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 4 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
4 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 106 64 66
Rank change year-on-year -42 +2 -6
Contract jobs citing Cisco 1,126 1,068 1,319
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.30% 3.70% 3.08%
As % of the Vendors category 5.64% 7.77% 7.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 777 662 811
10th Percentile £300 £300 £250
25th Percentile £405 £406 £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 £645 £650 £688
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 36
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 £55.70
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 19,948 13,741 18,095
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 40.76% 47.66% 42.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,535 8,490 11,282
10th Percentile £313 £280 £263
25th Percentile £413 £405 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £508 £514
Median % change year-on-year -1.48% -1.22% -2.14%
75th Percentile £600 £615 £626
90th Percentile £700 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £489 £500
% change year-on-year +1.23% -2.20% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,030 604 1,114
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.84 £12.05
25th Percentile £18.50 £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 £58.75 £56.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £77.50 £70.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 £22.50 £21.50
% change year-on-year +33.33% +4.65% -45.64%

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 4 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 4 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 4 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 -44 949 £481 -3.75% 708
UK excluding London -38 699 £475 -5.00% 666
London -57 299 £500 - 204
Work from Home -29 293 £450 -10.00% 159
North of England -40 209 £479 -4.20% 145
South East -22 194 £500 - 167
North West -4 168 £480 -4.00% 58
Midlands -31 132 £402 -10.67% 90
West Midlands -17 124 £401 -4.24% 49
Scotland +12 71 £450 +12.78% 56
South West -66 52 £518 -5.91% 92
East of England -11 41 £495 +15.45% 79
Yorkshire -81 40 £478 -4.97% 59
Wales -21 21 £468 +15.08% 27
Northern Ireland +13 10 £175 -50.00% 22
East Midlands -46 4 £458 -16.82% 41
North East -35 2 £425 +30.77% 30
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 29 (2.58%) SharePoint
2 18 (1.60%) Microsoft Exchange
3 13 (1.15%) 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 18 (1.60%) Microsoft Excel
4 9 (0.80%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 4 (0.36%) Acrobat
Business Applications
1 11 (0.98%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 210 (18.65%) Azure
2 146 (12.97%) AWS
3 69 (6.13%) Microsoft 365
4 34 (3.02%) Entra ID
5 20 (1.78%) GCP
6 16 (1.42%) OpenShift
6 16 (1.42%) SaaS
7 15 (1.33%) 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
2 369 (32.77%) WAN
3 286 (25.40%) LAN
4 285 (25.31%) BGP
5 242 (21.49%) VPN
6 237 (21.05%) Network Security
7 204 (18.12%) OSPF
8 168 (14.92%) DNS
9 164 (14.56%) VLAN
9 164 (14.56%) Wireless
10 154 (13.68%) SD-WAN
11 104 (9.24%) Cisco Nexus
11 104 (9.24%) MPLS
12 103 (9.15%) VXLAN
13 99 (8.79%) Wi-Fi
14 97 (8.61%) Cisco ISE
15 93 (8.26%) DHCP
16 73 (6.48%) IPsec
17 72 (6.39%) Multicast
18 71 (6.31%) Cisco IOS
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 11 (0.98%) Git
4 8 (0.71%) Jenkins
5 5 (0.44%) GitLab
6 2 (0.18%) Bitbucket
General
1 242 (21.49%) Social Skills
2 121 (10.75%) Finance
3 69 (6.13%) Analytical Skills
4 62 (5.51%) Public Sector
5 61 (5.42%) Telecoms
6 56 (4.97%) Legal
7 55 (4.88%) Banking
7 55 (4.88%) Documentation Skills
8 20 (1.78%) Investment Banking
8 20 (1.78%) Manufacturing
9 19 (1.69%) Organisational Skills
10 17 (1.51%) Financial Institution
11 16 (1.42%) Law
12 15 (1.33%) Retail
13 9 (0.80%) Marketing
13 9 (0.80%) Military
14 8 (0.71%) Presentation Skills
