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

6 months to
27 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 345 209 245
Rank change year-on-year -136 +36 +145
Contract jobs citing BGP 260 388 430
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.68% 1.25% 0.97%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 6.54% 9.64% 7.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 152 231 222
10th Percentile £287 £375 £325
25th Percentile £400 £426 £426
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £449 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -14.57% - +5.00%
75th Percentile £525 £650 £600
90th Percentile £588 £800 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £445 £505 £490
% change year-on-year -11.88% +3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 4 12
10th Percentile £67.45 £22.33 £24.25
25th Percentile £70.01 £28.06 £24.81
Median hourly rate £74.26 £33.75 £37.77
Median % change year-on-year +120.03% -10.64% -29.96%
75th Percentile - £35.75 £68.13
90th Percentile - £37.10 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £74.26 £19.00 £44.00
% change year-on-year +290.84% -56.82% +83.33%

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 3,975 4,025 6,064
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.44% 12.95% 13.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,607 2,333 3,682
10th Percentile £204 £213 £206
25th Percentile £356 £363 £356
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £495
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +1.01% -3.88%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £685 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £468 £475
% change year-on-year -3.74% -1.58% +2.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 164 139 390
10th Percentile £15.50 £17.76 £16.25
25th Percentile £18.97 £21.46 £22.00
Median hourly rate £30.00 £35.00 £51.89
Median % change year-on-year -14.29% -32.55% +150.60%
75th Percentile £65.00 £58.69 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £70.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.54 £31.79 £56.49
% change year-on-year +27.52% -43.72% +187.12%

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 27 January 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
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 27 January 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 -114 227 £450 -12.20% 93
UK excluding London -79 159 £445 -11.88% 84
Work from Home -77 87 £445 -29.50% 27
London -80 73 £463 -9.76% 20
South East -30 66 £445 -25.83% 30
West Midlands +1 45 £400 -16.45% 8
Midlands -25 45 £400 -20.00% 14
North of England -81 37 £550 +8.91% 14
North West -54 33 £550 +8.91% 3
Scotland +16 13 £425 +6.25% 3
South West -35 9 £519 +13.39% 12
Yorkshire -49 4 £600 +118.18% 10
North East -12 3 £550 - 3
Wales -4 2 - - 3
East of England -19 1 £300 +9.09% 8

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 (6.92%) OpenStack
2 12 (4.62%) SharePoint
3 5 (1.92%) Confluence
Applications
1 15 (5.77%) MS Visio
2 6 (2.31%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 4 (1.54%) Microsoft Office
4 3 (1.15%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 52 (20.00%) AWS
2 39 (15.00%) Azure
3 14 (5.38%) GCP
4 13 (5.00%) Virtual Private Cloud
5 8 (3.08%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 7 (2.69%) AWS Direct Connect
