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 26 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 344 217 234
Rank change year-on-year -127 +17 +190
Contract jobs citing BGP 254 403 448
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.68% 1.19% 1.02%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 6.33% 9.36% 7.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 160 241 231
10th Percentile £300 £363 £325
25th Percentile £400 £413 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £513 £550
Median % change year-on-year -12.20% -6.82% +10.00%
75th Percentile £574 £600 £613
90th Percentile £638 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £448 £525 £488
% change year-on-year -14.76% +7.69% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 4 10
10th Percentile £67.45 £22.33 £24.25
25th Percentile £70.01 £28.06 £26.75
Median hourly rate £74.26 £33.75 £37.77
Median % change year-on-year +120.03% -10.64% +43.89%
75th Percentile - £35.75 £69.38
90th Percentile - £37.10 £71.33
UK excluding London median hourly rate £74.26 £19.00 £44.00
% change year-on-year +290.84% -56.82% +87.23%

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 4,011 4,306 6,012
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.79% 12.76% 13.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,629 2,532 3,708
10th Percentile £206 £220 £210
25th Percentile £358 £364 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £473 £475
% change year-on-year -4.76% -0.53% +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 181 141 333
10th Percentile £15.50 £14.99 £17.72
25th Percentile £20.00 £21.46 £22.75
Median hourly rate £34.00 £35.00 £56.40
Median % change year-on-year -2.86% -37.94% +38.23%
75th Percentile £65.00 £60.00 £65.98
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.00 £75.59
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £35.00 £56.49
% change year-on-year +21.43% -38.04% +25.53%

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 26 December 2025.

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
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 26 December 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
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
England -119 221 £460 -10.24% 361
UK excluding London -99 146 £448 -14.76% 366
London -51 82 £485 -3.00% 31
Work from Home -54 81 £450 -14.29% 36
South East -31 60 £455 -17.27% 93
West Midlands -3 40 £400 -20.00% 41
Midlands -26 40 £400 -20.00% 73
North of England -95 30 £550 +8.91% 82
North West -56 26 £550 +2.33% 37
Scotland +7 12 £425 +6.25% 15
South West -25 7 £506 +5.74% 38
East of England -24 5 £700 +154.55% 52
Yorkshire -51 4 £600 +118.18% 40
North East -7 3 £550 - 6
Wales +1 1 £400 -11.11% 13

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 18 (7.09%) OpenStack
2 12 (4.72%) SharePoint
3 4 (1.57%) Confluence
Applications
1 14 (5.51%) MS Visio
2 5 (1.97%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 4 (1.57%) Microsoft Office
4 2 (0.79%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 53 (20.87%) AWS
2 42 (16.54%) Azure
3 13 (5.12%) GCP
4 9 (3.54%) Virtual Private Cloud
5 8 (3.15%) OpenShift
