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

6 months to
18 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 289 228 268
Rank change year-on-year -61 +40 +41
Contract jobs citing BGP 419 353 375
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.83% 1.19% 0.85%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 8.74% 9.48% 6.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 241 218 232
10th Percentile £340 £351 £313
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 £560 £634 £538
90th Percentile £627 £738 £600
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £495 £457
% change year-on-year - +8.43% -6.07%
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 4,793 3,724 5,432
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.51% 12.51% 12.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,942 2,288 3,212
10th Percentile £250 £220 £210
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £480 £500
Median % change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% -1.96%
75th Percentile £588 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £470 £488
% change year-on-year +2.13% -3.59% +2.63%
Number of hourly rates quoted 291 175 422
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.50
25th Percentile £21.04 £19.14 £17.69
Median hourly rate £27.88 £44.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -36.64% +10.00% +110.53%
75th Percentile £65.00 £61.75 £63.75
90th Percentile £74.26 £78.00 £71.19
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.00 £31.08 £47.50
% change year-on-year -9.91% -34.57% +150.46%

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 18 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 18 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 18 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 -51 374 £490 -2.00% 57
UK excluding London -40 243 £495 - 60
Work from Home -48 124 £450 -14.69% 37
London -66 116 £450 -10.00% 21
South East +15 102 £473 +5.00% 19
North of England -44 84 £571 +16.58% 12
North West -24 65 £575 +16.16% 7
Midlands -30 51 £413 +37.50% 6
West Midlands -26 48 £413 +43.48% 4
South West -40 25 £538 -14.00% 1
North East -24 13 £650 +160.00% 1
Yorkshire -51 12 £475 +35.71% 4
Scotland -11 9 £418 +1.21% 7
Wales -17 4 £425 -5.56%
East of England -28 4 £500 - 2
East Midlands -24 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 9 (2.15%) OpenStack
2 4 (0.95%) Confluence
3 3 (0.72%) SharePoint
Applications
1 10 (2.39%) MS Visio
2 5 (1.19%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (1.19%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 3 (0.72%) AutoCAD
3 3 (0.72%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 90 (21.48%) Azure
2 85 (20.29%) AWS
3 28 (6.68%) GCP
4 22 (5.25%) OCI
5 17 (4.06%) SaaS
6 15 (3.58%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 12 (2.86%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 9 (2.15%) AWS Direct Connect
8 9 (2.15%) Azure Sentinel
9 8 (1.91%) Route 53
10 6 (1.43%) Amazon GuardDuty
10 6 (1.43%) Nutanix
11 5 (1.19%) Amazon EKS
11 5 (1.19%) Azure Monitor
11 5 (1.19%) GitHub
12 4 (0.95%) AWS CloudFormation
13 3 (0.72%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 3 (0.72%) Amazon S3
13 3 (0.72%) IaaS
13 3 (0.72%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 278 (66.35%) OSPF
2 242 (57.76%) Firewall
3 241 (57.52%) WAN
4 144 (34.37%) LAN
5 119 (28.40%) VXLAN
6 114 (27.21%) VPN
7 102 (24.34%) MPLS
8 101 (24.11%) Network Security
9 97 (23.15%) VLAN
10 89 (21.24%) Ethernet VPN
10 89 (21.24%) SD-WAN
11 85 (20.29%) DNS
12 70 (16.71%) Multicast
13 61 (14.56%) BIG-IP
14 58 (13.84%) IPsec
15 56 (13.37%) TCP/IP
16 48 (11.46%) Wireless
17 44 (10.50%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
18 43 (10.26%) Wi-Fi
19 42 (10.02%) Cisco Nexus
Development Applications
1 21 (5.01%) GitLab
2 12 (2.86%) Git
3 7 (1.67%) JIRA
3 7 (1.67%) Sonatype Nexus
4 3 (0.72%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.24%) AppScan
5 1 (0.24%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.24%) Burp Suite
5 1 (0.24%) Metasploit
General
1 57 (13.60%) Social Skills
2 41 (9.79%) Finance
3 34 (8.11%) Public Sector
4 33 (7.88%) Analytical Skills
5 29 (6.92%) Banking
6 25 (5.97%) Documentation Skills
6 25 (5.97%) Telecoms
7 20 (4.77%) Investment Banking
8 13 (3.10%) Financial Institution
9 12 (2.86%) Military
10 8 (1.91%) Legal
11 7 (1.67%) Manufacturing
12 4 (0.95%) Police
12 4 (0.95%) Retail
13 3 (0.72%) French Language
13 3 (0.72%) German Language
13 3 (0.72%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 3 (0.72%) Italian Language
13 3 (0.72%) Marketing
13 3 (0.72%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 233 (55.61%) Network Engineer
