BGP Contracts

Border Gateway Protocol (BGP)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring BGP skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited BGP over the 6 months leading up to 30 April 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Apr 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 238 247 343
Rank change year-on-year +9 +96 +90
Contract jobs citing BGP 331 430 425
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 1.13% 0.99% 0.71%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 8.85% 7.62% 5.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 209 259 259
10th Percentile £325 £313 £370
25th Percentile £419 £363 £434
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £600 £550 £600
90th Percentile £750 £613 £663
UK excluding London median daily rate £483 £450 £498
% change year-on-year +7.22% -9.55% +12.49%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 9 17
10th Percentile - £22.30 £49.10
25th Percentile £18.50 £24.25 £61.00
Median hourly rate £19.00 £37.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -49.33% -46.43% +154.55%
75th Percentile £19.50 £67.50 £80.25
90th Percentile - £70.00 £82.62
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.00 £43.75 £62.00
% change year-on-year -56.57% -29.44% +138.46%

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 3,739 5,643 7,361
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 12.79% 12.94% 12.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,297 3,382 4,789
10th Percentile £213 £205 £235
25th Percentile £363 £350 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £495 £519
Median % change year-on-year -1.52% -4.53% +3.70%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £638
90th Percentile £675 £700 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -2.63% - +8.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 181 423 478
10th Percentile £14.20 £13.57 £9.80
25th Percentile £17.30 £17.35 £10.63
Median hourly rate £32.50 £38.50 £19.00
Median % change year-on-year -15.58% +102.63% -31.84%
75th Percentile £58.75 £62.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £67.40 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.59 £45.88 £18.50
% change year-on-year -46.41% +148.00% -13.95%

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
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing BGP.

Daily rate trend for BGP in the UK

BGP
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing BGP over the 6 months to 30 April 2025.

Daily rate histogram for BGP in the UK

BGP
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing BGP.

Hourly rate trend for BGP in the UK

BGP
Top 17 Contract 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 30 April 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 -31 264 £500 +5.26% 107
UK excluding London -14 150 £483 +7.22% 80
London +5 125 £500 -4.76% 52
Work from Home +66 116 £510 +4.08% 76
North of England +60 54 £500 - 14
North West +41 50 £525 +4.17% 7
South East -14 36 £500 +11.11% 13
South West +26 24 £525 +6.60% 11
Midlands -41 21 £300 -17.24% 11
West Midlands -44 17 £288 -20.69% 8
Scotland +14 9 £413 -17.50% 15
Wales - 9 £450 - 4
East Midlands - 4 £438 - 3
East of England +34 3 £425 - 5
Yorkshire - 2 £350 - 6
North East -1 1 £250 -27.54% 1
Channel Islands - 1 £450 -

