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

6 months to
20 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 347 218 239
Rank change year-on-year -129 +21 +189
Contract jobs citing BGP 255 393 448
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.69% 1.15% 1.02%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 6.40% 9.08% 7.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 162 233 235
10th Percentile £300 £358 £328
25th Percentile £400 £413 £444
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £520 £538
Median % change year-on-year -13.46% -3.26% +7.50%
75th Percentile £575 £625 £606
90th Percentile £638 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £525 £488
% change year-on-year -14.29% +7.69% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 4 10
10th Percentile £67.45 £22.33 £24.25
25th Percentile £70.01 £28.06 £26.75
Median hourly rate £74.26 £33.75 £37.77
Median % change year-on-year +120.03% -10.64% +43.89%
75th Percentile - £35.75 £69.38
90th Percentile - £37.10 £71.33
UK excluding London median hourly rate £74.26 £19.00 £44.00
% change year-on-year +290.84% -56.82% +87.23%

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 3,984 4,330 6,063
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.81% 12.71% 13.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,595 2,535 3,742
10th Percentile £206 £220 £210
25th Percentile £356 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £584 £600 £613
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -5.26% - +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 186 152 333
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.22 £17.72
25th Percentile £20.26 £21.46 £22.75
Median hourly rate £34.00 £37.25 £56.40
Median % change year-on-year -8.72% -33.95% +37.46%
75th Percentile £65.00 £62.50 £65.98
90th Percentile £80.00 £72.38 £75.59
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £37.50 £56.49
% change year-on-year +13.33% -33.62% +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 20 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 15 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 20 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 -106 223 £468 -8.78% 62
UK excluding London -79 142 £450 -14.29% 49
London -41 87 £475 -5.00% 26
Work from Home -72 75 £450 -19.10% 30
South East -42 57 £458 -16.73% 21
West Midlands +1 41 £400 -20.00% 10
Midlands -15 41 £400 -20.00% 10
North of England -85 27 £550 +6.80% 10
North West -56 23 £550 - 3
Scotland +8 12 £425 +6.25% 1
South West -22 7 £506 +5.74% 3
East of England -27 5 £700 +68.67% 1
Yorkshire -61 4 £600 +118.18% 7
North East -6 3 £550 - 1
Wales +3 1 £400 -11.11% 3

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 18 (7.06%) OpenStack
2 12 (4.71%) SharePoint
3 4 (1.57%) Confluence
Applications
1 14 (5.49%) MS Visio
2 5 (1.96%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 4 (1.57%) Microsoft Office
4 2 (0.78%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 55 (21.57%) AWS
2 43 (16.86%) Azure
3 13 (5.10%) GCP
4 8 (3.14%) OpenShift
4 8 (3.14%) Virtual Private Cloud
