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 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 304 229 230
Rank change year-on-year -75 +1 +129
Contract jobs citing BGP 358 336 445
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.78% 1.15% 1.02%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 7.98% 8.88% 7.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 202 214 263
10th Percentile £309 £325 £313
25th Percentile £400 £413 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% +5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £550 £600 £550
90th Percentile £600 £750 £636
UK excluding London median daily rate £460 £490 £450
% change year-on-year -6.12% +8.89% -7.69%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 1 9
10th Percentile £53.08 - £24.05
25th Percentile £70.67 £18.50 £24.25
Median hourly rate £74.26 £19.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +290.84% -65.45% -21.43%
75th Percentile - £19.50 £70.00
90th Percentile - - £72.65
UK excluding London median hourly rate £74.26 £19.00 £63.00
% change year-on-year +290.84% -69.84% +1.61%

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 4,488 3,783 5,741
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.79% 12.91% 13.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,819 2,340 3,443
10th Percentile £233 £213 £205
25th Percentile £394 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £488 £486
Median % change year-on-year +1.54% +0.31% -5.81%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £469 £475
% change year-on-year +1.28% -1.26% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 207 169 421
10th Percentile £15.85 £14.99 £13.85
25th Percentile £20.63 £21.46 £17.69
Median hourly rate £45.00 £39.32 £38.50
Median % change year-on-year +14.45% +2.13% +102.63%
75th Percentile £70.00 £62.25 £61.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £67.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £28.00 £45.44
% change year-on-year +96.43% -38.38% +145.62%

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 April 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 April 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for BGP in the UK

BGP
Top 16 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 April 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 -76 313 £458 -8.40% 73
UK excluding London -39 206 £460 -6.12% 64
Work from Home -30 109 £445 -11.00% 24
South East +10 103 £450 -19.28% 29
London -79 101 £450 -10.00% 18
North of England -71 53 £550 +4.76% 8
Midlands -28 52 £413 +37.50% 8
North West -43 50 £550 +4.76% 4
West Midlands -26 49 £413 +37.50% 7
South West -39 14 £525 - 10
Scotland +4 8 £425 +3.03% 5
Wales -15 4 £425 -5.56% 1
North East -17 3 £550 +120.00% 1
Yorkshire -51 3 £650 +30.00% 3
East of England -30 2 £500 +17.65% 5
East Midlands -31 2 - - 1

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 7 (1.96%) SharePoint
2 4 (1.12%) Confluence
3 2 (0.56%) OpenStack
Applications
1 12 (3.35%) MS Visio
2 8 (2.23%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 6 (1.68%) Microsoft Office
4 5 (1.40%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 59 (16.48%) AWS
2 52 (14.53%) Azure
3 26 (7.26%) GCP
4 19 (5.31%) Virtual Private Cloud
