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 13 July 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
13 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 114 68 66
Rank change year-on-year -46 -2 -8
Contract jobs citing Cisco 1,180 1,170 1,320
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.24% 3.58% 3.09%
As % of the Vendors category 5.44% 7.53% 7.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 791 726 805
10th Percentile £300 £304 £247
25th Percentile £400 £406 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +5.26% -
75th Percentile £571 £588 £575
90th Percentile £638 £643 £659
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £475
% change year-on-year -5.00% +5.26% +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 37 34 40
10th Percentile £26.72 £24.76 £17.46
25th Percentile £36.25 £25.15 £23.66
Median hourly rate £55.00 £30.00 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +83.33% +9.09% -45.00%
75th Percentile £72.00 £44.56 £50.00
90th Percentile £78.60 £64.28 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £30.00 £46.39
% change year-on-year +83.33% -35.33% -2.34%

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 21,707 15,531 18,485
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.20% 47.52% 43.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,493 9,513 11,510
10th Percentile £313 £281 £270
25th Percentile £413 £402 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £501 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year +0.10% -2.44% -2.38%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £715 £730
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £480 £500
% change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,110 741 1,118
10th Percentile £15.99 £14.75 £12.50
25th Percentile £19.25 £17.30 £15.00
Median hourly rate £34.61 £25.15 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year +37.62% +0.60% -38.27%
75th Percentile £63.94 £53.50 £60.75
90th Percentile £83.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.50 £22.63 £24.31
% change year-on-year +43.61% -6.91% -21.58%

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 13 July 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 13 July 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 13 July 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 -48 995 £475 -5.00% 669
UK excluding London -47 712 £475 -5.00% 609
London -59 341 £494 -1.20% 199
Work from Home -47 288 £463 -7.50% 138
North of England -36 223 £485 -1.42% 143
South East -40 183 £500 -4.76% 167
North West -12 169 £480 +1.05% 66
Midlands -32 135 £420 -6.67% 75
West Midlands -24 128 £416 +4.06% 38
Scotland +24 89 £450 +12.50% 36
South West -63 58 £525 -4.55% 88
Yorkshire -65 51 £500 - 56
East of England -24 32 £500 -9.09% 66
Wales -19 19 £468 +61.21% 23
Northern Ireland +8 9 £145 -58.57% 19
East Midlands -33 4 £458 -16.82% 37
North East -37 4 £425 +30.77% 22
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 28 (2.37%) SharePoint
2 20 (1.69%) Microsoft Exchange
3 11 (0.93%) Confluence
4 9 (0.76%) OpenStack
5 7 (0.59%) Apache
6 3 (0.25%) CloudStack
6 3 (0.25%) IIS
6 3 (0.25%) nginx
6 3 (0.25%) SAS
6 3 (0.25%) Tomcat
7 2 (0.17%) CMS
8 1 (0.085%) Apache Spark
8 1 (0.085%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 49 (4.15%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (2.71%) MS Visio
3 26 (2.20%) Microsoft Excel
4 12 (1.02%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.085%) Acrobat
Business Applications
1 5 (0.42%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 217 (18.39%) Azure
2 152 (12.88%) AWS
3 72 (6.10%) Microsoft 365
4 46 (3.90%) Entra ID
5 22 (1.86%) GCP
6 19 (1.61%) OpenShift
7 17 (1.44%) GitHub
7 17 (1.44%) OneDrive
