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

6 months to
20 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 298 269 256
Rank change year-on-year -29 -13 +24
Contract jobs citing BGP 442 314 364
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.83% 0.96% 0.94%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 8.72% 8.09% 7.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 261 199 229
10th Percentile £380 £325 £300
25th Percentile £418 £408 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% - -5.00%
75th Percentile £588 £603 £538
90th Percentile £688 £666 £588
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 5,069 3,880 4,745
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.47% 11.82% 12.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,998 2,361 2,873
10th Percentile £250 £243 £220
25th Percentile £400 £370 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £485 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.09% -3.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £608
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £483 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +1.68% -5.00% +9.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 366 203 314
10th Percentile £15.18 £14.99 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.33 £25.15 £20.13
Median hourly rate £26.00 £46.25 £49.50
Median % change year-on-year -43.78% -6.57% -10.00%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £81.35 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.00 £45.00 £54.88
% change year-on-year -42.22% -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 20 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 20 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 20 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 -31 408 £510 +4.62% 98
UK excluding London -32 260 £500 +5.26% 48
London -68 129 £510 +7.37% 59
North of England +13 111 £500 +5.26% 8
Work from Home -39 111 £500 - 29
South East -9 84 £525 +16.67% 12
North West +11 81 £500 +5.26% 3
Midlands -42 48 £425 +6.25% 9
West Midlands -42 45 £440 +10.06% 8
South West -34 33 £525 -16.67% 5
Yorkshire -20 23 £495 -1.00% 5
North East -26 13 £650 +160.00%
Scotland -15 9 £375 -11.76% 5
East of England -21 6 £500 -28.57% 9
East Midlands -17 2 - - 1
Wales -18 2 £425 -6.59%

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 (2.71%) OpenStack
2 8 (1.81%) SAS
3 3 (0.68%) Microsoft Exchange
4 2 (0.45%) Confluence
5 1 (0.23%) SharePoint
Applications
1 11 (2.49%) MS Visio
2 8 (1.81%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (1.36%) Microsoft Excel
3 6 (1.36%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.68%) AutoCAD
Cloud Services
1 112 (25.34%) Azure
2 86 (19.46%) AWS
3 26 (5.88%) GCP
4 23 (5.20%) OCI
5 21 (4.75%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 17 (3.85%) GitHub
7 13 (2.94%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 12 (2.71%) SaaS
9 10 (2.26%) AWS Direct Connect
10 8 (1.81%) Microsoft 365
11 7 (1.58%) Azure Monitor
11 7 (1.58%) Azure Sentinel
11 7 (1.58%) OpenShift
12 6 (1.36%) Nutanix
13 3 (0.68%) Azure DevOps
14 2 (0.45%) Amazon EKS
14 2 (0.45%) Amazon GuardDuty
14 2 (0.45%) AWS CloudFormation
14 2 (0.45%) Entra ID
14 2 (0.45%) Route 53
Communications & Networking
1 268 (60.63%) OSPF
2 254 (57.47%) Firewall
3 224 (50.68%) WAN
4 136 (30.77%) VPN
5 133 (30.09%) LAN
6 118 (26.70%) VLAN
7 115 (26.02%) VXLAN
8 103 (23.30%) MPLS
9 94 (21.27%) Network Security
10 93 (21.04%) DNS
11 88 (19.91%) SD-WAN
12 83 (18.78%) Ethernet VPN
13 73 (16.52%) TCP/IP
14 69 (15.61%) Wireless
15 65 (14.71%) Multicast
16 63 (14.25%) IPsec
17 61 (13.80%) Wi-Fi
18 55 (12.44%) Cisco ASA
19 54 (12.22%) EIGRP
20 53 (11.99%) Cisco Nexus
Development Applications
1 29 (6.56%) GitLab
2 21 (4.75%) Git
3 7 (1.58%) JIRA
3 7 (1.58%) Sonatype Nexus
4 4 (0.90%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.23%) Bitbucket
General
1 72 (16.29%) Social Skills
2 48 (10.86%) Analytical Skills
3 42 (9.50%) Finance
4 29 (6.56%) Public Sector
5 28 (6.33%) Banking
5 28 (6.33%) Telecoms
6 18 (4.07%) Investment Banking
7 11 (2.49%) Documentation Skills
8 9 (2.04%) Financial Institution
9 8 (1.81%) Legal
9 8 (1.81%) Police
9 8 (1.81%) Retail
10 6 (1.36%) Military
11 4 (0.90%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 3 (0.68%) German Language
12 3 (0.68%) Influencing Skills
12 3 (0.68%) Italian Language
12 3 (0.68%) Spanish Language
13 2 (0.45%) Organisational Skills
13 2 (0.45%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 267 (60.41%) Network Engineer
2 94 (21.27%) Senior
