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

6 months to
11 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 297 281 263
Rank change year-on-year -16 -18 +18
Contract jobs citing BGP 443 319 353
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.83% 0.97% 0.91%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 8.82% 8.10% 7.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 253 201 223
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 £655 £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 5,024 3,940 4,737
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.41% 11.97% 12.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,970 2,411 2,875
10th Percentile £250 £241 £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 £492 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +3.63% -5.00% +9.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 360 198 316
10th Percentile £15.24 £14.99 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.33 £25.15 £19.79
Median hourly rate £26.07 £46.88 £49.50
Median % change year-on-year -44.38% -5.30% -3.24%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £83.30 £74.38
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.14 £45.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year -41.91% -18.18% -3.36%

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 11 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 11 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 11 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 -24 406 £500 - 100
UK excluding London -8 264 £500 +5.26% 51
London -88 123 £500 - 55
Work from Home -41 111 £500 - 33
South East -9 101 £525 +16.67% 15
North of England -14 101 £500 +5.26% 15
North West +5 77 £505 +6.32% 9
Midlands -39 49 £419 +4.69% 8
West Midlands -39 46 £413 +3.13% 8
South West -35 31 £525 -16.33% 7
Yorkshire -30 17 £495 +41.43% 6
North East -30 13 £650 +160.00%
Scotland -14 9 £375 -11.76% 2
East of England -21 6 £500 -28.57% 4
East Midlands -12 2 - -
Wales -15 2 £425 -6.08%

