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 7 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 332 229 265
Rank change year-on-year -103 +36 +158
Contract jobs citing BGP 269 395 448
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.77% 1.08% 0.96%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 6.79% 8.94% 6.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 182 225 239
10th Percentile £325 £352 £352
25th Percentile £413 £410 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £505 £525
Median % change year-on-year -5.94% -3.81% +5.00%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £600
90th Percentile £664 £728 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £525 £490
% change year-on-year -9.52% +7.14% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 4 8
10th Percentile £59.10 £32.38 £22.70
25th Percentile £63.38 £34.06 £24.88
Median hourly rate £70.38 £36.50 £35.75
Median % change year-on-year +92.82% +2.10% +37.50%
75th Percentile £74.26 £44.75 £45.94
90th Percentile - £56.90 £72.23
UK excluding London median hourly rate £74.26 - £25.00
% change year-on-year - - +6.38%

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 3,961 4,417 6,542
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 11.33% 12.03% 14.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,569 2,545 4,073
10th Percentile £207 £222 £213
25th Percentile £360 £375 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £681 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -5.26% - +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 195 160 343
10th Percentile £15.50 £17.99 £17.72
25th Percentile £20.00 £26.25 £22.50
Median hourly rate £34.00 £47.50 £53.00
Median % change year-on-year -28.42% -10.38% +29.17%
75th Percentile £65.00 £67.14 £66.25
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £76.01
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £51.25 £56.49
% change year-on-year -17.07% -9.28% +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 7 November 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
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing BGP over the 6 months to 7 November 2025.

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 7 November 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 -81 235 £500 - 188
UK excluding London -74 149 £475 -9.52% 147
London -29 95 £500 +1.27% 99
Work from Home -50 79 £538 +6.17% 73
Midlands -3 45 £400 -16.45% 19
West Midlands -3 45 £400 -12.57% 11
South East -39 37 £500 -6.98% 84
North of England -59 30 £550 +9.45% 15
North West -44 27 £550 +4.76% 1
South West -3 21 £625 +25.00% 9
Scotland +10 14 £425 +6.25% 17
East of England -13 8 £700 +26.13% 4
North East -9 3 £550 +29.41% 3
Yorkshire -41 3 £520 +89.09% 11
Channel Islands - 3 £725 - 2
Wales +6 1 £400 -

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 23 (8.55%) OpenStack
2 11 (4.09%) Confluence
2 11 (4.09%) SharePoint
3 2 (0.74%) nginx
Applications
1 12 (4.46%) MS Visio
2 8 (2.97%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.74%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.37%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 65 (24.16%) AWS
2 48 (17.84%) Azure
3 19 (7.06%) GCP
4 8 (2.97%) Azure ExpressRoute
4 8 (2.97%) OpenShift
