OSPF Job Trends

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 27 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 539 426 386
Rank change year-on-year -113 -40 +328
Permanent jobs citing OSPF 122 362 361
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.23% 0.54% 0.71%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 1.65% 4.50% 4.55%
Number of salaries quoted 78 210 291
10th Percentile £45,525 £32,500 £39,000
25th Percentile £51,625 £42,500 £46,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +18.18% - +4.76%
75th Percentile £76,875 £68,750 £63,750
90th Percentile £87,500 £82,500 £85,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £58,750 £54,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +8.80% +8.00% -

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 7,415 8,040 7,932
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 13.75% 11.97% 15.64%
Number of salaries quoted 4,158 4,141 6,382
10th Percentile £25,087 £30,279 £26,750
25th Percentile £28,250 £37,500 £34,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £38,000 £53,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -28.30% +6.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £60,000 £70,000 £67,500
90th Percentile £78,790 £85,000 £85,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £34,000 £50,000 £45,000
% change year-on-year -32.00% +11.11% -5.26%

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 27 November 2025.

Salary histogram for OSPF in the UK

OSPF
Top 16 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 27 November 2025. 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 -106 115 £65,000 +18.18% 50
London +14 63 £70,000 -3.45% 18
UK excluding London -88 54 £58,750 +8.80% 43
Work from Home +21 29 £65,000 +4.00% 21
South East -47 18 £60,000 +9.09% 20
North of England +15 12 £60,000 +33.33% 7
North West +21 7 £60,000 +33.33% 2
South West +19 7 £53,000 -11.67% 4
Midlands +13 7 £58,623 +67.49% 5
West Midlands +32 5 £62,500 +78.57% 3
East of England +25 5 £50,000 -37.50% 4
Scotland +13 4 - - 4
Yorkshire -2 4 £65,000 +36.84% 5
East Midlands +24 2 £53,623 -
North East +18 1 - -
Channel Islands +2 1 £45,000 -

