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 5 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 307 277 272
Rank change year-on-year -30 -5 +6
Contract jobs citing BGP 437 296 336
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.81% 0.91% 0.88%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 8.61% 7.79% 7.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 261 191 201
10th Percentile £375 £304 £338
25th Percentile £425 £407 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £488
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -2.56% -2.50%
75th Percentile £588 £606 £550
90th Percentile £688 £664 £649
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% +2.88%
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% -68.85%

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 5,078 3,802 4,519
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.41% 11.69% 11.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,992 2,331 2,674
10th Percentile £235 £235 £231
25th Percentile £398 £363 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £480 £500
Median % change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £609
90th Percentile £675 £680 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £466 £500
% change year-on-year +3.11% -6.90% +10.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 379 200 275
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.11 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.33 £25.11 £21.37
Median hourly rate £26.00 £43.00 £51.50
Median % change year-on-year -39.53% -16.50% -7.88%
75th Percentile £65.88 £63.38 £65.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £73.20 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.92 £42.50 £57.35
% change year-on-year -39.01% -25.89% +1.52%

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 5 September 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 5 September 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 5 September 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 -30 402 £510 +7.37% 183
UK excluding London -19 246 £500 +5.26% 71
London -63 134 £500 +5.26% 129
Work from Home -32 112 £500 - 56
North of England +8 106 £500 +5.26% 10
North West -5 77 £488 +2.63% 4
South East -32 76 £525 +5.00% 23
Midlands -47 44 £468 +17.00% 9
West Midlands -42 41 £571 +42.69% 8
South West -31 33 £525 -16.83% 7
Yorkshire -24 22 £495 +23.75% 5
North East -27 13 £650 +160.00% 1
Scotland -34 9 £375 -11.76% 7
East of England -23 7 £475 -32.14% 12
East Midlands -17 2 - - 1
Wales -17 1 £425 -2.86% 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 12 (2.75%) OpenStack
2 8 (1.83%) SAS
3 4 (0.92%) Microsoft Exchange
4 2 (0.46%) Confluence
5 1 (0.23%) SharePoint
Applications
1 9 (2.06%) MS Visio
2 6 (1.37%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (0.92%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (0.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.69%) AutoCAD
Cloud Services
1 110 (25.17%) Azure
2 84 (19.22%) AWS
3 23 (5.26%) GCP
3 23 (5.26%) OCI
4 21 (4.81%) Azure ExpressRoute
5 18 (4.12%) GitHub
6 13 (2.97%) SaaS
7 10 (2.29%) AWS Direct Connect
7 10 (2.29%) Microsoft 365
