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

6 months to
28 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 330 201 234
Rank change year-on-year -129 +33 +153
Contract jobs citing BGP 307 386 447
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.74% 1.26% 1.00%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 7.24% 9.60% 7.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 171 237 246
10th Percentile £280 £375 £318
25th Percentile £400 £425 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £445 £520 £495
Median % change year-on-year -14.42% +5.05% -1.00%
75th Percentile £528 £656 £592
90th Percentile £588 £800 £705
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £500 £450
% change year-on-year -10.00% +11.11% -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 4 10
10th Percentile £53.08 £22.33 £24.15
25th Percentile £70.67 £28.06 £24.44
Median hourly rate £74.26 £33.75 £46.25
Median % change year-on-year +120.03% -27.03% -40.32%
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% +31.34%

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 4,243 4,021 5,976
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.19% 13.14% 13.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,769 2,423 3,581
10th Percentile £204 £209 £205
25th Percentile £360 £361 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £500 £480
Median % change year-on-year -3.75% +4.17% -7.34%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £685 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £469 £470 £475
% change year-on-year -0.32% -1.05% +1.06%
Number of hourly rates quoted 174 130 384
10th Percentile £15.50 £16.18 £14.27
25th Percentile £19.25 £21.46 £19.99
Median hourly rate £35.50 £35.00 £43.12
Median % change year-on-year +1.43% -18.82% +123.39%
75th Percentile £65.00 £62.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £73.88 £74.70
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.94 £31.79 £50.00
% change year-on-year +31.93% -36.42% +163.16%

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 28 February 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 28 February 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 28 February 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 -97 266 £446 -12.98% 64
UK excluding London -80 183 £450 -10.00% 50
Work from Home -58 99 £438 -22.57% 20
South East -1 86 £445 -25.83% 27
London -81 86 £421 -15.75% 23
West Midlands -9 48 £400 -5.88% 7
Midlands -18 48 £400 -5.88% 7
North of England -85 45 £550 +4.76% 7
North West -56 41 £550 +4.76% 3
Scotland +11 13 £425 - 3
South West -48 11 £525 +5.00% 3
Yorkshire -62 4 £545 +98.18% 4
North East -11 3 £550 -
Wales -12 2 - - 1
East of England -29 1 - - 4

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 12 (3.91%) SharePoint
2 10 (3.26%) OpenStack
3 4 (1.30%) Confluence
Applications
1 16 (5.21%) MS Visio
2 7 (2.28%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 5 (1.63%) Microsoft Office
4 4 (1.30%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 55 (17.92%) AWS
2 42 (13.68%) Azure
3 24 (7.82%) GCP
4 17 (5.54%) Virtual Private Cloud
5 9 (2.93%) AWS Direct Connect
5 9 (2.93%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 7 (2.28%) Route 53
7 6 (1.95%) SaaS
8 5 (1.63%) Azure Sentinel
