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 13 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 324 222 257
Rank change year-on-year -102 +35 +169
Contract jobs citing BGP 270 392 449
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.76% 1.08% 0.97%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 6.74% 8.93% 6.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 184 224 239
10th Percentile £316 £350 £339
25th Percentile £411 £409 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £523 £525
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% -0.48% +5.00%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £600
90th Percentile £663 £735 £732
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £525 £490
% change year-on-year -9.52% +7.14% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 4 11
10th Percentile £59.10 £32.38 £24.25
25th Percentile £63.38 £34.06 £24.75
Median hourly rate £70.38 £36.50 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +92.82% -2.67% +44.23%
75th Percentile £74.26 £44.75 £68.75
90th Percentile - £56.90 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £74.26 - £25.00
% change year-on-year - - +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 4,006 4,390 6,472
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 11.28% 12.04% 14.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,600 2,539 4,033
10th Percentile £206 £225 £213
25th Percentile £358 £375 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £685 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -5.26% - +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 201 162 339
10th Percentile £15.50 £18.08 £17.72
25th Percentile £20.18 £26.25 £22.88
Median hourly rate £34.00 £47.50 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -28.42% -13.64% +30.49%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £66.63
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £75.76
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £50.00 £56.49
% change year-on-year -15.00% -11.49% +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 13 November 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
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing BGP over the 6 months to 13 November 2025.

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 13 November 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 -99 237 £500 -0.99% 98
UK excluding London -78 152 £475 -9.52% 53
London -31 94 £500 +1.27% 50
Work from Home -50 80 £531 -4.49% 40
West Midlands -1 44 £400 -12.57% 10
Midlands -17 44 £400 -16.45% 14
South East -40 40 £500 -9.09% 23
North of England -64 30 £550 +8.91% 4
North West -43 27 £550 +2.33% 1
South West -4 22 £625 +19.05% 5
Scotland +4 14 £425 +6.25% 4
East of England -18 8 £700 +26.13% 2
North East -7 3 £550 +29.41%
Yorkshire -46 3 £520 +89.09% 3
Channel Islands - 3 £725 -
Wales -1 1 £400 -

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 23 (8.52%) OpenStack
2 11 (4.07%) SharePoint
3 10 (3.70%) Confluence
4 2 (0.74%) nginx
Applications
1 11 (4.07%) MS Visio
2 8 (2.96%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.74%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Cloud Services
1 64 (23.70%) AWS
2 46 (17.04%) Azure
