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 22 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 293 239 243
Rank change year-on-year -54 +4 +111
Contract jobs citing BGP 369 334 435
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.80% 1.13% 1.00%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 8.24% 8.84% 7.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 213 214 260
10th Percentile £340 £325 £313
25th Percentile £400 £413 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £460 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -8.00% +5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £550 £600 £550
90th Percentile £625 £750 £613
UK excluding London median daily rate £469 £483 £450
% change year-on-year -2.80% +7.22% -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 1 9
10th Percentile £53.08 - £24.05
25th Percentile £70.67 £18.50 £24.25
Median hourly rate £74.26 £19.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +290.84% -65.45% -21.43%
75th Percentile - £19.50 £70.00
90th Percentile - - £72.65
UK excluding London median hourly rate £74.26 £19.00 £63.00
% change year-on-year +290.84% -69.84% +1.61%

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 4,480 3,778 5,668
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.66% 12.82% 13.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,798 2,342 3,400
10th Percentile £247 £213 £205
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £488
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% -0.15% -6.11%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £464 £475
% change year-on-year +2.43% -2.37% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 209 171 425
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.86
25th Percentile £20.75 £20.93 £17.69
Median hourly rate £47.50 £37.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +26.67% -6.25% +110.53%
75th Percentile £70.00 £61.38 £62.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.50 £27.97 £46.14
% change year-on-year +98.43% -39.37% +149.38%

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 22 April 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 22 April 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 22 April 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 -74 322 £473 -5.50% 97
UK excluding London -33 217 £469 -2.80% 86
Work from Home -35 109 £445 -11.00% 34
South East +12 105 £450 -10.00% 30
London -73 99 £450 -10.00% 24
North of England -65 57 £550 +10.00% 27
North West -40 52 £550 +4.76% 15
Midlands -34 51 £425 +30.77% 10
West Midlands -25 48 £444 +47.92% 8
South West -41 21 £513 -2.38% 9
Scotland -2 8 £425 +3.03% 4
Yorkshire -52 5 £538 +53.57% 5
Wales -12 4 £425 -5.56%
North East -17 3 £550 +120.00% 7
East of England -32 2 £500 +17.65% 5
East Midlands -37 2 - - 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 6 (1.63%) SharePoint
2 4 (1.08%) Confluence
3 2 (0.54%) OpenStack
Applications
1 12 (3.25%) MS Visio
2 8 (2.17%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 6 (1.63%) Microsoft Office
4 5 (1.36%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 60 (16.26%) AWS
2 53 (14.36%) Azure
3 25 (6.78%) GCP
4 19 (5.15%) Virtual Private Cloud
5 10 (2.71%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 9 (2.44%) AWS Direct Connect
