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

6 months to
5 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 564 446 590
Rank change year-on-year -118 +144 -4
Permanent jobs citing OSPF 167 231 323
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.18% 0.53% 0.31%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 2.00% 3.50% 2.48%
Number of salaries quoted 119 182 246
10th Percentile £47,250 £32,500 £37,500
25th Percentile £61,761 £42,500 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £72,500 £53,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year +36.79% +0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £78,000 £67,500 £67,500
90th Percentile £92,000 £85,000 £87,188
UK excluding London median annual salary £70,000 £53,000 £48,500
% change year-on-year +32.08% +9.28% +2.11%

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 8,343 6,594 13,002
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 9.00% 15.05% 12.61%
Number of salaries quoted 4,281 3,678 9,375
10th Percentile £27,694 £26,250 £26,250
25th Percentile £31,250 £31,250 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £46,000 £47,500 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year -3.16% - -5.94%
75th Percentile £68,750 £67,500 £63,750
90th Percentile £85,000 £85,000 £77,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £42,500 £42,000 £44,000
% change year-on-year +1.19% -4.55% -2.22%

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 5 June 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 5 June 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 -92 160 £72,500 +36.79% 54
London -24 77 £75,000 +22.45% 16
UK excluding London -126 75 £70,000 +32.08% 53
Work from Home -4 47 £78,000 +30.00% 29
North of England -54 25 £70,000 +7.69% 11
South East -87 23 £75,000 +41.51% 14
Midlands -26 20 £62,500 +78.57% 9
West Midlands -31 17 £70,000 +100.00% 8
North East - 9 £65,576 - 4
North West -6 8 £71,250 +23.91% 4
Yorkshire -52 8 £72,788 -2.95% 3
Scotland +6 3 £61,500 -8.89% 8
South West -61 3 £58,099 +3.53% 5
East Midlands - 3 £52,500 - 1
East of England -24 1 - - 4

