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

6 months to
12 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 293 268 258
Rank change year-on-year -25 -10 +27
Contract jobs citing BGP 442 319 353
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.83% 0.97% 0.91%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 8.81% 8.13% 7.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 254 202 223
10th Percentile £375 £325 £298
25th Percentile £413 £413 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% - -5.00%
75th Percentile £576 £600 £538
90th Percentile £664 £664 £580
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +5.26% - -2.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 3 2
10th Percentile £44.80 £37.00 £23.15
25th Percentile £50.72 £38.13 £30.13
Median hourly rate £64.79 £40.00 £42.00
Median % change year-on-year +61.98% -4.76% -32.26%
75th Percentile £73.31 £49.38 £53.63
90th Percentile £83.14 £55.00 £60.45
UK excluding London median hourly rate £58.25 - £19.00
% change year-on-year - - -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 5,015 3,925 4,737
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.40% 11.91% 12.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,970 2,397 2,875
10th Percentile £250 £248 £220
25th Percentile £400 £375 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% -2.50% -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £608
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £494 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +3.95% -5.00% +9.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 361 200 316
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.99 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.33 £25.15 £19.79
Median hourly rate £26.00 £46.88 £49.50
Median % change year-on-year -44.53% -5.30% -5.71%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £83.10 £74.38
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.14 £45.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year -41.91% -18.18% -2.64%

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 12 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 12 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 12 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 -16 406 £500 - 197
UK excluding London -17 264 £500 +5.26% 77
London -73 124 £500 - 135
Work from Home -37 109 £500 - 59
South East -5 101 £525 +16.67% 22
North of England -9 101 £500 +5.26% 17
North West -3 77 £500 +5.26% 9
Midlands -38 48 £419 +4.69% 13
West Midlands -32 45 £413 +10.00% 11
South West -40 31 £525 -16.33% 7
Yorkshire -28 17 £495 +41.43% 7
North East -30 13 £650 +160.00% 1
Scotland -9 9 £375 -11.76% 9
East of England -19 6 £500 -28.57% 6
East Midlands -9 2 - - 2
Wales -15 2 £425 -6.08% 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 (2.71%) OpenStack
2 4 (0.90%) SAS
3 3 (0.68%) Microsoft Exchange
4 2 (0.45%) Confluence
5 1 (0.23%) SharePoint
Applications
1 11 (2.49%) MS Visio
2 8 (1.81%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (1.36%) Microsoft Excel
3 6 (1.36%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.68%) AutoCAD
Cloud Services
1 112 (25.34%) Azure
2 87 (19.68%) AWS
3 26 (5.88%) GCP
