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 14 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 564 434 569
Rank change year-on-year -130 +135 +51
Permanent jobs citing OSPF 148 240 327
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.16% 0.55% 0.34%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 1.68% 3.69% 2.54%
Number of salaries quoted 95 202 261
10th Percentile £44,000 £32,500 £37,500
25th Percentile £61,761 £43,799 £46,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £72,500 £53,000 £50,500
Median % change year-on-year +36.79% +4.95% -8.18%
75th Percentile £77,500 £66,250 £65,000
90th Percentile £99,500 £84,875 £81,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £70,000 £53,000 £48,500
% change year-on-year +32.08% +9.28% +4.30%

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 8,826 6,508 12,882
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 9.73% 14.99% 13.36%
Number of salaries quoted 4,020 3,739 9,383
10th Percentile £27,500 £27,000 £26,250
25th Percentile £31,250 £32,500 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £50,000 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% +5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £68,750 £68,750 £63,750
90th Percentile £85,000 £87,500 £77,715
UK excluding London median annual salary £40,000 £45,000 £43,500
% change year-on-year -11.11% +3.45% -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 14 May 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 14 May 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 -125 141 £72,500 +36.79% 70
UK excluding London -155 67 £70,000 +32.08% 63
London -26 65 £75,000 +15.38% 20
Work from Home -9 43 £75,500 +34.53% 35
North of England -23 22 £69,038 +25.52% 19
South East -86 21 £75,000 +41.51% 23
Midlands -34 15 £62,500 +78.57% 8
West Midlands -28 11 £62,500 +78.57% 7
North East - 9 £65,576 - 7
Yorkshire -68 7 £65,576 +46.70% 4
North West 0 6 £72,500 +26.09% 8
South West -56 4 £58,099 +3.53% 5
East Midlands - 4 £51,250 - 1
East of England -20 3 - - 2
Scotland -2 2 £72,500 +7.41% 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 4 (2.70%) Confluence
2 3 (2.03%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 23 (15.54%) MS Visio
2 2 (1.35%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 55 (37.16%) Azure
2 50 (33.78%) AWS
3 14 (9.46%) Virtual Private Cloud
4 12 (8.11%) AWS Direct Connect
5 11 (7.43%) SaaS
6 9 (6.08%) Datadog
7 7 (4.73%) GCP
8 5 (3.38%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 4 (2.70%) Microsoft 365
10 3 (2.03%) Azure Monitor
10 3 (2.03%) OpenShift
11 2 (1.35%) ChatGPT
11 2 (1.35%) Cloud Computing
11 2 (1.35%) Microsoft Copilot
11 2 (1.35%) Nutanix
11 2 (1.35%) Route 53
12 1 (0.68%) Cloudflare
12 1 (0.68%) OCI
12 1 (0.68%) Stackdriver
Communications & Networking
1 145 (97.97%) BGP
2 125 (84.46%) Firewall
3 102 (68.92%) WAN
4 97 (65.54%) VPN
5 81 (54.73%) LAN
6 65 (43.92%) SD-WAN
7 63 (42.57%) Network Security
8 61 (41.22%) Wireless
9 48 (32.43%) VLAN
10 47 (31.76%) Cisco ASA
11 42 (28.38%) EIGRP
11 42 (28.38%) MPLS
11 42 (28.38%) VXLAN
12 40 (27.03%) Cisco ISE
13 35 (23.65%) Cisco Nexus
14 31 (20.95%) Wi-Fi
15 28 (18.92%) TCP/IP
16 25 (16.89%) Ethernet VPN
17 24 (16.22%) Cisco Firepower
17 24 (16.22%) Cisco Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (2.03%) InfluxDB
Development Applications
1 2 (1.35%) Git
1 2 (1.35%) JIRA
1 2 (1.35%) Sonatype Nexus
2 1 (0.68%) GitLab
General
1 43 (29.05%) Social Skills
2 30 (20.27%) Analytical Skills
3 18 (12.16%) Finance
4 14 (9.46%) Law
5 13 (8.78%) Telecoms
6 8 (5.41%) Retail Banking
7 6 (4.05%) Documentation Skills
8 5 (3.38%) Banking
9 2 (1.35%) Financial Institution
9 2 (1.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 2 (1.35%) Public Sector
10 1 (0.68%) Marketing
10 1 (0.68%) Organisational Skills
10 1 (0.68%) Police
10 1 (0.68%) Retail
Job Titles
1 113 (76.35%) Network Engineer
2 56 (37.84%) Senior
