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 24 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
24 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 110 65 70
Rank change year-on-year -45 +5 -13
Contract jobs citing Cisco 1,148 1,108 1,291
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.26% 3.69% 2.97%
As % of the Vendors category 5.53% 7.76% 6.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 799 679 787
10th Percentile £300 £300 £250
25th Percentile £402 £413 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +5.26% -
75th Percentile £575 £588 £575
90th Percentile £641 £650 £670
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £475
% change year-on-year -5.00% +5.26% +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 36 27 38
10th Percentile £26.72 £24.66 £15.66
25th Percentile £34.44 £25.15 £20.98
Median hourly rate £53.75 £30.00 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year +79.17% +15.38% -48.00%
75th Percentile £68.88 £44.13 £41.25
90th Percentile £76.50 £62.98 £54.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £30.00 £26.25
% change year-on-year +83.33% +14.29% -47.50%

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 20,755 14,270 18,487
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 40.77% 47.51% 42.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,018 8,772 11,482
10th Percentile £313 £281 £270
25th Percentile £413 £402 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £518
Median % change year-on-year - -3.51% -1.30%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £715 £737
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £479 £500
% change year-on-year +4.38% -4.20% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,068 665 1,161
10th Percentile £15.54 £14.84 £12.25
25th Percentile £19.00 £17.30 £14.54
Median hourly rate £33.99 £25.30 £24.18
Median % change year-on-year +34.35% +4.63% -42.15%
75th Percentile £60.75 £53.75 £59.57
90th Percentile £81.25 £68.45 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.75 £22.94 £22.58
% change year-on-year +38.42% +1.58% -39.79%

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 24 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 24 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 24 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 -49 966 £481 -3.75% 654
UK excluding London -41 707 £475 -5.00% 640
London -62 315 £500 - 180
Work from Home -48 289 £463 -7.50% 121
North of England -43 214 £481 -2.18% 153
South East -32 189 £500 - 147
North West -14 164 £481 +1.05% 74
Midlands -27 135 £413 -21.43% 80
West Midlands -19 128 £402 -23.43% 41
Scotland +18 84 £450 +12.78% 49
South West -70 52 £525 -4.55% 83
Yorkshire -68 48 £484 -3.20% 54
East of England -17 38 £500 +0.50% 86
Wales -17 19 £468 +61.21% 25
Northern Ireland +7 10 £175 -50.00% 29
East Midlands -35 4 £458 -1.08% 39
North East -40 3 £463 +42.31% 26
Channel Islands -1 1 £550 -24.14%

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 27 (2.35%) SharePoint
2 20 (1.74%) Microsoft Exchange
3 12 (1.05%) Confluence
4 8 (0.70%) Apache
5 6 (0.52%) OpenStack
6 5 (0.44%) IIS
7 3 (0.26%) nginx
7 3 (0.26%) Tomcat
8 2 (0.17%) CloudStack
8 2 (0.17%) CMS
9 1 (0.087%) Apache Spark
9 1 (0.087%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 46 (4.01%) Microsoft Office
2 28 (2.44%) MS Visio
3 25 (2.18%) Microsoft Excel
4 10 (0.87%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 4 (0.35%) Acrobat
Business Applications
1 6 (0.52%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 216 (18.82%) Azure
2 147 (12.80%) AWS
3 70 (6.10%) Microsoft 365
4 41 (3.57%) Entra ID
5 21 (1.83%) GCP
6 16 (1.39%) GitHub
6 16 (1.39%) SaaS
7 15 (1.31%) Nutanix
7 15 (1.31%) OpenShift
7 15 (1.31%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 14 (1.22%) OneDrive
