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

6 months to
29 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 309 281 255
Rank change year-on-year -28 -26 +9
Contract jobs citing BGP 452 309 348
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.84% 0.94% 0.90%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 8.85% 7.95% 7.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 271 198 208
10th Percentile £380 £321 £309
25th Percentile £419 £407 £404
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% - -5.00%
75th Percentile £588 £611 £550
90th Percentile £688 £667 £649
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% +2.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 4 2
10th Percentile £48.55 £37.38 £23.15
25th Percentile £49.00 £39.06 £30.13
Median hourly rate £58.25 £48.75 £42.00
Median % change year-on-year +19.49% +16.07% -30.00%
75th Percentile £73.75 £60.88 £53.63
90th Percentile £85.02 £64.70 £60.45
UK excluding London median hourly rate £58.25 £66.50 £19.00
% change year-on-year -12.41% +250.00% -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 5,110 3,889 4,614
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.48% 11.80% 11.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,012 2,381 2,747
10th Percentile £250 £238 £227
25th Percentile £400 £363 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £485 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.09% -3.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £608
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £470 £500
% change year-on-year +2.13% -6.00% +9.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 376 202 294
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.99 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.33 £25.15 £20.50
Median hourly rate £26.00 £45.00 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -42.22% -10.00% -9.62%
75th Percentile £65.06 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £79.50 £74.63
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.81 £42.50 £54.94
% change year-on-year -39.28% -22.64% -2.75%

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 29 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 29 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 29 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 -15 416 £500 - 208
UK excluding London -14 256 £500 +5.26% 80
London -61 138 £500 +5.26% 146
Work from Home -32 116 £500 -2.44% 60
North of England +3 109 £500 +5.26% 10
South East -24 81 £525 +5.00% 27
North West -8 80 £500 +5.26% 2
Midlands -34 48 £425 +6.25% 10
West Midlands -27 45 £440 +10.06% 8
South West -35 33 £525 -16.67% 8
Yorkshire -23 22 £495 +23.75% 8
North East -25 13 £650 +160.00%
Scotland -23 9 £375 -11.76% 8
East of England -24 7 £475 -32.14% 15
East Midlands -13 2 - - 2
Wales -15 2 £425 -2.86% 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 (2.65%) OpenStack
2 8 (1.77%) SAS
3 3 (0.66%) Microsoft Exchange
4 2 (0.44%) Confluence
5 1 (0.22%) SharePoint
Applications
1 10 (2.21%) MS Visio
2 7 (1.55%) Microsoft Office
3 5 (1.11%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (1.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.66%) AutoCAD
Cloud Services
1 114 (25.22%) Azure
2 87 (19.25%) AWS
3 25 (5.53%) GCP
4 24 (5.31%) OCI
