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 1 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
1 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 102 62 65
Rank change year-on-year -40 +3 -5
Contract jobs citing Cisco 1,128 1,083 1,326
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.30% 3.72% 3.09%
As % of the Vendors category 5.64% 7.78% 7.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 775 674 816
10th Percentile £300 £300 £250
25th Percentile £402 £413 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +5.26% -
75th Percentile £574 £588 £588
90th Percentile £646 £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 24 37
10th Percentile £25.99 £17.89 £13.29
25th Percentile £43.34 £24.66 £16.00
Median hourly rate £55.00 £32.70 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.20% +30.80% -50.00%
75th Percentile £74.26 £45.63 £41.25
90th Percentile £78.73 £66.50 £53.83
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 20,000 13,915 18,173
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 40.86% 47.76% 42.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,586 8,630 11,338
10th Percentile £313 £281 £263
25th Percentile £413 £405 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £514
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% -0.78% -2.10%
75th Percentile £600 £615 £625
90th Percentile £700 £715 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £493 £490 £500
% change year-on-year +0.66% -2.10% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,033 599 1,121
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.84 £12.13
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.30 £14.48
Median hourly rate £32.23 £25.50 £22.56
Median % change year-on-year +26.37% +13.03% -46.92%
75th Percentile £58.75 £55.37 £57.50
90th Percentile £76.64 £70.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £29.29 £22.50 £21.50
% change year-on-year +30.16% +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 1 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 1 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 1 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 -48 951 £478 -4.50% 700
UK excluding London -38 701 £475 -5.00% 658
London -58 298 £500 - 203
Work from Home -33 295 £450 -10.00% 153
North of England -38 205 £479 -4.20% 145
South East -25 195 £500 - 172
North West -9 165 £481 -3.88% 60
Midlands -22 138 £400 -11.11% 89
West Midlands -13 130 £397 -9.29% 50
Scotland +18 70 £450 +12.78% 52
South West -62 52 £518 -5.91% 87
East of England -11 41 £495 +15.45% 77
Yorkshire -80 39 £477 -5.27% 57
Wales -17 21 £468 +13.33% 28
Northern Ireland +12 10 £175 -50.00% 20
East Midlands -49 4 £458 -10.73% 39
North East -33 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 30 (2.66%) SharePoint
2 18 (1.60%) Microsoft Exchange
3 14 (1.24%) Confluence
4 10 (0.89%) Apache
5 6 (0.53%) IIS
5 6 (0.53%) OpenStack
6 3 (0.27%) nginx
6 3 (0.27%) Tomcat
7 2 (0.18%) CloudStack
7 2 (0.18%) CMS
8 1 (0.089%) Apache Spark
8 1 (0.089%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 44 (3.90%) Microsoft Office
2 33 (2.93%) MS Visio
3 18 (1.60%) Microsoft Excel
4 10 (0.89%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 4 (0.35%) Acrobat
Business Applications
1 11 (0.98%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 212 (18.79%) Azure
2 151 (13.39%) AWS
3 69 (6.12%) Microsoft 365
4 34 (3.01%) Entra ID
5 21 (1.86%) GCP
6 16 (1.42%) SaaS
7 15 (1.33%) Nutanix
7 15 (1.33%) OpenShift
