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

6 months to
17 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 589 467 574
Rank change year-on-year -122 +107 -60
Permanent jobs citing OSPF 173 223 330
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.17% 0.45% 0.34%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 2.38% 3.11% 2.71%
Number of salaries quoted 133 157 246
10th Percentile £47,750 £32,920 £37,500
25th Percentile £61,761 £42,500 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £72,500 £55,000 £53,000
Median % change year-on-year +31.82% +3.77% -3.64%
75th Percentile £82,500 £72,500 £67,500
90th Percentile £91,200 £85,000 £85,938
UK excluding London median annual salary £70,000 £52,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year +33.33% +5.00% -

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 7,275 7,168 12,159
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 7.35% 14.59% 12.38%
Number of salaries quoted 4,675 4,137 8,450
10th Percentile £28,000 £25,087 £26,250
25th Percentile £32,500 £30,500 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £47,500 £45,000 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year +5.56% -5.26% -7.77%
75th Percentile £70,000 £65,000 £63,750
90th Percentile £86,250 £82,500 £78,188
UK excluding London median annual salary £42,500 £38,500 £44,274
% change year-on-year +10.39% -13.04% -1.61%

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 17 July 2026.

Salary histogram for OSPF in the UK

OSPF
Top 14 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 17 July 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 -117 165 £75,000 +37.61% 45
London -36 87 £78,000 +20.00% 14
UK excluding London -111 76 £70,000 +33.33% 34
Work from Home -28 47 £78,000 +20.00% 9
North of England -30 25 £70,000 +16.67% 8
Midlands -13 23 £75,000 +114.29% 6
West Midlands -4 21 £75,000 +114.29% 6
South East -59 20 £52,500 - 7
North West -2 13 £70,000 +16.67% 4
Yorkshire -46 7 £72,788 -2.95% 4
Scotland +3 5 £50,500 -25.19%
North East - 5 £65,576 -
South West -60 3 £55,000 - 5
East Midlands - 2 £53,750 -

