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

6 months to
13 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 582 398 567
Rank change year-on-year -184 +169 +82
Permanent jobs citing OSPF 121 249 323
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.14% 0.60% 0.35%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 1.17% 4.61% 2.62%
Number of salaries quoted 67 217 265
10th Percentile £47,500 £32,500 £37,500
25th Percentile £58,750 £43,799 £46,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £53,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +32.08% +6.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £77,500 £72,500 £63,750
90th Percentile £103,750 £84,250 £82,000
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 10,378 5,401 12,316
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 12.24% 13.10% 13.26%
Number of salaries quoted 4,092 3,768 9,554
10th Percentile £27,000 £27,750 £26,250
25th Percentile £30,000 £35,000 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £51,500 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year -17.48% +8.42% -6.86%
75th Percentile £65,000 £69,500 £63,750
90th Percentile £85,000 £87,500 £77,715
UK excluding London median annual salary £37,500 £45,500 £43,227
% change year-on-year -17.58% +5.26% -3.94%

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 13 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 13 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 -183 117 £70,000 +32.08% 70
UK excluding London -190 54 £65,000 +22.64% 67
London -33 53 £72,000 -0.69% 14
Work from Home -28 28 £78,375 +39.65% 36
South East -106 20 £75,000 +41.51% 23
North of England -71 14 £60,000 +9.09% 12
Midlands -54 9 £62,500 +78.57% 8
North East -24 8 - - 1
West Midlands -25 7 £62,500 +78.57% 6
South West -52 6 £62,800 +11.90% 12
East of England -30 5 £40,000 -14.89% 6
North West -33 4 £62,750 +9.13% 6
Yorkshire -70 2 £60,000 +34.23% 5
East Midlands - 2 £50,000 - 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 (4.13%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (1.65%) Confluence
Applications
1 22 (18.18%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.83%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 48 (39.67%) Azure
2 41 (33.88%) AWS
3 12 (9.92%) AWS Direct Connect
3 12 (9.92%) Virtual Private Cloud
4 11 (9.09%) SaaS
5 6 (4.96%) Datadog
6 5 (4.13%) Microsoft 365
7 4 (3.31%) GCP
8 2 (1.65%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 2 (1.65%) Azure Monitor
8 2 (1.65%) Cloud Computing
8 2 (1.65%) Nutanix
8 2 (1.65%) OCI
8 2 (1.65%) Route 53
9 1 (0.83%) Stackdriver
Communications & Networking
1 116 (95.87%) BGP
2 103 (85.12%) Firewall
3 89 (73.55%) WAN
4 82 (67.77%) VPN
5 74 (61.16%) LAN
6 62 (51.24%) Wireless
7 58 (47.93%) SD-WAN
8 51 (42.15%) Network Security
9 49 (40.50%) EIGRP
10 47 (38.84%) Cisco ASA
11 46 (38.02%) VLAN
12 39 (32.23%) MPLS
13 35 (28.93%) Cisco ISE
14 34 (28.10%) Cisco Nexus
15 33 (27.27%) VXLAN
16 32 (26.45%) Wi-Fi
17 25 (20.66%) Cisco Firepower
18 22 (18.18%) Cisco Wireless
19 19 (15.70%) TCP/IP
19 19 (15.70%) WLAN
Development Applications
1 4 (3.31%) Git
2 1 (0.83%) JIRA
2 1 (0.83%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 32 (26.45%) Analytical Skills
2 31 (25.62%) Social Skills
3 14 (11.57%) Finance
4 8 (6.61%) Retail Banking
5 7 (5.79%) Law
6 5 (4.13%) Banking
7 4 (3.31%) Public Sector
8 3 (2.48%) Telecoms
9 2 (1.65%) Documentation Skills
9 2 (1.65%) Financial Institution
9 2 (1.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (0.83%) Marketing
10 1 (0.83%) Organisational Skills
10 1 (0.83%) Police
10 1 (0.83%) Retail
Job Titles
