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

6 months to
20 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 306 291 264
Rank change year-on-year -15 -27 0
Contract jobs citing BGP 436 297 339
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.80% 0.90% 0.88%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 8.56% 7.83% 7.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 254 191 196
10th Percentile £380 £325 £344
25th Percentile £425 £410 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £575
90th Percentile £696 £664 £665
UK excluding London median daily rate £510 £465 £500
% change year-on-year +9.68% -7.00% +2.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 4 3
10th Percentile £48.93 £37.38 £22.40
25th Percentile £56.53 £39.06 £28.25
Median hourly rate £68.75 £48.75 £38.00
Median % change year-on-year +41.03% +28.29% -36.67%
75th Percentile - £60.88 £51.50
90th Percentile £75.63 £64.70 £59.60
UK excluding London median hourly rate £68.75 £66.50 £19.00
% change year-on-year +3.38% +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 5,096 3,795 4,582
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.34% 11.53% 11.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,949 2,356 2,663
10th Percentile £231 £225 £225
25th Percentile £393 £363 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £588 £608
90th Percentile £675 £680 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £500
% change year-on-year +5.56% -10.00% +9.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 418 200 250
10th Percentile £14.10 £15.50 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.50 £24.75 £21.37
Median hourly rate £32.50 £42.50 £50.50
Median % change year-on-year -23.53% -15.84% -10.60%
75th Percentile £68.75 £63.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £88.74 £73.20 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £29.50 £42.50 £57.35
% change year-on-year -30.59% -25.89% -0.26%

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 September 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 20 September 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 20 September 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 -11 398 £500 - 283
UK excluding London -40 242 £510 +9.68% 123
London -57 133 £500 - 172
Work from Home -47 111 £500 - 98
North of England +11 105 £500 +5.26% 21
North West +6 76 £488 +2.63% 15
South East -39 65 £525 +5.00% 33
Midlands -47 42 £571 +42.69% 12
West Midlands -46 39 £571 +42.69% 8
South West -29 32 £525 -16.67% 13
Yorkshire -25 22 £495 +23.75% 5
East of England -20 15 £488 -30.36% 30
North East -30 13 £650 +160.00% 1
Scotland -26 10 £375 -11.76% 12
East Midlands -16 3 - - 4
Wales -11 1 £425 +6.25% 2

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 13 (2.98%) OpenStack
2 8 (1.83%) SAS
3 4 (0.92%) Confluence
3 4 (0.92%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.23%) SharePoint
Applications
1 9 (2.06%) MS Visio
2 6 (1.38%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (0.92%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (0.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.69%) AutoCAD
Cloud Services
1 107 (24.54%) Azure
2 82 (18.81%) AWS
3 27 (6.19%) GCP
4 23 (5.28%) GitHub
4 23 (5.28%) OCI
5 22 (5.05%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 13 (2.98%) SaaS
