BGP Contract Job Trends

Border Gateway Protocol (BGP)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring BGP skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 15 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 332 309 238
Rank change year-on-year -23 -71 +24
Contract jobs citing BGP 424 272 391
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.77% 0.82% 1.04%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 8.32% 7.23% 8.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 242 177 220
10th Percentile £380 £320 £350
25th Percentile £425 £413 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £485 £505
Median % change year-on-year +3.09% -3.96% -3.81%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £591
90th Percentile £710 £675 £731
UK excluding London median daily rate £510 £455 £525
% change year-on-year +12.09% -13.33% +8.02%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 4 5
10th Percentile £50.40 £37.38 £23.60
25th Percentile £58.13 £39.06 £31.25
Median hourly rate £68.75 £48.75 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +41.03% +39.29% +40.00%
75th Percentile - £60.88 £38.00
90th Percentile £72.75 £64.70 £54.20
UK excluding London median hourly rate £68.75 £66.50 £19.00
% change year-on-year +3.38% +250.00% -24.00%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
UK

BGP falls under the Communications and Computer Networking category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring communications or computer networking skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 5,099 3,763 4,545
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.22% 11.33% 12.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,944 2,404 2,616
10th Percentile £235 £213 £225
25th Percentile £390 £356 £369
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £588 £600
90th Percentile £679 £677 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £480
% change year-on-year +5.56% -6.25% +3.23%
Number of hourly rates quoted 443 186 180
10th Percentile £14.10 £15.50 £15.15
25th Percentile £19.50 £20.00 £24.80
Median hourly rate £32.50 £34.00 £48.56
Median % change year-on-year -4.41% -29.98% -14.04%
75th Percentile £68.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £92.42 £75.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.00 £41.50 £53.75
% change year-on-year -37.35% -22.79% -6.38%

BGP
Job Vacancy Trend

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

BGP job vacancy trend in the UK

BGP
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing BGP.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing BGP

BGP
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing BGP over the 6 months to 15 October 2026.

Daily rate histogram for BGP in the UK

BGP
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing BGP.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing BGP

BGP
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing BGP over the 6 months to 15 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for BGP in the UK

BGP
Top 15 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing BGP within the UK over the 6 months to 15 October 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
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
England -12 390 £500 - 39
UK excluding London -17 235 £510 +12.09% 24
London -51 134 £500 -2.44% 16
Work from Home -56 101 £500 -9.09% 21
North of England +6 100 £500 +11.86% 4
North West +2 71 £488 +9.06% 3
South East -44 60 £525 +5.00% 4
Midlands -50 39 £475 +18.75% 7
West Midlands -47 37 £571 +42.69% 5
South West -32 30 £525 -16.83% 5
Yorkshire -21 22 £495 +12.50%
East of England -17 18 £488 -30.36% 3
North East - 13 £650 - 1
Scotland -22 11 £375 -11.76%
East Midlands -10 2 £475 +8.57% 2

