Job Vacancy Trend Daily Rate Trend Daily Rate Histogram Hourly Rate Trend Hourly Rate Histogram Job Locations Skill Sets
Period
to 26 September 2021

The following table provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for MPLS skills. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that have cited MPLS over the 6 months to 26 September 2021 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

Note that daily and hourly rates are treated separately in these statistics. When calculating contractor rate percentiles, daily rates are never derived from quoted hourly rates or vice versa.

Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS)
UK
6 months to
26 Sep 2021		 Same period 2020 Same period 2019
Rank 501 351 398
Rank change year-on-year -150 +47 +49
Contract jobs citing MPLS 323 160 523
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.41% 0.54% 0.59%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 3.61% 4.02% 4.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 190 97 311
10th Percentile £325 £276 £250
25th Percentile £400 £363 £333
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £425 £410
Median % change year-on-year +11.76% +3.66% -3.53%
75th Percentile £550 £488 £488
90th Percentile £576 £575 £550
UK excluding London median daily rate £413 £450 £398
% change year-on-year -8.33% +13.21% -1.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 8 21
10th Percentile £19.75 £16.48 £15.50
25th Percentile £21.06 £18.13 £16.25
Median hourly rate £32.85 £19.75 £18.06
Median % change year-on-year +66.30% +9.39% -4.97%
75th Percentile £47.91 £32.81 £47.50
90th Percentile £48.66 £41.10 £48.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.50 £19.50 £17.50
% change year-on-year +15.38% +11.43% -7.89%

MPLS is in the Communications and Computer Networking category. The following table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills.

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
UK
Contract vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 8,954 3,984 11,623
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 11.26% 13.52% 13.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,751 2,487 7,218
10th Percentile £225 £210 £200
25th Percentile £363 £325 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £438 £425
Median % change year-on-year +8.57% +2.94% -
75th Percentile £575 £538 £525
90th Percentile £656 £625 £610
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £410 £400
% change year-on-year +3.66% +2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 398 187 603
10th Percentile £12.00 £13.25 £13.00
25th Percentile £14.31 £17.50 £16.25
Median hourly rate £22.00 £31.00 £25.12
Median % change year-on-year -29.03% +23.41% +32.21%
75th Percentile £47.87 £46.58 £46.00
90th Percentile £65.00 £54.25 £52.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.00 £27.50 £23.17
% change year-on-year -27.27% +18.71% +23.28%

MPLS
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing MPLS as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for MPLS in the UK

MPLS
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing MPLS.

Daily rate trend for MPLS in the UK

MPLS
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing MPLS over the 6 months to 26 September 2021.

Daily rate histogram for MPLS in the UK

MPLS
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing MPLS.

Hourly rate trend for MPLS in the UK

MPLS
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing MPLS over the 6 months to 26 September 2021.

Hourly rate histogram for MPLS in the UK

MPLS
Top 14 Contract 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 September 2021. 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
Job
Vacancies
England -135 263 £463 +8.82% 97
UK excluding London -119 133 £413 -8.33% 70
London -109 130 £516 +21.47% 33
Work from Home -196 92 £494 +9.72% 18
South East -70 55 £410 -8.89% 17
Midlands -75 26 £363 -12.12% 14
West Midlands -70 16 £231 -35.99% 6
East of England -37 15 £325 -5.87% 6
North of England -66 15 £475 +22.58% 20
Scotland -81 12 £450 +99.78% 6
East Midlands -37 10 £425 -15.00% 7
South West -47 10 £463 - 7
North West -52 10 £475 +26.67% 12
Yorkshire -42 5 £388 -3.13% 6

For the 6 months to 26 September 2021, IT contractor jobs citing MPLS also mentioned the following skills in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads with a requirement for MPLS.

