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

6 months to
3 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 277 239 272
Rank change year-on-year -38 +33 +25
Contract jobs citing BGP 441 340 379
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.86% 1.09% 0.87%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 8.97% 8.85% 6.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 257 214 240
10th Percentile £350 £325 £300
25th Percentile £405 £419 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £560 £622 £538
90th Percentile £638 £700 £600
UK excluding London median daily rate £498 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +4.74% - -2.26%
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 4,914 3,841 5,433
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.54% 12.28% 12.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,989 2,342 3,208
10th Percentile £240 £230 £213
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £480 £500
Median % change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% -1.19%
75th Percentile £588 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £483 £470 £490
% change year-on-year +2.77% -4.08% +3.16%
Number of hourly rates quoted 305 182 428
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.86
25th Percentile £19.34 £21.50 £17.69
Median hourly rate £26.44 £44.50 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -40.58% -1.11% +114.29%
75th Percentile £65.00 £62.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £74.00 £79.50 £73.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.22 £35.00 £47.50
% change year-on-year -25.09% -26.32% +115.91%

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 July 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 July 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 July 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 -24 396 £495 -1.00% 84
UK excluding London -35 259 £498 +4.74% 66
Work from Home -37 123 £460 -16.45% 35
London -75 119 £450 -5.26% 36
South East +12 102 £500 +11.11% 23
North of England -26 96 £495 +4.21% 12
North West -13 75 £475 - 7
Midlands -36 54 £419 +19.64% 8
West Midlands -36 51 £413 +17.86% 6
South West -41 26 £538 -14.00% 11
Yorkshire -40 14 £490 +40.00% 5
North East -25 13 £650 +160.00%
Scotland -8 10 £418 -4.57% 5
East of England -22 5 £500 - 3
Wales -22 4 £425 -5.56%
East Midlands -16 2 - - 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 11 (2.49%) OpenStack
2 4 (0.91%) Confluence
2 4 (0.91%) SharePoint
3 3 (0.68%) SAS
4 1 (0.23%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 13 (2.95%) MS Visio
2 7 (1.59%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (1.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 5 (1.13%) Microsoft Excel
4 3 (0.68%) AutoCAD
Cloud Services
1 104 (23.58%) Azure
2 90 (20.41%) AWS
3 32 (7.26%) GCP
4 22 (4.99%) OCI
5 17 (3.85%) SaaS
5 17 (3.85%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 14 (3.17%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 10 (2.27%) Azure Sentinel
8 9 (2.04%) AWS Direct Connect
9 7 (1.59%) Azure Monitor
10 6 (1.36%) GitHub
10 6 (1.36%) Nutanix
11 5 (1.13%) Amazon GuardDuty
11 5 (1.13%) Route 53
12 4 (0.91%) Amazon EKS
12 4 (0.91%) AWS CloudFormation
