OSPF Job Trends

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 25 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 578 405 535
Rank change year-on-year -173 +130 +124
Permanent jobs citing OSPF 119 252 322
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.15% 0.61% 0.37%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 1.16% 4.86% 2.76%
Number of salaries quoted 65 220 268
10th Percentile £49,100 £32,500 £37,500
25th Percentile £58,750 £44,700 £46,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £55,000 £50,500
Median % change year-on-year +27.27% +8.91% -8.18%
75th Percentile £77,500 £72,500 £63,750
90th Percentile £103,750 £85,000 £82,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £65,000 £53,000 £48,500
% change year-on-year +22.64% +9.28% +7.78%

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 10,226 5,186 11,681
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 13.29% 12.60% 13.36%
Number of salaries quoted 4,054 3,664 9,303
10th Percentile £26,259 £28,500 £26,250
25th Percentile £29,250 £36,250 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £52,500 £48,500
Median % change year-on-year -19.05% +8.25% -6.73%
75th Percentile £65,000 £70,000 £63,750
90th Percentile £85,000 £87,500 £78,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £35,340 £47,500 £43,500
% change year-on-year -25.60% +9.20% -3.33%

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 25 March 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 25 March 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 -159 115 £70,000 +27.27% 64
London -31 53 £74,000 +2.07% 17
UK excluding London -169 52 £65,000 +22.64% 57
Work from Home -19 26 £78,375 +36.30% 30
South East -103 19 £70,000 +32.08% 25
North of England -62 13 £60,000 +9.09% 10
North East -17 9 - - 2
Midlands -50 9 £62,500 +78.57% 6
West Midlands -19 7 £62,500 +78.57% 5
South West -51 6 £62,800 +11.90% 6
East of England -20 5 £40,000 -23.08% 5
Yorkshire -51 3 £62,500 +25.38% 3
East Midlands - 2 £50,000 - 1
North West -33 1 £53,000 -7.83% 5

