.14% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 4 12
10th Percentile £68.30 £22.33 £24.25
25th Percentile £72.13 £28.06 £24.81
Median hourly rate £74.26 £33.75 £37.77
Median % change year-on-year +120.03% -10.64% -50.25%
75th Percentile - £35.75 £68.13
90th Percentile - £37.10 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £74.26 £19.00 £44.00
% change year-on-year +290.84% -56.82% +31.34%

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 4,113 4,018 6,016
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.36% 13.05% 13.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,711 2,366 3,598
10th Percentile £204 £210 £205
25th Percentile £356 £360 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £488
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +2.56% -6.16%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £683 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £471 £475
% change year-on-year -4.51% -0.79% +1.06%
Number of hourly rates quoted 170 133 407
10th Percentile £15.50 £16.63 £14.43
25th Percentile £18.59 £21.46 £21.00
Median hourly rate £29.44 £32.50 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year -9.42% -31.58% +137.50%
75th Percentile £65.00 £53.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £70.00 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.54 £29.00 £51.89
% change year-on-year +39.79% -44.11% +161.00%

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 11 February 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
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 11 February 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 -115 238 £450 -13.46% 71
UK excluding London -76 166 £450 -14.29% 56
Work from Home -68 94 £443 -29.76% 24
London -90 76 £447 -12.78% 21
South East -27 69 £445 -25.83% 29
West Midlands -8 47 £400 -9.35% 9
Midlands -21 47 £400 -12.57% 10
North of England -86 39 £550 +4.76% 10
North West -56 35 £550 +4.76% 6
Scotland +13 13 £425 +3.03% 1
South West -46 12 £525 - 4
Yorkshire -59 4 £600 +118.18% 4
North East -11 3 £550 -
Wales -2 2 - -
East of England -26 1 £300 +9.09% 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 14 (5.09%) OpenStack
2 12 (4.36%) SharePoint
3 5 (1.82%) Confluence
Applications
1 15 (5.45%) MS Visio
2 6 (2.18%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 5 (1.82%) Microsoft Office
4 3 (1.09%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 51 (18.55%) AWS
2 38 (13.82%) Azure
3 18 (6.55%) GCP
4 13 (4.73%) Virtual Private Cloud
5 8 (2.91%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 7 (2.55%) AWS Direct Connect
7 6 (2.18%) Route 53
7 6 (2.18%) SaaS
8 4 (1.45%) Amazon GuardDuty
8 4 (1.45%) Azure Sentinel
8 4 (1.45%) IaaS
8 4 (1.45%) OpenShift
8 4 (1.45%) PaaS
9 3 (1.09%) Amazon EKS
9 3 (1.09%) Amazon S3
9 3 (1.09%) Catchpoint
9 3 (1.09%) Entra ID
10 2 (0.73%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 2 (0.73%) Cloud Computing
10 2 (0.73%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 171 (62.18%) OSPF
2 162 (58.91%) Firewall
3 140 (50.91%) WAN
