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

6 months to
21 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 485 406 330
Rank change year-on-year -79 -76 -6
Contract jobs citing MPLS 199 160 246
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.37% 0.49% 0.64%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 3.94% 4.24% 5.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 130 113 132
10th Percentile £302 £300 £363
25th Percentile £381 £413 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £483 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.58% -5.00% -4.31%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £601
90th Percentile £643 £649 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £450 £500
% change year-on-year +10.00% -10.00% +11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 2 5
10th Percentile £17.53 £36.63 £17.98
25th Percentile £17.56 £37.19 £18.50
Median hourly rate £17.75 £38.75 £22.40
Median % change year-on-year -54.19% +72.99% -66.05%
75th Percentile £33.44 £39.69 £24.18
90th Percentile £42.78 £39.88 £48.67
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.63 - £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 5,057 3,773 4,570
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.31% 11.55% 11.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,928 2,343 2,660
10th Percentile £231 £225 £227
25th Percentile £393 £363 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £588 £608
90th Percentile £675 £680 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £500
% change year-on-year +5.56% -10.00% +9.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 414 200 244
10th Percentile £14.14 £15.50 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.50 £24.75 £21.37
Median hourly rate £33.39 £42.50 £50.25
Median % change year-on-year -21.44% -15.42% -11.05%
75th Percentile £68.75 £63.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £88.75 £73.20 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.25 £42.50 £57.35
% change year-on-year -26.47% -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 21 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 21 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 21 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 -112 145 £500 +8.11% 114
UK excluding London -64 136 £495 +10.00% 52
South East -46 50 £480 +6.67% 18
London -87 48 £450 -14.29% 59
Scotland +17 47 £308 -40.00% 2
Work from Home -73 47 £450 -10.00% 39
South West -32 16 £525 -16.00% 7
North of England -72 11 £575 +24.32% 8
North West -52 9 £575 +27.78% 4
Midlands -68 7 £447 +11.63% 8
West Midlands -69 6 £447 +11.63% 5
East of England -23 5 £500 +66.67% 9
Yorkshire -40 2 £483 +37.86% 4

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 (5.03%) OpenStack
2 4 (2.01%) Confluence
3 2 (1.01%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 26 (13.07%) MS Visio
2 10 (5.03%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (3.52%) Microsoft Excel
4 4 (2.01%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 3 (1.51%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.50%) Microsoft Project
Cloud Services
1 38 (19.10%) Azure
2 33 (16.58%) AWS
3 10 (5.03%) GCP
4 7 (3.52%) AWS Direct Connect
5 5 (2.51%) Azure ExpressRoute
5 5 (2.51%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 4 (2.01%) OpenShift
7 3 (1.51%) Entra ID
7 3 (1.51%) GitHub
8 1 (0.50%) AWS CloudFormation
8 1 (0.50%) Azure DevOps
8 1 (0.50%) Azure Monitor
8 1 (0.50%) Cloud Functions
8 1 (0.50%) Cloud Run
8 1 (0.50%) GitHub Actions
8 1 (0.50%) Google Compute Engine
8 1 (0.50%) Google Kubernetes Engine
8 1 (0.50%) IBM Watson
8 1 (0.50%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 146 (73.37%) WAN
2 103 (51.76%) BGP
3 98 (49.25%) LAN
4 75 (37.69%) Firewall
5 52 (26.13%) OSPF
6 49 (24.62%) Network Security
7 48 (24.12%) SD-WAN
8 44 (22.11%) VPN
9 34 (17.09%) IPsec
10 26 (13.07%) SDH
11 23 (11.56%) Cisco Nexus
12 18 (9.05%) DNS
13 17 (8.54%) Wi-Fi
14 16 (8.04%) TCP/IP
14 16 (8.04%) VLAN
14 16 (8.04%) Wireless
15 14 (7.04%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
16 13 (6.53%) DWDM
16 13 (6.53%) Internet
16 13 (6.53%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.50%) BigQuery
1 1 (0.50%) Cloud Spanner
1 1 (0.50%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 10 (5.03%) Git
2 6 (3.02%) JIRA
3 4 (2.01%) Sonatype Nexus
4 2 (1.01%) GitLab
4 2 (1.01%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.50%) Bitbucket
General
1 86 (43.22%) Telecoms
2 57 (28.64%) Social Skills
3 34 (17.09%) Analytical Skills
4 12 (6.03%) Finance
5 9 (4.52%) Banking
5 9 (4.52%) Documentation Skills
5 9 (4.52%) Legal
5 9 (4.52%) Organisational Skills