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 5 (1.51%) OpenStack
2 2 (0.60%) Confluence
3 1 (0.30%) CMS
Applications
1 7 (2.11%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (1.51%) MS Visio
3 3 (0.91%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 4 (1.21%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 77 (23.26%) AWS
2 66 (19.94%) Azure
3 30 (9.06%) GCP
4 19 (5.74%) AWS CloudFormation
4 19 (5.74%) IaaS
4 19 (5.74%) PaaS
4 19 (5.74%) SaaS
5 7 (2.11%) OpenShift
6 4 (1.21%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 4 (1.21%) GitHub
6 4 (1.21%) Microsoft 365
7 3 (0.91%) Cloud Computing
8 2 (0.60%) Akamai
8 2 (0.60%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 1 (0.30%) Datadog
9 1 (0.30%) Entra ID
9 1 (0.30%) npm
9 1 (0.30%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 273 (82.48%) OSPF
2 187 (56.50%) Firewall
3 141 (42.60%) VPN
4 113 (34.14%) WAN
5 105 (31.72%) Network Security
6 103 (31.12%) MPLS
7 92 (27.79%) EIGRP
8 90 (27.19%) IPsec
9 85 (25.68%) TCP/IP
10 64 (19.34%) HSRP
11 59 (17.82%) VLAN
12 58 (17.52%) DNS
13 56 (16.92%) LAN
14 53 (16.01%) Wireless
15 52 (15.71%) SD-WAN
16 51 (15.41%) Cisco Nexus
17 48 (14.50%) Cisco ASA
18 44 (13.29%) Multicast
19 42 (12.69%) DHCP
20 41 (12.39%) Cisco Firepower
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (0.60%) Data Lake
1 2 (0.60%) MongoDB
1 2 (0.60%) MySQL
1 2 (0.60%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 9 (2.72%) Sonatype Nexus
2 7 (2.11%) GitLab
3 5 (1.51%) Robot Framework
4 4 (1.21%) JIRA
5 2 (0.60%) Jenkins
6 1 (0.30%) Bitbucket
General
1 80 (24.17%) Social Skills
2 49 (14.80%) Analytical Skills
3 36 (10.88%) Finance
4 33 (9.97%) Telecoms
5 23 (6.95%) Public Sector
6 13 (3.93%) Banking
7 12 (3.63%) Documentation Skills
8 9 (2.72%) Military
9 7 (2.11%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 7 (2.11%) Marketing
10 5 (1.51%) Legal
11 3 (0.91%) Manufacturing
11 3 (0.91%) Presentation Skills
11 3 (0.91%) Retail
12 2 (0.60%) Advertising
12 2 (0.60%) Electronics
12 2 (0.60%) Influencing Skills
13 1 (0.30%) Investment Banking
13 1 (0.30%) Law
13 1 (0.30%) Police
Job Titles
1 197 (59.52%) Network Engineer
2 50 (15.11%) Architect
3 32 (9.67%) Cisco Engineer
4 31 (9.37%) Cisco Network Engineer
4 31 (9.37%) Senior
5 25 (7.55%) Consultant
6 22 (6.65%) Cloud Architect
6 22 (6.65%) Technical Architect
7 21 (6.34%) Network Architect
8 19 (5.74%) Network Consultant
8 19 (5.74%) Senior Network Engineer
9 18 (5.44%) Cloud Native Architect
10 17 (5.14%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
11 15 (4.53%) Security Architect
12 12 (3.63%) Implementation Engineer
13 11 (3.32%) Network Security Engineer
13 11 (3.32%) Principal Engineer
13 11 (3.32%) Principal Network Engineer
13 11 (3.32%) Security Engineer
13 11 (3.32%) WAN Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (6.95%) 802.1X
2 6 (1.81%) JSON
3 5 (1.51%) Spine.js
4 4 (1.21%) XML
4 4 (1.21%) YAML
5 3 (0.91%) REST
6 2 (0.60%) NETCONF
6 2 (0.60%) RESTCONF
6 2 (0.60%) SOAP
6 2 (0.60%) YANG
7 1 (0.30%) FIX Protocol
7 1 (0.30%) HTML
Miscellaneous
1 57 (17.22%) Data Centre
2 25 (7.55%) Cloud Native
3 15 (4.53%) Hybrid Cloud
3 15 (4.53%) PKI
4 6 (1.81%) Hedge funds
4 6 (1.81%) Public Cloud
5 5 (1.51%) Linux Command Line
5 5 (1.51%) NHS
