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 4 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 618 528 453
Rank change year-on-year -90 -75 -56
Permanent jobs citing OSPF 195 142 359
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.16% 0.29% 0.48%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 2.48% 1.98% 3.97%
Number of salaries quoted 143 87 195
10th Percentile £47,950 £42,500 £32,500
25th Percentile £57,500 £50,000 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +25.00% +9.09% -
75th Percentile £86,250 £75,000 £68,750
90th Percentile £92,250 £87,500 £86,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £65,576 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +19.23% +10.00% -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 7,860 7,177 9,047
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 6.65% 14.43% 12.19%
Number of salaries quoted 4,868 3,965 4,463
10th Percentile £28,000 £25,087 £30,000
25th Percentile £34,250 £28,750 £37,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £39,500 £51,500
Median % change year-on-year +26.58% -23.30% +0.39%
75th Percentile £70,000 £61,000 £68,750
90th Percentile £87,500 £79,500 £82,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £45,000 £34,000 £48,000
% change year-on-year +32.35% -29.17% +6.67%

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 4 October 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 4 October 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 -79 186 £75,000 +15.38% 179
UK excluding London -71 115 £65,576 +19.23% 87
London -76 76 £82,500 +22.22% 100
Work from Home -29 55 £78,000 +20.00% 61
Midlands -2 48 £75,000 +25.00% 16
West Midlands -1 43 £75,000 +20.00% 12
North of England -52 23 £70,000 +16.67% 14
South East -38 22 £51,250 -2.38% 25
North West -11 15 £70,000 +16.67% 10
South West -68 10 £55,000 +3.77% 5
Scotland +2 7 £50,500 - 8
Yorkshire -43 7 £72,788 -14.37% 4
East of England -31 6 £60,000 -7.69% 18
East Midlands -41 5 £55,000 -3.92% 4
North East - 1 £65,576 -

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 (1.03%) Confluence
Applications
1 4 (2.05%) MS Visio
2 2 (1.03%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.51%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 2 (1.03%) Teamcenter
2 1 (0.51%) FLEXCUBE
Cloud Services
1 56 (28.72%) Azure
2 40 (20.51%) AWS
3 19 (9.74%) OpenShift
4 9 (4.62%) GCP
5 6 (3.08%) SaaS
6 5 (2.56%) Datadog
7 4 (2.05%) ChatGPT
7 4 (2.05%) Microsoft Copilot
8 3 (1.54%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 2 (1.03%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 1 (0.51%) Azure Monitor
10 1 (0.51%) Cloud Computing
10 1 (0.51%) Cloudflare
10 1 (0.51%) Microsoft 365
10 1 (0.51%) Route 53
Communications & Networking
1 178 (91.28%) BGP
2 131 (67.18%) Firewall
3 124 (63.59%) VPN
4 117 (60.00%) WAN
5 100 (51.28%) LAN
6 87 (44.62%) Network Security
7 74 (37.95%) VLAN
8 56 (28.72%) TCP/IP
9 49 (25.13%) EIGRP
10 48 (24.62%) DNS
11 47 (24.10%) SD-WAN
11 47 (24.10%) Wireless
12 41 (21.03%) VXLAN
13 38 (19.49%) Wi-Fi
14 32 (16.41%) MPLS
15 26 (13.33%) Cisco ASA
15 26 (13.33%) Cisco Nexus
16 25 (12.82%) Ethernet VPN
17 23 (11.79%) Cisco ISE
18 22 (11.28%) DHCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (1.54%) InfluxDB
Development Applications
1 10 (5.13%) Sonatype Nexus
2 5 (2.56%) Git
3 3 (1.54%) GitLab
4 2 (1.03%) Robot Framework
4 2 (1.03%) Selenium
5 1 (0.51%) JIRA
General
1 65 (33.33%) Social Skills
2 36 (18.46%) Finance
3 30 (15.38%) Telecoms
4 20 (10.26%) Analytical Skills
5 12 (6.15%) Banking
5 12 (6.15%) Law
5 12 (6.15%) Manufacturing
5 12 (6.15%) Public Sector
6 10 (5.13%) Marketing
6 10 (5.13%) Retail
7 9 (4.62%) Documentation Skills
8 5 (2.56%) Organisational Skills
9 3 (1.54%) Aerospace
10 2 (1.03%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 1 (0.51%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 134 (68.72%) Network Engineer
2 59 (30.26%) Senior
3 41 (21.03%) Senior Network Engineer
4 25 (12.82%) Network Specialist
5 18 (9.23%) Network Security Specialist
5 18 (9.23%) Security Specialist
6 14 (7.18%) Senior Data Warehouse Specialist