5 10 (2.79%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 9 (2.51%) AWS Direct Connect
7 8 (2.23%) Route 53
8 5 (1.40%) Amazon GuardDuty
8 5 (1.40%) SaaS
9 4 (1.12%) Amazon EKS
9 4 (1.12%) Azure Sentinel
10 3 (0.84%) Amazon S3
10 3 (0.84%) Catchpoint
10 3 (0.84%) GitHub
10 3 (0.84%) IaaS
10 3 (0.84%) Nutanix
10 3 (0.84%) PaaS
11 2 (0.56%) Amazon EC2
11 2 (0.56%) Cloud Computing
11 2 (0.56%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 247 (68.99%) OSPF
2 225 (62.85%) Firewall
3 202 (56.42%) WAN
4 146 (40.78%) LAN
5 120 (33.52%) VPN
6 101 (28.21%) Network Security
7 97 (27.09%) MPLS
8 83 (23.18%) VXLAN
9 80 (22.35%) VLAN
10 78 (21.79%) DNS
11 66 (18.44%) SD-WAN
12 63 (17.60%) Ethernet VPN
13 60 (16.76%) Multicast
14 53 (14.80%) IPsec
15 52 (14.53%) Cisco ASA
16 50 (13.97%) TCP/IP
17 47 (13.13%) Cisco ISE
18 45 (12.57%) DHCP
19 44 (12.29%) Wireless
20 42 (11.73%) EIGRP
Development Applications
1 15 (4.19%) Git
2 9 (2.51%) Sonatype Nexus
3 4 (1.12%) GitLab
3 4 (1.12%) JIRA
4 3 (0.84%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.28%) AppScan
5 1 (0.28%) Burp Suite
5 1 (0.28%) Metasploit
General
1 61 (17.04%) Social Skills
2 39 (10.89%) Analytical Skills
3 37 (10.34%) Documentation Skills
4 34 (9.50%) Finance
5 30 (8.38%) Public Sector
6 25 (6.98%) Banking
7 21 (5.87%) Telecoms
8 17 (4.75%) Investment Banking
9 16 (4.47%) Financial Institution
10 14 (3.91%) Manufacturing
11 13 (3.63%) Military
12 5 (1.40%) Legal
12 5 (1.40%) Marketing
12 5 (1.40%) Retail
13 4 (1.12%) French Language
13 4 (1.12%) Influencing Skills
14 3 (0.84%) Police
15 2 (0.56%) Aviation
15 2 (0.56%) Electronics
15 2 (0.56%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 220 (61.45%) Network Engineer
2 53 (14.80%) Cisco Engineer
3 50 (13.97%) Cisco Network Engineer
4 49 (13.69%) Senior
5 41 (11.45%) Security Engineer
6 38 (10.61%) Architect
7 36 (10.06%) Network Security Engineer
8 35 (9.78%) Data Network Engineer
8 35 (9.78%) Senior Network Engineer
9 30 (8.38%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
10 27 (7.54%) Cisco Security Engineer
11 26 (7.26%) Data Engineer
11 26 (7.26%) Network Architect
12 20 (5.59%) Network Specialist
13 14 (3.91%) Juniper Engineer
14 13 (3.63%) Design Engineer
14 13 (3.63%) Firewall Specialist
15 12 (3.35%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
15 12 (3.35%) Web Engineer
16 11 (3.07%) IP Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 41 (11.45%) 802.1X
2 8 (2.23%) NETCONF
2 8 (2.23%) REST
2 8 (2.23%) YANG
3 6 (1.68%) LDAP
4 5 (1.40%) OpenConfig
5 4 (1.12%) Jinja
5 4 (1.12%) RESTCONF
5 4 (1.12%) VML
6 2 (0.56%) AWS CDK
6 2 (0.56%) CSS
6 2 (0.56%) HTML
6 2 (0.56%) JSON
6 2 (0.56%) RFC 2544
6 2 (0.56%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 154 (43.02%) Data Centre
2 42 (11.73%) PKI
3 24 (6.70%) Clustering
4 15 (4.19%) Hybrid Cloud
5 9 (2.51%) Product Ownership
6 8 (2.23%) Analytical Mindset
6 8 (2.23%) Onboarding
7 6 (1.68%) Cloud Native
7 6 (1.68%) Data Protection Act
8 5 (1.40%) Self-Motivation
9 4 (1.12%) NHS
9 4 (1.12%) Operational Technology
9 4 (1.12%) Public Cloud
9 4 (1.12%) Virtual Team
10 3 (0.84%) CESG
10 3 (0.84%) Distributed Architecture
10 3 (0.84%) Distributed Systems
10 3 (0.84%) Linux Command Line
10 3 (0.84%) SCADA
10 3 (0.84%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 42 (11.73%) Windows