5 22 (4.87%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 17 (3.76%) GitHub
7 13 (2.88%) SaaS
8 11 (2.43%) AWS Direct Connect
9 10 (2.21%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 9 (1.99%) Microsoft 365
11 7 (1.55%) Azure Monitor
11 7 (1.55%) Azure Sentinel
11 7 (1.55%) OpenShift
12 6 (1.33%) Nutanix
13 3 (0.66%) Azure DevOps
13 3 (0.66%) Entra ID
14 2 (0.44%) Amazon GuardDuty
14 2 (0.44%) AWS CloudFormation
15 1 (0.22%) GitHub Actions
15 1 (0.22%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 264 (58.41%) OSPF
2 256 (56.64%) Firewall
3 222 (49.12%) WAN
4 137 (30.31%) VPN
5 127 (28.10%) LAN
6 126 (27.88%) VLAN
7 114 (25.22%) VXLAN
8 105 (23.23%) MPLS
9 103 (22.79%) Network Security
10 93 (20.58%) DNS
11 92 (20.35%) SD-WAN
12 81 (17.92%) Ethernet VPN
13 72 (15.93%) Wireless
14 71 (15.71%) TCP/IP
15 66 (14.60%) IPsec
16 64 (14.16%) Multicast
17 63 (13.94%) Wi-Fi
18 56 (12.39%) EIGRP
19 55 (12.17%) Cisco Nexus
20 53 (11.73%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
Development Applications
1 28 (6.19%) GitLab
2 20 (4.42%) Git
3 8 (1.77%) Sonatype Nexus
4 7 (1.55%) JIRA
5 2 (0.44%) Jenkins
6 1 (0.22%) Bitbucket
General
1 76 (16.81%) Social Skills
2 49 (10.84%) Analytical Skills
3 45 (9.96%) Finance
4 30 (6.64%) Public Sector
4 30 (6.64%) Telecoms
5 29 (6.42%) Banking
6 19 (4.20%) Investment Banking
7 16 (3.54%) Documentation Skills
8 8 (1.77%) Legal
8 8 (1.77%) Police
8 8 (1.77%) Retail
9 6 (1.33%) Financial Institution
9 6 (1.33%) Military
10 4 (0.88%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 3 (0.66%) German Language
11 3 (0.66%) Influencing Skills
11 3 (0.66%) Italian Language
11 3 (0.66%) Spanish Language
12 2 (0.44%) Organisational Skills
12 2 (0.44%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 268 (59.29%) Network Engineer
2 97 (21.46%) Senior
3 64 (14.16%) Senior Network Engineer
4 61 (13.50%) Cisco Engineer
5 58 (12.83%) Cisco Network Engineer
6 50 (11.06%) Architect
7 41 (9.07%) Data Network Engineer
8 40 (8.85%) Network Security Engineer
8 40 (8.85%) Security Engineer
9 37 (8.19%) Network Architect
10 32 (7.08%) Consultant
11 30 (6.64%) Cisco Security Engineer
12 29 (6.42%) Data Engineer
13 22 (4.87%) Network Consultant
14 21 (4.65%) Network Specialist
15 20 (4.42%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 18 (3.98%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
17 17 (3.76%) Developer
18 14 (3.10%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
18 14 (3.10%) Web Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 72 (15.93%) Terraform
2 25 (5.53%) 802.1X
3 21 (4.65%) REST
4 12 (2.65%) NETCONF
5 11 (2.43%) YANG
6 10 (2.21%) YAML
7 8 (1.77%) JSON
8 6 (1.33%) OpenConfig
8 6 (1.33%) RESTCONF
9 4 (0.88%) CSS
10 3 (0.66%) eBPF
10 3 (0.66%) SAML
11 2 (0.44%) Jinja
11 2 (0.44%) Spine.js
12 1 (0.22%) Django
12 1 (0.22%) gRPC
12 1 (0.22%) LDAP
12 1 (0.22%) Model Context Protocol
Miscellaneous
1 185 (40.93%) Data Centre
2 51 (11.28%) Hybrid Cloud
3 28 (6.19%) Cloud Native
4 19 (4.20%) PKI
5 11 (2.43%) Private Cloud
6 10 (2.21%) Analytical Mindset
6 10 (2.21%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
7 9 (1.99%) Clustering
7 9 (1.99%) Self-Motivation
8 8 (1.77%) Onboarding
8 8 (1.77%) Operational Technology
8 8 (1.77%) Public Cloud
9 6 (1.33%) Digital Signage
