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 20 August 2026, 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
20 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 118 77 68
Rank change year-on-year -41 -9 -13
Contract jobs citing Cisco 1,197 1,054 1,211
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.24% 3.21% 3.12%
As % of the Vendors category 5.35% 6.78% 7.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 785 648 748
10th Percentile £300 £300 £250
25th Percentile £400 £400 £379
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £494 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.76% -1.26% +8.11%
75th Percentile £575 £584 £575
90th Percentile £655 £638 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - +11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 39 41 33
10th Percentile £26.53 - £15.43
25th Percentile £32.63 £25.15 £22.40
Median hourly rate £52.50 £30.00 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +75.00% +9.09% -42.50%
75th Percentile £67.84 £58.75 £55.00
90th Percentile £78.55 £83.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £30.00 £50.00
% change year-on-year +83.33% -40.00% -

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 22,380 15,535 16,974
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.82% 47.31% 43.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,856 9,504 10,556
10th Percentile £313 £275 £288
25th Percentile £413 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.00% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £610 £612 £625
90th Percentile £700 £700 £730
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,139 809 815
10th Percentile £14.56 £14.62 £13.50
25th Percentile £17.74 £17.30 £15.62
Median hourly rate £31.93 £25.15 £28.00
Median % change year-on-year +26.94% -10.18% -32.15%
75th Percentile £65.00 £47.12 £61.60
90th Percentile £83.05 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 £21.28 £27.50
% change year-on-year +40.98% -22.62% -21.43%

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 20 August 2026.

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 20 August 2026.

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 20 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
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
England -49 1,007 £500 - 649
UK excluding London -39 717 £475 -5.00% 629
London -43 368 £500 - 163
Work from Home -28 288 £475 - 109
North of England -11 249 £497 +2.43% 141
North West +10 177 £485 +2.11% 60
South East -54 154 £475 -9.52% 156
Midlands -29 130 £425 -10.53% 88
West Midlands -21 124 £425 -10.53% 45
Scotland +22 96 £413 -2.94% 45
Yorkshire -40 67 £500 +1.63% 57
South West -50 57 £505 -9.21% 87
East of England -17 35 £500 -9.09% 81
Wales -5 22 £425 +112.50% 28
Northern Ireland +8 8 £115 -67.14% 15
North East -38 6 £350 -36.36% 26
East Midlands -33 3 £525 +6.33% 43
Channel Islands -2 1 £550 -24.14%

