Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs requiring MPLS skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 14 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 629 491 499
Rank change year-on-year -138 +8 +30
Permanent jobs citing MPLS 111 185 458
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.12% 0.42% 0.43%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 1.63% 2.76% 3.45%
Number of salaries quoted 75 130 356
10th Percentile £42,500 £37,970 £32,500
25th Percentile £60,625 £50,000 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £65,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year +15.38% +23.81% -12.50%
75th Percentile £85,000 £76,250 £67,813
90th Percentile £107,500 £85,000 £80,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £71,250 £65,000 £48,500
% change year-on-year +9.62% +34.02% +2.11%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
UK

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.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 6,824 6,709 13,284
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 7.34% 15.08% 12.34%
Number of salaries quoted 4,384 3,769 9,415
10th Percentile £27,694 £25,750 £26,250
25th Percentile £31,250 £31,250 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £47,500 £47,500 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year - - -6.86%
75th Percentile £70,000 £67,500 £63,750
90th Percentile £85,000 £85,000 £77,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £42,500 £40,000 £44,693
% change year-on-year +6.25% -10.50% -0.68%

MPLS
Job Vacancy Trend

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

MPLS job vacancy trend in the UK

MPLS
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing MPLS.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing MPLS

MPLS
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing MPLS over the 6 months to 14 June 2026.

Salary histogram for MPLS in the UK

MPLS
Top 15 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing MPLS within the UK over the 6 months to 14 June 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
England -138 94 £80,000 +28.00% 25
Work from Home +34 67 £80,000 +10.34% 22
UK excluding London -129 60 £71,250 +9.62% 31
London -41 50 £87,500 +42.86% 10
South East -34 23 £72,500 +11.54% 8
North of England -44 13 £50,000 +53.85% 5
Yorkshire -42 9 £50,000 +53.85% 3
Wales - 9 £65,000 -
Scotland +23 4 £43,250 - 13
North West -16 4 £44,250 - 2
South West -75 4 £38,378 -30.22% 2
Northern Ireland - 4 £57,500 - 2
East Midlands -23 2 £48,500 +14.12%
Midlands -42 2 £48,500 -25.38% 1
East of England -27 1 - - 1

