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

6 months to
9 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 318 303 240
Rank change year-on-year -15 -63 +17
Contract jobs citing BGP 422 278 388
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.77% 0.84% 1.02%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 8.37% 7.34% 8.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 242 180 218
10th Percentile £380 £324 £350
25th Percentile £425 £413 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £493 £503
Median % change year-on-year +1.52% -1.99% -4.29%
75th Percentile £588 £618 £588
90th Percentile £710 £675 £732
UK excluding London median daily rate £510 £455 £505
% change year-on-year +12.09% -9.90% +3.59%
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% -2.83%
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% -55.29%

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 5,039 3,790 4,550
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.25% 11.43% 11.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,917 2,399 2,613
10th Percentile £236 £216 £225
25th Percentile £393 £358 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £588 £601
90th Percentile £678 £680 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £485
% change year-on-year +5.56% -7.22% +5.43%
Number of hourly rates quoted 434 195 192
10th Percentile £14.10 £15.50 £14.20
25th Percentile £19.50 £20.00 £24.18
Median hourly rate £32.50 £35.00 £49.00
Median % change year-on-year -7.14% -28.57% -13.26%
75th Percentile £68.69 £64.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £92.11 £75.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.14 £41.48 £55.00
% change year-on-year -36.97% -24.59% -4.35%

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 9 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 9 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 9 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 -14 387 £500 - 263
UK excluding London -14 237 £510 +12.09% 90
London -68 131 £500 -4.76% 178
North of England +10 100 £500 +11.86% 16
Work from Home -49 99 £500 -8.05% 89
North West +3 71 £488 +9.06% 11
South East -36 62 £525 +5.00% 25
Midlands -44 39 £475 +18.75% 15
West Midlands -47 37 £571 +42.69% 9
South West -25 30 £525 -16.83% 9
Yorkshire -15 22 £495 +12.50% 4
East of England -18 18 £488 -30.36% 12
North East -28 13 £650 +160.00% 1
Scotland -25 11 £375 -11.76% 9
East Midlands -17 2 £475 +8.57% 6

