MPLS Job Trends in the South East

Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS)
England > South East

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the South East requiring MPLS 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 251 254 197
Rank change year-on-year +3 -57 +139
Permanent jobs citing MPLS 24 48 72
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 0.23% 0.52% 0.93%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 1.59% 3.36% 6.19%
Number of salaries quoted 20 32 64
10th Percentile £40,363 £41,375 £46,250
25th Percentile £44,215 £51,000 £51,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £69,000 £55,000 £72,500
Median % change year-on-year +25.45% -24.14% +31.82%
75th Percentile £77,500 £67,500 £77,500
90th Percentile £78,250 £80,000 £84,625
England median annual salary £57,246 £65,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -11.93% +18.18% +4.76%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
South East

MPLS 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 South East.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 1,513 1,428 1,164
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 14.60% 15.45% 15.00%
Number of salaries quoted 678 749 975
10th Percentile £27,250 £31,250 £27,500
25th Percentile £31,250 £41,250 £34,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £55,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -18.18% +10.00% +5.26%
75th Percentile £59,500 £63,750 £61,700
90th Percentile £71,250 £76,500 £75,000
England median annual salary £40,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -27.27% +10.00% -4.76%

MPLS
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing MPLS relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the South East.

MPLS job vacancy trend in the South East

MPLS
Salary Trend in the South East

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing MPLS.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing MPLS

MPLS
Salary Histogram in the South East

Salary distribution for jobs citing MPLS in the South East over the 6 months to 1 January 2026.

Salary histogram for MPLS in the South East

MPLS
Job Locations in the South East

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing MPLS within the South East 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
Hampshire +27 15 £69,000 +27.78% 3
Kent -11 4 £40,250 -38.08% 3
West Sussex +3 2 - -
East Sussex - 2 £44,720 -
MPLS
England

MPLS
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South East 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 1 (4.17%) Apache
1 1 (4.17%) IIS
1 1 (4.17%) Microsoft Exchange
1 1 (4.17%) SharePoint
Cloud Services
1 1 (4.17%) Azure
1 1 (4.17%) Azure DevOps
1 1 (4.17%) Azure ExpressRoute
1 1 (4.17%) IaaS
1 1 (4.17%) Microsoft 365
1 1 (4.17%) Nutanix
1 1 (4.17%) PaaS
1 1 (4.17%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 16 (66.67%) VPN
2 14 (58.33%) LAN
2 14 (58.33%) WAN
3 13 (54.17%) BGP
3 13 (54.17%) Firewall
4 11 (45.83%) Wireless
5 10 (41.67%) SD-WAN
6 7 (29.17%) IPsec
7 6 (25.00%) Cisco IOS
7 6 (25.00%) OSPF
7 6 (25.00%) Wireshark
8 5 (20.83%) Junos
8 5 (20.83%) VXLAN
9 4 (16.67%) Cisco ASA
9 4 (16.67%) VoIP
10 3 (12.50%) DHCP
10 3 (12.50%) DNS
10 3 (12.50%) TCP/IP
10 3 (12.50%) VLAN
11 2 (8.33%) Wireless Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (4.17%) SQL Server
1 1 (4.17%) SQL Server Reporting Services
General
1 7 (29.17%) Social Skills
2 3 (12.50%) Analytical Skills
2 3 (12.50%) Documentation Skills
2 3 (12.50%) Telecoms
3 2 (8.33%) Finance
3 2 (8.33%) Influencing Skills
3 2 (8.33%) Pharmaceutical
4 1 (4.17%) Electronics
4 1 (4.17%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 1 (4.17%) Presentation Skills
4 1 (4.17%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 11 (45.83%) Network Engineer
2 6 (25.00%) Senior
2 6 (25.00%) Senior Network Engineer
3 5 (20.83%) Cisco Consultant
3 5 (20.83%) Cisco Network Consultant
3 5 (20.83%) Consultant
3 5 (20.83%) Network Consultant
3 5 (20.83%) WAN Consultant
4 4 (16.67%) Design Engineer
4 4 (16.67%) Network Design Engineer
4 4 (16.67%) Senior Design Engineer
4 4 (16.67%) Senior Network Design Engineer
5 2 (8.33%) Analyst
5 2 (8.33%) Architect
5 2 (8.33%) Network Analyst
5 2 (8.33%) Support Manager
6 1 (4.17%) Infrastructure Architect
6 1 (4.17%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 1 (4.17%) Network Security Engineer
6 1 (4.17%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (20.83%) REST
2 3 (12.50%) 802.1X
3 1 (4.17%) .NET
Miscellaneous
1 8 (33.33%) Data Centre
2 1 (4.17%) CCTV
2 1 (4.17%) FMCG
2 1 (4.17%) PKI
2 1 (4.17%) Private Cloud
2 1 (4.17%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 2 (8.33%) Linux
1 2 (8.33%) Mac OS
1 2 (8.33%) Windows
2 1 (4.17%) Windows Server
2 1 (4.17%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 9 (37.50%) Project Management
2 8 (33.33%) Project Delivery
3 6 (25.00%) Problem-Solving
4 5 (20.83%) Network Management
4 5 (20.83%) Network Segmentation
4 5 (20.83%) Requirements Gathering
4 5 (20.83%) Service Delivery
5 4 (16.67%) High Availability
5 4 (16.67%) Network Design
5 4 (16.67%) Technical Leadership
6 3 (12.50%) Customer Requirements
6 3 (12.50%) Incident Response
6 3 (12.50%) Network Monitoring
6 3 (12.50%) Network Virtualisation
6 3 (12.50%) Root Cause Analysis
6 3 (12.50%) Stakeholder Management
6 3 (12.50%) Virtual Environments
6 3 (12.50%) Workflow
6 3 (12.50%) Workflow Management
7 2 (8.33%) Information Security
Programming Languages
1 5 (20.83%) Python
2 2 (8.33%) R
Qualifications
1 16 (66.67%) CCNP
1 16 (66.67%) Cisco Certification
2 6 (25.00%) CCNA
2 6 (25.00%) Security Cleared
3 5 (20.83%) DV Cleared
3 5 (20.83%) SC Cleared
4 4 (16.67%) JNCIS
5 2 (8.33%) CCIE
5 2 (8.33%) DBS Check
5 2 (8.33%) Degree
6 1 (4.17%) JNCIA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (8.33%) Accessibility
2 1 (4.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 1 (4.17%) VMware Infrastructure
1 1 (4.17%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 8 (33.33%) FortiGate
2 6 (25.00%) Ansible
3 2 (8.33%) Terraform
4 1 (4.17%) CASB
4 1 (4.17%) OpenView
4 1 (4.17%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 21 (87.50%) Cisco
2 9 (37.50%) Fortinet
2 9 (37.50%) Meraki
3 8 (33.33%) Juniper
4 6 (25.00%) Microsoft
5 3 (12.50%) Aruba
5 3 (12.50%) Riverbed
6 2 (8.33%) VMware
7 1 (4.17%) ArcSight
7 1 (4.17%) EMC
7 1 (4.17%) ExtraHop
7 1 (4.17%) F5
7 1 (4.17%) Fujitsu
7 1 (4.17%) HP
7 1 (4.17%) NetApp
7 1 (4.17%) Palo Alto
7 1 (4.17%) Siebel
7 1 (4.17%) SolarWinds
7 1 (4.17%) Splunk
7 1 (4.17%) Zscaler