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

6 months to
9 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 477 410 332
Rank change year-on-year -67 -78 -16
Contract jobs citing MPLS 211 149 245
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.39% 0.45% 0.65%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 4.19% 3.93% 5.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 135 111 123
10th Percentile £304 £300 £363
25th Percentile £367 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £458 £463 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.08% -7.50% -4.76%
75th Percentile £538 £575 £600
90th Percentile £638 £649 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £500
% change year-on-year +5.56% -10.00% +2.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 3 7
10th Percentile £17.53 £22.45 £18.15
25th Percentile £17.56 £27.63 £20.45
Median hourly rate £17.75 £37.50 £24.18
Median % change year-on-year -52.67% +55.09% -63.35%
75th Percentile £33.44 £39.38 £34.38
90th Percentile £42.78 £39.75 £47.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.63 £20.00 £19.00
% change year-on-year -11.88% +5.26% -71.20%

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 5,039 3,790 4,550
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.25% 11.43% 11.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,917 2,399 2,613
10th Percentile £236 £216 £225
25th Percentile £393 £358 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £588 £601
90th Percentile £678 £680 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £485
% change year-on-year +5.56% -7.22% +5.43%
Number of hourly rates quoted 434 195 192
10th Percentile £14.10 £15.50 £14.20
25th Percentile £19.50 £20.00 £24.18
Median hourly rate £32.50 £35.00 £49.00
Median % change year-on-year -7.14% -28.57% -13.26%
75th Percentile £68.69 £64.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £92.11 £75.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.14 £41.48 £55.00
% change year-on-year -36.97% -24.59% -4.35%