12 4 (0.91%) Entra ID
12 4 (0.91%) Microsoft 365
13 3 (0.68%) Amazon S3
13 3 (0.68%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 289 (65.53%) OSPF
2 259 (58.73%) Firewall
3 245 (55.56%) WAN
4 149 (33.79%) LAN
5 131 (29.71%) VPN
6 118 (26.76%) VXLAN
7 109 (24.72%) Network Security
8 107 (24.26%) MPLS
8 107 (24.26%) VLAN
9 96 (21.77%) DNS
10 91 (20.63%) SD-WAN
11 88 (19.95%) Ethernet VPN
12 73 (16.55%) Multicast
13 66 (14.97%) TCP/IP
14 65 (14.74%) BIG-IP
15 57 (12.93%) IPsec
16 52 (11.79%) Wireless
17 50 (11.34%) Cisco ASA
17 50 (11.34%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
18 49 (11.11%) Cisco Nexus
Development Applications
1 21 (4.76%) GitLab
2 12 (2.72%) Git
3 9 (2.04%) Sonatype Nexus
4 7 (1.59%) JIRA
5 3 (0.68%) Jenkins
6 1 (0.23%) AppScan
6 1 (0.23%) Bitbucket
6 1 (0.23%) Burp Suite
6 1 (0.23%) Metasploit
General
1 67 (15.19%) Social Skills
2 44 (9.98%) Finance
3 38 (8.62%) Analytical Skills
4 35 (7.94%) Public Sector
5 32 (7.26%) Banking
6 30 (6.80%) Telecoms
7 20 (4.54%) Documentation Skills
7 20 (4.54%) Investment Banking
8 13 (2.95%) Financial Institution
9 11 (2.49%) Military
10 8 (1.81%) Legal
11 6 (1.36%) Police
12 5 (1.13%) Retail
13 3 (0.68%) French Language
13 3 (0.68%) German Language
13 3 (0.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 3 (0.68%) Influencing Skills
13 3 (0.68%) Italian Language
13 3 (0.68%) Marketing
13 3 (0.68%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 249 (56.46%) Network Engineer
2 88 (19.95%) Senior
3 59 (13.38%) Cisco Engineer
4 56 (12.70%) Cisco Network Engineer
5 51 (11.56%) Security Engineer
6 50 (11.34%) Senior Network Engineer
7 46 (10.43%) Network Security Engineer
8 45 (10.20%) Architect
8 45 (10.20%) Data Network Engineer
9 35 (7.94%) Cisco Security Engineer
10 34 (7.71%) Data Engineer
11 32 (7.26%) Network Architect
12 26 (5.90%) Network Specialist
13 24 (5.44%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 19 (4.31%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
15 18 (4.08%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
16 17 (3.85%) Web Engineer
17 16 (3.63%) Consultant
18 14 (3.17%) Firewall Specialist
19 13 (2.95%) Operations Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 39 (8.84%) 802.1X
2 15 (3.40%) REST
3 11 (2.49%) NETCONF
3 11 (2.49%) YANG
4 7 (1.59%) LDAP
5 5 (1.13%) CSS
6 4 (0.91%) Jinja
6 4 (0.91%) OpenConfig
6 4 (0.91%) RESTCONF
7 2 (0.45%) AWS CDK
7 2 (0.45%) RFC 2544
7 2 (0.45%) SAML
8 1 (0.23%) eBPF
8 1 (0.23%) HTML
8 1 (0.23%) Model Context Protocol
Miscellaneous
1 191 (43.31%) Data Centre
2 47 (10.66%) Hybrid Cloud
3 39 (8.84%) PKI
4 26 (5.90%) Clustering
5 25 (5.67%) Cloud Native
6 9 (2.04%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
7 8 (1.81%) Private Cloud
8 7 (1.59%) Analytical Mindset
8 7 (1.59%) Security Posture
9 6 (1.36%) Self-Motivation
10 5 (1.13%) Onboarding
11 4 (0.91%) Data Protection Act
11 4 (0.91%) Distributed Systems
11 4 (0.91%) Management Information System
11 4 (0.91%) Operational Technology
11 4 (0.91%) Public Cloud
12 3 (0.68%) Greenfield Project
12 3 (0.68%) Linux Command Line
12 3 (0.68%) SCADA
12 3 (0.68%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 48 (10.88%) Windows
2 17 (3.85%) Linux
3 6 (1.36%) Ubuntu
