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 26 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
26 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 85 63 56
Rank change year-on-year -22 -7 +32
Contract jobs citing Cisco 1,084 1,231 1,702
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.01% 3.37% 3.72%
As % of the Vendors category 6.33% 7.50% 8.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 717 735 1,028
10th Percentile £263 £300 £263
25th Percentile £375 £400 £378
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +5.26% +0.37%
75th Percentile £575 £580 £588
90th Percentile £625 £650 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £481 £450
% change year-on-year +3.90% +6.94% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 62 30 84
10th Percentile - £18.13 £18.29
25th Percentile £25.15 £20.05 £24.00
Median hourly rate £30.00 £32.50 £43.83
Median % change year-on-year -7.69% -25.84% +70.46%
75th Percentile £73.70 £58.75 £65.98
90th Percentile £89.63 £75.00 £77.13
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.75 £37.50 £47.50
% change year-on-year +75.33% -21.05% +43.94%

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 17,116 16,421 20,745
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 47.49% 45.02% 45.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,799 9,661 13,284
10th Percentile £288 £295 £256
25th Percentile £405 £413 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -1.41%
75th Percentile £610 £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 871 527 671
10th Percentile £15.33 £15.50 £15.25
25th Percentile £18.36 £19.59 £20.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £30.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -16.18% -32.58% +73.08%
75th Percentile £42.63 £63.75 £64.08
90th Percentile £73.75 £75.00 £76.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.32 £27.50 £44.50
% change year-on-year -18.85% -38.20% +97.78%

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 26 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 26 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 26 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 -21 922 £500 - 451
UK excluding London -10 692 £500 +3.90% 461
London -34 309 £463 -9.31% 108
Work from Home -30 265 £450 -10.00% 142
South East 0 215 £500 -0.25% 199
Midlands +18 165 £410 -13.68% 56
West Midlands +26 143 £445 -11.00% 33
North of England -53 130 £481 +1.32% 72
North West -32 79 £476 +0.26% 42
Scotland +22 69 £425 +6.25% 51
South West -34 56 £550 +15.79% 30
Yorkshire -48 42 £489 +0.21% 24
East of England -12 41 £445 -1.11% 41
East Midlands -12 22 £158 -58.00% 21
Wales -3 15 £170 -56.13% 21
Northern Ireland +3 11 £475 - 1
North East -1 11 £175 -64.10% 6
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 71 (6.55%) Microsoft Exchange
2 47 (4.34%) SharePoint
3 23 (2.12%) Confluence
4 17 (1.57%) Apache
5 15 (1.38%) Skype for Business
6 14 (1.29%) WebLogic
7 8 (0.74%) OpenStack
8 7 (0.65%) Appian
8 7 (0.65%) Mattermost
9 5 (0.46%) SharePoint Server
10 3 (0.28%) WebSphere
11 2 (0.18%) CICS
11 2 (0.18%) IIS
11 2 (0.18%) nginx
11 2 (0.18%) Tomcat
12 1 (0.092%) Exchange Server 2010
12 1 (0.092%) Exchange Server 2013
12 1 (0.092%) Gunicorn
12 1 (0.092%) JBoss
12 1 (0.092%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 99 (9.13%) Microsoft Office
2 28 (2.58%) MS Visio
3 21 (1.94%) Microsoft Excel
4 13 (1.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.46%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.092%) Acrobat
6 1 (0.092%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 1 (0.092%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.092%) OmniGraffle
6 1 (0.092%) Revit
Business Applications
1 13 (1.20%) Remedy ITSM
2 4 (0.37%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.092%) Actimize
3 1 (0.092%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 172 (15.87%) Azure
2 142 (13.10%) AWS
3 124 (11.44%) Microsoft 365
4 42 (3.87%) GCP
5 36 (3.32%) Entra ID
