Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for permanent job vacancies requiring MPLS skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the annual salaries offered in vacancies that cited MPLS over the 6 months leading up to 30 April 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Apr 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 497 488 550
Rank change year-on-year -9 +62 +101
Permanent jobs citing MPLS 190 454 514
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 0.36% 0.46% 0.49%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 2.74% 3.33% 3.21%
Number of salaries quoted 144 359 344
10th Percentile £41,860 £32,500 £35,375
25th Percentile £51,000 £41,250 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £50,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year +30.00% -13.04% -4.17%
75th Percentile £77,500 £67,500 £82,500
90th Percentile £86,575 £81,500 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £65,000 £48,500 £47,500
% change year-on-year +34.02% +2.11% -9.52%

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 6,936 13,623 16,032
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 13.30% 13.85% 15.42%
Number of salaries quoted 4,252 9,516 8,186
10th Percentile £23,731 £26,250 £27,750
25th Percentile £30,500 £32,500 £36,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £47,500 £47,500 £50,250
Median % change year-on-year - -5.47% -4.29%
75th Percentile £67,500 £63,750 £71,250
90th Percentile £85,000 £77,715 £87,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £40,000 £43,500 £45,000
% change year-on-year -8.05% -3.33% -

MPLS
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing MPLS as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for MPLS in the UK

MPLS
Salary Trend

3-month moving average salary quoted in jobs citing MPLS.

Salary trend for MPLS in the UK

MPLS
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing MPLS over the 6 months to 30 April 2025.

Salary histogram for MPLS in the UK

MPLS
Top 13 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 30 April 2025. 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 -7 183 £64,800 +29.60% 79
UK excluding London +44 116 £65,000 +34.02% 63
London +24 65 £62,500 -3.85% 31
Work from Home +49 47 £71,250 +35.71% 66
South East +95 38 £65,000 +18.18% 15
South West +115 26 £57,500 +18.56% 7
Midlands -22 25 £65,000 +34.02% 11
West Midlands -27 24 £65,000 +34.02% 7
North of England +26 15 £55,000 +29.41% 8
East of England +44 12 £65,000 +44.44% 4
North West -12 8 £65,000 +62.50% 6
Yorkshire +51 7 £43,750 -27.08% 2
East Midlands +45 1 £42,500 -15.00% 3

