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

6 months to
26 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 577 428 565
Rank change year-on-year -149 +137 +37
Permanent jobs citing OSPF 153 236 323
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.16% 0.55% 0.33%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 1.69% 3.68% 2.51%
Number of salaries quoted 103 191 253
10th Percentile £48,250 £32,500 £37,500
25th Percentile £62,130 £42,500 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £72,500 £53,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year +36.79% +0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £78,000 £67,500 £66,250
90th Percentile £97,200 £85,000 £84,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £70,000 £53,000 £48,500
% change year-on-year +32.08% +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 9,035 6,421 12,880
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 9.73% 15.09% 13.01%
Number of salaries quoted 4,204 3,580 9,388
10th Percentile £27,500 £26,250 £26,250
25th Percentile £31,250 £31,750 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £48,875 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year -7.93% +2.89% -5.00%
75th Percentile £70,000 £68,750 £63,750
90th Percentile £85,000 £86,250 £77,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £41,500 £42,500 £43,742
% change year-on-year -2.35% -2.84% -2.80%

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 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 26 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 -138 146 £72,500 +36.79% 61
London -30 72 £75,000 +22.45% 15
UK excluding London -131 65 £70,000 +32.08% 59
Work from Home -9 46 £78,000 +34.34% 31
North of England -37 23 £72,500 +18.37% 14
South East -73 19 £75,000 +41.51% 17
Midlands -38 16 £62,500 +78.57% 11
West Midlands -45 13 £70,000 +100.00% 10
North East - 9 £65,576 - 4
Yorkshire -58 8 £72,788 -2.95% 1
North West -9 6 £72,500 +26.09% 9
South West -73 3 £58,099 +3.53% 4
East Midlands - 3 £52,500 - 1
Scotland -3 2 £72,500 +7.41% 9
East of England -29 2 - - 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 3 (1.96%) Confluence
2 2 (1.31%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 23 (15.03%) MS Visio
2 3 (1.96%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 58 (37.91%) Azure
2 51 (33.33%) AWS
3 13 (8.50%) Virtual Private Cloud
4 11 (7.19%) AWS Direct Connect
4 11 (7.19%) SaaS
5 8 (5.23%) Datadog
6 7 (4.58%) GCP
7 5 (3.27%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 5 (3.27%) OpenShift
8 4 (2.61%) ChatGPT
8 4 (2.61%) Microsoft Copilot
9 3 (1.96%) Azure Monitor
9 3 (1.96%) Microsoft 365
10 2 (1.31%) Cloud Computing
10 2 (1.31%) Nutanix
10 2 (1.31%) Route 53
11 1 (0.65%) Cloudflare
Communications & Networking
1 151 (98.69%) BGP
2 127 (83.01%) Firewall
3 100 (65.36%) WAN
4 99 (64.71%) VPN
5 80 (52.29%) LAN
6 68 (44.44%) Network Security
7 61 (39.87%) SD-WAN
8 60 (39.22%) Wireless
9 48 (31.37%) Cisco ASA
9 48 (31.37%) VLAN
10 44 (28.76%) VXLAN
11 43 (28.10%) EIGRP
12 42 (27.45%) Cisco ISE
13 40 (26.14%) MPLS
14 39 (25.49%) Cisco Nexus
15 32 (20.92%) Wi-Fi
16 28 (18.30%) TCP/IP
17 27 (17.65%) Cisco Firepower
18 26 (16.99%) Cisco Wireless
19 25 (16.34%) Ethernet VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (1.96%) InfluxDB
Development Applications
1 2 (1.31%) Sonatype Nexus
2 1 (0.65%) Git
2 1 (0.65%) GitLab
2 1 (0.65%) JIRA
General
1 49 (32.03%) Social Skills
2 29 (18.95%) Analytical Skills
3 22 (14.38%) Finance
4 14 (9.15%) Telecoms
5 13 (8.50%) Law
6 8 (5.23%) Retail Banking
7 6 (3.92%) Documentation Skills
8 5 (3.27%) Banking
9 2 (1.31%) Financial Institution
9 2 (1.31%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 2 (1.31%) Public Sector
10 1 (0.65%) Marketing
10 1 (0.65%) Police
10 1 (0.65%) Retail
Job Titles
1 117 (76.47%) Network Engineer
