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

6 months to
16 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 358 223 237
Rank change year-on-year -135 +14 +177
Contract jobs citing BGP 257 388 442
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.70% 1.13% 1.00%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 6.46% 8.95% 7.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 169 230 231
10th Percentile £303 £354 £331
25th Percentile £400 £411 £444
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £455 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -13.33% -4.55% +10.00%
75th Percentile £575 £625 £613
90th Percentile £645 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £525 £488
% change year-on-year -14.29% +7.69% -2.50%
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 3,976 4,337 6,101
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.83% 12.67% 13.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,596 2,536 3,760
10th Percentile £206 £220 £210
25th Percentile £356 £368 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £582 £600 £610
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -5.26% - +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 184 151 342
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.22 £17.72
25th Percentile £20.13 £21.93 £22.06
Median hourly rate £36.75 £37.50 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -2.00% -31.82% +32.53%
75th Percentile £65.00 £62.50 £65.98
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.75 £76.06
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.75 £41.00 £56.49
% change year-on-year +6.71% -27.42% +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 16 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 16 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 -115 223 £475 -7.99% 79
UK excluding London -104 144 £450 -14.29% 64
London -39 89 £475 -5.00% 26
Work from Home -65 74 £450 -20.00% 42
South East -46 54 £456 -17.09% 25
West Midlands +1 41 £400 -16.45% 15
Midlands -15 41 £400 -20.00% 16
North of England -76 27 £550 +6.80% 12
North West -60 23 £550 - 5
Scotland +7 13 £425 +6.25% 1
South West -24 9 £506 +5.74% 5
East of England -28 5 £700 +68.67% 3
Yorkshire -55 4 £600 +118.18% 6
North East -7 3 £550 - 2
Channel Islands - 2 £725 -
Wales +1 1 £400 -11.11% 3

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 18 (7.00%) OpenStack
2 12 (4.67%) SharePoint
3 4 (1.56%) Confluence
Applications
1 14 (5.45%) MS Visio
2 5 (1.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 4 (1.56%) Microsoft Office
4 2 (0.78%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 53 (20.62%) AWS
2 41 (15.95%) Azure
3 13 (5.06%) GCP
4 8 (3.11%) OpenShift
5 7 (2.72%) Azure ExpressRoute
5 7 (2.72%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 6 (2.33%) Akamai
7 4 (1.56%) AWS Direct Connect
8 3 (1.17%) IaaS
8 3 (1.17%) PaaS
8 3 (1.17%) 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
1 167 (64.98%) OSPF
2 157 (61.09%) Firewall
3 126 (49.03%) WAN
4 102 (39.69%) VPN
5 92 (35.80%) MPLS
6 76 (29.57%) LAN
7 68 (26.46%) Network Security
8 67 (26.07%) IPsec
9 60 (23.35%) VLAN
10 50 (19.46%) SD-WAN
11 47 (18.29%) Wireless
12 43 (16.73%) DNS
13 42 (16.34%) EIGRP
14 41 (15.95%) VXLAN
15 33 (12.84%) Cisco ISE
16 29 (11.28%) Cisco Nexus
16 29 (11.28%) DHCP
16 29 (11.28%) TCP/IP
17 27 (10.51%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
18 26 (10.12%) Cisco ASA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.39%) Redis
1 1 (0.39%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 15 (5.84%) Git
2 7 (2.72%) Sonatype Nexus
3 5 (1.95%) GitLab
4 2 (0.78%) JIRA
5 1 (0.39%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.39%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.39%) Robot Framework
General
1 80 (31.13%) Social Skills
2 34 (13.23%) Public Sector
3 31 (12.06%) Analytical Skills
4 30 (11.67%) Documentation Skills
5 20 (7.78%) Finance
6 17 (6.61%) Telecoms
7 10 (3.89%) Banking
8 9 (3.50%) Investment Banking
9 8 (3.11%) Manufacturing
10 4 (1.56%) Financial Institution
10 4 (1.56%) Retail
11 3 (1.17%) Electronics
11 3 (1.17%) Influencing Skills
11 3 (1.17%) Legal
11 3 (1.17%) Marketing
11 3 (1.17%) Military
12 2 (0.78%) Advertising
12 2 (0.78%) Local Government
12 2 (0.78%) Pharmaceutical
12 2 (0.78%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 142 (55.25%) Network Engineer
2 36 (14.01%) Architect
3 28 (10.89%) Cisco Engineer
