Open Shortest Path First (OSPF)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs requiring OSPF skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 31 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
31 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 595 476 540
Rank change year-on-year -119 +64 -50
Permanent jobs citing OSPF 178 205 296
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.17% 0.41% 0.34%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 2.42% 2.82% 2.82%
Number of salaries quoted 137 140 221
10th Percentile £48,350 £32,500 £37,500
25th Percentile £58,750 £42,500 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +36.36% - -
75th Percentile £85,000 £72,500 £68,750
90th Percentile £92,750 £85,000 £87,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £67,788 £52,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year +29.12% +5.00% -4.76%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
UK

OSPF falls under the Communications and Computer Networking category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies requiring communications or computer networking skills.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 7,348 7,272 10,482
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 7.14% 14.72% 12.05%
Number of salaries quoted 4,753 4,168 6,943
10th Percentile £28,000 £25,087 £27,000
25th Percentile £32,500 £30,000 £33,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £47,500 £42,500 £49,000
Median % change year-on-year +11.76% -13.27% -5.77%
75th Percentile £70,000 £63,750 £64,275
90th Percentile £86,450 £81,250 £80,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £42,750 £37,500 £45,000
% change year-on-year +14.00% -16.67% -

OSPF
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing OSPF relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised.

OSPF job vacancy trend in the UK

OSPF
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing OSPF.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing OSPF

OSPF
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing OSPF over the 6 months to 31 July 2026.

Salary histogram for OSPF in the UK

OSPF
Top 15 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing OSPF within the UK over the 6 months to 31 July 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
England -102 170 £75,000 +36.36% 49
UK excluding London -90 86 £67,788 +29.12% 29
London -55 82 £82,500 +26.92% 23
Work from Home -25 48 £78,000 +20.00% 15
Midlands -17 27 £72,500 +107.14% 4
North of England -29 26 £70,000 +16.67% 9
West Midlands +1 25 £75,000 +114.29% 4
South East -63 21 £52,500 +10.53% 6
North West +8 14 £70,000 +16.67% 4
Yorkshire -44 7 £72,788 -2.95% 6
South West -66 6 £65,000 +16.99% 5
Scotland +6 5 £50,500 -25.19%
North East - 5 £65,576 -
East Midlands - 2 £53,750 -
East of England -21 1 - - 7