1 214 (66.25%) Cisco
2 179 (55.42%) BGP
3 152 (47.06%) Firewall
4 126 (39.01%) WAN
5 108 (33.44%) VPN
6 107 (33.13%) Cisco Certification
7 98 (30.34%) LAN
8 94 (29.10%) OSPF
9 77 (23.84%) Juniper
10 73 (22.60%) Security Cleared
11 72 (22.29%) CCNP
11 72 (22.29%) Telecoms
12 69 (21.36%) Social Skills
13 68 (21.05%) Data Centre
14 67 (20.74%) VLAN
14 67 (20.74%) Network Design
15 63 (19.50%) Network Security
16 56 (17.34%) SC Cleared
17 54 (16.72%) Azure
17 54 (16.72%) VMware
17 54 (16.72%) DNS
18 51 (15.79%) Wireless
19 49 (15.17%) SD-WAN
20 44 (13.62%) F5
21 42 (13.00%) IPsec
22 39 (12.07%) CCIE
22 39 (12.07%) Nokia
23 38 (11.76%) Migration
23 38 (11.76%) Multicast
24 37 (11.46%) VMware Infrastructure

MPLS
Co-occurring IT Skills by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same job type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 10 (3.10%) OpenStack
2 9 (2.79%) MS Exchange
3 7 (2.17%) Confluence
4 5 (1.55%) NetWeaver
5 4 (1.24%) JBoss
5 4 (1.24%) WebSphere
6 3 (0.93%) Elasticsearch
7 1 (0.31%) IIS
7 1 (0.31%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 15 (4.64%) Microsoft Office
2 9 (2.79%) MS Visio
3 8 (2.48%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 2 (0.62%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 54 (16.72%) Azure
2 33 (10.22%) AWS
2 33 (10.22%) Microsoft 365
3 10 (3.10%) Azure ExpressRoute
3 10 (3.10%) SaaS
4 8 (2.48%) Mimecast
5 6 (1.86%) IaaS
5 6 (1.86%) PaaS
6 5 (1.55%) Azure Cosmos DB
6 5 (1.55%) Cloud Computing
6 5 (1.55%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 3 (0.93%) GCP
8 2 (0.62%) Amazon ELB
8 2 (0.62%) Power Platform
8 2 (0.62%) PowerApps
9 1 (0.31%) Azure Active Directory
9 1 (0.31%) Google Sheets
9 1 (0.31%) Lucidchart
9 1 (0.31%) OneDrive
9 1 (0.31%) Smartsheet
Communications & Networking
1 179 (55.42%) BGP
2 152 (47.06%) Firewall
3 126 (39.01%) WAN
4 108 (33.44%) VPN
5 98 (30.34%) LAN
6 94 (29.10%) OSPF
7 67 (20.74%) VLAN
8 63 (19.50%) Network Security
9 54 (16.72%) DNS
10 51 (15.79%) Wireless
11 49 (15.17%) SD-WAN
12 42 (13.00%) IPsec
13 38 (11.76%) Multicast
14 37 (11.46%) TCP/IP
15 36 (11.15%) EIGRP
15 36 (11.15%) Internet
16 35 (10.84%) Ethernet
16 35 (10.84%) IPv4
17 34 (10.53%) VPLS
18 33 (10.22%) HSRP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (2.17%) SQL Server
2 5 (1.55%) Azure SQL Database
2 5 (1.55%) DB2
2 5 (1.55%) MySQL
2 5 (1.55%) SAP HANA
3 2 (0.62%) Power BI
4 1 (0.31%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
4 1 (0.31%) Big Data
4 1 (0.31%) Data Lake
4 1 (0.31%) Data Warehouse
4 1 (0.31%) PostgreSQL
4 1 (0.31%) Relational Database
4 1 (0.31%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 3 (0.93%) Git (software)
1 3 (0.93%) Sonatype Nexus