9 6 (1.33%) Security Posture
10 5 (1.11%) Linux Command Line
11 4 (0.88%) CMDB
11 4 (0.88%) Data Protection Act
11 4 (0.88%) Distributed Systems
12 3 (0.66%) IoT
12 3 (0.66%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 31 (6.86%) Windows
2 21 (4.65%) Linux
3 4 (0.88%) Windows Server
4 3 (0.66%) Unix
4 3 (0.66%) Windows Server 2012
5 2 (0.44%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.22%) VMS
6 1 (0.22%) Windows Server 2016
6 1 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 99 (21.90%) Load Balancing
2 82 (18.14%) High Availability
2 82 (18.14%) Migration
3 76 (16.81%) Network Design
4 72 (15.93%) Infrastructure as Code
5 71 (15.71%) Zero Trust
6 50 (11.06%) Problem-Solving
7 47 (10.40%) ITIL
7 47 (10.40%) Project Delivery
8 46 (10.18%) Validation
9 45 (9.96%) Network Architecture
10 43 (9.51%) CI/CD
11 35 (7.74%) Network Segmentation
12 34 (7.52%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 33 (7.30%) DevOps
14 30 (6.64%) Stakeholder Management
14 30 (6.64%) Technical Leadership
15 29 (6.42%) Mentoring
16 27 (5.97%) Change Control
16 27 (5.97%) Low Latency
Programming Languages
1 129 (28.54%) Python
2 11 (2.43%) Bash
3 6 (1.33%) PowerShell
3 6 (1.33%) SQL
4 3 (0.66%) Shell Script
5 2 (0.44%) Go
5 2 (0.44%) Perl
6 1 (0.22%) C++
6 1 (0.22%) Java
Qualifications
1 140 (30.97%) Security Cleared
2 130 (28.76%) Cisco Certification
3 95 (21.02%) CCNP
4 85 (18.81%) SC Cleared
5 51 (11.28%) CCIE
6 49 (10.84%) DV Cleared
7 23 (5.09%) CCNA
8 21 (4.65%) Degree
9 14 (3.10%) JNCIE
10 9 (1.99%) Computer Science Degree
11 7 (1.55%) Azure Certification
12 5 (1.11%) AWS Certification
12 5 (1.11%) PMP
13 4 (0.88%) CCIE Security
13 4 (0.88%) CISSP
13 4 (0.88%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 3 (0.66%) VCDX
15 2 (0.44%) JNCIA
15 2 (0.44%) JNCIS
15 2 (0.44%) VCAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (0.88%) NCSC
1 4 (0.88%) NIST
2 3 (0.66%) GDPR
2 3 (0.66%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 3 (0.66%) QA
3 2 (0.44%) PCI DSS
4 1 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials
4 1 (0.22%) NIST 800
4 1 (0.22%) SLA
System Software
1 30 (6.64%) VMware Infrastructure
2 15 (3.32%) VMware NSX
3 8 (1.77%) Firmware
4 7 (1.55%) Hyper-V
5 6 (1.33%) Active Directory
6 5 (1.11%) Docker
7 4 (0.88%) vSphere
8 2 (0.44%) Virtual Servers
8 2 (0.44%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.22%) ProxySG
9 1 (0.22%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 125 (27.65%) Ansible
2 44 (9.73%) FortiGate
3 20 (4.42%) Kubernetes
4 15 (3.32%) Grafana
5 14 (3.10%) Prometheus
6 9 (1.99%) Cisco Prime
7 6 (1.33%) Cilium
8 4 (0.88%) Istio
8 4 (0.88%) Nagios
9 2 (0.44%) Puppet
9 2 (0.44%) Single Sign-On
10 1 (0.22%) CASB
10 1 (0.22%) Microsoft Intune
10 1 (0.22%) OPNET
10 1 (0.22%) Progress Chef
10 1 (0.22%) QRadar
10 1 (0.22%) Rancher
10 1 (0.22%) Suricata
Vendors
1 319 (70.58%) Cisco
2 144 (31.86%) F5
3 133 (29.42%) Palo Alto
4 102 (22.57%) Fortinet
5 81 (17.92%) Arista
6 64 (14.16%) Juniper
7 43 (9.51%) Aruba
8 42 (9.29%) CheckPoint
8 42 (9.29%) VMware
9 31 (6.86%) Microsoft
10 30 (6.64%) SolarWinds
11 20 (4.42%) Meraki
12 17 (3.76%) Zscaler
13 16 (3.54%) ServiceNow
14 15 (3.32%) Splunk
15 11 (2.43%) Extreme Networks
16 9 (1.99%) Google
16 9 (1.99%) Red Hat
17 7 (1.55%) Citrix
17 7 (1.55%) Ekahau