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 31 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
31 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 516 503 515
Rank change year-on-year -13 +12 +144
Permanent jobs citing MPLS 188 456 526
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 0.34% 0.44% 0.55%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 1.86% 3.36% 3.40%
Number of salaries quoted 132 361 322
10th Percentile £41,311 £32,500 £36,250
25th Percentile £50,938 £41,250 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £50,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +30.00% -16.67% -
75th Percentile £77,500 £67,500 £82,500
90th Percentile £87,475 £81,250 £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 10,094 13,581 15,458
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 18.08% 13.10% 16.14%
Number of salaries quoted 4,436 9,413 7,713
10th Percentile £23,504 £26,250 £28,000
25th Percentile £26,625 £32,500 £35,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £47,500 £50,500
Median % change year-on-year -10.53% -5.94% -3.81%
75th Percentile £65,000 £63,750 £70,000
90th Percentile £82,500 £77,500 £87,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £35,000 £44,000 £45,000
% change year-on-year -20.45% -2.22% -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 31 May 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 31 May 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 -37 181 £62,500 +21.07% 131
UK excluding London +15 113 £65,000 +34.02% 86
London +33 68 £61,250 -12.50% 50
Work from Home -22 39 £72,500 +38.10% 68
South East +46 35 £65,000 +18.18% 26
South West +115 28 £55,000 +13.40% 16
Midlands -17 25 £65,000 +34.02% 22
West Midlands -18 24 £65,000 +34.02% 12
North of England -26 16 £48,750 +8.33% 11
North West -43 10 £65,000 +52.94% 4
East of England +29 8 £57,500 +27.78% 6
Yorkshire +31 6 £32,500 -45.83% 7
Scotland +119 1 - - 4
East Midlands +40 1 £42,500 -15.00% 9

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 (4.26%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (0.53%) IIS
2 1 (0.53%) Office Communications Server
2 1 (0.53%) SAS
Applications
1 10 (5.32%) Microsoft Office
2 6 (3.19%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.53%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 10 (5.32%) Dynamics NAV
2 5 (2.66%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 61 (32.45%) Azure
2 47 (25.00%) AWS
3 13 (6.91%) AWS Direct Connect
3 13 (6.91%) GCP
4 9 (4.79%) Microsoft 365
5 4 (2.13%) Azure ExpressRoute
5 4 (2.13%) IaaS
5 4 (2.13%) SaaS
6 3 (1.60%) Cloudflare
6 3 (1.60%) Entra ID
6 3 (1.60%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 120 (63.83%) WAN
2 111 (59.04%) Firewall
3 109 (57.98%) BGP
4 85 (45.21%) VPN
5 83 (44.15%) OSPF
6 80 (42.55%) LAN
7 58 (30.85%) SD-WAN
8 49 (26.06%) IPsec
9 40 (21.28%) TCP/IP
10 36 (19.15%) Wi-Fi
11 30 (15.96%) Network Security
12 27 (14.36%) DNS
12 27 (14.36%) Wireless
12 27 (14.36%) WLAN
13 26 (13.83%) Cisco ISE
14 24 (12.77%) VLAN
14 24 (12.77%) VoIP
15 22 (11.70%) Cisco Firepower
15 22 (11.70%) DHCP
15 22 (11.70%) Junos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (2.13%) SQL Server
2 3 (1.60%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 5 (2.66%) Sonatype Nexus
2 1 (0.53%) GitLab
2 1 (0.53%) JIRA
2 1 (0.53%) Robot Framework
General
1 43 (22.87%) Social Skills
2 33 (17.55%) Finance
3 16 (8.51%) Banking
3 16 (8.51%) Telecoms
4 15 (7.98%) Analytical Skills
5 14 (7.45%) Legal
6 12 (6.38%) Documentation Skills
7 11 (5.85%) Manufacturing
8 10 (5.32%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 6 (3.19%) Presentation Skills
10 5 (2.66%) Public Sector
11 3 (1.60%) Retail
12 2 (1.06%) Advertising
13 1 (0.53%) Aviation
13 1 (0.53%) Financial Institution
13 1 (0.53%) Front Office
13 1 (0.53%) Influencing Skills
13 1 (0.53%) Korean Language
13 1 (0.53%) Local Government
13 1 (0.53%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 67 (35.64%) Network Engineer
2 38 (20.21%) Architect
3 34 (18.09%) Network Architect
4 20 (10.64%) Senior
5 15 (7.98%) Lead
6 14 (7.45%) Junior
6 14 (7.45%) Senior Network Engineer
