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 25 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 425 358 337
Rank change year-on-year -67 -21 +138
Contract jobs citing MPLS 166 218 305
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.46% 0.60% 0.66%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 4.15% 4.93% 4.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 120 106 154
10th Percentile £263 £363 £315
25th Percentile £366 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% -4.76% +10.53%
75th Percentile £575 £595 £594
90th Percentile £639 £675 £683
UK excluding London median daily rate £430 £500 £450
% change year-on-year -14.00% +11.11% +4.65%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 4 19
10th Percentile - £19.06 £24.25
25th Percentile £19.00 £21.21 £30.63
Median hourly rate £20.00 £27.45 £65.98
Median % change year-on-year -27.14% -58.40% +151.35%
75th Percentile £21.00 £34.06 -
90th Percentile - £34.63 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.00 £20.08 £65.98
% change year-on-year -0.37% -69.57% +180.77%

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 3,996 4,418 6,433
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 11.16% 12.17% 13.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,585 2,543 3,987
10th Percentile £206 £225 £213
25th Percentile £356 £375 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £685 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -5.26% - +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 197 171 347
10th Percentile £15.50 £16.26 £17.72
25th Percentile £20.75 £23.59 £22.88
Median hourly rate £34.00 £42.50 £56.40
Median % change year-on-year -20.00% -24.65% +35.09%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £66.25
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £76.16
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £48.56 £56.49
% change year-on-year -12.48% -14.04% +25.53%

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 25 November 2025.

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
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 MPLS within the UK over the 6 months to 25 November 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 -78 137 £450 -10.00% 41
UK excluding London -47 107 £430 -14.00% 35
Work from Home -3 60 £500 - 17
London -23 43 £500 +2.56% 14
West Midlands 0 36 £400 -5.88% 4
Midlands -18 36 £400 +6.67% 4
South East -28 32 £575 +13.86% 19
Scotland +9 13 £213 -
North of England -65 13 £438 -12.50% 4
North West -21 11 £435 -13.86% 1
South West -4 9 £625 -1.19% 4
Northern Ireland - 3 £475 -
East of England -15 2 £350 - 5
North East -6 1 £550 -
Yorkshire -50 1 £500 - 3

