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

6 months to
3 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 605 492 557
Rank change year-on-year -113 +65 -87
Permanent jobs citing OSPF 179 206 283
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.17% 0.41% 0.34%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 2.42% 2.80% 2.86%
Number of salaries quoted 137 141 210
10th Percentile £48,350 £33,200 £35,925
25th Percentile £58,750 £43,799 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +36.36% - -
75th Percentile £85,000 £72,500 £68,438
90th Percentile £92,750 £85,000 £87,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £67,788 £52,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year +29.12% +5.00% -4.76%

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 7,411 7,351 9,890
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 7.15% 14.78% 11.88%
Number of salaries quoted 4,760 4,225 6,412
10th Percentile £28,000 £25,087 £27,500
25th Percentile £32,500 £30,000 £34,974
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £47,500 £42,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +11.76% -15.00% -3.85%
75th Percentile £70,000 £63,250 £65,000
90th Percentile £87,500 £80,150 £80,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £43,000 £37,500 £45,000
% change year-on-year +14.67% -16.67% -

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 3 August 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 3 August 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 -85 171 £75,000 +36.36% 62
UK excluding London -104 88 £67,788 +29.12% 36
London -61 81 £82,500 +26.92% 29
Work from Home -22 49 £78,000 +20.00% 27
Midlands -3 27 £72,500 +87.10% 6
North of England -36 27 £70,000 +16.67% 10
West Midlands -8 25 £75,000 +93.55% 6
South East -46 21 £52,500 +8.27% 8
North West +7 15 £70,000 +16.67% 5
Yorkshire -47 7 £72,788 -2.95% 6
South West -72 6 £65,000 +16.99% 7
Scotland +6 5 £50,500 -25.19%
North East - 5 £65,576 -
East of England -25 2 - - 7
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 (1.12%) Confluence
Applications
1 13 (7.26%) MS Visio
2 2 (1.12%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 1 (0.56%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 64 (35.75%) Azure
2 45 (25.14%) AWS
3 19 (10.61%) OpenShift
4 9 (5.03%) GCP
5 6 (3.35%) Datadog
6 5 (2.79%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 5 (2.79%) SaaS
6 5 (2.79%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 4 (2.23%) ChatGPT
7 4 (2.23%) Microsoft Copilot
8 3 (1.68%) Azure Monitor
9 2 (1.12%) AWS Direct Connect
9 2 (1.12%) Cloud Computing
9 2 (1.12%) Route 53
10 1 (0.56%) Cloudflare
10 1 (0.56%) Microsoft 365
10 1 (0.56%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 175 (97.77%) BGP
2 142 (79.33%) Firewall
3 117 (65.36%) VPN
4 114 (63.69%) WAN
5 95 (53.07%) LAN
6 87 (48.60%) Network Security
7 59 (32.96%) VLAN
8 53 (29.61%) SD-WAN
9 51 (28.49%) EIGRP
10 50 (27.93%) Wireless
11 44 (24.58%) TCP/IP
12 42 (23.46%) Wi-Fi
13 37 (20.67%) DNS
13 37 (20.67%) VXLAN
14 33 (18.44%) Cisco ISE
15 32 (17.88%) Cisco ASA
15 32 (17.88%) MPLS
16 29 (16.20%) Cisco Nexus
17 22 (12.29%) Cisco Firepower
17 22 (12.29%) Ethernet VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (1.68%) InfluxDB
Development Applications
1 2 (1.12%) Sonatype Nexus
2 1 (0.56%) Git
2 1 (0.56%) GitLab
2 1 (0.56%) JIRA
General
1 66 (36.87%) Social Skills
2 30 (16.76%) Finance
3 22 (12.29%) Analytical Skills
4 17 (9.50%) Telecoms
5 13 (7.26%) Law
6 8 (4.47%) Documentation Skills
7 6 (3.35%) Banking
8 5 (2.79%) Public Sector
8 5 (2.79%) Retail Banking
9 4 (2.23%) Organisational Skills
10 3 (1.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 3 (1.68%) Marketing
10 3 (1.68%) Retail
11 2 (1.12%) Manufacturing
12 1 (0.56%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 129 (72.07%) Network Engineer
2 66 (36.87%) Senior
3 45 (25.14%) Senior Network Engineer
4 25 (13.97%) Network Specialist
5 18 (10.06%) Network Security Specialist
