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 22 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 580 481 550
Rank change year-on-year -99 +69 -34
Permanent jobs citing OSPF 177 215 319
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.18% 0.44% 0.34%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 2.43% 3.00% 2.79%
Number of salaries quoted 138 150 237
10th Percentile £47,750 £32,500 £37,500
25th Percentile £61,761 £42,500 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £72,500 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +31.82% - -
75th Percentile £82,500 £72,500 £67,500
90th Percentile £92,375 £85,000 £87,125
UK excluding London median annual salary £70,000 £52,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year +33.33% +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 7,294 7,166 11,451
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 7.28% 14.57% 12.23%
Number of salaries quoted 4,710 4,128 7,828
10th Percentile £28,000 £25,087 £26,500
25th Percentile £32,500 £30,000 £32,937
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £47,500 £42,500 £48,000
Median % change year-on-year +11.76% -11.46% -7.69%
75th Percentile £70,000 £64,500 £63,750
90th Percentile £86,500 £82,500 £78,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £42,500 £38,094 £45,000
% change year-on-year +11.57% -15.35% -

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 22 July 2026.

Salary histogram for OSPF in the UK

OSPF
Top 14 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 22 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 -94 169 £75,000 +36.36% 52
London -39 88 £80,000 +23.08% 20
UK excluding London -110 79 £70,000 +33.33% 35
Work from Home -18 47 £78,000 +20.00% 14
Midlands -3 25 £72,500 +107.14% 6
North of England -31 25 £70,000 +16.67% 9
West Midlands +3 23 £75,000 +114.29% 6
South East -59 20 £52,500 +1.94% 6
North West -1 13 £70,000 +16.67% 4
Yorkshire -50 7 £72,788 -2.95% 5
Scotland +13 5 £50,500 -25.19%
North East - 5 £65,576 -
South West -72 4 £55,000 - 6
East Midlands - 2 £53,750 -

