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 vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 16 September 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 283 268 278
Rank change year-on-year -15 +10 +157
Contract jobs citing BGP 294 338 463
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.90% 0.89% 0.93%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 7.80% 7.51% 7.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 190 198 261
10th Percentile £325 £350 £381
25th Percentile £413 £413 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £609 £575 £594
90th Percentile £664 £669 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £502 £486
% change year-on-year -5.38% +3.29% -2.80%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 3 9
10th Percentile £37.38 £22.40 £23.30
25th Percentile £39.06 £28.25 £32.00
Median hourly rate £48.75 £38.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +28.29% -36.67% +150.00%
75th Percentile £60.88 £51.50 £63.00
90th Percentile £64.70 £59.60 £64.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £66.50 £19.00 £61.00
% change year-on-year +250.00% -68.85% +177.27%

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 3,770 4,498 6,619
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 11.54% 11.83% 13.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,325 2,612 4,224
10th Percentile £225 £230 £227
25th Percentile £363 £380 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £477 £505 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.45% +0.90% -
75th Percentile £588 £608 £613
90th Percentile £675 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £453 £500 £451
% change year-on-year -9.40% +10.80% +0.28%
Number of hourly rates quoted 197 257 301
10th Percentile £15.50 £14.16 £16.77
25th Percentile £25.15 £21.37 £22.75
Median hourly rate £42.50 £51.50 £56.49
Median % change year-on-year -17.48% -8.83% +36.90%
75th Percentile £63.75 £65.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £73.80 £75.00 £75.67
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £57.35 £57.50
% change year-on-year -25.89% -0.26% +27.78%

BGP
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing BGP as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for BGP 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 16 September 2025.

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 16 September 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for BGP in the UK

BGP
Top 17 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 16 September 2025. 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 -12 255 £500 +0.50% 72
UK excluding London -22 150 £475 -5.38% 57
London +34 112 £500 +5.26% 22
Work from Home -3 88 £500 +2.56% 39
South East -14 41 £500 -0.99% 20
Midlands -6 36 £400 -20.00% 17
West Midlands +5 35 £400 - 10
South West +19 26 £630 +32.63% 2
North of England -22 26 £475 -4.90% 13
North West -15 23 £475 -5.94% 10
Scotland +2 13 £425 +4.94% 3
East of England +5 8 £700 +24.44% 3
Channel Islands - 3 £725 -
Yorkshire -26 2 £400 +14.29% 2
Wales +6 1 £400 -
North East -5 1 £250 -41.18% 1
East Midlands -15 1 £438 -22.22% 6

