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

6 months to
1 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 575 396 554
Rank change year-on-year -179 +158 +95
Permanent jobs citing OSPF 120 252 324
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.15% 0.62% 0.36%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 1.16% 4.90% 2.73%
Number of salaries quoted 65 221 269
10th Percentile £49,100 £32,500 £37,500
25th Percentile £58,750 £45,000 £46,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £54,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +28.44% +9.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £77,500 £72,500 £63,750
90th Percentile £103,750 £85,000 £82,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £65,000 £53,000 £48,500
% change year-on-year +22.64% +9.28% +7.78%

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 10,319 5,147 11,879
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 13.00% 12.60% 13.26%
Number of salaries quoted 4,090 3,694 9,371
10th Percentile £26,500 £28,250 £26,250
25th Percentile £29,750 £36,250 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £52,500 £48,250
Median % change year-on-year -19.05% +8.81% -6.31%
75th Percentile £65,000 £70,000 £63,750
90th Percentile £85,000 £87,500 £78,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £36,500 £47,500 £43,500
% change year-on-year -23.16% +9.20% -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 1 April 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 1 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 -164 116 £70,000 +32.08% 64
UK excluding London -176 54 £65,000 +22.64% 57
London -36 52 £74,500 +2.76% 17
Work from Home -31 27 £78,375 +39.65% 30
South East -108 20 £75,000 +41.51% 25
North of England -63 14 £60,000 +9.09% 10
North East -18 9 - - 2
Midlands -42 9 £62,500 +78.57% 6
West Midlands -28 7 £62,500 +78.57% 5
South West -47 6 £62,800 +11.90% 6
East of England -27 5 £40,000 -14.89% 5
Yorkshire -61 3 £62,500 +39.82% 3
North West -29 2 £53,000 -7.83% 5
East Midlands - 2 £50,000 - 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 5 (4.17%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (1.67%) Confluence
Applications
1 22 (18.33%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.83%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 52 (43.33%) Azure
2 42 (35.00%) AWS
3 13 (10.83%) AWS Direct Connect
4 12 (10.00%) Virtual Private Cloud
5 11 (9.17%) SaaS
6 5 (4.17%) Microsoft 365
7 4 (3.33%) Datadog
7 4 (3.33%) GCP
8 2 (1.67%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 2 (1.67%) Nutanix
8 2 (1.67%) OCI
9 1 (0.83%) Azure Monitor
9 1 (0.83%) Stackdriver
Communications & Networking
1 115 (95.83%) BGP
2 103 (85.83%) Firewall
3 88 (73.33%) WAN
4 82 (68.33%) VPN
5 74 (61.67%) LAN
6 62 (51.67%) Wireless
7 57 (47.50%) SD-WAN
8 51 (42.50%) EIGRP
9 48 (40.00%) Cisco ASA
9 48 (40.00%) Network Security
10 42 (35.00%) VLAN
11 38 (31.67%) Cisco Nexus
11 38 (31.67%) MPLS
12 34 (28.33%) VXLAN
13 33 (27.50%) Cisco ISE
14 31 (25.83%) Wi-Fi
15 24 (20.00%) Cisco Firepower
16 20 (16.67%) Cisco Wireless
17 19 (15.83%) IPsec
18 18 (15.00%) TCP/IP
Development Applications
1 4 (3.33%) Git
2 1 (0.83%) JIRA
2 1 (0.83%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 34 (28.33%) Analytical Skills
2 32 (26.67%) Social Skills
3 15 (12.50%) Finance
4 8 (6.67%) Retail Banking
5 6 (5.00%) Banking
5 6 (5.00%) Law
6 4 (3.33%) Public Sector
7 3 (2.50%) Marketing
8 2 (1.67%) Financial Institution
8 2 (1.67%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 2 (1.67%) Telecoms
9 1 (0.83%) Documentation Skills
9 1 (0.83%) Organisational Skills
9 1 (0.83%) Police
9 1 (0.83%) Retail
Job Titles
