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

6 months to
23 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 289 236 271
Rank change year-on-year -53 +35 +43
Contract jobs citing BGP 420 345 367
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.83% 1.15% 0.84%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 8.72% 9.27% 6.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 243 215 230
10th Percentile £348 £340 £313
25th Percentile £401 £425 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £560 £638 £538
90th Percentile £635 £738 £601
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £490 £475
% change year-on-year +1.02% +3.16% -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 4,817 3,722 5,393
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.49% 12.42% 12.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,962 2,284 3,181
10th Percentile £250 £225 £213
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £483 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.57% -3.45% -
75th Percentile £588 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £473 £488
% change year-on-year +1.59% -3.23% +2.79%
Number of hourly rates quoted 298 174 428
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.50
25th Percentile £20.56 £21.00 £17.69
Median hourly rate £27.69 £44.50 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year -37.78% +7.23% +118.42%
75th Percentile £65.00 £60.97 £63.75
90th Percentile £74.08 £78.50 £72.62
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.72 £35.00 £47.50
% change year-on-year -23.66% -26.32% +150.00%

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 23 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 23 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 23 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 -52 376 £495 -1.00% 63
UK excluding London -34 246 £495 +1.02% 58
Work from Home -37 124 £450 -15.09% 36
London -83 115 £450 -10.00% 22
South East +14 102 £475 +5.56% 16
North of England -43 84 £575 +17.35% 18
North West -26 65 £575 +16.16% 12
Midlands -26 52 £419 +39.58% 6
West Midlands -31 49 £413 +43.48% 5
South West -47 26 £538 -14.00% 2
North East -23 13 £650 +160.00% 1
Yorkshire -42 12 £475 +35.71% 5
Scotland -16 9 £418 -1.76% 8
East of England -27 5 £500 - 3
Wales -18 4 £425 -5.56%
East Midlands -19 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 10 (2.38%) OpenStack
2 4 (0.95%) Confluence
2 4 (0.95%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.24%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 12 (2.86%) MS Visio
2 6 (1.43%) Microsoft Office
2 6 (1.43%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 4 (0.95%) Microsoft Excel
4 3 (0.71%) AutoCAD
Cloud Services
1 94 (22.38%) Azure
2 86 (20.48%) AWS
3 28 (6.67%) GCP
4 22 (5.24%) OCI
5 17 (4.05%) SaaS
5 17 (4.05%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 14 (3.33%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 10 (2.38%) Azure Sentinel
8 9 (2.14%) AWS Direct Connect
9 7 (1.67%) Azure Monitor
9 7 (1.67%) Route 53
10 6 (1.43%) GitHub
10 6 (1.43%) Nutanix
11 5 (1.19%) Amazon GuardDuty
12 4 (0.95%) Amazon EKS
12 4 (0.95%) AWS CloudFormation
