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 10 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 616 511 459
Rank change year-on-year -105 -52 -32
Permanent jobs citing OSPF 190 162 357
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.17% 0.33% 0.46%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 2.45% 2.24% 3.85%
Number of salaries quoted 140 104 209
10th Percentile £47,750 £41,625 £32,500
25th Percentile £61,008 £47,797 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £57,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +30.43% +4.55% -
75th Percentile £86,250 £75,000 £68,750
90th Percentile £95,000 £87,500 £87,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £70,000 £53,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +32.08% +6.00% -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 7,765 7,246 9,262
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 6.87% 14.59% 11.81%
Number of salaries quoted 4,990 4,075 5,048
10th Percentile £28,000 £25,087 £29,250
25th Percentile £32,750 £29,000 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £47,500 £40,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +18.75% -20.00% -2.91%
75th Percentile £70,000 £61,250 £67,500
90th Percentile £87,500 £80,000 £81,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £44,472 £35,000 £47,500
% change year-on-year +27.06% -26.32% +5.56%

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 10 September 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 10 September 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 -90 180 £75,000 +30.43% 79
UK excluding London -77 107 £70,000 +32.08% 58
London -74 77 £82,500 +26.92% 26
Work from Home -30 55 £78,000 +20.00% 35
Midlands -11 39 £75,000 +22.70% 7
West Midlands +4 37 £75,000 +15.38% 6
North of England -43 26 £70,000 +16.67% 9
South East -25 22 £52,500 +3.45% 11
North West -4 17 £70,000 +19.15% 3
South West -79 10 £55,000 +3.77% 7
Scotland +7 7 £50,500 - 3
Yorkshire -45 7 £72,788 -14.37% 5
East of England -26 4 £60,000 +4.35% 22
East Midlands -23 2 £53,750 -6.11% 1
North East - 2 £65,576 - 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 (1.05%) Confluence
Applications
1 6 (3.16%) MS Visio
2 2 (1.05%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.53%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 2 (1.05%) Teamcenter
2 1 (0.53%) FLEXCUBE
Cloud Services
1 57 (30.00%) Azure
2 41 (21.58%) AWS
3 19 (10.00%) OpenShift
4 9 (4.74%) GCP
5 5 (2.63%) Azure ExpressRoute
5 5 (2.63%) Datadog
5 5 (2.63%) SaaS
6 4 (2.11%) ChatGPT
6 4 (2.11%) Microsoft Copilot
7 3 (1.58%) Azure Monitor
8 2 (1.05%) Cloud Computing
8 2 (1.05%) Route 53
8 2 (1.05%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 1 (0.53%) Cloudflare
9 1 (0.53%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 177 (93.16%) BGP
2 136 (71.58%) Firewall
3 120 (63.16%) VPN
4 114 (60.00%) WAN
5 99 (52.11%) LAN
6 88 (46.32%) Network Security
7 71 (37.37%) VLAN
8 52 (27.37%) TCP/IP
9 48 (25.26%) EIGRP
10 47 (24.74%) Wireless
11 46 (24.21%) DNS
11 46 (24.21%) SD-WAN
12 42 (22.11%) VXLAN
13 40 (21.05%) Wi-Fi
14 31 (16.32%) MPLS
15 27 (14.21%) Cisco ASA
15 27 (14.21%) Cisco Nexus
16 26 (13.68%) Ethernet VPN
17 24 (12.63%) Cisco ISE
18 20 (10.53%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (1.58%) InfluxDB
Development Applications
1 8 (4.21%) Sonatype Nexus
2 5 (2.63%) Git
3 2 (1.05%) GitLab
4 1 (0.53%) JIRA
4 1 (0.53%) Robot Framework
4 1 (0.53%) Selenium
General
1 64 (33.68%) Social Skills
2 35 (18.42%) Finance
3 27 (14.21%) Telecoms
4 19 (10.00%) Analytical Skills
5 13 (6.84%) Banking
6 12 (6.32%) Law
6 12 (6.32%) Public Sector
7 10 (5.26%) Marketing
7 10 (5.26%) Retail
8 8 (4.21%) Documentation Skills
8 8 (4.21%) Manufacturing
9 5 (2.63%) Organisational Skills
10 4 (2.11%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 2 (1.05%) Aerospace
12 1 (0.53%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 132 (69.47%) Network Engineer
2 63 (33.16%) Senior
3 42 (22.11%) Senior Network Engineer
4 25 (13.16%) Network Specialist
5 18 (9.47%) Network Security Specialist
5 18 (9.47%) Security Specialist