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 21 (12.65%) OpenStack
2 7 (4.22%) Confluence
3 5 (3.01%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.60%) SharePoint
Applications
1 14 (8.43%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (3.01%) MS Visio
3 4 (2.41%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (2.41%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.60%) Microsoft Project
Cloud Services
1 37 (22.29%) AWS
2 34 (20.48%) Azure
3 9 (5.42%) GCP
4 8 (4.82%) Entra ID
5 7 (4.22%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 6 (3.61%) Microsoft 365
6 6 (3.61%) OpenShift
7 4 (2.41%) AWS Direct Connect
7 4 (2.41%) IaaS
7 4 (2.41%) Microsoft Purview
7 4 (2.41%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 2 (1.20%) Azure DevOps
8 2 (1.20%) Azure Functions
8 2 (1.20%) Azure Logic Apps
8 2 (1.20%) Azure Monitor
8 2 (1.20%) Azure Service Bus
8 2 (1.20%) Serverless
9 1 (0.60%) Mimecast
9 1 (0.60%) PaaS
9 1 (0.60%) Smartsheet
Communications & Networking
1 109 (65.66%) BGP
2 99 (59.64%) WAN
3 75 (45.18%) Firewall
4 71 (42.77%) VPN
5 59 (35.54%) LAN
6 53 (31.93%) OSPF
7 50 (30.12%) IPsec
8 38 (22.89%) SD-WAN
9 27 (16.27%) DNS
10 23 (13.86%) VLAN
11 21 (12.65%) Wireless
12 18 (10.84%) VXLAN
13 14 (8.43%) 5G
13 14 (8.43%) DHCP
13 14 (8.43%) Network Security
14 13 (7.83%) Cisco ASA
15 12 (7.23%) SDH
15 12 (7.23%) Wireshark
16 11 (6.63%) Wi-Fi
16 11 (6.63%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (1.20%) MongoDB
1 2 (1.20%) NoSQL
1 2 (1.20%) RDBMS
1 2 (1.20%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 10 (6.02%) JIRA
2 8 (4.82%) Git
3 4 (2.41%) GitLab
4 1 (0.60%) Jenkins
4 1 (0.60%) Robot Framework
4 1 (0.60%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 58 (34.94%) Social Skills
2 22 (13.25%) Telecoms
3 19 (11.45%) Public Sector
4 14 (8.43%) Analytical Skills
5 11 (6.63%) Documentation Skills
6 10 (6.02%) Finance
7 4 (2.41%) Influencing Skills
8 3 (1.81%) Organisational Skills
9 2 (1.20%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 2 (1.20%) Legal
9 2 (1.20%) Presentation Skills
10 1 (0.60%) Aviation
10 1 (0.60%) Banking
10 1 (0.60%) Law
10 1 (0.60%) Police
10 1 (0.60%) Retail
Job Titles
1 68 (40.96%) Network Engineer
2 25 (15.06%) Architect
3 23 (13.86%) Senior
4 19 (11.45%) Support Engineer
5 17 (10.24%) WAN Engineer
6 16 (9.64%) Senior Network Engineer
7 14 (8.43%) 3rd Line Engineer
7 14 (8.43%) Network Architect
8 13 (7.83%) 3rd Line Support
8 13 (7.83%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
9 12 (7.23%) Designer
9 12 (7.23%) Solutions Architect
10 10 (6.02%) 2nd Line Engineer
11 9 (5.42%) Field Engineer
12 7 (4.22%) Design Engineer
12 7 (4.22%) IP Engineer
12 7 (4.22%) IP Network Engineer
12 7 (4.22%) IP Specialist
13 6 (3.61%) IP Architect
13 6 (3.61%) IP Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (10.24%) NETCONF
2 11 (6.63%) YANG
3 10 (6.02%) RESTCONF
4 8 (4.82%) REST
5 5 (3.01%) Jinja
6 4 (2.41%) JSON
7 3 (1.81%) XML
8 2 (1.20%) 802.1X
8 2 (1.20%) ARM Templates
8 2 (1.20%) EDI
8 2 (1.20%) OpenConfig
8 2 (1.20%) SOAP
8 2 (1.20%) YAML
9 1 (0.60%) gRPC
Miscellaneous
1 34 (20.48%) Data Centre
2 31 (18.67%) PKI
3 15 (9.04%) Hybrid Cloud
4 10 (6.02%) Cloud Native
4 10 (6.02%) Operational Technology
5 7 (4.22%) Data Protection Act
5 7 (4.22%) Driving Licence
6 5 (3.01%) Self-Motivation
7 3 (1.81%) SCADA
7 3 (1.81%) Virtual Team
8 2 (1.20%) Distributed Architecture
8 2 (1.20%) Enterprise Cloud
8 2 (1.20%) Management Information System
8 2 (1.20%) Onboarding
8 2 (1.20%) Private Cloud
9 1 (0.60%) Analytical Mindset
9 1 (0.60%) Security Posture
9 1 (0.60%) TM Forum
Operating Systems
1 7 (4.22%) Windows
2 3 (1.81%) Linux
2 3 (1.81%) Windows Server
3 2 (1.20%) CentOS
3 2 (1.20%) Unix
4 1 (0.60%) Windows Server 2012
4 1 (0.60%) Windows Server 2016
4 1 (0.60%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 40 (24.10%) Network Design
2 31 (18.67%) Load Balancing
3 27 (16.27%) Network Virtualisation
4 22 (13.25%) Problem-Solving
5 21 (12.65%) Validation
6 20 (12.05%) Migration
7 19 (11.45%) Roadmaps
8 16 (9.64%) Network Architecture
8 16 (9.64%) Stakeholder Management
9 15 (9.04%) DevOps
10 14 (8.43%) Project Delivery
11 13 (7.83%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 13 (7.83%) TOGAF
12 12 (7.23%) Strategic Thinking
13 11 (6.63%) Change Control
13 11 (6.63%) Data Protection
13 11 (6.63%) Enterprise Architecture
13 11 (6.63%) Network Monitoring
14 10 (6.02%) ITIL
14 10 (6.02%) Network Segmentation
Programming Languages
1 50 (30.12%) Python
2 4 (2.41%) Bash
3 2 (1.20%) SQL
4 1 (0.60%) Bicep
4 1 (0.60%) Go
4 1 (0.60%) Lisp
Qualifications
1 65 (39.16%) Security Cleared
2 60 (36.14%) Cisco Certification
3 51 (30.72%) SC Cleared
4 43 (25.90%) CCNP
5 30 (18.07%) CCIE
6 18 (10.84%) JNCIE
7 16 (9.64%) Degree
8 15 (9.04%) CCNA
9 11 (6.63%) AWS Certification
10 7 (4.22%) BPSS Clearance
10 7 (4.22%) DV Cleared
11 6 (3.61%) JNCIS
12 5 (3.01%) Azure Certification
12 5 (3.01%) CISSP
13 4 (2.41%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 4 (2.41%) CCSP
13 4 (2.41%) JNCIP
14 3 (1.81%) CCIE Security
15 2 (1.20%) CCDP
16 1 (0.60%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (6.63%) SLA
2 7 (4.22%) PCI DSS
3 6 (3.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 5 (3.01%) GDPR
4 5 (3.01%) NIST
5 1 (0.60%) QA
System Software
1 20 (12.05%) VMware Infrastructure
2 12 (7.23%) Docker
3 11 (6.63%) Active Directory
4 10 (6.02%) VMware NSX
5 7 (4.22%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 46 (27.71%) Ansible
2 16 (9.64%) Terraform
3 6 (3.61%) FortiGate
4 4 (2.41%) Microsoft Intune
5 3 (1.81%) Iperf
5 3 (1.81%) Kubernetes
5 3 (1.81%) Nmap
6 2 (1.20%) Failover Clustering
6 2 (1.20%) SCCM
7 1 (0.60%) Amdocs OSS
7 1 (0.60%) CASB
7 1 (0.60%) Cisco Prime
Vendors
1 93 (56.02%) Cisco
2 56 (33.73%) Juniper
3 31 (18.67%) Fortinet
4 28 (16.87%) Palo Alto
5 25 (15.06%) Microsoft
6 24 (14.46%) F5
7 23 (13.86%) VMware
8 13 (7.83%) SolarWinds
9 12 (7.23%) Meraki
10 10 (6.02%) CheckPoint
11 9 (5.42%) Dell
11 9 (5.42%) Nokia
12 7 (4.22%) Aruba
12 7 (4.22%) Atlassian
13 6 (3.61%) Arista
14 4 (2.41%) Citrix
15 3 (1.81%) Forcepoint
15 3 (1.81%) LogicMonitor
16 2 (1.20%) CenturyLink
16 2 (1.20%) Databricks