3 63 (14.25%) Senior Network Engineer
4 60 (13.57%) Cisco Engineer
5 57 (12.90%) Cisco Network Engineer
6 47 (10.63%) Architect
7 41 (9.28%) Data Network Engineer
8 40 (9.05%) Network Security Engineer
8 40 (9.05%) Security Engineer
9 32 (7.24%) Network Architect
10 30 (6.79%) Cisco Security Engineer
11 29 (6.56%) Data Engineer
12 23 (5.20%) Consultant
12 23 (5.20%) Network Specialist
13 20 (4.52%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 18 (4.07%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
15 17 (3.85%) Developer
16 15 (3.39%) Network Consultant
16 15 (3.39%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
17 14 (3.17%) Web Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 74 (16.74%) Terraform
2 27 (6.11%) 802.1X
3 20 (4.52%) REST
4 12 (2.71%) NETCONF
4 12 (2.71%) YANG
5 8 (1.81%) JSON
5 8 (1.81%) YAML
6 7 (1.58%) OpenConfig
7 6 (1.36%) RESTCONF
8 4 (0.90%) CSS
8 4 (0.90%) Jinja
9 3 (0.68%) eBPF
10 2 (0.45%) SAML
11 1 (0.23%) LDAP
11 1 (0.23%) Model Context Protocol
11 1 (0.23%) Spine.js
Miscellaneous
1 180 (40.72%) Data Centre
2 52 (11.76%) Hybrid Cloud
3 27 (6.11%) Cloud Native
4 24 (5.43%) PKI
5 12 (2.71%) Clustering
6 11 (2.49%) Private Cloud
7 10 (2.26%) Analytical Mindset
7 10 (2.26%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
7 10 (2.26%) Self-Motivation
8 8 (1.81%) Operational Technology
8 8 (1.81%) Public Cloud
9 5 (1.13%) Data Protection Act
9 5 (1.13%) Digital Signage
9 5 (1.13%) Linux Command Line
9 5 (1.13%) Onboarding
9 5 (1.13%) Security Posture
10 4 (0.90%) CMDB
10 4 (0.90%) Distributed Systems
11 3 (0.68%) Driving Licence
11 3 (0.68%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 32 (7.24%) Windows
2 20 (4.52%) Linux
3 5 (1.13%) Windows Server
4 3 (0.68%) Unix
4 3 (0.68%) Windows Server 2012
5 2 (0.45%) 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 98 (22.17%) Load Balancing
2 75 (16.97%) High Availability
3 74 (16.74%) Infrastructure as Code
4 72 (16.29%) Network Design
5 69 (15.61%) Migration
6 66 (14.93%) Zero Trust
7 51 (11.54%) Problem-Solving
8 48 (10.86%) ITIL
9 46 (10.41%) CI/CD
10 45 (10.18%) Project Delivery
11 42 (9.50%) Network Architecture
11 42 (9.50%) Validation
12 34 (7.69%) DevOps
13 33 (7.47%) Network Segmentation
14 32 (7.24%) Infrastructure Engineering
15 29 (6.56%) Continuous Improvement
16 28 (6.33%) Mentoring
16 28 (6.33%) Observability
17 27 (6.11%) Network Monitoring
18 26 (5.88%) Change Control
Programming Languages
1 125 (28.28%) Python
2 11 (2.49%) Bash
3 6 (1.36%) PowerShell
3 6 (1.36%) SQL
4 3 (0.68%) Shell Script
5 2 (0.45%) Perl
6 1 (0.23%) Go
Qualifications
1 137 (31.00%) Security Cleared
2 134 (30.32%) Cisco Certification
3 98 (22.17%) CCNP
4 80 (18.10%) SC Cleared
5 51 (11.54%) CCIE
6 48 (10.86%) DV Cleared
7 22 (4.98%) CCNA
8 20 (4.52%) Degree
9 14 (3.17%) JNCIE
10 8 (1.81%) Azure Certification
10 8 (1.81%) Computer Science Degree
11 6 (1.36%) AWS Certification
12 4 (0.90%) CISSP
12 4 (0.90%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 3 (0.68%) CCIE Security
13 3 (0.68%) JNCIA
13 3 (0.68%) JNCIP
13 3 (0.68%) JNCIS
13 3 (0.68%) PMP
13 3 (0.68%) VCDX
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (1.13%) NCSC
1 5 (1.13%) NIST
2 3 (0.68%) GDPR
2 3 (0.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 3 (0.68%) QA
3 2 (0.45%) NIST 800
3 2 (0.45%) PCI DSS
3 2 (0.45%) SLA
4 1 (0.23%) Cyber Essentials
System Software
1 30 (6.79%) VMware Infrastructure
2 15 (3.39%) VMware NSX
3 8 (1.81%) Firmware
4 7 (1.58%) Active Directory
4 7 (1.58%) Docker
4 7 (1.58%) Hyper-V
5 4 (0.90%) vSphere
6 2 (0.45%) Virtual Servers
6 2 (0.45%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.23%) KVM
7 1 (0.23%) ProxySG
7 1 (0.23%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 122 (27.60%) Ansible
2 48 (10.86%) FortiGate
3 21 (4.75%) Kubernetes
4 15 (3.39%) Grafana
5 14 (3.17%) Prometheus
6 8 (1.81%) Cisco Prime
7 5 (1.13%) Cilium
7 5 (1.13%) Nagios
8 3 (0.68%) Istio
9 2 (0.45%) Single Sign-On
10 1 (0.23%) CASB
10 1 (0.23%) Microsoft Intune
10 1 (0.23%) OPNET
10 1 (0.23%) Progress Chef
10 1 (0.23%) Puppet
10 1 (0.23%) QRadar
10 1 (0.23%) Rancher
10 1 (0.23%) Suricata
10 1 (0.23%) VxRail
Vendors
1 308 (69.68%) Cisco
2 148 (33.48%) F5
3 131 (29.64%) Palo Alto
4 100 (22.62%) Fortinet
5 80 (18.10%) Arista
6 67 (15.16%) Juniper
7 44 (9.95%) CheckPoint
8 43 (9.73%) Aruba
9 42 (9.50%) VMware
10 34 (7.69%) SolarWinds
11 31 (7.01%) Microsoft
12 19 (4.30%) Meraki
12 19 (4.30%) Splunk
12 19 (4.30%) Zscaler
13 16 (3.62%) ServiceNow
14 13 (2.94%) Extreme Networks
15 12 (2.71%) Google
16 9 (2.04%) Red Hat
17 8 (1.81%) Citrix
18 7 (1.58%) Ekahau