BGP
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 14 (3.30%) OpenStack
2 8 (1.89%) SAS
3 5 (1.18%) Confluence
3 5 (1.18%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.24%) SharePoint
Applications
1 9 (2.12%) MS Visio
2 6 (1.42%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (0.94%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (0.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.71%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 1 (0.24%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 109 (25.71%) Azure
2 91 (21.46%) AWS
3 36 (8.49%) GCP
4 28 (6.60%) OCI
5 27 (6.37%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 23 (5.42%) GitHub
7 21 (4.95%) AWS Direct Connect
8 18 (4.25%) SaaS
9 15 (3.54%) Microsoft 365
10 8 (1.89%) Azure Monitor
10 8 (1.89%) OpenShift
10 8 (1.89%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 7 (1.65%) Azure Sentinel
12 5 (1.18%) Nutanix
13 4 (0.94%) AWS CloudFormation
13 4 (0.94%) Entra ID
14 3 (0.71%) IBM Watson
15 2 (0.47%) Route 53
16 1 (0.24%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 1 (0.24%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 240 (56.60%) OSPF
2 234 (55.19%) Firewall
3 191 (45.05%) WAN
4 135 (31.84%) VPN
5 120 (28.30%) VLAN
6 108 (25.47%) LAN
6 108 (25.47%) MPLS
7 96 (22.64%) Network Security
8 94 (22.17%) VXLAN
9 92 (21.70%) SD-WAN
10 84 (19.81%) DNS
11 75 (17.69%) Ethernet VPN
11 75 (17.69%) TCP/IP
12 67 (15.80%) IPsec
13 65 (15.33%) Wireless
14 58 (13.68%) Wi-Fi
15 55 (12.97%) EIGRP
15 55 (12.97%) Multicast
16 51 (12.03%) Cisco Nexus
17 46 (10.85%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.24%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 31 (7.31%) Git
2 30 (7.08%) GitLab
3 9 (2.12%) JIRA
4 7 (1.65%) Sonatype Nexus
5 3 (0.71%) Jenkins
6 2 (0.47%) Cucumber
7 1 (0.24%) Bitbucket
General
1 76 (17.92%) Social Skills
2 54 (12.74%) Finance
3 50 (11.79%) Analytical Skills
4 34 (8.02%) Banking
5 31 (7.31%) Telecoms
6 27 (6.37%) Public Sector
7 15 (3.54%) Investment Banking
8 13 (3.07%) Documentation Skills
9 8 (1.89%) Legal
9 8 (1.89%) Military
10 7 (1.65%) Retail
11 6 (1.42%) Police
12 5 (1.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 4 (0.94%) Financial Institution
14 3 (0.71%) German Language
14 3 (0.71%) Influencing Skills
14 3 (0.71%) Italian Language
14 3 (0.71%) Manufacturing
14 3 (0.71%) Spanish Language
15 2 (0.47%) Law
Job Titles
1 245 (57.78%) Network Engineer
2 91 (21.46%) Senior
3 56 (13.21%) Senior Network Engineer
4 49 (11.56%) Architect
5 48 (11.32%) Cisco Engineer
6 44 (10.38%) Cisco Network Engineer
7 38 (8.96%) Network Architect
8 34 (8.02%) Consultant
9 31 (7.31%) Security Engineer
10 29 (6.84%) Network Security Engineer
11 24 (5.66%) Data Network Engineer
12 23 (5.42%) Network Consultant
13 20 (4.72%) Cisco Security Engineer
13 20 (4.72%) Data Engineer
14 19 (4.48%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 17 (4.01%) Developer
15 17 (4.01%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
16 15 (3.54%) Network Specialist
17 14 (3.30%) Operations Engineer
18 13 (3.07%) Lead
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 71 (16.75%) Terraform
2 30 (7.08%) REST
3 18 (4.25%) JSON
4 17 (4.01%) NETCONF
4 17 (4.01%) YAML
5 15 (3.54%) 802.1X
5 15 (3.54%) YANG
6 6 (1.42%) RESTCONF
7 5 (1.18%) OpenConfig
8 4 (0.94%) CSS
9 3 (0.71%) eBPF
9 3 (0.71%) SAML
10 2 (0.47%) gRPC
10 2 (0.47%) pytest
10 2 (0.47%) Spine.js
11 1 (0.24%) Django
11 1 (0.24%) LDAP
11 1 (0.24%) Model Context Protocol
11 1 (0.24%) ModSecurity
11 1 (0.24%) Regular Expression
Miscellaneous
1 168 (39.62%) Data Centre
2 50 (11.79%) Hybrid Cloud
3 28 (6.60%) Cloud Native
4 15 (3.54%) Self-Motivation
5 12 (2.83%) PKI
