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 15 April 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
15 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 98 65 64
Rank change year-on-year -33 -1 +5
Contract jobs citing Cisco 1,105 1,055 1,373
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.41% 3.60% 3.15%
As % of the Vendors category 5.64% 7.61% 7.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 745 673 828
10th Percentile £290 £304 £261
25th Percentile £400 £408 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +5.26% -
75th Percentile £560 £588 £588
90th Percentile £625 £650 £706
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +1.32% - +4.97%
Number of hourly rates quoted 35 19 47
10th Percentile £21.46 £17.55 £13.29
25th Percentile £32.13 £21.58 £20.98
Median hourly rate £63.14 £37.50 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +68.36% +36.36% -46.78%
75th Percentile £74.26 £66.88 £41.25
90th Percentile £89.00 £75.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £74.26 £33.52 £24.50
% change year-on-year +121.52% +36.83% -55.71%

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 19,604 13,856 18,556
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 42.75% 47.30% 42.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,559 8,734 11,576
10th Percentile £313 £293 £262
25th Percentile £413 £406 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £517
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -0.87% -1.52%
75th Percentile £600 £615 £627
90th Percentile £700 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.56% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 979 530 1,062
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.00 £12.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £18.51 £14.36
Median hourly rate £28.88 £28.21 £22.21
Median % change year-on-year +2.39% +26.98% -47.74%
75th Percentile £60.00 £60.00 £55.97
90th Percentile £78.75 £77.75 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.38 £24.83 £21.37
% change year-on-year +2.22% +16.19% -45.97%

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 15 April 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 15 April 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Cisco in the UK

Cisco
Top 17 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 15 April 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 -41 918 £492 -2.09% 485
UK excluding London -31 701 £481 +1.32% 479
Work from Home -22 288 £450 -10.00% 86
London -69 271 £500 - 117
South East -9 214 £500 - 136
North of England -41 186 £481 -3.75% 113
Midlands -12 151 £378 -16.11% 83
North West -12 150 £481 -1.79% 50
West Midlands -3 137 £361 -17.60% 43
Scotland +26 64 £450 +12.78% 36
South West -71 42 £513 -6.82% 43
East of England -6 40 £485 +2.11% 55
Yorkshire -76 33 £464 -13.67% 46
Wales -12 25 £425 +1.49% 19
East Midlands -47 10 £415 -19.02% 39
Northern Ireland +6 8 £385 - 7
North East -23 5 £363 +11.54% 19

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 (3.26%) Microsoft Exchange
2 33 (2.99%) SharePoint
3 16 (1.45%) Confluence
4 7 (0.63%) Apache
5 5 (0.45%) IIS
5 5 (0.45%) OpenStack
6 1 (0.090%) JBoss
6 1 (0.090%) SharePoint Server
6 1 (0.090%) Skype for Business
6 1 (0.090%) WebLogic
6 1 (0.090%) WebSphere
Applications
1 46 (4.16%) Microsoft Office
2 39 (3.53%) MS Visio
3 17 (1.54%) Microsoft Excel
4 12 (1.09%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.45%) Acrobat
6 3 (0.27%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.090%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 17 (1.54%) Remedy ITSM
2 3 (0.27%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.090%) Actimize
Cloud Services
1 192 (17.38%) Azure
2 159 (14.39%) AWS
3 86 (7.78%) Microsoft 365
4 40 (3.62%) Entra ID
5 34 (3.08%) GCP
6 17 (1.54%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 15 (1.36%) Datadog
