Cisco Contract Job Trends

Cisco
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring knowledge or experience of Cisco products and/or services. It includes a benchmarking guide to contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Cisco over the 6 months leading up to 19 November 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

The figures below represent the IT contractor job market in general and are not representative of contractor rates within Cisco Systems, Inc.

6 months to
19 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 83 61 55
Rank change year-on-year -22 -6 +31
Contract jobs citing Cisco 1,093 1,240 1,772
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.06% 3.42% 3.83%
As % of the Vendors category 6.45% 7.61% 8.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 721 743 1,083
10th Percentile £263 £292 £263
25th Percentile £380 £400 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £483 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -3.50% +5.26% -
75th Percentile £575 £580 £576
90th Percentile £625 £650 £663
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £495 £450
% change year-on-year +1.01% +10.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 62 28 83
10th Percentile £21.83 £19.46 £16.60
25th Percentile £25.15 £20.14 £24.00
Median hourly rate £30.00 £32.50 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year -7.69% -24.42% +67.25%
75th Percentile £72.00 £56.25 £65.98
90th Percentile £89.63 £74.13 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £37.50 £43.90
% change year-on-year +73.33% -14.58% +16.18%

All Vendors
UK

Cisco falls under the Vendor Products and Services category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring knowledge or experience of all vendor products and services.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for knowledge or experience of vendor products and services 16,949 16,285 21,028
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 47.47% 44.93% 45.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,664 9,571 13,497
10th Percentile £288 £300 £259
25th Percentile £405 £413 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -1.45%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £700 £720 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.60% - +1.01%
Number of hourly rates quoted 879 512 677
10th Percentile £15.34 £15.62 £15.03
25th Percentile £18.25 £18.94 £20.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £30.21 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -16.75% -32.12% +73.08%
75th Percentile £42.50 £62.51 £63.75
90th Percentile £72.50 £73.75 £76.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.50 £27.50 £44.50
% change year-on-year -18.18% -38.20% +100.00%

Cisco
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Cisco job vacancy trend in the UK

Cisco
Daily Rate Trend

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

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

Cisco
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Cisco over the 6 months to 19 November 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Cisco in the UK

Cisco
Hourly Rate Trend

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

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

Cisco
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Cisco over the 6 months to 19 November 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Cisco in the UK

Cisco
Top 18 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Cisco within the UK over the 6 months to 19 November 2025. 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 -21 930 £500 - 613
UK excluding London -12 700 £500 +1.01% 493
London -33 308 £463 -7.50% 223
Work from Home -36 269 £450 -10.00% 216
South East 0 221 £500 -0.74% 203
Midlands +12 168 £410 -18.00% 81
West Midlands +21 146 £445 -11.00% 57
North of England -51 130 £481 -0.77% 79
North West -36 79 £475 -4.04% 45
Scotland +21 69 £425 +9.68% 52
South West -30 59 £550 +15.79% 28
Yorkshire -57 42 £490 +0.41% 23
East of England -17 39 £445 +4.71% 38
East Midlands -19 22 £158 -58.00% 24
Wales +2 14 £200 -48.39% 14
North East -1 11 £175 -61.11% 11
Northern Ireland -3 10 £475 +31.03% 5
Channel Islands - 2 £725 -