7 12 (2.75%) AWS Direct Connect
8 10 (2.29%) Microsoft 365
9 8 (1.83%) Azure Monitor
10 7 (1.61%) Azure Sentinel
10 7 (1.61%) OpenShift
10 7 (1.61%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 5 (1.15%) Nutanix
12 3 (0.69%) Entra ID
13 2 (0.46%) Amazon GuardDuty
13 2 (0.46%) AWS CloudFormation
13 2 (0.46%) IBM Watson
14 1 (0.23%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 1 (0.23%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 245 (56.19%) OSPF
2 240 (55.05%) Firewall
3 200 (45.87%) WAN
4 132 (30.28%) VPN
5 125 (28.67%) VLAN
6 112 (25.69%) LAN
7 104 (23.85%) VXLAN
8 103 (23.62%) MPLS
9 93 (21.33%) Network Security
10 84 (19.27%) DNS
10 84 (19.27%) SD-WAN
11 82 (18.81%) Ethernet VPN
12 69 (15.83%) TCP/IP
13 65 (14.91%) IPsec
14 64 (14.68%) Wireless
15 61 (13.99%) Multicast
16 59 (13.53%) Wi-Fi
17 54 (12.39%) Cisco Nexus
18 53 (12.16%) EIGRP
19 49 (11.24%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.23%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 29 (6.65%) GitLab
2 25 (5.73%) Git
3 7 (1.61%) JIRA
3 7 (1.61%) Sonatype Nexus
4 1 (0.23%) Bitbucket
4 1 (0.23%) Jenkins
General
1 74 (16.97%) Social Skills
2 47 (10.78%) Analytical Skills
3 45 (10.32%) Finance
4 32 (7.34%) Telecoms
5 29 (6.65%) Banking
6 27 (6.19%) Public Sector
7 17 (3.90%) Investment Banking
8 13 (2.98%) Documentation Skills
9 8 (1.83%) Legal
9 8 (1.83%) Retail
10 7 (1.61%) Police
11 6 (1.38%) Military
12 5 (1.15%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 4 (0.92%) Financial Institution
14 3 (0.69%) German Language
14 3 (0.69%) Influencing Skills
14 3 (0.69%) Italian Language
14 3 (0.69%) Spanish Language
15 2 (0.46%) Organisational Skills
15 2 (0.46%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 263 (60.32%) Network Engineer
2 100 (22.94%) Senior
3 67 (15.37%) Senior Network Engineer
4 57 (13.07%) Cisco Engineer
5 54 (12.39%) Cisco Network Engineer
6 46 (10.55%) Architect
7 38 (8.72%) Security Engineer
8 36 (8.26%) Network Architect
8 36 (8.26%) Network Security Engineer
9 35 (8.03%) Data Network Engineer
10 34 (7.80%) Consultant
11 26 (5.96%) Cisco Security Engineer
12 25 (5.73%) Data Engineer
13 23 (5.28%) Network Consultant
14 20 (4.59%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 19 (4.36%) Network Specialist
16 18 (4.13%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
17 17 (3.90%) Developer
18 13 (2.98%) Automation Engineer
18 13 (2.98%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 73 (16.74%) Terraform
2 27 (6.19%) REST
3 20 (4.59%) 802.1X
4 15 (3.44%) NETCONF
4 15 (3.44%) YAML
5 13 (2.98%) JSON
5 13 (2.98%) YANG
6 6 (1.38%) RESTCONF
7 5 (1.15%) OpenConfig
8 4 (0.92%) CSS
9 3 (0.69%) eBPF
9 3 (0.69%) SAML
10 2 (0.46%) gRPC
10 2 (0.46%) Spine.js
11 1 (0.23%) Django
11 1 (0.23%) LDAP
11 1 (0.23%) Model Context Protocol
11 1 (0.23%) ModSecurity
Miscellaneous
1 175 (40.14%) Data Centre
2 50 (11.47%) Hybrid Cloud
3 28 (6.42%) Cloud Native
4 15 (3.44%) PKI
5 12 (2.75%) Self-Motivation
6 11 (2.52%) Private Cloud
7 10 (2.29%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 8 (1.83%) Analytical Mindset
8 8 (1.83%) Digital Signage
9 7 (1.61%) Onboarding
9 7 (1.61%) Public Cloud
10 6 (1.38%) Operational Technology
10 6 (1.38%) Security Posture
11 5 (1.15%) Clustering
11 5 (1.15%) CMDB
11 5 (1.15%) Linux Command Line
