Open Shortest Path First (OSPF)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for permanent job vacancies requiring OSPF skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the annual salaries offered in vacancies that cited OSPF over the 6 months leading up to 14 July 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Jul 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 498 574 555
Rank change year-on-year +76 -19 +211
Permanent jobs citing OSPF 224 339 388
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 0.37% 0.33% 0.46%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 1.87% 2.60% 2.86%
Number of salaries quoted 161 253 332
10th Percentile £32,500 £37,500 £41,250
25th Percentile £42,500 £45,000 £46,188
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £53,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +3.77% -3.64% -5.97%
75th Percentile £72,500 £67,500 £72,500
90th Percentile £85,000 £87,375 £85,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +5.00% - -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 11,973 13,063 13,552
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 19.97% 12.64% 15.89%
Number of salaries quoted 5,684 8,794 7,601
10th Percentile £24,750 £26,250 £28,500
25th Percentile £25,087 £32,500 £36,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £33,000 £47,500 £51,350
Median % change year-on-year -30.53% -7.50% -2.19%
75th Percentile £57,500 £63,750 £70,000
90th Percentile £76,250 £77,500 £86,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £30,000 £44,000 £45,000
% change year-on-year -31.82% -2.22% -5.26%

OSPF
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing OSPF as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for OSPF in the UK

OSPF
Salary Trend

3-month moving average salary quoted in jobs citing OSPF.

Salary trend for OSPF in the UK

OSPF
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing OSPF over the 6 months to 14 July 2025.

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 14 July 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 +42 206 £53,688 +1.30% 107
UK excluding London +50 120 £52,500 +5.00% 72
London +98 97 £65,000 -7.14% 64
South East +15 57 £52,000 -1.89% 18
Work from Home +17 54 £65,000 +13.04% 47
North of England +6 27 £60,000 +41.18% 18
Yorkshire +48 18 £75,000 +57.89% 5
South West +102 11 £55,000 +13.40% 3
North West -29 9 £60,000 +50.00% 12
Scotland +98 8 £67,500 +3.85% 20
Midlands +57 8 £35,000 -27.84% 7
West Midlands +28 8 £35,000 -27.84% 4
East of England +26 5 £50,000 -20.00% 7
Wales +32 3 £55,000 +18.28% 4
Channel Islands - 1 £45,000 -

