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

6 months to
10 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 291 226 274
Rank change year-on-year -65 +48 +43
Contract jobs citing BGP 409 348 373
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.83% 1.18% 0.85%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 8.62% 9.48% 6.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 238 216 234
10th Percentile £328 £344 £319
25th Percentile £400 £425 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £556 £613 £538
90th Percentile £630 £700 £613
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £500 £463
% change year-on-year -1.00% +7.99% -4.73%
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 4,747 3,671 5,438
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.59% 12.50% 12.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,911 2,271 3,228
10th Percentile £263 £220 £206
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £485 £498
Median % change year-on-year +3.09% -2.51% -2.93%
75th Percentile £588 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £469 £483
% change year-on-year +1.28% -2.95% +1.74%
Number of hourly rates quoted 281 165 420
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.50
25th Percentile £20.82 £18.13 £16.30
Median hourly rate £27.50 £44.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -37.50% +10.00% +113.73%
75th Percentile £65.00 £60.13 £63.75
90th Percentile £74.26 £80.61 £70.72
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.50 £31.79 £47.50
% change year-on-year +2.23% -33.07% +156.76%

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 10 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 10 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 10 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 -54 366 £485 -3.00% 64
UK excluding London -30 235 £495 -1.00% 53
Work from Home -38 126 £450 -15.09% 31
London -88 115 £450 -10.00% 28
South East +4 101 £473 +5.00% 20
North of England -48 81 £571 +14.25% 11
North West -25 63 £575 +9.52% 6
Midlands -38 52 £413 +26.92% 4
West Midlands -27 49 £413 +37.50% 3
South West -40 22 £525 -16.00% 5
North East -11 13 £650 +160.00% 3
Yorkshire -46 11 £475 +35.71% 2
Scotland -14 8 £434 +5.15% 8
Wales -18 4 £425 -5.56%
East of England -24 4 £500 +25.00% 2
East Midlands -29 2 - - 1

