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 8 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
8 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 100 65 61
Rank change year-on-year -35 -4 +12
Contract jobs citing Cisco 1,128 1,053 1,415
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.47% 3.60% 3.22%
As % of the Vendors category 5.72% 7.64% 7.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 760 672 858
10th Percentile £275 £310 £263
25th Percentile £400 £406 £378
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +5.26% -0.52%
75th Percentile £560 £588 £588
90th Percentile £625 £650 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +1.32% - +2.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 38 19 47
10th Percentile £21.27 £17.55 £13.29
25th Percentile £36.25 £21.58 £17.48
Median hourly rate £64.07 £37.50 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year +70.85% +50.00% -50.00%
75th Percentile £74.26 £66.88 £41.25
90th Percentile £91.13 £75.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £74.26 £33.52 £24.25
% change year-on-year +121.52% +38.24% -53.07%

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 19,716 13,778 18,727
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 43.10% 47.15% 42.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,642 8,710 11,700
10th Percentile £313 £290 £258
25th Percentile £413 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £515
Median % change year-on-year -2.88% -0.03% -1.90%
75th Percentile £600 £617 £626
90th Percentile £700 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.57% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 988 506 1,054
10th Percentile £15.25 £15.35 £12.05
25th Percentile £18.50 £19.19 £14.40
Median hourly rate £27.50 £28.75 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% +27.78% -46.63%
75th Percentile £60.00 £61.13 £57.33
90th Percentile £78.40 £80.34 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.21 £27.13 £21.50
% change year-on-year -7.08% +26.16% -44.16%

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 8 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 8 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 8 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 -42 939 £496 -1.06% 542
UK excluding London -26 717 £481 +1.32% 503
Work from Home -10 296 £450 -10.00% 112
London -71 277 £500 - 126
South East +2 220 £500 -4.76% 139
North of England -39 189 £481 -3.75% 121
Midlands -11 155 £373 -17.11% 92
North West -10 154 £481 -1.79% 58
West Midlands -7 140 £350 -17.65% 46
Scotland +24 66 £450 +20.00% 25
South West -72 44 £519 -5.68% 58
East of England -6 42 £475 - 60
Yorkshire -76 31 £478 -8.95% 43
Wales -13 25 £425 +1.49% 18
East Midlands -45 11 £413 -19.51% 46
Northern Ireland - 8 £385 - 8
North East -19 6 £175 -46.15% 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 39 (3.46%) Microsoft Exchange
2 38 (3.37%) SharePoint
3 16 (1.42%) Confluence
4 7 (0.62%) Apache
5 5 (0.44%) IIS
6 4 (0.35%) OpenStack
7 2 (0.18%) SharePoint Server
8 1 (0.089%) JBoss
8 1 (0.089%) Skype for Business
8 1 (0.089%) WebLogic
8 1 (0.089%) WebSphere
Applications
1 54 (4.79%) Microsoft Office
2 40 (3.55%) MS Visio
3 17 (1.51%) Microsoft Excel
4 12 (1.06%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.44%) Acrobat
6 3 (0.27%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.089%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 17 (1.51%) Remedy ITSM
2 3 (0.27%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.089%) Actimize
Cloud Services
1 195 (17.29%) Azure
2 161 (14.27%) AWS
3 94 (8.33%) Microsoft 365
4 43 (3.81%) Entra ID
5 36 (3.19%) GCP
6 17 (1.51%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 16 (1.42%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 15 (1.33%) Datadog
8 15 (1.33%) OpenShift
