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 26 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 459 385 317
Rank change year-on-year -74 -68 +93
Contract jobs citing MPLS 211 167 278
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.40% 0.51% 0.69%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 4.21% 4.18% 5.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 140 115 152
10th Percentile £300 £325 £289
25th Percentile £400 £428 £359
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £500 £405
Median % change year-on-year -1.00% +23.46% -19.00%
75th Percentile £550 £600 £541
90th Percentile £638 £649 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £450 £375
% change year-on-year +11.11% +20.00% -11.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 2 11
10th Percentile £22.53 £36.63 £14.00
25th Percentile £29.88 £37.19 £15.81
Median hourly rate £42.25 £38.75 £22.40
Median % change year-on-year +9.03% +72.99% -59.51%
75th Percentile £42.38 £39.69 £25.00
90th Percentile - £39.88 £40.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.25 - £17.75
% change year-on-year - - -29.00%

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 5,009 3,994 4,984
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.44% 12.13% 12.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,016 2,446 3,005
10th Percentile £250 £235 £215
25th Percentile £400 £374 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.41% -2.35% -
75th Percentile £588 £588 £607
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +3.16% -5.00% +9.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 333 194 358
10th Percentile £16.00 £14.99 £14.11
25th Percentile £19.34 £25.15 £17.69
Median hourly rate £26.44 £48.75 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -45.76% +8.33% -10.00%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £83.70 £74.13
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.66 £44.00 £50.00
% change year-on-year -39.41% -12.00% -11.49%

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 26 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 26 July 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 26 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 -106 154 £510 +2.00% 26
UK excluding London -49 143 £500 +11.11% 26
South East -45 59 £525 +16.67% 6
Work from Home -61 51 £450 -10.00% 7
London -89 46 £450 -10.89% 10
Scotland +25 41 £310 -39.51% 10
South West -34 17 £525 -16.00% 2
Midlands -60 10 £468 +6.97% 3
North of England -91 10 £575 +21.05% 5
West Midlands -65 8 £468 +6.97% 3
North West -61 7 £588 +23.68% 2
East of England - 7 £500 -
Yorkshire -46 3 £483 +37.86% 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 9 (4.27%) OpenStack
2 5 (2.37%) Microsoft Exchange
3 4 (1.90%) Confluence
Applications
1 24 (11.37%) MS Visio
2 12 (5.69%) Microsoft Office
3 8 (3.79%) Microsoft Excel
4 6 (2.84%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 3 (1.42%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.47%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 2 (0.95%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 37 (17.54%) Azure
2 24 (11.37%) AWS
3 12 (5.69%) GCP
4 10 (4.74%) Entra ID
