Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS)
UK

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 19 May 2024 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
19 May 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 291 459 491
Rank change year-on-year +168 +32 -18
Contract jobs citing MPLS 325 245 404
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.76% 0.43% 0.46%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 6.02% 3.44% 4.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 165 124 258
10th Percentile £300 £313 £323
25th Percentile £350 £368 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £486 £500
Median % change year-on-year -17.70% -2.80% +11.11%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £574
90th Percentile £675 £684 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £375 £425 £445
% change year-on-year -11.76% -4.49% +3.49%
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 11 6
10th Percentile £13.70 £12.50 £21.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £34.93 £22.13
Median hourly rate £25.00 £62.00 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -59.68% +138.46% +14.29%
75th Percentile £40.00 £66.62 £26.50
90th Percentile - £70.00 £28.38
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £62.00 £22.00
% change year-on-year -35.48% +181.82% +4.76%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
UK

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.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 5,396 7,129 9,628
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 12.68% 12.45% 10.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,217 4,605 6,293
10th Percentile £205 £235 £231
25th Percentile £350 £400 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £518 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.31% +3.50% +11.11%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £613
90th Percentile £694 £725 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £450
% change year-on-year - +5.56% +12.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 417 460 373
10th Percentile £13.50 £9.80 £15.25
25th Percentile £16.30 £10.63 £17.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £18.50 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +116.22% -32.73% +10.00%
75th Percentile £63.75 £59.09 £51.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £74.55 £65.54
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.88 £18.22 £21.50
% change year-on-year +151.88% -15.28% -6.95%

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 19 May 2024.

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 19 May 2024.

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 19 May 2024. 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 +166 307 £400 -17.70% 91
UK excluding London +110 200 £375 -11.76% 62
London +121 106 £525 -5.83% 30
Midlands +91 105 £375 +15.38% 17
West Midlands +79 102 £375 +15.38% 15
South East +48 70 £375 -14.29% 20
Work from Home +63 49 £375 -22.76% 44
South West +5 13 £650 - 5
North of England +8 9 £425 +13.33% 12
North West -5 5 £602 +26.74% 3
North East - 4 £385 - 1
Scotland +40 3 £475 -5.00% 1
East Midlands - 3 £575 - 2
Wales +19 1 - - 1