6 15 (1.38%) Azure Monitor
6 15 (1.38%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 14 (1.29%) Azure Sentinel
8 13 (1.20%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 12 (1.11%) Akamai
10 11 (1.01%) AWS CloudFormation
10 11 (1.01%) GitHub
11 10 (0.92%) AWS Lambda
11 10 (0.92%) Datadog
11 10 (0.92%) OpenShift
11 10 (0.92%) SaaS
11 10 (0.92%) Serverless
12 9 (0.83%) Power Platform
13 8 (0.74%) Nutanix
14 7 (0.65%) Tricentis Tosca
Communications & Networking
1 454 (41.88%) Firewall
2 235 (21.68%) WAN
3 196 (18.08%) LAN
4 184 (16.97%) Wireless
5 175 (16.14%) VPN
6 171 (15.77%) BGP
7 145 (13.38%) Network Security
8 139 (12.82%) SD-WAN
9 136 (12.55%) DNS
10 125 (11.53%) OSPF
11 111 (10.24%) Cisco IOS
12 102 (9.41%) Cisco ISE
13 94 (8.67%) Cisco Nexus
13 94 (8.67%) MPLS
14 87 (8.03%) Wi-Fi
15 85 (7.84%) DHCP
16 83 (7.66%) VLAN
17 60 (5.54%) Cisco ASA
17 60 (5.54%) IPsec
18 58 (5.35%) 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 (0.28%) Amazon Athena
5 3 (0.28%) PostgreSQL
6 2 (0.18%) MongoDB
7 1 (0.092%) MariaDB
7 1 (0.092%) Metadata
7 1 (0.092%) MySQL
7 1 (0.092%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 33 (3.04%) JIRA
2 19 (1.75%) GitLab
3 14 (1.29%) Sonatype Nexus
4 13 (1.20%) Git
5 9 (0.83%) Jenkins
6 8 (0.74%) Robot Framework
7 7 (0.65%) Cucumber
7 7 (0.65%) Selenium
7 7 (0.65%) SonarQube
8 3 (0.28%) Bitbucket
9 2 (0.18%) Rational DOORS
9 2 (0.18%) Snyk
9 2 (0.18%) Subversion
10 1 (0.092%) Hudson
10 1 (0.092%) Mercurial
General
1 239 (22.05%) Social Skills
2 173 (15.96%) Public Sector
3 133 (12.27%) Telecoms
4 131 (12.08%) Finance
5 84 (7.75%) Analytical Skills
6 67 (6.18%) Manufacturing
7 42 (3.87%) Banking
7 42 (3.87%) Electronics
7 42 (3.87%) Marketing
8 37 (3.41%) Documentation Skills
9 28 (2.58%) Legal
10 25 (2.31%) Games
11 21 (1.94%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 13 (1.20%) Presentation Skills
13 10 (0.92%) Aerospace
13 10 (0.92%) Organisational Skills
14 8 (0.74%) Investment Banking
14 8 (0.74%) Military
15 6 (0.55%) Influencing Skills
15 6 (0.55%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 383 (35.33%) Network Engineer
2 128 (11.81%) Architect
3 85 (7.84%) Cisco Engineer
4 82 (7.56%) Network Architect
5 70 (6.46%) Analyst
5 70 (6.46%) Cisco Network Engineer
6 67 (6.18%) Consultant
7 66 (6.09%) Senior
8 57 (5.26%) Support Engineer
9 52 (4.80%) Security Engineer
10 51 (4.70%) IT Support
10 51 (4.70%) Network Consultant
11 49 (4.52%) Platform Engineer
12 48 (4.43%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
13 37 (3.41%) Desktop Support
13 37 (3.41%) Network Security Engineer
14 36 (3.32%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 31 (2.86%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
15 31 (2.86%) Juniper Engineer
16 30 (2.77%) Senior Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (2.86%) 802.1X
2 22 (2.03%) RFC 2544
3 20 (1.85%) NETCONF
4 18 (1.66%) XMPP
5 14 (1.29%) Jinja
6 13 (1.20%) JSON
6 13 (1.20%) YANG
7 12 (1.11%) RESTCONF
8 11 (1.01%) XML
9 10 (0.92%) Flash
10 9 (0.83%) REST
11 7 (0.65%) Node.js
12 4 (0.37%) LDAP
13 3 (0.28%) OpenConfig
14 2 (0.18%) ARM Templates
14 2 (0.18%) eBPF
14 2 (0.18%) HTML
14 2 (0.18%) Microsoft Graph
14 2 (0.18%) Middleware
14 2 (0.18%) Regular Expression
Miscellaneous
1 240 (22.14%) Data Centre
2 43 (3.97%) PKI
3 30 (2.77%) Onboarding
4 29 (2.68%) Driving Licence
5 26 (2.40%) Data Protection Act
6 25 (2.31%) Hybrid Cloud
7 24 (2.21%) Cloud Native
8 22 (2.03%) Linux Command Line
9 20 (1.85%) Replication
10 19 (1.75%) Fibre Optics
10 19 (1.75%) Operational Technology
10 19 (1.75%) Video Conferencing
11 15 (1.38%) Virtual Team
12 13 (1.20%) Management Information System
12 13 (1.20%) NHS
12 13 (1.20%) Security Posture
12 13 (1.20%) Self-Motivation
13 12 (1.11%) CMDB
13 12 (1.11%) Public Cloud
14 11 (1.01%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 186 (17.16%) Windows
2 108 (9.96%) Linux
3 88 (8.12%) Mac OS
4 84 (7.75%) Android
5 64 (5.90%) Windows Server
6 29 (2.68%) Windows 10
