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 26 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 573 446 585
Rank change year-on-year -127 +139 -30
Permanent jobs citing OSPF 172 227 342
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.18% 0.50% 0.32%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 2.46% 3.32% 2.61%
Number of salaries quoted 127 169 248
10th Percentile £47,650 £32,500 £37,500
25th Percentile £62,130 £42,500 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £72,500 £53,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year +36.79% +0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £82,500 £72,500 £67,813
90th Percentile £91,250 £85,000 £87,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £70,000 £52,500 £48,500
% change year-on-year +33.33% +8.25% -3.00%

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 6,991 6,847 13,107
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 7.36% 15.08% 12.34%
Number of salaries quoted 4,485 3,905 9,262
10th Percentile £27,750 £25,267 £26,250
25th Percentile £31,250 £31,000 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £47,500 £45,000 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year +5.56% -5.26% -6.86%
75th Percentile £68,750 £67,500 £63,750
90th Percentile £85,000 £83,750 £77,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £42,500 £40,000 £44,000
% change year-on-year +6.25% -9.09% -2.22%

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 26 June 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 26 June 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 -95 164 £74,000 +39.62% 45
London -36 86 £77,500 +21.57% 12
UK excluding London -111 74 £70,000 +33.33% 45
Work from Home -3 48 £78,000 +27.35% 30
North of England -33 27 £70,000 +7.69% 13
South East -77 21 £75,000 +42.86% 8
Midlands -12 18 £71,250 +103.57% 6
West Midlands -13 16 £73,750 +110.71% 5
North West +8 12 £70,000 +19.15% 8
Yorkshire -48 8 £72,788 -2.95% 4
North East - 7 £65,576 - 1
Scotland +4 5 £50,500 -25.19% 5
South West -68 3 £55,000 - 2
East Midlands - 2 £53,750 - 1

