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

6 months to
18 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 296 232 238
Rank change year-on-year -64 +6 +108
Contract jobs citing BGP 363 338 440
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.79% 1.15% 1.01%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 8.09% 8.92% 7.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 207 214 261
10th Percentile £311 £325 £313
25th Percentile £400 £413 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% +5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £550 £600 £550
90th Percentile £609 £750 £615
UK excluding London median daily rate £464 £490 £450
% change year-on-year -5.36% +8.89% -7.69%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 1 9
10th Percentile £53.08 - £24.05
25th Percentile £70.67 £18.50 £24.25
Median hourly rate £74.26 £19.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +290.84% -65.45% -21.43%
75th Percentile - £19.50 £70.00
90th Percentile - - £72.65
UK excluding London median hourly rate £74.26 £19.00 £63.00
% change year-on-year +290.84% -69.84% +1.61%

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 4,488 3,789 5,730
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.73% 12.88% 13.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,816 2,345 3,442
10th Percentile £238 £213 £205
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £488
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% - -5.80%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £465 £475
% change year-on-year +2.15% -2.11% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 205 168 421
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.85
25th Percentile £20.75 £21.00 £17.69
Median hourly rate £47.50 £37.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +26.67% -6.25% +110.53%
75th Percentile £70.00 £61.69 £62.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £67.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £28.00 £46.39
% change year-on-year +96.43% -39.64% +150.76%

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 18 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 18 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 18 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 -65 317 £465 -7.00% 76
UK excluding London -44 211 £464 -5.36% 64
Work from Home -48 107 £445 -11.00% 24
South East +18 102 £450 -10.00% 28
London -69 100 £450 -10.00% 19
North of England -68 56 £550 +7.32% 10
Midlands -34 51 £419 +39.58% 9
North West -45 51 £550 +4.76% 4
West Midlands -32 48 £413 +37.50% 8
South West -34 18 £500 -4.76% 11
Scotland +1 8 £425 +3.03% 3
Yorkshire -53 5 £538 +53.57% 4
Wales -12 4 £425 -5.56%
North East -11 3 £550 +120.00% 2
East of England -33 2 £500 +17.65% 5
East Midlands -35 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 7 (1.93%) SharePoint
2 4 (1.10%) Confluence
3 2 (0.55%) OpenStack
Applications
1 12 (3.31%) MS Visio
2 8 (2.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 6 (1.65%) Microsoft Office
4 5 (1.38%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 59 (16.25%) AWS
2 52 (14.33%) Azure
3 25 (6.89%) GCP
4 19 (5.23%) Virtual Private Cloud
5 10 (2.75%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 8 (2.20%) AWS Direct Connect
