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

6 months to
30 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 519 416 390
Rank change year-on-year -103 -26 +324
Permanent jobs citing OSPF 113 360 363
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.21% 0.55% 0.71%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 1.54% 4.54% 4.60%
Number of salaries quoted 72 213 293
10th Percentile £47,250 £32,500 £38,600
25th Percentile £52,750 £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 £77,500 £68,750 £63,750
90th Percentile £87,500 £82,500 £85,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £53,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +13.21% +6.00% -

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 7,327 7,930 7,894
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 13.54% 12.12% 15.48%
Number of salaries quoted 4,091 4,091 6,418
10th Percentile £25,087 £30,500 £26,750
25th Percentile £28,250 £37,500 £34,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £37,500 £53,050 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -29.31% +6.10% -4.76%
75th Percentile £60,000 £70,000 £68,000
90th Percentile £78,790 £85,250 £85,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £33,750 £50,000 £45,000
% change year-on-year -32.50% +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 30 November 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 30 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 -97 109 £65,000 +18.18% 46
London +20 60 £70,000 -3.45% 16
UK excluding London -96 49 £60,000 +13.21% 41
Work from Home +13 24 £65,000 +4.00% 19
South East -51 17 £60,000 +9.09% 21
North of England +6 10 £60,000 +33.33% 4
South West +26 7 £53,000 -11.67% 7
Midlands +17 7 £58,623 +67.49% 4
North West +14 7 £60,000 +33.33%
East of England +27 5 £53,750 -32.81% 3
West Midlands +20 5 £62,500 +78.57% 2
Scotland +11 3 - - 2
East Midlands +23 2 £53,623 -
Yorkshire +3 2 £62,500 +31.58% 4
North East +10 1 - -