4 8 (2.97%) Virtual Private Cloud
5 7 (2.60%) Akamai
6 6 (2.23%) AWS Direct Connect
7 5 (1.86%) SaaS
8 3 (1.12%) IaaS
8 3 (1.12%) PaaS
9 2 (0.74%) GitHub
10 1 (0.37%) Amazon S3
10 1 (0.37%) AWS KMS
10 1 (0.37%) Azure DevOps
10 1 (0.37%) Azure Sentinel
10 1 (0.37%) Cloud Run
10 1 (0.37%) Entra ID
10 1 (0.37%) Microsoft 365
10 1 (0.37%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 176 (65.43%) OSPF
2 151 (56.13%) Firewall
3 111 (41.26%) WAN
4 104 (38.66%) MPLS
5 101 (37.55%) VPN
6 80 (29.74%) VLAN
7 71 (26.39%) IPsec
8 66 (24.54%) Network Security
9 55 (20.45%) DNS
9 55 (20.45%) SD-WAN
10 54 (20.07%) LAN
11 48 (17.84%) Wireless
12 44 (16.36%) EIGRP
12 44 (16.36%) VXLAN
13 33 (12.27%) Cisco ISE
13 33 (12.27%) DHCP
14 32 (11.90%) Ethernet VPN
15 27 (10.04%) TCP/IP
16 26 (9.67%) Cisco Nexus
16 26 (9.67%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (0.74%) MongoDB
1 2 (0.74%) NoSQL
2 1 (0.37%) Redis
2 1 (0.37%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 13 (4.83%) Git
2 10 (3.72%) JIRA
3 7 (2.60%) GitLab
3 7 (2.60%) Sonatype Nexus
4 3 (1.12%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.37%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.37%) Robot Framework
General
1 84 (31.23%) Social Skills
2 31 (11.52%) Public Sector
3 30 (11.15%) Analytical Skills
4 26 (9.67%) Finance
5 23 (8.55%) Documentation Skills
6 18 (6.69%) Telecoms
7 15 (5.58%) Banking
8 10 (3.72%) Investment Banking
9 5 (1.86%) Legal
10 4 (1.49%) Influencing Skills
10 4 (1.49%) Military
11 3 (1.12%) Financial Institution
11 3 (1.12%) Marketing
12 2 (0.74%) Advertising
12 2 (0.74%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 2 (0.74%) Local Government
12 2 (0.74%) Manufacturing
12 2 (0.74%) Organisational Skills
12 2 (0.74%) Presentation Skills
13 1 (0.37%) French Language
Job Titles
1 141 (52.42%) Network Engineer
2 36 (13.38%) Architect
3 27 (10.04%) Cisco Engineer
3 27 (10.04%) Senior
4 26 (9.67%) Cisco Network Engineer
5 18 (6.69%) Network Architect
5 18 (6.69%) WAN Engineer
6 17 (6.32%) Support Engineer
7 16 (5.95%) Senior Network Engineer
8 15 (5.58%) Designer
9 14 (5.20%) 3rd Line Engineer
10 13 (4.83%) 3rd Line Support
10 13 (4.83%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
10 13 (4.83%) Juniper Engineer
10 13 (4.83%) Network Security Engineer
10 13 (4.83%) Security Engineer
11 12 (4.46%) Consultant
11 12 (4.46%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
11 12 (4.46%) Solutions Architect
12 9 (3.35%) 2nd Line Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (5.95%) NETCONF
2 10 (3.72%) REST
2 10 (3.72%) YANG
3 9 (3.35%) RESTCONF
4 8 (2.97%) 802.1X
5 5 (1.86%) Jinja
5 5 (1.86%) JSON
6 3 (1.12%) SAML
6 3 (1.12%) XML
6 3 (1.12%) YAML
7 2 (0.74%) eBPF
7 2 (0.74%) SOAP
8 1 (0.37%) CrewAI
8 1 (0.37%) Elastic Stack
8 1 (0.37%) gRPC
8 1 (0.37%) JFC
8 1 (0.37%) LangChain
8 1 (0.37%) OpenConfig
8 1 (0.37%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 75 (27.88%) Data Centre
2 40 (14.87%) PKI
3 19 (7.06%) Hybrid Cloud
4 10 (3.72%) Cloud Native
4 10 (3.72%) Onboarding
4 10 (3.72%) Operational Technology
5 9 (3.35%) Product Ownership
6 5 (1.86%) Private Cloud
6 5 (1.86%) Self-Motivation
7 4 (1.49%) Data Protection Act
8 3 (1.12%) Analytical Mindset
8 3 (1.12%) Public Cloud
