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

6 months to
6 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 579 441 569
Rank change year-on-year -138 +128 +18
Permanent jobs citing OSPF 169 232 328
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.18% 0.53% 0.32%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 2.19% 3.51% 2.51%
Number of salaries quoted 120 181 245
10th Percentile £47,375 £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 £78,500 £67,500 £67,500
90th Percentile £91,625 £85,000 £87,250
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 7,700 6,601 13,073
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 8.34% 15.03% 12.60%
Number of salaries quoted 4,289 3,683 9,383
10th Percentile £27,694 £26,250 £26,250
25th Percentile £31,250 £31,250 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £47,000 £47,500 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year -1.05% - -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 6 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 6 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 -105 161 £73,250 +38.21% 54
London -16 78 £75,000 +22.45% 16
UK excluding London -123 76 £70,000 +32.08% 53
Work from Home -4 48 £78,000 +30.00% 28
North of England -32 25 £70,000 +7.69% 11
South East -74 23 £75,000 +41.51% 14
Midlands -15 20 £62,500 +78.57% 9
West Midlands -27 17 £70,000 +100.00% 8
North East - 9 £65,576 - 4
North West +4 8 £71,250 +23.91% 4
Yorkshire -49 8 £72,788 -2.95% 3
Scotland +5 4 £61,500 -8.89% 8
South West -65 3 £58,099 +3.53% 6
East Midlands - 3 £52,500 - 1
East of England -21 1 - - 3

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 (1.18%) Confluence
2 1 (0.59%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 22 (13.02%) MS Visio
2 2 (1.18%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 61 (36.09%) Azure
2 50 (29.59%) AWS
3 12 (7.10%) Virtual Private Cloud
4 11 (6.51%) SaaS
5 10 (5.92%) AWS Direct Connect
6 8 (4.73%) Datadog
6 8 (4.73%) OpenShift
7 7 (4.14%) GCP
8 5 (2.96%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 4 (2.37%) ChatGPT
9 4 (2.37%) Microsoft Copilot
10 3 (1.78%) Azure Monitor
11 2 (1.18%) Cloud Computing
11 2 (1.18%) Microsoft 365
11 2 (1.18%) Nutanix
11 2 (1.18%) Route 53
12 1 (0.59%) Cloudflare
Communications & Networking
1 166 (98.22%) BGP
2 140 (82.84%) Firewall
3 112 (66.27%) VPN
4 109 (64.50%) WAN
5 88 (52.07%) LAN
6 77 (45.56%) Network Security
7 65 (38.46%) SD-WAN
8 62 (36.69%) Wireless
9 54 (31.95%) VLAN
10 49 (28.99%) Cisco ASA
11 48 (28.40%) EIGRP
12 45 (26.63%) VXLAN
13 43 (25.44%) MPLS
14 41 (24.26%) Cisco ISE
15 40 (23.67%) Cisco Nexus
16 37 (21.89%) Wi-Fi
17 31 (18.34%) TCP/IP
18 27 (15.98%) Cisco Firepower
19 26 (15.38%) Cisco Wireless
20 25 (14.79%) Ethernet VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (1.78%) InfluxDB
Development Applications
1 1 (0.59%) Git
1 1 (0.59%) GitLab
1 1 (0.59%) JIRA
1 1 (0.59%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 52 (30.77%) Social Skills
2 32 (18.93%) Analytical Skills
3 26 (15.38%) Finance
4 14 (8.28%) Law
4 14 (8.28%) Telecoms
5 8 (4.73%) Retail Banking
6 6 (3.55%) Documentation Skills
7 5 (2.96%) Banking
8 4 (2.37%) Public Sector
9 2 (1.18%) Financial Institution
9 2 (1.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 2 (1.18%) Organisational Skills
10 1 (0.59%) Marketing
10 1 (0.59%) Police
10 1 (0.59%) Retail
Job Titles
1 129 (76.33%) Network Engineer
2 69 (40.83%) Senior
3 55 (32.54%) Senior Network Engineer
4 14 (8.28%) Cisco Engineer
4 14 (8.28%) Cisco Network Engineer
5 13 (7.69%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 12 (7.10%) Consultant
6 12 (7.10%) Network Consultant
