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

6 months to
20 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 592 439 577
Rank change year-on-year -153 +138 +43
Permanent jobs citing OSPF 149 244 326
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.16% 0.55% 0.34%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 1.67% 3.72% 2.53%
Number of salaries quoted 97 202 260
10th Percentile £47,000 £32,500 £37,500
25th Percentile £61,761 £43,799 £45,375
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £72,500 £53,000 £51,250
Median % change year-on-year +36.79% +3.41% -6.82%
75th Percentile £77,500 £67,188 £65,313
90th Percentile £99,250 £84,875 £81,375
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 8,931 6,566 12,870
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 9.68% 14.89% 13.23%
Number of salaries quoted 4,107 3,772 9,387
10th Percentile £27,500 £26,750 £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% -5.47%
75th Percentile £69,576 £68,750 £63,750
90th Percentile £85,000 £86,250 £77,706
UK excluding London median annual salary £40,000 £44,860 £43,500
% change year-on-year -10.83% +3.13% -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 20 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 20 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 -141 142 £72,500 +36.79% 68
London -26 69 £75,000 +15.38% 17
UK excluding London -142 64 £70,000 +32.08% 61
Work from Home +13 46 £77,375 +37.87% 33
North of England -35 23 £72,500 +28.89% 15
South East -89 18 £75,000 +41.51% 24
Midlands -31 15 £62,500 +78.57% 9
West Midlands -35 12 £66,250 +89.29% 8
North East - 9 £65,576 - 4
Yorkshire -52 8 £72,788 +62.84% 4
North West +1 6 £72,500 +26.09% 8
South West -72 4 £58,099 +3.53% 7
East Midlands - 3 £52,500 - 1
Scotland +1 2 £72,500 +7.41% 7
East of England -22 2 - - 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 4 (2.68%) Confluence
2 2 (1.34%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 23 (15.44%) MS Visio
2 3 (2.01%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 56 (37.58%) Azure
2 51 (34.23%) AWS
3 14 (9.40%) Virtual Private Cloud
4 12 (8.05%) AWS Direct Connect
5 11 (7.38%) SaaS
6 9 (6.04%) Datadog
7 8 (5.37%) GCP
8 5 (3.36%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 4 (2.68%) OpenShift
10 3 (2.01%) Azure Monitor
10 3 (2.01%) ChatGPT
10 3 (2.01%) Microsoft 365
10 3 (2.01%) Microsoft Copilot
11 2 (1.34%) Cloud Computing
11 2 (1.34%) Nutanix
11 2 (1.34%) Route 53
12 1 (0.67%) Cloudflare
12 1 (0.67%) OCI
12 1 (0.67%) Stackdriver
Communications & Networking
1 147 (98.66%) BGP
2 125 (83.89%) Firewall
3 100 (67.11%) WAN
4 97 (65.10%) VPN
5 79 (53.02%) LAN
6 65 (43.62%) Network Security
7 64 (42.95%) SD-WAN
8 60 (40.27%) Wireless
9 48 (32.21%) Cisco ASA
10 47 (31.54%) VLAN
11 43 (28.86%) VXLAN
12 42 (28.19%) EIGRP
12 42 (28.19%) MPLS
13 41 (27.52%) Cisco ISE
14 37 (24.83%) Cisco Nexus
15 31 (20.81%) Wi-Fi
16 30 (20.13%) TCP/IP
17 25 (16.78%) Cisco Firepower
17 25 (16.78%) Cisco Wireless
18 24 (16.11%) Ethernet VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (2.01%) InfluxDB
Development Applications
1 2 (1.34%) Git
1 2 (1.34%) JIRA
1 2 (1.34%) Sonatype Nexus
2 1 (0.67%) GitLab
General
1 46 (30.87%) Social Skills
2 29 (19.46%) Analytical Skills
3 19 (12.75%) Finance
4 14 (9.40%) Law
4 14 (9.40%) Telecoms
5 8 (5.37%) Retail Banking
6 6 (4.03%) Documentation Skills
7 5 (3.36%) Banking
8 2 (1.34%) Financial Institution
8 2 (1.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 2 (1.34%) Public Sector
9 1 (0.67%) Marketing
9 1 (0.67%) Organisational Skills
9 1 (0.67%) Police
9 1 (0.67%) Retail
Job Titles
1 113 (75.84%) Network Engineer
2 58 (38.93%) Senior
3 49 (32.89%) Senior Network Engineer
4 14 (9.40%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 13 (8.72%) Cisco Engineer
5 13 (8.72%) Cisco Network Engineer
