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 12 May 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
12 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 109 66 65
Rank change year-on-year -43 -1 -2
Contract jobs citing Cisco 1,067 1,044 1,320
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.25% 3.58% 3.07%
As % of the Vendors category 5.43% 7.53% 7.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 716 648 813
10th Percentile £300 £312 £250
25th Percentile £400 £413 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +5.26% -
75th Percentile £569 £588 £590
90th Percentile £649 £650 £689
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £494 £475
% change year-on-year -3.75% +3.89% +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 36 23 41
10th Percentile £26.89 £15.80 £13.29
25th Percentile £44.00 £21.58 £18.50
Median hourly rate £55.00 £37.50 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +46.67% +36.36% -45.00%
75th Percentile £74.26 £63.13 £41.25
90th Percentile £88.75 £74.75 £75.24
UK excluding London median hourly rate £63.14 £27.70 £24.75
% change year-on-year +127.92% +11.92% -47.89%

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 19,648 13,868 18,259
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.36% 47.50% 42.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,454 8,686 11,340
10th Percentile £313 £281 £263
25th Percentile £413 £406 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £515
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -0.49% -1.90%
75th Percentile £600 £619 £630
90th Percentile £700 £715 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £493 £500
% change year-on-year -0.51% -1.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 998 563 1,095
10th Percentile £15.29 £14.84 £12.01
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.44 £14.48
Median hourly rate £32.23 £26.04 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +23.75% +15.73% -47.98%
75th Percentile £60.00 £57.50 £57.50
90th Percentile £77.81 £75.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.00 £23.00 £21.50
% change year-on-year +21.74% +6.98% -45.67%

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 12 May 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 12 May 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 12 May 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 -51 886 £475 -6.52% 538
UK excluding London -37 658 £475 -3.75% 515
Work from Home -24 291 £450 -10.00% 121
London -70 276 £500 -2.30% 153
South East -16 189 £500 - 136
North of England -50 180 £476 -4.75% 122
North West -13 146 £475 -4.04% 67
Midlands -23 132 £394 -12.50% 67
West Midlands -11 123 £378 -13.71% 47
Scotland +22 63 £450 +12.78% 35
South West -67 47 £513 -6.82% 67
East of England -4 44 £495 +13.14% 58
Yorkshire -80 34 £464 -7.75% 35
Wales -10 27 £475 +11.76% 26
Northern Ireland +11 8 £385 +10.00% 12
East Midlands -55 5 £458 -3.68% 20
North East -26 1 - - 20

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 24 (2.25%) SharePoint
2 22 (2.06%) Microsoft Exchange
3 15 (1.41%) Confluence
4 7 (0.66%) Apache
5 5 (0.47%) IIS
5 5 (0.47%) OpenStack
6 2 (0.19%) CMS
7 1 (0.094%) CloudStack
7 1 (0.094%) JBoss
7 1 (0.094%) Skype for Business
7 1 (0.094%) WebSphere
Applications
1 36 (3.37%) Microsoft Office
1 36 (3.37%) MS Visio
2 12 (1.12%) Microsoft Excel
3 10 (0.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (0.37%) Acrobat
5 1 (0.094%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 15 (1.41%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.094%) Actimize
Cloud Services
1 192 (17.99%) Azure
2 142 (13.31%) AWS
3 65 (6.09%) Microsoft 365
4 31 (2.91%) Entra ID
5 26 (2.44%) GCP
6 15 (1.41%) Nutanix
7 13 (1.22%) OpenShift
7 13 (1.22%) SaaS
8 11 (1.03%) GitHub
9 10 (0.94%) Azure Sentinel