1 91 (75.83%) Network Engineer
2 44 (36.67%) Senior
3 42 (35.00%) Senior Network Engineer
4 14 (11.67%) Cisco Engineer
4 14 (11.67%) Cisco Network Engineer
5 12 (10.00%) Consultant
5 12 (10.00%) Firewall Engineer
5 12 (10.00%) Network Consultant
6 10 (8.33%) Cisco Consultant
6 10 (8.33%) Cisco Network Consultant
6 10 (8.33%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 9 (7.50%) Infrastructure Operations Engineer
7 9 (7.50%) Network Infrastructure Engineer
7 9 (7.50%) Network Operations Engineer
7 9 (7.50%) Operations Engineer
7 9 (7.50%) WAN Consultant
8 8 (6.67%) Lead
8 8 (6.67%) Network Team Leader
8 8 (6.67%) Team Leader
9 7 (5.83%) Lead Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (9.17%) REST
2 9 (7.50%) 802.1X
3 1 (0.83%) ARM Templates
Miscellaneous
1 56 (46.67%) Data Centre
2 9 (7.50%) Management Information System
3 8 (6.67%) Onboarding
4 6 (5.00%) Driving Licence
5 5 (4.17%) PKI
5 5 (4.17%) Security Posture
6 3 (2.50%) Cloud Native
6 3 (2.50%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
7 2 (1.67%) e-Learning
7 2 (1.67%) Virtual Team
8 1 (0.83%) Digital Media
8 1 (0.83%) Hedge funds
8 1 (0.83%) Hybrid Cloud
8 1 (0.83%) Linux Command Line
8 1 (0.83%) Public Cloud
8 1 (0.83%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 6 (5.00%) Linux
2 5 (4.17%) Windows
2 5 (4.17%) Windows Server
3 1 (0.83%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 29 (24.17%) Kalman Filter
2 28 (23.33%) Load Balancing
2 28 (23.33%) Problem-Solving
3 24 (20.00%) Computer Science
4 21 (17.50%) Network Monitoring
4 21 (17.50%) Network Segmentation
4 21 (17.50%) Root Cause Analysis
5 20 (16.67%) Project Delivery
6 18 (15.00%) WAN Optimisation
7 17 (14.17%) Collaborative Working
7 17 (14.17%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 16 (13.33%) Analytical Thinking
8 16 (13.33%) ITIL
8 16 (13.33%) Zero Trust
9 14 (11.67%) Cloud Security
10 13 (10.83%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 11 (9.17%) Change Management
11 11 (9.17%) Network Design
12 10 (8.33%) Network Management
13 9 (7.50%) High Availability
Programming Languages
1 44 (36.67%) Python
2 3 (2.50%) Bash
3 1 (0.83%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 87 (72.50%) Cisco Certification
2 84 (70.00%) CCNP
3 28 (23.33%) CCIE
4 27 (22.50%) Degree
5 24 (20.00%) Computer Science Degree
6 11 (9.17%) CCNA
7 7 (5.83%) Security Cleared
8 5 (4.17%) DBS Check
8 5 (4.17%) DV Cleared
8 5 (4.17%) SC Cleared
9 4 (3.33%) Azure Certification
10 3 (2.50%) Master's Degree
11 2 (1.67%) AWS Certification
11 2 (1.67%) BPSS Clearance
11 2 (1.67%) CCSA
11 2 (1.67%) CCSE
12 1 (0.83%) JNCIA
12 1 (0.83%) JNCIP
12 1 (0.83%) JNCIS
12 1 (0.83%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (15.00%) PMO
2 4 (3.33%) NIST
3 3 (2.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 3 (2.50%) PCI DSS
4 2 (1.67%) SLA
5 1 (0.83%) GDPR
5 1 (0.83%) ISO 9001
5 1 (0.83%) SOC 2
System Software
1 16 (13.33%) ProxySG
2 5 (4.17%) Active Directory
2 5 (4.17%) VMware Infrastructure
3 2 (1.67%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.83%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 21 (17.50%) Ansible
1 21 (17.50%) FortiGate
2 8 (6.67%) Check_MK
3 7 (5.83%) Terraform
4 5 (4.17%) Nagios
5 1 (0.83%) VxRail
Vendors
1 113 (94.17%) Cisco
2 58 (48.33%) SolarWinds
3 47 (39.17%) Fortinet
4 44 (36.67%) Meraki
5 42 (35.00%) Palo Alto
6 35 (29.17%) CheckPoint
7 25 (20.83%) ServiceNow
8 23 (19.17%) F5
9 22 (18.33%) Infoblox
10 18 (15.00%) Motorola
11 16 (13.33%) Blue Coat
12 13 (10.83%) Arista
13 11 (9.17%) Dynatrace
14 9 (7.50%) Juniper
14 9 (7.50%) Microsoft
15 6 (5.00%) Aruba
15 6 (5.00%) VMware
16 3 (2.50%) ForeScout
16 3 (2.50%) SevOne
16 3 (2.50%) Splunk