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 (3.32%) OpenStack
2 8 (1.90%) SAS
3 5 (1.18%) Confluence
4 4 (0.95%) Microsoft Exchange
5 1 (0.24%) SharePoint
Applications
1 9 (2.13%) MS Visio
2 6 (1.42%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (0.95%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (0.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.71%) AutoCAD
Cloud Services
1 109 (25.83%) Azure
2 89 (21.09%) AWS
3 34 (8.06%) GCP
4 27 (6.40%) OCI
5 26 (6.16%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 23 (5.45%) GitHub
7 19 (4.50%) AWS Direct Connect
8 17 (4.03%) SaaS
9 14 (3.32%) Microsoft 365
10 8 (1.90%) Azure Monitor
11 7 (1.66%) Azure Sentinel
11 7 (1.66%) OpenShift
11 7 (1.66%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 5 (1.18%) Nutanix
13 4 (0.95%) Entra ID
14 3 (0.71%) AWS CloudFormation
14 3 (0.71%) IBM Watson
15 1 (0.24%) AWS Lambda
15 1 (0.24%) GitHub Actions
15 1 (0.24%) Route 53
Communications & Networking
1 240 (56.87%) OSPF
2 232 (54.98%) Firewall
3 191 (45.26%) WAN
4 134 (31.75%) VPN
5 118 (27.96%) VLAN
6 110 (26.07%) LAN
7 107 (25.36%) MPLS
8 97 (22.99%) VXLAN
9 95 (22.51%) Network Security
10 90 (21.33%) SD-WAN
11 83 (19.67%) DNS
12 77 (18.25%) Ethernet VPN
13 75 (17.77%) TCP/IP
14 66 (15.64%) IPsec
15 65 (15.40%) Wireless
16 58 (13.74%) Wi-Fi
17 55 (13.03%) EIGRP
17 55 (13.03%) Multicast
18 53 (12.56%) Cisco Nexus
19 47 (11.14%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.24%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 31 (7.35%) Git
2 30 (7.11%) GitLab
3 9 (2.13%) JIRA
4 8 (1.90%) Sonatype Nexus
5 2 (0.47%) Jenkins
6 1 (0.24%) Bitbucket
6 1 (0.24%) Cucumber
General
1 75 (17.77%) Social Skills
2 52 (12.32%) Finance
3 50 (11.85%) Analytical Skills
4 33 (7.82%) Banking
5 32 (7.58%) Telecoms
6 27 (6.40%) Public Sector
7 15 (3.55%) Investment Banking
8 13 (3.08%) Documentation Skills
9 8 (1.90%) Legal
9 8 (1.90%) Military
10 7 (1.66%) Retail
11 6 (1.42%) Police
12 5 (1.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 4 (0.95%) 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
1 246 (58.29%) Network Engineer
2 92 (21.80%) Senior
3 58 (13.74%) Senior Network Engineer
4 48 (11.37%) Architect
5 47 (11.14%) Cisco Engineer
6 44 (10.43%) Cisco Network Engineer
7 38 (9.00%) Network Architect
8 34 (8.06%) Consultant
9 33 (7.82%) Security Engineer
10 31 (7.35%) Network Security Engineer
11 25 (5.92%) Data Network Engineer
12 23 (5.45%) Network Consultant
13 20 (4.74%) Cisco Security Engineer
13 20 (4.74%) Data Engineer
14 19 (4.50%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 17 (4.03%) Developer
15 17 (4.03%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
16 15 (3.55%) Network Specialist
17 14 (3.32%) Operations Engineer
18 12 (2.84%) Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 71 (16.82%) Terraform
2 30 (7.11%) REST
3 18 (4.27%) 802.1X
3 18 (4.27%) JSON
4 17 (4.03%) NETCONF
4 17 (4.03%) YAML
5 15 (3.55%) YANG
6 6 (1.42%) RESTCONF
7 5 (1.18%) OpenConfig
8 4 (0.95%) CSS
9 3 (0.71%) eBPF
9 3 (0.71%) SAML
10 2 (0.47%) gRPC
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%) pytest
11 1 (0.24%) Regular Expression
Miscellaneous
1 168 (39.81%) Data Centre
2 49 (11.61%) Hybrid Cloud
3 28 (6.64%) Cloud Native
4 15 (3.55%) Self-Motivation
5 13 (3.08%) PKI
6 12 (2.84%) Private Cloud
7 10 (2.37%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 9 (2.13%) Public Cloud
9 8 (1.90%) Analytical Mindset
9 8 (1.90%) CMDB
9 8 (1.90%) Digital Signage
10 6 (1.42%) Operational Technology
10 6 (1.42%) Security Posture
11 5 (1.18%) Data Structures
11 5 (1.18%) Linux Command Line
11 5 (1.18%) Video Conferencing
12 4 (0.95%) Data Protection Act
12 4 (0.95%) Enterprise Cloud
12 4 (0.95%) Onboarding
13 3 (0.71%) Distributed Applications
Operating Systems
1 40 (9.48%) Windows
2 31 (7.35%) Linux
3 12 (2.84%) Windows Server
4 10 (2.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 3 (0.71%) Unix
5 3 (0.71%) Windows Server 2012
6 1 (0.24%) Mac OS
6 1 (0.24%) VMS
6 1 (0.24%) Windows Server 2016
6 1 (0.24%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 88 (20.85%) Load Balancing
2 85 (20.14%) Infrastructure as Code
3 79 (18.72%) Migration
4 75 (17.77%) Zero Trust
5 71 (16.82%) High Availability
6 69 (16.35%) Network Design
7 55 (13.03%) Validation
8 50 (11.85%) CI/CD
9 48 (11.37%) Problem-Solving
10 47 (11.14%) Network Architecture
11 43 (10.19%) Project Delivery
12 39 (9.24%) ITIL
13 38 (9.00%) DevOps
14 35 (8.29%) Infrastructure Engineering
15 34 (8.06%) Network Segmentation
15 34 (8.06%) Runbook
15 34 (8.06%) Stakeholder Management
16 31 (7.35%) Change Control
16 31 (7.35%) Technical Leadership
17 28 (6.64%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 131 (31.04%) Python
2 14 (3.32%) Bash
3 9 (2.13%) PowerShell
4 5 (1.18%) SQL
5 3 (0.71%) Go
5 3 (0.71%) Shell Script
6 2 (0.47%) Perl
7 1 (0.24%) C++
7 1 (0.24%) Java
Qualifications
1 125 (29.62%) Security Cleared
2 113 (26.78%) Cisco Certification
3 88 (20.85%) CCNP
4 68 (16.11%) SC Cleared
5 52 (12.32%) DV Cleared
6 47 (11.14%) CCIE
7 25 (5.92%) CCNA
8 16 (3.79%) Degree
9 13 (3.08%) JNCIE
10 4 (0.95%) AWS Certification
10 4 (0.95%) Azure Certification
10 4 (0.95%) CCIE Security
10 4 (0.95%) CISSP
10 4 (0.95%) 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 (0.95%) 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 32 (7.58%) VMware Infrastructure
2 18 (4.27%) VMware NSX
3 17 (4.03%) Active Directory
4 12 (2.84%) vSphere
5 10 (2.37%) Docker
6 8 (1.90%) Hyper-V
7 6 (1.42%) Firmware
8 3 (0.71%) Virtual Servers
9 2 (0.47%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.24%) ProxySG
10 1 (0.24%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 127 (30.09%) Ansible
2 39 (9.24%) FortiGate
3 20 (4.74%) Kubernetes
4 14 (3.32%) Cisco Prime
5 12 (2.84%) Nagios
6 11 (2.61%) Grafana
7 10 (2.37%) Prometheus
8 6 (1.42%) Cilium
9 4 (0.95%) Istio
10 2 (0.47%) Puppet
10 2 (0.47%) Single Sign-On
10 2 (0.47%) VxRail
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 (68.96%) Cisco
2 128 (30.33%) Palo Alto
3 120 (28.44%) F5
4 90 (21.33%) Fortinet
5 78 (18.48%) Arista
6 54 (12.80%) Juniper
7 48 (11.37%) VMware
8 41 (9.72%) Aruba
9 38 (9.00%) CheckPoint
10 36 (8.53%) Microsoft
11 32 (7.58%) SolarWinds
12 22 (5.21%) ServiceNow
13 17 (4.03%) Zscaler
14 16 (3.79%) Meraki
15 14 (3.32%) Splunk
16 12 (2.84%) Red Hat
17 9 (2.13%) Google
17 9 (2.13%) Infoblox
18 7 (1.66%) Citrix
18 7 (1.66%) LogicMonitor