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 3 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

 6 months to
3 Jun 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 293 220 257
Rank change year-on-year -73 +37 +54
Contract jobs citing BGP 409 349 390
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.84% 1.21% 0.91%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 8.62% 9.62% 7.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 239 220 243
10th Percentile £331 £325 £335
25th Percentile £400 £425 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £470 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -6.00% +5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £553 £613 £549
90th Percentile £638 £704 £613
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £500 £457
% change year-on-year -4.00% +9.53% -5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 3 4
10th Percentile £47.22 £37.00 £19.93
25th Percentile £56.01 £38.13 £22.06
Median hourly rate £71.33 £40.00 £39.25
Median % change year-on-year +78.33% +1.91% -43.93%
75th Percentile £73.13 £49.38 £57.50
90th Percentile £73.81 £55.00 £62.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £71.33 - £19.00
% change year-on-year - - -69.35%

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 4,745 3,627 5,426
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.71% 12.61% 12.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,903 2,250 3,234
10th Percentile £263 £219 £206
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £485 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.09% -3.00% -2.44%
75th Percentile £588 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £465 £480
% change year-on-year +2.10% -2.97% +0.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 282 161 417
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.50
25th Percentile £21.25 £17.79 £16.30
Median hourly rate £28.96 £41.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -29.37% +2.50% +118.16%
75th Percentile £65.00 £60.13 £63.75
90th Percentile £74.93 £81.01 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.50 £31.08 £45.88
% change year-on-year +4.57% -32.26% +154.89%

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 3 June 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 3 June 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 3 June 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 -54 365 £480 -4.00% 95
UK excluding London -35 236 £480 -4.00% 78
Work from Home -42 126 £450 -18.18% 52
London -91 116 £450 -10.00% 36
South East +11 105 £458 -3.58% 25
North of England -53 77 £575 +15.00% 19
North West -24 61 £571 +14.25% 10
Midlands -29 51 £413 +37.50% 9
West Midlands -30 48 £413 +43.48% 9
South West -42 23 £525 -12.50% 7
North East -19 12 £650 +160.00% 6
Yorkshire -51 10 £475 +35.71% 3
Scotland -3 8 £434 +5.15% 11
Wales -17 4 £425 -5.56%
East of England -31 4 £500 +29.03% 5
East Midlands -29 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 (1.47%) OpenStack
2 4 (0.98%) Confluence
3 3 (0.73%) SharePoint
Applications
1 9 (2.20%) MS Visio
2 5 (1.22%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (1.22%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 3 (0.73%) Microsoft Excel
4 2 (0.49%) AutoCAD
Cloud Services
1 81 (19.80%) Azure
2 80 (19.56%) AWS
3 24 (5.87%) GCP
4 21 (5.13%) OCI
5 16 (3.91%) SaaS