4 3 (0.68%) Windows Server
5 2 (0.45%) Unix
5 2 (0.45%) VMS
6 1 (0.23%) Kali Linux
6 1 (0.23%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.23%) Windows Server 2012
6 1 (0.23%) Windows Server 2016
6 1 (0.23%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 110 (24.94%) Load Balancing
2 80 (18.14%) High Availability
3 70 (15.87%) Network Design
4 66 (14.97%) Infrastructure as Code
4 66 (14.97%) Migration
5 63 (14.29%) Zero Trust
6 51 (11.56%) Problem-Solving
7 47 (10.66%) Network Architecture
8 43 (9.75%) ITIL
9 41 (9.30%) CI/CD
10 36 (8.16%) Change Management
11 35 (7.94%) Observability
11 35 (7.94%) Project Delivery
12 34 (7.71%) DevOps
13 33 (7.48%) Infrastructure Engineering
14 32 (7.26%) Validation
15 30 (6.80%) Network Segmentation
16 27 (6.12%) Identity Access Management
17 26 (5.90%) Agile
17 26 (5.90%) Network Monitoring
Programming Languages
1 119 (26.98%) Python
2 9 (2.04%) Bash
3 7 (1.59%) PowerShell
4 6 (1.36%) SQL
5 4 (0.91%) PHP
6 3 (0.68%) Perl
7 1 (0.23%) JavaScript
7 1 (0.23%) Lisp
Qualifications
1 157 (35.60%) Cisco Certification
2 142 (32.20%) Security Cleared
3 112 (25.40%) CCNP
4 98 (22.22%) SC Cleared
5 58 (13.15%) CCIE
6 45 (10.20%) DV Cleared
7 28 (6.35%) Degree
8 23 (5.22%) CCNA
9 16 (3.63%) JNCIE
10 14 (3.17%) JNCIP
11 11 (2.49%) JNCIS
12 10 (2.27%) AWS Certification
12 10 (2.27%) JNCIA
13 8 (1.81%) Azure Certification
13 8 (1.81%) Computer Science Degree
14 6 (1.36%) CISSP
14 6 (1.36%) GIAC
15 5 (1.13%) CompTIA Security+
16 4 (0.91%) APMG
16 4 (0.91%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (2.95%) NCSC
2 11 (2.49%) NIST
3 10 (2.27%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 5 (1.13%) Cyber Essentials
5 4 (0.91%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 4 (0.91%) GDPR
5 4 (0.91%) QA
5 4 (0.91%) SLA
6 3 (0.68%) PCI DSS
7 2 (0.45%) NIST 800
7 2 (0.45%) RMADS
8 1 (0.23%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.23%) COBIT
8 1 (0.23%) GRC
8 1 (0.23%) HMG Security Policy Framework
8 1 (0.23%) JSP 440
System Software
1 29 (6.58%) VMware Infrastructure
2 14 (3.17%) VMware NSX
3 8 (1.81%) Active Directory
3 8 (1.81%) VMware ESXi
4 7 (1.59%) Firmware
5 6 (1.36%) Hyper-V
6 4 (0.91%) vSphere
7 2 (0.45%) Docker
7 2 (0.45%) vCloud
7 2 (0.45%) Virtual Machines
7 2 (0.45%) Virtual Servers
8 1 (0.23%) KVM
8 1 (0.23%) ProxySG
Systems Management
1 117 (26.53%) Ansible
2 70 (15.87%) Terraform
3 58 (13.15%) FortiGate
4 20 (4.54%) Grafana
5 17 (3.85%) Prometheus
6 7 (1.59%) Kubernetes
7 6 (1.36%) vCenter Server
8 4 (0.91%) Cisco Prime
9 3 (0.68%) Nagios
9 3 (0.68%) SCOM
10 2 (0.45%) CASB
10 2 (0.45%) Iperf
10 2 (0.45%) Microsoft Intune
10 2 (0.45%) Nmap
10 2 (0.45%) QRadar
10 2 (0.45%) Single Sign-On
11 1 (0.23%) Cilium
11 1 (0.23%) Progress Chef
11 1 (0.23%) Suricata
11 1 (0.23%) VxRail
Vendors
1 301 (68.25%) Cisco
2 158 (35.83%) F5
3 126 (28.57%) Palo Alto
4 94 (21.32%) Juniper
5 91 (20.63%) Fortinet
6 81 (18.37%) Arista
7 42 (9.52%) Aruba
8 40 (9.07%) CheckPoint
8 40 (9.07%) SolarWinds
8 40 (9.07%) VMware
9 31 (7.03%) Splunk
10 26 (5.90%) Extreme Networks
11 22 (4.99%) Microsoft
11 22 (4.99%) Zscaler
12 17 (3.85%) Meraki
13 10 (2.27%) ServiceNow
14 9 (2.04%) Google
15 8 (1.81%) Citrix
16 7 (1.59%) Ekahau
17 6 (1.36%) Nokia