7 6 (2.31%) OpenShift
7 6 (2.31%) Route 53
8 5 (1.92%) SaaS
9 4 (1.54%) Amazon GuardDuty
10 3 (1.15%) Amazon EKS
10 3 (1.15%) Amazon S3
10 3 (1.15%) Azure Sentinel
10 3 (1.15%) Catchpoint
10 3 (1.15%) IaaS
10 3 (1.15%) PaaS
11 2 (0.77%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 2 (0.77%) AWS CloudFormation
11 2 (0.77%) Cloud Computing
11 2 (0.77%) Entra ID
Communications & Networking
1 157 (60.38%) OSPF
2 150 (57.69%) Firewall
3 133 (51.15%) WAN
4 97 (37.31%) VPN
5 96 (36.92%) MPLS
6 91 (35.00%) LAN
7 66 (25.38%) IPsec
8 64 (24.62%) Network Security
9 55 (21.15%) VLAN
10 48 (18.46%) Wireless
11 44 (16.92%) SD-WAN
12 42 (16.15%) DNS
13 40 (15.38%) EIGRP
14 37 (14.23%) VXLAN
15 35 (13.46%) Cisco ASA
16 32 (12.31%) TCP/IP
17 31 (11.92%) Cisco Nexus
18 26 (10.00%) Cisco ISE
18 26 (10.00%) Ethernet VPN
19 24 (9.23%) DHCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.38%) Redis
1 1 (0.38%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 10 (3.85%) Git
2 7 (2.69%) Sonatype Nexus
3 4 (1.54%) GitLab
4 2 (0.77%) JIRA
5 1 (0.38%) AppScan
5 1 (0.38%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.38%) Burp Suite
5 1 (0.38%) Metasploit
5 1 (0.38%) Robot Framework
General
1 69 (26.54%) Social Skills
2 34 (13.08%) Public Sector
3 33 (12.69%) Documentation Skills
4 29 (11.15%) Analytical Skills
5 17 (6.54%) Finance
5 17 (6.54%) Telecoms
6 13 (5.00%) Banking
6 13 (5.00%) Manufacturing
7 12 (4.62%) Investment Banking
8 7 (2.69%) Military
9 6 (2.31%) Financial Institution
10 5 (1.92%) Legal
10 5 (1.92%) Marketing
11 4 (1.54%) Retail
12 3 (1.15%) Electronics
12 3 (1.15%) French Language
12 3 (1.15%) Influencing Skills
13 2 (0.77%) Pharmaceutical
13 2 (0.77%) Presentation Skills
14 1 (0.38%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 140 (53.85%) Network Engineer
2 40 (15.38%) Architect
3 33 (12.69%) Cisco Engineer
4 29 (11.15%) Cisco Network Engineer
5 23 (8.85%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
6 22 (8.46%) Network Architect
7 19 (7.31%) Senior
8 18 (6.92%) Security Engineer
9 15 (5.77%) Network Security Engineer
10 14 (5.38%) Support Engineer
11 12 (4.62%) Senior Network Engineer
11 12 (4.62%) WAN Engineer
12 11 (4.23%) Juniper Engineer
13 10 (3.85%) 2nd Line Engineer
13 10 (3.85%) 3rd Line Engineer
13 10 (3.85%) 3rd Line Support
13 10 (3.85%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
14 9 (3.46%) IP Specialist
14 9 (3.46%) Solutions Architect
14 9 (3.46%) Wireless Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (5.00%) YANG
2 12 (4.62%) 802.1X
2 12 (4.62%) NETCONF
3 10 (3.85%) REST
4 4 (1.54%) JSON
4 4 (1.54%) VML
5 3 (1.15%) LDAP
5 3 (1.15%) OpenConfig
5 3 (1.15%) SAML
6 2 (0.77%) AWS CDK
6 2 (0.77%) CSS
6 2 (0.77%) HTML
6 2 (0.77%) Jinja
6 2 (0.77%) RESTCONF
6 2 (0.77%) XML
7 1 (0.38%) Elastic Stack
7 1 (0.38%) gRPC
7 1 (0.38%) JFC
7 1 (0.38%) RabbitMQ
7 1 (0.38%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 94 (36.15%) Data Centre
2 38 (14.62%) PKI
3 20 (7.69%) Hybrid Cloud
4 11 (4.23%) Cloud Native
5 8 (3.08%) Product Ownership
6 7 (2.69%) Self-Motivation
7 6 (2.31%) Data Protection Act
8 5 (1.92%) Analytical Mindset
8 5 (1.92%) NHS
8 5 (1.92%) Operational Technology
9 4 (1.54%) Onboarding
9 4 (1.54%) SCADA
10 3 (1.15%) CESG
10 3 (1.15%) Distributed Architecture
10 3 (1.15%) Public Cloud