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 3 (2.46%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (1.64%) Apache Airflow
2 2 (1.64%) nginx
3 1 (0.82%) Confluence
Applications
1 14 (11.48%) MS Visio
2 5 (4.10%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.82%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.82%) OmniGraffle
Cloud Services
1 46 (37.70%) Azure
2 34 (27.87%) AWS
3 10 (8.20%) GCP
4 5 (4.10%) AWS Direct Connect
5 4 (3.28%) OCI
6 3 (2.46%) Azure DevOps
6 3 (2.46%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 3 (2.46%) Microsoft 365
7 2 (1.64%) Akamai
7 2 (1.64%) Dagster
7 2 (1.64%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 1 (0.82%) Azure Sentinel
8 1 (0.82%) Datadog
8 1 (0.82%) Nutanix
8 1 (0.82%) Stackdriver
Communications & Networking
1 115 (94.26%) BGP
2 101 (82.79%) Firewall
3 66 (54.10%) VPN
4 65 (53.28%) WAN
5 52 (42.62%) LAN
6 49 (40.16%) EIGRP
7 44 (36.07%) Network Security
8 42 (34.43%) TCP/IP
8 42 (34.43%) VLAN
9 41 (33.61%) SD-WAN
9 41 (33.61%) Wireless
10 27 (22.13%) IPsec
10 27 (22.13%) Wi-Fi
11 25 (20.49%) Cisco Nexus
12 23 (18.85%) MPLS
13 21 (17.21%) Cisco ASA
14 19 (15.57%) DHCP
15 18 (14.75%) DNS
16 17 (13.93%) Wireshark
17 16 (13.11%) HSRP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (1.64%) Data Lake
1 2 (1.64%) Metadata
1 2 (1.64%) MongoDB
1 2 (1.64%) MySQL
1 2 (1.64%) PostgreSQL
2 1 (0.82%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 4 (3.28%) Sonatype Nexus
2 3 (2.46%) Git
2 3 (2.46%) GitLab
3 2 (1.64%) Jaeger
3 2 (1.64%) Jenkins
3 2 (1.64%) JIRA
3 2 (1.64%) MLflow
General
1 43 (35.25%) Social Skills
2 18 (14.75%) Analytical Skills
3 16 (13.11%) Finance
4 11 (9.02%) Documentation Skills
5 8 (6.56%) Marketing
6 6 (4.92%) Retail
7 5 (4.10%) Banking
7 5 (4.10%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 5 (4.10%) Public Sector
8 3 (2.46%) Mandarin Language
8 3 (2.46%) Telecoms
9 2 (1.64%) Agriculture
9 2 (1.64%) Law
9 2 (1.64%) Organisational Skills
9 2 (1.64%) Presentation Skills
10 1 (0.82%) Aviation
10 1 (0.82%) Electronics
10 1 (0.82%) Financial Institution
10 1 (0.82%) Legal
10 1 (0.82%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 88 (72.13%) Network Engineer
2 26 (21.31%) Senior
3 23 (18.85%) Senior Network Engineer
4 8 (6.56%) Network Manager
5 7 (5.74%) Cisco Engineer
5 7 (5.74%) Cisco Network Engineer
5 7 (5.74%) Lead
5 7 (5.74%) Lead Network Engineer
6 6 (4.92%) Deployment Engineer
6 6 (4.92%) Network Team Leader
6 6 (4.92%) Team Leader
7 5 (4.10%) Architect
7 5 (4.10%) Data Centre Engineer
7 5 (4.10%) Data Network Engineer
7 5 (4.10%) Network Architect
7 5 (4.10%) Network Deployment Engineer
8 4 (3.28%) IT Manager
9 3 (2.46%) 3rd Line Support
9 3 (2.46%) Consultant
9 3 (2.46%) Engineering Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (9.84%) 802.1X
2 6 (4.92%) REST
3 4 (3.28%) Middleware
4 2 (1.64%) FastAPI
4 2 (1.64%) Kafka
4 2 (1.64%) Keycloak
4 2 (1.64%) WebRTC
5 1 (0.82%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 41 (33.61%) Data Centre
2 4 (3.28%) Cloud Native
2 4 (3.28%) Driving Licence
2 4 (3.28%) Management Information System
2 4 (3.28%) Public Cloud
3 3 (2.46%) Data Protection Act
3 3 (2.46%) PKI
3 3 (2.46%) Virtual Team
4 2 (1.64%) e-Learning
4 2 (1.64%) Hybrid Cloud
4 2 (1.64%) IoT
4 2 (1.64%) MPEG
4 2 (1.64%) Robotics
4 2 (1.64%) Self-Motivation
5 1 (0.82%) Digital Media
5 1 (0.82%) e-Health
5 1 (0.82%) Hedge funds
5 1 (0.82%) Onboarding
5 1 (0.82%) Smartcard
5 1 (0.82%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 7 (5.74%) Windows
2 5 (4.10%) Linux
2 5 (4.10%) Windows Server
3 2 (1.64%) Windows 10
4 1 (0.82%) Mac OS
4 1 (0.82%) Ubuntu
4 1 (0.82%) Unix
4 1 (0.82%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 29 (23.77%) Problem-Solving
2 26 (21.31%) Load Balancing
3 20 (16.39%) Network Monitoring
4 19 (15.57%) ITIL
5 18 (14.75%) Migration
6 16 (13.11%) High Availability
7 15 (12.30%) Computer Science
8 14 (11.48%) Change Management
9 13 (10.66%) Customer Service
10 12 (9.84%) Mentoring
10 12 (9.84%) Network Architecture
11 11 (9.02%) Incident Response
11 11 (9.02%) Stakeholder Management
12 10 (8.20%) Decision-Making
12 10 (8.20%) DevOps
12 10 (8.20%) Disaster Recovery
12 10 (8.20%) Network Segmentation
12 10 (8.20%) Project Delivery
12 10 (8.20%) Root Cause Analysis
13 9 (7.38%) Kalman Filter
Programming Languages
1 35 (28.69%) Python
2 6 (4.92%) Bash
3 3 (2.46%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 73 (59.84%) Cisco Certification
2 66 (54.10%) CCNP
3 30 (24.59%) Degree
4 26 (21.31%) CCIE
5 19 (15.57%) CCNA
6 14 (11.48%) Computer Science Degree
6 14 (11.48%) Security Cleared
7 10 (8.20%) SC Cleared
8 6 (4.92%) Azure Certification
9 5 (4.10%) AWS Certification
9 5 (4.10%) CISSP
9 5 (4.10%) DV Cleared
10 4 (3.28%) DBS Check
10 4 (3.28%) TOGAF Certification
11 3 (2.46%) Master's Degree
12 2 (1.64%) CWDP
12 2 (1.64%) CWNA
12 2 (1.64%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
12 2 (1.64%) JNCIP
12 2 (1.64%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (5.74%) PMO
2 6 (4.92%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 3 (2.46%) NIST
3 3 (2.46%) SLA
4 1 (0.82%) GDPR
4 1 (0.82%) ISO 9001
4 1 (0.82%) SOC 2
System Software
1 9 (7.38%) VMware Infrastructure
2 7 (5.74%) Active Directory
2 7 (5.74%) Virtual Machines
3 5 (4.10%) ProxySG
4 4 (3.28%) Firmware
4 4 (3.28%) VMware NSX
5 2 (1.64%) Docker
5 2 (1.64%) Hyper-V
5 2 (1.64%) NFS
5 2 (1.64%) pfSense
5 2 (1.64%) vSphere
6 1 (0.82%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 32 (26.23%) Ansible
2 15 (12.30%) Terraform
3 13 (10.66%) FortiGate
4 3 (2.46%) Dell DRAC
4 3 (2.46%) Kubernetes
5 2 (1.64%) Argo
5 2 (1.64%) CA Spectrum
5 2 (1.64%) Grafana
5 2 (1.64%) Prometheus
5 2 (1.64%) ZABBIX
6 1 (0.82%) Backup Exec
6 1 (0.82%) Nagios
6 1 (0.82%) Nessus
6 1 (0.82%) PowerCLI
6 1 (0.82%) vCenter Server
6 1 (0.82%) vRealize
6 1 (0.82%) VxRail
6 1 (0.82%) WMI
6 1 (0.82%) WSUS
Vendors
1 100 (81.97%) Cisco
2 46 (37.70%) Palo Alto
3 33 (27.05%) SolarWinds
4 32 (26.23%) Fortinet
5 25 (20.49%) CheckPoint
6 24 (19.67%) F5
6 24 (19.67%) Meraki
7 15 (12.30%) Juniper
8 12 (9.84%) VMware
9 11 (9.02%) Aruba
9 11 (9.02%) Microsoft
10 8 (6.56%) Infoblox
11 7 (5.74%) Arista
11 7 (5.74%) Motorola
12 6 (4.92%) Zscaler
13 5 (4.10%) Blue Coat
13 5 (4.10%) Dell
13 5 (4.10%) HP
14 4 (3.28%) Citrix
14 4 (3.28%) Ekahau