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 36 (3.01%) SharePoint
2 28 (2.34%) Microsoft Exchange
3 12 (1.00%) Confluence
4 10 (0.84%) OpenStack
5 8 (0.67%) SAS
6 7 (0.58%) Apache
7 6 (0.50%) JBoss
8 4 (0.33%) nginx
9 3 (0.25%) CloudStack
9 3 (0.25%) IIS
9 3 (0.25%) Tomcat
10 2 (0.17%) CMS
11 1 (0.084%) Apache Spark
11 1 (0.084%) FactoryTalk
11 1 (0.084%) Mendix
11 1 (0.084%) SharePoint Server
11 1 (0.084%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 50 (4.18%) Microsoft Office
2 29 (2.42%) Microsoft Excel
3 27 (2.26%) MS Visio
4 10 (0.84%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 3 (0.25%) Acrobat
6 1 (0.084%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 1 (0.084%) Remedy ITSM
1 1 (0.084%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 244 (20.38%) Azure
2 150 (12.53%) AWS
3 90 (7.52%) Microsoft 365
4 60 (5.01%) Entra ID
5 30 (2.51%) GitHub
6 28 (2.34%) OneDrive
7 22 (1.84%) GCP
8 19 (1.59%) OpenShift
9 18 (1.50%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 17 (1.42%) Azure ExpressRoute
11 14 (1.17%) Power Platform
12 12 (1.00%) Nutanix
13 11 (0.92%) SaaS
14 10 (0.84%) Azure DevOps
14 10 (0.84%) Azure Sentinel
15 7 (0.58%) Cloudflare
15 7 (0.58%) GitHub Actions
15 7 (0.58%) IaaS
15 7 (0.58%) Rubrik
16 6 (0.50%) AWS Direct Connect
Communications & Networking
1 509 (42.52%) Firewall
2 360 (30.08%) WAN
3 308 (25.73%) BGP
4 286 (23.89%) LAN
5 255 (21.30%) VPN
6 245 (20.47%) Network Security
7 205 (17.13%) OSPF
8 202 (16.88%) Wireless
9 188 (15.71%) DNS
10 185 (15.46%) VLAN
11 146 (12.20%) SD-WAN
12 131 (10.94%) Wi-Fi
13 125 (10.44%) MPLS
14 116 (9.69%) Cisco Nexus
15 110 (9.19%) DHCP
16 99 (8.27%) Cisco ISE
17 97 (8.10%) Cisco ASA
17 97 (8.10%) TCP/IP
17 97 (8.10%) VXLAN
18 79 (6.60%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (2.26%) SQL Server
2 6 (0.50%) Big Data
2 6 (0.50%) Hadoop
2 6 (0.50%) Power BI
3 4 (0.33%) Amazon RDS
4 3 (0.25%) MySQL
5 2 (0.17%) Metadata
5 2 (0.17%) NoSQL
5 2 (0.17%) PostgreSQL
6 1 (0.084%) Apache Hive
6 1 (0.084%) ClickHouse
Development Applications
1 30 (2.51%) Git
2 21 (1.75%) JIRA
3 12 (1.00%) GitLab
3 12 (1.00%) Sonatype Nexus
4 11 (0.92%) Jenkins
5 2 (0.17%) Robot Framework
6 1 (0.084%) Bitbucket
6 1 (0.084%) Tricentis qTest
6 1 (0.084%) Zephyr
General
1 276 (23.06%) Social Skills
2 116 (9.69%) Finance
3 114 (9.52%) Telecoms
4 99 (8.27%) Analytical Skills
5 64 (5.35%) Public Sector
6 61 (5.10%) Banking
7 55 (4.59%) Documentation Skills
8 36 (3.01%) Legal
9 22 (1.84%) Organisational Skills
10 20 (1.67%) Financial Institution
11 19 (1.59%) Investment Banking
12 16 (1.34%) Retail
13 14 (1.17%) Law
14 12 (1.00%) Military
14 12 (1.00%) Police
15 11 (0.92%) Manufacturing
16 9 (0.75%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 9 (0.75%) Influencing Skills
17 6 (0.50%) Marketing
18 4 (0.33%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 597 (49.87%) Network Engineer
2 171 (14.29%) Senior
3 145 (12.11%) Architect
4 140 (11.70%) Cisco Engineer
5 126 (10.53%) Cisco Network Engineer
6 121 (10.11%) Senior Network Engineer
7 83 (6.93%) Security Engineer
8 74 (6.18%) Network Architect
9 65 (5.43%) Network Security Engineer
10 59 (4.93%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 53 (4.43%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
12 42 (3.51%) Field Engineer
13 39 (3.26%) Data Network Engineer
14 34 (2.84%) Analyst
15 33 (2.76%) Lead
16 32 (2.67%) Telecoms Engineer
17 30 (2.51%) Cisco Security Engineer
17 30 (2.51%) Data Engineer
18 29 (2.42%) Automation Engineer
18 29 (2.42%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 74 (6.18%) Terraform
2 66 (5.51%) 802.1X
3 25 (2.09%) REST
4 12 (1.00%) JSON
4 12 (1.00%) SAML
4 12 (1.00%) YAML
5 9 (0.75%) Flash
5 9 (0.75%) NETCONF
6 7 (0.58%) OpenConfig
6 7 (0.58%) RESTCONF
6 7 (0.58%) XMPP
6 7 (0.58%) YANG
7 6 (0.50%) Jinja
7 6 (0.50%) Microsoft Graph
8 4 (0.33%) LDAP
9 3 (0.25%) Java RMI
9 3 (0.25%) LAMP
9 3 (0.25%) LEMP Stack
9 3 (0.25%) Middleware
9 3 (0.25%) RFC 2544
Miscellaneous
1 285 (23.81%) Data Centre
2 52 (4.34%) PKI
3 50 (4.18%) Hybrid Cloud
4 44 (3.68%) Onboarding
5 38 (3.17%) Data Protection Act
6 36 (3.01%) Driving Licence
7 33 (2.76%) Operational Technology
8 31 (2.59%) Replication
9 30 (2.51%) Clustering
9 30 (2.51%) Video Conferencing
10 23 (1.92%) Cloud Native
11 22 (1.84%) Analytical Mindset
12 20 (1.67%) Enterprise Storage
