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 12 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 580 431 579
Rank change year-on-year -149 +148 +51
Permanent jobs citing OSPF 136 238 328
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.15% 0.54% 0.34%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 1.54% 3.74% 2.54%
Number of salaries quoted 82 200 262
10th Percentile £42,500 £32,500 £37,500
25th Percentile £58,750 £43,474 £46,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £53,000 £50,250
Median % change year-on-year +32.08% +5.47% -8.64%
75th Percentile £77,594 £66,250 £64,688
90th Percentile £103,375 £83,875 £81,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £67,500 £53,000 £48,500
% change year-on-year +27.36% +9.28% +4.30%

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 8,812 6,366 12,933
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 9.75% 14.56% 13.38%
Number of salaries quoted 4,024 3,789 9,419
10th Percentile £27,500 £27,000 £26,250
25th Percentile £31,219 £32,500 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £50,000 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% +5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £68,750 £68,750 £63,750
90th Percentile £85,000 £87,500 £77,715
UK excluding London median annual salary £40,000 £45,000 £43,500
% change year-on-year -11.11% +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 12 May 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 12 May 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 -138 130 £70,000 +32.08% 68
London -24 61 £75,000 +15.38% 21
UK excluding London -135 60 £67,500 +27.36% 57
Work from Home +2 39 £78,000 +38.99% 37
South East -82 19 £75,000 +41.51% 22
North of England -38 16 £76,250 +38.64% 20
Midlands -33 14 £62,500 +78.57% 7
West Midlands -31 10 £62,500 +78.57% 6
North East - 8 - - 8
South West -55 6 £62,800 +11.90% 3
Yorkshire -60 5 £80,000 +78.97% 4
East of England -18 4 - - 2
East Midlands - 4 £51,250 - 1
North West -10 3 £72,500 +26.09% 8
Scotland -2 1 - - 4

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 4 (2.94%) Confluence
1 4 (2.94%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 23 (16.91%) MS Visio
2 2 (1.47%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 55 (40.44%) Azure
2 50 (36.76%) AWS
3 14 (10.29%) Virtual Private Cloud
4 12 (8.82%) AWS Direct Connect
5 11 (8.09%) SaaS
6 7 (5.15%) GCP
7 6 (4.41%) Datadog
8 5 (3.68%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 5 (3.68%) Microsoft 365
9 3 (2.21%) Azure Monitor
9 3 (2.21%) OpenShift
10 2 (1.47%) Cloud Computing
10 2 (1.47%) Nutanix
10 2 (1.47%) OCI
10 2 (1.47%) Route 53
11 1 (0.74%) ChatGPT
11 1 (0.74%) Cloudflare
11 1 (0.74%) Microsoft Copilot
11 1 (0.74%) Stackdriver
Communications & Networking
1 132 (97.06%) BGP
2 120 (88.24%) Firewall
3 103 (75.74%) WAN
4 98 (72.06%) VPN
5 82 (60.29%) LAN
6 66 (48.53%) SD-WAN
7 64 (47.06%) Network Security
8 62 (45.59%) Wireless
9 48 (35.29%) Cisco ASA
10 44 (32.35%) MPLS
10 44 (32.35%) VLAN
11 43 (31.62%) EIGRP
12 40 (29.41%) Cisco ISE
13 37 (27.21%) VXLAN
14 35 (25.74%) Cisco Nexus
15 31 (22.79%) Wi-Fi
16 24 (17.65%) Cisco Firepower
16 24 (17.65%) Cisco Wireless
16 24 (17.65%) TCP/IP
17 20 (14.71%) WLAN
Development Applications
1 2 (1.47%) Git
1 2 (1.47%) JIRA
1 2 (1.47%) Sonatype Nexus
2 1 (0.74%) GitLab
General
1 39 (28.68%) Social Skills
2 31 (22.79%) Analytical Skills
3 17 (12.50%) Finance
4 8 (5.88%) Law
4 8 (5.88%) Retail Banking
5 6 (4.41%) Documentation Skills
5 6 (4.41%) Telecoms
6 5 (3.68%) Banking
7 2 (1.47%) Financial Institution
7 2 (1.47%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 2 (1.47%) Public Sector
8 1 (0.74%) Marketing
8 1 (0.74%) Organisational Skills
8 1 (0.74%) Police
8 1 (0.74%) Retail
Job Titles
1 102 (75.00%) Network Engineer
2 51 (37.50%) Senior