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 8 (1.96%) OpenStack
2 4 (0.98%) Confluence
3 3 (0.73%) SharePoint
Applications
1 9 (2.20%) MS Visio
2 5 (1.22%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 4 (0.98%) Microsoft Office
4 3 (0.73%) AutoCAD
4 3 (0.73%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 82 (20.05%) Azure
2 81 (19.80%) AWS
3 26 (6.36%) GCP
4 22 (5.38%) OCI
5 17 (4.16%) 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%) Azure DevOps
Communications & Networking
1 278 (67.97%) OSPF
2 235 (57.46%) Firewall
2 235 (57.46%) WAN
3 146 (35.70%) LAN
4 117 (28.61%) VXLAN
5 111 (27.14%) VPN
6 99 (24.21%) MPLS
6 99 (24.21%) Network Security
7 95 (23.23%) VLAN
8 89 (21.76%) Ethernet VPN
9 87 (21.27%) SD-WAN
10 83 (20.29%) DNS
11 70 (17.11%) Multicast
12 61 (14.91%) BIG-IP
13 56 (13.69%) IPsec
14 53 (12.96%) TCP/IP
15 44 (10.76%) Cisco Nexus
15 44 (10.76%) Wireless
16 43 (10.51%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
17 42 (10.27%) Wi-Fi
Development Applications
1 21 (5.13%) GitLab
2 10 (2.44%) Git
3 8 (1.96%) Sonatype Nexus
4 7 (1.71%) 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 52 (12.71%) Social Skills
2 40 (9.78%) Finance
3 34 (8.31%) Public Sector
4 32 (7.82%) Analytical Skills
5 29 (7.09%) Banking
6 25 (6.11%) Documentation Skills
7 24 (5.87%) Telecoms
8 21 (5.13%) Investment Banking
9 13 (3.18%) Financial Institution
10 12 (2.93%) Military
11 8 (1.96%) Legal
11 8 (1.96%) Manufacturing
12 4 (0.98%) Police
12 4 (0.98%) Retail
13 3 (0.73%) French Language
13 3 (0.73%) German Language
13 3 (0.73%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 3 (0.73%) Italian Language
13 3 (0.73%) Marketing
13 3 (0.73%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 231 (56.48%) Network Engineer
2 78 (19.07%) Senior
3 64 (15.65%) Cisco Engineer
4 59 (14.43%) Cisco Network Engineer
5 47 (11.49%) Security Engineer
6 44 (10.76%) Data Network Engineer
6 44 (10.76%) Senior Network Engineer
7 42 (10.27%) Network Security Engineer
8 40 (9.78%) Architect
9 34 (8.31%) Cisco Security Engineer
10 33 (8.07%) Data Engineer
11 27 (6.60%) Network Architect
12 24 (5.87%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 24 (5.87%) Network Specialist
12 24 (5.87%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
13 18 (4.40%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
14 15 (3.67%) Operations Engineer
14 15 (3.67%) Web Engineer
15 14 (3.42%) Firewall Specialist
16 12 (2.93%) Data Centre Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 43 (10.51%) 802.1X
2 14 (3.42%) REST
3 8 (1.96%) NETCONF
3 8 (1.96%) YANG
4 7 (1.71%) LDAP
5 5 (1.22%) CSS
6 4 (0.98%) Jinja
7 2 (0.49%) AWS CDK
7 2 (0.49%) HTML
7 2 (0.49%) OpenConfig
7 2 (0.49%) RESTCONF
7 2 (0.49%) RFC 2544
8 1 (0.24%) eBPF
8 1 (0.24%) SAML
8 1 (0.24%) VML
Miscellaneous
1 186 (45.48%) Data Centre
2 41 (10.02%) PKI
3 36 (8.80%) Hybrid Cloud
4 26 (6.36%) Clustering
5 20 (4.89%) Cloud Native
6 8 (1.96%) Onboarding
7 5 (1.22%) Analytical Mindset
7 5 (1.22%) Data Protection Act
7 5 (1.22%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
7 5 (1.22%) Linux Command Line
7 5 (1.22%) Security Posture
8 4 (0.98%) Distributed Systems
8 4 (0.98%) Operational Technology
8 4 (0.98%) Self-Motivation
9 3 (0.73%) CESG
9 3 (0.73%) Greenfield Project
9 3 (0.73%) Management Information System
9 3 (0.73%) SCADA
9 3 (0.73%) Virtual Team
10 2 (0.49%) NHS
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
1 106 (25.92%) Load Balancing
2 75 (18.34%) High Availability
3 60 (14.67%) Network Design
4 55 (13.45%) Infrastructure as Code
5 54 (13.20%) Zero Trust
6 50 (12.22%) Migration
7 48 (11.74%) Problem-Solving
8 39 (9.54%) Network Architecture
9 38 (9.29%) CI/CD
10 33 (8.07%) DevOps
10 33 (8.07%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 32 (7.82%) ITIL
11 32 (7.82%) Observability
12 30 (7.33%) Change Management
13 29 (7.09%) Project Delivery
14 28 (6.85%) Technical Leadership
15 27 (6.60%) Network Segmentation
16 26 (6.36%) Identity Access Management
17 25 (6.11%) Continuous Improvement
17 25 (6.11%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 97 (23.72%) Python
2 7 (1.71%) Bash
3 5 (1.22%) SQL
4 4 (0.98%) PHP
5 3 (0.73%) PowerShell
6 2 (0.49%) JavaScript
6 2 (0.49%) Perl
7 1 (0.24%) Lisp
Qualifications
1 154 (37.65%) Cisco Certification
2 143 (34.96%) Security Cleared
3 111 (27.14%) CCNP
4 105 (25.67%) SC Cleared
5 52 (12.71%) CCIE
6 42 (10.27%) DV Cleared
7 26 (6.36%) Degree
8 23 (5.62%) CCNA
9 14 (3.42%) JNCIP
10 13 (3.18%) JNCIE
11 12 (2.93%) JNCIS
12 11 (2.69%) JNCIA
13 9 (2.20%) Computer Science Degree
14 8 (1.96%) AWS Certification
15 7 (1.71%) Azure Certification
16 6 (1.47%) GIAC
17 5 (1.22%) CCDP
17 5 (1.22%) CompTIA Security+
18 4 (0.98%) APMG
18 4 (0.98%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (2.93%) 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
5 4 (0.98%) PCI DSS
6 3 (0.73%) GDPR
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%) GRC
8 1 (0.24%) HMG Security Policy Framework
8 1 (0.24%) QA
System Software
1 29 (7.09%) VMware Infrastructure
2 11 (2.69%) VMware NSX
3 8 (1.96%) VMware ESXi
4 7 (1.71%) Firmware
5 6 (1.47%) Active Directory
6 5 (1.22%) Hyper-V
7 4 (0.98%) vSphere
8 2 (0.49%) Docker
8 2 (0.49%) vCloud
8 2 (0.49%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.24%) KVM
9 1 (0.24%) ProxySG
9 1 (0.24%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 104 (25.43%) Ansible
2 58 (14.18%) Terraform
3 46 (11.25%) FortiGate
4 19 (4.65%) Grafana
5 16 (3.91%) Prometheus
6 7 (1.71%) Kubernetes
7 6 (1.47%) vCenter Server
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%) Nagios
9 2 (0.49%) Nmap
9 2 (0.49%) QRadar
10 1 (0.24%) Cilium
10 1 (0.24%) Progress Chef
10 1 (0.24%) Single Sign-On
10 1 (0.24%) Suricata
10 1 (0.24%) vRealize
10 1 (0.24%) VxRail
Vendors
1 282 (68.95%) Cisco
2 146 (35.70%) F5
3 114 (27.87%) Palo Alto
4 81 (19.80%) Juniper
5 73 (17.85%) Arista
5 73 (17.85%) Fortinet
6 47 (11.49%) Aruba
7 41 (10.02%) CheckPoint
8 35 (8.56%) VMware
9 32 (7.82%) SolarWinds
10 30 (7.33%) Splunk
11 26 (6.36%) Extreme Networks
12 15 (3.67%) Zscaler
13 13 (3.18%) Meraki
14 9 (2.20%) ServiceNow
15 8 (1.96%) Microsoft
16 7 (1.71%) Ekahau
16 7 (1.71%) Nokia
17 6 (1.47%) Google
18 5 (1.22%) HP