5 7 (2.75%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 5 (1.96%) AWS Direct Connect
7 4 (1.57%) Akamai
8 3 (1.18%) IaaS
8 3 (1.18%) PaaS
8 3 (1.18%) SaaS
9 2 (0.78%) Azure Sentinel
10 1 (0.39%) Amazon ECS
10 1 (0.39%) Amazon EKS
10 1 (0.39%) Amazon GuardDuty
10 1 (0.39%) AWS KMS
10 1 (0.39%) AWS Lambda
10 1 (0.39%) Cloud Run
10 1 (0.39%) Entra ID
10 1 (0.39%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 165 (64.71%) OSPF
2 157 (61.57%) Firewall
3 127 (49.80%) WAN
4 104 (40.78%) VPN
5 95 (37.25%) MPLS
6 78 (30.59%) LAN
7 68 (26.67%) Network Security
8 67 (26.27%) IPsec
9 59 (23.14%) VLAN
10 52 (20.39%) SD-WAN
11 49 (19.22%) Wireless
12 42 (16.47%) DNS
13 41 (16.08%) VXLAN
14 40 (15.69%) EIGRP
15 32 (12.55%) Cisco ISE
16 29 (11.37%) DHCP
16 29 (11.37%) TCP/IP
17 28 (10.98%) Cisco Nexus
18 26 (10.20%) Cisco ASA
18 26 (10.20%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.39%) Redis
1 1 (0.39%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 15 (5.88%) Git
2 7 (2.75%) Sonatype Nexus
3 5 (1.96%) GitLab
4 2 (0.78%) JIRA
5 1 (0.39%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.39%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.39%) Robot Framework
General
1 79 (30.98%) Social Skills
2 35 (13.73%) Public Sector
3 31 (12.16%) Analytical Skills
4 30 (11.76%) Documentation Skills
5 20 (7.84%) Finance
6 17 (6.67%) Telecoms
7 10 (3.92%) Banking
8 9 (3.53%) Investment Banking
9 8 (3.14%) Manufacturing
10 4 (1.57%) Financial Institution
10 4 (1.57%) Legal
10 4 (1.57%) Military
10 4 (1.57%) Retail
11 3 (1.18%) Electronics
11 3 (1.18%) Influencing Skills
11 3 (1.18%) Marketing
12 2 (0.78%) Advertising
12 2 (0.78%) Pharmaceutical
12 2 (0.78%) Presentation Skills
13 1 (0.39%) Law
Job Titles
1 139 (54.51%) Network Engineer
2 38 (14.90%) Architect
3 27 (10.59%) Cisco Engineer
4 25 (9.80%) Cisco Network Engineer
5 24 (9.41%) Senior
6 20 (7.84%) Network Architect
6 20 (7.84%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
7 17 (6.67%) Support Engineer
8 16 (6.27%) Senior Network Engineer
8 16 (6.27%) WAN Engineer
9 14 (5.49%) 3rd Line Engineer
10 13 (5.10%) 3rd Line Support
10 13 (5.10%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
10 13 (5.10%) Consultant
10 13 (5.10%) Network Security Engineer
10 13 (5.10%) Security Engineer
11 11 (4.31%) Juniper Engineer
11 11 (4.31%) Solutions Architect
12 10 (3.92%) 2nd Line Engineer
13 9 (3.53%) Network Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (4.31%) YANG
2 10 (3.92%) NETCONF
3 8 (3.14%) 802.1X
3 8 (3.14%) REST
4 5 (1.96%) Jinja
5 4 (1.57%) JSON
5 4 (1.57%) VML
6 3 (1.18%) OpenConfig
6 3 (1.18%) SAML
7 2 (0.78%) eBPF
7 2 (0.78%) RESTCONF
7 2 (0.78%) XML
8 1 (0.39%) CSS
8 1 (0.39%) Elastic Stack
8 1 (0.39%) gRPC
8 1 (0.39%) HTML
8 1 (0.39%) JFC
8 1 (0.39%) LangChain
8 1 (0.39%) RabbitMQ
8 1 (0.39%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 79 (30.98%) Data Centre
2 37 (14.51%) PKI
3 18 (7.06%) Hybrid Cloud
4 9 (3.53%) Cloud Native
5 8 (3.14%) Product Ownership
6 7 (2.75%) Self-Motivation
7 5 (1.96%) Analytical Mindset
7 5 (1.96%) Data Protection Act
7 5 (1.96%) Operational Technology
8 3 (1.18%) Distributed Architecture