1 91 (75.21%) Network Engineer
2 47 (38.84%) Senior
3 42 (34.71%) Senior Network Engineer
4 14 (11.57%) Cisco Engineer
4 14 (11.57%) Cisco Network Engineer
5 13 (10.74%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 12 (9.92%) Consultant
6 12 (9.92%) Firewall Engineer
6 12 (9.92%) Network Consultant
7 11 (9.09%) Network Infrastructure Engineer
8 10 (8.26%) Cisco Consultant
8 10 (8.26%) Cisco Network Consultant
9 9 (7.44%) Infrastructure Operations Engineer
9 9 (7.44%) Network Operations Engineer
9 9 (7.44%) Operations Engineer
9 9 (7.44%) WAN Consultant
10 7 (5.79%) Lead
10 7 (5.79%) Network Team Leader
10 7 (5.79%) Team Leader
11 6 (4.96%) Lead Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (9.09%) 802.1X
1 11 (9.09%) REST
2 2 (1.65%) ARM Templates
3 1 (0.83%) gRPC
Miscellaneous
1 58 (47.93%) Data Centre
2 9 (7.44%) Management Information System
3 8 (6.61%) Onboarding
4 7 (5.79%) PKI
4 7 (5.79%) Security Posture
5 6 (4.96%) Driving Licence
6 4 (3.31%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
7 3 (2.48%) Cloud Native
8 2 (1.65%) e-Learning
9 1 (0.83%) Digital Media
9 1 (0.83%) Hybrid Cloud
9 1 (0.83%) Linux Command Line
9 1 (0.83%) Self-Motivation
9 1 (0.83%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 7 (5.79%) Linux
2 5 (4.13%) Windows
2 5 (4.13%) Windows Server
3 1 (0.83%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 29 (23.97%) Problem-Solving
2 27 (22.31%) Kalman Filter
3 26 (21.49%) Load Balancing
4 25 (20.66%) Network Monitoring
5 23 (19.01%) Root Cause Analysis
6 21 (17.36%) Computer Science
6 21 (17.36%) Network Segmentation
7 20 (16.53%) Project Delivery
8 18 (14.88%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 18 (14.88%) WAN Optimisation
9 17 (14.05%) Collaborative Working
9 17 (14.05%) ITIL
10 16 (13.22%) Analytical Thinking
10 16 (13.22%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 16 (13.22%) Zero Trust
11 14 (11.57%) Cloud Security
11 14 (11.57%) Network Design
12 13 (10.74%) Change Management
13 11 (9.09%) Network Management
14 10 (8.26%) High Availability
Programming Languages
1 45 (37.19%) Python
2 3 (2.48%) Bash
3 2 (1.65%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 84 (69.42%) Cisco Certification
2 81 (66.94%) CCNP
3 25 (20.66%) Degree
4 24 (19.83%) CCIE
5 21 (17.36%) Computer Science Degree
6 11 (9.09%) CCNA
7 7 (5.79%) Security Cleared
8 6 (4.96%) DV Cleared
9 5 (4.13%) DBS Check
10 4 (3.31%) SC Cleared
11 3 (2.48%) Azure Certification
11 3 (2.48%) Master's Degree
12 2 (1.65%) BPSS Clearance
12 2 (1.65%) CCSA
12 2 (1.65%) CCSE
13 1 (0.83%) AWS Certification
13 1 (0.83%) JNCIA
13 1 (0.83%) JNCIP
13 1 (0.83%) JNCIS
13 1 (0.83%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (13.22%) PMO
2 5 (4.13%) NIST
2 5 (4.13%) PCI DSS
3 4 (3.31%) SLA
4 2 (1.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 1 (0.83%) GDPR
5 1 (0.83%) ISO 9001
5 1 (0.83%) SOC 2
System Software
1 16 (13.22%) ProxySG
2 5 (4.13%) Active Directory
2 5 (4.13%) VMware Infrastructure
3 2 (1.65%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.83%) Docker
Systems Management
1 23 (19.01%) Ansible
2 21 (17.36%) FortiGate
3 8 (6.61%) Check_MK
3 8 (6.61%) Terraform
4 6 (4.96%) Nagios
5 1 (0.83%) Grafana
Vendors
1 111 (91.74%) Cisco
2 58 (47.93%) SolarWinds
3 47 (38.84%) Fortinet
4 43 (35.54%) Palo Alto
5 42 (34.71%) Meraki
6 35 (28.93%) CheckPoint
7 25 (20.66%) F5
7 25 (20.66%) ServiceNow
8 22 (18.18%) Infoblox
9 16 (13.22%) Blue Coat
9 16 (13.22%) Motorola
10 13 (10.74%) Arista
11 11 (9.09%) Dynatrace
11 11 (9.09%) Microsoft
12 9 (7.44%) Juniper
13 6 (4.96%) Aruba
14 5 (4.13%) ForeScout
14 5 (4.13%) SevOne
14 5 (4.13%) Splunk
14 5 (4.13%) VMware