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

6 months to
21 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 296 276 257
Rank change year-on-year -20 -19 +27
Contract jobs citing BGP 445 313 362
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.83% 0.95% 0.93%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 8.78% 8.09% 7.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 265 199 229
10th Percentile £380 £325 £300
25th Percentile £419 £408 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% - -5.00%
75th Percentile £588 £603 £538
90th Percentile £695 £666 £588
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +5.26% - -2.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 4 2
10th Percentile £51.21 £37.38 £23.15
25th Percentile £55.66 £39.06 £30.13
Median hourly rate £65.38 £48.75 £42.00
Median % change year-on-year +34.10% +16.07% -32.26%
75th Percentile £78.45 £60.88 £53.63
90th Percentile £86.90 £64.70 £60.45
UK excluding London median hourly rate £58.25 £66.50 £19.00
% change year-on-year -12.41% +250.00% -68.33%

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 5,067 3,869 4,742
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.46% 11.80% 12.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,997 2,360 2,862
10th Percentile £250 £240 £225
25th Percentile £400 £368 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £483 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.52% -3.40% -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £608
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £483 £473 £500
% change year-on-year +2.22% -5.50% +9.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 370 202 313
10th Percentile £15.18 £14.99 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.33 £25.15 £20.50
Median hourly rate £26.14 £46.25 £49.00
Median % change year-on-year -43.48% -5.61% -12.35%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £81.35 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.14 £45.00 £54.88
% change year-on-year -41.91% -18.00% -4.28%

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 21 August 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 21 August 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 21 August 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 -21 410 £511 +4.82% 70
UK excluding London -21 259 £500 +5.26% 41
London -73 131 £520 +9.47% 33
Work from Home -39 113 £500 - 29
North of England -7 110 £500 +5.26% 7
South East -18 84 £525 +16.67% 12
North West +4 81 £500 +5.26% 2
Midlands -36 48 £425 +6.25% 8
West Midlands -39 45 £440 +10.06% 8
South West -44 33 £525 -16.67% 5
Yorkshire -22 22 £495 -1.00% 5
North East -24 13 £650 +160.00%
Scotland -18 9 £375 -11.76% 1
East of England -16 6 £500 -28.57% 9
East Midlands -18 2 - -
Wales -19 2 £425 -6.59%

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 12 (2.70%) OpenStack
2 8 (1.80%) SAS
3 3 (0.67%) Microsoft Exchange
4 2 (0.45%) Confluence
5 1 (0.22%) SharePoint
Applications
1 11 (2.47%) MS Visio
2 8 (1.80%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (1.35%) Microsoft Excel
3 6 (1.35%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.67%) AutoCAD
Cloud Services
1 114 (25.62%) Azure
2 88 (19.78%) AWS
3 27 (6.07%) GCP
4 24 (5.39%) OCI
