MPLS Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS)
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the UK excluding London requiring MPLS skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 9 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 521 407 470
Rank change year-on-year -114 +63 +64
Permanent jobs citing MPLS 56 113 290
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 0.085% 0.40% 0.42%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 0.77% 2.42% 3.13%
Number of salaries quoted 43 77 238
10th Percentile £41,888 £46,250 £26,700
25th Percentile £45,000 £52,500 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £67,500 £65,000 £48,500
Median % change year-on-year +3.85% +34.02% +2.11%
75th Percentile £77,500 £70,000 £55,000
90th Percentile £80,000 £77,500 £65,750
UK median annual salary £75,000 £65,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +15.38% +30.00% -15.25%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
UK excluding London

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 UK excluding London.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 7,302 4,675 9,271
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 11.14% 16.40% 13.51%
Number of salaries quoted 2,863 2,671 7,078
10th Percentile £26,400 £25,750 £25,750
25th Percentile £29,000 £31,250 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £40,000 £45,000 £43,500
Median % change year-on-year -11.11% +3.45% -3.33%
75th Percentile £60,000 £60,000 £58,750
90th Percentile £75,000 £75,000 £68,750
UK median annual salary £45,000 £50,000 £47,500
% change year-on-year -10.00% +5.26% -5.00%

MPLS
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing MPLS relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

MPLS job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

MPLS
Salary Trend in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing MPLS.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing MPLS

MPLS
Salary Histogram in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution for jobs citing MPLS in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 9 May 2026.

Salary histogram for MPLS in the UK excluding London

MPLS
Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing MPLS within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 9 May 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
South East -33 22 £75,000 +15.38% 11
North of England -68 9 £50,000 +2.56% 4
Wales - 8 £70,000 -
Yorkshire -51 7 £50,000 +53.85% 1
South West -70 5 £67,500 +22.73% 1
Northern Ireland - 5 £57,500 -
Scotland -9 3 £51,500 - 1
East of England -14 2 £43,000 -25.22% 1
East Midlands -23 2 £48,500 +14.12%
North West -26 2 £44,250 -31.92% 2
Midlands -59 2 £48,500 -25.38% 3
MPLS
UK