6 14 (7.18%) Senior Network Specialist
7 13 (6.67%) Principal Engineer
7 13 (6.67%) Senior Network Security Specialist
7 13 (6.67%) Senior Security Specialist
8 12 (6.15%) Cisco Engineer
8 12 (6.15%) Cisco Network Engineer
8 12 (6.15%) Principal Systems Engineer
9 11 (5.64%) Automation Engineer
10 10 (5.13%) Control Systems Engineer
11 6 (3.08%) Data Centre Engineer
11 6 (3.08%) Network Security Engineer
11 6 (3.08%) Security Engineer
12 5 (2.56%) Security Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (12.82%) Terraform
2 11 (5.64%) 802.1X
3 6 (3.08%) gRPC
4 4 (2.05%) YAML
5 3 (1.54%) OpenTelemetry
6 2 (1.03%) Rendezvous
7 1 (0.51%) ARM Templates
7 1 (0.51%) Jinja
7 1 (0.51%) LDAP
7 1 (0.51%) ModSecurity
7 1 (0.51%) REST
7 1 (0.51%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 76 (38.97%) Data Centre
2 12 (6.15%) Security Posture
3 10 (5.13%) SCADA
4 9 (4.62%) Onboarding
5 7 (3.59%) Hybrid Cloud
6 6 (3.08%) PKI
7 4 (2.05%) CMDB
7 4 (2.05%) Driving Licence
7 4 (2.05%) Life Science
8 3 (1.54%) Cyber Security Posture
9 2 (1.03%) Cloud Native
9 2 (1.03%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
9 2 (1.03%) Management Information System
9 2 (1.03%) Product Ownership
10 1 (0.51%) Data Protection Act
10 1 (0.51%) IPTV
10 1 (0.51%) Mobile Banking
10 1 (0.51%) Online Banking
10 1 (0.51%) Replication
10 1 (0.51%) SWIFT Messaging Network
Operating Systems
1 18 (9.23%) Linux
2 9 (4.62%) Windows
3 5 (2.56%) Windows Server
4 4 (2.05%) Unix
5 1 (0.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 40 (20.51%) Network Monitoring
2 38 (19.49%) Infrastructure as Code
3 34 (17.44%) High Availability
3 34 (17.44%) Problem-Solving
4 31 (15.90%) Cybersecurity
4 31 (15.90%) Technical Leadership
4 31 (15.90%) Validation
5 28 (14.36%) Network Design
6 27 (13.85%) Roadmaps
7 25 (12.82%) Zero Trust
8 24 (12.31%) Mentoring
9 23 (11.79%) Change Management
10 22 (11.28%) Network Segmentation
11 20 (10.26%) Information Security
11 20 (10.26%) Load Balancing
11 20 (10.26%) Root Cause Analysis
12 19 (9.74%) AI
12 19 (9.74%) Analytics
12 19 (9.74%) Continuous Improvement
13 18 (9.23%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 48 (24.62%) Python
2 7 (3.59%) Bash
3 4 (2.05%) Bicep
4 3 (1.54%) PowerShell
5 1 (0.51%) C
5 1 (0.51%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 99 (50.77%) Cisco Certification
2 89 (45.64%) CCNP
3 31 (15.90%) CCNA
4 24 (12.31%) Security Cleared
5 16 (8.21%) DV Cleared
6 14 (7.18%) CCIE
7 13 (6.67%) CISSP
8 12 (6.15%) Degree
9 8 (4.10%) SC Cleared
10 6 (3.08%) Computer Science Degree
11 5 (2.56%) ITIL Certification
12 4 (2.05%) Network+ Certification
13 3 (1.54%) CCDP
14 2 (1.03%) AWS Certification
14 2 (1.03%) BPSS Clearance
14 2 (1.03%) CCIE Data Center
14 2 (1.03%) JNCIP
14 2 (1.03%) JNCIS
15 1 (0.51%) CCIE Service Provider
15 1 (0.51%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (6.15%) SLA
2 8 (4.10%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 5 (2.56%) NIST
3 5 (2.56%) QA
4 2 (1.03%) Accessibility
4 2 (1.03%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.51%) Cyber Essentials
System Software
1 10 (5.13%) VMware NSX
2 8 (4.10%) Firmware
3 7 (3.59%) VMware Infrastructure
4 3 (1.54%) Active Directory
4 3 (1.54%) Docker
4 3 (1.54%) VMware ESXi
5 1 (0.51%) Hyper-V
5 1 (0.51%) KVM
5 1 (0.51%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 40 (20.51%) Ansible
2 33 (16.92%) FortiGate
3 19 (9.74%) Kubernetes
4 7 (3.59%) Nagios
5 6 (3.08%) Grafana
5 6 (3.08%) Prometheus
6 4 (2.05%) ZABBIX
7 3 (1.54%) Symantec Endpoint Protection
8 2 (1.03%) Cisco Prime
9 1 (0.51%) CASB
9 1 (0.51%) Check_MK
9 1 (0.51%) Proxmox
9 1 (0.51%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 124 (63.59%) Cisco
2 61 (31.28%) Palo Alto
3 52 (26.67%) Fortinet
4 23 (11.79%) Arista
5 20 (10.26%) SolarWinds
6 19 (9.74%) Juniper
7 18 (9.23%) F5
7 18 (9.23%) Zscaler
8 17 (8.72%) Aruba
9 14 (7.18%) VMware
10 13 (6.67%) Meraki
11 12 (6.15%) Microsoft
12 6 (3.08%) Infoblox
12 6 (3.08%) Mellanox
12 6 (3.08%) NVIDIA
13 5 (2.56%) CheckPoint
14 4 (2.05%) Avaya
14 4 (2.05%) Citrix
14 4 (2.05%) ServiceNow
14 4 (2.05%) SonicWALL