Cisco
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 68 (6.22%) Microsoft Exchange
2 45 (4.12%) SharePoint
3 23 (2.10%) Confluence
4 17 (1.56%) Apache
5 16 (1.46%) Skype for Business
6 14 (1.28%) WebLogic
7 8 (0.73%) Mattermost
7 8 (0.73%) OpenStack
8 7 (0.64%) Appian
9 5 (0.46%) SharePoint Server
10 3 (0.27%) WebSphere
11 2 (0.18%) CICS
11 2 (0.18%) Gunicorn
11 2 (0.18%) IIS
11 2 (0.18%) nginx
11 2 (0.18%) Tomcat
12 1 (0.091%) Exchange Server 2010
12 1 (0.091%) Exchange Server 2013
12 1 (0.091%) JBoss
12 1 (0.091%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 96 (8.78%) Microsoft Office
2 27 (2.47%) MS Visio
3 20 (1.83%) Microsoft Excel
4 12 (1.10%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.46%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.091%) Acrobat
6 1 (0.091%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 1 (0.091%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.091%) OmniGraffle
6 1 (0.091%) Revit
Business Applications
1 11 (1.01%) Remedy ITSM
2 4 (0.37%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.091%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 172 (15.74%) Azure
2 143 (13.08%) AWS
3 123 (11.25%) Microsoft 365
4 44 (4.03%) GCP
5 36 (3.29%) Entra ID
6 15 (1.37%) Azure Monitor
6 15 (1.37%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 13 (1.19%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 13 (1.19%) Azure Sentinel
8 12 (1.10%) Akamai
8 12 (1.10%) OpenShift
9 10 (0.91%) AWS CloudFormation
9 10 (0.91%) AWS Lambda
9 10 (0.91%) Datadog
9 10 (0.91%) GitHub
9 10 (0.91%) SaaS
9 10 (0.91%) Serverless
10 9 (0.82%) Nutanix
10 9 (0.82%) Power Platform
11 7 (0.64%) Tricentis Tosca
Communications & Networking
1 458 (41.90%) Firewall
2 230 (21.04%) WAN
3 196 (17.93%) LAN
4 187 (17.11%) Wireless
5 171 (15.65%) BGP
6 169 (15.46%) VPN
7 148 (13.54%) Network Security
8 141 (12.90%) DNS
9 134 (12.26%) SD-WAN
10 127 (11.62%) OSPF
11 107 (9.79%) Cisco IOS
12 102 (9.33%) Cisco ISE
13 96 (8.78%) Cisco Nexus
14 92 (8.42%) MPLS
15 89 (8.14%) DHCP
16 87 (7.96%) Wi-Fi
17 84 (7.69%) VLAN
18 60 (5.49%) IPsec
19 58 (5.31%) Cisco ASA
19 58 (5.31%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (1.01%) SQL Server
2 6 (0.55%) Power BI
3 5 (0.46%) DynamoDB
4 4 (0.37%) NoSQL
5 3 (0.27%) Amazon Athena
5 3 (0.27%) PostgreSQL
6 2 (0.18%) MongoDB
6 2 (0.18%) Oracle Database
7 1 (0.091%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 32 (2.93%) JIRA
2 18 (1.65%) GitLab
3 16 (1.46%) Sonatype Nexus
4 15 (1.37%) Git
5 9 (0.82%) SonarQube
6 8 (0.73%) Jenkins
6 8 (0.73%) Robot Framework
7 7 (0.64%) Cucumber
7 7 (0.64%) Selenium
8 3 (0.27%) Bitbucket
9 2 (0.18%) Cypress.io
9 2 (0.18%) Rational DOORS
9 2 (0.18%) Snyk
9 2 (0.18%) Subversion
9 2 (0.18%) webpack
10 1 (0.091%) Hudson
10 1 (0.091%) Mercurial
General
1 241 (22.05%) Social Skills
2 172 (15.74%) Public Sector
3 135 (12.35%) Telecoms
4 132 (12.08%) Finance
5 84 (7.69%) Analytical Skills
6 68 (6.22%) Manufacturing
7 42 (3.84%) Banking
8 41 (3.75%) Electronics
8 41 (3.75%) Marketing
9 37 (3.39%) Documentation Skills
10 27 (2.47%) Legal
