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 5 June 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
5 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 109 65 66
Rank change year-on-year -44 +1 -7
Contract jobs citing Cisco 1,126 1,070 1,318
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.29% 3.70% 3.07%
As % of the Vendors category 5.63% 7.76% 7.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 780 661 813
10th Percentile £300 £300 £250
25th Percentile £404 £400 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +5.26% -
75th Percentile £575 £588 £588
90th Percentile £644 £649 £686
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £465
% change year-on-year -5.00% +7.53% +3.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 32 25 37
10th Percentile £25.99 £17.93 £13.29
25th Percentile £43.34 £24.66 £16.00
Median hourly rate £55.00 £35.00 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year +57.14% +40.00% -50.00%
75th Percentile £74.26 £45.00 £41.25
90th Percentile £78.73 £65.75 £53.83
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £30.00 £19.00
% change year-on-year +83.33% +57.89% -60.28%

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 20,004 13,790 18,130
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 40.73% 47.66% 42.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,584 8,509 11,310
10th Percentile £313 £280 £263
25th Percentile £413 £405 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £505 £515
Median % change year-on-year -0.99% -1.94% -1.90%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £626
90th Percentile £700 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £485 £500
% change year-on-year +2.06% -3.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,027 604 1,116
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.84 £12.07
25th Percentile £18.59 £17.34 £14.48
Median hourly rate £32.50 £26.45 £22.56
Median % change year-on-year +22.87% +17.24% -46.92%
75th Percentile £59.38 £56.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £77.90 £70.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 £22.50 £21.50
% change year-on-year +33.33% +4.65% -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 5 June 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 5 June 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 5 June 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 -44 950 £479 -4.20% 753
UK excluding London -39 697 £475 -5.00% 709
London -62 301 £500 - 207
Work from Home -30 290 £450 -10.00% 218
North of England -39 208 £479 -4.20% 159
South East -20 195 £500 - 172
North West -4 167 £480 -4.00% 66
Midlands -25 131 £402 -10.67% 97
West Midlands -17 123 £402 +0.50% 53
Scotland +18 71 £450 +12.78% 59
South West -65 52 £518 -5.91% 100
East of England -9 41 £495 +15.45% 87
Yorkshire -71 40 £478 -4.97% 63
Wales -23 21 £468 +15.08% 28
Northern Ireland +12 10 £175 -50.00% 20
East Midlands -45 4 £458 -16.82% 44
North East -35 2 £425 +30.77% 32
Channel Islands -1 1 £550 +22.22%

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 28 (2.49%) SharePoint
2 18 (1.60%) Microsoft Exchange
3 12 (1.07%) Confluence
4 9 (0.80%) Apache
5 7 (0.62%) OpenStack
6 6 (0.53%) IIS
7 3 (0.27%) nginx
7 3 (0.27%) Tomcat
8 2 (0.18%) CloudStack
8 2 (0.18%) CMS
9 1 (0.089%) Apache Spark
9 1 (0.089%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 44 (3.91%) Microsoft Office
2 29 (2.58%) MS Visio
3 20 (1.78%) Microsoft Excel
4 9 (0.80%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 4 (0.36%) Acrobat
Business Applications
1 10 (0.89%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 209 (18.56%) Azure
2 144 (12.79%) AWS
3 68 (6.04%) Microsoft 365
4 34 (3.02%) Entra ID
5 20 (1.78%) GCP
6 16 (1.42%) OpenShift
6 16 (1.42%) SaaS
7 14 (1.24%) Nutanix
8 12 (1.07%) GitHub