8 7 (1.60%) Azure Monitor
8 7 (1.60%) Azure Sentinel
8 7 (1.60%) OpenShift
8 7 (1.60%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 5 (1.14%) Nutanix
10 3 (0.69%) Entra ID
11 2 (0.46%) Amazon GuardDuty
11 2 (0.46%) AWS CloudFormation
11 2 (0.46%) Azure DevOps
12 1 (0.23%) GitHub Actions
12 1 (0.23%) IBM Watson
Communications & Networking
1 251 (57.44%) OSPF
2 245 (56.06%) Firewall
3 209 (47.83%) WAN
4 131 (29.98%) VPN
5 123 (28.15%) VLAN
6 120 (27.46%) LAN
7 107 (24.49%) VXLAN
8 100 (22.88%) MPLS
9 97 (22.20%) Network Security
10 87 (19.91%) DNS
11 86 (19.68%) SD-WAN
12 76 (17.39%) Ethernet VPN
13 71 (16.25%) Wireless
14 66 (15.10%) IPsec
15 65 (14.87%) TCP/IP
16 63 (14.42%) Wi-Fi
17 61 (13.96%) Multicast
18 53 (12.13%) Cisco Nexus
18 53 (12.13%) EIGRP
18 53 (12.13%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
Development Applications
1 28 (6.41%) GitLab
2 18 (4.12%) Git
3 7 (1.60%) Sonatype Nexus
4 6 (1.37%) JIRA
5 2 (0.46%) Jenkins
6 1 (0.23%) Bitbucket
General
1 75 (17.16%) Social Skills
2 46 (10.53%) Analytical Skills
3 43 (9.84%) Finance
4 30 (6.86%) Public Sector
4 30 (6.86%) Telecoms
5 28 (6.41%) Banking
6 18 (4.12%) Investment Banking
7 16 (3.66%) Documentation Skills
8 8 (1.83%) Legal
8 8 (1.83%) Police
8 8 (1.83%) Retail
9 6 (1.37%) Military
10 4 (0.92%) Financial Institution
10 4 (0.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 3 (0.69%) German Language
11 3 (0.69%) Influencing Skills
11 3 (0.69%) Italian Language
11 3 (0.69%) Spanish Language
12 2 (0.46%) Organisational Skills
12 2 (0.46%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 259 (59.27%) Network Engineer
2 98 (22.43%) Senior
3 64 (14.65%) Senior Network Engineer
4 60 (13.73%) Cisco Engineer
5 57 (13.04%) Cisco Network Engineer
6 46 (10.53%) Architect
7 39 (8.92%) Security Engineer
8 38 (8.70%) Network Security Engineer
9 37 (8.47%) Data Network Engineer
10 35 (8.01%) Network Architect
11 33 (7.55%) Consultant
12 28 (6.41%) Cisco Security Engineer
13 27 (6.18%) Data Engineer
14 23 (5.26%) Network Consultant
15 20 (4.58%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 19 (4.35%) Network Specialist
17 18 (4.12%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
18 17 (3.89%) Developer
19 13 (2.97%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
19 13 (2.97%) Web Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 71 (16.25%) Terraform
2 22 (5.03%) REST
3 21 (4.81%) 802.1X
4 12 (2.75%) NETCONF
5 11 (2.52%) YAML
6 10 (2.29%) YANG
7 9 (2.06%) JSON
8 6 (1.37%) RESTCONF
9 5 (1.14%) OpenConfig
10 4 (0.92%) CSS
11 3 (0.69%) eBPF
11 3 (0.69%) SAML
12 2 (0.46%) gRPC
12 2 (0.46%) Spine.js
13 1 (0.23%) Django
13 1 (0.23%) LDAP
13 1 (0.23%) Model Context Protocol
Miscellaneous
1 176 (40.27%) Data Centre
2 50 (11.44%) Hybrid Cloud
3 28 (6.41%) Cloud Native
4 17 (3.89%) PKI
5 11 (2.52%) Private Cloud
6 10 (2.29%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
7 8 (1.83%) Analytical Mindset
7 8 (1.83%) Operational Technology
7 8 (1.83%) Public Cloud
7 8 (1.83%) Self-Motivation
8 7 (1.60%) Clustering
8 7 (1.60%) Digital Signage
8 7 (1.60%) Onboarding
9 6 (1.37%) Security Posture
10 5 (1.14%) Linux Command Line
11 4 (0.92%) CMDB
11 4 (0.92%) Distributed Systems