4 106 (38.55%) VPN
5 100 (36.36%) MPLS
6 96 (34.91%) LAN
7 74 (26.91%) Network Security
8 69 (25.09%) IPsec
9 63 (22.91%) VLAN
10 47 (17.09%) Wireless
11 45 (16.36%) SD-WAN
12 44 (16.00%) DNS
13 41 (14.91%) EIGRP
14 40 (14.55%) Cisco ASA
14 40 (14.55%) VXLAN
15 33 (12.00%) Cisco Nexus
16 32 (11.64%) TCP/IP
17 31 (11.27%) Ethernet VPN
18 29 (10.55%) Multicast
19 26 (9.45%) Cisco ISE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.36%) Redis
1 1 (0.36%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 9 (3.27%) Git
1 9 (3.27%) Sonatype Nexus
2 4 (1.45%) GitLab
3 3 (1.09%) JIRA
4 1 (0.36%) AppScan
4 1 (0.36%) Bitbucket
4 1 (0.36%) Burp Suite
4 1 (0.36%) Metasploit
4 1 (0.36%) Robot Framework
General
1 74 (26.91%) Social Skills
2 38 (13.82%) Documentation Skills
3 34 (12.36%) Public Sector
4 30 (10.91%) Analytical Skills
5 19 (6.91%) Telecoms
6 18 (6.55%) Finance
7 16 (5.82%) Banking
8 15 (5.45%) Manufacturing
9 13 (4.73%) Investment Banking
10 9 (3.27%) Military
11 8 (2.91%) Financial Institution
12 6 (2.18%) Legal
12 6 (2.18%) Marketing
13 4 (1.45%) French Language
13 4 (1.45%) Influencing Skills
13 4 (1.45%) Retail
14 3 (1.09%) Electronics
15 2 (0.73%) Aviation
15 2 (0.73%) Pharmaceutical
15 2 (0.73%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 150 (54.55%) Network Engineer
2 39 (14.18%) Architect
3 38 (13.82%) Cisco Engineer
4 34 (12.36%) Cisco Network Engineer
5 26 (9.45%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
6 24 (8.73%) Network Architect
6 24 (8.73%) Security Engineer
7 20 (7.27%) Senior
8 19 (6.91%) Network Security Engineer
9 13 (4.73%) Juniper Engineer
10 12 (4.36%) Support Engineer
11 11 (4.00%) Data Network Engineer
11 11 (4.00%) WAN Engineer
12 10 (3.64%) 2nd Line Engineer
12 10 (3.64%) Cisco Security Engineer
12 10 (3.64%) Data Engineer
12 10 (3.64%) Senior Network Engineer
13 9 (3.27%) Solutions Architect
13 9 (3.27%) Wireless Engineer
13 9 (3.27%) Wireless Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (4.73%) 802.1X
2 11 (4.00%) YANG
3 10 (3.64%) NETCONF
4 9 (3.27%) REST
5 6 (2.18%) LDAP
6 4 (1.45%) JSON
6 4 (1.45%) VML
7 3 (1.09%) OpenConfig
7 3 (1.09%) SAML
8 2 (0.73%) AWS CDK
8 2 (0.73%) CSS
8 2 (0.73%) HTML
8 2 (0.73%) RESTCONF
8 2 (0.73%) XML
9 1 (0.36%) Elastic Stack
9 1 (0.36%) gRPC
9 1 (0.36%) JFC
9 1 (0.36%) Jinja
9 1 (0.36%) LangChain
9 1 (0.36%) RFC 2544
Miscellaneous
1 103 (37.45%) Data Centre
2 38 (13.82%) PKI
3 17 (6.18%) Hybrid Cloud
4 9 (3.27%) Cloud Native
4 9 (3.27%) Product Ownership
5 6 (2.18%) Self-Motivation
6 5 (1.82%) Analytical Mindset
6 5 (1.82%) Data Protection Act
6 5 (1.82%) NHS
6 5 (1.82%) Operational Technology
7 4 (1.45%) Onboarding
7 4 (1.45%) SCADA
8 3 (1.09%) CESG
8 3 (1.09%) Distributed Architecture
8 3 (1.09%) Linux Command Line
8 3 (1.09%) Public Cloud
8 3 (1.09%) Security Posture
9 2 (0.73%) Algorithms
9 2 (0.73%) Private Cloud
9 2 (0.73%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 24 (8.73%) Linux
2 14 (5.09%) Windows
3 9 (3.27%) Windows Server
4 7 (2.55%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 7 (2.55%) Ubuntu