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 (1.13%) Confluence
Applications
1 14 (7.91%) MS Visio
2 2 (1.13%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 63 (35.59%) Azure
2 46 (25.99%) AWS
3 18 (10.17%) OpenShift
4 9 (5.08%) GCP
5 8 (4.52%) Datadog
5 8 (4.52%) SaaS
5 8 (4.52%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 5 (2.82%) AWS Direct Connect
6 5 (2.82%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 4 (2.26%) ChatGPT
7 4 (2.26%) Microsoft Copilot
8 3 (1.69%) Azure Monitor
9 2 (1.13%) Cloud Computing
9 2 (1.13%) Nutanix
9 2 (1.13%) Route 53
10 1 (0.56%) Cloudflare
10 1 (0.56%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 175 (98.87%) BGP
2 141 (79.66%) Firewall
3 116 (65.54%) VPN
4 112 (63.28%) WAN
5 89 (50.28%) LAN
6 85 (48.02%) Network Security
7 60 (33.90%) SD-WAN
8 58 (32.77%) VLAN
9 50 (28.25%) EIGRP
10 49 (27.68%) Wireless
11 43 (24.29%) Wi-Fi
12 41 (23.16%) TCP/IP
12 41 (23.16%) VXLAN
13 37 (20.90%) MPLS
14 36 (20.34%) Cisco ISE
15 35 (19.77%) Cisco ASA
15 35 (19.77%) DNS
16 30 (16.95%) Cisco Nexus
17 25 (14.12%) Cisco Firepower
18 23 (12.99%) Ethernet VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (1.69%) InfluxDB
Development Applications
1 2 (1.13%) Sonatype Nexus
2 1 (0.56%) Git
2 1 (0.56%) GitLab
2 1 (0.56%) JIRA
General
1 65 (36.72%) Social Skills
2 29 (16.38%) Finance
3 20 (11.30%) Analytical Skills
4 16 (9.04%) Telecoms
5 13 (7.34%) Law
6 7 (3.95%) Documentation Skills
6 7 (3.95%) Retail Banking
7 6 (3.39%) Banking
7 6 (3.39%) Public Sector
8 3 (1.69%) Marketing
8 3 (1.69%) Retail
9 2 (1.13%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 2 (1.13%) Manufacturing
9 2 (1.13%) Organisational Skills
10 1 (0.56%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 128 (72.32%) Network Engineer
2 67 (37.85%) Senior
3 46 (25.99%) Senior Network Engineer
4 24 (13.56%) Network Specialist
5 17 (9.60%) Network Security Specialist
5 17 (9.60%) Security Specialist
6 15 (8.47%) Cisco Engineer
6 15 (8.47%) Cisco Network Engineer
7 14 (7.91%) Senior Data Warehouse Specialist
7 14 (7.91%) Senior Network Specialist
8 13 (7.34%) Senior Network Security Specialist
8 13 (7.34%) Senior Security Specialist
9 9 (5.08%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 8 (4.52%) Consultant
10 8 (4.52%) Network Consultant
11 6 (3.39%) Network Infrastructure Engineer
11 6 (3.39%) Network Security Engineer
11 6 (3.39%) Security Engineer
12 5 (2.82%) Firewall Engineer
12 5 (2.82%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (9.60%) 802.1X
2 7 (3.95%) gRPC
3 3 (1.69%) ARM Templates
3 3 (1.69%) OpenTelemetry
4 2 (1.13%) REST
5 1 (0.56%) Jinja
5 1 (0.56%) LDAP
5 1 (0.56%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 83 (46.89%) Data Centre
2 11 (6.21%) PKI
2 11 (6.21%) Security Posture
3 7 (3.95%) Onboarding
4 6 (3.39%) Hybrid Cloud
5 5 (2.82%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
6 4 (2.26%) Driving Licence
6 4 (2.26%) Management Information System
7 3 (1.69%) Life Science
8 2 (1.13%) Linux Command Line
9 1 (0.56%) Cloud Native
9 1 (0.56%) Data Protection Act
9 1 (0.56%) IPTV
9 1 (0.56%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 17 (9.60%) Linux
2 5 (2.82%) Windows
3 1 (0.56%) Unix
3 1 (0.56%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 43 (24.29%) Problem-Solving
2 39 (22.03%) Network Monitoring
3 31 (17.51%) Infrastructure as Code
4 30 (16.95%) Load Balancing
4 30 (16.95%) Zero Trust
5 29 (16.38%) Roadmaps
6 25 (14.12%) Network Design
7 24 (13.56%) Network Segmentation
7 24 (13.56%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 23 (12.99%) Project Delivery
9 22 (12.43%) High Availability
10 21 (11.86%) ITIL
11 20 (11.30%) Mentoring
12 19 (10.73%) Kalman Filter
13 18 (10.17%) Analytics
13 18 (10.17%) Computer Science
13 18 (10.17%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 18 (10.17%) Technical Leadership
14 17 (9.60%) AI
14 17 (9.60%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 42 (23.73%) Python
2 7 (3.95%) Bash
3 6 (3.39%) Bicep
4 3 (1.69%) PowerShell
5 1 (0.56%) C
Qualifications
1 99 (55.93%) Cisco Certification
2 91 (51.41%) CCNP
3 25 (14.12%) CCIE
4 23 (12.99%) CCNA
5 20 (11.30%) Degree
6 19 (10.73%) Security Cleared
7 15 (8.47%) Computer Science Degree
8 12 (6.78%) DV Cleared
9 11 (6.21%) CISSP
10 9 (5.08%) SC Cleared
11 4 (2.26%) Azure Certification
11 4 (2.26%) ITIL Certification
11 4 (2.26%) Network+ Certification
12 2 (1.13%) AWS Certification
12 2 (1.13%) BPSS Clearance
12 2 (1.13%) JNCIP
13 1 (0.56%) CCSA
13 1 (0.56%) CCSE
13 1 (0.56%) JNCIA
13 1 (0.56%) JNCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (6.21%) SLA
2 8 (4.52%) PMO
3 5 (2.82%) NIST
3 5 (2.82%) PCI DSS
3 5 (2.82%) QA
4 1 (0.56%) Cyber Essentials
4 1 (0.56%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 8 (4.52%) ProxySG
2 7 (3.95%) VMware NSX
3 4 (2.26%) Firmware
4 3 (1.69%) Docker
4 3 (1.69%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (1.13%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 32 (18.08%) FortiGate
2 29 (16.38%) Ansible
3 18 (10.17%) Kubernetes
4 17 (9.60%) Terraform
5 9 (5.08%) Nagios
6 8 (4.52%) Check_MK
7 7 (3.95%) Grafana
8 6 (3.39%) Prometheus
9 3 (1.69%) ZABBIX
10 2 (1.13%) Cisco Prime
11 1 (0.56%) CASB
11 1 (0.56%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 122 (68.93%) Cisco
2 68 (38.42%) Palo Alto
3 52 (29.38%) Fortinet
4 40 (22.60%) SolarWinds
5 25 (14.12%) Arista
5 25 (14.12%) F5
6 21 (11.86%) CheckPoint
6 21 (11.86%) Meraki
7 17 (9.60%) Juniper
7 17 (9.60%) Zscaler
8 14 (7.91%) Aruba
9 13 (7.34%) Infoblox
10 12 (6.78%) Microsoft
10 12 (6.78%) ServiceNow
11 9 (5.08%) VMware
12 8 (4.52%) Blue Coat
12 8 (4.52%) Motorola
13 6 (3.39%) Mellanox
13 6 (3.39%) NVIDIA
14 5 (2.82%) SevOne