6 7 (2.76%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 5 (1.97%) AWS Direct Connect
8 3 (1.18%) Akamai
8 3 (1.18%) IaaS
8 3 (1.18%) PaaS
8 3 (1.18%) SaaS
9 2 (0.79%) Azure Sentinel
9 2 (0.79%) Route 53
10 1 (0.39%) Amazon ECS
10 1 (0.39%) Amazon EKS
10 1 (0.39%) Amazon GuardDuty
10 1 (0.39%) AWS KMS
10 1 (0.39%) Cloud Run
10 1 (0.39%) Entra ID
10 1 (0.39%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 164 (64.57%) OSPF
2 159 (62.60%) Firewall
3 130 (51.18%) WAN
4 103 (40.55%) VPN
5 95 (37.40%) MPLS
6 81 (31.89%) LAN
7 70 (27.56%) IPsec
8 64 (25.20%) Network Security
9 59 (23.23%) VLAN
10 52 (20.47%) SD-WAN
11 51 (20.08%) Wireless
12 41 (16.14%) DNS
12 41 (16.14%) EIGRP
13 40 (15.75%) VXLAN
14 30 (11.81%) Cisco ISE
15 29 (11.42%) TCP/IP
16 28 (11.02%) Cisco ASA
16 28 (11.02%) DHCP
17 26 (10.24%) Cisco Nexus
18 25 (9.84%) Ethernet VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.39%) Redis
1 1 (0.39%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 14 (5.51%) Git
2 6 (2.36%) Sonatype Nexus
3 5 (1.97%) GitLab
4 2 (0.79%) JIRA
5 1 (0.39%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.39%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.39%) Robot Framework
General
1 77 (30.31%) Social Skills
2 35 (13.78%) Public Sector
3 32 (12.60%) Documentation Skills
4 30 (11.81%) Analytical Skills
5 18 (7.09%) Finance
6 16 (6.30%) Telecoms
7 11 (4.33%) Banking
8 10 (3.94%) Investment Banking
8 10 (3.94%) Manufacturing
9 4 (1.57%) Financial Institution
9 4 (1.57%) Legal
9 4 (1.57%) Military
9 4 (1.57%) Retail
10 3 (1.18%) Electronics
10 3 (1.18%) Influencing Skills
10 3 (1.18%) Marketing
11 2 (0.79%) Advertising
11 2 (0.79%) Pharmaceutical
11 2 (0.79%) Presentation Skills
12 1 (0.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 142 (55.91%) Network Engineer
2 37 (14.57%) Architect
3 29 (11.42%) Cisco Engineer
4 26 (10.24%) Cisco Network Engineer
5 23 (9.06%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
6 22 (8.66%) Senior
7 19 (7.48%) Network Architect
8 16 (6.30%) Support Engineer
8 16 (6.30%) WAN Engineer
9 14 (5.51%) Network Security Engineer
9 14 (5.51%) Security Engineer
9 14 (5.51%) Senior Network Engineer
10 13 (5.12%) 3rd Line Engineer
11 12 (4.72%) 3rd Line Support
11 12 (4.72%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
11 12 (4.72%) Consultant
12 11 (4.33%) Solutions Architect
13 10 (3.94%) 2nd Line Engineer
13 10 (3.94%) Juniper Engineer
14 8 (3.15%) Wireless Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (4.33%) 802.1X
1 11 (4.33%) YANG
2 10 (3.94%) NETCONF
3 8 (3.15%) REST
4 5 (1.97%) Jinja
5 4 (1.57%) JSON
5 4 (1.57%) VML
6 3 (1.18%) OpenConfig
6 3 (1.18%) SAML
7 2 (0.79%) eBPF
7 2 (0.79%) RESTCONF
7 2 (0.79%) XML
8 1 (0.39%) CrewAI
8 1 (0.39%) Elastic Stack
8 1 (0.39%) gRPC
8 1 (0.39%) HTML
8 1 (0.39%) JFC
8 1 (0.39%) LangChain
8 1 (0.39%) RabbitMQ
8 1 (0.39%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 80 (31.50%) Data Centre
2 36 (14.17%) PKI
3 18 (7.09%) Hybrid Cloud
4 9 (3.54%) Cloud Native
5 8 (3.15%) Product Ownership
6 7 (2.76%) Self-Motivation
7 5 (1.97%) Analytical Mindset
7 5 (1.97%) Data Protection Act
7 5 (1.97%) Onboarding
7 5 (1.97%) Operational Technology
8 3 (1.18%) Distributed Architecture
