OSPF Job Trends in the North West

Open Shortest Path First (OSPF)
England > North West

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the North West requiring OSPF skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 1 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 173 170 151
Rank change year-on-year -3 -19 +132
Permanent jobs citing OSPF 6 35 40
As % of all permanent jobs in the North West 0.097% 0.67% 1.03%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 0.31% 6.46% 7.39%
Number of salaries quoted 6 16 35
10th Percentile £47,000 £29,500 £31,250
25th Percentile £48,688 £31,000 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £56,500 £46,250 £40,000
Median % change year-on-year +22.16% +15.63% -20.00%
75th Percentile £62,500 £55,625 £55,000
90th Percentile - £61,250 £85,000
England median annual salary £65,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +18.18% +10.00% -

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
North West

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 the North West.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 1,917 542 541
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North West 31.10% 10.42% 13.92%
Number of salaries quoted 357 321 443
10th Percentile - £30,500 £27,750
25th Percentile £25,087 £32,750 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £30,500 £45,000 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year -32.22% -5.26% +5.56%
75th Percentile £47,500 £57,500 £65,000
90th Percentile £67,500 £77,500 £77,715
England median annual salary £40,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -27.27% +10.00% -4.76%

OSPF
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

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

OSPF job vacancy trend in the North West

OSPF
Salary Trend in the North West

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing OSPF.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing OSPF

OSPF
Salary Histogram in the North West

Salary distribution for jobs citing OSPF in the North West over the 6 months to 1 January 2026.

Salary histogram for OSPF in the North West

OSPF
Job Locations in the North West

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing OSPF within the North West region over the 6 months to 1 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
Lancashire +15 3 £60,000 -7.69% 2
Manchester -11 2 £48,000 +6.67% 5
Cumbria - 1 £53,000 -
OSPF
England

OSPF
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the North West 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:

Communications & Networking
1 6 (100.00%) BGP
1 6 (100.00%) Firewall
2 3 (50.00%) Cisco ASA
2 3 (50.00%) Cisco Firepower
2 3 (50.00%) DHCP
2 3 (50.00%) DNS
2 3 (50.00%) EIGRP
2 3 (50.00%) HSRP
2 3 (50.00%) IPsec
2 3 (50.00%) LAN
2 3 (50.00%) Network Security
2 3 (50.00%) SD-WAN
2 3 (50.00%) TCP/IP
2 3 (50.00%) VLAN
2 3 (50.00%) VPN
2 3 (50.00%) WAN
2 3 (50.00%) Wi-Fi
General
1 3 (50.00%) Retail
1 3 (50.00%) Social Skills
2 1 (16.67%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 3 (50.00%) IT Manager
1 3 (50.00%) Network Engineer
1 3 (50.00%) Network Manager
Miscellaneous
1 3 (50.00%) Data Centre
Processes & Methodologies
1 3 (50.00%) Data-Driven Decision Making
1 3 (50.00%) Disaster Recovery
1 3 (50.00%) Mentoring
1 3 (50.00%) Network Management
1 3 (50.00%) Stakeholder Management
1 3 (50.00%) Strategic Planning
1 3 (50.00%) TOGAF
1 3 (50.00%) Zero Trust
Qualifications
1 3 (50.00%) CCIE
1 3 (50.00%) Cisco Certification
1 3 (50.00%) CISSP
1 3 (50.00%) TOGAF Certification
2 2 (33.33%) SC Cleared
2 2 (33.33%) Security Cleared
Vendors
1 3 (50.00%) CheckPoint
1 3 (50.00%) Cisco
1 3 (50.00%) Palo Alto