3 18 (6.67%) GCP
4 8 (2.96%) Azure ExpressRoute
4 8 (2.96%) OpenShift
4 8 (2.96%) Virtual Private Cloud
5 7 (2.59%) Akamai
6 6 (2.22%) AWS Direct Connect
7 5 (1.85%) SaaS
8 3 (1.11%) IaaS
8 3 (1.11%) PaaS
9 2 (0.74%) GitHub
10 1 (0.37%) Amazon S3
10 1 (0.37%) AWS KMS
10 1 (0.37%) Azure DevOps
10 1 (0.37%) Azure Sentinel
10 1 (0.37%) Cloud Run
10 1 (0.37%) Entra ID
10 1 (0.37%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 175 (64.81%) OSPF
2 152 (56.30%) Firewall
3 112 (41.48%) WAN
4 106 (39.26%) MPLS
5 103 (38.15%) VPN
6 76 (28.15%) VLAN
7 71 (26.30%) IPsec
8 66 (24.44%) Network Security
9 57 (21.11%) LAN
10 55 (20.37%) SD-WAN
11 54 (20.00%) DNS
12 47 (17.41%) Wireless
13 43 (15.93%) EIGRP
13 43 (15.93%) VXLAN
14 33 (12.22%) Cisco ISE
15 32 (11.85%) DHCP
16 31 (11.48%) Ethernet VPN
17 26 (9.63%) Wireshark
18 25 (9.26%) Cisco ASA
18 25 (9.26%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (0.74%) MongoDB
1 2 (0.74%) NoSQL
2 1 (0.37%) Redis
2 1 (0.37%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 13 (4.81%) Git
2 10 (3.70%) JIRA
3 7 (2.59%) GitLab
4 6 (2.22%) Sonatype Nexus
5 3 (1.11%) Bitbucket
6 1 (0.37%) Jenkins
6 1 (0.37%) Robot Framework
General
1 83 (30.74%) Social Skills
2 31 (11.48%) Public Sector
3 29 (10.74%) Analytical Skills
4 25 (9.26%) Finance
5 23 (8.52%) Documentation Skills
6 17 (6.30%) Telecoms
7 14 (5.19%) Banking
8 10 (3.70%) Investment Banking
9 5 (1.85%) Legal
10 4 (1.48%) Financial Institution
10 4 (1.48%) Influencing Skills
10 4 (1.48%) Marketing
10 4 (1.48%) Military
11 3 (1.11%) Manufacturing
12 2 (0.74%) Advertising
12 2 (0.74%) Electronics
12 2 (0.74%) Local Government
12 2 (0.74%) Pharmaceutical
12 2 (0.74%) Presentation Skills
13 1 (0.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 146 (54.07%) Network Engineer
2 36 (13.33%) Architect
3 28 (10.37%) Cisco Engineer
4 27 (10.00%) Cisco Network Engineer
4 27 (10.00%) Senior
5 18 (6.67%) Network Architect
5 18 (6.67%) WAN Engineer
6 17 (6.30%) Support Engineer
7 16 (5.93%) Senior Network Engineer
8 15 (5.56%) Designer
9 14 (5.19%) 3rd Line Engineer
9 14 (5.19%) Juniper Engineer
9 14 (5.19%) Network Security Engineer
9 14 (5.19%) Security Engineer
10 13 (4.81%) 3rd Line Support
10 13 (4.81%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
10 13 (4.81%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
11 12 (4.44%) Consultant
11 12 (4.44%) Solutions Architect
12 10 (3.70%) 2nd Line Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (5.93%) NETCONF
2 10 (3.70%) REST
2 10 (3.70%) YANG
3 9 (3.33%) RESTCONF
4 8 (2.96%) 802.1X
5 5 (1.85%) Jinja
5 5 (1.85%) JSON
6 3 (1.11%) SAML
6 3 (1.11%) XML
6 3 (1.11%) YAML
7 2 (0.74%) eBPF
7 2 (0.74%) SOAP
8 1 (0.37%) CrewAI
8 1 (0.37%) Elastic Stack
8 1 (0.37%) gRPC
8 1 (0.37%) JFC
8 1 (0.37%) LangChain
8 1 (0.37%) OpenConfig
8 1 (0.37%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 73 (27.04%) Data Centre
2 41 (15.19%) PKI
3 19 (7.04%) Hybrid Cloud
4 10 (3.70%) Cloud Native
4 10 (3.70%) Operational Technology
5 9 (3.33%) Onboarding
6 8 (2.96%) Product Ownership
7 5 (1.85%) Private Cloud
7 5 (1.85%) Self-Motivation
8 4 (1.48%) Data Protection Act
9 3 (1.11%) Analytical Mindset
9 3 (1.11%) Public Cloud
10 2 (0.74%) CMDB
