CCIE Contract Job Trends

Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for CCIE qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months leading up to 10 September 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 583 463 441
Rank change year-on-year -120 -22 +17
Contract jobs citing CCIE 89 87 122
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.16% 0.26% 0.32%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.52% 0.84% 1.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 53 49 72
10th Percentile £363 £421 £351
25th Percentile £400 £463 £473
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £550 £538
Median % change year-on-year -8.18% +2.33% +7.50%
75th Percentile £588 £650 £686
90th Percentile £710 £700 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £600
% change year-on-year - -16.67% +23.46%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 2 0
Median hourly rate - £80.25 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate - £103.00 -

All Academic and Professional Certifications
UK

CCIE falls under the Academic Qualifications and Professional Certifications category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications.

Contract vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 17,176 10,322 11,238
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.52% 31.29% 29.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,481 6,406 6,958
10th Percentile £350 £300 £313
25th Percentile £438 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £626 £625 £638
90th Percentile £713 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,308 824 674
10th Percentile £17.18 £17.97 £16.90
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £24.18
Median hourly rate £47.54 £25.15 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +89.03% -49.70% -9.09%
75th Percentile £72.54 £48.13 £67.69
90th Percentile £87.96 £71.39 £75.24
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £53.00
% change year-on-year +88.87% -52.55% +2.14%

CCIE
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing CCIE relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

CCIE job vacancy trend in the UK

CCIE
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing CCIE.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing CCIE

CCIE
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing CCIE over the 6 months to 10 September 2026.

Daily rate histogram for CCIE in the UK

CCIE
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing CCIE.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing CCIE

CCIE
Top 14 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing CCIE within the UK over the 6 months to 10 September 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
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
England -114 81 £505 -11.79% 30
UK excluding London -105 56 £500 - 22
London -90 24 £530 -11.67% 13
South East -63 19 £455 -25.71% 3
Work from Home -70 18 £515 +0.39% 13
Midlands -52 14 £475 -11.63%
West Midlands -41 13 £452 -17.82%
North of England -65 10 £500 +5.26% 4
North West -50 9 £500 +5.26% 1
South West -38 6 £675 -1.82% 6
East of England -26 5 £400 - 5
Northern Ireland +5 2 £488 -18.75% 2
East Midlands -17 1 £475 +8.57%
Yorkshire - 1 - - 3

