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

6 months to
28 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 466 385 317
Rank change year-on-year -81 -68 +85
Contract jobs citing MPLS 206 162 273
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.39% 0.49% 0.68%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 4.14% 4.10% 5.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 136 111 149
10th Percentile £301 £325 £287
25th Percentile £400 £428 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £400
Median % change year-on-year - +25.00% -20.00%
75th Percentile £550 £600 £551
90th Percentile £632 £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 - - -55.80%

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 4,975 3,951 4,930
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.41% 12.06% 12.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,982 2,418 2,984
10th Percentile £250 £235 £213
25th Percentile £400 £375 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.41% -2.35% -
75th Percentile £588 £589 £608
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £489 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +2.95% -5.00% +8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 335 194 348
10th Percentile £16.00 £14.99 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.34 £25.15 £17.95
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 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.66 £44.00 £50.00
% change year-on-year -39.41% -12.00% -13.04%

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 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 28 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 28 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 -108 150 £511 +2.25% 30
UK excluding London -39 140 £500 +11.11% 31
South East -40 57 £525 +16.67% 5
Work from Home -68 48 £450 -10.00% 8
London -83 45 £450 -14.29% 11
Scotland +23 41 £310 -39.51% 12
South West -32 17 £525 -16.00% 4
North of England -86 10 £575 +21.05% 6
Midlands -62 9 £440 +0.63% 4
North West -60 7 £588 +23.68% 3
West Midlands -65 7 £440 +0.63% 4
East of England - 7 £500 -
Yorkshire -41 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 (4.37%) OpenStack
2 5 (2.43%) Microsoft Exchange
3 4 (1.94%) Confluence
Applications
1 24 (11.65%) MS Visio
2 12 (5.83%) Microsoft Office
3 8 (3.88%) Microsoft Excel
4 6 (2.91%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 3 (1.46%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.49%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 2 (0.97%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 36 (17.48%) Azure
2 24 (11.65%) AWS
3 12 (5.83%) GCP
4 8 (3.88%) Entra ID
5 5 (2.43%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 4 (1.94%) AWS Direct Connect
6 4 (1.94%) IaaS
6 4 (1.94%) Microsoft 365
6 4 (1.94%) OpenShift
7 2 (0.97%) Azure DevOps
7 2 (0.97%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 2 (0.97%) GitHub
7 2 (0.97%) Mimecast
7 2 (0.97%) Power Platform
8 1 (0.49%) Azure Sentinel
8 1 (0.49%) Cloud Functions
8 1 (0.49%) Cloud Run
8 1 (0.49%) GitHub Actions
8 1 (0.49%) Google Kubernetes Engine
8 1 (0.49%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 144 (69.90%) WAN
2 107 (51.94%) BGP
3 105 (50.97%) LAN
4 96 (46.60%) Firewall
5 63 (30.58%) OSPF
6 53 (25.73%) Network Security
7 52 (25.24%) SD-WAN
7 52 (25.24%) VPN
8 39 (18.93%) IPsec
9 29 (14.08%) Cisco Nexus
10 22 (10.68%) SDH
10 22 (10.68%) VLAN
11 20 (9.71%) Ethernet VPN
11 20 (9.71%) Wi-Fi
11 20 (9.71%) Wireshark
12 19 (9.22%) Cisco ASA
12 19 (9.22%) Wireless
13 18 (8.74%) TCP/IP
13 18 (8.74%) VXLAN
14 17 (8.25%) DNS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (0.97%) Power BI
1 2 (0.97%) Tableau
2 1 (0.49%) BigQuery
2 1 (0.49%) Cloud Spanner
Development Applications
1 8 (3.88%) JIRA
2 6 (2.91%) Sonatype Nexus
3 5 (2.43%) Git
4 2 (0.97%) GitLab
4 2 (0.97%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.49%) Bitbucket
General
1 71 (34.47%) Telecoms
2 60 (29.13%) Social Skills
3 33 (16.02%) Analytical Skills
4 19 (9.22%) Finance
5 13 (6.31%) Documentation Skills
6 9 (4.37%) Legal
7 8 (3.88%) Organisational Skills
8 7 (3.40%) Financial Institution
9 5 (2.43%) Law
9 5 (2.43%) Public Sector
10 4 (1.94%) Military
11 3 (1.46%) Billing
11 3 (1.46%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 3 (1.46%) Influencing Skills
11 3 (1.46%) Manufacturing
11 3 (1.46%) Presentation Skills
11 3 (1.46%) Retail
12 2 (0.97%) Banking
12 2 (0.97%) Investment Banking
13 1 (0.49%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 71 (34.47%) Network Engineer