7 12 (6.38%) Cisco Engineer
7 12 (6.38%) Cisco Network Engineer
7 12 (6.38%) NOC Engineer
8 11 (5.85%) Operations Engineer
9 10 (5.32%) Coordinator
9 10 (5.32%) Help Desk Coordinator
10 9 (4.79%) Consultant
10 9 (4.79%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 8 (4.26%) Infrastructure Operations Engineer
11 8 (4.26%) Network Infrastructure Engineer
11 8 (4.26%) Network Operations Engineer
12 7 (3.72%) Network Consultant
13 6 (3.19%) Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (5.32%) 802.1X
2 1 (0.53%) .NET
2 1 (0.53%) Jinja
2 1 (0.53%) OpenConfig
2 1 (0.53%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 33 (17.55%) Data Centre
2 14 (7.45%) CCTV
3 13 (6.91%) Management Information System
4 10 (5.32%) Video Conferencing
5 8 (4.26%) Public Cloud
6 6 (3.19%) Driving Licence
6 6 (3.19%) Operational Technology
6 6 (3.19%) Private Cloud
7 5 (2.66%) Mobile Computing
8 4 (2.13%) TM Forum
9 3 (1.60%) PMI
10 2 (1.06%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
10 2 (1.06%) Self-Motivation
11 1 (0.53%) Cloud Native
11 1 (0.53%) Clustering
11 1 (0.53%) Cyber Threat
11 1 (0.53%) Hybrid Cloud
11 1 (0.53%) IoT
11 1 (0.53%) NHS
11 1 (0.53%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 21 (11.17%) Windows
2 17 (9.04%) Windows Server
3 16 (8.51%) Linux
4 13 (6.91%) Windows 10
5 11 (5.85%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 3 (1.60%) Windows Server 2016
6 3 (1.60%) Windows Server 2019
7 2 (1.06%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.53%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 47 (25.00%) Problem-Solving
2 37 (19.68%) Network Design
3 29 (15.43%) ITIL
4 24 (12.77%) Network Monitoring
4 24 (12.77%) Technical Leadership
5 23 (12.23%) Continuous Improvement
6 22 (11.70%) Network Architecture
7 20 (10.64%) Network Management
8 18 (9.57%) Incident Management
8 18 (9.57%) Mentoring
9 17 (9.04%) Change Management
9 17 (9.04%) High Availability
10 16 (8.51%) Root Cause Analysis
11 15 (7.98%) Requirements Gathering
12 14 (7.45%) Cloud Security
12 14 (7.45%) Network Segmentation
12 14 (7.45%) Roadmaps
13 13 (6.91%) Project Delivery
14 12 (6.38%) Configuration Management
14 12 (6.38%) Customer Service
Programming Languages
1 19 (10.11%) Python
2 18 (9.57%) SQL
3 15 (7.98%) PowerShell
4 14 (7.45%) Bash
5 4 (2.13%) PHP
6 3 (1.60%) C++
7 1 (0.53%) C#
7 1 (0.53%) JavaScript
7 1 (0.53%) R
7 1 (0.53%) Scala
Qualifications
1 87 (46.28%) Cisco Certification
2 71 (37.77%) CCNA
3 67 (35.64%) CCNP
4 43 (22.87%) Security Cleared
5 35 (18.62%) SC Cleared
6 24 (12.77%) JNCIS
7 14 (7.45%) DV Cleared
8 13 (6.91%) Degree
9 12 (6.38%) CCIE
10 5 (2.66%) AWS Certification
10 5 (2.66%) CCDA
10 5 (2.66%) CCDP
10 5 (2.66%) JNCIA
11 4 (2.13%) CCSA
11 4 (2.13%) Chartered Engineer
12 3 (1.60%) CCSE
12 3 (1.60%) Computer Science Degree
12 3 (1.60%) DBS Check
12 3 (1.60%) PMI Certification
13 2 (1.06%) JNCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (9.04%) SLA
2 5 (2.66%) QA
3 2 (1.06%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 2 (1.06%) PCI DSS
4 1 (0.53%) Accessibility
4 1 (0.53%) COBIT
4 1 (0.53%) GDPR
4 1 (0.53%) NIST
System Software
1 43 (22.87%) VMware Infrastructure
2 17 (9.04%) Hyper-V
3 15 (7.98%) Active Directory
4 13 (6.91%) VMware ESXi
5 6 (3.19%) Firmware
5 6 (3.19%) VMware NSX
6 3 (1.60%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 14 (7.45%) FortiGate
2 12 (6.38%) Nagios
3 11 (5.85%) Ansible
4 6 (3.19%) Kubernetes
4 6 (3.19%) Proxmox
4 6 (3.19%) Terraform
5 5 (2.66%) CASB
5 5 (2.66%) Microsoft Intune
5 5 (2.66%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
5 5 (2.66%) WSUS
6 4 (2.13%) Cisco CUCM
7 1 (0.53%) Cisco Prime
7 1 (0.53%) Failover Clustering
7 1 (0.53%) HAProxy
Vendors
1 120 (63.83%) Cisco
2 68 (36.17%) Juniper
3 52 (27.66%) VMware
4 49 (26.06%) Microsoft
5 44 (23.40%) SolarWinds
6 40 (21.28%) Fortinet
7 25 (13.30%) CheckPoint
8 24 (12.77%) Meraki
9 21 (11.17%) Palo Alto
10 14 (7.45%) SevOne
11 13 (6.91%) Dynatrace
12 12 (6.38%) Citrix
12 12 (6.38%) F5
13 11 (5.85%) Red Hat
14 10 (5.32%) Infoblox
14 10 (5.32%) Veeam
15 9 (4.79%) Extreme Networks
16 8 (4.26%) HP
16 8 (4.26%) Riverbed
17 6 (3.19%) Arista