7 22 (2.03%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 20 (1.85%) Unix
9 7 (0.65%) Windows Server 2016
10 5 (0.46%) CentOS
10 5 (0.46%) Windows Server 2012
11 4 (0.37%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.28%) VMS
12 3 (0.28%) Windows 7
12 3 (0.28%) Windows 8
13 2 (0.18%) Solaris
13 2 (0.18%) zOS
14 1 (0.092%) MVS
14 1 (0.092%) Oracle Linux
14 1 (0.092%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 126 (11.62%) Problem-Solving
2 121 (11.16%) Migration
3 106 (9.78%) Service Management
4 89 (8.21%) ITIL
5 87 (8.03%) Network Design
6 75 (6.92%) Agile
6 75 (6.92%) Roadmaps
7 71 (6.55%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 66 (6.09%) Collaborative Working
9 65 (6.00%) Change Management
10 62 (5.72%) Business Intelligence
10 62 (5.72%) ITSM
11 60 (5.54%) Incident Response
12 58 (5.35%) Project Delivery
13 57 (5.26%) Cybersecurity
14 56 (5.17%) Continuous Improvement
14 56 (5.17%) Network Architecture
15 55 (5.07%) High Availability
16 53 (4.89%) Load Balancing
17 51 (4.70%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 143 (13.19%) Python
2 94 (8.67%) PowerShell
3 40 (3.69%) Bash
4 33 (3.04%) SQL
5 25 (2.31%) Perl
6 13 (1.20%) JavaScript
7 9 (0.83%) C++
8 8 (0.74%) Lisp
9 6 (0.55%) Java
9 6 (0.55%) Kusto Query Language
10 4 (0.37%) Go
11 3 (0.28%) C
11 3 (0.28%) VB
12 2 (0.18%) PHP
13 1 (0.092%) Ruby
13 1 (0.092%) VBA
Qualifications
1 446 (41.14%) Security Cleared
2 337 (31.09%) SC Cleared
3 282 (26.01%) Cisco Certification
4 205 (18.91%) CCNP
5 118 (10.89%) DV Cleared
6 108 (9.96%) CCNA
7 89 (8.21%) Degree
8 70 (6.46%) CCIE
9 31 (2.86%) Computer Science Degree
10 24 (2.21%) ITIL Certification
11 23 (2.12%) BPSS Clearance
12 22 (2.03%) CISSP
13 21 (1.94%) Microsoft Certification
14 20 (1.85%) Azure Certification
15 19 (1.75%) JNCIE
16 18 (1.66%) AWS Certification
17 15 (1.38%) JNCIA
18 13 (1.20%) CCDP
18 13 (1.20%) JNCIS
19 11 (1.01%) JNCIP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 43 (3.97%) SLA
2 32 (2.95%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 23 (2.12%) GDPR
4 19 (1.75%) NIST
5 16 (1.48%) PCI DSS
6 14 (1.29%) Cyber Essentials
7 11 (1.01%) PMO
8 7 (0.65%) NCSC
9 4 (0.37%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 3 (0.28%) HIPAA
10 3 (0.28%) QA
11 2 (0.18%) Accessibility
11 2 (0.18%) Def Stans
11 2 (0.18%) Disclosure Scotland
12 1 (0.092%) COBIT
12 1 (0.092%) Data Quality
12 1 (0.092%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 1 (0.092%) ISO 22301
12 1 (0.092%) MiFID
12 1 (0.092%) NIST 800
System Software
1 164 (15.13%) Active Directory
2 123 (11.35%) VMware Infrastructure
3 54 (4.98%) VMware NSX
4 30 (2.77%) VMware ESXi
4 30 (2.77%) vSphere
5 27 (2.49%) Firmware
6 22 (2.03%) Docker
7 16 (1.48%) Hyper-V
8 11 (1.01%) NFS
8 11 (1.01%) Virtual Machines
9 10 (0.92%) GPFS
10 7 (0.65%) Snort
10 7 (0.65%) Virtual Servers
11 5 (0.46%) KVM
11 5 (0.46%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 5 (0.46%) Squid
12 3 (0.28%) BitLocker
13 2 (0.18%) Terminal Services
13 2 (0.18%) Virtual Desktop
13 2 (0.18%) Xen
Systems Management
1 111 (10.24%) Ansible
2 61 (5.63%) FortiGate
3 55 (5.07%) SCCM
4 48 (4.43%) Terraform
5 46 (4.24%) Microsoft Intune
6 45 (4.15%) vCenter Server
7 23 (2.12%) Kubernetes
8 21 (1.94%) vRealize
9 18 (1.66%) Cisco CUCM
10 11 (1.01%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 10 (0.92%) VxRail
12 9 (0.83%) EMC NetWorker
12 9 (0.83%) Nessus
12 9 (0.83%) WSUS
13 7 (0.65%) EMC VPLEX
13 7 (0.65%) HP SiteScope
13 7 (0.65%) SCOM
14 6 (0.55%) NetBackup
15 5 (0.46%) Cisco Prime
15 5 (0.46%) Nexpose
Vendors
1 231 (21.31%) Microsoft
2 195 (17.99%) Juniper
3 173 (15.96%) Palo Alto
4 160 (14.76%) VMware
5 138 (12.73%) Fortinet
6 124 (11.44%) SolarWinds
7 118 (10.89%) F5
8 114 (10.52%) Meraki
9 85 (7.84%) Dell
10 84 (7.75%) CheckPoint
11 81 (7.47%) Splunk
12 72 (6.64%) ServiceNow
13 69 (6.37%) HP
14 63 (5.81%) Aruba
15 53 (4.89%) Apple
16 44 (4.06%) SAP
17 37 (3.41%) Zscaler
18 32 (2.95%) Oracle
19 31 (2.86%) Remedy
20 29 (2.68%) AppDynamics