6 15 (3.67%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 8 (1.96%) Route 53
8 7 (1.71%) AWS Direct Connect
9 6 (1.47%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 5 (1.22%) Amazon EKS
10 5 (1.22%) Amazon GuardDuty
10 5 (1.22%) Nutanix
11 4 (0.98%) Azure Sentinel
11 4 (0.98%) GitHub
12 3 (0.73%) Amazon S3
12 3 (0.73%) AWS CloudFormation
12 3 (0.73%) Catchpoint
12 3 (0.73%) IaaS
12 3 (0.73%) PaaS
13 2 (0.49%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 284 (69.44%) OSPF
2 240 (58.68%) Firewall
3 236 (57.70%) WAN
4 151 (36.92%) LAN
5 113 (27.63%) VXLAN
6 112 (27.38%) VPN
7 103 (25.18%) Network Security
8 95 (23.23%) MPLS
8 95 (23.23%) VLAN
9 87 (21.27%) Ethernet VPN
10 85 (20.78%) DNS
11 83 (20.29%) SD-WAN
12 69 (16.87%) Multicast
13 60 (14.67%) BIG-IP
14 58 (14.18%) IPsec
15 55 (13.45%) TCP/IP
16 44 (10.76%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
17 43 (10.51%) Wireless
18 42 (10.27%) Cisco ISE
18 42 (10.27%) Cisco Nexus
Development Applications
1 20 (4.89%) GitLab
2 11 (2.69%) Git
3 8 (1.96%) Sonatype Nexus
4 6 (1.47%) JIRA
5 3 (0.73%) Jenkins
6 1 (0.24%) AppScan
6 1 (0.24%) Bitbucket
6 1 (0.24%) Burp Suite
6 1 (0.24%) Metasploit
General
1 55 (13.45%) Social Skills
2 42 (10.27%) Finance
3 35 (8.56%) Public Sector
4 33 (8.07%) Analytical Skills
5 31 (7.58%) Documentation Skills
6 28 (6.85%) Banking
7 23 (5.62%) Telecoms
8 20 (4.89%) Investment Banking
9 13 (3.18%) Financial Institution
10 12 (2.93%) Military
11 10 (2.44%) Manufacturing
12 5 (1.22%) Legal
12 5 (1.22%) Retail
13 4 (0.98%) Marketing
13 4 (0.98%) Police
14 3 (0.73%) French Language
15 2 (0.49%) German Language
15 2 (0.49%) Italian Language
15 2 (0.49%) Presentation Skills
15 2 (0.49%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 235 (57.46%) Network Engineer
2 77 (18.83%) Senior
3 63 (15.40%) Cisco Engineer
4 58 (14.18%) Cisco Network Engineer
5 46 (11.25%) Security Engineer
6 44 (10.76%) Senior Network Engineer
7 43 (10.51%) Data Network Engineer
8 41 (10.02%) Network Security Engineer
9 39 (9.54%) Architect
10 33 (8.07%) Cisco Security Engineer
11 32 (7.82%) Data Engineer
12 29 (7.09%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
13 26 (6.36%) Network Architect
14 25 (6.11%) Network Specialist
15 24 (5.87%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 18 (4.40%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
17 15 (3.67%) Operations Engineer
17 15 (3.67%) Web Engineer
18 14 (3.42%) Firewall Specialist
19 13 (3.18%) Juniper Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 42 (10.27%) 802.1X
2 12 (2.93%) REST
3 8 (1.96%) NETCONF
3 8 (1.96%) YANG
4 7 (1.71%) LDAP
5 4 (0.98%) CSS
5 4 (0.98%) Jinja
6 2 (0.49%) AWS CDK
6 2 (0.49%) HTML
6 2 (0.49%) OpenConfig
6 2 (0.49%) RESTCONF
6 2 (0.49%) RFC 2544
6 2 (0.49%) VML
7 1 (0.24%) eBPF
7 1 (0.24%) JSON
7 1 (0.24%) SAML
7 1 (0.24%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 186 (45.48%) Data Centre
2 39 (9.54%) PKI
3 34 (8.31%) Hybrid Cloud
4 25 (6.11%) Clustering
5 18 (4.40%) Cloud Native
6 8 (1.96%) Onboarding
7 6 (1.47%) Security Posture
8 5 (1.22%) Analytical Mindset
8 5 (1.22%) Data Protection Act
9 4 (0.98%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
9 4 (0.98%) Distributed Systems
9 4 (0.98%) Linux Command Line
9 4 (0.98%) Operational Technology
9 4 (0.98%) Self-Motivation
10 3 (0.73%) CESG
10 3 (0.73%) Greenfield Project
10 3 (0.73%) Management Information System
