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

6 months to
16 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 447 340 302
Rank change year-on-year -107 -38 +114
Contract jobs citing MPLS 191 184 308
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.38% 0.62% 0.71%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 4.00% 4.98% 5.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 128 115 155
10th Percentile £263 £325 £286
25th Percentile £396 £425 £356
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £500 £400
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% +25.00% -17.70%
75th Percentile £543 £569 £575
90th Percentile £626 £649 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £450 £375
% change year-on-year +11.11% +20.00% -6.25%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 2 17
10th Percentile £22.53 £36.63 £14.00
25th Percentile £29.88 £37.19 £23.25
Median hourly rate £42.25 £38.75 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +9.03% -3.13% -35.48%
75th Percentile £42.38 £39.69 -
90th Percentile - £39.88 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.25 - £40.00
% change year-on-year - - -27.69%

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 4,780 3,698 5,392
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.52% 12.48% 12.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,930 2,273 3,186
10th Percentile £263 £220 £210
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £483 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.52% -3.40% -1.96%
75th Percentile £588 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £470 £488
% change year-on-year +2.13% -3.59% +2.63%
Number of hourly rates quoted 290 172 422
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.50
25th Percentile £21.25 £19.13 £17.69
Median hourly rate £27.69 £41.25 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -32.87% +3.13% +111.30%
75th Percentile £65.00 £60.41 £63.75
90th Percentile £74.26 £79.50 £71.19
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.25 £31.08 £47.50
% change year-on-year -2.67% -34.57% +156.76%

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 16 June 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 16 June 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 16 June 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 -127 154 £473 -5.50% 33
UK excluding London -89 111 £500 +11.11% 42
Work from Home -37 60 £450 -10.00% 23
London -101 54 £413 -17.50% 11
South East -40 53 £450 - 10
Scotland +6 18 £425 - 16
North of England -85 13 £490 +3.16% 9
South West -33 12 £538 -14.00% 2
North West -53 10 £575 +21.05% 4
Midlands -63 10 £413 +6.45% 2
West Midlands -66 8 £413 +6.45% 2
East of England -26 5 £500 - 2
Yorkshire -54 3 £483 +37.86% 5
Northern Ireland - 1 £385 - 2

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 6 (3.14%) OpenStack
2 5 (2.62%) Microsoft Exchange
3 4 (2.09%) Confluence
Applications
1 12 (6.28%) MS Visio
2 6 (3.14%) Microsoft Office
3 5 (2.62%) Microsoft Excel
4 3 (1.57%) AutoCAD
5 2 (1.05%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 1 (0.52%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 2 (1.05%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 33 (17.28%) Azure
