BGP Contracts

Border Gateway Protocol (BGP)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring BGP skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited BGP over the 6 months leading up to 25 April 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Apr 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 226 237 350
Rank change year-on-year +11 +113 +84
Contract jobs citing BGP 331 435 413
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 1.12% 1.00% 0.69%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 8.79% 7.62% 5.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 211 261 254
10th Percentile £325 £313 £363
25th Percentile £419 £363 £431
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £600 £550 £596
90th Percentile £750 £615 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £495
% change year-on-year +5.56% -9.09% +11.93%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 9 17
10th Percentile - £22.30 £49.10
25th Percentile £18.50 £24.25 £61.00
Median hourly rate £19.00 £37.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -49.33% -46.43% +154.55%
75th Percentile £19.50 £67.50 £80.25
90th Percentile - £70.00 £82.62
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.00 £43.75 £62.00
% change year-on-year -56.57% -29.44% +138.46%

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 3,765 5,705 7,429
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 12.75% 13.07% 12.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,321 3,431 4,839
10th Percentile £213 £205 £231
25th Percentile £363 £350 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £490 £520
Median % change year-on-year - -5.77% +4.00%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £638
90th Percentile £675 £700 £723
UK excluding London median daily rate £465 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -2.11% - +9.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 179 427 491
10th Percentile £14.20 £13.71 £9.80
25th Percentile £18.13 £17.69 £10.63
Median hourly rate £36.50 £40.00 £19.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.75% +110.53% -32.74%
75th Percentile £59.44 £62.25 £60.53
90th Percentile £75.00 £67.21 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.66 £46.95 £18.50
% change year-on-year -47.47% +153.76% -13.95%

BGP
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing BGP as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for BGP in the UK

BGP
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing BGP.

Daily rate trend for BGP in the UK

BGP
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing BGP over the 6 months to 25 April 2025.

Daily rate histogram for BGP in the UK

BGP
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing BGP.

Hourly rate trend for BGP in the UK

BGP
Top 17 Contract 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 25 April 2025. 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 -28 266 £500 +5.26% 184
UK excluding London -15 150 £475 +5.56% 106
London +15 126 £500 -4.76% 108
Work from Home +50 116 £500 +2.30% 94
North of England +45 54 £500 - 27
North West +47 50 £525 +4.17% 16
South East -4 37 £500 +11.11% 17
South West +19 24 £525 +7.14% 9
Midlands -35 20 £325 -10.34% 15
West Midlands -51 16 £300 -17.24% 11
Scotland +20 9 £413 -17.50% 20
Wales - 9 £450 - 3
East Midlands - 4 £438 - 4
East of England +34 3 £425 - 8
Yorkshire - 2 £350 - 10
North East -1 1 £250 -27.54% 1
Channel Islands - 1 £450 -

