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

6 months to
15 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 452 330 296
Rank change year-on-year -122 -34 +176
Contract jobs citing MPLS 173 190 327
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.36% 0.65% 0.77%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 3.80% 5.14% 6.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 109 110 165
10th Percentile £229 £300 £300
25th Percentile £378 £425 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £470 £500 £400
Median % change year-on-year -6.00% +25.00% -15.79%
75th Percentile £550 £559 £588
90th Percentile £625 £632 £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 3 18
10th Percentile £22.53 £22.05 £13.78
25th Percentile £29.88 £27.38 £19.69
Median hourly rate £42.25 £37.50 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year +12.67% +50.00% -59.68%
75th Percentile £42.38 £39.38 £40.00
90th Percentile - £39.75 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.25 £19.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +122.37% -52.50% -35.48%

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 4,553 3,694 5,417
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.55% 12.71% 12.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,819 2,276 3,232
10th Percentile £263 £213 £205
25th Percentile £400 £362 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £488 £490
Median % change year-on-year +1.54% -0.51% -5.41%
75th Percentile £588 £591 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £694
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £463 £475
% change year-on-year +2.70% -2.63% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 244 164 416
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.50
25th Percentile £21.25 £17.30 £16.30
Median hourly rate £39.02 £31.79 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +22.74% -20.53% +116.22%
75th Percentile £65.88 £57.80 £63.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.25 £24.66 £45.88
% change year-on-year +71.33% -46.25% +151.88%

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 15 May 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 15 May 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for MPLS in the UK

MPLS
Top 14 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 15 May 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 -143 146 £475 -5.00% 32
UK excluding London -92 91 £500 +11.11% 31
London -94 57 £400 -20.00% 7
Work from Home -33 55 £420 -16.00% 22
South East -54 47 £475 +5.56% 10
North of England -71 12 £490 +3.16% 7
South West -29 11 £525 - 3
North West -39 11 £490 +3.16% 5
Midlands -71 9 £413 +17.86% 4
Scotland +6 7 £440 +3.53% 7
West Midlands -69 6 £413 +17.86% 4
East of England -29 5 £500 +100.00%
Yorkshire -58 1 - - 2
Northern Ireland - 1 £385 -