2 1 (0.31%) PowerDesigner
2 1 (0.31%) VSS/SourceSafe
General
1 72 (22.29%) Telecoms
2 69 (21.36%) Social Skills
3 30 (9.29%) Finance
4 14 (4.33%) Documentation Skills
5 10 (3.10%) Analytical Skills
6 9 (2.79%) Presentation Skills
7 5 (1.55%) Organisational Skills
7 5 (1.55%) Retail
8 3 (0.93%) Aerospace
8 3 (0.93%) Banking
8 3 (0.93%) Spanish Language
9 2 (0.62%) Billing
9 2 (0.62%) French Language
9 2 (0.62%) German Language
9 2 (0.62%) Influencing Skills
9 2 (0.62%) Italian Language
9 2 (0.62%) Legal
9 2 (0.62%) Local Government
10 1 (0.31%) Marketing
10 1 (0.31%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 132 (40.87%) Network Engineer
2 57 (17.65%) Architect
3 33 (10.22%) IP Engineer
4 27 (8.36%) Design Engineer
5 26 (8.05%) Network Architect
6 23 (7.12%) Cisco Engineer
7 22 (6.81%) Designer
8 17 (5.26%) Network Design Engineer
8 17 (5.26%) Senior Network Engineer
9 16 (4.95%) Cisco Network Engineer
9 16 (4.95%) IP Design Engineer
9 16 (4.95%) IP Network Engineer
10 15 (4.64%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 15 (4.64%) Network Designer
10 15 (4.64%) Project Manager
11 14 (4.33%) Solutions Architect
12 13 (4.02%) Consultant
12 13 (4.02%) Security Engineer
13 12 (3.72%) VMware Architect
14 11 (3.41%) Cloud Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (2.48%) 802.1X
1 8 (2.48%) Spine.js
2 6 (1.86%) JSON
3 5 (1.55%) Jinja
3 5 (1.55%) SAP Basis
3 5 (1.55%) XML
4 4 (1.24%) Middleware
4 4 (1.24%) XMPP
5 1 (0.31%) CSS
5 1 (0.31%) OAuth
5 1 (0.31%) OpenID
5 1 (0.31%) SAML
5 1 (0.31%) Twisted
Miscellaneous
1 68 (21.05%) Data Centre
2 18 (5.57%) Hybrid Cloud
2 18 (5.57%) PKI
3 14 (4.33%) Public Cloud
4 11 (3.41%) Fibre Optics
5 10 (3.10%) CCTV
6 8 (2.48%) SCADA
7 7 (2.17%) Fat Client
7 7 (2.17%) Thin Client
8 6 (1.86%) Management Information System
9 5 (1.55%) Video Conferencing
10 4 (1.24%) Virtual Team
11 3 (0.93%) BYOD
11 3 (0.93%) Mobile App
11 3 (0.93%) Self-Motivation
11 3 (0.93%) User Experience
12 2 (0.62%) Driving Licence
12 2 (0.62%) Greenfield Project
12 2 (0.62%) iPad
13 1 (0.31%) HP StoreVirtual
Operating Systems
1 36 (11.15%) Windows
2 24 (7.43%) Linux
3 12 (3.72%) Windows Server
4 9 (2.79%) Unix
4 9 (2.79%) Windows 10
5 7 (2.17%) Windows 7
6 5 (1.55%) AIX
7 4 (1.24%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 4 (1.24%) Ubuntu
8 3 (0.93%) Android
8 3 (0.93%) Apple iOS
8 3 (0.93%) Windows Server 2012
8 3 (0.93%) Windows Server 2019
9 2 (0.62%) Windows Server 2016
10 1 (0.31%) CentOS
10 1 (0.31%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 67 (20.74%) Network Design
2 38 (11.76%) Migration
3 32 (9.91%) Agile Software Development
4 29 (8.98%) ITIL
5 25 (7.74%) Network Architecture