6 8 (2.20%) Route 53
7 5 (1.38%) Amazon EKS
7 5 (1.38%) Amazon GuardDuty
7 5 (1.38%) SaaS
8 4 (1.10%) Azure Sentinel
9 3 (0.83%) Amazon S3
9 3 (0.83%) Catchpoint
9 3 (0.83%) GitHub
9 3 (0.83%) IaaS
9 3 (0.83%) Nutanix
9 3 (0.83%) PaaS
10 2 (0.55%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 2 (0.55%) AWS CloudFormation
10 2 (0.55%) Entra ID
Communications & Networking
1 253 (69.70%) OSPF
2 225 (61.98%) Firewall
3 203 (55.92%) WAN
4 147 (40.50%) LAN
5 116 (31.96%) VPN
6 101 (27.82%) Network Security
7 94 (25.90%) MPLS
8 88 (24.24%) VXLAN
9 85 (23.42%) VLAN
10 79 (21.76%) DNS
11 65 (17.91%) SD-WAN
12 63 (17.36%) Ethernet VPN
13 60 (16.53%) Multicast
14 52 (14.33%) Cisco ASA
14 52 (14.33%) IPsec
15 50 (13.77%) TCP/IP
16 46 (12.67%) Cisco ISE
16 46 (12.67%) DHCP
17 45 (12.40%) Wireless
18 42 (11.57%) EIGRP
Development Applications
1 14 (3.86%) Git
2 9 (2.48%) Sonatype Nexus
3 4 (1.10%) GitLab
3 4 (1.10%) JIRA
4 3 (0.83%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.28%) AppScan
5 1 (0.28%) Burp Suite
5 1 (0.28%) Metasploit
General
1 58 (15.98%) Social Skills
2 39 (10.74%) Analytical Skills
3 36 (9.92%) Documentation Skills
4 34 (9.37%) Finance
5 31 (8.54%) Public Sector
6 25 (6.89%) Banking
7 21 (5.79%) Telecoms
8 17 (4.68%) Investment Banking
9 15 (4.13%) Financial Institution
10 14 (3.86%) Manufacturing
11 13 (3.58%) Military
12 5 (1.38%) Legal
12 5 (1.38%) Marketing
12 5 (1.38%) Retail
13 4 (1.10%) Influencing Skills
14 3 (0.83%) French Language
14 3 (0.83%) Police
15 2 (0.55%) Aviation
15 2 (0.55%) Electronics
15 2 (0.55%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 221 (60.88%) Network Engineer
2 54 (14.88%) Cisco Engineer
3 51 (14.05%) Cisco Network Engineer
4 49 (13.50%) Senior
5 41 (11.29%) Security Engineer
6 39 (10.74%) Architect
7 36 (9.92%) Network Security Engineer
8 35 (9.64%) Data Network Engineer
8 35 (9.64%) Senior Network Engineer
9 30 (8.26%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
10 27 (7.44%) Cisco Security Engineer
10 27 (7.44%) Network Architect
11 26 (7.16%) Data Engineer
12 21 (5.79%) Network Specialist
13 14 (3.86%) Juniper Engineer
14 13 (3.58%) Design Engineer
14 13 (3.58%) Firewall Specialist
15 12 (3.31%) Web Engineer
16 11 (3.03%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
16 11 (3.03%) Operations Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 39 (10.74%) 802.1X
2 8 (2.20%) NETCONF
2 8 (2.20%) REST
2 8 (2.20%) YANG
3 6 (1.65%) LDAP
4 5 (1.38%) OpenConfig
5 4 (1.10%) Jinja
5 4 (1.10%) RESTCONF
5 4 (1.10%) VML
6 2 (0.55%) AWS CDK
6 2 (0.55%) CSS
6 2 (0.55%) HTML
6 2 (0.55%) JSON
6 2 (0.55%) RFC 2544
6 2 (0.55%) XML
7 1 (0.28%) eBPF
Miscellaneous
1 160 (44.08%) Data Centre
2 41 (11.29%) PKI
3 24 (6.61%) Clustering
4 14 (3.86%) Hybrid Cloud
5 9 (2.48%) Product Ownership
6 8 (2.20%) Analytical Mindset
6 8 (2.20%) Onboarding
7 6 (1.65%) Cloud Native
7 6 (1.65%) Data Protection Act
8 5 (1.38%) Self-Motivation
9 4 (1.10%) NHS
9 4 (1.10%) Operational Technology
9 4 (1.10%) Public Cloud
9 4 (1.10%) Virtual Team
10 3 (0.83%) CESG
10 3 (0.83%) Distributed Architecture
10 3 (0.83%) Distributed Systems
10 3 (0.83%) Linux Command Line
10 3 (0.83%) SCADA
10 3 (0.83%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 44 (12.12%) Windows