2 38 (18.45%) Architect
3 27 (13.11%) Network Architect
4 23 (11.17%) Telecoms Engineer
5 20 (9.71%) Senior
6 16 (7.77%) Developer
6 16 (7.77%) Field Engineer
7 13 (6.31%) Field Telecoms Engineer
8 11 (5.34%) Network Field Engineer
8 11 (5.34%) Project Engineer
9 9 (4.37%) Lead
9 9 (4.37%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
10 7 (3.40%) IP Engineer
10 7 (3.40%) Project Manager
10 7 (3.40%) Security Engineer
10 7 (3.40%) Test Engineer
11 6 (2.91%) Consultant
11 6 (2.91%) Network Consultant
11 6 (2.91%) Senior Network Engineer
11 6 (2.91%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (5.34%) NETCONF
1 11 (5.34%) REST
1 11 (5.34%) YANG
2 8 (3.88%) 802.1X
3 6 (2.91%) OpenConfig
3 6 (2.91%) RESTCONF
4 4 (1.94%) Jinja
5 3 (1.46%) Java RMI
5 3 (1.46%) LDAP
6 2 (0.97%) RFC 2544
7 1 (0.49%) JSON
7 1 (0.49%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 41 (19.90%) Data Centre
2 22 (10.68%) Hybrid Cloud
3 12 (5.83%) Cloud Native
3 12 (5.83%) Driving Licence
4 9 (4.37%) Analytical Mindset
5 8 (3.88%) Data Protection Act
5 8 (3.88%) PKI
5 8 (3.88%) Private Cloud
6 6 (2.91%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
7 5 (2.43%) Management Information System
7 5 (2.43%) Operational Technology
7 5 (2.43%) Public Cloud
8 4 (1.94%) Self-Motivation
9 3 (1.46%) Fibre Optics
9 3 (1.46%) SCADA
10 2 (0.97%) Onboarding
10 2 (0.97%) Security Posture
10 2 (0.97%) Wiki
11 1 (0.49%) Greenfield Project
11 1 (0.49%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 12 (5.83%) Linux
2 11 (5.34%) Windows
3 6 (2.91%) Windows Server
4 5 (2.43%) Unix
5 3 (1.46%) Ubuntu
5 3 (1.46%) Windows Server 2012
6 1 (0.49%) VMS
6 1 (0.49%) Windows Server 2016
6 1 (0.49%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 47 (22.82%) Project Delivery
2 33 (16.02%) Problem-Solving
3 26 (12.62%) Network Design
4 24 (11.65%) Change Management
4 24 (11.65%) Network Architecture
5 22 (10.68%) Migration
5 22 (10.68%) Zero Trust
6 21 (10.19%) Agile
6 21 (10.19%) ITIL
6 21 (10.19%) Roadmaps
6 21 (10.19%) Stakeholder Management
6 21 (10.19%) Technical Leadership
7 18 (8.74%) Network Segmentation
8 17 (8.25%) DevOps
9 16 (7.77%) AI
10 13 (6.31%) Continuous Improvement
10 13 (6.31%) Incident Management
10 13 (6.31%) Network Monitoring
10 13 (6.31%) TOGAF
10 13 (6.31%) Vulnerability Management
Programming Languages
1 37 (17.96%) Python
2 4 (1.94%) PowerShell
2 4 (1.94%) SQL
3 3 (1.46%) Bash
3 3 (1.46%) PHP
4 2 (0.97%) C
4 2 (0.97%) Perl
Qualifications
1 71 (34.47%) Security Cleared
2 62 (30.10%) Cisco Certification
3 37 (17.96%) CCNP
4 36 (17.48%) SC Cleared
5 32 (15.53%) DV Cleared
6 30 (14.56%) CCIE
7 21 (10.19%) CCNA
8 13 (6.31%) Degree
8 13 (6.31%) JNCIE
9 6 (2.91%) BPSS Clearance
10 4 (1.94%) AWS Certification
10 4 (1.94%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 3 (1.46%) APMG
11 3 (1.46%) CCDP
11 3 (1.46%) GIAC
11 3 (1.46%) ISTQB
11 3 (1.46%) ITIL Certification
11 3 (1.46%) JNCIP
11 3 (1.46%) PMP
11 3 (1.46%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (4.85%) SLA
2 8 (3.88%) NCSC
3 6 (2.91%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 6 (2.91%) NIST
4 3 (1.46%) Cyber Essentials
4 3 (1.46%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
4 3 (1.46%) QA
5 2 (0.97%) GDPR
5 2 (0.97%) Government Security Classifications
5 2 (0.97%) PCI DSS
6 1 (0.49%) HMG Security Policy Framework
6 1 (0.49%) NIST 800
6 1 (0.49%) PMO
System Software
1 10 (4.85%) Active Directory
1 10 (4.85%) VMware Infrastructure
2 7 (3.40%) VMware NSX
3 4 (1.94%) VMware ESXi
4 2 (0.97%) Docker
4 2 (0.97%) Firmware
4 2 (0.97%) Hyper-V
4 2 (0.97%) VMware Workstation
5 1 (0.49%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 37 (17.96%) Ansible
2 11 (5.34%) Terraform
3 7 (3.40%) Cisco Prime
4 6 (2.91%) FortiGate
5 4 (1.94%) Grafana
5 4 (1.94%) Prometheus
6 3 (1.46%) Microsoft Intune
6 3 (1.46%) Salt
6 3 (1.46%) vCenter Server
7 2 (0.97%) Kubernetes
7 2 (0.97%) SCOM
8 1 (0.49%) Avamar
8 1 (0.49%) CASB
8 1 (0.49%) Cisco CUCM
8 1 (0.49%) Iperf
8 1 (0.49%) Progress Chef
8 1 (0.49%) Puppet
8 1 (0.49%) QRadar
8 1 (0.49%) SolarWinds Orion
8 1 (0.49%) Suricata
Vendors
1 130 (63.11%) Cisco
2 50 (24.27%) Palo Alto
3 43 (20.87%) F5
4 41 (19.90%) Microsoft
5 38 (18.45%) Juniper
6 37 (17.96%) Fortinet
7 22 (10.68%) Aruba
7 22 (10.68%) Nokia
8 21 (10.19%) CheckPoint
8 21 (10.19%) VMware
9 20 (9.71%) SolarWinds
10 14 (6.80%) Arista
11 11 (5.34%) Meraki
12 7 (3.40%) ServiceNow
12 7 (3.40%) Splunk
13 4 (1.94%) BigPanda
13 4 (1.94%) Google
13 4 (1.94%) HP
14 3 (1.46%) Citrix
14 3 (1.46%) LogicMonitor