OSPF
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 5 (2.23%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (0.45%) IIS
2 1 (0.45%) Office Communications Server
Applications
1 17 (7.59%) MS Visio
2 7 (3.13%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (2.68%) Microsoft Excel
4 1 (0.45%) AutoCAD
4 1 (0.45%) OmniGraffle
Cloud Services
1 69 (30.80%) Azure
2 62 (27.68%) AWS
3 22 (9.82%) GCP
4 14 (6.25%) AWS Direct Connect
5 9 (4.02%) Microsoft 365
6 6 (2.68%) OCI
7 5 (2.23%) Google Workspace
7 5 (2.23%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 2 (0.89%) Akamai
8 2 (0.89%) AWS Lambda
8 2 (0.89%) Serverless
9 1 (0.45%) AWS CloudFormation
9 1 (0.45%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 1 (0.45%) Azure Sentinel
9 1 (0.45%) Cloudflare
9 1 (0.45%) Entra ID
9 1 (0.45%) IaaS
9 1 (0.45%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 213 (95.09%) BGP
2 169 (75.45%) Firewall
3 101 (45.09%) VPN
4 96 (42.86%) WAN
5 76 (33.93%) TCP/IP
6 74 (33.04%) MPLS
7 73 (32.59%) LAN
8 71 (31.70%) EIGRP
9 66 (29.46%) Network Security
10 56 (25.00%) SD-WAN
11 52 (23.21%) VLAN
12 51 (22.77%) IPsec
13 40 (17.86%) Cisco ASA
14 37 (16.52%) Wireless
15 33 (14.73%) WLAN
16 30 (13.39%) Wi-Fi
17 29 (12.95%) Cisco Firepower
18 26 (11.61%) VXLAN
19 24 (10.71%) Cisco ISE
19 24 (10.71%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (0.89%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 2 (0.89%) JMeter
1 2 (0.89%) Sonatype Nexus
2 1 (0.45%) GitLab
2 1 (0.45%) JIRA
General
1 53 (23.66%) Social Skills
2 28 (12.50%) Finance
3 25 (11.16%) Banking
4 19 (8.48%) Documentation Skills
5 13 (5.80%) Analytical Skills
6 12 (5.36%) Telecoms
7 11 (4.91%) Retail
8 10 (4.46%) Mandarin Language
9 6 (2.68%) Investment Banking
9 6 (2.68%) Police
10 5 (2.23%) Automotive
10 5 (2.23%) Presentation Skills
10 5 (2.23%) Public Sector
11 4 (1.79%) Advertising
11 4 (1.79%) Local Government
12 3 (1.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 2 (0.89%) Aviation
13 2 (0.89%) Financial Institution
13 2 (0.89%) Influencing Skills
13 2 (0.89%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 147 (65.63%) Network Engineer
2 27 (12.05%) Senior
3 21 (9.38%) Senior Network Engineer
4 19 (8.48%) Cisco Engineer
4 19 (8.48%) Cisco Network Engineer
5 18 (8.04%) Lead
6 15 (6.70%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 13 (5.80%) Network Infrastructure Engineer
8 12 (5.36%) IT Engineer
9 10 (4.46%) 1st Line Engineer
9 10 (4.46%) Data Centre Engineer
9 10 (4.46%) Data Network Engineer
9 10 (4.46%) Infrastructure Operations Engineer
9 10 (4.46%) NOC Engineer
9 10 (4.46%) Operations Engineer
9 10 (4.46%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
10 9 (4.02%) 3rd Line Engineer
10 9 (4.02%) 3rd Line Network Engineer
10 9 (4.02%) Network Security Engineer
10 9 (4.02%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (7.59%) 802.1X
2 6 (2.68%) Middleware
3 4 (1.79%) REST
4 1 (0.45%) .NET
4 1 (0.45%) JSON
4 1 (0.45%) SAML
4 1 (0.45%) XMPP
4 1 (0.45%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 70 (31.25%) Data Centre
2 30 (13.39%) Management Information System
3 9 (4.02%) Public Cloud
4 6 (2.68%) IPTV
4 6 (2.68%) PMI
5 5 (2.23%) Smartphone
6 4 (1.79%) Hybrid Cloud
6 4 (1.79%) PKI
7 3 (1.34%) Driving Licence
7 3 (1.34%) Self-Motivation
8 2 (0.89%) Cloud Native