13 18 (1.50%) Linux Command Line
14 17 (1.42%) Public Cloud
14 17 (1.42%) Self-Motivation
15 16 (1.34%) SCADA
16 15 (1.25%) Management Information System
17 14 (1.17%) EMC VMAX
18 13 (1.09%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 217 (18.13%) Windows
2 127 (10.61%) Linux
3 80 (6.68%) Windows Server
4 20 (1.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 18 (1.50%) Ubuntu
6 17 (1.42%) Windows 10
7 12 (1.00%) Unix
8 10 (0.84%) Mac OS
8 10 (0.84%) Windows Server 2019
9 9 (0.75%) AIX
9 9 (0.75%) Android
9 9 (0.75%) Windows Server 2012
10 6 (0.50%) CentOS
11 5 (0.42%) Data ONTAP
12 4 (0.33%) VMS
12 4 (0.33%) Windows Server 2016
13 1 (0.084%) CatOS
13 1 (0.084%) Check Point GAiA
13 1 (0.084%) Debian
13 1 (0.084%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 182 (15.20%) Migration
2 146 (12.20%) Project Delivery
3 139 (11.61%) ITIL
4 132 (11.03%) Problem-Solving
5 122 (10.19%) Load Balancing
6 116 (9.69%) High Availability
7 92 (7.69%) Network Design
8 90 (7.52%) Change Management
8 90 (7.52%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 86 (7.18%) Continuous Improvement
10 83 (6.93%) Infrastructure as Code
10 83 (6.93%) Stakeholder Management
11 75 (6.27%) ITSM
11 75 (6.27%) Validation
12 71 (5.93%) CI/CD
13 68 (5.68%) Technical Leadership
14 63 (5.26%) Network Monitoring
15 59 (4.93%) Data Protection
15 59 (4.93%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 59 (4.93%) Zero Trust
Programming Languages
1 144 (12.03%) Python
2 59 (4.93%) PowerShell
3 32 (2.67%) Bash
4 24 (2.01%) SQL
5 5 (0.42%) Shell Script
6 4 (0.33%) C
6 4 (0.33%) Java
7 3 (0.25%) C++
7 3 (0.25%) Lisp
8 2 (0.17%) Perl
9 1 (0.084%) ActionScript
9 1 (0.084%) Bicep
9 1 (0.084%) Go
9 1 (0.084%) Ladder Logic
Qualifications
1 337 (28.15%) Cisco Certification
2 301 (25.15%) Security Cleared
3 240 (20.05%) CCNP
4 214 (17.88%) SC Cleared
5 139 (11.61%) CCNA
6 83 (6.93%) DV Cleared
7 70 (5.85%) Degree
8 65 (5.43%) CCIE
9 25 (2.09%) Microsoft Certification
10 23 (1.92%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 19 (1.59%) MCSE
11 19 (1.59%) Network+ Certification
12 17 (1.42%) Azure Certification
13 15 (1.25%) Server+ Certification
14 14 (1.17%) BPSS Clearance
15 13 (1.09%) AWS Certification
15 13 (1.09%) Computer Science Degree
16 12 (1.00%) CCSE
17 11 (0.92%) CISSP
17 11 (0.92%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 46 (3.84%) SLA
2 28 (2.34%) NIST
3 23 (1.92%) QA
4 18 (1.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 16 (1.34%) Cyber Essentials
6 13 (1.09%) NCSC
7 6 (0.50%) Disclosure Scotland
7 6 (0.50%) PCI DSS
7 6 (0.50%) PMO
8 5 (0.42%) GDPR
8 5 (0.42%) JSP 440
9 4 (0.33%) Data Quality
10 3 (0.25%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 3 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 3 (0.25%) NIST 800
11 2 (0.17%) Accessibility
11 2 (0.17%) Government Security Classifications
11 2 (0.17%) ISA99
12 1 (0.084%) GRC
12 1 (0.084%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 148 (12.36%) VMware Infrastructure
2 113 (9.44%) Active Directory
3 45 (3.76%) vSphere
4 43 (3.59%) VMware ESXi
4 43 (3.59%) VMware NSX
5 34 (2.84%) Firmware
6 29 (2.42%) Hyper-V
6 29 (2.42%) Virtual Machines
7 16 (1.34%) Docker
8 13 (1.09%) NFS
9 9 (0.75%) GPFS
10 8 (0.67%) SRDF
11 6 (0.50%) EMC RecoverPoint
12 5 (0.42%) Virtual Desktop
13 4 (0.33%) Virtual Servers
14 3 (0.25%) Dovecot
14 3 (0.25%) FreeRADIUS
14 3 (0.25%) Postfix
15 2 (0.17%) Snort
15 2 (0.17%) UAG
Systems Management
1 146 (12.20%) Ansible
2 85 (7.10%) FortiGate
3 32 (2.67%) Kubernetes
4 29 (2.42%) Microsoft Intune
5 21 (1.75%) SCCM
6 20 (1.67%) Cisco CUCM
6 20 (1.67%) vCenter Server
7 17 (1.42%) Cisco Prime
8 15 (1.25%) Grafana
9 14 (1.17%) Prometheus
10 10 (0.84%) Puppet
11 9 (0.75%) Single Sign-On
11 9 (0.75%) vRealize
12 8 (0.67%) Failover Clustering
12 8 (0.67%) WMI
12 8 (0.67%) WSUS
13 7 (0.58%) EMC VPLEX
14 6 (0.50%) Nagios
14 6 (0.50%) Red Hat Satellite
14 6 (0.50%) VxRail
Vendors
1 257 (21.47%) Palo Alto
2 227 (18.96%) Microsoft
3 209 (17.46%) F5
4 205 (17.13%) Fortinet
5 204 (17.04%) VMware
6 135 (11.28%) Juniper
7 108 (9.02%) CheckPoint
8 105 (8.77%) Meraki
9 99 (8.27%) ServiceNow
10 90 (7.52%) Aruba
11 84 (7.02%) SolarWinds
12 73 (6.10%) Arista
13 51 (4.26%) Zscaler
14 48 (4.01%) Splunk
15 38 (3.17%) Red Hat
16 35 (2.92%) Dell
17 25 (2.09%) Infoblox
17 25 (2.09%) Nokia
18 23 (1.92%) EMC
18 23 (1.92%) NetApp