OSPF
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 2 (1.12%) Confluence
Applications
1 13 (7.30%) MS Visio
2 2 (1.12%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 1 (0.56%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 65 (36.52%) Azure
2 46 (25.84%) AWS
3 19 (10.67%) OpenShift
4 9 (5.06%) GCP
5 6 (3.37%) Datadog
5 6 (3.37%) SaaS
5 6 (3.37%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 5 (2.81%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 4 (2.25%) ChatGPT
7 4 (2.25%) Microsoft Copilot
8 3 (1.69%) AWS Direct Connect
8 3 (1.69%) Azure Monitor
9 2 (1.12%) Cloud Computing
9 2 (1.12%) Route 53
10 1 (0.56%) Cloudflare
10 1 (0.56%) Microsoft 365
10 1 (0.56%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 174 (97.75%) BGP
2 141 (79.21%) Firewall
3 117 (65.73%) VPN
4 113 (63.48%) WAN
5 94 (52.81%) LAN
6 87 (48.88%) Network Security
7 59 (33.15%) VLAN
8 54 (30.34%) SD-WAN
9 51 (28.65%) EIGRP
10 49 (27.53%) Wireless
11 44 (24.72%) TCP/IP
12 43 (24.16%) Wi-Fi
13 38 (21.35%) VXLAN
14 37 (20.79%) DNS
15 34 (19.10%) Cisco ISE
16 33 (18.54%) Cisco ASA
16 33 (18.54%) MPLS
17 29 (16.29%) Cisco Nexus
18 22 (12.36%) Cisco Firepower
18 22 (12.36%) Ethernet VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (1.69%) InfluxDB
Development Applications
1 2 (1.12%) Sonatype Nexus
2 1 (0.56%) Git
2 1 (0.56%) GitLab
2 1 (0.56%) JIRA
General
1 66 (37.08%) Social Skills
2 30 (16.85%) Finance
3 22 (12.36%) Analytical Skills
4 17 (9.55%) Telecoms
5 13 (7.30%) Law
6 8 (4.49%) Documentation Skills
7 6 (3.37%) Banking
8 5 (2.81%) Public Sector
8 5 (2.81%) Retail Banking
9 3 (1.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 3 (1.69%) Marketing
9 3 (1.69%) Organisational Skills
9 3 (1.69%) Retail
10 2 (1.12%) Manufacturing
11 1 (0.56%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 128 (71.91%) Network Engineer
2 66 (37.08%) Senior
3 45 (25.28%) Senior Network Engineer
4 25 (14.04%) Network Specialist
5 18 (10.11%) Network Security Specialist
5 18 (10.11%) Security Specialist
6 14 (7.87%) Cisco Engineer
6 14 (7.87%) Cisco Network Engineer
6 14 (7.87%) Senior Data Warehouse Specialist
6 14 (7.87%) Senior Network Specialist
7 13 (7.30%) Senior Network Security Specialist
7 13 (7.30%) Senior Security Specialist
8 8 (4.49%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 7 (3.93%) Consultant
9 7 (3.93%) Network Consultant
10 6 (3.37%) Network Security Engineer
10 6 (3.37%) Security Engineer
11 5 (2.81%) Juniper Consultant
11 5 (2.81%) Network Infrastructure Engineer
11 5 (2.81%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (8.43%) 802.1X
2 7 (3.93%) gRPC
3 3 (1.69%) ARM Templates
3 3 (1.69%) OpenTelemetry
4 1 (0.56%) Jinja
4 1 (0.56%) LDAP
4 1 (0.56%) REST
4 1 (0.56%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 79 (44.38%) Data Centre
2 9 (5.06%) Security Posture
3 8 (4.49%) Onboarding
3 8 (4.49%) PKI
4 6 (3.37%) Hybrid Cloud
5 4 (2.25%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
5 4 (2.25%) Driving Licence
5 4 (2.25%) Management Information System
6 3 (1.69%) Life Science
7 2 (1.12%) Linux Command Line
8 1 (0.56%) CMDB
8 1 (0.56%) Cyber Security Posture
8 1 (0.56%) Data Protection Act
8 1 (0.56%) IPTV
8 1 (0.56%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 17 (9.55%) Linux
2 6 (3.37%) Windows
3 2 (1.12%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.56%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 42 (23.60%) Problem-Solving
2 41 (23.03%) Network Monitoring
3 34 (19.10%) Infrastructure as Code
4 29 (16.29%) Load Balancing
4 29 (16.29%) Roadmaps
4 29 (16.29%) Zero Trust
5 24 (13.48%) Network Design
5 24 (13.48%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 23 (12.92%) Project Delivery
7 22 (12.36%) ITIL
7 22 (12.36%) Network Segmentation
8 21 (11.80%) High Availability
8 21 (11.80%) Mentoring
9 18 (10.11%) AI
9 18 (10.11%) Analytics
9 18 (10.11%) Containerisation
9 18 (10.11%) Information Security
9 18 (10.11%) Kalman Filter
10 17 (9.55%) Computer Science
10 17 (9.55%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 41 (23.03%) Python
2 7 (3.93%) Bash
3 6 (3.37%) Bicep
4 3 (1.69%) PowerShell
5 1 (0.56%) C
Qualifications
1 101 (56.74%) Cisco Certification
2 92 (51.69%) CCNP
3 25 (14.04%) CCNA
4 24 (13.48%) CCIE
5 21 (11.80%) Security Cleared
6 19 (10.67%) Degree
7 14 (7.87%) Computer Science Degree
7 14 (7.87%) DV Cleared
8 12 (6.74%) CISSP
9 10 (5.62%) SC Cleared
10 5 (2.81%) ITIL Certification
11 4 (2.25%) Azure Certification
11 4 (2.25%) Network+ Certification
12 3 (1.69%) BPSS Clearance
13 2 (1.12%) AWS Certification
13 2 (1.12%) JNCIP
13 2 (1.12%) JNCIS
14 1 (0.56%) DBS Check
14 1 (0.56%) JNCIA
14 1 (0.56%) JNCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (6.18%) SLA
2 8 (4.49%) PMO
3 5 (2.81%) QA
4 4 (2.25%) NIST
5 3 (1.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 3 (1.69%) PCI DSS
6 1 (0.56%) Accessibility
6 1 (0.56%) Cyber Essentials
System Software
1 8 (4.49%) ProxySG
1 8 (4.49%) VMware NSX
2 6 (3.37%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (2.81%) Firmware
4 3 (1.69%) Docker
5 2 (1.12%) Hyper-V
5 2 (1.12%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (0.56%) Active Directory
6 1 (0.56%) KVM
Systems Management
1 34 (19.10%) FortiGate
2 29 (16.29%) Ansible
3 20 (11.24%) Terraform
4 19 (10.67%) Kubernetes
5 9 (5.06%) Nagios
6 7 (3.93%) Grafana
7 6 (3.37%) Check_MK
7 6 (3.37%) Prometheus
8 4 (2.25%) ZABBIX
9 2 (1.12%) Cisco Prime
10 1 (0.56%) CASB
10 1 (0.56%) Proxmox
10 1 (0.56%) Single Sign-On
10 1 (0.56%) Symantec Endpoint Protection
Vendors
1 123 (69.10%) Cisco
2 65 (36.52%) Palo Alto
3 54 (30.34%) Fortinet
4 36 (20.22%) SolarWinds
5 24 (13.48%) F5
6 23 (12.92%) Arista
7 19 (10.67%) Juniper
8 18 (10.11%) Meraki
8 18 (10.11%) Zscaler
9 17 (9.55%) CheckPoint
10 15 (8.43%) Aruba
11 12 (6.74%) Infoblox
11 12 (6.74%) ServiceNow
11 12 (6.74%) VMware
12 11 (6.18%) Microsoft
13 8 (4.49%) Blue Coat
13 8 (4.49%) Motorola
14 6 (3.37%) Mellanox
14 6 (3.37%) NVIDIA
15 3 (1.69%) ForeScout