9 12 (1.06%) Nutanix
10 11 (0.98%) SaaS
11 9 (0.80%) GitHub
12 8 (0.71%) AWS CloudFormation
12 8 (0.71%) Azure Sentinel
13 7 (0.62%) AWS Lambda
13 7 (0.62%) Azure DevOps
13 7 (0.62%) Microsoft Purview
13 7 (0.62%) Mimecast
13 7 (0.62%) Serverless
14 6 (0.53%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 470 (41.67%) Firewall
2 350 (31.03%) WAN
3 270 (23.94%) BGP
4 259 (22.96%) LAN
5 242 (21.45%) VPN
6 207 (18.35%) Network Security
7 195 (17.29%) OSPF
8 154 (13.65%) Wireless
9 150 (13.30%) SD-WAN
10 143 (12.68%) DNS
11 125 (11.08%) VLAN
12 111 (9.84%) MPLS
13 106 (9.40%) Cisco ISE
14 85 (7.54%) Wi-Fi
15 82 (7.27%) Cisco Nexus
16 81 (7.18%) Cisco ASA
17 78 (6.91%) DHCP
17 78 (6.91%) VXLAN
18 76 (6.74%) Cisco IOS
19 75 (6.65%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (0.44%) DynamoDB
1 5 (0.44%) Power BI
2 4 (0.35%) SQL Server
3 3 (0.27%) Amazon Athena
4 2 (0.18%) MariaDB
5 1 (0.089%) Big Data
5 1 (0.089%) Metadata
5 1 (0.089%) MySQL
5 1 (0.089%) NoSQL
5 1 (0.089%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 23 (2.04%) JIRA
2 14 (1.24%) Sonatype Nexus
3 9 (0.80%) Git
4 8 (0.71%) Jenkins
5 6 (0.53%) GitLab
6 1 (0.089%) Bitbucket
6 1 (0.089%) Rational DOORS
General
1 238 (21.10%) Social Skills
2 146 (12.94%) Finance
3 137 (12.15%) Public Sector
4 88 (7.80%) Telecoms
5 69 (6.12%) Analytical Skills
6 62 (5.50%) Banking
7 55 (4.88%) Legal
8 52 (4.61%) Documentation Skills
9 49 (4.34%) Manufacturing
10 34 (3.01%) Marketing
11 30 (2.66%) Electronics
12 18 (1.60%) Investment Banking
13 16 (1.42%) Financial Institution
13 16 (1.42%) Presentation Skills
14 15 (1.33%) Organisational Skills
15 14 (1.24%) Law
16 12 (1.06%) Retail
17 9 (0.80%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 8 (0.71%) Influencing Skills
18 8 (0.71%) Military
Job Titles
1 460 (40.78%) Network Engineer
2 143 (12.68%) Architect
3 107 (9.49%) Cisco Engineer
4 99 (8.78%) Senior
5 97 (8.60%) Cisco Network Engineer
6 85 (7.54%) Network Architect
7 74 (6.56%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
8 72 (6.38%) Security Engineer
9 52 (4.61%) Analyst
10 48 (4.26%) Network Security Engineer
10 48 (4.26%) Senior Network Engineer
11 40 (3.55%) Consultant
11 40 (3.55%) Data Network Engineer
11 40 (3.55%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 38 (3.37%) Network Consultant
13 35 (3.10%) IT Support
14 34 (3.01%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
15 32 (2.84%) Solutions Architect
16 31 (2.75%) Data Engineer
17 30 (2.66%) Infrastructure Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 64 (5.67%) 802.1X
2 17 (1.51%) Flash
2 17 (1.51%) LDAP
3 15 (1.33%) XMPP
4 10 (0.89%) SAML
5 9 (0.80%) REST
6 7 (0.62%) NETCONF
7 6 (0.53%) Jinja
7 6 (0.53%) YANG
8 5 (0.44%) Node.js
8 5 (0.44%) OpenConfig
9 4 (0.35%) HTML
9 4 (0.35%) JSON
9 4 (0.35%) RESTCONF
9 4 (0.35%) VML
10 2 (0.18%) ADO
10 2 (0.18%) CSS
10 2 (0.18%) Django
10 2 (0.18%) Middleware
10 2 (0.18%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 292 (25.89%) Data Centre
2 53 (4.70%) PKI
3 39 (3.46%) Replication
4 32 (2.84%) Linux Command Line
5 31 (2.75%) Clustering
5 31 (2.75%) Hybrid Cloud
5 31 (2.75%) Onboarding
6 30 (2.66%) Data Protection Act
7 29 (2.57%) Cloud Native
8 26 (2.30%) Operational Technology
9 23 (2.04%) Driving Licence
10 18 (1.60%) Product Ownership
11 17 (1.51%) Enterprise Storage
11 17 (1.51%) Self-Motivation
12 15 (1.33%) Security Posture
13 14 (1.24%) EMC VMAX
13 14 (1.24%) Video Conferencing
14 13 (1.15%) SCADA
15 12 (1.06%) CMDB
15 12 (1.06%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 186 (16.49%) Windows
2 115 (10.20%) Linux
3 64 (5.67%) Windows Server
4 35 (3.10%) Android
5 33 (2.93%) Mac OS
6 27 (2.39%) Windows 10
7 23 (2.04%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 17 (1.51%) Unix
9 7 (0.62%) Ubuntu
10 6 (0.53%) Windows Server 2012
11 5 (0.44%) VMS