7 8 (2.17%) Route 53
8 5 (1.36%) Amazon EKS
8 5 (1.36%) Amazon GuardDuty
8 5 (1.36%) SaaS
9 4 (1.08%) Azure Sentinel
10 3 (0.81%) Amazon S3
10 3 (0.81%) Catchpoint
10 3 (0.81%) GitHub
10 3 (0.81%) IaaS
10 3 (0.81%) Nutanix
10 3 (0.81%) PaaS
11 2 (0.54%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 2 (0.54%) AWS CloudFormation
11 2 (0.54%) AWS Control Tower
Communications & Networking
1 258 (69.92%) OSPF
2 226 (61.25%) Firewall
3 203 (55.01%) WAN
4 148 (40.11%) LAN
5 116 (31.44%) VPN
6 104 (28.18%) Network Security
7 95 (25.75%) MPLS
8 92 (24.93%) VXLAN
9 88 (23.85%) VLAN
10 82 (22.22%) DNS
11 66 (17.89%) SD-WAN
12 64 (17.34%) Ethernet VPN
13 62 (16.80%) Multicast
14 51 (13.82%) Cisco ASA
15 50 (13.55%) IPsec
15 50 (13.55%) TCP/IP
16 46 (12.47%) DHCP
17 45 (12.20%) Cisco ISE
18 44 (11.92%) Cisco Nexus
18 44 (11.92%) Wireless
Development Applications
1 14 (3.79%) Git
2 9 (2.44%) Sonatype Nexus
3 4 (1.08%) GitLab
3 4 (1.08%) JIRA
4 3 (0.81%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.27%) AppScan
5 1 (0.27%) Burp Suite
5 1 (0.27%) Metasploit
General
1 61 (16.53%) Social Skills
2 40 (10.84%) Analytical Skills
3 37 (10.03%) Documentation Skills
4 34 (9.21%) Finance
5 30 (8.13%) Public Sector
6 25 (6.78%) Banking
7 22 (5.96%) Telecoms
8 17 (4.61%) Investment Banking
9 15 (4.07%) Financial Institution
10 14 (3.79%) Manufacturing
11 12 (3.25%) Military
12 6 (1.63%) Legal
13 5 (1.36%) Marketing
13 5 (1.36%) Retail
14 4 (1.08%) Influencing Skills
15 3 (0.81%) French Language
15 3 (0.81%) Police
16 2 (0.54%) Aviation
16 2 (0.54%) Electronics
16 2 (0.54%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 224 (60.70%) Network Engineer
2 55 (14.91%) Cisco Engineer
3 52 (14.09%) Cisco Network Engineer
4 49 (13.28%) Senior
5 43 (11.65%) Security Engineer
6 41 (11.11%) Architect
7 38 (10.30%) Data Network Engineer
7 38 (10.30%) Network Security Engineer
8 36 (9.76%) Senior Network Engineer
9 30 (8.13%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
10 29 (7.86%) Cisco Security Engineer
10 29 (7.86%) Network Architect
11 28 (7.59%) Data Engineer
12 21 (5.69%) Network Specialist
13 14 (3.79%) Juniper Engineer
14 13 (3.52%) Design Engineer
14 13 (3.52%) Firewall Specialist
14 13 (3.52%) Web Engineer
15 11 (2.98%) Data Centre Engineer
15 11 (2.98%) Operations Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 39 (10.57%) 802.1X
2 8 (2.17%) NETCONF
2 8 (2.17%) REST
2 8 (2.17%) YANG
3 6 (1.63%) LDAP
4 5 (1.36%) OpenConfig
5 4 (1.08%) Jinja
5 4 (1.08%) RESTCONF
5 4 (1.08%) VML
6 2 (0.54%) AWS CDK
6 2 (0.54%) CSS
6 2 (0.54%) HTML
6 2 (0.54%) JSON
6 2 (0.54%) RFC 2544
6 2 (0.54%) XML
7 1 (0.27%) eBPF
Miscellaneous
1 165 (44.72%) Data Centre
2 39 (10.57%) PKI
3 24 (6.50%) Clustering
4 14 (3.79%) Hybrid Cloud
5 9 (2.44%) Product Ownership
6 8 (2.17%) Analytical Mindset
6 8 (2.17%) Onboarding
7 6 (1.63%) Cloud Native
7 6 (1.63%) Data Protection Act
8 5 (1.36%) Self-Motivation
9 4 (1.08%) Distributed Systems
9 4 (1.08%) NHS
9 4 (1.08%) Operational Technology
9 4 (1.08%) Public Cloud
9 4 (1.08%) Virtual Team
10 3 (0.81%) CESG
10 3 (0.81%) Distributed Architecture
10 3 (0.81%) Management Information System
10 3 (0.81%) SCADA
10 3 (0.81%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 44 (11.92%) Windows