11 2 (0.77%) Algorithms
11 2 (0.77%) Legacy Systems
11 2 (0.77%) Linux Command Line
11 2 (0.77%) Private Cloud
11 2 (0.77%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 17 (6.54%) Linux
2 12 (4.62%) Windows
3 8 (3.08%) Windows Server
4 6 (2.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 4 (1.54%) Ubuntu
6 1 (0.38%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 45 (17.31%) Network Design
2 39 (15.00%) Load Balancing
3 36 (13.85%) Problem-Solving
4 26 (10.00%) Migration
5 24 (9.23%) Cybersecurity
6 23 (8.85%) Network Monitoring
6 23 (8.85%) Network Segmentation
7 22 (8.46%) Roadmaps
8 21 (8.08%) Project Delivery
8 21 (8.08%) Zero Trust
9 20 (7.69%) Network Virtualisation
10 19 (7.31%) Network Architecture
10 19 (7.31%) Stakeholder Management
10 19 (7.31%) Strategic Thinking
11 18 (6.92%) High Availability
12 17 (6.54%) DevOps
12 17 (6.54%) TOGAF
13 16 (6.15%) Security Architecture
14 15 (5.77%) Agile
14 15 (5.77%) Kalman Filter
Programming Languages
1 69 (26.54%) Python
2 19 (7.31%) Bash
3 15 (5.77%) Perl
4 10 (3.85%) PowerShell
5 9 (3.46%) Lisp
6 5 (1.92%) C++
7 2 (0.77%) JavaScript
8 1 (0.38%) PHP
8 1 (0.38%) Shell Script
8 1 (0.38%) SQL
Qualifications
1 128 (49.23%) Cisco Certification
2 113 (43.46%) Security Cleared
3 106 (40.77%) CCNP
4 94 (36.15%) SC Cleared
5 51 (19.62%) CCIE
6 23 (8.85%) Degree
7 22 (8.46%) DV Cleared
7 22 (8.46%) JNCIE
8 21 (8.08%) CCNA
9 15 (5.77%) JNCIS
10 13 (5.00%) AWS Certification
11 10 (3.85%) CCDP
11 10 (3.85%) JNCIA
12 9 (3.46%) CISSP
12 9 (3.46%) JNCIP
13 5 (1.92%) CCIE Security
14 4 (1.54%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 4 (1.54%) Azure Certification
14 4 (1.54%) CCSP
15 3 (1.15%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (4.62%) NIST
2 11 (4.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 7 (2.69%) GDPR
3 7 (2.69%) PCI DSS
3 7 (2.69%) SLA
4 5 (1.92%) NCSC
5 3 (1.15%) RMADS
6 2 (0.77%) JSP 440
7 1 (0.38%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (0.38%) COBIT
7 1 (0.38%) Cyber Essentials
7 1 (0.38%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 1 (0.38%) GRC
7 1 (0.38%) NIST 800
7 1 (0.38%) QA
7 1 (0.38%) SOC 2
System Software
1 24 (9.23%) VMware Infrastructure
2 21 (8.08%) VMware NSX
3 8 (3.08%) Active Directory
3 8 (3.08%) Docker
4 6 (2.31%) Firmware
5 3 (1.15%) KVM
5 3 (1.15%) VMware ESXi
5 3 (1.15%) vSphere
6 2 (0.77%) Hyper-V
6 2 (0.77%) vCloud
7 1 (0.38%) Squid
Systems Management
1 58 (22.31%) Ansible
2 29 (11.15%) Terraform
3 28 (10.77%) FortiGate
4 6 (2.31%) Kubernetes
5 5 (1.92%) Grafana
5 5 (1.92%) Prometheus
6 4 (1.54%) Iperf
6 4 (1.54%) Nmap
7 3 (1.15%) Nagios
7 3 (1.15%) Single Sign-On
7 3 (1.15%) vCenter Server
8 1 (0.38%) CASB
8 1 (0.38%) Cisco CUCM
8 1 (0.38%) Cisco Prime
8 1 (0.38%) Failover Clustering
8 1 (0.38%) Microsoft Intune
8 1 (0.38%) Nessus
8 1 (0.38%) Progress Chef
8 1 (0.38%) SCOM
8 1 (0.38%) vRealize
Vendors
1 177 (68.08%) Cisco
2 76 (29.23%) Palo Alto
3 74 (28.46%) Juniper
4 56 (21.54%) F5
5 45 (17.31%) Fortinet
6 39 (15.00%) CheckPoint
7 30 (11.54%) Aruba
7 30 (11.54%) Meraki
8 28 (10.77%) VMware
9 19 (7.31%) SolarWinds
10 16 (6.15%) Arista
11 15 (5.77%) Zscaler
12 12 (4.62%) Remedy
12 12 (4.62%) ServiceNow
13 11 (4.23%) Nokia
14 10 (3.85%) Ekahau
15 7 (2.69%) Microsoft
16 6 (2.31%) Dell
16 6 (2.31%) Red Hat
16 6 (2.31%) Splunk