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 3 (0.68%) Microsoft Exchange
2 3 (0.68%) SAS
3 2 (0.45%) Confluence
4 1 (0.23%) SharePoint
Applications
1 11 (2.48%) MS Visio
2 8 (1.81%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (1.35%) Microsoft Excel
3 6 (1.35%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.68%) AutoCAD
Cloud Services
1 114 (25.73%) Azure
2 89 (20.09%) AWS
3 28 (6.32%) GCP
4 23 (5.19%) OCI
5 19 (4.29%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 14 (3.16%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 13 (2.93%) GitHub
8 12 (2.71%) SaaS
9 9 (2.03%) AWS Direct Connect
10 8 (1.81%) Azure Sentinel
11 7 (1.58%) Azure Monitor
11 7 (1.58%) Nutanix
11 7 (1.58%) OpenShift
12 5 (1.13%) Microsoft 365
13 3 (0.68%) Azure DevOps
14 2 (0.45%) Amazon EKS
14 2 (0.45%) Amazon GuardDuty
14 2 (0.45%) AWS CloudFormation
14 2 (0.45%) Entra ID
14 2 (0.45%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 281 (63.43%) OSPF
2 264 (59.59%) Firewall
3 235 (53.05%) WAN
4 147 (33.18%) LAN
5 134 (30.25%) VPN
6 122 (27.54%) VXLAN
7 117 (26.41%) VLAN
8 106 (23.93%) DNS
9 102 (23.02%) MPLS
10 96 (21.67%) Network Security
11 87 (19.64%) SD-WAN
12 86 (19.41%) Ethernet VPN
13 74 (16.70%) TCP/IP
14 71 (16.03%) Multicast
15 66 (14.90%) IPsec
16 64 (14.45%) Wireless
17 62 (14.00%) BIG-IP
18 56 (12.64%) Wi-Fi
19 53 (11.96%) DHCP
20 52 (11.74%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
Development Applications
1 24 (5.42%) GitLab
2 16 (3.61%) 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 (15.35%) Social Skills
2 46 (10.38%) Finance
3 44 (9.93%) Analytical Skills
4 31 (7.00%) Banking
5 30 (6.77%) Public Sector
6 27 (6.09%) Telecoms
7 19 (4.29%) Investment Banking
8 13 (2.93%) Documentation Skills
9 11 (2.48%) Financial Institution
10 10 (2.26%) Military
11 8 (1.81%) Retail
12 7 (1.58%) Police
13 6 (1.35%) Legal
14 4 (0.90%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 3 (0.68%) German Language
15 3 (0.68%) Influencing Skills
15 3 (0.68%) Italian Language
15 3 (0.68%) Spanish Language
16 2 (0.45%) Law
16 2 (0.45%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 260 (58.69%) Network Engineer
2 93 (20.99%) Senior
3 62 (14.00%) Cisco Engineer
4 60 (13.54%) Senior Network Engineer
5 59 (13.32%) Cisco Network Engineer
6 46 (10.38%) Architect
7 43 (9.71%) Data Network Engineer
8 42 (9.48%) Network Security Engineer
8 42 (9.48%) Security Engineer
9 33 (7.45%) Network Architect
10 32 (7.22%) Cisco Security Engineer
11 31 (7.00%) Data Engineer
12 27 (6.09%) Network Specialist
13 20 (4.51%) Consultant
13 20 (4.51%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 18 (4.06%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
15 17 (3.84%) Developer
16 15 (3.39%) Web Engineer
17 14 (3.16%) Firewall Specialist
18 13 (2.93%) Network Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 38 (8.58%) 802.1X
2 15 (3.39%) REST
3 12 (2.71%) NETCONF
3 12 (2.71%) YANG
4 7 (1.58%) OpenConfig
5 6 (1.35%) RESTCONF
6 4 (0.90%) CSS
6 4 (0.90%) Jinja
7 3 (0.68%) eBPF
7 3 (0.68%) JSON
7 3 (0.68%) YAML
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 (40.63%) Data Centre
2 50 (11.29%) Hybrid Cloud
3 34 (7.67%) PKI
4 26 (5.87%) Clustering
5 25 (5.64%) Cloud Native
6 10 (2.26%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
7 9 (2.03%) Analytical Mindset
7 9 (2.03%) Private Cloud
7 9 (2.03%) Self-Motivation
8 7 (1.58%) Operational Technology
9 6 (1.35%) Public Cloud
10 5 (1.13%) CMDB
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%) Distributed Systems
12 3 (0.68%) Distributed Applications
12 3 (0.68%) Driving Licence
Operating Systems
1 47 (10.61%) 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 (25.28%) Load Balancing
2 88 (19.86%) High Availability
3 72 (16.25%) Network Design
4 69 (15.58%) Zero Trust
5 67 (15.12%) Migration
6 66 (14.90%) Infrastructure as Code
7 54 (12.19%) Problem-Solving
8 49 (11.06%) ITIL
9 45 (10.16%) Network Architecture
10 44 (9.93%) Project Delivery
11 42 (9.48%) CI/CD
12 37 (8.35%) Observability
12 37 (8.35%) Validation
13 33 (7.45%) DevOps
13 33 (7.45%) Network Segmentation
14 32 (7.22%) Infrastructure Engineering
15 31 (7.00%) Change Management
16 28 (6.32%) Mentoring
17 27 (6.09%) Continuous Improvement
17 27 (6.09%) Network Monitoring
Programming Languages
1 118 (26.64%) Python
2 8 (1.81%) Bash
3 7 (1.58%) PowerShell
4 6 (1.35%) SQL
5 3 (0.68%) Shell Script
6 2 (0.45%) Perl
Qualifications
1 142 (32.05%) Security Cleared
2 141 (31.83%) Cisco Certification
3 94 (21.22%) CCNP
4 74 (16.70%) SC Cleared
5 57 (12.87%) DV Cleared
6 50 (11.29%) CCIE
7 23 (5.19%) CCNA
8 20 (4.51%) Degree
9 15 (3.39%) JNCIE
10 9 (2.03%) 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 7 (1.58%) AWS Certification
13 6 (1.35%) CISSP
14 4 (0.90%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 3 (0.68%) CCIE Security
15 3 (0.68%) PMP
15 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 30 (6.77%) VMware Infrastructure
2 13 (2.93%) VMware NSX
3 7 (1.58%) Active Directory
3 7 (1.58%) Firmware
3 7 (1.58%) Hyper-V
4 5 (1.13%) Docker
5 4 (0.90%) VMware ESXi
5 4 (0.90%) vSphere
6 2 (0.45%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.45%) Virtual Servers
7 1 (0.23%) KVM
7 1 (0.23%) ProxySG
Systems Management
1 117 (26.41%) Ansible
2 75 (16.93%) Terraform
3 60 (13.54%) FortiGate
4 17 (3.84%) Grafana
5 16 (3.61%) Kubernetes
6 14 (3.16%) Prometheus
7 8 (1.81%) Cisco Prime
8 6 (1.35%) Nagios
9 2 (0.45%) Cilium
9 2 (0.45%) QRadar
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%) Rancher
10 1 (0.23%) Suricata
10 1 (0.23%) VxRail
Vendors
1 308 (69.53%) Cisco
2 165 (37.25%) F5
3 126 (28.44%) Palo Alto
4 100 (22.57%) Fortinet
5 84 (18.96%) Juniper
6 78 (17.61%) Arista
7 46 (10.38%) SolarWinds
8 42 (9.48%) VMware
9 39 (8.80%) Aruba
10 37 (8.35%) CheckPoint
11 32 (7.22%) Splunk
12 28 (6.32%) Microsoft
13 25 (5.64%) Extreme Networks
14 21 (4.74%) Zscaler
15 20 (4.51%) Meraki
16 11 (2.48%) ServiceNow
17 10 (2.26%) Google
18 8 (1.81%) Citrix
19 7 (1.58%) Ekahau
20 6 (1.35%) NetScout