6 11 (7.38%) Firewall Engineer
6 11 (7.38%) Network Infrastructure Engineer
7 10 (6.71%) Consultant
7 10 (6.71%) Network Consultant
8 9 (6.04%) Infrastructure Operations Engineer
8 9 (6.04%) Network Operations Engineer
8 9 (6.04%) Operations Engineer
9 8 (5.37%) Cisco Consultant
9 8 (5.37%) Cisco Network Consultant
9 8 (5.37%) WAN Consultant
10 6 (4.03%) Network Specialist
11 5 (3.36%) AWS Engineer
11 5 (3.36%) AWS Infrastructure Engineer
11 5 (3.36%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (11.41%) 802.1X
2 8 (5.37%) REST
3 7 (4.70%) gRPC
4 3 (2.01%) ARM Templates
4 3 (2.01%) OpenTelemetry
5 1 (0.67%) LDAP
5 1 (0.67%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 75 (50.34%) Data Centre
2 10 (6.71%) PKI
2 10 (6.71%) Security Posture
3 9 (6.04%) Management Information System
3 9 (6.04%) Onboarding
4 6 (4.03%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
5 5 (3.36%) Driving Licence
5 5 (3.36%) Hybrid Cloud
6 3 (2.01%) Cloud Native
7 1 (0.67%) Data Protection Act
7 1 (0.67%) e-Learning
7 1 (0.67%) IPTV
7 1 (0.67%) Linux Command Line
7 1 (0.67%) Replication
7 1 (0.67%) Self-Motivation
7 1 (0.67%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 15 (10.07%) Linux
2 5 (3.36%) Windows
3 2 (1.34%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.67%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 40 (26.85%) Problem-Solving
2 37 (24.83%) Load Balancing
3 30 (20.13%) Network Monitoring
4 26 (17.45%) Computer Science
4 26 (17.45%) Kalman Filter
5 25 (16.78%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 24 (16.11%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 23 (15.44%) Network Segmentation
7 23 (15.44%) Project Delivery
8 21 (14.09%) Root Cause Analysis
9 20 (13.42%) WAN Optimisation
9 20 (13.42%) Zero Trust
10 19 (12.75%) ITIL
11 17 (11.41%) Collaborative Working
11 17 (11.41%) Network Design
11 17 (11.41%) Runbook
12 16 (10.74%) Analytical Thinking
12 16 (10.74%) Observability
13 14 (9.40%) High Availability
13 14 (9.40%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 51 (34.23%) Python
2 6 (4.03%) Bash
3 4 (2.68%) Bicep
4 1 (0.67%) C
4 1 (0.67%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 83 (55.70%) Cisco Certification
2 77 (51.68%) CCNP
3 28 (18.79%) Degree
4 25 (16.78%) CCIE
5 23 (15.44%) Computer Science Degree
6 16 (10.74%) Security Cleared
7 11 (7.38%) CCNA
8 9 (6.04%) DV Cleared
9 8 (5.37%) SC Cleared
10 4 (2.68%) Azure Certification
11 2 (1.34%) AWS Certification
11 2 (1.34%) BPSS Clearance
11 2 (1.34%) CCSA
11 2 (1.34%) CCSE
11 2 (1.34%) DBS Check
11 2 (1.34%) JNCIA
11 2 (1.34%) JNCIP
11 2 (1.34%) JNCIS
11 2 (1.34%) Network+ Certification
12 1 (0.67%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (10.74%) PMO
2 12 (8.05%) SLA
3 5 (3.36%) NIST
3 5 (3.36%) PCI DSS
4 1 (0.67%) GDPR
4 1 (0.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 1 (0.67%) SOC 2
System Software
1 16 (10.74%) ProxySG
2 6 (4.03%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (2.01%) Docker
3 3 (2.01%) VMware NSX
4 2 (1.34%) Active Directory
4 2 (1.34%) Firmware
4 2 (1.34%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 30 (20.13%) FortiGate
2 23 (15.44%) Ansible
3 12 (8.05%) Nagios
4 11 (7.38%) Terraform
5 9 (6.04%) Check_MK
6 7 (4.70%) Grafana
7 6 (4.03%) Prometheus
8 4 (2.68%) Kubernetes
9 3 (2.01%) ZABBIX
10 1 (0.67%) CASB
10 1 (0.67%) Cisco Prime
10 1 (0.67%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 118 (79.19%) Cisco
2 61 (40.94%) SolarWinds
3 50 (33.56%) Palo Alto
4 43 (28.86%) Fortinet
5 36 (24.16%) Meraki
6 34 (22.82%) CheckPoint
7 32 (21.48%) F5
8 25 (16.78%) ServiceNow
9 22 (14.77%) Infoblox
10 20 (13.42%) Arista
11 16 (10.74%) Blue Coat
11 16 (10.74%) Motorola
12 12 (8.05%) Juniper
13 11 (7.38%) Dynatrace
14 8 (5.37%) Microsoft
14 8 (5.37%) VMware
15 7 (4.70%) Aruba
16 5 (3.36%) ForeScout
16 5 (3.36%) SevOne
16 5 (3.36%) Splunk