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 18 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 588 396 570
Rank change year-on-year -192 +174 +69
Permanent jobs citing OSPF 126 253 325
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.15% 0.61% 0.34%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 1.21% 4.56% 2.49%
Number of salaries quoted 70 220 265
10th Percentile £47,375 £32,500 £37,500
25th Percentile £58,750 £44,700 £46,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £53,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +32.08% +6.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £77,500 £68,813 £63,750
90th Percentile £103,750 £83,875 £82,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £65,000 £53,000 £48,500
% change year-on-year +22.64% +9.28% +7.78%

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 10,406 5,546 13,041
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 12.01% 13.33% 13.79%
Number of salaries quoted 4,079 3,760 9,565
10th Percentile £27,000 £27,500 £26,250
25th Percentile £30,000 £35,000 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £43,500 £50,000 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year -13.00% +5.26% -6.86%
75th Percentile £66,250 £68,750 £63,750
90th Percentile £85,000 £87,500 £77,715
UK excluding London median annual salary £38,500 £45,000 £43,500
% change year-on-year -14.44% +3.45% -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 18 April 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 18 April 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 -175 121 £70,000 +32.08% 64
UK excluding London -171 58 £65,000 +22.64% 59
London -21 54 £70,000 - 12
Work from Home -21 30 £76,750 +36.76% 21
South East -111 20 £75,000 +41.51% 23
North of England -66 16 £62,500 +13.64% 10
Midlands -45 10 £62,500 +78.57% 7
North East -24 8 - - 2
West Midlands -35 8 £62,500 +78.57% 6
South West -57 6 £62,800 +11.90% 12
East of England -37 5 £40,000 -23.08% 5
North West -27 4 £62,750 +9.13% 4
Yorkshire -76 4 £62,500 +39.82% 4
East Midlands - 2 £50,000 - 1
Scotland -24 1 - - 3

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 (3.97%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (1.59%) Confluence
Applications
1 22 (17.46%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.79%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 51 (40.48%) Azure
2 45 (35.71%) AWS
3 12 (9.52%) AWS Direct Connect
3 12 (9.52%) Virtual Private Cloud
4 11 (8.73%) SaaS
5 6 (4.76%) Datadog
5 6 (4.76%) Microsoft 365
6 5 (3.97%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 4 (3.17%) GCP
8 3 (2.38%) Azure Monitor
9 2 (1.59%) Cloud Computing
9 2 (1.59%) Nutanix
9 2 (1.59%) OCI
9 2 (1.59%) Route 53
10 1 (0.79%) Cloudflare
10 1 (0.79%) Stackdriver
Communications & Networking
1 121 (96.03%) BGP
2 107 (84.92%) Firewall
3 93 (73.81%) WAN
4 88 (69.84%) VPN
5 79 (62.70%) LAN
6 63 (50.00%) Wireless
7 61 (48.41%) SD-WAN
8 54 (42.86%) Network Security
9 50 (39.68%) EIGRP
10 48 (38.10%) Cisco ASA
11 45 (35.71%) VLAN
12 41 (32.54%) MPLS
13 36 (28.57%) Cisco ISE
14 35 (27.78%) Wi-Fi
15 34 (26.98%) Cisco Nexus
16 33 (26.19%) VXLAN
17 26 (20.63%) Cisco Firepower
18 22 (17.46%) Cisco Wireless
19 21 (16.67%) TCP/IP
20 19 (15.08%) IPsec
Development Applications
1 4 (3.17%) Git
2 1 (0.79%) JIRA
2 1 (0.79%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 34 (26.98%) Social Skills
2 33 (26.19%) Analytical Skills
3 15 (11.90%) Finance
4 8 (6.35%) Law
4 8 (6.35%) Retail Banking
5 5 (3.97%) Banking
6 4 (3.17%) Public Sector
6 4 (3.17%) Telecoms
7 3 (2.38%) Documentation Skills
8 2 (1.59%) Financial Institution
8 2 (1.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 1 (0.79%) Marketing
9 1 (0.79%) Organisational Skills
