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 1 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 340 247 254
Rank change year-on-year -93 +7 +169
Contract jobs citing BGP 258 372 445
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.72% 1.03% 0.97%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 6.60% 8.47% 7.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 171 209 232
10th Percentile £309 £346 £326
25th Percentile £409 £406 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £525 £531
Median % change year-on-year -9.52% -1.18% +6.25%
75th Percentile £581 £625 £600
90th Percentile £656 £738 £737
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £525 £490
% change year-on-year -14.29% +7.14% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 4 11
10th Percentile £67.45 £22.33 £24.25
25th Percentile £70.01 £28.06 £24.75
Median hourly rate £74.26 £33.75 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +120.03% -10.00% +42.86%
75th Percentile - £35.75 £68.75
90th Percentile - £37.10 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £74.26 £19.00 £25.00
% change year-on-year +290.84% -24.00% +6.38%

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 3,907 4,392 6,317
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.93% 12.21% 13.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,537 2,525 3,915
10th Percentile £205 £220 £213
25th Percentile £350 £368 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £585 £600 £613
90th Percentile £675 £685 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -5.26% - +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 189 171 346
10th Percentile £15.50 £16.26 £17.72
25th Percentile £20.18 £23.05 £22.56
Median hourly rate £34.00 £41.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -17.07% -25.45% +30.95%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £65.98
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £76.18
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £48.03 £56.49
% change year-on-year -11.51% -14.98% +25.53%

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 1 December 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
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 1 December 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 -91 224 £475 -5.94% 56
UK excluding London -85 143 £450 -14.29% 46
London -15 91 £480 +1.05% 19
Work from Home -59 74 £450 -20.00% 27
South East -39 46 £475 -9.52% 26
West Midlands +7 44 £400 -9.35% 4
Midlands -12 44 £400 -12.57% 4
North of England -71 28 £550 +6.80% 8
North West -44 25 £550 - 2
Scotland +4 13 £425 +6.25% 1
South West -11 11 £550 +25.36% 6
East of England -17 6 £700 +26.13% 2
North East -5 3 £550 - 1
Yorkshire -51 3 £520 +89.09% 6
Channel Islands - 3 £725 -
Wales -3 1 £400 -

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 23 (8.91%) OpenStack
2 11 (4.26%) SharePoint
3 3 (1.16%) Confluence
Applications
1 13 (5.04%) MS Visio
2 4 (1.55%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 3 (1.16%) Microsoft Office
4 2 (0.78%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 55 (21.32%) AWS
2 38 (14.73%) Azure
3 14 (5.43%) GCP
4 8 (3.10%) OpenShift
5 7 (2.71%) Akamai
