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 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 457 397 355
Rank change year-on-year -60 -42 +108
Permanent jobs citing MPLS 65 164 226
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 0.15% 0.46% 0.66%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 0.86% 3.32% 4.32%
Number of salaries quoted 50 83 186
10th Percentile £27,300 £43,000 £37,500
25th Percentile £42,750 £51,000 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £57,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year - +15.00% +5.26%
75th Percentile £73,500 £68,125 £63,750
90th Percentile £77,500 £80,000 £77,500
UK median annual salary £60,000 £64,600 £53,250
% change year-on-year -7.12% +21.31% +1.43%

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 7,590 4,942 5,230
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 17.81% 13.74% 15.22%
Number of salaries quoted 2,831 2,471 4,302
10th Percentile £25,087 £29,750 £25,625
25th Percentile £27,722 £36,125 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £33,750 £50,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -32.50% +11.11% -
75th Percentile £52,500 £62,500 £59,000
90th Percentile £70,000 £75,000 £71,250
UK median annual salary £38,500 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -30.00% +10.00% -4.76%

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 15 January 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 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
South East 0 21 £69,000 +25.45% 12
Midlands +11 13 £52,500 -18.73% 4
North of England -29 11 £26,750 -51.36% 9
West Midlands +8 10 £52,500 -18.73% 4
Yorkshire -13 10 £26,000 -52.73% 8
Northern Ireland - 8 £58,250 - 1
Scotland +10 6 £74,500 - 2
South West -15 5 £67,500 +12.50% 7
East Midlands -10 3 £53,362 -2.98%
East of England +5 1 £43,000 -38.57% 1
North West -15 1 £60,000 +21.83% 1
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 6 (9.23%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (1.54%) Apache
2 1 (1.54%) IIS
2 1 (1.54%) SharePoint
Applications
1 8 (12.31%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (6.15%) MS Visio
3 3 (4.62%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (1.54%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 19 (29.23%) Azure
2 13 (20.00%) AWS
3 9 (13.85%) Microsoft 365
4 7 (10.77%) GCP
5 4 (6.15%) Amazon CloudWatch
5 4 (6.15%) Entra ID
6 2 (3.08%) IaaS
6 2 (3.08%) OCI
6 2 (3.08%) PaaS
6 2 (3.08%) SaaS
7 1 (1.54%) Azure DevOps
7 1 (1.54%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 1 (1.54%) Azure Logic Apps
7 1 (1.54%) Azure Monitor
7 1 (1.54%) Azure Sentinel
7 1 (1.54%) Nutanix
7 1 (1.54%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 45 (69.23%) LAN
2 43 (66.15%) Firewall
3 41 (63.08%) WAN
4 36 (55.38%) BGP
5 33 (50.77%) SD-WAN
6 31 (47.69%) VPN
7 19 (29.23%) Wireless
8 15 (23.08%) Broadband
9 14 (21.54%) OSPF
10 12 (18.46%) VoIP
11 10 (15.38%) WLAN
12 8 (12.31%) Cisco IOS
12 8 (12.31%) VXLAN
13 7 (10.77%) DNS
14 6 (9.23%) ADSL
14 6 (9.23%) Ethernet
14 6 (9.23%) Network Security
14 6 (9.23%) PSTN
14 6 (9.23%) TCP/IP
14 6 (9.23%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.54%) SQL Server
1 1 (1.54%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 3 (4.62%) Git
1 3 (4.62%) JIRA
2 1 (1.54%) GitLab
General
1 30 (46.15%) Social Skills
2 11 (16.92%) Telecoms
3 8 (12.31%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 6 (9.23%) Finance
5 4 (6.15%) Billing
5 4 (6.15%) Documentation Skills
6 2 (3.08%) Analytical Skills
6 2 (3.08%) Public Sector
7 1 (1.54%) Electronics
7 1 (1.54%) Influencing Skills
7 1 (1.54%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 25 (38.46%) Network Engineer
2 13 (20.00%) Senior