2 23 (6.23%) Linux
3 9 (2.44%) Windows Server
4 7 (1.90%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 6 (1.63%) Ubuntu
6 2 (0.54%) Unix
7 1 (0.27%) Kali Linux
7 1 (0.27%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 85 (23.04%) Load Balancing
2 59 (15.99%) High Availability
3 56 (15.18%) Problem-Solving
4 44 (11.92%) Network Design
5 40 (10.84%) Migration
6 34 (9.21%) ITIL
7 32 (8.67%) Change Management
8 31 (8.40%) Observability
9 29 (7.86%) Cybersecurity
9 29 (7.86%) Infrastructure as Code
10 27 (7.32%) Network Monitoring
10 27 (7.32%) Project Delivery
10 27 (7.32%) Stakeholder Management
11 26 (7.05%) Continuous Improvement
11 26 (7.05%) Zero Trust
12 25 (6.78%) Identity Access Management
13 24 (6.50%) Network Segmentation
14 23 (6.23%) Root Cause Analysis
15 22 (5.96%) Mentoring
15 22 (5.96%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 79 (21.41%) Python
2 12 (3.25%) Bash
3 10 (2.71%) PowerShell
4 6 (1.63%) Perl
5 4 (1.08%) PHP
6 3 (0.81%) Lisp
7 2 (0.54%) JavaScript
7 2 (0.54%) SQL
Qualifications
1 161 (43.63%) Cisco Certification
2 146 (39.57%) Security Cleared
3 123 (33.33%) CCNP
4 111 (30.08%) SC Cleared
5 54 (14.63%) CCIE
6 41 (11.11%) DV Cleared
7 31 (8.40%) CCNA
7 31 (8.40%) Degree
8 19 (5.15%) JNCIP
9 18 (4.88%) JNCIS
10 14 (3.79%) JNCIE
11 13 (3.52%) JNCIA
12 11 (2.98%) AWS Certification
13 10 (2.71%) CISSP
14 9 (2.44%) Azure Certification
15 8 (2.17%) CCDP
15 8 (2.17%) Computer Science Degree
16 7 (1.90%) GIAC
17 5 (1.36%) CompTIA Security+
17 5 (1.36%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (3.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 14 (3.79%) NIST
2 10 (2.71%) NCSC
2 10 (2.71%) SLA
3 7 (1.90%) PCI DSS
4 6 (1.63%) GDPR
5 4 (1.08%) Cyber Essentials
5 4 (1.08%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 3 (0.81%) RMADS
7 2 (0.54%) JSP 440
8 1 (0.27%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.27%) COBIT
8 1 (0.27%) GRC
8 1 (0.27%) HMG Security Policy Framework
8 1 (0.27%) NIST 800
8 1 (0.27%) QA
System Software
1 32 (8.67%) VMware Infrastructure
2 15 (4.07%) VMware NSX
3 9 (2.44%) Active Directory
4 8 (2.17%) VMware ESXi
5 5 (1.36%) Docker
6 3 (0.81%) vSphere
7 2 (0.54%) Firmware
7 2 (0.54%) vCloud
7 2 (0.54%) Virtual Servers
8 1 (0.27%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.27%) KVM
8 1 (0.27%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 75 (20.33%) Ansible
2 53 (14.36%) FortiGate
3 40 (10.84%) Terraform
4 15 (4.07%) Grafana
5 12 (3.25%) Prometheus
6 8 (2.17%) Kubernetes
7 6 (1.63%) vCenter Server
8 5 (1.36%) Nagios
9 3 (0.81%) SCOM
10 2 (0.54%) Cisco Prime
10 2 (0.54%) Iperf
10 2 (0.54%) Nmap
11 1 (0.27%) CASB
11 1 (0.27%) Cilium
11 1 (0.27%) Cisco CUCM
11 1 (0.27%) Failover Clustering
11 1 (0.27%) Nessus
11 1 (0.27%) QRadar
11 1 (0.27%) vRealize
11 1 (0.27%) VxRail
Vendors
1 280 (75.88%) Cisco
2 126 (34.15%) F5
3 101 (27.37%) Palo Alto
4 91 (24.66%) Juniper
5 65 (17.62%) Fortinet
6 52 (14.09%) CheckPoint
7 41 (11.11%) Arista
8 40 (10.84%) Aruba
9 37 (10.03%) VMware
10 36 (9.76%) SolarWinds
11 27 (7.32%) Splunk
12 26 (7.05%) Meraki
13 24 (6.50%) Extreme Networks
14 17 (4.61%) Zscaler
15 14 (3.79%) Nokia
16 11 (2.98%) Microsoft
17 9 (2.44%) Ekahau
17 9 (2.44%) ServiceNow
18 7 (1.90%) Red Hat
19 6 (1.63%) Infoblox