5 22 (4.94%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 17 (3.82%) GitHub
7 13 (2.92%) SaaS
7 13 (2.92%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 11 (2.47%) AWS Direct Connect
9 9 (2.02%) Microsoft 365
10 7 (1.57%) Azure Monitor
10 7 (1.57%) Azure Sentinel
10 7 (1.57%) OpenShift
11 6 (1.35%) Nutanix
12 3 (0.67%) Azure DevOps
13 2 (0.45%) Amazon EKS
13 2 (0.45%) Amazon GuardDuty
13 2 (0.45%) AWS CloudFormation
13 2 (0.45%) Entra ID
13 2 (0.45%) Route 53
Communications & Networking
1 267 (60.00%) OSPF
2 255 (57.30%) Firewall
3 225 (50.56%) WAN
4 136 (30.56%) VPN
5 131 (29.44%) LAN
6 119 (26.74%) VLAN
7 116 (26.07%) VXLAN
8 103 (23.15%) MPLS
9 94 (21.12%) Network Security
10 93 (20.90%) DNS
11 90 (20.22%) SD-WAN
12 84 (18.88%) Ethernet VPN
13 72 (16.18%) TCP/IP
14 70 (15.73%) Wireless
15 66 (14.83%) Multicast
16 63 (14.16%) IPsec
17 62 (13.93%) Wi-Fi
18 53 (11.91%) Cisco ASA
18 53 (11.91%) Cisco Nexus
18 53 (11.91%) EIGRP
Development Applications
1 29 (6.52%) GitLab
2 21 (4.72%) Git
3 7 (1.57%) JIRA
3 7 (1.57%) Sonatype Nexus
4 3 (0.67%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.22%) Bitbucket
General
1 74 (16.63%) Social Skills
2 49 (11.01%) Analytical Skills
3 43 (9.66%) Finance
4 30 (6.74%) Banking
4 30 (6.74%) Public Sector
5 28 (6.29%) Telecoms
6 19 (4.27%) Investment Banking
7 11 (2.47%) Documentation Skills
8 8 (1.80%) Legal
8 8 (1.80%) Police
8 8 (1.80%) Retail
9 7 (1.57%) Financial Institution
10 6 (1.35%) Military
11 4 (0.90%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 3 (0.67%) German Language
12 3 (0.67%) Influencing Skills
12 3 (0.67%) Italian Language
12 3 (0.67%) Spanish Language
13 2 (0.45%) Organisational Skills
13 2 (0.45%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 268 (60.22%) Network Engineer
2 93 (20.90%) Senior
3 63 (14.16%) Senior Network Engineer
4 61 (13.71%) Cisco Engineer
5 58 (13.03%) Cisco Network Engineer
6 49 (11.01%) Architect
7 41 (9.21%) Data Network Engineer
8 40 (8.99%) Network Security Engineer
8 40 (8.99%) Security Engineer
9 33 (7.42%) Network Architect
10 30 (6.74%) Cisco Security Engineer
11 29 (6.52%) Data Engineer
12 24 (5.39%) Consultant
13 23 (5.17%) Network Specialist
14 20 (4.49%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 18 (4.04%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
16 17 (3.82%) Developer
17 15 (3.37%) Network Consultant
17 15 (3.37%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
18 14 (3.15%) Web Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 73 (16.40%) Terraform
2 27 (6.07%) 802.1X
3 20 (4.49%) REST
4 12 (2.70%) NETCONF
4 12 (2.70%) YANG
5 8 (1.80%) JSON
5 8 (1.80%) YAML
6 7 (1.57%) OpenConfig
7 6 (1.35%) RESTCONF
8 4 (0.90%) CSS
8 4 (0.90%) Jinja
9 3 (0.67%) eBPF
10 2 (0.45%) SAML
10 2 (0.45%) Spine.js
11 1 (0.22%) LDAP
11 1 (0.22%) Model Context Protocol
Miscellaneous
1 184 (41.35%) Data Centre
2 52 (11.69%) Hybrid Cloud
3 27 (6.07%) Cloud Native
4 23 (5.17%) PKI
5 12 (2.70%) Clustering
6 11 (2.47%) Private Cloud
7 10 (2.25%) Analytical Mindset
7 10 (2.25%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
7 10 (2.25%) Self-Motivation
8 8 (1.80%) Operational Technology
8 8 (1.80%) Public Cloud
9 6 (1.35%) Digital Signage
10 5 (1.12%) Linux Command Line
10 5 (1.12%) Onboarding