11 25 (2.29%) Games
12 24 (2.20%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 13 (1.19%) Presentation Skills
14 11 (1.01%) Aerospace
15 9 (0.82%) Investment Banking
15 9 (0.82%) Organisational Skills
16 8 (0.73%) Military
17 6 (0.55%) Influencing Skills
17 6 (0.55%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 384 (35.13%) Network Engineer
2 130 (11.89%) Architect
3 87 (7.96%) Cisco Engineer
4 84 (7.69%) Network Architect
5 71 (6.50%) Consultant
6 70 (6.40%) Cisco Network Engineer
7 68 (6.22%) Analyst
7 68 (6.22%) Senior
8 58 (5.31%) Support Engineer
9 52 (4.76%) Network Consultant
9 52 (4.76%) Security Engineer
10 49 (4.48%) IT Support
10 49 (4.48%) Platform Engineer
10 49 (4.48%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
11 37 (3.39%) Desktop Support
11 37 (3.39%) Network Security Engineer
12 35 (3.20%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 31 (2.84%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
13 31 (2.84%) Juniper Engineer
13 31 (2.84%) Senior Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 32 (2.93%) 802.1X
2 24 (2.20%) RFC 2544
3 19 (1.74%) NETCONF
3 19 (1.74%) XMPP
4 15 (1.37%) Jinja
5 12 (1.10%) JSON
5 12 (1.10%) YANG
6 11 (1.01%) RESTCONF
6 11 (1.01%) XML
7 9 (0.82%) Flash
7 9 (0.82%) REST
8 7 (0.64%) Node.js
9 3 (0.27%) CSS
9 3 (0.27%) HTML
9 3 (0.27%) LDAP
9 3 (0.27%) Spring Boot
10 2 (0.18%) Middleware
10 2 (0.18%) OpenConfig
10 2 (0.18%) SOAP
10 2 (0.18%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 238 (21.77%) Data Centre
2 43 (3.93%) PKI
3 30 (2.74%) Onboarding
4 29 (2.65%) Driving Licence
5 28 (2.56%) Data Protection Act
6 25 (2.29%) Hybrid Cloud
7 24 (2.20%) Cloud Native
8 21 (1.92%) Linux Command Line
9 20 (1.83%) Fibre Optics
10 19 (1.74%) Replication
10 19 (1.74%) Video Conferencing
11 18 (1.65%) Operational Technology
12 15 (1.37%) Virtual Team
13 14 (1.28%) Management Information System
13 14 (1.28%) Public Cloud
14 13 (1.19%) NHS
14 13 (1.19%) Security Posture
15 12 (1.10%) CMDB
16 11 (1.01%) Enterprise Storage
16 11 (1.01%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 184 (16.83%) Windows
2 106 (9.70%) Linux
3 86 (7.87%) Mac OS
4 82 (7.50%) Android
5 64 (5.86%) Windows Server
6 28 (2.56%) Windows 10
7 20 (1.83%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 20 (1.83%) Unix
8 7 (0.64%) Windows Server 2016
9 5 (0.46%) CentOS
9 5 (0.46%) Windows Server 2012
10 3 (0.27%) VMS
10 3 (0.27%) Windows 7
10 3 (0.27%) Windows 8
10 3 (0.27%) Windows Server 2019
11 2 (0.18%) Solaris
11 2 (0.18%) zOS
12 1 (0.091%) MVS
12 1 (0.091%) Windows Server 2003
12 1 (0.091%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 128 (11.71%) Problem-Solving
2 123 (11.25%) Migration
3 112 (10.25%) Service Management
4 93 (8.51%) ITIL
5 84 (7.69%) Network Design
6 75 (6.86%) Agile
7 74 (6.77%) Roadmaps
8 69 (6.31%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 65 (5.95%) Collaborative Working
10 63 (5.76%) Change Management
11 62 (5.67%) Project Delivery
12 61 (5.58%) Business Intelligence
12 61 (5.58%) High Availability
13 60 (5.49%) ITSM
14 59 (5.40%) Incident Response
