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

6 months to
31 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 301 283 273
Rank change year-on-year -18 -10 +8
Contract jobs citing BGP 446 309 346
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.83% 0.94% 0.90%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 8.77% 7.94% 7.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 267 198 210
10th Percentile £378 £321 £311
25th Percentile £425 £407 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% - -5.00%
75th Percentile £588 £611 £550
90th Percentile £688 £667 £649
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% +2.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 4 2
10th Percentile £48.55 £37.38 £23.15
25th Percentile £49.00 £39.06 £30.13
Median hourly rate £58.25 £48.75 £42.00
Median % change year-on-year +19.49% +16.07% -30.00%
75th Percentile £73.75 £60.88 £53.63
90th Percentile £85.02 £64.70 £60.45
UK excluding London median hourly rate £58.25 £66.50 £19.00
% change year-on-year -12.41% +250.00% -68.85%

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 5,087 3,890 4,613
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.47% 11.80% 11.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,997 2,381 2,743
10th Percentile £250 £238 £230
25th Percentile £400 £363 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £485 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.09% -3.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £608
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £470 £500
% change year-on-year +2.13% -6.00% +9.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 376 202 288
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.99 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.33 £25.15 £20.50
Median hourly rate £26.00 £45.00 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -42.22% -10.00% -9.62%
75th Percentile £65.06 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £79.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.81 £42.50 £55.75
% change year-on-year -39.28% -23.76% -1.32%