5 12 (2.83%) Private Cloud
6 11 (2.59%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
7 10 (2.36%) Public Cloud
8 8 (1.89%) Analytical Mindset
8 8 (1.89%) CMDB
8 8 (1.89%) Digital Signage
9 6 (1.42%) Operational Technology
9 6 (1.42%) Security Posture
10 5 (1.18%) Data Structures
10 5 (1.18%) Linux Command Line
10 5 (1.18%) Onboarding
10 5 (1.18%) Video Conferencing
11 4 (0.94%) Data Protection Act
11 4 (0.94%) Enterprise Cloud
12 3 (0.71%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 39 (9.20%) Windows
2 31 (7.31%) Linux
3 12 (2.83%) Windows Server
4 10 (2.36%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 3 (0.71%) Unix
5 3 (0.71%) Windows Server 2012
6 1 (0.24%) macOS
6 1 (0.24%) VMS
6 1 (0.24%) Windows Server 2016
6 1 (0.24%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 90 (21.23%) Load Balancing
2 86 (20.28%) Infrastructure as Code
3 79 (18.63%) Migration
4 77 (18.16%) Zero Trust
5 73 (17.22%) High Availability
6 70 (16.51%) Network Design
7 54 (12.74%) Validation
8 51 (12.03%) CI/CD
9 49 (11.56%) Network Architecture
9 49 (11.56%) Problem-Solving
10 44 (10.38%) Project Delivery
11 39 (9.20%) DevOps
11 39 (9.20%) ITIL
12 36 (8.49%) Runbook
13 35 (8.25%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 35 (8.25%) Network Segmentation
14 34 (8.02%) Stakeholder Management
15 32 (7.55%) Change Control
16 30 (7.08%) Technical Leadership
17 29 (6.84%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 131 (30.90%) Python
2 15 (3.54%) Bash
3 9 (2.12%) PowerShell
4 5 (1.18%) SQL
5 4 (0.94%) Go
6 3 (0.71%) Shell Script
7 2 (0.47%) Perl
8 1 (0.24%) C++
8 1 (0.24%) Java
Qualifications
1 124 (29.25%) Security Cleared
2 111 (26.18%) Cisco Certification
3 86 (20.28%) CCNP
4 68 (16.04%) SC Cleared
5 52 (12.26%) DV Cleared
6 47 (11.08%) CCIE
7 25 (5.90%) CCNA
8 17 (4.01%) Degree
9 14 (3.30%) JNCIE
10 4 (0.94%) AWS Certification
10 4 (0.94%) Azure Certification
10 4 (0.94%) CCIE Security
10 4 (0.94%) CISSP
10 4 (0.94%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 2 (0.47%) Computer Science Degree
11 2 (0.47%) CWNA
11 2 (0.47%) JNCIP
11 2 (0.47%) PMI Certification
11 2 (0.47%) PMP
12 1 (0.24%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (1.42%) NIST
2 4 (0.94%) NCSC
3 3 (0.71%) GDPR
3 3 (0.71%) NIST 800
3 3 (0.71%) QA
3 3 (0.71%) SLA
4 2 (0.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 2 (0.47%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.24%) Cyber Essentials
5 1 (0.24%) Data Quality
System Software
1 33 (7.78%) VMware Infrastructure
2 18 (4.25%) VMware NSX
3 17 (4.01%) Active Directory
4 13 (3.07%) vSphere
5 10 (2.36%) Docker
6 8 (1.89%) Hyper-V
7 6 (1.42%) Firmware
8 2 (0.47%) Virtual Machines
8 2 (0.47%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.24%) ProxySG
9 1 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 126 (29.72%) Ansible
2 37 (8.73%) FortiGate
3 21 (4.95%) Kubernetes
4 14 (3.30%) Cisco Prime
5 12 (2.83%) Nagios
6 11 (2.59%) Grafana
7 10 (2.36%) Prometheus
8 6 (1.42%) Cilium
9 5 (1.18%) Istio
10 2 (0.47%) Puppet
10 2 (0.47%) Single Sign-On
10 2 (0.47%) VxRail
11 1 (0.24%) Argo
11 1 (0.24%) CASB
11 1 (0.24%) Microsoft Intune
11 1 (0.24%) OPNET
11 1 (0.24%) Progress Chef
11 1 (0.24%) QRadar
11 1 (0.24%) Rancher
11 1 (0.24%) Suricata
Vendors
1 291 (68.63%) Cisco
2 129 (30.42%) Palo Alto
3 118 (27.83%) F5
4 90 (21.23%) Fortinet
5 78 (18.40%) Arista
6 54 (12.74%) Juniper
7 49 (11.56%) VMware
8 43 (10.14%) Aruba
9 38 (8.96%) CheckPoint
10 37 (8.73%) Microsoft
11 31 (7.31%) SolarWinds
12 23 (5.42%) ServiceNow
13 17 (4.01%) Meraki
13 17 (4.01%) Zscaler
14 13 (3.07%) Red Hat
14 13 (3.07%) Splunk
15 11 (2.59%) Google
16 9 (2.12%) Infoblox
17 7 (1.65%) Citrix
17 7 (1.65%) LogicMonitor