9 13 (1.13%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 13 (1.13%) Azure Sentinel
10 8 (0.70%) IaaS
10 8 (0.70%) Microsoft Purview
11 7 (0.61%) Power Platform
12 6 (0.52%) Azure DevOps
13 5 (0.44%) GitHub Actions
13 5 (0.44%) Rubrik
14 4 (0.35%) Cloudflare
Communications & Networking
1 494 (43.03%) Firewall
2 380 (33.10%) WAN
3 293 (25.52%) LAN
4 284 (24.74%) BGP
5 243 (21.17%) VPN
6 239 (20.82%) Network Security
7 197 (17.16%) OSPF
8 180 (15.68%) Wireless
9 178 (15.51%) DNS
10 164 (14.29%) SD-WAN
11 162 (14.11%) VLAN
12 114 (9.93%) MPLS
13 112 (9.76%) Cisco Nexus
14 106 (9.23%) Wi-Fi
15 100 (8.71%) Cisco ISE
16 99 (8.62%) VXLAN
17 95 (8.28%) DHCP
18 81 (7.06%) Cisco IOS
19 74 (6.45%) Multicast
20 73 (6.36%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 17 (1.48%) SQL Server
2 3 (0.26%) MySQL
2 3 (0.26%) NoSQL
3 2 (0.17%) PostgreSQL
4 1 (0.087%) Amazon RDS
4 1 (0.087%) Apache Hive
4 1 (0.087%) Big Data
4 1 (0.087%) ClickHouse
4 1 (0.087%) Hadoop
4 1 (0.087%) Metadata
4 1 (0.087%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 23 (2.00%) JIRA
2 14 (1.22%) Sonatype Nexus
3 11 (0.96%) Git
4 9 (0.78%) Jenkins
5 3 (0.26%) GitLab
6 2 (0.17%) Bitbucket
General
1 263 (22.91%) Social Skills
2 118 (10.28%) Finance
3 70 (6.10%) Analytical Skills
4 68 (5.92%) Telecoms
5 62 (5.40%) Documentation Skills
6 61 (5.31%) Public Sector
7 58 (5.05%) Legal
8 54 (4.70%) Banking
9 22 (1.92%) Organisational Skills
10 20 (1.74%) Investment Banking
11 18 (1.57%) Financial Institution
11 18 (1.57%) Manufacturing
12 16 (1.39%) Law
12 16 (1.39%) Retail
13 11 (0.96%) Military
14 8 (0.70%) Marketing
15 7 (0.61%) Police
16 6 (0.52%) Influencing Skills
16 6 (0.52%) Presentation Skills
17 5 (0.44%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 533 (46.43%) Network Engineer
2 140 (12.20%) Architect
3 124 (10.80%) Cisco Engineer
4 118 (10.28%) Senior
5 114 (9.93%) Cisco Network Engineer
6 86 (7.49%) Security Engineer
7 76 (6.62%) Network Architect
8 65 (5.66%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
8 65 (5.66%) Senior Network Engineer
9 63 (5.49%) Network Security Engineer
10 57 (4.97%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 46 (4.01%) Data Network Engineer
12 35 (3.05%) Analyst
13 34 (2.96%) Data Engineer
14 33 (2.87%) Cisco Security Engineer
15 29 (2.53%) Solutions Architect
16 28 (2.44%) Lead
17 26 (2.26%) Network Specialist
18 25 (2.18%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
19 23 (2.00%) Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 75 (6.53%) 802.1X
2 14 (1.22%) Flash
2 14 (1.22%) LDAP
2 14 (1.22%) SAML
3 12 (1.05%) REST
4 8 (0.70%) XMPP
5 6 (0.52%) Jinja
6 4 (0.35%) NETCONF
7 3 (0.26%) LAMP
7 3 (0.26%) LEMP Stack
7 3 (0.26%) OpenConfig
7 3 (0.26%) RESTCONF
7 3 (0.26%) YAML
7 3 (0.26%) YANG
8 2 (0.17%) .NET
8 2 (0.17%) .NET Core
8 2 (0.17%) ADO
8 2 (0.17%) ASP.NET
8 2 (0.17%) Django
8 2 (0.17%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 305 (26.57%) Data Centre
2 56 (4.88%) PKI
3 45 (3.92%) Replication
4 41 (3.57%) Clustering
5 38 (3.31%) Data Protection Act
5 38 (3.31%) Hybrid Cloud
6 35 (3.05%) Onboarding
7 27 (2.35%) Operational Technology
8 26 (2.26%) Driving Licence
9 24 (2.09%) Video Conferencing
10 20 (1.74%) Security Posture
11 19 (1.66%) Enterprise Storage
12 18 (1.57%) EMC VMAX
12 18 (1.57%) Linux Command Line
13 16 (1.39%) Analytical Mindset
13 16 (1.39%) Cloud Native
14 15 (1.31%) Virtual Team
15 14 (1.22%) SCADA
16 12 (1.05%) Self-Motivation
17 11 (0.96%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 224 (19.51%) Windows
2 122 (10.63%) Linux
3 71 (6.18%) Windows Server
4 20 (1.74%) Unix
5 15 (1.31%) Windows 10
6 14 (1.22%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 14 (1.22%) Ubuntu
7 9 (0.78%) Android
7 9 (0.78%) Windows Server 2019
8 7 (0.61%) Mac OS
9 6 (0.52%) AIX