10 2 (0.74%) Distributed Architecture
10 2 (0.74%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
10 2 (0.74%) Distributed Systems
10 2 (0.74%) Legacy Systems
10 2 (0.74%) Life Science
10 2 (0.74%) NHS
10 2 (0.74%) Video\Live Streaming
Operating Systems
1 18 (6.67%) Linux
2 14 (5.19%) Windows
3 9 (3.33%) Windows Server
4 7 (2.59%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 2 (0.74%) CentOS
5 2 (0.74%) Unix
6 1 (0.37%) Ubuntu
6 1 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
6 1 (0.37%) Windows Server 2016
6 1 (0.37%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 49 (18.15%) Network Design
2 36 (13.33%) Problem-Solving
3 34 (12.59%) Load Balancing
4 32 (11.85%) High Availability
5 31 (11.48%) Network Segmentation
5 31 (11.48%) Network Virtualisation
6 30 (11.11%) Network Monitoring
7 24 (8.89%) Migration
8 22 (8.15%) DevOps
8 22 (8.15%) Network Architecture
8 22 (8.15%) Validation
9 21 (7.78%) Change Control
9 21 (7.78%) Strategic Thinking
10 19 (7.04%) Roadmaps
11 18 (6.67%) Zero Trust
12 17 (6.30%) ITIL
13 16 (5.93%) TOGAF
14 15 (5.56%) CI/CD
14 15 (5.56%) Cybersecurity
14 15 (5.56%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 94 (34.81%) Python
2 22 (8.15%) Bash
3 16 (5.93%) Perl
4 11 (4.07%) PowerShell
5 8 (2.96%) Lisp
6 6 (2.22%) C++
7 3 (1.11%) SQL
8 2 (0.74%) C
9 1 (0.37%) Go
9 1 (0.37%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 128 (47.41%) Cisco Certification
2 101 (37.41%) CCNP
3 96 (35.56%) Security Cleared
4 70 (25.93%) SC Cleared
5 46 (17.04%) CCIE
6 25 (9.26%) Degree
6 25 (9.26%) JNCIE
7 22 (8.15%) DV Cleared
8 18 (6.67%) CCNA
9 14 (5.19%) AWS Certification
10 13 (4.81%) JNCIS
11 11 (4.07%) JNCIA
12 10 (3.70%) JNCIP
13 9 (3.33%) CISSP
14 8 (2.96%) CCDP
15 6 (2.22%) CCSA
16 5 (1.85%) Computer Science Degree
17 4 (1.48%) (ISC)2 CCSP
17 4 (1.48%) Azure Certification
17 4 (1.48%) CCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (3.70%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 9 (3.33%) NCSC
3 7 (2.59%) GDPR
3 7 (2.59%) NIST
3 7 (2.59%) SLA
4 5 (1.85%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.37%) Def Stans
5 1 (0.37%) NIST 800
5 1 (0.37%) SOC 2
System Software
1 27 (10.00%) VMware Infrastructure
2 16 (5.93%) Docker
2 16 (5.93%) VMware NSX
3 14 (5.19%) Firmware
4 8 (2.96%) Active Directory
4 8 (2.96%) VMware ESXi
5 3 (1.11%) Hyper-V
5 3 (1.11%) KVM
6 2 (0.74%) Ceph
7 1 (0.37%) Squid
Systems Management
1 81 (30.00%) Ansible
2 37 (13.70%) FortiGate
3 30 (11.11%) Terraform
4 11 (4.07%) Kubernetes
5 4 (1.48%) CA Spectrum
5 4 (1.48%) Nagios
6 3 (1.11%) Cisco CUCM
6 3 (1.11%) HAProxy
6 3 (1.11%) Iperf
6 3 (1.11%) Nmap
6 3 (1.11%) Single Sign-On
7 2 (0.74%) Grafana
7 2 (0.74%) Prometheus
8 1 (0.37%) CASB
8 1 (0.37%) Icinga
8 1 (0.37%) Observium
8 1 (0.37%) vCenter Server
8 1 (0.37%) VxRail
Vendors
1 171 (63.33%) Cisco
2 87 (32.22%) Juniper
3 65 (24.07%) Fortinet
4 62 (22.96%) Palo Alto
5 50 (18.52%) F5
6 39 (14.44%) VMware
7 37 (13.70%) SolarWinds
8 31 (11.48%) Meraki
9 29 (10.74%) Arista
10 20 (7.41%) CheckPoint
11 15 (5.56%) ServiceNow
12 12 (4.44%) Dell
12 12 (4.44%) Microsoft
13 11 (4.07%) Remedy
14 10 (3.70%) Zscaler
15 8 (2.96%) Atlassian
15 8 (2.96%) Ekahau
15 8 (2.96%) Red Hat
16 6 (2.22%) Nokia
17 5 (1.85%) Citrix