6 14 (7.37%) Senior Data Warehouse Specialist
6 14 (7.37%) Senior Network Specialist
7 13 (6.84%) Senior Network Security Specialist
7 13 (6.84%) Senior Security Specialist
8 12 (6.32%) Cisco Engineer
8 12 (6.32%) Cisco Network Engineer
9 9 (4.74%) Principal Engineer
10 8 (4.21%) Principal Systems Engineer
11 7 (3.68%) Automation Engineer
11 7 (3.68%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 6 (3.16%) Control Systems Engineer
12 6 (3.16%) Data Centre Engineer
12 6 (3.16%) Network Security Engineer
12 6 (3.16%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 28 (14.74%) Terraform
2 13 (6.84%) 802.1X
3 7 (3.68%) gRPC
4 4 (2.11%) YAML
5 3 (1.58%) ARM Templates
5 3 (1.58%) OpenTelemetry
6 1 (0.53%) Jinja
6 1 (0.53%) LDAP
6 1 (0.53%) REST
6 1 (0.53%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 77 (40.53%) Data Centre
2 10 (5.26%) Onboarding
2 10 (5.26%) Security Posture
3 7 (3.68%) Hybrid Cloud
4 6 (3.16%) PKI
4 6 (3.16%) SCADA
5 4 (2.11%) CMDB
5 4 (2.11%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
5 4 (2.11%) Driving Licence
6 3 (1.58%) Cyber Security Posture
6 3 (1.58%) Life Science
7 2 (1.05%) Linux Command Line
7 2 (1.05%) Management Information System
7 2 (1.05%) Product Ownership
8 1 (0.53%) Cyber Threat
8 1 (0.53%) Data Protection Act
8 1 (0.53%) IPTV
8 1 (0.53%) Online Banking
8 1 (0.53%) Replication
8 1 (0.53%) SWIFT Messaging Network
Operating Systems
1 18 (9.47%) Linux
2 8 (4.21%) Windows
3 4 (2.11%) Windows Server
4 3 (1.58%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 40 (21.05%) Infrastructure as Code
2 39 (20.53%) Network Monitoring
3 36 (18.95%) Problem-Solving
4 29 (15.26%) High Availability
4 29 (15.26%) Roadmaps
5 27 (14.21%) Network Design
6 26 (13.68%) Cybersecurity
6 26 (13.68%) Zero Trust
7 25 (13.16%) Validation
8 24 (12.63%) Mentoring
8 24 (12.63%) Technical Leadership
9 23 (12.11%) Change Management
10 22 (11.58%) Load Balancing
11 21 (11.05%) Network Segmentation
12 20 (10.53%) AI
12 20 (10.53%) Information Security
13 19 (10.00%) Analytics
13 19 (10.00%) Migration
13 19 (10.00%) Root Cause Analysis
14 18 (9.47%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 46 (24.21%) Python
2 7 (3.68%) Bash
3 6 (3.16%) Bicep
4 3 (1.58%) PowerShell
5 1 (0.53%) C
5 1 (0.53%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 97 (51.05%) Cisco Certification
2 86 (45.26%) CCNP
3 26 (13.68%) CCNA
4 23 (12.11%) Security Cleared
5 18 (9.47%) CCIE
6 17 (8.95%) DV Cleared
7 15 (7.89%) Degree
8 13 (6.84%) CISSP
9 8 (4.21%) Computer Science Degree
9 8 (4.21%) SC Cleared
10 5 (2.63%) ITIL Certification
11 4 (2.11%) Network+ Certification
12 3 (1.58%) CCDP
13 2 (1.05%) AWS Certification
13 2 (1.05%) Azure Certification
13 2 (1.05%) BPSS Clearance
13 2 (1.05%) CCIE Data Center
13 2 (1.05%) JNCIP
13 2 (1.05%) JNCIS
14 1 (0.53%) CESG Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (6.84%) SLA
2 8 (4.21%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 5 (2.63%) NIST
3 5 (2.63%) QA
4 2 (1.05%) Accessibility
4 2 (1.05%) PCI DSS
4 2 (1.05%) PMO
5 1 (0.53%) Cyber Essentials
System Software
1 10 (5.26%) VMware NSX
2 8 (4.21%) Firmware
2 8 (4.21%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (1.58%) Docker
3 3 (1.58%) VMware ESXi
4 2 (1.05%) Active Directory
4 2 (1.05%) ProxySG
5 1 (0.53%) Hyper-V
5 1 (0.53%) KVM
Systems Management
1 38 (20.00%) Ansible
2 33 (17.37%) FortiGate
3 19 (10.00%) Kubernetes
4 8 (4.21%) Nagios
5 7 (3.68%) Grafana
6 6 (3.16%) Prometheus
7 4 (2.11%) ZABBIX
8 3 (1.58%) Symantec Endpoint Protection
9 2 (1.05%) Cisco Prime
10 1 (0.53%) CASB
10 1 (0.53%) Check_MK
10 1 (0.53%) Proxmox
10 1 (0.53%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 123 (64.74%) Cisco
2 61 (32.11%) Palo Alto
3 52 (27.37%) Fortinet
4 24 (12.63%) SolarWinds
5 22 (11.58%) Arista
6 20 (10.53%) F5
6 20 (10.53%) Juniper
7 18 (9.47%) Aruba
7 18 (9.47%) Zscaler
8 14 (7.37%) VMware
9 13 (6.84%) Meraki
10 11 (5.79%) Microsoft
11 8 (4.21%) Infoblox
12 7 (3.68%) CheckPoint
13 6 (3.16%) Mellanox
13 6 (3.16%) NVIDIA
13 6 (3.16%) ServiceNow
14 4 (2.11%) Citrix
14 4 (2.11%) Netskope
14 4 (2.11%) SonicWALL