MPLS
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 (0.90%) Apache
1 1 (0.90%) Confluence
1 1 (0.90%) IIS
1 1 (0.90%) Microsoft Exchange
1 1 (0.90%) SharePoint
Applications
1 4 (3.60%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (1.80%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.90%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 27 (24.32%) Azure
2 25 (22.52%) AWS
3 15 (13.51%) Virtual Private Cloud
4 14 (12.61%) SaaS
5 13 (11.71%) AWS Direct Connect
6 7 (6.31%) GCP
7 4 (3.60%) Microsoft 365
8 2 (1.80%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 2 (1.80%) Nutanix
9 1 (0.90%) Azure DevOps
9 1 (0.90%) Entra ID
9 1 (0.90%) IaaS
9 1 (0.90%) OpenShift
9 1 (0.90%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 84 (75.68%) WAN
2 82 (73.87%) BGP
3 67 (60.36%) SD-WAN
4 65 (58.56%) VPN
5 57 (51.35%) Firewall
6 54 (48.65%) LAN
7 44 (39.64%) OSPF
8 34 (30.63%) Network Security
9 28 (25.23%) VXLAN
10 26 (23.42%) IPsec
11 23 (20.72%) WLAN
12 22 (19.82%) Cisco Firepower
13 20 (18.02%) Cisco ASA
14 19 (17.12%) Cisco IOS
14 19 (17.12%) Cisco ISE
14 19 (17.12%) DHCP
14 19 (17.12%) DNS
14 19 (17.12%) Ethernet VPN
14 19 (17.12%) VLAN
14 19 (17.12%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.90%) SQL Server
1 1 (0.90%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 11 (9.91%) Git
2 5 (4.50%) GitLab
3 1 (0.90%) JIRA
General
1 33 (29.73%) Social Skills
2 27 (24.32%) Finance
3 21 (18.92%) Telecoms
4 14 (12.61%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 13 (11.71%) Public Sector
6 8 (7.21%) Analytical Skills
7 4 (3.60%) Retail
8 3 (2.70%) Billing
8 3 (2.70%) Documentation Skills
8 3 (2.70%) Military
9 2 (1.80%) Banking
9 2 (1.80%) Financial Institution
9 2 (1.80%) Manufacturing
9 2 (1.80%) Marketing
9 2 (1.80%) Organisational Skills
9 2 (1.80%) Presentation Skills
10 1 (0.90%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 54 (48.65%) Network Engineer
2 30 (27.03%) Architect
3 20 (18.02%) Network Architect
4 18 (16.22%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 16 (14.41%) Senior
6 14 (12.61%) Network Infrastructure Engineer
7 10 (9.01%) Cisco Engineer
7 10 (9.01%) Cisco Network Engineer
7 10 (9.01%) Network Operations Engineer
7 10 (9.01%) Operations Engineer
8 9 (8.11%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
8 9 (8.11%) Senior Network Engineer
8 9 (8.11%) Solutions Architect
9 8 (7.21%) Associate Engineer
9 8 (7.21%) Consultant
9 8 (7.21%) Network Consultant
10 7 (6.31%) Firewall Engineer
10 7 (6.31%) Infrastructure Operations Engineer
10 7 (6.31%) Network Security Architect
10 7 (6.31%) Security Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (9.91%) Jinja
1 11 (9.91%) NETCONF
1 11 (9.91%) YANG
2 7 (6.31%) OAuth
2 7 (6.31%) SAML
3 6 (5.41%) REST
4 4 (3.60%) ModSecurity
4 4 (3.60%) OpenTelemetry
5 3 (2.70%) 802.1X
6 1 (0.90%) .NET
Miscellaneous
1 41 (36.94%) Data Centre
2 18 (16.22%) PKI
3 12 (10.81%) Social Media
4 7 (6.31%) Cyber Kill Chain
4 7 (6.31%) Management Information System
5 5 (4.50%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
6 4 (3.60%) CMDB
6 4 (3.60%) Driving Licence
7 3 (2.70%) Enterprise Software
7 3 (2.70%) Private Cloud
7 3 (2.70%) Self-Motivation
8 2 (1.80%) Cloud Native
8 2 (1.80%) Hybrid Cloud
8 2 (1.80%) Security Posture
9 1 (0.90%) Onboarding
9 1 (0.90%) Operational Technology
9 1 (0.90%) Public Cloud
9 1 (0.90%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 16 (14.41%) Linux
2 12 (10.81%) Windows
3 5 (4.50%) Unix
3 5 (4.50%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.90%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 29 (26.13%) Network Segmentation
2 24 (21.62%) Network Design
3 21 (18.92%) High Availability
4 20 (18.02%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 18 (16.22%) Problem-Solving
6 17 (15.32%) Cybersecurity
6 17 (15.32%) ITIL
6 17 (15.32%) Zero Trust
7 14 (12.61%) Cloud Security
8 13 (11.71%) Computer Science
8 13 (11.71%) SIEM
9 12 (10.81%) Presales
9 12 (10.81%) Technical Leadership
10 11 (9.91%) Agile
10 11 (9.91%) Data Science
10 11 (9.91%) Site Reliability Engineering
11 10 (9.01%) Continuous Improvement
11 10 (9.01%) Project Delivery
11 10 (9.01%) Roadmaps
12 8 (7.21%) Observability
Programming Languages
1 33 (29.73%) Python
2 15 (13.51%) PowerShell
3 3 (2.70%) Bash
4 2 (1.80%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 40 (36.04%) Cisco Certification
2 32 (28.83%) CCNP
3 31 (27.93%) Security Cleared
4 22 (19.82%) DV Cleared
4 22 (19.82%) SC Cleared
5 20 (18.02%) CCNA
6 19 (17.12%) Degree
7 14 (12.61%) CCIE
8 13 (11.71%) Computer Science Degree
9 2 (1.80%) BPSS Clearance
9 2 (1.80%) CCSA
9 2 (1.80%) CCSE
9 2 (1.80%) Master's Degree
9 2 (1.80%) MBA
10 1 (0.90%) CCSP
10 1 (0.90%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (14.41%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 13 (11.71%) NIST
3 5 (4.50%) SLA
4 2 (1.80%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 14 (12.61%) VMware Infrastructure
1 14 (12.61%) VMware NSX
2 9 (8.11%) Active Directory
3 8 (7.21%) VMware ESXi
3 8 (7.21%) vSphere
4 3 (2.70%) Docker
5 2 (1.80%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.90%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 24 (21.62%) Ansible
2 19 (17.12%) FortiGate
3 8 (7.21%) CASB
4 6 (5.41%) Endace
5 5 (4.50%) Terraform
6 4 (3.60%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 4 (3.60%) vCenter Server
6 4 (3.60%) WSUS
7 3 (2.70%) OpenView
7 3 (2.70%) Tivoli
8 2 (1.80%) Cisco Prime
9 1 (0.90%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 88 (79.28%) Cisco
2 38 (34.23%) Fortinet
3 35 (31.53%) Meraki
4 30 (27.03%) Palo Alto
5 23 (20.72%) CheckPoint
6 20 (18.02%) Microsoft
7 17 (15.32%) Juniper
7 17 (15.32%) SolarWinds
8 15 (13.51%) VMware
9 13 (11.71%) Dynatrace
9 13 (11.71%) F5
10 8 (7.21%) Splunk
11 7 (6.31%) Aruba
11 7 (6.31%) ServiceNow
12 4 (3.60%) Arista
12 4 (3.60%) HP
13 3 (2.70%) ArcSight
13 3 (2.70%) EMC
13 3 (2.70%) ExtraHop
13 3 (2.70%) Riverbed