6 24 (7.43%) Stakeholder Management
7 23 (7.12%) Project Delivery
8 22 (6.81%) DevOps
8 22 (6.81%) Network Management
9 21 (6.50%) Computer Science
10 20 (6.19%) Change Management
11 19 (5.88%) Problem-Solving
12 18 (5.57%) PRINCE2
13 17 (5.26%) Network Virtualisation
14 16 (4.95%) Load Balancing
14 16 (4.95%) Project Management
15 15 (4.64%) Infrastructure Engineering
16 14 (4.33%) Email Migration
17 13 (4.02%) Network Monitoring
17 13 (4.02%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 30 (9.29%) Python
2 8 (2.48%) SQL
3 5 (1.55%) PowerShell
4 4 (1.24%) C
4 4 (1.24%) Perl
5 2 (0.62%) T-SQL
6 1 (0.31%) Java
Qualifications
1 107 (33.13%) Cisco Certification
2 73 (22.60%) Security Cleared
3 72 (22.29%) CCNP
4 56 (17.34%) SC Cleared
5 39 (12.07%) CCIE
6 32 (9.91%) Degree
7 31 (9.60%) CCNA
8 17 (5.26%) CCIE Service Provider
9 12 (3.72%) CCDP
10 10 (3.10%) JNCIP
11 5 (1.55%) ITIL Certification
11 5 (1.55%) JNCIS
12 4 (1.24%) CCDE
12 4 (1.24%) CCIE Routing and Switching
12 4 (1.24%) CISSP
13 3 (0.93%) BC Cleared
13 3 (0.93%) BPSS Clearance
13 3 (0.93%) CCIP
13 3 (0.93%) Computer Science Degree
13 3 (0.93%) JNCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (4.33%) SLA
2 8 (2.48%) PCI DSS
3 6 (1.86%) GDPR
4 5 (1.55%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 5 (1.55%) QA
5 4 (1.24%) COBIT
6 2 (0.62%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 1 (0.31%) ISO 22301
7 1 (0.31%) ISO 9001
7 1 (0.31%) NIST
System Software
1 37 (11.46%) VMware Infrastructure
2 33 (10.22%) Active Directory
3 21 (6.50%) VMware NSX
4 6 (1.86%) Docker
4 6 (1.86%) VMware ESXi
5 5 (1.55%) KVM
6 2 (0.62%) Firmware
6 2 (0.62%) pfSense
7 1 (0.31%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.31%) LXC
7 1 (0.31%) Shibboleth
7 1 (0.31%) vSphere
7 1 (0.31%) Xen
Systems Management
1 26 (8.05%) Ansible
2 12 (3.72%) vRealize Orchestrator
3 11 (3.41%) FortiGate
4 9 (2.79%) SCCM
4 9 (2.79%) vRealize
5 8 (2.48%) Nagios
6 7 (2.17%) Cisco CUCM
6 7 (2.17%) Terraform
7 5 (1.55%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 5 (1.55%) StackStorm
8 4 (1.24%) Cisco Prime
8 4 (1.24%) Kubernetes
9 3 (0.93%) Prometheus
9 3 (0.93%) SolarWinds Orion
9 3 (0.93%) ZABBIX
10 2 (0.62%) Cisco CME
10 2 (0.62%) Cisco UCCX
10 2 (0.62%) QRadar
10 2 (0.62%) WhatsUp Gold
11 1 (0.31%) SCOM
Vendors
1 214 (66.25%) Cisco
2 77 (23.84%) Juniper
3 54 (16.72%) VMware
4 44 (13.62%) F5
5 39 (12.07%) Nokia
6 35 (10.84%) Microsoft
7 30 (9.29%) Citrix
7 30 (9.29%) Meraki
8 29 (8.98%) Fortinet
9 28 (8.67%) CheckPoint
10 22 (6.81%) Palo Alto
11 17 (5.26%) SolarWinds
12 13 (4.02%) Red Hat
13 11 (3.41%) Aruba
14 9 (2.79%) HP
14 9 (2.79%) Huawei
15 8 (2.48%) ADVA
15 8 (2.48%) Arista
15 8 (2.48%) BT
16 7 (2.17%) Okta