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 9 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 273 239 271
Rank change year-on-year -34 +32 +24
Contract jobs citing BGP 455 348 389
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.87% 1.08% 0.90%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 9.09% 8.84% 7.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 269 220 244
10th Percentile £350 £325 £299
25th Percentile £405 £422 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £480 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -4.00% +5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £560 £628 £538
90th Percentile £638 £700 £588
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +5.26% - -1.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 3 4
10th Percentile £50.15 £37.00 £19.93
25th Percentile £63.34 £38.13 £22.06
Median hourly rate £72.80 £40.00 £39.25
Median % change year-on-year +81.99% +1.91% -43.93%
75th Percentile £78.83 £49.38 £57.50
90th Percentile £87.05 £55.00 £62.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £72.80 - £19.00
% change year-on-year - - -69.35%

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 5,006 3,938 5,457
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.54% 12.19% 12.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,044 2,412 3,219
10th Percentile £238 £231 £213
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £481 £500
Median % change year-on-year +4.06% -3.90% -
75th Percentile £588 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £482 £470 £490
% change year-on-year +2.58% -4.08% +3.16%
Number of hourly rates quoted 316 185 428
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.75
25th Percentile £19.34 £23.75 £17.69
Median hourly rate £26.55 £45.00 £44.00
Median % change year-on-year -41.00% +2.27% +53.04%
75th Percentile £65.00 £62.50 £63.75
90th Percentile £74.26 £78.00 £73.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.22 £36.65 £47.50
% change year-on-year -28.45% -22.85% +5.56%

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 9 July 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 9 July 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 9 July 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 -31 409 £500 - 80
UK excluding London -24 269 £500 +5.26% 60
Work from Home -37 123 £460 -16.45% 27
London -81 122 £450 -8.16% 31
South East +19 105 £505 +12.22% 23
North of England -32 96 £495 +4.21% 10
North West -11 75 £475 - 4
Midlands -34 55 £419 +19.64% 6
West Midlands -37 52 £413 +17.86% 5
South West -45 31 £531 -15.00% 11
Yorkshire -38 14 £490 +40.00% 6
North East -20 13 £650 +160.00%
Scotland -9 10 £418 -4.57% 3
East of England -25 6 £500 -28.57% 5
Wales -18 4 £425 -5.56%
East Midlands -15 2 - - 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 (2.64%) OpenStack
2 4 (0.88%) Confluence
2 4 (0.88%) SharePoint
3 3 (0.66%) SAS
4 1 (0.22%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 14 (3.08%) MS Visio
2 8 (1.76%) Microsoft Office
2 8 (1.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 6 (1.32%) Microsoft Excel
4 3 (0.66%) AutoCAD
Cloud Services
1 110 (24.18%) Azure
2 93 (20.44%) AWS
3 32 (7.03%) GCP
4 22 (4.84%) OCI
5 17 (3.74%) SaaS
5 17 (3.74%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 15 (3.30%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 10 (2.20%) Azure Sentinel