5 5 (1.51%) Self-Motivation
6 4 (1.21%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 3 (0.91%) Data Protection Act
8 2 (0.60%) Clustering
8 2 (0.60%) Derivative
8 2 (0.60%) Legacy Systems
8 2 (0.60%) Onboarding
8 2 (0.60%) Security Posture
8 2 (0.60%) Team-Oriented Environment
9 1 (0.30%) FMCG
9 1 (0.30%) Management Information System
9 1 (0.30%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 11 (3.32%) Linux
2 6 (1.81%) Unix
3 5 (1.51%) CatOS
4 4 (1.21%) Check Point GAiA
5 3 (0.91%) Windows
6 2 (0.60%) CentOS
6 2 (0.60%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 53 (16.01%) Problem-Solving
2 50 (15.11%) Network Monitoring
3 49 (14.80%) Migration
4 39 (11.78%) Network Design
5 31 (9.37%) ITIL
6 29 (8.76%) Infrastructure as Code
7 27 (8.16%) Network Management
7 27 (8.16%) Test Automation
8 23 (6.95%) High Availability
8 23 (6.95%) Project Delivery
9 22 (6.65%) Network Architecture
10 19 (5.74%) Computer Science
10 19 (5.74%) Load Balancing
10 19 (5.74%) Service Management
11 18 (5.44%) Root Cause Analysis
11 18 (5.44%) Sprint Planning
12 16 (4.83%) Change Management
13 15 (4.53%) Validation
14 14 (4.23%) Low Latency
14 14 (4.23%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 53 (16.01%) Python
2 19 (5.74%) Bicep
3 7 (2.11%) Perl
4 5 (1.51%) PowerShell
5 4 (1.21%) Bash
6 2 (0.60%) SQL
Qualifications
1 154 (46.53%) Cisco Certification
2 124 (37.46%) CCNP
3 83 (25.08%) Security Cleared
4 66 (19.94%) SC Cleared
5 48 (14.50%) CCIE
6 38 (11.48%) CCNA
7 32 (9.67%) Degree
8 20 (6.04%) DV Cleared
9 14 (4.23%) CCSE
10 12 (3.63%) CCSA
10 12 (3.63%) Computer Science Degree
11 8 (2.42%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 5 (1.51%) AWS Certification
12 5 (1.51%) CCIE Data Center
12 5 (1.51%) CCIE Service Provider
12 5 (1.51%) JNCIA
12 5 (1.51%) Microsoft Certification
13 4 (1.21%) Check Point Certification
13 4 (1.21%) JNCIE
13 4 (1.21%) JNCIP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (2.11%) SLA
2 4 (1.21%) Cyber Essentials
2 4 (1.21%) NCSC
2 4 (1.21%) NIST
3 2 (0.60%) DICOM
3 2 (0.60%) HL7
3 2 (0.60%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 2 (0.60%) QA
4 1 (0.30%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 27 (8.16%) VMware Infrastructure
2 10 (3.02%) VMware NSX
3 8 (2.42%) Docker
4 7 (2.11%) Firmware
5 5 (1.51%) vSphere
6 2 (0.60%) Ceph
7 1 (0.30%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 56 (16.92%) Ansible
2 32 (9.67%) Terraform
3 31 (9.37%) FortiGate
4 10 (3.02%) ZABBIX
5 9 (2.72%) Kubernetes
6 7 (2.11%) Cisco Prime
7 6 (1.81%) Nagios
8 5 (1.51%) Cacti
8 5 (1.51%) Progress Chef
8 5 (1.51%) Puppet
8 5 (1.51%) vCenter Server
9 4 (1.21%) CA Spectrum
10 2 (0.60%) Argo
11 1 (0.30%) Cisco CUCM
11 1 (0.30%) Cisco LMS
11 1 (0.30%) Cisco UCCX
11 1 (0.30%) Icinga
11 1 (0.30%) Observium
11 1 (0.30%) SolarWinds Orion
11 1 (0.30%) TrustSec
Vendors
1 265 (80.06%) Cisco
2 116 (35.05%) Palo Alto
3 75 (22.66%) Fortinet
4 74 (22.36%) CheckPoint
5 51 (15.41%) Juniper
6 46 (13.90%) SolarWinds
7 30 (9.06%) VMware
8 28 (8.46%) Arista
8 28 (8.46%) F5
9 24 (7.25%) Meraki
10 11 (3.32%) Aruba
11 10 (3.02%) Nokia
12 8 (2.42%) Splunk
13 7 (2.11%) Microsoft
13 7 (2.11%) Red Hat
13 7 (2.11%) Zscaler
14 6 (1.81%) McAfee
14 6 (1.81%) ServiceNow
15 4 (1.21%) Infoblox
15 4 (1.21%) Remedy