7 15 (1.36%) OpenShift
8 14 (1.27%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 10 (0.90%) Nutanix
9 10 (0.90%) SaaS
10 9 (0.81%) Azure Sentinel
10 9 (0.81%) GitHub
11 7 (0.63%) AWS CloudFormation
11 7 (0.63%) Azure DevOps
12 6 (0.54%) Amazon Kinesis
12 6 (0.54%) AWS Lambda
12 6 (0.54%) Microsoft Purview
12 6 (0.54%) Mimecast
12 6 (0.54%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 472 (42.71%) Firewall
2 350 (31.67%) WAN
3 269 (24.34%) BGP
4 261 (23.62%) LAN
5 237 (21.45%) VPN
6 208 (18.82%) Network Security
7 196 (17.74%) OSPF
8 155 (14.03%) SD-WAN
9 150 (13.57%) Wireless
10 140 (12.67%) DNS
11 127 (11.49%) VLAN
12 106 (9.59%) Cisco ISE
12 106 (9.59%) MPLS
13 89 (8.05%) Cisco Nexus
14 85 (7.69%) VXLAN
14 85 (7.69%) Wi-Fi
15 78 (7.06%) Cisco ASA
16 76 (6.88%) DHCP
17 73 (6.61%) IPsec
18 72 (6.52%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (0.45%) DynamoDB
2 4 (0.36%) Power BI
3 3 (0.27%) Amazon Athena
3 3 (0.27%) SQL Server
4 2 (0.18%) MariaDB
5 1 (0.090%) Big Data
5 1 (0.090%) Metadata
5 1 (0.090%) MySQL
5 1 (0.090%) NoSQL
5 1 (0.090%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 23 (2.08%) JIRA
2 15 (1.36%) Sonatype Nexus
3 9 (0.81%) Git
4 8 (0.72%) Jenkins
5 6 (0.54%) GitLab
6 1 (0.090%) Bitbucket
General
1 238 (21.54%) Social Skills
2 140 (12.67%) Finance
3 125 (11.31%) Public Sector
4 83 (7.51%) Telecoms
5 67 (6.06%) Analytical Skills
6 59 (5.34%) Banking
7 56 (5.07%) Legal
8 53 (4.80%) Documentation Skills
9 45 (4.07%) Manufacturing
10 29 (2.62%) Marketing
11 26 (2.35%) Electronics
12 17 (1.54%) Investment Banking
13 16 (1.45%) Financial Institution
14 15 (1.36%) Organisational Skills
14 15 (1.36%) Presentation Skills
15 14 (1.27%) Law
16 13 (1.18%) Retail
17 9 (0.81%) Influencing Skills
18 8 (0.72%) Military
19 7 (0.63%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 465 (42.08%) Network Engineer
2 137 (12.40%) Architect
3 103 (9.32%) Cisco Engineer
4 96 (8.69%) Senior
5 94 (8.51%) Cisco Network Engineer
6 83 (7.51%) Network Architect
7 75 (6.79%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
8 74 (6.70%) Security Engineer
9 51 (4.62%) Analyst
9 51 (4.62%) Network Security Engineer
10 48 (4.34%) Senior Network Engineer
11 40 (3.62%) Data Network Engineer
11 40 (3.62%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 36 (3.26%) Consultant
13 34 (3.08%) Network Consultant
14 32 (2.90%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
15 31 (2.81%) Data Engineer
16 30 (2.71%) Infrastructure Analyst
17 29 (2.62%) IT Support
17 29 (2.62%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 67 (6.06%) 802.1X
2 17 (1.54%) Flash
2 17 (1.54%) LDAP
3 14 (1.27%) XMPP
4 10 (0.90%) SAML
5 9 (0.81%) REST
6 7 (0.63%) NETCONF
7 6 (0.54%) Jinja
7 6 (0.54%) YANG
8 5 (0.45%) Node.js
8 5 (0.45%) OpenConfig
9 4 (0.36%) HTML
9 4 (0.36%) JSON
9 4 (0.36%) RESTCONF
9 4 (0.36%) VML
10 2 (0.18%) ADO
10 2 (0.18%) CSS
10 2 (0.18%) Django
10 2 (0.18%) RFC 2544
10 2 (0.18%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 290 (26.24%) Data Centre
2 51 (4.62%) PKI
3 39 (3.53%) Replication
4 32 (2.90%) Clustering
4 32 (2.90%) Linux Command Line
5 31 (2.81%) Data Protection Act
5 31 (2.81%) Hybrid Cloud
5 31 (2.81%) Onboarding
6 30 (2.71%) Cloud Native
7 25 (2.26%) Operational Technology
8 21 (1.90%) Driving Licence
9 18 (1.63%) Product Ownership
10 17 (1.54%) Enterprise Storage
10 17 (1.54%) Self-Motivation
11 14 (1.27%) EMC VMAX
11 14 (1.27%) Security Posture
12 13 (1.18%) Video Conferencing
13 12 (1.09%) NHS
13 12 (1.09%) SCADA
14 11 (1.00%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 187 (16.92%) Windows
2 117 (10.59%) Linux
3 63 (5.70%) Windows Server
4 29 (2.62%) Android
4 29 (2.62%) Mac OS
5 25 (2.26%) Windows 10
6 23 (2.08%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 17 (1.54%) Unix
8 7 (0.63%) Ubuntu
9 6 (0.54%) Windows Server 2012
