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 26 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 574 409 574
Rank change year-on-year -165 +165 +70
Permanent jobs citing OSPF 129 253 327
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.15% 0.60% 0.34%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 1.24% 4.51% 2.51%
Number of salaries quoted 73 218 263
10th Percentile £43,250 £32,500 £37,500
25th Percentile £58,750 £45,000 £46,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £53,000 £50,500
Median % change year-on-year +32.08% +4.95% -8.18%
75th Percentile £77,500 £67,500 £63,750
90th Percentile £103,000 £85,000 £81,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £65,000 £53,000 £48,500
% change year-on-year +22.64% +9.28% +7.48%

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 10,387 5,611 13,038
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 11.68% 13.35% 13.65%
Number of salaries quoted 4,038 3,794 9,511
10th Percentile £27,000 £27,500 £26,250
25th Percentile £30,500 £34,000 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £50,000 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% +5.26% -5.94%
75th Percentile £67,500 £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 26 April 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 26 April 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 -172 123 £70,000 +32.08% 66
UK excluding London -177 58 £65,000 +22.64% 61
London -42 56 £70,000 - 14
Work from Home -13 32 £75,500 +34.53% 39
South East -110 20 £75,000 +41.51% 21
North of England -68 15 £65,000 +18.18% 17
Midlands -48 11 £62,500 +78.57% 8
North East -37 8 - - 6
West Midlands -39 8 £62,500 +78.57% 7
South West -54 6 £62,800 +11.90% 8
East of England -37 5 £40,000 -23.08% 4
North West -29 4 £62,750 +9.13% 8
Yorkshire -68 3 £65,000 +45.41% 3
East Midlands - 3 £50,000 - 1
Scotland -21 1 - - 2

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 5 (3.88%) Microsoft Exchange
2 3 (2.33%) Confluence
Applications
1 23 (17.83%) MS Visio
2 2 (1.55%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 52 (40.31%) Azure
2 47 (36.43%) AWS
3 13 (10.08%) Virtual Private Cloud
4 12 (9.30%) AWS Direct Connect
5 11 (8.53%) SaaS
6 6 (4.65%) Datadog
6 6 (4.65%) Microsoft 365
7 5 (3.88%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 5 (3.88%) GCP
8 3 (2.33%) Azure Monitor
9 2 (1.55%) Cloud Computing
9 2 (1.55%) Nutanix
9 2 (1.55%) OCI
9 2 (1.55%) Route 53
10 1 (0.78%) Cloudflare
10 1 (0.78%) OpenShift
10 1 (0.78%) Stackdriver
Communications & Networking
1 124 (96.12%) BGP
2 110 (85.27%) Firewall
3 96 (74.42%) WAN
4 91 (70.54%) VPN
5 77 (59.69%) LAN
6 63 (48.84%) Wireless
7 62 (48.06%) SD-WAN
8 56 (43.41%) Network Security
9 49 (37.98%) EIGRP
10 47 (36.43%) Cisco ASA
10 47 (36.43%) VLAN
11 41 (31.78%) MPLS
12 36 (27.91%) Cisco ISE
13 35 (27.13%) VXLAN
13 35 (27.13%) Wi-Fi
14 33 (25.58%) Cisco Nexus
15 26 (20.16%) Cisco Firepower
16 22 (17.05%) Cisco Wireless
16 22 (17.05%) TCP/IP
17 20 (15.50%) IPsec
Development Applications
1 4 (3.10%) Git
2 2 (1.55%) Sonatype Nexus
3 1 (0.78%) JIRA
General
1 34 (26.36%) Social Skills
2 33 (25.58%) Analytical Skills
3 15 (11.63%) Finance
4 8 (6.20%) Law
4 8 (6.20%) Retail Banking
5 5 (3.88%) Banking
5 5 (3.88%) Telecoms
6 4 (3.10%) Documentation Skills
6 4 (3.10%) Public Sector
7 2 (1.55%) Financial Institution
7 2 (1.55%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 1 (0.78%) Marketing
8 1 (0.78%) Organisational Skills
8 1 (0.78%) Police
8 1 (0.78%) Retail
Job Titles
1 98 (75.97%) Network Engineer
2 48 (37.21%) Senior
3 42 (32.56%) Senior Network Engineer
4 14 (10.85%) Cisco Engineer
4 14 (10.85%) Cisco Network Engineer