MPLS
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

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

Application Platforms
1 18 (5.54%) Microsoft Exchange
2 11 (3.38%) Apache
2 11 (3.38%) Apache Airflow
3 2 (0.62%) OpenStack
4 1 (0.31%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.31%) WebSphere
Applications
1 6 (1.85%) MS Visio
2 5 (1.54%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (0.92%) Microsoft Excel
4 1 (0.31%) Chatbot
4 1 (0.31%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Cloud Services
1 49 (15.08%) Azure
2 31 (9.54%) AWS
3 16 (4.92%) Microsoft 365
4 13 (4.00%) GCP
5 10 (3.08%) Entra ID
6 9 (2.77%) IaaS
7 5 (1.54%) Cloudflare
7 5 (1.54%) Mimecast
7 5 (1.54%) OCI
8 4 (1.23%) SaaS
9 2 (0.62%) Cloud Computing
9 2 (0.62%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 1 (0.31%) Azure ExpressRoute
Communications & Networking
1 214 (65.85%) BGP
2 192 (59.08%) WAN
3 119 (36.62%) VPN
4 111 (34.15%) IPsec
5 98 (30.15%) Firewall
6 67 (20.62%) LAN
7 58 (17.85%) OSPF
8 53 (16.31%) Junos
9 47 (14.46%) DNS
10 44 (13.54%) SD-WAN
11 36 (11.08%) Cisco Nexus
12 35 (10.77%) SSL
13 33 (10.15%) Cisco ASA
13 33 (10.15%) Ethernet VPN
14 31 (9.54%) Cisco Firepower
14 31 (9.54%) DHCP
14 31 (9.54%) Internet
14 31 (9.54%) SNMP
15 28 (8.62%) Network Security
16 27 (8.31%) EIGRP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (3.08%) MongoDB
1 10 (3.08%) NoSQL
1 10 (3.08%) PostgreSQL
2 8 (2.46%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 17 (5.23%) JIRA
2 15 (4.62%) Git
3 11 (3.38%) GitLab
3 11 (3.38%) Robot Framework
3 11 (3.38%) TestRail
4 6 (1.85%) Sonatype Nexus
5 1 (0.31%) Hudson
General
1 58 (17.85%) Finance
2 54 (16.62%) Social Skills
3 32 (9.85%) Telecoms
4 27 (8.31%) Analytical Skills
5 20 (6.15%) Public Sector
6 8 (2.46%) Aerospace
6 8 (2.46%) Financial Institution
7 4 (1.23%) French Language
7 4 (1.23%) Organisational Skills
7 4 (1.23%) Presentation Skills
8 3 (0.92%) Advertising
8 3 (0.92%) Aviation
8 3 (0.92%) Banking
9 2 (0.62%) Legal
10 1 (0.31%) Billing
10 1 (0.31%) Documentation Skills
10 1 (0.31%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (0.31%) Local Government
10 1 (0.31%) Publishing
10 1 (0.31%) Retail
Job Titles
1 135 (41.54%) Network Engineer
2 66 (20.31%) Architect
3 53 (16.31%) Network Architect
4 35 (10.77%) WAN Engineer
5 34 (10.46%) Network Support
6 32 (9.85%) 3rd Line Engineer
7 30 (9.23%) Senior
8 26 (8.00%) 3rd Line Support
9 17 (5.23%) Support Engineer
10 16 (4.92%) Test Engineer
11 14 (4.31%) 2nd Line Support
11 14 (4.31%) 3rd Line Network Engineer
11 14 (4.31%) Design Engineer
11 14 (4.31%) IP Expert
11 14 (4.31%) Network Design Engineer
12 12 (3.69%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 11 (3.38%) Analyst
13 11 (3.38%) Senior Network Engineer
14 10 (3.08%) IP Engineer
15 9 (2.77%) Senior Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 38 (11.69%) NETCONF
2 37 (11.38%) YANG
3 27 (8.31%) JSON
3 27 (8.31%) XML
4 17 (5.23%) Jinja
5 11 (3.38%) REST
5 11 (3.38%) RESTCONF
5 11 (3.38%) SOAP
6 9 (2.77%) Web Services
7 5 (1.54%) 802.1X
8 3 (0.92%) RESTful
8 3 (0.92%) SAML
9 2 (0.62%) LDAP
10 1 (0.31%) .NET
10 1 (0.31%) EDI
10 1 (0.31%) IBM Integration Bus
10 1 (0.31%) WebSphere MQ
Miscellaneous
1 62 (19.08%) PKI
2 51 (15.69%) Data Centre
3 20 (6.15%) Distributed Architecture
