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

6 months to
28 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 485 387 323
Rank change year-on-year -98 -64 +40
Contract jobs citing MPLS 197 169 253
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.37% 0.52% 0.65%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 3.87% 4.36% 5.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 125 114 135
10th Percentile £300 £300 £313
25th Percentile £385 £413 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £468 £475 £488
Median % change year-on-year -1.47% -2.56% -4.41%
75th Percentile £550 £597 £581
90th Percentile £626 £649 £687
UK excluding London median daily rate £468 £450 £500
% change year-on-year +4.00% -10.00% +2.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 2 7
10th Percentile £17.55 £36.63 £13.70
25th Percentile £17.63 £37.19 £15.81
Median hourly rate £42.25 £38.75 £19.00
Median % change year-on-year +9.03% +103.95% -67.24%
75th Percentile £42.38 £39.69 £23.29
90th Percentile £46.35 £39.88 £40.51
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 - £17.75
% change year-on-year - - -68.67%

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 5,090 3,878 4,662
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.47% 11.85% 12.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,997 2,363 2,784
10th Percentile £250 £243 £220
25th Percentile £400 £365 £363
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 £476 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +0.21% -5.00% +9.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 374 204 302
10th Percentile £15.18 £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% -11.49%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £80.71 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.81 £42.50 £54.88
% change year-on-year -39.28% -22.55% -4.57%

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 28 August 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 28 August 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for MPLS in the UK

MPLS
Top 13 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 28 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 -116 139 £500 +5.26% 61
UK excluding London -64 135 £468 +4.00% 28
South East -38 56 £510 +13.33% 11
Scotland +33 48 £305 -40.49% 3
Work from Home -72 46 £450 -10.00% 22
London -103 44 £450 -14.29% 39
South West -26 13 £525 -16.00% 7
North of England -77 8 £575 +21.05% 3
Midlands -68 7 £440 +10.06% 2
North West -55 6 £575 +24.32% 3
West Midlands -75 6 £440 +10.06% 2
East of England -16 4 £500 +66.67% 1
Yorkshire -45 2 £483 +37.86%