9 1 (0.79%) Police
9 1 (0.79%) Retail
Job Titles
1 95 (75.40%) Network Engineer
2 49 (38.89%) Senior
3 43 (34.13%) Senior Network Engineer
4 14 (11.11%) Cisco Engineer
4 14 (11.11%) Cisco Network Engineer
4 14 (11.11%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 12 (9.52%) Consultant
5 12 (9.52%) Firewall Engineer
5 12 (9.52%) Network Consultant
6 11 (8.73%) Network Infrastructure Engineer
7 10 (7.94%) Cisco Consultant
7 10 (7.94%) Cisco Network Consultant
8 9 (7.14%) Infrastructure Operations Engineer
8 9 (7.14%) Network Operations Engineer
8 9 (7.14%) Operations Engineer
8 9 (7.14%) WAN Consultant
9 6 (4.76%) Lead
9 6 (4.76%) Network Team Leader
9 6 (4.76%) Team Leader
10 5 (3.97%) Network Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (10.32%) 802.1X
2 11 (8.73%) REST
3 3 (2.38%) ARM Templates
4 1 (0.79%) gRPC
Miscellaneous
1 59 (46.83%) Data Centre
2 9 (7.14%) Management Information System
3 8 (6.35%) Onboarding
4 7 (5.56%) PKI
4 7 (5.56%) Security Posture
5 6 (4.76%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
5 6 (4.76%) Driving Licence
6 3 (2.38%) Cloud Native
7 2 (1.59%) e-Learning
8 1 (0.79%) Digital Media
8 1 (0.79%) Hybrid Cloud
8 1 (0.79%) Linux Command Line
8 1 (0.79%) Self-Motivation
8 1 (0.79%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 8 (6.35%) Linux
2 5 (3.97%) Windows
2 5 (3.97%) Windows Server
3 1 (0.79%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 30 (23.81%) Problem-Solving
2 27 (21.43%) Kalman Filter
2 27 (21.43%) Load Balancing
3 26 (20.63%) Network Monitoring
4 24 (19.05%) Root Cause Analysis
5 21 (16.67%) Computer Science
5 21 (16.67%) Network Segmentation
5 21 (16.67%) Project Delivery
6 18 (14.29%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 18 (14.29%) ITIL
6 18 (14.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 18 (14.29%) WAN Optimisation
7 17 (13.49%) Collaborative Working
8 16 (12.70%) Analytical Thinking
8 16 (12.70%) Zero Trust
9 15 (11.90%) Network Design
10 14 (11.11%) Cloud Security
11 12 (9.52%) Change Management
12 11 (8.73%) High Availability
12 11 (8.73%) Network Management
Programming Languages
1 47 (37.30%) Python
2 4 (3.17%) Bicep
3 3 (2.38%) Bash
Qualifications
1 88 (69.84%) Cisco Certification
2 84 (66.67%) CCNP
3 25 (19.84%) CCIE
3 25 (19.84%) Degree
4 21 (16.67%) Computer Science Degree
5 12 (9.52%) CCNA
6 8 (6.35%) Security Cleared
7 7 (5.56%) DV Cleared
8 5 (3.97%) DBS Check
9 4 (3.17%) SC Cleared
10 3 (2.38%) Azure Certification
10 3 (2.38%) Master's Degree
11 2 (1.59%) AWS Certification
11 2 (1.59%) BPSS Clearance
11 2 (1.59%) CCSA
11 2 (1.59%) CCSE
12 1 (0.79%) ITIL Certification
12 1 (0.79%) JNCIA
12 1 (0.79%) JNCIP
12 1 (0.79%) JNCIS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (12.70%) PMO
2 5 (3.97%) NIST
2 5 (3.97%) PCI DSS
2 5 (3.97%) SLA
3 2 (1.59%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 1 (0.79%) GDPR
4 1 (0.79%) ISO 9001
4 1 (0.79%) SOC 2
System Software
1 16 (12.70%) ProxySG
2 6 (4.76%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (3.97%) Active Directory
4 2 (1.59%) Docker
4 2 (1.59%) Hyper-V
5 1 (0.79%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 23 (18.25%) Ansible
2 22 (17.46%) FortiGate
3 9 (7.14%) Check_MK
3 9 (7.14%) Terraform
4 6 (4.76%) Nagios
5 1 (0.79%) Cisco Prime
5 1 (0.79%) Grafana
Vendors
1 116 (92.06%) Cisco
2 61 (48.41%) SolarWinds
3 48 (38.10%) Fortinet
4 44 (34.92%) Palo Alto
5 42 (33.33%) Meraki
6 35 (27.78%) CheckPoint
7 26 (20.63%) F5
8 25 (19.84%) ServiceNow
9 22 (17.46%) Infoblox
10 16 (12.70%) Blue Coat
10 16 (12.70%) Motorola
11 13 (10.32%) Arista
12 12 (9.52%) Microsoft
13 11 (8.73%) Dynatrace
14 9 (7.14%) Juniper
15 7 (5.56%) Aruba
16 6 (4.76%) VMware
17 5 (3.97%) ForeScout
17 5 (3.97%) SevOne
17 5 (3.97%) Splunk