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 24 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 304 278 269
Rank change year-on-year -26 -9 +14
Contract jobs citing BGP 448 315 355
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.84% 0.95% 0.91%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 8.85% 8.08% 7.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 266 197 222
10th Percentile £380 £325 £313
25th Percentile £419 £408 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% - -5.00%
75th Percentile £588 £606 £549
90th Percentile £694 £668 £624
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £495
% change year-on-year +5.26% -4.04% +1.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 4 2
10th Percentile £48.55 £37.38 £23.15
25th Percentile £49.00 £39.06 £30.13
Median hourly rate £58.25 £48.75 £42.00
Median % change year-on-year +19.49% +16.07% -30.00%
75th Percentile £73.75 £60.88 £53.63
90th Percentile £85.02 £64.70 £60.45
UK excluding London median hourly rate £58.25 £66.50 £19.00
% change year-on-year -12.41% +250.00% -68.33%

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 5,060 3,897 4,677
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.43% 11.81% 12.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,979 2,376 2,817
10th Percentile £250 £243 £221
25th Percentile £400 £368 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £483 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.52% -3.40% -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £608
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £478 £470 £500
% change year-on-year +1.70% -6.00% +10.19%
Number of hourly rates quoted 375 201 302
10th Percentile £15.18 £14.99 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.33 £25.15 £20.50
Median hourly rate £26.14 £46.25 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -43.48% -7.50% -10.56%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £81.35 £74.88
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.14 £44.50 £54.94
% change year-on-year -41.26% -19.00% -4.32%

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 24 August 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 24 August 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 24 August 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 -19 413 £511 +4.72% 75
UK excluding London -30 260 £500 +5.26% 45
London -64 133 £520 +9.47% 35
Work from Home -38 115 £500 - 33
North of England +7 112 £500 +5.26% 7
North West +5 83 £500 +5.26% 1
South East -24 82 £525 +16.67% 15
Midlands -31 50 £425 +6.25% 9
West Midlands -32 47 £440 +10.06% 9
South West -38 33 £525 -16.67% 6
Yorkshire -17 22 £495 +23.75% 6
North East -27 13 £650 +160.00%
Scotland -19 9 £375 -11.76% 1
East of England -25 7 £488 -30.36% 8
East Midlands -12 2 - -
Wales -19 2 £425 -6.59%

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 (2.68%) OpenStack
2 8 (1.79%) SAS
3 3 (0.67%) Microsoft Exchange
4 2 (0.45%) Confluence
5 1 (0.22%) SharePoint
Applications
1 11 (2.46%) MS Visio
2 8 (1.79%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (1.34%) Microsoft Excel
3 6 (1.34%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.67%) AutoCAD
Cloud Services
1 113 (25.22%) Azure
2 87 (19.42%) AWS
3 27 (6.03%) GCP
4 24 (5.36%) OCI