15 56 (5.12%) Network Architecture
16 54 (4.94%) Continuous Improvement
16 54 (4.94%) Cybersecurity
16 54 (4.94%) Load Balancing
17 51 (4.67%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 138 (12.63%) Python
2 92 (8.42%) PowerShell
3 36 (3.29%) Bash
4 33 (3.02%) SQL
5 24 (2.20%) Perl
6 15 (1.37%) JavaScript
7 9 (0.82%) C++
8 8 (0.73%) Java
8 8 (0.73%) Lisp
9 5 (0.46%) Kusto Query Language
10 4 (0.37%) Go
10 4 (0.37%) VB
11 2 (0.18%) C
11 2 (0.18%) PHP
11 2 (0.18%) TypeScript
12 1 (0.091%) VBA
Qualifications
1 446 (40.81%) Security Cleared
2 337 (30.83%) SC Cleared
3 285 (26.08%) Cisco Certification
4 205 (18.76%) CCNP
5 117 (10.70%) DV Cleared
6 110 (10.06%) CCNA
7 91 (8.33%) Degree
8 71 (6.50%) CCIE
9 32 (2.93%) Computer Science Degree
10 25 (2.29%) ITIL Certification
11 22 (2.01%) CISSP
11 22 (2.01%) Microsoft Certification
12 21 (1.92%) BPSS Clearance
13 19 (1.74%) Azure Certification
13 19 (1.74%) JNCIE
14 17 (1.56%) AWS Certification
15 15 (1.37%) JNCIA
16 13 (1.19%) CCDP
17 12 (1.10%) JNCIS
18 11 (1.01%) JNCIP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 46 (4.21%) SLA
2 31 (2.84%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 22 (2.01%) GDPR
4 19 (1.74%) NIST
5 16 (1.46%) PCI DSS
6 13 (1.19%) Cyber Essentials
7 11 (1.01%) PMO
8 7 (0.64%) NCSC
9 4 (0.37%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 3 (0.27%) HIPAA
11 2 (0.18%) Accessibility
11 2 (0.18%) Def Stans
11 2 (0.18%) Disclosure Scotland
11 2 (0.18%) QA
12 1 (0.091%) COBIT
12 1 (0.091%) GxP
12 1 (0.091%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 1 (0.091%) ISO 22301
12 1 (0.091%) NIST 800
System Software
1 165 (15.10%) Active Directory
2 125 (11.44%) VMware Infrastructure
3 55 (5.03%) VMware NSX
4 31 (2.84%) VMware ESXi
5 30 (2.74%) vSphere
6 29 (2.65%) Firmware
7 21 (1.92%) Docker
8 16 (1.46%) Hyper-V
9 11 (1.01%) Virtual Machines
10 10 (0.91%) NFS
11 9 (0.82%) GPFS
12 7 (0.64%) Virtual Servers
13 6 (0.55%) Snort
14 5 (0.46%) KVM
14 5 (0.46%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 4 (0.37%) Squid
16 3 (0.27%) BitLocker
17 2 (0.18%) Ceph
17 2 (0.18%) Virtual Desktop
17 2 (0.18%) Xen
Systems Management
1 112 (10.25%) Ansible
2 63 (5.76%) FortiGate
3 54 (4.94%) SCCM
4 48 (4.39%) Terraform
5 47 (4.30%) Microsoft Intune
6 46 (4.21%) vCenter Server
7 22 (2.01%) Kubernetes
8 20 (1.83%) Cisco CUCM
8 20 (1.83%) vRealize
9 11 (1.01%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 10 (0.91%) VxRail
11 8 (0.73%) EMC NetWorker
11 8 (0.73%) SCOM
11 8 (0.73%) WSUS
12 7 (0.64%) HP SiteScope
12 7 (0.64%) Nessus
13 6 (0.55%) EMC VPLEX
13 6 (0.55%) NetBackup
13 6 (0.55%) OpenView
14 5 (0.46%) Cisco Prime
Vendors
1 234 (21.41%) Microsoft
2 195 (17.84%) Juniper
3 165 (15.10%) Palo Alto
4 159 (14.55%) VMware
5 140 (12.81%) Fortinet
6 124 (11.34%) F5
6 124 (11.34%) SolarWinds
7 107 (9.79%) Meraki
8 85 (7.78%) Dell
9 83 (7.59%) Splunk
10 81 (7.41%) CheckPoint
11 71 (6.50%) HP
12 69 (6.31%) ServiceNow
13 62 (5.67%) Aruba
14 52 (4.76%) Apple
15 43 (3.93%) SAP
16 35 (3.20%) Zscaler
17 32 (2.93%) Oracle
18 29 (2.65%) AppDynamics
18 29 (2.65%) Remedy