5 6 (2.84%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 5 (2.37%) Microsoft 365
7 4 (1.90%) AWS Direct Connect
7 4 (1.90%) IaaS
7 4 (1.90%) OpenShift
8 3 (1.42%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 2 (0.95%) Azure DevOps
9 2 (0.95%) Azure Sentinel
9 2 (0.95%) GitHub
9 2 (0.95%) Mimecast
9 2 (0.95%) Power Platform
10 1 (0.47%) Amazon ELB
10 1 (0.47%) Google Compute Engine
10 1 (0.47%) PaaS
10 1 (0.47%) Route 53
10 1 (0.47%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 145 (68.72%) WAN
2 111 (52.61%) BGP
3 106 (50.24%) LAN
4 100 (47.39%) Firewall
5 68 (32.23%) OSPF
6 56 (26.54%) VPN
7 55 (26.07%) Network Security
8 53 (25.12%) SD-WAN
9 39 (18.48%) IPsec
10 29 (13.74%) Cisco Nexus
11 24 (11.37%) VLAN
12 22 (10.43%) SDH
13 21 (9.95%) Cisco ASA
13 21 (9.95%) Wireshark
14 20 (9.48%) Ethernet VPN
14 20 (9.48%) TCP/IP
14 20 (9.48%) Wi-Fi
15 19 (9.00%) Wireless
16 18 (8.53%) VXLAN
17 17 (8.06%) DNS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (0.95%) Power BI
1 2 (0.95%) Tableau
2 1 (0.47%) BigQuery
2 1 (0.47%) Cloud Spanner
Development Applications
1 7 (3.32%) JIRA
2 6 (2.84%) Sonatype Nexus
3 5 (2.37%) Git
4 2 (0.95%) GitLab
4 2 (0.95%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.47%) AppScan
5 1 (0.47%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.47%) Burp Suite
5 1 (0.47%) Metasploit
General
1 72 (34.12%) Telecoms
2 62 (29.38%) Social Skills
3 33 (15.64%) Analytical Skills
4 21 (9.95%) Finance
5 14 (6.64%) Documentation Skills
6 9 (4.27%) Legal
7 8 (3.79%) Financial Institution
7 8 (3.79%) Organisational Skills
8 5 (2.37%) Law
8 5 (2.37%) Public Sector
9 4 (1.90%) Military
10 3 (1.42%) Billing
10 3 (1.42%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 3 (1.42%) Influencing Skills
10 3 (1.42%) Manufacturing
10 3 (1.42%) Presentation Skills
10 3 (1.42%) Retail
11 2 (0.95%) Aviation
11 2 (0.95%) Banking
11 2 (0.95%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 72 (34.12%) Network Engineer
2 39 (18.48%) Architect
3 27 (12.80%) Network Architect
4 23 (10.90%) Telecoms Engineer
5 21 (9.95%) Senior
6 16 (7.58%) Field Engineer
7 15 (7.11%) Developer
8 13 (6.16%) Field Telecoms Engineer
9 11 (5.21%) Network Field Engineer
9 11 (5.21%) Project Engineer
10 9 (4.27%) Lead
10 9 (4.27%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
11 8 (3.79%) Network Manager
12 7 (3.32%) Consultant
12 7 (3.32%) IP Engineer
12 7 (3.32%) Project Manager
12 7 (3.32%) Security Engineer
12 7 (3.32%) Test Engineer
13 6 (2.84%) Cisco Network Engineer
13 6 (2.84%) Juniper Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (5.21%) NETCONF
1 11 (5.21%) REST
1 11 (5.21%) YANG
2 8 (3.79%) 802.1X
3 6 (2.84%) OpenConfig
3 6 (2.84%) RESTCONF
4 4 (1.90%) Jinja
5 3 (1.42%) Java RMI
5 3 (1.42%) LDAP
6 2 (0.95%) RFC 2544
7 1 (0.47%) JSON
7 1 (0.47%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 42 (19.91%) Data Centre
2 22 (10.43%) Hybrid Cloud
3 12 (5.69%) Cloud Native
3 12 (5.69%) Driving Licence
4 9 (4.27%) Analytical Mindset
5 8 (3.79%) Data Protection Act
5 8 (3.79%) PKI
5 8 (3.79%) Private Cloud
6 6 (2.84%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
6 6 (2.84%) Management Information System
6 6 (2.84%) Operational Technology