5 18 (10.06%) Security Specialist
6 14 (7.82%) Senior Data Warehouse Specialist
6 14 (7.82%) Senior Network Specialist
7 13 (7.26%) Cisco Engineer
7 13 (7.26%) Cisco Network Engineer
7 13 (7.26%) Senior Network Security Specialist
7 13 (7.26%) Senior Security Specialist
8 7 (3.91%) Consultant
8 7 (3.91%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 7 (3.91%) Network Consultant
9 6 (3.35%) Network Security Engineer
9 6 (3.35%) Security Engineer
10 5 (2.79%) Juniper Consultant
10 5 (2.79%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
10 5 (2.79%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (8.38%) 802.1X
2 7 (3.91%) gRPC
3 3 (1.68%) ARM Templates
3 3 (1.68%) OpenTelemetry
4 1 (0.56%) Jinja
4 1 (0.56%) LDAP
4 1 (0.56%) REST
4 1 (0.56%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 78 (43.58%) Data Centre
2 9 (5.03%) Security Posture
3 8 (4.47%) Onboarding
3 8 (4.47%) PKI
4 6 (3.35%) Hybrid Cloud
5 4 (2.23%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
5 4 (2.23%) Driving Licence
6 3 (1.68%) Life Science
6 3 (1.68%) Management Information System
7 2 (1.12%) Linux Command Line
8 1 (0.56%) CMDB
8 1 (0.56%) Cyber Security Posture
8 1 (0.56%) Data Protection Act
8 1 (0.56%) IPTV
8 1 (0.56%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 17 (9.50%) Linux
2 6 (3.35%) Windows
3 2 (1.12%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.56%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 42 (23.46%) Network Monitoring
1 42 (23.46%) Problem-Solving
2 34 (18.99%) Infrastructure as Code
3 29 (16.20%) Load Balancing
3 29 (16.20%) Roadmaps
4 28 (15.64%) Zero Trust
5 24 (13.41%) Network Design
5 24 (13.41%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 23 (12.85%) ITIL
6 23 (12.85%) Project Delivery
7 21 (11.73%) High Availability
7 21 (11.73%) Mentoring
7 21 (11.73%) Network Segmentation
8 19 (10.61%) AI
9 18 (10.06%) Analytics
9 18 (10.06%) Containerisation
9 18 (10.06%) Information Security
9 18 (10.06%) Root Cause Analysis
10 17 (9.50%) Kalman Filter
10 17 (9.50%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 41 (22.91%) Python
2 7 (3.91%) Bash
3 6 (3.35%) Bicep
4 3 (1.68%) PowerShell
5 1 (0.56%) C
Qualifications
1 102 (56.98%) Cisco Certification
2 93 (51.96%) CCNP
3 25 (13.97%) CCNA
4 24 (13.41%) CCIE
5 22 (12.29%) Security Cleared
6 19 (10.61%) Degree
7 15 (8.38%) DV Cleared
8 14 (7.82%) Computer Science Degree
9 12 (6.70%) CISSP
10 10 (5.59%) SC Cleared
11 5 (2.79%) ITIL Certification
12 4 (2.23%) Azure Certification
12 4 (2.23%) Network+ Certification
13 3 (1.68%) BPSS Clearance
14 2 (1.12%) AWS Certification
14 2 (1.12%) CCDP
14 2 (1.12%) JNCIP
14 2 (1.12%) JNCIS
15 1 (0.56%) JNCIA
15 1 (0.56%) JNCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (6.70%) SLA
2 8 (4.47%) PMO
3 5 (2.79%) QA
4 4 (2.23%) NIST
5 3 (1.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 3 (1.68%) PCI DSS
6 1 (0.56%) Accessibility
6 1 (0.56%) Cyber Essentials
System Software
1 9 (5.03%) VMware NSX
2 8 (4.47%) ProxySG
3 7 (3.91%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (2.79%) Firmware
5 3 (1.68%) Docker
6 2 (1.12%) Hyper-V
6 2 (1.12%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.56%) Active Directory
7 1 (0.56%) KVM
Systems Management
1 35 (19.55%) FortiGate
2 29 (16.20%) Ansible
3 20 (11.17%) Terraform
4 19 (10.61%) Kubernetes
5 9 (5.03%) Nagios
6 7 (3.91%) Grafana
7 6 (3.35%) Check_MK
7 6 (3.35%) Prometheus
8 4 (2.23%) ZABBIX
9 2 (1.12%) Cisco Prime
10 1 (0.56%) CASB
10 1 (0.56%) Proxmox
10 1 (0.56%) Single Sign-On
10 1 (0.56%) Symantec Endpoint Protection
Vendors
1 124 (69.27%) Cisco
2 66 (36.87%) Palo Alto
3 53 (29.61%) Fortinet
4 35 (19.55%) SolarWinds
5 24 (13.41%) F5
6 23 (12.85%) Arista
7 20 (11.17%) Juniper
8 18 (10.06%) Zscaler
9 17 (9.50%) Meraki
10 16 (8.94%) Aruba
10 16 (8.94%) CheckPoint
11 13 (7.26%) VMware
12 12 (6.70%) Infoblox
13 11 (6.15%) Microsoft
13 11 (6.15%) ServiceNow
14 8 (4.47%) Blue Coat
14 8 (4.47%) Motorola
15 6 (3.35%) Mellanox
15 6 (3.35%) NVIDIA
16 3 (1.68%) SevOne