2 82 (19.57%) Senior
3 63 (15.04%) Cisco Engineer
4 58 (13.84%) Cisco Network Engineer
5 48 (11.46%) Security Engineer
6 45 (10.74%) Senior Network Engineer
7 43 (10.26%) Data Network Engineer
7 43 (10.26%) Network Security Engineer
8 41 (9.79%) Architect
9 33 (7.88%) Cisco Security Engineer
10 32 (7.64%) Data Engineer
11 28 (6.68%) Network Architect
12 24 (5.73%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 24 (5.73%) Network Specialist
13 23 (5.49%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
14 18 (4.30%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
15 15 (3.58%) Operations Engineer
15 15 (3.58%) Web Engineer
16 14 (3.34%) Firewall Specialist
17 13 (3.10%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 45 (10.74%) 802.1X
2 15 (3.58%) REST
3 9 (2.15%) NETCONF
3 9 (2.15%) YANG
4 7 (1.67%) LDAP
5 5 (1.19%) CSS
6 4 (0.95%) Jinja
7 2 (0.48%) AWS CDK
7 2 (0.48%) OpenConfig
7 2 (0.48%) RESTCONF
7 2 (0.48%) RFC 2544
8 1 (0.24%) eBPF
8 1 (0.24%) HTML
8 1 (0.24%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 184 (43.91%) Data Centre
2 39 (9.31%) Hybrid Cloud
3 38 (9.07%) PKI
4 26 (6.21%) Clustering
5 21 (5.01%) Cloud Native
6 8 (1.91%) Onboarding
7 6 (1.43%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
7 6 (1.43%) Security Posture
8 5 (1.19%) Analytical Mindset
8 5 (1.19%) Data Protection Act
9 4 (0.95%) Distributed Systems
9 4 (0.95%) Operational Technology
9 4 (0.95%) Self-Motivation
10 3 (0.72%) CESG
10 3 (0.72%) Greenfield Project
10 3 (0.72%) Linux Command Line
10 3 (0.72%) Management Information System
10 3 (0.72%) SCADA
10 3 (0.72%) Virtual Team
11 2 (0.48%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 44 (10.50%) Windows
2 17 (4.06%) Linux
3 6 (1.43%) Ubuntu
4 3 (0.72%) Windows Server
5 2 (0.48%) Unix
6 1 (0.24%) Kali Linux
6 1 (0.24%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.24%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 105 (25.06%) Load Balancing
2 77 (18.38%) High Availability
3 65 (15.51%) Network Design
4 63 (15.04%) Infrastructure as Code
5 59 (14.08%) Zero Trust
6 58 (13.84%) Migration
7 49 (11.69%) Problem-Solving
8 42 (10.02%) Network Architecture
9 39 (9.31%) CI/CD
10 34 (8.11%) DevOps
10 34 (8.11%) Observability
11 33 (7.88%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 32 (7.64%) Change Management
13 31 (7.40%) ITIL
14 30 (7.16%) Network Segmentation
14 30 (7.16%) Project Delivery
14 30 (7.16%) Validation
15 29 (6.92%) Technical Leadership
16 26 (6.21%) Identity Access Management
16 26 (6.21%) Network Monitoring
Programming Languages
1 105 (25.06%) Python
2 8 (1.91%) Bash
3 6 (1.43%) SQL
4 5 (1.19%) PowerShell
5 4 (0.95%) PHP
6 3 (0.72%) Perl
7 1 (0.24%) JavaScript
7 1 (0.24%) Lisp
Qualifications
1 154 (36.75%) Cisco Certification
2 139 (33.17%) Security Cleared
3 110 (26.25%) CCNP
4 101 (24.11%) SC Cleared
5 55 (13.13%) CCIE
6 42 (10.02%) DV Cleared
7 25 (5.97%) Degree
8 23 (5.49%) CCNA
9 14 (3.34%) JNCIE
9 14 (3.34%) JNCIP
10 12 (2.86%) JNCIS
11 11 (2.63%) JNCIA
12 9 (2.15%) AWS Certification
13 8 (1.91%) Computer Science Degree
14 7 (1.67%) Azure Certification
15 6 (1.43%) GIAC
16 5 (1.19%) CCDP
16 5 (1.19%) CISSP
16 5 (1.19%) CompTIA Security+
17 4 (0.95%) APMG
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (2.63%) NIST
2 10 (2.39%) NCSC
3 9 (2.15%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 7 (1.67%) SLA
5 4 (0.95%) Cyber Essentials
5 4 (0.95%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 3 (0.72%) GDPR
6 3 (0.72%) PCI DSS
6 3 (0.72%) QA
6 3 (0.72%) RMADS
7 2 (0.48%) JSP 440
7 2 (0.48%) 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
System Software
1 28 (6.68%) VMware Infrastructure
2 10 (2.39%) VMware NSX
3 8 (1.91%) VMware ESXi
4 7 (1.67%) Firmware
5 6 (1.43%) Active Directory
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
1 108 (25.78%) Ansible
2 65 (15.51%) Terraform
3 54 (12.89%) FortiGate
4 20 (4.77%) Grafana
5 17 (4.06%) Prometheus
6 7 (1.67%) Kubernetes
7 6 (1.43%) vCenter Server
8 3 (0.72%) Cisco Prime
8 3 (0.72%) SCOM
9 2 (0.48%) CASB
9 2 (0.48%) Iperf
9 2 (0.48%) Nagios
9 2 (0.48%) Nmap
9 2 (0.48%) QRadar
10 1 (0.24%) Cilium
10 1 (0.24%) Cisco CUCM
10 1 (0.24%) Progress Chef
10 1 (0.24%) Single Sign-On
10 1 (0.24%) Suricata
10 1 (0.24%) VxRail
Vendors
1 281 (67.06%) Cisco
2 144 (34.37%) F5
3 116 (27.68%) Palo Alto
4 85 (20.29%) Juniper
5 81 (19.33%) Fortinet
6 77 (18.38%) Arista
7 44 (10.50%) Aruba
8 37 (8.83%) CheckPoint
9 35 (8.35%) VMware
10 32 (7.64%) SolarWinds
10 32 (7.64%) Splunk
11 26 (6.21%) Extreme Networks
12 22 (5.25%) Zscaler
13 13 (3.10%) Microsoft
14 12 (2.86%) Meraki
15 9 (2.15%) ServiceNow
16 7 (1.67%) Ekahau
16 7 (1.67%) Google
16 7 (1.67%) Nokia
17 5 (1.19%) HP