10 9 (0.84%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 9 (0.84%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 8 (0.75%) Datadog
12 6 (0.56%) Azure DevOps
12 6 (0.56%) IaaS
12 6 (0.56%) Microsoft Purview
12 6 (0.56%) Mimecast
13 5 (0.47%) OneDrive
14 4 (0.37%) GitHub Actions
14 4 (0.37%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 478 (44.80%) Firewall
2 350 (32.80%) WAN
3 275 (25.77%) BGP
4 266 (24.93%) LAN
5 235 (22.02%) VPN
6 217 (20.34%) Network Security
7 198 (18.56%) OSPF
8 153 (14.34%) DNS
9 145 (13.59%) SD-WAN
10 143 (13.40%) Wireless
11 139 (13.03%) VLAN
12 105 (9.84%) Cisco Nexus
13 96 (9.00%) Cisco ISE
14 95 (8.90%) MPLS
15 90 (8.43%) Wi-Fi
16 89 (8.34%) VXLAN
17 78 (7.31%) DHCP
17 78 (7.31%) IPsec
18 69 (6.47%) Cisco ASA
19 68 (6.37%) Multicast
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (0.66%) SQL Server
2 2 (0.19%) MariaDB
3 1 (0.094%) Big Data
3 1 (0.094%) ClickHouse
3 1 (0.094%) DynamoDB
3 1 (0.094%) Metadata
3 1 (0.094%) MySQL
3 1 (0.094%) NoSQL
3 1 (0.094%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 23 (2.16%) JIRA
2 15 (1.41%) Sonatype Nexus
3 9 (0.84%) Git
4 8 (0.75%) Jenkins
5 6 (0.56%) GitLab
6 1 (0.094%) Bitbucket
General
1 218 (20.43%) Social Skills
2 115 (10.78%) Finance
3 69 (6.47%) Public Sector
4 67 (6.28%) Analytical Skills
5 64 (6.00%) Telecoms
6 56 (5.25%) Banking
7 55 (5.15%) Documentation Skills
8 51 (4.78%) Legal
9 26 (2.44%) Manufacturing
10 19 (1.78%) Investment Banking
11 16 (1.50%) Organisational Skills
12 15 (1.41%) Retail
13 14 (1.31%) Financial Institution
13 14 (1.31%) Law
14 13 (1.22%) Marketing
15 12 (1.12%) Presentation Skills
16 9 (0.84%) Military
17 8 (0.75%) Aerospace
18 7 (0.66%) Electronics
19 6 (0.56%) Police
Job Titles
1 492 (46.11%) Network Engineer
2 126 (11.81%) Architect
3 109 (10.22%) Cisco Engineer
4 104 (9.75%) Cisco Network Engineer
5 103 (9.65%) Senior
6 84 (7.87%) Security Engineer
7 73 (6.84%) Network Architect
7 73 (6.84%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
8 60 (5.62%) Network Security Engineer
9 54 (5.06%) Senior Network Engineer
10 46 (4.31%) Data Network Engineer
11 45 (4.22%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 37 (3.47%) Analyst
13 35 (3.28%) Data Engineer
14 34 (3.19%) Cisco Security Engineer
15 29 (2.72%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
16 25 (2.34%) Lead
16 25 (2.34%) Network Specialist
17 24 (2.25%) Solutions Architect
18 21 (1.97%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 68 (6.37%) 802.1X
2 19 (1.78%) LDAP
3 15 (1.41%) Flash
4 13 (1.22%) SAML
5 8 (0.75%) REST
6 7 (0.66%) XMPP
7 6 (0.56%) Jinja
7 6 (0.56%) NETCONF
8 5 (0.47%) YANG
9 4 (0.37%) HTML
9 4 (0.37%) OpenConfig
9 4 (0.37%) RESTCONF
9 4 (0.37%) VML
10 3 (0.28%) JSON
11 2 (0.19%) ADO
11 2 (0.19%) CSS
11 2 (0.19%) Django
11 2 (0.19%) Middleware
11 2 (0.19%) RFC 2544
12 1 (0.094%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 291 (27.27%) Data Centre
2 52 (4.87%) PKI
3 45 (4.22%) Replication
4 40 (3.75%) Clustering
5 35 (3.28%) Data Protection Act
6 32 (3.00%) Hybrid Cloud
6 32 (3.00%) Operational Technology
7 27 (2.53%) Cloud Native
7 27 (2.53%) Onboarding
8 22 (2.06%) Linux Command Line
9 18 (1.69%) Video Conferencing
10 17 (1.59%) Driving Licence
10 17 (1.59%) Self-Motivation
11 16 (1.50%) Enterprise Storage
11 16 (1.50%) SCADA
12 15 (1.41%) Security Posture
13 14 (1.31%) EMC VMAX
14 13 (1.22%) Analytical Mindset
15 11 (1.03%) Virtual Team
16 9 (0.84%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 193 (18.09%) Windows
2 106 (9.93%) Linux
3 65 (6.09%) Windows Server
4 22 (2.06%) Windows 10
5 19 (1.78%) Unix
6 15 (1.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 12 (1.12%) Mac OS
8 11 (1.03%) Android
9 9 (0.84%) Ubuntu
10 5 (0.47%) CatOS
10 5 (0.47%) Windows Server 2019
11 4 (0.37%) Solaris
11 4 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