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 (1.20%) Confluence
2 1 (0.60%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 22 (13.17%) MS Visio
2 2 (1.20%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 61 (36.53%) Azure
2 50 (29.94%) AWS
3 12 (7.19%) Virtual Private Cloud
4 11 (6.59%) SaaS
5 10 (5.99%) AWS Direct Connect
6 8 (4.79%) Datadog
7 7 (4.19%) GCP
7 7 (4.19%) OpenShift
8 5 (2.99%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 4 (2.40%) ChatGPT
9 4 (2.40%) Microsoft Copilot
10 3 (1.80%) Azure Monitor
11 2 (1.20%) Cloud Computing
11 2 (1.20%) Microsoft 365
11 2 (1.20%) Nutanix
11 2 (1.20%) Route 53
12 1 (0.60%) Cloudflare
Communications & Networking
1 164 (98.20%) BGP
2 139 (83.23%) Firewall
3 110 (65.87%) VPN
4 107 (64.07%) WAN
5 87 (52.10%) LAN
6 76 (45.51%) Network Security
7 64 (38.32%) SD-WAN
8 61 (36.53%) Wireless
9 53 (31.74%) VLAN
10 49 (29.34%) Cisco ASA
11 47 (28.14%) EIGRP
12 44 (26.35%) VXLAN
13 42 (25.15%) MPLS
14 41 (24.55%) Cisco ISE
15 39 (23.35%) Cisco Nexus
16 37 (22.16%) Wi-Fi
17 31 (18.56%) TCP/IP
18 27 (16.17%) Cisco Firepower
19 26 (15.57%) Cisco Wireless
20 25 (14.97%) Ethernet VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (1.80%) InfluxDB
Development Applications
1 1 (0.60%) Git
1 1 (0.60%) GitLab
1 1 (0.60%) JIRA
1 1 (0.60%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 52 (31.14%) Social Skills
2 32 (19.16%) Analytical Skills
3 25 (14.97%) Finance
4 14 (8.38%) Law
4 14 (8.38%) Telecoms
5 8 (4.79%) Retail Banking
6 6 (3.59%) Documentation Skills
7 5 (2.99%) Banking
8 4 (2.40%) Public Sector
9 2 (1.20%) Financial Institution
9 2 (1.20%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 2 (1.20%) Organisational Skills
10 1 (0.60%) Marketing
10 1 (0.60%) Police
10 1 (0.60%) Retail
Job Titles
1 128 (76.65%) Network Engineer
2 68 (40.72%) Senior
3 55 (32.93%) Senior Network Engineer
4 14 (8.38%) Cisco Engineer
4 14 (8.38%) Cisco Network Engineer
5 13 (7.78%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 12 (7.19%) Consultant
6 12 (7.19%) Network Consultant
7 10 (5.99%) Firewall Engineer
7 10 (5.99%) Network Infrastructure Engineer
8 9 (5.39%) Network Specialist
9 8 (4.79%) Cisco Consultant
9 8 (4.79%) Cisco Network Consultant
9 8 (4.79%) Infrastructure Operations Engineer
9 8 (4.79%) Network Operations Engineer
9 8 (4.79%) Operations Engineer
9 8 (4.79%) WAN Consultant
10 6 (3.59%) Network Security Specialist
10 6 (3.59%) Senior Network Security Specialist
10 6 (3.59%) Senior Security Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 18 (10.78%) 802.1X
2 8 (4.79%) REST
3 7 (4.19%) gRPC
4 3 (1.80%) ARM Templates
4 3 (1.80%) OpenTelemetry
5 1 (0.60%) LDAP
5 1 (0.60%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 82 (49.10%) Data Centre
2 11 (6.59%) Security Posture
3 10 (5.99%) PKI
4 9 (5.39%) Onboarding
5 8 (4.79%) Management Information System
6 6 (3.59%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
6 6 (3.59%) Hybrid Cloud
7 4 (2.40%) Driving Licence
8 2 (1.20%) Cloud Native
9 1 (0.60%) Data Protection Act
9 1 (0.60%) IPTV
9 1 (0.60%) Life Science
9 1 (0.60%) Linux Command Line
9 1 (0.60%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 17 (10.18%) Linux
2 5 (2.99%) Windows
3 1 (0.60%) Unix
3 1 (0.60%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 45 (26.95%) Problem-Solving
2 37 (22.16%) Load Balancing
3 34 (20.36%) Network Monitoring
4 27 (16.17%) Computer Science
4 27 (16.17%) Kalman Filter
5 25 (14.97%) Project Delivery
6 24 (14.37%) Network Segmentation
6 24 (14.37%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 23 (13.77%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 23 (13.77%) Zero Trust
8 20 (11.98%) Root Cause Analysis
8 20 (11.98%) WAN Optimisation
9 19 (11.38%) Network Design
10 18 (10.78%) High Availability
10 18 (10.78%) Infrastructure as Code
10 18 (10.78%) ITIL
11 16 (9.58%) Analytical Thinking
11 16 (9.58%) Collaborative Working
11 16 (9.58%) Observability
11 16 (9.58%) Runbook
Programming Languages
1 51 (30.54%) Python
2 7 (4.19%) Bash
3 6 (3.59%) Bicep
4 3 (1.80%) PowerShell
5 1 (0.60%) C
Qualifications
1 93 (55.69%) Cisco Certification
2 85 (50.90%) CCNP
3 28 (16.77%) Degree
4 27 (16.17%) CCIE
5 24 (14.37%) Computer Science Degree
6 19 (11.38%) Security Cleared
7 15 (8.98%) CCNA
8 12 (7.19%) DV Cleared
9 10 (5.99%) SC Cleared
10 4 (2.40%) Azure Certification
10 4 (2.40%) Network+ Certification
11 2 (1.20%) BPSS Clearance
11 2 (1.20%) CCSA
11 2 (1.20%) CCSE
11 2 (1.20%) CISSP
12 1 (0.60%) AWS Certification
12 1 (0.60%) ITIL Certification
12 1 (0.60%) JNCIA
12 1 (0.60%) JNCIP
12 1 (0.60%) JNCIS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (9.58%) PMO
2 12 (7.19%) SLA
3 5 (2.99%) NIST
3 5 (2.99%) PCI DSS
4 2 (1.20%) QA
System Software
1 16 (9.58%) ProxySG
2 6 (3.59%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (1.80%) Docker
3 3 (1.80%) VMware NSX
4 2 (1.20%) Firmware
4 2 (1.20%) Hyper-V
5 1 (0.60%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 33 (19.76%) FortiGate
2 23 (13.77%) Ansible
3 13 (7.78%) Terraform
4 12 (7.19%) Nagios
5 9 (5.39%) Check_MK
6 7 (4.19%) Grafana
6 7 (4.19%) Kubernetes
7 6 (3.59%) Prometheus
8 3 (1.80%) ZABBIX
9 1 (0.60%) CASB
9 1 (0.60%) Cisco Prime
9 1 (0.60%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 128 (76.65%) Cisco
2 59 (35.33%) SolarWinds
3 54 (32.34%) Palo Alto
4 49 (29.34%) Fortinet
5 35 (20.96%) Meraki
6 33 (19.76%) CheckPoint
7 32 (19.16%) F5
8 24 (14.37%) ServiceNow
9 22 (13.17%) Arista
10 21 (12.57%) Infoblox
11 16 (9.58%) Blue Coat
11 16 (9.58%) Motorola
12 14 (8.38%) Juniper
13 10 (5.99%) Aruba
13 10 (5.99%) Dynatrace
14 9 (5.39%) Microsoft
15 8 (4.79%) VMware
16 6 (3.59%) Mellanox
16 6 (3.59%) NVIDIA
16 6 (3.59%) Zscaler