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 2 (1.16%) Confluence
Applications
1 14 (8.09%) MS Visio
2 2 (1.16%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 61 (35.26%) Azure
2 45 (26.01%) AWS
3 17 (9.83%) OpenShift
4 8 (4.62%) Datadog
4 8 (4.62%) GCP
4 8 (4.62%) SaaS
4 8 (4.62%) Virtual Private Cloud
5 6 (3.47%) AWS Direct Connect
6 5 (2.89%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 4 (2.31%) ChatGPT
7 4 (2.31%) Microsoft Copilot
8 3 (1.73%) Azure Monitor
9 2 (1.16%) Cloud Computing
9 2 (1.16%) Nutanix
9 2 (1.16%) Route 53
10 1 (0.58%) Cloudflare
10 1 (0.58%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 171 (98.84%) BGP
2 138 (79.77%) Firewall
3 115 (66.47%) VPN
4 109 (63.01%) WAN
5 86 (49.71%) LAN
6 84 (48.55%) Network Security
7 60 (34.68%) SD-WAN
8 58 (33.53%) VLAN
9 49 (28.32%) Wireless
10 47 (27.17%) EIGRP
11 42 (24.28%) Wi-Fi
12 41 (23.70%) TCP/IP
13 39 (22.54%) VXLAN
14 38 (21.97%) MPLS
15 36 (20.81%) Cisco ASA
16 35 (20.23%) Cisco ISE
16 35 (20.23%) DNS
17 29 (16.76%) Cisco Nexus
18 25 (14.45%) Cisco Firepower
19 22 (12.72%) Ethernet VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (1.73%) InfluxDB
Development Applications
1 1 (0.58%) GitLab
1 1 (0.58%) JIRA
1 1 (0.58%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 62 (35.84%) Social Skills
2 29 (16.76%) Finance
3 20 (11.56%) Analytical Skills
4 17 (9.83%) Telecoms
5 13 (7.51%) Law
6 7 (4.05%) Banking
6 7 (4.05%) Documentation Skills
6 7 (4.05%) Public Sector
6 7 (4.05%) Retail Banking
7 4 (2.31%) Marketing
7 4 (2.31%) Retail
8 2 (1.16%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 2 (1.16%) Manufacturing
8 2 (1.16%) Organisational Skills
9 1 (0.58%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 126 (72.83%) Network Engineer
2 67 (38.73%) Senior
3 46 (26.59%) Senior Network Engineer
4 22 (12.72%) Network Specialist
5 16 (9.25%) Network Security Specialist
5 16 (9.25%) Security Specialist
6 14 (8.09%) Senior Data Warehouse Specialist
6 14 (8.09%) Senior Network Specialist
7 13 (7.51%) Senior Network Security Specialist
7 13 (7.51%) Senior Security Specialist
8 11 (6.36%) Cisco Engineer
8 11 (6.36%) Cisco Network Engineer
9 9 (5.20%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 8 (4.62%) Consultant
10 8 (4.62%) Network Consultant
11 6 (3.47%) Network Infrastructure Engineer
11 6 (3.47%) Network Security Engineer
11 6 (3.47%) Security Engineer
12 5 (2.89%) Firewall Engineer
12 5 (2.89%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (9.83%) 802.1X
2 7 (4.05%) gRPC
3 3 (1.73%) ARM Templates
3 3 (1.73%) OpenTelemetry
4 1 (0.58%) LDAP
4 1 (0.58%) REST
4 1 (0.58%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 82 (47.40%) Data Centre
2 11 (6.36%) PKI
2 11 (6.36%) Security Posture
3 7 (4.05%) Onboarding
4 6 (3.47%) Hybrid Cloud
5 5 (2.89%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
6 4 (2.31%) Driving Licence
6 4 (2.31%) Management Information System
7 3 (1.73%) Life Science
8 2 (1.16%) Cloud Native
8 2 (1.16%) Linux Command Line
9 1 (0.58%) Data Protection Act
9 1 (0.58%) IPTV
9 1 (0.58%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 16 (9.25%) Linux
2 5 (2.89%) Windows
3 1 (0.58%) Unix
3 1 (0.58%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 43 (24.86%) Problem-Solving
2 38 (21.97%) Network Monitoring
3 31 (17.92%) Load Balancing
4 29 (16.76%) Zero Trust
5 28 (16.18%) Infrastructure as Code
5 28 (16.18%) Roadmaps
6 24 (13.87%) Network Design
6 24 (13.87%) Network Segmentation
6 24 (13.87%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 22 (12.72%) High Availability
7 22 (12.72%) Project Delivery
8 20 (11.56%) ITIL
9 19 (10.98%) Computer Science
9 19 (10.98%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 19 (10.98%) Kalman Filter
9 19 (10.98%) Mentoring
10 18 (10.40%) Analytics
11 17 (9.83%) AI
11 17 (9.83%) Technical Leadership
12 16 (9.25%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 40 (23.12%) Python
2 7 (4.05%) Bash
3 6 (3.47%) Bicep
4 3 (1.73%) PowerShell
5 1 (0.58%) C
Qualifications
1 96 (55.49%) Cisco Certification
2 88 (50.87%) CCNP
3 24 (13.87%) CCIE
3 24 (13.87%) CCNA
4 21 (12.14%) Degree
5 19 (10.98%) Security Cleared
6 16 (9.25%) Computer Science Degree
7 12 (6.94%) DV Cleared
8 10 (5.78%) CISSP
9 9 (5.20%) SC Cleared
10 4 (2.31%) Azure Certification
10 4 (2.31%) Network+ Certification
11 3 (1.73%) ITIL Certification
12 2 (1.16%) AWS Certification
12 2 (1.16%) BPSS Clearance
12 2 (1.16%) CCSA
12 2 (1.16%) CCSE
12 2 (1.16%) JNCIP
13 1 (0.58%) DBS Check
13 1 (0.58%) JNCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (6.36%) SLA
2 8 (4.62%) PMO
3 5 (2.89%) NIST
3 5 (2.89%) PCI DSS
3 5 (2.89%) QA
4 1 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
4 1 (0.58%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 8 (4.62%) ProxySG
2 7 (4.05%) VMware NSX
3 3 (1.73%) Docker
3 3 (1.73%) Firmware
3 3 (1.73%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (1.16%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 30 (17.34%) FortiGate
2 25 (14.45%) Ansible
3 17 (9.83%) Kubernetes
4 16 (9.25%) Terraform
5 9 (5.20%) Nagios
6 8 (4.62%) Check_MK
7 7 (4.05%) Grafana
8 6 (3.47%) Prometheus
9 3 (1.73%) ZABBIX
10 2 (1.16%) Cisco Prime
11 1 (0.58%) CASB
11 1 (0.58%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 118 (68.21%) Cisco
2 67 (38.73%) Palo Alto
3 52 (30.06%) Fortinet
4 41 (23.70%) SolarWinds
5 26 (15.03%) F5
6 23 (13.29%) Arista
7 22 (12.72%) CheckPoint
7 22 (12.72%) Meraki
8 17 (9.83%) Juniper
9 16 (9.25%) Zscaler
10 13 (7.51%) Aruba
10 13 (7.51%) Infoblox
11 12 (6.94%) Microsoft
11 12 (6.94%) ServiceNow
12 9 (5.20%) VMware
13 8 (4.62%) Blue Coat
13 8 (4.62%) Motorola
14 6 (3.47%) Dynatrace
14 6 (3.47%) Mellanox
14 6 (3.47%) NVIDIA