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 13 June 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Jun 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 532 503 486
Rank change year-on-year -29 -17 +185
Permanent jobs citing MPLS 186 461 523
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 0.33% 0.42% 0.57%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 1.77% 3.33% 3.45%
Number of salaries quoted 131 359 324
10th Percentile £38,500 £31,920 £37,406
25th Percentile £50,000 £41,250 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £52,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +23.81% -12.50% -
75th Percentile £76,250 £68,125 £82,500
90th Percentile £85,000 £80,250 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £65,000 £48,500 £47,500
% change year-on-year +34.02% +2.11% -13.64%

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 10,506 13,853 15,169
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 18.77% 12.61% 16.40%
Number of salaries quoted 4,692 9,443 7,634
10th Percentile £23,731 £26,250 £28,000
25th Percentile £25,087 £32,500 £35,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £39,000 £47,500 £51,000
Median % change year-on-year -17.89% -6.86% -2.86%
75th Percentile £61,250 £63,750 £70,938
90th Percentile £80,000 £77,500 £86,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £32,500 £44,886 £45,000
% change year-on-year -27.59% -0.25% -5.26%

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 13 June 2025.

Salary histogram for MPLS in the UK

MPLS
Top 14 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 13 June 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 -40 179 £62,500 +19.05% 127
UK excluding London +16 110 £65,000 +34.02% 101
London +31 69 £61,250 -12.50% 47
Work from Home +4 38 £72,500 +38.10% 64
South East +58 33 £65,000 +18.18% 28
South West +121 29 £55,000 +13.40% 11
Midlands -3 25 £65,000 +34.02% 24
West Midlands -19 24 £65,000 +34.02% 10
North of England +11 15 £32,500 -30.11% 15
North West -19 9 - - 10
East of England +20 7 £57,500 +27.78% 8
Yorkshire +38 6 £32,500 -45.83% 5
Scotland +112 1 - - 5
East Midlands +48 1 £42,500 -15.00% 14