4 14 (10.85%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 12 (9.30%) Firewall Engineer
6 11 (8.53%) Consultant
6 11 (8.53%) Network Consultant
6 11 (8.53%) Network Infrastructure Engineer
7 9 (6.98%) Cisco Consultant
7 9 (6.98%) Cisco Network Consultant
7 9 (6.98%) Infrastructure Operations Engineer
7 9 (6.98%) Network Operations Engineer
7 9 (6.98%) Operations Engineer
7 9 (6.98%) WAN Consultant
8 5 (3.88%) AWS Engineer
8 5 (3.88%) AWS Infrastructure Engineer
8 5 (3.88%) Lead
8 5 (3.88%) Network Team Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (10.08%) 802.1X
2 11 (8.53%) REST
3 3 (2.33%) ARM Templates
4 1 (0.78%) gRPC
4 1 (0.78%) LDAP
4 1 (0.78%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 61 (47.29%) Data Centre
2 9 (6.98%) Management Information System
2 9 (6.98%) Onboarding
2 9 (6.98%) PKI
3 7 (5.43%) Driving Licence
3 7 (5.43%) Security Posture
4 6 (4.65%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
5 3 (2.33%) Cloud Native
6 2 (1.55%) e-Learning
6 2 (1.55%) Hybrid Cloud
7 1 (0.78%) Digital Media
7 1 (0.78%) Linux Command Line
7 1 (0.78%) Self-Motivation
7 1 (0.78%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 10 (7.75%) Linux
2 5 (3.88%) Windows
2 5 (3.88%) Windows Server
3 1 (0.78%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 30 (23.26%) Problem-Solving
2 28 (21.71%) Load Balancing
3 27 (20.93%) Kalman Filter
4 26 (20.16%) Network Monitoring
5 24 (18.60%) Root Cause Analysis
6 22 (17.05%) Network Segmentation
7 21 (16.28%) Computer Science
8 20 (15.50%) Project Delivery
9 19 (14.73%) ITIL
9 19 (14.73%) WAN Optimisation
10 18 (13.95%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 18 (13.95%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 18 (13.95%) Zero Trust
11 17 (13.18%) Collaborative Working
12 16 (12.40%) Analytical Thinking
12 16 (12.40%) Network Design
13 15 (11.63%) Cloud Security
14 12 (9.30%) Change Management
14 12 (9.30%) High Availability
15 11 (8.53%) Network Management
Programming Languages
1 49 (37.98%) Python
2 4 (3.10%) Bash
2 4 (3.10%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 87 (67.44%) Cisco Certification
2 83 (64.34%) CCNP
3 25 (19.38%) CCIE
3 25 (19.38%) Degree
4 21 (16.28%) Computer Science Degree
5 12 (9.30%) CCNA
6 11 (8.53%) Security Cleared
7 8 (6.20%) DV Cleared
8 5 (3.88%) DBS Check
8 5 (3.88%) SC Cleared
9 3 (2.33%) Azure Certification
9 3 (2.33%) Master's Degree
10 2 (1.55%) AWS Certification
10 2 (1.55%) BPSS Clearance
10 2 (1.55%) CCSA
10 2 (1.55%) CCSE
10 2 (1.55%) JNCIA
10 2 (1.55%) JNCIP
10 2 (1.55%) JNCIS
11 1 (0.78%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (12.40%) PMO
2 5 (3.88%) NIST
2 5 (3.88%) PCI DSS
2 5 (3.88%) SLA
3 1 (0.78%) GDPR
3 1 (0.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 1 (0.78%) SOC 2
System Software
1 16 (12.40%) ProxySG
2 6 (4.65%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (3.88%) Active Directory
4 2 (1.55%) Docker
4 2 (1.55%) Hyper-V
4 2 (1.55%) VMware NSX
5 1 (0.78%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 25 (19.38%) Ansible
2 24 (18.60%) FortiGate
3 10 (7.75%) Terraform
4 9 (6.98%) Check_MK
5 6 (4.65%) Nagios
6 1 (0.78%) CASB
6 1 (0.78%) Cisco Prime
6 1 (0.78%) Grafana
6 1 (0.78%) Kubernetes
6 1 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 116 (89.92%) Cisco
2 61 (47.29%) SolarWinds
3 47 (36.43%) Fortinet
4 46 (35.66%) Palo Alto
5 41 (31.78%) Meraki
6 35 (27.13%) CheckPoint
7 26 (20.16%) F5
8 25 (19.38%) ServiceNow
9 22 (17.05%) Infoblox
10 16 (12.40%) Blue Coat
10 16 (12.40%) Motorola
11 14 (10.85%) Arista
12 12 (9.30%) Microsoft
13 11 (8.53%) Dynatrace
13 11 (8.53%) Juniper
14 8 (6.20%) Aruba
15 7 (5.43%) VMware
16 5 (3.88%) ForeScout
16 5 (3.88%) SevOne
16 5 (3.88%) Splunk