3 44 (32.35%) Senior Network Engineer
4 14 (10.29%) Cisco Engineer
4 14 (10.29%) Cisco Network Engineer
4 14 (10.29%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 12 (8.82%) Firewall Engineer
6 11 (8.09%) Consultant
6 11 (8.09%) Network Consultant
6 11 (8.09%) Network Infrastructure Engineer
7 9 (6.62%) Cisco Consultant
7 9 (6.62%) Cisco Network Consultant
7 9 (6.62%) Infrastructure Operations Engineer
7 9 (6.62%) Network Operations Engineer
7 9 (6.62%) Operations Engineer
7 9 (6.62%) WAN Consultant
8 5 (3.68%) AWS Engineer
8 5 (3.68%) AWS Infrastructure Engineer
8 5 (3.68%) Network Manager
8 5 (3.68%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (11.76%) 802.1X
2 9 (6.62%) REST
3 3 (2.21%) ARM Templates
4 1 (0.74%) gRPC
4 1 (0.74%) LDAP
4 1 (0.74%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 65 (47.79%) Data Centre
2 10 (7.35%) PKI
3 9 (6.62%) Management Information System
3 9 (6.62%) Onboarding
3 9 (6.62%) Security Posture
4 7 (5.15%) Driving Licence
5 6 (4.41%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
6 5 (3.68%) Hybrid Cloud
7 3 (2.21%) Cloud Native
8 2 (1.47%) e-Learning
9 1 (0.74%) Linux Command Line
9 1 (0.74%) Self-Motivation
9 1 (0.74%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 12 (8.82%) Linux
2 5 (3.68%) Windows
3 4 (2.94%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.74%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 33 (24.26%) Problem-Solving
2 30 (22.06%) Load Balancing
3 27 (19.85%) Kalman Filter
4 25 (18.38%) Network Monitoring
5 24 (17.65%) Computer Science
6 23 (16.91%) Network Segmentation
6 23 (16.91%) Root Cause Analysis
7 21 (15.44%) Project Delivery
8 20 (14.71%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 20 (14.71%) WAN Optimisation
9 19 (13.97%) ITIL
9 19 (13.97%) Zero Trust
10 18 (13.24%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 17 (12.50%) Collaborative Working
11 17 (12.50%) Network Design
12 16 (11.76%) Analytical Thinking
13 15 (11.03%) Cloud Security
14 14 (10.29%) High Availability
15 11 (8.09%) Network Management
15 11 (8.09%) Runbook
Programming Languages
1 48 (35.29%) Python
2 5 (3.68%) Bash
3 4 (2.94%) Bicep
4 1 (0.74%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 86 (63.24%) Cisco Certification
2 81 (59.56%) CCNP
3 26 (19.12%) Degree
4 25 (18.38%) CCIE
5 22 (16.18%) Computer Science Degree
6 15 (11.03%) Security Cleared
7 13 (9.56%) CCNA
8 9 (6.62%) DV Cleared
9 7 (5.15%) SC Cleared
10 4 (2.94%) Azure Certification
10 4 (2.94%) DBS Check
11 3 (2.21%) Master's Degree
12 2 (1.47%) AWS Certification
12 2 (1.47%) BPSS Clearance
12 2 (1.47%) CCSA
12 2 (1.47%) CCSE
12 2 (1.47%) JNCIA
12 2 (1.47%) JNCIP
12 2 (1.47%) JNCIS
12 2 (1.47%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (11.76%) PMO
2 6 (4.41%) SLA
3 5 (3.68%) NIST
3 5 (3.68%) PCI DSS
4 1 (0.74%) GDPR
4 1 (0.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 1 (0.74%) SOC 2
System Software
1 16 (11.76%) ProxySG
2 6 (4.41%) VMware Infrastructure
3 4 (2.94%) Active Directory
4 3 (2.21%) Docker
5 2 (1.47%) Firmware
5 2 (1.47%) Hyper-V
5 2 (1.47%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 30 (22.06%) FortiGate
2 25 (18.38%) Ansible
3 12 (8.82%) Terraform
4 9 (6.62%) Check_MK
5 6 (4.41%) Nagios
6 3 (2.21%) Kubernetes
7 1 (0.74%) CASB
7 1 (0.74%) Cisco Prime
7 1 (0.74%) Grafana
7 1 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 118 (86.76%) Cisco
2 60 (44.12%) SolarWinds
3 46 (33.82%) Fortinet
4 45 (33.09%) Palo Alto
5 38 (27.94%) Meraki
6 34 (25.00%) CheckPoint
7 27 (19.85%) F5
8 25 (18.38%) ServiceNow
9 22 (16.18%) Infoblox
10 16 (11.76%) Blue Coat
10 16 (11.76%) Motorola
11 14 (10.29%) Arista
12 11 (8.09%) Dynatrace
12 11 (8.09%) Juniper
12 11 (8.09%) Microsoft
13 7 (5.15%) Aruba
13 7 (5.15%) VMware
14 5 (3.68%) ForeScout
14 5 (3.68%) SevOne
14 5 (3.68%) Splunk