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 31 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 31 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 31 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 -14 412 £510 +2.00% 103
UK excluding London -3 253 £500 +5.26% 53
London -57 136 £500 +5.26% 61
Work from Home -23 115 £500 -2.44% 31
North of England +5 109 £500 +5.26% 7
North West +2 80 £500 +5.26% 1
South East -26 80 £525 +5.00% 19
Midlands -37 47 £447 +11.63% 6
West Midlands -34 44 £468 +17.00% 6
South West -37 33 £525 -16.67% 7
Yorkshire -24 22 £495 +23.75% 6
North East -24 13 £650 +160.00%
Scotland -21 9 £375 -11.76% 2
East of England -17 7 £475 -32.14% 12
East Midlands -12 2 - -
Wales -15 1 £425 -2.86% 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 12 (2.69%) OpenStack
2 8 (1.79%) SAS
3 3 (0.67%) Microsoft Exchange
4 2 (0.45%) Confluence
5 1 (0.22%) SharePoint
Applications
1 10 (2.24%) MS Visio
2 7 (1.57%) Microsoft Office
3 5 (1.12%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (1.12%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.67%) AutoCAD
Cloud Services
1 113 (25.34%) Azure
2 86 (19.28%) AWS
3 25 (5.61%) GCP
4 23 (5.16%) OCI
5 21 (4.71%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 17 (3.81%) GitHub
7 13 (2.91%) SaaS
8 10 (2.24%) AWS Direct Connect
9 9 (2.02%) Microsoft 365
9 9 (2.02%) Virtual Private Cloud
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
12 3 (0.67%) Entra ID
13 2 (0.45%) Amazon GuardDuty
13 2 (0.45%) AWS CloudFormation
14 1 (0.22%) GitHub Actions
14 1 (0.22%) IBM Watson
Communications & Networking
1 258 (57.85%) OSPF
2 251 (56.28%) Firewall
3 217 (48.65%) WAN
4 137 (30.72%) VPN
5 124 (27.80%) LAN
5 124 (27.80%) VLAN
6 112 (25.11%) VXLAN
7 105 (23.54%) MPLS
8 101 (22.65%) Network Security
9 91 (20.40%) DNS
10 89 (19.96%) SD-WAN
11 79 (17.71%) Ethernet VPN
12 70 (15.70%) TCP/IP
12 70 (15.70%) Wireless
13 66 (14.80%) IPsec
14 63 (14.13%) Multicast
14 63 (14.13%) Wi-Fi
15 53 (11.88%) Cisco Nexus
15 53 (11.88%) EIGRP
15 53 (11.88%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
Development Applications
1 28 (6.28%) GitLab
2 19 (4.26%) Git
3 7 (1.57%) JIRA
3 7 (1.57%) Sonatype Nexus
4 2 (0.45%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.22%) Bitbucket
General
1 76 (17.04%) Social Skills
2 49 (10.99%) Analytical Skills
3 44 (9.87%) Finance
4 30 (6.73%) Public Sector
4 30 (6.73%) Telecoms
5 29 (6.50%) Banking
6 19 (4.26%) Investment Banking
7 16 (3.59%) Documentation Skills
8 8 (1.79%) Legal
8 8 (1.79%) Police
8 8 (1.79%) Retail
9 6 (1.35%) Military
10 5 (1.12%) Financial Institution
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%) Manufacturing
13 2 (0.45%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 265 (59.42%) Network Engineer
2 97 (21.75%) Senior
3 64 (14.35%) Senior Network Engineer
4 61 (13.68%) Cisco Engineer
5 58 (13.00%) Cisco Network Engineer
6 49 (10.99%) Architect
7 41 (9.19%) Data Network Engineer
8 40 (8.97%) Network Security Engineer
8 40 (8.97%) Security Engineer
9 36 (8.07%) Network Architect
10 32 (7.17%) Consultant
11 30 (6.73%) Cisco Security Engineer
12 29 (6.50%) Data Engineer
13 22 (4.93%) Network Consultant
14 20 (4.48%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 20 (4.48%) Network Specialist
15 18 (4.04%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
16 17 (3.81%) Developer
17 14 (3.14%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
17 14 (3.14%) Web Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 71 (15.92%) Terraform
2 23 (5.16%) 802.1X
3 21 (4.71%) REST
4 12 (2.69%) NETCONF
5 11 (2.47%) YANG
6 10 (2.24%) YAML
7 8 (1.79%) JSON
8 6 (1.35%) OpenConfig
8 6 (1.35%) RESTCONF
9 4 (0.90%) CSS
10 3 (0.67%) eBPF
10 3 (0.67%) SAML
11 2 (0.45%) Jinja
11 2 (0.45%) Spine.js
12 1 (0.22%) Django
12 1 (0.22%) gRPC
12 1 (0.22%) LDAP
12 1 (0.22%) Model Context Protocol
Miscellaneous
1 182 (40.81%) Data Centre
2 50 (11.21%) Hybrid Cloud
3 28 (6.28%) Cloud Native
4 18 (4.04%) PKI
5 11 (2.47%) Private Cloud
6 10 (2.24%) Analytical Mindset
6 10 (2.24%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
7 9 (2.02%) Self-Motivation
8 8 (1.79%) Clustering
8 8 (1.79%) Operational Technology
8 8 (1.79%) Public Cloud
9 7 (1.57%) Onboarding
10 6 (1.35%) Digital Signage
10 6 (1.35%) Security Posture
11 5 (1.12%) Linux Command Line
12 4 (0.90%) CMDB
12 4 (0.90%) Data Protection Act
12 4 (0.90%) Distributed Systems
13 3 (0.67%) IoT
13 3 (0.67%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 30 (6.73%) Windows
2 21 (4.71%) Linux
3 4 (0.90%) 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 96 (21.52%) Load Balancing
2 81 (18.16%) High Availability
3 80 (17.94%) Migration
4 76 (17.04%) Network Design
5 71 (15.92%) Infrastructure as Code
6 70 (15.70%) Zero Trust
7 49 (10.99%) Problem-Solving
8 47 (10.54%) ITIL
9 46 (10.31%) Project Delivery
9 46 (10.31%) Validation
10 45 (10.09%) Network Architecture
11 42 (9.42%) CI/CD
12 35 (7.85%) Network Segmentation
13 34 (7.62%) Infrastructure Engineering
14 33 (7.40%) DevOps
15 30 (6.73%) Technical Leadership
16 29 (6.50%) Mentoring
16 29 (6.50%) Stakeholder Management
17 27 (6.05%) Change Control
17 27 (6.05%) Low Latency
Programming Languages
1 128 (28.70%) Python
2 11 (2.47%) Bash
3 6 (1.35%) PowerShell
3 6 (1.35%) SQL
4 3 (0.67%) Shell Script
5 2 (0.45%) Go
5 2 (0.45%) Perl
6 1 (0.22%) C++
6 1 (0.22%) Java
Qualifications
1 139 (31.17%) Security Cleared
2 128 (28.70%) Cisco Certification
3 94 (21.08%) CCNP
4 85 (19.06%) SC Cleared
5 51 (11.43%) CCIE
6 48 (10.76%) DV Cleared
7 23 (5.16%) CCNA
8 21 (4.71%) Degree
9 14 (3.14%) JNCIE
10 9 (2.02%) Computer Science Degree
11 7 (1.57%) Azure Certification
12 5 (1.12%) AWS Certification
12 5 (1.12%) PMP
13 4 (0.90%) CCIE Security
13 4 (0.90%) CISSP
13 4 (0.90%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 3 (0.67%) VCDX
15 2 (0.45%) JNCIA
15 2 (0.45%) JNCIS
15 2 (0.45%) VCAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (0.90%) NCSC
1 4 (0.90%) NIST
2 3 (0.67%) GDPR
2 3 (0.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 3 (0.67%) QA
3 2 (0.45%) PCI DSS
4 1 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials
4 1 (0.22%) NIST 800
System Software
1 30 (6.73%) VMware Infrastructure
2 15 (3.36%) VMware NSX
3 7 (1.57%) Firmware
3 7 (1.57%) Hyper-V
4 6 (1.35%) Active Directory
5 5 (1.12%) Docker
6 4 (0.90%) vSphere
7 2 (0.45%) Virtual Servers
7 2 (0.45%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.22%) ProxySG
8 1 (0.22%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 124 (27.80%) Ansible
2 41 (9.19%) FortiGate
3 20 (4.48%) Kubernetes
4 14 (3.14%) Grafana
4 14 (3.14%) Prometheus
5 9 (2.02%) Cisco Prime
6 6 (1.35%) Cilium
7 4 (0.90%) Istio
7 4 (0.90%) Nagios
8 2 (0.45%) Puppet
8 2 (0.45%) Single Sign-On
9 1 (0.22%) CASB
9 1 (0.22%) Microsoft Intune
9 1 (0.22%) OPNET
9 1 (0.22%) Progress Chef
9 1 (0.22%) QRadar
9 1 (0.22%) Rancher
9 1 (0.22%) Suricata
Vendors
1 313 (70.18%) Cisco
2 142 (31.84%) F5
3 131 (29.37%) Palo Alto
4 101 (22.65%) Fortinet
5 81 (18.16%) Arista
6 62 (13.90%) Juniper
7 43 (9.64%) Aruba
8 42 (9.42%) CheckPoint
8 42 (9.42%) VMware
9 31 (6.95%) Microsoft
10 28 (6.28%) SolarWinds
11 18 (4.04%) Meraki
12 16 (3.59%) ServiceNow
12 16 (3.59%) Zscaler
13 14 (3.14%) Splunk
14 10 (2.24%) Extreme Networks
15 9 (2.02%) Google
15 9 (2.02%) Red Hat
16 7 (1.57%) Citrix
16 7 (1.57%) Ekahau