13 3 (0.71%) Amazon S3
13 3 (0.71%) IaaS
13 3 (0.71%) Microsoft 365
13 3 (0.71%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 276 (65.71%) OSPF
2 244 (58.10%) Firewall
3 240 (57.14%) WAN
4 145 (34.52%) LAN
5 117 (27.86%) VXLAN
6 115 (27.38%) VPN
7 102 (24.29%) MPLS
8 101 (24.05%) Network Security
9 100 (23.81%) VLAN
10 88 (20.95%) DNS
11 87 (20.71%) Ethernet VPN
11 87 (20.71%) SD-WAN
12 69 (16.43%) Multicast
13 62 (14.76%) BIG-IP
14 60 (14.29%) TCP/IP
15 59 (14.05%) IPsec
16 46 (10.95%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
16 46 (10.95%) Wireless
17 43 (10.24%) Cisco Nexus
17 43 (10.24%) Wi-Fi
Development Applications
1 21 (5.00%) GitLab
2 12 (2.86%) Git
3 7 (1.67%) JIRA
3 7 (1.67%) Sonatype Nexus
4 3 (0.71%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.24%) AppScan
5 1 (0.24%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.24%) Burp Suite
5 1 (0.24%) Metasploit
General
1 60 (14.29%) Social Skills
2 42 (10.00%) Finance
3 35 (8.33%) Analytical Skills
4 33 (7.86%) Public Sector
5 30 (7.14%) Banking
6 28 (6.67%) Telecoms
7 26 (6.19%) Documentation Skills
8 20 (4.76%) Investment Banking
9 13 (3.10%) Financial Institution
10 11 (2.62%) Military
11 7 (1.67%) Legal
11 7 (1.67%) Manufacturing
12 5 (1.19%) Retail
13 4 (0.95%) Police
14 3 (0.71%) French Language
14 3 (0.71%) German Language
14 3 (0.71%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 3 (0.71%) Italian Language
14 3 (0.71%) Marketing
14 3 (0.71%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 232 (55.24%) Network Engineer
2 83 (19.76%) Senior
3 62 (14.76%) Cisco Engineer
4 57 (13.57%) Cisco Network Engineer
5 48 (11.43%) Security Engineer
6 45 (10.71%) Senior Network Engineer
7 43 (10.24%) Data Network Engineer
7 43 (10.24%) Network Security Engineer
8 41 (9.76%) Architect
9 33 (7.86%) Cisco Security Engineer
10 32 (7.62%) Data Engineer
11 28 (6.67%) Network Architect
12 24 (5.71%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 24 (5.71%) Network Specialist
13 23 (5.48%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
14 18 (4.29%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
15 15 (3.57%) Operations Engineer
15 15 (3.57%) Web Engineer
16 14 (3.33%) Consultant
16 14 (3.33%) Firewall Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 42 (10.00%) 802.1X
2 15 (3.57%) REST
3 10 (2.38%) NETCONF
3 10 (2.38%) YANG
4 7 (1.67%) LDAP
5 5 (1.19%) CSS
6 4 (0.95%) Jinja
7 3 (0.71%) OpenConfig
7 3 (0.71%) RESTCONF
8 2 (0.48%) AWS CDK
8 2 (0.48%) RFC 2544
9 1 (0.24%) eBPF
9 1 (0.24%) HTML
9 1 (0.24%) Model Context Protocol
9 1 (0.24%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 188 (44.76%) Data Centre
2 43 (10.24%) Hybrid Cloud
3 37 (8.81%) PKI
4 26 (6.19%) Clustering
5 23 (5.48%) Cloud Native
6 7 (1.67%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
6 7 (1.67%) Onboarding
7 6 (1.43%) Analytical Mindset
7 6 (1.43%) Security Posture
8 5 (1.19%) Data Protection Act
8 5 (1.19%) Private Cloud
9 4 (0.95%) Distributed Systems
9 4 (0.95%) Management Information System
9 4 (0.95%) Operational Technology
9 4 (0.95%) Self-Motivation
10 3 (0.71%) Greenfield Project
10 3 (0.71%) Linux Command Line
10 3 (0.71%) Public Cloud
10 3 (0.71%) SCADA