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 5 (4.20%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (1.68%) Confluence
Applications
1 23 (19.33%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.84%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.84%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 52 (43.70%) Azure
2 43 (36.13%) AWS
3 14 (11.76%) AWS Direct Connect
4 12 (10.08%) Virtual Private Cloud
5 11 (9.24%) SaaS
6 5 (4.20%) Microsoft 365
7 4 (3.36%) Datadog
7 4 (3.36%) GCP
8 3 (2.52%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 2 (1.68%) Nutanix
9 2 (1.68%) OCI
10 1 (0.84%) Azure Monitor
10 1 (0.84%) Stackdriver
Communications & Networking
1 114 (95.80%) BGP
2 102 (85.71%) Firewall
3 86 (72.27%) WAN
4 81 (68.07%) VPN
5 72 (60.50%) LAN
6 61 (51.26%) Wireless
7 57 (47.90%) SD-WAN
8 52 (43.70%) EIGRP
9 47 (39.50%) Cisco ASA
9 47 (39.50%) Network Security
10 42 (35.29%) VLAN
11 38 (31.93%) MPLS
12 37 (31.09%) Cisco Nexus
13 34 (28.57%) VXLAN
14 32 (26.89%) Cisco ISE
15 30 (25.21%) Wi-Fi
16 23 (19.33%) Cisco Firepower
17 20 (16.81%) Cisco Wireless
17 20 (16.81%) IPsec
18 18 (15.13%) WAAS
Development Applications
1 4 (3.36%) Git
2 1 (0.84%) JIRA
2 1 (0.84%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 34 (28.57%) Analytical Skills
2 32 (26.89%) Social Skills
3 16 (13.45%) Finance
4 8 (6.72%) Retail Banking
5 6 (5.04%) Banking
5 6 (5.04%) Law
6 4 (3.36%) Public Sector
7 3 (2.52%) Marketing
8 2 (1.68%) Documentation Skills
8 2 (1.68%) Financial Institution
8 2 (1.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 2 (1.68%) Telecoms
9 1 (0.84%) Organisational Skills
9 1 (0.84%) Police
9 1 (0.84%) Retail
Job Titles
1 90 (75.63%) Network Engineer
2 43 (36.13%) Senior
3 41 (34.45%) Senior Network Engineer
4 14 (11.76%) Cisco Engineer
4 14 (11.76%) Cisco Network Engineer
5 12 (10.08%) Consultant
5 12 (10.08%) Firewall Engineer
5 12 (10.08%) Network Consultant
6 10 (8.40%) Cisco Consultant
6 10 (8.40%) Cisco Network Consultant
6 10 (8.40%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 9 (7.56%) Infrastructure Operations Engineer
7 9 (7.56%) Network Infrastructure Engineer
7 9 (7.56%) Network Operations Engineer
7 9 (7.56%) Operations Engineer
7 9 (7.56%) WAN Consultant
8 8 (6.72%) Lead
8 8 (6.72%) Network Team Leader
8 8 (6.72%) Team Leader
9 7 (5.88%) Lead Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (9.24%) REST
2 9 (7.56%) 802.1X
3 1 (0.84%) ARM Templates
Miscellaneous
1 56 (47.06%) Data Centre
2 9 (7.56%) Management Information System
3 8 (6.72%) Onboarding
4 6 (5.04%) Driving Licence
5 5 (4.20%) PKI
5 5 (4.20%) Security Posture
6 3 (2.52%) Cloud Native
6 3 (2.52%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
6 3 (2.52%) Virtual Team
7 2 (1.68%) e-Learning
7 2 (1.68%) Public Cloud
8 1 (0.84%) Digital Media
8 1 (0.84%) Hedge funds
8 1 (0.84%) Hybrid Cloud
8 1 (0.84%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 5 (4.20%) Linux
1 5 (4.20%) Windows
1 5 (4.20%) Windows Server
2 1 (0.84%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 29 (24.37%) Kalman Filter
1 29 (24.37%) Load Balancing
2 28 (23.53%) Problem-Solving
3 25 (21.01%) Computer Science
4 22 (18.49%) Network Monitoring
5 21 (17.65%) Network Segmentation
5 21 (17.65%) Project Delivery
5 21 (17.65%) Root Cause Analysis
6 18 (15.13%) WAN Optimisation
7 17 (14.29%) Collaborative Working
7 17 (14.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 16 (13.45%) Analytical Thinking
8 16 (13.45%) Zero Trust
9 15 (12.61%) ITIL
10 14 (11.76%) Cloud Security
11 13 (10.92%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 11 (9.24%) Network Design
13 10 (8.40%) Change Management
13 10 (8.40%) High Availability
14 9 (7.56%) Network Management
Programming Languages
1 44 (36.97%) Python
2 3 (2.52%) Bash
3 1 (0.84%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 87 (73.11%) Cisco Certification
2 85 (71.43%) CCNP
3 30 (25.21%) CCIE
4 28 (23.53%) Degree
5 25 (21.01%) Computer Science Degree
6 11 (9.24%) CCNA
7 6 (5.04%) Security Cleared
8 5 (4.20%) DBS Check
8 5 (4.20%) SC Cleared
9 4 (3.36%) Azure Certification
9 4 (3.36%) DV Cleared
10 3 (2.52%) AWS Certification
10 3 (2.52%) Master's Degree
11 2 (1.68%) BPSS Clearance
11 2 (1.68%) CCSA
11 2 (1.68%) CCSE
12 1 (0.84%) JNCIA
12 1 (0.84%) JNCIP
12 1 (0.84%) JNCIS
12 1 (0.84%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (15.13%) PMO
2 5 (4.20%) NIST
3 4 (3.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 3 (2.52%) PCI DSS
5 2 (1.68%) SLA
6 1 (0.84%) GDPR
6 1 (0.84%) ISO 9001
6 1 (0.84%) SOC 2
System Software
1 16 (13.45%) ProxySG
2 5 (4.20%) Active Directory
2 5 (4.20%) VMware Infrastructure
3 2 (1.68%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.84%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 20 (16.81%) Ansible
1 20 (16.81%) FortiGate
2 8 (6.72%) Check_MK
3 6 (5.04%) Terraform
4 5 (4.20%) Nagios
5 1 (0.84%) VxRail
Vendors
1 113 (94.96%) Cisco
2 59 (49.58%) SolarWinds
3 47 (39.50%) Fortinet
4 44 (36.97%) Meraki
5 42 (35.29%) Palo Alto
6 36 (30.25%) CheckPoint
7 25 (21.01%) ServiceNow
8 24 (20.17%) F5
9 22 (18.49%) Infoblox
10 18 (15.13%) Motorola
11 16 (13.45%) Blue Coat
12 14 (11.76%) Arista
13 11 (9.24%) Dynatrace
14 9 (7.56%) Juniper
14 9 (7.56%) Microsoft
15 6 (5.04%) VMware
16 5 (4.20%) Aruba
17 3 (2.52%) ForeScout
17 3 (2.52%) SevOne
17 3 (2.52%) Splunk