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

6 months to
13 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 478 393 337
Rank change year-on-year -85 -56 +3
Contract jobs citing MPLS 198 166 242
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.36% 0.50% 0.63%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 3.89% 4.35% 5.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 129 116 129
10th Percentile £300 £300 £361
25th Percentile £380 £411 £394
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -5.00% -1.96%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £600
90th Percentile £638 £649 £690
UK excluding London median daily rate £483 £450 £500
% change year-on-year +7.22% -10.00% +11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 2 5
10th Percentile £17.54 £36.63 £17.98
25th Percentile £17.59 £37.19 £18.50
Median hourly rate £30.00 £38.75 £22.40
Median % change year-on-year -22.58% +72.99% -66.05%
75th Percentile £44.03 £39.69 £24.18
90th Percentile £47.01 £39.88 £48.67
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.75 - £19.00
% change year-on-year - - -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 5,086 3,814 4,564
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.36% 11.59% 11.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,971 2,353 2,673
10th Percentile £235 £230 £230
25th Percentile £390 £363 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £480 £503
Median % change year-on-year +4.17% -4.48% +0.50%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £610
90th Percentile £675 £680 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £477 £455 £500
% change year-on-year +4.84% -9.00% +11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 400 199 265
10th Percentile £14.28 £15.29 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.33 £25.08 £21.37
Median hourly rate £26.72 £42.50 £51.50
Median % change year-on-year -37.13% -17.48% -8.83%
75th Percentile £65.88 £63.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.40 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.14 £42.50 £57.35
% change year-on-year -38.49% -25.89% -0.26%

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 13 September 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 13 September 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 13 September 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 -114 143 £500 +8.11% 64
UK excluding London -57 135 £483 +7.22% 32
South East -45 52 £480 +6.67% 12
Scotland +21 48 £305 -40.49% 2
London -96 48 £450 -14.29% 32
Work from Home -80 46 £450 -10.00% 23
South West -36 15 £525 -16.00% 6
North of England -77 9 £575 +27.78% 4
North West -62 7 £575 +28.21% 1
Midlands -64 7 £447 +11.63% 3
West Midlands -68 6 £447 +11.63% 3
East of England -18 4 £500 +66.67% 5
Yorkshire -40 2 £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 10 (5.05%) OpenStack
2 4 (2.02%) Confluence
3 2 (1.01%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 26 (13.13%) MS Visio
2 10 (5.05%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (3.54%) Microsoft Excel
4 4 (2.02%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 3 (1.52%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.51%) Microsoft Project
Cloud Services
1 36 (18.18%) Azure
2 31 (15.66%) AWS
3 10 (5.05%) GCP
4 6 (3.03%) AWS Direct Connect
5 5 (2.53%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 4 (2.02%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 4 (2.02%) OpenShift
7 3 (1.52%) Entra ID
8 2 (1.01%) GitHub
9 1 (0.51%) AWS CloudFormation
9 1 (0.51%) Azure DevOps
9 1 (0.51%) Cloud Functions
9 1 (0.51%) Cloud Run
9 1 (0.51%) GitHub Actions
9 1 (0.51%) Google Compute Engine
9 1 (0.51%) Google Kubernetes Engine
9 1 (0.51%) IBM Watson
9 1 (0.51%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 144 (72.73%) WAN
2 103 (52.02%) BGP
3 98 (49.49%) LAN
4 77 (38.89%) Firewall
5 53 (26.77%) OSPF
6 50 (25.25%) Network Security
7 47 (23.74%) SD-WAN
8 44 (22.22%) VPN
9 34 (17.17%) IPsec
10 26 (13.13%) SDH
11 24 (12.12%) Cisco Nexus
12 18 (9.09%) DNS
13 17 (8.59%) Wi-Fi
14 16 (8.08%) TCP/IP
14 16 (8.08%) Wireless
15 15 (7.58%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
15 15 (7.58%) VLAN
16 14 (7.07%) Internet
17 13 (6.57%) Wireshark
18 12 (6.06%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.51%) BigQuery
1 1 (0.51%) Cloud Spanner
Development Applications
1 9 (4.55%) Git
2 6 (3.03%) JIRA
3 4 (2.02%) Sonatype Nexus
4 2 (1.01%) GitLab
4 2 (1.01%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.51%) Bitbucket
General
1 86 (43.43%) Telecoms
2 59 (29.80%) Social Skills
3 33 (16.67%) Analytical Skills
4 13 (6.57%) Finance
5 9 (4.55%) Documentation Skills