9 11 (0.98%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 11 (0.98%) Azure Sentinel
9 11 (0.98%) OneDrive
9 11 (0.98%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 8 (0.71%) IaaS
11 7 (0.62%) Microsoft Purview
11 7 (0.62%) Power Platform
12 5 (0.44%) Azure DevOps
12 5 (0.44%) GitHub Actions
12 5 (0.44%) Rubrik
13 4 (0.36%) Cloudflare
Communications & Networking
1 493 (43.78%) Firewall
2 371 (32.95%) WAN
3 287 (25.49%) LAN
4 285 (25.31%) BGP
5 242 (21.49%) VPN
6 237 (21.05%) Network Security
7 204 (18.12%) OSPF
8 169 (15.01%) DNS
9 165 (14.65%) VLAN
9 165 (14.65%) Wireless
10 155 (13.77%) SD-WAN
11 104 (9.24%) Cisco Nexus
11 104 (9.24%) MPLS
12 103 (9.15%) VXLAN
13 100 (8.88%) Wi-Fi
14 97 (8.61%) Cisco ISE
15 94 (8.35%) DHCP
16 74 (6.57%) IPsec
17 72 (6.39%) Cisco IOS
17 72 (6.39%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (1.33%) SQL Server
2 3 (0.27%) MySQL
2 3 (0.27%) NoSQL
3 2 (0.18%) PostgreSQL
4 1 (0.089%) Apache Hive
4 1 (0.089%) Big Data
4 1 (0.089%) ClickHouse
4 1 (0.089%) Hadoop
4 1 (0.089%) MariaDB
4 1 (0.089%) Metadata
4 1 (0.089%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 24 (2.13%) JIRA
2 14 (1.24%) Sonatype Nexus
3 10 (0.89%) Git
4 8 (0.71%) Jenkins
5 5 (0.44%) GitLab
6 2 (0.18%) Bitbucket
General
1 246 (21.85%) Social Skills
2 119 (10.57%) Finance
3 71 (6.31%) Analytical Skills
4 63 (5.60%) Public Sector
4 63 (5.60%) Telecoms
5 56 (4.97%) Documentation Skills
5 56 (4.97%) Legal
6 54 (4.80%) Banking
7 20 (1.78%) Investment Banking
7 20 (1.78%) Manufacturing
8 18 (1.60%) Organisational Skills
9 17 (1.51%) Financial Institution
10 16 (1.42%) Law
11 15 (1.33%) Retail
12 9 (0.80%) Marketing
12 9 (0.80%) Military
13 7 (0.62%) Police
13 7 (0.62%) Presentation Skills
14 4 (0.36%) Front Office
14 4 (0.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 514 (45.65%) Network Engineer
2 141 (12.52%) Architect
3 120 (10.66%) Cisco Engineer
4 116 (10.30%) Senior
5 112 (9.95%) Cisco Network Engineer
6 85 (7.55%) Security Engineer
7 83 (7.37%) Network Architect
8 72 (6.39%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
9 65 (5.77%) Senior Network Engineer
10 62 (5.51%) Network Security Engineer
11 49 (4.35%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 47 (4.17%) Data Network Engineer
13 34 (3.02%) Data Engineer
14 33 (2.93%) Cisco Security Engineer
15 30 (2.66%) Analyst
16 28 (2.49%) Network Specialist
16 28 (2.49%) Solutions Architect
17 25 (2.22%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
18 24 (2.13%) Lead
19 23 (2.04%) Data Centre Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 73 (6.48%) 802.1X
2 15 (1.33%) LDAP
3 14 (1.24%) Flash
4 12 (1.07%) REST
4 12 (1.07%) SAML
5 7 (0.62%) XMPP
6 6 (0.53%) Jinja
7 3 (0.27%) LAMP
7 3 (0.27%) LEMP Stack
7 3 (0.27%) NETCONF
7 3 (0.27%) YAML
8 2 (0.18%) .NET Core
8 2 (0.18%) Blazor
8 2 (0.18%) Django
8 2 (0.18%) Elastic Stack
8 2 (0.18%) OpenConfig
8 2 (0.18%) OpenID
8 2 (0.18%) RESTCONF
8 2 (0.18%) RFC 2544
8 2 (0.18%) YANG
Miscellaneous
1 315 (27.98%) Data Centre
2 57 (5.06%) PKI
3 49 (4.35%) Replication
4 42 (3.73%) Clustering
5 36 (3.20%) Data Protection Act
6 34 (3.02%) Hybrid Cloud
7 33 (2.93%) Onboarding
8 29 (2.58%) Operational Technology
9 21 (1.87%) Security Posture
9 21 (1.87%) Video Conferencing
10 20 (1.78%) Cloud Native
11 19 (1.69%) Driving Licence
11 19 (1.69%) Enterprise Storage
12 17 (1.51%) EMC VMAX
12 17 (1.51%) Linux Command Line
13 16 (1.42%) SCADA
14 14 (1.24%) Analytical Mindset
15 13 (1.15%) Self-Motivation
15 13 (1.15%) Virtual Team
16 10 (0.89%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 220 (19.54%) Windows
2 120 (10.66%) Linux
3 72 (6.39%) Windows Server
4 21 (1.87%) Unix
5 18 (1.60%) Windows 10
6 13 (1.15%) Ubuntu
7 12 (1.07%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 9 (0.80%) Mac OS
9 7 (0.62%) Android
9 7 (0.62%) Windows Server 2019
10 6 (0.53%) Windows Server 2012