10 3 (0.73%) NHS
10 3 (0.73%) SCADA
10 3 (0.73%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 39 (9.54%) Windows
2 19 (4.65%) Linux
3 6 (1.47%) Ubuntu
4 3 (0.73%) Windows Server
5 2 (0.49%) Unix
6 1 (0.24%) Kali Linux
6 1 (0.24%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.24%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 104 (25.43%) Load Balancing
2 73 (17.85%) High Availability
3 60 (14.67%) Network Design
4 54 (13.20%) Infrastructure as Code
5 51 (12.47%) Zero Trust
6 48 (11.74%) Migration
7 46 (11.25%) Problem-Solving
8 37 (9.05%) Network Architecture
9 36 (8.80%) CI/CD
10 33 (8.07%) DevOps
11 32 (7.82%) Observability
12 31 (7.58%) Change Management
12 31 (7.58%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 30 (7.33%) ITIL
14 28 (6.85%) Network Monitoring
14 28 (6.85%) Project Delivery
15 27 (6.60%) Network Segmentation
15 27 (6.60%) Technical Leadership
16 26 (6.36%) Identity Access Management
17 23 (5.62%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 94 (22.98%) Python
2 6 (1.47%) Bash
3 4 (0.98%) PHP
3 4 (0.98%) SQL
4 3 (0.73%) PowerShell
5 2 (0.49%) JavaScript
5 2 (0.49%) Perl
6 1 (0.24%) Lisp
Qualifications
1 161 (39.36%) Cisco Certification
2 150 (36.67%) Security Cleared
3 120 (29.34%) CCNP
4 111 (27.14%) SC Cleared
5 54 (13.20%) CCIE
6 42 (10.27%) DV Cleared
7 26 (6.36%) Degree
8 24 (5.87%) CCNA
9 15 (3.67%) JNCIP
10 13 (3.18%) JNCIS
11 12 (2.93%) JNCIA
11 12 (2.93%) JNCIE
12 9 (2.20%) Computer Science Degree
13 8 (1.96%) AWS Certification
14 7 (1.71%) Azure Certification
15 6 (1.47%) GIAC
16 5 (1.22%) CCDP
16 5 (1.22%) CISSP
16 5 (1.22%) CompTIA Security+
16 5 (1.22%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (2.69%) NIST
2 10 (2.44%) NCSC
3 9 (2.20%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 7 (1.71%) SLA
5 4 (0.98%) Cyber Essentials
5 4 (0.98%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 3 (0.73%) PCI DSS
6 3 (0.73%) RMADS
7 2 (0.49%) JSP 440
7 2 (0.49%) NIST 800
8 1 (0.24%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.24%) COBIT
8 1 (0.24%) GDPR
8 1 (0.24%) GRC
8 1 (0.24%) HMG Security Policy Framework
8 1 (0.24%) QA
System Software
1 29 (7.09%) VMware Infrastructure
2 12 (2.93%) VMware NSX
3 8 (1.96%) VMware ESXi
4 6 (1.47%) Active Directory
5 5 (1.22%) Firmware
6 4 (0.98%) Hyper-V
6 4 (0.98%) vSphere
7 2 (0.49%) Docker
7 2 (0.49%) vCloud
7 2 (0.49%) Virtual Servers
8 1 (0.24%) KVM
8 1 (0.24%) ProxySG
8 1 (0.24%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 101 (24.69%) Ansible
2 56 (13.69%) Terraform
3 48 (11.74%) FortiGate
4 19 (4.65%) Grafana
5 16 (3.91%) Prometheus
6 6 (1.47%) Kubernetes
6 6 (1.47%) vCenter Server
7 5 (1.22%) Nagios
8 3 (0.73%) Cisco Prime
8 3 (0.73%) SCOM
9 2 (0.49%) CASB
9 2 (0.49%) Iperf
9 2 (0.49%) Nmap
9 2 (0.49%) QRadar
10 1 (0.24%) Cilium
10 1 (0.24%) Failover Clustering
10 1 (0.24%) Single Sign-On
10 1 (0.24%) Suricata
10 1 (0.24%) vRealize
10 1 (0.24%) VxRail
Vendors
1 287 (70.17%) Cisco
2 144 (35.21%) F5
3 115 (28.12%) Palo Alto
4 81 (19.80%) Juniper
5 71 (17.36%) Arista
6 70 (17.11%) Fortinet
7 50 (12.22%) Aruba
8 45 (11.00%) CheckPoint
9 36 (8.80%) VMware
10 34 (8.31%) SolarWinds
11 30 (7.33%) Splunk
12 26 (6.36%) Extreme Networks
13 15 (3.67%) Zscaler
14 14 (3.42%) Meraki
15 9 (2.20%) Nokia
15 9 (2.20%) ServiceNow
16 8 (1.96%) Microsoft
17 7 (1.71%) Ekahau
18 6 (1.47%) Google
19 5 (1.22%) Netskope
114 BGP jobs Nationwide