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

6 months to
6 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 343 235 245
Rank change year-on-year -108 +10 +163
Contract jobs citing BGP 263 387 448
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.72% 1.08% 0.99%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 6.62% 8.71% 7.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 172 222 232
10th Percentile £304 £350 £326
25th Percentile £400 £406 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £453 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -13.81% -2.33% +7.50%
75th Percentile £575 £625 £600
90th Percentile £656 £738 £729
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £525 £490
% change year-on-year -14.29% +7.14% -2.00%
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 3,970 4,444 6,262
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.89% 12.35% 13.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,583 2,571 3,881
10th Percentile £206 £220 £211
25th Percentile £356 £373 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £584 £600 £613
90th Percentile £675 £686 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -5.26% - +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 187 167 348
10th Percentile £15.50 £16.06 £17.72
25th Percentile £20.09 £22.75 £22.69
Median hourly rate £34.00 £41.00 £55.70
Median % change year-on-year -17.07% -26.39% +26.59%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £66.05
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £76.15
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £48.03 £56.49
% change year-on-year -11.51% -14.98% +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 6 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 6 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 -84 228 £475 -8.65% 214
UK excluding London -95 143 £450 -14.29% 199
London -32 94 £475 -3.80% 35
Work from Home -66 75 £450 -20.00% 108
South East -39 49 £455 -17.27% 65
West Midlands +5 44 £400 -9.35% 21
Midlands -14 44 £400 -12.57% 36
North of England -78 27 £550 +6.80% 40
North West -50 24 £550 - 18
Scotland +3 13 £425 +6.25% 7
South West -19 8 £531 +21.08% 22
East of England -14 6 £700 +26.13% 26
North East 0 3 £550 - 3
Yorkshire -48 3 £520 +89.09% 20
Channel Islands - 3 £725 -
Wales -1 1 £400 - 4

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 (8.75%) OpenStack
2 12 (4.56%) SharePoint
3 4 (1.52%) Confluence
Applications
1 14 (5.32%) MS Visio
2 5 (1.90%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 3 (1.14%) Microsoft Office
4 2 (0.76%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 56 (21.29%) AWS
2 38 (14.45%) Azure
3 14 (5.32%) GCP
4 8 (3.04%) OpenShift
5 7 (2.66%) Akamai
5 7 (2.66%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 6 (2.28%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 4 (1.52%) AWS Direct Connect
8 3 (1.14%) IaaS
8 3 (1.14%) PaaS
8 3 (1.14%) SaaS
9 1 (0.38%) Amazon S3
9 1 (0.38%) AWS KMS
9 1 (0.38%) Azure DevOps
9 1 (0.38%) Azure Sentinel
9 1 (0.38%) Cloud Run
9 1 (0.38%) Entra ID
9 1 (0.38%) Google Ads
9 1 (0.38%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 171 (65.02%) OSPF
2 157 (59.70%) Firewall
3 124 (47.15%) WAN
4 105 (39.92%) MPLS
5 98 (37.26%) VPN
6 72 (27.38%) IPsec
7 69 (26.24%) LAN
8 64 (24.33%) VLAN
9 63 (23.95%) Network Security
10 55 (20.91%) SD-WAN
11 49 (18.63%) Wireless
12 43 (16.35%) EIGRP
13 42 (15.97%) DNS
13 42 (15.97%) VXLAN
14 32 (12.17%) Cisco ISE
15 30 (11.41%) DHCP
16 28 (10.65%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
17 27 (10.27%) Cisco Nexus
17 27 (10.27%) Ethernet VPN
18 26 (9.89%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (0.76%) MongoDB
1 2 (0.76%) NoSQL
2 1 (0.38%) Redis
2 1 (0.38%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 15 (5.70%) Git
2 7 (2.66%) GitLab
3 6 (2.28%) Sonatype Nexus
4 3 (1.14%) JIRA
5 1 (0.38%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.38%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.38%) Robot Framework
General
1 79 (30.04%) Social Skills
2 34 (12.93%) Public Sector
3 28 (10.65%) Documentation Skills
4 26 (9.89%) Analytical Skills
5 24 (9.13%) Finance
6 17 (6.46%) Telecoms
7 10 (3.80%) Banking
8 8 (3.04%) Investment Banking
9 6 (2.28%) Manufacturing
10 4 (1.52%) Financial Institution
10 4 (1.52%) Influencing Skills
11 3 (1.14%) Legal
11 3 (1.14%) Military
11 3 (1.14%) Retail
12 2 (0.76%) Advertising
12 2 (0.76%) Electronics
12 2 (0.76%) Local Government
12 2 (0.76%) Marketing
12 2 (0.76%) Pharmaceutical
