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 15 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 538 404 413
Rank change year-on-year -134 +9 +287
Permanent jobs citing OSPF 111 338 328
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.18% 0.63% 0.59%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 1.15% 4.71% 4.20%
Number of salaries quoted 71 215 259
10th Percentile £47,500 £32,500 £37,500
25th Percentile £55,092 £45,000 £46,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £55,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +18.18% +10.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £77,500 £68,750 £65,000
90th Percentile £87,500 £83,750 £85,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £62,500 £53,000 £49,000
% change year-on-year +17.92% +8.16% +8.89%

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 9,621 7,173 7,803
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 15.96% 13.38% 14.07%
Number of salaries quoted 3,891 3,730 6,309
10th Percentile £25,250 £31,250 £26,500
25th Percentile £28,250 £39,063 £34,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £38,500 £55,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -30.00% +10.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £62,500 £71,250 £67,500
90th Percentile £81,250 £87,500 £82,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £33,750 £50,000 £45,000
% change year-on-year -32.50% +11.11% -

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 15 January 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 15 January 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 -130 109 £65,000 +18.18% 41
UK excluding London -120 60 £62,500 +17.92% 33
London +1 43 £74,000 +2.07% 21
Work from Home +6 25 £65,000 +4.00% 20
South East -58 22 £65,000 +18.18% 16
Midlands -10 12 £62,500 +78.57% 6
North of England -18 12 £56,500 +25.56% 2
West Midlands -10 9 £63,750 +82.14% 6
South West -7 8 £54,560 -2.78% 2
East of England +19 6 £53,750 -32.81% 2
North East +15 5 - - 2
North West -6 4 £50,750 +12.78%
East Midlands -13 3 £50,000 -
Yorkshire -17 3 £62,500 +25.00% 2

