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

6 months to
18 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 476 384 308
Rank change year-on-year -92 -76 +65
Contract jobs citing MPLS 201 163 268
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.38% 0.50% 0.69%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 3.98% 4.20% 5.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 128 109 152
10th Percentile £304 £300 £313
25th Percentile £400 £425 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £473 £475 £425
Median % change year-on-year -0.53% +11.76% -19.05%
75th Percentile £540 £600 £564
90th Percentile £626 £649 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £450 £400
% change year-on-year +11.11% +12.50% -17.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 2 8
10th Percentile £17.54 £36.63 £13.78
25th Percentile £17.59 £37.19 £16.72
Median hourly rate £30.00 £38.75 £20.70
Median % change year-on-year -22.58% +87.20% -62.58%
75th Percentile £42.38 £39.69 £24.39
90th Percentile - £39.88 £37.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 - £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 5,052 3,881 4,738
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.43% 11.81% 12.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,987 2,350 2,889
10th Percentile £250 £245 £221
25th Percentile £400 £375 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% -2.50% -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £608
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £487 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +2.58% -5.00% +9.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 363 203 315
10th Percentile £15.18 £14.99 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.33 £25.15 £20.00
Median hourly rate £26.14 £46.25 £49.00
Median % change year-on-year -43.48% -5.61% -10.91%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £81.95 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.14 £45.00 £54.88
% change year-on-year -41.91% -18.00% -2.86%

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 18 August 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 18 August 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 18 August 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 -132 147 £500 +5.26% 49
UK excluding London -57 136 £500 +11.11% 30
South East -51 57 £518 +15.00% 7
London -83 47 £450 -14.29% 31
Work from Home -62 45 £450 -10.00% 15
Scotland +29 43 £308 -40.00% 12
South West -37 14 £525 -16.00% 3
North of England -90 9 £575 +21.05% 2
Midlands -68 7 £440 +3.59% 3
East of England - 7 £500 - 3
North West -57 6 £575 +24.32% 2
West Midlands -63 6 £440 +3.59% 2
Yorkshire -44 3 £483 +37.86%

