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 28 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 615 514 514
Rank change year-on-year -101 0 -76
Permanent jobs citing OSPF 188 170 321
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.17% 0.34% 0.38%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 2.49% 2.32% 3.25%
Number of salaries quoted 138 110 216
10th Percentile £47,750 £33,200 £32,500
25th Percentile £59,503 £46,250 £42,909
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +36.36% - -
75th Percentile £86,250 £71,875 £67,813
90th Percentile £95,000 £85,250 £87,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £65,576 £52,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year +24.91% +5.00% -4.76%

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 7,537 7,338 9,866
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 6.89% 14.68% 11.82%
Number of salaries quoted 4,878 4,169 5,972
10th Percentile £28,000 £25,087 £27,750
25th Percentile £32,750 £29,500 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £47,500 £40,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +18.75% -20.00% -3.85%
75th Percentile £70,000 £61,250 £65,000
90th Percentile £87,500 £78,750 £80,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £44,472 £35,500 £45,000
% change year-on-year +25.27% -21.11% -

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 28 August 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 28 August 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 -71 178 £75,000 +36.36% 137
UK excluding London -66 100 £65,576 +24.91% 58
London -52 80 £83,750 +28.85% 88
Work from Home -23 55 £78,000 +20.00% 39
Midlands -1 32 £75,000 +27.66% 12
West Midlands -2 30 £75,000 +27.66% 10
North of England -38 27 £70,000 +16.67% 6
South East -54 22 £52,500 +5.55% 14
North West -14 17 £70,000 +19.15% 1
South West -73 9 £55,000 +3.77% 8
Scotland +8 7 £50,500 - 6
Yorkshire -43 7 £72,788 -9.02% 5
East of England -22 4 £60,000 +4.35% 10
North East - 3 £65,576 -
East Midlands - 2 £53,750 - 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 2 (1.06%) Confluence
Applications
1 8 (4.26%) MS Visio
2 2 (1.06%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.53%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 2 (1.06%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 59 (31.38%) Azure
2 42 (22.34%) AWS
3 19 (10.11%) OpenShift
4 9 (4.79%) GCP
5 5 (2.66%) Azure ExpressRoute
5 5 (2.66%) Datadog
5 5 (2.66%) SaaS
6 4 (2.13%) ChatGPT
6 4 (2.13%) Microsoft Copilot
7 3 (1.60%) Azure Monitor
8 2 (1.06%) Cloud Computing
8 2 (1.06%) Route 53
8 2 (1.06%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 1 (0.53%) Cloudflare
9 1 (0.53%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 178 (94.68%) BGP
2 138 (73.40%) Firewall
3 118 (62.77%) VPN
4 115 (61.17%) WAN
5 98 (52.13%) LAN
6 91 (48.40%) Network Security
7 69 (36.70%) VLAN
8 49 (26.06%) SD-WAN
8 49 (26.06%) TCP/IP
8 49 (26.06%) Wireless
9 46 (24.47%) EIGRP
10 43 (22.87%) DNS
11 40 (21.28%) VXLAN
12 39 (20.74%) Wi-Fi
13 34 (18.09%) MPLS
14 30 (15.96%) Cisco Nexus
15 29 (15.43%) Cisco ISE
16 28 (14.89%) Cisco ASA
17 26 (13.83%) Ethernet VPN
18 20 (10.64%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (1.60%) InfluxDB
Development Applications
1 6 (3.19%) Sonatype Nexus
2 3 (1.60%) Git
3 2 (1.06%) GitLab
4 1 (0.53%) JIRA
4 1 (0.53%) Robot Framework
4 1 (0.53%) Selenium
General
1 65 (34.57%) Social Skills
2 34 (18.09%) Finance
3 24 (12.77%) Telecoms
4 20 (10.64%) Analytical Skills
5 12 (6.38%) Law
6 10 (5.32%) Banking
6 10 (5.32%) Public Sector
7 8 (4.26%) Documentation Skills
7 8 (4.26%) Marketing
7 8 (4.26%) Retail
8 5 (2.66%) Manufacturing
8 5 (2.66%) Organisational Skills
9 4 (2.13%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 2 (1.06%) Aerospace
11 1 (0.53%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 131 (69.68%) Network Engineer
2 62 (32.98%) Senior
3 41 (21.81%) Senior Network Engineer
4 25 (13.30%) Network Specialist
5 18 (9.57%) Network Security Specialist
5 18 (9.57%) Security Specialist
6 14 (7.45%) Senior Data Warehouse Specialist