3 9 (13.85%) Senior Network Engineer
4 8 (12.31%) Analyst
5 7 (10.77%) Cisco Consultant
5 7 (10.77%) Cisco Network Consultant
5 7 (10.77%) Consultant
5 7 (10.77%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 7 (10.77%) Network Consultant
5 7 (10.77%) WAN Consultant
6 6 (9.23%) Support Analyst
7 5 (7.69%) Technical Analyst
7 5 (7.69%) Technical Support
7 5 (7.69%) Technical Support Analyst
8 4 (6.15%) Coordinator
8 4 (6.15%) Design Engineer
8 4 (6.15%) Network Design Engineer
8 4 (6.15%) Network Manager
8 4 (6.15%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
8 4 (6.15%) Senior Network Design Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (10.77%) REST
2 3 (4.62%) Jinja
2 3 (4.62%) NETCONF
2 3 (4.62%) YANG
3 1 (1.54%) .NET
3 1 (1.54%) 802.1X
3 1 (1.54%) OpenTelemetry
Miscellaneous
1 20 (30.77%) Data Centre
2 9 (13.85%) Public Cloud
3 6 (9.23%) Self-Motivation
4 5 (7.69%) Handset
5 4 (6.15%) Data Protection Act
5 4 (6.15%) Enterprise Software
5 4 (6.15%) Private Cloud
5 4 (6.15%) Product Ownership
6 3 (4.62%) Social Media
7 2 (3.08%) Driving Licence
7 2 (3.08%) e-Learning
7 2 (3.08%) PKI
7 2 (3.08%) Virtual Team
8 1 (1.54%) CCTV
8 1 (1.54%) Clustering
8 1 (1.54%) FMCG
8 1 (1.54%) Hybrid Cloud
8 1 (1.54%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 10 (15.38%) Windows
2 6 (9.23%) Linux
2 6 (9.23%) Windows Server
3 4 (6.15%) Windows Server 2016
3 4 (6.15%) Windows Server 2019
4 2 (3.08%) Mac OS
5 1 (1.54%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 13 (20.00%) Customer Service
2 12 (18.46%) ITIL
3 10 (15.38%) Problem-Solving
3 10 (15.38%) Project Delivery
3 10 (15.38%) Project Management
4 9 (13.85%) Cybersecurity
4 9 (13.85%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 9 (13.85%) Network Design
4 9 (13.85%) Network Management
4 9 (13.85%) Service Delivery
5 8 (12.31%) Agile
5 8 (12.31%) Cloud Security
6 7 (10.77%) Change Control
6 7 (10.77%) Network Monitoring
6 7 (10.77%) Network Segmentation
6 7 (10.77%) Root Cause Analysis
7 6 (9.23%) Data Protection
7 6 (9.23%) Observability
7 6 (9.23%) Time Management
8 5 (7.69%) Requirements Gathering
Programming Languages
1 19 (29.23%) Python
2 10 (15.38%) PowerShell
3 3 (4.62%) Bash
Qualifications
1 32 (49.23%) Cisco Certification
2 25 (38.46%) CCNP
3 13 (20.00%) CCNA
4 8 (12.31%) Security Cleared
5 7 (10.77%) Degree
5 7 (10.77%) DV Cleared
6 5 (7.69%) SC Cleared
7 4 (6.15%) CCIE
7 4 (6.15%) JNCIS
7 4 (6.15%) Microsoft Certification
8 3 (4.62%) Computer Science Degree
8 3 (4.62%) Master's Degree
9 2 (3.08%) CCSP
9 2 (3.08%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (3.08%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 1 (1.54%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 8 (12.31%) VMware Infrastructure
2 6 (9.23%) Active Directory
3 4 (6.15%) XenApp
4 2 (3.08%) VMware NSX
5 1 (1.54%) Hyper-V
5 1 (1.54%) VMware ESXi
5 1 (1.54%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 18 (27.69%) Ansible
2 14 (21.54%) FortiGate
3 9 (13.85%) Terraform
4 4 (6.15%) Grafana
4 4 (6.15%) Microsoft Intune
4 4 (6.15%) Prometheus
5 1 (1.54%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 1 (1.54%) CASB
5 1 (1.54%) Failover Clustering
5 1 (1.54%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
5 1 (1.54%) Nagios
5 1 (1.54%) OpenView
5 1 (1.54%) Tivoli
5 1 (1.54%) WSUS
Vendors
1 45 (69.23%) Cisco
2 36 (55.38%) Fortinet
3 21 (32.31%) Meraki
4 16 (24.62%) Microsoft
5 14 (21.54%) Juniper
6 11 (16.92%) Aruba
7 9 (13.85%) VMware
8 8 (12.31%) Palo Alto
9 7 (10.77%) Huawei
10 6 (9.23%) Polycom
10 6 (9.23%) SolarWinds
10 6 (9.23%) Splunk
11 5 (7.69%) CheckPoint
11 5 (7.69%) F5
12 4 (6.15%) Citrix
12 4 (6.15%) CrowdStrike
12 4 (6.15%) IBM
12 4 (6.15%) ServiceNow
12 4 (6.15%) SonicWALL
12 4 (6.15%) Veeam