2 23 (6.34%) Linux
3 9 (2.48%) Windows Server
4 7 (1.93%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 6 (1.65%) Ubuntu
6 2 (0.55%) Unix
7 1 (0.28%) Kali Linux
7 1 (0.28%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 83 (22.87%) Load Balancing
2 58 (15.98%) High Availability
3 55 (15.15%) Problem-Solving
4 42 (11.57%) Network Design
5 40 (11.02%) Migration
6 33 (9.09%) ITIL
7 32 (8.82%) Change Management
8 31 (8.54%) Observability
9 30 (8.26%) Cybersecurity
10 27 (7.44%) Infrastructure as Code
10 27 (7.44%) Network Monitoring
10 27 (7.44%) Project Delivery
10 27 (7.44%) Stakeholder Management
11 25 (6.89%) Identity Access Management
11 25 (6.89%) Zero Trust
12 24 (6.61%) Continuous Improvement
12 24 (6.61%) Network Segmentation
13 23 (6.34%) Root Cause Analysis
14 21 (5.79%) Mentoring
15 20 (5.51%) Network Architecture
Programming Languages
1 78 (21.49%) Python
2 12 (3.31%) Bash
3 10 (2.75%) PowerShell
4 6 (1.65%) Perl
5 4 (1.10%) Lisp
5 4 (1.10%) PHP
6 2 (0.55%) JavaScript
6 2 (0.55%) SQL
Qualifications
1 160 (44.08%) Cisco Certification
2 147 (40.50%) Security Cleared
3 123 (33.88%) CCNP
4 112 (30.85%) SC Cleared
5 52 (14.33%) CCIE
6 41 (11.29%) DV Cleared
7 31 (8.54%) CCNA
7 31 (8.54%) Degree
8 18 (4.96%) JNCIP
8 18 (4.96%) JNCIS
9 13 (3.58%) JNCIA
9 13 (3.58%) JNCIE
10 10 (2.75%) AWS Certification
11 9 (2.48%) CISSP
12 8 (2.20%) Azure Certification
12 8 (2.20%) CCDP
12 8 (2.20%) Computer Science Degree
13 7 (1.93%) GIAC
14 5 (1.38%) CompTIA Security+
14 5 (1.38%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (3.86%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 14 (3.86%) NIST
2 10 (2.75%) NCSC
2 10 (2.75%) SLA
3 7 (1.93%) PCI DSS
4 6 (1.65%) GDPR
5 4 (1.10%) Cyber Essentials
5 4 (1.10%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 3 (0.83%) RMADS
7 2 (0.55%) JSP 440
8 1 (0.28%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.28%) COBIT
8 1 (0.28%) GRC
8 1 (0.28%) HMG Security Policy Framework
8 1 (0.28%) NIST 800
8 1 (0.28%) QA
System Software
1 32 (8.82%) VMware Infrastructure
2 15 (4.13%) VMware NSX
3 9 (2.48%) Active Directory
4 8 (2.20%) VMware ESXi
5 5 (1.38%) Docker
6 3 (0.83%) vSphere
7 2 (0.55%) Firmware
7 2 (0.55%) vCloud
7 2 (0.55%) Virtual Servers
8 1 (0.28%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.28%) KVM
8 1 (0.28%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 73 (20.11%) Ansible
2 55 (15.15%) FortiGate
3 38 (10.47%) Terraform
4 15 (4.13%) Grafana
5 12 (3.31%) Prometheus
6 8 (2.20%) Kubernetes
7 6 (1.65%) vCenter Server
8 5 (1.38%) Nagios
9 3 (0.83%) SCOM
10 2 (0.55%) Cisco Prime
10 2 (0.55%) Iperf
10 2 (0.55%) Nmap
11 1 (0.28%) CASB
11 1 (0.28%) Cilium
11 1 (0.28%) Cisco CUCM
11 1 (0.28%) Failover Clustering
11 1 (0.28%) Progress Chef
11 1 (0.28%) QRadar
11 1 (0.28%) vRealize
11 1 (0.28%) VxRail
Vendors
1 276 (76.03%) Cisco
2 121 (33.33%) F5
3 101 (27.82%) Palo Alto
4 92 (25.34%) Juniper
5 64 (17.63%) Fortinet
6 52 (14.33%) CheckPoint
7 41 (11.29%) Arista
8 40 (11.02%) Aruba
9 37 (10.19%) VMware
10 36 (9.92%) SolarWinds
11 27 (7.44%) Splunk
12 26 (7.16%) Meraki
13 25 (6.89%) Extreme Networks
14 17 (4.68%) Zscaler
15 14 (3.86%) Nokia
16 11 (3.03%) Microsoft
17 10 (2.75%) Ekahau
17 10 (2.75%) ServiceNow
18 7 (1.93%) Red Hat
18 7 (1.93%) Remedy