MPLS Contracts

Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS)
UK

The following table provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for MPLS skills. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that have cited MPLS over the 6 months to 1 June 2024 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
1 Jun 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 292 438 480
Rank change year-on-year +146 +42 -12
Contract jobs citing MPLS 318 259 417
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.74% 0.46% 0.48%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 5.86% 3.64% 4.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 160 128 270
10th Percentile £299 £313 £325
25th Percentile £350 £368 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £405 £486 £500
Median % change year-on-year -16.67% -2.80% +11.11%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £581
90th Percentile £676 £675 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £375 £425 £450
% change year-on-year -11.76% -5.56% +2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 13 6
10th Percentile £13.78 £12.80 £21.00
25th Percentile £19.69 £18.50 £22.13
Median hourly rate £32.50 £62.00 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -47.58% +138.46% +13.04%
75th Percentile £40.00 £63.23 £26.50
90th Percentile - £70.00 £28.38
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £55.32 £22.00
% change year-on-year -27.69% +151.45% +4.76%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
UK

MPLS is in the Communications and Computer Networking category. The following table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 5,426 7,124 9,720
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 12.60% 12.71% 11.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,234 4,603 6,376
10th Percentile £206 £240 £240
25th Percentile £350 £400 £399
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% +2.50% +11.11%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £613
90th Percentile £688 £719 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £475 £450
% change year-on-year +0.95% +5.56% +11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 417 443 367
10th Percentile £13.50 £9.80 £15.25
25th Percentile £16.30 £10.63 £16.75
Median hourly rate £40.00 £18.24 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year +119.30% -29.85% +4.00%
75th Percentile £63.75 £59.54 £50.77
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £65.54
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.88 £18.00 £21.50
% change year-on-year +154.89% -16.28% -1.15%

MPLS
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Job vacancy trend for MPLS in the UK

MPLS
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

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

Daily rate trend for MPLS in the UK

MPLS
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing MPLS over the 6 months to 1 June 2024.

Daily rate histogram for MPLS in the UK

MPLS
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

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

Hourly rate trend for MPLS in the UK

MPLS
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing MPLS over the 6 months to 1 June 2024.

Hourly rate histogram for MPLS in the UK

MPLS
Top 14 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing MPLS within the UK over the 6 months to 1 June 2024. 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 +143 297 £400 -17.70% 72
UK excluding London +100 201 £375 -11.76% 45
Midlands +93 106 £375 +25.00% 14
West Midlands +79 103 £375 +25.00% 12
London +103 97 £500 -12.66% 29
South East +34 69 £388 -13.89% 12
Work from Home +61 52 £405 -16.58% 42
South West -1 13 £650 - 1
North of England +2 9 £425 +13.33% 11
North West +2 5 £602 +26.74% 4
Scotland +39 4 £400 -20.00% 1
North East - 4 £385 - 1
East Midlands - 3 £575 - 2
Wales +18 1 - - 1

