OSPF Job Trends in England

Open Shortest Path First (OSPF)
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in England requiring OSPF skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 15 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 493 363 391
Rank change year-on-year -130 +28 +282
Permanent jobs citing OSPF 109 331 308
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.21% 0.69% 0.63%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 1.23% 5.07% 4.50%
Number of salaries quoted 69 212 242
10th Percentile £47,700 £32,500 £37,500
25th Percentile £55,184 £44,375 £46,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £55,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +18.18% +10.00% -
75th Percentile £77,500 £68,188 £63,750
90th Percentile £83,500 £83,750 £85,000
UK median annual salary £65,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +18.18% +10.00% -4.76%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
England

OSPF falls under the Communications and Computer Networking category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies requiring communications or computer networking skills in England.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 8,872 6,528 6,851
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 16.71% 13.54% 13.96%
Number of salaries quoted 3,451 3,429 5,522
10th Percentile £26,000 £31,250 £28,000
25th Percentile £28,500 £40,000 £35,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £40,000 £55,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -27.27% +10.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £62,500 £71,250 £67,500
90th Percentile £82,500 £88,800 £82,500
UK median annual salary £38,500 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -30.00% +10.00% -4.76%

OSPF
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing OSPF relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in England.

OSPF job vacancy trend in England

OSPF
Salary Trend in England

Salary distribution trend for jobs in England citing OSPF.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in England citing OSPF

OSPF
Salary Histogram in England

Salary distribution for jobs citing OSPF in England over the 6 months to 15 January 2026.

Salary histogram for OSPF in England

OSPF
Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing OSPF within the England region over the 6 months to 15 January 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
London +1 43 £74,000 +2.07% 20
South East -58 22 £65,000 +18.18% 15
Midlands -10 12 £62,500 +78.57% 7
North of England -18 12 £56,500 +25.56% 2
West Midlands -10 9 £63,750 +82.14% 7
South West -7 8 £54,560 -2.78% 1
East of England +19 6 £53,750 -32.81% 2
North East +15 5 - - 2
North West -6 4 £50,750 +12.78%
East Midlands -13 3 £50,000 -
Yorkshire -17 3 £62,500 +25.00% 2
OSPF
UK