11 5 (0.44%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.35%) CatOS
12 4 (0.35%) Solaris
13 3 (0.27%) Data ONTAP
14 2 (0.18%) AIX
14 2 (0.18%) CentOS
14 2 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
15 1 (0.089%) Oracle Linux
15 1 (0.089%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 177 (15.69%) Migration
2 131 (11.61%) Problem-Solving
3 116 (10.28%) Load Balancing
4 101 (8.95%) High Availability
5 100 (8.87%) Network Design
6 97 (8.60%) ITIL
7 87 (7.71%) Agile
8 81 (7.18%) ITSM
9 77 (6.83%) Roadmaps
10 73 (6.47%) Cybersecurity
11 72 (6.38%) Change Management
12 65 (5.76%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 61 (5.41%) Collaborative Working
14 57 (5.05%) Infrastructure Engineering
14 57 (5.05%) Project Delivery
15 56 (4.96%) Continuous Improvement
16 55 (4.88%) Service Management
17 54 (4.79%) Disaster Recovery
17 54 (4.79%) Stakeholder Management
18 53 (4.70%) Network Monitoring
Programming Languages
1 127 (11.26%) Python
2 56 (4.96%) PowerShell
3 30 (2.66%) Bash
4 15 (1.33%) Perl
5 8 (0.71%) SQL
6 5 (0.44%) C
6 5 (0.44%) JavaScript
7 4 (0.35%) Lisp
7 4 (0.35%) PHP
8 2 (0.18%) ActionScript
8 2 (0.18%) Korn
8 2 (0.18%) Shell Script
9 1 (0.089%) Kusto Query Language
9 1 (0.089%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 436 (38.65%) Security Cleared
2 338 (29.96%) SC Cleared
3 306 (27.13%) Cisco Certification
4 243 (21.54%) CCNP
5 113 (10.02%) DV Cleared
6 111 (9.84%) CCNA
7 81 (7.18%) Degree
8 77 (6.83%) CCIE
9 23 (2.04%) BPSS Clearance
10 21 (1.86%) Azure Certification
10 21 (1.86%) JNCIS
10 21 (1.86%) Microsoft Certification
11 17 (1.51%) Network+ Certification
12 16 (1.42%) CISSP
12 16 (1.42%) JNCIP
13 15 (1.33%) JNCIA
14 14 (1.24%) AWS Certification
14 14 (1.24%) CCSE
14 14 (1.24%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 13 (1.15%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 42 (3.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 35 (3.10%) NIST
3 29 (2.57%) SLA
4 24 (2.13%) Cyber Essentials
5 18 (1.60%) GDPR
6 16 (1.42%) NCSC
6 16 (1.42%) PMO
7 13 (1.15%) PCI DSS
8 5 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 5 (0.44%) QA
9 4 (0.35%) JSP 440
10 3 (0.27%) Disclosure Scotland
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%) HMG Security Policy Framework
11 2 (0.18%) ISA99
12 1 (0.089%) Actionable Recommendations
12 1 (0.089%) Data Quality
12 1 (0.089%) JTAG
System Software
1 154 (13.65%) VMware Infrastructure
2 98 (8.69%) Active Directory
3 65 (5.76%) VMware NSX
4 61 (5.41%) vSphere
5 46 (4.08%) VMware ESXi
6 20 (1.77%) Firmware
6 20 (1.77%) NFS
7 17 (1.51%) GPFS
8 15 (1.33%) Hyper-V
8 15 (1.33%) Virtual Machines
9 10 (0.89%) Docker
10 9 (0.80%) SRDF
11 5 (0.44%) Virtual Desktop
12 4 (0.35%) vCloud
13 3 (0.27%) EMC RecoverPoint
13 3 (0.27%) Snort
14 2 (0.18%) KVM
14 2 (0.18%) UAG
14 2 (0.18%) Virtual Servers
15 1 (0.089%) iptables
Systems Management
1 111 (9.84%) Ansible
2 98 (8.69%) FortiGate
3 47 (4.17%) Terraform
4 38 (3.37%) vCenter Server
5 37 (3.28%) vRealize
6 23 (2.04%) Grafana
7 21 (1.86%) SCCM
8 20 (1.77%) Microsoft Intune
8 20 (1.77%) VxRail
9 17 (1.51%) Kubernetes
9 17 (1.51%) Prometheus
10 13 (1.15%) Cisco Prime
11 10 (0.89%) Nagios
11 10 (0.89%) Single Sign-On
12 8 (0.71%) Cisco CUCM
13 7 (0.62%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 7 (0.62%) EMC NetWorker
13 7 (0.62%) EMC VPLEX
13 7 (0.62%) WSUS
14 6 (0.53%) SCOM
Vendors
1 286 (25.35%) Palo Alto
2 195 (17.29%) VMware
3 186 (16.49%) Microsoft
4 180 (15.96%) Juniper
5 174 (15.43%) F5
6 142 (12.59%) Aruba
7 131 (11.61%) Fortinet
8 115 (10.20%) CheckPoint
9 100 (8.87%) SolarWinds
10 99 (8.78%) Meraki
11 98 (8.69%) ServiceNow
12 71 (6.29%) Dell
13 63 (5.59%) Arista
14 55 (4.88%) Splunk
15 51 (4.52%) HP
16 49 (4.34%) IBM
17 41 (3.63%) Zscaler
18 31 (2.75%) EMC
19 30 (2.66%) SAP
20 29 (2.57%) Citrix