2 19 (9.95%) AWS
3 12 (6.28%) Entra ID
4 10 (5.24%) GCP
5 7 (3.66%) Microsoft 365
6 6 (3.14%) IaaS
7 2 (1.05%) AWS Direct Connect
7 2 (1.05%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 2 (1.05%) Azure Sentinel
7 2 (1.05%) IBM Watson
7 2 (1.05%) Mimecast
7 2 (1.05%) Power Platform
8 1 (0.52%) Amazon ELB
8 1 (0.52%) Amazon GuardDuty
8 1 (0.52%) Amazon Macie
8 1 (0.52%) AWS CloudFormation
8 1 (0.52%) AWS CloudTrail
8 1 (0.52%) Azure DevOps
8 1 (0.52%) Route 53
8 1 (0.52%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 117 (61.26%) WAN
2 100 (52.36%) BGP
3 92 (48.17%) Firewall
4 75 (39.27%) LAN
5 66 (34.55%) OSPF
6 61 (31.94%) VPN
7 58 (30.37%) SD-WAN
8 53 (27.75%) Network Security
9 31 (16.23%) IPsec
10 30 (15.71%) VLAN
11 25 (13.09%) Ethernet VPN
12 24 (12.57%) Cisco ASA
13 23 (12.04%) VXLAN
13 23 (12.04%) Wireshark
14 22 (11.52%) Cisco Nexus
15 19 (9.95%) EIGRP
16 18 (9.42%) Multicast
16 18 (9.42%) Wireless
17 16 (8.38%) Cisco IOS
17 16 (8.38%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (1.05%) Power BI
1 2 (1.05%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 6 (3.14%) JIRA
2 4 (2.09%) Git
3 2 (1.05%) Sonatype Nexus
4 1 (0.52%) AppScan
4 1 (0.52%) Bitbucket
4 1 (0.52%) Burp Suite
4 1 (0.52%) Metasploit
General
1 49 (25.65%) Telecoms
2 46 (24.08%) Social Skills
3 25 (13.09%) Analytical Skills
4 24 (12.57%) Finance
5 12 (6.28%) Legal
6 9 (4.71%) Documentation Skills
6 9 (4.71%) Financial Institution
7 8 (4.19%) Law
8 7 (3.66%) Public Sector
9 5 (2.62%) Organisational Skills
10 4 (2.09%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 3 (1.57%) Billing
11 3 (1.57%) Manufacturing
11 3 (1.57%) Retail
12 2 (1.05%) Aviation
12 2 (1.05%) Banking
12 2 (1.05%) Influencing Skills
12 2 (1.05%) Investment Banking
12 2 (1.05%) Presentation Skills
13 1 (0.52%) Police
Job Titles
1 70 (36.65%) Network Engineer
2 31 (16.23%) Architect
3 21 (10.99%) Network Architect
3 21 (10.99%) Senior
4 10 (5.24%) Security Engineer
5 9 (4.71%) Network Manager
5 9 (4.71%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
6 7 (3.66%) Developer
6 7 (3.66%) IP Engineer
6 7 (3.66%) Test Engineer
7 6 (3.14%) Cisco Engineer
7 6 (3.14%) IP Architect
7 6 (3.14%) Project Manager
7 6 (3.14%) Senior Network Engineer
7 6 (3.14%) Solutions Architect
7 6 (3.14%) Telecoms Engineer
8 5 (2.62%) Core Network Engineer
8 5 (2.62%) IP Network Engineer
8 5 (2.62%) Juniper Engineer
8 5 (2.62%) Security Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (6.28%) REST
2 10 (5.24%) 802.1X
3 8 (4.19%) NETCONF
3 8 (4.19%) YANG
4 6 (3.14%) LDAP
5 4 (2.09%) Jinja
6 2 (1.05%) Django
6 2 (1.05%) OpenConfig
6 2 (1.05%) RESTCONF
6 2 (1.05%) RFC 2544
7 1 (0.52%) Java RMI
Miscellaneous
1 33 (17.28%) Data Centre
2 15 (7.85%) Data Protection Act
3 13 (6.81%) Hybrid Cloud
4 12 (6.28%) PKI
5 8 (4.19%) Cloud Native
6 7 (3.66%) Security Posture
7 6 (3.14%) Management Information System
7 6 (3.14%) Operational Technology
8 5 (2.62%) Analytical Mindset
8 5 (2.62%) Onboarding
9 4 (2.09%) SCADA
9 4 (2.09%) Virtual Team
10 3 (1.57%) CESG
10 3 (1.57%) Driving Licence
10 3 (1.57%) Fibre Optics
10 3 (1.57%) Public Cloud
10 3 (1.57%) Self-Motivation
