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

6 months to
30 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 311 236 247
Rank change year-on-year -75 +11 +97
Contract jobs citing BGP 372 331 430
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.79% 1.13% 0.99%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 8.17% 8.87% 7.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 209 209 259
10th Percentile £340 £325 £313
25th Percentile £400 £419 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -7.50% +5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £550 £600 £550
90th Percentile £628 £750 £613
UK excluding London median daily rate £469 £483 £450
% change year-on-year -2.80% +7.22% -9.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 1 9
10th Percentile £47.22 - £22.30
25th Percentile £56.01 £18.50 £24.25
Median hourly rate £71.33 £19.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +275.42% -49.33% -46.43%
75th Percentile £73.13 £19.50 £67.50
90th Percentile £73.81 - £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £71.33 £19.00 £43.75
% change year-on-year +275.42% -56.57% -29.44%

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 4,553 3,733 5,643
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.65% 12.77% 12.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,848 2,297 3,382
10th Percentile £250 £213 £205
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £488 £495
Median % change year-on-year +1.54% -1.52% -4.53%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £463 £475
% change year-on-year +2.70% -2.63% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 221 175 423
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.57
25th Percentile £21.25 £18.88 £17.35
Median hourly rate £42.25 £37.50 £38.50
Median % change year-on-year +12.67% -2.60% +102.63%
75th Percentile £68.75 £60.69 £62.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £67.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.50 £24.76 £45.88
% change year-on-year +112.04% -46.03% +148.00%

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 30 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 30 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 30 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 -60 326 £473 -5.50% 78
UK excluding London -44 216 £469 -2.80% 70
Work from Home -40 115 £445 -12.75% 32
South East +14 106 £450 -10.00% 24
London -74 100 £475 -5.00% 22
North of England -70 60 £568 +13.50% 20
North West -36 52 £568 +8.10% 10
Midlands -42 48 £413 +37.50% 9
West Midlands -31 45 £413 +43.48% 8
South West -34 21 £513 -2.38% 7
Scotland -4 6 £450 +9.09% 5
North East -13 5 - - 6
Yorkshire -54 5 £538 +53.57% 4
Wales -16 4 £425 -5.56%
East of England -37 4 £500 +17.65% 4
East Midlands -30 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 5 (1.34%) SharePoint
2 4 (1.08%) Confluence
3 3 (0.81%) OpenStack
Applications
1 11 (2.96%) MS Visio
2 8 (2.15%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 6 (1.61%) Microsoft Office
4 5 (1.34%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 66 (17.74%) AWS
2 62 (16.67%) Azure
3 19 (5.11%) GCP
4 15 (4.03%) Virtual Private Cloud
5 11 (2.96%) OCI
5 11 (2.96%) SaaS
6 8 (2.15%) Route 53
