You don’t need a lot of skill to research a BPO, just Metallurgy, Science, and Research, however atm the cost is simply too high to invest in your own set at the moment. I would wait for the SCC tax to lower before researching expensive BPOs.
You’ll be able to find max BPCs fairly easily on contracts.
Capital BPO research isn’t about skill so much as time. Most of my hull prints are researched to ME9 - ME10 provides little (sometimes no) benefit and will take about 6 months to research at a bonused facility.
Unless you will be selling capital BPC kits or making a lot of ships for a corporation, I recommend buying an Apostle BPC kit off contract - currently around 60 million ISK for ME9-TE16 hull print with ME10-TE20 component prints
What’s more, the ISK cost to research is basically on the EIV times the (costindex+surcharges+tax).
With a 4% surcharge, it means the research cost is at least 4 times the EIV.
The apostle BP is seeded at 1B ; but its EIV is 2.2B meaning its research cost is at least 8.8B (but 11B is a better approximation)
The four empire AUX have same EIV, seed value.