11 2 (1.05%) Algorithms
11 2 (1.05%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
11 2 (1.05%) Wiki
Operating Systems
1 15 (7.85%) Linux
2 9 (4.71%) Windows
3 6 (3.14%) Ubuntu
4 5 (2.62%) Windows Server
5 4 (2.09%) Unix
6 1 (0.52%) Kali Linux
6 1 (0.52%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 29 (15.18%) Change Management
1 29 (15.18%) Project Delivery
2 27 (14.14%) Problem-Solving
3 26 (13.61%) Network Design
4 24 (12.57%) Migration
4 24 (12.57%) Technical Leadership
5 22 (11.52%) Stakeholder Management
6 21 (10.99%) Network Architecture
6 21 (10.99%) Network Segmentation
7 20 (10.47%) ITIL
7 20 (10.47%) Zero Trust
8 19 (9.95%) Roadmaps
9 17 (8.90%) Agile
9 17 (8.90%) Data Protection
10 16 (8.38%) DevOps
11 15 (7.85%) Cybersecurity
11 15 (7.85%) Root Cause Analysis
12 14 (7.33%) Incident Management
12 14 (7.33%) Network Monitoring
12 14 (7.33%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 34 (17.80%) Python
2 4 (2.09%) PHP
3 3 (1.57%) SQL
4 2 (1.05%) Bash
4 2 (1.05%) C
5 1 (0.52%) Lisp
5 1 (0.52%) Perl
5 1 (0.52%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 67 (35.08%) Security Cleared
2 52 (27.23%) SC Cleared
3 50 (26.18%) Cisco Certification
4 32 (16.75%) CCNP
5 27 (14.14%) CCIE
6 20 (10.47%) DV Cleared
7 12 (6.28%) CCNA
8 10 (5.24%) JNCIE
9 8 (4.19%) Degree
10 5 (2.62%) GIAC
11 4 (2.09%) APMG
11 4 (2.09%) CCDP
11 4 (2.09%) CompTIA Security+
11 4 (2.09%) ISTQB
11 4 (2.09%) JNCIP
11 4 (2.09%) PMP
11 4 (2.09%) SSCP
12 3 (1.57%) AWS Certification
12 3 (1.57%) BC Cleared
12 3 (1.57%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (4.71%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 9 (4.71%) NIST
2 8 (4.19%) NCSC
3 7 (3.66%) SLA
4 4 (2.09%) Cyber Essentials
4 4 (2.09%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
4 4 (2.09%) QA
5 3 (1.57%) GDPR
5 3 (1.57%) PCI DSS
5 3 (1.57%) RMADS
6 2 (1.05%) Government Security Classifications
6 2 (1.05%) JSP 440
7 1 (0.52%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (0.52%) COBIT
7 1 (0.52%) GRC
7 1 (0.52%) HMG Security Policy Framework
7 1 (0.52%) NIST 800
7 1 (0.52%) PMO
System Software
1 11 (5.76%) VMware Infrastructure
2 10 (5.24%) Active Directory
3 7 (3.66%) VMware ESXi
4 4 (2.09%) VMware NSX
5 2 (1.05%) Firmware
5 2 (1.05%) Hyper-V
5 2 (1.05%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 36 (18.85%) Ansible
2 9 (4.71%) Cisco Prime
3 6 (3.14%) Microsoft Intune
3 6 (3.14%) Terraform
3 6 (3.14%) vCenter Server
4 5 (2.62%) FortiGate
5 4 (2.09%) Grafana
5 4 (2.09%) Prometheus
6 3 (1.57%) Salt
6 3 (1.57%) SCOM
7 2 (1.05%) Iperf
7 2 (1.05%) Nmap
8 1 (0.52%) Avamar
8 1 (0.52%) CASB
8 1 (0.52%) Cisco CUCM
8 1 (0.52%) OPNET
8 1 (0.52%) Progress Chef
8 1 (0.52%) QRadar
8 1 (0.52%) SolarWinds Orion
8 1 (0.52%) Suricata
Vendors
1 107 (56.02%) Cisco
2 45 (23.56%) Palo Alto
3 36 (18.85%) Fortinet
4 32 (16.75%) F5
4 32 (16.75%) Juniper
5 24 (12.57%) CheckPoint
5 24 (12.57%) Microsoft
6 19 (9.95%) Aruba
7 18 (9.42%) Nokia
7 18 (9.42%) VMware
8 16 (8.38%) Arista
8 16 (8.38%) SolarWinds
9 11 (5.76%) Meraki
10 9 (4.71%) Splunk
11 7 (3.66%) ADVA
12 6 (3.14%) ServiceNow
12 6 (3.14%) Zscaler
13 5 (2.62%) NetScout
14 4 (2.09%) HP
14 4 (2.09%) Tufin