8 9 (1.98%) AWS Direct Connect
9 7 (1.54%) Azure Monitor
9 7 (1.54%) GitHub
10 6 (1.32%) Nutanix
11 5 (1.10%) Amazon GuardDuty
11 5 (1.10%) Route 53
12 4 (0.88%) Amazon EKS
12 4 (0.88%) AWS CloudFormation
12 4 (0.88%) Entra ID
12 4 (0.88%) Microsoft 365
12 4 (0.88%) OpenShift
13 3 (0.66%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 296 (65.05%) OSPF
2 267 (58.68%) Firewall
3 249 (54.73%) WAN
4 155 (34.07%) LAN
5 138 (30.33%) VPN
6 119 (26.15%) VXLAN
7 113 (24.84%) VLAN
8 111 (24.40%) MPLS
9 110 (24.18%) Network Security
10 98 (21.54%) DNS
11 92 (20.22%) SD-WAN
12 89 (19.56%) Ethernet VPN
13 75 (16.48%) Multicast
14 71 (15.60%) TCP/IP
15 65 (14.29%) BIG-IP
16 61 (13.41%) IPsec
17 55 (12.09%) Wireless
18 52 (11.43%) Cisco Nexus
19 51 (11.21%) Cisco ASA
19 51 (11.21%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
Development Applications
1 21 (4.62%) GitLab
2 12 (2.64%) Git
3 10 (2.20%) Sonatype Nexus
4 7 (1.54%) JIRA
5 3 (0.66%) Jenkins
6 1 (0.22%) AppScan
6 1 (0.22%) Bitbucket
6 1 (0.22%) Burp Suite
6 1 (0.22%) Metasploit
General
1 72 (15.82%) Social Skills
2 45 (9.89%) Finance
3 39 (8.57%) Analytical Skills
4 34 (7.47%) Public Sector
5 32 (7.03%) Banking
6 30 (6.59%) Telecoms
7 20 (4.40%) Documentation Skills
7 20 (4.40%) Investment Banking
8 13 (2.86%) Financial Institution
9 10 (2.20%) Military
10 8 (1.76%) Legal
11 5 (1.10%) Police
11 5 (1.10%) Retail
12 3 (0.66%) French Language
12 3 (0.66%) German Language
12 3 (0.66%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 3 (0.66%) Italian Language
12 3 (0.66%) Manufacturing
12 3 (0.66%) Marketing
12 3 (0.66%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 256 (56.26%) Network Engineer
2 89 (19.56%) Senior
3 59 (12.97%) Cisco Engineer
4 56 (12.31%) Cisco Network Engineer
5 51 (11.21%) Security Engineer
5 51 (11.21%) Senior Network Engineer
6 47 (10.33%) Architect
7 46 (10.11%) Data Network Engineer
7 46 (10.11%) Network Security Engineer
8 35 (7.69%) Cisco Security Engineer
9 34 (7.47%) Data Engineer
10 32 (7.03%) Network Architect
11 25 (5.49%) Network Specialist
12 24 (5.27%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 18 (3.96%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
13 18 (3.96%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
14 17 (3.74%) Consultant
14 17 (3.74%) Web Engineer
15 14 (3.08%) Firewall Specialist
16 13 (2.86%) Data Centre Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 39 (8.57%) 802.1X
2 15 (3.30%) REST
3 12 (2.64%) NETCONF
3 12 (2.64%) YANG
4 7 (1.54%) LDAP
5 5 (1.10%) CSS
5 5 (1.10%) OpenConfig
5 5 (1.10%) RESTCONF
6 4 (0.88%) Jinja
7 2 (0.44%) AWS CDK
7 2 (0.44%) RFC 2544
7 2 (0.44%) SAML
8 1 (0.22%) eBPF
8 1 (0.22%) HTML
8 1 (0.22%) Model Context Protocol
Miscellaneous
1 192 (42.20%) Data Centre
2 49 (10.77%) Hybrid Cloud
3 39 (8.57%) PKI
4 26 (5.71%) Clustering
5 25 (5.49%) Cloud Native
6 9 (1.98%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
6 9 (1.98%) Private Cloud
7 8 (1.76%) Analytical Mindset
8 7 (1.54%) Security Posture
9 6 (1.32%) Operational Technology
9 6 (1.32%) Public Cloud
9 6 (1.32%) Self-Motivation
10 5 (1.10%) Data Protection Act
10 5 (1.10%) Onboarding
10 5 (1.10%) SCADA
11 4 (0.88%) Distributed Systems
11 4 (0.88%) Management Information System
12 3 (0.66%) Greenfield Project
12 3 (0.66%) Linux Command Line