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 10 (5.08%) OpenStack
2 3 (1.52%) Confluence
3 2 (1.02%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 27 (13.71%) MS Visio
2 11 (5.58%) Microsoft Office
3 8 (4.06%) Microsoft Excel
4 5 (2.54%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 3 (1.52%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.51%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 1 (0.51%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 34 (17.26%) Azure
2 27 (13.71%) AWS
3 9 (4.57%) GCP
4 5 (2.54%) AWS Direct Connect
4 5 (2.54%) Virtual Private Cloud
5 4 (2.03%) OpenShift
6 3 (1.52%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 3 (1.52%) Entra ID
7 2 (1.02%) Azure DevOps
7 2 (1.02%) GitHub
8 1 (0.51%) AWS CloudFormation
8 1 (0.51%) Cloud Functions
8 1 (0.51%) Cloud Run
8 1 (0.51%) GitHub Actions
8 1 (0.51%) Google Compute Engine
8 1 (0.51%) Google Kubernetes Engine
8 1 (0.51%) OCI
8 1 (0.51%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 145 (73.60%) WAN
2 104 (52.79%) BGP
2 104 (52.79%) LAN
3 82 (41.62%) Firewall
4 55 (27.92%) OSPF
5 50 (25.38%) Network Security
6 47 (23.86%) SD-WAN
7 44 (22.34%) VPN
8 34 (17.26%) IPsec
9 26 (13.20%) SDH
10 25 (12.69%) Cisco Nexus
11 19 (9.64%) TCP/IP
12 18 (9.14%) DNS
12 18 (9.14%) VLAN
12 18 (9.14%) Wi-Fi
13 17 (8.63%) Internet
14 16 (8.12%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
15 15 (7.61%) VXLAN
15 15 (7.61%) Wireless
15 15 (7.61%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.51%) BigQuery
1 1 (0.51%) Cloud Spanner
1 1 (0.51%) Power BI
1 1 (0.51%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 8 (4.06%) Git
2 6 (3.05%) JIRA
3 4 (2.03%) Sonatype Nexus
4 2 (1.02%) GitLab
4 2 (1.02%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.51%) Bitbucket
General
1 84 (42.64%) Telecoms
2 61 (30.96%) Social Skills
3 37 (18.78%) Analytical Skills
4 14 (7.11%) Finance
5 10 (5.08%) Documentation Skills
6 9 (4.57%) Legal
6 9 (4.57%) Organisational Skills
7 4 (2.03%) Banking
7 4 (2.03%) Financial Institution
7 4 (2.03%) Military
8 3 (1.52%) Billing
8 3 (1.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 3 (1.52%) Influencing Skills
8 3 (1.52%) Law
8 3 (1.52%) Presentation Skills
9 2 (1.02%) Investment Banking
9 2 (1.02%) Manufacturing
9 2 (1.02%) Public Sector
9 2 (1.02%) Retail
10 1 (0.51%) Police
Job Titles
1 75 (38.07%) Network Engineer
2 36 (18.27%) Architect
3 28 (14.21%) Network Architect
3 28 (14.21%) Telecoms Engineer
4 17 (8.63%) Developer
5 16 (8.12%) Field Engineer
5 16 (8.12%) Project Engineer
6 14 (7.11%) Senior
7 13 (6.60%) Field Telecoms Engineer
8 10 (5.08%) Network Field Engineer
9 9 (4.57%) Consultant
9 9 (4.57%) Lead
10 8 (4.06%) Network Consultant
10 8 (4.06%) Project Manager
11 7 (3.55%) Senior Network Engineer
11 7 (3.55%) Solutions Architect
12 6 (3.05%) IP Architect
12 6 (3.05%) Network Manager
12 6 (3.05%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
13 5 (2.54%) WAN Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (6.09%) Terraform
2 11 (5.58%) NETCONF
2 11 (5.58%) REST
2 11 (5.58%) YANG
3 9 (4.57%) 802.1X
4 6 (3.05%) OpenConfig
5 5 (2.54%) RESTCONF
6 3 (1.52%) Java RMI
7 2 (1.02%) Jinja
8 1 (0.51%) Django
8 1 (0.51%) JSON
8 1 (0.51%) SAML
8 1 (0.51%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 35 (17.77%) Data Centre
2 21 (10.66%) Hybrid Cloud
3 15 (7.61%) Cloud Native
3 15 (7.61%) Driving Licence
4 9 (4.57%) Analytical Mindset
4 9 (4.57%) Data Protection Act
5 8 (4.06%) Private Cloud
6 6 (3.05%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
7 4 (2.03%) Management Information System
7 4 (2.03%) Onboarding
7 4 (2.03%) Operational Technology
7 4 (2.03%) PKI
7 4 (2.03%) Public Cloud
8 3 (1.52%) Self-Motivation
9 2 (1.02%) Enterprise Cloud
9 2 (1.02%) Legacy Systems
10 1 (0.51%) CCTV
10 1 (0.51%) Fibre Optics
10 1 (0.51%) Renewable Energy
10 1 (0.51%) TM Forum
Operating Systems
1 10 (5.08%) Linux
2 6 (3.05%) Windows
3 3 (1.52%) Windows Server
3 3 (1.52%) Windows Server 2012
4 1 (0.51%) Unix
4 1 (0.51%) Windows Server 2016
4 1 (0.51%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 50 (25.38%) Project Delivery
2 38 (19.29%) Problem-Solving
3 27 (13.71%) Zero Trust
4 26 (13.20%) Network Architecture
5 25 (12.69%) Network Design
6 24 (12.18%) Stakeholder Management
7 22 (11.17%) Roadmaps
8 20 (10.15%) Change Management
8 20 (10.15%) ITIL
8 20 (10.15%) Migration
9 19 (9.64%) Agile
9 19 (9.64%) Technical Leadership
10 16 (8.12%) DevOps
11 14 (7.11%) High Availability
11 14 (7.11%) Network Segmentation
11 14 (7.11%) Network Virtualisation
11 14 (7.11%) TOGAF
12 13 (6.60%) Root Cause Analysis
12 13 (6.60%) Vulnerability Management
13 12 (6.09%) Network Monitoring
Programming Languages
1 37 (18.78%) Python
2 6 (3.05%) Bash
3 4 (2.03%) PowerShell
3 4 (2.03%) SQL
4 2 (1.02%) Perl
5 1 (0.51%) C
5 1 (0.51%) C++
5 1 (0.51%) Go
5 1 (0.51%) Java
Qualifications
1 68 (34.52%) Security Cleared
2 57 (28.93%) Cisco Certification
3 32 (16.24%) DV Cleared
4 30 (15.23%) CCNP
5 29 (14.72%) SC Cleared
6 28 (14.21%) CCIE
7 18 (9.14%) CCNA
8 16 (8.12%) Degree
9 13 (6.60%) JNCIE
10 7 (3.55%) BPSS Clearance
11 5 (2.54%) PMP
12 4 (2.03%) Computer Science Degree
12 4 (2.03%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 3 (1.52%) AWS Certification
13 3 (1.52%) ITIL Certification
14 2 (1.02%) Azure Certification
14 2 (1.02%) BC Cleared
14 2 (1.02%) CCDP
14 2 (1.02%) CISSP
14 2 (1.02%) JNCIP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (5.58%) SLA
2 4 (2.03%) NCSC
3 3 (1.52%) NIST
3 3 (1.52%) QA
4 2 (1.02%) GDPR
4 2 (1.02%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 1 (0.51%) Government Security Classifications
5 1 (0.51%) NIST 800
5 1 (0.51%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.51%) PMO
System Software
1 7 (3.55%) VMware Infrastructure
1 7 (3.55%) VMware NSX
2 3 (1.52%) Active Directory
2 3 (1.52%) Firmware
3 2 (1.02%) Docker
4 1 (0.51%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.51%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 33 (16.75%) Ansible
2 9 (4.57%) FortiGate
3 8 (4.06%) Kubernetes
4 6 (3.05%) Cisco Prime
5 4 (2.03%) Cilium
5 4 (2.03%) Istio
6 3 (1.52%) SolarWinds Orion
7 2 (1.02%) Puppet
8 1 (0.51%) Avamar
8 1 (0.51%) OPNET
8 1 (0.51%) Progress Chef
8 1 (0.51%) QRadar
8 1 (0.51%) Suricata
Vendors
1 122 (61.93%) Cisco
2 44 (22.34%) Palo Alto
3 39 (19.80%) Microsoft
4 36 (18.27%) F5
5 35 (17.77%) Fortinet
6 30 (15.23%) Juniper
6 30 (15.23%) Nokia
7 19 (9.64%) SolarWinds
8 16 (8.12%) Aruba
9 15 (7.61%) VMware
10 10 (5.08%) Meraki
11 9 (4.57%) CheckPoint
12 8 (4.06%) Arista
13 4 (2.03%) Google
13 4 (2.03%) Riverbed
14 3 (1.52%) BT
14 3 (1.52%) Forcepoint
14 3 (1.52%) HP
14 3 (1.52%) LogicMonitor
14 3 (1.52%) Splunk