12 3 (0.69%) Data Protection Act
12 3 (0.69%) IoT
12 3 (0.69%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 29 (6.64%) Windows
2 21 (4.81%) Linux
3 4 (0.92%) Windows Server
4 3 (0.69%) Unix
4 3 (0.69%) Windows Server 2012
5 2 (0.46%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.23%) Mac OS
6 1 (0.23%) VMS
6 1 (0.23%) Windows Server 2016
6 1 (0.23%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 94 (21.51%) Load Balancing
2 81 (18.54%) High Availability
3 78 (17.85%) Migration
4 74 (16.93%) Network Design
5 70 (16.02%) Zero Trust
6 69 (15.79%) Infrastructure as Code
7 48 (10.98%) Problem-Solving
8 46 (10.53%) ITIL
8 46 (10.53%) Project Delivery
9 45 (10.30%) Validation
10 44 (10.07%) Network Architecture
11 40 (9.15%) CI/CD
12 35 (8.01%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 35 (8.01%) Network Segmentation
13 31 (7.09%) DevOps
13 31 (7.09%) Technical Leadership
14 29 (6.64%) Stakeholder Management
15 28 (6.41%) Change Control
15 28 (6.41%) Mentoring
16 26 (5.95%) Cloud Security
Programming Languages
1 126 (28.83%) Python
2 11 (2.52%) Bash
3 6 (1.37%) PowerShell
4 5 (1.14%) SQL
5 3 (0.69%) Shell Script
6 2 (0.46%) Go
6 2 (0.46%) Perl
7 1 (0.23%) C++
7 1 (0.23%) Java
Qualifications
1 135 (30.89%) Security Cleared
2 123 (28.15%) Cisco Certification
3 91 (20.82%) CCNP
4 83 (18.99%) SC Cleared
5 49 (11.21%) CCIE
6 47 (10.76%) DV Cleared
7 23 (5.26%) CCNA
8 20 (4.58%) Degree
9 14 (3.20%) JNCIE
10 8 (1.83%) Computer Science Degree
11 7 (1.60%) Azure Certification
12 5 (1.14%) AWS Certification
13 4 (0.92%) CCIE Security
13 4 (0.92%) CISSP
13 4 (0.92%) PMP
13 4 (0.92%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 3 (0.69%) VCDX
15 2 (0.46%) JNCIA
15 2 (0.46%) JNCIS
15 2 (0.46%) VCAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (0.92%) NCSC
1 4 (0.92%) NIST
2 3 (0.69%) GDPR
2 3 (0.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 3 (0.69%) QA
3 2 (0.46%) PCI DSS
4 1 (0.23%) Cyber Essentials
4 1 (0.23%) NIST 800
System Software
1 30 (6.86%) VMware Infrastructure
2 15 (3.43%) VMware NSX
3 8 (1.83%) Active Directory
4 7 (1.60%) Firmware
4 7 (1.60%) Hyper-V
5 5 (1.14%) Docker
6 4 (0.92%) vSphere
7 3 (0.69%) Virtual Servers
8 2 (0.46%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.23%) ProxySG
9 1 (0.23%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 121 (27.69%) Ansible
2 41 (9.38%) FortiGate
3 20 (4.58%) Kubernetes
4 12 (2.75%) Grafana
4 12 (2.75%) Prometheus
5 10 (2.29%) Cisco Prime
6 6 (1.37%) Cilium
7 4 (0.92%) Istio
7 4 (0.92%) Nagios
8 2 (0.46%) Puppet
8 2 (0.46%) Single Sign-On
9 1 (0.23%) CASB
9 1 (0.23%) Microsoft Intune
9 1 (0.23%) OPNET
9 1 (0.23%) Progress Chef
9 1 (0.23%) QRadar
9 1 (0.23%) Rancher
9 1 (0.23%) Suricata
Vendors
1 307 (70.25%) Cisco
2 138 (31.58%) F5
3 130 (29.75%) Palo Alto
4 99 (22.65%) Fortinet
5 78 (17.85%) Arista
6 58 (13.27%) Juniper
7 43 (9.84%) VMware
8 42 (9.61%) Aruba
9 40 (9.15%) CheckPoint
10 29 (6.64%) Microsoft
11 27 (6.18%) SolarWinds
12 17 (3.89%) Meraki
12 17 (3.89%) ServiceNow
12 17 (3.89%) Zscaler
13 13 (2.97%) Splunk
14 9 (2.06%) Red Hat
15 8 (1.83%) Extreme Networks
16 7 (1.60%) Citrix
16 7 (1.60%) Dell
16 7 (1.60%) Ekahau