4 26 (10.12%) Cisco Network Engineer
5 24 (9.34%) Senior
6 20 (7.78%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
7 18 (7.00%) Network Architect
8 17 (6.61%) Support Engineer
9 16 (6.23%) Senior Network Engineer
9 16 (6.23%) WAN Engineer
10 14 (5.45%) 3rd Line Engineer
11 13 (5.06%) 3rd Line Support
11 13 (5.06%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
11 13 (5.06%) Consultant
11 13 (5.06%) Juniper Engineer
11 13 (5.06%) Network Security Engineer
11 13 (5.06%) Security Engineer
12 11 (4.28%) Solutions Architect
13 10 (3.89%) 2nd Line Engineer
14 9 (3.50%) Network Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (4.28%) YANG
2 10 (3.89%) NETCONF
3 8 (3.11%) REST
4 6 (2.33%) 802.1X
5 5 (1.95%) Jinja
6 4 (1.56%) JSON
6 4 (1.56%) VML
7 3 (1.17%) OpenConfig
7 3 (1.17%) SAML
8 2 (0.78%) eBPF
8 2 (0.78%) RESTCONF
8 2 (0.78%) XML
9 1 (0.39%) CrewAI
9 1 (0.39%) CSS
9 1 (0.39%) Elastic Stack
9 1 (0.39%) HTML
9 1 (0.39%) JFC
9 1 (0.39%) LangChain
9 1 (0.39%) RabbitMQ
9 1 (0.39%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 81 (31.52%) Data Centre
2 37 (14.40%) PKI
3 18 (7.00%) Hybrid Cloud
4 9 (3.50%) Cloud Native
5 8 (3.11%) Product Ownership
6 7 (2.72%) Self-Motivation
7 5 (1.95%) Analytical Mindset
7 5 (1.95%) Data Protection Act
7 5 (1.95%) Operational Technology
8 4 (1.56%) Onboarding
9 3 (1.17%) Distributed Architecture
9 3 (1.17%) Legacy Systems
9 3 (1.17%) NHS
10 2 (0.78%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
10 2 (0.78%) Distributed Systems
10 2 (0.78%) Private Cloud
10 2 (0.78%) Public Cloud
11 1 (0.39%) EMC VMAX
11 1 (0.39%) Linux Command Line
11 1 (0.39%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 17 (6.61%) Linux
2 16 (6.23%) Windows
3 10 (3.89%) Windows Server
4 7 (2.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.39%) Ubuntu
5 1 (0.39%) Windows Server 2012
5 1 (0.39%) Windows Server 2016
5 1 (0.39%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 49 (19.07%) Network Design
2 42 (16.34%) Load Balancing
3 41 (15.95%) Problem-Solving
4 30 (11.67%) Network Monitoring
5 29 (11.28%) High Availability
5 29 (11.28%) Migration
5 29 (11.28%) Network Segmentation
6 23 (8.95%) Network Virtualisation
7 20 (7.78%) DevOps
8 19 (7.39%) Strategic Thinking
9 18 (7.00%) Project Delivery
9 18 (7.00%) Roadmaps
9 18 (7.00%) Zero Trust
10 17 (6.61%) Cybersecurity
10 17 (6.61%) Knowledge Transfer
11 16 (6.23%) Network Architecture
12 14 (5.45%) Change Management
12 14 (5.45%) ITIL
12 14 (5.45%) Kalman Filter
12 14 (5.45%) TOGAF
Programming Languages
1 79 (30.74%) Python
2 20 (7.78%) Bash
3 16 (6.23%) Perl
4 10 (3.89%) PowerShell
5 8 (3.11%) Lisp
6 6 (2.33%) C++
7 2 (0.78%) C
8 1 (0.39%) Go
8 1 (0.39%) JavaScript
8 1 (0.39%) Shell Script
8 1 (0.39%) SQL
Qualifications
1 131 (50.97%) Cisco Certification
2 109 (42.41%) CCNP
3 98 (38.13%) Security Cleared
4 73 (28.40%) SC Cleared
5 47 (18.29%) CCIE
6 24 (9.34%) JNCIE
7 22 (8.56%) CCNA
8 20 (7.78%) Degree
9 16 (6.23%) DV Cleared
10 14 (5.45%) JNCIS
11 11 (4.28%) AWS Certification
12 10 (3.89%) CISSP
12 10 (3.89%) JNCIP
13 9 (3.50%) JNCIA
14 8 (3.11%) CCDP
15 6 (2.33%) CCSA
16 5 (1.95%) CCSE
17 4 (1.56%) (ISC)2 CCSP
17 4 (1.56%) CCSP
18 3 (1.17%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (3.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 8 (3.11%) NIST
3 7 (2.72%) SLA
4 6 (2.33%) GDPR
4 6 (2.33%) PCI DSS
5 5 (1.95%) NCSC
6 1 (0.39%) NIST 800
6 1 (0.39%) SOC 2
System Software
1 19 (7.39%) VMware Infrastructure
2 16 (6.23%) VMware NSX
3 11 (4.28%) Firmware
4 9 (3.50%) Active Directory
4 9 (3.50%) Docker
5 3 (1.17%) Hyper-V
5 3 (1.17%) KVM
6 1 (0.39%) Squid
6 1 (0.39%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 65 (25.29%) Ansible
2 39 (15.18%) FortiGate
3 30 (11.67%) Terraform
4 9 (3.50%) Kubernetes
5 4 (1.56%) CA Spectrum
6 3 (1.17%) Iperf
6 3 (1.17%) Nagios
6 3 (1.17%) Nmap
6 3 (1.17%) Single Sign-On
7 2 (0.78%) Grafana
7 2 (0.78%) Prometheus
8 1 (0.39%) CASB
8 1 (0.39%) Cisco CUCM
8 1 (0.39%) Failover Clustering
8 1 (0.39%) vRealize
8 1 (0.39%) VxRail
Vendors
1 175 (68.09%) Cisco
2 90 (35.02%) Juniper
3 69 (26.85%) Palo Alto
4 56 (21.79%) F5
4 56 (21.79%) Fortinet
5 36 (14.01%) CheckPoint
6 35 (13.62%) Meraki
7 31 (12.06%) SolarWinds
8 25 (9.73%) VMware
9 22 (8.56%) Arista
10 21 (8.17%) Aruba
11 13 (5.06%) ServiceNow
12 12 (4.67%) Microsoft
12 12 (4.67%) Remedy
13 11 (4.28%) Zscaler
14 8 (3.11%) Ekahau
14 8 (3.11%) Nokia
14 8 (3.11%) Red Hat
15 6 (2.33%) LogicMonitor
16 5 (1.95%) Dell