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 (4.98%) OpenStack
2 5 (2.49%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (1.49%) Confluence
Applications
1 25 (12.44%) MS Visio
2 12 (5.97%) Microsoft Office
3 9 (4.48%) Microsoft Excel
4 6 (2.99%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 3 (1.49%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.50%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 1 (0.50%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 38 (18.91%) Azure
2 25 (12.44%) AWS
3 10 (4.98%) GCP
4 8 (3.98%) Entra ID
5 5 (2.49%) AWS Direct Connect
5 5 (2.49%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 4 (1.99%) OpenShift
7 3 (1.49%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 3 (1.49%) IaaS
7 3 (1.49%) Microsoft 365
8 2 (1.00%) Azure DevOps
8 2 (1.00%) GitHub
8 2 (1.00%) Mimecast
8 2 (1.00%) Power Platform
9 1 (0.50%) AWS CloudFormation
9 1 (0.50%) Cloud Run
9 1 (0.50%) GitHub Actions
9 1 (0.50%) Google Compute Engine
9 1 (0.50%) Google Kubernetes Engine
9 1 (0.50%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 146 (72.64%) WAN
2 104 (51.74%) BGP
2 104 (51.74%) LAN
3 92 (45.77%) Firewall
4 57 (28.36%) OSPF
5 50 (24.88%) Network Security
5 50 (24.88%) SD-WAN
6 45 (22.39%) VPN
7 37 (18.41%) IPsec
8 29 (14.43%) Cisco Nexus
9 23 (11.44%) SDH
10 19 (9.45%) TCP/IP
10 19 (9.45%) VLAN
10 19 (9.45%) VXLAN
10 19 (9.45%) Wi-Fi
11 18 (8.96%) DNS
11 18 (8.96%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
11 18 (8.96%) Wireshark
12 17 (8.46%) Internet
13 15 (7.46%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (1.00%) Power BI
1 2 (1.00%) Tableau
2 1 (0.50%) BigQuery
2 1 (0.50%) Cloud Spanner
Development Applications
1 8 (3.98%) Git
2 6 (2.99%) JIRA
3 4 (1.99%) Sonatype Nexus
4 2 (1.00%) GitLab
4 2 (1.00%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.50%) Bitbucket
General
1 74 (36.82%) Telecoms
2 60 (29.85%) Social Skills
3 36 (17.91%) Analytical Skills
4 16 (7.96%) Finance
5 10 (4.98%) Documentation Skills
5 10 (4.98%) Legal
6 8 (3.98%) Organisational Skills
7 6 (2.99%) Financial Institution
8 4 (1.99%) Law
8 4 (1.99%) Military
9 3 (1.49%) Banking
9 3 (1.49%) Billing
9 3 (1.49%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 3 (1.49%) Influencing Skills
9 3 (1.49%) Presentation Skills
9 3 (1.49%) Retail
10 2 (1.00%) Investment Banking
10 2 (1.00%) Manufacturing
10 2 (1.00%) Public Sector
11 1 (0.50%) Police
Job Titles
1 74 (36.82%) Network Engineer
2 39 (19.40%) Architect
3 28 (13.93%) Network Architect
4 25 (12.44%) Telecoms Engineer
5 17 (8.46%) Developer
6 16 (7.96%) Field Engineer
7 15 (7.46%) Senior
8 13 (6.47%) Field Telecoms Engineer
8 13 (6.47%) Project Engineer
9 11 (5.47%) Network Field Engineer
10 9 (4.48%) Lead
11 8 (3.98%) Consultant
11 8 (3.98%) Network Consultant
12 7 (3.48%) Project Manager
12 7 (3.48%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
12 7 (3.48%) Solutions Architect
13 6 (2.99%) Cisco Engineer
13 6 (2.99%) Cisco Network Engineer
13 6 (2.99%) IP Engineer
13 6 (2.99%) Network Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (5.97%) NETCONF
1 12 (5.97%) YANG
2 11 (5.47%) REST
3 9 (4.48%) 802.1X
4 7 (3.48%) OpenConfig
5 6 (2.99%) RESTCONF
6 4 (1.99%) Jinja
7 3 (1.49%) Java RMI
8 1 (0.50%) JSON
8 1 (0.50%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 38 (18.91%) Data Centre
2 22 (10.95%) Hybrid Cloud
3 14 (6.97%) Cloud Native
4 13 (6.47%) Driving Licence
5 9 (4.48%) Analytical Mindset
6 8 (3.98%) Data Protection Act
6 8 (3.98%) Private Cloud
7 7 (3.48%) Operational Technology
8 6 (2.99%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
9 5 (2.49%) Management Information System
9 5 (2.49%) Public Cloud
10 4 (1.99%) PKI
10 4 (1.99%) SCADA
10 4 (1.99%) Self-Motivation
11 2 (1.00%) Enterprise Cloud
11 2 (1.00%) Onboarding
12 1 (0.50%) Fibre Optics
12 1 (0.50%) Renewable Energy
12 1 (0.50%) Security Posture
12 1 (0.50%) TM Forum
Operating Systems
1 10 (4.98%) Windows
2 7 (3.48%) Linux
3 6 (2.99%) Windows Server
4 3 (1.49%) Windows Server 2012
5 1 (0.50%) Unix
5 1 (0.50%) Windows Server 2016
5 1 (0.50%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 50 (24.88%) Project Delivery
2 37 (18.41%) Problem-Solving
3 26 (12.94%) Network Architecture
4 25 (12.44%) Network Design
4 25 (12.44%) Zero Trust
5 23 (11.44%) Stakeholder Management
6 22 (10.95%) Change Management
6 22 (10.95%) ITIL
6 22 (10.95%) Migration
6 22 (10.95%) Roadmaps
7 21 (10.45%) Agile
8 19 (9.45%) Technical Leadership
9 17 (8.46%) DevOps
10 14 (6.97%) Network Monitoring
10 14 (6.97%) Network Segmentation
10 14 (6.97%) TOGAF
11 13 (6.47%) Continuous Improvement
11 13 (6.47%) Network Virtualisation
11 13 (6.47%) Vulnerability Management
12 12 (5.97%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 36 (17.91%) Python
2 4 (1.99%) Bash
2 4 (1.99%) PowerShell
2 4 (1.99%) SQL
3 2 (1.00%) C
3 2 (1.00%) Perl
Qualifications
1 67 (33.33%) Security Cleared
2 60 (29.85%) Cisco Certification
3 34 (16.92%) CCNP
4 31 (15.42%) DV Cleared
5 30 (14.93%) CCIE
6 29 (14.43%) SC Cleared
7 19 (9.45%) CCNA
8 14 (6.97%) Degree
8 14 (6.97%) JNCIE
9 7 (3.48%) BPSS Clearance
10 4 (1.99%) PMP
10 4 (1.99%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 3 (1.49%) AWS Certification
11 3 (1.49%) Computer Science Degree
11 3 (1.49%) ITIL Certification
12 2 (1.00%) Azure Certification
12 2 (1.00%) BC Cleared
12 2 (1.00%) CCDP
12 2 (1.00%) CISSP
12 2 (1.00%) JNCIP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (5.47%) SLA
2 4 (1.99%) NCSC
2 4 (1.99%) QA
3 3 (1.49%) NIST
4 2 (1.00%) GDPR
4 2 (1.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 2 (1.00%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.50%) Government Security Classifications
5 1 (0.50%) NIST 800
5 1 (0.50%) PMO
System Software
1 9 (4.48%) Active Directory
2 7 (3.48%) VMware Infrastructure
2 7 (3.48%) VMware NSX
3 3 (1.49%) Firmware
4 2 (1.00%) Docker
4 2 (1.00%) VMware Workstation
5 1 (0.50%) Hyper-V
5 1 (0.50%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.50%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 33 (16.42%) Ansible
2 12 (5.97%) Terraform
3 9 (4.48%) FortiGate
4 6 (2.99%) Cisco Prime
4 6 (2.99%) Kubernetes
5 3 (1.49%) Microsoft Intune
6 2 (1.00%) Cilium
6 2 (1.00%) Istio
6 2 (1.00%) SolarWinds Orion
7 1 (0.50%) Avamar
7 1 (0.50%) OPNET
7 1 (0.50%) Progress Chef
7 1 (0.50%) Puppet
7 1 (0.50%) QRadar
7 1 (0.50%) Suricata
Vendors
1 126 (62.69%) Cisco
2 46 (22.89%) Palo Alto
3 43 (21.39%) Microsoft
4 41 (20.40%) F5
5 37 (18.41%) Fortinet
6 33 (16.42%) Juniper
7 25 (12.44%) Nokia
8 20 (9.95%) SolarWinds
9 18 (8.96%) VMware
10 17 (8.46%) Aruba
11 13 (6.47%) CheckPoint
12 9 (4.48%) Arista
12 9 (4.48%) Meraki
13 4 (1.99%) Google
13 4 (1.99%) Riverbed
14 3 (1.49%) BT
14 3 (1.49%) Forcepoint
14 3 (1.49%) NetScout
14 3 (1.49%) Qualys
14 3 (1.49%) Splunk