MPLS Contract Job Trends

Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring MPLS skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 17 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 449 377 310
Rank change year-on-year -72 -67 +109
Contract jobs citing MPLS 215 170 298
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.41% 0.52% 0.71%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 4.29% 4.30% 5.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 144 115 158
10th Percentile £283 £325 £296
25th Percentile £396 £428 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £459 £500 £405
Median % change year-on-year -8.20% +23.46% -19.00%
75th Percentile £550 £600 £558
90th Percentile £638 £650 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £450 £375
% change year-on-year +10.00% +20.00% -6.25%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 2 18
10th Percentile £22.53 £36.63 £14.00
25th Percentile £29.88 £37.19 £19.48
Median hourly rate £42.25 £38.75 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year +9.03% +55.00% -37.75%
75th Percentile £42.38 £39.69 £40.00
90th Percentile - £39.88 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.25 - £40.00
% change year-on-year - - +81.82%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
UK

MPLS 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 5,011 3,952 5,259
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.52% 12.15% 12.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,028 2,401 3,103
10th Percentile £250 £235 £213
25th Percentile £400 £370 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% -2.50% -
75th Percentile £588 £588 £600
90th Percentile £670 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £487 £475 £495
% change year-on-year +2.58% -4.04% +7.03%
Number of hourly rates quoted 329 192 405
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.50
25th Percentile £19.34 £25.11 £17.63
Median hourly rate £26.44 £48.75 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -45.76% +21.88% +23.08%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £74.26 £83.90 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.22 £42.50 £47.50
% change year-on-year -38.31% -10.53% -0.48%

MPLS
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing MPLS relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

MPLS job vacancy trend in the UK

MPLS
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing MPLS.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing MPLS

MPLS
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing MPLS over the 6 months to 17 July 2026.

Daily rate histogram for MPLS in the UK

MPLS
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing MPLS.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing MPLS

MPLS
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing MPLS over the 6 months to 17 July 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for MPLS in the UK

MPLS
Top 14 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing MPLS within the UK over the 6 months to 17 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 -115 158 £500 - 24
UK excluding London -47 141 £495 +10.00% 26
South East -32 62 £525 +16.67% 7
Work from Home -62 53 £450 -10.00% 5
London -97 48 £450 -10.00% 11
Scotland +23 37 £310 -31.11% 11
South West -45 14 £525 -16.00% 3
Midlands -65 11 £440 +3.59% 3
North of England -89 10 £575 +21.05% 2
West Midlands -69 9 £440 +3.59% 3
East of England -15 7 £500 -
North West -63 7 £588 +23.68% 1
Yorkshire -43 3 £483 +37.86% 1
Northern Ireland - 1 £385 -