9 4 (1.30%) Amazon EKS
9 4 (1.30%) Amazon GuardDuty
9 4 (1.30%) IaaS
9 4 (1.30%) PaaS
10 3 (0.98%) Amazon S3
10 3 (0.98%) Catchpoint
10 3 (0.98%) Entra ID
11 2 (0.65%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 2 (0.65%) AWS CloudFormation
11 2 (0.65%) GitHub
11 2 (0.65%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 200 (65.15%) OSPF
2 193 (62.87%) Firewall
3 163 (53.09%) WAN
4 118 (38.44%) LAN
5 111 (36.16%) VPN
6 98 (31.92%) MPLS
7 84 (27.36%) Network Security
8 68 (22.15%) DNS
9 65 (21.17%) IPsec
10 63 (20.52%) VLAN
11 61 (19.87%) VXLAN
12 51 (16.61%) SD-WAN
13 48 (15.64%) Ethernet VPN
14 46 (14.98%) Cisco ASA
14 46 (14.98%) Wireless
15 42 (13.68%) DHCP
15 42 (13.68%) EIGRP
16 40 (13.03%) Cisco ISE
16 40 (13.03%) Multicast
17 36 (11.73%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.33%) Redis
1 1 (0.33%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 12 (3.91%) Git
2 7 (2.28%) Sonatype Nexus
3 4 (1.30%) GitLab
4 2 (0.65%) Jenkins
4 2 (0.65%) JIRA
5 1 (0.33%) AppScan
5 1 (0.33%) Burp Suite
5 1 (0.33%) Metasploit
General
1 68 (22.15%) Social Skills
2 39 (12.70%) Documentation Skills
3 32 (10.42%) Public Sector
4 31 (10.10%) Analytical Skills
5 26 (8.47%) Finance
6 22 (7.17%) Banking
7 19 (6.19%) Telecoms
8 16 (5.21%) Investment Banking
9 15 (4.89%) Manufacturing
10 13 (4.23%) Financial Institution
10 13 (4.23%) Military
11 6 (1.95%) Legal
11 6 (1.95%) Marketing
12 4 (1.30%) French Language
12 4 (1.30%) Influencing Skills
12 4 (1.30%) Retail
13 3 (0.98%) Electronics
14 2 (0.65%) Aviation
14 2 (0.65%) Pharmaceutical
14 2 (0.65%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 170 (55.37%) Network Engineer
2 40 (13.03%) Architect
3 39 (12.70%) Cisco Engineer
4 35 (11.40%) Cisco Network Engineer
5 31 (10.10%) Senior
6 30 (9.77%) Security Engineer
7 27 (8.79%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
8 25 (8.14%) Network Architect
8 25 (8.14%) Network Security Engineer
9 18 (5.86%) Senior Network Engineer
10 16 (5.21%) Cisco Security Engineer
10 16 (5.21%) Data Engineer
10 16 (5.21%) Data Network Engineer
11 15 (4.89%) Network Specialist
12 12 (3.91%) Juniper Engineer
13 11 (3.58%) WAN Engineer
14 10 (3.26%) Design Engineer
14 10 (3.26%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
15 9 (2.93%) Solutions Architect
15 9 (2.93%) Wireless Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 29 (9.45%) 802.1X
2 9 (2.93%) NETCONF
2 9 (2.93%) YANG
3 7 (2.28%) REST
4 6 (1.95%) LDAP
5 4 (1.30%) OpenConfig
5 4 (1.30%) VML
6 3 (0.98%) RESTCONF
6 3 (0.98%) SAML
7 2 (0.65%) AWS CDK
7 2 (0.65%) CSS
7 2 (0.65%) HTML
7 2 (0.65%) Jinja
7 2 (0.65%) JSON
7 2 (0.65%) RFC 2544
7 2 (0.65%) XML
8 1 (0.33%) Elastic Stack
8 1 (0.33%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 122 (39.74%) Data Centre
2 47 (15.31%) PKI
3 17 (5.54%) Clustering
4 14 (4.56%) Hybrid Cloud
5 9 (2.93%) Product Ownership
6 8 (2.61%) Cloud Native
7 6 (1.95%) Analytical Mindset
7 6 (1.95%) Data Protection Act
7 6 (1.95%) Self-Motivation
8 5 (1.63%) NHS
8 5 (1.63%) Operational Technology
9 4 (1.30%) Onboarding
9 4 (1.30%) SCADA
10 3 (0.98%) CESG
10 3 (0.98%) Distributed Architecture
10 3 (0.98%) Linux Command Line
10 3 (0.98%) Private Cloud
10 3 (0.98%) Public Cloud
10 3 (0.98%) Security Posture