12 4 (0.92%) Data Protection Act
12 4 (0.92%) Data Structures
12 4 (0.92%) Distributed Systems
13 3 (0.69%) Distributed Applications
Operating Systems
1 36 (8.26%) Windows
2 26 (5.96%) Linux
3 9 (2.06%) Windows Server
4 7 (1.61%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 3 (0.69%) Unix
5 3 (0.69%) Windows Server 2012
6 1 (0.23%) Mac OS
6 1 (0.23%) VMS
6 1 (0.23%) Windows Server 2016
6 1 (0.23%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 91 (20.87%) Load Balancing
2 80 (18.35%) Migration
3 78 (17.89%) Infrastructure as Code
4 73 (16.74%) High Availability
4 73 (16.74%) Network Design
5 71 (16.28%) Zero Trust
6 50 (11.47%) Validation
7 48 (11.01%) Problem-Solving
8 45 (10.32%) Network Architecture
9 43 (9.86%) CI/CD
9 43 (9.86%) Project Delivery
10 41 (9.40%) ITIL
11 36 (8.26%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 34 (7.80%) Network Segmentation
13 33 (7.57%) DevOps
14 30 (6.88%) Change Control
15 29 (6.65%) Mentoring
15 29 (6.65%) Technical Leadership
16 28 (6.42%) Runbook
17 26 (5.96%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 129 (29.59%) Python
2 12 (2.75%) Bash
3 8 (1.83%) PowerShell
4 5 (1.15%) SQL
5 3 (0.69%) Shell Script
6 2 (0.46%) Go
6 2 (0.46%) Perl
7 1 (0.23%) C++
7 1 (0.23%) Java
Qualifications
1 130 (29.82%) Security Cleared
2 119 (27.29%) Cisco Certification
3 91 (20.87%) CCNP
4 75 (17.20%) SC Cleared
5 48 (11.01%) DV Cleared
6 47 (10.78%) CCIE
7 23 (5.28%) CCNA
8 17 (3.90%) Degree
9 14 (3.21%) JNCIE
10 5 (1.15%) Computer Science Degree
11 4 (0.92%) AWS Certification
11 4 (0.92%) Azure Certification
11 4 (0.92%) CCIE Security
11 4 (0.92%) CISSP
11 4 (0.92%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 2 (0.46%) CWNA
12 2 (0.46%) JNCIP
12 2 (0.46%) PMI Certification
12 2 (0.46%) PMP
13 1 (0.23%) CCDE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (1.15%) NIST
2 4 (0.92%) NCSC
3 3 (0.69%) GDPR
3 3 (0.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 3 (0.69%) QA
4 2 (0.46%) NIST 800
4 2 (0.46%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.23%) Cyber Essentials
5 1 (0.23%) Data Quality
5 1 (0.23%) SLA
System Software
1 30 (6.88%) VMware Infrastructure
2 18 (4.13%) VMware NSX
3 13 (2.98%) Active Directory
4 9 (2.06%) vSphere
5 8 (1.83%) Docker
5 8 (1.83%) Hyper-V
6 6 (1.38%) Firmware
7 3 (0.69%) Virtual Servers
8 2 (0.46%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.23%) ProxySG
9 1 (0.23%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 125 (28.67%) Ansible
2 41 (9.40%) FortiGate
3 18 (4.13%) Kubernetes
4 11 (2.52%) Cisco Prime
4 11 (2.52%) Grafana
5 10 (2.29%) Prometheus
6 9 (2.06%) Nagios
7 6 (1.38%) Cilium
8 4 (0.92%) Istio
9 2 (0.46%) Puppet
9 2 (0.46%) Single Sign-On
10 1 (0.23%) CASB
10 1 (0.23%) Microsoft Intune
10 1 (0.23%) OPNET
10 1 (0.23%) Progress Chef
10 1 (0.23%) QRadar
10 1 (0.23%) Rancher
10 1 (0.23%) Suricata
10 1 (0.23%) VxRail
Vendors
1 309 (70.87%) Cisco
2 128 (29.36%) F5
3 127 (29.13%) Palo Alto
4 96 (22.02%) Fortinet
5 82 (18.81%) Arista
6 57 (13.07%) Juniper
7 46 (10.55%) VMware
8 40 (9.17%) Aruba
9 39 (8.94%) CheckPoint
10 31 (7.11%) SolarWinds
11 30 (6.88%) Microsoft
12 18 (4.13%) Zscaler
13 17 (3.90%) Meraki
13 17 (3.90%) ServiceNow
14 12 (2.75%) Splunk
15 11 (2.52%) Red Hat
16 7 (1.61%) Citrix
16 7 (1.61%) Dell
16 7 (1.61%) Google
17 6 (1.38%) Infoblox