5 7 (2.71%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 6 (2.33%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 4 (1.55%) AWS Direct Connect
8 3 (1.16%) IaaS
8 3 (1.16%) PaaS
8 3 (1.16%) SaaS
9 1 (0.39%) Amazon S3
9 1 (0.39%) AWS KMS
9 1 (0.39%) Azure DevOps
9 1 (0.39%) Azure Sentinel
9 1 (0.39%) Cloud Run
9 1 (0.39%) Entra ID
9 1 (0.39%) Google Ads
9 1 (0.39%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 164 (63.57%) OSPF
2 149 (57.75%) Firewall
3 116 (44.96%) WAN
4 102 (39.53%) MPLS
5 94 (36.43%) VPN
6 68 (26.36%) IPsec
7 64 (24.81%) VLAN
8 62 (24.03%) LAN
9 60 (23.26%) Network Security
10 53 (20.54%) SD-WAN
11 47 (18.22%) Wireless
12 43 (16.67%) DNS
13 42 (16.28%) EIGRP
13 42 (16.28%) VXLAN
14 32 (12.40%) Cisco ISE
15 30 (11.63%) DHCP
16 28 (10.85%) Ethernet VPN
17 26 (10.08%) Cisco Nexus
17 26 (10.08%) TCP/IP
17 26 (10.08%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (0.78%) MongoDB
1 2 (0.78%) NoSQL
2 1 (0.39%) Redis
2 1 (0.39%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 13 (5.04%) Git
2 7 (2.71%) GitLab
3 6 (2.33%) Sonatype Nexus
4 3 (1.16%) JIRA
5 1 (0.39%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.39%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.39%) Robot Framework
General
1 78 (30.23%) Social Skills
2 34 (13.18%) Public Sector
3 26 (10.08%) Analytical Skills
3 26 (10.08%) Documentation Skills
4 23 (8.91%) Finance
5 18 (6.98%) Telecoms
6 10 (3.88%) Banking
7 8 (3.10%) Investment Banking
8 5 (1.94%) Manufacturing
9 4 (1.55%) Financial Institution
9 4 (1.55%) Influencing Skills
9 4 (1.55%) Legal
10 3 (1.16%) Military
11 2 (0.78%) Advertising
11 2 (0.78%) Electronics
11 2 (0.78%) Local Government
11 2 (0.78%) Marketing
11 2 (0.78%) Pharmaceutical
11 2 (0.78%) Presentation Skills
11 2 (0.78%) Retail
Job Titles
1 134 (51.94%) Network Engineer
2 36 (13.95%) Architect
3 27 (10.47%) Cisco Engineer
3 27 (10.47%) Senior
4 25 (9.69%) Cisco Network Engineer
5 18 (6.98%) Network Architect
5 18 (6.98%) WAN Engineer
6 17 (6.59%) Senior Network Engineer
6 17 (6.59%) Support Engineer
7 14 (5.43%) 3rd Line Engineer
7 14 (5.43%) Network Security Engineer
7 14 (5.43%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
7 14 (5.43%) Security Engineer
8 13 (5.04%) 3rd Line Support
8 13 (5.04%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
8 13 (5.04%) Consultant
8 13 (5.04%) Designer
9 12 (4.65%) Juniper Engineer
9 12 (4.65%) Solutions Architect
10 10 (3.88%) 2nd Line Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (4.65%) YANG
2 11 (4.26%) NETCONF
3 10 (3.88%) REST
4 7 (2.71%) 802.1X
5 5 (1.94%) Jinja
5 5 (1.94%) JSON
6 4 (1.55%) RESTCONF
7 3 (1.16%) OpenConfig
7 3 (1.16%) SAML
7 3 (1.16%) XML
7 3 (1.16%) YAML
8 2 (0.78%) eBPF
8 2 (0.78%) SOAP
8 2 (0.78%) VML
9 1 (0.39%) CrewAI
9 1 (0.39%) Elastic Stack
9 1 (0.39%) gRPC
9 1 (0.39%) JFC
9 1 (0.39%) LangChain
9 1 (0.39%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 74 (28.68%) Data Centre
2 34 (13.18%) PKI
3 18 (6.98%) Hybrid Cloud
4 10 (3.88%) Cloud Native
4 10 (3.88%) Operational Technology
5 8 (3.10%) Product Ownership
6 7 (2.71%) Onboarding
6 7 (2.71%) Self-Motivation
7 5 (1.94%) Analytical Mindset
7 5 (1.94%) Data Protection Act