MPLS
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 14 (4.40%) Microsoft Exchange
2 9 (2.83%) Apache
2 9 (2.83%) Apache Airflow
3 2 (0.63%) OpenStack
4 1 (0.31%) WebSphere
Applications
1 6 (1.89%) MS Visio
2 4 (1.26%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (0.94%) Microsoft Excel
4 1 (0.31%) Chatbot
4 1 (0.31%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Cloud Services
1 46 (14.47%) Azure
2 33 (10.38%) AWS
3 14 (4.40%) GCP
4 12 (3.77%) Microsoft 365
5 7 (2.20%) Entra ID
6 6 (1.89%) IaaS
7 5 (1.57%) Cloudflare
7 5 (1.57%) OCI
8 4 (1.26%) SaaS
9 2 (0.63%) Cloud Computing
9 2 (0.63%) Mimecast
9 2 (0.63%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 1 (0.31%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 1 (0.31%) GitHub
Communications & Networking
1 210 (66.04%) BGP
2 194 (61.01%) WAN
3 115 (36.16%) VPN
4 111 (34.91%) IPsec
5 94 (29.56%) Firewall
6 65 (20.44%) LAN
7 55 (17.30%) Junos
7 55 (17.30%) OSPF
8 45 (14.15%) SD-WAN
9 43 (13.52%) DNS
10 34 (10.69%) SSL
11 33 (10.38%) Cisco Firepower
11 33 (10.38%) Cisco Nexus
11 33 (10.38%) DHCP
12 31 (9.75%) Cisco ASA
12 31 (9.75%) Internet
12 31 (9.75%) Network Security
13 28 (8.81%) EIGRP
14 27 (8.49%) Ethernet VPN
15 26 (8.18%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (2.52%) MongoDB
1 8 (2.52%) NoSQL
1 8 (2.52%) PostgreSQL
1 8 (2.52%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 17 (5.35%) JIRA
2 11 (3.46%) Git
3 9 (2.83%) GitLab
3 9 (2.83%) Robot Framework
3 9 (2.83%) TestRail
4 3 (0.94%) Sonatype Nexus
5 1 (0.31%) Hudson
General
1 57 (17.92%) Finance
2 54 (16.98%) Social Skills
3 34 (10.69%) Telecoms
4 27 (8.49%) Analytical Skills
5 20 (6.29%) Public Sector
6 8 (2.52%) Aerospace
6 8 (2.52%) Financial Institution
7 4 (1.26%) Presentation Skills
8 3 (0.94%) Advertising
8 3 (0.94%) Banking
9 2 (0.63%) Aviation
9 2 (0.63%) French Language
10 1 (0.31%) Billing
10 1 (0.31%) Documentation Skills
10 1 (0.31%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (0.31%) Legal
10 1 (0.31%) Local Government
10 1 (0.31%) Organisational Skills
10 1 (0.31%) Publishing
10 1 (0.31%) Retail
Job Titles
1 132 (41.51%) Network Engineer
2 66 (20.75%) Architect
3 52 (16.35%) Network Architect
4 37 (11.64%) WAN Engineer
5 35 (11.01%) Network Support
6 34 (10.69%) 3rd Line Engineer
7 28 (8.81%) Senior
8 27 (8.49%) 3rd Line Support
9 17 (5.35%) Support Engineer
10 15 (4.72%) 3rd Line Network Engineer
11 14 (4.40%) 2nd Line Support
11 14 (4.40%) Design Engineer
11 14 (4.40%) Network Design Engineer
11 14 (4.40%) Test Engineer
12 11 (3.46%) Analyst
12 11 (3.46%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 10 (3.14%) IP Expert
13 10 (3.14%) Senior Network Engineer
14 9 (2.83%) IT Analyst
14 9 (2.83%) IT Infrastructure Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (9.75%) NETCONF
2 30 (9.43%) YANG
3 22 (6.92%) JSON
3 22 (6.92%) XML
4 13 (4.09%) Jinja
5 9 (2.83%) REST
5 9 (2.83%) RESTCONF
5 9 (2.83%) SOAP
5 9 (2.83%) Web Services
6 5 (1.57%) 802.1X
7 3 (0.94%) RESTful
7 3 (0.94%) SAML
8 2 (0.63%) LDAP
9 1 (0.31%) .NET
9 1 (0.31%) EDI
9 1 (0.31%) IBM Integration Bus
9 1 (0.31%) WebSphere MQ
Miscellaneous
1 64 (20.13%) PKI
2 51 (16.04%) Data Centre
3 16 (5.03%) Distributed Architecture