8 3 (1.18%) Legacy Systems
8 3 (1.18%) NHS
9 2 (0.79%) Distributed Systems
9 2 (0.79%) Linux Command Line
9 2 (0.79%) Private Cloud
9 2 (0.79%) Public Cloud
10 1 (0.39%) EMC VMAX
10 1 (0.39%) IPTV
10 1 (0.39%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 16 (6.30%) Linux
2 14 (5.51%) Windows
3 8 (3.15%) Windows Server
4 6 (2.36%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.39%) Ubuntu
5 1 (0.39%) Windows Server 2012
5 1 (0.39%) Windows Server 2016
5 1 (0.39%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 45 (17.72%) Network Design
2 41 (16.14%) Load Balancing
2 41 (16.14%) Problem-Solving
3 28 (11.02%) Network Monitoring
4 27 (10.63%) Migration
5 25 (9.84%) Network Segmentation
6 24 (9.45%) High Availability
7 23 (9.06%) Network Virtualisation
8 20 (7.87%) Zero Trust
9 19 (7.48%) DevOps
9 19 (7.48%) Project Delivery
9 19 (7.48%) Strategic Thinking
10 18 (7.09%) Cybersecurity
10 18 (7.09%) Roadmaps
11 17 (6.69%) Knowledge Transfer
11 17 (6.69%) Network Architecture
11 17 (6.69%) Performance Tuning
12 15 (5.91%) ITIL
12 15 (5.91%) TOGAF
13 14 (5.51%) Incident Response
Programming Languages
1 76 (29.92%) Python
2 19 (7.48%) Bash
3 15 (5.91%) Perl
4 10 (3.94%) PowerShell
5 8 (3.15%) Lisp
6 5 (1.97%) C++
7 2 (0.79%) C
8 1 (0.39%) Go
8 1 (0.39%) JavaScript
8 1 (0.39%) Shell Script
8 1 (0.39%) SQL
Qualifications
1 130 (51.18%) Cisco Certification
2 107 (42.13%) CCNP
3 104 (40.94%) Security Cleared
4 81 (31.89%) SC Cleared
5 47 (18.50%) CCIE
6 24 (9.45%) JNCIE
7 21 (8.27%) CCNA
8 20 (7.87%) Degree
9 17 (6.69%) DV Cleared
10 14 (5.51%) JNCIS
11 11 (4.33%) AWS Certification
12 10 (3.94%) CISSP
12 10 (3.94%) JNCIP
13 9 (3.54%) CCDP
13 9 (3.54%) JNCIA
14 5 (1.97%) CCSA
14 5 (1.97%) CCSE
15 4 (1.57%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 4 (1.57%) CCIE Security
15 4 (1.57%) CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (3.54%) SLA
2 8 (3.15%) NIST
3 7 (2.76%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 6 (2.36%) GDPR
4 6 (2.36%) PCI DSS
5 3 (1.18%) NCSC
6 1 (0.39%) JSP 440
6 1 (0.39%) NIST 800
6 1 (0.39%) RMADS
6 1 (0.39%) SOC 2
System Software
1 18 (7.09%) VMware Infrastructure
2 16 (6.30%) VMware NSX
3 9 (3.54%) Docker
3 9 (3.54%) Firmware
4 8 (3.15%) Active Directory
5 3 (1.18%) KVM
6 2 (0.79%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.39%) Squid
Systems Management
1 64 (25.20%) Ansible
2 37 (14.57%) FortiGate
3 31 (12.20%) Terraform
4 9 (3.54%) Kubernetes
5 3 (1.18%) CA Spectrum
5 3 (1.18%) Iperf
5 3 (1.18%) Nagios
5 3 (1.18%) Nmap
5 3 (1.18%) Single Sign-On
6 2 (0.79%) Grafana
6 2 (0.79%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.39%) CASB
7 1 (0.39%) Cisco CUCM
7 1 (0.39%) Failover Clustering
7 1 (0.39%) vRealize
7 1 (0.39%) VxRail
Vendors
1 175 (68.90%) Cisco
2 82 (32.28%) Juniper
3 73 (28.74%) Palo Alto
4 53 (20.87%) Fortinet
5 52 (20.47%) F5
6 37 (14.57%) CheckPoint
7 34 (13.39%) Meraki
8 24 (9.45%) SolarWinds
9 23 (9.06%) Aruba
10 22 (8.66%) VMware
11 19 (7.48%) Arista
12 14 (5.51%) Zscaler
13 13 (5.12%) ServiceNow
14 12 (4.72%) Remedy
15 11 (4.33%) Microsoft
16 8 (3.15%) Ekahau
16 8 (3.15%) Nokia
16 8 (3.15%) Red Hat
17 5 (1.97%) LogicMonitor
17 5 (1.97%) NVIDIA