4 23 (5.20%) OCI
5 19 (4.30%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 13 (2.94%) GitHub
6 13 (2.94%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 12 (2.71%) SaaS
8 8 (1.81%) AWS Direct Connect
9 7 (1.58%) Azure Monitor
9 7 (1.58%) Azure Sentinel
9 7 (1.58%) OpenShift
10 6 (1.36%) Nutanix
11 5 (1.13%) Microsoft 365
12 3 (0.68%) 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
1 280 (63.35%) OSPF
2 265 (59.95%) Firewall
3 235 (53.17%) WAN
4 146 (33.03%) LAN
5 131 (29.64%) VPN
6 123 (27.83%) VXLAN
7 116 (26.24%) VLAN
8 103 (23.30%) DNS
8 103 (23.30%) MPLS
9 94 (21.27%) Network Security
10 87 (19.68%) Ethernet VPN
10 87 (19.68%) SD-WAN
11 71 (16.06%) TCP/IP
12 70 (15.84%) Multicast
13 65 (14.71%) Wireless
14 64 (14.48%) IPsec
15 62 (14.03%) BIG-IP
16 56 (12.67%) Wi-Fi
17 53 (11.99%) DHCP
17 53 (11.99%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
Development Applications
1 25 (5.66%) GitLab
2 16 (3.62%) Git
3 7 (1.58%) JIRA
3 7 (1.58%) Sonatype Nexus
4 4 (0.90%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.23%) Bitbucket
General
1 68 (15.38%) Social Skills
2 45 (10.18%) Finance
3 44 (9.95%) Analytical Skills
4 30 (6.79%) Public Sector
5 29 (6.56%) Banking
6 27 (6.11%) Telecoms
7 18 (4.07%) Investment Banking
8 12 (2.71%) Documentation Skills
9 11 (2.49%) Financial Institution
10 10 (2.26%) Military
11 8 (1.81%) Retail
12 7 (1.58%) Legal
12 7 (1.58%) Police
13 4 (0.90%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 3 (0.68%) German Language
14 3 (0.68%) Influencing Skills
14 3 (0.68%) Italian Language
14 3 (0.68%) Spanish Language
15 2 (0.45%) Organisational Skills
15 2 (0.45%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 259 (58.60%) Network Engineer
2 92 (20.81%) Senior
3 61 (13.80%) Cisco Engineer
4 60 (13.57%) Senior Network Engineer
5 58 (13.12%) Cisco Network Engineer
6 47 (10.63%) Architect
7 42 (9.50%) Data Network Engineer
8 41 (9.28%) Network Security Engineer
8 41 (9.28%) Security Engineer
9 33 (7.47%) Network Architect
10 31 (7.01%) Cisco Security Engineer
11 30 (6.79%) Data Engineer
12 27 (6.11%) Network Specialist
13 20 (4.52%) Consultant
13 20 (4.52%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 18 (4.07%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
15 17 (3.85%) Developer
16 15 (3.39%) Web Engineer
17 14 (3.17%) Firewall Specialist
17 14 (3.17%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 39 (8.82%) 802.1X
2 16 (3.62%) REST
3 12 (2.71%) NETCONF
3 12 (2.71%) YANG
4 7 (1.58%) OpenConfig
5 6 (1.36%) RESTCONF
6 4 (0.90%) CSS
6 4 (0.90%) Jinja
6 4 (0.90%) JSON
6 4 (0.90%) YAML
7 3 (0.68%) eBPF
8 2 (0.45%) SAML
9 1 (0.23%) LDAP
9 1 (0.23%) Model Context Protocol
9 1 (0.23%) RFC 2544
Miscellaneous
1 180 (40.72%) Data Centre
2 50 (11.31%) Hybrid Cloud
3 34 (7.69%) PKI
4 26 (5.88%) Clustering
5 23 (5.20%) Cloud Native
6 10 (2.26%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
7 9 (2.04%) Analytical Mindset
7 9 (2.04%) Private Cloud
7 9 (2.04%) Self-Motivation
8 7 (1.58%) Operational Technology
9 6 (1.36%) Public Cloud
10 5 (1.13%) Data Protection Act
10 5 (1.13%) Digital Signage
10 5 (1.13%) Linux Command Line
10 5 (1.13%) Onboarding
10 5 (1.13%) Security Posture