4 11 (3.46%) Clustering
4 11 (3.46%) Self-Motivation
5 8 (2.52%) Client/Server
5 8 (2.52%) Public Cloud
6 6 (1.89%) Data Protection Act
7 5 (1.57%) Hybrid Cloud
8 3 (0.94%) CMDB
8 3 (0.94%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 3 (0.94%) Operational Technology
8 3 (0.94%) Video Conferencing
9 2 (0.63%) Cloud Native
9 2 (0.63%) IoT
9 2 (0.63%) IPTV
9 2 (0.63%) Management Information System
10 1 (0.31%) BYOD
10 1 (0.31%) Driving Licence
10 1 (0.31%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 21 (6.60%) Windows
2 12 (3.77%) Windows Server
3 10 (3.14%) Unix
4 2 (0.63%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 79 (24.84%) Network Design
2 61 (19.18%) Load Balancing
3 39 (12.26%) Migration
4 35 (11.01%) Network Management
5 32 (10.06%) Customer Requirements
5 32 (10.06%) Network Architecture
6 26 (8.18%) Technical Leadership
7 24 (7.55%) Problem-Solving
8 22 (6.92%) DevOps
9 19 (5.97%) Network Monitoring
10 17 (5.35%) Agile
11 16 (5.03%) Project Delivery
12 15 (4.72%) ITIL
13 14 (4.40%) Capacity Planning
13 14 (4.40%) Data Protection
13 14 (4.40%) Infrastructure Engineering
14 13 (4.09%) Integration Testing
14 13 (4.09%) Roadmaps
14 13 (4.09%) Workflow
15 12 (3.77%) Incident Management
Programming Languages
1 34 (10.69%) Python
2 9 (2.83%) SQL
3 8 (2.52%) PowerShell
4 1 (0.31%) C
4 1 (0.31%) C++
4 1 (0.31%) Java
Qualifications
1 120 (37.74%) Security Cleared
2 93 (29.25%) Cisco Certification
3 72 (22.64%) CCNP
4 53 (16.67%) SC Cleared
5 37 (11.64%) CCIE
6 36 (11.32%) CCNA
7 19 (5.97%) Degree
8 13 (4.09%) JNCIS
9 11 (3.46%) JNCIA
10 10 (3.14%) DV Cleared
11 9 (2.83%) CCIE Data Center
12 7 (2.20%) AWS Certification
12 7 (2.20%) JNCIP
13 6 (1.89%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 6 (1.89%) BC Cleared
13 6 (1.89%) BPSS Clearance
14 5 (1.57%) Azure Certification
14 5 (1.57%) CCDP
14 5 (1.57%) CCIE Service Provider
14 5 (1.57%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (4.09%) SLA
2 6 (1.89%) QA
3 3 (0.94%) HIPAA
3 3 (0.94%) NCSC
3 3 (0.94%) PCI DSS
4 1 (0.31%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 23 (7.23%) Active Directory
2 18 (5.66%) VMware Infrastructure
3 9 (2.83%) Firmware
4 8 (2.52%) Docker
4 8 (2.52%) Virtual Servers
4 8 (2.52%) VMware Workstation
5 6 (1.89%) VMware NSX
6 5 (1.57%) Hyper-V
7 3 (0.94%) Virtual Machines
8 1 (0.31%) Terminal Services
8 1 (0.31%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 26 (8.18%) Endace
2 15 (4.72%) Ansible
3 11 (3.46%) SCCM
4 10 (3.14%) Terraform
5 8 (2.52%) Microsoft Clustering
5 8 (2.52%) Nagios
5 8 (2.52%) NetBackup
6 6 (1.89%) FortiGate
6 6 (1.89%) Microsoft Intune
6 6 (1.89%) SolarWinds Orion
7 3 (0.94%) Kibana
7 3 (0.94%) Single Sign-On
8 2 (0.63%) Amdocs OSS
8 2 (0.63%) Kubernetes
9 1 (0.31%) Cisco Prime
9 1 (0.31%) Netcool
Vendors
1 153 (48.11%) Juniper
2 150 (47.17%) Cisco
3 63 (19.81%) F5
4 38 (11.95%) Palo Alto
5 29 (9.12%) Nokia
6 26 (8.18%) CheckPoint
6 26 (8.18%) Fortinet
7 25 (7.86%) Microsoft
7 25 (7.86%) VMware
8 20 (6.29%) Infoblox
9 18 (5.66%) Zscaler
10 10 (3.14%) Aruba
10 10 (3.14%) SolarWinds
11 8 (2.52%) Citrix
11 8 (2.52%) Hitachi
11 8 (2.52%) Meraki
11 8 (2.52%) NetApp
12 7 (2.20%) Google
13 6 (1.89%) Huawei
14 5 (1.57%) Symantec