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 8 (4.62%) Microsoft Exchange
2 4 (2.31%) OpenStack
3 3 (1.73%) Confluence
4 1 (0.58%) SharePoint
Applications
1 8 (4.62%) MS Visio
2 5 (2.89%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (2.89%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (1.73%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (1.16%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 2 (1.16%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 30 (17.34%) Azure
2 15 (8.67%) AWS
3 14 (8.09%) Entra ID
4 11 (6.36%) Microsoft 365
5 8 (4.62%) IaaS
6 6 (3.47%) GCP
7 2 (1.16%) AWS Direct Connect
7 2 (1.16%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 2 (1.16%) Azure Sentinel
7 2 (1.16%) IBM Watson
7 2 (1.16%) Mimecast
7 2 (1.16%) Power Platform
8 1 (0.58%) Amazon ELB
8 1 (0.58%) Amazon GuardDuty
8 1 (0.58%) Amazon Macie
8 1 (0.58%) AWS CloudFormation
8 1 (0.58%) AWS CloudTrail
8 1 (0.58%) Azure DevOps
8 1 (0.58%) Microsoft Purview
8 1 (0.58%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 93 (53.76%) WAN
2 90 (52.02%) Firewall
3 89 (51.45%) BGP
4 62 (35.84%) LAN
5 55 (31.79%) OSPF
6 53 (30.64%) VPN
7 50 (28.90%) SD-WAN
8 47 (27.17%) Network Security
9 27 (15.61%) VLAN
10 26 (15.03%) Cisco ASA
10 26 (15.03%) IPsec
11 22 (12.72%) Ethernet VPN
12 18 (10.40%) Internet
12 18 (10.40%) VXLAN
13 17 (9.83%) Cisco IOS
13 17 (9.83%) Cisco Nexus
13 17 (9.83%) EIGRP
13 17 (9.83%) Multicast
14 16 (9.25%) Wireless
14 16 (9.25%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (1.16%) Power BI
1 2 (1.16%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 6 (3.47%) Git
2 5 (2.89%) JIRA
3 2 (1.16%) Sonatype Nexus
4 1 (0.58%) AppScan
4 1 (0.58%) Burp Suite
4 1 (0.58%) Metasploit
General
1 37 (21.39%) Telecoms
2 35 (20.23%) Social Skills
3 24 (13.87%) Finance
4 19 (10.98%) Analytical Skills
5 11 (6.36%) Public Sector
6 9 (5.20%) Documentation Skills
6 9 (5.20%) Financial Institution
7 8 (4.62%) Law
8 7 (4.05%) Legal
9 3 (1.73%) Billing
9 3 (1.73%) Manufacturing
9 3 (1.73%) Retail
10 2 (1.16%) Aviation
10 2 (1.16%) Banking
10 2 (1.16%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 2 (1.16%) Influencing Skills
10 2 (1.16%) Investment Banking
10 2 (1.16%) Presentation Skills
11 1 (0.58%) Aerospace
11 1 (0.58%) Police
Job Titles
1 70 (40.46%) Network Engineer
2 26 (15.03%) Architect
3 22 (12.72%) Senior
4 16 (9.25%) Network Architect
5 10 (5.78%) Design Engineer
5 10 (5.78%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
6 9 (5.20%) Security Engineer
7 7 (4.05%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 7 (4.05%) Integration Engineer
7 7 (4.05%) Network Design Engineer
7 7 (4.05%) Network Manager
7 7 (4.05%) Solutions Architect
8 6 (3.47%) IP Engineer
8 6 (3.47%) Project Manager
8 6 (3.47%) Senior Network Engineer
8 6 (3.47%) Test Engineer
9 5 (2.89%) Cisco Engineer
9 5 (2.89%) Core Network Engineer
9 5 (2.89%) Juniper Engineer
10 4 (2.31%) IP Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (5.20%) REST
2 8 (4.62%) NETCONF
2 8 (4.62%) YANG
3 7 (4.05%) 802.1X
4 6 (3.47%) LDAP
5 4 (2.31%) Jinja
6 3 (1.73%) OpenConfig
6 3 (1.73%) RESTCONF
7 2 (1.16%) Django
7 2 (1.16%) RFC 2544
8 1 (0.58%) EDI
8 1 (0.58%) JSON
8 1 (0.58%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 30 (17.34%) Data Centre
2 18 (10.40%) Data Protection Act
3 11 (6.36%) Hybrid Cloud
4 10 (5.78%) PKI
5 7 (4.05%) Operational Technology
5 7 (4.05%) Security Posture