MPLS
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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 2 (3.57%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (1.79%) Apache
2 1 (1.79%) IIS
2 1 (1.79%) SharePoint
Applications
1 5 (8.93%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (1.79%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 11 (19.64%) Azure
2 9 (16.07%) AWS
3 3 (5.36%) Microsoft 365
4 2 (3.57%) Azure ExpressRoute
4 2 (3.57%) GCP
4 2 (3.57%) IaaS
4 2 (3.57%) OCI
4 2 (3.57%) PaaS
4 2 (3.57%) SaaS
5 1 (1.79%) Amazon CloudWatch
5 1 (1.79%) Azure DevOps
5 1 (1.79%) Azure Logic Apps
5 1 (1.79%) Azure Monitor
5 1 (1.79%) Azure Sentinel
5 1 (1.79%) Entra ID
5 1 (1.79%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 41 (73.21%) BGP
1 41 (73.21%) VPN
2 40 (71.43%) WAN
3 28 (50.00%) Firewall
3 28 (50.00%) LAN
4 26 (46.43%) SD-WAN
5 17 (30.36%) OSPF
6 15 (26.79%) Wireless
7 14 (25.00%) DHCP
7 14 (25.00%) DNS
8 13 (23.21%) VoIP
9 12 (21.43%) Network Security
10 10 (17.86%) Cisco Firepower
10 10 (17.86%) VXLAN
11 8 (14.29%) Broadband
11 8 (14.29%) VPLS
12 7 (12.50%) Cisco IOS
12 7 (12.50%) SNMP
12 7 (12.50%) VLAN
13 6 (10.71%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.79%) SQL Server
1 1 (1.79%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 4 (7.14%) GitLab
2 3 (5.36%) Git
General
1 22 (39.29%) Social Skills
2 11 (19.64%) Finance
2 11 (19.64%) Telecoms
3 9 (16.07%) Public Sector
4 7 (12.50%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 5 (8.93%) Analytical Skills
6 4 (7.14%) Billing
7 3 (5.36%) Documentation Skills
8 1 (1.79%) Electronics
8 1 (1.79%) Influencing Skills
8 1 (1.79%) Military
Job Titles
1 21 (37.50%) Network Engineer
2 11 (19.64%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 10 (17.86%) Senior
4 9 (16.07%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
5 8 (14.29%) Architect
5 8 (14.29%) Cisco Consultant
5 8 (14.29%) Cisco Network Consultant
5 8 (14.29%) Consultant
5 8 (14.29%) Network Consultant
5 8 (14.29%) WAN Consultant
6 7 (12.50%) Network Infrastructure Engineer
7 6 (10.71%) Senior Network Engineer
8 4 (7.14%) Coordinator
8 4 (7.14%) Infrastructure Services Engineer
8 4 (7.14%) IT Engineer
8 4 (7.14%) IT Support
8 4 (7.14%) IT Support Engineer
8 4 (7.14%) Support Engineer
9 3 (5.36%) Network Engineering Manager
9 3 (5.36%) Network Operations Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (14.29%) REST
2 4 (7.14%) 802.1X
2 4 (7.14%) ModSecurity
2 4 (7.14%) OpenTelemetry
3 3 (5.36%) Jinja
3 3 (5.36%) NETCONF
3 3 (5.36%) YANG
4 1 (1.79%) .NET
Miscellaneous
1 15 (26.79%) Data Centre
1 15 (26.79%) PKI
2 4 (7.14%) CMDB
2 4 (7.14%) Enterprise Software
2 4 (7.14%) Self-Motivation
3 3 (5.36%) Social Media
4 2 (3.57%) e-Learning
4 2 (3.57%) Public Cloud
5 1 (1.79%) CCTV
5 1 (1.79%) Clustering
5 1 (1.79%) Data Protection Act
5 1 (1.79%) FMCG
5 1 (1.79%) Hybrid Cloud
5 1 (1.79%) Operational Technology
5 1 (1.79%) Private Cloud
5 1 (1.79%) Product Ownership
5 1 (1.79%) SCADA
5 1 (1.79%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 14 (25.00%) Linux
2 11 (19.64%) Windows
3 6 (10.71%) Windows Server
4 4 (7.14%) Unix
5 2 (3.57%) Mac OS
6 1 (1.79%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 13 (23.21%) ITIL
1 13 (23.21%) SIEM
2 12 (21.43%) Computer Science
3 11 (19.64%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 11 (19.64%) Network Design
3 11 (19.64%) Network Segmentation
4 9 (16.07%) Cloud Security
5 8 (14.29%) Cybersecurity
5 8 (14.29%) High Availability
5 8 (14.29%) Network Management
5 8 (14.29%) Root Cause Analysis
6 7 (12.50%) Service Delivery
6 7 (12.50%) Technical Leadership
7 6 (10.71%) Capacity Management
7 6 (10.71%) Cryptography
7 6 (10.71%) Customer Requirements
7 6 (10.71%) Incident Response
7 6 (10.71%) Observability
7 6 (10.71%) Performance Testing
7 6 (10.71%) Requirements Gathering
Programming Languages
1 23 (41.07%) Python
2 14 (25.00%) PowerShell
3 3 (5.36%) Bash
Qualifications
1 31 (55.36%) Cisco Certification
2 26 (46.43%) CCNP
2 26 (46.43%) Security Cleared
3 20 (35.71%) DV Cleared
4 18 (32.14%) SC Cleared
5 16 (28.57%) Degree
6 12 (21.43%) Computer Science Degree
7 10 (17.86%) CCNA
8 6 (10.71%) CCIE
9 3 (5.36%) Master's Degree
10 2 (3.57%) DBS Check
11 1 (1.79%) CCSP
11 1 (1.79%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (10.71%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 5 (8.93%) NIST
3 3 (5.36%) SLA
System Software
1 14 (25.00%) VMware Infrastructure
2 13 (23.21%) VMware NSX
3 10 (17.86%) Active Directory
4 8 (14.29%) VMware ESXi
4 8 (14.29%) vSphere
5 3 (5.36%) Docker
6 1 (1.79%) Firmware
6 1 (1.79%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 25 (44.64%) Ansible
2 12 (21.43%) FortiGate
3 6 (10.71%) Endace
4 5 (8.93%) Terraform
5 4 (7.14%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 4 (7.14%) vCenter Server
5 4 (7.14%) WSUS
6 1 (1.79%) CASB
6 1 (1.79%) Cisco Prime
6 1 (1.79%) Failover Clustering
6 1 (1.79%) Grafana
6 1 (1.79%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
6 1 (1.79%) OpenView
6 1 (1.79%) Prometheus
6 1 (1.79%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 38 (67.86%) Cisco
2 26 (46.43%) Fortinet
3 14 (25.00%) VMware
4 13 (23.21%) Microsoft
5 11 (19.64%) Palo Alto
6 10 (17.86%) Meraki
6 10 (17.86%) Splunk
7 8 (14.29%) F5
7 8 (14.29%) Juniper
8 4 (7.14%) CrowdStrike
9 3 (5.36%) CheckPoint
9 3 (5.36%) SolarWinds
10 1 (1.79%) Aruba
10 1 (1.79%) HP
10 1 (1.79%) Huawei
10 1 (1.79%) NetApp
10 1 (1.79%) Polycom
10 1 (1.79%) Qualys
10 1 (1.79%) Radware
10 1 (1.79%) Riverbed