5 22 (4.91%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 17 (3.79%) GitHub
7 13 (2.90%) SaaS
7 13 (2.90%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 11 (2.46%) AWS Direct Connect
9 9 (2.01%) Microsoft 365
10 7 (1.56%) Azure Monitor
10 7 (1.56%) Azure Sentinel
10 7 (1.56%) OpenShift
11 6 (1.34%) Nutanix
12 3 (0.67%) Azure DevOps
13 2 (0.45%) Amazon EKS
13 2 (0.45%) Amazon GuardDuty
13 2 (0.45%) AWS CloudFormation
13 2 (0.45%) Entra ID
13 2 (0.45%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 266 (59.38%) OSPF
2 254 (56.70%) Firewall
3 224 (50.00%) WAN
4 138 (30.80%) VPN
5 129 (28.79%) LAN
6 119 (26.56%) VLAN
7 115 (25.67%) VXLAN
8 105 (23.44%) MPLS
9 95 (21.21%) DNS
9 95 (21.21%) Network Security
10 90 (20.09%) SD-WAN
11 83 (18.53%) Ethernet VPN
12 72 (16.07%) TCP/IP
13 71 (15.85%) Wireless
14 68 (15.18%) Multicast
15 63 (14.06%) IPsec
16 62 (13.84%) Wi-Fi
17 54 (12.05%) EIGRP
18 53 (11.83%) Cisco ASA
18 53 (11.83%) Cisco Nexus
Development Applications
1 29 (6.47%) GitLab
2 22 (4.91%) Git
3 7 (1.56%) JIRA
3 7 (1.56%) Sonatype Nexus
4 3 (0.67%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.22%) Bitbucket
General
1 74 (16.52%) Social Skills
2 50 (11.16%) Analytical Skills
3 43 (9.60%) Finance
4 31 (6.92%) Banking
5 30 (6.70%) Public Sector
6 29 (6.47%) Telecoms
7 20 (4.46%) Investment Banking
8 11 (2.46%) Documentation Skills
9 8 (1.79%) Legal
9 8 (1.79%) Police
9 8 (1.79%) Retail
10 7 (1.56%) Financial Institution
11 6 (1.34%) Military
12 4 (0.89%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 3 (0.67%) German Language
13 3 (0.67%) Influencing Skills
13 3 (0.67%) Italian Language
13 3 (0.67%) Spanish Language
14 2 (0.45%) Manufacturing
14 2 (0.45%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 272 (60.71%) Network Engineer
2 94 (20.98%) Senior
3 64 (14.29%) Senior Network Engineer
4 63 (14.06%) Cisco Engineer
5 60 (13.39%) Cisco Network Engineer
6 49 (10.94%) Architect
7 43 (9.60%) Data Network Engineer
8 42 (9.38%) Network Security Engineer
8 42 (9.38%) Security Engineer
9 33 (7.37%) Network Architect
10 32 (7.14%) Cisco Security Engineer
11 31 (6.92%) Data Engineer
12 24 (5.36%) Consultant
13 22 (4.91%) Network Specialist
14 20 (4.46%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 18 (4.02%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
16 17 (3.79%) Developer
17 15 (3.35%) Network Consultant
17 15 (3.35%) Web Engineer
18 14 (3.13%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 73 (16.29%) Terraform
2 27 (6.03%) 802.1X
3 20 (4.46%) REST
4 12 (2.68%) NETCONF
4 12 (2.68%) YANG
5 8 (1.79%) JSON
5 8 (1.79%) YAML
6 7 (1.56%) OpenConfig
7 6 (1.34%) RESTCONF
8 4 (0.89%) CSS
8 4 (0.89%) Jinja
9 3 (0.67%) eBPF
10 2 (0.45%) SAML
10 2 (0.45%) Spine.js
11 1 (0.22%) Django
11 1 (0.22%) LDAP
11 1 (0.22%) Model Context Protocol
Miscellaneous
1 183 (40.85%) Data Centre
2 52 (11.61%) Hybrid Cloud
3 28 (6.25%) Cloud Native
4 22 (4.91%) PKI
5 11 (2.46%) Clustering
5 11 (2.46%) Private Cloud
6 10 (2.23%) Analytical Mindset
6 10 (2.23%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
6 10 (2.23%) Self-Motivation
7 8 (1.79%) Operational Technology
7 8 (1.79%) Public Cloud
8 6 (1.34%) Digital Signage
8 6 (1.34%) Onboarding
9 5 (1.12%) Linux Command Line
9 5 (1.12%) Security Posture