12 3 (0.28%) AIX
12 3 (0.28%) Data ONTAP
12 3 (0.28%) VMS
13 2 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
14 1 (0.094%) CentOS
14 1 (0.094%) Debian
14 1 (0.094%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 152 (14.25%) Migration
2 132 (12.37%) Problem-Solving
3 118 (11.06%) Load Balancing
4 115 (10.78%) High Availability
5 95 (8.90%) Network Design
6 92 (8.62%) ITIL
7 77 (7.22%) Agile
8 74 (6.94%) ITSM
9 68 (6.37%) Change Management
10 64 (6.00%) Cybersecurity
11 62 (5.81%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 61 (5.72%) Project Delivery
13 60 (5.62%) Disaster Recovery
13 60 (5.62%) Network Monitoring
14 57 (5.34%) Continuous Improvement
15 56 (5.25%) Technical Leadership
16 49 (4.59%) Infrastructure as Code
16 49 (4.59%) Validation
17 48 (4.50%) Zero Trust
18 47 (4.40%) Observability
Programming Languages
1 115 (10.78%) Python
2 49 (4.59%) PowerShell
3 21 (1.97%) Bash
4 14 (1.31%) SQL
5 8 (0.75%) C
6 4 (0.37%) PHP
7 3 (0.28%) C++
7 3 (0.28%) Java
7 3 (0.28%) JavaScript
7 3 (0.28%) Perl
8 2 (0.19%) ActionScript
8 2 (0.19%) Korn
8 2 (0.19%) Shell Script
9 1 (0.094%) Bicep
9 1 (0.094%) Kusto Query Language
9 1 (0.094%) Ladder Logic
9 1 (0.094%) Lisp
9 1 (0.094%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 367 (34.40%) Security Cleared
2 311 (29.15%) Cisco Certification
3 273 (25.59%) SC Cleared
4 237 (22.21%) CCNP
5 113 (10.59%) CCNA
6 105 (9.84%) DV Cleared
7 76 (7.12%) Degree
8 61 (5.72%) CCIE
9 27 (2.53%) Microsoft Certification
10 22 (2.06%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 21 (1.97%) MCSE
12 20 (1.87%) JNCIS
13 19 (1.78%) Azure Certification
14 18 (1.69%) BPSS Clearance
15 17 (1.59%) Network+ Certification
16 15 (1.41%) JNCIP
16 15 (1.41%) VCAP
17 14 (1.31%) CCSE
17 14 (1.31%) JNCIA
17 14 (1.31%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (2.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 29 (2.72%) NIST
1 29 (2.72%) SLA
2 24 (2.25%) Cyber Essentials
3 17 (1.59%) NCSC
4 14 (1.31%) QA
5 10 (0.94%) PMO
6 7 (0.66%) Disclosure Scotland
6 7 (0.66%) GDPR
6 7 (0.66%) JSP 440
7 4 (0.37%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 3 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
8 3 (0.28%) NIST 800
8 3 (0.28%) PCI DSS
8 3 (0.28%) RMADS
9 2 (0.19%) Accessibility
9 2 (0.19%) GRC
9 2 (0.19%) ISA99
9 2 (0.19%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 1 (0.094%) MiFID
System Software
1 146 (13.68%) VMware Infrastructure
2 76 (7.12%) Active Directory
3 57 (5.34%) vSphere
4 54 (5.06%) VMware ESXi
4 54 (5.06%) VMware NSX
5 27 (2.53%) Virtual Machines
6 22 (2.06%) Firmware
7 18 (1.69%) NFS
8 17 (1.59%) Hyper-V
9 15 (1.41%) GPFS
10 9 (0.84%) SRDF
11 7 (0.66%) Docker
12 5 (0.47%) Virtual Desktop
13 4 (0.37%) vCloud
13 4 (0.37%) Virtual Servers
14 3 (0.28%) EMC RecoverPoint
14 3 (0.28%) Snort
14 3 (0.28%) UAG
15 2 (0.19%) KVM
16 1 (0.094%) RHEV
Systems Management
1 124 (11.62%) Ansible
2 101 (9.47%) FortiGate
3 45 (4.22%) Terraform
4 32 (3.00%) vCenter Server
5 27 (2.53%) vRealize
6 26 (2.44%) Grafana
7 19 (1.78%) Prometheus
8 17 (1.59%) Kubernetes
9 16 (1.50%) Microsoft Intune
10 14 (1.31%) Cisco Prime
10 14 (1.31%) VxRail
11 13 (1.22%) SCCM
12 12 (1.12%) Single Sign-On
13 10 (0.94%) Nagios
14 9 (0.84%) Cisco CUCM
15 7 (0.66%) SCOM
16 6 (0.56%) EMC TimeFinder
16 6 (0.56%) EMC VPLEX
16 6 (0.56%) WSUS
17 5 (0.47%) Endace
Vendors
1 293 (27.46%) Palo Alto
2 202 (18.93%) F5
3 185 (17.34%) VMware
4 169 (15.84%) Microsoft
5 158 (14.81%) Juniper
6 143 (13.40%) Fortinet
7 123 (11.53%) CheckPoint
8 119 (11.15%) Aruba
9 92 (8.62%) Meraki
10 85 (7.97%) ServiceNow
11 79 (7.40%) SolarWinds
12 67 (6.28%) Arista
13 50 (4.69%) Splunk
14 49 (4.59%) Zscaler
15 48 (4.50%) Dell
16 36 (3.37%) IBM
17 29 (2.72%) EMC
17 29 (2.72%) Extreme Networks
18 28 (2.62%) HP
19 25 (2.34%) Infoblox