5 1 (0.36%) Kali Linux
5 1 (0.36%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 44 (16.00%) Network Design
2 41 (14.91%) Load Balancing
2 41 (14.91%) Problem-Solving
3 28 (10.18%) Cybersecurity
3 28 (10.18%) Migration
4 24 (8.73%) Network Monitoring
5 23 (8.36%) Network Segmentation
5 23 (8.36%) Project Delivery
6 22 (8.00%) Zero Trust
7 20 (7.27%) Network Architecture
7 20 (7.27%) Roadmaps
8 19 (6.91%) Change Management
8 19 (6.91%) High Availability
9 18 (6.55%) Stakeholder Management
10 17 (6.18%) Strategic Thinking
11 16 (5.82%) Network Virtualisation
11 16 (5.82%) Security Architecture
12 15 (5.45%) Agile
12 15 (5.45%) Root Cause Analysis
12 15 (5.45%) TOGAF
Programming Languages
1 68 (24.73%) Python
2 19 (6.91%) Bash
3 13 (4.73%) Perl
4 11 (4.00%) PowerShell
5 9 (3.27%) Lisp
6 4 (1.45%) C++
6 4 (1.45%) PHP
7 2 (0.73%) JavaScript
8 1 (0.36%) Shell Script
8 1 (0.36%) SQL
Qualifications
1 133 (48.36%) Cisco Certification
2 123 (44.73%) Security Cleared
3 116 (42.18%) CCNP
4 104 (37.82%) SC Cleared
5 48 (17.45%) CCIE
6 28 (10.18%) DV Cleared
7 27 (9.82%) Degree
8 26 (9.45%) CCNA
9 18 (6.55%) JNCIE
10 16 (5.82%) JNCIS
11 12 (4.36%) AWS Certification
12 11 (4.00%) JNCIP
13 10 (3.64%) CCDP
13 10 (3.64%) JNCIA
14 9 (3.27%) CISSP
15 6 (2.18%) GIAC
16 5 (1.82%) CCIE Security
17 4 (1.45%) (ISC)2 CCSP
17 4 (1.45%) Azure Certification
17 4 (1.45%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (5.45%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 15 (5.45%) NIST
2 8 (2.91%) NCSC
3 7 (2.55%) GDPR
3 7 (2.55%) PCI DSS
3 7 (2.55%) SLA
4 4 (1.45%) Cyber Essentials
4 4 (1.45%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 3 (1.09%) RMADS
6 2 (0.73%) JSP 440
7 1 (0.36%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (0.36%) COBIT
7 1 (0.36%) GRC
7 1 (0.36%) HMG Security Policy Framework
7 1 (0.36%) NIST 800
7 1 (0.36%) QA
7 1 (0.36%) SOC 2
System Software
1 27 (9.82%) VMware Infrastructure
2 20 (7.27%) VMware NSX
3 10 (3.64%) Active Directory
4 8 (2.91%) Docker
5 6 (2.18%) VMware ESXi
6 5 (1.82%) Firmware
7 3 (1.09%) Hyper-V
7 3 (1.09%) KVM
7 3 (1.09%) vSphere
8 2 (0.73%) vCloud
9 1 (0.36%) Squid
Systems Management
1 56 (20.36%) Ansible
2 30 (10.91%) Terraform
3 28 (10.18%) FortiGate
4 7 (2.55%) Grafana
4 7 (2.55%) Prometheus
5 6 (2.18%) Kubernetes
5 6 (2.18%) vCenter Server
6 4 (1.45%) Iperf
6 4 (1.45%) Nmap
7 3 (1.09%) Nagios
7 3 (1.09%) SCOM
7 3 (1.09%) Single Sign-On
8 2 (0.73%) CASB
8 2 (0.73%) Cisco CUCM
8 2 (0.73%) Cisco Prime
9 1 (0.36%) Failover Clustering
9 1 (0.36%) Microsoft Intune
9 1 (0.36%) Nessus
9 1 (0.36%) Progress Chef
9 1 (0.36%) vRealize
Vendors
1 193 (70.18%) Cisco
2 83 (30.18%) Palo Alto
3 77 (28.00%) Juniper
4 58 (21.09%) F5
5 46 (16.73%) CheckPoint
5 46 (16.73%) Fortinet
6 35 (12.73%) Aruba
7 32 (11.64%) VMware
8 28 (10.18%) Meraki
9 18 (6.55%) Arista
9 18 (6.55%) SolarWinds
10 16 (5.82%) Zscaler
11 12 (4.36%) Remedy
11 12 (4.36%) ServiceNow
12 11 (4.00%) Nokia
13 10 (3.64%) Ekahau
14 7 (2.55%) Microsoft
14 7 (2.55%) NVIDIA
14 7 (2.55%) Red Hat
15 6 (2.18%) Splunk