9 6 (0.52%) Windows Server 2012
10 5 (0.44%) Data ONTAP
10 5 (0.44%) VMS
11 4 (0.35%) CentOS
12 3 (0.26%) CatOS
12 3 (0.26%) Solaris
13 2 (0.17%) Windows Server 2016
14 1 (0.087%) Debian
14 1 (0.087%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 181 (15.77%) Migration
2 130 (11.32%) Load Balancing
3 124 (10.80%) High Availability
4 121 (10.54%) Problem-Solving
5 103 (8.97%) ITIL
6 99 (8.62%) Project Delivery
7 92 (8.01%) ITSM
8 90 (7.84%) Network Design
9 74 (6.45%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 73 (6.36%) Continuous Improvement
11 72 (6.27%) Change Management
12 71 (6.18%) Agile
13 64 (5.57%) Stakeholder Management
14 62 (5.40%) Disaster Recovery
14 62 (5.40%) Infrastructure as Code
15 61 (5.31%) Network Monitoring
15 61 (5.31%) Technical Leadership
16 60 (5.23%) Cybersecurity
16 60 (5.23%) Validation
17 55 (4.79%) Data Protection
Programming Languages
1 131 (11.41%) Python
2 56 (4.88%) PowerShell
3 24 (2.09%) SQL
4 22 (1.92%) Bash
5 6 (0.52%) C
6 4 (0.35%) Perl
6 4 (0.35%) PHP
7 3 (0.26%) C++
7 3 (0.26%) Java
7 3 (0.26%) Lisp
8 2 (0.17%) ActionScript
8 2 (0.17%) Korn
8 2 (0.17%) Shell Script
9 1 (0.087%) Bicep
9 1 (0.087%) JavaScript
9 1 (0.087%) Ladder Logic
Qualifications
1 338 (29.44%) Cisco Certification
2 329 (28.66%) Security Cleared
3 249 (21.69%) CCNP
4 237 (20.64%) SC Cleared
5 133 (11.59%) CCNA
6 102 (8.89%) DV Cleared
7 67 (5.84%) Degree
8 63 (5.49%) CCIE
9 26 (2.26%) Microsoft Certification
9 26 (2.26%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 22 (1.92%) Network+ Certification
11 18 (1.57%) MCSE
12 17 (1.48%) Server+ Certification
13 16 (1.39%) Azure Certification
13 16 (1.39%) BPSS Clearance
14 14 (1.22%) CCSE
15 13 (1.13%) VCAP
16 12 (1.05%) JNCIP
16 12 (1.05%) JNCIS
16 12 (1.05%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 41 (3.57%) SLA
2 33 (2.87%) NIST
3 29 (2.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 25 (2.18%) Cyber Essentials
5 21 (1.83%) QA
6 19 (1.66%) NCSC
7 9 (0.78%) PMO
8 7 (0.61%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 7 (0.61%) Disclosure Scotland
9 6 (0.52%) GDPR
10 5 (0.44%) JSP 440
10 5 (0.44%) PCI DSS
11 3 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
11 3 (0.26%) NIST 800
12 2 (0.17%) Accessibility
12 2 (0.17%) Data Quality
12 2 (0.17%) Government Security Classifications
12 2 (0.17%) GRC
12 2 (0.17%) ISA99
12 2 (0.17%) RMADS
System Software
1 151 (13.15%) VMware Infrastructure
2 100 (8.71%) Active Directory
3 58 (5.05%) VMware ESXi
4 56 (4.88%) vSphere
5 48 (4.18%) VMware NSX
6 34 (2.96%) Virtual Machines
7 29 (2.53%) Firmware
8 22 (1.92%) Hyper-V
9 18 (1.57%) NFS
10 14 (1.22%) GPFS
11 12 (1.05%) SRDF
12 7 (0.61%) Virtual Desktop
13 6 (0.52%) Docker
13 6 (0.52%) EMC RecoverPoint
14 4 (0.35%) vCloud
14 4 (0.35%) Virtual Servers
15 3 (0.26%) Dovecot
15 3 (0.26%) Postfix
15 3 (0.26%) UAG
16 2 (0.17%) Snort
Systems Management
1 137 (11.93%) Ansible
2 103 (8.97%) FortiGate
3 55 (4.79%) Terraform
4 30 (2.61%) vCenter Server
5 27 (2.35%) Grafana
6 25 (2.18%) Microsoft Intune
7 21 (1.83%) SCCM
8 20 (1.74%) Kubernetes
8 20 (1.74%) Prometheus
9 18 (1.57%) vRealize
10 15 (1.31%) Cisco CUCM
11 14 (1.22%) Cisco Prime
12 13 (1.13%) Single Sign-On
13 9 (0.78%) VxRail
14 8 (0.70%) WMI
15 7 (0.61%) EMC VPLEX
16 6 (0.52%) EMC TimeFinder
16 6 (0.52%) HAProxy
16 6 (0.52%) SCOM
16 6 (0.52%) WSUS
Vendors
1 287 (25.00%) Palo Alto
2 214 (18.64%) F5
3 201 (17.51%) Microsoft
4 194 (16.90%) VMware
5 178 (15.51%) Fortinet
6 153 (13.33%) Juniper
7 119 (10.37%) Aruba
8 103 (8.97%) CheckPoint
9 100 (8.71%) ServiceNow
10 93 (8.10%) SolarWinds
11 88 (7.67%) Meraki
12 77 (6.71%) Arista
13 58 (5.05%) Splunk
14 46 (4.01%) Zscaler
15 42 (3.66%) Dell
16 32 (2.79%) EMC
17 31 (2.70%) IBM
18 30 (2.61%) Extreme Networks
19 28 (2.44%) Brocade
20 25 (2.18%) Infoblox