MPLS
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 11 (5.12%) OpenStack
2 4 (1.86%) Confluence
2 4 (1.86%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 24 (11.16%) MS Visio
2 12 (5.58%) Microsoft Office
3 9 (4.19%) Microsoft Excel
4 6 (2.79%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 3 (1.40%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.47%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 2 (0.93%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 39 (18.14%) Azure
2 26 (12.09%) AWS
3 12 (5.58%) GCP
4 10 (4.65%) Entra ID
5 6 (2.79%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 5 (2.33%) Microsoft 365
7 4 (1.86%) IaaS
7 4 (1.86%) OpenShift
8 3 (1.40%) AWS Direct Connect
9 2 (0.93%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 2 (0.93%) Azure Sentinel
9 2 (0.93%) IBM Watson
9 2 (0.93%) Mimecast
9 2 (0.93%) Power Platform
10 1 (0.47%) Amazon ELB
10 1 (0.47%) Amazon GuardDuty
10 1 (0.47%) Amazon Macie
10 1 (0.47%) AWS CloudFormation
10 1 (0.47%) AWS CloudTrail
10 1 (0.47%) Route 53
Communications & Networking
1 147 (68.37%) WAN
2 112 (52.09%) BGP
3 107 (49.77%) LAN
4 98 (45.58%) Firewall
5 70 (32.56%) OSPF
6 57 (26.51%) VPN
7 55 (25.58%) Network Security
7 55 (25.58%) SD-WAN
8 38 (17.67%) IPsec
9 28 (13.02%) VLAN
10 27 (12.56%) Cisco Nexus
11 23 (10.70%) Wireshark
12 22 (10.23%) Cisco ASA
13 21 (9.77%) SDH
14 20 (9.30%) Ethernet VPN
14 20 (9.30%) TCP/IP
14 20 (9.30%) Wi-Fi
15 19 (8.84%) Multicast
15 19 (8.84%) Wireless
16 18 (8.37%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (0.93%) Power BI
1 2 (0.93%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 6 (2.79%) JIRA
2 5 (2.33%) Sonatype Nexus
3 4 (1.86%) Git
4 1 (0.47%) AppScan
4 1 (0.47%) Bitbucket
4 1 (0.47%) Burp Suite
4 1 (0.47%) Metasploit
General
1 69 (32.09%) Telecoms
2 62 (28.84%) Social Skills
3 31 (14.42%) Analytical Skills
4 24 (11.16%) Finance
5 14 (6.51%) Documentation Skills
6 9 (4.19%) Financial Institution
6 9 (4.19%) Legal
7 8 (3.72%) Organisational Skills
8 7 (3.26%) Public Sector
9 5 (2.33%) Law
10 4 (1.86%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 4 (1.86%) Influencing Skills
11 3 (1.40%) Billing
11 3 (1.40%) Manufacturing
11 3 (1.40%) Presentation Skills
11 3 (1.40%) Retail
12 2 (0.93%) Aviation
12 2 (0.93%) Banking
12 2 (0.93%) Investment Banking
12 2 (0.93%) Military
Job Titles
1 74 (34.42%) Network Engineer
2 39 (18.14%) Architect
3 28 (13.02%) Network Architect
4 23 (10.70%) Senior
5 20 (9.30%) Telecoms Engineer
6 15 (6.98%) Field Engineer
7 13 (6.05%) Developer
8 12 (5.58%) Field Telecoms Engineer
9 10 (4.65%) Network Field Engineer
9 10 (4.65%) Network Manager
10 9 (4.19%) Lead
10 9 (4.19%) Project Engineer
10 9 (4.19%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
11 7 (3.26%) Consultant
11 7 (3.26%) IP Architect
11 7 (3.26%) IP Engineer
11 7 (3.26%) Security Engineer
11 7 (3.26%) Senior Network Engineer
11 7 (3.26%) Test Engineer
12 6 (2.79%) Network Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (6.05%) NETCONF
1 13 (6.05%) REST
1 13 (6.05%) YANG
2 8 (3.72%) 802.1X
3 6 (2.79%) OpenConfig
3 6 (2.79%) RESTCONF
4 4 (1.86%) Jinja
5 3 (1.40%) LDAP
6 2 (0.93%) Django
6 2 (0.93%) Java RMI
6 2 (0.93%) RFC 2544
Miscellaneous
1 43 (20.00%) Data Centre
2 22 (10.23%) Hybrid Cloud
3 13 (6.05%) Cloud Native
4 10 (4.65%) Driving Licence
5 9 (4.19%) Analytical Mindset
5 9 (4.19%) Data Protection Act
5 9 (4.19%) Private Cloud
6 8 (3.72%) PKI
7 7 (3.26%) Public Cloud