BGP
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 5 (1.51%) OpenStack
2 2 (0.60%) Confluence
3 1 (0.30%) CMS
Applications
1 7 (2.11%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (1.51%) MS Visio
3 3 (0.91%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 4 (1.21%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 78 (23.56%) AWS
2 68 (20.54%) Azure
3 31 (9.37%) GCP
4 19 (5.74%) AWS CloudFormation
4 19 (5.74%) IaaS
4 19 (5.74%) PaaS
4 19 (5.74%) SaaS
5 7 (2.11%) OpenShift
6 4 (1.21%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 4 (1.21%) GitHub
6 4 (1.21%) Microsoft 365
7 3 (0.91%) Cloud Computing
8 2 (0.60%) Akamai
8 2 (0.60%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 1 (0.30%) Datadog
9 1 (0.30%) Entra ID
9 1 (0.30%) npm
9 1 (0.30%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 272 (82.18%) OSPF
2 188 (56.80%) Firewall
3 142 (42.90%) VPN
4 112 (33.84%) WAN
5 104 (31.42%) Network Security
6 102 (30.82%) MPLS
7 90 (27.19%) EIGRP
8 89 (26.89%) IPsec
9 84 (25.38%) TCP/IP
10 63 (19.03%) HSRP
11 61 (18.43%) DNS
11 61 (18.43%) VLAN
12 55 (16.62%) LAN
13 54 (16.31%) Wireless
14 53 (16.01%) SD-WAN
15 49 (14.80%) Cisco Nexus
16 47 (14.20%) Cisco ASA
17 45 (13.60%) DHCP
18 44 (13.29%) Multicast
19 40 (12.08%) Cisco Firepower
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (1.21%) Data Lake
2 2 (0.60%) MongoDB
2 2 (0.60%) MySQL
2 2 (0.60%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 9 (2.72%) Sonatype Nexus
2 7 (2.11%) GitLab
3 6 (1.81%) Robot Framework
4 4 (1.21%) JIRA
5 2 (0.60%) Jenkins
6 1 (0.30%) Bitbucket
General
1 80 (24.17%) Social Skills
2 50 (15.11%) Analytical Skills
3 36 (10.88%) Finance
4 34 (10.27%) Telecoms
5 23 (6.95%) Public Sector
6 13 (3.93%) Banking
7 12 (3.63%) Documentation Skills
8 8 (2.42%) Military
9 7 (2.11%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 6 (1.81%) Marketing
11 5 (1.51%) Legal
12 3 (0.91%) Manufacturing
12 3 (0.91%) Presentation Skills
12 3 (0.91%) Retail
13 2 (0.60%) Advertising
13 2 (0.60%) Electronics
13 2 (0.60%) Influencing Skills
14 1 (0.30%) Investment Banking
14 1 (0.30%) Law
14 1 (0.30%) Police
Job Titles
1 197 (59.52%) Network Engineer
2 50 (15.11%) Architect
3 31 (9.37%) Cisco Engineer
4 30 (9.06%) Cisco Network Engineer
4 30 (9.06%) Senior
5 25 (7.55%) Consultant
6 22 (6.65%) Cloud Architect
6 22 (6.65%) Technical Architect
7 21 (6.34%) Network Architect
8 19 (5.74%) Network Consultant
9 18 (5.44%) Cloud Native Architect
9 18 (5.44%) Senior Network Engineer
10 17 (5.14%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
11 15 (4.53%) Security Architect
12 12 (3.63%) Implementation Engineer
12 12 (3.63%) WAN Engineer
13 11 (3.32%) Network Security Architect
13 11 (3.32%) Principal Engineer
13 11 (3.32%) Principal Network Engineer
13 11 (3.32%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (6.95%) 802.1X
2 6 (1.81%) JSON
3 5 (1.51%) Spine.js
4 4 (1.21%) XML
4 4 (1.21%) YAML
5 3 (0.91%) REST
6 2 (0.60%) NETCONF
6 2 (0.60%) RESTCONF
6 2 (0.60%) SOAP
6 2 (0.60%) YANG
7 1 (0.30%) FIX Protocol
7 1 (0.30%) HTML
Miscellaneous
1 56 (16.92%) Data Centre
2 26 (7.85%) Cloud Native
3 15 (4.53%) Hybrid Cloud
4 14 (4.23%) PKI
5 6 (1.81%) Hedge funds
5 6 (1.81%) Public Cloud
5 6 (1.81%) Self-Motivation
6 5 (1.51%) Linux Command Line