4 11 (3.38%) Clustering
5 8 (2.46%) Client/Server
5 8 (2.46%) Public Cloud
5 8 (2.46%) Self-Motivation
6 6 (1.85%) Hybrid Cloud
7 5 (1.54%) Data Protection Act
8 3 (0.92%) CMDB
8 3 (0.92%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 3 (0.92%) Operational Technology
8 3 (0.92%) Video Conferencing
9 2 (0.62%) IoT
9 2 (0.62%) IPTV
9 2 (0.62%) Management Information System
10 1 (0.31%) BYOD
10 1 (0.31%) Driving Licence
10 1 (0.31%) IVR
10 1 (0.31%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 26 (8.00%) Windows
2 15 (4.62%) Windows Server
3 13 (4.00%) Unix
4 5 (1.54%) Linux
5 1 (0.31%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 77 (23.69%) Network Design
2 60 (18.46%) Load Balancing
3 38 (11.69%) Migration
4 37 (11.38%) Network Management
5 31 (9.54%) Customer Requirements
5 31 (9.54%) Network Architecture
6 29 (8.92%) Technical Leadership
7 26 (8.00%) DevOps
8 21 (6.46%) Problem-Solving
9 19 (5.85%) Project Delivery
10 18 (5.54%) Network Monitoring
11 17 (5.23%) Agile
11 17 (5.23%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 15 (4.62%) Integration Testing
12 15 (4.62%) Roadmaps
12 15 (4.62%) Workflow
13 14 (4.31%) Capacity Planning
13 14 (4.31%) Data Protection
13 14 (4.31%) Test Planning
14 13 (4.00%) Kalman Filter
Programming Languages
1 39 (12.00%) Python
2 14 (4.31%) SQL
3 8 (2.46%) PowerShell
4 3 (0.92%) Perl
5 1 (0.31%) C
5 1 (0.31%) C++
5 1 (0.31%) Java
Qualifications
1 118 (36.31%) Security Cleared
2 89 (27.38%) Cisco Certification
3 65 (20.00%) CCNP
4 53 (16.31%) SC Cleared
5 38 (11.69%) CCIE
6 31 (9.54%) CCNA
7 20 (6.15%) Degree
8 13 (4.00%) JNCIS
9 10 (3.08%) DV Cleared
10 9 (2.77%) CCIE Data Center
11 8 (2.46%) JNCIA
12 7 (2.15%) CCIE Service Provider
13 6 (1.85%) AWS Certification
13 6 (1.85%) BC Cleared
13 6 (1.85%) BPSS Clearance
14 5 (1.54%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 5 (1.54%) Azure Certification
14 5 (1.54%) CCDP
14 5 (1.54%) Computer Science Degree
15 4 (1.23%) VCAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (4.00%) SLA
2 7 (2.15%) QA
3 3 (0.92%) HIPAA
3 3 (0.92%) NCSC
3 3 (0.92%) PCI DSS
4 1 (0.31%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 26 (8.00%) Active Directory
2 20 (6.15%) VMware Infrastructure
3 10 (3.08%) Docker
4 9 (2.77%) Firmware
5 8 (2.46%) Virtual Servers
5 8 (2.46%) VMware Workstation
6 7 (2.15%) VMware NSX
7 5 (1.54%) Hyper-V
8 3 (0.92%) Virtual Machines
9 1 (0.31%) Terminal Server
9 1 (0.31%) Terminal Services
9 1 (0.31%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 26 (8.00%) Endace
2 17 (5.23%) Ansible
3 13 (4.00%) SCCM
4 9 (2.77%) Microsoft Intune
4 9 (2.77%) Terraform
5 8 (2.46%) Microsoft Clustering
5 8 (2.46%) Nagios
5 8 (2.46%) NetBackup
6 6 (1.85%) FortiGate
6 6 (1.85%) SolarWinds Orion
7 3 (0.92%) Kibana
7 3 (0.92%) Single Sign-On
8 2 (0.62%) Amdocs OSS
8 2 (0.62%) Kubernetes
9 1 (0.31%) Cisco Prime
9 1 (0.31%) Netcool
Vendors
1 151 (46.46%) Cisco
2 147 (45.23%) Juniper
3 65 (20.00%) F5
4 36 (11.08%) Palo Alto
5 32 (9.85%) Nokia
6 29 (8.92%) Microsoft
6 29 (8.92%) VMware
7 27 (8.31%) Fortinet
8 24 (7.38%) CheckPoint
9 20 (6.15%) Infoblox
10 16 (4.92%) Zscaler
11 11 (3.38%) Citrix
11 11 (3.38%) SolarWinds
12 9 (2.77%) Aruba
12 9 (2.77%) Meraki
13 8 (2.46%) Hitachi
13 8 (2.46%) NetApp
14 7 (2.15%) Google
14 7 (2.15%) Okta
15 5 (1.54%) Symantec