8 6 (2.79%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 6 (2.79%) Management Information System
8 6 (2.79%) Operational Technology
9 4 (1.86%) SCADA
9 4 (1.86%) Virtual Team
10 3 (1.40%) Fibre Optics
10 3 (1.40%) Security Posture
10 3 (1.40%) Self-Motivation
11 2 (0.93%) Onboarding
11 2 (0.93%) Wiki
12 1 (0.47%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 12 (5.58%) Linux
2 10 (4.65%) Windows
3 4 (1.86%) Unix
3 4 (1.86%) Windows Server
4 3 (1.40%) Ubuntu
5 2 (0.93%) Windows Server 2012
6 1 (0.47%) Kali Linux
6 1 (0.47%) VMS
6 1 (0.47%) Windows Server 2016
6 1 (0.47%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 43 (20.00%) Project Delivery
2 32 (14.88%) Problem-Solving
3 31 (14.42%) Network Design
4 28 (13.02%) Change Management
5 26 (12.09%) Network Architecture
6 25 (11.63%) Migration
7 24 (11.16%) Roadmaps
8 21 (9.77%) ITIL
8 21 (9.77%) Zero Trust
9 20 (9.30%) Network Segmentation
9 20 (9.30%) Stakeholder Management
10 19 (8.84%) Agile
10 19 (8.84%) Technical Leadership
11 17 (7.91%) DevOps
12 15 (6.98%) AI
12 15 (6.98%) TOGAF
13 14 (6.51%) Cybersecurity
13 14 (6.51%) Disaster Recovery
13 14 (6.51%) Incident Management
14 13 (6.05%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 43 (20.00%) Python
2 3 (1.40%) PHP
2 3 (1.40%) SQL
3 2 (0.93%) Bash
3 2 (0.93%) C
3 2 (0.93%) Perl
3 2 (0.93%) PowerShell
4 1 (0.47%) Lisp
Qualifications
1 71 (33.02%) Security Cleared
2 66 (30.70%) Cisco Certification
3 40 (18.60%) SC Cleared
4 39 (18.14%) CCNP
5 33 (15.35%) CCIE
6 28 (13.02%) DV Cleared
7 21 (9.77%) CCNA
8 15 (6.98%) JNCIE
9 13 (6.05%) Degree
10 6 (2.79%) BPSS Clearance
11 4 (1.86%) AWS Certification
11 4 (1.86%) GIAC
11 4 (1.86%) ISTQB
11 4 (1.86%) JNCIP
11 4 (1.86%) PMP
11 4 (1.86%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 3 (1.40%) BC Cleared
12 3 (1.40%) CCDP
12 3 (1.40%) ITIL Certification
12 3 (1.40%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (4.65%) NCSC
2 9 (4.19%) SLA
3 7 (3.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 7 (3.26%) NIST
4 4 (1.86%) QA
5 3 (1.40%) Cyber Essentials
5 3 (1.40%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 3 (1.40%) GDPR
5 3 (1.40%) PCI DSS
6 2 (0.93%) Government Security Classifications
7 1 (0.47%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (0.47%) COBIT
7 1 (0.47%) GRC
7 1 (0.47%) HMG Security Policy Framework
7 1 (0.47%) NIST 800
7 1 (0.47%) PMO
7 1 (0.47%) RMADS
System Software
1 10 (4.65%) Active Directory
2 9 (4.19%) VMware Infrastructure
3 8 (3.72%) VMware NSX
4 4 (1.86%) VMware ESXi
5 2 (0.93%) Firmware
5 2 (0.93%) Hyper-V
5 2 (0.93%) VMware Workstation
6 1 (0.47%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 46 (21.40%) Ansible
2 9 (4.19%) Terraform
3 7 (3.26%) Cisco Prime
3 7 (3.26%) FortiGate
4 4 (1.86%) Grafana
4 4 (1.86%) Microsoft Intune
4 4 (1.86%) Prometheus
5 3 (1.40%) Salt
5 3 (1.40%) vCenter Server
6 2 (0.93%) Iperf
6 2 (0.93%) Nmap
6 2 (0.93%) SCOM
7 1 (0.47%) Avamar
7 1 (0.47%) CASB
7 1 (0.47%) Cisco CUCM
7 1 (0.47%) Nessus
7 1 (0.47%) OPNET
7 1 (0.47%) Progress Chef
7 1 (0.47%) SolarWinds Orion
7 1 (0.47%) Suricata
Vendors
1 128 (59.53%) Cisco
2 51 (23.72%) Palo Alto
3 43 (20.00%) F5
4 40 (18.60%) Juniper
5 39 (18.14%) Fortinet
5 39 (18.14%) Microsoft
6 25 (11.63%) CheckPoint
7 21 (9.77%) Aruba
7 21 (9.77%) VMware
8 20 (9.30%) Nokia
8 20 (9.30%) SolarWinds
9 17 (7.91%) Arista
10 12 (5.58%) Meraki
11 10 (4.65%) Splunk
12 7 (3.26%) ServiceNow
13 5 (2.33%) NetScout
14 4 (1.86%) BigPanda
14 4 (1.86%) HP
14 4 (1.86%) Tufin
15 3 (1.40%) LogicMonitor