6 4 (2.01%) Investment Banking
6 4 (2.01%) Military
7 3 (1.51%) Financial Institution
7 3 (1.51%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 3 (1.51%) Influencing Skills
7 3 (1.51%) Presentation Skills
8 2 (1.01%) Law
8 2 (1.01%) Retail
9 1 (0.50%) Manufacturing
9 1 (0.50%) Police
9 1 (0.50%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 82 (41.21%) Network Engineer
2 40 (20.10%) Architect
3 29 (14.57%) Network Architect
4 28 (14.07%) Telecoms Engineer
5 18 (9.05%) Senior
6 17 (8.54%) Developer
7 16 (8.04%) Field Engineer
7 16 (8.04%) Project Engineer
8 13 (6.53%) Field Telecoms Engineer
8 13 (6.53%) Senior Network Engineer
9 11 (5.53%) Consultant
10 10 (5.03%) Network Field Engineer
11 9 (4.52%) Cisco Engineer
11 9 (4.52%) Cisco Network Engineer
11 9 (4.52%) Network Consultant
12 8 (4.02%) Lead
13 6 (3.02%) IP Architect
13 6 (3.02%) Network Operations Engineer
13 6 (3.02%) Operations Engineer
13 6 (3.02%) Principal Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (8.04%) Terraform
2 13 (6.53%) NETCONF
2 13 (6.53%) REST
2 13 (6.53%) YANG
3 7 (3.52%) 802.1X
4 5 (2.51%) OpenConfig
5 4 (2.01%) RESTCONF
6 3 (1.51%) Java RMI
7 1 (0.50%) Django
7 1 (0.50%) JSON
7 1 (0.50%) SAML
7 1 (0.50%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 30 (15.08%) Data Centre
2 19 (9.55%) Hybrid Cloud
3 15 (7.54%) Driving Licence
4 14 (7.04%) Cloud Native
5 9 (4.52%) Onboarding
6 8 (4.02%) Data Protection Act
6 8 (4.02%) Private Cloud
7 6 (3.02%) Analytical Mindset
7 6 (3.02%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
7 6 (3.02%) Management Information System
8 4 (2.01%) Operational Technology
8 4 (2.01%) PKI
8 4 (2.01%) Public Cloud
9 2 (1.01%) CMDB
9 2 (1.01%) Enterprise Cloud
9 2 (1.01%) Legacy Systems
9 2 (1.01%) Self-Motivation
10 1 (0.50%) Fibre Optics
10 1 (0.50%) Security Posture
10 1 (0.50%) TM Forum
Operating Systems
1 8 (4.02%) Linux
2 5 (2.51%) Windows
3 3 (1.51%) Windows Server
3 3 (1.51%) Windows Server 2012
4 1 (0.50%) Unix
4 1 (0.50%) Windows Server 2016
4 1 (0.50%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 46 (23.12%) Project Delivery
2 34 (17.09%) Problem-Solving
3 29 (14.57%) Zero Trust
4 27 (13.57%) Stakeholder Management
5 26 (13.07%) Technical Leadership
6 25 (12.56%) Network Architecture
7 24 (12.06%) Network Design
8 22 (11.06%) Migration
9 20 (10.05%) Roadmaps
10 19 (9.55%) TOGAF
11 18 (9.05%) ITIL
12 16 (8.04%) Network Monitoring
13 14 (7.04%) Agile
13 14 (7.04%) Change Management
13 14 (7.04%) High Availability
13 14 (7.04%) Network Segmentation
14 13 (6.53%) Network Virtualisation
14 13 (6.53%) Vulnerability Management
15 12 (6.03%) DevOps
15 12 (6.03%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 37 (18.59%) Python
2 6 (3.02%) Bash
3 5 (2.51%) PowerShell
4 2 (1.01%) Perl
4 2 (1.01%) SQL
5 1 (0.50%) C++
5 1 (0.50%) Go
5 1 (0.50%) Java
Qualifications
1 64 (32.16%) Security Cleared
2 61 (30.65%) Cisco Certification
3 36 (18.09%) DV Cleared
4 35 (17.59%) CCNP
5 32 (16.08%) CCIE
6 21 (10.55%) SC Cleared
7 18 (9.05%) CCNA
8 17 (8.54%) JNCIE
9 14 (7.04%) Degree
10 8 (4.02%) JNCIP
11 7 (3.52%) CISSP
12 6 (3.02%) BPSS Clearance
13 4 (2.01%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 3 (1.51%) AWS Certification
15 2 (1.01%) Azure Certification
15 2 (1.01%) BC Cleared
15 2 (1.01%) CCDP
15 2 (1.01%) Computer Science Degree
15 2 (1.01%) PMP
16 1 (0.50%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (6.03%) SLA
2 4 (2.01%) NCSC
3 3 (1.51%) NIST
3 3 (1.51%) QA
4 2 (1.01%) GDPR
4 2 (1.01%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 1 (0.50%) Data Quality
5 1 (0.50%) NIST 800
5 1 (0.50%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.50%) PMO
5 1 (0.50%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 7 (3.52%) VMware Infrastructure
1 7 (3.52%) VMware NSX
2 4 (2.01%) Firmware
3 3 (1.51%) Active Directory
4 2 (1.01%) Docker
5 1 (0.50%) Hyper-V
5 1 (0.50%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 32 (16.08%) Ansible
2 12 (6.03%) FortiGate
3 8 (4.02%) Kubernetes
4 6 (3.02%) Cisco Prime
5 4 (2.01%) Cilium
5 4 (2.01%) Istio
6 3 (1.51%) SolarWinds Orion
7 2 (1.01%) Puppet
8 1 (0.50%) Avamar
8 1 (0.50%) Grafana
8 1 (0.50%) OPNET
8 1 (0.50%) Progress Chef
8 1 (0.50%) QRadar
8 1 (0.50%) Suricata
Vendors
1 130 (65.33%) Cisco
2 45 (22.61%) Palo Alto
3 37 (18.59%) Microsoft
4 34 (17.09%) Fortinet
5 32 (16.08%) Nokia
6 31 (15.58%) F5
7 30 (15.08%) Juniper
8 20 (10.05%) SolarWinds
9 16 (8.04%) Aruba
10 15 (7.54%) VMware
11 12 (6.03%) Arista
12 10 (5.03%) Meraki
13 6 (3.02%) CheckPoint
14 5 (2.51%) Ciena
15 4 (2.01%) Google
15 4 (2.01%) LogicMonitor
15 4 (2.01%) Riverbed
15 4 (2.01%) Splunk
16 3 (1.51%) ADVA
16 3 (1.51%) Forcepoint