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 8 (4.30%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (0.54%) IIS
2 1 (0.54%) Office Communications Server
2 1 (0.54%) SAS
Applications
1 10 (5.38%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (3.76%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.54%) AutoCAD
3 1 (0.54%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.54%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 10 (5.38%) Dynamics NAV
2 5 (2.69%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 60 (32.26%) Azure
2 46 (24.73%) AWS
3 13 (6.99%) AWS Direct Connect
3 13 (6.99%) GCP
4 9 (4.84%) Microsoft 365
5 4 (2.15%) Azure ExpressRoute
5 4 (2.15%) IaaS
6 3 (1.61%) Entra ID
6 3 (1.61%) SaaS
6 3 (1.61%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 2 (1.08%) Cloudflare
Communications & Networking
1 115 (61.83%) WAN
2 111 (59.68%) Firewall
3 108 (58.06%) BGP
4 86 (46.24%) VPN
5 82 (44.09%) OSPF
6 79 (42.47%) LAN
7 55 (29.57%) SD-WAN
8 49 (26.34%) IPsec
9 42 (22.58%) TCP/IP
10 35 (18.82%) Wi-Fi
11 29 (15.59%) Network Security
12 26 (13.98%) Wireless
13 25 (13.44%) DNS
13 25 (13.44%) VLAN
13 25 (13.44%) WLAN
14 24 (12.90%) Cisco ISE
14 24 (12.90%) VoIP
15 23 (12.37%) Cisco Firepower
16 22 (11.83%) Cisco ASA
16 22 (11.83%) Junos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (2.15%) SQL Server
2 3 (1.61%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 5 (2.69%) Sonatype Nexus
2 1 (0.54%) GitLab
2 1 (0.54%) Robot Framework
General
1 43 (23.12%) Social Skills
2 33 (17.74%) Finance
3 16 (8.60%) Banking
4 15 (8.06%) Telecoms
5 14 (7.53%) Legal
6 13 (6.99%) Analytical Skills
6 13 (6.99%) Documentation Skills
7 11 (5.91%) Manufacturing
8 10 (5.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 6 (3.23%) Presentation Skills
10 5 (2.69%) Public Sector
11 3 (1.61%) Retail
12 2 (1.08%) Advertising
13 1 (0.54%) Financial Institution
13 1 (0.54%) Front Office
13 1 (0.54%) Influencing Skills
13 1 (0.54%) Japanese Language
13 1 (0.54%) Korean Language
13 1 (0.54%) Local Government
13 1 (0.54%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 67 (36.02%) Network Engineer
2 36 (19.35%) Architect
3 32 (17.20%) Network Architect
4 19 (10.22%) Senior
5 15 (8.06%) Junior
6 14 (7.53%) Lead
7 13 (6.99%) Cisco Engineer
7 13 (6.99%) Cisco Network Engineer
7 13 (6.99%) Senior Network Engineer
8 11 (5.91%) NOC Engineer
9 10 (5.38%) Coordinator
9 10 (5.38%) Help Desk Coordinator
9 10 (5.38%) Operations Engineer
10 9 (4.84%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 8 (4.30%) Consultant
11 8 (4.30%) Infrastructure Operations Engineer
11 8 (4.30%) Network Infrastructure Engineer
11 8 (4.30%) Network Operations Engineer
12 7 (3.76%) Analyst
13 6 (3.23%) Network Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (5.38%) 802.1X
2 1 (0.54%) .NET
2 1 (0.54%) Jinja
2 1 (0.54%) OpenConfig
2 1 (0.54%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 32 (17.20%) Data Centre
2 14 (7.53%) CCTV
3 13 (6.99%) Management Information System
4 10 (5.38%) Video Conferencing
5 8 (4.30%) Public Cloud
6 6 (3.23%) Driving Licence
6 6 (3.23%) Operational Technology
6 6 (3.23%) Private Cloud
7 5 (2.69%) Mobile Computing
8 4 (2.15%) TM Forum
9 3 (1.61%) PMI
10 2 (1.08%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
11 1 (0.54%) Cloud Native
11 1 (0.54%) Clustering
11 1 (0.54%) Hybrid Cloud
11 1 (0.54%) IoT
11 1 (0.54%) NHS
11 1 (0.54%) PKI
11 1 (0.54%) Self-Motivation
11 1 (0.54%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 22 (11.83%) Windows
2 17 (9.14%) Linux
2 17 (9.14%) Windows Server
3 13 (6.99%) Windows 10
4 11 (5.91%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 3 (1.61%) Windows Server 2016
5 3 (1.61%) Windows Server 2019
6 2 (1.08%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.54%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 47 (25.27%) Problem-Solving
2 36 (19.35%) Network Design
3 29 (15.59%) ITIL
4 25 (13.44%) Network Monitoring
5 23 (12.37%) Technical Leadership
6 21 (11.29%) Continuous Improvement
7 20 (10.75%) Network Architecture
8 18 (9.68%) Incident Management
8 18 (9.68%) Mentoring
8 18 (9.68%) Network Management
9 17 (9.14%) High Availability
10 16 (8.60%) Change Management
10 16 (8.60%) Root Cause Analysis
11 15 (8.06%) Requirements Gathering
12 14 (7.53%) Network Segmentation
13 13 (6.99%) Cloud Security
13 13 (6.99%) Project Delivery
14 12 (6.45%) Artificial Intelligence
14 12 (6.45%) Configuration Management
14 12 (6.45%) Cost Optimisation
Programming Languages
1 18 (9.68%) SQL
2 17 (9.14%) Python
3 14 (7.53%) PowerShell
4 13 (6.99%) Bash
5 4 (2.15%) PHP
6 3 (1.61%) C++
7 1 (0.54%) C#
7 1 (0.54%) JavaScript
7 1 (0.54%) R
7 1 (0.54%) Scala
Qualifications
1 86 (46.24%) Cisco Certification
2 71 (38.17%) CCNA
3 66 (35.48%) CCNP
4 43 (23.12%) Security Cleared
5 35 (18.82%) SC Cleared
6 24 (12.90%) JNCIS
7 14 (7.53%) Degree
7 14 (7.53%) DV Cleared
8 11 (5.91%) CCIE
9 5 (2.69%) CCDA
9 5 (2.69%) CCDP
9 5 (2.69%) JNCIA
10 4 (2.15%) AWS Certification
10 4 (2.15%) Chartered Engineer
11 3 (1.61%) CCSA
11 3 (1.61%) CCSE
11 3 (1.61%) Computer Science Degree
11 3 (1.61%) DBS Check
11 3 (1.61%) PMI Certification
12 1 (0.54%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (9.14%) SLA
2 5 (2.69%) QA
3 2 (1.08%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 2 (1.08%) PCI DSS
4 1 (0.54%) Accessibility
4 1 (0.54%) NIST
System Software
1 43 (23.12%) VMware Infrastructure
2 17 (9.14%) Hyper-V
3 15 (8.06%) Active Directory
4 13 (6.99%) VMware ESXi
5 6 (3.23%) Firmware
5 6 (3.23%) VMware NSX
6 3 (1.61%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 14 (7.53%) FortiGate
2 13 (6.99%) Nagios
3 9 (4.84%) Ansible
4 6 (3.23%) Kubernetes
4 6 (3.23%) Proxmox
5 5 (2.69%) CASB
5 5 (2.69%) Microsoft Intune
5 5 (2.69%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
5 5 (2.69%) WSUS
6 4 (2.15%) Cisco CUCM
6 4 (2.15%) Terraform
7 1 (0.54%) Cisco Prime
7 1 (0.54%) Failover Clustering
7 1 (0.54%) HAProxy
Vendors
1 118 (63.44%) Cisco
2 67 (36.02%) Juniper
3 52 (27.96%) VMware
4 48 (25.81%) Microsoft
5 45 (24.19%) SolarWinds
6 39 (20.97%) Fortinet
7 24 (12.90%) CheckPoint
7 24 (12.90%) Meraki
8 20 (10.75%) Palo Alto
9 15 (8.06%) SevOne
10 13 (6.99%) Dynatrace
11 12 (6.45%) Citrix
11 12 (6.45%) F5
12 11 (5.91%) Red Hat
13 10 (5.38%) Infoblox
13 10 (5.38%) Veeam
14 9 (4.84%) Extreme Networks
14 9 (4.84%) HP
15 6 (3.23%) Avaya
15 6 (3.23%) Riverbed