MPLS
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 9 (4.74%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (1.05%) SAS
3 1 (0.53%) IIS
3 1 (0.53%) Office Communications Server
Applications
1 10 (5.26%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (2.11%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.53%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 10 (5.26%) Dynamics NAV
Cloud Services
1 61 (32.11%) Azure
2 46 (24.21%) AWS
3 10 (5.26%) GCP
4 9 (4.74%) Microsoft 365
5 7 (3.68%) AWS Direct Connect
6 5 (2.63%) SaaS
7 4 (2.11%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 4 (2.11%) IaaS
8 3 (1.58%) Cloud Computing
8 3 (1.58%) Cloudflare
8 3 (1.58%) Entra ID
9 1 (0.53%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 123 (64.74%) WAN
2 109 (57.37%) BGP
3 108 (56.84%) Firewall
4 88 (46.32%) LAN
5 81 (42.63%) OSPF
6 73 (38.42%) VPN
7 61 (32.11%) SD-WAN
8 43 (22.63%) Network Security
9 42 (22.11%) IPsec
9 42 (22.11%) TCP/IP
10 34 (17.89%) Wi-Fi
11 30 (15.79%) Wireless
12 29 (15.26%) Cisco ISE
13 27 (14.21%) DNS
14 26 (13.68%) WLAN
15 24 (12.63%) DHCP
15 24 (12.63%) VoIP
16 23 (12.11%) VLAN
17 22 (11.58%) Junos
18 20 (10.53%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (2.11%) SQL Server
2 3 (1.58%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 2 (1.05%) JIRA
2 1 (0.53%) GitLab
2 1 (0.53%) Robot Framework
General
1 48 (25.26%) Social Skills
2 30 (15.79%) Finance
3 19 (10.00%) Analytical Skills
4 18 (9.47%) Telecoms
5 14 (7.37%) Legal
6 13 (6.84%) Banking
7 11 (5.79%) Manufacturing
8 8 (4.21%) Documentation Skills
8 8 (4.21%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 8 (4.21%) Public Sector
9 7 (3.68%) Presentation Skills
10 2 (1.05%) Advertising
10 2 (1.05%) Front Office
10 2 (1.05%) Retail
11 1 (0.53%) Aviation
11 1 (0.53%) Financial Institution
11 1 (0.53%) German Language
11 1 (0.53%) Influencing Skills
11 1 (0.53%) Korean Language
11 1 (0.53%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 68 (35.79%) Network Engineer
2 44 (23.16%) Architect
3 39 (20.53%) Network Architect
4 26 (13.68%) Senior
5 18 (9.47%) Senior Network Engineer
6 16 (8.42%) Lead
7 13 (6.84%) Junior
7 13 (6.84%) NOC Engineer
8 10 (5.26%) Consultant
8 10 (5.26%) Coordinator
8 10 (5.26%) Help Desk Coordinator
9 9 (4.74%) Network Consultant
10 7 (3.68%) Operations Engineer
11 6 (3.16%) Azure Consultant
11 6 (3.16%) Cisco Consultant
11 6 (3.16%) Cisco Engineer
11 6 (3.16%) Cisco Network Consultant
11 6 (3.16%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
11 6 (3.16%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 6 (3.16%) Juniper Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (5.79%) 802.1X
2 1 (0.53%) .NET
2 1 (0.53%) Jinja
2 1 (0.53%) OpenConfig
2 1 (0.53%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 34 (17.89%) Data Centre
2 14 (7.37%) CCTV
3 10 (5.26%) Video Conferencing
4 8 (4.21%) Public Cloud
5 7 (3.68%) Management Information System
6 5 (2.63%) Driving Licence
6 5 (2.63%) Mobile Computing
7 4 (2.11%) Cyber Threat
7 4 (2.11%) Operational Technology
7 4 (2.11%) Private Cloud
7 4 (2.11%) Self-Motivation
8 3 (1.58%) IoT
8 3 (1.58%) PMI
9 1 (0.53%) Cloud Native
9 1 (0.53%) Clustering
9 1 (0.53%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
9 1 (0.53%) Hybrid Cloud
9 1 (0.53%) NHS
9 1 (0.53%) PKI
9 1 (0.53%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 18 (9.47%) Windows
2 15 (7.89%) Linux
2 15 (7.89%) Windows Server
3 13 (6.84%) Windows 10
4 11 (5.79%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 3 (1.58%) Windows Server 2016
5 3 (1.58%) Windows Server 2019
6 2 (1.05%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.53%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 48 (25.26%) Problem-Solving
2 29 (15.26%) Network Design
2 29 (15.26%) Network Monitoring
3 27 (14.21%) Network Management
4 25 (13.16%) Technical Leadership
5 24 (12.63%) Network Architecture
6 23 (12.11%) ITIL
7 19 (10.00%) Roadmaps
8 18 (9.47%) Continuous Improvement
9 17 (8.95%) High Availability
10 15 (7.89%) Incident Management
10 15 (7.89%) Requirements Gathering
11 14 (7.37%) Mentoring
12 12 (6.32%) Business Continuity
12 12 (6.32%) Change Management
12 12 (6.32%) Cloud Security
12 12 (6.32%) Configuration Management
12 12 (6.32%) Disaster Recovery
12 12 (6.32%) Project Delivery
12 12 (6.32%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 19 (10.00%) Python
2 18 (9.47%) PowerShell
2 18 (9.47%) SQL
3 13 (6.84%) Bash
4 4 (2.11%) PHP
5 3 (1.58%) C++
6 1 (0.53%) C#
6 1 (0.53%) R
6 1 (0.53%) Scala
Qualifications
1 86 (45.26%) Cisco Certification
2 68 (35.79%) CCNA
3 63 (33.16%) CCNP
4 50 (26.32%) Security Cleared
5 36 (18.95%) SC Cleared
6 24 (12.63%) JNCIS
7 17 (8.95%) DV Cleared
8 14 (7.37%) CCIE
9 13 (6.84%) Degree
10 6 (3.16%) AWS Certification
10 6 (3.16%) JNCIA
11 4 (2.11%) Chartered Engineer
11 4 (2.11%) Computer Science Degree
12 3 (1.58%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 3 (1.58%) CITP
12 3 (1.58%) PMI Certification
13 2 (1.05%) CCSA
13 2 (1.05%) DBS Check
13 2 (1.05%) JNCIE
14 1 (0.53%) CCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (8.42%) SLA
2 8 (4.21%) PCI DSS
3 5 (2.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 5 (2.63%) QA
4 3 (1.58%) Cyber Essentials
4 3 (1.58%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
4 3 (1.58%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 1 (0.53%) Accessibility
5 1 (0.53%) COBIT
5 1 (0.53%) GDPR
5 1 (0.53%) NIST
System Software
1 42 (22.11%) VMware Infrastructure
2 16 (8.42%) Active Directory
2 16 (8.42%) Hyper-V
3 13 (6.84%) VMware ESXi
4 6 (3.16%) Firmware
4 6 (3.16%) VMware NSX
5 3 (1.58%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 17 (8.95%) FortiGate
2 13 (6.84%) Ansible
3 9 (4.74%) Terraform
4 8 (4.21%) Nagios
5 6 (3.16%) Kubernetes
5 6 (3.16%) Microsoft Intune
5 6 (3.16%) WSUS
6 4 (2.11%) Cisco CUCM
6 4 (2.11%) Proxmox
7 2 (1.05%) Progress Chef
7 2 (1.05%) Puppet
8 1 (0.53%) Failover Clustering
8 1 (0.53%) HAProxy
Vendors
1 122 (64.21%) Cisco
2 72 (37.89%) Juniper
3 51 (26.84%) VMware
4 46 (24.21%) Microsoft
5 36 (18.95%) Fortinet
6 33 (17.37%) SolarWinds
7 22 (11.58%) CheckPoint
7 22 (11.58%) Meraki
7 22 (11.58%) Palo Alto
8 14 (7.37%) Citrix
9 13 (6.84%) SevOne
10 11 (5.79%) F5
10 11 (5.79%) Red Hat
11 10 (5.26%) Riverbed
11 10 (5.26%) Veeam
12 9 (4.74%) Arista
13 8 (4.21%) HP
14 7 (3.68%) Dynatrace
15 6 (3.16%) Extreme Networks
15 6 (3.16%) Nokia