8 16 (1.36%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 15 (1.27%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 15 (1.27%) Nutanix
10 12 (1.02%) Azure Sentinel
11 11 (0.93%) SaaS
12 10 (0.85%) Power Platform
13 8 (0.68%) Microsoft Purview
14 7 (0.59%) Cloudflare
14 7 (0.59%) IaaS
15 6 (0.51%) Azure DevOps
16 5 (0.42%) GitHub Actions
16 5 (0.42%) Rubrik
Communications & Networking
1 514 (43.56%) Firewall
2 372 (31.53%) WAN
3 310 (26.27%) BGP
4 300 (25.42%) LAN
5 263 (22.29%) VPN
6 252 (21.36%) Network Security
7 217 (18.39%) OSPF
8 202 (17.12%) Wireless
9 187 (15.85%) DNS
10 165 (13.98%) VLAN
11 150 (12.71%) SD-WAN
12 128 (10.85%) MPLS
13 116 (9.83%) Cisco Nexus
14 113 (9.58%) Wi-Fi
15 112 (9.49%) Cisco ISE
16 100 (8.47%) DHCP
17 96 (8.14%) VXLAN
18 88 (7.46%) Cisco ASA
19 85 (7.20%) TCP/IP
20 82 (6.95%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (1.69%) SQL Server
2 3 (0.25%) MySQL
2 3 (0.25%) NoSQL
2 3 (0.25%) Power BI
3 2 (0.17%) Amazon RDS
3 2 (0.17%) PostgreSQL
4 1 (0.085%) Apache Hive
4 1 (0.085%) Big Data
4 1 (0.085%) ClickHouse
4 1 (0.085%) Hadoop
4 1 (0.085%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 18 (1.53%) JIRA
2 16 (1.36%) Sonatype Nexus
3 14 (1.19%) Git
4 9 (0.76%) Jenkins
5 3 (0.25%) GitLab
6 2 (0.17%) Bitbucket
General
1 276 (23.39%) Social Skills
2 111 (9.41%) Finance
3 82 (6.95%) Telecoms
4 80 (6.78%) Analytical Skills
5 66 (5.59%) Public Sector
6 64 (5.42%) Banking
7 62 (5.25%) Documentation Skills
8 43 (3.64%) Legal
9 23 (1.95%) Organisational Skills
10 21 (1.78%) Financial Institution
11 20 (1.69%) Investment Banking
12 15 (1.27%) Retail
13 12 (1.02%) Manufacturing
13 12 (1.02%) Military
14 11 (0.93%) Law
15 10 (0.85%) Police
16 9 (0.76%) Influencing Skills
17 6 (0.51%) Marketing
17 6 (0.51%) Presentation Skills
18 5 (0.42%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 561 (47.54%) Network Engineer
2 137 (11.61%) Architect
3 134 (11.36%) Senior
4 120 (10.17%) Cisco Engineer
5 109 (9.24%) Cisco Network Engineer
6 95 (8.05%) Security Engineer
7 80 (6.78%) Senior Network Engineer
8 76 (6.44%) Network Architect
9 70 (5.93%) Network Security Engineer
10 57 (4.83%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 53 (4.49%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
12 48 (4.07%) Data Network Engineer
13 36 (3.05%) Data Engineer
14 35 (2.97%) Analyst
14 35 (2.97%) Cisco Security Engineer
15 29 (2.46%) Field Engineer
16 27 (2.29%) Lead
17 26 (2.20%) Network Specialist
18 25 (2.12%) Data Centre Engineer
18 25 (2.12%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 73 (6.19%) 802.1X
2 18 (1.53%) SAML
3 14 (1.19%) LDAP
3 14 (1.19%) REST
4 12 (1.02%) Flash
5 7 (0.59%) NETCONF
6 6 (0.51%) Jinja
6 6 (0.51%) OpenConfig
6 6 (0.51%) RESTCONF
6 6 (0.51%) XMPP
6 6 (0.51%) YANG
7 4 (0.34%) Django
7 4 (0.34%) JSON
8 3 (0.25%) Elastic Stack
8 3 (0.25%) LAMP
8 3 (0.25%) LEMP Stack
8 3 (0.25%) Microsoft Graph
8 3 (0.25%) YAML
9 2 (0.17%) .NET Core
9 2 (0.17%) RFC 2544
Miscellaneous
1 302 (25.59%) Data Centre
2 56 (4.75%) PKI
3 43 (3.64%) Hybrid Cloud
3 43 (3.64%) Replication
4 42 (3.56%) Clustering
5 40 (3.39%) Data Protection Act
6 39 (3.31%) Onboarding
7 32 (2.71%) Driving Licence
8 30 (2.54%) Operational Technology
9 29 (2.46%) Video Conferencing
10 19 (1.61%) Analytical Mindset
10 19 (1.61%) Enterprise Storage
11 18 (1.53%) EMC VMAX
12 17 (1.44%) Cloud Native
12 17 (1.44%) Security Posture
13 16 (1.36%) Linux Command Line
14 15 (1.27%) Public Cloud
14 15 (1.27%) Virtual Team
15 14 (1.19%) SCADA
16 13 (1.10%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 217 (18.39%) Windows
2 126 (10.68%) Linux
3 68 (5.76%) Windows Server
4 17 (1.44%) Ubuntu
4 17 (1.44%) Unix
5 16 (1.36%) Windows 10
6 15 (1.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 10 (0.85%) Windows Server 2019
8 9 (0.76%) Android
9 8 (0.68%) Mac OS
10 7 (0.59%) AIX