BGP
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 23 (7.82%) OpenStack
2 12 (4.08%) Confluence
3 3 (1.02%) SharePoint
4 2 (0.68%) nginx
5 1 (0.34%) CMS
Applications
1 13 (4.42%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (1.70%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 5 (1.70%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.34%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 74 (25.17%) AWS
2 46 (15.65%) Azure
3 15 (5.10%) GCP
4 10 (3.40%) OpenShift
5 7 (2.38%) Akamai
6 5 (1.70%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 4 (1.36%) AWS Direct Connect
7 4 (1.36%) GitHub
7 4 (1.36%) SaaS
8 3 (1.02%) Microsoft 365
9 2 (0.68%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 2 (0.68%) IaaS
9 2 (0.68%) PaaS
10 1 (0.34%) AWS KMS
10 1 (0.34%) Azure DevOps
10 1 (0.34%) Azure Sentinel
10 1 (0.34%) Cloud Run
10 1 (0.34%) Entra ID
Communications & Networking
1 220 (74.83%) OSPF
2 160 (54.42%) Firewall
3 119 (40.48%) VPN
4 114 (38.78%) WAN
5 107 (36.39%) MPLS
6 85 (28.91%) IPsec
7 84 (28.57%) VLAN
8 83 (28.23%) Network Security
9 57 (19.39%) LAN
10 54 (18.37%) EIGRP
11 53 (18.03%) DNS
11 53 (18.03%) TCP/IP
12 47 (15.99%) SD-WAN
13 44 (14.97%) Ethernet VPN
14 41 (13.95%) Wireless
15 36 (12.24%) VXLAN
16 28 (9.52%) Cisco Nexus
16 28 (9.52%) Multicast
16 28 (9.52%) Wireshark
17 27 (9.18%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (0.68%) MongoDB
1 2 (0.68%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 11 (3.74%) JIRA
2 10 (3.40%) Sonatype Nexus
3 9 (3.06%) Git
3 9 (3.06%) GitLab
4 4 (1.36%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.34%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.34%) Robot Framework
General
1 87 (29.59%) Social Skills
2 33 (11.22%) Finance
3 31 (10.54%) Telecoms
4 30 (10.20%) Public Sector
5 27 (9.18%) Analytical Skills
6 16 (5.44%) Documentation Skills
7 10 (3.40%) Banking
8 7 (2.38%) Military
9 6 (2.04%) Marketing
10 4 (1.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 4 (1.36%) Investment Banking
11 2 (0.68%) Advertising
11 2 (0.68%) Legal
11 2 (0.68%) Local Government
11 2 (0.68%) Organisational Skills
11 2 (0.68%) Retail
12 1 (0.34%) Influencing Skills
12 1 (0.34%) Law
12 1 (0.34%) Manufacturing
12 1 (0.34%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 163 (55.44%) Network Engineer
2 37 (12.59%) Senior
3 33 (11.22%) Architect
4 28 (9.52%) Cisco Engineer
4 28 (9.52%) Cisco Network Engineer
5 21 (7.14%) Senior Network Engineer
6 18 (6.12%) WAN Engineer
7 17 (5.78%) Designer
7 17 (5.78%) Support Engineer
8 16 (5.44%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
9 15 (5.10%) Network Architect
10 13 (4.42%) Consultant
11 12 (4.08%) Juniper Engineer
12 11 (3.74%) Network Designer
13 10 (3.40%) 3rd Line Engineer
13 10 (3.40%) Network Security Engineer
13 10 (3.40%) Security Engineer
14 9 (3.06%) 3rd Line Support
14 9 (3.06%) Network Support
14 9 (3.06%) Network Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (5.10%) NETCONF
2 10 (3.40%) REST
3 9 (3.06%) RESTCONF
3 9 (3.06%) YANG
4 7 (2.38%) 802.1X
5 6 (2.04%) JSON
6 5 (1.70%) Jinja
6 5 (1.70%) YAML
7 3 (1.02%) SAML
7 3 (1.02%) XML
8 2 (0.68%) eBPF
8 2 (0.68%) gRPC
8 2 (0.68%) SOAP
9 1 (0.34%) CrewAI
9 1 (0.34%) JFC
9 1 (0.34%) LangChain
Miscellaneous
1 70 (23.81%) Data Centre
2 35 (11.90%) PKI
3 19 (6.46%) Hybrid Cloud
4 13 (4.42%) Onboarding
5 12 (4.08%) Cloud Native
6 10 (3.40%) Operational Technology
7 6 (2.04%) Data Protection Act
