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

6 months to
1 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 292 269 261
Rank change year-on-year -23 -8 +43
Contract jobs citing BGP 449 327 361
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.84% 0.99% 0.92%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 8.99% 8.25% 7.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 260 208 230
10th Percentile £367 £325 £297
25th Percentile £413 £413 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £470
Median % change year-on-year - +6.38% -6.00%
75th Percentile £573 £613 £538
90th Percentile £650 £675 £581
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £488 £475
% change year-on-year +2.56% +2.63% -2.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 3 2
10th Percentile £45.49 £37.00 £23.15
25th Percentile £53.19 £38.13 £30.13
Median hourly rate £71.33 £40.00 £42.00
Median % change year-on-year +78.33% -4.76% -32.26%
75th Percentile £74.01 £49.38 £53.63
90th Percentile £81.57 £55.00 £60.45
UK excluding London median hourly rate £64.79 - £19.00
% change year-on-year - - -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 4,995 3,963 4,799
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.37% 12.05% 12.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,973 2,421 2,922
10th Percentile £250 £235 £213
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 £595 £608
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +3.16% -5.00% +8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 344 195 335
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.34 £25.15 £18.15
Median hourly rate £26.69 £50.00 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year -46.62% +5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £83.60 £74.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.72 £45.00 £54.88
% change year-on-year -40.62% -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 1 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 1 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 1 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 -24 413 £500 - 83
UK excluding London -9 271 £500 +2.56% 48
London -76 122 £500 - 41
Work from Home -41 112 £500 - 31
South East +6 106 £525 +16.67% 15
North of England -8 102 £500 +5.26% 11
North West -9 78 £505 +6.32% 6
Midlands -34 49 £419 +4.69% 5
West Midlands -43 46 £413 +10.00% 5
South West -44 32 £525 -16.00% 10
Yorkshire -23 17 £495 +41.43% 6
North East -27 13 £650 +160.00%
Scotland -16 9 £375 -13.04% 1
East of England -18 6 £500 -28.57% 7
Wales -15 2 £425 -6.08% 1
East Midlands -17 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 (2.45%) OpenStack
2 3 (0.67%) Microsoft Exchange
2 3 (0.67%) SAS
3 2 (0.45%) Confluence
4 1 (0.22%) SharePoint
Applications
1 11 (2.45%) MS Visio
2 9 (2.00%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (1.34%) Microsoft Excel
3 6 (1.34%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.67%) AutoCAD
Cloud Services
1 114 (25.39%) Azure
2 90 (20.04%) AWS
3 31 (6.90%) GCP
4 23 (5.12%) OCI
5 17 (3.79%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 14 (3.12%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 13 (2.90%) SaaS
8 11 (2.45%) GitHub
