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

6 months to
17 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 293 269 252
Rank change year-on-year -24 -17 +30
Contract jobs citing BGP 439 316 362
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.82% 0.95% 0.93%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 8.73% 8.08% 7.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 260 197 232
10th Percentile £380 £325 £300
25th Percentile £418 £413 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% - -5.00%
75th Percentile £588 £613 £538
90th Percentile £688 £675 £581
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +5.26% - -2.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 4 2
10th Percentile £51.21 £37.38 £23.15
25th Percentile £55.66 £39.06 £30.13
Median hourly rate £65.38 £48.75 £42.00
Median % change year-on-year +34.10% +16.07% -32.26%
75th Percentile £78.45 £60.88 £53.63
90th Percentile £86.90 £64.70 £60.45
UK excluding London median hourly rate £58.25 £66.50 £19.00
% change year-on-year -12.41% +250.00% -68.33%

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 5,031 3,913 4,729
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.40% 11.82% 12.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,979 2,378 2,892
10th Percentile £250 £242 £222
25th Percentile £400 £375 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £486 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.83% -2.75% -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £608
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £489 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +2.89% -5.00% +9.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 363 203 315
10th Percentile £15.18 £14.99 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.33 £25.15 £20.00
Median hourly rate £26.14 £46.25 £49.00
Median % change year-on-year -43.48% -5.61% -10.91%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £81.95 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.14 £45.00 £54.88
% change year-on-year -41.91% -18.00% -2.86%

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 17 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 17 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 17 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 -20 404 £510 +2.00% 163
UK excluding London -20 258 £500 +5.26% 71
London -70 128 £505 +1.00% 106
Work from Home -43 111 £500 - 51
North of England -4 108 £500 +5.26% 12
South East -13 87 £525 +16.67% 21
North West +7 81 £500 +5.26% 6
Midlands -32 49 £425 +6.25% 13
West Midlands -37 46 £440 +10.06% 10
South West -38 32 £525 -16.83% 5
Yorkshire -17 20 £500 - 5
North East -30 13 £650 +160.00% 1
Scotland -11 9 £375 -11.76% 9
East of England -21 6 £500 -28.57% 9
Wales -17 2 £425 -6.59%
East Midlands -18 2 - - 3

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 12 (2.73%) OpenStack
2 6 (1.37%) SAS
3 3 (0.68%) Microsoft Exchange
4 2 (0.46%) Confluence
5 1 (0.23%) SharePoint
Applications
1 11 (2.51%) MS Visio
2 8 (1.82%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (1.37%) Microsoft Excel
3 6 (1.37%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.68%) AutoCAD
Cloud Services
1 110 (25.06%) Azure
2 87 (19.82%) AWS
3 26 (5.92%) GCP
4 23 (5.24%) OCI