8 3 (1.18%) Legacy Systems
8 3 (1.18%) NHS
8 3 (1.18%) Onboarding
9 2 (0.78%) Distributed Systems
9 2 (0.78%) Linux Command Line
9 2 (0.78%) Private Cloud
9 2 (0.78%) Public Cloud
10 1 (0.39%) EMC VMAX
10 1 (0.39%) Enterprise Cloud
10 1 (0.39%) Thin Client
Operating Systems
1 16 (6.27%) Linux
2 15 (5.88%) Windows
3 9 (3.53%) Windows Server
4 6 (2.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.39%) Ubuntu
5 1 (0.39%) Windows Server 2012
5 1 (0.39%) Windows Server 2016
5 1 (0.39%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 47 (18.43%) Network Design
2 42 (16.47%) Load Balancing
3 41 (16.08%) Problem-Solving
4 29 (11.37%) Network Monitoring
5 27 (10.59%) Migration
6 26 (10.20%) High Availability
6 26 (10.20%) Network Segmentation
7 23 (9.02%) Network Virtualisation
8 20 (7.84%) DevOps
8 20 (7.84%) Zero Trust
9 19 (7.45%) Strategic Thinking
10 18 (7.06%) Project Delivery
10 18 (7.06%) Roadmaps
11 17 (6.67%) Cybersecurity
11 17 (6.67%) Knowledge Transfer
11 17 (6.67%) Network Architecture
12 15 (5.88%) ITIL
12 15 (5.88%) Performance Tuning
12 15 (5.88%) TOGAF
13 14 (5.49%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 78 (30.59%) Python
2 19 (7.45%) Bash
3 15 (5.88%) Perl
4 10 (3.92%) PowerShell
5 8 (3.14%) Lisp
6 5 (1.96%) C++
7 2 (0.78%) C
8 1 (0.39%) Go
8 1 (0.39%) JavaScript
8 1 (0.39%) Shell Script
8 1 (0.39%) SQL
Qualifications
1 130 (50.98%) Cisco Certification
2 107 (41.96%) CCNP
3 102 (40.00%) Security Cleared
4 79 (30.98%) SC Cleared
5 47 (18.43%) CCIE
6 24 (9.41%) JNCIE
7 21 (8.24%) CCNA
8 20 (7.84%) Degree
9 17 (6.67%) DV Cleared
10 14 (5.49%) JNCIS
11 11 (4.31%) AWS Certification
12 10 (3.92%) CISSP
12 10 (3.92%) JNCIP
13 9 (3.53%) CCDP
13 9 (3.53%) JNCIA
14 6 (2.35%) CCSA
15 5 (1.96%) CCSE
16 4 (1.57%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 4 (1.57%) CCIE Security
16 4 (1.57%) CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (3.14%) NIST
2 7 (2.75%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 7 (2.75%) SLA
3 6 (2.35%) GDPR
3 6 (2.35%) PCI DSS
4 3 (1.18%) NCSC
5 1 (0.39%) JSP 440
5 1 (0.39%) NIST 800
5 1 (0.39%) RMADS
5 1 (0.39%) SOC 2
System Software
1 19 (7.45%) VMware Infrastructure
2 16 (6.27%) VMware NSX
3 10 (3.92%) Firmware
4 9 (3.53%) Active Directory
4 9 (3.53%) Docker
5 3 (1.18%) Hyper-V
5 3 (1.18%) KVM
6 1 (0.39%) Squid
Systems Management
1 67 (26.27%) Ansible
2 38 (14.90%) FortiGate
3 32 (12.55%) Terraform
4 9 (3.53%) Kubernetes
5 4 (1.57%) CA Spectrum
6 3 (1.18%) Iperf
6 3 (1.18%) Nagios
6 3 (1.18%) Nmap
6 3 (1.18%) Single Sign-On
7 2 (0.78%) Grafana
7 2 (0.78%) Prometheus
8 1 (0.39%) CASB
8 1 (0.39%) Cisco CUCM
8 1 (0.39%) Failover Clustering
8 1 (0.39%) vRealize
8 1 (0.39%) VxRail
Vendors
1 173 (67.84%) Cisco
2 87 (34.12%) Juniper
3 71 (27.84%) Palo Alto
4 56 (21.96%) Fortinet
5 55 (21.57%) F5
6 36 (14.12%) CheckPoint
7 35 (13.73%) Meraki
8 27 (10.59%) SolarWinds
9 23 (9.02%) VMware
10 21 (8.24%) Arista
10 21 (8.24%) Aruba
11 14 (5.49%) Zscaler
12 13 (5.10%) ServiceNow
13 12 (4.71%) Microsoft
13 12 (4.71%) Remedy
14 8 (3.14%) Ekahau
14 8 (3.14%) Nokia
14 8 (3.14%) Red Hat
15 6 (2.35%) LogicMonitor
16 5 (1.96%) NVIDIA