3 49 (33.11%) Senior Network Engineer
4 14 (9.46%) Cisco Engineer
4 14 (9.46%) Cisco Network Engineer
4 14 (9.46%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 12 (8.11%) Firewall Engineer
6 11 (7.43%) Consultant
6 11 (7.43%) Network Consultant
6 11 (7.43%) Network Infrastructure Engineer
7 9 (6.08%) Cisco Consultant
7 9 (6.08%) Cisco Network Consultant
7 9 (6.08%) Infrastructure Operations Engineer
7 9 (6.08%) Network Operations Engineer
7 9 (6.08%) Operations Engineer
7 9 (6.08%) WAN Consultant
8 5 (3.38%) AWS Engineer
8 5 (3.38%) AWS Infrastructure Engineer
8 5 (3.38%) Network Specialist
8 5 (3.38%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (10.81%) 802.1X
2 9 (6.08%) REST
3 7 (4.73%) gRPC
4 3 (2.03%) ARM Templates
4 3 (2.03%) OpenTelemetry
5 1 (0.68%) LDAP
5 1 (0.68%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 74 (50.00%) Data Centre
2 10 (6.76%) PKI
3 9 (6.08%) Management Information System
3 9 (6.08%) Onboarding
3 9 (6.08%) Security Posture
4 6 (4.05%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
4 6 (4.05%) Driving Licence
5 4 (2.70%) Hybrid Cloud
6 3 (2.03%) Cloud Native
7 1 (0.68%) e-Learning
7 1 (0.68%) IPTV
7 1 (0.68%) Linux Command Line
7 1 (0.68%) Self-Motivation
7 1 (0.68%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 14 (9.46%) Linux
2 5 (3.38%) Windows
3 3 (2.03%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.68%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 40 (27.03%) Problem-Solving
2 35 (23.65%) Load Balancing
3 31 (20.95%) Network Monitoring
4 27 (18.24%) Kalman Filter
5 25 (16.89%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 24 (16.22%) Computer Science
6 24 (16.22%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 23 (15.54%) Network Segmentation
8 21 (14.19%) Project Delivery
8 21 (14.19%) Root Cause Analysis
9 20 (13.51%) WAN Optimisation
10 19 (12.84%) ITIL
10 19 (12.84%) Zero Trust
11 17 (11.49%) Collaborative Working
11 17 (11.49%) Network Design
11 17 (11.49%) Runbook
12 16 (10.81%) Analytical Thinking
12 16 (10.81%) Observability
13 14 (9.46%) High Availability
14 13 (8.78%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 52 (35.14%) Python
2 6 (4.05%) Bash
3 4 (2.70%) Bicep
4 1 (0.68%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 86 (58.11%) Cisco Certification
2 81 (54.73%) CCNP
3 26 (17.57%) Degree
4 25 (16.89%) CCIE
5 21 (14.19%) Computer Science Degree
6 17 (11.49%) Security Cleared
7 12 (8.11%) CCNA
8 10 (6.76%) DV Cleared
9 8 (5.41%) SC Cleared
10 4 (2.70%) Azure Certification
11 3 (2.03%) DBS Check
12 2 (1.35%) AWS Certification
12 2 (1.35%) BPSS Clearance
12 2 (1.35%) CCSA
12 2 (1.35%) CCSE
12 2 (1.35%) JNCIA
12 2 (1.35%) JNCIP
12 2 (1.35%) JNCIS
12 2 (1.35%) Network+ Certification
13 1 (0.68%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (10.81%) PMO
2 12 (8.11%) SLA
3 5 (3.38%) NIST
3 5 (3.38%) PCI DSS
4 1 (0.68%) GDPR
4 1 (0.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 1 (0.68%) SOC 2
System Software
1 16 (10.81%) ProxySG
2 6 (4.05%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (2.03%) Active Directory
3 3 (2.03%) Docker
3 3 (2.03%) VMware NSX
4 2 (1.35%) Firmware
4 2 (1.35%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 30 (20.27%) FortiGate
2 25 (16.89%) Ansible
3 12 (8.11%) Nagios
3 12 (8.11%) Terraform
4 9 (6.08%) Check_MK
5 7 (4.73%) Grafana
6 6 (4.05%) Prometheus
7 3 (2.03%) Kubernetes
7 3 (2.03%) ZABBIX
8 1 (0.68%) CASB
8 1 (0.68%) Cisco Prime
8 1 (0.68%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 117 (79.05%) Cisco
2 62 (41.89%) SolarWinds
3 48 (32.43%) Palo Alto
4 44 (29.73%) Fortinet
5 38 (25.68%) Meraki
6 34 (22.97%) CheckPoint
7 32 (21.62%) F5
8 25 (16.89%) ServiceNow
9 22 (14.86%) Infoblox
10 20 (13.51%) Arista
11 16 (10.81%) Blue Coat
11 16 (10.81%) Motorola
12 11 (7.43%) Dynatrace
12 11 (7.43%) Juniper
13 10 (6.76%) Microsoft
14 8 (5.41%) VMware
15 7 (4.73%) Aruba
16 5 (3.38%) Mellanox
16 5 (3.38%) NVIDIA
16 5 (3.38%) Splunk