10 3 (0.98%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 34 (11.07%) Windows
2 24 (7.82%) Linux
3 10 (3.26%) Windows Server
4 7 (2.28%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 7 (2.28%) Ubuntu
5 1 (0.33%) Kali Linux
5 1 (0.33%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 62 (20.20%) Load Balancing
2 51 (16.61%) Problem-Solving
3 42 (13.68%) Network Design
4 37 (12.05%) High Availability
5 30 (9.77%) Cybersecurity
6 29 (9.45%) Migration
7 27 (8.79%) Network Monitoring
8 25 (8.14%) Change Management
8 25 (8.14%) Zero Trust
9 22 (7.17%) Network Segmentation
9 22 (7.17%) Project Delivery
10 21 (6.84%) Network Architecture
10 21 (6.84%) Observability
11 20 (6.51%) Identity Access Management
11 20 (6.51%) ITIL
12 19 (6.19%) Stakeholder Management
13 18 (5.86%) Roadmaps
14 16 (5.21%) Disaster Recovery
14 16 (5.21%) ITSM
14 16 (5.21%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 62 (20.20%) Python
2 17 (5.54%) Bash
3 12 (3.91%) PowerShell
4 10 (3.26%) Perl
5 9 (2.93%) Lisp
6 4 (1.30%) PHP
7 2 (0.65%) C++
7 2 (0.65%) JavaScript
7 2 (0.65%) SQL
Qualifications
1 147 (47.88%) Cisco Certification
2 134 (43.65%) Security Cleared
3 119 (38.76%) CCNP
4 102 (33.22%) SC Cleared
5 48 (15.64%) CCIE
6 37 (12.05%) DV Cleared
7 26 (8.47%) CCNA
7 26 (8.47%) Degree
8 20 (6.51%) JNCIS
9 18 (5.86%) JNCIP
10 15 (4.89%) JNCIE
11 14 (4.56%) JNCIA
12 12 (3.91%) AWS Certification
13 11 (3.58%) CISSP
14 9 (2.93%) CCDP
15 7 (2.28%) GIAC
16 5 (1.63%) Azure Certification
16 5 (1.63%) CCIE Security
16 5 (1.63%) CompTIA Security+
16 5 (1.63%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (5.21%) NIST
2 15 (4.89%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 11 (3.58%) NCSC
4 9 (2.93%) SLA
5 7 (2.28%) GDPR
5 7 (2.28%) PCI DSS
6 4 (1.30%) Cyber Essentials
6 4 (1.30%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 3 (0.98%) RMADS
8 2 (0.65%) JSP 440
8 2 (0.65%) NIST 800
9 1 (0.33%) Actionable Recommendations
9 1 (0.33%) COBIT
9 1 (0.33%) GRC
9 1 (0.33%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 1 (0.33%) QA
9 1 (0.33%) SOC 2
System Software
1 26 (8.47%) VMware Infrastructure
2 17 (5.54%) VMware NSX
3 11 (3.58%) Active Directory
4 10 (3.26%) Docker
5 8 (2.61%) VMware ESXi
6 3 (0.98%) Firmware
6 3 (0.98%) vSphere
7 2 (0.65%) vCloud
8 1 (0.33%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.33%) KVM
8 1 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 55 (17.92%) Ansible
2 47 (15.31%) FortiGate
3 30 (9.77%) Terraform
4 9 (2.93%) Grafana
5 8 (2.61%) Prometheus
6 6 (1.95%) Kubernetes
6 6 (1.95%) vCenter Server
7 5 (1.63%) Nagios
8 3 (0.98%) Iperf
8 3 (0.98%) Nmap
8 3 (0.98%) SCOM
8 3 (0.98%) Single Sign-On
9 2 (0.65%) CASB
9 2 (0.65%) Cisco CUCM
9 2 (0.65%) Cisco Prime
9 2 (0.65%) VxRail
10 1 (0.33%) Failover Clustering
10 1 (0.33%) Nessus
10 1 (0.33%) QRadar
10 1 (0.33%) vRealize
Vendors
1 222 (72.31%) Cisco
2 90 (29.32%) Juniper
3 86 (28.01%) F5
3 86 (28.01%) Palo Alto
4 49 (15.96%) CheckPoint
5 47 (15.31%) Fortinet
6 37 (12.05%) Aruba
7 33 (10.75%) SolarWinds
8 32 (10.42%) VMware
9 28 (9.12%) Meraki
10 24 (7.82%) Splunk
11 22 (7.17%) Arista
12 20 (6.51%) Zscaler
13 19 (6.19%) Extreme Networks
14 12 (3.91%) Remedy
14 12 (3.91%) ServiceNow
15 11 (3.58%) Nokia
16 10 (3.26%) Ekahau
17 9 (2.93%) Microsoft
18 7 (2.28%) Dell