8 12 (1.06%) 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%) Power Platform
12 6 (0.53%) Datadog
12 6 (0.53%) Microsoft Purview
13 5 (0.44%) Azure DevOps
13 5 (0.44%) GitHub Actions
13 5 (0.44%) Rubrik
Communications & Networking
1 497 (44.06%) Firewall
2 376 (33.33%) WAN
3 293 (25.98%) LAN
4 286 (25.35%) BGP
5 247 (21.90%) VPN
6 237 (21.01%) Network Security
7 209 (18.53%) OSPF
8 170 (15.07%) DNS
9 167 (14.80%) Wireless
10 160 (14.18%) VLAN
11 155 (13.74%) SD-WAN
12 105 (9.31%) Cisco Nexus
13 102 (9.04%) MPLS
13 102 (9.04%) VXLAN
14 99 (8.78%) Wi-Fi
15 97 (8.60%) Cisco ISE
16 93 (8.24%) DHCP
17 81 (7.18%) IPsec
18 72 (6.38%) Multicast
19 69 (6.12%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (1.42%) SQL Server
2 4 (0.35%) MySQL
3 3 (0.27%) NoSQL
4 2 (0.18%) PostgreSQL
5 1 (0.089%) Apache Hive
5 1 (0.089%) Big Data
5 1 (0.089%) ClickHouse
5 1 (0.089%) Hadoop
5 1 (0.089%) MariaDB
5 1 (0.089%) Metadata
5 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
1 241 (21.37%) Social Skills
2 120 (10.64%) Finance
3 66 (5.85%) Analytical Skills
4 63 (5.59%) Public Sector
5 59 (5.23%) Telecoms
6 58 (5.14%) Documentation Skills
7 54 (4.79%) Banking
7 54 (4.79%) Legal
8 21 (1.86%) Manufacturing
9 19 (1.68%) Investment Banking
9 19 (1.68%) Organisational Skills
10 16 (1.42%) Financial Institution
10 16 (1.42%) Law
10 16 (1.42%) Retail
11 9 (0.80%) Marketing
11 9 (0.80%) Military
12 8 (0.71%) Presentation Skills
13 7 (0.62%) Police
14 4 (0.35%) Front Office
14 4 (0.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 512 (45.39%) Network Engineer
2 141 (12.50%) Architect
3 120 (10.64%) Cisco Engineer
4 116 (10.28%) Senior
5 112 (9.93%) Cisco Network Engineer
6 84 (7.45%) Network Architect
7 82 (7.27%) Security Engineer
8 74 (6.56%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
9 65 (5.76%) Senior Network Engineer
10 60 (5.32%) Network Security Engineer
11 49 (4.34%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 47 (4.17%) Data Network Engineer
13 34 (3.01%) Data Engineer
14 33 (2.93%) Analyst
14 33 (2.93%) Cisco Security Engineer
15 28 (2.48%) Network Specialist
15 28 (2.48%) Solutions Architect
16 25 (2.22%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
16 25 (2.22%) Lead
17 23 (2.04%) Data Centre Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 73 (6.47%) 802.1X
2 18 (1.60%) LDAP
3 15 (1.33%) Flash
3 15 (1.33%) SAML
4 10 (0.89%) REST
5 7 (0.62%) XMPP
6 6 (0.53%) Jinja
7 4 (0.35%) NETCONF
8 3 (0.27%) HTML
8 3 (0.27%) LAMP
8 3 (0.27%) LEMP Stack
8 3 (0.27%) YAML
8 3 (0.27%) YANG
9 2 (0.18%) .NET
9 2 (0.18%) ADO
9 2 (0.18%) ASP.NET
9 2 (0.18%) CSS
9 2 (0.18%) JSON
9 2 (0.18%) Middleware
9 2 (0.18%) VML
Miscellaneous
1 316 (28.01%) Data Centre
2 55 (4.88%) PKI
3 50 (4.43%) Replication
4 42 (3.72%) Clustering
5 36 (3.19%) Data Protection Act
6 34 (3.01%) Hybrid Cloud
7 33 (2.93%) Onboarding
8 30 (2.66%) Operational Technology
9 21 (1.86%) Video Conferencing
10 20 (1.77%) Linux Command Line
10 20 (1.77%) Security Posture
11 19 (1.68%) Enterprise Storage
12 18 (1.60%) Cloud Native
13 17 (1.51%) 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
1 221 (19.59%) Windows
2 124 (10.99%) Linux
3 72 (6.38%) Windows Server
4 21 (1.86%) Unix
5 19 (1.68%) Windows 10
6 13 (1.15%) Ubuntu
7 12 (1.06%) 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%) CatOS
11 5 (0.44%) Data ONTAP
11 5 (0.44%) VMS
12 4 (0.35%) CentOS
12 4 (0.35%) Solaris
13 2 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
14 1 (0.089%) Windows 7
14 1 (0.089%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 168 (14.89%) Migration