2 23 (6.42%) Linux
3 9 (2.51%) Windows Server
4 7 (1.96%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 6 (1.68%) Ubuntu
6 1 (0.28%) Kali Linux
6 1 (0.28%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 83 (23.18%) Load Balancing
2 58 (16.20%) High Availability
3 54 (15.08%) Problem-Solving
4 44 (12.29%) Network Design
5 42 (11.73%) Migration
6 33 (9.22%) ITIL
7 32 (8.94%) Change Management
8 30 (8.38%) Cybersecurity
8 30 (8.38%) Observability
9 28 (7.82%) Network Monitoring
10 27 (7.54%) Project Delivery
10 27 (7.54%) Stakeholder Management
10 27 (7.54%) Zero Trust
11 25 (6.98%) Identity Access Management
11 25 (6.98%) Infrastructure as Code
12 24 (6.70%) Network Segmentation
13 23 (6.42%) Root Cause Analysis
14 20 (5.59%) Continuous Improvement
14 20 (5.59%) ITSM
14 20 (5.59%) Performance Tuning
Programming Languages
1 79 (22.07%) Python
2 12 (3.35%) Bash
3 10 (2.79%) PowerShell
4 7 (1.96%) Perl
5 4 (1.12%) Lisp
5 4 (1.12%) PHP
6 2 (0.56%) JavaScript
6 2 (0.56%) SQL
Qualifications
1 158 (44.13%) Cisco Certification
2 149 (41.62%) Security Cleared
3 122 (34.08%) CCNP
4 113 (31.56%) SC Cleared
5 52 (14.53%) CCIE
6 42 (11.73%) DV Cleared
7 31 (8.66%) Degree
8 30 (8.38%) CCNA
9 18 (5.03%) JNCIP
9 18 (5.03%) JNCIS
10 13 (3.63%) JNCIA
10 13 (3.63%) JNCIE
11 11 (3.07%) AWS Certification
12 9 (2.51%) CISSP
13 8 (2.23%) Azure Certification
13 8 (2.23%) CCDP
13 8 (2.23%) Computer Science Degree
14 7 (1.96%) GIAC
15 5 (1.40%) CompTIA Security+
15 5 (1.40%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (3.91%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 14 (3.91%) NIST
2 10 (2.79%) NCSC
2 10 (2.79%) SLA
3 7 (1.96%) PCI DSS
4 6 (1.68%) GDPR
5 4 (1.12%) Cyber Essentials
5 4 (1.12%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 3 (0.84%) RMADS
7 2 (0.56%) JSP 440
8 1 (0.28%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.28%) COBIT
8 1 (0.28%) GRC
8 1 (0.28%) HMG Security Policy Framework
8 1 (0.28%) NIST 800
8 1 (0.28%) QA
System Software
1 32 (8.94%) VMware Infrastructure
2 15 (4.19%) VMware NSX
3 9 (2.51%) Active Directory
4 8 (2.23%) VMware ESXi
5 5 (1.40%) Docker
6 3 (0.84%) vSphere
7 2 (0.56%) Firmware
7 2 (0.56%) vCloud
7 2 (0.56%) Virtual Servers
8 1 (0.28%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.28%) KVM
8 1 (0.28%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 74 (20.67%) Ansible
2 55 (15.36%) FortiGate
3 38 (10.61%) Terraform
4 15 (4.19%) Grafana
5 13 (3.63%) Prometheus
6 7 (1.96%) Kubernetes
7 6 (1.68%) vCenter Server
8 5 (1.40%) Nagios
9 3 (0.84%) SCOM
10 2 (0.56%) CASB
10 2 (0.56%) Cisco Prime
10 2 (0.56%) Iperf
10 2 (0.56%) Nmap
11 1 (0.28%) Cisco CUCM
11 1 (0.28%) Failover Clustering
11 1 (0.28%) Microsoft Intune
11 1 (0.28%) Progress Chef
11 1 (0.28%) QRadar
11 1 (0.28%) vRealize
11 1 (0.28%) VxRail
Vendors
1 269 (75.14%) Cisco
2 114 (31.84%) F5
3 103 (28.77%) Palo Alto
4 93 (25.98%) Juniper
5 63 (17.60%) Fortinet
6 50 (13.97%) CheckPoint
7 41 (11.45%) Arista
7 41 (11.45%) Aruba
8 37 (10.34%) SolarWinds
8 37 (10.34%) VMware
9 27 (7.54%) Splunk
10 26 (7.26%) Meraki
11 25 (6.98%) Extreme Networks
12 17 (4.75%) Zscaler
13 15 (4.19%) Nokia
14 11 (3.07%) Microsoft
15 10 (2.79%) Ekahau
15 10 (2.79%) ServiceNow
16 7 (1.96%) Red Hat
16 7 (1.96%) Remedy