6 5 (1.51%) NHS
7 4 (1.21%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 3 (0.91%) Data Protection Act
9 2 (0.60%) Clustering
9 2 (0.60%) Derivative
9 2 (0.60%) Legacy Systems
9 2 (0.60%) Onboarding
9 2 (0.60%) Security Posture
9 2 (0.60%) Team-Oriented Environment
10 1 (0.30%) Driving Licence
10 1 (0.30%) FMCG
10 1 (0.30%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 11 (3.32%) Linux
2 6 (1.81%) Unix
3 5 (1.51%) CatOS
4 4 (1.21%) Check Point GAiA
5 3 (0.91%) Windows
6 2 (0.60%) CentOS
6 2 (0.60%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 54 (16.31%) Problem-Solving
2 49 (14.80%) Migration
3 48 (14.50%) Network Monitoring
4 39 (11.78%) Network Design
5 31 (9.37%) ITIL
6 29 (8.76%) Infrastructure as Code
7 28 (8.46%) Test Automation
8 27 (8.16%) Network Management
9 23 (6.95%) Project Delivery
10 22 (6.65%) High Availability
10 22 (6.65%) Network Architecture
11 20 (6.04%) Load Balancing
12 19 (5.74%) Service Management
13 18 (5.44%) Computer Science
13 18 (5.44%) Sprint Planning
14 17 (5.14%) Root Cause Analysis
15 16 (4.83%) Change Management
16 15 (4.53%) Validation
17 14 (4.23%) Low Latency
18 13 (3.93%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 54 (16.31%) Python
2 19 (5.74%) Bicep
3 7 (2.11%) Perl
4 5 (1.51%) PowerShell
5 4 (1.21%) Bash
6 2 (0.60%) SQL
Qualifications
1 153 (46.22%) Cisco Certification
2 123 (37.16%) CCNP
3 80 (24.17%) Security Cleared
4 65 (19.64%) SC Cleared
5 47 (14.20%) CCIE
6 38 (11.48%) CCNA
7 31 (9.37%) Degree
8 19 (5.74%) DV Cleared
9 14 (4.23%) CCSE
10 12 (3.63%) CCSA
10 12 (3.63%) Computer Science Degree
11 8 (2.42%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 6 (1.81%) JNCIA
13 5 (1.51%) AWS Certification
13 5 (1.51%) CCIE Data Center
13 5 (1.51%) CCIE Service Provider
13 5 (1.51%) Microsoft Certification
14 4 (1.21%) Check Point Certification
14 4 (1.21%) JNCIE
14 4 (1.21%) JNCIP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (2.11%) SLA
2 4 (1.21%) Cyber Essentials
2 4 (1.21%) NCSC
2 4 (1.21%) NIST
3 2 (0.60%) DICOM
3 2 (0.60%) HL7
3 2 (0.60%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 2 (0.60%) QA
4 1 (0.30%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 27 (8.16%) VMware Infrastructure
2 10 (3.02%) VMware NSX
3 9 (2.72%) Docker
4 7 (2.11%) Firmware
5 5 (1.51%) vSphere
6 2 (0.60%) Ceph
7 1 (0.30%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 58 (17.52%) Ansible
2 32 (9.67%) Terraform
3 31 (9.37%) FortiGate
4 10 (3.02%) Kubernetes
4 10 (3.02%) ZABBIX
5 6 (1.81%) Cisco Prime
5 6 (1.81%) Nagios
6 5 (1.51%) Cacti
6 5 (1.51%) Progress Chef
6 5 (1.51%) Puppet
6 5 (1.51%) vCenter Server
7 4 (1.21%) CA Spectrum
8 3 (0.91%) SolarWinds Orion
9 2 (0.60%) Argo
10 1 (0.30%) Cisco CUCM
10 1 (0.30%) Cisco LMS
10 1 (0.30%) Cisco UCCX
10 1 (0.30%) Icinga
10 1 (0.30%) Observium
10 1 (0.30%) TrustSec
Vendors
1 265 (80.06%) Cisco
2 119 (35.95%) Palo Alto
3 76 (22.96%) Fortinet
4 74 (22.36%) CheckPoint
5 52 (15.71%) Juniper
6 48 (14.50%) SolarWinds
7 32 (9.67%) VMware
8 28 (8.46%) Arista
8 28 (8.46%) F5
9 23 (6.95%) Meraki
10 12 (3.63%) Aruba
11 10 (3.02%) Nokia
12 8 (2.42%) Splunk
13 7 (2.11%) Microsoft
13 7 (2.11%) Red Hat
13 7 (2.11%) Zscaler
14 6 (1.81%) Citrix
14 6 (1.81%) McAfee
14 6 (1.81%) ServiceNow
15 5 (1.51%) Infoblox