6 6 (3.47%) Analytical Mindset
6 6 (3.47%) Cloud Native
6 6 (3.47%) Management Information System
7 5 (2.89%) Onboarding
8 4 (2.31%) SCADA
8 4 (2.31%) Virtual Team
9 3 (1.73%) CESG
9 3 (1.73%) Public Cloud
9 3 (1.73%) Self-Motivation
9 3 (1.73%) Wiki
10 2 (1.16%) Algorithms
10 2 (1.16%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
10 2 (1.16%) Fibre Optics
11 1 (0.58%) Driving Licence
Operating Systems
1 15 (8.67%) Linux
2 11 (6.36%) Windows
3 7 (4.05%) Windows Server
4 6 (3.47%) Ubuntu
5 4 (2.31%) Unix
6 1 (0.58%) Kali Linux
6 1 (0.58%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 26 (15.03%) Migration
2 25 (14.45%) Network Design
3 24 (13.87%) Change Management
3 24 (13.87%) Problem-Solving
4 22 (12.72%) Technical Leadership
5 19 (10.98%) Data Protection
5 19 (10.98%) Network Segmentation
6 17 (9.83%) ITIL
7 16 (9.25%) DevOps
7 16 (9.25%) Network Architecture
7 16 (9.25%) Project Delivery
7 16 (9.25%) Roadmaps
7 16 (9.25%) Zero Trust
8 15 (8.67%) Cybersecurity
8 15 (8.67%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 15 (8.67%) Project Management
8 15 (8.67%) Root Cause Analysis
9 14 (8.09%) Agile
9 14 (8.09%) Incident Management
9 14 (8.09%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 33 (19.08%) Python
2 4 (2.31%) PHP
3 3 (1.73%) SQL
4 2 (1.16%) Bash
4 2 (1.16%) C
5 1 (0.58%) Lisp
Qualifications
1 67 (38.73%) Security Cleared
2 54 (31.21%) SC Cleared
3 43 (24.86%) Cisco Certification
4 30 (17.34%) CCNP
5 23 (13.29%) CCIE
6 17 (9.83%) DV Cleared
7 13 (7.51%) CCNA
8 9 (5.20%) JNCIE
9 5 (2.89%) Degree
9 5 (2.89%) GIAC
9 5 (2.89%) JNCIS
10 4 (2.31%) APMG
10 4 (2.31%) CompTIA Security+
10 4 (2.31%) ISTQB
10 4 (2.31%) PMP
10 4 (2.31%) SSCP
11 3 (1.73%) AWS Certification
11 3 (1.73%) BC Cleared
11 3 (1.73%) Computer Science Degree
11 3 (1.73%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (4.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 8 (4.62%) NCSC
2 7 (4.05%) NIST
3 5 (2.89%) SLA
4 4 (2.31%) Cyber Essentials
4 4 (2.31%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
4 4 (2.31%) QA
5 3 (1.73%) RMADS
6 2 (1.16%) Government Security Classifications
6 2 (1.16%) JSP 440
6 2 (1.16%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.58%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (0.58%) COBIT
7 1 (0.58%) GDPR
7 1 (0.58%) GRC
7 1 (0.58%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 13 (7.51%) Active Directory
2 10 (5.78%) VMware Infrastructure
3 7 (4.05%) VMware ESXi
4 2 (1.16%) Hyper-V
4 2 (1.16%) VMware NSX
4 2 (1.16%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 33 (19.08%) Ansible
2 10 (5.78%) Cisco Prime
3 9 (5.20%) Microsoft Intune
4 6 (3.47%) vCenter Server
5 5 (2.89%) FortiGate
6 4 (2.31%) Grafana
6 4 (2.31%) Prometheus
7 3 (1.73%) Salt
7 3 (1.73%) SCOM
7 3 (1.73%) Terraform
8 2 (1.16%) Cisco CUCM
8 2 (1.16%) Iperf
8 2 (1.16%) Nmap
9 1 (0.58%) Avamar
9 1 (0.58%) CASB
9 1 (0.58%) Failover Clustering
9 1 (0.58%) Nessus
9 1 (0.58%) Progress Chef
9 1 (0.58%) SolarWinds Orion
Vendors
1 98 (56.65%) Cisco
2 46 (26.59%) Palo Alto
3 31 (17.92%) Juniper
4 29 (16.76%) F5
4 29 (16.76%) Fortinet
5 25 (14.45%) CheckPoint
6 24 (13.87%) Microsoft
7 19 (10.98%) Nokia
8 17 (9.83%) VMware
9 15 (8.67%) Aruba
10 13 (7.51%) Arista
10 13 (7.51%) Meraki
11 10 (5.78%) SolarWinds
12 7 (4.05%) ADVA
12 7 (4.05%) ServiceNow
12 7 (4.05%) Splunk
13 6 (3.47%) Zscaler
14 5 (2.89%) NetScout
15 4 (2.31%) LogicMonitor
15 4 (2.31%) Tufin