8 5 (1.70%) Private Cloud
9 4 (1.36%) Legacy Systems
9 4 (1.36%) Self-Motivation
10 3 (1.02%) Public Cloud
11 2 (0.68%) CMDB
11 2 (0.68%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
11 2 (0.68%) Distributed Systems
11 2 (0.68%) Hedge funds
11 2 (0.68%) Life Science
11 2 (0.68%) Product Ownership
11 2 (0.68%) Video\Live Streaming
12 1 (0.34%) Security Posture
12 1 (0.34%) Virtual Reality
Operating Systems
1 16 (5.44%) Linux
2 8 (2.72%) Windows
3 6 (2.04%) Check Point GAiA
4 3 (1.02%) Unix
5 2 (0.68%) CentOS
5 2 (0.68%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.34%) CatOS
6 1 (0.34%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.34%) Windows Server 2012
6 1 (0.34%) Windows Server 2016
6 1 (0.34%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 44 (14.97%) Network Monitoring
2 43 (14.63%) Network Design
3 40 (13.61%) Problem-Solving
4 35 (11.90%) High Availability
5 31 (10.54%) Load Balancing
6 28 (9.52%) Migration
6 28 (9.52%) Network Segmentation
6 28 (9.52%) Validation
7 27 (9.18%) Network Virtualisation
8 24 (8.16%) DevOps
8 24 (8.16%) Network Architecture
9 20 (6.80%) ITIL
10 19 (6.46%) SIEM
11 18 (6.12%) Computer Science
12 16 (5.44%) Change Management
13 15 (5.10%) Change Control
13 15 (5.10%) CI/CD
14 14 (4.76%) Agile
14 14 (4.76%) Roadmaps
14 14 (4.76%) Strategic Thinking
Programming Languages
1 101 (34.35%) Python
2 15 (5.10%) Bash
3 10 (3.40%) Perl
4 6 (2.04%) C++
5 3 (1.02%) PowerShell
6 2 (0.68%) C
6 2 (0.68%) SQL
7 1 (0.34%) Go
7 1 (0.34%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 137 (46.60%) Cisco Certification
2 108 (36.73%) CCNP
3 90 (30.61%) Security Cleared
4 60 (20.41%) SC Cleared
5 47 (15.99%) CCIE
6 31 (10.54%) Degree
7 26 (8.84%) JNCIE
8 24 (8.16%) DV Cleared
9 17 (5.78%) CCSE
10 16 (5.44%) CCNA
11 14 (4.76%) CCSA
12 13 (4.42%) JNCIA
13 12 (4.08%) AWS Certification
13 12 (4.08%) Computer Science Degree
13 12 (4.08%) JNCIS
14 7 (2.38%) JNCIP
15 6 (2.04%) Check Point Certification
16 4 (1.36%) Master's Degree
17 3 (1.02%) BPSS Clearance
17 3 (1.02%) CCIE Data Center
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (3.40%) NCSC
2 4 (1.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 4 (1.36%) SLA
3 2 (0.68%) GDPR
4 1 (0.34%) Def Stans
4 1 (0.34%) NIST
4 1 (0.34%) SOC 2
System Software
1 19 (6.46%) VMware Infrastructure
2 17 (5.78%) Firmware
3 12 (4.08%) Docker
4 11 (3.74%) VMware NSX
5 8 (2.72%) VMware ESXi
6 4 (1.36%) Ceph
7 3 (1.02%) Active Directory
7 3 (1.02%) Hyper-V
7 3 (1.02%) KVM
8 1 (0.34%) Squid
Systems Management
1 97 (32.99%) Ansible
2 28 (9.52%) Terraform
3 27 (9.18%) FortiGate
4 8 (2.72%) Nagios
5 7 (2.38%) Kubernetes
6 5 (1.70%) CA Spectrum
7 4 (1.36%) Cisco CUCM
8 3 (1.02%) HAProxy
8 3 (1.02%) Iperf
8 3 (1.02%) Nmap
8 3 (1.02%) Single Sign-On
9 2 (0.68%) Argo
9 2 (0.68%) Cisco Prime
9 2 (0.68%) Icinga
9 2 (0.68%) Observium
10 1 (0.34%) Cisco UCCX
10 1 (0.34%) OpenView
10 1 (0.34%) OPNET
10 1 (0.34%) Tivoli
10 1 (0.34%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 189 (64.29%) Cisco
2 90 (30.61%) Juniper
3 71 (24.15%) Palo Alto
4 68 (23.13%) Fortinet
5 44 (14.97%) CheckPoint
6 42 (14.29%) F5
6 42 (14.29%) SolarWinds
7 41 (13.95%) Arista
8 33 (11.22%) VMware
9 29 (9.86%) Meraki
10 13 (4.42%) Dell
11 12 (4.08%) Microsoft
12 11 (3.74%) ServiceNow
13 9 (3.06%) Atlassian
14 6 (2.04%) Zscaler
15 5 (1.70%) Mellanox
15 5 (1.70%) NVIDIA
16 4 (1.36%) Aruba
16 4 (1.36%) Red Hat
16 4 (1.36%) Splunk