7 7 (1.88%) AWS Direct Connect
7 7 (1.88%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 5 (1.34%) Amazon EKS
8 5 (1.34%) Amazon GuardDuty
9 4 (1.08%) Azure Sentinel
9 4 (1.08%) GitHub
9 4 (1.08%) Nutanix
10 3 (0.81%) Amazon S3
10 3 (0.81%) Catchpoint
10 3 (0.81%) IaaS
10 3 (0.81%) PaaS
11 2 (0.54%) Azure DevOps
11 2 (0.54%) Google Ads
Communications & Networking
1 268 (72.04%) OSPF
2 225 (60.48%) Firewall
3 208 (55.91%) WAN
4 147 (39.52%) LAN
5 114 (30.65%) VPN
6 102 (27.42%) Network Security
7 98 (26.34%) VXLAN
8 88 (23.66%) MPLS
9 80 (21.51%) DNS
9 80 (21.51%) VLAN
10 75 (20.16%) Ethernet VPN
11 66 (17.74%) SD-WAN
12 65 (17.47%) Multicast
13 52 (13.98%) BIG-IP
13 52 (13.98%) IPsec
14 50 (13.44%) TCP/IP
15 44 (11.83%) Cisco ASA
15 44 (11.83%) Wireless
16 42 (11.29%) Cisco Nexus
16 42 (11.29%) DHCP
Development Applications
1 12 (3.23%) GitLab
2 11 (2.96%) Git
3 9 (2.42%) Sonatype Nexus
4 4 (1.08%) JIRA
5 3 (0.81%) Jenkins
6 1 (0.27%) AppScan
6 1 (0.27%) Burp Suite
6 1 (0.27%) Metasploit
General
1 54 (14.52%) Social Skills
2 36 (9.68%) Documentation Skills
2 36 (9.68%) Finance
2 36 (9.68%) Public Sector
3 30 (8.06%) Analytical Skills
4 26 (6.99%) Banking
5 22 (5.91%) Telecoms
6 18 (4.84%) Investment Banking
7 15 (4.03%) Financial Institution
8 14 (3.76%) Manufacturing
9 13 (3.49%) Military
10 6 (1.61%) Retail
11 5 (1.34%) Marketing
12 4 (1.08%) Legal
13 3 (0.81%) French Language
13 3 (0.81%) Police
14 2 (0.54%) Aviation
14 2 (0.54%) Electronics
14 2 (0.54%) Pharmaceutical
15 1 (0.27%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 230 (61.83%) Network Engineer
2 60 (16.13%) Senior
3 58 (15.59%) Cisco Engineer
4 55 (14.78%) Cisco Network Engineer
5 46 (12.37%) Security Engineer
6 41 (11.02%) Network Security Engineer
7 40 (10.75%) Data Network Engineer
8 39 (10.48%) Senior Network Engineer
9 38 (10.22%) Architect
10 31 (8.33%) Cisco Security Engineer
11 30 (8.06%) Data Engineer
11 30 (8.06%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
12 25 (6.72%) Network Architect
13 23 (6.18%) Network Specialist
14 16 (4.30%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 14 (3.76%) Firewall Specialist
15 14 (3.76%) Juniper Engineer
15 14 (3.76%) Web Engineer
16 11 (2.96%) Data Centre Engineer
16 11 (2.96%) Operations Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 40 (10.75%) 802.1X
2 9 (2.42%) REST
3 8 (2.15%) NETCONF
3 8 (2.15%) YANG
4 6 (1.61%) LDAP
5 4 (1.08%) Jinja
5 4 (1.08%) OpenConfig
5 4 (1.08%) RESTCONF
5 4 (1.08%) VML
6 2 (0.54%) AWS CDK
6 2 (0.54%) CSS
6 2 (0.54%) HTML
6 2 (0.54%) RFC 2544
7 1 (0.27%) eBPF
7 1 (0.27%) JSON
7 1 (0.27%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 165 (44.35%) Data Centre
2 40 (10.75%) PKI
3 25 (6.72%) Clustering
4 23 (6.18%) Hybrid Cloud
5 11 (2.96%) Cloud Native
6 8 (2.15%) Onboarding
7 6 (1.61%) Data Protection Act
8 5 (1.34%) Analytical Mindset
8 5 (1.34%) Self-Motivation
9 4 (1.08%) Distributed Systems
9 4 (1.08%) NHS
9 4 (1.08%) Operational Technology
9 4 (1.08%) Public Cloud
9 4 (1.08%) Virtual Team
10 3 (0.81%) CESG
10 3 (0.81%) Greenfield Project
10 3 (0.81%) Linux Command Line
10 3 (0.81%) Management Information System
10 3 (0.81%) SCADA
10 3 (0.81%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 39 (10.48%) Windows