CCIE
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 10 (11.24%) OpenStack
2 1 (1.12%) Confluence
2 1 (1.12%) SharePoint
Applications
1 8 (8.99%) MS Visio
2 6 (6.74%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (4.49%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (4.49%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Cloud Services
1 21 (23.60%) AWS
1 21 (23.60%) Azure
2 5 (5.62%) GCP
2 5 (5.62%) OpenShift
3 4 (4.49%) AWS Direct Connect
4 3 (3.37%) Virtual Private Cloud
5 2 (2.25%) Azure ExpressRoute
5 2 (2.25%) GitHub
6 1 (1.12%) Amazon EKS
6 1 (1.12%) AWS CloudFormation
6 1 (1.12%) Azure DevOps
6 1 (1.12%) Entra ID
6 1 (1.12%) GitHub Actions
6 1 (1.12%) Google Ads
6 1 (1.12%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 53 (59.55%) WAN
2 49 (55.06%) BGP
3 43 (48.31%) LAN
4 37 (41.57%) Firewall
5 33 (37.08%) OSPF
6 32 (35.96%) SD-WAN
7 31 (34.83%) Network Security
8 28 (31.46%) MPLS
9 22 (24.72%) Wireless
10 20 (22.47%) VPN
11 19 (21.35%) Wi-Fi
12 18 (20.22%) VXLAN
13 17 (19.10%) DNS
14 16 (17.98%) WLAN
15 14 (15.73%) TCP/IP
15 14 (15.73%) VLAN
16 12 (13.48%) Cisco ISE
16 12 (13.48%) Internet
17 9 (10.11%) Cisco Nexus
17 9 (10.11%) DHCP
Development Applications
1 6 (6.74%) Sonatype Nexus
2 2 (2.25%) GitLab
2 2 (2.25%) Jenkins
3 1 (1.12%) Bitbucket
3 1 (1.12%) Git
3 1 (1.12%) JIRA
General
1 32 (35.96%) Social Skills
2 15 (16.85%) Analytical Skills
3 14 (15.73%) Telecoms
4 11 (12.36%) Finance
5 8 (8.99%) Public Sector
6 5 (5.62%) Banking
6 5 (5.62%) Documentation Skills
7 4 (4.49%) Influencing Skills
8 2 (2.25%) Legal
8 2 (2.25%) Organisational Skills
9 1 (1.12%) Military
9 1 (1.12%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 46 (51.69%) Network Engineer
2 20 (22.47%) Architect
3 19 (21.35%) Senior
4 17 (19.10%) Network Architect
5 11 (12.36%) Cisco Engineer
6 10 (11.24%) Consultant
6 10 (11.24%) Security Engineer
6 10 (11.24%) Senior Network Engineer
7 9 (10.11%) Network Consultant
8 8 (8.99%) Cisco Network Engineer
8 8 (8.99%) Network Security Engineer
9 7 (7.87%) Lead
10 5 (5.62%) IP Architect
10 5 (5.62%) Senior Cisco Engineer
11 4 (4.49%) Cloud Engineer
11 4 (4.49%) LAN Engineer
12 3 (3.37%) Artificial Intelligence Consultant
12 3 (3.37%) IP Network Consultant
12 3 (3.37%) WAN Engineer
12 3 (3.37%) Wireless Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (13.48%) NETCONF
2 11 (12.36%) 802.1X
2 11 (12.36%) REST
3 10 (11.24%) YANG
4 9 (10.11%) Terraform
5 6 (6.74%) RESTCONF
6 5 (5.62%) OpenConfig
7 3 (3.37%) YAML
8 2 (2.25%) gRPC
9 1 (1.12%) eBPF
9 1 (1.12%) JSON
9 1 (1.12%) Spine.js
Miscellaneous
1 29 (32.58%) Data Centre
2 13 (14.61%) Hybrid Cloud
3 9 (10.11%) Cloud Native
3 9 (10.11%) Security Posture
4 7 (7.87%) Operational Technology
5 6 (6.74%) Analytical Mindset
5 6 (6.74%) Private Cloud
6 5 (5.62%) Onboarding
7 4 (4.49%) Public Cloud
8 3 (3.37%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 3 (3.37%) Management Information System
8 3 (3.37%) SCADA
9 2 (2.25%) Self-Motivation
10 1 (1.12%) CMDB
10 1 (1.12%) Cyber Security Posture
10 1 (1.12%) Data Protection Act
10 1 (1.12%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 1 (1.12%) Greenfield Project
10 1 (1.12%) PKI
10 1 (1.12%) TM Forum
Operating Systems
1 1 (1.12%) Linux
1 1 (1.12%) Unix
1 1 (1.12%) Windows
1 1 (1.12%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 24 (26.97%) Network Segmentation
2 21 (23.60%) Network Architecture
3 19 (21.35%) Zero Trust
4 18 (20.22%) Network Design
5 17 (19.10%) Technical Leadership
6 16 (17.98%) Roadmaps
7 14 (15.73%) ITIL
7 14 (15.73%) Project Delivery
7 14 (15.73%) Stakeholder Management
7 14 (15.73%) TOGAF
8 12 (13.48%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 11 (12.36%) Cybersecurity
9 11 (12.36%) Infrastructure as Code
9 11 (12.36%) Migration
9 11 (12.36%) Network Monitoring
10 10 (11.24%) DevOps
10 10 (11.24%) Load Balancing
10 10 (11.24%) Validation
11 9 (10.11%) AI
11 9 (10.11%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 27 (30.34%) Python
2 6 (6.74%) PowerShell
3 3 (3.37%) Lisp
4 2 (2.25%) Bash
4 2 (2.25%) Perl
Qualifications
1 89 (100.00%) Cisco Certification
2 64 (71.91%) CCNP
3 20 (22.47%) Security Cleared
4 17 (19.10%) JNCIE
5 13 (14.61%) CISSP
5 13 (14.61%) SC Cleared
6 11 (12.36%) CCIE Security
7 6 (6.74%) Degree
7 6 (6.74%) DV Cleared
8 5 (5.62%) AWS Certification
8 5 (5.62%) CCNA
9 4 (4.49%) CCIE Wireless
9 4 (4.49%) JNCIP
10 3 (3.37%) CCSE
10 3 (3.37%) CCSP
10 3 (3.37%) CWDP
10 3 (3.37%) CWNA
10 3 (3.37%) CWNE
10 3 (3.37%) CWSP
10 3 (3.37%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (4.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 3 (3.37%) NCSC
2 3 (3.37%) NIST
2 3 (3.37%) PCI DSS
3 2 (2.25%) SLA
4 1 (1.12%) QA
System Software
1 5 (5.62%) VMware Infrastructure
2 4 (4.49%) Active Directory
2 4 (4.49%) VMware NSX
3 3 (3.37%) Firmware
4 1 (1.12%) Docker
4 1 (1.12%) Hyper-V
4 1 (1.12%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 30 (33.71%) Ansible
2 6 (6.74%) FortiGate
3 4 (4.49%) Kubernetes
4 2 (2.25%) Progress Chef
5 1 (1.12%) OPNET
5 1 (1.12%) Puppet
5 1 (1.12%) TrustSec
Vendors
1 63 (70.79%) Cisco
2 27 (30.34%) Fortinet
3 22 (24.72%) F5
4 15 (16.85%) Aruba
4 15 (16.85%) Palo Alto
5 14 (15.73%) Juniper
6 10 (11.24%) Arista
7 9 (10.11%) Ekahau
7 9 (10.11%) Microsoft
8 8 (8.99%) VMware
9 5 (5.62%) CheckPoint
10 4 (4.49%) Google
10 4 (4.49%) ServiceNow
10 4 (4.49%) SolarWinds
11 3 (3.37%) AlgoSec
11 3 (3.37%) NVIDIA
11 3 (3.37%) Splunk
12 2 (2.25%) Extreme Networks
12 2 (2.25%) Meraki
12 2 (2.25%) Zscaler