5 9 (4.55%) Legal
5 9 (4.55%) Organisational Skills
6 6 (3.03%) Banking
7 4 (2.02%) Financial Institution
7 4 (2.02%) Military
8 3 (1.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 3 (1.52%) Influencing Skills
8 3 (1.52%) Presentation Skills
9 2 (1.01%) Investment Banking
9 2 (1.01%) Law
9 2 (1.01%) Public Sector
9 2 (1.01%) Retail
10 1 (0.51%) Billing
10 1 (0.51%) Manufacturing
10 1 (0.51%) Police
Job Titles
1 77 (38.89%) Network Engineer
2 40 (20.20%) Architect
3 30 (15.15%) Network Architect
4 28 (14.14%) Telecoms Engineer
5 17 (8.59%) Developer
6 16 (8.08%) Field Engineer
6 16 (8.08%) Project Engineer
6 16 (8.08%) Senior
7 13 (6.57%) Field Telecoms Engineer
8 11 (5.56%) Consultant
9 10 (5.05%) Network Field Engineer
9 10 (5.05%) Senior Network Engineer
10 9 (4.55%) Network Consultant
11 8 (4.04%) Lead
12 7 (3.54%) Solutions Architect
13 6 (3.03%) Cisco Engineer
13 6 (3.03%) Cisco Network Engineer
13 6 (3.03%) IP Architect
13 6 (3.03%) Principal Architect
13 6 (3.03%) Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (7.58%) Terraform
2 13 (6.57%) NETCONF
2 13 (6.57%) REST
2 13 (6.57%) YANG
3 7 (3.54%) 802.1X
4 5 (2.53%) OpenConfig
5 4 (2.02%) RESTCONF
6 3 (1.52%) Java RMI
7 1 (0.51%) Django
7 1 (0.51%) JSON
7 1 (0.51%) SAML
7 1 (0.51%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 30 (15.15%) Data Centre
2 20 (10.10%) Hybrid Cloud
3 15 (7.58%) Driving Licence
4 14 (7.07%) Cloud Native
5 9 (4.55%) Data Protection Act
6 8 (4.04%) Onboarding
6 8 (4.04%) Private Cloud
7 6 (3.03%) Analytical Mindset
7 6 (3.03%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 4 (2.02%) Management Information System
8 4 (2.02%) Operational Technology
8 4 (2.02%) PKI
8 4 (2.02%) Public Cloud
9 2 (1.01%) Enterprise Cloud
9 2 (1.01%) Legacy Systems
9 2 (1.01%) Self-Motivation
10 1 (0.51%) Clustering
10 1 (0.51%) Cyber Security Posture
10 1 (0.51%) Fibre Optics
10 1 (0.51%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 9 (4.55%) Linux
2 5 (2.53%) Windows
3 3 (1.52%) Windows Server
3 3 (1.52%) Windows Server 2012
4 1 (0.51%) Unix
4 1 (0.51%) Windows Server 2016
4 1 (0.51%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 47 (23.74%) Project Delivery
2 34 (17.17%) Problem-Solving
3 28 (14.14%) Zero Trust
4 27 (13.64%) Network Architecture
5 26 (13.13%) Stakeholder Management
6 25 (12.63%) Technical Leadership
7 24 (12.12%) Network Design
8 21 (10.61%) Migration
9 20 (10.10%) Roadmaps
10 19 (9.60%) ITIL
11 18 (9.09%) TOGAF
12 16 (8.08%) Change Management
13 15 (7.58%) Agile
14 14 (7.07%) High Availability
14 14 (7.07%) Network Monitoring
14 14 (7.07%) Network Segmentation
14 14 (7.07%) Network Virtualisation
15 13 (6.57%) DevOps
15 13 (6.57%) Vulnerability Management
16 12 (6.06%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 36 (18.18%) Python
2 6 (3.03%) Bash
3 4 (2.02%) PowerShell
4 2 (1.01%) Perl
4 2 (1.01%) SQL
5 1 (0.51%) C++
5 1 (0.51%) Go
5 1 (0.51%) Java
Qualifications
1 66 (33.33%) Security Cleared
2 59 (29.80%) Cisco Certification
3 35 (17.68%) DV Cleared
4 33 (16.67%) CCNP
5 30 (15.15%) CCIE
6 24 (12.12%) SC Cleared
7 18 (9.09%) CCNA
8 16 (8.08%) JNCIE
9 15 (7.58%) Degree
10 7 (3.54%) BPSS Clearance
11 6 (3.03%) CISSP
11 6 (3.03%) JNCIP
12 4 (2.02%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 3 (1.52%) AWS Certification
13 3 (1.52%) Computer Science Degree
13 3 (1.52%) PMP
14 2 (1.01%) Azure Certification
14 2 (1.01%) BC Cleared
14 2 (1.01%) CCDP
15 1 (0.51%) CCDA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (5.56%) SLA
2 4 (2.02%) NCSC
3 3 (1.52%) NIST
3 3 (1.52%) QA
4 2 (1.01%) GDPR
4 2 (1.01%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 1 (0.51%) NIST 800
5 1 (0.51%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.51%) PMO
System Software
1 7 (3.54%) VMware Infrastructure
1 7 (3.54%) VMware NSX
2 3 (1.52%) Active Directory
2 3 (1.52%) Firmware
3 2 (1.01%) Docker
4 1 (0.51%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.51%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 31 (15.66%) Ansible
2 11 (5.56%) FortiGate
3 8 (4.04%) Kubernetes
4 6 (3.03%) Cisco Prime
5 4 (2.02%) Cilium
5 4 (2.02%) Istio
6 3 (1.52%) SolarWinds Orion
7 2 (1.01%) Puppet
8 1 (0.51%) Avamar
8 1 (0.51%) OPNET
8 1 (0.51%) Progress Chef
8 1 (0.51%) QRadar
8 1 (0.51%) Suricata
Vendors
1 127 (64.14%) Cisco
2 45 (22.73%) Palo Alto
3 37 (18.69%) Microsoft
4 33 (16.67%) F5
4 33 (16.67%) Fortinet
5 31 (15.66%) Nokia
6 28 (14.14%) Juniper
7 19 (9.60%) SolarWinds
8 16 (8.08%) Aruba
9 15 (7.58%) VMware
10 10 (5.05%) Arista
10 10 (5.05%) Meraki
11 7 (3.54%) CheckPoint
12 4 (2.02%) Ciena
12 4 (2.02%) Google
12 4 (2.02%) Riverbed
12 4 (2.02%) Splunk
13 3 (1.52%) BT
13 3 (1.52%) Forcepoint
13 3 (1.52%) Openreach