10 4 (0.89%) CMDB
10 4 (0.89%) Data Protection Act
10 4 (0.89%) Distributed Systems
11 3 (0.67%) IoT
11 3 (0.67%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 31 (6.92%) Windows
2 22 (4.91%) Linux
3 5 (1.12%) Windows Server
4 3 (0.67%) Unix
4 3 (0.67%) Windows Server 2012
5 2 (0.45%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.22%) VMS
6 1 (0.22%) Windows Server 2016
6 1 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 101 (22.54%) Load Balancing
2 76 (16.96%) High Availability
3 75 (16.74%) Infrastructure as Code
4 72 (16.07%) Network Design
5 71 (15.85%) Migration
6 68 (15.18%) Zero Trust
7 51 (11.38%) Problem-Solving
8 48 (10.71%) ITIL
9 47 (10.49%) Project Delivery
10 45 (10.04%) CI/CD
11 43 (9.60%) Network Architecture
11 43 (9.60%) Validation
12 36 (8.04%) DevOps
13 34 (7.59%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 34 (7.59%) Network Segmentation
14 29 (6.47%) Continuous Improvement
14 29 (6.47%) Mentoring
15 27 (6.03%) Low Latency
15 27 (6.03%) Network Monitoring
15 27 (6.03%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 128 (28.57%) Python
2 11 (2.46%) Bash
3 7 (1.56%) SQL
4 6 (1.34%) PowerShell
5 3 (0.67%) Shell Script
6 2 (0.45%) Go
6 2 (0.45%) Perl
7 1 (0.22%) C++
7 1 (0.22%) Java
Qualifications
1 139 (31.03%) Security Cleared
2 134 (29.91%) Cisco Certification
3 99 (22.10%) CCNP
4 82 (18.30%) SC Cleared
5 51 (11.38%) CCIE
6 49 (10.94%) DV Cleared
7 22 (4.91%) CCNA
8 21 (4.69%) Degree
9 14 (3.13%) JNCIE
10 9 (2.01%) Computer Science Degree
11 8 (1.79%) Azure Certification
12 6 (1.34%) AWS Certification
13 4 (0.89%) CISSP
13 4 (0.89%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 3 (0.67%) CCIE Security
14 3 (0.67%) JNCIA
14 3 (0.67%) JNCIP
14 3 (0.67%) JNCIS
14 3 (0.67%) PMP
14 3 (0.67%) VCDX
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (1.12%) NCSC
1 5 (1.12%) NIST
2 3 (0.67%) GDPR
2 3 (0.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 3 (0.67%) QA
3 2 (0.45%) NIST 800
3 2 (0.45%) PCI DSS
4 1 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials
4 1 (0.22%) SLA
System Software
1 29 (6.47%) VMware Infrastructure
2 15 (3.35%) VMware NSX
3 8 (1.79%) Firmware
4 7 (1.56%) Active Directory
4 7 (1.56%) Docker
4 7 (1.56%) Hyper-V
5 4 (0.89%) vSphere
6 2 (0.45%) Virtual Servers
6 2 (0.45%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.22%) ProxySG
7 1 (0.22%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 124 (27.68%) Ansible
2 46 (10.27%) FortiGate
3 22 (4.91%) Kubernetes
4 15 (3.35%) Grafana
5 14 (3.13%) Prometheus
6 9 (2.01%) Cisco Prime
7 6 (1.34%) Cilium
8 4 (0.89%) Istio
8 4 (0.89%) Nagios
9 2 (0.45%) Puppet
9 2 (0.45%) Single Sign-On
10 1 (0.22%) CASB
10 1 (0.22%) Microsoft Intune
10 1 (0.22%) OPNET
10 1 (0.22%) Progress Chef
10 1 (0.22%) QRadar
10 1 (0.22%) Rancher
10 1 (0.22%) Suricata
10 1 (0.22%) VxRail
Vendors
1 313 (69.87%) Cisco
2 147 (32.81%) F5
3 131 (29.24%) Palo Alto
4 101 (22.54%) Fortinet
5 81 (18.08%) Arista
6 66 (14.73%) Juniper
7 43 (9.60%) Aruba
7 43 (9.60%) CheckPoint
8 41 (9.15%) VMware
9 32 (7.14%) Microsoft
9 32 (7.14%) SolarWinds
10 19 (4.24%) Meraki
11 18 (4.02%) Splunk
11 18 (4.02%) Zscaler
12 16 (3.57%) ServiceNow
13 12 (2.68%) Extreme Networks
13 12 (2.68%) Google
14 9 (2.01%) Red Hat
15 8 (1.79%) Citrix
16 7 (1.56%) Ekahau