15 7 (0.62%) Police
16 4 (0.36%) Front Office
16 4 (0.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 513 (45.56%) Network Engineer
2 141 (12.52%) Architect
3 119 (10.57%) Cisco Engineer
4 116 (10.30%) Senior
5 111 (9.86%) 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 31 (2.75%) 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 72 (6.39%) 802.1X
2 15 (1.33%) Flash
2 15 (1.33%) LDAP
3 12 (1.07%) REST
3 12 (1.07%) SAML
4 7 (0.62%) XMPP
5 6 (0.53%) Jinja
6 4 (0.36%) NETCONF
7 3 (0.27%) LAMP
7 3 (0.27%) LEMP Stack
7 3 (0.27%) YAML
7 3 (0.27%) YANG
8 2 (0.18%) .NET Core
8 2 (0.18%) Django
8 2 (0.18%) Elastic Stack
8 2 (0.18%) JSON
8 2 (0.18%) Middleware
8 2 (0.18%) OpenID
8 2 (0.18%) RESTCONF
8 2 (0.18%) RFC 2544
Miscellaneous
1 314 (27.89%) Data Centre
2 57 (5.06%) PKI
3 50 (4.44%) 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 30 (2.66%) Operational Technology
9 21 (1.87%) Video Conferencing
10 20 (1.78%) Cloud Native
10 20 (1.78%) Security Posture
11 19 (1.69%) Enterprise Storage
11 19 (1.69%) Linux Command Line
12 18 (1.60%) Driving Licence
13 17 (1.51%) EMC VMAX
14 16 (1.42%) SCADA
15 13 (1.15%) 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
2 121 (10.75%) Linux
3 72 (6.39%) Windows Server
4 21 (1.87%) Unix
5 19 (1.69%) 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
1 170 (15.10%) Migration
2 130 (11.55%) High Availability
3 127 (11.28%) Problem-Solving
4 124 (11.01%) Load Balancing
5 96 (8.53%) ITIL
6 95 (8.44%) Network Design
7 90 (7.99%) ITSM
8 83 (7.37%) Project Delivery
9 68 (6.04%) Agile
9 68 (6.04%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 66 (5.86%) Disaster Recovery
10 66 (5.86%) Technical Leadership
11 65 (5.77%) Network Monitoring
12 64 (5.68%) Change Management
12 64 (5.68%) Continuous Improvement
13 57 (5.06%) Infrastructure as Code
14 55 (4.88%) Cybersecurity
15 54 (4.80%) Network Segmentation
16 52 (4.62%) Mentoring
17 51 (4.53%) Capacity Planning
Programming Languages
1 120 (10.66%) Python
2 58 (5.15%) PowerShell
3 22 (1.95%) Bash
3 22 (1.95%) SQL
4 6 (0.53%) C
5 4 (0.36%) PHP
6 3 (0.27%) C++
6 3 (0.27%) Java
6 3 (0.27%) Lisp
6 3 (0.27%) Perl
7 2 (0.18%) ActionScript
7 2 (0.18%) JavaScript
7 2 (0.18%) Korn
7 2 (0.18%) Shell Script
8 1 (0.089%) Bicep
8 1 (0.089%) Ladder Logic
Qualifications
1 358 (31.79%) Security Cleared
2 336 (29.84%) Cisco Certification
3 266 (23.62%) SC Cleared
4 258 (22.91%) CCNP
5 123 (10.92%) CCNA
6 104 (9.24%) DV Cleared
7 77 (6.84%) Degree
8 64 (5.68%) CCIE
9 32 (2.84%) Microsoft Certification
10 28 (2.49%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 24 (2.13%) 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%) BPSS Clearance
15 14 (1.24%) JNCIP
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
1 154 (13.68%) VMware Infrastructure
2 86 (7.64%) Active Directory
3 60 (5.33%) VMware ESXi
4 59 (5.24%) vSphere
5 50 (4.44%) VMware NSX
6 35 (3.11%) Virtual Machines
7 26 (2.31%) Firmware
8 19 (1.69%) Hyper-V
8 19 (1.69%) NFS
9 15 (1.33%) GPFS
10 12 (1.07%) SRDF
11 5 (0.44%) Docker
11 5 (0.44%) EMC RecoverPoint
11 5 (0.44%) Virtual Desktop
12 4 (0.36%) vCloud
12 4 (0.36%) Virtual Servers
13 3 (0.27%) Dovecot
13 3 (0.27%) Postfix
13 3 (0.27%) UAG
14 2 (0.18%) Snort
Systems Management
1 137 (12.17%) Ansible
2 104 (9.24%) 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 20 (1.78%) 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
11 11 (0.98%) VxRail
12 10 (0.89%) Nagios
13 6 (0.53%) EMC TimeFinder
13 6 (0.53%) EMC VPLEX
13 6 (0.53%) HAProxy
13 6 (0.53%) SCOM
13 6 (0.53%) WMI
Vendors
1 290 (25.75%) Palo Alto
2 212 (18.83%) F5
3 193 (17.14%) VMware
4 190 (16.87%) Microsoft
5 171 (15.19%) Fortinet
6 157 (13.94%) Juniper
7 123 (10.92%) Aruba
8 113 (10.04%) CheckPoint
9 104 (9.24%) ServiceNow
10 86 (7.64%) SolarWinds
11 81 (7.19%) Meraki
12 77 (6.84%) Arista
13 54 (4.80%) Splunk
14 47 (4.17%) Zscaler
15 44 (3.91%) Dell
16 32 (2.84%) EMC
16 32 (2.84%) IBM
17 29 (2.58%) Extreme Networks
18 27 (2.40%) Brocade
19 23 (2.04%) NetApp