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 (3.54%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (1.77%) Apache Airflow
2 2 (1.77%) nginx
3 1 (0.88%) Confluence
Applications
1 14 (12.39%) MS Visio
2 5 (4.42%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.88%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.88%) OmniGraffle
Cloud Services
1 41 (36.28%) Azure
2 30 (26.55%) AWS
3 6 (5.31%) GCP
4 5 (4.42%) AWS Direct Connect
5 4 (3.54%) Microsoft 365
6 3 (2.65%) Azure DevOps
6 3 (2.65%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 2 (1.77%) Akamai
7 2 (1.77%) Dagster
7 2 (1.77%) OCI
7 2 (1.77%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 1 (0.88%) Azure Sentinel
8 1 (0.88%) Datadog
8 1 (0.88%) Nutanix
8 1 (0.88%) Stackdriver
Communications & Networking
1 107 (94.69%) BGP
2 95 (84.07%) Firewall
3 63 (55.75%) WAN
4 61 (53.98%) VPN
5 51 (45.13%) LAN
6 47 (41.59%) EIGRP
7 42 (37.17%) Network Security
8 40 (35.40%) Wireless
9 39 (34.51%) SD-WAN
10 37 (32.74%) VLAN
11 35 (30.97%) TCP/IP
12 27 (23.89%) Wi-Fi
13 25 (22.12%) IPsec
14 24 (21.24%) Cisco Nexus
15 21 (18.58%) Cisco ASA
15 21 (18.58%) MPLS
16 17 (15.04%) DHCP
16 17 (15.04%) DNS
16 17 (15.04%) Wireshark
17 16 (14.16%) HSRP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (1.77%) Data Lake
1 2 (1.77%) Metadata
1 2 (1.77%) MongoDB
1 2 (1.77%) MySQL
1 2 (1.77%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 4 (3.54%) Sonatype Nexus
2 3 (2.65%) Git
3 2 (1.77%) GitLab
3 2 (1.77%) Jaeger
3 2 (1.77%) Jenkins
3 2 (1.77%) MLflow
4 1 (0.88%) JIRA
General
1 42 (37.17%) Social Skills
2 18 (15.93%) Analytical Skills
3 15 (13.27%) Finance
4 11 (9.73%) Documentation Skills
5 7 (6.19%) Marketing
6 5 (4.42%) Banking
6 5 (4.42%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 5 (4.42%) Retail
7 3 (2.65%) Mandarin Language
7 3 (2.65%) Public Sector
8 2 (1.77%) Agriculture
8 2 (1.77%) Law
8 2 (1.77%) Organisational Skills
8 2 (1.77%) Presentation Skills
8 2 (1.77%) Telecoms
9 1 (0.88%) Aviation
9 1 (0.88%) Financial Institution
9 1 (0.88%) Legal
9 1 (0.88%) Police
Job Titles
1 80 (70.80%) Network Engineer
2 24 (21.24%) Senior
3 21 (18.58%) Senior Network Engineer
4 8 (7.08%) Network Manager
5 7 (6.19%) Cisco Engineer
5 7 (6.19%) Cisco Network Engineer
6 6 (5.31%) Deployment Engineer
6 6 (5.31%) Lead
6 6 (5.31%) Lead Network Engineer
6 6 (5.31%) Network Team Leader
6 6 (5.31%) Team Leader
7 5 (4.42%) Architect
7 5 (4.42%) Network Architect
7 5 (4.42%) Network Deployment Engineer
8 4 (3.54%) 3rd Line Support
8 4 (3.54%) IT Manager
9 3 (2.65%) Cisco Consultant
9 3 (2.65%) Consultant
9 3 (2.65%) Data Centre Engineer
9 3 (2.65%) Engineering Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (8.85%) 802.1X
2 6 (5.31%) REST
3 2 (1.77%) FastAPI
3 2 (1.77%) Kafka
3 2 (1.77%) Keycloak
3 2 (1.77%) Middleware
3 2 (1.77%) WebRTC
Miscellaneous
1 38 (33.63%) Data Centre
2 5 (4.42%) Driving Licence
3 4 (3.54%) Cloud Native
3 4 (3.54%) Management Information System
3 4 (3.54%) Public Cloud
4 3 (2.65%) Data Protection Act
4 3 (2.65%) Virtual Team
5 2 (1.77%) e-Learning
5 2 (1.77%) Hybrid Cloud
5 2 (1.77%) IoT
5 2 (1.77%) MPEG
5 2 (1.77%) PKI
5 2 (1.77%) Robotics
6 1 (0.88%) Digital Media
6 1 (0.88%) e-Health
6 1 (0.88%) Hedge funds
6 1 (0.88%) Onboarding
6 1 (0.88%) Security Posture
6 1 (0.88%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 5 (4.42%) Windows
2 4 (3.54%) Linux
2 4 (3.54%) Windows Server
3 1 (0.88%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 27 (23.89%) Problem-Solving
2 24 (21.24%) Load Balancing
3 19 (16.81%) Network Monitoring
4 16 (14.16%) High Availability
4 16 (14.16%) ITIL
4 16 (14.16%) Migration
5 15 (13.27%) Computer Science
6 12 (10.62%) Change Management
6 12 (10.62%) Customer Service
6 12 (10.62%) Mentoring
7 11 (9.73%) Incident Response
8 10 (8.85%) Network Segmentation
8 10 (8.85%) Root Cause Analysis
8 10 (8.85%) Stakeholder Management
9 9 (7.96%) Decision-Making
9 9 (7.96%) Disaster Recovery
9 9 (7.96%) Network Architecture
9 9 (7.96%) Network Optimisation
9 9 (7.96%) Project Delivery
9 9 (7.96%) Time Management
Programming Languages
1 33 (29.20%) Python
2 6 (5.31%) Bash
3 3 (2.65%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 72 (63.72%) Cisco Certification
2 66 (58.41%) CCNP
3 30 (26.55%) Degree
4 26 (23.01%) CCIE
5 19 (16.81%) CCNA
6 14 (12.39%) Computer Science Degree
7 13 (11.50%) Security Cleared
8 10 (8.85%) SC Cleared
9 6 (5.31%) Azure Certification
10 5 (4.42%) AWS Certification
10 5 (4.42%) CISSP
11 4 (3.54%) DBS Check
11 4 (3.54%) DV Cleared
11 4 (3.54%) TOGAF Certification
12 3 (2.65%) Master's Degree
13 2 (1.77%) CCSA
13 2 (1.77%) CWDP
13 2 (1.77%) CWNA
13 2 (1.77%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 2 (1.77%) JNCIP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (6.19%) PMO
2 5 (4.42%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 3 (2.65%) NIST
3 3 (2.65%) SLA
4 1 (0.88%) GDPR
4 1 (0.88%) ISO 9001
4 1 (0.88%) SOC 2
System Software
1 8 (7.08%) VMware Infrastructure
2 7 (6.19%) Virtual Machines
3 6 (5.31%) Active Directory
4 5 (4.42%) ProxySG
5 4 (3.54%) Firmware
5 4 (3.54%) VMware NSX
6 2 (1.77%) Docker
6 2 (1.77%) NFS
6 2 (1.77%) pfSense
7 1 (0.88%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.88%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 27 (23.89%) Ansible
2 15 (13.27%) Terraform
3 11 (9.73%) FortiGate
4 3 (2.65%) Dell DRAC
4 3 (2.65%) Kubernetes
5 2 (1.77%) Argo
5 2 (1.77%) CA Spectrum
5 2 (1.77%) Grafana
5 2 (1.77%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.88%) Nagios
6 1 (0.88%) PowerCLI
6 1 (0.88%) vCenter Server
6 1 (0.88%) vRealize
6 1 (0.88%) VxRail
6 1 (0.88%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 95 (84.07%) Cisco
2 44 (38.94%) Palo Alto
3 32 (28.32%) SolarWinds
4 30 (26.55%) Fortinet
5 25 (22.12%) CheckPoint
6 24 (21.24%) Meraki
7 23 (20.35%) F5
8 15 (13.27%) Juniper
9 11 (9.73%) Aruba
9 11 (9.73%) Microsoft
10 10 (8.85%) VMware
11 8 (7.08%) Infoblox
12 7 (6.19%) Arista
12 7 (6.19%) Motorola
13 6 (5.31%) Zscaler
14 5 (4.42%) Blue Coat
15 4 (3.54%) Citrix
15 4 (3.54%) Dell
15 4 (3.54%) Ekahau
15 4 (3.54%) HP