OSPF
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England 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 5 (4.59%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (1.83%) Apache Airflow
2 2 (1.83%) nginx
3 1 (0.92%) Confluence
Applications
1 17 (15.60%) MS Visio
2 3 (2.75%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 50 (45.87%) Azure
2 36 (33.03%) AWS
3 9 (8.26%) AWS Direct Connect
4 6 (5.50%) Virtual Private Cloud
5 5 (4.59%) GCP
5 5 (4.59%) Microsoft 365
5 5 (4.59%) SaaS
6 3 (2.75%) Azure DevOps
6 3 (2.75%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 2 (1.83%) Dagster
7 2 (1.83%) OCI
8 1 (0.92%) Azure Sentinel
8 1 (0.92%) Datadog
8 1 (0.92%) Nutanix
8 1 (0.92%) Stackdriver
Communications & Networking
1 104 (95.41%) BGP
2 94 (86.24%) Firewall
3 72 (66.06%) WAN
4 69 (63.30%) VPN
5 57 (52.29%) LAN
6 50 (45.87%) Wireless
7 48 (44.04%) EIGRP
8 43 (39.45%) Network Security
9 41 (37.61%) SD-WAN
10 35 (32.11%) Cisco ASA
10 35 (32.11%) VLAN
11 31 (28.44%) Wi-Fi
12 28 (25.69%) Cisco Nexus
13 27 (24.77%) MPLS
14 26 (23.85%) IPsec
15 25 (22.94%) TCP/IP
16 21 (19.27%) VXLAN
17 17 (15.60%) Wireshark
18 15 (13.76%) Cisco Firepower
18 15 (13.76%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (1.83%) Data Lake
1 2 (1.83%) Metadata
1 2 (1.83%) MongoDB
1 2 (1.83%) MySQL
1 2 (1.83%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 4 (3.67%) Git
2 3 (2.75%) Sonatype Nexus
3 2 (1.83%) GitLab
3 2 (1.83%) Jaeger
3 2 (1.83%) Jenkins
3 2 (1.83%) MLflow
4 1 (0.92%) JIRA
General
1 33 (30.28%) Social Skills
2 28 (25.69%) Analytical Skills
3 9 (8.26%) Finance
4 8 (7.34%) Documentation Skills
5 6 (5.50%) Marketing
6 5 (4.59%) Law
7 4 (3.67%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 2 (1.83%) Agriculture
8 2 (1.83%) Banking
8 2 (1.83%) Organisational Skills
8 2 (1.83%) Police
8 2 (1.83%) Public Sector
9 1 (0.92%) Retail
Job Titles
1 79 (72.48%) Network Engineer
2 35 (32.11%) Senior
3 32 (29.36%) Senior Network Engineer
4 13 (11.93%) Cisco Engineer
4 13 (11.93%) Cisco Network Engineer
5 9 (8.26%) Cisco Consultant
5 9 (8.26%) Cisco Network Consultant
5 9 (8.26%) Consultant
5 9 (8.26%) Network Consultant
6 8 (7.34%) WAN Consultant
7 7 (6.42%) Firewall Engineer
7 7 (6.42%) Lead
7 7 (6.42%) Lead Network Engineer
7 7 (6.42%) Network Team Leader
7 7 (6.42%) Team Leader
8 5 (4.59%) 3rd Line Support
8 5 (4.59%) Architect
8 5 (4.59%) AWS Infrastructure Engineer
8 5 (4.59%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 5 (4.59%) Network Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (11.93%) REST
2 5 (4.59%) 802.1X
3 2 (1.83%) FastAPI
3 2 (1.83%) Kafka
3 2 (1.83%) Keycloak
3 2 (1.83%) WebRTC
Miscellaneous
1 41 (37.61%) Data Centre
2 7 (6.42%) Driving Licence
3 5 (4.59%) Management Information System
4 4 (3.67%) Cloud Native
4 4 (3.67%) Public Cloud
5 3 (2.75%) Data Protection Act
5 3 (2.75%) Virtual Team
6 2 (1.83%) e-Learning
6 2 (1.83%) IoT
6 2 (1.83%) MPEG
6 2 (1.83%) Onboarding
6 2 (1.83%) PKI
6 2 (1.83%) Robotics
7 1 (0.92%) Digital Media
7 1 (0.92%) e-Health
7 1 (0.92%) Hedge funds
7 1 (0.92%) Hybrid Cloud
7 1 (0.92%) Security Posture
7 1 (0.92%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 6 (5.50%) Windows
2 5 (4.59%) Windows Server
3 3 (2.75%) Linux
4 1 (0.92%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 24 (22.02%) Load Balancing
2 22 (20.18%) Problem-Solving
3 21 (19.27%) Kalman Filter
4 20 (18.35%) Computer Science
5 16 (14.68%) Network Monitoring
5 16 (14.68%) Network Segmentation
6 15 (13.76%) Root Cause Analysis
7 14 (12.84%) Project Delivery
8 12 (11.01%) Cloud Security
8 12 (11.01%) ITIL
9 11 (10.09%) Customer Service
9 11 (10.09%) Zero Trust
10 10 (9.17%) Change Management
10 10 (9.17%) High Availability
10 10 (9.17%) Network Management
11 9 (8.26%) Collaborative Working
11 9 (8.26%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 9 (8.26%) Time Management
12 8 (7.34%) Analytical Thinking
12 8 (7.34%) Strategic Thinking
Programming Languages
1 39 (35.78%) Python
2 4 (3.67%) Bash
3 1 (0.92%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 78 (71.56%) Cisco Certification
2 75 (68.81%) CCNP
3 27 (24.77%) Degree
4 26 (23.85%) CCIE
5 19 (17.43%) Computer Science Degree
6 14 (12.84%) CCNA
7 13 (11.93%) Security Cleared
8 10 (9.17%) SC Cleared
9 6 (5.50%) Azure Certification
10 5 (4.59%) DBS Check
11 4 (3.67%) AWS Certification
11 4 (3.67%) DV Cleared
12 3 (2.75%) Master's Degree
13 2 (1.83%) CISSP
13 2 (1.83%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 1 (0.92%) Network+ Certification
14 1 (0.92%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (12.84%) PMO
2 5 (4.59%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 3 (2.75%) NIST
3 3 (2.75%) SLA
4 1 (0.92%) GDPR
4 1 (0.92%) ISO 9001
4 1 (0.92%) SOC 2
System Software
1 12 (11.01%) ProxySG
2 8 (7.34%) VMware Infrastructure
3 7 (6.42%) Active Directory
4 6 (5.50%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (2.75%) Firmware
6 2 (1.83%) Docker
6 2 (1.83%) NFS
6 2 (1.83%) pfSense
6 2 (1.83%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 23 (21.10%) Ansible
2 19 (17.43%) FortiGate
3 13 (11.93%) Terraform
4 3 (2.75%) Dell DRAC
5 2 (1.83%) Argo
5 2 (1.83%) Grafana
5 2 (1.83%) Kubernetes
5 2 (1.83%) Nagios
5 2 (1.83%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.92%) CA Spectrum
6 1 (0.92%) VxRail
Vendors
1 99 (90.83%) Cisco
2 37 (33.94%) Palo Alto
2 37 (33.94%) SolarWinds
3 35 (32.11%) Fortinet
4 34 (31.19%) Meraki
5 31 (28.44%) CheckPoint
6 19 (17.43%) F5
7 15 (13.76%) Infoblox
7 15 (13.76%) ServiceNow
8 14 (12.84%) Motorola
9 12 (11.01%) Blue Coat
10 11 (10.09%) Microsoft
11 10 (9.17%) VMware
12 8 (7.34%) Juniper
13 7 (6.42%) Arista
14 5 (4.59%) Aruba
14 5 (4.59%) Dynatrace
14 5 (4.59%) Zscaler
15 4 (3.67%) Dell
16 3 (2.75%) Citrix