6 14 (7.45%) Senior Network Specialist
7 13 (6.91%) Cisco Engineer
7 13 (6.91%) Cisco Network Engineer
7 13 (6.91%) Senior Network Security Specialist
7 13 (6.91%) Senior Security Specialist
8 7 (3.72%) Consultant
8 7 (3.72%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 7 (3.72%) Network Consultant
9 6 (3.19%) Network Security Engineer
9 6 (3.19%) Principal Engineer
9 6 (3.19%) Security Engineer
10 5 (2.66%) Principal Systems Engineer
10 5 (2.66%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (13.30%) Terraform
2 14 (7.45%) 802.1X
3 7 (3.72%) gRPC
4 3 (1.60%) ARM Templates
4 3 (1.60%) OpenTelemetry
5 2 (1.06%) YAML
6 1 (0.53%) Jinja
6 1 (0.53%) LDAP
6 1 (0.53%) REST
6 1 (0.53%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 79 (42.02%) Data Centre
2 9 (4.79%) Onboarding
2 9 (4.79%) Security Posture
3 7 (3.72%) Hybrid Cloud
4 6 (3.19%) PKI
5 4 (2.13%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
5 4 (2.13%) Driving Licence
6 3 (1.60%) CMDB
6 3 (1.60%) Cyber Security Posture
6 3 (1.60%) Life Science
6 3 (1.60%) SCADA
7 2 (1.06%) Linux Command Line
7 2 (1.06%) Management Information System
7 2 (1.06%) Product Ownership
8 1 (0.53%) Data Protection Act
8 1 (0.53%) IPTV
8 1 (0.53%) Private Cloud
8 1 (0.53%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 17 (9.04%) Linux
2 7 (3.72%) Windows
3 3 (1.60%) Windows Server
4 2 (1.06%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 39 (20.74%) Infrastructure as Code
1 39 (20.74%) Network Monitoring
2 37 (19.68%) Problem-Solving
3 31 (16.49%) Roadmaps
4 27 (14.36%) Network Design
5 26 (13.83%) High Availability
6 25 (13.30%) Zero Trust
7 24 (12.77%) Load Balancing
8 23 (12.23%) Mentoring
9 21 (11.17%) Project Delivery
9 21 (11.17%) Technical Leadership
10 20 (10.64%) AI
10 20 (10.64%) Cybersecurity
10 20 (10.64%) Information Security
10 20 (10.64%) ITIL
10 20 (10.64%) Network Segmentation
10 20 (10.64%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 19 (10.11%) Change Management
11 19 (10.11%) Migration
11 19 (10.11%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 45 (23.94%) Python
2 7 (3.72%) Bash
3 6 (3.19%) Bicep
4 3 (1.60%) PowerShell
5 1 (0.53%) C
5 1 (0.53%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 98 (52.13%) Cisco Certification
2 87 (46.28%) CCNP
3 26 (13.83%) CCNA
4 25 (13.30%) Security Cleared
5 22 (11.70%) CCIE
6 19 (10.11%) DV Cleared
7 17 (9.04%) Degree
8 12 (6.38%) CISSP
9 10 (5.32%) Computer Science Degree
9 10 (5.32%) SC Cleared
10 5 (2.66%) ITIL Certification
11 4 (2.13%) BPSS Clearance
11 4 (2.13%) Network+ Certification
12 3 (1.60%) Azure Certification
12 3 (1.60%) CCDP
13 2 (1.06%) AWS Certification
13 2 (1.06%) CCIE Data Center
13 2 (1.06%) JNCIP
13 2 (1.06%) JNCIS
14 1 (0.53%) CCIE Service Provider
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (6.91%) SLA
2 7 (3.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 5 (2.66%) NIST
3 5 (2.66%) QA
4 4 (2.13%) PMO
5 2 (1.06%) Accessibility
5 2 (1.06%) PCI DSS
6 1 (0.53%) Cyber Essentials
System Software
1 10 (5.32%) VMware NSX
2 8 (4.26%) VMware Infrastructure
3 7 (3.72%) Firmware
4 4 (2.13%) ProxySG
5 3 (1.60%) Docker
5 3 (1.60%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (1.06%) Active Directory
7 1 (0.53%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.53%) KVM
Systems Management
1 36 (19.15%) FortiGate
2 35 (18.62%) Ansible
3 19 (10.11%) Kubernetes
4 8 (4.26%) Nagios
5 7 (3.72%) Grafana
6 6 (3.19%) Prometheus
7 4 (2.13%) ZABBIX
8 3 (1.60%) Symantec Endpoint Protection
9 2 (1.06%) Check_MK
9 2 (1.06%) Cisco Prime
10 1 (0.53%) CASB
10 1 (0.53%) Proxmox
10 1 (0.53%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 124 (65.96%) Cisco
2 64 (34.04%) Palo Alto
3 53 (28.19%) Fortinet
4 26 (13.83%) SolarWinds
5 22 (11.70%) Arista
6 21 (11.17%) F5
7 20 (10.64%) Juniper
8 18 (9.57%) Aruba
8 18 (9.57%) Zscaler
9 15 (7.98%) Meraki
10 14 (7.45%) VMware
11 11 (5.85%) Microsoft
12 10 (5.32%) CheckPoint
13 9 (4.79%) Infoblox
14 7 (3.72%) ServiceNow
15 6 (3.19%) Mellanox
15 6 (3.19%) NVIDIA
16 4 (2.13%) Blue Coat
16 4 (2.13%) Motorola
16 4 (2.13%) SonicWALL