7 5 (2.37%) Public Cloud
8 4 (1.90%) SCADA
8 4 (1.90%) Self-Motivation
9 3 (1.42%) Fibre Optics
9 3 (1.42%) Security Posture
10 2 (0.95%) Onboarding
10 2 (0.95%) Wiki
11 1 (0.47%) Enterprise Cloud
11 1 (0.47%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 13 (6.16%) Linux
2 12 (5.69%) Windows
3 6 (2.84%) Windows Server
4 5 (2.37%) Unix
5 3 (1.42%) Ubuntu
5 3 (1.42%) 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 48 (22.75%) Project Delivery
2 35 (16.59%) Problem-Solving
3 27 (12.80%) Network Design
4 26 (12.32%) Change Management
5 24 (11.37%) Migration
5 24 (11.37%) Network Architecture
6 23 (10.90%) Zero Trust
7 22 (10.43%) ITIL
8 21 (9.95%) Agile
8 21 (9.95%) Roadmaps
8 21 (9.95%) Stakeholder Management
8 21 (9.95%) Technical Leadership
9 18 (8.53%) Network Segmentation
10 17 (8.06%) DevOps
11 16 (7.58%) AI
12 15 (7.11%) Disaster Recovery
13 14 (6.64%) Continuous Improvement
13 14 (6.64%) Incident Management
13 14 (6.64%) Project Management
14 13 (6.16%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 38 (18.01%) Python
2 4 (1.90%) Bash
2 4 (1.90%) PowerShell
2 4 (1.90%) SQL
3 3 (1.42%) PHP
4 2 (0.95%) C
4 2 (0.95%) Perl
5 1 (0.47%) Lisp
Qualifications
1 72 (34.12%) Security Cleared
2 63 (29.86%) Cisco Certification
3 38 (18.01%) CCNP
3 38 (18.01%) SC Cleared
4 31 (14.69%) CCIE
4 31 (14.69%) DV Cleared
5 21 (9.95%) CCNA
6 13 (6.16%) Degree
6 13 (6.16%) JNCIE
7 6 (2.84%) BPSS Clearance
8 4 (1.90%) AWS Certification
8 4 (1.90%) ISTQB
8 4 (1.90%) PMP
8 4 (1.90%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 3 (1.42%) BC Cleared
9 3 (1.42%) CCDP
9 3 (1.42%) GIAC
9 3 (1.42%) ITIL Certification
9 3 (1.42%) JNCIP
9 3 (1.42%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (4.74%) SLA
2 9 (4.27%) NCSC
3 7 (3.32%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 7 (3.32%) NIST
4 4 (1.90%) QA
5 3 (1.42%) Cyber Essentials
5 3 (1.42%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 3 (1.42%) GDPR
5 3 (1.42%) PCI DSS
6 2 (0.95%) Government Security Classifications
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
System Software
1 11 (5.21%) Active Directory
2 10 (4.74%) VMware Infrastructure
3 7 (3.32%) VMware NSX
4 4 (1.90%) VMware ESXi
5 2 (0.95%) Docker
5 2 (0.95%) Firmware
5 2 (0.95%) Hyper-V
5 2 (0.95%) VMware Workstation
6 1 (0.47%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 39 (18.48%) Ansible
2 11 (5.21%) Terraform
3 8 (3.79%) Cisco Prime
4 6 (2.84%) FortiGate
5 4 (1.90%) Grafana
5 4 (1.90%) Microsoft Intune
5 4 (1.90%) Prometheus
6 3 (1.42%) Salt
6 3 (1.42%) vCenter Server
7 2 (0.95%) Iperf
7 2 (0.95%) Kubernetes
7 2 (0.95%) Nmap
7 2 (0.95%) Progress Chef
7 2 (0.95%) SCOM
8 1 (0.47%) Avamar
8 1 (0.47%) CASB
8 1 (0.47%) Cisco CUCM
8 1 (0.47%) Puppet
8 1 (0.47%) SolarWinds Orion
8 1 (0.47%) Suricata
Vendors
1 131 (62.09%) Cisco
2 52 (24.64%) Palo Alto
3 44 (20.85%) F5
4 41 (19.43%) Microsoft
5 39 (18.48%) Juniper
6 38 (18.01%) Fortinet
7 23 (10.90%) CheckPoint
8 22 (10.43%) Aruba
8 22 (10.43%) Nokia
9 21 (9.95%) SolarWinds
9 21 (9.95%) VMware
10 14 (6.64%) Arista
11 11 (5.21%) Meraki
12 8 (3.79%) Splunk
13 7 (3.32%) ServiceNow
14 4 (1.90%) BigPanda
14 4 (1.90%) Google
14 4 (1.90%) HP
14 4 (1.90%) Tufin
15 3 (1.42%) LogicMonitor