9 2 (0.74%) CMDB
9 2 (0.74%) Distributed Architecture
9 2 (0.74%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
9 2 (0.74%) Distributed Systems
9 2 (0.74%) Legacy Systems
9 2 (0.74%) Life Science
9 2 (0.74%) Video\Live Streaming
10 1 (0.37%) Fat Client
Operating Systems
1 18 (6.69%) Linux
2 14 (5.20%) Windows
3 9 (3.35%) Windows Server
4 7 (2.60%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 2 (0.74%) CentOS
5 2 (0.74%) Unix
6 1 (0.37%) Check Point GAiA
6 1 (0.37%) Ubuntu
6 1 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
6 1 (0.37%) Windows Server 2016
6 1 (0.37%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 49 (18.22%) Network Design
2 38 (14.13%) Problem-Solving
3 34 (12.64%) Load Balancing
4 32 (11.90%) High Availability
5 31 (11.52%) Network Monitoring
5 31 (11.52%) Network Segmentation
5 31 (11.52%) Network Virtualisation
6 24 (8.92%) Migration
7 22 (8.18%) Change Control
7 22 (8.18%) DevOps
7 22 (8.18%) Network Architecture
7 22 (8.18%) Validation
8 21 (7.81%) Strategic Thinking
9 20 (7.43%) ITIL
10 19 (7.06%) Roadmaps
11 18 (6.69%) Zero Trust
12 16 (5.95%) TOGAF
13 15 (5.58%) Agile
13 15 (5.58%) Cybersecurity
13 15 (5.58%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 95 (35.32%) Python
2 22 (8.18%) Bash
3 16 (5.95%) Perl
4 11 (4.09%) PowerShell
5 8 (2.97%) Lisp
6 6 (2.23%) C++
7 3 (1.12%) SQL
8 2 (0.74%) C
9 1 (0.37%) Go
9 1 (0.37%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 130 (48.33%) Cisco Certification
2 103 (38.29%) CCNP
3 92 (34.20%) Security Cleared
4 68 (25.28%) SC Cleared
5 47 (17.47%) CCIE
6 25 (9.29%) Degree
6 25 (9.29%) JNCIE
7 19 (7.06%) DV Cleared
8 17 (6.32%) CCNA
9 14 (5.20%) AWS Certification
10 13 (4.83%) JNCIS
11 11 (4.09%) JNCIA
12 10 (3.72%) JNCIP
13 9 (3.35%) CISSP
14 8 (2.97%) CCDP
15 7 (2.60%) CCSA
16 6 (2.23%) CCSE
17 5 (1.86%) Computer Science Degree
18 4 (1.49%) Azure Certification
18 4 (1.49%) CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (3.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 9 (3.35%) NCSC
3 7 (2.60%) GDPR
3 7 (2.60%) NIST
4 6 (2.23%) SLA
5 5 (1.86%) PCI DSS
6 1 (0.37%) Def Stans
6 1 (0.37%) NIST 800
6 1 (0.37%) SOC 2
System Software
1 27 (10.04%) VMware Infrastructure
2 16 (5.95%) Docker
2 16 (5.95%) VMware NSX
3 14 (5.20%) Firmware
4 8 (2.97%) Active Directory
4 8 (2.97%) VMware ESXi
5 3 (1.12%) Hyper-V
5 3 (1.12%) KVM
6 2 (0.74%) Ceph
7 1 (0.37%) Squid
Systems Management
1 82 (30.48%) Ansible
2 37 (13.75%) FortiGate
3 30 (11.15%) Terraform
4 11 (4.09%) Kubernetes
5 5 (1.86%) Nagios
6 4 (1.49%) CA Spectrum
7 3 (1.12%) Cisco CUCM
7 3 (1.12%) HAProxy
7 3 (1.12%) Iperf
7 3 (1.12%) Nmap
7 3 (1.12%) Single Sign-On
8 2 (0.74%) Grafana
8 2 (0.74%) Prometheus
9 1 (0.37%) CASB
9 1 (0.37%) Icinga
9 1 (0.37%) Observium
9 1 (0.37%) vCenter Server
9 1 (0.37%) VxRail
Vendors
1 168 (62.45%) Cisco
2 86 (31.97%) Juniper
3 66 (24.54%) Fortinet
4 62 (23.05%) Palo Alto
5 49 (18.22%) F5
6 39 (14.50%) SolarWinds
6 39 (14.50%) VMware
7 30 (11.15%) Arista
7 30 (11.15%) Meraki
8 22 (8.18%) CheckPoint
9 15 (5.58%) ServiceNow
10 12 (4.46%) Dell
10 12 (4.46%) Microsoft
11 11 (4.09%) Remedy
12 9 (3.35%) Zscaler
13 8 (2.97%) Atlassian
13 8 (2.97%) Ekahau
13 8 (2.97%) Red Hat
14 5 (1.86%) Citrix
14 5 (1.86%) Nokia