11 4 (0.90%) CMDB
11 4 (0.90%) Distributed Systems
12 3 (0.68%) Distributed Applications
12 3 (0.68%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 47 (10.63%) Windows
2 15 (3.39%) Linux
3 5 (1.13%) Windows Server
4 3 (0.68%) Unix
4 3 (0.68%) Windows Server 2012
5 2 (0.45%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.23%) VMS
6 1 (0.23%) Windows Server 2016
6 1 (0.23%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 112 (25.34%) Load Balancing
2 87 (19.68%) High Availability
3 72 (16.29%) Network Design
4 67 (15.16%) Migration
4 67 (15.16%) Zero Trust
5 64 (14.48%) Infrastructure as Code
6 55 (12.44%) Problem-Solving
7 49 (11.09%) ITIL
8 45 (10.18%) Project Delivery
9 44 (9.95%) Network Architecture
10 41 (9.28%) CI/CD
11 37 (8.37%) Validation
12 36 (8.14%) Observability
13 33 (7.47%) Network Segmentation
14 32 (7.24%) DevOps
14 32 (7.24%) Infrastructure Engineering
15 29 (6.56%) Change Management
16 28 (6.33%) Mentoring
17 27 (6.11%) Continuous Improvement
17 27 (6.11%) Network Monitoring
Programming Languages
1 118 (26.70%) Python
2 8 (1.81%) Bash
3 6 (1.36%) PowerShell
3 6 (1.36%) SQL
4 3 (0.68%) Shell Script
5 2 (0.45%) Perl
Qualifications
1 143 (32.35%) Security Cleared
2 140 (31.67%) Cisco Certification
3 93 (21.04%) CCNP
4 75 (16.97%) SC Cleared
5 57 (12.90%) DV Cleared
6 50 (11.31%) CCIE
7 23 (5.20%) CCNA
8 20 (4.52%) Degree
9 15 (3.39%) JNCIE
10 9 (2.04%) JNCIP
11 8 (1.81%) Azure Certification
11 8 (1.81%) Computer Science Degree
11 8 (1.81%) JNCIA
11 8 (1.81%) JNCIS
12 6 (1.36%) AWS Certification
13 4 (0.90%) CISSP
13 4 (0.90%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 3 (0.68%) CCIE Security
14 3 (0.68%) PMP
14 3 (0.68%) VCDX
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (1.58%) NCSC
2 5 (1.13%) NIST
3 3 (0.68%) GDPR
3 3 (0.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 3 (0.68%) QA
3 3 (0.68%) SLA
4 2 (0.45%) NIST 800
4 2 (0.45%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.23%) Cyber Essentials
System Software
1 31 (7.01%) VMware Infrastructure
2 14 (3.17%) VMware NSX
3 7 (1.58%) Active Directory
3 7 (1.58%) Firmware
3 7 (1.58%) Hyper-V
4 6 (1.36%) Docker
5 4 (0.90%) VMware ESXi
5 4 (0.90%) vSphere
6 2 (0.45%) Virtual Servers
7 1 (0.23%) KVM
7 1 (0.23%) ProxySG
7 1 (0.23%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 117 (26.47%) Ansible
2 74 (16.74%) Terraform
3 61 (13.80%) FortiGate
4 17 (3.85%) Grafana
5 16 (3.62%) Kubernetes
6 14 (3.17%) Prometheus
7 8 (1.81%) Cisco Prime
8 6 (1.36%) Nagios
9 2 (0.45%) Cilium
9 2 (0.45%) Single Sign-On
10 1 (0.23%) CASB
10 1 (0.23%) Istio
10 1 (0.23%) Microsoft Intune
10 1 (0.23%) OPNET
10 1 (0.23%) Progress Chef
10 1 (0.23%) Puppet
10 1 (0.23%) QRadar
10 1 (0.23%) Rancher
10 1 (0.23%) Suricata
10 1 (0.23%) VxRail
Vendors
1 309 (69.91%) Cisco
2 165 (37.33%) F5
3 127 (28.73%) Palo Alto
4 101 (22.85%) Fortinet
5 84 (19.00%) Juniper
6 78 (17.65%) Arista
7 47 (10.63%) SolarWinds
8 43 (9.73%) VMware
9 40 (9.05%) Aruba
10 38 (8.60%) CheckPoint
11 31 (7.01%) Splunk
12 28 (6.33%) Microsoft
13 24 (5.43%) Extreme Networks
14 20 (4.52%) Meraki
14 20 (4.52%) Zscaler
15 12 (2.71%) ServiceNow
16 10 (2.26%) Google
17 8 (1.81%) Citrix
18 7 (1.58%) Ekahau
19 6 (1.36%) NetScout