11 5 (0.44%) AIX
11 5 (0.44%) Data ONTAP
11 5 (0.44%) VMS
12 4 (0.36%) CentOS
12 4 (0.36%) Solaris
13 3 (0.27%) CatOS
14 2 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
15 1 (0.089%) Windows 7
15 1 (0.089%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 172 (15.28%) Migration
2 129 (11.46%) High Availability
3 126 (11.19%) Problem-Solving
4 123 (10.92%) Load Balancing
5 96 (8.53%) ITIL
6 95 (8.44%) Network Design
7 89 (7.90%) ITSM
8 85 (7.55%) Project Delivery
9 68 (6.04%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 66 (5.86%) Agile
10 66 (5.86%) Disaster Recovery
10 66 (5.86%) Technical Leadership
11 65 (5.77%) Change Management
11 65 (5.77%) Network Monitoring
12 64 (5.68%) Continuous Improvement
13 57 (5.06%) Infrastructure as Code
14 56 (4.97%) Cybersecurity
15 54 (4.80%) Network Segmentation
16 51 (4.53%) Mentoring
16 51 (4.53%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 120 (10.66%) Python
2 58 (5.15%) PowerShell
3 23 (2.04%) SQL
4 22 (1.95%) Bash
5 6 (0.53%) C
6 4 (0.36%) PHP
7 3 (0.27%) C++
7 3 (0.27%) Java
7 3 (0.27%) Lisp
7 3 (0.27%) Perl
8 2 (0.18%) ActionScript
8 2 (0.18%) JavaScript
8 2 (0.18%) Korn
8 2 (0.18%) Shell Script
9 1 (0.089%) Bicep
9 1 (0.089%) Ladder Logic
Qualifications
1 358 (31.79%) Security Cleared
2 338 (30.02%) Cisco Certification
3 266 (23.62%) SC Cleared
4 259 (23.00%) CCNP
5 124 (11.01%) CCNA
6 104 (9.24%) DV Cleared
7 76 (6.75%) Degree
8 64 (5.68%) CCIE
9 32 (2.84%) Microsoft Certification
10 28 (2.49%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 25 (2.22%) Network+ Certification
12 23 (2.04%) MCSE
13 17 (1.51%) Azure Certification
13 17 (1.51%) CCSE
13 17 (1.51%) Server+ Certification
13 17 (1.51%) VCAP
14 16 (1.42%) JNCIS
14 16 (1.42%) MCSA
15 14 (1.24%) JNCIP
16 13 (1.15%) JNCIA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 37 (3.29%) SLA
2 33 (2.93%) NIST
3 28 (2.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 25 (2.22%) Cyber Essentials
5 20 (1.78%) QA
6 17 (1.51%) NCSC
7 10 (0.89%) PMO
8 7 (0.62%) Disclosure Scotland
8 7 (0.62%) GDPR
9 6 (0.53%) JSP 440
10 5 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 5 (0.44%) PCI DSS
11 3 (0.27%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
11 3 (0.27%) NIST 800
11 3 (0.27%) RMADS
12 2 (0.18%) Accessibility
12 2 (0.18%) Government Security Classifications
12 2 (0.18%) GRC
12 2 (0.18%) ISA99
12 2 (0.18%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 152 (13.50%) VMware Infrastructure
2 86 (7.64%) Active Directory
3 59 (5.24%) VMware ESXi
4 57 (5.06%) vSphere
5 49 (4.35%) VMware NSX
6 35 (3.11%) Virtual Machines
7 26 (2.31%) Firmware
8 19 (1.69%) Hyper-V
9 18 (1.60%) NFS
10 14 (1.24%) GPFS
11 12 (1.07%) SRDF
12 5 (0.44%) Docker
12 5 (0.44%) EMC RecoverPoint
12 5 (0.44%) Virtual Desktop
13 4 (0.36%) vCloud
13 4 (0.36%) Virtual Servers
14 3 (0.27%) Dovecot
14 3 (0.27%) Postfix
14 3 (0.27%) UAG
15 2 (0.18%) Snort
Systems Management
1 137 (12.17%) Ansible
2 103 (9.15%) FortiGate
3 52 (4.62%) Terraform
4 33 (2.93%) vCenter Server
5 28 (2.49%) Grafana
6 21 (1.87%) Kubernetes
6 21 (1.87%) Microsoft Intune
6 21 (1.87%) Prometheus
7 18 (1.60%) vRealize
8 16 (1.42%) SCCM
9 14 (1.24%) Cisco Prime
10 13 (1.15%) Cisco CUCM
11 11 (0.98%) Single Sign-On
12 10 (0.89%) Nagios
13 9 (0.80%) VxRail
14 7 (0.62%) WMI
15 6 (0.53%) EMC TimeFinder
15 6 (0.53%) EMC VPLEX
15 6 (0.53%) HAProxy
15 6 (0.53%) SCOM
Vendors
1 291 (25.84%) Palo Alto
2 213 (18.92%) F5
3 192 (17.05%) Microsoft
4 190 (16.87%) VMware
5 173 (15.36%) Fortinet
6 160 (14.21%) Juniper
7 123 (10.92%) Aruba
8 113 (10.04%) CheckPoint
9 104 (9.24%) ServiceNow
10 86 (7.64%) SolarWinds
11 82 (7.28%) Meraki
12 78 (6.93%) Arista
13 55 (4.88%) Splunk
14 48 (4.26%) Zscaler
15 43 (3.82%) Dell
16 32 (2.84%) EMC
17 30 (2.66%) IBM
18 29 (2.58%) Extreme Networks
19 27 (2.40%) Brocade
20 23 (2.04%) Infoblox