10 4 (0.36%) CatOS
10 4 (0.36%) Solaris
10 4 (0.36%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (0.27%) Data ONTAP
11 3 (0.27%) VMS
12 2 (0.18%) AIX
12 2 (0.18%) CentOS
13 1 (0.090%) Oracle Linux
13 1 (0.090%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 172 (15.57%) Migration
2 132 (11.95%) Problem-Solving
3 116 (10.50%) Load Balancing
4 105 (9.50%) High Availability
5 98 (8.87%) ITIL
5 98 (8.87%) Network Design
6 87 (7.87%) Agile
7 85 (7.69%) ITSM
8 75 (6.79%) Roadmaps
9 71 (6.43%) Change Management
10 70 (6.33%) Cybersecurity
11 59 (5.34%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 58 (5.25%) Continuous Improvement
12 58 (5.25%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 57 (5.16%) Project Delivery
14 56 (5.07%) Collaborative Working
15 55 (4.98%) Service Management
16 54 (4.89%) Disaster Recovery
16 54 (4.89%) Network Monitoring
17 53 (4.80%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 132 (11.95%) Python
2 55 (4.98%) PowerShell
3 30 (2.71%) Bash
4 15 (1.36%) Perl
5 8 (0.72%) C
5 8 (0.72%) SQL
6 4 (0.36%) JavaScript
6 4 (0.36%) PHP
7 3 (0.27%) C++
7 3 (0.27%) Java
7 3 (0.27%) Lisp
8 2 (0.18%) ActionScript
8 2 (0.18%) Korn
8 2 (0.18%) Shell Script
9 1 (0.090%) Kusto Query Language
9 1 (0.090%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 422 (38.19%) Security Cleared
2 327 (29.59%) SC Cleared
3 308 (27.87%) Cisco Certification
4 245 (22.17%) CCNP
5 112 (10.14%) CCNA
6 109 (9.86%) DV Cleared
7 82 (7.42%) Degree
8 76 (6.88%) CCIE
9 21 (1.90%) BPSS Clearance
9 21 (1.90%) JNCIS
10 20 (1.81%) Azure Certification
10 20 (1.81%) Microsoft Certification
11 17 (1.54%) Network+ Certification
12 16 (1.45%) JNCIP
13 15 (1.36%) JNCIA
14 14 (1.27%) AWS Certification
14 14 (1.27%) CCSE
14 14 (1.27%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 13 (1.18%) MCSE
16 12 (1.09%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 38 (3.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 31 (2.81%) NIST
3 29 (2.62%) SLA
4 23 (2.08%) Cyber Essentials
5 17 (1.54%) PMO
6 16 (1.45%) GDPR
6 16 (1.45%) NCSC
7 12 (1.09%) PCI DSS
8 7 (0.63%) QA
9 4 (0.36%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 4 (0.36%) Disclosure Scotland
9 4 (0.36%) JSP 440
10 3 (0.27%) HIPAA
10 3 (0.27%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 3 (0.27%) RMADS
11 2 (0.18%) ISA99
11 2 (0.18%) ISO/IEC 20000
12 1 (0.090%) GRC
12 1 (0.090%) JTAG
12 1 (0.090%) NIST 800
System Software
1 154 (13.94%) VMware Infrastructure
2 92 (8.33%) Active Directory
3 63 (5.70%) VMware NSX
4 61 (5.52%) vSphere
5 46 (4.16%) VMware ESXi
6 21 (1.90%) Firmware
7 20 (1.81%) NFS
8 17 (1.54%) GPFS
8 17 (1.54%) Hyper-V
9 14 (1.27%) Virtual Machines
10 10 (0.90%) Docker
11 9 (0.81%) SRDF
12 6 (0.54%) Virtual Desktop
13 4 (0.36%) vCloud
13 4 (0.36%) Virtual Servers
14 3 (0.27%) EMC RecoverPoint
14 3 (0.27%) Snort
15 2 (0.18%) KVM
15 2 (0.18%) UAG
16 1 (0.090%) IAG
Systems Management
1 112 (10.14%) Ansible
2 101 (9.14%) FortiGate
3 47 (4.25%) Terraform
4 37 (3.35%) vRealize
5 35 (3.17%) vCenter Server
6 23 (2.08%) Grafana
7 20 (1.81%) SCCM
7 20 (1.81%) VxRail
8 18 (1.63%) Microsoft Intune
9 17 (1.54%) Kubernetes
9 17 (1.54%) Prometheus
10 13 (1.18%) Cisco Prime
11 10 (0.90%) Nagios
11 10 (0.90%) Single Sign-On
12 8 (0.72%) Cisco CUCM
13 7 (0.63%) EMC NetWorker
13 7 (0.63%) EMC VPLEX
14 6 (0.54%) EMC TimeFinder
14 6 (0.54%) QRadar
14 6 (0.54%) SCOM
Vendors
1 285 (25.79%) Palo Alto
2 194 (17.56%) VMware
3 178 (16.11%) F5
4 175 (15.84%) Microsoft
5 174 (15.75%) Juniper
6 135 (12.22%) Aruba
7 132 (11.95%) Fortinet
8 117 (10.59%) CheckPoint
9 99 (8.96%) SolarWinds
10 98 (8.87%) Meraki
11 95 (8.60%) ServiceNow
12 68 (6.15%) Dell
13 62 (5.61%) Arista
14 55 (4.98%) Splunk
15 48 (4.34%) IBM
16 47 (4.25%) HP
17 42 (3.80%) Zscaler
18 31 (2.81%) EMC
19 30 (2.71%) Citrix
20 28 (2.53%) Extreme Networks