5 21 (4.78%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 17 (3.87%) GitHub
7 13 (2.96%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 12 (2.73%) SaaS
9 10 (2.28%) AWS Direct Connect
10 7 (1.59%) Azure Monitor
10 7 (1.59%) Azure Sentinel
10 7 (1.59%) OpenShift
11 6 (1.37%) Nutanix
12 5 (1.14%) Microsoft 365
13 3 (0.68%) Azure DevOps
14 2 (0.46%) Amazon EKS
14 2 (0.46%) Amazon GuardDuty
14 2 (0.46%) Entra ID
14 2 (0.46%) GitHub Actions
14 2 (0.46%) Route 53
Communications & Networking
1 266 (60.59%) OSPF
2 252 (57.40%) Firewall
3 220 (50.11%) WAN
4 134 (30.52%) VPN
5 131 (29.84%) LAN
6 117 (26.65%) VXLAN
7 115 (26.20%) VLAN
8 104 (23.69%) MPLS
9 93 (21.18%) DNS
10 91 (20.73%) Network Security
11 86 (19.59%) SD-WAN
12 83 (18.91%) Ethernet VPN
13 72 (16.40%) TCP/IP
14 68 (15.49%) Multicast
15 66 (15.03%) Wireless
16 64 (14.58%) IPsec
17 58 (13.21%) Wi-Fi
18 54 (12.30%) Cisco ASA
18 54 (12.30%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
19 52 (11.85%) Cisco Nexus
Development Applications
1 29 (6.61%) GitLab
2 20 (4.56%) Git
3 7 (1.59%) JIRA
3 7 (1.59%) Sonatype Nexus
4 4 (0.91%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.23%) Bitbucket
General
1 70 (15.95%) Social Skills
2 47 (10.71%) Analytical Skills
3 43 (9.79%) Finance
4 30 (6.83%) Banking
5 28 (6.38%) Public Sector
6 27 (6.15%) Telecoms
7 19 (4.33%) Investment Banking
8 12 (2.73%) Documentation Skills
9 10 (2.28%) Financial Institution
10 8 (1.82%) Legal
10 8 (1.82%) Police
10 8 (1.82%) Retail
11 6 (1.37%) Military
12 4 (0.91%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 3 (0.68%) German Language
13 3 (0.68%) Influencing Skills
13 3 (0.68%) Italian Language
13 3 (0.68%) Spanish Language
14 2 (0.46%) Law
14 2 (0.46%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 265 (60.36%) Network Engineer
2 90 (20.50%) Senior
3 62 (14.12%) Cisco Engineer
4 59 (13.44%) Cisco Network Engineer
4 59 (13.44%) Senior Network Engineer
5 46 (10.48%) Architect
6 43 (9.79%) Data Network Engineer
7 42 (9.57%) Network Security Engineer
7 42 (9.57%) Security Engineer
8 32 (7.29%) Cisco Security Engineer
8 32 (7.29%) Network Architect
9 31 (7.06%) Data Engineer
10 22 (5.01%) Consultant
10 22 (5.01%) Network Specialist
11 20 (4.56%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 18 (4.10%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
13 17 (3.87%) Developer
14 15 (3.42%) Web Engineer
15 14 (3.19%) Network Consultant
15 14 (3.19%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 28 (6.38%) 802.1X
2 20 (4.56%) REST
3 12 (2.73%) NETCONF
3 12 (2.73%) YANG
4 8 (1.82%) JSON
4 8 (1.82%) YAML
5 7 (1.59%) OpenConfig
6 6 (1.37%) RESTCONF
7 4 (0.91%) CSS
7 4 (0.91%) Jinja
8 3 (0.68%) eBPF
9 2 (0.46%) SAML
10 1 (0.23%) LDAP
10 1 (0.23%) Model Context Protocol
10 1 (0.23%) Spine.js
Miscellaneous
1 177 (40.32%) Data Centre
2 52 (11.85%) Hybrid Cloud
3 26 (5.92%) Cloud Native
4 24 (5.47%) PKI
5 13 (2.96%) Clustering
6 11 (2.51%) Private Cloud
7 10 (2.28%) Analytical Mindset
7 10 (2.28%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
7 10 (2.28%) Self-Motivation
8 8 (1.82%) Public Cloud
9 7 (1.59%) Operational Technology
10 5 (1.14%) Data Protection Act
10 5 (1.14%) Digital Signage
10 5 (1.14%) Linux Command Line
10 5 (1.14%) Onboarding