12 2 (0.76%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 139 (52.85%) Network Engineer
2 36 (13.69%) Architect
3 27 (10.27%) Cisco Engineer
4 25 (9.51%) Cisco Network Engineer
4 25 (9.51%) Senior
5 18 (6.84%) Network Architect
5 18 (6.84%) WAN Engineer
6 17 (6.46%) Support Engineer
7 16 (6.08%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
7 16 (6.08%) Senior Network Engineer
8 14 (5.32%) 3rd Line Engineer
8 14 (5.32%) Network Security Engineer
8 14 (5.32%) Security Engineer
9 13 (4.94%) 3rd Line Support
9 13 (4.94%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
9 13 (4.94%) Consultant
9 13 (4.94%) Designer
10 12 (4.56%) Juniper Engineer
10 12 (4.56%) Solutions Architect
11 10 (3.80%) 2nd Line Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (4.94%) YANG
2 12 (4.56%) NETCONF
3 10 (3.80%) REST
4 7 (2.66%) 802.1X
5 6 (2.28%) JSON
6 5 (1.90%) Jinja
7 4 (1.52%) RESTCONF
7 4 (1.52%) XML
8 3 (1.14%) OpenConfig
8 3 (1.14%) SAML
8 3 (1.14%) VML
8 3 (1.14%) YAML
9 2 (0.76%) eBPF
9 2 (0.76%) SOAP
10 1 (0.38%) CrewAI
10 1 (0.38%) Elastic Stack
10 1 (0.38%) gRPC
10 1 (0.38%) JFC
10 1 (0.38%) LangChain
10 1 (0.38%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 77 (29.28%) Data Centre
2 34 (12.93%) PKI
3 18 (6.84%) Hybrid Cloud
4 10 (3.80%) Cloud Native
4 10 (3.80%) Operational Technology
5 8 (3.04%) Product Ownership
6 7 (2.66%) Self-Motivation
7 5 (1.90%) Analytical Mindset
7 5 (1.90%) Data Protection Act
7 5 (1.90%) Onboarding
8 3 (1.14%) Distributed Architecture
8 3 (1.14%) Legacy Systems
8 3 (1.14%) Private Cloud
9 2 (0.76%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
9 2 (0.76%) Distributed Systems
9 2 (0.76%) NHS
9 2 (0.76%) Public Cloud
10 1 (0.38%) Enterprise Cloud
10 1 (0.38%) SCADA
10 1 (0.38%) Thin Client
Operating Systems
1 18 (6.84%) Linux
2 15 (5.70%) Windows
3 9 (3.42%) Windows Server
4 7 (2.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 2 (0.76%) CentOS
5 2 (0.76%) Unix
6 1 (0.38%) Ubuntu
6 1 (0.38%) Windows Server 2012
6 1 (0.38%) Windows Server 2016
6 1 (0.38%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 47 (17.87%) Network Design
2 42 (15.97%) Problem-Solving
3 39 (14.83%) Load Balancing
4 31 (11.79%) Migration
5 30 (11.41%) Network Segmentation
6 29 (11.03%) High Availability
7 27 (10.27%) Network Monitoring
8 23 (8.75%) Network Virtualisation
9 20 (7.60%) DevOps
9 20 (7.60%) Strategic Thinking
10 19 (7.22%) Network Architecture
10 19 (7.22%) Roadmaps
11 17 (6.46%) Cybersecurity
11 17 (6.46%) Knowledge Transfer
11 17 (6.46%) Zero Trust
12 16 (6.08%) Change Control
12 16 (6.08%) Project Delivery
13 15 (5.70%) ITIL
13 15 (5.70%) TOGAF
14 14 (5.32%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 85 (32.32%) Python
2 20 (7.60%) Bash
3 16 (6.08%) Perl
4 11 (4.18%) PowerShell
5 8 (3.04%) Lisp
6 6 (2.28%) C++
7 3 (1.14%) SQL
8 2 (0.76%) C
9 1 (0.38%) Go
9 1 (0.38%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 129 (49.05%) Cisco Certification
2 106 (40.30%) CCNP
3 94 (35.74%) Security Cleared
4 68 (25.86%) SC Cleared
5 47 (17.87%) CCIE
6 25 (9.51%) JNCIE
7 22 (8.37%) CCNA
8 19 (7.22%) DV Cleared
9 17 (6.46%) Degree
10 15 (5.70%) JNCIS
11 12 (4.56%) AWS Certification
12 10 (3.80%) JNCIP
13 9 (3.42%) CISSP
13 9 (3.42%) JNCIA
14 8 (3.04%) CCDP
15 6 (2.28%) CCSA
16 5 (1.90%) CCSE
17 4 (1.52%) (ISC)2 CCSP
17 4 (1.52%) Azure Certification
17 4 (1.52%) CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (3.80%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 7 (2.66%) GDPR
2 7 (2.66%) NIST
2 7 (2.66%) SLA
3 5 (1.90%) NCSC
3 5 (1.90%) PCI DSS
4 1 (0.38%) Def Stans
4 1 (0.38%) NIST 800
4 1 (0.38%) SOC 2
System Software
1 17 (6.46%) VMware Infrastructure
2 16 (6.08%) Docker
3 14 (5.32%) VMware NSX
4 11 (4.18%) Firmware
5 8 (3.04%) Active Directory
6 3 (1.14%) Hyper-V
6 3 (1.14%) KVM
7 1 (0.38%) Squid
7 1 (0.38%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 68 (25.86%) Ansible
2 39 (14.83%) FortiGate
3 29 (11.03%) Terraform
4 11 (4.18%) Kubernetes
5 4 (1.52%) CA Spectrum
6 3 (1.14%) Iperf
6 3 (1.14%) Nmap
6 3 (1.14%) Single Sign-On
7 2 (0.76%) Cisco CUCM
7 2 (0.76%) Grafana
7 2 (0.76%) Prometheus
8 1 (0.38%) CASB
8 1 (0.38%) VxRail
Vendors
1 171 (65.02%) Cisco
2 92 (34.98%) Juniper
3 68 (25.86%) Palo Alto
4 62 (23.57%) Fortinet
5 55 (20.91%) F5
6 35 (13.31%) Meraki
7 33 (12.55%) SolarWinds
8 31 (11.79%) CheckPoint
9 24 (9.13%) Arista
10 22 (8.37%) VMware
11 16 (6.08%) Aruba
12 13 (4.94%) ServiceNow
13 12 (4.56%) Microsoft
13 12 (4.56%) Remedy
14 11 (4.18%) Zscaler
15 10 (3.80%) Dell
16 8 (3.04%) Ekahau
16 8 (3.04%) Nokia
16 8 (3.04%) Red Hat
17 6 (2.28%) LogicMonitor