8 3 (1.16%) Legacy Systems
8 3 (1.16%) Private Cloud
9 2 (0.78%) Distributed Architecture
9 2 (0.78%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
9 2 (0.78%) Distributed Systems
9 2 (0.78%) NHS
9 2 (0.78%) Public Cloud
10 1 (0.39%) Enterprise Cloud
10 1 (0.39%) SCADA
10 1 (0.39%) Thin Client
Operating Systems
1 18 (6.98%) Linux
2 14 (5.43%) Windows
3 9 (3.49%) Windows Server
4 7 (2.71%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 2 (0.78%) CentOS
5 2 (0.78%) Unix
6 1 (0.39%) Ubuntu
6 1 (0.39%) Windows Server 2012
6 1 (0.39%) Windows Server 2016
6 1 (0.39%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 48 (18.60%) Network Design
2 41 (15.89%) Problem-Solving
3 36 (13.95%) Load Balancing
4 30 (11.63%) Migration
4 30 (11.63%) Network Segmentation
5 29 (11.24%) High Availability
6 25 (9.69%) Network Monitoring
7 23 (8.91%) Network Virtualisation
8 20 (7.75%) Strategic Thinking
9 19 (7.36%) Network Architecture
10 18 (6.98%) DevOps
11 17 (6.59%) Change Control
11 17 (6.59%) Knowledge Transfer
11 17 (6.59%) Roadmaps
12 15 (5.81%) Cybersecurity
12 15 (5.81%) Zero Trust
13 14 (5.43%) Agile
13 14 (5.43%) Performance Tuning
13 14 (5.43%) TOGAF
13 14 (5.43%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 83 (32.17%) Python
2 20 (7.75%) Bash
3 16 (6.20%) Perl
4 11 (4.26%) PowerShell
5 8 (3.10%) Lisp
6 6 (2.33%) C++
7 3 (1.16%) SQL
8 2 (0.78%) C
9 1 (0.39%) Go
9 1 (0.39%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 122 (47.29%) Cisco Certification
2 98 (37.98%) CCNP
3 93 (36.05%) Security Cleared
4 65 (25.19%) SC Cleared
5 45 (17.44%) CCIE
6 25 (9.69%) JNCIE
7 21 (8.14%) DV Cleared
8 20 (7.75%) CCNA
9 16 (6.20%) Degree
9 16 (6.20%) JNCIS
10 12 (4.65%) AWS Certification
11 10 (3.88%) JNCIP
12 9 (3.49%) CISSP
12 9 (3.49%) JNCIA
13 8 (3.10%) CCDP
14 6 (2.33%) CCSA
15 4 (1.55%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 4 (1.55%) Azure Certification
15 4 (1.55%) CCSE
15 4 (1.55%) CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (3.88%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 7 (2.71%) GDPR
2 7 (2.71%) NCSC
2 7 (2.71%) NIST
2 7 (2.71%) SLA
3 5 (1.94%) PCI DSS
4 1 (0.39%) Def Stans
4 1 (0.39%) NIST 800
4 1 (0.39%) SOC 2
System Software
1 17 (6.59%) VMware Infrastructure
2 16 (6.20%) Docker
3 14 (5.43%) VMware NSX
4 11 (4.26%) Firmware
5 8 (3.10%) Active Directory
6 3 (1.16%) Hyper-V
6 3 (1.16%) KVM
7 1 (0.39%) Squid
7 1 (0.39%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 68 (26.36%) Ansible
2 37 (14.34%) FortiGate
3 28 (10.85%) Terraform
4 11 (4.26%) Kubernetes
5 4 (1.55%) CA Spectrum
6 3 (1.16%) Iperf
6 3 (1.16%) Nmap
6 3 (1.16%) Single Sign-On
7 2 (0.78%) Cisco CUCM
7 2 (0.78%) Grafana
7 2 (0.78%) Prometheus
8 1 (0.39%) CASB
8 1 (0.39%) VxRail
Vendors
1 165 (63.95%) Cisco
2 90 (34.88%) Juniper
3 62 (24.03%) Fortinet
3 62 (24.03%) Palo Alto
4 50 (19.38%) F5
5 33 (12.79%) SolarWinds
6 32 (12.40%) Meraki
7 27 (10.47%) CheckPoint
8 26 (10.08%) Arista
9 24 (9.30%) VMware
10 13 (5.04%) Microsoft
11 12 (4.65%) Aruba
11 12 (4.65%) ServiceNow
12 11 (4.26%) Remedy
13 10 (3.88%) Dell
13 10 (3.88%) Zscaler
14 8 (3.10%) Ekahau
14 8 (3.10%) Red Hat
15 6 (2.33%) Nokia
16 4 (1.55%) Citrix