10 5 (1.14%) Security Posture
11 4 (0.91%) CMDB
11 4 (0.91%) Distributed Systems
12 3 (0.68%) Distributed Applications
12 3 (0.68%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 34 (7.74%) Windows
2 19 (4.33%) Linux
3 5 (1.14%) Windows Server
4 3 (0.68%) Unix
4 3 (0.68%) Windows Server 2012
5 2 (0.46%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.23%) VMS
6 1 (0.23%) Windows Server 2016
6 1 (0.23%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 101 (23.01%) Load Balancing
2 75 (17.08%) High Availability
3 73 (16.63%) Network Design
4 72 (16.40%) Infrastructure as Code
5 68 (15.49%) Migration
6 66 (15.03%) Zero Trust
7 51 (11.62%) Problem-Solving
8 46 (10.48%) ITIL
9 45 (10.25%) CI/CD
9 45 (10.25%) Project Delivery
10 42 (9.57%) Network Architecture
10 42 (9.57%) Validation
11 32 (7.29%) DevOps
11 32 (7.29%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 32 (7.29%) Network Segmentation
12 28 (6.38%) Change Management
12 28 (6.38%) Continuous Improvement
12 28 (6.38%) Mentoring
12 28 (6.38%) Network Monitoring
12 28 (6.38%) Observability
Programming Languages
1 123 (28.02%) Python
2 10 (2.28%) Bash
3 6 (1.37%) PowerShell
3 6 (1.37%) SQL
4 3 (0.68%) Shell Script
5 2 (0.46%) Perl
6 1 (0.23%) Go
Qualifications
1 133 (30.30%) Security Cleared
2 131 (29.84%) Cisco Certification
3 93 (21.18%) CCNP
4 76 (17.31%) SC Cleared
5 50 (11.39%) CCIE
6 48 (10.93%) DV Cleared
7 22 (5.01%) CCNA
8 20 (4.56%) Degree
9 14 (3.19%) JNCIE
10 8 (1.82%) Azure Certification
10 8 (1.82%) Computer Science Degree
11 6 (1.37%) AWS Certification
12 4 (0.91%) CISSP
12 4 (0.91%) JNCIA
12 4 (0.91%) JNCIP
12 4 (0.91%) JNCIS
12 4 (0.91%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 3 (0.68%) CCIE Security
13 3 (0.68%) PMP
13 3 (0.68%) VCDX
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (1.14%) NCSC
1 5 (1.14%) NIST
2 3 (0.68%) GDPR
2 3 (0.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 3 (0.68%) QA
2 3 (0.68%) SLA
3 2 (0.46%) NIST 800
3 2 (0.46%) PCI DSS
4 1 (0.23%) Cyber Essentials
System Software
1 31 (7.06%) VMware Infrastructure
2 15 (3.42%) VMware NSX
3 8 (1.82%) Firmware
4 7 (1.59%) Active Directory
4 7 (1.59%) Docker
4 7 (1.59%) Hyper-V
5 4 (0.91%) vSphere
6 3 (0.68%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (0.46%) Virtual Servers
8 1 (0.23%) KVM
8 1 (0.23%) ProxySG
8 1 (0.23%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 121 (27.56%) Ansible
2 74 (16.86%) Terraform
3 49 (11.16%) FortiGate
4 20 (4.56%) Kubernetes
5 15 (3.42%) Grafana
6 14 (3.19%) Prometheus
7 8 (1.82%) Cisco Prime
8 6 (1.37%) Nagios
9 4 (0.91%) Cilium
10 2 (0.46%) Istio
10 2 (0.46%) Single Sign-On
11 1 (0.23%) CASB
11 1 (0.23%) Microsoft Intune
11 1 (0.23%) OPNET
11 1 (0.23%) Progress Chef
11 1 (0.23%) Puppet
11 1 (0.23%) QRadar
11 1 (0.23%) Rancher
11 1 (0.23%) Suricata
11 1 (0.23%) VxRail
Vendors
1 306 (69.70%) Cisco
2 153 (34.85%) F5
3 130 (29.61%) Palo Alto
4 101 (23.01%) Fortinet
5 80 (18.22%) Arista
6 71 (16.17%) Juniper
7 43 (9.79%) VMware
8 42 (9.57%) Aruba
9 41 (9.34%) CheckPoint
10 36 (8.20%) SolarWinds
11 29 (6.61%) Microsoft
12 20 (4.56%) Splunk
13 19 (4.33%) Meraki
13 19 (4.33%) Zscaler
14 16 (3.64%) ServiceNow
15 14 (3.19%) Extreme Networks
16 12 (2.73%) Google
17 9 (2.05%) Red Hat
18 8 (1.82%) Citrix
19 7 (1.59%) Ekahau