2 17 (4.57%) Linux
3 6 (1.61%) Ubuntu
4 3 (0.81%) Windows Server
5 2 (0.54%) Unix
6 1 (0.27%) Kali Linux
6 1 (0.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.27%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 93 (25.00%) Load Balancing
2 64 (17.20%) High Availability
3 51 (13.71%) Problem-Solving
4 47 (12.63%) Network Design
5 43 (11.56%) Migration
6 39 (10.48%) Infrastructure as Code
7 33 (8.87%) Change Management
7 33 (8.87%) Zero Trust
8 32 (8.60%) Observability
9 30 (8.06%) ITIL
10 27 (7.26%) Network Monitoring
11 26 (6.99%) Identity Access Management
11 26 (6.99%) Project Delivery
12 25 (6.72%) Network Architecture
12 25 (6.72%) Network Segmentation
13 24 (6.45%) CI/CD
14 23 (6.18%) DevOps
14 23 (6.18%) Root Cause Analysis
14 23 (6.18%) Stakeholder Management
14 23 (6.18%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 80 (21.51%) Python
2 4 (1.08%) Bash
2 4 (1.08%) PHP
3 2 (0.54%) JavaScript
3 2 (0.54%) Lisp
3 2 (0.54%) PowerShell
3 2 (0.54%) SQL
4 1 (0.27%) Perl
Qualifications
1 154 (41.40%) Cisco Certification
2 145 (38.98%) Security Cleared
3 114 (30.65%) CCNP
4 110 (29.57%) SC Cleared
5 50 (13.44%) CCIE
6 40 (10.75%) DV Cleared
7 27 (7.26%) CCNA
8 26 (6.99%) Degree
9 18 (4.84%) JNCIS
10 17 (4.57%) JNCIP
11 13 (3.49%) JNCIA
11 13 (3.49%) JNCIE
12 8 (2.15%) Computer Science Degree
13 7 (1.88%) AWS Certification
13 7 (1.88%) GIAC
14 6 (1.61%) Azure Certification
14 6 (1.61%) CISSP
15 5 (1.34%) CompTIA Security+
15 5 (1.34%) Network+ Certification
16 4 (1.08%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (2.69%) NCSC
1 10 (2.69%) SLA
2 9 (2.42%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 9 (2.42%) NIST
3 4 (1.08%) Cyber Essentials
3 4 (1.08%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
4 3 (0.81%) RMADS
5 2 (0.54%) JSP 440
5 2 (0.54%) PCI DSS
6 1 (0.27%) Actionable Recommendations
6 1 (0.27%) COBIT
6 1 (0.27%) GDPR
6 1 (0.27%) GRC
6 1 (0.27%) HMG Security Policy Framework
6 1 (0.27%) NIST 800
6 1 (0.27%) QA
System Software
1 26 (6.99%) VMware Infrastructure
2 11 (2.96%) VMware NSX
3 8 (2.15%) VMware ESXi
4 6 (1.61%) Active Directory
5 3 (0.81%) vSphere
6 2 (0.54%) Docker
6 2 (0.54%) Firmware
6 2 (0.54%) Hyper-V
6 2 (0.54%) vCloud
6 2 (0.54%) Virtual Servers
7 1 (0.27%) KVM
7 1 (0.27%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 83 (22.31%) Ansible
2 52 (13.98%) FortiGate
3 43 (11.56%) Terraform
4 15 (4.03%) Grafana
5 12 (3.23%) Prometheus
6 6 (1.61%) vCenter Server
7 5 (1.34%) Kubernetes
7 5 (1.34%) Nagios
8 3 (0.81%) SCOM
9 2 (0.54%) Cisco Prime
9 2 (0.54%) Iperf
9 2 (0.54%) Nmap
10 1 (0.27%) CASB
10 1 (0.27%) Cilium
10 1 (0.27%) Failover Clustering
10 1 (0.27%) Nessus
10 1 (0.27%) Progress Chef
10 1 (0.27%) QRadar
10 1 (0.27%) vRealize
10 1 (0.27%) VxRail
Vendors
1 278 (74.73%) Cisco
2 134 (36.02%) F5
3 109 (29.30%) Palo Alto
4 91 (24.46%) Juniper
5 64 (17.20%) Fortinet
6 53 (14.25%) CheckPoint
7 51 (13.71%) Arista
8 47 (12.63%) Aruba
9 33 (8.87%) SolarWinds
10 32 (8.60%) VMware
11 28 (7.53%) Splunk
12 26 (6.99%) Extreme Networks
13 22 (5.91%) Meraki
14 18 (4.84%) Zscaler
15 10 (2.69%) Nokia
16 9 (2.42%) Microsoft
17 8 (2.15%) Ekahau
17 8 (2.15%) ServiceNow
18 6 (1.61%) Infoblox
19 5 (1.34%) Google