10 5 (1.12%) Security Posture
11 4 (0.90%) CMDB
11 4 (0.90%) Data Protection Act
11 4 (0.90%) Distributed Systems
12 3 (0.67%) IoT
12 3 (0.67%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 32 (7.19%) Windows
2 20 (4.49%) Linux
3 5 (1.12%) Windows Server
4 3 (0.67%) Unix
4 3 (0.67%) Windows Server 2012
5 2 (0.45%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.22%) VMS
6 1 (0.22%) Windows Server 2016
6 1 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 100 (22.47%) Load Balancing
2 77 (17.30%) High Availability
3 75 (16.85%) Infrastructure as Code
4 72 (16.18%) Network Design
5 71 (15.96%) Migration
6 68 (15.28%) Zero Trust
7 51 (11.46%) Problem-Solving
8 48 (10.79%) ITIL
9 47 (10.56%) Project Delivery
10 45 (10.11%) CI/CD
11 43 (9.66%) Network Architecture
11 43 (9.66%) Validation
12 35 (7.87%) DevOps
13 34 (7.64%) Network Segmentation
14 33 (7.42%) Infrastructure Engineering
15 29 (6.52%) Continuous Improvement
15 29 (6.52%) Mentoring
16 28 (6.29%) Observability
17 27 (6.07%) Network Monitoring
17 27 (6.07%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 126 (28.31%) Python
2 10 (2.25%) Bash
3 6 (1.35%) PowerShell
3 6 (1.35%) SQL
4 3 (0.67%) Shell Script
5 2 (0.45%) Perl
6 1 (0.22%) Go
Qualifications
1 139 (31.24%) Security Cleared
2 135 (30.34%) Cisco Certification
3 99 (22.25%) CCNP
4 82 (18.43%) SC Cleared
5 51 (11.46%) CCIE
6 49 (11.01%) DV Cleared
7 22 (4.94%) CCNA
8 20 (4.49%) Degree
9 14 (3.15%) JNCIE
10 8 (1.80%) Azure Certification
10 8 (1.80%) Computer Science Degree
11 6 (1.35%) AWS Certification
12 4 (0.90%) CISSP
12 4 (0.90%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 3 (0.67%) CCIE Security
13 3 (0.67%) JNCIA
13 3 (0.67%) JNCIP
13 3 (0.67%) JNCIS
13 3 (0.67%) PMP
13 3 (0.67%) VCDX
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (1.12%) NCSC
1 5 (1.12%) NIST
2 3 (0.67%) GDPR
2 3 (0.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 3 (0.67%) QA
3 2 (0.45%) NIST 800
3 2 (0.45%) PCI DSS
4 1 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials
4 1 (0.22%) SLA
System Software
1 29 (6.52%) VMware Infrastructure
2 15 (3.37%) VMware NSX
3 8 (1.80%) Firmware
4 7 (1.57%) Active Directory
4 7 (1.57%) Docker
4 7 (1.57%) Hyper-V
5 4 (0.90%) vSphere
6 2 (0.45%) Virtual Servers
6 2 (0.45%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.22%) ProxySG
7 1 (0.22%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 123 (27.64%) Ansible
2 47 (10.56%) FortiGate
3 21 (4.72%) Kubernetes
4 15 (3.37%) Grafana
5 14 (3.15%) Prometheus
6 9 (2.02%) Cisco Prime
7 5 (1.12%) Cilium
7 5 (1.12%) Nagios
8 3 (0.67%) Istio
9 2 (0.45%) Single Sign-On
10 1 (0.22%) CASB
10 1 (0.22%) Microsoft Intune
10 1 (0.22%) OPNET
10 1 (0.22%) Progress Chef
10 1 (0.22%) Puppet
10 1 (0.22%) QRadar
10 1 (0.22%) Rancher
10 1 (0.22%) Suricata
10 1 (0.22%) VxRail
Vendors
1 311 (69.89%) Cisco
2 146 (32.81%) F5
3 131 (29.44%) Palo Alto
4 101 (22.70%) Fortinet
5 80 (17.98%) Arista
6 67 (15.06%) Juniper
7 43 (9.66%) Aruba
7 43 (9.66%) CheckPoint
8 41 (9.21%) VMware
9 34 (7.64%) SolarWinds
10 32 (7.19%) Microsoft
11 19 (4.27%) Meraki
11 19 (4.27%) Splunk
12 18 (4.04%) Zscaler
13 16 (3.60%) ServiceNow
14 13 (2.92%) Extreme Networks
15 12 (2.70%) Google
16 9 (2.02%) Red Hat
17 8 (1.80%) Citrix
18 7 (1.57%) Ekahau