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 (4.50%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (1.80%) Apache Airflow
2 2 (1.80%) Confluence
2 2 (1.80%) nginx
Applications
1 18 (16.22%) MS Visio
2 3 (2.70%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.90%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 51 (45.95%) Azure
2 37 (33.33%) AWS
3 9 (8.11%) AWS Direct Connect
4 6 (5.41%) Virtual Private Cloud
5 5 (4.50%) GCP
5 5 (4.50%) Microsoft 365
5 5 (4.50%) SaaS
6 3 (2.70%) Azure DevOps
6 3 (2.70%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 2 (1.80%) Dagster
7 2 (1.80%) OCI
8 1 (0.90%) Azure Sentinel
8 1 (0.90%) Datadog
8 1 (0.90%) Nutanix
8 1 (0.90%) Stackdriver
Communications & Networking
1 106 (95.50%) BGP
2 96 (86.49%) Firewall
3 73 (65.77%) WAN
4 70 (63.06%) VPN
5 57 (51.35%) LAN
6 51 (45.95%) Wireless
7 48 (43.24%) EIGRP
8 43 (38.74%) Network Security
9 41 (36.94%) SD-WAN
10 36 (32.43%) VLAN
11 35 (31.53%) Cisco ASA
12 31 (27.93%) Wi-Fi
13 29 (26.13%) Cisco Nexus
14 27 (24.32%) MPLS
15 26 (23.42%) IPsec
16 25 (22.52%) TCP/IP
17 23 (20.72%) VXLAN
18 17 (15.32%) Wireshark
19 15 (13.51%) Cisco Firepower
19 15 (13.51%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (1.80%) Data Lake
1 2 (1.80%) Metadata
1 2 (1.80%) MongoDB
1 2 (1.80%) MySQL
1 2 (1.80%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 4 (3.60%) Git
1 4 (3.60%) Sonatype Nexus
2 2 (1.80%) GitLab
2 2 (1.80%) Jaeger
2 2 (1.80%) Jenkins
2 2 (1.80%) MLflow
3 1 (0.90%) JIRA
General
1 35 (31.53%) Social Skills
2 29 (26.13%) Analytical Skills
3 10 (9.01%) Finance
4 8 (7.21%) Documentation Skills
5 6 (5.41%) Marketing
6 5 (4.50%) Law
7 4 (3.60%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 3 (2.70%) Banking
9 2 (1.80%) Agriculture
9 2 (1.80%) Organisational Skills
9 2 (1.80%) Police
9 2 (1.80%) Public Sector
10 1 (0.90%) Retail
10 1 (0.90%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 81 (72.97%) Network Engineer
2 36 (32.43%) Senior
3 33 (29.73%) Senior Network Engineer
4 13 (11.71%) Cisco Engineer
4 13 (11.71%) Cisco Network Engineer
5 9 (8.11%) Cisco Consultant
5 9 (8.11%) Cisco Network Consultant
5 9 (8.11%) Consultant
5 9 (8.11%) Network Consultant
6 8 (7.21%) WAN Consultant
7 7 (6.31%) Firewall Engineer
7 7 (6.31%) Lead
7 7 (6.31%) Lead Network Engineer
7 7 (6.31%) Network Team Leader
7 7 (6.31%) Team Leader
8 5 (4.50%) 3rd Line Support
8 5 (4.50%) Architect
8 5 (4.50%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 5 (4.50%) Network Architect
8 5 (4.50%) Network Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (11.71%) REST
2 5 (4.50%) 802.1X
3 2 (1.80%) FastAPI
3 2 (1.80%) Kafka
3 2 (1.80%) Keycloak
3 2 (1.80%) WebRTC
Miscellaneous
1 42 (37.84%) Data Centre
2 7 (6.31%) Driving Licence
3 5 (4.50%) Management Information System
4 4 (3.60%) Cloud Native
4 4 (3.60%) Onboarding
4 4 (3.60%) Public Cloud
5 3 (2.70%) Data Protection Act
5 3 (2.70%) Virtual Team
6 2 (1.80%) e-Learning
6 2 (1.80%) IoT
6 2 (1.80%) MPEG
6 2 (1.80%) PKI
6 2 (1.80%) Robotics
7 1 (0.90%) Digital Media
7 1 (0.90%) e-Health
7 1 (0.90%) Hedge funds
7 1 (0.90%) Hybrid Cloud
7 1 (0.90%) Security Posture
7 1 (0.90%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 6 (5.41%) Windows
2 5 (4.50%) Windows Server
3 4 (3.60%) Linux
4 1 (0.90%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 24 (21.62%) Load Balancing
2 23 (20.72%) Problem-Solving
3 21 (18.92%) Kalman Filter
4 20 (18.02%) Computer Science
5 17 (15.32%) Network Monitoring
6 16 (14.41%) Network Segmentation
7 15 (13.51%) Root Cause Analysis
8 14 (12.61%) Project Delivery
9 13 (11.71%) ITIL
10 12 (10.81%) Cloud Security
11 11 (9.91%) Change Management
11 11 (9.91%) Customer Service
11 11 (9.91%) Zero Trust
12 10 (9.01%) High Availability
12 10 (9.01%) Network Management
13 9 (8.11%) Collaborative Working
13 9 (8.11%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 9 (8.11%) Time Management
14 8 (7.21%) Analytical Thinking
14 8 (7.21%) Strategic Thinking
Programming Languages
1 40 (36.04%) Python
2 4 (3.60%) Bash
3 1 (0.90%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 79 (71.17%) Cisco Certification
2 76 (68.47%) CCNP
3 27 (24.32%) Degree
4 26 (23.42%) CCIE
5 19 (17.12%) Computer Science Degree
6 14 (12.61%) CCNA
7 13 (11.71%) Security Cleared
8 10 (9.01%) SC Cleared
9 6 (5.41%) Azure Certification
10 5 (4.50%) DBS Check
11 4 (3.60%) AWS Certification
11 4 (3.60%) DV Cleared
12 3 (2.70%) Master's Degree
13 2 (1.80%) CISSP
13 2 (1.80%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 1 (0.90%) JNCIA
14 1 (0.90%) JNCIP
14 1 (0.90%) JNCIS
14 1 (0.90%) Network+ Certification
14 1 (0.90%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (12.61%) PMO
2 5 (4.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 3 (2.70%) NIST
3 3 (2.70%) SLA
4 1 (0.90%) GDPR
4 1 (0.90%) ISO 9001
4 1 (0.90%) SOC 2
System Software
1 12 (10.81%) ProxySG
2 9 (8.11%) VMware Infrastructure
3 7 (6.31%) Active Directory
4 6 (5.41%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (2.70%) Firmware
6 2 (1.80%) Docker
6 2 (1.80%) NFS
6 2 (1.80%) pfSense
6 2 (1.80%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 24 (21.62%) Ansible
2 19 (17.12%) FortiGate
3 13 (11.71%) Terraform
4 3 (2.70%) Dell DRAC
4 3 (2.70%) Nagios
5 2 (1.80%) Argo
5 2 (1.80%) Grafana
5 2 (1.80%) Kubernetes
5 2 (1.80%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.90%) CA Spectrum
6 1 (0.90%) VxRail
Vendors
1 101 (90.99%) Cisco
2 38 (34.23%) Palo Alto
2 38 (34.23%) SolarWinds
3 36 (32.43%) Fortinet
4 34 (30.63%) Meraki
5 31 (27.93%) CheckPoint
6 19 (17.12%) F5
7 15 (13.51%) Infoblox
7 15 (13.51%) ServiceNow
8 14 (12.61%) Motorola
9 12 (10.81%) Blue Coat
10 11 (9.91%) Microsoft
10 11 (9.91%) VMware
11 9 (8.11%) Juniper
12 8 (7.21%) Arista
13 5 (4.50%) Aruba
13 5 (4.50%) Dynatrace
13 5 (4.50%) Zscaler
14 4 (3.60%) Dell
15 3 (2.70%) Citrix