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 (1.16%) Confluence
Applications
1 18 (10.47%) MS Visio
2 2 (1.16%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 61 (35.47%) Azure
2 47 (27.33%) AWS
3 12 (6.98%) OpenShift
4 11 (6.40%) SaaS
5 10 (5.81%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 8 (4.65%) AWS Direct Connect
6 8 (4.65%) Datadog
7 7 (4.07%) GCP
8 5 (2.91%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 4 (2.33%) ChatGPT
9 4 (2.33%) Microsoft Copilot
10 3 (1.74%) Azure Monitor
11 2 (1.16%) Cloud Computing
11 2 (1.16%) Nutanix
11 2 (1.16%) Route 53
12 1 (0.58%) Cloudflare
12 1 (0.58%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 170 (98.84%) BGP
2 137 (79.65%) Firewall
3 113 (65.70%) VPN
4 108 (62.79%) WAN
5 85 (49.42%) LAN
6 83 (48.26%) Network Security
7 65 (37.79%) SD-WAN
8 59 (34.30%) VLAN
9 56 (32.56%) Wireless
10 47 (27.33%) EIGRP
11 43 (25.00%) MPLS
12 42 (24.42%) Cisco ASA
13 40 (23.26%) VXLAN
14 39 (22.67%) Cisco ISE
15 37 (21.51%) Wi-Fi
16 36 (20.93%) Cisco Nexus
16 36 (20.93%) TCP/IP
17 29 (16.86%) DNS
18 28 (16.28%) Cisco Firepower
19 22 (12.79%) Cisco Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (1.74%) InfluxDB
Development Applications
1 1 (0.58%) Git
1 1 (0.58%) GitLab
1 1 (0.58%) JIRA
1 1 (0.58%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 60 (34.88%) Social Skills
2 26 (15.12%) Finance
3 24 (13.95%) Analytical Skills
4 15 (8.72%) Telecoms
5 14 (8.14%) Law
6 8 (4.65%) Retail Banking
7 5 (2.91%) Documentation Skills
7 5 (2.91%) Public Sector
8 4 (2.33%) Banking
9 2 (1.16%) Financial Institution
9 2 (1.16%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 2 (1.16%) Manufacturing
9 2 (1.16%) Marketing
9 2 (1.16%) Organisational Skills
9 2 (1.16%) Retail
Job Titles
1 129 (75.00%) Network Engineer
2 68 (39.53%) Senior
3 49 (28.49%) Senior Network Engineer
4 16 (9.30%) Network Specialist
5 12 (6.98%) Cisco Engineer
5 12 (6.98%) Cisco Network Engineer
5 12 (6.98%) Senior Data Warehouse Specialist
5 12 (6.98%) Senior Network Specialist
6 11 (6.40%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 11 (6.40%) Network Security Specialist
6 11 (6.40%) Security Specialist
6 11 (6.40%) Senior Network Security Specialist
6 11 (6.40%) Senior Security Specialist
7 10 (5.81%) Consultant
7 10 (5.81%) Network Consultant
8 8 (4.65%) Network Infrastructure Engineer
9 7 (4.07%) Firewall Engineer
9 7 (4.07%) Network Security Engineer
9 7 (4.07%) Security Engineer
10 6 (3.49%) Operations Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 18 (10.47%) 802.1X
2 7 (4.07%) gRPC
3 4 (2.33%) REST
4 3 (1.74%) ARM Templates
4 3 (1.74%) OpenTelemetry
5 1 (0.58%) LDAP
5 1 (0.58%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 84 (48.84%) Data Centre
2 11 (6.40%) PKI
2 11 (6.40%) Security Posture
3 7 (4.07%) Onboarding
4 6 (3.49%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
4 6 (3.49%) Hybrid Cloud
4 6 (3.49%) Management Information System
5 4 (2.33%) Driving Licence
6 3 (1.74%) Life Science
7 2 (1.16%) Cloud Native
7 2 (1.16%) Linux Command Line
8 1 (0.58%) Data Protection Act
8 1 (0.58%) IPTV
8 1 (0.58%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 16 (9.30%) Linux
2 5 (2.91%) Windows
3 1 (0.58%) Unix
3 1 (0.58%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 46 (26.74%) Problem-Solving
2 35 (20.35%) Load Balancing
3 34 (19.77%) Network Monitoring
4 27 (15.70%) Zero Trust
5 25 (14.53%) Project Delivery
5 25 (14.53%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 24 (13.95%) High Availability
6 24 (13.95%) Network Segmentation
7 23 (13.37%) Computer Science
7 23 (13.37%) Infrastructure as Code
7 23 (13.37%) Kalman Filter
7 23 (13.37%) Roadmaps
8 22 (12.79%) Network Design
9 21 (12.21%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 18 (10.47%) Analytics
10 18 (10.47%) ITIL
10 18 (10.47%) Root Cause Analysis
11 17 (9.88%) WAN Optimisation
12 16 (9.30%) AI
12 16 (9.30%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 46 (26.74%) Python
2 7 (4.07%) Bash
3 6 (3.49%) Bicep
4 3 (1.74%) PowerShell
5 1 (0.58%) C
Qualifications
1 93 (54.07%) Cisco Certification
2 85 (49.42%) CCNP
3 27 (15.70%) CCIE
4 26 (15.12%) Degree
5 21 (12.21%) CCNA
6 20 (11.63%) Computer Science Degree
7 19 (11.05%) Security Cleared
8 12 (6.98%) DV Cleared
9 9 (5.23%) SC Cleared
10 5 (2.91%) CISSP
11 4 (2.33%) Azure Certification
11 4 (2.33%) Network+ Certification
12 2 (1.16%) BPSS Clearance
12 2 (1.16%) CCSA
12 2 (1.16%) CCSE
13 1 (0.58%) AWS Certification
13 1 (0.58%) DBS Check
13 1 (0.58%) JNCIA
13 1 (0.58%) JNCIP
13 1 (0.58%) JNCIS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (6.98%) PMO
1 12 (6.98%) SLA
2 5 (2.91%) NIST
2 5 (2.91%) PCI DSS
2 5 (2.91%) QA
3 1 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
3 1 (0.58%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 12 (6.98%) ProxySG
2 5 (2.91%) VMware NSX
3 3 (1.74%) Docker
3 3 (1.74%) Firmware
3 3 (1.74%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (1.16%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 30 (17.44%) FortiGate
2 24 (13.95%) Ansible
3 14 (8.14%) Terraform
4 12 (6.98%) Kubernetes
5 9 (5.23%) Check_MK
5 9 (5.23%) Nagios
6 7 (4.07%) Grafana
7 6 (3.49%) Prometheus
8 3 (1.74%) ZABBIX
9 2 (1.16%) Cisco Prime
10 1 (0.58%) CASB
10 1 (0.58%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 120 (69.77%) Cisco
2 65 (37.79%) Palo Alto
3 50 (29.07%) SolarWinds
4 48 (27.91%) Fortinet
5 30 (17.44%) Meraki
6 29 (16.86%) F5
7 28 (16.28%) CheckPoint
8 22 (12.79%) Arista
9 18 (10.47%) ServiceNow
10 17 (9.88%) Infoblox
10 17 (9.88%) Juniper
11 13 (7.56%) Aruba
12 12 (6.98%) Blue Coat
12 12 (6.98%) Motorola
13 11 (6.40%) Zscaler
14 9 (5.23%) Microsoft
15 8 (4.65%) Dynatrace
16 7 (4.07%) VMware
17 6 (3.49%) Mellanox
17 6 (3.49%) NVIDIA