7 10 (5.92%) Firewall Engineer
7 10 (5.92%) Network Infrastructure Engineer
7 10 (5.92%) Network Specialist
8 8 (4.73%) Cisco Consultant
8 8 (4.73%) Cisco Network Consultant
8 8 (4.73%) Infrastructure Operations Engineer
8 8 (4.73%) Network Operations Engineer
8 8 (4.73%) Operations Engineer
8 8 (4.73%) WAN Consultant
9 7 (4.14%) Network Security Specialist
9 7 (4.14%) Senior Network Security Specialist
9 7 (4.14%) Senior Security Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 18 (10.65%) 802.1X
2 8 (4.73%) REST
3 7 (4.14%) gRPC
4 3 (1.78%) ARM Templates
4 3 (1.78%) OpenTelemetry
5 1 (0.59%) LDAP
5 1 (0.59%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 83 (49.11%) Data Centre
2 11 (6.51%) Security Posture
3 10 (5.92%) PKI
4 9 (5.33%) Onboarding
5 8 (4.73%) Management Information System
6 6 (3.55%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
6 6 (3.55%) Hybrid Cloud
7 4 (2.37%) Driving Licence
8 2 (1.18%) Cloud Native
9 1 (0.59%) Data Protection Act
9 1 (0.59%) IPTV
9 1 (0.59%) Life Science
9 1 (0.59%) Linux Command Line
9 1 (0.59%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 17 (10.06%) Linux
2 5 (2.96%) Windows
3 1 (0.59%) Unix
3 1 (0.59%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 45 (26.63%) Problem-Solving
2 37 (21.89%) Load Balancing
3 35 (20.71%) Network Monitoring
4 28 (16.57%) Kalman Filter
5 27 (15.98%) Computer Science
6 25 (14.79%) Network Segmentation
6 25 (14.79%) Project Delivery
7 24 (14.20%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 24 (14.20%) Zero Trust
8 23 (13.61%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 21 (12.43%) WAN Optimisation
10 20 (11.83%) Root Cause Analysis
11 19 (11.24%) Infrastructure as Code
11 19 (11.24%) Network Design
12 18 (10.65%) High Availability
12 18 (10.65%) ITIL
13 16 (9.47%) Analytical Thinking
13 16 (9.47%) Collaborative Working
13 16 (9.47%) Observability
13 16 (9.47%) Runbook
Programming Languages
1 51 (30.18%) Python
2 7 (4.14%) Bash
3 6 (3.55%) Bicep
4 3 (1.78%) PowerShell
5 1 (0.59%) C
Qualifications
1 95 (56.21%) Cisco Certification
2 87 (51.48%) CCNP
3 28 (16.57%) Degree
4 27 (15.98%) CCIE
5 24 (14.20%) Computer Science Degree
6 19 (11.24%) Security Cleared
7 15 (8.88%) CCNA
8 12 (7.10%) DV Cleared
9 10 (5.92%) SC Cleared
10 4 (2.37%) Azure Certification
10 4 (2.37%) Network+ Certification
11 3 (1.78%) CISSP
12 2 (1.18%) BPSS Clearance
12 2 (1.18%) CCSA
12 2 (1.18%) CCSE
13 1 (0.59%) AWS Certification
13 1 (0.59%) DBS Check
13 1 (0.59%) JNCIA
13 1 (0.59%) JNCIP
13 1 (0.59%) JNCIS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (9.47%) PMO
2 12 (7.10%) SLA
3 5 (2.96%) NIST
3 5 (2.96%) PCI DSS
4 2 (1.18%) QA
System Software
1 16 (9.47%) ProxySG
2 6 (3.55%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (1.78%) Docker
3 3 (1.78%) VMware NSX
4 2 (1.18%) Firmware
4 2 (1.18%) Hyper-V
5 1 (0.59%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 33 (19.53%) FortiGate
2 23 (13.61%) Ansible
3 13 (7.69%) Terraform
4 12 (7.10%) Nagios
5 9 (5.33%) Check_MK
6 8 (4.73%) Kubernetes
7 7 (4.14%) Grafana
8 6 (3.55%) Prometheus
9 3 (1.78%) ZABBIX
10 2 (1.18%) Cisco Prime
11 1 (0.59%) CASB
11 1 (0.59%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 129 (76.33%) Cisco
2 60 (35.50%) SolarWinds
3 56 (33.14%) Palo Alto
4 51 (30.18%) Fortinet
5 35 (20.71%) Meraki
6 33 (19.53%) CheckPoint
7 32 (18.93%) F5
8 24 (14.20%) ServiceNow
9 22 (13.02%) Arista
10 21 (12.43%) Infoblox
11 16 (9.47%) Blue Coat
11 16 (9.47%) Motorola
12 14 (8.28%) Juniper
13 11 (6.51%) Aruba
14 10 (5.92%) Dynatrace
15 9 (5.33%) Microsoft
16 8 (4.73%) VMware
17 7 (4.14%) Zscaler
18 6 (3.55%) Mellanox
18 6 (3.55%) NVIDIA