10 7 (0.59%) Windows Server 2012
11 5 (0.42%) Data ONTAP
11 5 (0.42%) VMS
12 4 (0.34%) CentOS
13 3 (0.25%) CatOS
13 3 (0.25%) Windows Server 2016
14 1 (0.085%) Check Point GAiA
14 1 (0.085%) Windows 7
14 1 (0.085%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 181 (15.34%) Migration
2 134 (11.36%) Load Balancing
3 127 (10.76%) High Availability
4 123 (10.42%) Problem-Solving
5 113 (9.58%) ITIL
6 111 (9.41%) Project Delivery
7 91 (7.71%) Network Design
8 83 (7.03%) Change Management
8 83 (7.03%) ITSM
9 74 (6.27%) Continuous Improvement
10 72 (6.10%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 68 (5.76%) Stakeholder Management
12 66 (5.59%) Infrastructure as Code
13 64 (5.42%) Cybersecurity
14 63 (5.34%) Agile
14 63 (5.34%) Validation
15 62 (5.25%) Disaster Recovery
16 61 (5.17%) CI/CD
16 61 (5.17%) Technical Leadership
17 60 (5.08%) Network Monitoring
Programming Languages
1 143 (12.12%) Python
2 61 (5.17%) PowerShell
3 24 (2.03%) Bash
3 24 (2.03%) SQL
4 6 (0.51%) C
5 4 (0.34%) Java
5 4 (0.34%) Perl
5 4 (0.34%) PHP
6 3 (0.25%) C++
6 3 (0.25%) Lisp
6 3 (0.25%) Shell Script
7 2 (0.17%) ActionScript
7 2 (0.17%) Korn
8 1 (0.085%) Bicep
8 1 (0.085%) Ladder Logic
Qualifications
1 347 (29.41%) Cisco Certification
2 320 (27.12%) Security Cleared
3 251 (21.27%) CCNP
4 227 (19.24%) SC Cleared
5 138 (11.69%) CCNA
6 100 (8.47%) DV Cleared
7 72 (6.10%) Degree
8 68 (5.76%) CCIE
9 28 (2.37%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 27 (2.29%) Microsoft Certification
11 22 (1.86%) Network+ Certification
12 19 (1.61%) BPSS Clearance
12 19 (1.61%) MCSE
13 17 (1.44%) Azure Certification
13 17 (1.44%) Server+ Certification
14 13 (1.10%) CCSE
14 13 (1.10%) VCAP
15 12 (1.02%) AWS Certification
15 12 (1.02%) Computer Science Degree
15 12 (1.02%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 42 (3.56%) SLA
2 33 (2.80%) NIST
3 30 (2.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 24 (2.03%) Cyber Essentials
5 20 (1.69%) QA
6 19 (1.61%) NCSC
7 7 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 7 (0.59%) Disclosure Scotland
8 6 (0.51%) PMO
9 5 (0.42%) GDPR
9 5 (0.42%) PCI DSS
10 4 (0.34%) JSP 440
11 3 (0.25%) Data Quality
11 3 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
11 3 (0.25%) NIST 800
12 2 (0.17%) Accessibility
12 2 (0.17%) Government Security Classifications
12 2 (0.17%) GRC
12 2 (0.17%) ISA99
13 1 (0.085%) Actionable Recommendations
System Software
1 151 (12.80%) VMware Infrastructure
2 105 (8.90%) Active Directory
3 58 (4.92%) vSphere
4 57 (4.83%) VMware ESXi
5 51 (4.32%) VMware NSX
6 35 (2.97%) Virtual Machines
7 31 (2.63%) Firmware
8 24 (2.03%) Hyper-V
9 16 (1.36%) NFS
10 12 (1.02%) GPFS
10 12 (1.02%) SRDF
11 8 (0.68%) Docker
12 7 (0.59%) Virtual Desktop
13 6 (0.51%) EMC RecoverPoint
14 5 (0.42%) Virtual Servers
15 3 (0.25%) Dovecot
15 3 (0.25%) Postfix
15 3 (0.25%) UAG
16 2 (0.17%) Snort
16 2 (0.17%) vCloud
Systems Management
1 150 (12.71%) Ansible
2 96 (8.14%) FortiGate
3 61 (5.17%) Terraform
4 31 (2.63%) vCenter Server
5 28 (2.37%) Grafana
6 23 (1.95%) Kubernetes
6 23 (1.95%) Microsoft Intune
6 23 (1.95%) SCCM
7 21 (1.78%) Prometheus
8 16 (1.36%) vRealize
9 13 (1.10%) Cisco CUCM
9 13 (1.10%) Cisco Prime
9 13 (1.10%) Single Sign-On
10 9 (0.76%) VxRail
11 8 (0.68%) WMI
12 7 (0.59%) EMC VPLEX
12 7 (0.59%) WSUS
13 6 (0.51%) EMC TimeFinder
13 6 (0.51%) HAProxy
13 6 (0.51%) SCOM
Vendors
1 277 (23.47%) Palo Alto
2 229 (19.41%) F5
3 208 (17.63%) Microsoft
4 203 (17.20%) VMware
5 196 (16.61%) Fortinet
6 161 (13.64%) Juniper
7 112 (9.49%) CheckPoint
8 100 (8.47%) Aruba
9 98 (8.31%) Meraki
10 96 (8.14%) ServiceNow
11 93 (7.88%) SolarWinds
12 78 (6.61%) Arista
13 61 (5.17%) Splunk
14 46 (3.90%) Zscaler
15 42 (3.56%) Dell
16 30 (2.54%) EMC
16 30 (2.54%) Extreme Networks
17 28 (2.37%) Brocade
17 28 (2.37%) IBM
18 26 (2.20%) Infoblox