8 2 (0.89%) IoT
8 2 (0.89%) Reinsurance
8 2 (0.89%) Virtual Team
9 1 (0.45%) Cyber Threat
9 1 (0.45%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
9 1 (0.45%) Legacy Systems
9 1 (0.45%) Onboarding
9 1 (0.45%) Operational Technology
9 1 (0.45%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 14 (6.25%) Linux
1 14 (6.25%) Windows
2 8 (3.57%) Windows 10
2 8 (3.57%) Windows Server
3 7 (3.13%) Ubuntu
4 6 (2.68%) Windows Server 2016
5 5 (2.23%) Mac OS X
5 5 (2.23%) Windows Server 2019
6 1 (0.45%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 42 (18.75%) Network Monitoring
1 42 (18.75%) Problem-Solving
2 27 (12.05%) Network Design
3 25 (11.16%) High Availability
3 25 (11.16%) Network Management
4 24 (10.71%) Continuous Improvement
4 24 (10.71%) ITIL
5 23 (10.27%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 21 (9.38%) Change Management
6 21 (9.38%) Network Architecture
7 20 (8.93%) Network Segmentation
7 20 (8.93%) Project Delivery
8 19 (8.48%) Migration
9 18 (8.04%) Load Balancing
9 18 (8.04%) Root Cause Analysis
10 17 (7.59%) Incident Management
10 17 (7.59%) Incident Response
10 17 (7.59%) Vulnerability Assessment
11 13 (5.80%) Artificial Intelligence
11 13 (5.80%) Cloud Security
Programming Languages
1 43 (19.20%) Python
2 16 (7.14%) Bash
2 16 (7.14%) PowerShell
3 10 (4.46%) SQL
4 3 (1.34%) C++
5 2 (0.89%) JavaScript
5 2 (0.89%) R
6 1 (0.45%) C#
6 1 (0.45%) Java
6 1 (0.45%) Scala
Qualifications
1 89 (39.73%) Cisco Certification
2 64 (28.57%) CCNA
3 55 (24.55%) CCNP
4 54 (24.11%) Security Cleared
5 45 (20.09%) SC Cleared
6 43 (19.20%) Degree
7 34 (15.18%) DV Cleared
8 17 (7.59%) CCIE
9 13 (5.80%) Computer Science Degree
10 6 (2.68%) AWS Certification
10 6 (2.68%) PMI Certification
11 5 (2.23%) CCSA
11 5 (2.23%) HNC
11 5 (2.23%) HND
11 5 (2.23%) JNCIA
11 5 (2.23%) MCSE
11 5 (2.23%) Microsoft Certification
12 4 (1.79%) CCSE
13 3 (1.34%) CISSP
13 3 (1.34%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (2.23%) QA
2 2 (0.89%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 2 (0.89%) PCI DSS
3 1 (0.45%) GDPR
3 1 (0.45%) HIPAA
3 1 (0.45%) NIST
3 1 (0.45%) PMO
3 1 (0.45%) SLA
System Software
1 23 (10.27%) VMware Infrastructure
2 14 (6.25%) Hyper-V
3 13 (5.80%) Active Directory
4 9 (4.02%) Firmware
4 9 (4.02%) VMware NSX
5 4 (1.79%) Docker
6 2 (0.89%) vSphere
7 1 (0.45%) ProxySG
7 1 (0.45%) Virtual Machines
7 1 (0.45%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 35 (15.63%) FortiGate
2 34 (15.18%) Ansible
3 13 (5.80%) Nagios
4 11 (4.91%) Kubernetes
5 6 (2.68%) Microsoft Intune
5 6 (2.68%) WSUS
6 5 (2.23%) Terraform
7 2 (0.89%) Iperf
7 2 (0.89%) Puppet
7 2 (0.89%) ZABBIX
8 1 (0.45%) CA Spectrum
8 1 (0.45%) Cisco CUCM
8 1 (0.45%) Cisco Prime
8 1 (0.45%) Failover Clustering
8 1 (0.45%) HAProxy
8 1 (0.45%) Jamf Pro
8 1 (0.45%) PowerCLI
8 1 (0.45%) SCCM
8 1 (0.45%) vCenter Server
8 1 (0.45%) vRealize
Vendors
1 169 (75.45%) Cisco
2 82 (36.61%) Fortinet
3 66 (29.46%) Juniper
4 58 (25.89%) SolarWinds
5 44 (19.64%) CheckPoint
6 34 (15.18%) Palo Alto
7 32 (14.29%) VMware
8 28 (12.50%) F5
9 25 (11.16%) Meraki
10 20 (8.93%) Microsoft
11 14 (6.25%) Dynatrace
12 12 (5.36%) Arista
13 11 (4.91%) Aruba
13 11 (4.91%) Infoblox
14 10 (4.46%) Ubiquiti
15 8 (3.57%) McAfee
16 6 (2.68%) Bloomberg
16 6 (2.68%) Dell
16 6 (2.68%) Google
16 6 (2.68%) Refinitiv