12 3 (0.66%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 48 (10.55%) Windows
2 19 (4.18%) Linux
3 6 (1.32%) Ubuntu
4 3 (0.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 3 (0.66%) Windows Server
5 2 (0.44%) Unix
5 2 (0.44%) VMS
6 1 (0.22%) Kali Linux
6 1 (0.22%) Windows Server 2012
6 1 (0.22%) Windows Server 2016
6 1 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 111 (24.40%) Load Balancing
2 81 (17.80%) High Availability
3 71 (15.60%) Network Design
4 68 (14.95%) Migration
5 66 (14.51%) Infrastructure as Code
6 64 (14.07%) Zero Trust
7 53 (11.65%) Problem-Solving
8 46 (10.11%) ITIL
8 46 (10.11%) Network Architecture
9 43 (9.45%) CI/CD
10 38 (8.35%) Change Management
10 38 (8.35%) Project Delivery
11 37 (8.13%) Observability
12 35 (7.69%) Network Segmentation
13 34 (7.47%) DevOps
14 33 (7.25%) Infrastructure Engineering
15 32 (7.03%) Validation
16 31 (6.81%) Network Monitoring
17 28 (6.15%) Agile
17 28 (6.15%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 122 (26.81%) Python
2 9 (1.98%) Bash
3 7 (1.54%) PowerShell
4 6 (1.32%) SQL
5 4 (0.88%) PHP
6 3 (0.66%) Perl
7 1 (0.22%) JavaScript
7 1 (0.22%) Lisp
Qualifications
1 159 (34.95%) Cisco Certification
2 146 (32.09%) Security Cleared
3 113 (24.84%) CCNP
4 96 (21.10%) SC Cleared
5 60 (13.19%) CCIE
6 51 (11.21%) DV Cleared
7 28 (6.15%) Degree
8 23 (5.05%) CCNA
9 17 (3.74%) JNCIE
10 14 (3.08%) JNCIP
11 11 (2.42%) JNCIS
12 10 (2.20%) AWS Certification
12 10 (2.20%) JNCIA
13 8 (1.76%) Azure Certification
13 8 (1.76%) Computer Science Degree
14 6 (1.32%) CISSP
14 6 (1.32%) GIAC
15 5 (1.10%) CompTIA Security+
16 4 (0.88%) APMG
16 4 (0.88%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (2.86%) NCSC
2 11 (2.42%) NIST
3 10 (2.20%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 5 (1.10%) Cyber Essentials
5 4 (0.88%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 4 (0.88%) GDPR
5 4 (0.88%) QA
5 4 (0.88%) SLA
6 3 (0.66%) PCI DSS
7 2 (0.44%) NIST 800
7 2 (0.44%) RMADS
8 1 (0.22%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.22%) COBIT
8 1 (0.22%) GRC
8 1 (0.22%) HMG Security Policy Framework
8 1 (0.22%) JSP 440
System Software
1 34 (7.47%) VMware Infrastructure
2 17 (3.74%) VMware NSX
3 10 (2.20%) VMware ESXi
4 8 (1.76%) Active Directory
5 7 (1.54%) Firmware
5 7 (1.54%) vSphere
6 6 (1.32%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.44%) Docker
7 2 (0.44%) vCloud
7 2 (0.44%) Virtual Machines
7 2 (0.44%) Virtual Servers
8 1 (0.22%) KVM
8 1 (0.22%) ProxySG
Systems Management
1 123 (27.03%) Ansible
2 74 (16.26%) Terraform
3 58 (12.75%) FortiGate
4 22 (4.84%) Grafana
5 19 (4.18%) Prometheus
6 9 (1.98%) Kubernetes
7 6 (1.32%) vCenter Server
8 5 (1.10%) Cisco Prime
9 3 (0.66%) Nagios
9 3 (0.66%) SCOM
10 2 (0.44%) CASB
10 2 (0.44%) Iperf
10 2 (0.44%) Microsoft Intune
10 2 (0.44%) Nmap
10 2 (0.44%) QRadar
10 2 (0.44%) Single Sign-On
11 1 (0.22%) Cilium
11 1 (0.22%) Rancher
11 1 (0.22%) Suricata
11 1 (0.22%) VxRail
Vendors
1 311 (68.35%) Cisco
2 163 (35.82%) F5
3 128 (28.13%) Palo Alto
4 97 (21.32%) Juniper
5 92 (20.22%) Fortinet
6 82 (18.02%) Arista
7 45 (9.89%) VMware
8 43 (9.45%) Aruba
9 42 (9.23%) SolarWinds
10 41 (9.01%) CheckPoint
11 31 (6.81%) Splunk
12 26 (5.71%) Extreme Networks
13 23 (5.05%) Microsoft
13 23 (5.05%) Zscaler
14 18 (3.96%) Meraki
15 10 (2.20%) ServiceNow
16 9 (1.98%) Citrix
16 9 (1.98%) Google
17 8 (1.76%) Ekahau
18 5 (1.10%) Nokia