10 3 (0.71%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 45 (10.71%) Windows
2 17 (4.05%) Linux
3 6 (1.43%) Ubuntu
4 3 (0.71%) Windows Server
5 2 (0.48%) Unix
5 2 (0.48%) VMS
6 1 (0.24%) Kali Linux
6 1 (0.24%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 106 (25.24%) Load Balancing
2 76 (18.10%) High Availability
3 67 (15.95%) Network Design
4 65 (15.48%) Infrastructure as Code
5 62 (14.76%) Migration
6 59 (14.05%) Zero Trust
7 49 (11.67%) Problem-Solving
8 44 (10.48%) Network Architecture
9 39 (9.29%) CI/CD
10 34 (8.10%) DevOps
10 34 (8.10%) Observability
11 33 (7.86%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 33 (7.86%) ITIL
12 32 (7.62%) Change Management
12 32 (7.62%) Project Delivery
12 32 (7.62%) Validation
13 29 (6.90%) Network Segmentation
14 27 (6.43%) Identity Access Management
15 26 (6.19%) Mentoring
15 26 (6.19%) Network Monitoring
Programming Languages
1 111 (26.43%) Python
2 9 (2.14%) Bash
3 6 (1.43%) PowerShell
3 6 (1.43%) SQL
4 4 (0.95%) PHP
5 3 (0.71%) Perl
6 1 (0.24%) JavaScript
6 1 (0.24%) Lisp
Qualifications
1 154 (36.67%) Cisco Certification
2 136 (32.38%) Security Cleared
3 110 (26.19%) CCNP
4 96 (22.86%) SC Cleared
5 54 (12.86%) CCIE
6 41 (9.76%) DV Cleared
7 27 (6.43%) Degree
8 23 (5.48%) CCNA
9 15 (3.57%) JNCIE
10 14 (3.33%) JNCIP
11 11 (2.62%) JNCIS
12 10 (2.38%) AWS Certification
12 10 (2.38%) JNCIA
13 8 (1.90%) Azure Certification
13 8 (1.90%) Computer Science Degree
14 6 (1.43%) GIAC
15 5 (1.19%) CISSP
15 5 (1.19%) CompTIA Security+
16 4 (0.95%) APMG
16 4 (0.95%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (2.62%) NCSC
1 11 (2.62%) NIST
2 10 (2.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 6 (1.43%) SLA
4 5 (1.19%) Cyber Essentials
5 4 (0.95%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 4 (0.95%) GDPR
5 4 (0.95%) QA
6 3 (0.71%) PCI DSS
7 2 (0.48%) NIST 800
7 2 (0.48%) RMADS
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%) JSP 440
System Software
1 29 (6.90%) VMware Infrastructure
2 12 (2.86%) VMware NSX
3 8 (1.90%) VMware ESXi
4 7 (1.67%) Active Directory
4 7 (1.67%) Firmware
5 6 (1.43%) Hyper-V
6 4 (0.95%) vSphere
7 2 (0.48%) Docker
7 2 (0.48%) vCloud
7 2 (0.48%) Virtual Servers
8 1 (0.24%) KVM
8 1 (0.24%) ProxySG
8 1 (0.24%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 110 (26.19%) Ansible
2 67 (15.95%) Terraform
3 55 (13.10%) FortiGate
4 20 (4.76%) Grafana
5 17 (4.05%) Prometheus
6 7 (1.67%) Kubernetes
7 6 (1.43%) vCenter Server
8 3 (0.71%) Cisco Prime
8 3 (0.71%) SCOM
9 2 (0.48%) CASB
9 2 (0.48%) Iperf
9 2 (0.48%) Microsoft Intune
9 2 (0.48%) Nagios
9 2 (0.48%) Nmap
9 2 (0.48%) QRadar
9 2 (0.48%) Single Sign-On
10 1 (0.24%) Cilium
10 1 (0.24%) Progress Chef
10 1 (0.24%) Suricata
10 1 (0.24%) VxRail
Vendors
1 282 (67.14%) Cisco
2 147 (35.00%) F5
3 117 (27.86%) Palo Alto
4 88 (20.95%) Juniper
5 83 (19.76%) Fortinet
6 77 (18.33%) Arista
7 44 (10.48%) Aruba
8 37 (8.81%) CheckPoint
8 37 (8.81%) VMware
9 34 (8.10%) SolarWinds
10 31 (7.38%) Splunk
11 26 (6.19%) Extreme Networks
12 21 (5.00%) Zscaler
13 18 (4.29%) Microsoft
14 12 (2.86%) Meraki
15 9 (2.14%) ServiceNow
16 7 (1.67%) Ekahau
16 7 (1.67%) Google
16 7 (1.67%) Nokia
17 5 (1.19%) HP