9 9 (2.00%) Azure Sentinel
10 8 (1.78%) AWS Direct Connect
10 8 (1.78%) Nutanix
11 7 (1.56%) Azure Monitor
11 7 (1.56%) OpenShift
12 6 (1.34%) Microsoft 365
13 3 (0.67%) Azure DevOps
13 3 (0.67%) Entra ID
14 2 (0.45%) Amazon EKS
14 2 (0.45%) Amazon GuardDuty
14 2 (0.45%) AWS CloudFormation
14 2 (0.45%) Route 53
Communications & Networking
1 290 (64.59%) OSPF
2 270 (60.13%) Firewall
3 242 (53.90%) WAN
4 150 (33.41%) LAN
5 137 (30.51%) VPN
6 120 (26.73%) VLAN
7 119 (26.50%) VXLAN
8 105 (23.39%) DNS
8 105 (23.39%) MPLS
9 100 (22.27%) Network Security
10 87 (19.38%) Ethernet VPN
11 86 (19.15%) SD-WAN
12 76 (16.93%) Multicast
13 73 (16.26%) TCP/IP
14 70 (15.59%) IPsec
15 65 (14.48%) Wireless
16 62 (13.81%) BIG-IP
17 55 (12.25%) Wi-Fi
18 53 (11.80%) Cisco ASA
18 53 (11.80%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
Development Applications
1 22 (4.90%) GitLab
2 14 (3.12%) Git
3 9 (2.00%) Sonatype Nexus
4 8 (1.78%) JIRA
5 4 (0.89%) Jenkins
6 1 (0.22%) Bitbucket
General
1 73 (16.26%) Social Skills
2 47 (10.47%) Finance
3 44 (9.80%) Analytical Skills
4 33 (7.35%) Banking
5 31 (6.90%) Public Sector
6 28 (6.24%) Telecoms
7 19 (4.23%) Investment Banking
8 17 (3.79%) Documentation Skills
9 11 (2.45%) Financial Institution
9 11 (2.45%) Military
10 8 (1.78%) Retail
11 7 (1.56%) Legal
11 7 (1.56%) Police
12 4 (0.89%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 3 (0.67%) German Language
13 3 (0.67%) Influencing Skills
13 3 (0.67%) Italian Language
13 3 (0.67%) Spanish Language
14 2 (0.45%) Law
14 2 (0.45%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 262 (58.35%) Network Engineer
2 94 (20.94%) Senior
3 62 (13.81%) Cisco Engineer
4 59 (13.14%) Cisco Network Engineer
4 59 (13.14%) Senior Network Engineer
5 45 (10.02%) Architect
6 43 (9.58%) Data Network Engineer
6 43 (9.58%) Network Security Engineer
6 43 (9.58%) Security Engineer
7 32 (7.13%) Cisco Security Engineer
7 32 (7.13%) Network Architect
8 31 (6.90%) Data Engineer
9 27 (6.01%) Network Specialist
10 20 (4.45%) Consultant
10 20 (4.45%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 18 (4.01%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
12 17 (3.79%) Developer
13 16 (3.56%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
14 15 (3.34%) Web Engineer
15 14 (3.12%) Firewall Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 39 (8.69%) 802.1X
2 12 (2.67%) REST
3 11 (2.45%) NETCONF
3 11 (2.45%) YANG
4 6 (1.34%) OpenConfig
4 6 (1.34%) RESTCONF
5 4 (0.89%) CSS
5 4 (0.89%) Jinja
6 3 (0.67%) eBPF
7 2 (0.45%) LDAP
7 2 (0.45%) RFC 2544
7 2 (0.45%) SAML
8 1 (0.22%) JSON
8 1 (0.22%) Model Context Protocol
8 1 (0.22%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 186 (41.43%) Data Centre
2 51 (11.36%) Hybrid Cloud
3 36 (8.02%) PKI
4 26 (5.79%) Clustering
5 23 (5.12%) Cloud Native
6 10 (2.23%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
7 9 (2.00%) Analytical Mindset
7 9 (2.00%) Private Cloud
7 9 (2.00%) Self-Motivation
8 6 (1.34%) Public Cloud
8 6 (1.34%) Security Posture
9 5 (1.11%) Digital Signage
9 5 (1.11%) Linux Command Line
9 5 (1.11%) Onboarding
9 5 (1.11%) Operational Technology
10 4 (0.89%) CMDB
10 4 (0.89%) Data Protection Act
10 4 (0.89%) Distributed Systems
11 3 (0.67%) Greenfield Project