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 9 October 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 9 October 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 9 October 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 -81 159 £500 +8.11% 94
UK excluding London -44 141 £475 +5.56% 40
London -82 57 £450 -14.29% 56
Scotland +18 48 £308 -27.65% 2
South East -40 48 £450 - 13
Work from Home -74 47 £450 -10.00% 45
South West -22 17 £525 -16.00% 5
North of England -61 16 £575 +28.64% 12
North West -46 14 £575 +28.64% 7
Midlands -64 8 £447 +11.63% 5
West Midlands -67 7 £425 +6.25% 2
East of England -25 4 £413 +37.50% 1
Yorkshire -34 2 £483 +37.86% 5
East Midlands - 1 £475 - 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 10 (4.74%) OpenStack
2 4 (1.90%) Confluence
3 2 (0.95%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 28 (13.27%) MS Visio
2 10 (4.74%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (3.32%) Microsoft Excel
4 4 (1.90%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 3 (1.42%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.47%) Microsoft Project
Cloud Services
1 39 (18.48%) Azure
2 35 (16.59%) AWS
3 10 (4.74%) GCP
4 9 (4.27%) AWS Direct Connect
5 7 (3.32%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 5 (2.37%) Entra ID
6 5 (2.37%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 4 (1.90%) OpenShift
8 3 (1.42%) GitHub
9 2 (0.95%) IBM Watson
10 1 (0.47%) AWS CloudFormation
10 1 (0.47%) Azure DevOps
10 1 (0.47%) Azure Monitor
10 1 (0.47%) Cloud Functions
10 1 (0.47%) Cloud Run
10 1 (0.47%) GitHub Actions
10 1 (0.47%) Google Compute Engine
10 1 (0.47%) Google Kubernetes Engine
10 1 (0.47%) Microsoft 365
10 1 (0.47%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 157 (74.41%) WAN
2 107 (50.71%) BGP
3 101 (47.87%) LAN
4 80 (37.91%) Firewall
5 59 (27.96%) OSPF
6 53 (25.12%) Network Security
6 53 (25.12%) SD-WAN
6 53 (25.12%) VPN
7 36 (17.06%) IPsec
8 30 (14.22%) SDH
9 25 (11.85%) Cisco Nexus
10 20 (9.48%) DNS
10 20 (9.48%) TCP/IP
10 20 (9.48%) VLAN
11 18 (8.53%) Wi-Fi
12 17 (8.06%) Cisco IOS
12 17 (8.06%) Wireless
13 16 (7.58%) DWDM
14 15 (7.11%) EIGRP
15 14 (6.64%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.47%) BigQuery
1 1 (0.47%) Cloud Spanner
1 1 (0.47%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 14 (6.64%) Git
2 7 (3.32%) JIRA
3 5 (2.37%) Sonatype Nexus
4 2 (0.95%) GitLab
4 2 (0.95%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.47%) Bitbucket
General
1 90 (42.65%) Telecoms
2 59 (27.96%) Social Skills
3 37 (17.54%) Analytical Skills
4 19 (9.00%) Banking
4 19 (9.00%) Finance
5 9 (4.27%) Documentation Skills
5 9 (4.27%) Legal
5 9 (4.27%) Organisational Skills
6 6 (2.84%) Investment Banking
7 4 (1.90%) Military
8 3 (1.42%) Financial Institution
8 3 (1.42%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 3 (1.42%) Influencing Skills
8 3 (1.42%) Presentation Skills
9 2 (0.95%) Manufacturing
9 2 (0.95%) Retail
10 1 (0.47%) Law
10 1 (0.47%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 91 (43.13%) Network Engineer
2 40 (18.96%) Architect
3 28 (13.27%) Network Architect
3 28 (13.27%) Telecoms Engineer
4 20 (9.48%) Senior
5 17 (8.06%) Developer
6 16 (7.58%) Field Engineer
6 16 (7.58%) Project Engineer
6 16 (7.58%) Senior Network Engineer
7 13 (6.16%) Field Telecoms Engineer
8 12 (5.69%) Cisco Engineer
8 12 (5.69%) Cisco Network Engineer
9 11 (5.21%) Consultant
10 10 (4.74%) Network Field Engineer
11 9 (4.27%) Core Network Engineer
11 9 (4.27%) Network Consultant
11 9 (4.27%) Network Operations Engineer
11 9 (4.27%) Operations Engineer
11 9 (4.27%) Senior Core Network Engineer
12 7 (3.32%) Lead
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (8.06%) Terraform
2 15 (7.11%) NETCONF
2 15 (7.11%) YANG
3 14 (6.64%) REST
4 7 (3.32%) 802.1X
5 5 (2.37%) OpenConfig
6 4 (1.90%) JSON
6 4 (1.90%) RESTCONF
7 3 (1.42%) Java RMI
8 1 (0.47%) Django
8 1 (0.47%) Regular Expression
8 1 (0.47%) SAML
8 1 (0.47%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 34 (16.11%) Data Centre
2 18 (8.53%) Hybrid Cloud
3 16 (7.58%) Driving Licence
4 14 (6.64%) Cloud Native
5 11 (5.21%) Data Protection Act
6 10 (4.74%) Management Information System
7 9 (4.27%) Onboarding
8 8 (3.79%) Private Cloud
9 7 (3.32%) Operational Technology
10 6 (2.84%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
11 5 (2.37%) Analytical Mindset
11 5 (2.37%) CMDB
12 4 (1.90%) Legacy Systems
12 4 (1.90%) PKI
12 4 (1.90%) Public Cloud
13 3 (1.42%) PDA
14 2 (0.95%) Enterprise Cloud
14 2 (0.95%) SCADA
14 2 (0.95%) Self-Motivation
15 1 (0.47%) Fibre Optics
Operating Systems
1 8 (3.79%) Linux
2 5 (2.37%) Windows
3 3 (1.42%) Windows Server
3 3 (1.42%) Windows Server 2012
4 1 (0.47%) Unix
4 1 (0.47%) Windows Server 2016
4 1 (0.47%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 48 (22.75%) Project Delivery
2 33 (15.64%) Stakeholder Management
3 32 (15.17%) Problem-Solving
3 32 (15.17%) Zero Trust
4 27 (12.80%) Network Architecture
4 27 (12.80%) Technical Leadership
5 26 (12.32%) Migration
6 25 (11.85%) Network Design
7 20 (9.48%) Change Management
7 20 (9.48%) ITIL
7 20 (9.48%) TOGAF
8 19 (9.00%) Roadmaps
9 17 (8.06%) Network Monitoring
9 17 (8.06%) Runbook
10 16 (7.58%) Validation
11 15 (7.11%) Data Protection
11 15 (7.11%) Root Cause Analysis
12 14 (6.64%) Agile
12 14 (6.64%) Change Control
13 13 (6.16%) Vulnerability Management
Programming Languages
1 43 (20.38%) Python
2 6 (2.84%) Bash
3 5 (2.37%) PowerShell
4 2 (0.95%) Perl
4 2 (0.95%) SQL
5 1 (0.47%) C++
5 1 (0.47%) Go
5 1 (0.47%) Java
Qualifications
1 67 (31.75%) Security Cleared
2 65 (30.81%) Cisco Certification
3 39 (18.48%) CCNP
4 37 (17.54%) DV Cleared
5 33 (15.64%) CCIE
6 23 (10.90%) SC Cleared
7 20 (9.48%) CCNA
8 17 (8.06%) JNCIE
9 13 (6.16%) Degree
10 9 (4.27%) JNCIP
11 8 (3.79%) CISSP
12 6 (2.84%) BPSS Clearance
13 4 (1.90%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 3 (1.42%) AWS Certification
15 2 (0.95%) Azure Certification
15 2 (0.95%) BC Cleared
15 2 (0.95%) CCDP
15 2 (0.95%) PMP
16 1 (0.47%) CCDA
16 1 (0.47%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (6.64%) SLA
2 4 (1.90%) NCSC
3 3 (1.42%) NIST
3 3 (1.42%) QA
4 2 (0.95%) GDPR
4 2 (0.95%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 2 (0.95%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 1 (0.47%) Data Quality
5 1 (0.47%) NIST 800
5 1 (0.47%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.47%) PMO
System Software
1 7 (3.32%) VMware NSX
2 6 (2.84%) Firmware
2 6 (2.84%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (2.37%) Active Directory
4 2 (0.95%) Docker
5 1 (0.47%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 37 (17.54%) Ansible
2 14 (6.64%) FortiGate
3 9 (4.27%) Cisco Prime
3 9 (4.27%) Kubernetes
4 4 (1.90%) Cilium
4 4 (1.90%) Istio
5 3 (1.42%) SolarWinds Orion
6 2 (0.95%) Puppet
7 1 (0.47%) Avamar
7 1 (0.47%) Grafana
7 1 (0.47%) OPNET
7 1 (0.47%) Progress Chef
7 1 (0.47%) QRadar
7 1 (0.47%) Suricata
Vendors
1 141 (66.82%) Cisco
2 51 (24.17%) Palo Alto
3 40 (18.96%) Fortinet
4 38 (18.01%) Microsoft
5 34 (16.11%) F5
6 32 (15.17%) Juniper
7 31 (14.69%) Nokia
8 20 (9.48%) Arista
8 20 (9.48%) SolarWinds
9 16 (7.58%) Aruba
10 13 (6.16%) VMware
11 10 (4.74%) Meraki
12 8 (3.79%) Splunk
13 6 (2.84%) CheckPoint
13 6 (2.84%) ServiceNow
14 5 (2.37%) Ciena
15 4 (1.90%) Google
15 4 (1.90%) LogicMonitor
15 4 (1.90%) Riverbed
16 3 (1.42%) Forcepoint