2 62 (40.52%) Senior
3 51 (33.33%) Senior Network Engineer
4 14 (9.15%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 13 (8.50%) Cisco Engineer
5 13 (8.50%) Cisco Network Engineer
6 11 (7.19%) Firewall Engineer
6 11 (7.19%) Network Infrastructure Engineer
7 10 (6.54%) Consultant
7 10 (6.54%) Network Consultant
8 9 (5.88%) Infrastructure Operations Engineer
8 9 (5.88%) Network Operations Engineer
8 9 (5.88%) Operations Engineer
9 8 (5.23%) Cisco Consultant
9 8 (5.23%) Cisco Network Consultant
9 8 (5.23%) WAN Consultant
10 7 (4.58%) Network Specialist
11 5 (3.27%) AWS Engineer
11 5 (3.27%) Lead
11 5 (3.27%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 18 (11.76%) 802.1X
2 8 (5.23%) REST
3 7 (4.58%) gRPC
4 3 (1.96%) ARM Templates
4 3 (1.96%) OpenTelemetry
5 1 (0.65%) LDAP
5 1 (0.65%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 80 (52.29%) Data Centre
2 11 (7.19%) Security Posture
3 10 (6.54%) PKI
4 9 (5.88%) Management Information System
4 9 (5.88%) Onboarding
5 6 (3.92%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
5 6 (3.92%) Hybrid Cloud
6 5 (3.27%) Driving Licence
7 2 (1.31%) Cloud Native
8 1 (0.65%) Data Protection Act
8 1 (0.65%) IPTV
8 1 (0.65%) Linux Command Line
8 1 (0.65%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 16 (10.46%) Linux
2 6 (3.92%) Windows
3 2 (1.31%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.65%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 42 (27.45%) Problem-Solving
2 36 (23.53%) Load Balancing
3 31 (20.26%) Network Monitoring
4 27 (17.65%) Computer Science
4 27 (17.65%) Kalman Filter
5 24 (15.69%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 24 (15.69%) Project Delivery
6 23 (15.03%) Network Segmentation
6 23 (15.03%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 20 (13.07%) WAN Optimisation
7 20 (13.07%) Zero Trust
8 19 (12.42%) ITIL
8 19 (12.42%) Root Cause Analysis
9 18 (11.76%) Network Design
10 17 (11.11%) Runbook
11 16 (10.46%) Analytical Thinking
11 16 (10.46%) Collaborative Working
11 16 (10.46%) Observability
12 14 (9.15%) High Availability
12 14 (9.15%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 50 (32.68%) Python
2 5 (3.27%) Bash
3 4 (2.61%) Bicep
4 1 (0.65%) C
4 1 (0.65%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 85 (55.56%) Cisco Certification
2 79 (51.63%) CCNP
3 28 (18.30%) Degree
4 25 (16.34%) CCIE
5 24 (15.69%) Computer Science Degree
6 17 (11.11%) Security Cleared
7 12 (7.84%) CCNA
8 10 (6.54%) DV Cleared
9 9 (5.88%) SC Cleared
10 4 (2.61%) Azure Certification
11 2 (1.31%) BPSS Clearance
11 2 (1.31%) CCSA
11 2 (1.31%) CCSE
11 2 (1.31%) DBS Check
11 2 (1.31%) JNCIA
11 2 (1.31%) JNCIP
11 2 (1.31%) JNCIS
11 2 (1.31%) Network+ Certification
12 1 (0.65%) CISSP
12 1 (0.65%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (10.46%) PMO
2 12 (7.84%) SLA
3 5 (3.27%) NIST
3 5 (3.27%) PCI DSS
4 1 (0.65%) QA
System Software
1 16 (10.46%) ProxySG
2 6 (3.92%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (1.96%) Docker
3 3 (1.96%) VMware NSX
4 2 (1.31%) Active Directory
4 2 (1.31%) Firmware
4 2 (1.31%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 32 (20.92%) FortiGate
2 23 (15.03%) Ansible
3 12 (7.84%) Nagios
4 10 (6.54%) Terraform
5 9 (5.88%) Check_MK
6 7 (4.58%) Grafana
7 6 (3.92%) Prometheus
8 5 (3.27%) Kubernetes
9 3 (1.96%) ZABBIX
10 1 (0.65%) CASB
10 1 (0.65%) Cisco Prime
10 1 (0.65%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 121 (79.08%) Cisco
2 61 (39.87%) SolarWinds
3 51 (33.33%) Palo Alto
4 44 (28.76%) Fortinet
5 36 (23.53%) Meraki
6 34 (22.22%) CheckPoint
7 32 (20.92%) F5
8 25 (16.34%) ServiceNow
9 21 (13.73%) Arista
9 21 (13.73%) Infoblox
10 16 (10.46%) Blue Coat
10 16 (10.46%) Motorola
11 12 (7.84%) Juniper
12 11 (7.19%) Dynatrace
13 8 (5.23%) Microsoft
13 8 (5.23%) VMware
14 7 (4.58%) Aruba
15 5 (3.27%) Mellanox
15 5 (3.27%) NVIDIA
15 5 (3.27%) Splunk