11 3 (0.67%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 48 (10.69%) Windows
2 16 (3.56%) Linux
3 6 (1.34%) Windows Server
4 3 (0.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 3 (0.67%) Unix
4 3 (0.67%) Windows Server 2012
5 2 (0.45%) VMS
6 1 (0.22%) Ubuntu
6 1 (0.22%) Windows Server 2016
6 1 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 114 (25.39%) Load Balancing
2 86 (19.15%) High Availability
3 75 (16.70%) Network Design
4 68 (15.14%) Zero Trust
5 66 (14.70%) Migration
6 64 (14.25%) Infrastructure as Code
7 53 (11.80%) Problem-Solving
8 48 (10.69%) ITIL
9 47 (10.47%) Network Architecture
10 45 (10.02%) Project Delivery
11 41 (9.13%) CI/CD
12 38 (8.46%) Observability
13 36 (8.02%) Validation
14 33 (7.35%) Change Management
14 33 (7.35%) DevOps
15 32 (7.13%) Network Segmentation
16 30 (6.68%) Infrastructure Engineering
17 29 (6.46%) Mentoring
18 27 (6.01%) Continuous Improvement
19 26 (5.79%) Network Monitoring
Programming Languages
1 117 (26.06%) Python
2 9 (2.00%) Bash
3 8 (1.78%) PowerShell
4 6 (1.34%) SQL
5 3 (0.67%) Perl
6 2 (0.45%) Shell Script
7 1 (0.22%) PHP
Qualifications
1 149 (33.18%) Cisco Certification
2 148 (32.96%) Security Cleared
3 102 (22.72%) CCNP
4 83 (18.49%) SC Cleared
5 59 (13.14%) DV Cleared
6 52 (11.58%) CCIE
7 26 (5.79%) CCNA
8 21 (4.68%) Degree
9 14 (3.12%) JNCIE
10 10 (2.23%) JNCIP
11 9 (2.00%) JNCIS
12 8 (1.78%) AWS Certification
12 8 (1.78%) Azure Certification
12 8 (1.78%) Computer Science Degree
12 8 (1.78%) JNCIA
13 6 (1.34%) CISSP
14 4 (0.89%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 3 (0.67%) GIAC
15 3 (0.67%) ISTQB
15 3 (0.67%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (2.23%) NCSC
2 6 (1.34%) NIST
3 5 (1.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 3 (0.67%) GDPR
4 3 (0.67%) QA
4 3 (0.67%) SLA
5 2 (0.45%) Cyber Essentials
5 2 (0.45%) NIST 800
5 2 (0.45%) PCI DSS
6 1 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 1 (0.22%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 31 (6.90%) VMware Infrastructure
2 13 (2.90%) VMware NSX
3 9 (2.00%) Active Directory
4 8 (1.78%) Hyper-V
5 7 (1.56%) Firmware
6 5 (1.11%) VMware ESXi
7 4 (0.89%) Docker
7 4 (0.89%) vSphere
8 2 (0.45%) Virtual Machines
8 2 (0.45%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.22%) KVM
9 1 (0.22%) ProxySG
Systems Management
1 117 (26.06%) Ansible
2 76 (16.93%) Terraform
3 59 (13.14%) FortiGate
4 19 (4.23%) Grafana
5 16 (3.56%) Prometheus
6 13 (2.90%) Kubernetes
7 9 (2.00%) Cisco Prime
8 6 (1.34%) Nagios
9 2 (0.45%) CASB
9 2 (0.45%) QRadar
9 2 (0.45%) Single Sign-On
10 1 (0.22%) Cilium
10 1 (0.22%) Iperf
10 1 (0.22%) Nmap
10 1 (0.22%) OPNET
10 1 (0.22%) Progress Chef
10 1 (0.22%) Rancher
10 1 (0.22%) Suricata
10 1 (0.22%) vCenter Server
10 1 (0.22%) VxRail
Vendors
1 314 (69.93%) Cisco
2 166 (36.97%) F5
3 129 (28.73%) Palo Alto
4 101 (22.49%) Fortinet
5 91 (20.27%) Juniper
6 83 (18.49%) Arista
7 46 (10.24%) SolarWinds
8 44 (9.80%) VMware
9 41 (9.13%) Aruba
9 41 (9.13%) CheckPoint
10 32 (7.13%) Splunk
11 27 (6.01%) Microsoft
12 26 (5.79%) Extreme Networks
13 22 (4.90%) Zscaler
14 21 (4.68%) Meraki
15 10 (2.23%) Citrix
15 10 (2.23%) Google
16 9 (2.00%) ServiceNow
17 7 (1.56%) Ekahau
18 6 (1.34%) NetScout