2 130 (11.52%) High Availability
3 126 (11.17%) Problem-Solving
4 125 (11.08%) Load Balancing
5 95 (8.42%) ITIL
5 95 (8.42%) Network Design
6 88 (7.80%) ITSM
7 81 (7.18%) Project Delivery
8 71 (6.29%) Agile
9 70 (6.21%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 68 (6.03%) Network Monitoring
10 68 (6.03%) Technical Leadership
11 66 (5.85%) Disaster Recovery
12 65 (5.76%) Change Management
13 63 (5.59%) Continuous Improvement
14 57 (5.05%) Cybersecurity
15 56 (4.96%) Infrastructure as Code
16 52 (4.61%) Network Segmentation
16 52 (4.61%) Zero Trust
17 50 (4.43%) Data Protection
Programming Languages
1 118 (10.46%) Python
2 58 (5.14%) PowerShell
3 22 (1.95%) Bash
3 22 (1.95%) SQL
4 7 (0.62%) C
5 4 (0.35%) PHP
6 3 (0.27%) C++
6 3 (0.27%) Java
6 3 (0.27%) JavaScript
6 3 (0.27%) Lisp
6 3 (0.27%) Perl
7 2 (0.18%) ActionScript
7 2 (0.18%) Korn
7 2 (0.18%) Shell Script
8 1 (0.089%) Bicep
8 1 (0.089%) Ladder Logic
Qualifications
1 361 (32.00%) Security Cleared
2 339 (30.05%) Cisco Certification
3 268 (23.76%) SC Cleared
4 262 (23.23%) CCNP
5 122 (10.82%) CCNA
6 105 (9.31%) DV Cleared
7 76 (6.74%) Degree
8 67 (5.94%) CCIE
9 32 (2.84%) Microsoft Certification
10 28 (2.48%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 24 (2.13%) Network+ Certification
12 23 (2.04%) MCSE
13 18 (1.60%) CCSE
14 17 (1.51%) Azure Certification
14 17 (1.51%) Server+ Certification
14 17 (1.51%) VCAP
15 16 (1.42%) JNCIS
15 16 (1.42%) MCSA
16 15 (1.33%) JNCIP
17 14 (1.24%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 37 (3.28%) SLA
2 32 (2.84%) NIST
3 27 (2.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 24 (2.13%) Cyber Essentials
5 19 (1.68%) QA
6 17 (1.51%) NCSC
7 10 (0.89%) PMO
8 7 (0.62%) Disclosure Scotland
9 6 (0.53%) GDPR
9 6 (0.53%) JSP 440
10 5 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 4 (0.35%) PCI DSS
12 3 (0.27%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 3 (0.27%) NIST 800
12 3 (0.27%) RMADS
13 2 (0.18%) Accessibility
13 2 (0.18%) Government Security Classifications
13 2 (0.18%) GRC
13 2 (0.18%) ISA99
13 2 (0.18%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 157 (13.92%) VMware Infrastructure
2 89 (7.89%) Active Directory
3 62 (5.50%) vSphere
4 60 (5.32%) VMware ESXi
5 53 (4.70%) VMware NSX
6 34 (3.01%) Virtual Machines
7 23 (2.04%) Firmware
8 19 (1.68%) NFS
9 18 (1.60%) Hyper-V
10 15 (1.33%) GPFS
11 12 (1.06%) SRDF
12 5 (0.44%) Docker
12 5 (0.44%) EMC RecoverPoint
12 5 (0.44%) Virtual Desktop
13 4 (0.35%) vCloud
13 4 (0.35%) Virtual Servers
14 3 (0.27%) Dovecot
14 3 (0.27%) Postfix
14 3 (0.27%) UAG
15 2 (0.18%) Snort
Systems Management
1 135 (11.97%) Ansible
2 102 (9.04%) FortiGate
3 53 (4.70%) Terraform
4 33 (2.93%) vCenter Server
5 28 (2.48%) Grafana
6 23 (2.04%) vRealize
7 21 (1.86%) Microsoft Intune
7 21 (1.86%) Prometheus
8 19 (1.68%) Kubernetes
9 16 (1.42%) SCCM
10 14 (1.24%) Cisco Prime
10 14 (1.24%) Single Sign-On
11 13 (1.15%) Cisco CUCM
12 12 (1.06%) VxRail
13 10 (0.89%) Nagios
14 6 (0.53%) EMC TimeFinder
14 6 (0.53%) EMC VPLEX
14 6 (0.53%) HAProxy
14 6 (0.53%) SCOM
14 6 (0.53%) WMI
Vendors
1 298 (26.42%) Palo Alto
2 216 (19.15%) F5
3 196 (17.38%) VMware
4 192 (17.02%) Microsoft
5 166 (14.72%) Fortinet
6 159 (14.10%) Juniper
7 127 (11.26%) Aruba
8 119 (10.55%) CheckPoint
9 105 (9.31%) ServiceNow
10 89 (7.89%) SolarWinds
11 83 (7.36%) Meraki
12 73 (6.47%) Arista
13 54 (4.79%) Splunk
14 48 (4.26%) Zscaler
15 45 (3.99%) Dell
16 34 (3.01%) IBM
17 32 (2.84%) EMC
18 29 (2.57%) Extreme Networks
19 27 (2.39%) Brocade
20 23 (2.04%) NetApp